Stand up for what is right

Stand up for what is right
By Editor
Wed 07 Sep. 2011, 13:00 CAT

Standing up for truth, for what is right, for what is just and fair can be very costly. Why should this be so? Our own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is always threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum.

And Fr Gabriel Msipu, the treasurer general of the Chipata Catholic Diocese, is very right when he says Christians should be prepared to bear the consequences of siding with the voiceless in society. Christ's entire doctrine was devoted to the humble, the poor; his doctrine was devoted to fighting against abuse, injustice and the degradation of human beings. And for this, he laid down his life. He was killed by the forces of evil. And what Christ teaches us by this is that there is need to "stand up for what is right, even if it costs you your life; the Lord God will be fighting on your side".

There are people who take cruel advantage of the poor and the needy; that is the way they make their living. But we are all commanded: "Speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves. Protect the rights of all who are helpless. Speak for them and be a righteous judge. Protect the rights of the poor and the needy" (Proverbs 31:8-9).

We are also told that "the righteous hate the wicked, and the wicked hate the righteous" (Proverbs 29:27) and that "bloodthirsty people hate anyone who is honest, but righteous people will protect the life of such a person" (Proverbs 29:10).

This is the world we live in, a world dominated by ill practices. And as Fr Msipu has correctly observed, there are so many ill practices that are taking place during campaigns for this month's elections. People are being attacked, injured and their property destroyed without any provocation. Their only crime is that they belong to a different political party, they are supporting a different candidate.

But what is wrong with this in a country that is constitutionally a multi-party democracy? Do they want a multi-party state with only one political party to which everyone belongs and one candidate who everyone supports? There isn't much effort on the part of the state apparatus to protect this constitutional right, the right to belong to a political party of one's choice and support candidates one finds suitable to hold public office and indeed to hold opinions, political or otherwise, different from those help by others or the dominant political parties or groupings. It is sad that those who should be upholding, promoting and defending this constitutional right are the ones in the forefront of violating it, undermining it.

Rupiah Banda, as president of the Republic and head of state, is doing nothing to protect this constitutional right of every Zambian. Rupiah is in the forefront of threatening, of harassing, of humiliating all those who are strongly opposed to his hold on power as if ours was a one party state. People are being intimidated, in all sorts of ways to vote for Rupiah and the MMD.

If Rupiah has failed to defend the constitutional rights of our people, then our people have no choice but to individually and collectively directly take up that responsibility for themselves.

Rupiah and the MMD should not be allowed to behave as if this country belongs to them and them alone. They need to be reminded that this country will not be a good place for them, for any of us to live in unless it's a good place for all of us to live in.

What Rupiah and his friends are doing amounts to taking away from our people their right to remove without bloodshed the people who govern them. The important thing about democracy is that citizens can remove without bloodshed the people who govern them. They should be able to get rid of a Rupiah by the ballot if they deem so. But that cannot be done under the political atmosphere of violence, intimidation, threats, blackmail that Rupiah has introduced in our country and is today planting in our hearts.

It is impossible for people to hold free and fair elections under this atmosphere of violence, threats, blackmail and intimidation. With this atmosphere, all our people's struggles to get control of the ballot box were a waste of time. If this continues, we shall be run by a dictatorship, a tyrannical regime.

Rupiah must ask himself what will happen when people realise what he has done to keep himself in power.

If people lose the power to sack an unwanted president, government, one of the several things happens. First, people may just slope off. Apathy could destroy our young democracy. When the turn out drops below 50 per cent, we should know we are in trouble, we are in danger. We are in trouble or in danger not because there will be no one to take up government offices. The lingering danger of voter apathy is not that public office will go unfilled, but that office holders will be elected by smaller and smaller percentages of eligible voters. And without the lifeblood of citizen participation, action, our democracy will begin to weaken and eventually disappear.

Peaceful, free, fair and transparent elections are very vital to the functioning of a democracy. We say this because in a democracy, the authority of the government derives solely from the consent of the governed. And the principal mechanism for translating that consent into governmental authority is the holding of peaceful, free, fair and transparent elections.

The elections we are holding in two weeks time are therefore very important for the future of our country. And this being the case, everything that stands in the way of peaceful, free, fair and transparent elections should be challenged without fear or favour. And the questions Fr Msipu is asking are very important when he asks: "Are we ready to challenge these ill-practices in society today? Are we ready to stand for the truth? Are we ready to suffer? Are we ready to bear the consequences that go by standing by the voiceless and less fortunate in society today?"

We should all join Fr Msipu in praying "that the good lord may give us the courage that we need. As people set apart but also as believers in Christ, as Christians we see so many things, but sometimes we are filled with fear. May God remove this fear, may he direct us by the Holy Spirit to remain firm and steadfast in our faith, defend it in the difficult moments of our life".

We see that Jesus' spirituality was life in the spirit, within the historical conflict, in a communion of love with the Father and the people. This spirituality was the result of his opening to the Father's gift and of his liberating commitment to the life aspirations of the oppressed. For Jesus, the world wasn't divided between the pure and the impure, as the Pharisees wished; it was divided between those who favoured life and those who supported death. Everything that generates more life - from a gesture of love to social revolution - is in line with God's scheme of things, in line with the construction of the kingdom, for life is the greatest gift given to us by God.

And in that communion with the Father, Jesus found strength for struggling for the scheme of life, challenging the forces of death, represented particularly by the Pharisees, against whom the Gospels present two violent manifestos (Mathew 23 and Luke 11:37-57).

Therefore, there is no contradiction between the struggle for justice and the fulfillment of God's will. One demands the other. All who work along that line of God's scheme for life are considered Jesus' brothers and sisters (Mark 3:31-35). This is the best way to follow Jesus, especially in Zambia's present situation. We prefer to say that Jesus had a spirituality of the conflict - that is, a vigour in his commitment to the poor and to the Father who granted him immense internal peace. That faith gave Jesus the necessary will for carrying out the scheme of life, even by sacrificing his own life in confrontation with the forces of death, such as oppression, injustice and religion made sclerotic by rules and rites.

Let us stand up for what is right, whatever the consequences!