Happy New Year!
It was Mahatma Gandhi who way back in 1937 admonished: “It is not good for us to worship an individual. Only an ideal or a principle can be worshipped.”
In the Malawian political framework, especially in 2016, the year just ended, we have desperately failed to heed this admonition. All the way back from the Kamuzu Banda dictatorial years to the current so-called democratic dispensation, sycophancy, praise-singing and hagiography seem to be inextricably embedded into the Malawian political DNA.
Sycophancy is an act of blind adherence to a certain ideology, group or individual without looking into the merits/demerits of issue. In its extreme form, it usually develops into person worship and cult following, calling anyone who disagrees and dares to voice criticism stigmatizing names such as disgruntled, frustrated and angry.
You see it in each ruling party, and you see it in the opposition parties.Somehow in Malawian mind, it is not preposterous to see able-bodied people, the young as well as the old, singing and dancing in praise of somebody who has only succeeded in impoverishing his people in the name of leadership or better contorting peoples aspirations to chisel his own self interests.
In 2016, this happened with an embarrassing blatancy and yet it seemed nobody cared to even note let alone say something about it. Leaders like Reverend Chakwera, Peter Mutharika and Joyce Bandahave even been exalted to the level of infallibility, with sycophants both educated an illiterate ready to take up arms and fight for them regardless of the impunity and the unjustifiable failures of their ideas, judgment and leadership.
And encouraged in this manner, the leaders have gathered the effrontery to gloat about this achievement on a national platform – And why shouldn’t they!
Any careful observer can trace this endemic wave of sycophancy sweeping across our political space with the rage of wild fire, prosecuting democracy and flailing political creativity.
One needs only to look no further than in the MCP and the manner in which so-called ‘nkholokolo’ – Jesse Kabwila, GustaveKaliwo and others – were abused by Chakwera’s zealots, or even how anyone criticizing the DPP is dealt with within the party, and let alone outside it.With Malawian praise-singing, issues like democracy and inalienable freedoms of expression, association, liberty and opinion are a taboo and an almost an abomination.
Interestingly only a few commentators have openly condemned this canker worm whichhasgradually, but steadily, got itself engraved in the psyche of many Malawians, especially the youth. It trades on their sense of honor, candor and integrity and yet all is it is a method for achieving egotistic gains.
It is not surprising that at a time with the country is going through the worst governance and leadership crisis ever witnessed, steeped in corruption, greed and impunity, the so-called peoples’ representatives in parliament, our MPs seem either indifferent of ignorant of what needs to be done. In fact, the problem is self-interest. Nothing else.
Sycophancy breeds despotism in any democracy including political parties. Despotism flourishes on sadism and the propagation of one’s overweening egotist tendencies, which are usually products of a self-indulging love of oneself above others, while sycophancy evolves from flattery enmeshed in servility. Both draw from a deceitful and chameleonic undercurrent of self-fullness to further a particular agenda.
Those who engage in sycophancy do so out of sheer expediency, with material gains on site. To this end examples will never be in short supply judging from party nominations to public appointments, cabinet and statutory board positions where sycophants who can dance to the tune of the ruling party are brought in to fill the plugs with wanton abandon to the detriment of the soul and spirit of the constitution.
This kind of carrot and stick politics has created the best of charlatans, hagiographers and boot-lickers taking over the political arena, taunting their gimmicks while seeking new recruits. Like vampires their sense of reasoning is beclouded by greed and convulsive impetuousness. All they are interested in achieving is relevance and self-enrichment.
It is nauseating to see supposedly responsible, respectable men and women, including the vulnerable youths and venerable prelates, engaging in this national charade. They walk about with an offensive, putrefying trademark, “Politics for money”. Ask them what their ideology is and you will be stunned by their lack of analytical depth and easy-virtuousness. They ply their trade with the ultimate target of fleecing their victims.
Corrupt and self-seeking politician are emboldened by the allies they find in a few equally conscienceless Malawians who serve as malleable tools in their evil hands. They swindle them with their salacious promises and bogus offers for government patronage. In their stupidity and greed the sycophants are subdued by what they hear, not what they see or get.
Sycophancy among our present crop of politicians is mind numbing. Nearly everyone who is anyone in Malawi is involved in one form of sycophancy or another to the detriment of our democracy and national development.
The non-performance by our leaders is a product of sycophancy. Leaders pay to be told what they want to hear. They loathe the truth and see anybody who tells them the truth as an enemy.
If the trend is not somehow broken, in 2017, we can be sureto watch again as sycophants devise new means to promote their business analogous to a rat-race – each group striving to undo the other in the quest for recognition.
Like cancer, sycophancy is eating up the soul and conscience of the nation. It is also turning some people into despots and tin-gods. These over-bloated leaders now see themselves as above the law and above man.
The youth should backslide a little in their involvement in sycophancy. As leaders of tomorrow, the future lays squarely in their hands. It is either they sacrifice today to ensure a rosy and stable future or, like Esau, sell a birthright for a bowl of soup.
Remember, dear youth: Sycophancy ignores the real issue at hand and judges the actions or ideas are judged by person performing it rather than on its own merit. It results into deliberate tendency to ignore the wrongs done by leader even if the actions are not justified or even immoral. In political life, Sycophancy acts as obstacle for equal opportunity and protection of public interest.It goes against the dignity of human being.
According to Kant, a person should not be treated as means to end. But sycophants often end up just protecting the interest of their leader. In this process they get themselves used as a means to an end(the end being protecting the leader).Sycophancy creates a cocoon around the leaders, which prevents the leader from becoming acquainted with reality(and adverse criticism). This results not only in sub optimal decision by leaders but also insensitive, inhuman action.
Sycophancy, while it may serve the interest of sycophants for time being, is not only immoral but also bad for public and their leaders.
This is why, by all means, while we should look forward to a happy new year, we should not talk about or expect a prosperous new year.
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