Let Them Yap!

        Let Them Yap!

Last Saturday night Sara and I were at the Playhouse to see the Lusaka Musical Society’s latest masterpiece – ‘Let Them Yap’.  As the curtain rose, there in the middle of the stage, on his gold throne, sat the magnificent Emperor of Zed. He was wearing his shimmering golden Chinese suit, a glittering crown on his head, as he looked down imperiously upon his domain.

As the orchestra in the pit struck up with a jolly tune, the Emperor rose to his feet and burst into song:

I am the Emperor of the Promised Land,

My promises are very grand.

I am an autocratic democrat,

I sit and order this and that.

And if they say I can’t do that,

I don’t care! Let them yap!

As he was singing, a motley crowd of people dressed in rags had gathered at the foot of the golden steps leading to the golden throne. And they answered the Emperor with their own song:

          You are the Emperor of the Promised Land,

          Your promises slip away like sand.

          You promised a constitution new

Not a constitutional stew.

          You cannot give us that,

          This is crap! This is crap!

But the Emperor answered them, singing:

          To ‘fifty percent plus one’ I can agree

          But only if that one is me!

          I much prefer ‘first past the post’,

          If it’s me that gets the most!

          I promised freedom of expression

          Except for those in opposition.

          And freedom to assemble anywhere

          Except in any public square.

          So be careful where you yap

          Lest you walk right in my trap

But the good people of Zed were not impressed:

          You promised you’d save the kwacha,

          But the kwacha came a cropper.

You promised all prosperity,

          But all we have is poverty.

          You are the Emperor of Zed,

          But all your promises are dead.

Now the Emperor looked a bit sad, and tried to explain himself…

          I promised more hospitals, but the curse is,

          I have no medicines, doctors or nurses.

          As all my promises slip away,

          I have other things to fill my day.

          As my ambition grows and grows

          I just build more roads and roads.

          Roads to here and roads to there,

          I build roads everywhere.

But as he was singing, a gang of thugs in fake military uniforms and red berets came shouting into the palace, and the protesters ran screaming for their lives. The audience clapped and cheered, shouting ‘More! More!’

So now the Golden Emperor walked to the front of the stage, danced a little jig, and then sang a confidential little song for our additional entertainment:

          I promise employment for the youth,

          Especially those long in the tooth.

          I’ll put an end to all corruption,

          But for my friends I’ll make exception.

          The rule of law I will preserve,

          Except for laws which don’t deserve.

          I grant to women the freedom to be bold,

          So long as they do as they’re told.

          The number of my ministers will be fewer,

          Except for those coming from the sewer.

          Once a year I’ll meet the press,

          Once a year, more or less.

          I shall maintain law and order,

          Except for panga mayhem and murder.

          And I grant to all the right to yap!

          Let them yap! Let them yap! Let them yap!

He danced a little jig as the curtain came down, and we all stood up and clapped and cheered.

‘It’s all so easy in the theatre’ said Sara. ‘But in real life, it’s a big problem to bring down the curtain.’

A Strange Disappearance

A Strange Disappearance

  

          
          ‘Have you heard the latest?’ asked Kupela. ‘Michael seems to have disappeared again.’

          ‘Are you saying he has completely evaporated?’ Sara wondered. ‘Or that he disappeared from one place in order to re-appear somewhere else?’

          ‘Obviously I mean that he seems to have disappeared from Zambia,’ Kupela retorted. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.’

          ‘So where has he reappeared?’ asked Sara.

          ‘I didn’t say that I knew where he had gone. All I’m saying is that nobody has seen him since he was supposed to have come back from Brussels last Friday.’

          ‘But how can you possibly know that nobody has seen him? Or do you just mean that you haven’t seen him? Were you supposed to have lunch with him or what?’

‘Your mother has got a point,’ I said. ‘I mean, taking another example, you haven’t seen us for a couple of weeks, but did you suspect that we had disappeared? Luckily lots of other people have seen us during the past two weeks, so we haven’t been worried that we had disappeared.’

