Youths in Politics

The youth, it is said and rightly so, are leaders of tomorrow. It is for this reason that youths need to engage and actively participate in politics for them to be groomed as future leaders.
Surely it does need to call upon deep knowledge to sense the inextricable link between politics and leadership. According to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English, politics refers to ‘the activities involved in getting and using power in public life, and being able to influence decisions that affect a country or a society.’
This means leadership and politics cannot be separated. In Malawi, the youth have since time immemorial participated in politics.
During the one party era, the youth were being used and abused by the MCP to sell party-membership cards to the public. Memories are still fresh how these MCP youths used to clad in red clothes and callously beat up people who did not have the MCP-membership cards.
Then the UDF-led government came in 1994. In what could be billed as a smart move to hoodwink Malawians, youths in the UDF party were given a democratic name called the ‘Young Democrats.’
According to the UDF party, the Young Democrats was a movement within the UDF party made up of youths who were assisting in the day-to-day functions of the party. To them, this movement was completely different from the MCP youth movement. They were wrong.
The young democrats were the anti-thesis of their name. They were being used to commit atrocious acts of brutality to people who had dissenting views from the UDF party.
History judges them harshly as democratic youths who beat up supporters of opposition parties, journalists, and human rights activists. Shame!
President Bingu wa Mutharika was elected under the UDF ticket in 2004. He later ditched the UDF and formed the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
In DPP, there are youths. These youths have been christened the ‘DPP Youth Morale.’ Their role, it seems from their name, is nothing but to provide morale to the DPP, if not the president. Pity!
Although the DPP Youth Morale can be safely described as a cut above the rest, the nation should not wallow in the jocundity that all things are rosy.
Let’s be more reasonable here; should these be roles of youths in political parties? Youths, need to practice leadership for them to become tomorrow’s productive leaders. It is of mammoth importance therefore that the youth be trained in leadership positions in various political parties.
They need to be allowed to hold administrative positions in political parties ‘politburos’
Aleke Banda, one of the smartest politicians ever to have graced Malawi, started politics while he was a teenager. Aleke, we gather, started politics in 1953 when he was just 14. Aleke had no part in any political violence nor did he pamper and pander to the whims of Kamuzu.
Aleke grew up in politics and he held several big positions in the MCP and the cabinet in his youth.
In a similar vein, youths need to be given a leadership role in political parties. They need to be allowed to contribute to the drafting of political parties’ manifestos, winning strategies and even parties’ constitutions.
For example, the country is blessed with many youths at secondary and tertiary levels who are endowed with both intelligence and wit and can contribute positively to politics in Malawi.
Of disheartening to note is that these youths have wrongly been taken as perpetrators of violence and cheerleaders of political parties’ kahunas.
Recently, Malawi conducted its fourth multiparty presidential and parliamentary polls. Sadly, not many youths have been elected to go to the august house.
Surely, this does not bode well for the future of this country. As the nation is pushing for equal participation and representation of men and women in politics, we need not neglect the positive role of the youths in politics. Neglecting the youth in politics, is like killing the future of this country.
My take therefore is that youths need to participate in leadership and administrative politics.

***The author is a Media for Development student at Chancellor College.

On University Students’ Conduct

Unima students in one of their buses.

