I have become spoilt living in the first world. Everything works here. Ever since I arrived I have had electricity and running water all day, every day. The computer has always worked. So has the phone. I have become used to this – in fact I have become totally dependent on my computer – for contact with my family and friends as well as for my work. Despite the friendliness of people here I nevertheless experience a degree of isolation, and the computer has become my lifeline.

Imagine my shock and horror, therefore, when I started it up this morning – only to be faced with a completely blank screen.

Now, in Zimbabwe, this used to happen regularly and it never bothered me too much. One cannot rely on one’s computer there. The frequent power cuts and power surges wreak havoc with both the hardware and software, especially modems – so a lot of down-time is experienced. The telephone systems are very old and the lines are congested, which leads to constant problems with electronic communications.

However, things are not supposed to fall apart in the first world. So my non-functioning computer seemed like a disaster. Having watched the horror stories about the new “worm” virus on CNN, I was convinced I was the latest victim. In a state of panic, I telephoned a computer boffin who responded promptly to my distress call. He found a virus on the computer – but it was not the dreaded one and was easily removed. To my delight, the computer was soon behaving perfectly again and messages from my children and friends, and the daily news updates began to flow in again.

I have been amazed at the lengths to which service providers in Europe will go to persuade people to get on to broadband. My own provider here in Tilburg even gave me a free cell phone when I signed up! I can stay online for hours at a time, and have unlimited access to the internet, for a relatively small fixed monthly fee. This is unheard of in Zimbabwe!

Earlier this week I heard that the increasingly paranoid government of Robert Mugabe has notified all companies, secondary schools and colleges that they are no longer permitted to use broadband. Access by individuals has never been possible. The new ruling provides access only to Universities and a few approved research institutions – apart from the government itself of course.

This is just one more nail in the coffin of the basic human right of access to information which has been increasingly denied to the people of Zimbabwe by the Mugabe government over the past five years - in fact ever since they began their first murmurings of discontent against the misrule of what was once a benign dictatorship.

While the rest of the world moves towards seamless and unlimited communication, Mugabe seems determined to take Zimbabwe back to the dark ages. In a paranoid display of crude big brother tactics, he announced at a recent UN Conference on international telecommunications that his government was in the process of acquiring expensive equipment which would enable it to monitor all electronic communications – effectively giving it a stranglehold on information.


All columns by Wilf Mbanga

Wilf Mbanga, one of the founders of the independent Zimbabwean daily newspaper "The Daily News", is currently living in Tilburg, the Netherlands. He writes about the differences between Tilburg and Harare. His column is printed weekly in "Het Brabants Dagblad".