7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. 8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever. 9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein. – Hebrews 13:7-9
As Malawi commemorates 60 years of independent rule from the UK (formerly Great Britain) on July 6, 2024, there are numerous great prescriptions the nation needs to adopt (consume) and strategies to follow.
One of these is if something is not broken, don’t fix it. Another is if something needs to be done, please do not wait for someone, the government, or an organization to wave magic wands to get the thing done – you do it; even if this means you do something within your small area on a small scale – just do it. your small scale will add up with other small scales and turn into big movements around the country, and transformation takes place. This will take some learning of doing things; it also needs Malawians to drop the ways of doing some things and also adopt some new livelihoods.
Over the Christmas break, I added to learning from my friend Anna that I had learned from former Gender Ministry PS Mrs. Matenje. From the former PS, I learned from a water-saving tip she was giving to a bride-to-be: this was to always use a basin full of water to wash dishes instead of letting water drip from the faucet.
This holiday, I saw my friend Anna place a soapy water oblong shallow dish and a sponge. I learned that this way, she uses less soap since the sponge retains soap. Another lesson from Anna was her use of a coffee brewer to brew tea by placing 3-4 tea bags into the coffee pot; pouring hot into the filter and allowing the brewer to heat the tea.; the tea bags in the pot are kept warm all day long.
Malawians joined a throng of other colonies in the 1960’s. For the next 31 years, the country existed under a dictatorship that evolved from three political parties to one party, the Malawi Congress Party under the strong-arm rule of former Life President Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda. In the past 30 years, Malawi has been a democracy and has gone through five presidents (Muluzi, Bingu wa Mutharika, Joyce Banda, Peter Mutharika, and Lazarus Chakwera). The List of resolutions for the country is long; however, three will be dealt with. These are 1) to keep praying, respecting, and loving one another; 2) To diversify our eating habits; and 3) to manage tertiary schools outside the government-run institutions.
1. Keep praying, respecting, and loving one another. For 31 years the whole country prayed for the leaders in the national anthem, every time people gathered, and even a mountain that could be seen from the sky showed the words of a prayer “Long Live Kamuzu.” It might surprise some young Malawians, this prayer was answered and Kamuzu lived beyond 100 years.
For some reason, Malawians adopted the love of the political party they belonged to, and everybody else was thrown into the dustbin. Malawians must grow up in the arena of democracy, and love all leaders, even those we disagree with. Malawians must also learn to respect the leaders of other parties. This is not for the benefit of the leaders, but the benefit of young Malawians who are watching and learning the most gruesome behaviors of disrespect. If you do not like or agree with a leader, the ballot box is a strong enough message to remove leaders. Hauling insults or asking for leaders to resign, be removed, or be thrown into prison, are an insult to the democracy that Malawi says it is of itself.
The lack of love, and respect for leaders, also goes to other Malawians. This past year, two elderly women were accused of witchcraft and forced to dig the grave and bury the deceased. This was in front of a variety of leaders including police, clergy, village, and political officials. The powers that Malawian ordinary people have taken up, with impunity is this past week when a man who is alleged to have stolen money from the sympathy plate that was passed around at a funeral. The man was hanged on a tree and left there during the burial.
This is a very mortifying, depressing, and a crime picture. Again this hanging was performed in front of officials – political, police, clergy, and village leaders. My question is how are these ordinary men raised to positions of police, prosecutor, judge, and executioner? They took this man, raised him to the tree, brought a rope, and executed him, for the offense of accusation of stealing.
Another question is, where in the Laws of Malawi is the section that raises stealing to the death penalty?
But last and most important of all where are the leaders who attended this funeral? The term leaders is included therein the police, chiefs, clergy, and civic and political officials. By being silent (through allowing the act of murder to take place in their presence), they too are involved in the killing of this Malawian. He was wrong in stealing sympathy money. But the Laws do not raise that wrong to a sentence of death.
As Malawians, we must caution each other, even if the cautioning will make us unpopular. Let us stop killing each other in high, middle, and low levels of society.
Next week we will “Let us diversify what we eat” and “A Closer Look at tertiary school management and Money Making Strategies.”
