Change is what Malawi and Malawians need. This is not a luxurious change. It is that change that will ensure transformation of the state of life in Malawi and of course Africa. Now than ever before everybody seems to have realised that it is outside the normal to be in such deep levels of poverty we are currently in; that every year scores of people should succumb to such preventable diseases as cholera. Most people now than ever before believe our lives need to change for the better where going without food or having a meal a day will be due to the dictates of loss of appetite other than scarcity of food.
It is hence unsurprising to see everybody up to politicians rising and moving in the swing of the moment. The international community has equally realised the timing and is also widely involved in assisting Malawi so that the life of the Malawian should be uplifted. It should however not escape our minds that the duty of lifting up Malawi from the ashes of poverty entirely depends on the Malawians. What the donors and their team offer to us is only support. Support is meant to sustain that which is already set and established, that which is already curved, built, or established. This is where the Malawian vision (assuming there is any) appears to me to face some huge challenges. These are challenges if not reflected upon with sincerity and purpose will falter the vision. They will suffocate the dream’s realization. These are problems of Patriotism. There is no patriotism in Malawi.
It is hence unsurprising to see everybody up to politicians rising and moving in the swing of the moment. The international community has equally realised the timing and is also widely involved in assisting Malawi so that the life of the Malawian should be uplifted. It should however not escape our minds that the duty of lifting up Malawi from the ashes of poverty entirely depends on the Malawians. What the donors and their team offer to us is only support. Support is meant to sustain that which is already set and established, that which is already curved, built, or established. This is where the Malawian vision (assuming there is any) appears to me to face some huge challenges. These are challenges if not reflected upon with sincerity and purpose will falter the vision. They will suffocate the dream’s realization. These are problems of Patriotism. There is no patriotism in Malawi.
At no other moment in the history of Malawi have people become increasingly occupied and influenced by their ethnic identities than now. Yet this is the time we should collectively gather all our ethnic diversity into the bag of common purpose and with the propulsion of unity energise ourselves for the marathon of the Malawi dream. Poor as the timing might be, we are a nation that lacks even the very concept of a national dream. May be it is only for Americans and Californians to dream. Nay. Even the poorest of the poor dream. It is a free gift of nature that awakens one from the slumber of self-pity and limitations. A dream places your attention in the direction of potentials which apart from being ignored, taken for granted, and undermined are henceforth understood as rich deposits rich of promise. This is why a nation that aspires to progress must aspire to carve a dream for itself.
Many Malawians have had dreams which they are magnificently realizing in style and in an enviable manner. Today Malawians are all over the world. You can trace their footmarks on the corridors of the world’s universities of repute, in giant global transnational corporations. More than many Malawians now realise that that which was once labelled an impediment, an obstruction wall, that stood between the possible and the much desired life on the opposite side of the ‘impossible’ is now demolished. An army of accomplished Malawian achievers witnesses are there to spear to death any doubts about progressive change. Nevertheless this hope has not been traceable at the national level. As a result of an absence of a national pursuit we have seen the many of us searching for ultimate goals in our respective ethnic identity. Today to many, Malawi is smaller in worth than are ethnic identities.
Sadly enough those that are supposed to lead have chosen to cement these identities and they have honoured them above the nation. Politicians and political analysts all seem to have resigned to the unrewarding fact that we are to esteem our ethnic tags first before we value our national identity. They have told us that these are permanent and natural that they will defy any departure from them. This is why parties are defined by ethnic identity. It is hard to tell today what it is to be Malawian. We all claim this is inevitable. We say it is normal. Whether it is right and proper we shun from addressing. Political commentators have offered little critique to make us all realise that we only start to see the faint and cloudy sight of a prosperous Malawi on the edges of the horizon once we have departed from tribalism. It is only when we are Malawians first.
The days of Kamuzu Banda the first head of state after independence are interpreted variously by many people as regards patriotism. Most are usually quick to point out that the dictatorship then forced us to be loyal to the nation without our consent. As such so it is said we cannot call that patriotism. This is the time when there were the four corner stones of Malawi (though promoted through the only party then) of Unity, Loyalty, Discipline, and Obedience. This is the time when there was a deliberate state initiative of Best Buy Malawian products where it seemed then that almost everything was Malawian. Today in our assessment and dismissal of that time’s dictatorship we fully imitate the proverbial mother who in her dislike of dirt threw away the dirty bathwater together with the baby. We seem to fail to realise that the fact that forced ‘patriotism and unity’ are immoral and unjust, is different from another independent fact that patriotism and unity are very rewarding. The evidence to this distinction is the very past of oppression. Despite the unity then being forced on people, we were still able to realise the fruits of unity and ‘patriotism’. Our task today should not be to discard the project of nationalism but consolidate it in the current political environment.
