Nature, Pain and Sacrifice and why we must agree to welcome the Pain and Sacrifice of Nation Building if we want to build a sweet Malawi

Introduction

One thing amazes me about Nature, and that’s the way it offers some of the greatest lessons on the virtue of pain and sacrifice in GOD’s grand design of things. To give life, a woman has to carry that great burden of raising a life within her for a telling nine moons. At delivery itself, she has to give out blood and water and energy, facing death in the eye, fulfilling the grand mission of procreation, to sustain our world. It is all in the grand design of GOD that building without sweat translates into chaos and nothing. This means one thing: leaders and people must cease from talking about prosperity if they refuse to leave the comfort zone that abhors the value of the power of pain and sacrifice. All great leaders I read and admire—Martin Luther King, Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela—have something in common, something more than a virtue, and that is a willingness to abandon pleasure and hedonism for the greater good of others. Why do Malawians fear pain so much? Why have we suddenly turned ourselves crooks who do not believe in earning what we eat and spend? What is it about sacrifice and pain we can learn from others, even from Nature itself, to spur ourselves forward, to defend the future of our children as we build a model of democracy for the world to learn from? This is the subject of this discussion.

Lessons Nature teaches about sacrifice

Nature offers the best answers to human problems. For me, the first sign of sanity in a nation is how seriously they take care of their environment, because Nature symbolizes the balance of everything, from reasoning to health to everything. In Nature is a mixing of perfection and chaos or potential chaos for man’s greater good. In Nature is perfection within which is a dose of destruction, all for some greater good. GOD gave man the desert, a lot of land, but in it is that barrier and sting of heat, almost fire, so only those who vow to face it in the face live there. HE gave us the fishes, but denied us the ability to breathe and walk underwater free lest our greed should plunder it of the life for the balance of Nature. Everywhere you go, you read good and a dose of what seems like chaos and bad, yet from the same comes the balance of Nature, this Great Mother who sustains us in the grand design of the Master Creator, GOD. I am never surprised Albert Einstein, this great physicist described Nature as kind of huge learning ground for all our answers, for he said: “Look deep, deep into nature and then you will understand everything better.”

The animal world fascinates me by the sacrifice it sometimes makes to sustain itself. One area nature presents itself as a poem of pain and sacrifice is pregnancy and birth.

According to Anna-Louisse Taylor (see “Nature’s Toughest Mothers Make Ultimate Sacrifice” available at www.bbc.com) black-lace weaver spider or Amaurobius ferox, gives birth to young ones or spiderlings, and then invites them to devour her. Taylor observes that “she could flee the web and avoid certain death, but instead encourages her spiderlings onto her body, giving them the nutrients they need to grow.” Here is a mother who knows pregnancy means certain death, but GOD had put in her this DNA of sacrifice to sustain her world or else this species would disappear from the face of the Earth. When you look at things like these, you want to ask GOD why HE has given man so much freedom of choice, a choice he abuses at will.

Ever heard of sexual cannibalism? Well, some female insects eat their male counterparts soon after mating, the males sacrificing themselves for the benefit of the young ones to come. This often happens when the female is in an environment where nutritional resources are inadequate. Mind you, the 'man' does this willingly, a willing participant. A good example are some praying mantis (see Pamel Meadors’ “What Female Insect Kills the Male after sex?” available at www.animals.mom.me).

I believe there is a great reason of lesson why GOD allows us to learn these funny procreation tactics in the insect or animal world. We are definitely far, far much better than these creatures and so should learn that the equation of progress requires the factor of sacrifice to balance. In short, if ordinary insects can sacrifice their own lives for the good and survival of their offspring, how much should human sacrifice pleasure for the good of the generations to come? Unfortunately, we are busy accumulating at the expense of our children. Surely, we shall answer for the chaos we are preparing for our children to face if we keep refusing to sacrifice so much today to create a better tomorrow.

