Laws of Anarchy

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.

Opposition Backbone Cracks in Malawi

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) President John Tembo has handpicked semi-UDF Brown Mpinganjira for his presidential running mate. Deep divisions both in the United Democratic Front (UDF) and MCP have followed.

It was first the Opposition’s one voice, one war against five consecutive annual national budgets in a relentless political storm against their government and people’s interests. Now the Opposition is wrecked after the storm on the seashore of betrayal, confusion and anarchy. The rest is political drama of a deep tragic measure.

Trusted but cunning Mpinganjira betrays UDF Chairman Bakili Muluzi while Tembo drags “a political stranger” to MCP without knowledge of the party leadership. At the same time, Tembo also betrays Muluzi who was counting on an MCP-UDF alliance to dislodge incumbent President Bingu wa Mutharika.

As the drama unfolds, all those once touted in town as UDF alliance members have also picked their nomination papers from Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to try their luck on May 19 elections. This means besides Brown Mpinganjira – Gwanda Chakwamba, Ralph Kasambara and Kamlepo Kaluwa are not fighting with Muluzi. He is betrayed!

It may look like the hasty sandwiching together of Mpinganjira and Tembo is icing the cake for the MCP-UDF alliance. It is not. Muluzi was unaware of Mpinganjira’s intentions.

Two weeks ago in Mulanje, Mpinganjira announced his “unquestionable loyalty” to Muluzi. Those who listen to memory remembered that Mpinganjira spoke exactly the same way just before ditching UDF to form his National Alliance for Democracy. This is how Mpinganjira fools others, and this is a character Tembo is blind about.

Mpinganjira knows he cannot lead Malawi in 2009 because it is extremely difficult to defeat a candidate who is a sitting President. He is paving his way to power in 2014 because that will be what is called an open term when there is no sitting president contesting. Mpinganjira’s thinking and strategy is to frustrate the Opposition old guards and clear them out of the way in his political press-ups towards 2014 elections after Bingu wa Mutharika. This is what people may never of Mpinganjira.

Muluzi himself never really knew Mpinganjira, and he never probably learnt any lesson from history. “My loyalty to Muluzi is unquestionable,” and he quits him. That is why Muluzi may never recover from the shock of this betrayal both psychologically and politically.

It was at the same Mulanje rally that Mpinganjira reminded Muluzi never to forget that “it was the Sapitwa region that first asked you to stand again.” Yes, they first asked Muluzi in writing to return to power against the Malawi Constitution. And that is revealing.

It was the work of Mpinganjira – the masterminder of “Muluzi’s Come Back” to poison Muluzi with politically acidic advice that would wreck him to political shreds so that Muluzi must be buried right on the political stage. Mpinganjira’s support will go with NDA officials who infiltrated UDF and those bigwigs who want Muluzi to quit the stage for younger generations. That is why this drama is a tragedy for Muluzi and those who believed in his coming back.

John Tembo calculated on the division and betrayal in UDF. Tembo believes that by picking Mpinganjira who comes from Mutharika’s political stronghold, he will sway the President’s voters where they are strongest. Unfortunately, Mpinganjira does not own any significant political podium of his own in the Lomwe belt. He has only quietly played the betrayed Muluzi’s political child with a waiting tactic. Will Mpinganjira speak to the Democratic Progressive Party stronghold with the voice of the UDF where it lost roots? Will he import MCP where it does not exist three and half months to elections? And what is Tembo’s political wisdom?

But Tembo’s move has equally generated animosity inside MCP. Already, Speaker Louis Chimango, Bester Majoni and the Lilongwe MCP stronghold opposed the bluff of the MCP-UDF alliance. That is why Majoni’s fall during primary elections was stage-managed and Chimango has his own chiefs turned loose upon him suddenly. Tembo was out to punish those that opposed his intention to sell the MCP to Muluzi.

This time around, Tembo never consulted the MCP leaders of the Lilongwe party stronghold. They also are betrayed. As we go to press, there is a Consultative Process Meeting underground to chart how best to respond to Tembo’s undemocratic move that frustrates MCP potential and clean leaders. The division is deep and Tembo may not like the frustrated response of those capable Malawians he has undermined for so long under him.

