Down to Earth

[In this Golden Oldie, first published on 4^th September 1997, Kalaki considers how Jesus might be treated if the Second Coming took place in Zambia]

Down to Earth

PART ONE: HEAVEN

‘Dad,’ said Jesus, ‘I'm getting bored up here. There's nothing to do except play draughts with Albert Einstein. And he keeps winning. Why can't I go back to Earth again, for a bit of fun?’

‘The last time I sent you down,’ replied God, ‘you got yourself into a hell of a mess. Where exactly do you want to go?’

‘Send me to Zambia. That's a Christian country now. They all love me, so I'll be alright.’

‘I'll send you down as Mutakatifu the Carpenter. And this time, can you please learn to read and write. Last time I had to employ other people how to write your story, and we finished up with four different stories.’

PART TWO: NEWS ON RADIO 4

Reports are coming in of a new religious cult in Kabwe. Thousands of people are flocking to Mulubushi Rock to hear a man called Mutakatifu the Carpenter. He is reported to be criticising the wealth and hypocrisy of government leaders.

Mr Godless Mpulumushi, Minister for Internal Repression, has criticised Mutakatifu for making an insulting statement that the people should ‘render unto Kadoli the things that are Kadoli's, and unto God the things that are God’s.’

The Minister described this statement as an abuse of free speech, tantamount to blasphemy, and completely unacceptable in a Christian nation. According to the Ten Commandments, nobody is supposed to take the name of the Lord in vain. Also, according to the Public Order Act, Mutakatifu should first apply for a permit before holding a meeting at Mulubushi Rock. Furthermore the Minister warned that nobody would be given a permit to insult the leadership of this country, and that Mutakatifu would soon feel the full force of the law. Dissidents and treasonable elements would be crushed.

PART THREE: INTERVIEW ON ZNBC

Kenneth Mpofu: Honourable Minister, Sir, can you explain to the nation why the Police had to take such drastic action against Mutakatifu? Does he not have human rights, the same as the rest of us?

Godless Mpulumushi: Of course he doesn’t, he’s a foreigner. This government was elected by citizens to look after its citizens, not foreigners. In fact we have strong evidence that his mother was a local woman who was impregnated by an alien, so he should have returned to wherever that alien came from. This is a Christian nation, but this intruder was Jewish. Typical of these Jews, he was misusing his position to mix religion and politics. In addition he was always seen wearing a long frock, so I suspect that he had the sort of sexual orientation which is illegal in this country. His long hair and beard strongly suggest contempt for authority, and probable use of illicit drugs. I am surprised, Mr Mpofu, that you should attempt to use a government television channel to try to defend such a person.

Kenneth Mpofu: What had Mutakatifu actually been saying that so annoyed the government?

Godless Mpulumushi: He was using inflammatory words such 'immorality' and 'lies' and 'theft'. Moreover, he was using such words against our Beloved Leader who was appointed by God, and therefore he was insulting God as well as our Beloved Leader, which is not only treasonable but also blasphemous.

Kenneth Mpofu: But his followers are saying that this Mutakatifu is really Jesus, come back to Earth!

Godless Mpulumushi: As a God fearing Christian, I can tell you that Jesus has already done his work, and left his Good Book behind. My humble advice to Him would be that He should stay in Heaven. There is no need for Him to come down here again, because we now have our Beloved Leader in charge of all development projects, and therefore ensuring the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. But as a student of the Good Book, I can assure you that the real Jesus never said anything about coming back. Certainly nothing about coming back to Kabwe.

Kennth Mpofu: But why did the police attack Mutakatifu and his followers? They were only trying to hold a meeting to discuss why Kabwe has become a ghost town, why the people are starving and the children dying of lead poisoning.

Godless Mpulumushi: Obviously if you use inflammatory words in front of a gun, it is likely to go off. Unfortunately that is precisely what happened. It is of course most unfortunate that Mutakatifu was hit by twenty-eight bullets, but it is clear that he had only himself to blame.

