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Africa needs visionary leaders for the continent to move forward. This is the message from a meeting of finance experts assembled here in Addis Ababa.

I agree.

I was with African heads of state in this same conference centre a month ago. I have been with them on several occasions, elsewhere. To be honest, Africa has had visionary leaders since Dr Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. Talk of Patrice Lumumba, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Thabo Mbeki and now Bingu wa Mutharika.

These are leaders who were far ahead of their time and could not be understood by their people. This is the tragedy of Africa: citizens who fail to understand their leaders!

Ironically, it is Africa’s version of middle class that does not understand the continent’s visionary leaders. The poor, the not so educated and small scale business people tend to understand visionary leadership.

It is this middle class that the West has used to disturb governments of Africa’s visionary leaders.

Information declassified by the CIA a decade ago, shows that the agency had a hand in the coup that ended Ghana’s progress with Nkrumah as president. This is a coup that wounded Africa and from which the continent has never recovered.

I will not be surprised in 20 year’s time when London shall declassify information that it was responsible for the human rights and governance noises we are hearing in Malawi. I will not be surprised when one British economist shall author a book titled “Mafia in Malawi: How I worked 36 hours Nonstop to Collapse Malawi’s Economy”. Or something like, “How I Fooled Malawi to Hate its Great Leader”.

Africa has brilliant leaders, even now, and will continue to have brilliant, visionary leaders. What Africa lacks are visionary, brilliant citizens who can question the bias of the media towards the West and the civil society.

Africa needs citizens who can say no to selfish opposition politicians (whoever is at State House) who break the law and expect sympathy, even death, from the poor.

If you are in Malawi and you want to understand the chaos, read the Post-Colonial Theory, be alone and ask yourself questions. If you are well-informed, you will realise that this is a war by opposition politicians who want to take power.

It is not about governance, no. It is about power. Visionary citizens must work with their government to develop their country not help opposition politicians to destroy our country because the opposition wants to find a sound economy when they get power.

If we continue to listen to selfish opposition politicians, not so educated human rights activists and a biased media, we shall hate every person who comes into State House.

I will stand by my presidents, whoever it shall be, whenever, because I know together we can move forward and because I know the West hates visionary leaders like Mbeki, Nkrumah, Nyerere and Mutharika.

One day, it must have been in 1984, dad taught me a lesson that made sense 20 years later.

That evening in 1984, I was asked a question that slept in my subconscious and woke up in August, 2004.

That morning, I had joined a couple of friends from my village to buy sugarcane from a farmer of the crop whom we called Chem’membe, his name being Mr. M’membe but in Chiyawo we use article “Che” for respect.

Chem’membe was a well-known sugarcane farmer in the area between Mbingwa and Magomero in Group Village head Kwitanda in T/A Msamala’s part of Balaka.

My mother gave me some money to buy sugarcane. That was after weeks of crying that I want to see the sugarcane farm.

Walking the five kilometre distance back home with a heavy load on my head was longer than the five kilometre from home to the farm, without any load on me.

But the journey was an achievement for me. I had done what I could hear from my peers. So, I hosted a party of sugarcane for my brothers and sisters that afternoon. It was good.

That evening, after dinner on the home’s open ground where we used the moonlight, dad asked about my day. This was no strange for each one of us was required to take stock of their day’s activities: what we had contributed to the home’s welfare.

I explained myself and I was happy I had made a journey I had wished for long. But there followed a question: How much profit have you made from the sugarcane?

Dad had taken me into a strange forest of thought. Was I supposed to sell the sugarcane at a profit? I thought I had been given some money to buy sugarcane for the home?

If you had sold some, said dad, you would have made a profit and next time you would not have asked for money from anyone.

I thought dad had a problem. Me selling sugarcane in my village? No! What would people say of a retired primary school teacher’s son selling sugarcane? What would people say of a last born child selling sugarcane when his brothers were working in town?

I thought I came from my village’s version of middle class and not the type to stand in the sun selling anything to those poorer than myself.

Twenty years later, in August 2004, I had clocked a full year in fulltime employment at Nation Publications Limited and I was on annual leave. I had several jobs between July 1996 after secondary school and May 1999 when I went into college. Even during college, I had vacation jobs.

But not one of these jobs reminded me my father’s question: How much have you made from the sugarcane?

So, during that annual leave I was resting on my sofa one afternoon and, then, I started thinking. What am I going to do with my annual leave? Being on leave meant no small amounts of money that come with allowances of all kinds and the holiday was going to become a burden.

The question was no longer from dad. It was from myself: How much am I going to make from this annual leave?

One year of fulltime work had taught me that a salary is like aid. An employer, like a donor, gives you a salary that makes you look forward to another package next month, meaning you depend on the employer for decades.

Business is the opposite of a salary. Business gives you money that helps you make more money than before. Of course it is not that straightforward but that is how it works anyway.

My dad had taught me that money is important in life and that people of all ages need to make money, to think money and live money. My father had taught me that those who are rich make money from the poor. I was supposed to sell sugarcanes to those I considered poorer than myself.

Consider those who patronise Black Missionaries Band shows. They are, most of them, poorer than the band’s members. But the Blacks make their money from the poor. Or consider those who drink from Chez, Blue Elephant and such other places. Most of them, perhaps all on most days, are poorer than the owners of these places.

Now as my father is on the wrong side of 80 and being a father myself, I realise that a salary is never enough. I should do some business, a business of some kind.

My job should be a catalyst for a network that should help me do business. If I am a reporter at a media house for example, and a sales manager of a hotel troubles me with writing stories about renovations at his hotel, I should be able to turn that rapport into a network and supply tomatoes to the hotel. Why not?

If I am a teacher in the rural area, I should become a farmer and produce maize, cotton or whatever suits the area for sale. I have seen teachers who have turned themselves into money makers because they knew what to do where they were.

These are teachers, if male for example, whose wives would be doing fritters for sale to pupils during break time.

These are teachers who would knock off from school to collect eggs from their small chicken farms for sale at the nearest market. These are teachers whose children would knock off from school to feed goats and sheep.

Or take the example of Mr. Moloko, an academic in the University of Malawi’s Faculty of Education and Media Studies at the Polytechnic. He started with evening classes in rented premises in Zingwangwa in Blantyre.

The school grew and now he is operating two boarding secondary schools (Michiru Boys and Michiru Girls) in his own premises in Blantyre. He is a millionaire.

He is a lesson to all of us that money is one foot away from ourselves. It is up to us to get it. I don’t think an entrepreneur like Moloko has time to complain about his salary in the University of Malawi. Instead his university job offers him time to run his businesses.

