I went to a breakfast meeting on recycling a couple of weeks ago. Met a woman there, up from Bulawayo (working for the ZNCC I think).

She was amazed at the cosmetics freely on sale in the shops here in Harare. Hair straighteners, skin lighteners – those imported female beauty products. All banned under Zimbabwean law. All dangerous.

She remarked, if you tried to sell those openly in Bulawayo, the police would have you in jail in half an hour. But here in Harare! All sitting there, on the shelves. From opening to closing time.

So, got to wonder. Do the ZRP in Harare not know what Zimbabwe’s laws are? Or do the police in Harare (as opposed to the ZRP in Bulawayo) not actually enforce the laws of Zimbabwe? They are too busy enforcing the laws of the power. They do not handle legitimacy, they only deal with power. They do not care about health and safety in Harare, and legal implications, they only enforce the (outgoing) power of the city (which is no longer a power in Bulawayo).

This entry was posted on February 20th, 2012 at 12:29 pm by Michael Laban and is filed under Reflections, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.