Take the mic away from him, Sir.

President Barack Obama of the United States will soon be leaving office, having seen through his Constitutional tenure, for this was his second four-year term and so his final year in the Oval Office. His tenure has had some interesting issues about it, one of which to do with race. Being from a Kansas mother and a black Kenyan father, some, including the very person he was backing to ‘take over’ from him, Hillary Clinton, had at one time or the other picked him for not being American enough, and so not fit for the Office of President of the United States of America. Remember, this very Hillary Clinton had run against Barack Obama in Democratic Primaries in 2008; Obama carried the day, and eventually won the elections, defeating Republican Senator John McCain and his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin. And so Obama became the 44th President of the United States, a genetic imprint of an African in his blood.

There is something about the campaign for those elections that impresses my heart, and that is what happened this other day in 2008 at Senator McCain’s rally. That day, and this is according to Jonathan Martin and Amie Parnes in their article “Obama not an Arab, Crowd boos”, one woman had described Obama as ‘an Arab!’, something everyone would think would impress McCain; after all McCain was ‘fighting’ Obama. But McCain did something I consider brilliant for a politician anywhere. He is said to have grabbed the mike from her and told her she was wrong.

“No ma’am. He’s a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about. He’s not (an Arab).”

At another meeting, McCain promised a decent fight: “We want to fight, and I will fight . . . but I will be respectful. I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments, and I will respect him.”

Here is a man who was fighting a fellow human being purely on policy issues, and could not tolerate seeing his own friend, a political foe, being drugged in mire on issues that had nothing to do with politics. This is what our politics should sometimes learn to do—to say good about others as individuals and learn to live together as one people though we do pursue different ideologies for the same goal—serving this great nation we call Malawi.

I often love to speak of Masauko Chepembere, not because he comes from the Eastern Region where I come from, but because he represents some of the finest thinking on the political terrain in the country. Of course, he was not alone; there were others such as Dunduzu Chisiza, that great man who single-handedly confronted Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda and vowed to start his own political party once we attained Independence. Chipembere was later to say of Dunduzu he, in fact, had wanted to start it even before Independence but had to put it on hold cautious the colonial master would label it a sign of disunity among the Independence fighters and use it as an excuse to deny or delay the Nyasas self-rule. It is for this reason that many received the news of Dunduzu’s death with lots of skepticism. (Dunduzu died in a road accident at a bridge at Namadzi, a place marking the boundary between Zomba and Chiradzulu.)

On September 9, 1964, when Masauko Chipembere spoke in Parliament in Zomba siding with the so-called rebel ministers, he took a principled political position. Here is a man, so principled, he refused to stick to government when the rest of his friends, those he knew and trusted had been sacked, and this was even after Dr Banda had asked him never to rush into resigning. Here was a man who described his fellow brothers and sisters without looking at where they were coming from. For instance, of Kanyama Chiume (and for your information, Kanyama Chiume was a Northerner and Chipembere, a Southerner or to be specific an Eastern Regioner) he said:

“He has been a friend of mine for so many years and a colleague of mine in this House long before many Honourable Members became Members in this House, and let it be remembered that we were sent here by the Nyasaland African Congress . . . This was the organisation through which our liberator, Ngwazi Dr Kamuzu Banda, was called to this country.”

He even defended Chiume against accusations that he had decided to stay abroad when the rest of his liberation fighters had been sent to jail. On this, Chipembere said: “All of us including our Ngwazi (Dr Banda) agreed that Chiume must not return, he must continue to do his work abroad, the work of publicising our cause . . . That is why, Mr Speaker, why this strong and nationalistic son of Africa (emphasis mine) didn’t go to jail.” In other words, Chipembere was saying Chiume had been advised by the leadership itself to remain abroad, not that he was afraid to return, that, in fact, Chiume was willing to return and go to jail together with his colleagues.

Of Orton Ching’oli Chirwa, he said, “. . .and who doesn’t know in this country that during the past eight or nine months Ching’oli Chirwa has merited the greatest praise among all Malawians in this country, including Honourable Members here? Not a single one of them was ever praised by the Ngwazi (Dr Banda) for his loyalty, honesty, punctuality, discipline and so on as Mr Ching’oli Chirwa. It is very difficult to believe that that man should be regarded as a traitor now, after being declared by our Ngwazi (Dr Banda) to be the most loyal man in the whole Malawi Congress Party. . . .” And this Ching’oli Chirwa Chipembere was praising and siding with was a Northerner.

