Zimbabwe is a peaceful country owing to its peace-seeking, peace-loving people with a peace-promoting leadership and ideals. The prevailing peace in the country is the collective effort and ideals of the collective and matured society that we call Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe society that has matured and developed so much over such a short period yet many do not realise it and some to the extent of even rejecting the strides they have made. This is a society and nation that deserves a pat on the back for upholding the deals and ideas of peaceful coexistence. Sometimes we forget to sit back and reflect on the positives we have achieved collectively as a society. If you look around on the continent, the burning tyres round the neck of many a wretched Zimbabwean souls in South Africa, the gut-wrenching televised scenes of Mad-Dog dragging a hapless Muslim off a bus and devouring them alive in broad daylight in a very shocking and distressing act of cannibalism in the Central Africa Republic, the public executions in CAR, sickening beheadings at the hands of Boko Haram in West Africa and countless reported and unreported incidences continent-wide and you wonder, where is the compassion, the conscience and that degree of self-control that separates humans from animal kingdom? Zimbabwe as a society deserves a pat on the back for the resilience and maturity. We value that maturity and the peace it brings with it. Zimbabwe is a society that has set the stage and platform for its transformation and growth and it is the collective effort of the people. It is difficult to comprehend some of the savagery and brutality in some pockets of the continent and world at large and when you do that is when you start to respect the peace that prevails in Zimbabwe. There is video that is doing rounds online of two young Zimbabweans at the receiving end of one of the most severe beatings that redefine the term savagery. In the video an unforgiving group of black South Africans had menacingly encircled these defenceless and traumatised young men and taking turns to lash them in one of the most distressing and gruelling scenes of violence ever seen. The despair, the sense of defeat, the hopelessness and helplessness is heartbreaking to watch. One of the young men had been tied to a rope and he was suspended from a tree by his testicles. And on top of that was repeatedly whipped to a pulp whilst the gathering community jeered and cheered. The trauma was so significant to the point that he could barely cry and all he could do was groan and whimper. The two young men were mercilessly tortured for over an hour until their tormentors were all physically exhausted and the young men were then set upon each other, forced to maim one another with threats of being sliced by machetes if they refused. It is a harrowing and distressing depiction of the hideous face of xenophobia in the Rainbow Nation. Any society that stands by and watches such savagery and brutality without objection is difficult to classify as a developed society. That is an opinion not a fact and most likely the level of violence inflicted on these young men evoked so much emotion that might cause opinions to overlap with facts and vice-versa. There is a sense of denial in terms of accepting responsibility and accountability for such actions by society collectively. Compassion, philanthropy and empathy are the hallmarks of any nurtured and matured society. How any society treats the most vulnerable, how any society accepts the most vulnerable and how any society welcomes the vulnerable from outside is what distinguishes it from the animal kingdom. A degree of self-control and that empathic outlook sets us wide apart from beasts. This is not about governments and this is not about politicians but about that unique entity called society. This is about what individuals or groups of individuals collectively are prepared to do and prepared to forego to attain that level of a matured society. This is not about industrialisation or technological development, but societal responsibility. The two Zimbabwean young men were brutalised senselessly in the full glare of society and for over an hour not a single soul raised any objections to the barbarity and savagery exhibited by the tormentors. What really is a matured society? These are just honest questions not meant to antagonise or undermine. As Zimbabweans we must continue to seek peace and shy away from violence. Let us not be reactionary by only speaking against violence after it happens, but before is the sure cure of the evil. We are one people, we are responsible for ourselves and each other and this is just to thank the people of Zimbabwe for who they are, what they are and what they will become. A matured society indeed and will continue to take massive strides forward
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 08:24:03 +0000
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