‘Look,’ said Kupela irritably, ‘I’m not talking about two retirees in Chainda not being seen. I’m talking about the president, who we expect to see on TV or facebook. Why didn’t we see him being greeted at the airport when he got back from Brussels? Why has there been nothing on George Chellah’s facebook page, leaving ZNBC without any news to report? Without the latest news on Michael murdering the constitution we have had to listen to the latest news on Oscar Pistorius murdering his girlfriend. And this is not the first time.’

‘Not the first time Oscar has murdered his girlfriend?’

‘Not the first time Michael has disappeared after attending a conference. ’

‘After the previous conference he didn’t disappear,’ laughed Sara, ‘he was seen by Zambian doctors in London. Being a patriotic fellow, he didn’t want to be seen by foreign doctors, so he had to go to London.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘even if Michael has disappeared from George Chellah’s facebook page it doesn’t mean that he has disappeared from Zambia. And even if Michael had departed to some secret destination, Chellah could easily have written a few lies about Michael being in Zambia, busy consulting with his advisers, or whatever.’

‘That’s exactly why I think he has disappeared!’ replied Kupela. ‘If Chellah actually knew where Michael really was, he could easily have made up a plausible lie. But to tell a good lie you need to know what the truth actually is. So the absence of any story on facebook means that he doesn’t know the truth either! That’s why I say Michael has disappeared.’

‘So what’s your theory about what has happened to him?’ I asked.

‘The last report we have from Michael was on the Real Michael Sata facebook page on Friday, when Michael reported that he was stranded at Amsterdam airport after George Chellah ran off with an air hostess, accidentally taking with him all the tickets for the entire entourage. After that, all was silence. And then, later in the day, it was reported that flight MS370 from Amsterdam to Johannesburg had disappeared from radar screens and was last seen headed for the Indian Ocean.’

‘Ha ha,’ I laughed. ‘Now we have an even less believable version of Michael’s disappearance story. If I am not on a radar screen, does it mean I have disappeared?’

‘And if he disappeared from Chellah’s facebook page,’ laughed Sara, ‘that was more likely because Chellah was fired after running off with the tickets.’

‘If that were the case,’ persisted Kupela. ‘Why haven’t we been given the TV entertainment of Michael firing Chellah? And why no questions in the media about Michael’s strange disappearance? What’s going on?’

‘If there were any mystery about his whereabouts,’ I said, ‘Watchdog would tell us where he really is.’

‘That concludes my argument,’ declared Kupela triumphantly. ‘He has disappeared so completely that even Watchdog doesn’t know where he is!’

‘You are suffering from a lack of logic,’ I laughed. ‘It is always impossible to prove a negative proposition. Just because Michael is not seen does not prove that he has disappeared. It just means that nobody has seen him.’

‘So what’s your explanation for nobody seeing him?’ asked Kupela.

‘There’s an infinite number of possible explanations,’ I said. ‘It may be that he is being hidden for reasons of economic and political stability.  For example, every time he opens his mouth the value of the kwacha goes down. Every time he fires a few ministers, investors say the government is unstable. Every time he threatens a bishop he loses more votes from the Catholics. Every time he campaigns at a by-election his party loses the seat. So perhaps his handlers have finally realized that it is better to lock him up in a cellar in State House where he can’t cause any more trouble.’

‘We’re missing the news,’ I said, as I turned on the TV, ‘Perhaps he’s back.’

And sure enough, there he stood, his angry eyes fixed upon the nation, saying ‘Those demanding for the constitution are just yapping. Let them yap!’

‘It’s him that does all the yapping,’ Sara laughed. ‘Our job is just to listen to him yap.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘the kwacha is going to sink again.’

‘I’m so disappointed,’ said Kupela, ‘I really thought he was gone for good.’

‘Never mind,’ said Sara, ‘at least we all had a nice little holiday.’

