Young enough to vote but too old to be voted for?

We are still in Mchinji. Yesterday we, guided by our indefatigable leader of delegation, Professor Joyce Befu, MG 66 and MEGA-1, visited Kochilira where we learned that the name originated from the health facility that was established there decades ago. We were told that because expectant women went there to deliver, the community called the place Kochilira, place of healing or delivery.

It reminded us of what we learned from the chiefs of Mzimba some time back. Ekwendeni, they said, comes from its being a centre for weddings while Enukweni means a stinking dumpsite for animal remains. We have forgotten what Edingeni means…Please remind us.

We must admit hic et nunc that the task we gave ourselves to pursue is difficult and we see no way we can achieve anything tangible to report home. We are giving up.

It would appear we cannot fully explain the source of the names that were given to our geographical places. Until today, no one has come forth with a convincing explanation as to why there is Chikwawa in the Lower Shire States, Chikwawa in Lilongwe and Chikwawa in Rumphi.

Foreign names given to our geographical spaces are easy to follow or trace. Blantyre is named after an English town of the same name. Livingstonia takes after David Livingstone. Even here, we wonder why it is not called Livingstone, like our brothers in Marambo, as Zambia was called before the European invaded our ‘holy’ lands, have named that town near the Victoria Falls. Victoria Falls is, of course, named after the English Queen of the British Empire’s expansion era.  The Mazabuka Tonga name for the falls is Mosi o’Tunya (the roaring thunder).

In Malawi, other clearly foreign names include Mzimba (from umzimba or togetherness in iSizulu) and Lizulu (from Lizwe le Zulu or land of the Zulu), Monkey Bay, Limbe, and, in part, Nkhata Bay, Senga Bay, and …please add.

Where do the other names come from? What is Rumphi? Lilongwe? Zomba? Ntcheu? Kasungu? Salima? Ntchisi, Mulanje? Thyolo?  Phalombe? Machinga? Kasupe? Mangochi? Michiru? And from which language do they come?

At Kochilira, someone suggested that the names were given by the Amaravi. However, we still wonder what language the Amaravi spoke because the Chewa claim to have migrated with their language and cultural luggage from somewhere in the Congo forest. Did they speak the ChiChewa or ChiNyanja spoken today? Or, like the Ngoni occupiers, the Chewa lost their language and adopted the language of the people they ‘conquered’? If this be correct, why do we claim to speak ChiChewa and not ChiMaravi?

And our tribes; why are we called Lhomwe? Sena? Senga? Tonga? Tumbuka, Mambwe? Lambya? Yao? Why?

We have concluded that we Malawians have very superficial knowledge of our origins, histories, relatedness, our unthu or umunthu, the philosophy of our beingness.  We don’t know ourselves. Do we?

Our failure to understand ourselves, our why-are-we-here, our oneness and relatedness, our collective knowledge and our collective ignorance is what leads us to ethic-based discrimination. Our lack of unthu values is today leading us to ridicule, debase, inferiorise and stereotype the women of Malawi, the very givers and nurturers of life. Our gods were, and still are, mostly female for a reason. This, we don’t know and fail to appreciate. Land still take the female gender for a reason. This, we don’t know and fail to appreciate. Our own country is female for a prupose. This, we don’t know and fail to appreciate.

Unthu values respect age because wisdom is accumulated experience. Our chiefs are mostly old because they are supposed to mete out justice based on their lived experience. Even today our honourable learned judges go to great lengths to demonstrate that their judgements are not new.

Today we are busy castigating old age as if being old is a crime. We introduced heft fees to bar the poor from running for the presidency as if the poor ever get close o to the Cashgate pot.  We conceive leadership as taxing and equate it gymnastics, field sports, and…please add.

Verily we say unto you. Leadership can be from the armchair and even from the deathbed. It does not require physical strength but wisdom. The now late Steve Hawkin proved that lack of physical strength does not take away one’s intellectual capabilities.

Today, we want to pass laws barring the aged from contesting national leadership but we don’t bother about the ages of our members of parliament; our members of parastatal boards; members of the church administration and …please add.

When mooting this age-discriminating constitutional amendment proposal, did we ever think about why old people should be strong and intelligent enough to vote wisely but too mentally kaput to be voted for?