An old friend

“The Riddle of Violence” is a book by Kenneth Kaunda, partially ghost-written by his long-time friend Colin Morris. Kaunda (popularly known as KK) was the President of Zambia from 1964 to 1991, much of that time heading a one party state. He was a statesman of some importance, since Zambia bordered Rhodesia and supported the African liberation struggle against Ian Smith's White minority regime. Zambia also supported the ANC in its fight against apartheid in South Africa.

Kaunda, a professing Christian, had been an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi in his youth and had apparently become something of a pacifist icon, due to his advocacy of non-violence in the Zambian independence struggle against Britain. As president, Kaunda took a more realistic stance towards force and violence – as already indicated, he supported the frequently violent struggle against White supremacist rule in Rhodesia and South Africa.

“The Riddle of Violence”, published in 1981, is Kaunda's attempt to explain (or excuse) himself. It's not very well-written, and Kaunda's polemics against strict pacifism are commonplaces. Thus, he points out that non-violent resistance only works if the enemy is willing to heed public opinion and would have been quite useless against Hitler. Some forms of “non-violence” are just as brutal as violence, such as economic sanctions – Gandhi's boycotts of British textiles made British millworkers unemployed during the Great Depression and reduced their children almost to starvation. The relation between violence and non-violence is complex, since a government usually listens to non-violent leaders only if there is a tangible threat of violence in the background. If there isn't, why listen at all? The Zambian president spends much time accusing the British of duplicity over Rhodesia, and British public opinion of hypocrisy. Nobody had any objection when the Church of England blessed the British war effort against Hitler, but when Blacks in Africa demand equality and the World Council of Churches expresses its support, it suddenly becomes extremely important that the struggle should be non-violent, or that the Churches shouldn't interfere in politics at all…

While Kenneth Kaunda's observations are certainly true, none of them are new. But yes, perhaps Kaunda's erstwhile allies among the Quakers and other Christian peace activists needed to be straighten out a bit.

It should be noted that most chapters in the book sound pragmatic, with “KK” often criticizing both pacifists and violence-mongers. Pacifists or “saints” are at bottom unpractical, but so are romantic revolutionaries and adventurists. Cynics who believe that anything goes during a war (“war is hell”) also get their share of the Kaundian whip. The least convincing parts of Kaunda's book are those where the author attempts to square his realistic/pragmatic view of violence with the Christian message of non-resistance to evil and love of enemies. At some points, he tries to reinterpret the Bible in the direction of a kind of liberation theology, as when he says that Jesus was baptized in the dirty river Jordan to show that as a human he wasn’t above sin! Overall, however, Kaunda is forced to concede that the Gospel really can't be consistently applied in politics and war, and leaves it at that – a more honest response, in a way.

Overall, however, I didn't find the points raised in “The Riddle of Violence” particularly original or interesting. What makes the book intriguing is simply the fact that it contains philosophical musing from the pen of a long term president. Since Sweden had good relations with Zambia, I actually heard about Kenneth Kaunda already as a kid! Reading this book was, in a weird kind of way, like reading something from an old acquaintance…