Part 1:The Impact Of His Politics

By Evaristo Mupeta
The right fore finger raised and his twinkling eyes looking at the mammoth crowd gathered on a hilly place called Buntungwa Park in Chingola’s Nchanga North township Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s musical voice resonated with great persuasion and power.

It was mid 1980 and Zambia was in her 16 th year of independence.I was a 22 year lad and politically conscious -and as is characteristic of youth- with rebellion of some sort. But not a rebel to absent myself from the rally of that day. Buntungwa Park (Buntungwa meaning “Freedom”), a large portion of land, at its lowest slope with a rectangular open shed with an elevated dais built from concrete stones and the shed’s roof of corrugated iron sheets, constructed specifically for capacity gatherings was just hundred and fifty metres away and very visible from my home. I could not miss the meeting, not when the speaker was Dr Kaunda or KK as we fondly called him, the president of our country.

Now ,thirty eight years later I can still recall some of the things Dr Kaunda said.Apart from reaffirming Zambia’s support for the liberation struggle in Southern Africa he lashed out at the critics of the government. I remember that one of the national newspapers the following day carried a front page caption like this:’Kaunda Whips Idiots.’

December 1985:Dr Kaunda Invites Us To State House

While at Mufulira Teachers Training College(MTTC) where I was pursuing a primary school teachers course, I was the president of the College’s Student Representative Council(SRC) and was one of the two student leaders of our college privileged to travel to State House for the meeting held in one of the lounges of State House. Whichever position seated at each one of us students had proximity to him though he was in front with some of his aides. The furthest distance the student leader who sat at the back from Dr Kaunda was a mere ten metres. The nearest distance of those who sat in front of Dr Kaunda was one metre. None of us could be distracted from having a clear view of him any way. We the student leaders from all of the higher institutions of learning in the country numbered just twenty five or so. It was an eye to eye meeting.

After he had warmly welcomed us Dr Kaunda gave a short keynote speech and then asked members of the press to leave.

In his speech he said that he had officially stopped visiting the University of Zambia(UNZA) because the students of that institution who he regarded as his children had been hurling insults at him. After his opening address the president sat down. He asked the student leaders of each institution to stand , go to the front close to him and mention the problems they were facing. The UNZA Great East Road campus president was the first one to speak after which Dr Kaunda commented on what the student leader had presented. Then the UNZA Ridgeway campus was the second to present the grievances followed by the same routine of Dr Kaunda making his own comments. As he did so some of the UNZA student leaders were interjecting to what he was saying. What we had in defiance, he also had in much diplomacy. Our art of confrontation he met with consultation. Third was Evelyn Hone College (EHC) students.

By the time the EHC leader had spoken and Dr Kaunda given his remarks the deliberations had devoured all of the time allotted for the meeting. It was lunch time but some of us from other institutions of learning had not yet spoken. Then Dr Kaunda in a magnanimous manner intervened: we would reconvene after lunch to continue the meeting. That was Dr Kaunda, he was for fair play-he could breach protocol because he wanted emotive issues to be discussed exhaustively.

It was an outdoor lunch. With our host Dr Kaunda leading the way we left the State House lounge to descend the stairs, we walked on the green manicured lawn to go beneath a large tree where we would eat. The chef had done the best to prepare a delicious and sumptuous three course meal perfectly laid on the tables. Our adjourning for lunch added to his friendliness and courtesy. There were no inhibitions; some of us as soon as we had finished eating went to Dr Kaunda and chatted with him briefly. It was self service lunch. It was hospitality at its best to see Dr Kaunda hand a plate to each one of us. It was hilarious. It was an invitation we honoured, it was an invitation we enjoyed.

