Malawi my beloved country is no longer the Warm Heart of Africa. Her fortunes have taken a fatal turn. Today, my Malawi has become the ‘Bleeding Heart of Africa’ vulnerable to much scorn. My country has lost direction.
She is without control. My nation is a runaway train at risk of crushing into the wilderness of the great wailing of her children. Her citizens can no longer sing an anthem of peace and hope.
What is peace without sustenance? Everywhere I look a state of deprivation rules. That the ‘first essential component of social justice is adequate food’ for citizens hold no more. Nor is it pursued that food is the moral right of all people born into this world.
Leaders of my people talk not about rights of the people; they talk politics, money and power. Development and politics are cryptically confused. I now know that politics and politicians are the greatest enemy to the peace and dignity of my people. Now my people have to turn to madeya for survival, for a joyless existence
But my country is in the hands of nonchalant leaders satisfied with selfpromoting talk. Melancholic voices
of lamentation are rudely ignored. My leaders refuse to listen and instead mock collective wisdom and call citizens names. They never learn, neither from mortals nor God.
Yet I shall not relent. I shall sing my song of lamentations till the burden is removed and a new dawn visits my people.
You leaders do not be like children taking matters of food so lightly. To the wise food is security; food is economy; and food is energy. Is it not Woodrow Wilson who says ominously that hunger does not breed reforms; hunger breeds madness and all the ugly distempers that make an ordered life impossible?
Hungry people cannot see right or wrong. Hungry people just see food.
Hunger makes thieves of good people, robbing its victims of humanness and replacing it with red-hot anger. Where there’s hunger there is no hope.
What do leaders expect from hungry people if not breach of peace and calm, law and order? A nation of starving people will know neither peace nor safety because hunger nurtures violence resulting from deep feelings of dehumanisation and a war of survival That is what the wise mean when they say njala ndi nkhondo.
These are my lamentations that the new babies and children of my nation are threatened with malnutrition, ill health and death. The leaders of my country have refused to remove indignities in the situation of their mothers and fathers.
What will the babies drink and eat?
What life is to go on with all the pain and disempowering realities of early death of children and mothers? I wish my leaders empathised with lives that could end right now; with the infirm who do not have the energy to fight for food.
Do my leaders understand that millions need protection not just from the pangs of hunger but from long term poor health?
But then what is health if hospitals once dependable have neither the drugs nor right-minded workers to attend to people so desperate and despondent?
I wonder if my leaders understand that it is not for nothing that God puts them in positions of leadership of the people He so much loves. Yes, I pray the leaders understand that they are in a Holy Compact with the Almighty to take care of citizens of the country they are placed to lead.
When people were hungry, Jesus did not say now is that political or social? He said I will feed you because good news to a hungry person is not bread.
And so times without number I have asked myself why all this torture. Why does all this pain befall my people, even as other nations fruitfully progress amid loud laughs of joy ringing in the valleys and atop the mountains?
But then I know what is killing my people, yes I do:
My leaders impress upon me the feeling that they do not consider that hunger cannot be a choice; if a choice then hunger becomes a luxury for those who live in plenty.
Painfully, my people starve in the midst of plenty if only leaders put their hearts on those who suffer needlessly.
I know that my country is rich but its leaders elect to keep my people poor, disinformed and powerless. My people have no access to resources they need to feed themselves without the crushing weight of political patronage.
I understand better now. I have become much wiser about the misfortunes of my people and feel ennobled to speak out.
My people work hard but with hands tied by heartless exploiters who cannibalise their meagre income before it reaches their bruised hands.
Their income is doubly compromised in sum and power. What income my people make won’t buy enough of what sustains lives. Their economy is run aground they know only suffering, neglect and ignominy.
In my country politics is supreme. The ‘politics of maize’ has for long unjustly consigned my people to dependence and resignation. Dignity lost, independence compromised and resources manipulated by politicians, my people still fail to advance 50 years on.
I know my people are dying because they have always trusted leaders they should not trust. My people have committed their emotions to pleasing politicians, selling their pure conscience to a few at the expense of many exposed to untold maltreatment.
My people have been brainwashed; indoctrinated into silence even in times when they should scream. They are dying because they must be fed and not feed themselves for maize is a political crop employed to overlord it over poor voiceless people.
Yes, the leaders are so callous they have turned most of my people into un-irritable powerless zombies who smile even when leaders demean, dehumanise and brutalise them and get away with millions of their tax money.
Let he who has a heart hearken the lamentations of the people.
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