The UPND’s dangerous echo chamber
By Osward Bwali
ZAMBIA is in dire straits. The prices of essential commodities have skyrocketed beyond the reach of most Zambians. The quantity and quality of food has decreased beyond human decency. The vice of prostitution has become a way of life, a survival necessity in many homes. With high inflation, weakening local currency, and high cost of fuel, the situation cannot be anything else. But there no demonstration or food riots yet. But even quite strangely, Hichilema enjoys a strong support base online that attack personally anyone who dares to point out the UPND political and economic ineptitude. The answer is to be found in the dangerous cult Hichilema has created around himself.
Let me begin with a very well-known German sociologist, Max Weber whose work forms a good starting point on discussions of types of political authority. According to Weber, there is traditional, legal-rational, and charismatic authority. Traditional authority follows cultural norms usually characterised by inheritance along some lineage or appointment by some sacred institution. Legal-rational authority is characterised by rules that culminate in a systematic and institutionalised bureaucracy. Lastly, charismatic authority is based on personality cult of a leader.
Of the three types of authority, only the legal-rational is based primarily on setting up laws and institutions that are aimed at attaining the goals of the state in an effective and efficient manner. These goals include protection from external threats, safeguarding internal peace and order, and ensuring economic prosperity or material wellbeing of the citizens. It is clear this is the type of authority we must strive for as a country. Placing our faith in a woman or man is a pretty stupid and dangerous thing to do.
Unfortunately, our politics are too person-centred. Cadres of the ruling parties and opposition parties exhibit a sick mentality of hero-worshipping their party presidents. This wilful infantilisation only becomes worse once the party president becomes the republican president. I pointed out in my article of last week how Mutale Nalumango is the epitome of this infantile subservience. I have earlier pointed out how this behaviour has taken on a nasty ethnic form under Hichilema. If Zambian students of politics want to understand the Big Man Syndrome, they have a perfect example at Community House.
Hichilema’s followers have swallowed hook and sink the mantra, Bally Will Fix It. These have formed an echo chamber especially on social media platforms. Their consensus on all matters relating to Hichilema, and my extension, to the UPND, are a marvel watch. Their responses to criticisms of the UPND government and its leaders attract, almost invariably, a chorus of the attacks against the critic that any choir would be envious of. The attacks are as predictable as they are empty.
Most of the attacks by UPND and Hichilema worshipers against critical commentators on governance have no ability to respond to substantive issues raised or they simply choose to attack the messenger, distort the messenger’s message, or raise issues that do not in any way address the matters raised by a critic. What has caused these apparently choreographed responses to anybody who criticises the UPND government? Who are these people who appear to have no time to read articles by critics, who cannot address any of the issues raised, apart from insulting and attributing malicious intent? The answer points to echo chambers and disinformation.
Echo chambers refer to a situation in which a person hears and repeats only those views that reinforce their biased preconceived positions. There is no effort at all to understand what has been written or to respond rationally to it. Most of Hichilema’s supporters on social media are heading readers. They seem to simply read the heading and scan through the article. If I say Douglas Syakalima called the people of Luapula idiots, the supporters will not bother to correct me or join me in condemnation of what is ordinarily a tribal slur. Simply, once they have a sense that an article is against their leader or party, they dump a stinker in the comment section and move on to the next critic. They will do this whole day, jumping from page to page.
The UPND ethno-political echo chamber is not a natural occurrence. It is man-made. Hichilema and ethno-political leadership have created disinformation some of which goes as far back as Harry Nkumbula’s ANC. Unlike misinformation, disinformation involves spreading deliberately information one knows to be untrue or inaccurate. Capitalising on ethnic identity, the leadership have created a we-and-them feeling among their supporters. We are the good guys, and they are the bad guys. We are the victims, and they are the perpetrators. Once this narrative has been created and passed on from parent to child, we only need a messianic embodiment of our collective anguish. He will take us out of Egypt. The messiah must be from within the group. Currently Hichilema is that embodiment.
Humans are always looking for someone else to blame for their situation and for a saviour as well. Hichilema answered the tribal call. From the time he assumed the UPND presidency, he had to be cleansed and canonised. He literally can do no wrong. Hichilema has mastered the art of painting himself white and victim. His self-praise is unmatched in the history of presidents in Zambia. “I am hardworking. I am intelligent. I am a faithful husband. I am financially astute and disciplined. Lord, I am not like that drunkard over there.” Name any good quality and you will find it resides in Hichilema.
Hichilema (Syakalima or Milupi continue): “These cliques have stolen. They have overborrowed. They have built a sausage. They have given Tongas less fertiliser than they have given to Ushis in Luapula. They have built roads in Chinsali but have not built in Luena.”
These proclamations are then carried through pliant and unquestioning media, on co-ethnics-only WhatsApp groups. A closed-up chamber has been created abuzz with disinformation. The insulting and empty comments we see against critical articles are emanating from here. Believing their leaders are angels, anyone pointing out a flaw in them is the one with the flaw and must be insulted without wasting time on hearing what he or she has to say.
Echo chambers are not only a nuisance to critical writers like me. They threaten democracy. They are a danger to peace and unity. The architects benefit from a radicalised ethno-political support base. It’s their means to political power and wealth. But the price is a retrograde polity and economy. By refusing to engage in rational debate even on sensitive matters, echo chambers entrench divisions rooted in disinformation. The result is Zionism, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, genocide, election violence, and impoverished populations.
As we head into the elections sixteen months from now, the UPND, its cronies, and international capitalist sponsors will ramp up their disinformation aimed at portraying Hichilema as an astute economic mind, consummate democrat, non-tribal nationalist, and authentic anti-corruption crusader. Voters must not fall prey to the same strategies that landed us in our current socio-economic-political quagmire. It is safer to ask, as individually and collectively, are we better off now than five years ago across? If the cost of living has worsened and the country is more divided on ethnic lines, then all the sweet talk should be flushed to where all filthy putrid things belong.
