21 Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” 22 “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 23 “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. – Mark 21-24
Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud! – James Brown, 1968
Malawians need to love their country and also to love themselves. It is very regrettable that listening to or reading Malawians in conventional and social media, Malawians are mostly speaking and reacting to circumstances about and around them with the mindset of Europeans, Eastern, and northern country foreigners. For Malawi to progress, there is an urgent need to remove themselves from the dung heap they have been thrown into by foreign entities; Malawians must start thinking positively about Malawi and about Malawians with the ‘Yes, we can and Yes we will!’ attitude. And they also definitely need to start loving their leader: for many that do not know it, President Chakwera is the president of Malawi and all its 22 million Malawians.
Last week it was stated in this column that it is important for President Chakwera to join his fellow leaders from 192 countries (there are currently 193 member states) in the United Nations annual September General Assembly, known as the UNGA. As he attends UNGA 75, Malawians must grasp the fact that he is there to represent Malawians and Malawi; and that there is no one else in the world who can OR should take this role. In a grand investors’ meeting the president held on Monday, I invited Malawians to go to where Malawi is going, along with the country’s vast potential for prosperity.
It is a known fact Malawians must come to accept that all six presidents, even travel-shy Life President Kamuzu Banda to the wrongly dubbed “the most traveled Chakwera,” every time travel outside the borders of the country (their duty station), do so for the good of all Malawians. REALLY. Below are highlights of a few presidential trips and gains for Malawi.
Prez Kamuzu Banda: in 1964, Banda traveled to the UK and came back with 9 million pounds sterling for development and balance of payments. In 1971, Banda traveled to South Africa under the Apartheid government. The result of turning his back on his surrounding fellow African countries (known as the Frontline States), resulted in the gold-rich SA picking up the cost of moving the capital from Zomba to Lilongwe allowing the country to construct a purpose-build capitol hill, the Kamuzu International Airport; during the trip the two governments signed document that employed Malawians in the WENELA program that brought in huge amounts of forex in remittance agreement; favored nation status, Malawians did not need a visa to enter South Africa and other benefits. While branded a sellout, Kamuzu financed former South African President Nelson Mandela’s first trip to the US.
His third important trip was to travel to Edinburgh and sponsor the building of a hostel at its university to the tune of 1 million pounds sterling. While many Malawians cried “bloody murder,” the Scots have been bending backward thanking Malawi that range from providing financial human resources at the College of Medicine, to scholarships
President Bakili Muluzi: filled with banter and easy humor, he was the first presidential voice booming in the corridors of international halls like the UN. This placed Malawi firmly on the international map, restoring the lost glory of the country as a team player in African politics.
President Bingu Wa Mutharika: Was Malawi’s first president from inside the global system. He was the first leader to travel to China after breaking off relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan); he also traveled to Cuba. The benefits of both these trips are from China, the country re-entered the period of construction of roads, inland port, and the new Parliament building in Lilongwe, complete with a Kamuzu Mausoleum and statue. Malawi is also benefiting from Mutharika’s Cuba trip (flown straight from the UNGA); where medical doctors are receiving training and specialization. But it was Mutharika’s trip to Ethiopia, where he met and discussed the possibility of a UN Women office in Malawi to help with Malawi’s gender relations challenges. When I was a delegate of the Malawi Mission to the UN and a forthcoming member of the UN Women executive board, I heard of the promise made by the executive director of the UN Women agency to President Mutharika. It came as a surprise that Malawi (after Bingu’s passing), Malawi was not on the list of countries where UN Women would set up an office.
My inquiries and special requests for the agency’s reconsideration resulted in UN Women opening an office in Malawi. Later in 2013, the Malawi delegation to the 2013 to CSW swelled from the usual negligible 5 to 38 delegates.
President Joyce Banda: President Banda’s first four-nation trips (all within Africa, were commendable. For a start, the trip highlighted the fact that Africa has resources from within Africa to replenish the needs of its member-states. She traveled to Nigeria, Liberia, South Africa (remember them?), and Botswana. Banda’s previous work in non-governmental platforms. Was a welcomed leader on the international scene and straight-sighted collaboration agreements with former President Bill Clinton (his initiative in the health sector has built four rural-based hospitals, all fitted with ambulances). The presence of fistula hospitals (collaborations with Ann Gloag and Mary Singletary), and outlaw of child marriage are just two of the results of President Banda’s travel to the US.
