By Dr. Charles Ngoma

When a doctor is called in to see a patient, he first takes a history from the patient or whoever can speak for them. The history will include facts like what the patient is complaining of, when and how symptoms started, date of birth, relevant details in the family history and then take notes on social factors as well. The doctor will then proceed to examine the patient by inspection from head to toe. Thereafter, he will examine by touch and hearing with his ears as well with the aid of instruments that can augment sounds and electric currents the body emits. By now, the doctor will be well on the way to understanding which system or systems are not working as they should and he will produce what is know as a ‘differential diagnosis.’ This is a list of possible causes of the patients problem and in the meantime he will act on one or two of these as a ‘working diagnosis.’

Normally he takes the one that is most likely to endanger the patients life or cause extreme morbidity were it not dealt with sooner. He may then order further tests depending on the complexity of the problem and this will go on until he comes to nail the final diagnosis. Some diseases have what are called pathognomonic features, which means that nothing else looks like it. Sometimes, all tests fail to ‘show up anything’ and it could be that newer tests are needed, or it is a new disease that would enter the medical vocabulary. By and large, a great majority of problems are solved by this time honoured practice which goes all the way back to antiquity.

In this two part article, I will first try to demonstrate from our history, that we are not where we were.

Politicians and all who are interested in solving the problems their country faces, may do well to take a leaf from the doctor’s approach to the human condition. It is important to take a good history of the country. It has been said that ‘those who do not know their history, are bound to repeat the same mistakes’ but indeed ‘there is nothing new under the natural sun.’ Life goes round, not in circles but in spirals, like the coils of a spring. We are at the same point but on a different plane, if haply higher. From 24th October 1964, much has changed in Zambia. There are many who recall with nostalgia, those ‘good old days’ and circulate black and white pictures of 1950s to 60s Lusaka, Kitwe, Ndola city centres etc, over the internet.

Look at the neat streets, the cars, the functioning swimming baths; and one wishes that things were just as they were then! But, no one points out that in 1964, there was no University, fewer primary and secondary schools and hospitals. Schools and hospitals were segregated to ‘whites’ and blacks. After independence the whites were joined by the uppity blacks who could afford to pay, or the ‘senior staff’ in the mine townships. Only Church run institutions provided decent education facilities for the poor. Many Government primary schools were grass-thatch roofed buildings with holes in the walls for windows and pit latrines even beyond 1969! The main thoroughfares from Lusaka to Chipata and Mongu and from Kapiri Mposhi to Kasama were gravel roads. It was ‘hell run’ in the rainy season to drive from Lusaka to Kasama! Crossing the more southern parts of the Muchinga escarpment near Luangwa river en-route to Chipata from the capital was an exercise in sphincter control!

In the first five years after independence, the fledgling Zambian government followed the 1st National Development plan. Perhaps everything would have gone according to plan, if it wasn’t for the Ian Smith unilateral declaration of independence in Southern Rhodesia in 1965. A University was opened in 1966 and by 1973, Zambia had its first medical graduates. There were 11 of which only 3 were native Zambians! There was a massive programme of school and hospital building throughout the country and free education and health care! One turned up at boarding school to be educated, fed and supplied with toileteries free of charge. Textbooks, pens, pencils, note books were all provided by the state! Houses were maintained free of charge by the Public Works Department and there were Township Management Boards that took care of all our myseries. We were producing around 700,000 tonnes of copper a year at lower cost. We were on a roll!

The $3 billion reserve we had at independence, with a population of 4 million, would have to finish someday with this necessary public spending. We tarred the major roads, built an International airport, a world class conference centre in one of Lusaka’s leafy surbubs and we produced more children too!

