Thursday, September 29, 2011

The Document That Killed Robert Chasowa


"Black Moses is answering sedition charges because of this here publication, Robert Chasowa was being sought and killed [my verdict] because of this here document. I have just taken the whole bit, verbatim... I do not intend to infringe any copyrights. its strictly journalistic. This is the sixth edition, it came out on Monday, Moses was arrested on Tuesday, Robert was killed on Saturday."

VOLUME No. 6A: THE YOUTH FOR FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY-19TH SEPTEMBER, 2011

“A WEEKLY POLITICAL UPDATE”

1.      We need an explanation- why the presidential jet was impounded in America

2.       Mr. President-explain to us why should the Secretary for Treasury extort K16 Million from investors on behalf of DPP and you, your Excellency?

3.       The Youth for Freedom and Democracy demands and explanation on how DPP gets its funds for its operations; for we have the information that government and its institutions are giving K30 Million each every month for its operations.

4.       Youth for Freedom and Democracy have the information that Noel Masangwi and Mulli Brothers are giving the police money to cook-up evidence as to whom really torched or petrol bombed offices and McDonald Sembeleka’s house in Balaka.

5.       The Youth for Freedom and Democracy are in touch with DPP-plan as to how the police will torture and coach culprits to give false information to cover –up the real culprits on the same.

6.       Mr.  President-explain to us why setting aside K40 Million to counter 21st September, 2011 vigil demonstrations.

7.       We in our organisation are ready to demonstrate and counter all your plans, but we are peace and good governance, thus why we are calling for peaceful vigil demonstrations on 21st September, 2011

8.       Mr. President as a youth  organisation, we are in majority and we have a large following to stage up a real revolution but we are not the revolution, we simply urge you to address issues raised by the civil society organisations on 20 July 2011

9.       The Youth for freedom and democracy have the information that you sent 2 army officers to America for trainings as plots for the presidential jet that the two (2)  officers have been sent back by the US government-why Mr. President?

10.   Mr President-explain to the people of Malawi on how you spent and used U$100 million you borrowed from PTA Bank for the purchase of petrol and diesel

11.   Mr President-why should Paladin Africa a company which is mining uranium at Kayerekera be banking U$100,000 every month to your personal account in Australia-when Malawi is experiencing a cute shortage of forex

12.   Mr President-why should Mulli-Brothers and Perks Ligoya the governor of the RBM own joint forex account in Dubai worth millions of dollars?

v  Mr President, the things we do day will haunt us for years to come

v  Mr President, you are leaving the office 2014 and in the Youth for Freedom and Democracy will definitely take you to account for the wealth you have accumulated on the expense of poor Malawians

v  Mr President Sir, you will be arrested soon after leaving office in 2014 and we will be the stse witnessws on all issues of human rights abuses you have committed so far in Malawi

v  Mr president-Malawians are demonstrating on Wednesday the 21st September, 2011, we appeal to the conscious of your good office to respect their constitutional right, by sending the police to shoot and kill them

Malawi Moto!! Malawi Moto!! Malawi Moto!!

Together we shall build a strong economy and democratic society in Malawi

                                Cell:      0999 432 987 / 0888 432 987
                                               0999 937 005 / 0999 595 378
                      0999 203 612

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Police “interrogate” Poly registrar


Nyasa Times Investigations reveal that three Policemen in civilian wear on Tuesday stormed The Malawi Polytechnic to question college  administrators on the existence of a political pressure group, a move some students called illegal and contrary to the Kampala Declaration among other Laws granting academic freedom.

“They come to ask about the Youth for Freedom and Democracy (YFD) whose scathing publication The Weekly Political Update has already seen police arrest some of the YDF members,” said our source, “but this is exactly what caused the impasse at Chanco, universities are not police training grounds, they are a holy place.”

This comes a day after Police raided the home of 21 year old Black Moses, president of YDF whisking him away to an unknown location where he is apparently being question over the publication which is a one-paged numbered prose that uses critical language against Mutharika’s authoritarian rule.