January 1986: Speech To My Fellow Students

On Sunday January 19,1986 after coming back from State House,superior to the inspiration from Dr Kaunda,I delivered to a packed student audience of my college, Mufulira Teachers Training College(MTTC) a speech calling for the implementation of radical student reforms including giving union status to the institution’s Student Representative Council (SRC) and improvement in diet. Unlike that day I had gone to listen to Dr Kaunda’s speech at the park, the real rebellious me came out. I could be defiant and differential when convinced I was doing the right thing. As summer’s heat easily percolated through the large windows of our rectangular college hall twenty metres away from the Mufulira- Kitwe Road, my audible voice in crescendos reached out to the 300 fellow students present. Everyone was attentive, applauding cheerfully whenever I scored a point. It was eloquence irresistible to none, none at all. Sharp ,elaborate and tingled with a persuasion that would have have motivated the listeners to take the corresponding action almost there and then; and for the larger part darting my shiny brown eyes from one part of the audience to the other as if it was not a prepared speech. But the speech which I had laboured to prepare myself was there with me on the pulpit.

December 1980:First Time to State House At Dr Kaunda’s Invitation.

I had been to State House before when Dr Kaunda invited us in December 1980 while attending the United National Independence Party(UNIP) Youth League Congress at Chongwe Secondary school. His presence was captivating not so much that we were staunch Party cadres as his inherent spirit and charisma as a great leader to inspire. When he hammered a point it was just irresistible for us to stand up and cheer. Our President had spoken; we applauded in cheers that echoed through the semi rural town of Chongwe. We cheered not because we had much energy as young people but because Dr Kaunda had spoken with wisdom.

Each one of us, the one thousand five hundred delegates, when we went to State House ate a good meal, however perhaps unmindful that the funds disbursed on our food had tore a hole into the national coffers, for the money was not paid by UNIP itself but by the government. The party was the government and the government was the party in those years hence the formal connotation,”The party and its government” in all that was being said and done during that time. That inseparability between UNIP and the government made UNIP’s actions no less detrimental as of making the party the unchallengeable accessor to state funds.

We had a socialist –and communist way of running the government- and communism in its indoctrination had pampered us really bad on how not to clearly distinguish between government resources and resources of the party.

The problem with communism is that everything is the same.Blue is black.Red is black.White is black-one unchangeable colour.Even the suppression of people’s basic human rights communism is not irked to see the illegitimacy of such oppression.

We returned to Chongwe, to the politics of sycompancy and slogeenering of the typical one party era we had enmeshed ourselves into.It was campaign time for a new national Youth League executive committee. We started campaigning and some of us being the young people we were our voices became charged with making noise (‘icongo”) which for its meaninglessness simply got drained in Chongwe’s streams.

Part 2:The Impact Of His Economy

If as pupils we had the eagerness when I started grade one at old Nchanga Primary School in Chingola in 1969 to have our exercise books marked we had also the mischief of peeping outside our classroom windows for a Dairy Produce Board(DPB) vehicle that daily brought packets of blue pyramid shaped fresh milk for each one of us pupils to receive freely during breaktime. After drinking the milk from the packets as we gazed at the clear African sky if it was summer we returned to the classroom more keen to learn and -sometimes to be boisterous but not the boisterousness our class teacher Mrs Mwenya who had the authority of a cop and a mother’s mercy could not handle.

December 1986:

On successful completion of my primary teachers course at Mufulira Teachers’ Training College(MTTC) (Remember I said earlier on that I was at MTTC) –thanks to Dr Kaunda for the free education he rolled out nationally from grade one to university levels- I gladly boarded a minibus back to Chingola my home town.

Alas, it was not the Chingola of the cleanest status in the whole country that I knew of, I found:

Chingola,my Chingola its charcoal black tarmac roads were littered with garbage and debris of glasses and assorted merchandize abandoned here and there.

Chingola,my Chingola, the conveyer belt,the smelter,the workers’ alleys, the tunnels, the roads,the machines in the entire mining premises that gave Chingola the distinctiveness-and proud as a thriving copper mining town, were as silent as graveyards and tools long abandoned. Production of copper stalled-an enormous loss of foreign exchange was recorded.

Chingola,my Chingola I mourned to see the desolation that now prevailed in the town of my upbringing.

People had been rioting against the party and its government’s withdrawal of subsidies on meal mealie(Zambia’s staple food), a situation that had now caused the increase in the prices of the commodity.

