India, USA have more poor people than Malawi

Internationally, Malawi is a punching bag, a recipient of ridicule from every corner, every pub, every church, every masjid, and every nyabhingi prayer house. Politicians, especially thieving politicians, have become experts in mocking us.  We are a benchmark for everything bad; everything to hate.

If you want to see the poorest people, go to Malawi. If you want to see the most corrupt leaders, go to Malawi. If you want to see the foulest loudmouths, go to Malawi. If you want to see the saddest people, go to Malawi. If you want to see the ugliest people, go to Malawi. If you want to see the dirtiest, most crooked homo sapiens, go to Malawi.  If you want to see the least educated people go to Malawi. The hungriest? Proceed go to Malawi. The most violent? Malawi.

Adolf Hilter’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, once said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.”  Indeed, the lie that we are the poorest country has been repeated so often that we have started believing that we are poor.  When we sleep under nice duvets and on 8” mattresses we believe we are poor, when we eat two or three maize meals, we believe we are poor. We are poor because we have been lied to often enough.

Consequently, we believe those outside our borders and in other countries are better off.  We believe that Milanje in Mozambique is better than Mulanje even as we see people from Milanje cross the Ruo daily to buy provisions from Malawi.  At Lizulu, at Tsangano Turn Off the people on the Mozambican side feel their richer than those 0n the Malawian side. Illusory. Such is the power of a repeated lie.

Goebbels was right, even the liars now believe that their own lie is the truth. The average American, European, Japanese, Jamaican, Venezualan, Mongolian, and even the Haitian believes that he or she is better off than any Malawian.  As the American, European, and Asian poor and homeless freeze in the cold, they still believe that they are better off than Malawians. Such as is the sadness of a repeated lie.

The fact that we don’t buy things in US dollars does not make us poor. In Malawi, the majority have a home; a place they go to every night and sleep and snore so much so that mosquitoes scatter. They sleep freely after having eaten, and even drunk, to their stomach’s full. Such people are not poor. The freedom to sleep freely is not characteristic of a poor person.  The poor are those who can’t find a home to sleep, water to drink and a meal. Go any metropolitan street and you will see the poor.

Most people in Malawi have parcels of land to farm. Do poor people own land. Most Malawian cattle, goats, and fowl. Do poor people have such?

Ignore the recent fake news that 91 percent of Malawi do not work.  Genuine research has consistently indicated that 81 percent or more of Malawian households engage in farming activities. And they harvest enough to feed those who fake research findings to please the Goebbels of the world.  Farming is working.  For those of you in town, check your food store, and ask yourselves where the stuffs you stuff into your body and keep you going come from.  From heaven?  Malawians are work but some may not be employed. Others both are employed and engaged in self-sustenance farming. They are working. They are in MSMEs. If all the activities Malawians engage in were properly accounted for, no sane researcher would claim that Malawians live on the equivalent of $2.00 per day. Fake and false.

Like richness, poverty is relative. A poor American may have more money than a rich Malawian but the American will always be poor because he cannot afford his daily needs.  Economists talk about purchasing power parity.   Do you know what that means?

Now, we will give two poor countries.

India has 220 million people in abject poverty.  That is 11 times the population of Malawi and equivalent to the population of the United States of America. Yet these 220 million Indians believe that they richer than Malawi.

Next?  USA. Its own census of 2021 revealed that 37.9 million citizens of that country are extremely poor. That figure is almost equivalent to the population of Malawi and Zambia and Zimbabwe.  Yet even these Americans believe they are better off than Malawians. Of this huge figure, 13 million are children.

We are what were lied to. It is time to challenge and debunk that.