social welfare in zambia

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Jan 16, 2007 - 19 then president, the late Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba. At the .... Unfortunately, this is not the case in Zambia as the country ..... topping the list as private secretary. ... from the former Northern Province where he originates. ...... whole issue should be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It.
SOCIAL WELFARE IN ZAMBIA THE SEARCH FOR A TRANSFORMATIVE AGENDA

Published by Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd United Kingdom Southbank House Black Prince Road London SE1 7SJ United Kingdom Emails: [email protected], Tel: 0845 388 7248 Nigeria No.3 Akanu Ibiam Street, Aso-villa, Asokoro. P.O. Box 10546 Abuja Tel: +234 (0) 8165970458, 07066997765 Year of Publication 2013 Copyright ©Ndangwa Noyoo British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 9781909112292 The moral right of the author has been asserted All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted at any time or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher

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SOCIAL WELFARE IN ZAMBIA THE SEARCH FOR A TRANSFORMATIVE AGENDA

Ndangwa Noyoo

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SOCIAL WELFARE IN ZAMBIA TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements…...............................................................viii Dedication…..............................................................................ix Acronyms…..................................................................................x List of Tables and Graphs…......................................................xiv Prologue…..................................................................................15 Chapter 1 Introduction….............................................................................99 The Context…...........................................................................106 Scope of the Book….................................................................113 Chapter 2: Understanding Social Welfare Pre-Colonial Africa and the Genesis of Social Welfare….......115 The Evolution of Social Welfare in Europe….........................119 Unpacking Social Welfare…....................................................122 Classifications of Social Welfare…..........................................123 Karl Marx on Capitalism and the Welfare State.......................127 Social Welfare as a Motor of Development..............................128 Transformative Social Welfare.................................................129 Examples of Different Models of Social Welfare.....................135 1. Cuba’s Social Welfare System…..................................135 Example of a Cuban Social Welfare Programme: Early Childhood Development (ECD)...........................138 2. The Nordic Model…......................................................141 The Determinants of Social Welfare….........................144 iv

A. Social Problems…..............................................144 B. Social Exclusion….............................................145 C. Vulnerability…...................................................146 Associated Interventions…............................................146 I. II. III. IV.

Social Policy…...................................................146 Social Protection and Social Security................148 Social Security Floor.........................................150 Social Work…....................................................150

Chapter 3: The Development of Social Welfare in Colonial Africa The Nature of Colonialism and Imperialism…........................155 The Genesis of Social Welfare in the African Colonies…......158 Different Colonial Regimes in Africa and Their Social Welfare Agendas…........................................................161 (a) The British Experience….............................................161 (b) The French Example….................................................164 (c) The Belgian Case…......................................................165 (d) The Portuguese Example…..........................................167 (e) Colonial-Apartheid Social Welfare in South Africa....169 Chapter 4: How Social Welfare Initiatives Began In Zambia Early Social Welfare Interventions by Missionaries in Zambia…..................................................................................179 The First World War and After….............................................189 The 1930s, the Second World War and Afterwards….............191 The Rise of Welfare Societies and Nationalist Politics............200 The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 1953-1963….............................................................................203 Shifts towards Professionalism in Social Welfare Activities in Colonial Zambia…...............................................210 The Colour-Bar System…........................................................213

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Chapter 5: Social Welfare in Post-Colonial Zambia I.

Social Welfare in the First Republic…..........................223

Ideology and Social Welfare….................................................231 Global and Geo-Political Variables…......................................238 Implications of the UDI on Zambia’s Social Welfare System….....................................................................241 The Nationalisation of the Copper Mines and Moves towards a Commandist Economy ….........................................................244 On Compensation of Foreign Firms….....................................246 Implications of Nationalisation….............................................247 How Nationalisation was Blunted…........................................250 II. III. A. B. C. D.

Social Welfare in the Second Republic….....................253 Social Welfare in the Third Republic…....................... 268 Frederick Chiluba’s Rule (The Era of Kleptocracy).....268 Levy Mwanawasa’s Presidency….................................284 Rupiah Banda’s Reign…...............................................290 Michael Sata’s Period in Power….................................292

Chapter 6: Poverty and Inequality in Zambia What is Poverty and Inequality?..............................................299 Theorising Poverty and Inequality............................................302 Relative and Absolute Poverty…..............................................302 Social Exclusion........................................................................303 a) b) c) d)

Feminisation of Poverty.................................................304 Child Poverty.................................................................304 Culture of Poverty…......................................................305 Functionalist and Conflict Theories of Poverty and Inequality.......................................................................305

Summary of Poverty Theories…..............................................307 Researching Poverty….............................................................308 vi

Lessons from Britain….............................................................309 Conceptualising Poverty in Zambia..........................................312 Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs)............................315 Zambia’s Human Development Profile....................................317 Inequality in Zambia.................................................................319 Economic Growth amidst Human Deprivation.........................320 Child Poverty in Zambia...........................................................321 Feminisation of Poverty in Zambia...........................................323 A Note on MDGs......................................................................324 Chapter 7 Conclusion: Future Prospects for Social Welfare in Zambia....................................................................................329 References................................................................................342 Index.........................................................................................360

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank Robert van Niekerk, Professor of Social Policy at Rhodes University, South Africa, for acting as a reader of this work. His valuable comments and thoughts were extremely helpful in shaping this book’s discussions. I also want to especially thank my family who had to endure my long hours behind the computer. I am forever indebted to my wife Patricia for her patience and my daughter Sepiso and son Kozo for their comforting banter, whilst this work seriously encroached on family and quality time. Lastly, any shortcomings of this work are entirely my own.

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Dedication In loving memory of my mother, Nalukui Mutemwa Noyoo (1943-1995).

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Acronyms ACC - Anglo American Corporation ACC - Anti-Corruption Commission AD - Anno Domini - after the death of Jesus AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome AMU - African Mineworkers Union ANC - African National Congress ARVs - Anti-retroviral drugs BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation BCE - Before the Common Era BFM - Barotse Freedom Movement BNG - Barotse Native Government BNS - Barotse National School BNT - Barotse Native Treasury BPF - Barotse Patriotic Front BRE - Barotse Royal Establishment BSAC - British South Africa Company CFW - Cash for Work CIA - Central Intelligence Agency CID - Criminal Investigations Division CNU - Caucus for National Unity CODESA - Convention for a Democratic South Africa CSO - Central Statistical Office DAPP - Development from People to People DEC - Drug Enforcement Commission DRC - Democratic Republic of the Congo ECA - Economic Commission for Africa ECD - Early Childhood Development EDP - Emergency Development Plan FDI - Foreign Direct Investment FFA - Food for Assets FFW - Food for Work FNDP - First National Development Plan FNDP- Fourth National Development Plan FNDP - Fifth National Development Plan

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FSP - Food Security Programme GDP - Gross Domestic Product GII - Gender Inequality Index GNP - Gross National Product GNU - Government of National Unity HDI - Human Development Index HIPC - Heavily Indebted Poor Country HIV - Human Immunodeficiency Virus HRBA - Human Rights Based Approach IDA - International Development Association IFIs - International Finance Institutions ILO - International Labour Organisation IMF - International Monetary Fund INDECO - Industrial Development Corporation INDP - Interim National Development Plan LDC - Least Developed Country LMS - London Missionary Society LSE - London School of Economics LWSC - Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company MCC - Member of the Central Committee MDC - Movement for Democratic Change MDGs - Millennium Development Goals MMD - Movement for Multi-party Democracy MOREBA - Movement for the Restoration of Barotseland MPLA - People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola NCC - National Constitutional Conference NCZ - Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia NERP - New Economic Recovery Programme NGOs - Non Governmental Organisations NP - National Party NRC - Northern Rhodesia Congress NRAC - Northern Rhodesia African Congress NRANC - Northern Rhodesia African National Congress NSSN - National Social Safety Net OP - Office of the President OPEC - Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries

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PF - Patriotic Front PMS - Paris Missionary Society PRSPs - Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers PS - Priority Survey PUSH - Programme Urban Self-Help PWAS - Public Welfare Assistance System RPGs - Rocket Propelled Grenades RST - Roan Selection Trust SADC - Southern African Development Community SAP - Structural Adjustment Programme SAP - Social Action Programme SB - Special Branch SNDP - Sixth National Development Plan SNP - Scottish National Party TAZARA - Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority TDP - Transitional Development Plan UBZ - United Bus Company of Zambia UDI - Unilateral Declaration of Independence UFP - United Federal Party UM - Union Minière UNDP - United Nations Development Programme UNICEF - United Nations Children’s Fund UNIP - United National Independence Party UNITA - National Union for the Total Independence of Angola UNZA - University of Zambia UNZASU - University of Zambia Students’ Union UP - United Party UPND - United Party for National Development UTH - University Teaching Hospital WNLA - Witwatersrand Native Labour Association YWCA - Young Women’s Christian Association ZAF - Zambia Air Force ZANACO - Zambia National Commercial Bank ZANC - Zambia African National Congress ZANU-PF - Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front ZCCM - Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines

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ZCTU - Zambia Congress of Trade Unions ZESCO - Zambia Electricity and Supply Corporation ZNBC - Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation ZNPF - Zambia National Provident Fund ZPS - Zambia Prisons Service ZRF - Zambia Research Foundation ZSIS - Zambia Security Intelligence Service

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List of Tables and Graphs Table 1: The population of Northern Rhodesia Table 2: Percentages of available population in villages in 1945 Table 3: Comparing the Human Development Indices of Norway, Zambia and the DRC Graph 1: Zambia’s Gini Index (1991-2006) - Sourced from the country’s MDGs Progress Report

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Prologue I was motivated to write the first edition of this book after presenting lectures for an introductory course in Social Welfare and Social Work at the University of Zambia in 1995. During these sessions it dawned on me that a lot of material relevant to the course was scattered in various places such as libraries, archives or even personal bookshelves. It also became apparent to me that there was no single text in the country that specifically addressed the whole question of social welfare in Zambia and/or its origins. Even though several studies had already been conducted on the topic, a good number still remained unpublished as masters or doctoral theses. The first version of this text was indeed a labour of love as it had sought to establish a scholarly foundation on which social welfare in Zambia could be placed. However, this undertaking was fraught with challenges such as minimal resources at my disposal and poor workmanship in regard to the publishers of the text. When I was organising material for the book, Zambia was perilously bogged down in an economic limbo, which was mainly typified by social decay. The country’s economic challenges had also affected all facets of the Zambian society. In this regard, research and scholarship were also severely curtailed by the country’s economic meltdown and social malaise, and this had also impacted on the quality of my earlier work. Nonetheless, the second edition of this work seeks to correct a lot of the deficiencies in my first book and I dare say my idealism, especially in relation to life in general and humanity in particular. I do feel that over the years my earlier views regarding a whole range of issues have been tempered with a heavy dose of realism. In this edition I have relied upon a lot of archival, historical and anthropological accounts which have provided me with invaluable insights into the historical and socio-political evolution of the territory now called Zambia. Given the time span, some of these works are clearly racist and condescending in content and orientation, in so far as African people are

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concerned. Despite this, I managed to glean what was useful to this endeavour. I also recalled some of the oral Lozi historical accounts, especially in reference to the military expeditions of the Lozis, which were narrated to me by the older generation when I was a child. I have actually managed to corroborate such oral accounts with an independent source which I have cited in this section. Crucially, this is not merely an academic exercise, but work that derives its essence from some of the struggles I was part of, against ill-fare, political misrule and the fight for social justice in my country. Social welfare activities in Zambia are intertwined with the emergence of nationalist politics and the struggle for independence as well as the birth of the Zambian nation. Thus, at the outset, social welfare initiatives were linked to nationbuilding endeavours and the fight for independence. In fact, the social welfare societies, which were created by enlightened Africans, gave birth to the first organised political party in colonial Zambia. This was after these bodies were merged into a Federation of Welfare Societies and soon after the Northern Rhodesia Congress (NRC) was formed in order to challenge colonial rule. Thus from the beginning, social welfare initiatives, by Africans, in colonial Zambia were transformative in outlook and content. Eventually, when Zambia became independent, some of the features of this social welfare thrust were to some extent endorsed by the first African government, headed by the United National Independence Party (UNIP) and its president Kenneth Kaunda. However, over the decades, this progressive approach to social welfare seems to have been ignored by successive governments. This book seeks to re-examine the historical and political context from which the Zambian welfare system materialised and developed, and attempts to ascertain its value in present times. More importantly, this book is also about setting the record straight in the light of the damages which were inflicted by oneparty rule, after Kenneth Kaunda and UNIP took Zambia down a dangerous and unproductive course of political dictatorship from

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1973 to 1991. This is done in order to correct the official, distorted historical narrative of the country, in so far as it tried to obliterate, enfeeble, distort, denigrate and vilify those segments of the Zambian society which were opposed to one-party rule, UNIP and Kaunda. Barotseland comes to the fore as one part of Zambia which had suffered untold misery and still continues to bear the brunt of the past machinations of Kaunda and UNIP. There was indeed, a well-orchestrated demonization of this area’s history and its people’s prowess. This is because Barotseland was more advanced than most parts of pre-colonial Zambia and this fact had even astounded Europeans, when they had stumbled upon this civilisation in their colonial incursions. Unfortunately, what Kaunda and UNIP had set out to accomplish in regard to this area and its people, became almost selfperpetuating in different political administrations. Also, it looks as if the rest of Zambia did not need much prodding from Kaunda and the UNIP government, as the majority in the country seemed to have little regard for the plight of the people of Barotseland, fuelled perhaps by petty jealousy of their illustrious past. Due to this distortion of history, mainly by partisan progovernment commentators, I have used independent sources even for issues which should pass as common knowledge in Zambia, just to underscore the truth about Barotseland and its people. This book also seeks to challenge the emerging falsification of the description of Zambia’s transition to multi-party democracy. This is because the one-party state syndrome of distorting history is still intact in the national dialogue. That is why even the politics at play, in Zambia today, is one of deceit and guile, and not one that genuinely wants to emancipate Zambians from their misery, characterised by poverty, disease, ignorance, and hunger, among others. In the last two decades, the struggle for multi-party democracy has been watered down by both politicians and the citizenry through irresponsible acts, which seem to suggest that Zambia effortlessly moved from oneparty state dictatorship to multi-party democracy. The dangers,

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sacrifices and steadfastness on the part of those who had fought for freedom (or even died for it) are now being seen as inconvenient truths, because of sectarian interests and narrowmindedness. Thus, in challenging this misrepresentation of facts, I have used a personal account as I was one of the many activists fighting for freedom, democracy and the rule of law, during the one-party state era. Indeed, I challenge anyone, body or organisation both at home and abroad, to counteract the narrative I have put forth, which places the students of the University of Zambia (UNZA) at the centre of the transition to multi-party democracy and pluralism. There are just too many simplified accounts about how Kenneth Kaunda was dislodged from power. This is a serious omission of historical accounts as many commentators have chosen to either ignore or overlook those who had mobilised the masses as well as called for regime change in Zambia, when the rest of the country was just waiting on the side-lines. Of course it was the students who had called for regime change and the re-introduction of multi-party democracy and pluralism in the country by putting such calls into action through protests. Zambians did not just riot one morning and then there were elections that brought to power the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) - a couple of months later. For decades this facile account has endured when in fact it is false. Usually, in Zambia, especially in politics, there is a propensity for certain sections of the country to hijack processes or even structures which they never helped to create or build. That is why things in many instances do not work in Zambia as some people do not know how to build structures or begin processes, but merely want to exploit opportunities created by others. Consequently, once such individuals are at the helm of organisations or even the state, they fail to chart a progressive course of action, since they did not have original ideas in the first place. When I wrote the initial account of this book, Zambia was politically an oasis of misrule, maladministration and nepotism. Presiding over a dysfunctional, corrupt1 and inept state was the

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then president, the late Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba. At the time, poverty and unemployment levels were extremely high, while other social problems such as infant and maternal mortality rates; chronic hunger, endemic diseases, and malnutrition, were worryingly very high. Apart from voting, there was not much one could equate with democratic rule in the country. Consultative and rational governance was a rarity during those times (or even now for that matter). The country was beholden to the whims of an erratic president. For example, out of the blue, Frederick Chiluba one day announced that Zambia was henceforth a Christian nation. Without prior consultation with his cabinet, Parliament, churches or even the Zambian people, Chiluba declared Zambia a Christian nation - as if it was in the age of theocracy. I must stress here that Zambians had fought and even died for a democratic and pluralist society and not a theocracy. Even the Europeans who had brought Christianity to Zambia in the late 1800s and which began to spread in the area in the early twentieth century do not have a country that is referred to as a Christian nation, in their part of the world. Europeans have had Christianity, as a religion, much longer than Zambians spanning several centuries - but they have never made such pretensions as Zambia did, in modern times. Even Israel, the birth place of Jesus, never declared itself a Christian nation. In Africa, Christianity has been a religion in Ethiopia since the first century A.D. But to my knowledge, Ethiopia was never declared a Christian nation. Now who are the ruling elite trying to impress? Although the majority of Zambians are known as Christians, this is also a nation where almost three quarters of its citizens have a love-hate relationship with modernity and by association, Christianity. At the slightest excuse, they revert back to parochial ways of dealing with the forces of nature and general social interaction, such as witchcraft and sorcery,2 ancestral worshipping, polygamy, gender-based violence and the demeaning of women in the name of so-called tradition, to name just a few. I am of the firm belief that there is nothing wrong with the positive attributes of some of our cultures such as

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courage, order, honesty, respect for other people’s property, respect for the elderly, women and nature; decorum, etiquette and hard work, among others, which can be valuable ingredients in our development pursuits. But in Zambia, a good number of people love to cling to the retrogressive aspects of our seventy plus cultures. That for me is a problem. After Chiluba declared Zambia a Christian nation, the president and some of his colleagues in government went on to plunder the country’s resources whilst most of the citizens thrived on idle gossip, superstitions, character assassinations, slander, petty jealousies, hatred and so forth. Zambia can be declared a Christian nation a thousand times and nothing will change if citizens do not rise to the occasion and chart their destinies by discarding backward and ancient cultural practices. Certain facets of our cultures and traditions are simply outmoded and must not be condoned in modern times. This is not to say that there is something wrong with the aforementioned, but we need to move with the times in Zambia and do away with archaic beliefs and rituals, for example the “cleansing of widows”, which has no place in a modern world.3 Moreover, in the light of the Christian nation declaration, our civil laws should not be supplanted by religious doctrine, no matter how good the intentions. There must be a clear separation of the state from religion, if democratic rule is to take root in the country. Strangely, after the country was declared a Christian nation a decade ago, there has not been any attendant elevation of Christian values by senior government officials or even an overt adherence to the aforesaid by ordinary people in the same period. Whilst the former have gone about with their business of having concubines or pillaging national resources, and never even bothering to love their neighbours as they loved themselves, the latter have carried on with consulting witchdoctors, diviners or mediums, even when they are suffering from diseases which can only be cured by modern medicine. If people want to be Christians, they should look no farther than the example of Jesus Christ: honest, humble, hardworking, fair, just, practical, caring,

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forgiving, loving and unselfish, etc. And if Chiluba had been serious about his declaration, he would have ruled Zambia with compassion, honesty and justice - in true Christian style. A lot of water has passed under the proverbial bridge, since my first book was published in 2000. To some extent there have been some significant and positive changes that have transpired in the country, since then. For example, the economy moved from negative to positive growth, while the inflation rate significantly dropped from double digits to a single number and has more or less remained constant at the same levels in the last four years or so. Zambia’s economy has in the last 10 years been exhibiting positive growth, with a record high of 7.6 per cent in 2010. In 2011, growth was 6.4 per cent. Only in 2008, during the world economic crisis did the economy register 5.7 per cent growth. In previous two years in a roll, before the onset of the global melt-down, the economy had grown at 6.2 per cent. With copper output peaking at eight hundred thousand tonnes in 2010 and the price of the commodity soaring on international markets; an inflation rate of 7.2 per cent in 2011, prospects looked good for the country. However, in most cases things have continued to be depressingly the same or even taken a dramatic turn for the worse. For instance, in the said period, institutions and the state consistently remained weak and incapable. Also, poverty, destitution and squalor epitomised most of Zambia’s citizen’s living conditions - despite growth in the economy. Health-care continued to be in a deplorable state with all the political elites flocking to South African, European or other hospitals abroad on tax payers’ money, whilst the majority of Zambians could not access quality health-care. There were acute shortages of doctors and other health professionals as well as medicine in hospitals and clinics. Lack of planning and general incompetence by state actors remained a key feature in Zambia. For instance, the soaking of agricultural produce such as maize, after a successful harvest continued unabated.4 Also, corruption seemed to have gained ground under the leadership of Rupiah Banda and the former government of the

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Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD). There has also been a rise in ethnic-based politics and cronyism which were rife during Frederick Chiluba’s rule. This brand of politics has since resurfaced with much vigour under the new government of Michael Chilufya Sata and the Patriotic Front (PF), after a lull when the late Levy Patrick Mwanawasa was president. There is also increasing demands by chiefs or traditional rulers on the state. In a country that seeks to modernise and become a middle income country by 2030, the burden of misguided traditionalism is weighing against such a move. All over Zambia, even in areas where there never used to be chiefs, there is a clamour for this institution and an alarming rise in traditional ceremonies of various ethnic groups, which have no significance in modern times. Also on the rise is the issue of cultural associations of different ethnic groups. This is not only symptomatic of politics of hunger, but points to a deep-seated issue of exclusion, where a number of ethnic groups feel politically, economically and socially excluded in Zambia and see this as a way of asserting themselves. Although there is now a burgeoning middle-class, which had almost been wiped out prior to 2000, the country remains unequal. This middle class is a by-product of the consistent growth in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which I alluded to earlier. But this stratum is still vulnerable as it can easily be threatened when the country’s copper boom flounders again, as it had in the 1970s and 1980s. Without a diversified economy, the fortunes of most Zambians are still locked into a mono economy, which can be held hostage by international financial volatilities. Some of the things that have worsened in Zambia in the said period are an increase in incidences of child labour. Children can be seen working everywhere, when one goes around the country, especially in the urban shanty towns. One will encounter children working at informal quarries crushing stones or as porters or street vendors at various markets. In the said period, Zambia was still a Least Developed Country (LDC). It would later be reclassified in early 2011, as a lower middle-income country by

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the World Bank. This announcement had sent Rupiah Banda and his government into a state of delirium - with the thought that all was well in Zambia. However, this rating did not correspond with the high levels of decrepit infrastructure, unemployment, destitution, poverty and hunger in the country. Really, could a lower middle-income country exhibit such high levels of human deprivation? Statistically, this was what was shown on “paper”, even though it could not be deciphered in the quality of life of the people. For instance, despite this reclassification, the Zambian economy had neither improved on its labour absorption capacity nor advanced on any decent work agenda. This growth did not also translate into high quality education or health-care. It seemed like a paradox, because what was purported by statistics and indices did not mirror the socio-economic realities of the country. The logical conclusion regarding this issue is that Zambia’s economic growth had not been evenly redistributed to the mass of the people. Essentially, growth has been skewed and continues to favour only an elite segment of the population resulting in a highly unequal society. Rupiah Banda and his colleagues should have taken stock and soberly reflected upon this reclassification of Zambia as a lower middle income country. They should have done so because the country had only managed to revert nearer to the status it had enjoyed 42 years earlier, when Zambia’s population was much smaller and it did not have a disease burden of HIV/AIDS. In 1969, Zambia was a middleincome country, with one of the highest GDPs in Africa, three times that of Kenya, twice that of Egypt, and higher than Brazil, Malaysia, Turkey and South Korea (Frazer and Lungu, 2006). The MMD government should have also looked at how some of these countries had progressed since 1969 and how Zambia had regressed to one of the poorest countries in the world in the same period. Such actions could have been undertaken by serious governments, politicians and policy-makers elsewhere. Unfortunately, this is not the case in Zambia as the country seems to thrive on wasted opportunities and the deferring of dreams.

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This work also picks up on some of the key issues raised in the first edition, for example the centrality of politics, culture and pro-poor economic policies in matters of social welfare. Linked to politics is also how the absence or existence of political will in a country can either hamper or advance social welfare, especially when it comes to the implementation of government policies. In line with the issues raised in the first edition, this work also recognises the unique nature of developing countries, in so far as social welfare endeavours are concerned. Developing countries are exemplified by financial constraints on the part of the state, endemic poverty, acute shortages of social services and high population growth that outstrips available resources. In the light of the foregoing, population growth has much bearing on a country’s social welfare system in that the state must be able to meet the needs of its citizens within its productive capacities. When the first edition of this book was written, the country’s population was about 9.5 million people. It has now increased to 13 million. But what is worrying is that this population growth is one which can be described as of low quality, because most of the children who are born are either stunted or malnourished. Thus, their future prospects are already blunted by both their negative anthropometric indicators and the deplorable socioeconomic conditions in which they are born. These twin factors will surely close off future prospects for such children to contribute positively to Zambia’s development as they are more likely to end up as a burden to the country. This is because they may have not accessed high quality education, advanced healthcare and a stimulating environment, necessary for optimum cognitive development. What is equally disconcerting is that the majority of Zambian women have about six children - a number which has barely shifted in decades and which when contrasted with global trends shows that fertility around the world has fallen from five to two and a half children since 1950. Due to this, the Zambian population is projected to triple by 2050 according to the United Nations Population Division. This is because close to five hundred thousand babies are born in Zambia annually. In

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Lusaka alone, about fifty babies are delivered every day at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) - sometimes seventy or more. It is indeed prudent to ask the question: if Zambia can barely feed 13 million people so how will it cope in the future? (Walsh, 2011). Upon closer scrutiny, it can also be speculated that the majority of the Zambian women with six or more children are poor, illiterate and with less likelihood of raising their children in environments that will nurture and stimulate them to become future productive citizens. By and large, these women (and obviously their partners, if they have not abdicated their parental responsibilities) do not have the means to feed or educate their children. In the end, many of the children born from such mothers will swell the legions of street children and urchins, uneducated and unemployable youths, and orphans and vulnerable children. Zambia will not, like in other parts of the world, benefit from a youth dividend. Large numbers of young people in any economy are first and foremost consumers and not producers, and remain dependent on societal systems, for example, the family or government agencies. However, if they are in school or tertiary institutions or engaged in productive activities, then they could offer the country a youth dividend. But this can only be attained if they contribute substantially to the economy through skills, innovation and productive work. In the Zambian case, the situation is opposite, as young people are not productive due to lack of education or skills, among others. They only contribute towards the country’s high dependency ratio. The other striking feature and one which is demoralising is that these parents are much younger than my generation. These are young people who should have planned better for their children. They should have been equipped by the government and other role players of civil society, with social skills, so as to empower them to negotiate better around myths, taboos and retrogressive cultural practices. It is frightening that what obtained in the generation of my parents (born in the 1940s), where an average family numbered eight children is still replicated by Zambians

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who are much younger than my generation (of the 1960s), in this day and age. When taking the above into consideration, it means that Zambia has again regressed in matters of reproductive rights and health. What remains clear in this matter is that large families are in fact key drivers of social problems and especially those which create vulnerable children in the country - whether orphans, street children or those affected and/or infected by HIV/AIDS. This area has not been seriously tackled by successive political administrations since independence. Other developments which have taken place since the publication of the first edition are the changes in the presidency of the country, and recently the ruling political party. In this period, Frederick Chiluba relinquished power to Levy Mwanawasa after the elections of 2001. Chiluba had ruled Zambia for 10 years and effectively two terms. However, this was after Chiluba had mounted an unsuccessful campaign for a third term. After his attempt to manipulate the Zambian constitution was thwarted5 Chiluba had then handpicked Mwanawasa as his successor. However, Mwanawasa had to go to the polls and be challenged by candidates from other parties. The late Anderson Mazoka of the United Party for National Development (UPND) emerged a strong contender against Mwanawasa and the MMD. Mazoka lost the presidency by a whisker and thus Mwanawasa became Zambia’s third president in 2002. Mwanawasa did not complete his second term and passed away on 19 August 2008 aged 59. The cold hand of death had robbed Zambia of this diligent, hard-working and sincere president. Mwanawasa, who many Zambians had accused of not being charismatic (which in Zambia basically means being a loud mouth), would put Zambia on a firm footing in regard to matters of national development and prosperity. Under Mwanawasa the standards of living of most Zambians had begun to significantly improve. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) had also picked up and trickled into Zambia at a steady rate. Mwanawasa also relentlessly tackled corruption and fought against maladministration and made sure that his predecessor Frederick

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Chiluba was investigated for his corrupt acts and other abuses whilst he was in office. Chiluba’s colleagues who did not have clean hands also suffered the same fate. Mwanawasa, who was a Lawyer by profession and also a businessman, had been practical and genuine about how poverty could be tackled in Zambia and did not lie to Zambians about this issue. He sought to redress the country’s poverty through the introduction of progressive policies and programmes. He brought back planning into government, which had been discarded by Chiluba’s administration for 10 years, by re-introducing the National Development Plans. The chaotic privatisation programme under Chiluba was streamlined and rejuvenated. Mwanawasa then courted the Chinese so that they could invest more in Zambia and also opened up tourism as an area for investment. Zambia’s external debt was reduced significantly, thus enabling Zambia to qualify for the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) and International Development Association’s (IDA) Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. It must be said that when Mwanawasa had enticed the Chinese to invest in Zambia, he had tapped into the long-standing relations between Zambia and China, which had been hatched even prior to independence by Kaunda and UNIP. I must emphasise the point that at that juncture there were no serious international investors in Zambia. The country was essentially in the doldrums and Mwanawasa zealously raised Zambia’s investment profile. It must also be borne in mind that the Chinese had helped to accelerate the prospects for FDI in Zambia, as their investing in the country had signalled to global financial players that the country was viable in terms of business. Other countries then followed suit due to this development. It was quite ingenious on the part of Mwanawasa and some of his colleagues. Arguably, without China, the price of Zambia’s main export, copper, which had become almost a waste asset, might not have rebounded to the levels it did - and it continues to rise even to this day. Mwanawasa also went on to boost agriculture in the country which had been severely neglected during the eras of the one-

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party state and Chiluba’s rule. He did this by encouraging people to till the land, by using himself as an example, in order for them to get out of poverty on the one hand, and introduced forwardlooking policies in the sector on the other. In line with the stipulations of the Zambian constitution, elections were held three months after Mwanawasa’s passing and the country went to the polls on 30 October 2008. Mwanawasa’s vice president Rupiah Bwezani Banda - who had been brought out of retirement, from his village/farm in Chipata, in the Eastern Province of Zambia by Mwanawasa to become his vice president - was chosen as the contender for the ruling MMD. Michael Sata, Mwanawasa’s main political rival was once more vying for the presidency as the front runner for the opposition, the Patriotic Front (PF). Rupiah Banda won the elections by the slightest of margins (1 per cent), and became Zambia’s fourth president and immediately went on to squander the goodwill and solid economic performance which Mwanawasa had managed to build over the years. He also eroded all the hard work that had gone into re-building and re-branding Zambia under Mwanawasa’s rule, by reverting to what he knew best: UNIP tactics. Banda (a former high-ranking UNIP official) became obsessed with remaining in power by any means at his disposal. In order to do this, he first purged those that he thought were a threat to him or did not show sycophantic tendencies. He then surrounded himself with people who advised him on what he wanted to hear or sing his praises. Banda also used state organs such as the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) to hound his perceived enemies. He also isolated MMD members who he deemed were close to the late president, Mwanawasa. Banda had also given Chiluba a new lease of life and openly supported him. Chiluba had even started making public appearances on behalf of the MMD, which infuriated many Zambians. However, even rightthinking MMD officials saw these flirtations with Chiluba as political suicide. But Banda would not heed any advice. It was also alleged by some quarters, that Banda saw to it that the courts ruled in Chiluba’s favour when the former’s corruption

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cases came up. Indeed, Chiluba would be acquitted under mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile, Banda and the MMD government consistently refused to endorse the London judgement which had found Chiluba guilty of plundering the national coffers. Also, Chiluba’s wife, Regina, who had been sentenced to an effective three and half year jail term, during Mwanawasa’s rule, for illegally receiving government funds and property, was suddenly acquitted upon appeal to a higher court. There were several positive judgements that were handed down to Chiluba’s coterie during this period, which were equally questionable. Banda went on to preside over the removal of the abuse of office clause in the Anti-Corruption Act. At this stage, it was becoming clear to many right-thinking Zambians that Banda had ruined Mwanawasa’s fight against corruption. In supporting Chiluba and his cohorts, Banda had miscalculated that such sympathies would garner him support in the Northern and Luapula Provinces where Chiluba’s ethnic group originated. This plot was wrongly devised with the view that Chiluba would add a countervailing force against Michael Sata. Little did he know that this northern region was already solidly behind Sata and the PF. As will be shown shortly, the people from this part of Zambia are only interested in voting for politicians who are from their ethnic group, and Sata was seen as a better alternative to Chiluba, who was in any case a proxy of Banda, an easterner and a political spent force. Sata represented better prospects for the northerners or so they thought. In addition, it was also alleged that Banda and his children were in a hurry to financially re-coup themselves. Suddenly, some of his sons were now “successful” business men handling major state deals, which did not go through normal procurement processes. It was said that the Moummar Gaddafi or Hosni Mubarak syndrome had crept into Zambia, whereby the activities of Banda’s sons had seemingly encroached on matters of the state. MMD was now dubbed “UNIP part two” by Zambians as Banda went on to appoint many former UNIP functionaries in key positions. He also “resurrected” William Banda (no relation

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to Rupiah Banda) as the chairperson of the MMD in Lusaka. Despite being a senior citizen, William Banda continued to be a highly violent man as he had been in the past, when he headed the much hated and dreaded UNIP vigilantes in the 1980s. These vigilantes would perpetrate violent acts on any persons who were seen as being enemies of Kaunda or the “party and its government” (in those days the party was supreme to the government). Immediately William Banda entered the political arena, there was an instant escalation of inter-party rivalries and violence. Rupiah Banda then mishandled and escalated the Barotse question which would come back to haunt him in a big way. On 14 January 2011, Barotse activists of different formations, who had been calling for the restoration of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964, were shot at and arrested. In the unfolding riots, two young people lost their lives and several Barotse were injured. Almost one hundred Barotse activists were arrested by the Zambian security forces. They were later charged with treason in connection with the Barotseland Agreement. Among the arrested was 92 year old Maxwell Mututwa, who was once Ngambela (Prime Minister) of Barotseland. He would subsequently pass away after he was released when the state entered a nolle prosequi. This brutality against the people of Barotseland would cost the MMD and Banda valuable votes as some Barotse had decided to boycott the elections, whilst others voted for the opposition which included the UPND and PF. Banda and the MMD had become extremely insensitive to the plight of the people and would not listen to their cries for a better life. Every time Zambians had raised critical issues of national concern, they were simply dismissed by Banda and his toadies or they would be given a monologue citing how good Zambia’s economic prospects were. Incidentally, when Levy Mwanawasa became president in 2002, Barotseland (after years in the opposition) was slowly wooed to the MMD, especially after the 2006 elections. Mwanawasa had courted this part of Zambia and due to his national appeal had helped to garner sympathy and support for his party from the people of this region. However,

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Banda’s political blunders in regard to this area created new spaces which the PF capitalised on in the elections and which brought this party into power. Despite the foregoing questionable issues, Banda had opened up new frontiers in terms of trade, by engaging with hitherto unknown entities in Zambia’s foreign trade equation: Brazil and Turkey. The outcomes of these endeavours were the opening up of the US$400 million Konkola North copper mine in Chililabombwe on the Copperbelt, a fiftyfifty joint venture between Rainbow Minerals of South Africa and Brazil’s Vale Miner and the signing of a contract with the Turkish government in order to revamp the country’s main airport. Banda had also executed himself quite well in the manner in which he responded to the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008. The financial crisis had resulted in some Western mining firms pulling out of Zambia, citing financial difficulties as the main causal factor. For example, the Luanshya copper mine on the Copperbelt and nickel mine in Mazabuka had faced closure and thousands of jobs were under threat. Instead of allowing the mines to simply shut down, the government temporarily took them over while it searched for new investors. A dire situation was averted when the government managed to entice new Chinese investors to the two mines. For the Luanshya mine, the new owners even recapitalised and revamped it as it had almost ground to a halt under its previous management. Indian firms were also lured to Zambia, so as to participate in the agriculture sector, especially in sugarcane production. At the time of writing, a new government of the Patriotic Front (PF) had just been formed, with Michael Chilufya Sata at the helm as Zambia’s fifth president, since the country became independent in 1964. The PF and Sata came to power riding on a populist wave of “transforming” Zambia within ninety-days, by making sure that citizens earned more income, through decent jobs and fair taxes. Sata also promised that he would rule Zambia according to the Biblical Ten Commandments - as if it was in the time of Moses, the Prophet in the Old Testament. He had also promised to restore the Barotseland Agreement 1964. Sata, an

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earthy and gruff 74 year old septuagenarian, had served in both Kaunda’s UNIP and Chiluba’s MMD governments. Sata is thus not a newcomer to politics but he is in fact, in my opinion, a carry-over from the one-party state era and Chiluba’s kleptocracy. In the transition to multi-party democracy, Sata had waited for the last moment to resign from UNIP. In February 1991, Michael Sata then a Member of Parliament for Kabwata constituency, resigned from UNIP and joined the MMD. At this time, it was clear for anyone to see that the MMD was headed for victory. Ever the opportunist, Sata has conveniently “jumped ship” without any qualms when the political winds were changing in Zambia. Later, Sata had decided to form his party, the PF, after Frederick Chiluba had passed him over, for the leadership of the MMD in favour of Levy Mwanawasa. Mwanawasa then succeeded Chiluba as the leader of the MMD, which had in turn enabled him to run for the country’s presidency in 2001. This had infuriated Sata as he was known to have always had presidential ambitions. Sata may have been right in this regard as he was one of the pillars of Chiluba’s circus-like rule, and he was party to many of the indiscretions of the MMD and Chiluba, from 1991 to 2001. For example, whilst in charge of the health ministerial portfolio, Sata had dismissed hundreds of junior doctors who had gone on strike and demanded better working conditions and higher salaries. He even taunted them and told them to go and look for work in countries neighbouring Zambia or abroad if they so wished - meanwhile their passports were withheld by the state. Just to illustrate how Sata was privy to Chiluba’s underhand machinations, which even other cabinet ministers were not aware of, he appointed former president Kenneth Kaunda6 as a special envoy to go and apologise to Angolans and that country’s leader José Eduardo dos Santos over what he termed as treacherous behaviour of the MMD government during that country’s civil war in the early 1990s. However, it was common knowledge those days in Zambia, that Chiluba and his inner circle supported Jonas Savimbi for sinister motives. It was alleged that the late

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leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola - União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) - had been backed by Zambian politicians in exchange for blood diamonds. It was also speculated that the Angolan president was so annoyed that he had almost scrambled fighter jet planes to bomb Zambia. According to this account, this crisis was only averted at the last minute, when certain elder statesmen of the continent had intervened. But now such “rumours” have been confirmed as true by Sata’s surprise announcement. These current assertions equally shocked the nation as they “just came from nowhere”. Sata was also the lead champion of Chiluba’s illfated third term campaign, which had tried to secure him an unconstitutional third term mandate for the presidency of Zambia. Hailing from the same region and in cahoots with Chiluba’s ethnic agenda, naturally Sata had seen himself as heir apparent. Michael Sata has had a chequered career. He was once a police constable in colonial Zambia and a sweeper/porter at London’s Victoria station in the 1960s. Sata rose through the ranks of UNIP structures from grassroots level up to District Governor. He had contested the presidency on three previous occasions and equally lost on these attempts. During the campaigns of past elections, Sata and the PF had no clear policies or any discernible programme of action. Their main election promise had always been that they would “chase away” the Chinese once they were in power and give Zambians more money. According to Sata, the Chinese were paying Zambian workers slave wages and were not treating their workers humanely. Sata was right in this regard, but he had also not looked at the broader picture, that is, of how much investment China had poured into Zambia and how many jobs were created primarily by Chinese ventures in the country. By 2010 Chinese investment had amounted to US$1billion and close to twenty thousand jobs had been created in the process. Sata did indeed get a reality check and would U-turn on this issue immediately after he assumed power. In the first week of his presidency, Sata invited all

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Chinese entrepreneurs and dignitaries in the country to his official residence, State House, to a luncheon. He went on to inform them that they should not worry as there would not be any Chinese who would be deported, but that Chinese investors had to operate within the laws of Zambia. This was the first significant change of the many election promises, in the ninetydays of Sata and the PF in power. Even his ardent supporters were taken aback by this changed position. Sata made a followup on this issue in order to “repair” the relations between the government and China by appointing Kenneth Kaunda as a special envoy to that country. Thereafter, the Vice President Guy Scott7 visited China to “formalise” ties between the PF and that country’s Communist Party. However, sending Kaunda to the Chinese on behalf of the Zambian people just shows how out of touch Sata is. The Chinese that Kaunda knew and had interacted with in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, are long gone and are of a by-gone era. The current crop, are modern, young and business-savvy Chinese. They are not the ideologues of old. It may be true that Kaunda and Mao were ideological bedfellows, but this new group of Chinese hardly know Kaunda. The Chinese have moved on to higher and advanced levels, whilst Zambian politicians continue to be clueless on how to raise the stakes in regard to Zambia’s development. But more importantly, the issue about China is merely about having sharp negotiating skills and knowing how to strategically engage with this economic giant, for the benefit of Zambia. Zambia should be tactical in approach regarding this economic power-house and know how to leverage its trade in the light of the West, and carve out a new niche for itself in the global economy. I am firmly convinced that China’s fast-paced development is an opportunity for Zambia to diversify not only its economy but its investment portfolio. As per custom of the ninety-days, Sata would “summersault” on this issue, at least, in so far as the kind of investment he thought was better for Zambia. This transpired when he met the Archbishop of Canterbury, the senior Bishop of the worldwide

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Anglican Communion, on his visit to the country. Sata not only assured the Archbishop that he would govern Zambia according to Biblical rule, but noted that the MMD government had made a mistake in its opting to deal with China. This statement was uttered in reference to Zambia’s dealings with China. “When I first met the British I apologised that for the last 20 years we drifted away from the West, lots of things have not gone right. Dr Kaunda, although he was running a one-party state, was very close to the West and that is why he achieved as much as he did. But we drifted away from the West to look for new friends” Sata reported to the Archbishop. Sadly, it is evident that Sata does not even know that Britain is looking to the east and that even the United Sates is doing the same, and specifically China, in terms of trade and other business opportunities. It also looks like Sata does not even know that China is Australia’s number one trade partner. Sata seems oblivious to the fact that the European Union went as far as to entice China to fund investment on the continent during the Eurozone crisis. The whole of Europe, Britain included, have been courting China for economic opportunities for a while, especially during the economic meltdown of 2011 that reverberated from Ireland, Greece, Spain, and all the way to Italy; and is still unfolding at the time of writing. Perhaps Sata and his colleagues do not have the word globalisation in their vocabulary and they do not have a firm grasp of how the modern world works. This ignorance of global dynamics is best captured in the manner in which Sata and his party, the PF have responded to this question of Chinese investment. One has to be astute and adept to global realities and be able to identify the manner in which global trends and the balance of economic forces have shifted over the decades, to know how to best position a primary commodity producing country such as Zambia, in this modern global economy. Only a government that is based on coherent strategically directed policies would have had a better approach to this matter. However, one that is reactive and lacking in strategic vision as the current one, will not be able to make sound decisions in terms

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of FDI. After being confronted with this conundrum upon assuming power, Sata and his colleagues made a dramatic aboutturn on Chinese investment in the country. However, it does not help to just turn around and inform the nation that the president was hosting Chinese business people for tea at the State House and to say that “China cannot be ignored.” Such decisions must be predicated on sound industrial and investment policies, and not on impulse. I am also not sure which economic model they are following. For example, the new Finance Minister, Alexander Chikwanda - who was in Kenneth Kaunda’s first cabinet and Chiluba’s administration - made some perplexing comments on assuming public office, once more. After meeting representatives of the World Bank in the country, Chikwanda observed that Zambia needed to borrow more in order to accelerate growth. This is the same type of thinking that had sunk Zambia into indebtedness in the first place. Besides, the manner in which Sata and the PF handled themselves in regard to certain financial investments, which had been completed when the MMD was in power, speaks volumes of their lack of understanding of the prevailing world economic order. Sata had reversed the sale of the privately-owned Zambia Finance Bank to First Rand Merchant Bank of South Africa which amounted to US$5.4 million. Sata had also served notice to reverse the sale of staterun telecommunications company Zamtel to LAP Green of Libya. The MMD and Turkish governments’ clinched deal - to revamp the country’s main airport - was also cancelled by Sata, under questionable circumstances. Even the partial privatisation of the Zambia National Commercial Bank (ZANACO) to Rabobank of the Netherlands in 2006, during Mwanawasa’s presidency, came under scrutiny after Sata appointed a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the transaction. The US$8.25 million sale of 49 per cent shares by the Zambian government in the bank was concluded after protracted negotiations. Whether there was something amiss in the manner in which these transactions were conducted is not the point, it is the manner in which they were cancelled, which I think has sent

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wrong signs to the global financial community, that doing business in Zambia is a risky affair. Before proceeding, I must say something about the behaviour of state functionaries and the media, during the run up to the last elections and afterwards. It was shocking as to how unprofessional the former were. The whole state security apparatus was turned into an MMD instrument that had to make sure that the party remained in power. Political opponents of the MMD, including Sata and the PF, were intimidated and constantly harassed at every opportune juncture by the state security wings. In terms of the media, the MMD government had re-introduced all the tactics of the UNIP era, for instance, news black-outs or distortion of information by the government-led media, and the persecution of the “independent” or private media. The behaviour of the private media was equally appalling, as it was not so independent after all. This was best exemplified by the actions of the Post newspaper. From being one of the most progressive newspapers in the country and defenders of our democracy, the Post newspaper degenerated into a mouthpiece of Michael Sata and the PF, prior to and during the said period. It continues to be Sata’s advocate even at the time of writing. Objective Zambians were left with no credible source of information and had no choice, but to sift through the propaganda, innuendos and hidden agendas of both the “independent” and the government-led media in order to get to the truth. As a reward for the overt support for Sata and the PF, the Post Managing Editor, Amos Malupenga was appointed Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting while the Post reporter, George Chellah was appointed Sata’s Special Assistant for Press and Public Relations. However, it is even more alarming to see how the state-run media has quickly taken to fawning to its new masters, by lapping up everything that the PF government churns out. In a democracy, the media and public offices such as the judiciary, police, intelligence system and army, must remain non-political and impartial at all times, so as to serve the interests of the

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citizens and the country, and not politicians or political parties. Equally, civil servants should rise above party politics in their service to the people. This has not been the case in Zambia since the days of the one-party state dictatorship. After his inauguration, Michael Sata set out to make major “changes” in the country and went on a spree of terminating employment of various public servants and officials of parastatal organisations, in the name of fighting corruption or “removing MMD cadres” from the public service. It was bizarre as various officials lost their jobs with no due process. On the slightest excuse, all those who were thought to have been associated with the MMD, had their contracts terminated, despite some of these contracts being valid for a couple of years. After informing Zambians about his so-called “allergy to corruption”, Sata had not only dismissed various public officials, but went on to replace them with individuals with questionable credentials. The issue under contention is that even if these were corrupt officials, who should have been brought to book, they should not have been replaced by individuals who were deemed as equally corrupt by the citizens or who are either Sata’s relatives or clansmen or women. It defeats the whole purpose of trying to institute a clean and competent government in the country. Sata also constituted commissions of inquiry so as to probe alleged wrong-doings in parastatal organisations or regulatory boards, among others. Before such commissions could even begin to gather all the necessary facts or arrive at some preliminary findings, Sata would unilaterally decide which course of action he would take. Concurrently, in his first week in power, Sata had embarked upon the ethnicisation of Zambia – an agenda which is a residue of Chiluba’s 10 year rule. All the crucial appointments which Sata made in the public service, ranging from ministers, deputy ministers, heads of armed forces, police and security wings, the diplomatic corps, justice and judiciary, and state media were all taken up by his ethnic group or his clansmen/women, whilst all appointments at State House were of people from Sata’s home area - with an 80 year old octogenarian

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topping the list as private secretary. When Chiluba was driving this ethnic agenda he had heavily relied on Sata. This had not only ended at appointing people from his ethnic group, but also the forcing of Zambians to speak Bemba, the dominant ethnic group from Chiluba and Sata’s region.8 The appointment of new office bearers was in itself a comedy of errors. Sata would appoint someone for public office one day and only to rescind such a decision the following day. After appointing his cabinet, it became apparent that it was one of the oldest and ethnically polarised since independence, even surpassing that of Frederick Chiluba. Furthermore, almost all his appointments in the public service have weighed heavily in favour of sexagenarians, septuagenarians and octogenarians. Oddly, these appointments are of former functionaries of the one-party state, who had failed to offer solutions to the development of the country when they were in their prime. They had also helped to throw Zambia into an economic spiral, from which the country has never recovered. Therefore, the task of transforming Zambia seems hollow with this calibre of leaders who could not make a mark when they were young and fit, apart from contributing to the ruining of Zambia. At independence, Zambia’s president was 40 years old and most of his cabinet members were in their thirties. It boggles the mind as to what new solutions such people can offer in the twilight of their years? In furtherance of his ethnic agenda, Sata created a new province from the former Northern Province where he originates. Sata impulsively announced the appointment of a minister for the socalled new province - another northerner - even before the province was “on paper”. This was done without any consultation with the Zambian people or ratification by Parliament. The “new” province known as Muchinga is merely a diabolical scheme to advance the interests of Sata’s ethnic group as more government resources will be channelled to the northern region. Already, such schemes have resulted in the town of Chinsali of the Northern Province being designated as the site for the construction of a new university. There are also talks of

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another university that will be built in the same area. In the said period, Sata announced that the retirement age in the country would be adjusted from 55 to 65 years. He also moved the provincial administration and commercial centre of the Southern Province from Livingstone to Choma. In typical Frederick Chiluba style, Sata then decreed that street vendors should ply their trade without any interference from city council officials. This recalls the days of Chiluba when urban centres were hubs of chaos and unsanitary conditions, giving rise to epidemics of cholera and typhoid, due to high volumes of unregulated street trading in the country. Sata and his PF are clearly of a by-gone era and this was attested by their open admiration of the dictator next door, Robert Mugabe. PF officials together with other representatives of political parties of former liberation movements in the region attended Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) 12th Annual National People’s Conference where they endorsed the candidature of Robert Mugabe. This was preceded by a cordial meeting between Sata and Mugabe, in Livingstone on 8 December 2011. There is nothing surprising about Sata consorting with moribund dictators like Mugabe as he harbours and expresses dictatorial tendencies. The two are cut from the same cloth. The 2011 elections which had tipped the scale in Sata’s favour hinged on two factors: the youth and Barotseland. The youth dimension is one that is intriguing. After the government had reduced the voting age from 21 to 18, this had effectively allowed for an additional new population onto the voters’ roll. The youths who had been promised employment and other opportunities had swung the vote in Sata’s favour, whilst the former strongholds of the MMD such as Barotseland had also been tilted in Sata’s and the opposition’s direction, for instance, Hakainde Hichelema’s UPND. The youths had voted for Sata for “change”. Sata and his party also promised Zambians that they would re-introduce the windfall tax in the mining sector which was discontinued just after the onset of the global financial crisis

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of 2008 by Banda’s MMD. This tax had been introduced earlier under the Mwanawasa administration. The 25 per cent windfall tax had come on the back of the country’s company income tax being raised from 25 per cent to 30 per cent and an increase in the mineral royalty from 0.6 per cent to 3 per cent in the same year. It had also separated hedging income from mining income for tax purposes. Sata and his colleagues were so desperate to be in power that they promised anything to anyone under the sun. In its first budget of November 2011, the PF government raised the minerals royalty tax from 3 per cent to 6 per cent. However, the much touted windfall tax that was the main campaign issue for the PF was not re-introduced. The PF budget was tilted in the direction of high social spending, i.e., on agriculture, education, health and infrastructure. It also abolished user fees for primary health services and allocated subsidies to farming. This is something that is commendable. However, the assumption behind such actions is that the increased royalties from the mines, through the taxes, will pay for the high spending. The PF government has again fallen into the same trap as past political administrations of relying on minerals, especially copper, to boost social welfare and human development in the country, instead of putting strong measures to diversify the economy. There is nothing strategic about this budget as the mineral sector is and has always been vulnerable to external shocks. Already, Abildon nickel mine in Mazabuka is facing closure - again. Should the price of the economy’s mainstay copper plummet as in the past, where is the PF government going to get the money to implement its elaborate plans? Merely increasing the tax of Zambia’s main export, copper, will not solve the country’s socioeconomic woes, if there is not any concomitant expansion of the industrial base, the tax base and ultimately, the formal employment sector. If there are no concerted efforts to increase wealth creation opportunities in the country, the PF is merely going to take Zambia back to the UNIP days, when consumption outweighed production.

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When the PF had presented its budget to Parliament, without any money being allocated to the drafting of a new constitution, as it had promised the country “within ninety-days”, Zambians began to voice their discontentment over this issue. Thus, Sata hastily constituted a twenty member technical team so as to draft a “new” constitution. Its terms of reference included referring to previous exercises in this arena such as the Chona Constitutional Review Commission (which was the first illegitimate commission to corrode the independence constitution in order to pave the way for the one-party state); Mvunga Constitutional Review Commission (constituted in September, 1990 by Kaunda under the one-party state); the 1991 Constitution of Zambia, and the Mwanakatwe Constitutional Review Commission Report and Draft Constitution completed in 1995, after it was appointed in 1993 (all of these were undertaken during Chiluba’s presidency). This team was also to review the Mung’omba Constitutional Review Report and Draft Constitution (appointed in 2003 and finalised in 2005 during Mwanawasa’s term) as well as the Zaloumis Electoral Reform Technical Committee Report and the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) Report and Draft Constitution. Many Zambians had urged the last constitutional review team to consider the following critical issues: 50 per cent plus one, the running mate for a vice president; economic, social and cultural rights, an independent electoral commission and the provision for a coalition government. Already, the manner in which this constitution review process was adopted by Sata is flawed, as it is again cast in the mould of previous efforts, because: throughout the history of constitutional reform in Zambia, there has often been tension between the need to encourage consensus and popular involvement on the one hand and the need to ensure that government’s authority is not undermined on the other hand. Over the last several years since the Mun’gomba Constitutional Review Commission reported in 2005, mistrust between the government and citizens over the ground rules of constitutional-making has led to stalemate and political instability (Mbao, 2007:2).

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There were just a few handpicked Zambians who were supposed to sit on this technical team of Sata, while as the previous commissions had tried to be broader in composition and in scope. Nevertheless, this endeavour could not be better than what most Zambians had requested in previous attempts: a referendum, a constituent assembly, or some broad-based national body. It is my firm belief that the current political problems of Zambia stem from the ghastly affair of Kaunda and the UNIP government of manipulating the independence constitution in the first place. It is not my intention to trace the constitution-making process as other studies such as the one above, among others, have already done so. Nonetheless, the question to ask is: apart from the entrenched mineral royalties of the British South Africa Company (BSAC) by the British government, what was wrong with the independence constitution? The current process will also just be a waste of taxpayers’ money as it will follow the same pattern of partisanship and narrow-interests, as other constitutional review teams. After Kaunda and the UNIP government had destroyed the independence constitution in their greed for power, nothing has been done to re-visit or revert to Zambia’s maiden constitution which had made provisions even for minority rights. When examining the independence constitution it can be seen that it provided for a multi-party democracy with an executive president. Furthermore: Under the independence constitution, any bill seeking to amend the constitution had to follow a special procedure and required a qualified majority. It had to be published in the Government Gazette at least thirty days before its first reading in the National Assembly, and, further, it had to be supported on its second and third readings by the votes of not less than two thirds of all the members. Certain provisions of the Bill of Rights including sections guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary and the constitution’s amendment procedure were specially entrenched. In addition to the special procedures and qualified majority, amendment of these provisions required the support in a national referendum by a majority of all registered voters in parliamentary elections (Mbao, 2007:5-6).

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The independence constitution was amended in 1969 following a national referendum “to end all referenda”. However, it was a partisan exercise which had sought to entrench Kaunda and the UNIP government in power. Zambians were told all sorts of lies and one recurring theme was that they were voting to rid themselves of all colonial vestiges. At the heart of this amendment was also the abrogation of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964. Accordingly: On 17 June 1969, in an overwhelming “Yes” vote (85.02%), Kenneth Kaunda’s government obtained the necessary support to amend the Constitution so as to expunge the referendum clause. The indisputable outcome was that the Zambian legislature was now given power to amend the constitution, with a two-thirds majority using the ordinary legislative process prescribed in the 1972 constitution, without reference to a referendum. Thus the Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Act, 3 of 1969, made the constitution more flexible and in turn granted more power to the legislature. It was under this “simplified” procedure that the independence constitution was repealed and replaced by a one-party state constitution in 1973 (Mbao, 2007:6).

As can be noted from the above-mentioned, the mechanics which were used by Kaunda and the UNIP government to annul the Barotseland Agreement were in themselves undemocratic, unconstitutional and illegal. Therefore, the “legal” arguments which are used by many Zambians to dispel the validity of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964 are erroneous and misleading. As per tradition of the ninety-days saga, Sata also renamed the country’s three major airports without consulting the country, his cabinet or anyone for that matter.9 Kenneth Kaunda was honoured through the renaming of Lusaka International Airport, whilst Ndola International Airport was renamed Simon Mwansa Kapwewe10 and Livingstone International Airport was renamed Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula. The problem with such gestures is that they suggest that these three individuals were the key proponents against colonial rule. Also, this stand-point tries to paint a picture that some of these individuals contributed a lot to Zambia’s freedom than others. In regard to the fight against colonial rule, the fact of the matter is that the father of modern 44

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nationalist politics in Zambia is Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika. He founded the Northern Rhodesia Congress which then changed its name to the Northern Rhodesia African Congress (NRAC) and then later to the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress (NRANC) and was its first leader. He brought about a new political dispensation in colonial Zambia, after leading the Kitwe African Society. This individual was and continues to be deliberately blotted out of the historical narrative (during the one-party state era under Kenneth Kaunda to present times). Nkumbula, Kaunda and Kapwepwe were all under the tutelage of Mbikusita Lewanika, before the latter two split to form the Zambia African National Congress (ZANC) in 1958 which later became UNIP and the former taking over from Lewanika and leading the Congress movement in 1951. Does it mean that only individuals from certain ethnic groups will be honoured in Zambia, even if they were not the initiators of certain processes? What about the firebrand nationalist, the late Nalumino Mundia, when will he ever be honoured for fighting for Zambia’s independence? The problem in Zambia is the quest by vested interests to “air brush” certain people and parts of Zambia, out of the history of the county’s liberation in order to elevate themselves or their ethnic group, onto the pedestal of history. There is also the problem of some sections of the society to exhibit partial amnesia in regard to critical national processes, especially when we have to trace the originators of political organisations in the country, which had brought about fundamental change. This is clear in regard to the development of nationalist politics in Zambia and the creation of the MMD. With nationalist politics, MacMillan (2005:189) rightly asserts: The Northern Rhodesia Congress, formed in 1948, grew out of a federation of African welfare associations. Among its prime movers were members of the Lozi elite, Nelson Nalumango and Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika a junior son of King Lewanika its first president. The Congress was at first moderate in its political demands and deferential in its approach to the colonial government.

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Whether Mbikusita Lewanika was moderate in approach or not is beside the point as the reality remains that he was the first president of the first formally organised and constituted political movement, by Africans, that challenged colonial rule in Zambia.11 The description that always pits Kaunda and selected individuals as saviours of Zambians from colonial bondage is specious. If there is a need to recognise who was in the forefront of African nationalist politics, then it is Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika.12 This move by Sata is reminiscent of past efforts by the UNIP government to prop up certain people or areas as true custodians of Zambia’s liberation, when in fact this was not the case. It must be put on record that Kapwepwe was more concerned with the interests of his ethnic group and not the nation. Moreover, when Nkumbula was challenged to step down by among others, Kaunda, he had resisted this move. Now who is greater: the one who relinquishes power for the sake of the common good or the one who holds on to power? Again, this history has been recorded. Probably there is disdain for Mbikusita Lewanika by certain Zambian political actors and commentators because he had joined the United Federal Party prior to independence. If that is so, why are certain illustrious Zambians who had worked in the colonial service or seen to have “consorted” with the oppressor (the white man) not received the same “punishment”? The late John Mwanakatwe comes to mind. Burdette (1988) provides some perspective regarding this individual: “Kaunda appointed two men with long records of service in the government who had not been party militants. John Mwanakatwe served in the colonial administration and became the first African minister of education.” From what I know, Mwanakatwe’s place in history has been secured in Zambia (and rightly so) with no one harping on his association with the colonialists. This is the partial amnesia I had earlier referred to. In view of the foregoing issues, I can only say that it is a pity that whenever there has been a president who hailed from the northern region of Zambia, his first instinct has always been to

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drive an ethnic agenda, instead of concentrating on nationbuilding and developing the country and not his village - in spite of being elected by the whole country. This fixation on ethnicity has usually been put into action by such leaders through the parcelling out of all government and parastatal positions to their ethnic group and then forcing everyone in Zambia to speak their language. There is mounting evidence which shows that every time Zambia has been ruled by a president from the northern region, the country has experienced nothing short of calamitous results. This is true in so far as we have had three disastrous periods of Bemba-speaking presidents. Kaunda’s rule (even though his parents originated from Malawi, he was born among the Bemba and socialised as one. Whilst all his close friends were Bemba), which had started off on a somewhat positive note had ended disastrously; Chiluba’s was a debacle from the beginning to the end, and now Sata’s (thus far), which has lurched from one comical error to another, has not been inspiring at all. On the other hand, Levy Mwanawasa, who originated from the Lamba and Lenje ethnic groups, was able to muster a broad national appeal not through intimidation, coercion or guile, but by his affable manner and good policies. He also appointed people from a cross-section of the Zambian society, regardless of ethnic background and he was also keen on appointing young technocrats into his government. Even though Rupiah Banda’s (an easterner) presidency was somewhat farcical, it was not excruciatingly debilitating. Incredulously, politicians from one ethnic group in Zambia, are always preoccupied with efforts to subjugate more than seventy ethnic groups, whenever they are availed the levers of power, by the electorate. One wonders whether Zambia will be developed when the whole country speaks Bemba, for example. The last time I checked Zambia was colonised by Britain and not the Bemba. The former is mentioned in the light of the fact that people who are colonised by another people - like Zambians were by the English - are usually forced to speak the conqueror’s language, and indeed the English language was adopted as

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Zambia’s official language after independence, due to this historical aberration. However and more importantly, even if Zambians hated English they had no choice, but to adopt this language, due to its global reach and universal appeal. This is even proven in contemporary times where non-English speaking societies in either Europe or Asia, are making concerted efforts to have English incorporated into their school curricula, due to the global functionality of English. The other issue that makes a language endure or make people want to use it is what it is associated with. For example, modern inventions such as the car, steam-engine and so forth, are mostly associated with Europeans and in Zambia’s case, the English. However, I do not recall any Bemba invention for example, aeroplane, space shuttle or even a bicycle, to warrant the hysteria of making the rest of the country speak this language. That is the brutal truth and the quicker Bemba politicians (and those from northern affiliated ethnic groups) grasp this reality, the better it will be for Zambia. Clearly, this problem has been nurtured by right-thinking Zambians for fear of being ostracised. However, if so-called national leaders are blatantly promoting ethnicity, surely someone has to take a stand against this menace? Thus, progressive Zambians such as Austin Mbozi, a University of Zambia academic who has challenged this backward trend in our society should be commended. In response to an editorial of the Post newspaper of 16 January 2007, Mbozi (2007:1) argued in the following manner: My article begins by joining all those appealing to Zambians of all linguistic groups to ignore the Post editorial (16th January 2007) which read “Accept Bemba as a ‘national’ language.” Instead Zambians must accept local languages, including Bemba and Nyanja of course, as “national”. The Post editors may have expressed their opinion, but it is just an opinion. Actually it is good riddance that they dared write because it has given us the basis to openly debate the matter which normally goes on tribal gossip cartels. The fact is that we have been hearing many Bemba speakers (by Bemba speakers I mean those who speak Bemba although some may not be Bemba by tribe) arguing along those views expressed by the Post. But it was difficult to publicly oppose or academically challenge them since insinuations went on in “tribal gossip cartels” or in their behaviours such as

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refusing to speak other languages (except Nyanja) sometimes even if they visit your province or home; phoning in Bemba to English programmes. Worse, in the early ‘90s there were media reports that some “sources” alleged that former President Frederick Chiluba had wanted to make Bemba the official language alongside English, a matter which was vehemently opposed.

Mbozi’s article, questions the so-called universal appeal or application of the Bemba language in Zambia. Upon closer examination, it can be seen that this language does not have functionality outside Zambia’s borders to warrant its elevation to official levels. For example, it is not helpful in Zambia’s regional integration endeavours in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Indeed, other languages are useful in this regard such as those of the North-Western Province for example Luvale, Lunda, Luchazi or Ndembu, that can enable a person to communicate with Angolans. Chewa/Nyanja from the Eastern Province can also be helpful to Zambians in conversing with Malawians or Mozambicans. A Zambian who speaks Lozi from Barotseland will be able to communicate with the Tswana in Botswana, the Sotho in Lesotho, and the Sotho and Tswana of South Africa as well as citizens of Namibia, especially those from the northern part of this country. Already these are four countries of the SADC. Perhaps, it is high time that the Bemba-speaking people and all northerners rise to the occasion and counsel their politicians. These people from the northern region of Zambia should also learn not to blindly support politicians from their ethnic groups just for the sake of it, but on merit. They must also learn to have trust in politicians from other ethnic groups and also learn to vote for politicians from other regions of Zambia - as other Zambian groups have tended to do, since the country’s return to plural politics.13 Indeed this has consistently been the case for the Bemba since Zambia’s independence. Mbozi (2011) points out that “evidence suggests that the Bemba speaking people who live on the Copperbelt, Luapula and Northern Provinces have been the worst in terms of voting only for leaders from their region.