A story goes of one university of Malawi student who insulted a certain man with his wife, in the streets, only to find the man on an interview panel, two years after the student graduated.
The man, recognizing the student as the one who hurled all sorts of insults at him, reminded the desperate and easily forgetting student of that shameful incident. The end result saw the student being denied the opportunity to attend the interviews. Pity!
For umpteenth times, the general public has bemoaned on the conduct of some of the university of Malawi students especially those from Chancellor College and the Polytechnic.
The conduct of students from these colleges leaves a lot to be desired. When these students are traveling in their school vehicles, they spew all sorts of vitriol at people whom they find on the way.
Of even more horrific to note is the painful fact that these students, who travel in these vehicles, sing all sorts of hymns and dirges using abusive lyrics.
One wonders where on earth these students get both the ingenuity and the temerity of translating sacred songs into abusive language.
The students also have got a tendency—and a wrong one— of looting from shops and other businesses when they are conducting their so-called peaceful demonstrations.
And to cap it all, —and this is really shocking—the students, who travel in these vehicles, brazenly flash their private parts to the public. Very unfortunate!
It is also saddening to note that it’s not only Chancellor College and Polytechnic students who do these shocking behaviours. It seems the conduct has spilled over to some other colleges like Mzuzu University and Bunda College and for sure some other private university.
But the question that looms large in my mind is: Is this a way to go for university students?
Surely, this conduct is not on and has to be brought to a screeching halt. University students should quickly realize that the Malawi society is heavily banking on them as leaders of tomorrow. A university is a coveted place that trains professional men and women who have got something to bring to society.
Teachers, lawyers, doctors, journalists, nurses, agriculturists, to mention but a few, are trained at a university.
For sure, no any teacher, lawyer or doctor worth one’s salt can swear or flash one’s private parts to the public.
How are the students going to be productive leaders if they are not well-mannered at an age when everyone expects them to be?
The whole idea of a university is not only to teach the students classroom knowledge but also to teach them how to behave in society and also equip them with management skills for time, money and a lot more.
The university students need also to be mindful of the fact that other students who are at primary or secondary level look up to them as role models. So, it is disheartening and misleading for those students who are at lower level to see university students have these unfathomable mannerisms.
Sadly, the university students, more often than not, try to justify these uncanny tendencies. They foolishly argue that these mannerisms are a way of unwinding themselves from their slugging studies. Really?
I am double sure that a university being an institution of higher learning is well-equipped with recreational facilities where these students can go and refresh their minds.
Granted, they sometimes want to learn and relax themselves through traveling, but I think they should be doing that in a quiet and respectable manner. After all, most of them are adults and one wonders why they have to be straining their necks outside the windows of their school buses frothing all kinds of four letter words.
University students should realize that some of the people whom they swear, are their prospective employers and once spotted, they might face repercussions of their own misdemeanors
My point therefore is that it is high time that university students took stock of their behaviours and heed to the cry of the public.

Towards the 2010 World Cup

South Africa, they say, is a land of opportunities. Since time immemorial many Malawians have found their way into South Africa in their quest to find jobs and other opportunities.
History says that during the reign of Kamuzu Banda, the South African government recruited thousands of Malawians who worked in the South African mines and homes.
Even today, we still have many Malawians who are living and working in this so-called “land of opportunities”
History also tells us another pleasant story that it was the same South Africa which bankrolled the construction of our capital city, Lilongwe.
Surely, it seems from this background that Malawi has benefited from South Africa as much as it has benefited from us.
Now, South Africa will be hosting the FIFA World Cup in June, next year. This means that 32 football teams, of different countries, from all continents, will be trooping into South Africa.
All football fans from all corners of the world will be following this event with passion.
Indeed, football fanatics from far-flung areas will be coming into South Africa, in droves, to be part of this coveted event.
But, surely not all teams and the passionate fans will be putting themselves up in South Africa. Some, as likely as not, will be leaving in neighbouring countries of South Africa.
So, what has Malawi done to ensure that these opportunities trickle down to Malawi? Good question!
With the fast-fading hope of Malawi qualifying to the world cup, it means our other option is to reap other benefits from this football gala other than making ourselves present. But how are we going to reap other benefits? Another good question!
We need to create pleasant places that can attract football fans from other countries to visit or stay in Malawi when this event will be taking place in South Africa.
We can even persuade one or two football teams to do their final preparations in the country. In a way, this can give us a fair share of forex value.
To this end, we need to have five-star hotels, good roads, good stadiums and more. Malawi should borrow a leaf from other Southern African countries which are leaving no stone unturned in their preparations towards the 2010 World Cup. In fact, they are in the final stages of their preparations.
But, Malawi, it seems, has only done a minimal amount of preparations for this long-awaited event.
Of even more disheartening to note is that the preparations are painfully slower than expected.
By not being mean with the truth, we haven’t done thorough preparations save for the artificial turf at Kamuzu Stadium. To say the least, the few stadiums that we have in the country leave much room to be appreciated.
Some are so dilapidated that one cannot imagine world-class football teams doing preparations in them. The changing rooms are very horrible and awful. The toilets, bathtubs and showers are not in running order.
Even the billboards at our stadiums are very substandard and carry outdated and insipid messages.
When President Bingu wa Mutharika ascended into office in 2004, he promised to construct a state of the art stadium in Lilongwe, but till now the stadium is nowhere in sight.
As for the hotels, they are not enough and many are old and run down that need some renovations. Ironically, these hotels charge exorbitant tariffs that do no mirror with their standards.
On road construction and renovation, the good news is that the current government has shown a strong commitment to renovate and construct roads in the country. But more needs to be done especially through the renovation of strategic roads that lead to several tourist destinations.
In order to attract many tourists, we also need to strengthen the level of security in the country which seems to be loose. The current spate of armed robbery activities and other growing insecurities need to be brought to a screeching halt.
We still have got about nine months to the big event in South Africa and I do strongly feel that there is still time to correct some of these things. It’s not too little, too late!

***The author is a Media for Development student at Chancellor College.