Last week I was in Zambia.
What a week that was! It was wave after wave of news in between hours of work and visiting family and friends. All of them with an opinion of what may or may not happen, just a few weeks after the installation of the new President, Michael Sata. I enjoyed the attention I got, with friends and family all falling all over each other to feed me, delele, lumanda, village chicken, kablangeti beans, impwa,chikanda, fish etc.
At all these meets the main conversation was around politics in Zambia and how King Cobras unorthodox methods seemed to have endeared him to some previously skeptical people.
Until a month before the September 20th election, my interest in Zambian politics had been waning year after year and for the past five years, my apathy completely descended into cynicism. There are reasons for my cynicism, chief among which was what I saw as the "celebration of mediocrity". This affinity to mediocrity seems to have been championed by the political elite. Values like, virtue, uprightness, delayed gratification were systematically frowned upon and in their place, hero worshiping, respect for money and power over people and people's welfare.
It wasn't hard for anyone to see how Zambians seemed to have resigned themselves to things as they were. In time, things that would be considered quite unacceptable in other places were the norm in Zambia. I have in mind the need for house ownership in a free market system.The granting of building permits for example was left to corrupt and often inept people in local councils. As a result, new developments have mushroomed often in unserviced areas, with poor road infrastructure and sanitation. The buildings do not conform to any minimum standard but are left to the owners to decide what structure they will erect. They are an eyesore. Trees have been cut most arbitrarily. In the long run,cheap will be expensive.
My mind is directed to another one of my pet peeves. This is the lack of environmental awareness. The streets are lined with garbage and all sorts of litter. While the councils have a duty to ensure refuse collection, everyone is all but agreed that this function fell beyond the councils' capacity many years ago. But failure by the council is one thing, and failure by people in their individual capacities is quite another. It is common to see people, all sizes, great and small littering the streets with plastic bags and empty containers of all sorts. One would imagine that educated people may refrain from this, but that doesn't exactly happen.
While all this is happening, leaders have often been too busy insulting each other in the media and spending inordinate periods talking trivia on one hand and thinking of schemes to make more money, buy more expensive cars, to drive on dusty potholed roads, and building humungous houses right next to slums with dwellers living in grim conditions. The little boys and girls in these slums have very little hope but to imagine that if they joined politics, they would be out of their misery. There is no attention paid to education at all, what with the falling education standards.
Government schools are ill equipped to educate children who will contribute meaningfully to national development in the future. There are not enough teachers and when they are there, they are paid a pittance leading many of them to take private tuition lessons to make extra money. This leads to either absenteeism or burnout. The schools are often dilapidated and really miserable. And so because the government has failed in its role to provide quality education, so many private schools have mushroomed with little or no regulation on how they will operate. Some charge extortionate fees and they operate without hindrance because the ministry of education has no capacity to inspect these schools and ensure that the standards meet those required for quality education. The quality at some of these schools is appalling.
I could go on and on, but what good will that do? People already know all of this. What people want are answers to some of the vexing questions on education, health, agriculture, infrastructure etc. The new government therefore, offers new hope. People in the country are anxiously waiting to see how this government will transform our country from what it is today, to a better country tomorrow. Are we going to still see the ostentatious displays of ill gotten wealth by those in power and their families? Is politics going to continue to be a money making career, where those in it and their families sit pretty and watch from the grandstands while poverty stricken people fight over crumbs on the pitch? Are we still going to be a people that is satisfied with disorder mixed with some illusions of grandeur and think it is ok?
We need more people educated, more people with the ability to question our leaders and their deeds, more people to say no to substandard living. While we may never have an egalitarian society, I think its quite possible to have many, many more people living in a dignified way without thinking that only a chosen few have this right while the rest look up to them.
I hope our new man of action at the helm will help change the culture in Zambia to a much more progressive one.
What a week that was! It was wave after wave of news in between hours of work and visiting family and friends. All of them with an opinion of what may or may not happen, just a few weeks after the installation of the new President, Michael Sata. I enjoyed the attention I got, with friends and family all falling all over each other to feed me, delele, lumanda, village chicken, kablangeti beans, impwa,chikanda, fish etc.
At all these meets the main conversation was around politics in Zambia and how King Cobras unorthodox methods seemed to have endeared him to some previously skeptical people.
Until a month before the September 20th election, my interest in Zambian politics had been waning year after year and for the past five years, my apathy completely descended into cynicism. There are reasons for my cynicism, chief among which was what I saw as the "celebration of mediocrity". This affinity to mediocrity seems to have been championed by the political elite. Values like, virtue, uprightness, delayed gratification were systematically frowned upon and in their place, hero worshiping, respect for money and power over people and people's welfare.
It wasn't hard for anyone to see how Zambians seemed to have resigned themselves to things as they were. In time, things that would be considered quite unacceptable in other places were the norm in Zambia. I have in mind the need for house ownership in a free market system.The granting of building permits for example was left to corrupt and often inept people in local councils. As a result, new developments have mushroomed often in unserviced areas, with poor road infrastructure and sanitation. The buildings do not conform to any minimum standard but are left to the owners to decide what structure they will erect. They are an eyesore. Trees have been cut most arbitrarily. In the long run,cheap will be expensive.
My mind is directed to another one of my pet peeves. This is the lack of environmental awareness. The streets are lined with garbage and all sorts of litter. While the councils have a duty to ensure refuse collection, everyone is all but agreed that this function fell beyond the councils' capacity many years ago. But failure by the council is one thing, and failure by people in their individual capacities is quite another. It is common to see people, all sizes, great and small littering the streets with plastic bags and empty containers of all sorts. One would imagine that educated people may refrain from this, but that doesn't exactly happen.
While all this is happening, leaders have often been too busy insulting each other in the media and spending inordinate periods talking trivia on one hand and thinking of schemes to make more money, buy more expensive cars, to drive on dusty potholed roads, and building humungous houses right next to slums with dwellers living in grim conditions. The little boys and girls in these slums have very little hope but to imagine that if they joined politics, they would be out of their misery. There is no attention paid to education at all, what with the falling education standards.
Government schools are ill equipped to educate children who will contribute meaningfully to national development in the future. There are not enough teachers and when they are there, they are paid a pittance leading many of them to take private tuition lessons to make extra money. This leads to either absenteeism or burnout. The schools are often dilapidated and really miserable. And so because the government has failed in its role to provide quality education, so many private schools have mushroomed with little or no regulation on how they will operate. Some charge extortionate fees and they operate without hindrance because the ministry of education has no capacity to inspect these schools and ensure that the standards meet those required for quality education. The quality at some of these schools is appalling.
I could go on and on, but what good will that do? People already know all of this. What people want are answers to some of the vexing questions on education, health, agriculture, infrastructure etc. The new government therefore, offers new hope. People in the country are anxiously waiting to see how this government will transform our country from what it is today, to a better country tomorrow. Are we going to still see the ostentatious displays of ill gotten wealth by those in power and their families? Is politics going to continue to be a money making career, where those in it and their families sit pretty and watch from the grandstands while poverty stricken people fight over crumbs on the pitch? Are we still going to be a people that is satisfied with disorder mixed with some illusions of grandeur and think it is ok?
We need more people educated, more people with the ability to question our leaders and their deeds, more people to say no to substandard living. While we may never have an egalitarian society, I think its quite possible to have many, many more people living in a dignified way without thinking that only a chosen few have this right while the rest look up to them.
I hope our new man of action at the helm will help change the culture in Zambia to a much more progressive one.
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