Maravi

PF and socialism

PF and socialism
By The Post
Sun 01 Apr. 2012, 13:00 CAT

THE Patriotic Front's decision to join the Socialist International, an organisation whose members include the United Kingdom's Labour Party and South Africa's African National Congress and 48 others, is highly welcome. It is a good thing to belong to a political grouping that is anchored on very strong principles and standards and common aims and values like the Socialist International.

We say this because if the Patriotic Front applies to our country the principles, standards, aims and values of the Socialist International, we will start to see some progress in all areas of human endeavour in our country and the ordinary citizens will be protected against the abuse of power.

If socialism means democracy, as Luis Ayala, the secretary general of the Socialist International, says, then nobody should have objections to it. If socialism means democracy, and democracy means that governments are closely linked to the people, arise from the people, have the support of the people and devote themselves entirely to working and struggling for the people and the people's interests, no one should have any objection to it.

If socialism means, as it should, that the interests of the majority of Zambians are paramount and if it includes a model of an economic system planned with national interests in mind, in solidarity with and providing for increased participation by the people, no one should have any objections to it.

Any social programme that guarantees that the country's wealth and resources will be used for the common good and that improves the quality of human life by satisfying the basic needs of all the people seems to us to be a just programme.

If socialism means the injustice and traditional inequalities between our urban areas and our rural areas, and between the have and have-nots, will be progressively reduced, and if it means the participation of all our people in the fruits of their labour, overcoming economic alienation, then there is nothing in it that is at odds with the expectations of the great majority of our people.

If socialism implies that power is to be exercised by the majority, and increasingly shared by the organised community, so that power is actually transferred to the popular masses of our people, then it should meet nothing but encouragement and support.

If socialism leads to cultural processes that awaken the dignity of the masses and give them the courage to assume responsibility and demand their rights, then it promotes the same type of human dignity proclaimed by the Christian faith of the great majority of our people.

The Christian faith of our people tells them of the urgent responsibility to subdue the earth, and transform the land and all other means of production in order to allow everyone to live fully and make of Zambia a land of justice, solidarity, peace, and freedom in which the Christian message of the Kingdom of God can take on its full meaning.

We hope that the socialist policies of the Patriotic Front will be something original, creative, truly Zambian, and in no sense imitative. For what we, together with most Zambians, seek is a process that will result in a society completely and truly Zambian, one that is neither dependent nor undemocratic.

If the Patriotic Front's socialist policies, as some may imagine, become distorted, denying persons and communities the right to decide their own destinies, and if it attempts to force persons to submit blindly to the manipulation and dictates of individuals who hold power, then it will be difficult for most of our people to accept such false socialism. They will not accept a socialism which oversteps its limits and attempts to take away the individual's rights.

The Socialism that the Patriotic Front wants to pursue should also generate new values that will pave the way for a society that evinces more fellowship and brotherhood; a society in which all our people should shoulder their proper role with new dignity.

There are more evangelical values in socialism than probably in any other outlook or social system. The fact is that socialism offers new hope that humanity can be more complete, and hence more evangelical - that is, more conformed to Jesus, who came to liberate us from any and every form of bondage.

And fidelity to the gospel of Jesus Christ today requires Christians to commit themselves to thoroughgoing and urgently needed social transformations. Any and every effort to fashion a more humane society, to eliminate poverty by promoting the common good demands the support of those who are committed to human liberation as Christians are or should be.

Of course, this support can and should be offered through serious-minded criticism with a genuine concern for the common good. We should therefore aim towards the creation of a qualitatively different society.

By this we understand a society wherein the willingness of justice, of solidarity and equality reigns, one that will respond to generous aspirations and the search for a more just society and where values, particularly freedom, responsibility and an openness to things spiritual, which will guarantee the integral development of humankind will be realised.

In order that this kind of a society be developed, it is necessary that the education of all the people include the social and communal meaning of human life, in the total context which includes culture, economics, politics and the whole society.

That is why many Christians today recognise in socialist currents certain aspirations which they hold within themselves in the name of their faith. Education thus conceived will lead to the creation of a new human being and a new society - social humankind and a communal society, where democracy is real through the effective political participation of the members of a society, through the human concept and realisation of work, through the submission of capital to the needs of the whole society.

Christians must show that authentic socialism is Christianity lived to the full in basic equality and with a fair distribution of goods, retracing the Christian roots that lie behind the moral values of solidarity and fraternity.

Instead of opposing it, we must learn to accept joyfully a form of societal life that is better adapted to our times and more in tune with the spirit of the gospel. When a system ceases to promote the common good and favours special interests, we must not only denounce injustice but also break with the evil system.

We must be prepared to work with another system that is more fair, just, humane and more suited to the needs of the day.

If socialism is the future, let us build it now because tomorrow is built on the threshold of today.

Labels: GUY SCOTT, PF, SOCIALISM

posted by MrK @ 2:12 PM