Effective Political Communication 101: Lessons from the west

Effective Political Communication 101: Lessons from the west

By Professor Munyonzwe Hamalengwa

I WAS not too long ago seriously, surprisingly jolted by the letter I received at my university address from the then Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. The then prime minister was replying thanking me for the book (see accompanying photo) that I had sent him all the way from Zambia.

The prime minister indicated that he cherishes the book and will read it closely and learn from it.  Now picture this. A busy prime minister actually takes time to write a letter acknowledging a gift from a foreigner living far away in Africa and from whom he won’t benefit in form of a vote or any other benefit! Also picture this.

The book from all the way in Africa actually reaching the hands of a prime minister in Canada with that title emblazoned on the cover, without his numerous protective handlers pilfering it for themselves or hiding the message from the prime minister. Further surprises include the fact that with many platforms of communication these days, the prime minister chose to actually write a physical letter, put it in a physical white envelope with the writing on top of the envelope, “From the Office of the Prime Minister” and hand it over to be dropped in the mail box for shipment to Africa.  The prime minister could have used any of the numerous impersonal means of communication: WhatsApp, text messages, email or phone call through one of his numerous handlers. The prime minister obviously knows the importance of the message and the personal touch engendered by the personal form of communication. There are lessons we can learn from the prime minister of Canada. This column is about best practices in communication skills  that we here in Africa can learn among others from the West. This is just an example. And it is very important.
I read many platforms in Zambia and elsewhere, and one of the major complaints on these platforms is that political leaders in Africa and Zambia in particular do not reply to messages from their constituents: no reply to letters, to WhatsApp messages, to text messages, to emails, to messenger and no return messages on cellphones.and not even to simple telegram platform.

There are so many easy and simpler methods of communication than ever before yet our politicians are more remote to reach even those with multiple secretaries and handlers who can easily be tasked with answering communication inquiries from different constituents. That these politicians are busy is unquestionable.

That they were less busy before they were elected and answered all questions and phone calls is also unquestionable. That they will again become less busy before elections and will begin to answer questions and phone calls is also unquestionable. Just read the comments on many platforms about the anguish ordinary people express when politicians they voted for begin to ignore their attempts at communication once the vote has been secured.

Of course, no politician can answer every question through every platform of communication. That is also unquestionable. The volume of communication to politicians these days can be dizzying. That is why many politicians  have Facebook pages, websites, newsletters, engage in periodic town hall or under the tree hall  meetings  and the like. Engage don’t ignore is the message. If you had time before elections you should have time after elections.

It appears there is mutual fear after elections between the politicians and the voters: voters begin to be regarded as bothersome and burdensome while voters begin to fear the very people they voted into power, fearing being labelled and isolated, punished by being denied employment and the like.

Poverty and patronage politics are among the major issues involved in lowered political  communication skills in Africa and Zambia in particular. Politics is a major source of wealth and any one who tries to prevent a re-election will be isolated and punished even when the voter was simply trying  to exercise the power of democracy and foster accountability in those he or she helped to elect.

Poverty being experienced by many voters make them too dependent for largesse from those they voted for and will do everything to be in their good books.

Thus the voter fears being isolated and will refrain from expressing their views. Or give up their democratic rights once they are ignored  when they raise their concerns that first time around. It is sickening to see how Politicians and voters begin to fear each other after elections. Something is gotta give. We cannot talk about real democracy when politicians and ordinary voters  play cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek, catch-and-release politics between elections.

Democracy must not be enjoyed only for a brief period just before elections when politicians for once give one an ear and when voters briefly become assertive.
The failure to communicate is not only limited to politicians and voters. There is failure to communicate effectively in Africa in general.and Zambia in particular complaints that university administrators, professors, lecturers, lawyers, judicial officers, company executives, businessmen, plumbers, electricians, car salesmen, bankers and different categories of service providers etc do not reply to communications in a timely fashion or ever at all, are legendary.

What would be the best practice to adopt to return to basic skills 101 of interactive  communication? This question takes me back to the good old days. Personal experience is always helpful as a means of teachable lessons.
Many many many years ago I was privileged to be accepted for an internship position at a major international human rights organisation in Washington DC, US.  Because of the wide presence and the use of the word ‘internet’ these days, people cannot believe that there was a time when there was no internet and the word ‘internet’ belonged in the title of an international human rights organisation called “Human Rights Internet” (see accompanying cover photo of the organisation’s Report).

That is the organisation I went to work for in Washington, DC the word “Internet” no matter what the current research may suggest, as it’s origins, was actually coined by the couple that started the human rights organisation known as “Human Rights Internet”: Harry Scoble and Laurie Wiseberg.  The couple met at the University of California when Laurie Wiseberg, a Canadian was doing a PhD dissertation on the Biafran civil war under  the supervision of Professor Harry Scoble.

The rest as they say is history. Not all relationships that start out from the standpoint of power imbalances are predatory.

Some end up really successful and long lasting. Thurgood Marshall the first Black judge of the Supreme Court of the US married his nanny. Many lawyers I know married their former intern’s or secretaries. Many lawyers married their former clients and vice versa.

A president in Zambia married his nanny. But there is of course potential for conflict in these relationships and are prohibited at first blush. The Scoble-Wiseberg union worked very well leading to the founding of a durable international human rights organisations.

The Biafran civil war was accompanied by massive human rights atrocities which prompted this couple later on to form the organization that I went to work for in Washington DC.