Kenneth Mpofu: People are accusing you of having planned his assassination. What do you say to that?

Kenneth Mpofu: The only person who has accused me of that is the leader of the opposition. We have now locked him up, and he will be appearing in court tomorrow. We believe in the rule of law.

Kenneth Mpofu: His followers say this man was Jesus, and this was His Second Coming. Is it possible that you have been responsible for His Second Going? Do you think that perhaps you could have made a mistake? Should you apologise?

Godless Mpulumushi: Good God No! As a good Christian, whatever I do is God's will. To apologise would imply that God had made a mistake!

Kenneth Mpofu: Any regrets?

Godless Mpulumushi: With the wisdom of hindsight, I think the bullets were a mistake. As a Christian nation, I think we should have crucified him.

PART FOUR: BACK IN HEAVEN

‘Hullo Son, you're soon back. Even sooner than last time. What went wrong?’

‘Oh My Dad!’ said Jesus, ‘it was worse than last time. Pompous Pilate was bad enough, but this time I ran into the Devil himself. I wasn't even given a trial! Just bang! And that was it!’

‘You should have listened to what Alice Lenshina told you aboutZambia,’ said God. ‘But I hope you learned to read and write this time.’

‘That part was the same as before, the schools are only for the rich. But I met a very nice man to write my book. His name is Spectator Kalaki.’

‘Oh Christ!’ said God.

Paternity Potential

[This Golden Oldie was first published on 4^th December 1997]

Paternity Potential

Last week I was in the Republic of Bukankala, to interview the Minister of Economic Development, Ms Lara Songwe ...

‘I’m Spectator Kalaki’ I said, holding out my hand to the Minister, ‘Foreign Correspondent of The Daily Disaster.’

‘But why come here?’ she asked. ‘We haven’t had a disaster here for the past twenty years!’

‘And that’s precisely why I’m here,’ I replied. ‘I want to know why everything works so well in Bukankala! What is the secret of your economic miracle? According to the Global Bank, your per capita national income is $10,000.’

‘We have overcome the false start of the colonial government,’ she replied.

‘So where did they go wrong?’ I asked.

‘Those whites came from a strange country, where men worked in factories, and women stayed to look after the home. So when they came here, they recruited men for their new factories.’

‘Was that wrong?’

‘Absolutely hopeless,’ she replied. ‘According to our tradition, it is women who do all the productive work, as well as looking after the children.’

‘And the men?’

‘They are not brought up to do hard work. They just sit around drinking beer, talking politics and making trouble. They father our children, but they have no other practical use.’

‘So how did you solve this uneconomic colonial hangover?’ I asked. ‘Once the men had been given all the jobs, could you shift them out?’

‘It began almost accidentally,’ she replied, ‘when the few women in wage employment won the right to maternity leave. Then the men got jealous, and claimed that they should have paternity leave!’

‘But didn’t they have equal right?’ I asked.

‘Of course they had to be given equal rights, even though they are economically useless. You know very well that our Bukankalan men don’t stay at home to help look after newborn babies! By asking for paternity leave they were being deliberately mischievous!’

‘So things got worse?’

‘No, that was the unexpected outcome. Things got much better. When the men made the mistake of giving themselves paternity leave, that was the beginning of our economic miracle!’

‘I’m getting lost. Can you explain?’

‘The men were led by Bupumbu Bupuba. His idea of paternity leave was that a man would be free to go and father more children! That’s why they called it paternity leave.’

‘Is that what happened?’

‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘With four wives and several girlfriends, a man can easily father four children in a year. In that way, he could be continuously on paternity leave!’

‘So Bupuba hadn’t thought of that?’

‘He was called Bupuba because his thinking was more pubic than public. He wasn’t analytical or mathematical. But we had to change the rules for paternity leave after one Permanent Secretary couldn’t be retired. At retirement age, he had twenty-five years of accumulated paternity leave still pending!’

