Looking on the web for some info about Zimbabwe (I'm visiting the Victoria Falls in a few days time), I stumbled across an article dated the December 12 in the Zimbabwean state-owned propaganda machine The Herald about how that beleaguered nation intends to make tourism a key foreign currency earner, increasing its contribution to the Zimbabwean GDP by 400% by 2010.

Apparently, the Zimbabwe Council for Tourism president somehow expects tourism-generated-foreign currency earnings to surge from US$ 50 million to $1 billion by 2010 -- i.e. in the space of little over more than a year. He also miraculously predicts a global downturn-defying tripling of visitor arrivals from 1 million people to 3 million. He doesn't explain where the money -- or the visitors -- will be coming from or quite why they'll be swarming into the country in 2009 when they've been avoiding the place since the land invasions began in 2000.

In true Zanu PF mouthpiece style, The Herald blames the tourism industry's current woes on the West:

Since then [2000], it has been negatively impacted on by the harsh economic environment arising from warnings against travel to Zimbabwe from traditional source markets, resulting in reduced arrivals, low occupancies, job redundancies and business closures.

Sunny optimism won't get Zimbabwe's ruling cabal anywhere. It might make for uplifting newspaper copy but it's certainly not going to save the nation. But then again, that's the last thing the ruling party's thugs are concerned with.

Thanks to Mugabe and his cronies' systematic destruction of a once vibrant country and economy, the Zimbabwe tourism brand is dead -- and is set to remain so for quite a while. Even were democracy to be restored and the Zanu PF dictatorship removed within the next few months (which, considering the current stalemate, is highly unlikely), there's absolutely no way that there would be the kind of tourism growth projected by the ZCT. With a cholera epidemic, widespread starvation, chronic shortages, rolling power cuts, civil unrest and hyper-inflation, there's a lot that needs to be resolved before most visitors even consider it a holiday destination option. Of course it doesn't help that Zimbabwe Tourism's website isn't functioning either -- although it's hardly surprising and a rather more accurate reflection of the current state of Zimbabwe's tourism.

Tourism will one day return to Zimbabwe which is an extraordinarily beautiful country with friendly, hospitable people. But, whatever The Herald might say, the day that visitors return en masse is still far, far away.

Read The Herald article on AllAfrica.com.

Across South Africa, the malls are crowded with busy shoppers buying presents and food for the festive season. And yet just across the border in neighbouring Zimbabwe, thousands of people are dying of cholera and countless more face starvation, with only a meagre assortment of wild berries, seeds and fruits from the veld to provide sustenance.

Under the brutal oppression of Zanu PF’s dictatorship and the continued post-election stalemate, Zimbabwe has steadily disintegrated. Hospitals have closed. Supermarkets are empty. Raw sewage spills into potholed roads. The politicians continue their interminable bickering. Doubtless both Tsvangirai and Mugabe won’t be going hungry this Christmas. But most of their countrymen (the ones who haven’t fled to safer, saner shores) will.

Zimbabwe is a disaster. It is time for South Africa, and the rest of the world, to step in before any more innocent lives are lost. The unnecessary, intense sufferings of millions of Zimbabweans must come to an end.

Firstly, Zanu PF must no longer govern. Having systematically destroyed a country and having lost the March 29 election (despite blatant vote-rigging and intimidation), those thugs have no claims to being a part of the new Zimbabwean government.

An interim government must be installed by the United Nations, supported by South Africa and other regional players. This government, staffed by non-political technocrats, can handle humanitarian operations to ensure the rollout food supplies and healthcare countrywide.

The UN must demobilise the security and army, and provide a “peacekeeper” contingent of soldiers and police to ensure safety and security.

And then, some time next year, proper elections must be held – free and fair elections implemented and monitored by the international community.

To those who think this is an internal affair, or must be resolved “by Zimbabweans”, the time is long past for such trifling excuses. Quiet diplomacy and regional SADC involvement has been an abject failure – and has merely propped up an illegitimate and wicked regime hell-bent on remaining in power. Of course that was Thabo Mbeki’s intention all along. His inaction on Zimbabwe casts a dark, bloodstained shadow on his presidential record and role as so-called “mediator”.

President Motlanthe must act in the spirit of our constitution and democracy and do his utmost to resolve the situation. This is long overdue. So much suffering could have been avoided. And yet so much suffering still can be avoided.

It is the festive season and yet Zimbabwe has absolutely nothing to celebrate. This Christmas, let us not forget the ongoing crisis – the hunger and pain and misery – across our border.

Recently I was walking in Cape Town’s city centre with a good friend of mine. As we crossed the road, a few construction workers in a truck nearby began to verbally harass her, calling her a string of disgusting things.

So I yelled to them, “Fuck off!” They seemed rather indignant but obliged. Indignant, because they – like so many other South African men – believe that because my friend is a woman, she’s fair game to abuse, to proposition, to treat like a sexual plaything. They believe she is an inferior being – and because of that they have the right to say (and potentially do) to her what they like.

This isn’t the first time my friend has experienced this sort of thing. As a public transport-user it happens all the time. And not just to her: to many women. And tragically, many women face far more humiliating and painful situations at the hands of men (of men they know, sometimes whom they are even married to). Violence against women is endemic.

Why?

Because we live in a society which still considers women to be inferior and subordinate to men. We live in a melting pot of cultures which all reinforce the notion of women as objects – objects that can be used and exploited and subjugated because of the fallacy that they are lesser beings. It’s no wonder that there are 54 000 reported rapes in South Africa each year. It’s outrageous, unacceptable and tragic – but not surprising.

While the rights of women are enshrined in our constitution, there has been a failure for those rights to be protected. Often the very systems in place that are meant to protect women from abuse are those perpetuating abuse themselves. Police harassment of prostitutes is well documented.

In cases of abuse, the onus is almost always put on the woman. It’s the woman’s fault she was leered at. Slapped around. Beaten up. Raped. And so, should a rape victim sum up sufficient courage to report the incident at a police station, inadequate training and a lack of sensitivity often leads to responses like “But you were wearing a miniskirt. What did you expect?”

There has been a near-total failure for the values of gender equality to be taught and imposed in the home, at school and, in some cases, even the workplace. These values are ignored and violated in virtually every facet of South African life.

This needs to end. The constitutional values that protect women and guarantee their equality with men cannot continue to exist only on paper. They need to become living, celebrated, cherished by all South Africans – both men and women. We need to fight the pervasive inequality that continues to exist between genders, perpetuated by media stereotyping, misguided schooling, negative peer influences, bad parenting and dysfunctional home life. Because not only is gender inequality wrong – that’s a given – but also by fighting for equality we will be destroying the horrifying delusions that justify the abuse of women. We will be striking at the very root of which abuse against women is the symptom.

Currently the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is being commemorated worldwide. We need to go a step further. We need 365 days against gender-based violence every year. And it needs to start now.