A Country of Talkers
I have been reading Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's masterpiece Don Quixote for the past one month or so. The book itself is a bit on the voluminous side, not that I mind, in my heyday I would down 800 pages in a matter of weeks. It is just that there is too much verbiage in the story that one gets the feeling that it could have been told without so much loquacity. I am aware that this is as much a result of the writing style prevalent then as it is part of the characters in the book.
The story for those not acquainted with this masterpiece in comedy follows a self titled Don Quixote who after reading too many books in Knight errantry becomes convinced that he is a knight himself and decides to set out redressing the world's wrongs in the style of the knights of the middle ages. He manages to convince an extremely vain man named Sancho Panza to be his trusted squire, who blinded by promises of owning islands and marrying fair damsels abandons his family to follow the knight.
What follows is a tale of such hilarity that often times I have been forced to hold up the book, while I laugh to the point that my eyes would be streaming with tears. The conversation that passes between Sancho and the Knight (who is later named the Knight of the Rueful countenance, following a forgettable episode where he is stoned and loses some of his teeth and has his visage severely marred) is laden with historical references and some saucy quips from the squire. The Knight meets and survives a number of encounters that leave him severely bruised physically although through all this he stays true to his mission having read in his books that his fortunes will eventually turn. Ask the Knight a simple question and he will go on some winding explanation complete with references from his books and tales of great Knights of years gone by.
Listening to parliament the other day, I was surprised at the loquacity of the Minister of Justice in trying to explain the constitution making process, it was hard not to think the Minister was Don Quixote in some past life. We are in effect a talking country and as such nothing tangible really gets done.
This exercise in talking in the name of the constitutional making process has dragged for so long you would think its one of those badly written tele novelas. The amount of money it has gobbled up is rapidly stacking up while serious changes to our governance structures as proposed in the new constitution keep being delayed and thus denied. In the latest twist, the Minister of Justice was at pains to explain what the President meant when he said Zambians do not need a new constitution. On more than two occasions he was asked to explain in very clear terms the steps in the process and when it will end, but alas, he chose to obfuscate everything.
Surely its time to put this to a stop.
There is a theory I came across recently, espoused by a colleague. I am not sure of its origin but for now I will credit it to the same colleague. I have seen it paraphrased on some public forum recently. The theory holds that the absence of militancy among the Zambian public emanates from our ancestors who all converged in Zambia as a result of fleeing from wars. In other words we descend from those that could not fight (some call it cowardice, we choose to call it peace-loving). Examples abound to support this line of reasoning. Consider our so-called "vivas" (to borrow some UNZA parlance), they are a far cry to vivas say in South Africa (where some of our ancestors ran from). According to the theory, its the main reason why we have had no civil wars and why our demonstrations are easily quelled by the police.
Perhaps it even explains why we have let our leaders get away with lip-service on the constitution making process. Surely as a people there should be a time when we put our collective foot down and demand of those we have entrusted this process to show us the deliverables. The Justice Minister says the Techincal Committee charged with drafting the constitution will firstly print ten copies for the president's perusal and once the president okays it, publications for circulation will be made.
I don't know about you, but it looks to me as if we are going in circles.
The story for those not acquainted with this masterpiece in comedy follows a self titled Don Quixote who after reading too many books in Knight errantry becomes convinced that he is a knight himself and decides to set out redressing the world's wrongs in the style of the knights of the middle ages. He manages to convince an extremely vain man named Sancho Panza to be his trusted squire, who blinded by promises of owning islands and marrying fair damsels abandons his family to follow the knight.
What follows is a tale of such hilarity that often times I have been forced to hold up the book, while I laugh to the point that my eyes would be streaming with tears. The conversation that passes between Sancho and the Knight (who is later named the Knight of the Rueful countenance, following a forgettable episode where he is stoned and loses some of his teeth and has his visage severely marred) is laden with historical references and some saucy quips from the squire. The Knight meets and survives a number of encounters that leave him severely bruised physically although through all this he stays true to his mission having read in his books that his fortunes will eventually turn. Ask the Knight a simple question and he will go on some winding explanation complete with references from his books and tales of great Knights of years gone by.
Listening to parliament the other day, I was surprised at the loquacity of the Minister of Justice in trying to explain the constitution making process, it was hard not to think the Minister was Don Quixote in some past life. We are in effect a talking country and as such nothing tangible really gets done.
This exercise in talking in the name of the constitutional making process has dragged for so long you would think its one of those badly written tele novelas. The amount of money it has gobbled up is rapidly stacking up while serious changes to our governance structures as proposed in the new constitution keep being delayed and thus denied. In the latest twist, the Minister of Justice was at pains to explain what the President meant when he said Zambians do not need a new constitution. On more than two occasions he was asked to explain in very clear terms the steps in the process and when it will end, but alas, he chose to obfuscate everything.
Surely its time to put this to a stop.
There is a theory I came across recently, espoused by a colleague. I am not sure of its origin but for now I will credit it to the same colleague. I have seen it paraphrased on some public forum recently. The theory holds that the absence of militancy among the Zambian public emanates from our ancestors who all converged in Zambia as a result of fleeing from wars. In other words we descend from those that could not fight (some call it cowardice, we choose to call it peace-loving). Examples abound to support this line of reasoning. Consider our so-called "vivas" (to borrow some UNZA parlance), they are a far cry to vivas say in South Africa (where some of our ancestors ran from). According to the theory, its the main reason why we have had no civil wars and why our demonstrations are easily quelled by the police.
Perhaps it even explains why we have let our leaders get away with lip-service on the constitution making process. Surely as a people there should be a time when we put our collective foot down and demand of those we have entrusted this process to show us the deliverables. The Justice Minister says the Techincal Committee charged with drafting the constitution will firstly print ten copies for the president's perusal and once the president okays it, publications for circulation will be made.
I don't know about you, but it looks to me as if we are going in circles.
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