An Analysis of Zambia’s moral decay – Chitimukulu

By Henry Kanyanta Sosala

PART I

Preamble.

I would in the first remiss if I do not tell a little bit about myself. I am a free-thinker and a free-thinker is supposed to be audacious i.e., to be extremely bold, daring, recklessly brave and fearless. I believe that conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. To conform means thinking as the crowd thinks. It is a system of misdirection that makes one exhibit a behaviour called ‘’herd mentality.’’ And I am therefore totally liberated because one of the tenets of being a free-thinker is the ability to tell people what they need to know, rather than what they want to hear.

I personally believe that we as a nation have lost the moral compass. And this therefore makes my article the most controversial because I have singlehandedly gone against the accepted ‘’normal’’ Zambian principles on sex morality since I can never subscribe to the current scenario of ’’liberated sex.’’

The greatest problem is the ‘’Bantu’’ type of education which was especially designed for Africa that teaches ‘’what to think,’’ and not ‘’how to think.’’ And therefore the majority of our African intellectuals are victims of this strait-jacketing. The image of the human mind is infinitely malleable, capable of being reformed, transformed and rectified without limit. And this is the area where ‘’Bantu’’ education system actively plays its role since character and thought patterns can be directed to desired ends and whoever controls the mind, controls the man. And so the type of education you receive will direct the way you approach the whole spectrum of life. King Solomon wrote: ‘’Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.’’

The Genius of the Imperialist.

Who is an imperialist or a capitalist-exploiter? Irvin Babbitt in his book Democracy and Leadership wrote: “…..the man who stands for nothing higher than the law of cunning and the law of force, and so is, in the sense I have sought to define imperialistic.” The imperialist has an instinct or genius for colonizing. The imperialist or capitalist-exploiter has sharpened his exploiting techniques to the edge of a razor. The capitalist-exploiter is a great strategist and he is as well blessed with the gift of wit and he leads with truth but never to truth. He cannot exploit the continent without first demoralizing the inhabitants

And therefore one of the strategies to achieve the total domination of the African has been to instill self-despise into our minds. Dr. Kaunda in ’’A Humanist in Africa’’ wrote: ‘’The colonialists set out to destroy an African’s self-confidence. They dinned into his mind the idea that we were primitive, backward and degraded, and but for their presence amongst us, we would be living like animals. The result is that even today in an independent African state, you will find a certain sector of the population suffering from a Bwana complex. They cannot stand on their own feet as free men but must look over their shoulder all the time for the approval of the white man.’’

And to the contrary, Professor Rene Dumont in his book, ‘’False Start in Africa’’ wrote: ‘’ African civilizations reached a kind of apogee in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, earlier around Benin. African blacksmiths knew how to work gold, copper, bronze and even iron, the latter as early as the time of our Lord Jesus Christ. They thus surpassed the oceanic civilizations, like those of pre-Columbus America, in technique development. The system of cultivation practiced at the time, working the earth with hoes after clearing it with fires and rotation of fallow lands is still used today with rare modifications.…. However, no one knows where agrarian African civilization would be today if it had been able to follow a normal development, in peaceful contact with European techniques. But, alas, this development was brusquely arrested, and we are still paying for the crimes of our white ancestors, who believed that they were free to do anything, endowed as they were with ‘innate superiority’.’’

The answer lies in what Lord Macaulay told the British Parliament on 2^nd February, 1835: ‘’I have travelled across the length and breadth of Africa and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, if the Africans think that all that is foreign is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want, a truly dominated nation.’’

And it is unfortunate that because of mis-education, today many educated Zambians wrongly believe that their cultural heritage is derived from their education and conscious approximation to the western living standards. None can overlook the fact that the western man has brought a lot of civilization to Africa, but it comes with a sly danger, because while celebrating the generous donor aid and such privileges as learning and enlightenment, it can easily blind us to who we really are and come to the fatal conclusion that the white man is the measure of all things. This perverted mentality has subverted the African personality like no other ideology.

For example, in an article African Culture and Development, Simeo Siame wrote: ‘’Culture for what?….it is futile to mobilize thousands of manpower to paddle a big boat or spend days and nights dancing round a bonfire, when such manpower should have been at points of economic production….this culture can no longer be a tool for modernization and economic development..’’

