Thousands of people gathered in Wembley, going to the stadium for the Euro 2021 match between England and Denmark.

The fans returned to one of the homes of football, echoing the wider situation in the UK as things return to “normal”.

Many restrictions have been lifted, people can socialise, eat and drink inside pubs and restaurants. Schools are open and so are shops.

All that remains is for the masks to come off collectively, to be able to travel to any part of the world without needing to quarantine upon return and for social distancing to end (although that rule seems to be out of the window without the government’s consent).

Normal.

The calls and messages from friends and family asking to meet up.

Normal.

The discussions over which vaccine you had.

Normal.

The sigh of relief at knowing your parents and other vulnerable loved ones are fully vaccinated and can resume some semblance of a life.

Normal.

The word formed part of one of the most used phrases during this pandemic; “new-normal” is it not an oxymoron of some sort. How can the ordinary and mundane suddenly be new?

Is it like a celebrity singer making a comeback? New look, new branding, new genre of music?

Or a product which is now packaged differently, shiny wrapping, bold letters: NEW NORMAL, NOW EVEN BETTER THAN BEFORE, GETS RID OF STAINS FASTER THAN EVER!

As I watch people embrace this return to normality (that which existed before the “new normal”, I question how.

My normal has been altered forever as I go out into a world that no longer includes the three family members I lost to the virus and the loved ones who passed away during that time whom I was not able to mourn properly.

I am not the only one.

How to resume life when there are human-shaped holes everywhere we look?

There are so many topics which form part of the “reunion discussions” here as people sit opposite those they have not seen in months, everything from love lives, to what you watched during lockdown, to which vaccine you had.

But there are also those of us who will gather, carrying loss and you wonder, who should offer their condolences first? Will we say in unison, “I am sorry for your loss?”

Death

In September 2020, my younger grandad in Dubai was hospitalised with COVID-19. Days later, my uncle, the one my mother referred to as her “twin”, was also taken in.

For days on end, the family WhatsApp groups were a hive of activity as everyone kept checking in with each other on whether there had been any updates on them.

Getting into bed would leave many of us gripped with terror as we kept the phones right next to us, ringer on, willing it to not ring in fear that the news of loss would arrive.

The days merged into one, phrases and words such as “oxygen level”, “ventilator”, and ”lung function” became a part of everyday conversation.

And we waited.

Because that really is what this pandemic has been about for so many of us.

One big wait.

Just waiting.

Waiting in a queue to get into the supermarket.

Waiting to feel like a human being again.

Waiting for (an often inept) government to tell you what next.

Waiting for the international community to act on vaccine nationalism, on supporting the hundreds of millions of people whose lives have been destroyed as a result of problematic pandemic policies, on all the global injustices and oppressions which continue to be ignored or treated with a vile indifference.

Waiting to find out if people you love will make it. If you will ever experience those elements of them that your mind and body have connected to, a unique chemical reaction which can never be replicated.

Every year on the 9th of October, my younger grandad would call my mum to wish her a happy birthday, later in the day a bunch of flowers and a card would arrive.

On the 9th of October 2020 the phone rang, and this time it brought the news of his death.

In the days that followed, I watched my mother wrestle with a creature that was invisible to the rest of us, that which morphs into existence following the death of a parent or a parental figure.

While grief sat gently on our shoulders, we clung on to hope with our hands that my uncle would be ok.

The primary coping mechanism became conversations with family members and friends which would feature anecdotes of other people they knew who had contracted the virus and fallen severely ill and somehow made it through.

On the 3rd of November I met with my best friend for breakfast, it was my birthday, and as I bit into my celebratory waffles, my phone rang.

My uncle had passed away.

In those last hours they tried to get as many people on the phone as possible to say goodbye. When it was my mother’s turn, she simply asked him not to leave. She reminded him of the way they would argue over things as kids and promised that if he just stayed, she would never bicker with him again.

My mother’s posture is different now.

She carries loss on her shoulders.

How to put down that burden?

Grief

In my culture, like in many others, coming together and performing certain rituals following the death of a loved one is the norm.

There is the funeral and then during the 12 days after there are communal prayers while people come to offer their condolences.

Some aspects of this coming together can be challenging for some; the copious amounts of tea to be made for the guests, the lack of comfort some get from phrases like “he’s in a better place now” or “it was God’s will”.

