REBUTTAL: Leadership, Culture, and Truth — Defending Zambia’s Dignity Amid Grief and Misinformation by LINDA BANKS- Masheke Akashambatwa

REBUTTAL: Leadership, Culture, and Truth — Defending Zambia’s Dignity Amid Grief and Misinformation by LINDA BANKS

By Masheke Akashambatwa
September 21, 2025

In a recent article titled “A President Who Won’t Travel Because of a Corpse”, journalist Linda Banks attempts to frame a complex national moment through the narrow lens of foreign voyeurism, emotional sensationalism, and cultural ignorance. As a Zambian, I find her depiction not only intellectually dishonest but deeply disrespectful to our cultural values, our grieving process, and indeed, our national sovereignty.

Let me begin by acknowledging that no one, including President Hakainde Hichilema (HH), is above criticism. Healthy democracies require scrutiny of power, but what Linda Banks has offered is not scrutiny—it is storytelling cloaked in sentiment, built on shaky facts and foreign presumptions.

1. Cultural Realities Cannot Be Dismissed as Theatre

Linda mocks the President for not traveling “because of a corpse,” a phrase deliberately loaded to ridicule, rather than to understand. In Zambian culture—as in many African societies—the burial of a leader, especially a former Head of State, is not a procedural event. It is a sacred responsibility.

To suggest that President Hichilema is “hiding” from international diplomacy due to embarrassment is not only speculative—it is grossly dismissive of African tradition. The President’s decision not to travel while the remains of former President Edgar Lungu lie unburied is an act of cultural deference and leadership. In Zambia, it is uncultured and spiritually inappropriate for a leader to conduct business as usual, or represent the nation abroad, while the death of a fellow leader remains unresolved.

Would Linda have made the same mockery if a Western monarch had chosen national mourning over diplomatic travel?

2. The Truth About the Delay: Family, Not Government

Let us correct the central lie of her article: the corpse is not being “held ransom” by the government. In fact, the State has offered—repeatedly—a dignified state funeral befitting the former President. It is the Lungu family that has refused these overtures. The reasons for their refusal are personal, political, and unfortunately, increasingly weaponized.

The government cannot—and should not—force a funeral on a grieving family. That would itself be an act of tyranny. What Linda Banks fails to grasp is that the delay lies not in the State’s unwillingness to honour the deceased, but in the family’s unwillingness to cooperate with the process.

Had the Lungu family accepted the offer of a state funeral, former President Lungu would have already been laid to rest with full honours. That is not speculation—it is documented fact.

3. The Judiciary is Not a Tool of Vengeance

Ms. Banks implies that the former first family is being “dragged through courts” out of cruelty or political vendetta. This is another misleading statement.
Zambia, like any constitutional democracy, does not exempt individuals from legal scrutiny simply because they are in mourning or have held power. Ongoing legal matters involving members of the Lungu family are matters of public concern—especially where public funds and abuse of office are alleged. These cases are being handled by independent courts, not by the President’s pen.

To suggest that mourning should automatically grant legal immunity is not justice—it is privilege masquerading as grief.

4. There Is No Shame in Our Cultural Values

Linda writes that President Hichilema avoids international stages due to “shame” and “fear of questions.” This is conjecture—unsupported, unverified, and irresponsibly repeated. If the President were driven by shame, would he have been the same man who travelled extensively in his first years of this term, engaging with global institutions, building partnerships, and inviting investment into Zambia?

Let us not confuse respect for weakness, or principled silence for guilt. There is nothing shameful in choosing cultural duty over diplomacy. In fact, that restraint is a form of leadership that too many Western commentators, like Ms. Banks, are unequipped to understand.

5. The Role of the Press Is to Inform, Not To Inflame

Journalism must walk the fine line between criticism and distortion. Sadly, Ms. Banks’ piece fails this basic journalistic test. She wraps conjecture in poetic metaphors, but poetic language cannot excuse the lack of factual grounding.

She invokes Nazi Germany to paint a picture of complicity and silence, comparing those in HH’s government to wives of fascist dictators. Such analogies are not only grotesquely exaggerated—they are dangerous. They suggest moral equivalency between administrative grief management and historical genocide.

This is not analysis. It is melodrama with a political agenda.

In Conclusion:

The Real Questions We Should Ask

Zambia is not a failed state. Zambia is not in hiding. Zambia is not ashamed. What Zambia is experiencing is a political moment charged with grief, family conflict, and cultural reverence that defies easy analysis through foreign eyes.

Instead of asking, “Why won’t HH bury the body?”, the real question is: “Why won’t the family accept the funeral that has been offered?”

Instead of implying a collapse of dignity, we should ask: “What does dignity mean in the African context, and who defines it?”

And finally, instead of mocking our silence, maybe try listening to what is being said—not in press statements, but in our actions, our traditions, our values. Let us not confuse noise for courage or poetry for truth.

Let Zambia mourn its son with honour, not as a subject of foreign mockery, but as a nation navigating the intersection of culture, law, and respect.

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Masheke Akashambatwa is a Zambian commentator on politics, a good governance activists, an economist, and data scientist.