Africa-Press – Malawi. A popular commercial celebrating a woman’s cigarette crooned you’ve come a long way baby to get where you’ve got to today! You’ve got your own cigarette now baby, you’ve come a long. Long way!” in line with this thought, women in Malawi as elsewhere in the world have been given lemons in a variety of situations, but globally as in Malawi, have been making lemonade.
In his opening remarks at the opening of the 1st Generation Equality Conference on April 7, 2022, in Lilongwe, President Chakwera commended and paraded women achievers and his own contribution to it. I celebrate with you, Bwana President, and salute Malawi women in various roles of achievements.
During a launch session of the Chitukuko cha Amai m’Malawi (CCAM), at the Kwacha Conference grounds in Blantyre, where former Government Hostess Mama C. Tamanda Kadzamira had organized to hear women’s issues from the women, I stated that following the President’s call for women to work as hard as men, women in Malawi had made achievements and that these needed to be noted and highlighted. Needless to say, that did not get any traction, grip, or attention in 1988 Malawi.
President Chakwera, myself, and a host of other UNIMA scholars sat in the same four-hour public lectures at Chancellor College grounds, in scorching October heat, listening to former President Ngwazi H. Kamuzu Banda wax lyrical about the importance of women, students not paying tax on the MKw6.00 (US$6.00) allowance (because of our monthlies), and the call to work as hard as men. Potently invisible, or missing from the table of decision-makers, were women, a growing number of them, graduates (thanks to a quota that he insisted on as Chancellor of the University of Malawi.
Women in Malawi, as in many parts of the world, including the leader of the democratic world, the United States (which recently confirms the first Black woman justice to its Supreme Court), women have soldiered on. It was refreshing to hear President Chakwera crooning the parade of celebrated women political, academia, civil service, as well as international and continental Malawian women achievers; chief among them of course former President Dr. Joyce Banda (the second woman to reach this high position). It was a power-pumping moment in Malawi history because in the room, was another celebrated woman, Liberia’s former President, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, the first woman president in Africa.
There are three observations that must be highlighted: these are a certain missing giant in the conference hall, the missing catalog of achievement, and the role of the media in Malawi. A healthy heaping of these three would make the path in leading the 6th theme from Paris the Generation Equality Forum organized from Paris that was held in a virtual format. The theme Malawi is to lead is Feminist Movements & Leadership.
ONE: Human Rights Commission – At the 1995 United Nations Fourth Women’s World in Beijing, former First Lady Hilary Clinton made the poignant and widely used “woman’s rights are human rights.” However, it was shocking to note the absence of the Human Rights Commission in the room at the 1st Generation Equality Conference. As women’s rights are human rights, the absence of this giant in the room is an alarming oversight akin to no lawyers in a courtroom or no doctors and nurses in a hospital, no journalists at a press conference, no accountants at an audit, no IT personnel at an IT conference…
TWO: BOOKS AND A UNIMA PRESS – There are many books written on Malawi, a host of them in the negative. One of the reasons is that basically, it has been Malawians and others outside that have looked into Malawi and written miles and miles of books about Malawi, mainly from unflattering terms. Malawi is in stark need of positive uplifting books on among others, the achievements that the country has made. The University of Malawi should fundraise for a printing press and start publishing books, start commissioning writers to author books on Malawi. Such an undertaking must be tax-free; this would counter the runaway cost structure of printing books in Malawi.
I am doggone tired of reading negative books about Malawi! There were a lot of great things that came out of the dreaded 31-year rule of Dr. Kamuzu Banda. One of them is sitting in the Palace, a graduate like many of us from one of Kamuzu’s Gweru dreams (University in Zomba!) UNIMA must start a publishing and printing undertaking. There are truckloads of authors with manuscripts that are gathering dust on laptops and computers.
THREE: ROLE OF MEDIA – Of course, journalists in Malawi have been the silent but crucial fly on the wall in the 31 years of the Kamuzu Banda administration, and the 28 years of democratic rule in the country. Sadly, this role is so heavily undermined, unappreciated, and oftentimes ridiculously manipulated. The media is the fourth arm of government. I often relate how an article about an impending nationwide civil service strike in The Independent, saved then Malawi Congress Party leaders. After the article and Wadson Delezer’s swipe at the paper (that we write things that are in our heads, so he would not respond to the question on a civil service strike, he remarked: “Go and ask Mrs. Karim, she’s the one planning it), the MCP leaders held an overnight session with the strike organizers (Mrs. Karim was not in the room), and the strike was called off.
Sadly, and ironically, the media is still held with such scorn and disdain. It is a deep desire that is potent in the hearts of many that these three are addressed by the relevant stakeholders.
Turning to the leadership, I congratulate awarded President Chakwera for “taking some steps to end institutional gender inequalities at the highest level of Government (in Malawi).” These include appointing women to 41% of cabinet seats, 45% of women heading foreign service missions (two in the US and at the UN mission – a first for Malawi), and a whopping 50% of women appointed to the Judiciary. Long live genuine democracy in Malawi! Onward Feminist Movements & Leadership!
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