Malawi not secular state, says Catholic cleric
Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) secretary general Father Henry Saindi has dismissed assertions that Malawi is not a secular state, saying human rights activists are wrong to conclude so.
Centre for Development of People (Cedep) executive director Gift Trapence has argued that Malawi is a secular State where religious beliefs and culture should not be used as basis for oppressing others.
But Saindi said when pro-life marchers presented their petition to parliament that a secular state entailed a state without allegiance to any religion and that that it is worldly, unspiritual and irreligious.
“Malawi is not a secular country,” said Saindi. “The fact that we have in our midst some secular individuals doesn’t necessarily mean the whole country is.”
He added: “ In actual fact, it just underlines the fact that faith values are deeply imbedded in our society. We are very accommodative; very tolerant.”
Human rights activist Billy Mayaya said the public needs to be sensitised “to understand the secular nature of our country.”
Mayaya said: “Many people here thought Malawi is a Christian country which is not true, we are a secular state.”
Government also fears the activist are misinterpreting secular status of Malawi and seeks to redefine it to advance an anti-religious agenda.
Christians also claim their rights to freedom of religious conscience have been steadily subordinated to the rights – especially of homosexual people – to equality.
Rights are a matter of balance – the exercise of one person’s rights can undermine those of another.
If the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda takes power from Museveni that country will name itself a Christian country because the rebels are saying their constitution will base on the 10 commandments. Commandments like ”don’t kill, don’t do aldutery, are not necessarily Christian. People even before Christianity were not killing each other anyhow and take it as normal. Inborn instinct was telling our parents that killing is not human. There were no bibles or Qurans by then. Anthu sankalowerana m’manyumba kukachita chigololo koma wosawakhudza ayi. Ankachita mozemba komanso nthumazi because their instinct told them so. Therefore it is not only being Christian that you can know that abortion is sin. So chepetsani mikanjo m’miseu yathuyi because you will achieve nothing on this issue. It is an individual choice.
malawi is a Republic, those representing the Citizenly should up hold, what the majority stand for. Keep working hard at all that may be at once religious Mwians may see arbotion and sodomy as some form of rights and freedom. God forbidoh o!
In the Irish Republic 80 percent of the population is catholic. During referendum on gay marriage 74 percent voted yes to the marriage. This is an indication that whatever the church can do outside the pulpit can not control an individual mind. 65 percent of catholics in Britain are in support of abortion yet the church condemns this. My point is that it is a waste of time and energy for the clergy to invade the streets just to give a message to the nation that abortion is a sin. You have been telling us about this so many times in churches and mosques. If we don’t take your words while in the house of God do you think we can hear you better in the streets full of dustbins and urine? Let an individual think of this between him and his God, not you hypocrites.
Malawians are only good at discussing issues that have little, if not, no bearing on development of our country. That partly explains why we are at the base of the table. The bottom of the matter is that with or without abortion, the nation can not develop if we don’t change our way we do things. Abortion law would not come to force any one to abort, but rather allow any one who wishes so to access the services freely. With that understanding, I don’t find it reasonable enough to take the so called clergymen to leave their duties and start chanting in the streets. They could have used their usual platforms to preach against what they think is evil to their followers because this country is not for the Christians only, that remains a fact. The constitution of the country was not founded on Christian principles. It talks about principles of democracy. Don’t confuse the nation that this is not a secular state, because it is one.
If Malawi is a Christian state, why then should the church waste time walking the streets to prevent parliamentarians passing this law? If the govt or MPs legalise this, Christians as individuals will not practice this because their God does not allow them to do it. This is not an issue which needs 3 days of discussion. Should we say the clergy does not tell its faithfuls that abortion is bad? Does Parliament comprise people who don’t belong to any church? If after this demo and rejection of the bill people still abort will we say the church has failed? Let the bill go to Parliament and if it passes it will be the individual choice to accept it or not. Spiritual things should not be forced on members. All the rampant termination of pregnancy happening in our community is done by people who go to church or mosques. Do you think a walk in the street can prevent them from aborting? We have seen scenarios in Mwanza and Mulanje where young women have been forced to abort after being impregnated by those who swore not to marry yet we see the very same people in the street telling women not to abort. What a hypocricy!!
Time has come now to kill all gays . We will see if with your money you will be able to protect them.
Can someone enlighten me here, what qualifies a country to be a religious one, is it by having more religious people than nonreligious ones or what?. The correct answer to this question will surely determine whether Malawi is a secular country or not.
