Bagamoyo: Yes, Malawians are hurting
People have received an avalanche of reactions to our entry of last week. Some have agreed with us. Others have not. Those who have not agreed with us have explained to us their side.
We love our country. We love Malawi. Our Malawi; our land of peace; bounteous Malawi. But our country is hurting while our neighbours seem to be making progress in every sector. This is what they say.
They say progress in other countries can be seen at their airports; in their highways; homes; at the fuel pump; in the manner of dress; in what they eat; in the schools and colleges they send their children to; and in their hospitals.
They say if Peter MacIntosh lived today, he would sing that the poor Malawian now feels the impact of the devaluation and other poor economic policies since everything has gone up in prices. “Rent gone up; gas(fuel) gone up; food gone up; taxes gone up.” But real incomes have gone down.
Our country is frustrating. They say. And we agree. Our country is not inspiring hope that there is a future and a way to reach the nebulae, up yonder, in whose giant gas pillar stars are. And we don’t dispute that.
At the direction of our indomitable leader of delegation, our undisputed flag bearer in 2025, the Most Genuine Prof Dr Joyce Befu, MEGA 1 and MG 66, we have acknowledged the comments and given feedback to all individual commentators.
As a proverb from the Tonga Nation goes, wakuliya atimujala pamulomu cha, don’t muffle those in mourning.
Yes, our country is mourning every day and night. We totally agree. We also feel the pain. We feel the shame when we are classified among the poor. We feel sad at our roads. Something gnaws at us when poor people, anthu wamba, abaturage as they called in Rwanda, are told to buy their own drugs, bring their own lanterns because sometimes rural hospitals run out of power in the midst of deliveries. We feel it. Our indomitable leader of delegation feels it.
We nonetheless maintain that despite all the mourning, weeping, and hunger we are subjected to, we still have a country to love and speak well of.
We gain nothing and lose a lot of respect by speaking ill of our country. Research has indicated that speaking of a half-full glass takes away despair and suicidal thinking from society. It reveals what people have to build on and cling to.
Let us sit down and reflect on the situation elsewhere and ask ourselves if we would consider ourselves worse off than the people of Gaza in Palestine; if we would still classify ourselves as less miserables, that Victor Hugo describes in his 1862 novel, worse than the people of Eastern Ukraine; than the people of Mogadishu in Somalia; than the people of Khartoum in the Sudan; than people of Kivu and Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); than the people of Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique?
The way forward is for politicians to lead from the front and prepare pro-development policies. Bank loans should not be tantamount to Katapila. Microfinance loans should not lead people into losing property and committing suicide; Banki mukhondes should not be worse than the worst bank loan product.
People who have money should invest it in production and not more shopping malls. We need industries that can turn anything within our reach into money. How do we turn the plentiful waters in our lakes into money? The sand into money? The seasonal natural fruits into seasonal exportable products?
Kenya exports flowers, maluwa, not gold or silver, diamond or any other precious metal that still lies untapped under our feet, every morning to Europe, US, and Asia and brings into that nearly 600 million US Dollars per annum.
We don’t have an ocean but we can still actively participate in the blue economy as feed producers and industrial level tilapia exporters from our aquaculture. Imagine us being the biggest exporter of butter (batala) fish?
We have the potential to be rich and that is why many still cry and feel disappointed that we are not getting our act together but that is no reason to go about calling ourselves Bagamoyoans.
