When Zimbabweans begin treating repression as entertainment

There is something profoundly disturbing happening in Zimbabwe, and it is not just the looting, the corruption, the arrogance, or the cruelty of those in power.

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It is what has happened to us as a people.

Somewhere along the way, we crossed a dangerous line where our own repression stopped provoking rage and started being consumed as entertainment.

We scroll.

We forward.

We comment.

We laugh bitterly.

And then we move on.

And in that moving on, something vital in us is dying.

We read stories of Zvigananda throwing cash and luxury cars around like confetti, and instead of outrage, we treat it like gossip.

We see photographs of them seated comfortably, unbothered, with hundreds of thousands of dollars casually laid out on a table, and our instinct is not to recoil in fury but to share the images on social media with sarcastic captions.

We hear of private jets and helicopters crisscrossing the country, flaunting obscene opulence in a land of empty hospitals and hungry children, and our response is reduced to witty remarks and fleeting outrage before life resumes as normal.

We learn that daughters of the same elite are splashing tens of thousands of dollars on shopping sprees abroad while ordinary Zimbabweans cannot afford bus fare, school fees, or painkillers.

And yet, even this grotesque contrast is processed like just another news update.

We watch these Zvigananda positioning themselves as future national leaders, openly fighting over power and spoils, and instead of collective alarm, we spectate as if it were some twisted reality show.

We gossip about factions, alliances, and betrayals as though the stakes are not our lives, our dignity, and our country’s future.

Chinese “investors” evict communities, tear apart mountains, poison rivers, and leave devastation in their wake, and we reduce it to viral content.

We see images of patients sleeping on cold hospital floors, dying while crying for something as basic as paracetamol, and we discuss it in WhatsApp groups before the conversation shifts to jokes, memes, or football scores.

The suffering is real, raw, and ongoing—but our response is muted, almost rehearsed.

Where is the rage?

Where is the anger that should shake us to our core?

Where is the collective fury at the rape of our country by a small, shameless elite?

Why do those responsible for our pain walk unrepentant and unashamed, even boasting about their ill-gotten wealth, without provoking a national eruption of moral outrage?

Why have we become so calm in the face of such violence against our humanity?

This is how a nation is broken—not only through force, but through normalization.

When injustice becomes routine.

When obscenity becomes ordinary.

When pain becomes background noise.

When the sight of suffering no longer shocks, but merely registers.

When citizens stop asking, “How is this allowed?” and start asking, “How can I survive within it?”

It is heartbreaking to witness this transformation.

Zimbabwe was once a nation of brave warriors, people who confronted empire, endured prisons, bullets, and exile in pursuit of freedom.

That history is not ancient.

It lives in our parents and grandparents.

And yet today, we appear reduced to quislings—adapted to domination, managing our oppression with dark humor and quiet despair.

Why are we not angry?

Have we resigned ourselves to our fate?

Have we convinced ourselves that it is a lost course, that nothing can be done?

Are we waiting for some savior to come from somewhere?

Is that why some have even chosen to accept crumbs from the table of this ill-gotten opulence?

Is that why there are those who are now prepared to degrade themselves in the hope of a car, cash, or handouts?

Are we now saying this is our new normal for Zimbabwe and we have to accept it and learn to live within it?

This is really sad.

Something is deeply wrong when a people can witness such cruelty and respond with indifference.

When repression becomes content.

When theft becomes entertainment.

When suffering becomes something to forward and forget.

That is not normal.

That is not healthy.

And it is not sustainable.

It is painful to see who we have become as a nation.

Painful not because we are weak, but because we were once strong—and that strength has been systematically crushed, mocked, and exploited.

Even in this pain, the first step back to ourselves is to feel again.

To refuse numbness.

To let anger return—not the reckless kind, but the righteous kind that reminds us that this is not okay, and it was never meant to be our destiny.

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/