By Valerie Karimakwenda
Organising Sec Youth Assembly
There is no peace in Zimbabwe, but an intense crisis of paralyzing fear of a ruthless uncaring regime
It never ceases to thoroughly perplex me, if not downright shocking, whenever those in the Zimbabwe ruling elite engage in their usual self-congratulatory delusions of how they have managed to maintain peace throughout the country – particularly, with the aid of the country’s security forces – as nothing can be further from the truth.
Such a distasteful claim can only be made by someone who is either a chronic liar, or suffering from serious schizophrenic detachment from reality.
The prevailing situation in Zimbabwe can only be best described by one of the most emotionally charged and touching music videos to ever grace the country’s television screens – ‘Tozesa Baba’ by internationally acclaimed icon, legend and hero, Oliver Mtukudzi.
Who can disregard the spouse, lavishly trembling and sweating with indefinable fear, like a reed in a fast-flowing stream, the minute she listens her returning husband’s strides – as he enters the house in a inebriated daze, holding a bottle of lager in one hand, and in the event that I am not mixed up, an hatchet within the other?
As expected, the ‘man of the house’ appears to bark out some threats, as the son shrinks even further under the table, which can hardly fit two small boys – as his father forcefully grabs his mother’s hand, and drags her into the bedroom…with the obvious connotations of marital rape.
In fact, as distant as the mutilated and aggravated Zimbabwe elitist artful administering clique would be concerned, there was peace and tranquility in that house – considering that there were no occurrences in that music video clip of any normal physical viciousness – as no one was battered to a mash, the man did not crush his lager bottle on his wife’s head, and no chairs and tables sent flying in all headings.
However, that’s precisely how the administration regards the circumstance within the country, as they wax lyrically approximately how there’s peace within the nation, and no emergency to conversation around.
“What peace, whose peace? What justice, whose justice?”, another popular Zimbabwean dub poet Albert Nyathi once chanted, in his renowned 1994 tribute to slain South African anti-apartheid activist Chris Hani.
Could anyone seriously claim that there was peace in that Mtukudzi music video home? As much as there was no physical war, but the wife was certainly not at peace, neither was their son (who had to hide from his own father under a kitchen.
As Baruch Spinoza once aptly put it, “Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice”.
Then, popular genius Albert Einstein, rounded it off by saying, “Peace is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government”.
I further ask, “Was there justice for the wife and her son in that household, even though that particular clip never showed any graphic acts of physical violence?” – taking into consideration that Mtukudzi actually penned that piece as an anti-domestic violence awareness song, thus the title, “Tozesa Baba”, which means, “We fear our father (or husband).
I go on Subsequently, as much as the pretentious and clearly shrewd Harare organization may endeavor to betray the world – and, within the handle, itself – into accepting that there’s no emergency in Zimbabwe, since there are no dead bodies, of individuals shot by security powers, scattered all over the nation, the status quo is most certainly no place close peaceful. Considering that the country is living in consistent fear, generally due to the stressing increment in reports of state supported restraint, brutality, snatchings, torment, sexual manhandle, and self-assertive captures of conventional citizens, writers, attorneys, as well as human rights, labor and restriction activist…going as distant as unbridled insuperable, tribalistic inclines, and hidden dangers focused on at clergymen. to ask, “Was there no crisis in that household?”
As the saying goes, “The past always defines the future” – the cold-blooded gunning down by security forces of scores of unarmed and defenseless protesting civilians in August 2018, and January 2019, is still vivid in the minds of Zimbabweans – further evoked by the ceaseless vitriolic, obscene, and shameless threats regularly spewed by the regime, compounded by the constant eerie omnipresence of armed military officers, ostensibly to enforce COVID-19 lockdowns and curfew, but have been accused of wantonly trampling on citizens’ rights.
Can anybody say there’s peace in Zimbabwe, when the ‘father’ gorges himself with the fineries and extravagance of life, while the ‘wife and children’ have nothing to eat, go to bed hungry, have nothing to wear, and the children not aiming to school? Let us never disregard that there a a few angles of mishandle – counting, physical, passionate, financial, and sexual – at least one of which each Zimbabwean has deplorably experienced, as a standard instead of an exception.
Therefore, as much as there may not be bloodshed and corpses strewn on the streets of Zimbabwe, there is definitely no peace in the country – as the dark cloud of crude corruption, cold-hearted hatred, vile vindictiveness threateningly hanging over every citizen’s head is morbid enough.