Kalakiland

Kalakiland

            It was mid-afternoon, and I was sitting on the veranda of my little house in Chainda, sipping a glass of kachasu, when I heard a voice behind me, ‘Excuse me sir, my apologies for interrupting your royal contemplations, but am I right in thinking that you are Paramount Chief Kalaki?’

          ‘My dear fellow,’ I said, shaking his hand, ‘You have indeed found the Palace of the Paramount Chief. Sit down, have a glass of kachasu, make yourself comfortable, and introduce yourself.’

          Instead of sitting down he started to grovel on the floor. ‘No no, my dear fellow,’ I said, lifting him by his arm, ‘we don’t do that sort of thing here, we’re all very democratic. Just sit down and introduce yourself.’

          ‘I am the Africa Correspondent for the BBC,’ he replied. ‘My name is Sishuwa Sishuwa Sishuwa.’

          ‘Sishuwa Sishuwa Sishuwa,’ I said. ‘I’m very very very pleased to meet you. My name is Kalaki. You only have to say it once.’

          ‘I am used to interviewing other African presidents,’ he said. ‘I humbly seek your advice on the form of address which you prefer. Should I say Your Excellency the Paramount Chief and Father of the Nation, Professor Spectator Kalaki, Loved and Revered President of the Peoples Peaceful Republic of Kalakiland? That’s what I was told by the Africa Desk in London.’

          ‘When people call me that,’ I laughed, ‘they are just making fun of the pompous fellow in the neighbouring Republic of Zed, who insists on being addressed in such a ridiculous fashion. But when people are not making fun of the other fellow, then they just call me Komrade Kalaki, or just Kalaki. So now, Mr Sishuwa Sishuwa Sishuwa, what can I do for you?’

          ‘Even me,’ said Sishuwa Sishuwa Sishuwa rather shyly , ‘you can just call me Sishuwa. I’d be most grateful if you could answer a few questions for our Focus on Africa programme. First of all, how did you become president of Kalakiland?’

          ‘I sort of appointed myself. You see the job has no salary and no allowances and no state house. Just look at my humble little house, which my wife and I bought from our savings over the years. Somebody had to volunteer to do the job of calling meetings, and deciding how to deal with the troublesome neighbouring republic of Zed. So I do the job just as a public service.’

          ‘Public service!’ gasped Sishuwa. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing before. But tell me, how did the Republic of Kalakiland begin?’

          ‘Well, actually, it started from my little yard here, which used to be part of the Republic of Zed. People seeking refuge from the fearful government of Zed used to come and hide in my yard. The secret police never suspected that a retired schoolteacher could be harbouring refugees. And my dear wife Sara has such a sharp tongue that no blundering shushushu would think of knocking on our gate without good reason.’

          ‘Then how did Kalakiland grow to the size of Swaziland?’

          ‘It was rather surprising. But as Zed became more dictatorial, and with more refugees fleeing the increasingly vicious police state, we began hiding the refugees in more and more yards, until we had a large area outside the jurisdiction of Zed. Then people began to call it Kalakiland.’

          ‘But don’t the police invade Kalakiland to recapture their victims who escaped from Zed?’

          ‘My dear Sishuwa, it’s not that simple. Even the police chief in Zed knows that when he is fired, he will need somewhere to run to. Even the ministers know that when they annoy the Great Dictator, they need a neighbouring republic to which they can quickly run and where they will be safe. And they bring all their stolen money with them, which they have to share with us, because Kalakiland is a democratic country.’

          ‘But how is Kalakiland governed? Do you have a parliament, judiciary, police force and that sort of thing?’

          ‘We have avoided setting up all the institutions that destroyed Zed: we have no ministers to steal from the poor; no parliament to pass bad laws and increase their own salaries; no judiciary to be bent like a cucumber; no police force employed to fix the perceived enemies of any mad dictator.’

          ‘So without the police, how do you deal with crime?’

