God Speed the Year of Jubilee: What Independence Means To Me - Part Two By Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika This overshadowing loom from past leadership styles and governance mentality is being tragically manifested in the case of the Barotseland part of what was constituted as Zambia. The background to this is that on 18th May 1964, the Barotseland Agreement was negotiated and laid for Barotseland and Northern Rhodesia to be coupled to form in a mutually accommodating united Zambia. This internationally sanctioned and Pan-Africanist, but nationally disrespected, legal accord is the only provision for Barotseland becoming an integral part of Independent Zambia. The integration of Zambia was billed as an Independence gift to come with promised benefits of fairly and broadly shared fruits of overall African political freedom and economic progress, but is not respected as such. This accord was set out to be an integral part of Zambia’s Independence constitutional dispensation, but it is not respected or affected as such. This national foundation was an outcome negotiated to satisfactorily address the concerns of minority communities and minority political parties, but the follow up leadership has discarded the practice of dialogue and consensus seeking consultation, particularly with dissenting voices and questioning minds. This Agreement is the founding and essential cornerstone of the original Independence multi-party system as originally anchored to an entrenched constitution, which is disrespected and destroyed at the peril of the country’s integrity, security and future. The second factor of challenging concern is that this betrayal has resulted in dis-empowering, impoverishing and alienating Barotseland. This has dragged down Barotseland to the status of being the poorest area and the poorest people, without any clear and comprehensive programme to significantly boost the economic activities and increase wealth. This has come about while binding Barotseland, together with other rural areas, to within envious sight and tantalizing touch of peripheral a mineral rich greater Zambian economy. Of the fruits of this collective effort, they are granted arbitrarily or niggardly, and with irregular respect for rightful and fair share. There is no wonder that, on the part of some Barotse people, this has produced some deep and persistent sense of alienation, injustice and betrayal. On the part of Zambian government administrations, there has been a lack of sensitivity and concern to managing the resultant sense of estrangement and state of endless grievances. For Barotseland, what remains is to dream either of two optional developments. In the first option, there is a “we shall overcome, someday” dream of more of integral governance and more of economic partakers of a deserved fair share in a broader Zambia. In the second option, there is the aspiration that they may revert to the status of Independence. Meanwhile, Zambian Government administrations have responded by smearing, sloganeering and suppression instead of wise visionary leadership acumen in addressing the Barotse question. Zambian government administrations have only taken three approaches to integration of Barotseland. The first is to unilaterally abrogate the Barotseland Agreement and cerebrate what was billed as degrading of King and Kingdom of Barotseland. The second is to rename Barotseland as Western Province of Zambia, by triumphant presidential decree. The third has been to forcefully suppress expression of calls for the re-instatement of the Barotseland Agreement that united Zambia. This has been done, ironically, while also criminalizing acceptance of the abrogation of the Barotseland Agreement as casting Barotseland out of Zambia. Now, on the Barotse side, little is said about Barotseland that is not misunderstood or condemned or criminalized. In the face of this, Government measures have been imprudently provocative, viciously unjust and, in some ways, dangerously comical. A discussion with a friend led me to contrast this with the democratic and human rights respecting approach with which the British Government is addressing the question of Scotland, progress is made towards a democratic Referendum on Scotland’s Independence. I thought of how laughable it would be if the British Crown would decree Scotland to be renamed as the Northern County of the United Kingdom, as a response to questions over the union of England and Scotland. I imagined how recklessness it would be if the British Government was to unilaterally revoke the Treaty of 1707 that established the union between Scotland and England. I ask myself what would be the reaction of the British and Scottish nationals, if the U.K. Government took to arresting, prosecuting and jailing advocates of Scottish Independence, such as Alex Salmon, the leader of the Scottish National Party and the First Minister of Scotland, and threatened even those calling for honouring the union-creating Treaty of 1707. Clearly, without serious dialogue and meaningful consultations, Zambian Government approaches to this issue have inevitably and predicatively failed to solve the problem. The various government administrations have only succeeded in repeatedly fueling conflict and blocking genuine equitable