Remember, Remember
"Remember remember the fifth of November" begins one of my favourite movies "V for Vendetta". While I have no intention of launching off into a "V" laden monologue, it seems remembering is currently top of our collective agenda as Zambians as we near 24th October. And as our fiftieth independence anniversay looms, words such as "freedom" and "freedom fighters" are being thrown around with such wild abandon you would think they are some random beach ball.
The cut and paste journalists have been quick to pull out their scissors and glue and have inundated us who still care for national TV, with worn out anecdote after worn out anecdote about so-called freedom fighters. Businesses have also joined in, with the Mahtani Group of companies honouring some select "Freedom Fighters" with prizes of fifty thousand Kwacha (about USD8,000) each (although I have no idea the formula that was used to select the beneficiaries simply to note that many of those honored are already well off ). Golden Jubilee meanwhile is the operative word around these parts that it would not be stretching the imagination to imagine that some parents are even preparing to name their children after our country's fiftieth independence anniversary.
I suppose when the entire country is brimming with such positively irrational excitement, it is only fair that some perspective is sought particularly when we talk about the so-called "fight for freedom". You see freedom is a very slippery concept and few even know what they mean when they demand it. I have in mind the book 1984 by George Orwell wherein the protagonist Winston in the end is left confused as to what really constitutes freedom or the truth such that he has no problems accepting that two plus two equals five. He learns that it is all a matter of perspective. A similar theme is presented in George Orwell's other work "Animal Farm" where in the end the pigs begin to look like the humans they ousted from power.
Simply replacing the master in my view does not constitute freedom. It merely translates into the same system with only a change in the man behind the desk. Society is invariably structured along three classes to rely on Mr Orwell again.These classes are almost always The Low, the Middle and the High Classes. The high class rule over the rest, while the middle class try by all means to usurp the rulers and once they succeed become the new high class and spend most of their time and resources trying to make sure the usurped class is incapacitated. Meanwhile the low class remain where they are and have very little chance of ever assuming power apart from the odd one in a million chance when there is popular uprising as in the case of the Arab Spring. However, even in these cases, a ruling elite soon develops and settles into place. And the cycle continues
This begs the question of who a real freedom fighter is. Is it the middle class who yearns to one day be the master? Is it the peasant who wakes up everyday to hustle for bread on the table, a roof over their head and fee for their kids to go to school? Take Che Guevara for example. He fought in the Cuban revolutionary wars that brought the Castro administration into power. Despite being part of the initial Castro administration he was slowly getting disillusioned partly due to the realization that the fight for freedom had been nothing more than that of replacing the masters. To all intents and purposes the underlying inequalities remained with only a few nuances. His way of dealing with that was to avail himself to revolutionary wars allover the world including in Africa culminating in his death in the jungles of Bolivia.
I believe you do not need to be a political scientist to detect these trends in the way our nation was built and how it has been evolving. To begin with despite our independence having been negotiated for in board rooms (you can call that fighting if you will, I have no problem) and after assuming power the UNIP government decided to consolidate it position by neutralizing opponents. This has carried on to this day.
The much hailed Choma declaration was nothing but a disbanding of the opposition. In signing that document, the opposition signed their death warrant. Of course now, the event is talked of with such reverence you would think angels descended from heaven to witness Nkumbula sign away his party. Some journalist the other day was purring about how our first president Kenneth Kaunda showed remarkable nation building qualities in coming up with the Choma declaration. Like seriously?
I guess what I am trying to say is, before you lose yourself in the world of Golden Jubilee sports tournaments, beauty pageants, body building competitions; before you lose yourself in jubilee branded underwear, shirts head-socks shoes and whatever is in between get some money, get yourself a huge back of salt and use it to take whatever Golden Jubilee issues are thrown at you.
As one writer put it, perhaps it was better while we waited. Then our imagination would comfort us. Now that we have it, I don't even know what we have.
The cut and paste journalists have been quick to pull out their scissors and glue and have inundated us who still care for national TV, with worn out anecdote after worn out anecdote about so-called freedom fighters. Businesses have also joined in, with the Mahtani Group of companies honouring some select "Freedom Fighters" with prizes of fifty thousand Kwacha (about USD8,000) each (although I have no idea the formula that was used to select the beneficiaries simply to note that many of those honored are already well off ). Golden Jubilee meanwhile is the operative word around these parts that it would not be stretching the imagination to imagine that some parents are even preparing to name their children after our country's fiftieth independence anniversary.
I suppose when the entire country is brimming with such positively irrational excitement, it is only fair that some perspective is sought particularly when we talk about the so-called "fight for freedom". You see freedom is a very slippery concept and few even know what they mean when they demand it. I have in mind the book 1984 by George Orwell wherein the protagonist Winston in the end is left confused as to what really constitutes freedom or the truth such that he has no problems accepting that two plus two equals five. He learns that it is all a matter of perspective. A similar theme is presented in George Orwell's other work "Animal Farm" where in the end the pigs begin to look like the humans they ousted from power.
Simply replacing the master in my view does not constitute freedom. It merely translates into the same system with only a change in the man behind the desk. Society is invariably structured along three classes to rely on Mr Orwell again.These classes are almost always The Low, the Middle and the High Classes. The high class rule over the rest, while the middle class try by all means to usurp the rulers and once they succeed become the new high class and spend most of their time and resources trying to make sure the usurped class is incapacitated. Meanwhile the low class remain where they are and have very little chance of ever assuming power apart from the odd one in a million chance when there is popular uprising as in the case of the Arab Spring. However, even in these cases, a ruling elite soon develops and settles into place. And the cycle continues
This begs the question of who a real freedom fighter is. Is it the middle class who yearns to one day be the master? Is it the peasant who wakes up everyday to hustle for bread on the table, a roof over their head and fee for their kids to go to school? Take Che Guevara for example. He fought in the Cuban revolutionary wars that brought the Castro administration into power. Despite being part of the initial Castro administration he was slowly getting disillusioned partly due to the realization that the fight for freedom had been nothing more than that of replacing the masters. To all intents and purposes the underlying inequalities remained with only a few nuances. His way of dealing with that was to avail himself to revolutionary wars allover the world including in Africa culminating in his death in the jungles of Bolivia.
I believe you do not need to be a political scientist to detect these trends in the way our nation was built and how it has been evolving. To begin with despite our independence having been negotiated for in board rooms (you can call that fighting if you will, I have no problem) and after assuming power the UNIP government decided to consolidate it position by neutralizing opponents. This has carried on to this day.
The much hailed Choma declaration was nothing but a disbanding of the opposition. In signing that document, the opposition signed their death warrant. Of course now, the event is talked of with such reverence you would think angels descended from heaven to witness Nkumbula sign away his party. Some journalist the other day was purring about how our first president Kenneth Kaunda showed remarkable nation building qualities in coming up with the Choma declaration. Like seriously?
I guess what I am trying to say is, before you lose yourself in the world of Golden Jubilee sports tournaments, beauty pageants, body building competitions; before you lose yourself in jubilee branded underwear, shirts head-socks shoes and whatever is in between get some money, get yourself a huge back of salt and use it to take whatever Golden Jubilee issues are thrown at you.
As one writer put it, perhaps it was better while we waited. Then our imagination would comfort us. Now that we have it, I don't even know what we have.
Cut and Paste Journalist... lol.. This is nice, I have to share it on my facebook wall
ReplyDeletegolden jubilee banda lol nicely put!!!
ReplyDeleteKeith,
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't have put my thoughts any better, its like you have contextualized all my thoughts in this wonderful blog (albeit in a very skillful way of writing). Need I say more?? Nothing more to say.