Wanted: She-for-He Champion
One or two weeks ago we were in Lilongwe principally to attend the launch of the Malawi Cultural Heritage Association (Macha) whose aim really is to package Malawi culture and offer it to attract potential tourists. The only thing missing in the packaging is that we want tourists to come to us instead of us taking our culture to the home of the tourists.
Imagine chadzunda, chimbano and other gulewamkulu characters in New York! Imagine Paka Town Band displaying its honala style in Tokyo! Imagine us taking mganda, mapenenga, malipenga, penanga and beni to London and Berlin. Firstly, our people will have the chance to see the ‘tourists’ live and behave in their countries. Secondly, we will expose our cultures to them and in turn the tourists will want to understand us.
Marketers plan around the four, some say six, Ps. We will not explain what these are because ‘vyamahala vinatha’. Our country has matured and there is nothing for nothing. Quid pro quo is the order of the day. Even a smile or a greeting is for sale in today’s Malawi.
It was the first time we, as a group, had been into the Lilongwe International Conference Centre (LICC) and its imposing, by Malawian standards, stellar Umoza Hotel. LICC is the name our party, United Democratic Transformation Congress (UDTC) will give to what is today wrongly known as Bingu wa Mutharika International Conference Centre (BICC) when we win the presidential elections next year.
Soon after watching the traditional dances and touring the displays of cultural artefacts, we drifted, as if driven by a mysterious natural force, into the bar of the Umoza Hotel.
“Do you have fantakoko?” Jean-Philippe asked the young-looking female waiter who welcome us in a typically forget-your-home Malawian style.
“Fantakoko? What’s that?” The waiter wondered.
“It is a drink. Made in Malawi. Enjoyed by average Malawians across this honey-and-milk country,” Jean-Philippe answered.
“I am sorry, we don’t stock that drink,” the waiter said.
“What do you have instead? Anything soft?” Jean-Philippe went on.
“We have fanta, coke and sprite, and juices,” the waiter said.
“If you mix fanta and coke what do you get?”
“Fantakoko,” Abiti Joyce Befu responded, sending the waiter’s lips into a trance.
We all gave her our orders.
“You know what? This world is very unfair to men,” Mzee Mandela started.
“Why?” I, the Mohashoi, asked.
“You see,” Mandela said, “when a boy is exposed to cruel genital mutilation, it is praised as voluntary male circumcision, but when a girl goes through the same genital knifing, the act is condemned as barbaric. Women and men rise up for the girl child. But nobody fights for the boy child!”
“But you seem to be getting things upside down. Female genital mutilation has no medical benefit while voluntary male circumcision is there to prevent HIV and AIDs. Studies have proved it works!” Nganga said, sending Jean-Philippe into laughter.
“What’s funny?” Abiti asked.
“Nothing really.” Jean-Philippe responded, “but I just wonder why we cannot see the obvious. If male circumcision really prevented HIV infection, none of the circumcised people would have caught HIV. HIV came and found some Malawians already circumcised but even the already-circumcised got infected.”
“Are you disputing scientific findings?” Abiti asked.
“You see circumcision is an age-old cultural practice, and to claim today that the same old practice can prevent HIV sounds spurious,” Jean-Philippe said, “Circumcision of boys without their consent is, put simply, torture and abuse of the boy child’s rights against dismemberment of their bodies!”
“We need a She-for-He to prove that progressive women condemn the torture of boys in the name of fake science,” Mandela said with finality.
“The same circumcision scientists also recommend condom use to prevent HIV infection! Isn’t that interesting?” Jean-Philippe asked.
“‘My people are destroyed because of fake knowledge’, says my Bible”, Nganga said.
