KENNETH KAUNDA AND TOLERANCE – LESSONS FROM HIS LAST DAYS IN OFFICE
In the early days shortly after he left office, Kaunda held a press conference at Mulungushi International Conference Center.
A journalist asked him a question, “aren’t your allegations of corruption against the MMD government tantamount to bitting the finger that feeds you?”
Kaunda reacted angrily and emotionally while crediting his party and his family of being responsible for his welfare.
Then he added something that directly challenged the media.
“You journalists are warped in your souls”, he began.
“Sata addressed a public rally and lied that my wife Betty had poured hot porridge on a woman who I was supposed to be having an affair with”, he continued.
“Sata claimed that the woman was admitted to UTH and went ahead to give the ward and bed numbers”, Kaunda further explained.
He said the media went ahead and printed the story even without verifying Sata’s claims.
This reminded me of other claims Sata made during some public rallies in which he claimed that UNIP officials were busy switching GRZ number plates on GRZ vehicles to personal numbers.
He gave out the numbers to back his claims.
Kaunda told the Press Conference that if he had arrested Sata, he was going to be accused of harassing political opponents or suppressing freedom of expression.
Kaunda understood the times. He knew that a new political dispensation had arrived.
He needed to exercise tolerance because it is the holy grail of democracy along with freedom of expression.
Sata was practicing misinformation and disinformation.
Kaunda knew that it was not going to threaten national stability. They were mere political statements.
Not with President Hakainde Hichilema. He contradicts Kaunda by arresting his critics and opponents who equally make political statements.
If you look at the kind and weight of allegations Sata made against Kaunda, how different are they from the kind made against Hichilema and his government?
The only difference here is that Kaunda understood the times and acted accordingly.
We needed to sustain this culture of tolerance because it is the bedrock of multiparty politics.
Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Progressively, with each new government, tolerance has been eroding and wearing thin.
The victims are often non-members and non-supporters of the ruling party.
Two commentators on my Facebook page yesterday used such terms as “foolish, ukutumpa, ifyabupuba, you have the mind of a child”.
I can bet if I used similar terms on the Facebook page of any member or supporter of the ruling party, minister, the Vice President, the President or that of the DPP, ZICTA would have been informed, and the police would have picked me up.
But, who am I to be treated the same as our premier league fellow citizens?
I am, like many others, a second class citizen in my own country.
The Minister of Education described us from Luapula as suffering from the poverty of the mind.
Despite our protest, Hichilema didn’t see anything wrong in the statement.
But Nakachinda makes a similar remark about the people of Bweengwa, he is in prison.
Do you know what this implies? Your guess is as good as mine.
A catholic priest was called a Lucifer but because the remark was made by the boss of the ruling party, it was perfectly alright with President Hichilema and his government.
We can be insulted and called all sorts of names. As long as Hichilema is concerned, we are not worth his constitutional duty to protect.
The double standards are so glaringly arrogant, Hichilema is literally telling us to go to hell because his criminal justice system is not meant to cover our complaints.
As long as President Hichilema is in office, those of us who do not identify with UPND must resign to a life of subservience or leave the country until the day they will choose to leave office if we shall be alive then.
However, Zambians have been forced to choose this painful option because they have observed the following:
Hichilema’s brand of justice, painful though it may be, is not worth fighting over;
The demeaning remarks by his minister of education calling the people of Luapula as suffering from the poverty of the mind, painful though they may have been are not worthy of attention;
The insults of the ruling party chief calling Bishop Alick Banda a Lucifer, painful though they may be must be contemptuously dismissed from our national discourse;
But most importantly, all the above are not worth fighting over and not worth destroying our common heritage – mother Zambia because as a people, we shall survive this and we shall overcome.