It is all chaos and betrayal in the Opposition as presidential candidates fill in their nomination forms heading for May elections. There is no such time for them to get organized. The confusion and betrayals dishearten voters and faithfuls who look for straight-forward leaders. Is this collapsing of the Opposition an opportunity for Bingu wa Mutharika?

An Interview with Muluzi

When the Chief Reporter for Malawi News opened the media door for Muluzi to give a “Special Interview” on 3 January 2009, Muluzi was clear that his ambition to stand again has everything to with himself and his party and little to do with Malawi as a country.

“We had as a party taken a move for transition for Dr. Mutharika and I was not in the equation for coming back. I would like this very clear. It was only when Dr. Mutharika left the UDF and even went further to form his own party. That threatened my party,” says Muluzi.

The worst fear is confirmed. It is all about bitterness, revenge and a war to save the face of the wounded party. This is what Malawi’s critical voices have said all along. I remember the University of Malawi Bright Molande’s “Candle Burning in the Storm” insisting on revenge and bitterness as the real motives and cause of Muluzi’s political behaviour, that the rest are mere excuses and propaganda springboards.

What is more to it? Muluzi has also awoken to the fact that his bulldozing style of leadership has consistently killed the party. He has lost the legacy and he feels he cannot retire from politics in that mess.

“There is no way I am going to leave the UDF now in such a state of affairs. Let me be here. I went to the people and said UDF vote for this man. Do you think people will trust me again? … For me to say I will give you another person again. No.”

One reads in the interview the deep fear retiring without honour, without legacy, the fear of descending into political oblivion. His last dream in the equation of coming back is to project the last image of leadership before his party. It is the loss of trust of his followers that eats Muluzi up, inwardly. It is the man’s inward war of the soul to restore lost trust that completes his equation of coming back. In the way Muluzi speaks, it is first all about himself, and second his party, and nothing really to do taking Malawi anywhere forward.

Here, Muluzi speaks with a patronizing attitude when he speaks giving his party a leader as though the party has not matured to the democracy of collectively deciding its own leadership. One may find this attitude an insult to many intelligent members of the party and those who trully love democratic principles within.

Elsewhere, Muluzi is a desperate man who will do anything to exact his vengeance upon Bingu wa Mutharika. That is why he is entering a political alliance with MCP. This political marriage of convenience is already fiercely opposed within MCP ranks. That is why John Tembo is staging the political downfall of Speaker Louis Chimango and Bester Majoni who are opposed to the alliance. Muluzi is bent on using MCP in his ambition to surmount Malawi again.

Malawians remember as well that before what Muluzi calls “the equation of coming back”, first he had to fail in the equation of staying on in power. The constitutional and goodwill of the people prevailed upon him. Even as Head of State then, Muluzi knew well that he could only rule more only if the Constitution changed.

So, the seed of the ambition to keep on ruling Malawi was planted elsewhere before. Its black flower hanging on Muluzi’s image of a new democrat still eclipses Malawi’s history of democracy. Muluzi should know history.

He offers credit to Kamuzu Banda for bringing independence in 1964. But that history lesson slightly misses the heartbeat of truth. He says “we needed to move a little bit forward…because the world was changing particularly Southern Africa.” No. We needed change because we were suffering under dictatorship.

This time Muluzi claims he wants to change things. But the Law, the donor community, the mood, the numbers and probably the Divine will are all against his desires. Muslims have been petitioning and praying against Muluzi’s coming back lately. They have discovered what he is. “In 1994, people had no time to scrutinise him. They simply wanted change. Even a chicken could have ruled them,” says Al Haj Alick Likonde, chairman of the Quadria Muslims who suffered untold misery under Muluzi’s rule.

Then Muluzi is honest enough to accept that after independence and democracy, “we needed economic transformation, economic development … [because] people don’t eat these things.” Implicitly, he publicly accepts that his rule badly needed economic transformation.

