Narrow-mindedness
Narrow-mindednessWritten by Editor
The attacks and counter-attacks between Rupiah Banda and Michael Sata make very sad reading. If this is the level of political discourse between the leader of the political party in power and that of the leading opposition, then what hope should Zambians harbour in what appears to be a sombre future?
In saying this, we are not in any way trying to insinuate that the issues of morality that they are raising against each other are not important. They are very important. However, what worries us is the apparent relegation of our politics to trivialities. We should not allow Zambian politics to be relegated to trivialities chosen precisely because they salve the consciences of the powerful, and conceal the plight of the poor and powerless.
Our country is not flourishing. The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nation is not being used sensibly.
But all this is still not the main problem. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion or humility lost their depth and dimensions, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities.
So the talk about morality should not only be confined to the mock engagements between Rupiah and Sata. When we talk about contaminated moral atmosphere, we shouldn’t just be talking about these two gentlemen. We should be talking about all of us. We have all become used to this corrupt and intolerant political system and we have accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helping to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all – though naturally to differing extents – responsible for the operation of this system; none of us is just its victim: we are all also its co-creators.
Why do we say this? It would be very unreasonable to understand the sad legacy of the politics of the last 17 or 18 years as something alien, which some distant relative bequeathed us. On the contrary, we have to accept this legacy as a sin we committed against ourselves. If we accept it as such, we will understand that it is up to us all, and up to us only, to do something about it. We cannot blame the previous rulers for everything, not only because it would be untrue, but also because it could blunt the duty that each one of us faces today, namely, the obligation to act independently, freely, reasonably and quickly. Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. And it will also be wrong to expect a general remedy from them only. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all. If we realise this, hope will return to our hearts.
Let us try in a new time and in a new way to restore this concept of politics – politics based on morality. Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community. Let us teach ourselves and others that politics can be not only the art of the possible, especially if this means the art of speculation, calculation, intrigue, secret deals and pragmatic manoeuvring, but that it can even be the art of the impossible, namely, the art of improving ourselves and our country.
Clearly, the future of our country will always depend on the personalities we elect to lead and represent us.
We have always preached that old maxim ‘moderation in all things’. And we strongly believe in it. We sometimes wonder how future generations will judge what is going on in our country today, the arguments that are being advanced, the decisions that are being made and the actions that are being taken. We dare say that history will take a slightly more moderate view than that of some contemporary commentators. Distance is well known to lend enchantment, even to the less attractive views. After all, it has the inestimable advantage of hindsight. But it can also lend an extra dimension to judgment, giving it a leavening of moderation and compassion – even of wisdom – that is sometimes lacking in the reactions of those whose task it is in life to offer instant opinions on all things great and small.
No section of the community has all the virtues, neither does any have all the vices. We are quite sure that most people try to do their jobs as best as they can, even if the result is not always entirely successful. It is said that he who has never failed to reach perfection has a right to be the harshest critic. There can be no doubt, of course, that criticism is good for people and institutions that are part of public life. No institution should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support, not to mention those who don’t. But we are all part of the same fabric of our national society and that scrutiny, by one part of another, can be just as effective if it is made with a touch of honesty and understanding. This sort of questioning can also act, and it should do so, as an effective engine for change of behaviour.
We hope that it is not pessimistic – in our view it is not – to say that democracy hangs by a thread in this country. Unless we can offer our people a peaceful route to the resolution of injustices, they will not listen to anyone who has blocked off that route.
We hate being called anti-government. How can one be anti-government when one is part of government because government is supposed to belong to all the people? It is like saying that a Catholic is anti-Catholic if he doesn’t agree with the Pope on the use of condoms. What a lot of nonsense it is.
Our lives teach us who we are. We have learned the hard way that when you permit anyone else’s description of reality to supplant your own, then you might as well be dead. Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist view is the easiest to keep hold of; whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture we have always carried about is rather more vulnerable.
Yet we must cling with all our might to that chameleon, that chimera, that shape-shifter, our own soul; must hold on to its mischievous, iconoclastic, out-of-step clown-instincts, no matter how great the storm. And if that plunges us into contradiction and paradox, so be it; we have lived in that messy ocean all our lives. We have fished in it for our art.
For us, democracy means that governments are closely linked to the people, arise from the people, have the support of the people and devote themselves entirely to working and struggling for the people and the people’s interests. Democracy implies the defence of all the rights of citizens, including the right to dignity and honour. True democracy is having a government of the people, by the people and for the people – a government in which all the people participate. And this means a government that arises from an electoral process that has not been prostituted to falsify the will and interests of the people to put into office the most inept and the most shrewd, rather than the most competent and the most honest.
It is in this light that we feel frightened by the trivialisation of our politics at a time when our country and our people are facing very serious challenges and anguishing situations ever known to them since independence; when we are faced with the question of whether or not we are to survive. These are very distressing times and our people cannot afford narrow-mindedness in the governance of the country because we will not be able to get out of these problems under a political leadership that is narrow in thought and in action.
Labels: RUPIAH BANDA, SATA
posted by MrK @ 5:08 AM
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