The majority of Malawians strongly believe in the existence of a supernatural world, whose members interact with living humans from time to time. Stories abound of people indulging in evil practices through invocation of these supernatural characters.
If an individual works so hard in his/her garden that they get bumper yields, people become suspicious of them and sooner or later, there will be a rumour to the effect that the prosperous individual actually employs ndondocha (miniature characters from the spirit world) to work in his/her garden. The rumour will be so rife that everybody will believe it, casting the concerned individual in very poor light.
Maize mills are believed not to run purely on diesel or electricity. The owner, so the belief goes, would usually murder a relation and "install" them in the mill to do the work. Owners of maize mills in rural Malawi are not the best loved people in society.
There is a more modern variant of witchcraft known as satanism. Even educated Malawians strongly believe in, and fear, satanism. Several years ago, a colleague of mine came into my home, and upon seeing some snail shells that I had collected from the lake in the house, he was horrified and said, "these items are the telephone handsets which demons use to communicate with each other!" Too many Malawians watch Nigerian films and take the stories therein for real.
It is not the purpose of this article to affirm or refute the existence of satanism. It is the impact of the so called satanism on business enterprise that I am concerned about. In Malawi, ingenious individuals who prosper are usually believed to be dubbling in satanism, one way or another.
These and other odd beliefs discourage Malawians from becoming entrepreneurs. The cost of becoming one is too heavy, because you will easily be associated with any of these dark practices and immediately become a misfit in society, as people will, at best, distance themselves from you, or, at worst, actively seek ways and means of eliminating you.
Friday, 4 November 2011
Monday, 31 October 2011
The Business Culture
The business culture in Malawi is still in its infancy. Traditionally, people work three to four months in a year - during the rainy season. After harvest, they take it easy and go into a lazying period. It is during this period that people socialise a lot - weddings abound, initiation ceremonies proliferate and, in some areas, Gulewamkulu enters the scene big time.
Whereas working in their fields affords Malawians the chance to do something for themselves, each family working on their small parcel of land - often less than an acre - the social activities, by contrast, are communal, giving them no real sense of ownership. Unfortunately, it is the social activities that occupy the majority of Malawians for longer periods of time than the individual activities. As a result, Malawians have not gotten accustomed to owning anything big for themselves.
The advent of formal administration did not help matters. The idea of government was foreign, its demands on the citizenry (such as poll tax) daunting, and therefore, Malawians felt alianated from it (the government). To this day, the average Malawian thinks the government is removed from him/her, that it has its own separate existence and is endowed with infinite resources. Those that are lucky will, from time to time, tap into these resources, by hood or crook, if necessary, bettering themselves in the process. But it is not possible, indeed unheard of, for an individual to own even a fraction of what the government owns. Private ownership is simply not a reality in traditional Malawi.
In the 1970s, Dr. Kamuzu Banda, in his capacity as Life President of the Republic, ordered that all Asians should leave the rural communities and ply their trade in towns and cities. The idea was to afford Malawians the chance to run businesses in the rural areas. The move may have been well intentioned, but it was ill timed, and badly backfired. One day I went to Golomoti, once a thriving trading centre, and I almost cried to see the ruins of buildings that in ages past had been Asian shops. There are many, many places like that across the country.
What Dr. Banda failed to realise was that Malawians had, by and large, not acquired the art of business acumen. True, the University of Life had taught them many things, through the institution of African culture, but they simply had been exposed to the art of owning and running businesses. The Universty did not have a Faculty of Business or Entrepreneurship. While the Faculties of Story Telling and Performing Arts were, doubtless, active and thriving, the Faculty of Business did not exist at all.
Banda's mistake was repeated by Robert Mugabe when he grabbed farms from whites in the hope that indigenous Zimbabweans would run them. It never dawned on Uncle Bob that Zimbabweans, like Malawians, had not yet spent enough time in the Faculty of Entrepreneurship. The rest, of course, is history.
This does not mean that the situation is irredeemable. Far from it, African people in Malawi and Zimbabwe (and indeed the rest of sub-Saharan Africa) are quickly learning the art of owning and running businesses. Very soon, the business landscape will change, with more and more indigenous people owning successful businesses. Who said new faculties cannot be added to universities?
Whereas working in their fields affords Malawians the chance to do something for themselves, each family working on their small parcel of land - often less than an acre - the social activities, by contrast, are communal, giving them no real sense of ownership. Unfortunately, it is the social activities that occupy the majority of Malawians for longer periods of time than the individual activities. As a result, Malawians have not gotten accustomed to owning anything big for themselves.
