Friday, March 29, 2024

Tashupika: We are Suffering in America

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By Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D. Professor of Sociology

I had been watching news all week about the early voting for the crucial American Presidential elections on November 3rd. I saw TV images of long lines of voters standing six feet apart going sometimes miles or kilometers around street blocks in many cities and towns. Some people were reporting standing in line for eight hours to cast their vote.

About thirty million Americans of the possible total of about 134 million voters had already voted in the early voting by last week. Some had voted by mailing or posting their ballots. But the President and Republicans are so desperate to win re-election that the Post Office was messed up in June this year. Some Post Office boxes were removed, large mail automatic processing machines were removed from Post offices, and the Post Office mail or letter carriers were ordered to slow down mail delivery. Since many people especially Democrats were going to vote by mail because of the Corona Virus pandemic, these measures were going to severely delay or disrupt the delivery of the filled election ballots causing Trump and the Republicans to win re-election. The President has been making wild false statements that voting by mail was going to cause wide spread fraud in the elections. There is no proof of voter fraud as many States like California have safely conducted mail voting for decades. The bad news made me panic. I did not want my vote not to count on Election Day if I was unable to vote that day due to overcrowding. So I decided to go and vote last Saturday on a non-work day.

The previous evening, I went to the park and exercised since all the gyms are Covert-19 super spreaders and have been closed. In the morning, I packed lunch, took two spare masks, charged my cell phone lining up my favorite music. I drove 23 Kms to the closest town of Harrisonburg population of 54,000. I arrived ready to face voting obstacles at the Rockingham Country early voting precinct. There was no line. I went inside and voted in less than ten minutes.

But much as I feel good that I voted, I and millions of other Americans have this very deep fear. The country is very divided and we fear there might be violence on election day next Tuesday November 3rd. I have witnessed many elections for the last 40 years in this country. I have never seen this much tension over elections with actual threats of violence breaking out on election day and the days that follow. There have been fears that after being defeated in the elections, the President might refuse to leave office or the White House as he has already broken most of the rules of his office over the last 4 years.

The tensions, divisions, and now more than 225 thousand Americans dead from Corona virus started on July 16 2015. This is the day when Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President of the United States as a member of the Republican Party. He started by saying Mexican immigrants were criminals, rapists and drug dealers. He bullied over 17 other Republican candidates and won the nomination. For months, he falsely claimed President Obama was born in Kenya and was not an American. There were so many terrible things he said as a candidate that I, and most Americans believed he would never win the General Election. Once he won in November 2016, the nation was stunned. We knew we were in for the next 4 years of hell as a nation. I remember the following week in November 2016 being at a meeting of over 200 people in room as a member of the newly created Indivisible Movement that was going to resist Trump for the next four years. These past 4 years have been dark days in America.

George Washington is the founding father and the first President. Since 1797, there have been 45 Presidents. Trump is among the worst. He won his election very narrowly in 2016 engaging in political chicanery as Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million. Press reports today say he has told more than twenty thousand lies.

The entire Congress and Senate are so corrupted that when the President was impeached last year, the Senate refused to remove him from office. The entire federal bureaucracy is headed by his inept political sycophants as most experts have been side lined or forced out of government. The President demands that all his government appointees have personal loyalty to him and not the Constitution of the United States. The President has fomented disunity among the 28 European countries who are members of NATO. These are not just my words or views, as there are now over a dozen books and too many former patriotic government employees disclosing how corruption, criminality, and immorality are so rampart. This great American nation has been lucky many times during it’s over 200 years since the first President George Washington in 1797. Tashupika; we are suffering here in America. We are all just praying we will be lucky during next Tuesday Presidential elections.

34 COMMENTS

  1. Professor Tembo at your age i personally think home Zambia is best for you…..We are only citizens on paper here in the USA otherwise they dont want us here as black People….period

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  2. Troubled society, troubled individuals…….. perhaps your hope was that it was politically ‘cooler’ where you are than here.

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  3. Let this sink…..they only give us citizenship here in the USA so that they can collect taxes from us….modern day slavery….no place like home….home is home….and Professor Tembo imagine how much respect you have back home in chief Mwase in Lundazi where you come from…but here in the USA they treat you like a nobody…just a tool to get more taxes for the federal government…lets go back Kaizar Zulu will welcome us back home

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  4. I wasn’t here in the USA in the 60s but now i have a feel how it used to be living in the USA in the 40s ,50s,60s…..Black and white not looking into each other’s eyes anymore… tensions are high…whites driving around with loaded guns in their pick up Trucks…..and Police not saying anything….a black man holds a screw driver in his hands he gets murdered by the Police….Well….am soon coming back home…Kaizar Zulu please welcome me back home….33 years in the USA and i feel like a strange r every day

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  5. Ba Tembo mudala stop embarrassing us naimwe.
    We are really enjoying the politics here in America. I hope we can start early voting in Zambia 2021 elections. Imagine 70% of registered voters in America have already voted, with 3 days to elections day.
    Let’s see if ECZ can hold such elections.
    kekekeke

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  6. It’s only a lost upnd diasporan who masters another country’s history better than that of his country of birth. What has American election got to do with us ? We have our own coming in 2021.why is this published here? Lusaka times can you be serious with what you post. The writer is clearly depressed with grey hairs there abroad. Just swallow pride and come back home here. I will employ you

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  7. Nothing to come back to…No land no house…I feel sad for these people there is no place like home…Sir just come back and establish your self here in Zambia.