The police came to the Poly because YDF has members at the campus and the move shows that the police are tracking owners of numbers that are on the publication.

In a separate incident, the college officials were also accused by Police of opening the college before September 21 so that the students should participate in the mass demonstrations. But one administrator shot down the allegation and called it “stupid,” pointing out that the opening date was selected and put on the academic calendar long before the Vigils were announced.

“Something is wrong with the police, they are suddenly interested in running universities now?” said the administrator.

This week’s 6th edition of the ‘Political Update’ alleged that Mutharika has set aside K40 million to counter the September 21 slated mass acts against his administration.

The Monday paper also alleged that Mutharika has used the US$100 million he borrowed from PTA bank to buy fuel, that Kayerekera Uranium mine is depositing about  K14 million to Mutharika’s account, that RBM’s Perks Ligoya and business tycoon Mulli jointly own a fat account in Dubai, that the presidential jet was briefly impounded in the US and that two army pilot trainees were sent back from America and that the secretary to the treasury has so far extorted K16 million from investors on DPP’s behalf.

“The YFD are in touch with the DPP plan of action as how police will use torture people  to extract and coax some to give false evidence  to cover up the petrol bombings of Sembereka’s house and IPI offices,” reads part of the document continuing to allege that Mulli brothers are funding police to cover up the crimes.
Asked how the group gets its info, the unmoved vice president said that his group has links  going all the way to the inner sanctum of the DPP that smuggle information through another source [name withheld]

“We are the guys that revealed the names of the guys that burnt IPI offices, we are also the guys that broke the news that government had imported panga knifes for DPP youth ‘cadets,’ we are well connected,” said the source.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Police raid youth man’s home over revolutionary publication


Mutharika’s campaign against dissent is certainly at its crescendo with the latest midnight raid on the house of one Black Moses, president of the fast rising Youth for Freedom and Democracy (YFD) publishers of the whistle-blowing- one-A4-paged publication called “The Weekly Political Update.”

Vice President of YDF, a University of Malawi student alerted Nyasa Times of the arrest which comes a day after a scathing 6th edition of the publication which among other issues  alleged that Mutharika has set aside K40 million to counter the September 21 slated mass acts against his administration.

The Monday paper also alleged that Mutharika has used the US$100 million he borrowed from PTA bank to buy fuel, that Kayerekera Uranium mine is depositing about  K14 million to Mutharika’s account, that RBM’s Perks Ligoya and business tycoon Mulli jointly own a fat account in Dubai, that the presidential jet was briefly impounded in the US and that two army pilot trainees were sent back from America and that the secretary to the treasury has so far extorted K16 million from investors on DPP’s behalf.

“The YFD are in touch with the DPP plan of action as how police will use torture people  to extract and coax some to give false evidence  to cover up the petrol bombings of Sembereka’s house and IPI offices,” reads part of the document continuing to allege that Mulli brothers are funding police to cover up the crimes.

Asked how the group gets its info, the unmoved vice president said that his group has links  going all the way to the inner sanctum of the DPP that smuggle information through another source [name withheld]

“We are the guys that revealed the names of the guys that burnt IPI offices, we are also the guys that broke the news that government had imported panga knifes for DPP youth ‘cadets,’ we are well connected,” said the source.

The publication which employs all approaches one would expect from Kamplepo Kaluwa does not hide the authors, with the owners openly listing their numbers on it. This is what is raising fears that police have started smoking out the youths by tracking the phone numbers.

Black Moses, 21, was arrested at his home at Chikapa in Chirimba at around midnight and is being kept at Blantyre police; it is not known what charges he has been slapped with.

“We want the nation to know this, Moses is a political prisoner, all we do is write what we investigate and we write what we know is true.”

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Why Civil Society Should Engage the Media


The media can set the agenda, raise awareness on an issue and is used by the public to know complex issues.  This piece will try to explain why civil society (CS) should involve the media in the light of the aforementioned media functions.