As much as I am part of the church, this smacks of bogus religiosity and bigotted zealotry! Malawi is a liberal democracy: A secular construct that privileges indivual rights and popular sovereignty. It thus embraces all and sundry regardless of religious/moral persuasion. Our laws support freedom of religion but are not religious (i.e. they are not christian, muslim, hindu, animistic etc). Whilst the church has every right to express its opinion on matters of national importance, it cannot force its morality on everyone. That would be dictatorship. Moralizing legality and policy is slipperly because of the transience and plurality of moral provenance (faiths/beliefs/cultures) and the heterogeniety of contemporary society. Government is simply being pragmatic in legislating abortion. The pro-life vs pro choice debate is more nuanced than the simplistic arguments being advanced. The church is in fact preying on the minds of gullible Malawians to generalise abortion as always immoral. Nothing could be far removed from the truth. Besides there obviously being critical exceptions that warrant abortion; the zygote is in the first trimester mostly not yet a viable, sentient, independent “person” qualifying for full rights. Even our culture does not accord full burial rights to a miscarried foetus. Debate is welcome but the church should not monopolise wisdom. Malawi will not move forward if policy continues to be mooted on the fly; rooted in sentimentalism, populism and emotion. Let rationality prevail so that policy is anchored in and informed by sound evidence.
Actually, you are lying. Malawi is not a secular state. There is no documentation suggesting that.. In practice, Malawi is religious rather. Even atheists “believe” that there is NO God. That in itself is faith. Secularism means living without a belief system.
Qwerty,
You are a wise man and obviously learned. I share your disdain in the stupidity being propagated by church and religious zealots like Kachaje and friends. STOP already with this nonsense.
You have made a great point if anyone is a true citizen of this country he/she must know our National Anthem. We are not a Christian Nation but a Religious nation and we all start with God as the Creator. If God us Creator all our morals are from the 10 commandments and all legislations are coming from Decalogue. That proves we are religious and must respect religion be it Christian Islam or African Traditional Religion. As Africans we can not live without God. Whether money or no money God and the standards of God must be preserved. Aluta continua Christ is alive and Malawi is a Religious state and a God fearing nation I rest my case
Mutharika doesn’t know the national anthem. What do you say about him?
Malawi is a secular state. The church should not cheat itself. We do not run our lives through religious dogmas except on useless things.
O God bless our land of Malawi,
Keep it a land of peace.
Put down each and every enemy,
Hunger, disease, envy.
Join together all our hearts as one,
That we be free from fear.
Bless our leader, each and every one,
And Mother Malawi.
Our own Malawi, this land so fair,
Fertile and brave and free.
With its lakes, refreshing mountain air,
How greatly blest are we.
Hills and valleys, soil so rich and rare
Give us a bounty free.
Wood and forest, plains so broad and fair,
All – beauteous Malawi.
Freedom ever, let us all unite
To build up Malawi.
With our love, our zeal and loyalty,
Bringing our best to her.
In time of war, or in time of peace,
One purpose and one goal.
Men and women serving selflessly
In building Malawi.
You have prayed this PRAYER since your primary school and you want today to tell us that Malawi is a secular nation? These are the foundations of our great Nation. Ooooh remember this is OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM!!!!
O……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….O
Statistically and actually, Malawi is not a secular State. You see . . .
. . . According to (1998) data, Malawi is 82% Christian, 13% Muslim and 5% other (ma Rasta, achina Thindwa ndi zina nzina). And recently (2010), Malawi is 68% Christian, 25% Muslim and 7% other.
. . . Now, on what basis is Malawi a secular State?
. . . Yes, the constitution recognises Malawi as a secular State (whereby the State/govt is or purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion.).
. . . But are we sure that Malawi govt does not support religion?
. . . How many times have we seen APM at Islamic and other religious gatherings, if not countless?
. . . Is it not APM who spent a night (on his knees) when TB Joshua made his usual (idle) talk?
. . . Who doesnt know that Chilima spends at least 90% of his time attending Catholic-Church functions?
. . . What does all this symbolise, if not govt declaration of support for religion?
……………………………………………..
Truth is . . .
. . . De jure (rightfully or according to law), Malawi is a secular State; but de facto (in practice or actually), Malawi is a religious State.
. . . Sadly or luckily (depending on what you want or what you do with your life), what actually happens is more important than just what’s written down or agreed upon.
. . . Nanga does it matter for instance, that Malawi agreed to do A, B, C in the MGDS etc), when X, Y Z is what actally happens?