The advent of formal administration did not help matters. The idea of government was foreign, its demands on the citizenry (such as poll tax) daunting, and therefore, Malawians felt alianated from it (the government). To this day, the average Malawian thinks the government is removed from him/her, that it has its own separate existence and is endowed with infinite resources. Those that are lucky will, from time to time, tap into these resources, by hood or crook, if necessary, bettering themselves in the process. But it is not possible, indeed unheard of, for an individual to own even a fraction of what the government owns. Private ownership is simply not a reality in traditional Malawi.
In the 1970s, Dr. Kamuzu Banda, in his capacity as Life President of the Republic, ordered that all Asians should leave the rural communities and ply their trade in towns and cities. The idea was to afford Malawians the chance to run businesses in the rural areas. The move may have been well intentioned, but it was ill timed, and badly backfired. One day I went to Golomoti, once a thriving trading centre, and I almost cried to see the ruins of buildings that in ages past had been Asian shops. There are many, many places like that across the country.
What Dr. Banda failed to realise was that Malawians had, by and large, not acquired the art of business acumen. True, the University of Life had taught them many things, through the institution of African culture, but they simply had been exposed to the art of owning and running businesses. The Universty did not have a Faculty of Business or Entrepreneurship. While the Faculties of Story Telling and Performing Arts were, doubtless, active and thriving, the Faculty of Business did not exist at all.
Banda's mistake was repeated by Robert Mugabe when he grabbed farms from whites in the hope that indigenous Zimbabweans would run them. It never dawned on Uncle Bob that Zimbabweans, like Malawians, had not yet spent enough time in the Faculty of Entrepreneurship. The rest, of course, is history.
This does not mean that the situation is irredeemable. Far from it, African people in Malawi and Zimbabwe (and indeed the rest of sub-Saharan Africa) are quickly learning the art of owning and running businesses. Very soon, the business landscape will change, with more and more indigenous people owning successful businesses. Who said new faculties cannot be added to universities?
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Bariers to Knowledge
When my wife and I visited my late father's farm in Mchinji district, in the company of my mother, a relation of mine living on the farm insisted that we pick his eleven year old daughter, to go to school in Blantyre, where I live.
The girl, as it has turned out, is eager to lean, but, although she can just about read the local language, Chichewa, she can hardly speak a word of English, let alone read or write it. In an attempt to teach her the basics of English, I wrote a simple poem I had learnt 40 years previously in stadard 2, and asked her to read it. The response I got was intriguing - she simply burst into tears.
Her mind, her body, her whole sytems rejected the new knowledge. Come to think about it, we are like that to varying degrees. We rejectct new knowledge. And that is the reason why learning is usually a long, tideous process.
I see it in all training sessions that I conduct. Sometimes, I teach music reading to people that have not been exposed to musical notation all their life. The response I get from some trainees is one of near total rejection. I literally struggle to communicate even the simplest of musical concepts.
Knowledge is always packaged in a highly ordered pattern. The problem is that one needs to discover and unpack that pattern for them to relate to that knowledge. If the pattern is not discovered, the same knowledge will appear like unintelligible gibberish to the observer.
I once saw a fish seller in a market tearing off pages of paper from a Physics book and using them as wrappers for sun dried fish. There were a number of important formulae on those papages, but they did not mean a thing to the fish seller. Someone else would have taken the same book and gone ahead to build a nuclear reactor from its contents. But to the fish seller, it was all gibberish.
Learning involves lifting some barriers to the new knowledge. Now, to do that takes quite a bit of work and discipline. We all have these barriers; they are innate to our nature. The lazy or unexposed individuals will naturally fall behind, as others march ahead in the ongoing exercise of acquiring new knowledge.
The girl, as it has turned out, is eager to lean, but, although she can just about read the local language, Chichewa, she can hardly speak a word of English, let alone read or write it. In an attempt to teach her the basics of English, I wrote a simple poem I had learnt 40 years previously in stadard 2, and asked her to read it. The response I got was intriguing - she simply burst into tears.
Her mind, her body, her whole sytems rejected the new knowledge. Come to think about it, we are like that to varying degrees. We rejectct new knowledge. And that is the reason why learning is usually a long, tideous process.
I see it in all training sessions that I conduct. Sometimes, I teach music reading to people that have not been exposed to musical notation all their life. The response I get from some trainees is one of near total rejection. I literally struggle to communicate even the simplest of musical concepts.
Knowledge is always packaged in a highly ordered pattern. The problem is that one needs to discover and unpack that pattern for them to relate to that knowledge. If the pattern is not discovered, the same knowledge will appear like unintelligible gibberish to the observer.
I once saw a fish seller in a market tearing off pages of paper from a Physics book and using them as wrappers for sun dried fish. There were a number of important formulae on those papages, but they did not mean a thing to the fish seller. Someone else would have taken the same book and gone ahead to build a nuclear reactor from its contents. But to the fish seller, it was all gibberish.
