Chivayo in 'ruins': The anatomy of judgment

The unrestrained violence inflicted on Wicknell at the time of his death was not ordinary. It was brutal, deliberate and devastating. Imagine, he will now be buried without his head as if the fact that his body parts were gathered into garbage bags weren't gruesome enough. To me, the violence carried the terrible hallmarks of judgment; vicious and absolute. I do not know whose judgment it was. I have my suspicions, but they are ultimately worth very little in the absence of evidence to confirm them.

What it speaks to, however, is unmistakable: one may act with impunity, protected by the power and favour of mortals, but no one escapes accountability forever. Every human being must eventually answer for what they have done. It is not difficult - at least not for me - to understand why Wicknell, otherwise a likeable figure before his vulgar shenanigans with ZANU PF for which he has been pilloried as public enemy number 1, was ultimately called to account.

The lesson is clear: whatever power one acquires, one must never trample upon the aspirations of the poor or mock the suffering of the vulnerable. Their pain is not a spectacle, and their dignity is not yours to diminish. Neither should one pretend that there is no day-light between them and God.

The tragedy, therefore, is not merely the horror of his dismemberment, nor the grim end to which his actions may have contributed. The deeper tragedy is that some people still refuse to see the lesson. Instead, they would rather emotionally blackmail us all, insisting that we suppress our views and deny the sense of closure most feel at what they regard as a deserved end.

The public tumult acknowledges the consequences of a life lived in blasphemy, with pride and impunity and must be understood as such. It reiterates that power does not erase accountability, and that contempt for the poor and the powerless always carries a cost. 

In the tumult is the expression of both an expectation and a hope carried in the rhetorical question, So who's next? Yes, the public yearns for similar judgment on the next obnoxious figure. Don't be that person.