Maravi

Who has a correct view of those pictures?

Who has a correct view of those pictures?
Written by Editor

In the pictures where Rupiah Banda and his treacherous and opportunistic women from NGOCC and the changed Women for Change saw pornography, Lusaka Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu saw something totally different. Archbishop Mpundu says the pictures of a woman in labour that The Post management sent to the Vice-President and copied to him were not pornographic as suggested by Rupiah at his last press conference.

Archbishop Mpundu says although shocking, the pictures provoked someone into quick action on the crisis at the time. He says he wouldn’t regard those pictures as pornographic. Truly, if they were pornographic, we would have not sent them to anyone. In our letter to the Vice-President, we made it very clear that we had difficulty publishing those pictures in our newspaper which showed a very desperate situation at our hospitals arising from the nurses and other health workers’ strike. We also made it clear that we were sending these pictures in the hope that they will move the Vice-President and his colleagues to take quick action and bring to an end that strike. We stated to the Vice-President that the pictures were very disturbing. But them being disturbing did not mean they were pornographic.

How Rupiah and his treacherous women found these pictures to be pornographic is something very difficult to understand. One would expect the Archbishop to be the first one to react to pornography and denounce it. But he is saying there was no pornography in those pictures. What was in those pictures was suffering that needed to be urgently attended to.

Anyway, this is what happens in a nation and to people when they are blinded by nothing but hatred, dislike, greed, vanity and opportunism. They stop thinking and reduce their capacity to make rational judgements.

Rupiah and his treacherous women cannot claim to uphold the sanctity of life, of women if there is no provision for minimal healthcare for them to be able to give birth in a safe and dignified manner. Life is sacred, a gift from God to be valued from the moment of conception until death. But to them the death of that baby in birth did not bother them much. The suffering of that woman in labour did not bother them. What bothered them most was that The Post brought the death of that baby and the suffering of that woman to the attention of the political, civil and religious leadership of this country. What they were much more interested in was to nail The Post to the cross, to humiliate it and reduce its capacity and influence. This is why even Rupiah was boasting at his press conference that “one day we will catch them”. For them, what interests them most is to find fault with The Post’s work. They seem to rejoice in The Post’s inadequacies or mistakes. What type of people are these? Can they call themselves leaders of any sort? This type of behaviour is characteristic of mercenaries, hyenas and jackals. People’s leaders don’t behave in this manner. They behave in the way Archbishop Mpundu is behaving. But Rupiah and his treacherous women will one day pay highly for their treachery.

And this is why we need religious institutions to continue to be the conscience of our nation, a moral custodian and a fearless champion of the interests of the weak and downtrodden. We can see this clearly because when Rupiah and his women are throwing their honour and dignity away to politically prostitute themselves, the Archbishop is firm and clear and in total defence of the poor woman who had to endure so much pain and lost her baby. This is why religion is a great force and it can help one have command of one’s morality, one’s own behaviour and one’s own attitude. And a simple lesson of religion, and of life itself is that, although evil, treachery and opportunism may be on the rampage temporarily, the good must win the laurels in the end.

The Church is an expert in humanity, and this leads it necessary to extend its religious mission to the various fields in which men and women expend their efforts in search of the always relative happiness possible in this world, in line with their dignity as persons. Whatever affects the dignity of individuals and peoples cannot be reduced to a simple legal problem, to pornography. If reduced in this way it would be emptied of its true content, and this would be an act of betrayal of the individuals and peoples whom it is meant to serve.

This is why the Church has something to say today, just as in the past, and also in the future, about the nature, conditions, requirements and aims of authentic humanitarian, and also about the obstacles which stand in its way. In doing so, the Church fulfils its mission to evangelise, for it offers its first contribution to the solution of the urgent problems of our people, when it proclaims the truth about Christ, about itself, and about humankind, applying this truth to a concrete situation.

As its instrument for reaching this goal, the Church uses its social doctrine. In today’s difficult situation, a more exact awareness and a wider diffusion of the set of principles of reflection, criteria for judgement, and the directives for action proposed by the Church’s teaching would be of great help in promoting both the correct definition of the problems being faced and the best solution to them.

It will thus be seen at once that the questions facing us are above all moral questions; and that neither the analysis of the problem of humanitarianism as such nor the means to overcome the present difficulties can ignore this essential dimension.

Today, furthermore, given the wide dimension which the social question has assumed, there is need for the option or love of preference for the poor. This is an option or a special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity to which the whole tradition of the church bears witness. It affects the life of each Christian inasmuch as he or she seeks to imitate the life of Christ, but it applies equally to our social responsibilities and hence to our manner of living. This love of preference for the poor, and the decisions it inspires in us, cannot but embrace the immense multitudes of the hungry, the needy, the homeless, those without medical care and, above all, those without hope of a better future. It is impossible not to take account of the existence of these realities. To ignore them would mean becoming like the rich man who pretended not to know the beggar Lazarous lying at his gate (Luke 16:19-31).

Our daily life as well as our decisions in the political and economic fields must be marked by these realities. Our political leaders, and the leaders of our civic organisations, while they are obliged to always keep in mind the true human dimension as a priority in their plans, should not forget to give precedence to the phenomenon of growing poverty, desperation and hopelessness. Unfortunately, instead of becoming fewer, the poor are becoming more numerous.

Clearly, the motivating concern for the poor – who are, in the very meaningful term, the Lord’s poor –must be translated at all levels into concrete actions, until it decisively attains a series of necessary reforms. We need to reform certain unjust structures and in particular our political institutions, in order to replace corrupt, inept regimes with less corrupt and more competent ones. For the health of a political community is the necessary condition and sure guarantee of the development of the whole individual and of all persons.

None of what has been said here can be achieved without the honest collaboration of all in the framework of a solidarity which includes everyone, beginning with the most neglected. But at the same time, solidarity demands a readiness to accept the sacrifices necessary for the good of the whole community.

We therefore wish to appeal with simplicity and humility to everyone, to all men and women in our country without exception. We wish to ask them to be convinced of the seriousness of the present moment and of each one’s individual responsibility, and to implement – by the way they live as individuals and as families, by the use of their resources, by their civic activity, by contributing to economic and political decisions, and by personal commitment to national undertakings – the measures inspired by solidarity and love of the preference for the poor. This is what is demanded by the present moment and above all by the very dignity of the human person and not by the betrayal of Rupiah and his treacherous and opportunistic women at NGOCC and Women for Change.

Labels: RUPIAH BANDA, TELESPHORE MPUNDU, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 7:50 PM