When Anarchy Sets The Pace Towards Order

Zimbabwean cops on a sunny day (pic BBC Africa)

By Robert Mukondiwa

So, I have never been the sort of person who celebrates anarchy.

Ok, perhaps I have to define what sort of anarchy I do not subscribe to.

I may be the person who doesn’t mind constructive disruption. Like throwing shade once in a while. Or standing atop the mountain and openly declaring that talented gems of people, like me, who send chills down the spines of ordinary talentless mediocre people, should be in their rightful places influencing the way the world goes.

I celebrate talent; giving due credit to those who deserve it.

But if anarchy comes in the form of violence and acts of vicious attacks then I abhor them and would never ever condone any act of violence-well not until now.

You see when people keep calling for change and fresh ideas. When they clamour for openness and transparency.  When they keep pointing at flaws in our system which they know and whose causes they are familiar with. When they keep doing all that and the system continues to ignore them perhaps because they are benefitting from the rot, then perhaps it is time for a bit of organised anarchy and a speck of violence while one is at it.

For ages motorists have been telling the government that one of the most telling institutions of corruption and State torture are the needless road blocks which police mount at any spot they deem necessary and they have been ignored contemptuously.

There, the police, Zimbabwe’s most organised criminal syndicate, have milked every single penny they possibly can from motorists until they have shrilled their voices no more and now are harassed in silence.

Many have said the spot fines are the root of the problem. That if you eliminate them then all problems will shrink. Perhaps even an  introduction of a point of sale machine if people think traffic rule offenders may not pay up if they are let free to pay another day could be an alternative some think.

But NO! Government wants them to collect hard cash there and then. They are in on it.

And so when the police, who have long been argued to be trained thugs and thieves, pounced on a Indian businessman en-route to his home  in Belvedere at a fake road block and robbed him of a cool US$56 800, that was sweet music to my ears.

The Indian businessman was identified as one Junaid Pervaiz.

Finally, a heist that proves these roadblocks at undesignated spots are shady and so are the police manning them.

And it was shooting two birds with one stone.

What wonderful police who should steal from these Indian business-people who have long been known to hoard cash and not bank it, depriving ordinary people of cash in circulation and contributing to the menace of the bank queues and cash shortages.

Beautiful police! Why didn’t they think of that earlier? Setting up road blocks in Belvedere and robbing the equally shady Asian business community?

Now this is the sort of anarchy that will help our nation. A regular heist or two would be in order. Perhaps when the government starts seeing that the police are beating them in the business of stealing they will finally put a stop to roadblocks appearing everywhere like rash on a baby’s buttocks and the demanding of cash from motorists in the form of spot fines will stop. The government hates thieves because they don’t like competition.

 Meanwhile if our good ole police force continues robbing the fellow thieves in the Indian business community and the Far East Asians as well perhaps all this chaos can give birth to order after all!

And in the case of the Asian Junaid Pervaiz perhaps he may want to confront tired civil servants sweating in a bank queue to explain to them where the hell he was taking those bank notes. And perhaps he should be robbed again if it means he will start banking money!

They say ‘the ends  justifies the means’ do they not?

Robert Mukondiwa is a closet anarchist