We Call This Rubbish Art

                 It is in order to begin this piece with a moment of silence............................................... Thank you. As you drive along Haile Selassie Avenue which is lined with trees on either side creating a serene shaded environment, it is easy to notice some significant buildings. The towering Intercontinental Hotel or the heavily shielded Japan Embassy on the sides. Then somewhere along this same road is the Examination Council of Zambia (ECZ), hidden but it is there. People build beautiful structures, magnificent buildings to get noticed, ECZ went ahead and did the extraordinary. They went ahead and put two of the ugliest, horrendous, pitiful excuse of art sculptures to grace this land. This is the moment we all wail in unison.

Mubita Nawa's Twit

 

            The attention was initially drawn to these things when motivational speaker Mubita Nawa twitted that at 50 years Zambia cannot be having such shameful pieces of structures. Before I saw the picture, I thought that he was just exaggerating and it could definitely not be that bad. I was right to some extent, it wasn't bad it was preposterous. These disproportionate structures had trunk legs, blotted fingers, bend heads, and crooked broad noses. The  male and female are seen to be wearing graduation gowns and holding certificates. These statues resemble miniature versions of what I would make out of clay as a five year old. Are we a country of citizens who accept mediocrity, because now this is getting out of hand. Putting something that is clearly repulsive and expecting people to understand and get on with their lives is unacceptable.

The Statues of Shame

 

            The most perplexing thing is how ECZ allowed those two statues to be erected outside their walls in the first place. ECZ paid money from their budget for them, they should have envisioned what the completed work would look like. If that was it, then I am afraid. Whoever inspected those statues and nodded their heads that what they saw was worthy and acceptable should be questioned. The artist who also created these statues should be embarrassed and needs to introspect on the torture they have done to our eyes. They are amateurish and it would not be a crime if these were a grade 7 school project. Between the artist and the people who inspected the artist work, just how did they convince themselves that such appalling pieces should grace our roads? How? Another wail in unison shall we.

            The general public agrees that the statues should be removed and replaced with something better or nothing at all. Apparently ECZ have come up with a defense which in my opinion is illogical.

            The ECZ spokesperson Ronald Tembo said, "We wish to inform the public that the purpose for putting the statues at the entrance of the ECZ was to enable the general public to easily locate the ECZ as they came through to access various Council services. The statues therefore arose from various complaints we received from those who could not easily locate us in the past. We did not necessarily intend to have beautiful and expensive pieces of art work as we could and still cannot afford the cost of such art works."

            Speechless.

 

He added, “We therefore wish to inform the public that the purpose for putting the statues at the entrance of the ECZ was to enable the general public to easily locate the ECZ as they came through to access various Council services.”
“The statues therefore arose from various complaints we received from those who could not easily locate us in the past. We did not necessarily intend to have beautiful and expensive pieces of art work as we could and still cannot afford the cost of such art works.”ECZ Spokesperson Ronald Tembo said the institution has taken time to study the postings on social media by Mr Nawa and has concluded that the debate on the art pieces was over blown.
“We wish to state that the ECZ is a public institution which has an open door policy. From the outset, we therefore acknowledge receipt of the opinions from Mr Nawa and the general public on the issue,” Mr Tembo said in a statement.
He added, “We therefore wish to inform the public that the purpose for putting the statues at the entrance of the ECZ was to enable the general public to easily locate the ECZ as they came through to access various Council services.”
“The statues therefore arose from various complaints we received from those who could not easily locate us in the past. We did not necessarily intend to have beautiful and expensive pieces of art work as we could and still cannot afford the cost of such art work

 

 

 

Introducing the Ministry of Moral Behaviour

Zambia was not like this in 1964, during that time the youth were well behaved and morally upright. The youth of this generation have lost their culture, if they are not having orgies in classrooms, sex tapes are being made, and the latest revelation is that young girls are the ones seducing men. What on earth are we going to do with this generation? I as Frustrated Brotha have come up with a solution to this country's dilemma of a degenerating youth. It is about time we had a Ministry of Moral Behaviour with a full cabinet minister at the helm.

