The Sunday News
When man reaches the age of consent, he assumes political obligations. These are binding agreements that are between the state and the citizen, which have and ensure the normal and normative operations and co-existence of humans who are all signatories to the agreement.
This is what has kept the world in harmony and has helped craft laws which are meant to protect those with dissenting opinions from “ramoras”. I would flaunt this article with explaining what Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant posited, but well, my ideas are for the masses, we all deserve to easily understand what John Rawls explicates and how I understand the roles and functionalities of each organ in the state including citizens. Puzzling beyond any assumed sanity by “disobedients”, is how nouns are selectively used to suit their “victimity”.
Zimbabwean protesters find normality in destroying property, vandalising police vehicles and humour in the injury to security personnel all in the name of civil disobedience to achieve democracy. When one thoughtfully decides to under-go those six straining months of training, they are not pressed by the lurk of a salary, but the aspiration to secure us whose missions and interests are not to secure the sovereignty of our beloved country through armed defence skills.
The Fourth Estate has been awash with police brutality headlines, malicious description of the security sector and litigations of how the police should grip protestors who claim that the security folks should “peacefully” engage them. How on earth do you engage angry protestors who merry at the death of one of yours, who have a high proficiency of sweltering you and are a threat to the security of those you are meant to protect; the citizens of course?
One Professor Dingilizwe Zvavanhu and I discussed why police are justified to use some degree of force in many instances.
One argument he bought from me which he still reminds me of is: (some degree of) force is justified in Zimbabwe to set a precedence of peace keeping. The role of the security sector is to safeguard the citizens who are vulnerable to “disobedients’” demolitions. The rationale recycled by protestors is not uniform with the reasoning applied by the #hashtag movement leaders. When the eloping Mawarire called for a stay away on 6 July, he deliberately and repeatedly called for a “peaceful” stay away, knowingly that not everyone will stay away serenely, but cantankerous touts and waged NGO objectors would torch kombis, block roads, batter anyone who is at work and loot shops.
In that protest, the civil disobedience ceased to be non-violent hence police were and are justified to use force to protect, people like me who do not subscribe to violence or Evan’s philosophy, people who want to peacefully work in a struggling economy. The petite that we make from our fruits and vegetable stalls should be protected by the state and I should feel safe when I ply my trade.
It’s not sensible for the police to use force when buildings are already wrecked, vending stalls charred, shops looted, roads barricaded and tyres burnt. Therefore, at that juncture, pre-emptive retaliation from the police becomes effective as it disperses the potentially dangerous crowd with less destruction. Force is a deterrent degree. One thing the police of Zimbabwe are good at is application of discipline on “disobedients”. Those of you, who have visited the police station perhaps in boarding schools after mischief, relate to this very well. Chances of repeating the same offence are pretty much less. The behaviour retreat you receive makes you re-think your actions every time you want to make a decision, what more of a protestant?
The nature of a protestor should not be mistaken for a mere sad individual, this is an angry, irate, bitter, rancorous, resentful and disgruntled person, by nature, in most cases, such a person is void of reasoning and the only tool at their disposal is rationale which subjects us to danger. In Zimbabwe, most protestors are motivated to be angry, of course by their paymasters.
If you didn’t know, there are plentiful people who were bused to demonstrate in Harare, some were paid to mobilise protestors. Well, with such a kind of unreasonable people swamping our streets, police cannot profile individuals who are non-violent protestors and non-potentially dangerous individuals; therefore any means of force that deters future destructive and dischordious protests is justified. As much as the opposition has clamoured about casualties in the event of a revolution, why do they bellow when they become casualties of their own revolution?
My argument does not deny the existence of misapplication of interrogation technics, but solely hinges on the streets that are rough and tough. The engagement between the street protestors and police should be seen victorious when our security personnel manage to calm the noise with less property damages, not a celebration when a mob attacks. Such celebrations make some of us insecure. I feel unsafe whenever I stay two days without seeing a water cannon, my biggest fear is that when the Tajamuka fellows unleash terror, who is going to protect the airtime vendor, my grandmother who sells tomatoes by Egodini, my friend Ras Jacob the florist by City hall?
It’s a pleasure to see soldiers jogging in town, police clad in security detail announcing their readiness to protect us from hooligans.
I asked Professor Zvavanhu, what makes a breach of law an act of civil disobedience? When is civil disobedience morally justified? How should the law respond to people who engage in civil disobedience? Our discussion tended to focus on the first two of these questions. The learned colleague said that on the most widely accepted account of civil disobedience, civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies. Moreover, on this account, people who engage in civil disobedience are willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions, as this shows their fidelity to the rule of law.
