By DARLINGTON CHILUBA
IT took over 30 years for the legacy of Thomas Sankara to be unearthed and viewed from a perspective absent of authorised prejudice by those in power.
During that time, Burkina Faso’s history had all been written and resolved to leave him in the past. His successor and schemer, (former) President Compaoré was a close ally of Sankara with whom they had fought to seize power and rule that country in the 1980s.
Typically, it is difficult to intervene when an accuser was a close confidante of the slain. After all, it is easy to resolve that accusations made by a person who claims to have been close to the accused are legitimate.
Patrice Lumumba was another such casualty of history. His name, much like Sankara, became a red flag to discuss openly because the truth undermined the status quo. Careers and livelihoods had been built on their graves.
In the interim, the call to rectify those stolen legacies were fought with subtle and overt detraction because those in power at that time, benefitted from that distortion.
As fate would have it, in 2021, the former president of Burkina Faso, Compaoré and over 10 others were found guilty of involvement in the murder of Sankara. Lumumba, too, was honoured posthumously.
One would like to bring it home and draw a parallel to the case of the late Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe whose break with the then UNIP led government is believed to have resulted in his being minimised in our history.
Whatever the optics, the memory of Kapwepwe is one that resonates well with those that would eventually fight for the reintroduction of plural politics in 1991, an act that resulted in the wind of change blowing across the whole African continent.
Political opportunism is not new at all. In fact, some legacies exist entirely on such a premise to the extent that international recognition is limited; any assumed nobility or suggested integrity is linked directly to personal gain and opportunism.
Others are internecine, for example, an arsonist would burn his house down and claim to be a sole survivor.
It is in this instance that positive portions of the predecessor’s legacy are transferred to the incumbent through use of government institutions, not least the legislature and judiciary. Such half-footed legacies rely on loud praise to escape scrutiny.
To be fair, such opportunism goes far beyond just politics. The business world is known to be cut-throat and human beings in general can be deleterious in pursuit of self.
While the motivation in finance could be monetary, the drive in politics leans towards legacy and the favour of the electorate – known as the numbers. Perception dictates opinion both positively and negatively. And politics is the typical game of numbers.
By hook or crook, people have made it to high offices through honesty and manipulation in equal measure. This is why the politics of regionalism remain relevant because that is all some legacies need. Widespread strongholds require intellectual vision and relevance beyond one’s familiar territory.
Hard earned legacies that have fought for people far and wide are anchored on real principles and unconquerable fortitude that connects with the mass humanity that we all have at our core.
Lumumba believed in the integrity of the African beyond the European mischaracterisation. Sankara believed as such. Kapwepwe equally believed in the preservation of African independence and a guard against the lurking head of imperialism through the back door of foreign investment.
This belief is not in socialism or capitalism but in the integral value of a human being. Not in loose arguments about privatisation or nationalisation, but in the value of liberty to exercise mental capital. If anything, nationalisation is pointless if citizens are not allowed to know the value of the nationalised assets. In reality both nationalisation and privatisation are meant to be avenues of transferring value to citizens. If misunderstood, they could both lead to poverty.
For Lumumba and Sankara, the tide turned against their detractors because eventually self-preservation becomes distant from national goals. For the sake of debate, continuity is different from opportunism in that, the former creates a segway to advance shared principles and aligns or mutates them to the current environment.
For example, the liberation movement and drive for the political emancipation of Africa for which Zambia was famous in the 1970s and 80s under the second republic; became the bedrock for the diplomatic and peace missions of the third republic in the 90s and 2000s.
This is continuity whose record is evident even in the transformation of the Organisation of African Union (OAU) into the African Union (AU) during both the second and third republics of Zambia.
If the national flag has flown higher is subject to debate. This legacy of continuity exists because it went beyond familiar tribal, territorial and regional short-sightedness of political opportunism.
It responded to causes local, regional and international in respective measure. It lingers because the leaders of the third republic understood the difference between self-praise and national glory.
Ultimately, we can attempt to re-write history to suit the moment, but eventually posterity catches up and sooner rather than later the dominant come tumbling down. And with utter dismay people are often left wondering and asking; was the detraction worth the effort?
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