 

 

There is a lot that needs to be done to curb the immorality that is flaunting itself on the streets of our country. It is inconceivable that such abominations are happening in our very own backyards. Clearly recent media reports reveal more diabolical acts than the previous one. The Ministry of Moral Behaviour will be well positioned to address these issues. It will be responsible for creating policies that ensure the utmost behaviour of this country's citizens is upheld. Citizens who are in the habit of tainting the moral fibre of this country beware.

Top on the table of the ministry's agenda should be tabling the issue of a how Europe and America is contaminating Zambia. This issue needs to be discussed in cabinet, because there are clear indications globalisation is to blame for the erosion of our culture. While that is being discussed the ministry will also be busy preparing another policy to ensure that every single television programme is censored before it is shown, text messages are edited before being sent to the receiver and just block a whole lot unnecessary websites. This is because our youth are being intoxicated by what they are seeing in the movies and series then re-enacting them in real life. If censoring will not wield the youth in the right direction then maybe the ministry will need to consider dishing out stiffer punishments for individuals who do not want to stick in line. The punishments should act as a definite deterrent to anyone who is flirting with the idea immorality.

We must not forget that all this immorality that currently exists is UnZambian and it is not our culture. The Ministry of Moral Behaviour will ensure that this nation's morals are upheld and that requires monitoring every little thing every citizen does. The mission will be to completely eradicate immoral behaviour because the ministry will not cast the first stone but the first brick in order to save our culture.

Football Still in Stone Age

I think I need a word with Sepp Blatter. Why on earth would he go staging the World Cup at the very same time as my beloved Wimbledon? Isn't he aware that these are life changing decisions that I have to make between watching a world cup match and tennis a match. It is difficult for the brotha to choose. When it comes down to biting the bullet, however, I find myself pressing the button on the remote for the tennis. This is probably something that none tennis fans may ever fully understand. One of the reasons why I decide to watch tennis is that football somehow deliberately decides to stay in the Stone Age.

Being a fan of any sport is a tough job, there is so much emotional investment that goes in. It is very hard to make the relationship work. These are the original marriage vows, through thick and thin, through victory or loss, our relationship is unbreakable. People do not shed tears and have heart attacks for nothing. To this day I admit that one of the happiest days of my life was when Zambia lifted the Africa Cup of Nations in 2012. There are just not enough adjectives and superlatives to explain the joy that I felt. Then as a tennis fan after witnessing Rafael Nadal win Roger Federer  Wimbledon after  losing twice to the same man two years in role, in what many including I believe was the best tennis match ever played was just sublime. I am a football and tennis fan, but I am definitely a much bigger tennis fan. I mean being a football fan is hard and painful, at its current state I don't think I can invest any more than I am in this relationship. This is merely because football still refuses to incorporate technology.

Football Referee

Almost every other sport has progressed on well with technology football have only flirted with it this year by using goal line technology. Therefore, you have very painful losses as a result of whistle happy referees, unfair penalties awarded (anyone recall the Ivory Coast versus Greece game), cruel red cards, offside goals and the list is countless. The difference between a nation having the pride of reaching a World Cup quarter final hangs in the hands of fallible human being. In tennis when a player loses you know that they lost fair and square not because some umpire made one lousy call. This happens because tennis has the revolutionary technology called Hawk Eye. Therefore, a player has a choice to challenge calls to determine whether the ball was in or out. They are given a maximum of three challenges per set. Every victory or loss was on the player's racket and as a fan it is much easier to accept and less painful. Rugby, cricket, golf, hockey and tennis have review systems so what is so special about football.

Hawk Eye System

People say it will slow the game down. Oh really, how about when a player gets injured, substitutions, when the keeper is on a time wasting mission isn't that slowing down the game already. You do not permit reviews at every incidence, all that should be allowed is each coach is entitled to three reviews per game. So they will know that they need to use those reviews wisely. This is 2014, having a review system is the most fair way to go. There is a lot of money, pride, careers and our very fragile hearts at stake here. Therefore, it is time that football joins the programme and introduces the review system into the game.

