Arrested Development - A Zambian and African Story

Even though the majority of Zambia’s development pitfalls are self-inflicted, we acknowledge the fact that others are creations of both historical and outside forces - notably those of slavery, colonial domination and neo-colonialism. However, what is of critical importance is that when this issue is highlighted by Zambians later on Africans, it is mistakenly taken as self-admission to our supposed inferiority as well as our inability to rise up to the occasion in order to determine our future. This may also be misconstrued by many detractors of Africa’s progress that we are admitting to the fact that we are unable to take our rightful place amongst other nations so as to extricate ourselves from all forms of human deprivation. However, the owning up to our shortcomings is essential for the final thrust of Zambia’s and indeed Africa’s liberation. Hollow excuses by our past leaders are what got us to this present state of underdevelopment, several decades after independence. But lest this be taken as a sign of weakness then let it be known that this is not the case as we have not forgotten what impeded and continues to stifle our county’s and Africa’s development. Even though numerous works have touched on these issues, contemporary discourses tend to skim over them and always want to treat Africa’s underdevelopment as an original state. Rarely do these works point out that Africa’s current development dilemmas are deeply embedded in what is referred to here as arrested development. Rarely are these harped on or recited because they would put to shame the various doomsayers. Yes, evidence does show that Africans were and continue to be (consciously, unwittingly or otherwise) victims of a global system that is best suited when Africa is poor and downtrodden so that it is continuously exploited for its natural resources and its people remain objects of perpetual ridicule!