Are we a nation of armchair critics?

By @HomesickDiaspo3

Criticism is healthy. But too much criticism can be harmful.

I am not usually in the business of writing articles but developments in the past week or so have made me take this rather unusual step of writing my first one. Anyone following the developments in Zimbabwe would have been aware of the abductions and torture of some of the activists on the eve of the #MunhuWeseMuRoad demo pencilled for the 18th of November last week.

They were brutalised by armed state thugs masquerading as police – an MO many know all too well to be a favourite of the ruling party – and had their vehicles burnt. To my dismay, as well as other well- meaning citizens I’m sure, some took to Twitter and other social media platforms to question the veracity of this abduction, labelling it imagined and dismissing it as a selfie-seeking publicity stunt.

The activists were accused of lying, being disrespectful to their followers, making false and sensational abduction claims and taking selfies while in backs of police vehicles, telling lies that made the whole thing sound like a badly directed movie… etc.

I engaged one Maynard Manyowa on Twitter, whom I presume is a journalist from his bio, who seemed to be the most vocal about this. Please do not take this as an attack, nowadays many call themselves journalists if they can setup a blog and have a few followers… His main theory seemed to be there had been no gunfire based on the lack of bullet holes on neither the vehicles nor persons therefore the whole thing was questionable.

The injuries sustained by the activists, according to him, were not life-threatening but just ‘minor scratches on the back’…and it seemed his main basis for dismissing the whole thing as ‘the hoax of the decade’ (his words, not mine) was the lack of evidence to support guns had been used.

He claimed there was zero evidence on the ground that guns had been fired; no shell casings, no bullet holes, no reports of a shootout, no witnesses confirming this, etc. I challenged him that lack of bullet holes alone should not be reason to dismiss the whole thing as a hoax, as there could be several reasons explaining lack of bullet holes.

In one exchange of tweets between Mr Manyowa and a follower, they even appear to be suggesting that Dr Patson and Stern Zvorwadza should be arraigned before a court and charged if found lying. Mr Manyowa even expressed his disappointment that Reuters, who had published the story, had not bothered to do any fact-checking or they would have found the story was a lie.

After a long back and forth with him about this he advised me that he was going to pen an article which would be published on Khuluma website countering the activists’ claims, by presenting evidence to the contrary as he had covered the story, and advised me to keep an eye out for this article.

So yesterday, the 22nd of November, he tweeted a link to an article written by one Prof Changamire and published on the Khuluma website. Now the article itself, which can be found http://khulumaafriks.com/2016/11/22/27927/ begins by seemingly describing the political struggle in Zimbabwe as one driven by desire for funding.

I should also point out the author of the article echoes sentiments that are eerily similar to those Mr Manyowa aired during the conversation on Twitter between him, myself and others, where he was dismissing the whole abduction as questionable. It may just all be coincidence, just a bit curious seeing as Mr Manyowa co-edits for Khuluma and he had promised to put an article on Khuluma dispelling the gunfire myth.

The article starts by painting an image of activists and opposition politicians in Zimbabwe as rising so they could get funding, and attributes one of the major reasons for the split in Zimbabwe’s biggest opposition party to date, the MDC, as having been brought about by the fight over control of the purse. It then goes on to talk about the coming about of political activists such as Itai Dzamara, Evan Mawarire, Dr Patson Dzamara, Linda Masarira and the Tajamuka outfit.

The article claims lies, deceit and manipulation as the ills now afflicting these pressure groups, while singling out individuals such as Dr Patson and Linda as being autocratic and arrogant. Tajamuka are accused of throwing around words such as “abducted by the police” when in real effect the activists would have been detained by the police, instead of being abducted as they claim.

It questioned the wisdom of holding the MunhuWeseMuRoad demo when NERA was organising a march against bond notes the following week, a march that turns out to have been banned by the police (today?). It ridicules the narration of events during the abduction of the 17th as told by one of the victims, as being akin to a script from a James Bond movie, highlighting things such as lack of bullet holes or bullet wounds (sounds familiar?) on neither the vehicles nor the occupants as a sign that this was all blatant lies.

