Multiparty democracy can’t work in a setting where people think after making decisions! Zambia needs a new political direction where liars should be politically castrated.
By Mpandashalo Mwewa | Chief Editor.
Lusaka, July 28 – Yes! You are a fool if you believed in Mr. Hichilema’s pre-election campaign promises. Not even his purported free education can improve your capacity to think because your brain is more of a memory stick than it should be a central processing unit.
My argument has always been that the blind loyalty syndrome that is predominantly present today in political cadres is an inheritance from the teachings of our colonial masters.
Colonial education, on which our current education system is based, was not education, but training. Its purpose was not to educate a person to critically understand the objective limits to social economic progress, but to train a person to accept a political status quo that an African was supposed to be dependent on his colonial masters.
“Education” was used to create a mindset of blind loyalty rather than to open our minds to independent and rational way of thinking that is generally referred to as Critical Thinking. A math teacher, today, must give questions that ought to match the “examples” one had earlier given.
Consequently, our cadres today are more willing to die for Mr. Hichilema to remain as Head of State than they are ready to see a better Zambia. Many won’t even visit Woodpecker’s Digest because the truth on the website will eat them live like Mainga is chewing teenagers.
It’s for this reason that I always say that democracy as the possibility of the people making collective decisions for their common good is something that cannot be taught or imposed by the West. What is multiparty democracy helping develop between Zambia and politicians? It’s the latter.
What we urgently need is a new home bred governance system that must prioritize development over politics of patronage. Please, read this statement again before going to the next paragraph.
There’s need to seriously reflect on the recent Press Statement by the NHP leader, Ms. Chishala Kateka, because it is, indeed, imperative that we implement a national program of action along the three main thematic areas she highlighted:
▪️ Creation of a locus of national unity that is not superficial – Dr. Kenneth Kaunda’s Choma Declaration created a united Zambia we were once proud of.
▪️ Restoration, preaching and living patriotism – Zambia can only be developed by Zambians.
▪️ Setting a Development Agenda – Politics should not be a self preservation tool but a vehicle for development.
Also Read: Zambia is in a crisis: a press statement by Chishala Kateka.
People of Ng’umbo will remember Mpandashalo Mwewa as a person who made them reflect on the fact that it was a Lozi man, Hon. Milupi, who realised the Musaila – Luwingu road and not their own, Hon. Chitotela. What’s my point here?
Also Read: Milupi and Kapala work like termites, Zambia is changing!
We need a radical change of mindset to develop Zambia. We must shift from worshipping people to strengthening institutions of governance. For instance, the Ministry of Health is falling apart because there has been nothing put in place, as an institution, to harvest and preserve the brilliance of people like Dr. Chitalu Chilufya.
Political rhetoric even managed to rubbish what Angola sought so much after with a simple lie that the father of the health system in the SADC region had purchased expired drugs! SMH!
Under the current political system, Zambians are happier with the ficticious corruption scandals of Dr. Chitalu Chilufya than the real corruption under Sylvia Masebo where Zambia can afford to quarantine 9 containers of WHO certified essential medicines to create an emergency in public health institutions for her to realise her personal gains.
Join my advocacy for a new political system and not for a new President. A smart political system that should prioritize country over political party needs.
Loyalty to political parties creates a wall that filters out reality mainly because of our fear of the truth. As Jose Saramago says in his book entitled ‘Blindness’: “Fear will keep us blind!”
In 2019, we could see that the Kwacha was losing value and that our forex reserves were depleting but this truth signaled losing an election in 2021 if one were a PF member. So, they chose to see it as a global problem. Their fear kept them from truly looking at the situation objectively.
With the eyes of this protective persona, we fail to see what is truly there for us to make informed decisions when it comes to prioritizing development because our fear is motivated by our party losing and not ourselves losing out as citizens of Zambia.
Surely is it justifiable to defend the purchase of a fire truck at $1m when we know it hardly cost $250,000? When we decide to remove our party loyalty regalia and think more about Zambia, just a few years from today, something amazing will happen.
We shall suddenly realize that through our new found platform, other truths exist. It shall be evident that our new view is as true as the other people’s previously “fu***d up” views. We shall quickly understand how stupid we were to have had strong convictions when we argued along partisan lines.
To some, this yoke is removed when they are expelled from a party while others it is when they have new ambitions away from their party as was the case with Hon. Harry Kalaba who had championed the PF agenda until the party could not accommodate his personal political agenda.
It can be argued that party politics has made a lot of us to defend foolish self serving party decisions because our loyalty to country is usurped by the party. With reduced patriotism, the decisions made affect national development as even the laws we make are aimed at protecting the party and not that which is of a greater good to all.
We need national development politics and not self serving party politics. Thank you President Paul Kagame for making this point to me clear. Our leaders, though, will stick to the failed political system out of FEAR of losing out.
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