Voting for chameleons

I would want to start this article by recognising the highly trained specialist eye doctors (ophthalmologists) that treat eye diseases of different severities. Any medical doctor is trained to a certain level to manage eye diseases. However, specialist medical doctors go further than the ordinary medical degree for periods ranging from three more years and above to really go deep understanding and preparing themselves for eye care.

The eye is a complex small and vital organ of the body. It is, when one goes back to when a human is formed in the womb, an extension of the brain. The eye is, therefore, for sight of course, and for beauty, I may add. I have heard marriages formed and love blossoming because amandiwaza mmene amayang’anira (I love it how he looks at me).

I have also seen marriages end on account of how a married man was looking at another woman that is not their wife. People have lost traditional marriage cases at the chief’s court for being found guilty of winking their eye towards a married person who is not their spouse. I can go on and on talking about the eye here.

Our country is now blessed with a growing number of eye doctors. Perhaps the pioneer was the late Professor Moses Chirambo, former Cabinet minister who trained in Canada and Israel. Following him have been the following: Joseph Msosa, Gerald Msukwa, Petros Kayange, Tamara Chirambo, Khumbo Kalua, Vincent Moyo, Amos Nyaka, and Batumba Nkume. These are all highly trained individuals that continue to provide valuable clinical services in public, mission and private hospitals in this country.

All our doctors are men and a woman (Tamara) of integrity and international repute. Let me encourage them to continue be role models. It will be a shame if any of them follows the footsteps of fellow eye doctor, Syrian President, Dr Bashar Al-Assad.

Sherlock Holmes said: “When a doctor goes wrong, he is first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.”

Dr Assad trained in England and it is interesting that the people who knew him specialising in diseases of the eye do not remember him as a bad person. Unlike me who several weeks ago received an email from a friend reading: “U are a bad person….,” Bashar’s supervisor at Western Eye Hospital in London now says: “He was an extremely kind person and a warm personality. He would have been a good doctor.”

Another person, a nurse who worked with President Assad says: “He was calm at the operating table and had wonderful manner with patients. He spoke with every patient just before surgery to reassure them all would be well.”

I do not, therefore, know who among the people who are lining up for Kamuzu Palace whether what we know about them now will last. Previous examples are clear that presidents, just like ordinary people, wives or husbands, change. The person you got married to changes either for the good or for the bad.

I have changed, maybe for the good or for the bad. How can we know that the person we elect will not change as bad as Bashar has changed?