And he said of Yatuta, “. . .that Yatu(ta) was at the side of the Ngwazi on the day of his arrest (March 1959). That dangerous moment, on that dangerous moment when several people were running away for their lives, Yatu(ta) was at the side of Ngwazi and went into jail with him. If there was a name on that list that risked his life it was Yatu. . . ”

And here was a man who would appreciate the contributions of Dr Banda even though he had just resigned from his government. He said, “I want to take this opportunity to thank the Prime Minister (Dr Banda) himself who was kind and fatherly enough to call me yesterday to his house to tell me not to make a hasty decision, not to decide one way or the other without careful thinking. He told me I must make sure that I say this . . . I wish to thank him very much indeed for that advice . . . but I feel that it is my duty to associate myself with my friends who have been dismissed in our cause in which I myself believe and on the grounds which I consider to be insufficient to merit a dismissal especially when it is a dismissal of our respected members of our community.”

And of history, he said: “Mr Speaker, I am a student of history, . . . I did a lot of reading of history and one thing which I learnt there from my reading was that history takes long to declare its verdict; history takes long to declare its judgement. The traitors of today may be the heroes of tomorrow, it may be after their death. So although today I may be condemned, I may be declared a traitor, I know that ultimately, however long it may take, my stand will be justified, and I wish to declare to my fellow Honourable Members that, whatever will be the position, I will not have any grudges against them (emphasis mine). They are my fellow members of the Malawi Congress Party. . .but against my fellow Malawian who accepts Kamuzu Banda as his leader, who accepts the policies of the Malawi Congress Party, I am always ready and prompt to forgive and forget. Whatever allegations may be made against me today . . . I will not hold it against them. I will realize that it is the strain of the time that has made them say these things (emphasis mine).”

In our politics today there are people who have developed a reputation for using the microphone the wrong way; unfortunately, political leaders, basking in their praise, see no reason to quickly grab the mike and say, “You’re wrong; a person who differs with me in ideology is not my enemy.” Instead, political leaders are quiet, and at times even smiling at such danger. If I were a leader and anyone would say, “We’ll deal with them, I would straight stand and shout, “You’re wrong; those you despite are decent men; I will ‘fight them but I will be respectful’.” This is the politics Malawi needs today, fifty something years after being given great lessons on democracy by great men and women who lost so much for this country, we need to come to maturity and learn to practise a form of politics Africa must learn from.

As people, we each sit on some bigotry and see everything through the spectacles of bias. It is interesting that all this can play to our advantage if we can learn to isolate people from issues, and force our minds to learn to respect one another based on merit and the greatness GOD endowed in each one of us.

What is happening on the field of politics in Malawi today is pathetic. You sift through the ruling party to see who represent the best as far as embracing progress and unity is concerned, you hardly see one. And you go the opposition, and there it is even worse. Surprised I’m saying it’s even worse in the opposition?

First, what do I mean by ‘the opposition’? Well, currently, the only opposition party worth its name is the Malawi Congress Party. I believe that if MCP had truly made itself a national party, come 2019 there were going to go into power. But I have my doubts because it looks a party that has failed to change.

Malawi Congress Party though associated with the Central Region of Malawi, is a party for the nation. It was started by a man from the North, a man who was kind enough to give up the leadership to Dr Banda upon his return from prison as a show of unity. The MCP has failed to convince people of the Central Region that as far as MCP is concerned, its leadership (including President) can come from any corner of the country because it is a party for the nation, not for the Central Region. Towards the end of Dr Banda, he started doing that, entrusting some important leadership roles to people like Chakuamba, a Southerner. There was a good reason such an educated man was doing this. The new MCP takes none of this. I know you would argue the Vice President of the MCP is a Northerner. True, but is he there as part of the system or convenience? If it is the system, fine and good, but if it is a strategic means just to buy votes, then one does not need a political science lesson to piece the jig-saw together.

Malawi Congress Party has failed to penetrate the Southern Region (the Eastern Region especially), and the reason is simple, it has refused to embrace the power of asking for forgiveness. I do not mean the forgiveness that comes at funerals or through some press conferences; I mean isolating the people from the area, asking them where they feel the pain, and genuinely asking them to forgive on a promise of a changed world.

In Parliament, the MCP have not shown that they stand for the people. When it comes to areas that benefit them as MPs, they have abandoned their roles and side with the very government they criticise.

Almost all the parties in Malawi have in their ranks some of the worst public speakers known adept at vitriol, yet on no single occasion can you hear their leaders attacking them for using the podium for their selfish end. I think Malawi should now embrace a new form of politics, a form of politics that encourages openness and civilised engagement.

Be it the ruling party or the opposition, please, we need to hear people clashing on policies and not on ethnicity or persons. I think Malawians must now come to maturity and practise the most civilised politics on the Continent. If anyone feels the podium a place to disseminate hatred, let us all be honest with them by telling them we since bid bye to the politics that picks on people; we are for the form of politics that great men and women who fought for our Independence taught us—the politics where you can still respect your political ‘enemy’ because our struggle is against the common ills that have held us back for over fifty years now. I think it’s time that we saw our leaders taking away the mike from rabble-rousers, swiftly chiding them for bringing disrepute to our politics, reminding them the political scenery has now changed—no one no longer endorses politics of personality.