What have politicians done for them?
In the 50 years since I was in Malawi as a young boy, life in most African villages has not changed in the slightest.
Before leaving Britain for Central Africa earlier this month, I saw the news that Gordon Brown was to place on the table at Copenhagen more than £1 billion in British aid to developing countries, to help them to combat climate change. The offer sounded generous. But could we, I wondered, ever really monitor how the money was spent? Could we micromanage its distribution? Alternatively, could we trust recipient governments to spend it for us?
In Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, where I landed three days ago, I passed a prominent sign on the outskirts of the city, notifying the public of the offices to which a driveway led. It read: “Capacity-building for non-government actors.”
“What does that mean?” I said to my companion, a well-educated Malawian woman with fluent English.
“We don’t know,” she said. “We’ve been trying to find out. We think it might be something to do with training for charity workers.” She paused, then added, half to herself: “They are talking to themselves.”
Truly they are talking to themselves. They are trying to say training for charity workers without using the words training, charity or workers. If C. Northcote-Parkinson (of Parkinson’s law) were alive today, he would be writing not about the Admiralty but about international development. And I find myself making an unexpected connection between that exchange with my Malawian companion and an earlier conversation she had had with our Malawian driver.
“I say!” he had called to her, to gain her attention. The rest of their conversation was conducted in their shared language of Chichewa, but “I say!” had caught my ear.
I’ve heard it used in Malawi before and since. It means almost what it used to when employed by the officer class in Britain: something between “Look here”, “Do I have your attention?” and “Gosh”. It has almost certainly came into the local idiom via our colonial officers in the days when Malawi was the British Protectorate of Nyasaland.
My uncle was a forestry officer in the central region of the country, and to stay with him one Christmas I travelled on my own by train (a great three-day adventure) from what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), via Mozambique, 50 years ago. Now I am back here in the sub-Sahara: a subcontinent I know well. This time I’m travelling under my own steam, with friends, in true rural Africa, a land I love.
Malawi is a friendly, safe and gentle country, welcoming to strangers, and not by African standards notably inefficient or corrupt. But what strikes me most — more than any of the changes I see in the cities — is how little has changed in the lives of the vast majority of the people of Africa, who live on the land.
Fifty years ago “I say” had entered the lingo, and if overseas aid remains centre-stage here for much longer, perhaps “capacity-building” may pop up in the Chichewa language too, as part of the idiom, along with a new political language of Africanisation that independence has brought. All else remains the same.
During the half-century in which Harold Macmillan’s winds of change have blown themselves — in political terms — into a gale, half a century in which revolutions both violent and peaceful have thrown off the yoke of six great European empires and all the colours of the countries on the map have changed, half a century of tremendous political struggle, half a century about which it would be possible to fill a whole library with works of political science describing, analysing and disputing the processes of imperialism, decolonisation and liberation … during the half-century between what I saw when I was 10 and what I see now at 60, life in the average African rural village is unaltered.
As a little boy I spent a week alone with my young brother staying in a remote village in Mashonaland in Rhodesia. My mother had organised this through an African friend, believing her children should know how other people live. That was 1959. This week I returned to a small village near Lake Malawi, where I went last November to write (for The Times Christmas Appeal) about the work of a small British charity. I am not exaggerating when I say, without qualification, that nothing — nothing — has changed for better or worse or at all, in village life. You could rewind the video 50 years and you would not spot a single feature that placed us in 2009 rather than 1959 — none, that is, except the lines of my face. Oh, there is, perhaps, one: the new pumps we were installing are of a more primitive design than the 19th-century style lever-pumps that used to be installed in colonial days, as these often proved too complicated to maintain in remote areas in Africa.
I do not, from this, conclude that colonialism was good, or that African independence has been bad. No, they have both proved largely irrelevant, hardly scratching the surface.
When we British marvel at how so small a nation managed to govern so much of so large a continent, with so few colonial officers on the ground, we overlook the fact that we weren’t really governing at all. We were just there. We were marching around, building and mending a few (rather bad) roads, policing (after a fashion) with the help of tribal chiefs and elders, and generally flying the flag. And on the whole, and for some time, the locals couldn’t be bothered to remove us.
Modern African governments in most African cities — so far as their rural hinterlands are concerned — are just there too: strutting around a bit too; mending a few bridges; sticking up signs announcing plans and schemes; jetting off around the world (as our Colonial Service sailed or flew back and forth) and suppressing opposition as our colonial predecessors did. Primary education has spread, but most rural children never go on to secondary school, and if they did there would be no jobs for them. Infant mortality remains, as it always was, unbelievably high.
From this we should perhaps draw no conclusion at all: for or against Africa. We should instead observe that in large parts of the world, and for billions more of our fellow human beings than it suits us political obsessives to acknowledge, politics hardly matters.– The Times (UK)
Tagged with: corruption, Gordon Brown, Lake Malawi, Lilongwe
Mwalira kokwanira basi inu anthu akumpoto koma zoyenera kudziwa ndi zoti quota system is there to stay muyaluka ndi kukonderana kwanu mwatipondereza kokwanira kubisala kuseri kwa merit mulire kwambiri mpaka misozi isanduke magazi kumanama kuti ndinu anzeru mukumabera mayeso. Ndaphunzirapo ndi ambwenumbweni inenso nkumadabwa kuti nzeru zake zilikuti.Chifukwa chakupanda nzeru khani ina iliyonse mukuikamo quota system quota system ndi articleyi zikugwirizana.
