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.