Maravi

Levy tried to change MMD but failed

Levy tried to change MMD but failed
By Editor
Tuesday September 02, 2008 [04:00]

The supreme function of any serious and honest leadership is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles, which are deeply rooted in human nature. One is that by the very order of things, such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: at each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary.

By the same token, they attract little attention in comparison with current troubles, which are both indisputable and pressing. Hence the besetting temptation of all politics to concern itself with the immediate present at the expense of the future.

Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: ‘if only’, they love to think, ‘if only people wouldn’t talk about it, it probably wouldn’t happen’. Perhaps this habit goes back to the primitive belief that the word and the theme, the name and the object, are identical.

At all events, the discussion of future is grave but, with effort now, avoidable evils is the most unpopular and at the same time the most necessary occupation for the politician. Those who knowingly shirk it, deserve, and not infrequently receive, the curses of those who come after.

We can already hear the chorus of execration. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be public will to demand and obtain that action, we don’t know. All we know is that to see, and yet not speak, would be great betrayal.

What everyone needs to know is that this country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless it is a good place for all of us to live in.

Zambia is in trouble today not because her people have failed, but because her leaders have failed. And what Zambia needs are leaders to match the greatness of her people.

One can today ask for goodness, for reason, but such things come only from the hearts of people.

And today when we go home, let us look into our hearts, and let us look into the faces of our children. Is there anything in the world that should stand in their way? None of the old politics being brought back by the likes of Vernon Mwaanga, Mbita Chitala, Mike Mulongoti and others campaigning for Rupiah Banda’s adoption as MMD’s candidate in the forthcoming presidential by-election means anything when you look down into the faces of our many children.

In their faces is our hope, our love and our courage. That child is more important than any politician’s job, appointment or political office ambition. That child is Zambia, is everything we have ever hoped to be in everything we dare to dream about. He sleeps the sleep of a child, and he dreams the dreams of a child. And yet when he awakens, he awakens to a living nightmare of poverty, neglect and despair.

You can see why we believe so deeply in what Levy Mwanawasa was trying to do, in his honest efforts, albeit saddled with many problems and deficiencies.

It is very easy for Levy’s efforts, his legacy to be buried with him tomorrow. It’s clear to all that very few of his colleagues in government and in the MMD truly shared his vision, his dreams, his aspirations. They were there simply for jobs, to earn a living, a salary, an allowance or gain some advantage of one form or another that goes with belonging to a ruling party.

The MMD is still very much the corrupt party of Chiluba. All the elements that were part of Chiluba’s corrupt era still dominate all the structures of MMD. Probably Levy tried to transform the MMD by bringing in a few good people, a few honest members and leaders – but this doesn’t seem to have been enough to transform this corrupt party into an honest one. This is probably why some of the good people Levy tried to push into the leadership of MMD lost at the party’s last convention.

This demonstrates that the MMD, in its current form and character, cannot be totally relied upon as the vehicle that will deliver Levy’s legacy. It is also clear that even at the time of his death, Levy and his type didn’t have control over the MMD. The MMD remained and still is under the control of criminal elements, crooked characters, power-hungry elements who will not stop at anything to defend their evils.

On his own, even Levy couldn’t have managed to be adopted as a presidential candidate for MMD in 2001. It had to take the manipulation, the corruption of Chiluba to impose him on the party. And thanks to Levy’s ability to respond favourably and yield to good things, to honest and legitimate demands – the crooks, the manipulators in MMD were short-changed.

And this time around, with Levy not there, the evil elements are totally back in control of MMD, of their party. They certainly don’t want another Levy to lead them and stop them from stealing, from corruption, from patronage and everything that these things can bring them.

Those who were naïve enough to think that the evil in MMD would let the good prevail without a fight were misled, or misled themselves. Chitala made it very clear the other day that this is a life and death battle for them. They are fighting for their lives, for their jobs, for their evil desires.

An old refrain says that humans are the only animal who stub their toe on the same stone twice. This is especially so if the stone is the struggle for power, for privilege. As Lenin correctly observed, “history as a whole is always richer in content, more varied, more multiform, for lively and ingenious than is imagined even by the best of parties”.

A leadership commits a crime against its own people if it hesitates to sharpen its political weapons, which have become less effective. Levy tried to do a lot of good things but he did not try very hard to teach his people what he was doing.

There was no serious and well-planned political education of MMD cadres and leaders on his lines. It is clear from the conduct of MMD cadres and leaders today that they did not understand what Levy was doing or where he was taking them. And as such Levy didn’t change them into beings closer to him, to his values, to his principles and standards.

These people didn’t change. They were just scared of the strength of his character. The MMD today is still dominated by Chiluba mentality; it is still being run on the principles and standards of the Chiluba regime.

But we know that there are good people in MMD who don’t want to take the party back to the Chiluba ways and have put up a good and very honourable fight to defend Levy’s legacy that is now under serious threat from Rupiah and his crooked sponsors of the Mwaanga type. Whatever happens, whatever befalls them, they should not accept to be taken back to the Chiluba ways and they should fight with all the tenacity and determination. For them, it shouldn’t be the question of winning an MMD NEC contest, and not even of winning the forthcoming presidential by-election, because this whole issue is about standing up for the truth, defending that which is just, fair and humane against all odds of vicissitudes.

It will be dark, but light will eventually come – don’t despair, don’t give up, fight on. Many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintops of our desires.

What is happening in our country today, the way our people are mourning Levy, the way they are extolling his virtues should reaffirm our convictions and give us more arguments for our enthusiasm to fight for just causes and for taking the measure of the affront and honour of our people.

Levy’s death and what is being said about him in obituaries provides a stimulus to reflection and encouragement to preserving our hope in causes that have never ceased to be legitimate no matter how hard they may be to fight for.

We have always looked at things this way, so we haven’t had that concern, being tortured by what jobs a president is going to give us, what favours are going to be extended to us by those running government. That’s something we don’t feel we have the right to concern ourselves about.

It’s as if you were to fight in a battle without seeking to achieve a goal. Is any person’s glory worth the sacrifices of the eleven or twelve million Zambians who wallow in abject poverty? We believe that “all the glory in the world fits in a kernel of corn”.

We know very well that our adversaries take the prize in lies, disinformation, manipulation, deceit and calumny.

We have no doubt that in the future the ideas we are defending and advancing today will be made realities; in the future, people will know everything about what happened: what we did and what our adversaries did, what goals we sought, and who was right – we or the opportunists trying to defy Levy’s wish and start a process of ending his legacy, who acted dishonestly in discharging a public trust and were serving selfish interests.

We are challenging them on every front, absolutely convinced that the wishes and legacy we are defending will triumph in our homeland someday – a conviction will always hold, that our people’s legitimate causes will always advance and triumph eventually; that good will eventually prevail over evil. When this happens, we will feel compensated for everything life has dealt us.

Labels: CORRUPTION, MMD

posted by MrK @ 5:04 AM