National values on the wane, but…
At 50, Malawi is still grappling with a cultural dilemma between modernity and time-ordained virtues. JAMES CHAVULA writes.
The pomp of funerals has more regard to the vanity of the living than to the honour of the dead. French thinker La Rochfoucald’s ‘Maxims’ might be strange to Mbalachanda rural dwellers, but Amon Jere, 65-year-old, echoes this thinking on whether Malawians have upheld the values that underlined the struggle for self-rule from John Chilembwe’s uprising in 1915 to 1964 when Britain’s Union Jack was pulled down to pave the way for the new flag of independent Malawi.
For 50 years, the rural resident has witnessed numerous holidays in honour of Chilembwe, founding president Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda who remains the poster face of the battle for independence and scores of little known heroes martyred during the State of Emergency declared by the British rulers on March 3 1959.
“Even when the old man died in 1997, there were no great lessons learnt; and quite certainly little if any real willingness to emulate his standards in the country’s leadership,” said Jere in reference to Kamuzu who is remembered as the father and founder of the Malawi nation.
Walking past Chibanja Township opposite Mzuzu Airport, travellers are greeted with an array of “unfortunate spectacles” Jere considers signposts of a deepening decay of enviable ideals that Malawi used to espouse.
From where the Northern Region’s largest airport borders the M1, the country’s longest road, the sights flashed past in a scattergun fashion: dogs and crows on the runway, the airfield’s borders soiled with heaps of garbage hurled from neighbouring homes; airport and security personnel playing bawo during working hours symbolise the new dawn that was the attainment of independence from British Rule in 1964.
“Our country has gone to the dogs,” he says, gazing at the taxiway which welcomes more animals than aeroplanes.
In the city centre and communities surrounding the airport, visitors and residents are greeted by more of the same—mounds of spilling refuse lying uncollected for months, potholes and water pools on roads that used to be maintained under the abolished Youth Week self-help initiative, slums where crime, poverty and unemployment are high. Amid the filthily manifest crisis, Malawians of all walks seem not to see anything wrong with throwing banana peels, plastic bags and other unwanted goods anywhere—even when waste bins and skips were within reach and half-full.
The tragedy with these pitfalls in national values is that the eyesores are widespread in all parts of this country where top government officials have been implicated in the siphoning of about K120 billion from the national treasury in what has gone into history as the Cashgate. From the end of Kamuzu’ 31 years of one-party rule to Bingu wa Mutharika’s eight years (2004-2012), the estates of former presidents have come into question for allegedly benefitting from national funds as the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Since 2005, Kamuzu’s successor Bakili Muluzi, who preceded Bingu, has been on trial for reportedly diverting donor funds into his account in Zomba. Besides, perception surveys carried out by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) show police officers, immigration officials and other agents of the law are viewed as the worst culprits when it comes to corruption and bribery.
Amid these stories of worsening living conditions and rising dishonesty in high places, one wonders: What happened to the ideals that once shaped the Malawian society?
People on the streets of Mzuzu blame it all on the restoration of multiparty politics in 1993.
“We wanted change, but we were mistaken to think that change was all about freedoms, not duties we owe our country,” said Joyce Sichinga, 32.
Hers is no new realisation, but one of the shortfalls in the popular perception of democracy. This gave birth to the National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) which has been striving to close the gap since 1999 when the country witnessed the worst tribal clash in reaction to electoral results.
But what happened to the love for the country, the patriotism manifested by the highly celebrated heroes in whose blood and death the nation is hewn?
The question was put to Robson Watayachanga Chirwa. In his 80s, the resident of Chimaliro, Mzuzu was a right-hand man of the ‘Father and Founder of the Malawi Nation—Kamuzu—having served as his interpreter and Regional Minister responsible for the North between 1978 and 1983. The veteran followed the footsteps of the founding president on a journey that took him to the US, Italy, Germany, UK and Asia—notwithstanding on the African continent.
When asked about Malawi past and present, Chirwa ponders down the memory lane to the ideals that buoyed the independence struggle in 1959 when he was teaching at Kamuzu’s boyhood school—Livingstonia.