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Thus, when other groups like the Tonga speakers and easterners resort to voting for their own, they say they are imitating, or reacting against the voting behaviour of the Bemba speakers.” The same author startlingly reveals that “the Lozi and northwesterners have the best record of voting for leaders from other regions. The Lozi voted for UNIP against the secessionist Sicaba Party in the 1962 elections, UNIP in 1964, ANC in 1968 (of course here the Lozi wanted to teach UNIP a lesson for having banned their choice party, Nalumino Mundia’s United Party). In 1991 they voted for Chiluba’s MMD, in 1996 Chiluba’s MMD, in 2001 Mazoka’s UPND, in 2006 Mwanawasa’s MMD and in 2011 Banda’s MMD, Hichilema’s UPND and Sata’s PF in that order.” Maybe we continue to have the above problems persisting in Zambia because “group mentality” is so pervasive in the country. Probably, due to the simple-like life and backwardness in the country, in certain respects, the majority of the people are mainly attached to each other through what Durkheim referred to as mechanical solidarity. Mechanical solidarity arises when individuals play similar roles within society. People feel bonded to the group in less complex societies because everyone in the group is so similar. On the other hand, in societies (such as industrial societies) where organic solidarity (also called contractual solidarity) exists, individuals play a great variety of different roles, and unity is based on role differentiation and not just similarity. A society built on organic solidarity is cohesive because of its differentiation. Roles are no longer necessarily interlinked (Andersen and Taylor, 2008:130). From what is happening in the country, it looks like most Zambians identify themselves with people who think like they do (usually not outside the box) or are similar to them, thus the problem of ethnicity. Possibly, this is the reason why mediocrity permeates every facet of the society and why innovative, gifted, goodlooking, talented and ingenious, high achieving and hardworking Zambians are stymied at every level in the country. Also, because they do not resonate with this “inside the box or

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one-track minded” mentality, Zambians of high-calibre usually stay away from national issues such as politics and in the process leave the stage for all sorts of “half-baked” people. Due to the foregoing, maybe that is the reason why Zambia miserably fails to make any mark at global, continental and regional events where the merit system prevails and where excellence is rewarded, in various fields such as science and technology, the humanities and arts, sport, music, beauty pageants, etc. Because the merit system is so much disliked in the country, Zambia’s constitution seems to have also been tailored to entrench low quality leadership. For instance, in order for a Zambian to stand as president, he or she must have been domiciled in Zambia for 20 years. What new things can someone bring to the political arena who has only been living in such an unimaginative environment? One can also speculate that this is the reason why Zambians who are living abroad are not permitted to vote in presidential elections. However, one should not lose sight of the one-party state, which had pursued distorted and misguide collectivism at the expense of individual excellence, as an important contributor to the former cited shortcomings. When all has been said and done, Zambians are their worst enemies when it comes to matters of representative government and the choosing of officials thereof. They seem to have a knack for always choosing the wrong people to lead them either as councillors, members of parliament or presidents. Zambians should have learnt by now that their country’s development does not lie in an individual’s outlandish and illusory promises or in the so-called power of one ethnic group. There is no person who can claim to be a miracle worker to resuscitate and develop Zambia. If Zambians want their country to move forward they must campaign for the creation of strong and functioning institutions, clear-sighted policies and progressive legislation, and not just wait for politicians to do this. If there are no strong institutions, or if the president’s powers are not curbed; if there is no separation of power with a strong and independent judiciary as well as a functioning justice system, the country will continue

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“going nowhere slowly” and there will always be “witch-hunts” whenever there is change of government in Zambia. An unintended consequence of this lack of strong institutions might be the incumbent government holding on to power by any means at its disposal. The way the police have shamelessly pursued and arrested “corrupt” former officials of Rupiah Banda’s government, with no due process, is not what we need in Zambia. Why did they not do this before? Are the police and other security wings always going to sing the praises of the incumbent government and remain spineless when such a government is in power? When is the rule of law going to be upheld in Zambia across the board and not be selective? Zambians must be able to discern what is essential for the country’s development and thus weigh up politicians and hold them to account. But this comes with civic education, which is seriously lacking in the country. Zambia’s prosperity can only be achieved by adherence to good governance, the rule of law and a demanding and hard-working citizenry. As I mentioned elsewhere, expecting Zambians to make informed choices, when it comes to voting for quality leadership is expecting the impossible as most are illiterate and defined by mechanical solidarity. Many can only vote for people from their ethnic group or demagogues. Look at the youth of Zambia. Shockingly, they went and voted for senior citizens and veterans or “recycled” politicians, and then expect such individuals to advance their cause.14 When one contrasts this group of young people with my generation, there is a marked difference. When we were youths, we had deposed the one-party state system and Kaunda, because we wanted democracy in our country. We also wanted freedom of speech, freedom of movement and assembly, etc. - not as “favours” but as citizenry rights. It is noteworthy that most of us were young revolutionaries who had demanded for change in our country and who did not take bribes from politicians or powerful elites, so that they could propel their agendas. However, today’s politics is so cheap to a point where people’s conscience and principles are commodities to be bought by politicians or the

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elite. I must also emphasise the point that democracy was not easy to attain in Zambia - it came at a high price. This calibre of today’s youths leaves much to be desired and they have only taken Zambia backwards in matters of development and democratic rule. It will take many years before a new breed of youths emerges that will be able to muster the courage and determination of my generation. After winning our democracy, through a concerted and hard struggle, the current crop of youths have just wasted what we had had fought for in 1990 and partially attained in 1991. Ostensibly, the youth had voted for Sata and the PF for “change”. I beg to differ as there has not been any qualitative difference that has accompanied Sata’s and the PF’s ascent to power. These are “recycled” politicians who still talk of politics of the colonial era. Sata has also kept on reviving “old timers” and retirees just like his predecessor Banda. He has not bothered to look at competent and young Zambians, who are not from his ethnic group, in spite of the fact that he was voted by the vast majority of youths. This group of mostly old men is bent on promoting outmoded solutions to complex and modern realities. This is the independence generation which brought Zambia to its knees and they are the ones who continuously let Zambians down, decade after decade. The one-party state disorder still persists today because many of the present key political actors are the same old men who had propped up the one-party state dictatorship. Their actions had not only cultivated intolerance, but had closed off all options for dissent. These are the same people who were proficient in sloganeering which was central to Kaunda’s dictatorship and who had only made matters worse for those who wanted a free and vibrant Zambia. At every rally, meeting or public engagement that Kaunda had officiated, a party official - usually a senior UNIP cadre, such as the late Fines Bulawayo, who was a Member of the Central Committee (MCC) would whip up a frenzy and shout Bemba slogans in this manner: Kumulu lesa, panshi Kaunda, meaning: in heaven its God, on earth its Kaunda, basically reinforcing Kaunda’s

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omnipotence. Or chant in the following manner: KK wamuyaya! KK wamuyaya! KK wamuyaya! This is translated as: KK for ever and ever - KK being the acronym of Kenneth Kaunda. Then Kaunda would rise onto podium and shout: One Zambia! And the people would respond: One Nation! One Zambia! Kaunda would shout again and the people would once more respond: One Nation! Then a party leader would provide a rejoinder in this way: One Nation? The people would answer: One Leader! The UNIP party official would further shout out the slogan in the form of a question: And that leader? The people would then respond accordingly: Dr. Kaunda, no change, wamuyaya, lesa a pale. Lesa a pale means God bless in Bemba. As the years went on, the slogans also grew longer and weirder. Now these are the same people who are being “re-called” to offer solutions to Zambia’s development hurdles? We the youth, at the time, had grown so tired of this charade and a nonsensical type of living. We could not take it anymore and so that is why we had fought Kaunda’s system tooth and nail, and were prepared to face the consequences including imprisonment. Without a shred of doubt I can declare that Sata and the PF deceived the Zambian people with their ninety-days “heaven on earth” promise. They had effectively been voted into power via false pretences. I can also unequivocally state here that the PF and Michael Sata are merely cashing in on the hard work of Mwanawasa and his prudent governance; otherwise there would not be any country to speak of. Equally, Rupiah Banda had also benefited from the solid and good work of Mwanawasa. But as we shall see with the case of Barotseland, Zambian politicians have relied upon lies, fraud and intimidation to access power and to stay in power. Conversely, it is also frightening that a people can be so gullible as to actually believe that a politician or political party could “transform” their country into a haven of prosperity in ninety-days. It is actually so shocking that it numbs one’s senses. Even an intelligent grade 6 pupil, who is well versed in Social Studies, and follows current affairs, would have disputed such false claims. Sadly, this state of affairs is

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compounded by the fact that a good number of Zambians are not only ignorant but also lazy. Unfortunately, such individuals create a lot of stumbling blocks for hard-working and enterprising Zambians. Many of these free-loaders are found in the urban shanty towns and constitute the bulk of the rank and file of different political parties in the country. They are also the majority who vote. They seem to fall between what I term “urban villagers” and the classical lumpen proletariat. That is why Zambian politics continues to be of hunger related issues and personified by instant gratification, and not about ideas. I have said this at different fora and I am not afraid to state it again. Zambia is in a mess because, among other things, a significant number of people simply do not want to work. There is a lot of idleness in Zambia. Thus, in family settings, groups and at the community level, such lazy people continue to suffocate industrious Zambians. These Zambians think that a saviour will come and remove them from their misery. That is why Chiluba could declare Zambia a Christian nation with the misguided notion that this would simply make Zambia’s problems go away. Chiluba and his bandwagon had forgotten that within Christianity there is also the Protestant work ethic, which they could have preached to the people. Also, this is the reason why certain provinces always reproduce “urban villagers” who come to the towns and cities just to idle away in the already over-crowded shanty towns. They leave behind lush vegetation and fertile land, with abundant water systems, and flock to the urban concrete jungles where there is nothing to do and nowhere to grow food. Unfortunately, they come from areas where there is an ingrained culture of nonproductivity. In the days of the one-party state, this situation was compounded by Kaunda’s subsidisation of urban consumption in order to placate his urban support base - which was more vocal than the rural dwellers - at the expense of production, usually in rural areas. The laziness of some Zambians is also exhibited in the manner that they are unable to benefit from what I will call the

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“Diaspora dividend”. This can be explained as an inability to utilise money that has been sent to them by relatives or friends in the Diaspora. Stories abound of how a Zambian in the Diaspora sends money to his/her family, relatives or even “friends” for business ventures. Many tales I have heard all end up the same way. Money is squandered on useless parties, drinking sprees, clothes and just “good times”. There are very few success stories, where Zambians at home had used the money wisely and engaged in business ventures. This culture of impunity and consumption is a strong indicator of laziness. It just shows that some people in the country do not appreciate how those who went abroad in search of better opportunities suffered to make their money. For example, a person in the Diaspora may have two to three jobs, slaving away in a usually hostile or even racist environment, so that he or she can make enough money to send to his or her relatives etc. These people may deny themselves basics, in order to send money back home so that things can be improved. Those at home may even go to an extent of sending the person in the Diaspora photographs of “projects” they are engaged in, but which are in fact inexistent. But the photographs would have been of the works of those Zambians who are hardworking and honest. This is extremely sad, especially for those who spend decades without coming home to verify that indeed, such ventures actually existed. The story always ends with the person from the Diaspora coming home and finding nothing has been done and that the family members, relatives or so-called friends have gone to ground. In the end, how does one even report such people to the police? Now that Sata and the PF have dismally failed to deliver in the ninety-days as they had continuously promised Zambians, the mantra from some quarters will be: “Give Sata time”, just as it was in the days of Chiluba. And if the past is anything to go by, this sentiment will grow louder as Sata and the PF stumble along and continuously fail to meet the citizens’ expectations. However, no one had forced Sata to set himself such a ridiculous and ludicrous time-frame of turning Zambia’s fortunes around in

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ninety-days, considering the enormity of problems the country faced. Even at his inauguration ceremony, Sata still reiterated his ninety-day pledge. Therefore, in the same vein he must be held accountable for making such “pie-in-the-sky” promises to the Zambian people. He was show-cased as a “man of action”, but has only shown the country that he is a “one-man show”. I am aware of the fact that in Zambia, when someone refuses to follow a narrow vision and is critical of the government, he or she is usually labelled all sorts of names. This is mostly done by Zambians who have nothing to offer to the country and who are actually failures in every respect, but have the audacity (and are given coverage by the media) to vilify upstanding Zambians, who want to better the country. Academics who point out wrongs in the Zambian society are simply dismissed as “arm chair critics” or branded as “too theoretical”. Well I want to put it on record that it is my generation that brought about multi-party democracy in Zambia and not these old men who were propping up the one-party state and who are now mortgaging the future of many Zambians. I also want to put it on record that when it seemed that all progressive forces had been subdued and when the rest of the country was cowering from Kaunda and his security forces, my generation rose up to the occasion and fought for regime change - effectively forcing Kenneth Kaunda and the UNIP government to the negotiation table. Then the MMD and other civil society formations were able to take it from there. If we had not done what we had done and sacrificed ourselves in the process, change might have taken place even after a decade or two. Critically, I was on the frontline and had put my life in danger for the democratisation of my country. Today, there are all sorts of people who stand on podiums and declare themselves as guardians of Zambia’s march to multi-party democracy and pluralism. I would like to categorically state that many of these people are simply liars. Some of us who had fought for the country’s democracy, that Zambians are now squandering are still alive and can easily point out who mattered in this difficult, but noble struggle.

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As I have stated on different occasions, it was the students of the University of Zambia (UNZA) who had ignited the uprising which shook Kaunda’s one-party system to its very foundation. This revolution was the first of its kind since Zambia’s independence in 1964. The initial food riots of 1986 were just what they were: food riots and they had been confined to the Copperbelt region of Zambia. The 1990 revolution was not just about high food prices, but a spirited challenge against Kaunda’s rule. For the first time, the students of UNZA demanded regime change. On 27th June 1990 (a day before my birthday) I was detained together with thirty other students - one of them was my immediate elder brother.15 At the time, Zambia had been under a state of emergency since independence. Our detention was specifically executed under the oppressive Preservation of Public Security Act, which enabled the security forces to detain Zambians for a period of ninety-days without any formal charges being laid by the state. The right to Habeas Corpus would only come into effect after the ninety-days. Therefore, the Preservation of Public Security Act was a vital deterrent to any would be champion of freedom and democracy. After three months, an individual would have effectively been “sorted out” by the one-party state security apparatus. I was a young man of 21 years when these events took place and I turned 22 years in detention. Most of my colleagues were also in their twenties and our years of study ranged from second to fourth year. We were a mixed group in regard to the disciplines of study, but one commonality was that the majority of us were children of mostly civil servants and officials of parastatal organisations, or those who had retired from the former. We were firstly detained at the notorious Chamba Valley Prison which was reserved for coup plotters. At the time of our detention, the late General Christon Tembo and other alleged coup plotters of 1988 were also detained at the same facility, though we were never brought into contact. What had led us to this prison were indeed the riots that the students had triggered and which had been brought about by the increased price of the

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country’s staple food: maize meal. However, the students had seized the moment to agitate for political change and sound the call for the return to multi-party politics and a pluralistic society. We had been making these calls before, through proxy fights with the UNIP government such as calling on Kaunda to lift the ban on our student representative body, the University of Zambia Students’ Union (UNZASU); demonstrating against the reported massacres of students by the Mobutu regime which Kaunda and the UNIP government never condemned, or shouting antiKaunda and anti-UNIP slogans at the Lusaka International Airport when welcoming Nelson Mandela on his maiden trip to Zambia and first trip outside South Africa, after his release on 11 February 1990. This incident is what I would say provided us an “international” platform to pitch our dislike of Kaunda’s tyranny. Travelling with Mandela on this pilgrimage to Lusaka, the headquarters of his liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC) was the late Walter Sisulu and other highranking ANC officials. Arriving on an open truck at the Lusaka International Airport, after most students had travelled on hired buses, a group of mostly militant students, singing solidarity songs, were allowed onto the runway by the then District Governor of Lusaka, Rupiah Banda. I was part of this group. After chanting solidarity slogans in favour of Mandela, the ANC and the frontline states, we also sneaked in anti-one-party state slogans. Later I was reliably informed by a childhood friend, whose father was a very senior intelligence officer, that a good number of us were captured on surveillance cameras.16 Mandela’s first port of call was the University of Zambia and he addressed the gathered students, staff and dignitaries (I was even lucky to have shook hands with Walter Sisulu, whilst Mandela was merely centimetres away from me at the end of the meeting at UNZA). In tow were Mandela’s two daughters and his former wife Winnie Madikizela Mandela. I need not belabour Mandela’s inspiration to all those who had fought and continue to fight against oppressive systems and injustice, but suffice to say that we were fired up upon seeing this great revolutionary in

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the flesh. However, Mandela was forthright in his address to the student body. His message was that he was grateful for Zambia’s assistance to the ANC in the struggle against apartheid. It was clear to see that he had not come to upset the main benefactor of the ANC - Kenneth Kaunda. So he stressed in his speech on the importance of the youth and particularly students, to be “disciplined”. Out of respect, we kept quiet with few murmurings from the crowd. But when his wife came on the stage, the atmosphere was electric. When Winnie told us to fight against injustices in our society, we had equally responded with gusto with shouts of viva Winnie, viva! This did not sit well with Kaunda and the UNIP government and we had effectively embarrassed them. Little did we know that these actions would also come back to haunt some of us during our detention. Things came to a head in the month of June 1990 as explained before, when we decided to march to State House to petition the president and express our displeasure in regard to the high cost of living, as well as the need to reform the political system. We felt emboldened because around the world, the iron curtain was crumbling; apartheid was falling and we thus asked ourselves the question: why should we allow an autocratic government to continue ruling our country? During those times at the university there was no key leader, but an amorphous crowd with a couple of brave hearts stepping to the fore to present an inspiring speech to the student collective. The day before the march and under the cover of darkness (the campus was crawling with Special Branch operatives - famously known as the SBs; Office of the President/Intelligence Officers better known as “OP”, agent provocateurs and informants of the oneparty state machinery), we had sang revolutionary songs and heard speeches from various colleagues at the carport of one of the female students’ residences known as October. We concluded that the next day we were going to the root of the problem: State House. On the day of the march, we assembled at the Graduation Forum and were about to proceed to the Great East Road as per our tradition, when a female student advised the group that we

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must not be predictable and should use the back route via the slum of Kalingalinga to State House. We obliged and changed tact. In fact this route was shorter and more importantly it threw the security forces that were already waiting at a junction of Great East Road off-balance. This is where they always managed to cordon the students off and shepherd them back into campus year after year. As we went through the shanty town, we were joined by the masses after they heard that we were protesting against the high price of mealie-meal. Some criminal elements who had wanted to loot the local shops were severely reprimanded by the students and chased away from the procession. At this point, the demonstration was peaceful. When we were about to reach the suburb of Kabulonga, near the junction of the famous pub, “Friday’s Corner”, we were met by a contingent of heavily armed paramilitary police. The scene was almost Rambo-like as the police paramilitaries, with leaves in their helmets, were wielding Kalashinkovs or AK-47 assault rifles, whilst others wielded Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). I wondered to myself why there was such heavy weaponry in response to a mere student procession. We communicated to the paramilitary police troops that we had come in peace and just needed to see the president (we were not even near State House as we had to cross Kabulonga and after that pass through the suburb of Woodlands to reach the president’s official residence). We were ordered to disperse in five minutes and before we knew what was happening teargas was fired on us and immediately, we were fired upon with live ammunition. Many of us could tell that that it was live ammunition and not “blanks” having grown up in a Zambia which was always under attack from the racist minority regimes in the south. We took cover and shouted to each other that this act was a “declaration of war” and responded in true student style and in the best way we knew, by hurling stones at the paramilitary. They responded in their usual brutal style and charged at us. As we scampered in various directions, we split into smaller groups and headed towards other slums, shanty

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towns and townships. Lusaka’s spatial development is quite interesting in that the city is surrounded by shanty towns and slums, and every suburb has an adjacent slum area in its periphery. So this tremendously helped us to quickly mobilise the poor, marginalised and disaffected communities of Lusaka. The chant had now changed from mealie-meal to: “Kaunda must go!” It was also helpful that everyone in the country was fed up with one-party state rule and its excesses. However, what happened as we ran from the onslaught of the paramilitary forces was very interesting and I still marvel at this incident twenty one years later. In those days there were no cell phones or social media networks such as facebook or twitter. We had to think and strategize on our feet so to speak. Without cue and without prior strategy, we mobilised the masses (mainly the youth) in the shanty towns as we escaped from the paramilitary forces. At this juncture we knew that the die had been cast and there was no turning back. We had to meet fire with fire so to speak. Some students ran directly to Mutendere market in the nearby township of Mutendere and burnt the UNIP flag, and then meted out some “instant justice” to UNIP vigilantes. The township then erupted after this. Other students spread to the townships of Kaunda Square, Chianama and nearby Munali. At Munali Boys Secondary School, the UNZA students were joined by eager and enthusiastic students. But at Chainama Hills College, the UNZA students were rebuffed by students of this institution. All these activities had transpired from 8:00hrs to noon. By 13:00hrs - the time for the main news bulletin on the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) radio - Lusaka was burning. All around the city one could hear gun-shots ringing out and sadly, at this time, human life had been lost. The paramilitary police were quite a trigger happy bunch. Strangely, many of us had not even known that the president had gone on a working holiday to the Mfuwe resort in the Eastern Province. It was only at 19:00hrs on the ZNBC’s main television evening news that we got to know that Kaunda was in Mfuwe. He denounced the socalled “disgruntled” elements and warned that the students were

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“being used by enemies of the party and its government” (I can merely paraphrase here due to the passage of time). But Kaunda’s tirade was along these lines coupled with promises of harsh reprisals. Immediately television sets in the common rooms were switched off and we assembled at the male residents’ (the “Ruins”) square (famously known as the “monk square”). After several speeches we resolved to press on and agitate for change and the next day we were back in the fray. By the third day, most of Zambia was in flames with the Copperbelt and other towns which were not even on the line of rail, for example, Kaoma, having joined the uprising. More lives were lost and Kaunda cut short his working holiday and flew back to Lusaka. He announced a day-time curfew and then deployed the Zambian Army to quell the riots with orders to shoot any agitators “on sight.” For the first time in Zambia’s post-colonial history, tanks rumbled down the streets of Lusaka during the day. The country was on high alert as helicopters and jet-fighter planes patrolled Zambia’s air space. After almost one week, the uprising was crushed, with close to thirty people confirmed dead. The University of Zambia was closed down. We had already been picked up in the early hours of the morning of the university’s closure and whisked away to Edwin Imboela Stadium near Sikanze Police Camp for processing. This was also where the looters and other criminal elements were held as it was a makeshift detention centre. I remember that I was picked up at 0:400hrs in the morning, and strangely I was already awake and dressed (I do not know whether it was a premonition or divine guidance). I was picked up by four paramilitary officers armed with AK-47 assault rifles and the one in the lead was a senior officer, probably a Superintendent. He was armed with a standard military handgun, but it was in its holster. They had all my personal details: student number, room number and year of study on a print-out from the Dean of Students. I then knew that they had done their homework and I was in trouble. Strangely, I was calm (I think being young and an idealist or someone who wanted to change the world so to speak had played a huge factor

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here). I was told to leave everything behind - my clothes and toiletries. I was the only one who was picked up from the Veterinary School Residences (or Vet Residences). I was first taken to the “Goma Lakes” (artificial ponds) and after five minutes another student was brought from the “Ruins” and was told to load all his Marxist paraphernalia on the police wagon. We were then driven to Edwin Imbeola stadium. I must admit that I felt relieved when another group of students was also brought to the stadium hours later. I was comforted with the thought that at least it was not just the two of us. Already one security personnel had warned us that we could easily “disappear” if we were “playing”. However, I would immediately be saddened when my brother arrived with another batch of students. We waited the whole morning for some kind of explanation. One student who asked a paramilitary officer/intelligence officer what was happening was told that he could be shot for asking “silly questions”. The officer did indeed reach for his pistol. So we kept quiet and kept on throwing knowing glances at each other. It was only around 13:00hrs that we were given our detention orders and signed for them. Again there was no choice in this matter because if one refused there was the risk of being beaten with a rifle butt. We were then taken to Chamber Valley where the interrogations by the SBs and OP began the next day. We had not eaten anything the whole day. It was only late in the evening that we were given food at Chamba Valley. Some of us did not eat as we had either lost appetite or were afraid of being poisoned. Together we were thirty-one students who were detained and there was only one female detainee in this group. She was released a week later on compassionate reasons (to the relief of all of us male students). The other student I have not counted was a traitor and I will return to this issue soon. In true one-party state style, our parents and guardians were never informed of our whereabouts for one week. All their queries regarding our whereabouts were stone-walled by the state security apparatus, as no one was prepared to tell them where we

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were. My parents as well as the parents or guardians of my comrades17 were extremely distressed. What became apparent during interrogations was that Kaunda and his entire security system had not believed that the students had acted alone. They were trying to establish who had been “using” the students to cause “trouble”. The security personnel asked us questions along these lines: “who is using you? Is it a foreign power or intelligence agency such as the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which is using you? Was it not former politicians or Kaunda’s rivals who had made us fan the riots?” Kaunda could not believe that young men and women could stand up to him. Perhaps he was right in this appraisal because Zambians were so afraid of Kaunda and the one-party state regime that many of them just cringed in their homes or drowned their sorrows in the country’s bars - something similar to the Zimbabwean political situation. Frankly, the majority of Zambians were just cowards. That is why Kaunda stayed in power for so long. Therefore, whenever there was some kind of rebellion it was easy for Kaunda’s security personnel to pick out the so-called ring-leaders. After interrogations at Chamba Valley we were then distributed to different prisons or detention centres across the country. Before leaving this prison something interesting happened. In typical tyrannical regime style, there was actually a student who was an informer amongst us. We had suspected that this individual was part of the Special Branch apparatus, but upon discovering that he was also detained with us, we naively all dropped our guard. Innocently, a good number of students had shared their interrogation sessions with the collective, whilst others chipped in. In this troubled atmosphere, many students opened up and cited their roles in the riots or the mobilisation of either the student body or the masses. What transpired was that every time we went for further interrogation, the SBs had additional information which we had not volunteered earlier. We had suspected that our room was bugged so we spoke in codes and our own sign language. So we were baffled as to where the new information was coming from and

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before we could confront the informant, he was whisked away from the prison. For almost two days the whole group was depressed, while others just kept to themselves. It was so demoralising to note that this person had been in our midst and took note of everything we had spoken to each other regarding the revolution. Afterwards, the security personnel (they were a collection of all sorts: Criminal Investigations Division - CID -, Office of the President, Special Branch, etc.) informed us that those who had left their belongings in their rooms could go and collect them at UNZA. But before we could go to UNZA, we were taken outside the prison to identify our placards. Before the closure of the university we had plastered the fence around UNZA with all sorts of placards, portraits and other forms of “student art” depicting Kaunda in different hues and forms. Some of the messages are unprintable but suffice to say Kaunda was not the least impressed with this “art”. The general public was amused and would drive closer to read the messages on the placards (some of them made from white bed sheets and written with polish). The security forces had taken all of them down and stored them as “evidence”. At first it was difficult to make anything in the light as we had not seen any sunshine for over one week. After we could see properly we refused that we had not drawn any of them - besides as some of us complained, we did not know how to draw. I would return to UNZA almost a week and half days later, with other students on a truck, under heavy guard to collect all my books and clothes. Many bystanders scampered when they saw us, whilst students who were going to the library equally ran away at our sight. I then knew that we were on our own. After this, the convoy of trucks left for the nearby City Airport whereupon some of us were ordered to board a Zambia Air Force (ZAF) DHC-5 Buffalo plane (the same type of rickety plane which had crashed with the entire Zambian football squad and officials off the coast of Gabon in 1993). Another group of students boarded a Zambia Air Force helicopter. Those who remained in one truck, like my brother,

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were driven to Mazabuka prison in Southern Province. The group on the plane was destined for both Mpima prison (where I was incarcerated with five other comrades) and Mokobeko medium prison in Kabwe. Those on the helicopter were headed for Mumbwa prison where another group of students and their lecturers had been detained by Kaunda in 1976, for six months, for challenging him on his stance of supporting Jonas Savimbi in lieu of Agostinho Neto and the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola or Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA).18 After landing on a gravel airstrip on the outskirts of Kabwe, we had to wait for a while in order for another contingent of intelligence officers to come and pick us up. We arrived in the evening at Mpima prison quite exhausted and hungry. The months of June and July can be pretty chilly in Zambia. These months are part of the cold season and temperatures can plummet to low degrees in the evening and early morning. So we were equally cold. After we were taken to the detention cell, we were told by the prison authorities that they had not been expecting us, as this was a last minute arrangement. There were no blankets or mattresses to sleep on. We had to make due and slept on the concrete floor. That night, I considered it as one of the most miserable day of my life. However, things at Mpima would get better as the Prison Warders later brought us enough blankets which we used to cover the concrete floor. We were scared of becoming chronically sick whilst in prison. The prison authorities also organised vegetables for us from the prison garden and once a week they brought us meat from the nearby army barracks. There were some officers who were studying via correspondence with overseas colleges. They would come to our cell for tutorials and we would help out where we could. Life was tolerable at Mpima and the Prison Warders were very humane. Mpima prison was a gazetted detention centre and thus we had our separate detention wing from the rest of the prison population, with our own cooking facilities and ablutions. As detainees, we were also allowed to wear our civilian clothes. Upon our arrival at the

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prison we were addressed by the head of the prison - a benign old school civil servant. He immediately assuaged our fears and noted that some of us were the ages of his grandchildren and that he had only a few months before retiring. He went on to calm our nerves and told us that he had kept prominent Zambians at the same facility in the past and would not hurt his “grandchildren”. The likes of Frederick Chiluba, some of Adamson Mushala’s19 lieutenants and Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe had all been detained on his watch. We were indeed reassured. Also, most of the Prison Warders were sympathetic to our cause and agreed that we were fighting for a better Zambia. Even the general prisoners who had been convicted for various criminal acts were in awe of us, noting: “these are the students who want to overthrow Kaunda!” (After we were first mistaken for smugglers). Thus we were accorded some measure of respect due to this. After a while we were allowed visits from our loved ones. My eldest brother came to see me at the prison as my parents were too distraught to do so. Nonetheless, I was more worried about them than of my plight and I felt guilty about putting them under such an unnecessary strain. My brother then told me that my mother was extremely upset and cried every night. He said that he had never seen her like this before. He informed me that she would cry and ask the question: why has Kaunda imprisoned my babies? He then gave me a Bible from my parents and told me to take courage. He also said that he had visited my brother at Mazabuka prison, about four hundred kilometres or more from Kabwe. He said that conditions at this prison were terrible and the Prison Warders were extremely hostile. My brother left me with some food and then returned to Lusaka. I was circumspect after the visit and sat by myself that day. I was hurt and quite miserable for a couple of days after my brother’s visit. After exactly one month and one day, our detention orders were revoked and we were pardoned by Kaunda. At this juncture we were not informed whether we would continue with our studies or not. However, some of us were prepared for the worst because of past events. We were driven to the Kabwe central business

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district and the main bus station in a landscruiser van of the prisons service. Upon arrival we met the other group of students that was incarcerated at Mukobeko medium prison in the same town. We greeted each and spontaneously burst into revolutionary songs. We then ran around the centre of the town chanting anti-Kaunda and anti-UNIP slogans. In the process there was commotion in town as many people stood aside and watched the spectacle and wondered who we were. I guess this impromptu reaction was meant to show people that we had not been broken and were not going to be cowed by Kaunda and his oppressive system. We indeed remained defiant (I was already sporting a long beard by this time). We then boarded buses for Lusaka and arrived at the main bus terminus at night. Thus, thankfully none of us ended up with a criminal record, albeit the reasons for our detention were political and nothing else. After several weeks we were allowed to return to UNZA to continue with our studies. We only had a couple of weeks to prepare for the final examinations. Nevertheless, many of us had felt betrayed by fellow students after this ordeal. Kaunda had also pardoned all the alleged coup plotters. From the first coup of 1980, the late Edward Jack Shamwana, the late Valentine Musakanya and Yorum Mumba were pardoned. The alleged coup plotters of 1988, who had been led by Christon Tembo, were also pardoned. Lastly, all other political detainees, all former students who had been expelled from institutions of higher learning due to political reasons were also pardoned and reinstated, so as to continue with their studies. It is also worth mentioning that we had achieved our goal of reinstating UNZASU unconditionally as well. We had been uncompromising on this demand and had refused to accept the diluted version of UNZASU, which the UNIP government had tried to impose on the student fraternity. To this day, UNZASU thrives as a student representative organisation. In truth, I can say that Kaunda had shown some form of compassion and did not follow the heavy-handedness of some of Africa’s more ruthless tyrants who were in power at the time, like Mobuto Sese Seko of

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the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Also, to be fair, Kaunda did not also know some of the excesses of his regime. In some instances overzealous party cadres and security officials did things, according to their own misguided notions, in the name of Kaunda. This was clearly evident when Kaunda had announced our release on national television and radio. As we had not had any access to either newspapers or the radio in prison, we had effectively been cut off from the world. So the SBs knew this and had come to take us for interrogations on the day that Kaunda had revoked our detention orders. However, we had been tipped by the Prison Warders that Kaunda had already announced our release and all the formalities would be completed the next day. So the SBs may have seen this as a window of opportunity to engage in some kind of last hour torture or otherwise. When they came to pick us up, we refused. They could not forcibly remove us from the prison as we were officially under the jurisdiction of the Zambia Prisons Service (ZPS) and not under some ad hoc intelligence wing. We were also lucky because the prison authorities did not budge and advanced all sorts of legal arguments to support our stance. I really wonder what would have happened if we had accepted to go with the SBs that day. Upon our release20 we were informed that there had been another attempted military coup21 (whilst we were in detention) by Lieutenant Mwamba Luchembe - a junior commissioned officer of the Zambian Army. His was more of a charade than a coup; however, it also sent many Zambians onto the street celebrating as they had wrongly thought that Kaunda had been overthrown. This just shows how other forces had capitalised on our revolution. Luchembe was also pardoned in this blanket amnesty. We also got to hear that another batch of students (less than ten) had also been arrested from their homes just before we were released. They were detained at Lusaka prison but were also pardoned by Kaunda. We were also duly informed that a new political organisation, the Movement for Multi-party

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Democracy (MMD) had been formed by Akashambatwa Mbikusita Lewanika and others to agitate for the re-introduction of multi-party politics in Zambia. After my release, I decided to throw all my efforts into this drive for multi-party politics as many of the former detainees had also resolved, as well as the majority of the student fraternity. However, there were mixed feelings on campus on whether to support the MMD and pledge our allegiance to this group or remain autonomous, but support the MMD and not be “owned by anyone”. I was part of the group that had chosen the latter route. Things remained like this until elections, with most students blindly campaigning for the MMD for the sake of “change” and another section working in collaboration with the MMD in the struggle for democracy in Zambia, but not choosing to be at its beck and call. Some of our colleagues who had favoured the course of throwing the whole student body behind the MMD were rewarded with government and diplomatic posts by Frederick Chiluba when he became president. Therefore, the young UNZA militants had put their lives on the line when it was not fashionable to be in politics. Nowadays in Zambia, people can say what they want to say or express their political beliefs, without being thrown in jail - albeit not all the time. This was not the case during the one-party state dictatorship of Kaunda. As earlier mentioned, Rupiah Banda’s demise from politics was hastened by among other things, the mishandling of the Barotseland question. To begin with, the non-implementation of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964 by the Zambian government and its continued disregard of this treaty - which had essentially consummated the state known as Zambia - is a serious mistake of fact and international law. Furthermore, Barotseland’s status as an ordinary province in Zambia, for 48 years, is also a serious mistake of fact, because once the Zambian government had chosen not to honour this agreement, then, its actions had essentially nullified the state known as Zambia. This act alone had also reactivated Barotseland’s standing pre -1964. As matters stand, Zambia is an illegal state and Barotseland remains as an

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illegal part of Zambia. It is also a certainty that Barotseland was already in existence before the entities known as North-Western Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Zambia, in that order, came into being. Evidence on this matter shows that Barotseland’s international status came into effect after the Lochner-Lewanika Treaty of 1890 was signed by the parties of the British South Africa Company (BSAC) - as agents of the British Empire and on behalf of Queen Victoria - and King Lewanika of the Barotse people, on behalf of the Kingdom of Barotseland and his heirs. Minahan (2002:1117) describes Barotseland accordingly: The Lozi nation comprises 32 tribes of six interrelated cultural groups spread over a large area of south-central Africa. The Mafwe, Subiya and Mayeye, all subgroups of the Lozis constitute the majority of the population of the Caprivi Strip. Further divided into numerous clan groups, the Lozi are united by their language and unique history. Traditionally Lozi society was organised into a social hierarchy of aristocrats, commoners, and serfs, but urbanisation has weakened the traditional system. The litunga (king) is revered through the Lozi territories, even though the Lozi nation is divided among Zambia, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The desire for Lozi unity grew throughout the 1990s and into the new century. Formerly one of the wealthiest people’s in southern Africa, the Lozi are among the poorest.

What is indisputable is that Barotseland became a British Protectorate in 1891, before Northern Rhodesia came into being in 1924, which later became Zambia in 1964. After Barotseland became a British Protectorate, it took another six years for Great Britain to be physically represented in Barotseland. To that effect, Robert Coryndon was appointed a Resident of Barotseland in 1897 - officially setting the stage for British rule in this territory. Subsequently, the Lewanika-Coryndon Treaty of 1898 was concluded to address Lewanika’s grievances relating to the 1890 treaty because Lewanika was not happy with some of its clauses and he had felt cheated by the BSAC. He was also being opposed by some Barotse22 who felt that he had given the Company cum British Crown much leeway in their land. In the same year Cecil Rhodes was granted a Charter by Queen Victoria to govern this territory as under British control. In 1899 the Barotseland-North-Western Rhodesia Order-in-Council 72

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further reinforced Barotseland’s Protectorate status by only allowing the BSAC limited powers within Bulozi “proper”. Extensive areas were reserved to the Lozi people and the High Commissioner in South Africa. On the other hand, the NorthEastern Rhodesia Order-In-Council of 29 January 1900 reflected “a conquest situation which was modelled along the lines of the Southern Rhodesia Order-in-Council, differing from it in that the local imperial supervisory authority was the British Commissioner in Nyasaland and not the High Commissioner in South Africa” (Chanock, 1977). Barotseland’s unique status was endorsed even after the amalgamation of the two territories of North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia on 17 August 1911, to form Northern Rhodesia, through the Northern Rhodesia Order-in-Council 1911. Further affirmation of Barotseland’s autonomy was reflected in the Northern Rhodesia Order-in-Council 1924, which came into effect on 1 April 1924, which facilitated the transference of power from the BSAC to the British Crown, effectively making the territory a British Protectorate. Section 41 of this Order-in-Council confirmed the Litunga’s (king’s) rights: It shall not be lawful for any purpose whatsoever to alienate from the Litunga and people of the Barotse the territory reserved from prospecting by virtue of the concessions from Lewanika to the British South Africa Company dated the 17th October 1900 and the 11thAugust 1909.

Subsequently, the Northern Rhodesia Crown Lands and Native Reserves Order-in-Council, 1928 re-affirmed the unique status of the Litunga and his people in regard to the meaning of “Crown Land” as any lands in Northern Rhodesia other than: … (4) Any land or mineral rights to which the Paramount Chief and the People of the Barotse are entitled…

In addition, the Bledisloe Report of 1939 crystallised the sovereignty of Barotseland accordingly: “In Barotseland the

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preservation of native rights in the land is safeguarded by the treaty and these are vested in the Paramount Chief and his Khotla or Council.” Even the final debate on the Federation in the House of Commons on 4 May 1953 had also affirmed Barotseland’s separate status vis-à-vis Northern Rhodesia accordingly: “to preserve the rights reserved under the Lewanika concessions the Federal Constitution will contain a provision similar to section 41 of the Northern Rhodesia Order-in-Council, 1924” (House of Commons, 1953). When the Barotse nation expressed the view that they would not be part of the federation, the then Governor of Northern Rhodesia, Gilbert Rennie, had flown to Lealui (the Litunga’s Capital) to assure the Barotse nation that no change in Barotseland would be made without prior consultation and agreement with the Litunga. Following on this was also a visit by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Arthur Creche-Jones who also reiterated what the Governor had asserted. Barotseland’s self-governance was recognised during this period in Section 112 of the 1953 Constitution of Northern Rhodesia (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2011). It was fully comprehended that the two territories of Barotseland and Northern Rhodesia were under separate British rule. Being an unconsummated union, Zambia’s continued existence, in its present form, is a serious mistake of international law as it is based on a flawed premise of the dishonouring of the Barotseland Agreement. Also, this situation resulted in not all the prerequisites of Zambia’s independence being met by the Zambian government to be and therefore effectively making Zambia an illegal state. More importantly, Zambia’s existence in its current form is in fact fraudulent. As one of the preconditions for the country’s independence - the Barotseland Agreement was never met, it means that the undertakings and promises which were made by the Zambian government, during the negotiations for independence were based on false pretences, falsities, guile and deceit. While the governments of Britain, Northern Rhodesia and Barotseland fulfilled their parts in so far as their obligations to the new state of Zambia were concerned,

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the Zambian government to be, had no intention of doing so and immediately after independence set out to erode all the legalities, which had governed and determined Barotseland’s status as a sovereign and autonomous state. In the general parlance of laypeople, the issue at hand is like a marriage which was never consummated and has now irretrievably broken down. At the outset, the husband to be (the Zambian government to be and Kaunda) had made all sorts of promises and commitments during courtship (independence negotiations), which were never honoured after the marriage ceremony (independence of Zambia). From the beginning, the wife (Barotseland) was abused and ill-treated and the marriage was never legalised with a marriage certificate (Barotseland Agreement of 1964). So after 48 years of maltreatment, when the wife has finally had enough and wants to go her own way and asks for a divorce, then the husband threatens her with all sorts of reprisals, when there was no marriage to speak of in the first place. In other legal terms, this act can also be likened to a breach of contract. Indeed, the Barotseland Agreement of 1964 is not a myth but an international treaty which was sullied by unscrupulous politicians: On 18 May Kaunda and the Litunga signed the “Barotseland Agreement, 1964”, Duncan Sandy’s adding his signature “signing the approval of her Majesty’s Government.” Its purpose was to establish Barotseland within Zambia in place of the earlier agreement between Britain and Barotseland (Emphasis added) (Caplan, 1970:201).

The Barotseland Agreement enunciates accordingly: “It is the wish of the government of Northern Rhodesia and the Litunga of Barotseland to enter into arrangements concerning the position of Barotseland as part of the republic of Zambia to the place of the treaties and other arrangements hitherto subsisting between Her Majesty the Queen and the Litunga of Barotseland...” (My own emphasis). The “treaties and other arrangements between Her Majesty the Queen and the Litunga of Barotseland” derived their essence from the originator - the Lewanika-Lochner

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Treaty of 1890. This is where everything begins and not 1964 as regards Barotseland’s international status.23 When the aforementioned are soberly interrogated two questions arise: why out of all the regions of Zambia, did the representatives of the British, Northern Rhodesian governments and Zambian government to be sign such an agreement with its people? Secondly: why would Europeans have taken an African such as Lewanika seriously a hundred and twenty years ago, when, even now, most Europeans do not take Africans seriously?24 Why would they enter into successive treaties with Lewanika when they could have just annexed his kingdom as in the case of Mpenzeni and his Ngoni kingdom25and other northern indigenous communities which were governed by the NorthEastern Rhodesia Order-in-Council of 1900? I can state here that Lewanika was intelligent and shrewd enough to have struck a deal with Europeans who were not in the habit of doing business with Africans, during these times, apart from enslaving or subjugating them. He was able to secure a future for his nation and descendants in the best way he could, considering the prevailing circumstances at the time. Even Kaunda and UNIP had to find ways of accommodating Barotseland, generations later, despite their intense biases relating to this area: No other tribe in the territory had received so much special attention in the nationalists’ advance towards full independence, and to single out the Lozi in the constitution was a flouting of UNIP’s “One Zambia, One Nation” motto to an extent the party - and particularly its Bemba members - was not prepared to accept. As a compromise, the Litunga and Kaunda agreed to a formal treaty to be signed by the British, Barotse and Northern Rhodesian governments (Caplan, 1970:201)

The history of post-colonial Zambia has been one of deception, as the country has continued to exist on lies and falsities, without one of its critical pillars - the Barotseland Agreement. What should have happened, if all things had been equal, was that two independent states, namely: Barotseland and Zambia should have come into being on 24 October 1964. I marvel at how naive the Barotse were by expecting that the new

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Zambian government would grant them a special status within an independent Zambia. They should have just gone it alone as an independent country: Barotseland. Most Lozis wanted to have a “special status” in the new Zambia whilst being afraid of going it alone. Well, such things do not happen in Africa where politics is perverted to the desires of certain ethnic groups - usually those that never amounted to anything prior to colonial rule. Probably the fallacious notions of Barotseland’s “lack of minerals” or it not being “economically viable” had put fear into most Lozis, who then thought that an independent Barotseland would not have been self-sufficient. However, the Lozis should have just looked at Israel (in spite of its wanton oppression of the Palestinians) to have seen how a country which was surrounded by a desert had made itself viable. They should also have known that arriving at a functioning and sustainable modern state required first and foremost, a people who had mastered the art of governance - just as the Lozis had done prior to the coming of the Europeans. With all its resources and minerals, where is Zambia today? It is just another underdeveloped backwater because those who ruled the country came from cultures that did not master the art of governance. But the Lozi people have themselves to blame as well for this dilemma. Instead of having a common purpose on the sovereignty of Barotseland, some of them chose to engage in internecine and self-destructive feuds, while others were bent on settling old scores. The Litunga was also out of touch with the changing times and the ruling class did not seem to have advised him any better. Also, some of the educated Lozis as well as those who made up the educated nationalist group did not help matters at all. Interestingly enough, it was the young educated UNIP Lozi nationalists who had given Kaunda enough ammunition to launch an assault on Barotseland, before and after he had consolidated his power after 1968. The two Wina brothers, Sikota and the late Arthur; the late Munukayumbwa Sipalo and Dr. Kabaleka Konoso had forfeited their history, heritage and posterity for Kaunda, and UNIP. Sikota Wina was Minister of

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Local Government, Arthur Wina was Minister of Finance and Kabeleke Konoso was the Minister of Justice when all the changes which had denuded the legal status of Barotseland were instituted. Ironically, these Lozis’ parents were also part of the traditional ruling elites of Barotseland. Sikota Wina, then Minister of Local Government, had defended the desecration of Barotseland in Parliament as follows: It is only in this manner that the population of our people in Barotse Province shall move into fresher waters. I hold the belief that whether a man be Lozi, Tonga, Bemba or Ngoni, his primary concern is for food to fill his stomach, clinics to heal his wounds, schools to educate his children, development to generate employment so that his wife can dress as well as the wives of Honourable Members of this House… [it is] only a small and dying section of the traditional elements of the nineteenth century. The Barotse, Mr. Speaker, are no longer interested in being regarded as museum specimens, or to be regarded as a pure preservation of old happy Africa through the eyes of Stanley… (Gertzel, 1984:231).

After Kaunda had used Lozis such as the Wina brothers and Konoso, he effectively discarded them. It is also important not to lose sight of the British factor here, as the British Government seemed to have had a love-hate relationship with the Lozis, thus its betrayal of Barotseland at the eleventh hour. In truth, Lewanika was more far-sighted and astute than his heirs and descendants as he was able to secure treaties for his people with representatives of Great Britain, which was at the time a super power. He had also pragmatically embraced the missionaries and had allowed them to evangelise and educate his people (even though he never converted to Christianity himself) and in the process he had encouraged them to rid his kingdom of primitive practices such as witchcraft and sorcery. He had also encouraged the missionaries to teach his people skills in bricklaying, carpentry and other trades such as smiths work. Despite Lewanika’s hard work, the modern Lozis were not bold enough and did not rise to the occasion to fight for or create their own modern state of Barotseland. Some of the prominent Lozis, who could have acted as a vanguard, chose to sell their birth-right. The rest had found comfort in measly actions such as 78

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overwhelmingly voting for UNIP in both the 1962 and 1964 elections. They had wrongly figured this route as the only feasible way to attain their independence. Instead of building on the foundations, which were created by their forebears, who had resolutely worked hard to create Barotseland through inter alia, dexterity, sound governance, economic sustainability and military might, the modern Lozis chose the route of the Barotseland Agreement which could easily be vitiated by unscrupulous politicians. And sadly, this came to pass. Thus, a man like Lewanika cannot be faulted for his visionary leadership and strategic thinking even before the onset of colonial rule. I think that Lewanika was light years ahead of his contemporaries, whilst some of his heirs and descendants have just proved to be a huge disappointment. Mind you, if Lewanika had chosen to have crossed paths with the British forces or their proxies such as the BSAC’s troops, they certainly would have unleashed a torrent of brute force, which would have vanquished his people. Their military capabilities were not just exhibited against Africans as in the case of the Ndebele or Ngoni, but other Europeans who had sought to impede their imperial designs. The Anglo-Boer war is a case-in-point which illustrates how the military might of Britain had prevailed over the Boers or Afrikaners despite them putting up a gallant fight, with their modern weapons and guerrilla tactics. Through a “scorched earth” policy, which almost annihilated the Boers - with Afrikaner women and children interned in concentration camps, and farms burnt to the ground the British army showed how ruthless it could be if a people chose to oppose its will. So despite having quite a large and wellequipped army for African warfare, Lewanika was not delusional to a point where he could just send his people to be slaughtered in the name of resisting colonial occupation. Many people in Zambia, especially politicians and so-called historians/scholars (the majority of them being non-Lozis for that matter), have over the last four decades deliberately distorted Barotseland’s history in order to advance their interest of keeping Barotseland in servitude. For instance, the issue of the territorial

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influence of Lewanika has been deliberately rubbished by some Zambians for many years. However, in order to ascertain the sphere of influence of the Barotse in pre-colonial times, this can easily be established in the light of the areas where the Barotse had exacted tribute. Historical records reveal that it was from the ethnic groups in present-day North-Western, Southern, Central and Copperbelt provinces (although this was and is still heavily disputed by Zambians because of the copper mines). Lewanika never falsely laid any territorial claims to areas which he did not have any influence over. Instead, his kingdom was initially reduced by the European colonisers. The Germans of South-West Africa (Namibia) demanded that the British authority grant them access to the Zambezi River and a land to the then German East Africa in 1890. The result was the partition of the Lozi kingdom, with a strip of territory ceded to the Germans and named for the German chancellor, Count Leo von Caprivi. In 1891 the British and Portuguese agreed to delineate Barotseland’s western border, but were unable to agree on the territorial extent of Lozi influence. The king of Italy asked to arbitrate this issue (Minahan, 2002:1117). As can be seen here the western frontier existed and it was not a figment of Lewanika’s imagination. That is why whenever there was a rebellion in Barotseland, those who were deposed from power always escaped to a place near Angola referred to as Lukwakwa - meaning a fence made out of reeds. Literally, this was the western frontier of the Barotse kingdom and usually the rebels would wait in exile for decades, in order to make another bid to reclaim their power. Again, after this European intrusion, the Barotse kingdom was reduced on the western borders. So much has been said about Lewanika’s territorial “claims”. However, many of the commentators on this issue have been mainly biased non-Lozis and could not have understood the implications for a king of Lewanika’s stature making false claims about his kingdom. Unlike today, when all sorts of characters can emerge to lead a country such as Zambia, this was not the case in pre-colonial Barotseland. A king was guided by two beacons: courage and honour. Lying was not

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something that was considered honourable in Barotseland and for a king, like Lewanika, lying about one’s military competence would have been the ultimate disgrace. Leaders in the past, such as Lewanika, took pride in the knowledge that they controlled so many territories which they had conquered, ruled and made to pay tribute. This understanding was based on their military superiority and not on falsehoods. This was also the case in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East during these times. Lewanika, also being a military commander of his armies, had gone on military expeditions which were meant to subdue and conquer outlying areas. Therefore, he knew where his influence lay. This was even before the discovery of copper, which some ill-informed Zambians opine as having necessitated Lewanika’s so-called claims. The question to ask is: why would a people pay tribute to a king of another kingdom if they had not been under his authority? The Lozi/Barotse kingdom was a militaristic pre-colonial state that had raided various tribes for cattle, and other booty.26 But it was also benevolent and followed assimilationist policies, in that it took under its care refugees such as the Mbunda ethnic group, which had fled social discord in present day Angola, or protected those who were running away from the slave raiders and had voluntarily pledged allegiance to the Barotse king. Equally, it had to defend itself against other powerful invaders such as the Ndebele of Lobengula. To this day, these ethnic groups that had paid tribute to the Barotse are known as “traditional cousins” or mbuyas. The Lozis were not occupiers, but had relied upon emissaries known as Lindumeleti - something along the lines of an ambassador of the king in these lands. Whenever there were signs of rebellion or insubordination on the part of these ethnic groups, a war party was usually dispatched to exact compliance. According to the Southern Rhodesia Native Affairs Department (1926:86) the Barotse influence stretched from “Kasempa, Mashukulumbwe and Batoka districts”. The people of these areas had “acknowledged the sway of, and paid tribute to, the Barotse; in every case Barotse resident indunas were stationed at important

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centres to represent the Paramount Chief to see that the subjected tribes paid tribute”- corroborating my earlier points. To further authenticate the territorial extent of Barotseland, when the explorer David Livingstone named the local falls, he had stumbled upon, as Victoria Falls, he was told of an already existing local name: Mosi-oa-Tunya - meaning the smoke that thunders. Mosi-oa-Tunya is a Lozi-Sotho phrase. The question to ask is: how would this mighty falls be called as such if it was not under the jurisdiction of Barotseland? To this day Mosi-oaTunya remains the local name of this falls. The reality is that the world was patterned in such a way that only the fittest survived. Powerful African kingdoms subdued weak pre-colonial African communities, whilst on the other hand Africans were subjugated by European forces. We, the Africans, were colonised because our forerunners had been militarily weak. No matter how we may try to justify ourselves, the painful truth is that we were conquered, subdued and oppressed for hundreds of years, because of our weak military institutions. Unfortunately, this is how the world worked. Therefore, just as we cannot refute colonial domination and subjugation, we should not seek to rewrite Zambia’s pre-colonial history as regards Barotseland. Other independent historical accounts have further noted on this matter: The most powerful and civilised of the indigenous kingdoms was the Barotse state in the Western Zambezi, which extended in influence as far as the Kafue River in the east, and into the present Portuguese territory in the West. The Barotse carried on agriculture in the fertile plain of the river, and their country was also rich in cattle and fish. They managed to dominate the Zambezi river system and the outlying plains; from the tribes which they subjugated they extorted tribute in kind, but in exchange their vassals received gifts, loans of cattle and protection from their enemies, and the region remained relatively safe from the slave trade (Gann, 1958:5).

Gann (1958:8) further remarked that “none of the other people of the territory were able to build a lasting state organisation of this kind, and the reason for this has not yet been satisfactorily

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explained by anthropologists.” Minahan (2002:1116-1117) also underscores the foregoing assertions: A highly bureaucratic state, the Lozi kingdom expanded by absorbing neighbouring peoples and eventually controlled 25 subjects. The Lozi gradually developed the three major organs of a modern political community - a centralised authority, a well-defined administrative machinery, and established judicial institutions.

Due to the bad faith which was shown and continues to be exhibited by the Zambian government, in terms of the Barotseland Agreement; the truth about how Zambia came into being, the government’s continued distortion of this matter and total disregard of the people of Barotseland as equal partners in the realisation of Zambia’s independence; the question of Barotseland will forever remain a contentious issue if it is not resolved amicably. This is because whenever the people of Barotseland raise concerns regarding their status in Zambia, they are either threatened with treason, arrested, dismissed as “deluded” by the Zambian government or vilified by the rest of Zambia as “trouble-makers”, and recently, shot at and killed. Well, like any other people of this world, the people of Barotseland have the right to self-determination. According to the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [Part 1, Article 1]: All peoples have the right of selfdetermination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. And given the circumstances of the last 48 years, the people of Barotseland also have recourse to the right of return. Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms the following: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his country”- (Emphasis added). Furthermore, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [Article 12(4)], states: “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.” In Article 15(2) of the same, it is clearly stated: “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor

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denied the right to change his nationality.” In Africa, there are already precedents regarding the redefinition of post-colonial boundaries. Eritrea and just recently, the South Sudan (although it bears all the hallmarks of a pre-failed state), are good examples. In line with the above thoughts, the people of Barotseland reserve the right to revert to their pre-1964 status - the original status quo (within the borders of present-day Western Province, due to obtaining material conditions and current realities). And for those who have unbreakable allegiances with Zambia, they are free to go and live in Zambia when Barotseland becomes independent. In this sense, the former treaties of Barotseland hold sway, than the illegal inclusion of Barotseland as Western Province in Zambia - to necessitate the need for a “velvet divorce” from Zambia as in the case of the former Czechoslovakia. Although these two nations had shared the same state for 75 years, theirs was an “artificial” union, first brought about in 1918 by the combined fears of German and Hungarian irredentism, and later maintained only by Soviet hegemony (Eyal, 2003). In most instances, the Slovaks had felt alienated from national politics. After the end of the cold war, the country broke up through a “velvet divorce” due to ethnic, political and economic reasons. But more importantly, the break-up of the country was peaceful. However, life has already been lost in Barotseland and its people have been detained time after time, by the Zambian government whenever they have raised their right to self-rule. This has always been erroneously referred to, by the Zambian government, as secession. The question to ask is: how can a people secede from something that does not exist? Without the Barotseland Agreement of 1964 it also means that the union of former Northern Rhodesia and Barotseland had never materialised. Thus, there is no question of secession, when the Barotse people assert their right to self-determination. The case of Barotseland is also not anything like Biafra in Nigeria. The Zambian government’s ill-intentions regarding Barotseland are shameful, because in almost similar

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circumstances, in other parts of the world, such as the case of Hong Kong, the results have been different. In 1984, the British government agreed to return Hong Kong to China by 1997, effectively after 100 years (as earlier agreed). Conversely, China made guarantees that Hong Kong would enjoy a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign and defence affairs. This meant that Hong Kong would exist in a “One Country-Two Systems arrangement”, which was something seen as amenable to both sides. Furthermore, the territory was to be self-governing for 50 years and it is now almost 15 years into this period. Thus far, China has not reneged on its promises: one of which allows Hong Kong to have a capitalist economy and its citizens to enjoy their rights and freedoms. Again, what had facilitated the transfer of Hong Kong back to China were treaties - in the case of Barotseland these have been rubbished by both the Zambian government and non-Lozis. In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) - led government had also honoured its promises to the Afrikaners, which it had made during the negotiations for that country’s freedom. At the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), which had formed the multi-party talks, the ANC had negotiated with the National Party (NP) for the realisation of a new South Africa. During these deliberations, the ANC had agreed to honour its promises after South Africa became free in what was referred to as the “sunset clause”. For instance, it met the condition of a compulsory power-sharing arrangement with its former apartheid foes, under the auspices of a Government of National Unity (GNU); maintained all apartheid functionaries in the civil service and security wings; and adhered to certain constitutional precepts such as the entrenching of the clause on property rights, among others. Once in power, the ANC made good on its promises and this situation has continued even to this day. What about even the model of Scotland within Great Britain? I mention this, despite the fact that the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the people of Scotland have made their intentions to be independent from Britain after a referendum in 2014.

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Now really, what was so difficult for Kaunda and the UNIP government to make good on their promises, which they had not only verbalised during the negotiations for Zambia’s independence in London, but reiterated to the people of Barotseland? In a speech to the Litunga, chiefs and people of Barotseland, at Lealui on 6 August 1964, the then Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia, Mr. Kenneth Kaunda specifically assured this collective of the permanency of the Barotseland Agreement. More tellingly, it can be noted, without any shred of doubt, that the said individual was extremely devious in regard to Barotseland’s future in Zambia: …I can assure you, Sir Mwanawina, and all Members of the Barotse Royal Family and of the Barotse Government that the Government has no wish to interfere with the day-to-day running of the internal affairs of Barotseland. This is the responsibility of the Barotse Government…the intention of the Central Government will be no more than to give to the Barotse Government its assistance and co-operation. I can give an absolute assurance that the customary rights in Barotseland will remain with the Litunga and National Council, and the District Heads of Kutas…Government is satisfied that Government requirements for land for development projects in Barotseland will receive the active co-operation of the Barotse Government… (As cited in Sumbwa, 2000:114-115).

On the contrary, Kaunda and the UNIP government set out almost immediately, after independence, to erase the Barotseland Agreement and denude Barotseland’s autonomy through successive pieces of illegal legislation, beginning firstly, with the Local Government Act of 1965 (Act No.69) which repealed the Barotse Native Authority Ordinance and effectively abolished the Barotse National Council and replaced it with five district councils. This meant that capital development projects would not be carried out by the former but through the provincial administration of the central government. Then came the Local Courts Act (Chiefs Act) of 1966 (Act No.20) which nullified the powers of the Lozi courts or Kutas and their judges by transferring their jurisdiction to the ministry of justice. The Barotse Native Treasury (BNT) was also abolished in the same period, with all its funds transferred to the Zambia ministry of 86

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finance. This is money which was accrued in the form of royalties from the Zambezi Sawmills, which logged timber in Sesheke and from the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA), the South African labour recruiting agency, which recruited Barotse migrant labourers to work in the South African mines and royalties stemming from treaties with the BSAC. Then there was the enacting of the Employment Act of 1966 (Act No. 9) which nullified the WNLA Arrangement. This resulted in close to six thousand Barotse losing their jobs without the UNIP government firstly providing them with alternative employment or any compensation for that matter. The tragic irony in respect to Barotseland is that a once cultured, proud, orderly and dignified people, with a highly advanced pre-colonial state,27 have been reduced to paupers in Zambia. Their nation, now known as the Western Province of Zambia, exhibits high incidences of HIV/AIDS, high numbers of teenage pregnancies, high infant and maternal mortality rates and has consistently been the poorest region in the country since “independence”. This deplorable state is not original as it was deviously crafted by Kenneth Kaunda’s UNIP government and then reinforced by successive Zambian governments, as the citation below clearly shows: According to a senior member of the government, the cabinet had already decided that the Lozi were to be punished, not placated, for their imprudence in electing “former Johannesburg waiters” to replace “some of the best brains in President Kaunda’s cabinet”. The intention was virtually to cut Barotseland off from all public funds and all development projects, to show it in no uncertain terms that, in the President’s words, “it pays to belong to UNIP” (Caplan, 1970:218).

The foregoing transpired after many of the UNIP members of parliament had lost their seats in Barotseland after the 1968 elections. Despite what I have stated earlier, in regard to the dishonesty of Kenneth Kaunda and UNIP on this matter, the British government was also complicit to the impoverishment of Barotseland, through the Northern Rhodesian Government and cannot be exonerated as can be discerned from Phyllis Deane’s 87

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assertions in the light of the Review of the Ten-year Development Plan for Northern Rhodesia of 1948: The proposed developments leave Barotseland still very much a backwater. The Province has always been starved of agricultural officers. This is unfortunate, for the area of the Barotse flood plain is probably the richest in resources and variety of resources in the whole territory. Even now there is flourishing internal trade and the Lozi are well known to be keen and lively traders. It would seem well worthwhile conducting a special investigation into the potentialities of this area, which might prove a more effective starting-point for indigenous development than any other and would certainly offer an interesting site for an experimental rural Development Centre of the type suggested in the Plan (1953:70-71).

