World View: Zambia’s tribalist politics (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The results of the presidential and parliamentary elections that took place in Zambia on 27 December can only be analysed in terms of the prevailing ethnic and tribal prejudices that came to translate themselves in the voting pattern.

The heavily contested elections took place over four days instead of the stipulated one day. This was partly due to the large number of voters who had turned up to vote. The elections took place in the rain season and many roads and bridges were rendered inoperative and thus caused delays in the transportation of ballot boxes and personnel.

This time more than ever before the Zambian electorate was subjected to intense political propaganda coming from no less than twelve political parties, but the elections were held under a mood of cynicism consequent upon the nullification of the constitutional referendum that would have paved the way for a third term for outgoing President Frederick Chiluba.

Voting was heavily determined by ethnic and tribal loyalties rather than the intellectual and political integrity of the presidential aspirants. The strength of political parties has come to depend upon the degree of ethnic and tribal loyalties they can command. Tribalism in Zambia is politically motivated – a political contest among the Tonga, Lozi and Bemba for ethnic domination.

A brief resumé of Zambia’s political history may help to clarify this predominance and the pattern of ethnic and tribal loyalties. The beginning of political agitation that paved the way to the achievement of Zambia’s independence saw the emergence on the political scene of the most assertive tribes. Disenchanted with racial segregation, the nationalist movements manipulated the entrenched ethnic and tribal prejudices to win political loyalty.

Historically the Bemba tribe is regarded as being the most culturally and politically assertive in Zambia. The Bemba originated from the Lunda-Luba multi-ethnic empire that had once flourished in the 7th century in the Congo bassin. Demographically Zambia is heavily populated by the Lunda-Luba tribal offshoots, scattered across Luapula, Northern and Central Provinces. There still exist cultural and linguistic affinities among the diverse tribes found in these regions. In terms of lingua franca the Bemba vernacular has come to supplement English as Zambia’s second language, showing that language itself can be used as a vehicle of tribal domination

The first nationalist party in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) was formed by Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika, a Lozi tribesman, in 1948, the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress. Later, in 1951, the party was re-named the African National Congress under the charismatic leadership of Harry Nkumbula, a Tonga by tribe.

Historically the Lozi and Tonga are not related. The Lozi were an offshoot of the Makololo invaders who came from Basutoland (Botswana) and settled in Western Province around 1800. The Tonga have a long ancestral record compared to other Zambian tribes. Traditionally, they are politically non-militant, with political leadership being restricted within clans and village headmen. Tonga and Lozi politicians come into open alliances whenever there is a presidential election.

It can now be vindicated that Kenneth Kaunda’s resignation from the ANC in 1962 was mainly motivated by the entrenched ethnic and tribal loyalties, less so than on the alleged corrupt leadership of Harry Nkumbula. Kaunda himself is not a Zambian. His parents came from Malawi (Nyasaland) with a white missionary society. But it was his early upbringing under a Bemba traditional society that came to play a major role in his political career. The emergence of the UNIP in 1962 under his leadership witnessed the growth of militant political demonstrations in Luapula, Copperbelt and Northern Provinces where the Bemba are concentrated.

In 1963 Nalumino Mundia, a prominent Lozi politician, resigned from ANC and formed his own political party, the United Party. This was essentially Lozi in outlook and derived a mass following in Western Province. The United Party formed a coalition with Nkumbula’s ANC during the 1968 general elections and managed to win 34 percent of the votes.

This voting pattern that emerged from the 1968 general elections emphasised the presence of ethnic and tribal loyalties that have continued to this day.

The inauguration of a one-party (UNIP) state by Kaunda in 1972 was made in order to arrest the trends perceived towards ethnic and provincial parochialism. The UNIP government under Kaunda believed that it had succeeded in containing ethnic and tribal parochialism in Zambia by fabricating the philosophy of Humanism, duly implemented in 1974 as the official political ideology of the party and government. The philosophy of Humanism was spasmodically enunciated by Kaunda in order to enhance the false image of tribal homogeneity under a single party dictatorship.

Throughout his beleaguered political career Kaunda, took account of the prevalence of ethnic and tribal allegiances and allocated political portfolios according to the relative strengths of tribal and ethnic loyalties. The rank of Prime Minister was always reserved to a Lozi tribesman. Thus it can be inferred that the defeat of the UNIP government in 1991 by Chiluba’s MMD was a defeat for the Lozi who had come to comprise the majority in the civil service.

The election victory achieved in December by the ruling MMD presidential aspirant, Levy Mwanawasa, can only be attributed to the large number of votes received from the Bemba-speaking tribes in Copperbelt, Luapula and Northern Provinces. In terms of tribal and ethnic groupings, we can see that the Bemba-speaking areas voted for the ruling MMD whereas the Tonga and Lozi speaking areas voted for the UPND leader, Anderson Mazoka (a Tonga tribesman). Mazoka’s routing in the Copperbelt, Luapala and Northern provinces was compensated by the huge victories scored by the UPND in Lusaka, Southern and Western Provinces. The UPND lost to the ruling MMD by a margin of 30,000 votes but increased its seats in parliament to 44 compared to the MMD’s 68. The UPND’s dissatisfaction with the election results reflects the ingrained ethnic and tribal allegiances that underlies multi-party politics in Zambia.

Our message to the people of Zambia remains the same. The real cause behind unemployment, inflation and poverty is capitalism, the social system based on class domination, competition and selfishness. We repeat: in countries subjected to foreign domination and wage-slavery capitalism feeds and grows by enabling ethnic and tribal prejudices. It encourages voter apathy in societies where political patronage is based on tribal identities. It bedevils political stability through encouraging expediency based upon strengthening tribal domination and ill-feeling.

