MULUZI UNDER ARREST:  BINGU TO ARREST POVERTY IN MALAWI

31 years after the MCP regime led by Tembo today, 31 years after the most painful rule Malawi has ever witnessed, we were once again witnessing the ruining and annihilation of a nation’s social-economic supremacy with the Muluzis led UDF government. Old nightmares were revisited; one party dictatorialship scheme was nearby through constitutional amendments designed for the presidential third term promotion. The one party state was next door with the transformed defunct MYP into Young Democrats. The one party system was within us by way of attaining total regionalism/nepotistic values. The Kamuzu and Tembos MCP dictatorship was about to happen anytime before Bingu.

Today, what Malawians wish to witness as a new years present are the early maneuvers in a struggle not just to bring Muluzis old habits of hypocrisy, exploitation and inequality to justice but to ensure that his eventual fate becomes a deterrent to others. With Muluzis leadership, Malawi’s democracy which had seemed a hardier plant in other SADC states became more fragile than the citizens had thought hence must always be guarded against its enemies.

My purpose in declaring theses personal reactions is rather because the feelings of awfulness of Muluzis cruelty is balanced by hope, a tribute to the fact that in democracies the legitimacy of justice does eventually come out even if it takes decades to do so. Muluzi has amassed his wealth by unscrupulous means and he is professional eradicator. What we should do with that information is up to the present government and all of us. We can no longer rely on ignorance as an excuse for tolerating corruption within Muluzis leadership or for failing to call our own elected politician to account when they change into tyrants. We have entered the uncharted territory, armed not with assumptions but evidences, we can find out facts about anything from the likely affects of Muluzi-Bingu reconciliatory talks to what is happening to late Stambulis postmortem.

I don’t claim to have a complete 101% set of answers and evidence to all the corruption charges that exist. But what I do know for certain is that Muluzi served us very crookedly and unproductively, and that the new values that are emerging based on recognition of Bingus reactions hold out the hope of creating a better, fairer, and a more humane alternative to the country. Of course I don’t expect the arrest of Muluzi and others over night, nor do I underestimate the governments’ forces of reaction to arrest them all. But, whether they come in the costume of ACBs or the DPPs oxymoronic compassionate conservatism or any species of creed fundamentalism, Malawians are yet to verify. However, what exactly is it that Bingus government is doing about corruption arrests over Muluzi and his other bootlickers that we ordinary patriotic citizens do not understand? We know what is happening on corruption and theft arrests but we do not know why it is happening unsatisfactorily. We hear and read about it but we don’t understand anything on Muluzi and other top figures involved. We are told everything about corruption and theft total stamp-out stance with Bingus led-government yet we can’t understand it. We would like to know what we haven’t been told by Bingus government today.

The media in Malawi must instantaneously retain a particularly important role to play in the national social –economic development. More than any other walk of life, they need to facilitate in shaping images and perceptions.  It’s not political facts themselves that are decisive but rather the way in which local Malawian people perceive those facts. And it is solely the mass media, the journalists, Programme architects and people in change of programming who might directly influence such perceptions. There are many fine examples of best practice in how programs could deal with fine tuning the ideal implication of politics, civilizing differences, corruption, hunger and poverty as the right way forward for us all. Similarly, the Malawian media need to be able to draw on new areas of competence to promote national education and training about democratic values. Malawi needs more than just freedom of the press; it needs a soul (soul press). The Malawian media can help through their professionalism as journalists to play a decisive role in reshaping the country’s social status day by day, especially given the trend towards democratization, one all too often plagued by intolerance and chauvinism. It’s imperative as journalists to face up to this responsibility and seize the underground opportunities open to them as professionals. They need to establish knowledge networks that will help Malawians face the challenges that lie ahead. We have to aim to harness the very best and most positive forces to ensure that the Muluzi way of politics is never repeated. It can happen with any leader. It is up to us to make sure it never happens again.