While the football world is mulling over the shock departures of Spain and Italy, we in tennis are speechless over the exits of Serena and Nadal. When the football world speaks of the penalties, us in tennis are biting our nails over the tie-breaks. And of course, we hold our breathes for the women's and men's finals this weekend, as the gladiators battle it out on the grass of Wimbledon. The Hawk Eye system has not made the game any less interesting in fact it adds a new dimension to the thrill. It is time we drag the football world out of the Stone Age. Until football joins the party I will be having some strawberry and cream (tennis fans know what I mean) as I behold the gladiators who take centre stage on the grass of Wimbledon.

Husband Snatchers Beware

It seems that people are getting to grips with their mobile phones and making videos to send via Whatsapp. Recently a video has popped up of a woman stripping another woman who she accused of having an affair with her husband. Apparently, this video shows the woman being stripped in the presence of men who decided to take advantage of the situation too. This inhumane mob justice has been noticed by the police and they are after the culprit. However, even after dangling a K5, 000 reward for any information no one has come up with the details. It is either the people of Luanshya are wealthy or they take the mafia code of Omerta (Code of Silence) too seriously, because had it been me that money would have been in my account already.

 

I must confess from the onset that I have not seen this video and I am not anxious to even see it. Therefore, the knowledge I have is what I have read, heard from people who have seen it and also from what I heard on radio when it was played. From the audio that I heard of the incidence, the wife who was stripping the woman was ironically threatening to take the lady to the police. The poor woman could be heard crying in the background while various men hollered at her. The men are also seen pulling out their phones and attempting to get pictures of the whole fiasco. Yes, this woman may have been sleeping with her husband but did she deserve to be treated in such a manner?

This woman in attempting to deal with the "Husband Snatcher" indirectly made an excuse for her husband. She just indicated that he was not the problem but the woman she was stripping. Therefore, instead of dragging him by his feet into the street and shaming him for his philandering ways, she decided to deal with the symptom and not the root cause of the problem. According to what I have heard the husband is nowhere to be seen in the video and goes unmentioned as the humiliated lady is begging for mercy. Does the wife really think that she will be stripping every woman her husband might go out with as a way of deterring them, then she might be stripping a whole lot more women.

 

It is humiliating enough to be stripped naked but then how does one describe the feeling when the video of the incident is floating around social media. In as much as we may be sympathising with the lady, isn't society perpetrating this abuse by casually distributing the video from one phone to another. On the other hand, it can be argued that it is only through the sharing of the video that brought attention to victimisation of the woman. It is through the same Whatsapp that she may have some form of justice even if it may thrust her into the spotlight. We definitely tread a delicate line with social media with all the good it can do, it is also capable of unleashing its venomous evil.

 

In this case, there may be some people who will applaud the woman for her actions believing that the stripped woman got what she deserved if not less. Then there are others like myself who feel that such inhumane degradation should never be applauded in any form or fashion. The person she should be sorting out her marital issues with is the husband. The wife needs to be answerable for her actions. Luanshya is a small town, it is no New York. Surely someone knows her, they just have to be brave enough to break the Omerta.

#BringBackOurGirls Now!

Over 250 girls were kidnapped from their school on 14 April 2014 by Islamist extremist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. The world decided to forget about them for about two weeks because, until we felt that it had become worthy enough for our attention. I mean even their very own president Goodluck Jonathan only made an official statement two weeks after the girls went missing. This is nothing short of an utter shame, what was the world expecting? The girls would be delivered back with ribbons in their hair. These girls may have been kidnapped kilometres away in Nigeria, far from Zambia and yet we have a reason why we should care.

I have a young sister of similar age to the girls who have been kidnapped and like them she too is at a boarding school, I cannot even begin to imagine what I would do if I was told the next morning that some militia had kidnapped her. It is this very thought that to a small degree I am able to empathise with the hundreds of fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who find themselves in this predicament. The Nigerian school girls were kidnapped by a group that has become notorious for bombing attacks in Nigeria on several occasions. It must have equally been painful for the parents of the girls to cry for the return of their daughters and yet no one paying attention to their plight. It was as if the world had grown tired of their problems.

