Of Chuundu Chaitwa and Mandela's Earth
Now, I understand that this whole Chuundu Chaitwa business is highly emotive and as with many emotive subjects, reason can sometimes be thrown out of the window. However that eminent people some of whom I respect so much should gather to discuss PF Secretary General Davies Chama's "insults against the Tonga people", means it is not a trivial issue and dismissing it without a moment's concern might not be a wise reaction.
Being someone with screaming Tonga names (although I am not completely Tonga) means I have faced my fair amount of questions on what my reaction to the much publicized sentiments from Mr Chama is.There has been venomous words and sentiments that have been thrown around like spears, each word meant to denigrate, demean and cast whole sections of people in a certain light. From the now infamous "Kachema"quip (Kachema means Herdsman in Bemba and for the record, I have very fond memories of the many years I spent herding cattle) to the assertion that a particular ethnic grouping has a penchant for polygamy, it has been a busy couple of months for the PF mouthpieces.
I did not attend the Chuundu Chaitwa although I suppose the eminent Tonga men and women were basically faced with a classic choice of how to respond to the rantings of a mad man (I use man in the generic sense). Do you simply ignore the maniac and hope he/she rants himself into oblivion, or give the fella both a good chiding and hiding till they display some signs of sanity. Personally I prefer the former approach. In any case, considering the appropriate response is now water under the bridge as Their Royal Highnesses on behalf of their subjects have issued far-reaching demands from the president. They want to see heads roll and in doing so have even called to remembrance the Tonga people's financial contributions towards Zambia's liberation struggle.
I am not sure whether the president will act on those demands. And frankly, the PF's political prospects wouldn't be any different regardless of what action the president decides to take. I suspect the PF already know, as does any Zambian that they will not get any votes of note from the Southern Province as has always been the case since 2001. It wouldn't be stretching the imagination to imagine that they have already planned for that and this particular demographic that they have angered, doesn't really figure in their election plans for 2016. Something we like to call, "within the risk appetite".
Mandela's Earth
I was in South Africa for over a week on some official duties but found time once my programme was finished to visit Soweto, or what I would like to call Mandela's Earth. It was Wole Soyinka who dedicated an anthology of poems to Nelson Mandela, calling it "Mandela's Earth and Other Poems". Then, it was a collection that exalted the fighting spirit of Mandela, who the poem calls the rock, while at the same time speaking against the oppressors in such language as only Soyinka can conjure up. You could say that this was the best time to visit Mandela's Earth as the whole week, Mandela's legacy had been commemorated leading up to Saturday 18 July 2015 which was the officially designated Mandela day.
Yet as I walked the streets of Soweto with my friend Lackson, who has lived in South Africa since 2007, I couldn't help but feel that there was still something fundamentally wrong with Mandela's Earth. I stood for a few minutes staring at the picture of a mortally wounded Hector Pertesen being carried away to safety by Mbuyisa Makhubu in that 1974 student uprising whose spirit was ably captured by Sarafina.
Walking towards Mandela's residency, a curious sight greeted us. Hordes of youths each with a dog tied to a leash. The mongrels, some drooling at the mouth, in varying degrees of health all tugging at the leash had my skin crawling... I fear dogs. I asked Lackson what this meant.
"I don't know"he shrugged his shoulders as he replied. The youths seemed oblivious to the fact that it was Mandela day, and actually seemed happy to display their dogs to the trooping tourists. A police vehicle pulled up in front of us, a fat looking policeman got out and started pleading with the youths to "put the dogs away", they laughed, a type of communal derisory laugh. My skin crawled some more.
This was my third time in Mandela's Earth dating back to 2012, yet each of the times I have been there it has been difficult for me to reconcile the contradictions apparent everywhere I turn my head. If anything I have experienced the same feelings back home in Zambia. I have always failed to reconcile the opulence of Sandton, Randburg and Rosebank, with the dirt, squalor and hopelessness of Central Johannesburg and Alexandra. The plush houses and surroundings of Kabulonga, Woodlands, Ibex with the putrid smells, rundown buildings and decadence of Mandevu, Mazyopa and Misisi.
As we reached Mandela's house, a tour guide was explaining to a group of White Tourists about the liberation struggle. I could have cut his words and pasted them anywhere across post-colonial Africa and they would have fit like a glove. Africa reeks with glorified tales of liberation struggles and what-have-you. Yet the reality in most post-colonial Africa remains that large sections of the population are still tethered to the poles of ignorance, poverty and social inequality. Such facts as the percentage of the population living under a dollar a day have become so common that they are now cliche. Perhaps Soyinka summed it up nicely when he wrote:
Being someone with screaming Tonga names (although I am not completely Tonga) means I have faced my fair amount of questions on what my reaction to the much publicized sentiments from Mr Chama is.There has been venomous words and sentiments that have been thrown around like spears, each word meant to denigrate, demean and cast whole sections of people in a certain light. From the now infamous "Kachema"quip (Kachema means Herdsman in Bemba and for the record, I have very fond memories of the many years I spent herding cattle) to the assertion that a particular ethnic grouping has a penchant for polygamy, it has been a busy couple of months for the PF mouthpieces.
