Teaching women how to win elections



The Women’s Forum on Wednesday equipped women candidates of the upcoming local government elections with various skills designed to give them an edge in the contest.

The 30 women, who were drawn from across the Northern Region, convened at Livingstonia Synods’ Conference Hall in Mzuzu.

Political Analyst and history lecture at Mzuzu University, Noel Mbowela, was the main speaker at the workshop. He stressed the need for the women to heed advice, respect chiefs and to avoid mudslinging in their campaign.



Mbowela (man) listens to a question from one of the ladies.





“Learn to point what is wrong and not who is wrong. If you are to win the election you should concentrate on critical issues like how you will bring electricity, water and fertilizer to the people. Also remember to separate politics from religion,” said Mbowela in summarising his lesson.

In a subsequent interview, Mbowela said the aim of the workshop was to equip the women with basic political skills with emphasis on contemporary issues such as the fertilizer subsidy program.

“We have taught them how to argue and answer tough questions that the public might ask during the campaign period,” he said.

One of the participants, Ethel Mwakalimi (Aford) from Yamba ward, Chitipa central constituency said she had gained a lot from the workshop.



Ethel Mwakalini(standing) makes her point



“I have learned that switching political allegiance anyhow brings dictatorship. I have also learned how to be a good leader. I am now confident to go and launch my campaign,” Mwakalimi said.

The workshop was funded by ActionAid through the Northern Region chapter of the Women Forum.

“This is just one of a series of sensitization workshops that we are involved in, we wanted to do the political workshops in each district but due to financial strains we decided just to invite some of the participating women,” said Lillian Kumwenda, Regional Administrative Secretary for Women’s Forum Northern Region Chapter.

Women’s Forum is an umbrella body for various girls and women organisation including HIV, farmers’, business and Political groupings.

Does God really hate Women?

Trendsetting

Paul wrote: “There is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). This call has, however, done little to check the unthinkable oppression and discrimination women have gone through for millennia.

Many may say illiteracy, poverty, culture and sheer male chauvinism are to blame. But does anyone suspect that the very scriptures and religions we trust are the culprits?

The Bible, Qur’an and other Holy Scriptures can be reduced to mere male-domination-strategy texts.

Despite Genesis 1:27 saying that God created man and woman as equals, the author quickly retracts the statement in the next chapter (Gen 2:18-25). Here, Eve is shown as created to patch Adam’s loneliness. Thus, a woman is objectified. If Adam never felt lonely, a woman would not have existed.

Next, Eve – who, if we look carefully, wasn’t there when God told Adam not to tamper with the knowledge tree (Gen 2:17) – is shown being tempted by the snake. Many have hated women from this verse but don’t know that God Himself had created the snake as the most intelligent animal (Gen 3:1).

God is all-knowing: He knew what He was doing and He had his reasons for not keeping the snake away or grabbing the fruit from Eve. Both Adam and Eve ate the fruit but it is Eve who got the worst punishment.

Woman was from then on cast into subservience. God said: “I will increase your trouble in pregnancy and pain in child birth. In spite of this, you will still have desire for your husband, yet you will be subject to him.” (Gen 3:16).

Genesis 3:16 equips man to rule over woman and one would argue that desire was thus made for women which is why in the mid 1800’s, the Church of England used Gen 3:16 to prevent use of chloroform as anaesthesia in childbirth as discovered by Young Simpson.

Opposition

One Church father, Marcion of Sinope, suggested that the God of the Old Testament was cruel. He was criticised and his teachings are to this day deemed hearsay.

Jamaican poet Mutabaruka has also raised eyebrows on man’s motive in religion.

“They say God, the Father; God, the Son and God, the Holy spirit; no God, the Mother. Why?” he asked.

Mutabaruka’s argument can easily be revoked because of his Rastafarian status which most dismiss as hemp-motivated. A deeper look at the Bible would suffice, then.

Continued attacks

In Leviticus 12, for example, God tells Moses that when a woman gives birth to a boy, she shall be unclean for about 40 days. But when she gives birth to a daughter, she shall be unclean for 80 days. There should be something wrong with a daughter, then.

The author of Ecclesiastes also has a share of scorn as he said he had seen few trustworthy men but no woman. In fact, he suggests that death is the only other bitter thing apart from the woman (Eccl 7:26-29).

Many have since rejected the Old Testament and said the New Testament is the future of the modern world. However, unpacking the compilation reveals some disturbing verses cementing stereotypes against women.

