MY VIRGIN MIND

Condemning a certain act is good, it’s great actually because it shows that you are not aligned to whatever is being done. And that is exactly what our Prime Minister Cleopas Sipho Dlamini did on Wednesday afternoon when reacting to the shooting of the two police officers in Manzini. The on-duty law enforcers were gunned down in broad day light, right in the hub of the country. I guess that is the scary part. I fathom to think of the last minutes of their lives.

According to an eyewitness’ account, the assassins approached the cops, led them towards their car and made them to lie down, with a gun aimed at them. They probably did a silent prayer and in a split second, the trigger was pulled and a bullet discharged, which hit one of the officers presumably around the head area. My body cringes when I think of what was going through the head of the other officer when he heard the thud of the gun. ‘I’m next….oh no….why us….please stop….’ And possibly many other thoughts.

Gone

Then the second bullet was discharged and hit the other cop. That’s how the story of their lives came to an end. They are no more, their families will never see them again. They are gone for good, their chapter has been closed. The big question is who closed this chapter and why. Sitting here at this very moment, I don’t have the answers to these two pertinent questions, but one thing I know is that this is bad, very bad. It’s evil, barbaric and quite disturbing. The BBC News in April issued out statistics of police officers who had been killed in the line of duty in 2021 in the US. I know the circumstances are not the same but these stats just show the level of intolerance for law enforcers and peddling of violence in revenge attacks the world over. An excerpt of the article reads that murders of police officers rose by nearly 60 per cent during 2021, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, with 73 officers being killed in the line of duty last year. Mr Wray said violence against police was a ‘phenomena’ that ‘doesn’t get enough attention’.

Violence

He said it amounted to an officer killed every five days. Mr Wray said that ‘some’ of the violence against police is ‘tied to the violent crime problem as a whole’. But, he said, authorities believe that ‘an alarming percentage’ of the officers killed were targeted and ‘killed through things like being ambushed or shot while out on patrol’. “Wearing the badge shouldn’t make you a target,” he added and I like the last part. It would seem Eswatini is now living the ‘phenomena’ experienced in the United States (US). To date, we are counting five police officers who have been gunned down. This is outside other State security personnel who have fallen victim of this violence. Are we giving this new phenomena the attention it deserves and if yes, how? Are we raising our voices high enough to ring the alarm bells of this scourge? I will not apportion blame to anyone in particular but the country as a whole. You’ve probably heard this cliché over and over again that Eswatini is a small knit community and we are all brothers and sisters.

Why then would you cause so much heartache to the next person? It would seem statements of condemnation and protests over incidents of violence are simply not enough, as noted by Brian Sokutu in his writing of ‘SA’s killing fields still growing’ which was published in The Citizen recently. I cannot overlook the mindset of many that these killings of officers, which had subsided for a while, have resurrected because nothing is being done in the political space. We all know that the kingdom is in a political debacle with strong calls for democratisation, which has now been coupled with a long wait for a national dialogue meant to map a forward on how we, as a nation, can we get ourselves out of this political abyss.

The void created by the political tensions may have seen some opportunists taking advantage of this space. This is because in my own analysis of the situation, it’s unclear if these killings are all politically motivated or there is a new element of criminality which requires the use of firearm. I won’t be oblivious to the fact that there are many wrongs in this country which remain uncorrected and have since created this hatred for one another. This has given rise to various sectors demanding a voice, a voice that has, unfortunately not been solely done through spoken word but through killings.

Civilians were ambushed during the June political unrest and now, we are seeing daylight assassinations of law enforcers. We are emulating the Hitler era where killing a person was as simple as taking a sip of water. The reality though is that there ‘two’ sides and from the interviews we’ve conducted, both sides are preaching the gospel of dialogue. Government claims to want government, but is waiting for the situation on the ground to be conducive for such.

Delaying

The progressives as well are all about dialogue and are of the view that there are delaying tactics in getting the ball rolling for such. One thing is for sure though, both camps are of the strong believe that a proper dialogue may bring an end to all this misery. If it is important to all concerned, why aren’t we having it then? There is no longer empathy in this country, infact the word itself has become somewhat overrated in the context of this kingdom if you ask me. To the pro-democracy groups, Richard Chemaly will tell you that ‘…..in order to engage in democracy, you need to have a democracy that is engageable.”

The jury is still out on who are behind these killings and I cannot for one minute apportion blame to those opposed to the current system. On the other hand, to government, the time is up for you to keep burying your head in the sand like an Ostrich. You need to deal with this and fast. You also need to engage. The news about the warder as carried in today’s publication just make it even more pronounced that we need to talk, period. Let us practice having a virgin mind and see if we cannot fill up this jar what we want, as a collective.

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