‘Perhaps he was called the Permanent Secretary because he was permanently missing!’

‘You’re almost right,’ she laughed. ‘He was originally called the Permanent Secretary because of his permanent paternity potential. Such a hard and upright man! Nobody dared to get in the elevator with him! We were very relieved when he went took his permanent potential on permanent paternity leave!’

‘Only rural women know how to soften a hard man like that!’ I said, trying to sound knowledgeable. ‘So are all the men now on continuous paternity leave?’

‘Exactly. That’s the secret of our economic miracle,’ she said. ‘We women took over all the jobs, and began the work of national reconstruction. Once we had taken over the government, our national miracle began.’

‘But isn’t it uneconomic, paying a double wage bill of women working and men fathering?’

‘Not at all,’ she retorted. ‘Our factories are now working at full capacity. Women can now collect their half of the national income. They can invest it, instead of having to watch the men drink it, or spend it on their girlfriends!’

Just then the door opened, and in came a man with a tray of tea and biscuits. He put it down on the table, bowed to the Minister, and left.

‘I thought all the men were on paternity leave,’ I said.

‘That is the original Mr Bupumbu Bupuba that started the whole thing,’ said the Minister. ‘The irony of the whole story is that his paternity potential is permanently paralysed. He’s quite harmless. So we allow him to make the tea and run the nursery.’

‘Run the nursery?’

‘Yes.’ she said. ‘And UNICEF is training him to do the breastfeeding.’

Government by Mistake

[This Golden Oldie was first published on 29^th October 2009, when Mouth Mulufyanya was MMD Chairman for Lies and Deception]

Government by Mistake

‘Come in!’ said a big voice as I put my head round the door of the huge office. I walked in and looked around. There seemed to be nobody there. ‘Take a seat, Spectator Kalaki, and make yourself comfortable!’

The voice seemed to be coming from behind the huge ornate mukwa desk. I walked up to the desk, and looked behind. There, wearing a little check suit far too big for him, sat a tiny wizened figure with a huge mouth. It was Mighty Mouth Mulufyanya, Chairman for Lies and Deception in the Mighty Mouth Diarrhoea, the dreaded MMD.

I carefully picked up the little fellow and put him down gently in a corner of a vast hideous bulbous armchair on the other side of the room. ‘That’s better,’ I said. ‘Now I can see who I’m talking to.’

‘I prefer not to see who I’m talking to,’ he replied. ‘I get distracted by the look of disbelief on their faces.’

‘I wanted a word with you,’ I said, ‘about your statement last week that government is only human and is bound to make mistakes. I just wondered if you could use your Mighty Mouth to amplify your remarks. Is this the beginning of a new government policy to make mistakes? Perhaps the MMD is now the Movement for Mistakes and Disasters? Or maybe the reporter made a mistake and misquoted you? If not, perhaps you could say something about your government’s future programme of mistakes, so that the nation can begin making precautionary preparations.’

‘Not so fast, Kalaki, or you may be making a mistake. You’re confusing policy with strategy. Sometimes it is strategic to admit a mistake.’

‘You mean when everything has gone wrong, and there’s no petrol in the country,’ I suggested, ‘You just say it was a mistake, then people will say, yes they’re only human, and forgive you for making a mistake?’

‘When you say that, Kalaki, you’re confusing strategy withtactics. The tactic of admitting a mistake is used when a policy misfires and everything goes wrong, and then we admit our mistakes in order to defuse public anger. But the strategy of admitting a mistake is quite different.’

‘How is strategy different?’

‘A strategy of making mistakes,’ explained Mulufyanya patiently, ‘involves deliberately making mistakes, and then explaining these mistakes in such an infuriatingly insolent manner as to foment public anger.’

‘But why do that?’

‘In order to divert public anger away from unpopular policies which are not mistakes.’

‘So the fuel crisis was intended as a deliberate mistake?’

‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ chuckled Mulufyanya, waving his little arms in the air. ‘Everything about it was carefully designed as a ghastly mistake!’

‘Beginning with the original contract?’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Mulufyanya. ‘Imagine giving a contract to a company called Rip-off and Backhanders Ltd…’

‘Better known as RB Ltd!’

‘Exactly,’ laughed Mulufyanya. ‘A company that owns only one lorry and a small office in Mombasa Market, whose entire previous trading experience was in delivering chibuku.’

‘But I thought our oil comes from Dar, not Mombasa!’

‘That was all part of the deliberate mistake!’ laughed Mulufyanya.

‘And this contract was swiftly followed,’ I reminded him, ‘by your decision to close down the Indolent Refinery in order to facilitate further archaeological research into the history of mismanagement in Zambia.’

‘And then,’ laughed Mulufyanya, ‘we cut off all other supplies by imposing a 25% penalty tax on anyone who attempted to import petrol into the country.’

‘And best of all,’ I said ‘was King Kong on TV every night, announcing that the crisis was caused by greedy motorists who were hoarding petrol!’

‘Then finally,’ laughed Mulufyanya, ‘I announced that the whole thing was a mistake, and the nation should forgive us.’

‘That’s what I can’t understand,’ I said. ‘People are not saying that the government is only human and should be forgiven. They are saying you’re corrupt idiots who don’t know what you’re doing. They’re wondering why you can’t steal a bit of the oil money without accidentally closing down the whole country.’

‘Again, my poor dear friend Kalaki, you have confused our grand strategy with a mere tactic. Seeking forgiveness is a minor tactic. But the fuel crisis was a well-planned national strategy for getting everybody very angry, and therefore talking about nothing else. When I asked the people to forgive us, this was of course well calculated to make them even more furious.’

‘But why do it?’

‘Because the people who are furiously shouting about the petrol crisis have completely forgotten about all the other issues!’

‘Such as?’

‘Selling off Zamtel to Gaddafi. Or destroying the judiciary and the NGOs. While people are shouting about petrol, we have been quietly getting on with our business!’

‘But even in the petrol queues, people were still gossiping, saying that Nyamasoya is plotting to steal the next election!’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ he assured me, ‘we’re going to give our entire maize crop to Kenya, entirely free of charge!’

‘My God!’ I gasped. ‘That would be a big mistake!’

‘Exactly!’ he said, rubbing his hands with glee. ‘That’ll give everybody something else to talk about!’

Women’s Day

[In this Golden Oldie, first published on 5^th March 1998, women celebrate Women’s Day by taking over the government]

Women’s Day

‘Good evening. This is the ZNBC news. I am your newscaster, Evelyn Tembo.’

‘And I'm Namakau Mukelebai,’ said the other one.

‘And I am Spectator Kalaki!’ I shouted at the TV. ‘Now get on with the news!’

‘Headlines this evening,’ said Evelyn, ‘are that Chiluba is replaced by Chiluba in a bloodless coup; Women celebrate Women’s Day; Presidents Mandela and Clinton both congratulate Zambia; Argentina beats England 12-0. Now for the first item, here is Namakau.’

‘The women of Zambia,’ began Namakau, ‘today celebrated Women’s Day by taking over the government. So now we go over to Loveless Nthani for an exclusive interview with the new President, Ms Vera Chiluba ...’

‘Good morning, Madame President. How does it feel to be in charge this morning?’

‘Well, not much different. I have been taking over from my husband for some time. He has been under a lot of strain recently, and has become very depressed. Almost everybody has been refusing to talk to him. And if anybody offered to talk to him, he refused. The situation was becoming impossible.’

‘So was it you who decided to take charge?’

‘It all began last week when I arranged a coffee morning for ministers’ wives, to see how to celebrate Women’s Day. It was quite a big gathering, because our twenty six ministers have eighty nine wives. We all agreed it was time to step in.’

‘But do we women have the experience to run the government?’

