Personal thoughts from Dr. Daniel Dube
It has been an interesting week for our country in relationship to women’s rights issues. First, there were murmurings about the lack of female journalists at the State House. Second there has been the abortion rights bill. I must say that it has been one of those moments where I have been embarrassed by the deplorable images at Kamuzu palace. The sight of three women journalists against 17 or so male journalists was pathetic and unacceptable.
It was also a week where like many Malawians who are anxious and a little impatient with the speed of change, we started seeing the massive gaps in our civic discourse. That gap is seriously in the entire citizenry. We are all trapped in the belief that our government will deliver economic and social justice. As we are adoring the way the president and the Vice President are pushing for the government reforms, it is also intimidating to see the calm and the passive expectation in all of us.
We are waiting for an establishment with its own institutional memory and commercial networks to suddenly transform itself into a gender and civil rights driven machinery.
The opposition are no better. They are licking their wounds after their defeat and passing on small opportunities where they could push the Tonse Alliance to deliver. Supporters of the Tonse are also slowly losing the zest to influence and question the government on its progress on its campaign promises like they did shortly after the elections . Slowly, we want to kill the revolution by endorsing anything and everything. Even if you chose the less pugnacious approach, we are lacking efforts to form economic and civil rights organizations to influence change in tandem with the government ambitions.
Malawi is lacking serious leadership in the civil society movements to take on issues without biases that are influenced by political or tribal affiliation. Many grandiosely named Civil Society Organizations lack the Brain Trusts to push for civil rights. Often, these organizations are reactive and lack a political agenda to push issues. At worst, they are brief case organizations seeking opportunities in how to ride on the back of the government. There is truly little by way of well thought of agenda for civil rights change.
As I think about women’s rights this week, I was shocked at the lack activism that should have taken Mr. Kampondeni to task on the odd argument that the media houses had to address the gender inequality. Amazingly, women were talking how he was a breath of fresh air. I do not know what this breath air thing is all about in national civil rights politics. We are in a country where we are boasting a young woman who is one of a hundred most influential women on the continent of Africa, an Einstein scholar, we are boasting a Rhodes scholar, the leading African female archaeologist, we have MIT graduates and here we are accepting official passivity on equality in journalism of all careers!
This is a time to have our own Rosa Parks, a leader who can push us to be a better society, talk boldly in public about sexual and reproductive rights! Economic rights, education rights and children rights. Even if you are conservative, there are many social issues where we are very backward. This is the time to cut out regional grievances on the quota system and introduce a feminist slant in the argument and explore why girls underperform at our High School Level education. This is a time to push the government to improve education of young girls etc. This is a time to push for equality of women in our universities. This is the time to address the abuse of female students in our higher education institutions. This is the time to push for equality in the faculty ranks of our institutions of higher learning.
Even as we are all in awe of the work of the president and the VP, women leaders should be exploring how they can partake of the 1 million jobs initiative. That means engaging VP.
Arguing for women’s rights will take fierce and serious women and male allies to have a global vision on women development issues.
I am reminded of an event that I saw once on TV. Justice Ginsburg who died today was at the time addressing an adoring audience of students at Georgetown University. An excited female student asked her for advice on how to help women in the third world on gender issues. Her answer quieted the conference. She said that as a Westerner she was a guest to these countries and needed to help on what the local women were doing. Our legal diplomas, doctorates are not there to push for a foreign feminist agenda.
We need a Malawian feminist movement driven by our own socioeconomic issues.