To sum up on Barotseland, whatever choices the people of this region make in regard to their status in Zambia, it is pertinent that those who may be bewildered by their actions closely examine what has been raised in this section and other chapters of the book. When all the above-mentioned points are taken into account, one thing is clear: the developments that have taken place in the last ninety-days in Zambia (which Sata had bragged about in the run up to the elections of 2006, 2008 and 2010), have shown the new political administration to be farcical, whimsical, capricious, visionless, ethnic-based and narrow-minded. Taking into account all the issues which I have earlier illustrated, my prognosis is that Zambia is on a dangerously slippery slope and if things do not dramatically improve, the gains that the country had made during Levy Mwanawasa’s rule will all be eroded. Due to the foregoing, I also conclude that Zambia under Rupiah Banda and Sata - so far, was quickly transformed into a neo-patrimonial state, after inheriting certain vestiges of the one-party state dictatorship of Kaunda and Chiluba’s kleptocracy. There is no precise definition of the term; however, the simplest way to define neopatrimonialism is to compare it with Max Weber’s term “patrimonialism”. He used it to describe a system of rule based on administrative and military personnel who were responsible only to the ruler. Neo-patrimonialism, which is a modern form of the traditional patrimonial form of rule, is a mixed system. Here, 88

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elements of patrimonial and rational-bureaucratic rule co-exist and are sometimes interwoven. In a patrimonial system, all ruling relationships, both political and administrative, are personal relationships. There is no difference between the private and public spheres (Erdman, 2002). By contrast, under a neo-patrimonial system, the differentiation of private and public is recognised (at least formally), and therefore it can be referred to publicly. In practice, however, the private and public spheres, often, are not separated. That means two systems, the patrimonial system of personal relationships and the legal-rational one of the bureaucracy, exist side-by-side (Erdman, 2002). De facto, however, that is not so because the patrimonial system penetrates the legal-rational one and deforms the logic of its functions. Part of the patrimonial side of neo-patrimonialism is clientelism, which develops into extended networks of political clients. Political clientelism is about exchanging or arranging certain services and/or resources in return for political support, such as votes. Unlike patrimonialtype clientelism, neo-patrimonialism focuses less on direct exchanges between patron and client, and more on the “arrangement” of services and resources (Erdman, 2002). All these events which have taken place since Sata became president are a throw-back to Kaunda’s one-party state dictatorship, when the president would also just wake up and announce key national issues with far-reaching consequences, without having undertaken any dialogue with the Zambian people over the matter. The nationalisation of the copper mines is a case-in-point. If all the cited dictatorial and foolhardy actions by Sata and the decisions he has single-handedly made thus far are a harbinger of things to come, then Zambians must brace themselves for extremely difficult times ahead. Before I end this Prologue, I want to point out that when I was incarcerated for my political beliefs and for cherishing inter alia, the ideals of democracy, social justice, fair play, freedom of assembly and freedom of thought, I was a 21 year old young man. I am now a middle-aged man, but in the last 22 years, there

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has not been much significant and qualitative development in my country, whilst in the same period, other parts of the world (with fewer natural resources than Zambia and less human capital) have meteorically progressed. During this time, I have also seen my generation decimated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic with former classmates, neighbours, schoolmates, acquaintances, friends and relatives, all succumbing to this terrible disease. All I have are fading and faded images of young and dynamic individuals, whose lives were cut short in their prime. So my generation does not have the luxury of time, where it can allow Zambia to be experimented on by politicians of the colonial and independence era with their outdated solutions to complex modern realities. I sincerely hope that those of my generation who are still alive can step up and provide intellectual and political leadership in the country, in the same manner that we had done when we were youngsters. It is important for my generation to challenge the ubiquitous political and social decay in the country, because this group of Zambians wrote a very important chapter in their country’s history: the re-introduction of multi-party democracy and pluralism. In fact I think it is time we reclaimed our revolution which was stolen from us in 1990 by reactionary forces and the petty bourgeoisie, who were pillars of the one-party state and continue to drag Zambia into the bottomless pit of desolation. I am also acutely cognisant of the fact that some of my comrades in the struggle for democracy in Zambia have also passed on and our story of the revolution of 1990 needs to be put on paper. My writing of the account of the detention of the UNZA students as well as of myself, by the oneparty state regime, has been necessitated by the former tragic events. When I look back, I shudder at the thought that I might have lost my life in the fracas for political freedom, when Kaunda’s security forces had indiscriminately shot at us with live ammunition. Personally, the mishandling of the country’s politics and economy by politicians had negatively impacted on the lives of my significant others in fundamental ways. For example, proper health-care had completely been wiped out in Zambia and

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ordinary people were left to suffer whilst the politically connected were evacuated to European or South African hospitals. Due to the foregoing, my dear late mother was misdiagnosed by a derelict health system and passed away in 1995, due to a sudden stroke. This book is a tribute to my mother who taught me how to be strong in the face of adversity and to be tenacious no matter the threat. Ndangwa Noyoo 2012 Prologue Endnotes 1

It must be clearly stated that corruption is endemic in Zambia and its roots are traceable to the one-party state of Kenneth Kaunda and the United National Independence Party (UNIP). The problem became pronounced during the last decade of UNIP’s hold on power. How did corruption manifest itself in Zambia? Mainly, corruption had emerged out of the acute shortages in food, medicines, fuel and other essential commodities such as soap, detergents, mealie-meal, cooking oil, sugar, salt, bread, etc., in the 1980s. As the one-party state decayed, the parastatals, which were supposed to have produced many of these essential commodities, were also plagued by extreme inefficiencies. This was due to the fact that they were overseen by incompetent managers who would also, more often than not, plunder these companies as they were hand-picked by Kaunda. Due to the shortages in essential commodities, Zambians had to queue for all of their necessities. Productivity also declined as many workers would spend more time in queues than at work or creating wealth. Therefore, government service delivery was hampered in the process. Corruption slowly took root in the country in the following manner: In order for an ordinary citizen to either quickly buy himself/herself essential commodities or access certain services, the individual needed “connections”. One had to know someone in the municipalities in order to access various services; at the Zambia Electricity and Supply Corporation (ZESCO) for one’s electricity related needs; at hospitals, state bakeries, etc., in order for one to buy certain commodities, etc. Obviously, one could not have relatives or friends in all these “strategic” places. Therefore, in order to get one’s needed goods and services, a citizen would promise those who were in charge of these commodities a “token”. This became so normal in Zambia that officials (whose salaries were a pittance for that matter) would not budge until after being promised “something”. Phrases like “I will sort you out” became part and parcel of the vocabulary of Zambians. As the country continued to slide into poverty and mal governance, so did the institutionalisation of corruption in Zambia. 2 Just as recent as December 2011, the country’s deputy minister for Southern Province was sacked by Sata after he disclosed to the nation that he had engaged in

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witchcraft and had drunk urine and other concoctions so that his businesses prospered. This is just the tip of the ice-berg. What about “educated” young women who consult herbalists for love portions so that they can be married or “educated” young men who wear amulets in order to be promoted or “modern” young men who do such things so that they can play football better? On 19 December, 2011, the Zambian Watchdog on line newspaper reported that police had arrested two men from Chipata District believed to be wizards after being found with one million Kwacha cash that was smeared with blood. The police stated that the duo were arrested after a Western Union Money Transfer cashier discovered that all the fifty thousand Kwacha notes, equivalent to one million Kwacha, which they had wanted to send to their families in the town of Chipata were smeared with blood. Meanwhile, the government-led newspaper, Times of Zambia, reported that in the town of Chingola, the police in the same period, had arrested a traditional healer who had cut a growth on a woman’s private parts and applied herbs on the wound, but the patient later died. The traditional healer was charged with murder. These are frequent reports in Zambian newspapers of people who had gone to witchdoctors, traditional healers and so forth to get lucky charms or something along those lines in order to prosper. But why do we have such high incidences of people dabbling in these primitive acts? The answer is simple: Laziness. People are just lazy to work hard: to wake up early in the morning before dawn, and go and till the land; to study long hours; to self-deny themselves and save every penny in order to have successful businesses. But people want short-cuts and this is the end result. The other side to this is that while hard-working Zambians were applying themselves and became prosperous, the lazy ones just waited for things to come to them. Eventually, the free-loaders become envious of their family members, relatives and so-called friends who prospered. They ask themselves: how come so and so is better than I am? Thus, they revert to the witchdoctors etc., to “bring them down”. “They should suffer like me” - the lazy ones would justify themselves. The foregoing does not suggest that such practices are inherent only in Zambia or Africa. Other societies, including Europe (where the last public burning of witches at the stake was in the 18th century) have had their share of witchcraft and sorcery, but they have moved on. Superstitious beliefs are not stressed on in people’s day-to-day activities, even if they exist in certain sections of their societies. However, in Zambia, people just do not want to discard such things. 3 Amilcar Cabral, the great revolutionary from Guinea Bissau, who had mobilised his people against Portuguese colonial rule, made comments which I think will be instructive in this regard: “But we must consider our culture carefully; it is dictated by our economic condition, by our situation of economic underdevelopment. We must enjoy our African culture, we must cherish it, our dances, our songs, our style of making statues, canoes, our cloths…There are many folks who think that being African is being able to sit on the ground and eat with one’s hands. Yes, this is certainly African, but all the peoples of the world have gone through the stage of sitting on the ground and eating with one’s hands…We must be aware of our things, we must respect those of value, which are useful for the future of our land, for the advancement of our people…No one should think that to be African one must wear horns on one’s chest and an amulet round one’s waist. Such persons are individuals

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who have not yet properly understood the relationship between man and nature (My emphasis). The Portuguese did the same; the French did it when they were Franks, Normans, etc. The English did it when they were Angles and Saxons, voyaging across the sea in canoes, great canoes like those of the Bijagos…Any people in the world, of whatever status, has gone through the stage of these weaknesses, or has to go through them” (Cited in Vambe and Zegeye, 2008:92-93). 4 I still cannot understand just how harvested produce just simply goes to waste because of “unexpected” rains. This issue vexed me so much even when I was 17 years old that I wrote a letter to the editor of the Zambia Daily Mail, expressing my displeasure at the yearly occurrence of maize being soaked after a successful harvest. Everyone can roughly estimate when we get our first rains in Zambia and I had written the letter (which was published) to the editor as a concerned citizen. Guess what? The maize harvests of 2011 and 2012 went to waste because the rainy season had begun “earlier than expected”. This is 26 and 27 years later! How depressing is this? 5 Chiluba had waged a campaign to remain in power by vying for an unprecedented third term and attempting to tamper with the constitution. Chiluba had been quoted at one point by certain sections of the media, as asserting that Zambians were too docile to challenge him and he would therefore extend his rule via a third term. However, he was mistaken as many Zambians said no to such a selfish and irresponsible scheme. When this is compared with the example of Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika, the first President of the Northern Rhodesia Congress, it can be seen that people like Lewanika were nationalists at heart and did not want to throw the fight against colonial rule into disarray by refusing to relinquish power, when he was challenged by his colleagues. Even the case of Arthur Wina, the first leader of the MMD, is also enlightening. After he was nominated at Garden Hotel, Wina was outmanoeuvred by the Chiluba camp and forced into a rigged convention. After Chiluba and allies emerged victorious, Wina could have refused to relinquish power or formed a splinter group – something akin to Zimbabwe, where the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) split into two MDCs. However, Wina had gracefully handed over power to Chiluba. This had paved the way for Chiluba to be a presidential candidate for the MMD in the national polls against Kaunda and UNIP, and averted a split opposition. Such an occurrence would have effectively guaranteed the re-election of Kaunda. Wina could have also emulated Sata who resisted having a convention for his party on past occasions and when it was convened, it was just a sham with Sata emerging “unopposed”. So let history judge who cared for mother Zambia in the first place and those who were power-hungry from the start. 6 Kaunda was rewarded for having supported Sata and the PF during its final push for voters, after making an appearance at its convention - this transpired after he had said that he had retired from active politics. His son was appointed deputy minister of defence by Sata due to this. 7 Guy Scott, the 67 year old white Zambian grandfather and Vice President of Zambia (who was also a cabinet minister in Chiluba’s government together with Sata), made a baffling statement during an interview with the UK’s Guardian newspaper – Tuesday’s edition (4/10/2011). Scott expressed the view that he was

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elected due to the fact that people in Zambia were nostalgic of colonial rule: “not for exploitation and division, but for the standards of colonial times. When you went to the hospital there was medicine, when you went to the schools there were books, when you went to the shops there were goods to buy.” I wonder in which world Scott lives in, because Zambians who had overwhelmingly voted for him and the PF are the youth. Most of these young people were born in the late 1980s and 1990s. They have no clue as to what colonial rule entailed, which I must stress was not the romantic version that Scott is peddling, but where Africans had to buy their food through pigeon-holes at the back of the shops; where there were few schools for Africans or clinics; where Africans were merely a source of cheap labour on the mines and farms, and where Africans were humiliated and discriminated against on a daily basis. It is only in Zambia where a person like Scott can be allowed to articulate such drivel in public and for that matter, overseas. 8 When I was growing up in Lusaka, especially in the 1970s, Soli and Nyanja were the main languages which were spoken by the people in the capital city. To all accounts, Soli has now been obliterated, whilst Nyanja is not as pronounced as before. Soli is the language of the indigenous people of Lusaka. Their chief, also named Lusaka, had given land to the colonial authorities to set up the capital city in 1935, after it was shifted from Livingstone. It was also clear when I was growing up that Bemba was spoken on the Copperbelt because of the many Bembas who flocked from the Northern Province to the copper mines of that area. However, when Chiluba came to power in 1991, he made sure that Bemba became the lingua franca of the area through his actions and public pronouncements. It also seemed like there had been a huge migration of people from the Copperbelt to Lusaka. 9 That is not to say that there was any upgrade to these airports as they still remained the same old decrepit airports. 10 Even though Kapwepwe was a freedom fighter, his honouring by Sata symbolises the fact that he is considered the father of Bemba nationalism. This issue was broached by Chiluba when he was president, but after an uproar from the country, the renaming of airports was abandoned. Thus Sata is merely seeing through what he and Chiluba had conceived before. 11 This was almost a common feature in the early phases of anti-colonial movements in Africa where nationalists first thought they could appeal to the “civilised nature” of Europeans through petitions etc. Thus they were more moderate in the first instance before later becoming radical. This can also be seen in the case of the oldest liberation movement in Africa, the South African Native National Congress which later became the African National Congress (ANC). Dr. John Langalibalele Dube, the first president of the ANC had followed a differential or moderate approach, but this is no cause to airbrush him from the liberation history of South Africa. To this end, the ANC and the South African public continue to recognise this individual’s role in the liberation of their country. It must be noted that it was not easy those days to start something that challenged white rule. 12 Five decades later, his son Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika would form the MMD and champion the fight for the re-introduction of multi-party democracy and pluralism in Zambia. Like his father, he has also been conveniently omitted in the national narrative in the light of the genesis of the MMD and the country’s return to

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multi-party democracy, by the Zambian public and so-called political commentators. The party which he had created was hijacked by opportunists, when it had become less perilous to demand for regime change in Zambia. Lewanika had believed in this cause that he even gave up his own house to be used as the secretariat/headquarters of the MMD. At times he has even been maligned for his principles. 13 The Tonga-speaking people have also consistently voted along ethnic lines since the United Party for National Development (UPND) has been participating in national elections since 2001. The first president of this party, the late Anderson Mazoka, a Tonga, enjoyed overwhelming support in the Southern Province, although he also had a national appeal. But his successor, a Tonga as well, with less national appeal, Hakainde Hichelema has unfailingly and consistently been voted by his ethnic group since 2006, when he began participating in national elections. 14 This is a country where middle-aged men and women are referred to as “young men” and “young women” and are blocked from wielding political positions under the pretext that they are too “young”. Yet these same old men held powerful political positions when they were even younger. This trend was created by Kenneth Kaunda who referred to anyone younger than him (even by a year) as a “young man” or “young lady”. 15 This was not the first time that the Kaunda regime had detained a Noyoo on political grounds. My uncle, Hastings Ndangwa Noyoo, freedom fighter (as a nationalist under the United National Independence Party - UNIP), former Ngambela (Prime Minister) of Barotseland and politician (as opposition leader and Senanga East Member of Parliament for the African National Congress - ANC) (See Caplan, 1970 and Tordoff, 1974), was detained by Kaunda in the early 1970s. However, this issue was never discussed much in the family and I only got to know more about my uncle’s detention when I was detained. The reality is that I did not challenge the oneparty state because of this fact, but because I had this high sense of justice and the need to live happily in my country. I was frankly so fed-up with the one-party state system that I was nauseated every time something about UNIP and Kaunda was mentioned in the media. Strangely, my parents had sternly warned me to “stay away” from politics and “concentrate on my studies” when I was accepted to study at UNZA. 16 After a couple of deplorable days during my incarceration, my friend’s father had come into our detention area and told us that we were not going to be harmed and asked if the food we were given was palatable. As he looked at me he told everyone that most of us were the same ages as his children whereupon I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. After this, my friend’s father left and never came back again throughout our detention at Chamba Valley Prison. 17 All revolutionary students addressed themselves as comrades. 18 It is interesting to note that the demonstrations of our forerunners at UNZA had mainly been on ideological grounds and issues pertaining to foreign policy or the decolonisation of southern Africa. Our demonstrations were mainly around “basic needs”, for example, the high cost of living, political misrule or food and book allowances. It was not about international struggles, although we had groups supporting the freedom of South Africa, Namibia and Palestine on campus. Some of the students who were detained also had belonged to these groups.

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19

Adamson Mushala had led an armed rebellion against Kenneth Kaunda and the UNIP government for what he termed as the marginalisation of the people of the North-Western province from 1976-1982. At first, he was supported by people of this region who were not happy with Kaunda’s rule and UNIP. But when he later turned on them with brutal acts of reprisal, he lost their sympathies. He was killed in 1982 by the Zambian Army that had been tracking him for years. 20 The day before our release, we had spontaneously prayed for several hours, seeking divine intervention. Even for those of us who were mildly religious joined in and held hands and prayed together with our comrades whilst taking turns in leading the prayer. I must say after we said “amen” I felt extremely at peace and I was convinced that we were going home the next day. This indeed, did come to pass. 21 Since we did not know what was transpiring outside the prison, on the day of the coup, we just saw an increased presence of heavily armed security personnel and a change in the behaviour of those who were guarding us. Firstly, they were much harsher and agitated; secondly, they did not make eye contact with us. Thirdly, when one went to use the toilet, he was accompanied by a paramilitary officer armed with an AK 47 assault rifle and had to leave the door open whilst he went on with his business. There was no privacy as the guard would be pointing the gun at you while relieving yourself. I am very sure that if that coup had succeeded, we would have been summarily executed by the security forces. Chamba Valley was not a gazetted detention centre but was a prison under the jurisdiction of the intelligence system. It was part of the secret places of detention where the torture of political opponents took place. 22 Barotse is basically the plural form of Lozi. This is how the Sotho or Makololo who had occupied Barotseland in the middle of the nineteenth century had addressed the Lozi. The present day Lozi language is a derivative of Sotho from South Africa and Luyana of the Aluyi people (who had originated from present-day DRC). In Silozi there is no “r” as in Sesotho and there is no “ts”. So for every word with “r” in Sesotho, in Silozi it will be pronounced with an “l”. For every word with “ts” in Sesotho, in Silozi, it will be pronounced with “z”. For example, in Sesotho one can say the following: Tsamaya (meaning: go), tsietsi (meaning: danger or trouble), rona (meaning: us/our/ours) or raha/raga - with the “g” pronounced as “h” (meaning: kick). In Silozi these will be pronounced as zamaya (go), ziezi (danger or trouble), luna (us/our/ours) or laha (kick). The name Barotse was reinforced by missionaries like Coillard who spoke Sesotho. 23 Upon advice from his ally, King Khama of the Bamangwato and later Bechuanaland (now Botswana) and to some extent King Moshoeshoe of the Basotho Kingdom (now Lesotho) as well as the French missionary, Françios Coillard, Lewanika sought British “protection”. Lewanika’s kingdom was under threat from the Portuguese and Germans (who he did not trust, probably due to Coillard’s biases which had rubbed off on him). The southern part of Barotseland was also under threat from Ndebele incursions. 24 Lewanika was invited to the Coronation ceremony of King Edward in 1902, which lasted for three months. His departure, after these festivities, was reported in the New York Times of 24 August 1902 with the headlines: FOREIGN POTENTATES DEPART. King Lewanika leaves London for North-western

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Rhodesia, and the Maharaj of Jaipur Sails. The New York Times further commented: “King Lewanika has departed for his kraal in Barotseland, Northwestern Rhodesia, with much impedimenta, one of the most cherished items of which consists of six silk hats.” From my recollection of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton on 29 April 2011, not anyone could just waltz into such royal festivities, now how much for a King of England a hundred and nine years ago? Even Lewanika’s death was announced in the New York Times. An obituary of Lewanika appeared in the edition of the New York Times of 16 February 1916 and reported his death in the following manner: “From Livingstone, Rhodesia, the death is announced of Lewanika, King of Barotseland, a powerful native ruler friendly to the British. Barotseland is in the north-west of Rhodesia. Lewanika had reigned since 1885. He was the twenty-second in a line of rulers. During the early years of his reign he was engaged continuously in native wars. In 1890 he concluded a treaty with the British South Africa Company, acknowledging its supremacy. Lewanika was one of the most interesting guests at the coronation of King Edward, who received him at Buckingham Palace.” I am sure that in the foregoing sentence, “most interesting” could mean a lot of things, but this does not take away the gravitas of Lewanika. 25 As in Matebeleland, thousands of warriors with spears proved ineffectual against maxim-guns and seven-pounders. Villages were burnt down, and on January 25, 1899, Mpenzeni’s town was captured. After this, thousands of Ngoni cattle were taken as booty and many warriors were captured as prisoners. From an administrative point of view, the defeat of Mpenzeni was significant because it allowed the capital of North-Eastern Rhodesia to be set up in the village of his induna, Kapatamoyo and the village was renamed Fort Jameson (Hall, 1965:90). 26 It is clear that the Lozi people had conquered other ethnic groups and I do not want to dwell on such things in modern times. However, I felt compelled to quote at length this description by European scholars (who had nothing to gain from a historical account of the military prowess of the Lozis) in order to set the record straight and show that indeed, Lewanika’s territorial claims were not baseless, as some Zambians now wrongly assert. The second issue I wanted to put forward was the fact that although Lewanika had quite a substantial fighting force, he did not deceive himself by thinking that he could defeat the Europeans. It looks like at the time, Lewanika had already come to terms with the reality that Africa’s paradigm, in regard to development was no longer working in the face of the European onslaught. Instead of leading his people into a futile fight against the encroaching European tide, he had chosen to negotiate with them and at least secure some kind of dispensation for his people and his descendants. So Lewanika did not “sell-out” as some Zambian historians purport, (as he had not entered into treaties for Zambia’s sake, which was not in existence in any event, but for Barotseland) or simply rollover and let the Europeans overrun his kingdom. He was actually a wise and pragmatic leader. The following passages from the work of Smith and Dale (2003) are worth citing in detail: In 1882 he (Lewanika) led an army against the Ba-ila. On arrival at Mamimbwe he reassured Sezongo’s people who were terror-stricken at this sight of the great army: “You are my children, do not fear,” he said. “I am going to the Ba-ila and Batonga.

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If any of you wish to fight, come with us.” A number volunteered, and Lewanika pressed on to the Ba-ila, raiding the cattle from Bambwe, Kasenga, Kabulamwanda, and Bwengwa. On arriving among the Batonga he divided his army, sending one party back under Katema to complete the raiding of the Ba-ila, while he swept through the Batonga country, and so home. Huge herds of cattle were driven off and a great many Ba-ila were left killed, while the Barotse loss was small… (p.42). In 1888, came the final Barotse razzia, Lewanika’s second upon the Ba-ila…The great army - great, at least, for Central Africa - swept like a hurricane or a cloud of locusts through the Ila country. In the absence of any cohesion among the various communities resistance was in vain. Some desultory fighting took place, and some stragglers from the main bands were cut off, but otherwise the loss among the invaders was very small. Many of the Ba-ila fled to their refuges in the mountains, but Lewanika had divided his army into sections, some of which crossed the Kafue, and escape was almost impossible. Some of the chiefs surrendered without any show of resistance. Shaloba of Lubwe, for example, asked to be allowed to submit and pay tribute, and on receiving permission took a stick walking through a herd of cattle dividing it into two, handing the larger portion over to the Barotsi. In other cases, as with Shapela on the north bank, the chiefs not only surrendered but gave much help to the invaders…After leading his men in person - and the sight of him on horseback was a new terror to the Ba-ila - Lewanika returned with the greater part of his army to Barotseland to complete the devastation in the Mbeza district and the hills to the east (pp. 43-44). It must be borne in mind that the Kafue River occupies a significant portion of present day Central and Copperbelt Provinces. This again shows that Lewanika was not lying about the extent of his influence. 27 Gluckman (1955:2) observes that the Barotse nation had for at least two centuries a governmental political organisation including hierarchy of courts which had power to enforce their decisions. Again, this point is made to show that British colonial rule was the main culprit in the dismantling of Barotse institutions.

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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

Social welfare is a crucial vehicle for any country’s progress and prosperity. It guarantees some form of protection to those vulnerable members of society, who cannot care for themselves and through no fault of their own, by establishing mechanisms that support them and allow them to address their problems with the aid of the state. A country’s social welfare system will in most cases mirror its social milieu which also encompasses, among other things, the following: social and economic institutions, cultural and political forces, and the physical environment. Social welfare has emerged in modern times as a society’s way of mitigating the dire circumstances that render people vulnerable in a short space of time, for instance, the loss of employment or livelihoods. It also has a long-term approach to social maladies by paying attention to individuals who face lifelong challenges due to their weak standing such as those afflicted by chronic conditions of ill-health or severe disabilities. Modern societies have also made governments the foundation of public social welfare for citizens. Indeed, one of the expectations of tax paying citizens (and those who are not able to pay taxes through no fault of their own) is that the state assumes the role of social protector if so required. Therefore, nation-states around the world are duty bound to ensure the maintenance of minimum acceptable conditions of living for their citizens and which reduce situations that give rise to social stress and human deprivation. Thus, democratic, effective, functioning and caring states will be preoccupied with the task of guaranteeing an acceptable threshold of human existence for their citizens. Usually, this duty entails providing basic social services such as clean water, sanitation, housing, health-care and education - at least, at the barest minimum to the citizenry. Notably, states cannot do this alone and require partnerships from other critical role-players such as the private sector, civil 99

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society organisations, religious bodies, and organised labour. Nowadays, an integrated and holistic social welfare approach that seeks to meet people’s needs is favoured, due to its comprehensiveness in tackling human want and deprivation. The foreground to the above is the evolution and eventual harmonisation of various efforts aimed at raising the quality of life of the people around the world. In past eras, governments, voluntary associations and charitable organisations dominated this sphere as they were perceived as the main actors in social welfare provision, for example, in the post-Second World War context of Europe and post-colonial Africa, especially during the 1960s. Yet, in contemporary times, international NonGovernmental Organisations (NGOs) and local NGOs are also regarded as crucial players in this arena. What is irrefutable, however, is the fact that societies which value their citizens, have sought from time immemorial, ways and means of looking after their less advantaged members. The notion of looking after the chronically sick, the poor or people with disabilities, was at the heart of the social mores of pre-industrial societies, however imperfectly this may have actually been achieved in practice. In effect, the origins of modern social welfare systems have their historical roots in such arrangements. Though some societies made dramatic transitions from communalism to industrialism, many still continue to be subsumed under traditional modes of existence. For centuries, social welfare in the developing world or in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), has maintained its communal and informal character, whereas in developed countries, social welfare became more formalised with the passage of time. In the northern hemisphere, especially from the mid-eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, social welfare rapidly changed into a more formalised institution. Thus, there was a clear shift from the family to the state in matters of care for the disadvantaged. In order to appreciate the development of social welfare, it is equally important to take cognisance of the different social and political contexts where it had taken root. For instance, it is 100

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pertinent to recognise the unique challenges of African countries where governments are confronted with huge financial constraints, minimal social amenities, high population growth rates which outstrip available resources, and above all, endemic poverty. Here, social welfare is presented with multiple dilemmas. The former underlines the precarious environment in which social welfare interventions are located. In Africa, scarcity defines every aspect of life. Thus, the need for innovative, unorthodox and indigenous-based types of interventions that are relevant to such environs is ever present. In this context, social welfare may erroneously be thought of as not being an arm of development, for example, but it could be seen as impeding other national development priorities, such as economic growth. However, a fixation on just economic growth may lead to growth without well-being, whereby, despite scoring high rates in the Growth Domestic Product (GDP) and accruing high balance of payments, among others, a country may be dogged by extreme incidences of poverty and inequality; unemployment, malnutrition, ill-health and illiteracy. Such growth is inimical to human and social development, and will also impede advancements in the area of social welfare. It must be borne in mind that Zambia is in Africa - which is also the poorest continent on earth. Africa faces huge challenges in meeting the needs of its people and what this means is that African states do not have the luxury of a laissez faire approach. Rather, they should consciously seek after modalities that raise the quality of life of the people, whilst being driven by a strong commitment and zeal to liberate their people from penury and human deprivation. It must also be pointed out that social welfare’s efficacy hinges on the nature and character of the state in which it is functioning. In Africa, where certain states qualify as failed states, for example Somalia (which has not had a functioning central government since 1991), social welfare becomes an informal and survivalist initiative. Such a situation not only poses huge challenges to the development of and the provision of social welfare services, but also creates extremely 101

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negative conditions which in turn exacerbate social problems. Policies and legislation that should be used as instruments to raise the quality of life of ordinary people may be ineffectual or in extreme cases, not there at all. The outcomes of dysfunctional or inexistent states in Africa are manifested in negative living conditions for example, high maternal and infant mortality rates, stunted growth, social dislocation, chronic poverty, and so forth. In most instances, people in Africa have only been able to survive, through their sheer will and tenacity. For this discussion, the point of departure is what is referred to as a caring state and the levels to which it can entrench social welfare in society. A caring state is one that is receptive to the idea of meeting the needs of its citizens as its primary objective. In this case, citizens come first in all its endeavours. It is only a caring state that will support citizens by creating conditions that will enable social welfare to play its preventative, ameliorative, restorative and developmental roles. Caring states are thus distinguished by their legitimateness, which is also dependent on the people’s popular will. Caring states have governments which are chosen by the people and which enable citizens to ensure that their governments respond to their plight, by being democratically accountable. Governments will thus be compelled to act accordingly because they owe their existence to the people. This is not the same for an uncaring state. An uncaring state is one that is characterised by its illegitimacy and lack of democratic accountability. It is a state which has a government which has not been constituted by the popular will of the people, through a free and fair election for example. An uncaring state would have been usurped by few elite individuals or hijacked by an elite segment of the population, whilst claiming to represent the majority. In cases where change of government is only through military coup d’états, civil wars and other forms of insurrection (which seem to be the main mechanisms in most of Africa), social welfare responses may be doomed to failure. Rulers of such states may not see the need to serve the people, but see themselves as demi-gods who need to be served by the people. 102

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Invariably, social problems flourish in such settings because leaders do not represent the aspirations of the people, as they have imposed themselves on the masses. Thus, instead of championing better ways of meeting the needs of the people, for instance, they will be prone to pillaging state assets for personal use. There is no accountability in an uncaring state and institutions are personalised by a small group of individuals who champion the interests of the ruling class. Since these regimes usually have corrupt leaders at their helm, they are not supportive of the concept of social welfare because it diametrically differs with their self-serving philosophical orientation. Since social welfare’s philosophical leanings are of an altruistic nature, an uncaring state will definitely eschew its mission. This discussion contends that Zambia seems to fall in between a caring and uncaring state, where attributes of the two remain intertwined. Social welfare resonates with Africa’s traditional past and epitomises the communal and reciprocal ties that bound various African communities together before the advent of colonial rule. Africans were, in many cases, attached to each other through reciprocal relations of social support embedded in cultural norms and practices. Africans were thus widely renowned for their historic generosity in regard to those who faced difficulties. Many African values, customs, idioms, poems, songs and riddles attest to this. In these times, it was considered taboo to ridicule the infirm, elders or people with disabilities. Mendicants were quite rare in the village environment due to the fact that families were obliged to look after their less fortunate members. In such circumstances, widows, orphans and the aged were cared for by their relatives. The family was the first form of defence against want and deprivation as it provided for the emotional, material and spiritual support of its members. Mutual-help reinforced family solidarity as adults provided for the needs of children whilst the elderly socialised them. Children supplied labour and companionship to parents and grandparents (Boon, 2007). A family was distinguishable from the presented Western model of a nuclear family consisting of a father, mother and children. In its 103

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African form it consisted of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. This is known as the extended family and it acted as an organic social security system that provided protection to its members. It was and still is (in the case of informal social welfare) based on the principles of solidarity and reciprocity, and dependent on members supporting each other in difficult circumstances. In the past, people lived in closely-knit groups usually linked by kinship ties and accepted obligations of mutual support. The arrangement of families into clans was the most common feature of the period and clan members were all kinsmen as they believed that they were all descended from a common ancestor (Roberts, 1976). The traditional society did not encourage individualistic tendencies. Traditional life was inclusive and had a web of relationships of mutual responsibility that were widely spread (Kaunda and Morris, 1966). It is important to point out, however, that this situation was not unique to Africa alone at the time, but was widespread in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The difference is that some of these areas later industrialised and eroded their kinship systems, while as in Africa they remained almost intact even during the first wave of colonisation. Likewise, social roles in the traditional society were very distinct in terms of age and sex. In this way, social problems were not individualised, but seen as emanating from the inability of a person to perform his or her prescribed roles in the society. Special emphasis was therefore placed on these roles in so far as they defined one’s status in society, for instance, the way teenagers were initiated into adulthood via initiation ceremonies. However, it must be understood that the traditional society was neither utopia nor an ideal state. This discussion does not seek an idealised re-invention of the past, but merely intends to shed some light on the socio-political and economic conditions that existed in pre-colonial Africa and Zambia. Africa presents a unique case in so far as social welfare issues are concerned. In many parts of the continent, traditional social welfare systems still exist alongside modern institutions. This 104

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can be partly explained by the state’s inability to secure people’s well-being, due to the continent’s underdeveloped nature - a chief feature of its colonial inheritance. The former also contributes towards weakened social welfare systems on the continent - even though these came into being due to colonial rule. However, post-colonial Africa’s inability to break out of the mould of colonial institutions and its failure to recalibrate them, so that they could adequately tackle the development deficits on the continent, continues to render many Africans powerless in matters of development. Because African countries were unable to discard the colonial social, economic and political templates that were crafted for them by the colonialists, independence did not translate into a process of sustained social and economic development. Zambia, like most of post-colonial Africa, used the colonial frameworks as building-blocks for a new social welfare dispensation, after the attainment of independence. Naturally, Zambian social welfare was modelled on the British system as it was colonised by this country. In the early years of independence, former colonial officials and other expatriates reinforced the colonial legacy through Eurocentric social welfare models and intervention strategies. Also, since social welfare services in the colonial era were geared towards safeguarding the needs of the colonisers and not of the local people, this led to illinformed interventions that were mostly not attuned to local conditions, especially in the first decade after independence. Despite the fact that formalised social welfare systems were inherited from the previous colonial “masters” (in many instances without much alteration); this form of social intervention, in a re-fashioned form, has a critical role to play in resuscitating and sustaining Africa’s development prospects. The key however, lies in the way social welfare can be reshaped in order to suit African conditions and thereafter appropriately respond to the needs of the people. The African family has been playing decisive roles in lessening the effects of deplorable conditions in which people find themselves. For example, during the adverse effects of the Structural Adjustment Programme 105

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(SAP) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, from the 1970s onwards, the family stepped into the void of state inaction. But the family could not adequately play its traditional and historical roles. This was due to the unfortunate fact that modernity and urbanisation had already eroded this institution over the years and also helped to dismantle most of its value system. The transition from communal life to so-called modernity was not gradual in Africa, but extremely violent and dislocating. In most cases, its purported outcomes destabilised family life and underdeveloped communities. The brutal form which modernity often took under colonialism uprooted Africans from their cultures and alienated them from their livelihoods and ways of existence. The type of colonisation associated with this type of modernity sometimes obliterated indigenous systems of knowledge, governance and social organisation, and denuded the overall consciousness of Africans. Since many post-colonial governments were caricatures of colonial administrative systems, they did not attempt to totally transform themselves into motors of development. In certain cases, they sought to maintain the status quo. Many governments in post-colonial Africa were disabled from the beginning, as some of their neo-colonial functionaries maintained the existing state of affairs. It will only take a revolutionary and anti-imperialist generation, to effect fundamental social change on the continent and liberate the masses from poverty, ignorance, disease and other social afflictions. If not, then ideas, theories and approaches related to development and human well-being will continue to be derived from the former colonisers and their allies. As there was no total severance with the old colonial order, some African governments have for many decades remained in a state of paralysis. The Context Zambia is a landlocked country situated in south-central Africa, with an area of 752, 614 km². Zambia’s neighbours are Angola in the west, Botswana in the south, Namibia to the south-west, the 106

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Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to the north, Malawi towards the east, Mozambique to the south-east and Tanzania is in the north-eastern direction, while Zimbabwe is directly south of the country. According to preliminary results of the country’s 2010 census, its population stands at 13,046,508, with 49 per cent males and 51 per cent females. Regional distribution of the population shows that 7,978,274 people (61 per cent) reside in rural areas and 5,068,234 (39 per cent) live in urban areas. At the provincial level, Lusaka, the capital city, has the largest population of 2,198,996 followed by the Copperbelt at 1,958,623. The Northern Province is the third largest with 1,759,600 followed by the Eastern and Southern provinces at 1,707,731 and 1,606,793 respectively. Exhibiting the lowest population numbers are Luapula Province, Western Province and the North-Western Province with 958,976; 881,524 and 706,462 in that order (Central Statistical Office, 2011). The country now known as Zambia was comprised of two territories of NorthWestern Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia before 1911. Afterwards, the former territories were amalgamated to form the colony of Northern Rhodesia in 1924. Before this merging of territories, the British South Africa Company (BSAC) ruled the area. At the helm was Cecil Rhodes who was an ardent proponent of British imperialism. The BSAC was preoccupied with the exploitation of natural resources and specifically minerals for export to Britain. It was not concerned with the development of the area and built only basic infrastructure during its rule, so as to facilitate the export of the territory’s natural resources to Britain. Zambia was not a homogenous society prior to colonial rule, but a heterogeneous spread of polities with autonomous boundaries. Pre-colonial Zambia was initially inhabited by the San people. Later on, immigrations from the Luba-Lunda Kingdom resulted in many Bantu ethnic groups settling in present-day Zambia. Eventually these groups drove out the San people. Pre-colonial Zambia was always in a state of flux as there were migrations, inter-ethnic wars and long distance trade 107

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unfolding in the area. During these times, almost all the different ethnic groups eked out a living by existing on a subsistence basis. They gathered fruits, dug roots, hunted, cultivated crops or in some cases, kept livestock. Land was the most important and abundant resource that people could access as well as exploit for their benefit. The main impediment to further commercial development was among other things, low technological levels. In the past, different ethnic groups rarely harmoniously coexisted and usually the weaker ones were susceptible to pillage from those that were powerful. In order to escape subjection and plunder, some ethnic groups migrated while others sought protection from powerful polities that would simply assimilate them. On the eve of colonial rule there existed four well organised kingdoms namely: the Lozi or Barotse in the west, Ngoni in the east, and the Lunda and Bemba in the north. These territories were quite advanced both militarily and politically and their interactions with the new intruders would vary over the decades before colonial rule was cemented. They were also powerful and controlled vast areas of influence where they obtained tribute from subject ethnic groups. They had fairly sophisticated forms of political organisation and ruled via centralised and devolved political systems, through kings, chiefs, headmen and indunas or councillors. The rulers further played crucial roles in social and political matters, and were perceived by their subjects as their custodians because they also allocated land, grazing grounds, and fishing sites in accordance with the customs of the community. Furthermore, they arbitrated in disputes and organised the defence of the group and were expected to be generous lords (Gann, 1958). Religion also played vital roles in ordering the lives of most communities during these times. Priests and priestesses relied upon ancestors to mediate on behalf of the people, between the spiritual world and life on earth. Descent in many parts of pre-colonial Zambia was predominantly matrilineal and was reckoned through the female line. In some instances, it was patrilineal and determined through the male line 108

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and to a lesser extent, bilateral, whereby it was defined from both the female and male lines (Roberts, 1976). In such simple existence, life revolved around the village. Even though the forces and relations of production were rudimentary, these societies were able to harness natural resources for their common good. Between the years 1830 and 1840, profound transformations unfolded in the area later called Zambia. These were dependent on three cardinal factors, namely: the migration of powerful warrior groups from the south escaping the ravages of Shaka’s wars of conquest; the coming of slave raiders from Zanzibar and, the arrival of missionaries (Hall, 1965). These forces converged on Zambia and re-shaped its historical course. Out of the aforementioned, slave trade emerged as the most dislocating and debilitating force. The trade in humans claimed countless victims, leaving many areas bereft of human beings. Payments for slaves to the local chiefs were in the form of cloths, guns and gun-powder. The proliferation of guns and gun-powder further fuelled inter-ethnic wars and led to the demand for slaves by the Arabs. The migration of ethnic groups from the south altered both the cultural and linguistic patterns in the western and eastern parts of the country. Eastern Zambia was occupied by an Nguni speaking group known as the Ngoni, led by Zwangendaba and the west was conquered by a Sotho group that was led by Sebetwane. The arrival of European colonisers was the most significant force to envelop pre-colonial Zambia. Colonial rule was inadvertently aided by the penetration of the interior of central Africa by missionaries such as David Livingstone. Livingstone encouraged the subsequent immigration of other missionaries, traders and administrators into central Africa. The Paris Missionary Society (PMS) which gained a foothold in Barotseland was the first organised body to settle in the country and was followed by the London Missionary Society (LMS) that made an in-road into Zambia from the north. These Christian organisations were Protestant groups and would convert Africans

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into this form of Christianity. Church sermons and education curricula served as vital avenues for this endeavour. Missionaries were also the initiators of social welfare activities in colonial Zambia. Their motives were very different from those of the colonialists, as religion (or Christianity) was the major driving force behind their efforts. After colonial occupation, the colonial authorities’ efforts in this arena were piece-meal and were meant to maintain the colonial set-up where Africans would remain subdued. They were not oriented towards developing the locals. When Zambia attained independence in 1964, there were attempts to re-tailor social welfare approaches to the needs of the Zambian people. The first African government to take over from Britain embarked on an ambitious and fast-paced programme of action that aimed to elevate the standards of living of the majority of the people who were confined at the time to illiteracy, disease and poverty. Due to the colonial authorities’ neglect of the plight of Africans, through their policies of racial segregation, the new post-colonial government was faced with a monumental task. It took up the challenge and even managed to make huge strides in developing health-care and education infrastructure, and heavily invested in social development. However, the economy was heavily dependent on copper as the main export commodity. Development programmes - at least in the decade after independence - could be financed from the profits of copper sales. At the time, the ideology of the ruling party, the United National Independence Party (UNIP) dictated the pace as well as the content of development. Major policies in the social and economic arenas were brought in line with the ideology of Humanism. This ideology sought to establish an egalitarian and non-racial society based on its principle of “man” being the centre of all human activities. It was for this reason that social services were free and universal to all citizens in the decades of the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. The government also placed great emphasis on community development in the same decades as an important arm of social welfare. 110

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From the mid-1980s to the 1990s, the living conditions in the country plummeted to low levels, thus making the lives of many Zambians extremely difficult. Even though standards of living had been slowly declining from the 1970s, this period witnessed an immediate sharp declining in the living standards of most Zambians. By the end of the twentieth century things were simply deplorable. As the country’s economy continued to plunge further downhill, Zambia’s politics also changed. A new political and economic order, which was neo-liberal in content dawned on Zambia. This situation came to pass after the UNIP government and the first president of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, were defeated at the polls in 1991 by the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) of Frederick Chiluba. From thereon, the new government would strictly implement economic reforms as prescribed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Unfortunately, the MMD government did not effectively deal with the social costs of adjustment and hence such economic reforms only translated into heightened social dislocation exemplified by huge job losses through retrenchments, and high levels of poverty and chronic hunger. There was also less accountability on the part of the government and its officials as corruption was left unchecked. From 1991 to about 1996, the ruling MMD rushed through the liberalisation of the economy and abolished subsidies in key areas of health-care, food, transport and education without providing sufficient safetynets for the casualties of the economic restructuring programme. The attendant privatisation of state firms was also riddled with serious anomalies and lacked critical ethics. The SAP was the key policy imperative during the 1990s. In spite of this, social ills were amplified exponentially in the said period. By the beginning of the new millennium, Zambia’s economic prospects were beginning to brighten once more after a grim period of almost 30 years. The copper prices were on the upswing and the government began to take concrete steps to arrest the extreme poverty levels in the country. New social welfare measures such as the cash transfer scheme were 111

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instituted, (albeit under the patronage and guidance of donors). Discussions were also underway for the introduction of broader social security measures in the country. By 2005, when the country was ruled by a new president, Levy Mwanawasa, the country’s economic growth hovered around 6 per cent per annum and inflation had drastically reduced to single digit levels. Mwanawasa’s administration also began to approach the restructuring of the economy in a more sober manner. Despite this, the economic fortunes began to dim with the onset of the global financial crisis towards the end of 2008. The resulting effects of this global downturn were extremely dire: the price of copper again plummeted, mines and factories shut down and retrenched workers and people were again struggling to make ends meet. Notwithstanding, it seemed Zambia weathered the financial storm. After Levy Mwanawasa passed away in 2008, Rupiah Banda was elected as the new president of the country on an MMD ticket. He would sign significant bilateral co-operative agreements with China which led to the resuscitation of the mines, which had been abandoned by certain investors during the global economic crisis. In the process, some jobs were reactivated whilst others were created, thus at least guaranteeing some Zambians steady income vital for sustaining their livelihoods. But the problem in Zambia still remains that of economic growth without human well-being. Only a minority of political elites seem to be benefitting from the growth in the economy, whilst the majority of Zambians continue to wallow in abject poverty. Given the foregoing, it can be argued that the social welfare system and all the relevant players in the welfare arena are at a cross-roads. The international global recession has again reminded some Zambians of the economic crisis of the 1970s which was triggered by external factors and accentuated by internal bad planning. It also places under the spotlight the continued dependence of the country on copper, whose revenue is critical for Zambia’s social welfare initiatives. The reality is that copper prices will continue to be unstable and therefore the 112

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call for the diversification away from copper needs to be embraced by all Zambians. There is a need to bolster the economy through sound investments in agriculture, tourism and manufacturing so that the country generates revenues in nonmining areas. This will lead to a sustainable way of funding social welfare endeavours. Over and above these moves, the international financial crisis has also shown the need for both the government and civil society to arrive at potent and developmentally-oriented social welfare efforts. Such measures have to be innovative in order to effectively respond to the offshoots of the harsh economic austerity measures of the past and the just ended global economic downturn, and even future economic shocks. Scope of the Book This book explores the genesis of social welfare in Zambia, and traces its origins from the pre-colonial period, the colonial era, and throughout the post-colonial period. The first chapter introduces social welfare and the context for discussion. Chapter two brings to light theoretical issues that generally relate to social welfare. It pays attention to concepts that are used in the book and shows how social welfare emerged in other societies, primarily Britain - given the fact that Zambia was also a British colony and that this country was a pioneer in this area. Chapter three traces the development of social welfare in colonial Africa. Chapter four then discusses the historical roots of social welfare in Zambia. It highlights early social welfare activities in the colonial set-up that were propelled by the missionaries, mining companies and the colonial authorities. Chapter five then examines social welfare in post-colonial Zambia after the country had gained independence from Britain in 1964. It shows how social welfare concerns have evolved in the four decades Zambia has been independent and under different political administrations. Chapter six examines poverty and inequality in Zambia. It also examines the phenomenon of social exclusion in 113

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the country. Concepts and theoretical constructs relating to the former are also put forward. Chapter seven concludes the book’s discussions and reflects on future prospects for social welfare in the country.

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CHAPTER TWO UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL WELFARE

The purpose of this chapter is to provide greater conceptual clarity on the subject matter of this work as well as anchor the book in a theoretical framework. The chapter does this by critically interrogating the concept of social welfare. It also highlights state, private and non-state interventions, which are closely associated with social welfare, in order to illustrate their role in the forms of social provision in a country. Pre-Colonial Africa and the Genesis of Social Welfare As noted in the previous chapter, every society has certain mechanisms of protecting its disadvantaged members from adversities. However, societies are not only concerned with meeting the needs of disadvantaged individuals. They also have an interest in the general well-being of all their members, including those who are not experiencing social problems. Various societies, especially in the pre-industrial era, had attended to the plight of individuals through family structures. Due to this, indigenous systems of social welfare and social protection existed in Africa before the advent of colonial rule. Evidently, colonialism had led to the usurpation of indigenous systems by those of Europeans. In certain instances, the indigenous systems were wiped out altogether. Even though social welfare systems existed in pre-colonial Africa, the institutional arrangements for such were informal, partly continuing to endure in this form in contemporary times. As will be shown in the next chapter, social welfare that was exported from Europe - by different colonial administrations - was formal and Eurocentric. In Zambia, the British experience was imposed upon the local people and their indigenous systems. In another light, it is important to mention that poverty, like in other societies, existed in pre-colonial Africa. The poor were thus a 115

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population of concern to pre-colonial African communities. In the main, social welfare actions in pre-colonial Africa arose out of the need to tackle poverty, vulnerability and human deprivation. It is important to note that even though pre-colonial African polities were mostly egalitarian, they were not in all cases classless societies. Some were even hierarchical as well as stratified. For instance, there was the ruling class which controlled the political and economic institutions of certain areas. In kingdoms,28 these elites were mainly in the form of royal establishments and/or aristocracies. People with certain skills or trade such as iron-makers, farmers, crafts-men, herbalists, miners, mid-wives, priests, priestesses and diviners were accorded special statuses in pre-colonial Africa. Opportunities for wealth accumulation varied according to one’s place in the social hierarchy. Therefore, wealth was a common feature in precolonial Africa. Although it was not monetary by definition, wealth signified an individual’s influence in such societies. Mainly, wealth was measured in terms of land, livestock, prestigious titles, skills, wisdom, talent, or the number of serfs, servants or slaves one had; wives and even children. Wealth was acquired through birth, talent or as reward for individual bravery or dexterity. For example, warriors who had exceptionally proved themselves in battle were rewarded with land or livestock or elevated to chieftaincy or other high-ranking positions by their rulers. Conversely, individuals who did not have the above attributes would surely end up as paupers or nonentities in precolonial Africa. Individuals who were born in certain families such as those of serfs or slaves, or those who were considered outcasts would inevitably end up poor. Another category of the poor was that of people with disabilities or those who were born with debilitating diseases such as leprosy. In this context, the extended family or the kinship system looked after the poor. Commercial transactions or trade at the time were mainly via the barter system. In certain parts of pre-colonial Africa cowries and copper crosses were used as currencies in the exchange of goods. 116

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Pre-colonial Zambia resembled most, it not all, the African societies of the time. Needless to say, just as Africa is not one country, so was the case of pre-colonial Africa. Various kingdoms and polities had their own forms of social organisation which were also dictated upon by their cultures and traditions. Therefore, different ethnic groups had various systems of social welfare provision. For instance, in well-organised pre-colonial societies, the livelihoods of people were more secure than in fragile, nomadic or hunter-gatherer societies. This in turn was linked to how quickly social ills could be responded to or averted. The Barotse kingdom or Bulozi in western Zambia is an example of a well organised and highly centralised pre-colonial society which had sophisticated forms of social organisation.29 Not only were there political and economic institutions in this state, but there were also juridical systems as well. Ordinary citizens also exercised their democratic right to criticise the ruling class when things were considered as not going well in the Barotse kingdom. However, the evolution of such advanced precolonial kingdoms, from feudalism to industrialisation or modernisation, was undermined by colonialism. And this is the African tragedy, whereby the continent has not had a chance to define its own development trajectory as other societies. Even where there was colonial rule in other parts of the world, the ferocity, brutality, penetration and intensity of colonialism in Africa is unparalleled. Europe’s obsession to totally destroy Africa’s indigenous institutions and replace them with foreign ones is the starting-point of formalised social welfare in Africa. It is also the root of most of Africa’s present-day alienated psyches - with entire African peoples using English, French, Portuguese and Spanish as official languages of communication, or equally worshipping in foreign faiths of Christianity and Islam. While Europe evolved organically, from communalism to industrialisation and modernisation, Africa was coerced into an alternative path of underdevelopment characterised by violent dispossession, conquest and indoctrination. The latter was achieved by missionary teachings and religious instructions, 117

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whilst the former was undertaken by the colonial administrators of different European empires. The missionaries and the enforcers of colonialism achieved a far greater historical impact on the African development process than the Africans themselves - for instance, the inability of countries to create an Africanised development agenda, based on and informed by indigenous knowledge systems. However, what is noteworthy is that Africa was not passive and simply capitulated during its conquest. Different polities had resisted time after time. Nonetheless, Africa’s military weakness was evidenced by its inability to muster fire-power and organise weapons of mass destruction compared to Europeans. This is what gave Europe the edge over other societies, but also the bizarre belief or obsession that Africans, and equally other non-Europeans, were not to be considered humans, but primitive savages who had to be “civilised” or exterminated. Although industrialisation has been recorded as starting in Europe, it must be noted that Africans also influenced the historical development of technology. Africans south of the Sahara were active innovators and not, as they have often been depicted, the passive receivers of things invented elsewhere. Africans in at least two different parts of the continent discovered how to mine, smelt and work copper. Even more striking because it conflicts with widely accepted ideas, Africans living in the heart of the continent appear independently to have invented the smelting and forging of iron. This development took place before 1000 BCE (Ehret, 2002:14). Furthermore, changes in such diverse fields of endeavour as boat-making, agricultural technology and architecture were key elements in the overall panorama of history with great stone-walled structures of the capital city of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, built without mortar yet still standing centuries later. There is also now good evidence that the weaving of cotton began separately in Africa and much earlier than the development of metallurgy. Its inventors were Africans who lived south of the Sahara along the middle reaches of the Nile River around and before 5000 BCE. Another notable 118

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ancient kind of textile making in Africa was the weaving of raffia cloth, a skill that apparently arose several millennia ago in West Africa (Ehret, 2002:14). The Evolution of Social Welfare in Europe The industrial age in Europe threatened existing institutions such as the family and the landed aristocracy. With industrialisation also came the rise of the working class and the emergence of new social needs such as mass housing for this new urban group and attendant health-care. This placed demands on the state to secure these people’s livelihoods. It was during this period when European feudal societies began to be transformed into industrial cities, that traditional forms of social welfare became ineffectual. In Europe, the industrial revolution resulted in the institutionalisation of the residual welfare process that saw a shift from the family and kin to religious bodies, voluntary organisations and ultimately to the state. Therefore, social welfare coverage in Europe developed from punitive measures to humane responses in regard to human deprivation. Despite this, it needs to be borne in mind that regulated approaches to human need preceded the advent of industrialisation and widespread urbanisation. For example, the English Poor Laws30 which embodied official attitudes to welfare were instituted in Britain as series of individual acts between 1572 and 1600, and formally codified (in what was expected to be temporary legislation) in 1601. These laws nominally extended to every part of Britain and aimed at a complete and systematic maintenance of the parishes to which they belonged for all sections of the indigent needing relief (King, 2000). The Poor Laws were fortified by four central principles: 1.

That each parish (and from 1662 some individual townships in large parishes) had a duty to provide outdoor relief for those who were “impotent” (the so-called “deserving poor” comprising the old, the sick and children), work for those who could not find it and punishment for those who were able bodied and unwilling to work - the so-called “vagabonds” (collectively the “undeserving poor”).

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2. 3. 4.

That local relief needs were to be met by the local tax called the poor rate, based upon property. That since poverty was a local phenomenon; its relief should be largely unfettered by national and regional government. That community relief was to be the last court of resort, to be applied for and dispensed only where private philanthropies, help from kin and individual self-help had been exhausted (King, 2000:20).

Initially, the state was not the key player in social welfare matters in Europe but it encouraged efforts from the family, religious bodies and voluntary associations. The philosophy informing social welfare was mainly residual and responded to people’s needs in a pathological way. This meant that those who were in need were seen as the problem and not casualties of systemic failures of the economy - or products of social exclusion - because of lack of opportunities stemming from an extremely hierarchical society. After enduring for centuries the residual approach was effectively challenged by the forces of social change, which brought about a reconfiguration of the British society. This scenario would later have implications for social welfare in the British colonies, including Zambia. After many years of citizens fighting for their rights and after two World Wars, a good number of European states had to make crucial compromises to the working class. In Britain, the state’s response to the needs of the working class and ordinary Britons gave birth to the welfare state. The welfare state emerged after the Second World War31 in the wake of the Beveridge Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services of 1942.32 The Beveridge Report proposed a mix of universal and comprehensive policies through which the government became positively responsible for the promotion of individual welfare. The core principles of the welfare state have been conventionally equated with the “five giants”, on the road to reconstruction, identified in the Beveridge Report, namely: want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. This report also hinged on the following pillars: social security and the personal social services, the health service, education, housing and employment policy (Jones and Lowe, 2002). Therefore, a welfare state is a 120

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form of state in which organised power is deliberately used (through politics and administration) in an effort to modify the play of market forces in at least three directions: 1. 2.

3.

By guaranteeing individuals and families a minimum income irrespective of the market value of their work or their property; By narrowing the extent of insecurity by enabling individuals and families to meet certain “social contingencies” (for example, sickness, old age and unemployment) which lead otherwise to individual and family crises; and By ensuring that all citizens without distinction of status or class are offered the best standards available in relation to certain agreed range of social services (Briggs, 2006:16).

From the above, it can be ascertained that Europe had defined its own social welfare path - which was also largely dependent on trial and error efforts; the prevailing and unique circumstances and conditions in this region, and innovation and the will of the state to arrive at a progressive social contract with the citizenry. However, Africa was not afforded this opportunity as social welfare was imposed on its people by European missionaries and colonial administrators as already mentioned. Secondly, it can also be discerned that the welfare state is located within the capitalist economic and state paradigm. It is a response to the socially negative consequences of the capitalist system. However and more importantly, the centrality of the role of the state in social welfare has been a dominant feature in Europe for decades. Despite the neo-liberal attempt in the 1970s to roll back the state, the European narrative of social welfare has always located a consistent role for the state to mediate the worst effects of market failure. This issue is crucial in that even though the welfare state is at the heart of the capitalist system - with its neoliberal ideology determining the content and scope of social welfare provision - Western European nations have never called for the removal of the state from this equation, since the end of the Second World War. This can be contrasted with sub-Saharan Africa or the rest of the developing world, where states were compelled or forced to abdicate their roles and responsibilities of 121

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meeting the welfare needs of their citizens, by the prescriptions of international financial institutions. For example, the World Bank and the IMF were at the forefront of actions that aimed to diminish the role of the state in sub-Saharan Africa in the name of economic austerity measures. In addition, European and North American donor countries have also been consistently advocating the need to diminish the role of the state in sub-Saharan Africa in favour of market driven provisions. These mostly Western countries aim to determine the development agendas of low income countries through aid by funding what they deem as “national priorities”. However, this is usually incongruent with what such countries require to develop. Unpacking Social Welfare There are many definitions of social welfare underlined by the ideology and intellectual tradition of those who are defining the concept. The historical and institutional context in which social welfare emerged is paramount to the task of defining what social welfare is. Social welfare is also shaped by cultural, political and economic processes. An extensive literature review revealed that the bulk of definitions of the term are from a Western perspective - this, in reference to the formalised version of social welfare. Such conceptualisations of social welfare are also a direct product of colonialism. Even in Zambia, the formalised version of social welfare remains a legacy of colonialism. Three aspects seem to permeate definitions of social welfare: 1. 2.

3.

Social welfare includes a variety of programmes and services that result in some type of client-specific benefit. Social welfare, defined as a system of programmes and services, is designed to meet the needs of the people. The needs to be addressed can be all-encompassing, including economic and social well-being, health, education, and overall quality of life, or they may be restricted, targeting one issue. The outcome of social welfare policy is to improve the well-being of individuals, groups and communities (Colby, 2008:116).

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The term social welfare, then, refers to the full range of organised activities and voluntary agencies that seek to prevent, alleviate or contribute to solving a selected set of social problems (Ambrosino, et al., 2008). The operative word here is “organised” and thus this makes social welfare take on its formal character. For this text, social welfare is taken in its holistic form which denotes cultural, economic, social, political and psychological well-being of a nation. Classifications of Social Welfare Given its complexity, social welfare has generated much debate within numerous scholars and international organisations. Some of the understandings about this issue have been classified as welfare regimes, approaches, ideologies or models. It must be noted that these are merely representations of ideal-type taxonomies which involve developing ways of classifying a country’s welfare processes, comparing quantitative aggregate data relating to the timing of national legislation and welfare expenditure. They are also frameworks that specify key features of different kinds of welfare systems (May, 2003). Also, they are useful heuristic devises through which the impact of characteristic “bundlings” of institutions and behaviour may be assessed. Although the foci of regime typologies will vary, all of these approaches share the assumption that institutions may be seen as “intervening variables” that mediate between assumed causal factors and their effects (Crompton, 2006). There is need for caution though, in that typologies may be problematic because parsimony is brought at the expense of nuance, but especially due to the fact they are inherently static. They provide a snapshot of the world at one point in time and do not easily capture change or the birth of new institutional forms of welfare provision. Typologies of welfare regimes are therefore context and history specific (Esping-Andersen, 1999).33

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Although differing typologies can be found in the literature, until recently the most influential were variants that were advanced by the American writers Wilensky and Lebeaux in Industrial Society and Social Welfare. Writing in the wake of the post-Second World War settlements in 1958, they distinguished two “models of welfare”: the “residual”, based on the principles of economic individualism and free enterprise, and “institutional”, based on the notions of security, equality and humanitarianism (May, 2003:21). For Wilensky and Lebeaux, the residual formulation is based on the premise that there are two “natural” channels through which an individual’s needs are properly met, namely the family and the market economy. The authors go on to point out that the two institutions are the preferred structures of supply, but sometimes they do not always function adequately. When this situation takes place, the idea is that a third mechanism of need fulfilment is instituted, namely, the social welfare structure. The notion behind the residual model is that, although society should help in emergencies, people in need are responsible for their own problems and should solve them with minimal state intervention. The residual perspective prescribes short-term, stop-gap welfare measures that last only until the family or market economy can resume their functions. A major criterion is whether people earn more than a set level of income and possess assets valued above a certain amount. Therefore, in order to access a certain service they will be obliged to undertake a means test that will establish whether they are eligible or not, based on their income levels. The means test aims to ensure that applicants do not get more help than they should (Wilensky and Lebeaux, 1958). The foregoing view of social welfare is set within a wider model of society and state which seeks to explain the formation of social structures in all societies and is often referred to as a convergence theory. It is a functionalist approach which proposes that the most important factor influencing the development of social structures and social institutions is neither political consensus nor political conflict. Rather, it is the development of 124

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industrial technology which influences societies’ institutional patterns (Sullivan, 1987:79). Industrial society’s relevance to the development of social welfare can be described in the following manner: 1. As societies developed an industrial base, so the relatively simple exchange relationships of agrarian social formations were replaced by more complex industrial economies. As the self-employed farmers, craftsmen etc. were replaced by industrial workers so employment for a wage became the dominant form of economic exchange between workers and employers. 2. Industrial society also requires increased levels of formal education. Education policies can as a result be seen as acting as the handmaiden of industrialism. 3. Industrial societies also tend to create high levels of social disorganisation and dislocation in the initial stage of industrialisation and at later points of development (Sullivan, 1987:79).

The British academic Richard Titmuss also echoed the above stand-points by interrogating the residual and institutional functions of social policy in a capitalist society. Titmuss was the most eloquent and persuasive proponent of the institutional conception of social welfare. He elevated social welfare debates to a moral level stressing their role in motivating altruistic sentiments and creating a just and caring society. Titmuss also argued that social welfare was much more than aid to the poor and in fact represented a broad system of support to the middle and upper classes. In his model, social welfare includes three separate but very distinct facets: (i) fiscal welfare - tax benefits and supports for the middle classes; (ii) corporate welfare - tax benefits and supports for businesses; and (iii) public welfare assistance to the poor. He argued that social welfare reflects an institutional perspective (Midgley, 2003; Colby, 2008). T.H. Marshall also made certain propositions regarding social welfare. Marshall’s seminal approach to citizenship sees state involvement in social welfare as developing from a consensus where societal agreement emerged out of a social consensus on state provision of welfare between the middle class and the working class. In his article entitled Citizenship and Social Class 125

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(1963) Marshall argued that full membership of a community or society is contingent on the individual’s possession of three sets of citizen rights namely: civil rights, political rights and social rights. Essentially, civil rights are those that are concerned with individual liberty, and include freedom and thought, the right to own private property and the right to justice. Political rights are primarily those rights of participation in the political process of government, either as an elector or as an elected member of an assembly. Social rights cover a whole range of rights - from the right to a modicum of economic security, to the right to share in the heritage and living standards of civilised society. State provided welfare is taken by Marshall as part of the package of social rights which are one element of the rights of citizenship (Sullivan, 1987:71). The welfare regime perspective was popularised by EspingAndersen through his work: The three worlds of welfare capitalism typology (1990). According to this author, there were three forms of welfare capitalism or types of welfare states, namely: social democratic (basically the Nordic countries), “conservative” (continental Europe) and “liberal” (the AngloSaxon nations). In this analysis, Esping-Andersen puts forward the view that welfare states are not merely mechanisms that intervene in the structure of social inequality, but that instead, they actively operate as systems of stratification since they confer differential rights to benefits. Such rights are predicated on the balance of forces between state, market and family - a balance that varies from society to society. According to EspingAndersen, such variations cluster in distinct welfare state regimes which have arisen as a consequence of differential political mobilisation on the part of the national working class, often in concert with other social classes (Butler and Watt, 2007). Esping-Andersen constructs a regime typology in which different welfare states are clustered around their ability to promote “decommodification” in relation to three social welfare programmes: pensions, sickness and unemployment cash benefits. Decommodification occurs when a service is rendered 126

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as a matter of right, and when a person can maintain a livelihood without reliance on the market. In other words, decommodification refers to the extent to which people can uphold a reasonable standard of living even if they retire, are sick or unemployed. The more generous the benefits the state pays under such circumstances and the easier the eligibility rules the state sets, the greater the degree of decommodification (Butler and Watt, 2007:102). Karl Marx on Capitalism and the Welfare State Pierson’s (2006:12-14) examination of capitalism and the welfare state is instructive. He notes that the radical divergence between Marx and classical political economy lies not in his view of the relationship between capitalism and the welfaresecuring state, but in his account of the (ever more acute) inability of capitalist economic organisation to secure “genuine” individual and social welfare. At the heart of Marx’s critiques of capitalism were the basic claims drawn from classical political economy: first that capitalism is an economic system based on the production and exchange of privately owned commodities with an unconstrained market; and secondly, that the value of any commodity is an expression of the amount of labour expanded on its production. Pierson (2006) further observes that on these premises, Marx develops an account of capitalism as a necessarily exploitative and class-based system, one in which unpaid labour is extracted from the sellers of labour power by the owners of capital under the form of a “free and equal exchange” in the market place. The third element that Marx derives from classical political economy is the claim that capitalism is a dynamic system in which the competitive search for profit and responses to the long-term tendency for the rate of profit to fall lead to intensification of exploitation and the heightening of class conflict. In summary, Pierson (2006) notes that the state under capitalism might intervene in the reproduction of social relations, but it could not (1) intervene in such a way as to undermine the 127

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logic of the capitalist market economy; or (2) act against the long term interests of the capitalist class. Social Welfare as a Motor of Development The idea that that social welfare has a crucial role to play in overall development goes back to the first International Conference of Ministers for Social Welfare at the United Nations in 1968. According to this concept, social welfare shares the equal status with other sectors of the economy in the march towards social progress and development. It is predicated on the maximisation of human potential and based on the mobilisation of all segments of the population for the resolution of social problems and the attainment of social progress (United Nations, 1986). As an organising framework for people-oriented development, developmental social welfare is under propped by such development objectives as: enhancing the well-being of people by raising their level of living; ensuring social justice and the equitable distribution of national wealth; and strengthening the capacity of all people to reach their peak as healthy, educated citizens, participating in and contributing to development (United Nations, 1986). In addition social welfare plays developmental, preventive and remedial functions. The developmental function embodies fundamental recognition for the development of human resources. This includes strengthening family life and preparing people, especially children and the youth, to improve their own lives as they contribute to national development. Through the preventive function, social problems are anticipated and provisions made to deal with them, thereby reducing the need for remedial investment. Lastly, the remedial function makes provision for those who, through such dislocation or other pressures, have been made dependent on the community (United Nations, 1986).