Learning involves lifting some barriers to the new knowledge. Now, to do that takes quite a bit of work and discipline. We all have these barriers; they are innate to our nature. The lazy or unexposed individuals will naturally fall behind, as others march ahead in the ongoing exercise of acquiring new knowledge.
Monday, 26 September 2011
The Power of Language
Last month, my niece left for China to pursue a medical course, having performed extremely well in her Malawi School Certificate of Education.
She, and two other Malawian girls, will spend their first year studying the
Chinese language. I don't quite envy them in the position they find themselves in - having to learn new vocabulary, new grammar, new characters and everything else that goes with learning a new language. It must be a very daunting task.
Their courses will be delivered in the Chinese language, hence the necessity for them to spend a whole year studying the language.
Thanks to the generosity of the Chinese government, people from underprivileged corners of the world are able to afford university education in a foreign country. This is truly an act of unconditional love. Or, so it seems at face value.
Agreed, my niece and her compatriots are the ones to benefit from this act of generosity. But in the long run, it is the Chinese that stand to reap the full benefits. In neo-imperialistic fashion, they (the Chinese) are spreading their culture, their way of life, to unsuspecting young, brilliant minds.
Sooner or later the Chinese will wield a lot of power and control over the sections of the world from where the beneficiaries of their generosity will have been drawn. These Chinese speaking young graduates will subconsciously become sympathetic to anything Chinese.
The Greek language was once extensively used in academia, in business and in religion. Dr Kamuzu Banda used to believe that noone could be truly educated unless they had some knowledge of Greek [... and Latin]. There is every likelihood that the Chinese language will take the place of Greek, in the years to come, thanks to the deliberate policy of the Chinese government to offer scholarships to brilliant, young people to pursue their university education in China and in the Chinese language.
Language is power. If you can get a whole community to speak your language, you will gain the ability to control that community. The Afrikaner regime in South Africa was aware of this and attempted to make Afrikaans a compulsory language in all schools in the Republic, which sparked off the infamous Soweto uprising. The rest is history.
The Chinese have chosen a more subtle, and more benign way of doing it. But, search me, they know precisely what they are doing. They deliberately target brilliant, young minds,knowing that come ten, fifteen years from now these young people will be in influential positions, and will almost certainly not "bite the finger that will have fed them."
She, and two other Malawian girls, will spend their first year studying the
Chinese language. I don't quite envy them in the position they find themselves in - having to learn new vocabulary, new grammar, new characters and everything else that goes with learning a new language. It must be a very daunting task.
Their courses will be delivered in the Chinese language, hence the necessity for them to spend a whole year studying the language.
Thanks to the generosity of the Chinese government, people from underprivileged corners of the world are able to afford university education in a foreign country. This is truly an act of unconditional love. Or, so it seems at face value.
Agreed, my niece and her compatriots are the ones to benefit from this act of generosity. But in the long run, it is the Chinese that stand to reap the full benefits. In neo-imperialistic fashion, they (the Chinese) are spreading their culture, their way of life, to unsuspecting young, brilliant minds.
Sooner or later the Chinese will wield a lot of power and control over the sections of the world from where the beneficiaries of their generosity will have been drawn. These Chinese speaking young graduates will subconsciously become sympathetic to anything Chinese.
The Greek language was once extensively used in academia, in business and in religion. Dr Kamuzu Banda used to believe that noone could be truly educated unless they had some knowledge of Greek [... and Latin]. There is every likelihood that the Chinese language will take the place of Greek, in the years to come, thanks to the deliberate policy of the Chinese government to offer scholarships to brilliant, young people to pursue their university education in China and in the Chinese language.
Language is power. If you can get a whole community to speak your language, you will gain the ability to control that community. The Afrikaner regime in South Africa was aware of this and attempted to make Afrikaans a compulsory language in all schools in the Republic, which sparked off the infamous Soweto uprising. The rest is history.
The Chinese have chosen a more subtle, and more benign way of doing it. But, search me, they know precisely what they are doing. They deliberately target brilliant, young minds,knowing that come ten, fifteen years from now these young people will be in influential positions, and will almost certainly not "bite the finger that will have fed them."
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Training and God's Work
Two weeks ago, I attended the funeral of a man who had hanged himself in Johannesburg. The church to which the man had belonged was reluctant to conduct the funeral because of the controversial manner in which he had died.
Therefore, a fellowship (a loose grouping of believers from various churches) was called in to do the honours. Naturally, they turned out to be very good - loud, clear, logical, and I would hasten to add, spiritual. What I noticed, though, was that they went out of their way in their attempt to discredit the church that had refused to conduct the funeral service.
