Luke-ing the Beast in the Eye: When even the mortuary dies in Zimbabwe
By Luke Batsirai Tamborinyoka
There is something called a national conscience, itself the heart-throb of a nation’s prudence and reasonableness. The national conscience is the nub of a nation’s sanity and its fidelity to the values of common sense and good judgement that allow it to distinguish between right and wrong and to consistently pursue the path of righteousness for the public good.
But when a nation, even one presided over by a murderous regime and a President who is a thief, begins to hero-worship thieves and paedophiles, then it means the national conscience has died.
When a whole regime and its leader begin to praise and pamper a rapist of an innocent 10-year old girl by not only pardoning his horrific crime but buying him a house and showering him with a car and thousands of dollars to spend, then it means even the mortuary too has died.
This week Bobby Makaza, a convicted rapist who was imprisoned for raping a 10-year old Murehwa girl, received a car and hordes of cash from Zanu PF’s hired Father Christmas, Wicknell “See Victor” Chivayo.
Bobby Makaza’s story is the clearest evidence yet that in Zimbabwe, the mortuary too has died.