Moloko knew what to do with himself. He is an educationist and he has made business out of that. This is what all of us should be doing: making money from what we have. And there are so many examples around Malawi. The choice for a lesson is yours.

Why are you not making money for yourself, by yourself and of yourself? If there is anything my father’s 1984 question can teach us, it is that we need to think money and remember that we make money from those poorer than ourselves.

This title is common knowledge among those who enjoy literature especially that of the years before the 19^th Century.

Chicken Licken or Chicken Little is a tale about a chicken that believes the world is coming to an end. The phrase The sky is falling! features highly in the story, and has passed into the English Language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that the ultimate disaster is imminent.

After decades, perhaps centuries of featuring as orality, the story was finally published under Chicken Little Series as “Remarkable Story of Chicken Little” in Boston in 1840.

As with any other tale that comes from oral tradition, Chicken Little has as many versions as its tellers.

But the most known is about a chick that believes the sky is falling when an acorn falls on its head. Just like that, imagine! The chick, joined by other birds, says the story, tells the king about the sky that is about to fall.

This is a story with so many endings that depend on the teller. But in one common ending, a fox invites the birds to its lair and eats them all. Other endings let the birds escape with a warning to be careful, to act within the bounds of reason and common sense .   

It is a great story with chickens answering to such names as Drakey Lakey, Goosey Loosey, Goosey Poosey, Gander Lander, Turkey Lurkey, Foxy Loxy or Foxy Woxy. Names easy to remember.

The moral of the Chicken Little tale depends on the version. A happy ending does not mean listeners/readers should be chickens but should have courage to face new situations, to think about them and make sense of something new and how to survive.

In the version the birds are eaten by the fox, the moral is a warning not to believe everything you are told.

The names of the main characters in the fable—-Chicken Little/Chicken Licken and Henny Penny and the fable’s central phrase “The sky is falling!”—-have been referred to people said to be unreasonably afraid. The term Chicken Little has even been listed in some dictionaries as “one who warns of or predicts calamity, especially without justification.”

Musicians have used the fable in their compositions. Vincent Persichetti with his A Parable of Chicken Little is just one of such musicians.

Authors continue to use this fable to illustrate that unnecessary fear leads to all kinds of dangers, even loss of life. 

One such author is Robert Kiyakoski whose book Rich Dad Poor Dad encourages readers not to be like Chicken Little who went about saying the sky was falling when it was not.  

From the fable the English Language has a term Chicken Little Syndrome that refers to people accused of being unreasonably afraid, or those trying to incite an unreasonable fear in others. Such unfounded fears can bring a sense of despair.

Comedies from the fable also teach that fear mongering weakens a people’s social effort to challenge their enemies.

In the final analysis, unnecessary fear lets people into the hands of their enemies who may kill them as the fox did with the birds.

I haven’t seen the bookshelf of President Bingu wa Mutharika but I believe a man of his generation of thought has grown up with the fable of Chicken Little and knows the morals of the fable pretty well.

The surprise is that journalists in Malawi have made no effort to understand the allegory of chicken, an attempt that could have led them to Chicken Little.

It is an allegory common in English Literature. But even editors who boast of a Chancellor College of the 1980s whose half professors in the English Department were from Europe or North America have chosen to misunderstand the allegory.

This speaks how much unreasonable fear can make people, even those who call themselves educated, stop thinking and be carried away into the Facebook ideas of a generation that does not take time to think but believes in immediacy, a generation that does not value space and time.

Like this, Chicken Little activists have found a fertile ground in Malawi to scare all of us that the human rights and governance skies of Malawi are falling down when they are not and journalists are in the forefront with such lies.

Yes, we need media freedom but more importantly we need literacy to free our minds and the minds of our audiences from Chicken Little Syndrome because freedom, according to musician Michael Card, is the power to do what is right and this power, I believe, comes from literacy.

With literacy, says Plato in The Republic “our job … [becomes] to compel the best minds to attain what we have called the highest form of knowledge, and to ascend to the vision of the good.”

Feedback? mzati@mzatinkolokosa.com

It takes a village to raise a child. True.

This thought has filled me today, 22 December, 2011, and for a good reason: It is my birthday anniversary.

I am refusing to count the years. How old am I?

No. Birthdays are no longer days for celebration but for reflection. In the years I have walked the face of the earth, what have I done to reduce the suffering of the human race? Those near me, first!

Well, that may be some tough question. But really, this day has brought my younger self into my mind.

The early years of my life have been coming back. It is easy to thank our parents for bringing us up. I am thankful to God that both my parents are alive, enjoying their life at about 80 years. They brought me up, yes.

But it takes a village to raise a child. I specifically remember this kind woman, Abiti Twente.

One October, hot afternoon, I, a Standard One weak boy, was walking the five-kilometre stretch from Dziwe Primary School to home. Balaka can be hot, if you know what I mean. And on the way home, alone, I was nose-bleeding, a condition that is in our family because brothers could be admitted to hospital for weeks because of nose-bleeding.

Sitting there, under a tree, alone, this woman saw a helpless boy. She walked over from her house and noted the nose-bleeding. She could have sent for my parents or just ignore me. But she became my parent. She went back home, got a clay pot of cold water, brought it and poured it on my head.

The belief was that cold water would reduce and later stop the nose-bleeding. It worked, of course.

Now I recall, that clay pot contained a precious commodity. The nearest source of water was some three kilometers away. Thinking about it today, I want to believe that was water reserved for drinking at the woman’s house. It is like she gave me all she had.

Looking back, I see that Abiti Twente acted my parent that day. She reached out and touched my life in a real way. Now that I am growing old (a not so lovely term), do I look back and recognise my parents as the only ones who raised me up?

No. Then why do we fill up our bags with groceries for our parents only forgetting anyone who raised us along the way? Survival in a Marxist world is me and me and me, then for those who are lucky, those close to me.

As I celebrate 35 years of life I want to remember Abiti Twente in a special way. I am on my way to see you, mum.

One or two people, sometimes three, are here and there. But mostly one sees the Police on the streets. In fact, there are more Police than civilians on the streets of Perth this Friday morning.

Queen Elizabeth II is opening the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth today. She arrived in West Australia on Wednesday and was welcomed by dozens of officials at the airport. Thousands cheered her on the streets. I was one of them.

She was in a pink jacket, pink skirt–the jacket brighter than the skirt. I did not see her shoes but she was in her usual trademark handbag.