    You can’t keep on wasting your mortgage money in that land…

    If you are a US citizen you can always go back for Christmas.

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  8. Whatever your grievances about Donald Trump, just know that he’s better than Edgar and Hakainde combined. Just accept that the US isn’t your home. Find a way to get along, here we hustle. How else do you think we survive despite all this non sense from the PF and UPND? Nikulimba mudala, walila mvula, walila matope.

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  9. He was probably writing from a nursing home. You marry an American, and when you re too old an unproductive, your wife and children bundle you in a nursing home. Asking to come home is very difficult question. Most of these guys don’t even have houses back home and they lost contact with their relatives long time ago.

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  10. Agony is to be black and grey in a racist country. As prof. of Sociology, he should know that things don’t get better by complaining. Just pack up your bags and go home.. try farming in Zambia. You will be surprised to find fulfillment for your soul. What’s the use of living in a “great nation” when you end up so depressed?

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  11. There’s always an option to go back home sir, no need to worry about Trump. People your age are farming in Zambia and enjoying tea, no need of stressing about mortgages and having sleepless nights over that Lunatic trump. I hope you were wise enough to invest back home during your stay in the US. Best wishes!!!

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    • No theres no such option if you have taken up another country’s citizenship. You will have to que up like other foreigners.

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  12. I hear you professor Mwizenge Tembo “Tashupika”. A lamentation for longing to be at peace in a safe country. I believe that is only possible to be attained only in one’s own country of origin. I am in transition to Zambia and have prepared settlement plans though with unpredictable PF government blaming diasporans for bad economic situation in Zambia. What is comforting is returning to my mother country Zambia where even enormous suffering Zambians beam with joy all over. So, Mwizenge pa uli? will welcome you with accomodation to start with.

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  13. What a biased opinion. You think we don’t read about US politics. Common people voted for Trump because the elite were selling them out. Ati Trump should concede, democrats have never accepted defeat since 2016. The impeachment was fake.

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  14. And the Media also too much blowing things out of proportion….too much propaganda….according to the Media,BBC,CNN etc…..there will be violence in the USA after elections……fake news…..there’s tension yes but they won’t be any violence….just fake CNN spreading fake news and trying so hard to entice violence just like they do to African countries

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  15. You’re only giving Kaizar Zulu to assassinate you. You know exactly how he feels about educated Zambians who live overseas.

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  16. You’re only giving Kaizar Zulu ammunition to assassinate you. You know exactly how he feels about educated Zambians who live overseas.

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  17. Kaizar Zulu you have disappointed me. You really think that what happens in America does not affect you in Zambia? Wow! Your relatives, friends and even colleagues in government are being kept alive by US funding for their life saving drugs. Cholera is history in Lusaka because of US funded water and sewerage funded system. This election in US is very important for Africa because traditionally, most US presidents concentrate on foreign policy in their second terms. America sneezes, you in Zambia will catch pneumonia.

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  18. Afro-Americans born and brought up in America do not feel safe living in America. Some have even decided to take up citizenship in Senegal, Ghana and other African countries where they feel more at home. So, why does Professor Mwizenge Tembo still want to stay put in America. This reminds me of the amachona song about those who left their home villiages and do not wish to return because they want to eat bread, polony and drink fanta in town. Ba Mwizenge bwelelani ku Zambia, pilizi. Osavutika na America ya Trump. Mufuna mufele kwamene uko monga munzi wanu ku Zambia unashokewa.

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  19. People always sing about investing back home…but the problem is once we get our citizenship we become very comfortable and start living the American dream and start talking bad about where we came from…..this is a wake up call to all Zambians in the diaspora who have vowed never to go back to Zambia….i know a few Zambians in Chicago and Texas who are now regretting after years of Ukupontela Zambia just because they are based in the USA….Zambia is our home…hear it from Prof Tembo…….Just pack your bags big man and head to Lundazi and start farming…..Old age in America can be depressing plus black skin…thats even worse

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  20. The decent majority are going to do the right thing. They’ll dump Trump so that the USA becomes a normal country again. Make America normal again u Yankees. If Prof Mwizenge Tembo has chosen to become an American, that’s fine. But the important thing is he retains his ties with his birthplace. This can benefit Zambia in so many ways.

  21. The decent majority are going to do the right thing. They’ll dump Trump so that the USA becomes a normal country again. Make America normal again, u Yankees. If Prof Mwizenge Tembo has chosen to become an American, that’s fine. But the important thing is he retains his ties with his birthplace. This can benefit Zambia in so many ways.

  22. All these comments reveal clique reasoning unfortunately. Do all of you comedians, expect to build a house etc for the Prof should he relocate to your backyards? Are you deporting the Simon Zukases and Patels to their a “Phiri anabwera countries in retirement? Do you want the professor to return to a place where people fail to earn a living practicing their professions but
    resort to politics of ” ukulwila ubunga” and utu ma government contracts like Fube and Kambwili etc to make ends meet?

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  23. To all of you who does not know the prof, stop negative comments. He has some investments back home. we are very much ready to welcome him as family. He has enough land.

  24. The go back to the village reasoning has not changed. Many that followed that reasoning died after they got to the village. Now it’s the go back to zambia reasoning. Believe me this won’t work either. Despite the broken government in the US, atleast the system works for most things. In zambia almost all systems are broken, you will be even more frustrated than living in the usa. Everyone should live where they have chosen to like, and the land that gives the the greatest return. For some its zambia, for some its abroad.

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