Discussing the Kaunda Legacy – the debate continues
 By Tsheko Mutungu

I apologize for bringing up the Kaunda debate again. I’m compelled to comment on our compatriot’s defense of KK’s leadership. I cannot comment on the minutiae of the discussion. Thankfully, I was born just in time for the capitulation of the Kaunda regime. Alternatively, it is Mr. Gwaba’s construction of society that irks me.

With all due respect, Gwaba may be stricken by the common naiveté that has warped social vision in contemporary Zambia. Honest inspection would have us dissociate the symptoms of a problem from the problem itself. We would fall short in giving an aspirin to a person suffering headaches after being bitten by a rabid dog.

Intellectual honesty, as you call it, Mr. Editor, would also have us distinguish between actions and their positive repercussions. In our examination of society, in our analysis of economy, if we fail to make such distinctions, we construct false equivalencies. We see positive social outcomes, such as pervasive education and healthcare or strong exchange rates as self-fulfilled and understand failures exclusively by their deleterious effects.

This is always the imprudent approach. It is Kaldor’s pragmatic economics where varied means are equally efficient as long as they produce a unique outcome. Nuking Africa or progressing Africa are, as such, both efficient means of combating African poverty. Or, as Gwaba would have it, the one party state was the expedient means of forging national unity because it did.

We need to think outside the box a little bit more. Infrastructure, education, and particularly good healthcare are as much outcomes of economic progress as they can be ingredients for it. Let me also fall prey to a little circular reasoning here and suggest that a sustainable cocktail of social factors and outcomes exists when this social dialectic does not break. Under Kaunda it did break. Kitwe’s gaping potholes attest to it. While we may run around in circles blaming Bretton Woods, fingering fibre optics and the declining Cold War (i.e. falling copper prices), and lamenting the harsh winds of globalization, the extant truth is that Kaunda’s social vision did not nurture a Zambia whose social versatility was in any way commensurate to her volatility.

At least in a political sense, the Party and its Government did not attempt to harmonize the state, it sought to homogenize it. Certainly, such a concept backed up by the apparatus of the state, fostered a unity of diverse sorts. But it may have done so not by championing plurality, but by demeaning it. And our people are still burdened with the disempowerment foisted on them by an illusory vision of unity: the politically retained idea that criticism always equates to condemnation; that diversity of thought and identity jars with commonality in nationhood.

Kaundanomics also has to be given context and perspective. If one can always win against a decidedly weaker opponent, that opponent cannot be the litmus test of one’s athletic prowess. Ipso facto, if a Kaunda economy can only be strong given a standard copper price and social energy, and can educate, feed and medicate Zambia in these conditions, any argument defending his leadership given these conditions is naďve. In fairness, we cannot ignore the external factors that contributed to Zambia’s economic implosion. Still, the test of leadership occurs in times of social malaise. It would be unfair to judge Dr. Kaunda solely by the outcomes of—or, indeed, in spite of—his reaction; but we can and should scrutinize the nature of his reaction. I think the Editor has made an impartial and informative effort at both.

I would also echo the editor’s comments on the assertion that press freedom came in Kaunda’s days. This was not the Prague Spring. Kenneth Kaunda did not suddenly morph into Alexander Dubcek! The continued sycophancy of our state media and law enforcement agencies in the Third Republic is suggestive of Kaunda’s rationale to government. It makes no sense to applaud Dr. Kaunda for stimulating the righteous indignation that led to free media. If so, we must also laud the colonialists for the liberation struggle that began in their era. To preside over an event is not to be responsible for it.

As I stated earlier, my intent here is not to comment on Dr. Kaunda per se; I’ve already admitted my virtual ignorance about his legacy. I am simply expressing disbelief at D.C. Gwaba’s particular line of argument. I don’t mean to disparage him in any way as much as I mean to disagree with his choice of argument.

We should not look obliquely at Dr. Kaunda’s legacy. This important statesman was but the beginning of Zambia’s paradoxical political drama. In order to think constructively about our future we will have to think lucidly about our past.

Tsheko Mutungu
Princeton University

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