There is a sense that the world is getting, if it is not already fatigued by all of the problems in Africa. Every day brings with it the same old problems over and over, even the news networks are running out of novel ways to present the challenges. What is further frustrating is that even after decades of independence African countries are still unable to render any assistance to their neighbours and other countries on the continent. African countries decided to add their voices to the plight of the girls when countries like the United States of America and the United Kingdom decided to get actively involved. Our government has sent a message of solidarity to the Nigerian government in the recent week.

I may never be in a position to understand what it is like living in a country that has Islamist extremist like Boko Haram, or to be afraid to go to the market for fear of what will blow up in my face. I may live in a country that does not witness kidnappings and hostage situations. I may also be getting tired of hearing of the world’s problems. However, now is not the time to forget these girls, we cannot believe that 200 girls somewhere in the forest is an unfortunate case. The girls did not ask to be kidnapped; they should not be punished for seeking an education.

On the other hand we should be angry at the Nigerian authorities for doing nothing earlier on when the girls were taken. We should be angry at our own African authorities for not saying a word or offering solutions to our brothers and sisters in this position. We should be angry at ourselves for changing the channel each time the story of the girls appeared on the news. I should be angry at me that it has taken one month before the girls story has featured on my blog. Until the girls are back home, may we not grow tired of requesting our authorities to do something and let the noise only get louder. You may begin by joining the Facebook Page Zambia Cares .

So it's Okay for a Woman to Hit a Man?

If I was ever a professor of Psychology the Solange (Beyonce’s young sister) attack on Jay-Z would be a case study. There are so many dimensions to the attack and the mere fact that we are not currently privy to what it was about, we are left to speculate. The setting of an elevator with nowhere to run or hide was a setting that Solange must have thought about before her onslaught. Perhaps the upsetting issue about all this fiasco is that why the rest of the world is not upset about Solange’s attack on Jigga man. I can only imagine the backlash and wrath that Jay-Z would have had to deal with if it was the other way around, just ask Chris Brown.

Solange assaults Jay-Z and you have some quarters of women praising her instead, “Way to go sister!” This is absolutely ridiculous; this was a woman with heels, kicking someone with all the strength she could muster despite being held back by a bodyguard. Okay, she has one hell of a kick. Solange abused Jay-Z in that elevator with her punches, insults (I presume) and above all she bruised Jay-Z’s ego. Unlike the Chris Brown and Rihanna bust up where we did not have video footage, in this case we have hardcore evidence. Solange cannot deny that she did not attack Jay-Z and he can proudly claim that he did not hit back. Awe kwena, he deserves a trophy. Human instinct would be to retaliate when threatened but Jigga man kept his cool. I can only imagine how many brothers would have been as calm as he was, because trust me if it was others in that situation Solange would have begged to be let out of the elevator.

When Chris Brown beat Rihanna, Obama said something, Oprah said something, women’s groups said something, other musicians said something, and Chris Brown’s sponsors dropped him. Solange viciously attacks Jay-Z and Obama is quiet, Oprah is quiet, the women’s groups are not marching and above all no one is calling this gender based violence. This silence is annoying and very upsetting, Solange is not feeling any wrath for her actions and in fact it is Jay-Z who is becoming the laughing stock of world. This attitude of silence gives the impression that it is okay for a woman to beat up a man and it is a sin for a man to hit a woman.

Jay-Z had the capacity to put Solange in her place and prove to the world that he is “Macho”, but I guess he did the most “Macho” thing by stepping away and let raged Solange unleash whatever was burning in her heart. Like we are always told that there is never a reason why you should hit a woman, in the same vein it should be said that there should never be a reason why a woman should hit a man. In this instance talking about it over a family dinner was not an option.

