FACES OF ZAMBIA

 KK:’THE EPITOME OF ZAMBIA’.

Perhaps a man who needs no introduction at all; Zambia’s founding father; Dr. Kenneth Kaunda is a household name in his native Zambia. Born in the Northern region of Zambia in 1924, Kenneth Kaunda’s parents, Reverend David Kaunda and Helen Kaunda hailed from neighboring Malawi who came into Zambia as missionaries.

Thus, there is no doubt that odds were not in his favor to be Zambia’s ‘savior’ or indeed its inspirational figurehead in the country’s fight to lose the shackles of colonialism. 

But time and again society has often failed to unwrap or rather see what lies behind a seemingly a plebeian individual in its taxonomy of who qualifies to be a superman or heroine. 

The same can be said of Dr Kaunda who is dotingly referred to as KK in the international headlines. A qualified teacher, KK taught in a number of schools for years before discovering his ‘true purpose’ in life.

 In 1951 he parted ways with the teaching profession to become the Organizing Secretary of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress. In the late 1950s, Kaunda broke away from the ANC and formed his own political umbrella called the Zambia National Congress (ZANC). 

The ZANC mission was to promote the rights of the predominantly black communities in the country. But, the story of ZANC was short-lived when the party was banned for what the colonial masters referred to as ‘an upsurge of civil disobedience’ by ZANC.

 If the British colonial masters thought that they had managed to halt KK’s political drives by banning ZANC, then they were in for a rude shock. After noting that ZANC was not the party that would take him into ‘the promised land’, KK had to find an alternative political movement that would help him to achieve his political enterprises. 

UNIP, short for United National Independence Party! Yes that is the political party that would take Kaunda to the mountain top in 1964 when his allure magnetized the Zambians to him thereby making him and his UNIP party the immediate post-independence regime of Zambia.

And that is how a son of Malawian immigrants defied the odds and achieved the unimaginable. KK may have scripted Zambian history with his name, but he was not finished.

 As leader of one of the front line states in Post-Colonial Africa, KK would play a crucial role in aiding other regional states to attain political freedom. 

Indeed, it is now a public secret that Kaunda, often served as a buffer between the states in Southern Africa that were predominantly white and the independent states in the north that were predominantly black.

Thus so, KK shifted the rhythm of the mantra of his name from national boundaries to becoming a formidable and larger than life global personality. 

 Back in the country, Dr Kaunda’s UNIP party would shape the country’s political path for decades making him one of the most revered political figures of the country.

 The popular ‘One Zambia, One Nation’ Slogan which is a glorified aphorism to this day was coined by the KK regime. They say all dynasties eventually fall, and Kaunda and his UNIP party were no exception to this law of nature.

After more than two decades of serving as President, Zambians became disenchanted with Kaunda’s policies and after pressure, he voluntarily accepted the country to start another political chapter, that of multiparty politics. In 1991, he was defeated by a trade unionist, Dr Frederick Chiuluba of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy. 

It is now three decades since the fall of Kaunda and yet his political journey continues to make headlines. His supporters continue to color his political flight as the one that brought Independence and improve the living conditions of the Zambians. 

On the other side of the coin however are his critics who argue that Kaunda had turned into a ‘dictator’, even citing the ‘wamuyaya’ and the ‘Kumulu lesa, Kaunda Panshi’ catchphrases that characterized KK’s rule in the evenings of his term as President.