MY EARLIEST FORMATIVE RECOLLECTIONS

It is normally believed that people suffer from infantile (childhood) amnesia. This is the inability of adults to retrieve memories of situations or events before the age of 2 to 4 years, as well as the period before the age of 10 of which some adults retain fewer memories than might otherwise be expected given the passage of time. The development of a cognitive self is also thought by some to have an effect on encoding and storing early memories.

What is normally believed is not always true, however.

I have a clear recollection of the happenings in and around my life from the moment that ugly lady punched me for no apparent reason. I busted out crying to the amusement of everyone in the room. I kept wondering what type of a gladiatorial show this was which didn’t have the decency to tell me of the rules of combat save to this lady who had already attacked me. I calmed down when she stopped attacking and with the precision of an orchestra artist, mother stuffed my mouth with her breast. Muffling all my screams. Yuck!

From the conversation I would pick after my screams, the baby punching lady was a member of an exclusive group of traditional birth attendants who were preferred not only because they were the only option around, but also because their payment was result based and did not ask for payment before attending to the women. They also respected and enforced the prevailing traditional customs, for example, placental rites.

I was born on 30 June 1990 from a humble (to read as poor) family in Malikila village of Sikongo, a district that sits on the Zambian border with Angola. My father, Imuunga Kufekisa, had a polygamous relationship with both Christianity and traditional beliefs, and mother, Namakau Sitali, was a staunch New Apostolic Church member. Because of the happenings in Zambia’s late 1980s, my name was already decided on immediately elders knew of Namakau’s pregnancy. I will be called Nalishebo, one born during famine.

On the day following my birth, the atmosphere was tense in the hut I had spent my first night on earth. This is because an army officer identifying himself as Lieutenant Mwamba Luchembe intermittently broke into the soft music broadcast of ZNBC radio station for about 3 hours, from 3:30 AM to about 6:30 AM, saying the army had taken over the running of the country due riots of the previous week, in which at least 27 people had been killed and more than 100 wounded.

To the relief of everyone in the room, at about 9:15 AM, Grey Zulu, the then UNIP General Secretary, announced on the same radio that the Government was back in control and the coup attempt by an undisciplined army officer had been squashed.

What a grandiose welcome this world had given me: got punched on day 1 and survive a coup attempt on day 2. I was looking forward to what was in store on day 3. A planet killer asteroid hitting the earth, maybe?

To my disillusionment, the next 12 months of my life lacked any noteworthy action apart from occasional visits from Malikila people coming with presents to worship and bless me, punctuated with likutas as if I was some kind of a pedestal. I loved it.  

When I was 14 months old on 31 August 1991, a new constitution was adopted in Zambia confirming the end of the one-party state. 2 months later in October 1991, a general election would be held which secured a landslide victory for the MMD who won the presidency and got 125 parliamentary seats, against UNIP's 25. I was treated to a front row seat for watching change in the Zambian political space and high drama interactions of the often eccentric family members.

As most people were celebrating this political change, I had suffered from a strange disease; it was believed that if a child suffers from such related diseases, the mother was the causer. This is because such diseases were believed to occur to children who had breastfed from a pregnant mother. Therefore, if death resulted in such cases the mother was definitely the killer of her own child.

My sickness become a talk in Malikila village amongst the women and among men. Hence the old women of the village prepared a concoction and passed it to Imuunga, one would be for Namakau and the other for me. I was forced to drink my portion, but Namakau vehemently refused to drink hers. Imuunga felt the embarrassment more and he called for old women to talk to Namakau. These used all their kitchen tactics to make Namakau confess that she was pregnant.

They encouraged her to use herbs as they believed that these could help to subdue my complications. They had used the same modus operandi when she was pregnant to – as they belief was – precipitate labour and widened her birth canal. In Malikila, complications occurring during labour were attributed to witchcraft or punishment for misdeeds committed by the pregnant woman.

Did you observe the beliefs on diet? Did you eat eggs during pregnancy? Did you avoid salt intake until the cord stump of the baby has healed? Did you eat sugarcane during pregnancy? Did you sleep around or looked at a man lustfully? Did you……..?

It was an endless interrogation.

Namakau could not budge to the schemes of the old women. Imuunga tried to talk to his wife emphasizing their need for traditional medical help, the thing which Namakau refused again citing that God is the greatest healer and that God was going to heal her son, me. What a stubborn woman, like a mule.

Imuunga’s elasticity on matters of religion made things even worse for Namakau as he even reached a point of chasing her from their matrimonial house for insubordinations. But such an action would be a humiliation to only to her, but him and his family as well. He decided otherwise.

Namakau, these things happen. I remember my third pregnancy took time to be noticed. I didn’t know that I’m pregnant until the sixth month, said Monde.

Monde was the youngest in this circle of counsellors and the only reason why she was involved is that she was Namakau’s best friend. The elder women thought her presence and recollections would help Namakau into confessing. They grew up together, went through Sikenge together after attaining Mwalanjo, had the same Chilombola, danced siyomboka together and got married the same day.

When a girl reaches puberty, Sikenge as it commonly called, they take them to a secret house where they were taught how to take care of a house, a husband, and children. The training would go on even for 3 months. And at the end of it, a celebration was held where the girls display some ‘skills’ they had learnt. Towards the end of the ‘display’ a man, who had been pre-organized would come, lift the girl from the podium and run with her to his house. This is marriage. And the celebrations will go on until the next day where the husband will produce evidence to confirm that the girl was a virgin. Evidence admissible hen charging the bride price.

Marriages in these parts were purely arranged. The two individuals concerned had absolutely no part to play besides showing up and doing as they are told.

During all this hullaballoo, my disease disappeared as quickly as it came. My childhood development pathway was seamlessly aligned to suit the expectation. Namakau was left alone, and Imuunga continued being a father, the only way he knew how.

And since children in those parts spent a lot of time with their mothers, I was founded on what Namakau taught me. Mothers considers children up to 10 years the apple of their eyes. That milieu influenced me very much, no wonder by the time I was detaching myself from Namakau, I was a strong Christian. And when I narrated my childhood recollections to my class during elementary schooling, no one believed that anyone can vividly remember their childhood events. In fact, the class teacher punished me for what he called ‘not taking the assignment seriously’. Like Seriously? 