Instinctively, my mind, like a newly bought Ford Cortina over speeding on the Kitwe-Ndola Road retraced memories of Mr Jason Kafula who was my Civics teacher at Chingola Secondary School, one of the best high schools in the country, a school I shall always feel proud to have been at from form one to form five(1977 to 1981). Ask me if as a new student I suffered the scornful attitude by some of those in forms higher than me of being called “Zeze”-the demeaning name for a fresher of our high school I would assert in the negative. In my own right I can say-and in an unassuming way that I oozed confidence, leadership and intelligence as soon as I first entered the gates of that school. For three years running, I was one of the brightest pupils in Civics and in History and chosen to serve as class monitor in form three. But I struggled in Mathematics and Pure Sciences. Yes, I had my own peculiarity which was why, I believe, they appointed me the headboy of the school from 1980-1981.

With the lessons in public speaking our school’s Current Affairs and Debating Club of which I was a member had been drilling into me, and now having the urge to pioneer the formation of a UNIP Youth League branch at our school asserting myself as a boy of precociousness was just a matter of time.

Then it happened:my deep appreciation to our headmaster Mr Victor Lupeta who gave me permission to address my fellow 1, 200 students on the Friday morning of 21 March 1980-a sunny morning ,during the routine assembly. In a speech about the importance of having the UNIP Youth League at Chingola and characterized by my high,electrifying and authoritative voice it took just a minute into the speech to hold the students spellbound. By the time I had finished speaking after about six minutes later the crowd had en masse thunderously applauded more than eight times, then at last gave a prolonged applause .The delivery of that speech transitioned me into the realm of being rated by all as an outstanding public speaker.

From that Friday I gave the speech it became the strong conviction of the school authority and the student community as a whole that come October seven months later when the headboy was chosen I would no doubt be the one to occupy the position.Thank God- truly, the school authority’s decision to choose me as the headboy was overwhelming,not me calling the headboyship to myself.

Me, the lover of public speaking as William Shakespeare loved the sonnets.Me, the lover of Shakespeare’s works no less the student of leadership.

It was as much remembering the tall, athletic and casual figure of Mr Kafula as his pampering me with economic theories; that inflation is a scenario of too much money chasing too few commodities while deflation is whereby little money in circulation is after many goods. Inflation characterized by high prices of goods became the order of the day in Zambia especially after 1985. We did not need to delve deeper to understand that ‘Kaundanomics’ had failed.

The International Monetary Fund(IMF) to which Zambia had run to for aid came with an avalanche of conditionalities.

When the men from Bretton Woods carrying those shiny briefcases came we admired their immaculate suits but dreaded to hear and read the contents of the papers they drew out of their brief cases.The words: devaluation, removal of state subsidies, wage freeze, controlling the trade unions and cutting public expenditure became embedded in the Zambian vocabulary as though the words were part of the country’s DNA long before the country came into being.

Cry Zambia, the troubled, frail and bed ridden patient she had become, had no choice but to face the ordeal of forcefully opening her own mouth(otherwise the financial lending institutions would open Zambia’s mouth),swallow at prescribed times the dosage of the bitter tablets that in the long run only worsened her economic illness. Zambia was facing, not the travails of labour,of “birthing” or producing more copper to boost her GDP but the pain of swallowing the tablets.Cry Zambia,she gnashed her teeth, in pain and her face became grimaced with wrinkles.

Our eyes became sore in waiting for free milk that would now never come.The sky became filled with darkness.We ran to our schools and government printing presses for free exercise books as we had been doing only to be told that we must now buy our own books.The every day an egg for everyone Dr Kaunda had promised was replaced with a forgetfulness that linger up to today.

So, by the close of 1986 and the years that followed, seemingly, Dr Kaunda had no idiots to criticise, only facing the” idiosycransies” of the complexity of Zambia’s economic problems amidst great expectations for answers by everyone in the nation.

Part 3:The Impact Of His Leadership

October 1991:Last Time At Dr Kaunda’s Election Campaign Rally

Ten years after my listening to Dr Kaunda’s speech at Buntungwa, profound political changes, due to Zambia’s worsening economic situation began to unfold in the country. In the United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) the leading communist state the general party secretary ship and presidency in 1995 changed hands to Mr Mikhail Gorbachev who soon embarked on radical reforms of glasnost(openness) and perestroika(restructuring) – reforms that swirled with such rapidity and mammoth impact that the communism Eastern Europe had been extolling and boasting about for many years collapsed overnight .The far reaching impact on Zambia of the suddenly changed political landscape in Eastern Europe was the acceleration to revert from a singular party state to a multi party one.

