*´No Bread, Eat Cake´*
Amb Anthony Mukwita
*Friday the 13th*
As a keen student of history, international relations and politics, I was taken aback this week when President Hichilema told Zambians to stop crying about prolonged power shortages.
Don H bluntly said, ´no hydro power you have depended upon since independence, buy solar,´ which in my humble view was wrong on many levels.
It reminded me of Marie Antoinette the infamous wife of France´s King Louis XVI who told her husband when France was burning via a revolution in the 1700´s to stop complaining about the shortage of bread and eat cake.
Ironically, bread the staple food of the French then, like nshima to Zambians, was a more expensive alternative , she was perceived as heartless for that statement, without even mentioning her flamboyant lifestyle sustained by poor French folks.
Consequently, she earned herself a moniker “Madame Deficit.”
Among historians and scholars like me, the anecdote has been cited as an example of Madame Deficit gross obliviousness to the poverty conditions of ordinary people.
She was out of touch with the reality of abject poverty on the ground, which led France to a revolution and ended the monarchy, birthing a republic it is today.
In my view, what Don H said on his return from the epic visit to China, long overdue, was like what the Austrian princess turned Queen if France said regarding bread and cake.
Don H showed insensitivity and scorn towards Zambians suffering from depressing endless unprotective days of no electricity in their homes, barbershops, salons, butcheries and bakeries etc.
I read a leader in the News Diggers newspaper advising Don H, not to scorn Zambians on power shortages but instead, thank them for not taking to the streets to protest, my view exactly as one of the persons that love the Don.
In my recent editorials I have repeatedly said we are lucky as Zambians because we don’t take to the streets, looting and burning like Kenyans, Nigerians and Ghanaians do in the face of a crisis.
Our demeanour must be respected but never must it be taken for granted because in the game called life, everyone says enough is enough at some point. Nothing lasts forever, even the November rain.
I expect today when the president graces parliament to announce a few measures to end the misery of us mere mortals that are now getting 30 minutes of power per day or nothing:
• Scrap all manner of duty on the importation of solar and other energy alternatives
• Flood the market with cheaper alternatives to empower even the lowest in the income bracket and not just the aficionado fat cats
• Give money to ZESCO to build more dams and generate more power
• Let ZESCO roll out the solar solution for the whole country, they know where we all stay
• Scrap all power exports in the name of a ´crisis´ because we are in a crisis that is not going to disappear like a flu
Apart from Madame Deficit, let us all learn from 70´s British PM James Callaghan who fell on his own knife during the miserable Winter of Discontent by saying, ´Crisis no Crisis´ amid poverty-stricken Britain.
The power issue in Zambian has the power to potentially steal power from the current government if not urgently addressed, that’s my two ngwee and it requires no rocket science.
It cuts across the great divide, it’s the elephant on the room, not a storm in a tea cup.
If Don H is not careful, Zambians will take advantage of the crisis like the saying goes ´never lose an opportunity as opposition to milk a good crisis.´
I shudder to think what the resting Cobra Michael Sata would have done if the current crisis was occurring on his watch as an opposition leader.
Butcheries, bakeries and super markets are shutting down, the huge informal sector is crumbling right in front of our eyes and if nothing done is done, we will have no Zambia to write home about by year end.
“Everything will be OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end,” said Napoleon, I think.
A greater majority of Zambians are already grappling with high costs of mealie meal, petrol and diesel, the loss of energy just makes the living deplorable among people that are already burdened in my view.
Do not ask me ´what do you want HH to do?´ he is the Don not me he must know what to do, we can only suggest.
I must stop writing and crying now because my laptop battery is running dry.
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Contact: mukwitaone@gmail.com
Amb. Anthony Mukwita is a former Ambassador of Zambia to several European countries and a published author whose books are available in Bookworld, Grey Matter and Amazon.
*Daily Nation on Friday*