These enthusiastic young people said many things which I agreed with. Until, that is, they stated that training was not important for clergy. "You only need to be filled with the Holy Spirit," they asserted.
Then they went on to give the example of the Apostle Peter as somebody who faithfully and effectively proclaimed the gospel without any training, depending only on the Holy Spirit.
My own spirit said within me, "Wait a minute, the example given all but nullifies the assertion made."
First of all, Peter and his eleven compatriots spent three years with Jesus, training. They were actually called "disciples", which means "trainees". If they had lived in modern times, they would probably have been awarded diplomas.
Agreed, Peter was a man of little education. Before joining the "Jesus College", he probably receieved no education at all. Would anybody wonder why James, the brother of Jesus, and not Peter, became the head of the church in Jerusalem after Christ had left?
Does it come as a surprise that Peter and the much more learned Paul failed to click, so much so that the latter was once forced to say, "When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcission group."?
Interestingly, Peter alludes to the importance of education by acknowledging that Paul's material is difficult to understand and can easily be distorted by the uneducated (the "ignorant"). He says in 2 Peter 3:16, "His [Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort." I dont think he meant the spiritually ignorant, but those with little or no education, otherwise his own material too would have been difficult to understand.
It is my considered view that Peter would have been a better and more effective leader if he had attained a higher level of education than he did.
True, you cannot be an effective leader in the church if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in you. But if you filled with the Holy Spirit and lack education, you will not be particularly helpful, either.
Therefore, a fellowship (a loose grouping of believers from various churches) was called in to do the honours. Naturally, they turned out to be very good - loud, clear, logical, and I would hasten to add, spiritual. What I noticed, though, was that they went out of their way in their attempt to discredit the church that had refused to conduct the funeral service.
These enthusiastic young people said many things which I agreed with. Until, that is, they stated that training was not important for clergy. "You only need to be filled with the Holy Spirit," they asserted.
Then they went on to give the example of the Apostle Peter as somebody who faithfully and effectively proclaimed the gospel without any training, depending only on the Holy Spirit.
My own spirit said within me, "Wait a minute, the example given all but nullifies the assertion made."
First of all, Peter and his eleven compatriots spent three years with Jesus, training. They were actually called "disciples", which means "trainees". If they had lived in modern times, they would probably have been awarded diplomas.
Agreed, Peter was a man of little education. Before joining the "Jesus College", he probably receieved no education at all. Would anybody wonder why James, the brother of Jesus, and not Peter, became the head of the church in Jerusalem after Christ had left?
Does it come as a surprise that Peter and the much more learned Paul failed to click, so much so that the latter was once forced to say, "When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcission group."?
Interestingly, Peter alludes to the importance of education by acknowledging that Paul's material is difficult to understand and can easily be distorted by the uneducated (the "ignorant"). He says in 2 Peter 3:16, "His [Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort." I dont think he meant the spiritually ignorant, but those with little or no education, otherwise his own material too would have been difficult to understand.
It is my considered view that Peter would have been a better and more effective leader if he had attained a higher level of education than he did.
True, you cannot be an effective leader in the church if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in you. But if you filled with the Holy Spirit and lack education, you will not be particularly helpful, either.
Monday, 22 August 2011
Encounter With Gule Wamkulu
Last week, my brothers-in-law, my sisters and I travelled together in one vehicle to Nambuma, north west of Lilongwe city, to attend the funeral of a close relative. We took the earth road from Kamuzu International Airport, heading westwards.
After we had covered a distance of about 5 kilometres from the airport, we came across a team of men and women in the company of zirombo (beasts). There were two "beasts" called kasiyamaliro and following close behind was a huge njobvu (elephant). Dotted around were six or seven smaller, masked characters.
We knew that we had to stop as a mark of respect to the on-coming "entourage". One gentleman dashed forward from the group to where we had parked and demanded that all the women in the car should hide their faces with pieces of cloth. All my sisters obliged, and consequently we had a safe "passage".
My first encounter with Gulewamkulu (The big dance) was at Kongwe mission back in the 1960s. I was four years old then. I heard strange noises outside our home, and as I got out to find out who was making these noises, I met almost face to face with one strange character. Petrified with fright, I ran back into the house. On enquiry I was told the charater I had come face to face with was a kapoli.
Another close encounter was in the late 1970s. My late brother and I went to our mother's village in Dowa district during school holiday time. One day, as we were chatting with relations close to a nkhokwe (granary), two characters came by, asking for maize cob covers to roll tobacco into (a way of improvising cigarettes). For the first time I heard gulewamkulu characters speak in an intelligible language. My brother and I did not move an inch. The characters realised that there were strangers around.
