Tyranny extends to students

Tyranny extends to students
Written by Editor

A government that exists to serve the people has no reason to resort to repression. Governance is about service. Repression has to do with taking away the rights of the people. It is a contradiction for a government that claims to exist for the benefit of its people to resort to repressive methods.

In almost every instance where a government resorts to repression, the underlying cause has to do with protecting the status quo and privileges of those in power. We say this because it would not make any sense for the government to oppress the people for their benefit.

For anyone who was in doubt about where Rupiah Banda and his minions want to lead this country, the writing is on the wall. It is clear for all to see. What we have is a repressive regime, intolerant of democratic values. What may have appeared as isolated or unconnected mistakes or errors of judgment are now falling like clear mosaic of what type of government Rupiah is running.

Rupiah and his minions may pretend to be democrats and once may chant some slogans that would qualify them as such. But anyone caring to examine their pronouncements and deeds carefully soon realises that these are unconverted tyrants living in an era that many of us would like forgotten.

Rupiah has embarked on a systematic assault on all possible sources of dissent in our country. There is nothing uncoordinated about his assault on the media, NGOs, church organisations and now student organisations. It is clear that his underlying strategy is to intimidate and eliminate any organisation and individuals who attempt to challenge his hold on power.

The preferred method of executing his strategy is to hide behind the law. His government behaving like a classical dictatorship is determined to push illegitimate and ill-conceived interpretations of the law to frustrate and emasculate the effectiveness of civil society in general.

In relation to the media, it is clear that Rupiah’s government wants to control what we say, when we say it and how we say it. As we have said before, when they talk about regulating the media, they do not intend to ensure that the public is better informed about what is going on in their country and indeed about that most dreaded and envied kind of information, we mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.

On the contrary, they want to make sure that they can limit what the people hear so that they can continue to monopolise power and influence for their own personal aggrandisement. We will not be surprised if Rupiah and his minions carry out their threats to impose statutory media regulation. Everything about the way they behave tells us that this is what they want to do.

It is just one key plank in their scheme to perfect their repression. They want to be able to say they are only fulfilling the law when they brutalise journalists and stop us from performing our duties. It is not a matter of sheer coincidence that the abuse of journalists has increased exponentially in the short period that Rupiah has been President. In fact, the short period that Rupiah has been in State House feels like a very long time. So many wrong things have happened that it is difficult to believe that somebody can do so much wrong in such a very short time. But this is the reality. We do not expect the ill-treatment of the media and civil society in general to change under Rupiah. As we head towards the next election, we should brace ourselves for more difficult times ahead.

Look at the way Rupiah wants to deal with the NGOs? This has nothing to do with him and his minions trying to protect our country. Their scheme is clear. The NGOs that they support, or that support them, will thrive. Those NGOs who try to stand for what benefits the people and oppose or question what Rupiah and his minions are doing will pay a price. This is the nature and quality of governance under Rupiah. It is not the first time that we are seeing this. Under Frederick Chiluba, we saw many so-called NGOs formed to champion his causes. Most of these disappeared as soon as Chiluba left office. Since Rupiah came to power, some of the same characters that Chiluba used to champion his evil schemes are back as NGO activists. For these characters to be heard, they need to work with government-controlled media.

Everybody knows what they are about. They are hired guns who live for what they can get on that particular day. Rupiah will not tolerate an independent civil society. He will do everything in his power to repress independent thought. This is the kind of person we are dealing with.

No one can deny that we have made some advances in democracy as a country. We have an imperfect system but many of us thought we were heading in the right direction. Rupiah is determined to reverse all that. Unless he is stopped, we will find ourselves back in the Stone Age.

When last did we hear about university students being expelled because of being representatives of their fellow students? We would not be surprised if the current generation of students born in the mid to late 1980s do not even know that there was a time when students were routinely expelled after student demonstrations.

Many members of the students’ union lost significant numbers of academic years to expulsions and suspensions because of their student activism. But also it cannot be denied that most of these students have emerged from that to become some of our best citizens in many areas of human endeavour.

Wherever there is tyranny, it is always the young people, the students who bear the worst brunt of it. And our young people at the Copperbelt University and the University of Zambia should brace themselves for more difficult days. We say this because Rupiah and his minions know very well that all over the world, it is young people who are actually involving themselves in the struggle to eliminate tyranny.

They are the ones who most quickly identify with the struggle and the necessity to eliminate the unacceptable conditions that exist. Having set his sights on the media, the NGOs, church organisations, it is only logical that Rupiah should now target students who more often than not have been catalysts for change in history. And every pretext will be used to justify Rupiah’s tyranny against them.

