The farmer and his bluff

Some crows saw a farmer ploughing a large field.

When ploughing was done, they patiently watched him sow the seed. It was their feast, they thought.

So, as soon as the farmer had finished planting and had gone home, down they flew to the field, and began to eat as fast as they could.

The farmer, of course, knew the crows and their ways.

He soon returned to the field with a catapult. But he did not bring any stones with him. He expected to scare the crows just by swinging the catapult in the air, and shouting loudly at them.

At first the crows flew away in great terror. But they soon began to see that none of them ever got hurt. They did not even hear the noise of stones whizzing through the air, and as for words, they would kill nobody.

At last they paid no attention whatever to the farmer until the farmer saw that he would have to take other measures.

So he loaded his catapult with stones and killed several of the crows. This had the effect the farmer wanted, for from that day, the crows visited his field no more.

The farmer quickly realised that bluff and threatening words are of little value with the rascals.

But it appears President Peter Mutharika and his disciples lack inherent behaviour that if embedded in their attitude, principles and virtues, it would make them innovative and useful leaders.

Since Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came into power, a brutal wave of serious security incidents has been sweeping through Malawi targeting people of all kind.

Lives have been lost, so too property. The incidents are taken with clockwork regularity that currently the rhythm of life in the country resounds to them.

DPP claims that security (chitetezo) constitutes one of the party’s cornerstones.

Of course, the country, one may recall, was secure during Bingu wa Mutharika’s second term, particularly after his shoot-to-kill decree. This was the time when people could live and invest in Malawi without thinking of being maliciously harmed.

Yet within the month, for instance, there has been a record of serious security incidents across the country. Early this month, a woman in Lunzu, Blantyre was brutally murdered by robbers who made away with some cash and valued items.

In Lilongwe alone this week, there have been four grim robbery and home invasion incidents, including the Monday night one where robbers near Cashbuild Roundabout shot dead a police officer and critically wounded another before they hijacked a commuter minibus.

Between January and February this year, reports indicate one person was killed every day in two months.

Moreover, the involvement of national security personnel in violent crimes and that even the heavily guarded Limbe Police cell and houses of the country’s Veep and current Internal ‘Security’ Minister were invaded by criminals reveal how denigrated the country’s security system has become.

Irrespective of the time it has been in the driver’s seat, the key test for its being a competent government is the degree to which its leadership provides a solution to serious concerns from the public.

Much as it is understood that theft is rooted in decades of economic injustice, so too Mutharika must accept that the rise in crimes being witnessed today arises in part from his inability to bring new resolve to clamp down on the ruthless criminals.

It is time the President thought about alternatives to bluff and empty rhetoric—as the farmer did—on security system, or all too soon it might be that dreams are the only place where Malawians are secure. 