Mankhokwe...

On Sunday, 11 December, I sat in the audience at Kwa Haraba Arts Gallery in Blantyre. For an event dubbed Rise of spoken word poetry . I wrote an article for The Sunday Times of 18 December, 2016. I publish the article here as it appeared in The Sunday Times The promise was that there would be a rise. At Kwa Haraba Art Gallery in Blantyre. Of Spoken Word Poetry. On a lazy Sunday of 11 December. The expectation, as well, was that there would be a rise. A shocking event even, positively. Something that you would compare with international events of a similar nature. It was normal, to expect such a rising. The advertising had been on point: posters of a similar design yet with different messages and personalities had heralded the day.  From the intros of the Spoken Word artists, however, on the material day one could almost get the feeling that the message that it would be the rise of Spoken Word poetry was maybe not the correct phrase. It was catchy, eventually, but ...

If there is an easy thing to do, it seems, is to fault dictatorship. And dictators. Simply because they are dictators. It is as if by virtue of them being dictators, all evil is theirs. \ Take Gambia. Yahya Jammeh. A few days ago, Jammeh shocked the African continent. In what appeared to be a predictable election, with him as a winner, Jammeh lost. He did not only lose. He conceded defeat. Long before the Electoral Commission in the country officially declared the winner. It was unprecedented. Both the loss and the concession. For, Jammeh in his dictatorial rants had once said that he would rule the Gambia for a billion years -- if Allah would will. However, when the loss was in the air, he resigned to fate. The optimists celebrated, the loss and the concession. They said Africa was slowly maturing, in its democracy. The pessimists, however, were not sure of what to make of Jammeh's loss and the concession. It seemed surreal. Not long after, the Breaking News appeared...

A few hours ago, and maybe even until now (the time of writing), I was involved in a bitter argument with friends and foes alike – on Facebook. I had asked, in one of my extended thinking, what the grounds were against the legalization of abortion in Malawi. I added, I did not want religious sermons. I wanted arguments grounded outside theology. I should have known. What I had imagined would be a civil discourse turned bitter. Sometimes, ugly. Even, horrible. I am thinking some people have even struck me off their friends list. Others, I saw them claim, have suddenly switched from a kind of adoring me to hatred. They would kill me, had they had the opportunity. Yet, they think aborting an unborn foetus is a crime, immoral, punishable and – of course – sin! The moment I wanted that debate, I had asked myself questions on the subject of abortion yet I found that some of the grounds those against it are standing on are shaky. Actually, I established that they are mostly a...

The day it was announced that Donald Trump had triumphed over Hillary Clinton, a lesson went almost unnoticed. In this part of the world. Somewhere else, somebody might have picked it up but for most of my friends -- expressing themselves on the social media -- this lesson was not really noted. Nobody, at least from the people I know, made a comment on it. All that people were being bothered with was how much a Nigerian televangelist lied in his prediction, how much they had been right all along that Trump would pull a surprise, how much the world was slowly growing cold. Yet for people like me who like the media, I decided to observe something: the shifting trends in the power and influence of the media. It is undeniable that Trump was a least favourite of the traditional media. Apparently, while his contender got a ringing 200 endorsements from the traditional media, Trump had only gotten 20 from not-so-influential media. It would have had been a last nail on Trump's po...

Have you ever heard of an inspirational story from our football national team, the Flames? If you have, how did it start, did it start with the team playing brilliant football, attacking with exceptional talent and giving the hope that we would carry the day or emerge victorious in that tournament? I bet it really started like that. The question is: how did it end? I can predict: with all those hopes dashed, a loss in the dying minutes. Poet Robert Chiwamba already covered the fate of the team in the famed Flames Sidzamva ! It is not as if he recited anything new, he told us what has been our football ailment since about 10 years ago when it became so worse. The loss of our football national team, now, is a result of a lot of issues among them uninspired an underpaid players, alcohol-infested players, a negative media (yes! a negative media) and - most importantly - football administrators. These football administrators, usually, are behind the other problems. They fleece t...

I had to rush here, on this space, to write this. Once, not so very long ago, I found this land to be beautiful. Despite all the shortfalls. I had read Alan Paton's Ah, But Your land is beautiful and had seen beauty everywhere. If Alan Paton could see beauty in an apartheid South Africa, I could as well see it in Malawi. So, with all the poverty and hunger and envy and tribalism and crime and nepotism and everything bad that can come to mind when you hear Malawi after experiencing it as a disadvantaged citizen, I still thought it is beautiful. I thought of the safety of traveling from home to distant places without being stopped by a suicide bomber in the tracks of my life and, I said, this land is beautiful too. I am not the only one. I was, minutes ago, reading some literature on something and something. As luck would have it, I chanced on a dissertation by one foreign student who did her research in Malawi. I was impressed. I like to see myself from the prism of anoth...

In Malawi, in 2014, we had 'successful' elections. Successful because an opposition party won - which really says a lot about the independence of the Electoral Commission. Successful because there were no people who died after the results were announced - if we can just forget the officer and a civilian who died during campaigning. Successful because the losing parties accepted the results - if we ignore all those desperate attempts to hold on to power by the sitting President at the time and all that crying from the opposition. However, it is not as if on the day of releasing the results there was no tension. There was tension. Palpable tension that spread in the veins of the country. Apparently, even before it came to the time of releasing the results, there was drama all the way through. A friend told me that one day, while we were still waiting for the results to be announced, he was in town. A gentleman, whether in the spirit of exercise or high on something, decid...