Maravi

Rupiah and the naked emperor

Rupiah and the naked emperor
Written by Editor

Government leaderships, due to their multiple tasks in the state apparatus as well as in their political parties, can fall, and in fact in some countries, have fallen into a state of great detachment from the masses. As a result, they have been ignorant of the state of mind of the masses.

Has Rupiah Banda and his government fallen into this? Has their leadership been surprised at any point by concerns of the population that weren’t detected in time? Is Rupiah’s government free from that danger that has brought so many difficulties in other countries?

There appears, in our view, to be no continuous contact with the masses on Rupiah’s part. And whatever contact is there seems to be at the abstract level and not in a very concrete manner.

And besides that, the ruling party - the MMD - has not taken care to establish permanent links with the totality of the population, so that their problems and judgments reach Rupiah or the high levels of leadership as rapidly and as accurately as possible.

In this sense, the ruling party is a bad political instrument, and we would say that it needs to do a lot to improve its political linkages with the masses. There is need for the ruling party to engage in wider political activity, concern itself with the problems of the people, of the masses in general, perceive their concerns and transmit them to the leadership of the government.

As things stand today, there isn’t a permanent barometer of the feelings and judgments of our people. It’s very clear that criticism has not yet reached a maturation point. There is sometimes a certain inhibition, an excessive caution in the exercise of criticism, motivated by the desire to keep one’s job, not to be seen to be irresponsible or disruptive, which would not be, in any way, an adequate way of projecting the feelings and judgments of society.

There is need to promote meaningful participation. And the decisive factors in terms of the participation of the people in the transformation of their society reside in the raising of the cultural and political levels of the masses. We have to realise that the present processes of guiding society are very complex. These are not the times of the Greek agora, where the decisions that had to be adopted were few and relatively simple. The scientific-technical revolution imposes demands that tend to elevate the role of technocrats.

Planning, for example, involves a number of technical decisions. If all segments of society were to participate in them, they would need a level of scientific understanding of the economy greater than what our people have achieved with only a seventh grade education. A society that achieves adequate cultural and technical levels will reach a more complete and mature form of self-government than a society of illiterate or semi-literate people.

We have a serious problem in this area. To the extent that criticism is insufficient and superficial and to the extent that transmission channels are not fully utilised, it is possible that certain problems do not strike the leaders’ sensitivities with the necessary rapidity. And this is a grave problem in our country today. There are so many cases in which negative phenomena, which have been rejected by the population nationally, do not reach the leadership sooner than later or if it reaches the leadership, it is ignored because the leadership has a different understanding or interests.

And it will be wise for us to take seriously the advice of Nelson Mandela on this score: “A leadership commits a crime against its own people if it hesitates to sharpen its political weapons which have become less effective…it is important to surround yourself with strong and independent personalities, who will tell you when you are getting old.”

It is clear to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear that Rupiah is at sea. He doesn’t seem to know where he is headed, and that is dangerous. Rupiah’s great achievement since he became president seems to be directionless leadership: he seems to be in control, as Ronnie Shikapwasha was saying the other day, but no one knows where he is leading. Every one of us makes mistakes in whatever we do.

But few people have been consistently wrong on all the great issues that faced our nation over the last 10 months or so, as Rupiah has been. We have doubts that Rupiah can adequately define the purpose of his government. What seems to guide Rupiah is the leisure of being president, the travelling and all sorts of merriments that accompany this job. And to us, this is not a recipe for governing well.

One cannot run a country forever on such lines. The man is enjoying a long holiday and doesn’t care much to know what is going on. And all that he wants to hear every day is that all is well except for the malice of a few disgruntled elements at The Post, in PF and UPND. That’s all he wants to hear. The rest, he doesn’t want to hear. He doesn’t want to hear the truth that is coming from George Mpombo’s mouth.

Rupiah doesn’t want to listen to the good advice that is coming from the leadership of the Catholic Church; he doesn’t want to listen to sensible politicians like Charles Milupi. Rupiah is truly that emperor Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen was talking about in the Emperor’s New Clothes. This is the emperor who cared more about entertainment than his duties and hired two swindlers to create a new suit of clothes for him. And the swindlers told him that the clothes would be invisible to anyone who is either stupid or unfit for his position. This stupid emperor could not see the non-existent clothes, but pretended that he was seeing them for fear of appearing stupid and his ministers and advisors did the same. When the clothes were finished, the emperor went on a procession showing his new clothes until a small child cried out, “the Emperor is naked.”

However the stupid emperor held his head high and continued the procession. This is what is happening to Rupiah and those around him. When one meets them in privacy, they admit and confess that all is not well, there is confusion and chaos around Rupiah. Meet any of them if they trust you enough, they will tell you that. But they never tell Rupiah that. Why? It’s simply because they don’t want to lose their jobs and Rupiah’s favour. This is how Rupiah is living and governing the country today. All he is told is what he wants to hear, he is never told what he doesn’t want to know. And what he doesn’t want to know is that things are not well in the country; that there are problems with his approach to governance. And one good example of this is his claim against us that we had pocketed US $30 million from state institutions through Zambian Airways to build and purchase houses and strange cars. His investigative agencies have done everything possible and have not discovered any wrongdoing on our part; they have not found a single ngwee or cent that has been received by us in any way from any state institution through Zambian Airways. When we meet them in privacy, they tell us all these things and confess that their investigations have yielded nothing against us. But they can’t tell the Zambian emperor this because it is not what he wants to hear. They would rather call press conferences and claim they are making progress in their investigations; that their investigations have reached an advanced stage and all sorts of other lies that the emperor wants to hear. This is how our country is being governed today. This is a recipe for disaster because when they run into trouble, they have serious difficulties accepting the realities on the ground and they become vicious, trying to accuse innocent citizens of all sorts of crimes to cover up their own failures. And in this way, they start to rely heavily on the police to solve the political and social problems they have created. We know that a leader who relies on the police to solve what are clearly political or social problems is bound to come to grief.

As we have already explained, we note in the conduct and expression of certain diverse elements of our nation signs of the same weakness that were exhibited by that stupid emperor and those who surrounded him, of the poverty of spirit and timid psychology of the fainthearted which flourishes in times of trouble. It comes as no surprise that among those inclined to fall prey to this are those who avoid facing up to problems because they are more concerned about retaining the positions they hold in government or the ruling party than about the needs of the people they are supposed to serve. With this type of approach, it is not possible to have the active involvement and participation of the masses in all areas that affect their lives, in the expansion and deepening of genuine democracy.

And in case there were to remain any doubts among those who are so naïve as to take pleasure in deceiving themselves or allowing themselves to be deceived or to bury their heads in the sand in the ostrich style and think by so doing, the problems they are facing will go away, they are headed for a rude awakening. Whoever doesn’t see it that way is near-sighted. Whoever doesn’t see it that way is blind. Whoever doesn’t see it that way is a naked emperor or his aide.

But what is happening is not accidental. This is the way Rupiah wants it to be. He doesn’t want to know and be disturbed by the problems that are going on. And that’s why he only wants to hear that which is favourable to him. Clearly, Rupiah’s actions in these matters are not the product of oversight nor are they unconscious, but rather they are deliberate and conscious. Rupiah has simply allowed himself to be blinded by personal ambition, love for power and its sweetness. As a result of this, he has created a series of problems, in a word, he has created veritable chaos in the nation. And as such his leadership is infested with flatterers and fawners, with position seekers.

Labels: CHARLES MILUPI, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 12:17 AM