Otherwise, Muluzi political theory that a period of democratic consolidation cannot happen together with economic development is false and non-existent. Or else, who is to tell us the book, chapter and verse for this miscarried political theory? If this political theory is valid, why is it that Muluzi’s first five years registered a positive economic trend just when we were mounting the structures of democracy?

Will Muluzi prevail against the Law, the donor community, the mood, the numbers and the Divine will?

A REASON FOR PRIDE

“Congratulations Malawians!” The Africa’s academic icon and world-towering economist Professor Adebayo Adedeji last night awed Malawians for their hard work, wonders in economic performance and food production. He was speaking at dinner hosted last night in his honour by President Bingu wa Mutharika at the New State House in Lilongwe.

That night, 14 December 2008, the mood was eloquent and arresting as the world sat down to listen. The flavor of the room was sweet, the background music soft, but the message was rich, loud and clear. “This country has virtually beaten everybody on the African continent in food production,” said Professor Adebayo Adedeji.

Earlier, the hosting Malawi leader had proudly described Malawi as “probably the best managed economy in the sub-Saharan Africa.” This is not a vain boast but a fact. “Malawi is a miracle economy,” but Mutharika hasted to openly add, “This is not my coinage but these are the words of World Bank and IMF.”

In the final analysis of his address, Professor Adebayo Adedeji came to witness and to agree that “Malawi is a miracle economy.” This academic colossus has compared Malawi’s historic phenomenal growth rate at 8% as equal to that of China arguing that “Malawi is certainly on its way to progress”. The Professor challenged that not even the African largest economy of South Africa growing at 3% compares with the rate at which Malawi rising. Europe was growing at the rate of 2.5% rate when it was undergoing a revolution of development, he observed.

Professor Adebayo Adedeji is well-thought-of in economic scholarship and leadership. He is an authority who has served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary to the United Nations Commission for Africa. He is the Chairman of African Peer Review Mechanism. His visit and choice of Malawi are symbolic.
Tonight, he had this to confess with admiration, “I have been closely following the developments [in Malawi] particularly since my brother Bingu wa Mutharika took over the leadership.”

The African academic icon said he was “attracted” to visit Malawi which he and the Governor of the Ogun State Otheba Benga Daniel coincidentally found Malawi “worthy visiting” for lessons and forging partnership after describing Malawi as a benchmark for others.

The elderly Professor Adebayo Adedeji spoke with well-humoured humility, wisdom, perceptive hindsight and deep insight. He said Malawi’s record progress is that of the people and not Mutharika alone. “Nobody can claim 100% perfection. But society has the right to seek perfection in a leader who provides inspiration. I hope you will continue to support him,” Adedeji said.

Mutharika has himself attributed Malawi’s progress and the world-wide recognition that come home in medals, torches and titles to all Malawians. Professor Adebayo Adedeji did not just thank us for the dinner, he said, “Congratulations to you all.”

We may not agree with Mutharika in our right to fault-finding, in our political and analytical biases, but we cannot disagree with the independent congratulations, recognition and honours that come to us – we the people of Malawi.

Also available at http://www.mazikotimes.com

Madona's Mission to Malawi

Unreserved love and motherly care, that is what the word ‘Madonna’ has come to mean since Leonardo da Vinci painted Mary the mother of Jesus in fine and colour. The image of Madonna is always associated with motherly love for children and the world. Madonna has become a symbol.

But Madonna the celebrated musician is different, you may think. Perhaps, wrong. Whatever the celebrity’s controversies, the musician loves children. She adopted David Phiri from Malawi, not that Madonna thinks too poorly of Malawians that they could not raise the orphan. But Madonna is making a statement to the world, “We care for others at least as much as we care for ourselves,” she has recently said in her mission to Malawi.

In her letter to the world posted through her website, she says, “After witnessing the potential of Malawi's girls firsthand, I made it my mission to give them an opportunity to become their personal best.” Now she has set out to build what will be probably the best school for the African girl child in Malawi. The Madonna founded project is called “Raising Malawi Academy for Girls.”

