The Musakanya Papers

The Musakanya Papers THE MUSAKANYA PAPERS THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITINGS OF VALENTINE MUSAKANYA EDITED BY MILES LARMER Lembani Trust LUSAKA http://sites.google.com/site/lembanitrust/ First published 2010 by the Lembani Trust Lusaka, Zambia Editorial matter and introduction Copyright © Miles Larmer 2010 Text Copyright © Kapumpe-Valentine Musakanya 2010 All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored into or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright owner. ISBN 978-9982-9972-3-2 Typeset in Gentium First, this book is dedicated to the emergence of a new Zambian spirit that is dedicated to accurate historical presentation and writing and to all those that will be encouraged by this book to write — for today and for the future. Second, but not least, this book is dedicated to Flavia Musonda Musakanya; this completes you now. You waited painfully for so many years, without any reward, for a platform of reason and accuracy in which your husband’s writings could be presented on unconditional terms. Table of Contents Foreword..............................................................................ix Acknowledgements...........................................................xiii Editor’s Introduction.........................................................xv Introduction.......................................................................xxi 1: Early life in the village and the town, 1932–50...............1 2: Kutama, 1950–53..............................................................13 3: Return to the Copperbelt, 1953–58................................16 4: Experiments in inter-racial politics, 1958....................20 5: The colonial civil servant and Cambridge, 1960–62....22 6: To Katanga and back, 1962–64........................................28 7: First years of independence, 1964–67...........................33 8: Disillusionment, 1967–68...............................................39 9: Minister of State, 1969–70..............................................44 10: Governor of the Bank of Zambia, 1970–72..................49 11: Going it alone, working for IBM, 1972–78...................53 12: Views on the one-party state, late 1970s....................56 13: Explaining the coup attempt of 1980..........................59 14: Independence Day arrest, 1980....................................62 15: The legal process , 1981–85..........................................71 16: Epilogue: life after death row, 1985–94.......................76 Appendices: Musakanya’s writings...................................79 vii viii Foreword The pages that follow reveal a process of transformation for one of Zambia’s most curious intellects. Valentine Shula Musakanya was born in rural Zambia, but became identified with urban development. He started school at the very late age of thirteen, but in later life was seen as a young achiever. Certainly he found himself in unique circumstances when at the age of twenty-six he was not only happily married, with a son, but also occupied the top position in the Northern Rhodesia African Civil Service. Musakanya’s meteoric rise was made possible by supportive parents and positive role models like Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula. It is interesting that Musakanya’s relationship with Nkumbula started on a rather sour note. Shortly after enrolling at Wusakile African School, Musakanya started play- ing truant and succeeded in avoiding classes for two months. Inevitably the game came to an end when the Attendance Officer reported that the new student had never attended classes. Musakanya senior then decided to per- sonally take his son to school the following morning. Had Valentine known what awaited him at the school, he might have been less nonchalant. On arrival at the headmaster’s office, Musakanya senior demanded that his son be punished in his presence. Harry Mwaanga Nkumbu- la obliged, with rather more enthusiasm than young Valentine would have wished. According to Musakanya, the caning that followed was ‘merciless’. But Nkumbula was not a merciless person. After administering the punish- ment, he asked kindly, why Valentine had played truant. Musakanya’s re- sponse was that he had felt insulted by being place in Sub A (the first grade of education) when he already knew how to read Bemba. Nkumbula was amused and decided to test the boy’s reading himself. Musakanya fluently read the Bemba texts given him and earned an instant promotion to Sub B, and three months later, to Standard 1. This was not the last time that Musakanya’s academic career was fast tracked. This episode however helps explain how someone who started school at such a late age ended up achieving so much in a relatively short space of time. It also explains Musakanya’s loyalty to Harry Mwaanga Nkum- bula. Many years later when the governing United National Independence ix Party decided to withdraw recognition of the office of Leader of the Opposi- tion, Musakanya, as Secretary to Cabinet, resisted moves to hastily evict Harry Nkumbula from the residence he occupied as Leader of the Opposition. Although Musakanya served as top civil servant in the UNIP government, he also maintained an excellent relationship with Harry Nkumbula. I know from personal experience that when Harry Nkumbula died, Valentine Musakanya was greatly saddened that he could not attend the funeral, on account of his incarceration by Zambia’s first president. That incarceration provides the sad backdrop to this book. Musakanya considered his detention by the one party state authority inevitable. Certain- ly his independence of mind and intellectual honesty would have made his relationship with Zambia’s autocratic and duplicitous regime very difficult. Valentine Shula Musakanya was nothing if not intellectually honest. A few years after Zambia’s Independence, he was angered when members of the UNIP youth brigade went around cities threatening and even assaulting women wearing mini skirts. The campaign was launched in defence of traditional Zambian culture which, according to UNIP, did not permit short dress- es. Musakanya could not help but observe that as a child in traditional rural Zambia his grandmother’s clothing was so scant that she was practically nude. Musakanya was not necessarily in favour of mini skirts. He was however concerned about distorting Zambian history for the sole purpose of justifying Government or Party policy. He was further concerned about Government involvement in what he saw as trivial matters to be dealt with by individuals and families. Musakanya saw Government’s willingness to romanticise Zam- bian culture and history and willingness to get involved in trivial matters of personal choice as the beginning of the abdication of responsibility, especial- ly at a time when it was plausible to blame all ills on the recently departed colonial administration. This in turn led to the belief that every problem created in the post-colonial era was temporary and easily solvable. Musakanya’s foresight is evident throughout this book and certainly when he comments on the then rare but noticeable practice of building poorly designed houses in areas not zoned for residential purposes. Whereas the official position was that these structures would not last long and the occu- pants would eventually find proper accommodation elsewhere, Musakanya recognised the structures as the beginnings of towns and suburbs. His sugges- tion was that while these settlements were still small and manageable, Gov- ernment should take services to them as the only effective way of preventing the mushrooming of slums. He summarised his position with the phrase; x ‘Towns are not made, they become’. Unfortunately this idea was dismissed. Other ideas were better received, however. Valentine was more successful in his promotion of science and technology. He established the Zambia Air Services Training Institute which was responsible for producing a large number of well trained Zambian pilots, shortly after Independence. He also created a network of colleges of technology across the country. Perhaps he is best remembered for the Nshimatic, designed to cook Nshima on a large scale, and popular with institutions like hospitals. It is regrettable that not a single avenue, street, road, building, airport, or institution has been named after Valentine Shula Musakanya. We must hope that this timely tribute to one of Zambia’s most innovative sons will be followed by official recognition of Mr. Musakanya’s contribution to Zambia. NC Puta-Chekwe July 2008 xi xii Acknowledgements Valentine Shula Musakanya left his writings with me prior to his death. It was always going to be a challenge to find collaborators who would enable the publication of his works. He was stooped in history and there were few reference points and avenues for these works in Zambia. I met Miles Larmer whilst he was engaged in his academic work on sub-saharan Africa. It was a natural development and I must confess that due to the depth of his research and knowledge on Zambia and VSM, it was occasionally a student-teacher relationship. Dr Larmer has pursued this publication to a point where most people would have given up, after many years of frustrating trips to Zambia on limited budgets and running into closed doors. He was nevertheless able to identify something that motivated him. Miles introduced

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