The following day, two more characters came by, brandishing panga knives. We hid ourselves in our cousin's house, but they came right in, pointing to us with the pangas. Another cousin of ours came along and pleaded with the characters to leave, saying "Tulukani chonde okang'wing'wi" (Please get out Mr Kang'wing'wi). They relented, and vanished. We were saved. We learnt that it was Chimalizeni and a collegue from a neighbouring village that had disguised themselves as akang'wing'wi to intimidate us.
Gule Wamkulu is an old age institution of the Chewa people of Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. Because of its association with black magic and the use of profane language by itse adherents, it is incompatible with the Christian faith. It is, therefore, impossible to be a Christian and a practioner of Gulewamkulu at the same time.
That is as far as the negative aspects of Gulewamkulu go. On a positive note, one needs to mention that Gulewamkulu has been adopted by UNESCO as world heritage for oral tradition. The stylish dancing of its characters is hard to match, even by the likes of late Michael Jackson.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
The Place Called HHI
The area west of the Chileka Road, stretching from Mwaiwathu Private Hospital to the fence demarcating the mission and G4 Security Company has within its borders may important institutions such as the Blantyre Synod Headquarters, St Michael & All Angels Church, Henry Henderson Institute Primary and Secondary Schools and Phoenix Nursery and Primary Schools. The entire land area is known by many people as HHI (Henry Henderson Institute).
This, at any rate, is innacurrate nomenclature. The more correct name is Blantyre Mission. It started off in 1876 as a mission station of the Church of Scotland, and was named after the birth place of Dr David Livingstone. The mission established a school thirty three years later and called it the Henry Henderson Institute (HHI). Initially it only catered for primary school goers but now has a secondary school as well.
Later the commercial town that developed close to the mission grew and merged with another town to the east called Limbe, the resulting metropolis being called Blantyre [City].
Perhaps the best known facility at the Blantyre Mission is the cemetery because it gets visited by people from all walks of life. In confusion, many people refer to it as the HHI Cemetery.
Even the church often gets referred to as HHI CCAP Church. For God's sake, no church meets at HHI premises (the school). The church in question is St Michael and All Angels Church, built by Rev David Clement Scott between 1888 and 1891, long before HHI came into being.
Christians at St Michael & All Angels Church have built a 3000 seater edifice known as the Multipurpose Church Hall. The facility hosts a whole range of activities, ranging from examinations through wedding receptions to musical concerts. I recently heard a radio advertisement stating that a certain function would take place at the HHI Multipurpose Hall. Wrong! Very wrong!
Once again, the name of the place is Blantyre Mission. Calling it HHI is like calling every Toyota a "Corolla".
This, at any rate, is innacurrate nomenclature. The more correct name is Blantyre Mission. It started off in 1876 as a mission station of the Church of Scotland, and was named after the birth place of Dr David Livingstone. The mission established a school thirty three years later and called it the Henry Henderson Institute (HHI). Initially it only catered for primary school goers but now has a secondary school as well.
Later the commercial town that developed close to the mission grew and merged with another town to the east called Limbe, the resulting metropolis being called Blantyre [City].
Perhaps the best known facility at the Blantyre Mission is the cemetery because it gets visited by people from all walks of life. In confusion, many people refer to it as the HHI Cemetery.
Even the church often gets referred to as HHI CCAP Church. For God's sake, no church meets at HHI premises (the school). The church in question is St Michael and All Angels Church, built by Rev David Clement Scott between 1888 and 1891, long before HHI came into being.
Christians at St Michael & All Angels Church have built a 3000 seater edifice known as the Multipurpose Church Hall. The facility hosts a whole range of activities, ranging from examinations through wedding receptions to musical concerts. I recently heard a radio advertisement stating that a certain function would take place at the HHI Multipurpose Hall. Wrong! Very wrong!
Once again, the name of the place is Blantyre Mission. Calling it HHI is like calling every Toyota a "Corolla".
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Oportunity For Peace
Driving through the streets of Blantyre this morning, I sensed some uneasiness in the atmosphere. There was practically nothing happening by way of people vandalising or looting property, but the streets looked deserted and the town looked sleepy. Today is the day the civil society had planned to hold demonstrtions throughout Malawi. At the eleventh hour, Tuesday morning, the demonstrations were called off.
The calling off of the demonstrations must be a relief to many people for more reasons than one. First and moremost, the prospect of more loss of life and/or property has been averted, at least for the time being.
One sincerely hopes that the 'truce' that has been reached will present a chance for the 'warring parties' to come together, reflect on the events of the recent past, reconcile, and map out a new path for Malawi. There are no winners or losers in this encounter. As it has turned out, all Malawians collectively are the winners.
