Recently I landed at Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe with a friend from the United States around 4 O’clock in the evening.
It took us almost two hours to drive from the airport to the hotel where my guest was lodging. It is a distance which usually takes about 30 to 40 minutes, but on that Friday evening, the traffic jam forced us to take two hours.
From the traffic jam of that evening, it was obvious that either many people are buying vehicles or our authorities are dilly-dallying in expanding the road infrastructure.
After enduring two hours on such a short stretch, we finally arrived at the hotel where I had dinner with my guest.
Why are Malawians obsessed with negativity? My guest asked me as we were having dinner.
“What do you mean?” I retorted.
My guest took time to explain that prior to his trip to Malawi, the picture he had of the country was completely different from what he saw and experienced.
“The pictures of pot-holed roads, dilapidated grass-thatched houses, ruined school blocks and plenty negative stories that Malawians themselves post on social media are not a reflection of what is on the ground,” he said.
I told him that while the picture was rosy in the city, the situation was pathetic in the rural areas and in the outskirts of the city.
“But if the situation is rosy in the cities and pathetic in the rural areas, why don’t Malawians post pictures portraying the two situations showing inequalities side by side? Why are you, people just possessed with the negative side of life? How can you inspire others if all you enjoy posting on social media are dilapidated houses, pot-holed roads and children learning under the tree?”
I still stood my ground that he would understand the situation better once we travel to rural areas.
My turn to prove a point came the next day as we drove to Mangochi. Pointing at grass-thatched mud houses, I explained to him how terrible the situation was in the rural area.
“I appreciate that the these grass-thatched huts leave a lot to be desired but why should someone in his right senses just be interested in the dilapidated houses without even taking scenic pictures of this area and post them on social media to give the full picture of the situation?” he asked.
He added: “Why single out mud-houses only when there are also houses with corrugated iron-sheets in the same villages?”
In his opinion, most Malawians enjoy negativity and this is why instead of concentrating on publicising pictures that can inspire others by highlighting achievements made, they concentrate on the doom and the gloom side of life.
I still defended the practice that the pictures of doom and gloom are amplified both in the mainstream and social media in order to prompt responsible authorities to take action.
“We publish those pictures as a call for urgent intervention,” I explained.
“But then why don’t we see pictures of what has been fixed?” he hit back.
For almost an hour, my guest insisted that our obsession with negativity at the expense of some positive strides made is counter-productive.
Despite the arguments I advanced, I believe my guest was right in some aspects.
What I did not tell him was that though our national elections are a year away, politics is also dictating what is posted on social media. There are those who believe that pictures of wrecked huts, broken-down bridges, rickety school blocks and filthy markets are the best campaign tools to outdo others.
We tend to forget that as we demean our rival political parties on social media, we are marketing our nation across the globe as poverty-stricken people who are not ashamed to magnify our poverty.
Our minds are so clogged with negativity that it actually sometimes takes the initiatives of foreigners to remind us that despite all our other problems, we have a very beautiful freshwater lake surrounded by picturesque hills.
We love poverty and negativity so much that we have no time to post pictures of our national parks and game reserves online. Instead of posting online about the magnificent hotels and upmarket mansions being built in most parts of the country including in rural areas, our obsession is with decrepit infrastructure.
Courtesy of our obsession of poverty and negativity, even those that are well off, still talk like paupers, behave like paupers, eat like paupers and are even proud to advertise their negativity and poverty online.
The sad reality about our fondness for negativity is that even the knowledge we acquire from institutions of high learning fail to diffuse the negativity mania and poverty mentality. We have citizens in this country who live in mansions and drive latest limousines like kings of some oil-rich nations yet when you interact with them they still speak, act, behave and live like failures. This is a disease called a mentality of poverty.
What am I twisting here?
Focusing so heavily on the negativity paints a hopeless picture of the state of our situation and create an impression that we have a daunting and insurmountable task to promote positive change in our country. When you are in a state of hopelessness as a result of negativity, you do not even attempt to try to change your situation. You start believing that you were born to suffer.
Our fixation on negativity prompts most of us to amplify every challenge we have, instead of tackling it with determination. We have reached a stage where our fascination for negativity prompts some of us to hate any positive developments and even progress made at all levels – be it individual, community and national level.
Let’s take one example at national level. Whether one likes it or not, fuel prices have been stable over that past two years. Our currency is also enjoying the much-needed stability while our inflation has hit a single digit. Even global financial institutions like World Bank and International Monetary Fund acknowledge this as a good feat.
But lo, when someone posted that positive news on Facebook, some people were actually angry that the local currency and fuel prices are stable. Instead of patting ourselves on the back that we are making progress, we do not even want to acknowledge it. We have reduced ourselves to slaves of negativity and victims of poverty mentality.
I don’t care the political implications of that positive news on both sides of the political divide, but economic progress benefits all of us and it is worthy celebrating about.
The moral of the story is that as we highlight our shortfalls whether at personal, family, institutional or national level, it is also important to celebrate our achievements.
We cannot inspire others when all we focus on is about the dark side of our lives, our communities, our country and our people. Let’s learn to celebrate our success stories.
Leave a Reply