Sympathy Abroad, Deafening Silence Home: Why Sishuwa Sishuwa is Not Getting Support from Zambian Academics There have been several statements of solidarity with Sishuwa Sishuwa by foreign academics following the cancellation of his passport by the Zambian government. The most…

Sympathy Abroad, Deafening Silence Home: Why Sishuwa Sishuwa is Not Getting Support from Zambian Academics

There have been several statements of solidarity with Sishuwa Sishuwa by foreign academics following the cancellation of his passport by the Zambian government. The most recent of these is a short statement by Jeremy Seeking claiming that the decision by the government is in response to Sishuwa’s trenchant criticism of HH and his government and, therefore, undermines Sishuwa’s academic freedom.

Surprisingly, however, there has been a deafening silence from the Zambian academia on Sishuwa’s predicament. There is no string of statements of solidarity. No outpouring of sympathy. No grieving over his fate. No defence of his academic freedom. Silence. What could be the reason for this dichotomy? I argue that the people who live in the context in which his “activism” has a bearing have a better understanding of Sishuwa’s “activism” and are better placed to judge his actions.

The local academics have a better understanding that Sishuwa had gone rogue and acted in a territory beyond academic freedom as many of his commentaries cannot be defended on the basis of academic freedom. He had crossed the line of academic integrity into the world of conspiracy and alternative reality, personalised attack, fake news, misinformation, disinformation and hate speech, and possibly cyber bullying and cyber harassment.

This is not to argue that the action by government to revoke is passport is justified. I don’t have sufficient information of the basis on which the government acted and would not like to make assumptions for or against.

Let us start with academic freedom and responsibilities of academics. Principle 1 of the Human Rights Council’s Principles for Implementing the Right to Academic Freedom (2024) defines academic freedom as “the human right to acquire, develop, transmit, apply, and engage with a diversity of knowledge and ideas through research, teaching, learning, and discourse.” Similarly, the Dar es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibilities (1990) defines academic freedom as “the freedom of members of the academic community, individually or collectively, in the pursuit, development and transmission of knowledge, through research, study, discussion, documentation, production, creation, teaching, lecturing and writing.”

Academic freedom, like any other right, is not an open cheque to abuse others, to denigrate those with divergent views, to fabricate lies, spread misinformation, defame others and engage in conspiracy theories and belittle others. Academic freedom comes with responsibilities and academic ethics. As the Dar es Salaam Declaration noted, these include the need for academics to “perform their academic functions in accordance with ethical and highest scientific standards,” perform their role “without prejudice to the rights of others and the needs of our society,” and to engage in academics with “spirit of tolerance towards differing views and positions and enhance democratic debate and discussion.” Academic freedom is not unlimited. As Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

Sishuwa’s social and political commentaries have not always respected the responsibilities that come with academic freedom. He often fabricates facts, demeans those with contrary views, makes wild and unsubstantiated claims and often makes claims that border on hate speech, purveys false/fake documents. He has often called academics who have exposed some of his falsehoods or hold different views from his as simply driven by their stomachs and not principle. He has made unsubstantiated claims and personalised attacks against some diplomats, such as the British High Commissioner and the UN Country Coordinator for simply holding views that do not align with his.

If reality does not fit into his political views, he manufactures his own set of facts and tries to fit reality into his manufactured facts using conspiracy theories. For example, in the lead to the 2026 election, Sishuwa came up with totally fake outline of what he called a government strategy for re-election, that the government planned to burn markets and then offer support to affected individuals as a campaign strategy (https://x.com/ssishuwa/status/1986112642763923764 ). In shock at such a baseless claim, for example, Tarcisius Mukuka, a respected senior retired academic posted: “I must have missed the memo in which Sishuwa Sishuwa mutated from government critic to conspiracy theorist evident in his tweeter feed.

Should he not provide evidence of UPND market burning campaign strategy.” Even where Sishuwa has the right like anyone to comment on public affairs, he had crossed the academic line of dispassionate and objective commentary and moved into the realm of toxic emotional, personalised venom and toxic vitriol. For example, when making his prediction for the 2026 election outcome, Sishuwa posted: “Hichilema will lose the election on 13 August. The only thing that can save him from defeat is pre-ballot death or industrial scale vote-rigging. Never again should Zambia elect a lying, tribal, corrupt, unpatriotic, vindictive, hypocritical, lawless, and undemocratic scumbag.”

By the time his passport was revoked, many media houses had long stopped entertaining or publishing his commentaries or giving him space to engage with the public as they were seen as not enlightening but deleterious. In his own post in June 2026, Sishuwa indicated that News Diggers, Radio Phoenix, the newsroom and the Mail and Guardian of South African had blacklisted him, but speculated that these media houses had colluded with the government to block him. No evidence of this collusion was furnished.

An impression should not be created that academic freedom is unlimited or that whatever proceeds from an academic, no matter how unethical or unprofessional, should be entertained as academic freedom. History is full of academics who crossed the line and committed atrocious crimes for which they were held accountable. For example, Bilijana Plavsic, a biology professor, was convicted by the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) based on her hate speech and propaganda that led to atrocities and killings of innocent people, while Augustin Ngirabatware, an economics professor and government official, was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for his propaganda that incited violence and genocide.

Given this context, it is not surprising that there is hardly any public discourse among local academics about the Sishuwa fate. Claims of a clamp down on academics do not resonate with what is on the ground in Zambia. It seems there is a nuance the foreign academics have missed, demonstrating their costly naivety and ignorance of the context. Sishuwa is not one thing and his academic life must be separated from his social or political commentaries where he often goes rogue and makes claims that are not driven by any evidence or are simply fake.

Sishuwa himself has personally acknowledged this. When asked why he was spreading fake or unsubstantiated news, Sishuwa responded in a post on X in September 2025: “There is a difference between Sishuwa the public intellectual or political commentator, and Sishuwa the scholar.

The former draws inspiration from the world of public debate, the latter from that of scholarship. The former can proudly take a partisan position in the service of a social cause, the latter almost always claims objectivity as an observer.” It is this dichotomy in Sishuwa that the international scholars have not appreciated as they are removed from the context and have given flesh to the ugly stereotype of a concubine who mourns louder than the bereaved wife.

By O’Brien Kaaba