Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lusaka (Fides Service) - “Looking to the Future with Hope, Four Decades of Grace” is the title of a statement signed by the three main Christian bodies in Zambia on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the country’s independence. “Since the joyful occasion of national independence in 1964, we have known that Independence was not the end but rather the beginning of a long and difficult road towards nation building” the authors say, as they look at the positive and negative results in the past 40 years. "The anniversary is “also an occasion for us, as Churches, to thank God for the gift of independence, and to look critically at our own contribution to the building of a better Zambia” the Christian leaders remarked.Coadjutor Archbishop Telesphore George Mpundu of Lusaka who is president of the Zambian Bishops’ Conference, signed the statement on behalf of the Catholic Church.
Among the positive results in these 40 years the leaders underlined: good social integration (“despite social differences the country is united”); absence of civil conflicts (“Zambia can rightly be called an oasis of peace”); Relative political stability (“despite many political changes the country has never fallen into anarchy”); investment in infrastructures, health and education (“in the last 40 years hospitals and rural health care centres have been constructed in all the districts”). The authors recall “the churches have made and continue to make significant contributions in the areas of health, education, rural agricultural development programmes, youth empowerment and the fight against HIV/AIDS and its devastating effects on the family and society at large”.
However there are still problems to tackle on the economic level, the nationalisation of main industries degenerated into an inefficient production system, conditioned by political interference, dependence on copper which in the 1970s saw the country’s income decrease because of the fall in copper prices combined with the rise in oil prices marked the beginning “the beginning of our current external financial indebtedness”.
Other major challenges in Zambia include “poverty, especially in rural areas, mainly due to lack of easily accessible markets for agricultural products; inadequate use of our rich agricultural potential; frightening rate of deforestation with an adverse effect on the climate; unemployment, especially for the many youth finishing or dropping out of formal education; loss of respect for women and gender related issues; ravaged infrastructure; HIV/AIDS and other diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria; growing number of orphans and vulnerable children; lack of national consensus on important national issues; greed and corruption in the public and private sectors; pre-dominance of politics at the expense of national development; weak democratic culture; and the tendency to think that someone else should develop our country instead of working hard ourselves.”
Faced with this situation the Christian leaders say “We Christians can make a difference in our country if we get fully involved in national affairs by bringing morality to bear on all national processes”. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 19/10/2004 righe 45 parole 494)
