Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Why a moral revolution is needed now more than ever

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We cannot get overly familiar with the intolerable images of unarmed African American men dying on flimsy grounds, and in many cases, by the hands of people ordained to protect them. African Americans have suffered disproportionately under the heavy yolk of a partial justice system. The chorus of supplications for a fairer, just and equitable society has often fallen on deaf ears. While progress has been made, more is still needed to reach the “promised land” of a racially just society. But we cannot afford to ignore these death cries any longer. These traumatic events of race relations serve as collective summons for all to move from postures of stagnant passivity and a deadening complacency, to a reasoned determination, needed to bend the “long arc of the moral universe” towards a just society. Racism has for centuries exerted its baneful influence on American society. It is precisely for these reasons that we all need to rally together to urgently extricate the malevolent grip of racism, off the tender neck of America’s race relations.

Photo Credit: Associated Press

A moral revolution is needed

A “moral revolution”, as Dr Martin Luther King Jr put it, is urgently needed now more than ever. A collective righteous indignation against racism is needed to safe guard our societies against its corrosive effects. This is the most urgent work of today, or else we run the danger of racial hatred and bigotry being permanently codified in societal institutional structures. We need to forge new beginnings of race relations and strive mightily for a racially just society for all. The hope of America lies in its diversity, as “the land of the free and home of the brave.” In the end, the greatness of America should not only lie in the towering military might, the technological and scientific exploits, but also in an expansive redemptive moral vision that is rooted in the ideals of human solidarity and dignity, which also should be the envy of the world.

By Sula Mazimba MD, MPH

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28 COMMENTS

  1. I fell to take Blacks seriously on certain issues. We have run away from Ubuntu and accept anything white. When my President ECL insisted that Ubuntu doesn’t accept gay , my fellow zambian blacks called him all sorts of names. We’ve lost Ubuntu that’s why those who have been abroad tend to forget local languages insisting on English. You may wake up but you’ll never unite

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  2. I have every sympathy for those blacks who had no option to decide whether they wanted to live in diaspora. I am talking about black Americans and British whose ancestors were forcefully sold as slaves. However I don’t share any sympathy for those lazy Africans who are so weak minded with inferiority complex that they decided to seek asylum in diaspora. How do you follow people that colonised you and then expect them to think of you as equals? Continue living there and risking your necks being kneeled on like a chicken

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  3. You have to be beautiful, sex and fit to go prostest. You need sneakers too.
    Now I answered why Zambians never protests anymore….
    Protesting in chitenges, no sneakers and fat. The only protests we see are those fat coward women on Facebook videos. Women who eat nshima for breakfast can’t walk for 1 hour.

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    • Here we go again with another Zambian with “An elephant in the room “syndrome, more than 50 Zambians were killed by marauding mobs for been suspected I mean suspected to be gassers, tuli ndwiiii to date, we have hate speech peddlers , just yesterday this DMMU guy with a females voice was peddling hate speech, I could even feel how much hate he has for the people in south, that hate if he was given chance to kill he would do it, tuli ndwiii, but we are ready to protest about xenophobic attacks in south Africa and racial discrimination in the US. We are hypocritical people.

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  4. There’s a viral video making rounds on Zambian social media…, where a Zambian man in Luanshya sh!t himself because he was almost strangled on his neck using bare hands by a ZAMBIAN POLICEMAN while in custody because of a woman.
    Zambian police are worse they treat foreigners like semi-gods, while routinely engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, including torture, and murder to extract confessions, from fellow Zambians

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  5. Zambian has more problems to be worrying about race relations in the west……

    Lungus assults on democratic freedoms of citizens and his shielding of gassing suspects responsible for mass murder are more pressing issues closer to home

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  6. In this struggle, Africans/African American will need to re-claim what is their true self – and that includes getting ride of these slave- owners adopted names – something Smith, Chakuti Wiliams.. Woman stop wearing these white wigs to beautify yourselves.

    Power to the People. Our Black selves matters and the includes Lives!

  7. It’s simply unbelievable to see how black people have been treated in the USA. A nation which proudly advocates human rights worldwide and has the largest symbol of justice and liberty is not able to stop downright systemic racism in their own country.

    I’m afraid the moral revolution the author is calling for wont be an easy one because the problem is not on the side of the sufferers. The problem is with the white supremacist ideology which dates back to the history of slavery and lynching. We don’t have to pretend everything’s gonna be alright as long as there are still organisations like the Ku Klux Klan walking around unscathed and unpunished.