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Transformative Social Welfare Over the years, the above-mentioned models have served to inform understandings about social welfare in Africa and it can be said, upon closer examination, that some of them are effectively attuned to a European setting. What is evident is that African indigenous systems are not taken into account in some of these classifications of social welfare. In a context where cronyism, nepotism and rudderless governments thrive, it may be necessary to introduce a transformative agenda via social welfare. It is contended in this text that transformative social welfare, more than ever, in Zambia’s 48 years of independence, is needed to change the deplorable socio-economic conditions and ethnic-based politics currently obstructing the country’s development. Arguably, transformative social welfare has the potential to erase the dominant form of social welfare which was inherited from Zambia’s former colonial “masters”. In the four decades of the country’s independence, there has not been much radical transformation of the welfare sector, which also has utilised narrow and restrictive interventions. Some efforts were made to change this state of affairs when Zambia was a socialist country, but these were not sustained and fizzled out as Chapter 5 will show. Hence, there is need for a transformative agenda in social welfare which is comprehensive enough to address a multiplicity of objectives, which include equity, social inclusion and human capital formation. In order to achieve this, a multidisciplinary approach, which incorporates social, economic, cultural and environmental aspects of development, is called for. A broad framework for formulating transformative social welfare policy should also be focused on: (a) reducing disparities and (b) managing risks and challenges. Such an approach would also appreciate that Zambia’s social welfare system should be a natural product of its markets, communities and households, and should be formulated in the context of the country’s traditions, institutions, culture and values, as well as the availability of

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financial resources (United Nations Economic and Social Council, 2008). In the context of Zambia’s development challenges, a transformative programme in social welfare could embrace the multiple roles of redistribution, protection, reproduction, social cohesion and nation-building. Economic development that is supported by this type of social welfare would combine growth with structural transformation of the economy and social relations, while buttressed by the norms of equality and social solidarity (Adesina, 2010). In this sense, social welfare will not only be an expression of normative values, but will also serve as a major transformative instrument in the process of development. The great challenge for Zambia is how the country will mobilise the instrumental value of social welfare without undermining the intrinsic value of the goals being pursued (Mkandawire, 2006). Transformative social welfare in Zambia could hinge on universal membership and coverage in provisioning. Therefore, its instruments could range from education to health-care, agrarian reform, child-care, old-age care and to fiscal instruments. The development outcomes could filter through to social and economic development (growth with structural transformation), but also political development, as well. Transformative social welfare, in this regard, may have the potential to enhance both labour market efficiency and innovation (Adesina, 2010). It could relate not only to the transformation of an economy or protection from destitution, but also the transformation of social interaction, for example, in the light of issues pertaining to gender relations and equality. This slant of social welfare, i.e., for a wider vision of social and economic development agenda-setting, will not simply be something that “the state does” - even though this text advocates for an active state. Transformative social welfare has to be multifaceted, with diverse delivery mechanisms - both within and outside the state. The state-community partnership will have to set the delivery social welfare agenda, and also the delivery, the monitoring, as well as the fine-tuning of not only fiscal 130

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sustainability, but the ensuring of community buy-in and ownership once transformative social welfare finds a firm footing in Zambia (Adesina, 2010:18-19). This type of social welfare resonates with the notion of planned social change. In a country like Zambia, where development hurdles are created by certain cultural attributes, attitudes or retrogressive politics; where development efforts continue to overlook the rural areas and still reproduce an urban biased thrust; planned social change is of critical importance. In fact transformative social welfare would firstly aim to change the living conditions of the most marginalised and thus the rural sector would be prioritised for state-led programmes of socioeconomic upliftment. Additionally, transformative social welfare may have the potential to draw strength from the discourse of evidence-based policy-making. This refers to a set of methods which inform the policy process based on verifiable research and expertise, rather than anecdote or ideology. This perspective is therefore based on the premise that policy decisions should be consistently informed by available evidence and should include rational analysis. This is because policy which is based on systematic evidence is seen to produce better outcomes. The approach has also come to incorporate evidence-based practices (Sutcliffe and Court, 2005). This type of social welfare, which is backed up by evidence-based policy-making or known as transformative social welfare, can be helpful to those who wield political power in Zambia to effectively respond to the challenges of poverty, hunger, exclusion and vulnerability, amongst others. It would also guarantee that policy-making is soundly based on evidence of what works; improve government’s capacity to make best use of evidence and enhance the accessibility of the available evidence to policy-makers. The focus would be on: ƒ Effectiveness - to ensure that actions do more good than harm;

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ƒ Efficiency - use of scarce public resources to maximum effect; ƒ Service orientation - meet citizens’ needs/expectations; ƒ Accountability - transparency of what is done and why; ƒ Democracy - enhance the democratic process; and ƒ Trust - help ensure/restore trust in government and public services (Davies, 2008). Certainly, the idea of evidence-based policy-making rests on the need to optimally use available evidence for effective problem-solving. In this regard, attention must focus on the following issues: (i)

(ii)

(iii)

What evidence is used in the policy-making process? What is clear from the literature is that policy should be informed by a wide breadth of evidence, not just hard research. Key issues include the quality, credibility, relevance and the cost of the policy. How is evidence incorporated into policy-making? Policy processes ideally involve different stages, from agenda-setting to formulation to implementation. Evidence therefore has the potential to influence the policy-making process at each stage. However different evidence and different mechanisms may be required at each of the policy stages. Evidence is not the only factor which influences policy-making. It is important to acknowledge that at each stage of the policy cycle, a number of different factors will also affect policy. This occurs at the individual level - for example, a policy-maker’s own experience, expertise and judgement - and at an institutional level, for example in terms of institutional capacity. There are also a number of constraints, which will limit the extent to which evidence can affect policy - for example, the pressure to process information quickly. Policy-making is neither objective nor neutral; it is an inherently political process (Sutcliffe and Court, 2005:iv).

Also, transformative social welfare needs to fit together with the Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA). It is imperative that Zambians should benefit fully from the country’s welfare system than is currently the case. There is a need to place emphasis in matters of social welfare on the rights-based approach. A rightsbased approach to social welfare implies the introduction of a set 132

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of institutions and policies within a society that secure every member’s reasonable access to a social minimum. In practice, a rights-based approach can be seen as incorporating the following elements: ƒ The definition and widespread communication of rights, entitlements and standards which enable citizens to hold public policy-makers and providers to account for the delivery of social welfare. ƒ The availability of mechanisms of redress where citizens can go if they are unable to enjoy specific entitlements or social minimums. ƒ A commitment to the equitable delivery of the specific rights, entitlements and standards to all on a universal basis (World Bank, 2009). In actual fact, social welfare should foster and entrench social inclusion in Zambia. A sure guarantee to this would be an integration of the rights-based perspective into the development and implementation of social welfare programmes. Further to this and given Zambia’s continued lop-sided growth, the rightsbased approach must be anchored in social guarantees. These refer to sets of legal and administrative mechanisms that determine specific entitlements and obligations, related to certain rights, and ensure the fulfilment of those obligations on the part of the state. Social guarantees have five key characteristics: 1) They have legal expression that results in an explicit state responsibility; 2) They are constructed in reference to a specific rightsholder; 3) They involve mechanisms of access and redress; 4) The mechanisms that they envision are defined in a precise manner; and 5) They are flexible and revisable.

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As a result, they facilitate reducing opportunity gaps across social groups (World Bank, 2007:1). To attain the foregoing in Zambia, there is also a need to increase transparency and accountability on the part of the state. There has to be strong institutions which should compel state actors to act accordingly and meet their obligations towards safeguarding the needs of the citizens. The constitution and other legislative mechanisms, among others, must be the essential levers that generate social and economic well-being in the country. What is critical in regard to the above-mentioned is the fact that many leaders in Africa feel that they are doing people a favour when they are playing their roles of leadership through for example social service delivery in the form of housing, education, health-care and so forth. However, these are citizenry rights which must be enshrined in a country’s constitution and which then should compel such leaders to provide services to the people or meet their basic needs. These citizenry entitlements must not be held to ransom by patronage as in the case of Africa in general and Zambia in particular, where belonging to the ruling party guarantees some people access to life chances. It is critical that the rights-based approach is entrenched in Zambia as it uses conceptual and analytical strengths of human rights to analyse and address various forms of inequality and exclusion in political, economic or social terms. As a development framework, it is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights. The HRBA moves development action from the operational realm of benevolence (or charity) into the mandatory realm of law (United Nations Development Programme, 2011). Furthermore: It changes the focus from regarding people as passive beneficiaries of state policies to active participants in their own development and further recognises them as rights-holders, thereby placing them at the centre of the development process. The HRBA addresses the “what” question: what practices and policies constitute the building blocks of exclusion and what needs to be changed. It focuses on analysing the inequalities, discriminatory

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practices, and unjust power relations that are at the root causes of human rights and development challenges, and the processes that exacerbate exclusion and ultimately may lead to social fragmentation and conflict. In addition, the HRBA addresses the “who” question by specifically focusing on groups subjected to discrimination and suffering from disadvantages and exclusion. Such groups include children, minorities and women. The twin principles of non-discrimination and equality call for a focus on gender equality and women’s human rights in all development programmes. With respect to identifying the necessary measures that need to be taken - the “how” question comes into play. In this regard, the HRBA emphasises participation at every stage of the programme process, particularly of those who are being disadvantaged. It also emphasises the accountability of the state and its institutions with regard to respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights within its jurisdiction (United Nations Development Programme, 2011:11).

Of all the public policies involved in the social construction of citizens, entitlements are undoubtedly the most overt. Such policies deliberately and openly invoke state authority to categorise groups of citizens as deserving of public benefits and burdens in powerful legal discourses that render particular citizens worthy of the state’s attention at particular moments of history (Jensen, 2005). Delivering entitlements to the citizenry has been missing or lukewarm in Zambia due to a weak and incapable state, and an inactive and visionless leadership. Examples of Different Models of Social Welfare For purposes of this book, the Cuban and Nordic models of social welfare will be examined. This selective appraisal is undertaken in regard to these models’ potential lessons for Zambia. 1. Cuba’s Social Welfare System Cuba has a socialist centralised social welfare system where all activities fall within the ambit of state control.34 Cuba had already laid the foundation for a welfare state in the 1930s which was consolidated and significantly expanded in the 1960s and onwards. It was a pioneer in the development of social insurance 135

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(respectively in the 1920s and 1930s) in Latin America (MesaLago, 2004). Following the revolution of 1959, the government of Fidel Castro centralised every facet of the Cuban economy under state ownership and stewardship. Since the revolution, Cuba has staunchly advocated an ideological stance broadly characterised by collectivism in the ownership of the means of production, centralism in the decision-making process, egalitarianism in the distribution of goods and services, moralism in the use of conduct of foreign policy. In addition, Cuba’s commitment to social justice produced a distributive equality with few parallels (Mesa-Lago and Roca, 1990). Several years later, after the revolution of 1959, among the crucial tasks that were undertaken were: the formation of a communist attitude towards work and social property, which required constant struggle against selfishness, individualism, personal ambition, ostentation and other remnants of the past. In contrast, the new socialist values to be affirmed and fostered included co-operation, sacrifice, modesty and above all conscience. The model citizen was to be patterned after Enersto “Che” Guevara whose life of voluntary work, ascetic habits and internationalist activity is eulogised in the political education of students in Cuba (Mesa-Lago and Roca, 1990:101).

All social services are universal in Cuba and they have remained so for the past 50 years. Cuba boasts of a comprehensive and extensive social welfare system with universal coverage in education, health-care, social security pensions, social assistance and housing. The education system is owned, managed and financed by the government, which trains and hires all personnel (private teaching is banned). In 1989, university professors and physicians were at the top of the salary scale and teachers earned adequate salaries (Mesa-Lago and Vidal-Alejandro, 2010). The state owns and operates all health through a nationally integrated public system that employs all personnel and bans private practice. During the first three revolutionary decades there was an impressive expansion in physicians, half of whom were family doctors in neighbourhoods, as well as in hospital beds and real expenditure 136

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per capita (Mesa-Lago and Vidal-Alejandro, 2010). In the early years of the revolution, a new unified and state-managed pension was established, increasing labour force coverage from 63 per cent to 91 per cent. In 1989 the Cuban pension system had wide coverage and generous entitlements, with very low retirement ages (55 for women and 60 for men). Although meagre, pensions were supplemented by social protection networks: subsidised prices for rationed goods, free health-care services, free or lowrent housing and inexpensive utilities (Mesa-Lago and VidalAlejandro, 2010). State-provided social assistance protects the elderly, people with disabilities, single mothers, and parents of deceased workers and pensioners who receive low benefits. Cuba has not performed well in the housing sector. Ill-conceived housing policies, combined with population growth in the early years of the revolution as well as damage from hurricanes provoked a growing housing deficit. The problems were exacerbated by virtual state monopoly on building dwellings and associated activities. In 2008, Cuba had the highest allocations for social services within Latin America totalling 34.7 per cent of GDP and 52.6 per cent of obtaining budgetary expenditures, the latter having grown from 29.9 per cent in 1989 (Mesa-Lago and VidalAlejandro, 2010). Although the Cuban social welfare system registered significant successes, the country also suffered serious setbacks. This can be attributed to the heavy reliance of Cuba on subsidies from the former Soviet Union. This is because the question of sustainability was not addressed earlier on and when the Soviet Union and former Eastern Bloc collapsed, Cuba was left in a lurch and suffered economic hardships. From 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union (also known as the special period), Cubans experienced extreme hardships and had to queue for every essential commodity as everything was rationed. The economic crisis deepened in the mid-1990s and almost eroded the social and human development gains which were achieved in preceding decades.

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Example of a Cuban Social Welfare Programme: Early Childhood Development (ECD) In order to illustrate the reach of the state’s coverage and also to illuminate the scope, and content of social welfare, Early Childhood Development (ECD) is going to be used as an example. Cuba provides an excellent example of a populationwide programme that takes a preventative approach to foster health, education and development of children from the earliest stages. A critical player in the country’s successful approach to maternal health and early childhood development is what Cubans call Polyclinics. These establishments ensure the integration of science, knowledge transfer, parent education, primary healthcare and community mobilisation. They are multidisciplinary and focus on prevention; regularly undertake universal screening initiatives and strongly encourage immunisation (Senate Subcommittee, 2008:2). Once a Cuban woman becomes pregnant, a number of specialised services are drawn upon, such as medical genetic services, the partograme, and maternal homes, as needed. All pregnant women and new-borns must be evaluated by this service. In Cuba, the healthy development of all children claims such high priority that actions are taken from the moment of conception through to the child entering primary school. Cuba provides three non-compulsory pre-school education programmes. The Cirrculos infantiles are child-care centres for children between 6 months and 5 years and whose mothers are working (Senate Sub-committee, 2008). The Educa a Tu Hijo (Educate Your Child) Programme provides non-institutional preschool education for children who do not attend care centres; it is based on household education (from 0-2 years of age) or is delivered through informal groups in parks or other nearby sites for children aged 2-4. Children with special needs receive individualised attention through the local polyclinic and, with the support from the Ministry of Education (Senate Sub-committee, 2008). 138

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The Cuban experience is further strengthened in the following manner: ƒ The pragmatism of the Cuban approach to health and education, with its emphasis on making the best use of limited resources to achieve a clearly identified goal; ƒ Early diagnosis, research, assessment and on-going monitoring are key elements of Cuban programmes. Early detection of high risk pregnancies, bi-annual medical check-ups, early recognition of childhood developmental problems - all these effective screening procedures enable intervention at an early stage and avoid more costly remedies later in life; ƒ Cuba places great importance on science as evidenced by the country’s development of comprehensive databases and insistence on systematic programmes and evaluation. Wherever possible, government policy is informed by rigorous scientific data; ƒ Children are treated as individuals rather than as part of a cohort: individual problems are identified and tackled at an early stage; and ƒ The Cuban approach seeks to break down jurisdictional “silos” through considerable integration of resources and sharing responsibility. The overall philosophy appears to identify a goal or a problem and brings together all the agencies and ministries that might be able to contribute to its achievement or resolution. Thus, ECD in Cuba rests on a set of integrated actions involving intersectorality (Senate Sub-committee, 2008:4-5; 22-23). Comparatively, Cuba is less economically endowed than most countries in say the developed world, but its social and human development outcomes far exceed some of them. The Cuban example is a clear testimony that significant progress can be recorded with minimal resources only if there is a strong will, commitment and passion from the political leaders to accelerate 139

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development in their country. Obviously there are challenges in Cuba like in any society. For instance, issues of democracy and personal freedoms remain outstanding. The Cuban government has been seriously slow in allowing people the right to dissent and freedom of speech. The government has failed to grasp the basic notion that no matter how benevolent its political system may be, ultimately Cubans want unfettered civil and political liberties. It is an inherent and innate trait in every human being as can be seen in the free spirit of Cubans in their art, poetry, song and dance. Notwithstanding, the Castro revolution made significant strides in creating an egalitarian society in a short space of time. The plight of afro Cubans is a case-in-point. These Cubans, who are descendants of former slaves, were marginalised in every facet of social and human development before the revolution. Fidel Castro and the Cuban Communist Party ensured that the legislative provisions in the constitution of social equality were applied uniformly and consistently to all citizens regardless of social origins, ensuring that Afro Cubans were the beneficiaries of affirmative action policies aimed at improving the life chances of this historically most oppressed group in Cuba. The results were outstanding. This is remarkable in comparison to Brazil where Brazilians of African descent and indigenous peoples continue to be socio-economically excluded and also carry a disproportionate share of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, among others. Despite the recorded economic boom of Brazil in the last couple of years, the bulk of afro Brazilians continue to remain on the margins of this society. Lastly, it is worth noting that Cubans have been unfairly treated and punished by the United States of America for merely holding on to their beliefs. The commercial, economic, and financial embargo that was imposed by the USA in 1960 not only curtailed Cuba’s economic prospects, but also inevitably forced Cubans into resistance mode. Who knows how far this country would have gone if there was no embargo or how far it can go if it is lifted?

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2. The Nordic Model Social welfare in the Scandinavian countries should present an interesting case and valuable lessons for Zambia. Despite being capitalist countries and following free market enterprise, the Nordic countries have managed to create egalitarian societies which are underpinned by strong bonds of social solidarity and social cohesion. Indeed, what this model does is to debunk the myth of profiteering and show that the pursuit of profits is not necessarily incongruent with human well-being, if the generated wealth is redistributed in a manner that also serves social purposes and not only personal aggrandisement. In fact, it clearly demonstrates how both can successfully be pursued concurrently. Furthermore, this model shows clearly why there is a need for the state to be at the centre of economic development initiatives as well as activities that are geared towards social and human development. The Nordic welfare states are said to be characterised by full employment, high degree of equality, a high level of taxes and a high level of public spending on welfare. It focuses on human-capital formation and high labour-force participation in regimes with high levels of public intervention. Universalism has also been argued as a central aspect of the Nordic countries and universal welfare policies are often contrasted with selective policies of the residual, means-tested kind, targeted at the poor (Greve, 2007). What is enlightening about this system is that it is dependent on high taxes, which the citizens are willing to pay because the state in the end guarantees high quality social welfare services and other citizenry entitlements. This is the unique character of the Scandinavian model of “social solidarity”. In this sense, the provision of high quality social services as an entitlement of social citizenship has become the main function of the social democratic state. This contrasts sharply with most parts of Africa where services are provided as discretionary benefaction of the state rather than as a right of citizenship. That is why government services are held hostage by patronage as 141

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those who expect to access such services are often connected to the ruling elite, whereas the constitution should in the first place provide for these entitlements for all citizens. The Nordic countries are able to generate support from various interest groups into the national project through consensus-building. For instance in the case of Finland, Vartiainen (2004:212) makes the point that the Finnish political system was able to generate an historic class compromise in which a powerful working class, as represented by the trade union movement and two mass-based political parties, accepted a concession which protected basic mechanisms of property rights, capitalist wealth creation and participation in the internal economy, in return for a reciprocal arrangement in which the state would use a large part of the economic surplus to undertake direct productive investment and provide welfare services. The Nordic model is: Extremely decentralised and at the same time complex structure regarding both regulations as well as financing; high degree of equality; active labour market policy with high level of employment (also for women) and low level of wage differentiation; high level of taxes; family friendly in the sense that the public has been actively involved in delivery of day care for children, leave schemes for parents and a high level compared to other welfare states of economic support for families with children. The Nordic welfare states have further also been described as service welfare states. This is especially due to service delivery with regard to delivery of social care (children and elderly) and health care service by the public sector. Especially family policy has been high on the agenda in the Nordic countries (Greve, 2007:45).

As can be noted above, the preservation and strengthening of families is given high premium in the Nordic model. The Scandinavian countries are renowned for their extensive family policies which stress on generous parental leaves, programmes for children and other types of economic support to families with children. Undoubtedly, such policies have made it easier for women to combine work in the market with having children. Female employment in these countries is characterised by very 142

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high employment rates for mothers. The Nordic countries have placed emphasis on family policies because they are cognisant of the fact that the family is a critical social institution. For instance, the choices made within the family about time allocation, about the distribution of income and consumption, and about human capital accumulation have important repercussions for what happens in the market and to the development of the economy (Persson and Jonung, 1997:16-18). In the case of Sweden, there is a close connection between child-care and the family support system, for instance, parental insurance and child allowances are linked to child-care. A close relationship has also been developed between child-care and the social services over responsibility for children in need of special support and children at risk of illtreatment (Gunnarsson, et al., 1999).35 For Zambia, the above examples should be helpful in that the country could learn from these country experiences, whilst arriving at its own indigenous model. However, such an exercise should not obscure the various indigenous systems which still exist and which are still rooted in different ethnic groups in the country. These systems are very much intact and parallel to the formal social welfare system that was inherited by the Zambian government from the British colonial administration. Zambia is a multi-ethnic country with seventy-three ethnic groups. More often, when the formal/modern systems failed Zambians, they reverted to their indigenous systems. For instance, at the height of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), health-care could not be accessed by the majority of poor Zambians. However, people had recourse to traditional healers or herbalists, who might not have responded appropriately to their ailments. In this sense, modernity is still at variance with many Zambian communities’ ways of life because since 1964 successive governments have tended to promote the colonial form of modernity. This colonial relic has not been in favour of organically-driven solutions to the myriad of Zambia’s social problems (Noyoo, 2007). It is therefore crucial that social welfare endeavours in the country consciously build upon 143

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existing social and cultural foundations amid rapid urbanisation and globalisation. This should be coupled with the strengthening of families and communities, whilst enabling various interest groups to actively participate in all phases of the development process in the country. It is important that citizens must be empowered by the state so that they become partners in the country’s development. Overall, social justice must remain an essential element of national development planning in Zambia (United Nations, 1986). The Determinants of Social Welfare Social welfare is closely associated with certain social conditions or states of being. These are elucidated below in order to further clarify the terrain under discussion. A. Social Problems Social problems are the main determinants of both informal and formal social welfare interventions. They trigger responses from either the family or state due to their capacity to enfeeble or even paralyse people’s capabilities. When people are incapacitated by social problems, they cease to look after themselves as well as fail to make any meaningful contributions towards the betterment of society. That is why societies over the years addressed debilitating social conditions using various mechanisms, for instance, social welfare. There is no universal, constant or absolute definition of what constitutes a social problem. Rather, social problems are defined by a combination of objective and subjective criteria that vary across societies, among individuals and groups within society, and across historical time periods. Although social problems take many forms, they all share two important elements: an objective social condition and a subjective interpretation of that social condition (Mooney, et al., 2010). The objective elements of a social problem refer to the existence of a social condition. People become aware of social 144

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conditions, inter alia, through their own life experiences, the media and education. The subjective element of a social problem refers to the belief that a particular social condition is harmful to society or to a segment of society and that it should and can be changed. By combining these objective and subjective elements, the following definition can be adduced: A social problem is a social condition that a segment views as harmful to members of society and in need of remedy (Mooney, et al., 2010:3). In traditional Zambian society, social problems were largely seen as the inability of people to play their requisite roles in society. Parents were supposed to guide or nurture their children, husbands were supposed to provide for their wives and children, whilst children were supposed to obey their parents. When there was a breakdown in role functions and role specificity, in a particular household, then it was regarded as experiencing a social problem or problems. B. Social Exclusion Social exclusion can be taken as both a process and an outcome. It is a process that pushes certain individuals to the margins of society and prevents their full participation in relevant social, economic, cultural and political processes. As an outcome, it represents the status and characteristics of the excluded individual. Social exclusion status has many dimensions, for instance, poverty, lack of basic competencies, limited employment and educational opportunities as well as inadequate access to social and community networks (United Nations Development Programme, 2011). Social exclusion is not only characterised by material deprivation, but by feelings of inferiority, alienation, loss and shame. Being socially excluded is both about status and self-perception. Social exclusion reflects the status of an individual vis-à-vis mainstream society. This makes it much more relative than income poverty. However, similar to poverty monitoring, the relative nature of social

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exclusion does not preclude its measurement both in relative and absolute terms (United Nations Development Programme, 2011). C. Vulnerability Vulnerability can be taken as the universal human condition of being intact but fragile. It is associated with the notion of “susceptibility” which is the condition of being biologically weak or diseased, with an increased predisposition towards additional harm. Vulnerability falls under the principle of justice, which affords equal protection to all members of society whereas susceptibility is a determined state of destitution and must be specifically designated in order to apply to social systems of targeted palliative treatment (Kottow, 2002). The definition of vulnerable groups varies between countries, but amongst the most important defining characteristics are age, sex, ethnicity and location. But also important are people with disabilities and those with stigmatised illnesses, such as mental ill-health. In areas facing war or civil conflicts, displaced people and refugees form an important vulnerable group (Eldis, 2010). Associated Interventions Social welfare intersects or overlaps with other areas of intervention. These are usually informed by similar philosophies as can be seen below. I. Social Policy Social welfare in this work is seen as being intrinsic to social policy imperatives and outcomes, as the two are taken as not being mutually exclusive. Rather, and critically, it is the role that the two play in harnessing and sustaining human progress that is of essence to this work. In effect, social welfare reinforces the agenda of social policy. The activities of social policy are overarching and superimpose those of social welfare. Broadly, 146

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social policy is concerned with social welfare provision. Social policies address welfare needs and service provision in a social context. While social welfare is fundamentally about the needs of people, the policy level focuses on collective needs and wellbeing, as well as the collective response to them, rather than individual cases. For example, in practice, social policies aim to promote and improve collective human well-being by targeting welfare services and interventions on communities and settings in which people live their lives (Walsh, et al., 2000:2). Also, social policy is a state intervention that directly affects social welfare, social institutions and social relations. It involves overarching concerns with redistribution, production, reproduction and protection, and works in tandem with economic policy in pursuit of national, social and economic goals. Social policy does not merely deal with the “casualties” of social changes and processes; it is also a contribution to the welfare of society (Mkandawire, 2006:1). The term social policy has two possible meanings. It is used to refer to the academic subject called Social Policy or, it means social policies themselves, that is to say, the intentions and activities that are broadly social in their nature. Social policies are examined in terms of: (a) Social policy as intentions and objectives; (b) Social policy as administrative and financial arrangements; (c) Social policy as outcomes: winners and losers (Baldock, et al., 2007). Social policy is different to other areas of the social sciences because it is based upon a distinct empirical focus - support for the well-being of citizens provided through social action. Thus, it also refers to the activity of policy-making to promote well-being and to the academic study of such actions. It is an interdisciplinary field, drawing on and developing links with

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other cognate disciplines (Alcock, 2003). Social policy is deeply rooted in the British tradition: The development of social policy can be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century. This is because it is closely linked to the development of the Fabian Society and the influence of Fabian politics on policy development in Britain. The Fabian Society was established in 1884, and was strongly influenced by the work of Sidney Webb, a civil servant who later became a labour MP. It developed critical analysis of the social and economic problems found in late-nineteenth century British capitalism and campaigned for the introduction of social protection through the state to combat these (Alcock, 2003:4).

Poverty and destitution are certainly compelling arguments for strengthening social policy. However, social policy is NOT a humanitarian question. It is rather a question of the kind of society we want to live in, and about our aspirations for future generations. In any society, social policy fulfils three main functions: social, political and an economic (Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, 2009). The social function lies in reducing the life cycle risks through social insurance and alleviating poverty through social assistance. The political function of social policy lies in stabilising effects. Social justice and greater equality are vital factors for building trust and social cohesion and to contribute to political stability. The economic factor lies, among others, in widening the productive capacities of society through the inclusion of marginalised areas and social groups in the growth process, and through investments in improved health and education of the population (Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, 2009:1-2). II. Social Protection and Social Security The terms social protection and social security are used in various ways and not always consistently, differing widely across countries and international organisations, and across time. The term social protection is used in institutions across the world with a wider variety of meaning than social security. It is often 148

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interpreted as having a broader character than social security (including, in particular, protection provided between members of the family or members of a local community), but it is also used in some contexts with a narrower meaning (understood as comprising only measures addressed to the poorest, most vulnerable or excluded members of society). Therefore social protection is: (1) interchangeable with “social security” or (2) “protection” provided by social security in case of social risks and needs (International Labour Organisation, 2010:13). In addition: Social security covers all measures providing benefits, whether in cash or in kind, to secure protection, inter alia, from: (a) lack of work-related income (or insufficient income) caused by sickness, disability, maternity, employment injury, unemployment, old age, or death of a family member; (b) lack of access or unaffordable access to health care; (c) insufficient family support, particularly for children and adult dependants; (d) General poverty and social exclusion (International Labour Organisation, 2010:13).

To elaborate further, social protection can also denote a broader overarching framework within which social security, social insurance and social assistance are subsumed. Social insurance would refer to measures that have been put in place in order to protect people against shocks and other risks that may affect their livelihoods for instance, injury at work or other accidents or disability. Such benefits may be linked to a worker’s employment and may be contributory or non-contributory. Provisions are made by the state for income to be disbursed to individuals upon losing their livelihoods through different kinds of mishaps, for example employee compensation funds or provident funds. On the other hand, social assistance programmes are targeted interventions which respond to particular vulnerable groups. Such individuals are not likely to have any form of sustenance and the state or non-state actors intervene to support their social needs. In most cases, social 149

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assistance programmes are based on certain eligibility criteria such as means-tests or group targeting. Cash transfers are an example of a social assistance measure. III. Social Security Floor This refers to a set of four essential social security guarantees: (1) Universal guarantee of access to basic health benefits, through a pluralistic set of sub-systems linked together: basically a public health service funded by taxes, social and private insurance and micro-insurance systems; (2) Guaranteed income security for all children through family/child benefits aimed to facilitate access to basic social services: education, health, and housing; (3) Guaranteed access to basic means-tested/self-targeting social assistance for the poor; and (4) Guaranteed income security for people in old age, invalidity and survivors through basic pensions (International Labour Organisation, 2008). IV. Social Work Social work grew out of humanitarian and democratic ideals, and its values are based on respect for the equality, worth, and dignity of all people. Since its beginnings social work practice has focused on meeting human needs and developing human potential. Human rights and social justice serve as the motivation and justification for social work action. In solidarity with those who are disadvantaged, the profession strives to alleviate poverty and to liberate vulnerable and oppressed people in order to promote social inclusion. The social work profession promotes social change, problem-solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being (International Association of Schools of Social Work/ International Federation of Social Workers, 2001). Utilising 150

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theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Social work addresses the barriers, inequities and injustices that exist in society. It responds to crises and emergencies as well as to everyday personal and social problems. Social work utilises a variety of skills, techniques, and activities consistent with its holistic focus on persons and their environments. Social work interventions range from primarily person-focused psychosocial processes to involvement in social policy, planning and development (International Association of Schools of Social Work/International Federation of Social Workers, 2001). In spite of its colonial origins social work has relevance and significance in Zambia. The central issue still remains whether the profession can effectively respond to Zambia’s needs or if it can tackle the country’s challenges. After it was introduced in the country, first via missionary work and then later formalised by the British colonial administration, social work has been part of the social, economic and political landscapes of Zambia for decades. In fact, the organic Welfare Societies in colonial Zambia can be said to have offered a localised form of social work to the African populace. However, professionalization of social work needs to take centre stage in these times as Zambia has undergone major shifts and transformations since independence. In the last two decades, there has also been a proliferation of colleges offering social work qualifications, in addition to the University of Zambia. This in itself is not something bad as it shows that there is a growing need for social work services in the country. However, being a human service profession that draws its meaning from ethics, values and principles, social work needs to be regulated by a Professional Council. This should also apply to other social service practitioners. Indeed, it is high time that Zambia has a Professional Council that among other things will: register and guide practitioners, and regulate professional conduct, enforce disciplinary codes and enhance professional development of 151

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social service practitioners in Zambia. Such a body would also interface with training institutions and set norms and standards in the training and education of the social service practitioners so as to have uniform and high standard training. Due to the fact that social service practitioners are in constant interaction with the vulnerable and marginalised: the poor, children, women, the aged and people with disabilities - when intervening in the living circumstances of these individuals, they must be guided by a professional code of conduct. Otherwise, unprofessional conduct will leave such persons worse off than before the intervention. This observation is in reference to the fact that apart from training institutions, there must be a body that enforces professionalism in this sector. After the above explicated theoretical and conceptual perspectives, the next chapter looks at the context in which imperial and colonial social welfare activities emerged and shows how various colonial regimes created different social welfare systems in Africa. Chapter Two Endnotes 28

Like governments everywhere, kingdoms in Africa rested on two conceptual pillars. They needed legitimacy - by that we mean a set of accepted ideas and institutions that justified kingship in the eyes of the people. And they needed a material basis, such as agricultural tribute or the profit of trade that could adequately support the governing stratum of society. Yet the institutional and ideological bases of legitimacy could be exceedingly different in various parts of Africa. The material bases of kingly power also varied greatly from region to region, and even within one region or within one polity - the economic underpinnings of the political system could change in significant ways over the course of time (Ehret, 2002:12-13). 29 A territorially based administrative system was possible, then, and was created by the Lozi kings in the pre-colonial period. The smallest territorial unit was the village which usually consisted of related families. It was the duty of the village headman to see to it that life in his village ran smoothly. He presided over and settled minor individual and family disputes; he safeguarded every subject’s rights, seeing to it that each individual and each family had enough to meet their needs. Above the village was the silalanda which comprised a number of villages under the oldest and most influential village headman appointed by the people and approved by the king. The silalanda head settled minor disputes which arose between neighbouring villages and in this he worked together with and was advised by the village headman who attended his kuta (council). Above the silalanda was the silalo which comprised

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a number of lilalanda. In charge of the silalo was a resident induna (councillor) directly appointed by the king with the approval of the local people in the silalo as represented by the silalanda and village heads. He acquainted himself with the affairs of his area and reported these to the king through the Ngambela (Prime Minister) (Mainga, 1973:47-48). The Prime Minister was a commoner who represented the aspirations of the ordinary people. 30 Not a single British colony in Africa passed poor law legislation, although Jamaica, for example, had its first poor law as long ago as 1682 (Iliffe, 1987). 31 In actual fact, the origins of the welfare state among most developed countries lie in the twenty-five years preceding the First World War. But the period after the Second World War was a time of unprecedented and, at least to some extent, consensual growth in the welfare states. It is also an era that brings forth the most authoritative and enduring accounts between welfare and state (Pierson and Castles, 2006). 32 Beveridge’s plea was for the state to assume a comprehensive approach to social welfare - hence the way he based his plan for social insurance on three assumptions a National Health Service, a scheme of Family Allowance and a policy of full employment. The case which Beveridge argues for a wider state concern for welfare is not simply humanitarian. He also presses the argument that some welfare expenditure, for example on education, should be regarded as a communal investment, likely to bring a good return (George and Wilding, 1985). 33 According to Esping-Andersen (1999) welfare state classifications mirror a particular era, in most cases the status quo of the 1970s and the 1980s. 34 The author undertook a working visit to Cuba and subsequently engaged with academics, policy-makers and government officials on the welfare system of that country. 35 The author was able to verify some of Sweden’s achievements in this area whilst on a working visit to that country. He also engaged with Swedish policy-makers and government officials on the said matter.

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CHAPTER THREE THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL WELFARE IN COLONIAL AFRICA

This chapter traces the origins of formalised social welfare systems in colonial Africa. It also provides the context in which social welfare initiatives emerged during this epoch. The Nature of Colonialism and Imperialism The creation of social welfare systems in the colonies was at the behest of colonial administrations in these parts of the world. Hence, colonial territories did not have any choice in this issue, or even in anything else, for that matter, during those times. Territories were simply incorporated into the colonial enterprise for the sole purpose of making the colonisers rich and powerful. The formalised social welfare systems which were imposed on the colonies arose out of this context. Since colonialism was premised on not preserving the local people’s ways of life, social welfare to a larger extent, also mirrored this intent. During this time, Britain was a colonial power that had expansive territorial claims to many parts of the world. Many countries that today make up the developing world, especially in the present-day commonwealth fraternity, were part of the British Colonial Empire. Again echoing earlier assertions, the fact and reality of British colonial rule meant that many of the indigenous systems of governance were supplanted by those of Britain. Due to the foregoing, Britain bequeathed its social and political mores to different parts of the world. Zambia was not an exemption and the influence of British rule continues to endure in present times. Zambia was officially a colony of Britain from 1924-1964. Before that, the British South Africa Company (BSAC) had ruled the country from 1911-1924 on behalf of the British Crown. The end result of this occupation is that Zambia’s formal institutions are derivatives of those of Britain. Even Zambia’s official 155

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language is English, in spite of its seventy-three indigenous languages. Just like other major European powers at the time, Britain had also significantly benefitted from slavery and colonialism.36 Rodney (1972) lucidly explains the connection between slavery and capitalism in the growth of England. For example, David and Alexander Barclay, who were engaged in the slave trade in 1756, would later use the loot to set up Barclays Bank. There was a similar progression in the case of Lloyds - from being a small London coffee house to ending up as one of the world’s largest banking and insurance houses, after dipping into profits from the slave trade. Then there was James Watt, expressing gratitude to the West Indian slave owners who directly financed his famous steam engine, and took it from the drawing-board to the factory. Slave trade was also profitable to the British royal family. Rodney (1972) contends that a Briton by the name John Hawkins had made three trips to West Africa in the 1560s and stole Africans whom he had then sold to the Spanish in America. On returning to England after the first trip, his profits were so handsome that Queen Elizabeth I became interested in directly participating in his next venture and had provided for that purpose a ship named the Jesus. Hawkins left with the Jesus to steal more Africans, and he had returned to England with such dividends that Queen Elizabeth I made him a knight. Hawkins chose as his coat of arms the representation of an African in chains. Atrocities were also committed against Zambians by the agents of British imperialism such as John Cecil Rhodes in their drive for the colonisation of Zambia. For all its intents and purposes, colonial domination in Africa implied an exclusive capitalism which was based on race right from the beginning. As a consequence, Africans were reduced to marginal participants in the new economic system. Initially, colonialism hinged on the incorporation of Africans as cheap labour with limited rights of residence in formal enclaves, which were principally geared towards production of primary products for export (Mhone, 2001). In the same vein, British colonial rule 156

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also centred on minimal investment in the colonies and maximum extraction of the mineral wealth, and other natural resources in the new found lands. Colonialism was also bound up with imperialism. All European nations that colonised countries in the developing world were driven by imperialistic motives. Imperialism and colonialism are synonymous with conquest, primitive accumulation and the dispossession of the lands of indigenous peoples. There are two distinct interpretations of imperialism. First, the traditional or old meaning of imperialism37 was tied to mercantile capitalism and the early phase of industrial capitalism. Imperialism under early mercantilism was based, from 1500 to 1800, on the dominance of Spain, with its control of precious metals in Latin America, and to a lesser extent, Portugal, through its commercial points of contact, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and its trade in spices, slaves and ivory. The Portuguese hegemony succumbed largely to Spain during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (Chilcote, 2000). Later on, as Spain and Portugal lost control over maritime traffic, the Dutch, then the English and finally the French expanded their influences. Second, this old imperialism was replaced by the new imperialism that refers to the intense rivalry of European nations, symbolised in the scramble for Africa and the Berlin Conference of 1885,38 but more conspicuous at the turn of the twentieth century (Chilcote, 2000). Imperialism also typified the expansion of capitalism world-wide through industrial capital accumulation and the establishment of colonies as dependent territories. Capitalists in Britain, as the first industrial power, had a competitive advantage over the other capitalist groups and could use “free trade” to break down resistance to British goods and capital (Brown, 2000). Southern Africa, with its vast mineral deposits had a large European population that eventually took its own form of occupation by diluting ties with the imperial countries and carving out a niche for itself in the colonies. In this part of Africa, capitalism emerged as a racial type of capitalism, which 157

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was superimposed over pre-capitalist social relations, entailing unequal relations of domination and subjugation (Mhone, 2001). In British West Africa, colonial rule was premised upon the notion of divide and rule, which was conceptualised and perfected by Frederick Lugard in Nigeria. This form of rule required a centrally controlled government which was overseen by a Governor from Britain with local administration and jurisdiction at play. It was dependent on local traditional rulers who were co-opted into the colonial system. This was different to, for instance, French rule that placed the whole of West Africa under one administration which was overseen by a GovernorGeneral in Dakar, Senegal. Indirect rule was also implemented in colonial Zambia and a good example of this was the creation of the Council of Tribal Elders in the municipal and mining compounds on the Copperbelt region in the 1930s. This structure had presided over the interests of miners from different ethnic groups. The Genesis of Social Welfare in the African Colonies Social welfare in Africa can be traced back to the colonial order which was legitimised by the philosophy of race superiority and enforced through a highly hierarchical socio-political system. At the apex of this order were the Europeans who were also accorded all the social, economic and political advantages. On the other hand, Africans always occupied the lowest rung of the colonial social ladder, whilst Asians or the mixed-race population had certain privileges. The colonial society was also extremely patriarchal and was not open to the advancement of women. Women, just as the “natives”, had to know their place in this society and were not expected to aspire any higher than the colonial socio-political and economic ceiling. In instances that social welfare services were provided to women, they sought to maintain the “good native wife”, in her place, so that she catered to her husband’s needs. The husband was, in turn, expected to provide cheap labour to various commercial ventures in the 158

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colony. Women were not schooled to think beyond the domestic realm as the case in colonial Burundi illustrates below: By 1957, 15 per cent of the African women living in the city of Usumbura, Ruanda-Urundi (present-day Bujumbura, Burundi) were participating in a government-sponsored educational and social welfare programme. Foyers sociaux, or social homes, were Belgian domestic training institutions for African women, founded for married women living in colonial urban centres. Some women were learning to cook, mend, iron, and wash clothes, and how to wean their infants and decorate their homes, and a select few were trained to work (for pay) as auxiliary aids or monitors in the classrooms (Hunt, 1990:447).

The creation of welfare systems in the colonies was heavily dependent on certain global developments. Significantly, the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s, and the Second World War stand out as main catalysts.39 These two dislocating forces inadvertently triggered positive reactions from European states in the form of comprehensive and high quality social welfare systems for their citizens. In the first place, governments began to provide better social welfare services to their citizens and secondly, they were compelled by circumstances, to respond humanely to their colonial subjects. This changed attitude was tempered by two realities: economic and security. The Great Depression had led to a fall of prices of many commodities of the colonies on European markets. This resulted in dwindling revenues which were critical to both the imperial countries’ and the colonies’ social and economic development pursuits. Social problems were also increasing in the colonies and burdening their already politically volatile urban environment. Colonial subjects were getting disgruntled and beginning to demand for better living conditions. Therefore, the provision of social welfare services was beginning to be seen as crucial to the lives of colonial subjects by the colonial authorities. On the other hand, the Second World War had fundamentally transformed imperialism and led to a re-think of the European countries’ imperial desires. Against Nazi and fascist threats, Western Europe had galvanised its colonial subjects towards the war 159

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effort under the banner of justice and freedom. This had the unintended consequence of raising African people’s desire to search for and demand self-rule. Britain and France were able to mobilise millions of Africans and Asians to fight against Nazi Germany and its allies. Africans were agreeable to fighting this “common enemy” and were even beguiled into believing that their sacrifices were for the good of all humanity. When the war was over, veterans returned to their homes with high expectations. The war experiences had also served to raise political consciousness amongst the Africans and enabled them to realise that racial superiority was fallacious and could be challenged. In fact some colonial subjects had valiantly proved themselves on the battlefield than their European counterparts. Others had even earned themselves medals of valour, despite the racist conditions to which they were subjected by their colonial armies. Later, some of these individuals would become fierce opponents of colonial rule and add momentum to the drive for independence. Their ability to use modern weapons was an important factor for armed insurrection and guerrilla warfare in certain colonial territories. For example, in Kenya, Dedan Kimathi, who had fought in the Second World War for the British Empire would later lead the famous Mau-Mau rebellion. This uprising was very instrumental in sowing the seeds against British rule in that country and also helped to galvanise the nationalists around the call for independence, which was eventually achieved in 1963. Meanwhile, after the war, there was a need to reconstruct Europe. During this process, there arose dissenting voices against the status quo in Europe as well as the continued colonial occupation of African and Asian territories. This was because post-war Europe was experiencing critical changes that threatened the old ways of life. There were strident demands made by many sections in European nations, for the state to entrench the notion of inclusive citizenry, with people’s rights being upheld by states. In the same vein, progressive Europeans also challenged their governments over their colonial agendas 160

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and began pushing them to relinquish their colonies. They also called on their governments to make provisions for better entitlements to their citizens. Colonialism was beginning to be seen as a relic of the past. This period was also characterised by the establishment of welfare states in Europe. It was in this atmosphere that the African people’s call for self-determination resonated with some of these progressive circles in Europe and the United States. Increasingly, many imperial governments found themselves with no choice but to undertake reforms in their colonial territories and in some cases earnestly prepare the indigenous peoples for self-government. Again, one instrument that was seen as critical to the advancement of the colonial subjects was social welfare. Different Colonial Regimes in Africa and Their Social Welfare Agendas (a) The British Experience Initial efforts by the British Empire in its colonies, as regards social welfare activities, can be traced back to the Colonial Development Act of 1929. In the British colonial sphere, social welfare interventions were predicated on an understanding that only urban Africans in the “detribalised” areas could qualify for such assistance. The British authorities had always believed that the extended family was the safety-net which was crucial to those Africans who were in need. By the 1930s, the Colonial Office had made concerted efforts to avail social welfare services to the indigenous people. This period was characterised by the gradual abandonment of the principle of passive colonial trusteeship in favour of a more active one. Some officials at the Colonial Office had begun to identify themselves with ordinary local people and also to regard themselves as true guardians of their humanitarian interests (Lewis, 2000). The Colonial Office’s role had hitherto been largely reactive, shaped by ad hoc responses to local developments, cemented by the idea of 161

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trusteeship, and limited by a concern to respect the substantial autonomy enjoyed by the colonial governments under devolved British rule (Butler, 1997). In later years, the Colonial Office was compelled to lay stress on “development” which then necessitated the need for a combined approach to problems of development. The educational sector had generally paid attention to this approach before than other fields. For example, an official statement of policy issued by the Colonial Office in 1925 insisted that every department of government concerned the people’s welfare or vocational teaching - including, especially the departments of Health, Public Works, Railways, and Agriculture to co-operate closely with educational policy. By 1940, most of the African colonies, a good number of those in the West Indies and Fiji had either nutrition committees or development committees (Mair, 1944). Therefore, the intervening war years had also added momentum to these initiatives and hence, the Colonial Development and Welfare Act got passed in 1940. As a consequence, the number of colonial civil servants increased after the war - known as the “Second Colonial Occupation” - and guidelines were issued on the establishment of social welfare departments (Lewis, 2000). Thus, social services and community development activities became the hallmarks of social welfare interventions in British colonial Africa. For the first time, social welfare was taken as a means to address the increasing social ills in the colonies.40 Though paternalistic or at times misplaced, this attitude was nonetheless crucial to changing the social and economic atmosphere in the colonies.41 The Colonial Office’s changed attitude towards the colonies was informed by two critical factors. First, against a background of wartime mobilisation of the Empire’s resources, metropolitan discussions on post-war reconstruction and the advent of a Labour Government, the colonial state took on new responsibilities in directing local economies, mirroring the growth of collectivism in Britain, and prompting discussions on the state’s role in future economic development. Secondly, 162

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during the 1940s, the Colonial Office increasingly, if temporarily, became the driving force in colonial policy initiatives, disturbing the traditional balance of power between London and the colonial governments and further exposing weaknesses in local development machinery (Butler, 1997:3). In this regard, the vagaries of indirect rule finally had to make way for the rhetoric of welfare and development in order to show that the imperial mission was neither finished nor a failure. The dialectical relationship between war and welfare in metropolitan Britain began a new phase in empire state-building in Africa (Lewis, 2000). Due to the foregoing, the Colonial Office was obliged to be more assertive and above all, to anticipate local developments and devise new policies, methods and machinery centred on the goal of achieving controlled decolonisation at the time deemed appropriate by London. This was a period when Britain was under increasing pressure to justify its colonial role to domestic, colonial and international opinion (Butler, 1997). The agitation against colonial rule by the indigenous peoples through protestations, civil unrest and war-fare contributed to the general uncertainty in the metropolitan countries. The drive for self-rule was gaining momentum during this period and it was not coincidental that countries like Britain were ready to make concessions. However, some African nationalist organisations had not wholly rejected the colonial set-up and they had only sought to reform and not radically transform it. Negotiated independence was usually the route taken by a good number of nationalist parties and there would be an almost transplant of metropolitan institutions through entrenched constitutional provisions and a Westminster type of democracy, once self-rule was achieved. Encouraged to modernise trusteeship, but enjoying little in the way of an extensive state structure or easy access to civil society, empire administrators looked to improve African welfare as the metropolitan launched its welfare state. Conditions overseas were very different however. Colonies had fewer resources, no single moral authority and little in the form of a 163

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waged labour force that could afford to contribute to a national welfare (Lewis, 2000). (b) The French Example While the British were more concerned with protecting the African extended family, the French essentially applauded its dissolution, viewing the demise of the “traditional” collectivity as the liberation of the individual. Due to this and among other things, the French metropole subsidised social service provision in the colonies through the Fonds d’Investissement pour le Development Economique et Sociale (Investment Funds for Economic and Social Development) as early as 1928 (MacLean, 2010). Yet social service delivery was only one branch of French social policy. The other was social security, namely, retirement and invalidity pensions, accidents and sickness benefits, family and maternity allowances. The French and British practices diverged sharply here. In most British colonies, the only benefit available at independence covered occupational injury - a provision instituted in the 1940s at the employers’ expense (Iliffe, 1987). Most French colonies, by contrast, legislated provisions during the “compassionate” 1950s for sickness, maternity, employment injury, family and sometimes retirement benefits - generally financed from contributions by employers and workers. The benefits covered only a relatively small group urban workers in large enterprises, rarely more than 10 per cent of the economically active - and therefore did little to alleviate poverty directly, although their “trickle down” effects may have been considerable (Iliffe, 1987:208). The French had in addition to a more expansive provision of social services, discussed the need for a broader social insurance system as early as 1910 (MacLean, 2010). As in the case of Britain, significant reforms took place in the French colonies during and after the Second World War. Inevitably, developments in France had implications for the colonies. For instance, the establishment of the French social 164

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security system in 1945 profoundly influenced events in the colonies of France. The French welfare state had attributes of both the British and German Bismarckian models. It was characterised by state-funded social services as well as a compulsory insurance system. Thus, social welfare in the French colonies focused more on the provision of health and social security programmes. As noted above, although there were a number of nationalist parties that challenged colonial rule in the African French colonies, some colonial subjects in these areas were not keen on independence, but sought after citizenship rights within the French state. They wanted to be citizens of France and their demands were not for severance of ties with their colonial “master”. Nonetheless, the demands for selfgovernment only received favourable attention from the government of the Free French which replaced the Vichy administration.42 (c) The Belgian Case After the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 also dubbed the “scramble for Africa”, King Leopold II of Belgium was granted the area known as the Congo by other European nations. He named it the “Congo Free State” as he wanted to keep this place as a “free-trade zone”. Initially, the Congo was the only territory falling under the Belgian sphere and as a private estate of Leopold II (he essentially regarded the Congo as his investment). Due to this and other issues, the Congo had experienced the worst forms of brutal oppression under Leopold II who committed atrocious acts against the indigenous people such as decapitating their limbs if they did not “work hard enough” in the rubber plantations. The local population was decimated by Leopold almost to half its size. By 1908 the Belgian government had forced him to surrender the territory (after a huge outcry from some of the civilised quarters of Europe) and it was renamed the Belgian Congo. The Belgian government and the Catholic missionaries began to provide social services such as 165

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education to the local people. Later, Rwanda and Burundi, which had been colonised by the Germans as Ruanda-Urundi, were added to the Belgian colonies after the defeat of Germany in the First World War. The extension of Belgium political and social struggles, after the Second World War, promoted speedier reforms in the colonies and created sharp shifts in colonial policy. Between 1945 and 1947, the Belgians put through various improvement schemes. From 1947 to about 1954, the Belgians attempted to meet the new challenges by a policy of “cautious assimilation” whereby “advanced” Africans received privileges. At the same time the Belgians vainly tried to force Africans into the Western way of life (Okoth, 2006). After the Belgian elections of 1954, a liberal-Socialist coalition was brought into power. Thereafter, the Belgians allowed more freedom of speech and publications in their colonies and Africans obtained a greater share in local government. In the Congo, there was a new social welfare dispensation that was coupled with the building of two universities in the country. The Belgians would aim for gradual emancipation, but they were overtaken by events as Africans stepped up the fight for self-rule (Okoth, 2006). It has been observed that an elaborate system was established in the Belgian Congo without significance to trade union pressure as part of the general policy of paternalism and the attempt to stabilise Katanga’s labour force.43 Union Minière du Haut Katanga instituted an accident compensation scheme as early as 1928. Most other forms of social security followed in the 1950s, while in 1957 the Belgian authorities also created the first extensive old age pensions in tropical Africa. By 1959 it covered nearly a million workers (Iliffe, 1987). The Belgian thrust was more towards social security, as in the case of the French, rather than towards social welfare as in the British case. It is interesting to note that the Congo example has in some ways, similarities with that of Northern Rhodesia which later became Zambia. Due to the wealth that was generated from copper and other minerals in this territory, the mining companies provided a much more 166

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comprehensive social welfare dispensation to their workers than what the colonial authorities were providing to the rest of the population of Northern Rhodesia. Thus, Zambia almost followed the same pattern of the Congo, where the country’s mineral wealth (copper) was crucial in creating quite an advanced social welfare system (for colonial standards) in the Copperbelt region. (d) The Portuguese Example Portuguese territories were regarded as provinces by the Lisbon government and freedom came late in these parts of Africa. It was only after long and bitter wars were waged in Angola, Guinea Bissau and Mozambique, by various liberation movements of these territories that independence was finally granted to them. With an authoritarian regime in Portugal and with no democratic atmosphere existing in this country, the Portuguese made no moves to reform conditions in the colonies. Even after the onset of the liberation struggle, Portugal would steadfastly hold on to its prized possessions in the form of colonies. There were also no demands placed on the regime in Portugal by its citizens due to its undemocratic nature. Hence, social welfare initiatives were not pronounced even in the mother country and were not as elaborate as in Britain, for example. Portugal also had a weak economy and was generally poor in comparison to other European powers. Portugal was also notorious for the brutal suppression of the political and civil liberties of the indigenous populace in its colonies. In many respects, Portuguese colonial rule was considered backward by European standards with forced labour only being abolished in the early 1960s. The Portuguese colonies had covered an area of about two million square kilometres (about five per cent of the entire continent and larger than the combined areas of Spain, France, Germany, Italy and England). According to Amilcar Cabral, the charismatic leader of the armed struggle against Portuguese rule in Guinea Bissau, the African population of these colonies had 167

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been enslaved by a small country, the “most backward in Europe”. Racial discrimination was openly practised whilst Africans were driven from the fertile regions so that European farms could be built there (Vambe and Zegeye, 2008). Political, social or trade union organisation was forbidden to the Africans, who did not enjoy even the most elementary human rights. Thousands of workers from Angola, Mozambique and the Cape Verde Islands worked twelve hours on the settlers’ farms of São Tomé, the heart of the equatorial zone. There was forced labour for public works in Guinea Bissau, Angola and Mozambique; but in the latter two, it extended as well to privately owned companies. Every year, two hundred and fifty thousand Angolans were rented out to agricultural, mining and construction concerns. Every year four hundred thousand Mozambicans were subjected to forced labour, a hundred thousand of whom were exported to the mines of South Africa and Rhodesia (Vambe and Zegeye, 2008). Up until the 1950s, the Portuguese did not invest in education and other social services. While they believed that education was necessary to “civilise” Africans, they were afraid that educated Africans would endanger Portuguese interests. Even in Portugal itself, the government was not spending enough to educate its own citizens with the result that the rate of illiteracy in 1960 was 40 per cent - the highest in Europe. In Africa, progress in this area was slow. In Angola (the most developed colony as far as education was concerned) in 1950, there were only thirteen thousand children in elementary schools, about three thousand in secondary schools, and less than two thousand in technical schools, out of a population of close to 4 million. The Catholic Church dominated the school system, and it concentrated on “rudimentary education” of three years to teach Portuguese culture and language (Falola, 2002:275).

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(e) Colonial-Apartheid Social Welfare in South Africa Social welfare in apartheid South Africa was residual and informed by racist values of white supremacy. Mainly, social welfare services were remedial in focus and were not attuned to the development of human capacities of all South Africans, but rather only came into play - for the European populations - when the normal structures of supply, such as the family and the economic system broke down. The colonial-apartheid social welfare system was founded upon four principles, namely: racial division in the provision of welfare services; a rejection of socialism; partnership between state and community; and movement from residential and therapeutic services towards community-based and preventative facilities (McKendrick and Dudas, 1987 in McKendrick, 1987). State social welfare services were not only residual but also fragmented: As the senior partner in a joint enterprise, the state assumes responsibility on a national basis for the countrywide planning and co-ordination of social welfare programmes and for the formulation and administration of social legislation. Although organised at the national level, state-sponsored social welfare services are delivered regionally and locally. State welfare provision is not centred in any single government department, and major welfare functions are shared by four different departments each of which serve the needs of different groups in the population. Thus, in the case of most statutory social services, White persons would receive service from the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, Coloured (i.e., mixed-race) persons from the Department of Coloured Affairs, and Black persons from the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. The nature of services offered by these four departments is generally similar and falls into the two categories of social welfare: security provision and the delivery of service programmes (Hare and McKendrick, 1976:78).

Two important factors contributed to the formation of the colonial-apartheid social welfare system: the discovery of rich mineral deposits of diamonds and gold, which then created conditions which fostered the industrial development of South Africa, from the 1870s onwards and the Anglo-Boer war between 1899 and 1902. With industrialisation, the African peasantry was uprooted from its subsistent agricultural base. This 169

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led to many African communities losing their land and precipitating an exodus to the cities where mining was taking place. However, white Afrikaner populations had also lost out in the industrialisation process as they had been mainly agricultural producers: With the industrialisation of the Rand, commercial farmers across the country began to utilise fully the land they owned so as to supply the expanding urban markets. Landless Afrikaners found their rural options narrowed as landowners began to evict unprofitable tenants, and the volk’s drift to the cities began, as individual families felt the broad shifting structures of economic development impinging upon their lives (Lester, 1996:68).

The depression of the late 1920s further exacerbated the already dire situation of the Afrikaners. Initial responses to Afrikaner poverty were mainly from the voluntary and religious sectors. Thus in 1928, at the instigation of the Dutch Reformed Church, the Carnegie Corporation of New York was persuaded to fund a new approach to white indigence: “a scientific investigation into the causes of White poverty, its extent, and the means by which it could be reduced” (McKendrick, 1987). When the National Party came to power and established its policy of apartheid in 1948, racial segregation and injustice were not novel to South Africa. Apartheid, which the National Party introduced, only legalised and institutionalised racial discrimination through policies and legislation. In spite this, by 1947, moves had already been underway to formalise the welfare sector. Thus, the Welfare Organisations Act (No.9 of 1947) and amended (No.3 of 1949) provided a foundation for future interventions by the apartheid state into the welfare sector. The Act of 1947 required all welfare and other fund-raising organisations to register with a National Welfare Board, in order to prevent the duplication of services - albeit in the European sector only. An amendment was then passed in 1949 which made provision for the appointment of regional welfare boards to oversee the co-ordination of welfare services. In 1937, a state Department of Social Welfare had been formed. 170

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The Department’s functions were as follows: To assist towards proper adjustment, persons and families who are socially maladjusted (the rehabilitation aim). To study and take appropriate steps to deal with the conditions that may cause or contribute towards maladjustment (the preventative approach). To co-ordinate the activities of government bodies, which inter alia, carry out services of a social welfare nature with those of the Department (the co-ordination of government services). To co-ordinate the activities of voluntary welfare organisations (co-ordination of voluntary welfare work) (Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, 1962:33).

Social welfare also mirrored the wider ideology of apartheid through its responses to human needs: In line with the Republic’s policy of separate development for the different national groups, separate departments of State provide social amenities and services for each group. Thus, there are the Departments of Social Welfare and Pensions, for the White Nation, Bantu Administration, and Development, for the various Bantu nations, Indian Affairs for the Indian population groups and Coloured Affairs for the Coloured nation. Not only is this a logical development of the policy; it is the most practical way of ensuring efficiency and success, as it allows for welfare measures to be designed to take into account the diverse circumstances and needs of South Africa’s diverse peoples (Department of Information, 1968:4).

Apartheid policies and legislation heavily impacted upon the social welfare system of the country, which in turn influenced social work education and social work practice. For instance, the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1983, which enabled social welfare to be organised on the basis of race meant that social workers could only operate in areas where the clients were from their own racial or ethnic groups. The above-mentioned examples of colonial welfare are used because of the duration of colonial domination and its continued endurance on the African continent. This is not to say that there had not been other colonial forays from the Italians, Germans, and Spanish. Overall, the scope of social welfare services in colonial Africa, as elsewhere, varied from one country to another and was determined by the needs and problems of each particular country. Also, the formulation of social welfare services was 171

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influenced by demographic, economic, social, cultural, geographic, governmental and other factors. Most African countries had experienced great and rapid change during the decade of the 1950s. During this process of change and development in economic, social and political fields, new and more difficult social concerns emerged, making profound impact on the development of social welfare services, their organisation and their administration (Economic Commission for Africa, 1962). Several interesting trends were highlighted in a paper by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in 1962 which can be used to paint a general picture of social welfare initiatives in African countries, some of which were on the march towards independence; were newly independent or still a long while from independence. The initial study, on which the paper is based, had analysed information on the organisation and administration of social welfare services in African countries and hinged on the replies of their governments to a questionnaire which had been sent out by the ECA Secretariat in December 1961, and on other reliable written information from the Secretariat files. The countries under review were as follows: Basutoland, Cameroun, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Leopoldville), Dahomey, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanganyika, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Republic, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Swaziland and Zanzibar. The document served as a working paper for discussion purposes at the second session of the Standing Committee on Social Welfare and Community Development, 4-9 February, 1963. From the study, in nearly all countries, social welfare services were originated by voluntary and religious groups whose focus was mostly remedial programmes. It was discovered that the programmes of social welfare had grown in scope and in size when governments had assumed responsibility. The organisation structure for social welfare in the countries which were reviewed can be classified into two groupings. The first included those 172

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countries where most of the social welfare services were centred in one government department or ministry and the second, referred to those countries where social welfare services were spread throughout a number of government departments. All the countries under review named their most urgent social problems as: unemployment and underemployment, particularly among young persons; illiteracy (primarily in the rural areas), juvenile delinquency, family and child welfare needs, the breakdown of marriage and divorce, orphans and abandoned children, beggars and vagrancy, shortage of decent housing, family disruption and difficulties faced by urban youths (Economic Commission for Africa, 1962:14). In the decade of the 1960s, the advent of political independence and the strong determination of the new governments to develop their countries led to the promulgation of development plans leading to widespread government undertakings in the sphere of economic and social development, geared to an increase in production and national income. As a result, the scope of social welfare in many countries broadened and the stress increased on services which made a more direct contribution to total economic and social development (Economic Commission for Africa, 1962:5). This situation equally applied to Zambia once it gained independence. The next two chapters pay closer attention to social welfare efforts in Zambia’s colonial and post-colonial eras. Chapter Three Endnotes 36

In fact Britain has never atoned for its criminal acts against the African people during the slave trade and later colonial rule. At least the Germans apologised for their crimes against humanity and specifically their quest to exterminate the Jews. “The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had gone to great lengths to defend Britain’s role in the slave trade but stopped short of issuing a full apology” reported the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 2006. Tony Blair had argued: “It is hard to believe what would now be a crime against humanity was legal at the time” and that the slave trade had been “profoundly shameful”. However, he had glossed over the question of reparation almost suggesting that Africans had also played a part in this heinous crime through their chiefs who had sold their own kind to the slave traders. The question to ask is: who had commercialised the human trade in the first place? Between 1562 and 1807, when the slave trade was abolished, British ships

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carried up to three million people into slavery. In total, European ships took more than 11 million people into slavery. Another issue that is usually not discussed was the mass rape of African women by European men. Even though they pretended to be superior to Africans, European men engaged in forced carnal knowledge with African women - an act which is extremely intimate. In fact rape of African women was institutionalised in the Americas. It just goes to show how silly racism is. 37 Imperialism derives from the Latin word imperatos, which connoted autocratic power and centralised government. In its broad meaning, imperialism involves the domination by one country or group of people over others in ways that benefit the former at the expense of the latter (Chilcote, 2000). 38 The scramble for Africa epitomised Europe’s greed and voracious appetite for Africa’s natural resources. For centuries, Europe had little interest in the hinterland of the continent, but after the mid-nineteenth century, when explorations by various Europeans, notably David Livingstone and Morgan Stanley had transpired, there was increased interest in central Africa and other parts of the continent which had never been explored before. There was also a lot of interest shown in the Congo and King Leopold II of Belgium led the scramble in this regard. The intense rivalry between the European nations that was generated by the surge for territories in Africa culminated in the Berlin Conference that was convened by Otto von Bismarck in 1884 to “discuss the future of Africa”. All the thirteen European nations in attendance assented to the Berlin Act of 1885 which set the parameters to carve up Africa. 39 The Great Depression of the 1930s that had engulfed Europe and America had repercussions for the colonies as well. It created visible unemployment and highlighted the poverty of migrant labourers and their families in the colonies. For example, investigations of this problem in what was known as Nyasaland (present day Malawi) led to the establishment of a pioneer Native Welfare Committee in 1935. A year later the Colonial Office urged each colony to set up a committee on nutrition. Then in 1937 poverty gained political urgency after the riots in the West Indies where destitution was widespread (Iliffe, 1987). In the long term, these actions gave rise to a new strategy of development and welfare for the whole British Colonial Empire. In the short term they led to the creation of a Social Services Department within the Colonial Office in March 1939. Four months later, each colonial government was asked to create a Social Welfare Committee. At this time the term embraced all social services. During the 1940s, however, concern with social welfare centred on the West Indies, but the Colonial Office’s global perspective ensured that Africa felt the ripples from the Caribbean (Iliffe, 1987). 40 Urban poverty in colonial Africa gave rise to juvenile delinquency. Thus, juvenile delinquency became an obsession of the colonial authorities in the late colonial period. However, vagrant youths were nothing new, yet it was the Second World War that made juvenile delinquency a “problem”. Due to this, the British colonial authorities had appointed Donald Faulkner to study vagrant boys of Lagos in 1941. He had found hundreds sleeping in gutters, parks, railway yards, markets and mosques. Faulkner believed that the root problem was neglect and destitution. He had established youth clubs and a remand home, a juvenile court, probation services

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and an approved school which provided a model for the rest of tropical Africa (Iliffe, 1987). 41 For instance, a Social Welfare Advisory Committee was appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1943 to advise him on problems affecting the social welfare of urban and rural communities in the colonies; on the training of social welfare workers and allied matters. The Committee consisted of: The Duke of Devonshire, Parliamentary Undersecretary of State (Chairman); Sir Charles Jeffries, Assistant Under-Secretary of State (Vice-Chairman); Prof. A.M. Carr-Saunders, Director, London School of Economics and Political Science; Miss Margery Fry, an authority on juvenile delinquency; Miss L. Harford, Chief Woman Officer - National Council of Social Services; Mr. J. Longland, Director of Education, Dorset; Mr. E.H. Lucette, Secretary; Miss Margaret Nixon, Chief Superintendent of Welfare at the Admiralty; Mr. A. Peterson, Prison Commissioner; Dr. Audrey Richards, Social Services Department, Colonial Office; and Miss Eileen Younghusband, Principal Officer for training and employment, National Association of Girls’ Clubs. One of its recommendations was that public and private institutions, as well as local communities should collaborate in matters of welfare. This resonated with the British government’s weariness of leaving social welfare issues sorely in the hands of the government and not with other actors such as religious bodies, voluntary societies and local communities. 42 This was the French government under German occupation which lasted from 1940-1944. This regime had collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War when Germany occupied France. 43 Even though this author has certain reservations regarding Paul Belien’s article (2005), which was cited in: The Brussels Journal - The Voice of Conservatism in Europe, he felt it necessary to extensively quote it in order to first show how Europeans kept on exonerating themselves from the dehumanisation of Africans during colonial rule through their self-belief in the “mission” of “civilising” the “primitive” Africans. Second, to highlight the extent to which the Belgians had gone in order to ensure that the mineral wealth of the Congo was extracted, uninterrupted, through such an extensive programme of social engineering: Belien reports that the Belgian social scheme for the post-Leopoldian Congo was masterminded by the engineer Emile Waxweiler (1867-1916); a friend of Leopold’s successor King Albert I. Waxweiler saw colonisation as a utilitarian enterprise. The “natives” (parentheses added) were the valuable manpower needed by the mining industry in the Katanga and Kasai provinces. Leopold II murdered tens of thousands, but, under Albert’s rule, population management became a priority. In 1906, Leopold II had brought the Congo under the direct control of a number of companies belonging to the Société Générale holding, such as the Union Minière (UM), its mining subsidiary. As manpower was especially needed in scarcely populated mining areas of the Katanga and the Kasai, the UM imported labourers from other parts of the Congo to supply the workforce for the mines. The labourers were selected by physicians according to strict medical criteria, because “recruiting weak elements is not only a cruelty, but a useless cruelty and economic nonsense.” They had to live in labour camps of a quasi-military nature. They were well-fed, well-

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housed, well-cared-for, but closely controlled. Various types of camps were drawn by Waxweiler’s Institut de Sociologie and different methods of disciplining the blacks were studied, in order to give optimal long-term labour results. Waxweiler even conducted research into the ideal diet to guarantee the highest productivity at the lowest cost. In the early 1920s, the Belgian social scientists concluded that all labourers had to marry. “Married men have a better morale and a higher morality than single men. As a consequence, their ratios for sickness, mortality, desertion and absenteeism are lower and their productivity is much higher,” Waxweiler’s pupil, Dr. Leopold Mouttoulle, the head of the UM’s social policy division and a leading member of the Institut Royal Colonial Belge, wrote. The UM went very far in its policy. It forced all its non-married black employees to marry. The company selected the brides. The UM actually “bought” (parentheses added) young women, paying the traditional African dowries to their families. The women were recruited according to medical criteria which envisaged the “production” of future labourers of optimum quality standard. Whenever an already married black man applied for a job at the UM, his wife had to pass a medical test as well. If she was considered “insufficient,” her husband did not get a job. The marriages were duly registered in order to allow the company to control the breeding process. Keeping a concubine was forbidden for the black employees, as was polygamy and adultery. The labour camps were transformed into so-called “village indigenes” where the labourers had to live with their families. This allowed the workforce to supply the company with children that could be moulded from the cradle into workers of optimum quality. The so-called “indigenous villages” soon developed into huge townships where the inhabitants were pampered, but where at the same time they were guinea pigs for the Belgian social engineers. It was a closely controlled totalitarian society. “If one could say that the Union Minière was a state within the colonial state, then it was in any case a social and altruistic state,” a 1992 book about the system (Fernand Lekime’s La Mangeuse de cuivre) states. According to this book, the UM-villages did, indeed, resemble the ideals of the “social and altruistic” welfare state. Every black family had its own house with a garden. The houses were semi-detached and built along avenues and streets lined with trees. The blacks were fed by the company with a protein-rich diet and much attention was paid to hygiene. Health-care was free, as was the education of the children, who had to be sent to kindergarten and to primary school, where they learned basic skills, including French. Parents who did not send their children to school were punished by lowering the food rations of the mothers (not the fathers, because they had to labour in the mines). Education beyond primary school was not deemed necessary. The aim of the school was to discipline the boys into “becoming good labourers” and to teach the girls “how to be good mothers.” Especially, female behaviour was closely monitored in the “indigenous villages”. Women were perceived to be potentially more subversive elements in society than men. The women were not allowed to leave the camp. If they wanted to visit their own families, they had to provide a valid reason (such as attending a funeral) and needing a UM permit. Breastfeeding the children was discouraged, because the UM wanted to boost feminine fertility in order to create a large pool of future labourers as possible. To enforce this policy, mothers had to bring their children to the kindergarten from the age of one to be fed by the company. If a woman insisted on

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breastfeeding her child, her food ration was lowered. The culmination of the Belgian social engineering project in the Congo was the creation of a new people: the Tshanga-Tshanga. Dr. Mottoulle considered it a good idea to diminish the ethnic tensions of the various tribes and peoples of the Congo by substituting them with a new race, wiping out all previously existing differences. Inter-ethnic marriages were enforced in order to artificially construct this Tshanga-Tshanga people. Its name was devised by the blacks themselves - Tshanga-Tshanga meaning The Great Equaliser.