“Raising Malawi Academy for Girls is founded upon the belief that empowering a small group of exceptional individuals can ignite a positive change for a whole nation, and indeed for the entire world,” Madonna writes. Her spirit is that of striving “to transform the African nation of Malawi through the education and empowerment of its young women,” and that is the core of her mission.


Known for their hard work, politeness, peace and smiles, Malawians themselves respect women – even amidst a militating patriarchal culture and gender-based violence. They celebrate Mother’s Day once a year to remember the love of our mothers. It is now common to hear them loudly believing, “Teach a woman, and you have taught the nation” because they believe that the woman is the heart of the home and the nation. This is what poverty and relics of some traditional beliefs want to defeat. There remain many girls, particularly among the low income rural Malawians who are denied the opportunity to become the best of themselves. It is that setback that Madonna is fighting to conquer.

In her very quieter life away from the hubbub and glittering colour of the stage life, and perhaps in her deep contrition, Madonna holds “near and dear” the values of human integrity and the binds of communal life.
Behind that stage Madonna, there is the human Madonna who agrees with the African philosophy of life. That is why, she says, her mission is “founded on the spirit of Umunthu”. Yes, in Chichewa the vernacular of Malawi “Umunthu means "I am because we are".

It has been in their valued wisdom for ages for the people of Malawi to believe that “It is human intercourse that makes us human, he who is solitary is a beast”. That is precisely what one of their proverbs, in their language (Ali awiri ndi anthu, kalikokha nkanyama). But the individual is the nucleus of the Umunthu philosophy, and Madonna’s “Academy is dedicated to inspiring within each student a sense of global and individual responsibility.”

In its full mission, the Raising Malawi academy envisions character and intellectual sharpening of the girl at the very heart, nucleus and engine of Malawi’s society and progress. The Academy is set to provide girls with the means “to realize the full range of their intellectual, spiritual, creative, and human potential; to act as examples of girls' empowerment and gender equity; to foster Malawian cultural pride and responsibility; to provide innovative opportunities for sustainability; and to raise the nation of Malawi and its people to abundance and lasting health.”

This is where fame, name and money has brought Mother Madonna – Malawi. Perhaps she too shares the global confidence that Malawi is not just where every dollar counts, but now a place where every dollar is a seed that bears fruit with the present sound economic management. But this mission is far beyond fame, name and money because it takes your heart too. And that is the integrity of it.


It is upon this noble mission that Madonna has called all her friends to partake. The celebrated mother and musician invites all those of goodwill and with Africa at heart to http://www.raisingmalawi.org/rm_girlsacademy.php where “every dollar makes a difference,” she says. Mother of David the Malawian child, Madonna speaks in a manner that reminds one of Jesus the son of Virgin Mary who said “It is better to give than to receive.” Now Madonna believes, “by giving our best, we become our best.”

REGIONALSIM AND THE UNIVERSITY IN MALAWI

LETTER TO MY BELOVED STUDENT

Dear Ephraim Nyondo,

Your letter is more than eloquent, and I was struck speechless over the last two days of my silence. I am delighted you have come of age enough to see, as you say in your email, the Chancellor College demonstrations for and against University Quota System selection had regionalism fanning the furnace of the cause.

My response is, yes, regionalism is a time-ticking bomb in Malawi. It is time to warn ourselves before we relapse into the recent Kenyan and Rwandan mayhem and bloodbaths still dripping in our memory. The youth need the right and honest education that sets the right frame of mind, NOW more than ever!

It also sickens me a lot to see intellectuals who should have liberated your generations from these prison walls of regionalism themselves steeped deep in baying for the blood of those who want it erased. There are those who practice regionalism in very silent and crafty means, and there are those who are condemned and crucified for naming the practice in public. As a result, we are forbidden from speaking of it in public while its cancer slowly spreads to our tumours of reason, spreading into our intellectuals and spreading into our young intellectuals. Who will save us? Who will teach us the right path?

At the height of MCP rule, we practically sidelined Northerners and practically told "you" to go back to the North. Professionals, teachers in particular, were sent to their regions. The perception was that Northerners are rouble-rousers and trouble makers. The area was neglected in development and the result was that people from the North started looking for ways of self-assertion.