Then, when she arrived, the streets in Central Perth were full with all shops open. When the Queen visited parks and places of interest on Thursday, 27 October, thousands cheered her. She is, from what I saw, an extraordinary woman who symbolises Britain—and its past empirical power.

Just now, some minutes after 10 O’clock on Friday morning, she is opening CHOGM. I am in the media centre having walked some 800 metres to the convention area.

I was one of the few people on the streets. Of course some women and girls and boys are on the streets waving pieces of cloth and cheering at leaders as they pass by, one by one.

But those who love rights and hate duties are not in the city today. No demonstrations or protests.

The Australian Parliament passed the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Special Powers) Act 2011to bar known protestors from walking into town during this period, according to The West Australian newspaper of Tuesday 25 October, 2011.

“Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan has been given the extraordinary powers to create the list under Special Act of State Parliament passed specifically for CHOGM,” said The West Australian. “People on the list are barred from all CHOGM security areas until November 4.”

Police have so far served notices to fewer than 50 protest leaders and they have been kept at home, away from the convention centre.

According to the law, those barred cannot seek court relief in the name of an injunction and once they break the law by getting into the no-go-zone, they will be thrown into jail for a year without right of appeal.

Some tough time for people who enjoy demonstrations as if they have nothing better to do. But this is Australia, not Malawi.

E-mail your thoughts to mzatinews@yahoo.com

I write this because I love journalism, also because I want journalists to be valued and paid for what they produce. And I focus on newspapers because their survival is in danger.

Malawi had over 30 newspapers in early 1990s, including three dailies: The Daily Times, The Daily Monitor and The Nation (of course, the three were never dailies at the same time). Today, Malawi has two dailies and a couple of weeklies. The Daily Monitor died.

Not just that, the country’s oldest print media house, Blantyre Newspapers Limited (BNL) retrenched staff in the last week of August, 2011. It is all about money; the institution is not making enough to survive, either it retains all staff and drown the company or lay off some and keep the company afloat.

But managing a media house or any company is more complicated than “either we retain staff and sink or downsize and survive”. There are other factors between the extremes of firing and retaining staff.

Newspapers have three channels of generating income: sales, advertising and, related to sales, subscription. I separate sales from subscription for a reason. Sales on the street or in a shop bring money when the newspaper is out while subscription is an advance payment, of course, on the assumption that the newspaper shall come out, anyway.

Of the three, it is advertising that keeps a newspaper on the market in Malawi and elsewhere. In terms of a newspaper’s survival, sales and subscription revenue is for stationary and such other needs. No advertising, no survival. It is that straightforward yet winding under the surface.

“Henry Luce, a co-founder of TIME,” writes Walter Isaacson in Time Magazine of February, 2009, “disdained the notion of giveaway publications that relied solely on ad revenue. He called that formula ‘morally abhorrent’ and also ‘economically self-defeating.’

“That was because Luce believed that good journalism required that a publication’s primary duty be to its readers, not to its advertisers. In an advertising-only revenue model, the incentive is perverse. It is also self-defeating, because eventually you will weaken your bond with your readers if you do not feel directly dependent on them for your revenue.” 

Newspapers in Malawi rely on advertising revenue and advertising departments receive the greatest attention resulting into steady or increased income (as seen by a naked eye). But under the ground, visible to eyes with media glasses, a newspaper loses its readers because people buy content, not adverts.  

Circulation should not be confused with readership. I believe the number of newspaper readers is increasing as more people are going to school than before. But the number of people who find newspapers a relevant daily source of information and knowledge isn’t rising visibly. And the number of people buying newspapers is dropping.

Of course there is the question of economy. There is an argument that newspapers are not affordable to a majority of Malawians. True, but not for all Malawians. Over a 100,000 Malawians can afford two newspapers per day everyday. (This is my fair assumption.) It takes K12,000 to buy two newspapers everyday for a month and there are people who spend K30,000 in a month on beer and other forms of entertainment. Why is it that our dailies combined sell 20,000 copies only in a day?

Add to this, hundreds of readers get the content of newspapers via Internet and for no subscription at all. Just at the cost of accessing internet. So, for now, circulation figures will keep on dropping and finally the advertiser will realise that newspapers are as good as placing an ad on a website. But to understand why circulation is dropping, we need to walk together through this discovery journey.

Changing World

Journalism has five traditional functions, according to Joseph Dominick in his book, Dynamics of Mass Communication. The functions are surveillance (or information), linkage, entertainment, socialisation and interpretation. Newspapers are supposed to inform people what has happened or will happen. They also link people with similar or different ideas, buyers and sellers in the classified ad pages, for example. Entertainment is obvious. Newspapers entertain us with cartoons but this function is better satisfied by radio, especially television. The final two functions are crucial. Newspapers are an agent of socialisation, meaning they can transmit values to people and bring change for better or worse. But that is not all. Newspapers do not just tell people what has happened. They also tell people the meaning of those events and ideas and issues.

Our changing world has hit newspapers on the first three functions. There is more information on the Internet and elsewhere than in newspapers. Facebook is linking people with untold speed. People can sell and buy on the Internet. And entertainment is available on the Internet with cartoons and films that people may not necessarily go to newspapers for these three functions. Birthday wishes and such other messages are done on Facebook more than in classified ads.

What remains in essence for newspapers are the last two functions of socialisation and interpretation of ideas/issues/events. People are largely looking for meaning (the interpretation function) because there are a lot of things happening in our small worlds.

Information is all over in our world. People cannot wait for the morning to know what is happening in our world. By 9 PM people, for sure, know what is likely to come out in the papers the next day.

What the newspapers have to do is analysis. But in a study I did on HIV and AIDS stories in 2002, 3% of the stories were analytical with the ability to socialise and interpret. If people cannot find meaning in newspapers, don’t be surprised with dropping circulation figures. A newspaper that wants to keep its circulation figures up should go into analysis and interpretation.

Relevance

In circumstances that a tragedy has occurred as early as 10 in the morning in Blantyre, what kind of reporting should a newspaper do to attract an audience that has followed the event on radio, television and internet?

The collapse of a building that housed Kips Restaurant on Tuesday morning, 17 May, 2011, showed that the print media is yet to find a style of relevance. Malawians were well updated about the accident on radio, television and Internet.

But our two dailies of Wednesday, 18 May 2011, presented less than what the electronic media did on Tuesday. Take the example of Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). Our two reporters were on the scene two minutes after the accident. Immediately, we organised ourselves and started live coverage, breaking the news to Malawians on radio. Our TV channel followed suit at about 11 and we had some meaningful coverage in our Lunch Hour Edition of news.

