WHEN FALSEHOOD BECOMES A POLITICAL STRATEGY: THE GUNPOWDER I SAW FROM MY GRANDFATHER
One of the most disturbing features of our present politics is the deliberate construction of political narratives around rumour, superstition and falsehood. Some recent political formations have perfected the art of packaging misinformation on social media, particularly Facebook and TikTok, until repeated falsehoods begin to be accepted as fact.
We have been told that solar electricity is somehow not real electricity. We have been told that free education is not free, even while children who were previously outside school are sitting in classrooms. We are told that school feeding programmes do not exist, even while children are eating the food. Almost every achievement of the past five years must apparently be declared imaginary because acknowledging reality would interfere with a preferred political narrative.
When I was growing up, my grandfather owned a double-barrelled gun, locally called Mututila. He bought gunpowder and prepared his own cartridges. I remember very well what gunpowder looked like. It certainly was not white. Today I went back to the science and examined photographs to refresh my memory. Ordinary gunpowder is black or dark grey. Elementary ballistics also tells us that gunpowder is the propellant that burns inside the firearm to propel the projectile. Claims involving alleged gunpowder evidence therefore require proper forensic examination, not conclusions manufactured on social media.
This culture of misinformation is becoming dangerous. Cyberspace cannot become a laboratory for contaminating public opinion with fabricated evidence, superstition and politically convenient fiction. Zambia belongs to all of us, government and opposition alike. This country must survive our politics. We are One Zambia, One Nation.
Zambia Forward, TOGETHER in UNITY. 🇿🇲
Saviour Chishimba
President
United Progressive People (UPP)
UPND Alliance Partner
So He was telling us that the gun was fired near his head