TAKEWAY

Zambia adopted the World Health Organization (WHO) policy on child delivery which insists on professional maternal care, thus arbitrarily excluding traditional birth attendants (TBAs). Though such a policy is built on good intentions, the policy to ban TBAs is out of touch with local reality in Zambia. This is because, despite being outlawed, TBAs are still widely being used which presents a greater risk to both mothers and children since its snow shrouded in secrecy and confidentiality. Secondly, outlawing TBAs should have been done after strengthening the sexual reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, adolescent, and nutrition (SRMNCAH&N) services. Transportation problems, sociocultural reasons and unpreparedness still cause most women to turn to traditional birth attendants. Thirdly, professional maternal and childcare and traditional approaches shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. Traditional birth attendants should not have been excluded from safe motherhood programs but should have had redefine responsibilities and functions.  

MUNDA WAKUDALA: ECHOES FOR VEDANTA TO RETURN AT KONKOLA COPPER MINE

 Theatricality and deception, powerful agents against the uninitiated. – Bane (Dark Knight Rises)

Theatricality and deception can make a person or company appear to be much more than they really are in the mind of an opponent. The Russians have a military and political doctrine called “maskirovka” which means “masking,” and it’s a fitting name for a tactic that depends entirely on misrepresentation.

If you have watched the Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises), you noticed a phrase that was uttered throughout. In “Batman Begins,” the hero was told to use “theatricality and deception” as “weapons against the uninitiated.” He was being told to use small explosions and smoke to distract his opponents and gain an advantage. He took that a step further and created the Batman persona to protect those he loves from reprisal when he went after the bad guys.

As you can see, Batman wasn’t the only one using theatricality and deception. His adversaries also did, to lethal consequences: the League of Shadows released a toxin to bring fear to the people of Gotham; the Joker would use a lot of deception to play games with Batman and the Gotham, and Bane hid in Gotham’s shadows and acted from within to later hold the entire city hostage.

So, what’s all this to do with Konkola Copper Mines (KCM)? In recent times, there has been news of people calling for the return of Vedanta Resources at KCM, from unions and politicians to church and community leaders. Where are the voices that were against Vedanta barely 12 months ago during the Patriotic Front (PF) administration? How good it would be to hear their argument now as the juxtaposition of different ideas is important for the progress of both the individual as well the society. However, a lopsided conversations leave the simple like me – who are only interested in knowing where the next meal will come from – in the wilderness of thought. KCM being one of the two (with Mopani Copper Mines) biggest employers in the country, only rivalled by government, there must be a vicarious vestige behind this visage of praises.

In these and many conversations, theatricality and deception manage to rope in the “uninitiated,” people who don’t know or can’t tell the difference between a real investor and a pseudo one.

For the uninitiated, KCM was first sold to Anglo American Corporation (AAC) in 1998 for US 25 million during the Government's privatization of parastatal companies. However, before President elect Levy Mwanawasa could even finish his orientation as a President in 2001, AAC ditched the mines. Enter Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta who took over KCM in 2004 for USD 25 million  for 79.4% shares with 20.6% shares remaining with ZCCM-IH on behalf of Zambians. However, in 2014 Agarwal would be caught on camera talking about his experience in Zambia and how he got KCM for a paltry sum. In his words, “KCM is giving us USD 500 million every year for the last nine years and a billion on top of it”. We can hate his insatiable greed, but I respect Agarwal’s use of theatricality and deception on all Zambians with our political leaders being his main cheerleaders. That USD 25 million would have easily been raised by Zambians coming together or better still, listing the mine on the Lusaka Stock Exchange. Of course, there are others who claim that AAC also paid Zambia USD 20 million as recompense for breach of contract with the World Bank (contract brokers) matching it with another USD 20 million, bringing the total amount to USD 65 million. This is in addition to the investment that KCM had committed itself to make plus the taxation system which was meant to benefit Zambians.

Theatricality and deception.

KCM has had its own demons to exorcise. In 2006, they were sued by a group of Zambian farmers for pollution and loss of livelihood. The suit, in the Zambia High Court, argued that KCM’s mining activities had polluted the Kafue River. The High Court ruled in the plaintiff’s favour with USD 2 million in compensation. KCM appealed to the Supreme Court and the Court upheld the lower court’s verdict but without compensation. The plaintiffs escalated the matter further to UK courts and cited Vedanta as Co-defendant. The people of Hippo Pool, Kakosa, Shimulala and Hellen successfully claimed that KCM had been spilling sulphuric acid and other toxic chemicals into the Mushishima stream and the Kafue River. This case was settled last year after more than 2,500 people received ‘undisclosed’ settlements from Vedanta. Not knowing if that settlement plan also included reclaiming the polluted rivers, farming areas and people’s health condition. Either way, money talks in a language only understood if one is a beneficiary. 

Theatricality and deception. 

In 2019, the government would accuse KCM of underpayment of dividends and taxes as well as underinvestment and environmental regulation breaches. After taking matters to the High Court, a provisional liquidator in Milingo Lungu would be appointed, a decision which didn’t go without Vedanta countersuing in the South African High Court. The Court called a halt of the liquidation and asked the two differing parties to exhaust the arbitration process. 

Theatricality and deception.

What is the way forward for KCM? How has its uncertainty impacted the entire economy? Are we able to find another investor apart from Vedanta who would be willing to inherit a debt stock rumored to be upwards of a billion USD? Are First Quantum Minerals – who were rumored to be interested in investing in the mine earlier this year – really interested? Of course, they rebutted this rumour but we are initiated, aren’t we? Are China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group (CNMC) which had expressed interest in 2019 still interested? Zambia should try to secure greater benefits from these natural resources or the verdict by posterity will undoubtedly be harsher on us for mortgaging it.

In choosing between feeding the people and political economics, people ought to come first. Always. A hungry man must be fed first before being initiated. This by no means warrants us throwing away our resources to anyone promising investment, but that which gets people fed is basic and urgent. Always. And in this case, it’s having KCM operate normally to provide jobs to people, markets to contractors and contribute to the economy. Maybe, just maybe, Vedanta may be the only solution there because it’s Munda Wakudala. After all, like a typical erstwhile lover, they are promising to step up investment and implement several social responsibility programmes if allowed to resume control. But Zambians are initiated now, aren’t we?

And what do they say about going back to your ex?

 

Sanitation Isn't Everyone’s Business. Or Is it??

 The article below 1st appeared in the Zambia Daily Mail Newspaper of 26th November 2022.

“Sanitation is everyone’s business.”

Those were the words of Vice President W.K. Mutale Nalumango as she officially opened the Second Sanitation Summit held in Lusaka on 18^th and 19^th November 2022 under the theme The Sanitation Economy: Making the Invisible Visible.

