By Dr Masimba Mavaza | The 27th February 2022 was indelibly marked by political violence on the streets of Kwekwe Zimbabwe which emanated from a rally addressed by the CCC party. This came a day after ZANU PF and Zimbabwe president Emerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa pleaded for peace on a rally in the same town.
Exacerbated by the inflammatory messages from one Bvondo Who urged the youth to fight causing clashes with police, unidentified paramilitaries and armed vigilantes who were later arrested hiding in the former minister of state security lodge.
Most recently this occurred in Gokwe where CCC militants were seen attacking the police with assortment of weapons and stoned.
This is the ugly face of political violence which has no place in the new dispensation.
Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals or to disrupt a political process. It can include violence which is used by a state against other states (war) or it can describe violence which is used against non-state actors most notably a political party against another political party or against citizens. It can also describe politically-motivated violence which is used by non-state actors against a state (rebellion, rioting, treason or coup d’etat or it can describe violence which is used against other non-state actors.Non-action on the part of a government can also be characterized as a form of political violence, such as refusing to alleviate famine or otherwise denying resources to politically identifiable groups within their territory.
Due to the imbalances of power which exist between state and non-state actors, political violence often takes the form of asymmetric warfare where neither side is able to directly assault the other, instead relying on tactics such as terrorism and guerrilla warfare.It can often include attacks on civilian or otherwise non-combatant targets. People may be targeted collectively based on perception of being part of an ethnic, religious, or political group; or selectively, targeting specific individuals for actions that are perceived as challenging someone or aiding an opponent.
Many groups and individuals believe that their political systems will never respond to their demands and they thus believe that violence is not only justified but also necessary in order to achieve their political objectives. Similarly, many governments around the world believe that they need to use violence in order to intimidate their populaces into acquiescence. At other times, governments use force in order to defend their countries from outside invasions or other threats of force and coerce other governments or conquer territory.
What happenned in Kwekwe is so sad and its a paten which is making Kwekwe a violent town and it is doing a disservice to His excellence the President. We know that the answer to violence is never violence but CCC was culpable too as they urged their youth to fight which caused the death of two and the serious injury of many.
The attacks were unprecedented in recent Zimbabwean political history and have prompted fears about the growth of political violence in democratic politics during the coming elections.
Such escalations evoke a long-standing criticism about the “right of resistance”, which can include the use of violence to oppose injustice.
While the violence should be condemned with the scorn it deserves the behaviour of CCC was atrocious and demonic. It can never be said a right to defend one self such a right would destroy the very stability of society that makes the enjoyment of individual rights possible.
If a person could rightfully resist the agents of the law when they simply believe themselves to be oppressed, then the law ceases to exist. Can you imagine a world where conscription officers are shot, leaders of press gangs are thrown into the sea and judges set upon by dagger-wielding convicts. It would send society back to the state of nature of a war against all.
This hobgoblins it conjures, relies upon a caricature of the right of resistance. Violence is never a trivial choice. When violence is resisted it will be through violence.
Supporters of justifiable resistance have never characterised it as an easy choice for someone to make. We must realise as humanity that a “long train of abuses” and the absence of remedies to these abuses as pre-conditions for resistance is the fertile grounds for violence. The bar is always set high, because resistance carries tremendous risks. You can be arrested, imprisoned, or killed for engaging in acts of resistance – especially violent resistance. It is not a trivial choice to challenge an oppressive or violent outfit.
Denying the right to resistance poses a far greater threat to a decent society than embracing it. It would mean that people would be expected to passively endure the most extreme injustice. Slavery, genocide, apartheid – all of these would have to be tolerated by bystanders and endured by victims. To deny the right to resistance collapses the very notion that we have rights at all, because they would ultimately rest on the discretion of those with power.
But political violence is the sort of thing that democracy is supposed to prevent. Some have argued that democracy transforms, as if by alchemy, the irreconcilable antagonism between enemies into the civilised disagreement of rivals. This makes a presumptive norm against violence an intrinsic part of any democratic society – but that’s not the same as absolute prohibition.
