‘All govts must always listen to the people’

‘All govts must always listen to the people’
By The Post
Sat 26 Feb. 2011, 04:00 CAT

“I think all the governments must always listen to the people.” It’s Rupiah Banda saying this! What a beautiful, wonderful, correct statement!

“Please, listen to me. Try to understand me.” This is the cry of most Zambians at this moment. Arrogance, lack of humility, corruption, greed, vanity, fears, prejudices, hatred, suspicion, divisions and repression have closed our ears and hearts to one another, even to the people we are elected to lead or represent.

Yet each one of us wants to be heard and understood. Probably, we are all saying the same thing, but since we do not even make the effort to understand what others are saying, our problems and differences keep on growing from day to day. The result is what we are experiencing: intolerance, indifference to the plight and humanity of others, misunderstandings and a general atmosphere of hostility and suspicion.

The enjoyment of the right to peace requires that we resort to a genuine dialogue, and not a cosmetic dialogue, with each other. It is genuine dialogue that will bring about the end to intolerance and indifference to the plight of others. Such a genuine dialogue requires that people from different groupings, political or otherwise, open their ears and hearts to listen to each other, to learn and unlearn from each other.

But to listen, there has to be someone speaking. It is not possible to listen to nothing. One has to listen to someone speaking. Even for governments to listen, there must be some citizens speaking. Without citizens being able to exercise their freedom of speech, their freedom of assembly and protest, there will be nothing for any government to listen to.

Rupiah says that “all the governments must always listen to people” but he doesn’t want to allow people to speak. When people want to speak or express themselves, he harasses them, he sets his policemen on them to kill and maim.

This is our experience in Mongu. The Barotse Agreement activists were not listened to by Rupiah. They tried in so many ways to hold meetings and speak. But all such attempts were stopped by Rupiah’s government. The Barotse activists were totally denied their rights to assemble and express themselves on issues that matter to them. And in their pursuit of this right, some of them were killed or maimed for life by Rupiah’s government using brutal and disproportionate force. So we wonder what listening Rupiah is today talking about!

Probably he is not talking about his government but other governments in a ‘do as I say not as I do’ style and fashion. We say this because Rupiah doesn’t listen to anyone other than his own inner demons.

We all know that humankind’s ability to speak, speak up, speak out is the bedrock of civilisation. Even in the Gospel according to John, we are told: “Before the world was created, the Word already existed; he was with God, and he was the same as God. From the very beginning, the Word was with God. Through him, God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him. The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to mankind” (John 1:1-4).

It is a person’s self-expression as a political being in a society with the propensity to contribute to the decisions that affect one’s life and with the desire to live in a stable and peaceful society that is at a stage when the rights to expression and assembly are violated. The Barotse activists were denied every opportunity to express themselves. Even radio stations were not allowed to give them an opportunity to air their views. And to date, Radio Lyambai remains closed for simply giving Barotse activists a voice. And yet Rupiah is saying that “all the governments must always listen to the people”. Listen to nothing? We ask this question because when people try to speak so that they are listened to, Rupiah sets policemen on them to kill and maim, he arrests over 100 of them and charges them with treason. So what does he them want to listen to? Sweet nothings?

In a civilised society, citizens have a right to gather peacefully and protest the policies of their government or the actions of the other groups with demonstrations, marches, petitions, boycotts, strikes and other forms of direct citizen action. Direct action is open to everyone in a democracy. But in Zambia today, only those who support Rupiah and denounce his political opponents are allowed this direct action and enjoy unlimited state-owned television and radio airtime and unlimited space in government and ruling party-controlled newspapers. But we all know that by and large, protests or demonstrations are recognised and accepted by the people as an effective and powerful weapon. What meaningful political participation can citizens have if they are not allowed this direct action?

As we have stated before, protests, demonstrations and all sorts of other assemblies are a testing ground for any country or society that aspires to be democratic. The ideals of free expression and citizen participation are easy to defend when one remains polite and in agreement on basic issues. But protesters – and their targets – do not agree on basic issues, and such disagreements may be passionate and angry. But still they should be allowed to enjoy the freedom of expression and assembly. And this should not be arbitrarily taken away from them because someone in government or in the ruling party fears they will lose power as a result of that. It cannot be denied that protests can be effective political weapons because everyone is seeing that today in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain and so on and so forth. And probably this is the only explanation why tyrants and dictators of all hues detest them because they can lead to a loss of power.

All citizens should be equal in dignity and have equal rights. No person, situation, event or thing should be allowed to take away this dignity. Leaders who respect human dignity guarantee basic rights to all the people they rule and create opportunities for citizens to exercise their responsibilities. For this reason, human dignity transcends any social order as the basis for rights and is neither granted by society nor can it be legitimately violated by society. A just society can exist only when it respects the dignity of the human person. And the social order and this development must invariably work for the benefit of the human person. Therefore, the protection and promotion of the inviolable human rights should rank among the essential duties of government. The roots of human rights are to be found in the dignity that belongs to each human being. There will be no peace in Barotseland or in any other part of our country if this disrespect for the dignity of every citizen continues. We say this because peace is the fruit of honesty, truth and solidarity; it is the tranquility of order. And to guarantee peace, all are called to maturity, tolerance and responsibility. And responsibility entails that those who killed those innocent young people in Mongu, and those who injured or maimed many others should be brought to bear responsibility for their actions. In a word, the killings in Mongu should not go unpunished. Those who gave the orders to kill and those who pulled the trigger all deserve to be punished for their parts in these crimes. But it does not seem that this government is interested in seeking justice in this matter. Why? Is it because it is the policy of this government to kill and maim those who don’t agree with them, those who oppose them? Or is it because it is probably the highest authority in this government that has ordered those killings? We need an inquiry to answer conclusively all these questions for us.