Organized by the Ministry of Water Development and Sanitation and its partners in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector, the purpose of the summit was to stimulate political and technocratic will on existing commitments made during the First National Sanitation Summit in November 2018 and to accelerate action aimed at improving sanitation and hygiene services for all and ending open defecation by 2030.

Participants were drawn from the Government, Traditional Leadership, the United Nations, Cooperating Partners, Non-Governmental Organizations, academia, private sector, and the media.

The event was deliberately timed to coincide with commemoration of World Toilet Day on 19^th November, a day that reminds us of urgent need to tackle the sanitation crisis. Resolutions from the summit will be codified into a Statement of Action that will help Government and other stakeholders implement the various commitments to improve sanitation in the country. 

Like other UN members, Zambia has signed up to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), all of which have to be attained by 2030. SDG 6 enjoins member countries to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

Zambia is behind on this goal of ensuring safe toilets for all by 2030. That is why it is important for all stakeholders in the WASH sector, with strong Government leadership, to implement the various commitments and national strategies to improve the state of sanitation in the country.

Although the United Nations officially recognised access to sanitation as a human right 12 years ago through Resolution 15/9, many people still lack access to safely managed sanitation. Many do not even have a decent toilet of their own. 

Safely managed sanitation is the bedrock to protecting groundwater and positively contributes to good health outcomes. The failure by one household to construct a proper septic tank or pit latrine frustrates not only current aspirations but also the future ability to access clean and safe groundwater.

To achieve progress, all stakeholders should understand their obligations and responsibilities to reach everyone with sanitation services, hence the clarion call by the Vice President that “sanitation is everyone’s business.”

Sanitation is  not just about a clean environment.  The Sanitation Economy has the potential of monetising toilet provision, products and services to provide benefits across businesses and society. This can be done in many ways such as converting faeces to fertilizer and biogas and supporting the entire sanitation value chain.

There are several windows of opportunity for the sanitation subsector.

For instance, taking advantage of the increase in Constituency Development Fund (CDF), local authorities could scale up sanitation efforts and partner with private sector to achieve sustainable service delivery. The increase in CDF thus presents unlimited opportunities for the private sector and local authorities to tackle some of the sanitation challenges communities face.

Most, if not all, of the mushrooming informal settlements in Zambia are not connected to either water or sewerage systems, leaving that to individuals as they construct their houses.

In addition, most families still rely on privately-owned boreholes and shallow wells which – if not properly managed – are often contaminated with raw sewage.

Commercial utility companies have the mandate to inspect and ensure property developers comply with prescribed guidelines in the construction of water and sanitation facilities. However, enforcement remains inadequate and in some cases absent.

Non-traditional markets such as rural areas have for a long time been considered unattractive to private sector due to their perceived lack of profitability. But with appropriate risk management tools, market assessments and linkages, private sector should be encouraged to enter rural markets and provide sanitation services. 

Promoting the sanitation economy is not a zero-sum game but a win–win situation, protecting groundwater against faecal contamination whilst making a livelihood out of it.

Investing in sanitation has positive economic returns like creating jobs and contributing to energizing the economy. Failure to invest in sanitation has a huge negative impact on a nation’s economy through mortality and morbidity arising from diarrheal diseases caused by contaminated groundwater.

THE NAME OF THE GAME: CORRUPTION

Almost a week to the first ever World Cup in the Middle East, taking place in the natural gas reserves and oil reserves rich country of Qatar, American streaming giant Netflix released FIFA Uncovered, a four-part documentary highlighting the global scale of the corruption that was happening at Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the world football governing body. HOW CONVENIENT? 

Throughout the documentary – and of course from the discourse that emerged after the awarding of Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup – one country comes out as ‘The One’ which should have been given the hosting. I will leave this to you to find out on your own. However, here is what I have leant from this documentary:

Blatter was never loved by his people in Europe

?

In 2002 FIFA presidential election, UEFA supported Issa Hayatou's – the then Cameroonian football executive and president of the Confederation of African Football - FIFA presidency ambitions because they were just looking for someone they could control after failing to control Blatter. Isn’t this hypocrisy

Was FIFA corrupt?

Certainly. As late the Lucky Dube concisely had put it in his song titled Freedom, too much power in one man’s hands is dangerous. You can have such a huge organization that is only accountable to itself with carte blanche to make decision. As a result, corruption was institutionalized in the organization.

Prior to the 2002 FIFA election, Emmanuel Maradas - who was Blatter's advisor Africa and behind African Soccer Magazine - claimed that Sepp gave him money which he distributed to all Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA) members to help them build Football Association (FA) Headquarters to the tune of $400,000 each. But from the documentary, this money was never audited nor were the FAs requested to report back. How much did our own Football House cost to build?

Did Blatter sell the World Cup to Qatar?

According to this documentary, Blatter was also against giving the World Cup to Qatar because inter alia, Qatar’s lacked the football culture and enough infrastructure to hold a world cup as all the stadiums and hotels had to be built from nothing. He was also betrayed like everyone else that feels betrayed. The real villains are Jack Warner (CACACAF), Issa Hayatou (CAF), Michel Platini (UEFA) and Nicolas Leoz (CONMEBOL) who used their influence to tip the scale towards Qatar. Muhammad Bin Hammam (AFC), on the other hand, was just being patriotic. He was the son of the soil.

When some country lost the 2022 World Cup hosting rights, they went flat to bring FIFA down. Would we have known about FIFA's corruption if they had won? I leave you to answer this. Corruption is a consumer satisfied crime. When both sides are happy, everything's cool. We mask corruption with nice names when we are involved: gifts, blessings, answered prayers, deserving and all sorts.

Causes of corruption

There are many causes of corruption but in this documentary, they are twofold: the greedy and insatiable appetite of those in privileged position. And poverty.

I want to talk about the latter since the former is well known with several examples from people hoarding money in their homes and fields to people acquiring property within a short period without a clear financial trail.

Poverty is rarely seen as an enabler of corruption. While poverty in the north is caused by greed, corruption in the south is mainly caused by poverty. One thing that is also clear from this documentary is that to fight corruption, you have to fight poverty first. The documentary offers reasons as to why vote buying may have influenced in Qatar hosting this world cup:

• Qatar sponsored the CAF conference that was held in Luanda, Angola.
• Qatar paid $1,500,000 to Cameroon, Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire FAs presidents for ‘their countries’ football development.’
• Qatar gave cheap oil deals to a number of countries.
• Qatar Airways started flying to new destinations where they didn’t initially go before their world cup campaign was launched.
• Politicians at the highest level of governments and politics would see this as an opportunity to push for their ambitions. Leaders like Nicolas Sarkozy and Lula da Silva got involved to broker vote buying.

