Malawi markets itself as the Warm Heart of Africa, but has been cold-hearted towards its citizens.
The tagline pays tribute to its friendly people, beautiful landscapes and welcoming culture. However, Malawians are being roasted left, right and centre in an oven.
Due to unprecedented economic and governance challenges that threaten our society, everyone seems exhausted.
Random insults from frustrated vendors on a normal day will ruin your day before it starts.
Are we truly friendly?
With graduates struggling to find employment, underpaid teachers, demotivated police officers, hungry multitudes and all kinds of crises, the country has become a swamp of despair with no solution in sight.
Lately, fuel shortages, devastating environmental degradation, hunger and poverty have become a norm. Citizens have lost motivation. Our leaders have lost direction.
Who will motivate who?
Inferiority complex is eating the core of our nationhood and citizens no longer appear proud to do more to save the nation from poverty.
Here, corruption is being championed by the people who are supposed to be lawmakers, law enforcers, policymakers and anti-graft crusaders.
While policies are pivotal to politics, policymakers in Malawi can do better.
When leaders indulge in corruption and nepotism, it is hard to stop it. It plants a wrong seed in citizens’ minds.
A government infested with favouritism and cronyism creates a corrupt system where money secures influence and the public interest is disregarded.
A society with an elite few who consider themselves superior to the majority allows the minority to dominate and exploit the masses willy-nilly,thereby raising a question of class struggle.
The private sector, too, seems disenchanted, as bureaucracy and policy inconsistencies stifle innovation.
Labour laws in the country are not followed, leaving workers unprotected.
The vulnerability to labour abuse is fuelled by high unemployment, rising cost of living and illiteracy.
Unsurprisingly, a person will sign a contract without reading the terms and conditions just to secure a job.
“Bola ndili pa payroll (Good, I’m on payroll),” they say.
Conversely, the government cites lack of civic engagement and public apathy as major obstacles to progress.
Citizens no longer feel the urge to take care of their environment.
Malawi will never change, they say.
Deforestation and pollution have become rampant, exacerbating public health concerns and disasters fuelled by climate change.
Waterways are polluted with diapers from nearby communities prone to cholera.
Sadly, the learned elites are among the culprits. They send their househelps to dump diapers, dead pets and other waste into waterways.
Who will teach the illiterate masses that it is wrong to dump waste indiscriminately?
Who will stop the neglected wave of pollution?
Are we not stewards of the world around us?
Are we not responsible for our environment anymore?
Should the government take care of our own mess?
How do we motivate the government to do more if we throw standards at the dogs?
It is not strange that preventable diseases like cholera and typhoid fever continue to claim lives due to inadequate sanitation.
The economy is paying a `high price.
This is reducing our country to a land of doom and gloom that the Catholics Bishops called Bagamoyo in their pastoral letter, titled The Sad Story of Malawi.
Nevertheless, Malawi’s despair demands collective action.
The government must motivate its people through tangible reforms, while citizens, both rich and poor, must be patriotic enough to drive change from the grassroots.
Only then can Malawi break free from its cycle of despair and unlock its full potential. Everyone has to motivate the other to do more for the good of the nation.
We are all stewards of our country. We can get back on track to Canaan. Malawi is our responsibility. Political differences should not bring us down.
