RADAR: Demon-strations: When demons get in the front Didymus Mutasa

We do not pretend that we are good linguists — or more specifically, etymologists. However, there are good and reasonable grounds to start to believe that the word demonstration was crafted with demons in mind. Of course, there is that aspect of “demos” connoting people in Greek, but then demons equally afflict human beings, people. So we cannot be too far from our initial proposition.

Let’s stick to it a bit.

Over the past couple of days, Harare has been afflicted by demon-strations.

The late J. Christopher                        Stevens

The late J. Christopher Stevens

The opposition MDC-T youths unleashed an orgy of violence as they launched what they term #MyZimbabwe campaign, which is a campaign of violence and destruction.

That is what Happymore Chidziva has been heard saying.

He even recently predicted that he would be arrested soon and won’t be able to travel out of the country because his passport would have been confiscated.

Right now the police are looking for him and they actually said they would be looking for him as the convener of the launch of the inappropriately named #MyZimbabwe campaign.

The Daily News captures this, albeit without really telling is that here is a violent campaign demon that has been unleashed.

Says Chidziva: “Peaceful protests are a legal means of removing a government from power, whether they were elected by Nikuv or dead voters. #MyZimbabwe is a vehicle to achieve this very important objective and milestone in our country.”

The first thing is that #MyZimbabwe is not peaceful.

It is violent.

We agree and take note that it is a regime change tool — a violent one.

We note as well that the MDC-T has now rejected peaceful and democratic means by way of elections due to their failure to win, which has led them to come up with fictitious entities and mechanisms.

Now, they have all but unleashed violent demons on Zimbabwe.

Yesterday we saw other running battles.

This time it was the whole opposition front, curiously championed by one Didymus Mutasa, who led violent protests.

The youths fought running battles with police.

They burnt property — vendors property at Copa Cabana,

They destroyed property and shut down businesses.

They are clearly spoiling for a fight.

One of the paradoxes is that police are appearing to fail to deal with the situation.

Much worse, there have been uncomfortable whispers that some junior police officers are one with the protesters.

We know that there is a particular anti-establishment sentiment within the rank and file, which sometimes makes us wonder how women officers are recruited when they are openly hostile to the Government they serve.

They relish and send subversive material on platforms such as WhatsApp.

That is common cause.

Now it does not surprise us when some hooligans are allowed to run rings and cause chaos in town.

But we are not exactly blaming the institution of police.

Only they should assure us – and show themselves to be doing something intelligent that is besides throwing teargas canisters, which have all but emboldened protesters and disturbed and assailed peace-loving citizens.

Benghazi beckons?

There is a film called “The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” or simply “13 Hours”, which deals with the violence in that town of Libya, which falls into lawlessness, which even the Americans can’t deal with and eventually leads to the death of the US Ambassador, J Christopher Stevens.

The story is billed as a true biographical account.

Benghazi is where rebel activity started in Libya way back in 2011, leading to the deposition of that country’s leader.

In opposition and western imperialist circles that is hailed as a success, whatever became of that once stable country.

Who cares!

In the saner world, Libya is the very metaphor of chaos and regime change agenda gone wrong.

That is unacceptable.

This is why yesterday we carried a piece with the same dire warning.

“Those agitating for and instigating the protests have not been coy about the attention they want.

“They have repeatedly called for foreign intervention, starting with SADC. The attention they seek is beyond SADC, hence the obsession with social media postings.

The police are being provoked and goaded into battle. Into war zones.

What a better way to recreate Libya’s Benghazi than to flight pictures of “innocent unarmed civilians” being flayed by a brutal police force!

Then if the “peaceful protests” get too hot, the temptation is to bring in the army.

“A perfect alibi for a rechristened UNSC Resolution 1973 of March 17, 2011 on Libya.”

That was Joram Nyathi for you.

We really don’t need to say more, need we?

Oh, maybe just — be careful what you wish for!

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