There are moments in history that force us to confront the uncomfortable distance between who we were, who we hoped to be, and what we have become.
The unfolding debacle regarding the funeral of Zambia’s former president, Edgar Lungu, is one such moment — not only for Zambia but for all of us in Southern Africa.
As a South African, watching this drama unfold on our soil — where the family of the late Lungu refuses to repatriate his body, citing his own final instruction that Zambia’s sitting president, Hakainde Hichilema, must not attend his funeral — I am struck by the cruel irony.
The Zambia that once opened its arms, its homes, and its borders to us in our darkest hour, now brings its own wounds, unhealed and unresolved, to SA.
What uTata Kenneth Kaunda did for SA, we never imagined SA would repay in this way — not with sanctuary for freedom fighters, but by hosting the theatre of a family in pain and national fracture that refuses to be buried, even in death.
I had the profound honour of meeting Kaunda in 2007 during the Biko 30-30 commemorations — a series of events marking both the 30th anniversary of Steve Biko’s death and that he died at just 30 years old.
Kaunda was a special guest, a living embodiment of the pan-African solidarity that defined the liberation era.
That evening, former president Thabo Mbeki delivered the eighth annual Steve Biko memorial lecture, invoking the spirit of Black Consciousness and the collective responsibility Africans owe to each other.
I remember Kaunda’s presence — dignified, humble, but unmistakably towering.
Here stood a man whose country had bled, sacrificed, and suffered for the freedom of nations beyond its own borders.
His message, then, much as Biko’s, was clear: African freedom does not stop at political independence. It must be carried forward as a project of dignity, unity and shared destiny.
It is impossible to talk about SA’s liberation without speaking of Zambia.Wh en the world shut its doors to SA exiles. Zambia opened theirs.
Lusaka became the heartbeat of the anti-apartheid struggle in exile. The ANC, PAC, and countless freedom fighters found not just shelter, but solidarity.
Zambia paid a terrible price for that generosity. The apartheid regime bombed its borders, strangled its economy, and threatened its sovereignty.
But Kaunda never wavered. His leadership taught that “my neighbour’s freedom is my own”.
Fast forward to today, and the images are painful. A nation once defined by solidarity now appears trapped in its own internal wars.
The funeral standoff — where Lungu’s family insists he be buried far from Zambia’s national heroes, far from Lusaka’s Embassy Park, and away from the presence of Hichilema — is not merely a private matter.
It is a public unravelling. The family says this was Lungu’s explicit dying wish. That in itself is tragic — a testament to wounds so deep that not even death could heal them.
This dispute has not only paralysed Zambia’s mourning but dragged SA, the very country Zambia once helped liberate, into its legal and political drama.
It is now our courts, in Pretoria, that are being asked to decide whether a former Zambian president will be buried here or sent home to a divided nation that cannot agree on how, or even whether, to lay him to rest.
There is deep, bitter irony in this. Zambia once gave us refuge from the tyranny of apartheid. Today, it is Zambia itself that seeks refuge, not from foreign oppressors, but from the consequences of its own divisions.
We never imagined SA would one day become the courtroom for Zambia’s political grief — a host not to freedom fighters, but to the painful evidence that the fight for national unity does not end with liberation.
This is about more than one man’s funeral. It is about how unresolved political battles infect every institution, every ritual, even the sacred act of burial.
The rivalry between Lungu and Hichilema is well-documented — a bitter history marked by treason charges, imprisonment, contested elections, and mutual suspicion.
That this rivalry now extends beyond the grave is not just heartbreaking; it is dangerous.
It sends a message that in Zambia — as in many parts of the world — leadership rivalries are never laid to rest, not even when the leaders themselves are.
Zambia’s crisis is not just a Zambian story. It is a cautionary tale for SA too.
Our own democracy groans under the weight of corruption, factionalism, and deepening social divides.
We, too, risk turning political competition into personal warfare that corrodes the very idea of nationhood. If the nation that sheltered us through apartheid can fracture this deeply, are we naive to think it cannot happen here?
I cannot help but return to that evening in 2007. To Kaunda’s dignified presence. To Mbeki’s words. To Biko’s enduring lesson that “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”.
What would Kaunda think now, watching from beyond, as the Zambia he built struggles not against external enemies but against itself?
What would Biko say, seeing how easily the fight for dignity can be eroded by the poison of political hatred and unforgiven wounds?
This funeral — this tragic spectacle on SA soil — must be more than a point of gossip or legal debate. It must be a moment of reckoning.
For Zambia, the message is urgent: nationhood cannot survive if political enmity outlives the leaders themselves.
The grave must be a place of closure, not another front in a war for power.
For SA, the warning is clear: solidarity is not something we commemorate. It is something we must practice — among ourselves, and with the nations whose freedom is written in the same ink as ours.
uTata Kaunda taught that the greatness of a nation is not measured by what it owns, but by what it gives.
Zambia gave us its everything. Today, SA offers back not refuge from oppression, but refuge from division.
Khanyisa Dunjwa is a social justice activist, writer, social commentator. She writes on politics, gender justice, and health. She is a founder of Khanyisa Dunjwa Writes, a boutique writing service focused on policy and advocacy. This opinion is written in her personal capacity.
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