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CHAPTER FOUR HOW SOCIAL WELFARE INITIATIVES BEGAN IN ZAMBIA

This chapter describes the manner in which social welfare activities arose in Zambia, by firstly identifying early formalised interventions by the Western missionaries and then shedding light on the interventions by the colonial authorities and the mining companies in this arena. Early Social Welfare Interventions by Missionaries in Zambia Even though the missionary and explorer, David Livingstone44 had criss-crossed pre-colonial Zambia, and died in 1873 in the area at Chitambo, Frederick Stanley Arnot, a young Scots Plymouth Brethren missionary, was the first European to have established a permanent residence in the country, in Barotseland in 1882. Historical accounts cite George Westbeech, an earthy ivory hunter and trader, as having helped Arnot to make his way into Barotseland. Arnot left the area in 1884 without converting anyone and settled around Katanga in today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). From there, the Plymouth Brethrens made in-roads into the northern parts of Zambia in the early 1900s. François Coillard, a French missionary of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (PMS) would be the next European to set up a permanent settlement in Barotseland in 1885 and actually convert some of the local people to Christianity. Coillard and his wife had previously worked for a considerable period amongst the Basotho people of present day Lesotho. They also had acquainted themselves with the Bamangwato in today’s Botswana and their ruler, Khama, so their choice of Barotseland may have been influenced by the linguistic factor, as they could easily communicate with the Lozis, who spoke a language that was a mixture of Sesotho and Setswana. In 1887, the London Missionary Society (LMS) 179

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opened a mission station on the southern end of Lake Tanganyika among the Mambwe people. The Primitive Methodists were also active in the area where the Ila people resided and had arrived at Kazungula in September 1890. However, the Lozi king or Litunga, Lewanika, had kept them waiting there for three years, until he finally permitted them to enter and settle near N’goma. The White Fathers, a Catholic group, began their work amongst the Bemba from 1891. Then there was the United Free Church of Scotland which initially began its work in Malawi and later moved southward into Zambia. It established four mission stations at Mwenzo in 1895; then at Lubwa, Serenje, and Chitambo in subsequent years. In 1905, after the defeat of Mpenzeni, the Dutch Reformed Church, from the then Orange Free State in South Africa set up a mission station at Fort Jameson or present day Chipata. In this part of Africa, it is safe to state that the missionaries were the first Europeans to establish permanent bases in the precolonial period: before the hunters, traders, miners and administrators. Intermittently, there had been contacts between the indigenous people and the Europeans, especially, the Portuguese from the 1790s onwards. But there had not been an enduring presence of Europeans until the arrival of the missionaries. Even George Westbeech had not had a permanent settlement in the area.45 Naturally it was not plain sailing for the missionaries as many were assailed by all sorts of diseases, primarily malaria and black water fever. Many had died in their quest to evangelise the local communities and had also faced inhospitable terrains infested with tsetse flies, wild animals and warring local people. They also had to contend with slave raiders as slavery had continued in this part of Africa well into the early twentieth century, due to its remoteness. In the northern parts of the country, the Bemba ethnic group was notorious for raiding weaker ethnic groups for slaves who were then sold to the Arabs. The conditions were indeed wretched and deplorable. In most instances, the missionaries were motivated by a belief in their need to “civilise” the local people. Arguably, even though this 180

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approach might have primarily been encoded in some puritanical or superiority complex, the missionaries had sincerely tried to change the local people for the better. Many local communities were steeped in various archaic practices such as witchcraft or sorcery, and had thrived on all kinds of superstitions and myths, and were, to all accounts, ignorant. In all sincerity, the so-called “Bible in one hand and a gun in another” adage does not apply in the Zambian case as it is evident that the missionaries had set out to fight diseases, ignorance and backwardness across the land. However, in other parts of Africa, especially in the Portuguese and what later came to be known as German territories, the scenario was totally different as some missionaries or the church had been complicit to the massacres of local people and other atrocities, which had been meted out by the colonialists. Even during the British South Africa Company’s (BSAC’s) rule, the development of education had depended upon the initiative, perseverance and financial resources of the missionary societies (Kelly, 1991). Their intentions or methods might have been questionable, but these people, for the better part, had genuinely wanted to uplift the conditions of the local people. As Europe was still being shaped by the enlightenment era, some missionaries had taught their converts the idea that all people were equal in God’s eyes. They preached about liberty and individual freedoms. They had also sought to liberate Africans from what they had perceived as stifling patriarchal and communal ties of the traditional system that did not allow individuals to flourish. With such teachings, they had even come into conflict with the racist colonial administrators and some oppressive traditional rulers. Thus, it is not a coincidence that many, if not all, of the nationalist leaders, who took up the fight against colonial rule, were educated by missionaries. It is easy to bash missionaries today as the handmaidens of colonialism in Africa, but frankly, it can be argued that there is a litany of postcolonial African regimes that cannot match the zeal and commitment of early missionaries, vis-à-vis the raising of the quality of life of the downtrodden. Even in present times, how 181

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many Zambian professionals or public servants are willing to work in rural and remote areas? Some of these places have remained as they were when the missionaries had worked in them a hundred years ago. The missionaries had also faced other challenges associated with trying to transpose Western culture and a foreign religion onto the local social fabric. After they had established mission stations, they had also discovered that the local people’s levels of development could not assimilate the training, which they were providing, apart from a few areas: On the material plane, too, missionary teaching was limited in its results, as far as indigenous tribal economies were concerned. Only where there was already a highly diversified economic system in existence, as in Barotseland, was the native economy greatly enriched by industrial training. Elsewhere the new skills taught by the Christian instructors made comparatively little headway in the countryside, for unless the whole way of life of a village was changed together with its technology, the new skills could find little scope. The same applied to some of the agricultural innovations introduced by the missionaries (Gann, 1958:42).

During the BSAC’s rule, there had not been much development in the territory or any tangible infrastructure development such as schools, for example. Therefore, African education in Zambia was firstly initiated by missionaries in Barotseland. In 1885 François Coillard established the first missionary school under the auspices of the PMS. Soon after the turn of the century there were about seventeen missionary societies managing churches, schools and a hospital in the land. For instance, in 1915, a girls’ school was opened at Mbereshi in Luapula in northern Zambia by Miss Mabel Shaw of the LMS. However, the Barotse king, Lewanika was not happy with this type of education: Dissatisfied with the limited curriculum of the missionary schools, Lewanika looked to other agents for a more secular, practically oriented educational system. When these failed to materialise, he backed the creation of the Barotse National School in 1906. For many years the only nonmission school in Northern Rhodesia, the Barotse National School was funded by the percentage of the colonial hut tax earmarked for the king,

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with no contribution at all from the Company. Its students were primarily the elite of Barotseland - the sons of the rulers and of the leading chiefs and headmen - but, combined with mission schools, it produced a population with far higher levels of literacy than in the rest of the country (Herbert, 2002:7).

As mentioned earlier, the sphere that came to be known as Zambia was ruled by the BSAC until 1911, when the territories of North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia were merged to form Northern Rhodesia, with the town of Livingstone in the south serving as the administrative and commercial centre. The Northern Rhodesia Order-in-Council, 1911, united these territories which had previously been administered under the Barotseland-North-Western Rhodesia Order-in-Council, 1899 and the North-Eastern Rhodesia Order-in-Council, 1900. On 1 April 1924, Northern Rhodesia became a British Protectorate and its dependency via the Northern Rhodesia Order-in-Council, 1924, which repealed the Northern Rhodesia Order-in-Council, 1911. The Order-in-Council of 1924 also provided for the administration of the colony by transferring jurisdiction or authority which was vested in the High Commissioner in South Africa to Northern Rhodesia. Previously, the Royal Instructions of February 26, 1924, had directed that there be an Executive Council consisting of the following members of the Colonial Service: Chief Secretary to the Government, Attorney General, Treasurer, Secretary for Native Affairs, and a Principal Medical Officer as an ex-officio Member of the Executive Council. The territory was now governed by a Governor with executive power and who served as Commander-in-Chief. A Legislative Council made up of a minority of Europeans as elected members came into being following recommendations of the Buxton Committee.46 From 1889 to 1924, as far as from making any profits in the territory, the BSAC had suffered heavy annual deficits. Thus, after the BSAC negotiated with the British government, an agreement was reached between the two parties, which resulted in the British government recompensing the Company £3¾ million for its losses over the administration of 183

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Northern Rhodesia, which then passed to the Colonial Office as from 1924. This in no way affected the mineral rights, which were still held by the Company (Coleman, 1971). In 1925, a year after the BSAC administration had passed over to the Colonial Office, a sub-department of native education, under the Department of Native Affairs was created in order to inspect mission schools and to decide which schools would receive financial aid from the colonial government (Parker, 1968). Zambia’s colonisation was accelerated when rich deposits of copper were discovered in 1902 in Chief Chipepo’s area, at Kabwe. A European, T.G. Davey, operating for the Davis group stumbled across outcrops of lead, zinc and vanadium on a rocky hillock which he named “Broken Hill” on account of its resemblance to a similar formation of that name in Australia. Later on, in the areas of present day Ndola and Luanshya, another European named Collier, discovered copper deposits, after shooting a Roan antelope, and to his amazement, found that it had fallen on an outcrop of pure malachite, which the local people had been using as treatment for tropical ulcers. Hence, the name of the mine, which later operated in the area - Roan antelope. Many of the mines on the Copperbelt were discovered by randomly stumbling upon ancient workings or mineralised outcrops - or on the goodwill of locals (Coleman, 1971). When other mineral deposits were discovered in the area that came to be known as the Copperbelt, Europeans had begun to arrive in large numbers. Many of these were petty merchants, traders and farmers who came from South Africa and had left that country after the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). In order for the minerals to be exploited, infrastructure such as roads and a rail line had to be built. The erection of a rail line from Victoria Falls to the Copperbelt, also led to an expansion of European settlements along its course. Fertile land was allocated to Europeans for agricultural purposes as well. In these early years of colonial rule, colonial administrators and European commercial enterprises in the territory were in dire need of labour, in order to carry out construction works. Labour recruitment was not easy in 184

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these times and the former had to use unconventional means to source it. The colonialists thus forced Africans to work in the nascent money economy so as to provide cheap labour for the colony in the mining and emerging agricultural sectors. OrdeBrown (1933:8) in his crude assessment justifies the coercion, which was liberally resorted to by almost all the colonial administrators: “money was scarce, communications bad, conditions primitive, and natives were entirely unaccustomed to wage-earning; thus a proportion of compulsion was inevitable.” Although the mining operations had not required a lot of labour in the initial phases, demand grew with the subsequent discovery of other sites where there were rich mineral deposits. Nonetheless, labour had to be imported from other parts of the country because the communities around the copper mines could not satisfy labour demands. Initially, Northern Rhodesia had been largely a labour exporting country to the mines of South Africa, Belgium Congo (Katanga) and Southern Rhodesia. Since Africans were used to a subsistent-type of lifestyle and were not willing to work in the new mines or other commercial enterprises, the colonial authorities worked out a tax system which forcefully incorporated them into the colonial economy: One of the obvious means of obtaining more money was the imposition of an African Tax. The question of taxation in turn was closely linked with the labour question, for the need to earn tax money was the most important incentive to induce Africans to take up paid employment (Gann, 1958:77).

Thus in 1901, the BSAC introduced the hut and poll tax (collectively known as the African tax) which coerced Africans into wage employment. The hut tax was also a form of poll tax which was based on the number of huts an African owned. Later, there was an exclusive focus, by the colonial authorities, on taxing the wages earned in the money economy. Tax defaulters or evaders were severely punished. Some were even imprisoned or forcibly recruited into labour gangs. Since most Africans did not participate in the modern economy, they could only pay this tax in kind, for example through grain, fowls, fruit or livestock. 185

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But in the end, when these agricultural products were depleted, they had no choice but to sell their labour. Later on, a decree was passed in 1905 by the colonialists that compelled Africans not to pay tax by any means other than money. Following these developments, Africans migrated in large numbers to the urban areas in order to work in the mines and factories. Thus a new phenomenon arose in colonial Zambia where able-bodied young men were uprooted from their villages to the mining towns. These times can be regarded as the initial stages of the twin processes of migratory labour and rural-urban migrations. Colonial rule had deliberately created a reserve army of labourers in the rural areas and turned villagers into wage seekers. In the same vein, urban settlements became wholly dependent on cheap labour from the hinterland. There was always abundant labour and due to this, the employment contracts were short, with duration of usually up to six months. Once the contracts were over, the labourers would be “offloaded” in the rural areas and new ones would be recruited. The migration of predominantly males to the urban areas posed serious threats to the stability of the extended family and the traditional mutual-aid system, which had safeguarded the livelihoods of its members. Migrations had also resulted in distorted demographic patterns in African communities in that only women, children, the old and infirm remained behind in the villages. Women, in adapting, had to take on new roles and responsibilities which had previously been the domains of men. This was at times a blessing in disguise in so far as African gender relations were concerned. Urbanisation further threatened the old order in the way that the new and young “urbanites” quickly discarded their traditional values for modernity and also assumed new social roles in the towns. Labourers, who returned from the urban centres to their respective villages, also challenged the traditional authorities and the traditional value system. Urbanisation had also helped to spread the money economy to the previously and hitherto, traditional sector. Previously, people had bartered and cooperated in wealth creating activities. By and large, Africans 186

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were being drawn into the consumer-oriented and individualistic culture of the modern economy through the process of urbanisation. The money economy also spurred on radical changes in the emerging colonial setting, as traditional communal goals of the extended kinship group were relegated for those of personal achievement and individual careers (Powdermaker, 1962). In addition, kinship relationships had a tendency to take on new meanings in urban areas and in a sense largely became “destructured” (Mitchell, 1969). Urbanisation also brought into close proximity people of different ethnic groups and cultures who never interacted with each other. This changing social order was significantly altering the lifestyles of Africans as Epstein (1958: xi-xii) notes: In his village the African was a subsistence cultivator, a hunter and, in some tribes a herdsman. Now in the towns, he earns his livelihood as a labourer in a copper mine, as a brick layer or carpenter, a tradesman or owner of transport service. In his social relations he is no longer confined largely to members of his own tribe; he works for, and enters into social intercourse with his fellow Africans of other tribes, and Europeans and Indians.

From the above-mentioned it can be argued that social change in colonial Zambia was mainly given impetus by colonialism, which in turn had negative ramifications for the indigenous people’s way of life. More importantly, the discovery of minerals and their extraction further contributed to the transformation of the social relations and conditions in the colony. However, many local communities had faced difficulties in adapting to the conditions of the emerging colonial society and its socio-political and economic system. Indeed, during these times, the indigenous people had not evolved towards modernity, but had been catapulted from communalism to colonial capitalism, by the forces of social change: As in mediaeval Europe the influence of the Church and State were supplemented by the rise of the Third Estate, so in modern Africa a third major influence has been added to that of missions and government. It is this Third Estate, represented by great industrial enterprises, which has

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introduced sweeping changes in the position of modern missions in Central Africa… (Davis, 1933:9).

As interaction between Africans and European settlers increased, there arose tensions in the emerging colony. The main factor that heightened discontentment was the African tax. Africans openly rebelled against this tax system which they considered as draconian and because of this they faced the wrath of colonial administrators. The second source of grievance was the dispossession of African people’s land, by the colonialists. Most of the arable and productive land along the line of rail was annexed by the Europeans as well as the lands of Chipata and Abercon (present day Mbala). Then the colonial administration went on to undermine African agriculture by introducing various restrictions, whilst at the same time subsidising European farmers. Some of the indigenous communities were quite adept at agricultural production and the colonial government made sure that these local producers were enfeebled so that European farmers did not face competition on one hand and that Africans went to work in the European enclave as cheap labour, on the other. The rest of the local populations were shepherded into what were known as Native Reserves, where the land was not fertile and which eventually became overcrowded. Furthermore, those Africans who were good at trading and had business acumen were thwarted from earning income from such ventures in order to, again, make them go and sell their labour. In the process, different mechanisms were used to weaken the wealth creating capabilities of Africans. Due to this, there were feelings of resentment against the Europeans from the Africans in the colony. Contrary to popular accounts, the first organised form of resistance from the indigenous people actually started in Barotseland: In Barotseland, which was geographically remote from the labour centres, it was among the mission evangelists that the first organised strike of Africans broke out in Northern Rhodesia in 1900. It was thus the “white collar” workers rather than the “raw” labour migrants on the mines who were the first to use the weapon of combination. The Barotse evangelists were also

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the first to venture on an attempt to set up an independent native church. This was the first African effort in the Territory to set up a European organisation independently of the white man… (Gann, 1958:32).

The First World War and After Already, as shown above, there was an awakening of African political consciousness, which was beginning to take root in early colonial Zambia. This would be raised to another level with the outbreak of the First World War. The Northern Rhodesian Regiment founded in 1891 had conducted military campaigns in East Africa during this war. Thousands of Africans were mobilised for the war effort by the British government, with close to fifty thousand as porters and three thousand five hundred more as askaris for military action. Many Africans from the colony died in this war and not necessarily from the fighting, but from diseases and malnutrition due to lack of proper diet. Upon return, there was nothing in store for the African ex-service men, but their world-view had been dramatically changed due to the war experiences. Between 1918 - when the war ended in Northern Rhodesia at Mbala - and 1939, when the Second World War broke out, there were sprouts of resistance in colonial Zambia which can be attributed to the political awakening of the Africans, which in the main were influenced by events such as the First World War. In the same period, there was also an influx of Europeans and a heightened alienation of African people’s land by the former. Even though Northern Rhodesia was not considered a “white man’s country” as in the case of Southern Rhodesia, the small numbers of settlers had nonetheless demanded for a bigger role in Northern Rhodesia’s political space. The settlers had even constituted an Advisory Council during the war and called for more settler political representation in the territory. After the BSAC had extended taxation to Europeans, the settlers made representations to the British Crown challenging the BSAC’s right to tax them. The Watch Tower Movement, which emerged in 1913 in Zambia and other independent African churches were also quite 189

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instrumental in sowing the seeds of dissent against the settlers as they had also preached against colonial rule. The Watch Tower Movement had gained prominence after the end of the First World War, especially the period 1918-35. Its extreme religious views and anti-establishment stance would place it, in most instances, in the category of religious sects and regarded by the colonial establishment as a “subversive element”. In 1923, the first African Welfare Society was formed at Mwenzo, in the northern part of the country and it was led by missionary educated Africans namely: Donald Siwale, David Kaunda (Kenneth Kaunda’s father), Hezekiya Kawosa and Peter Sinkala. As will be explained shortly, these movements served as vehicles against colonialism and also as incubators for nationalist politics in Zambia. In 1929, the colonial administrators introduced “Indirect Rule” in place of “Direct Rule”. Prior to this, the BSAC had directly ruled the area except in the case of Barotseland which had its own form of governance. In spite of the passing of the famous Passifield Memorandum in 1930 - authored by Lord Passifield, then Britain’s Secretary of State for the Colonies which acknowledged the “paramountcy of native interests over those of the settlers”, the indigenous people’s livelihoods and dignity continued to be stripped away by the colonial authorities and the settlers. Also, the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s had negatively impacted on the colonial economy in a significant way. Inevitably, in May 1935, things boiled over when an industrial strike erupted on the Copperbelt. This mass working class action broke out when African miners demanded higher wages, better working conditions and the abolishment of racial discrimination. The strike which had begun at Mufulira mine later spread to Nkana and Luanshya mines. It was quelled by colonial troops. Twenty-eight strikers were either killed or wounded during the strike, while many more were arrested. A Commission of Inquiry which was appointed by the colonial government immediately after the strike, in order to determine its causal factors, observed that one of the triggers was the abrupt 190

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and incomplete announcement by the colonial authorities of the African tax, across the board, in the middle of the year. Yet, this was just one among other African grievances. Interestingly enough, the copper mines only became fully fledged commercial entities after new innovations for treating sulphide were discovered. After the initial discoveries of minerals in Zambia, for a while, copper production had remained quite modest as the technology at the time could neither get to the ores far beneath the surface nor process some of them. However, this changed after the 1920s. With new technology in mining also came the improvement in labour conditions: The policy change which overshadows all others was the adoption by the mines of the policy of stabilisation. The mining industries of Central Africa did not take long to learn that the efficiency of African workers could be increased substantially by improving the physical conditions of the workers, by means of better food and living conditions, and by training Africans to take on semi-skilled tasks. However, the employers also realised that the returns from their investments in better nutrition and training would be substantial only if healthy workers with skills could be encouraged to work for longer periods than the former six-month contract (Fry, 1979:18-19).

The 1930s, the Second World War and Afterwards From the mid-1930s major changes began to transpire in colonial Zambia. For instance, it was during this period that the policy of stabilisation became a colonial programme. Prior to this, an urban African was considered a sojourner who would return to the village once his employment was terminated. Therefore, African workers were accommodated in temporal, make-shift or barrack-type of housing. They were classified as: (a) bonafide natives in search of work; (b) bonafide seekers after work; (c) destitute and unemployed persons; and (d) Persons otherwise occupied than working for Europeans.

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The former approach had further entrenched the temporal resident status of the African worker and delayed the stabilisation of labour and the establishment of African settlements (Keith and Stephenson, 1936). Interestingly, the above-mentioned policy shift, also points to pure capitalist motives. Moreover, even racism could not overshadow the need for an efficient labour force critical for higher productivity and ultimately, higher profits. Here we start to see a new picture emerging whereby, just as in the case of Katanga as discussed in the previous chapter, the mining companies began to play a much bolder role, in regard to the well-being of their African workers (than the colonial government) purely for reasons of profit maximisation. Thus, the second phase of social welfare activities in colonial Zambia was necessitated by the stabilisation of labour, which also brought about a shift in the welfare approach, from a purely missionary type of work, to more comprehensive initiatives by the mining firms. Another important factor was the changed thinking in regard to urban African quarters as permanent settlements: At the end of the Second World War, in what is today Zambia and was then Northern Rhodesia, there clustered along the north to south line of rail bisecting the subsistence areas a number of labour camps whose population by 1946 was at least 100,000. In 1945 and 1946 the decision was taken to build instead the infrastructure for the settled urban society - a decision which was given effect in the Ten Year Development Plan for the territory published in 1947. During the next fifteen years there followed a five-fold multiplication of the population concerned. At the same time the camps were transformed into mosquito-free towns with water-borne sanitation, tarmac roads, street lighting, overcrowded but well-built houses, clean open spaces, public transport for Africans and civic administration modelled on Britain and South Africa (Heisler, 1971:125).

Notwithstanding, stabilisation was derived from a colonial and racist template: The social engineers coined a new word: stabilisation. It was not exactly “proletarianisation” as used in Europe, for officials still did not see wage labour as enveloping all of Africa. Stabilisation meant separation: creating an urban working class capable of living in the city and producing a new generation of workers in the city, independent of the “backward”

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countryside. It meant paying Africans more - “family wages” or “family allowances” (Cooper, 2002:34)

The labour question was also bound up with the rise of social problems in the African quarters: The squalid conditions of town Africans were matched by immorality, juvenile delinquency, and crime. The compound system in the mines at first made it impossible for unskilled men to bring their wives with them from the villages, so prostitution found ample opportunities for trade (Hall, 1965:130).

During these times, the demographic patterns of the colonial territory were slowly changing in the face of the rural-urban migration of Africans and the emigration of Europeans to Northern Rhodesia’s mainly urban centres. The table below depicts these trends according to Deane (1953:20) who had cited the Central African Statistical Office. Table 1: The Population of Northern Rhodesia Year 1926 1931 (Census) 1936 1946 (NonAfrican Census) 1950 (Estimated)

European

Asian

5,581 13,846

N/A 176

10,588 21,809

342 1,115

36,000

3,000

Coloured (Biracial) N/A 425

African

Total

1,199,000 1,372,235

1,204,581 1,386,682

604 789

1,366,425 1,700,000

1,377,959 1,723,713

N/A

1,850,000

1,889,000

The table below shows that the majority of Africans lived in the rural areas. It also highlights the percentages of Africans in villages in 1945, excluding migrants and town dwellers from the total population as estimated from figures supplied by the District Commissioners (Deane, 1953:28). 193

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Table 2: Percentages of Available Population In Villages In 1945 Province Northern Central and Western (Presentday Copperbelt) Southern Barotse Eastern

Men 18 17

Women 27 27

Children 55 56

20 18 13

26 27 29

54 55 57

The above statistics corroborate the reality that able-bodied men left their villages in search of work, thus their lesser percentages in terms of numbers in the rural areas. It is important to note that the economic variable in the colonial set-up had defined the social relations between the colonised and the colonisers. Due to this, the European sector was the major beneficiary of the colony’s wealth. With wealth, came other life sustaining opportunities like employment, proper health-care and education, and social security for the settlers. Mineral production was so lucrative that at one point a ton of copper - which was the main export of the colony - cost about £27 to mine and export to London, where it fetched about £43 on that market. From 1929 onwards, the total revenues of the territory - 70 per cent of which were directly due to copper - had increased four-fold because of demand (Rotberg, 1965). Furthermore, industrial development in the colony generated economic growth which was not evenly redistributed to the rest of the Northern Rhodesian society, as Europeans got richer and Africans remained impoverished. Also, even though demographically Africans were in the majority, less money was spent on their social services. The case of education can best illustrate this anomaly. In 1936, when the African population had numbered one million, three hundred and seventy thousand, and that of Europeans was around ten thousand, five hundred and fifty-eight, European education took up £29,934 from the colonial development fund, whilst Africans were allotted 194

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£24,484 (Yearbook, 1938). Likewise, in 1937, expenditure on European education again exceeded that of Africans. At the time, there were one thousand European children as compared to thirty thousand African children in school (Kelly, 1991). Therefore, there were already simmering feelings of disenchantment from the Africans prior to the Second World War: As yet the nascent domestic manufacturing sector showed little sign of expanding to meet the requirements of the mining industry. In the mining and railway sectors, European workers had succeeded in entrenching themselves in skilled employment by establishing closed-shop trade unions, and then insisting on “equal pay for equal work”. In commercial agriculture, European farmers had created a network of price and marketing controls which discriminated against African farmers, either on grounds of quality (where, as with cattle, the African farmers tended to supply lower quality products), or failing that (as in the case of maize) on the unproven grounds that an equally high price for European and African farmers would encourage Africans to exhaust the soil. European wage levels were around 50 times as high as those of African workers in the same sectors (Fry, 1979:20).

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Northern Rhodesia was firmly inserted into the global capitalist economy through its mining ventures. It was also part of the British Empire and thus its people were mobilised for the war effort against Nazi Germany. Considerable efforts were made to persuade the Africans to participate in the war whether by volunteering for military service, by increasing production, or by giving contributions to wartime funds in return for promises of improvement in economic, social and political conditions after the war. Africans were told by posters and over the radio, through mobile cinema shows and information bureaux, that they were partners with their colonial “masters” in the fight for democracy and that a brave new post-war world awaited them (Crowder, 1993). It can be noted from the foregoing that African reactions during and after this war were influenced by such actions. Thus, their expectations of a better life were not misplaced as they were raised in the first place by the colonialists themselves through false promises. More importantly in relation 195

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to the foregoing, the new concept of obligation of the British government for the economic and social welfare of the colonies (itself a child of the Depression) was nurtured during the war. That is why plans for the development of institutions of higher education in the African colonies were drawn up during the war as were those for the development of trade unions. The tentative reforms were undertaken by Britain partly under pressure from her American allies who were not prepared to fight a war on her behalf merely to preserve her empire, partly in reform both within and outside the Colonial Office, and partly to avoid a repetition of the disturbances in the West Indies in 1940 caused by the prevailing scandalous economic and social conditions there (Crowder, 1993:97). Mobilisation for the war effort by the colonialists also had unintended consequences in that most Africans in Northern Rhodesia had experienced the Second World War vicariously through war news and propaganda. The war news and propaganda to which the African population was suddenly exposed to hastened the emergence of an African political voice. Also, the need to mobilise public opinion in support of the war effort led the Northern Rhodesian government to pay more attention to African public opinion than it had before the war. Indirectly, the war stimulated some educated Africans to use the press - government as well as commercial - in order to engage in political dialogue with the administration and white settler politicians (Smyth, 1984:345). Furthermore: It was during the Second World War that the Colonial Office and the government of Northern Rhodesia began to think in terms of development planning and social welfare. Thousands of African men were recruited in Northern Rhodesia for the war effort and served in the army as far away as Burma. There was concern at the impact that their return after the war might have on African society. There was a well-grounded fear in official circles that African nationalism would be stimulated by the return of exservice men with heightened expectations. All the district Commissioners were asked to write five-year plans for their districts, with a view to identifying employment opportunities for these men (Macmillan, 2005:189).

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Inevitably, a sequel to the strike of 1935 took place in 1940, during the Second World War. This strike was more organised and it was primarily about higher wages, unequal working conditions and also a challenge to European racism. The African workers argued during the strike that they could work as well and skilfully as Europeans. The mining company agreed to minimally increase the African workers’ wages. However, the wage increase was insignificant and did not change the overall socioeconomic conditions of the African miners. They remained the same with no foreseeable opportunities in training or apprenticeship. The 1940 strike also signalled a growing class consciousness amongst the African workers. In 1945, just after the end of the Second World War, there was another major strike by the African employees of the Southern and Northern Rhodesian railways. The railway system which served both countries and was crucial to the economies of the two territories was crippled during the strike. This again pointed to the increasing political awareness amongst the general African populace and more importantly, the workers. Critically, such actions were a rude awakening to the colonial authorities and in spite of themselves they were alerted to the reality that Africans were an important factor in the running of the mines and also in propping up of not only the colonial economy, but also of Britain. Arguably, the local workers were cushioning the British working class as the profits from copper sales, amongst other raw materials from the British colonies, helped to sustain the British Welfare State. The colonial establishment realised that a vibrant and healthy working population was needed to continue mining minerals from the ground. Thus, the mining and colonial authorities made some concessions, such as changes in the social welfare coverage of Africans and improvements in the labour conditions. As mentioned earlier, British colonial policy began to shift in the early 1940s. Slowly, indifference was replaced by genuine concern. In the first place, the British government and indeed ordinary Britons were reacting to the unfolding tensions in the 197

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colonies fanned by the settlers’ wanton exploitation of indigenous communities. Furthermore, the settlers’ outright disregard of the local people’s human rights was a source of concern in certain sections of the British society. On the other hand, colonies were becoming quite difficult and expensive to manage, thus: Welfare replaced law and order as the imperative of imperialism around this time, and in 1940, following the strike and riots by African miners, the House of Commons, the Christian churches and the Aborigines Protection in Britain had identified the poverty of the labour camps as the most pressing problem in Zambia (Heisler, 1974:16).

Indeed, the term “welfare” denoted recognition of the extent of poverty in the tropical colonies which was revealed at the end of the 1930s. This was also expressed through an acceptance of the large “welfare” element in the expenditure under the 1929 Colonial Development Act. The 1940 Act permitted expenditure of ₤5 million per year on development and welfare projects plus ₤500,000 per year with no time limit on research schemes. Expenditure under the new Act was slow in the first two years because colonial governments were told in September 1940 that Britain could not afford development schemes which did not bear a direct relation to the war effort unless “the scheme was of such urgency and importance as to justify the expenditure of the United Kingdom funds in present circumstances” (Havinden and Merdith, 1990:218). This changed approach by the British colonial authorities should not be naively taken as wholesale benevolence of the British government, but must be seen in context as a clear signal of self-preservation and a desire to shed its colonial baggage: The first Colonial Development Act was passed avowedly with the aim of relieving unemployment in the United Kingdom. The last, the Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940, passed in time of war when the physical shortages of capital and skill were such as to make it difficult rather than advantageous to export them, had its aim the raising of the standard of living of colonial peoples and their emancipation from economic dependence on the United Kingdom. Before the funds were

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allocated the colonial governments were called upon to present ten-year plans of development (Deane, 1953:6).

Similarly, the return of soldiers from the war front, during and after the Second World War, heightened the contradictions in the colonial setting. This situation also necessitated the need for an increase in the welfare services of Northern Rhodesia. Most of these war veterans ended up destitute after serving the British Crown in the Second World War. As per custom of the racial divisions in the colony, the colonial authorities provided more help, through welfare services, to war veterans of European descent. At the same time, the urban areas were experiencing huge problems stemming from urban decay such as homelessness, begging, destitution, prostitution and juvenile delinquency. The Copperbelt and other urban areas were prioritised by the colonial authorities for social welfare service provision due to their economic importance. Also the colonialists wrongly thought that those Africans in the rural areas would be looked after by their families. In regard to juvenile delinquency, a draft report on juvenile welfare in the colonies had been completed in 1942 already. This report paid particular attention to the need to establish a mechanism to respond to the problem of juvenile delinquency in the colonies. It also addressed itself to the co-ordination of activities related to juvenile welfare in the departments of education, health, agriculture and labour (Colonial Office, 1943). In 1949, the African Mineworkers’ Union (AMU) was formed in order to safeguard the rights of Africans working on the mines. Lawrence Katilungu was elected its first president. It was quite a militant force which provided Africans an outlet to voice out against racial discrimination at the work place and unequal working conditions within the territory. Again, the timing of the formation of this organisation is in line with the increasing boldness of the Africans, which came with the end of the Second World War. Earlier, in 1936, an all-white union had been established for Europeans only. This trade union had won these miners many benefits and extremely good working 199

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conditions. Therefore, trade unions arose out of a social milieu of racial discrimination in colonial Zambia. Initially, the AMU and the only existing nationalist movement at the time maintained close ties. Katilungu was even an office bearer in the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress (NRANC) as well as other union members. However, this situation did not last, especially when Harry Nkumbula, then president of the said organisation had called for strike action against the colonial government. When Katilungu and the AMU did come to the party, relations soured between the two. It became clear that the AMU was more concerned about the plight of its members and thus union work took precedence to nationalist politics. The Rise of Welfare Societies and Nationalist Politics The first well-defined form of resistance to colonial rule emerged with the formation of the Welfare Societies in the mid-1930s in the mainly urban areas. These formations confronted the exploitative nature of colonialism and the manner in which Africans were abused by such a system. It is important to note that even though Welfare Societies represented the embryonic stage of nationalistic politics in Northern Rhodesia, they had initially tackled welfare issues and mutely addressed hard political questions in the colony. For instance: The African Welfare Societies were anxious about the social disorder in the towns. With the help of missionaries and social workers they organised football matches, started small libraries and run small clubs (Hall, 1965:130).

Though pragmatic, these attempts could not yield tangible results against colonial subjugation. Efforts aimed at empowering local people by Welfare Societies proved futile as the colonial status quo remained intact and harsh. This was the first wave in the rise of these organisations. There was a resurgence of these organisations in the 1940s and this development would fundamentally add momentum to Zambia’s drive towards self200

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rule. The mid-1930s and the 1940s proved to be significant milestones in the light of increased African political consciousness as discussed earlier. Africans, particularly those residing along the rail link between the Victoria Falls and the Copperbelt were steadily beginning to interrogate the appalling inequalities and inequities embedded in the colonial sociopolitical and economic order. However, there was also another dimension to the foregoing issues. It turned out that politics and social welfare had a symbiotic relationship that would foster fundamental changes in the colony. The march towards independence was raised to another level in May 1946 when Dauti Yamba (founder of the Luanshya Welfare Association, together with representatives from thirteen other welfare organisations in the country in both the urban and rural areas) called for the uniting of all welfare organisations under one body. In attendance at this meeting in Kabwe were several delegates such as Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika of the Kitwe African Society, Nelson Nalumango of the Livingstone Welfare Society, N.S. Liyanda of the Mongu Welfare Society, Sykes Ndilila of the Broken Hill (Kabwe) Welfare Society, Joseph Y. Mumba of Lusaka Welfare Society and George W.C. Kaluwa of Mazabuka Welfare Society. All these formations were amalgamated into the Federation of African Welfare Societies with Yamba as President, Mumba as Assistant Secretary, and Kaluwa, the Organising Secretary. The federation of these formations aimed to create co-operation and mutual understanding between constituent societies of Northern Rhodesia in both the rural and urban areas. Two years later, in 1948, this movement was reconstituted into a political party known as the Northern Rhodesia Congress (NRC) under the leadership of Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika. Other office bearers were the two Vice Presidents of Congress: L. Mufana Lipalile and Robinson M. Nabulyato; Mateyo Kakumbi - Treasurer; John Richmond - Assistant Secretary; and George Kaluwa as Assistant Treasurer. According to the constitution that it adopted, this formation expected to “promote the educational, political, 201

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economic and social advancement of Africans.” Apart from the government, Congress would “be a mouthpiece of the Africans.” It would “only do its best to interpret truly and faithfully the real African opinion in building up a satisfied, peaceful and progressive Northern Rhodesia” (Rotberg, 1965:212). It can be seen here that the leadership of Congress had initially tried to transform the colonial order and not overthrow it. Interestingly, most of the leadership of Congress were products of missionary education and were educated above the level of the average colonial subject. Some of them were also professionals. Shortly afterwards, the organisation changed its name to the Northern Rhodesia African Congress (NRAC). Petitions and deputations were the initial modes of resistance to colonialism which were adopted by Congress. Like most African nationalist movements in their nascent years, the NRAC was not overtly radical. It had sought to work within the legalities of colonial Zambia and imperial Britain. In 1951, the organisation’s name would again be changed to the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress (NRANC) with Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula replacing Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika as leader of the party. Henceforth, concerted efforts aimed at undermining colonial rule would ensue through a sustained process of political mobilisation, agitation, strike actions and boycotts of European shops. Congress took on more radical roles with mass action being the main tool used against the exploitation and racism of the settlers. Notably, nationalist politics and the fight for independence were fuelled by the colonial authorities’ inability to address the African people’s problems of, among others: poverty, squalor and disenfranchisement. The NRANC under Nkumbula had advocated for a universally applicable social welfare. It was also in favour of the redistribution of land and the nationalisation of the mines. The burgeoning urban slums became the fertile ground for new recruits for the nationalists’ cause because their inhabitants were fed up with the colonial system. Many were unemployed or could not advance themselves in the colonial set202

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up. Thus, inadequate amenities with respect to health, education and housing had given the nationalists enough cause to fight the colonial system and mobilise the masses into a cohesive force. Initially, the fight against colonial rule was triggered by the Africans’ vehement opposition to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The NRANC of Nkumbula and Kenneth Kaunda who had become its new Secretary General, spearheaded the fight against the federation between 1951 and 1953. The federation was an issue that galvanised the African masses around the question of self-rule. Many Africans hated what the federation stood for and saw this arrangement as a usurpation of power from the British Crown by racist and white minority political elites. The resistance against the federation can be said to have provided the building-blocks for Zambia’s eventual independence. Indeed, calls of “one-man one vote” were re-echoed across Zambia because the nationalist movement was beginning to see that the African people’s move towards independence had suddenly been jettisoned by the federation, which regarded the needs of the settlers as paramount to those of local people. Previously, the mood of defeat had prevailed in the ranks of Congress and the country. Thus this was one way of reenergising the party and the call for self-determination. Congress also mobilised chiefs around the country to defy the federation. There were a hundred and twenty chiefs in Northern Rhodesia who had signed a petition opposing the federation. Despite a spirited fight by Congress and the indigenous people, the federation was a foregone conclusion. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 1953-1963 In the earlier discussions of this book, it was mentioned that Northern Rhodesia had a smaller number of settlers who nonetheless had managed to win themselves a substantial political space in the territory. The settlers had become quite vociferous in their call for settler autonomy, especially after those of Southern Rhodesia had managed to secure themselves a 203

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settler state and so-called responsible government in 1923. To a larger extent, the demands for a federation had been articulated long before the advent of the Second World War. However, with the outbreak of the war, the calls for a federation were temporarily shelved, but not after a Royal Commission, which was constituted under the leadership of Lord Bledisloe, had been established. Its purpose was to investigate the question of the federation in regard to whether any form of closer co-operation or association was desirable and, if so, what form it should take. Its conclusions were written up in the Bledisloe Report of 1939. The Report had agreed in principle that amalgamation was in the future a “natural and desirable thing”; in other words, that it was something that could come in time. But its main difficulty in advising immediate amalgamation was in what it termed the “native question”. The Report suggested that an inter-territorial council be set up in order: (i)

to examine the existing government services of the three territories (Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland) and bring about the greatest possible measure of co-ordination in those services; and (ii) to survey the economic needs of the whole territory, including agricultural, industrial and commercial areas, and frame plans for future development in the light of that survey. Many Europeans in the territories were not happy with its findings as it was seen as favouring African people. After the Second World War, the calls for the federation were re-sounded by the settlers but the Labour government in Britain was not keen on the idea and believed that it was inimical to African interests. However, this changed with the re-election of the Conservatives into power in 1951. Thus, in April 1953 the Conservative government approved the constitution of the federation in total disregard of the Passfield Memorandum after a referendum was concluded on the said matter. In the Legislative 204

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Council of Northern Rhodesia the idea was approved by a majority (of a minority settler population) by seventeen votes to four. There was a minority of four members on that council, which comprised two African members and two European members who had been nominated by the Governor, with the approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to represent African interests. The former European members were namely Reverend E. G. Nightingale, a missionary, and John Moffat. Even though the two Africans and their two European counterparts had voted against the federation, it was too little too late as on 23 October 1953 the federation came into being. In this arrangement, the interests of the African people were not considered as important by the settler population. According to Roy Welensky, who would later lead the federation as prime minister; the relationship of the settlers and the Africans was that of “a rider and his horse, with the African being the horse.” The first prime minister of the federation was Sir Godfrey Huggins from the newly formed United Federal Party (UFP). Previously, Huggins had been prime minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1933. Roy Welensky was appointed minister of transport - a position he held until 1956 when he became prime minister. Welensky was an interesting character to say the least. He was an uneducated thirteenth son of a wandering Lithuanian Jewish peddler and an Afrikaner mother from Cape Town. Welensky grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe and later became a locomotive engine driver, and operated from Kabwe, Zambia. In the same instance, there were rumblings in Barotseland: Factions within the royal family challenged the King; the educated elite challenged the political elite; the latter challenged the Boma, and all Lozi challenged the central government on the question of amalgamating Northern Rhodesia. The question of amalgamating Northern and Southern Rhodesia produced most cohesion among Lozis of all classes and factions. In 1938, the Bledisloe Commission had discovered in no uncertain terms with unanimity of Lozi hostility to any connection with Southern Rhodesia dominated by white settlers. That attitude had now not only hardened, but had been channelled into a demand for a positive alternative: if amalgamation took place, the Lozi would demand to secede from Northern

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Rhodesia and be made a full Protectorate along the lines of the High Commission Territories south of the Limpopo (Caplan, 1970:170).

During the federation, certain government functions of Northern Rhodesia were overseen by the federal government, however, social welfare services were its preserve. The courts and the police were also under the jurisdiction of Northern Rhodesia. Economic matters, notably the finances of the territory which were accrued from the copper sales, fell under the purview of the federal government. Consequently, Northern Rhodesia’s revenues from copper were channelled towards the development of Southern Rhodesia, the capital of the federation. This meant that development in colonial Zambia was undermined by this arrangement. Furthermore, individual and company tax was paid to the federation which again was inequitably deployed in the favour of Salisbury. Thus, Zambia’s export earnings went on to finance the construction of infrastructure in Zimbabwe. Zambia remained underdeveloped and this reality would haunt the country even after independence because it had to import most of its products from overseas via Zimbabwe, because it was directly connected to South African ports. Zambia could not even refine her copper due to the country’s created dependence on its southern neighbour. When the federation came into effect, Congress continued to press for better conditions for Africans in the territory. These were followed by reprisals from the colonial authorities through beatings and arrests. To this effect, Nkumbula and Kenneth Kaunda were both jailed for two months for possessing prohibited literature in 1955. This only served to raise the profile of both leaders in the African community and inspire people to resist the settlers. Therefore, between 1954 and 1958, Congress leaders made demands for a better life for Africans through boycotts and pickets. In some instances the boycotts paralysed European businesses. In 1958, the colonial government signalled that it was going to change the constitution of Northern Rhodesia in order to allow for minimal participation of the Africans in the territory’s political processes. However, the young and radical 206

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elements of Congress such as Kenneth Kaunda, Sikota Wina, Munukayumbwa Sipalo and Simon Kapwepwe, among others, were vehemently opposed to collaborating with the colonial government and decided to break away from the NRANC. There was growing disenchantment from certain Congress members who thought that Nkumbula’s tactics were quite mild. The straw that broke the camel’s back came in the form of the Congress leadership’s acceptance of the changed 1958 constitution and its decision to participate in the elections proposed for 1959. The Zambia African National Congress (ZANC) was formed in October 1958, in direct response to these developments. The ZANC immediately called for a boycott of the elections and in response the colonial government banned the party in March 1959 and arrested its leaders such as Kaunda. The NRANC had won one seat out of a total of twenty-two in these elections. Whilst Kaunda and some of his colleagues were in prison, the remainder of the ZANC leadership formed the United National Independence Party (UNIP). When Kaunda was released from prison in 1960, he automatically assumed the leadership of the UNIP. Between 1960 and 1961, the British government made earnest and bold moves of preparing Zambians for self-government. Nationalist leaders such as Kaunda and Nkumbula were invited in the same period to London for talks known as the federal review conference, at Lancaster House in December 1960. This conference was meant to begin the process of ending the federation by addressing constitutional reforms in both Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia. Previously, in mid-1960, a separate political arrangement for Nyasaland had already been concluded. Nonetheless, the nationalists from Nyasaland were also present at the conference. Complicating the situation was the prime minister of the federation, Roy Welensky who kept on pushing for the settlers’ demands for self-rule. After much haggling and walk-outs, there was some progress made towards allowing a much broader representation of Africans in the political process. The British government saw to it that the 207

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constitution was amended in order to allow for the participation of the UNIP in new elections which were proposed for October 1962. Eventually, the UNIP agreed to participate in these elections which were meant to pave the way for African self-rule and where it duly won 60 per cent of the vote in the Legislative Council (fourteen seats - out of thirty-seven), but failed to command an overall majority. The UFP had garnered 21 per cent (sixteen seats) and the African National Congress (ANC) got 17 per cent (seven seats). The remaining eight seats were vacant. Even though the ANC had earlier flirted with the UFP, the desire for African self-government prevailed. Thus the two nationalist movements, the UNIP and ANC, were compelled to form a coalition government and bury their differences, for the sake of independence. This enabled them to form an African government and have a combined number of seats which were more than those held by the UFP. This settlement resulted in Kaunda being appointed as Minister of Local Government and Social Welfare, and Nkumbula as Minister of African Education. Due to these developments there was a call for the dissolution of the federation which came into effect in December 1963. As a follow up to the elections of 1962, in January 1964 there was another round of elections under a new constitution with all adults eligible to vote for the seventy-five seats in a new assembly. Ten seats were reserved for Europeans. UNIP emerged stronger in these elections, winning fifty-five of the sixty-five seats. Kaunda became prime minister after this. Subsequently, in May 1964, the Northern Rhodesia Independence Conference opened at Malborough House in London under the chairmanship of Duncan Sandys, the Commonwealth Secretary. In attendance were also: H.J. Roberts (leader of the National Progressive Party), Kenneth Kaunda (Prime Minister), Harry Nkumbula (leader of the African National Congress) and Evelyn Hone (Governor). At this conference, the British and Northern Rhodesian governments agreed on the independence constitution and Zambia’s independence was officially set for 24 October 1964. On the day, Kaunda became president of a new country 208

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called Zambia and the UNIP formed the first African government. Concurrently, at the independence talks, there were feverish negotiations relating to the future of Barotseland. With Northern Rhodesia’s independence imminent, the British government indicated that it was not willing to continue to administer Barotseland alone, as a Protectorate. There were mixed signals emanating from the Barotse nation regarding this matter. There were some who were in favour of amalgamating Barotseland with Northern Rhodesia to form the new state known as Zambia. This position was popular amongst the young Lozi group, especially those who were in the UNIP and residing in the towns along the line of rail. The king of the Lozi or the Litunga and his government and mostly the old generation were in favour of proceeding as a separate nation known as Barotseland. Unfortunately, everything was stacked against the Litunga and his court. The educated and young Lozi group which was also heavily involved in Zambia’s independence struggle had erroneously thought that its position as well as that of Barotseland was going to be secure in a new Zambia. But as the Prologue showed, this was not to be as Kenneth Kaunda and the UNIP had other sinister motives regarding the future of Barotseland. After eleven months of intense negotiations, the governments of Great Britain, Northern Rhodesia and Barotseland agreed in May 1964, at the Commonwealth Relations Office in London, to append their signatures to a political settlement referred to as the Barotseland Agreement 1964. This political settlement had sought to entrench some form of autonomy for Barotseland in the new nation called Zambia with its institutions and governance structures taking precedence over those of Zambia.

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Shifts towards Professionalism in Social Welfare Activities in Colonial Zambia. As stated earlier, the period after the end of the Second World War was quite momentous for Northern Rhodesia in the light of social welfare activities. In the following decade of the 1950s, things were accelerated by even the colonial authorities in regard to the professionalisation of the welfare sector. During this period, the Northern Rhodesian Ministry of Local Government and Social Services was in-charge of social welfare services throughout the territory. However, a critical development at the time was the appointment of the first Social Welfare Officer in 1945. Archibald H. Elwell was appointed the first Social Welfare Officer on the Copperbelt. He was posted to Kitwe and was instructed by the Provincial Commissioner of the then Western Province (Copperbelt), “to adopt the role of a student” by observing what was happening in the country and “learning about the conditions on the Copperbelt from a welfare point of view.” The duties of the first Social Welfare Officer revolved around health, recreation and educational activities. This official was expected to possess an intimate knowledge of the “African language and customs” and have the “well-being of the African at heart.” Also, the official should have had a good knowledge of hygiene, cinema work and business. It can be argued that the range of these duties and demands, underline the manner in which social welfare was conceptualised, at the time, in colonial Zambia. Welfare work developed largely in terms of recreational activities and other functions that revolved around: play centres, care of people with disabilities, medical social welfare, health visits and aftercare, diet (nutrition) schemes, the removal of evil social conditions and communal feeding (Central Province African Provincial Board, 1948). Elwell had a short stay in Northern Rhodesia and was dismissed and sent back to England. One reason behind his sacking was his overt sympathy for African people. For instance, on one occasion he had attended a meeting of the Kitwe African 210

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Society. This action was taken as an affront by the colonial authorities. In a letter to the Colonial Office in London, the Governor of Northern Rhodesia expressed concern that the Welfare Officer was not a suitable candidate for welfare work. He also pointed out that the Nkana Mining Company was of the opinion that the Welfare Officer was a threat and could not allow him to enter their compounds (Waddington, 1946). Elwell did not impress his new employers as attested by the following comments: “My impression at the moment is that the gentleman who is welfare officer is entirely bound up with African interests. If that is so I deprecate it. I hope he is going to deal both with European and African welfare” (Legislative Council of Northern Rhodesia, 1945). These remarks were made by Roy Welensky who would later become the prime minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Even though such sentiments were not unanimous in the Legislative Council, they nonetheless reflected the views of the wider settler population as can be noted from the remarks of one member of the Legislative Council during the same debate. He rightly argued that Europeans had a highly organised system of welfare which they had created for themselves and pointed out that they had big recreational, athletic, dramatic, women’s and youth clubs as well as scout, and girl-guide movements (Legislative Council of Northern Rhodesia, 1945). The year 1950 can be regarded as a watershed in matters of social welfare in Zambia when the Department of Social Welfare was established by the colonial government. In order to realise this, the colonial authorities had approached the South African government and had solicited for both advice and help in order to constitute an organisation that would oversee welfare matters in Northern Rhodesia. The South African Director of Social Welfare then visited Northern Rhodesia in order to conduct a survey of welfare services in the country and make necessary recommendations on how they could be organised, co-ordinated and developed. The findings of the survey were published by the South African Department of Social Welfare in a report: Social 211

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Welfare Services in Northern Rhodesia: A Report Presented to the Government of Northern Rhodesia (1950) by Graham C. Bain. It is interesting to note that during this period, South Africa was already entrenching institutionalised racism or apartheid, which created separate social welfare services for the various population groups namely: Whites, Blacks, Coloureds and Indians. In this arrangement, services for Africans were minimal. A natural corollary of this set-up was a permeation of an ethos of racial inequality in social welfare service delivery. Thus South Africa was not the best country that the Northern Rhodesian government could have used as a model for its social welfare system given South Africa’s apartheid policies. However, Northern Rhodesia had its own form of apartheid known as the colour-bar system. After the Department of Social Welfare came into being, it was run by administrative secretaries and local government officials. A skeleton staff complement was in-charge of the department. It comprised of a director (responsible for the overall work of the department), three social welfare officers (who were responsible for the towns of Kabwe, Livingstone and Lusaka) and two wardens in-charge of shelters for children in Ndola. The department was headed by a director, who had acted as an advisor on welfare matters to the Northern Rhodesian government, prior to this appointment. Following his employment, the colonial government undertook measures aimed at arriving at a rational plan for managing social welfare services in the country, so that they could be accessed by communities. After the plan was prepared, in consultation with local authorities and the mining companies, it then became the policy that delineated African and European social welfare service provision in colonial Zambia. British colonial policy after the Second World War, in the light of social welfare service provision, was quite specific when it came to the roles which had to be played by the different territories of the British Empire. They not only had to provide social welfare services to people in the various territories, but also recruit personnel for such work. Suitable local candidates for 212

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the various social welfare positions were then sought by respective authorities in the colonies. However, this endeavour proved extremely difficult due to the non-availability of locally trained personnel. It was for this reason that field workers with limited educational background became the first indigenous social welfare workers in Northern Rhodesia. As a consequence, the first trained officials who were in-charge of social welfare were from the British Probation Service. Not surprisingly, there was a strong bias towards probation work during this period in Northern Rhodesia. Furthermore, the Juvenile Ordinance which was passed in 1953 entrenched such a tilt in social welfare matters (Brooks and Nyirenda, 1987). At the time, Northern Rhodesia did not have an approved reformatory school or place of safety for other racial groups that were not African. Only in 1961 did these services extend to them. The colony had made use of services in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa for only European and bi-racial young people who were in conflict with the law. The only place of safety for young Africans at Katombora near Livingstone, and which had been operating since 1950, was fraught with challenges such as lack of trained staff and training facilities as well as shortages in accommodation. In 1954, the department started casework and handed over group work to the local authorities. Interestingly, the eventual recognition of the urban African family brought in its wake a new emphasis in welfare services, especially, in mitigating social change. Also, voluntary organisations increased including the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) although their services were particularly directed towards expatriate needs (Brooks and Nyirenda, 1987). The Colour-Bar System Colonial Zambia was premised on the racist ideology known as the colour-bar system. In this classification, people’s life chances were defined according to race:

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(a) People of mixed-race origin or “Coloureds” were a notch lower than Europeans; (b) Asians or Indians were below bi-racial people; and (c) Africans were at the bottom of this pyramid. Due to the foregoing, among others, social welfare initiatives were underpinned by residual interventions and the bulk of such services were available to mainly the white population. Thus, the colonial social welfare policy was driven by racial discrimination, social exclusion and elitism. The mining industry was also instrumental in creating a comprehensive welfare system for the white settler population as well. The settlers’ access to the formal labour market also came with social welfare entitlements. The colour bar system was further reinforced by the South African connection which was discernible especially on the Copperbelt. Holleman and Bicsheuvel (1973) in their study on the attitudes of the white labour force on the Copperbelt in the late 1950s argue that the white community “had almost inevitably adopted the essentially self-centred South African attitude with regard to race and the division of labour and was firmly transplanted to Northern Rhodesia.” The colour-bar system created better conditions for the settlers. The two authors further observe that in the boom years of the middle 1950s, everyone had a large car, radiogram and refrigerator. European workers fitted themselves out with expensive sports equipment, took extensive coastal holidays and entertained lavishly. There were a range of social welfare services in colonial Zambia for the European, Asian and mixed-raced populations, but which had largely excluded Africans, namely: ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ

general welfare and relief, specialised services for people with physical and mental disabilities, the elderly, children and youth, services for ex-service men, national, racial and denominational groups, marriage guidance, road safety, community development and group work,

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ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ

personal services, housing and hostel services, employment and delinquency services, places of safety, correctional institutes, legal aid, prisoner care, mental health, and Recreational and educational services (Northern Rhodesian Council of Social Services, 1962:1).

