By: Jayne Chapomba
For many years Malawi has been referred to as the Warm Heart of Africa because of the kindness of its people towards strangers. But the so-called warm heart of Africa has lately been sadly turning into a nation of rampant violence.
Why is that?
It all started after the just ended Tri-partite elections where President Arthur Peter Mutharika of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was declared winner of the elections which was held in May 2019.
There have been mass demonstrations on the streets organised by the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC), where people have been requesting the resignation of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Justice Dr Jane Ansah (SC) sighting the election was rigged. Protesters have been taking their grievances to the streets which have been falling on the chairperson’s deaf ears.
In worse scenarios, protesters have been crashing with the Malawi Police because of lack of trust in the men in uniform who they have now branded as “cadres” (the term used for DPP followers). Recently some protesters in Karonga district which is in the Northern part of Malawi, had running battles with the Malawi Defence Force soldiers and this resulted into the soldiers apprehending and severe beating some of them before handing them to the Police, which end in one of the protesters dying in Police Custody.
During his campaign, President Professor APM promised to build Stadiums for two local private owned teams namely The Mighty Beforward Wonderers and Nyasa Big Bullets. After he was declared winner, the President has been trying to fulfil his promises by going ahead on building these Stadia using the hard-earned taxpayer’s money. There have been mixed reactions from the public with most people saying that money should be put in the health sector which has great challenges instead.
For example, i came across this true story and the unknown author wrote:
I visited a sick relative at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital this morning ward 4B. The situation in that ward is just sad and chaotic. Imagine anthu ena akuchita kugona pansi ma corridor. There was this lady who was hospitalized for 3 months after giving birth (she had paralyzed from waist down) and you could just feel the level of excruciating pain she was in from her cries. Worse thing is throughout her stay she had only one guardian from the village and they couldn’t afford even milk for the baby (they came from Karonga, no relatives around) and the hospital couldn’t even sustain this situation. Unfortunately, this lady has passed away leaving behind a little 3 months old baby boy. Talk about medicine these people were asked kuti azikagula ku pharmacy, it had to take well-wishers to come to the rescue.
And now it baffles me so much to hear that the government is trying to construct stadiums for two private owned clubs, yet our relatives are dying in these public hospitals because of lack of proper medical care (there is even a scarcity of medical personnel in the public hospitals). How can one think like that??
I’m a Nomad and I honestly don’t support this initiative. We refuse to see the big picture, and this is just sad.
Reading such, you can clearly see the sadness in most people concerning this promise.
Protests on Wednesday the 25th of September 2019 saw two camps comprised of the DPP Cadets and the HRDC demonstrators crashed with most demonstrators severely hocked by the Cadets on the watch of the Police in the city of Blantyre. The Police opted to disperse the HDRC demonstrators who started retaliating, by firing teargas at them. Many of the demonstrators had to run and sought refuge and the Queens hospital premises. This did not stop the police from firing the teargas towards those demonstrators as they followed them and fired teargas into the hospital premises near the children’s clinic.
As a result, an innocent 5-year-old child lost his life because of choking on the teargas. Why should somebody that young die because of police negligence, is the warm heart of Africa now that cold?
There has been violence everywhere in the country, people burning cars, destroying private owned shops, burning government institutions etc. and this is also bringing regionalism. But what Malawians need to know is that in can take only a day to destroy the entire Nation but take so many years to build it back.
We must protect our nation for we are nothing without it despite political misunderstandings. Violence breeds violence and violence is not a catalyst but a diversion.
Violence shapes and obsesses our society and if we do not stop being violent, we will have no future as a nation.
Let’s bring back that harmony and maintain the warmness towards each other as well as strangers. Peace cannot be achieved through violence; it can only be attained through understanding for united we stand and divided we fall.
LET LOVE LEAD MALAWI THE WARM HEART OF AFRICA.