Live from Airstrip One – Hope you know Newspeak

I will not lie, I am very unqualified to do this but the since Bible says ‘just like iron sharpens iron, man should learn from another’ and that ‘no one is without sin’ hence the motif: to err is human, I will risk it. In this article I will use George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Nineteen-Eighty-Four to tear apart President Mutharika, who to me, stands for the axis of evil in Malawi.

Man is a political animal by nature, said Aristotle and even if we try to defy this assertion, decisions of politicians will soon impact on our lives.  Take DRC: politicians disagree and war ensues, the politicians hide and the civilians bear the blunt. I hope you now see why indifference is costly, it’s better to be part of the decision that to hear of it.

“Nineteen-Eighty-Four” is a dystopian novel revolving around one Winston Smith an editor of a state controlled paper in the Ministry of Truth. The country is under the rule of Big Brother and mind control, police rule and a hardship are the rule of the day. I will not summarise the book here, I just need a few analogies.

To me Mutharika is Big Brother, slowly turning the nation into a police state. This, as manifested by the interrogation of Chancellor Colleges’ Political Science lecturer, Blessings Chinsinga, the shoot to kill order, the bill giving police more powers and yes the brutality of the police and their swiftness at handling opponents of Mutharika like in the case of Reverend Levi Nyondo and Lonjezo Sithole.  How I wish they were this swift when our homes are being robbed.

Malawi is now divided into three castes: the inner party of DPP big wigs and their Big Brother; the outer party made of the presidential tribesmen, the Lhomwes and then the Proles that is the rest of Malawians- we agreed that we would be equal but it seems they changed the pact to “some people are more equal than others.”

I will not say of the contracts, appointments and favours that seem to increasingly fall only on the president’s tribesmen because it is not my focus here, nor will I mention how party officials get all the favours and rip the country of resources and still walk scot-free, that is for later.

Before I continue with my rant, I should bring up Animal Farm, a novella by Orwell in which animals revolt against man and then develop their own oppressive caste system that calumniates into another revolution.

Big Brother is like Napoleon in Animal Farm: they both have scapegoats; spin-doctor’s and successfully psychologically conditions the population to accept their propaganda.

Mutharika uses Vuwa Kaunda and Hetherwick Ntaba to defend Mutharika’s every move, they don’t surprise me, Animal Farm’s Squealer and 984’s Winston Smith did that too. Recall when Boxer was being sent away to be slaughtered after he got injured, Squealer came and said he was going to the hospital and that the words “horse slaughterer” on the van were there because the ambulance had been bought from a slaughterer.

Then Boxer’s death was reported to have occurred ‘at the hands of the best medical care’ by squealer. Watching Malawi Broadcasting Corporation TV, one only smiles at the steady flow of words from the too familiar Ntaba, “the president never said that...it’s the work of enemies of democracy... they have personal issues...,” everything is in history and literature, really, Josef Goebbels pioneered that in Hitler’s time.

Mutharika is the founder and the mentor of every idea, every project and every highway even when it is a donation from the Japanese government. Mutharika is responsible even for the good rains-his visionary and able leadership.

As a diversion, I also see a lot of Khmer Rouge in Mutharika. The Khmer Rouge are the guys that ruled Cambodia in the last half of the 1970’s. When they assumed power they changed the country’s name, they hated intellectuals -in fact they killed over a million of the country’s educated folk, they said the country was too endowed to depend on imports. They said everyone should go to the country and start farming...I will stop there.

Mutharika came to power and started changing names of hospitals, districts (Chikwawa) and stadia, then the flag was changed, passports, vehicle license plates and the fact that Malawi can stand on its own was raised. Still don’t see a link?

Well, intellectuals were suddenly his enemies and donors from Norway, Denmark and Britain were promoting bad things in the country and as an icing the British high Commissioner was deported- though Squealer Ntaba insists , he wasn’t deported.

The changes above are not copied from Khmer Rouge; they are prescribed by an ancient Italian guy called Nicollo Machiavelli.  He advised that everyone seeking to maintain power should erase history that reminds people of the past regimes.