I would sincerely urge the demonstration organisers on the one hand and the executive on the other to heed Apostle Paul's advice: "in humility, consider others better than yourself, each not looking to their own interests but also to the interests of others." I do not want to pretend that this advice is easy to follow. It certainly is not, but it is the basis for peaceful co-existence. The truth of the matter is that easy solutions are not durable, neither are they effective.
Conventional wisdom demands that leadership should assert itself strongl by being so much in control as to induce respect and submission from those being led. The problem is that history is replete with cases where conventional wisdom has led to mistrust, envy and indeed naked hatred.
I would be happy to see the leadership from both sides of the divide seek not so much to be respected as to respect, not so much to be understood as to understand, and indeed not so much to be served as to serve.
Someone, no doubt, will read this and will trash it as impractical or something akin to 'a pie in the sky'. It may sound like a strategy for the weak. Let me remind the reader that some of the stongest leaders the world has had have been people who have applied seemingly weak strategies to their struggle - people like Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Junior.
In the event that this advice is not taken, will the last person to leave Malawi please remember to turn off the lights.
The calling off of the demonstrations must be a relief to many people for more reasons than one. First and moremost, the prospect of more loss of life and/or property has been averted, at least for the time being.
One sincerely hopes that the 'truce' that has been reached will present a chance for the 'warring parties' to come together, reflect on the events of the recent past, reconcile, and map out a new path for Malawi. There are no winners or losers in this encounter. As it has turned out, all Malawians collectively are the winners.
I would sincerely urge the demonstration organisers on the one hand and the executive on the other to heed Apostle Paul's advice: "in humility, consider others better than yourself, each not looking to their own interests but also to the interests of others." I do not want to pretend that this advice is easy to follow. It certainly is not, but it is the basis for peaceful co-existence. The truth of the matter is that easy solutions are not durable, neither are they effective.
Conventional wisdom demands that leadership should assert itself strongl by being so much in control as to induce respect and submission from those being led. The problem is that history is replete with cases where conventional wisdom has led to mistrust, envy and indeed naked hatred.
I would be happy to see the leadership from both sides of the divide seek not so much to be respected as to respect, not so much to be understood as to understand, and indeed not so much to be served as to serve.
Someone, no doubt, will read this and will trash it as impractical or something akin to 'a pie in the sky'. It may sound like a strategy for the weak. Let me remind the reader that some of the stongest leaders the world has had have been people who have applied seemingly weak strategies to their struggle - people like Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Junior.
In the event that this advice is not taken, will the last person to leave Malawi please remember to turn off the lights.
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Is the Internet Official?
Last week I heard of a lady working for large Malawian organisation being less than enthusiastic to perform her duties as per her new job description. Reason? The job description had been communicated to her by email. "I got the job description by email," she challenged, adding, "Is that official?"
Whatever anybody may say about the Internet or its applications such as email, we cannot deny its dominance over traditional means of communication. Postal services are shrinking at an alarming rate the world over because of the Internet. Postal service providers are having to diversity into new areas such as financial services, stationery, courier, to mention but a few, as a survival strategy.
It is therefore alarming, to say the least, that anybody in this day and age can question the legtimacy of communication sent via email. It probably exposes some deep-rooted inflexibility on the part of those having doubts as to whether communication sent by email is official.
Some people have serious misgivings about tasks performed with the aid of a computer. I know of a seasoned accountant who spent his working life producing financial statements manually. A younger accountant once submitted computer generated statements to him. He literally spent many hours meticulously adding up all the figures all over again, just in case the machine, being inhuman, might have made a mistake.
Today, huge volumes of business are transacted over the Internet. You can conduct banking business, do some purchasing, conduct interviews, hire staff.... the list is endless, over the Internet. Recently I signed a contract with the University of Texas, USA, to do a certain job, proceeded to do the job, forwarded a report, and sent my invoice afterwards, all by email. If that is not official, what is?
Of course, the Internet is a free-for-all, anything-goes environment. One needs to carefully evaluate the information one gets via the Internet. The criteria for the evaluation would include, but would not be limited to, authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage.
By way of summary, while it is possible and indeed easy to get garbage from the Internet, if used correctly, this medium will yield very valuable, accurate and credible information. To carelessly trash it as unofficial is to throw out the baby with the bath water.
Whatever anybody may say about the Internet or its applications such as email, we cannot deny its dominance over traditional means of communication. Postal services are shrinking at an alarming rate the world over because of the Internet. Postal service providers are having to diversity into new areas such as financial services, stationery, courier, to mention but a few, as a survival strategy.
It is therefore alarming, to say the least, that anybody in this day and age can question the legtimacy of communication sent via email. It probably exposes some deep-rooted inflexibility on the part of those having doubts as to whether communication sent by email is official.
