‘Humanism’ in Zambia

Press, 6 September 1980, Page 16

‘Humanism’ in Zambia

By

JOHN WILSON

Bound in the. front of. Zambia’s telephone book (the book for the entire country of 5.5 M people is less than half the .. size of the Christchurch directory) is. a page exhorting . Zambians to follow the principles of "Zambian humanism.” This, involves putting man at the centre of all things and remembering that there is a desire for material things, to such an extent that religion is being strangled. “The way of Humanism” the message ends “is the way that Zambia will become an example to ■ this harsh, materialistic world, where increasingly a man’s worth is only measured by his wealth.” Zambian'. .. , humanism seems a diffuse, naive philosophy to many Western visitors to Zambia. It is ; easily ridiculed. But on a visit to Zambia I gained an impression that it was more significant as a key to Zambia today than appeared on the surface. This vague' ' impression was given greater precision for me by a.South African col-: league—a woman who has been in exile since the 1960 s and is familiar: with many other African countries. She felt, she told me, that 16 years after independence, it was in Zambia .more 'than: anywhere;-else that the Government and' people still remembered why they had wanted in-'s dependence.: 'lf this is true, it must be due at least in part to Kenneth Kaunda, President of the Republic of Zambia since 1964. In the British

press in recent months the impression has been spread that Kaunda is coming under severe criticism within Zambia, especially now that he can no longer blame food and other shortages on the war in Zimbabwe. Kaunda was said to be moving to suppress criticism of his rule. After a short visit to the country, I cannot say that there are not political ten-

sions within the Zambian Government and the.. single United National Independence Party (UNIP) or that Kaunda’s’rule is not becoming repressive. I can say that the atmosphere in Lusaka at least did not give. any impression that the tensions are serious or the repression onerous. ' • This is not to say that 1 the Zambians I met are; satisfied with the progress that has been made under: Kaunda’s rule since T 964., It has been a difficult, dis- 1 appointing . time for Zam-: bia. Rhodesia’s U.D.I. and the later war for independence in Zimbabwe hit Zambia (from whose soil both Z.A.N.U. and Z.A.P.U. forces fought at different times during the. struggle) very hard economically and physically. Low copper prices and. .high oil. prices have ’ -been l ’ damaging: combination. 1 There are food shortages. Zambian

humanism has not prevented the Zambian’ elite from doing conspicuously, better than the Zambian masses. There have been some classic blunders in development schemes; But these problems are not hidden or denied. For a one-party state, Zambia gave an impression of being surprisingly open and free. Within the party there is clearly room for

differences and disagreement. The party ‘appears to have remained a mass, popularly based organisation in the constituencies —'■ present without being obtrusive, if its public notices give a correct impression. £ ; ‘But the fact that Zam-bia’is-relatively open and . free.;'is.i best; seen; in its newspapers — the .’“Times of Zambia" and the. Zambia “Daily Mail,” one gov-ernment-owned arid one part-owned and controlled ■ by I the. party.- For government and party h newspapers - respectively they are full and critical. The editor of the “Daily .Mail,” for example,. felt free to write an. editorial about the potentially sensitive issue of Zambiah fishermen fishing in Zambian . waters on Lake- ’ Kariba ' beirig: j seised by the new government in Zimbabwe, which was in direct 1 oppo-

sition to the Government’s policy. . Commenting on this paradox of a relatively free and critical press in a one-party state, a young Zambian civil servant admitted to me that there was a great danger if the person leading Zambia was .ever someone less committed ‘to human rights than Kaunda. But I got from this. civil servant the impression that many Zambians would not tolerate such a leader. . .There . was finally, on this first visit to . Southern Africa, the question of race. A white colleague who had been working in .Lusaka for some time, and who had chosen to live in an overwhelmingly African compound (an area in which the local government. provides a serviced site, and those who lease the site build their own houses) told me she .., felt uneasy living there, only . during the raids when rebel white Rhodesian soldiers were oh the. ground, in . Zambia shooting blacks arid destroying property. But the consequent. resentment, she found,; had.’ soon passed. The Zambian civil servant said that Britain had left a newly independent Zambia in 1964 with fewer than. 100 Zambian graduates. But he hastened .to add. that ..there,. was now no. bitterness. , . My impression that rac®

relations were relatively good in Zambia was confirmed in a subjective but revealing way. I flew on from Lusaka ■ to; Gaberone, Botswana, where the hotel in which I stayed was uncomfortably crowded 'with white South Africans, in Botswana for ’ a ■ transKalahari motor-cycle’ rally'. “Uncomfortably” because I had an uneasy feeling: that these South Africans and the black Africans (with whom in Botswana the South Africans have no choice but to mix as equals) identified me as another white South African who needed only to cross the border 15 miles away to become an arrogant, oppressing racist. ’

In Zambia, by contrast, the assumption was that if you were there and white, you, were probably not racist. I felt thoroughly at ease in a wide variety of situations in Zambia in a way. that contrasted vividly with/the uneasy feelings I had in Botswana. Zambia may have muddled many of its development efforts; it may be less free than a Western democracy;' it might seem at. times that all independence had done was put a black elite in the place of the white elite of colonial times. But it left a more positive, optimistic impression than the British press had led me to "ex-, pect * -