Today most Malawians do not even imagine making sacrifices for the nation. Nurses, teachers, doctors, engineers, clerks, police officers and their popular traffic officers, and immigration officers just among a host of others are no longer motivated by the nation interest in their execution of duties. No wonder monstrous inefficiency and flying levels of corruption now characterise our public service. What on paper is an obligation for a public officer to fulfil and a right for the common person to benefit from has mutated into a privilege owing to the upsetting nature of entrenched corruption. The ordinary person today only has the right in his hands for that is the much he can get since discretion of who is to benefit from the right is with only those that on top of having the right have money with which to bribe public officials.
Without pin-pointing them as the worst offender the powers that determine who should have a driving licence or not in Malawi seem to have a lot of house ordering to do. I know of people who have the license without ever following the procedures. Some other guy actually had to learn how to drive after he already had his driver’s licence. Another fellow confidently told me that instead of renewing his licence that expired 5 years before he would just ‘find’ another one ‘very easily’. Then there was this accident in the Northern region where this teenager was driving a lorry carrying some church members off to a conference and along the way the vehicle overturned instantly killing some 19 plus people, some of whom were families. The drunken teenager driver was only injured. It was discovered that the guy was as far as his age was concerned not supposed to have been issued with a driver’s licence, at least not the type he had. But there he had it! The most shocking thing here should not be the sudden end of such lives in an accident; rather it should be how we remain indifferent to the system responsible for driving licences that was a catalyst to such tragedies. In the absence of patriotism all we would do is condole the bereaved families and express our shock as we return to our ‘business as usual’, maintaining (if not jealously guarding) the immoral status quo.
I have no space this time to talk of the political leadership most of which falls far below the patriotic standard. They have encouraged the decay in our society. Most of them have no principles which they would defend at whatever cost. They have frustrated the civil service and hence promoted the grounds for corruption. How does one take the requirement placed by a legislature to base their emoluments on the regional standard of other countries when you are the poorest of them all? How then does one understand that the Southern African region standard in terms of emoluments should be restricted to members of parliament only and not teachers, nurses, police officers and every public service worker? Why in the first place should a legislature set its own working conditions and wantonly change them when they feel like doing so? These are the things we should depart from if we are to rise up as a nation. We need to change if we are to be changed. Change does not happen to us though. It is something we consciously and effort-fully make to happen. Its foundation however is patriotism. That which we are desperately poor of now. Change is what Malawi and Malawians need. This is not a luxurious change. It is that change that will ensure transformation of the state of life in Malawi and of course Africa. Now than ever before everybody seems to have realised that it is outside the normal to be in such deep levels of poverty we are currently in; that every year scores of people should succumb to such preventable diseases as cholera. Most people now than ever before believe our lives need to change for the better where going without food or having a meal a day will be due to the dictates of loss of appetite other than scarcity of food.
It is hence unsurprising to see everybody up to politicians rising and moving in the swing of the moment. The international community has equally realised the timing and is also widely involved in assisting Malawi so that the life of the Malawian should be uplifted. It should however not escape our minds that the duty of lifting up Malawi from the ashes of poverty entirely depends on the Malawians. What the donors and their team offer to us is only support. Support is meant to sustain that which is already set and established, that which is already curved, built, or established. This is where the Malawian vision (assuming there is any) appears to me to face some huge challenges. These are challenges if not reflected upon with sincerity and purpose will falter the vision. They will suffocate the dream’s realization. These are problems of Patriotism. There is no patriotism in Malawi.
At no other moment in the history of Malawi have people become increasingly occupied and influenced by their ethnic identities than now. Yet this is the time we should collectively gather all our ethnic diversity into the bag of common purpose and with the propulsion of unity energise ourselves for the marathon of the Malawi dream. Poor as the timing might be, we are a nation that lacks even the very concept of a national dream. May be it is only for Americans and Californians to dream. Nay. Even the poorest of the poor dream. It is a free gift of nature that awakens one from the slumber of self-pity and limitations. A dream places your attention in the direction of potentials which apart from being ignored, taken for granted, and undermined are henceforth understood as rich deposits rich of promise. This is why a nation that aspires to progress must aspire to carve a dream for itself.
