Maravi

Our aspirations clash with selfishness

COMMENT - The clueless neoliberal opposition parties have hired their own consultant to see how they can sully the image of Zambia, get donor aid flows to stop and make the country ungovernable. That is the well established method, tried and tested in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and many other places.

Our aspirations clash with selfishness
By The Post
Wed 29 Aug. 2012, 10:10 CAT

The observations and criticisms of Hakainde Hichilema made by Professor Clive Chirwa are valid. And because they are valid, they deserve to be made. We agree with Clive that as long as Hakainde continues with his highly defective understanding of politics and analysis, UPND will continue to face an uncertain future.

If Hakainde continues with his type of politics, UPND and himself will never be in power, will never win an election. The most the party will do is to remain a regional party, a party of Southern Province.

In a true multiparty political dispensation, power is not won at all costs. There are principles, values and standards and common aims on which political competition takes place. In a true multiparty political dispensation, the contest for political office is not a fight for survival but a competition to serve.

And in such a contest, not everything is open for destruction. One cannot look for electoral victory on the back of national failure. There is a certain amount of loyalty, of patriotism expected from every politician and political party. And this is why it is rare to find political parties in Europe or America that are funded by foreign interests.

[Not so much since the Citizens United decision. - MrK]

But here, everything goes. And we have politicians and political parties that think they cannot win an election without being supported by the British High Commission or United States Embassy in Lusaka. They seem to be more loyal, more committed to following the advice and wishes of foreign diplomats. And they have hired themselves to be used by foreign governments against the interests of their own country and their own people.

Their hope for electoral victory seems to lie with the British High Commission or American Embassy. They don't care even a bit about the international position of their own country. They are very ready to say and do things that work to disadvantage their own country internationally and otherwise. They seem to be always ready to work with all sorts of imperialists to weaken their own country. They behave as if they are people without a country.

We know that right now there are all sorts of so-called experts being brought in by foreign missions in this country to do all sorts of political or political economy research with a view to finding ways of how to effectively deal with what they don't like in the governance of this country.

But unfortunately for them, the world has changed and many things have changed. The monopoly they had on knowledge and on money is no longer there. Things can now change without them. Their wish is no longer our command.

Last year, they were backing Rupiah Banda and the MMD and they never gave Michael Sata and the PF any chance of winning. But their ignorance about what is going on in this country, about the feelings of our people was demonstrated by how the Zambian people voted.

A similar pattern is starting to emerge in Zimbabwe. Their own research is revealing the opposite of what they had been hoping for. Despite their heavy support, political, financial and otherwise to Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC, Zanu-PF's popularity is rising.

It is therefore useless, a waste of time for any Zambian politician to frequent the British High Commission or the United States Embassy in Lusaka, or their residences, thinking that doing so will put them in power.

Michael's success in last year's elections was never secured on the basis of friendship or meetings with foreign diplomats, be it the American Ambassador or the British High Commissioner to Zambia. As a matter of fact, Michael never frequented foreign embassies the way Nevers Mumba and Hakainde have been doing. Instead, he frequented the compounds where the masses of our people live, to learn their hardships.

Contrast Michael's approach with that of Hakainde or Nevers! They are deceiving themselves, thinking that their declining political fortunes will be improved by foreign diplomats. How? Anyway, desperate people resort to desperate things. But Hakainde and Nevers' own personal deficiencies as politicians will not be compensated for by the imperialist activities of foreign missions in Zambia. The British or Americans don't vote in this country.

And their influence in our politics is exaggerated. In most cases, they are even very ignorant about the psychology or thinking of our people. They are often deceived by the opinions of the few Zambian elites they dine with or hire as consultants. These people are just cheating them; they know very little about the politics of this country.

Michael and the PF won last year's elections without the support of or help of the British or American governments. And because of this, they can't believe that Michael and the PF had no money, won that election without money. They are being deceived and they are deceiving themselves that Michael and the PF were funded by the Chinese and that's why today this government is going soft on the Chinese.

There are many things in this world that money can't buy. Rupiah had all the money and their support but failed to buy the hearts and souls of the Zambian people. Even Hakainde, who claims to be very rich, failed to buy the support of the Zambian people.

