The re-awakening from slumber of insanity

There has always been a saying of wisdom that goes like “what does not kill you makes you stronger”. There are many other wise musings and reflections that exhort humanity to the opportunities that lay ahead of calamitous happenings on societies or communities by either forces of nature or the excesses of self-inflicted tragedy.

Nature is abundantly gifted with a self healing mechanism akin to homeostasis in medical discourse. The capability of a living organism to bring its physiological chemistry to equilibrium and state of balance.

In systems thinking, this is discussed around the subjects of resilience and adaptive cycle.

Long story short and simplified, every entity, as long as it is still alive and in a sense of coherence, has the capacity to dynamic re-constitutioning and restructuring.

The emerging socio-economic and political dynamics in Malawi in very recent times give a flicker of hope that after a moment when most Malawians were slowly gravitating towards the temptation of resigning to the fact that maybe we live in a society that is doomed and forsaken, there now exist grounds for optimism.

There is progressively strong evidence that Malawi is in a strong drive of dynamic recuperation from its seasons of deterioration and decay that it has suffered at the hands of some of its wayward leaders on one hand and others who in the words of my late dad only had a photograph instead of a vision.

You see, most times it takes a nation to be visited by disaster and tragedy for it to wake up and declare to itself that never again and enough is enough. It, therefore, may appear that perhaps Malawi, having experienced the humiliation of the recent scandals of plunder and looting that I call Shamegate (aka Cashgate), the horrendous decline of its education standards, the annihilation of its once professional and proud public service, the unmitigated decadence of common sense morals to the extent where fathers could defile their daughter, husbands maim their wives and then the free-for-all reign of hoodlums, thugs, vendors and misfits and lastly the extensively devastating flooding and collapsing of development infrastructure, including power, roads, telecommunications and water supplies, thanks to the two decades of unrelenting haranguing of the environment that was first encouraged by a leader desperate to get in office double decades or so ago and thus unwittingly encouraged Malawians to cut trees wantonly.

The chickens, it appears, have finally come to roost and Malawians have now felt the overwhelming burden of this disaster and are in a state of awakening from the slumber of insanity.

Point is, there is always a tipping point beyond which things can never be the same and Malawi reached that point with the devastation it suffered in January 2015 from the floods that led the leadership to declare it a nation in disaster.

Since that declaration, Malawi has seen decisive actions being taken by all in and with leadership responsibilities across the board. Every Malawian with a role of leadership to play in whatever shape and guise, have at once abandoned the hitherto petty disposition of focusing on advancing their narrow self-interests and embrace an attitude of working for the greater good.

Somehow, thanks to the realities of calamity and vulnerability that the disaster revealed to Malawians, we all came together with purposeful intention to make things happen.

The wild cat strikes and picketing evaporated, the hitherto political bickering and finger-pointing receded and most importantly the lassie faire, laid back and aloof attitude by most Malawian to the urgency of making a contribution to move Malawi to a better place evaporated.

Where there was cynicism, mistrust and suspicion, there is now respect, good will and appreciation. Malawi is now united as a nation to progress. Malawi is working together and there is a sense of urgency all around.

The environment that was long neglected, abused and decimated is commanding the care and concern of every citizen right to plot number one. All of a sudden Cashgate cases are being dealt with decisively; with a stern and firm sense of resolve and the need for making sure that what was fraudulently and violently snatched from the State be restituted is being pursued with renewed vigour.

Thugs and hoodlums are being treated with the requisite lethal force they deserve and there are clear signals that rogue and vagabond behavior will no longer be tolerated. Malawi is in now getting into such a swing of resurgence to the extent that no longer is a spoon being called a shovel anymore; public servants are being openly challenged by the leadership to show up or get lost permanently, those of our guests who chose to come and do business and not plough back into the economy by way of building decent structures are being shown the Red Star once again, our timber is being protected from exports by hawkish greedy fat tummy gluttons and lo and behold Big Bullets is back to its winning ways on the international stage.

Malawi is back on the highways. No wonder the donors are coming out of the woods one by one, the “bogus and phony” ranking of Malawi as the poorest nation notwithstanding.

The million pound phrase is let us keep this momentum and let us not relent chief.