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I recently had an Interview with David Punabantu who is the author of a new Book entitled the Zambia 2006 Almanac. The Zambia 2006 Almanac series reveals unwritten insights into the evolution of Zambia’s socio-economic and political “DNA”, that is far different from the tainted political history so often taught to Zambians as a result of the “One Party State” attempting to hide its failures as successes and defining them as Zambia’s so called glory days. Without coming to terms with a correct and accurate account of Zambia’s past, then the present policies to map out the future of Zambia, based on incorrect notions compromises Zambia’s future developmental efforts. It is with this view that the 2006 Almanac series exposes insights into the real socio-economic and political history of Zambia, which is so relevant to understanding Zambia today and the Zambian Psyche and the approach to democratic and good governance issues. The Volume One of the Zambia 2006 Almanac which is now out for sale covers Zambia between January 1964 - December 1964. It is a day to day account of the socio-economic and political events that captured the period, littered with numerous photographs. Events of major importance are captured in the “Day Details” in which extra coverage is given. This volume has 270 pages and over 50 photographs ranging from the first Miss Zambia, to the first woman Political Prisoner released, Zambia’s first Independence Day celebrations and the Alice Lenshina saga, and many more other events.
Excepts From the Book:
 The struggle for economic freedom that Zambia desires requires a new brand of “freedom fighters” today. The past image of a freedom fighter fighting external forces cannot sustain a nation’s development, even if those forces today are seen as friendly foreign investors as opposed to the past oppressive foreign colonial systems or the tyrannical African authoritative institutions.
It is this dictatorial tendency that has shaped Zambia’s development, yet development is a personal experience of a people defining themselves by their activities as a nation and not the desires of a few being imposed on the majority. Development rests on how the aggregate attitudes are shaped and how these same attitudes perceive the resources around them so that they can experience an even better benefit of belonging to the group defined as a country.
As long as Zambia sees the development experience as foreign, then its policies will always carry a colonialist oppressive persona that is no different from the ancient and current tyrannical African authoritative institutions. This is the emotional baggage that Zambia carries in its developmental policies as the past is re-invented in the future with no difference as seen today as compared with yesteryear.
Today’s freedom fighters fight the bad psyche and the emotional baggage that drives a nation to extinction, which is embedded in its persona, and creates bad policies and awful decisions that run so deep that the current generation knows very little of, even of their own behavior which is being controlled by the past, hence they accept such decisions as the normal way of doing things, when it is in fact absolutely working to destroy their own nation-state.
It is these forces that a nation must struggle against to attain that spiritual and emotional level of freedom necessary to control and use its mineral and natural wealth to benefit its nationals.
Many Zambians, as in any struggle play large and small roles that may appear insignificant but make the general journey easier to complete the so-called big picture. Many do it unknowingly out of friendship, others for their own interests, others because of their culture and others for the general good to build the emotional aggregate level so that the nation-state may be defined and thus appreciate the existence of God through whom all good things come.
PREFACE:
Zambia today faces many challenges, ranging from economic and financial developmental issues, to social-health problems interlinked with good governance concerns, which all infringe on government policies tainted with political ideologies from political parties. Yet some of the answers to the challenges that Zambia faces today, are firmly anchored in Zambia’s past as seen in the daily summarized reports from 1964 January to June 1966 compiled from the Northern News, that later became the Times of Zambia, together with the accompanying pictures, all credited to the Northern News, for the same period for the 2006 Almanac series, unless stated otherwise.
If Zambia is to develop, Zambians must understand the origin and rationale of certain policy decisions that today are taken for granted. For example, the increase in taxes as seen in car duties from about 7 percent to 22 percent in 1965 was mainly meant for developmental purposes that have expired. Unfortunately the high taxes still remain and have become “pocket money” for civil service.
Another challenge is the Zambian Constitution, against a backdrop of numerous Constitutional Review Commissions and the current public demands for a Constituent Assembly to have a final over haul of the Zambian Constitution.
Yet if Zambians went back to the May 1964 Marlborough House talks that established the Zambian Constitution, it is revealed that the African National Congress (ANC) leader Harry Nkumbula and the National Progressive Party (NPP) leader Roberts both agreed that the President's power should be devolved through statutory bodies and commissions.
These facts are in The Zambia 2006 Almanac series and Zambians must read between the lines to question what went wrong with their relationship with a country called Zambia.
