To label persons as cockroaches is hate speech VP Mnangagwa, criminally punished in civilized countries!

In decent and civilized countries, VP Mnangagwa would have left his office of the Presidency long back. This labelling of "other" as cockroaches is an act of verbal diarreah, unfortunately a wording that led to the shedding of blood of three quarters of a million Rwandese in Rwanda in the 1990s. As VP and an aspiring President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, this casual and loose labelling of "other" using hate speeches is a sign that he remains above all and every law in the land. This is scary indeed; the Minister of Justice Mnangagwa has on several occasions quoted as having indulged on hate speeches more often without being reprimanded by the law because Mnangagwa, according to him is the law himself; Minister of Justice and Vice President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. Why do the citizens of Zimbabwe respond to these hate speeches with silence?

Hate speech is defined as an expression which abusive, insulting, intimidating, harassing, a hate speech that incites to violence, hatred and discrimination. Hate speech is a violent expression of absolute hate and therefore very dangerous. Does our Minister of Justice know this? Does the constitution of Zimbabwe have a clause regarding hate speech? When VP Mnangagwa utters such abomination not even three weeks ago, and in the presence of his master: President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, "he will deal with cockroaches," he said, what does that tell us about the calibre of Emerson Mnangagwa as future President of Zimbabwe? Does that not confirm to us the architects of genocide of yesteryear are still contemplating bloodshed tomorrow but of greater magnitude? Are these utterances not warning signs that something greater than anger is looming?

When Mr Emerson Mnangagwa says he is going to crush cockroaches, which are these cockroaches meant in this instance? It is Jonathan Moyo? Is it Kasukuwere? Is it Dr. Grace Mugabe or any of the so-called G40 group? My second guess will be that he meant Jonathan Nathaniel Moyo, of Ndebele ethnic group, who, according to VP's definition of cockroaches: are the people of Mathebeleland and Midlands whom he claimed in 1983 harboured dissidents. Zapu members too, even if they were of Shona origin, belonged in this category of cockroaches. It can never be the wife of the President, the wife of the man he was body guarding during the Bush war.

Mnangagwa was a body guard for President Mugabe, who watched over him outside in the cold, while Mugabe slept in his bed comfort; he said.

My second guessing may be wrong again, not long ago our President was telling his war veterans that he is going to do it again, the return of Gugurahundi will now deal with dissident war veterans. War veterans constitute all ethnic groups in Zimbabwe, are now threatened to be crushed in the manner in which the people of Mathebeleland and Midlands were dealt with. To understand President Mugabe's today's hate speech towards the war veterans and the hate speech coming from the VP Mnangagwa, it is necessary to understand the social and political climate in which it occurs. The two succession groups: the so-called G40 and the Lacoste have filled the Zimbabwean air with hate speeches in their bitter fightings. You need to go to the social media to be shocked by the magnitude of hate speeches done on them.

If there was an article that has a tribal element in it, the rude language spirals out of control in its raw form: its Shona against Ndebele fighting it out on internet, writing hate speeches, mostly insults from both tribes, one cannot even attempt to quote them on this article. We all know where all these hate speeches come from, from the top brass, civil servants, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, his Vice President, some of his Ministers. The ousted Mai Mujuru is not exonerated from hate speeches, when she was Vice President she spoke carelessly about "zvipfukuto" weevils, then Minister Mutasa suggested the use of "gamatox" to kill the weevils. To complete her apologies, Mai Mujuru needed to extend her "sorry" on hate speeches she uttered during her tenure as holder of several portfolios in Mugabe's regime.  

We cannot build a multi-cultural Zimbabwe if we are not mature politically. The people of Zimbabwe should refrain from hate speeches on internet, on Zimbabwe social media houses. The comments made on our social media, however petty, are indeed galling; the battleground for tribalism in the social media is galling to say the least. We cannot say those comments are done by uneducated people, is Justice Minister uneducated? Is he not answerable on matters of legal affairs in parliament? We cannot say its political immaturity either, President Mugabe and his henchmen have got away with murder and genocide since independence; they are now above the law. As for VP Mnangagwa, he is besmirching the cause he is aspiring to achieve: to become the future President of Zimbabwe. He is deliberately given vent to deliberately make provocative statement that are very long on insults and short on courtesy directed especially to the people of Mathebeleland.

India is a country with broad ethnic diversities. They realised the need to legally deal with hate speeches by formulating laws that forbids the use of hate speech by anybody including the politicians in the highest offices. The laws seek the punishment of persons who show disrespect of "other" citizens. Section 153 A of the constitution says: "whoever by words either spoken or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise promotes or attempts to promote on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste, or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feeling of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, languages or religious groups or caste or communities and which disturbs or is likely to disturb the public tranquillity shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years or with fine or both."

Zimbabwe clearly does not have such a law, if at all it had, our Minister of Justice would be found wanting together with the President of Zimbabwe and several other Ministers in his cabinet. VP Mnangagwa's routine harassment of his opponents and discriminating statement that espouse doctrines of tribal hatred; this undermines and destroys the fabric of Ubuntu. There should be vigorous condemnation of hate speeches backed by legislative laws combined with the power of educating the younger generation about the ills of tribalism. The legislation should clearly outline hate speeches and words daubed with tribal hatred which invites hate speeches.

 - To say Gugurahundi did not take place should be made criminal expression of hate
 - To label people as cockroaches is a violent act of hate expression and therefore criminal
 - To say to a Shona person amaswina should be made a criminal expression of hate
 - To say to a Ndebele person madviti should be made a criminal expression of hate
 - To say to white population Rhodies should be made a criminal expression of hate
 - To say to Shona people izinja zabobaba should be made a criminal expression of hate
 - To say Ndebele and Shona people cannot mix because they are like oil and water is an act of hate expression, may not be criminal? But it is distasteful!

These are just a few printable issues that need to be criminalised so that there are limits and boundaries to freedom of expression. There are numerous of them we did not need to write them all but summarize them in the way the Indian legislative laws were formulated; all summarized  in a legal language to mean a combination of hate speeches done by most Zimbabwean consciously and sometimes taken as a joke. There is no joke that allows a section of people to degrade "other" people, to vent fun by insults, is certainly not civil.

I wish myself a multi-cultural Zimbabwe full of tolerance and inclusivity of different and diverse communities. It is stupid to consider yourself as "cool" if you constantly and deliberately discriminate, insult, harass and abuse the White communities, incite violence to occupy their farms, it does not give bread and butter in our tables, but left us without any food securities in our silos, worse off than we were during the colonial times.  Today millions in Zimbabwe do not know where the next meal will come from. The government tempered with our social capital: our white farmers.

There is need for legal experts to re-do our constitution, we need a clearly defined laws regarding hate speeches. Hate speech laws should prohibit any of the type of hate speech, group label, harassment and incitement; we want zero tolerance to inflammatory political speeches coming from the First Lady of Zimbabwe equally: Dr. Grace Mugabe. In the mean time we shall look after her grandson: Simbanashe Chikore.