The plethora of human rights organizations that began to appear in the 1970s were energized by President Jimmy Carter(1977-1981) who in reaction to reports (The Church Senate and the Pike House Reports)  on American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ) abuses of human rights abroad created a human rights infrastructure to re-engineer the debate in order to protect the reputation of the US  from human rights abuses of its own central foreign policy agency.

Washington DC saw its share of global human rights organisations located in this  city.

The Human Rights Internet was based in Washington. There was so much funding available  to human rights organizations in Washington DC and around the world in those days. Carter created the US Department of State Global Annual Human Rights Report  which still exits but scaled down now under attack from President Donald Trump.
In those days (late 1970s and early 1980s) the word “Internet” as defined by Harry Scoble and Laurie Wiseberg simply meant ” interconnectedness” literally human rights interconnectedness, a meaning that is still the core definition of the word “internet” literally meaning “world interconnectedness” denoted by the abbreviations of www meaning world wide web.

At the beginning of it all was the organisation “Human Rights Internet”, HRI. The organization published a quarterly report on human rights movements, practices, developments, violations, protections, litigations, etc from around the world.

The organisation was divided into regions: Europe, North America, South America, Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. The Human Rights Internet Reporter published abstracts of human rights interconnectedness mosaic from around the world.
Upon arrival in Washington DC, I was given a roller deck of phone contacts to call to introduce myself  as the coordinator for Africa and the Middle East.  There were key offices and organisations that I were to call first, offices and organizations that dealt with Africa and the Middle East.
I began my calling earnestly.

This is when I learnt that Communication Skills 101 were very effectively learnt and implemented in the Western World in 1982 and continuing into 2021 when I received that letter from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and beyond. This is the whole point of this article that African politicians and others can learn lessons from the effective communication skills 101 from the best practices of the West.

This is how it was instilled.
One of the first offices I called in Washington DC was a Senate Office.  In 1982 there were only physical phones placed on desks. The phones were rotary dial. There were no cellphones. Pagers came later. There was no internet, no WhatsApp, no text messaging system. One had to leave a message with a secretary for return messages from the intended recipient.
I left a message at the Senate office. I left a message as well at the Department of State and a number of offices. The very next day after I arrived at my office, I received a phone call from a man at the Senate!.”Hello, Is that Mr Hamalengwa? This is Joe Biden from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I am sorry I was already in meetings when you called yesterday and was not able to return your call until this morning”.

Yes it was Joe Biden the then unknown future president of the United States returning my call, not through a secretary or a handler, but the Senator himself.  I wasn’t surprised because that is how it was in the West when I lived in Washington DC in the early 1980s and that is how it is even as late as 2025 as I am penning this article. Elected politicians return phone calls. Bureaucrats return phone calls, lawyers return phone calls. Politicians like prime minister Justin Trudeau reply to communications personally.

They don’t only return phone calls to their kind.
After that phone call from Joe Biden, another phone call came in and many others from lawyers, professors, bureaucrats and so on. “Is that Mr. Hamalengwa. My name is Elliot Abrams from the Africa Desk at the ,Department of State. What can I do for you”.

As I did with Mr. Biden I explained that I was the new Coordinator for Africa and the Middle East at the Human Rights Internet and I would be obliged to receive any communications regarding any human rights issues pertaining to Africa and the Middle East on their portfolios.

Biden assured me that I would  be informed  about any human rights hearings not only on Africa and the Middle East but around the world and would I come over to collect plenty of documentation on human rights on Capital Hill.

Both Biden and Abrams knew Laurie Wiseberg the CEO of HRI.  I picked a lot of documentation on human rights. These documents were absolutely free.
And on and on I experienced and met politicians and others who actually returned phone calls and answered letters. In those days when a call came we simply used to answer “Internet” because it was the only “Internet” office in the world.

Now if one answered a call simply by  saying “Internet”people would roll their eyes and think that the person is crazy. After I left the Human Rights Internet and went back to Canada, the organisation moved to Harvard Law School. It stayed there for a number of years.

From Harvard Law School the organization moved to the University of Ottawa Law School and merged with the University of Ottawa Human Rights Documentation and Education  Centre, and disappeared into this merger. I told you that Laurie Wiseberg was Canadian.

Laurie Wiseberg came back  home finally bearing a global human rights organizations  I also finally came home  to relay the message of effective communication skills 101 for politicians and others. My book, “The Politics of Judicial Diversity and Transformation” (2012) contains a number of letters from politicians who actually replied  in their own names to my letters prodding them to consider African Canadians for judicial appointments. Judicial appointments of African Americans and African Canadians was a major boiling point in the 1980s and 1990s and into the turn of the 21st Century. That mission has since largely  been accomplished. My former classmate in  Law School in Toronto is now the  Chief Justice of Ontario, Canada. One small step for Man, a giant step for mankind. Everything starts with communication. Effective communication includes effective answering letters and phone calls. We can do better in this field in Zambia. Think of then Senator  Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returning  a phone call or replying acknowledging a gift from a person they had never heard of and are not likely to ever benefit from in form of a vote. It is a simple act of human decency and a class act in effective communication 101.
Professor Munyonzwe Hamalengwa is the Dean of Law at the Zambian Open University School of Law where he teaches Law of Evidence and Research Methodologies in Law.

Prof Munyonzwe Hamalengwa, PhD, is

Dean of the School of Law at Zambian Open University