On The UNWTO

So after a lot of huffing and puffing, frenzied media campaign and one or two choice stories the United Nations World Tourism Organisation(UNWTO) general assembly has come and gone. It leaves in its wake a Livingstone city transformed with a number of infrastructural upgrades.

In the past three months, you would have been forgiven for thinking the entire seat of government had moved to the tourist capital, as Livingstone is fondly called. Led by the ubiquitous Tourism minister Sylvia Masebo, ministers and other government dignitaries have been taking turns to visit Livingstone and ostensibly inspect UNWTO works. At the same time, the national broadcaster was running so-called "countdown" programmes with the usual regularity and predictability of an alarm clock. The whole nation was supposed to rally behind the UNWTO being jointly hosted by Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The pro-government dailies weighed in with pictures of the aforementioned Masebo in different states of sampling Livingstone's tourist attractions. Whether be it banjee jumping, swimming in the devil's pool or walking with Lions, there was nothing too daring for our minister.

Obviously one worries whether all of this is not one herculian Potemkin effort. Only made to create an impression on the visiting masses but conviniently forgetting about the festering boil of poverty underneath this facade of a clean and well serviced tourist capital. That is one angle certainly which the national media was not covering.

I consider it immoral that it should take the hosting of a major international summit for the city's roads and other infrastructure to be worked on. We ought to ask ourselves what would have happened to those roads, the airport and the bridges had the UNWTO assembly not taken place in Zambia. Would honourable Masebo have worked as hard if at the back of her mind she wasn't thinking about impressing the international dignitaries that would grace the assembly.

Ubiquity personified

It does not take much intelligence to surmise that places that do not get to host international conferences or by-elections for that matter will continue being at the periphery of the development agenda. I have places like the Western province,  Luangwa or Feira tucked deep in the armpit of the Luangwa valley, surrounded by towering escarpments yet like an abandoned child never fully integrated into the larger development agenda. There are many places in Zambia which though lacking in tourist attractions such as the Victoria Falls and obviously not hosting an international conference, just as if not more badly need infrastructural upgrades.

What happened in Livingstone annoyingly is merely a display of typically Zambian behaviour. For some reason Zambians care so much for impressions that they would go to great lengths to impress. I remember as a school boy how we scrubbed the classroom floors till they shone like a mirror in order to impress one visiting minister or other. Times when we would even abandon classes just so we could sweep all the roads, paint the stones and of course clean the smelly pit-latrines till our little hands would get swollen.

I remember beginning to detest these exercises as I grew seeing them as a misrepresentation of the real situation as well as an infringement on our freedoms as pupils.

The point is, if roads are going to be done, if toilets are going to be cleaned, let it be because we desire better roads and better toilets as a people and not in order to impress some dignitaries flying in for a meeting. What happens if there are no visitors to impress?

Speaking of toilets, I was taken aback a few weeks ago when during the news some grown men were shown complaining about the lack of toilets in their locality in Livingstone. This, the man said, had forced them to be defecating in a nearby bush, which unfortunately did not provide the sanitation nor the security that a proper toilet would.

Had I been standing next to the man, I would have slapped the daylight out of him. It is well and good to lobby government for services, but the moment we think it is governments job to give us toilets, we are encouraging a culture of laziness. The next thing we will be us asking the government to wipe our backside every time we are from answering the call of nature.

Perhaps politicians are to blame as well for making blanket promises as they desperately lobby for votes. That however does not detract from the fact that we are responsible for our lives.

While I am happy for Livingstone, like the child who never got anything for Christmas, I hope my hometown Monze will also get to host an international event. Perhaps someone will work on the feeder roads in Kayuni, or the deep-tank that now houses bats, owls and wildcats.

It is fine to dream afterall.