And what actually lies under this blinding type of education? in his book ‘’The Sociology of Black Africa’’ Professor Georges Balandier talks of ‘’the psychology of colonization,’’ which sets the Europeanized African into a transformation of the whole mentality as he enters the heart of western logic and the role of imitation which occurs in a variety of manifestations and the apparent duplicity leads to mental conflict of being ‘’like an actor playing two parts.’’ And other sociologists say, ‘’the conflict produces doubt and fogginess of mind, resulting in lack of balance and reasoning.’’ In fact anthropological research have revealed ‘’mental conflicts’’ resulting from ‘’the too rapid development of individualism.’’ R. Firth, carried out a research in West African countries under British influence on neuroses and psychoses and variety of mental disturbances that affect so many of the peasants when they start to work in industrial enterprises. This simply means that many of those half-clever town-dwellers who think that they are ‘’jacked-up’’ (ukucampuka kwa bu mbuli nangu ukusambilila kwa mungulu weka weka) are mere mental patients.

You can see how after 180 years (i.e. 1832-2012), we have become prey to Lord Macaulay’s strategy and endorsed cultural genocide in the useless foreign-drafted Constitution which I had strongly opposed and I was only supported by Professor Muna Ndulo, a US-based constitution lawyer. And according to the Report of the Technical Committee on Drafting the Zambian Constitution: ‘’Part V on Bill of Rights, Article 63: Language and Culture states in 63 (3): A person shall not be compelled to- (a) perform, observe, participate in, or be subjected to, any cultural practice or rite; or (b) form, join, contribute, maintain or pay allegiance to any cultural, traditional or linguistic association, organization, institution or entity.’’

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight without vision. And It is general knowledge that no one forces anybody to do what have been stated above i.e., who goes overseas to force the tourists who flock to watch the highly celebrated and magnificent Kuomboka ceremony? The question is the motive behind the inclusion of such in the Constitution which is actually in line with Lord Macaulay’s proposal and traditional rulers should carefully note: ‘’….NOT to maintain or pay allegiance to any cultural, traditional or linguistic institution..’’ The big question is: Was not the useless Constitution advocating the abolition of chieftainship?

The useless Constitution was the product of NGOs. In fact it has been alleged that the Members of the National Assembly have surrendered their powers of decisions to the civil society groups. The former Germany envoy, His Excellency, Erich Kristof said that the National Assembly was his major disappointment since his arrival in the country. It was strange to observe that the National Assembly didn’t play a major role in many national matters despite of being elected representatives of the people. ”I wish the National Assembly being elected representatives of  the people can be proactive when dealing with national matters instead of the civil society. The civil society is not elected….the chiefs should also play a major role in areas where government is not present.” (Sunday Post 10^th July 2005)

The truth is that the civil society groups are given programmes by their sponsors on strategies _____ they are boxed in a coffin-like narrowness of vision and thereby suffocate their creative imaginations. Admittedly, some of the individuals in the civil society groups have the best brains, but they have to follow instructions. And hence there is loss of sovereignty over self; loss of power, dignity, morality and debility

. Let me now take you back in order to clearly understand what I am talking about. In 2003, President Mwanawasa initiated the national indaba in order to try and gauge the general consensus on national issues from the supposed top cream in our society. And according to Gazette No. 587 of 2003, the majority of the participants were drawn from the NGO groups. However, a lawyer in attendance summed it up in these frightening words: ‘’What we saw in the indaba was that decisions were made through mob psychology. Those who shouted the loudest carried the day.’

On the other hand, the ‘’clever’’ who had lamentably failed to come up with an ‘’economic road map’’ at the national indaba, eventually received the ‘’constitution road map,’’ with well-coached blinding slogans like, ‘’people driven constitution’’; ‘’Zambia’s back-bone’’ and these were backed up by well-calculated mob psychological propaganda materials like, ‘’Mwanawasa must respect the will of the people’’; ‘’the people have spoken.’’

And according to the then finance minister, Ng’andu Magande, the money given to NGOs was not properly accounted for and the donors don’t ask how and where it had been taken. (Zambia Daily Mail 21^st June 2007). The then South African President, P.W. Botha once said: ‘’……. the white man would use the African’s love of money to destroy himself……..here is a creature who lacks foresight.’’ (TO BE CONTINUED)