Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Living what the martyrs died for
The best means of progressing to the future is through the past. Any nation can only be in a better position to strategize its development agenda without any fear of compromising all developmental gains attained only if it takes time to reminiscent over how it has evolved from the past to the present. If a nation comes to grips with ideologies and fundamental objectives that inspired others to bravely face martyrdom, it always endeavors to live the dream of the martyred heroes.
Records are clear that the most agonizing factor that led to the Chilembwe uprising against colonialism was Livingstone’s exploitation of the African labourers at coffee plantations in Chiradzulu and other surrounding districts. It was such a moral degredation and dehumanization of the owners of the land that was reaping the people’s self respect and dignity that gave Chilembwe no choice but to consider even the most unorthodox means of resolving the crisis: waging a war with little stolen resources against the Queens well armed forces.
Over a century years after that gallant fight against exploitation, are tobacco tenants earning their sweat? We might have achieved in uprooting the while Livingstones out of the plantations but we end up having Black livingstones who rejoice in the misery of the tenants, paying them as little as K30,000 to K60,000 per annum. To these poorly, below-poverty line living tenants, the dreams of those who martyred their souls to safeguard the pride of a Malawian, to earn the tiller of the ground a discent living, is nothing but a song to the flying wind. Blood shed by the martyrs of the country to wash the people of the land off the dirty of excruciating poverty is yet to cleanse them.
Malawi has had martyrs at different levels. There are those whose lives were nipped in the bud in the struggle to liberate the country from the rule of the whiteman and ensure that the owners of the land enjoy the benefits of their mother land. The second category of martyrs Malawi has had comprises of those who having attained independence from the rule of the whites noticed some anomalies in the administration of the government during the autocratic one party regime. And upon the dawn of democratic dispensation, some people lost their lives as well. Cases of the Young Democrats brutalizing people who seemed to be against the wrong policies the democratic regime was implementing awashed the media. Some deaths were wrapped in secrecy and probably justice will never prevail to reveal what happened.
In all these martyrs there is one underlying principle: the struggle to ensure that their children and generations to come live in a country that they could, with joy, call their own; a country they would be assured of moral, social and economic rights being jealously safeguarded and guaranteed; a country where no citizen would be pleased to see another citizen wallowing in the meshes of poverty in the land of plenty.
The broader visible picture is that our brave heroes, the martyrs, were fighting for a political system of governance that would address the needs of the people and treat them with respect. It is worth noting that behind any political system of governance, there is a continued struggle to ensure economic emancipation of the people of the land. There is no system of governance that mankind can cherish as long as it does not address the economic anomalies affecting the people of the land.
Autocracy, democracy, theocracy, monarchy, communism and whatever forms of political governance mean nothing to people so long if they do not provide them an economic liberalization that eventually safeguards their self-respect and dignity. As long as millions of Malawians live below the poverty line, millions of children die on birth, millions of mothers hopelessly die giving birth, the girl child walks kilometers to fetch water instead of being in class, unemployment rising steadily leading to further disillusionment amidst the youth and the country at large, nobody can say that we have or are living the dream of the martyrs. As long as the socio-economic principles that led to the martyrs sacrificing their lives still prevail then we are yet to live what the martyrs died for; we are yet to make their martyrdom worth the salt it deserves.
The collective principle behind the martyrs was to ensure equitable distribution of wealth amidst the people of the land. We can measure whether we are on a good path through looking at how many masses of the people of our country are migrating from the whims of abject poverty into good life and not the mediocre growth of the class of the elite that earns billions at the expense of their countrymen. Martyrdom was a fight against poverty and until we take strong measure in eradicating poverty then we can be said to be living what the martyrs died for.
Martin Luther King Jr. ably explains: the curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when man ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.
Even Mahatma Gandhi, probably the godfather of non violent activism had no kind words for poverty, calling it the worst form of violence.
Strategizing on the practical initiatives to be taken for the people of Malawi to live what the martyrs died for does not require pressurizing the government alone to take a leading role. Who pays the tenants poorly? Who subjects watchmen in our homes to inhuman salaries? Who pays tea pluckers too little for a living? It is the government? The answer is no, it is us who employ those people. At the moment that the cost of living skyrockets and the sitting allowances of members of parliament rise by K5000 at one go why should the minimum 30 days wages of a citizen of the country be pegged below K5000. Do the rich and the poor go to different markets? Do the sellers of tomato offer discriminating prices pertaining to the status of the buyer? Does fuel sell differently to the rich and the poor? Isn’t the cost of maize pegged at one rate that looks at no status levels?
Let the private sector offer our country men and women better salaries. Let the Chinese investors and their colleagues that do business in the country pay our countrymen the equivalent of their sweat. Let the government offer salary adjustments to the civil servants, most especially the junior ones, salaries that can necessitate them appreciate the fruits of the martyrdom of the heroes of the country that we do commemorate on the third of March every year.