To be clear, I’m not trying to be a corruption apologist. Far from it. I believe that corruption is a crime against humanity and should be treated as such. But what I’m trying to dispel is the perception that the South is more corrupt than the North. And yet it’s the banks in the North that advices how to avoid tax and hugely benefits from corrupt transaction from the South.

Is the anger towards Qatar justifiable?

Not at all. Like South Africa which ended up paying $10,000,000 in the name of Diaspora Funds (whatever that meant) to Jack Warner in exchange for votes to host the 2010 World Cup, Qatar was also taken advantage of by these players of the game. Qatar may have parted away with so much looking at how many people and governments they had to engage to win the 2022 World Cup hosting rights.

Why are people angry at Qatar then? Because of how political this World Cup has been, its difficulty to really ascertain the validity of the human rights abuse claims. We should never have allowed politics to infiltrate football, we have created a monster that will be impossible to slay. In this case, anger stems more from those that feel entitled to have hosted this World Cup. It is called transferred aggression or misdirected aggression. This happens when a person feels threatened or upset by an outside stimulus but is unable to focus their animosity on the stimulus. Whoever is weakest and closest to the offender may be the target of their aggression. This is Qatar’s position since FIFA has been ‘cleared’. South Africa suffered a similar bad publicity leading to the 2010 World Cup. And so, did Brazil in 2014 and Russia in 2018.

Next week, the global showpiece begins in Qatar. We will be watching as we whet our appetite for the 2026 World Cup which will be held by Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Coincident? 

Kaputa District Celebrates Open Defecation Free status

 After having been certified and declared open defecation free (ODF) in 2021, Kaputa district held its celebration on Friday, 21st October 2022. The celebration was also used as an opportunity to recognize community members for their hardworking through the awarding of certificates to al the 212 headpersons and Community Champions who pushed for such an achievement. This makes Kaputa the 5th ODF district (out of 116 districts) in Zambia. ODF is a situation when the entire communities have shifted to using toilets instead of open spaces. a highly undignifying practice. This practice is a common cause of diarrheal diseases as human waste usually returns to communities through many pathways and contaminates streams and wells, which in most cases, are the only source of drinking water. Despite more than a year having past from the time certification was made, the district has managed to sustain the achievement (for now) by having approaches that are encouraging people to climb the sanitation ladder and also be their 'neighbours keepers' in providing peer to peer sanitation compliance monitoring.

To show its commitment to ensuring that the entire country is by 2030, Government of Zambia rolled out the 2030 ODF Strategy and has courted many stakeholders to realize this vision. One of the approaches government and development agencies are using to achieve this the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), an innovative methodology for mobilizing communities to raise sanitation and hygiene standards in their localities.  In Zambia, CLTS programming has been using a 3 Rope Approach (3RA) or 3-pronged approach as a facilitation management strategy with traditional leaders, civic leaders and technocrats forming a power influence triangle to scale up access to good sanitation.

The Kaputa achievement wouldn't have been made possible without the leadership from traditional leaders - Senior Chief Kaputa and Chief Mukupa Katandula - who provided and continues to do so through a quarterly monitoring of all villages and weekly radio program dubbed Community Concerns, the backstopping by penalizing defaulters on the agreed-on by-laws which pushed for a greater sanitation coverage and positive CLTS outcomes. Working with District Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Education (D-WASHE) committees, the project mobilizes communities to act on improving household sanitation and hygiene through the construction of toilets and installation of handwashing stations.

The private sector must see this as an opportunity for introducing and strengthening the sanitation value chain. This will reduce the possibility of slippage and provide people with wider sanitation options. ODF achievement involves to a great work of behavioural change, sustenance of which requires concerted efforts by all stakeholders.

https://melomediazambia.com/2022/11/01/kaputa-district-celebrates-open-defecation-free-status/

The Pastor, The Pagan and His Reminisce

I was a pastor at a small church of about 50 members, a church where everyone knows everyone. Because of most people being late for the Sunday morning service which resulted into most coming at 11 AM for the service that was meant to start at 9 AM, I had to change the time for Sunday meeting from 9AM – 12 AM to 2PM – 5 PM. To allow people to attend to household chores and responsibilities in the morning have ‘Time for The Lord’ in the afternoon.

One Sunday I 'discovered' a cute, strange face as I was trying to expound the Bible. After the service I tried to play the I-didn’t-see-you game. But the man in me and his instincts pushed me to the person I had seen earlier, I approached the stranger and started doing what pastor do when they see a new face in church.

As I was moving towards her, she turned, and our eyes met. Suddenly, I forgot where I was and what I wanted to do. Like someone who is sleeping during the day, I could hear the chatters. But unintelligible. Rapid short sounds suggestive of a language I fully understand but here it was inarticulate and indistinct. Then some mentioned the word ‘Pastor’. Boom, I climb down from the scaffold I was using when building my castles in the air.

‘How are you sister’ I was first to speak.

Then my eyes started racing through her morphology, head to toe and back again using the same route.

Then the thought of marriage came to my mind. I remembered the points which father had given me on one of the many wife-choosing-criteria lessons.

‘You see my son, if you want to enjoy your marriage, if you want your wife to be giving you the respect, if want you her to be happy….’

He proceeded to swallow an ocean of saliva that had gathered in his mouth.

You must………….

He swallowed again. My patience would be ebbing away whilst anxieties headed exactly the opposite direction. My heart started racing because father was a man of few words. He kept most of the stories, advices, and anger to himself. I remember him claiming that I may have been cursed by the gods for not marrying yet. He called me a bat. According to him, like a bat, I was in the category of the have-eyes-but-cannot-see type. These are people, as he claimed, who are indecisive. Those, in this case, who competent enough to have their marriage arranged. These arrange marriage ceremonies were usually held at night. I can’t really my finger on why this is the case. The following day one will wake up with the desire, of course not without trepidation, of wanting to see the face of the love of their life.

‘You must find a decent girl and she must have your beliefs. You must marry someone who will be motivating you, someone who will act as you counsel. Look at you mother, she has made me to be like this………

While saying this he was pointing at what we, at the house, all knew as a bookshelf but to others it was just two pieces of planks attached to the wall. This bookshelf only had one whole book, the Bible. Others were pieces of paper on various subjects. It was engraved in me that whenever father made such a venerate pointing, I needed to rush to the shelf and get him his bible. I think the bible was older than all his children. Including his marriage.