When some brave Chancellor College students protested in the famous "Come Come And Mend" poem (which meant the Chitukuko Cha Amayi Mmalawi -- CCAM) had to come and clean the mess they had left at Chantunga Ground after one of their functions, John Tembo was Chairman of the University Council and was resolved not only expelling the poets (banishing them from the Republic in a Platonic fashion), but he was also ready to cut out all students from the North from the University of Malawi on account that they too were the rouble-rousers.

When Chakufwa Chihana came, he led a national political party which was quickly folded into the bedroom of the North. Throughout the Muluzi times, political parties became regional football clubs, with minimal political inter-marriages. Our voter behaviour can certainly testify.
Up until now, a Chewa will not easily be allowed to marry in the North by cultural perceptions of norms and we have slowly looked at our Northern in-laws with suspicion here in the Central and South.

Even the Livingstonia and Nkhoma Synods have been divided over what has serious religious overtones. When an entire congregation in the Chewa Central Region decides to sing its hymns in Tumbuka because it because this branch belongs to Livingstonia Synod, a nasty head of regional identity has reared out in a wrong place – hasn’t it?

With all the massive effort the Roman Catholic Church has demonstrated worldwide in establishing education, more so demonstrably in Malawi, the Catholic University of Malawi is failing to take off because (what every honest Malawian will tell you) the Catholic (universal) Church does not want to support the regionalistic spirit that is budding in the administration of the university. That university is literally crawling, with only a ream of paper for the survival of an entire department per month once. Part-time teachers have been known to be Head of Departments there. If you studied a subject up to Third Year a the University of Malawi, you are allowed to teach it at the Catholic University of Malawi even if you never specialised therefore. The tuition is rising, and Government has not yet recoginsed them. What happens to those who are about to graduate without any recognition on the market place?

There have been efforts to limit regional-based access to resources of course. The selection from Primary to Secondary School is already premised on a Quota System principle because every district is meant to have Government secondary schools that draw from the district as its education catchment area and these schools are supposed to relate the population sizes of the district, at least on the premise of this principle. This was meant to ensure that every district accesses secondary school education as part (just part) of spreading development.

Some of us are totally confused with the reasoning those (even intellectuals) that refuse the same principle being already applied at our Primary-into-Secondary School level national-wide. Yet, when this debate popped up at Chancellor College Academic email forum, the reasons became very clear. Even those academics you would have wished to admire clearly and openly said the North is benefiting from the present system and they are not ready for any reversals. I am saying this because the pro- and against arguments were equally divided on regional identities and THIS IS ON RECORD of the emails that circulated at that time. Not the type of debates I jump in, and I wrote no single email on that. This is the thinking we seem to have given our students, and this a generation of Malawi who should be challenged to build ONE MALAWI.

What is also on record is that the present system of intake is very preferential and differentially baffling. The data is available at the University Office and with a good number of your lecturers. When you compare district population sizes against the total number of Malawians selected for the University in 5 years, in my humblest words, it sobers you up. You begin to say, "wait a minute!" Is this the Malawi my generation wants to build? Really?

I must conclude by repeating that there are those who practice regionalism, and there are those who are demonised for saying so in public. I will not be surprised if this letter finds its way in the hands of those who will crucify me because they refuse to hear the truth.

But as long as I am a poet, I will take the truth to the public places. So long as I write, I will serve truth at the dinner of those who dance to lies. Above all, I have always cared to say these things to those students whom I love and care about, like yourself because it is upon your generation to cure what our ancestors made worse.

This is what I say to my beloved students like you: WE HAVE NO MORAL REASON TO LIVE THE WRONGS OF OUR FOREFATHERS WHILE WE CANNOT.

From the deep wells of flowing love,
Bright

SPIRIT OF AFRICA: Healing Zimbabwe

Speaking of the daemonic act of Osama bin Laden’s sending America’s towers of civilization down into rubble, dust and ashes, Nancy Gibbs had this to write. “If you want to humble an empire, then it makes sense to maim its cathedrals that symbolize our faith”. But bin Laden failed to break the faith and resolve of the Americans, she concludes.

