Getting the Best Out of a Bad Deal ?

In March 1986, whilst I was working as an electrical project engineer at Konkola Division of the then Zambia Copper Consolidated Mines Limited, I was sent for a six-month attachment with a British electrical utility company in the United Kingdom.

The attachment was part of a training programme in Electrical Power Distribution systems.

The training was sponsored by the World Bank as a way of strengthening the engineering skills of indigenous citizens of Zambia.

For accomodation the sponsors arranged for me to stay with a British couple as a paying lodger in their home.

I was staying with Mr. and Mrs. Munroe at their home. It was some four kilometers from a switchgear factory of a company called Northern Electrical Industries ( NEI) .The factory was located in a town called Hebburn, which is situated on the banks of the Tyne River.

Mr. Munroe had once worked as an expartriate at the copper mine in the Zambian Copperbelt town of Chingola around 1972.

My stay with the Munroe family is one of the most memorable time of my life. The couple, which was in their fifties, were very kind to me and I was treated like their own child. They had two grown children of their own who were by then grown adults who had their own homes.

On a typical Friday evening we used to go out for dinner at any one of the several social outlets found in the town of Hebburn.

One friday evening we went to one social outlet where we had dinner which was followed by taking of a few drinks.

A number of the Munroes' friends were interested to know more about Zambian life.

At time Zambia was under a one party system of Government.

One evening a certain man engaged me in a heated discussion when I told him about our "one party participatory democracy " in Zambia.

He told me point blank that the one party system of Government could not qualify to be called a "democracy".

I told him that when we had a multiparty system of Government we used to experience a lot of skirmishes between opposing political parties.

The skirmishes were generally between tribal or regional based opposing parties.

My support for the one party participatory democracy then was based on the fact that it had brought unity between the different tribes who have been bitter enemies for many generations.

The British man could not be convinced by this argument .

After about thirty minutes of a heated discussion he told me the following words which still linger in my mind.

"The problem with you Africans is you always choose the best option out of a bad deal. How can you call a one party dictatorship a democracy just because it has brought so called "unity " amongst you ?"

"The unity you are talking about is the unity to share poverty under despotic leaders"!

In our own lives we should not settle for anything that brings peace with the anybody else just to maintain the status quo of living in tranquility with them.

A troubled heart can not live in peace with anybody else apart from its owner.

Personal satisfaction can only be realised when an individual gets the best out of a good deal with anybody else!