SIMON BER ZUKAS — The “trouble maker” who had to be deported to a country he had never lived in.
Some men are born to mind their own business. Zukas was clearly not one of them.
Born in Ukmergė, Lithuania, on July 31, 1925, to Chaim and Libe Zukas, Simon arrived in Northern Rhodesia as a teenager and would eventually become one of the most unlikely and consequential figures in Zambia’s struggle for independence.
His father had emigrated to Southern Africa in 1936 as the shadow of Nazism darkened Europe, eventually settling in Ndola, where he opened a shop. The family joined him in 1938, bringing 13-year-old Simon to a country where he spoke little English and was about to discover the peculiar mathematics of colonialism: some people were considered more equal than others.
Zukas had already been exposed to Zionism and arrived with what he described as sympathy for the “underdog” which, in colonial Northern Rhodesia, included the African majority.
He recalled the shock of seeing the racial gulf firsthand. At one point, the family had to write permits every evening so their black cook could legally return home after dark because of the colonial curfew.
It was, perhaps, the beginning of a lifelong problem.
Zukas had discovered injustice and, unfortunately for the colonial authorities, he was not the type to keep quiet about it.
After secondary school in Luanshya and Southern Rhodesia, he won a scholarship to study civil engineering at the University of Cape Town. Before university, he volunteered for wartime military service, spending three years with African troops in East Africa.
By 1947, he was at university and increasingly radical, becoming close to the Communist Party of South Africa.
He returned to Northern Rhodesia in 1951 and quickly became involved in the political struggle, joining Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula’s African National Congress and helping lead opposition to the settler-dominated Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Then came the colonial government’s version of a political “solution.”
In April 1952, authorities declared Zukas “a danger to peace and good order.”
Their answer?
Deport him.
But there was a small administrative inconvenience: Where exactly do you deport a man who is not really from the country you want to send him to?
The British colonial authorities decided the answer was the United Kingdom.
So, after spending eight months imprisoned in Livingstone, Zukas was shipped off to London in December 1952, a country with which he had no meaningful connection.
In London, Zukas did what any respectable “danger to peace and good order” might do: he continued organising.
He became a co-founder of the Movement for Colonial Freedom and, from 1960, served on the London committee of UNIP.
He married South African artist Cynthia Robinson in 1954 and established a successful civil engineering consultancy.
When he finally returned to Zambia before independence in 1964, he was received like a returning son.
And the man whom colonial authorities had once considered too troublesome to remain in Northern Rhodesia would go on to help build the very country they had tried to silence him from.
For more than two decades, Zukas devoted himself to civil engineering and commercial farming. His professional fingerprints were left on some of Zambia’s important public infrastructure, including the Parliament building, State Lodge, University of Zambia School of Mines and the Great East Road flyover.
From 1966 to 1990, he served on the boards of several state institutions, including the Industrial Development Corporation, Zambia National Building Society, National Council for Scientific Research and UNZA Council.
Then, in 1990, Zukas once again found himself uncomfortable with the political establishment.
Disillusioned with the one-party state and Zambia’s economic decline, he became one of the founders of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD).
In the 1991 elections, at the age of 66, he was elected MP for Sikongo, defeating UNIP candidate Mbambo Sianga by 4,884 votes to 596.
Zukas subsequently served in President Frederick Chiluba’s government as Minister of Agriculture and later Minister of Works and Supply.
But political office did not suddenly cure him of his habit of disagreeing with governments.
In 1996, he resigned on principle over the constitutional amendment targeting Kenneth Kaunda’s eligibility for the presidency.
By 2001, he was back in the political trenches, joining the Oasis Forum, which helped mobilise opposition to Chiluba’s controversial attempt to secure a third presidential term.
He later became chairperson of the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), stepping down in 2005.
But retirement from formal politics never meant retirement from politics.
Simon Zukas remained Simon Zukas.
He continued speaking, writing and commenting on Zambia’s political affairs apparently having never received the memo that at a certain age one is expected to sit quietly, attend funerals and complain about young people.
During the 2016 elections, he served on the Zambia Elections Information Centre’s Council of Elders alongside Fr. Leonard Chiti, Dr. Anna Chifungula and Mama Chibesa Kankasa, helping promote peace, democratic values and mediation during a politically tense period
Because apparently 94 years was not enough time to mind his own business, In June 2020, Zukas once again stepped forward, leading prominent retired citizens and freedom fighters in establishing Our Civic Duty Association (OCIDA).
Among those involved were Archbishop Emeritus Telesphore Mpundu, Dr. Sketchley Sacika, Ompie Nkumbula-Liebenthal, Ambassador Lily Monze, Ambassador Leslie Mbula and Bautis Kapulu.
Simon Zukas died peacefully in his sleep on September 27, 2021, aged 96.
He was accorded a state funeral and buried at Leopards Hill Memorial Park on October 5, 2021.
He left behind his wife Cynthia, sons David and Alan, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
From a young Lithuanian immigrant in colonial Northern Rhodesia to freedom fighter, political activist, engineer, farmer, parliamentarian, cabinet minister, opposition leader and elder statesman, Zukas lived a remarkable life.
The colonial government once labelled him “a danger to peace and good order.”
History eventually rendered a different verdict.
Zukas was not a danger to peace. He was simply a persistent inconvenience to bad politics.