We continued with live coverage from the site and Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital throughout the afternoon. We spoke to a survivor. We also spoke with a man who was the first to rescue the owner of Kips, Shaffique Giga, pronounced dead on arrival at Mwaiwathu Private Hospital.

In addition, we had analysis in the studios, talking to civil engineers and town planners. The Police were part of our sources. Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) also did some live coverage of the tragedy.

Now after all this work by the electronic media on Tuesday, what style would have been suitable for the print media to remain relevant on Wednesday?

The Nation newspaper had “Tragedy at Kips” as its headline while The Daily Times said “Café collapse kills staff”.

The Nation opened its story like this: “Three people, including owner of Kips Restaurant in Blantyre, died and 25 were injured yesterday after the building housing the restaurant collapsed while undergoing renovations. Southern Region Police spokesperson Davie Chingwalu confirmed the accident claimed three lives, but could not give the names of the people who died.”

By Wednesday morning when The Nation hit the market, people had all this information: that three people had died, that among the three was the owner, that the building was being renovated. On top of this, people had the names of those who had died, meaning the part that says “but could not give the names of the people who died”, made the report irrelevant. These are opening paragraphs that should contain new information, told in a way that is attractive in style and substance.

The story goes on to quote an eye witness who speaks on condition of anonymity. Why? People, including eye witnesses had spoken on camera on Tuesday. Why should a newspaper the morning after be stuck with anonymous sources of a story that anyone can see?

The Daily Times said “At least three people died and several others were injured when an uptown eatery, Kips restaurant, collapsed in downtown Blantyre yesterday morning.” As said above substance and style are lacking here: people were aware of this already. In such a case, style matters. Sadly, style is lacking here.

So why should a person spend K200 on a newspaper which does not offer a new perspective to a major story? See why circulation figures are going down? 

News Sources

There are four types of news sources in theory: eye witness, expert (like a psychiatrist if you are writing about metal health) institutional (an example being National AIDS Commission on issues of HIV and AIDS) and documentary (books, reports, journals as examples).

Of these, I think the eye witness is crucial in establishing story context. But there is a visible death of the eyewitness in our newspaper stories. An accident happens here, and radios and TVs talk to eyewitnesses who explain what happened, follow the story to hospitals and Police and so on—then the next day we have newspapers talking to Police and hospitals only, leaving out the eyewitness.

Sample newspaper stories for a week and you will witness there is death of the eyewitness. Yet this is an important source because they bring life to a story, they re/construct reality which a good reporter presents in style. People want to read about themselves or other people like them. People want news according to their version also, not just the version of the Police and doctors or nurses.

 Apart from the officialdom in newspaper stories, activists, especially human rights activists, have invaded newspapers and people have been sidelined. Even experts are finding it difficult to explain issues in newspapers because activists are commenting on almost everything as if they were knowledgeable. A typical example is the Weekend Nation of Saturday, 3 September, in which one human rights activist was interviewed on pre-exposure prophylaxis and post exposure prophylaxis. It was all confusion that I need not repeat the chaos here.

But the point is that human rights activists are commenting on matters they don’t understand and they have made newspapers become irrelevant. Some reporters have secretaries of some civil society leaders making newspapers sometimes appear like civil society newsletters.  

Young people with knowledge on issues cannot buy newspapers to read crap from human rights activists with low literacy levels on life, governance, democracy, rights and responsibilities or duties. The tragedy is that as old newspaper buyers are dying, they are not being replaced by young people, partly, perhaps largely, because the youth are not finding newspapers to be of any relevance to them. So, they better spend K30,000 in a month on beer and other forms of entertainment than on newspapers.

Conclusion

The concluding question should be: What should newspapers do to remain relevant and keep circulation figures high to retain the scarce advertiser? To be honest, I have no answers. I don’t think any single journalist or business mogul has clues to solve the puzzle that is newspapers.

We need to discuss. We need to talk and debate. But newspaper managers need to remember that content matters more than anything else. They need to recruit and retain the best writers. People want detailed stories that explain the world not stories that repeat what every person on the street is saying. People want something different. The future of newspapers lies in features, and hard news told with a difference, with pictures that tell a story.

Journalism revolved into a profession because of newspapers. I believe the world still needs newspapers and I love journalism, so let’s talk to keep journalism relevant to our changing world.

Feedback: mzatinews@yahoo.com

If this article does not make sense to you, it is because common sense does not make sense often.

But if you let anger and all other preconceived ideas give way to common sense, you will appreciate that this piece is about your safety, not anyone’s, but yours.

People have raised questions about recent fires and deaths. All fingers point at the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and government. Yet so many questions remain unanswered. This lack of answers and clarity is because we are asking wrong questions about wrong people—the DPP and its government.

Common sense tells us that the DPP has everything to lose by torturing opponents’ property and killing those opposing it. The opposition has everything to gain from fires and deaths of government critics. This is so because a friend betrays a friend, not an enemy, for an enemy has nothing to gain from betraying an enemy.

The aim of every opposition party, everywhere, is to make people or voters lose trust in the ruling party. If this goal is not achieved, the opposition aims at making people angry with the ruling party.

Now that the demonstrations meant to facilitate regime change have visibly failed to happen again, regime change strategists have resorted to a different kind of strategy: to instill fear in people and make them angry at the DPP. These regime change strategists know that there is a ready culprit, not suspect, and this is the DPP and its government. Every fire is caused by the DPP. Every death is caused by the DPP. Every evil is from the DPP.

This is the first achievement of the regime change strategists: to make people stop thinking and accuse the DPP and government every time, every day.

So, what the regime change strategists will do is to commit evil acts, knowing pretty well we shall all accuse the DPP and its government. A common sense question here: Why should the DPP do acts that are making it unpopular? The common sense answer should direct us to enemies of the DPP, those who are doing evil to push their opposition politicians to form the next government. But as I have said, common sense does not make sense often. So, if this does not make sense to you, don’t be surprised.

Now this is about your personal safety. I suspect that there is a team of regime change strategists involved in some of the evil acts in our society. The chain of events, from fires to deaths, is not an accident. Two brains should be at work. I say two because history teaches us that such evil acts are planned by a team of two for the sake of speed and trust.

More than two would mean more disagreements and a likelihood of secrets being revealed. The target for the strategists should be DPP and government vocal critics because their misfortune will make the DPP unpopular. This is about politics, dirty politics, anything that would help them get into power, so beware.

This is my advice:

If you are a university student and want to play an active part in politics, restrict your participation to campus party wings. Never ever join party thugs outside campuses. At best, the thugs will never trust you; at worst, they will kill you for fear that you may reveal some of the dirty work they do.

