ABOUT THE BINGU/ NGO LEADER’S PLANNED CONSUMMATION OF BLOOD COVENANT

The Leaders of the Civil Society in Malawi.

President Bingu wa Munthalika and the so called Civil Society leaders must be living in their own cloud cuckoo land. After the July 20, 2011 blood-spattered demonstrations Bingu went on air and offered to meet with committees comprising of leaders of the NGOs. This time round, the leaders ere back in the media and they are telling us that they have welcomed the offer and are ready to meet him on condition that the meetings are not held at the State House.

Their agreement to meet symbolizes that now that the Civil Society leaders have sacrificed a few innocent souls Bingu in now ready to enter into a covenant with them. This is how things used to happen in the old days. In order for the gods to listen to the people or to feel pity for the people, people used to offer some kind of blood sacrifice to the gods so they would listen to them, thereby entering into a covenant with each other.

Just imagine, as they are agreeing to do this, the blood in the streets is not dry yet. A parent in one place is still straggling to adjust to a life without a child and a child in another place is still trying to come to terms with a life without a parent. There are ashes in the streets and people’s neighborhoods. People in hospitals and some homes are running around trying to ease the pain and save lives of injured loved ones. All this happened because of Bingu’s inanity leadership and the Civil Society leaders’ heartlessness and folly. And here they are without shame neglecting the blood agreeing to meet to discuss fuel and fair treatment for Joyce Banda.

If we come to think of it, before the demonstrations, a lecturer was offered at which the issues in the petition were addressed. What any other thing that is new other than that which was in the lecture are the civil society leaders expecting to hear from Bingu? Why did they have to offer the blood of Malawians in order to draw Bingu’s attention to the problems they have or to have him meet them on their terms? Since by organizing the public lecture he seem to have had heard them.

How about we say Bingu and these leaders should go on ahead and meet and instead of wasting time with issues that are clearly wasting everybody’s time they should answer the question: how much is the life of a Malawian worth? Given a blank check what figure would they put on that for the blood of a 19 year old in Ndirande?

As for the other things the civil society leaders can just go on ahead and organize more demonstration that will see off more Malawians to the land up yonder. Since that is their way of making it happen. All the government can do is tell them to have only their members participate since they are membership based.

 As for those that agree with Bingu on how to solve the national problems as per the lecture, they can also start working on ways to make sure things happen based on the outcomes of the lecture.

If it is a meeting, Bingu can have with the opposition parties. By the way, when did we in Malawi appoint NGOs to represent us? Under whose mandate are they carrying this load? What has happened to the system whereby the people were represented by members of parliament and NGO’s were lobbying on behalf of the people? Another article on the opposition in Malawi is in the offing, check this space to see how doomed we are in them looking how they have reacted to the needless spillage of blood in Malawi that happened on July 20, 2011.

The time let as conclude this by saying that Bingu might have good development idea but on leadership he has become all talk and no trousers. And indeed people have gotten into his trousers for real to do what they want. Whatever he does, even if it is to please them cannot work, instead it will just yield more criticism. That is the reason his job depends on the trust people have on their leaders and the leaders working on principle and conscience. As a leader, as long as you are working within the law with the support of your party and your conscience is clear, it is alright. The framers of the constitution of Malawi also knew all that when they gave the office the powers and the immunity to go with it. As a leader, which is better, for him to die or go through suffering knowing he has done what is right or have your people be killed needlessly like we have witnessed on July 20, 2011.

Bingu is allowing useless thing to destruct and detract him. If he was clever enough he should have asked himself the question that with the amount of criticism that he is getting and the angles they are coming from, what is it that he can do that cannot draw criticism from them? Yes there are genuine problems in Malawi that has to be sorted out by his office but the problem most people have with him is that he is the president and not them. The only way to solve it is that they become the president themselves failing which whatever he is going to do is bad. Ralph Kasambala is monitoring every move he makes and presenting it as a negative on his status. What would you expect? Why can’t Bingu just shut up or put up instead of wasting time with them.

Now on a very serious note, Bingu and the Civil Society leaders might choose to take things lightly after these people have died but for some of us the needless blood and ashes in the streets of Malawi has changed the dynamics of things in the country. If those people died that easy, unless something is done, we are afraid that it can happen to us as well. We are worried about our own safety and security and would like the government to be a bit more serious and seriously assure us of our security.  

JOYCE BANDA: THANKS BUT NO THANKS

By many means, Joyce Banda is an icon in Malawi. She has a lot in her and to her name that makes her stand out. However, contrary to that and what is arguably a popular view, Joyce Banda in not what Malawi needs for a president right now or in the future. She is way too nice for the job, and she is not as gifted nor is she qualified enough to take Malawi into the next chapter of its independent life.

Malawi like most other developing countries in the world has reached a very crucial juncture of its sovereignty. It is a make or break time for the country. The last thing that we want to do as a country is to experiment with leaders. We also do not want to use the presidency as a gender promotional commercial or worse still as others are saying, as a recompense for the alleged suffering Joyce Banda has gone through.

It is very important for us to understand and differentiate between Joyce Banda as a person together with her achievements and Joyce Banda as she would be if she were to become the president of Malawi.

