Glorification, sanitization and incentivisation of violence as a political tool damages public trust. Good leadership is the ability to reach out, get the best out of all members of society, including your opponents. We argue that guiding society away from all forms of violence is the art of responsible politics. Responsible politicians understand that inciting and incentivising violence to achieve political goals is not only short-termism, but dangerous weaponization of fear.
What the latest assassination attempt of former US President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania shows is that those who encourage violence against their opponents do so from a narcissistic tendency; they only perceive outcomes of the violence on their target and ignore that they too are never entirely insulated from its consequences.
Rejecting violence is everybody’s responsibility. Matabeleland suffered the brunt of raw state violence in 1983/ 84 and its aftermath ensues to this day. It must be understood that our objection to the weaponisation of violence to address Matabeleland’s real socioeconomic and political problems resulting from systemic tribalism in Zimbabwe is not driven by fear or cowardice but by maturity, wisdom, courage, and a deep sense of responsibility to society.
Violence must be denied place in society because it is the antithesis of human progress; where it is even remotely a solution, it is only a temporary one, but its damage lasts for generations.
Gukurahundi is a case in point, Matabeleland civilians were butchered in the early 1980s yet the pain and effects are still being felt today. It is for this reason that wherever possible, we must move the opposite direction from violence in the first instance.
Those who harbour, excuse, and encourage the use of violence must be reminded that they are not themselves immune from its consequences, including death. Testimony to that is what the Americans saw on Saturday the 14th of July 2024 when former president Donald Trump missed death by a whisker in an assassination attempt by what appears to have been a lone male Republican would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks while addressing a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
As we analyse that violent attack where the Republican presidential nominee – Trump – escaped death, a man died protecting his family, and two others critically injured, sobriety is essential. At the same time, we must not acquiesce to promoters of violence because they have turned out to be its victims.
Truth must be told, Trump and his MAGA base are guilty of normalising violence for at least nine years now. They sanitise January 6, 2021, when the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. was attacked by a mob of supporters of then U.S. president Donald Trump in an insurrection attempt.
Typical of violence instigators, faced by numerous criminal charges, Trump has falsely tricked himself into believing that he is a victim of political persecution by his ‘political enemies’, the liberals, and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.
Repeated reference to revenge and sanitizing criminal conduct by making the point of publicly condoning the Jan 6 insurrectionists who caused the death and injury to law enforcement agents is Trump’s rallying call. He has called these insurrectionists, ‘patriots’, ‘hostages’, and promised to pardon them if he is elected.
His aggressive tone in the last nine years has not only undermined the law and morality, but it has promoted moral decadence where some of his supporters are convinced of their invincibility and purported right to use violence against opponents – Trump has warned of a bloodbath if he is not elected.
The ill-conceived rhetoric and behaviour are apparent in his continued use of dehumanising language about immigrants; in June 2023 he told crowds at two separate venues that he had floated the idea of a migrant fight club to UFC President Dana White.
“I said, ‘Dana, I have an idea. Why don’t you set up a migrant league of fighters and have your regular league of fighters. And then you have the champion of your league – these are the greatest fighters in the world – fight the champion of the migrants. I think the migrants’ guy might win, that’s how tough they are,” Trump said at a Faith & Freedom Coalition gathering in Washington and again a day later at a campaign rally in Philadelphia.
While the rhetoric brought laughter to his conservative Christian audience, the downside is that such a tone also serves to minimise the immorality and dangers of political violence. It sanitises acts of violence and emboldens his base to weaponize violence. Unfortunately, this normalisation of violence against opponents puts everyone’s safety at risk, including Trump’s own, as witnessed recently.
Callers of violence are not driven by bravery but the revenge for intimidation; they are cowards who understand fear and will do all it takes to make others fearful. There is that deep but misplaced sense of confidence in their safety based not on reality but the delusion of security from violence because, being its authors, they falsely believe they are immune from its consequences.
MTHWAKAZI INDEPENDENT 