Machiavelli did not only say that, unfortunately. He said that a leader should be feared, that opponents should be eliminated, that pawns should be used. That is where the police come in; they have instilled fear into the populace such that clergymen have been arrested for criticising the president or forming dissenting groups. The idea is to make people fear Mutharika, told you, it’s not new.

Of course Mutharika has failed to successfully use Machiavelli and it seems he has been reading notes from his contemporary, Robert Mugabe. Mugabe believes that everybody opposing him is a British puppet and that donors are there to exploit Zimbabwe, this is good philosophy, even Dambisa Moyo of the Dongo Republic theory would advise so, but is the timing and pacing right?

All I see is an Okonkwo in Mutharika worse still an Okonkwo without Obierika to offer advice, everybody that was supposed to play Obierika is singing praises. Take David Mphande, the guy was my professor in my Mzuzu University days, he was critical of politicians and he knows enough philosophy by heart to run a country on but look at him? Are there any signs that he is a reverend, Doctor, and Professor apart from being a minister?

Or take Ken Lipenga, I spent my childhood worshiping his story he did about a suicidal tailor or Professor Mwanza, the guy used to run a University and he cannot tell Mutharika that he is now officially a Malawian Idi Amin? The set up reminds me of Ayi Kwei Armah's Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born, where corruption could even be seen in railings of a building’s stairs and yet the only person seeing it was “The Man.” Can we not find a “The Man” in Mutharika’s Inner Party?

Instead you will hear people crowning Mutharika as the neo-Ngwazi, the conqueror of hunger and you will hear people inviting Mutharika over to shower him with accolades and nobody to whisper into his ear saying, “I hear you are one hell of an autocrat where you are from?”

Staying with Armah, Mutharika came like Kwame Nkrumah, he was a messiah and as dubbed by musician Nkasa, he was “another Moses,” and just like Nkrumah he has closed his ears to advice and let corruption run the country.

Mutharika is not alone in this rotten Malawi, he is with Malawians. Despite the work of MBC, Ntaba and Vuwa, there is no reason to still be a passive nation which behaves like the sheep or the cat in Animal Farm. There are some Malawians who happen to see the corruption and decline of Malawi as a democracy but just like Benjamin in Animal Farm, they remain silent.

  Surely we are not becoming like residents of Airstrip One where even orgasm will be robbed from us and absolute loyalty to Big Brother demanded, already we have spies and police roaming among us and yes a bill is being drafted to introduce a Malawian version of the Gestapo. Is there nobody among us that can behave like Animal Farm’s hens and destroy the eggs instead of giving them to the pigs?

Is there no Obierika that can act as the proverbial mouse that put a bell around the cat’s neck? Do we accept the mind control that so-called journalists purvey at MBC? Are we going to be like Boxer who works hard and believes that Napoleon is always right even when he is selling him off to the glue maker?

What we should know is that Mutharika is 77 years old and by the time we want to hold him responsible, people will be shouting 2mercy on the old man, please!” by then we will be the ones without ARV’s, with closed colleges, with no aid partners, with only a Chinese Embassy open where we cannot go to complain unless we have to offer land or something commercially viable.

Livingstonia Synod said it, Catholics echoed, militants like Harry Mkandawire and Kamplepo Kalua said it, civil society seconded it, University lecturers said it, university students shouted it, opposition parties say it daily, donors and foreigners said it: Mutharika is dictating - they cannot all be wrong. He must be wrong, contrary to the Josef’s, Squealers and Smiths we see on TV!

It’s up to us; are we going to be the generation that was bullied or are we going to be Malawians that jealously guarded their democracy- it’s up to us, as for the Animals of Animal Farm, well they got their equality and freedom back.

‘It sure feels like the 70’s Cambodia’

I released this press release after the University Council of the University of Malawi decided to close down the two main universities in Malawi...giving students two hours to vacate campus and they did so at gun-point. the PSU is the Polytechnic Students Union and  i am its spokesperson.

We the PSU feel that the decision to close down the university is not only morally, practically wrong but also illegal and illegitimate.

