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

I had just completed my Form V (Grade 12) at Chizongwe Secondary School in December 1971. I was very excited when I was offered my very first job as Assistant Manager at Dzithandizeni Nutrition Group in Chipata. My pay was K95.00 per month.

I knew Chipata really well as the town was small. I was young. I did not drink at the time as I was still under the legal drinking age of 18. I could not go to bars and nightclubs. Most of my friends and classmates had migrated to the City of Lusaka and the Copperbelt. Virtually all the young girls of my dreams, especially from St. Monica’s Girls Secondary School, generally migrated to Lusaka and the Copperbelt. My biggest entertainment that I looked forward to was watching movies on Saturday night.

The largely small white or European expatriate community had converted a three-bedroom residential house in the Chipata Mayadi or upscale residential neighborhood into a movie theater. The house was located east of the Chipata Post Office. It was there where I showed up one Saturday night in 1971 at 7:00pm or 1900 hours to see a movie. The small room could accommodate about 75 movie goers.

You could tell those days the length of the movie you are about to watch by how many large reels were piled up next to the projector operator. As I settled down in my seat, I was happy to see three humongous reels. The sweet continuous purring sound of the projector started. The large screen image was new and rectangular called technicolor. Then the Metro Goldwyn Mayer Logo of the roaring lion showed.

Three long hours later, I walked out of that movie drenched in sweat all over my body. I was thrilled. Suddenly I had so many questions and dreams as I walked home through the dimly lit streets of Chipata next to the Kanjala School neighborhood where the house in which I was temporarily living was located. I murmured to myself so much as I walked for 45 minutes going over the thrilling scenes from the movie in my head so many times.

Fifty-two years is a long time ago. Although I could still remember major scenes from the movie, I wished I could see the movie again. I had no hope I would ever see the movie because that was such a long time ago until I complained to my son who majored in computer science in college. He is computer savvy which I am not. To my both surprise and joy, I could watch “Mutiny on the Bounty” again on my TV.

The narrator starts in 1787 in a British Empire seaport in England. The massive sailboat “The Bounty” was getting ready to sail. The dozens of sail boat hands were ordinary British laborers looking for adventure. The main characters are Captain Bly, perhaps the most ruthless villain and cruel captain on the boat. Captain Bly’s nemesis is Captain Christian Fletcher who is the young legendary Marlon Brandon. I did not know who Marlon Brando was in 1971.

What are the five memorable events in the entire movie? Spoiler alert: if you are going to watch the movie, you should stop here. First, the cruelty of Captain Bly was so over the top and disgusting I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands 52 years ago in 1971 and now in 2023. Second, the violent sea storms the Bounty encountered for days were deadly and heart thumping. Third, the scenes and events when the boat arrived on the South Pacific Island of Tahiti are simply memorable for a teenager, especially the dances and beautiful gorgeous bikini girls on the blue waters and white sand beaches. Fourth, when Captain Fletcher led the mutiny, I was cheering thinking that it was about time. Fifth, “The Bounty” mutineers sailed to over 30 islands to seek refuge and hide from the forces of the British empire who were going to hunt for and hang them for the mutiny. The end of the movie is very heart wrenching especially for a hopeless romantic like this author.

There are so many questions I could not answer about why this movie affected me so profoundly 52 years ago. Afterall, this was a piece of fiction or make believe. Why was I sweating? Besides the beautiful women, why did the Tahiti islands and the South Pacific influence me so much of my dreams for much of my life?

My experience was testimony to how a great piece of powerful art can influence you for life. After watching that movie, I began to dream of travelling around the world even though I grew up in Zambia which is a land locked country. I wanted to visit the Caribbean and South Pacific Islands. When you are confronted with egregious good vs evil, which side would you be on? Would I support and cower to evil or would I fight for good? Was I capable of rebelling against evil such as during African Atlantic Slave Trade and the Arab Slave Trade? Most of all the movie greatly influenced me because I am a romantic and a good romance writer.

Because I am a romance writer this is why I wrote my romance adventure novel “The Bridge”. The Curriculum Development Center of the Ministry of Education has approved the novel “The Bridge” for use in Zambian Schools for teaching English and English Literature in Grades 10 – 12.” I would have loved to read “The Bridge” when I was learning English literature at Chizongwe Secondary School.

By Henry Kyambalesa

In this article, I wish to share my understanding of the story relating to the origins of our beloved country. The history of our country can be traced from at least 3 million years ago as having been part of the northern African Rift Valley. Archaeologists have found stone implements, similar to those found in modern Kenya, along the Zambezi River.

