Maravi

Don't use your positions to enrich yourselves

Don't use your positions to enrich yourselves
By The Post
Sun 04 Dec. 2011, 17:10 CAT

Bishop Alick Banda of the Catholic Diocese of Ndola has called on the new leaders in government not to use their positions to enrich themselves and their families like the previous MMD regime.

Bishop Banda has also urged our new leaders in government to deeply reflect on the plight of many poor people in our country.

This is a very important call that deserves to be heeded by all our new leaders in government. And the leadership of our Church cannot remain indifferent in the face of the tremendous social injustices existent in our country, which keep the majority of our people in dismal poverty, which in many cases becomes inhuman wretchedness.

A deafening cry pours from the throats of thousands or millions of men and women asking their pastors for a liberation that reaches them from nowhere else. Poverty, as a lack of the goods of this world necessary to live worthily as human beings, is in itself evil. The prophets denounce it as contrary to the will of the Lord and most of the time as the fruit of the human injustice and sin.

Against this background, it will be necessary to emphasise strongly that the example and teaching of Jesus, the anguished condition of millions of the people in our country place before our Church a challenge and a mission that it cannot sidestep and to which it must respond with a speed and boldness adequate to the urgency of the times.

Christ not only loved the poor, but rather "being rich he became poor," he lived in poverty. His mission centred on advising the poor of their liberation and he founded his church at the sign of that poverty among men and women. The poverty of so many brothers and sisters cries out for justice, solidarity, open witness, commitment, strength and exertion directed to the fulfillment of the redeeming mission to which it is committed by Christ.

A leadership that is corrupt, that only thinks of itself, that wants to enrich itself at the expense of the poor is a dangerous one and deserves to be repudiated and kicked out. It would be sad to see then new leadership start doing the crazy and selfish things we are seeing today - burying billions of kwacha when others do not have even a ngwee. When a system ceases to promote the common good and favours special interests, corrupt elements, the Church must not only denounce injustice but also break with the evil system. It must be prepared to work with another system that is more just and suited to the needs of the day.

Today, the world insistently calls for recognition of man's full dignity and for social equality among all. All persons of goodwill cannot but go along with this demand, with this call even if it means that they must give up their privileges and their personal fortunes for more equitable distribution in the social community.

The corruption and abuses of the previous regime calls on us to sharpen the awareness of our duty of solidarity with the poor to which charity leads us. This solidarity means that we make ours their problems and their struggles, that we know how to speak with them.

This has to be concretized in criticism of injustice, corruption and other abuses, in the struggle against the intolerable situation that a poor person often has to tolerate, in the willingness to dialogue with the groups responsible for that situation in order to make them understand their obligations. Human advancement has to be the goal of our action on behalf of the poor and it must be carried out in such a manner that we respect their personal dignity and teach them to help themselves.

Our church has a message for all persons in this country who hunger and thirsty after justice. The very God who creates human beings in the divine image and likeness, creates the earth and all that is in it for the use of all humans in such a way that created good can reach all in a more just manner, and gives them power to transform and perfect the world in solidarity.

It is the same God Who, in the fullness of time, sends the Son in the flesh, so that he might come to liberate all persons from the slavery to which sin had subjected them: hunger, misery, oppression and ignorance - in a word, that injustice and hatred which have their origin in human selfishness.

We join Bishop Banda in calling all persons of goodwill that they cooperate in truth, justice, love and liberty, in this transforming labour of our people, the dawn of a new era. We should unite ourselves with the life of all our people in the painful search for adequate solutions to their multiple problems.

The political leadership of our country must somehow get close to the poor, because only close experience will teach them the great magnitude of the problems that afflict the majority of our people. They must therefore reform the structures of government and indeed of their own political party so that such contact really takes place.

As long as our political leaders do not actually share the problems of the people - lack of basic necessities, insecurity, unemployment and so on and so forth - they cannot really identify with the joys and the hopes, the grief and the anxieties, of persons of this age, especially those who are poor.

The poverty situation is the product of unjust socio-economic structures. Our political leaders are members of a society that has taught us to look coldly on the impoverished plight of our fellow citizens. And this, in some way, explains the corruption and abuses we see every day. There are people who are getting from the state, through corruption, more than their fair share. The present situation in our country calls for some radical changes.

First and foremost, we must instill an attitude of service to society in our political leaders and a genuine concern for marginal groups. Our politicians must play a leading role in the transformation of the present-day society and in the wake of bettering the human condition. The epoch in which we are living is a critical moment in the history of our country. For this reason, we should give it absolute priority. We should participate, as best as we can, in the common quest of all for a freer, more just and more humane society.

We have no alternative. We must continue struggling, with the hope that the better world will become a reality - as it will, if we keep struggling. We should never renounce our dreams, our utopia for a more just, fair and humane society. Let's ensure that the material wealth of this country reaches all and should not be monopolised by a small group of people who are in power.

Moreover, political power must have as its aim the achievement of the common good. The best way to fulfill one's leadership obligations of justice and love is to contribute to the common good. We say this because the common good is the existence of the political, social and economic institutions. It enables people to express commitment and concern for each other as well as attain the fullness of love. Common good calls upon all persons to contribute and commit themselves to building a more just, fair and humane society for all.

And as Bishop Banda has correctly observed, "This makes our involvement in the fashioning of a better world, a better Zambia, ever more compelling. We have a duty and responsibility to cooperate with God to make a better world for that matter a better Zambia. We must not reign and fold our arms just waiting for a new world". Indeed, it is the duty of everyone of us to struggle for a better world, a better country, a more just and humane nation.

Labels: ALICK BANDA, CORRUPTION

posted by MrK @ 5:42 AM