A little diversion perhaps. I believe that nature is the handwriting of GOD. Put simply, if you want to understand anything, literally anything, read nature, and this is because answers to all our problems are hidden in nature, and indeed practice has shown that everything we do is a copy and paste or an improvement upon something we read in nature. Our parents developed or identified great medicines simply by observing what birds and other animals did when they showed signs of illness, i.e. what roots and leaves they fed themselves with and in what forms. We have huge aircraft carrying cargo thanks to our understanding of the principles of nature. What we call science is nothing but man’s interpretation of principles of nature. It all boils down to one thing: neglect nature and its principles and brace yourself for trouble, a huge trouble. Simple.

One distinct point of interest in all this is that sacrifice springs from willingness and commitment. The male insects studied willingly accept to die in exchange for happiness for their young ones and their mothers. In some cases, the mothers invited their young ones to feast of them in order to leave and sustain their lineage. Thus, sacrifice, like love, fears nothing, not even death.

Apart from learning from Nature, we can also take a leaf from the great sacrifices fellow men and women with frailties like us have made, bearing the pain of nation building with extra fortitude and endurance. Numerous examples can be cited from health, war, freedom struggle, et cetera.

Lessons from ordinary humans about sacrifice

Health

In 2014, Al Jazeera English carried a story “Top Sierra Leone doctor dies of Ebola”. It is a sad yet inspiring story about the death of Dr Victor Willoughby who succumbed to Ebola only hours before experimental drugs—ZMAb from Canada—could be administered to him. Dr Willoughby was one of the country’s most senior physicians, the eleventh to succumb to the disease. The article says by then the disease had killed more than 350 health workers in countries (affected at the time), depleting those countries of the scarce human resources in the names of nurses and doctors even in countries where training of the same is a headache of its own kind. A story like this should make those of us living vow to change our perception of the world and learn from such huge sacrifices that if you take out the element of sacrifice in the equation of prosperity and progress, you wait to achieve zero net.

Another area on health where humans sacrifice themselves for the greater good of all is clinical trials. Sometimes I wonder how many of us take time to think of what actually happens for the various drugs and treatments we trust today to reach this level of safety. Well, there have always been some healthy volunteers (person with no known obvious health problem) and patient volunteers (a person with a known health problem) who have participated to help us all so science can move forward and we all can be safe. One can imagine the risk such people take say on new drugs or new surgical procedures. They make this great choice because there must be some people who, from their conscience, must vow to help others for the greater good of humanity. How many times do we remember them whenever we take in these life-prolonging drugs? Where would we be and what would the world be like without such sacrifices? Strangely, we all live as though this world would still be on its axis without some great sacrifices by ordinary men and women like them.

Struggle for Equal Justice and Independence

It is said of the United States and Martin Luther King, Jr (1929-1968) that in the slightly over 12 years he had led the modern American Civil Rights Movement (December 1955-April 4, 1968), America registered a more genuine forward surge towards racial equality than the previous 350 years. But it took a man who studied so much about the power of words and non-violent resistance, to which he added self-denial, to bring forth this great stride of change. For the greater good of all Americans, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr put his life in the line of fire, and he was assassinated on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He could have lived a life of satisfaction away from the danger associated with freedom fighters, but he chose otherwise; he chose to die for the good of African Americans and all Americans. I would urge you to read “About Dr. King: Overview” available at http://www.kingcenter.org for the full story of this great human being.

Before Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, was Mahatma Gandhi of India (October 2, 1869-January 30, 1948). Gandhi was born from a privileged caste and received the best education including studies overseas at University College London. Gandhi prepared himself for a leadership position, abstaining from bodily pleasures including sex and alcohol, and partaking himself of philosophical study of religions, mostly Hinduism and Christianity. He was to spend 21 years in South Africa (from 1893), and this was way before apartheid had been entrenched in the Law of South Africa yet it (racial segregation) was all around for one to see and feel. Despite his education and privileged caste, Gandhi vowed to serve his people and when he returned to India in 1916, he developed his principles of non-violent civil disobedience for which he was to be incarcerated on sedition charges for two years following his arrest on March 10, 1922. Gandhi was to be arrested again on August 9, 1942 for his firm stand against deployment of Indian soldiers to fight for the Master, Britain, during World War II. His argument was that it did not make sense Indian soldiers fighting for British sovereignty when they were not independent themselves in India.

