Why Lucius resembles suicide bombers

Good people, nothing got tongues wagging more than anti-abortion protests on Tuesday.
For once, it was easy to perceive what most of us believe in and the alternative views that we love to ignore.
As it were, the country is faced with a question that is clearly close to the hearts of many citizens and the impassioned debate is no ounce misplaced.
However, this was one more time when people rush to take sides, leaving the answer somewhere in the gaping line between ideology and research.
But that is the reasons some people swarmed the streets to make them heard and others stayed put in their homes and workplaces to let their silence speak for them.
So, I will not belabour with the numerous things many people said with lofty placards or in their moments of silence.
However, I have a word for veteran musician Lucius Banda: If artists decide to open their mouth to add a word or two to a topical debate of national importance, they will do themselves a world of good by making their voice as artistic as they can get.
The artistry that once made some of us passionately proclaim this unsung hero of ours Malawi’s Bob Marley is plainly missing on Tigwirane Manja, the newest track which became the theme song of the pro-life march.
At least, the sketchy ballad has some trumpet which most Malawian songs lack.
But the song words do not speak well of the veteran artist who is supposed to get better with time as does good wine. They are dim and insulting to respecters of good lyrics and imagery.
The man is usually vocal on things that matter. Some call him Soldier of the Poor.
He has sung just about everything under the sun. That is why he is like our Bob Marley, the legendary Jamaican reggae artist who said in explains in few words—using a metaphor of a small axe felling a big tree—the power of the powerless Davids to fell suppressers of Goliath proportions.
He is creative and not young, the reason he calls himself “Sir Lucius” and a musician—and many others agree.
However, the name-calling in Tigwirane Manja is not the stuff that distinguishes creative minds from lay minds that are quick to air their views on anything in the world around them. It is tavern-ish.
It may have taken Lucius weeks or months to fashion the tune, but the tragedy is that it can be summarised in no more words than this: Pro-abortion voices are murders, killers and bloody thugs.
That art, isn’t it? Indoctrinated Sunday school children can say as much.
So it is only artistic to those who cannot separate propaganda from a lullaby and how artists sometimes forget their trade when it comes to the former.
Propaganda studies teach us that anyone with a cause can get an artist to prop it up just like any believer can cite a verse to sugarcoat battles that have nothing to do with the word of God.
However, it takes a uniquely gifted mind and extraordinary touch to deliver propagandistic messages in a believable, exciting, memorable and enviable manner.
Lucius has never shied away from expressing his mind or taking sides when it comes to sticky issues.
He courageously confronted a dictator in Mabala. He drummed up support for United Democratic Party (UDF) on the dance hit Yellow.
Last year, he stopped a gig at Zithere Pano Club in Mangochi after catching gays in a kissy-kissy act.
Now that is as Catholic as the Pope can get!
But more is expected of musicians, poets, dramatists and other artists when they decide to use their methods to share the ideals they believe in.
Certainly, calling people with a different point of view damning names is not art, but sheer outbursts.
That is where I miss the Lucius many have revered since 1994. He was wiser than the crusader behind Tigwirane Manja. Even suicide bombers call their targets infidels. n