There are so many positive things about Joyce Banda that makes her an ideal Malawian woman that any Malawian would want to show off to the world. She is blessed with that imposing beautiful stature through and through of which she compliments very well with her special traditional dressing style. Also her humility, her etiquette, her love for children and hard work makes us all be proud to be Malawians with such as her as our mothers.

Looking at that pleasant personality aura Joyce Banda oozes, it becomes very difficult to understand how someone could be cruel to her as she says of her ex-husband. Most men would actually kill to have her as wife and mother of their children.

In those same lines though, before we tackle the presidency issue, it does not mean Joyce Banda is an angel. She is human and there are certain unpleasant things about her. Issues like women complaining that she is one who does not support fellow women. Instead of using her privileged position to pull them up it is said that JB always is in the forefront of pulling them down. Adding on to that, think of her treacherous political activities that led to her ouster from DPP; also her involvement in the corruption scandal that saw maize meant to cover Malawians in time of need being sold abroad. A lot of people who should not have died ended up dying of hunger in Malawi during that time.

If all the other attributes that we are looking for in the next president were present in Joyce Banda, all those flaws though some of them very serious could be ignored because it is impossible in this world to find a perfect person. However this time what we are looking for is not a perfect human being, what we are looking for is a perfect presidential candidate and sadly Joyce Banda is not and cannot be that person. The problem with her in as far as that is concerned is not her problem; it just happens that she is predestined not to be the president of Malawi.

Even if we pray, go without food or whatever else people do to try and alter the misfortunes of life, Joyce Banda can never be that presidential puzzle peace that we are looking for in Malawi. She does not have the intellect, the charisma, the knowledge, the exposure or the people skills needed for that job. Also, as of late, the way she has allowed her integrity to get some kicking makes people wonder if she is really serious about the moral values that she professes to uphold.

Her intellectual limitations could best be understood by her poor sense of judgment and could best be explained by using Sarah Palin and Jeward as an examples.

Looking at what we know about people like Brown Mpinganjira and the other UDF mercenaries she has given key positions her new party it makes one wonder if she really understands what Malawians are weary about in their politicians. The worst scenario to that thought is that it is actually not her making decisions, if anything she is making her decisions under some sort of psychological duress. Her decisions are only as a result of the pressures of the moment and are but limited to the given dynamics within the PP as formed for her. She is made to believe that she is in control and yet in actual sense she is not. She is an unknowing robot doing as manipulated by circumstances and powerful and intimidating characters like Brown Mpinganjira.

  

With her having that low intellectual capacity the danger is that Mpinganjira or any other strong figure within the party could become a proxy president. The strong personalities under her can also start fighting each other and having us ending up with a government of conflicts.

The other thing about her that makes us question how she reasons is the idea of her remaining as VP and still takes up a key position in another party. That is wrong from both legal and moral point of view. Her thinking is that the constitution does not tell the president where to pick a vise president; he can pick him or her from anywhere or any party. That is callow thinking through and through.

This is multiparty politics about which we are talking. We have the ruling and the opposition. Unless we had a coalition government between the DPP and the PP that understanding of things defeats the whole constitutional embodiment of a multiparty democracy.

The constitution gives the VP a job description of which in the technicalities of politics, it is impossible to fulfill if you officially subscribe to a deferent political persuasion from the seating president. You cannot be an assistant to someone whom you don’t agree with and when you officially belong to the opposite bench as a person you are called upon to assist. Unless all Malawians reading into this are insane then you would wonder with that kind of reasoning what kind of mess is Joyce Banda susceptible to take the country into if she were to become a leader.

The other thing is the way she uses God in her political maneuvers, it just shows how careless she can be as a leader. She speaks as though all Malawians are Christians and that they should accept her as the next president because her God has given her to them. I am a Christian myself but I think that is just being insensitive and offensive for nothing. The fact that she cannot distinguish that is more of a judgment problem for her than it is a spiritual problem.

There are so many examples that can be given to show how intellectually deficient Joyce is for the presidency but space and time cannot allow. However of every limitation there is, the worse is the fact that she seem not to know that she has that limitation.

This is where Joyce Banda and her prototype, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska in the USA join hips. For some reason someone told her that she has what it takes to be the president of the United States and she believed them. Now what she is doing is to make a comedy of the whole political landscape in the United States. Like we are patronizing our Joyce in Malawi people patronize Sarah a lot and she is losing it. She is busy making blander after blander and embarrassing people.

On the entertainment scene the equivalent of JB are the two kids that appeared on the UK X-factor program two years ago. They are called Jedward. People supported them for the fun of it and yet they are talentless. They are just crazy and funny and yet don’t have the x-factor when it comes to music. Joyce might not be funny and might also not be imbecilic but surely she does not have the x-factor or the intellect for the presidency.

  

The other thing is that Malawian in most part are downcast right now. They need someone with the charisma and the ability to articulate issues to uplift them and give them hope. Joyce Banda is too melancholic; with her wanting people to be in a sympathy mood towards her there is no way she can uplift their spirits. We need someone with phlegmatic temperament and who is also intelligent to inject some life back into the people.

