Mankhokwe...

We are living in perilous times. The streets are no longer safe. The paths are leading into jungles where forests of irrationality connive with beasts of fanaticism. The only sane thing that we are witnessing, today, is shouting. We, Malawians, are voting next year and, again, the chaos of politics is upon us. We are political people, of course, but in years or months and days preceding the election, our affinity to politics becomes huge. And, with it, reason escapes. There have been a few issues so far on the table that have called us to posit and defend our political fortresses. I, being human and Malawian, have failed to hold the peace I had told myself I will hold in the run-up to these elections. It was an accident, trust me, my commenting on the politics. I had told myself that this year and the election coming after it, I should keep quiet. I had learnt, from 2014, that nobody gets moved by the comments on social media. That, if anything, social media just ruins benefici...

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...

I write this because I love music. Malawian music. If MUMA is yet to be in the news for wrong reasons; well, you can expect them to be soon. Have you seen their nominations, most of them? It is the same old jazz. The same thing of saying 'vote for the latest best song' and on the options you have four tracks released in 1990 and one really 'latest' one, released in 1999. But, that is Musicians Association of Malawi for you - and their awards. Somehow, I think we are safer when we call them rewards. Musicians Association of Malawi, or to be politically correct: Musicians Union of Malawi, is rewarding the people it likes and, to make the process legitimate or appearing so, it is soliciting votes from a confused few to endorse one of the options which, realistically speaking, are no options. There certainly is no logic in asking me to select the Capital City of Malawi from the options of Karonga, Phalombe and Ntchisi. There is no answer and, sadly, in some of the c...