ZED Chronicles (2024)

13/10/2022

SECURITIZATION

Ever wondered how nations or their leaders come to label something or someone a matter of national security? Who qualifies to label something or someone a security threat?

Take specific examples. From the perspective of the US, North Korea is a security concern, primarily because of its nuclear arsenal or nuclear threats. India regards Pakistan in the same light. Both Russia and the USA regard each other as security threats.

Securitization or the process of labeling a situation or someone a matter of security interest is a subjective process fraught with errors of judgment, egocentrism, arrogance, and hidden agendas. By the same process, nations cook up tensions, war, and death.

Just about every war and the resulting deaths and destruction of property and damage to the environment is avoidable and often unnecessary. The reasons nations give to go to war can easily be dismissed and replaced with cooperation.

If North Korea has nuclear weapons, instead of bombing it, you cooperate to secure the arsenal. This was the formula employed by Reagan and Gorbachev leading to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START. Instead of going to war over nuclear weapons, the world agreed on the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, NPT.

This framework can be used even in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Using the concept of securitization, Russia characterized Ukraine’s intention to join NATO as a security threat. Furthermore, Russia characterized the intention as the US systematically moving its war machinery to its doorsteps following the expansion of NATO membership.

The US may have characterized the Ukraine membership of NATO as a matter of national security. Having a NATO member who is as geographically close to Russia as Ukraine is may have stood out in the US defense strategy as a great accomplishment. But both the Russian and the US characterizations or securitization processes needed not to escalate to the current ugly scenes we are witnessing.

Security threats are cooked up in human heads as social constructs, and in the head, they can be contained, shredded, and never see the field of action. But when war or brute force replaces peaceful means of conflict resolution, it signals cognitive dysfunctionality.

05/06/2022

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT

SUBJECT: ABOLISH MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND MEDIA

To describe and justify its functions and existence, the Zambian government says, “As a focal point for national information gathering and dissemination, MIBS has a major responsibility to co-ordinate and facilitate the operations of the media ...”

For starters, no single ministry must be designated with the responsibility to gather information generated in every other ministry and government department. Each ministry can and does generate and disseminate information to identified audiences. This is the reason why each of them has a public relations officer with the same responsibility.

My suggestion is that disband the Ministry Information and Media and distribute the officers therein to the PR offices of other ministries. The current staff levels of normally one officer in the PR office does not reflect the importance of communication in an information age. Each ministry must be staffed with officers whose skill sets should reflect modern communication strategies that range from traditional to social media and other media arts.

Instead, the office of the Secretary to Cabinet must host the office of the Chief Government Spokesperson at the level of Permanent Secretary. Under this officer should be a staff compliment with communication and policy analytical skills that can study communication trends in the country and beyond and identify communication opportunities.

Working closely with the media team at State House and Public Relations Officers in various ministries and quasi-government bodies, the Chief Government Spokesperson can strategize effective ways of gathering and disseminating government information. Under this office shall fall the Zambia National Information Services, ZANIS, which is the technical and PR wing of government.

It is not the duty of the office of the proposed Chief Government Spokesperson to speak on policy issues that can be handled ably by line ministries. Instead, this officer will be communicating cabinet decisions and clarifying overall government policy. Alternatively, this officer could facilitate the engagement of the Secretary to Cabinet directly with the media from time to time. Otherwise, his or her task will be that of the face and voice of the Zambian government.

Under the office of the Chief Government Spokesperson should be several units that together define communication and media arts. For instance, there should be a department that deals with traditional media; social media; literary works such as books, book writers, publishing houses, along with film production, artforms such as sculpture, painting; and libraries, etc. Each of these media arts are potential forms of communicating any kind of information and message that government may desire.

Through film for instance, the government of Turkey has promoted anti-terrorism messages; through film, the government of South Africa has shared the various strategies that were employed in the struggle for freedom. Through sculpture, several countries in Europe have told the various aspects of their countries’ history. There is so much that communication is and what it can do to promote the Zambian identity and unity.

In case someone is worried about the media without a government Ministry: yes, only then shall the media achieve a self-regulatory framework. For the public broadcaster, ZNBC, the BBC model and how its board of governors is selected is a very good model to borrow. Don’t worry about the Independent Broadcasting Authority, IBA. There are sufficient examples around the globe to secure its independence and professional conduct.

Mr. President, you were elected on the promise of a new governance environment. The media space is one area you must not leave untouched. Disband the Ministry of Information and Media and end the temptation to interfere with media operations and their independence.

Kellys Kaunda
MA in New Media, Governance and Democracy (University of Leicester)
Former MISA-Zambia Chairperson

5th June 2022

05/06/2022

HH VISIT TO ESWATINI

To some extent, Eswatini is to South Africa what Slovakia is to Germany – both countries’ economies are dominated by their economically powerful neighbors.