It should be very clear to everyone now that Rupiah has serious problems managing a democracy. We say this because democracy is nothing but the management of conflict, compromise and consensus. Human beings possess a variety of sometimes contradictory desires. People want safety yet relish adventure; they aspire to individual freedom yet demand social equality. Democracy is no different, and it is important to recognise that many of these tensions, even paradoxes, are present in every democratic society. However, a central paradox exists between conflict and consensus. Democracy is in many ways nothing more than a set of rules and practices for managing conflict.

At the same time, this conflict must be managed within certain limits and result in compromises, consensus or other agreements that all sides accept as legitimate. An overemphasis on one side of the equation can threaten the entire undertaking. If Rupiah and his minions in the governing MMD perceive democracy as nothing more than a forum in which they can force their desires and wishes on all of us, the nation can be crushed from above.

This tells us that democracy is not a machine that runs by itself once the proper principles and procedure are inserted. A democratic society needs the commitment of citizens who accept the inevitability of conflict as well as the necessity for tolerance. And this is why democracies make several assumptions about human nature. And one is that, given the chance, people are generally capable of governing themselves in a manner that is fair and free.

Another is that any society comprises a great diversity of interests and individuals who deserve to have their voices heard and their views respected. As a result, one thing is said to be true of all healthy democracies: they are noisy. And for tyrants, this is unacceptable; it is something that must be stopped, must be crushed. And this is the behaviour, this is the attitude that we see every day from Rupiah and his minions – the noise must be stopped so that they can do whatever they want without being challenged, without being questioned; without having to compromise and reach consensus with anyone. Their evil schemes should prevail in everything and at all times. A democracy cannot be run that way. It’s only under tyranny that such an approach can be contemplated.

It is not possible to be a true democrat without being interested in public welfare and public good. Those who practice politics of benefits cannot be democrats. We say this because when practiced correctly, democracy curtails greed, selfishness, vanity and all other forms of abuses of power. In this way democracy ensures that the exercise of power is the constant practice of self-limitation and modesty.

Tyranny on the other hand is a shameless exercise of power. It is not bothered with the proper and fair application of the law. Tyranny does not even allow common sense to interfere with its excesses. This is what we see in the behaviour of Rupiah and his minions.

To them, being in power means being in charge of everything, having the final say on everything, deciding every government contract without even pretending to follow laid down tender procedures; it means that only them have the mandate to speak. To them there is nothing wrong with Rupiah and his minions controlling the judiciary, parliament, the media, the churches, NGOs, and even student organisations. But we know that it’s only tyrannical regimes that look at things this way. We say this because in a democracy, the voice of those in government is just one among many.

The voices of democracy include, of course those of the government, its political supporters and opposition. But they are joined by the voices of the labour unions, organised interest groups, community associations, the news media, scholars and critics, religious leaders and writers, small businesses and large corporations, churches, schools, universities and so on and so forth. All these groups are free to raise their voices and participate in the democratic political process without inhibition, harassment or intimidation by those in government, by the president and his minions.

In this way, democratic politics acts as a filter through which the vocal demands of a diverse populace pass on the way to becoming public policy. We can contrast this with what Rupiah is doing: his wishes have to be carried through by the country’s judicial process, his electoral desires have to be realised by the electoral commission; his enemies – real or perceived – have to be pursued by the police for all sorts of alleged crimes while his friends go scot-free for crimes they have committed, and are even protected by the Director of Public Prosecutions. This is how tyrants operate. And this is how Rupiah is operating.

This desire to control is what later translates itself into atrocity. We have warned Rupiah before and we warn him again that the rate at which he is driving things will cause him to commit atrocities. A government that refuses to be governed by the law and common sense is bound to commit atrocities. And the great lesson of our time is that no regime can survive if it acts above the heads of the ordinary or common citizens of the country. There are also great lessons the world over that when it comes to young people, more care and tolerance is required in their handling because these young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of tyranny and raising the banners of democracy.

The expulsion of the Copperbelt University students union is a tasteless abuse of authority visited upon young people whose only sin is trying to be useful to their country. Rupiah and his minions should take responsibility for this and should not pretend that they are not part of this. There is no way the management of Copperbelt University can decide to totally overlook the law and deal with the student leaders as if they have no legal basis for existing as a union. The University Act clearly establishes their existence under Section 39: “There shall be a student’s union in each public university.” This disregard can only be with the complicity of Rupiah.

We join the voices of reason demanding the immediate reinstatement of all the expelled and suspended students. And we make a clarion call to all our people to join the students in demanding the reinstatement of their expelled and suspended colleagues.