Learning from other people’s mistakes

I was reading one of the magazines from my church. The following quote caught my eye: “When an individual hits bottom, those around him will demonstrate predictable behaviour. Some quickly turn away—it is just not “cool” to associate with a loser. Others go beyond that; they see it as a perfect time to strike back. Old grudges are brought to the forefront; past experiences are recast in the light of present realities. It’s payback time!

The bandwagon of disdain rapidly fills with such opportunistic characters. …How effortless it is to kick the wounded and step on those who have fallen. It is within our vengeful nature, and quite often it is vindictively displayed. Such vile actions are so common that we have coined catchphrases to describe them: pile on, shooting the dead, kicking the wounded, throwing them overboard.”

This quote, I am sure, can fit DPP and Bingu experience. Talking about DPP, certainly the party has never been democratic, neither progressive, although developmentally-orientated and I doubt it was a proper party during its glorious times. It was, in my mind, a briefcase party, with power usurped from the naïve United Democratic Front (UDF). DPP is now an opposition party, having been thrust into such position by fate. I am tempted to think what would have happened had Mrs Joyce Banda stayed in the DPP, played the “Peter Mutharika will succeed Bingu song” and then the president (Bingu) died as he did. What would have been the trajectory of history? What on the death of the President, she agreed to the DPP sentiments, i.e. a woman cannot be president, give the throne to Peter; we have all agreed that someone who must take over should continue with where the president stopped from; the chiefs do all agree that only Peter can take over?

I know I am dreaming. Such a thing will never happen. Banda is President of this country and Peter is not. He may be in the future and that is the unknown part of history. I want to be counted as one person who is asking that Banda declares her assets. Often, people are hesitant to declare their assets for several reasons: One, they are filthy rich they are ashamed if one contrasts with the poverty around them; secondly, they do not know what the public will think about them when they have declared their assets; thirdly, the do not know if declaring assets is the right thing or not; fourth, what if they end up accumulating wealth they will not be able to explain.

I do not know why the President is hesitating to declare how much she is worth. Whether she declares or she does not, the result when one does not declare is bad. She has the time now to not fall in the same trap that her predecessors fell into. Someone told me of three types of people: the very dumb who do not learn from their own mistakes; the dumb who learn from their mistakes and the intelligent who learn from other people’s mistakes.n