There are no martyrs among you

Dear Diary,

An old American army ballad has been turned into a saying popularized by General Douglas MacArthur: “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away”. At the time, I was looking for an old soldier who was fading having fought in the World Wars.

Luck was on my side, through the venerated Wyndham Chechamba, himself a war vet who was mostly in the army brass band to welcome the wounded and tired soldiers from a war not their own. This old soldier was not staying at the old soldiers camp in Zomba, he was a guard somewhere in Limbe.

He told me of his exploits at Kobbe in Kenya, in Burma and Singapore. It was his exploits in Japan that touched me most.

“The war in Japan was really ruthless. One Japanese soldier could have different weapons and you would think there was a battalion ahead. There was heat. There was sweat. There was blood and there was dust. At one point, Japanese soldiers ambushed us from nowhere. They fired at us. Tinafapo anthu 11,” this soldier said.

You could laugh. But, who doesn’t want to be a martyr? Who doesn’t want the world to say: “There is no greater love than this, than for one to die for his beloved.”

These thoughts, Dear Diary, come to mind as just last Sunday we were commemorating Martyrs’ Day. The wreaths were laid, again, in Nkhata Bay on March 3 1959 where 31 people were killed by colonial forces for supporting Dr Banda. By the way, Banda was arrested on Fool’s Day of that year, no wonder during his whole rule the day did not see the light of day!

But I digress.

Martyrdom is great. By the way, shall we ever have a day to remember those who died in the fight for democracy? We have a day for those who died in the World Wars, John Chilembwe and his colleagues but nothing for the Matenje and Gadama’s of this world!

Dear Diary, these thoughts come to mind as I write because Chakufwa Chihana’s family say if the government does not erect his tombstone, they will do it on their own. They claim some people are practicing witchcraft at the site while others have stolen his portrait.

Queer thinking, I must say. Some time back, others promised a mausoleum would be built for Orton Chirwa.

We must all remember that when the battle for multiparty was won, Chihana played a type of politics that brought out another side of him, where siding with the oppressor is concerned.

These were great men, but do we really need to sponsor each and every great man’s tombstone? Why can’t we start thinking about a heroes acre in Lilongwe, right where Dr Banda was interred?

This is doubtful, because all our great men would want to be buried in their home villages because they fear, excuse, ena azikatamba pamandapo.

All that as it may be. What really is going on at Rumphi District hospital? A few months ago, eyebrows were raised when a toilet (read pit latrine) was valued at K15 million. Just last month, that same toilet, which was deemed as up-to-scratch by the contractor, crumbled like the Walls of Jericho at the trumpet sound.

Now, we hear the same hospital wants K13 million to dispose of expired drugs at the hospital. Can someone spare us this down-side-up thinking. How did all those drugs expire in the first place in a hospital where most likely patients were sent back home to buy drugs because ‘they had no medication?” For that matter, who in their rightful senses would let out that whopping amount to bury drugs?

While you would think all that is over, it is at this same hospital that a pharmacy was razed down by fire. No reports have been made on what really happened!

There are no martyrs among you, until one of you dies fighting for an investigation into this daylight crookedness of the highest order.