I’m in love…. again. Yes, I know I’m prone to this affliction, at least as regards the places I visit, but it was love at first sight with Malawi.
Even the mayhem at Blantyre airport when I arrived didn’t bother me: the warmth of the people waving and smiling from the balcony above the immigration/baggage collection area (I’d hesitate to call it the “arrivals hall”) at arriving friends and relations countered any possible frustration at the ad hoc immigration and baggage retrieval procedures. There was a long queue, reaching back nearly to the foot of the steps from the ‘plane, for the “immigration counter”, a couple of desks set up on an apparently temporary basis in a dark corridor to deal with arriving foreigners (Blantyre clearly does not get many international flights each day), a grab-your-own-as-it-comes-off-the-trolleys baggage collection system (curiously, I had more confidence in my pack making it through this than I do of it turning up on the carousels at Johannesburg or Heathrow), and a chaotic customs procedure (I discovered it had some rationale: only returning Malawians were being searched and then for goods purchased abroad; tourists seemed, by definition, kosher, though that still left us poor sods having to negotiate our way through the crowds to locate an exit). Besides, I was on the road again, and that was enough to give me a very relaxed, tolerant approach to everything I encountered.
Malawi is a stunning country, and her people really seem to deserve their reputation as the “warm heart of Africa”. While the occasional face may look sulky, and I have heard from ex-pats that racism against whites is becoming an issue here, in my experience, most people break into a grin when you greet them, whether or not the initial encounter turns into further conversation. Walking around Blantyre on the morning of my first full day (rain had driven me indoors on the afternoon of my arrival - Malawi, too, is suffering an uncharacteristically late and heavy wet season), I felt very at ease. I had been warned that Malawi is nothing like as safe as it used to be, but it must have been something very special 15-20 years ago. On the basis of my experience here, I would feel more uneasy walking down Oxford Street or taking the train into town after Charlton has played at home than I have done walking or taking public transport in Malawi. Admittedly, I was clearly a curiosity that day: how many other wazungu (white people) walk around town at all, let alone on a road leading out of town, through Blantyre’s suburbs towards the airport? A number of people came up to talk to me, but I encountered nothing more than a desire to share their stories and an interest in who I was and where I was going. (The answer “nowhere” only increased the confusion I’d caused!) Further, they are a very courteous people. There is a delightful habit of saying “thank you” (or “zikomo”, one of my few words of Chichewa) in response to your thanking them for something, and I have been “welcomed” to many dinner and breakfast tables, even at accommodation where I have been staying for a while. The most touching (and embarrassing!) courtesy was when my guide on one hike apologised to me when I slipped!
The Scottish connection is still very much alive. For once on my travels, people understood when I gave my country of origin and could quickly acknowledge the connection between the two countries. David Livingstone himself lives on through towns such as Livingstonia and, of course, Blantyre, named after his birthplace. But I was also entertained to discover that my South African hosts at Senga Bay on Lake Malawi are called Macleod - we Scots still get everywhere!
Although Hastings Banda’s ban on women wearing trousers was lifted in the early 1990s, I have yet to see a woman/girl of any age wearing other than a skirt, dress or sarong. The only time that I have seen a woman wearing shorts or trousers was when I was shown the beads that a married woman wears around her waist, under her clothing. Amidst the layers of clothing being moved so that I could admire these beads, I was surprised to see a pair of shorts. The sarong is ubiquitous and often fulfils a number of functions. As well as being the over-clothing for the lower half, it is used to carry babies, but can be applied for this purpose in a variety of ways. In Namibia, babies are uniformly tied on the woman’s back with a wrap that ties over the bust. In Malawi, there seem to be other fashions in baby-wearing: on the left hip, and on the back, in each case with the wrap being tied over one shoulder (which looks far more comfortable than the Namibian style).
English is widely spoken and is technically the country’s official language, there being otherwise something in the region of forty Bantu languages spoken in the country, of which Chichewa is the dominant language in the south and centre of the country and is therefore deemed to be the “national” language. However, that doesn’t mean it is at all widely spoken and I have yet to meet anyone whose first language is Chichewa as opposed to one of the other Bantu languages. I was told that Hastings Banda, the long-lived, long-“reigning” post-independence dictator only ever used one phrase of Chichewa, the Chichewa for “You’re a liar!”, otherwise he used English. But Malawian English takes a little getting used to. Like the Chinese, Malawians struggle with the “l”/”r” distinction, leading to the interesting question in the middle of a discussion about music as to whether I had “written to Abba”, as well as the obligatory discussion about growing “lice” for export. It’s somehow very endearing! The other characteristic is to add “ie” to the end of words that otherwise end in consonants (in Chichewa, all words end in vowels): for example, the Queen’s name becomes “Elizabettie” in Malawian (woe betide anyone who tries that one on me!), toast becomes “toastie”, and various calendar months have this ending applied.
Malawi is therefore very kind on the solo English-speaking tourist. Admittedly, elated from my successful mastery of Malawi’s public transport system to get to my first destination after Blantyre, I was a touch peeved to read in The Book (the Bradt guide to Malawi) that Malawi is “Africa for Beginners”, but I have to concede that, as well as its welcoming people and the relative ease of communication, the country’s transport is almost organised in a chaotic kind of fashion.
That’s a book in itself: Malawi public transport. I’m not sure if there’s any rhyme or reason behind the number of minibuses on the road or their destinations, other than the inclinations of the driver and, for want of a better description, the “conductor”, but, broadly speaking, in the south of the country (I didn’t get much further than that on this trip), it seems to work…. except when a mazungu (white person) decides on her own route. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
There are official bus companies, but I haven’t encountered one yet. My main mode of transport was the minibus. To clarify, we’re talking about a vehicle that, in the UK, would probably take nine passengers in three rows of seats behind the front seats, and, of course, the driver him/herself. Well, this kind of vehicle can take a few more in Malawi. My record headcount in the first few trips - my mind had ceased boggling about numbers after this - was nineteen adults (not counting the driver and conductor), as well as assorted children-on-laps and babies-in-slings. Invariably, there are at least two people sharing the front passenger’s seat, there’s a bench behind this with passengers facing backwards, and three rows of seats facing forwards, each of the front two of which have drop-down seats to fill the gap as and when the row behind has been filled. You’re expected to sit four-to-a-row (fingers crossed for slim companions, and for not being wedged in the corner in the back where your shoulder gets crunched), but, on the most impressive occasion, one of the passengers was stand-stooping between the bench and the front forward-facing row as well as the conductor who usually stand-stoops, bending himself either out of the window or over his passengers. (I hardly need add that I have not seen anyone other than the young and slim-built performing this role.) In short, if I would consider a vehicle to be full, there was room for at least three more!
And I haven’t even mentioned the luggage. On my first trip of any length, the c.70km from Limbe to Zomba, other people’s attendant bags and packages made my pack look small. On this occasion, I was one of the first to board, newly arrived in my first minibus from Blantyre, and, of course, these vehicles don’t leave until they’re full. So I waited and watched, drinking in the atmosphere of my first major Malawian bus station. Just when you thought no more luggage could be fitted in, the conductor would juggle things around and manage to include the latest addition: sacks of flour, trays of eggs, suitcases and cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes, large baskets that could only perch on knees, the contents of potential curio stalls, plastic bags spilling out their contents… and, of course, the odd piece of livestock. So far, I’ve only shared transport with a hen, a remarkably sanguine hen that settled down so quickly and quietly that her oddly smartly-dressed owner (briefcase and all) couldn’t find her when he came to get off the minibus (I spotted her sitting under the row of seats in front). I guess this is the Malawian version of asking him to buy supper on his way home from work.
The fare seems to depend on the whim of the conductor as he’s the man (I’ve only seen men in this role: from my experience of them, I don’t see Malawian women doing this) with the money. I think (and hope) that tourists are charged more than locals - I’m all for making money out of my species although, curiously, I’ve only seen one other tourist on a minibus - but the most I’ve had to pay on any journey, whether 10km or 100 km, would give me change out of a pound in the UK. You don’t pay on entry or exit, simply when the conductor gets around to asking you for the money, and they’re a pretty sharp breed. No fare-dodging here!
A wonderful place to watch Malawian life is a bus station/depot. All sorts of people come round a waiting bus to try and sell their wares: everything from baskets, toothpaste/toothbrushes/cotton buds, clothes (the most unexpected of which that I’ve seen was a battered black trilby… a must-have necessity for Malawi??), cell phones and watches, to “munchies” for the journey. The variety and quality of these, if you ignore the nondescript sweets and crisps, would put most British railway companies’ buffet services to shame: hard-boiled eggs, with attendant salt and spices, fruit (the bananas here are delicious), ground nuts (I’ve had several meals out of these alone), and deep-fried breads and samosas.
I’ve also travelled by taxi, matola and dampa. With taxis, we’re not quite talking black cabs here. In fact, the only difference, I’ve concluded, between a taxi and a matola, at least outside major towns, is where you sit. If you pay a lot for a “taxi”, you sit in the front; if you pay a very little, you stand/squash/perch/sit in the back. In either case, the vehicle is a pickup truck. I negotiated a “taxi” from Monkey Bay to Cape Maclear at the southern end of Lake Malawi and then from Cape Maclear to Golomoti at the intersection with the road to Salima… and sat in the front with the driver and “Mr Fixit”, aka Duncan, whose English was interestingly accented with a combination of Glaswegian, American and Malawian. On the Monkey Bay/Golomoti stretch, we acquired additional passengers every so often who rode in the back. The other wazungu, a Korean on the way to Cape Maclear and two Londoners on the way from Cape Maclear to Monkey Bay, rode in the back for free - well, I wasn’t going to leave them stranded there, and the driver seemed to consider them my guests as it was only with regard to taking them that he consulted me.
When I got to Salima, I took a matola to Senga Bay and, yes, you’ve guessed it, I was one of the dozen or more folks in the back (plus children, babies, an extraordinary amount of luggage, and the obligatory hen) paying the small amount (in this case, 100 Malawian kwacha, c.£0.35). It was an interesting way of travelling: again, just when you thought no-one else could possibly fit, we somehow shuffled up closer and squeezed a couple more in. The luggage is more precariously stashed on this mode of transport, tied somewhat haphazardly to the lowered tailgate. One bag went flying just as we were leaving the bus depot, but a number of us squawked and the driver stopped to collect it and wedge it back on. With matolas, the driver seems to double-up as the conductor, and you’re charged on “exit”. Again, it wouldn’t be easy to fare-dodge here.
A dampa is a bicycle-taxi where the passenger sits on a piece of wood on top of the bicycle carrier and, in my experience, the wood has been covered with at least a small amount of foam; the deluxe models are even coated in material and plastic. It’s not, actually, an uncomfortable experience, although not being in control of the bicycle, yet affecting its balance, takes a little getting used to. However, I have mixed feelings about them. I feel guilty that someone else should be peddling a zero-gears, crappy bike in the often-sweltering heat with me (or my pack - I didn’t think anyone deserved both of us!) on the back. I felt particularly bad about the young lad peddling me the 3-4 km from Salima to Senga Bay, however much he insisted that he was strong enough for the task. I could at least send him home before we reached our destination when the route to the lodge became a sand track and we were all forced to walk. (I went on with the older (and stronger-looking) guy pushing his bike with my pack on the back. I thought he could cope with it!)
However, it is a way of earning money for people who don’t have much, as I was reminded by a cyclist in Liwonde when I refused a dampa on the basis that I wanted to walk the remaining distance myself (well, actually, I hadn’t realised the Shire River and the departure point for my boat transfer to Mvuu Camp were as far as that, or I might have made a different decision). And it certainly has a degree of indulgence to be ridden along country tracks that narrow to barely shoulder-width between tall grasses, and to have the freedom simply to enjoy the peace and nature around you.
The roads are somewhat varied. The main routes are tarred - and not just the road between a city and the airport, as was the case when friends of mine travelled here in the late 1980s - and I understand that this improvement is largely thanks to the current president. However, once you get off these, road conditions can vary. The roads from Monkey Bay to Cape Maclear and to Golomoti are awful. This was my hiccup in route-planning. I had hoped to be able to get a minibus from Mangochi to Salima by going round the southern end and southwestern corner of Lake Malawi and then north to Salima. At Mangochi bus station I discovered that this would not work: no minibus. Bit of a technical hitch. So, I boarded a minibus to Monkey Bay and made an unscheduled stopover at Cape Maclear: no real hardship as this is a stunning promontory jutting out from the southern coast of the Lake (I reckon that Africa’s third largest lake requires a capital letter even when it is mentioned without its full name!) with the best-located backpackers I have ever had the pleasure to encounter. It abuts the Lake with its own, lengthy stretch of private beach. But I could well understand why minibuses might not be the best mode of transport in this part of the world. The road twists around the tree-covered hills in a somewhat improbable manner and, whatever the usual condition of the road, it was made far worse by the recent rains. I was very glad to be in the front seat of the “taxi” with a small amount of padding to cushion me against the bumps, even though Tres, the driver, with his army driving accreditation, was driving as carefully as he could. The road to Golomoti is, if anything, worse, and with no obvious excuse. It’s largely over level country, but, for some reason, has not been tarred other than in sporadically placed, short stretches, and even then, some of the tarring is now pretty ghostlike. It took perhaps an hour and a half to negotiate the first half of the 50 km distance.
Utilities are a little patchy. I duly acquired a local SIM card on my arrival (because of the instability of the local currency, it was priced in dollars, with “top-up” vouchers described in units that represent US cents), only to find that it was cheaper to text the UK using my UK SIM card; at least having a Malawian one meant that others could ring me without my being charged. However, reception is distinctly patchy, although it can be perfect in the most unlikely places: halfway up a mountain or by the Lake in a spot that is ringed by hills. Electricity is also not guaranteed. Zomba Forest Lodge, I was intrigued to discover, had the fixtures and fittings for electric light, but, each night, the gas lamps and candles were lit, and there was no mention of electricity, nor sound of a generator. (I can’t say that I objected, except for being unable to recharge my mobile: I felt as if I’d stepped back a century, writing my journal by gaslight!) Mvuu Main Camp’s generator was efficient - a little too efficient, as its grumble could be heard from surprisingly far away, up and down the river - but in both Blantyre and the Lake-side villages power failures have been at least a daily occurrence. I became quite adept at writing by candlelight (FYI, use two candles for preference, otherwise your eyesight will be most unhappy), and at rigging up breeze-protection for candles on the outside dinner table.
But all this ignores Malawi’s main attraction: its beautiful and varied landscape - from mountain plateaux, to “African Queen”-esque rivers and lakes so blue and endless they rival the ocean, to rolling hills and giants’ playground-style vast rocky outcrops. Only on the main islands of New Zealand have I encountered so much variety in such a small area. After all, the whole of Malawi would fit into England alone, with the odd county left over, and I have barely left the south of the country on this trip. Yes, you’ve got it: I’m planning my return trip already, quite apart from working out exactly where we would stay as and when I get Colin out here! (Ideally, I would also like to look for voluntary work with kids here, but that’s a subject to be researched on my return to the UK in June and/or September.) In fact, I have to confess that the first draft of this blog was written at a shaded table overlooking the Lake when I couldn’t bear to tear myself away for a stopover in Lilongwe and opted for another day in paradise.