Simultaneously however, for many people there is comfort to be found in being surrounded by loved ones. Some bring food, others give well-meaning words of comfort, stories are shared about the person who has passed away and there are moments when the touch of an aunt or uncle or cousin provides momentary respite.

Due to travel bans, limits on the number of people allowed at a funeral and the risks around holding large gatherings, people were denied the opportunity to partake in this communal grieving, the pandemic not only taking our loved ones, but also denying us access to spaces of comfort.

The “zoom funeral” has been among the most peculiar experiences for me.

Watching the last rites being performed and swinging between gratitude for technology and utter disbelief that this last goodbye involves you sitting in front of a screen as if you are watching a film or a Netflix show.

And then. It’s all over.

As other people begin to logout, you stare at the “leave” button, daring yourself to click it.

The decision gets taken out of your hands as a notification pops up, telling you that the “meeting” has ended.

What next? You switch off the laptop, go put the washing machine on, open the mail, call the mechanic to book an MOT and start preparing lunch, while swallowing down a grief that burns the back of your throat?

How can someone just no longer exist?

In the months that followed, I lost more loved ones and loved ones lost loved ones and on and on it went.

Login to social media and there were posts every day in which people shared that someone they love had just died of the virus, and in between these would be those featuring headlines stating, “xxxxxxx number of Covid-19 deaths recorded today”.

These formed some kind of pattern, a reminder that people are not statistics and that behind each number was a living, breathing human being whose death had felt like the end of the world for someone.

Grief laid bare, tears spilling out into the social media feeds, all of us drowning in sorrow.

And now.

Amid all this, a number of countries began rolling out Covid-19 vaccines. At home in the UK, those in the high-risk category began to receive their first shots in early 2021. Suddenly, hope was in the air.

The start of the pandemic saw the slogan “we’re all in this together” being bandied about worldwide. However, the perceived exit point, a vaccine, revealed that this not to be the case.

As countries like the UK return to “normal”, many countries in the global south, including those on the African continent are experiencing the opposite as they once more go into lockdown.

Mortuaries in Namibia are at full capacity, 16 doctors in Uganda have died from the virus in the space of 14 days, lockdowns in countries including South Africa and Rwanda mean that people’s lives and livelihoods are once more severely affected.

Addressing a media briefing on the 1st of July 2021, World Health Organisation Regional Direction for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti said, “The speed and scale of Africa’s third wave is like nothing we’ve seen before.”

That same week World Health Organisation Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was asked about vaccine hesitancy in Africa and that his response was “there is no vaccine so why do we even talk about vaccine hesitancy. Those who have vaccines are getting better and opening up their society, those who don’t are facing serious Covid-19 situations. We need vaccines in Africa now.”

Speaking at the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit on the 22nd of June 2021, Strive Masiyiwa, African Union Special Envoy to the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, said that when he approached vaccine manufacturers in December 2020, he was told all capacity for 2021 was sold, “The people who bought the vaccines and the people who sold them the vaccines knew that there would be nothing for us.”

Ironically, in December 2020, Business Insider reported that Canada “has enough COVID-19 vaccine doses to cover each citizen five times over”.

18-months-ago the global sentiment being pedalled was one of “standing shoulder to shoulder” in facing the pandemic, but it has become increasingly clear that there is a group of entities for whom preserving global inequalities which allow them to stand on a self-created pedestal is far too important.

As Kenyan writer and activist Nanjala Nyabola tweeted in response to an announcement that the United States will purchase and donate half a billion Pfizer vaccines to 92 low- and lower-middle-income countries and the African Union, over two years, “We asked for justice. They are giving us charity.”

Vaccine consignments through the COVAX facility and other donors arrive in dribs and drabs, the International Monetary Fund saying, “The vaccine rollout in sub-Saharan Africa remains the slowest in the world. Less than 1 adult in every hundred is fully vaccinated, compared to an average of over 30 in more advanced economies”.

There has been another pandemic running parallel with COVID-19, that of injustice.

I think back to those anguish-filled days when my uncle and my grandad were in hospital, the numerous moments of bargaining with the universe to just make them ok and the feeling of the floor falling away from me when I was told they had gone.

At that time, talk of vaccines and rollouts was not widespread.

Now, there are vaccines.