A number of early Stone Age sites have been unearthed in many parts of our beloved country, the most significant being at the Kalambo Falls in the Northern and the Victoria Falls in the Southern portions of the country. At Kalambo Falls, archaeologists have found evidence that our ancestors began using fire over 60,000 years ago.

At Victoria Falls, on the other hand, they have found a housing complex showing that the people who lived there had developed important architectural, organisational, human relations, and survival skills.

1. The 12^th Century: Much of the readily available information about Zambia’s past, though, starts from the 12^th Century when the Shona people arrived in the area from the south and established the Mwene Mutapa Empire, which included today’s southern Zambia.

2. The 16^th Century: During the 16^th Century, the region witnessed the arrival of people from the Luba and Lunda empires of the former Zaire to set up small kingdoms. They were joined later during the 19^th Century by the Ngoni people from the south. During the latter part of the 19^th Century, the country’s 73 tribal groups had already established themselves in the areas they currently occupy.

3. The Late 1800s: British imperialist, John Cecil Rhodes, obtained a concession for mineral rights from local chiefs in 1899, and eventually took control over the territory and administered it through his British South Africa Company (BSAC) as North-Eastern Rhodesia (with Fort Jameson – now Chipata – as its capital) and North-Western Rhodesia (with Kalomo as its capital).

In 1911, the territory became Northern Rhodesia with Livingstone as its capital. In 1924, the BSAC ceased to be the political power and the territory became a British Protectorate. In 1935, the seat of government was eventually moved from Livingstone to Lusaka.

4. August 1953: The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was created in August 1953, consisting of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (now Malawi). In opposition to the Federation, the late Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula and his followers (including Kenneth David Kaunda) formed the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress (ANC), which was later banned (in 1959) and its leaders imprisoned by British authorities.

5. The Year 1960: Kenneth David Kaunda, upon his release from prison, founded the United National Independence Party (UNIP) to campaign for independence and the dissolution of the Federation dominated by white-ruled Southern Rhodesia. On December 31, 1963, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was finally and permanently dissolved.

6. October 24, 1964: Northern Rhodesia gained independence on October 24, 1964, with Kenneth David Kaunda of the United National Independence Party (UNIP) as the first President of Zambia.

7. Origin of the Name “Zambia”: According to the Zambia Daily Mail (1999), the name “Zambia” was coined in October 1958 during the launching of the Zambia African National Congress (ZANC) at Broken Hill (now Kabwe) by some of the former leaders of the liberation movement to replace the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress (ANC).

Initially, the name “Zambezia African National Congress” was proposed, but someone (believed to be the late Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe) suggested that the “Zambezia” part of the nascent political party’s name should be shortened to “Zambia.”

Our country, therefore, derives its name from the “Zambezi River.” But then, what is the origin of the name “Zambezi”?

As early as the 16^th Century, maps drawn by Arabs in search of trade in goods and slaves began to show a river named “Zembere.” In the 17^th Century, the De Lisle maps similarly depicted the name of the river as “Zambeze,” “Empondo” or “Cuama.” Later, cartographers sometimes used the name “Zambeze,” sometimes “Cuoama” (or “Cuama”) or both. But from the time of De Lisle (1675-1725), “Zambeze” became established on the maps.

Portuguese historian De Barros, whose writings were published between 1552 and 1613, mentioned “Zambeze” as one of the great rivers in the territory. Reference to the meaning of the name can be traced to the writings of Joao dos Santos, a Dominican Father, who wrote in 1609 that the local people called the river “Zambesi” – implying a river surrounded by riches and abounding in animals and provisions.

According to David Livingstone, in his Missionary Travels first published in 1858, the people living around today’s Western Province of Zambia referred to the river as “Liambai” or “Leeambye”—which meant “the large river.” He also noted that the names “Luambeji,” “Ambezi,” “Ojimbezi,” and “Zambesi” were applied to the river depending on the languages or dialects spoken by natives.

The name “Zambezia” was sometimes used to describe parts of today’s Zambezi valley by E. P. Mathers in his book entitled Zambezia published around 1900.

He also used the same name to describe the whole of Matabeleland and Mashonaland. And R. C. F. Maughan, in a book published in 1910 with a similar title to that of E. P. Mathers’ book, presented a map with the name “Zambesia,” which covered a large portion of today’s lower Zambezi in Mozambique.

