Harvesting what we planted

Harvesting what we planted
Written by Editor

REVEREND Lt Gen Ronnie Shikapwasha has endorsed the violence that MMD cadres are meting on Post reporters. Lt Gen Shikapwasha says: "The Post newspaper is reaping what it sowed because you cannot have a newspaper that reports negatively about the Republican President most of the time.

If you plant mangoes, you will harvest mangoes. That is how the principle goes... As a child of God, I do understand the Bible because it is clear that you will harvest what you have planted." This is the sermon from Reverend Shikapwasha.

First, this is a very poor sermon from Reverend Shikapwasha and it shows a serious lack of understanding of Christ's teachings about love, forgiveness and compassion on his part. Anyway, he is not the first one to invoke the Bible to justify criminal and inhuman behaviour. The Bible was used to justify the whole apartheid system, its brutality, criminality, inhumanity and all its evils. Reverend Shikapwasha's sermon only goes further to give credence to what is said in Proverbs 28:28: "People stay in hiding when bad men come to power. But when they fall from power, righteous men will rule again."

Again we are reminded in Proverbs 29:16: "When evil men are in power, crime increases. But the righteous will live to see the downfall of such men." And "poor people are helpless against a wicked ruler; he is as dangerous as a growling lion or a prowling bear. A ruler without good sense will be a cruel tyrant. One who hates dishonesty will rule a long time" (Proverbs 28:15-16).

This violence against our reporters and Reverend Shikapwasha's support for it is understandable because genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. Again, Proverbs 29:10 teaches us that "bloodthirsty people hate anyone who is honest, but righteous people will protect the life of such a person".

Our country is a country of laws, with a clear Penal Code. If there is any offence our reporters have committed against Rupiah Banda and his friends, they have every right to legal recourse. But they have no right whatsoever under our laws to take the law into their own hands and physically mete out corporal punishment on those they believe have offended them. This is good law as opposed to the anarchy Reverend Shikapwasha is defending and supporting. If every Zambian citizen who is offended by another person was free to take the law into their own hands and physically mete out punishment on those they believe have offended them, what type of a country would we have? But this is the country Reverend Shikapwasha and his friends want to carve for us! Literally, what Shikapwasha is saying is that if someone offends you, they should reap what they sow - violence from you.

If we went to length to describe a person who thinks in this way, tomorrow we would be accused of insulting them. We don't want Reverend Shikapwasha to accuse us tomorrow that we were insulting him and we therefore leave it to you our readers to put a label on him, to call a spade a spade for us.

In our religious studies, we were taught at a very early stage to love our enemies. Christ doesn't say we shouldn't have enemies. But He says we should love our enemies because He recognises that we may have enemies. As long as there is a struggle between good and evil, enemies will always be there. But we shouldn't harm them; we should instead love them. Physical violence against your enemies cannot be said to be an exhibition of love for the enemy. The MMD and its cadres have every right to hate us, to hate our reporters and despise them. But they have no right whatsoever legally, morally, spiritually or otherwise to physically harm them. Our country's laws are against that. And Christ's teachings are also against that. It is only Reverend Shikapwasha who is defending and supporting that which our country's laws and the Bible condemn.

You cannot build a united and peaceful nation on the basis of violence, revenge, defence and support for anarchy, lawlessness.

And this violence that Reverend Shikapwasha is today defending and supporting can do only one thing, and that is to breed counter-violence. People who physically attack others are no better than animals.

And we hope that one day this nation will reach a stage when it realises that the use of violence against anyone, against any group of people is something that puts us next to animals.

There has to be a realisation that even those who disagree with us, those we don't like have every right to be here. This is their country also and they have every right to participate in its affairs on their terms and not on ours. Only in doing so can we hope to create a more stable basis for unity and peace in our country. Living in society, we should share the sufferings of our fellow citizens and practice compassion and tolerance not only towards our loved ones, but also towards our enemies. This is the test of our moral strength. We must set an example by our own practice, for we cannot hope to convince others of the value of religion by mere words. You cannot claim to be a Christian, a reverend and at the same time defend and support violence against innocent and helpless citizens. We must live up to the same high standards of integrity, of respect for the law and the rule of law that we ask of others.