Towards the independence of the British-ruled India when the British planned to partition the territory into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, Gandhi was said to have strongly opposed to the plan. However, the Congress Party welcomed the proposals, and Gandhi had to give in. Herein is demonstrated one characteristic of great leadership—giving in to the wishes of the people no matter your position. On August 15, 1947, India celebrated her Independence. With this, Gandhi had another battle to wage—that of bringing peace to Muslims and Hindus in India, and, at the same time, making sure Pakistan and India were to live in peace. This was to infuriate many Hindus in India who opposed to his willingness to pay Pakistan huge sums of money for lost territory. Gandhi was to be assassinated on January 30, only a year after this Independence.

According to “Bios: Mahatma Gandhi” available at www.history.co.uk, Gandhi had suffered six known attempts at his life in his life.

In Africa and I should say the world over, one can never talk of peace and racial harmony without bringing in the figure of Nelson Mandela. Mandela is an epitome of everything sacrifice about leadership and the art of living together, spending twenty-seven years in prison in defence of all South Africans and coming out to forgive the very people who had caused so much pain upon black South Africans in their own land. Huge, huge sacrifice for the good of many.

War

War is another area where young men and women give up the best in life—loved ones, comfort of life, name it—to defend their countries or to liberate themselves or their people from some greater injustice. Africa knows so much of this, and I shall have to dedicate a whole post just for Africa and the liberation struggle some day. Meanwhile, let me present some two stories on yet some such supreme sacrifices from the battlefront, the first one on World War I (1914-18) and the other on World War II (1939-45).

Loss of a loved one to war is devastation enough, but loss of two or more family members to a single war can be difficult to put in words. That is exactly what had happened to two families—the Smiths and the Akimotos.

John Smith and Margaret Smith had six sons and all were enlisted in 1916 to serve the King during World War I. Five of these six sons died either in battle or of wounds sustained in battle between 1916 and July 1918. Only one, Wilfred, survived, and it had taken the local vicar’s wife to write Queen Mary (wife of King George V) to bring Wilfred home so his parents should have someone left of their children. And indeed Buckingham Palace responded kindly to this, removing Wilfred away from the battlefront, sparing his life for his parents or else the parents would live without a son, since five had already fallen in battle. (For a detailed story, see Greig Watson’s article “World War One: Families that lost five sons to conflict” available at www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-25497900)

In the United States, a family of Japanese descent found itself at the receiving end of retribution following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. This is the attack that forced the US to enter the Second World War.

Victor Akimoto and Johnny Akimoto, brothers, were a Nisei pair, i.e. were children born in the United States from Japanese parents (a Nisei was therefore a US citizen). The parents were referred to as Issei if they emigrated straight from Japan (and because of Anti-Asian Laws in America then, they could never become US citizens). According to Elms (2015: 26), Victor enlisted in the US Army just a day after the attack, eager to defend his country, Uncle Sam or the US. Not long after, people of Japanese descent were to be subjected to untold humiliation, rounded up and sent to internment (isolation) camps. This the American Government did on suspicion of espionage activities by people of Japanese descent. Despite enlisting in the US Army in 1941, Victor and Johnny never went to War until 31 January, 1943, and this is because the American Government were still suspicious of anyone with Japanese connection. However on January 31, 1943, President Roosevelt declared that all American people had to be allowed to serve their country, America. Even after that, Victor and Johnny could only serve in an all-Japanese-American unit.

Johnny died of acute hepatitis on August 2, 1944, in Italy. He was buried there. Victor was wounded and captured by the Germans in Italy. He was taken to a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany where he died on December 14, same year, following an amputation to his leg. According to Elms, the amputation was the worst that could happen to anyone because it was done while he was conscious with no anesthetics whatsoever, other POWs holding him down, doctors literally sawing through his thigh tissues and bone. He was buried right there. After the War, his family requested that his remains be taken to France to be buried together with fellow Americans at Lorraine American Cemetery there. The same happened to the remains of Johnny. They both lie in the same plot, same row and their graves next to each other—Johnny’s remains in Grave 42 and Victor’s in Grave 43.

