MDC vice national chairperson Job Sikhala said he has been arrested 64 times for his political views and rather than silencing him, it has strengthened his resolve.
Speaking during an interview with Daily News on Sunday reporter Blessings Mashaya, Sikhala said his will not tone down his combativeness. He said:
I have been arrested 64 times for my political views. It’s some persecution I endured all my life. Idiots in the tyrannical pedestal think they can destroy the fighting spirit of modern liberation fighters by using arrests as an instrument to silence us all, but unbeknown to them is that it creates the opposite.
Rather than silencing me, it has rather hardened and emboldened my resolve. They should have learnt from history.
Prisons do not silence the voice of reason. It rather intensifies the fighting spirit and determination.
Ask apartheid, South Africa. They will tell you that Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki were not silenced by the oppression of a prison. It rather hardened their resolve. Ask the late Maurice Nyagumbo, ask vaMavhaire, ask the late Robert Mugabe.Incarceration has always had the opposite results. Can you tell me one person who was silenced by arrests in the struggle of mankind.
Wozoti zvako wasvuta mbanje woti haa we will silence Wiwa through arrests. Wanzai bepa (they smoke marijuana and think they can silence me through arrests).