Bottom Up

Reader reacts: Malawi’s wealth not well-distributed

Chief Apostle Abiti Joyce Befu, Deputy Chief Apostle Sheikh Jean-Philippe Empoison, SC (retired), Deputy Chief Apostle Native Authority Mandela and Assistant Deputy Chief Apostle Innocett Mawayawaya are out on an international evangelization and, most importantly, tithe collection expedition. They will be away until next Saturday. We need money. We have run out of cash and we can no longer afford to travel extensively. When they are back, we will resume our political tourism.

As expected, we receive a lot of reactions to our work. However, we don’t publish most of them because they are mostly in our praise. This week we are pleased to share with you comments from a disgruntled bottom up Malawian.

“Hi

Your article dated April 12 2014, titled “Election 2014: So far, so empty” is nothing short of being derogatory from common sense.

First, I do agree that some promises are unrealistic and undoable. But of course it is the job of politicians to make such utopian promises, let’s forgive them. (And perhaps that is why the ideas didn’t fly on May 20, 2014when Malawi went to the polls).

But I do take issue with your assumption that the poor are indolent and lackadaisical. You wrote that ” it is time that the 80 percent of Malawians who prey on other people’s sweat were told the truth”. I can’t help but frown at this. You as a reporter, or whatever you are, should at least know that the poor do not sit on their asses and get paid for it. An average poor Malawian wakes up way before 4 a.m. to work in the garden all the way to 6 p.m. with a pathetically short break in between. Such a family may have gotten subsidised fertiliser, true; but do you have an earthly idea how much profit they make out of the so-called subsidies? These are people who do sweat while folks like you sit behind shiny desks in air-conditioned rooms and write garbage.

Nevertheless you get a zillion times more money monthly than that poor farmer gets annually.

Of course wealth needs to be created, but elementary mathematics should tell you that the wealth we have now is not well-distributed. Why create more wealth when we can’t even distribute the wealth we have now?

You claim that the poor don’t save for tomorrow but rather use their money and time to drink alcohol. True; many people drink, but have you ever thought of the rich who drink? I go to my village and I give my grandfather the equivalent of no more than $2 and that suffices to keep him drunk as a skunk for the next three days. Does a rich man use so little money for the same purpose? Is it so hard for you to see the unfairness in having someone get 100s of litres of fuel per month, a free house, a free car, etc while someone else is being denied fertiliser subsidy?

Now about time. The rich also waste time, the fact that a rich person wastes his time in a somewhat different manner from that of the poor is no excuse. You claim that some leaders wanted to turn this nation into a communist/socialist state. Well, even if you just skimmed through the Communist Manifesto or any Marx related material you will see why that is impossible.

The point I want to make is simple: pro-poverty policies are not the problem. The poor people have way too many obstacles and hurdles to fly over in order to achieve a smidgeon of success. It is therefore pathetic to hear your charlatanry about how the poor have to be made to face the music. No more than common sense is requisite to see that “there is already criminality, the poor are being robbed”. For senses’ sake, what on this earth do you mean by “the very poor who have impoverished this country”?

Please understand that I respect your opinion, but I hate to see such unfounded claims, or perhaps delusions, find their way into a respected newspaper. I hope you also don’t take any of this to be personal, I don’t know who you are.

I hope you are all well,

I wish you all the best.”

CL

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