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Zambian journalist Njila Banda reflects that young people’s voices can shape the future.  Weekly blog

I live in an African country, Zambia, where the majority of people are Black, and since independence in 1964, we have had governments in which the majority of politicians are Black Zambians. You might think, therefore, that we are removed from the Black Lives Matter campaign that gained momentum in the US after the death of George Floyd, and which we see on our TV screens and on the Internet spreading around the world.

Because I am interested in Scotland (my education was supported by the Scottish organisation ZamScotEd), I see that there have been protests in cities like Glasgow and Inverness, with people of all ethnicities seeking justice for those who suffer prejudice and racism.

I could understand, therefore, if you might think we in Zambia don’t have such problems. But while freedom of speech and expression are enshrined in the Zambian Republican Constitution, supposedly enabling people to freely express themselves, our young people are protesting because often they are not given the chance to speak on what they see as injustices.

Young Zambians believe there is corruption in government, they have witnessed ill treatment of Zambian workers in some industries, and seen rising unemployment. They believe that freedom of speech is threatened. These issues have brought them together to protest against the government.

Their plans were to stage peaceful protests, but when government officials and the security forces heard of the plans, the would-be protesters were told the police would not allow anyone to destabilise the peace that the country enjoys.

And so, fearing police harassment in the city, the young protesters went to the bush to make their points. With them were human rights activists Laura Miti and Fumba Chama – a Zambian hip hop artist from the Copper Belt known as PiLato. They felt it was the only way to gain the space to speak out against injustice.

Brian Bwembya, one of the young advocates for justice, told me, “When we talk, people in authority don't hear us. What we're promised goes in vain, unemployment levels are still high, most Zambian employees are harshly treated. How can we be heard?”

Zambia's former Attorney General Musa Mweenye thinks that even religious leaders are slow to help or speak for those who are oppressed by their leaders. He said, “There is a deafening silence in matters of social and economic justice, even when people are maimed, brutalised or when leaders steal from the poor.”

Churches do understand how the young people are feeling, however. Bishop Mambo of Pentecostal Church agreed that many are denied an opportunity to express themselves on matters that affect them, and even jailed for exercising this right. He says many Zambian employees are subjected to poor working conditions and slave wages.

As young people protest around the world about the issues that affect them most - racism, the environment, freedom of speech, employment - I hope that today’s world leaders remember that young people are always the potential leaders of tomorrow. I pray that they will hear us and work with us for the just development of nations.

 a reflection by Alex Holmes.  Weekly blog.

Sunday: a police clearance day. The refugees must decamp early and cluster their tents on temporary ground or risk detention and confiscation of their possessions. Diakon Aaron, a deacon in the Eritrean Orthodox church, greets me. He calls to the only other person up and about, Demsas, to help him clean their camp.

‘We try to keep the place very clean. Gendar (gendarmes) respect us, and we respect them. They are not like CRS.’

Yet another fence has been erected by the Calais authorities, transecting the public footpath beside which the Eritreans camp. But there’s an unlocked gate and we reach the ‘fireplace’, the heart of the camp. The fire embers, sandwiched by two cracked breeze blocks, gently smoulder. The place is immaculately tidy. Beside the fire, a broom of neatly tied leafy branches. Diakon picks up final pieces of orange peel.

It is 8.15am: time to pray.

These days, just half a dozen refugees and two deacons come to Sunday tsolot (prayer). Shoes and hats off, we stand on the green plastic tarp facing east. It’s the feast of St Peter and St Paul.

The soundscape is of lorries speeding northward to the port, and the discordant music of a gull squawk, a magpie’s cackle, the clear-cut clarion of a woodpecker. Above, silent, a plane’s vapour trail. Everything around and above points to movement. But for these guys, who have crossed continents and seas to reach Calais, movement has all but ceased.

A procession of six vehicles arrives, parking 20 metres from where we are praying.

A policewoman takes photographs.. Six armed and Covid-masked Gendarmes emerge from each minibus. One detachment marches towards the Eritrean campsite. The second stands guard beside the vehicles. The truck drives to where the Eritreans have neatly piled their rubbish. Prayer continues. This dark ritual is enacted every two days.

Tsolot ends. A ferry has arrived; the traffic flows south: cars, caravans, campervans. Always lorries. Diakon picks up a plastic flagon of water and blesses us, a handful of water thrown at the face, a second rubbed into the head, and a final pouring into our cupped hands to drink.

We walk back to the ‘fireplace’. I am invited to eat.

At the Eritrean camp in the ‘Jungle’, Mesfin has received sad news of his father’s death in Eritrea. We go to pay our respects, joining a circle of some 20 Eritreans sitting in a circle. With a few words of English and Tigrinya, communication opens. There are smiles and laughter. We are brought orange juice, and coffee. Later, Hagos explains ‘When someone dies we gather and sit with the family, and talk and remember and laugh together.’

A week later, the authorities destroy that camp, ‘home’ to around 100 Eritreans. A relentless hostility towards the displaced person; the exile at the border. Zero tolerance.

In November 2019, Gog Sain, a young Nigerian exile died on a cold night from the fumes of a makeshift heater. The Calais authorities denied his friends the chance to mourn. Heartless. Zero tolerance. Now, the wooden cross marking his grave is split. A rosary swaying in the persistent Calais wind is inscribed ‘Bethlehem’ - another border city; a place of violent deaths. But perhaps also the tiniest glimmer of hope: Bethlehem was also a place of birth. A very particular birth.