NEW HERITAGE PARTY REMEMBERS KK

Today, we in the New Heritage Party remember Kenneth David Kaunda(KK) the First Republican President of the Republic of Zambia.

KK was the embodiment of the Zambian ideal, of its essence; love for God and fellow man, integrity, courage in the face of great adversity, independence of mind and action.

# Love for God and fellow man, KK founded Zambia as its President after leading the territory to Independence from the British colonisers, and developed the Philosophy of Humanism as the guiding Ideology of the nation.

# The Philosophy of Humanism was based on KK’s African heritage of communal living and where wealth of the country - land belonged to all the people and everyone was their brother’s keeper and therefore meant that private Capitalist, individualist wealth at the expense of everyone else, was frowned upon, in preference for common state ownership of the means of wealth creation. Hence his effecting the 1968 Matero Declaration in which the Zambian people through their government took majority shareholding in previously privately owned businesses in all the sectors of the economy.

#This was a Philosophy also based on KK’s Christian beliefs in the supremacy of God as the creator of all human beings and that these human beings were created equal in the image of God. This belief, was the basis for the struggle for independence for Zambia and our support for the liberation of the entire southern African region and the continent at great cost to the nation in both human life and material terms.

# This was a Philosophy that entailed that Zambia was in international relations, a friend to all other nations and people’s, adopting even the founding date of the United Nations Organisation as its own independence day, to emphasise KK’s deep belief in the concept of the whole world with it’s peoples as one large family of nations, all equal regardless of size , military and economic strength.

# This belief in the equality of man regardless of race, skin colour, creed, tribe, gender or any other superficial human differences was the corner stone of the concept of a country; united and indivisible, giving rise to the national motto and slogan of “ONE ZAMBIA ONE NATION” which in the end shall remain the enduring legacy of the Late Founding

President of the Republic of Zambia, His Excellency, Dr. Kenneth David Kaunda.

# This belief in the one world concept, and independence of mind led him to take Zambia into the the Non- Aligned Movement of the World, which was a community of countries that cherished their independence in the era of the Bipolar Cold war in which there was of no war but at the same time not having real peace, but living under the threat of mutual destruction of the earth through nuclear, chemical, biological weapons and other distractive human activities such as unfair trade practices and wanton distraction of the environment out of greed for resources.

# Therefore, having thus understood the Man, the times and the leader that KK was, we at the NHP are in no doubt that had he been alive today, KK would not have supported the war in the Ukraine, neither would he have taken sides as the current UPND government of Mr. HAKAINDE HICHILEMA has done; voting against Russia another all weather friend of Zambia, as was Ukraine itself which was until the break-up of the Soviet Union a part of Russia.

# Had KK been alive today we in the NHP are very clear what he would have said about the war in Ukraine, he would have said to both Ukraine and Russia; ‘Stop it at once the both of you, stop the violence at once and resolve your differences peacefully around the negotiation table’.

# Had KK been alive today he would not have ended at admonishing Russia and Ukraine, but would have been quick and categorical to call out the others, especially the NATO countries and their European allies, to stop sending arms to the Ukraine thereby prolonging the war and the deaths of thousands of innocent people just so they can make money for their ailing economies , and their war based industries.

# Had KK been alive today he would have said to the whole world and us Zambians “sheemuna banee! and his late great friend Mainza Chona would intoned in his characteristically Sheemu!” shame on you! for not suing for peace around the world, and most importantly shame on us the current political leaders in Zambia from across the political divide for proposing, promoting and perpetrating violence in the nation.

To conclude, let us honour KK’s legacy by living by some of his fine principles, of:

#love for our fellow men, # integrity in conduct of national affairs and shunning corruption, standing up for the downtrodden in our community by not making policies which economically and socially disadvantage our people,

# independence of mind and ensuring the independence of our national heritage, Our Land!

# Long live the KK lagacy, Long live Zambia!