In Malawi, there are so many examples of people who sacrificed everything for the freedom we purloin today. If these people had lived, they would be making great contributions to their families yet no one talks about them today. Someone is poor today because their parents or grandparents sacrificed themselves for us to be happy today. This extract from Ross (2009: 176) on the March 3, 1959 State of Emergency should jolt everyone in their chair:

The most appalling incident took place at Nkhata Bay where 20 local people were killed and 28 wounded when a very large crowd of unarmed but angry and bewildered people appeared to threaten the three soldiers and a sergeant guarding the pier where MV Mpasa (boat) was tied up and was taking on board detainees to be transported south (i.e. to the southern end of the Lake).

These people were killed in 1959 and five years later, in 1964, Malawi was to attain Independence. There is yet another lesson from this: the fruits of sacrifice do take time sometimes. In other words, sacrifice, like success, does take time sometimes.

In America, Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated in 1968 but his dream was to be fully realized years later when the White House housed a President with an African blood in him and a spouse all-black. In India, Mahatma Gandhi started the struggle in the 1920s, yet India was to gain independence in 1947, and a few months hence, Gandhi was to be assassinated. Mandela spent 27 damn years in goal, sacrificing his most productive years there in prison and when released only served a single term of the Presidency that has now become a tussle of shame in a country so looked upon as a symbol of prosperity on the Continent.

When we do good, we must remember that we might not be the people to enjoy it. This is a principle of GOD—that building should not necessarily mean you should be the one to harvest. When Charles Frederick Mackenzie was leaving South Africa to spread the gospel in a land he knew not (Malawi), he made an observation that puts succinctly what he believed about sacrifice and time. He said on January 12, 1861:

. . . That is the prospect we have before us—a prospect which does not depend upon our life and death, which does not depend upon our successes during our lifetime, but depends entirely upon the grace of GOD; a prospect which will undoubtedly be realized in GOD’s good time, for we know that ‘the knowledge of the LORD shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea’ (The UMCA in Malawi: A History of the Anglican Church: 1861-2010, Tengatenga, James, editor, Zomba: Kachere Series, p 37).

And true to his word, the Bishop was to die in this land on the evening of January 31, 1862, succumbing to malaria.

In my country when you start a political party, you must be the President of that party or else you leave it and start another one where they will accept you as President. In my country they always want to harvest there and then. It contrasts sharply with how our Independence fighters perceived things, for they were forward-looking and accepted that there should be one leader at a time. I am not saying that it was all-smooth then, for there were some disagreements but before Independence, they tended to demonstrate that spirit of compromise.

In Nyasaland (now Malawi), at midnight of March 2-3, 1959, the colonial Government declared a State of Emergency in order to arrest the top Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) leadership which, according to Andrew Ross (2008: 176) totaled two hundred. Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Masauko Chipembere, Dunduzu Chisiza, and other top NAC leaders were flown to Southern Rhodesia. Before the arrest, these leaders had a plan to start a new party:

The leadership of Congress (NAC) had expected arrests and had already decided who should step into their shoes when they were arrested. Those they had chosen had already received letters of authority signed by Lawrence Makata, Lali Lubani, Masauko Chipembere and Dunduzu Chisiza. Their instructions included the decision that from then on, the country should be referred to as Malawi (Ross, Andrew C. Colonialism to Cabinet Crisis: A Political History of Malawi, 2009, p 194).

My reading of all this is that these remnants, most important, Shadrak Khonje, Augustine Mtambala and Ceciwa Bwanausi had been instrumental in the formation of the Malawi Congress Party. When Aleke Banda arrived in July 1959, and when Orton Chirwa was released from Zomba Prison (he had been transferred in July, 1959 from Khami, Southern Rhodesia home) on August 8, 1959, the formalization of the Malawi Congress Party as a legal or official entity was initiated. Ross (2009: 196) proffers a logical flow of the events:

On August 8 (1959), Orton was released from Zomba Prison. Shadrak Khonje, Augustine Mtambala and others involved in the organization of the unofficial MCP went to see him at Colin Cameron’s house very soon after his release. They were certainly afraid that Orton was going to be used by Government to set up an alternative Party to anything representing the old or new Congress. They sought to remove him from temptation’s way by inviting him to become acting President of the Malawi Congress Party and to explore with the Colonial Government the possibility of making the Party a legal body. Orton agreed instantly without any apparent hesitation.