But Dr Kaunda came up with the idea of holding a referendum to determine the necessity of returning to plural politics.

Vehemently, when Dr Kaunda was told that it was not the referendum the Zambian people wanted he floated another idea.

He then chose to “democratize”UNIP so that others unlike before could challenge him for the party and Republican presidency.

Defiantly, when Dr Kaunda read the signs of the times he fortified his system.

The many voices in the nation pressing for multi party politics to be reintroduced became militant. Reluctantly, Dr Kaunda when he gauged the intensity of the people’s voices then repealed Article 4(1) of the Republican Constitution that hitherto had restricted the existence of other political parties other than UNIP.

All of a sudden opposition political parties of all shades and hues sprang up like mushrooms at the fall of the first heavy rain. It was like almost everyone wanted to form a political party just as nearly everyone wants to start a Church these days. From “one man briefcase political parties”, to seemingly family ones, parties though however small their contribution in reshaping and enhancing Zambia’s multi party era dispensation could not be underestimated, to the national, magnanimous and people’s favourite (at that time) Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD)

Soon election campaigns by the different political parties and their stake holders were in full swing.Dr Kaunda,as expected was foremost in criss- crossing the country to convince the voters to re elect him.Kawambwa one of the rural towns of Luapula Province he campaigned in just a week before the 31 October 1991 General elections had a correlation to mine: I had been posted and seconded to teach English, Civics and History at Kawambwa’s Mushota Basic School.There I was again, like I had done at Buntungwa in Chingola eleven years earlier, I was among the crowd that listened to his speech-a speech though that was not as inspiring to the people as the ones he had delivered at the pinnacle of his popularity.

Resolutely, even when Dr Kaunda discerned the peoples anti UNIP mood he defended his manifesto.

My returning to teach the following day took a new dimension. When during the third period for another subject in the grade nine class I got a new, long and rock hard piece of white chalk and wrote on the blackboard the words CIVICS in capital letters that stood and looked as straight, distinct and bold as pieces of thin metal that had been premeasured to perfectly fit on an object.

“Mr Stencil,”which was the nick name the pupils had given me for the way my right hand wrote and still writes large, straight and orderly letters,a boy’s hoarse voice was heard at the back of the classroom, followed by laughter, not of a conspiratorial kind but of appreciation. I chuckled with relief for the name because the pupils could sometimes be merciless at sticking a horrible nick name at a teacher’s back.

When I turned my back everyone became conspicuously quiet, some pretending to be reading, their eyes blinking and their faces glowing and looking more youthful. I was about to continue writing when James the pupil seated on the front desk asked:

“Sir, who do you think will win the Presidential elections, Dr Kaunda or Mr Frederick Chiluba?”

James? James of all the pupils who I knew was a withdrawn and introverted boy; James the student of his own silences though he was intelligent. Yet it was from him that a question of such gravity, urgency and topicality came.

Before I could answer the question, roars of “The hour has come!”and “UNIP Kuya bebele!” boomed from the whole class almost in a sychronised or rehearsed pattern.

(“The Hour has come” was the MMD’s election campaign slogan; the slogan assumed so popular status that it was like the formal or informal way of greeting someone in Zambia, while “UNIP kuya bebele” is a pidgin saying in Bemba meaning UNIP as a ruling party must vacate office.)

The unanimity with which the pupils said the words combined with the uniformity and beauty of the blue pair of trousers and white shirts for boys and blue skirts and white shirts for girls made them look and sound, not as pupils but a group of well organized football supporters at Lusaka’s Independence Stadium who were very sure that the Zambian football team-“The Chipolopolo Boys”, would, in a decisive Africa Cup of Nations match beat the formidable rival by many goals.