Paul is responsible for the outlook of the church today. He wrote variously and some dogma he dictated still causes controversy today.

Take what he said in his first letter to Corinthians. He explicitly said husbands are supreme over wives: “... he [man] reflects the image and glory of God. But woman reflects the glory of man ... for man was not created for woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for woman’s sake, but woman for man’s sake.” (1 Cor. 11).

Probably the most questionable verses are 1 Cor. 14:34-36 which suggest that women should keep quite in the meetings. “...they are not allowed to speak; as the Jewish Law says, they must not be in charge...”

Is the Bible God’s word? If yes why does it hate? And why should the whole Christian church base on Jewish culture? And since culture is dynamic and the Bible static, what should the modern church do?

Paul prohibits women from wearing makeup, expensive clothing and jewels; he prohibits women having authority over men and says that women will be saved by having children (1 Tim. 2:8-15).

Paul argues that women should be subdued because they are the ones that broke God’s law and because they were created last (1 Tim. 2:13-14).

One wonders why one woman’s sin is carried across millennia when men have broken heinous records before, like the first murder (Cain), the first rape and incest (Lot) and drunkenness (Noah)?

The Qur’an is no better. It states that women are at par with men (74:38) but quickly contradicts itself. “And they [women] have rights similar to those [of men] over them, and men are a degree above them.” (2:228).

Many have accepted into their daily routine reading and interpreting scripture but they don’t want to question God’s word. And musicians, poets and philosophers have also developed their works based on the age-old injustice, further cementing man’s hegemony.

The message in Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Conscious man, for example, is that women are crooks. He sings: Solomon was wise, but he couldn’t see the secret of a woman; and Some strew are strewn ... by a woman.

And Samuel Butler, the English poet, wrote: “The souls of women are so small that some believe they've none at all.”

Such is the hypocrisy that goes about women. Many have spoken well of women but few have given them leadership roles. Tokenism and rhetoric continue to be used by modern leaders: political and apolitical.

It is time to critically look at religious texts not only as solutions to problems but also as causes. God never said He hates women. Writers say so. And the solution lies in rejecting or amending some of these teachings.

University Students’ demonstrations, riots are always justified

(News that British students were rioting prompted me to publish this quasi-essay, which I wrote over a year ago. It is an apology for student’s riots.)

There has been a disproportionate amount of criticism over the last years of students not acting exemplarily, demonstrating and rioting over trivia and general barbarism. I do not agree with the mainstream view and I write to justify student ‘violence.’

Demonstrations have been a tool that many (students, politicians and society) have used extensively to change phenomena or even courses of history. Demonstrations do not just happen; they are usually the last resort after dialogue has failed or where the powerful party is very good at using their blind eye.

Recall how French students forced President Charles de Gaulle to call for new elections and reform the defunct educational system in the late 60’s?

Remember that it was students that brought Iran true sovereignty by holding those American hostages for 444 days teaching the then US president, Jimmy Carter, the meaning on the word “non-interference.”

Then we read about the students of The Rangoon Colleges in Burma, who managed to pressure Ne Win, Sein Lwin and force Maung Maung to move towards democracy in 1988.

Famous to many are the Soweto demonstrations against teaching using Afrikaans in public schools and the Tiananmen Square (China) demonstrations against communist rule in 1989. They are thus not a new thing, these demonstrations.

Students do not just go on the rampage, they are inspired by great men; Stephen Biko was a medical student when he started the Black Consciousness Movement; Nelson Mandela was booted out of Fort Hare University for organizing demonstrations.

Students are also exposed to the ideas of Karl Marx who teaches resistance to top-down decisions, Che Guevara, Islamic militancy and even radicals like Peter Macintosh who believed that “peace is the diploma one gets at the cemetery.”

Malawian students, to localise the debate a bit, take the model of the American Students for a Democratic Society (ASDS) where representative democracy is a farce and participatory democracy a virtue.

One Frenchman Daniel Cohn Bendt, another model and a student of sociology was once taunted by politicians for being “a nobody,” but his revolution rocked the whole of France with workers joining in.

Coming back to Malawi, one would surely look at university students as empty souls wanting to be filled with some kind of rightness. On the contrary, many students riot while sober and it is always after a general meeting where they vote on the best courses of action to take.

No one blames the university administration or government-and I know it’s because they only see the violence not the buildup.

Here is a cross section of some of the events that shook University of Malawi (UNIMA) earlier this millennium and notice the facts of the students’ cases.

