Double standards will be our end

So members of the Vapostori beat up the riot police and the natural reaction for many is to celebrate? Then former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai falls ill and it stirs a lot of excitement. President Mugabe is rumoured to have been in a hospital under observation and there is so much hysteria.

If we ever think of rooting out the ills that face our country today and moving towards nation building, the people, particularly the media, will have to be at the forefront of calling a spade a spade. If it is violence, no matter who the perpetrators are, it should always be denounced in the strongest terms possible.

Violence cannot be hailed as the norm, be it state-sponsored violence or violence by civilians. The only thing that comes out of violence is more violence, because as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, the police will be out to reassert their authority and as a result innocent people will get hurt.

I believe that the Vapostori beating of the police should have served as an opportunity for the nation and the media to bring to the fore the ills of violence. Once we applaud violence as an end in itself for any situation, then we are destined for suffering – and it usually affects the innocent and defenseless most of all.

Government itself should lead by example, condemning violence and not unleashing it on its own people.

Our social spaces are saturated with horrendous images of the results of violence. Once a nation starts to believe that violence solves problems that’s the beginning of the end. We saw it in Rwanda in 1994 where almost a million people were killed in just 100 days. We see it today in Sudan, the Central African Republic, in Congo, in Iraq – the list goes on.

Research has shown that a person’s use of violence depends on his/her mental stamina. The stronger and more confident the person, the less likely they will be to resort to violence. But weak people, who do not know how to state their case, who lack confidence and don’t know how to react to divergent views, are more likely to resort to violence.

The same goes for governments. A government that listens, that is confident in its own abilities always brings itself and its people to a negotiating table – to a common ground.

So if you don’t want to see violence take over our society, do not condone violence in any form. In the same vein, whether it is Mugabe or Tsvangirai who falls sick, the point is, someone is sick and deserves sympathy.