If so, why assume injustice when you knew that your actions attract legal action? As I said before, most of the “disobedients” are paid and not familiar with the restitutions of their actions, that is the problem with applying rationale before reasoning. I learnt that civil disobedience, given its place at the boundary of fidelity to law, falls between legal protest, on the one hand, and conscientious refusal, revolutionary action, militant protest and organised forcible resistance, on the other hand, which is the character of Zimbabwean political militants whom I now fear hence my justification of force to secure my safety. The ultimate impact of more recent acts of civil disobedience — #Thisflag, #Tajamuka, #Thisgown and National Electoral Reform Agenda (Nera) movements — remains to be seen. Maybe a brief lecture to my comrades on the other side of the political coin would help them comprehend what they implement;-at least to those who do not understand civil disobedience and how I think the state should handle it.
Let’s have a look at certain features of civil disobedience which seem vital not only to its impact on societies and governments, but also to its status as a potentially justifiable breach of law. The first feature is Conscientiousness:-underlined in almost all accounts of disobedience, it points to the seriousness, sincerity and moral conviction with which “disobedients” breach the law. For many disobedients, their breach of law is demanded of them not only by self-respect and moral consistency but also by their perception of the interests of their society.
Through that, they draw attention to laws or policies that they believe require reassessment or rejection. Whether their challenges are well-founded is another matter, but what matters is that political consciousness is aligned to legal obligation, your political action should be guided by reasoning which will inform you of your responsibility and consequences in the event that you break the binding agreement you have with the state. I argue that, when you decide to challenge the state violently ignoring laws, the state is warranted to use the law on you and against you.
Let’s take note of Communication: In “disobeying” the law, a person typically has both forward-looking and backward-looking aims. She/he seeks not only to convey their disavowal and denunciation of a certain law or policy, but also to draw public attention to this particular issue and thereby to instigate a change in law or policy. Like “disobedience”, lawful punishment is associated with a backward-looking aim to demonstrate condemnation of certain conduct as well as a forward-looking aim to bring about a lasting change in that conduct.
The forward and backward-looking aims of punishment apply not only to the particular offence in question, but also to the kind of conduct of which this offence is an example. This is to say when force is applied immediately, it reflects on your past rampages, of police property, infrastructure, brutal attack on innocent non protestors and above all, the actions of the police and the courts are to deter you from repeating the same acts or being worse than what you have been.
Like any “disobedience” action, Zimbabwe’s protestant activities possess the third character which is Publicity:- the characteristic of communication may be contrasted with that of publicity. On the latter, I argue that “disobedience” is never covert or enigmatic; it is only ever committed in public, openly, and with fair notice to legal authorities. Usually it is essential to the “disobedients’” purpose that both the Government and the public know what she/he intends to do.
If a person publicises her/his intention to disobey, then they provide both political opponents and legal authorities with the opportunity to assess whether there should be a danger to society or make some of us feel uncomfortable. For this reason, it’s probably ideal for the state to ban potentially harmful actions to protect some of us and the possible criminals from being actual criminals, at least it’s the role of the state to protect you from yourself. Above all, what all protestors should know is that any civil disobedience action is characterised by non-violence:- civil disobedience is, by definition, non-violent.
According to Professor Zvavanhu, violent acts likely to injure are incompatible with civil disobedience as a mode of address.
He says any interference with the civil liberties of others tends to obscure the civilly disobedient quality of one’s act.
In Zimbabwe, civil disobedience as such is not a crime. If a disobedient is punished by the law, it is not for civil disobedience, but for the recognised offences he/ she commits, such as blocking a road or disturbing the peace, or trespassing, or damaging property, etc. Therefore, if courts are persuaded, as they sometimes are, either not to punish a disobedient or to punish them differently from other people who breach the same laws, it must be on the basis of some feature or features of her action which distinguish it from the acts of ordinary offenders. Typically a person who commits an offence has no wish to communicate with their government or society.
This is evidenced by the fact that usually an offender does not intend to make it known that she/he has breached the law. Since, in most cases, they wish to benefit or, at least, not to suffer from unlawful action, it is in their interests to preserve the secrecy of their conduct so I say Mapholisa, batai munhu kana anetsa!!
Micheal Mhlanga is a research and strategic communication specialist and is currently serving Leaders for Africa Network (LAN) as the Programmes and Public Liaison Officer. He also administrates multiple youth public dialogue forums in Zimbabwe including the annual Reading Pan Africanism Symposium (REPS) and Back to Pan Africanism Conference. Feedback can be sent to [email protected]
