LET us just face it, we as Zambians have become so polarised that there’s nothing that can be identified with us in the strictest sense.
We used to have Zambian music unfortunately our music got a lot of influence such that you don’t even know what music we have as official Zambia music. Including the national anthem that now sounds so foreign if you want to know what am talking about listen to the national anthem that is played when parliament is sitting.
Today, we can hardly be identified with any particular dress code with only an exception of the Lozi traditional dress code that has survived to date.
It is very difficult to distinguish a Zambian from a British or American when it comes to dress codes because ours unfortunately is so influenced by those two countries.
That is why we cannot even be surprised when we see changes in traditional activities like kitchen parties, amatebetos and Icilanga mulilo because all these have gotten so many influences from other cultures such that they have even lost their true meaning.
But what can we do? We simply have to move with time I guess.
Note that even ifinyau dances, chimwemwe dance and gwaragwara at traditional ceremonies have been affected because we have allowed ourselves to be influenced that easily.
The question we can be asking at this stage is whether we should be pushing ourselves to our old ways or we must accept the norm now and move with time?
The point I can make for now is that time happened and it is the reason we are here today and therefore there should not even be any reason to beat oneself or condemn each other because time just caught up with us period, because we dropped our guard on our values and the norms we subscribed to.
BINWELL MPUNDU,
Nkana MP.
Author
