Heroes Day: Who Is Shaking Zambia Into Trouble?

As we celebrate Heroes Day, let’s learn the valuable lessons from what led our heroes Kenneth Kaunda and Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula to come up with the Choma Declaration that led to a united Zambia.

Lusaka, July 1 – In Zambia, we seem to talk about problems more than we are willing to solve them. Everyone is talking about tribalism as if it is a Patriotic Front issue which would just disappear by legitimising the Miles Sampa Patriotic Front faction.

Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, our first Republican President, did not just declare the Motto, “One Zambia One Nation” as a slogan, he put it into action following the famous Choma Declaration.

Also Read: The Paradox of Punishing Tribalism Criticism: Strengthening Tribal Divisions! “Making the condemnation of tribalism a crime doesn’t combat tribalism; it’s designed to safeguard the gains from tribal practices! Only by confronting the underlying tribal behaviours can we eliminate tribal discourse and promote national unity!” – Dr. M’membe.

If you were to can catch 100 red ants as well as 100 black ants and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you were to violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants would fight until they would ruthlessly kill each other.

The thing is, the red ants would think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who had shaken the jar!

This is exactly what’s happening in Zambia today concerning the North East vs the South West rivalry. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar and why?

Tribalism, today, only benefits the same people claiming to hate it, politicians. Otherwise Zambians have no problems with each other as intermarriages have so far proven. How can a man preach unity when he’s behind the devisions in the Patriotic Front?

As we celebrate Heroes Day, let’s learn the valuable lessons from what led our heroes Kenneth Kaunda and Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula to come up with the Choma Declaration. To honour their wisdom, let’s devise a governance system that must promote national unity and a people sharing a common development goal.

Multiparty democracy in Africa was not introduced to promote good governance. It was a tool by our former colonial masters to put Africa in check. It has since lead to inefficient governments, endless power transitions and social chaos.

It prioritizes the immediate needs of politicians over those of a nation united with a purpose to develop. Democracy,on the other hand, as the possibility of the people making collective decisions for their common good is something that cannot be taught or imposed from the outside.

Also Read: Silence in the face of injustice is complicity! An analysis of the stance of the West on the abduction of MP Hon. Emmanuel Jay Banda and the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi reveals a disturbing pattern of indifference and complicity.

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