As a university student, you will ask questions and thugs don’t want questions. They say something and it must happen. Never risk your life with thugs who never went beyond Standard Three. You have a future, they don’t have one. You have a life, they have bare existence.

They are not afraid to kill and die. Their advantage is that when they kill you, everyone will point fingers at the DPP and its government. So, they will go free. We will ask wrong questions about wrong people and the goal of the strategists shall have been achieved.

If you are a vocal civil society activist, don’t be scared of the DPP and its government. The DPP has everything to lose by inflicting misfortune on you. It is those who come to you as friends that will eliminate you because your death will make people angry with the DPP. Beware where you drink. Beware your bottle. Beware where you go. Beware your commitments. At worst, beware nothing because the regime change strategists will send you thugs to kill you brutally at home and blame the DPP and its government.

Politicians have used you to organise demonstrations that have failed. Now they can use your death to win public sympathy. If this does not make sense, it is because common sense does not make sense often.

If you are a journalist critical of the DPP and its government, be scared because your death will mean possible votes for the opposition. So, if there is anyone you should fear, it is the regime change strategists, not the DPP. The regime change strategists can eliminate you knowing all fingers will point at the DPP and its government.

If you are an academic critic of the DPP and government and you have been in the media calling government names, be scared of the regime change strategists you are working with because they know your death will make people angry. The opposition are your friends, yes; and only a friend can betray a friend, a stranger or an enemy has nothing to gain.

If you are not a politician, but you are critical of the DPP and its government, the regime change strategists will target you because your death will make people angry at the DPP and its government. Beware. They will not kill another politician because their strategy may backfire and because politicians use non-politicians to gain sympathy. So, in all this politicians will spare each other.

Finally, if you are a thinker like me, beware because the regime change strategists don’t want thinkers who see what people are not supposed to see.

These regime change strategists will kill you, knowing well that people will direct their anger at the DPP and its government. The strategists will use your death to castigate the DPP and its government, and even if that helps them get into government, you will be gone, never to come back again. Your children will be suffering. The opposition that killed you, then in government, will not take care of them. Not at all.

The regime change strategists will come to your funeral, sit on comfortable chairs, make sympathetic speeches coated with human rights sugar, lay wreaths and win public sympathy knowing well they killed you. If this does not make sense, it is because common sense does not make sense often. But it ought to make sense because it is about your safety.

This is the tragedy we have now. We have stopped asking valid questions about valid issues and we are asking wrong questions about wrong people, the DPP and its government.

If the deaths will not make sense, it is because the strategists love it so. They direct the media and everybody else to ask wrong questions about wrong people, the DPP and its government.

But people who are likely to eliminate you are the regime change strategists, not the DPP and its government. The common sense part of it is that you should beware your association with those who want regime change. And beware: you could be the next target. So, beware.

It has been a second term of a kind for President Bingu wa Mutharika. A second term called all descriptions: The President does not listen. The president has failed on governance. The president has failed to run the economy. The President has failed this, has failed that and that too.

All fingers point at Mutharika. Malawians have not failed anything, only the President has failed everything.

But this is not enough. It cannot be that the President has failed everything—of course he is human, but it cannot be—and that Malawians have got everything right. This conclusion is more out of anger, a conclusion more political than analytical.

For answers we need analysis, not anger, not political ambition. Malawi is a battle ground for wars, several wars that we need to understand. Let’s move together.

1^st Term vs. 2^nd Term

After 30 years with one President, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, we are yet to get used to our new found collective power of voting a person into or out of State House.

For those who grew up during the Kamuzu days, the idea of voting in an election can be too exciting to come once in five years. Perhaps voting and the period before voting have become so exciting that we can’t concentrate on anything but politics.

Once we vote a President back into State House, for a second term, we fail to accept that he has five years to work. Our national psyche is not ready to allow a President have a full second term. Or some politicians play with our national psyche during second terms.

How come both Presidents Muluzi and Mutharika’s first terms are praised and second terms despised?

Can it just be a problem of the presidents? No. Opposition politicians and their associates keep playing with our national psyche. They know it is difficult, almost impossible, to defeat a President seeking a second term unless he or she has really messed up. So, second terms are like a chance, an only chance, for all with presidential ambitions.

Once Muluzi won in 1999, Brown Mpinganjira (BJ) started his way into campaign. His newspaper, The Mirror had its Editor, the late Chinyeke Tembo, one day ask Muluzi who would succeed him.

This was at a press conference on Muluzi’s return from duty outside Malawi. Muluzi’s answer was political: “Alipo wakutumani eti? (Has someone sent you?)” This answer should give us an insight into politics. Politicians know each other better than we understand them. By asking “alipo wakutumani?” Muluzi showed that he was not surprised with the question. He knew it would come out someday, and not surprisingly from BJ’s newspaper.

BJ was later to form the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a pressure group, later political party that shook Malawi, a group of people that provided entertainment and an illusion of hope for those who could not stand the five years Muluzi had to rule between 1999 and 2004.

Into the second term, the national psyche of some sections of Malawi removed Muluzi from State House and put in BJ. It was fun.

Once a President wins a second term, we take them out of State House and put in someone else. As at now, some have put in Atupele Muluzi, others Joyce Banda. We thus disregard what the person at State House does during second term. We live for the day they leave State House and hand over the keys to our candidate.   

Middle Class vs. Ruling Class

The advert that called for the July 20 demonstrations revealed a war between the ruling class and the middle of Malawi whose battle ground is the lower class.

In Blantyre, the advert called people from Ndirande, Chilomoni, Chilobwe, Bangwe, Zingwangwa, Machinjiri, Mbayani, Chileka and Lunzu while in Lilongwe, people were called from Kawale, Biwi, Mchesi, Chinsapo, Bunda, Likuni, Mgona, areas 23, 25, 33, 49 and 39.

The North had Zolozolo, Katawa, Chibanja, Chasefu and Mzilawayingwe while in Zomba people were called from Matawale, Chinamwali, Sadzi, Itiya, Ndola, St. Mary’s, Chikanda and Mpondabwino.

The common factor to the areas above is that their residents are over 95 percent lower class. But the reasons for demonstrations were not really the immediate challenges of the lower class. The advert further asked CEOs and middle class citizens to send their domestic servants to the demonstrations, a real show that this is a battle of the middle class, using or abusing the lower class, against the ruling class.

Shortage of fuel. Load shedding due to major repair works at Escom’s power stations. Poor governance (whatever this means?). New laws that are said to be undemocratic. These do not resonate with the lower class. 