We cannot be naive about democracy. The idea that political violence has no place in democratic politics relies on the assumption that democratic states are incapable of severe injustice. This is accompanied by a dogmatic belief that severe injustices – if they do occur – will be remedied by the exercise of voting, the protection of individual rights by the court, or, at the extreme, civil disobedience.
Severe injustices can still happen in a democracy but the violence shown on Sunday embarrassed us as a nation and indeed as a party.
Political violence is a persistent and severe injustice that has yet to be resolved by democratic processes.
The veneration of non-violence does not engage with the deeply entwined relationship between peaceful resistance and armed struggle especially among opposing parties.
This is not a call to romanticise political violence. Far from it. Violence is the last resort of desperate people and it is often less effective than non-violent alternatives. But it cannot be dismissed out of hand or erased from history because it makes us uncomfortable.
The events in Kwekwe are more than the moment of madness. We mist insist that violence does not justify violence.
To those who argue that this reasoning also justifies violence from the CCC members that position does not stand up to scrutiny. In the first place, it pretends that violence has not been unleashed already.
Absence of Democracy is a severe and intransigent injustice in the Zimbabwean political space. One cannot compare those fighting against it with those fighting to maintain it. You cannot wash your hands and say both sides are equally bad.
Kwekwe has presided over violence with no bounds. Kwekwe has been reduced to a 15th century city which was built on blood.
It is a town where gangs armed with pangas spears and all sorts of traditional arms roam around the streets causing havoc disturbing peace and re writing Kwekwe’s history in blood.
The gangs are armed with pangas spears swords and knobokerries and they have been called Mashurugwis.
Many a time people have complained and protested about these machetes wielding blood sucking killers. The sad thing is that they have always been associated with one MP who has been recently sacked from the government.
The same MP hit the headlines when he brought machete wielding Kwekwe brigades to a ZANU PF meeting in Gweru making officials scary for cover effectively abandoning the meeting. The president acted swiftly to restore order and fired the gangster from government.
Rolling it back the same gang under the command of the same man disrupted an election process for primary elections in Kwekwe. He injured the sitting member of parliament of Shurugwi North and the late Colonel who both had to be treated of serious injuries and the primary elections where abandoned.
Kwekwe is the town leading in murders by machetes and all accused persons would hide in the lodge belonging to the ma believed to be behind these violent gangs.
Again Kwekwe was notorious of Machete armed gangs who demanded thirty percent of all gold mined in the area. They demanded the hold saying it was needed by the head of state.
All this went unpunished. Yet again the bloody thirst vampires attacked a rally being addressed by another overzealous violence inciter Nelson Chamisa.
This attack ended in several injuries and death to one Mr Ncube.
Chamisa in all this is shedding crocodile tears he is now weeping more than the bereaved.
It was very clear that most CCC youth were visibly drunk and obviously acting in a drunken stopper.
Making things worse an MDC official Mr Bvondo urged his intoxicated youth to fight the violent machetes gangs. In that infamous persuasion the drunken CCC youth where seen kicking and punching people even those in yellow.
The violence of the day should be blamed on both parties. This includes CCC and the Mashurugwi.
As usual CCC has decided to make the unfortunate situation a political launching pad. They have made the whole issue a political one.
As expected Chamisa rushed to his handlers crying foul. He made it appear that the whole nation is now in turmoil. As usual Chamisa is seeking self pity and started on the blame game.
He has started to donate the Kwekwe thugs to ZANU PF.
We must never forget that the opposition in whatever name they have they love to blame ZANU PF. When they split they blame ZANU PF. When they attempted to kill Khupe and Mwonzora at a funeral they blamed ZANU PF. When their rallies are not attended they rush to blame ZANU PF. When they fight against each other they blame ZANU PF. When they recall each other they blame ZANU PF. When Job Sikhala forms MDC99 they say he is ZANU PF When they they star factional fights they again point at ZANU PF. MDC or CCC whatever name they have they blame ZANU PF. It is high time for MDC CCC and whichever name they have must learn to be responsible.
Zimbabwe must stand together as one and condemn violence. What happened in Kwekwe was the united effort of the thugs and CCC.
The police must call Bvondo in for questioning