If we look to the past we are proud that others fought a gallant war for us to live in peace and harmony. They shed their blood to earn us a descent living. As we are now in the age that does not need to shed blood, our mandate is to implement the principles upon which our heroes risked lives for.
Records are clear that the most agonizing factor that led to the Chilembwe uprising against colonialism was Livingstone’s exploitation of the African labourers at coffee plantations in Chiradzulu and other surrounding districts. It was such a moral degredation and dehumanization of the owners of the land that was reaping the people’s self respect and dignity that gave Chilembwe no choice but to consider even the most unorthodox means of resolving the crisis: waging a war with little stolen resources against the Queens well armed forces.
Over a century years after that gallant fight against exploitation, are tobacco tenants earning their sweat? We might have achieved in uprooting the while Livingstones out of the plantations but we end up having Black livingstones who rejoice in the misery of the tenants, paying them as little as K30,000 to K60,000 per annum. To these poorly, below-poverty line living tenants, the dreams of those who martyred their souls to safeguard the pride of a Malawian, to earn the tiller of the ground a discent living, is nothing but a song to the flying wind. Blood shed by the martyrs of the country to wash the people of the land off the dirty of excruciating poverty is yet to cleanse them.
Malawi has had martyrs at different levels. There are those whose lives were nipped in the bud in the struggle to liberate the country from the rule of the whiteman and ensure that the owners of the land enjoy the benefits of their mother land. The second category of martyrs Malawi has had comprises of those who having attained independence from the rule of the whites noticed some anomalies in the administration of the government during the autocratic one party regime. And upon the dawn of democratic dispensation, some people lost their lives as well. Cases of the Young Democrats brutalizing people who seemed to be against the wrong policies the democratic regime was implementing awashed the media. Some deaths were wrapped in secrecy and probably justice will never prevail to reveal what happened.
In all these martyrs there is one underlying principle: the struggle to ensure that their children and generations to come live in a country that they could, with joy, call their own; a country they would be assured of moral, social and economic rights being jealously safeguarded and guaranteed; a country where no citizen would be pleased to see another citizen wallowing in the meshes of poverty in the land of plenty.
The broader visible picture is that our brave heroes, the martyrs, were fighting for a political system of governance that would address the needs of the people and treat them with respect. It is worth noting that behind any political system of governance, there is a continued struggle to ensure economic emancipation of the people of the land. There is no system of governance that mankind can cherish as long as it does not address the economic anomalies affecting the people of the land.
Autocracy, democracy, theocracy, monarchy, communism and whatever forms of political governance mean nothing to people so long if they do not provide them an economic liberalization that eventually safeguards their self-respect and dignity. As long as millions of Malawians live below the poverty line, millions of children die on birth, millions of mothers hopelessly die giving birth, the girl child walks kilometers to fetch water instead of being in class, unemployment rising steadily leading to further disillusionment amidst the youth and the country at large, nobody can say that we have or are living the dream of the martyrs. As long as the socio-economic principles that led to the martyrs sacrificing their lives still prevail then we are yet to live what the martyrs died for; we are yet to make their martyrdom worth the salt it deserves.
The collective principle behind the martyrs was to ensure equitable distribution of wealth amidst the people of the land. We can measure whether we are on a good path through looking at how many masses of the people of our country are migrating from the whims of abject poverty into good life and not the mediocre growth of the class of the elite that earns billions at the expense of their countrymen. Martyrdom was a fight against poverty and until we take strong measure in eradicating poverty then we can be said to be living what the martyrs died for.
Martin Luther King Jr. ably explains: the curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when man ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.
Even Mahatma Gandhi, probably the godfather of non violent activism had no kind words for poverty, calling it the worst form of violence.
Strategizing on the practical initiatives to be taken for the people of Malawi to live what the martyrs died for does not require pressurizing the government alone to take a leading role. Who pays the tenants poorly? Who subjects watchmen in our homes to inhuman salaries? Who pays tea pluckers too little for a living? It is the government? The answer is no, it is us who employ those people. At the moment that the cost of living skyrockets and the sitting allowances of members of parliament rise by K5000 at one go why should the minimum 30 days wages of a citizen of the country be pegged below K5000. Do the rich and the poor go to different markets? Do the sellers of tomato offer discriminating prices pertaining to the status of the buyer? Does fuel sell differently to the rich and the poor? Isn’t the cost of maize pegged at one rate that looks at no status levels?
Let the private sector offer our country men and women better salaries. Let the Chinese investors and their colleagues that do business in the country pay our countrymen the equivalent of their sweat. Let the government offer salary adjustments to the civil servants, most especially the junior ones, salaries that can necessitate them appreciate the fruits of the martyrdom of the heroes of the country that we do commemorate on the third of March every year.
If we look to the past we are proud that others fought a gallant war for us to live in peace and harmony. They shed their blood to earn us a descent living. As we are now in the age that does not need to shed blood, our mandate is to implement the principles upon which our heroes risked lives for.
