IN 1997, the first recognisable social media site, Six Degrees, came on stream, redefining the world of communication as mankind knew it. It was not long before blogs such as My Space and LinkedIn popped up at the turn of the millennium.
And like a dam that had burst, by 2006, the world as we knew it, was completely transformed in the advent of YouTube, Twitter, and later Instagram and WhatsApp.
So it has been 25 years ever since mankind revolutionalised communication and it would be downright foolhardy for anyone in this day and age to think that they can do something and the world would not know about it or that just few in their vicinity would know.
For public figures, it is even worse for them to do or say something and think they will get away with it.
And the point of all this?
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Ziyambi Ziyambi was recently in Geneva, Switzerland, for the International Convention on Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), where he made some curious statements which have triggered angry diatribes from countless Zimbabweans because they bordered on deceit and misinformation regarding the country’s human rights situation.
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Leading the delegation, Ziyambi was at pains to explain whether the country’s education system was free or not. On the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill, Ziyambi said: “The PVOs Bill is not discriminatory in any way. The PVOs Bill is regulating a sector. All those conventions that we need to domesticate, we have done that. We do not have recorded cases of hate speech in the country. Hate speech in Zimbabwe is not targeted racially, but there is political hate speech. Our political parties are not racial.”
On the Gukurahundi issue, Ziyambi said the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) would come up with a solution to appease the aggrieved families and Gukurahundi victims.
He said the NPRC was not meant to deal with the Gukurahundi issue, adding that traditional leaders were seized with the issue to put it to its logical conclusion.
But ICERD committee expert and taskforce member Yeung Sik Yuen did not agree with Ziyambi, saying Zimbabwe was not conforming to previous recommendations, which included that the country should revisit section 61 of the Prevention of Discrimination Act and section 42 of the Criminal Code.
“I am a bit disturbed by the fact that the delegation has just pushed aside the questions that I have asked. The head of delegation did not reply to the questions that I put forward to them,” Yuen said during the discussions.
“Some of these things that we have asked here were also discussed in the last country report and Zimbabwe was questioned on that.”
Ziyambi and his ilk can lie through their teeth all they want, but we think it is important to remind them that in this day and age of super, super-fast movement of information, one’s lies can instantly be exposed, leading to unnecessary embarrassment, especially for government officials appearing at international stages.
It is, in fact, a serious cancer in our government that they hardly say the truth and this has been the biggest reason why reacceptance into the international community of nations has been difficult for this so-called Second Republic.
Honestly, how can Zimbabwe hope to make friends if it keeps on lying about situations that can be instantly verified through abundant social media platforms?
If government officials continue to lie like this about not only the human rights situation in Zimbabwe, but other situations such as the state of the economy, it will only result in the country’s circle of friends thinning each passing day.
There is absolutely no reason why these government officials should even be lying in the first place because there is very little to no benefit from their green as well as black lies.