Not that people should not be invited to demonstrate. But once this country had no food, there were no drugs in public hospitals and nobody, repeat, no civil society or opposition leader, mobilised resources and people to demonstrate.

Why? The answer is straight forward. These were challenges of the lower class and the middle class had nothing to do with lack of drugs or hunger because the middle class can afford food in chain stores and are on medical schemes that enable them get better health care than the lower class.

Essentially, the middle class is fighting the ruling class, President Mutharika in particular. But the battle ground is the lower class.

The President’s sin is that he has chosen to spend forex on subsidised fertiliser and drugs for public hospitals. The middle class does not need any of these two because they can afford food and health care. The middle class wants fuel for their vehicles and forex for buying wedding rings and toothpicks from outside Malawi.

Who cares when there are no drugs in public hospitals? Who cares when there is hunger in Malawi? The middle class doesn’t. The President does. This is the reason he has spent scarce forex on these two commodities.

The dilemma of life is that humanity cannot have everything at once. Life is a choice. We must choose food for all people or fuel for few. The President has chosen food for all people and the middle class are angry.

For you to understand that the demonstration was for the middle class, look at the placards. They were prepared by the middle class. We want petrol and diesel, said one placard, and another and yet another.

There was no mention, absolutely no mention, of paraffin. Why? Paraffin is for the poor and this strike was for the middle class who were using the lower class to fight the ruling class for helping the lower class. What an irony?

This country has had no paraffin for months, even years. The lower class have been queuing for months, in search of paraffin; the lower class have been walking distances for years just to find out if paraffin is available at the nearest service station. The lower class has been in darkness for months because this country has no paraffin.

Yet nobody, not even one single person, has talked about paraffin—only petrol and diesel.  

Christ vs. Anti Christ

At some level Malawi has become a battle field between Christ and the anti Christ.

Jesus Christ, who Christians believe to be the Son of God and the Saviour of humanity, was in a temple some day; the Gospel, according to St Matthew, says Jesus went out and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. “See ye not all these things?” asked Jesus. “Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

Disturbed by the saying of Jesus, the disciples came to Jesus privately, and said, according to Matthew: “Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”

Matthew, in quoting Jesus, gives the answer: “Take heed that no man deceive you,” says Jesus to the disciples.

The message to believers of the end of times is that they take heed that no man deceives them because, it can be concluded, and safely so, deceivers that shall be plenty and plenty shall be deceived, stealthily so.

But how else would we recognise a period described by Jesus Christ as the last days? Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, says the last days shall be perilous times and he lists the characteristics: “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, blasphemers, unholy, false accusers, despisers of those that are good, traitors, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”

There is no better description of some sections of the civil society in Malawi today than this piece of writing from St Paul to Timothy.

People are in love with themselves; they are selfish, hence the middle class can abuse the lower class to fight wars that do not concern them. People have come up with all kinds of accusations against President Mutharika but if you carefully go through each, you discover, deep in the honest corner of your heart, that most are false accusations.

People are despising those that are good and standing for good. We have traitors, Malawian civil society members who are collaborating with the West to disturb Malawi on false accusations.

And we have lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. For how else can we explain same sex love movement except that people are in love with pleasure more than God?

The argument is that this is about human rights and it is important that at this point we should have what one religious leader says of human rights.

Pope Joh Paul II, in his book “Crossing the Threshold of Hope”, asks the question:  “What are human rights?” And he gives an answer. “It is evident that these rights were inscribed by the Creator in order of creation; so that we cannot speak of concessions on the part of human institutions, on the part of states and international organisations….”

Continues the Pope: “The Gospel is the fullest confirmation of all human rights. Without it we can easily find ourselves far from the truth about man. The Gospel, in fact, confirms the divine rule which upholds the moral order of the universe and confirms it, particularly through the incarnation itself.”

The Gospel is the fullest confirmation of all human rights. Without it, we can easily find ourselves far from the truth about man. Humanity today is far from the truth of God in search of human rights. There is no better example than same sex relationships.  God created man and woman and God Himself blessed a union between man and woman. We recognise God’s creation power by accepting this basic truth that He is our Creator and Redeemer. Reversing the male-female relationship into male-male and female-female is the core of the anti Christ movement.  

One revealing sign of the last days is the last bit of St Paul’s to Timothy. “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” and he had a warning: “From such turn away.”

Isn’t it surprising that the clergy are working together with secular humanists (people who say there is no God) to organise demonstrations? We have religious leaders who are united with atheists/secular humanists fighting for what, according to Pope John Paul II, are things far away from the truth of God?

For the believer, it is time to hold on to faith in God.

Tribe vs. Tribe

Samuel P. Huntington, the late Harvard University professor of International Relations left a thesis that “culture and cultural identities…are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War.”

This is true, largely. Culture cuts across international borders. The Chewa in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, for example, have their allegiance to Kalonga Gawa Undi because he is the custodian of their culture and cultural identity which is more important than any form of identity, according to Huntington. In this case, this cultural identity is more important than national identity.  

In a globalised world where people from all corners of the world drink Coca Cola, watch European Championship, pray and worship the same way, and fly across the globe in hours, what is there to mark a difference between peoples? It is tribal affiliation. Huntington, again:

“In the post-Cold War world, the most important distinctions among peoples are not ideological, political, or economic. They are cultural.” Elsewhere, in his book, “The Clash of Civilisations”, Huntington says “people use politics not just to advance their interests but also to define their identity.”

“In this new world the most pervasive, important, and dangerous conflicts will not be between social classes, rich and poor, or other economically defined groups but between people belonging to different cultural entities. Tribal wars and ethnic conflicts will occur within civilisations.”

Quoted by Huntington, Vaclav Havel says “cultural conflicts are increasing and are more dangerous today than at any time in history.”

The Chewa people example signifies the importance of cultural identity over other forms of identity, including national or state identity. It is this theory that should help us understand the conflict in Malawi. At the surface, it is political and economic but deep under the waters, it is a fight between one tribe and another. We have a tribe or a unity of tribes from the North fighting the Lhomwe and other tribes from the South.

After the July 20, 2011, demonstrations in Karonga, Mzuzu, Lilongwe, Zomba and Blantyre, it has become clear that this is a war of tribes, disguised as a war over governance and economic issues. (By the way, the media has consistently called this “nationwide demonstrations” yet they happened in five districts in a country of 28 districts.)                 

The North, the smallest region in physical size and population, had two centres of demonstrations at Mzuzu and Karonga. The North had more deaths than the other cities. Media reports suggested almost 10 people died in Mzuzu and Karonga. Clearly there was more anger in the North than in the other cities. Why? Was this an accident of coincidence? No. This was an expression of anger by some of the people of the North against the the President. 

