The backbone of morality is cracking under the weight of legality all over today. Even this is a foolish begining of an article because it is no longer possible to agree on what is moral or not.
Yet, what is legal is easily agreed upon. We open that holy book called Constitution, locate chapter and verse. But Constitutions are born out of a people's code of morality, whatever that means.
The Credit Crunch has just revealed some of the worst evils of the Western society and its erstwhile extremes of capitalism.
One man became so rich that when his businesses began to collapse, several countries in South America and the Carribbean had their entire economies seriously threatened. Just one man holding the fate of so many souls.
The British authorities are now spending sleepless nights trying to save the sinking ship of the hitherto giant economy. You can see the anguish of the inner souls all over the face of those who are losing jobs.
The British Government has had to "borrow" public money pump billions of Pounds into the banking system where this vicious cycle of a mess began. They have to save banks from collapsing in order to save the economy.
But this has not stopped innocent members of the public who have sacrificed their tax money from losing their jobs and assets. Yes, Gordon Brown or Barack Obama are effectively borrowing this public money because the public patiently awaits on trust to be repaid by restoring market confidence and rebounding the economy.
Everyone has spoken. And we are told the commercial banks got us into this mess. Yet, the former boss of Royal Bank of Scotland is set to receive a collosal bonus of 690,000 pounds per annum for the rest of his life -- a package for an early retirement after leading the bank to historic losses.
This is public money just pumped into the bank. But the argument is simple. It is legally bound in an agreement. It does not matter that it is immoral to take such a collosal sum of meoney from the suffering public.
But the story is all over. Malawi's former president Bakili Muluzi led the country into chaos when physical, economical and social infrastructure broke down. If Muluzi was still in power today, Malawi should have been second to Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe by now. Now he has been figetting to come back to power.
The real question is not whether Muluzi can or cannot stand. The real question is whether he should stand at all because we all know what he did to the country besides the framers of the Constitution having intended to restrain power-hungry politicians from haunting thrones like the Abiku or the Ogbanje of Things Fall Apart.
These are the questions which the media and the civil society in Malawi should have been championing. But both the media and the civil easily get unconsciously manipulated into sympathy for the opposition. And so, they gloss over the real questions.
But the arguement is again simple. Is he legally allowed to stand by the Constitution or not. But who said legality is everything we must venerate at the cost of the suffering souls of the many?
One of the most dangerous distroyer of the modern society is the lawyer who cashes his living on the crimes of others. Many people who join the Law do so for money today. Compare with the spirit with which people join teaching.
It is an outright shame that the Law has lost its moral mission today. The good Lawyer becomes the first person to desecrate the Constitution. The Constitution is imagined with every well-meaning intention for the good of many except say the South African Apartheid Constitution that was made to commit evils against the many.
But when the Constitution enters the Court, it is reduced to a matter of debate. The cunning Lawyer gets away with it. This is our real problem in Malawi.
Our modern world is legally fueling anarchy because we have begun to live where anything is becoming possible as long as it is either legal, or it has failed to be proved illegal. Legality has become the law of anarchy.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
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About Me
- Dr. Bright.Molande
- University of Malawi, Malawi
- The most sustainable revolution takes place in the human mind. But revolution is a most abused word.