Dear Pambazuka Community,

Just a few quick words! Starting with this issue you will note a new category – African Writers’ Corner. Why should Pambazuka News - a place for Pan-African analysis - also create a space for our creative workers? Because they themselves are the first to remind us that they have been at the forefront of making Africans visible to each other. Africans meet over Things Fall Apart, see each other in the Famished Road as they look for a Grain of Wheat. Ah, and since African literature is really a Question of Power, surely, can we leave behind sister Killjoy? So we want to have a corner that will feature the creative mind as it wrestles with African issues – be it through poetry, fiction, non-fiction and memoir and the occasional song. It’s about beauty… and the politics.

We also wish to invite you over the next few weeks in the run up to the March 2008 Zimbabwe elections to contribute in depth articles/analysis.

Already there is much contestation to do with the pre-election environment. The opposition is struggling with its own internal dynamics in terms of readiness to participate or not to participate. Consensus for a new people driven constitution remains within the broader civil society's agitation.

Another essential dynamic is the emerging consensus around the fact that the SADC mandated mediation by Thabo Mbeki has collapsed, with very little gain for Zimbabweans in terms of changing their lot towards democratic governance.

There are other thematic cross-cutting issues that can also be considered, gender or women's participations an issue that has been pushed to the periphery, political-economy environment - inflation is the highest in the world; pre- and post-election conflict - mechanisms for handling this, etc.

The idea is to generate debate on such issues as we have been doing with the Kenyan crisis, with a view to giving space to progressive citizens of the world, to once again contribute towards the unfolding events in Zimbabwe.

To help us achieve this is feminist and political activist Grace Kwinjeh. She can be reached on [email][email protected]