In this regard, it is important for us to subject ourselves to self-examination and self-correction. We should constantly check our attitudes towards others, examining ourselves carefully, and we should correct ourselves immediately when we find we are in the wrong.

We know that Reverend Shikapwasha is a politician but even Zambian politicians should have a sense of honesty, fairness and justice. He is complaining that we published a story that said Rupiah Banda has no brains. What Reverend Shikapwasha forgot to say, or deliberately ignored, is the fact that these were not our words; they were Michael Sata's words. Reverend Shikapwasha also ignored the fact that his boss Rupiah has also called Sata names and we have published them. Rupiah has called Sata a snake with red eyes and tongue, a dull man, a liar and so on and so forth. We have published all that. Reverend Shikapwasha seems also to have forgotten that his boss has lied about us; he has falsely accused us of pocketing US$30 million among many other things that are false, that are not true and that are defamatory. Neither Sata nor ourselves has mobilised or paid desperate youth to stone Rupiah.

Our advice to Reverend Shikapwasha is that as a religious leader and politician, he should help make our country, our nation more compassionate, just and equitable. We say this because compassion is the pillar of unity and peace in a nation. Differences of opinion should not make us lose sight of the basic humanity that binds us all together as a single nation, family of Zambians. We must always remember that the different political outlooks, affiliations are meant for us to achieve happiness. We must not lose sight of this fundamental goal and at no time should we place means above ends; the supremacy of humanity over political affiliations and outlooks must always be maintained.

We are in a multiparty political dispensation and we are struggling to build an open and plural society. In this type of society, there will be a plurality of sometimes conflicting outlooks, of opinions and views. And faced with a calm and clear mind, these conflicts, differences can be successfully resolved. When, instead, we lose control over our minds through hatred, selfishness, jealousy and anger, we lose our sense of judgement. Our minds are blinded and at those wild moments anything can happen, including violence. Thus, the practice of compassion and wisdom is useful to all, especially those responsible for running national affairs, in whose hands lie the power and opportunity to create the structure of unity and peace.

Anger plays no small role in conflicts. This violence arises from a failure to understand one another's humanness. Hatred and violence cannot bring happiness to anyone, even those who think they are the winners, those who are trying to beat others into submission. Violence always produces misery and thus is essentially counter-productive. It is, therefore, time for our political leaders, especially those in the ruling MMD like Reverend Shikapwasha, to learn to transcend the difference of politics and to regard one another through eyes that see the common human situation. To do so will be beneficial to all of us. In order to achieve such ideas, we must generate a good and kind heart, for without this, we can achieve neither happiness nor lasting peace.

Revered Shikapwasha has called on The Post to apologise to Rupiah. We ask: for what?

We will never feel ashamed to apologise for wrongs we commit against others. But we will never apologise to anyone for something that is true, that is correct and that which is morally and legally just and fair. Everything that we have said about Rupiah is true and can be justified. Rupiah is well protected by the laws of this country from unjustified and dishonest attacks. If ever there is a day when we carried a story, a comment about Rupiah that is not true or justifiable, let them invoke the laws under the Penal Code that protects Rupiah from such attacks.

If Reverend Shikapwasha was a fair man, a man of justice and honesty, he would have instead advised his boss to apologise to us for the lies he has been peddling against us. Nothing Rupiah has accused us of can be proved or justified. He has accused us of stealing, of being this and that - things he cannot prove with evidence. But Reverend Shikapwasha is not seeking an apology from him on our behalf.

Instead, Shikapwasha is asking us - the victims - to apologise. Again, what is it that is making a Reverend, a man of God to fail to see the truth and accordingly demand for fairness and justice? We have the answer. But we leave it to you to come up with your own because if we do, Reverend Shikapwasha will accuse us of insulting him - whatever that means.

All we can say is that this is what happens in a nation when values are lost and principles are traded in the casino of political opportunism.