I have no apologies to make for this comment. Malawi needs a full dosage if it is to recover.
These painkillers we are using to treat Malawi, the sick nation, will not help at all.
If I were Pastor Dickson Kashoti, I could ask for prayers of deliverance. Malawi needs deliverance; it is now full of demons. Well, I am not a pastor; therefore, we need to explore social and economic ways of healing Malawi.
Those of you who might have seen pictures in the social media—of a 30-year-old woman from Area 25 in Lilongwe being harassed, beaten mercilessly, inhumanely caressed by fellow women, who then injure her private parts—can agree with me that Malawi is a sick nation.
This, coming from the backdrop of silly and stupid rumour-mongers who mercilessly killed innocent people on allegations that they are bloodsuckers, vampires, is disappointing.
A small country with a fragile economy, over half of its people living below the poverty line, yet Malawi is able to hit international news headlines for wrong reasons.
This is not the first time that women have attacked fellow women.
As the issue of Area 25 women was trending on social media, we heard of another incident; a group of women beating up a fellow woman in Area 24; Lilongwe again.
It looks like the battle against domestic violence is won. Men no longer beat their wives or girl friends or women because of the laws that have been put in place and thanks to the massive campaigns by gender activists.
Now, there is this new war; women against fellow women and usually the issue is about men; the suspected men-grabbers are beaten mercilessly.
I wonder who told these women attackers that, because they are women, they should take the law in their own hands?
This is sickening.
If these two incidents I have cited above involved men, I am sure the Emma Kaliyas, the Jessie Kabwilas, the Billy Mayayas would promptly organise protest matches with some sickening messages on placards. They might have presented a petition to the Speaker of Parliament Richard Msowoya and Chief Executive Officer of Lilongwe City Council.
However, since this issue involves women against women, there is a loud silence; instead, the gender activists might be thinking of attacking me for writing this.
Let us all be fair. The women attackers should be condemned in strongest terms the way men who attack women are condemned. That way, we will bring back the lost glory of Malawi.
As a writer, I am not a male or female chauvinist. My job is just to analyse issues as they are and present my opinion in a balanced manner. This is why I am saying that I am baffled by the rise in attacks of women by fellow women.
What troubled me most on the Area 25 saga is that women could force a fellow woman to strip and take pictures of her private parts and circulate the pictures on social media. Why women, why?
I am not interested or rather I should say men are not interested in seeing private parts of other women apart from those of their spouses; apologies if I have offended anyone.
This is a serious case and I am told this case is called attacking, or something like that, the decency of a woman and it attracts a one-year sentence.
The one-year sentence is too lenient. At least five years can do; therefore, our law-makers should think of reviewing this so that culprits are given a lengthy custodial sentence to act as a deterrent to would-be offenders.
Thank God that the woman is discharged from hospital but this is an issue which our gender activists should take up.
Still on the issue of women, I have noted, with great regret, that Mothers’ Day, a special day set aside by the Hastings Kamuzu Banda administration to honour women, has lost its meaning.
Instead of women asking for money from their spouses to buy presents for their dear mothers, they are demanding money for a trip to “the lake” for drinks and half-naked lakeshore activities.
I do not think Kamuzu Banda could have allowed a holiday for this silly thing.
The government set aside the day as a holiday to enable us to go and visit our dear mothers and other women relations dear to our hearts, not to allow women to get a free visa from their spouses to drink beer and get intoxicated to the extent of stripping off their clothes along the lake.
I f t h i s c o n t i n u e s , t h e government should think of deleting the day from the calendar as a holiday and replace it with a Culture Day.
My thinking is that we have too many uncoordinated cultural days which, most of the times, are used as fundraising events for our dear traditional leaders.
For instance, we should have Mulhakho wa Alhomwe, Gona pa Muhanya etc on a single day to be called Culture Day to save both money and time.
Government officials and others spend much of the year up and down, attending to these uncoordinated cultural days; as a result, politicians take advantage of the situation to hijack them.
Instead of the focus of the day to go to cultural events, the focus goes to politicians as usual.
Finally, let me applaud the government for bringing to an end the violence that erupted following bloodsucking rumours.
I expected the government to act swiftly, soon after the rumours started but, as expected, our leaders waited until we lost at least eight lives and property to start effecting arrests.
The same happened with the killings and maiming of people with albinism.
The government must be proactive not reactive!
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