Maravi

Madness

Madness
By Editor
Friday October 03, 2008 [04:00]

An ancient Greek scholar Euripides once observed that “whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”. It is really an exercise in self-destruction for Rupiah Banda’s campaign manager Mike Mulongoti to threaten to close The Post.

Why is Mulongoti threatening to close The Post? Is it that easy for Rupiah’s government to just wake up one day and close The Post, an organisation that has been part of our country’s democratic process for the last 17 years?

Yes it is true The Post has embarrassed Rupiah and his sponsors by exposing their lies, deceit, dishonesty. But is this a good reason for them to close the newspaper?

This only goes to show what these characters think of themselves. They think everything should evolve around them. And for now, they think Rupiah is Zambia. It seems to them the interests of Rupiah take precedence over the interests of other Zambians. To them, Rupiah’s interests constitute national interests. If his feelings are hurt, the nation is hurt. If his campaign is undermined, national interest is undermined. This is what they seem to be telling us.

It is easy for them to close The Post if they want to be lawless. There is no law that allows them to close The Post in the manner Mulongoti is threatening. Contrary to what Mulongoti is saying, there is no licence that is required for anyone to publish a newspaper or magazine in this country. Licences only apply to the electronic media because of the limited number of frequencies. This is how ignorant our Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services is about things under his ministry. He thinks he can stop The Post from publishing in the same way he can withdraw the licence of a community radio station he doesn’t like.

What is wrong with Mulongoti? What is the source of his arrogance and intolerance?

We do appreciate the fact that Mulongoti will lose a lot if Rupiah is not elected president on October 30 because he will be back to the streets without a job. Mulongoti suffered a lot until Levy Mwanawasa nominated him to Parliament and made him minister. It’s understandable why for him, Rupiah should win at all costs because if Rupiah is out, then there will be no job for Mulongoti. But should the interests of the whole nation be subordinated to the preservation of Mulongoti’s job?

Mulongoti’s desperation may just compound the problems of Rupiah’s already troubled campaign. Mulongoti wants to open a Pandora’s Box over taxes. Does he really want the issue of tax compliance to be part of the election agenda? Does he want us to discuss Rupiah’s tax issues? We have all that we need on Rupiah’s tax position and that of his businesses. If they want us to discuss this issue, let them give us a go-ahead. As for our taxes, we have nothing to hide and we can discuss them with Mulongoti and Rupiah openly at any time and public forum.

The advice we can give them on this issue is that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. It seems we are back to the Chiluba days when the Zambia Revenue Authority was used as a weapon against political opponents. And credit to Levy Mwanawasa, he never used the Zambia Revenue Authority for personal political ends.

It is not difficult to see why Chiluba is courting the Rupiah camp: they have similar traits – brown envelopes, abuse of state agencies and so on and so forth.

And with characters like these, life won’t be easy for their opponents. As for us, life has never been easy. And we have never deceived ourselves that things are going to be easy. We are prepared to meet difficulties. We have difficulties now, and we will have even greater ones in the future, even if we do things the right way – and we should do them the right way, even if it calls for our greatest efforts. We have to cope with the increasing hostile measures Rupiah and his sponsors are trying to take against us.

We know that we will have to pay heavily for not allowing ourselves to be their public relations agents. There are journalists that have sold out to the powerful, been hired by the powerful, or surrendered themselves to the powerful, but we serve notice on Rupiah and his sponsors – and they should know that we mean what we say – we will never hire ourselves out, sell out, or surrender to their threats, intimidation and harassment.

Others may be used to trembling before their threats, but not us. Never!

We resolved 17 years ago, and from the bottom of our hearts, to make whatever efforts are necessary to fulfill our sacred duties to our country.

Our ideas are very clear, our convictions are very deep, our decisions are very resolute. We are very patriotic, very much aware of our rights, very sure of our ideas and our cause. We have a lot of dignity and are very sure of ourselves.

Rupiah and his sponsors should know that whereas we were strong in the days of Chiluba, today we are one hundred times stronger and better prepared psychologically and other.