The election was won by a man, a political party without money. Anyway, we understand that imperialists and their lackeys believe and rely so much in money. Everything to them is calculated on the basis of price. No one can compete with them in matters of money. Yes, they have money. But other people also have something else more powerful than money and that is consciousness.

We know very well what imperialism is trying to do in this country right now. We are much wiser today, our eyes are much more open today and we are capable of seeing things for ourselves, of thinking for ourselves, of analysing things for ourselves and of making our own conclusions.

The vultures and mercenaries they are hiring to do all sorts of things for them, to analyse things for them, to give them all sorts of information are cheating them and they know very little about the political character of our people. Their agents will never govern this country on account of the support they are giving them.

If they are truly committed to democracy as they want everyone to believe, then they should give Michael and the PF a chance to govern, to make mistakes and correct them instead of trying to find ways of undermining them, of making them unpopular within a very short time of being in government.

As for our opposition leaders who think selling their hearts and souls to imperialism will make them leaders, governors of this country, they are deceiving themselves.

After more than 47 years of independence, our people know the value of independence no matter how much imperialism tries to make them believe that their independence means nothing. And as such, they will not accept indirect colonialism through all sorts of imperialist agents. Our independence will be defended with ever-increasing levels of vigilance.

The decisions on how this country is governed will be made by the Zambian people and no one else.

Of course, we should always strive to be educated and informed by the views of others but we should always let our decisions be a product of our own conclusions. And as Nelson Mandela once observed, "imperialism has been weighed and found wanting" and "the peoples of resurgent Africa are perfectly capable of deciding upon their own future form of government and discovering and themselves dealing with any dangers which might arise".

As such, "we need to exert ourselves much more, and break out of the vicious cycle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful; those in command of immense market power and those who dare to fashion the world in their own image". We have the capacity to bring about the change and progress we desire. What we need to guarantee is the right of our people to directly participate in decision-making processes and in electing their own leaders in free and fair elections.

For these reasons, we urge our politicians to be more and more patriotic, more and more loyal to their people and their country. And in the multiparty democratic setup that we today find ourselves in, we urge for a loyal opposition.

A loyal opposition also encourages those in government to be more tolerant and respectful of the role of the opposition. Very few governments in the world, including in our western democracies, would tolerate an opposition political party that is not loyal to the fundamental legitimacy of the state and to the democratic process itself.

But here, it seems this doesn't matter.

Our opposition needs to change its approach if it has to remain relevant and be trusted with power. A lot of commitment and effort is required to make an opposition respectable and trustworthy. The type of opposition we are seeing from Hakainde and his friends does not inspire that respect and trust. And their imperialist friends are not helping matters; they are actually making the situation worse. And this is why such practices are being rejected in Latin America and many parts of the Third World today.

They are still stuck to the same old colonial methods of trying to create or promote factions among the people. They are not doing anything to unite the people. All the time they are looking for factions to promote and set against each other. There is a certain amount of national unity, of common aims, standards and values that we all need to adhere to in order for our country to move forward.

A country divided in factions fighting each other every day cannot be in a strong position to solve any of its people's problems. But today we have imperialists focusing even on demographic issues they don't even understand well, analysing our politics on the basis of tribe and other things that divide and weaken the people. This is what some of our weak souls in politics are falling into; this is what some of our desperate intellectuals are hiring themselves out to do, of course at a price, for the imperialists under the guise of being political consultants and analysts.

Clearly, our aspirations are clashing with the lack of understanding; selfishness, colossal interests. We have no alternative but to struggle without respite for the unity and dignity of our people. The unity of all our people is absolutely necessary. We should rise above petty personal differences and controversies that sometimes turn us into enemies because of the intrigues, ambitions or the machinations of imperialism. We must not allow anybody or anything to divide us. We must use political formulas and negotiations to solve those problems which make some of us occasionally oppose each other.

Labels: CLIVE CHIRWA, HAKAINDE HICHILEMA, UPND

posted by MrK @ 2:47 PM