Firstly, since the media have the power to set the agenda for the populace, the CS can take advantage and use the media to champion their issues.

CSs are usually not popular with some governments or sectors. They can be arrested or harmed. If the media is in good relations with the activists, it can provide some security as governments fear bad publicity reaching donors, UN and regional partners.

It is cheaper for CS to deliver content to the public as news than via advertising. Adverts are easily ignored while news items are believed to a larger extent.  Only a good relationship between CS and media will see CS campaigns being reported as news.

Some research indicates that the populace relies on the media to understand complex issues, the CS stands to gain if they use the media to explain issues and raise awareness to the public which is already looking up to the media.

Finally, Media sometimes promotes ills like genocide, violence, adultery and sustaining hegemony to name but a few. It would thus be very crucial that CS, which is usually fighting these ills, engages the very media to curb them.  

CS, it can be concluded then, should engage the media as intensively as possible. (250)

Friday, September 9, 2011

The New Meaning of "Quantitative" and "Qualitative" in Research Methods


Alan Bryman asserted that the terms “quantitative research” and “qualitative research” have come to denote more than just ways of gathering data and that the terms now represent divergent assumptions about the nature and purpose of research in the socials sciences. This term paper will argue for Bryman’s assertion and show agreement by proving that the two are more than just different ways of gathering data. This will be achieved by giving examples, comparing and contrasting the two research methods and logically and subjectively supplying arguments.

Research in general is any investigation intended at expanding human knowledge or to answer a question and to discover a previously unknown fact. There are two main ways of conducting research: quantitative research and qualitative research, though the likes of Bryman (1988) would add ‘mixed methods’ to this list.
Qualitative research, broadly defined, means "any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification" (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). This type of research focuses on words and meaning of the research subject. Methods employed in this type of research include focus groups, intensive interviews and direct observation.

Quantitative research on the other hand is conclusive in its purpose as it tries to quantify the problem and understand how prevalent it is by looking for projectable results to a larger population. Quantitative research relies of statistical analysis of subjects’ responses which are then used to generalize the results onto a bigger population.

The two research methods were initially regarded as just ways of gathering data, they were used interchangeably but scholars started to differ and what followed was the widening gap between the two such that these days, the mere mention of a research method tells of the underpinning philosophy of the research and researcher in addition the purpose of the research.

Qualitative research has its roots in constructivism or interpretivism where truth is not universal but rather relative and subject to time and place, an assumption that rejects the very hub of quantitative research which believes in positivism where the truth is universal as is in the physical sciences. This epistemological difference makes the main difference between the two methods.

Interpretivism charges that because positivists can measure a part and conclude about the whole, they stand to miss some elements of the phenomena it’s why the part itself has to be studied in detail.

The qualitative researcher will inductively make conclusions while the quantitative researcher will use induction this to say the quantitative researcher will make conclusion about the bigger population by examining a small sample (deductive reasoning). The qualitative researcher will only speak about what they are studying and dare generalise.

From the differences in the underlying philosophy it is evident that the two methods are a miles apart, as if that is not enough, the rift between the two methods has also been transferred to the purpose of research itself as Potter (1996) says: “...two scholars who hold different beliefs [paradigms] may be interested in examining the same phenomenon but their beliefs will lead them to set up their studies very differently because of their differing views of evidence, analysis and the purpose of the research.” (P.36, quoted in Dominick and Wimmer, 2006: 114-115)

The ultimate aim of qualitative research is to offer a perspective of a situation and provide well-written research reports that reflect the researcher's ability to illustrate or describe the corresponding phenomenon. One of the greatest strengths of the qualitative approach is the richness and depth of explorations and descriptions.

This difference in underlying philosophy between the two methods of collecting data has crept into the minds of researchers and academicians and consequently affected their perceptions of the two. Qualitative research is now confined to college halls while the industry is at peace with quantitative methods.