Socialism can bring to an end all this rot. A classless, moneyless and stateless society will end the ethnic, racial and sectarian antagonisms. The struggle before you remains the same – a class struggle on an international scale.

Kephas Mulenga

The Passing Show: Day to Day Struggle—Matches Front. (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Day to Day Struggle—Matches Front.

Under this heading we featured a news snippet in the August, 1949 Standard. Willie Gallacher, then Communist M.P. for East Fife, was asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to allow a halfpenny increase in the cost of a box of matches. He suggested “some other way of assisting the manufacturers to meet the cost of production ” (a subsidy perhaps?).

That was not very long after the end of the war and we wonder what he would be saying about that today, because the Russian and other Eastern bloc countries are now exporting matches to this country in quite huge quantities. According to The Guardian of September 14, a large proportion of the extra 28,800,000 boxes arriving from abroad last year came from Russia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. And that's not all, for these matches are being sold to the trade at prices lower than the cost price of their British counterparts.

Would Mr. Gallacher be so concerned about the British Match industry now that the Soviet countries are beginning to compete so effectively? If British match Corporation Chairman, Lord Portal, were to announce a price increase now, our “ Communist ” friends would probably oppose it and demand bigger imports of the Eastern European brands to keep prices down. They are not, you see, opposed to trade competition as such, but only when it jeopardises Russian capitalist interests.

In 1964 Russian goods are being pushed onto the world’s markets and while the quantities are still comparatively small in some cases, it is a sign of the times. The Soviets are trying to find outlets for timber and oil. A few years ago, Russian watches were barely known in England whereas today they compete with British and Swiss watches and can be seen in practically any jeweller’s shop window.

Just how successful the Russians will be in the future is anybody’s guess, but we may be sure that they will keep on trying wherever they see the chance. We have always maintained that Soviet Russia is a capitalist power and it is news like this that adds just a little extra tit-bit to the impressive weight of evidence supporting our view. Like any capitalist country, she must sooner or later start looking to outside markets and do battle with the other giants. This will doubtless be welcomed by the slavish C.P. membership, but we can see it only as an addition to the sum total of already fierce competition and the conflicts which are the breeding ground of war.

New Robbers for Old.

Since the end of the last war, many of the old colonies have won independence, and amidst the cheers and celebrations, we have been the only ones to point out that one set of masters has merely been replaced by another, and that for workers it was certainly not a time for cheering. Time is once again proving the soundness of our claim. India, Ghana, and Indonesia, to name only three, have their ruling class well in the saddle, and striking workers are discovering that a crack on the head from a native policeman’s truncheon is just as unpleasant as one from his white predecessor.

And when the new capitalists take over, they follow the usual course of building up their industries, attracting the necessary capital and getting their workers trained to produce the all-important surplus value. In some cases, they cast greedy eyes in the direction of assets owned by foreign capitalists, particularly where a well developed industry is involved; then they move in and take over "in the name of the people.” This has happened, for instance, in Indonesia, and much of the squabbling in the Congo has centred round the mineral exploitation rights held formerly by Belgian capitalists.

The latest example to make news has been Zambia—or Northern Rhodesia as it was known until October 24th. There has been an almighty row over the mineral rights of the British South Africa Company (BSA). Apparently these are worth about £7 millions a year at present and with the approach of independence, the N. Rhodesian Government lost no time in challenging the treaties under which the rights are guaranteed. They have got together an impressive band of lawyers and economists to prove that many of the sixty years old concessions by the tribal chiefs to Cecil Rhodes’ company are “illegal.” In the words of the N. Rhodesian Government’s white paper of September 21st:—

There are certainly areas of Northern Rhodesia . . . where the authority of the Paramount Chief of Barotseland, on which the mineral rights in the western part of the territory are based, never ran. . . . They include the Nkana and Nchanga mines, representing not far short of half the copper production of the territory.

The British Government has tried to safeguard the interests of this company, among others, by putting a protective clause into the independence agreement, but at the time of writing it looks as if this is something that Kaunda’s boys will not wear. If they do not get agreement in London they promise to take the necessary political measures at home after the new state has been established.

Now it is undeniable that the British South Africa Company have made huge profits out of this area, from which is produced about fourteen per cent. of the world’s annual copper output. Since 1889 they have received £135 millions, and stand to get another £154 millions before the royalty agreement expires in 1986. Compare this with the £10 per year “enjoyed” by most African families in the rural areas. No wonder BSA are so anxious to hold on to what they have. No wonder, too, that other British mining and commercial interests are worried.. They fear antagonism and perhaps expropriation if the matter is not settled quickly.

But having said all this, we are back once again to our opening remarks. Whoever wins this battle, it will make precious little difference to those £10 a year families, or to any other Zambian worker. For them, it will still mean exploitation as usual. For their masters, business as usual—perhaps the profits will go into new pockets, that’s all.

New Club Member.

China is about to join the nuclear club. By the time you read this, she may well have exploded her first atom bomb. To the man in the street this does not make very happy reading, for no one in his right mind can view other than with horror the fact that yet another threat to his life is looming on the horizon. The press and politicians have not unexpectedly tried to play down the whole business. “Western experts believe the bomb will be a primitive affair,” says Peter Fairley in the Evening Standard of September 30. “Nobody expects the Chinese A-device to be a viable military threat for at least four years.”

Well perhaps you can get a crumb of comfort from the thought that you will have at least four years before you are atomised by a Chinese bomb—that’s if somebody else doesn’t start something beforehand. And, of course, it takes no account of the dangers of fall-out from the Chinese tests occurring in the meantime. It is interesting to note, incidentally, one of the ways in which the Chinese preparations were discovered—American Camera carrying Samos satellites were orbited over China, so those of you who thought that satellites were a “peaceful" project will have to think again.

