Online Reporter
Dr Matthew Mare
No person volunteers to be disabled, and with mishaps of life like accidents and non-communicable diseases like glaucoma and diabetes, every human being is potentially a disabled person.
Many people have their body parts amputated because of various life conditions, and for one to sit on a computer to insult people like Greatman and Chipo Muchegwa, among others, speaks volumes about our manners and ethical values as a society. In the primitive stages of life, people used to kill disabled people as they were believed to bring bad omen to the family.
The quantum of insults on Greatman and Muchegwa clearly points to the need to expedite the disability bill, and where possible, revise it and put clauses that protect these minority groups from reckless media onslaught and affect their mental well-being.
President Mnangagwa has, for the first time in the history of Zimbabwe, presided over a comprehensive disability policy, and he is walking the talk on his mantra of leaving no place and nobody behind. Politically motivated public insults on Greatman and Muchegwa, among others, are the reason these special groups hibernate, and their voice remain unheard.
The problem in life begins when you think you are the only voice of reasoning, and you can insult anyone and everything with impunity. The President’s statement or proclamation is a public policy direction, and he has clearly relegated hate speech to the lowest strata of society during his first inaugural speech in 2017, and to date, this position has remained unchanged.
Insulting Greatman and Muchegwa for receiving a special gift from a head of state at State House and not at ZANU PF Headquarters clearly demonstrates little appreciation of places and their meaning.
The president conducts Government business at State House and party business at ZANU PF Headquarters, and the two places cannot be conflated to mean the same.
Even the most insane person would attempt the conflation, and in the Government of National Unity (GNU), the late MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai would go to State House to conduct Government business. Attacking the State House, adventively or inadvertently, clearly showed little understanding of what the symbols of statehood.
The President clearly stated that if there are still people living differently out there must come out and approach his office, and with the unguided political insults, how are they going to come out?
Whoever is embarking on a political crusade against the minority groups must be stopped (ngaamiswe).
So someone is happy out there after leading a crusade against the minority groups in the country, and a look at the comments that now follow, vulgar language is being posted against Greatman and Muchegwa to politically please their chief leader and grandmaster of insults in this country.
It’s high time to remind each other that political leaders must desist from being unethical, all in the name of wanting to make the world see you as an individual endowed with the world’s best brains, and others are zombies.
There is a whole Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and who are you to create your own world where you can insult people whose rights must be protected and their unfettered inclusion in society guaranteed.
The United Nations in 2006 demanded that these people you are insulting be protected and their safety guaranteed.
By insulting this class of people, one is endangering their rights and safety, resulting in their being vulnerable to even physical harm, other than the psychological harm already being inflicted on them and their immediate families, who have not been spared by these insults.
It’s high time the law enforcement act on behalf of public interests and ensure that those infringing the cyber law by bullying vulnerable groups, who must have special attention from the state.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) clearly stated that they must be empowered, and that’s exactly what the President did for Greatman and Muchegwa, among others. It is a common practice even in the most developed countries to mobilise resources for the vulnerable and minority groups.
In countries such as Australia, the USA, and the UK, there are plenty of people like Greatman who are mobilising resources and collecting donations on behalf of those incapacitated.
During the Cyclone Idai pandemic, churches and individuals mobilised resources on behalf of the vulnerable victims of the cyclone and for one to say there is a Social Welfare department is tantamount to fetish thinking.
Zimbabwe under the New Dispensation has no room for discrimination against minority groups, and political polarisation is now a thing of the past.
Which Zimbabwean is still eager to be dragged to the archaic old dispensation politics of political heckling, as the new focus is on building Zimbabwe through its own citizens?
The era of promoting hate speech is past us, and it’s time for peace education and sustainable dialogue.
