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I have
promised to write so much, and each time I
intend to hit the keyboard on a subject I
have promised to write, something always
intrudes. Lately, in my backwater country of
Zambia, chiefs (male and female) have
suddenly realised that they can assert some
form of self-determination.
And this is in land. It seems
they have suddenly awoken to the fact that land is a
commercial commodity. Now they are on each other's
throats claiming this and that tract of land is in
their kingdom. Yet most so-called subjects do not
see a dime of the returns from the so-called chief's
leasing of land to Corporate business. Ironically,
years ago when the Barotse question arose, these are
the same fellows that sided with the government, on
what at the time they called a divisive issue. Isn't
every Jim and Jack of a chief running around giving
tracts of land to Corporate business divisive? Isn't
it an assertion of self-determination? Aren't they
simply asserting the right to determine their one's
own fate or course of action without compulsion?
It is in this context, that
instead of me first interrogating these so-called
chiefs, I share a piece I wrote nine (9) years ago.
".., a nation is
nothing much but an evolution of historical
romanticism!"
Read
"The Barotse Question -
Epitomising historical romanticism?" |