There were also specialised services for alcohol addicts which were solely for Europeans. It is noteworthy that the mining companies inevitably oversaw a considerable amount of welfare related activities on the Copperbelt due to the labour question. However, there were other welfare services which were delivered by the municipalities, religious bodies and voluntary associations. Initially, social welfare on the Copperbelt, which was spearheaded by the mining companies, was funded by profits accrued from beer sales run by the same mining establishments. As such, beer-halls became prominent features in mining compounds and miners saw drinking as their only source of recreation. Later on the Central Advisory Committee on Native Welfare re-evaluated this arrangement and recommended that welfare work be de-linked from beer due to increased drunkenness in the mining compounds. The Northern Rhodesian Christian Council was also opposed to the idea of beer proceeds being used for social welfare work. The problem that was faced by the mining companies was that they were unable to define what actually constituted African social welfare in the first place. For many years social welfare on the Copperbelt was to remain nondescript with most welfare programmes centred on football matches and film shows. The story about cinemas on the Copperbelt is quite fascinating. By the late 1930s, film shows, known locally as the bioscope were a well-established feature of life in the copper-mining towns and company compounds. Thousands of women, men, and children crowded into enclosed open-air cinemas each week to watch film programmes that 215

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mixed entertainment and current events; and many young town dwellers were avid bioscope fans, valuing films above all other forms of entertainment (Ambler, 2001). However, these films had unintended consequences. Ambler (2001), reports that during the 1940s and 1950s, no visitor to the copper mining cities of colonial Northern Rhodesia could escape the visible marks of the impact of American films. In the vast company compounds that housed the African miners and their families on the Copperbelt, groups of African boys, “dressed in home-made paper ‘chaps’ and cowboy hats, and carrying crudely carved wooden pistols,” were a ubiquitous presence running through the streets and alleys in endless games of cowboys and Indians. Interestingly enough, the rise of movie attendance in the 1930s inspired many white residents of the Copperbelt and more than a few prominent Africans to express similar concerns about what they saw as the negative and potentially dangerous effects of the products of Hollywood on the impressionable African youths who festooned themselves with cowboy gear. Imperial propagandists likewise became convinced that films invested with appropriate narrative messages could bolster loyalty to the empire and promote colonial “development” objectives. Ambler (2001) asserts that these rather feeble efforts at propaganda films nevertheless attracted considerably more interest from scholars than the Hollywood fare. Yet, in practice, and notwithstanding the best efforts of paternalistic imperial bureaucrats, African moviegoers generally had little patience for films on postal savings banks, “better hides and skins”, and proper teeth-brushing procedures. For them, movies meant the bioscope - the high-action products of Hollywood dream factories. In any case, censors had cut films shown on the Copperbelt to ensure that African audiences were not exposed to images or story lines that they imagined might inspire challenge to the white supremacist colonial order - a tall order, given the violent rituals that characterised the plot of a typical western. Likewise, audiences on the Copperbelt in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s were by no means passive consumers of cinema. They 216

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absorbed exotic images and discussed the actions and motivations of characters, but they also appropriated and reinterpreted film images and action in their own terms (Ambler, 2001). It can be said that during the same period, social welfare activities in the rural areas were not as pronounced as those in the urban settings. There were only services of the missionaries and voluntary associations in such places. The Northern Rhodesian Christian Council believed that the colonial government was supposed to have consulted missionaries and other interested parties who were in favour of African welfare, when it came to the implementation of projects in the rural areas (Northern Rhodesian Christian Council, 1948). Notwithstanding this urban bias, there was some understanding from the government of Northern Rhodesia that it was also important to raise welfare standards in the villages. The Colonial Office in London had also taken note of this fact and in its draft report on Juvenile welfare in the colonies asserted that rural life had stagnated, and that this in turn had heightened rural-urban migrations. The Colonial Office noted that the problem of juvenile delinquency could be arrested at the source, by rural welfare associations, like village community groups, co-operatives, women’s institutions and rural health centres (Colonial Office, 1943). Concrete moves towards an organised welfare system in Northern Rhodesia were given impetus when a draft report of social welfare in the colonies was also completed by the Colonial Office in 1945. This initiative was a co-ordinated response aimed at meeting the needs of people in the colonies and provided a policy framework for social welfare in the British colonies such as Zambia. The draft report also took cognisance of the fact that social welfare was the aim of any reputable government and every department of such a government (Colonial Office, 1945). In addition, the Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1945 was quite instrumental in transforming the colonial landscape. For instance, it resulted in numerous universities etc., thus fulfilling the colonial programme that had been advocated before the war by some officials (Cell, 217

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1992). This report and the Act were developed against the backdrop of other initiatives emanating from the Colonial Office cited in the previous chapter. Professionalism in social welfare matters was strengthened in Zambia with the introduction of a course at Mindolo in Ndola in 1951. This training was earmarked for Africans working in social welfare organisations. The training programme was attended by a total of fourteen employees from various local authorities in the towns of Chingola, Kitwe, Livingstone, Luanshya and Ndola. The course included theoretical and practical lessons focusing on casework and group work methods. Lecturers that conducted this course were drawn from different government departments such as the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute and the Ndola Municipal Council (Department of Social Welfare, 1952). In Lusaka, the Lusaka Management Board organised a two year course for its African staff. The course was more practical in outlook and laid particular stress on welfare work and the importance of character training in group work. Another development that added professionalism and a coherent approach to social welfare was the formation of the Northern Rhodesian Council of Social Services (Department of Social Welfare, 1952). At the behest of the Northern Rhodesian government, the Council was created in 1954, in order to co-ordinate the work of all social welfare agencies in colonial Zambia. Annual subsidies were also provided to the Council by the government. Despite this, the main social welfare service which was offered to Africans was still recreation - with the exception of Barotseland, where three orphanages for African children existed. These institutions were maintained by the missionaries and the Barotse Native Government (BNG) (Department of Social Welfare, 1950). As educational standards still remained inferior, indigenous trained social workers could not be recruited into the Department of Social Welfare. After this shortfall was observed, plans got underway to establish a training centre for social welfare practice. Whilst these activities were unfolding in the colony, both missionary and voluntary organisations continued providing 218

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services to needy people. The services provided by the missionaries were non-racial, whilst certain services provided by voluntary organisations were exclusively for white people and those of mixed-race populations. In 1953, a central welfare assistance programme was established by the colonial government in order to help vulnerable individuals and to coordinate the policy governing such assistance. There were also attempts made to increase both European and African staff in the department as well as find a balance between recreational activities and social work. The scope of social welfare initiatives became clearer to the administrators and policy-makers once the former was achieved. The Department of Social Welfare also established its own training centre for African social workers in 1954. In 1955, serious discussions between municipalities, mining companies and the Department of Welfare were concluded. These discussions’ main thrust, were aimed at initiating a standard generic social work course for Africans (Department of Social Welfare, 1955). The foregoing endeavours culminated in concrete actions which were taken to establish social work training in the country. Thus in 1961, the Oppenheimer College of Social Services was opened in Lusaka for the said purpose. It was a non-profit making institute of learning. Prior to its establishment, all the training centres around the country that had offered social work courses were closed down. This was done in order to arrive at a uniform approach to social welfare training in the country. The college began training students in the same year and had graduated its first class in 1964, after students had successfully completed a three-year Diploma. At the outset, the college endeavoured to provide quality programmes by offering an external Diploma in Social Services in conjunction with the University of London. There was also an external Junior Diploma that was specifically offered to individuals who were already employed as social workers but did not have any formal qualifications (Department of Social Welfare, 1961). The Oppenheimer College recruited Lecturers from the United 219

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Kingdom and the United States of America. The assumption underlying the hiring of such a mix of academics was that students would benefit from two distinct intellectual traditions. Initially, the Oppenheimer College had offered courses in the social sciences. There was also an intensive training in generic social work which was available to students. This course proved advantageous to practitioners, given the terrain and the multiplicity of social problems in the country. For social workers dealing with various social ills in a Zambian context, the generic approach was favoured for its holistic appraisal of social reality. Without specific emphasis on one type of intervention, this approach gives the practitioner the latitude to intervene at multiple levels. Training, particularly in skills training and the development of psychiatric interventions, were prioritised. After independence, social work education did not change at all and instructions continued as before. Due to this situation, the Oppenheimer College of Social Services was still preoccupied with the blending of American and British models. The philosophical underpinnings of both American and British social work models were pivotal in shaping the curriculum of social work in post-colonial Zambia. Efforts at introducing a course of social work of a higher quality finally bore fruit in 1966, when the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences was opened at the University of Zambia (UNZA). The former had also incorporated the Oppenheimer College. The UNZA provided instructions in social work at both degree and diploma levels. The main advantage of the University of Zambia in taking over the Oppenheimer programme was that there was an availability of trained staff that could provide a professional social work programme. Furthermore, the Social Work Department at the University of Zambia had a reasonable budget for fieldwork placements and supervisory visits (Hough, 1969). When the University of Zambia began operating, there was a pressing need for trained personnel in various fields in the country. There were also numerous employment opportunities for trained social workers in social welfare departments, urban 220

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municipalities and the townships of mining companies; general hospitals, mental institutions, voluntary organisations as well as in community development activities. Trained social workers were also in demand for work in the areas of personnel and industrial relations, and for positions where skills in the field of human relations were required (Hough, 1969). In years to come, social work educators would constantly grapple with this foreign origin of the profession, as they sought after more relevant models of social welfare for a Zambian context. Chapter Four Endnotes 44

In the year 1858 Livingstone wrote a letter, in which he outlined a dream of his for a great colonial development in the area now known as Zambia under the British flag. 45 George Westbeech is described by the editor of his dairies as the man responsible for establishing a British foothold in Barotseland. Even though David Livingstone, in the 1850s, was the first European to describe Barotseland and its people, then under the dominance of the Makololo, Westbeech took up the story again twenty years later and through his own diary carries Barotse history down to the establishment of the Paris Mission by the Rev. Françoise Coillard and records many details of the confused events after the death of his friend King Sipopa and the succession of Lewanika to the throne. Westbeech spent the last seventeen years of his life among the Barotse (Clark, 1961 in Tabler, 1963). 46 A Committee was appointed in 1920 by the Secretary of State for the Colonies under Earl Buxton in order to investigate the land question in Northern Rhodesia. It concluded that the only satisfactory method of dealing with land titles would be to obtain a legal decision which would not be open to challenge and therefore, the whole issue should be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It also observed that Northern Rhodesia lacked homogeneity.

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CHAPTER FIVE SOCIAL WELFARE IN POST-COLONIAL ZAMBIA

I. Social Welfare in the First Republic This section focuses on the development of social welfare in Zambia after the country gained independence from Britain on 24th October 1964.47 The chapter also highlights the manner in which the new African government made choices in matters of national development in general and social welfare in particular, during the First Republic which spanned the period from 19641972. It also casts light on the advances that were attained in social welfare in the 1960s and early 1970s. This was just prior to the institutionalisation of the one-party state in 1973. The section also focuses on the broader macro and global dimensions, in so far as they impacted on the country’s social welfare outcomes. Zambia emerged out of colonialism after agitations, riots, strikes and other concerted actions against colonial rule, by various political formations, had taken place in the country. However, these disturbances were not protracted and Zambia’s independence can be said to have been won via negotiations rather than a liberation struggle as in other parts of Africa. The United National Independence Party (UNIP) seems to have appealed to many Zambians and this party became the main proponent against colonial rule in the country. Due to this occurrence, the party was voted overwhelmingly by the African majority in the elections of 1964. It also looks like the UNIP was extremely sensitive to the question of African liberation, economic empowerment and the general advancement of Zambians. These were its clarion calls during the fight for independence and it would remain committed to some of them until it was voted out of power in 1991. However, in later years such calls became more of a self-serving exercise than something that the party truly espoused. From the beginning, the party’s intention was to create an egalitarian society in order to achieve 223

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the goals of African self-determination, economic empowerment, self-reliance, self-worth and pride. Following its handsome victory in the January general elections, UNIP formed its first cabinet under Kenneth Kaunda as president, although the process was marred by considerable tensions within the party over the composition of the cabinet. Nevertheless, preparations began at once for the transition to independence in a country of 3.5 million people, whose population of less than 0.5 per cent had even full primary education. The first urgent steps were then taken to prepare Zambians for senior posts in the civil service. At the end of the year and two months after independence, the first three permanent secretary posts were Africanised, along with twentyseven other civil service positions (Tordoff and Molteno, 1974:11). The foregoing situation was a consequence of colonialism which had deliberately withheld secondary education from Africans until the 1940s and higher education within the country for the whole of the colonial period. The foregoing scenario must be taken into consideration as the civil service is the engine of modern governments and no development efforts can transpire if it is not functioning. It may not be able to perform adequately for a number of reasons, for instance, the lack of capably trained officials or its over politicisation. These may prove costly to its overall efficient and effective performance. At independence, however, the problem of lack of patriotism topped the list of the incapacities of civil servants. This is because the civil service was seen as working in contradiction to the expectations of the mass of the people and also not being in tune with the vision and ideals of the ruling party. British expatriates who had been recruited by the colonial authorities, to implement colonial programmes, were still in the majority at independence. Civil servants were also drawn from a small settler population that had emigrated from Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Also, many European civil servants did not identify themselves with the new government and began to leave Zambia in droves, back to their respective countries of 224

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origin, despite assurances from the government that their jobs were not under any threat. What is clear is that the Zambianisation of posts was meant to redress the imbalances in employment opportunities that had been carved out by the colonial system for Europeans. Zambianisation was to re-arrange the unequal structural forces, designed by colonialism, in order to build a just and equitable society. It also sought to create the greater sharing of wealth and ending of exclusiveness and racial privilege; and the opening of opportunities to Zambians who had been denied all elements of good life - education, health, responsibility and fair return for labour (Kaunda and Morris, 1966). Initially, the government’s intention was to allow expatriates transfer skills to local people for a certain period before the posts could be indigenised. But many of the expatriates who remained were intransigent to the new order and even proved to be detractors of new development initiatives. Some even sabotaged efforts of transforming the newly independent state. Thus tensions between the politicians and civil servants were palpable in these times. What transpired was that civil servants were distracted from executing the mandate of the new government. Nevertheless, the rationale for Zambianisation was spurious as any person who was Zambian, regardless of qualifications, and also affiliated to the UNIP could be employed in the civil service. Mwape (1988:273) elucidates this conundrum: Through Africanisation or Zambianisation or localisation immediately after independence, most top executive positions were filled through political appointments. The executives were supposed to learn on-the-job or through coaching by expatriate staff before the latter left Africa. Some of the disadvantages of relying on this method are that the expatriate was presumed to have the knowledge to impart to the African. At times this was not true. The executive trainees therefore, in most cases were improperly trained! The second disadvantage is that this method had the potential for conflict maximisation. Most of the people who were supposed to coach or train the in-coming executive saw him/her as a competitor and a person who will finally take over their posts, hence put in very little in training a competitor.

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When it came to social welfare, it is quite ironic that there was congruence of approaches of the colonial government and the new government. Startlingly, in the area of the family, both the colonial government and the UNIP government had regarded the extended family as critical to meeting the needs of its members. Both the colonial and post-colonial policies governing the plight of the aged were actually not dissimilar at all, although their rationales and outcomes were different. The colonial authorities and the UNIP government had argued that care for the aged was supposed to have been provided by the extended family. For the colonialists, it was important for the African to go back to his/her village after working in the urban areas and be looked after by his/her family. This was only supposed to apply to Africans and not Europeans. Hence, Europeans had facilities for the aged who had no family to look after them. However, the UNIP government held the view that old people had to be looked after by their families, as it was only in the Western world where they were institutionalised. According to UNIP’s ideology of Humanism, old people in traditional societies were regarded as fountains of knowledge from where the community could solicit advice, especially during times of crises. They were venerated and therefore had to participate in numerous community activities that brought forth community cohesion. They arbitrated in disputes and offered wise counsel. Whenever old persons could no longer care for themselves, the extended family took responsibility of looking after them. It was argued by politicians and policy-makers alike that urbanisation had played a significant role in loosening the ties of the extended family system. During the colonial era, the aged were categorised according to race in regard to social welfare service provision. Again, according to the colour bar system they were defined in terms of four race groups, namely: White, Black, Coloured and Indian. Elderly Africans were not supported by the colonial government. However, other race groups were catered for, for instance, they were entitled to care and accommodation in old people’s homes, free medical care, spectacles and dentures. They 226

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could also rent accommodation at sub-economic prices and received an old persons’ allowance. In contrast, institutional care of African elders was not encouraged for the reasons already stated above. However, this assumption was fallacious as the reality was that in urban areas the number of elderly vagrants, who did not have families, was on the increase. The former would be helped on an ad hoc basis by the colonial government with the provision of food and shelter. At independence, the Zambian government inherited a number of old people’s homes from the colonial authorities. The government had endeavoured to gradually phase out this service which was specifically for white people. To begin with, the old persons’ allowance for white people was discontinued at independence. This was a government grant that helped elderly whites subsist. Although Humanism had discouraged institutional care and advocated for family and community care, practically, this was unrealistic as the Department of Social Welfare (1977:6) soberly concedes: Although the department discourages institutional care of the aged persons in preference to family and community care, in line with the party and government policy, in practice it has been realised that due to factors such as urbanisation, childlessness and certain cultural taboos connected with aging, there will always be some aged persons for whom the only mode of care will be an institution.

Although the family or community were the ideal caring settings for the aged, it is important to be mindful of the fact that there were those elderly persons who could not trace their families due to reasons such as mental illness, abandonment or economic pressures. Contradictions characterised the care of the aged: on one hand there were government efforts which were aimed at extirpating institutional care of the aged, while on the other, there were attempts to retain this service in order to meet the needs of old people who did not have families to look after them. It was for this reason that homes for the aged continued to operate in Livingstone, Mufulira and Ndola during the reign of Kaunda and the UNIP. It was due to this ambivalence that plans 227

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were made to erect homes in all provinces under a four-year development plan after independence (Department of Social Welfare, 1966). Furthermore: Independence found Zambia with the Department of Social Welfare providing probation, public assistance and child care, but enforcing a policy of promoting extended family responsibility. Urban local authorities and mining companies provided group activities, mostly of a recreational nature. The Community Development Department provided women’s clubs, literacy clubs and basic facilities (such as housing and roads). Voluntary organisations provided recreational training, health and child welfare (Brooks and Nyirenda, 1987:250).

There were huge expectations from the mass of the people, immediately after independence, which saw this occasion as marking the end of all social ills that were, in the main, engendered by colonial rule. Many people were eagerly awaiting the famed “fruits of independence”. The new government also fed into these expectations, which were to a larger extent, unrealistic. But the politicians promised a lot to the Zambians as Kenneth Kaunda asserted on Independence Day: “To you who took part in the struggle, whether in a major role, whether in the limelight or in the shadows, all of us in Zambia must acknowledge our debt as we achieve our independence” (Zambia Information Services, 1964). Such sentiments would underline the official development policy of the newly independent country. Henceforth, the government had to find ways and means of raising the socio-economic standing and self-worth of Zambians. To attain positive outcomes in both the social and economic spheres, the government instituted an ambitious and fast-paced programme of infrastructure development in order to raise the quality of life of the people. The idea of building key infrastructure that was pivotal to social and economic development was regarded as an essential step towards the emancipation of the mainly poor, ignorant and illiterate citizens. The range of unmet needs and societal problems at independence were described in the following manner:

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In no area in Zambia’s heritage of imbalance and contrast so marked, as in the field of human development. It is not too much to say that Zambia, in terms of high-level manpower is one of the least educated countries in a most under-educated continent (United Nations, 1964:91).

The health sector also fared badly with an acute shortage of medicines and amenities as well as trained personnel. For a population of about 3.5 million people, there were less than ten thousand hospital beds, less than seventy nurses and less than four hundred doctors, that is, there were fewer than three hospital beds per one thousand of the population (United Nations, 1964). The situation was worse off in the rural areas where minimal and rudimentary social services existed. The bulk of them were provided by the missionaries. When the country gained independence, the manner in which the Zambian economy was structured proved to be a major obstacle to development. It was tilted towards the production of primary commodities, dominated by copper, with unskilled and cheap labour supporting the production process. The country lacked skilled manpower and technical know-how, and its geographic position and poor infrastructure also made it unattractive to foreign investors (Mwanawina, 1993). Paradoxically, Zambia had inherited a prosperous miningbased mono-economy. Its main export, copper, was in high demand and fetched huge profits from export sales. These were hitherto either externalised or invested into the welfare state of the European settlers. The wealth of the country was not in the hands of the indigenous people. Indeed, the majority of the people were still poor and marginalised as the generated wealth was not equitably redistributed in the country. Therefore, due to its low economic status and inadequate infrastructure, Zambia embarked upon a drive of self-determination that placed emphasis on planned social and economic development. Immediately after independence, the Emergency Development Plan (EDP) was launched and a year later the Transitional Development Plan (TDP) was put into motion. These two development programmes would lay the foundation for the First 229

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National Development Plan (FNDP) of 1966. This plan provided a major thrust for state intervention. The EDP, TDP and FNDP, were all political blueprints, which aimed to alter the inherited colonial social and economic relations through planned interventions. Through these measures, the government resolved to erase the inherited legacy of colonialism. Planning was critical to the transformation of the new society and it was also linked to the social welfare policy of Zambia. The FNDP was guided by the following objectives: 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

To diversify the economy so that the copper industry is not the only main employer in the economy, and so that a greater proportion of domestic demand satisfied domestic production from a large industrial base; To increase employment by at least 100,000 jobs during the course of the plan, which is to run for a period of five years; To increase average monetary output per head from 61 Zambian Pounds per annum in 1964 to about 100 Zambian Pounds per annum in 1970; To maintain reasonable price stability; To minimise the inherited economic imbalance between the urban and rural sectors, with a view to raising the capacity for the latter for transforming resources into social and economic growth; To raise rapidly and increase the general levels of education, as well as develop a wide range of specific technical, administrative, executive, professional and management skills among the population; To provide more and better living accommodation as requisite ingredient of a better standard of living, and to raise the general level of social welfare; To develop new communications, sources of energy, transport and other economic infrastructure for a new economic order (Government of the Republic of Zambia, 1966:5).

The new government promulgated policies and programmes that attempted to erase the inherited legacy of colonialism which was mainly defined by the inequities and inequalities of the colonial era. Thus, there were efforts to abolish any remaining vestiges of racial discrimination and segregation, the maintenance of individual liberties, and the achievement of African Democratic Socialism. The latter incorporated raising the 230

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standard of living, achieving a more equitable distribution of wealth, humanising social security (in particular free health services and expanded educational facilities), and generally promoting trade, industry, and agriculture in the interest of the people (Tordoff and Molteno, 1974:14). Ideology and Social Welfare Zambia’s development trajectory was underpinned by an ideology.48 This ideology was of the ruling party - UNIP or more precisely of the president, Kenneth Kaunda. It was referred to as Humanism. Humanism was used as a tool to mobilise the citizens around the twin goals of nation-building and socio-economic development. It was also very instrumental in harmonising the disparate ethnic groups under one unitary state. The UNIP motto of One Zambia-One Nation was also adopted by the government for purposes of fostering national unity and keeping in check ethnic rivalries. This is because the 1960s were characterised by political violence that was primarily driven by ethnicity. Since the country had inherited a Westminster constitutional model, political pluralism and dissenting views were permitted through a multi-party type of electoral system. Although there were a number of opposition parties during this period, some of them were constituted along ethnic lines. The ruling party itself was not immune to ethnicity and did also fuel ethnic tensions in the political arena as well as in the country. Humanism denoted a way of life that was modelled along the lines of a mutual-aid society, which found its basis in the ethnic community in which human need was the supreme criterion of behaviour and social harmony was a vital necessity, since every activity was a matter of teamwork (Fortman, 1969). A crucial aspect of Zambian Humanism that had immediate application to social welfare, planning and service delivery was the “man-centred”49 ideal that was embodied in the principle of recognising man as the centre of all activities. Thus, at the ideological level Zambia was geared for a people-centred 231

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approach to social welfare and social planning. The universal access to medical and health-care, free education - from primary to university - and a deliberate emphasis on rural development, became the hallmarks of the Zambian welfare system under the guidance of Humanism (Nyirenda, 1975). It was particularly after independence that this guiding philosophy began to play a major role in shaping the structure and content of services. Emphasis was placed on services of a developmental nature moving away from the typical remedial type of services. Communities were encouraged to once again, play a major role in the improvement of their lives through self-help activities. This change in policy led to the merging of the departments that were involved in the provision of social welfare and community development services into the Department of Social Development (Brooks and Nyirenda, 1987:248). The state was supposed to care for man - the person. He in turn, was expected to care for his neighbour and thereby care for the state (Kaunda, 1969). Zambian Humanism rested on the following values: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Man-centeredness; Communalism; Non-exploitation of man; Respect for human dignity; Self-reliance; Hard work; Respect for the aged and the infirm; Co-operative effort; Inclusiveness (egalitarianism); The extended family system; Patriotism and respect for authority; Reciprocal obligation (Kaunda, 1975).

The moral appeal of Humanism was in general, somewhat similar to the objectives of social welfare: At the core of this philosophy is the belief that man is the centre of all human endeavours. Thus, all political, economic and social activities must be centred on man. This philosophy as conceived in Zambia, is an embodiment of the Zambian, indeed, traditional African way of life which

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has always characterised a mutual-aid and Man-centred society. It is perhaps for this reason that Zambia has chosen socialism as vehicle for achieving the principle of the philosophy of humanism. Accordingly, Zambia can be characterised as a Welfare State in so far as it has chosen to provide all the basic social services (such as health and education) free of cost to its citizens (Brooks and Nyirenda, 1987: 247-248).

Therefore, the UNIP government began addressing the various unmet needs by marshalling both human and natural resources whilst being guided by the ideology of Humanism. It directed huge sums of money into the social sector. To this end, money had to be sought from within the country and abroad. Having inherited a country of unusual wealth and underdevelopment, Kenneth Kaunda and his colleagues had to make good on their promise to develop it for the benefit of the entire population rather than for any sectional interest. The broad strategy lay in the diversification of production so as to make the economy less dependent on a single commodity, stepping up as much as possible the rate of social investment in education, health services, roads and all the other things that would be needed if development was to become a reality (Martin, 1972). The government also created an atmosphere that allowed for the maximum participation of the masses in matters of national development. The UNIP government had an advantage in this respect because Zambians were willing and eager to work for the betterment of the new nation. At this stage, Zambians’ enthusiasm was high. Another advantage in favour of the new government was that it was extremely popular as attested by its overwhelming high percentages of votes in its favour that were cast at the polls. The young leadership could afford to be radical and populist as it fought the wrongs of colonialism. Its orientation was firmly rooted in the ideology of African Socialism which would be later translated into Zambian Humanism. Humanism would profoundly influence the country’s social and economic strategies, as well as social welfare service delivery because planning and implementation of development programmes was undergirded by socialist principles. 233

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However, there is a downside to the above scenario. Firstly, despite UNIP and Kaunda’s avowed non-sectionalism, there was a part of the new Zambian state which was marginalised at the outset: Barotseland. Immediately after independence, Kaunda and UNIP set out to denude the sovereignty and international stature of Barotseland. Through partisan-led legislative review processes, the ruling party pushed through Parliament legislative amendments which were meant to chip away at the legitimacy of Barotseland, for instance the Local Government Act of 1965 (Act No. 59), among others, which repealed the Barotse Native Authority Ordinance of 1936 (which had given more autonomy to the Litunga and Barotseland in contrast to other parts of Northern Rhodesia). The Local Government Act had also abolished the system of Silalo Indunas that had provided the basic administrative framework through which the traditional government had maintained its authority, as well as communication and control (Gertzel, 1984). These schemes culminated in the Constitution (Amendment) (No.5) Act of 1969 which abrogated the Barotseland Agreement of 1964. To add insult to injury, Barotseland’s name was changed to Western Province after this. Furthermore, all the money which had been taken from the Barotse Native Treasury (BNT) was never returned as Kaunda had earlier promised. The new UNIP government would invest so much energy and time just for the sole purpose of erasing Barotseland’s legal standing and to an extent, its history, instead of concentrating on developing the area and the country: Each year since independence Western Province had been subjected to change which had disadvantaged one section of society or another. The abolition of the traditional authority had not dismantled privilege but it had implicitly challenged tradition itself. It had not, however, resulted in the material benefits that the Lozi nationalists had argued would follow (Gertzel, 1984:213)

Secondly, all the draconian laws and instruments of tyranny were wholly imported from the colonial order by Kaunda and UNIP without any alteration. These would be relied upon by 234

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Kaunda to harass and incarcerate those Zambians (including this writer) who were opposed to his excesses and authoritarian rule. On top of the list is the infamous state of emergency which was invoked earlier in 1964 by the Governor of Northern Rhodesia whilst Kenneth Kaunda was prime minister, to quell the Lenshina rebellion. Alice Lenshina (formerly Mulenga Lubasha) of the Bemba people, from Chinsali, was head and “prophetess” of a bizarre sect. Her followers were deemed a threat to public peace and national security by UNIP. There were serious tensions between UNIP and the Lumpa from 1964 to the late 1960s. The Lumpa sect was formed in 1958 and by 1960 it had a million followers. Northern Rhodesian troops were mobilised to quell this uprising and in the process close to seven hundred people lost their lives, between July and October 1964, before Zambia’s independence. Between 1964 and 1968 thousands of Lenshina’s followers died in clashes with the security forces. Some were internally displaced while others fled into exile in the Katanga region of the Congo. The suppression of Lenshina was brutal and severe. She was arrested and died in house arrest near Mumbwa prison in 1978. However, upon closer scrutiny, one could argue that Lenshina was not such a threat to national security, as it were, but maybe to the established order. Firstly, she advocated an indigenous form of Christianity. This did not sit well with the Catholics who dominated this part of Zambia. Secondly, Lenshina and UNIP were jockeying for the same flock and it seems she was gaining an upper hand. Some of the things she preached against (which the missionaries did not) actually made sense for instance: witchcraft, polygamy, widow “cleansing” whereby a male relative of the dead husband would have sexual relations with the widow before she was allowed to marry again. The state of emergency was again invoked in 1965 when Rhodesia declared its Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). The state of emergency would be enforced through-out Kaunda’s rule, effectively for 27 years. Only when Zambia reverted back to multi-party democracy and pluralism in 1991 was the state of emergency lifted. There was also the terrible 235

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Preservation of Public Security Act which was used by the colonialists to suppress and subdue Africans who dared to challenge colonial rule. It allowed, among other things, for detention without trial of nationalists who politically mobilised the masses against colonial rule. It also sanctioned arbitrary arrests of people who had convened political rallies or were found at such gatherings. This unjust law, which had denied Africans the right to assembly and dissent as well as freedom of expression was carried forth into the post-colonial era from 19641991. Mbao (1993:279) sheds some light on its origins: Detention without trial dates back to 1960 when the Legislative Council for Northern Rhodesia (as Zambia was then known) enacted the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance. S.4 (2) empowered the Governor to make regulations providing for detention. The exercise of the powers was contingent upon the existence of a proclamation under S.4 (1) to the effect that the situation in the territory was so grave that in order to ensure the preservation of public security it was necessary to invoke extraordinary powers under S.4 (2). By Government Gazette Notice No. 121 of 1960, Proclamation No.2 was promulgated, thereby bringing into operation the provision of S.4 (2).

Mbao (1993:279-280) further asserts: Having proclaimed a state of semi-emergency, the Governor then proceeded to promulgate the Preservation of Public Security Regulations 1961, which provided for preventive detention. It is generally accepted that the principle aim then was to deal with lawful and unlawful politically motivated activities aimed at hastening the breakup of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and for achieving majority rule in Northern Rhodesia. The 1961 Regulations were revoked and replaced by the Preservation of Public Security Regulations 1964. These did not provide for detention without trial but the Governor later issued Proclamation No. 5 of 1964, thereby bringing into operation the provisions of S.4(2) of the Ordinance. At the same time, he promulgated the Preservation of Public Security (Amendment) Regulations 1964, which inserted into the principal of regulations a new reg.3 (1) (A) (now reg.33 (1)) which provided for preventive detention.

Lastly, there was also a general confusion of whether Humanism was a philosophy or an ideology for the country or for UNIP and Kaunda. And for the better part, it only seemed that it 236

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was Kaunda and some academics, who wanted to ingratiate themselves with the president, who understood what actually Humanism was. It lacked authenticity as for most of its thrust seemed to have been practically copied from the Tanzanian president’s philosophy of African Democratic Socialism or Ujamaa. For the better part of this period, it looked as if Kaunda was parroting Julius Nyerere or Kwame Nkrumah’s political philosophies. Thus Humanism lacked intellectual rigour and could not be contextualised and therefore failed to percolate to the mass of the people. There is a simplicity to this ideology or political philosophy which was dangerous to national development pursuits. As explained in Chapters one and two, Africa was not some kind of paradise which needed to be revived in national policies after independence, because such a state never existed. However, Humanism seems to presuppose this and frankly borders on the naïveté and at times it does come across as some kind of infantile discourse. Nkrumah (1967:2) has some interesting remarks on the topic of African socialism. He opines: Some years ago African political leaders and writers used the term “African socialism” in order to label the concrete forms that socialism might assume in Africa. But the realities of the diverse and irreconcilable social, political, and economic policies being pursued by African states today have made the term “African socialism” meaningless and irrelevant. It appears to be much more closely associated with anthropology than political economy. “African socialism” has now come to acquire some of its greatest publicists in Europe and North America precisely because of its predominant anthropological charm.

Nkrumah (1967:2) goes on to argue that: Today, the phrase “African socialism” seems to espouse the view that traditional African society was a classless society imbued with the spirit of humanism and to express nostalgia for that spirit. Such a conception of socialism makes a fetish of the communal African society. But an idyllic, African classless society (in which there were no rich and no poor) enjoying a drugged serenity is certainly a facile simplification; there is no historical or even anthropological evidence for any such society. I am afraid the realities of African society were somewhat more sordid.

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Nkrumah is of the view that socialist thought in Africa must recapture not the structure of the “traditional African society” but its spirit - for the spirit of communalism is crystallised in its humanism and its reconciliation of individual advancement with group welfare. Even if there is incomplete anthropological evidence to reconstruct the “traditional African society” with accuracy, Nkrumah believes that we can still recapture the rich human values of that society. In short, an anthropological approach to the “traditional African society” is too much unproven; but a philosophical approach stands on much firmer ground and makes generalisation feasible. Global and Geo-Political Variables Social welfare initiatives in Zambia were heavily influenced by external factors which also had impinged upon the country’s political economy. It is also true that in this era, Zambia was significantly swayed by the personality and thoughts of Kenneth Kaunda. Many of the country’s actions in the social, economic and political spheres were mainly contrived by one man: Kenneth Kaunda. Many of the ill-conceived policies which were pursued in Zambia at the time were of Kaunda’s making and more often than not, the government in general. Some of the disastrous courses of action he took had profoundly impacted on the lives of ordinary Zambians in a negative way. Some of the ripple-effects of such decisions are still being felt in Zambia even today. One good example of this stance was the support Zambia gave to liberation movements that were fighting white minority rule in Southern Africa. Though noble, this cause had many a time, put Zambians in danger and eventually wrecked the country’s economy. At times this issue bordered on self-aggrandisement and personal glory. This crusade was all about Kaunda and not Zambians. Countries under white minority regimes in Southern Africa were hostile towards Zambia because of her overt support for these liberation movements. They waged military raids into the country for decades with many Zambians’ lives being lost in 238

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the process. These military incursions led to the destruction of infrastructure which further retarded development pursuits in the country. These white-ruled countries were militarily well equipped because they were supported by major Western powers notably: Britain, United States of America, West Germany and France. Israel also supplied racist South Africa with modern weaponry. Although claiming to be “non-aligned”, Zambia gravitated towards countries in the former Eastern Bloc due to its leftist political leanings. Kenneth Kaunda had admired certain renowned personalities who he also tried to emulate, for instance, Mahatma Ghandi, Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere. During Zambia’s own struggle for self-rule, Kaunda had stressed on the non-violent approach to the question of self-determination. However, at times this professed principle contradicted some of the actions he took. For example, when Kaunda split from the ANC and formed his own party the Zambia African National Congress (ZANC). He had accused the ANC of passivity and of taking a lukewarm approach to the struggle for independence. ZANC was prone to violence and used radical methods in getting its point across to the colonial government. As was observed earlier, the ANC was the main political organisation that had challenged colonial rule for quite some time. Kaunda was its Secretary General prior to splitting with the then leader, Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula, whom he had branded as “conservative”. To his credit, Kaunda was deeply committed to the emancipation of African people - an ideal that he constantly articulated and continues to do so even today. Kaunda believed in the ideal of Pan-Africanism and the idea of liberating countries in the region of Southern Africa from the yoke of colonialism viz: Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Also, Kaunda had been influenced by the Christian doctrine, initially in his home, as his father had been a church minister/missionary, and later through his education, which he had received from European missionaries. The influence of Christianity would permeate his social,

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economic and political thoughts. Even his Humanism was punctuated with Christian values. When Zambia attained independence, the legacy of the federation was firmly in place. Oddly enough, Zambia was dependent upon her white-ruled neighbours for trade. Since the country was landlocked, both its imports and exports had to pass through Zimbabwe which had direct access to South African ports. This difficulty was deliberately created by the defunct Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and generally colonial rule. There was also the Benguela rail route that passed through Angola and another route via Mozambique. Both these territories were under Portuguese control and could not be accessed by Zambia so as to use its ports to export its goods because it was supporting liberation movements from these countries. Hence the desire for Zambia to reduce her dependence on the south as she felt it morally wrong to have dealings with the white minority regimes of Rhodesia, South Africa, and the Portuguese territories of Angola and Mozambique. This strong feeling for a separate trade route, from the white dominated south, was actually burning in UNIP circles even prior to Zambia’s independence. The reality though was that these countries had economic leverage over Zambia, due to its vulnerable position regarding access to international trade routes. This economic vulnerability was starkly revealed when Rhodesia announced its Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965 - just one year after Zambia’s independence. The new prime minister of this “independent” state was Ian Douglas Smith. The Rhodesian settler population effectively divorced itself from Great Britain, but also at the same time cemented the exploitation and subjugation of Africans. Worldwide condemnation of the UDI, backed by the United Nations, resulted in the isolation of the Rhodesian regime by the international community. Sanctions were also meted out to the Ian Smith regime. Zambia could only pay lip-service to challenging the UDI’s illegality in the initial stages, as it remained dependent on the southern trade routes for its exports and imports. 240

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Implications of the UDI on Zambia’s Social Welfare System As Zambia’ economy was tied to the south, it also meant that she was also dependent on Rhodesian coal, its rail system and its electricity. The two countries had also shared these facilities due to the federation. In addition, Zambia’s security system was very fragile given Rhodesia’s military aggression. Rhodesia’s hostilities were not merely threats. Hall (1969) observes that just two weeks after the UDI, the first incident of sabotage in Zambia occurred. A power pylon was wrecked with charges of gelignite a few miles from Kitwe, bringing the Copperbelt almost to a standstill for twenty-four hours. The pylon was on the line carrying a load of more than 200 megawatts from Kariba. The Copperbelt was the economic hub of the country because the copper mines were located there. The negative effects of the UDI on Zambia’s economy cannot be underplayed as it threw the objectives of the First National Development Plan (FNDP) overboard: Between the preparation of the final draft of the FNDP and its publication in 1966, the full extent of the economic repercussions of Rhodesia’s illegal unilateral declaration of independence in November became clear. To this extent the First National Development Plan was outdated before its publication. By mid-1966, it was clear that it would be impossible to meet the extremely ambitious targets of the plan in real or financial terms and it was obvious that, falling massive aid from Britain and other friendly powers, considerable resources would be diverted from the objectives of the plan to the new objective of surviving as a nation and simultaneously maintaining a reasonable rate of growth within the economy (Elliott, 1971:14).

The UDI directly impacted upon the welfare sector in so far as it managed to derail the FNDP. In this regard, objective number seven of the plan which had envisaged: “to provide more and better living accommodation as requisite ingredient of a better standard of living, and to raise the general level of social welfare” - could not be realised as earlier projected. Even though the UDI had significantly affected the government’s economic 241

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and social objectives, this situation was also a blessing in disguise as Turok (1989:39) points out: The South was the source of Zambia’s oil and coal, necessary for the copper mines, as well as other essential goods the delivery of which was dependent on the jointly owned railways. Zambia’s attempts to impose sanctions were swiftly met by counter measures which showed Zambia’s vulnerability. But they also became an added incentive for new efforts to build economic infrastructure independent of the South. It was this crisis which spawned the decision to create a separate Zambia Railways, a coal industry, the oil pipeline to Dar es Salaam (Tanzama) and the Chinese built railway (Tazara).

As can be noted above, during this period of aggression, Zambia’s goods could not pass through Rhodesia. Therefore, Zambia began exploring an alternative trade route to Tanzania, which was also an ally. To be precise, UNIP had commissioned a feasibility study that was meant to ascertain the viability of building a rail line to Tanzania before independence in 1963. This study was never supported by the colonial government or Western financial firms and was thus abandoned at the time. Initially, the Zambian government tried to air lift its goods, but this venture proved very costly and unprofitable. Then there were attempts made to use the road net-work in order to deliver the goods to the ports of Tanzania, but the road was extremely bad and impassable. Aptly referred to as the “hell-run” this road could not meet Zambia’s transportation needs in regard to trade. After these possibilities proved futile, the idea of erecting a rail line from Zambia to Tanzania was mooted. Western countries and multilateral agencies were not interested in financing this project, arguing that it was not financially feasible. Zambia had no choice but to seek assistance from the Eastern Bloc and the project took off when China agreed to provide the finances. Therefore, in 1967 an agreement was concluded by the Chinese government to build the Tanzania-Zambia Railway with the governments of Zambia and Tanzania. This was China’s largest foreign aid project and had amounted to close to $600 million. It was also a concessionary loan to the two countries. The one 242

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thousand eight hundred and sixty kilometres long rail line was constructed between 1970 and 1975 to link Zambia to the Indian Ocean port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The railway was jointly owned and administered by the two country’s agency, the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority - TAZARA. Also, the two countries had earlier completed the erection of an oil pipeline from Dar es Salaam in 1968. It must be underlined that economic growth is cardinal to a country’s social welfare efforts. The welfare of it citizens can be secured if social policies and institutions are adequately fortified with the right finances. Ideologies will remain abstract constructs if concrete measures are not taken to invest money into the social welfare sector. Some economists have argued otherwise stating that that the welfare sector puts strain on the economy and therefore should be curtailed - as will be shown shortly with the advent of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Zambia in the 1990s. But the long term outcomes of investing in the welfare sector have disproved this economic fallacy as investing in social welfare also adds to economic returns in contrast to a situation when social welfare is neglected. Unfortunately, efforts aimed at developing Zambia after independence heavily relied upon the country’s economic mainstay and primary export, copper. As luck would have it, the first four years after independence saw copper prices soaring with revenues from the copper industry taxed at a rate of 73 per cent. Huge surpluses in the balance of payments were also facilitated by copper exports and provided ample scope for export that would sustain growth and consumption. The high copper prices on the international market encouraged the view that there was sufficient capital available for tackling new ventures, though it was only the state that was willing to take such risks (Turok, 1989:113). The private sector was divorced from developmental undertakings that were pursued by the state. In effect, it was disinterested in re-inventing profit back into the country. It was also more concerned with the channelling of the profit to Europe, United States of America and South Africa. 243

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This stance can be attributed to the fact that the commanding heights of the economy were in the hands of foreign firms and foreigners that never had the advancement of the country at heart. In this sense, it can be seen that Zambia was politically liberated, but was not economically independent and was indeed a neocolonial state. Due to this situation, Humanism was declared Zambia’s national ideology in 1967 and inevitably, a year later, the commanding heights of the economy were nationalised. The Nationalisation of the Copper Mines and Moves towards a Commandist Economy. On 19 April 1968, Kenneth Kaunda announced that the state would intervene in the Zambian economy and nationalise all private retail, transport and manufacturing firms in the country, through what came to be known as the Mulungushi Reforms. The government was to acquire 51 per cent shares through the newly created parastatal - the Industrial Development Corporation (INDECO). A year later, on 11 August 1969, the Matero Reforms were announced, and these resulted in the government purchasing 51 per cent shares from the existing mining companies: Anglo American Corporation (ACC) and Roan Selection Trust (RST), leading to partial nationalisation of the copper industry. Eighty per cent of the economy was now under state control after this second phase of nationalisation which now encompassed mining, energy, transport, tourism, finance, agriculture, services and commerce, trade, manufacturing and construction sectors. Further reforms were carried out on 10 November 1969. These were extended to the financial sector including the insurance companies and building societies, but excluding the banks, which successfully resisted being taken over. When the country adopted nationalisation as economic policy, the president of Zambia asserted: “Several times before, I have declared in very clear terms that political independence without matching economic independence is meaningless. It is 244

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economic independence that brings in its wake social, cultural and scientific progress of man. No doubt political independence is the key, but only the key to the house we must build…If we are true humanists then whatever institutions we create must be geared towards fulfilling our commitments to the common man. Basically this means providing adequate food, adequate clothing and adequate shelter for all our people in Zambia and not just a few of them. Today our society is being exploited very badly indeed by some unscrupulous men and women who are driven to the extreme right by the ‘profit motive’. A good number bring very little capital into Zambia, but because of their know-how they are able to build something locally on borrowed Zambian money and send out of the country excessive profits after a very short time” (Kaunda, 1968). The overall goal of nationalisation was to increase local control over an economy which at independence was completely dominated by foreigners at the ownership and managerial levels. Even as late as 1968 only 15 per cent of bank credit was channelled to Zambian citizens. A parallel aim was to ensure that a larger proportion of the Gross National Product (GNP) remained in the country. Nationalisation also rested upon the desire to improve the quality of life of the majority of Zambians. The state felt obliged to serve the interests of the ordinary workers and villagers and regarded the economic system as primarily being there for the benefit of the citizens of the country. In this respect, the role of the state was to limit exploitation (Molteno and Tordoff, 1974). Nationalisation was far-reaching and as reported then, the president put notice for “owners of certain firms to invite the government to join their enterprise.” These firms had to sell at least 51 per cent of their shares to the government. The first firms mentioned were Anros Industries Ltd., Monarch (Zambia) Ltd., and Crittal-Hope (Zambia) Ltd. These three companies dominated the field of window and door frame manufacturing. The building industry was also targeted: Anglo-African Glass Co. Ltd., P.G. Timbers, Baldwins Ltd., Steel Supplies of Zambia Ltd., Zamtimba Ltd., May and Hassell (Zambia) Ltd., and 245

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Johnson and Fletcher were taken over and fell under the control of the new parastatal company the Zambia Steel and Building Supplies Ltd., which was wholly owned by the Industrial Development Corporation(INDECO). Quarries that had supplied crushed stone in the Lusaka area were also earmarked. These were Nicholas Quarries, Gerry’s Quarries and Greystone Quarry. The next industry that was “asked to invite” the government to join in its activities was the brewing industry. Northern Breweries Ltd., and its subsidiary the Heinrich’s Syndicate Ltd., were targeted. Next was the transport sector: Smith and Youngson Ltd., and Central African Road Services Ltd., were nationalised. The state was also to engage in retail and wholesale distribution. The firms under focus were: C.B.C stores and shops, O.K. Bazaars, Standard Trading, Solanki Brothers Ltd., and Mwaiseni Stores Ltd. In the timber sector the Zambezi Sawmills Ltd., and the Mining Timbers Ltd., which supplied logs and mining poles to the mines were nationalised. In the print media, the Zambia Newspapers Ltd., which published Zambia’s only daily and Sunday newspapers fell under government control. In the fisheries industries, Irvin and Johnson Ltd., was “invited” as well (Cited from Fortman, 1969). On Compensation of Foreign Firms This was to be done on the basis of book value of assets as Kaunda (1968) noted: “I shall leave it to INDECO to negotiate values and terms of payment but I want to make it clear that what they will pay is a fair value represented by the book values. There is no such thing as business goodwill or paying for future profits as far as I am concerned. I cannot see any reason why we should pay extra for the boom we have ourselves created.” It is noteworthy that the mines were not initially nationalised in 1968 because as Kaunda put it: “The copper mines are big business too big for us.” But a year later, there was a change in attitude from Kaunda. An article in the Time Magazine of August 22, 1969 aptly captures the nationalisation saga: 246

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Zambia, the former British colony of Northern Rhodesia, remains uncomfortably dependent upon white-dominated Rhodesia for trade and electric power. The cost of living is soaring and abrasive tensions between Zambia’s blacks and whites (who constitute 1.5% of the population), are on the rise. Recognising the importance of the mines to his country, Kaunda met two years ago with Chile’s President Eduardo Frei to discuss an arrangement to help maintain world copper prices and quotas. Although no price-fixing agreement resulted from their talks, Frei’s nationalisation of the Chilean copper industry, beginning in 1967, probably stimulated Kaunda to take a similar step in Zambia.

The same article foretells in the following manner: Kaunda’s action entails serious risks for his country. Zambia has neither the capital nor the skills to run the mines by itself. Kaunda must rely heavily on both the companies and their remaining 5,000 white miners to keep operations going. Only the steadily rising price of copper, now at a high of $740 per pound, has enabled Zambia to maintain a favourable balance of payments in recent years. Any decline in copper prices as a result of an end of the war in Viet Nam, the discovery of new sources, or the increased use of other minerals, would hit Zambia hard.

Implications of Nationalisation It is important to note that at independence, Zambia inherited a prosperous mining-based mono-economy. With her abundant natural resources, prospects for social and human development looked very bright. However, the government was faced with the challenge of diversifying the economy in order to redress the inherent inequalities that existed due to the rural-urban divide, geographically isolated labour reserves, high unemployment among indigenous Zambians, and discriminatory channels for the provision of socio-economic services, such as health and education. This was compounded by the UDI by the Smith government in Rhodesia that unexpectedly cut off communication and trade with Zambia in 1965 (United Nations Development Programme, 2003). Nationalisation therefore, led to significant changes from liberal policies to a more restrictive policy environment that entailed increased government involvement in national development. Policies also attempted to diversify the economy from mining through industrialisation and 247

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import substitution. The main strategy for import substitution was the introduction of various parastatal companies, through which the local manufacturing sector was protected by high tariffs and an over-valued exchange rate. Price controls for major commodities were also put in place (United Nations Development Programme, 2003). Crucially, parastatals were supposed to be vehicles through which government could begin to increase the scope of social welfare provision, increase employment and re-orient economic activity in various ways. Social welfare provision had earlier improved with the creation of the Zambia National Provident Fund (ZNPF) in 1966, the Workmen’s Compensation Board and the Zambia National Commercial Bank in 1969. The bank became the first Zambian owned commercial bank which was to provide services for the lower income groups as well as to Zambian business men, women and farmers (Turok, 1989). In regard to social welfare, the ZNPF also aimed among other things to enable aged persons to enjoy some measure of financial independence based on contributions made during their working days (Department of Social Welfare, 1966). Although well intended, the fund confined itself to those in formal employment and did not cater for those in self-employment or the informal sector. Thus there was more focus on social security and social insurance measures as opposed to social assistance in Zambia. Parastatals also heavily subsidised their services in the favour of Zambia’s poor. For example, the United Bus Company of Zambia (UBZ) offered cheap transport throughout the country even to the remotest parts, where private firms were not willing to operate. Other companies like the Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia (NCZ) produced fertiliser and sold it at concessionary rates to farmers, while the Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO) took over from the private firms and began an electrification programme that extended to all parts of the country. Parastatals were engaged in crucial initiatives that the private sector was not willing to pursue or which it deemed “unprofitable”. These organisations were also central in the 248

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government’s employment creation and job security agenda. Zambians were guaranteed jobs as a way of tackling poverty via access to jobs and incomes. In the main, employment became a key development imperative and an artery of social policy. The policy of Zambianisation also reinforced the above-mentioned (Noyoo, 2010). In pursuance of an egalitarian society that was guided by Humanism, the government invested heavily in education and health infrastructure, such as the University of Zambia (UNZA), the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) and thousands of schools, colleges, and district hospitals which did not exist in the colonial era. These facilities opened up socio-economic opportunities for many previously disadvantaged Zambians (United Nations Development Programme, 2003). The mining conglomerate - the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) - which materialised from the nationalised Roan Selection Trust and the Anglo-American Corporation mines - became a major player in the country’s development. ZCCM mirrored the state’s developmental philosophy and supplied social amenities much wider in scope than those offered during the colonial period, including free education for miners’ children, alongside subsidised housing and food, electricity, water and transport. ZCCM literally operated a “cradle to grave” welfare policy, even subsidising burial arrangements for the dead (Fraser and Lungu, 2006). The mines did not only just look after their workers but they also provided services to the whole community. They managed the environment in the mine townships, maintained roads and collected refuse as well as provided cafeterias, bars and social clubs dotted over the mine townships. They encouraged the growth of economic and social activities dependent on miners’ incomes, such as shops, farms to supply food to the mine areas and other industrial activities. Also, youth development schemes helped youths in the compounds identify skills they could pursue and formalise as careers. Women’s clubs concentrated on home-craft. Social casework agencies were charged with investigating social conditions in the townships. 249

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ZCCM had one or two hospitals by the end of the 1990s at each of its operating division. In towns like Nchanga and Konkola there were no government hospitals and non-mine employees and their dependants relied on mine hospitals for access to medical services (Fraser and Lungu, 2006:8). How Nationalisation was Blunted Even though the intention was noble, Kaunda had nationalised the mines without undertaking a broad consultative process (even his cabinet was not aware of this move before it was announced). Nationalisation was also used for political expediency. When examining the 1967 Mulungushi UNIP internal elections, it can be said that they were the first and biggest threat to Kaunda’s leadership since independence in 1964. So it was not coincidental that a year later nationalisation was implemented. Naturally he had to secure himself politically through nationalisation. Furthermore, in 1968, UNIP had suffered major losses at the national polls as the opposition was gaining ground. Arguably, nationalisation was Kaunda and UNIP’s secret weapon. There is nothing inherently wrong with nationalisation if it is wellmapped out, well-thought out, devoid of political machinations or interference, nepotism, ethnic agendas, corruption or clientelistic tendencies. But this has hardly been the case in Africa. Politicians of all shades have advocated nationalisation communists, socialists, social democrats, liberals, conservatives or fascists. Stalin nationalised, and so did Mussolini, Attlee, and Edward Heath. Nationalisation has been done in peace and war, boom and slump, depressions, recessions, reconstructions and economic miracles (Coleman, 1991). Worldwide nationalisation is embarked upon due to: (a) politics and ideology; (b) economic reasoning - equitable distribution of wealth; (c) protecting strategic interests. What is crucial however is that before any government begins to nationalise, it must have clear reasons for doing so (emphasis added). The broader and imprecise the aims the less likely nationalisation is to succeed (Coleman, 1991). 250

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Many good things came out of Zambia’s nationalisation process such as universal and near free education and quality health-care. However, it funded a whole lot of bad things such as patronage, state repression and a blotted UNIP. In ending this section of social welfare in the First Republic it is important to take into account the good intentions of Kaunda and UNIP to the Zambian people in matters of social welfare in particular and development in general. However, one should also not lose sight of the former’s undemocratic methods and sole purpose of attempting to erase Barotseland. Thus, successes were scored in the First Republic on the social and economic fronts, and not so much in the political arena: In its social policy the government has made equally significant strides by removing those elements of institutionalised and overt racism which remained from the settler past and by progressing towards a Welfare State. Not only has the range of State provided social services been expanded, but the scale of social services has also grown enormously. To give only the most dramatic example, education expenditure rose from K13 million in 1963-64 to K85 million in 1973. Primary school enrolment doubled in the eight years following independence, and secondary, technical and university education expanded even faster. Indeed, the only criticism of substance that can be made is that the government has pursued its priority of free and near-universal social services at the expense of investment in more directly productive, job generating sectors (Molteno and Tordoff, 1974:366).

Interventions in the education and health sectors had yielded positive outcomes. For instance, Zambia had only a hundred and six university graduates at independence, one thousand school leavers with certificates and no professionals (Lungu, 1991). With independence, came the expansion of the sector by the state: In quantitative terms results were remarkable: primary school enrolment rose from 378,000 in 1964 to 810,000 in 1973, and secondary enrolment from 13,850 to 65,750 during the same period. Technical and vocational training colleges enrolled about 3,000 in 1973 as opposed to zero in 1964. University enrolment rose from 312 in 1966 to 3,000 in 1973 (Lungu, 1991:28).

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Education was one of the most successful social projects to be tackled by the UNIP government. There were the usual problems of inadequate teaching staff and funding, especially for rural schools, but all in all education proved to be an arm of social welfare that guaranteed upward social mobility for the majority of Zambians. In summing up Zambia’s education prospects in the 1960s, Parker (1968:249) hopefully asserts: Zambia’s plans for education are very large than those undertaken by most other African countries in their current development plans. Zambia’s expansions of secondary education will increase enrolments during 19661970 by twice as much as will Kenya and Ghana. The University of Zambia in its first five years will expand faster than the rate achieved by most other universities in Africa or outside. Zambia plans to approach universal primary education ten years before the Addis Ababa target for African countries.

Furthermore, the expansion of the country’s economic infrastructure was a resounding success. In the first place, Zambia responded to Rhodesia’s UDI by accelerating measures to reduce the country’s inherited dependence on the white-ruled territories to the south by building infrastructure. Extensive coal deposits within Zambia were exploited, while self-sufficiency in electric power was also pursued by the government. The Great North and Great East Roads were tarred. The government also expanded development into the rural areas away from the line of rail. An ambitious road construction programme was also undertaken and outlying urban centres were provided with piped water, electricity and telecommunications (Molteno and Tordoff, 1974:364). Without a doubt, the 1960s and early 1970s were quite eventful for Zambia. Living standards of the majority of the people were raised to unprecedented heights. After independence, Zambians had enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in sub-Saharan Africa, even though the state had not focussed on expanding the economy so as to sustain them. For instance, the United Nations (1968) cited in Rodney 252

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(1973) notes that in sub-Saharan Africa, Zambia’s per capita income was second highest from that of South Africa. Zambia’s per capita income was 225 whilst that of South Africa was 543. It should be noted that during this period, the Zambian currency Kwacha, had faired competitively with the British Pound and the American Dollar as well as other currencies in Western Europe. The Kwacha may be assessed as having been strong enough to attain realistic national social development goals. One Kwacha in 1967 was equals to US$1.40 (Martin, 1972). The economy’s growth was also central to job creation: There was rapid economic expansion. The very high price of copper resulted in the economy averaging a 13 per cent annual growth rate in real terms until 1970. The most rapid growing sector was manufacturing, which almost doubled its output in the same period. Total employment expanded fast, from 268,700 in 1964 to 372,130 by June 1970, although it grew very little in three years thereafter. Employed workers also enjoyed a considerable rise in their real standards of living. Average earnings of Africans rose to 97 per cent between 1964 and 1969 (Molteno and Tordoff, 1974:363).

II. Social Welfare in the Second Republic This period under examination, which is referred to as the Second Republic, begins with the imposition of the one-party state on Zambia. The Second Republic was proclaimed in December 1972 and followed on the back of public sector reforms of 1968, where Kenneth Kaunda and UNIP expanded their powers in order to have a tight grip on the government bureaucracy. The one party-state now provided the UNIP government the legal instruments to impose an unjust system on the Zambian people. During this so-called one-party participatory democracy, there was an extension of presidential powers and the centralisation of power. The incumbent was no longer accountable to other institutions and structures. Obviously, these powers, as explained earlier, were inherited from the Governor of Northern Rhodesia through mainly the Preservation of Public

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Security Act. In the same vein the president expanded the cabinet in order to increase his patronage networks. Even though the Chona Commission (see Prologue) had been used to rubber-stamp the one-party state, it nevertheless had made certain positive recommendations. For instance, it had endorsed the limitation of preventative detention; the curtailment of both party and presidential powers; the division of the presidential power and functions between an executive president and prime minister with extensive power of his own, including the appointment of ministers; and the restriction of party activity, including the removal of party control over nomination for parliamentary elections and responsibility for the electoral campaign. The UNIP government, however, rejected all such proposals, and the president retained all the powers his office had previously enjoyed. Furthermore the new UNIP constitution of 1973 stipulated the supremacy of the party over the government, and hence of the central committee over the cabinet. Both central committee and cabinet were charged with the implementation of the UNIP National Council decisions, and in the event of serious disagreement between them, the decision of the former would prevail (Gertzel, et al., 1984:9). Barotseland, in direct contrast to other parts of Zambia, totally rejected the one-party state and it became a key opposition area. In fact in the years of the multiparty state, moreover, electoral politics were characterised by declining polls, and in the general election of 1973, the provincial poll of 21.8 per cent in Barotseland, was the lowest in Zambia (Gertzel, 1984). In terms of the economy, after the nationalisation of the economy in the late 1960s, the government continued in the Second Republic to interfere with the pricing and investment policies of the parastatal organisations, often to the detriment of their commercial performance. It also tightened financial control. For instance, in January 1975, Alexander Chikwanda50 the Minister of Planning and Finance, announced his decision to “form an inspectorate within my Ministry whose duty will be to ensure that financial discipline and propriety are strictly observed by these organisations” (Fry, 1980:23). The 254

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country was not only facing political dictatorship but now had to contend with imprudent economic management: Despite this, the government consumption nearly doubled between 1970 and 1976, with as much as half the rise alleged to have been accounted for by the military expenditure. But higher government consumption meant that capital expenditure bore the brunt of cutbacks in government budgets in 1975 and 1976 and combined the drop in company profits, caused real investment to fall by one eighth between 1970 and 1976, instead of achieving the hoped for increase of one half (Fry, 1980:58).

With the above issues in mind, it must also be borne in mind that during the early 1970s, Zambia established an economic structure which was based on state ownership which displayed a strong preference for heavy government intervention and controls on prices. Given that the newly independent economy had little progress on capital formation, there was a high degree of import dependence on both capital and intermediate goods, and consumer goods. Emphasis was also placed on import substitution industrialisation and high protection of domestic industries (Kalinda and Floro, 1992:7). In addition, the macroeconomic policies during this period were directed at maintaining consumption levels and living standards based on the expectation that the fairly favourable world copper market would continue for some time. The government’s development plan was similar at the time to what was referred to as the Basic Needs approach. The development plan included such measures as price regulations on most consumer products and heavy agricultural subsidies. There was however very little planning with respect to the sustainability of these measures other than its reliance on favourable copper earnings. For example, a sizeable proportion of government outlays went not only to subsidies of maize and fertiliser, but also towards non-essentials such as cooking oil, salt, matches and soap (Kalinda and Floro, 1992:7). An interventionist approach also percolated down to the social welfare sector:

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In addition, there were substantial social service expenditures aimed at alleviating poverty. These included subsidised education, health-care and other social service delivery. The social service expenditure comprised roughly a third of the total government budget. Although many of the social programmes had well-meaning objectives, they generated adverse sideeffects and did little to solve the structural causes of poverty. There was also a bias in the delivery of the services in favour of urban areas and often to the needs of high income households despite the declared emphasis on rural development and satisfactory access to education, water and health facilities for the low-income segment of the population. A large leakage of benefits to households that are not poor occurred through variant loopholes and channels (Kalinda and Floro, 1992:7).

Thus, it is not surprising that Zambia’s economy haemorrhaged with the onset of the global financial meltdown after the oil crisis of 1973. The world was thrown into a tailspin when Arab countries of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to enforce an oil embargo against the United States. This was in retaliation for that country’s military support of Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The embargo which lasted from 1973 to 1974 had also been extended to other countries with resultant dire consequences for the global economic system. During this period, oil prices rose exponentially high and increased production costs for various countries’ industries. This also dampened the price of exports on international markets, especially for raw materials such as minerals and agricultural products. Zambia’s economic mainstay copper also saw its prices fall drastically to unsustainable low levels. The effects for the country’s economy were devastating as Zambia had not been serious enough to diversify its economy. Copper still accounted for 90 per cent of the country’s export revenue. To offset the increasing economic woes and meet the needs of its citizens, the UNIP government borrowed heavily. It was in this atmosphere that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank decisively entered into Zambia’s economic decision-making processes, through austerity programmes. They compelled the heavily-indebted Zambian government to liberalise the economy, cut down on social spending and repeal interventionist policies (Noyoo, 2010). The 256

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first stabilisation package which was agreed upon between the Zambian government and the IMF consisted of the 1973/74 stand-by agreement which was aimed at halting the country’s declining external reserves as well as arresting the budget deficit which resulted from the terms of trade deterioration following the decline in copper prices. At this early stage, the IMF conditionality was basically demand management involving call for reduction in public spending, borrowing restrictions and a wage freeze (Mutukwa and Saasa, 1995). The second IMF stand-by programme was effected in 1976/77 and involved a financial injection into the economy worth millions of American dollars. The conditionality again focused on demand management and included such measures as 16 per cent ceiling on domestic credit expansion; 20 per cent currency devaluation, a wage freeze and government budget reduction. Under this programme, investment outlays were restricted to the support of on-going projects (Mutukwa and Saasa, 1995). Meanwhile, the standard of living of Zambians was in continuous free-fall without any foreseeable signs of things getting any better. For instance, the much talked about rural development remained a pipe-dream. Brooks and Nyirenda (1987) point out that the rural areas were largely left without services. There were a few Rural Reconstruction Camps and a few training centres, with most rural children and youths receiving neither curative nor preventative services. This was also the period when Zambia’s inequality patterns began to be entrenched. Kalinda and Floro (1992) again report that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Mission to Zambia of 1977 had revealed that there was marked inequality not just within the urban areas, but between the urban areas and rural areas as well. This survey also showed that the richest 5 per cent of Zambian households received 25 per cent of the total income, which was more than the share received by the 60 per cent. Income distribution in Zambia had become highly skewed in favour of the elites from the mid-1970s onwards.

