It has been decades now since the abuse of the Zimbabwean people by ZANU-PF started.
Since day one of independence, ZANU-PF has viewed Zimbabweans as adversaries, people not to be trusted and a nation that has to be pinned down in order to be controlled.
I expect that no one appreciates peace more than one who has been at war. To appreciate the benefits of light, one must have been exposed to deficiencies caused by darkness.
ZANU-PF, coming out of a bitter war of liberation, would have been expected to champion peace, protect human rights and impose freedom on a nation that had seen and experienced the brutalities of war.
But year after year, we have seen ZANU-PF abusing the people, never giving them a chance to appreciate the supposed independence and freedom they worked so hard to attain.
Instead of working together to improve our lot, ZANU-PF started to view us as potential enemies; they took us for citizens who could not be trusted although it was us who brought independence to Zimbabwe.
Our history in the last ten years has set new records in self hate. Our government has championed the politics of abuse, using violence instead of dialogue; imposing its will instead of listening to the people.
They are using the power we gave them to kill us.
Violence is steadily increasing while the government watches and, in most cases, fanning, not stopping the violence.
Every day, we witness violence against innocent people.
Every day, we watch as civil liberties are trampled upon.
Day after day, our government commits crimes against its own people.
Law-abiding citizens are beaten up and chased like thieves on the streets of their own towns.
And I know that the peaceful Zimbabwean people cannot take it anymore.
A safety valve is a simple device that allows mounting pressure to be released under controlled circumstances and thereby avoid explosions or some such unwelcome consequence.
We have often heard about nothing being more dangerous than a cornered animal. Thus, a cornered animal will do anything to escape so it is always wise to leave room for such animal to make an escape: being let go under controlled circumstances.
These are simple everyday anecdotes that apply to people and society.
Gone are the days when oppressed people became so docile and compliant that they lost all urge to resist or to fight back.
Today’s dynamic societies, sharing similar problems and solutions across the world, have a tendency to resist and, in the aftermath, people die.
We have seen it in faraway places such as Chile, Greece, and in North Africa and the Middle East.
People just won’t take it anymore.
Even in America, the people have risen up and occupied Wall Street, causing similar actions across Europe.
Zimbabwean people have been cornered by their own government and the carnage has been going on for too long yet the people continue to show their patience and tolerance.
The people do not provoke the government but the government is always harassing the people.
Our patience and tolerance are being mistaken for cowardice.
Every day and every weekend, we hear of the government denying people the right to gather; we hear of people being tear gassed in churches; we hear some political parties being denied permission to hold rallies; we see policemen being used to stop implementation of court ordered decisions and we hear politicians blaming the victim.
As Newsday rightly pointed out yesterday, as “these kinds of disturbances, including the bans of rallies continue to pile up, the likelihood of frustration seeping out cannot be overruled”.
“It is these small, continuous actions that will coalesce into such anger that often explodes into national chaos and can derail a sitting government,” the paper said in an editorial.
Zimbabwe has more than one political party running the government. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a great opportunity for patriotic politicians to show that they are prepared to put their party differences aside for the sake of the nation.
But, alas, all of them are using each other; they are using the people and the nation to force dominance on others.
As politicians of low intellect and misplaced priorities tussle, the people are caught in between and their lives retarded by a group of self-seeking, selfish, blind politicians whose main concern is to grab everything in sight.
Zimbabwe is in the wrong hands. And ZANU-PF has been joined by equally directionless companions.
I do not see how three political parties can just gang up on the nation with none of them showing some real determination to straighten things out.
It is a matter of public record that ZANU-PF inherited a country on the trot but wasted no time in demolishing all the infrastructure.
ZANU-PF, which has turned to violence against the people it is supposed to protect, no longer has any role to play in our nation.
But they refuse to go away and are forcing us all to let them continue with the plunder of our nation.
It is also a matter of public record that whatever their intentions and hopes were at joining the unity government, the MDC has failed to make any meaningful inroads or to brush ZANU-PF aside.
Like us, the MDC is also a victim of ZANU-PF.
But, unfortunately, the MDC has now become complicit in this whole sad affair.
There is no one to protect the people.
There is no one to protect even the MDC.
The violence is picking up momentum and the army and the police are just as complicit and criminal as the thieves, rapists, arsonists and robbers at Harare’s Maximum Prison.
The heart of the matter is that Zimbabweans cannot be asked to go through the same violent process again.
All political parties must take a collective stand and resist ZANU-PF. We can always have our elections later but the effort now should be directed towards dislodging Mugabe and his thieves.
We will never know any peace as long as they are lurking somewhere in the corridors of power.
We have watched as ZANU-PF desecrated our parliament.
We saw ZANU-PF thugs violating the sanctity of our churches.
We witness ZANU-PF thugs physically abusing our elected leaders and parliamentarians.
We ran for the bushes, culverts and hills as ZANU-PF went on the rampage and killed more than 200 of our compatriots during the elections of 2008.
We ran away from our own police and army as they razed our homes to the ground.
And now, the same perpetrators are back again. And they are beckoning at us to get closer.
They are trapping us with the ballot box.
There has to be an end to this madness and all political parties in Zimbabwe, regardless of their differences, must come together and stop this insanity before the explosion.
Yes, all it takes is a small thing to ignite an inferno that will reverberate throughout the nation and the region; a conflagration that will be difficult to extinguish.
We do not want change through such means. We want change through circumstances we can control.
Zimbabwe has to be cleansed of the culture of violence. We know our predators; we know the ones who benefit from our misery and we know those who thrive on chaos.
It is up to Zimbabweans, for once, to forget about political affiliation and drive out the devils.
What kind of people will we be and what kind of example are we setting for our children when we remain docile as political crooks rob the nation day and night?
Zimbabweans have been patient enough and enough is enough.
The mistake Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF are making is to seal all the exits; they are abusing the people but leave no escape route.
The absence of a safety valve is going to be ZANU-PF’s undoing.