HOW SIMON MWANSA KAPWEPWE COINED THE NAME ZAMBIA
Arguments and theories often come up concerning how Zambia was named as a country, and by who. Some say it was by Harry Mwanga Nkumbula while others say it was by Dr Kenneth Kaunda.
Well, this question was settled when I sat down, in March 2005, to converse with one of the men who participated in the process, the late freedom fighter Lewis Changufu. He explained that while different leaders came up with a few suggestions, it was the late Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe’s suggestion that carried the day.
Get the details from this excerpt from the book: Conversations with Memorable Personalities; Pages 88 – 89. By Amos Malupenga (2022).
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“Amos Malupenga: Could you tell me about your time in politics?
Lewis Changufu: When I was fired from government [as a civil servant], I continued with politics. In 1953, I was elected Lusaka district chairman. I took over from my cousin Safeli Chileshe who was the first [black] mayor of Lusaka. From that time, we kept on agitating against colour discrimination.
That time no black person was allowed to enter any of the European shops. There were divisions in the butcheries. You had to go and buy from somewhere as a black person. In shops, we had to buy commodities through small windows which we called pigeonholes. If you were buying a bigger item like a mattress, someone had to hand it over to you from the back door.
All these things were happening here in Zambia, Northern Rhodesia by then. But we couldn’t continue to allow our own people to be discriminated against.
Amos Malupenga: What exactly did you do in your agitation against that discrimination?
Lewis Changufu: When the leadership was in the hands of Safeli Chileshe, the blacks tried to fight the colour bar by entering the shops or the butcheries. But when I took over leadership, we decided to boycott the shops and the butcheries. That was very effective and for some time we could not eat meat. From that time, our party secretary general Dr. Kenneth Kaunda stopped eating meat and because of that, we boycotted in total.
Meat was getting rotten and we had sufficient freedom fighters who used to picket and stopped some people who wanted to buy the meat. There were some nonentities, particularly civil servants, who thought we were not going to achieve anything out of that boycott. So, these people would attempt to proceed and buy some meat.
We allowed some of them to buy but after they bought, we confiscated the meat and soiled it. From that time they also joined the boycott. So, business was disturbed.
Amos Malupenga: How did you survive during the boycott?
Lewis Changufu: It was during the rainy season and we had plenty of vegetables, so we had to survive on vegetables.
Amos Malupenga: And what was the reaction from the shop and butchery owners?
Lewis Changufu: They were miserable. They had to hold a meeting among themselves to find a way of bringing us back into their business because we were the major customers. We then had a meeting at which shop and butchery owners were present. They apologised and said they were going to close the pigeonholes and that there would be no more buying of things from pigeonholes.
Amos Malupenga: Was this effected?
Lewis Changufu: Yes, and we called off the boycott. You see it was the same problem if you went to the chemists with a prescription from the doctor. We used to buy medicines from Cairo Chemists; I think it is the oldest in Lusaka.
Amos Malupenga: How long was the boycott?
Lewis Changufu: It took one month and these shop owners really became miserable. This was in 1953. Thereafter, we started making two lines inside the shops. There was a line for Africans and another line for whites. That was the compromise which they had, particularly in the chemists.
But some of us who were leaders did not want that. We just wanted a single file and first- come, first-serve. The shop owners avoided some other trouble. It was the ordinary white people who insisted on two lines until this also died down when all of us were in one line.
Amos Malupenga: What other activities were you involved in prior to independence?
Lewis Changufu: Time came when we realised that we should get independence there and then. Time came when we just said, ‘Independence now.’ But we said, ‘How are we going to get this independence?’ So, we had to re-organise our political activities.
At that time, Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe had come back from India and we started identifying ourselves by wearing round-necked black shirts and carried a long stick. The stick symbolised a fighter, anyone who wore a black shirt and carried a long stick was a fighter.
White people got so worried about that. With our leader, Mr. Nkumbula, we decided to form another political party. At that time I was living in Matero and my friends from Chilenje invited me to attend a meeting at which we were to choose new leadership to form a new political party.
I said we were going to divide the nation by forming another political party. But my friend Justin Chimba insisted that we should form another party. We went to Chilenje where we had a good meeting where we resolved to form a party by the name of Zambia African National Congress [ZANC]. This was well before independence.
Amos Malupenga: So, the name Zambia came about before independence?
Lewis Changufu: Well before independence!
Amos Malupenga: Who coined the name?
Lewis Changufu: We coined it together with Nkumbula. We were looking for a name because we were wondering what we were going to call Northern Rhodesia after independence. So, Harry Nkumbula said Zambezia but Kapwepwe said, ‘No, I think Zambia will be shorter and straight forward.’ That is how the name came about and we got it from the Zambezi River.
So, when we broke away from ANC, we had to use the name Zambia African National Congress or ZANC in short. This was before independence.
We only organised for a short while because we demanded independence there and then, not tomorrow. ‘Independence Now’ was our slogan. Then we had elections based on guided democracy. …”
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Picture: Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s First Cabinet that included Lewis Changufu and Simon Kapwepwe.
Picture courtesy of the late Sikota Wina’s family album.
The term freedom fighter is misplaced. You fight FOR freedom where as the term freedom fighter implies he/she that fights freedom.
Obviously Safeli must have received more education than Mr. Kaunda
Civics it is very clear to explain a person who named Zambia without beating the bush nkumbula named Zambia go through civics and the issue of buying things on windows it was stopped by nkumbula when he bought a bicycle he wanted to be given through the window when the white failed to do so nkumbula was asked to enter inside.