Source: The Zimbabwean
Is oppression in Zimbabwe turning us into a violent nation?
There is something deeply troubling unfolding in Zimbabwe, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Over the past months, social media has been flooded with disturbing videos of violence: a stepmother viciously attacking her stepchild, a man ruthlessly beating up a young boy, a woman assaulting a minor, and in one particularly haunting clip, a boy who had just been beaten turning around and kicking a toddler to the ground.
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On the surface, these incidents may appear to be isolated acts driven by individual cruelty or personal circumstances.
Yet when patterns begin to emerge, we should ask ourselves a far more unsettling question: could this violence be a symptom of a society suffocating under political repression, economic hardship, and collective helplessness?
There is a well-established psychological phenomenon in which people who are angry, frustrated, and overwhelmed but feel powerless to confront the true source of their suffering redirect that aggression toward easier, weaker targets.
In a country where citizens feel unable to challenge a government that responds to dissent with intimidation, arrests, and even brutality, that displaced aggression can manifest in tragic ways.
The frustration–aggression displacement theory explains that when people are prevented from addressing the source of their anger—be it a collapsing economy, unrelenting poverty, or an unresponsive and oppressive state—they look for someone who cannot fight back.
Often, that becomes a child, a spouse, a domestic worker, or a vulnerable member of the community.
There is an old story many of us heard growing up about a man who, after being humiliated and mistreated at work, would go home and beat his wife; the wife, carrying her own pain, would then beat the child; and the child, powerless and angry, would kick the family dog.
Although this tale was often told as a joke, there is nothing humorous about it.
It reflects a deeply troubling psychological pattern in which hurt and frustration cascade downward to those least able to defend themselves.
Zimbabweans are living under immense psychological stress.