Poly Students were never in conflict with the University Council, actually we only knew of its existence after the ‘academic freedom’ battle began. To us, this fact tells us that the council lacks sufficient interest in the issue.

When lecturers downed their tools, the university council never sent them a bogus memo with typographical errors on fools’ day giving them notice of vacation. Why students? Is it because we have no legal muscle? We have been calling for dialogue on the issue but the warring sides refuse and chose to use us as pawns.

To add salt to the wound; take Lemmy who hails from Chitipa and he has two hours to pack and then find transport money to go to Chitipa, and its already 2pm. Is this decision made with ‘fairness’ in mind or it was just some sort of vendetta?

Polytechnic students chose to take a stand in the issue, as the adage says; fight for something or fall for everything, we analysed the academic freedom battle and found it sweet and worthy the ride so when Poly lecturers joined the battle by downing tools we never whined, we giggled with excitement. When the same lecturers dropped the battle we took it from where they left it.

Our argument was simple, learning these days is learner centred thus academic freedom is chiefly for the students.  Secondly, we saw bribes and cowardice in the lecturers’ decision to drop the issue, so we demanded an explanation and when we heard from PASCOW’s chair, Salima that it was due to tribal allegiances, we declared Poly a no fly zone for lecturers, anybody would. 2011 is no time to be dabbling in tribal foolishness and as lecturers they should know better. So the students; Lhomwe, Tumbuka, Chewa and Sena fought on.

We feel that the involvement of police in this issue is not legal. We are fighting with Mukitho and how do you expect the same Mukitho to handle us? It’s why we have police officers gassing students and beating us like bags of sand. 

Police involvement is also illegal in that the Kampala Declaration forbids any police presence on any campus or where African intellectuals are...why do Malawian police, led by the whole commissioner invade our campus? Yes we know most of them are brutes but at least they should have heard of the word ‘law.’

Now we have lost a student, Justice Mwafulirwa,  yes he had lung trouble but what sparked the final blow is cleary the gas that was settled on campus, there have been about five cases of students collapsing in the hostels since the teargas was fired, and they have been none since the semester started, draw your own conclusions.

We will not speak much on the minister of education here, because he has failed us miserably and if he thinks this is a lie, let him try to come to Poly one day.

Finally, we have our chancellor, forget the debate about the legality of his post as chancellor; to us he is the one to blame for all that has transpired in this conflict and to achieve peace will also demand his hands as well.

When the president was being inaugurated, he vowed never to close down any university in his reign...how ironic and funny does it feel to finally break the vow on fools’ day?

At first we thought the president would quickly apply Machiavellian philosophy and fire Mukitho to make peace with the whole load of critics, most of whom are influential, but to our shock Mukitho was glorified and the rest vilified effectively starting the ‘Chinsinga wars.’

The details are not our concern, but we are the sufferers, we know that as university students we have the power to start a revolution but that depends on the failure of government not on a single lecturer. The university system is too complex for anybody to manipulate.

The way forward depends on what the president will do and on the way the grieving lecturers will be handled. Already Poly students are swearing to continue where they left off if any lecturer or student is fired.

 As a union, and as we said at our previous press conference, the issue will only rest in our hearts if the law takes its course, we can’t be having anybody coming to campus and saying and doing  things in the name of national security especially when they have never been to a campus before.

We hope this is not the beginning of the Khmer Rouge type of government which hated intellectuals and eliminated most of them because of the ideas of a few. Already, we cannot seem to stage a demonstration without the City Assembly and police firmly refusing us permission.

 We also should take time to salute those who have stood firm in this time of battle, names like Kamchezera, Kapasula, Salima, Amin, Kanyongolo, Mungoshi, Sithole, Morra and Mgala.

PSU would also like to thank the public and the independent media for being understanding and empathetic even when we were being violent and barbaric. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The law, through the constitution and the Kampala Declaration speaks of academic freedom, let government grant and assure it.

As PSU, we are disappointed in the system and we hope that when we return we shall find no spies in classes, no intimidated lecturers, no uniformed brutes on campus, and we hope that we will return to campus very soon as the world, including the police force, is waiting for our well trained input.