The delegation and Orton were clear that together they were undertaking a holding operation and that Kamuzu would automatically assume the leadership of the Party as soon as he was released. This had been arranged by the leadership on the eve of the first sweep of arrests (Ross, 2009, p 196).

I deliberately traced Ross in order to demonstrate that the MCP had been formed unofficially before March 3, 1959 though officially or as a legal entity it happened later in July or August 1959. But my interest is not on who formed the MCP, but rather the sacrifice that was there, that is to say that those who had been entrusted with the leadership of the Party when the top leadership had been out in Prison (especially at Gweru), remained true to their promises to hand over the leadership once Dr Banda was released.

Today there is a tussle for leadership in the former ruling People’s Party with the Acting President claiming the leadership, arguing he is doing that because the Party’s President, Joyce Banda, is never returning home despite promising a number of times she was to.

True leaders do not care who leads; they care how the one to take over will serve the people, all the people. This is because true leadership balances on the principles of sacrifice. Besides, sacrifice fears nothing. This reminds me of Masauko Chipembere’s speech in Parliament in Zomba on September 9, 1964.

Chipembere was making a speech after he had sided with fellow Ministers during the Cabinet Crisis. In the speech, he was declaring his support for the dismissed Ministers (Bwanausi, Chirwa, Chiume and Rose Chibambo) and for those Ministers who had resigned in sympathy with the dismissed Ministers (Yatuta Chisiza and Willie Chokani). In it he also demonstrated attempts he had made to bring reconciliation between the dismissed Ministers and the Prime Minister, Dr Banda. Perhaps cognizant to the dangers for this stand, in the speech Chipembere dismissed fear upon his person outright:

. . . Mr Speaker, I would like to say that I will not be wanting in courage. I will go (to a party or feast in Port Herald)—I will accept the invitation and go to the place where my fellow Malawians have invited me and face the knobkerrie that the Honourable Member has in store for me. I will be glad to face that chikwanje (machete) for the sake of justice. I will never retreat from an invitation or a call by my fellow Malawians because someone declared that he was going to spear me or to shoot me. If I were a coward I would run away from the bullets of 1959, 1960, 1961. I didn’t run away from the bullets of those days I will not run away from the chikwanje of today (Baker, Colin, Chipembere: The Missing Years, 2008, p 97).

Sacrifice entails patience, tolerance, respect and honesty. Sacrifice abhors fear because where a people fear to carry a burden to serve their people, institutions or Government, there progress ceases to exist.

Sacrifice and Forgiveness

Great leaders who have suffered at the hands of others have tended to be quick to forgive. You would naturally expect such people to be driven by a desire for revenge yet they tend to genuinely forgive those who wronged them. The other day, TB Joshua, this humble Nigerian Preacher of the Gospel, made a remark I found fascinating. He said something like this: “Pray for your enemies.” Then he asked: “Do you know why GOD entreats you to pray for your enemies? . . .Well, it’s because GOD says HE shall make your table in presence of your enemies.” A brilliant revelation.

Put simply, TB Joshua was saying that it is folly to fight your critics or your ‘enemies’ because when good comes to you, you shall need them to clap hands for you, to bear witness to your victory. So you must pray that they should be around when success knocks on your door so they should witness the greatness of GOD. Simple.