Some people have serious misgivings about tasks performed with the aid of a computer. I know of a seasoned accountant who spent his working life producing financial statements manually. A younger accountant once submitted computer generated statements to him. He literally spent many hours meticulously adding up all the figures all over again, just in case the machine, being inhuman, might have made a mistake.
Today, huge volumes of business are transacted over the Internet. You can conduct banking business, do some purchasing, conduct interviews, hire staff.... the list is endless, over the Internet. Recently I signed a contract with the University of Texas, USA, to do a certain job, proceeded to do the job, forwarded a report, and sent my invoice afterwards, all by email. If that is not official, what is?
Of course, the Internet is a free-for-all, anything-goes environment. One needs to carefully evaluate the information one gets via the Internet. The criteria for the evaluation would include, but would not be limited to, authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage.
By way of summary, while it is possible and indeed easy to get garbage from the Internet, if used correctly, this medium will yield very valuable, accurate and credible information. To carelessly trash it as unofficial is to throw out the baby with the bath water.
Monday, 15 August 2011
Lessons from Football
I must confess at the outset that I am not an active sports person. The closest I have come to participating in competetive sports was when I played on a volleyball team at school three decades ago.
This notwithstanding, I get fascinated with sports, especialyl football. In 1985, when I was a student in England, a colleague of mine, Marcus Johnson, introduced me to Liverpool Football Club. Then Liverpool was a true world class team, with very few teams that could match its achievements. The following season, the new Liverpool trio of John Aldridge, Peter Beardsley and John Barnes was pure delight to watch on the pitch.
Whenever opportunity presents itself, I watch English football on TV. My sympathies still lie with Liverpool, but I do not feel out of place watching the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspurs and practically the rest of the Premiership clubs. What I find particularly intriguing is the the total commitment with which the players approach their matches. They literally throw themselves into the game. A player will occasionally pick up a yellow, or even a red, card not necessarily because he is a bully but, more often than not, because he has applied himself fully to the game and in the process finds himself in a situation where he poses danger to another player.
When a player gets injured - and they often will - a team of medical officials may be called onto the pitch to administer "first aid" treatment to him. It is not uncommon to see a player who, a minute previously, was visibly in excruciating agony, rise up, jump around, and continue to play. A great attitude indeed. If the same injury happened to some of us, we would literally spend weeks in bed and suspend all our activity.
This attitude of players contrasts sharply with what I often see in Malawian organisations. If an employee lands on an opportunity to stay away from work, they will seize that opportunity with great zeal and will often play all manner of trickery to maximise their stay away. Whereas a footballer thinks he belongs to the play field and will, at the slightest opportunity, return to it, a Malawian worker thinks he/she does not belong to his/her employment environment and will utilise the slightest opportunity to stay away. God help us.
Thankfully, this generalisation does not apply to all and sundry; there are some who are committed, very committed indeed, to their work. It is these individuals who will propel Malawi to greater prosperity.
This notwithstanding, I get fascinated with sports, especialyl football. In 1985, when I was a student in England, a colleague of mine, Marcus Johnson, introduced me to Liverpool Football Club. Then Liverpool was a true world class team, with very few teams that could match its achievements. The following season, the new Liverpool trio of John Aldridge, Peter Beardsley and John Barnes was pure delight to watch on the pitch.
Whenever opportunity presents itself, I watch English football on TV. My sympathies still lie with Liverpool, but I do not feel out of place watching the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspurs and practically the rest of the Premiership clubs. What I find particularly intriguing is the the total commitment with which the players approach their matches. They literally throw themselves into the game. A player will occasionally pick up a yellow, or even a red, card not necessarily because he is a bully but, more often than not, because he has applied himself fully to the game and in the process finds himself in a situation where he poses danger to another player.
When a player gets injured - and they often will - a team of medical officials may be called onto the pitch to administer "first aid" treatment to him. It is not uncommon to see a player who, a minute previously, was visibly in excruciating agony, rise up, jump around, and continue to play. A great attitude indeed. If the same injury happened to some of us, we would literally spend weeks in bed and suspend all our activity.
This attitude of players contrasts sharply with what I often see in Malawian organisations. If an employee lands on an opportunity to stay away from work, they will seize that opportunity with great zeal and will often play all manner of trickery to maximise their stay away. Whereas a footballer thinks he belongs to the play field and will, at the slightest opportunity, return to it, a Malawian worker thinks he/she does not belong to his/her employment environment and will utilise the slightest opportunity to stay away. God help us.
Thankfully, this generalisation does not apply to all and sundry; there are some who are committed, very committed indeed, to their work. It is these individuals who will propel Malawi to greater prosperity.