O…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………O
So good explanation. The Trapence will have problems in understanding this.
zaku ulaya ayi.Ife tili ndi malamulo athu athu omwe amagwizana ndi chikhalidwe komanso zikhulupiliro zachimalawi.
zabwino sizingachokere Ku Europe kapena USA.abortions ikanayamba cha mma 1940s achina Obama bwenzi alipo lero?mimba zotenga by mistake ana ake amakhala atsogoleri zabwino.
if the cleric believes malawi is not a secular state, is it christian or moslem? the church has failed badly and they must accept this. currently they are all aligned to political parties. how do they explain that on the current subject, blantyre synod leaders are virtually pro government, i.e. pro gay and pro abortion. it is because bt synod is dpp. we cheat ourselves that malawi is a God fearing nation, that is total rubbish! how can we have so much thieving, killing, fornication etc when the whole nation is God fearing? have you noticed that among the moslems, there is also division between the two sects on this issue. the faith community has a loong way to go and they should not impose their teachings on everybody. they shouls evangelise but you don’t do that by force. you do it by persuation. the government should not police morals but the church should and so far i am not convinced they doing that well. by the way, has anybody wondered why this God fearing nation is mostly dependant on nations that are not as God fearing for assistance?
There is NO way Malawi is a secular state: notice how the government is NOT run by strict secular standards by any religion. A good thing. Who would want the country to be governed like certain countries for specific religions (like Saudi Arabia or Israel) at the exclusion of other religions?
Malawi is an inclusive state, and leave it that way. If it ain’t broke, don’t try fixing it.
Malawians are really duped: they adopt foreign beliefs, like Christianity, TOTALLY. They forget, and many don’t even know that their ancestors, right here in this part of Africa, had their own beliefs. Our fore bearers were ANIMISTS; but colonialists saw it as inferior made sure their religions had no competition. And after we were defeated, we simply accepted the foreign religions hook and sink, holus-bolus, at the expense of ours.
And now we are defending the oppressors’ religions? Signalling utter defeat of the spirit. The worst defeat, and we accept this?
If we lost our ancestors’ religions, and accepted the foreigners’, the least we can do is NOT make the latter state religions.
Have we no pride at all?
Leave Malawi the way it is. A secular state.
Whether secular or not secular to me is inconsequential. And to be honest I don’t care! What we all need are jobs, security , economic development, food security and more. In addition, we need rule of law, accountability and transparency. There is cashgate, corruption, governance issues and many more. These to me are critically important to move our country forward. All of us need to put our heads, minds, soul, effort and hands on these matters the same way we did in 1993/ 94 to root out rubbish amongst us. We need to reclaim our country. Thereafter we will have time to talk about secular or not secular or whether it is good to allow homosexuality or not. This is not the right time for this kind of rubbish
This nonsense about homosexuality is quite nauseating to me. To be honest I don’t want to know if men are sleeping with fellow men or women are sleeping with fellow women. What for? And I don’t want all of you to know what I am doing in my bedroom
What nonsense is this that this whole country should stop talking about socio-economic development matters and continue to speak about homosexuals. For goodness sake there is hunger and under-development and joblessness in this country. These are matters that should occupy our minds.
The religious leaders should not distort things. Malawi is a secular state with the Constitution as the supreme law. The fact that there are various religious grouping in Malawi does not make
it a religious state
OK. It’s a secular country. That is why we will beat up all the gays and lesbians. It’s a secular country Okay? We will not tolerate this madness. As a Christian or atleast a God fearing country we tolerated them, but now that Mayaya and Trapence have told us otherwise, there will be no tolerance of this madness
The problem with gays and lesbians and their sponsors is that they want to use words that are “SACRED”. The words MARRIAGE, WIFE HUSBAND are already taken and instead of finding their own terms for their unworldly desires, they want to use these words. Let them think properly and find their own terms. These can then be incorporated in the constitution. Its like making a car and calling it a Mercedez. Clearly the owners of that name won’t be smiling. When will their western sponsors get bankrupt so that we stop hearing this madness?
I am also strongly of the view that in the world all countries are aligned to a specific religion and this is a fact which is manifested in each and every country’s constitution. Indeed the existance of a diverse society does not mean the country is secular as these puppets the illuminate diguised as civil society aludes. Malawi derives its constitution from christianity thus why there is a holiday on the comemoration of the birth of Jesus while Qatar is an Islam state where there is a holiday observed in comemoration of Mhamad. In malawi we work from Monday to Friday resting on Saturday and sunday paying allegiance to Christianity days of worship on Saturday by the seventh day church and on Sunday for the rest christian community while in Qatar which is founded on Islamic values they work on Saturday and Sunday and the rest of the week and do the resting on Friday. These are just a few comparisons of different states with their allegiance to specific religion. There is no such a thing as a secular state and it is not defined yet and even those who wants us to believe this have not defined a secular state because it does not exist its a myth. It is the same as the west who lied to us that we had two world wars in the past and yet it was their war amongest themselves the fact that they came took Africans to fight their own war does not mean we were at war with anyone but we were being used as tools since we were under their rule. This war was in the west is the west the world? THERE IS NO SUCH A THING IN THIS WORLD AS A SECULAR STATE YET!!!!
I am a christian but lets be honest, Malawi is a secular state and not an islamic or christian state. lets have a spirit of tolerance. Zambia is a christian state and not Malawi