Another thing that is very important is education; some people might say education is not that important when we are looking for a leader. That is not true and nonsense. Education is very important. The key to Malawi’s sustainable development is in having its citizens educated. An educated leader is a great model for that apart from the fact that most issues that they will have to handle require them to have a substantial knowledge base. Especially things to do with the economy, international relations, international trade, legal matters etc, all that need someone to have a proper and universal grounding in them. You cannot pick a person from the streets and expect them to be a good presidential. We lost ten good years with the uneducated Muluzi. We cannot afford to do that again this time around.

Lastly, as of late Joyce has shown that her integrity is questionable. Her holding on to a key position in the DPP led government raises some serious questions of principle and morality. She is at the moment of no use to the running of government but she is still clinging on to the seat. All she wants is free money and to impede the DPP’s good progress. She is happy to be a thorn in the flesh. If she really is serious about what she claims to stands for, she would have packed all her bags and go the same way she did with her previous marriage. Being principled is a virtue for a leader and to have good moral values is a bonus.

There is more we cannot talk about on this but the bottom line is that Joyce Banda is a wonderful person; however that does not qualify her as a candidate to be the president of Malawi. She is simply not gifted enough nor is she qualified enough. It is better for her to protect her legacy so far rather than try to take up presidency a thing which is obviously impossible for her to manage. Malawians are becoming nasty when criticizing and as a way of protecting her and her good legacy it is important for us to be honest with her and tell her not to bother. Joyce Banda is our mother and we are all proud of her. She has done great things for herself, her family and the country. However being the president is a different ball game. Much as we love her as our mother, for what we know about her we wouldn’t want her to be the one to call the shots in Malawi.

THE NEEDED LEADERSHIP TO SAVE MALAWI FROM UNSAID MOTIVES OF THE JULY 20 DEMONSTRATION.

Despite calls not to demonstrate and compelling indications that things can turn sour during and after the demonstrations earmarked to take place on July 20, the organizers are still adamant to proceed.

They are adamant because, Ralph Kasambala a renowned lawyer in Malawi told them that according to his understanding of the constitution of Malawi any person wanting to demonstrate need not to clear it with the police or any other given authority. He is on record as having said that all that people need to do is to inform the police or the given authority that they intend to demonstrate. It does not matter what the police think about it, they can still demonstrate as demonstrations are their inherent right.

The other reason the people are adamant is that the members of NGOs in Malawi believe that they have a right to do as they please in Malawi because they helped the present government win a case over section 65. They sometimes even have the audacity to give the elected president of Malawi ultimatums to meet their demands.

As for the demonstrations, it is not clear who are the leaders, what the objectives are and the place they will take place.

In the north there are arguments between FOND and Moses Mkandawire as in who should lead. There is also an element of the usual religious leaders from the region who are looking like are in the lead.

There are also calls for the people to wear red symbolizing that the disgruntled UNIMA lecturers could be leading. You have a legion of opposition parties that have come in the vanguard as well. NGO are all bringing out confusing voices randomly. Also there are Malawians in Diaspora on interactive internet sites that could be looked at as the ones leading. It is all not clear.

On this apparent confusion about who is leading the demonstrations, ironically so, most of the blame should go to government. It seems this government is confusing democracy as a system of government and democracy as a style of leadership. On democracy as a system of government, those in leadership have no choice but to have things remain that way. Malawi is a democratic government and it has to be run as such by those in government. However when it comes to democracy as a style leadership, there has to be tact and balance on how one leads otherwise when one is too democratic in the style of leadership the style becomes Laissez Faire or hands-off sort of leadership style. Everyone thinks they can do as they please without any consequences. As we casually say in Malawi, “Napuse napuse ali ndi mwana agwiritse.” One word for that in English is anarchy.

As a result of that we have leaders of the opposition, some within government like Joyce Banda, some DPP MPs, NGOs, diplomats of foreign governments, the media, the courts, university lecturers etc thinking that they  all call the shots in Malawi.

This has created a security situation in country. The Bingu government needs to step up to the plate and arrest the situation before things get worse. There is need to redeem the situation and balance up the leadership style. It is very important that the peace loving Malawians can get the assurance that someone is in control of their country and to assure them of their safety and security.

On the objectives of the demonstrations, the key voices being heard are evasive. They re not clear what they are looking to get from the demonstrations. Among the things people would like to go to the streets for are fuel, forex, academic freedom, the injunction law, press freedom, the reinstatement of Jessie Kapasula Kabwira, gay rights, zero deficit budget, the UDF agenda, the MCP agenda, UK diplomatic relations, Joyce Banda, Federal System of government, quota, Rev Nyondo’s rights, the Lomwe tribe etc.

These issues are issues that Malawians differ about in certain quarters and agree about in other quarters. In that sort of a maze of confusing issues, the first punch is mostly likely to come from within the demonstrators ending up throwing the whole country into hue and cry.