Dr. Henry Kanyanta Sosala

The first Zambian Republican President, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda observed: ‘’…..I believe there is a distinctively African way of looking at things, of problem-solving and indeed of thinking. We have our own logic-system which makes sense to us, however confusing it might be to the Westerner. If I were, from my own observation, to try to summarize the difference between African and Western psychology, I would say that the Westerner has a problem-solving mind, whilst the African has a situation-experiencing mind.’’

The colonialists have all along been afraid of the Africans’ natural intelligence. The thinking of those that Darwin said, ‘’were close to their primitive ancestry.’’ 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, as 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’.’’(ibid. pp. 34/35).

Here is Lord Macaulay’s address to the British Parliament on 2^nd February, 1835: ‘’I have travelled across the length and breadth of Africa and I have not seen such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this continent, 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.’’

In the 1950s Basil Davidson published a book titled ‘’Which Way Africa? The Search for a New Society’’ in which he wrote: ‘’The point to remember here is that this differential between an invading Europe and an invaded Africa proved crushing to traditional society……Yet if the colonial period was in a large sense revolutionary, its revolution was a strange one. Its contribution was not to build or even lay foundations for the new society that Africa needed. What it did was to open for the new by undermining the old. Contrary to the claims of its prophets, colonial rule did not ‘civilize’ Africa or ‘modernize’ Africa in any meaningful sense of the word, much less leave Africans with the mere jobs of taking over the prepared positions of the new social structure. Its central effect was one of dismantlement. Colonial governments failed to develop their territories for the benefit of Europeans and not Africans. For example, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) was a colony desperately lacking in educational and other social services for Africans. The reason being, as hard-pressed administrators repeatedly explained, that there was ‘not enough money’ to pay for them. Yet the rate of profits-export from the mines of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) has been enormous for at least twenty years. In 1956, to take by no means exceptional year, about 50 million pounds (sterling) in company and corporation profits left the country for shareholders abroad.’’

After 73 years of colonial rule and according to John Hatch, Zambia at the time of independence in 1964, had about 100 university graduates; about 1,500 people with full secondary education (Grade XII) and about 6,000 people with two years at secondary school (grade IX) (False Start in Africa by Professor Rene Dumont p. 292)

However, on the other hand, the freedom fighter knew exactly how his oppressor viewed him as Dr. Kaunda put it: ‘’The European knew the African as servant and employee __ as an extension of a broom or a shovel….. certainly, they showed kindness and even generosity to those Africans they encountered in various relationships. They gave them many things ___ coddled them when ill; helped to educate their children; treated them with a certain fond of indulgence. But their relationships tended to be one-way, with the European dictating the degree of intimacy. There was lacking that basic honesty and openness of true friendship.’’ And therefore, the freedom fighter knew that only political struggle would provide an opportunity to try to work out externally what had built up internally and consequently sought confrontations, for he saw them as providing him with the means of becoming who he really was. The freedom fighter had grasped the truth that he was the master of his destiny and was capable of shaping his destiny. And because of his firm cultural foundation, he got rid of flunkeyism, dogmatism and all other ideas of slavish submissions and came to possess the consciousness of being the master of his destiny and a firm conviction of self-confidence.

Dr. Kenneth Kaunda wrote: ‘’When I came from London in 1964 with Zambia’s independence Constitution in my brief case, I and my colleagues were greeted at Lusaka airport by a huge cheering crowd and in that moment it struck me afresh that it was people who had done this thing. It was the triumph of a Man-centred society over a Power-centred society. At no time in the freedom struggle had we the material power or military might of the colonialists. It was humanity in revolt that won us our freedom. I trust we triumphed not because we had the greater power, but because we occupied the superior moral position.’’ (A Humanist in Africa)

The truth of the matter is that the so-called intellectual of today is very much aware of how unfair his western counterpart is, and yet he has no courage to shout this out, surrounded as he is by the fake signs of presumed equality. Of course, no one can overlook the fact that the white man has brought some good civilization to Africa, but it comes with a sly danger, because while celebrating the generous donor aid such as the distributions of free condoms 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 hypnotizing mentality has subverted the African personality like no other ideology. The greatest damage that the white man has done to an African’s mind is to indoctrinate him to despise himself. And this can be summarized in Lord Macaulay’s words: ‘’….. they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want, a truly dominated nation.’’

Chairman Mao said that 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.’’

