SANCTIMONIOUS EXPIRED FORCE
IT is quite unseemly for the so-called retired eminent citizens to use privations created by Covid-19 to champion a political cause under the guise of civic education.
It is disingenuous to suggest that the organisation is intended for Civic education. Civics is taught in schools, and outside of a pedagogical setting this is called politics.
It is common knowledge that the pandemic has created dire economic circumstances which are yet to reach their peak with rising infection, mortalities, and as the collateral negative economic effects manifest. Adversity is undoubtedly, fertile ground for ready political capital, but taking advantage of these circumstances to promote a political agenda is wrong.
The eminent and some not remotely eminent persons would have done well to enter the political arena and join the fray to exercise their civic duty than cower behind an NGO, that claims not to be political per se, whatever this means.
This country has been through very difficult and trying times including, drought which affected electricity generation, flooding which has damaged homes and literally rendered thousands of families food insecure, arson and gassing attacks which are yet to be explained and a general economic malaise.
We, as a newspaper suffered an arson attack in which an attempt was made to burn our offices through an incendiary attack.
Aristotle, the Greek philosopher who coined the term politics also defined the golden mean, being the moral centre, which exists between excess and deficiency.
He also coined the Seven Heavenly Virtues being Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Justice, Temperance and Prudence.
The manifesto or foundation statement of this organisation is a total deviation from the moral mean. It is instead a bitter and confrontational document that leaves very little room to judge as to the mental frame of those who drafted it.
The bitterness is extreme, completely eschewing the notion that the history of man and of humanity is the history of the redeeming love of God.
President Edgar Lungu’s Government is made up of mortals, fallible human beings who also have redeeming virtues as they contribute towards God’s creative purpose. To suggest therefore that governance has disintegrated to irredeemable levels is neither fair nor moral.
It is morally unconscionable to try and replicate in Zambia the Malawian model which saw youth demonstrations masterminded by the Human Rights Defender Coalition (HRDC) and the Public Affairs Committee (PAC) which was a pressure group of religious communities and related activist groups.
The greatest tragedy is the abuse of the generation shift to recruit the services of the youth in a campaign that evokes primordial sentiments of envy, greed and jealousy to mask the deep political intent of those who previously had but squandered their chance to make this country a better place. They cannot now in retirement, hope to make up for lost opportunity.
Your time is gone.