When the test ban treaty was signed, we were not very popular for saying then that it would make no essential difference and that the threat of war was in no way lessened. While Pat Arrowsmith and other misguided CND’ers were welcoming it with sighs of relief, China was quietly developing her own bomb. Fast on the heels of France, she is the fifth capitalist power to do so. Who will be next? Perhaps Western Germany will have a go. Some of her politicians have been in favour of it for some time.

Just like the other nuclear powers, China will lose no time in wielding her bomb as a diplomatic weapon. Maybe we shall hear renewed demands from Peking for her government’s recognition and a seat at the United Nations. And this time the UJS. will have to think twice before refusing. Almost certainly the parleys of the future will include Mao's men and the conference tables will be that much bigger. So will the squabbles.

Some of the facts are now known about the exploding of the first U.S.A. Bomb at Hiroshima, of the cold-blooded calculations which went into its production, of the chicanery and double dealing between the so-called allies, and of the alleged deliberate prolongation of .the war to enable it to be used against the Japanese. Perhaps some day we will learn something also of the intrigues which have undoubtedly taken place since then, as one power after another has got its own bomb and intensified the frightful prospect of obliteration.

The futility and tragic waste of it all are glaringly obvious despite the hollow hypocrisy of capitalist statesmen. This is all that capitalism can offer us in the world where the potential for human welfare is immense.

Eddie Critchfield

Politics in Africa (2010)

From the November 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political leaders in Africa are reluctant to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box.

Africa is a vast continent comprised of nations which because of their colonial past have different histories, just as they have variegated geographical landmarks that distinguish them. Thus African nations do not share many things in common except the forcible grouping together of tribes regardless of the interaction that existed before colonialisation.

 In the attempt to create nations, different ethnic groups have been split between boundaries and the expression of nationalism has therefore not been through the medium of cultural or ethnic identity, but defined within the context of the country in which the language of the colonial master became the lingua franca.

 It is imperative to note, therefore, that such a situation in which countries find themselves has made nation building and African unity a difficult task.

 The political developments taking place in Zambia today are African in nature and therefore similar and comparable to political events taking place elsewhere. In Africa, parliamentary democracy defined through multi-party politics still remains a test case today. Political leaders in Africa are finding it hard to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box. The current political scenario in Zambia may easily degenerate into political violence if left unabated. The Catholic church and some western NGOs have kept on to criticise the ruling MMD government both through the press and privately-owned radio stations. Radio ICENGELO – owned by the Catholic church has become the mouthpiece of the voiceless people on the Copperbelt.

 The widening gap between the rich and poor is something the ruling MMD government of President Rupiah Banda does not seem to be concerned about. Indeed, privatisation of the Zambian economic sector can only succeed by strengthening the private- and profit-making social sector, otherwise than defending and safeguarding the economic upkeep of the peasants and workers.

 Massive and periodic job losses in the formal and informal sectors of the economy have come to characterise the economic policy of Zambia’s economic liberation ever since the MMD came to power in 1991 to date.  During the leadership of Dr. Kenneth Kaunda education was subsidised by the state and every child had a right to free education from primary school to university level. Every year the UNIP government carried out massive recruitments of teachers, doctors, nurses, policemen and soldiers.

 The change from Kaunda’s “one-party participating democracy” to multi-party democracy saw the implementation of economic liberalism (defined as privatisation) under the MMD government of President Fredrick Chiluba. This entailed the liquidation of state-owned mining, industrial and financial companies. The privatisation of state-owned companies led to massive job losses – in most cases the retrenched workers have not yet received their retirement salaries.

 But we cannot mop up the fact that the UNIP government had experienced economic decline from 1980 to 1991 – the MMD inherited a bankrupt economy as the case may be. But it must be emphasised that the manner in which privatisation was carried out by the MMD was less than transparent.

 It was in an attempt to monopolise power that Kaunda introduced a one-party state in 1973 on the excuse that Zambia was facing tribalism under multi-party politics. He introduced the philosophy of humanism  in order to weld the different ethnic groups together under “One Zambia One Nation”. He declared a state of emergency – political detentions without trial (political criticism was banned). It is a fact that both the ruling MMD and political opposition have shown no restraint in manipulating the masses through feeding them with prejudices against other tribes in order to win their support. Thus tribalistic sentiments in Zambia originate from politicians or political parties. The voting patterns that emerged from the previous three general elections depict tribal and regional allegiances in the sense that people voted on the basis of ethnic patronage.

 Every economic gain achieved under the late President Levy Mwanawasa has been dissipated by the global economic downturn of 2009, making it possible for the PF leader Michael Sata to increase votes in the coming 2011 elections. General elections in urban areas of Zambia are determined by economic factors, especially for food prices, the cost of education and availability of employment. The ruling MMD has concentrated on building roads, hospitals, schools and subsiding peasant farmers in rural areas where the party received massive votes. Working class political consciousness is visibly absent in rural village communities. The failure of African leaders to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box means that elections in Africa are conducted in a win-or-die situation. The experience of many African nations with regard to their armed forces have been sad in that they have stifled democracy with their intervention, purportedly in their attempt to correct the mistakes of  their political bosses also had failed to adhere to the principle of democracy through perceived violations of the constitution. When military leaders come into power, they not only breach the constitution, they become traitors to the oath of allegiance they swore to the nation.

The reluctance of the ruling MMD to accept the PF and UPND as viable future political options is a bad omen for multi-party politics in Zambia.