The biggest danger in all that are the tribal undertones within the whole set up. In Malawi, there are political differences and there are real social differences among the people. Political maneuvers more often than not conceal the real social problems of which come out strongly in times of conflicts. For example during Muluzi’s era, though the problems we had could be deemed political, during a time of conflict at one point people in the northern region targeted their anger at the Yao people living among them. Vendors of Yao background were beaten and their vending kiosks were burnt, mosques were burnt and tenants in farms were beaten up. Also during Kamuzu’s time, people of the northern decent were targeted in Blantyre. Also Asians and other people living in areas that are considered to be affluent areas were targeted. No wonder the USA government has given warning to its citizens living in Malawi.

That can of violent express during a time of conflict reveals where it real matters for Malawians. It is not only the political problems as we think that lead people do some unthinkable things during a time of confusion but the deep seated problems among them of which the nature of our politics necessitate that they are less talked about in the country.

On the timing for the demonstrations as well, it is interesting that people are adamant that the demonstrations should still go ahead on the July 20 date and yet there is a public lecture organized on the same day. Some of the things the demonstrations are about are the very same things that the public lecturer is meant to address.

Unless if we are saying that either the demonstrations themselves are the answer we are looking for or we are just interested to see innocent blood being shed, it does not make sense to still insist on staging the demonstrations this time around.

In conclusion, what we can say is that, yes indeed there is a lot Bingu’s government has got to improve on major of which is communication with the public and there is a serious need to consolidate the democracy we have. Bingu’s government needs to take control of things in Malawi and on top of that there is a huge need to keep the people in the know on what is happening. The police should enforce the law without fear or favor. We cannot have a country that is being run by the dictates of NGOs. Most of the NGO leaders are an uneducated bunch of losers with no clue about what they are doing. They do not understand the plight of the people of Malawi apart from that they are always interested in negative statistics of which they use to convince donors to give them money. This is the time for Bingu’s government to be more in control to safeguard the lives of the people and the dignity of the nation. There is no need for blood to be shed in Malawi at this point in time for whatever reason.

Finding Academic Freedom Fight within the Chisinga’s Academic Freedom Fight

I felt sad the other day reading a comment from one of the students either from Poly or Chanco. His comment appeared under the article that was talking about students from the two institutions having stolen money from a bank in Malawi. In a nutshell what he said was that the bank was not being fair to them owing to the fact that their colleges were closed already. He said the issue with the bank was just going to make things more complicated for them.

The comment was so emotional; you could tell that behind it there was a broken and helpless person.

Now, the talk in town is that the students are suffering like this because their lecturers led by Jessie Kabwila Kapasula are fighting for Academic Freedom. But are the lectures really fighting for Academic freedom? In this article I contend that they are not and my attempt is not to defend government but to begin to put the fight for Academic Freedom into the right perspective as it is an issue that concerns us all.

The battle that the lecturers are having thus far indicates that they are fighting:

1. 1.      Against Bingu wa Munthalika’s presidency
2. 2.      Against the Lomwe Grouping
3. 3.      To protect Blessings Chisinga’s ego
4. 4.      To show off

And the courts have shown that what is popular is what is just for them and not necessarily what is just. 

There is nothing like fighting for Academic Freedom from them as we should have had it in Malawi.

Considering that what started all this is the IG of police questioning Chisinga over a lesson he had given to his students, an action that was deemed as a violation of Academic Freedom by the lecturers. To them Academic Freedom died in Malawi at the point when the IG questioned Chisinga.

If that was the case then logically speaking, it therefore follows that since the perpetrator is the IG, it should have been the IG that was sued. A thing none of them has done so far?

Alternatively, the lecturers should have gone to the constitutional court for a judicial review of the Academic Freedom, a thing that has not happened up to now.

Before we look what has happened so far, that shows that there is really no academic freedom fight in Malawi, let us ask ourselves another question: Looking at the way the battle is going, how will victory for the battle of Academic Freedom look like?

As we are talking the lecturers have registered some success in court and have managed to solicit some help from abroad including some from Germany and Indiana in the USA. It comes as no surprise that they have managed to get that support from these places because Blessings and Jessie went to do their PhD’s at these two places respectively.

The lectures have also managed to organize a peaceful demonstration on the matter. They also have had numerous public engagements through the local and international media.

To crown it all recently Jessie Kabwira Kapasula told Capital FM radio that there is no definition for Academic Freedom and that it needs not to be defined. The fact that it is in the constitution is enough, no questions asked.

What is mind boggling about that is, if Jessie does not know what Academic Freedom is since there is no definition, what is she fighting for then? What is it that she claims to have been violated by the IG? If it is to sue him, what is she going to sue him for? The difficult one to answer would be, if that is the case, what is ‘not’ Academic Freedom?  What other violation of human rights would qualify as no violation of Academic Freedom?

With that in the background, think about the courts, they have been able to pass judgment in favor of lecturers to cases that are offshoots of what is supposed to be a case for Academic Freedom. The lecturers are boycotting classes and have done everything that contravene their conditions of service at the pretext of fighting for something that we are finding out now from Jessie that it is an illusion of some kind and the courts have said that is okay.