          ‘Most of the criminals were in the police force, which we abolished.’

          ‘What about education? Do you have schools to pass on knowledge from one generation to the next?’

          ‘We saw how schools were used to destroy the children’s imagination, and to turn them into unthinking robots to follow instructions irrespective of how stupid. We saw how schools cut off children from their traditional culture. So in order to restore education we have abolished schools.’

          ‘So you don’t have any national institutions?’

          ‘Only one,’ I laughed, raising my glass. ‘The Kalakiland National Distillery which produces the internationally famous Kalakiland Kachasu, the only truly African traditional spirit. It keeps our people happy, sells all over the world, and makes us the richest country in all Africa!’

          ‘One distillery makes you the richest country? How?’

          ‘Because we don’t have a government to steal all our money! Cheers!’

          ‘Cheers!’ he said, as he emptied his glass and rose to leave. ‘Thanks for the marvelous drink and fascinating interview. Tune into Focus on Africa next Thursday, and you’ll be able to hear it all!’

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________________

         

‘Wake up! Wake up!’ Sara was shouting and shaking my shoulders. ‘You’re completely drunk!’

‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘I’m just tired after a marvelous visit to Kalakiland.’   

         

           

         

         

King Chumbu

King Chumbu

          ‘I can’t understand,’ said Thoko, ‘why people keep voting wrong leaders into government. We always finish up with people who told us they would work for us and make our lives better, but as soon as they get into office they start filling their own bellies and leaving the rest of us to starve!’

          ‘That’s how humans behave,’ I replied sadly. ‘There’s nothing to be done about it.’

          ‘Except to throw them out when their behaviour becomes intolerable!’ suggested Thoko.

          ‘Even that doesn’t help much. You can be sure that the next king will become insufferable within 90 days.’

          ‘I sometimes think,’ said Thoko, ‘that we should elect a complete simpleton as king, some half-wit just to hand out the medals on Independence Day, kick the ball to start each cup-final, wear a silly gown to open parliament, and otherwise be harmless.’

          ‘You have to be careful with that sort of thing. Idiots can be even more dangerous than clever people.’

          ‘Then why have people at all?’ laughed Thoko. ‘We could just choose a dog or a goat, and dress it up in chitenge and gold chains, to be our national symbol on ceremonial occasions.’

          ‘That reminds me,’ I laughed, ‘of the story of King Chumbu, who ruled the Land of Zed a thousand years ago.’

          ‘Really?’ said Thoko. ‘My History teacher has never told us about any King Chumbu.’

          ‘I’m not surprised,' I cackled. 'Some bits of history are best forgotten.’
          ‘So what happened?’ asked Thoko.

          ‘It was election time,’ I explained, ‘and it was time to elect the next king. At the first big election rally a joker stood up waving a large lump of sweet potato, shouting Let’s elect this sweet potato!

          ‘And the people responded enthusiastically, shouting in reply Yes, let’s elect the sweet potato. All the other kings have been sour, this chumbu is sweet. All the other kings have been pompous, let us have a humble sweet potato. Instead of the king eating us, we shall eat the king! Everybody likes the sweet potato! Chumbu for king!’

          ‘So was the chumbu elected?’

          ‘Oh yes. He was elected by a big majority, and became King Chumbu.

          ‘And was he a sweet and humble king?’

          ‘Within a day of taking office he started to swell with pride, declaring that he had been appointed by God. This came as a terrible shock to everybody!’

          ‘Because they thought they had appointed him, not God?’

          ‘No, because they didn’t think the potato could speak. They thought that they had elected a king who would remain mercifully silent. But now this one was babbling continuously in a language spoken only by other sweet potatoes, a language called Chichumba.

          ‘And the worse thing was that all the time he was babbling, he was giving orders. He ordered that all the schools should teach Chichumba, so that all the children would understand what he was saying.’

          ‘And what was he saying?’

