The so-called "Violence"

 It is a Friday so we will get on with it.

January 9, 2022. The time is 7:19 am. It is still too dark to be up for many on this part of this rock you call planet earth but I am up already. Having taken a break from whatever made me leave bed early, I go to Facebook where I type.

“I come to Facebook to read original content. There is something about people who share pieces of their mind on different issues. No recycled memes or regurgitations of opinions of their favourite social media influencer. I love unapologetic content. The sort of stuff brittle souls call violent content.

That being said, ine munthu oti amangobwera pamudzi pano kumazapanga post ma pictures opanda ma caption sangandiuze chochita.”

Remember this quote because I will come back to it.

The next page I visit is the Nation Publications Limited because I need to catch up with what’s happening ku Mpanje before I go on to read entertainment gossip on Mikozi and interesting stories on Pemphero Mphande’s page (you people are doing weird things). And did I say Pemphero Mphande?

A couple of weeks ago I was on that page. It must have been a Wednesday because that is when the page gets flooded with stories from ladies. One particular lady was in Pemphero’s inbox asking him to post a story so that she could try to look for the needle of advice in the haystack of mean comments. Her issue? The boyfriend, of course. It is always the boyfriend. I cannot remember the exact issue, but it probably is something about cleanliness. The guy is not taking care of himself. She is afraid of talking to him because she fears it may hurt his feelings. Or is it ego? Whatever. Semantics.

I happen to drop comments on Mr Mphande’s page from time to time so I throw away my mean personality and offer some advice. The advice? “Sometimes feelings need to be hurt before some people can seriously change their attitude enough to change their actions and habits. You need to tell him things as they are.” I probably didn’t comment exactly as reported but you get the idea. Probably didn’t throw away my mean personality too.

Time to get to today’s issues.

When I wrote about original content on Facebook of January 9, I did not expect a lot of engagement from people on the post. I was to get the shocker of my life because people came from all sorts of corners. Their comments? I was being violent. The interesting bit was their argument for labelling my post as violent, the last bit of the post. “That being said, ine munthu oti amangobwera pamudzi pano kumazapanga post ma pictures opanda ma caption sangandiuze chochita.” “I cannot take people who just come online to post pictures without captions seriously.” Most but a few seriously found a problem with that and chose to ignore the essence of the post which was encouraging the responsible use of Facebook for the pursuit of knowledge and alternative opinions. All they picked out was the vayolensi, which I am told is different from violence in ways no one can explain coherently. Story for another day.

Of late people have labelled my posts on the social media as violent and while I do not agree with that connotation, I will admit that I do some of these things by design. The reason is the same one I commented when I was offering to the lady who asked Mr Mphande and the followers of his page for advice. Sometimes people only pay attention to things when you have touched a nerve.

Those of you who like me were raised by disciplinarians for parents may relate to this. Whenever you went on the wrong side of the household’s set of both written and unwritten rules you would get verbal and physical torture. That helped to keep you in check. The problem nowadays is that we have watered down the language we use to communicate whenever people are in the wrong. As a result, we struggle to tell people that what they have done is stupid whenever we need to out of fear of hurting other people’s feelings. Before you go flat out and lose teeth over this, I am not telling you to go around calling people stupid, but you need to call people out for doing stupid things whenever it is due. It helps you. It helps them.

The two-sided problem we have nowadays is that we are increasingly getting softer for one reason or the other. I am not sure if we are following this western way of too much tact and diplomacy that is making us fail to even ask for money people owe us for the sake of preserving friendship. We have people who are afraid of telling others what is going on and giving them honest feedback. We are also people who are not ready to take negative feedback positively. The result is that we are just a bunch of 30-year-old babies walking on eggshells; people whose main priority is to avoid hurting others’ feelings. We are always heaping praise on each other even for doing the wrong things. We can’t rebuke each other when in the wrong. Remember the last time someone sat you down to tell you what you did was wrong? Some of you may say it has been a minute and that is one of the reasons we may be getting softer as a generation. I fear for our children.

Having said all that, I am inclined to think that I have some clever solutions to this problem and the first one is that we all need to be exposed to some sort of trolling. Every single one of you needs to join and to be active on Twitter and that will exponentially increase your chances of meeting bullies who will remind you that you have flaws, and you are not special. Of course, I am joking. Not everyone can handle Twitter and the mean community called Twitter Malawi, but that may be a start for some of you.

For most of you, I would prescribe mentorship. You need to make a deliberate effort to find someone who can give you honest feedback about what you are doing. This may be someone older or senior, but it must be someone wise, knowledgeable, and experienced enough to talk some sense into you. The reason I am suggesting this is that most of you who are just moving out of your parents’ homes to start your own lives are now losing the connection with parents and with that the vital feedback you need to live an upright life. We are a generation of people that are becoming slaves to their own freedom and that is why we need figures that can slap the sense into us whenever we stray. Listen to parents, guardians and older siblings. When they have the knowledge, let them give you the feedback and do not just go when you feel like you are doing the right things. Let them know when you mess up too. So that they can shout at you and hammer some sense into you.

Another one? Pick your friends right. You need to have those people that can tell you to stop things whenever they are headed the wrong way. This whole thing of kumangoipatsa moto when our friends are doing the wrong things does not help anyone. I remember having been sat down by a friend who questioned my spending habits then. I hated him for it because I thought he did not have the right to say it (I started kupanga zondisangalatsa before it was cool), but when I think about it today, his advice saved me a lot. You need to have those friends you can tell that clubbing four weekends a month is not the way to go and those you can listen to when your promiscuous habits are questioned. Kumaletsana. Kumadzudzulana. It helps. Don’t be afraid to tell your spouse of what they are doing wrong for fear of hurting their feelings.

That being said, I am all against this whole soft talking and heavily censored kind of conversations. I encourage the use of raw opinions and feedback to instill change. I have lost a couple of friends to brutal honesty, and I know I will keep losing some. I have learnt to appreciate the people who sit me down and tell me that what I am doing is wrong although I may not admit it on a normal sunny day. The thing is just that I do not believe that we can push ourselves to greater heights if we continue this eggshell walking and shy away from giving each other uncomfortable pieces of advice or feedback.

In 2021 we were calling people out using memes which were captioned in ways that told people to wear the cap if it was fitting. I don’t think that took us anywhere. People do not make firm decisions to move out of their comfort zones when they are laughing. Memes do not cut it. Soft and kind words do not cut it. You need to turn the heat up a notch and use some brutally honest words to bring the desired effect. Others call it violence and for purposes of this article I will join the bandwagon. Nowadays we should just go flat out and call people out using our own words and in our own handwriting. If it is a spade, unapologetically call it a spade. Do not call it a shovel.

I will be using kind words sparingly this year because my general observation is that they make people soft.

Good luck being in my circle.