Maravi

Some more wisdom from Sindamisale

Some more wisdom from Sindamisale
By Editor
Sun 20 June 2010, 04:00 CAT

What the Zambian people are seeking is genuine democracy in which the political leaders are servants of the people, of the electorate and not its masters.

Poverty will not be meaningfully addressed in this country until we have honest and humble political leaders who see politics as a vocation to serve their people; who see politics as a way of building up society for the common good; who are aware that politics is an area of great importance for promoting justice, development and community among all.

For these reasons, we urge our people to vote wisely in whatever elections they participate in and only vote for people who are known for their honesty, ability, dedication and concern for the welfare of all.

This is effectively what Col Panji Kaunda is urging our people to seriously consider. We agree with Col Panji that “…since 1991, our government has been a government of politicians and not of Zambians” and that our leaders are just serving themselves and not the people they are elected to serve.

Col Panji reminds us of the deep inequalities in our society. While some people are using political power to enrich themselves, to live well, the great majority of our people are facing increasing poverty and despair. The great majority of our people are worse off today than they were in 1991 when Dr Kenneth Kaunda left government.

Yes, there are many consumer goods in our shops today. There are all sorts of brands of this and that product. The liberation of South Africa and the end of the apartheid regime and the sanctions that surrounded it has ensured a continuous flow of all sorts of consumer goods into our country. The shortages that we used to experience before freedom in South Africa are no longer there.

But this does not mean that our people are today living better than they were before. Over 70 per cent of our people live on less than a dollar a day with no access to the basic services required in an organised society. In villages where people used to have three meals a day, including tea and bread, today they can hardly afford a meal. KK’s government cared for the poorest of our people and tried to make them the centre or focus of government policy. The social inequalities were not as glaring as they are today.

But we know the main source of all this wealth that individuals seem to possess today – government business, tenderprenuership, corruption and outright theft of government resources. But the poor are not benefitting from all this. Their situation is getting worse. And it is not only the poor in rural areas because there is also a growing urban poor.

There is anger in this country at the increasing poverty and despair, the devastation brought about by the approaches of the successive MMD governments to our people’s problems.

But strangely, this anger seems to be mixed with despair, a feeling that seems to suggest that the problems are just too great, too complex, to be dealt with by any government or any policy. Probably the government propaganda that continuously tried to inculcate this feeling in our people is working. We disagree with it, we contend it, because there are alternatives to this madness, irrationality, wastefulness and corruption that is depriving our people of essential services and a better life.

And Col Panji understands and articulates these problems very well and what needs to be done because he is from the people, he is of the people, he lives with the same realities as everybody else lives with in that rural sub boma of Sindamisale.

Today, so many people want to become members of parliament or presidents. For what? Talking to some of them, one clearly sees that they have no interests of the people at heart. They simply want to get into public office because of ambition or pleasure or for some of them for a job to make some money. But you can’t play politics, games with people’s lives. The people will not, cannot, abide by posturing.

In late 2008, we held presidential elections that brought Rupiah Banda to power. Rupiah and his friends celebrated the electoral victory. But whose victory was that? Certainly not victory for the people. We say this because all that we see arising from that victory are casualties; we see all the casualties. They are not to be found among the political leaders in government and in parliament; they are to be found among the people whose jobs are destroyed, whose sources of livelihoods have been lost, whose services are cashed, whose living standards are pushed down to deeper depths of insecurity and misery. These are vile times and something has to be done to move our people out of this misery.

This reminds us of KK and his comrades. They had no limitations in terms of resources than we probably have today. But look at what they did for the people.

They truly put jobs and services and the wellbeing of their people before other considerations. They didn’t steal or abuse public resources to enrich themselves.

And their lives today show clearly what type of government they led. These comrades have nothing other than their dignity; they live poor lives but still go around with dignity and a smile on their faces. They had to make hellish choices. We understand it. We must agonise with them in the choices they had to make. They found ways. They used all their creativity to find ways that would best protect those whom they were elected to defend. KK and his comrades were leaders prepared to take decisions, to meet obligations, to give service. They knew life was real, life was earnest – too real, too earnest to live to chance and to allow them to mistake their own individual interests for those of the people, especially the poor.

There is need to address the issues that Col Panji is raising if we have to harbour any hope of a reversal of fortunes for the poor. There is need to know where we are going and how we are going to get there and when we are going to get there. There is no need to just drift along hoping something good will come our way by some luck or fortune.

There is need for all our people to unite on this score. They have united in the past to change things, but no time will be more important than next year.

We are now engaged in a struggle for the souls and future of Zambia. And most of all, we are the trustees of a dream that KK and his comrade have passed on to us. They left us their vision, their values and the hopes they awakened. Our journey to progress and prosperity for our country is unfinished. We need to change things in order to march again towards these enduring ideals and we shouldn’t settle for things as they are. We must work unceasingly to lift this nation to a higher destiny, to a new plateau of compassion.

And each time anyone of us stands up, like the way Col Panji has done, for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And a mixture of these, from all sorts of directions, is unstoppable and can deliver our people from poverty and injustice.

The future beckons us. Wither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To free the common man from poverty and despair and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every citizen of this country. We have hard work ahead, there should be no resting for any of us till we redeem the pledge the liberators of our country made to our people, till we make all the people of Zambia what destiny intended them to be. We cannot continue to have a country plagued by so many inequalities and injustices because such a country cannot achieve anything. We can’t continue to have a political leadership that tries to live in the skies when people have no food, medicines and shelter. We need a political leadership that squares up to the challenges and problems facing our people. Politics is not a casino where people go and gamble; politics is a very serious matter because it deals with people’s lives. Those who are not serious should have no place in the political leadership of our country.

This is why we have to take very seriously this wisdom, this additional wisdom and compassion from the man from Sindamisale – Col Panji. We can question so many things about him but we cannot question his understanding and compassion for our people and the way they live.

Labels: CHIEF CHIPEPO, PANJI KAUNDA, WOMEN

posted by MrK @ 5:31 AM