I stood up, made a step, stretched out my right hand, grabbed the Bible and pass it to my left hand. I then made a stance, and down I went on my knees while stretching out my hand and fingers diligently holding the Bible. I respected the man whose prowess and viability facilitated by being on earth.

He perused through the through to the book of Psalms trying to find a verse.

Iron sharpens iron……………….mmmmmmmm……………………

I could hear him say to himself as he perused through and through the ripped pages of his Bible. Of course, I knew that it was Proverbs 27:17 he was looking for but hey I couldn’t spoil his moment. Never rain on someone’s parade.

As he was busy flapping from the first Psalm to the last and back again, there was this loud silence as I was thinking how long his advice was going to last since it seemed a century had passed already.

Suddenly, there was this sound blast, which almost had my brain crushed. I tried to reconstruct what I had heard in an understandable way. Luckily my brain did a quick reboot.

Fine, thank you. How are you pastor?

A sweet girlish voice brought me back to reality.

Are you coming to join our church or maybe you’re just visiting our church? I asked.

I am assessing and if I am happy, I will be congregating with your church.

Fair enough this is one of the most honest answers I have ever heard, I thought to myself.

Forgive my manners, may I know your name and where you are staying? I finally remembered that I still don’t who she’s is.

I’m Mikayeli Mwinko. I stay…

So, you are the most acclaimed daughter of Mr. Mwinko or senior headman Mwinko?

I interjected her from finishing. I cut her short because I wanted the conversation to end as youths who came with her were waiting for us to finish while looking at us suspiciously and surreptitiously. I was conscious of everyone looking at us in my peripheral vision.

In addition, I had already heard a lot about her. Some said she was the most beautiful girl in the village. Some claimed she was best mannered. Yet some said she would the most spoiled daughter of Mwinko village because of the education which her father was determined to give her.

‘Girl child education is the destroyer of morals and the eventual killer of our culture. A woman is a custodian of culture as she easily transmits it to her children because the man is not usually home. What will she be teaching her children when all she does is bath every hour?” some people could be heard speaking exaggeratively.

However, some parents were eager to have their daughters educated. This garnered some debates in churches, drinking spots, water fetching points, even in household. One would hear such topics during the Chimutengo meetings where headman Mwinko was a regular. He would proudly talk about his daughter and his ambition to make her a teacher at the nearest school, some 10 kilometers away.

Now every weekend, the village men would gather underneath a huge Kachele (fig tree). The tree was believed to be the oldest and the source of wisdom for the village soothsayers. No wonder it was a source of pride for the village. Men would sit the whole day drinking kachasu, wine, 7 days and everything that would intoxicate them. This was done while they played nsolo and draughts and discussed on everything that matters to the village at that hour. These meetings were regular and systematic.

My ideas can be seen from the breed that I have produced. I believed no one is blind enough not to have seen the beauty of my daughter. Even this blind Joni knows how beautiful my daughter is. I have the most perfect mould which gave me the most beautiful, the most learned and the most upright daughter in this village.

Headman Mwinko would boast as his interlude his speech. He usually compared his ideas with his daughter.

However, every time this didn’t go well with Mr Joni who was indeed blind. Anyway, Mr Joni would start answering back. And if one didn’t know how these two related, they would make a mistake of joining or thinking that they will end up fighting. People who understood their relationship would just sit and enjoy listening to the two tears each other apart.

Mr Joni was the soothsayer of the village. Rumor had it that he exchanged his sight for wisdom. I didn’t even know his real name as the name Joni was short for Johannesburg, South Africa. He claimed he was the only in the village who had successfully gone to Joni, as he called it, to work in the mines. Other people claimed he was only faking the blindness and could see. How else does he manage to stagger back home regardless of how drunk he is? Something in me agreed with them.

I ate on the same tables with Muzungus, therefore I am the only one who knows what education can do to people not this Kapunjunju. He would say while he correctly pointed to where the headman was sitting.

He would start speaking a strange language that he called Chibunu, the language of the Muzungu, it was a mixture of English, Ndebele, Afrikaan and Nsenga.

After death of my parents, the only Christian in my house is Mikayeli. My wife. I have never been one. I was just fitting in with what my father demanded.

Children who grow up in religious home turn out to be of 2 kinds. The virtuous, religious kind may even end up to be ministers themselves. The other kind, generally want to get as far away from the church as possible. Growing up in the church mean that one has a front row seat to just another community institution with bad politics and an unusual amount of unfairness. Be gentle to children growing up in religious homes.

FOR ZAMBIA, FOR LOVE!

This year’s Independence Anniversary is commemorated under the theme: Zambia @ 58: Promoting Inclusiveness towards a Sustainable Social and Economic Recovery. However, a selected and anointed few will be invited to State functions where cakes decorated in the Green, Black, Orange and Red – bought using taxpayers’ money – will be cut and eaten live on TV so that the majority of Zambians can watch and just whet their appetites. Drooling over these cakes will be their patriotic contribution. Zambia is 58 years old. 58 years of self-rule and what do we have to show for it? In the immortal words of one famous politician: not much, not much. why? Because of our own failures to seize opportunities that are littered around our yard. And also because of the fact that we are just a single household in the global village, many of failures to realize the returns on independence are absolutely due to our neighbors' orientation.

 

Can I leave for another country? Maybe yes. Maybe not. I think I’m in love with this country. Despite the dirty, dust, diseases and poverty marinated in corruption, lack of opportunities and bad politics. I am in an abusive relationship with my country and my body, emotions and socioeconomic status have plenty of scars to show for it.

My seemingly irrational attachment to Zambia can be perplexing to the uninitiated. Psychiatrists have a name for this kind of behavior. They compare it to the wartime shell shock exhibited by soldiers and explained that the hostages became emotionally indebted to their abductors, and not the police, for being spared death, and dubbed the strange phenomenon “Stockholm Syndrome,” which became part of the popular lexicon in 1974. Is there something wrong with me? 

The answers are that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me and even if I had a choice of hating this country, my umbilical cord was buried here. Forever attached to this country. In the words of Eric Donaldson, this is the Land of My Birth.

We need to develop a generation of patriots who will not just work for self-aggrandizement, but also realign the country on the development path. Patriots that will work to eradicate the vices that have confounded our beautiful country for the past 58 years. Friends, being Zambians has meant always that we need to perpetually navigate varying frontiers. Marking territories of successes, living in the present known and hoping for the better unknown tomorrow.