‘Traditionally, African government was run by women. It was women who organised the household and took the economic decisions. In those days we had very good governance. Men were largely unnecessary, and would spend most of their time entertaining themselves with drinking, sport, warfare and other forms of useless activity and male mischief.’

‘Then who ran the state?’

‘In pre-colonial times, there was no state. There was only a domestic economy. It was the British who introduced the public domain of governance. Then they ran it themselves, since it was all their idea.’

‘So how did it happen, at independence, that these useless men managed to take over this new public domain?’

‘Well, you’re too young to remember, but the British didn’t have time to organise things properly. You see, the British had to get out of Zambia quick, after Julia Chikamoneka organised all the women to chase them. They had to hand over everything on a Monday evening, and then all scoot on the Tuesday morning. Seeing all these idle men, just sitting around with nothing to do, it seemed better to give them something to occupy themselves. Since the women were all busy producing the food and bringing up children, it looked like they didn’t have time to spend all day talking nonsense in parliament. So that’s how it happened that the British accidentally handed over to the men instead of the women.’

‘You seem to be very well read on these matters.’

‘Oh yes. My husband brought a lot of books back from Warwick, but he never bothered to read them, because he thought he knew everything already. So I thought I’d read them instead.’

‘That was Loveless interviewing our new President,’ said Evelyn, as the camera returned us to the studio. ‘The new Minister for Legal Affairs, Ms Venus Milambo, has just announced that the State of Emergency has been lifted, but all members of the Police Force have been arrested for misusing it.’

‘The new Minister for Defence, Ms Victoria Sampa, has announced that, with immediate effect, all the army’s war toys have been confiscated because they are too expensive and dreadfully dangerous. Instead, the soldiers have been given video games to play with.’

‘On the international front,’ said Namakau, ‘congratulations are coming in from all over the world. President Winnie Mandela sends her congratulations, and a lorry load of rubber necklaces. President Hilary Clinton congratulates the women of Zambia for restoring the country to good governance. Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton has been sent to a sanatorium for the sexually exhausted.’

‘In a first for Zambia, Sister Auxilia Ponga has been appointed Pope. This was announced from Heaven by the new God, Mother Mary. The former pope has been appointed Mother Superior at Assisi.’

‘And on the sports front,’ announced Evelyn, ‘Argentina has smashed all soccer records by beating England 12-0. When asked for the secret of their success, the Argentinian captain, Maria Maradona, was quoted as saying ‘Ya sniffa da coke, ya getta da goal’.

‘And now a late item just coming in,’ said Evelyn. ‘The President has just announced that the Constitution has been amended, striking out the controversial clause that a presidential candidate must be indigenous. In future any citizen can stand as president, provided she is female and named Vera.’

I opened my eyes. The sun was streaming into the bedroom. Sara was nibbling my ear. ‘You were dreaming about somebody called Vera. Have you got a girlfriend?’

‘It was a nightmare,’ I said.

‘When we first got married,’ she said, stroking my belly, ‘you used to be very romantic in the morning.’

‘Don’t talk about that,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a terrible headache.’

‘Poor dear,’ she said, ‘must be the time of the month.’

Billy and Willy

[This piece was published on 5^th February 1998, at a time when President Bill Clinton was having problems with his Willy]

Billy and Willy

As the distinguished foreign correspondent of The Post, I am fortunate to be invited to all the diplomatic cocktail parties in town. Last Thursday evening I found myself at the gold-plated residence of the Ginerian High Commissioner, where he was celebrating thirty years of military brutality and suppression of democracy.

I was refilling my glass with another pint of blood when I bumped into my counterpart, the foreign correspondent of The Washington Post, our American subsidiary.

‘Hey Bob,’ I said, ‘what’s the gossip from Washington? Did Clinton really do it?’

‘Which Clinton?’ he said. ‘Billy or Willy?’

‘I thought we just had Billy. Whose Willy?’