If Rupiah and his friends think they are going to settle the differences between them and us through blackmail, threats, intimidation, harassment, they are mistaken! If they think they are going to intimidate us, scare us, bring us to our knees by dint of threats and blackmail, they are mistaken! This is what we have always told them and this is what we want to say to them today!

They shouldn’t underestimate our ability, our dignity, our courage while their propaganda against us lasted as long as a lit candle lasts in a storm.

We are not trembling by the threat of closure, we are not scared by their threats. On the contrary, we turn those threats into a force.

What these characters can’t understand is the source of our courage, our dignity.

But this is not to say everything we have done has been perfect or right. We have not always acted wisely, we have not always made the best decisions. But we are certainly always able, with all the honesty in the world, to detect in time any error, any wrong decision, recognise it, rectify it, carry on; because even when you travel through the mountains with the help of a compass, from time to time there can be some drifting away from the right path – just as ships sailing on the ocean occasionally drift off course a little – but you always keep going ahead in the right direction.

These are not mere words. Our record is well known by all and it is there for all to see, all know very well what The Post has done in this country. And we did not do any of these things with mercenaries, we do them with the sons and daughters of the people.

What Rupiah and his friends cannot forgive is that we are here, what they cannot forgive us for is our independence, our dignity, our integrity, our bravery, our fighting spirit.

Let dignity and decorum, courage and manliness, and honesty take the floor. Let criticism of defects be a constant and be directed at all alike. We are referring to honest criticism, well-founded, healthy, constructive criticism at the right time and place and formulated in the right way.

Difficult situations differentiate those who have their feet firmly on the ground. We are absolutely convinced of that, as throughout our history, those who vacillate and are faint of heart will weaken, but we grow in the face of adversity.

The behaviour of Rupiah’s campaign manager, Mulongoti, reminds us that a great deal still remains to be done. Our first duty is to tell the truth. To deceive the people, to delude them with force illusions can only result in the worst consequences, we believe people should be warned not to be over-optimistic.

We have never had any illusions about the price they would make us pay for opening up an era of genuine independent journalism in our country.

Rupiah and his sponsors should know that to ban a publication is being destructive, or at least it is opposing the process of reality.

Closing The Post will be an attempt to silence criticism. And to silence criticism is to silence freedom.

We admit that freedom of speech and press freedom often provoke public and political controversy, but experience shows us again and again that when freedom is diseased, the only cure is more freedom. God forbid that any newspaper should be closed. The practice is as indefensible as defilement.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent and debate. And when truth is no longer free, freedom is no longer real. Surely, should the honest exposure of Rupiah’s dishonesty, corrupt and bribery behaviour be the reason for closing The Post?

Media which are not free to criticise those in government and the ruling party, or that are not representative of the broad spectrum of society, are inherently limited in their capacity to support and bolster democracy.

As we have stated before, few would argue that the media always carry out their functions responsibly. But the remedy for this is not to close newspapers or revoke broadcasting licences. The solution is not to devise rules or regulations that set some arbitrary definition of responsibility but to broaden the level of public discourse so that citizens can better sift through the chuff of misinformation and rhetoric to find the kernels of truth.

Mulongoti is clearly showing and telling us what type of government we should expect from his boss – Rupiah. We say this because Rupiah has never disassociated himself from the statements and threats made by his campaign manager. And moreover, Mulongoti is nothing but Rupiah’s agent – he speaks on behalf of and for Rupiah. This is really going to be a fascist and tyrannical regime.

Look at the way they have taken over ZNBC television! They have made it look like it is an MMD television station created exclusively for Rupiah’s campaign. This greediness, vanity and selfishness is frightening. It seems they believe government facilities and resources are theirs alone to enjoy! Look at the way they are travelling for their campaigns: two government and Zambia Airforce helicopters and a plane! Isn’t this excessive? Is this the way to use public resources for campaigns? Maybe we don’t know the meaning of incumbency!

But we don’t think Zambians will surrender to this type of nonsense. If they are going to form government with this attitude, they will have serious difficulties getting to 2011. We urge Rupiah and his sponsors to moderate themselves and mull over things and consider the feelings and rights of other citizens. This greediness, arrogance and intolerance will backfire!

Labels: MIKE MULONGOTI, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 5:15 AM