What I see with our courts about this is that they are being democratic as in being unrestricted, if we are to use an elegant term to describe what they are doing. They are not being just. They are going with what is popular and have lost all the logic that should accompany court proceedings.

This make the courts lose credibility of which in itself is a danger to Academic Freedom as we would want to fight for it when sanity returns to Malawi. If courts have already passed judgment from without, where will that court find the clout to actually legally define it for what it should be? How will the court deduce that a case brought before it does not qualify as a case of Academic Freedom violation?

In all this the people that are suffering and will suffer are the students whose voice and cries can faintly be heard in the background and all efforts even through the courts are being taken to suppress it. If we are going to window dress the problem by serenading Chisinga and Jessie to their egos with our fight, we are doing nothing but to keep the problem yet for another day.  It will come back to us in a nasty way as we would have damaged it some more by fighting the Chisinga battle now thinking that we are fighting for Academic Freedom. 

Dear William Hague,

Whether you will read this letter or not I will write it anyway.

I just thought I should tell you that you are being childish with the way you are handling the issue between the UK and Malawi.

Your diplomat was damn wrong. He had come to Malawi to do a job and he did that job wrong. The British government sent him to be a friend of Malawi and not to play politics or to police or to govern Malawi on your behalf. He got carried away a bit too much and thought he was in control. As the foreign secretary who once had ambitions to vie for the Prime Minister’s job you are supposed to know that. You don’t need to be an anthropologist for you to know that the letter he wrote you and purposely leaked was undiplomatic. If it was someone else I would have be okay but this guy is the head of your mission. Unless you seriously think you are the boss in Malawi as well, face it William, you are off the trolley.   

Things in this world these days are not as they were during the colonial era nor as they like they were during Margaret Thatcher. The world is moving and is moving fast. The future cannot be predicted. The last thing that you should expect from countries like Malawi that are considered a nonentity is to be bulldozed by a donor super power. Those day are fast becoming history.

Like you we can fill the vibes that days of donor this donor that are coming to an end. Your economy if we are to be honest, sooner or later might not be able to sustain that. We need the help but much more than that we need the space to champion our own course. Help us in that by giving us the money and letting us be.

Here are a few things for you to consider, night sound simple but I know what I am talking about. If you cannot consider them now as you go about your job, please keep them so that you can come back to me later and say you told me:

1.      The bombing of Libya will soon backfire. Africa will become a very important variable and the little Malawi is in there with a voice.

2.      China is indeed coming in strong. Out of Malawi it is creating consumers of its product. Other countries in the region will marvel on the success. You will be forced to remain in EU and negotiate as equals with the rest that will not be with China. (You will soon lose your international leverage)

3.      The commonwealth will be questioned

4.      London will be avoided by the world

5.      The Olympics will not be as appealing

6.      The colonial picture that Britain would rather do away with will be sold even more. The great job your queen performed among the Irish will be for nothing.

7.      Britain and Malawi has a history, though in some part is not pleasant but to be honest in most parts it has been great. You William in your short sightedness, you are messing it up.

There is more I can tell you but the point is you are being childish. If it was Gordon Brown I am sure he would have handled it a bit different. In fact miss Gordon Brown on behalf of the British people because of your silly actions.

You can take back as much aid as you want but your messing about with our relationship with the British people is unacceptable. We don’t care about the money, you can keep it. We care about our relationship with the Scots more especially, the Irish and the Welsh.

I will write more.

Ndirande Love

A LETTER TO ANDREW MITCHEL

Dear Andrew Mitchell,

RE: http://www.nyasatimes.com/national/britain-letter-to-malawi-president-on-aid.html

Thank you Andrew for writing this letter; it is much more diplomatic than the leaked cable Mr Dyet wrote to your government. I would also like to thank you for informing us that you decided that Malawi should be one of 27 priority countries for the future UK development support.

Firstly let me thank the British people for the support that they render to the people of Malawi at different levels. Apart from the help Malawi get through your department, there are a myriad other ways the British people reach out to the people of Malawi. Our relationship is much deeper than reflected in the British aid that you are writing about. We are forever grateful to the British people.

The minister of finance will send you our draft budget and our MDG’s if he has not done that already. After your reviews please inform us which areas of the budget you are willing to help. This government needs all the help it can get from its friends to fulfill its plans and goals as reflected in the two documents.

I am pleased to inform you that Malawi has done well in its pursuit to poverty reduction, respect for human rights and financial management. I cannot say we have been perfect, we are not where we would want to be yet but we have certainly scored very good points in our journey towards being perfect.

For this country to be where it is, it has taken a lot. It first of all had to be rescued from your government’s colonial hands, and then from years of very strict hands of Kamuzu and then the careless hands of Muluzi’s government. Despite the problems, there were gains that were made by the country and for the country through all these three leadership dispensations. This government is on course to preserve, celebrate and build on those gains. The biggest shortfall of those governments as regards to those gains that we don’t want to repeat is tha things were done without the direct influence and control of the local people. It is therefore at the heart of all that the government is doing now that the power and responsibility to decide the future and destiny of the country is taken back to the people.

Our budget, plans, international relations and policies for growth are all drawn based on the principle of giving power and responsibility for the country to the people. I am sure you will agree with me that that is the whole essence of democracy. 

