By Dr.Charles Ngoma
Wherever I go in Zambia I see imitation. We are very good imitators but the trouble is we do not imitate the right things. We are good imitators of fashion. Now as George Santayana said, ‘Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.’ How so true! Our young men and women want to dress up like their idols on television and in the movies. Zambian ogle at the latest gadget, the latest video game, latest in everything that is consumable when they cannot afford. This is a trend that knows no status in our society and even the poorest of the poor would covet a better mobile phone that has the smart capabilities! This insatiable appetite for the latest is fuelled by those who have the ability to travel to ‘south’ the short form for South Africa. Those who cannot afford the high cost of the real thing will make do with the imitated imitation from China and these are ubiquitous. China is the world’s biggest producer of imitations, and the ever warming Sino-Zambia ties are a real conduit for these cheap imitations that flood the country.
We imitate even in religious affairs. I can well remember the days when every native born Zambian preacher would don an American accent in their preaching. God was pronounced as Gad and Amen was Eh men, just to sound like from across the Atlantic ocean! In the present time, America is not much in the vogue but we are picking up certain traits from our West African friends, especially the Nigerians. Our musicians are the worst imitators almost to the point of annoying. We have had imitated Congolese soukous (nick-named rumba) for ages, but recently we have migrated to American style hip-hop, rap and so called ‘gospel.’ In the meantime reggae is on the back burner. Not to be outdone, these different genres of music have even found their way into so called ‘worship’ services and churches. We are imitators.
Now, there is nothing inherently bad about imitation. Imitation is the way the human being learns and develops. Indeed the holy scriptures urge on the devout to imitate Christ and Confucius said, ‘By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.’ We can turn this habit of imitation into something very productive if we imitated the right things and the right people.
Politics.
Let us imitate how the most enduring and successful political systems are doing things. The western democracies have not always been this successful. There was a time when they also used to attack each other violently during elections. However, they learnt how to do politics in peace. They learnt how to debate issues and let the power of words convince the voters not bribes and coercion. They learnt to accept defeat with dignity and support the government of the day. The civil service learnt to obey the government of the day and assist politicians to achieve their pre-determined goals. Let’s imitate that.
Civic responsibility
Most cities in the developed world are clean and tidy. There is order and every citizens knows where they stand in that order. People do not throw litter anyhow and where there are regulations about recycling, everyone tried to their best to allocate their refuse accordingly. Many people are engaged in voluntary activities even if they are unemployed, where they feed the homeless, raise funds for charity or serve in the military and police service. Let’s imitate that.
Honesty and probity.
Corruption is everywhere, but I have been impressed with the sense of honesty by which the vast majority of people in the west serve. From the cleaner in the office right up to the chief executive, everyone puts in a good day’s work at the office. I have never seen anyone chatting on the phone, using company or government time and phones for long hours on personal business. I have never seen anyone surfing the internet to log into Facebook or Messenger during working hours while neglecting to do their work. Nearly everyone has their own PERSONAL computer at home where they can do that. It is not surprising that internet traffic and comments on Zambian websites grinds to zero after working hours because many use and abuse the office computer! As for phones, yes, there are personal mobile phones but texting and chatting during work hours on private and personal matters is theft of your employer’s time. In the west, people tend not to accept gifts given in the course of and by reason of their public service. As they say, ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’ there is an aversion to receiving gifts. Let us imitate this.
Local amenities and conveniences.
Take a short cut through an alley way in Zambia and your nose is assaulted with faeculent and ammoniac smells from human waste. This is partly because of the lack of decency but also the lack of provision of conveniences by the local governments. We throw litter everywhere and defecate anywhere because we have been brought up to think that as long as no one is looking, we are in the bush! No, my friends, we are now in the city and city waste does not just disintegrate and mix with soil. It accumulates and lingers forever. If there is a provision for public toilets, there will be no water in th toilet and no toilet paper. I cannot think why a person would not find some paper first of all before answering the call of nature instead of using the wall! How do smears get that high? We can imitate the public amenity and convenience cleanliness of our friends. If the councils cannot do this, we have been electing wrong people into office.
Order.
Now this I believe is one of the most admirable things that I have ever seen in western countries. Take a Google map and pick out one city in Europe and another in Africa and you can see the neat arrangements of buildings and streets. They do not have to be tarred at all, but there is order. Trees are preserved and green fields are conserved. Turn to a Zambian town and the only part that looks orderly is that which was planned or built before 1964. Ever since independence, we through city planning to the wind and every man did what was right in his own eyes, in a great majority of cases. Houses are built without a pattern and order. Some houses have been built before a road is there. In western cities there is road paving everywhere and some roads have cobble stones because they were done more than 500 years ago! Why can’t we learn to put stones (which we have in abundance) to pave our public places like bus stations and markets? We can imitate this.
Personal behaviour in public.
This follows right on the heels of order because it is orderly behaviour. Have you noticed that no one will get in or stay in a queue in Zambia unless they are told or forced to do so. The principle of quieting is not native to us. We can imitate our friends.
Well, there are many other areas of public and private life which I could mention but let this suffice to jog us into being better people for a better country. We are good at imitating and if we are that good we would do very well in a very short time. There is no shame in imitating, because the west imitated from the Romans, the Romans, from the Greeks, the Greeks from the Persians, the Persians from the Babylonians, the Babylonians from the Sumerians but all imitated from the Africans. Let us take up our rightful place in history and be once again the innovators. Let me paraphrase a quote from the German-born American composer, conductor, pianist, and professor, Lukas Foss- ‘For years that may mean imitation. Then, one day, it is like a door opening, and a new thought comes in. Why not try this instead. Suddenly we are doing something original, almost in spite of ourselves.’