In my first week, I clocked up six destinations in seven nights and, I think, covered a reasonable cross-section of what Malawi has to offer in this part of the country. I “did” a city, Blantyre, staying at the improbably-named Hostellerie de France (yes, I come to Malawi and find myself having to dust off my French to communicate with my host and hostess!); hiked around Zomba Plateau, the easier-to-access of the two main mountain plateaux in the south (the other, and better known, Mulanje, requires a few days’ commitment, which I didn’t have), where I found definitely the best vegetarian food outside India at a place that even The Book admitted served “probably the best food you’ll find in Malawi”; paid my respects to the vast hippo population and assorted species of birds of the Shire (pronounced “Shee-ray”) River, including two new-to-me types of kingfisher, including the delightful, pocket-sized, iridescent malachite kingfisher; found a different nationality of elephants and another variety of buck (the fallow deer-like bushbuck) at Mvuu Main Camp in Liwonde National Park; and canoed/swam/boated/snorkelled the must-do attraction of Lake Malawi. (For those of you who are awake and counting, and think I’ve missed out somewhere, I’ve stayed at two places on the Lake!) In any event, I was a touch pooped by the time I got to my sixth destination - not to mention arriving there a day late thanks to the navigation/bus route issue - so I stayed there for the next six nights, before returning to Blantyre to catch my flight to Johannesburg and on to Windhoek. Well, it seemed a good excuse and, with so many activities in which to indulge, as well as the virtue of being able to start writing up the Malawi blog(s) (my thanks to my host, Grant, and his mother, Jean, for the kind loan of a laptop!), it would have been rude to move on! Besides, I needed to conserve my energies for working on the elephant project next week… Does it look like I’m over-justifying myself?!
Wildlife in Malawi is patchy. The pressure on land is huge with a rapidly growing population (you rarely see a woman of child-bearing age without a child on her back: family planning, where it’s even been mentioned, is considered to be the white man’s attempt to curb the black population), and poaching is a major issue. The national parks, wildlife reserves and forest reserves are trying to improve things, and it is to Malawi’s credit that approximately 20% of the country’s land is under this form of protection. However, improvement is slow and, as usual, foreign investment is required and already, in places, already being supplied. One of the success stories is the reintroduction of black rhino in a dedicated corner of Liwonde National Park, made possible with the support of South African National Parks and so successful that two animals have been put in another reserve in the south.
One of the main attractions, instead, is the bird population. The sunbirds darting around at Zomba Forest Lodge were a delight to watch (although practically impossible to identify with Malawi not fitting into either “Southern Africa” or “Eastern Africa” from a published-and-available bird book perspective), as were the bee-eaters at Liwonde National Park. Fish eagles are a regular occurrence, both audibly and visibly, at Lake Malawi and on the Shire River, and I loved paddling a canoe round the rocks at the Lake to watch black and white-chested cormorants, squacco and other herons, pied and giant kingfishers, and hammerkops going about their daily business. One cormorant popped up from a fishing trip a few feet away from my canoe, but clearly this was way too close for comfort, and he darted back below the surface with a splash.
Reptiles were also much in evidence. The crocodiles in Liwonde National Park are reputed for their size, and certainly I saw some pretty sizeable beasts on my trip there. From Senga Bay, I took a trip out to the aptly-named Lizard Island and encountered a number of monitor lizards, one of which was swimming, not something that I’ve seen before. Usually, they spend most of the day sunbathing or moving at the most considered pace of any animal I know. There was one sitting in the same position on the same rock two days running, so I splashed it with water to check s/he was still alive (it was). There were agamas with virulent blue tails, geckos assisting in the mosquito-reduction campaign, and other assorted lizards, everywhere you looked, and, for the first time, I saw a water snake in action, swimming in the shallows of Lake Malawi. As I’d been assured that this part of the Lake’s shore was safe for swimming, being free of hippo, crocodiles and bilharzia, I assumed that it wasn’t a particularly dangerous water snake and didn’t let the sighting get in the way of my swimming or canoeing.
All in all, I am delighted to have managed to fit in a trip to this largely-undiscovered African jewel. It could not have been more different to Namibia, nor could I have been made to feel more welcome: I’ll CERTAINLY be back!
[PS I’m not sure if “hurpling” has an existence outside the Fergusson vocabulary, but it struck me as the perfect word for describing the chaotic progress (not to mention speed) of minibuses and matolas.]
Friday, 27 April 2007
EPA may ''Destroy'' Malawi's Manufacturing Potential
BLANTYRE, Apr 26 (IPS) - Economic circles in eastern and southern Africa are abuzz with discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of the economic partnership agreement (EPA) which governments of these countries are negotiating with the European Union (EU).
Sixteen nations in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) EPA grouping are scheduled to sign the agreement by December this year, along with other countries in the rest of Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions.
While the Malawian government is looking forward to this step, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the country remain apprehensive. Five influential NGOs, whose voices are taken seriously on the political and economic scene in Malawi, warn that the EPA will undermine the country's economy.
These NGOs are the Malawi Economic Justice Network; the Farmers Union of Malawi; the Civil Society Agriculture Network; the Malawi Council of Churches; and Oxfam in Malawi.
They have written to the EU's president, German chancellor Angela Merkel, arguing that the EPA is a bad deal as it will not allow Malawi and similar poor countries to protect their domestic industries with tariffs and other measures.
The group of NGOs also argues that the EPA is different to the Lome preferential trade agreement which it is replacing. The new trade deal will ''force'' Malawi to open up its market to the industrialised world and end up perpetuating economic misery among its population of 12 million people, say the NGOs.
Some 65 percent of Malawians live below the poverty line of less than 1 US dollar a day.
The organisations also contend that the EPA will open up Malawi's local markets to goods produced at lower costs in developed European countries. These goods will compete against Malawian goods which have been manufactured in a less advanced country that is already struggling against global economic constrictions.
''The EPA will decrease government revenue through loss of tariffs and undermine the benefits of regional trade integration,'' the NGOs argue. They believe that Malawi has the right to pursue autonomously determined trade and economic policies for the development of its economy, just like other countries do.
The NGO community in Malawi is not alone in its protestations. A report released this year by Tearfund, a global Christian relief and development charity, warns that the EPA negotiations are unbalanced. The report says the EPAs will create a greater disparity between the ACP countries and the EU in terms of development and economic power.
In the report, entitled ''Much to lose, little to gain: Assessing EPAs from the perspective of Malawi'', Tearfund warns that the EPA threatens to reinforce Malawi's position as an exporter of low-value, unprocessed commodities.
This will undermine the Malawian government's development strategy to add value to agricultural goods and to develop a manufacturing sector. It will also undermine regional integration among Malawi and its neighbours and will lead to a significant loss of fiscal revenue. There will also be other major adjustment costs, says Tearfund.
''EPA negotiations are cloaked in the language of partnership and development, but in the grossly unbalanced negotiating dynamic between the EU and the ACP, the European Commission is using EPAs to force its own agenda on Africa.
''Malawi has little to gain and potentially a huge amount to lose from entering into an EPA with the EU,'' Tearfund concludes.
Tearfund reminds the Malawian government that Malawi, as a least developed country, is in theory able to opt out of an EPA. It recommends that Malawi does that and rather sticks to the duty-free, quota-free access it has under the EU's Everything But Arms preferential trade initiative.
The concerns from the civil society groups seem to have some influence over the EPA process. The government of Malawi hosted intensive technical discussions this week (on April 24) for all the countries involved in the trade deal.
To allay fears, minister of trade Ken Lipenga has previously indicated that the government will conduct all the necessary consultations before signing the agreement. ''We will not just sign for the sake of it. We know that trade liberalisation has some negative effects and we will consider these when negotiating,'' Lipenga said.
In direct reference to the NGOs' concerns, Malawi's principal secretary for trade and private sector development Newby Kumwembe told IPS that the country's private sector incurs heavy production costs in some areas which render them uncompetitive on the global economy.
Kumwembe also argues that a lot of people have misunderstood trade agreements. Nowadays the big markets of Europe and the US have toughened up their entry requirements. Poor countries like Malawi need agreements such as the EPAs to be able to participate in the global economy. (END/2007)
Sixteen nations in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) EPA grouping are scheduled to sign the agreement by December this year, along with other countries in the rest of Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions.
While the Malawian government is looking forward to this step, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the country remain apprehensive. Five influential NGOs, whose voices are taken seriously on the political and economic scene in Malawi, warn that the EPA will undermine the country's economy.
These NGOs are the Malawi Economic Justice Network; the Farmers Union of Malawi; the Civil Society Agriculture Network; the Malawi Council of Churches; and Oxfam in Malawi.
They have written to the EU's president, German chancellor Angela Merkel, arguing that the EPA is a bad deal as it will not allow Malawi and similar poor countries to protect their domestic industries with tariffs and other measures.
The group of NGOs also argues that the EPA is different to the Lome preferential trade agreement which it is replacing. The new trade deal will ''force'' Malawi to open up its market to the industrialised world and end up perpetuating economic misery among its population of 12 million people, say the NGOs.
Some 65 percent of Malawians live below the poverty line of less than 1 US dollar a day.
The organisations also contend that the EPA will open up Malawi's local markets to goods produced at lower costs in developed European countries. These goods will compete against Malawian goods which have been manufactured in a less advanced country that is already struggling against global economic constrictions.
''The EPA will decrease government revenue through loss of tariffs and undermine the benefits of regional trade integration,'' the NGOs argue. They believe that Malawi has the right to pursue autonomously determined trade and economic policies for the development of its economy, just like other countries do.
The NGO community in Malawi is not alone in its protestations. A report released this year by Tearfund, a global Christian relief and development charity, warns that the EPA negotiations are unbalanced. The report says the EPAs will create a greater disparity between the ACP countries and the EU in terms of development and economic power.
In the report, entitled ''Much to lose, little to gain: Assessing EPAs from the perspective of Malawi'', Tearfund warns that the EPA threatens to reinforce Malawi's position as an exporter of low-value, unprocessed commodities.
This will undermine the Malawian government's development strategy to add value to agricultural goods and to develop a manufacturing sector. It will also undermine regional integration among Malawi and its neighbours and will lead to a significant loss of fiscal revenue. There will also be other major adjustment costs, says Tearfund.
''EPA negotiations are cloaked in the language of partnership and development, but in the grossly unbalanced negotiating dynamic between the EU and the ACP, the European Commission is using EPAs to force its own agenda on Africa.
''Malawi has little to gain and potentially a huge amount to lose from entering into an EPA with the EU,'' Tearfund concludes.
Tearfund reminds the Malawian government that Malawi, as a least developed country, is in theory able to opt out of an EPA. It recommends that Malawi does that and rather sticks to the duty-free, quota-free access it has under the EU's Everything But Arms preferential trade initiative.
The concerns from the civil society groups seem to have some influence over the EPA process. The government of Malawi hosted intensive technical discussions this week (on April 24) for all the countries involved in the trade deal.
To allay fears, minister of trade Ken Lipenga has previously indicated that the government will conduct all the necessary consultations before signing the agreement. ''We will not just sign for the sake of it. We know that trade liberalisation has some negative effects and we will consider these when negotiating,'' Lipenga said.
In direct reference to the NGOs' concerns, Malawi's principal secretary for trade and private sector development Newby Kumwembe told IPS that the country's private sector incurs heavy production costs in some areas which render them uncompetitive on the global economy.
Kumwembe also argues that a lot of people have misunderstood trade agreements. Nowadays the big markets of Europe and the US have toughened up their entry requirements. Poor countries like Malawi need agreements such as the EPAs to be able to participate in the global economy. (END/2007)
Thursday, 26 April 2007
"To Travel is to See"
According to an African adage, "to travel is to see." While I had heard about the awful working conditions and treatment of security guards in countries such as South Africa, Malawi and Mozambique, seeing the injustice and poverty workers face at the hands of Group 4 Securicor was more compelling than I had imagined.
I visited Africa as part of a delegation of human rights activists and union leaders to investigate Group 4's treatment of workers on the continent. The company is one of the largest multinational employers in Africa -- bigger than Coca-Cola -- and it employs nearly 65,000 employees in 18 nations.
Manuel Cossa is a former guard at the U.S. Embassy in Mozambique. He and 300 other workers were laid off by G4S without receiving notice or the legally-required severance payment to tide his family over financially until he found other work. He lives on the outskirts of the capital city in a three-room house with no electricity or running water, and must now rely on piecemeal work to support his six children. A proud man who does not want a handout, Manuel only wants to be paid for his hard work and to improve the harsh environment G4S guards encounter every day.
My visit to Africa also showed that workers like Manuel are fighting for what all workers need: to be treated with dignity and respect, and to have a chance at providing a better future for their children. While G4S is a powerful, global corporation with the power to improve the lives of workers and the continent, the company has instead chosen to relegate both to poverty.
Though I left African soil several days ago, I remain inspired by the courage of the G4S guards whose material wealth will never compare to that of their employer, yet -- together with broad international support -- are standing up against the corporation's arrogance and disregard for their work. They are proof of another African proverb: "unity is strength, division is weakness."
I visited Africa as part of a delegation of human rights activists and union leaders to investigate Group 4's treatment of workers on the continent. The company is one of the largest multinational employers in Africa -- bigger than Coca-Cola -- and it employs nearly 65,000 employees in 18 nations.
Manuel Cossa is a former guard at the U.S. Embassy in Mozambique. He and 300 other workers were laid off by G4S without receiving notice or the legally-required severance payment to tide his family over financially until he found other work. He lives on the outskirts of the capital city in a three-room house with no electricity or running water, and must now rely on piecemeal work to support his six children. A proud man who does not want a handout, Manuel only wants to be paid for his hard work and to improve the harsh environment G4S guards encounter every day.
My visit to Africa also showed that workers like Manuel are fighting for what all workers need: to be treated with dignity and respect, and to have a chance at providing a better future for their children. While G4S is a powerful, global corporation with the power to improve the lives of workers and the continent, the company has instead chosen to relegate both to poverty.
Though I left African soil several days ago, I remain inspired by the courage of the G4S guards whose material wealth will never compare to that of their employer, yet -- together with broad international support -- are standing up against the corporation's arrogance and disregard for their work. They are proof of another African proverb: "unity is strength, division is weakness."
Zimbabwe: Kingdom Takes Over Malawi Company
Harare
KINGDOM Financial Holdings Ltd has wrested control of Malawi firm First Discount House after it beefed up its shareholding to 40,16 percent.
Until then, Kingdom held 25,1 percent of FDH before acquiring part of Press Corporation Ltd's 30 percent stake, officials said this week.
PCL shares were bought for K90 million and shared between Kingdom and TF Mpinganjira Trust, which is now the second largest shareholder with 39,84 percent.
Old Mutual, at 20 percent, is the third largest shareholder.
It was not immediately clear if Kingdom's acquisition had received the blessings of the two countries' central banks.
Earlier reports from Malawi, however, indicated that PCL had sold its stake with the green light from the Malawi central bank.
Kingdom spokesperson Ms Farayi Mpofu yesterday confirmed the transaction.
