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.
He ushered in democratic rule and a free market economy, introducing Zambia to a New Culture.
The Bible records that Jacob awoke from his sleep and thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it."
The numbers of Zambians who have come to know Christ as their personal Saviour are immense. A steady revival has been taking place, converting even those lying on their deathbeds, and many of us have not been aware of it.
Levy
Levi in the Old Testament was the father of the tribe that organised and administered matters of Moses' tabernacle and the keeping of the records of law. Who is not aware of the constitutional process that Levy Mwanawasa had been pursuing to the point of his demise?
It is about the Levites that God said there would be no land to inherit, as was the case with the other tribes of Israel when they crossed the river Jordan with Joshua as their leader.
He Himself was going to be their inheritance (Numbers 8:20). Other Israelite tribes gave the Levites some of their own land under God's instruction (Numbers 35:1-5).
How frequent, during the national funeral tour of Levy's body, has it been said that Zambians rejected Levy in the beginning!
Only seven months after taking office in 2001, he took a holiday at Mfuwe where he told ZNBC TV that 70 per cent of the voting population had voted in other directions. For that reason, he said, he had to prove himself - and he did so in literally every district.
But like the children of Old Testament Levi, Zambia's Levy had no land (honour) - until God Himself became his inheritance.
Speaking geo-politically, in terms of the present times, Zambian believers living under Levy Mwanawasa have lived in a time of great constitutional responsibility.
In Deuteronomy 27, interestingly, it is the Levites who were given the task of declaring to Israel the all-encompassing law of God. It is the Levites of modern day Zambia who should uphold before Zambia the law of God which is the source of national constitutions.
While there are many disastrous crimes and offensive things happening in Zambia, spiritual and moral sensitivity is our inheritance. We are more spiritually and morally sensitive than the typical secular state.
Consider the rather sudden, even overwhelming peace that enveloped Zambia during general elections on October 31, 1991 after months of vitriolic campaigning. Or the tranquil pervading the nation during December 1 to 3 in 2001 after bitter electioneering.
What of the intense, extensive heartrending prayers for Levy's recovery countrywide? Or even the calm with which mourners have poured their hearts out in this hour of grief.
It is as if in Zambia, both the godly and the godless hear and obey one Voice.
On taking office, Levy declared that Zambia would remain a Christian nation as long as he was head of State. He stood for Continuity with Change and changed our landscape countrywide in significant ways.
On his last engagement on Zambian soil, speaking at the Cathedral of the Child Jesus, he stated three times "I would like to leave" a Zambia improved in various ways.
River
The Zambezi river that intimately hugs Zambia's landscape has a name with important roots. Mwambezhi means "river of God." Nzambe nzi means "God, come." Yambezhi means "the best of everything."
On seeing this river, Scottish explorer David Livingstone described it as a "gospel highway."
One of the often confessed realities among the millions of mourners is that Levy died just when Zambians were beginning to see the best of everything economically; just when the river of God was beginning to break its banks and carry us to international honour; just when the grace and love of God had come to uplift suffering people in Zambia.
We stand at the confluence of an ending and a beginning. The year 2008 has been received in Christian circles as a year of new beginnings, because in Bible numerics the number eight (8) signifies the resurrection of Jesus.
It is now evident you cannot have new beginnings without an ending, and after leading Zambia for a period of seven years (another biblical number for completion), Levy has departed.
Zambians should, therefore, not ask "which God?" by looking to "mulungu nshi?" which is better known as the Mulungushi Rock of Authority in Kabwe. The only God we know is Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, Ruler of the kings of the earth.
Neither should Zambians leave Levy's final resting place at daggers drawn after September 3, 2008. David did not have the chance to anoint a successor. Neither has Levy had such an opportunity.
Of a certainty, Zambia is no ordinary country. Zambia is a land of prophecy, and its people (unknowingly) great children of a great destiny.
Therefore, everyone who would dare to become the next leader after David, Jacob and Levy should weigh himself. Not just anyone could ever succeed such great men of one prophetic destiny.
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