Just some armchair thoughts
There is a Malawian saying: zigwe pano nzatose (united we stand, divided we fall).
The world has metaphorically shrunk as a result of modern technologies and communication tools such that what happens on the other side of the globe can easily affect us here.
During the just ended United Nations General Assembly (Unga), US President Donald Trump and delegates from Iran and North Korea exchanged threats and abuses.
History teaches us that such war of words, unless stopped in time, escalate into war of weapons.
Kim Jong-un, the president of North Korea, shows the same level of defiance towards the US that Saddam Hussein of Iraq did.
During the first decade of this century, Saddam said he will defeat the United States if the latter attacked him.
This is the impression President Kim Jong Un is giving the world at large.
Serious or bluff, the world must not sit down speechless as if these quarrels do not concern us all.
We, the unarmed small countries and the not-so-small ones which do not manufacture weapons of mass destruction, should not forget the East African saying: Where two elephants fight it is the grass that suffer.
Tiny though we can still inform the jingoistic presidents of these countries the right thing they should do.
First, the US and the Security Council of the United Nations (UN) should allow Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear weapons. This will divert North Korea’s anger from the US to its neighbours.
North Korea will never destroy weapons she has already manufactured.
The US should stop giving support to South Koreans who do not want reunification with North Korea.
Similarly, it should not be giving indirect support to Taiwanese who say they are not part of China.
The two Vietnams have united.
In what sense has this hurt the interests of the US?
To go to war over the issue of Korean unification is to forget that the UN was formed to ensure permanent peace over the world through contact and dialogue between nations.
Germany lost its empire after World War l, Britain and France after World War ll. All these countries are still in good shape. Leaders of the United States should appreciate the facts of history that no nation has ever been so powerful as to keep the rest of the world subjected to it permanently.
On Bankgate
Recently, we have read and heard of three Pakistanis arrested for allegedly defrauding Malawian banks.
The media refers to this incident as Bankgate.
The so called Bankgate has reminded me of what happened in the US about three decades ago.
There, a Pakistani man formed a bank with letters BCCI. After sometime, the authorities discovered that he was using the bank for money laundering- a term l learned for the first time.
They were about to arrest him when he fled back to Pakistan.
The American government asked the prime minister of Pakistan to extradite him to the US. Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister, publicly refused.
We will wait and see what the police investigations will yield.
Commercial banks in Malawi implacably refuse to lend as little as K2 million to a small-scale Malawian entrepreneur unless he can provide them collateral such as a house or car.
But how did these men from the Land of the Pure (Pakistan) manage to get billions of kwacha with ease? n