We could have gone on to greater things but the southern African situation brought difficulties for us. Our national independence and security were under threat. In 1966, we did not even have an Air Force to write home about. The Harold Wilson government had to supply a couple of planes to defend Zambian airspace. In 1968, the Portuguese in Mozambique bombed the Luangwa bridge, cutting Eastern Province off from Lusaka. More and more acts of sabortage were perpetrated against our infrastructure, and sadly, with the corroboration of a few of our own people. The southern border with Rhodesia was closed and our most economical land route to the international markets was shut. Rhodesia’s Mr Smith confiscated more than half of our Railways rolling stock and aeroplains. Being a land locked country, with mining the mainstay of the economy, we were in ‘maningi trouble,’ as veteran soccer commentator Dennis Liwewe would say. Coupled with these external issues were the internal, tribalism and wrangles for power in the ruling party UNIP and the inter-party violence that erupted prior to the 1969 elections, when hundreds of Zambians lost their lives. Mufumbwe was a picnic in comparison to the violence we experienced then! I remember spending a whole afternoon in the hill in my childhood town for fear of being lynched by the marauding cadres from both Kaunda’s UNIP and Nkhumbula’s ANC. Following after the Nyerere’s Arusha Declaration, Dr Kaunda also announced the Mulungushi reforms, in which he became the defacto Chairman and Chief Executive of all the means of production through ZIMCO. It was not long after this that a One Party State would be declared and all political dissent would be crushed. I leave the judgement on the merits or demerits of this decision by the Kaunda administration to posterity. I am only telling the history.

Many of us would like to forget the years between 1974 to 1984. Things got from bad to worse. Hyperinflation set in. The promised $400 million ‘Operation Food programme’ announced with much fanfare in a marathon speech lasting 3 hours, had come to naught. We became beggars in the world and the IMF and World Bank experts were in and out with ‘various remedies.’ Like the woman with an issue of blood in the Bible, we had haemorrhaged ourselves to severe economic anaemia and spent all the money with very little to show for it. A few people gathered some courage here and there to try and topple the government, but failed. They were tortured, brought before our courts and incarcerated while Dr Kaunda tightened his grip on power. It is so hard to understand how the kind-hearted 40 year old ‘non-violent’ Kaunda became the 60 year old who struck terror in his people! Zambians sung ‘Tiyende pamodzi’ not in tandem but in tow! Here is a lesson from history. All dictators in history started as young men under the age of 40. Someone pointed out recently that the best leaders the world has ever known are those who came to power in the afternoon of their lives. It is an interesting observation because personalities like Dr Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, FD Roosevelt, Sir Winston Churchill were all more than 60 years old when they became leaders. The worst dictators seem to ‘grow on the job.’ Libya’s strongman was 27, Castro 39, Mobutu 35, Museveni 42… the list goes on. Even our Chiluba who started at 48 wanted to carry on forever! It is kind like when you send a young person to prison for a long time, that being the only life they know, they can’t get prison out of them when free. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, and notable among them are the ‘Ngwazi’ of Malawi, Dr Kamuzu Hastings Banda, but that is a special case.

Our friends in North Africa are waking up to reality today, but Zambians carried out a similar revolution just over 20 years ago. The so called ‘docile’ Zambians took to the streets and begun to riot. The Unions threatened mass strikes and for once Dr Kaunda’s grip on power looked loosened. You got to hand it to him; He saw the writing on the wall and avoided unnecessary destruction when he quickly conceded to change. I am mindful of one life lost during that uprising. At about the same time, Communism in Europe was collapsing. Dr Kaunda’s friend Nicolae Ceau?escu was overthrown by the people and executed in 1989.

Zambia had reached the nadir and now the only way forward was up. In 1991, a new era dawned. We can proudly tell the Arabs, ‘we’ve been there and done it.’ Zambians are not docile, but the most sensible and wise of people. If they want to move, they move. They can be stubborn if they want to; Gay rights issue for example. They are forceful but peaceful. The Frederick Chiluba’s MMD came into power amidst multi-party democratic politics and the whole world looked with favour upon this country that lies in the bossom of the mighty Zambezi, the river of God. Thank God Almighty, we are not where we were.