Here Kaunda is discussing military rule and why he sees it as a dead end for newly independent African nations. (Military rule mostly came in with the second generation of dictators, such as Idi Amin and Mobutu, and usually with strong support from the US and western Europe.) What’s helpful about this is Kaunda actually comes to power in 1964, so he is around when Nkrumah is overthrown and is able to witness the ascent of military states in post-colonial Africa. While we obviously don’t have military governments in the west, I worry that the fears Kaunda associates with military governments—ruling only by force and never by persuasion, possessing an indifference to their credibility with the people, a certain remoteness from the virtues of civic life, and so on—are all very much with us today.
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Jake Meador
Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, First Things, Books & Culture, National Review, Comment, Books & Culture, and Christianity Today. He is a contributing editor with Plough and a contributing writer at the Dispatch. He lives in his hometown of Lincoln, NE with his wife and four children.
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