DON’T TURN INTO PARROT
…just to win US acceptability, M’membe urges HH
By Fanny Kalonda
SOCIALIST Party president Fred M’membe has urged leaders not to turn themselves into parrots, parroting things they do not understand just to win acceptability by the Americans.
Speaking when he met visiting US Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and Environment Jose W Fernandez at State House on Thursday, President Hakainde Hichilema said the new dawn government is not trying to change the country’s values by aligning them with American values.
“Zambia is a democratic country. It is a country anchored on the rule of law. It is a country that respects human rights, liberties and freedoms. This new government will do its best to ensure that the country continues to advance democratic values. Values that we share with yourselves. Sometimes the media have somehow misinterpreted this statement to mean that the new dawn government is going to change, alter Zambian values so as to align with the American values,” said President Hichilema. “That is not the point. We are not altering our values. These are our values. And by choice as a country, we chose to run ourselves on a platform of democracy. Also it is our African values to respect each other, to respect other people of course in return to get respect. To also get respect in an orderly manner. So we are not altering our values to align with the American values. These are our values. They happen to be shared with the Americans as well. So I’m very happy that we share these values and I think that these values will largely help us keep ourselves in order, as the world is confronted with a lot of challenges.”
But Dr M’membe said American values “are not our values” adding that political ideas are worthless if they are not inspired by noble and selfless sentiments.
“It is important to understand the core or real values and assumptions of the people we are dealing with. Values are ideas about what is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable, normal and abnormal, proper and improper. Assumptions are the unquestioned standards about people, life, and ‘the way things are’. People who grow up in a particular culture share certain values and assumptions. This means that most of them, most of the time, agree with each others’ ideas about what is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable. They also agree, mostly, with each other’s assumptions about human nature, social relationships. The values and assumptions of a culture shape the way people act. Understanding these values and assumptions help us understand why people from a certain society behave the way they do. In life it is always very important to be clear about things,” he said. “The most important thing to understand about Americans is probably their devotion to ‘individualism’. This is their main value, the value on which all their other values – greed, unbridled competition and consumerism – are anchored. They have been trained from early in their lives to consider themselves separate individuals who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own destinies. They have not been trained to see themselves as members of a close-knit, tightly interdependent family, religious group, tribe, nation, or other group. And all their values are subsets of individualism or are there to serve and reinforce it.”
Dr M’membe said the most important value for the Socialist Party is equity, and not individualism as it is for the Americans and “their puppets”.
He said Zambians would thrive best in a decent community of people with principles, standards, common aims and values.
“All our other values are subsets of ‘equity’ to serve or reinforce it. Individualism is certainly not our core value. Our traditional society, culture and religious beliefs are not anchored on individualism but on Ubuntu, equity,” Dr M’membe noted. “In this respect, the American values are not our values. Our leaders shouldn’t turn themselves into parrots parroting things they don’t even understand just to win acceptability by the Americans. Political ideas are worthless if they are not inspired by noble, selfless sentiments. Likewise, noble sentiments are worthless if they are not based on correct and fair ideas. For us, we have chosen to defend certain principles that are of tremendous value at a time of confusion and opportunism in our country and in the world. A time when many politicians are feathering their own nests, are struggling for recognition by the imperialists. We will never be hired or hire ourselves out to be lackeys or puppets of imperialism. We are striving to build a new society anchored on the values of equity, honesty, humility and solidarity. You do not suffer just because you are getting fewer calories than required. There is another sort of suffering; social inequality, which makes you feel constantly debased and humiliated as a second-class citizen in your own country.”
And Dr M’membe said inequality has divided the country into two, the poor and the well-to-do.
He said the Zambian masses are suffering from poverty, injustice, humiliation and inequality adding that the suffering is both material and moral.
Dr M’membe said even when no one lives in absolute poverty, the existence of a glaring disparity in income levels indicates an intolerable imbalance in the way wealth and resources are distributed, where average rural poverty is 76.6 per cent.
“…two nations – the Kwa (shanty compounds) and Ku (low density residential areas) nations – the nations of the poor and the well-to-do. As such, we cannot today truly speak of one Zambia as one nation. Those who live in Kwa have poor water supply, sanitation, shelter, nutrition, schools, healthcare, roads, and very high rates of unemployment. Those who live in Ku have the best of everything. And whereas in the past it was easy to move from Kwa to Ku, today it is very difficult to do so. In those days, all one needed was to work very hard at school, college or university. Today, hard work is not a guarantee that one will finish school, college or university. It is money that determines that, the ability to pay school, college or university fees,” he said. “If you are born in Kwa, it is highly unlikely you will marry someone from Ku. Where are you going to meet? You live in different places, you go to different schools, churches, shopping centres, places of entertainment, and even bury your dead in different graveyards. To unite our people in ‘one land and one nation’ – as is our cry in our national anthem – will require equity of access to necessities such as education, healthcare, water, housing, sanitation, transportation, physical security, land and food. Most, such as health, education and physical security, should be public goods, and others should at least be distributed according to the level of need in order to ensure access for all.”
Dr M’membe said Zambian society is a long way from realising that requirement.
“The rich have ‘first-world standard’ goods and services, whereas the poor masses have access to poor-quality services or none at all. There should be no such gap. Western Province has poverty levels of 82.2 per cent, Luapula Province 81.1 per cent, Northern Province 79.7 per cent, Eastern Province 70 per cent, North Western Province 66.4 per cent, Southern Province 57.6 per cent, Central Province 56.2 per cent, Copperbelt Province 30.8 per cent and Lusaka Province 20.2 per cent,” he noted.
Dr M’membe said as long as the gap between the poor and the rich remains at “its current scandalous level, the future of the country is at risk”.
“…if the gap between the rich and poor is unacceptable, then so, too, is the actual degree of poverty in our society. In a compassionate society, there should be no differences in outcomes based on factors for which people cannot be held responsible. Zambia has one of the worst situations globally. There is a glaring gap between the rich and poor. Between 2010 and 2015, the Gini coefficient increased from 0.65 to 0.69. This is a very high rate of income inequality. It is volatile and dangerous for national development. It could be argued, of course, that those who enjoy the highest levels of income have achieved it through hard work, and that they deserve the benefits of their efforts, regardless of the poverty afflicting others. There are many reasons to reject this argument,” he said. “Firstly, from a religious point of view, it is sinful to keep for oneself an overabundance of wealth when one’s sisters and brothers are suffering, and even dying for want of simple necessities. In such a situation, it is of no consequence how and why some people come to be excessively wealthy while others starve. Distributive justice demands that sufficient sharing takes place to ensure the basic needs of all are met. Secondly, even if the demands of charity are rejected, and were it possible to argue that those enjoying excessive wealth are fully justified in doing so, commonsense dictates that our society cannot prosper under such conditions. The good of each of us in the long term is secured and promoted by the common good. Failure to do so can only precipitate social instability and threaten the wellbeing of all, rich and poor.”
Dr M’membe said history abounds with instances where the rich and powerful have brought about their own downfall by refusing to recognise in good time the legitimate demands of the poor.
He said by tolerating high levels of poverty, the Zambian economy undermines the common good, and fails to demonstrate the solidarity of shared human dignity demands.
He added that the country has become a shameful example of how capitalism is creating and reproducing itself under conditions of extreme injustice, inequity and state-sponsored violence.
Dr M’membe said that if nothing is done to address “this decay, a total collapse of the social, political, cultural and economic life of Zambia is imminent”.
“It’s very clear that the value systems that Zambians had at one time hoped to create for their country; those of equity, non-violence, a sense of justice and national unity, are becoming a distant vision,” said Dr M’membe.