Distressing difficulties
Distressing difficultiesWritten by Editor
Things are bad. And they are likely to get worse. And no one should cheat the Zambian people that things are going to be easy. It is not going to be business as usual. What we are seeing is the beginning of a serious social and economic crisis hitting our country.This is not a small crisis. It is a very big and serious crisis.
We are certainly in for a long haul. It’s not going to take a month, two or three to get out of this. It’s going to take years. It may be two, three, four, five or even more years, before we start to see a reversal of fortunes.
The developed countries of Europe are talking of two to three years before they can correct things. And these are people who are doing a lot, trying everything in the book, to reverse the situation.
They are pumping in money to rescue industries that are collapsing or are about to collapse. They are engaging in some nationalisations of one form or another – things no one ever thought these advanced capitalist countries who have been preaching neo-liberalism to the whole world would ever think of doing. They are nationalising banks and other industries in an attempt to save their economies.
We are not criticising them. We are merely stating facts. And facts show that the political leadership of these countries is working very hard, even throwing dogma aside, to take practical measures that they think may address their economic woes and social consequences that accompany them.
They have also been reducing interest rates to what may appear to be ridiculously low levels. This is all in an attempt to try and revive their economies. One can question the correctness of the measures they are taking, but no one can accuse them of not trying to do something, of sitting on their laurels and doing nothing.
It was so frightening on Friday listening to Rupiah Banda regurgitating the same overused phrases in his speech to Parliament. Rupiah was speaking like everything is normal, everything is as it should be. He didn’t sound or speak like a leader whose country is in a serious economic crisis with his people losing jobs every day. To Rupiah, everything appeared to be business as usual.
And his speech at the opening of Parliament was nothing but a routine exercise that he had to perform. Given the economic and social circumstances our people find themselves in today, one cannot be wrong, malicious or even mischievous to dismiss Rupiah’s speech as rubbish, a waste of time, an irrelevant and useless undertaking.
With this type of leadership that Rupiah and his friends are offering, Zambians will come out of this crisis very badly.
Rupiah shouldn’t cheat the Zambian people that it will simply be a question of re-aligning this and re-arranging that. This is a very big crisis which will require very big ideas, gigantic thinking and actions. It cannot be business as usual when one’s country is facing such a big crisis. This is a time for hard work. And everyone and everything has to be mobilised to protect our country and our people from experiencing the worst of this crisis. It will require a very high level of maturity, honesty and courage on the part of our leadership. This is the only thing that is going to give us a feeling of security and confidence in the future. And what outlook has our country with its future in the hands of men and women like Rupiah and his friends?
Yes, we had made some little progress – very little progress – but we will not continue to do so because the circumstances have drastically changed. It won’t be easy. And no one should cheat the Zambian people to start thinking that things are going to be easy, they will soon be corrected – it’s just a matter of weeks or month. We must start preparing ourselves to meet more and worse difficulties. We have difficulties now, but we will have even greater ones tomorrow, even if we do things or everything the right way – and we should do them the right way, even if it calls for our greatest effort. We have to find ways of coping with the objective problems of the international economic situation and its increasing negative economic impact on our country and our people.
Rupiah’s apparent emptiness, ineptitude and lack of a sense of urgency demonstrates the tragedy of our people. How can such a key leader continue to be so petty and trivial in the midst of these weighty problems the country is today facing?
We are convinced that it is utterly impossible to situation ourselves in the reality of today’s world if the panorama presented by the facts and problems that are unfolding in our country does not move our leaders into profound meditation. These are distressing difficulties and they should not be played down in any way. It’s not just a question of dishing out a few free bags of fertilisers here and there to patronise a few farmers. This calls for more serious thinking and actions.
Of course, we share the bitter feeling of impotence Rupiah and his friends may have in the face of such problems and the political instability to which these problems may give rise. So gloomy are the realities and prospects for the future viewed as a whole that they could generate pessimism and discouragement if we were not sure of our aims. They are inevitably a bitter pill to swallow, but if we are to face up to the realities we have faced to become aware of them and acknowledge them as problems deserving all our attention and effort. It won’t do to take an ostrich approach and pretend all is well or will soon be well, it’s just this and that small problem which will soon be sorted out. Of course we are not calling for magic solutions to these problems.
What we are calling for is seriousness in attitude on the part of our leaders towards these problems. We do not have, nor do we think anyone has, magic remedies for such difficult, complex and apparently insoluble problems. History shows, however, that no problem has ever been solved until it has become a tangible reality of which everyone is aware. And Rupiah is not doing much to bring about such awareness to our people – probably even to himself.
But no matter how enormous the difficulties, no matter how complex the task, there should be no room for pessimism, for leaders to go around pretending everything is alright, it’s just a matter of time, things will be sorted out. This would be to renounce all hope and resign ourselves to being devoured by these problems and difficulties. We have no alternative but to put in place an effective and efficient leadership that is capable of mobilising our people to struggle and to trust in their great moral and intellectual capacity. Only with tremendous effort on the part of the leadership of this country and the moral and intellectual support of all can we face a future that objectively appears desperate and sombre. We urge Rupiah and his friends to accept the realities of the situation and start telling the Zambian people the truth. And above all, we urge them to start working and stop basking in the glory of being in power.
Labels: GREAT DEPRESSION II
posted by MrK @ 6:38 AM
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