Since qualitative research usually doesn’t build on existing theory, it is left to academics who have to develop the theory after which, quantitative researchers who usually are advertisers and marketers come to build on the research to design quantitative research on the theory. (Creswell and Clark, 2007 quoted in Johnson, 2008)

Qualitative research requires the participation of the researcher, and the questions are unstructured and open such that the research focus can change anytime. This is not permissible in quantitative research where the researcher distances themselves from the research and the fact that the other method has a high chance of being tampered with by subjective intonations of the researcher has made qualitative research even more weak among many researcher and hence condemned to university corridors.

The development of the two research methods also backs the Bryman's 1988 assertion. Initially research was quantitative and it was in the areas of the physical sciences, when social scientists began developing they found it difficult to explain behaviour using quantitative means and thus qualitative methods were born. (Morgan, 1983 quoted in Charoenruk [no year])

 This is an indication of the intended purpose; if the two were just ways of collecting data the earlier positivists could have developed qualitative methods. The fact that they were only developed after some vacuum was discovered means that they mean more than just data collection methods. It is a whole new way of researching not collecting data.

Despite some calls by the likes of Bryman that the dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative researchers is useless and that the mixed model should be championed after all, they argue, all research findings can be quantified or qualified, the two are very mutually exclusive as Dominick and Wimmer (2006) argue: “...although the methods maybe the same, however, the research goal, the research questions are quite different...” (p.115)

The two are so differentiated that they now represent two fronts: qualitative research is concerned with complex research questions of “how” and “why” and it deals with issues that seek to illustrate complex phenomena such as human behaviour; quantitative research on the other hand has come to be perceived as practical, asking questions such as “what” and “when,” simple and industry-friendly research that deals with simple question that attempt to describe group behaviour and to prove an existing theory.

For example it would be unheard of in some quarters to use qualitative research to try and find out the popularity of a radio program among a population, this because the question can best be answered by quantitative research. If the researchers then want to know why the program is popular they are ready to summon the qualitative guns.

By just hearing the two terms being mentioned, one knows what to expect. If it is qualitative, it probably is not an advertising or marketing question but rather in the field of ideology and similar abstract and complex areas.

Bryman himself conducted a survey in 2007 and found that his 1988 assertion was so deep rooted in researchers’ minds in the United Kingdom such that they couldn’t efficiently use the mixed methods model but rather chose between qualitative and quantitative according to their purposes and philosophical origins. (Bryman, 2007) this is proof that the two terms are now philosophies themselves, representing schools of thought among researchers and academicians.

In summary, therefore, in agreeing with the assertion by Bryman that the terms qualitative research and quantitative research now mean more than just ways of gathering data, the essay has exposed the philosophical differences, the purpose differences, the research questions variations and given examples of how the two are used today to confirm Bryman’s statement.


  

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bryman, Alan (2007) Barriers to Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Research (Journal Article) Volume 1, Number 1 of 2007: Journal of Mixed Methods Research. Downloaded from:  http://www.pdfsearch .com 

Dominick, R and Wimmer, R (2006) Mass Media Research: An introduction (8th Ed) Sydney: Thomson Wadsworth
Gordon Marshall, (1998) (www document) Qualitative versus quantitative debate, retrieved from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-qualitativeverssqntttvdbt.html accessed: March 06, 2011
Holstein, James and Gubrium, Jaber, (2002) [www document] Qualitative Research Retrieved from: http://www.encyclopedia.com  accessed: 3 Mar. 2011
Johnson, Kevin (2008) Comparing and contrasting quantitative research methods, Nova South Eastern University.
Mora, Michaela (2010) (www document) Quantitative vs. Qualitative research – When to use which, retrieved from: http://www.surveygizmo.com/survey-blog/quantitative-qualitative-research/ , on March 06, 2011

Trochim, William (2006) (www document) The Qualitative Debate, retrieved from: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qualdeb.php , on March 06, 2011
GORDON MARSHALL. "qualitative versus quantitative debate." A Dictionary of Sociology. 1998. Encyclopedia.com. (March 6, 2011). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-qualitativeverssqntttvdbt.html