Of Malawians and their Noise

This is one wonderful Friday and it had to be punctuated with an article unlike the last one. Za last week zatha.

This week has been so full of unusual happenings and current affairs have been so much so that even I could not help but notice that it's been a noisy week. There is so much that happened in Parliament, at Mount Soche and in the Sports circles.

Let's start with what matters. Parliament has been in session and one of the highlights of the week was that of Kamlepo. I didn't watch the whole thing either live or on the repeat broadcast, but I am told he talked of how the Police lied to the public about his whole abduction saga and how people have been spying on him through one Diktator. There was also the wrangle between the same Rumphi whatever legislator with one Henry Mussa (provoked by the latter, of course). I would say that parliament is an expected source of drama and that I am not surprised that things happened that way. On the other hand, the whole noise this issue has created and the noise Kamlepo is making on the whole issue sounds unwarranted to me. We can't have issues of (self-?) staged abductions of some opposition politicians making headlines. The government mercenaries I know just kill you, whenever you are being a pain in their bottom. They don't kidnap you and leave you nicely dressed at some roundabout in town. I might be wrong on the premise, but I don't think this was a parliament worthy discussion.

Back in the commercial capital we had the the issue of the Public Affairs Committee meeting. Well. That thing generated some hype. My impression of the whole thing was that people were going to discuss matters of national relevance and come up with a strategic plan on how to resuscitate this ailing nation. The ruling party thought it was about something as serious as calling for the head of the state and inciting impeachment and all. Result? Sects of the society were expectant and the DPP was threatened. The ruling party was so tensed up to the extent that they called for a press briefing to do some firefighting. In the press briefing they clearly said that they would attend the meeting despite not being invited. All that was interesting. Even more interesting is the fact that people invited educationists and one Wazamazama Katatu of Mzuni to come and criticize the government's inaction on the poor standards of education and college closures. To keep it short, there was a lot that was said at the meeting. Outcomes of the meeting? Well. They are as you would expect. They didn't go beyond recommendations. They are the same things we already knew and haven't been applying all along because of our stupidity and our leaders' greed. My point? There was nothing new there. What was done there was just shining a spotlight on problems we already know without providing any solutions. In Richie Online vocabulary, that is noise.

On to the next one...

This of you who follow relevant stuff know that HE left the country with yet again a lot of noise. The destination was Brussels, I guess because I heard a mention of the EU and its meeting of some sort. Yeah. To meet the infamous donors. In case you forgot we are still in an era where the government's abilities are rated by how much of trust donors have regained in the government machinery. As Malawians, our response to the Belgium visit was positive to neutral. The outcry, however, came when we heard the leader was making a stop in Oxford University to address students there. Some called for a petition to stop the leader from speaking there as he has done very little if anything  to improve the situation of the public universities for whom he is Chancellor. Makes sense, right? Somehow. At the end of the day I am still wondering as to what effect a viral Whatsapp message could have on the president's program. Assuming that the petition actually works and HE gets barred from addressing a number of yearos and associate finales, I am still left with the question as to what effect that could have on our public universities.

One namesake of mine posted some outcries of the common Malawian who seems to always be complaining about energy, food security, poor education standards, lack of basic health services and everything else. He finished by saying that Malawians will be offered a chance to change that come 2019. I was quick to point out that it's not that simple as people might opt for the easier option of re-election the current regime and complaining for the other 5 years. Better the devil you know, right? My response ignited yet another debate and we ended up concluding that even when we talk of regime change, we hardly have someone (or no team of people) that has what it takes to fix this nation in our frontline politics. The people who are good at these things have chosen to stay in the background and complain about the ignoramuses running things but before you blame them, remember that you are allergic to voting for someone who hasn't been through the UDF group of parties. All we will remain with is noise and complaining and nothing will change.

Back to our own lives, there are a lot of things we complain of without doing anything about, when we can actually move a thing or two to fix them. Apparently you just spent some minutes reading an article that's shining a spotlight on problems without highlighting clear solutions to the problems. At the end of the day, the article is just another noisy piece.

Still better than no article, right?

Have a wonderful weekend.