Speaking of Zimbabwe after the economic rubble, dust and ashes of those burnt alive, this is what we must write. If you want to humble an empire, then it makes sense to maim its very spirit. But the Chimurenga spirit of Zimbabwe was never maimed, and the African spirit of communalism glowed with a hallo of hope and resolve by day throughout the long drawn funeral of the Zimbabwe situation.

Zimbabwe has lived a long story – the flourishing Great Zimbabwe of Africa that was intensively trading with China and Middle East while Europe was in the Dark Ages; British colonialism with land, gold and diamond exploitation; guerilla war against imperialism; then the long seasons of rest and economic flourish plunging into bloodbaths of political violence; and brutality followed by a complete collapse of economic and social infrastructure. Horror! Horror! Horror! What is more than a national funeral?

But no matter how long and winding a river might be, it must water into something greater than itself some day. It is the way of all flesh. Now the Government and Opposition have signed a power-sharing deal to reconstruct our motherland. And there is a grain of hope planted.

But things were that bad. One university lecturer told me he received 4.2 trillion Zimbabwe Dollars per month by around August 2008. But this could only buy just about eight loaves of bread “if you are lucky to find it,” he added. “We eat bread probably once in every three months.” This means a shirt that cost 8 trillion Zim Dollars would have the university lecturer work for it for two living months, not to speak of French made shoes costing 72 trillion that he must work for in Lord knows how many years. What about the messenger and the village widow? What was life like? Hell!

There are untold stories, and dirges unsung, funerals not mourned and the dead never buried. Mugabe is right, “Let us not ignore the truth as we proceed,” speaking on the signing of the power-sharing deal. The truth is, Comrade Mugabe’s war against his own people went too far, just too far.

Come March 2007, three senior defence force officers died in succession, possibly in a political purge following rumours of a coup d’état. Probably something like what happened in Malawi when in the Dzineso, Njoloma and Chigawa deaths came mysteriously under Bakili Muluzi! After rumours of a coup in Malawi, in the midst of Muluzi's "Bloodstained Democracy". But the difference, Zimbabwean souls were declared national heroes when ironically, as whispers have it; two were given lethal injections in hospital while the third died mysteriously in a car-train accident.

In March 2007, when Zimbabwe was not on a physical war with any other country, a Reserve Army was formed and gazette “ordering war veterans not above 50 years to register with Ministry of Defence so that they could be given arms at any time when the Commander-in-Chief deems it fit.” Why?

Yet, this is another untold story – that of the Chimurenga spirit behind the war veterans. During the Chimurenga Wars of liberation against British imperialist at its heist of colonialism, the people collectively sang and believed in Chimurenga Songs. They were, in the words of Alec Pongweni, “the soul and binding force of the people”. These songs built a common sense of identity against “the unacceptable face of imperialism.” Mugabe fought a good fight, but he has oppressed his own people with unacceptable horror and style.

What Mugabe has done throughout the unacceptable face of his dictatorship has been to draw upon this spirit by continuing to present Britain and America as the same imperialist who “was there yesterday, and is here with us today”. In so doing, Mugabe has drawn a common sense of alliance on his side against even those Zimbabwean political leaders said to be possible puppets of the West – Tsvangirai.

The Chimurenga Songs, with their popular appeal and inspiration, carried a shared spirit of struggle and sworn allegiance to the man who saved them. This is the spirit that has ensured Mugabe’s political survival, and there were those who were ready to die for him. There were those to whom he remained a popular god-father much as he was hated and demonized by others. But they feared him as well, and fear has been his weapon too. Yes, the motives of his loyalists are complex. He used the war veterans to make a system by giving them posts and privileges everywhere in Government.

In this way, Mugabe avoided repeating the history of East Africa. In Kenya, that sight of horror still dripping in our memory began with those maimed in the soul in the post-independence frustration of having shed blood in the Kenyan Mau Mau struggle against colonialism only to be left out of sharing the national cake by their own brotherly leaders, their own comrades.