On the issue of minority rights, I am assuming that you are talking about the issue of homosexuality, I am sorry to tell you that where the people of Malawi are concerned that is a no go zone. They don’t even want to know. We have had statements issued by ordinary people and leaders from all corners of society voicing their concern about donor demands that homosexuality be legalized in Malawi. Much as we respect the wishes of your taxpayers who contribute a good chunk of the 40% we get from the donors towards our budget, those that contribute the 80% (Malawians) would want thing to be different. We are so sorry on that one, thing have got to stay the way they are in Malawi.

To say that freedom of expression in Malawi is suppressed is choosing not to be honest. I think Malawians are freer to express themselves even much more than people are in the UK. People including the media say all sorts about the president and his government as well as anything really without fear of reprisal. If you check the records there is no one that have been punished for speaking out in Malawi. On the other hand your government is on record for holding back people from expressing themselves in the interest of your national security. You have had an American reverend and a Danish minister denied immigration clearance as a way of barring them to express themselves in your country. Some of your universities are spied upon by the police. You refused people to demonstrate around the wedding of your prince etc. All these you do for the greater good of the British people and we cannot fault you for that.

As a responsible government we want to maintain the peace and stability and other development gains we have made over the years. People are allowed to demonstrate freely and it is free. We however want to instill in ourselves a sense of responsibility when we do it. It will take time but this government is using different strategies permissible in a democracy to ensure that that happens.

You are more than welcome to work with us to ensure that institutions that provide Malawians with an avenue for redress are empowered to do their job in the best way possible to serve the people of Malawi. We can use your expert and financial help in that area.

We are surprised that you still are talking about the purchase of the plane when an explanation was already offered to our donors and your government reclaimed part of its aid. I am not sure whether you would want Malawi to explain itself over the plane every financial year. The explanation you have had is the only explanation you can get, it therefore follows that it is you who should tell Malawi what action or actions you are going to take based on your satisfaction or dissatisfaction with that information.

This government does its best to serve its people much more also in times of need. When disaster strikes, this government does its best to respond. You can be assured that on hunger we are always upping our capacity to prevent and respond to it when it happens. Sorry that you are not happy with the pace of our response on the areas that were affected but we did is what we could do at that time and are happy notwithstanding the fact that we have learnt our lessons along the way.

We are of the view that the reason William Hague is reviewing our bilateral relationship is our loss of confidence with your diplomat, Mr Dyet. Nothing to that has changed, what Mr Dyet did was uncalled for and undiplomatic. There is no way the leadership of this country could work with him appropriately after the manner of the leaked cable. It was also unacceptable for William Hague to insist that he should remain without him even having considered our concerns. It made us wonder if we are still colonized by the Brits.

The fact of that matter is that the onus on whether we get the aid we get from your government or not is with your government. We cannot do much about it apart from calling upon you and your government to look at us for what we want to achieve as a nation and choose to support or not support us on that. It is not our wish that you cut, freeze, withhold, reduce, reclaim or whatever other term used, we can use a hand from a good friend even more also now than ever before. We would like to ask you to continue with the good work you have been doing in our country even though it all comes down to your discretion.  

With best regards

Yours sincerely

Ndirande Love

FIRST OPEN LETTER TO THE UK, USA AND EU FOREING OFFICES

To:

The Foreign Secretary (UK)

The Secretary of State (USA)

EU foreign affairs’ chief (EU)

Dear Mr. Hague, Mrs. Clinton and Lady Aston:

The UK diplomat has been declared persona non grata in Malawi after our president lost confidence in him. However William Hague, the UK foreign secretary chose to look at the issue from an ethnocentric point of view. What matters to him is that Britain still has its confidence in the diplomat and that Malawi’s concerns are not worth even being considered.  

Well and good, that is his choice.

My concern however is around why you are taking Malawians through psychological torture. Why go to the media and make suggestive statements through your foreign offices in Malawi? If one of the conditions to aid or whatever else Malawi benefits from the relationships we have together is the UK diplomat being tolerated in the country at all cost then why don’t you just act accordingly. Refer to the agreements we have signed together and name our fate. That will help us to move on as we would have known who is truly with us and who is not.

Let me just remind you that Malawi like your countries is a sovereign state with its own political, economical and moral problems. We are young. We only got our independence from Britain 50 years ago. Unlike South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia and other countries rich in minerals that were colonized by the British, our colonizers did not pick our land as a place they wanted to settle themselves and as such they did not do much in terms of development. In other words, we were delayed by the period they were here as we were not in control. Yes, they had a few farming projects here and there but in most cases they used our country as a reserve for laborers.

We had to start almost from scratch ourselves when we got independence in 1964. Progress however has been slow due to the fact that:

1.      We are land locked

2.      The international market system is in such a way that you are in control

3.      We don’t have much in terms of natural resources

4.      Our blind loyalty to friends like you, especially the UK our colonial master. We placed you above us and not alongside us. We allowed you to boss us a bit too much. Sorry we thought you were a god to save us from our misery but that has kind of worked against us.