Yet there are many begging the universe as I did back then. There are those sat in front of a screen being forced to say a final goodbye with the click of a button, screams of grief erupting from within them, with no one to listen.

And there are those, double-vaccinated, who walked into a football stadium, their screams in unison with a thousand others, heard all over the world.

Normal?

Two of South Africa’s most populous provinces are on fire. Others teeter on the brink. Together with many others who are observing this iteration of the smoldering blaze, I am caught in the confluence of all kinds of emotions. My sisters and their children live at the center of the fire that is raging in Pietermaritzburg. They are terrified. Even though I am observing the fires from Maputo, their horror at the destruction is an affect that they have drawn me into as well. Social media is flush with the devastating images. Acquaintances have lost businesses that they remain mired in debt over. I have internalized the fear of my family and others whose terror I watch on Twitter. In moments of life altering change, we are usually counseled to sit respectfully and to learn from the experience. For this reason and because I am depleted by the effects of COVID-19 on African lives, and as a consequence of the conflicting emotions jostling within me, I had decided to be quiet and to learn.

Over the past decade, I have been thinking of the rogue emotion of collective rage that occasionally surfaces and sweeps us in its wake. For this reason, Pumla Gqola tweeted asking that I remind tweeps about the work of collective rage in this moment. I write in response to this invitation to think through the lessons of rage and its fires. To begin with, we might think of rage as intentional and networked anger rather than as a free standing emotion. Rage builds on sedimented anger but it is not reducible to anger. It transforms individual grievances into shared problems and structures anger into collective action. In the words of Fred Motem, rage is love and care under duress. This is because it forces the downtrodden to choose themselves and assert their presence even when the world has blotted them out.

To rage is to say, “fuck it, I love myself too much to allow this.” Steve Biko reminded us that we are either alive or dead and when we die, we don’t care anyway. Rage is patterned on history because the grievances build up over time and their expression finds resonance with old and evolving forms of protest. I do not have to remind the reader of just how deep South Africa’s protest history goes and how it folds into and out of social sanction and respectability—attributions of good and bad. Following the old feminist adage, the personal (anger) becomes political (rage). Because of what it represents and does, property has always been the target of rage.

These protests and looting bare the hallmarks of rage. Unemployment sits between 60 and 80 percent among black youth. Many are unemployable. They watch us live comfortably and they see the excess of jet setting Moet lives. Businesses come to squarely represent excess. They’ll never get jobs at a shopping centre or mall from which they are routinely chased out and seen—with justification at times—as potential thieves. In Pietermaritzburg there are tons of young men that sleep on the streets, in parks, under shop awnings, bridges, road overpasses, and the city’s cemeteries. Everyone knows to look out for the “paras” despite this being the seat of the unseeing provincial government. The “paras” broke into my sister’s house twice while the family slept. The children are traumatized. The “paras”want food. Some take drugs to numb the pain. And then they need money to buy the drugs. Because they already live in the street, their fate is not tied to the cashiers and waiters who work at the burning shopping centers. This is to say that if their mothers and cousins lose their jobs as a consequence of a burned shop, this will not have material bearing on their overlooked lives. And those who are not homeless already live precarious lives. They see the dimness of their futures.

When someone strikes a match and invites them to take from the shops, the young people are more than ready to rage and eat. Even if for a day or two. The feeling of fleeting control is priceless. To watch the things that taunt and mock you go up in flames is to finally experience the adrenaline of living. It is to turn the world upside down so that we can all feel the destabilizing effects of marginality. With or without shops in the neighborhood, they will always experience hunger and humiliation. So they don’t believe that they are cutting their own noses. Today is their day. For today, it is we who are terrified and uncertain. Tomorrow they will watch us rummage through the ashes. They know the feeling too well. They live in urine stained ashes.

With reference to the Vietnam war, Spike Lee’s protagonist in Da 5 Bloods says “No one should use our rage against us. We own our rage.” It is apt here. Jacob Zuma and his children have attempted to own the rage of the unemployed. Those they forsook and overlooked when they led the rampant feeding at the trough of political patronage. Now they seek to use the rage of the forsaken to fight the reckoning that must follow reckless and wanton corruption that robbed the poor and swelled the ranks of the unemployed. They lit the match and tossed it. It has landed on dry tinder. Now the flames are engulfing us.

