Maravi

Glorifying Michael

Glorifying Michael
By The Post
Sun 20 May 2012, 13:50 CAT

There is no need for the media, or anyone else for that matter, to try and glorify Michael Sata at the expense of poor Zambians.

Michael is used to being vilified, humiliated, ridiculed and maligned. Things like these have never succeeded in putting Michael down, in lowering his spirit and in curtailing his political activity. We don't think praise, glorification can mean anything to Michael. Anyone who tries to win favour with Michael by trying to glorify him will not achieve much.

Michael is a humble human being who by some very hard work, by consistently adhering to a certain political line, by fearlessly defending the interests of the poor and the disadvantaged, won the hearts of the great majority of our people. And accordingly, they overwhelmingly voted for him to lead them. It was a well-deserved vote based on trust and love for Michael.

Whether we like it or not, Michael is today the most trusted, the most loved, the most appreciated and the most popular of all our politicians. This is something that can be backed by the votes he got, by his electoral victory and the size of the crowds that followed him wherever he went.

But of course this doesn't make Michael a demigod or a messiah. No individual can assume the role of a messiah. But there are men and women chosen to bring happiness into the hearts of people - those are the people who win the hearts, support and respect of fellow citizens. There are some people who, by pursuing their own convictions and without being self-conscious about it, touch the lives of millions of others.

Such has been Michael's life. And this can be traced throughout his public life and in every office he held. Michael, to date, has never experienced declining popularity. Michael is held dear by so many in our country, especially the poor and the disadvantaged.

Michael is not a man obsessed with power. He is not someone in public office because of ambition or pleasure. He has a public mission, duty, to fulfill. We say this because Michael has never put himself above the interests of the nation. Michael has never sought to gain political power or influence on the back of national failure. There are many episodes one can give to explain this trait of Michael.

We remember, not many years ago, when Michael was in the opposition and Zambia Revenue Authority workers were striking. The consequences of that strike on the economy of our country were going to be devastating and could have easily helped in weakening Rupiah Banda's hold on power. But instead of helping to deepen the crisis and cripple Rupiah's government, Michael went and pleaded with the striking Zambia Revenue Authority workers to go back to work. And he managed to get them back to work.

In 2006, Michael lost narrowly to Levy Mwanawasa and his supporters didn't accept the result and wanted to set the country ablaze. Michael stopped them. In last year's elections, when news started filtering around that Rupiah wanted to hang on to power and was pressuring the Electoral Commission of Zambia to announce him the winner when he had actually lost, we approached Michael to hear what his view was on the matter.

His response was: "Let him take it if he wants and we will see where it will take him. We are not going to fight him or stop him if he wants to steal this election." This is the type of politician we are dealing with.

But Michael, being a man like any other and, like any other human being, prone to err, he makes mistakes. But the question is what motivates him in doing so. Is it greed, vanity or corruption? Or are Michael's mistakes genuine mistakes arising from oversights?

We believe there is a big difference between the wrong decisions Michael has made and those of Rupiah or Frederick Chiluba. There is a difference between an honest man who errs and a crook who goes out to commit a crime, to manipulate things so that he can benefit himself and his league. So far we cannot say Michael has started off on anything to commit a crime, to steal or abuse his office to benefit himself.

You cannot treat an honest man who errs in the same way as a crook who sets off on a crooked path. Truly, we must love everybody, but not everyone in the same way; you love a crook, a criminal, a thief, a corrupt element by stopping them from committing further crimes and by ensuring that they are made to account for their crimes; you love an honest man who errs by helping him to quickly correct his errors. Love has to be a classifying device to become universal.

You cannot treat an honest person who has erred in the same way as a crook who has crooked others. Both will be open to criticism, but not in the same way and with the same words. If a criminal is occupying public office, he is president of the Republic, the criticism will be tailored in such a way as to help him leave public office quickly. Whereas for an honest man who errs, the criticism will be tailored in such a way as to help him quickly correct his error.

Here the objective of criticism is different and so are the means by which it is effected.

We have not reached a stage where we should start criticising Michael in the way we did with Chiluba or Rupiah. Michael, at this stage, should be treated in the way we treated Levy. Levy was criticised because he used to make mistakes, some of them very serious, but he was not a crook in the way Rupiah and Chiluba were. So, Levy was criticised differently.

Not criticising Michael in the way Chiluba and Rupiah were criticised is not glorifying him. If Michael continues to administer public affairs in the honest way he is doing, in the honest way Levy and Kenneth Kaunda did, he will continue to enjoy the love, respect and support of our people and when he makes mistakes he will not be treated like those crooks have been treated or are treated.

So the issue of glorifying Michael is neither here nor there. Michael is simply one of us, but a more outstanding, more popular, more electable, more connected to the masses of our people than any of us.

And this is what makes him take a leading position in the affairs of our country. Therefore, all of us, including Michael, should be unassuming and limit ourselves to doing our duty to the best of our extremely limited possibility and defend the causes and ideas that will help create a happy nation for all our people.

All the glory in this world is worth very little, if not nothing and human beings make a fool of themselves when they start to attach so much attention to glory, to being glorified. We think that human beings should never draw away from the honest goals they seek and let themselves be influenced by glory. Is any person's glory worth the suffering of so many people? Michael has already answered some of these questions in a very practical way and that's why today he enjoys the support of the great majority of our people.

But if he makes a mistake that deserves criticism, he should be criticised in an appropriate way. However, some of the criticism we see in some media, some of the criticism we hear from some politicians is not criticism at all, it is simply malice, libel, slander, a dishonest attempt to discredit and humiliate a man who is much more noble, honest, incorruptible than they are.

Some of these elements have tried to push us to join their malice, disguised as criticism, against Michael. We have refused to do so and we will not do so. We have our eyes and ears to judge for ourselves. We will give Michael the deserved type of criticism whenever it is due.

Criticism has to be honest.
There are, in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave ills, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man whether politician or businessman, every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. But we should always remember that such attacks are of use only if they are absolutely truthful.

The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander, he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon character does no good, but very great harm. The soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is untruthfully assailed.

Our plea is, not for immunity but for the most unsparing exposure of the politician who betrays his trust, of a businessman who engages in crooked business or makes a fortune in corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in a sensational, lurid and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself.

It is because we feel that there should be no rest in the endless war against the forces of evil, greed, vanity, corruption that we ask that the war be conducted with sanity as well as with resolution.

There is no need to paint everyone black even when they are white. If the whole picture is painted black, there remains no hue whereby to single out the rascals for distinction from their fellows. Such painting finally induces a kind of moral colour-blindness; and people affected by it come to the conclusion that no man is really black, and no man is really white, but they are all grey.

It is for these reasons that we feel some of the things being said about Michael are not helpful. Michael is not Rupiah or Chiluba. Michael is nowhere near the corruption and abuses of these two characters. Michael is not Levy. Michael is more closer to the honesty of Levy and he deserves to be treated in the way we treated Levy.

So, Wynter Kabimba is right when he says that the PF is against the media glorifying Michael at the expense of poor Zambians. If there is praise due to Michael, he will get it through his deeds and no one will stop the Zambian people from giving it to him.

Everyone praises Levy today even when he is not here to listen to the praise. Why? It is simply because he earned it and no one can take it away from him even in death. Chiluba is not praised in the same way as Levy - yet both are dead. Why? It is simply because he didn't earn the praise. You get what you deserve!

Labels: MICHAEL SATA

posted by MrK @ 3:18 PM