Yesterday we were commemorating Martyr's Day. Indeed, the people who spearheaded the fight for our independence. A couple of months ago we singled out one of them by the name of Reverend John Chilembwe and celebrated his day too. I have used all these holidays for studying and resting (that combination is possible when you are me) and there was nothing whatsoever about.
Later in the year we will have another holiday called Independence Day. Somehow the freedom fighters will also be mentioned. I will probably not be interested in that at the time so I will write about independence now.
For long we have talked about Malawi being independent for 50+ years, but I somehow think that the word "independence" is grossly abused when it comes to this.
I do not need to go into the dictionary to show you how we abuse the word "independence". Dividing the word into its two main roots, you will find that it is a prefix "in-" connected to the word "dependence". In simple terms it means "no dependence"; thinking of it from those lines, that is.
I find it hard to think that we are not dependent. You and I have heard our esteemed leaders grant an interview saying that the country's economic woes are coming about because of lack of donor support. Whether that is true or not is a subject of debate and I will not get into that. All I take from such statements is that we are not truly independent. In my view, freedom is the word that best describes our situation. We have the freedom of self-governance but are not really independent.
Next time you want to talk about Malawi's 50 years or so of independence, think of what Prof. Kamwezi wrote on his blog.
Some of you might be wondering as to why I am busy talking about this instead of being busy preparing for the scary exams I have on Tuesday and Wednesday this coming week. Well. It is simple.
Just like every problem we have in this country begins from the state machinery through various societies to the individual, this whole issue of mistaking freedom from independence has affected us at individual level.
Those who have been in college can bear witness (from observation and experience) that some of us consider this a period of independence from parents. I am not talking about this in it's semantic sense. What I mean is that we do want our parents and guardians to stay out of our way when we are doing our "not-so-clever" (stupid, in other words) thing, while we look to the same people to support us. Tulo. Better I not talk about that. It is probably a lame example, but I am sure dear readers have their own examples which they will share in the comment box.
The whole point of this was just to shed the light and to emphasize on the thin line between independence and freedom. The idea is not that freedom is bad. Neither is it that independence is always good.
To talk of freedom, there is a need for some degree of freedom in every person and society's being. That sort of gives you the autonomy to do some things without having to check in with someone else and having a second opinion from someone.
On the other hand, freedom should come with responsibility and independence comes in a bit handy with freedom. If you want to exercise freedom, you need to have what it takes to exercise it. ("If you don't legalize homosexuality we will not give you aid". Remember?)
While we acknowledge the fact that independence is important, we also do not have to forget that no man is an island and that we need one or two people or things at some point to come to our aid. At some point, we need to work our own way around issues, though. For those of us who have people who mentor or advise us, it is important to balance this independence-freedom complex. While we might look for opinions, it is good to fractionate them, extract the sense and use it to make a decision. The fact that we have people helping us should not make us lose our ability to make decisions.
To summarize this, there is a line between freedom and independence. All of these are good but the most important thing to realize is that if we focus on freedom alone, we will end up being enslaved by the freedom and we will not be able to experience the true joy of independence.
The wise one has spoken. (This is a joke. Laugh!)
The issue of independence was not necessarily a matter of not depending anything from anyone, the principle was to attain self-government, thus political freedom if we can borrow ur word. Suffice the tym soon after gaining independence,we made many wrong choices as a nation (e.g immortalizing politicians like Kamuzu, prioritizing on nonsensical issues, etc) which has diluted the meaning of self-government hence we can be dictated by the west on issues. To say the least, no country is fully independent in all spheres of life, what mattered is that we can safely choose own leaders who we think can steal little than the others before them. Independence is a superficial term when aspersed on oyher horizons of human life, we celebrate political independence on 6 july
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