I have recently discovered that the root to my endless curiosity is not just the passion for my beliefs, but also the fact that the more I know the less I seem to understand. The latest episode doing my mind is World Food Programme's (WFP) recent appeal for money donation to help vulnerable people in Malawi.
The WFP have launched a global appeal for 5.2 Million US Dollars to help "around 45 percent" of vulnerable Malawians who will face food shortage between this November and December of 2010.
Nothing new here, and I applaud the WFP's continued efforts and support for those in need of such help. The downside of this development however is the fact that Malawi has had maize (maize is staple food in Malawi) surplus in the last three harvesting seasons, a success that has recently won Malawi's president, Bingu wa Mutharika, many kudos and accolades.
Yet the WFP has said that despite the 3.3 million metric tones of surplus maize, vulnerable people in Malawi will still face food shortage as the surplus food "does not automatically trickle down to vulnerable groups, such as the chronically-ill and orphans."
I never thought, not even for a split second, that the surplus maize meant an end to hunger and starvation. There are homeless and starving people even in the mega cities of this world, but one would think that the surplus maize would at least improve the the food situation a little. Alas! The frightening statement from the WFP that the surplus food "does not trickle down to the vulnerable people" suggests that this is only a wishful thinking: Those that have lacked food in the past will still starve!
I find it awfully wrong, has Malawi become the country where only the fittest will survive? If we are to define the word vulnerable, we will see that only those who are not in a position to cultivate for themselves are the ones starving. Does this mean the government do not have policy in place to care and protect these vulnerable groups?
Where are our traditions? Where is the spirit of Chidyerano? (eating together) Where is the spirit of Ubuntu/Umunthu (humanity) that epitomised the generations of our ancestors? Maybe it was a stroke of luck that I come across the WFP appeal whilst reading Ernesto "Che" Guevara's The Motorcycle Diaries, a book that recaptures the spirit of good old days when one would set off on a journey with only little resources knowing they would be fed and cared for by "total strangers" on their way.
Che was South American but this was the same spirit that embodied Africa and Africans; the spirit of Ubuntu! (here is Nelson Mandela on Ubuntu). Legend has it that Malawi's first "post-colonial" president Hastings Banda set-of on foot from Malawi to South Africa in search of education. He made it only because he was cared for by "Other" people on the way. A Malawian reggae singer, the late Evison Matafale, also decried about these good old days in one of his songs, "Yang'ana Khope Yako / Yang'ana Khope Yanga" (Look at your face / Look at my face). A very pan-African song that promoted the spirit of one-love and togetherness. We are all one!
Going back to the past would be a nonstarter and that is not what I am advocating, but we can surely learn something from our ancestors, the people we perceive today as uncivilised than we are. There were no awards for "good performing" leaders or good will ambassadors, but what mattered is that people looked after one another. The interest of the people first and everything later.
Now, if Malawi's food surplus is not for the vulnerable people, someone has to explain what all those accolades that have been heaped on Mutharika are for. The fact that the most needy, the vulnerable, which are approximated at 45 percent of the 13 million national population, cannot benefit from the success of the their own country speaks the volumes of the undeniable negligence on the part of the government. How can a country even develop when almost half of its population live on empty stomachs? Let us strive not to be successful; let us strive to be of a value, and that value means respecting human lives, not accolades and gongs!