Maravi

Man in the mirror

Man in the mirror
By Editor
Thu 05 Nov. 2009, 04:00 CAT

Ronnie Shikapwasha is the most dishonest reverend we have ever known.
Shikapwasha is also the most incompetent government spokesman we have ever known.

He seriously lacks the intelligence and honesty required for this type of job. Shikapwasha doesn't even know how to cover up the lies, failures or mistakes of his government and of his boss.

Shikapwasha is accusing us of insulting his master, his employer, his boss Rupiah Banda. But he forgets to mention the fact that it is Rupiah Banda who has been insulting us, who has been telling lies about us.

The Post has never insulted Rupiah. It is Rupiah who has been insulting us. Everything we have published on or about Rupiah is true, has a basis, and can be proved or justified.

We have called Rupiah a liar and we can prove that indeed he is a liar because he has lied about us. We have accused Rupiah of promoting tribalism and regionalism. And we can prove it from his own statements, words that have come from his own mouth that to date Rupiah has never repudiated or apologised for. We have also accused Rupiah of electoral corruption and bribery.

Again, we can prove it that Rupiah has been involved in such vices. And it is true that we are not the first ones to expose or accuse Rupiah of electoral corruption. The first newspaper in this country to expose Rupiah's corruption and electoral bribery was the Times of Zambia in 1991.

Rupiah has insulted us on many occasions. Rupiah has called us queer, morbid and all sorts of things at State House press conferences. Rupiah knows very well that he has no evidence to prove any of such claims against us but he has gone to make these charges out of hatred for us and in a malicious bid to humiliate us and lower our public standing. But fortunately, the Zambian people know us better and have not been swayed by Rupiah's lies and malice against us.

As if all this was not enough, Rupiah has gone out to accuse us of pocketing US$ 30 million from state institutions through Zambian Airways without any bit of evidence in his hands other than the malice and hate in his heart for us. To Shikapwasha, all these are not insults.

Even if we were to insult back at Rupiah, we would be justified in doing so because a king who insults his subjects instantly loses his right not to be insulted. We have every right to insult Rupiah back for every insult he unleashes on us. But we have not taken that route because it's irrational for us to follow Rupiah's irrationality. We cannot allow ourselves to sink so low and be guided by low levels of reasoning, by malice, vengefulness and hate.

Shikapwasha talks about irresponsibility and bad reporting on our part. To people like Shikapwasha, exposing the corruption of a president like we did in the case of Frederick Chiluba is irresponsible and bad reporting. But we believe that our people have a divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, we mean the character and conduct of those who govern the affairs of their country.

To Shikapwasha, exposing and denouncing such misdeeds, reporting on the characters and conduct of politicians in government is irresponsible and bad reporting. If this is the case, then we think the best newspaper in Zambia today is probably the most irresponsible and bad newspaper.

As we stated yesterday, we are not scared of whatever threats of regulation Rupiah and his minions want to impose on the media. We know very well, and the Zambian people are also very much aware, that all this talk of regulation of the media is aimed at no one else but The Post.

But this is a waste of time. The Post has always operated under very difficult circumstances. Everything bad has been done to us. Whatever regulations they come up with will not be able to stop our work. What they will succeed in is the stifling of public discourse. The likes of the famous Proud, the committed and patriotic Zambian who every day invests a huge amount of his hard-earned income to participate in the affairs of his country, are the ones who are going to suffer the suffocation of Rupiah's media regulation.

The voice of Proud may be silenced. But for us who support and defend freedom of speech and expression, out of the conviction that, in the end, open public debate will lead to greater truth and wiser public actions than if speech and dissent are stifled, know that suppression of the media will not affect only the journalists. It will affect much more the public. Suppressing or restricting, in any way, the work of a messenger may affect him but the ultimate loser, the one who is most affected is the ultimate recipient of the messengers' work or message. The media doesn't work for itself. It works for others and when its work is affected or restricted in any way, it is those it works for who will suffer the most.

