Malawi stuck in flattery and opportunism

A fox once saw a crow fly with a piece of cheese in its beak and settle on a branch of a tree.

“That’s for me, as I am a fox,” said the fox, and it walked up to the foot of the tree.

“Good afternoon, Mistress Crow,” he cried. 

“How well you are looking today; how glossy your feathers; how bright your eyes. I feel sure your voice must surpass that of other birds, just as your figure does; let me hear but one song from you that I may greet you as the Queen of Birds.”

The crow lifted up her head and began to caw her best, but the moment she opened her mouth, the piece of cheese fell to the ground, only to be snapped up by Master Fox.

“That will do,” said the fox. “That was what I wanted. In exchange for your cheese, I will give you a piece of advice for the future—do not trust flatterers.”

Ernest Thompson-Seton in The Animal Story Book summed up this fairytale originally from Fables of Æsop with a moral: “The flatterer does rob by stealth, his victim, both of wit and wealth.”

Unfortunately, Malawi has failed to make much headway on the road to purposeful political and economical development because the country’s heads of State have not employed its resources for that end, but have been used for the greater development of themselves and few cronies: flatterers and opportunists.

Without encyclopaedic knowledge, one recognises this has been a continuing custom that has gained tremendous momentum in the multiparty era.

The country’s former presidents; Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Bakili Muluzi and Bingu wa Mutharika largely ran the State into the ground because flatterers and opportunists had heavily worked on them and their performance in office.

The three were hailed as torch bearers of freedom, beacons of hope for the eventual self-determination of the oppressed and marginalised people after taking power from their predecessors.

But within a short span of time, they looked at themselves as de facto sultans, some sort of elected monarchs.

In many respects, they were worse than their predecessors. Their methods of governance as well as development were skewed and extremely out of touch with the bulk of the population.

Though many factors account for this particular and dreadful institution, but the ‘foxes’, revering illusory—for there is not much to show in the country despite the grants and loans acquired in the name of the poor, nearly half a century after the colonialists left—beautiful ‘feathers’, ‘voices’ and ‘eyes’ of the leaders mostly contribute to their lack of ethical leadership and integrity.

Not only that, but also the ‘foxes’; who range from politicians, traditional leaders, media practitioners, academics, writers, historians, press officers, the clergy, civil society organisations, civil servants, legal practitioners, diplomats, foreign bodies and so forth, have led to the shrinking of Banda’s Malawi Congress Party (MCP), Muluzi’s United Democratic Front (UDF) and Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in both size and importance.

The ‘foxes’ sing juicy music to which leaders gradually dance until they assume a mammoth’s proportion that disconnects them from the real-self, reality on the ground and the vast majority of the country’s inhabitants.

The ‘foxes’ have no scintilla of principles. No question, for the past decades, almost all of them have changed party colours and leadership praise-singing without disgrace, taking selfish advantage of circumstances with no regard of the consequences for the masses.

Then, for the leader and the ‘foxes’ to entrench themselves, it becomes a common pattern to displace and limit free speech, and engage in strategic payoffs.

The political template of the ‘foxes’ is premised on Stanley Baldwin’s mantra as cited in the Penguin Dictionary of Quotations: “I would rather be an opportunist and float than go to the bottom with my principles around my neck.”

Though Winston Churchill, Britain’s legendary Prime Minister during those dark World War II years, observed that those “who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, this telling warning is obviously lost on Malawi’s political mandarins.

Thus, refusing to learn from her predecessors, President Joyce Banda has, sadly but not surprisingly, opted to go for this disastrous recipe that she is already trapped into the flattery and opportunism of the ‘Master Fox’.

It is true that her appointment seven months ago brought a wave of hope to Malawians as, for example, she brought back fuel, which was scant during the last days of Mutharika’s supremacy, on the market.

In addition, issue 10 of 2012 of Gender and Media Diversity Journal, reported, in her lifetime: “Banda has worked tirelessly to empower women economically in Malawi. She founded the National Association of Business Women (Nabw) in 1990, a financial lending institution that aims to economically empower rural women.”  

The list of her achievements can go on.

But, again, she has been in the eye of the storm ever since she became President. Her economic reform programmes, the Westerners she over-adores have lauded, have ruffled the feathers of many citizens.

The considered opinion of these nationals is that there are so many shocks in the country that it is almost on the brink.

Malawi is battered so severely of late by the economy which, evidently, is at present paralysed by, among other upsets, skyrocketing headline inflation rate currently at 28.3 percent, high interest rates charged by lending institutions, and erratic water and power supply.

However, despite all these salient hiccups in her administration, Banda has chosen to isolate herself and become less tolerant of critical minds. She is more or less convinced that she is an agent of some divine powers and her cronies, acting according to the logic loads of the governed, cannot understand.

This is how she acted recently during the dedication of the Balaka CCAP Church where she accused two unspecified Malawian media houses of supplying the nation with wrong information about the country’s economic state of affairs.

Clearly, it is known, and has been for a couple of years, that love of flattery buoyed by corrupt, greedy, recycled personalities’ template the President has perched on is playing a tragic role behind this trait.

But well-read American author Mark Twain warned: “It is not best that we should all think alike; it is the difference of opinion which makes horse races.”

So, as observed by Vice-President Khumbo Kachali and US Ambassador Jeanine Jackson that Malawi can draw a lesson from the just-ended November 6 2012 US elections on how to conduct democracy, the country’s leadership must also learn from American counterparts how to accommodate fair criticism and govern according to the solemnly sworn oath of office.

Though Banda on November 8 2012 dubbed her administration “a listening government” when she officially opened the annual economic conference of the Economics Association of Malawi (Ecama) at Sunbird Nkopola Lodge’s Lakeshore International Conference Centre in Mangochi, her leadership is stuck in the flattery, aggrandisement and opportunism gutter fashioned by the ‘foxes’ of which it must haul out if the country is to register any significant growth.