People in politically volatile areas like Mbare live in fear of violent young men, like the notorious Chipangano gang.
When hostel dwellers have their door almost broken down by thugs hammering with their fists on their door demanding that they come to the local party meeting, they freeze in horror, or dive under the nearest bed to stay there horror-stricken until those gangsters have moved on.
Unemployed, if not unemployable, without the self-confidence of a competent worker who can be proud of his workmanship, their violence is an expression of despair.
But violence is a blind alley. It will not lead them anywhere. It will not create jobs for them. It will not release the energy of the Zimbabwean people into productivity and create a prosperous nation. Smashing things up and crippling people leads only to greater misery.
When the Americans with the world’s most powerful military machine first invaded Iraq, they were confident they would “sort that mess out”.
An old man in Rome who had seen during his youth in Poland another mighty military machine destroy his country, shook his head and said to whoever was prepared to listen, “War never solves anything”.
The Americans wanted his blessing, but he refused. These were not semi-literate slum-dwellers, but highly educated men running a technically most sophisticated fighting force.
To the old Pole they were blind men (and a few women, too). It is about time we learnt this lesson. For far too long have we counted on violence to solve our problems.
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There was a time when popular leaders of the majority patiently tried to talk sense to the arrogant and powerful minority who then ruled their “white man’s country”.
Unfortunately, their patience did not pay off, so a new generation of leaders opted for violence. Apparently, it led to success. But now the revolution is eating its own children, and even some grandfathers fall victim to it.
A virus has entered the living organism of the nation and seems ineradicable like HIV. The older generation remembers that township violence is nothing new.
Highfield and Mbare were battlefields between political factions in the early 1960s, before most of the leaders were detained.
It was not blacks fighting their white oppressors. It was black activists fighting their black rivals, with whites merely gleeful onlookers.
As early as 1956 17 young women living in a hostel (Carter House, Mbare) were raped by militant nationalists for not joining a bus strike.
A certain young journalist called Nathan Shamuyarira approved of this sexist outrage:
“It was in fact calculated revenge by strikers for the way the girls had defied the strike orders and boarded buses.” (Crisis in Rhodesia, 1965). Maurice Nyagumbo put it even more bluntly:
“Personally, I had no reason to feel regret for the incident. I actually believed that the girls deserved their punishment.” (With the People). We know by now how widespread the use of rape is as a weapon of political terror.
War and violence, terror and intimidation are simply not compatible with democracy, ie rule by popular participation where the vote replaces the gun and parliament gang warfare and bloodshed.
But this view of government by popular consent (another definition of democracy) is too negative. It will not change ingrained habits of settling conflicts through bloody feuds.
It needs a revolutionary change of thinking, it takes new minds and hearts to make such a drastic change. Christian nations have betrayed their own beliefs by waging war against each other.
Or maybe they have never understood them in the first place. “You must love your enemy,” said their great teacher.
In other words, even your opponent must be respected as person with the right to life and bodily integrity, with dignity and personal freedom.
In this post-Christian era they now confess this as their secular creed and propagate it as “human rights” easily forgotten in the rat-race for wealth and power.
As a democrat you respect even your rival as a human being. This has its roots in the conviction that we are all “created in the image of God”, and as His children are gifted with a dignity and worth no one can take away from us.
Without this fundamental belief and conviction democracy, even if written into our Constitution, will not become a way of life.
Even countries with a democratic tradition are not entirely consistent. They have security forces, army and police, which are armed and potentially violent.
If not controlled by the people through parliament they may become a state within the state, even take over power altogether. Like an aggressive watchdog or a vicious bull they must be kept in a cage.
The army must be an instrument of the state firmly controlled by government. The Constitution must clearly circumscribe its purpose, which is to protect the people from aggression and keep the peace. It must never become an aggressor itself.
We are not eradicating violence if the police ignore “political” assaults and murders.
Zimbabwe will continue to teeter on the brink of ruin as long as the State itself is violent.
A state that holds its own citizens in contempt cannot prosper. Some leaders who have condoned immoral acts and crimes against humanity seem to have second thoughts.
Or was it just electioneering talk? They need to become serious. The very foundation of our nation is at stake.
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