A couple of days ago, it was claimed that Malawi’s population needed to be controlled because it is too high. Reports indicate that this was the view of Minister of Finance, Goodall Gondwe, during the launching ceremony of this year’s population and housing census. This line of thought masks the real problem in Malawi.
The problem is not the number of people, but rather the number of people who are poor. There is a difference. If Malawi is going to solve the problem of poverty, then there is need to start questioning some of these myths that give Malawi the illusion of progress by focusing on the wrong things when real issues are not being addressed.
When something is repeated a number of times, it does not matter whether it is false or not. The more a statement is repeated by several individuals, the more the human brain begins to believe it. Psychologists have, for a long time, studied this phenomenon and found it to be true.
Politicians learnt this tactic a long time ago. Propaganda actually aims at doing exactly that. The more people hear a statement, the more likely they will believe it is true regardless of what the facts say about it. Even when the facts are there for all to see, they close their eyes and hear something else.
One of the statements that have been repeated by many observers is that Malawi is overpopulated. The word ‘over’ in ‘overpopulated’ presumes that there is a certain level of population that is in order. Does anyone know what that level it is? Unfortunately, no one has ever defined ‘overpopulation’. What, exactly, is it? How do we know if a country is overpopulated? If overpopulation indeed exists, is there such a thing as ‘underpopulation’? And what is the right population for Malawi?
One of the statements used to exhaustion by various commentators is that the population density of Malawi is among the highest in the world, hence the country’s poverty. Unfortunately, this statement is repeated over and over again to the extent that everyone accepts it without question. But it is a lie! It is an ‘illusion of the truth’.
Let us examine the facts according to this year’s World Development Indicators data. Monaco has a population density of 20,204 people per square kilometre (km), Singapore has 7,909 per square km, Hong Kong has 6,987 per square km and Bahrain has 1,848 per square km. These countries are richer than Malawi by far with a population density of 192 people per square km.
The Netherlands has a population density of 506 people per square km while Belgium has 374 per square km. Are these countries poor? How then do you explain the definition of overpopulation if countries such as the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, with higher population densities than Malawi, are never called overpopulated? And even when these facts are publicly available, people deliberately ignore them. Why? Because they do not fit their myths.
This leads one to question the overused myth that overpopulation equals poverty. Poverty is caused by something else. Therefore, focusing on factors that are not responsible for poverty, like population, will not lead to any workable solutions. Instead of asking why countries with higher population densities have become rich over the years, Malawians are busy wasting resources and energy trying to deal with overpopulation which has no bearing on a country’s poverty.
There is an assumption that with fewer children, families can achieve better investment for their children. This is where the problem is. The arguments begin from the wrong end. This statement presumes that there is wealth or investment already available. But factors that make a country productive are known to all. Some of these factors are investment in good health for the working age and quality education. Malawi should, among others, focus on the two.
Overpopulation has also been blamed for chronic food shortage across the country. And yet we are not even among the top 60 most densely-populated countries in the world. For those that do not know, Malawi has the ability to feed its people twice over if resources were put to prudent use. Israel has a population density of 387 people per square km and is a major exporter of fresh farm produce and a world leader in agricultural technologies.
Compare this with starving Malawi, a country blessed with abundant resources and capable of feeding itself throughout the year. Poverty in the country is so common that it does not make news anymore. In contrast, the geographical location of Israel is not conducive to agriculture. More than half of the land area in the Middle Eastern nation is desert, and the climate and lack of water resources do not favour farming. Only 20 per cent of the land area is naturally arable.
That is why some of us agree with Tom Stafford, a professor of psychology and cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield, who describes the “illusion of truth” as a condition when frequently hearing a statement repeated makes reasonable people hearing the statement believe it is true even when they are aware of a contradictory fact. Malawi is not overpopulated and poverty is not caused by high population density. The facts on the ground do not support the theory!
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