In a previous interview, KFHL chief executive Mr Nigel Chanakira was quoted as saying his group was looking at consolidating its regional presence using every means possible.
He said then: "We are seriously looking at spreading local risk by expanding into the region."
FDC contributed $11,9 million to group income in the half-year to June 2006, as business continued to grow.
KFHL also runs a commercial bank in Botswana -- Kingdom Africa Bank Ltd -- which suffered teething problems before rebounding after a capital injection of US$1 million earlier last year.
The unit struggled between 2005 and 2006 after a serious run on deposits before being placed under curatorship by the Bank of Botswana.
Kingdom has this year remained strong, releasing forecast-beating full year to December 2006 results in which net profit surged to $17,8 billion from $188 million in 2005.
KINGDOM Financial Holdings Ltd has wrested control of Malawi firm First Discount House after it beefed up its shareholding to 40,16 percent.
Until then, Kingdom held 25,1 percent of FDH before acquiring part of Press Corporation Ltd's 30 percent stake, officials said this week.
PCL shares were bought for K90 million and shared between Kingdom and TF Mpinganjira Trust, which is now the second largest shareholder with 39,84 percent.
Old Mutual, at 20 percent, is the third largest shareholder.
It was not immediately clear if Kingdom's acquisition had received the blessings of the two countries' central banks.
Earlier reports from Malawi, however, indicated that PCL had sold its stake with the green light from the Malawi central bank.
Kingdom spokesperson Ms Farayi Mpofu yesterday confirmed the transaction.
In a previous interview, KFHL chief executive Mr Nigel Chanakira was quoted as saying his group was looking at consolidating its regional presence using every means possible.
He said then: "We are seriously looking at spreading local risk by expanding into the region."
FDC contributed $11,9 million to group income in the half-year to June 2006, as business continued to grow.
KFHL also runs a commercial bank in Botswana -- Kingdom Africa Bank Ltd -- which suffered teething problems before rebounding after a capital injection of US$1 million earlier last year.
The unit struggled between 2005 and 2006 after a serious run on deposits before being placed under curatorship by the Bank of Botswana.
Kingdom has this year remained strong, releasing forecast-beating full year to December 2006 results in which net profit surged to $17,8 billion from $188 million in 2005.
Bumper harvest expected again this year
Farmers in Malawi are attributing the abundant harvest they are looking forward to - a total of 3.2 million metric tonnes of maize this year - to a combination of good rains and subsidised fertiliser, although there are still remaining pockets of vulnerability.
"What the government did - to reduce fertiliser [prices] to enable the poor buy cheap fertiliser - has increased food production. It is my sincere hope that government will continue implementing the programme, so that Malawi does not suffer from hunger any longer," said Amos Banda, a farmer on the outskirts of the capital, Lilongwe.
The government has also attributed the high maize production to subsidised fertiliser, which was sold to farmers at 950 kwacha [about US$6.50] per 50kg bag; in 2004 the price was around K4,000 [about US$27] per 50kg bag.
With a 22 percent increase over last year's production - 73 percent higher than the average for the last five years, according to government estimates - Malawi's agricultural sector seems to be recovering after a drought in 2005 left almost five million people in need of food aid.
Banda said that working hard "is the only solution to deal with persistent hunger in our households. We have had good rains in the past few years, but good rainfall without farm inputs and hard work cannot produce better crop yields."
Joana Kambale, another farmer, praised the government for reducing the cost of fertiliser but suggested that the most poverty-stricken people be given fertiliser free of charge.
"Some of us are keeping orphans, and to raise money to feed the children and buy fertiliser is not easy. However, I have to be thankful to government for the reduction, but free fertiliser to the poor would be helpful," she said.
Despite forecasts of a good harvest throughout the country, a maize shortage is expected in Karonga district, in the Northern part of Malawi, after a lack of rain in February.
Nevertheless, the farmers have proven resilient. "Although we may not harvest enough maize from this area, we still believe we can survive by growing winter crops. What most people would like, however, is the support from government. We need to irrigate our crops and we can only succeed if we have proper equipment," said Daniel Mwagomba, a farmer in Karonga.
An estimated 65 percent of Malawi's 12 million people live below the poverty line, so the vast majority cannot afford irrigation equipment. The government has said it would distribute about 400 treadle pumps - a simple and inexpensive human-powered pump - but farmers in most areas have not yet received them.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture Binton Kuntsaira said there were no plans to discontinue the government's subsidy programme. "Due to high maize ... production last year, government has allowed traders to sell their crops outside Malawi. This year we expect more from our farmers, and this is what the government wants. People must be able to feed themselves."
"What the government did - to reduce fertiliser [prices] to enable the poor buy cheap fertiliser - has increased food production. It is my sincere hope that government will continue implementing the programme, so that Malawi does not suffer from hunger any longer," said Amos Banda, a farmer on the outskirts of the capital, Lilongwe.
The government has also attributed the high maize production to subsidised fertiliser, which was sold to farmers at 950 kwacha [about US$6.50] per 50kg bag; in 2004 the price was around K4,000 [about US$27] per 50kg bag.
With a 22 percent increase over last year's production - 73 percent higher than the average for the last five years, according to government estimates - Malawi's agricultural sector seems to be recovering after a drought in 2005 left almost five million people in need of food aid.
Banda said that working hard "is the only solution to deal with persistent hunger in our households. We have had good rains in the past few years, but good rainfall without farm inputs and hard work cannot produce better crop yields."
Joana Kambale, another farmer, praised the government for reducing the cost of fertiliser but suggested that the most poverty-stricken people be given fertiliser free of charge.
"Some of us are keeping orphans, and to raise money to feed the children and buy fertiliser is not easy. However, I have to be thankful to government for the reduction, but free fertiliser to the poor would be helpful," she said.
Despite forecasts of a good harvest throughout the country, a maize shortage is expected in Karonga district, in the Northern part of Malawi, after a lack of rain in February.
Nevertheless, the farmers have proven resilient. "Although we may not harvest enough maize from this area, we still believe we can survive by growing winter crops. What most people would like, however, is the support from government. We need to irrigate our crops and we can only succeed if we have proper equipment," said Daniel Mwagomba, a farmer in Karonga.
An estimated 65 percent of Malawi's 12 million people live below the poverty line, so the vast majority cannot afford irrigation equipment. The government has said it would distribute about 400 treadle pumps - a simple and inexpensive human-powered pump - but farmers in most areas have not yet received them.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture Binton Kuntsaira said there were no plans to discontinue the government's subsidy programme. "Due to high maize ... production last year, government has allowed traders to sell their crops outside Malawi. This year we expect more from our farmers, and this is what the government wants. People must be able to feed themselves."
All you need to know about Malawi this month...
It’s good to see that a number or Malawi’s tourist attractions have been highly ranked in the press when measured on a global scale. The Daily Telegraph asked a panel of experts to come up with the world’s top beaches and Likoma Island in Lake Malawi was chosen by the panel as one of the twenty-five outstanding locations. Home to the famous Kaya Mawa Lodge, Likoma Island certainly deserves this accolade.
The Independent went even further in their trawl of the world’s leading diving destinations. Lake Malawi came out as the top for freshwater diving. The lake has the largest number of freshwater fish species on the planet and a growing number of lodges offering diving as an activity, often with top-class instruction.
Tourism Update, the leading South Africa magazine, recently rated Liwonde National Park among the top fourteen ‘eco-treasures’ among the multitude of parks and game reserves across the whole of southern Africa. Mvuu Lodge and Camp is the place to stay to enjoy a safari by boat, on foot or by a night drive.
Finally, The Sunday Times surveyed the world’s ten top Pop Festivals if you fail to get into Glastonbury! Not surprisingly, the Lake of Stars Festival at Chintheche, on Lake Malawi was one of the ten. Taking place at the beginning of October, the festival is like none other; its mix of African and western music attracts thousands and takes place in one of Lake Malawi’s most beautiful settings.
MALAWI’S WILDLIFE RESERVES
Two of Malawi’s lesser known Wildlife Reserves, Majete and Mwabvi are undergoing a transformation. Majete, near the head of the Lower Shire Valley, is being systematically re-stocked. The programme for this is well advanced and plans to up-grade and extend tourist facilities are underway. Majete is close to Blantyre and, together with the well-established Lengwe National Park (Nyala Lodge), will attract those visitors who wish to explore the more southerly reaches of the country.
Still further south is Mwabvi Wildlife Reserve, for a long time neglected and inaccessible. No longer: Mwabvi, under the guidance of Project Africa Wilderness (PAW) can now accommodate visitors at Chipambere Camp and treat them to an experience like none other. Here the tourist can not only enjoy the wildlife but also make a real contribution to the conservation work being carried out.
Barefoot Safaris are the driving force behind the project and they’re able to offer their guests learning experiences in tracking, identification and conservation. This form of educational safari is a first for Malawi and comes with the knowledge that it really contributes to the environment. For more information visit Barefoot-safaris.com.
MORE WILDERNESS
Visitors to Nkwichi Lodge on the eastern side of Lake Malawi can now choose to explore the Manda Wilderness Community Reserve – a truly wild and unspoilt part of the lake’s littoral.
This experience can be either by walking safari, with one or two nights in a mobile ‘fly camp’, or by sailing by dhow and setting up camp on one of the many deserted white-sand beaches. Either will be one those unforgettable experiences you can dine out on for years. For more information, visit Mandawilderness.org
LAKE OF STARS MUSIC FESTIVAL
This festival (also mentioned above) goes from strength to strength. From its beginnings in 2004, this fantastic celebration of African and western music now has a worldwide reputation and attracts visitors from as far away as Australasia, Europe and North America. The brainchild of Liverpudlian music impresario Will Jameson, now based in London, the Lake of Stars Festival will be at the beginning of October.
For this year’s event he has attracted a host of internationally famous DJs and groups for this three day African Glastonbury. This is the only event of its kind anywhere and features the best of Malawian modern and traditional music and its followers across Africa as well as from overseas.
A LAKE EXPERIENCE
Sharing experiences is what a good holiday is about and it was pleasing to get this message from Danforth Yachting recently: “Last weekend we went out on a sunset cruise on the luxury yacht Mufasa with a group from the UK and Denmark. As we set off we had a shower of rain, yet the sun was still shining. The raindrops looked like huge glistening diamonds on the water.
“The next thing we saw was a rainbow in the sky, with the arc completely filling Cape Maclear. It was absolutely breathtaking and we all sat out on the deck getting wet but just glorying in the magnificent scene nature had set for us. Superb! Moments like that are quite unbeatable.”
For more information, visit Danforthyachting.com
OTHER ATTRACTIONS
• Luwawa Forest Lodge, on the beautiful Viphya plateau, is never slow to innovate. They report that their new sauna is up and running – just the thing after a day trekking on one of the wilderness trails. Horse riding is also to be introduced when an equestrian expert has been appointed.
• Recent high profile visitor to Malawi was pop star Madonna who took her children on holiday while she attended to the Raising Malawi charity which she sponsors.
• Malawi’s only ‘extreme sport’, the Mount Mulanje Porters’ Race will be on 14 July this year. Last year’s race attracted an international field of 438. There’s still time to register for the 2007 event. See the Nyasa Times report for more information
• Well-known, Lilongwe based, Kiboko Safaris are expanding into the top end of the market with some 5- and 7-day luxury tours while maintaining their programmes of value-for-money safaris.
• The Spectrum Guide to Malawi – the best of all Malawi guide books – is available direct from the Information Office in the UK together with Malawi’s No.1 touring map – both at discount prices.
See Malawitourism.com for details.
The Independent went even further in their trawl of the world’s leading diving destinations. Lake Malawi came out as the top for freshwater diving. The lake has the largest number of freshwater fish species on the planet and a growing number of lodges offering diving as an activity, often with top-class instruction.
Tourism Update, the leading South Africa magazine, recently rated Liwonde National Park among the top fourteen ‘eco-treasures’ among the multitude of parks and game reserves across the whole of southern Africa. Mvuu Lodge and Camp is the place to stay to enjoy a safari by boat, on foot or by a night drive.
Finally, The Sunday Times surveyed the world’s ten top Pop Festivals if you fail to get into Glastonbury! Not surprisingly, the Lake of Stars Festival at Chintheche, on Lake Malawi was one of the ten. Taking place at the beginning of October, the festival is like none other; its mix of African and western music attracts thousands and takes place in one of Lake Malawi’s most beautiful settings.
MALAWI’S WILDLIFE RESERVES
Two of Malawi’s lesser known Wildlife Reserves, Majete and Mwabvi are undergoing a transformation. Majete, near the head of the Lower Shire Valley, is being systematically re-stocked. The programme for this is well advanced and plans to up-grade and extend tourist facilities are underway. Majete is close to Blantyre and, together with the well-established Lengwe National Park (Nyala Lodge), will attract those visitors who wish to explore the more southerly reaches of the country.
Still further south is Mwabvi Wildlife Reserve, for a long time neglected and inaccessible. No longer: Mwabvi, under the guidance of Project Africa Wilderness (PAW) can now accommodate visitors at Chipambere Camp and treat them to an experience like none other. Here the tourist can not only enjoy the wildlife but also make a real contribution to the conservation work being carried out.
Barefoot Safaris are the driving force behind the project and they’re able to offer their guests learning experiences in tracking, identification and conservation. This form of educational safari is a first for Malawi and comes with the knowledge that it really contributes to the environment. For more information visit Barefoot-safaris.com.
MORE WILDERNESS
Visitors to Nkwichi Lodge on the eastern side of Lake Malawi can now choose to explore the Manda Wilderness Community Reserve – a truly wild and unspoilt part of the lake’s littoral.
This experience can be either by walking safari, with one or two nights in a mobile ‘fly camp’, or by sailing by dhow and setting up camp on one of the many deserted white-sand beaches. Either will be one those unforgettable experiences you can dine out on for years. For more information, visit Mandawilderness.org
LAKE OF STARS MUSIC FESTIVAL
This festival (also mentioned above) goes from strength to strength. From its beginnings in 2004, this fantastic celebration of African and western music now has a worldwide reputation and attracts visitors from as far away as Australasia, Europe and North America. The brainchild of Liverpudlian music impresario Will Jameson, now based in London, the Lake of Stars Festival will be at the beginning of October.
For this year’s event he has attracted a host of internationally famous DJs and groups for this three day African Glastonbury. This is the only event of its kind anywhere and features the best of Malawian modern and traditional music and its followers across Africa as well as from overseas.
A LAKE EXPERIENCE
Sharing experiences is what a good holiday is about and it was pleasing to get this message from Danforth Yachting recently: “Last weekend we went out on a sunset cruise on the luxury yacht Mufasa with a group from the UK and Denmark. As we set off we had a shower of rain, yet the sun was still shining. The raindrops looked like huge glistening diamonds on the water.
“The next thing we saw was a rainbow in the sky, with the arc completely filling Cape Maclear. It was absolutely breathtaking and we all sat out on the deck getting wet but just glorying in the magnificent scene nature had set for us. Superb! Moments like that are quite unbeatable.”