5.      Natural disasters (floods and droughts) and natural epidemics (HIV AIDS, Malaria thanks to President Clinton and Bill Gates for all that they are doing in Malawi to help with this etc)

6.      Incompetence and laziness on our part (we are not proud of this but it is the truth)

7.      We rebranded ourselves a bit too much to identify with our colonial masters. Because of that we don’t like ourselves as much as we like them. We would rather either have them come over to our country and call the shots or have our educated among us go to their country and be ‘used.’ We have nurses and doctors, engineers etc that we have trained using our meager resource with the hope that they would develop this country move to your countries. We cannot do much about it because we are a democratic country and you lot are 200/250 years ahead of us in the game.

8.      Our education system as well is in such a way that we are taught all the good things about you and why we need you. We admire your countries so much that our wish after education is to come live with you there or live like you here. We don’t learn much about ourselves, if anything only the negatives. We have completely sidelined the things that we could have explored and developed about ourselves. The things that we survived on before the British came could have evolved and still be useful today or even us sharing them with others around the world but we can’t because our education belittles them over yours.

9.      The culture conflict that comes with your demands over aid as well is a source of confusion among us. The disunity it causes slows us down a big time. You are insisting that your tax payers want us to legalize homosexuality but we have made it clear that we don’t want. Come rain come sun shine will not buy that nonsense. First we don’t want you telling us what to do and we don’t want homos in our country. It is that simple. Our culture and our faith do not permit it.

Let me point out here that it is amazing to watch the excitement that has engulfed the UK due the pending royal wedding. For anyone who knows British history, especially us in Malawi as we learn a great amount of it in class, we understand the excitement. It is a great expression of British culture that has stood the test of time and modernization.

On the other hand it is painful to see a country that could cherish its culture like that refuse us to keep and enjoy ours in the way we have it. 

10.  Our over dependence on aid puts us in a situation whereby you are in control of things in Malawi and we are not. You decide when, what and how and we follow. Our getting it wrong means we have not done it the way you wanted us to do it. They other problem is that sometimes even if we do it the way you want us to do it once you decide to do things differently you do it without a care of what we think about it. After all it is your money. You make pledges but you don’t deliver.

We have had it with Canada; their aided projects were working very well in Malawi. Thing were working great but at the last minute they decided to pull out because they thought the projects were not economically viable for Canada. They instead opted to go work with countries in the Americas. That was Canada choice but it is us who are now suffering from that action.

There is more I could have written but I know you are busy people. My request to you is simple, don’t keep us in suspense, the nature of your aid itself keeps us in suspense, please name our fate and let us move on. Your aid helps us a great deal, truth must be to be told, we baldly need it but we want it as aid, that’s it, aid. Listen to us and let us work together not the other way round.

The nation is divided as it is right now; we need each other now than before to move in the right direction. Knowing that you are going or staying will give us enough leverage to talk and do things on our own that will help our country whether with your help or not.

Thank you for taking time to read this. We wish Prince William and his bride all the best. We wish President Obama all the best as well as he launches his reelection bid.

Lady Aston, would you please use your influences to end the bloodshed in Libya rather that help it prolong for the sake of seeing Ghadafi go. It is not nice to see Africans die helplessly with you lot hovering over them like that.

Thank you,

Ndirande Love

Concerned Malawian Citizen

A RED PILL FOR MALAWI AFTER FERGUS COCHRANE-DYET

These two rhetoric questions best creates us the rapport that we need to stay together through this article: Is Malawi going to be bombed or declared a no aid zone after embarrassing the United Kingdom by declaring their diplomat persona non grata? As the UK is preparing whatever punishment with which it will visit upon Malawi, apart from fear, what is the best and sustainable course of action for Malawians to take?

The background of this is that Malawians are apprehensive after President Bingu wa Munthalika took a bold move to declared Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, a British diplomat persona non grata! The president lost confidence in him after a letter he wrote to his government had leaked. What he wrote as a diplomat was simply unacceptable. He was rude to the president and the nation he was called upon to befriend. He wrote his leaked letter as though he was a local politician in the opposition. After that no sane person would have expected him to work well with the Malawian president. When a similar incident happened with the American envoy to Mexico, the USA government quickly had him resign and replaced with another person.

The British government chose to look at the issue ethnocentrically.  Before even Dyet was officially asked to leave the country, Britain made its stance clear that a move to expel its diplomat by the Malawi government would be unacceptable. The gentleman still had full trust and backing of the British government. It did not bother them that Malawi, the host country of the diplomat had lost trust in him. They warned the country that such a move was going to affect what they called a whole range of bilateral issues between the two countries.

On April 26, 2011 when it was announced that Malawi had finally and really expelled the diplomat, Britain swiftly reacted by expelling the Malawi ambassador to Britain and disinviting the Malawi nation from attending the wedding of their prince. The foreign secretary William Hague criticized Bingu governance and ordered that all bilateral issues between Britain and Malawi should be reviewed.

Following to that the USA and the EU gave Malawi a warning. Their message was to the effect that they were watching the developments over the issue.