Or consider the people behind the demonstrations. At the forefront is a person from the North. The team behind him is largely from the North, and of course, some collaborators from the South. This is where we need an explanation. If this is a tribal war, how do we explain the involvement of those from the South or Central region?

The answer is in Marxist Theory. The first instinct of every human being is economic survival. There is money involved in civil society, and…well…who doesn’t want money? If it is not money, then those from the South and the Centre have been blinded to believe they are fighting for good governance. They  have not asked for a definition of good governance.

Or see the names of those running the Malawi Diaspora Forum, a movement that is collaborating with Britain to bring Malawi on her knees. The list of leaders is from the North, largely. If you still don’t believe this thesis, go to Face book, sample and analyse comments by people with names from the North and see what they say about this administration. Want more evidence? Or read the newspapers and listen to the radios, note the stories, the writers and the sources. Some of the most angry stories on this administration are by journalists whose original homes are the North and they quote sources whose origin is the North, largely so.

The most revealing evidence that this is a war of tribes is on Namisa Forum. Namisa is National Media Institute of Southern Africa. There are 258 subscribers to the forum and of late journalists from the South and the Centre have gone into the background. They are not commenting on political issues, especially attacks on President Bingu wa Mutharika and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). A debate on the  President’s house at Ndata Farm had comments from journalists whose origin is the North, almost all, of course, except two. Not just the Ndata house issue, but other issues as well. The comments on Namisa Forum have been a clear testimony that this is a battle of tribes. Again confirming Huntington’s theory that tribe is today’s most important identity because even journalists can agree on professional lines but differ on tribal lines.

The question, now, to be tackled should be: How come some people of the North are leading a fight against President Mutharika? The answer lies in another question: How can it be when the North largely voted for Mutharika?

The answer lies in a couple of months after the May, 2009, elections. The President’s administration implemented Equitable Access to Higher Education policy which is commonly called Quota System. The equitable access extends to high positions in government. Selection figures to the University of Malawi can be alarming. The North, for years, had a share so big, so unfair in comparison to the Centre and South.

Dunduzu Chisiza who died in 1962 is reported to have told his friends from the North something like, “We are a minority and it will take time for a person from the North to become President of Malawi, but we can become a majority by influencing national policies, we can influence national policies if a lot of us attain higher education.” He might have meant that they should work hard in school. But over the years, some people from the North found ways of getting the best education.

First President Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda noticed this and one day, at a rally in late 1980s, he directed that all teachers should work in their regions because teachers from the North, posted in the South and the Centre, were deliberately being lazy so that children from the two regions should not learn as much as those from the North. This was a one party era and there was no opposition. There was no public debate about it. Sympathy and everything else were in private. Even now, issues rooted in tribalism are not openly debated. They are discussed by people of the same tribe. Multiparty democracy reversed this directive. Now teachers can be posted anywhere in Malawi.

Years later, in 2009, something called an event happened in Zomba. It was reported in the media but, as always, there was no public debate about it, partly, perhaps largely, because it concerned tribalism.

Two teachers in Zomba were arrested for adding marks to scripts of candidates from Karonga. Both teachers are from the North but were teaching at secondary schools in Zomba. They were marking Junior Certificate scripts. They were tried, found guilty and sentenced. There was no debate about this window into greater things. Meanwhile, Mutharika was the only soldier standing, fighting for equitable access to higher education.  

These events are a faint show that there is something that some of our friends from the North were doing in the education sector. This, in good part, explains their anger against equitable access to higher education policy only that they have disguised the anger as from issues of governance and economics to win support from the Centre and the South.

During the equitable access to higher education debate, there was a lot of opposition from the North. People who sued and obtained injunctions against the system were from the North. They went as far as saying they would start a revolving fund to pay fees for students from the North to get places as non residential students in the universities, meaning, this issue of equitable access to university education hit them so hard that they could not hide their anger.

This, too, is the reason politicians like Joyce Banda and Khumbo Kachali insist on reversing the equitable access to higher education policy because they know it is a cause of anger for the people of the North. For the two politicians, it is a clue to winning votes of the North.

The Livingstonia Synod of the CCAP, which presents itself as representing the people of the North, opposed the equitable access to higher education system so much.

Now people from the South and the Centre are realising that this is a tribal war and the results may be bad, showing themselves in 2014 when the majority from the South are likely to vote for a candidate from the South as an expression of anger at some people from the North.

It should be put on record that people of the South have been tolerant and accommodating for decades. In Blantyre, for example, there have been parliamentarians from the North. Gift Mwamondwe in Ndirande and Jimmy Banda in Blantyre City South. And there are others. On the contrary, there has never been a parliamentarian from the South in Mzuzu. This is not an accident of coincidence. The argument can be extended to religion. People from the North have positions in churches in Blantyre and Lilongwe but rarely do people from the South resident in Mzuzu have such positions in church.

Yet this tribal war presents an opportunity for a leader from the North who can stand above tribal influence and champion national identity, even if it may be an illusion. There is a generation of thought, not age but of thought, that is above tribal wars. This generation can be made ready for a President from the North. But the onus is on the North.  

Opposition vs. Ruling

At some level, the battle is coming from the desire for the opposition to go into government and the ruling party to remain in power.

In any case, the primary aim of any ruling party is to remain in power while the opposition does all it can to get into power by, in the first place, making people doubt their government. This is a battle for power and the second term provides an opportunity for the opposition because there is no incumbent involved in the contest. 

Late in 2009, there was a conference in Mangochi attended by almost all political parties, academics, and civil society members. It was observed that the opposition had come out of elections weak and that academics and civil society should stand by the opposition by way of filling the gap. It is not surprising that some of the people involved in the Chancellor College saga were part of the meeting.

The weak opposition, seeing an active civil society funded by imperialist powers, have hijacked the agenda of the civil society as a way of going into State House. So it is not about economic issues or about governance, it is about power, a struggle for power between the ruling party and the opposition parties.

West vs. China

This war in Malawi is the return of the Cold War or something close to  Cold War, in some way.

History teaches us that the Cold War was never fought in the U.S. or U.S.S.R. The battle ground was in Africa, largely and elsewhere but not in the two countries involved. In fact, the term Cold War implies a war without guns but in truth, it was a war of guns and bullets in which millions died only that they died in Africa.  

Of course, it was a war of ideologies between the US and the USSR. But on the battle ground, it was a hot war. The West helped dictators in Africa as long as they were against Communism. The welfare of the people in Africa was not a concern of the US or Europe. Their concern was the support for capitalism as opposed to communism.