Socialism is the only practical political alternative to capitalism and our message to the workers of Zambia remains the same – the creation of a classless moneyless and stateless society.

Kephas Mulenga

Politics in Zambia (2010)

From the August 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Democracy is an all-encompassing word used to describe the political state of modern times. More or less democracy describes a political state in which fully fledged parliamentary legality flourishes and political parties come to power through the ballot box. The art of constitutional government as we know and practice it in Zambia is derived from British colonialism (parliamentary democracy). But parliamentary democracy is not a static condition – political constitutions have been revised in Africa day in and day out to suit respective political parties that may happen to be in power. In Zambia the ruling MMD has been experimenting to revise the current political constitution, in a move aimed to make it impossible for opposition leader Michael Sala to stand for the 2011 presidential election.

It is the case in Zambia today that the methods of political change are fraught with many difficulties – chief among these is the regional fragmentation of voting patterns, i.e. people still vote on tribal allegiances. Zambian politics is heavily influenced by political charisma. The first president Dr. Kenneth Kaunda was a charismatic leader and still remained a flamboyant personality. Charismatic politicians have a propensity to capture public worship either through making articulate speeches or wearing fine suits. Both Kaunda and Chiluba had a gift of making inspiring speeches and a flair for clean and smart clothes. Chiluba is said to have possessed two hundred pairs of shoes worth hundreds of dollars per pair.

Both Kaunda and Chiluba had the gift to foresee what the masses’ feelings were and used to take advantage of a given moment by seemingly voicing those feelings. And it became very problematic for many ordinary Zambians to rally behind the late president Levy Mwanawasa, who lacked a magnetic personality and was a poor speech-maker. Indeed, the current president, Rupiah Banda lacks a political flair for publicity and lacks a flair for speech making.

Freedom for expression in Zambia has been conceived in wrong terms. It has meant incessant political criticism of ruling government in methods likely to provoke political violence. We in the WSM abhor the methods of political criticism that is spearheaded by the PF and UPND because they border on intimidating certain individuals instead of offering an alternative system against the existing status quo (capitalism). Political demagogy by itself is not an antidote to unemployment and inflation. The problems of human rights, gender equality and freedom of expression will not exist in socialism because a socialist will entail the actual embodiment of political and gender emancipation.

The failure of any political party in England to win an outright parliamentary majority during the May general election was resolved in an amicable manner with the Conservatives and Liberals forming a coalition government. In most African countries such an election result would have given rise to political violence.

Kephas Mulenga

World View: Letter from Zambia (2000)

From the December 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

The wind of change is blowing across the African continent. This wind of change depicts a phenomenon of political coups which have swept through many African countries which had embraced the multi-party parliamentary system of government.

There is strife and bitter in-fighting between elected governments and opposition parties. The demise of single party totalitarian régimes has entailed the growth of neo-colonialism through economic liberalism and globalisation. Before the demise of Soviet “Communism”, some African countries were in the forefront of the state-run economies. The economics of laissez-faire capitalism is proving a bitter pill to swallow to populations reared and groomed under the politics of totalitarian régimes and state or command economies. What is alarming is the recourse to communalism and outright tribalism by opposition parties against elected governments.

The defeat of Kenneth Kaunda’s UNIP government by Frederick Chiloba’s MMD party has wrought a permanent change upon Zambia’s political and economic life. The dismantling of a state command economy by the MMD government has let loose social and demographic changes throughout Zambia. Income and job patterns have changed from bad to worse.

Free trade and economic liberalism have appeared as an affront to the nationalistic sentiments of many an African political malcontent. Outright economic dependence on European trade and international commerce is neo-colonialism per se. But can any African country survive without any form of economic aid from the developed capitalist countries? In Zambia the goal of the politics of transparency and free trade has been purchased at a high price. Privatisation of the state economic sector has brought into being unprecedented job losses and industrial dislocation.

Neo-colonialism depicts a situation where the country’s domestic economy is exposed to foreign or overseas multinational companies. Privatisation has created a new class of industrial capitalists whose commercial and employment objectives are at variance with the macroeconomic objectives of governments. Under neo-colonialism a recipient country is held in dire servitude by the donor community which monitors its political and economic performance.

The creation of SADCC (Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference) has led to a relaxation of tariffs and quotas between member countries. In the case of Zambia this has meant that imports from South Africa, where economies of scale abound and production costs are low, have come to over-flood the relatively undeveloped and high-cost domestic industrial sector. As a result most manufacturing industries in Zambia have closed since they cannot compete in quality and price with these imported commodities.

The policy of arresting an imbalance in of payments by clamping down on subsidies and public expenditure has led to unemployment and social misery across the country. It has brought a bout of unprecedented criticism from the opposition back benches. Zambian economic liberalism depends upon massive injections of donor investment and aid to survive.

Persistent political bickering and unsubstantiated criticisms against elected governments are tarnishing the image of African parliamentary democracy as a test case in multi-partism. It portrays and signifies a lack of trust in the concept of democracy and is causing suspicion and anxiety among the Western donor community circles.

Voter apathy and outright arrogance against the ruling parties has become a general feature in every African country under multi-party rule. Ethnic rivals and tribal prejudices are exploited by opposition parties in order to discredit elected governments. It seems that parliamentary democracy under the European political pattern cannot easily survive in Africa and that African countries will have to live exposed to the threat of military coups.