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Life was beginning to be difficult for many Zambian households in both the urban and rural areas. In response Kaunda and the UNIP government became more concerned about deflecting the people’s frustrations by focusing much of their energies on the liberation of Southern African countries and also increased on their socialist rhetoric. This was the period when Kenneth Kaunda and his colleagues became more autocratic and intolerant to public criticisms. As the 1970s progressed and the economic crisis deepened the third and longer IMF programme was set in motion. This was also demand management focused and covered the period 1978 to 1980. The programme performance criteria included domestic credit expansion being limited to 18 per cent and a 10 per cent devaluation of the country’s currency the Kwacha. Despite the GDP registering a negative growth rate during the period, the government met all the conditions and the total stand-by was disbursed. The decline in the copper price and poor rainfall affected the economic situation soon after the programme was completed (Mutukwa and Saasa, 1995). By the 1980s rapid urbanisation51 in the preceding two decades had been accompanied by growth in squatter settlements which made up to 10 per cent of the population in major cities such as Lusaka. High population densities exerted enormous pressure on available housing and related services. Residents in densely populated squatter settlements often lived in sub-standard housing units which lacked basic infrastructure such as water and sanitation facilities. Formal employment opportunities were limited in urban areas as well, particularly for the poor. Income disparities were also prevalent with the urban poor depending heavily on informal sector activities such as trading and working at markets for their livelihoods (Siamwiza, et al., 1993:5). The main causal factor to the foregoing was that the strategic thrust of rural development was focused on stemming rural-urban migrations and not treating rural development as an end itself. This disorganised and contradictory type of planning was more pronounced in the agricultural sector. Good (1990:136) in 258

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acknowledging the findings of the ILO survey of 1977 which highlighted the fact that for nearly 50 years Zambia continued to experience the neglect of domestic agriculture, particularly small-scale production (from the colonial to the post-colonial period), asserts that while the government had favoured the rising rich peasantry over the poor peasantry; large scale and parastatal agriculture, the strength of state support declined over the independence period. He further reports that extension staff at the beginning of the 1980s were less mobile, less trained and less effective, than in the early 1970s and the government’s extension services generally reached perhaps 5 per cent small holders, according to the World Bank source which he cited. Similarly, credit facilities were distinguished by cumbersome procedures, late deliveries of inputs, and delays in marketing and crop payments which together represented serious constraints on small-scale farmers. By 1981, 87 per cent of the recurrent expenditure of the Ministry of Agriculture consisted of grants and subsidies mainly to parastatals and co-operative institutions, which were in fact notorious for their inefficiencies and mismanagement (Good, 1990:136). Therefore, the development paradigm of the UNIP regime was haphazard and devoid of basic policy driven programmes. Hence, even the official rhetoric about “rural development” was actually expressed through urban biased programmes and services. Concurrently, the social security system continued to be restrictive as all its programmes were geared towards the protection of employed persons - against economic and social distress caused by reduced earnings, unemployment, injury, old age, medical needs and death. Benefits were provided only to those in gainful employment who contributed to a particular pension, retirement, or gratuity programme, where employers also made contributions to employees’ contributions. This system, therefore, did not provide medical assistance or other benefits to the unemployed (Siamwiza, et al., 1993:8). Although the UNIP government was compelled to undertake economic restructuring by the World Bank and the IMF during this period, 259

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the remedial measures that were followed did not create real meaningful impact on the structural and long term state of the economy. They tended to be piecemeal and at best not comprehensive enough. Evidence points to unsteady and contracting economic activities as well as unstable and generally deteriorating social welfare (Lewanika, 1990:101). Due to the aforementioned, the fourth arrangement with the IMF, which covered a three year period from 1981-83 had to be implemented. This extended programme was meant to serve as a cushion to the country’s food and transport problems. Whereas the first three IMF programmes mentioned earlier were directed more towards demand management, this fourth one focussed primarily on the supply side policies for the promotion of agriculture, mining and manufacturing. Again in the period 198385 a more comprehensive IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was undertaken and it covered much wider range structural policies. It encompassed conditionalities pertaining to export diversification, the replacement of the crawling exchange rate system with the auction system in October 1985; the abolishing of import restrictions, decontrol of prices, interest rates liberalisation, a wage freeze and restriction on government in order to reduce on the budget deficit (Mutukwa and Saasa, 1995:74). Due to this unfolding deplorable scenario, the cost of living skyrocketed and the Zambian currency, the Kwacha, took a hard knock and continuously lost its value on a weekly basis. Comparable to the American dollar, the Kwacha’s weakening also translated into high costs of imports - bearing in mind that Zambia’s economy was heavily import-based, with all essential commodities being imported from overseas. Towards the mid-1980s, the ruling party had become monolithic and was a major drain on the national economy. Parastatal organisations which were initially created for noble socio-economic causes were now characterised by corruption and inefficiency. The country was also straddled with a huge debt hovering around US$7 billion. Many of the country’s wrong policy options can be ascribed to Kaunda and his inner circle of advisors. He was also 260

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the biggest patron in the country as he parcelled out appointments in the diplomatic corps, parastatal organisations and public service. These were not based on merit but meant to appease sections of the population, in this case, sycophants of the one-party system. Consequently, the country witnessed its first food riots in December 1986. These riots had erupted on the Copperbelt and were mainly led by miners and unemployed youths after the price of the country’s staple food mealie-meal was increased. Although the riots were contained (with minimal loss of life) they created the first dent in the UNIP government’s and Kenneth Kaunda’s façade of omnipotence. Ordinary citizens had effectively challenged Kaunda and UNIP and showed the country that actually the foundation of the one-party state was shaky. In response, Kaunda cancelled the IMF/World Bank SAP and essentially laid the blame of the country’s economic miseries on these institutions. In May 1987, Kaunda then announced a socalled home-grown economic programme known as the New Economic Recovery Programme (NERP). In August an Interim National Development Plan (INDP) was also launched so as to enhance the NERP with the notion that local inputs would drive development in the country. However, there was nothing new the NERP and INDP could offer apart from the same old commandist practices. In 1989, the Fourth National Development Plan (FNDP) was launched by the government and was essentially an extension of the INDP’s thrust of “self-reliance”. Nevertheless, the former economic blue-prints basically amounted to nothing and Kaunda had no choice but to swallow his pride and resumed negotiations with the IMF and World Bank by September 1989. In such an atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety, Kaunda became extremely paranoid and the one-party state security apparatus became more heavy-handed. Dissenting views and criticisms were swiftly and severely dealt with. Opposition to the one-party state was perceived as subversive and treasonous by Kaunda and his followers. Many independent thinkers, prominent 261

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persons, activists and students were harassed and also detained by the security forces. At the time there were secret and illegal centres where torture was carried out by Kaunda’s security forces.52 A free and competitive spirit in relation to national affairs was stifled and replaced by fear and suspicion. In the same vein, social and economic programmes that were propagated by the UNIP government could not be questioned. Kaunda and his cabinet did not want to take responsibility for their actions and failures in matters of governance and economic management but always kept on blaming some faceless “enemies”. However, the fact was that unqualified party functionaries had been elevated to intricate technocratic and policy positions for decades. This had resulted in a gradual decline of the government bureaucracy and the undermining of competent technocrats, which led to many qualified Zambians leaving the country for Southern Africa, Europe and North America. The one-party state had engendered misrule and economic mismanagement where malpractices were rife and Kaunda had become extremely unpopular. Also Kaunda’s Humanism had left a bitter taste in the mouths of Zambians. This was because the application of Humanism was paternalistic, topdown, with exemplar Kaunda at the very top (Chan, 1992). As the economic slump deepened, Kaunda and his party increasingly became alienated from the mass of the people. The roles of the party and the government also became muddled as party structures overrode those of government. Party activities also impeded government development programmes as national funds were constantly channeled towards day-to-day running costs of UNIP, at the expense of the nation’s socio-economic development. Furthermore, there was a ubiquitous decay of government institutions in the country, with hospitals, clinics, schools, colleges and universities, all falling into disrepair and dilapidation. Whilst the elite UNIP functionaries sent their children overseas to study or went abroad for medical attention, the local people had no alternative but to use the existing decrepit 262

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facilities. There were severe shortages of medicines and equipment in hospitals whilst there were no implements for the agricultural sector. Life was generally dreary for Zambians and dropped to substandard levels. For example many could not even afford new clothes from stores and had to make due with secondhand clothes referred to as salaula. Such clothes came from Europe as discarded material which were then sent to the developing world and sold by local traders. There was even the mushrooming of “international” NGOs such as Development from People to People (DAPP), from Denmark which sold second-hand clothes to Zambians. Previously reserved for the urban poor in past decades, the middle class had also become customers of salaula, marking declining standards of living as many urban Zambians in the upper echelons of society had prided themselves in dressing in new clothes straight from local or international factories. A direct consequence of the huge trade in second-hand clothes was the undermining of cotton production in the country and the manufacture of cloths and fabrics. This also led to job losses in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. Equally, citizens who had managed to buy themselves cars now could not because importing new cars had become extremely difficult, as salaries of professionals were below levels of sustenance. If one had a car, then there were no spare parts to maintain the cars and as such many fell into disrepair. Thus welleducated people were reduced to walking or riding rickety buses as the public transport system had essentially collapsed. At this stage, the middle class had effectively imploded and bourgeois or colonial pretentions such as afternoon tea and scones had effectively been discarded by many households. Such misery was triggered by an economic melt-down which was attributable to unrealistic and misguided policies. For example, at this stage, import substitution industries had proved inefficient and uncompetitive due to high input costs, high monopoly prices, reliance on government subsidies, and lack of technological dynamism. Extensive state intervention gave rise to bureaucratisation, corruption and uncertainty; discouraging 263

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productive private investment and foreign trade initiatives (Zimba, 2003). Ultimately, the weakness in the centralised welfare state, a one-sided industrialisation strategy based on copper mining with declining commodity prices, and the neglect of the agricultural sector and infrastructure, i.e. transport, water, energy and health transformed Zambia into one of the poorest countries in Africa (United Nations Development Programme, 2003). In 1988 Zambia’s Capita Gross National Product (GNP) was US$290. The UNIP government markedly increased its expenditure on services, neglected agriculture and failed to diversify the economy. By 1990, copper still accounted for 85 per cent of total exports (Sandbrook, 1993). Last actions by the UNIP regime which were aimed at mitigating the harsh economic conditions were the coupon system in 1989 and the Social Action Programme (SAP) which the government thought would cover the period 1990-93. With the former, coupons were some form of targeting citizens where vulnerable households such as those which suffered food insecurity would be the primary beneficiaries. They could register at the local post office for the coupons. However, the coupon system was open to abuse and generated all sorts of perverse incentives and thus proved inefficient and expensive to administer. The latter on the other hand, had its objectives as the rehabilitation of social services, alleviation of poverty and the re-activation of growth through planned social actions hinging on investing in the human factor and a stronger economy and society. Vulnerable groups like women, the youth, unemployed and children were to be prioritised. The SAP adopted by UNIP came to nought as the winds of change were already gathering pace. Moreover, these measures were unable to plug the gaping holes in the hull of the sinking one-party state titanic. Zambia continued to be crippled by an inept government, ineffectual politicians and public servants at the onset of the decade of the 1990s, while: Kaunda was chiefly responsible for the country’s erratic and sometime wrong-headed policy directions until the multiparty elections of 1991. He

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made major policy decisions himself and appointed and fired all economic decision-makers. Further, the one party stifled open debate of policy alternatives (Sandbrook, 1993:32).

In February 1990, two leaders of the country’s main labour movement, the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), Frederick Chiluba and Newstead Zimba, announced at one of the UNIP government’s so-called extraordinary conferences that Zambia needed to revert back to multi-party democracy and questioned the validity of socialism given that it was being rejected in Eastern Europe, where it originated. This announcement coincided with the struggles of the UNZA students who had been calling for the return to multi-party democracy and pluralism as well. Similar views were echoed amongst the backbenchers of UNIP in Parliament who also acted as a de facto opposition group. But Chiluba and the aforementioned people did not raise the temperature when Kaunda rejected the calls for the return to multi-party politics. Still, Kenneth Kaunda and UNIP kept dilly-dallying on the question of multi-party democracy and the return to a pluralist society. In May 1990, Kaunda announced that there would be a referendum to decide on the course the country would take. However, such efforts were soon to be overtaken by events as the continued austerity measures led to the doubling of the price of the country’s staple maize meal in the month of June. Then the country erupted in riots which were engineered by the students of the University of Zambia (UNZA). As mentioned in the Prologue, these riots were the deadliest and most serious since the country’s independence. Kenneth Kaunda and the UNIP government had not been effectively challenged to this extent before and the students were not just fighting against the increased cost of living and the IMF and World Bank led SAP, but had gone further and demanded for regime change. After the riots, there were spirited and louder calls for political reforms in the country with the church, labour movement,53 former functionaries of UNIP who had fallen out favour with Kaunda, academics and students in the forefront of an emerging coalition 265

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for the re-introduction of multi-party democracy. This formation did not have any clear ideology, but was loosely held together by the desire of removing the one-party state. By September 1990, a National Interim Committee of the MMD was constituted with Arthur Wina, a former Minister of Finance in the first cabinet of UNIP and businessman chosen as chairman to lead this formation while Frederick Chiluba was vice-chairman and head of the mobilisation committee. Chiluba only came later to the party after he had declined the first invitation to lead this new structure which was formed to fight for the re-introduction for multi-party democracy. It is common knowledge that he was afraid of being arrested. As pressure mounted Kaunda began to back-peddle and announced at the 25th UNIP National Council that there would be no need for a referendum and the country would adopt a multi-party constitution. Consequently, in December 1990 he repealed Article 4 of the Constitution which had barred competitive party politics. This allowed for the Movement for Multi-party Democracy Party (MMD) to be formed and other political parties as well. The political space was now open albeit with restrictions such as the state of emergency and other draconian laws which Kaunda consistently refused to remove. At this stage there were many defections from the ruling UNIP to the new MMD as people resigned in droves to join this new formation.54 The following year saw increased contestations in the political arena, which culminated in the elections of October 1991 that ushered in a new era of multi-party democracy and a new government headed by the MMD and a new president, Frederick Chiluba. In the end the one-party state was toppled by people power and not a military coup d’état. Crucially, what gave rise to a broad-based defiance and resistance against the one-party state was the erosion of the livelihoods of Zambians. Once they could not feed their families and take their children to good schools, or when they could not get proper medical care, Zambians had nothing to lose. Kaunda and UNIP had overstayed in power, basically for 27 years. Not only had they run out of ideas but they had been 266

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overtaken by fast-paced global trends rendering most of their strategies obsolete. More importantly, a new generation of Zambians was born during this period. These were the young Zambians who rose up and effectively challenged Kaunda and the UNIP regime. In the same vein, even though the social welfare system was universal and inclusive in the 1960s, by the 1970s it could not be sustained. This was mainly due to the non-diversification of the economy which still heavily relied on copper as the main source of government revenue which was critical for running different sectors of the country. The welfare system itself was also not well-thought out and was not predicated on sound policies and programmes. It was open to inefficiencies and abuse, for instance, foreigners were entitled to social welfare services. This resultant demand posed grave implications for the economy as the welfare system drained Zambia’s finances. There were no proper monitoring mechanisms to ascertain the manner in which funds were utilised in the meeting of the needs of various welfare recipients. Some citizens also contributed to the general decline of the services through their irresponsible behaviour in regard to the use of free services. In schools, for example, some pupils vandalised school property without serious reprisals. This was maybe, in part, due to the fact their parents did not pay for the educational services and thus they did not have a direct investment in the schools. The superficial changes which were made to the welfare system after independence simply evaporated in the 1980s. The welfare philosophy of universalism and self-reliance shifted to one of crisis mode. Already, the notion of safety-nets had been introduced into the welfare vocabulary of the country in the late 1980s. In the final analysis, the inherited welfare system from the colonial era was not altered much. For instance, the old inadequate facilities and services for young persons in conflict with the law remained the same. Even the language of the colonialists still permeated the official terminologies, several decades after independence, as these young people were still referred to as “juvenile delinquents”. But 267

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oblivious to many Zambians, a new threat much bigger than all of the above-mentioned, was looming and would prove to be so lethal and devastating from the 1990s onwards. This was the HIV/AIDS pandemic. III. Social Welfare in the Third Republic A. Frederick Chiluba’s Rule (The Era of Kleptocracy) On 1 November 1991, Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba, a 48 year old former labour leader, was inaugurated as Zambia’s second president. This became a reality after the country’s first president Kenneth Kaunda and his party the United National Independence Party (UNIP) were trounced at the polls on 31 October of the same year. After this, a new constitution ushered in the Third Republic, which gave more powers to the legislature and judiciary - even though this was more on paper than in practice. It also guaranteed political competition in the form of multi-party politics. However, the president still had sweeping powers as in the former one-party state. Chiluba and his party, the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) had secured a decisive mandate from the Zambian people because they were fed up with one-party rule and its inefficiencies, which had filtered down to every sector of the country. As such, the living standards of Zambians had plummeted to dangerously unacceptable levels. However, this resounding vote of confidence on the part of the Zambian people was in part a message to the new rulers that people wanted a better life, which was supposed to be qualitatively different to the one they had been exposed to in the UNIP era. Chiluba seemed not to have grasped the gravity of the situation and the heavy responsibility he was supposed to shoulder. After elections, at one of his inaugural press conferences, he went on to declare: “power is sweet”. To be fair, this statement was made in jest although many commentators took it literally. Perhaps the manner in which he had conducted himself whilst in power only went to cement the perception that 268

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he had indeed regarded “power as really sweet”. Chiluba and the new MMD government had a lot of good will from the international community and the citizenry, and could have put in place a transformative development programme, if they had wanted to or were serious enough about this. Alas, this never materialised as discussions in this section will show. Granted, the MMD had inherited a ruined economy with decrepit infrastructure, an inefficient as well as top-heavy civil service and huge foreign debt. If Chiluba had been sober about this onerous task he would have approached his governance even more sombrely. But this was not the case and within a year the goodwill from the international community had frittered away. The first signs that things were not right came in the delay of the appointment of the cabinet for more than a week. This was because the people who were the key drivers for multi-party democracy were overlooked for those who had dealings with Chiluba or were from his ethnic group. There was intense lobbying and haggling behind the scene. Eventually, the cabinet that was announced by Chiluba was nothing to write home about in regard to the enormous task which was before the MMD of changing the social and economic conditions of Zambians for the better. Individuals from Chiluba’s ethnic group or who had been former ministers in Kaunda’s government at some point and/or had fallen out favour with him, occupied the most powerful of the positions in this cabinet. The former “new” ministers were already old and had not been involved in the fight against the one-party state in the beginning, but simply joined the bandwagon as the call for multi-party democracy was gaining momentum. These were the likes of Michael Sata who was appointed Minister of local Government and Housing, Ephraim Chibwe who took up the position of Minister of Works and Supply, and Benjamin Mwila, the new Minister of Defence. Chibwe and Mwila were also Chiluba’s close relatives. Other northerners, such as Emmanuel Kasonde who became Minister of Finance, and Andrew Kashita, the new Minister of Transport, had been important actors in Kaunda’s first cabinet and became 269

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businessmen after they left the UNIP government. It was not a secret that many of the new ministers and their deputies hailed from the northern region which was the base of Chiluba’s ethnic group. There were also many who were appointed as deputy ministers, permanent secretaries, heads of defence forces and parastatals, and officials in the diplomatic service. Akashambatwa Mbikusita Lewanika, founder of the MMD and one of the best brains and strategist in this group was given an obscure ministry of vocational training. Arthur Wina, the former chairman of the MMD who had steered it over rough waters headed the education ministry. The portfolio for Agriculture went to Guy Scott while Home Affairs was led by Newstead Zimba, a long-time confidante of Chiluba in the labour movement. Foreign Affairs was under Vernon Mwaanga - another former UNIP official and a southerner. Anyhow, the new MMD government immediately set out to dismantle the pillars of the one-party state. In the first instance, socialism and the ideology of Humanism were discarded as the guiding lights of government social and economic policy. The liberalisation programme which the UNIP government had dithered around was emboldened and implemented decisively by the new administration. It was also extensive and covered trade reforms, the abolishing of import licences and marketing boards. With the MMD, there was a commitment to reduce the role of the state to no more than to one of maintaining law and order, and effectively playing the role of the proverbial “night watchman”. It also began to vigorously steer Zambia towards a neo-liberal market economic system exemplified by the privatisation of state-run enterprises and reduction of the civil service. However, the MMD’s economic restructuring programme was fast-paced and extremely dislocating. It also lacked supporting institutions that could have at least militated against the harsh economic impacts on Zambian households. Essentially, it only increased poverty levels in the country and attenuated the living standards of Zambians as it was accompanied by huge job losses. There was also no transparency or due diligence on the part of the 270

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government as it remained unaccountable to the Zambian citizens. Chiluba would stubbornly follow through on his laissez faire approach and declared to the country: “I love SAP.” The problem with the liberalisation of the economy and other forms of deregulation during Chiluba’s rule was that they were not based on sound theoretical and nationalistic positions but were self-defeating. The former refers to the fact that despite the restructuring of the economy being undertaken, there were also other deleterious activities such as rent-seeking and clientelistic tendencies that were perpetrated by state functionaries, which gravely undermined the restructuring of Zambia’s economy. The liberalisation of the economy was also not strategic in approach and thus the MMD government went about dismantling the public sector anyhow with dire consequences for the country. In the end, the dividends from this exercise could not filter down to the rest of the society. Arguably, privatisation only benefitted a clique of the politically connected in Zambia. Albeit this being the case, the legacy of the one-party state should not be discounted in the manner that it hobbled the restructuring programme: Zambia has combined a demand-based social fund with public works by requiring solicitation for projects and contributions in the form of labour. The newly open political context, as well as the government’s commitment to reforms, provides an ideal context for such programmes. Yet because the majority of the population became impoverished during the last decade of the Kaunda regime, demand far outpaces the size and scope of the programmes. At the same time, local institutions are severely underdeveloped owing to the legacy of the one-party state. Thus [even though] dramatic political changes have provided an opportunity for economic reform and for re-directing resources to the poor, the extent of the economic decline before the changes of government, the severity of poverty, and the underdeveloped nature of local institutions raise serious obligations to sustainable reform and safety nets in Zambia (Graham, 1994:19-20).

It can be argued that the MMD adopted a strategy of “disengagement” in regard to social welfare and social policy. This was manifested through such measures as cost-sharing (user 271

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fees), reduction in budgetary allocation to social services in real terms, cash budget system of public finance, and decontrolled pricing regime. The strategy of the MMD was predicated on the principle that the welfare of the public was primarily the responsibility of the individual, families and communities. The role of the government was limited to the formulation of policies and programmes aimed at “creating an enabling environment” for economic growth. The assumption was that economic growth would generate job opportunities which would enable individuals and families to become economically and socially self-sufficient and reduce poverty (Masiye et al., 1998). This “trickle down” effect and “an enabling environment” were expected to reap huge development dividends, but the results were different as the SAP had torn apart the country’s social fabric. There were massive public sector lay-offs and other job losses triggered by the privatisation of parastatals and the continued decline of the manufacturing sector which also retrenched workers and downsized on the workforce. There were strike actions in the first months of the MMD’s rule but these did not steer the government away from this path. In fact the social and economic conditions had worsened under the new administration. Even though the MMD stressed on “safety-nets” - which broadly defined, are interventions specifically designed to sustain or enhance the welfare of poor or vulnerable groups at a time of economic transition (Graham, 1994) - the rapid downward spiral in the living standards of Zambians continued. This is because safetynets in Zambia were underfunded and unable to offer serious mitigation to the losers from trade liberalisation. The MMD government had less capacity to assist the losers of trade reforms, given its limited fiscal resources. It was also reflected in the adoption of a cash budget that restricted spending to domestic revenue performance. This led to great difficulties for ministries and agencies in planning and delivering programmes, as resource availability became more uncertain and volatile (Ponce de León et al., 2005).

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During Chiluba’s rule, social welfare matters were reduced to charity, safety-nets and donors’ agendas. The state had effectively retreated from the public policy space and social welfare matters. For example, public utilities like ambulances were donated by charities whereas before, this area was serviced by municipalities and the Ministry of Health. In this period something akin to “donor impunity” was also on the rise where officials at usually Western Embassies or High Commissions could comment on matters of state and make known their preferences in terms of the development options for Zambia. Probably, this trend was on the increase because donors had seen the gap in government which was turning more and more into a circus on a daily basis. Besides who can respect a nation of beggars? The whole country, from the president downwards had been reduced to begging for its needs and livelihoods. Due to the absence of the state in social welfare issues social problems dramatically increased with the phenomenon of street children growing out of proportion. The number of orphans was also on the rise. This was also the period when prostitution exploded exponentially on the Zambian social scene especially in the capital city, Lusaka and other major urban centres along the line of rail. These individuals went on with their business with little obstruction from the police who looked as if they had turned a blind eye to this scourge, probably due to the harsh economic conditions in the country. Unfortunately, this negative development coincided with the increased prevalence of HIV infection rates and AIDS related deaths. The country was still in denial and most AIDS related deaths were euphemistically reported as “long illnesses”. Life was extremely hard during this period and the main issue that needs to be put under the spotlight was the lack of sensitivity on the part of the president and his cabinet. Paradoxically, in the past, Kaunda and UNIP, whilst implementing the SAP would listen to the cries of the people and capitulate at times. This could have been in part to their professed Humanist principles or the fact that they had been nationalists, despite Kaunda being a 273

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dictator. On the other hand Chiluba and his colleagues, who were democratically elected by the mass of the people, could not care less. No matter what people said they never flinched. In all honesty Chiluba’s lack of empathy or even sympathy is puzzling. This was a man who had prized himself as a born-again Christian (he had declared Zambia a Christian nation in January 1992) and had been a labour leader who had fearlessly fought for workers’ rights. Instead, in the midst of poverty Chiluba and his colleague’s flaunted their newly acquired wealth and wardrobes (usually double-breasted suits) dubbed “new culture” to the people. Everywhere one went in Zambia people were visibly hungry and looked dishevelled. At this point there was no middle-class to speak of as it had been virtually wiped out. This was the time when all professionals were moonlighting or participating in the informal economy in one way or the other so as to make ends meet. Due to chronic hunger, many Zambians’ immune systems were already compromised and when the HIV/AIDS pandemic swept through Zambia it was so devastating. At times entire families were wiped out. In the capital city, Lusaka, there were numerous funerals on a daily basis, leading to the choking up of the few mortuaries in the city and the filling up of graveyards. HIV/AIDS was and continues to be Zambia’s holocaust. In addition, curable diseases such tuberculosis, malaria and cholera were on the increase and claimed the lives of countless Zambians. When the foregoing issues are analysed it is crucial to note that central to structural adjustment is an economic philosophy of liberalism. However, there is also, operative, a political philosophy of the minimal state. This political philosophy posits that the instruments of government should be reduced in both size and influence - in order to let free market forces. This becomes the prime determinant of national policies in both economic and social spheres. The ability of governments to set priorities, implement policies, and direct resources is thus severely limited. This “retreat of the state” is more than simply a restructuring or a redefinition. It does indeed include some new 274

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structural arrangements (e.g. disengagement from economic functions such as state ownership of major industries) and some new definitions of the state’s role such as creating an enabling environment for private entrepreneurship (Henriot, 1997). The retreat of the state demanded by neo-liberalism does more than reduce the size of the state. It delegitimises the state’s role. That is, the mechanisms of government are deemed illegitimate means to promote the common good of society. However, an analytical critique of the retreat of the state neither idealises the state nor ignores its failings: corruption by political elites, mismanagement by untrained civil servants, and misguided choice of priorities based on political expediencies, and lack of popular engagement in the design and implementation of programmes (Henriot, 1997). When Zambia was being eroded by the SAP, it did not mean that there were no alternative discourses in the country. Indeed, this was the time when progressive Zambians (including this author) and other enlightened quarters had expressed misgivings at the chaotic implementation of the privatisation programme. They had rightly argued that Chiluba and the MMD could take a leaf out of the Indian and Chinese examples whereby these countries had selectively and slowly opened up their economies. This was long before the present “miracle” economic story of these countries. Right-thinking Zambians had advocated for an adaption of these models to the Zambian situation decades before today’s boom. However, this voice was drowned by Chiluba’s cronies while the rest of the citizenry did not help matters. From here onwards, things just went downhill. Before it was even six months there had already been allegations of misconduct and corruption on the part of the ministers. The Weekly Post, then a dynamic and robust newspaper, exposed the shady dealings taking place in the MMD on a weekly basis. Other commentators acknowledged: Since the MMD came to power in November 1991, it has sacked or forced several ministers to resign for corruption, drug trafficking, abuse of office, and other extra-legal activities. This was certainly a high turn-over and a

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major problem for a new government and for the country’s leadership cadre. Scandals in the cabinet, inefficiency, contradicting pronouncements, and sycophancy à la Kaunda have come to dominate politics in Zambia (Ihonvbere, 2003:69).

Few organs of civil society rose up to challenge the increasing rot in the new government, but for the most part, there was an eerie silence from the rest of the country which did not make sense. Simutanyi (1996:825) offers reasons for this: In Zambia the previous government of Kenneth Kaunda and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) showed a lack of commitment in the implementation of stabilisation and structural adjustment policies between 1973 and 1991. On many occasions the government failed to fulfil the agreed targets and had the agreements suspended or cancelled. However, as the economic situation worsened, the government was perceived as having been responsible for the economic crisis. Thus the demand for democracy in many African countries, including Zambia was also an expression of opposition to the effects of structural adjustment. Since the redemocratisation process took place in Zambia, however, the groups that had previously opposed structural adjustment policies have been either demobilised or at the best ineffectual. Two reasons may explain this apparent ineffectiveness. First, the opposition to adjustment in Zambia was also part of the opposition to the authoritarian one-party state regime. Economic grievances were used to justify the expression of political grievances. In the absence of organised opposition, these groups who had the autonomy to express political grievances were viewed as “unofficial opposition”. Second, the introduction of political and economic liberalisation simultaneously acted against effective organisation. For example, organised labour has been demobilised through a combination of labour retrenchments, dismissals and wage freezes.

The above insights are revealing in that this is what happened with the student movement. Students had demobilised themselves after the elections of 1991. Many students had chosen to be co-opted into the MMD while the majority of the new student leaders were also part of the MMD structures. Whenever, the students grumbled, the student leadership would try to deflect anger from the MMD. However, in 1992, things came to a head when a group which had consistently called for the autonomy of the student movement organised a demonstration which ended in the death of one student (official accounts were that it was not a 276

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student. Nonetheless, the paramilitary police had shot dead an innocent young man). But the citizens were the main culprits as they remained passive under such unrelenting austerity measures. When contrasted with the current Eurozone financial crisis, where economies such as Greece and Spain are on the verge of collapse, things are different. Whereas poor people in Zambia and the rest of the society were told to swallow the bitter pill of austerity over and over, Europeans have rebelled against their own financial systems and theories, and there have been demonstrations in many countries of the Eurozone such as Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece. Sheer hypocrisy on the part of international financial institutions in this matter leaves one to wonder whether indeed Zambia and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa could not have charted their development pathway, devoid of Western trappings. Again, it boils down to the question of visionary and astute leadership. Due to the foregoing, the first splinter group of the MMD, the Caucus for National Unity (CNU) was formed in May 1992. The CNU comprised of mainly academics and intellectuals who were increasingly becoming disillusioned with the rising wave of primordial politics in the MMD. They were also not happy with the manner in which the MMD was implementing the SAP which at this time had caused so much misery in the country. The CNU, with Patrick Katyoka at its helm, also wanted a constitutional review that would curtail the president’s powers. In support were also the Zambia Research Foundation (ZRF) and the Women’s Lobby which were equally appalled with the deterioration in governance standards in the country. However, the CNU did not get much support from the Zambian people who were bent on “giving Chiluba and the MMD more time” to implement their economic recovery programme. Also, the government did not bother to heed the advice that the CNU had offered. All members of the CNU were expelled from the MMD after this. It seemed nothing could touch Chiluba and the MMD at the time. In August 1992, Akashambatwa Mbikusita Lewanika, the main force behind the creation of the MMD, resigned his position citing 277

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unbridled corruption and other indiscretions by the MMD government. Baldwin Nkumbula also followed suit and resigned his ministerial position. These high profile resignations also coincided with the sacking of five hundred striking bank workers. At this stage the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) had effectively become toothless and also its leadership had been co-opted into the MMD. A year later, there was an exodus of other founding members of the MMD such as Arthur Wina, among others who formed the National Party (NP), which Lewanika and Nkumbula also joined. This split however did little to undermine the MMD’s prominence in the country. After being forced underground for decades, the freeing up of the political space also re-opened and re-energised the Barotse question. The non-implementation of the Barotseland Agreement 1964 by the Zambian government was once more under the spotlight. This issue highly irritated Chiluba and his key ministers as well as advisers such as Michael Sata. In fact Chiluba and Sata had wanted to arrest the Litunga and for the first time in more than a century the war drums were once more heard in Barotseland, as various Barotse emerged to protect the Litunga. At the time it was easy for the Barotse to acquire all sorts of arms due to the Angolan civil war. What must never be overlooked by anyone who wants to understand the Barotse question is that no tangible development took place in Barotseland during Chiluba’s rule. It was said that Chiluba made sure that this part of Zambia was “punished” for its drive for autonomy just as in the time of Kaunda. For example, the only road connecting Lusaka to this area was so pot-holed that travelling on it was not only a hazard, but it took more hours to get to Barotseland unlike when the road was in good condition. Chiluba vowed to crush any moves towards secession and this attitude brought him on a direct collision course with the people of Barotseland, the Litunga and the BRE. In 1995 the MMD government instituted a land reform programme which also came into direct conflict with the Litunga and the BRE. This process would strip the Litunga’s prerogatives of allocating land to the 278

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Barotse people. It almost looked like the land reform was tailormade for such purposes. Suspicions between the people of Barotseland and the MMD continued until Chiluba left office. Chiluba became more and more autocratic and when the UNIP’s “zero option” plan to overthrow the government and destabilise the country was “uncovered” by the MMD, this was just the pretext he needed to “sort out” his old enemies. In March 1993, Frederick Chiluba re-instituted the state of emergency in response to this alleged conspiracy and in the process twenty-five UNIP senior officials were detained without trial for plotting to generate civil disobedience in order to make the country ungovernable. One of the detainees was Kaunda’s son, the late Wezi who was an MCC of UNIP. The state of emergency ended in the month of June and the UNIP detainees were released. In the same period, Parliament enacted the Industrial and Labour Relations Act. Its sole purpose was to stifle workers in regard to their right to strike. It was more in favour of the employers than the workers. This was once more a liberalist approach which was not concerned about the plight of the working class. In 1994, a group of young intellectuals, the so-called young Turks emerged within the ranks of the MMD. This group heavily criticised the policies and programmes of the MMD government, which were having an adverse effect on the lives of Zambians. There was a stand-off between this group which was led by Derrick Chitala, co-founding member of the MMD, and the late Dean Mung’omba on the one side and Michael Sata who represented the old guard, on the other. Eventually, the old guard won the tussle and Chitala and Mung’omba were expelled from the MMD the following year. In September of the same year Kenneth Kaunda formally came out of retirement and sought to challenge the MMD in the elections of 1996. It was also during Chiluba’s rule that sport and recreation were totally neglected and funding in these areas dried up. Sport and recreation were seen as non-essentials and therefore the state was not prepared to fund any of these activities. Due to this, sports facilities and standards deteriorated to extremely low 279

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levels. The mines and parastatal organisations which had funded sport also had long ceased to do so. One sad episode to emerge from the non-participation of the state in this arena was the 1993 Gabon air crash which claimed the lives of all the members of the Zambia football squad, sports administrators and the crew of the Zambia Air Force. Zambia was going to play a match for the World Cup qualifiers and had been en route to Senegal when the Zambian Air Force DHC-5 Buffalo plane which the football team was aboard burst into flames and crashed off the coast of Gabon. What led to this disaster was the MMD government’s reluctance to fly the Zambian football squad on a normal commercial jet citing lack of funds. They were thus flown on an old World War Two relic which indeed could not take the strain of such a long flight. As mentioned in the Prologue, this writer had been on such a plane in 1990 and was worried for his life, as a couple of months before, the same type of plane had crashed near Ngwerere killing also the civilians who were on board. On the author’s flight to Kabwe, this plane literally vibrated and felt like it would crash at any time. It was literally a kite in the sky. The flight to Kabwe was a short one and so had been the ill-fated one which had crashed near Ngwerere in the rural parts of Lusaka. Now what more for a five or more hour flight to West Africa? The MMD government should have known from the Ngwerere incident that these planes were obsolete. So it was on Chiluba’s and the MMD’s watch that these young men were left to die such a horrible death in the name of austerity. The irony is that when they had died, that is when the government relented and sent a commercial jet to fly their bodies (actually there were no bodies to speak of but body parts) back home for burial. Up to now relatives of the deceased are still waiting for the so-called Gabon Air Crash Report. What is there to report on, when it is clear that those young men and officials died from state negligence, insensitivity and lack of planning? Chiluba’s presidency was also marred by too many high profile killings and “accidental” deaths. Many prominent Zambians during this period had died under very suspicious 280

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circumstances. Some of these deaths were not solved and it begs the question why independent inquiries have not been conducted in Zambia to get to the bottom of the truth: It is widely believed, but never legally substantiated, that his [Chiluba’s] administration was behind the deaths of confrontational politicians Baldwin Nkumbula, Cuthbert Ng’uni, Major Wezi Kaunda (the ex-president’s son), and Paul Tembo. In 1997, ex-president Kenneth Kaunda was fired upon at a political rally in Kabwe by a police officer. Kaunda escaped injury but outspoken lawyer Roger Chongwe was wounded in the neck. Another controversial lawyer, Richard Ngenda, died in murky circumstances under Chiluba’s reign. Many believe that MMD members Finance Minister Ronald Penza and Edward Shamwana were assassinated to protect corrupt MMD ministers. While these accusations of political assassinations lack substantiation, there is ample evidence of Chiluba’s schemes to use the legal system to harass and hamper political competitions (Gould, 2012:422).

Zambia had effectively become a police state under Chiluba and this discussion concurs with Gould (2010:64) who argues that the country had witnessed a dramatic accentuation of the role of the security apparatus in Zambia’s political life under Chiluba. “The president deployed his chief of intelligence in a wide range of ‘discretionary’ projects, from obstructing justice, to rent extraction in the killing fields of the Eastern Congo. The looming prominence of the security apparatus resurrected a legitimacy crisis in Zambian politics that multi-party democracy was supposed to have laid to rest.” After the first five years of the MMD government’s rule, social and economic conditions had actually worsened, whilst political misrule was on the rise. There was so much continuity between the one-party state system and the new “democratic dispensation”: Chiluba increasingly drew from the pre-1991 experience of UNIP political strategy, harassing the independent media (something Kaunda had never had to deal with), announcing surprise cabinet shuffles and sporting a penchant for blaming international actors and agents for domestic problems. The MMD in 1996 was a party of powerful, modern-minded men and women who had grown wealthy over their five years in office. Its national leadership mainly comprised businessmen who were ostentatious in their

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wealth and their power. MMD’s campaign was openly clientelistic. On the eve of the elections, President Chiluba told a crowd in the Eastern Province (where UNIP held all the 20 Parliamentary seats in 1991) “How can I assist you if you don’t support my candidate?” MMD Lusaka parliamentary aspirant Silvia Masebo advised ZNBC television audience that voting for the winning party was the only way for voters to benefit after the elections. When challenged, the MMD stuck by its liberalist policies with less State and more entrepreneurial initiatives, even in sectors such as agriculture and health where privatisation policies were not popular (Gould, 2002:310).

Chiluba easily won the elections of 1996. A fragmented opposition and a citizenry which was prepared to grant Chiluba a second term contributed to Chiluba’s return to power. The voting of Chiluba a second time, despite the hardships and a litany of scandals committed by him and his colleagues is quite baffling, but it seems Zambians were only going back to the polls a second time, after 17 years of one-party rule and 27 years of only one president, Kaunda. In the second and last term of Chiluba things just did not get any better. From 1996 to 2001 the lives of Zambians continued to be of misery and desolation. During this period, the government enforced a wage freeze against civil servants and also announced that fifty nine thousand civil servants were to be retrenched by the year 1999. The government argued that only eighty thousand workers were needed in the civil service. Chiluba’s draconian actions continued unabated. In 1996 the vice-president of UNIP senior chief Inyambo Yeta was arrested, together with nine other UNIP leaders. They were charged with treason on the basis that they were behind the “Black Mamba” which had led to a spate of bomb blasts in the capital, Lusaka. However, they were later acquitted by the High Court which cited that their imprisonment was not based on sound reasons. In October 1997, the MMD government foiled a military coup which was led by an army Captain Stephen Lungu, nicknamed “Captain Solo” and another Captain, Jack Chiti. Chiluba quickly reinstated the state of emergency and in the process also arrested former president Kenneth Kaunda. Fiftyfour other soldiers who had staged the coup d’état with Captain Lungu were charged with high treason. 282

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Chiluba’s 10 years of governing Zambia were indeed farcical and this period was referred to by the author as the wasted decade (see Noyoo, 2010). Undoubtedly, Chiluba and his colleagues had wasted a golden opportunity of creating a new Zambia, founded on the rule of law, democratic principles, fair play and social justice, by pursuing a misguided personal vendetta against Kenneth Kaunda and engaging in infantile whims of self-gratification such as stealing national resources to buy themselves fancy cars, clothes and shoes.55 Chiluba was for the most part frivolous and petty, and did not understand the gravity of his position. For instance, after a trip abroad he sent a communiqué in advance that he had something “important” to announce to the nation. Indeed, the nation responded and even foreign dignitaries accredited to various High Commissions and Embassies braved the morning cold and went to Lusaka International Airport to await the president’s “important” news. There was even a slight drizzle on the day. When Chiluba disembarked from the plane to address the hastily arranged press conference, Zambians were so shocked to learn that this occasion was merely for the announcing to the nation that he had earned himself a master’s degree in political science from the University of Warwick. One wonders what was going through the minds of the diplomats who were assembled at Lusaka International Airport. The behaviour of Chiluba and his ministers was similar to a scenario where children had stumbled upon a sweet factory without adult supervision. This should have been a time when Chiluba and his colleagues could have worked hard for a national catharsis to transpire by expunging all the remnants of the oneparty state regime from all facets of the Zambian society. This could also have allowed for proper investigations conducted into the corruption, misappropriation of funds and gross human rights violations which had transpired during the one-party state era and culprits brought to book (these malpractices did take place during the one-party state). More importantly, Kaunda and his colleagues could have been made to account for their misdeeds because there was gross 283

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misconduct of politicians in this period. But because Chiluba was not a serious and circumspect president, or astute politician for that matter, Kaunda and his cronies were allowed to sanitise themselves and as things took a turn for the worse in the third republic, the former UNIP functionaries were emboldened. Since Zambians do not want to learn from history or even remain uninformed about their own history, Kaunda and the surviving members of the former ruling UNIP clique have now re-emerged as icons. Thus: By the time Chiluba left office and Levy Mwanawasa, his deputy was sworn into office after a very controversial election, the government had not recorded any significant success in its recovery programme. As part of its privatisation programme, the MMD government liquidated Zambia Airways and sent hundreds of workers into unemployment thus swelling the ranks of the 70,000 public employees already retrenched. Many more state companies were liquidated and sold to cronies of the MMD (Ihonvbere, 2003:68).

B. Levy Mwanawasa’s Presidency Levy Mwanawasa became Zambia’s third president in 2002 after narrowly winning the elections of December 2001. He had barely beat Anderson Mazoka of the United Party for National Development (UPND). Mwanawasa secured 28.7 per cent of the vote while Mazoka had obtained 26.8 per cent. The elections had been conducted amid allegations of electoral fraud and misconduct. After Mwanawasa replaced Chiluba, he set out to rectify the country’s reckless privatisation programme and also implemented drastic measures against graft and corruption in government. These were undertaken in spite of Chiluba handpicking Mwanawasa to lead the MMD. It became clear after Chiluba left power, after investigations into his dealings as president were undertaken, that the Zambia Security Intelligence Service (ZSIS) was a major vehicle for diverting public funds into the private pockets of the political leadership and its allies during his reign (Gould, 2010). Chiluba and his cronies were arrested and charged with corruption and abuse of office. Some 284

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were sentenced to prison terms whilst others were fined. State resources were recovered: Indeed, when Chiluba’s hand-picked successor, freshly elected President Levy Mwanawasa went before Parliament in 2002 to ask the legislators to remove Chiluba’s immunity, he based his request on the transcripts from a secret bank account that the ZSIS held at the Zambia National Commercial Bank branch in London. According to these records, Chiluba had been using the ZSIS’s so-called Zamtrop account for various personal purposes, ranging from the lavish purchases of clothes, shoes, and jewellery to paying the private school fees of the Chief Justice’s children. Subsequent investigations into the Chiluba corruption case have revealed a web of beneficiaries that included Chiluba’s head and deputy heads of intelligence, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance, the Zambian ambassador to the US, several key MMD Ministers, and the CEO of a local investment bank that facilitated the siphoning off of public funds via the ZSIS (Gould, 2010:57-58)

In the early 2000s, social welfare continued to be defined along the lines of safety-nets. These were still meant to stave off the harsh effects of the liberalisation of the economy and the privatisation programme which resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs. The main safety-nets in place were: (a) Food Security Programme (FSP): with a focus to increase food productivity and household food security. It targeted about one hundred and fifty thousand vulnerable but viable farmers. Included in this package were also female-headed households, households headed by those who were terminally ill, the aged and people with disabilities. (b) Programme Urban Self-Help (PUSH): the main objective of this programme was to improve the conditions of households in disadvantaged communities with an emphasis on women’s participation. Citizens on this programme also worked on certain projects such as the rehabilitation of infrastructure whilst also benefitting from skills training.

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(c) Public Welfare Assistance System (PWAS): This was meant to help the most vulnerable in the society in order to meet their basic needs in health, education, food and shelter. (d) National Social Safety Net (NSSN): This was designed and implemented as social mitigation programmes. It was also meant to co-ordinate other safety nets and broadly mobilise resources to meet the needs of retrenched workers and other vulnerable groups in Zambia. However, in the mid-2000s there was a shift in thinking as social protection was taken as a critical arm of social welfare in Zambia. Furthermore, it was also for the first time regarded as something much broader than the benefits for those who were formally employed. In this view, social protection incorporated social assistance and this thinking was captured in the country’s Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP), after Zambia reverted back to planning after it had been discontinued in the two-decade rule of Chiluba. Therefore, the FNDP of 2006 set the tone and parameters for the government’s social and economic interventions after Chiluba’s departure. It took note of the fact that wealth creation, through sustained economic growth, constituted the most important element in poverty reduction and consequently, a very high premium was to be placed on growthstimulating interventions. It also recognised that redistribution policies really mattered in reducing poverty and that growth and equity were not necessarily in conflict. The government also maintained that linkages between growth and poverty reduction could be developed in a sustainable way, but only through an approach that allowed everyone to share the benefits of growth (Government of the Republic of Zambia, 2006). This was a marked turning point in the way the government handled social welfare matters from previous efforts of the SAP which were dislocating in nature. The SAP prescripts had only believed that the sole pursuit of growth would ultimately lead to social well286

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being, which in this case was not forthcoming. The FNDP also took social protection into account as an important avenue for poverty reduction: Past interventions which used to address vulnerable people include food aid, public works using food for work (FFW), cash for work (CFW) and food for assets (FFA). Access to basic services has previously been provided through social investment funds and micro-finance tailored towards the vulnerable. Public works have been proven to encourage local development, like roads, schools, etc. However, some needy groups such as the disabled, chronically sick, the aged and children are often excluded. Lessons from past interventions have cited such problems as poor quality of work and unrealistic wages and food rations. Other interventions include food security packs and subsidies on food, fertiliser and seed. Zambia suffers from the absence of a reliable social security system. Retrenchment and pension schemes have been hampered by inadequacy and delays of remittances, and poor investment decisions, with the result that many pensioners receive little or nothing of their entitlement. The present pension schemes have not addressed fully the health and other social needs of those who fall in the vulnerable category soon after employment (Government of the Republic of Zambia, 2006:211).

The FNDP (2006) further explains that social protection policies and programmes seek to promote the livelihoods and welfare of the poorest and those most vulnerable to risks and shocks. Social protection is also seen as a poverty reduction strategy that fosters human development, social equity and human rights (Government of the Republic of Zambia, 2006). Notably: The high levels of extreme poverty and vulnerability, coupled with multiple effects of HIV and AIDS and unemployment provide a strong justification for the need for social protection. During the FNDP period, the sector pioneered the use of innovative approaches to empowering low capacity households in cassava production, processing and marketing, and delivering social assistance through cash transfers and vouchers. National guidelines on children’s homes and the National Communication Strategy on Sexual and Gender-Based violence were developed. Despite these successes the sector faced a number of constraints in the implementation of social protection programmes major among them were the absence of a social protection policy to guide programme development, weak administrative capacity, poor monitoring and evaluation and poor co-ordination among stakeholders and across sectors (Government of the Republic of Zambia, 2011).

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In April 2005, Zambia became eligible for debt forgiveness from the multilateral aid agencies under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative after adhering to strict austerity conditions. The country got a reprieve when the bulk of its debt amounting to US$3.8 billion (more than 50 per cent) was written off. Debt relief freed up a lot of money that was previously earmarked for debt servicing and it was re-deployed to sectors of education, health and social welfare. Immediately this transpired the impact of the debt relief was positively felt in the lives of the poor. For instance, in the same year, the millions which were freed up by the HIPC were channelled towards the provision of free anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) for a hundred thousand people. The government removed the 40,000 Zambian Kwacha (US$9) fee which citizens had to pay in order to access ARVs. The “user fees” in the health sector were also discontinued in the rural areas in 2006, due to the extra funds from the HIPC initiative. The government was also enabled to re-introduce free education at primary school levels in 2006. The Public Welfare Assistance Scheme (PWAS) was also considered for higher budgetary allocations (Noyoo, 2009). Social protection measures also saw the extension of social cash transfers from the Southern Province to the Eastern Province, as donor funding also increased: Social protection, during the FNDP period, was focused on improving food security among low capacity households, social cash transfers to the incapacitated, chronically poor and vulnerable, child protection and enhancement of vulnerable people’s access to justice. A total of 78,671 low capacity households received food security packs. The Social Cash Transfers Scheme supported 7,563 households (2,708 males and 4,855 females) and 4,343 individuals (1,567 males and 2,776 females). Results under this scheme show that individuals and households accessing social cash transfers have seen notable improvements in their lives, including reduced hunger and better school attendance for children. With regard to child protection, the programme sought to provide adequate legal and social protection to children living in difficult circumstances or in need of care. Under the programme, a total of 3,365 street children were re-integrated

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with their families and communities. In addition, Government constructed two children’s homes in Chikumbi and Mufulira (Government of the Republic of Zambia, 2011).

The rationale for social cash transfers has been growing over the years because they have led to remarkable reductions of poverty and the strengthening of livelihoods in contexts where they had been well implemented. For example, the Latin American and South African experiences are good cases-inpoint. The targeting of families with conditional cash transfers in some Latin American countries has impacted positively on family well-being. Inadvertently, such measures have also acted as family policies. Extensive analysis of such programmes as Bolsa Familia in Brazil, Oportunidades in Mexico and Chile Solidario in Chile, among others, by the World Bank, suggests that conditional cash transfers generally help to reduce poverty levels, income inequality and children’s participation in the workplace. In addition, results from various evaluations of conditional cash transfers suggest that there were positive programme effects on growth-and-development monitoring visits to health centres by children. Overall, the conclusions showed that conditional cash transfers reduced family poverty and child labour, which contributed to both mothers’ and fathers’ participations in the workforce (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2011:28). South Africa’s cash transfers are located in the state’s social assistance programme, which dispenses various social grants, and are widely regarded as that country’s most direct means of combating poverty. At the end of 2011, nearly 15.3 million people were eligible for social grants. This number has been increasing from 1998 when 2.5 million people could access the grant. The social grants system has been expanded in recent years by extending the child support grant to a child’s 18th birthday. The other categories of this type of grant are old age grant, disability grant, foster care grant, care dependency grant and war veterans grant (National Treasury, 2012). What makes this type of cash transfers durable and effective is that they are state-driven and that the funds are 289

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disbursed from the national treasury. It is not a donor drivenprogramme as in the case of Zambia. Cash transfers will always remain unsustainable in Zambia because the state is dependent on alms. Before ending this section, it is important to underline the fact that Mwanawasa was not without blemish. He was also accused of appointing family members to key positions in the diplomatic corps, parastatals and other government agencies. In some circles it was also alleged that Mwanawasa’s wife, Maureen, was the one who had leaned on her husband to make imprudent decisions. It became clear when some of Maureen Mwanawasa’s friends and close associates were appointed to high positions in the government bureaucracy that things were not so rosy in this administration. The former first lady was known to have had political or presidential ambitions and thus found it convenient to thrust herself into the public realm at every opportune time. This trend emerged with Chiluba’s presidency and has continued to present times. It was only in Kaunda’s time when one was spared the twaddle of first ladies.56 But Mwanawasa’s indiscretions were not as suffocating as those of Zambia’s past presidents and incumbent Michael Sata. C. Rupiah Banda’s Reign In all fairness, Banda found himself on a back foot immediately he assumed the presidency from a relentless pro-Sata campaign which was mounted primarily by the Post newspaper. All the good things Banda did were given a negative spin by this newspaper. Also, the idle urbanites were at hand to pump up the Sata hype and the so-called “man of action” persona. In unison were the misguided Zambians who also took up the Sata mantra. This was a well-orchestrated political gimmick which Banda did not take seriously earlier and when he saw how serious it was, it was too late for him. However, Banda had only himself to blame as he was also prone to nepotistic and ethnic-based appointments in the public service. He was also not willing to listen to the 290

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people’s concerns. His desire to be re-elected at all cost led to his quick exit from the political realm because he had become oblivious to many issues in the country. Notwithstanding, the Sixth National Development Plan (SNDP) 2011-2015 was launched on Banda’s watch. The SNDP still acknowledged the value of social protection and noted that the focus during the plan’s implementation would be to effectively co-ordinate and provide social protection through the empowering of low capacity households, provision of social assistance to incapacitated households and support of various vulnerable groups (Government of the Republic of Zambia, 2011). It was also envisaged that the key objective in the SNDP period would be the development of the Social Protection Policy. It was also projected that policies including the National Child Development Policy, Youth Policy, Gender Policy, Health Policy and Education Policy would be taken into consideration to ensure conformity and harmonisation with the Social Protection Policy. Furthermore, the sector was going to address cross-cutting issues among them gender, HIV and AIDS, climate change, disability, sexual and gender-based violence and human trafficking (Government of the Republic of Zambia, 2011). As pointed out in the Prologue, Banda had handled the financial global crisis quite well and made sure that the government averted massive job losses after certain mining firms pulled out of the country. He ensured that the government played a care-taker role over the mines, while new investors were sought. When Chinese investors took over the mines, a national catastrophe was averted. But Banda was extremely soft on the Chinese investors due to this, even though they were notorious for gross labour malpractices. For example, after miners went on strike against poor wages and working conditions at the Collum Mine, in the Southern Province in 2010, the Chinese owners shot and wounded about eleven miners. The Chinese were arrested and charged by the Zambian authorities. Unexpectedly, the charges against the perpetrators were dropped. Many Zambians believed that Banda and the MMD had made sure that the 291

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Chinese were exonerated. Even Transparency International Zambia (TIZ), an anti-corruption advocacy group, was perplexed at the MMD government’s stance and lamented that such actions could erode people’s confidence in the country’s judicial system. This was not the first incidence regarding the maltreatment of Zambian workers by Chinese investors. In 2005, five Zambians were shot and wounded by managers during pay-related riots at another Chinese-owned mine, while in the same year fifty workers in a Chinese-owned dynamite factory were blown to pieces due to unsafe working conditions. Being a former sports administrator, Banda also was keen to see the revival of sporting activities in the country. For instance, he cajoled the private sector to help fund the national football team’s expenses such as paying the salary of its expatriate coach, who had not received a salary in months. This is the same coach who led Zambia to the quarter finals of the African Cup of Nations in 2010 in Angola and to the finals of the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon this year, where Zambia emerged as continental champions for the first time since independence in 1964. D. Michael Sata’s Period in Power A deep analysis cannot be proffered of Sata’s ninety-days rule even though this is the time-frame the new president and his government had set themselves to raise the quality of life of Zambians, by “putting more money in their pockets” and creating jobs for the citizens and empowering the youth. However, even if this “deadline” was unrealistic by all accounts, an overview of what has already transpired in the ninety-days and what Sata and the PF inherited can serve as pointers for future trends. At the outset it looks like the HIPC that had been facilitated by Mwanawasa’s administration has already been squandered. The country has again increased its domestic and foreign debts. By all accounts, this issue is once more shrouded in secrecy as in the bad old days of the one-party state. No reasons are given to the 292

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nation as to why the country’s debt is on the upswing. This anomaly was inherited by the PF government from the MMD administration of Banda. Sata’s political career has been one of theatrics and antics best suited for a country that has a great number of ignorant and uneducated voters. There has not been a hint of any understanding of policies and programmes throughout Sata’s career as a public servant. Apart from bullying people and “bulldozing” his way around the political arena, there is nothing much one can point to as truly successful stories of this man’s efforts aimed at raising the quality of life of Zambians. Even his much publicised period as District Governor of Lusaka where he built an uneven fly-over bridge, two water fountains which became disused after sometime or when he had walked into offices to chide “lazy” council workers into action, there is not much one can say that should give confidence that Sata understands modern governance. Sata would not have survived in an informed and knowledge-based society. The other issue that has been publicised is his supposed “allergy” to corruption. But again, Sata does not seem to have clean hands and his past is overshadowed with allegations of misconduct and impropriety. Lest people forget, Levy Mwanawasa, then vice-president to Chiluba had resigned in protest over what he saw as Chiluba’s protection of Michael Sata, who had allegedly abused his ministerial position. Sata had been investigated on at least three occasions, first as Minister of Local Government and Housing when the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) had recommended that he be prosecuted for abuse of office and for corrupt practices. But the then Attorney General Ali Hamir had advised against prosecution because the offence had carried a K50 (7 US cents) fine. In the second and third charges, involving awards of contracts and delivery of water to his house by the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC), the ACC could not prosecute on flimsy grounds. As mentioned in the Prologue Sata was untouchable as he was a pillar of Chiluba’s ethnic agenda and corrupt governance.57 293

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Perhaps, the most significant policy act that the PF government undertook in the ninety-days in power was the abolishing of user fees for primary health services and the subsidising of farming. But again these measures were conceived during Mwanawasa’s presidency. What can be discerned from the PF government’s period in power is that Sata has ruled Zambia in the best way his knows: via chaos and alarmist tendencies. There have not been any well-thought-out policies and programmes which point to where the country is going in the last three months. Everything seems to be done on an ad hoc basis. There has not been any mention of social policy, social welfare policy and human development since the PF came to power apart from the populist rhetoric and demagoguery. Not only have the PF interventions been ad hoc in most cases but they continuously remain bevel. Sata’s rule thus far, has been uninspiring. Chapter Five Endnotes 47

Zambia would be the ninth African country to gain independence from the British Crown at the time. The BBC reported the event in the following manner: “President Kaunda - the only candidate in the August elections - has given his first news conference since taking office. He spoke of the new republic’s ‘task of building a nation founded on respect for all people of all races, all colours and all religions.’ And he told journalists Zambia would support Britain if neighbouring Rhodesia formerly Southern Rhodesia - made a unilateral declaration of independence. ‘That declaration would meet resistance from all over the world and would not last’, he said. The son of a Church of Scotland minister, Dr Kaunda, 40, has a reputation as a moderate and reasonable man, opposed to violence. He supports the preservation of 10 of the 73 seats in parliament for the Europeans, for at least the next four years. He hopes this will reassure the community of 70,000 Europeans in Zambia, most of whom work in the Copper Belt near the border with Congo and are of great economic importance to the country. Many have already left for South Africa fearing increased African resentment against them. One of Dr Kaunda’s first acts as head of state was to release 200 ‘freedom fighters’ jailed for sedition by the colonial administration. He has also sent letters to the South African Prime Minister asking for African leaders, including Nelson Mandela, to be imprisoned in Zambia rather than their homeland. Lusaka is currently home to the headquarters of 15 African freedom movements including Zanu and Zapu from Rhodesia.” Cited from: www.news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/October/25/newsid_265800/265832 5.st, (24/05/2010).

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48

Ideology is the most elusive concept of the social sciences. In most cases the term is used in a negative or derogatory way. Notably, ideology is expressed through the political regime in a particular country. Politics is largely about reconciling conflicting views in order to come to collective decisions over what to do, whether it is redistribution of resources or the harmonising of varying interest groups. Conflicting views arise because people’s interests differ. People’s values differ as well (Adams, 1993:3). However, ideologies have been instrumental in navigating the course of history for most societies. The concept can be traced back to the French philosopher Antoine Destult de Tracy (1754-1836) who in 1776 coined it as ideologie. He was an aristocrat by birth but was sympathetic towards the cause of the French Revolution. He saw ideology as the science of the human mind (at the time, as in biology, zoology or sciences of the human species) (Eatwell and Wright, 1993). Later, the term was used loosely, referring more to the object than to the form of study. Napoleon Bonaparte was the first major figure to use the term. This state of affairs emerged after Napoleon had fallen out of favour with de Tracy’s group and him caricaturing them as “ideologues” (Eatwell and Wright, 1993:3). All ideologies have a conception of an ideal society, which embodies values that the ideology promotes. To have a view like this involves holding beliefs about human nature, such that only if human beings live in a certain way, will they be fulfilled and their true potential flourish (Adams, 1993). 49 The language that was used by politicians and academics in expounding Humanism during this era was in most cases not gender sensitive. It is not the author’s intention to put forth a discourse that is gender insensitive, but to only capture the trend of thought at the time. 50 Incredulously, this is Zambia’s present-day Minister of Finance under Michael Sata’s regime. Surely, are there no capable Zambians to lead the country? As can be seen from the citation, Chikwanda was part of the group of Zambians who had headed the one-party state dictatorship and ruined the country. Zambians just do not seem to learn from history. 51 Kalinda and Floro (1992) assert that the high rate of urbanisation in Zambia was due partly to the natural increase of the population and partly to rapid rural-urban migration. The attraction of relatively high wages in the urban areas, the widespread urban consumer subsidies, together with the lifting of restrictions on movement allowing people to join their relations in urban areas led to such a migration pattern in the country. Another factor was the neglect of and discrimination against the agricultural sector which was detrimental to the rural areas, both in terms of incentives and available employment opportunities. 52 The repressive nature of Kaunda’s regime was exposed after he was ousted from power and when the new MMD government instituted a commission of inquiry to investigate human rights abuses during the one-party state through country-wide hearings. Headed by prominent lawyer, Bruce Munyama, the commission was able to determine that indeed wide spread abuse of human rights had transpired during the one-party state and that there were secret detention centres in the country where state torture had been perpetrated. Also, people would be arrested for reading literature which was critical of dictatorships and such works were referred to as “seditious” material. Even the Barotseland Agreement document fell under this category and

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people would be detained if found with this document. Even just addressing Kaunda as “Mr” and not “Dr” would land a person in trouble. Kenneth Kaunda was initially awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD Degree), by Fordham University on 21 May 1963. From there on different universities conferred on him honorary doctorate degrees. Kaunda’s insistence on being called “Dr” even if he never earned the Ph.D. degree was a sign of things to come. Chiluba also made sure that he was referred to as “Dr”. He approached his close associate the then president of Malawi, Bakili Muluzi, who was also the Chancellor of the University of Malawi to confer on him an honorary doctorate. After this development, the state media made sure that “Dr. Chiluba” was referred to as such, every time his name was mentioned in the press. But that was not all; even the more progressive Mwanawasa could not resist this ego trip of being called a “Dr”. After Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas USA, conferred on him an honorary doctorate, the state media went into full-swing to make sure that the nation referred to him as “Dr” although he was not too fussy about this. He had earned his bachelors of law degree as opposed to Chiluba and Kaunda who had only secondary school education. 53 The much talked about labour movement might have been a factor in past struggles against Kaunda and the one-party state, but this was not the case in the 1990 revolution. The labour federation’s voice only came forth when again the signs were clear that Zambia was headed for significant change, and Kaunda’s stranglehold on Zambia had been weakened. 54 The trend of party cadres defecting from one party to another continued into the new political dispensation and gained momentum as the years progressed. People would simply leave their party of choice and join another, and would be welcomed in the new organisation at political rallies where such individuals would discard the old party regalia in the form of T-shirts, caps and wrappers, and swap them for those of the new party. This is done without any reference to principles, ideology, vision etc. Cadres would either move from an opposition party to one that is in power or vice versa, or between parties in the opposition. It just does not matter as long as one party seems to be dishing out more freebees. But then it is clear to see how old habits of the one-party state era continue to thrive 21 years later, after the demise of this political system. This is how politicians have managed to recycle themselves over and over. After 1991, there should have been a law barring certain individuals and practices from the past political order. This oversight has cost Zambia dearly in terms of quality politics and visionary leadership. 55 The joint task team against corruption which was constituted under Mwanawasa discovered eleven metal trunks in a warehouse full of designer suits, shirts, ties, silk pyjamas and more than one hundred pairs of shoes bearing Chiluba’s initials in brass. 56

People were also not spared the ill-behaviour of the presidents’ children and consequently suffered indignities at their hands. Towards the end of Kaunda’s rule, his son Kambarage was arrested on murder charges after being accused of shooting his former girlfriend to death. He on the other hand claimed that these charges were politically motivated - in spite of the fact that his father was still president at the time. He was subsequently acquitted. But the rest of Kaunda’s children were not such a problem. Chiluba’s children were literally a menace to the Zambian society.

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They just wreaked havoc everywhere they went in the country. The most problematic of Chiluba’s nine children was Castro (deceased) who was a law onto himself. He caused grievous bodily harm to citizens, verbally abused them and chose to do whatever he wanted to anyone whenever he felt like. In the process, tax payers’ money was spent on the bodyguards protecting him and the fuel which was used in the cars that transported him from one nightclub to another. On a weekly basis the then Weekly Post would report Castro’s escapades. There were no scandals from Mwanawasa’s children and thus Zambians were at least spared the tantrums of the president’s children. 57 See for instance Gould (2010) and http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Chiluba+faces+a nother+round+of+cabinet+resignations.-a015200758 .