national integration as well as denying political freedom and justice to forcefully retained citizens. Sadly, on the Zambian Government side, there has been lack of political honesty and courage. There has been leadership wisdom and vision shortfall, a factor that prevents facilitation and accommodation of effective conflict management. This result is political deadlock and leadership failure. This threatens peace by inviting civil unrest, causing national alienation and manifesting violation of human rights. It reminds me of African American writer Langston Hughes’ poem, to which I was introduced by Pulitzer Prize winner, Alice Walker, who was my teacher and friend during my Mississippi student period. The poem is: Harlem [Dream Deferred] What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore — And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? Those who won Zambia’s Independence and those that have inherited government positions from them are honorable men – and women. And those of us who sacrificed and served to re-establish multi-party democracy did a necessary, though not sufficient job. However, overall, in final analysis, the Zambian leadership has not managed to deliver fulfilled African aspirations for broad and fundamental liberation from political dis-empowerment and economic impoverishment. This is a dangerous situation, which arises from leadership carelessness, unworthiness and failure. There has been a leadership by deceit and broken promises on the most critical and fundamental problems and issues of national integration, with more promises than performance in national development. Politically, this is what is manifested by the setting up of the 1969 Referendum to abolish the provision that prevented the changing of the Constitution casually and along narrow partisan lines. This licensed the unilateral abrogation of the Barotseland Agreement that established Zambia on a unitary basis. This action, and how it was done, eradicated whatever dignity, integrity and “life’ in the land and people of Barotseland as a part of Zambia. And, by the same stroke, the removal of this constitutional foundation facilitated the 1972/73 imposition of the One Party State. This has been associated with a culture of denial of political freedom and absence of a national consensus that enjoys national consensus, from which whose damage there has yet to be full and sustainable recovery. This is why in the SiLozi language this particular Referendum was termed as “Lifu-la-Ndambo,” meaning the death of citizens, in fact, the death of citizenship! The equitable and harmonious accord promised in the 1964 Independence dispensation continues to be an illusion. The 1991 multi-party campaign promises remains a mockery. National unity is not much more than a slogan of hypocrisy on part of the governors and false consciousness on the part of the governed. As for the parts of Zambia that had been more strictly in the armpit of Northern Rhodesia, Independence was a call to the garden of a bountiful harvest of freedom and progress, on an equitable and non-discriminatory basis, anchored to “One Man, One Vote” multi-party politics. In the immediate post Independence period the new government, with the liberal aid from the World Bank and Britain as well as other Western countries embarked on vigorous programme of constructing road, education and health infrastructure on an expanding and spreading basis further. And, when the politics of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by European Settlers in the then Rhodesia threatened struggle trade paths in and out of Zambia, the Zambian and Tanzania Government successfully secured Chinese aid to build TAZARA in record time between 1979 and 1975. However, investment in mining and other productive industrial expansion and spreading was insignificant, a frustrating factor that partly motivated nationalization of the economy, on a basis of import substitution. This development that initially seemed to lead to a growing economy and social development was stopped in its tracks by the 1973 worldwide dramatic increased cost of oil and other import prices and accompanying fall in copper export prices. After this the Zambian economy nosedived into a quarter of a century regression and unmanageable indebtedness for the whole country. The post Independence efforts, however well meaning, have left the majority of people neglected and unsatisfied, as the economy has remained externally dependency, internally dis-articulation and overall underdevelopment. Editors Note: The foregoing is Part two of Prince Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanikas three parts discourse. On Saturday 31st October 2013, we will give you the concluding Part Three of Dr. Akashamdatwa Mbikusita-Liwanika’s ‘God Speed the Year of Jubilee: What Independence means to Me’ If you missed Part One you can read it here: barotsepost/index.php/en/frontnews/local-news/557-god-speed-the-year-of-jubilee-what-independence-means-to-me-by-akashambatwa-mbikusita-lewanika - See more at: barotsepost/index.php/en/news/feature/564-god-speed-the-year-of-jubilee-what-independnce-means-to-me-part-two#sthash.MgTFggLN.dpuf
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 00:05:40 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015