Ever heard of Bertolt Brecht, the playwright? He was a 20th century writer and dramatist who wrote about a vision of the old coming over a mountain masquerading as the new. This thought is important, especially as our waiting to the 2014 presidential, parliamentary and local government elections are nigh. We will definitely see the old coming over the mountain pretending to be new, changed and repentant.

In the article, I wanted to share with you pictures that have not left my mind. As they say, a picture can be more informative than anything else. The first picture that I have always remembered is that of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sitting at Number 10 (The Prime Minister’s residence in London) with her ministers on both sides and others at the back. The picture I have in my mind was a female Thatcher with 22 male Cabinet ministers and no woman at all.

Behind her was John Major who later succeeded her. That picture would not stand the scrutiny of 21st century thinking where women have taken up their rightful place in society. I am glad our very own JB has a mix of the sexes within her Cabinet.

The second picture that has stuck in my mind is the picture of four African presidents on one vehicle travelling on the Chileka-Magalasi Road in Blantyre. This was in October 1986 when presidents Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia), Samora Machel (Mozambique) and Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) came to meet with Kamuzu Banda (Malawi) at Sanjika. This picture with the presidents in an open-roofed vehicle was completed by another one where the four presidents were pictured at Sanjika each looking away from the other. Two weeks later, Marcel died in a plane crash.

Talking about Kamuzu, the other picture that has maintained in my mind is the final funeral services before Kamuzu was ‘buried’ at Mphungu Village in Lilongwe. What impressed me was this picture where Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe was in the front row and right behind him was his vice-president Joshua Nkomo. Nkomo was the founder of the first liberation political party in Zimbabwe, the National Democratic Party (NDP) before it was banned. The picture I am talking about impressed me when I considered that Zimbabwe as a government did not just bring the president to Kamuzu’s funeral, but also the vice-president.

The other mental pictures that have stayed in my mind are two. The first concerns prisoner Colonel James Njoloma, about 10 years ago. I had gone to Zomba Central Prison to meet him. This was not my first time to meet him at the prison. But on this day as he came towards me, he stretched out his hand to greet me and I stretched out mine. The prison warder noticed that we had breached prison regulations and he shouted at Colonel Njoloma and ordered him to kneel down. He did and we spoke to each other while he knelt. This was a senior MDF officer at a rank of colonel kneeling before me by order of a prison warder.