I did not attend the Chuundu Chaitwa although I suppose the eminent Tonga men and women were basically faced with a classic choice of how to respond to the rantings of a mad man (I use man in the generic sense). Do you simply ignore the maniac and hope he/she rants himself into oblivion, or give the fella both a good chiding and hiding till they display some signs of sanity. Personally I prefer the former approach. In any case, considering the appropriate response is now water under the bridge as Their Royal Highnesses on behalf of their subjects have issued far-reaching demands from the president. They want to see heads roll and in doing so have even called to remembrance the Tonga people's financial contributions towards Zambia's liberation struggle.
I am not sure whether the president will act on those demands. And frankly, the PF's political prospects wouldn't be any different regardless of what action the president decides to take. I suspect the PF already know, as does any Zambian that they will not get any votes of note from the Southern Province as has always been the case since 2001. It wouldn't be stretching the imagination to imagine that they have already planned for that and this particular demographic that they have angered, doesn't really figure in their election plans for 2016. Something we like to call, "within the risk appetite".
Mandela's Earth
I was in South Africa for over a week on some official duties but found time once my programme was finished to visit Soweto, or what I would like to call Mandela's Earth. It was Wole Soyinka who dedicated an anthology of poems to Nelson Mandela, calling it "Mandela's Earth and Other Poems". Then, it was a collection that exalted the fighting spirit of Mandela, who the poem calls the rock, while at the same time speaking against the oppressors in such language as only Soyinka can conjure up. You could say that this was the best time to visit Mandela's Earth as the whole week, Mandela's legacy had been commemorated leading up to Saturday 18 July 2015 which was the officially designated Mandela day.
Yet as I walked the streets of Soweto with my friend Lackson, who has lived in South Africa since 2007, I couldn't help but feel that there was still something fundamentally wrong with Mandela's Earth. I stood for a few minutes staring at the picture of a mortally wounded Hector Pertesen being carried away to safety by Mbuyisa Makhubu in that 1974 student uprising whose spirit was ably captured by Sarafina.
Walking towards Mandela's residency, a curious sight greeted us. Hordes of youths each with a dog tied to a leash. The mongrels, some drooling at the mouth, in varying degrees of health all tugging at the leash had my skin crawling... I fear dogs. I asked Lackson what this meant.
"I don't know"he shrugged his shoulders as he replied. The youths seemed oblivious to the fact that it was Mandela day, and actually seemed happy to display their dogs to the trooping tourists. A police vehicle pulled up in front of us, a fat looking policeman got out and started pleading with the youths to "put the dogs away", they laughed, a type of communal derisory laugh. My skin crawled some more.
This was my third time in Mandela's Earth dating back to 2012, yet each of the times I have been there it has been difficult for me to reconcile the contradictions apparent everywhere I turn my head. If anything I have experienced the same feelings back home in Zambia. I have always failed to reconcile the opulence of Sandton, Randburg and Rosebank, with the dirt, squalor and hopelessness of Central Johannesburg and Alexandra. The plush houses and surroundings of Kabulonga, Woodlands, Ibex with the putrid smells, rundown buildings and decadence of Mandevu, Mazyopa and Misisi.
As we reached Mandela's house, a tour guide was explaining to a group of White Tourists about the liberation struggle. I could have cut his words and pasted them anywhere across post-colonial Africa and they would have fit like a glove. Africa reeks with glorified tales of liberation struggles and what-have-you. Yet the reality in most post-colonial Africa remains that large sections of the population are still tethered to the poles of ignorance, poverty and social inequality. Such facts as the percentage of the population living under a dollar a day have become so common that they are now cliche. Perhaps Soyinka summed it up nicely when he wrote:
"To fully grasp the enormity of enterprise, we need only attempt to grasp the emergence of individuals or classes from within the suppressed, the negatively regarded partners...who now proceed to inaugurate a new era and axis of differentiation with the same mentality of domination and /or exploitation-in short they carry on the agenda of the original intruders" (Soyinka, Of Africa 2012:49)
I wasn't there when the so-called fight for freedom/liberation was taking place. Perhaps this is what was fought for after-all. A mere replacing of the order, without touching the underlying structural and institutional premise. I suppose it is all dependent on what one means by freedom.
Keith,
ReplyDeleteGenerally our politics lacks morality and integrity. Seeing that a chief executive of a ruling party can utter anything against an entire tribe and stand by his words without any repercussion or a hint of a personal apology is total nonsense. Our politicians would be at the helm of a scandal worse than 'water gate'but not resign and it would be business as usual.
I agree. It seems those around him are quick to apologise on his behalf, than the man himself.
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