What is happening today in Zambia, as compared to the past, in many cases shows a big difference in governance. For example there was a time when government, as noted in The Zambia 2006 Almanac series, would seek permission from Parliament to get loans, which was abandoned when Zambia declared a “State of Emergency” in 1965. Yet it must be realized that this declared “State of Emergency” was at a time when Mobutu of Zaire took all powers of Parliament under his control, while Nkrumah of Ghana had changed the law so that he was elected President by his appointed officials and not through the electorate, while the One-Party-State fever hit many African countries so that the State assumed absolute power, as was in Zambia’s declared “State of Emergency”.
Therefore was the so-called “State of Emergency” serving a similar purpose as Mobutu’s suspension of Parliament? Could Zambia have handled Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) without a “State of Emergency” to test just how democratic Zambia was? Could the crisis have been handled better, rather than the sentiments of President Kaunda of Zambia saying it was the beginning of the Third World War at the time?
Was Kaunda trapped in history against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the defeat of America, the rise of the Soviet Union and its first satellite launch, the British and French loss of Asia that was now struggling to get independence, and the rise of Red China all marking a major shift in a western colonialised world? Was this shift seen as a racial adjustment by Kaunda as African nations now also got independence from the so-called white man colonisers, which set the dogma for liberation movements across Africa?
Yet when UDI is examined closely, it appears Rhodesian leader Ian Smith realized he made a mistake and tried to correct it without losing face, but this required Kaunda’s help. Unfortunately Kaunda added more fuel to the fire as he wanted sanctions and an all out attack against Smith’s UDI that polarized the whole Southern African region, and pushing it into liberation wars.
Could these wars have been avoided? Could have Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe have gained independence by 1967 and the demise of South Africa’s apartheid regime by 1975 have occurred, if a different approach was used? Was Kaunda trapped in his Third World War syndrome?
What then was the state of the Zambian economy before UDI and was Zambia’s economic failure under a new black government masked in Smith’s UDI so that a State of Emergency could be declared in Zambia?
Was the One-Party-State that was introduced into Zambia in 1971, an attempt to hide the past mis-management of the economy by re-writing Zambia’s history so that the leaders of the day appeared as saviors rather than destroyers? Is this the crisis that Zambia faces today, as it operates on a massaged history rather than the hard truths needed to define Zambia’s future directions in its socio-economic development?
It must be remembered that while Zambia was gaining independence, Ghana was already bankrupt and seeking aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The question is why did not Zambia learn from Ghana’s mistakes, because the economic policies she followed were much like Ghana’s?
Did Zambia’s economic development mean developing the civil service rather than the people to create an economy driven by the private sector? Was the emergence of the parastatals system clear evidence of developing the civil service rather than the national economy? Did the civil service demand more resources for itself to have civil servants live the “Independence Dream” of owning cars and having “European houses” rather than developing the nation? Are such attitudes embedded in Zambia’s economic policy today? All these are burning questions and readers should read between the lines and connect the dots to get a better understanding of whom and what was, is and will be their relationship with the entity called Zambia.
What the readers should ask themselves is does history teaches us to do things better or worse and can Zambians learn from history to do things better rather than repeat history and doing things much worse. Could polices and decisions have been done much better to not only give quantity but also improve the quality of life in Zambia, as quality is defined as “doing the right thing in the right way at the right time”?
Another question is that is the urban-rural development gap a result of deliberate government policy or just an unfortunate problem? Is Zambia still the same since 1964 or has it changed socio-economically? These are all challenging questions in which many of the answers and insights will be realized in The Zambia 2006 Almanac series.
Behind all this is a chronological time line of the world focusing on Africa and finally on Zambia so that Zambians can re-discover their origins in Africa and understand the forces that have shaped and continue to shape Africa and in particular Zambia’s development. This time line is in Volume Three of The Zambia 2006 Almanac series. Added to this the almanac has statistical tables on Zambia’s budgets since 1964 in Volume Five of The Zambia 2006 Almanac series, and numerous data blocks covering various period of information from GDP, electricity production, cattle production in Volume Four of The Zambia 2006 Almanac series, which in future will be extended to give a comprehensive period of data.
It is within this that the almanac has various articles that provide some insight into understanding the contemporary Zambian economy in its “Insights Into the Zambian Economy” section in Volume Three of The Zambia 2006 Almanac series. Volume Two of The Zambia 2006 Almanac series covers 1965, while Volume Three covers half of 1966 and has the already mentioned chronological time line and “Insights Into the Zambian Economy” section.
This is the first of the almanac series, which will be expanded to contain a wide variety of data and facts on Zambia, as well as cataloging the past and its place in its own history, in the history of Africa and in world history in future editions. Welcome to The Zambia 2006 Almanac series.
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