My Turn

Coming home or moving on?

I hate to open old wounds or bring up a hurtful past. But the topic at hand goes against my belief to never dwell too much on the events long gone (a personal working philosophy, which, although not up to par with Aristotle’s idea of fulfilment still saves me the trouble of digging my own grave). It involves a rather bizarre, awkward and unsettling moment, uncharacteristic of those I call my brothers—the undressing of women in our cities—and how that solidified my decision to never return to the only home I have ever known.

Upon hearing the news that women were being undressed for wearing clothes that had become second nature to me, I panicked. My panic doubly motivated by the realisation that had I been in the country, I would have suffered the same fate as my fellow sisters, and that this was, after all, my country, and the perpetrators of such actions, my brothers. I was mortified.

In a moment of utter disgust and anger which came after the most painful silence my mind has ever experienced, I embraced a thing of darkness within me that would do some damage to the men who were going around undressing women. An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth!

I also realised that I did not want to return to a country where I would constantly have to question whether the men next to me were comfortable with how I was dressed without considering how I felt in my own clothes. My mind was made up. I was not coming home, but moving on.

Fast-forward to several months later when I find myself working as an intern at UN Women Malawi. Seated in a conference room listening to a report on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), I am struck by the recurring idea that SGBV is not an individual problem, but an issue that needs to be addressed on a larger scale. At this moment, the lights go on in my head. I realise just how easily I had dismissed the problem instead of becoming part of the solution. In that one moment of pure anger at what some of my Malawian brothers were doing to my fellow sisters, I chose to become a stranger. I chose to not care.

My dilemma, one which many others also face, concerns making the decision to return home or not after having lived elsewhere in the world. We constantly ask ourselves: “Am I better off in Malawi or here?” And sadly, home falls short more often than not.

There is something that pushes so many people out of the country. In the days of old, many intellectuals went into exile in fear of a regime that censored their opinions. The current glorified exile goes by the names seeking greener pastures, pursuing better opportunities or earning better salaries. To put it simply, working elsewhere pays better than it does in Malawi in the same profession. And, life is relatively better, too.

There is something to be said about our unattractive working and living conditions. Not to blame the country for my lack of interest in coming back, but constantly looking over one’s shoulders is never an attractive option. And maybe I am demanding too much of my country. But I am a citizen who also needs to be protected while giving back to the country.

Malawi needs to do better. As a country, we have lost so many people with great expertise to the outside world. Remittances will not cut it. We need a miracle. This is not rocket science. Mother Malawi needs all her children to come back and initiate the changes that only prevail in their imaginations. The changes that make it easy for us to settle elsewhere but here. I know it will not be easy. If it were, it would not be worth the sacrifice.

We can be part of the solution or we can abandon all hope.

Buckle up Malawi! Better yet, let me know if in this affair, I should be coming home or moving on.

—The author is a pre-law and women and gender studies major at Smith College in Massachusetts, USA.

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