The Power of Observation
Taking an excursion through life and experiencing its many twists and turns is, in my view, great education. Agreed, going to the university gives you an opportunity to undergo intensive, formal education and, of course, you end up a qualified individual in a particular field of learning. But observing the numerous events in life and reflecting on them is equally a valuable learning experience.
We know from history that the formal university first appeared in the 11th century. I am sure many people must have wondered who at that time had the credentials to teach at the first university. It must have been people who had themselves graduated from the "University of Life", who had through observation built up specific knowledge in various areas of life and were "qualified" to pass on that knowledge to others.
Of course semi formal delivery of education had been in existence for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, particulary in religious institutions. In the times of Jesus, it was usual for anybody with some special knowledge to gather around himself a team of trainees called "disciples". Such an educator was called a Rabbi. Gamaliel was one prominent Rabbi, who graduated the likes of the Apostle Paul. This form of learning was characterised more by observation than formal teaching/lecturing as the vehicle for learning. There were no formal examinations, either.
In any society, there has been a "build-up" of some knowledge purely by observation. We know, for example, which plants are edible and which are not because of the knowledge that has over the years been gathered by observation and passed on from one generation to another. Similarly, society puts together some knowledge regarding which social systems work and which do not, purely by observation.
Tradition has it that one day Isaac Newton, sitting close to an apple tree, saw one apple getting detatched from the tree and falling perpendicularly to the ground. Observing this event with an inquisitive mind, Newton wondered why the apple did not fall sideways or upwards and noticed that it must have fallen towards the centre of the Earth. From this observation came the theory, and later, the laws of gravitation.
In another tradition, one of the most celebrated Mathematicians in history, Archimedes, was vexed with the problem of calculating the density of a King's crown. The King had asked him to verify whether the craftsman who had fashioned the crown had not cheated by replacing portions of gold with silver. It occured to Archimedes that the answer to this querry lay in the determination of the crown's density with a view to comparing it with the known density of pure gold. His problem was coming up with a methodology for measuring the volume of the crown, an irregular object.
One day, while taking a bath, Archimedes observed that the water level rose as he got into the bath tub. He quickly figured out that the volume of the displaced water must have been equivalent to the volume of the submerged part of his body. Excited, he jumped out of the bath tub and, without bothering to put on any clothes, ran through the streets of Syracuse naked, shouting,"Eureka!" (I have found it!)
These stories may never have happened, or may be true but probably heavily embelished. Whatever the case, what I know is that these men (and many others) employed observation in order to come up with invaluable contributions to science and mathematics.
We know from history that the formal university first appeared in the 11th century. I am sure many people must have wondered who at that time had the credentials to teach at the first university. It must have been people who had themselves graduated from the "University of Life", who had through observation built up specific knowledge in various areas of life and were "qualified" to pass on that knowledge to others.
Of course semi formal delivery of education had been in existence for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, particulary in religious institutions. In the times of Jesus, it was usual for anybody with some special knowledge to gather around himself a team of trainees called "disciples". Such an educator was called a Rabbi. Gamaliel was one prominent Rabbi, who graduated the likes of the Apostle Paul. This form of learning was characterised more by observation than formal teaching/lecturing as the vehicle for learning. There were no formal examinations, either.
In any society, there has been a "build-up" of some knowledge purely by observation. We know, for example, which plants are edible and which are not because of the knowledge that has over the years been gathered by observation and passed on from one generation to another. Similarly, society puts together some knowledge regarding which social systems work and which do not, purely by observation.
Tradition has it that one day Isaac Newton, sitting close to an apple tree, saw one apple getting detatched from the tree and falling perpendicularly to the ground. Observing this event with an inquisitive mind, Newton wondered why the apple did not fall sideways or upwards and noticed that it must have fallen towards the centre of the Earth. From this observation came the theory, and later, the laws of gravitation.
In another tradition, one of the most celebrated Mathematicians in history, Archimedes, was vexed with the problem of calculating the density of a King's crown. The King had asked him to verify whether the craftsman who had fashioned the crown had not cheated by replacing portions of gold with silver. It occured to Archimedes that the answer to this querry lay in the determination of the crown's density with a view to comparing it with the known density of pure gold. His problem was coming up with a methodology for measuring the volume of the crown, an irregular object.
One day, while taking a bath, Archimedes observed that the water level rose as he got into the bath tub. He quickly figured out that the volume of the displaced water must have been equivalent to the volume of the submerged part of his body. Excited, he jumped out of the bath tub and, without bothering to put on any clothes, ran through the streets of Syracuse naked, shouting,"Eureka!" (I have found it!)
These stories may never have happened, or may be true but probably heavily embelished. Whatever the case, what I know is that these men (and many others) employed observation in order to come up with invaluable contributions to science and mathematics.
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