          ‘He was saying that all the people who didn’t like sweet potatoes should be locked up for insulting the king. He was saying that there would be no more fertilizer or seeds given for growing maize, rice, cassava or sorghum. Instead everybody had to grow sweet potatoes.

          ‘He declared that God was a sweet potato, and would favour only those who were made in his image. A picture of King Chumbu had to be on every wall, every chitenge and every coin. He changed the name of the country from Zed to Chumbia, with a national motto of One Chumbia One Chumbu.  At the big state occasions people no longer marched up and down, but now had to roll on the ground as if they hadn’t got legs, pretending to be sweet potatoes, and groveling in front of the Great Chumbu.

          ‘How ridiculous!’

          ‘State occasions are always ridiculous.’

          ‘And did people resist all this nonsense?’

          ‘Thoko, you know how people are. They just want to fit into the system, and get jobs by flattering the appointing authority. They began to eat plenty of sweet potatoes to fatten themselves into shapeless lumps, so that they looked more like the king. The more successful of them actually became sweet potatoes.’

          ‘Didn’t some people resist?’

          ‘A few people held meetings to discuss whether the end of human civilisation was a good idea. They were arrested and imprisoned for holding secret meetings without a permit, and for sedition and for treason.’

          ‘Good gracious!’ exclaimed Thoko. ‘Didn’t that contradict their right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression?’

          ‘King Chumbu had confiscated their constitution and instead written his own constitution on a single leaf of kalembula.’

          ‘Wasn’t that a bit small for writing a constitution?’

          ‘Not really. It just read Never offend King Chumbu. He is the law, the judgment and the imprisonment.’

          ‘He wouldn’t listen to any discontent?’

          ‘A chumbu has no ears to listen. No way of bending without breaking. He is chumbu mushololwa. A perfect choice for a dictator.’

          ‘So how did it all end? How was the Land of Zed restored to us humans?’

          ‘It was after the king had flattened the Zambezi Forest Reserve and in its place put the King’s Chumbu Plantation. That was the year of the Great Plague. A terrible fungus called Chumbu Catastrophicus wiped out all the chumbu in Chumbia. Within three months there wasn’t a single sweet potato left in the land.’

          ‘The human’s returned?’

          ‘The few hundred remaining Zedians escaped from jail. Others returned from the diaspora. Human civilization was restored.’

          ‘So luckily God changed his mind about King Chumbu.’

          ‘I suppose so,’ I replied. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’

         

         

          

Flushed!

Flushed!

            ‘The news is over, switch it off!’ said Sara

          ‘Half a minute,’ I said, ‘something else is coming up!’

          ‘The screen is completely blank,’ Sara sneered.

          ‘No,’ I said, ‘I can definitely see something. Look carefully. I think there’s a woman in a red dress sitting in front of a red wall hung with red pictures and red curtains!’

          As Sara peered forward, a notice appeared at the bottom of the red screen saying The Honourable Ms Emery Chimbusu, Minister for Local Government and Toilets. ‘You see!’ I cried in triumph, ‘There is somebody there!’

          Sure enough, to prove me right, a set of white teeth appeared in the middle of the red wall, and began speaking. ‘I am pleased to inform you that tomorrow this nation will be taking part in the global commemoration of World Toilet Day.’

          ‘Poof,’ sneered Sara, ‘this is just a load of sh…’

          ‘Shush,’ I said. ‘This is a crucial aspect of developing our great nation...’

          ‘No house is complete,’ began the Honorable Ms Emery Chimbusu, ‘without a toilet. This is a matter on which we must all take action. Do not sit idly in front of your TV this evening. Jump up now, inspect your house and find out if your house has got a toilet!’

          ‘I’ve always wondered,’ I said to Sara, ‘about that big white vase where we planted the geraniums. Maybe that was supposed to be a toilet?’

          ‘Surely not,’ Sara laughed, ‘A chimbusu should be flat on the floor, not sitting up like a big flower pot.’