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  8. Funny that people would be concerned about things happening miles away yet in Zambia it’s the black police men and politicians mistreating fellow blacks. How many have died in a similar way to George floyd in Zambia at the hands of a fellow black man and institutions that are supposed to protect them? Mapenzi, vespers, the poor school boy shot during the gassing saga, kadafi, NDC youth chairman and the 50 who died during the gassing era and others like Sean tembo who were attacked in daylight by PF hooligans or hoodlums. Not long ago lusambo was arresting people buying mealie meal with their own money. Why have zambians not risen to demand accountability for such actions done by our fellow black people.

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  9. The moral revolution the author is calling is not on the obligation of the sufferers. It is an obligation for those who preach an ideology of race supremacy. That is where the revolution is needed.

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  10. Really? You want to make the world better, when we can’t even make our own country safe? A lot of questions come to mind, like tackling the tribal and racial issues we have in Zambia, when our elected leaders can’t protect the common man, this is what the fight should be about.

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  11. In our country, we have racism against us blacks and tribalism against each other promoted by our politicians who want to benefit from our division.

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  12. Rowdy

    For sure……

    How can we be worrying about the ways whites treat blacks in the west when right in Zambia we have worse atrocities committed by the lungu regime against fellow black Zambians ?

    Atrocious and ridiculas to wanting to look at some ones house when in your house you are a mess…..

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  13. Zambia’s current repulsive issue is one DMMU coordinator by the name of Chende Kabwa bossaring at the good people of Southern Province with unbridled Tribal hate speech! What this big headed young man should do is resign to save DMMU face because he can’t insult Southerners and expect to continue working with them. His utterences are not only childish but inflammatory and divisive! Leaders must understand that their primary job is to build and not to destroy! So Zambia’s problem is not racism but Tribal Hatred especially against the Tongas! Watch your mouth iwe Ka Kabwa and don’t ever set foot in SP! Let someone mature enough deal with SP!

  14. Keizer, I am so amazed at your narrowness of thinking. It explains why tribalism is so entrenched in Zambia. You can not be so short sighted by thinking that what affects a Black Man in America does not affect Black people in Zambia. The indignity of a Black person anywhere is indignity of Black person everywhere. Inhumanity in one place is inhumanity everywhere.It is for this reason why Chinese disrespect you in your own country.One must love the Jews for their solidarity against antisemitism. An attack against a Jew is an attack against Jews anywhere.

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  15. Maybe Kaizar Zulu should have been sold as a slave so Zambia can have peace , development and sanity . He supports a very weak, inept and visionless government.

  16. By any means necessary…..Kaizar Makaka just deal with your new colonial masters the china man and stop worrying about Zambians in the Diaspora….we are here for a quality of life…dont think we are lazy…you Kaizar you like throwing litter everywhere thats why we left you with your gabbage….start by cleaning the streets,stop corruption and then all the Diaspora Zambians will come back home

  17. @ubuntu how can the indignation of black men be linked when we have sadists in diaspora wishing evil and death on their country of birth and leaders in their country of birth. The people in diaspora should be the last to talk about such. You are self hating of your fellow African and then you wonder why the whites there treat you so appallingly. How can some one who does not respect his roots expect respect from others?

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  18. @ zamani I wouldn’t have been sold as slave as I m a descendant of royalty. I have royal blood in me

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  19. @ anonymous we have no colonial masters. My president is black and zambian, how about you there ? Can you say the same

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  20. KZ

    Is a parasite living off the blood of poor Zambians …….where would you be without rigged elections ????

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  21. Wrong platform to advertise but we offering FREE Rape and chibwaba in Surrey, should be ready in two months, feel free to come and pick from the allotment , let me know and all seeds are from Zambia, cheers

  22. @Kaizar Pompwe
    Your Pompwe makaka friend Miles Sampa was forced to kneel down before your new colonial masters the China man just a few days ago…

  23. Here we have our own police officers n politicians abusing us physically n financially in our own country yet Chinese n other foreigners go scot free , making their own rules enslaving Zambian workers into boarding work. What’s going on iwe KZ?

  24. KZ….Your new colonial master is China , open your eyes n read the numerous Chinese bill boards we have. I can read mandarin n most of them say chalo chesu ichi till ba bwesha inkongole.

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