Kephas Mulenga

Pan-African "Socialists" (1963)

From the February 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pan-African socialism, so-called, is essentially a creation of West Africa. But with the spread of education and the growth of communications in Africa these ideas have been absorbed also by Africans living in the East and the South of the continent. The main African political parties in these areas all claim to be Socialist. Frequently their leaders appear in London and ask the workers of Britain to support them in their struggle against imperialism. But nationalism is incompatible with Socialism and it is actually a barrier against the spread of Socialist ideas. On occasions it is even worse; for nationalism frequently hinders even the effective organisation of workers on the trade union field which is so essential under capitalism. Recent events in Central Africa well illustrate this point.

In Southern Rhodesia the Pan-Africanists whose political party, the Zimbabwe African Peoples' Union was recently outlawed, have provoked a split among the African workers. Previously there was only one organisation claiming to represent the African worker, the Southern Rhodesia Trade Union Congress (SRTUC), led by Reuben Jamela. However, Jamela betrayed a pro-Western leaning by maintaining, in defiance of Ghana, that the SRTUC should remain affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). In addition, Jamela, although himself a nationalist, held that . . .

the declared position of Jamela's trade unionism is that the workers as workers must not be involved in politics and it has been argued by politicians and trade unionists that the two cannot mix: trade unionism must be for economical well-being of the working class, while politics is the game of both the worker and employer for political and social rights.

Without in any way supporting Jamela, we must say that the arguments which he presents against the association of the trade unions with the nationalist parties are basically sound. After all, trade unions are primarily organised to protect the workers of a particular trade section, or of a group of more or less allied trades. People of varying political and religious views are united in trade unions on one issue alone: the recognition that collective action is more effective than individual action when dealing with employers. Politics within the trade union tends to destroy this unity. This is what has happened in Southern Rhodesia. The Pan-Africanists have broken away from the SRTUC and set up their own African TUC which is rapidly gaining support at the expense of the SRTUC and which, incidentally, has not been banned.

The particular party which it is suggested the unions support is, despite its Socialist pretensions, basically capitalist and nationalist. The nationalist case for turning the trade unions into little more than the labour wing of the nationalist party is based on an appeal to racial sentiment. “The absence of large African companies,” argues The People's Voice, “of African-owned mines and large factories—a natural consequence of colonial oppression—turns the African workers in an anti-imperialist direction. The European colonialist became the enemy of the African workers,” but the paper goes on to suggest that because of this the trade union struggle is against the “European rulers” just as is the African political movement and hence it is reasonable for them to unite.

But is the trade union struggle exclusively anti-European? Whatever may have been the position in West Africa, the idea that the European in Central Africa is merely a “monopolist” or a capitalist is as absurd as the notion that all Jews are financiers. First, there are over 80,000 European workers in Southern Rhodesia compared with 9,000 European employers and self-employed and, second, although nearly all the large businesses and factories are European or foreign owned, there are in actual fact more African businessmen than European. Nor the the Europeans the only people who have opposed African strikes. ZAPU’s allies in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland have done just this and worse.

In July this year the supreme council of the Northern Rhodesia African Mineworkers’ Union decided to call a strike for higher pay as they considered the copper mining companies' offer inadequate. Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence Party decided that a strike at this time might harm their chances in the October general elections. UNIP therefore advised the workers to accept the offer and itself took steps to prevent the strike. During the weekend before the strike was due to begin leaflets were distributed calling on the workers not to strike. One such leaflet, signed by A. B. Mutemba, UNIP Kitwe, Kalulushi and Mufilira Regional Secretary, read:

Tell all our people that UNIP docs not agree to the strike call. This strike will spoil our forthcoming elections. We ask you all to report for work as usual. If you want a strike you will do so after October — not now. Anyone who strikes on Tuesday will be regarded as an enemy of the African cause (Northern News 9/7/62).

Other leaflets, later repudiated, accused the union leaders of organising the strike for their own selfish ends. As a result of these leaflets so much confusion was created that the union decided to call off the strike. At least this is one explanation, but the strike was called off after Kaunda had met the union leaders. Only later did it become known that one of these leaders, previously not known as a nationalist, had agreed to stand as a UNIP candidate in the elections. Whatever the reason, UNIP and the Companies won. This episode clearly shows the attitude of the Pan-Africanists towards the trade unions: they want to see the African workers organised in order to use them for their own ends.

The Malawi Congress Party, led by Our Great Ngwasi Kumuzu Banda (Ngwasi means '‘sage" but is probably better translated “fuehrer”), which rules Nyasaland has also clashed with the unions. No sooner had the MCP formed the government than it acted against some strikers, members of the Motor and Allied Workers Union, whose leaders had called a strike for higher pay. A Pan-Africanist writing later complained “what a burden it was for the new African Minister to start his duties by solving a strike problem," and went on:

In any event, the Malawi Congress Party condemned the strike and since then the destructive actions by this Union have been less apparent. (Daily News 22/6/62.)

Trade Unions

This turned out to be a little optimistic as the Motor and Allied Workers Union and the Commercial and General Workers’ Union continued their “irresponsible*’ and “destructive actions” of trying to improve their members’ working conditions and living standards; For their trouble the leaders of these unions were suspended from membership of the MCP and accused of “importing Trade Union ideas from America and Western Europe in this country.” This was judged incompatible with the principles and policy of the party. Which is a frank admission that the MCP is not in favour of allowing the workers to form genuine trade unions or of allowing them to strike.

Banda and his colleagues have continued to abuse and insult these union leaders whose only crime appears to be their belief that trade unions should be independent of Government. In August Dr. Banda referred to these trade unionists as “self seekers who are misleading the workers” and accused one of getting money from Europeans to “further his selfish ends.” Banda went on to say that his ruling Malawi Congress Party “will crush mercilessly anyone who allows himself to be used by imperialists and colonialists.”