But what do we see in Africa? In the jostle for power and struggle for leadership and vain glory, political parties fight like fools. A few days ago, youths wing of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in my country went of rampage at a cultural ceremony in the northern parts of the Country. There, they pelted stones, chasing members of the opposition, all this in full view of delegates and our children. Unfortunately, no one seemed courageous enough to tell these youths that that is not the way they should read and understand politics. Of course, one minister apologized for this strange approach to issues though soon one party official contradicted her, claiming those pelting stones were members of the opposition throwing the missiles upon themselves to buy sympathy. In Malawi, every government in power (and here government and political party are the same thing) goes on the offensive against the opposition. How on earth could we claim democracy when we can’t accept that there should be others straightening us when we are going wrong? Ian Macleod, that British Conservative Politician (1913-1970) made an interesting observation about the need for the opposition in a democracy: “In Parliament, it should not only be the duty but the pleasure of the Opposition to oppose whenever they reasonably can.” I agree with him one hundred percent.

Interestingly, one Anglican Bishop, Malasa, has come out to condemn what the DPP youth wing did in the North. For this, a number of misguided critics have lashed out at the Bishop, accusing him of being a DPP sympathizer, saying he’s coming out to condemn after reading public opinion is swaying against the DPP. I do not share such cheap sentiments; I know Bishop Malasa; I know his stand on issues; he’s a man who stands for peace and objectivity. Often men like him are very easily misunderstood; what the people should appreciate is that he came out and pointed out that what happened does not represent what Malawians chose in 1993 at the Referendum. The Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM), and this is a grouping of Catholic Bishops in the country, has also condemned such unMalawian conduct, citing the tendency to define politics through the lens of partisan politics and tribes as the cause.

When men of GOD speak those blessed with understanding must listen. In Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s The Rainbow People of GOD: South Africa’s Victory over Apartheid (pp 102-3), the man of GOD reflects on one open letter he wrote to the then Prime Minister, Mr BJ Vorster, in 1976. In the letter, Archbishop Tutu had pleaded with the apartheid Government to find a lasting solution to the growing anger of the people of Soweto over the oppressive yoke of apartheid. Mr Vorster dismissed it with a wave of the hand, describing it as propaganda instigated by the white opposition in Parliament. A few weeks later, on June 16, 1976, the anger exploded when students at Soweto schools organized a protest march. When the police launched teargas and the students responded with stones, the police opened fire, killing thirteen-year-old Hector Peterson. The situation turned worse, and by June 24, the official figure was 140 dead. The event marked the turning point against the apartheid Government—their brutality had been glaring and the world began to ask serious questions.

When men of GOD speak, we must listen and take quick steps to mend our ways; it augurs no well to defend yourself or present other postures that may aggravate the situation. I think this is what being Malawian means, that people can point out wrong so long as the manner of pointing out does not carry with it elements to embarrass others. This is why I always suggest that we must never get tired of talking as a people.

Malawians with a heart for this country have always condemned violence at various times of our history, even during the (September, 1964) Cabinet Crisis itself:

Members have seen fit to threaten violence. I say I too used to be a man of violence, but I swore that I could never be violent against my fellow Malawians. If Honourable Members want to be violent towards their fellow Malawians, their own Members, it is up to them, but I would like to appeal to the nobler portions of their minds, to their intellect rather than to their emotions. I would like to remind them that they have a duty to ensure that this country for which so many people have suffered and for which so many people have shed their blood and died—died to early to see the day of freedom—they have a duty to see that this country doesn’t perish, that this country doesn’t break down into a Congo. If they just touch one man, if they beat one man, if they lay their hands on one man, they should know that that one man, will be tempted to retaliate and retaliation will produce counter-retaliation and then it will go on; it will have a cumulative effect to snowball and you have in this country a situation in which there is a war of all against all, a disintegration of society because every man who is a Malawian has got some supporters, however small and junior he may be. If his friends and relatives see him being assaulted, they will not take it lying down. (Chipembere: The Missing Years, p 96).

On the same issue of sacrifice and forgiveness, I have remembered a debate that has been in the papers lately, that regarding whether to compensate the Malawians who had served in the old paramilitary youth brigade of Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda—the Malawi Young Pioneers (MYP). Some have argued that a grouping that had terrorized the nation during the one Party regime deserved no mercy, and therefore no compensation. Some have argued otherwise, saying the MYP were there as a body created by Law and therefore have to be treated with the politeness due any bureaucracy that had been serving the State.