For more information, visit Danforthyachting.com
OTHER ATTRACTIONS
• Luwawa Forest Lodge, on the beautiful Viphya plateau, is never slow to innovate. They report that their new sauna is up and running – just the thing after a day trekking on one of the wilderness trails. Horse riding is also to be introduced when an equestrian expert has been appointed.
• Recent high profile visitor to Malawi was pop star Madonna who took her children on holiday while she attended to the Raising Malawi charity which she sponsors.
• Malawi’s only ‘extreme sport’, the Mount Mulanje Porters’ Race will be on 14 July this year. Last year’s race attracted an international field of 438. There’s still time to register for the 2007 event. See the Nyasa Times report for more information
• Well-known, Lilongwe based, Kiboko Safaris are expanding into the top end of the market with some 5- and 7-day luxury tours while maintaining their programmes of value-for-money safaris.
• The Spectrum Guide to Malawi – the best of all Malawi guide books – is available direct from the Information Office in the UK together with Malawi’s No.1 touring map – both at discount prices.
See Malawitourism.com for details.
Enemy of liberal Anglicans was poisoned
A British missionary was fatally poisoned after helping to prevent a London vicar from becoming a bishop in Central Africa, The Times has learnt.
Relatives of Canon Rodney Hunter, 73, believe that his food was contaminated by supporters of the Rev Nicholas Henderson in a battle between the liberal and conservative wings of the Anglican Church.
In November Canon Hunter was found dead at his home in Nkhotakota, Malawi, with a strange black substance around his mouth. The day before his death he had complained of severe stomach pains, and postmortem examination has now shown that he was killed by three poisons.
Malawi police have charged his cook with murder and are investigating rumours that the poisoning was organised by supporters of Mr Henderson, who had no knowledge of the alleged plot.
Canon Hunter was an outspoken critic of plans to appoint the liberal Mr Henderson as Bishop of Lake Malawi. The Province of Central Africa is at the heart of conservative evangelical opposition to the liberal Anglican outlook in the West on homosexuality.
Mr Henderson, Vicar of St Martin’s Acton West and All Saints’ Ealing Common, was elected as Bishop of Lake Malawi last August. He had known the region for 18 years, raising funds for religious, social and humanitarian projects, and was learning the local language, Chichewe. At the time, few in Malawi knew of his record as a leading liberal theologian and that he had been chairman of the Modern Churchpeople’s Union. There was also concern in Africa at reports that he had a male lodger.
As a result, the Primate of Central Africa, the Most Rev Bernard Malango, wrote to Mr Henderson asking him to confirm that he subscribed to the Creeds, the Bible and the Thirty-Nine Articles and that he “fashions his own like and his household according to the doctrine of Christ”.
The diocese’s Court of Confirmation blocked Mr Henderson’s consecration, deeming him “a man of unsound faith”, and instead appointed the retired Bishop of Zambia, the Right Rev Leonard Mwenda.
Canon Hunter, who had been living in retirement in Malawi, was made assistant priest at All Saints Cathedral. He faced continuing violent protests against his opposition to Mr Henderson and had been physically attacked in the pulpit.
His nephew, Mark Hunter, an accountant from Bristol, told The Times that he had received an initial postmortem report which confirmed that three poisons had been used, and believed that his uncle had been murdered. He said: “I understand that in the last months of my uncle’s life, local supporters of Mr Henderson made his life hell. I know he spoke out to the bishops, saying he should not be appointed. My uncle’s beliefs were strong. If he believed something, he would not give way.”
Canon Hunter had previously served as a cathedral dean in the diocese. He had been appointed after three priests died in strange circumstances and witchcraft was suspected.
His nephew said: “He would come back to England every couple of years, but his work was very important to him and he was highly thought of in Malawi. He loved Malawi. He thought of himself as Malawian, not English.”
Archbishop Malango said of Canon Hunter, who had trained him for the priesthood at a seminary in Lusaka: “He was brilliant, a good philosopher. I owed him a lot — he was my mentor.”
Mr Henderson told The Times: “I have not got anything to say. I have not seen the autopsy report. I heard accusations were going round that he was poisoned. I had a very high regard for Canon Hunter. But I am here in England, 5,000 miles away. I do not know what is going on. I have not been to Malawi for months.”
A requiem for Canon Hunter is to be sung at Pusey House, Oxford, this Saturday.
Relatives of Canon Rodney Hunter, 73, believe that his food was contaminated by supporters of the Rev Nicholas Henderson in a battle between the liberal and conservative wings of the Anglican Church.
In November Canon Hunter was found dead at his home in Nkhotakota, Malawi, with a strange black substance around his mouth. The day before his death he had complained of severe stomach pains, and postmortem examination has now shown that he was killed by three poisons.
Malawi police have charged his cook with murder and are investigating rumours that the poisoning was organised by supporters of Mr Henderson, who had no knowledge of the alleged plot.
Canon Hunter was an outspoken critic of plans to appoint the liberal Mr Henderson as Bishop of Lake Malawi. The Province of Central Africa is at the heart of conservative evangelical opposition to the liberal Anglican outlook in the West on homosexuality.
Mr Henderson, Vicar of St Martin’s Acton West and All Saints’ Ealing Common, was elected as Bishop of Lake Malawi last August. He had known the region for 18 years, raising funds for religious, social and humanitarian projects, and was learning the local language, Chichewe. At the time, few in Malawi knew of his record as a leading liberal theologian and that he had been chairman of the Modern Churchpeople’s Union. There was also concern in Africa at reports that he had a male lodger.
As a result, the Primate of Central Africa, the Most Rev Bernard Malango, wrote to Mr Henderson asking him to confirm that he subscribed to the Creeds, the Bible and the Thirty-Nine Articles and that he “fashions his own like and his household according to the doctrine of Christ”.
The diocese’s Court of Confirmation blocked Mr Henderson’s consecration, deeming him “a man of unsound faith”, and instead appointed the retired Bishop of Zambia, the Right Rev Leonard Mwenda.
Canon Hunter, who had been living in retirement in Malawi, was made assistant priest at All Saints Cathedral. He faced continuing violent protests against his opposition to Mr Henderson and had been physically attacked in the pulpit.
His nephew, Mark Hunter, an accountant from Bristol, told The Times that he had received an initial postmortem report which confirmed that three poisons had been used, and believed that his uncle had been murdered. He said: “I understand that in the last months of my uncle’s life, local supporters of Mr Henderson made his life hell. I know he spoke out to the bishops, saying he should not be appointed. My uncle’s beliefs were strong. If he believed something, he would not give way.”
Canon Hunter had previously served as a cathedral dean in the diocese. He had been appointed after three priests died in strange circumstances and witchcraft was suspected.
His nephew said: “He would come back to England every couple of years, but his work was very important to him and he was highly thought of in Malawi. He loved Malawi. He thought of himself as Malawian, not English.”
Archbishop Malango said of Canon Hunter, who had trained him for the priesthood at a seminary in Lusaka: “He was brilliant, a good philosopher. I owed him a lot — he was my mentor.”
Mr Henderson told The Times: “I have not got anything to say. I have not seen the autopsy report. I heard accusations were going round that he was poisoned. I had a very high regard for Canon Hunter. But I am here in England, 5,000 miles away. I do not know what is going on. I have not been to Malawi for months.”
A requiem for Canon Hunter is to be sung at Pusey House, Oxford, this Saturday.
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Jack's Malawi project deserves to keep going
REGARDLESS of which combination of parties forms the next Scottish Executive, I'm hopeful that Jack McConnell's initiative on Malawi will survive any change.
So what if some policymakers in Whitehall were quick to remind the First Minister and uppity MSPs that Westminster ruled the roost in all things pertaining to foreign policy? Those concerned with - and supportive of - what MSPs judged to be an act of humanitarianism, rightly continued to do what they could to make life just a bit better for those at the bottom of the economic heap, and help Malawi find a steady path out of its poverty.
I can't think of a member of the last parliament who was implacably opposed to the Malawi link-up once the genuine nature of the initiative became clear. Malawi needed friends and some pump-priming support, and we could go part of the way to meeting those needs.
Therefore, would it have been right for Jack to explain that the Scottish Parliament didn't have foreign policy-making power? Thousands of Scots wished him well, and understood the difference between dealing directly with the international agencies and local organisations responsible for a well-building project or a baby vaccination programme, and shovelling international aid money into Swiss bank accounts via Government departments and their ministers. Schoolchildren also gained an insight into what the other side of the educational coin is like in countries whose social fabric is stretched to the limit.
Their understanding of what makes the world so ill-divided was enhanced because they had a personal connection to one of Africa's poorest countries.
In the midst of an election that sometimes feels like a Dutch Auction, with every party promising more services and benefits for less tax, it was something of a shock to be returned to the real world inhabited by most of humanity. My thoughts on Malawi and some of the short-sighted and mean-spirited responses to the Scottish Executive's work there were sparked on reading the newsletter from James Gillespie's High School South Africa Student Sponsorship scheme.
So what if some policymakers in Whitehall were quick to remind the First Minister and uppity MSPs that Westminster ruled the roost in all things pertaining to foreign policy? Those concerned with - and supportive of - what MSPs judged to be an act of humanitarianism, rightly continued to do what they could to make life just a bit better for those at the bottom of the economic heap, and help Malawi find a steady path out of its poverty.
I can't think of a member of the last parliament who was implacably opposed to the Malawi link-up once the genuine nature of the initiative became clear. Malawi needed friends and some pump-priming support, and we could go part of the way to meeting those needs.
Therefore, would it have been right for Jack to explain that the Scottish Parliament didn't have foreign policy-making power? Thousands of Scots wished him well, and understood the difference between dealing directly with the international agencies and local organisations responsible for a well-building project or a baby vaccination programme, and shovelling international aid money into Swiss bank accounts via Government departments and their ministers. Schoolchildren also gained an insight into what the other side of the educational coin is like in countries whose social fabric is stretched to the limit.
Their understanding of what makes the world so ill-divided was enhanced because they had a personal connection to one of Africa's poorest countries.
In the midst of an election that sometimes feels like a Dutch Auction, with every party promising more services and benefits for less tax, it was something of a shock to be returned to the real world inhabited by most of humanity. My thoughts on Malawi and some of the short-sighted and mean-spirited responses to the Scottish Executive's work there were sparked on reading the newsletter from James Gillespie's High School South Africa Student Sponsorship scheme.
Malawi coffin sellers are in high demand
ONE of my first shocks, driving from Malawi's Blantyre airport into town, was the number of roadside workshops offering coffins for sale. Every few hundred yards, among the open-fronted shops meagerly stocked with bicycle parts, selling vegetables or furniture, an incongruously garish sign depicts a coffin and promises low prices. This is a real...
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
Malawi expected to produce 1.7 percent of global uranium
Malawi is set to contribute 1.7 percent of global uranium production once the country's Kayalekera Uranium Project (KUP) starts producing uranium oxide in late 2008, the Australian mining firm Paladin said on Monday.
Paladin, which the Malawi government has granted a mining license for the uranium project, said in a statement that Malawi would from late next year be producing up to 3.3 million pounds (1, 500 tons) of uranium oxide every year for a period of seven years.
"Converted into electricity production, 3.3 million pounds of uranium is enough to produce more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity each year," the company stated.
Currently, Malawi produces 275 megawatts of hydro-powered electricity every year.
The mining firm, which is also operating a uranium mining project in Namibia, said Malawi would late next year join a select group of countries that produce clean nuclear energy.
The Malawi government recently granted Paladin exclusive mining contract of its 11,000 tons of uranium deposits which is projected to earn the country about 200 million U.S. dollars every year for the expected 10-year mining life span.
The uranium deposits are located on a 55.5 square km stretch of land at Kayalekera in Malawi's northern border district of Karonga, located about 300 km north of the capital Lilongwe.
The Malawi government's plans to mine the uranium have been heavily criticized by local civil society groups who argued that it would expose people living within the vicinity of the mine to dangers of radiation and toxic chemicals used in the separation of uranium ore.
The government has nonetheless parried away the civil society claims, saying necessary precautions will be taken to avoid any hazards on people's lives and the environment.
Malawi's high-grade sandstone uranium deposits were discovered in the 1980s by a British mining firm, the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), which showed interest to mine the uranium but later decided against it due to low global uranium prices at the time.
Paladin, which the Malawi government has granted a mining license for the uranium project, said in a statement that Malawi would from late next year be producing up to 3.3 million pounds (1, 500 tons) of uranium oxide every year for a period of seven years.
"Converted into electricity production, 3.3 million pounds of uranium is enough to produce more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity each year," the company stated.
Currently, Malawi produces 275 megawatts of hydro-powered electricity every year.
The mining firm, which is also operating a uranium mining project in Namibia, said Malawi would late next year join a select group of countries that produce clean nuclear energy.
The Malawi government recently granted Paladin exclusive mining contract of its 11,000 tons of uranium deposits which is projected to earn the country about 200 million U.S. dollars every year for the expected 10-year mining life span.
The uranium deposits are located on a 55.5 square km stretch of land at Kayalekera in Malawi's northern border district of Karonga, located about 300 km north of the capital Lilongwe.
The Malawi government's plans to mine the uranium have been heavily criticized by local civil society groups who argued that it would expose people living within the vicinity of the mine to dangers of radiation and toxic chemicals used in the separation of uranium ore.
The government has nonetheless parried away the civil society claims, saying necessary precautions will be taken to avoid any hazards on people's lives and the environment.
Malawi's high-grade sandstone uranium deposits were discovered in the 1980s by a British mining firm, the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), which showed interest to mine the uranium but later decided against it due to low global uranium prices at the time.
Ministry gets ready to break ground on new primary school in Malawi.
Malawi (MNN) -- Grace Ministries International is celebrating a partner's growth in Malawi.
The Grace church has just been given a new 20-acre plot of land for a primary school in Senga Bay on the coast of Lake Malawi. Pray that they can use the 40,000 bricks and various donations to build the school before the end of the year.
GMI began their work in Malawi in 2000. At that time, two Zambian Bible School graduates were sent as short-term missionaries to that country. In January 2005 Rev. and Mrs. Kennedy Simtowe, GMI missionaries to Zambia, moved to Malawi to strengthen the work by establishing a training center and expanding the evangelistic outreach and church-planting ministries.
Since then, aside from the educational aspect, numerous churches have been planted in addition to establishing 32 future church plants. One missionary team is focused on starting new preaching points through evangelistic outreach.
Please pray for spiritual growth for those men in training. Pray, also, for the two Malawians who are students at Zambia Grace Bible Institute.
Grace Ministries International
Phone: (616) 241-5666
Fax: (616) 241-2542
Web Site
P.O. Box 9405
Grand Rapids, MI49509
This Story in Audio
1min 2min 4.5min
The Grace church has just been given a new 20-acre plot of land for a primary school in Senga Bay on the coast of Lake Malawi. Pray that they can use the 40,000 bricks and various donations to build the school before the end of the year.
GMI began their work in Malawi in 2000. At that time, two Zambian Bible School graduates were sent as short-term missionaries to that country. In January 2005 Rev. and Mrs. Kennedy Simtowe, GMI missionaries to Zambia, moved to Malawi to strengthen the work by establishing a training center and expanding the evangelistic outreach and church-planting ministries.