Such is the way the Pan-Africanists treat the workers when once in power. With African businessmen it is a different matter. Far from saying that the African worker has no interests in common with these African property-owners the Pan-Africanists seek to win them for their cause. UNIP has a clause in its programme which reads: "to work and protect the interests of commercial traders and help them in their progressive business schemes." The Daily News (10/9/62) reported that at a ZAPU meeting “Mr. S. J. Ndebele ... urged African businessmen to rally behind ZAPU and sacrifice both money and time.” In addition the President of the African Farmers’ Union is also a well-known ZAPU member. Such is the confusion of Pan-African “Socialism” that it preaches the identity of interests between African worker and African capitalist and ignores the European worker. Indeed one of the smaller African nationalist parties in Southern Rhodesia which calls itself Socialist, the Pan-African Socialist Union, has denounced ZAPU as a “capitalist multi-racial organisation ” and one of its leaders is on record as having said: “I loathe European membership in a pure African nationalist organisation.” Pan-Africanism as a political creed has more in common with Fascism, insofar as it is a radical nationalist movement, than with Socialism and there are no grounds at all on which Socialists can support it.

It is not an accident that African nationalist parties, once in power, “crush mercilessly,” to use Banda’s own words, the workers’ independent trade unions. Even people with more regard for democracy than Banda or Nkrumah, people like Nyerere, who have taken in Western liberal ideas, are forced to pass laws restricting civil liberties and trade union freedoms. They do so because they have chosen to develop capitalism in their respective countries. Why this means they must attack the workers was recently well explained by a writer in Africa Today. “Independence,” he writes, “upset the conditions under which the African union movement had flourished. The state is African now, not European; the issue of patriotism can be, and is, turned against the unions if they oppose the government. The state is concerned with holding down labour costs in both private and public sectors. ... Governments dedicated to rapid economic development obviously must hold down, or reduce, real wages in order to raise capital.” So it is in Ghana and in Tanganyika; so it will be in Central Africa. It is for this reason that the right to strike is more often denied than granted in post-colonial Africa.

This in itself is a good enough reason why the workers of Britain should not listen to these glib nationalist leaders who come here asking for help — help to “crush mercilessly” the workers back home. Nor is there any hope for the workers of Africa in nationalism or racialism; Socialism remains the only hope for the workers of the world. But in Central Africa the workers of all races have yet to learn that the dividing line there, as elsewhere, is that of class not colour. White and non-White workers should stand together against White and non-White property owners. The sooner the workers realise this the better. Meanwhile the danger of racial clash remains.

Adam Buick

"Darling Kaunda (1972)

From the March 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have always been a lone voice when we have said that the struggles of subject peoples of Africa for national independence are a fruitless waste of blood and effort. The fact is that at present all peoples are subject peoples; those of England, Russia or Cuba, just as much as those of Kenya, or Zambia who were until recent times under the rule of British imperialism. And now that the hated British have gone, all that has happened is that the mass of the peoples of black Africa have changed white rulers for black ones. But it would be a bold man who would now say that the change from a foreign to a native ruling class has meant any real gain for the ruled.

The rulers of black Africa make a great hooha because the Tory government has come to terms with the Smith regime in Rhodesia before the achievement of that great desideratum — one man, one vote. Now Socialists are the last to decry the necessity of democracy even under capitalism. On the contrary, we realise that when the time comes that the working class understands the meaning of the need for Socialism, then it is by the exercise of the vote in a democracy, that the new society will be won. In the meantime, the sheer hypocrisy of the African rulers is quite mind-boggling. If any racialist doubted the equality of black with white, they must at least be convinced that a black politician can be every bit as obnoxious a liar and a humbug as his white equivalent. The leading opponent of the deal with Smith is Nyerere of Tanzania who sheds his crocodile tears over the lack of votes and other rights of democracy in Rhodesia for the black inhabitants of that unhappy land where most of the population is disfranchised and the leading spirits of would-be opposition parties are kept in detention without trial.

Yet none knows better than he (who compounds his felonies with the impudent claim to be establishing Socialism in his country — but then that specious nonsense is repeated in all the most unlikely places, Egypt, Israel, India et al) that the same lack of democracy exists in his own country. It is true that the blacks have equality of voting rights: But Nyerere has made sure that the vote is worth nothing by banning all opposition so that in practice you have a vote without a choice. Which is just as much a sordid farce in present-day Tanzania as it was in Hitlerite Germany (or as it is, of course, in Russia or China). And in Tanzania, just as much as in Rhodesia, the place for political opponents, for those who dare to suggest there should be freedom to vote for some other party than Nyerere’s is in gaol. Black political prisoners have, in fact, been languishing in gaol in Tanzania just as long as in Rhodesia.

In neighbouring Zambia, the president, “my darling Kaunda”, as a New Statesman haridan, Naomi Mitchison, once called him, has decided that the faint vestiges of democracy that were discernible (under a microscope) in his country were no longer supportable and he was graciously giving his people a new constitution. A one-party democracy. (And don’t imagine that this square circle is always recognised as such even here. The allegedly liberal Guardian, for example, has often sent its creepy-left reporters like Steele and Adeney and Gott to sing the virtues of Nyerere’s Tanzania and has used the phrase “one-party democracy” without a blush). It seems that a former comrade of Kaunda’s called Kapwepe, had the temerity to use the existing constitution to form another opposition party. Constitution be damned, said that lovable democrat Kaunda and preceeded to shove over 100 prominent supporters of the infant new party where he thinks they belong in liberated Africa. In clink. But still he wasn’t satisfied. It’s not enough that he throws members of an opposition party into gaol. He must also make sure that they have no paper right to form an opposition party at all, which is why he wants to change the constitution. The poor devils who wish to have a little of the freedom the African nationalists were always prating about must be wondering why he bothers. They will rot in gaol either way.