First, who were the Pioneers or rather what was the Malawi Young Pioneers? Ross (2009: 218) gives a picture of the level of power they yielded and where their loyalty leaned:

Dr Banda had also created another string to his bow, a modern one. This was the national youth movement, the (Malawi) Young Pioneers, launched in August 1963. It took the place of the old Congress Youth League, the organization from which the ‘young men’ (Chipembere et cetera) had sprung. . . . It was not an organization of young radicals and intellectuals aiming to ginger up the Party, which was the old Youth League tradition rooted in the pattern of the Youth League of the ANC of South Africa. The new organisation, the Young Pioneers, was a uniformed organization made up primarily of young people who had failed to climb the educational ladder. . . . This organization was firmly grounded in the Banda ‘Saviour of the Nation’ ideology and was under the control of the central Party machine led by Albert Muwalo. This gave Banda a political tool which had not been available to any previous figure in politics.

In short, the Malawi Young Pioneers (MYP) was created in 1963 by Prime Minister Hastings Banda as an armed wing of the Malawi Congress Party, taking after similar armed wings from Ghana and Israel. The 1966 Constitution of the Republic of Malawi made the MYP part of the security forces. At times, it acquired better arsenal than those by the country’s army itself. In some cases, equipment bought in the name of the national army or carrying Malawi Army labels ended up in the hands of this organization. The organization was disarmed by the Malawi Army in December, 1993 following the killing of two Malawi Army soldiers on December 1 by members of the Organisation following a tavern brawl. Tengatenga (1995: 102) has this to say on it all:

The army top brass advised caution (against attacking the MYP bases), but the junior officers and men ‘mutinied’ and put the top brass under house arrest. They targeted MYP property and some MCP property. The army was bent on revenge hence the unofficial name of the operation—Operation Chitedze. . . . The captured MYP’s were taken for questioning and subsequently released, however some fled across the border into Mozambique. . . . The death toll was 25 (officially) and several tens wounded, some of whom were civilians caught in cross-fire. The operation did not lead to the feared anarchy and neither did it turn out to be a coup d’etat.

If you would ask what my take on this is, I would say without flinching that those who are arguing that former MYP servicemen and women do not deserve compensation are reading it all wrong and do not understand the power of forgiveness in nation building where you sacrifice something in order to build a future. Compensating the MYPs will be a demonstration that Malawians are always open to forgive in order to change the affairs of the nation for the better. Interestingly, top MYP leadership, some of them have served or still serve in Government today, were welcomed and compensated in various ways. Why should those of the lower rungs be punished for a sin we, including churches in the country, shared?

Chirambo (1998: 205) provides an interesting line on the same when he discusses the position the Malawi Congress Party (MCP takes on the issues of the MYP boys and girls being behind past atrocities. Chirambo quotes the MCP as saying some of the Ministers serving in the then ruling United Democratic Front had themselves being at the helm of the MYP organisation, "Aleke Banda, for example . . . is singled out as having initiated and carried out the arming of the MYP. He served in the MCP as General Secretary. By the virtue of that position, he was in charge of the everyday affairs of the MYP."

Pay these people what they deserve and challenge them to lead in peace building and development. Their skills are still necessary today. Torture aside, these people fed us for years; we can’t throw away the basin too; we can extract from them the hard-work and challenge them to lead in food security initiatives in the country. If we are never ready to embrace those who offended us, I bet we shall remain where we are a million years from now. Forgiveness is an act of sacrifice or rather a manifestation of sacrifice on the part of the forgiver.

Sacrifice and Greed

People with a spirit of self-sacrifice have tended to welcome pain without demanding accumulation of wealth as compensation.

South Sudan is a new country born from blood following a long battle with Khartoum. All along, the world believed that Khartoum was a great oppressor, and that South Sudan needed peace to enjoy their natural resources and forge forward as one people. But what has independence brought the people of South Sudan? More wars, more suffering, more folly, and the cause? Greed. None of the leaders there wants to sacrifice something to bring their people peace. Everyone wants to be a leader, every ethnic group wants to reign supreme. Today, South Sudan has turned itself into another Africa’s last laughing stock.