The violent blood bathed explosion of the recent Kenyan situation sprung from the deep recesses of ethnic emotions with counter-accusations that some ethnic groups are sitting on the national cake more than others. It is “not just about politics as witnessed in other areas”, says US Ambassador Michael Ranneberger. The wise and illustrious Archbishop Desmond Tutu and AU Chairman President John Kufour of Ghana quietly saw the depth of it all.

In fact, Kenyan Prime Mininster Raila Odinga whipped up the divided ethnic sentiments into campaign propaganda. It was overwhelmingly felt by other communities that “the Kikuyus are selfish bigots dedicated to tribal hegemony and will never share spoils of government with other communities”, says Odinga’s pre-elections strategy paper called Positioning and Marketing ODM and the People’s President Raila Odinga. The Kikuyus are Kenya’s largest ethnic group that has been controlling a huge clump of economy and power in the post-independent Kenya – after the Mau Mau common cause for political and economic liberation from colonialism.

The feeling of betrayal, alienation, frustration and desperation in those who fought for independence but were left out of the spoils of the war has been there since 1960s. It is the story of betrayed hope in A Grain of Wheat that never germinated (told in 1967), of Petals of Blood (1977) and the beauty of shedding blossoming blood for their land, the story of the Black Messiah who turns out to be, not a saving Christ, but a Devil on the Cross (1982); and the story of Matigari (1987) – the betrayed patriots who fought for independence returning with decided revenge.

In all these four novels spanning decades, the African literary colossus called Ngugi wa Thiong’o has been pocking into the same post-independence feelings. It is the feeling of heart broken yearning, “I am nothing because I have nothing” as one Tanzanian poet forcefully puts it.

Mugabe dodged walking this Kenyan path with the war veterans. And he rewarded them in excess and built an unshakable wall of loyalty around him by those who shared a common identity of anti-imperialists, a common cause to die for their land and a political consciousness of Mugabe as the father – and you only have one father in life. Mugabe constructed a whole culture into which his dictatorship found roots.

Of course, the Zimbabwe conflict was nothing of a clash of deeply divided sentiments as was in Kenya or Rwanda. It was just one massive brutal force of government machinery let loose upon the powerless who decided that Mugabe had done his part, and that he had to go democratically. That is why Zimbabwe did not have a people-against-people type of clashes. That is also why Zimbabwe should be easier to heal. The people share much more in common than in division. And my Zimbabwe will heal.

Times of the struggle came and went with confusion of leadership at times. And the songs went “Vaparidzi vawanda / Hatichavizi wekutevera / Honai Baba tadzungaira” to mean “There are too many preachers in Zimbabwe / We no longer know which one to listen to. / Lord, we are thoroughly confused.” After the victory and the war was done, The Green Arrows sang, “Mr. Mugabe is now in control, / Now we know who to follow. / Behold Lord, we have been liberated.”
These Chimurnga Songs planted something deep into the hearts of the people with the all excitement of liberation what their eyes had seen of colonial oppression. As Malawians proverbially put it, “What gets into the ears spreads a mat in the heart” (Kadalowa mkhutu kadayala mphatsa) and “What the eye has seen the heart cannot forsake” (Chaona maso mtima suiwala). They saw the oppression and heard the songs.

That is the power of Chimurenga Songs, and the power of popular culture in planting political ideology. It plants what generations cannot easily dislodge. And Comrade Robert Mugabe’s legacy of survival cannot go without what happened to the hearts of Zimbabweans in the secret rooms of their souls from the Chimurenga War of liberation across their calm and stormy waters of the times that followed.

Mugabe seems to have discovered a secret which African leaders are yet to fully see, the power of using culture to govern hearts of a nation. This is what Terry Eagleton speaks of in his book called The Idea of Culture. “To govern successfully, [we] must therefore understand men and women in their secret desires and aversions, not just in their voting habits and social aspirations. If [we are] to regulate them from inside, it must also imagine them from inside”.

