Maravi

'Shut up!'

'Shut up!'
By Editor
Thursday December 06, 2007 [03:00]

When we urge former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba to shut up if he is not ready to tell the truth, we are not in any way not recognising his freedom of speech. We are merely trying to remind him that the right to speak, the right to be heard does not necessarily mean the right to be taken seriously. We fully agree with Mr Chiluba that if Zambians allowed themselves to be cowed into silence, the country would soon be a dictatorship.

And it would be sad if some of our people, some of our fellow citizens allowed themselves to be cowed into fear by the government or any other powerful grouping for that matter. We, ourselves, have lived and endured that experience, when Mr Chiluba and his government tried in all sorts of ways to cow us into silence.

We demonstrated that no amount of harassment, persecution or prosecution would cow us into silence. This was not because we are fearless or brave people, but simply because we believe that people must follow the dictates of their conscience irrespective of the consequences which might overtake them for it.

This was also because we firmly believe that to deny any person of any of their fundamental rights is to challenge their very humanity. And because of this we were very much in harmony with ourselves and could face any difficulties without trembling. It is said that if you are in harmony with yourself, you may meet a lion without fear, because he respects anyone with self-confidence.

Moreover, we firmly believe that freedom of speech and expression are the lifeblood of any democracy. To debate and vote, to assemble and protest, to worship, to ensure justice for all – these all rely upon the unrestricted flow of speech. Democracy is communication: people talking to one another about their common problems, fears, anxieties and aspirations and forging a common destiny. Before people can govern themselves, they must be free to express themselves.

We live by the conviction that through open exchange of ideas and opinions, truth will eventually win over falsehood, the values of others will be better understood, areas of compromise more clearly defined, and the path of progress opened.

The suppression of speech that I find offensive today is potentially a threat to my exercise of free speech tomorrow – which perhaps you or someone else might find offensive. Clearly, all people are harmed when speech is repressed. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.

It is interesting that Mr Chiluba is today a champion of these virtues, these noble principles which he tried very much to suppress when he was in power. Let us just try to remember a bit of what type of treatment Dr Kenneth Kaunda and UNIP leaders were subjected to in the early 1990s under Chiluba. There were many crude and cruel attempts to silence them.

They were subjected to all sorts of police harassment, detentions under trumped-up charges. Mr Chiluba didn’t even allow government ministries and departments to buy copies of, or advertise in The Post. All this was designed to silence us. But he failed and we are still here. Mr Chiluba says some government officials are even afraid to greet him because they fear to lose their jobs. This also happened to Dr Kaunda and us.

There were many friends of ours in his government who could not talk to us openly for fear of losing their jobs. By making these revelations we are not in any way saying Mr Chiluba should not talk about these things.

They were bad things and should not be tolerated under any circumstances and it shouldn’t matter who is perpetrating these evils. But it would be better for Mr Chiluba to acknowledge that he himself and his regime did not come out clean on this score.

Suppression of freedom of speech and expression is a very dangerous thing. For as long as legitimate bodies of opinion feel stifled, vile minds will take advantage of justifiable grievances to destroy, to kill and maim.

The police should not be abused. And we cannot quarrel with Mr Chiluba on this score. But we have not forgotten how his regime used the police to harass, repress and humiliate other citizens. We will never forget how the police was nearly used to kill Dr Kaunda and Dr Rodger Chongwe in Kabwe.

There was persecution of political opponents of the Chiluba regime. And if this is pursued seriously, Mr Chiluba will have so many cases to answer in this regard. Today he is only being prosecuted for corruption, theft of public funds. But if we truly had a government that really respected the humanity of others, Mr Chiluba would be in court answering for a number of human rights violations, including the death of Major Wezi Kaunda, the attempted assassination of Dr Kaunda and Dr Chongwe, among others.

This is what we mean when we say that sometimes it would be better for Mr Chiluba to shut up as a way of self-preservation. This is because whenever he opens his mouth, he is incriminating himself and setting the standards by which his 10 years in government should be judged. A man who takes another man’s freedom or indeed life is a prisoner of hatred.

We agree with Mr Chiluba that there was need for people to treat each other properly because even those in power today would not remain in power forever. And we used to remind Mr Chiluba of this when he was in power but he never listened.

The important thing is to give happiness to people. It is a fact of the human condition that each shall, like a meteor – a mere brief passing moment in time and space – flit across the human stage and pass out of existence. Life is like a big wheel: the one who is at the top, tomorrow will be at the bottom.

Mr Chiluba wanted to be in power, directly or indirectly, for a very long time. And this is why he came up with his stupid failed third term project. When this failed, he tried to use proxies. But this again failed and landed him in problems. So, and again, Mr Chiluba cannot fool or school anyone on this score.

But we agree with him on nepotism. Merit should be allowed to prosper, conniving and greed should be despised and condemned and made to fail. But this is not to say Mr Chiluba himself was any better on these issues.

Again, this is why we urge him to shut up on some of these issues and this is not in any way trying to rob him or curtail his freedom of speech. This is why even when he speaks rubbish, when he peddles lies, we publish them so that people can know what this man thinks.

And as long as he opens his mouth, no matter how much we disagree with what he is saying, we will always give him space in our pages to be heard. But again the right to be heard does not necessarily mean the right to be taken seriously.

Labels: CHILUBA, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 6:33 AM