By Kahlatswayo Cele
It was not long ago when every news edition on the Local TV and Radio broadcast was intermittent with the salutation ‘One Zambia, One Nation’. No sooner had this disappeared than in came the matured ‘Cadre Politician’, at the same time, the private media.
All was well until the day when Eve was found wanting, deceived by the Serpent, eating of the forbidden fruit, of glamour and wine sipping. Her husband she also entrapped to partake of her sins resulting in unfettered appetites to the extent of exchanging his birthright for a pot of porridge.
Since then, each taste of forbidden fruit has led to more and more lustrous desires, culminating in the couple literally flying high on the wings of the fornications of their luxuries. By the loss of their ZA, enraged and bitter, they pointed an accusing finger at innocence.
And so since then, the couple of the glib tongued and advocates has sought to bring down the hierarchy, pulling along all who share their grief- from ‘cadre Politician’ to rascals and scoundrels, to run-away Priests, a bunch of the disgruntled.
The ‘cadre Politician’ has natured a brutish instinct, which enables him to benefit from anything and everything that will give him the desired advantage – even to the extent of telling open lies to snare a following, promising to build Power Stations in every Province within 90 days of being elected into Office. The cadre to feign support has whispered to undo the couple’s misery.
I fear the beast of a single horn has invaded our Democracy, ready to ravage this beloved Country to bits and pieces. The scarlet wine of its people, it desires above anything else, to present and hallow before the beast by the agent of whited sepulchers.
Zambia has amongst both its young and old, Citizens who hold true to the virtues honesty and fairplay. All that is needed is guided nurturing and the fruit will surely bear-the fruit of a thriving Democracy.
The True Patriot stands un-swayed, unmoved by the whispers of the Political harlot, remaining firmly footed in the belief that virtue will ultimately prevail, of honesty and simple belief, of upheld principles, of shared Prosperity envisioned in the spirit of our Constitution.
Currently, the ‘cadre Politician’ is thriving amidst mediocrity and concomitant ignorance, relegating the principles of true Patriotism to a silent last. The Patriot holds on and sows by miniature steps, the seed of dignity. The harlot is a charlatan hybrid democracy void of issue driven Politics hijacked in the public discourse by a rogue media who careless but their own survival.
Such is a rogue media, that defrauds the public purse, refusing to remit taxes by the blackmail of a head of state, a media that delights in inciting insults and throws the first stone of biased judgment?
Tribalism and bigotry are now a platform for the cabal using the rogue media to lure a following and steer resentment against opponents. That they intend to exploit tribe is not surprising, their desperation is great. They intend to funnel the public into a perception that Politics of tribe, discarding merit is at play in the appointment of public officers. That is their launch pad.
For this reason, they have suspended their pretensions to champion media ethics, usurped by the expedience to tarnish Political enemies in tribal garb.
It is a high indictment against us as a people that some have ascended to Political leadership by open practice of tribalism. Worse, the stale public reaction towards the media who elect to overlook such brazen tribalism only to be quick to condemn those who refuse to practice tribalism in the appointment of public officers.
Worse still, these same media have elevated Political nonentities, well known to have previously thrived on account of tribe, to high platforms that they occupy day-to-day headline space – to spearhead tribal attacks.
Mr. Mpombo, a man ever wearing a bushy chin by all appearance is a disgruntled man, seething in anger, for being ‘left out’ and who is yet to awake from the self-importance stupor of belonging to a favored tribal nook of the previous regime, is now the taming of handlers scheming a tribal discourse.
The private media engaged in machinations have deliberately chosen to throw ethics out threw the window regarded by such as religious garb to be dumped at the doorway of media Practice. “By their fruit you shall know them,” the Bible says.
Zambians can all laugh at Mr. Mpombo remembering that he especially had the habit of groveling at the feet of our late ex-President. Our ‘king-makers’, would have us kiss his feet. Is this the type of democratic legacy we hope to leave behind, the applauding of Political gangsters and tribal bigots? Surely, our Posterity deserves better than that.
We deserve a Democracy that thrives on honesty, dignity and issue based Politics and whose subjects are not swayed by the ethnicity or colour of an individual but by fairness and justice, a Democracy that does not allow exploitation, favoritism or a system of the Political bourgeoisie.
On saturday May 15th 2010, Zambia’s Rastafarians held a Bob Marley memorial concert in Lusaka. It was at this event that most young people were seen smoking marijuana in public.
