Anything to smile about 2020?

December 26 2019

So, December is drawing on a close to end the year 2019. Phew!

There is no better feeling of hope than when the prospect of entering a new year. January 1 presents high prospects of being better people.

Every new year, bad people think about how they can be good people and the good ones thrive to be better. That is the reality of the dawn of a new year.

It seems like yesterday when we all sang the Vision 2020 theme song. It seems like yesterday when a vision was shared, a dream that showed Malawi as a prosperous country.

Well, not only did that dream gather dust. It was a dream engraved and hewn in stone.

Bad that we lost it.

I hear Rwanda took our blueprint and step by step implemented it. Today, we sing of dreaming, nothing feasible to show. Ay, we have nothing to show of being anywhere near the fulfilment of that dream.

Shame.

Today, as we  speak, we are still groping in the dark, literally. We are still living in the dark ages of underdevelopment.

Not so long ago, stories of unattainable Vision 2020 goals were going viral. Primarily, we lost track when politics got to the top of our heads.

We lost it the day tribalism and nepotism and corruption became formalised that if you are not part of these evils you are seen to be queer.

We lost it all the day we normalised and clapped hands for those who claim the country is developed beyond measure when classrooms become death threats. Truth became a stranger to us the day our hospitals became places we can’t afford to get sick in because there is no medication.

We lost that dream the day parastatals and state corporations became cash cows for the selfish few. Where the corporations are taken as personal fiefdoms for the chosen few of the politically connected.

We can’t bring that Vision 2020 dream to fruition because we are so naïve and absurd that contracts are awarded not because we deserve, but because we bootlick and act the henchman to the powers that be.

As the sand in the hourglass nears turning point, we must reflect and think about where we are coming from and where we are going. Without a vision, people perish.

In this day and age, imagine, some police officers rape citizens and get away with it. Have we come to this?

How do you explain police officers engaged in extra-judicial killings of ex-convicts deemed as menace to society? No effort, apparently, is being made to raise the voice of reason.

Like Martin Luther King Jnr would have it, I have a dream today that one day, we will all sit at the table of brotherhood as Malawians and work hard to create a nation where we will not only be judged by the content of our characters but also by the works of our hands.

I have a dream that one day, little boys at Nsundwe and little girls at Goliati will play together forgetting the sins of their fathers and mothers.

This is the dream I go into 2020 with. Like King, with this faith I roll into 2020 that the bigotry and animosity that has kept aback will vanish into oblivion. Like King, I am my own mindful that we will live in a 2020 where we all sit at the table of brotherhood where thieving, killing and cheating will be a thing of the past.

 I do wish 2020 brings you, dear reader, and attainable goals. May your light shine now and forevermore.