A Goloti, ndinu Agologolodi, you cant link that the issue is about development and quota system affects development as the spanners of development will have fake certificates since they will go to university under sympathetic terms.
You cant see the writing on the wall since Goodall was taken out of Finance- No fuel, No forex, some companies folding up etc. When merit is left to the dogs this is what happens and the situation will be worse when the quota system has come to stay as you claim.
Don’t find glory at punishing the north as we are already used to spartan life right from Kamuzu era. We are likened to the Jews!
Kodi za quota system zapezeka mu article yomweyi? What paragraph, if I may be assisted? We all know that quota has come to stay because it is govt policy; let’s just wait for its intended results.
BANALUME,
Who said that students will go to university under sympathetic terms due to quota system. Are you sure that students will be admitted to the university with 40 points due to quota system? Are you sure every district in the center and south would not be able to produce 10 students with points between 6 and 25? And you think its only in the north where all students score better points in MSCE? Please be honest Mr.Banalume, what is it that is making you headache about the quota system? I would equally not hate anything that will equally benefit Malawi. Lets first taste the consequences of the quota system and then we will be able to raise these concerns. In this matter, no one is telling us the truth. The truth shall be known upon its implementation. If the old merit system is viewed to be wrong, why can’t we change it? Don’t you see that the old merit system is overdue?
Good food for thought! Whoever authored this article knows Africa and its politics inside out. What he has diplomatically avoided to put in black and white is the fact that in Africa, one should just join politics to see a change in his welfare. Malawi is indeed a country that has known peace throughout its independence era, but shamefully little to show off in terms of meaningfull development. Politicians yet want people to believe there is alot of development taking place. Countries which have been in civil strife for decades on end are well ahead of Malawi development wise. It is a fact that instead of improving on whatever little development the colonialists initiated, most of the areas have been slidding back into the stone age era. Our leaders are at the same time jetting around the world, being treated to sumptuous buffets and refusing to share the little the country has with the poor man in the village. There are no credible social services in place and people die without knowing that they have their rights to government social benefits. Botswana and Libya stand out as exceptional cases in Africa, and may be its time leaders of these two countries schooled their African brother and sister leaders what it means to rule.
Chitukuko chimafunika chilungamo komanso chikondi osati greed. Development we see in africa vs the amount of aid that has gone to africa plus resources we have in africa, pepani its pathetic. Maiko otukukawa were not depending on aid kuti atukuke, koma hard work and good resource management. Kuba kwathuko too much!! Its not only politicians stealing, from mipingo, ma bungwe, mu boma etc. Akupatseni ndalama zoyendetsera NGO..big proportion of the money is spent on huge salaries, expensive cars, madilu, very little goes on ground. Akati hard work, one who has visited US will tell what hard work means, americans work, men! I guess is same case in other developed countries. So yes we have become lazy there! Kuba too much, greed..and if you read views on quota system, you can tell how we divert from chilungamo..and what we should understand is Malawi is not about regions, is not about who is intelligent, malawi is one nation, if you work as a nation, like anzathu kuno ku US amachitila, follow chilungamo and place human resource where they fit best (merit), develop human resource based on what they are more competent in (merit), zinthu zimapita patsogolo. Unfortunately, firica all over zochitika very similar, we shield criminals, killers, basi azungu amangoti kaya kaphanani, kabani!!
All these you call malawian politicians have done nothing for Malawi than ripping the poor malawians.Lives of Malawians have not improved up to this times apart from a few ziomba and politicians.
These greedy politicians are just there for self enrichment and the only problem Bingu knows about Malawi is quota system,while Malawi has numerous problems to sort out.Shame to this useless leader masquerading as a president of tiny poor state in central Africa.
I am a northerner, went to public schools in malawi had great grades consistently until standard 8, wrote exams never selected, never found out how much i scored.On the other hand only people selected from my school had southern sounding names and consistenly were alwayz way below my grades.Went to private schools and am in usa for a while. I hated the fact that my parents had good jobs payed taxes that ended up paying for someone elses education in the government schools.In USA i realized that Blacks were being given what amounted to a quota system in education,jobs and government positon.I believe no system is fair but i believe the quota system for at least 80% of students and then have the other 20% for best grades to ensure that we are getting the best students and talents.I just have a few questions…
(1) would you select a rich southerner over a poor northerner or vice versa??
(2)Are we gonna select more christians than moslems, more catholics than adventists?
(3) are we gonna have quotas in the malawi national team??? or other aspects of society.
In the end i dont know how this problem can be solved but i understand both sides and i choose not to condemn either but people should do this in the best way possible and in a civilized manner
Nonsense! What is GBP 1 billion? The British are always giving peanuts in support but make lots of noise about.
1 billion is peanuts compared to the funds that have been used to bail out banks and useless companies in the developed countries. Yet ka 1 billion is hailed as huge amount and they have to be careful how it is to be used. Nonsense. Let them keep their ka one billion – anthu oumila.