Maravi

We get the govt we deserve

We get the govt we deserve
By Editor
Sat 24 Oct. 2009, 04:00 CAT

Things develop ceaselessly. It is only 45 years since our independence from British colonial rule on October 24, 1964.

In another 15 years, Zambia’s independence will be as old as the Chinese Revolution is today – 60 years old. This reminds us what the leader of the Chinese Revolution, Mao Tsetung, said in November 1956: “In another 45 years, that is, the year 2001, or the beginning of the 21st century, China will have undergone an even greater change.

She will have become a powerful industrial country. And that is as it should be. China is a land with an area of 9.6 million square kilometres and a population of 600 million people, and she ought to have made a greater contribution to humanity. Her contribution over a long period has been far too small. For this we are regretful.” This was seven years after the triumph of the Revolution that Mao led. Who can today dispute Mao’s prediction that in 2001, China would be an industrial country?

The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese people are not where they are today by accident. They planned for the development of their country and struggled ceaselessly to realise their dreams. We too have no alternative but to continue dreaming about a better future and accordingly plan for it and struggle to make it a reality.

We must continue dreaming, with the hope that a better Zambia will become a reality – as it will, if we keep struggling. We should never renounce our dreams, our utopias. Struggling for utopia means, in part, building it. It is said that today’s dreams were tomorrow’s reality. We should keep on dreaming of things that will become reality some day, both in our country and in the world as a whole.

If we don’t think this way, we should stop struggling, for the only logical conclusion would be to abandon the struggle for a better Zambia, for a better world and resign ourselves to whatever fate. But we think that a revolutionary never abandons the struggle, just as they never stop dreaming. And when we talk about a revolutionary, we are not confining ourselves to one type of revolutionaries, but to all who are struggling for a more just, fair and humane world whatever their outlook.

We are now taking over from a generation that fought for our independence, a generation now reaching the end of a long and heroic struggle. They fought a noble battle and lived their lives in pursuit of a better life for all who follow.

The independence day we are commemorating today is the sweet fruit of their lives of struggle and sacrifice. And the best way we can honour them is by making their dreams a reality. We have lost many years of serious work; we have let them down by the poor quality of leadership we constructed to carry on from where they left. But not all is lost.

We can catch up if we put in more effort in our work. We are perfectly capable of deciding upon the future of our country and dealing with any dangers which might arise.
We need to exert ourselves much more, and break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful; those in command of immense market power and those who dare to fashion the world in their own image. Our people have the capacity to bring about change and progress.

But we should abandon methods that will lead us into another form of subjugation in the 21st century. It would be a cruel irony of history if our actions to regenerate our country were to unleash a new form of subjugation, like that of the 19th and 20th centuries, plundered our country’s wealth and left us once more the poorer.

Our people are yearning and deserve to redeem their glory, to reassert their centuries-old contribution to economics, politics, culture and the arts; and once more, to be pioneers in the many fields of human endeavour.

But as we dream and work for this regeneration, we should remain conscious of the fact that our efforts can only succeed as part of the development of a new and equitable world order in which all of us who were previously colonised and marginalised take our rightful place as makers of history rather than the possessions of others.

In this life, we get nothing save by effort. Look at the efforts of the Chinese people. Many in the world used to despise their efforts. But can anyone do so today? Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in a grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

It is hard to fail; but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Let us therefore boldly face the future with determination to move our country out of poverty and into prosperity. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. We have a lot of problems and challenges right now but let’s not give up on our dreams for a more prosperous Zambia, for a more fair, just and humane nation. We are suffering today, but suffering breeds character.

And character breeds faith. In the end, faith will not disappoint. It is said that the future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. It is also said that the struggle is not for the strong but for those who can endure.

Our country is not flourishing. The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nation is not being used sensibly.

But all this is not the main problem. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We have fallen morally ill because we have become used to saying something different from what we think. We have learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other, to care only about ourselves.

We have all become used to wrong ways of doing things, to bad governance and corruption and we seem to have accepted this as an unchangeable fact and thus helping to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all responsible for the lack of progress and the rot that is going on in our country; 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 what is going on in our country as something alien, which some distant relative bequeathed us. On the contrary, we have to accept this as a sin we have 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 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 would also be wrong to expect a general remedy from them only.

The independence day that we are commemorating today ushered in a wave of freedom and democracy in our country. And freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all.

If we realise this, then we will recover the time and ground we have lost since independence and things will cease to appear so terrible. If we realise this, hope will return to our hearts and we will start to make progress and see a reversal of fortunes.
But we need to get back to politics based on morality and move away from the corrupt politics that Rupiah Banda’s government is riding high on.

Let us in a new time and in a new way restore 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, rob, plunder 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 calculation, intrigue, manipulation, deceit and corruption, but that it can even be the art of the impossible, namely, the art of improving ourselves and our country.

We should start to ask ourselves where our country will be in 15 years’ time when it turns 60. Are we going to be where China is at 60?
But we shouldn’t cheat ourselves that independence guarantees us everything. Actually the experience of the last 45 years clearly shows us that independence itself guarantees us nothing. It offers instead the opportunity to succeed as well as the risk of failure.

Independence is then both a promise and a challenge. It is a promise that as free human beings, working together, we can govern ourselves in a manner that will serve our aspirations for personal freedom, economic opportunity and social justice. It is a challenge because its success, its value rests upon our shoulders as citizens of this country and on no one else. It is said that a free man, when he fails, blames nobody.

It is true as well for us as citizens of an independent country who, finally, must take responsibility for the fate of our country. In the end, we get the government we deserve.

Labels: INDEPENDENCE

posted by MrK @ 9:56 AM