He recollects: “During the fight for self-rule, we wanted to end segregation which Malawians were facing at the hands of British settlers in farms, offices and schools. We wanted better living conditions because there was poverty beyond imagination. Most Malawians were wearing small pieces of clothes known as vingala or vitewe which were not enough for ladies and gentlemen”
The untold levels of poverty were immortalised by Kamuzu’s repeated claim that he found the people of Mwanza “literally naked” when he arrived in 1958. His indignation to indecent dressing was not only exemplified by his obsession with British suits, but also a ban on mini-skirts in the 1970s. Garbed in the once banned skimpy wear, Tamara Mwale, 22, criticises the rescinded edict “a needless breach of women’s freedom of dressing”.
Yet Kamuzu’s hierarchy of needs also included decent housing, an upgrade from the wattle-and-daub—the leaky thatched huts made of mud and grass.
Chirwa recalls: “The battle for independence was a quest to ensure Malawians had three things that matter: enough food, decent clothing and good housing. Beyond that, we also strived to rise above tribal lines. We embraced the virtue of working together as one people—not Chewas, Mang’anjas, Tumbukas, Ngonis and Lhomwes—since our goal was one: ensuring that the country was free and independent.”
To Chirwa, independence means the autonomy to judge what is good or bad for the nation as the owners and masters of the land, not the colonial masters’ off-shore territory.
He reckons although traits of tribalism can be seen here and there, they have largely toned down. The sporadic cases in point includes those vying for presidency choosing running mates according to regions of origin, the electorate voting on regional lines and Mzimba North West MP Harry Mkandawire’s recent remarks in Parliament that the North must secede because President Peter Mutharika has picked a cabinet overwhelmingly dominated by ministers from his region—the South.
The regional lines remain as clear as the M1, a glimpse of Kamuzu’s desire to ensure the country has good roads connecting all parts sidelined by a colonial transport corridor comprising a narrow road which used to split tea estates in Thyolo and Mulanje, the colonial settlements in Blantyre and the old seat of government in Zomba along with another connecting the new capital Lilongwe and Salima.
Hearing about potholes, filth and other symptoms of escalated moral decadence, he laments: “It is unfortunate many things seem below the standards the founders of this nation envisaged. They wanted our lives to be decent. They wished us well.”
It is ironic things are seemingly falling apart while corruption is rising. Chirwa aptly calls corrupt individuals and syndicates “selfish, unpatriotic souls personalising the country, vital facilities and limited resources” at a time the majority of the population is trapped in poverty.
“Corruption does not pay,” says the old-timer. “Throughout Kamuzu’s rule, there was no mention of corruption because we had the four cornerstones—unity, loyalty, obedience and discipline—which were enough to defuse and conquer any attitude likely to harm the nation,” he says.
Random interviews in the city show nine in 10 people share his view that the leaders must be servants of all, not just their pockets.
“From the beginning, we wanted leaders to be servants of people, including the poor and those not learned. I feel tongue-tied to hear stories of some leaders stealing or mismanaging public funds they are supposed to safeguard,” says Chirwa, describing it as an illusion that one can only become a millionaire via corrupt means.
For the country to develop, he calls on leaders and the rest of the population to seriously adopt principles of good governance, wondering: “If we don’t, who will rule us to prosperity? Will somebody fall from heaven? We need discipline and self-control to develop the country. My dream is that we will go back to those virtues that we used to hold,” Chirwa reveals.
On July 6 1989, the country celebrated 25 years of independence under a catchy theme: ‘Peace, Prosperity and Progress.”
Ever since, as demonstrated in the 10 days of uncertainty following delays to release official results of May 20 Tripartite Elections, Malawians might have lived up to their billing as peace-loving people.
However, the sweet talk of prosperity and progress are not only debatable but highly questioned as political analyst Blessings Chinsinga once decried the country has become a specimen of poverty in laboratories of western researchers.
The research seeping from the said experiments? For 25 years since the silver jubilee at Civo Stadium, research show Malawians are poorer than they were 20 years ago, about three in four are living in untold poverty, the country is ranked the lowest developed country on the UN Development Index and it may need about 70 years to develop a viable middle-class like to spur the desired reap out of poverty.
Chirwa feels Malawi was too good to be groping in the dark corner while the likes of Mauritius are among the fastest-developing economies on the continent.
“With these stories, I’m always dumbfounded to hear about workers playing games during working hours. Like the corrupt, these are enemies of the State. What happened to the spirit of hard work? People who are being paid to develop the country playing games when they are supposed to be working?”
This could be a simplistic look at dwindling work ethic both in public and private sector, for unionists argue that workers are demoralised by lack of resources, low pay and other unmet working conditions.
But even crying for drastic mending are the values, everything that was good about being Malawian.