On this precipice, we too have to sit with the warning. “No one should use our rage against us.” As the middle classes and the tenuously employed working classes, do we hit out at the raging youth or do we help in closing the growing gulf between the poor and the wealthy. Not through slogans about old Stellenbosch money, but our own money, political decisions, and privilege that we use to build walls around our properties. Even if we got our hands on all the white Stellenbosch money and imprisoned apartheid generals and war mongers, our problems will not be overcome. Not to use the rage of the unemployed calls on us to end our problematic relationship to property and to recenter the public good. It is insufficient to take care of our families and to complain about black tax. It is to take seriously that the raging youth own their rage and that it is an expression of their self-love under duress. We might condemn their destruction of property but to take rage seriously is to reconsider the social role of property not as enrichment but as public good. This moment is one of reckoning. It shines the spotlight on the government’s ineptness, the fissures between us, and the violence of property.

Perhaps the rage will die down in a few days. Rage always burns itself out. But all it needs are reckless political feeders who thrive on attention and self-importance to light the kindling. Proxy political battles, xenophobes, fascists and others will fill the yawning fissures of inequality. We will return to this place again. We have been here before. Those old enough to remember the fires of the 1980s and the transition years know the fires of rage. Those who came of age in the 1970s nurse the burns of the Soweto and Langa uprisings. The Durban strikes. And earlier still, in the 1960s, the Mpondo revolt and Sharpeville massacre had their own fires. The women who marched on the Union Buildings know the heat of rage.

To riff off James Baldwin, there will be a fire next time. The embers and kindling are in place. What matters is what we do between this fire and the next.

–

This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site once a week.

Ten years ago, I was sitting together with other invited guests during the Republic of South Sudan independence celebrations on the day that South Sudan was declared a free nation, when I saw an elderly man with a white handkerchief in his hand, walking slowly towards the podium. The independence celebrations were already underway and the podium was crowded with African heads of states. The stadium was quiet, possibly because everyone was puzzled that this elderly man was walking towards the stage when everyone was already seated. When the master of ceremonies announced that the man was Kenneth David Kaunda the venue buzzed with excitement.

Everyone on the main podium where the heads of states and prime ministers were seated stood up and clapped until Mzee Kaunda was seated. Many of those seating near me were wondering how Kaunda had entered the stadium while all the presidents, including the host president, had already arrived. Foreign affairs officials of the United Republic of Tanzania later explained to me that Mzee was late because his flight had been delayed. The reception he received at the stadium showed the esteem with which the elders who started and led the struggle for freedom were held even in their retirement years. It was a big honour for the Republic of South Sudan that the former president of Zambia and the second Chairman of the Frontline States was present on the day the country became independent.

A few months later, around March 2012, I was lucky to meet Mzee Kaunda. I was in Lusaka on parliamentary business and I requested that the Zambian parliament afford me the opportunity to pay him a visit. Mzee Kaunda received me warmly in his office and we spoke about a number of African issues. The conversation was essentially Kaunda answering my questions about African liberation movements. I remember that as you enter his office, there is a photo of Mzee Kaunda, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Mzee Jomo Kenyatta taken at the airport in Nairobi as they wait for their flight to the United Kingdom.

This was before their countries became fully independent; it was the time of self-government, when both Kaunda and Kenyatta were Prime Ministers. Tanganyika had already obtained full independence, although this was prior to the formation of the United Republic of Tanzania. I asked Mzee Kaunda if he could remember when that photo was taken and he said that it was in January 1964. They were young, smart individuals who possessed a lot of self-confidence. Mzee Kaunda explained to me how at the time, Africa had a lot of hope and he spoke of his very close relationship with Mwalimu Nyerere and even with Mzee Kenyatta, although their politics were not very similar. All three are now no longer with us. Mzee Kenneth David Kaunda passed away on Thursday 17th June 2021 in Lusaka, Zambia.