Beyond this, some civil wars in Africa were a product of the Cold War with the US supporting one side and USSR the other. Take the war in Mozambique and Angola, for example.

The USSR is no more. Out of it came states that are struggling to identify themselves. This is a different topic. But Asia has produced another rising giant. China is still poor but it is rising and its rise has been a subject of studies in the US with rising numbers of China candidates and experts. Former editors of international editions of Time and Newsweek magazines Michael Elliott and Fareed Zakaria respectively, were in a real battle to do a better China analysis than the other. Elliott did a 10 page story titled “The Chinese Century” in Time of January 11, 2007, two years after Zakaria had done a cover story on China in the May 8, 2005, edition of Newsweek whose headline was a question: Does the future belong to China? He followed up with a book, “The Post American World” in which Chapter four is a discussion of China, how it is carving itself a place in global economy.  

The rise of China has been the greatest story of our time. Now the focus of the media in the West has changed. It is no longer about the rise of china only. It is also about concerns of China’s influence in Africa. The BBC and The Economist have been at the forefront portraying the Chinese as destroyers of Africa, as blockers of democracy because their funding to the continent does not have conditions attached to it.

If you listen to the BBC, sometimes it’s like of every five people you meet on the streets of Africa, three are Chinese. The West is attempting to discredit China in Africa. Remember the BBC is a foreign policy arm of the British government. The BBC is funded through the foreign office in London. The media in the West fights for the superiority of the West.

So in essence, this is a war between the West and China but it is being fought in Malawi. Britain has made it clear that it will continue to put pressure on Malawi to legalise same sex relationships (David Cameron himself said this at his house, No 10) and that they will work with civil society and the media. This is in a way a fight against China that is working with government to bring infrastructure that is changing people’s lives in a practical way. At the centre of it all, it is a clash of cultures: the Western culture and the Chinese culture.

Individuals vs. State

There are people who are fighting Mutharika but the battles are disguised as economic and governance issues. A journalist is working for a government ministry and does a column in the newspaper. One week he is in government and he writes in defence of some policy. The other week, his contract has not been renewed and he hits hard at the President. How do we explain that change of focus? This is a personal battle which we may not understand. But we know, survival is central to human kind.

Or take a journalist who makes numerous calls to a government minister, asking for a director position in the ministry. The journalist does “good work” in writing positively about government. Suddenly, he changes tune. He hits at the President week in, week out. What has happened? He is angry that the position remains vacant but there are no signs that it will come to him. Again a personal battle yet disguised as part of the agenda of the civil society.

You want more? What about a politician who claims that Mutharika promised to hand over the presidency to her and turns against the President after the party goes for another person? Is she fighting national agenda or personal battles?

Conclusion

In our polarised country, it is easy to see life as either this or that. But life is more complicated than that. We can easily fall prey to individuals who are championing ideas we do not know, ideals that may never be ours.

Malawi stands at a time that calls for critical minds. Unfortunately, the digital age has enabled everyone to publish online but being able to shout does not signify critical thinking.

Criticism, says Jon Meacham, is a crucial thing (the lifeblood of democracy, the fuel of freedom). True but the challenge, perhaps problem, is that there are more speakers/bloggers than critics.

“The fact that anybody can say anything does not mean that anything anybody says is worth hearing,” says Meacham in his May 2010 article on President Obama’s strategic response to the BP oil spill. The response was labeled delayed and almost nothing by Obama’s critics yet in practice nobody could have stopped the spill in a month.

Criticising, as we are seeing, can be exciting. But criticism as in constructive evaluation is rare; and saying so is not an elitist view. We are seeing more anger than analysis.

In a country where everyone is speaking loudest, Malawi needs analysis, a kind of writing that attempts to make sense of the issues. Any critical minds to join this debate?

All responses to mzatinews@yahoo.com

Every storm, no matter how high, is temporary. Finally, the storm at Chancellor College is diminishing.

Reason and common sense are prevailing at the college where academic staff have been receiving monthly salaries for fighting their employer.

News that over 40 lecturers started teaching on Thursday, July 7 2011, and more classes are expected on Monday is good indeed. This is the triumph of reason over emotions, public good over individualism, common sense over feelings and academic thought over political ambitions.

Malawi is a growing economy and we cannot afford to pay people who are not working for five months. We cannot afford to keep students in college forever because that is multiplying poverty.

Every person who graduates from a university takes an average of five people out of extreme poverty. Those who are waiting to be lifted out of extreme poverty could only curse the academic staff who are refusing to teach but want to receive a  salary.

This is why the academic staff who have started teaching at Chancellor College should be commended for putting academic excellence first, and politics away from their work.

For those that are refusing to teach, let them continue and face the consequencies. We cannot tell grown-ups what they should do or should not do.

But we can remind them that every war has casualties. Experience tells us that when individuals fight society, it is the individuals who lose out forever. Examples are many, choose yours and study it.

If you don’t agree with this analysis, take the path you want and we shall have the last laugh.

Finally, to individual academic staff: The storm has come to an end. Let them who are teaching continue doing so. Let those who don’t want to teach, stay away from class. The choice is yours.

Let us remember: Academic staff at Chancellor College are employees of the University of Malawi.

Let us also remember that in practice, an employer is more powerful than an employee. We must never forget that an employer has the right to hire and fire employees.

Some academic staff in the University of Malawi have forgotten these basic facts. They see themselves as more important than the University itself. But this can never be.

Council of the University of Malawi must defend the integrity of the institution. Council of the University of Malawi must defend the interests of the people of Malawi. Council of the University of Malawi must ensure that tax-payers’ money is used prudently because the University of Malawi is a public university, owned by all of us.

We cannot, therefore, pay academic staff who are not working. We cannot pay academic staff who are using institutional property to bring down the same institution. Since March,  academic staff at Chancellor College have been using electricity, computers and everything else that belongs to the college when they were not working.

Yet we have spent millions paying them in salaries. Are we going to continue doing so? Shouldn’t Council of the University retain its right to hire and fire staff? Can an employee force his employer to keep staff? No.

Why then do those in the University behave differently? The reason is that some academic staff forget that they are employees. They want their employer to dance to the tune of employees.

But most of us in employment know that we need to respect our employers. Most of us know that remedies of labour disputes are done in courts of law when dialogue has failed, not forcing an employer to retain employees that are out of payroll.

One message to all academic staff: Take time to be alone and reflect on your life. Stay away from illusions of group psychology and you shall realise you are an employee. Never forget this basic fact.