Since then, aside from the educational aspect, numerous churches have been planted in addition to establishing 32 future church plants. One missionary team is focused on starting new preaching points through evangelistic outreach.
Please pray for spiritual growth for those men in training. Pray, also, for the two Malawians who are students at Zambia Grace Bible Institute.
Grace Ministries International
Phone: (616) 241-5666
Fax: (616) 241-2542
Web Site
P.O. Box 9405
Grand Rapids, MI49509
This Story in Audio
1min 2min 4.5min
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Cooking up a bright future for Malawi tourism
The bustling kitchens of Baby Grand are a long way from Malawi, but it is here, in one of Glasgow's busiest restaurant chains, that Dumisami Kapanga and Shadreck Helepa are hoping to learn the skills that will help kickstart their tourism industry back home.
The students have been brought to Scotland as part of a vanguard of gifted entrepreneurs who it is hoped will provide expertise, enthusiasm and business acumen to transform the economic fortunes of Malawi - one of the world's poorest countries.
As part of their stay, they are spending 18 hours a week learning customer care skills, cooking and working as waiters at Brel and Ad Lib, both part of the Baby Grand Group in Glasgow. They will also be enrolled on four-year tourism undergraduate degrees at Glasgow Caledonian University.
According to Mr Kapanga, 23, the options in Scotland could not be more different from his home country. "Life is hard there. You don't know how you are going to get by each day. There are huge problems with HIV. If you are not infected, you are affected," he said.
Mr Kapanga, who was born and grew up in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, was well-educated and worked as a graphic artist after his parents died when he was a teenager, but his job paid the equivalent of £15 a month and opportunities were limited.
Now halfway through his degree, he said he wants to instill the professionalism learned in Glasgow back home. "The thing I notice here is how much pride Scottish people have in their own culture. I would like to see that in Malawi." The students' stay in Scotland has been sponsored by the Moffat tourism centre at Caledonian University and Billy McAneney, owner of the Baby Grand Group.
Malawi is ranked as the 10th poorest country in the world by the United Nations and has been ravaged by Aids/HIV, unemployment and difficulties in its agriculture sector. Tourism is seen as the way forward, but training people to run bars, hotels and attractions to standards expected by wealthy tourists in the West is not easy.
The Scottish Executive, which has formed strong links with Malawi, provided £250,000 to upgrade the African country's Institute of Tourism and bolster skills of people working in tourism. The Moffat Centre, which is administering the fund, is refitting the institute, providing books and up-to-date technology to replace its one, clapped-out PC.
John Lennon, professor of tourism at the Moffat Centre, said he also hopes to bolster the academic rating of the institute and will be enrolling eight people on distance-learning masters degrees.
"This is one of the most rewarding projects I have been involved in," he said. "Malawi has great potential for tourism. It is beautiful, safe and the people are incredibly friendly. If you want to see an authentic piece of Africa, it is the place to go."
Mr McAneney, who founded the Malawi Tomorrow charity which spends around £50,000 a year on projects in Malawi, said: "We are not simply going to train these people up and leave them to it'. We want to make sure that when they leave us, they not only have jobs to go to but play a role in transforming the fortunes of tourism in Malawi."
Country profile
Malawi's economy is said to be half the size of Falkirk's - or 1% of Scotland's
The country's population is 12.6 million people
More than half the population lives below the poverty line
Most Malawians rely on subsistence farming but the food supply situation is precarious
Moves are under way to exploit uranium reserves to boost meagre export earnings
Since the mid-1990s the country has privatised many loss-making state-run corporations
Tens of thousands of Malawians die of Aids every year and a programme to tackle HIV-Aids was launched in 2004
The students have been brought to Scotland as part of a vanguard of gifted entrepreneurs who it is hoped will provide expertise, enthusiasm and business acumen to transform the economic fortunes of Malawi - one of the world's poorest countries.
As part of their stay, they are spending 18 hours a week learning customer care skills, cooking and working as waiters at Brel and Ad Lib, both part of the Baby Grand Group in Glasgow. They will also be enrolled on four-year tourism undergraduate degrees at Glasgow Caledonian University.
According to Mr Kapanga, 23, the options in Scotland could not be more different from his home country. "Life is hard there. You don't know how you are going to get by each day. There are huge problems with HIV. If you are not infected, you are affected," he said.
Mr Kapanga, who was born and grew up in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, was well-educated and worked as a graphic artist after his parents died when he was a teenager, but his job paid the equivalent of £15 a month and opportunities were limited.
Now halfway through his degree, he said he wants to instill the professionalism learned in Glasgow back home. "The thing I notice here is how much pride Scottish people have in their own culture. I would like to see that in Malawi." The students' stay in Scotland has been sponsored by the Moffat tourism centre at Caledonian University and Billy McAneney, owner of the Baby Grand Group.
Malawi is ranked as the 10th poorest country in the world by the United Nations and has been ravaged by Aids/HIV, unemployment and difficulties in its agriculture sector. Tourism is seen as the way forward, but training people to run bars, hotels and attractions to standards expected by wealthy tourists in the West is not easy.
The Scottish Executive, which has formed strong links with Malawi, provided £250,000 to upgrade the African country's Institute of Tourism and bolster skills of people working in tourism. The Moffat Centre, which is administering the fund, is refitting the institute, providing books and up-to-date technology to replace its one, clapped-out PC.
John Lennon, professor of tourism at the Moffat Centre, said he also hopes to bolster the academic rating of the institute and will be enrolling eight people on distance-learning masters degrees.
"This is one of the most rewarding projects I have been involved in," he said. "Malawi has great potential for tourism. It is beautiful, safe and the people are incredibly friendly. If you want to see an authentic piece of Africa, it is the place to go."
Mr McAneney, who founded the Malawi Tomorrow charity which spends around £50,000 a year on projects in Malawi, said: "We are not simply going to train these people up and leave them to it'. We want to make sure that when they leave us, they not only have jobs to go to but play a role in transforming the fortunes of tourism in Malawi."
Country profile
Malawi's economy is said to be half the size of Falkirk's - or 1% of Scotland's
The country's population is 12.6 million people
More than half the population lives below the poverty line
Most Malawians rely on subsistence farming but the food supply situation is precarious
Moves are under way to exploit uranium reserves to boost meagre export earnings
Since the mid-1990s the country has privatised many loss-making state-run corporations
Tens of thousands of Malawians die of Aids every year and a programme to tackle HIV-Aids was launched in 2004
Madonna Must Be Stopped - Before It's Too Late
She beams with the kind of self-satisfaction that can only be acquired after years of being convinced you're never wrong. She doesn't just visit the little African orphans - she bestows her presence on them, like a veiny-armed angel descending from some kind of gay-nightclub rip-off heaven. Stripped of glamour and artifice, she tries to seem like a child of the earth, a beneficent force of nature - and yet cannot escape seeming utterly artificial. It nags at you, this sense that she is only about the image, the surface. You want to believe there is real charity in her soul - she cares about the orphans, and wants to give them a better life - but you've seen her on TV too many times, you've lived too long with the calculations, the shrewd manipulations. This product of modern-day media - who also had a hand in inventing those media - has undergone a long and winding evolution: she flaunted her non-virginity, snarling half-ironically, tweaking the same sensibilities Elvis naively offended decades before; she fomented controversy, even taking on her own religion; and now she has decided, logically I suppose, that being an icon isn't enough - she wants to be a full-fledged Messiah.
No, Madonna is no ironist - she may want us to think she is, as she dangles from that disco-cross, but the outward appearance of playful facetiousness has always been her cover; underneath she believes every word her own ego whispers in her eager ear. And lately it's been whispering something grander than usual - it's been telling her there's something more for her out there than stardom; that she's always been destined for something greater than mere idolhood. Anyone can be a pop-star now - even Sanjaya, who doesn't know that he's a joke. The true stars have to reach beyond making audiences cheer - they have to make all the world their stage, and all humanity their idolaters. And naturally, for these purposes, the powerless are always the ideal victims. Hence the trip to Africa - the adoption, the orphanage visit, the ceremonies; as if this were some foreign dignitary visiting, and not a mere singer. Oh - but she is a foreign dignitary; one with Messianic delusions, and a lot of money to spend.
The reports are coming out of Malawi now, that Madonna isn't only interested in picking up another adopted baby, isn't only interested in taking over the orphanage in Mchinji (where the pastor is old and sick and willing to hand her the keys). For a little over a year now, Madonna has been pumping money into the country - through her charity, Raising Malawi, which has allowed her to acquire a stake in numerous orphanages, hospitals, even whole villages. But there's more to this story than meets the eye. Raising Malawi has been responsible for distributing food, medical supplies, and other health-related items throughout that impoverished nation - but Raising Malawi is co-run by Michael Berg, the son of Philip Berg, who is rabbi and Dean of the Kabbalah Center. Of course, Raising Malawi itself is not being used as a means of spreading Kabbalah, Madonna's adopted religion - that task belongs to another of Madonna's endeavors, the euphemistically-named Spirituality for Kids program. Through this course, Madonna hopes to indoctrinate thousands of Malawian children into the ways of Kabbalah. An inside source put it bluntly to the Daily Mail, "When you get right down to it, she is looking to have her own state with her religion."
But what is this Kabbalah, that Madonna has so famously become the face of? Strictly speaking, it is an ancient set of Jewish teachings, which have traditionally only been transmitted by Jewish sages. The aim of Kabbalah is to "bring man spiritually closer to God, and empower man with higher insight into the inner-workings of God’s creation, effectively enabling prophecy and even control over nature." At least, that is Kabbalah as it was known for centuries. In recent times it has become a fad religion; like Scientology, it has many adherents among Hollywood-types, and has benefitted by all those wealthy people injecting it with money. Of course, when Hollywood-types get their hands on something, it has a way of mutating - and this has been true of Kabbalah, whose modern-day permutation has little in common with ancient Jewish mysticism.
The man behind the new Kabbalah is none other than rabbi Philip Berg, who founded the famed Kabbalah Center in L.A. Perhaps hoping to spruce up a dusty set of beliefs, Berg has introduced some new-fangled, some would say bizarre teachings into the faith - for instance, that mentally ill people are actually possessed by evil spirits, and that "unseen extraterrestrial forces affect terrestrial affairs." It is the Kabbalah of Philip Berg - and Madonna - that's being taught in Malawi - spread to the vulnerable young of that country, by ministers who were taught in America. And what exactly are these children being told by these ready-made wise-men? Reportedly, the new Kabbalah preaches a simplistic form of karmic tit-for-tat - if you do something bad, the children are being taught, something bad will happen to you. No, not sin leading to hell - but a bad act leading directly to some earthly misfortune. As one student of Spirituality for Kids wrote: "I had a bicycle accident because I did bad things"; and a second: "When travelling I hit my foot on a stone because of the bad things I did." Of course this leaves open the question - who decides what is a bad thing? God? Philip Berg? And, as Daily Mail reporter Natalie Clarke asks, what effect could this sort of teaching have on the impressionable young of a nation long-plagued by disease and famine?
Madonna, it is clear, wants to adopt the whole nation of Malawi - and re-make it in her grandiose image. Of course, not everyone in Malawi is fooled. The Roman Catholics there have raised objections to Madonna's Kabbalah-spreading activities, and many of the "Kabbalah bibles" Madonna sent remain undistributed. It seems that the long-established hold of Christianity may be slipping in Malawi however - and is it a coincidence that Madonna is largely responsible for this usurpation? Madonna, who has made a career out of being sacrilegious - always behind that veil of chintzy irony and commercial ambition. What really motivates this woman, named after the holiest female in all Christendom? This child of a Catholic upbringing who has openly criticized that church, finally rejecting it? And what are we to make of these Kabbalah teachings, which seem specifically calculated to engender feelings of guilt? A wise man once said that, in a dictatorship, the nation takes on the personality of the dictator. Germany became homicidally racist because Hilter was. The Soviet Union became paranoid because Stalin was. If the entire nation of Malawi becomes guilt-ridden and de-Christianized, whose personality will this mirror? What's really going on behind that deglamorized glamorous facade of Madonna's?
No, Madonna is no ironist - she may want us to think she is, as she dangles from that disco-cross, but the outward appearance of playful facetiousness has always been her cover; underneath she believes every word her own ego whispers in her eager ear. And lately it's been whispering something grander than usual - it's been telling her there's something more for her out there than stardom; that she's always been destined for something greater than mere idolhood. Anyone can be a pop-star now - even Sanjaya, who doesn't know that he's a joke. The true stars have to reach beyond making audiences cheer - they have to make all the world their stage, and all humanity their idolaters. And naturally, for these purposes, the powerless are always the ideal victims. Hence the trip to Africa - the adoption, the orphanage visit, the ceremonies; as if this were some foreign dignitary visiting, and not a mere singer. Oh - but she is a foreign dignitary; one with Messianic delusions, and a lot of money to spend.
The reports are coming out of Malawi now, that Madonna isn't only interested in picking up another adopted baby, isn't only interested in taking over the orphanage in Mchinji (where the pastor is old and sick and willing to hand her the keys). For a little over a year now, Madonna has been pumping money into the country - through her charity, Raising Malawi, which has allowed her to acquire a stake in numerous orphanages, hospitals, even whole villages. But there's more to this story than meets the eye. Raising Malawi has been responsible for distributing food, medical supplies, and other health-related items throughout that impoverished nation - but Raising Malawi is co-run by Michael Berg, the son of Philip Berg, who is rabbi and Dean of the Kabbalah Center. Of course, Raising Malawi itself is not being used as a means of spreading Kabbalah, Madonna's adopted religion - that task belongs to another of Madonna's endeavors, the euphemistically-named Spirituality for Kids program. Through this course, Madonna hopes to indoctrinate thousands of Malawian children into the ways of Kabbalah. An inside source put it bluntly to the Daily Mail, "When you get right down to it, she is looking to have her own state with her religion."
But what is this Kabbalah, that Madonna has so famously become the face of? Strictly speaking, it is an ancient set of Jewish teachings, which have traditionally only been transmitted by Jewish sages. The aim of Kabbalah is to "bring man spiritually closer to God, and empower man with higher insight into the inner-workings of God’s creation, effectively enabling prophecy and even control over nature." At least, that is Kabbalah as it was known for centuries. In recent times it has become a fad religion; like Scientology, it has many adherents among Hollywood-types, and has benefitted by all those wealthy people injecting it with money. Of course, when Hollywood-types get their hands on something, it has a way of mutating - and this has been true of Kabbalah, whose modern-day permutation has little in common with ancient Jewish mysticism.
The man behind the new Kabbalah is none other than rabbi Philip Berg, who founded the famed Kabbalah Center in L.A. Perhaps hoping to spruce up a dusty set of beliefs, Berg has introduced some new-fangled, some would say bizarre teachings into the faith - for instance, that mentally ill people are actually possessed by evil spirits, and that "unseen extraterrestrial forces affect terrestrial affairs." It is the Kabbalah of Philip Berg - and Madonna - that's being taught in Malawi - spread to the vulnerable young of that country, by ministers who were taught in America. And what exactly are these children being told by these ready-made wise-men? Reportedly, the new Kabbalah preaches a simplistic form of karmic tit-for-tat - if you do something bad, the children are being taught, something bad will happen to you. No, not sin leading to hell - but a bad act leading directly to some earthly misfortune. As one student of Spirituality for Kids wrote: "I had a bicycle accident because I did bad things"; and a second: "When travelling I hit my foot on a stone because of the bad things I did." Of course this leaves open the question - who decides what is a bad thing? God? Philip Berg? And, as Daily Mail reporter Natalie Clarke asks, what effect could this sort of teaching have on the impressionable young of a nation long-plagued by disease and famine?
