Sean Tembo’s Language: A Growing Concern in Zambia’s Political Discourse”

Of swelling scrotums & masturbation!

By Prince Bill M. Kaping’a
Political/Social Analyst

Day by day, Sean Tembo, leader of a nondescript political establishment is fast proving himself to the public as a raw, uncouth and uncultured politician. Why do we say so?

Whenever he try to engage in political discourse or dialogue of any kind, be it splashing his thoughts or going live on Social media, he chooses to use the most corrosive, condescending, insulting and vile language! Surely, is this the way we should be conducting our politics in this era of Social media when our children are ever fidgeting with handsets in pursuit of knowledge or anything entertaining?

Tembo probably thinks he’s endearing himself to the public by electing to unleash expletives on Facebook once in a while. To the contrary, he’s being a bad example to the youth of this country and probably his own children as they are likely to take it as normal to use insulting language.

We will cite a few examples: Commenting on the affordable mealie meal that ZNS is offloading through some chain stores to cushion the impact of the exploitative price of our staple food; he wrote on his Facebook page, “Bally selling few bags of ZNS mealie meal using Shoprite to create a perception of low prices is equal to masturbation.” Say what! Language experts would be quick to explain to you this does not only constitute hate speech, but is equally insulting to the head of state since he’s the subject in this sentence.

In another video which has gone viral on Facebook whereby he’s complaining about the torture occasioned on him by the police at a location in Makeni, he claims that the cops had to use pliers to squeeze his scrotum, hence making it swollen. It’s a pity if such a thing happened to our brother; but surely, couldn’t he have found palatable or politically correct language to use such as ‘private parts’ as opposed to perforating the ear drums of little children with his strong language?

What Tembo is doing isn’t the best way to showcase himself to the general public as a fearless man that doesn’t fear anyone! Not even Julius Malema, the South African outspoken opposition leader uses such kind of coarse and graphic language as he engages with his perceived opponents. We know everyone is desperate to go to Plot 1 Independence Avenue but let us try to civil at all times!