Zambia has over 72 tribes and languages spread over nine provinces. It's landlocked and some of these tribes drift into some of the neighbouring eight countries. In the 56 years they have been independent they have had very little unrest. When people look at the problems in Rwanda or nearby Congo and then remark that it's all tribal, it is east to cite Zambia as proving this is not the case. How is it possible that so many tribes with their own way of doing things have managed to live so peaceably together?
When Kenneth Kaunda became Zambia's first post colonial leader he did something quite clever. He must have seen how difficult life was becoming in other countries and felt it was necessary to instil in his people some sense of unity. Most tribes in Zambia are related to each other in some way and will call each other cousins, so Kaunda used this fact to remind Zambians that they were one family. 'One Zambia, one nation.' And it worked. This is quite amazing when you consider how divided and tumultuous much of the African continent became when colonialists cut up the 'great cake'. Tribes were split, nomads were fenced in. And if it is difficult to see how this is really so crucial (especially if you are like me, from a small yet powerful Island that has remained more or less untampered with for quite some time), you need only look at the problems of individual countries like Ethiopia and Eritrea, Congo, Burundi and Rwanda to see how dangerous dividing people by force can be.
But Zambia? Zambia kept its family going. That is not to say that there haven't been problems. When the civil war raged in Mozambique for example, families poured over the border into the Eastern Province of Zambia as they were the same Chewa tribe and felt that they had a right to be there. Although these refugees who weren't refugees may have had a point, it did cause security and food problems. There are also some tribal rivalries and preconceptions; women from Eastern Province's Chewa tribe are feared by women from other tribes, I am told because they are taught so well how to please a man and so might steal men from other tribes with their talents! And the Bemba tribe from the Copperbelt have the reputation of being thieves.
By and large though, these groups live together without great unrest. Perhaps Zambia is not considered a developed country, but surely the ability to maintain peace is a skill from which many developed and developing countries can learn.