Madonna, it is clear, wants to adopt the whole nation of Malawi - and re-make it in her grandiose image. Of course, not everyone in Malawi is fooled. The Roman Catholics there have raised objections to Madonna's Kabbalah-spreading activities, and many of the "Kabbalah bibles" Madonna sent remain undistributed. It seems that the long-established hold of Christianity may be slipping in Malawi however - and is it a coincidence that Madonna is largely responsible for this usurpation? Madonna, who has made a career out of being sacrilegious - always behind that veil of chintzy irony and commercial ambition. What really motivates this woman, named after the holiest female in all Christendom? This child of a Catholic upbringing who has openly criticized that church, finally rejecting it? And what are we to make of these Kabbalah teachings, which seem specifically calculated to engender feelings of guilt? A wise man once said that, in a dictatorship, the nation takes on the personality of the dictator. Germany became homicidally racist because Hilter was. The Soviet Union became paranoid because Stalin was. If the entire nation of Malawi becomes guilt-ridden and de-Christianized, whose personality will this mirror? What's really going on behind that deglamorized glamorous facade of Madonna's?
IMF plutocracy condemns developing world to misery
LONDON: The disease that afflicts all British governments is an inability to let go. Unable to accept the end of empire, they cling to past glories. However much they speak of modernity and democracy, they cannot help managing other people’s lives, preserving foreigners — often at gunpoint — from the mistakes they would make if they were allowed to govern themselves.
I was going to call this an imperial delusion, but Britain has been remarkably successful at defending its powers. The UK government has retained a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Its membership of the G8 is unchallenged. Most important, it has preserved its unwarranted share of the vote on the boards of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. And it has no intention of giving this up.
In advance of the IMF’s spring meeting (just concluded in Washington), France and Britain rejected any political reform to the organisation, which is charged with maintaining global financial stability.
It is true that the fund’s proposals are feeble. It is true that even after far more ambitious reforms the IMF would remain the wrong body, constitutionally destined to fail. But this is not why the British government is holding out. It is resisting change because it wants to preserve its imperial rank.
Britain, with 1% of the world’s population, has 5% of the IMF’s votes. Sub-Saharan Africa, with 12% of the population, has 4.6%. Britain’s share equals that of China and India put together. It is five times as big as Argentina’s, 19 times Bangladesh’s, 35 times Kenya’s, 124 times bigger than Malawi’s.
The G7 nations — Britain, the US, Japan, Germany, France, Canada and Italy — together possess 45% of the vote. The other 177 members are left to squabble over the remainder.
Even these numbers tell only half the story. The five countries with the biggest quotas — the US, Britain, Japan, Germany and France — are each allowed to appoint their own executive director to the IMF’s board. The rest must submit their candidates for election. Because poor nations don’t know what’s good for them, they are assigned to the tutelage of richer ones.
The votes of the English- speaking Caribbean countries are given to Canada. Mongolia is represented by Australia, Kazakhstan by Belgium. The reason that Britain and France are resisting even the most timid reforms is that these would tip them below the threshold for automatic election: like the other countries, they would be represented on the board as part of a bloc.
Power is distributed like this because the IMF is a plutocracy. A country’s vote represents its ‘quota’, which is allocated according to its gross domestic product. In theory, the quota reflects countries’ financial contributions to the fund. But this is no longer the case, as the IMF receives much of its income from loan repayments from poorer nations.
But the old formula has resisted 60 years of complaints. The result is that governments that are never made subject to the IMF’s strictures control it, while those whose countries have been reduced to an IMF franchise have no say in the way it is run. The allocation of votes is a perfect inversion of democracy.
A new report by ActionAid gives us a glimpse of how this unfair distribution of power affects the poor. After years of protest by poor countries and their supporters in the rich world, the IMF and the World Bank at last permitted the provision of healthcare and education without charge.
The rich nations also promised, in 2000, to ensure that by 2015 every child in the world would have primary education. It looked like a great victory for the global justice movement. But the IMF is ensuring that the promise won’t be met. It has, in effect, forbidden the poorest nations to hire sufficient teachers.
No one disputes that public-sector wage rises can contribute to inflation. No one denies that governments have to exercise some degree of restraint. But the paternalists who run the IMF — who are fixated on creating safe havens for foreign capital — cannot help micro-managing the economies of the poor nations, without reference to the needs of the people who live there. The limits they have imposed on the bill for public-sector pay ensure that schooling can’t be improved.
ActionAid studied three very poor countries with major education problems: Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leone. After fees were abolished (and when the civil war ended in Sierra Leone), vast numbers of pupils enrolled. But a combination of the rich nations’ failure to provide the foreign aid they had promised and the restrictions imposed by the IMF has prevented these countries meeting the new demand.
As a result, the pupil to teacher ratio in Sierra Leone is 57:1; in Malawi 72:1 and in Mozambique 74:1. That’s the average; in rural areas it can be much higher. Many of the teachers are untrained, and many give up because they cannot survive on their wages. In Malawi, the goods required for the most basic level of subsistence cost $107 a month. A trained teacher receives $55.
So crowds of pupils strain to hear a scarcely literate teacher somewhere in the middle distance seeking to instruct them without books, chalk, paper or pens. We should not be surprised to discover that 40% of children fail to complete primary school in Sierra Leone and Mozambique, and 70% in Malawi. Most of the drop-outs are girls.
As a result, these countries are stuck in a vicious circle of misery. Until education improves, GDP remains low. Until GDP rises, there is little money for education. As one of the agencies charged with rescuing countries from poverty, the IMF should be seeking to break this circle.
But the conditions it attaches to its loans keep these countries in their place. In Malawi the IMF sets the ceiling for public-sector wages directly; in Sierra Leone and Mozambique the broader macro-economic rules it imposes have the same effect.
ActionAid argues that these fiscal targets are outdated and unnecessary: all these countries have now achieved sufficient stability to start raising teachers’ pay. But in no case did the IMF consult either the public or the state’s own ministry of education before laying down the law.
The amount of money a teacher in rural Malawi is paid is decided by the men in London and Washington. Except for the district commissioners in pith helmets, little has changed since the country was called Nyasaland.
Last year Tony Blair acknowledged that the IMF “must become more representative of emerging economic powers and give greater voice to developing countries.”
But he just can’t let go. The proposed reforms do nothing to democratise the IMF: by linking the quota to purchasing power parity rather than raw GDP, they simply turn it into a more sophisticated plutocracy. But they could have the effect of very slightly empowering some middle-income countries while taking a few votes away from some of the rich ones. And even that is too much for the Emperor of Africa.
If the British government wants to help the poor, it must first give up its power to tell them how to live. Until that happens, everything the prime minister says about “partnership” and “solidarity” with the world’s oppressed is humbug. – The Guardian News & Media
I was going to call this an imperial delusion, but Britain has been remarkably successful at defending its powers. The UK government has retained a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Its membership of the G8 is unchallenged. Most important, it has preserved its unwarranted share of the vote on the boards of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. And it has no intention of giving this up.
In advance of the IMF’s spring meeting (just concluded in Washington), France and Britain rejected any political reform to the organisation, which is charged with maintaining global financial stability.
It is true that the fund’s proposals are feeble. It is true that even after far more ambitious reforms the IMF would remain the wrong body, constitutionally destined to fail. But this is not why the British government is holding out. It is resisting change because it wants to preserve its imperial rank.
Britain, with 1% of the world’s population, has 5% of the IMF’s votes. Sub-Saharan Africa, with 12% of the population, has 4.6%. Britain’s share equals that of China and India put together. It is five times as big as Argentina’s, 19 times Bangladesh’s, 35 times Kenya’s, 124 times bigger than Malawi’s.
The G7 nations — Britain, the US, Japan, Germany, France, Canada and Italy — together possess 45% of the vote. The other 177 members are left to squabble over the remainder.
Even these numbers tell only half the story. The five countries with the biggest quotas — the US, Britain, Japan, Germany and France — are each allowed to appoint their own executive director to the IMF’s board. The rest must submit their candidates for election. Because poor nations don’t know what’s good for them, they are assigned to the tutelage of richer ones.
The votes of the English- speaking Caribbean countries are given to Canada. Mongolia is represented by Australia, Kazakhstan by Belgium. The reason that Britain and France are resisting even the most timid reforms is that these would tip them below the threshold for automatic election: like the other countries, they would be represented on the board as part of a bloc.
Power is distributed like this because the IMF is a plutocracy. A country’s vote represents its ‘quota’, which is allocated according to its gross domestic product. In theory, the quota reflects countries’ financial contributions to the fund. But this is no longer the case, as the IMF receives much of its income from loan repayments from poorer nations.
But the old formula has resisted 60 years of complaints. The result is that governments that are never made subject to the IMF’s strictures control it, while those whose countries have been reduced to an IMF franchise have no say in the way it is run. The allocation of votes is a perfect inversion of democracy.
A new report by ActionAid gives us a glimpse of how this unfair distribution of power affects the poor. After years of protest by poor countries and their supporters in the rich world, the IMF and the World Bank at last permitted the provision of healthcare and education without charge.
The rich nations also promised, in 2000, to ensure that by 2015 every child in the world would have primary education. It looked like a great victory for the global justice movement. But the IMF is ensuring that the promise won’t be met. It has, in effect, forbidden the poorest nations to hire sufficient teachers.
No one disputes that public-sector wage rises can contribute to inflation. No one denies that governments have to exercise some degree of restraint. But the paternalists who run the IMF — who are fixated on creating safe havens for foreign capital — cannot help micro-managing the economies of the poor nations, without reference to the needs of the people who live there. The limits they have imposed on the bill for public-sector pay ensure that schooling can’t be improved.
ActionAid studied three very poor countries with major education problems: Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leone. After fees were abolished (and when the civil war ended in Sierra Leone), vast numbers of pupils enrolled. But a combination of the rich nations’ failure to provide the foreign aid they had promised and the restrictions imposed by the IMF has prevented these countries meeting the new demand.
As a result, the pupil to teacher ratio in Sierra Leone is 57:1; in Malawi 72:1 and in Mozambique 74:1. That’s the average; in rural areas it can be much higher. Many of the teachers are untrained, and many give up because they cannot survive on their wages. In Malawi, the goods required for the most basic level of subsistence cost $107 a month. A trained teacher receives $55.
So crowds of pupils strain to hear a scarcely literate teacher somewhere in the middle distance seeking to instruct them without books, chalk, paper or pens. We should not be surprised to discover that 40% of children fail to complete primary school in Sierra Leone and Mozambique, and 70% in Malawi. Most of the drop-outs are girls.
As a result, these countries are stuck in a vicious circle of misery. Until education improves, GDP remains low. Until GDP rises, there is little money for education. As one of the agencies charged with rescuing countries from poverty, the IMF should be seeking to break this circle.
But the conditions it attaches to its loans keep these countries in their place. In Malawi the IMF sets the ceiling for public-sector wages directly; in Sierra Leone and Mozambique the broader macro-economic rules it imposes have the same effect.
ActionAid argues that these fiscal targets are outdated and unnecessary: all these countries have now achieved sufficient stability to start raising teachers’ pay. But in no case did the IMF consult either the public or the state’s own ministry of education before laying down the law.
The amount of money a teacher in rural Malawi is paid is decided by the men in London and Washington. Except for the district commissioners in pith helmets, little has changed since the country was called Nyasaland.
Last year Tony Blair acknowledged that the IMF “must become more representative of emerging economic powers and give greater voice to developing countries.”
But he just can’t let go. The proposed reforms do nothing to democratise the IMF: by linking the quota to purchasing power parity rather than raw GDP, they simply turn it into a more sophisticated plutocracy. But they could have the effect of very slightly empowering some middle-income countries while taking a few votes away from some of the rich ones. And even that is too much for the Emperor of Africa.
If the British government wants to help the poor, it must first give up its power to tell them how to live. Until that happens, everything the prime minister says about “partnership” and “solidarity” with the world’s oppressed is humbug. – The Guardian News & Media
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Malawi small farmers hit by changes in the climate
By: IRIN News
Chronic food insecurity has made small scale farmers consider options such as cooperative farming to benefit from an irrigation scheme in southern Malawi. Photo: IRIN
Small-scale farmers in Malawi are becoming aware that they are bearing the brunt of climate change, which has been adversely affecting productivity, according to a new study by an international aid agency.
"Changing rainfall patterns and higher temperatures have forced farmers to shorten the growing season and switch to more expensive hybrid crops," said a report based on the study, 'Climate change and smallholder farmers in Malawi', by Action Aid International.
The research was conducted in Salima district, in Malawi's central region, and Nsanje in the south, as part of an effort to understand poor people's experiences in adapting to climate change.
"While policy responses to global warming have been mainly driven by debates among scientists, the insights of poor people living on the frontline have been largely neglected," the report commented.
Farmers are increasingly concerned about the impact of climate change on agriculture and food security. "Food availability has been an issue over the years since the disasters began. Much as we have experienced floods in those days, the impact was somehow not as severe. As time went by, there has been a drop in crop production due to frequent flooding and droughts," said a farmer in Salima district.
Malawi's experiences are often traced back to the 1991/92 drought in southern Africa, which affected over six million people. Since then, the report noted, the severity of disasters has escalated.
"We had a very close look at the interactions between weather and food production in Malawi, and we certainly confirm that there is a direct link between the two," said Rene Gommes, Senior Agrometeorologist with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome.
"Interestingly, Southern Africa was not a region where droughts were frequent until the 1991/92 El Niño. This coincides with the end of the drought in western Africa [in the Sahel], and the mechanism of this synchronism is well known and associated with the movements of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) in Africa. There is a negative correlation between rainfall in the Sahel and in Southern Africa," he pointed out.
Changes in rainfall patterns have affected the growing seasons and the type of crops planted, the Action Aid study found: long-season local maize varieties are no longer a preferred option, and maize normally grown in November is now being grown in December. "In the past we used to plant our crops after the first rains, but since we started experiencing frequent droughts and floods we are planting our crops much earlier," one farmer explained.
"This is to allow the crops to meet the first rains, with the hope that they will mature before the end of the rainy season, and to prevent the crops from being washed away by the floods. Instead of planting a local variety of maize, we have opted for hybrid maize that takes a shorter period to mature."
There has also been a noticeable increase in diseases, such as malaria, cholera and dysentery, associated with changes in rainfall patterns, creating health challenges that are particularly affecting women farmers. "We now travel longer distances to fetch water, and spend most of the time in health centres instead of working in our fields," the report quoted a female farmer as saying.
Deforestation
Poor land use and deforestation are also serious concerns among people in Salima and Nsanje. Farmers are aware that these activities result in more floods and droughts, but are not empowered to intervene. Many pointed fingers at the role of tobacco estates in felling trees in their neighbourhood.