Heroism

But the the political developments of transition to the re-establishment of the multi party era were paradoxical.The leader of indisputable magnanimity and heroism was Dr Kaunda because he agreed to every concession that was put before him; however much he was asked to let go, he let go.He deserves credit. He conceded to the fundamental changes that coursed Zambia to the politics of pluralism. For the sake of Zambia the country he loves. Unlike some other presidents when the tale tale signs for them to leave office are clear bring in unsavoury measures including violence against their own citizens, Dr Kaunda remained the president of honour and dignity he was and still is; he heed the people’s demands and eventually did what they wanted.

Despite the cut throat rivalry that often characterize politics in any country of the world, in spite of all sorts of criticisms and spiteful statements hurled against him Dr Kaunda did it: he successfully facilitated Zambia’s smooth progression and transition to the multi party system.

When the elections results were announced declaring Mr Frederick Chiluba as the winner and Zambia’s new president Dr Kaunda conceded defeat.

A lot has happened after Zambia’s return to multi party democracy.

Mr Chiluba quickly introduced a free market economy, the men from Bretton Wood arrived in Lusaka sooner than we knew. This time we loved both their immaculate suits and the contents of their briefcases. They may not have mentioned the fat burger, the double n’ cheese steak burger, fried chickens from Kentucky and other American fast foods, but by modelling our economy to theirs and lending us more of their USA dollars we have become hooked to America foods and food chain stores.

We moved from socialism to capitalism: from lethargy to liberalisation,from inertia to innovation, from drowsiness to drastic measures, from the comatose to competition.We moved to the dynamics of capitalism.

A True Man Of The People

I was an unknown student leader when Dr Kaunda invited us to State House. I was the son of a miner.

There were others better placed and well known than me who he hosted. Those who interacted with him on a daily basis. The government ministers, businessmen, clergy, trade unionists, farmers, those in the sports fraternity and many more. Each one of these Dr Kaunda met because he truly cared for them, not out of duty. His informality, his grace, his poise, his joviality, his humour-and even his brutal frankness has made a difference in many people’s lives.

For Dr Kaunda it was not enough to see those he had hosted at State House leave.He would usually stand at the door of the State House to bid them farewell by waving the white handkerchief which he always held in his hand.

As historians and political pundits continue to write about what Dr Kaunda has done and what he has not done they shall continue to put his works on the scale and ask: has his goodness outweighed the bad, his strengths the weaknesses and his fortitude the fears?

Thank Dr Kaunda for your leadership in freeing Zambia from colonial rule, for your patriachial role in the nation, for fostering into Zambia a great sense of belonging ,nationhood,peace,stability and sovereignty.

Thank Dr Kaunda for your resolve and steadfastness that made Zambia immensely contribute to the liberation struggles in Southern Africa, for making us take the oppression,injustice and exploitation of our brothers and sisters who were under oppression that time as our own.

Of those who learnt from Dr Kaunda they are several.Except for Frederick Chiluba,his immediate successor, successive presidents were protégés of Dr Kaunda:Mr Levy Mwanawasa, Mr Rupiah Banda, Mr Michael Sata, each one of them consulted Dr Kaunda. Even Mr Edgar Lungu Zambia’s incumbent president seeks advice from Dr Kaunda.

For me, that his leadership impacted me is all too clear on a Chingola Secondary School Current Affairs and Debating Club Certificate on which the Club Patron Mr Edward Nkonde and the Deputy Headmistress Ms Dorothy Mwenya (different from the one who had taught me in grade one) respectively on 20th October 1981 wrote these words:

“Evaristo has few equals in the world of public speaking.He was an emulator of the great leaders of the world.He is a well informed speaker in many disciplines. No wonder he was the school’s Headboy.” Club Patron.

“Evaristo was a capable leader.He passed votes of thanks at a number of social and political occasions. He did it ably and magnificently.” Deputy Headmistress.

Dr Kaunda is certainly one of the leaders who in my quest during my youth to learn, inquisitive as I have been about leadership, who through his speeches and writings shaped my political ideas. Of equal importance have also been Dr Martin Luther King Jnr, John F. Kennedy, Sir Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela about whose lives and works I have studied.

Our dear Dr Kaunda, as much I have directly or indirectly been in wishing you the best on your previous birthdays, me, the lad you have schooled in the art of politics and its vagaries, in glee and grace, is at your doorstep to wish you, like many other Zambians and people around the world the same on your ninety fourth one:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!