Suljani, on http://ipamanning.blogspot.com (now changed), made comments on my article on the CEE Act (see article on this blog)
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Mr Manning, I just want to respond to your comments and correct some of your history about Zambia.
I am the great grandson of Donald Siwale who was amongst the group of Zambians that began the first organised struggle against colonial rule in 1912. They formed what was called the Mwenzo Welfare Association with David Kaunda (father to Kenneth Kaunda), Peter Sinkala and others. I was fortunate enough to talk to my great grandfather before he died in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I was a young boy but I remember he used to talk about what he called "Colour Bar" that was practiced by the Colonial Administration before independence. In other words, there were separate inferior schools and other public services for blacks, indians and coloureds whereas the best schools and public services were the reserved for whites. Kabulonga for instance was a white only school in the pre indepdendence era. Kenneth Kaunda became a vegetarian initially in protest to blacks having to be served meat out of the back and white in the front.There was also the "Hut Tax" which was introduced to force blacks off the land so that they would be forced to migrate to the Copperbelt to provide cheap labour for the mines. Blacks who refused to pay the Hut Tax had their homes burned and were forced off their land.
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Manning: The struggle against colonial rule in 1912, as you put it, was more the embryonic beginnings of national identity rather than a struggle against some terrible invader. The BSA Company had, after all, just recently put down the slave trade and released villagers from stockaded villages unconnected by paths. The state of the few people living in what is now Zambia in those times was terrible indeed, not helped by the colonial invasions of the Mokololo under Sebituane and the Ngoni under Mpezeni; colonialism being as old as man itself, and certainly not something peculiarly European. Without the coming of European enlightenment to Zambia, who knows what state society would be in here. I think we British still thank the Romans for enlightening us and drawing us out of our primitive state. There certainly was a colour bar here, based more on class issues than race. The hut tax was introduced in order to persuade villagers, who had never before taken jobs, to work. Roads and railways needed to be built. All unfortunate of course, but only if you would like Zambians to have remained as pure subsistence villagers, without education and development. There were refusals to pay hut tax, and discipline was imposed, undoubtedly at times harsh; such is progress which the history of all nations exhibit. But the British Administration was one of the most enlghtened the world has seen. The Zambia law is British law, for which we all should be thankful.
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Suljani: Further, the mineral wealth that was obtained from the copper mines right up to indepndence went straight to the British Treasury. Please tell me when and where the British compensated the Zambian people for the mineral wealth they expropriated for the better part of 100 years from Zambia.
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Manning: This is an old canard put about by early politicians, particularly Kenneth. The British SA. Co. who introduced the wheel here, had a royal charter, and was not part of the Imperial Government. What mining activities were in place at the time of the building of the railway line at the start of the 20th Century? Kansanshi and the bare beginnings of others. That and other development was paid for by the Company until 1922. If you care to go into the records you will see that Britain made no money from North-Western Rhodesia, North-Eastern Rhodesia or Northern Rhodesia. I might just as well ask you where our compensation is for putting down the slave trade, building the railway, the telegraph line, putting in most of the infrastructure as exists at present in the country, let alone fighting two World Wars (with the help of a number of Northern Rhodesians of all colours), which if lost, would have not enabled you to enjoy the present freedoms now in existence.
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Suljani: This applies to many African countries where the colonial situation existed.
So I really do not understand why it should cause such offence to you when the indeginous people of Zambia (or put bluntly, the Black people) want a stake in their motherland. You go to England, to Germany, to Sweden, to Norway, to Finland... the indeginous people of those countries control something like 70-80% of their economy. Look at the outcry all over Europe over a few thousand immigrants coming in from Africa and Asia to take lowly paying jobs. What would happen if African and Asian immigrants dominated 80 - 90% of the economy in the UK, Germany or France when just having living in the same neighbourhood causes public outcry.
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Manning: I take offence because the history of the BEE in South Africa is that it has not benefitted the poor at all, merely the few having close ties with the ruling hierarchy; and the NEPAD peer review process, carried out by indigenous leaders of Africa, stated this clearly in their peer review report of South Africa. We all want the people of Zambia to have a stake in the country, but you do that by ushering in investment, not as is the case for medium to small investors, discouraging it. Western countries rely on immgration for growth. However, immigration purely by people without technical know-how creates more problems than solutions. But when immigrants such as the Ugandan Asians, expelled by Amin - for just such reasons as you seem to favour, came to Britain, the beneficial effect on the economy was considerable.
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Suljani: Please Mr Manning, we are a new and enlightened generation of Zambians and Africans. We have lived and been educated in the West. We appreciate that in a global village their has to be bilateral and multilateral cooperation in business but that cooperation must involve major participation of the local people.
We would be foolish to think otherwise. China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong have all developed by ensuring major participation of their local people in the economy (in other words CITIZENS ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT). Why then do you condem it when South Africa does and Zambia rather late emulates this.
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Manning: I can only repeat, the NEPAD Peer Review for South Africa condemmed the BEE Act, crime and corruption as posing the greatest threat to that country. Legislating for greater participation of local people in the economy, particularly if racially based, is both counter productive and offensive. Rather the development of smart partnership, as recentlty called for by the President, and as I have been advocating for years, is the way forward. Many Zambians already have businesses which cannot prosper because of the lack of technical knowledge and capital. A Government policy which does not encourage investment will result in just such a situation as pertains here now. After all you can go to my country, be resident, and obtain citizenship after five years. Let a foreigner try that here. And ask your M.P. to pose the following question in the National Assembly: "How many of those holding investment certificates, and protected under the Investment Development Agency Act of 1996 - and the now repealed Investment Act, have had their self-employed permits denied by the Ministry of Home Affairs; and how many without investment certificates but running successful businesses, have been so denied". Let me know what you discover. However, it will merely show that Zambians do follow the policy of Zambia for the Zambians; all very well were you to eschew the 40% or so we have been pumping into your budget since your Independence. You can't have it both ways, as the Bishop said to the actress.
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COMMENT EX-AFRICA: Well said. Mr Suljani appears to suffer from acute myopia as well as
ignorance! Maybe he should take a closer look at what the "Yellow"
colonialists are up to in the mining, construction and retailing industries
and the impact this has on Zambians and employment today. I saw a truck
full of frozen Chinese in Kabulonga heading to a building site the other
day in early am and not a single black man in their midst. I wondered what
had happened to CEE!
