Don’t blame it on ‘Amwenye’: It’s Malawi public servants and politicians, stupid!

Public opinion is, with each passing day, pitching Malawians of Asian origin as a great danger to this great Republic.

Just look around.

In Parliament, some legislators have been visibly red-eyed against some Asians for, we are told, buying off the best part of land in our urban areas.

On social media, Asians are being slewed from all directions. Their crime? They are always having a larger cut in all key government tenders and businesses in the country.

Not only that.

All the key businesses in the country, I mean visible ones not mandasi selling, is in the hands of our Asian brothers—property, transportation, construction, and all that.

Unarguably, we have an Asian monopoly problem in the country; it’s real, it’s being felt and, if you look around, a feeling of ‘enough is enough’ is crippling in the minds of indigenous Malawian and, if left unchecked, it will blow up to something nastier and regrettable.

But before we blow up, as a nation, we need to ask ourselves some really tough and, of course, nasty questions that we must confront.

How did Asians monopolize our economy, what have we done to stop that and why, till date, do we still have this challenge?

It’s only if we confront such questions and, in the process, find hard answers then we can, frankly and honestly, point the right people to blame in this ‘Amwenye’ bashing game.

Historically, Asians have been in Malawi from the first and second decade of this 21st Century doing several retail and transport businesses.

However, their economic prominence emerged between 1960 and 1965 when white people, who owned much of the property and land in the country, were leaving the country because they didn’t want to be led by a black president.

Most white people, hurriedly, sold off their property and land to Asians because by then, it’s mostly Indians who had the power of purchase. Most indigenous Malawians were still very poor.

What didn’t happen in the 31 years that Ngwazi Hastings Kamuzu Banda ruled Malawi was a deliberate policy to empower Malawians to own property and land—with a goal to ensure that Asians don’t capitalize the advantage of purchase their enjoyed in the 60s.

Unfortunately, with indirect and direct protection from the State, Asians were left to expand—inviting their sisters, brothers, cousins, aunties, all that—and, through their connection, each was buying up land, properties and opening businesses, you name it.

Bakili Muluzi and his ten years, Bingu Wa Mutharika and his 7 years, Joyce Banda’s 2 years, Peter Mutharika’s 6 years—all these years have done nothing to curb the rising Asians monopoly apart from partnering  some of them in the grand theft of public resources.

What we are experiencing today, this t we call an Asian, is a problem that stems for years of neglect by authorities to put in place measures that should curb the ever-rising monopoly of Asians in the country economy.

These Asians are smart capitalists and as any capitalist they buy their way to profit using whatever means.

Instead of containing the Asians, our governments chose to collaborate with  some of them in looting this great nation.

So, should we still be accusing Asians and painting their community with one brush? No, it’s personalities in parliament who makes laws to blame; its personalities in public service to blame; its personalities at State House to blame. These Asians are only taking advantage of our weak and thieving governments.

The Asian community have proved that they can contribute effectively to the economic growth of the country as law abiding citizens. They pay tax, they create employment, they are involved in charity activities and yet we also have our own so-called indigenous Malawi entrepreneurs who are corrupt, treat workers inhumanly and all sorts of bad things.

Time to change the course and look at issues in right perspectives.

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