At the centre of the whole debate were the youths. In fact the whole summit was about the youths in relation to crime and violence prevention in their cities. I felt empowered and challenged at the same time and I could see myself going back to Zimbabwe to challenge other youths but one thing kept my mind doubting. It was because of the environment back home.
I will maintain that the Durban summit was good and helpful, especially to those youths who have conducive environments back home to implement what they learnt from sharing experiences with other youths. For Zimbabwe, due to the prevailing circumstances, I wondered then as I am wondering now whether the summit became the case of a perfect platform but wrong target. For me, it became meaningless to have empowered youths who are eager to reduce or actually stop crime and violence in their cities yet the systems in the environment that they are going to operate actually fuels crime and violence.
When you have a system of government that is a direct beneficiary of crime and violence for its survival. A system that has created evil systems to strengthen its already corrupt system. The first step would be therefore to deal with changing that system in its totality and put in place new and better systems if the war against crime and violence is to be won in Zimbabwe. In my own view there is an urgent need to target those who preside over this system, our leaders, gate keepers as well as policy and decision makers for our struggle against crime and violence to yield.
Despite presiding over the demise of our once beloved country from Great Zimbabwe to Zimbabwe in ruins they have gone on to create a conducive environment for the breeding of crime and violence. This they have done with demonic efficiency, distinguished and unquestionable success. They shall answer. Through their ill informed, ill thought and politically motivated decisions they have went on to implement some not so human descisions.
One that quickly comes to mind is Operation Murambatsvina through which they destroyed people’s homes on the pretext that they were harbouring criminals and opposition elements who wanted to institute a coup against the gerontocracy, Robert Mugabe’s government .In the process they destroyed the informal sector through which many people depended on for survival. The result was to leave thousands of people desperate destitutes. With nowhere to stay and no income generating activities at their disposal, these people became potential criminals and their ghosts haunt us every night and day.
The government continues to create structures (or is it infrastructures?) of violence throughout the country. The establishment of the Border Gezi training centres in the run up to the 2002 election where young people were given an overdose of Zanu PF propaganda disguised as the proper history of the liberation war did a perfect job to create stooges and willing accomplices of the government to perpetrate violence and engage in criminal activities unperturbed. They shall also answer. The efficient use of hate language and creation of political bases where people sympathetic to the opposition were beaten, tortured, maimed, butchered and killed even in broad day light confirms the determination of the satanic authorities that be to hold on to power even when the people they purport to be leading have rejected them. The illegal regime has thus not only cultivated a culture of violence but has created strong and intact structures of violence which unfortunately they are willing to sustain.
Under these circumstances where you have a government which is supposed to be putting mechanisms to prevent crime and violence doing exactly the opposite thing it becomes difficult for us as the youths to be effective in our endeavours to reduce crime and violence. When a regime openly defies and violates international conventions and protocols to which it is signatory to and all that the International community does is to quickly gather in luxurious hotels using tax payers’ monies only to confirm the obvious, issue harmless statements and take no action, what shall the youths say and do? I resonate with one member of the Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights, Robson Shoes who wrote in one of his poem that
“What shall we say and do
When they use violence as a tool
To keep their elite few
In top rule
Shunning majority rule
And treating the majority as one fool
What shall we say and do”
Logic and not magic tells me that for campaigns against crime and violence to be effective in Zimbabwe we need first to restore the rule of law and stop the law of rule. The judiciary must be depoliticized. Day after day, minute after minute, minister after minister and leader after leader continue to silently walk to the grave yard to bury the little moral fabric and legal power left in our judiciary system. This march from somewhere to nowhere must stop now and the march from somewhere to somewhere must honestly and earnestly begin.
The government has become the nerve centre of the causes of crime and violence in Zimbabwe. It goes without saying, actually it is mind boggling how we can come to expect to reduce crime and violence when people are living in an economically violent environment. Everything about life in Zimbabwe is now violent. The economic, social, and political environment is too violent for anyone to play any meaningful role in crime and violence prevention. The Zimbabwean environment right now naturally motivates people to commit crimes in order to survive. With the country having been reduced from the bread basket of Africa to a basket case crime has actually become a basic survival skill. The solution is therefore to make sure that the nerve centre catches a cold so that the whole nation can sneeze crime and violence away.
I must at this point emphasise that this struggle should not be about replacing one individual with another. It should never be about personalities, never about people’s ages but the age of their ideas. It is about replacing tired evil systems that have been tried and tested and failed for the past twenty eight years with better systems we can trust against crime and violence. This should not be limited to Zimbabwe only, it should be done across Africa, across the world. The reason why Robert Mugabe can afford to conduct a violent one man shame of an election and continue to stay with full approval and blessings of other SADC and AU leaders within their midst is not because he is wise or intelligent and invincible. It is because most of them are presiding over evil systems. Their hands are full of crimes against humanity, they are corrupt, they have blood, they steal and they have killed or have potential to kill for power’s sake. They are birds of the same feather.
The struggle against violence and crime should therefore make our leaders and other gate keepers prime targets. Once these are converted and begin to walk the talk then a conducive environment for youths to play any meaningful role would result. All the other factors can then come to play. We can then start to effectively use sport as a means of fighting crime and violence. We as artists, as weapons of mass instruction, as sirens and human rights megaphones can start to effectively ring and make loud holy noise against violence. We will begin to be able to take our campaigns and information to people’s doorsteps in a language they do not only understand but enjoy listening to. Unless and until that is done I see us fighting a battle that we intend to lose.
We are willing tools in the struggle against violence in our cities, infact we feel duty bound and believe that it is our generational mandate to reduce crime and violence. It’s just unfortunate that the vessels against crime and violence are leaking from the top. As summit participants, we found ourselves in the situation that the Organisation of African Unity found itself in 1963. Heads of governments met and an organization was formed, the Organisation of African Unity. The name was indeed appropriate, no unity had been achieved, only a declaration to work for it. Much remained to be done to achieve unity, much also remains to be done to get rid of crime and violence.
Michael Mabwe is the founder of Contradictions Arts for Development Trust (CADET) And is also the Coordinator of Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights (ZPHR). He is writing in his personal capacity and can be contacted at zimphr@gmail.com
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