Charles Kachikoti
2 September 2008
opinion
THE passing of Zambia's third republican president closes a season in which the nation has been ruled by three pace-setters who shared one destiny.
It is well beyond coincidence that Zambia has been ruled by David, Jacob and Levi (Levy), types of Bible characters - and now the last of the three has gone.
David (Kenneth David Kaunda) built a nation and subdued surrounding colonial domains, and while so doing he appointed Levi (Levy Patrick Mwanawasa) solicitor-general in 1985.
Jacob (Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba) stole the birthright of a nation from the control of eastern gurus (such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Ranganathan) and declared it a Christian nation. Levy was then his number two. At his departure he picked up David's former solicitor-general and anointed him successor.
As head of State, Levi (Levy) went to great lengths to re-establish and reorganise the importance of rule of law.
The exit of David from the throne in 1991 was heralded by long food and commodity queues. The exit of Levy from the earth has been accompanied by queues of up to six kilometres-long as was the case in Lusaka where citizens and denizens waited for as long as four hours to view the body last weekend.
The meaning and purpose vested in the three presidents' names calls for a deeper look into the times to come, specially so the unheralded presidential by-elections.
No matter their imperfections, no matter their mistakes, no matter their convictions, our three former heads of State are the three sides of a highly important prism, a prophetic foundation that holds much meaning for the life and future of Zambia.
David
In the Old Testament, David was the second king of Israel. He took over from King Saul who, after starting well, ended up with a gnarled kingship when God rejected him. Saul started off with considerable nobility, a person who physically - and possibly morally and psychologically too - stood head and shoulder above all the people of Israel.
He ended up in dishonour after pursuing all the things that God had prohibited. Saul would easily represent British colonial rule.
David established Israel and organised its government and society. He also played a key role in the development of its religious or worship activities. He conquered numerous nations round about and established peace for his people.
In contemporary Zambia, the same is true about Kenneth David Kaunda. Zambians owe it to his personal vision and resilience that Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa won their independence in the 70s and 80s, having used Zambia as their political and military bases for decades.
Zambia has been a haven of peace in spite of the military incursions of Renamo guerillas in the east, Unita attacks in the west, Katangese rebel forays in the centre north and Rhodesian Selous scouts in the south.
Internally, Adamson Mushala in the north-west fought a long intermittent war with his armed men. Zambians died in their numbers during those difficult years.
The peace that has held Zambia together compares to a good degree with the peace that has held Israel together from the times of David who time and again faced attacks from surrounding nations.
The emergence of the David Universal Temple and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Heaven on Earth in Kaunda's latter years demonstrates that eastern occultists had a certain awareness of the man's importance in spiritual terms - and even of the nation's strategic positioning in geo-spiritual and geo-political realms.
David is still a reference point in Israel. It is even held that his physical throne is in existence, kept in Britain awaiting the return of Jesus Christ.
And David is still a reference point in Zambia. It is a glorious tribute to him that the vast countrywide infrastructure he laid from the 60s to the 80s sustains future economic programmes through the older generations that he educated free of charge. Because of David, Zambia's 73 ethnic groups truly are One Zambia, One Nation.
God has allowed him to see the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and the liberation of South Africa from apartheid; and even the coming and going of his two successors
God has allowed him to be the father of the nation and lend us an important measure of confidence, balance and reassurance - as it was when he was at the capital's airport to receive Levy's body on Saturday August 23, 2008.
Jacob
In Zambia's Jacob we see the renaming of a nation. We also see peace-brokering continued in the role that the second head of state pursued in the Democratic Republic of Congo nations of the Great Lakes Region.
The Jacob of the Bible was the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. He is remembered for having tricked his older brother Esau of his birthright for a plate of porridge.
Esau, a hunter, returned home weary and famished. He found Jacob cooking a meal, and asked for some. It was given him on the condition that he surrendered his birthright.
A birthright is of extreme importance in most cultures. The first born son in a family will normally inherit half of his father's wealth, the other sons sharing the rest. The other sons will also give a part of their wealth to the first son.
This illustrates the value of a birthright. It is a right to family heritage, wealth and even prospects by virtue of birth.
Jacob is also remembered for deceiving his increasingly blind, aging father Isaac by pretending to be Esau. Isaac's wife Rebekah, on being told that her husband was going to bless Esau, the first son, sent Jacob in first, having clothed him in the hide of an animal to pretend it was Esau who was hairy. Jacob received the blessing.
When Jacob worked for Laban, whose daughter Rachel he wanted to marry, he served seven years but was fooled into marrying her older sister Leah. He served another seven for Rachael.
In the process, he shrewdly used his imagination to cause his livestock, which were speckled and spotted, to increase over and above Laban's animals.
In the end, his herds greatly increased and so did his maids and men servants. Later, he fled from Laban who was his mother's brother. In modern Zambia, it had to take the shrewd reasoning of Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba to declare Zambia a Christian nation.
A King Solomon would have been too intellectually developed (wise) to do that. This is why even Christians were divided over this issue - intellectually and logically it was a silly thing to do - but that's why Jacob came onto the scene.
It was Jacob who saw the stairway to heaven in Genesis 28, the angels of God ascending and descending on it when he stopped to sleep at a place called Luz, between Beersheba and Haran.
It was Jacob who, on waking from his dream, set up an altar and renamed the place Bethel which means "house of God." Our own Jacob did the same and in spiritual terms renamed this country.
At the top of the stairway, God said: "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying."
And it is true that for a time, believers and non-believers in this country were lying in defeat on their backs economically and in some cases spiritually even.
But there is evidence that both are now being given the land in the authority of Jacob's inheritance.
God said: "Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring."
It is true Zambians have fanned out as economic refugees. A second exodus will be of missionaries fanning out to preach Jesus Christ to atheist, secularist nations in the world.
Our own Jacob heard it in the spirit and dared act on what he sensed was happening. He pulled the birthright over this land from the hand of the occult movements that have been ranging the countryside from times immemorial.
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