Maravi

‘Dig your well before you are thirsty'

‘Dig your well before you are thirsty’
By The Post
Fri 04 Feb. 2011, 04:00 CAT

If there is in their hearts a vestige of love for their country, love for humanity, love for justice, our politicians in government should listen carefully to what Bishop Paul Mususu and Col Panji Kaunda are saying on the situation in Egypt and the lessons that can be learnt from it.

We know that it sounds negative but we have always thought it positive to say that an important thing about democracy is that we can remove, without bloodshed, the people who govern us. We can get rid of a Kaunda, a Chiluba or even a Banda by peaceful electoral processes. But that cannot be done under a system where through corruption and nepotism, all the structures of the state have been corrupted; where those who manage and supervise elections represent and are chosen by those in power; where those who adjudicate electoral and other disputes are appointees and are under the overbearing influence of those who govern. In a word, people cannot remove those who govern them by peaceful means when these are closed off through corruption and abuse of state institutions.

We must ask ourselves what will happen when people realise that although theoretically they are told that they can get rid of those who govern them through the ballot box but practically this can’t happen. If people lose the power to sack their government, one of several things happens. First, people may just slope off. Apathy could destroy democracy. And when this happens, we are in danger.

The second thing that people can do is to riot, to protest like they are doing in Egypt today. Rioting is an old-fashioned method for drawing the attention of the government to what is wrong. It is difficult for a person who considers himself elected, even through fraudulent elections, to admit it, but riots have produced some reforms, some changes, some revolutions. Riots have historically played a much larger part in politics than we are ever allowed to know.
Thirdly, nationalism can arise. Nationalism is built out of the frustration that people feel when they cannot get their way through the ballot box. With nationalism comes repression. We hope that it is not pessimistic – in our view it is not – to say that democracy hangs by a thread in our country. Unless we can offer our people a peaceful route to the resolution of injustices through the ballot box, they will not listen to politicians that have blocked off that route.

What is happening in Egypt can teach us one or two things on what not to do. And we can use these lessons in handling the very badly handled issue of the Barotseland Agreement. Diverse groups of young people in Western Province went to the police, asking for permits to hold rallies, to share ideas and even to protest against government policies. But each time, they were denied the right to do so in total violation of their fundamental human rights. We all know that freedom of expression is a fundamental right of every human being. This right is also enshrined in our Constitution. While this right is not absolute, it is a matter of justice that it is given to all without discrimination of persons and irrespective of the issue involved. Participation in the life of the country is not only a right; it is a duty that each citizen should be proud to assume and exercise responsibly. The enjoyment of the freedom of speech would require that the government allows the people who hold a different line of political thinking an open forum to express their views without government interference. And the enjoyment of the freedom of thought and expression would require creating a thick line marking a distinction between the government and the ruling MMD. Lack of distinction between the ruling party and the government creates a climate of political intolerance, leading to the restriction of the freedom of thought and expression. The whole issue of denying Barotseland Agreement activists the right to hold meetings, rallies, protests was all geared to protect the political fortunes of the MMD in the province. We all know that protests are a testing ground for any democracy. The ideas of free expression and citizen participation are easy to defend when everyone remains polite and in agreement on basic issues. But protestors – and their targets – do not agree on basic issues, and such disagreements may be passionate and angry. The challenge then is one of balance: to defend the right to freedom of speech and assembly, while maintaining public order and countering attempts at intimidation or violence. To suppress peaceful protests in the name of order as was the case in Mongu is to invite repression; to permit uncontrolled violent protests is to invite anarchy. There is no magic formula for achieving this balance. In the end, it depends on the commitment of the majority to maintaining the institutions of democracy and the precepts of individual rights. Those young people in Mongu, including those who were brutally murdered by Rupiah Banda’s police, have always been peaceful for all these years. Rupiah’s government unjustifiably blocked all avenues for them to peacefully express themselves and protest the policies of his government. Rupiah and his government are trying to make these young people victims of every kind of unjust condition imaginable. Then when they explode, they want them to explode politely! Why? They are dealing with the wrong people at the wrong time and in the wrong way.

The issues of poverty, unemployment and lack of meaningful democracy that are being raised in Egypt are very similar to what these young people were raising in Mongu. But those who have never experienced similar moments will never know what kind of bitterness and indignation this can generate. They killed innocent young people in Mongu. And all is quiet, as if no life has been lost unjustifiably; as if no crimes have been committed by those in power and the police officers they command. The endless stream of lies and slanders, poured forth in their crude, odious, repulsive language against those they have killed and those they have incarcerated may only be compared to the endless stream of clean young blood which they had spilt in Mongu – with Rupiah’s knowledge, consent, complicity and approval – being spilt by the most inhuman gang of assassins it is possible to imagine. How can one describe people who can kill and torture fellow human beings in that way? Look at the inhuman treatment that they subjected that 92-year-old former Ngambela of Barotseland Maxwell Mututwa to. And people who do such things are not even ashamed to call themselves Christians.

To have believed their lies on the events in Mongu for a single moment would have sufficed to fill a man of conscience with remorse and shame for the rest of his life. They did not even bother in the least to conceal what they were doing. They thought they had deceived the people with their lies and they ended up deceiving themselves. They felt themselves lords and masters of the universe, with power over life and death. In every society, there are men of base instincts. These sadists, brutes go about under the guise of human beings, but they are monsters, only more or less restrained by discipline and social habit. If they are offered a drink from a river of blood, they will not be satisfied until they drink the river dry. We all know that a common tactic of tyranny is to charge the opponents of the government with treason. For this reason, the crime of treason must be carefully limited in definition so that it cannot be used as a weapon to stifle criticism of the government.

It is said that the man who abides by unjust laws and permits any man to trample and mistreat the country in which he was born, is not an honourable man. It is also said that in the world, there must be a certain degree of honour just as there must be a certain amount of light. When there are many men without honour, there are always others who bear in themselves the honour of many men. These are the men who rebel with great force against those who steal the people’s freedom, that is to say, against those who steal human honour itself. In those men, thousands more are contained, an entire people is contained, human dignity is contained.

What is happening in Egypt should be a lesson to all these petty and corrupt dictators who cheat themselves that power lies with them. Yes, fictitious power lies with them, but real power lies with the people. And when the people rise against them, no force on this planet can save them from the impending Armageddon. This is the experience of Mubarak in Egypt today. And this was the experience in Tunisia the other week. They should not cheat themselves that they will continue to deceive the people all the time. It is said that you can fool some people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time. It is regrettable to note that our entire political arena is full of lies, cheating, hypocrisy, double standards and injustice. We need a political life that is governed not by lies and deception, but by ethics and morality, by a sense of truth and honesty. This is the only way to avoid what is going on in Egypt today. And we don’t want our country to go through such a process because it is costly. We all know that there is no perfect form of human government. Abuses can take place in every system, but the fundamental value of democracy is to allow the participation of citizens in the government of their country. In this regard, democracy as a system of government is consonant with human rights and the respect of human dignity and freedom.

And in this way, it serves as a safety valve against the possibility of any destructive conflict. Good governance that is accompanied by a high spirit of tolerance, transparency, accountability and hatred for corruption is the surest way of avoiding what is going on in Egypt. Let’s not wait for things to get to that level to correct them. The Chinese say ‘dig your well before you are thirsty’.

Labels: EGYPT, PANJI KAUNDA

posted by MrK @ 3:29 AM