“You have everything you need in Germany in terms of potential investment partners”, a foreign office official told Ambassador Mukwita when I accompanied him to present his credentials as ambassador to that country on a non-residential basis.

Indeed, the Slovak economy is dominated by Germany with all its manufacturing companies scattered all over the small country. It means that if you have economic relations with Germany, you have in essence economic relations with the Slovak Republic.

That’s pretty much the scenario with Eswatini, a country significantly dependent on South Africa for her economic survival as several of her powerful neighbor’s companies are also to be found there. So, in a way, if you have economic ties with South Africa, you might as well be dealing with Eswatini indirectly.

However, Eswatini is a state distinguished by its own political system, economic policies, culture, and traditions. The country conducts international affairs informed by its own foreign policy and national interests. It has prioritized agriculture and textiles and has been an active participant in the US AGOA initiative.

If Zambia wishes to be a significant player in southern Africa, COMESA, and the Africa Continental Free trade Area, it must not leave any inch of land untouched by its economic influence. Bolstered by leader-centric diplomacy, the business community must be facilitated, in every possible way, to extend its trade links with every country thus increasing jobs at home.

But I must add a cautionary note here: it is not uncommon for Zambian Presidents to visit other countries in the region and visit business houses in those countries. It is not uncommon for their PR teams to whip up emotions of optimism that there is a ‘new dawn’ in Zambia’s diplomatic relations or economic diplomacy.

In the absence of a strategic plan available to the public for scrutiny regarding implementation of the interests generated by these Presidential visits and interactions, the country, I am afraid, may be watching PR stunts devoid of any substance.

29/05/2022

THE DEATH PENALTY MUST GO – HICHILEMA

One of the biggest stories of this year’s Africa Freedom Day celebrations is the announcement by President Hakainde Hichilema that the death penalty must go. “We will work with Parliament to see how this could be done”, the President says.

I participated in the Lusaka Provincial Constitutional Review Commission debates several years ago prior to the 2016 amendments signed by President Lungu at Heroes Stadium. During the Lusaka provincial debates, the death penalty was one of the hotly contested subjects where calls for its removal from the constitution were vehemently opposed.

To abolish it, the UPND government and its alliance partners will need first to remind themselves of this period and the mood that characterized these debates. But if my memory serves me better, opposition parties have had the notorious tendency of shunning national debates in this country. I am not sure if UPND was in attendance.

If not, they may not have the benefit of history which may disadvantage them now that they want to deal with the issue that has in the past received considerable attention. I remember on several occasions UPND shunning constitutional debates feigning all kinds of excuses even when they owed it to the Zambian people to attend and add their voices.

Let’s see now how they will lead on the matter seeing that they are historically handicapped because they routinely shunned these debates. However, be that as it may, opinions may have changed over the years and Zambians may want to abolish the death penalty.

Traditional arguments include the deterrence rationale which suggests that the death penalty deters would-be offenders from premeditated murder while the biblical rationale states that God allowed or ordered its use. From a human rights perspective, the argument is that no one, including the state, has the right to take another person’s life. The latter further calls the act barbaric and out of touch with the human rights culture of the 21st Century.

My personal position is ambivalent. During the Lusaka debates, I supported the death penalty on the premise that the ancient community participated in taking the life of the offender by stoning him/her to death. Watching a person die under such circumstances hopefully awakened in the participants the importance of life as they saw the offender wince in pain and agony as they lost their breath.

But most importantly, the act reminded everyone who took part that their sins led to the death of the innocent son of God thus grinding deep into their conscious the love of God for humanity. Lately however, I am beginning to think that when Christ died on the cross, the symbolism of the death penalty ceased its spiritual significance because we no longer need anybody’s death to remind us of the love of God.

We no longer need sacrificial lambs and physical symbols because, this side of the cross, we live by faith.

29/05/2022

National Interest vs Balancing Interests - a diplomatic perspective of AFRICOM

Let me start off by making declarative statements. (1) There is no such thing as national interest because nations are never homogenous (2) Nations do not seek national interests but instead seek to balance interests.

The diplomatic space has become dizzingly crowded with multiple players and multiple issues. Consequently, the destiny of these players has become mutually bound together.

The most eloquent illustration of this common destiny is the signing and ratification by all UN member states of the 17 SDGs in 2015.

So, whatever individual nations pursue, another nation or more are equally interested. If America places on the table security interests, there is a very good chance Zambia is interested, too.

In a balancing act, Zambia will have to consider how this might affect her neighbor Zimbabwe for instance who might be concerned that the US may have a clandestine mission against it.

Zambia may also need to take into account what her colleagues in SADC and AU would think. This balancing act, and not necessarily national interests is what modern diplomacy is made of.

The ability to negotiate and navigate the contours of global governance is the most desirable quality of modern diplomats and statesmen and women.

ZED Chronicles

13/10/2022

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