COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, NAME THEM ONE BY ONE!
'On the economic front, we should count our abundant human, natural and cultural resources as blessings too. We just need to train our human resources to take charge and add value to all our resources that we export to realise maximum benefits for the nation.
CHRISTIANS sing a song with the instructive lines: Count your blessings, name them one by one! As we listen to political campaign messages and go to the polls on August 12, 2021, we should take stock of what this nation of 18 million plus people is blessed with.
We have peace, we have human, natural and intangible cultural resources. To peace we should add unity, which has in recent times come under quite intense pressure, but we have triumphed over these challenges as one nation.
Since independence in 1964, our peace has often been tried and tested by various disruptive forces. Early in November 1965, just one year after independence, we faced an unprecedented economic crisis that should have disrupted the whole national economic and political wellbeing. The closure of Zambia's only operational key road and railway links to the coast in South Africa and Mozambique, by the rebel white minority regime in Southern Rhodesia arising from their unilateral dec-laration of independence (UDI) from Britain in 1965 put everything Zambian in jeopardy.
The alternative Benguela Railway through Demo-cratic Republic of Congo to Lobito Bay in Angola was already unusable due to the civil war in Congo and the war of liberation in An-gola.
Our leaders then opted for what seemed unthink-able; airlifting fuel from Dar es Salaam port in Tan-zania to Ndola In Zambia! Plane loads of fuel plied the Zambia skies daily, keeping the wheels of the economy running.
The gravel road from Kapiri Mposhi to Nakonde on the border with Tanza-nia was rendered unusable every rainy season. The frustration of fuel tankers and other vehicles getting stuck on this treacherous road earned it the name hell run; for drivers felt like driving in hell.
Many fuel tankers that got stuck in the mud could only be retrieved after the rainy season! Thus, Zam-bia hastily constructed the Tanzania-Zambia (TA-ZAMA) oil pipeline from Dar es Salaam to Ndola to transport crude oil.
This was followed by the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) via a Chinese loan of US$500 million to both Zambia and Tanzania. We counted our blessings and all Zambians applaud-ed.
No sooner had we count-ed these blessings than we were plunged into a very disruptive and costly lib-eration war on five fronts; Angola, Mozambique, Na-mibia. South Africa and Zimbabwe.
By virtue of South Afri-ca controlling South West Africa (Namibia, Zambia's neighbour), we were in di-rect contact with that hor-rific regime. We were the only neighbouring country that could hos4 refugees and could be used as a conduit route for refugees and guerrilla fighters from and to these five countries.
The white minority regimes in these territories often crossed into Zambia and caused mayhem in the name of the so-called “hot pursuit” of liberation fighters.
The bombing of the Chambeshi Bridge between Mpika and Kasama, the Chongwe Bridge in Chongwe near Lusaka, the bombing of the Chikumbi and Makeni refugee camps both outside Lusaka just showed how horrendous the brutality of the white regimes was. Many Zambian border areas were strewn with land mines that every now and then killed or maimed our citizens. When these wars fell silent with the independence of the five countries, we counted this as another of Zambia’s blessings. Since then, Zambia has had many other blessings, including the 1991 return to multi-party democracy. This was a mixed blessing as it brought with it massive job losses in the economic liberalisation that followed.
Yet, in spite of the job losses the Zambian economy opened up to foreign and local investors. Zambians began to own property again and to engage in business without fear of the Leadership Code which had barred public servants and politicians from owning businesses.
In the main, the return of plural politics has been celebrated as a blessing by Zambians. On the economic front, we should count our abundant human, natural and cultural resources as blessings too. We just need to train our human resources to take charge and add value to all our resources that we export to realise maximum benefits for the nation.
We should guide our youth and women towards the numerous startup and empowerment opportu-nities that are opening up throughout the country.
We should encourage Zambians at home and in diaspora to invest their re-sources in the many invest-ment opportunities, like the industrial yards that are being rolled in the coun-try's provincial capitals. This should be a blessing too, because in the next few years these investments will blossom into numer-ous jobs and incomes for our people.
However, although it is easy to count our blessings, it is equally important to bear in mind the various political potholes that may cause us to stumble and fall if we are not careful.
Chief among these is the propensity by some politi-cians to use ethnic cleav-ages to win or keep power. This should not be enter-tained by any voter.
People should be elected on the basis of their abili-ty to deliver development; nothing else. The numer-ous achievements we have made and the we have overcome in the last five years must spur us towards even harder work and many more blessings.