Meditations from the Bush
Chapter 1: His Humbleness Declares the Bush a Place of Dissent.
I have been waiting most of my adult life for this; so, when I heard the distinctive muffled voice of His Humbleness crackle through the radio, admonishing the youth of this here republic for protesting in the bush, I was elated. I pulled my car over and gave a long, contented sigh of contentment. He had done it – His Humbleness had declared the bush a place of dissent.
Perhaps this warrants some context: I have spent much of my short life on the dusty edges of Lusaka. Growing up on the peri-urban wasn’t the most exciting for a young man: I had a few close friends who lived in the area, and local parties consisted of drunken shindigs where adolescent boys tried to lay the same adolescent girls every weekend. I had learnt to accept this as part of my way, whatever that meant. I learnt to appreciate the slowness of this place, where I could watch the city grow before my eyes – the big farms cut up as parcels for small-holding aspirants, dirt roads tarred by Chinese who produced a new language in conversation with Nyanja. This new language also brought forth new children, the union of Orient and Savannah made literal, breathing. I could witness this with detached interest; but I could never engage with it.
The closest politics I witnessed were played out by green-capped cadres streaming out of Bauleni. They were a nuisance - one that I couldn’t even honk at. Can you imagine that? - not even my car horn, middle-class political tool par excellence, was of any use. Where was I to go, where could I honk my horn? Could these green-capped fellas not travel a bit further down Leopards Hill, past State Lodge, and carry on? Eventually, they would find me on a well-sized small-holding, ready to honk. So, you understand, friend, what a moment this radio broadcast was for me – I had finally been admitted into the realm of politics.
Historians say that the 20th century was marked by rural revolutions. Mao Tse-Tung marched six thousand miles across rural China and inspired a generation of young communists; Fidel Castro led his band of communists down from the Sierra Maestra mountains to overthrow an American-backed dictator; in Zambia, Kaunda reared his head in a mission station in Chinsali District. On the other hand, sociologists – who also seemingly dabble as part-time diviners– predict that the 21st century will be marked by urban revolutions. Who can deny the allure of anarchist crowds holding up Wall Street, or the protests against Mubarak in Tahrir Square? Politics of the bush, it seems, had died with the 20th century. So, I can only congratulate – nay, admire – His Humbleness for re-affirming the natural resting place of politics: the bush.
You might, at this point, wonder why. Why is this so important for this peasant and his car horn? I guess it has to do with a deep-seated frustration that hangs about in the air, like smog in early morning traffic; well, you city-dwellers would know of this better than I. Isn’t there a feeling of constraint and censorship that shrouds the city? No one seems truly free. Everyone hangs about in some sort of expectation, poetic or otherwise. Politics is, of course, borne of expectations – both failed and promised, but this is a relentless onslaught, a misconfiguration of expectation. This is an anxious expectation.
I remember at boarding school, I used to run my cross-country races barefoot. Then I longed for the primal touch of dirt-on-sole, much like now. I would like to claim that my desire to watch the city burn from the hillside first emerged on the long-running tracks around the countryside, but that would probably be anachronistic. My egotism has not reached those heights yet, dear friends. Instead, somewhere between the cadres’ intimidations and the new plots of land in my area ‘acquired’ by Government ministers, I felt the slow tug of discontent edge me towards the conclusion that a change will have to come. The politics of the bush is inward-looking and reactionary, but nevertheless poetic. It reminds me of the burden I cast off as soon as I ran. Cold-footed, the rush of wind pressed against my body, I somehow felt free.
Bazzi, the author, is a 20-something cliché: an aspiring writer and photographer, unemployed for the most part. When he’s not bitter at the world he’s usually found walking around the city, basking in the universe of moral poverty.
