ZIMBABWE Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) chairperson, Jessie Majome says citizens need education on human rights in order to increase the level of appreciation of their importance in lifting livelihoods.
She said knowledge of civil liberties among Zimbabweans was still narrow given what she termed "over politicisation" of issues, particularly the hyperbole surrounding arrests and detention of political actors.
Majome, who assumed office in March this year, says she observed that 'over politicisation', whereby one political party is deemed the violator while the other is the victim, is militating against efforts to inculcate a culture of observing and promoting the unalienable rights.
In an interview with NewZimbabwe.com in Chinhoyi recently, the former opposition Member of Parliament (MP) for Harare West, said the ideal Zimbabwe is achievable if citizens desist from linking everything to partisan politics.
"As chairperson of the ZHRC, when l assumed office in March, l realised that 'over politicisation' was the biggest obstacle to the Zimbabwe we want. As the ZHRC, we want to get to a point where human rights are a household and personal issue.
"There is a big barrier for us to get there, which is the over-politicisation of human rights because they are being made political football by various players, locally and internationally," said Majome.
"Sadly, human rights are way too important to be reduced to a mere football issue, they are about life and death, about our prosperity, our future.
"So, the strategy that l am moving with is that we all understand that human rights are for all of us; they should actually unite us. They are not adversarial, but they are for everybody, whether Party A or Party B...We have rights, all of us and we have a duty to respect the rights of other people."
Quizzed about the recent arbitrary arrest of Citizens' Coalition for Change (CCC) Senator Jameson Timba and 78 others, the ZHRC chairperson lamented the portrayal of events for political expediency but emphasised that it was now up to the courts to determine whether the arrests were unlawful.
"Political players, whether in the ruling party or whether in the opposing parties, posture about human rights and not allowing them to be (properly) used for what they are.
"We should get to a point where human rights are not made a political argument... Showmanship around politics is the problem. Even for the State, if people want to demonstrate against something, why not just allow them to peacefully express themselves?"
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Majome highlighted that Western nations are no saints and should not police Zimbabwe over its alleged violations of people's privileges and freedoms.
"They are battling with human rights issues themselves and not observing them. They are not superior to us and don't understand those rights any more than we do. We are equal.
"It's a struggle about human rights everywhere but our Constitution has a fabulous Bill of Rights.
"Our country should stop being mentioned when human rights violations are being observed. When we remove the politics from it, we can find each other because we all want human rights."
The ZHRC chairperson reiterated that natural rights are embedded in the Zimbabwean culture of Ubuntu/Hunhu steeped towards the dignity of human beings that motivated the 1970s liberation war, which was a human rights issue.
"We need to appreciate that in our diverse culture, we stand on high moral ground, that we value the right to life and others...those rights are inherent, they are not foreign.
"Even the liberation war was a human rights issue, about livelihoods which some were willing to die for, and others actually died. Let's promote the rights which our heroes died for. We are a nation of human rights defenders.
"Why now do we seem to be having a strange relationship with human rights? We have the rest of the world to teach," said Majome, who will soon engage with political leaders.
She noted that the ZHRC education promotions unit is visiting grassroots communities to impart knowledge on the rights of citizens.
