One of the greatest actors in contemporary history, who not only inspired millions of people especially young performing artists but also proved the adage that ‘What a man thinks he becomes’ is Ronald Reagan, a former cowboy who became president of the United States of America (US) in 1980.
As a youth growing up on the Copperbelt in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I was often among hundreds of children who flocked to Chawama cinema hall in Mufulira’s Kantanshi Mine Township every Saturday morning to watch Westerns (cowboy films) starring gifted actors like Ronald Reagan.
In most of such thrillers, top actors were portrayed as role models – brave men who always emerged victorious from fierce gun-battles with bandits, cattle rustlers and fugitives.
At that time, it was inconceivable that a mere actor – and a cowboy at that – could become a president of a world superpower like the United States and yet that is precisely what Reagan accomplished in dramatic fashion.
Reagan, who later became former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s closest ally, was born in Tampico, Illinois, on February 1911, the son of a shoe salesman, and graduated in economics and sociology from Eureka College in Illinois.
After working for some years as a sports announcer for an Illinois radio station he was given a screen test and went to Hollywood as an actor.
By 1942 he was an established actor  and, having spent most of the war years narrating military training films for the US Army, he returned to Hollywood in 1945 and from 1947 to 1952 was president of the Screen Actors Guild.
In 1954 he switched from films to television and for the next eight years acted as host for a weekly drama programme. Originally a Democrat, Reagan became a Republican upon actively entering politics and began supporting conservative candidates and causes. He was elected Governor of California in 1966, defeating Democratic incumbent Edmund ‘Pat’ Brown and was re-elected in 1970.
While not seeking a third term as governor in 1974, he contested the 1976 presidential primaries against President Gerald Ford, but lost by a meagre 117 votes at the next Republican convention held in Kansas City.
I believe Reagan defeated his Democratic Party rival and farmer president Jimmy Carter because of the brilliant and well-researched acceptance-speech that he delivered at the convention.
As President Edgar Lungu pointed out in his recent speech when he opened the Fifth session of the Eleven National Assembly, politicians must learn to tackle issues that concern the people instead of petty insults that do not profit anyone.
So our leaders would do well to take a leaf from Reagan’s oration, which was strictly based on policy issues that affected every American irrespective of political party affiliation or orientation.
Accepting his nomination, Reagan started his speech at the convention’s final session on July 17 by explaining that he would have preferred former US president Gerald Ford as his vice-presidential running-mate but the latter had declined because he did not want to go to Washington as a ‘figurehead’ VP.
It is significant to note here that where some lesser mortals in African and elsewhere for that matter would have readily jumped at the offer, Ford demonstrated that he had his own principles. He demanded ‘responsibility assurances’ that he would play “a meaningful role across the board in the basic and crucial and important decisions” that had to be made during Reagan’s four-year period in the White House.
From our recent experiences in Zambia, it is also significant to note that differences between the two members of the same (Republican) party, were mutually resolved and Ford offered to campaign for the former cowboy-turned politician. Reagan later named George Bush (Senior) as his running-mate.
An orator of world renown, Reagan then delivered one of his most memorable speeches in which he fired salvos at the Democratic Party policies while at the same time offering Americans a new hope for the future.
He told his audience:
“More than anything else I want my candidacy to unify our country; to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values. Never before in our history have Americans been called upon to face three grave threats to our very existence, anyone of which could destroy us. We face a disintegrating economy, a weakened defence, and energy based on the sharing of scarcity. The major issue of this campaign is the direct political, personal and moral responsibility of Democratic Party leadership – in the White House and in the Congress – for this unprecedented calamity which has befallen us. They tell us they have done the most that humanly could be done. They tell us the United States has had its day in the sun, that our nation has passed its zenith. They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems; that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities.
‘My fellow citizens I reject that view. The American people, the most generous on earth, who created the highest standard of living, are not going to accept that we can only make a better world for others by moving backwards ourselves. And those who believe we can have no business leading this nation. I will not standby and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose.
As your nominee I pledge to you to restore to the Federal government the capacity to do the people’s work without dominating their lives. I pledge to you a government that will not only work well but wisely, its ability to act tempered by prudence, and its willingness to do good balanced by the knowledge that government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great to harm us.