Kenneth Kaunda, popularly known as KK, was the only surviving founding president of an independent African state. But he was not a founding president of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Zambia was not an independent state when the OAU was formed on the 25th of May 1963 and neither Kaunda nor Jomo Kenyatta were amongst the leaders who signed the OAU Charter. Zambia joined the OAU on the 26th of February 1965. It is however easy to assume that KK was a founder of the OAU as he was at the forefront of the independence struggle in Africa and because Zambia gained independence shortly after the OAU was formed. KK believed strongly in the OAU and took part in almost all its meetings. He became the Chairman of the OAU in 1970 at the 7th meeting of Heads of States in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

As Zambia gained its independence, Mozambique and Angola were engaged in the struggle for independence from Portuguese colonial power, while South Africa and Namibia were fighting the white supremacist apartheid regime. And although Zambia was surrounded by countries that had already gained their independence — Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)) and Malawi — it only had close relations with Tanzania and Botswana. Under Kamuzu Banda, Malawi had close relations with Apartheid South Africa while Zaire was used by Western nations against liberation movements. Zambia was going through trying times. Being a landlocked country, the country could either transport goods through the ports of Beira and Nacala in Mozambique, which was under Portuguese rule, or through Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), which was under Ian Smith’s settler rule. This is where Kaunda’s leadership underwent trying times – to protect his country’s interests by cooperating with the apartheid regime or to support the struggle for freedom from colonialism in Africa. Kaunda chose the latter option at a very high cost.

Kenneth Kaunda, popularly known as KK, was the only surviving founding president of an independent African state.

President Kaunda started the Mulungushi Club together with President Nyerere and President Milton Obote of Uganda whose aim was national reconstruction. Unfortunately, President Obote was overthrown by Idi Amin in 1971, leaving only Kaunda and Nyerere. They invited President Seretse Khama of Botswana to one of their meetings, during which, for the first time, the name Frontline States was used. That first meeting was held in Lusaka, Zambia and Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was the first chairman of the Frontline States, contrary to custom which dictates that the president of the host state should be chairman. Mark Chona, special assistant to President Kaunda, has documented in the Hashim Mbita Project – Southern African Liberation Struggles Contemporaneous Documents 1960 – 1994 how Nyerere became chairman:

It was on the issue of releasing from prison the Zimbabwean freedom fighters, the first meeting was in October when I was sent to Cape Town and KK wanted to give a recap to President Nyerere and President Khama. Once seated Mwalimu said “oh! Kenneth, you are the host. I request that you should be the chairman” and KK said “No, Mwalimu please chair the meeting, I am only a host.” At the second meeting, Mwalimu again requested that Kaunda should be the chairman and again Kaunda said “No, no, you spoke very well at the first meeting, please continue to chair the meetings” and that is how Mwalimu Nyerere carried on as the Chairman of Frontline states until 1985 the end of his presidency in Tanzania. That is Mzee Kaunda then became Chairman and he continued with this role until he lost the election in Zambia in 1991.

President Kaunda is essentially remembered for his role in African liberation. In his time, Zambia served liberation movements, resolving disputes within the movements, providing financial assistance and preparing them to run their countries. Zambia came under military attack from Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa and was even threatened with nuclear bombing by the Apartheid regime. In order to stop Zambia from being dependent on the ports in Mozambique and South Africa, President Kaunda and President Nyerere decided to seek assistance from China to build the TAZARA railway. At one point, Zambia also started efforts to develop a nuclear bomb to be used against South Africa.

Members of the Frontline States increased to six when Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe gained independence. The biggest task remaining was to liberate Namibia and South Africa, both of which became independent in 1991 and 1994, respectively. Mzee Kenneth Kaunda was at the forefront in ensuring the success of the liberation struggle, during which many lives were lost.

Kenneth Kaunda’s power handover was a big lesson on democracy for Africa when he conceded defeat in an election and handed over the presidency to Frederick Chiluba in 1991.

Kenneth Kaunda also made decisions that either brought misunderstandings between him and his fellow leaders of the Frontline States, or convinced them to take positions that were contrary to those of the OAU. Three issues will be remembered the most. The first was recognising the secession of Biafra from the Federal State of Nigeria. This decision, which was made by only four countries in Africa – Zambia, Gabon, Ivory Coast and Tanzania – caused a lot of misunderstanding among African heads of states. Tanzania recognised the Republic of Biafra on the 13th of April 1968 and Zambia did the same a month later on the 20th May 1968. I was told by a former ambassador from Tanzania who had attended the 5th OAU general meeting which took place in September 1968 in Algiers, Algeria, where the issue of Biafra was discussed, that President Kaunda was verbally attacked by his fellow presidents to the point that he had to leave the meeting. His friend Mwalimu Nyerere did not attend the meeting but sent his friend Rashidi Kawawa instead. KK continued to believe in Biafra for a long time and  in November 2011 he attended the funeral of Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, who had been the leader of secessionist Biafra.

