Book Launch – Women, Resilience, and the Will to Lead
My book, Women, Resilience, and the Will to Lead, tells the story of my journey into leadership, from my upbringing as a child, to a chance encounter with a classmate who made me realise that just putting oneself forward is half the battle in becoming a leader.
Who Will Save Zambia?
I grew up in Zambia in the 1980s and 1990s. I am old enough to remember some of what it was like to live under authoritarian one-party rule in Zambia. I remember that people felt afraid of speaking openly and frankly over the phone. I remember stories of people dying under mysterious circumstances. I remember the effects of Exchange controls, the scarcity of goods that now appear in abundance and even the food riots in the late 1980s that eventually led to the end of President Kenneth Kaunda’s twenty-seven-year rule.
Greater unity through Pan-Africanism can help save Zimbabwe’s democracy
Zambia’s citizens and civil society were instrumental in opposing authoritarianism, helping to put the country back on the path to restoring democracy. It’s a lesson for Zimbabwe as it faces the threat posed by the Private Voluntary Organisations Bill.
Secretary General.
What’s In A Word?
I was recently asked to give remarks at a Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) event on the need to protect the social media space from political interference. I began to think about why the media, particularly social media, is so important and what its impact has been on the world. The media is called the fourth estate because it provides checks and balances on government. Traditionally those checks and balances are provided through spoken or written word. It was the writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton who coined the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” or, as Mark Twain put it, “never fight with people who buy ink by the barrel”.
Saving Wakanda from Creeping Dictatorship
Wakanda is a fictional East African paradise made famous by the 2018 blockbuster film ‘Black Panther’. It is a well-developed, high-tech, highly functional country inhabited by warriors who possess mystical powers through a special substance only found in Wakanda called vibranium. Wakanda is a powerful and well-governed country. It is a proud nation which has its own official African language. As a result, it has garnered the respect of countries far outside of its borders.
Democracy, good governance & the Rule of Law in Zambia
Tutu Fellow Linda Kasonde has written a follow-up article on governance in Africa. Previously, she examined the institutions that enable a country to function effectively for all its people – or not, as is the case in so many African countries. In this article, which was published in the Lusaka Times, Kasonde looks at how important an independent judiciary can be in reining in the excesses of a corrupt leadership and holding even heads of state accountable.
Africa / Breaking the Bias
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day was #breakthebias. The bias that I would like to be broken, is the belief that men are naturally smarter, more competent, and more knowledgeable than women.
I grew up in a home in which my sister, my brother, and I were treated equally. We all washed the dishes, made our beds, and learnt how to cook. I played football at school and my parents never suggested that that was not appropriate for girls, nor did they ever suggest that boys were cleverer or more competent than girls – that certainly was not my lived experience.
Why we need more women in leadership
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is #PressforProgress. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, it will take the world two hundred years to reach gender parity. We are being urged not to sit back. I am the first female leader of the Bar Association in Zambia pre- and post- Zambia’s independence in 1964. At the last count, I was one of only two female leaders of a national Bar Association in Africa. This is a very sad state of affairs.
As the famous anti-apartheid activist Dr. Mamphela Rampele once said:
Linda Kasonde, Maria Mbeneka elected officers of Commonwealth Lawyers Association
The Secretary General of Commonwealth Lawyers Association, Brigid Watson, has released a statement on the election of the new leadership of the association where two prominent African female lawyers will serve in the next two years.
The statement states thus:
“CLA membership colleagues, I am delighted to announce the results of the recent election of Office Bearers for the term 2023-25.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape: Why We Need a Stronger Right to Privacy
Everyone should be entitled to some level of privacy. Since the advent of social media in Zambia, several audio recordings and sex tapes between two consenting adults have been leaked to the public much to the horror of their victims and the “amusement” of the public. Using doctored or even real sex tapes is a common tool used to shame women and to try and silence public figures and women human rights defenders the world over – particularly by authoritarian regimes.
‘Zambia the Great: Is This Our New Renaissance?’
Today is 12th August 2022. It marks exactly one year since Zambians went to the polls to choose their new leaders. Social media is awash with the hashtag #ThisTimeLastYear in reference to the experiences that Zambians had in the run up to that election. This time last year, many Zambians were living in fear of political party cadres, of repression, of entrenched poverty. One year on, the cadres have largely retreated, and Zambians can literally breathe again. We are still poor, but now we live with hope for the future.