Chipiza Kalemba, 84, suggested that the traditional authorities should regulate tree felling. "The laws should include enforcement of planting trees by estate owners as well as communities. Communities should also stop the practice of carelessly cutting down reeds that are growing along riverbanks. There were efforts by the local forestry assistant, but people showed no interest to his messages."
Existing forestry laws require tobacco estates to have a woodlot to be used for reforestation, but this was not being enforced. "Monitoring and evaluation of tobacco estates is a challenge for district staff because of lack of financial resources," a forestry official in Salima told the Action Aid researchers.
The increasing food insecurity caused by climate change has also limited the number of casual jobs available on commercial farms. In the past, nearby small-scale sugar and tea plantations were sources of employment for many people in Nsanje. However, farmers say that flood-induced migration means that there are now many more people seeking work on the plantations than there are jobs available.
Government plans
Malawi has developed its National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA) in terms of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international treaty on ways of reducing global warming and cope with altered weather patterns.
The Malawians are considering enhancing food security by developing community-based storage systems for seed and food, and enhancing the resilience of food production systems to erratic rainfall by promoting the sustainable production of maize and vegetables in wetlands and catchment areas.
However, Action Aid said the implementation of NAPA faced capacity constraints at district level, and a lack of coordination among sectors. "In addressing adaptation challenges, it is imperative that a multisectoral approach is taken, beginning at the community level with the smallholder farmers who are directly affected by climate change. These farmers need skills, knowledge and access to credit for the addressing short- and long-term needs of diversifying from maize into other crops."
Aid agencies and the Malawian government have been considering providing drought insurance to smallholder farmers. The Commodity Risk Management Group (CRMG) of the World Bank developed an objective indicator that could be used as a proxy measure of the exposure of Malawi's maize production to drought, but it was poorly linked to crop yields, according to the FAO, which was now working on the idea.
Chronic food insecurity has made small scale farmers consider options such as cooperative farming to benefit from an irrigation scheme in southern Malawi. Photo: IRIN
Small-scale farmers in Malawi are becoming aware that they are bearing the brunt of climate change, which has been adversely affecting productivity, according to a new study by an international aid agency.
"Changing rainfall patterns and higher temperatures have forced farmers to shorten the growing season and switch to more expensive hybrid crops," said a report based on the study, 'Climate change and smallholder farmers in Malawi', by Action Aid International.
The research was conducted in Salima district, in Malawi's central region, and Nsanje in the south, as part of an effort to understand poor people's experiences in adapting to climate change.
"While policy responses to global warming have been mainly driven by debates among scientists, the insights of poor people living on the frontline have been largely neglected," the report commented.
Farmers are increasingly concerned about the impact of climate change on agriculture and food security. "Food availability has been an issue over the years since the disasters began. Much as we have experienced floods in those days, the impact was somehow not as severe. As time went by, there has been a drop in crop production due to frequent flooding and droughts," said a farmer in Salima district.
Malawi's experiences are often traced back to the 1991/92 drought in southern Africa, which affected over six million people. Since then, the report noted, the severity of disasters has escalated.
"We had a very close look at the interactions between weather and food production in Malawi, and we certainly confirm that there is a direct link between the two," said Rene Gommes, Senior Agrometeorologist with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome.
"Interestingly, Southern Africa was not a region where droughts were frequent until the 1991/92 El Niño. This coincides with the end of the drought in western Africa [in the Sahel], and the mechanism of this synchronism is well known and associated with the movements of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) in Africa. There is a negative correlation between rainfall in the Sahel and in Southern Africa," he pointed out.
Changes in rainfall patterns have affected the growing seasons and the type of crops planted, the Action Aid study found: long-season local maize varieties are no longer a preferred option, and maize normally grown in November is now being grown in December. "In the past we used to plant our crops after the first rains, but since we started experiencing frequent droughts and floods we are planting our crops much earlier," one farmer explained.
"This is to allow the crops to meet the first rains, with the hope that they will mature before the end of the rainy season, and to prevent the crops from being washed away by the floods. Instead of planting a local variety of maize, we have opted for hybrid maize that takes a shorter period to mature."
There has also been a noticeable increase in diseases, such as malaria, cholera and dysentery, associated with changes in rainfall patterns, creating health challenges that are particularly affecting women farmers. "We now travel longer distances to fetch water, and spend most of the time in health centres instead of working in our fields," the report quoted a female farmer as saying.
Deforestation
Poor land use and deforestation are also serious concerns among people in Salima and Nsanje. Farmers are aware that these activities result in more floods and droughts, but are not empowered to intervene. Many pointed fingers at the role of tobacco estates in felling trees in their neighbourhood.
Chipiza Kalemba, 84, suggested that the traditional authorities should regulate tree felling. "The laws should include enforcement of planting trees by estate owners as well as communities. Communities should also stop the practice of carelessly cutting down reeds that are growing along riverbanks. There were efforts by the local forestry assistant, but people showed no interest to his messages."
Existing forestry laws require tobacco estates to have a woodlot to be used for reforestation, but this was not being enforced. "Monitoring and evaluation of tobacco estates is a challenge for district staff because of lack of financial resources," a forestry official in Salima told the Action Aid researchers.
The increasing food insecurity caused by climate change has also limited the number of casual jobs available on commercial farms. In the past, nearby small-scale sugar and tea plantations were sources of employment for many people in Nsanje. However, farmers say that flood-induced migration means that there are now many more people seeking work on the plantations than there are jobs available.
Government plans
Malawi has developed its National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA) in terms of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international treaty on ways of reducing global warming and cope with altered weather patterns.
The Malawians are considering enhancing food security by developing community-based storage systems for seed and food, and enhancing the resilience of food production systems to erratic rainfall by promoting the sustainable production of maize and vegetables in wetlands and catchment areas.
However, Action Aid said the implementation of NAPA faced capacity constraints at district level, and a lack of coordination among sectors. "In addressing adaptation challenges, it is imperative that a multisectoral approach is taken, beginning at the community level with the smallholder farmers who are directly affected by climate change. These farmers need skills, knowledge and access to credit for the addressing short- and long-term needs of diversifying from maize into other crops."
Aid agencies and the Malawian government have been considering providing drought insurance to smallholder farmers. The Commodity Risk Management Group (CRMG) of the World Bank developed an objective indicator that could be used as a proxy measure of the exposure of Malawi's maize production to drought, but it was poorly linked to crop yields, according to the FAO, which was now working on the idea.
Adopt a baby? No, Madonna wants to take over a nation
Madonna is pouring millions of pounds into orphanages in Malawi whwere children are indoctrinated in her bizarre Kabbalah faith. And friends say that's just the start of her plans
One scorched summer's day in the mid-19th century, Dr Livingstone emerged from the African scrub, battered and bruised, on to the glistening shores of Lake Malawi.
He and his missionaries brought with them the Presbyterianism that the Malawians adopted as their religion and still follow to this day.
This week another enlightened missionary arrived in Malawi. Just like Dr Livingstone before her, she had travelled a long and arduous journey, all the way from the UK, but this time on a gold and silver Gulfstream IV private jet.
It was Madonna, and her mission is to spread the word of Kabbalah across Malawi. She has reinvented herself - yes, here we go again - as Mother Madonna, a leather-booted hybrid of Mother Teresa and Angelina Jolie.
Ridiculous, perhaps, but in a country where 46 per cent of the population is under 14 - and many of them are orphans - the effects of her evangelism could be profound.
As a generation of children grow up with Kabbalah, Malawi could, in effect, become Mother Madonna's very own state.
In Dr Livingstone's day the country was called Nyasaland; for 21st-century Malawi, why not Madonna-land, the world's first Kabbalah nation? After all, with her fortune of £248million, she could afford to buy a quarter of the country.
"When you get down to it, she is looking to have her own state with her religion," says a source.
The singer arrived in Malawi on Monday morning with her daughter Lourdes, 10, and 18-month-old David Banda, the Malawian boy she wishes to adopt.
Guy Ritchie, her film director husband, was not with her, choosing to remain in London with their six-year-old son, Rocco.
It had widely been assumed that Madonna was here on a shopping expedition to adopt another child. But the truth is more complex - and more disturbing.
Last year the singer set up a charity, Raising Malawi, to help the nation's orphans. Her partner in the project was Michael Berg, the son of Philip Berg, rabbi and Dean of the Kabbalah Centre in America.
For the past six months, construction has been under way on her Raising Malawi orphan care centre at Mphandula, 30 miles outside the capital Lilongwe, which will provide day care for up to 4,000 children. On Thursday, Madonna officially opened the site at a "handing over of the keys" ceremony.
She is also providing funding for several other orphanages, care homes and villages in Malawi - in Mchinji, Salima and Blantyre, among other places.
Her charity is providing food, medical supplies, exercise books and other provisions for children at these centres.
So far, so charitable. What is not widely known in Malawi, however, is that in return for their financial support, Madonna and Michael Berg have instructed staff to teach Kabbalah to the orphans in their care.
To that end, last November, a team of Malawians were flown out to the States for an intensive three-month course in Kabbalah, so that they could teach it to orphans back in Malawi.
Many children in the orphanages she is supporting are already being tutored in Kabbalah and in the coming months, 7,000 orphans across the country - which has a population of only 12million - are set to receive instruction.
Perhaps to disguise its Kaballah origins, the course is entitled Spirituality For Kids (SFK). The majority of Malawians are members of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, and until now have been perfectly happy with it for spiritual enrichment.
So church groups will be deeply concerned when they learn just how widespread Madonna's Kabbalah programme already is.
When word got out last year that she might be bringing the religion to the country, there were worried murmurings from religious leaders, particularly from the Roman Catholic Church here.
That is why a shipment of blue Kabbalah 'bibles' to Malawi remain undistributed, for fear of a backlash.
And you can see why. Madonna's brand of Kaballah has little to do with the traditional, mystical form of Judaism with which it shares its name.
Philip Berg's version is a kind of Kabbalah lite with a distinctly wacky edge. He believes, for example, that most mentally ill people are not mentally ill, but possessed by evil spirits and that "unseen extraterrestrial forces affect terrestrial affairs".
It is now the task of Malawi's orphans to figure out what the hell he and his celebrity acolyte are talking about.
The mission is well under way. The Consol Homes orphan care centre, 30 miles outside Lilongwe, was one of several sites chosen for the 'pilot' project - 40 of the 200 children, aged eight to 13, were selected to take part.
Now they are being taught to look at things in a different way. Berg's Kabbalah teachings are centred on the belief that nothing in the world is random and everything is the result of some prior action.
In blunt terms, if you are a good person and do good things you will have a nice life, and if you suffer misfortune, that's because you've been a bad person.
How this will sit with all these orphans who have lost their parents to the HIV/AIDS epidemic is hard to fathom. The children recently completed phase one of the three-phase Kabbalah course after weekly two-hour lessons for ten weeks.
Jacinta Chapomba, project officer for orphans and vulnerable children, talks me through it. Each of the students has been given a paper 'tree of life' planted in a small pot.
On Mrs Chapomba's desk is one belonging to one of the orphans. On one of the leaves, the child has written: "I had a bicycle accident because I did bad things"; on another: "When travelling I hit my foot on a stone because of the bad things I did."
Mrs Chapomba explains: "According to the teachings, because they have done bad things they must expect bad things to happen to them. When they do wrong they have a bad ending. When they do right they have a good ending." Simple.
So it follows, presumably, that the famously friendly and delightful Malawians must until now have been a pretty bad lot, given the scale of the AIDS epidemic - an estimated 38 per cent of the population are HIV positive - famine, drought and disease that beset their country.
Unlike Mother Teresa, Madonna does not plan to go about her work quietly. Following her around everywhere she goes is a camera crew, filming everything.
According to friends, the singer is making a film about her work - working title Raising Malawi - to be released in cinemas worldwide. No need to take a wild guess as to who's going to be the star. "She wants to take Malawi to the world," says a friend.
Madonna also has plans, says the friend, for orphans to make those red string Kabbalah bracelets that celebrities like to wear to make them think they are spiritual people.
The idea is for the bracelets to go on sale in branches of H&M, with which Madonna recently launched a fashion range, and give the profits back to Malawi. This scheme gives some idea how completely Kabbalah is entwined with Madonna's charity work.
But drive down one of the main avenues in Lilongwe - where each day workers are busy making coffins in the street along the entire stretch of road - and the scale of the country's problem is all too evident.
There is no question that Madonna is throwing money at the country. A £750,000 orphan care centre has just been completed which she officially opened on Thursday; she is promising hospitals and schools and providing clothes, shoes and mosquito nets.
How can they refuse if she wants to impose Kabbalah on them? You could call it bribery. "The view of the Malawian people is if the government cannot sort out its problems then how can they refuse Madonna," says one official. During a visit to the Home of Hope orphanage in Mchinji, where David came from, Madonna announced that she planned to take it over when the current pastor retires.
"I have the welfare of all of you at heart and I love you," she told the children. "I will try to support you all and take care of you in the same manner as David."
Madonna, 48, took David back to the orphanage to be reunited with his 32-year-old father Yohane, who placed David in the orphanage after his wife died a week after childbirth.
"I was so excited and could not believe my eyes when I saw him, although it pained me that he had to leave after just a few hours,' Yohane told me afterwards.
"This visit reminded me of David's two other brothers, who have died, and his mother, but at the same time I was happy because I could see that my son is in good hands and has a bright future with Madonna.
"It felt as though he was not my child. I held him and felt like crying because he was not OK at the orphanage but now he is healthy and strong."
There has been no end of controversy about David's adoption. Last October, Madonna was accused of using her money and status to 'fast track' the adoption.
Under Malawian law, a prospective adoptive parent from abroad must be resident in Malawi for at least 18 months before their application is considered.
Unusually, a judge granted an interim order allowing her to take David back to Britain. She will learn next January whether her application to adopt him has been successful. The chances of it being refused are less than zero.
Sources at the orphanage say she was very interested in a 15-month-old orphan girl called Chisomo, but then changed her mind when she saw David.
"There was concern about Madonna adopting David because his father was still alive, which complicated things because he was very attached to the child," says a source.
So is she going to adopt another child? During her travels she has been greeted by locals holding placards with messages such as: "Well done Madonna, and we love you - adopt more!"
It has been reported that she has "set her heart" on a three-year-old girl called Grace, after watching a video of the child playing in the orphanage.
It is reported that she is desperate to adopt again but Guy doesn't. All is thought not to be well between the couple, not least because he does not share her obsession with Kabbalah.
This week Madonna has been holding court at her luxury lodge, having morning meetings with various officials, before heading out to orphanages in her convoy of 4X4s.
She has begun discussing a charity project with Nelson Mandela, the details of which are not known. According to friends, the singer plans to build a country estate in a rural location outside the capital, to base herself when she comes here.
Wherever she goes, specially composed songs are performed; there is dancing and poetry recitals. So gratifying for one's ego.
On Monday, the singer, dressed interestingly in combats, knee-length lace up boots and a Panama hat, visited Mtanga, a UN-funded Millennium Village which she is supporting financially.
