The Editor Zambia
There is an uncomfortable question that Zambia must confront honestly. Would President Hakainde Hichilema be subjected to the same intensity of personal abuse, hatred, political ridicule, and ethnic hostility if he were from another region other than Southern Province?
Would some of the people who have spent the past several years attacking, insulting, abusing President Hichilema with such extraordinary hate and bitterness have behaved in exactly the same way if the man came from Northern, Muchinga, Eastern or Luapula that have historically dominated Zambian politics? 
This is not a question that should be dismissed simply because it is uncomfortable. The question is important because Zambia has reached a point where pretending that political tribalism does not exist is becoming as dangerous as tribalism itself.
The evidence of Zambia’s long history of regional and ethnic voting patterns is well established bearing in mind that for many years, political power and electoral influence were heavily concentrated around what has become to be known as the Chambeshi- Luangwa political corridor, encompassing Northern, Muchinga, Luapula, Eastern and parts of Central provinces.
At the same time, Southern, Western, North-Western and parts of Central provinces known as the Zambezi region were frequently treated as political territories outside the principal corridors of national power.
No one, not even a Professor of Zambian politics, can analyse the hatred and insults President Hichilema has been subjected to without understanding this background.
Preident Hichilema’s emergence as Republican President seem to have disrupted the established political geography of dominance. A man from Southern Province, Bweengwa to be precise, eventually became President of Zambia after years of unsuccessful presidential campaigns. Even his serial losses to lesser politicians should be seen in this light.
Instead of being celebrated as evidence that the Zambian presidency could genuinely belong to anybody, his victory appears to have unsettled many netizens of some hegemonic regions who had become accustomed to seeing national political power through the Chambeshi/Luangwa regional lens.
While normally, there is absolutely nothing wrong with criticising President Hichilema, Zambians should be reminded that there is a profound difference between opposing the President’s politics and despising him because of his tribe and origin.
The majority of his critics, unfortunately, hate and criticise poor President Hichilema because of his tribe and for displacing the chosen ruling classes.
The recent intervention by Paramount Chief Chitimukulu, who has complained of insults being hailed at him, should therefore be viewed against this wider background.
The traditional ruler rightly condemned insults directed at him and the institution he represents by some of his own subjects. That is why the argument that particular communities from the so-called Chambeshi/Luangwa region are inherently non-tribal while those from the Zambezi region are tribal must be rejected.
Recently, New Heritage Party leader Chishala Kateka posted a video defending Bembas against accusations of tribalism. Kateka herself belongs to the north/eastern tribal bloc, and her weak defence should be seen in this light.
The correct position is much simpler. Bemba tribalism should be condemned where it exists, just as Tonga, Lozi, Chewa, Ngoni, Lunda, Lenje, Kaonde, or any other form of tribalism should be condemned where it exists.
Tribalism has no ethnic home.
It is political and social behaviour.
The problem becomes even more serious when Bembas attempt to drag Paramount Chief Chitimukulu into their political battle against President Hichilema.
The Paramount Chief does not become less Bemba because he refuses to participate in political hostility towards a Tonga President. On the contrary, his refusal to be drawn into such a contest is precisely the kind of restraint expected from a traditional leader.
The message should be clear. A traditional leader does not have to insult the president to prove his loyalty to his people. Nor does a Bemba citizen have to hate President Hichilema to prove that he is Bemba.
Nor does a Tonga citizen have to defend everything President Hichilema does simply because he is Tonga.
That is what national citizenship means.
What is particularly striking is the selective outrage displayed by some of President Hichilema’s fiercest opponents. Many of the people now making the loudest accusations about the state of Zambia were alive during the administrations of Michael Chilufya Sata, Rupiah Bwezani Banda, and Edgar Chagwa Lungu.
They witnessed the controversies, political disputes, economic difficulties, allegations of corruption, and other governance problems associated with successive administrations.
Yet some who were remarkably quiet, or considerably less vocal, during those periods have suddenly discovered an extraordinary appetite for political confrontation now that the man from Bweengwa is President of Zambia
President Hichilema did not create Zambia’s historical regional divisions-as many shallow tribalists seem to believe. He inherited them. President
Hichilema should, therefore, be judged by his enviable record of development even in areas with die- hard tribalists who did not vote for him.
His opponents should challenge his policies, expose his failures where they believe they exist, and present alternative programmes to the electorate.
But turning his Tonga identity into a permanent political weapon as all his critics are doing now only exposes the very tribal divisions that Zambia has spent decades claiming to have overcome.
Insults will not make President Hichilema less Zambian. They will not make Paramount Chief Chitimukulu less Bemba. They will only reveal how deeply political tribalism has penetrated the national conversation.
The bubble has, therefore, been burst.
The challenge before Zambia is not whether one tribe can defeat another. It is whether a nation of more than seventy ethnic communities can finally grow beyond the primitive belief that State House belongs to one or two regional blocs.
That is the battle that matters.
And if Zambia is serious about One Zambia, One Nation, then the time has come to stop asking whether the President is Bemba, Tonga, Luvale, Kaonde, Lozi, Chewa, or Ngoni. The only question that should matter is whether the person is President of Zambia.