The article finishes by imploring the citizens to reclaim their movement from these self-serving individuals motivated by financial incentives and green card seeking opportunities (no prizes for guessing who this last statement refers to).

After I challenged both the author and Maynard about the motives, and accuracies, of such an article I was challenged to write a rebuttal rather than criticise, so here goes. Let me add that before I accepted the challenge I pointed out how I found it highly insulting to be even considering debating whether the abductions are real as people had lost lives, property, been incarcerated or displaced from their homes, all in the name of the struggle, as I believe this is very insulting to those affected.

But I also realise that by not challenging articles like these it gives credence to these outrageous accusations and claims, with many people taking what they read on the internet as gospel without bothering to question, do any checks or analysis. We can’t leave this to the minds of those reading such articles to decide whether they are speaking the truth or not. The likelihood of this being accepted as fact is quite high given this will be coming from people who call themselves journalists.

Firstly, the accusation that activists are deliberately falsely labelling arrests/detentions as abductions is not only insulting but absurd. People have been bundled into unmarked vehicles, and been found battered and brutalised and abandoned in ditches a few days later. No police arrest ends in such a way, at least not by a conventional police force.

We know people have been abducted; Itai has been missing for nearly two years, and I believe some activists from the abduction of the 17th of November could still be missing – and embassies in Zimbabwe have spoken out against these abductions. Some people are still missing as we speak. So to dismiss them as police detentions is criminal.

Second, the accusation of activists taking ‘selfies’ while in the backs of vans – if at all it has even happened – is dismissed as a publicity-seeking stunt. Now given the abductions have been conducted by some abductors masquerading as police or army personnel, I would look to take as many pictures as possible too should I ever find myself in a vehicle being driven by a purported police officer to an unknown location for an unknown crime. What better evidence than photographic evidence? Who knows if I will be able to return from that interrogation where they will be taking me and tell the tale?

So while it could look like a selfie-seeking stunt to you, someone might actually be trying to save their life. It might be a survival instinct kicking in for someone finding themselves faced with a situation that could end up with them losing their life.

In this day and age of technology, events of all manner are being caught on camera, be it police shootings to death of innocent civilians in the USA (should we accuse those victims of seeking fame when they film these police shootings and post them live on Facebook?) to SA student riots or Zimbabwe demos, photographic evidence is now part of us, and is an invaluable tool (as demonstrated in the US) should it be required in future. So think twice next time before dismissing that picture as a selfie.

The notion that no bullet holes means there was no gunfire is ridiculous to say the least. The fact that one of the activists was beaten up and abandoned at Lake Chivero but had their life spared when the abductors could have done more suggests the motive may not have been to kill, but just to discourage the activists from further taking part in these demos by using excessive force (Dr Patson even alludes to this in a Facebook post where he says the abductors seemed to be communicating to someone else taking orders on what to do).

The fact this was happening on the eve of a demo lends credence to this view; the abductions were meant to be a deterrent. So if we look at that why then would those brandishing the weapons been inclined to shoot to kill? It seems likely to me that any firing of guns would be a tactic to scare and traumatize more than to actually take life.

The main reason provided to dismiss this abduction as false is having no bullet holes found on the vehicles or persons. Unless the author of the article conducted a forensic investigation on the charred remains of the vehicles I cannot see how they reach this conclusion.

The fact that no windows remain on the badly burnt out vehicles also shoots down this argument (no pun intended) as we can’t rule out the possibility of a bullet or two striking the windows. The other point raised is there were no reports of a hail of gunfire. A report by who? Was there a crowd of people in the vicinity that was standing by that claims they didn’t hear a single gunshot? Remember, this happened around midnight, are you really going to have any witnesses for a crime committed around that hour?