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CHAPTER SIX POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN ZAMBIA

This chapter closely examines the phenomena of poverty and inequality in Zambia. It also takes cognisance of the question of social exclusion in the country. Concepts and theoretical constructs relating to the former are also put forward for discussion. What is Poverty and Inequality? Poverty is one of the most contentious and controversial issues in human history, both as a state of being and an area of study. In many instances, an understanding or appreciation of poverty is rarely objective as the phenomenon is subjected to varying interpretations. Some views on poverty may not be value-free, while others may even be harmful because studies’ conclusions could be used to justify ill-conceived interventions, on the part of those who wield power. Therefore, discussions relating to poverty are also about power and power relations. Poverty can also take on moral overtones in that it can be seen as an affront to humanity and hence should not be allowed to continue or exist. Poverty can also take on a pernicious form whereby those who are not poor justify poverty by blaming it on the failings of those who are poor by using race, disability, religion, gender and so on, in order to justify the status quo which allows them unimpeded access to wealth creating opportunities. Poverty is also about lack of choices on the part of those who are poor. Poverty is as old as humanity and perhaps what is unanimous across cultures is that it is an unacceptable form of existence as it erodes people’s dignity and self-worth. Its non-toleration is universal in most societies and over generations there have been attempts by different countries to arrest or eradicate this problem, with varying degrees of success. The existence and prevalence of poverty in different societies points to various shortcomings in 299

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their systems. For instance, the inability of institutions to absorb certain members of society so that they are productive and earn an income may result in some of them becoming poor. If people do not participate in an economy or the labour market, for instance, they may be rendered poor. Due to certain structural impediments, some people may have difficulties in accessing life enhancing opportunities or may not acquire assets or skills which they could turn into viable livelihoods. Social welfare interfaces with poverty in the manner in which it is able to counteract its negative effects on society, especially in the lives of individuals, families, groups and communities. Social welfare comes into poverty discussions in so far as it is able to help those who are fighting this trend to either prevent or reduce it, by availing poor populations with concrete opportunities to move out of poverty. For example, social welfare, as a form of state assistance, provides different social services to people that will ultimately help to reduce or stave off poverty. Also, the type of welfare regimes that are in place in particular countries will give rise to unique benefits which will be accessed by citizens. These may either liberate them from poverty or merely help to ameliorate their circumstances and not help them to decisively break out of the poverty trap. For instance, in colonial Zambia, poverty took on different meanings as it was both structural and racial. In this vein, poverty was constructed and then ascribed to the African people by the colonial establishment. For example, racial discrimination gave credence to all the policies and legislation of the colonialists which had barred Africans from advancing themselves. In the case of education for instance, there was a permanent ceiling which ensured that Africans were only educated up to primary school level. This meant that they were only suitable for menial jobs and therefore could only earn meagre wages. More importantly, the colonial policies shaped the post-colonial poverty dimensions in Zambia, especially in the first two decades after independence. However, after this period, poverty can mostly be attributed to bad policy choices and lack of planning 300

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on the part of different political administrations. Furthermore, it is rare that poverty is mentioned without the subject of inequality being touched on. Even though poverty and inequality are not synonymous, they reinforce each other. Inequality is used to refer to the unequal distribution of income and wealth as well as of status and power. It is a feature of all contemporary societies irrespective of economic development, political system or anything else. There may be legitimate debate about the extent of inequality in different societies but not about its existence (George, 1980). For many years, poverty was defined from a one-dimensional perspective. One-dimensional approaches to poverty can be applied when a well-defined single-dimensional resource variable, such as income, has been selected as the basis for poverty evaluation. This variable is typically assumed to be cardinal; however, in some cases the variable may only have ordinary significance (i.e., the direction of change is discernible, but not its magnitude). Identification in a one-dimensional environment usually proceeds by setting a poverty line corresponding to a minimum level below which is considered poor. Aggregation is usually achieved through the use of a numerical poverty measure that determines the overall level of poverty in a distribution given the poverty line (Alkire and Foster, 2011:2). Such diagnoses of poverty were quite limited and therefore the solutions that they had provided were not comprehensive enough and also led to half measures in terms of state interventions. Due to this, there arose a need for multidimensional analyses of poverty. Multidimensional poverty definitions provide richer information than simple monetary estimates; they make it easier to identify priorities and to guide the design and composition of social policy measures. The development of a multidimensional poverty measure requires decisions to be made, each subject to their own advantages and disadvantages. Inherent to the construction of a multidimensional poverty measure are choices related to domains and indicators which are often based on value judgements and context301

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specificity; making multidimensional poverty estimates susceptible to misinterpretation and controversy (de Neubourg, et al., 2009:37). Theorising Poverty and Inequality Any theory responsible for the analysis and interpretation of the severity and prevalence of poverty must treat the following elements at length: (a) the distribution of resources internally; (b) the spread of expectations (including job demands) placed on the citizens of each nation; (c) the style of living of national populations and the institutional infrastructure underlying these styles; and (d) the relative balance of national and transnational economic, political and military associations (Townsend, 1984). The manner in which poverty is firstly defined and then measured will significantly influence the way in which societies respond to this problem, in terms of policies and strategies meant to deal with it. Also, the manner in which poverty is understood and the way it is measured will allow for the creation of certain mechanisms to address it. Although in most cases the notion of deprivation informs definitions of poverty, this problem has been explained mainly in relative and absolute terms. Relative and Absolute Poverty Poverty in the relative sense is linked to some held threshold or standard in society. People are deemed poor when their circumstances are compared to those of others who are regarded as well off. This way of defining poverty is subjective in that those who define poverty will base this on their own experiences and points of reference. The best way of describing poverty in 302

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relation to thresholds is through poverty datum lines whereby people below this line are taken as being poor. The poverty datum line is usually an estimate of income in relation to food as well as consumption that an individual or household is supposed to command in order to live an acceptable standard of living. It refers to some kind of minimum standard which will allow people to live a decent life. If one falls below this standard, then the person is regarded as poor. As can be seen from the foregoing, poverty datum lines are mainly calculations of an average income and are monetary yardsticks. Poverty datum lines were used in many countries to establish the minimum wage on which workers could live. However, this approach had flaws as it was narrow in perspective and could not capture the totality of human well-being. Poverty datum lines were in vogue in the 1960s and 1970s. On the other hand, absolute poverty refers to a state of deprivation that is bereft of all human necessities, for example access to adequate food or medical care. Social Exclusion In Chapter two, social exclusion was given some thought and described as a determinant of social welfare. In this chapter, it is argued further that poverty gives rise to social exclusion in Zambia. In this regard, poverty is a consequence of social processes where some people tend to be poorer than others. Poverty from this perspective has to do with those social processes and institutions that support or inhibit household participation in economic, political and civic/cultural activities. More specifically, it is exclusion from, or inclusion in society that inhibits people from benefiting from the market as well as available resources (Wagle, 2008). When examining the economic growth of Zambia and the attendant increase in household poverty, it can be speculated that many households as well as individuals have been impeded from accessing different life chances in the country. This is because processes of exclusion seem to be perpetuated by the political establishment 303

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in Zambia. Poverty and social exclusion can effectively be tackled if redistributive mechanisms are institutionalised in the country. Examples can be drawn from the Nordic or Cuban models of social welfare which were discussed in Chapter two. Over time, there have been certain theories that have been put across by different scholars in order to explain poverty. Some of them are the following: (a) Feminisation of Poverty The feminisation of poverty may be defined as: (a) an increase in the difference in the levels of poverty among women and among men, and (b) an increase in the difference in the levels of poverty among female-headed households and among male – and coupleheaded households. Feminisation of poverty has been understood as a static phenomenon (or “end state”) as well as a dynamic process. It has compared the gender composition of the poor and the levels of poverty within and between gender groups, and has also associated “feminine” with women and female-headed households (Medeiro and Costa, 2010:95). (b) Child Poverty Disaggregating child poverty from that of adults is an important policy approach which should be undertaken by policy-makers in poor countries such as Zambia. Mitigating this idea should be the fact that Zambia’s population is mainly comprised of young people. It does not help to lump children together with adults when defining poverty because it dilutes interventions when it comes to children due to their powerlessness. Even so, it is widely recognised that poverty rates are much higher among children than adults in developed and developing countries. Child poverty entails fundamental deprivations in which children grow up for instance, lack of access to economic, social, cultural, physical, environmental and/or political resources that are vital to their development and well-being. Most childhood material 304

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deprivations may have lifelong irreversible consequences and may contribute to rates of disability, illness and death. They also affect the long-term physical growth and development of children, and may lead to high levels of chronic illness and disability in adult life. Some forms of deprivation may also jeopardise future economic growth by reducing the intellectual and physical potential of the entire population (Cockburn and Kabubo-Mariara, 2010:1). (c) Culture of Poverty The theory of a culture of poverty is commonly associated with the work of an anthropologist Oscar Lewis (1959, 1961, 1964, and 1965). In various books and essays, Lewis provided detailed accounts of families of Latin America and the United States with the hope of illuminating the culture of poverty - defined as a “design for living which is passed down from generation to generation” of people living in poverty. With a list of nearly interrelated traits that he found among studied families, Lewis suggested various “universalistic characteristics” of culture of poverty (Stein, 2004:xi). These included matriarchal family structures, present-time orientations with limited deferred gratification, frequent spending of small quantities of money with an absence of savings, and a general mistrust of government politicians. During the 1960s, the culture of poverty thesis became a common reference point of politicians and scholars in the United States during policy debates both as a call to action and a way to blame poverty for the poor’s circumstances (Stein, 2004:xi). (d) Functionalist and Conflict Theories of Poverty and Inequality According to George (1980:4), the two main schools of thought attempting to explain the causes of inequality and poverty are the functional and conflict explanations of social stratification. The 305

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former author is of the view that the functional school is the more coherent of the two. It is to be found in the works of Talcott Parsons, Kingsley Davies and Wilbert Moore. The functional explanation of stratification encompasses income inequality and hence poverty, though it does not specifically refer to poverty. Its premise is that all societies are stratified even though the forms that stratification takes may differ. Inequality of income, status and prestige is therefore a universal phenomenon. The fundamental reason for this is that in every society there are certain positions which are more functional to the survival of that society than other positions. Society must, therefore, ensure both that the most able fill those positions and that once so filled the proper incentives are provided for their adequate functioning (George and Lawson, 1980). The conflict school has no generally acknowledged leaders, largely because there is no generally agreed conflict theory. All conflict theory writers of social stratification, however, adopt, in varying degrees, a Marxist perspective, and it is a composite semi-Marxist explanation. If functional explanations stress consensus and functionalism, conflict explanations stress conflict and power in society. While functional explanations assume general consensus in society as regards values and interests, conflict explanations see conflict at both the social class level and the group. The concept of power raises as many problems as the concept of functionality. What exactly is power, how do we ascertain its existence, and how do we measure it? Clearly, the definition of power one uses will influence and it may predetermine the outcome of research. In this case inequality and poverty are seen as the inevitable result of the maldistribution of power. They are not an unconscious device of benefitting all in society (George and Lawson, 1980:7).

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Summary of Poverty Theories Bradshaw (2006:6-14) distils five theories of poverty and shows how these theories place its origin. Some of these have already been touched on above. He looks at the following: (1) Individual deficiencies: this is a large and multifaceted set of explanations that focus on the individual as responsible for his/her poverty situation. Typically, politically conservative theoreticians blame individuals in poverty for creating their own problems and argue that with harder work and better choices the poor could have avoided (and now remedy) their problems. (2) Poverty caused by cultural belief systems that support sub-cultures of poverty: As noted above this finds its roots in the “culture of poverty” and is sometimes linked with the individual theory of poverty or other theories. It suggests that poverty is created by the transmission over generations of a set of beliefs, values and skills that are socially generated but individually held. Individuals are not necessarily to blame because they are victims of their dysfunctional subculture or culture. (3) Poverty caused by economic, political and social distortions or discrimination: Whereas the first “individualistic” theory of poverty is advocated by conservative thinkers and the second is a culturally liberal approach, the third is a progressive social theory. Theorists in this tradition look not to the individual as a source of poverty, but to the economic, political and social system which causes people to have limited opportunities and resources with which to achieve income and well-being. (4) Poverty caused by geographic disparities: Rural poverty, ghetto poverty, urban disinvestment, southern poverty, “third world” poverty and other framings of the problem represent spatial characterisation of poverty that exists 307

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separate from other theories. While these geographically based theories of poverty build on other theories, this theory calls attention to the fact that people, institutions and cultures in certain areas lack objective resources to generate well-being and income, and that they lack the power to claim redistribution. (5) Poverty caused by cumulative and cyclical interdependencies: This looks at the individual and his or her community as caught in a spiral of opportunity and problems, and that once problems dominate they close other opportunities and create a cumulative set of problems. The cyclical explanation explicitly looks at individual situations and community resources as mutually dependent, with a faltering economy, for example, creating individuals who lack resources to participate (Bradshaw, 2006:6-14). All of the above are applicable to the Zambian situation, for example poverty can be captured from individual failings whereby a good number of citizens are just idle as was explained in the Prologue. But there are also fundamental structural barriers which create obstacles for people to access opportunities that would enhance their livelihoods. There are also geographical barriers whereby poverty is located in mostly rural areas and shanty towns. Furthermore, out of all the areas in the country, Barotseland emerges as the most impoverished because of the political establishment’s attitude towards this territory. There are also cultural factors which show that certain traditions and customs hinder progress and ultimately give rise to poverty in Zambia. Some of these issues were again highlighted in the Prologue. Researching Poverty Research evidence is critical to public policy-making in general and social welfare responses in particular. Social problems 308

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cannot effectively be solved if their extent and prevalence, among others, is not known. In the case of poverty, it is also important to have an understanding where incidences of poverty exist and where the poor are located. Thus, there would be a need for geographic and spatial mapping of the poor in this regard. In order to address poverty, policy-makers must have a clear understanding of the nature, extent and occurrence of this problem. Some thinking is needed around the setting up of systems that will aid countries like Zambia to effectively fight poverty. This is not to say that nothing is being done, however, a new trajectory is needed. Examples from other countries are instructive in this matter. Lessons from Britain Britain emerges as one of the first nations to systematically examine and scientifically investigate the matter of poverty so as to understand its origins and extent, as well as to identify possible solutions to deal with the problem. As early as 1791-2 Thomas Paine was already interrogating poverty in his Rights of Man Treatise. Paine is thought of as one crucial representative of the thinking about welfare before the rise of the modern welfare state. In this classical work, Paine remonstrates about poverty in the following manner: When, in countries that are called civilised, we see age going to the work house and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of government. It would seem, by the exterior appearance of such countries, that all was happiness; but there lies hidden from the eye of common observation, a mass of wretchedness that has scarcely any other chance to 58 expire in poverty or infamy.

It is interesting to note that already in the 1700s a systematic investigation of poverty was being undertaken by Paine in Britain. He sought also to provide answers to this on-going problem, but more importantly, he was able to link poverty to social welfare measures. Others would build upon this foundation a hundred years later in a significant way. For 309

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instance, the early development of Fabian social policy thinking also drew on new research evidence emerging from the earliest empirical studies of social problems in the country by the likes of Booth and Rowntree59 whose research revealed that the extent and depth of poverty in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century was both serious and widespread. The duo challenged conservative political assumptions that economic markets could not meet the welfare needs of all. The Fabians used this to argue that policy intervention through the state was needed to provide these forms of support and protection which the markets could not (Alcock, 2003:4). Later, research was able to inform policies on poverty in mid-twentieth century Britain through William Beveridge’s two reports, which were alluded to in Chapter two. The former are good examples of the early in-roads into poverty analysis. This account signifies a tradition of not just “thumbsucking” but something which was clearly mapped-out. Developed nations are steps ahead of other nations, especially those in the developing world and Africa in particular, because of this rigorous history. What is also important from this description is that the development of social policy in Britain is attributable to solving of societal problems. Thus, the Department of Social Sciences and Administration at the London School of Economics (LSE) was specifically established in 1912 for the study of social policy. In order to understand poverty and attempting to devise mechanisms of rooting out the problem in society, research is of vital importance. Poverty has to be researched on a consistent and systematic basis, for decades and generations. In this way, the responses to poverty in terms of policy measures will be more accurate. Such undertakings will also allow for a wide array of options for governments to tackle particular dimensions of poverty in a country. Understanding poverty as a problem may be well for political intervention, but a deeper analysis is required for a context such as Zambia. Early researches into poverty and other living conditions in Zambia were undertaken by mostly British and American scholars affiliated to the Rhodes 310

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Livingstone Institute in colonial Zambia. It was mainly anthropologists from this institute who wanted to find out what was happening in the “native” quarters. Inevitably, a scientific route had to be followed. The Rhodes Livingstone Institute was set-up in 1937 and it was designed to promote a multidisciplinary research agenda. Predominating here were the disciplines of Anthropology and Sociology. When Zambia gained independence, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), and International Labour Organisation (ILO) Report on Zambia of 1964 arrived at critical data and proffered human development indicators which were hitherto not available to the country due to colonialism. This study undertook a situational analysis of the prevailing socio-economic conditions in the newly independent nation. The Report of 1964, better known as the Seers Report, because it was led by the development expert Professor Dudley Seers from the University of Sussex was able to accurately paint the poverty and underdevelopment picture at independence. Later, data from the National Development Plans and studies from the Central Statistical Office (CSO) have been relied upon and have provided levels of validity into the levels of poverty and other social phenomena. However, there was a period when these efforts had waned, especially during the era of structural adjustment. Although the country’s Central Statistical Office (CSO) has been collecting poverty-related data since the 1960s, poverty data collection for monitoring the social dimensions of adjustment programmes started in 1991 through the first Priority Survey I (PS I) followed by PS II in 1993. The overall aim of these surveys was to understand and highlight the social dimensions of Zambia’s structural adjustment programme, and to analyse how adjustment programmes affected different segments of the country’s population. Among other data, the survey collected information on demographic characteristics, healthcare, education, labour-force supply, household income and assets, household expenditures, poverty, and household amenities and facilities (Chibuye, 2011:3). 311

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The non-state actors such as Non-Governmental Organisation (NGOs) and other organs of civil society have also been extremely helpful in this regard, although more often than not, the government chooses to disregard their endeavours. The Catholic Church has been instrumental in this regard through its agencies such as the Episcopal Conference, Justice and Peace Department which has been churning out solid research into poverty and related issues. The Resident Offices of the United Nations and affiliated agencies such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have also brought poverty issues to the fore in their respective reports. World Bank commissioned researches have also added to the body of knowledge on poverty matters in Zambia. Poverty is central to social welfare concerns and thus needs to be systematically investigated if attempts made towards its eradication are to be effective or even found. For a country like Zambia, it cannot be emphasised enough that poverty needs to be scientifically investigated so that sound solutions towards its eradication inform government policy and programmatic interventions. There is also a need from various actors, especially, in the academic fraternity, to engage in poverty studies on an annual basis, so that up-to-date data is arrived at. This will allow for new data to be incorporated into poverty reduction strategies. Conceptualising Poverty in Zambia A Participatory Poverty Assessment Study (Milimo, 1994 in Chisanga, et al., 1999) conceptualised poverty in Zambia in terms of comparing the poor and non-poor at individual, household and community levels in rural and urban areas. With the former, the general understanding of rural poverty and vulnerability is typically marked by insufficiencies in food, health services, water supply, sanitation, education, credit and agricultural supports such as grinding mills, transport and 312

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infrastructure. In addition to vulnerability factors in rural communities, there are dramatic seasonal changes such as aspects of declining fertility and overall lack of natural resource endowment, as well as unpredictable epidemics of diseases in livestock. For the urban poor, the study identified key dimensions of poverty much like those experienced by the rural poor, including a lack of control and ownership of assets, and secure employment. In addition, at the urban community level the main poverty characteristics identified by the community representatives were a lack of access to food, health, education, shelter, water and sanitation services, as well as lack of welfare centres, legal tenancy, transport and accessible markets (Chisanga, et al., 1999). It is crucial that poverty in Zambia is expressed as multiple levels of human deprivation. Poverty is multidimensional in nature as was inferred in the first part of this chapter. Furthermore, Zambia’s poverty is historical and can be traced back to the colonial period. At independence indigenous Zambians were extremely poor and lacked in services such as education, health, housing, clean water and sanitation. The official poverty line used in Zambia is based on data from the Living Conditions Monitoring Survey published by the government’s CSO. In 2006, the official food poverty line (also known as the extreme poverty line) as reflected in the Draft Living Conditions Survey was set at 295,696 Zambian Kwacha per month for a household of six persons (equivalent to US$82.1 and equivalent to US$0.45 per person per day). The official poverty line was K473,114 (equivalent to US$131.4 or around US$0.73 per person per day) (Chibuye, 2011). Measurements relating to poverty are still not comprehensive and holistic enough, and thus capture human well-being from a limited perspective. In this regard they do not allow for meaningful responses against poverty in the country. For instance, the official food poverty line includes no provision at all for bread, meat or sugar; even though official surveys show these to be among the top five foods in terms of share of food expenditure. In addition, the official poverty line that incorporates non-food 313

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needs fails to recognise higher non-food costs in urban areas, especially for housing, utilities, transport, health-care and education. This approach presupposes that Zambians can survive without essential nutritional requirements (Chibuye, 2011). According to the Central Statistical Office (CSO) (2012) the Living Conditions Monitoring Surveys conducted from 1991 to 2006 have shown that the incidence of poverty has reduced over the years. The results show that the incidence of poverty declined from 70 per cent in 1991 to 64 per cent in 2006. The gains of this reduction can be noticed in rural areas, where the incidence of poverty reduced from 88 per cent in 1991 to 78 per cent in 2006. In contrast, the incidence of poverty in urban areas increased from 49 per cent in 1991 to 53 per cent in 2006. The CSO also reports that generally, the incidence of poverty reduced between 1991 and 2006 in almost all the provinces except in Central, North-Western and Western. Western province or Barotseland consistently emerged as the poorest province in all the six surveys. In fact the incidence of poverty in Barotseland remained the same (84 per cent) in 1991 and 2006. However, these reductions are minuscule, comparatively with other states in the Southern African region, as poverty is still very high in Zambia. Other trends showed that 54.2 per cent of children aged 3–59 months were stunted in Zambia. Urban children were reported to have better nutritional status than children in rural areas. Only 47.8 per cent of children in urban areas were stunted, compared to 56.6 per cent of children in rural areas. Variations in underweight by residence and province follow patterns similar to those observed for stunting. Wasting remained the same for both urban and rural areas. Extreme poverty is also associated with a number of household characteristics, including gender, age and the education level of the person heading the household. In 2006, extreme poverty stood at 57 per cent in female-headed households compared to 49 per cent of male-headed households. Households with older persons were also more likely to be poor. Thus, 66 per cent of households headed by people above 60 years lived in extreme poverty compared to 50 per cent for 314

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households headed by those aged 30-59 years. Poverty was also highest in households with heads without education at 77 per cent and lowest in households with heads with tertiary education at 9 per cent (Government of the Republic of Zambia/United Nations Development Programme, 2011:12). Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) The PRSP process also shaped poverty discourse in the country as it was a pre-condition for adjustment lending from the IMF and concessional lending from the World Bank. Imboela, (2005:435) argues that the country’s PRSP process was largely informed by mainstream thinking on poverty and livelihoods. It also championed a neo-liberal programme which was constructed on the sanctity of the market and sought to maintain the very structural processes that engendered poverty. “Because it fails to break conceptually and methodologically, from past programme failures, the PRSP is likely to be just the latest instalment in the ever changing fashionable semantics of the ‘development community’.” Imboela (2005:436) cannot be farther from the truth when he questions the credibility of the PRSP in the light of their International Finance Institutions’ (IFIs’) credentials: The defining feature of PRSPs is the concept of “country ownership”. Country ownership of the PRSP is critical for several reasons, including the building of national consensus about poverty reduction. Furthermore, through a participatory process, country ownership guarantees the representation of a broader spectrum of views including those of civil society. Accordingly, the PRSP process is grounded in the need for broader participation of the general citizenry in the formulation of the povertyreduction programmes. In fact, the principle of broader public participation has been heralded as one of distinctive features that separate PRSPs from previous programmes such as SAPs. However, the country-ownership credentials of the PRSP process are questionable. It must be understood that PRSPs are an initiative of IFIs (World Bank and IMF) and were subsequently made a precondition for concessional lending and adjustment to poor countries.

Imboela (2005:437) rightly concludes on this matter: 315

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Conceptually and methodologically, the PRSP process retains many of the features of previous failed attempts at development programmes under the auspices of IFIs. Essentially, the PRSP process is devised by IFIs who then use their power over the control of resources to pressure poor countries into devising their own country-led PRSPs. Although individual countries are supposed to develop their own poverty-reduction programmes, the identical nature of PRSPs in sub-Saharan Africa is striking. The similarity encompasses both the form and content of PRSPs in sub-Saharan Africa. This similarity in PRSPs often extends to such mundane features as chapter outline and layout of the “country-led” documents. How such diverse countries with diverse poverty dynamics can design identical povertyreduction programmes unless they are under the same tutorage extremely stretches rational explanation.

Imboela (2005) is right, because the poverty reduction instruments that Zambia utilised and continues to employ are underpinned by a neo-liberal philosophy. The aforementioned will not liberate Zambia from its chronic poverty, inequality and widespread human deprivation. Likewise, many of the policies meant to arrest such negative trends are not conceptualised outside-the-box but remain conventional and orthodox. In short they seem to suggest a “business-as-usual” approach to the plethora of social problems in Zambia. Incidentally, this state of affairs is cemented by all sorts of development charlatans and economic “experts” who simply promote highly simplistic solutions to deeply rooted problems. Sadly, such individuals are celebrated with fanfare in Zambia. Zambia’s crisis is not only economic in nature, but psycho-social and cultural, and thus requires a critical and an in-depth social science analysis so as to yield comprehensive solutions to the country’s woes. Furthermore, it is this discussion’s point of view that the Zambian socio-economic and political crisis requires not less than revolutionary solutions which are unconventional, pragmatic, patriotic and non-sectarian. Some of them cannot even be taken out of economics text books, but from revolutionary thought. This is what is needed in Zambia. Short of courage, clear-sight, sound determination and passion on the part of both the leadership and the citizens, in order to eradicate

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Zambia’s human wretchedness nothing will change in the country for the better. Zambia’s Human Development Profile Zambia falls within the bracket of countries with low human development. Other social indicators are simply not acceptable for a country which has consistently posted an economic growth rate of not less than 5 per cent in 4 years. This is a country which has become one of the top producers of copper in the world and continues to export this mineral. In attempting to show the anomaly in Zambia’s development formula and the mismatch between growth and human development outcomes, the table below brings into sharp focus the Human Development Index (HDI) of Zambia. It then compares Zambia’s HDI with the extreme cases of Norway and the DRC. Norway scored number one in the world for the highest HDI while the DRC had the worst HDI ranking in the world in 2011, according to the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) Human Development Report.

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Table 3: Comparing the Human Development Indices of Norway, Zambia and the DRC HDI Rank 2011

HDI value (Value) 2011

Life expectancy at birth (Years) 2011

Mean years of schooling (Years) 2011

Expected years of schooling (Years) 2011

GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank

Non income HDI value 2011

17.3 7.9

Gross National Income (GNI) per capita (Constant 2005 PPP $) 2011 47,557 1,254

1. Norway 164. Zambia 187. The DRC

0.943 0.430

81.1 49.0

12.6 6.5

16 0

0.975 0.469

0.286

48.4

3.5

8.2

280

-1

0.399

When comparing Norway with Zambia and the DRC,60 it can be seen that this Nordic country is light years ahead of the two African countries in regard to its human development profile. When the Nordic model of social welfare was scrutinised in Chapter two, it was clearly shown how these states redistributed their wealth to the mass of their citizens through universal and high quality education, advanced health-care, family and child benefits, and employment. Through high taxes and bonds of solidarity which are weaved in these societies, governments are able to guarantee high standards of living to their citizens. There is nothing magical about this apart from sound planning, passion for the people and seriousness on the part of the leaders. Norway61 scores highly in this matter, notwithstanding the fact that it is also a resource rich country, with oil as one of its major exports. Norway does not suffer from the so-called “resource curse” that has been attributed to most African countries, by all sorts of development and economic “experts” due to, among other things, good policies and working institutions. Furthermore, Norwegians seem to know who to vote for and put into power unlike in Zambia where voters look as if they do not know what kind of leaders can lead them to a better state of 318

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being and take them out of their misery. On the other hand, the DRC’s HDI stood at 187 and just 23 places behind Zambia. Incidentally, the DRC even scored higher than Zambia in the category of expected years of schooling (this is an achievement for a country which is presently experiencing armed insurrection in certain places). One can even sympathise with the DRC or understand why it is ranked thus, given that country’s challenges of lawlessness, civil war, decades of destructive dictatorship and the absence of government which had taken their toll on the national economy and the social fabric. But it defeats logic for Zambia to be placed at 164, almost in the same neighbourhood as the DRC, when it has had positive economic growth close to a decade and less security problems. There is something seriously wrong in Zambia and also something puzzling about Zambia’s economic growth and development paradigm. Inequality in Zambia According to the Living Conditions Monitoring Survey Report for Zambia (2011), by the CSO, Zambia has one of the highest levels of inequality in sub-Saharan Africa peaking at 50 per cent and showing a wide gap between the rich and poor. Further, in an economy of over 5 million people of working age, the percentage of those actively contributing to the country’s development has declined from 65 per cent in 2006 to 62 per cent in 2010. Already, as far back as 1977, the ILO Mission to Zambia had warned on rising income inequality in the country. The yawning gap between the rich and the poor in Zambia is worrisome as it reflects a skewed type of growth in the country. The graph below captures the inequality patterns in Zambia:

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Graph 1: Zambia’s Gini Index (1991-2006) - Sourced from the Country’s MDGs Progress Report

Note: In a perfectly equitable society, where everyone earns exactly the same, the GINI index would be zero. Economic Growth amidst Human Deprivation Zambia has been consistently experiencing positive economic growth for close to 10 years but the majority of Zambians continue to wallow in grinding poverty. This is a situation which is referred to as growth without well-being in this book. Despite 320

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Zambia’s successes on the economic front, there have not been attendant gains on the social and human development sides. As noted in other sections of the book, Zambia’s economic growth has been inimical to human well-being. In this sense, the growth that has been highly publicised is neither equitable nor inclusive. Only a small segment of the Zambian population has benefitted from and continues to enjoy this growth, because the generated wealth has not been redistributed to the mass of the people. This growth has not enhanced the economy’s labour absorption capacity. Moreover, the jobs which have been created in the country are mainly at lower skills levels. Such jobs have not been informed by any decent work agenda. Despite Zambia having many qualified people, a significant number of them are also unemployed or underemployed. So it is not just a matter of unemployment but bad policies which do not enable qualified individuals to be gainfully employed in the country. Zambia’s pervasive levels of human deprivation can be adequately tackled if poverty and inequality are treated as complementarities. Taking one of these problems in isolation and trying to find solutions to it will always result in failed responses. There must be a deeper analysis and appreciation of human deprivation in the country. It should not be an “either or situation” where there is a focus on poverty or inequality. Both poverty and inequality have to be attacked at the same time in order for human deprivation to be reduced or even eradicated in Zambia. Child Poverty in Zambia Child poverty in Zambia has been on the increase for decades and has mainly been compounded by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In Zambia where there are numerous child-headed households, orphans and street children, child poverty must be a measure that must be introduced into public policy in the country. Given their dire circumstances, Zambian children must be disaggregated from the adult population so that interventions are more focused and effective. In this case, child poverty in Zambia must be 321

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declared a separate and critical category and not lumped together with the socio-economic indicators of adults and the youth. From what is going on across the country it seems as if Zambian children are not seriously considered as central to the nation’s overall development and posterity. This is a serious indictment on successive Zambian governments which have consistently failed Zambian children due to lack of seriousness, passion, courage and vision as regards this matter. National policies regarding children are seriously lagging behind international trends while overt state actions in terms of financial deployment, personnel and other resources in the area of children, remain a major shortfall in Zambia. One may sound apocalyptic, but the truth is that Zambia’s children continue to die in their hundreds of thousands annually without even the government getting into frantic mode in order to rectify this human tragedy. They are dying from curable diseases such as malaria, chronic huger and suffer all forms of indignities. Children in Zambia have not been prioritised by different political administrations and this shows itself in the high levels of neglect by an equally negligent state apparatus and inchoate civil society initiatives. Zambian children continue to be malnourished, stunted, maimed and abused, defiled, among other things: One very visible physical result of the triple threat to children in Zambia (poverty, disease burden, and services inadequate to respond to the situation) is the high level of morbidity and mortality. New-borns are particularly at risk: thirty four out of every one thousand do not survive beyond their first twenty-eight days of life. For those who do survive, it is also evident that stunting due to poor nutrition is common. HIV and AIDS contribute in a significant way: as the cause of death of 20 per cent of the nearly one hundred thousand Zambian children aged under 5 who die every year. Evidence of how the HIV and AIDS pandemic has hit hard on a population already highly vulnerable are the 1.2 million classified as orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC). As the parent generation has succumbed to HIV and AIDS children have often been left to the care of elderly grandmothers. To date, the response to these vulnerable children has struggled to keep up with the growing need for intervention. Deprivation is a characteristic of the lives of many of the country’s children, living in homes where relentless poverty is the norm, often in communities far from any services, denied education and in situations where the concept of rights

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and protection from exploitation is little known or understood (UNICEF, 2008:1).

The state of Zambia’s children is disgraceful and any government worth its name must be ashamed of this deplorable state of affairs. For example, an estimated forty thousand babies are infected with HIV annually, the majority dying before the age of five. The burden of disease is particularly evident in children under age five. It is expected that 60 per cent of babies born will not survive to the age of forty. Malaria is responsible for one third of under-five deaths, while other deaths are caused by respiratory infections, diarrhoea and neo-natal conditions. The estimated thirteen thousand street children and twenty thousand child-headed households are perhaps at greatest risk, but a great number of other children are similarly affected. With nearly 50 per cent of children aged between seven and fourteen engaged in economic activities, many children are exposed to harmful or exploitative labour, with some subjected to trafficking either within the country or possibly internationally (UNICEF, 2008). Sadly, there has not been much improvement in the situation of children since 2008. Feminisation of Poverty in Zambia Equally, the living conditions and statuses of women in Zambia remain deplorable and backward. Zambian women continue to be underappreciated, abused and suffer from all sorts of indignities and fatalities such as excessive child-birth, heavy workloads, neglect, and deaths from curable diseases or maternal complications arising out of derelict health systems to name just a few. Zambia has a Gender Inequality Index (GII) value of 0.627, ranking it 131 out of 146 countries in the 2011 index. In Zambia, 14.0 per cent of parliamentary seats are held by women, and 25.7 per cent of adult women have reached a secondary or higher level of education compared to 44.2 per cent of their male counterparts. For every one thousand live births, four hundred and seventy women die from pregnancy related causes; and the 323

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adolescent fertility rate is 146.8 births per one thousand live births. Female participation in the labour market is 59.5 per cent compared to 79.2 for men. In comparison Malawi ranked 120 on this index (United Nations Development Programme, 2011). Zambian women continue to be treated like children or addendums in politics as can be seen in their dancing for male politicians at political rallies. Many of the indignities that confront women are located in backward cultural aspects such as wife “inheritance”, the “cleansing” of widows, forced teenage marriages, patriarchy, etc. A Note on MDGs In the Zambia Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Progress Report, it was conceded that the country will not be able to meet most of the MDGs’ targets by 2015. Many of the difficulties, it was stated, are anchored in the deterioration in economic and social conditions witnessed after many years of copper price decline and overall economic stagnation that started in the mid1970s, and the “shock” to life expectancy rates caused by HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s (Government of the Republic of Zambia/United Nations Development Programme, 2011). According to this report, Zambia needs to meet the following targets: a. Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; b. Achieving universal primary education; c. Promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women; d. Reducing child mortality; e. Improving maternal health; f. Combating HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases; g. Ensuring environmental sustainability; and h. Developing a global partnership for development.

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It is the contention of this writer that MDGs can end up as merely wish-lists which keep irresponsible states occupied – at least by showing the world that they are doing something by continuously parroting them at various symposia. This view does not in any way cast aspersions on the efforts which were made by the United Nations in this area. Indeed, the MDGs were crafted with the view of nudging uncaring and lethargic states into action. The notion of an uncaring state was discussed in Chapter one. Therefore MDGs can only appeal to the moral qualities of the nation-states and more often than not, as it is in the case of Africa, this has been a difficult feat as many states remain illegitimate and uncaring or not serious about issues of social welfare. The reality is that states which are serious about their responsibilities to their citizens would not need a check list of MDGs and templates to fill in so as to report to UN sessions, but would have systems in place which meet people’s needs, as was shown in the Nordic and Cuban models of social welfare in Chapter two. In concluding Chapter six, several issues need to be underlined. Firstly, Zambia’s poverty, inequality and huge development hurdles are all about meeting the basic needs of the citizens. Zambians need food, shelter, health-care, clean water and sanitation, while the country’s children have to be cared for and protected against life-threatening conditions. The government must first respond to these missing basic needs in the country before resorting to high-flying pronouncements on how the country can be developed. Once these basics are met, then the government can move to the next level of needs. Secondly, there are just too many retrogressive practices in the country that are embedded in the Zambian society which are a drag on the country’s development, which cannot be solved by mere economic solutions. Some of these bad habits were engendered and harnessed during the one-party state and the first ten years of the third republic’s kleptocracy, where confusion and chaos were relied upon to govern Zambia. Thirdly, the state in Zambia continues to be weak and incapable, and overseen by 325

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equally incompetent personnel. Undoubtedly, governance should not be taken for granted because different political administrations in post-colonial Zambia have consistently failed to grasp and execute this quintessential human endeavour. Part of the reason is that some of those who governed and those who were governed had no concept of governance, because historically and culturally their societies, in the pre-colonial era did not have such a system (with citizens the obvious question is how to be responsible citizens and be governed). Therefore, in certain cultures disorder and chaos were the norm before colonial rule. When the colonialist occupied the area now called Zambia, they had to enforce governance where it had not existed before. Therefore, just because Zambia attained independence and the colonialists left, it does not mean that such cultures or societies can now simply understand what governance entails. Just as in other parts of Africa there were indigenous forms of governance which were sophisticated and responded effectively to local issues which could have been used as spring-boards for postcolonial societies as in the case of most of Asia. Unfortunately, as can be seen from the dilemmas of Barotseland, many African post-colonial states were bent on wiping out the memories, histories and institutions of such advanced pre-colonial state formations. The main reason for this is that the new rulers were mainly from ethnic groups which did not have illustrious histories before colonial conquest. Barotseland suffered the same fate. But the new leaders of the independent African states could not operationalize modern government, hence the litany of failed or semi-failed states on the continent in present times. Chapter Six Endnotes 58

This excerpt was taken from Thomas Paine’s Right of Man which was first published in London by J.S. Jordan, 1791-2. He suggested possible solutions towards the poverty at the time: “The first step, therefore, of practical relief, would be to abolish the poor rates entirely, and in lieu thereof, to make a remission of taxes to the poor of double the amount of the present-rates, viz. 4 million annually out of the surplus taxes. By this measure, the poor will be benefited 2 million and the housekeepers 2 million…I proceed to the mode of relief or distribution, which is, to

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pay as a remission of taxes to every poor family, out of the surplus taxes, and in room of poor-rates, four pounds a year for every child under fourteen years of age; enjoining the parents of such children to send them to school, to learn reading, writing and common arithmetic; the ministers of every parish, of every denomination, to certify jointly to an office, for that purpose, that this duty is performed. The amount of this expense will be, for six hundred and thirty thousand children, at four pounds per ann. Each, ----------- £2,520,000. By adopting this method, not only the poverty of the parents will be relieved, but ignorance will be banished from the rising generation, and the number of poor will hereafter become less, because their abilities, by the aid of education, will be greater” (Cited from Pierson and Castles, 2006:10). 59 Charles Booth (1840-1916) and Seebohm Rowntree (1871-1954) were sociologists who were able to show that a large number of poor people were poor through no fault of their own but because of tendencies within the market. They pitted statistics against logic by attempting to count how many people were living in poverty and by surveying the various forms that the poverty assumed (Briggs, 2006). 60 Despite so much hype made about Zambia’s economic growth, the country continues to be subsumed under the category of countries with low human development, no better than the DRC, perhaps a country which can be described as one which neither experienced a sense of government nor long periods of peace in all its post-colonial history. But what excuse has Zambia? A country which is endowed with both human and natural resources; which has experienced, for long periods, so called “peace and stability” and so forth, why is it performing so badly in matters of human development? Perhaps the question to ask: where has Zambia’s money accrued from its exports gone and continues to go to? When the author was on an assignment in the DRC 4 years ago, there was not much difference he could discern between Zambia and this country. In certain respects the infrastructure in the capital city, Kinshasa was even better than in Lusaka. He had engaged with government officials, civil society actors and academics on various social policy and development related issues. 61 The author was able to verify this scenario on a working visit to Norway in 2007 and in the process engaged with policy-makers and academics on social and human development issues.

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CHAPTER SEVEN CONCLUSION: FUTURE PROSPECTS FOR SOCIAL

WELFARE IN ZAMBIA We have again arrived at that juncture where dissent is equated to disloyalty in Zambia62 This book had set out to present social welfare in Zambia from the pre-colonial period to the present times. Chapter one tried to illuminate the situation as it had obtained in the pre-colonial setting. It also paid attention to the indigenous welfare arrangements which had existed in this part of Africa prior to colonial rule. Much of these systems still exist today parallel to the formalised welfare system which initially emerged with the coming of Western missionaries to Zambia in the late nineteenth century. Essentially, the formal and Western forms of social welfare are pre-eminent in Zambia than the indigenous systems. To a large extent, this can be attributed to the manner in which the Western forms of social welfare were institutionalised by the colonial authorities and the mining establishments, which also had played prominent roles in the colonial political economy. Hence, social welfare was codified and then implemented through policies and enforced via legislation. With Zambia attaining independence in 1964, this situation was not altered drastically by the new government which utilised the same instruments of its former colonial “master”, without much adaptation. Despite its socialist rhetoric, the first African government fell short on the implementation side. However, it did make some changes especially in the approach to problemsolving in the 1960s. Since the changes were not profound and radical, the informal and peripheral status of indigenous systems continued alongside the formalised Western types of social welfare. Due to this anomaly, there remains a chasm between indigenous systems and the formal social welfare in the country. Unfortunately, there has not been much effort undertaken, in 329

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terms of research, scholarly work and innovative strategies, among others, to bridge the yawning gap between the two systems by academics, policy-makers, practitioners and politicians. In spite of some of the above-mentioned, sight must not be lost of the role that social welfare played in leading Zambia to independence. The local social welfare societies were the embryos of the independence struggle that had enabled Africans to arrive at an alternative formula against colonialism. In mobilising their members for action, the welfare societies inevitably assumed a political persona. With welfare and politics interlinking, serious talks began to emerge in the African sectors for a more co-ordinated approach against colonial rule and the settlers’ disregard of the plight of local people. To that end all welfare societies were amalgamated to form the Federation of African Welfare Societies. This formation was then transformed into the first African political party in colonial Zambia known as the Northern Rhodesia Congress (NRC). Arguably, this slant of social welfare had a transformative ethos which should have been re-modified and adapted to post-colonial conditions. At independence, the UNIP government should have used the former as a stepping-stone in order to build a modern welfare system. Unfortunately, this was not the case and post-colonial Zambia failed to bridge past organic efforts with contemporary endeavours. Invariably, some colonial methods have surprisingly survived in four decades. In this regard, social welfare actions in post-colonial Zambia have almost remained apolitical and not like in the beginning, when they were couched in political processes. Apart from a brief period in the 1960s, when there was an attempt to bridge political philosophy (albeit of the ruling party and its president) and social welfare, such overtures have not been attempted since. Probably, a social welfare that is nonpolitical creates passive citizens who do not see that social welfare services are part of citizenry entitlements that any democratic state should guarantee its citizens. A citizenry that is politically conscious and aware of this fact would then place 330

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demands on its elected leaders relating to the meeting of their needs. This is what happened in colonial Zambia when enlightened Africans saw themselves as inextricably linked to political issues and the question of African self-determination. One conclusion that this work arrived at is that research and innovation in social welfare are still lagging behind even though it is evidently clear that there is a need for organically-driven and culturally relevant endeavours, if the country is to arrive at potent solutions to the plethora of social problems besieging its various communities. As events in the recent past have shown, an overreliance on economic solutions to the country’s socioeconomic and political challenges has not yielded much progress in human well-being in Zambia. The country’s unrelenting socioeconomic and political malaise warrants social welfare responses of a transformative nature as articulated in Chapter two. The high levels of inequality in the country and the skewed allocation of resources to mainly the politically powerful groups or those connected to them, has negated the country’s purported economic growth. Zambia’s economic paradigm is simply not working as it is not attuned to the country’s realities. Poverty and social exclusion continue to grow exponentially in spite of the “copper boom” of the last 10 years. As mentioned in Chapter one, Zambia has experienced economic growth that is devoid of human well-being. One of Zambia’s major shortfalls is in the political arena where prudent governance remains a fleeting illusion. It is the firm belief of this author that a well-informed social welfare agenda that responds to the realities of Zambia and one that allows for local inputs in regard to the existing material conditions cannot be articulated by mediocre leaders. It requires astute political players who are visionaries and who should be armed with an arsenal of tools to combat the deep-seated social and economic deficits of the country. Also, the dearth of policy-driven interventions which are well thought-out, intellectually grounded, and informed by evidence compounds the country’s socio-economic and political malaise. What is extremely disturbing is that most of the moribund and 331

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ineffectual approaches, attitudes, institutions and systems of the one-party state have been carried over into contemporary times. But that is not all, even a good number of the politicians and political actors across the political divide are of a by-gone era: the one-party state. Due to this dilemma, Zambia seems to be stuck in matters of social welfare and human development as these people do not have the acumen, skills and competences to drive a twenty-first century development agenda. Rather, these individuals continue to proffer twentieth century solutions in these modern times. The foregoing also mirrors the welfare sector where some of the responses from the colonial and early post-colonial periods have not changed in decades, so as to respond to the changed needs of the citizens and the demographic profile of the country. Due to the active participation of functionaries of the former one-party state in Zambia’s contemporary economic and political affairs, the country continues to regress in every sphere. However, in a country where there are no heroes, it seems like the need to dwell on the past has become a national pre-occupation. For instance, the first president, Kenneth Kaunda, who turned 88 this year, has been resurrected with astonishing pomp and fan-fare by the Zambian politicians, populace and media. Kenneth Kaunda is presently being given so much space in the national discourse with a regularity that is bewildering. Due to this, he has been provided a platform on which to peddle his half-baked theories of development and national unity, which dismally failed in the last century. But what needs to be underlined is that Kaunda is not a saint as he is now being made to look by the media and the current president, Michael Sata. Yes, he was one of the many freedom fighters who had fought against colonial rule. But he was not alone in this struggle as there are many other Zambians who sacrificed a lot for Zambia’s freedom. Yes, he was the first president of Zambia and indeed in the first decade of independence, he did some good things for the country - that is, discounting Barotseland. However, the truth is that Kaunda ruled Zambia for 27 years and out of this period he 332

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was at the helm of a one-party state for 17 years, for which he was a dictator. Kaunda also viciously and relentlessly pursued all his political opponents whilst relying on the state machinery for this purpose. Those who crossed paths with Kaunda would be hounded and harassed by the intelligence and state security wings. Their bank accounts were frozen and their businesses black-listed. Some were charged with treason and sentenced to death and at times remained on death-roll for decades, and only to be released when they were old and broken men. Kaunda would also continue to force those leaders who were opposed to the one-party state into his party UNIP and if they refused, they would face his wrath. Some Zambians who challenged Kaunda and the one-party state had died miserable and lonely deaths. Those who survived were effectively broken by the state apparatus of Kaunda or they had to literally make themselves invisible in the country by retreating from the public space: William Chipango, John Njapau, Thomas Kalimbwe, Sefelo Kakoma, Hastings Ndangwa Noyoo, Mufaya Mumbuna (founder of the United Party - UP), Jethro Mutti, Nalumino Mundia, Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula, Edward Jack Shamwana, Godfrey Miyanda, Robert Chiluwe, Valentine Musakanya, among many others, suffered under Kaunda’s oppressive system. Due to this, there was a leadership vacuum in Zambia as Kaunda crushed anyone who dared challenge him. Is it any wonder that he has outlived most of his contemporaries? Therefore, those Zambians who want to re-write history should be very careful as there are many citizens who still remember what happened during the oneparty state and cannot be cheated. We can forgive but not forget. Kaunda and UNIP bequeathed the country the millstone of underdevelopment, which from the look of things, may never be rectified. Zambia’s socio-economic and political challenges are not only deep-seated and structural in nature but attitudinal and cultural as well. This country just does not seem to appreciate innovative thinkers and it looks like there will never be any space for articulate, progressive and forward-looking Zambians. In the end, those who are in the lead are ill-informed, uneducated and 333

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rabble-rousing youths (attributable to among other things, a collapsed educational system and an erosion of a culture of reading in the country) on the one hand and the old guard who ruined Zambia in the first place, on the other. It is indeed a sad state of affairs. From the discussions presented in this book, it is clear that Zambians have not had leaders who rose above party politics and petty goals in order to emancipate the citizens from their ignorance and numerous socio-economic ills. Only Mwanawasa can be said to have tried to extricate the country from the one-party state trajectory, while Kaunda in his formative years also tried to earnestly develop the country. The rest of the Zambian presidents were more interested in creating a servile and acquiescent society and not a robust, innovative, questioning, engaging and hard-working people. This situation does not seem to be changing for the better any time soon. The author noted in other discussions on this issue: It is for this reason that both the UNIP and MMD governments failed to conscientise the rural masses in areas of self-empowerment and national liberation. UNIP at least paid lip service, while the MMD on the other hand, does not even comprehend the purpose of having a conscious and liberated populace in this regard. Why must there be a conscious citizenry in Zambia? To begin with, a conscious nation can catalyse a liberation process that will enable the mass of the people to take charge of their own destinies. But it has always been expedient for Zambian politicians to have an ignorant and disarticulate constituency that grovels to their every whim, so that no one challenges them (Noyoo, 1999:74).

Zambia and Africa can only move forward when a certain calibre of leadership emerges and carries the African dream forward. This continent needs leaders who are acutely aware that moronic displays by African politicians on one hand, and buffoonery and chaotic day-to-day interactions of ordinary people, on the other, actually work for many sections of this world.63 A strong, articulate, functioning, prosperous and purposeful Zambia and indeed Africa would give rise to a new world order where African people and their continent would not be spectres of ridicule and exploitation: there would be no demeaning movies of Africans emanating from Hollywood;64 334

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there would not be any industry around a whole body of “development aid”, there would not be any market for so-called “development theories” from the West, there would not be any development “safaris” where so-called Western experts and volunteers jet into Africa to dispense their “wisdom” for a couple of weeks and fly back to write “award winning” books on these localities; there would not be foreign trade that is predicated upon cheap raw materials from Africa, that is processed by the West and then resold to the former at very high prices, and there would not be so-called investors who come and acquire mines and land for a song in this part of the world and then return to their countries with huge profits. Undoubtedly, there is one thing that past presidencies have clearly shown: education matters and having a president who has gone to school tremendously helps things. It is not coincidental that Mwanawasa and to a lesser extent, Banda’s reigns were not so schizophrenic in comparison to those of other presidents who did not have many years of formal education. Arguing that uneducated people can lead a modern state through wisdom will not do. Using examples of educated people who had failed to perform their leadership roles, in order to show that education does not automatically translate into good and visionary leadership, will also not help matters. The irrefutable truth is that education matters and will always matter in every human endeavour. Advanced countries grasped this issue centuries ago. Only prudent leaders like Lewanika in pre-colonial Barotseland who were not formally educated, but executed themselves quite diligently nonetheless can be cited. However, things have changed since then. But Zambians just will not want to heed the voice of reason, which unfortunately has been drowned every time when things were going wrong in Zambia. When Kaunda was brutalizing citizens and reasonable Zambians objected, the rest of the country shouted: KK wamuyaya! (see Prologue); when Chiluba and his cohorts were stripping Zambia of its wealth and were using autocratic and strong-arm tactics of the one-party state to entrench themselves in power and the voice of reason had 335

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cautioned against this, the rest of the country shouted: give Chiluba time! Now as the country lurches into an uncertain future with Michael Sata at the helm, Zambians still do not want to listen to the voice of reason. That is why we need politics that is based on principles in Zambia which could necessitate the rise of a new breed of leaders. We were able to challenge the one-party state regime by staring death squarely in the face whilst we fought running battles with Kaunda’s brutal paramilitary forces due to principles. This is what came to pass when we were fired upon with live bullets, teargased, imprisoned and tortured. This is not to say that there were no leaders of such calibre in the past, but it is just that in the last 20 years, there has been a burgeoning of useless political leaders and unfortunately, with the support of the citizens. It is also important to bring to the fore, in this scenario, the role of academics and students. Quintessentially, they have to be champions of social justice and act as liberators of their societies from all forms of tyranny. This is what transpired in Zambia in the fight against the one-party state. In the same vein, academic discourse can ill-afford to be insular in societies such as Zambia and Africa in general, in pursuit of some abstract and esoteric objectives. Instead, academic analyses and researches must at all times be dynamos of liberation and societal change. The survivalist mode that these have taken in Zambia in the last two decades is neither practical nor sustainable. There is a need for these individuals to be torchbearers of freedom and human dignity. In an atmosphere where ignorance reigns supreme, and where ethnic mobilisation has been elevated to governance levels (whilst some sections of the society see nothing wrong with this situation); and where politicians continue to drive the country’s development agenda on a trial and error basis, academics and students, more than ever, must challenge such deleterious acts and provide alternatives that are underpinned by scientific thought and evidence.

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Nowadays, people want to lead political processes in the country because they are rich, or are from a certain ethnic group; want to be business men/women or because their parents were either politicians or had held government positions in former regimes. It is not about principles anymore. Because most of the country’s leadership is bereft of principles, innovation and workable strategies, it has been extremely effective at pushing retrogressive politics, for example, those of ethnicity. This scourge has been the pitfall of many African countries’ progress. This holds true for Barotseland which was diabolically incorporated into Zambia and thereafter emasculated politically and economically for four decades. This writer had asserted on the issues of ethnicity and regional autonomy more than a decade ago: There are several contentious issues that need to be re-explored when confronting problems created by ethnicity. Firstly, the time has come for Africans to candidly re-visit the authenticity of post-colonial boundaries. The clause in the Organisation of African Unity charter which stipulates that boundaries created by colonialists be respected stemmed in part from questionable motives. Some of the post-colonial leaders who had entrenched this clause were tyrants or military dictators who merely sought to emasculate the spirit of regional autonomy. In retrospect it can be noted that the quest for regional autonomy had surfaced after the post-colonial state could not offer a lucid formula towards the realisation of an African nationhood. One route that could be taken is the redefining of national boundaries in the light of contested areas. For instance it is clear that Sudan is made up of two distinct and separate entities in terms of religion, physical landscape and culture. Regional self-government could be a viable alternative given the fact that the so-called unitary state of Sudan has been effective only in creating conditions for social dislocation (Noyoo, 2000:6465).

In ending this text, the author has come to the grim conclusion that the general lack of seriousness in Zambia, especially in the political sphere will continue to hobble the country for decades. Things are not going to be well in the country as the writer had optimistically and naively stated in earlier works. Also, it is the view of the writer that in Africa and countries like Zambia, the majority are not always right. They 337

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may have the numerical strength in order to vote for their preferred candidates, but this does not make them right. Indeed, where the majority remain ignorant and adhere to some unwritten rule that only people from certain ethnic groups should be leaders, no matter how incompetent they may be, is simply absurd. It makes a mockery of democracy. Another formula needs to be found so as to rectify this cancer in the country’s politics. This issue is also discernible in the case of Barotseland. It has become abundantly clear that the false foundation upon which Zambia was built is slowly cracking. This is because the issue of Barotseland cannot be crushed or wished away as previous Zambian governments had tried to do. The reality is that Barotseland is about a people’s legitimate cause and people’s birth right: the right to self-determination. It is neither about genocide akin to Rwanda (unless the Zambian government does not want to see the light) nor is it about decentralisation of power, but one of the independence of Barotseland. The truth of the matter is that this country was in existence long before Zambia and Northern Rhodesia, with its own institutions, political system, economic activities, national anthem, flag and coat of arms, among others. It is not about a “stale” history as it is clear that those who are now fighting for the freedom of Barotseland were not even born when the Barotseland Agreement was signed in 1964 and abrogated in 1969, by the Zambian government: Agitation and resentment over government actions regarding the abrogation of the Barotseland Agreement are not new. They were voiced in 1968, 1969 and 1970 with some Lozi traditionalists led by Litunga Mbikusita Lewanika demanding restoration of the provisions of the Agreement or they would seek secession. In 1993, under the Frederick Chiluba Government demands were again made for the restoration of the Barotseland Agreement. But the authorities at the time dismissed the demands and even threatened to arrest and detain all those involved, including Litunga Ilute Yeta for high treason. President Chiluba declared then that Zambia was a unitary state and as such indivisible, therefore no part of it would be allowed to break away. The recent demands for the restoration of the Barotseland Agreement of 1964 led by BFM, Linyungandambo, MOREBA and the BPF should be understood in their right context. They are just a continuation of the work of other similar organisations that suffered government reprisals and

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harassment. For example, the Barotse Patriotic Front (BPF) was banned and its leader placed in detention for advocating secession in the late 1990s. What is different about the new formations is that they are much more radical and demand immediate resolution of the impasse (Sishuwa in the Post, 2012).

It is the youth who are fighting for Barotseland’s freedom and not “a small and dying section of the traditional elements of the nineteenth century” as Sikota Wina had reported to the Zambian Parliament in the 1960s. Because most Barotse families pass down their history from generation to generation, this seems to have helped the youth of this territory not only to carry on the fight for freedom but to do this from an informed basis. Moreover, most Barotse are proud of their history, institutions and customs. The young Barotse activists have vowed that the deaths of their fellow comrades on 14 January 2011 shall not be in vein and their blood that was spilt that day will nourish the struggle for Barotseland’s liberation. They say that they are fighting for a constitutional monarchy along the lines of Britain or Lesotho and not an absolute monarchy such as Swaziland. Because they love and respect the institution of Litunga (king), the Barotse Royal Establishment (BRE) should in the same vein be mindful of these aspirations and move with the modern times. The BRE should not forget that Barotseland was lost in 1964 because of its rigidity and inability to modernise itself. In effect the Barotse youths also want to see an overhaul of the BRE and the transformation of the traditional Barotse system in line with contemporary trends, where progressive monarchies exist alongside democratic governments and systems. Conclusion Endnotes 62

Paraphrased from Martin Luther King, in the documentary “Martin Luther King: A man of peace in a time of war” – 2007. 63 The author in all his travels around the world always has to brace himself for unpleasant treatment from immigration officers or officials at airports (mostly in the developed world) after presenting his Zambian passport. This is an important mechanism of survival and of dealing with unwarranted humiliation. So he has to mentally steel himself every time he travels to such countries. But things are not

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always unpleasant and when this happens the writer is usually pleasantly surprised. The reality is that it is very difficult to traverse this globe on a Zambian passport because there are negative connotations attached to it. This is also usually the case for people with passports of other African countries. The fact is that Africans are associated with poverty, diseases, pestilence, etc. Therefore when an African or Zambian presents himself or herself to a Western immigration officer, all sorts of negative stereotypes go through such an official’s mind. His or her first reaction is that the African is bringing problems to his/her country. No matter how educated an African may be this seems not to count in most cases, as he or she will be suspected as a potential illegal immigrant at face value. This issue boils down to the African continent’s weak global economic position. If Africa was economically powerful, some of the discriminations and humiliations its people face would have diminished by now. This text subscribes to the philosophy of Marcus Mosiah Garvey, that great Pan-Africanist, on this matter. The Black Commentator observes: “At the core of Marcus Garvey’s programme was his urging of African people to acquire education and economic power. As he always stated, ‘A race without power is a race without respect.’ When we examine the economic condition of Africans in America, and throughout the world, we find one glaring problem - African people do not control our economic resources at the level we should. This is primarily due to our miseducation as a people. In a disproportionate manner, African people depend on the European and Asian world for food, clothing, and shelter. More often than not, the European and Asian worlds are the producers, processors, distributors, and wholesalers. African people are the consumers…Garvey understood that the foundation of our liberation is economic and educational independence based on racial solidarity. There are numerous lessons we can learn from the legacy of the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Without economic independence tied to the acquisition of political power, African people in America and African people everywhere will continue to be the subjects of the whims of other people.” See:

http://www.blackcommentator.com/280/280_ww_garvey_economic_indepen dence.html. 64

When the writer was growing up he was usually irritated that a black actor in a movie plot was always the first to die, whilst the predominantly white cast never or seldom died in such movies. What he did not know at the time was that such a portrayal was supposed to entrench a message to the audience that black life is not worth as much as white life and in that sense the movie reinforced all the negative stereotypes about black people. Hollywood has been churning out such absurdities for generations and fully knowing how powerful cinema is - as imagery has lasting impressions. In those days, there were few black “action” heroes and probably one heroine on the screens in the names of Sydney Poitier, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson and Pam Grier. The irony is that not much has changed in Hollywood since then. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, the renowned civil rights leader touched on Hollywood’s bigotry in the documentary on Martin Luther King. He observes that American policy in relation to Africa is still about “Tarzan and Jane” and “Cowboys and Indians”. He was really spot on as Hollywood has managed to cast in stone a certain persona about non Europeans, black people in general and Africans in particular. In the light of American politics, Reverend Jackson is also right in his

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analogy of “Tarzan” because even though Barack Obama might be at the helm of the American government, the underlying ethos of the country’ superstructure remain intact. That is why even for Obama, tackling something seemingly innocuous as health-care reform proved so difficult whereby he was so vehemently opposed, lending to the fact that there was something more deep-seated and insidious than what was being said on the surface (economic vested interests aside). The rise of the so-called tea party and the loss of Congress by the Democrats in the mid-term elections spoke volumes in as much as there was more at play than met the eye. Therefore African leaders such as Michael Sata and Robert Mugabe are not helping the new generation of Africans who want to break the stereotypes of “Tarzan and Jane” which suggest that black people are not to be taken seriously or that nothing good can come out of Africa.

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Index Chamba Valley Prison, 58, 95 Chamber Valley, 64 Chellah, George, 37 Chililabombwe, 31 Chiluba, Frderick, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 47, 49, 50, 55, 56, 68, 71, 88, 93, 94, 111, 265, 266, 268, 269, 270, 271, 273, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 290, 293, 296, 297, 335, 336, 338 Chinsali, 39, 235 Chona Commission, 254 Colonial Africa, 4, 155 Colonial Development Act, 161, 198 Colonial Office, 161, 162, 163, 174, 175, 183, 196, 199, 211, 217 Colour-bar, 5, 212, 213, 214 Convention for a Democratic South Africa, 85 Copperbelt, 31, 49, 58, 63, 80, 94, 98, 107, 158, 167, 184, 190, 194, 199, 201, 210, 214, 215, 216, 241, 261 Council of Tribal Elders, 158 Creche-Jones, Arthur, 74 Czechoslovakia, 84

A African Democratic Socialism, 230, 237 African National Congress, 10, 59, 85, 94, 95, 208 Afrikaner, 79, 170, 205 Afro-Cubans, 140 Anglo-Boer War, 184 Apartheid, 170, 171 Archbishop of Canterbury, 34 B Banda, Rupiah, 6 Barclays Bank, 156 Barotseland, 11, 17, 30, 31, 40, 44, 49, 54, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 95, 96, 97, 98, 109, 179, 182, 183, 188, 190, 205, 209, 218, 221, 234, 251, 254, 278, 295, 308, 314, 326, 332, 335, 337, 338, 339 Barotseland Agreement, 30, 31, 44, 71, 74, 75, 76, 79, 83, 84, 86, 209, 234, 278, 295, 338 Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, 165 Bismarckian models, 165 Britain, 6 British Colonial Empire, 155, 174 British Empire, 72, 160, 161, 195, 212 British West Africa, 158

D Democratic Republic of the Congo, 10, 70, 107, 179 Drug Enforcement Commission, 10, 28 Dutch Reformed Church, 170, 180

C

E

Cabral, Amilcar, 92, 167 Capitalism, 4 Castro, Fidel, 136, 140, 297 Caucus for National Unity, 10, 277 Central Advisory Committee on Native Welfare, 215 Central African Republic, 172 Central Statistical Office, 10, 107, 311, 314

Early Childhood Development, 10, 138 Economic Commission for Africa, 10, 172, 173, 311 Emergency Development Plan, 10, 229 Enlai, Zhou, 34 Europe, 4

360

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Kaunda, Kenneth, 16, 17, 34, 54, 60, 68, 70, 71, 91, 93, 207, 231, 236, 238, 246, 278, 282 Kimathi, Dedan, 160 Kleptocracy, 6

Eurozone crisis, 35 F Feminisation of poverty, 6, 7 Feminisation of poverty in Zambia, 323 Fifth National Development Plan, 10, 286 First National Development Plan, 10, 230, 241 First World War, 5

L Latin America, 136, 137, 157, 305 Least Developed Countries, 100 Lewanika, Mbikusita, 45, 46, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 180, 182, 201, 202, 221, 260, 270, 277, 278, 335, 338 Litunga of Barotseland, 75 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey, 313, 319 Livingstone, David, 40, 44, 82, 94, 97, 109, 174, 179, 183, 201, 212, 213, 218, 221, 227, 310 London Missionary Society, 11, 109, 179 Lord Bledisloe, 204 Luanshya copper mine, 31 Lusaka International Airport, 44, 59, 283 Lusaka Management Board, 218

G Gaddafi, Muammar, 29 Government of National Unity, 11, 85 Great Britain, 72, 78, 85, 209, 240 Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s, 159 Greece, 35, 277 Guinea Bissau, 92, 167 H Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, 27, 288 Hollywood, 216, 334, 340 Hong Kong, 85 Human Development Index, 11, 317 Humanism, 110, 226, 227, 231, 232, 233, 236, 240, 244, 249, 262, 270, 295

M Malupenga, Amos, 37 Mandela, Nelson, 59, 60, 294 Mazabuka, 31, 41, 66, 68, 201 Mkandawire, Thandika, 130, 147 Movement for Multi-party Democracy, 11, 18, 22, 71, 266, 268 Mozambique, 107, 167, 168, 239, 240 Mubarak, Hosni, 29 Mugabe, Robert, 40, 341 Mundia, Nalumino, 45, 50, 333 Mutendere market, 62 Mututwa, Maxwell, 30 Mwaanga, Vernon, 44, 202, 239, 270, 333

I International Conference of Ministers for Social Welfare at the United Nations, 128 International Monetary Fund, 11, 27, 106, 111, 256 K Kalingalinga, 61 Katilungu, Lawrence, 199, 200

361

Ndangwa Noyoo

Mwanakatwe Constitutional Review Commission Report, 42 Mwanakatwe, John, 42, 46 Mwanawasa, Levy, 6 Mwanawasa, Patrick, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 36, 41, 42, 47, 50, 54, 88, 112, 284, 285, 290, 292, 293, 294, 296, 297, 334, 335

O Oppenheimer College of Social Services, 219 Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, 11, 256 P Participatory Poverty Assessment Study, 312 Passifield Memorandum, 190

N Namibia, 49, 72, 80, 95, 106, 239 National Constitutional Conference, 11, 42 National Party, 11, 12, 85, 170, 278 Native Reserves, 73, 188 Nazi Germany, 160, 195 Ndebele, 79, 81, 96 New Economic Recovery Programme, 11, 261 Ngoni, 78, 79, 109 Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia, 11, 248 Nkana Mining Company, 211 Nkrumah, Kwame, 237, 238, 239 Nkumbula, Harry, 44, 45, 46, 200, 202, 203, 206, 207, 208, 239, 278, 281, 333 Northern Rhodesia, 11, 14, 16, 45, 72, 73, 74, 75, 84, 86, 88, 93, 107, 166, 172, 182, 183, 185, 188, 189, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 213, 214, 216, 217, 218, 221, 234, 235, 236, 247, 253, 330, 338 Northern Rhodesia African Congress, 45, 202 Northern Rhodesia African National Congress, 11, 45, 202 Northern Rhodesia Congress, 11, 16, 45, 93, 201, 330 Norway, 14, 317, 318, 327 Noyoo, Ndangwa, ii, iii, 9, 91, 95, 143, 249, 256, 283, 288, 333, 334, 337 Nyasaland, 5, 73, 174, 203, 204, 207, 211, 236, 240

Q Queen Elizabeth I, 156 R Rhodes University, South Africa, 8 Rhodes, Cecil, 8, 72, 107, 156, 218, 310 Rhodesia, 5 Rocket Propelled Grenades, 12, 61 S Sata, Michael, 6 Sata, Michael Chilufya, 22, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 88, 89, 91, 93, 94, 269, 278, 279, 290, 292, 293, 294, 295, 332, 336, 341 Second Republic, 6 Second World War, 5, 100, 120, 121, 124, 153, 159, 160, 164, 166, 174, 175, 189, 191, 192, 195, 196, 197, 199, 204, 210, 212 Silalo, 234 Sisulu, Walter, 59 Smith, Ian, 97, 240, 246, 247 Social welfare, 4, 6, 223 South Africa, 5, 10, 31, 36, 43, 49, 59, 72, 73, 85, 94, 95, 96, 97, 107, 155, 168, 169, 170, 171, 180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 192, 212, 213, 224, 239, 240, 243, 253, 289, 294 South Korea, 23

362

Social welfare in zambia

Southern Rhodesia Native Affairs Department, 81 Structural Adjustment Programme, 12, 105, 143, 243, 260

W

Tembo, General Christon, 58, 69, 281 Titmuss, Richard, 125 Transitional Development Plan, 12, 229

Watch Tower Movement, 189 Welensky, Roy, 205, 207, 211 Welfare Organisations Act, 170 Westbeech, George, 179, 180, 221 Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, 12, 87 World Bank, 23, 36, 106, 111, 122, 133, 134, 256, 259, 260, 261, 265, 289, 312, 315

U

Y

T

Yeta, Inyambo, 282, 338 Young Women's Christian Association, 12, 213

Ujamaa, 237 Unilateral Declaration of Independence, 12, 235, 240 United Bus Company of Zambia, 12, 248 United Federal Party, 12, 46, 205 United Free Church of Scotland, 180 United National Independence Party, 12, 16, 91, 95, 110, 207, 223, 268, 276 United Nations, 12, 24, 83, 128, 130, 134, 135, 144, 145, 229, 240, 247, 249, 252, 264, 289, 311, 312, 315, 317, 324, 325 United Nations Population Division, 24 United Party for National Development, 12, 26, 95, 284 University of Zambia, 12, 15, 18, 48, 58, 59, 63, 151, 220, 249, 252, 265 University Teaching Hospital, 12, 25, 249

Z Zaloumis Electoral Reform Technical Committee Report, 42 Zambezi River, 80 Zambezi Sawmills Ltd., 246 Zambia African National Congress, 12, 45, 207, 239 Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation, 248 Zambia Millennium Development Goals, 324 Zambia National Commercial Bank, 12, 36, 248, 285 Zambia National Provident Fund, 13, 248 Zambia Prisons Service, 13, 70 Zambia Steel and Building Supplies Ltd, 246 Zambian constitution, 26, 28 Zambianisation of posts, 225 Zedong, Mao, 34

V Veterinary School Residences, 64

363