Now back to the case study and Beyonce in particular who was in the elevator while her sister attacked her husband appears to back away and watch the action. She did not attempt to stop her sister neither did she try to shield her husband. I reckon the thought that was rushing through her head was the paparazzi are going to have a field day when that elevator door opens. There should have been audio in that elevator, yaba.

 

Jay-Z, Beyonce and Solange leaving the elevator

At the time of writing this piece, we still do not know why Solange went all crazy on Jay-Z. However, whereas we are happy to demonise a man who lays his hands on a woman, we must equally do the same when the tables are turned. The excuse that men are able to protect themselves therefore cannot be victims is rubbish. Yes, men can protect themselves and instinct tells us that we do that by hitting back. However, if we begin to assume that it is acceptable for a woman to hit a man because she is angry then we are losing the plot. Solange should not be glorified in any way rather she must be condemned with as much venom as would have been spat Jay-Z’s way if he was the one throwing the punches.

The Police, Photocopying and No Transport

Last week I was a victim of a theft. The bloody burger got away with my car battery, while I was asleep. I don’t know whether I should say thankfully the battery was all he got away with because he could have gotten away with much more. Thieves can be such an unnecessary inconvenience and for a moment I could empathise with all those individuals who perform mob justice and want burn them alive. I mean here is a fellow who is able bodied to be capable to climb a wall fence, remove and carry a car battery and have the audacity to return for the car radio can find something to do. Then what added further to my frustration was the service I received from the police, I even wondered why I bothered going there.

I must be brainwashed by watching all these CSI series where I think that the police will come dust the car for finger prints, check the scene for any eye lashes, or footmarks, interrogate the neighbours and then voila catch the thief. Snap out of it frustrated brotha.  When I went to report the matter at the Manda Hill police post, I knew I was far away from any CSI scenario when the police officer began to write my statement in a big record book. In the age of computers, our police posts are still writing details in a record book. So if the book gets stolen or it rains, then all the records are gone for good. I was then asked to return later if I wanted to open a docket because there was no stationery. For one reason or another our police posts seem to be in the habit of running out of stationery and often we are asked to go photocopy police report sheets. I mean seriously, someone just stole my car battery and the last thing I need to hear is that a docket cannot be opened because of lack of paper. Cry my beloved Zambia. I was then told that when I return then if I am lucky they may visit the scene if it is not disturbed. Slowly I realised that my CSI wish would not be coming true. I returned home with no police officer coming to check the crime scene and without a docket in hand.

I returned later for my docket, but while I waited for it a gentleman came into the station claiming that his phones had been stolen. He narrated his story and the officer got down his statement once again in the big black book. Then the officer mentioned that once the formalities had been done that she need to take the form to Northmead but there was no transport. So here was a police post that had no stationery and had no transport, just my luck. The gentleman quickly offered to provide transport as long as he could get his phones traced and handed back to him. I too was capable to provide transport, so what would the poor person do in such a situation.

The police service is supposed to serve every Zambian citizen regardless of race, tribe, or economic status. However, in this nation we have various people at various economic levels. Where is a poor person who is barely making ends meet supposed to find the money to start photocopying a police report sheet when that money could be used to buy bread. Or where is he supposed to find transport to ferry the police officers to the scene of the theft, by the way our officers do not use buses they need a taxi. The officers use the taxi to take them to the scene and back to the police post. Taxis are not cheap and depending on the distance can be quite expensive. The taxi fare alone could be the cost of a bag of mealie meal. This simply means that if you are poor you might not be able to report the matter to the police for it to be adequately handled.

There are certain aspects of police investigation that I can accept that we do not have the resources for things such as forensic labs but lack of no stationery and transport is not one that I can accept. The police need to have the basic minimum to handle the cases that are presented to them. It should not be dependent whether someone can provide transport or not. It is important for the relevant authorities to ensure that the police posts have relevant resources to carry out their duties otherwise police posts might as well put a poster that we will only attend to you if you come with your own stationery and transport. In the meantime, I need to watch more of Muvi TVs The Constables rather CSI to get more proper representation of my reality.