My dad worked as an engineer (ironically, or perhaps because of this, later as a safety engineer) and when he left university he got a job in Zambia for a short while (we are from the UK). He has many horror stories about how insanely racist the colonials were. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but he told me two stories of how buisnesses handled pollution. He said when he worked in Avonmouth (near Bristol) what they did was kept strictly to regulations for emissions of N2O during the day and then at night when it was dark and it couldn’t be seen release as much as they like (to the point locals knew not to put washing on the line at night since it would dissolve).

The other one was the lead smelter in Zambia. He told me the colonials intentionally put the black township downwind of the smelter and the white homes upwind. He said expats who came to Zambia would always be shocked but the colonials were in his words “soulless inhuman husks”.

While working there he got bullied for refusing to be tolerant of the extreme racist attitudes and so they arranged for him to have an accident which led to him getting molten lead spilled on him. He has a very large scar on his lower back, I loved the texture of it as a kid, I had no idea that was why he had it. He told me this story literally a few days ago.

I was so incensed by it I was like where was this, maybe we can make like a video where people talk about their experiences, its so horrible, so many people are tryna whitewash colonialism these days and these stories need telling…

It was Kabwe. I’d never heard of it. I look it up and there’s multiple documentries about “the most toxic town in africa”.

My dad …was there… he was part of that…

A few years ago they tried to bring a class action lawsuit against Anglo American (the mining company) in South Africa because Zambia does not allow class action lawsuits. It was not allowed to be heard.

It drives me mad even to this day so many decades later no-one has managed to make anyone pay for what they did there.