Perhaps to rub in the anti-racialist lesson that white political crooks and black ones are birds of a feather, Kaunda is not satisfied with playing the role of an African Hitler, he must emulate Stalin as well. It is always difficult to form an opinion as to which particular piece of murderous villainy of Stalinist Russia was the worst, but one that was extremely gruesome was, at the time of the infamous pact with the Nazi beast, the handing over to the Nazis of German Communist leaders who had taken refuge in Russia — Stalin’s own dear comrades. We don’t know whether these victims appreciated the change of scenery as they were taken from a Communist concentration camp to be butchered in a Nazi one, but the episode was one to make a Borgia cringe. And where does our gallant Christian and “socialist” Kaunda come into this? Well, as is well known, his great enemy is the white-fascist-beast, his neighbour Smith of Rhodesia. So what does he do? He rounds up black “freedom” fighters in his own country. And does he gaol them (without trial, of course)? It seems that wouldn’t suit his book. He actually hands them over to the white-fascist murderers, the self-same villains that cause him to inveigh against our wicked Tories (they are undoubtedly wicked enough, including of course that fat cynic Lord Goodman who used to have the nerve to call himself a socialist. Presumably still does). And of course Smithy gratefully accepts the gift and does what Kaunda expected him to do. Sentence the poor bastards to death.

No doubt you heard the screams of protest from the assembled leftists as they smashed the windows of the Zambian legation to draw attention to this monstrosity. And then you woke up. There hasn't been as much as a resounding tinkle. Exactly the same as in the good old days when Stalin was murdering Russian workers by the million, including his own Bolshevik comrades. Some, one must say, did demur. A quarter of a century later when Khruschev came out with the news that honest people knew perfectly well at the time. The Guardian did report these grisly goings-on. But there have been no screaming leading articles denouncing Kaunda for the way he treats black men. Yet they are so ardently concerned with the freedom of black people that hardly a day is allowed to pass without denunciation of Vorster and Co. (who are indeed grim enough in all conscience).

And what does all this add up to? Surely, that all the energy that millions of people, black and white, put into reforms such as nationalism, not to mention all the heroism and sacrifice in places like the Mau Mau jungles, all this simply leaves the capitalist jungle intact. And it therefore follows that all the jungly things go on and the sufferings of mankind go on with them. Roll on the day when the working class of the world, black, white, brown, yellow, decide that only the cutting down of the capitalist jungle will serve. Because until that day dawns, humanity will have to live with horror.

L. E. Weidberg.

Zambia: the riots in Barotseland (2011)

From the March 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The events that took place in Western Province on 14 January strongly and correctly underpin that Zambia’s politics are tribalist – that tribalism in Zambia exists and is partly instigated by self-seeking politicians through inciting disgruntled ethnic groups in order to advance their political objectives.

What is called nationalism comes to emphasise political allegiance to the state. Political states in Africa were mapped out by European imperialist nations under the guise of economic interests and military influence. Thus African kingdoms and empires were brutally decimated and different ethnic groups were forcibly integrated into colonial states and protectorates.

British imperialism (colonialism) was politically, religiously and poetically lampooned as bringing civilisation. What is known today as Zambia consists of 72 ethnic groups and the Lunda-Luba speaking tribes comprise 90 percent of Zambia’s population. Politically and linguistically the Bemba remains one of the dominant tribes. The Lozi and Tonga remain linguistically and culturally differentiated from the Lunda-Luba complex tribe. It is undeniable that rigid ethnic and tribal patterns exist in Zambia today as a major factor determining the strength of political parties.

The Barotseland Agreement was enacted on 7 May 1974 in London between the then Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia Kenneth Kaunda, the Litunga of Barotseland and the British colonial government. The document in itself signified the end of British protectorate of Barotseland and entailed the incorporation of Barotseland (Lozi) into a self-governing independent state of Zambia under the leadership of Dr. Kenneth Kaunda. There is nothing sinister about the Barotseland Agreement that needs to be revised today as a way of protecting and safeguarding the political and economic aspirations of the Lozi-speaking peoples of Western Province,. Thus recent calls for political and ethnic separation of the Lozi-speaking people from Zambia is mainly propagated by a bunch of political hooligans without any viable backing from the political fraternity.

It may be juxtaposed that calls for revising the Barotseland Agreement and the consequent bouts of mob violence that took place in Western Province in January were partly the outcome of economic backwardness that still prevails in Western Province. The mob went berserk, stoning vehicles and damaging public property. The police replied with live ammunition and two lives were lost.

What we are now saying is that economic underdevelopment that prevails in Western Province was the main motivating factor behind the violence that took place otherwise than political dissatisfaction with the Barotseland Agreement as such.

Political rebels within the ruling MMD have blamed President Rupiah Banda for having seemingly deviated from the political legacy of the late Levy Mwanawasa – economic development through tackling corruption and money laundering. Banda by himself does not command any ethnic group nor parliamentary constituency. He was only hand-picked from UNIP political retirement by Mwanawasa to the position of vice-President in 2007.

Favoured by political fortune Banda automatically became acting President when Mwanawasa died in 2008. In the presidential elections held in 2008, Banda managed to win with a mere majority of 350,000 votes against Patriotic Front president Michael Sata and became the fourth president of the republic of Zambia.

Apart from the Bemba, the Lozi and Tonga have played a prominent rôle in Zambia’s domestic politics such that any beleaguered political pronouncements on events taking place in Western Province tends to elicit feelings of Lozi tribal parochialism against the ruling MMD. Because the violent mobs in Western Province were attacking non-Lozi we may infer that there is any ethnic rebellion there.

