The need for convincing
I took myself to a café this morning for some quiet Sunday reading – the Human Rights Watch report on state-sponsored violence since Zimbabwe’s 29 March elections.
Its title is derived from a chilling comment made by soldiers addressing villagers in Karoi: “You have seen the bullets. We have enough for each one of you, so beware if you vote for MDC in the presidential runoff election.”
The report uses personal testimonies to tell the stories of post election violence. It illustrates how blatantly the very name of Operation Makavhoterapapi (How did you vote) violates the notion of being free to vote for the candidate of your choice, according to your conscience. How can my vote be my secret if the government then launches a campaign to punish me because of how I voted?
Human Rights Watch describes how the violence has followed polling station returns – in places where a polling station showed many votes for the MDC, the violence has been worse. And HRW paints a vivid picture of the mindset that views being an MDC activist, or listening to Studio 7 VOA, or being friends with an MDC supporter, as a criminal activity, deserving of punishment.
But the report does not really examine why things have gotten that way. It doesn’t ask what makes someone so angry they would beat someone else with a log. It doesn’t examine what the “youths” who do the beating are told that make them willing to be so brutal. And it doesn’t examine why their higher-ups tell them those things in the first place. To me, these are the real questions.
For the higher-ups, clearly, the answer lies in what they have to lose, and what they risk being held accountable for should they lose the protection of their position. But
I came across a Harriet Tubman quotation the other day which resonated with me: “If I could have convinced more slaves that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more.” Maybe it sounds presumptuous. But I think there’s a lot of truth in that. Right now, Zanu PF is effectively convincing people that the causes of unemployment, inflation and the country’s collapse rest with the MDC, the British, the imperialists and the colonisers. In the absence of accessible information which counters this, some people accept this explanation, and then act accordingly.
Regardless of whether Friday’s election happens, and how it turns out, if we are ever to rebuild this country, one of the biggest jobs ahead of us is to make widely accessible impartial, reasoned, clear and convincing explanations for why we have gotten to where we are.