President Peter Mutharika: Like his brother, President Peter Mutharika was an insider, who understood the workings of the international goings on. If I don’t salute Peter Mutharika for anything else, I must salute him for accepting the Constitutional Court’s decision without any acrimony. This comes out of being in rooms on the international forum where countries have taken arms, putting citizens in harm’s way, as leaders fight for positions or desire to remain in power, without the will of the people. It was during his presidency that the government of Malawi made positive and trackable inroads in the engagement of the Malawi diaspora around the world. This cannot be achieved with a president operating from his Kamuzu Palace offices.
President Lazarus Chakwera: Enter Chakwera, dubbed the most traveled Malawi leader thus far! Of course, he is. He is the only president of Malawi to concurrently head two major international organizations: the Least Developed Countries and the SADC. His presidency comes to the LDCs when the European Union is eagle-eyeing in re-colonizing 79 members of the LDCs. This the EU aims to do, by among other things, having the leaders of the 79 countries submit and accept the protocol (binding) or signing as one in all international agreements, de-criminalize same-sex marriages, allowing abortions (for children as young as 12, 13, 14 and 15-year-olds, and permit abortions. These are the new EU terms for human rights. African, Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific Island member state leaders have been holding meetings to stop the EU’s deceptive new Cotonou Agreement. Chakwera is in the room at the two organization meetings as head of those organizations. The LDC portfolio has taken the President to Doha and New York, while the SADC one has made it necessary for him to travel in the region, at the organizations’ cost.
While in New York, the president will wear the hats of these organizations (he is past president of SADC and part of the Troika), and also present Malawi’s interest as he very eloquently did on Monday during the Minnesota Africa Unite Investment in Malawi forum and during the week delivering the Malawi statement in the General Assembly.
Presenting Malawians in international forums is part of the president’s tasks mandated to him by 3 million Malawians. He must protect them against the vultures from whatever quarters they may be; the vultures desire to control and take over Malawi and Africa by any means. Some of the standards are the vilest means such as capturing the thought processes of the electorate, teaching it to hate its leaders, and also teaching it to hate itself. Behind this scheme of re-colonizing Africa is largely due to the continent’s vast mineral resources of uranium, gold, diamond, silver, rubies, marbles, and bauxite.
As media house after media house pumps up its rhetoric against President Chakwera’s foreign travels, such rhetoric is amusing European, Chinese, American, and Russian officials. As earlier stated, Chakwera is in the room on the ACP-EU post-Cotonou agreement; the agreement is in disarray because all leaders of African, Caribbean, and Pacific member states have locked their horns to vehemently dissent to the EU’s intentions. Understandably, the deceptive EU is probably at work in media houses to scream their voices against Chakwera traveling (part of his job).
Malawians must wake up to some realities as follows:
· Malawians please stop doing Europe’s, and America’s job of criticizing almost anything and everything a Malawi leader or Malawians do.
· Malawians learn to love and respect your country; love and respect your leaders and pray for your leaders.
· Stop putting fellow Malawians into bottles by stereotyping them.
· The presidency (prez and vice prez) is run by machinery.
· President Chakwera, although voted into office by 3 million Malawians, is president of 23 million Malawians. When he speaks in international forums, he is speaking for all Malawians and not as the leader of the MCP.
· Malawians learn to be responsible Malawi-defending citizens. It is disheartening to be in a room of 100 Malawians, and observe 100 Malawians put down a country, their country, and most importantly, my country. Who will love Malawi when Malawians do not love their own country?
· Furthermore, while many snicker and laugh when opponents of the president request the president to resign, they reveal they do not know the workings of democratic governments. Malawi has been a democracy since June 1993 following a Referendum when an overwhelming majority of Malawians chose multi-party democracy against the one-party system of government.
· The country is governed, guided, and controlled by the Constitution. This means, there is not a person in or outside Malawi that can whisk the president out of the seat he or she occupies, EXCEPT through the vote every five years, an impeachment, or when incapacitated. Even all the thousands of people who marched in protest to the 2019 presidential elections did not cause the president to leave; it was the Parliament after the Constitutional Court declared the null and voidness of the results.
The Malawians who are against President Chakwera, have a right to protest, but they do not have the right to waste the time of the Malawian people by marching and requesting attainable results such as a presidential resignation.
Long live genuine democracy in Malawi!
