Wandering thoughts
During the period up to 1990, the West in general and the United States in particular was worried about the spread of communism from the Soviet Union to the developing world. This is no longer the problem.
In 1994, officially apartheid ended, and so ended, virtually at least, victimisation of black people by people who were not black. Did the new millennium, the 21st century, usher in a world of peace and holy civilisation? Not quite. Certain movements coming from countries north of Africa have appeared on the global scenario with suicide bombs. The West calls these movements terrorists. African countries that have been caught in the crossfire also refer to these groups as terrorists. Those operating from Somalia are being confronted by African Union forces.
What are those organisations trying to achieve? Osama bin Laden said he wanted the US to get out of Muslim countries; Boko Haram of Nigeria wants to get rid of Western education. Does this include physics, chemistry, economics and engineering? We do not know. These days, to reject Western education means choosing a life of poverty and backwardness.
Terrorism has taken the form of religious persecution. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali national who has lived in the Netherlands and is now in the United States, has contributed an article titled The War on Christians in Newsweek of February 13 2012. We learn that Christian minorities worldwide are being persecuted in Muslim countries. In some countries, the persecution is initiated by the State in some the State just condones it and in others, the State hesitantly tries to halt it.
Truly has it been said that the veneer of civilisation is just skin deep, with most members of humankind. To persecute other people because they have chosen to follow a different religion is primitive and callous. In this modern world, when people of different faiths, colour, and denominations cannot help, but live together, why is so much intolerance being engendered?
Usually, people who indulge in racial and religious persecutions have love visual horizons. They do not see anything beyond their own countries. Those who persecute Christians forget that thousands of their co-religionists have emigrated to the affluent West which is predominantly Christian.
Influential Christian and Muslim leaders should be holding joint conferences and issue communiqués disavowing religious persecution of any type.
Chairperson of the Special Law Commission on prevention of domestic violence Judge Ivy Kamanga is quoted in The Nation of Wednesday March 28, 2012 as having said that there is need to revisit the Domestic Violence Act. Enforcing the law is said to have contributed to the break-up of marriages. Thank God our jurists are now beginning to realise that implementing carbon copies of other countries’ laws is not in the interest of our way of life. Whenever laws concerning family life are being made, sociologists, theologians and traditional authorities should be consulted. I hope the law concerning property grabbing and inheritance is backed with thorough research into experience of both matrilineal and patrilineal systems.
The elections in Senegal has once more proved that country to be populated by a modern-minded and civilised people. In his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. Dr Nelson Mandela says he was impressed not only by the intellect of its then leader Leopold Sedar Senghor, but also the handsomeness of the people.
When Mr Harry Thomson spoke at the rally in Zomba where President Bingu wa Mutharika was opening the start of the Zomba-Blantyre Road project, he asked whether we are satisfied to operate under the present Constitution. No one answered that question. I have asked the same question before and I still ask; during the 2014 presidential elections, if none of the presidential candidates scores at least 50 percent of the votes, what shall we do? The Senegalese have said the two highest scorers should re-run. Incumbent Abdoulaye Wade lost to his runner-up. Graciously, he accepted the results.
A famous sage of either Rome or Athens said if you are a dwarf and you are in disagreement with a giant, spar yourself. To the giant, he said spare the dwarf.
What gallantry will the US get out of penalising Malawi for hosting the president of Sudan Al Bashir during the African Union conference? Malawi is in a dilemma because of its obligations to the AU and yet we clearly need the US dollars. Why
