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Stephen Mpofu
Their conscience inverted, they wallow in a domain of unredeemed darkness where for them — or so it seems — every line of criminal law in Zimbabwe is dotted for the maniacs the engage in rogue sex with defenceless women and with blissfully innocent young girls.

These are the perverts who regard women as tools to gratify their bestiality and one is wont to wonder where these devils incarnate hail from. At least one neighbouring country is known to Zimbabwe to be engaged in what passes as a winless,  gargantuan task to protect its women and children from wanton attacks by maniacs who appear to thumb their noses at laws protecting the rights of women in that country.

In the circumstances, therefore, is it unjustified for anyone to believe that Zimbabweans working in that country, or who ply their trade across our common border, are responsible for importing a culture of rapists who reduce those of a fairer sex to endangered species, morally?

No doubt there exists other African countries where women now probably curse their sex for exposing them to human vultures – who pounce on them without warning in the same way as hawks swoop down from the blue sky and pounce on chicks feeding or resting under a courtyard shade.

Morocco is one such country where people were recently reported by the international press as having staged demonstrations to protest sexual harassment of women.

A Zimbabwean woman working in London but holidaying at home in Harare is known to have been shocked by the reported attacks on women and to have regretted allowing her daughter join friends going on holiday to the north African country.

Boomerang effects of such widely publicised attacks are obviously predictable with a deterrence to tourists visiting a country so negatively portrayed as one likely impact.

Zimbabwe’s popular image internationally as a tourist destination obviously stands to suffer were the attacks on women and children by rapists to continue unabated in a country that badly needs, and warmly receives, visitors as geese that lay the golden eggs for our western sanctions-embattled economy to pick up and blossom again.

But luckily for this country, President Mugabe has told the nation that the government will soon bring before parliament a bill that seeks to introduce punitive sanctions against rapists and other perpetrators of the repugnant moral decadence now rampant in this nation.

Such legal measures should have the effects of castrating the offenders and into a neuter gender as it were to protect women and restore sanity among right-minded Zimbabweans as the measures provide an example of what any good government in the world should do to protect a country’s pride and image locally and internationally.

And you (yes, you) come to think of it, “good government” is the will of God and this automatically suggests that those in power are obligated by God to bring about a government that, in His eyes, is good for the people.

It must be understood by all and sundry that leaders remain in power by the grace of God and, as such, any disregard for His will obviously spells doom as punishment for such disobedience.

Of course, Christians have a critical role to play in ensuring that good governance exists in a country for the governed to enjoy peace and stability — important values for them to be receptive to God’s word.

Ordinary citizens probably hold the key to ensuring the existence and continuation of such a good government in their country for the nation as a whole.

Elections are held in every country after a given period for people to exercise their right in voting the right people back into power or replacing the bad eggs in the basket with fresh new ones in order to perpetuate the “good governance image” of their country.

So it is of paramount importance for voters in every country, particularly in those states that tout themselves as being “democratic” to exercise their golden right with unmitigated prudence for the good of their nation politically, socially and economically.

For instance, leaders who pilfer state funds to grow their bellies as well as those of their families or for political aggrandisement should never, ever be allowed a return to power in any capacity.

The same fate should be visited upon leaders whose Machiavellian political manoeuvres antagonise and sour relations with political colleagues.

If such leaders along with those other infamous for sleeping on the job, get the voters’ nod they are likely to drag the image of the government really, really down should they somehow be returned to power, buoyed by an illusion that the government and the country cannot do without them.

But if truth be told, any continued presence in the public service of such disgraced leaders risks contaminating the good image of a government of any country in the eyes of the public at large.

This is because a dirty old broom does not and cannot sweep clean.

As such those people who cast their votes wisely in elections in any country know this fact and they deserve a pat on the shoulder from non-totalitarian states for protecting their own reputation as well as the good name of their countries and government.