Patriotism is important for the protection of a country’s culture and historical heritage. It is to take pride in representing one’s nation. Patriotism decides the fate of the nation and is critical building block for development and growth. Patriotism is self-reinforcing: if those who are in leadership were patriotic, they would be prioritizing Zambia and Zambians in all they do. In turn, we would all be proud to Zambian. But there is always a law of diminishing return in the application of patriotism.

Though patriotism has been eroding since 1964, it still smoulders. 

Granted, we still have a lot to do to improve the lives of all Zambians. We should celebrate the progress made whilst at the same time incessantly work on the existing gaps. They are not mutually exclusive.  Let us count our blessings. When the entire Southern Africa was in flames during the liberation movements, Zambia was a haven for South Africans, Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Angolans including Namibians. And in almost 31 years, we have peacefully changed presidents 7 times and allowed ourselves to be superintended on by 4 political parties.

My Zambia is a beautiful country, she is the crown jewel of the SADC and our people are free, no oppression here apart from the self-inflicted by politicians we choose to put in power. We have our valorous women who are as pretty as they are hardworking. The men with an immutable responsibility of providing protection and livelihoods. The vigilant youths who will not hum and haw to kick out any acrimonious politician from power if they are deemed to have forgotten their mandate. With minor vicissitudes, this is homogeneous from Muyombe to Shang’ombo and Livingstone to Chiengi. From the top of the Mafinga Hills at 2329m above sea level to the bottom of the Zambezi river at 329m above sea level and the Liuwa plains, from the Kobompo river to the valleys of Chama and beaches of Samfya.

For me Zambia, is like the Eagle’s hotel California: I can check out any time I like but I (think) can never leave.

Today we cherish the ones who made our independence possible. We salute those who work tirelessly to perfect the Zambian dream.

Happy 58^th My Zambia. I stand and sing for you, proud and free.

Effective Utilisation of the Constituency Development Fund

The Government Of Zambia recently announced that the CDF Act No. 11 of 2018 will be repealed and replaced to speak to what is currently obtaining.

This is progressive and should be supported by all lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. By the next election, constituencies should receive north of K150 million. This is a lot of money that will not only acceleration the wheels of the economy but also improve on human development and dignity. 

However, as they begin relooking at the CDF act and the guidelines, let them also think about engaging the private project management sector to provide for fund management, project proposal appraisals, monitoring and controls. This has dual benefits: the already stressed Local Authority workforce won't be overwhelmed and the private sector is relatively miles ahead of the public sector in ensuring value of money and returns of investment. In addition, government will be creating employment for those that will start managing projects.

For years, Councils have been riddled with CDF mismanagement and were failing to liquidate K1.6 million, I don't think they can manage K28.3 million. I don't have confidence that they will efficiently and effectively manage the K28.3 million. It's a pipe dream to expect so much from them. At least for  now. 

Each constituency can be contributing 10% of their CDF money towards this project management vehicle. CDF is a game changer but we must be intentional in putting up systems that will unlock the full potential and maximum returns on the huge financial allocation.

Humans don't live for centuries. We can't wait for progress. We need a leadership focused on the future, not the past. For progress, cannot wait - Dr Kenneth Kaunda.

Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu

We've a generation that fallaciously claim that we don't owe anyone anything. We owe success to people that have invested and believe in us. We owe people common courtesy and decency. We owe people respect. We owe people apologies and explanations. Accountability is a honourable virtue. 

Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, you are who you are because of how you relate with those around you. We exist in shared space; we can't have absolute positions on many things. Therefore, it is illogical to act like you live alone on an island when you live with and among other people and other things. It is this kind of individualistic thinking that is causing all the ills in the world like environmental degradation, poverty, wars and disease. 

We owe each other what is dictated by our shared existence. Our humanity is contingent on the humanity of others.

In Chichewa, we say kali kokha nkanyama, tili awiri ntiwanthu. This essentially mean that when you are on your own, you are as good as an animal of the wild. But when there are two of us, we form a community. We're formidable!

There is a word – Ubuntu – recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us. - Former US President, Barack Obama, at the 2018 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg. 

The Dream Of A Journalist

My name is Mulenga Chanda. I was born in Nkana East, Kitwe, in the 1970s and I am a journalist. A freelancer. As a child, I wanted to be a lot of things and a journalist wasn’t one of them. My parents made sure that my brothers and I went to the best schools and provided us with everything a child would need and want. In retrospect, my parents’ success was my curse. As a partaker of my parents’ wealth, why did they want me to get educated? Don't people go to school to amass wealth in future? Now why should those who are already rich get educated? But little did I know that wisdom and knowledge cannot be inherited. I was only a child sowing, and now 30 years later, I'm reaping. The law of seedtime and harvest is cruel. Very cruel indeed. Well, as expected I failed to make it into grade eight, but father's influence secured me a place at one of the high-end secondary school. This secondary school was where the crème de la crème, the best of the best minds went for secondary education. Another group of children found there was of those with parents who could afford the school’s invoice.

I was chased from there, for what the authorities called ‘bad behavior’. I was caught smoking. Is smoking that that bad to deserve a dismissal from school? And no, it wasn’t nicotine. In my effort to be absolved, I told them it was for medical reasons. It was a shot in the dark.

Nonetheless, I finished school through push and pull and hey presto I even managed to do journalism at some of those colleges, where today it’s a college and tomorrow it’s a house. My college was even without any proper mailing address. It was care of some individual, The Principal. His name is on the tip of my tongue, maybe I will remember it later.

I did journalism because I wanted to be famous. Journalists are famous right? They are always in the media with their stories, especially political scandals. Those journalists are famous. Everyone knows them. I wanted to be famous. I was going to be this journalist, I decided.

I would relentlessly narrate to my girlfriend how proud and eventually famous she will be when her man becomes one of the most famous journalists. And she entertained my hallucinations. I bet that is what lovers do, cheering on their partners to dream.

That was a long time ago. I am now thirty. I am now a journalist. But not what I imagined I will be. No. the prefix freelance was what I was using to hide the fact that I was a latent failure and bad with the job. Media houses also exploited me every time I was selling a story to them. Damn capitalists. I had no choice but to accept that exploitation was part of my condition of service. At least the peanuts they were giving me could pay my two roomed servants quarter I was renting in Kalingalinga and buy me the necessities I need to survive the hustles and bustles of the Lusaka life.

It’s true, life is a grindstone, and it was grinding me down.

Since I could not afford to drink from expensive places, I patronize cheap and stinky drinking spots. My favorite was one place called Die Hard Tavern in Kalingalinga. Its owner must have been a Bruce Willis fan. This place’s smell was a mixture of Chibuku, sweat, urine and some smells that one cannot really put a finger on. Patrons could just urinate from the tavern’s wall.

