WHERE HAVE ALL THE POLITICIANS GONE? THE ECLIPSE OF POLITICAL STATESMANSHIP AND THE CRIMINALISATION OF DISSENT ️ THE PEOPLE’S POLITICAL SCIENCE
What has become of the venerable art of political disputation? Where are the politicians who could withstand the ferocity of intellectual disagreement, marshal the formidable resources of political argument and defend their convictions before the sovereign people without seeking sanctuary in the coercive instruments of the state? At what point did political contestation begin its lamentable descent from the arena of ideas into an increasingly litigious, intolerant and police dependent culture of public engagement? Have we reached an epoch in which political intellectualism is being supplanted by institutional intimidation and the jurisprudential persecution of dissent?
I ask these questions as a lifelong student of politics whose intellectual formation transcended the confines of conventional academic instruction. I was raised in a family steeped in the sacrifices of Zambia’s liberation struggle. My paternal grandmother, Mama Julia Mulenga Chikamoneka Z”L, belonged to that generation whose political consciousness was forged in the crucible of anticolonial resistance. Among the towering figures who shaped my political imagination and whose intellectual legacy continues to influence me posthumously was Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe Z”L, whose intellectual fecundity, ideological conviction and extraordinary powers of political articulation remain an enduring source of inspiration. These were men and women who understood that politics demanded intellectual courage, personal sacrifice and an unwavering commitment to the sovereignty of the people.
My political education was subsequently enriched by the rare privilege of sustained mentorship under two Presidents of the Republic of Zambia, Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba Z”L and Michael Chilufya Sata Z”L. Although my close association with President Chiluba commenced after his departure from State House, I spent nearly three years in his company, frequently sharing breakfast, lunch and dinner with him. We also prayed and fasted together. Emmanuel Mwamba, who served as his press aide during that period, is familiar with the proximity of that association. President Chiluba possessed an extraordinary pedagogical disposition. Almost every encounter became an occasion for instruction in statecraft, political organisation, constitutional governance, the psychology of leadership and the vicissitudes of political power. He understood that political knowledge was an inheritance to be transmitted, interrogated and refined.
Among President Chiluba’s other enduring lessons was the imperative of maintaining a judicious sense of proportion in responding to media commentary and public criticism. He cautioned against allowing personal attacks, provocations and challenges to one’s authority to consume the intellectual energies, political attention and institutional resources that ought to be devoted to the greater responsibilities of leadership. He understood that wherever human beings congregate, divergent opinions, criticism and controversy are inevitable features of public life. His counsel was grounded in the conviction that political leadership demands the discernment to distinguish matters of genuine public consequence from the transient provocations of political discourse, lest the pursuit of personal vindication displace the higher obligations of public service.
President Michael Sata presided over another formidable school of political apprenticeship. His methods were characteristically forthright, occasionally abrasive, but invariably animated by a determination to cultivate political resilience and independent judgement. Those who worked closely with him will remember his willingness to correct mistakes, interrogate assumptions and explain the practical exigencies of political leadership. One of his enduring lessons was that a politician must become politically self sufficient, develop an independent constituency of ideas and acquire the fortitude to withstand adversarial scrutiny. He repeatedly emphasised that political battles must be fought and won in the political arena. The political battlefield was the court of public opinion, where the ultimate arbiters were the people themselves.
It is against this historical and intellectual inheritance that I contemplate the disquieting metamorphosis of our contemporary political culture. We are witnessing the gradual atrophy of political disputation, accompanied by an increasingly conspicuous propensity to outsource political disagreement to institutions whose primary responsibilities lie elsewhere. A statement challenging governmental performance should ordinarily elicit a cogent political rebuttal. An allegation of policy incoherence should provoke a substantive exposition of policy. A criticism of public expenditure should be answered through evidence, economic reasoning and demonstrable administrative results. Political criticism is an invitation to intellectual engagement, and the capacity to answer it is among the distinguishing attributes of political leadership.
What manner of political culture are we cultivating when the vocabulary of public disagreement becomes increasingly saturated with threats of arrest, prosecution and litigation? Have we become so impoverished in political imagination that we must invoke the formidable machinery of state coercion whenever our political convictions encounter adversarial examination? The criminal law has its proper jurisdiction, and genuine criminal conduct must be addressed according to law. Equally, the courts remain indispensable custodians of constitutional justice. However, the indiscriminate juridification of political disagreement and the habitual securitisation of dissent represent a disturbing abdication of political responsibility. The police cannot manufacture political credibility. Judicial proceedings cannot substitute for persuasive argument. The coercive capacities of the state cannot confer intellectual ascendancy upon a political proposition.
Politics, understood as both an art and a science of government, demands considerably more than the acquisition and preservation of public office. It requires ideological literacy, historical consciousness, dialectical competence, rhetorical dexterity, institutional knowledge and an abiding appreciation of the distinction between governmental authority and political persuasion. A politician must be sufficiently intellectually equipped to withstand criticism without descending into vindictiveness, sufficiently politically mature to accommodate dissent without interpreting disagreement as disloyalty, and sufficiently democratically disciplined to recognise that public power carries an obligation to account for its exercise. The strength of a political movement is ultimately demonstrated by the quality of its ideas, the coherence of its policies and its capacity to persuade citizens through reasoned engagement.
Before we bequeath to the younger generation a political culture characterised by sycophancy, intellectual timidity and the reflexive invocation of coercive authority, we must recover the traditions of political apprenticeship and democratic disputation. Let us teach young people how to interrogate public policy, organise political movements, construct persuasive arguments, distinguish evidence from conjecture and defend convictions without resorting to personal vilification. Let us restore the intellectual dignity of political disagreement.
A political movement, anywhere in the world, that must continually summon the coercive authority of the state to answer the intellectual challenges of its adversaries has already conceded the impoverishment of its own political imagination. Where, then, have all the politicians gone?
Saviour Chishimba
(Yehudah Ben David)
Jewish Scholar
Principal & Founder
THE PEOPLE’S ACADEMY