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Kenneth Kaunda

Conference on World Affairs

Plenary:
Zambia and the Democratization of South Africa
April 9, 2003

Overall Impression:President Kenneth Kaunda delivered this Plenary. However I have a less formal name for his emminence. I saw Patch Adams come out of a panel. When he saw the president he cried out, "Kenny!" They hugged like old buddies. Every since then I think of him as Kenny. I even got to shake his hand after one of his panels.

Kenneth Kaunda

President Kaunda lives by two commandments:

  1. Love God - With all of your mind soul and strength
  2. Love They Neighbor - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Of course by "Love Thy Neighbor" he also means that you do not allow them to exploit you or others. Kenny referred to these two items throughout his talk. Alas Patch Adams was sitting behind me and I was trying to write up a question for him so I did a poor job of following the President's talk, however a few ideas did emerge.

  • If a party, in this case his country, is not able to open a dialogue with a neighbor, then it may be possible to find another party that can act as an intermediary. External groups may be able to provide communication or pressure when you cannot. I suppose this might have worked when dealing with Iraq since Saddam Hussein and George Bush were not on speaking terms.
  • Full sanctions against a country can work to pressure them to change. Full sanctions include economic, diplomatic, and cultural sanctions. Earlier President Kaunda had stated "Ghana is not free until the rest of Africa is free." I gather from this talk that sanctions would be required against many regimes in Africa.
  • Many challenges lie ahead, but we all need to play together like a jazzband, with talent and passion.
  • "You cannot destroy terrorism with an act of terrorism." (That ought to make it onto a bumper sticker in Boulder.)
  • Don't hate people for actions of the government. When Kenny was serving as President of Zambia he only interacted with the government and government officials. Recently he has been teaching on the East Coast and has gotten more opportunities to deal with the people of America. He thinks we are good people.
  • As a final point he said we need to break the wall of silence on HIV/AIDS, which is ravaging all of Africa.