Prayers with no solution
Some police officer has lost his place of privilege and has been shunted off to the middle of nowhere in Mzimba. No disrespect to Mzimba, but compared to Lilongwe, Bulala Police Unit is hardly a place where honey and milk flows.
The police officer’s sin for losing his exalted place was to tell it like it is in a prayer during a New Year’s do at the Malawi Police Service headquarters. He condemned nepotism, denounced corruption, rallied against tribalism—the vices he observed were choking the police service. But before his prayer could rise and settle, he was nudged off to what one imagines passes off for the police equivalent of Siberia.
It reminds me of an incident at one of my previous employers, when someone delivered a similar audacious prayer, in which she indirectly excoriated the superiors for promising what they could not deliver.
She was gone within hours under the guise of retrenchment.
It makes one wonder why people insist on praying at public functions when the spirit and conduct of events is anything but divine. If it is about keep-up appearances as a God-fearing nation, we are doing a harsh job of it. Members of Parliament pray every day before starting their sessions, but as soon as ‘Amens’ are said, expletives flow across the aisle with such recklessness it makes one wonder why we go to extraordinary extents to pretend we are more religious than the next guy. A prayer must serve a purpose, but ours seems an exercise in futility.
One suspects that even our so-called national prayers serve no other purpose than for the clergy to shake hands and have rare photo-ops with the President. Take, for instance, the national prayers held in Blantyre a few years ago, when Bishop Joseph Mukasa Zuza (May his soul rest in peace) delivered his candid Chindele chakufikapo (veritable idiot) sermon, in which a few home truths were made. Among others, the prayers were meant to foster forgiveness and reconciliation. One man, received the sermon poorly.
With a few choice of words, president Bingu wa Mutharika days later let bishop Zuza know the depth of his anger at what he deemed were attempts to demean him.
I hear we are supposed to hold interdenominational prayers today to pray for rains, among others. President Peter Mutharika will be our Mbona—but there won’t be any dancing like the mythical figure until the heavens weep for Malawi and open the floodgates.
I wonder why we seem to trade in hypocrisy: Does anyone believe these
so-called national prayers have an effect at all? I am no atheist, but instead of troubling God with our incessant requests, perhaps we ought to use the talents and resources He gave us. If the government were serious about irrigation, maybe we wouldn’t be panicking when there is some accident of nature such as drought. We have a whole Lake Malawi whose potential remains untapped for irrigation, for instance. In the abundance of water, a fool is thirsty—so someone said. Is Malawi that fool?
By the way, our Zambian counterparts prayed for their economy a few months ago, has it done them any good?
