By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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I woke up one morning to news of a group of police that had been incarcerated for the alleged murder of a businessman and simply turned over. Next thing I heard, one of them had apparently killed himself in a bathroom in remand. Although the story is trending hard here in Tanzania, I had not paid it much attention.

The police, as the strong weapon of the State against the people, has long been a fear of mine. I try not to explore my fears lest they gaze back at me.

I do not think this is unusual as an African, but in Tanzania, especially the professionalism of the police force has been doubted for a while. The history of using them for repression hasn’t truly left us and the relationship with the community is partly protective but also largely dependent on fear.

Public discussions of this event in general raised some very good questions, one of which was why are we such a violent society. It sounds strange to even say it out loud, because of our well-earned reputation for peace and generosity. We are indeed rightly called so, but there is a darker undercurrent that runs through our society.

Mob justice is regularly used, for example, against people called thieves. The enthusiasm with which otherwise pacific people will throw stones and beat a person to death is surprising: Where does all the frustration come from?

To be philosophical for a moment, is this why as humans we must have dual natures? The lightness is supported by the dark? I do not actually believe that, to be honest. I think there is indeed something a little bit skewed about our society which we haven’t examined with depth. The thing is, as was pointed out, the police who may have committed the crimes they were accused of are part of us. They are husbands and fathers and in-laws and brothers. They are friends, parishioners, football fans. Where and how does the predation on the populace start?

A lot of blame has been put on the structures of the police force itself, which I agree with, as well as on the leadership in general.

Deeper than that is the issue of training and deployment and the difficulties of life as a government employee.

But even deeper than that is the fact that we are a society confined by our conformities and waiting to burst out at each other, especially in the urban spaces, much more often than we care to admit. We have hierarchies and the police know that they are above average civilians.

What incentive do they have not to exploit this power?

Just as men do against women. It has to be said that violence against women has been on the rise, or at least reported so, in the past few months.

Patriarchy is firmly entrenched and any changes that challenge its traditional power give it a boost of energy.

Young people coming up in the world, the digitisation of much of our lives, women coming into their power, the onward march of modernity — these all produce effects.

Maybe Tanzanian civilians becoming braver, more democratic and aware of their rights doesn’t suit our police force. Maybe this one incident is just the tip of an iceberg, and is the manifestation of how we are set up. Or maybe it was just a rogue event, and nothing reflective of anything else.

I truly want to believe that last part, that these officers were uncommon in the system but there has been too much Hollywood in my life and maybe a bit too much reading too. And encounters with our local police which are rarely pleasant and especially rough when it comes to young men.

Trying to retrieve a friend or relative from remand shows a side of life that is superbly disturbing. It shows a side of the police that is brutal, uncaring and callous. It means witnessing the misery that we are capable of inflicting upon each other, given the chance.

Indeed, I woke up one morning to find news on the front page that police had murdered Tanzanians and turned over. What bothered me most about this wasn’t the news so much as my reaction to it. I felt an acceptance and indifference that scared me. I believed the news to be true and was unsurprised.

I found out that I have now grown a callous on my soul as a factor of being part of my peaceful society. The question that haunts me now isn’t why the police did what they did — this is practically ripped from a movie script. What haunts me is that I cannot answer the many questions of why we are such a violent society in our quietness. And how does one become “okay” living with it.

Do you know?

Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report: E-mail: [email protected]