We must have clarity of vision to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable; and then the courage to bring our government back under control. It is essential that we maintain both the forward momentum of economic growth and the strength of the safety nets beneath those in our society who need help. We also believe it is essential that the integrity of all aspects of social security be preserved. Beyond these essentials, I believe it is clear our federal government has overgrown and is overweight. Indeed, it is time our government should go on a diet. Therefore, my first task as chief executive will be to impose an immediate and thorough freeze on Federal hiring.
Then we are going to enlist the very best minds from business, labour and whatever quarter to conduct a detailed review of every department, bureau and agency that lives by federal appropriation. We are also going to enlist the help of many dedicated and hard-working government employees at all levels who want a more efficient government just as much as the rest of us do. I know that many of them are demoralized by the confusion and waste they confront I their work as a result of failed and failing policies.
Our instructions to the groups we enlist will be simple and direct. We will remind them that government programmers exist at the sufferance of the American taxpayer and are paid for with money earned by working men and women, and programmers that represent a waste of their money – a theft from their pocket books – must have that waste eliminated or that programmed must go. It must go by executive order where possible, by congressional action where necessary. Everything that can be run efficiently by state and local government we shall turn over to state and local government, along with the funding sources to pay for it. We are going to put an end to the money merry-g-round where our money becomes Washington’s money to be spent by states and cities exactly the way the federal bureaucrats tell us it has to be spent.
Also we are going to initiate action to get substantial relief for our taxpaying citizens and action to put people back to work. None of this will be based on any new form of monetary tinkering or fiscal sleight of hand. We will simply apply to government the common sense that we use in our daily lives… The American people are carrying the heaviest peacetime burden in our nation’s history.”
On East-West tension, he said: “Adversaries, large and small test our will and seek to confound our resolve, but we are given weakness when we need strength, vacillation when the times demand firmness. The Carter administration lives in a world of make-believe. Everyday it dreams up a response to that day’s troubles, regardless of what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow. The administration lives in a world where mistakes, even very big ones, have no consequences. The rest of us however, live in the real world. It is here that disasters are overtaking our nation without any real response from the White House. I condemn the administration’s make-believe, its self-deceit and, above all, its transparent hypocrisy.
It is the responsibility of the president of the United States, in working for peace, to ensure that the safety of our people cannot successfully be threatened by a foreign power. We are not a warlike people. Quite the opposite. We always seek to live in peace. We resort to force infrequently and with great reluctance – and only after we’ve determined that it is absolutely necessary.
We are awed – and rightly so – by the forces of destruction at loose in the world in this nuclear era. But neither can we be naïve or foolish. Four times in my lifetime America has gone to war, bleeding the lives of its young men into the sands of island beachheads, the fields of Europe and the jungles and rice paddies of Asia. We know only too well that war comes not when forces of freedom are strong. It is when they are weak that tyrants are tempted.
We simply cannot learn these lessons the hard way again without risking our destruction. Of all the objectives we seek, first and foremost is the establishment of lasting world peace. We must always stand ready to negotiate in good faith, ready to pursue any reasonable avenue that holds forth the promise of lessening tensions and furthering the prospects of peace.
But let our friends and those who wish us ill take note: The United States has its obligation to its citizens and to the people of the world never to let those who would destroy freedom dictate the future course of life on this planet.
I would regard my election as proof that we have renewed our resolve to preserve world peace and freedom. That this nation will once again be strong enough to do that…,” Reagan concluded amid thunderous applause.
Not to be outdone, President Carter fired back, urging Americans to ignore Republicans and their policies as they would drive the country down the wrong road.
‘It is up to all of us to make sure America rejects this alarming and even perilous destiny. Theirs is a make-believe world, a world of good guys and bad boys, where some politicians shoot first and ask questions later. No hard choices, no tough decisions. It sounds too good to be true, and it is…” Carter charged.
So what is the moral for Zambians here? The primary objective of this essay is to show that when given the opportunity even actors (like Reagan), primary school teachers, non-commissioned army or police officers, traditional leaders etc can become national leaders and deserve to be respected. No one should be looked down upon on the basis of their status in society.
Secondly, as the nation braces for the 2016 elections and national referendum, campaigns must be issue-based, with aspirants providing viable alternative ways of developing the whole country. Anyone resorting to tribalism and regionalism to win votes and support for their nebulous policies must told that they stand absolutely no chance of being elected or supported.
Source: Keesing’s Contemporary Archives.
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