Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is…. Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate (2016), singer, poet
The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them. Numbers 27:7
The day the world woke up to the news that Donald J. Trump won the Presidency of the United States, I gradually became sick. I was so severely sick, so unwell, I was taking a weeklong course and by lunch hour I had to return to my hotel room. I lost four days of my life as I battled with the malaise.
I survived and finally retook the course and passed, with great gratitude to an understanding teacher and management.
Halfway around the world, Hawaii to be precise, on the night of Donald Trump’s November 8, 2016 surprise victory and major election upset when he beat frontrunner (and what would have been the historic win by Hillary Clinton) a grandmother named Teresa Shook posted online calling for women to storm the capital on Inauguration weekend and march in protest.
within days the call quickly, like forest fire, transformed into a giant progressive coalition, that is refusing to go away, to die a natural death, to wither into oblivion and let Donald Trump enjoy his massive and hugely welcomed historic, albeit helped-by-Russia-some-people-say, victory over “swamp-dweller Hillary Clinton.”. But on the scene entered organizers in the likes of Bob Bland and enlisted were some giant veteran organizers like Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour who became national co-chairs.
As postings on social media – Facebook, Tweeter and other site, the call for the Inauguration demonstrations soon turned into simultaneous marches in other cities in the US. As Donald J. Trump was sworn in as President of the United States (POTUS45), women, and now joined by men and even boys and girls began to converge in the US capital, Washington DC.
They say a picture tells a thousand words. Imagine two pictures. As people, Republican die-hard supporters of the Trump team, members of Congress (Senate and the House of Representatives), the judiciary, diplomatic community and lots of foreign invited guests gathered on the Mall, that long stretch of land in facing the Washington monument and the Congress, by midday, the time of the swearing in, it became apparent to those of us watching from the sky, courtesy of the helicopter cameraperson, that this jig was not going to be a capacity-full event.
There were clearly visible patches of unoccupied stretches and clusters of the crowd here and there. Don’t even look at the adjacent street – it was so empty; a parallel speed racing event could have been organized with no much ado.
But size is not important. Trump is now President; white supremists, and racists don’t have to hold their pretenses any longer.
The nest day, while it was well known that as the march in Washington DC was taking place, other marches in numerous centers in all the 50 states would also hold marches – to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump. But the women (joined by men, husbands, boys and girls) along with groups that included the LGBT community, feminists, nonprofit organizations such as Planned Parenthood, members of Hollywood’s elite – among them pop star and cultural provocateur Madonna, Barbara Streisand, Whoopie Goldberg all took to the stage, to let the world know that they were watching President Trump.
The icing on the cake was seeing the march also taking place in over 60 cities around the world – London, Paris, Antarctica and even my own Lilongwe here in Malawi. In total, an estimated four million men and women participated in the marches, with Washington getting the lion’s share in crowd pull. And if there were patches of white space on the Mall the day before, there was literary standing room only on the Mall. The adjacent street (were the day before you could hold a racing competition) was a sea of people.
In New York, the crowd was so large, there was no marching, it was simply standing where you were because as Lawrence O’Donnell put it: “You can’t march because there is already somebody where you want to go.” The people simply stood and chanted their protest slogans.
There were no arrests made anywhere during the marches; the protestors staged astounding peaceful demonstration of resistance; there was no rooting of shops or vandalism of any kind.
The women, joined by men, and children, marched peacefully. They registered their concerns, challenging the most powerful man in the world.
The picture story reaction from the Trump and his team was normal. And as POTUS 45 proceeded to continue his unraveling of everything POTUS44 Obama did, the women continued to organize. If some thought the march was an end in itself, they have been getting rude awakenings as they learn of a continuum of protests as the protestors have taken their protests and marches to the offices of the Congressmen and women; and if the Democratic Party elected officials thought they would be on holiday from the protestors, they too got their surprises.
The protestors are following the Congress men and women; every time someone has voted in wats that are against their interests, they converge on any elected official querying them on way they voted in the Congress.
The women’s march has been for me a sort of going back to Beijing; the women have stormed the issues affecting them into the discussion table. This is just Day Four in the Trump Presidency; and as POTUS 45 flexes his muscles with his signing of Executive Orders, women are needling their Congressmen and telling them they will not take the build the wall along the border of US and Mexico, misogyny, Islamophobia, or any other phobias.
In her last speech, as First Lady of the US (FLOTUS), Madame Michelle Obama encouraged teachers and admonished them saying “our freedoms – these rights – are not just handed to you. This right must be earned every single day. You cannot take your freedoms for granted. (And) just like generations before you, you should do your part to preserve and protect those freedoms. That starts right now when you are young. Right now, you need to be preparing yourself to add your voice to our national conversation.”
As women and men march to their elected officials’ offices to present what they are requiring of them, brings me home to my Malawi, what are we doing to add our voices to the national conversation? Sure, Trumpism is going to affect Malawi as he continues to unravel the work previous POTUS’ have done in the past decades; actions that have improved the lives of millions of Americans and millions of the global community in the impoverished countries like Malawi.
As Malawians joined the marches this past Saturday, they should also continue asserting the Constitutionally enshrined rights, affirm those inalienable rights, the freedoms, guaranteed by the Constitution. Malawians you can do this through concerted action against the injustices meted out from the stewards of the land. Let the voices of the common man and woman be heard; do not allow your voices be drowned by those that have been elevated to take care of your business – the business of running this country.
Long live genuine democracy!
