Maravi

What do these people really believe in?

What do these people really believe in?
By The Post
Mon 12 July 2010, 04:00 CAT

THE very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. And accordingly, leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision. The best vision is inside. To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.

We say all this in light of what Rupiah Banda said last Thursday about a person without education who is focused being able to lead a country. Rupiah went to great length explaining this point in praise of visiting Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

And he said: “The problem with some of us, especially those of us who were colonised and educated by the British, is that we think education is everything. This man President Lula never went to university and yet he learnt a lot of things through life. What this is teaching us is that you can grow big if you are focused. This President Lula is the only president without a university degree and yet he has built more universities than any other president. This man here is even building a university that will have 40 per cent of students coming from Africa.”

This was what Rupiah said. It is difficult to believe that these words actually came from Rupiah’s mouth. We say this because not very long ago, Rupiah’s political party and government vigorously pushed through the National Constitution Commission a clause requiring a presidential candidate to have a university degree.

Many people told them that this was not necessary and gave many reasons to justify their position. But they were not ready to listen to any reason from anyone no matter how sound it might have been. Their focus was only on one thing: to find a way of stopping Michael Sata, whom they believed did not possess a university degree, from contesting next year’s presidential elections. This is all that preoccupied their minds, and nothing else.

Opportunists from some opposition parties that thought this would increase their chances in next year’s elections also joined Rupiah’s party and government in this criminal connivance to stop Sata from contesting next year’s elections. Here, there was no issue of principle. It was all about political expedience. And this is how reckless we can be with our lives and our future – constructing a constitution on the basis of political expedience and not principles. Coming up with a constitutional clause aimed at only one person.

We say this because if Rupiah truly believed that a person without a university degree is not fit to lead a country as president, he wouldn’t have said all those things he said about Lula. Sometimes it’s difficult to really know what our politicians believe in because in one breath they say one thing, and in another they do the opposite.

It is really difficult to know what our politicians stand for because they change so quickly, probably quicker than a chameleon changes its colours. It is true that those who stand for nothing fall for anything – they can be made to support anything and to denounce anything with ease. And how can such politicians be of real influence to our people? We ask this question because example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing. You can’t lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself. Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.

José Marti, an outstanding hero and forerunner of Cuba’s liberation, said that “Doing is the best way of saying.” Truly, living is the best way of believing. Our way of life is the result of what we believe.

To remind Rupiah about all this is insulting him, is expressing hatred towards him and his government. But leaders, and indeed all of us, should accept to live with the consequences of everything we say. Truth, wisdom and good sense – these are worth paying for, but too valuable for anyone to sell.

What we are seeing today in our country is what happens in a nation when principles, values and standards are lost; when leaders become little demigods who are not answerable to anyone but only to their inner demons.

As we have stated before, the individual does best in a strong and decent community of people with principles, standards, common aims and values. We need politics that are rooted in a straightforward view of society.

We sometimes wonder how future generations will judge the decisions that are being made in our country today.

There’s need for our politicians to know that this country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless it is a good place for all of us to live in.

There’s need for Rupiah, in the interest of accountability and honesty, to explain to the Zambian people why he is finding it acceptable and suitable for Brazil, such a big, complex and advanced country to have a president without a degree and find the same to be unacceptable for a relatively small and simple country like Zambia. Probably the only honest explanation Rupiah can give is that Lula is not challenging him for the Zambian presidency in next year’s election. This is not the way to lead the country; this is not the way to make laws for a country. This is abuse of power. This is corruption. This is selfishness that shouldn’t be allowed in our country.

It’s clear that this whole clause about a university degree for a presidential candidate is premised on greed, selfishness and total lack of respect for others. But we know that the selfish and dishonest man has in himself his own punishment. Selfishness and dishonesty kills more than the sword. The selfish and dishonest man realises that he is a mean and trivial person who doesn’t deserve public trust for a long time. He will never have high and noble aspirations.

The consequences of this type of leadership are blindness of mind, inconstancy and heedlessness. It’s always important to remember that there’s no vice that can become a virtue no matter how much propaganda we cover it with – vice is not virtue as light is not darkness.

Labels: CONSTITUTION, LULA DA SILVA, NCC, PRESIDENCY, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 4:05 AM