Chitala's dismissal
Chitala's dismissalBy Editor
Sunday February 03, 2008 [03:00]
Mbita Chitala is certainly not one of our most disciplined intellectuals or politicians. Chitala can actually be a very difficult person to work with or supervise because sometimes he has tendencies that border on anarchy, lack of respect for authority. But President Levy Mwanawasa’s dismissal of Chitala as our country’s ambassador to Libya over an article that he authored and caused to be published in a Libyan newspaper is sad.
Although we cannot claim to know the rules and regulations under which Chitala operated as ambassador, we feel the decision to dismiss him is disproportionate to the alleged offence.
We say this because Chitala did not in any way purport to present his views as those of the Zambian government. He clearly stated in that article that those were his personal views and he wrote the article in his personal capacity and not as a Zambian diplomat. And by saying this, we are not in any way trying to overlook the issue of discipline. Each organisation or institution has its own way of doing things, has its own procedures. But there has to be fairness and compassion in the way we deal with others.
Moreover, Chitala was contributing, as an African intellectual, to one of the most important issues of our time.
Until we can allow our people the fullest and encumbered expression in writing and politics, we are in danger of teaching them a very simplified version of this complex universe.
Our nation has very few thinkers. History always tells us the greatest nations respected their thinkers. True, tyrants all over the world and throughout history have always been terrified of men of ideas, but ultimately, more tolerant societies parted ways with their politicians and endorsed the contributions of their geniuses. When our future generations ask themselves who the greatest thinkers were at this stage of our history, what will they find? We are afraid they may come up with none. If they should see an amorphous mass of mediocrity ruled by fear of being thought different and in so doing subversive, it should not surprise us.
The vital question is: where are our intellectuals? Well, they are here, there and everywhere galore, though they have humbled their profession to save their precious skins or are buried in bureaucracies, having surrendered their intellect to the goddess of prestige and power. They have been hammered to dust and pulp by dogmatists and anti-critics who believe that the first step to political progress is to crush and destroy scholars and intellectuals of every sort. They pride themselves in the power they got from women, workers and peasants and arrogantly dismiss the value of the intellectual in the scheme of the future. Here, there is a mistaken notion that the ‘brawn class’ rather than the ‘brain class’ will rule the future of mankind, not the latter, nor a combined force of the two.
Relying on the might at their disposal, they believe in themselves and the uprightness of their vision only. These same people who believe in the brawn class are furiously educating their children so that they can take charge of the future of this world. A blissfully contradictory calculation which overlooks the question of what kind of world we will bequeath to their heirs. For it is a pity that the same people who are sending their children to private schools and overseas should lull the peasants and workers into sleep believing there is nothing important or of value in intellectuals.
Yet history tells us that the greatest epochs in mankind’s weary journey are characterised, not by subjugation of the intellect nor downgrading of thinkers and critics. On the contrary, the Greeks gave us Herodotus, the historian, Hippocrates, the doctor and Homer, the poet. Go to Rome, and see what democracy produced in the arts and sciences. Move to more recent times and see the Renaissance or the French Revolution. Ironically, we take the greatest pleasure in admiring these eras and forget that the one real challenge they offer us perpetually is the development of sound minds, not the destruction of reason and intellect for the mistaken fear of our hold on power being undermined.
Africans have picked on ideology after another – a good thing. However, no one African leader has sought to marry his borrowed ideology with the political, social and moral ideologies of his ancestors. From their ancestors, they have borrowed convenient clichés, not the substance, to bolster their eternal hunger for power, while from foreign countries they borrow a dry programme, useful only to win an election. There is no place for intellectuals in this scheme, for too many questioners spoil the party.
Africa has certainly not learnt from history. Name a single country that doesn’t harass its budding intellectuals, writers, journalists, or philosophers of integrity. Shamefully, our leaders are anxious to reduce all people to an obsequious mass: oppressed, mutilated, hungry and terrified. A continent of weeping.
As we have stated before, until African politicians redress the imbalance between selfish pursuit of power and concern for the human lives, they are elected to protect, between arrogance and self-respect and humility, between intolerance and mutual tolerance, Africa will forever be marching backwards in very long strides.
We are saying the question Chitala was discussing in his article is a very important one because Africa has no worthy, honourable, independent alternative to political and economic integration – if it doesn’t achieve this, it will have no place in the world of the future.
Our politicians and other leaders should become aware of this and see the problem clearly.
The Europeans are almost concluding their integration into a huge one state of Europe. The Latin Americans, despite many imperialist obstacles, are also moving in the right direction. We cannot continue to sit ndwii watching others integrating while we continue on the path of disintegration or are moving at a snail’s pace to integration. Why do we have to be the last in doing everything that is good? Who says Africans can never be the leaders of any global process?
There are fundamental questions Chitala raises in his article that should be squarely faced and that cannot be resolved or answered by dismissing him from his diplomatic job. This action is tantamount to telling us that only imbeciles will qualify for these jobs. This will discourage a lot of intellectuals and others who want to exercise their brains, who want to think and meditate over what is going on in the world to take up public jobs.
There was absolutely no need to dismiss Chitala on the stated reasons. Probably there are other explanations, other reasons that can be advanced for his dismissal. The issue Chitala is being dismissed for is one with no boundaries. No one can afford to be indifferent when it comes to this issue. Anyone who is struggling for a better future must address this issue, it is an inescapable necessity. And we should again not forget that our continent represents one of the most important, if not the most important, fields of battle against all forms of exploitation existing in the world, against imperialism and neo-colonialism.
There are big possibilities for success, but there are also many dangers. What we consider to be the principal danger for Africa is the possibility of division among the African peoples which appear to be continually rising. On the one side, there are the lackeys of imperialism, on the other the people seeking to unite our continent. We have concrete reasons for fearing this danger. Let’s do everything possible to unite our continent and its people into a single, formidable federal state.
This may seek a wild dream given our problems and diversities. But we have no alternatives. We must continue dreaming, with the hope that the better world will become a reality – as it will, if we keep struggling. Africa should never renounce its dreams, its utopias. Struggling for utopia in Africa’s present conditions and circumstances means, in part, building it. Let us not forget that today’s dreams will be tomorrow’s reality.
Labels: AMBASSADOR, MBITA CHITALA
posted by MrK @ 5:11 PM
1 Comments:
Unfortunately, our brother Mbita forgot that in diplomatic missions there is nothing like personal views. There are a few exceptions to the rule of personal views. He should have had his article cleared by the authorities before publication to which i doubt if he did. Sad for him though!.
Another reason i can advance is that Libya is a challenging mission because our 'headman' is watching every speach and movement, and may have passed a comment to Muwelewele. Further, the chaps operating the Libyan mission may have flashed out Mbita. Some of these jobs we do!!!!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home