The Renovation of a Nation

I have come for a visit to my home village in the district of Thyolo, which is by aesthetic measures one the most scenic places in Malawi. Boundless are the therapeutic effects that my heart receives from driving past the ever-green tea plantations that escort travelers all the way to the base of the great Mulanje Mountain looming large and rising into the cotton clouds in the distance. And I half-regret that my home of origin is on a detour from the main road that goes towards the mountain, but the return of my thoughts towards home and soon-to-be-visited extended family members is soon a useful distraction from my loss. So off the smooth road I veered, onto a road in desperate need of reconstruction, and the farther I drove toward my beloved Ntambanyama, the more apparent the abject poverty of rural Malawi becomes. Notwithstanding, upon my arrival, I was greeted by beautiful expressions of joy and jubilation that could only be matched by the natural beauty of the tea that grows all around this area. And that moment, somewhere in the deep and nameless places in my heart, I felt the stirring of a long-forgotten truth, that it is this intrinsic beauty of Malawi's untapped resources of nature and humanity that constitutes the true identity and story of Malawi, howbeit a story begging to be written. And with this realization came the far more disturbing conclusion, that the poverty, disease, and idleness I saw around me is the false identity and story of Malawi, a false narrative created by the negligence of Malawi's political, religious, and educated elite. By false, I do not mean that this level of poverty is not factual, but that it is not a given. The riches of natural and human resources are a gift; the poverty is a choice. And the greatest irony and tragedy this poverty is largely a result of the choices made by the rich, ruling, and learned, not the poor, powerless, and illiterate.

And with that heavy thought, I entered the home I grew up looking forward to visit on the holidays when I was a young boy; my Mother's inheritance from my late grandfather, Mr. Mankhwala, whose name is as revered in this village as his resting place across the street, for from this home he established businesses across this district, built a high school, constructed churches, planted maize mills, saved marriages, and raised six children and many grandchildren around Bible principles and stories. But when both my grandfather and grandmother were shot in this home by a gang of armed robbers in the summer of 1998, it was the beginning of the end, not just of everything my grandfather had built or stood for, but also of what people in this area once believed could be achieved by a life of faith, family, and industry, whether urban or rural. Since then, everything he built has either been sold for profits that didn't last a year or has crumbled from damage caused by the rains that have annually drenched this place for a decade. And this house is one of the last buildings standing, but not for long, for after a tour and inspection of the place, I see a wall that has been felled by the recent rains, and all the remaining walls look ready to fall. And so I have come to see this place in it's saddest state, that of becoming a proverb. For to me, this is more than a house; it's a home, a memory, a history, a legacy. And a legacy neglected is soon lost. And I know we have neglected this home for so long that the only way to save it now is to destroy it. About this need to save it by destruction there is general agreement in the family. What can't be agreed is the method of destruction, some proposing to sell the property to the highest bidder and reinvest the funds elsewhere, while others like myself propose a wholesale renovation of the place. Selling the place would cost us nothing in the short term and make us a quick buck, but would cost us a historical treasure in the long run. Renovating the place would cost us dearly in the short term, but would give us a place to not only call home, but to be proud to do so, where family members who grow weary of travel and wandering will gladly come back to for rest and restoration.

And I believe that on a grander scale, these choices faced by my family, the choice of going the easy path of selling or the difficult path of renovation, are the choices we face as a nation. The legacy has been neglected, the foundations ignored, freedoms unprotected, rights abused, leadership undeveloped, ideas rejected, infrastructure unmaintained, technology borrowed, energy depleted, forex squandered, fuel black-marketed, presidency isolated, judiciary dissatisfied, parliament commercialized, aid politicized, and protesters demonized. There is no debate that the situation in the country is so bad that there are things we love in this nation that can only be saved by first beyond demolished to make room for the hard work of building new ones. But how is this to be done? Selling the country's treasures for a quick buck or renovating? I say the nation needs renovation, but it won't be done by a generation of leaders who are attached and committed to the structures and systems of governance that are crumbling around us. It won't be done by the Bingu's, Tembos, and Muluzis because they are part of the generation that built these structures and have a vested interest both to protect the status quo but also to avenge the abuses they suffered under the dictatorial rule of Kamuzu Banda. These men are too angry at the past and each other to paint a vision of what they are for. I long for a leader of my generation who has no axe to grind and who can articulate a vision for renovating the country by calling us all to pursue the ideals of devotion, decency, democracy,and development; not the kind of development that sells the country's treasures to Mulli Brothers or the Chinese in exchange for a pile of carpeted bricks, but the kind that calls us to do the hard work of building things that the world needs. This is a president I will gladly follow, and this is a vision for my country I would gladly die for.