It is sad to note, come 2011 general elections, the majority of workers and students in urban areas of Lusaka and the Copperbelt will massively vote for Michael Sata of the PF, whereas the peasants in rural village communities will vote for the MMD. The people who live in towns believe that PF leader Sata will achieve economic miracles in the belief working conditions in Chinese-owned mines will improve and new jobs will be created. Those who live in rural village communities are content with fertiliser subsidies, new schools and paved roads and will vote for the MMD.

But wealth and power under capitalism can only be realised through legalised exploitation of some people by others. This is a complete contradiction of socialism that envisages a future society in which economic and political privileges will not exist because goods will be produced for consumption and not or sale – while racial and ethnic taboos will not prevail because there wouldn’t be political leaders nor class interests to defend.

Kephas Mulenga

Tribal Politics in Africa (2014)

From the January 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

In Africa every political leader that comes into power starts to consolidate himself  through stamping out political turncoats and the opposition. This easily gives rise to ethnic suspicions. Thus politicians take advantage of ethnic and tribal prejudices in order to win a political following. This is what took place in Kenya when Odinga lost the  elections to Uhuru Kenyatta. The Luos and Kikuyu tribes started to butcher each other.

This also took place in Zimbabwe when Joshua Nkomo lost to Robert Mugabe in 1979 –  Nkomo invited the Ndebeli to rise against the Shona – there was violence in Matebeleland and hundreds of civilians were killed.

Under the leadership of Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, the slogan ‘Zambia One Nation’ came to emphasise unity between tribes. Political reputations based on tribal loyalties did not exist under UNIP. Dr. Kaunda preached tribal balancing by appointing cabinet ministers from majority tribes – there was always a Lozi and Tonga as prime minister.

If there was any semblance to tribalism in Zambia under UNIP it only came from the Lozi royal establishment that had grievances with the Barotse government of 1964. The British Crown had given the protectorate to Barotseland in 1889 – but that lapsed when the governor of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland Sir Evelyn Horn handed over self government to Dr. Kaunda in 1964.

Kaunda emulated the ‘communist’ bloc and played a part in sponsoring the political rebels agitating for political independence in Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa. The incidence of military coups in West Africa – in Ghana and Nigeria both civilian governments were overthrown – made Kaunda promulgate a one-party state in 1973. He became commander-in-chief of the Zambian armed forces, and virtual dictator.

Kaunda threw himself wholeheartedly into the liberation struggle taking place in southern Africa and on this count alone his political reputation rests. The onset of a trade inflation in Western and Eastern countries from 1980 onwards posed economic problems in African countries – in Zambia queues for essential commodities and fuel became a recurring feature.

The promulgation of Perestroika by Gorbachev in Russia led to the fall of ‘communism’ (state capitalism) in eastern Europe and Africa. This gave rise to demands for political pluralism in Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. It took the intervention of Tanzanian soldiers to evict the dictator Idi Amin from Uganda. President Mobutu was made to flee Kinshasa when the Rwandan army used the Banyamulenge to attack his army. Kaunda himself was voted out of office in 1991.

The one-party states there were ended but replaced by tribal-based politics.

Kephas Mulenga

The Enemy on the Left! - New Statesman (1973)

From the March 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

A regular column dealing with the antics of those who call themselves socialist but in practice do nothing but harm to the cause.

Last month this column dealt with Tribune but that other fraudulent socialist paper, the New Statesman is of course just as guilty of these attempts (often all too successful) to con the working class out of their votes. I well remember in the '64 election, reading out at an SPGB meeting a leading article from that paper which actually went through the various issues and could not avoid showing that there was not a pin to choose even between the promises of Tory and Labour. But you should turn out the Tories because Wilson is such a good chap! You may find it difficult to credit that an "intellectual" paper could be so pathetic. And ironically, the same paper now tells its readers that Wilson pollutes the political atmosphere! It takes an "intellectual" rather a long time to spot a blinding glimpse of the obvious. But I wanted to deal with its attitude to democracy (which is an essential facet of Socialism). They recently ran an article on Kaunda's one-party state in Zambia. Now it is clear to the meanest intelligence that a one-party state us just a euphemism for a dictatorial tyranny. For it means that anyone who wishes to oppose the government (or is even suspected of such ideas) finds himself not in Parliament, not even on the hustings, but in a gaol, or a concentration camp, or cemetery. This is true whether the one-party is white Nazis or black Kaunda-ists.

Just to underline this the Guardian reported some time ago that the "socialist" Kaunda had taken to ending his meetings with a ringing slogan: "One State! One Zambia!" Consciously or otherwise taking a leaf out of Hitler's book, he might as well amend that to "Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Kaunda!" But the point here is that you might think that the NS article was a denunciation of dictatorship. What a hope! The writer was their "Africa expert", the same John Hatch who used to defend in the same NS the régime of that even worse black Hitler, Nkrumah. The article was an apologia from beginning to end. And to hell with those who rot in tyrants' gaols. These inverted racialists scream for "One Man, one vote" in South Africa or Rhodesia. Quite right, too. Why shouldn't blacks have votes> But when Kaunda or Nyerere, these pseudo-socialist darlings of the lefties, effectively decree "All blacks, no votes!" (for what is a vote without a choice?), the lefties organise no demos, break no embassy windows (not that emotional outbursts of that nature are any use, of course). They really are inverted racialists who say that black subjects of leaders like Kaunda whom lefties have spent their lives arse-licking are not fit for votes.

L. E. Weidberg