Sacrifice also entails a willingness to take the beating on behalf of the people, or even to take responsibility for your actions or even for the actions of those under you. Nelson Mandela in The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom talks of how the other day he had asked Bikitsha, a friend from home, to help him carry his suitcase to the gate at a mine facility. Bikitsha did not know that inside the suitcase was hidden a loaded revolver, Mandela’s revolver. When Bikitsha was arrested for carrying a revolver, Mandela gathered courage and went to the police station to hand himself in. What strikes me is the position he took, for he says, “I could not let my friend take the blame in my stead” (p 91). Bikitsha was released and Mandela was charged for possession of the gun. In court, Mandela was fined a nominal fee.

In Malawi, there occurred a grand collusion of theft of public money by top politicians when billions of money meant for public goods and services went into individual’s pockets. It was a grand scheme where top politicians, bankers, lawyers, civil servants et cetera connived to ransack the Number 1 Government Account of money by fooling the software of the highly touted integrated financial management information system (IFMIS), feeding it full with lies. This was never going to come out but thanks to an attempt (shooting) upon the life of the then Budget Director over disagreements on money issues harvested in that fashion. Many lower civil servants have been arrested and punished for this crime, but none of the top politicians has been called to account for this treachery in our treasury. Malawi has seen so many innocent people serving goal for obeying their masters, and as we talk those master are wining and dining under hotel chandeliers in houses as big as the White House, all this in a background of people living in abject poverty and deprivation following that historic loot. We do not have leaders who can stand and take responsibility. Unfortunately, when I read those who claim they will change things once in the system, I find in them no trait to convince me we have a better option. What I fear is to bring in a worse one for the bad we have. This is why I keep saying perhaps better the devil I know; at least I can negotiate with this one to persuade him to abandon violence and change for the better.

Areas for us to demonstrate the spirit of sacrifice

We can agree to allow the opposition living space in our democracy; we can open up our national broadcaster; we can allow good laws that fortify the tenets of democracy without leaving other clauses entangled in a web of ambiguity for our children to grapple with. We can sacrifice to contain this population explosion. We can work like ants at our workplaces, for our people, in our fields, name it. We can learn to negotiate over issues and forgive those who wronged us when they openly demonstrate remorse for their terror. We can do away with salient segregation on basis of ethnicity, et cetera. We can agree to stop the spread of HIV and vow to build a better place for our children and their children. Lastly, we can allow nature to thrive one more time and give us the best it gives her people.

And what if we don’t?

If we can’t accept the pain of sacrifice, we will keep making laws with huge holes in them, churning our policies and laws as a matter of duty and not commitment. If we can’t accept pain we shall keep plundering that which we should protect, nurture and multiply. Those who shun the pain of sacrifice harvest where they did not sow, value not the power of waiting, this great principle of GOD. Because we abhor pain, we grow jealous when those who work hard succeed, we fail to appreciate other’s progress and achievement, and we burn with anger for revenge and destruction. Our dislike of pain deprives us of conscience and so we do anything so long as it gives us pleasure and money. Because of this, we forget who we are and what our good GOD has endowed bountifully for us all. But we can turn back and become a great people again. We can, yes we can. Nature does it; we can.

Conclusion

Many people believe that our greatest problem in Malawi is corruption. For me, corruption is a symptom or manifestation of some bigger problem, almost a disease, in our midst—our abhorrence of the power of pain and sacrifice. I fear that our emphasis on corruption often leaves out the root cause, and so we miss it all in everything we do as a country. Hard-workers have no time to steal, for they believe in the happiness of fruits of their labour at the appointed time. Nature teaches us that change and renewal entail sacrifice, i.e. forgoing something good in order to build something super. Sacrifice carries with it a component of pain, and that’s the whole reason we all abhor it, sacrifice, but pain is necessary if we are to build a sweet, honest Malawi. Sacrifice when married to patience and waiting is a great principle that upholds all this in place; disregard it, you disregard everything good.

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