The second issue was recognising Angola’s independence. Angola obtained independence from Portugal in 1975 following years of armed struggle. The 1975 military coup in Portugal opened the way for independence talks that were led by Zambia. As none of the country’s three liberation movements — the MPLA led by Augustino Neto, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) led by Jonas Savimbi and Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FLNA) led by Holden Roberto — had control over Luanda, the OAU intervened and a vote was organised to decide which of the three parties would take over from Portugal.

The results of the vote did not produce an outright winner and OAU member states were very divided on this. At a meeting of African heads of state in Addis Ababa, President Kaunda gave a speech that showed his support for UNITA which really angered Mwalimu Nyerere and the Tanzanian delegation. Mwalimu Nyerere therefore decided against giving his speech and instead only said a few words in response to the president of Senegal.

Journalist and lawyer Jenerali Ulimwengu, who was in Addis Ababa as the Deputy Chairman of the Pan-African Youth Movement, told me that the situation had been very tense. The MPLA decided to enter Luanda and declare independence after Portugal surrendered the instruments of power. Jenerali, who was present in Luanda on independence day, will not forget that day; as Tanzania was seen as not principled despite sending the Vice PresidentAboud Jumbe to the celebrations. The issue of Mzee Kaunda, Jonas Savimbi and UNITA is an issue that has still not been understood.

The third issue is one that concerns Zambia. President Kaunda was severely punished by the settler government of Rhodesia and the apartheid regime of South Africa, to the point that Zambia’s economy completely collapsed. Kaunda had closed the border with Smith’s Rhodesia but TAZARA was unable to transport goods into Zambia. The people of Zambia blamed him for his politics of assisting liberation movements instead of focusing on Zambia’s interests. Contrary to his agreement with his fellow leaders, and contrary to his promise that he “would not open the border until Zimbabwe gained independence”, KK decided to open the border with Zimbabwe. In the meeting of the Frontline States a big dispute arose between Presidents Machel, Neto, Kaunda and Nyerere. Mzee Joseph Butiku, who was then Nyerere’s Chief of Staff, has said that it was one of the most difficult meetings he attended during his time with Mwalimu Nyerere. Butiku states that “in the middle of the meeting leaders began to cry. Our role as assistants is to make a record of the conversations, I simply wrote that ‘the presidents are weeping!’”. Zambia was eventually allowed to carry on with its plans. A similar thing happened to President Machel in 1984 following the Nkomati Accord with the Apartheid regime of South Africa and this led to Nyerere “chasing him away” when he went to give him a recap.

Zambia came under military attack from Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa and was even threatened with nuclear bombing by the Apartheid regime.

Kenneth Kaunda’s power handover was a big lesson on democracy for Africa when he conceded defeat in an election and handed over the presidency to Frederick Chiluba in 1991. Kaunda was a president who was very modest to the point that by the time he relinquished the presidency, he did not own a house. When Chiluba took over, he gave Kaunda a hard time, going to the extent of imprisoning him for treason. Mzee Kaunda went on a hunger strike while in jail which he only ended when Mwalimu Nyerere visited him. Dr Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, the third president of Zambia, returned KK to the status of Father of the Nation, giving him all his dues as a retired president, which he continued to receive until his death.

In Development as Rebellion: Julius Nyerere A Biography, Prof Issa Shivji, Prof Saida Yahya-Othman and Dr Ng’wanza Kamata explain how shocked President Kaunda was by the terrible condition of the road to Butiama (Nyerere’s home village). He came to the conclusion that the driver had gone the wrong way as it was not possible that the road to the president’s house could be in such a terrible condition. But it is more shocking that President Kaunda did not have his own home when his presidency ended as he had served his country and never thought of himself. Without a doubt, the first generation of African leaders was unique and I do not think that Africa will get leaders of Kenneth Kaunda’s calibre again. May God rest his soul in peace.

Hamba Kahle KK. You are the last to depart. Greetings to Nyerere, Bibi Titi, Samora, Josina, Winnie, Mandela, OR Tambo, Lumumba, Neto, Mondlane, Hani, Chipeto, Marcelino and all the others who gave their blood and sweat to liberate us.