THE CASE AGAINST TRIBALISM IN ZAMBIA

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THE CASE AGAINST TRIBALISM IN ZAMBIA – Dr. Munyonzwe Hamalengwa

The Case Against Tribalism in Zambia

ISBN: 978-1-988357-00-3

9 78 1 9 88 3 57 0 03

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The Case Against Tribalism in Zambia

Compiled By

Dr. Munyonzwe Hamalengwa

www.diamondbooks.ca

AN IMPRINT OF DIAMOND PUBLISHERS

TORONTO, CANADA – 2016

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The Case Against Tribalism in Zambia Copyright © 2016 - Dr. Munyonzwe Hamalengwa. All rights reserved. Dr. Munyonzwe Hamalengwa http://www.hamalengwa.ca

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DIAMOND BOOKS - CANADA Toronto, ON, CANADA Tel: (416) 876-1572 http://www.diamondbooks.ca First Edition: April, 2016

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DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to all those whose articles were chosen for publication in this book and to all the medium

from which all the articles were culled.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1. OPINION: TRIBALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. TRIBALISM IS GETTING OUT OF HAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3. TRIBALISM SHOULD BE DEAD BY NOW IN ZAMBIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4. TRIBAL POLITICS A TIME BOMB IN ZAMBIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 5. CECIL RHODES IS ONE OF THE REASONS ZAMBIA FACES TRIBALISM TODAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 6. ZAMBIA: PERCEPTIONS OF TRIBALISM IN ZAMBIA . . . . .. . . . . . . . . 20 7. WAS THERE REALLY TRIBALISM IN ZAMBIAN ELECTIONS? . . . . . . 25 8. WILL ZAMBIA BECOME A MATURE DEMORACY? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 9. A MACHIAVELLIAN VIEW OF PRESIDENT SATA’S SUCCESSION . . 35 10. FAMILY FOREST RE-LOADED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 11. SATA STIRS THE TRIBAL POT IN ZAMBIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 12. ANOTHER ANGLE AT LOOKING AT TRIBALISM IN ZAMBIA . . . . . . 52 13. TRIBALISM WILL DESTROY ZAMBIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 14. LUNGU'S TRIBALISM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 15. 50 SHADES OF TRIBALISM IN ZAMBIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 16. ZAMBIA'S TRIBALIST POLITICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 17. HISTORY ANSWER TO TRIBAL POLITICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

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18. FACTS ARE FACTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 19. ZAMBIAN POLITICS: A REVELATION OF TRIBALIST TENDENCIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 20. TRIBE, TRIBALISM AND CULTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 21. ZAMBIA: TRIBALISM VERSUS CLASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 22. LET’S GET RID OF TRIBALISM IN ZAMBIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 23. WHY WERE THOSE SENIOR COPPERBELT COPS FIRED? . . . . . . . 145 24. CONCLUSION: REMEDIES FOR TRIBALISM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 25. BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

4

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OPINION: TRIBALISM By Hope Nyambe Zambian Eye, January 10, 2015 By any measure, the issue of tribalism is a campaign strategy that some political parties in Zambia are dangerously flirting with.

It’s so disheartening to hear statements argued purely on the basis of tribe. To catalogue people of a particular tribe in this age and era as having the same traits is not only myopic but a dangerous precedent to set for the future. Tribalism, racism and other similar ills are not traits that we are born with; they are learned and reinforced over time.

In the past 3 -5 years, aided with unchecked political rhetoric, tribalism has been systematically ingested by the Zambian people. We are at a stage where before we argue the merits or demerits of any statement, we are made conscious of the tribal inclination of the person who’s made the statement.

We are slowly being re-educated and accepting tribalism as being ‘OK.’ The same way that corruption has become so entrenched in all the fabrics of our society is the same way that tribalism if left unchecked will be. Imagine a society where the content of one’s character means nothing unless

6

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TRIBALISM IS GETTING OUT OF CONTROL – SIKOTA WINA By Fredrick Misebezi, The Post, July 14, 2015 SIKOTA Wina says tribalism is getting out of control in the country. Speaking during ZNBC’s Sunday Interview programme, the veteran politician said Dr Kenneth Kaunda addressed the problem of tribalism and believed there was going to be no superior or inferior tribe in Zambia, but that the vice comes back whenever there are elections. ‚Efforts have always been made to deal with this element of tribalism...but it still comes back during the period of campaigns. At the rate we are going now, I think it (tribalism) is getting out of control. It is occupying a lot of the nation’s time and I think the young generation should voice out and advise government, not necessarily to blame government but to advise government on where they feel things are not going on well,‛ he said. Sikota said tribal politics could not make a political party win. ‚What might have contributed to tribalism is some individuals forming their own political parties and guaranteeing positions to people who come from the same area. I don’t really see the future of any tribal organisation in the country. I don’t think there is anything new to what is happening now; we had the same problem at the eve of independence. Harry Nkumbula had the whole control of the Southern Province;

25

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WAS THERE REALLY TRIBALISM IN ZAMBIAN ELECTIONS? By Chanda Chisala Lusaka Times, January 30, 2015 There have been many critics of the last Zambian presidential election who saw evidence of ‚tribalism‛ in voting patterns, especially in the Southern Province where candidate Hakainde Hichilema typically received over 90 percent of the vote. Many people have said that this kind of statistic shows that the ugly vice of tribalism is alive and well in Zambia and they believe that we should find ‚solutions‛ to this ‚urgent‛ and ‚dangerous‛ problem. They even invoke images of the Hutu-Tutsi war that led to the murder of many innocent Tutsis just because of their ethnicity.

