Celebrating frivolity on a frivolous day
As bad ideas go, Democratic Progressive Party’s idea to hold a commemorative shindig for the day President Peter Mutharika, alongside six others, were arrested ranks up there with the worst.
I’m not sure which is worse: the idea to think about holding the commemoration or the celebration itself. Someone at some stage should have acted a safety valve as the DPP was conceptualising this abhorrent show of vanity. But I am mindful that safety valves are a luxury in our political system.
Someone at the conception stage should have stood up and told his friends: “Look here, mates, this is a bad idea. Actually it’s absurd and unfeeling.” Having failed at that stage, as they were planning what presidential graffiti would grace prison walls or what ridiculous outfits the first lady would for such an occasion, someone should still have stood up: “Are we that vain, are we that short of political capital that we seek it in non-existent martyrdom?”
But it was let on. So, it was that trophies were handed out to DPP members. Sadly, some were rewarded for causing anarchy; two women were cited for baring their breasts at the police as they protested Mutharika’s arrest (how low can we get)… It was a show of shame and I would be surprised if any of those awardees have displayed their spoils in their houses. It would be shameful to explain to a visitor that I won that trophy because of a ‘boob job’.
I am not sure what was being celebrated apart from some obscure justification by Mutharika that they were seeing assassins everywhere they turned. But we all know that is a case of psychosis on the part of the DPP. The government, any government, would be daft to eliminate a political opponent on its premises, no matter the temptation.
This is one guy who was arrested, spent time in the cooler, walked out on bail and was still waiting for his day in jail before fate intervened via the presidential elections last year. It’s not as if he triumphed through the justice system by way of an acquittal to give him reason enough to celebrate. The jury on his fate is still out there.
On this score, I shudder to think what other political demagoguery will be turned into a national carnival. We could, for instance, wake up one day and be told the president will be celebrating his one year wedding anniversary. After all, it is the day he became a man—and perhaps president, given that his first act of substance upon assuming power was to wed Gertrude Maseko. It’s not beyond the ridiculous. We have gone through worse.
For another, the DPP could turn the day former president Bingu wa Mutharika died into a national day of mourning. The only catch, however, is that they have no clue when the old tyrant died: 5, 6 or 7 April? Maybe they could just block the whole week?
It is more than just political demagoguery gone mad; it is the DPP’s attempt to set out a new narrative of its non-existent, if not trivial, political travails.
Coming barely a week after the nation observed Martyrs’ Day, DPP’s action was a lopsided attempt to raise Mutharika to a platform he doesn’t belong—of martyrs.
The events of 11 March 2013, when Mutharika and company were arrested were never about political heroes incarcerated for standing up for a collective good. It was the culmination of bad political decisions made by both jailer and prisoner in a saga that was driven by political greed and personal vendetta. Turning such an event into a national day of conscience is a colossal insult to the real heroes who have stood up for genuine people’s causes, but have died uncelebrated.
If Mutharika’s aim was to gain traction from awareness about the appalling conditions of our country’s jails, he would have chosen some appropriate day for that gesture. World Human Rights Day on December 10, for instance.
But nay! He had to waste a whole working day celebrating a frivolous occasion.
