Speaking Truth To Power - Laura Miti Speaks With The Resistance Bureau
Internationally renowned Zambian civil society activist Laura Miti spoke this week with The Resistance Bureau, a new Africa-wide discussion platform dedicated to shining a light on oppression on the continent.
Miti was joined by three other award-winning journalists and political campaigners from across Africa: Boniface Mwangi from Kenya, Comfort Mussa from Cameroon, and Fred Muvunyi from Rwanda.
The panel discussion was titled ‘Speaking Truth to Power During the Pandemic’ and placed its primary focus on the increased oppression of journalists under the guise of Covid-19 measures.
Miti herself said that the pandemic had been seen as “a gift” by the Zambian government, who have used it as a distraction from the dire social and political problems facing the country.
Most noticeably, youth unemployment has skyrocketed under President Lungu’s leadership. Miti told the panel that youth demonstrations are a common sight in Lusaka, but peaceful marches are often met with the force of the Zambian army. In response to the protests on 22nd June this year, the Zambian government turned “Lusaka into a war zone”, filling the streets with armed soldiers and government vehicles.
As federal lockdown measures were brought in, however, President Lungu hoped that public demonstrations of dissatisfaction and anger with the Zambian government would be silenced.
Miti also highlighted the hypocrisy of the government’s Covid-19 policies, by which, despite warnings of public health risks, officials and ministers have been campaigning for next year’s presidential election across the nation under the guise of overseeing development projects “unmasked and unsocial distanced”. It seems that, for President Lungu, political point scoring has a greater weight than public safety.
The pandemic has shown the need for international unity on multiple fronts, from medicine and food delivery to global trade and security. What has also been exposed by Covid-19 is the need for unity against oppressive governments, as dictators never wish to “let a good crisis go to waste”. Platforms like The Resistance Bureau have never been more necessary, as political campaigners come together from the safety of their homes to share common thoughts and practices. Indeed, when sharing their various experiences of oppression, The Resistance Bureau’s panel found that each of their respective countries had all benefitted from social media and the online sharing of information. For Laura Miti, Zambia is no exception.
During the pandemic, government opposition has been galvanised on social media and maintained a strong discursive presence while unable to meet in person. In fact, Miti claimed that government is often more responsive to voices of protest on social media than in person, as the President appears to be highly concerned with his international image. Government ministers often respond quickly to blights on their reputation, and try (albeit with little success) to stem the tide of online complaints before they spread from the cities to the much larger rural areas.
Indeed, Miti described social media as the opposition’s most powerful weapon against a government which enjoys the reputation of democracy with the powers of a dictatorship.
In that same vein, she argued that the government responds quickly to external international and regional pressure. In both occasions of her two arrests, Miti’s release has been accelerated by international pressure and foreign legal expertise.
All panellists stressed the need for international platforms such as The Resistance Bureau in order to shine a light on human rights abuses and hold governments accountable for their actions.
As the global community gets back to work, the message is startlingly clear. International bodies can no longer prioritise the benefits of bilateral trade agreements whilst ignoring the abuses carried out by self-serving governments. Rather, they must now focus their efforts on lifting democracy up out of the political quagmire and building a resilient Africa which can handle all the political and economic challenges to come.
The full discussion is available to listen to online in podcast form on The Resistance Bureau’s website: https://t.co/tENiKsUUwA?amp=1
