My name is Farisai Kapepa, mother of two boys who like many children in Zimbabwe, face a bleak future deliberately shaped by a crude, sadistic and grossly corrupt regime. I was born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe.
I am a product of an injustice and oppressive socio political system that masquerades as a democratic society. The successive oppressive regimes of Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangangwa’s Zanu PF, the proverbial ‘frying pan into the fire’, has shaped my consciousness of the socio economic injustices around the country. It was by mere coincidence that I got married to my husband who shared my consciousness and the desire to see a society that was absolutely free beyond celebrating the 18th of April – an independence that never was, a society where our dreams could come true.
As members of the MDC, the only formidable opposition party, I would accompany my husband to midnight meetings, meeting with chiefs and other traditional leaders in Mashonaland Central Province where being an opposition member was a dangerous adventure deemed to treasonous. After one of the meetings, where my husband sealed the nomination as Mt Darwin West candidate for 2013 election in which he battled it out with the then vice president Joyce Mujuru, we were way laid by Zanu PF activists who put boulders across the road. We survived by stroke of God’s hand. Despite our little Madza 3 having been extensively damaged, it just got us to a safe place about 3 km away where one of our convoy vehicles behind us picked us up and us drove away from the pursuing murderous activists, abandoning our car.
We also provided offices for the party in our Msasa business offices, Harare where various organs of the party would meet to strategise. That brought us untold attention from the CIO. When we transitioned into MDC Alliance led by Nelson Chamisa, we relentlessly continued to be a thorn in the flesh of the regime until I was hounded out of the country by the bloodthirsty regime that kept threatening my family.
Although, we still provided offices for free to CCC at the detriment of our businesses, I personally, being far from home, felt I needed a platform to fight the regime in my small way and expose the human rights abuses, democratic deficiencies and corrupt and oppressive regime in Harare, hence this blog. Unlike my husband, I am not much of a writer, but he gets me inspired and encouraged to keep writing.
My continued activism is motivated by the belief that change in Zimbabwe is still possible if we stay informed, engaged and united as a people. I therefore invite you to join me on this arduous journey to freedom.
Change is inevitable!
Change is imminent!
