FRED M’membe says socialism is not a complicated concept.
Meanwhile, Dr M’membe, the Socialist Party president, says he cannot be a burden-bearer for President Edgar Lungu.
Dr M’membe featured on Hot FM radio’s Red Hot breakfast show on Tuesday, October 13, 2020.
He explained that socialism was simply giving a dignified life to citizens.
“Socialism is not a complicated thing as people try to make it. It’s not about bombastic words, bombastic concepts. Socialism is simply giving a dignified life to our people, by providing them with services that make life dignified,” Dr M’membe clarified.
“Our priority will be to give our children the education they need. So, we’ll socialise education and make it free from nursery, at the age of three, all the way to university.”
He asserted that a better society, in the modern world, could not be built with uneducated people.
“It’s not possible!” Dr M’membe argued.
“The more a woman gets educated, the lesser and lesser infant mortality rates you have, because they are able to look after children better. So, it will be compulsory for every citizen to go to school up to Grade 12.”
Dr M’membe added that under a socialist-oriented government, “the adults who are illiterate today, within two years, we’ll make them literate.”
“We’ll have a huge literacy campaign, which we have already started….” he said.
He also explained that Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) had been on the current capitalist path since 1891 when Cecil Rhodes and his company, the British South Africa Company (BSA), colonised the territory.
“We have been on that path to this very day from 1891. We know what capitalism has done to our country. If capitalism had succeeded in this country, there would be no need for any other system. There would be no need for socialism,” Dr M’membe noted.
“But capitalism has not only impoverished our people but it has also killed.

By Socialist Party reporter