The father and his daughters

Aman had two daughters; the one married to a gardener and the other to a potter.

After a time, he went to the daughter who had married the gardener, and inquired how she was and how all things went with her.

She said: “All things are prospering with me. But I have only one wish that there may be a heavy fall of rain in order that the plants may be well watered.”

Not long after, he went to the daughter who had married the potter, and likewise inquired of her how she fared.

She replied: “I want for nothing. But I have only one wish that the dry weather may continue and the sun shine hot and bright so that the pots might be dried.”

He said to her: “If your sister wishes for rain and you for dry weather, with which of the two am I to join my wishes?”

That taught the father that in trying to please all, a person will please none.

Interestingly, President Peter Mutharika and CCAP synods of Nkhoma and Livingstonia have been touched by this folk insight and mustered enough courage to state their position on the ‘irresistible’ urge to ‘force’ Malawi to embrace homosexuality.

Mutharika during a Talk to the President programme aired on Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC radio and TV) recently said homosexuality matters should be decided by Malawians whose majority elected him as chief administrator of the State.

Whether he was speaking as the State President or as an individual makes no difference.

The synods, likewise, last week severed a 150-year intimacy with the Church of Scotland over homosexuality.

But in a scratched-record fashion,   ‘human rights’ defenders, puffed by their masters’ thinking that it is not in the inherent mandate of the State to determine by law on matters of the private conduct of people like homosexuality, were fast on the President’s neck.

The defenders – Timothy Mtambo of Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, Gift Trapence of Centre for Development of the People, Father Martin Kalimbe of the Anglican Church and John Phiri, a human rights lawyer – at a press conference warned Mutharika of negative repercussions over his remarks on homosexuality.

The warning perhaps suggests that there is power behind homosexuality advocacy that is ready to inflict whatever pain on Malawians if the country continues to snub the ‘use of God-given resources for wrong purposes’.

The defenders, however, need to know that human rights should not proceed on the basis of imposition or economic sanctions.

Then the advocates, especially the supposed powers-behind-homosexuality, would be understood as terrorists whose aim is to create ‘anthropological poverty’ in the country by diluting people’s culture.

Majority Malawians are resisting to homosexuality because they want to assert and preserve themselves and their identity in time and space so that they can function in a meaningful way.

They do not want to be nullified by some super powers who want to deprive them of their history, values and the entire world view.

It is argued that private individuals are solely responsible for their acts in as far as they do not bring harm to others.

But individuals’ rights –minority rights inclusive (if there is anything of that sort) – cannot be lived in absolute space and time.

In reality, they can only be exercised in particular context, and contexts vary from one to another in terms of norms and values.

It is, therefore, pleasant to note that, realising that they cannot please everybody, Mutharika and the two synods have refused to be swept off their feet by the universalising of moral trends