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When Democracy dies, the ruler can make his own laws.
Democracy dies also when the press is silenced or banned, and freedom of expression is destroyed.

But in Africa we have the jungle-drum, grapevine, call it what you want. The people don't have newspapers, radios and televisions, and news travels through the air, just as it always has done.

To this can be added the ability of African people to repeat a story exactly as they heard it. It is an ability that has developed to preserve oral history over the pre-literate millennia. It was practised over hundreds of generations so that now the ability is practically in our genes.

Thus when someone hears the Word on the street in Zimbabwe, that person might take it as being mostly accurate. Some recent stuff is pretty interesting.

One example of the Word on the Bush Path in recent weeks is the story regarding the headman’s cattle and the Cold Storage Commission (CSC) cattle truck. (Note: the CSC is a ‘parastatal’ organisation that was set up by the Rhodesians to assist ranchers. It was retained by the incumbent Zanu PF regime because it was both useful and lucrative - for the new lootocrats anyway).