Now that this has happened and warnings are being issued even from the UN, the people in Malawi don’t know what will happen of them. They fear the worst for their country; they are afraid Malawi can be what they are calling Libyad or Zimbambwed. Which means Malawi can be punished as Zimbabwe was with assaults on its economy or with bombs as Libya is being pounded by Nato forces.

Are Malawians justified to be afraid? The answer to that question is a resounding ‘yes.’

There are several reasons why we can say Malawians are justified to live in fear right now. It is always overwhelming when you are placed in a situation whereby you don’t know what will happen to you or of you. To make matters worse is when all that you are getting are premonitions of unpleasant things to come. Warnings are coming from left, right and center. There is no message of support so far from any of the friends Malawi has. All the people are being told is to prepare for the harsh realities that come with standing up against a major donor.

What make things even scarier is the nature and the history of aid. Donors use it as a way of maintain their influence within the receiving states. Malawi had had it hard in the past when it stood up against Denmark and a number of other occasions when Germany, UK, USA and other countries decided to cut their aid to Malawi. Canada decided to cut aid to Malawi when the country needed the aid the most and when the projects they were assisting with were doing great. Geoffrey York in his article Banned Aid, Saturday's Globe and Mail, Saturday, May. 30, 2009 quotes Maxwell Matewere and Emma Kaliya as follows:

 “We've been able to see the results – the gap between boys and girls has been reduced,” Maxwell Matewere said, adding, “Canada is pulling out at a time when Malawi needs it most. It was really contributing to our achievements.”

Maxwell Matewere, executive director of a children's-rights group called Eye of the Child, has worked on a CIDA project that trains teachers to help girls stay in school.

“It's very abrupt and sudden, and no proper reason was given. I was very shocked. I was more or less jumping out of my chair. In the spirit of accountability and transparency, which the West is always preaching to us, they should be prepared to explain why they are leaving.” said Emma Kaliya of the Canadian aid cut. Emma is a chairwoman of an independent Malawian organization that had worked on women's-rights issues with Canadian aid.

Another thing is when you think that Malawi is poverty stricken, disaster frequented, epidemic prone, Land locked, mineral deficient, soils not so fertile, tobacco reliant, population illiterate etc; it just makes it difficult to take in the prospects of losing a reliable friend in those areas to a place where she can be a deadly foe if not your friend. It is hard to see the escape route.

Economically the UK is years ahead of Malawi and they hold a strong position of influence within all the economic regulating bodies on the globe. The last thing that a nation like Malawi would want to have not as a friend or as a foe is a nation with such influence and power.

There are so many Malawians living and studying in the UK and there are others who aspire to go to the UK for the same. The question is, are they going to be affected?

There is simply a lot at stake running in people’s heads in Malawi. They are genuinely afraid.

However, genuine as the fear maybe, it is about time Malawi had grown up as a nation and start walking the path towards being self reliant. The country has been independent for nearly fifty years now. To be where the country is as an independent nation people lost their lives. It is unethical for Malawians today to give away their birth right as a nation to donors.

By being comfortable with being over dependent on donors Malawi is giving away among other things sovereignty, originality and consistency in development, growth and security.

Most of the people that hold key positions in government now are born frees; that means they were born after the country got independence in 1964. The climate that they have grown in is what I would call the neocolonial matrix. It is next to impossible for them, in their independence to imagine a Malawi that is truly sovereign, a Malawi that is bold enough to accept aid as aid and not as a tool be controlled or manipulated.

Like in the movie ‘the matrix,’ we need to take the red pill to see the other side of reality other than the colonial matrix that we have been subjected to since independence.

For those who have not watched the movie, the story line is intriguing. The plot sets out with humanity being taken over by artificial intelligent machines. Neo is contacted by freedom fighters who explain to him that reality as he understood it is actually a simulation of the real world that only exist in the minds of those who are connected to the matrix.

Unless one is been freed from the Matrix they believe that is real while the machines use them as an energy source. The leader of the freedom fighters, Morpheus, believes Neo is canl lead humanity to freedom and overthrow the machines. Here is part of the dialogue the two hard:

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind… Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.

(In his left hand, Morpheus shows a blue pill.)

Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. (a red pill is shown in his other hand) You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember -- all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.

(Neo takes the red pill and swallows it with a glass of water)

Instead of whining and lamenting over rotten spilt milk, Malawians need to cease the opportunity and free themselves from the colonial matrix and have a go at a life free of donor manipulation. The only difference between Malawi and the UK is that in the UK a driver can tell you how far a full tank can take you and in Malawi, a driver can tell you how far an empty tank can take you. The country has a lot of educated young men and women, our driver that if they can properly channel their knowledge and energies, they would be able to win for this country.

To conclude this here is an inspiring quote from Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3 (Pg. 190-191).

If the UK chooses to go, let them go. Malawi cannot be blamed for the broken relationship. Looking at the kind of help Britain has been giving to Malawi, it will be a massive blow but there is no way the nation can continue with its nationhood philosophy formed around donor aid. That is wrong. William Hague, David Cameron etc are no more human than the rest of us just because they have a bit more than us. We are better off obliterated on the map of this earth than to sit and live under such a notion.