In 2000 Mathews Chikaonda was appointed Minister of Finance and in his Ten Point Plan, he raised university fees from K1, 500 to K46, 000 arguing that university was a luxury and students should pay for it dearly.

It was strange coming from a man whose career as we know it today sprung from the same university consequently students protested. The so called school calendar started to be affected by this time. After a long war school fees was reduced to K25, 000. Who do we blame?

In December 2001, Fanikiso Phiri, an innocent student at Chancellor College, was shot by a trigger-happy police officer when students were demonstrating against the hiked maize prices, Evison Matafale’s death while in custody and the arrest of an opposition politician Nelson Shaba: all noble causes.

When students protested Fanikiso’s death, the colleges were closed and opened two months later with the calendar suffering badly. Who do we blame?

Come 2003, UDF party supporters marching in favour of the much detested third term bill hurled insults at Polytechnic students calling them names, the students retaliated and the police joined the UDF supporters to destroy property at the Poly including the precious DAF bus, who would not fight?

Surprisingly the then principal suspended all students. A legal battle ensued and classes resumed, but time had gone and the calendar suffered. Who do we blame?

In February 2004, a student died in his sleep instead of honouring him, administration allowed examinations to go ahead. Infuriated students rioted. The students were sent home only to be called in May to finish the exams, a thing that could have been settled by suspending exams until after the student’s burial. The calendar was not waiting and who do we blame again?

In 2007 UNIMA lecturers wanted 200% a pay hike, inspired by the high MP salaries; the ensuing strike affected the calendar by at least five weeks. Instead of closing on 13th November the schools closed on 23rd December. Even in 2009 the semester that was supposed to begin on March 8 was pushed to the 23rd. Do we still blame students?

Some people say the students should live by example, I ask, whose example: because even Jesus rebelled against the corrupt officials who turned the church into an agora. Patrick Chamaso, Malcolm X, both Martin Luther’s, Marcus Garvey, Mandela and their godfather Mahatma Gandhi didn’t believe in slavery of any kind.

Actually Mandela said: “To overcome oppression has been sanctioned by humanity and is the highest aspiration of every free man.”

Take for example the polytechnic administration who would rather build a fence costing more than K27 million when students stay in substandard hostels in the Chichiri area and there is no hot water for the majority of students.

Delaying stationery allowance for example is a thing that happens yearly, why can’t the administration sit down and hasten the process? Every year students have to submit identity photos and apply for the loan, why not make it electronic? Why not do there paper work when the students are on holiday?

The French students of 1968 rioted because the university running systems were archaic, staffed with aging octa- and nonagenarians, maybe it’s the same thing that is plaguing Malawi.

It seems the administrators think like in the Kamuzu era.

The philosophy that the youths are the leaders of tomorrow is a farce because it implies that the elders should be the leaders now. Some youths are as competent as everyone else and the administrators should learn to consult with the youths because it is them that know the pressures and prerequisites of modernity.

Society should also understand dynamics, the students especially the social science ones, understand that the media have power so if they block the highway, for example, the media will report the issue directly to the relevant authorities with veto powers over the usually stubborn university administrators.

Many folks also make a lot of noise of changing the image of the university, I ask which university? University is a den of havoc where ideas are discussed without emotion or religion. Whatever the students decide is carefully cooked with engineers, business managers and journalists, lawyers and teachers of tomorrow in the midst. The students didn’t create the havoc, the system created the havoc.

Some of those who speak against the student demonstrations have done them and they can’t understand their younger counterparts. It’s a pity how folks forget.

Some riots are not even for the students sake, take the section 65 issue, some DPP party gurus booked the students a bus to go to parliament to help in pushing the budget through, the politicians then betray them and call them barbarians?

Society should also remember that most youths are just past puberty when they reach university so a flash of private parts or obscene words is but a good thing after all it’s a celebration of freedom from the strict home.

When judging university students put yourself in their shoes: there are hormones rushing in their veins, there are ladies to impress and there is a little philosophy in their minds. They are like a goat just getting to terms with new horns.

Most of the folks that criticize have not been to college thus they posses no knowledge of what it is to be a university leader. The students are being trained to become leaders and if they are oppressed the oppression will trickle to the people they will oversee.

In 1968, for example, the Mexican president ignored the demands of the students and what followed was the creation and widening of the poor-rich gap.

The students are held together by the mutilated national anthem sentence and it’s not likely to go anytime soon it goes: “join together all hearts as one thus will be free from fear.” University demonstrations are justified indeed.