LEMMINGS IN AFRICA
There are long-standing reports in Northern Europe concerning a small rodent called the lemming. It was thought that large numbers got together at random to commit mass suicide. In reality, driven by the urge to migrate by population pressure, from time to time they jump off cliffs and start swimming across the sea or try crossing rivers, with the inevitable result that large numbers drown.
From the point of view of an observer, it looks like the lemming leaders are all mad, and that the others just blindly follow, over the edge.
The lemming thus became a watchword for blind, instinctive loyalty.
So what is it about us that makes us so similar? After all, we are rational beings, are we not? We can reason, analyze, plan. We can design programs, draw up schedules, deploy management tools such as just-in-time and critical path analysis, can we not?
So why do we see the same patterns of corruption, venal self-interest, nepotism and short-termism replicated again and again in parts of Africa?
Last week my Zambian driver was bewailing the latest developments in his country as he drove me into Lusaka from the airport.
A lady journalist had published a photo of a woman giving birth outside a Zambian hospital, in order to draw attention to a dramatic reduction in health care services caused by many billions of kwacha having gone missing.
She was initially roundly condemned for her bad taste and indecency. Only later did some commentators ask whether there was not a larger obscenity in such a massive amount of lost funding. Or even in the immediate attempts by the president to cover up the whole issue.
Or worse, the fact that because of lack of care, the lady's baby died.
The journalist was subsequently charged with committing the offence of pornography for her pains.
But there it is, we are like lemmings after all. Various steadfast and influential personages rushed to the president's defence, even including leaders of some of the National Womens Groups. It is, after all, better to be loyal than seek answers to difficult questions!
Don't undermine stability by being awkward!
Don't rock the boat!
Bad publicity might scare away investment!
Don't be rude!
But here's the thing.
Loyalty is for lemmings: faithfulness is for friends.
A true friend will tell you things you may not want to hear, even to the point of risking the relationship, because he or she is just that, a true friend. The wellbeing of the friend is even more important than the fact of the friendship, however long-standing or intimate.
There is a proverb that says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
Lemmings blindly follow their leaders, sometimes over a cliff, to fall to their doom.
Friends inquire as to route, the travel arrangements, and above all, the destination! If the replies are unsatisfactory, they say so. They call attention to the situation.
Lemmings keep silent. Perhaps they think it is important not to hold back, because, after all, they are all lemmings! And that is what lemmings do, don't they? Stick together! Stay close! A good lemming is a silent, busy lemming!
A good lemming does not question. It sweetly and naively believes what it is told by its leaders. Not to do so would after all be a betrayal of its lemmingness.
Such steadfast sweet unquestioning loyalty! Such an easy environment for corrupt leaders to line their own pockets, even at the expense of the lives of their own people.
Loyalty is for lemmings: faithfulness is for friends.
The English language has another word for lemmingness
Stupidity!
And here's the really shocking thing.
Loyalty can be immoral.
Faithfulness is not.
And we should observe one other important point. Stupid lemming leaders are superior to their corrupt human counterparts. When they lead their people over a cliff, at least they have the decency to die first!