Fellow Zambians,
There are seasons when politics must remove its shoes and walk barefoot, because the ground has become sacred.
This is one of those seasons.
Before us is not a campaign issue, not a legal file, not a headline, not a contest of egos. Before us lies the silence of death, and silence demands reverence from all who still breathe.
The body of President Edgar Chagwa Lungu Z”L is not a trophy to be claimed, nor a battlefield on which rival camps must plant flags. A coffin is not a podium. Grief is not an election.
To the Lungu family: your pain is understood beyond words. A nation can debate many things, but no nation can debate a mother’s tears, a widow’s sorrow, or the ache of children who only want to bury their own in peace. May the G-d of all comfort hold you close.
To the State: power is greatest when it kneels before humanity. Governments are remembered not only by the laws they enforce, but by the tenderness they show when citizens are broken-hearted. Strength without compassion is noise.
To supporters on every side: if your love for the living causes you to dishonor the dead, then it is not love at all.
Our elders taught us that when death enters the village, quarrels must wait outside. Our faith teaches that from dust we came and to dust we return. Dust has no party card. Dust has no tribe. Dust has no bitterness.
So let us rise above camps and slogans.
Let the family be embraced.
Let the law be guided by mercy.
Let leaders speak softly.
Let faith leaders pray loudly.
Let elders counsel wisely.
Let the nation breathe deeply.
And let President Edgar Chagwa Lungu come home.
Not as UPND.
Not as PF.
Not as government.
Not as opposition.
But as a son of Zambia.
Let him return to the soil that formed him, under the sky that watched his journey, among the people who knew his name long before office and will remember it long after politics.
The greatest victory now is not for one side to win. It is for Zambia to prove that even in disagreement, we still know how to bury our dead with dignity.
President Edgar Chagwa Lungu Z”L led Twenty million Zambians, but we, the 20 million Zambians, are embarrassing ourselves before the world by failing to take care of him in death. This issue is no longer about how the UPND Government failed to take care of him; it’s no longer about Hakainde Hichilema, but about all of us, Zambians.
History is watching us. Our children are learning from us. Heaven is listening to us.
May we choose the path that makes future generations proud to call themselves Zambian.
Bring him home.
Bury him with honor.
And let peace be the final speech over his grave.
If need be, I can readily reach out as a Jew and Zambian to the Jewish community of South Africa and get high level rabbis to reach out to the family and bring the state on the same table to get this resolved.
Saviour Chishimba
UPP PRESIDENT