In their ‘tactical’ withdrawal from Africa, the colonialists left in their tracks the most effective ‘’booby trap’’ i.e., the ‘’Bantu’’ education system which teaches ‘’what to think’’ and not ‘’how to think.’’ The art of colonialism is to manipulate the imagination to the point of controlling every emotion and unfortunately the ‘’Bantu’’ education system has automated our so-called intellectuals like machines and has developed in them inhibitions which tend to rigidise their thinking. And these inhibitions habitually militate against tackling issues with an imaginative approach. And this leads to automated intellectualism which strives to stumble upon simple answers when human life is complicated. And to many of us, education dwarfs the mind and only serves as sponges which induce imitation of the worst type in Europeans.

On the other hand, fake intellect means a surrender of the mind to persuasive powers which is the accumulation of knowledge from the voices of books or the voices of the cunning powers-that-be. For example, the ability to quote Shakespeare, Chaucer or the capacity to know what are the periphrastic conjunctions do not indicate genuine and true intellect, but these are the superficialities of a decadent education system and are the by-products of the imitative complex.

Education is power and the purpose of education is to extract a human being from the limited circle of their lower self in order to project them into the limitless circle of cosmic consciousness. However, the education of the colonized Africans was hemmed in within the confines of the colonial system. Our type of education makes us panic too quickly and therefore we tend to swallow everything from the western man. In 1871 a report on colonial education in Africa was prepared by J. Miller, the first inspector of schools in Sierra Leone and it reads in part: “….. the education provided by the missionary and the colonial schools did not fit the indigenous cultural background either in its general orientation or in details of content, methods, materials and institutional arrangements……the knowledge later produces doubt and fogginess in adult life….want of liberal attainments induces imitation of the worst in Europeans.” (Adult Education and Development: Germany Adult Education Association No. 30 30^th March 1988).

And 141 years later (i.e., 1871-2012), Education Minister, Honourable John Phiri spoke about the same education anomaly and pointed out that the Zambian university system has failed the nation and said that it was clear that the Zambian university curriculum needed to be reviewed so that it supported sustainable development, ‘’We need to review the curriculum at all levels so that learners are better prepared for the challenges Zambia faces. There is need to align universities so that they meet the demands or needs of our people and that they stay with the people if sustainable development is to be realized……our universities only answer the demands of the capitalist world rather than the people who are looking for solutions for poverty, hunger, underdevelopment etc., our universities have failed the people.’’ (The Post 20^th February 2012)

Azwell Banda wrote: ‘’Our current education system from nursery schooling upwards lacks the capacity to unlock the full creative potential for our people to be their own liberators. It is largely an education for periphery consumers…… the education system does not imbue in our people the burning desire to create for themselves the values and other things they need in life. Our education system produces graduates at all levels, who have no problem with consuming things that they have no clue how to produce..’’ (The Post 9^th April 2006).

Trywell Kalusopa added: ‘’I believe that political and economic brains that do not liberate their own people from oozing poverty when they have the instruments to do so are worthless. Brains that recite a pseudo capitalist agenda for self-aggrandisement are a curse to the nation. Brains that cannot break an exploitative system for the good of the Zambian people are dead brains. They are not worth of the brains! They are sterile! These are the sort of brains that believe that the absolute drive towards foreign investment is a panacea to national development.’’ (Sunday Post 19^th August 2007)

Our leaders are also not equally impressed with our intellectual out-put and at one time President Kaunda retorted: ‘’Intellectuals! Intellectuals! You call yourselves intellectuals, but what have you ever done?’’ And in the same way, President Chiluba said: ‘’We have intellectuals and professionals in this country who only cough and smile intellectually.’’

I believe that any knowledge, and especially at this critical period in Africa which does not come down to try and break the vicious cycle in a peasant’s life, no matter how brilliant is just an illusion. Education can only be valuable to us and to those around us when we grasp its essence and properly apply it to our daily realities. It is not the acquisition of book knowledge, but the application of that knowledge that counts.

A Black American, Mr. Carter Woodson wrote in his book, The Mis-Education of the Negro: ‘’When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary. ….. schools have two purposes for Black children i.e., either destroy or indoctrinate. And for those who survive destruction, they graduate believing that Greece preceded Egypt. White is better than Black.(to the contrary Socrates learned philosophy from Egypt).

In fact what Mr. Woodson meant when he said ‘’When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions, he will do without being told,’’ can clearly be seen in what Green Musonda wrote: ‘’In the cobalt/copper concentrates transaction, who caused and initiated the contracts with the Israel brothers and overlooked the rejection of the contract by ZCCM board of directors and decided to go ahead to sell cobalt at less than half the international price of nearly US$ 11 per kilo in 1998?’’ (Saturday Post 14^th October 2006).

TO BE CONTINUED