Totalitarian policing in Zimbabwe crippling our rights and dignity

By Fungayi Mukosera

Our police force holds a remarkable position in enforcing totalitarianism in Zimbabwe. The city in Plato’s republic is a reflection of the ones at the apex of the hierarchy of its control, and so does its structures.

Zimbabwe’s police are never in an anomaly circumstance and as such are a structure with a perfect reflection of the commonwealth of the country.

 A simple example of how they want to claim space and every freedoms for each one of us in Zimbabwe is the recent attacks on demonstrating women in Hwange.

It is a perfect pointer to the desperation of our government to want to harness control of every moving and crawling thing in Zimbabwe. I will say it specific that in a free society human beings are free to express themselves in any way they feel fit up to and only limited to the level to which they do not encroach into someone else’s freedom.

The fact that the police arrested some of the women a night prior to their protest clearly shows that it is not the intention of the government to make us feel like we are complete beings. The sole purpose of our security in Zimbabwe is to disperse; this is the only way they have known to maintain order.

They attack the people with an outward picture that they presume Zimbabweans to be rowdy and unruly but when in actual fact they attack with their main focus of instilling fear to protect their bosses’ empires and suppress our freedoms.

It is interesting to note that in recent years the Zimbabwe security forces do not form a line during protests to mark lawful and prohibited space. Their dispersion attacks now show that no space is free space in our country. Their standard is now marked by anger and superiority obsession so the need to maintain peace and serve the people is easily superseded.

With no little or perceivable opportunity to make our voices make a change in Zimbabwe, I think the greatest achievement we can grab as a nation is to wake up to that fact that our security is only there to expand empires rather than to protect ordinary civilians.

Acknowledgement of a fact is a giant step we can all take that will shape our way forward in both thinking and action. We have failed to stand together for an effective cause in most things as Zimbabweans because we have seen the true facts but still lived in denial that we can trust them with our protection yet it has never been their intention to do so in the first place.