I bought and got drunk on Chibuku. Just added some milk, and it went down well. On my way home, I would buy one bottle of Mosi or Castle lagers to show off to my landlord that I was doing well in my job. Even a struggling man must have some self respect. Very important!

I haven’t had any story to sell to these media capitalists for two weeks now. Am I losing my touch? How am I going to pay my house rentals? It was 08:00hrs on the clock but I was already at the watering hole galloping from the Chibuku that I bought. Then I remembered that I had a K1 coin in my pocket, allowed my hand to dive in there and fish it out.  I then walked to the Juke Box, throw in the coin and pressed the number for House of The Rising Sun by The Animals. As I walked back, I overheard one of the bar patrons telling a friend that a burglar was shot at his neighbor’s house in the wee hours as he tried to enter through the window.

I got interested, dragged my chair there and listened to this man, who we all called Long Spanner, narrating the story. Long Spanner is obviously a tall glass of water and walks like he has all the problems of the world on his shoulders. Whenever he is just standing, he looks like a tree resisting being blown over by a wind gust. He is the best motor vehicle mechanic in the neighborhood, though. Grapevine has it that he always has a spanner in his deep pockets. What a guy!

I got my note book and wrote down some few information from this story. I learnt that the man who got shot was currently admitted at Levy Mwanawasa General Hospital.

This was my break.

Before Long Spanner could even finish his story, I absquatulated and decided to go straight to Mwanawasa General Hospital to look for this story. I took out my cellphone and called Peter, a taxi driver. Peter is a highly skilled driver; someone you need to call if you want to be early for a meeting starting at 11:00hrs even when its already quarter past that time. In life, always contacts for people that are best in their respective fields.

Now, I helped Peter find his job and hence he felt indebted to me and he had himself the responsibility of driving me home from drinking spree whenever needed.

When he arrived for my pickup, he was with a female passenger.

‘Boss this passenger is going to Chelstone,’ shouted Peter as he winked at me whatever he meant this time around because in behaviour, Peter is more slippery than an eel.

Throughout the shot trip to Levy, I kept on thinking how this would be my breakthrough story. My rentals cheque. I wanted to be the one capture. I wanted it so bad. And wanted to the first journalist. You know, journalism is a cutthroat job, you need to be the first one to report a story if you want to reap the full rewards. The whole universe has just conspired to help me. 

At Levy, I hatched a plan on how to avoid the Police and the medical staff and get hold of the burglar. Get the story from the Balaam donkey's month. I was meticulous in my scheme. I need to look for a white lab coat and pretend that I am one of the medical team...............

Suddenly, I started hearing a familiar sound. It was the alarm. It woke me up with the sound of my favorite music. 

Phew, what a dream that was?  I have never even tasted alcohol in my entire life. Maybe I need a totem to test my own reality. 

"What is real. How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus (The Matrix)

Happy Bilated Birthday Nigeria

On 1st October 1960, #Nigeria got independent. However, this would be the beginning of an arousing pleasure marinated in sadness and pain. Between 1960 and now, the country would see 5 successful military coups and 3 which got foiled. In fact there was uninterrupted military leadership from 1966 to 1999 save a brief democratic dispersion from 1979 to 1983.

23 years later in 1983, the erudite writer Chinua Achebe would publish a damning evaluation of his country in The Trouble With Nigeria as lack of patriotism, social injustice, tribalism, indiscipline, social injustice, culture of mediocrity and corruption. How much has changed since then?

"The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership." 

This is the opening paragraph to the book. You can remove Nigeria and replace it with any of the 49 Sub-Saharan African countries, and this statement will still hold. Later, renowned leadership expert, John C. Maxwell, would aptly agree with him when he opined that “everything rises and falls on leadership.” 

We are on Nigerian. 

Even now, the country is grappling with lack of job opportunities which is causing high poverty levels, regional inequality, and social and political unrest. Sprinkle in the security challenges due to the emergence of Boko Haram

Africa's most populous country must exorcise itself from ghosts of challenges past and rise above them like it's national Eagle. Arise, O Compatriots! The starting point is to have free and fair elections in February 2023 and resist the temptations of electoral violence. Current leaders and aspirants must set this tone by giving the  Independent National Electoral Commission the necessary political support.

#NigeriaAt62

AFTER TWO DECADES OF ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ON ZIMBABWE, ARE THEY JUSTIFIABLE?

Zimbabwe is 42 years old and almost half of that has been lived under economic sanctions. It was refreshing, thus, when African leaders used the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) some few days ago to push for an end to more than 20-year western sanctions on Zimbabwe, arguing that the sanctions are damaging to ordinary people and the region. Senegalese President Macky Sall, the head of the African Union (AU), called for the "immediate lifting of sanctions to allow Zimbabwe to realize its full potential". The President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, who’s also the current leader of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), described the sanctions against Zimbabwe as "a crime against an innocent people.'

According to Kenyan President William Ruto, "the one-sided coercive measures such as those imposed on Zimbabwe not only punish the sovereign equality of nations, but also indiscriminately punish the general citizenry and retain their bitterest sting for innocent hustlers and the weak." South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa demanded (speaking through Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor) "an end to unilateral coercive measures against Zimbabwe which have exacerbated the problems of the Zimbabwean people". Ramaphosa would also in a meeting with US President Joe Biden ask for the lifting of sanctions in Zimbabwe.

These African leaders are on terra firma and I elect to stand with them. A father that stops buying food because he has a bone to chew with his wife isn’t punishing the wife, but mainly the children. Besides chewing bones can be dangerous, no matter what size or what type. Like the famous African proverb, "when elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers". A miscalculation in the game theory and underplaying the butterfly effect.

Background

After the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement on 21 December 1979, brining to an end of the Second Chimurenga also called the Zimbabwe War of Independence and to the internationally recognition of Zimbabwe from Rhodesia. This also meant the full resumption of direct British rule and the reversal of the 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). Independence would be granted on 18 April 1980 with Robert Mugabe becoming the first indigenous Prime Minister.

In the very same 1980, the infamous – or famous depending on which side of the fence you are on – Land Reforms would start with partial funding from the United Kingdom which saw the resettling of around 70,000 black people initially without land on 4,900,000 acres in the new independent Zimbabwe. This was a drop in the proverbial ocean. The US and UK had offered to compensate white citizens for any land sold to aid reconciliation using the "Willing buyer, Willing seller" principle which is a market driven land reform with much support from landowners. However, this failed to right the wrongs made by the historical expropriation and high poverty. In the late 1990s, the then President Robert Mugabe declared the compulsory acquisition of land. Land acquisitions would turn violent in the early 2000s with 7 white farmers being killed and “much larger number of black victims” working on those farmers. This was the watershed moment.

