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NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Editor's bottom drawer: Zim burns as Children of a Lesser God suffer

Columnists
From time immemorial Parliaments, the world over, have been viewed with a special and sacred reverence. They are a symbol of civilised society and order with special rights and privileges. They are one of the sources of law and are the highest authority in the land, with a right to even impeach Heads of States. […]

From time immemorial Parliaments, the world over, have been viewed with a special and sacred reverence.

They are a symbol of civilised society and order with special rights and privileges.

They are one of the sources of law and are the highest authority in the land, with a right to even impeach Heads of States.

The Parliament is the representative body of the whole nation.

In antiquity, the Athenian Assembly was the cradle of order and authority and, during the Roman Republic, the holiness and moral superiority of the Assembly was respected even by demi-gods like Julius Caesar, Cicero, Mark Antony, Augustus Caesar and many others.

Reformation Acts gave Parliament unlimited power and authority over every matter in England and that tradition has been carried over the centuries by all civilised society.

In Zimbabwe, the Westminster model was largely inherited, with all the ceremony and dignity that goes with it.

When one of their own, then Honourable Member, Roy Bennett pushed a fellow Honourable Member, one Patrick Chinamasa, in a heated debate, he was quickly hauled over the coals and punishment was swift. Bennett ended up in jail for desecrating the honour and reverence of the august House. He served his term.

But there lives, in Zimbabwe, a brood of vipers — untouchables — people who are the law unto themselves, and who violate all norms and laws with impunity, in pursuit and furtherance of narrow, parochial, moribund party interests.

Their riotous demonstrations are routinely graced with police escorts, which police are curiously unavailable and/or are understaffed, when it comes to performing normal police duties or protecting or granting permission to Children of a Lesser God whenever these, also, want to hold peaceful demonstrations or hold political rallies.

This brood has universal express authority to trample over just about any law in the country. It maims and kills Children of a Lesser God, and when police reports are made, invariably, no arrests follow or, if they do, it is the victims who are arrested.

In June 2008 they struck like an avenging god and over 200 bodies lay in their wake, and yet, hardly any arrests were made. But let a lone member of their number fall, and a whole township is arrested.

The organisational planning required in conspiring with mobs, assembling them, bussing them and getting them to invade Parliament, chanting and singing war songs is something even a blind mole can sniff from its barrow.

For marauding thugs to be allowed to go into Parliament, singing and dancing, and to stop parliamentary proceedings and literally take over, assault and force an Honourable Member to sing the national anthem, then manhandle and beat him up, and drag and frog-march him out of Parliament for further beating, all in a bid to stop public hearings on human rights — all in full view of the police — is an abomination.

Committing such a crime in Parliament is as sacrilegious as committing rape or murder in the cathedral in full view of the parishioners!

Have we really sunk this low? Have we no more even the basic or minimum levels of civility left in us?

Are we building a civilised society or spawning Neanderthal savages? And, what shall our epoch bequeath to posterity? How will history remember us?

Curiously, as has become the norm, there has been no arrests . . . again! For how can there be, when the hunted are the hunters?

But let there be even a whiff of information that Children of a Lesser God want to assemble, even for a routine meeting, and you will see the alertness and excitement of the security organs. What are we doing to our country? Is this the patriotism we parrot every day?

Once upon a time, Supreme Court judges were besieged and hounded. They were visited by nonentities right there at the Supreme Court — the highest court in the land — and had to run for cover, locking themselves in their offices, with some war veterans in hot pursuit.

Day-in and day-out, they were harassed until, one after the other, they left office, fearing for their safety, which they were officially told that could not be guaranteed anymore. Not even one arrest was made of the culprits.

There can be no question, that Zimbabwe is being deliberately and relentlessly taken over the cliff by a fringe that has systematically planned and executed mayhem, in the name of revolutionary zeal, time and again.

This fringe is avowedly inimical to normalcy, for like houseflies, it can not survive in a normal, sanitised environment.

The question must be asked, who is benefiting from all this commotion and why is the police always conveniently unavailable and/or understaffed to deal with these situations, when it is always ready and able and willing, to deal with the Children of a Lesser God?

We are either a government or gangsters . . . the choice is ours, but let’s not cry foul when civilised societies shun us and avoid us like the plague. This is politics gone awry!