Courage Under Fire
As an ardent student of history, the subject of leadership has fascinated me for years. In particular, I look for insights into what makes great leaders so great – Mandela, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. to name but a few. For me, more than anything the pattern that emerges amongst all exceptional leaders is the ability to have the courage of their convictions. Going to Harvard had been a dream of mine for some time. One bored Sunday I googled their Executive programmes and came across one at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government that really sparked my interest: “Leadership in the 21st Century: “Chaos, Courage and Conflict”. More than anything the idea of leading with courage resonated with me. I applied for the course at Harvard and much to my delight I was accepted onto the programme.
Protecting women leaders from cyberbullying
A FEW years ago, I heard a podcast in which the Swedish Foreign Minister was explaining why it is important to have more women in leadership. She told a story about a fight between two warring territories over a river on a map. All the people at the table were men. When women from the area were introduced to the conversation, they pointed out that, in fact, that river had dried up years ago and therefore the men were fighting over nothing.
Why do we blame women for rape?
Everyone should be entitled to some level of privacy. Since the advent of social media in Zambia, several audio recordings and sex tapes between two consenting adults have been leaked to the public much to the horror of their victims and the “amusement” of the public. Using doctored or even real sex tapes is a common tool used to shame women and to try and silence public figures and women human rights defenders the world over – particularly by authoritarian regimes.
When Giving Life Ends in Death: The Face of Maternal and Infant Mortality in Zambia
I recently came across the story of a young African-American man, Charles Johnson IV, who is fighting for legislation to increase the quality of health care to reduce maternal mortality among African-American women. His own wife died after delivering a healthy baby via caesarean section. She bled to death because doctors at a very prestigious hospital in the U.S. ignored her haemorrhaging for several hours. Her name was Kira Dixon Johnson. She was very well educated and reasonably well-off and yet she became another statistic. In America, African-American women are 243% more likely to die to child-birth than their white American colleagues.
Choose to Challenge: A Call to Action – Essay
Recently, I watched a video message by Namibian First Lady Monica Geingos on the theme of the 2021 International Women’s Day: #ChoosetoChallenge. In her message, she spoke of the misogyny and online abuse faced by her simply because she is a powerful woman living and speaking her truth. She also spoke of her decision to push back against her abusers because, “Your silence won’t protect you”.
International Women’s Day has come and gone but Monica’s message has left a lasting impression on me. It reminded me of all the little ways that women shrink and are silenced by society. I remember watching Hillary Clinton face former US President Donald Trump in a 2016 presidential debate.
Don’t let the sun set on democracy in Africa
The role of governments is to manage institutions that promote development, good governance and the rule of law, while making efforts to empower their citizens and increase their role in the governance of the country.
This is not only because that is in line with modern trends, but also because it is necessary in any country aspiring to attain the highest standards of economic development, democracy and good governance.
As Sierra Leonean lawyer Augustine Marrah puts it: “The rule of law and democratic governance are not the sun and the moon which rise up every day without being prompted or summoned. [They] are products of our collective efforts and commitments. We cannot and must not leave it to chance or resign in the face of increasing flagrancy of abuse of power and manipulation of laws.”
Just another African country: the challenge of leadership in Zambia and the poverty of ambition
The following essay, titled “Just another African country: the challenge of leadership in Zambia and the poverty of ambition“, was written by Tutu Fellow Linda Kasonde. It examines African leadership and more specifically, leadership in Zambia, as the country recently celebrated its 50th independence anniversary. She looks at issues such as poverty, disease, corruption and other structural challenges and how leaders have often stumbled at the hurdle of unifying leadership, choosing instead partistan, tribal or lesser pathways that have not advanced nations on the continent. She also discusses how women and young leaders are an excluded voice for leadership in the country. She suggests that by looking at Zambia’s leadership history, it provides some insight into the challenges facing leadership in the broader African context.
Is African Culture Killing our Race?
I recently read a Facebook post by an otherwise enlightened individual, whom I will call Upendo, condemning a press briefing by Archbishop Desmond Tutu denouncing President Jacob Zuma’s abandonment of the ideals for which South Africans sought liberation from the apartheid regime and warning of Zuma’s downfall if he continues along this path. Upendo expressed the view that any differences that citizens may have with the leaders of African countries should be resolved quietly and privately to avoid exposing your country and our race to public and international ridicule.
Women, Resilience and the Will to Lead
ith a woman’s ambition to lead comes the risk of being undermined, maligned, side-lined or even physically attacked simply because women are still viewed as the weaker sex. This year I was elected as the first female President of the Law Association of Zambia in the fifty-three-year history of the organisation and its predecessor the Law Society of Zambia. Having been in office since May this year, I now concur with the late, great “philosopher” David Bowie who jokingly said, “Don’t be the first, be the second”. On a serious note, being a relatively young female leader in a patriarchal society is fraught with challenges; the first of which is actually getting into office.
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