The Struggle

[First published on Independence Day in 2002, this piece looks at the past years of glorious struggle…]

The Struggle

The Big Man, otherwise known as His Most Highly Excellent Excellency, climbed slowly and majestically up the steps to the podium and looked solemnly out at the crowd gathered on the lawn under the midday sun, as they sweated in their heavy Paris and London suits, fanning themselves with their gold printed programmes, and mopping their faces with their silk handkerchiefs.

‘Imagine the scene here thirty-eight years ago,’ began the Big Man, ‘when we first celebrated our independence. Instead of the select few we see here today, there were thousands from every walk of life. I am told that one minister arrived on a bicycle, and rode across the lawn with such enthusiasm that he crashed into a drum of chibuku, which soaked the American Ambassador.’

‘Ha ha,’ everybody laughed. ‘Probably from Lundazi! We were all villagers then!’

‘Yes,’ said the Big Man. ‘That was the problem. We were all villagers then. In 1964 we all looked the same, frayed shirts and laughing shoes. Just a bunch of freedom fighters straight out of the bush.’

‘Probably the Bush Hotel in Ndola!’ somebody shouted.

‘Some of these new political leaders had never even seen the inside of a hotel,’ continued the Big Man. ‘But now they had to weld themselves into a political elite that could enjoy the best hotels in London and New York. This meant that they had to struggle to develop as a new political class, with the wealth and experience to be respected in the world. Above all, they had to struggle to avoid falling back into the starving masses from whom they has so recently emerged.’

‘More champagne!’ shouted an irritable voice, summoning one of the small army of uniformed waiters.

‘And as we keep the champagne flowing,’ said the Big Man, ‘it is fitting that we should today honour the man who did so much to establish us as the ruling class…’

As he was speaking a bald old man in a white silk safari suit walked from the marquee and stood in front of the podium.

‘Bashimpundu Munshumfwa,’ said the Big Man, ‘we honour you today for your great role in our struggle for independence. In those early days, after our colonial masters had been chased, it was left to you to establish the new political elite from amongst an unlikely band of undisciplined malcontents. In those days, your new elite were in a dangerous position; they could easily have been swept away at the first election. But thanks to your foresight and determined action, many of that original band of pioneers are still with us here today.

‘It was you, Bashimpundu, who solved the problem of elite class preservation with the brilliant electoral innovation of the one party election. This enabled six candidates from the same party to stand for each parliamentary seat. Since the electorate had now been relieved of the bothersome task of choosing between different party policies, they were now free to sell their votes to the candidate who paid them best.

‘It is this system which has ensured the stability of government, and the formation and independence of an enduring political elite, because only those presently within government had access to the funds to buy sufficient votes. Although the one party state has now been abolished, we have managed to extend this free market in votes to the multiparty system. In this way our multi-party system has managed to preserve the essence of the one party system, which is the provision for the intergenerational reproduction of the elite class. This has enabled us to triumph in the long struggle to create and preserve the elite class.

‘The Struggle!’ they all chanted, as they raised their champagne glasses.

‘I therefore,’ continued the Big Man, ‘appoint you Hero of the Struggle, First Class. I also award you a free house and six free Mercedes for life, irrespective of the cost to the starving masses.’

The old man took out his white silk handkerchief and shed a few tears of joy as the gold medal was put round his neck. As he walked away, an old woman took his place.

‘Mama Chibebebe Kakasha, we honour you today for a different type of struggle. In those early days, many women who had played their part in chasing the British now demanded their equal place in society and in government. But we must thank you, Mama Kakasha, for confining them to the Women’s League. You managed to keep them busy dancing for the Great Leader at the Airport, and making the tea at party conferences. In the continuing struggle for men’s domination over women, you are our heroine. I am sure all the women of Zambia must know what you have done for them. You were the heroine who assisted us in our struggle to respect our traditional culture by maintaining male supremacy in the nation, and…’

As he was speaking, shouts and shots were heard from behind the marquee, and then a hoard of skeletons in rags came galloping through, falling upon the waiting banquet, sinking their teeth into the lobster and crab, and spilling a big bowl of caviar all over the American Ambassador.

‘How did they get in?’ squealed the Big Man.

‘We’re dealing with it, Your Most Highly Excellent Highness,’ the Chief of Oppression shouted back, as the tear gas blew the wrong way. ‘We were taken by surprise. They tricked us by being so thin that they walked straight in through the front railings!’