‘All leaders have split personalities. Like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. At the polls we see only Dr Jekyll, and that’s the one we elect. But inside there’s a Mr Hyde, waiting to get out. Of course once the public finds out about Mr Hyde, Dr Jekyll is finished!’

‘Like Richard Nixon and Tricky Dicky,’ I suggested.

‘Exactly,’ he said. When Richard Nixon revealed his Tricky Dicky, that was the end of Nixon.

‘So Bill Clinton, does he also have a Tricky Dicky, waiting to burst out?’

‘More than a Tricky Dicky, the problem is that he has a very Busy Dicky. But with Billy, his Busy Dicky is known as Willy. To begin with, we only knew Billy. But gradually he began to have problems with Willy. Before he had been in the White House, his Willy began to pop out all over the place.’

‘So what’s the difference between Billy and Willy?’

‘Billy is a clever and calculating operator. He’s ruled by his head. We call him Clinical Clinton. He’s a real straight guy. But as soon as darkness falls, something else happens. Maybe he got hold of Dr Jekyll’s magic mixture. Suddenly, Billy is all Willy!’

‘And I’m told that Willy not straight?’

‘Good gracious no. Just the opposite of Billy. Willy is as bent as a cucumber. Crooked and twisted. He is a sexual predator, preying on the innocent. He hides in the White House broom cupboards, waiting to pounce! If any young woman should pass, out pop’s Billy’s Willy! Like a chameleon catching a fly!’

‘So Clinton is a really Silly Billy.’

‘No, Billy is not a Silly Billy. The only problem is that he’s got a Silly Willy.’

‘But surely you have to blame Billy. Isn’t he the one responsible for his Willy?’

‘It’s not that simple,’ sighed Bob. ‘You see, there are two contradictory personalities here. Billy Clinton believes in equal rights for women. He’s always speaking out against sexual harassment and the sexual exploitation of women. Daytime Billy is real smart. He is Billy the intellectual, ruled by his head. When Billy is in charge, he keeps his Willy under control.’

‘And when night falls, he changes into a werewolf?’

‘Something like that. His head loses control, and his Willy takes over! Night-time Willy expands into a monster. Nothing but throbbing flesh and pubic hair. No brains at all. He is ruled only by lust and the pleasures of the flesh. Nobody is safe.’

‘Can nobody control Billy’s Willy?’

‘Only Hilary,’ he replied. ‘As soon as Willy sees Hilary, he shrivels to nothing and disappears. He behaves like a good Billy again. That’s why Hilary sees only Billy. Just about everybody in the White House has seen Billy’s Willy. Except Hilary. She’s never seen Willy.’

‘So why is Willy so scared of Hilary?’

‘She is powerful, and she frightens him. Like all bullies, he likes to pick on the powerless. When he finds a defenceless young woman, he is very big and brave and ruthless. And after he has had his way, he casts her aside like trash.’

‘But Hilary thinks her Billy is marvellous, and absolutely innocent!’

‘And she’s right! Billy is completely innocent! The only problem is with his Willy!’

‘So will clever Billy go to war with Iraq to try to divert attention from his Silly Willy?’

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said Bob. ‘At the moment, the problem of Billy’s delinquent Willy is just Washington gossip. But if Billy pursues Saddam any further, it is quite possible that his Willy could be publicly exposed!’

‘Really? Why do you say that?’

‘The problem is Richard Butler and the UN Weapons Inspectors. In order to be seen to be fair to both sides, they now have to search presidential palaces in America. Starting with the White House!’

‘So long as they come in the daytime,’ I said, ‘then Billy will be in control.’

‘That’s the worrying thing,’ he replied. ‘in the dark of the night the dreadful twisted Willy is rumoured to lurk amongst the bushes of the Rose Garden. With his night vision binoculars, Butler would immediately recognise Willy as a loose cannon. A threat to international security. Billy’s Willy could bring down the whole American government!’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘this must be the weapon of mass destruction they are all looking for!’