The Zimbabwean economy would suffer a great hit which people like Craig J. Richardson attributing it to the land reforms. The EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US would also place sanctions on Zimbabwe because of ‘the land reforms and the human rights abuses’. Its more than 2 decades now and the leadership in Harare has changed but nothing much has changed on the sanctions despite the standing ovations given to the ousting of Mugabe as president.

Now, dear reader, I’m not Zimbabwean. I have never been to Zimbabwe. I’m not a historian. I'm just a keen student of life and life has many lessons for all of us. I’m just here to critique sanctions as a human rights abuse. I will highlight why I feel that they create the very problem that it envisages to solved. As you read, dear reader, you must also not forget that the objective of the Chimurenga fighters was to reclaim their lands by challenging the IDU and colonialism while also achieving democratic autonomy.

Do Sanctions Work?

States, its agencies and agents including independent great minds have always claimed that the most effective way of bringing a wayward country back into line is by placing economic sanctions on it. The war without guns. Economic sanctions are coordinated restrictions on trade and financial transactions intended to impair economic life within a given territory. Since the end of the cold war, they have been more prevalent.

However, the ethical, political and moral justifications for such measures are seldom interrogated. In Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, Kimberly Ann Elliott and Barbara Oegg of Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) studied more than 200 economic sanction cases and concluded that only succeeded in 1/3 of all cases. In 2/3 of application, the sanctions had failed to achieve the intended objective. Below I explain the consequences on sanctions on healthcare, education, human rights, and ethics on the recipient country. What history will be written as an outcome of these sanction?

Sanctions Negatively Affects the Healthcare System

Sanctions may not formally ban the exports of medicines; in practice, however, patients are experiencing great difficulty in securing the treatment. This significantly cripple the public healthcare system. And this negates all the progress that had been made in improving quality, leading to a huge economic and social costs which may include disability and lost productivity, and generally low quality of life in the population. All the progress 1980s was severely disrupted and saw the period from the 2000s resulted in a sharp and prolonged decline in health expenditure and increasing health inequalities. For example, neonatal complications, protein energy malnutrition and lower respiratory infections caused 24.64%, 1.85% and 10.27%, respectively, of under 5 deaths in 1999 before sanctions kicked in. 20 years later in 2019, there was an increase to 36.52%, 6.77% and 19.48% in deaths caused by neonatal complications, protein energy malnutrition and lower respiratory infections respectively. Public healthcare across the country is currently grappling with a growing shortage of nurses driven by the search for private jobs and greener pasture, particularly in the UK.

However, when those in leadership get sick, they are flown out to South Africa, India or China to access proper and quality healthcare since the healthcare system back home is dead. They live and die in opulence. And so, do their children and close relations. A travesty.

Sanctions Negatively Affects Education

Because of the country’s failure to trade and access certain resources, schools would lack facilities like electricity, libraries, computers, textbooks, and a good transport network. This is in addition to lack of resources to recruit more teachers and pay the already recruited ones. Inevitably this result in the collapse of the education system. As in every other sector, teachers are leaving the country in search of better opportunities and this brain drain leaves a huge teacher-student ratio. Monica Zembere claimed that between 2000 and 2010, around 80% of secondary schools in Mbire District in Mashonaland Central were staffed by either untrained teachers or primary trained teachers.  Also, many Zimbabweans who emigrate to study do not return to their home country immediately after completing their studies due to better opportunities there. it cannot be overemphasized enough how an educated population is essential to a nation’s prosperity and health democracy.

The elites who are meant to be targeted by the sanctions, however, send their children get an education from abroad. 

Sanctions and the Living Standards

It’s a foregone conclusion that sanctions negatively affects the social sector of the recipient country and ultimately the standard of living. sanctions are a tool covertly and overtly targeting the weakest in society for political ends. Import restrictions disrupts the supply chains for basic goods, including healthcare, education, and quality of life. On the other hand, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for their health and well-being, including food and medical care, housing, and the necessary social services. The lack of investment and support in agriculture for a country that has 60% of its population living off agriculture meant that most of the people got pushed into food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty. At 23% food inflation in real terms, Zimbabwe  has the second worst food price increase. only second to Lebanon. This translates into shortages in domestic food supply and declining agricultural production. This is compounded by a lack of foreign currency to import food.

Sanctions are a Violation of Human Rights

Sanctions violates Universal Declaration of Human Rights inherent the dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights. There is discouraging data about their grim impact on the rights and well-being of ordinary and otherwise innocent citizens. If the goal is to improve the lives of the people of a country, systematically impoverishing them is a strange way to go about it. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called the sanctions ‘brutal and ineffective tool that disproportionately harms the very same people they are enforced to protect’. They went on to say ‘unilateral coercive measures are contrary to the United Nations Charter, International Law, International Humanitarian Law, and the norms and principles governing peaceful relations among States’. Need I say more?

Sanctions are borderline Unethical

While in war there is direct and relatively quick killing, economic sanctions are a slow and painful killer. Imagine dying of hunger which can happen over a period of 60 days or 8 to 21 days if one has no access to drinking water. Slow and painful indeed. Sanctions are thus unethical. More so that they effectively pauperize the most vulnerable (women, children, the sick, the aged etc) and leave political elites barely touched. Using poverty as a tool for politics is morally wrong. The collateral damage caused is unjustified not only to Zimbabweans but also to neighboring countries where some Zimbabweans have gone for better opportunities. Others link the rise in xenophobia in South Africa, with foreign nationals like Zimbabweans coming under violent attack, to the effects of sanctions. Butterfly effect? 

Conclusion

The question of the effectiveness of economic sanctions has already been addressed by Hufbauer et al. Even when it was never answered, what is the agreed measure of success? Change of regime or changes in the behavior of a regime. Like I have repeatedly explained, economic sanctions do not affect those in power, those who make decisions which attracts external anger. No. Sanctions affect and impoverishes the common man. The very same man these sanctions are meant to protect. What is a more travesty is that sanctions just entrenched the political life of the elites. If there is a lesson from all this is that we cannot be talking about improving human rights by depriving people of basic tools to their "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". Sanctions serve little in effecting their objectives. Thus, they just become symbolic, an academical exercise, meant to show who’s boss in global politics. Or maybe, they are justifiable? What do you think, dear reader?