By Correspondent
It is one of the most uncomfortable truths in sociology: when a figure perceived as an oppressor dies, there is rarely universal mourning.
For those who felt crushed under his weight, there is something else, a complicated, guilty, and profoundly human release. Psychologists call it social catharsis.
It is not about Wicknell Chivayo the individual. It is about what a figure like him comes to represent in the public imagination.
Why a Death Feels Like Justice to Some
In a country where formal justice feels slow, selective, or completely absent, death becomes the only court that cannot be bribed, delayed, or politically captured.
For years, ordinary Zimbabweans have watched a particular theater: tenders awarded in secret, money flaunted on social media in US dollars while civil servants queue for ZiG.
Cars have been handed out while hospitals have no paracetamol. The legal system issues statements, commissions sit, audits are promised but nothing happens.
When the system does not punish, people begin to outsource punishment to fate, to God, to karma, to biology.
So when a figure who embodies that system wealthy, untouchable, loudly blessed by God while the majority pray for survival falls ill or dies, the reaction is not really about the person.
It is about the system finally seeming to blink.
Nietzsche called it ressentiment turning into relief. James Scott, in his work on peasant resistance, called it the “hidden transcript” finally being spoken out loud.
The Stages of That Catharsis
The Initial Shock-Laugh
On WhatsApp groups and in kombis, the first reaction is rarely a prayer.
It is a nervous laugh, a meme, a “God is finally doing something.” It is not cruelty for its own sake. It is disbelief that the natural law has applied to someone who seemed above all laws.
2. The Public Vindication
Then comes the flood of stories.
“He was paid millions for doing nothing in Gwanda while my mother died at Parirenyatwa.
“He bought a car while we can’t afford school fees.”
Death gives permission to say what could not be said while the person was powerful and potentially litigious.
For the oppressed, it is not that they are happy someone died.
They are happy that for once, the narrative is not controlled by the powerful man. For one day, the timeline belongs to them.
3. The Guilty Hangover
Almost always, that euphoria is followed by shame.
This is especially so in a deeply Christian and traditionally Ubuntu-based culture like Zimbabwe’s.
People quickly ask: “Are we now celebrating death? as legislator Charlton Hwende asked on social media.
People recriminate and advise each other about Ubuntu.
That hangover is important as it proves that the catharsis is not sociopathy.
It is a symptom of a blocked justice system!
The Real Irony
The tragedy of this kind of catharsis is that it changes nothing material.
The tenders remain awarded and the missing US$15 billion remains gone.
The catharsis is emotional, not structural. It is a pressure valve, not a revolution.
Frantz Fanon warned about this in The Wretched of the Earth: the oppressed sometimes confuse the symbolic death of a single oppressor with the death of oppression itself.
Chivayo or Mugabe may be gone but the structures and institutions that underpinned them remain.
The crowd may cheer but they will go home and finds the same landlord, the same council, the same system waiting.
That is why states fear this kind of catharsis less than they fear organized anger.
A meme dies faster than a movement.
However, what people feeling oppressed are really expressing when they say “we are happy when he is gone” is not a death wish but a justice wish, badly translated.
They are saying we want to live in a country where consequences are real, where power is not immortal, where everyone is held accountable.
When courts cannot provide that feeling, people will inevitably seek it in the obituary pages.
——————————————————————————————————–
Love what we do?
We’re dedicated to opening up democracy, one article, video and story at a time. If you find our reporting helpful, you can support the Magamba Network team by buying us a coffee. It’s quick, easy, and makes a real difference!
————————————————————————————————————