But there will be serious consequences if the voices of the likes of Proud, the many letters and columns that are carried by the media, including this column - the editorial comments of The Post - are stifled, hindered or restricted in any way. We say this because the suppression of speech, of stories, of writings that we find offensive today is potentially a threat to our exercise of free speech, free expression tomorrow - which perhaps someone else might find offensive.

All our people, including Rupiah and his minions like Shikapwasha, will be harmed by the restrictions, suppression, repression of the media, by the laws that they want to impose on the media. If the stories, the comments, opinions they are trying to regulate, to curtail or stifle are right, our people will be deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth. If wrong, our people will lose the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error. This is probably why it is said that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.

As we have repeatedly pointed out, few would argue that everything the media does is correct and is responsibly carried out. But this can also be said to be so about those who govern our country, including that which is done by Rupiah, Shikapwasha and their other friends. We all have limitations in our work which we need to constantly try to overcome. And a solution to the deficiencies in the media will not be overcome by Rupiah devising laws that set some arbitrary definition of good or responsible journalism and bad or irresponsible reporting or indeed to licence journalists. The solution lies in broadening the level of public discourse so that citizens can better sift through the chuff of misinformation and rhetoric to find the kernels of truth.

Shikapwasha says The Post's reporting has painted a bad image of the country in the Diaspora. The media is like a mirror. It reflects the image before it. Sometimes we don't like the images of ourselves that we see in the mirror and sometimes justifiably so. But if one doesn't like the image they see of themselves in the mirror the solution is not to break the mirror but to simply change their rules in so many ways - plastic surgery, padding one's face with make-up and so on and so forth.

What Rupiah and his minions are trying to do is to devise laws that make the media reflect them only in the way they want to see themselves without regard to the correctness of the image that is before the mirror. Even if they steal public funds, they still want the mirror to reflect them as honest people who are serving the Zambian people truthfully, heart and soul. They want a media that conceals their transgressions, their intolerance and corruption.

They don't want a media that exposes their corruption and calls them thieves when they have stolen; a media that calls them liars when they lie; stupid when they act stupidly and so on and so forth. This reminds us of a remark Samora Machel made about the stupid politeness that had started to manifest itself in Mozambique where a thief was referred to as comrade: "comrade thief came to steal from my house..." Samora wondered how a thief can be a comrade. He said it was an abuse of the word "comrade" to refer to a person who has stolen from you as "comrade thief".

This is what Rupiah and his friends want us to do: to refer to them as his excellence or honourable when their deeds fall far below excellence and honourable. A president or public official who steals public funds does not deserve to go under the title of excellency or honourable. What is excellent or honourable about a thief? To them, this doesn't matter and this explains why they are today defending Chiluba and treating him as his excellency when the man is nothing but a rotten and stinking thief from whom the Zambian people need to recover over US$ 45 million ordered by the London High Court.

Rupiah, Shikapwasha and their likes can call us all sorts of names but they will never succeed in diminishing our contribution to the governance of our country. For all our mistakes, deficiencies - and these are many - no one can successfully rubbish our work and render it useless.

Over the last 18 years we have made a contribution to our country that no one can wipe out; we have performed our duty with sufficient honour and integrity. There are many things we didn't know when we set off on this path but we have learnt from our mistakes and we are every day working in our deficiencies. Our knowledge of things, although still limited, has improved and deepened tremendously.

Unlike Shikapwasha who is satisfied with being dull and ignorant, we are always improving ourselves and our work so that we can serve the Zambian people and humanity better - we are learning and discovering better ways of doing our work all the time. And no amount of regulation, repression or suppression will divert our attention from this approach, from this path. The problem is not with us, it is with them.

They should start working on themselves before they turn to us. There is more that is wrong with them than with us. It is said that if you want to change the world, you should start with the man in the mirror.

Labels: RONNIE SHIKAPWASHA, RUPIAH BANDA, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 6:42 AM