IT is said fire once teased snarls all the way to ash. Put simply, violence begets more violence. As such, there is always need to nip the practice in the bud whenever there is any inclination or tendency towards barbarism anywhere, anytime.
All progressive people, no doubt, expect the police to descend heavily on the elements that disrupted the Parliamentary Constitutional Select Committee outreach meetings in Harare
It, however would be so easy to blame the violence that flared up at Copac meetings in Harare on misguided party activists, but to me the problem lies squarely with the three main political parties — Zanu-PF, MDC-T and MDC — driving the process.
I cannot single out any one party because to me all the three parties are to be blame for reducing the national constitution-making process to a mere academic exercise that has Copac teams going around Zimbabwe to hear pre-determined party positions in village after village, ward after ward.
What then was the point of going around the country using resources we can ill-afford if the parties knew that the outreach teams were simply going to record what the powers that be at the Zanu-PF headquarters, Harvest House and Mutambara’s hide-out in Hillside would have transmitted down party structures?
Why didn’t the parties just adopt the Kariba Draft, which they co-authored and endorsed on every page?
And with reports indicating that the picture emerging from the 5 500 meetings held throughout the country so far, the envisaged new constitution would just be another edition of the Kariba Draft, I humbly ask whether it was really necessary to expend scarce resources on what is turning out to be a mere academic exercise, resources that could have been used to bankroll capital projects?
I am not saying there is anything wrong in political parties seeking to ensure that their talking points are captured by the outreach teams, for any party worth its salt would want the electorate to subscribe to its worldview, however, the problem comes when party activists resort to violence to drive their point home.
So to me, the violence witnessed at Copac meetings in Harare
What is now evident is that leaders of the respective parties have clearly not educated their supporters that outreach meetings are not platforms for debate but information gathering sessions.
They also failed to educate their supporters that outreach programmes should not be turned into campaign platforms, since views on the constitution are supposed to be gathered from every Zimbabwean regardless of political affiliation.
It is, however, within the power of the three main political parties to ensure that the Harare Harare
The party leaders should stand up to be counted.
The threats the MDC-T leadership has been issuing that they may campaign for a "No Vote" in the referendum or boycott the next election are a manifestation of failure of leadership.
What the nation expects to hear is strong admonishment of the violence and not self-serving posturing that tars one party while portraying another as a conclave of saints when it takes two to tango.
The readiness with which the pro-MDC online news sites and privately-owned media sought to lay the blame on Zanu-PF’s doorstep to the exclusion of MDC-T even as police were still to conclude their investigation implies that MDC-T may have something to hide.
The question is: why were the 5 500 meetings held throughout the country so far largely incident or violence free only for the violence to flare up in the so-called MDC-T stronghold of Harare Bulawayo
One analyst said the way the outreach programme went on in the rural areas, Bulawayo Harare
The outreach in the rural areas, he said, was largely incident free because people were united behind the Zanu-PF talking points to do with safeguarding the country’s independence and sovereignty, economic empowerment, the land reform programme and the gay rights issue; while Bulawayo was largely incident free because, the majority in the province are said to be sold to the talking points of Dumiso Dabengwa’s Zapu with the violence in Harare said to be indicative of the turf battle between Zanu-PF and MDC-T.
Whatever the explanation, the party or parties behind the disturbances need to be told in no uncertain terms that the trait that distinguishes man from other primates is the possession of speech and the ability to use it to solve differences
The inclusive Government is a transitional arrangement that is there to ensure an environment of socio-economic and political stability pursuant to holding fresh elections that no one can dispute.
The constitution-making process is a significant milestone in that journey, which is why the importance of ensuring that it is not tainted by anything that may give any of the parties an excuse to refuse to be bound by the outcome of the resultant elections can not be over-emphasised.
It is high time we all realised that the envisaged new constitution was the missing link in pursuit of uncontested poll outcomes, and it is only through holding fresh elections under the new constitution that those who have made a habit out of contesting every election result can be silenced.
The enormity of the challenges to be overcome requires collective efforts even among belligerents, for it is only through dialogue that we can identify the supreme view which can be incorporated into our country’s supreme law.
The results from such a challenge should cascade down to the ordinary people, who at the end of the day are the beneficiaries of a well crafted and people driven constitution.
caesar.zvayi@zimpapers.co.zw