Many Malawians have had dreams which they are magnificently realizing in style and in an enviable manner. Today Malawians are all over the world. You can trace their footmarks on the corridors of the world’s universities of repute, in giant global transnational corporations. More than many Malawians now realise that that which was once labelled an impediment, an obstruction wall, that stood between the possible and the much desired life on the opposite side of the ‘impossible’ is now demolished. An army of accomplished Malawian achievers witnesses are there to spear to death any doubts about progressive change. Nevertheless this hope has not been traceable at the national level. As a result of an absence of a national pursuit we have seen the many of us searching for ultimate goals in our respective ethnic identity. Today to many, Malawi is smaller in worth than are ethnic identities.
Sadly enough those that are supposed to lead have chosen to cement these identities and they have honoured them above the nation. Politicians and political analysts all seem to have resigned to the unrewarding fact that we are to esteem our ethnic tags first before we value our national identity. They have told us that these are permanent and natural that they will defy any departure from them. This is why parties are defined by ethnic identity. It is hard to tell today what it is to be Malawian. We all claim this is inevitable. We say it is normal. Whether it is right and proper we shun from addressing. Political commentators have offered little critique to make us all realise that we only start to see the faint and cloudy sight of a prosperous Malawi on the edges of the horizon once we have departed from tribalism. It is only when we are Malawians first.
The days of Kamuzu Banda the first head of state after independence are interpreted variously by many people as regards patriotism. Most are usually quick to point out that the dictatorship then forced us to be loyal to the nation without our consent. As such so it is said we cannot call that patriotism. This is the time when there were the four corner stones of Malawi (though promoted through the only party then) of Unity, Loyalty, Discipline, and Obedience. This is the time when there was a deliberate state initiative of Best Buy Malawian products where it seemed then that almost everything was Malawian. Today in our assessment and dismissal of that time’s dictatorship we fully imitate the proverbial mother who in her dislike of dirt threw away the dirty bathwater together with the baby. We seem to fail to realise that the fact that forced ‘patriotism and unity’ are immoral and unjust, is different from another independent fact that patriotism and unity are very rewarding. The evidence to this distinction is the very past of oppression. Despite the unity then being forced on people, we were still able to realise the fruits of unity and ‘patriotism’. Our task today should not be to discard the project of nationalism but consolidate it in the current political environment.
Today most Malawians do not even imagine making sacrifices for the nation. Nurses, teachers, doctors, engineers, clerks, police officers and their popular traffic officers, and immigration officers just among a host of others are no longer motivated by the nation interest in their execution of duties. No wonder monstrous inefficiency and flying levels of corruption now characterise our public service. What on paper is an obligation for a public officer to fulfil and a right for the common person to benefit from has mutated into a privilege owing to the upsetting nature of entrenched corruption. The ordinary person today only has the right in his hands for that is the much he can get since discretion of who is to benefit from the right is with only those that on top of having the right have money with which to bribe public officials.
Without pin-pointing them as the worst offender the powers that determine who should have a driving licence or not in Malawi seem to have a lot of house ordering to do. I know of people who have the license without ever following the procedures. Some other guy actually had to learn how to drive after he already had his driver’s licence. Another fellow confidently told me that instead of renewing his licence that expired 5 years before he would just ‘find’ another one ‘very easily’. Then there was this accident in the Northern region where this teenager was driving a lorry carrying some church members off to a conference and along the way the vehicle overturned instantly killing some 19 plus people, some of whom were families. The drunken teenager driver was only injured. It was discovered that the guy was as far as his age was concerned not supposed to have been issued with a driver’s licence, at least not the type he had. But there he had it! The most shocking thing here should not be the sudden end of such lives in an accident; rather it should be how we remain indifferent to the system responsible for driving licences that was a catalyst to such tragedies. In the absence of patriotism all we would do is condole the bereaved families and express our shock as we return to our ‘business as usual’, maintaining (if not jealously guarding) the immoral status quo.
I have no space this time to talk of the political leadership most of which falls far below the patriotic standard. They have encouraged the decay in our society. Most of them have no principles which they would defend at whatever cost. They have frustrated the civil service and hence promoted the grounds for corruption. How does one take the requirement placed by a legislature to base their emoluments on the regional standard of other countries when you are the poorest of them all? How then does one understand that the Southern African region standard in terms of emoluments should be restricted to members of parliament only and not teachers, nurses, police officers and every public service worker? Why in the first place should a legislature set its own working conditions and wantonly change them when they feel like doing so? These are the things we should depart from if we are to rise up as a nation. We need to change if we are to be changed. Change does not happen to us though. It is something we consciously and effort-fully make to happen. Its foundation however is patriotism. That which we are desperately poor of now.
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