The Real President
Excerpt from THE REAL PRESIDENT
Chapter 1
THERE WAS FEAR, much fear in the land. You feared for your life, for your son’s life and for your daughter’s life. You feared for your wife, your relatives and friends. Fear in the streets, classrooms, doctors’ consulting rooms and in the home. There was fear everywhere. Danger was everywhere and always lurking.
Fear had increased in the past few weeks since the death of the leader of the Mine Workers Union. He was a rising star who spoke more sense than the career politicians. He was an intelligent middle-aged man who people secretly looked to as the top challenger to the incumbent president. Sadly, he was brutally murdered in front of his house as he waited for his gate to open. He was driving in from a meeting to resolve the current government’s unilateral decision to cut the miners’ salary by one third. The people knew who killed him. It was the President and his ruthless and mindless supporters. This was a regular occurrence since Chimwanga became president thirty years ago. He had killed many potential leaders and of course anyone who dared criticise his regime openly. The methods varied: accidents on the road, collapsing in hotels or getting shot in front of their homes or in their houses. Others simply disappeared without any trace. It was an open secret that the killer in their midst was their own president.
Chapter 21
“Mr President, I am sure you were expecting me to ask you this – do you really believe racism is a religion?”
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“Yes, I do. What is a religion? It is a set of beliefs either in a deity or idea. It has believers who propagate it. Often these people believe that their religious values are the best and even worth dying for or killing for. They build organisations and processes to propagate their beliefs. Racism has a set of beliefs, that certain skin pigmentation is superior. Why we have these skin differences, we shall wait to ask God when the time is fulfilled. Although the differences you have between peoples are predominantly cultural, more of nurture than nature, I am sure there are racists who believe they have their own God. It is the most deadly religion on earth. As an African’s point of view, it is responsible for stealing the dignity of the African, stealing millions of Africans and selling them abroad into slavery and mentally destroying millions of African people in the Americas, Europe and all over the world. It is also responsible for excluding millions of black people from systems that create wealth, perpetuating poverty and indignity. Yes, I do believe it is a religion.”
Excerpt from THE REAL PRESIDENT II
Chapter 1
“CONGRATULATIONS!” Moses said as he shook her sweaty hands. He leaned forward, whispered into her ear and embraced her. He turned to the crowd, waved four times and as all hands frantically waved back, he bowed; then walked down the platform. Delilah posed, a gentle head bow in his direction, turned around and looked at the hundreds of thousands of people gathered. She wondered whether they were here to witness her inauguration or to bid President Moses Kamawu farewell. There was hardly a smile, many cheeks shining with uncontrollable tears, that physical evidence of the heart’s unseen emotions. Delilah knew exactly what those tears meant. She hesitantly raised her right hand, waved to the crowd but only a few of the hands waved back. Another lesson. She knew she had a challenge, to lift a heavy cloud of sadness and turn it into joy.
‘It appears human beings are not good at mixing feelings of sadness and joy in one heart at the same time; it is more tolerable if they come in a sequence of time,’ she thought. ‘What emotion do you get out of this compound?’ No time to philosophise; the only relevant philosophy right now is that of survival. Her presidency cannot collapse on the first day. Instinctively, she burst into the party song which had become the second national anthem for Lubanda. She bellowed it with passion and excellence like the last performance for a singing competition. The audience joined in, sang along, clapped and appeared to have been temporarily consoled and charmed.