By James Mwangalli
There are times in life that one has to ask tough but important questions. Questions that are not appealing, exciting, but nevertheless critical, life changing and transformative if a society decisively and objectively tackles them. A society that fails to ask tough questions and tackle difficult challenges, is destined to fail.
Malawi has been independent for fifty one (51) years. There have been arguments as to whether as a country we have made progress worth writing about or not. What is obvious though is that Malawi continues to be rated as one of the poorest countries in the world. This may imply that either we are not doing certain things right or we are not moving fast enough to change the status of the country. Probably this is the time to do an objective soul searching as to why we have stagnated as a nation, fifty years after independence.
His Excellency, Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika, has spelt out patriotism, integrity and hard work as the three pillars that should guide Malawians and the country to move forward. The President has appealed to Malawians to embrace the three pillars, if the country is to sustainably grow its economy and improve its status and world ranking among others.
This article attempts to discuss the three pillars as propagated by the President and explore how they can help to change the economic status of the country. The article intends to facilitate understanding of the three pillars, so that Malawians can as well appreciate how they can impact on the development of the country. The article therefore starts with an overview of the three pillars.
Patriotism, means one’s love of the country and willingness to sacrifice for it. If one is patriotic, one is full of love for their country and committed to serving it. Patriotism means emotional attachment to a nation which an individual recognizes as their homeland and this is reflected by means of devoted love, support and defence of one’s country. One considers their country as superior to any other, just as George Bernard Shaw said, “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it”.
Integrity on the other hand is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles and moral uprightness. It is the state of being whole and undivided. It is a firm adherence to incorruptibility (adherence to a code of moral values), soundness (an unimpaired condition) and completeness the state of being complete or undivided). In essence it is adherence to moral and ethical principles, soundness of moral character and honesty. Morals are principles and beliefs concerning right and wrong behavior. Integrity therefore entails doing the right thing even when nobody is looking.
Hard work ordinarily means directing a great deal of effort and endurance. This means a hard working person or society is one that is diligent in laboring and puts effort into doing and completing tasks. The catch words being effort, endurance, diligence and above all, completion of the tasks. One may wish to add, persistence as one important attribute of hard work. It is important to persist and ensure that the task is completed and diligently so. It is important to appreciate the fact that nothing worth having comes easy. Hard work should involve doing, as dreams only don’t work unless you do. Babe Ruth, once said, “it is hard to beat a person who never gives up”, this means one has to be persistent, as far as hard work is concerned.
If the reader can contextualize this overview, which is an attempt to unpack the three pillars of patriotism, integrity and hard work, as propagated by the current administration and many advanced societies, it is clear that these are the ingredients of development that we have missed over time, leading to our miserable performance as a nation. Surely, a society that has embraced integrity will not be embroiled in such scandals as cash-gate. Surely a public service that has embraced integrity cannot be in the forefront aiding pilferage of drugs in public hospitals, surely with integrity, corruption would be minimal if not eradicated. In essence, with integrity, one does the right thing, not for fear of the law, but because it is morally upright to do so.
Surely, with patriotism one wouldn’t be facilitating acquisition of sensitive national documents by foreigners such as passports, among others. With patriotism, political parties wouldn’t be directing their energies in failing each other, rather would support the government in developing the nation. With patriotism, leaders wouldn’t be presiding over the looting of public resources. With patriotism, no leader would be celebrating when the country is going through economic challenges.
Surely with hard work, Malawi would not have been relying on rain fed agriculture for the past fifty years, instead, the country would have aggressively developed an intensive and extensive irrigation system for sustainable food security. With patriotism, integrity and hard work, Malawi would not have been facing energy crisis (electricity), water supply challenges among others.
In conclusion, the author is of the view that, Malawians should heed the call by the country’s leadership, His Excellency, Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika, to embrace the three pillars of patriotism, integrity and hard work, only then are we going to transform our country for our betterment as well as that of our children, grandchildren and generations to come, anything less, will keep the country stagnant or worse still retrogressive.