Even if we are to assume no guns were fired, when glass shatters by way of explosion due to introduction of intense heat (as the vehicles burned) this produces loud explosions that could easily be confused for gunshots. This becomes a possibility when the person thinking they heard gunshots is an untrained civilian who has never fired a gun and has been traumatised by having an assault weapon pointed at them. I am not saying the victims mistook exploding glass noise for gunshots, just offering a plausible explanation should it turn out no guns were fired.

None of us has ever been in such a situation to know what it feels like. The point I am making is without having conducted a forensic investigation, or interviewed a credible and verified witness who would been on the scene, we can’t rule the possibility of guns being fired.

And even then we should not base our conclusions solely on the lack of bullet holes when we have plenty of evidence by way of victims who have suffered permanent injuries and were hospitalized, burnt out vehicles littering the scene… why should we choose to dismiss all this indisputable evidence because of lack of one bullet hole on a badly burned vehicle which we only ‘examined’ via pictures posted on social media?

The call to citizens to reclaim their movement from the hijackers is baffling. Without the Mawarires, who I presume is being labelled a hijacker, and the Tajamuka activists, what protest movements existed before these? So let me get this clear; is the allegation being made here accusing Mawarire et al are hijacking the same movements they spawned??

Before This Flag what protest movement of note was there in Zimbabwe? Curious. And questioning holding the MunhuWeseMuRoad demo is just trying to find mud to smear on the activists in my view; any day zanu has sleepless nights trying to figure out what to do is a day well worth spent in my view. The pressure must be maintained.

I will urge those that have good intentions for the struggle to avoid penning pointless articles that can only aid in defeating ourselves in this struggle. No one and no movement should be above scrutiny, but it’s pointless to wait for anyone selflessly putting themselves forward risking their life and limb, so we attack them by putting under microscope trying to highlight any perceived weakness they may have.

Everyone has weaknesses and if we focus on these there will soon be no one willing to come and lead from the front. If we do that we will be here for the next 100 years, as there is no perfect leader out there, alive or yet to be born. It’s important not to lose sight of the bigger picture, and that should be the driving force.

Lastly, I don’t respect anyone hiding behind a pseudonym to pen articles full of vitriolic verbiage attacking mere members of the public who decided they had enough, who aren’t elected officials nor hold any public office of any shape, but choose to put themselves forward for the betterment of all tomorrow.

Should one have a genuine grievance they need to articulate about the movement then by all means do so, but let’s not just criticise for the sake of criticising. The idea of a regular columnist launching a scathing and unjustified attack on activists appears cowardly to me.

After all these activists are taking on the monster which is zanu pf in the full glare of the media with their identities known. Let’s leave this kind of thinking to cowards like the Nathaniel Manherus. I am not publishing my name as I am not attacking anyone, nor am I the initiator of this, just responding to a challenge.

I will finish by saying I find it very insulting that the article chooses to talk of funding by international donors in the same vein as questioning the validity of the abduction last week and possible hijack of protest movements, this seems to me an attempt to dismiss the activists as being funded by the West; we all know who is famous for this rhetoric.

When you seem to be pushing this angle there is a risk we could start to question on whose side you are fighting on. And I debated between letting this issue pass without responding to the challenge, as I don’t want to put more focus on people who were deeply affected by the events of last week and prior, opening wounds that may be healing, but I think it is very hurtful to accuse someone that has decided to risk their life to fight for a better Zimbabwe as being driven by other motives other than seeing our country free. I sincerely apologise if this response will rekindle the hurt these brave individuals have gone through, but that is not my intention.

My advice is let’s all play our part in freeing Zimbabwe. No one has the sole mandate to going on the streets to protest. Those that risk their lives to do so must only get our applause and support, not criticism. If it is criticism then let it be constructive criticism, not making wild and baseless accusations so we can criticise them.

If you can’t be on the street for whatever reason, then your contribution should be to support. Not everyone can be on the street, but those that can’t should avoid becoming armchair critics only. For if you become an armchair critic only then you become the same as the oppressor.