Gathering loyalty and votes goes beyond studying “voting habits” and gauging what the electorates aspire for. This is the Malawi Congress Party has remained a significantly solid party at the seams despite being led by people with neither repute, charisma nor vision as Gwanda Chakwamba and John Tembo have been. The party was made a political norm among the Chewa admirable for our Gule Wamkulu secret society culture that rallies a common sense of identity now being whipped into political identity.

This is what culture can do, writes Eagleton. British Colonisation used culture to conquer our spirit. They used literature in the schools and language (these mirrors and vehicles of culture) to make Africans feel that European life was the norm and our African way of living was abnormal. Norms are necessarily cultural. And their legacy now made part of our norms today stubbornly refuses to go.

Mugabe used the spirit of popular culture to make himself popular with those that shared a common heart of Chimurenga struggle against Western exploitation of gold, diamonds and land. Common sense now says the richer an African country is in minerals, the more it will be a site of conflict – often involving the hand of invisible forces beyond Africa.

And Mugabe appealed to the sympathy of the region by invoking that which had spread a mat in the hearts of African leaders, something deep in our history, something deeper than the bottom of the soul – the sensitivity of land and Western exploitation.

Now, it is over. Mugabe has pledged to share power with Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Arthur Mutambara. Signing the deal is one thing, a political milestone in the smiles of Africa, implementing is yet another.

The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) spoke with furious silence, very loud silence. For all his political prowess, even Nelson Mandela could only speak eight words, “The Zimbabwe situation is a crisis of leadership” – well, perhaps only five calculated words: a crisis of leadership! Mandela only described the situation, and never condemned Mugabe.

Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika took to the pulpit and told the world that “the Zimbabwe situation is an African problem, and it must solved by Africans.” Now every African leader who spoke at the power-sharing ceremony said the same one thing. This was an African collective stand, a loud political statements made by a community coming of age.

There is something historically African about Zimbabwe which is a shared problem of the region. Land is a sensitive spot wherever you go in Africa, and the West should have known, besides our minerals being depleted beneath that land. Britain had betrayed Mugabe from the Lancaster House agreement to resolve land problems amicably. The West had failed Zimbabweans.

When Mugabe took desperate and defiant measures by kicking out White farmers unceremoniously, he became a daemon in the eyes of the West. The economy collapsed, most likely because Mugabe had provoked sentiments of those who control multinational economy and trade at our stage of globalization where every economy is significantly determined by global network economic forces. Western media told us the economy is collapsing because farming is affected with the eviction, and this was true, but half of the whole truth.

The silence of the SADC region made four statements to the West. One, we do not want another mayhem and Iraqi in Zimbabwe. We shall not solve Zimbabwe the American way. A war in Zimbabwe would mean a chaos that would dive in to the control their precious minerals too. Malawi’s and Zambia’s economies would suffer as we trade with South Africa via Zimbabwe, and the economic cancer would easily spread. Two, you let our brother down and now you cannot spring back like holy saviours. Three, we Africans are capable of being in charge of our affairs – not that we can completely do away with the West (just as they cannot fully do without us) but that we must be in charge of our destiny. Four, every funeral has its mourners. Zimbabwe was our funeral, and we had to mourn it the African cultural way. After all, politics exists within cultures -- and culture can be the language of politics.

But where did Mugabe go wrong? He unleashed state machinery to suffer his own people, already suffering the yoke of economic dearth. This is why no human sanity can forgive of Mugabe. His internal politics was at best unacceptable, brutally inhuman and what no African leader should dare again.

While some may argue that the power deal in Zimbabwe is rewarding those who lose votes in a democracy, let it be remembered that it remains an exit strategy for Mugabe. After sharing power with Tsvangirai, Mugabe will not be there for the next elections. Besides, it is only politically practical and humane to avert more suffering, bloodbaths and deaths of the many by pretending to appease the daemons that wreak death and havoc, at least as strategy of sending them to rest forever.

But certainly, there is a sense in which the British government ought to have suffered shame and defeat because they wanted to see Mugabe unmasked naked of all human dignity.

But in their suffering and dying, never take away their human dignity. Never. Dignity is the last thing of man to go with. And let Comrade Mugabe go with his dignity, after all his sins. Let the dying go with their human dignity.