But is there really a problem of tribalism? I argue that there is no evidence of that, at least not from the voting patterns, even if one can show that the voters from these regions did indeed prefer their candidate based on his tribe or ethnicity – we still commonly use the word ‚tribe‛ in Zambia, even if intellectuals in some other countries find the word offensive.

Tribalism is much more than just preferring your tribesman,

30

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WILL ZAMBIA BECOME A MATURE DEMORACY? By Charles Mwewa Pambazuka News, January 8, 2015 Is 2015 the year of change in Zambia? With the 20 January presidential by-election fast approaching will there be a shift from a growing democracy to a mature democracy? Can the nation finally shed the coat of corruption and become a truly democratic society that can trust and rely on its elected officials?

‘And pity, like a naked newborn babe, striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed upon the sightless couriers of the air, shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, that tears shall drown the wind,’ Shakespeare’s Macbeth depicting a seemly innocent deed with horrible connotations. That has been the story of Zambia for the past fifty years – the start has always been promising; the end horrible, especially for the majority poor. The same has been true in the choice of leadership. Whenever a Bemba or Nyanja was pitted against any other tribe, it was expected that a non-Bemba or non-Nyanja would not win the day.

If tribe is similar to race, the USA and President Obama provides a compelling illustration of how merit transcends all the subjective categories of human characteristics. For years, the US went by the conception that Blacks were only

93

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HISTORY ANSWER TO TRIBAL POLITICS By Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D UkZambians, January 30, 2015 During the night for about 12 hours on 7 February in 1968, Zambia did not have a President. I was sleeping in my Aggrey House dormitory bed with my school mates as a young Form Two student at Chizongwe Secondary School in Chipata. Over 3 million of my fellow Zambians had no idea what potential danger and catastrophe was brewing in the Capital City of Lusaka. Political conflict, vicious tribal divisions and fights had become so bad at the UNIP’s National Council conference hall in Chilenje in Lusaka that President Kaunda had stormed out of the conference in disgust and disappointment and had resigned as President of Zambia. He had driven to State House to pack his bags to leave. The tribal conflicts all over Zambian had been building up for months. The top leadership at the conference knew what bloody chaos would fall on the entire nation if President Kaunda resigned. Zambia was only 4 years young and a very fragile nation.

Tribalism Ugly Head The top leadership of Vice President Simon Kapwepwe and Grey Zulu told all the leaders not to leave and to stay in the Conference Hall in Chilenje. They knew the whole nation was tittering on the brink of an unimaginable

98

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FACTS ARE FACTS By Michael Sata, The Post, April 1, 2002 KAMBUNJI Kamunjila Mungile’s letter to your paper dated March 27, 2002 cannot pass without comment. Mungile’s letter was emotionally misdirected and he was not ashamed of contradicting himself. It was more defensive than objective. If I may quote him in column two line 34, he says ‚the reasons why most people from other regions voted against Mwanawsa was because they reacted to men like Sata, they saw a vote back of the MMD and Mwanawasa as a continuation of the Bemba/ Luapula rule.‛ End of quote. Unless history has to be re-written, His Excellency, President Mwanawasa does not come from Northern or Luapula province, how would voting for him perpetuate the role of Northern/ Luapula provinces. His Excellency, President Mwanawasa was handpicked by former president Chiluba, sold him to the MMD National Executive Committee, and former president Chiluba personally campaigned for Mwanawasa and MMD openly, the identity of President Mwanawasa could not be mistaken to say he Mwanawasa came from Northern/ Luapula provinces and voting for him would perpetuate the rule from Northern/ Luapula and Copperbelt provinces.

154

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY By Charles Mwewa, from Zambia Struggles of My People (2011)

Abidde, O. Sabella “Of Rumored, Attempted & Successful Coups,”

(2004)

Acemoglu, Daron &

James Robinson Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Achebe, Chinua Things Fall Apart (New York: Knopf Doubleday

Publishing Group, 1958)

Achola, Paul Pius Waw Implementing Educational Policies in Zambia

(Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1990)

Actionaid-Denmark “Facts about Corruption,” June, 2005

Adar, Korwa G. & Isaac

M. Munyae “Human Rights Abuses in Kenya under Daniel

Arap Moi, 1978-2001,” (2001) African Studies

Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 1

Africa Image “Sharp-dressing Ex-Zambian President Stole

£23m,” (Monday, June 29th, 2009)

African News “Zambia: Levy's Order to Arrest Sata was

Improper – Prof. Chanda,” (Thursday, July 28th,

2005)

Africa Today Volume 46, Number 2, 53

Agazzi, Isolda “Africa: Climate Change Assistance So Near and

Yet So Far,” Thomson Reuters Foundation-

AlertNet, July 24th, 2010

Ahmad, Tahir Mirza Christianity: A Journey from Fact to Fiction

(Surrey, UK: Islam International Publications,

2006)

194

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Zambia National Gazette Gazette Notice Numbers 629 of 2004 and 640 of

2004

Zambia Reports various articles

Zambia Weekly “Agricultural Subsidies are Increasing,” Week 32,

Vol. 1, Issue 18, (August 13th

, 2010)

Zambia Weekly “China – According to China,” Week 30, Vol.1,

Issue 16, (July 30th

, 2010)

Zambian Eye Various and numerous articles

Zambian Watchdog “Global Fund Freezes Zambia Aid Due to

Corruption,” (June 15th

, 2010)

Zimba, Lawrence “The Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Act,

No. 18 of 1974,” Zambia Law Journal, Vol. 10,

pp. 86-89

Zukas, Simon Into Exile and Back (Lusaka: Bookworld, 1993)

Zulu, Alexander Grey Memoirs of Alexander Grey Zulu (Ndola: Times

Printpak Zambia Ltd., 2007)

Documents

THE CASE AGAINST TRIBALISM IN ZAMBIA