a story is told

[Published: Malawi News 17 March 2012]

Along the Chikawa Road there is a junction called Chishagalalo. From here there is a pathetic bumpy and dusty road that stretches westwards. It is this battered thoroughfare that takes people into a village called Menase.

Traveling this heavily potholed road one passes a ground in a rundown state. It is a portion covered with furrows and erratic dried out grass. Going further, the rutted road twists several times, passing an abandoned dysfunctional borehole and a deserted entertainment hall, a heavily-cracked faded building moldy in the sun, before reaching a faint looking and falling into disuse house that emits a haunted atmosphere. This house is the home of Kulingalinga.

Looking at Kulingalinga one sees a distressed person. His gaze is disturbing as his eyes, hollowed and untrusting, sporadically gaze beyond, looking at seemingly unsettling things that are understood by him alone. He has a frail and bony statue that is capped by a hairless head that possesses a deformed mouth. And it is from this mouth that a story is told…

Menase was the envy of surrounding villages and others beyond its borders, the story goes. Villages like Nencholi, Kempala, Beluti, M’mengo and Menyowe, all envied the serenity that prevailed in Menase. They admired its sound democracy and vibrant economy, and also a yearly abundant food production that made it a food basket for the whole region. Jobs were there, the education system was tremendous, and the health sector was outstanding. People from other villages used to migrate to Menase to look for jobs and other opportunities. Menase was a shelter for many people.

Then entered the reign of chief Mabvuto; in his first eight years Menase saw things getting even better. The economy increased, agricultural produce doubled, and the unemployment rate reduced drastically. People hailed his reign as wise, dynamic and pragmatic, a fantastic regime never seen before.

But later power corrupted chief Mabvuto. The praises he received got to his head and knocked reason and sense out of him. He started to believe he was the best and that he alone was chosen to think for Menase as if the villagers’ brains were stuffed with rotten rubbish. He started to play God in Menase. He believed he had to rule forever.

“We can’t copy everything from the West,” that was chief Mabvuto on the day he bulldozed his scheme and had the rules changed to suit his ego. He was addressing the Lawmaking Chamber, packed with blind loyalists.  

“There’s need to have an indigenous system that would accommodate the village’s cultural and historical aspects…” he was interrupted momentarily by hand clapping, “We need a system home-grown that will come with indigenous solutions to our problems,” he had continued when the hand claps had ebbed.

“We agree rules must be the same, but that doesn’t mean we should all have the same form of democracy. Each village must have a system unique to its set up,” chief Mabvuto had ranted on and on about his strange idea of an indigenised system of government, amidst numerous interruptions of hand claps and intones of ‘Hear! Hear! Hear!’ And that day rules were changed to accommodate this, for the lawmakers had come to know that if they were to feed they had to rubber stamp the chief’s wishes.

But this was his machination not to be quizzed about his policies. All he wanted was to take a decision and expect all to abide by it unquestioningly. He had introduced a system with the sole aim of achieving a ‘winner-takes-all’ situation as positions and contracts now went to his friends and loyalists.

And opposition figures such as Joh Mawudzu, Aneva, Apichesi, Alayisani and Akuseli started to get arrested and rot in prison, or mysteriously died, or fled into exile. And even his friends that raised or were perceived to raise reservations to his policies were not spared.

Kulingalinga, the teller of this story, the best friend of chief Mabvuto then could attest to this. He got arrested and tortured in some notorious prison for congratulating a poet from the village who won an international poetry competition; with a poem the authorities felt was critical of them. By the time Kulingalinga came out of prison 20 years later, he was a walking corpse, and found his businesses and property in ruins, on top of a dead wife and son.

Then Menase plummeted. The economy became crippled, as funds went down the drain through blinding corruption. Infrastructure and social amenities such as health and education became crippled too. People lost jobs, as companies were closing shop en masse.  The village hall and the ground were abandoned; there was no sponsorship for teams and dramas and music performances were banned. The road from Chishagalalo junction also stopped being graded, and food once in abundance, became a scarce commodity. Scarce too was fuel. Menase was turned into a living hell…

Chief Mabvuto still reigns today in Menase, the land of many difficulties now. And Kulingalinga still lives in Menase, and goes on to tell this heart-rending story.

“I’ve nothing to fear. This autocratic regime has made me go through real hell. Even if it decides to kill me, I’ve nothing to lose, and dying for me will be gain,” he says, from his deformed mouth that tells this sad story.