          ‘It’s a great pity,’ I said, ‘that the Minister didn’t think to illustrate her little talk with some pictures and diagrams, so that we might know what she’s talking about.’

          ‘If you cannot find a proper toilet in your house,’ the Minister for Toilets announced sternly, ‘this almost certainly means that you have been answering the call of nature in a wrong and unhygienic place. Some negligent and uncaring people are even known to be using plastic bags or cooking oil containers, with a view to emptying the contents over their political opponents and without police permission.’

          ‘That’s why we need the Public Order Act,’ I said, ‘to prevent all this shit flying around.’

          ‘That’s why the police have to wear helmets, visors and rubber boots, and hide behind those huge transparent shields,’ said Sara. ‘They have to protect themselves from flying lumps of cholera.’

          ‘Other furtive defecators,’ explained the Minister, ‘travel long distances to secret places to answer the call of nature, thereby exposing their most tender and vulnerable extremities to the depredation of wild animals, or even worse, to members of the opposition. This is most unhealthy.’

          ‘I am now beginning to understand why the police have to ban these so-called political rallies,’ I admitted. ‘These unfortunate social misfits are actually large congregations of nomadic crappers, looking for a site where they can unburden themselves, with the unintended consequence of spreading cholera instead of political ideas.

          ‘But the normal human function of defecation,’ continued the Minister for Toilets, ‘is supposed to be a moment for private reflection rather than public entertainment. That is why, under the government’s privatization policy, each individual householder is encouraged to build their own private facility.’

          ‘There’s privatization policy for you,’ said Sara. ‘The government won’t build public toilets.’

          ‘If people get together in public toilets,’ I suggested, ‘they might crap all over the government.’

          ‘Figures from the 2009 Demographic Toilet Survey,’ continued the minister, ‘indicate that we have only 762 toilets in a population of 13 million people.’

          ‘And half of those toilets must be in State House!’ I suggested.

          ‘Why do you think that?’ Sara wondered.

          ‘Because,’ I said, ‘the ruling class have to endure so many banquets, causing them to visit the toilet ten times a day, or even more frequently after feasts provided by the Indian High Commission. But your average villager, with starvation and constipation, only needs to go twice a year. The villager’s main expense is funerals, not toilets.’

          ‘We must realize,’ intoned Ms Chimbusu solemnly, ‘that the politics of toilets go back to the very beginning of the demand for social equality, and to the popular rallying cry of the freedom movement, One Man, One Toilet!’

          ‘She means One Person, One Toilet!’ Sara shouted.

          ‘Oh no she doesn’t,’ I hooted. ‘She means One Man, Four Wives, Thirty-five Children and One Toilet!’

           ‘Or Forty Prisoners and One Bucket!’ Sara hissed.

           ‘So I hereby declare,’ announced Ms Emery Chimbusu, ‘that my government will commemorate World Toilet Day by building a million toilets. The government will make toilet building grants available to all householders and will also expand the sewer system nationwide. In line with our action oriented approach, my government undertakes to complete this programme within ninety days!

          ‘Furthermore,’ announced Ms Emery, ‘this new National Toilet Initiative will provide a new means for distributing information on government programmes. By tomorrow, a copy of my speech will be hung on the wall of every toilet in the nation.’

          ‘Emery paper in every toilet!’ laughed Sara. ‘How abrasive! How irritating!’

          ‘Ha ha!’ I exclaimed, ‘this new programme will immediately be flushed down the toilet! That will make it a first!’

          ‘No it won't,’ said Sara. ‘It will make it a fourth!’

          ‘A fourth?’ I frowned. ‘Which were the others?’

          ‘First the Manifesto went down the toilet, and after that the Freedom of Information Act. As we speak the Draft Constitution is already going the same way. So the Toilet Initiative will be the fourth!’

          ‘No, it’s a first!’ I declared, raising my arms in triumph. ‘This is the first time that the toilet has been flushed down the toilet!’