Food for Thought - Gracewell Mwansa

It was interesting to read your exchanges on the state of our beloved Zambia triggered by the ‘Nevers Mumba for President of Zambia’ subject matter floated by Jones Ilukena. Yes, it is important that you who seem to form what I term the young emerging enlightened group should also be concerned about the state of the country. The antipathy that most of us, especially the learned and professionals, have to the affairs of the country should change and usher in activism and agitation for positive change in the country. On your recent and future exchanges, I have the following questions and issues for your consideration:

1. Are you just going to end up exchanging views in cyberspace, sort of mental gymnastics, without, at some point, a channel/platform to express your consensus to the country? I am assuming here that there will be sufficient common ground amongst you and your peers regarding the way forward for the country on a number of issues. Hopefully, those of you who agree on various issues will form a critical mass of opinion worthy of representation. Demographically, the majority in our country is under 40 and I am assuming that nearly all of you are in this category. The over 40s like me are in the minority although we constitute a sizeable number in the governance or is it misgovernance of the country.

2. Change costs. It may be necessary for one or more of you, in the near future, to begin taking part in the governance of Zambia, far fetched as some of you may think. If one of you wanted to stand as a Councillor, MP etc., (Martha intimated that she wouldn’t mind running for the presidency. Keep your dream alive young lady for one day it may come to pass!) using the current legitimate avenues, would many of you be willing to pull your resources together to promote him/her to the constituency/electorate? In other words would you be willing to put your money or other resources where your mouths are in support of your colleague?

What I am nudging you to do is to also begin entertaining ways of making your consensus count on the way forward on some problems that beset the country. This would mean that as you interact, one would be picking and compiling strands/themes on which you agree a way forward. When there is sufficient common ground identified you may want to have a further brain storming session and also chart the next steps at a location where a number of you would attend. I am told that we Zambians talk a lot but do little to actualize what we talk about. In fact it has been noted that if talking were one of the Olympic pursuits, we Zambians would be in contention for Gold or Silver!!

Am I jumping the gun for you?

With best wishes