Anyone who read my last blog will know that I have found much to admire and learn from in Zambia. But that does not mean I have been oblivious to some of the less admirable aspects of life here. There are both mundane daily challenges, such as my bicycle commute where the combination of some drivers’ lack of spatial awareness, brakes that passed their best by date some time in antiquity and an apparently sincere belief that cars have right of way in all circumstances at the expense of pedestrians and cyclists alike, frequently raise my blood pressure. And then there are the far from mundane challenges that blight life, more of which later.
Continuing the humourous and sometimes farcical observations first, anyone who has spent time here in Lusaka will be able to empathise with the following list: the public buses, currently undergoing an expensive transition from blue to white with an orange stripe for no other reason than the government said so, where up to twenty people fit into a vehicle the size of a VW campervan and where legroom and headroom would best suit a pre-pubescent child; the diet, a huge amount of nshima combined with various local vegetables (healthy so far) but then washed down with the most sugar-filled drinks and sweets known to man (what’s the point in healthy eating when everyone has such an acute sense of morbidity?); the abundance, and wastage, of water and plastic, the former used liberally to wash cars, water the grass and even dampen the dust (contradicting my preconception that water was a scarce resource in Africa) whilst the latter lies strewn absolutely everywhere, blighting the landscape, the wildlife and the people – no such thing as a carrier bag policy here; the aforementioned cars, complete with less fuel than required for any journey, with an obligatory broken windscreen, brakes iffy and deteriorating, shock absorbers removed to even up the ride and yet intent on using the wave-esque dirt tracks whenever the traffic backs up, which is always; the drivers themselves, not often displaying signs of having passed a driving test and sometimes, such as the driver who had to place his foot on the brake with his hands and operated the accelerator with his crutch (a disability acquired after a car accident of course) just downright dangerous; the power cuts, often causing water supply issues, which seem to occur just as you are about to dish up food or whilst covered in soap; and finally the Zambian time keeping, at best described as late, at worst as just tomorrow.
Then there is the more sinister side to life here, often challenging the norms that I just take for granted and expected would be obligatory for a Commonwealth country to observe. One of the worst of these, officially at least, and shocking for me in light of the hoo-hah created in the UK by the extradition of Abu Qatada, was the revelation that evidence given under torture is admissible in court, a judgement upheld by the Supreme Court in 2010; added to the existence of the death penalty, police brutality and corruption, and gender and sexual orientation discrimination, human rights legislation, much maligned in the UK, feels disturbingly far away. Even more disturbingly when I first arrived was the discovery that summary justice meted out by the people is far from uncommon; from beatings in the school playground for alleged child thieves, not just ignored but even endorsed by some teachers, to unlawful killings in public, reported and justified on TV, for those old enough to know better (in a country where the criminal age is 8). I can’t remember who said you can tell a lot about a country from the state of its jails; well, one example here in Lusaka is of a jail built for 100, holding 1000, men, women and children together, where sleeping lying down is the prerogative of the strong or permissive. Potentially effective as a deterrent, far from such as a rehabilitation tool, the justice ministry has a lot to work on.
Just as perniciously for the rule of law and hence the likelihood of and propensity to development, what could at its best be described as reliance upon charity and at its worst as downright corruption is the underlying thrall to capital amongst the ruling classes. This is hardly surprising for the poor in a country where 60% of the rural population still manage on less than $1 per day, thereby missing the United Nations Millennium Development Goal. But what I find both remarkable and saddening is the topsy turvy nature of this culture when compared to the UK context with which I am familiar. Whilst we British, along with many other Western democracies, are struggling to change a culture of benefits, pensions and entitlements, created with the best of intentions, immediately anachronistic, abused ever since and steering us towards an Argentinian-style financial collapse, the people of Zambia know nothing of such privilege.
Indeed, the industriousness and ingenuity of the populace here would shame many workers in the UK, let alone the scroungers; just witness the abundance of street side salesmen and the willingness of almost any car owner to become a temporary taxi. The flip side to that coin is that the expectation of entitlement and handout belongs to those who should know better in various leadership and administration roles. Whilst this is not always the fault of the leaders after years of charity (both good and bad), when this becomes the example, even if it is just perception and allegation in many cases, there is a problem.All of which makes the conclusion of the last blog the more remarkable. The fact that people here do seem generally happy in the face of such inequalities and despite such role models is as surprising as it is admirable. That said, the opportunity for the leaders to change, to set an example, create, foster and observe a proper rule of law and thereby to encourage development is there to be seized.
Posted in 2013
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