The villagers are enormously grateful for her help. They see her as a saintly figure and have no idea about her previous incarnation as the Material Girl, who made an album called Erotica and dressed up as a dominatrix for a pop video.
"We don't have TV and only a few of us have radios, so we didn't know much about her," says John Manway, a 32-year-old father-of-five who is chairman of the Millennium Group in the area.
"The villagers were suffering from malaria very badly, but Madonna has provided us with netting over our beds and that has helped a great deal. She has promised to build a school and a hospital.
"She is a mother to us." Music to Madonna's ears.
Yesterday she visited a tiny new medical outpost in Salima which she is believed to be funding.
Word had got round the nearby villages that a very rich white woman was visiting (they'd never heard of Madonna) and dozens of women breast feeding their babies turned up in the belief that this saviour was coming with medicine for malaria.
Unfortunately, for them, after waiting seven hours in the heat, Madonna planted a tree and then left. The misunderstanding was not her fault, of course, but that was no consolation for the women.
The singer then visited a graduation ceremony of 22 teenagers from the Social Rehabilitation Centre in Lilongwe, who have completed their Kabbalah course. They wore T-shirts with the SFK logo and on the back the slogan, in Chichewa: Give so that you receive blessings.
Kabbalah, of course. Welcome to Madonna-land.
One scorched summer's day in the mid-19th century, Dr Livingstone emerged from the African scrub, battered and bruised, on to the glistening shores of Lake Malawi.
He and his missionaries brought with them the Presbyterianism that the Malawians adopted as their religion and still follow to this day.
This week another enlightened missionary arrived in Malawi. Just like Dr Livingstone before her, she had travelled a long and arduous journey, all the way from the UK, but this time on a gold and silver Gulfstream IV private jet.
It was Madonna, and her mission is to spread the word of Kabbalah across Malawi. She has reinvented herself - yes, here we go again - as Mother Madonna, a leather-booted hybrid of Mother Teresa and Angelina Jolie.
Ridiculous, perhaps, but in a country where 46 per cent of the population is under 14 - and many of them are orphans - the effects of her evangelism could be profound.
As a generation of children grow up with Kabbalah, Malawi could, in effect, become Mother Madonna's very own state.
In Dr Livingstone's day the country was called Nyasaland; for 21st-century Malawi, why not Madonna-land, the world's first Kabbalah nation? After all, with her fortune of £248million, she could afford to buy a quarter of the country.
"When you get down to it, she is looking to have her own state with her religion," says a source.
The singer arrived in Malawi on Monday morning with her daughter Lourdes, 10, and 18-month-old David Banda, the Malawian boy she wishes to adopt.
Guy Ritchie, her film director husband, was not with her, choosing to remain in London with their six-year-old son, Rocco.
It had widely been assumed that Madonna was here on a shopping expedition to adopt another child. But the truth is more complex - and more disturbing.
Last year the singer set up a charity, Raising Malawi, to help the nation's orphans. Her partner in the project was Michael Berg, the son of Philip Berg, rabbi and Dean of the Kabbalah Centre in America.
For the past six months, construction has been under way on her Raising Malawi orphan care centre at Mphandula, 30 miles outside the capital Lilongwe, which will provide day care for up to 4,000 children. On Thursday, Madonna officially opened the site at a "handing over of the keys" ceremony.
She is also providing funding for several other orphanages, care homes and villages in Malawi - in Mchinji, Salima and Blantyre, among other places.
Her charity is providing food, medical supplies, exercise books and other provisions for children at these centres.
So far, so charitable. What is not widely known in Malawi, however, is that in return for their financial support, Madonna and Michael Berg have instructed staff to teach Kabbalah to the orphans in their care.
To that end, last November, a team of Malawians were flown out to the States for an intensive three-month course in Kabbalah, so that they could teach it to orphans back in Malawi.
Many children in the orphanages she is supporting are already being tutored in Kabbalah and in the coming months, 7,000 orphans across the country - which has a population of only 12million - are set to receive instruction.
Perhaps to disguise its Kaballah origins, the course is entitled Spirituality For Kids (SFK). The majority of Malawians are members of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, and until now have been perfectly happy with it for spiritual enrichment.
So church groups will be deeply concerned when they learn just how widespread Madonna's Kabbalah programme already is.
When word got out last year that she might be bringing the religion to the country, there were worried murmurings from religious leaders, particularly from the Roman Catholic Church here.
That is why a shipment of blue Kabbalah 'bibles' to Malawi remain undistributed, for fear of a backlash.
And you can see why. Madonna's brand of Kaballah has little to do with the traditional, mystical form of Judaism with which it shares its name.
Philip Berg's version is a kind of Kabbalah lite with a distinctly wacky edge. He believes, for example, that most mentally ill people are not mentally ill, but possessed by evil spirits and that "unseen extraterrestrial forces affect terrestrial affairs".
It is now the task of Malawi's orphans to figure out what the hell he and his celebrity acolyte are talking about.
The mission is well under way. The Consol Homes orphan care centre, 30 miles outside Lilongwe, was one of several sites chosen for the 'pilot' project - 40 of the 200 children, aged eight to 13, were selected to take part.
Now they are being taught to look at things in a different way. Berg's Kabbalah teachings are centred on the belief that nothing in the world is random and everything is the result of some prior action.
In blunt terms, if you are a good person and do good things you will have a nice life, and if you suffer misfortune, that's because you've been a bad person.
How this will sit with all these orphans who have lost their parents to the HIV/AIDS epidemic is hard to fathom. The children recently completed phase one of the three-phase Kabbalah course after weekly two-hour lessons for ten weeks.
Jacinta Chapomba, project officer for orphans and vulnerable children, talks me through it. Each of the students has been given a paper 'tree of life' planted in a small pot.
On Mrs Chapomba's desk is one belonging to one of the orphans. On one of the leaves, the child has written: "I had a bicycle accident because I did bad things"; on another: "When travelling I hit my foot on a stone because of the bad things I did."
Mrs Chapomba explains: "According to the teachings, because they have done bad things they must expect bad things to happen to them. When they do wrong they have a bad ending. When they do right they have a good ending." Simple.
So it follows, presumably, that the famously friendly and delightful Malawians must until now have been a pretty bad lot, given the scale of the AIDS epidemic - an estimated 38 per cent of the population are HIV positive - famine, drought and disease that beset their country.
Unlike Mother Teresa, Madonna does not plan to go about her work quietly. Following her around everywhere she goes is a camera crew, filming everything.
According to friends, the singer is making a film about her work - working title Raising Malawi - to be released in cinemas worldwide. No need to take a wild guess as to who's going to be the star. "She wants to take Malawi to the world," says a friend.
Madonna also has plans, says the friend, for orphans to make those red string Kabbalah bracelets that celebrities like to wear to make them think they are spiritual people.
The idea is for the bracelets to go on sale in branches of H&M, with which Madonna recently launched a fashion range, and give the profits back to Malawi. This scheme gives some idea how completely Kabbalah is entwined with Madonna's charity work.
But drive down one of the main avenues in Lilongwe - where each day workers are busy making coffins in the street along the entire stretch of road - and the scale of the country's problem is all too evident.
There is no question that Madonna is throwing money at the country. A £750,000 orphan care centre has just been completed which she officially opened on Thursday; she is promising hospitals and schools and providing clothes, shoes and mosquito nets.
How can they refuse if she wants to impose Kabbalah on them? You could call it bribery. "The view of the Malawian people is if the government cannot sort out its problems then how can they refuse Madonna," says one official. During a visit to the Home of Hope orphanage in Mchinji, where David came from, Madonna announced that she planned to take it over when the current pastor retires.
"I have the welfare of all of you at heart and I love you," she told the children. "I will try to support you all and take care of you in the same manner as David."
Madonna, 48, took David back to the orphanage to be reunited with his 32-year-old father Yohane, who placed David in the orphanage after his wife died a week after childbirth.
"I was so excited and could not believe my eyes when I saw him, although it pained me that he had to leave after just a few hours,' Yohane told me afterwards.
"This visit reminded me of David's two other brothers, who have died, and his mother, but at the same time I was happy because I could see that my son is in good hands and has a bright future with Madonna.
"It felt as though he was not my child. I held him and felt like crying because he was not OK at the orphanage but now he is healthy and strong."
There has been no end of controversy about David's adoption. Last October, Madonna was accused of using her money and status to 'fast track' the adoption.
Under Malawian law, a prospective adoptive parent from abroad must be resident in Malawi for at least 18 months before their application is considered.
Unusually, a judge granted an interim order allowing her to take David back to Britain. She will learn next January whether her application to adopt him has been successful. The chances of it being refused are less than zero.
Sources at the orphanage say she was very interested in a 15-month-old orphan girl called Chisomo, but then changed her mind when she saw David.
"There was concern about Madonna adopting David because his father was still alive, which complicated things because he was very attached to the child," says a source.
So is she going to adopt another child? During her travels she has been greeted by locals holding placards with messages such as: "Well done Madonna, and we love you - adopt more!"
It has been reported that she has "set her heart" on a three-year-old girl called Grace, after watching a video of the child playing in the orphanage.
It is reported that she is desperate to adopt again but Guy doesn't. All is thought not to be well between the couple, not least because he does not share her obsession with Kabbalah.
This week Madonna has been holding court at her luxury lodge, having morning meetings with various officials, before heading out to orphanages in her convoy of 4X4s.
She has begun discussing a charity project with Nelson Mandela, the details of which are not known. According to friends, the singer plans to build a country estate in a rural location outside the capital, to base herself when she comes here.
Wherever she goes, specially composed songs are performed; there is dancing and poetry recitals. So gratifying for one's ego.
On Monday, the singer, dressed interestingly in combats, knee-length lace up boots and a Panama hat, visited Mtanga, a UN-funded Millennium Village which she is supporting financially.
The villagers are enormously grateful for her help. They see her as a saintly figure and have no idea about her previous incarnation as the Material Girl, who made an album called Erotica and dressed up as a dominatrix for a pop video.
"We don't have TV and only a few of us have radios, so we didn't know much about her," says John Manway, a 32-year-old father-of-five who is chairman of the Millennium Group in the area.
"The villagers were suffering from malaria very badly, but Madonna has provided us with netting over our beds and that has helped a great deal. She has promised to build a school and a hospital.
"She is a mother to us." Music to Madonna's ears.
Yesterday she visited a tiny new medical outpost in Salima which she is believed to be funding.
Word had got round the nearby villages that a very rich white woman was visiting (they'd never heard of Madonna) and dozens of women breast feeding their babies turned up in the belief that this saviour was coming with medicine for malaria.
Unfortunately, for them, after waiting seven hours in the heat, Madonna planted a tree and then left. The misunderstanding was not her fault, of course, but that was no consolation for the women.
The singer then visited a graduation ceremony of 22 teenagers from the Social Rehabilitation Centre in Lilongwe, who have completed their Kabbalah course. They wore T-shirts with the SFK logo and on the back the slogan, in Chichewa: Give so that you receive blessings.
Kabbalah, of course. Welcome to Madonna-land.
Is Madge looking to make Malawi her own state with her religion?
London, April 21: The recent rumours of Madonna's desire to adopt another Malawi kid may be the harbinger of a more grave reality.
It is being speculated that by investing millions of pounds in orphanages in Malawi, the pop diva wants to spread the word of Kabbalah across the country.
Her interest in Malawi signifies that she wants to make the country her own state and spread her own religion.
"When you get down to it, she is looking to have her own state with her religion," the Daily Mail quoted a source, as saying.
And to spread her word, Madonna has hit the bull's eye. With 46 per cent of the population being under 14 years of age - and many of them orphans - the consequence of her evangelism could be profound.
As a generation of children grow up with the doctrines of Kabbalah, Malawi could, in effect, become Madonna's very own state.
Last year Madonna set up a charity, Raising Malawi, to help the nation's orphans. Her partner in the project was Michael Berg, the son of Philip Berg, rabbi and Dean of the Kabbalah Centre in America.
For the past six months, construction has been under way on her Raising Malawi orphan care centre at Mphandula, 30 miles outside the capital Lilongwe, which will offer day care for up to 4,000 children.
She is also providing funding for several other orphanages, care homes and villages in Malawi - in Mchinji, Salima and Blantyre, among other places.
Her charity is providing food, medical supplies, exercise books and other provisions for children at these centres.
But the critical point to note, the paper states, is that in return for their financial support, Madonna and Michael Berg have instructed staff to teach Kabbalah to the orphans in their care.
The poor villagers are perhaps not aware of the Material Girl's real intentions and thus are enormously grateful for her help and see her as a saintly figure
"We don't have TV and only a few of us have radios, so we didn't know much about her," the report quoted John Manway, a 32-year-old villager, as saying.
"The villagers were suffering from malaria very badly, but Madonna has provided us with netting over our beds and that has helped a great deal. She has promised to build a school and a hospital. She is a mother to us," he added.(ANI)
It is being speculated that by investing millions of pounds in orphanages in Malawi, the pop diva wants to spread the word of Kabbalah across the country.
Her interest in Malawi signifies that she wants to make the country her own state and spread her own religion.
"When you get down to it, she is looking to have her own state with her religion," the Daily Mail quoted a source, as saying.
And to spread her word, Madonna has hit the bull's eye. With 46 per cent of the population being under 14 years of age - and many of them orphans - the consequence of her evangelism could be profound.
As a generation of children grow up with the doctrines of Kabbalah, Malawi could, in effect, become Madonna's very own state.
Last year Madonna set up a charity, Raising Malawi, to help the nation's orphans. Her partner in the project was Michael Berg, the son of Philip Berg, rabbi and Dean of the Kabbalah Centre in America.
For the past six months, construction has been under way on her Raising Malawi orphan care centre at Mphandula, 30 miles outside the capital Lilongwe, which will offer day care for up to 4,000 children.
She is also providing funding for several other orphanages, care homes and villages in Malawi - in Mchinji, Salima and Blantyre, among other places.
Her charity is providing food, medical supplies, exercise books and other provisions for children at these centres.
But the critical point to note, the paper states, is that in return for their financial support, Madonna and Michael Berg have instructed staff to teach Kabbalah to the orphans in their care.
The poor villagers are perhaps not aware of the Material Girl's real intentions and thus are enormously grateful for her help and see her as a saintly figure
"We don't have TV and only a few of us have radios, so we didn't know much about her," the report quoted John Manway, a 32-year-old villager, as saying.
"The villagers were suffering from malaria very badly, but Madonna has provided us with netting over our beds and that has helped a great deal. She has promised to build a school and a hospital. She is a mother to us," he added.(ANI)
The H.E.L.P Malawi Foundation Launch Party
Last night Hollywood and the Fashion industry joined forces to raise awareness about a important cause at the Max Azria boutique in West Hollywood.
The event was hosted by actress Mena Suvari who launched H.E.L.P. Malawi, a new foundation designed to spread hope, education, love and protection to the children of Malawi. There are over one million children in Malawi who live without a parent, a home or an education and this foundation is meant to aid those in need.
One of the featured collections at the Max Azaria store was the Lori Leavitt's "Panthera Collection," which consists of bracelets, rings and cuff links. 100% of the jewelry proceeds will help the foundation. We spotted Macy Gray and Kelly Hu browsing through the collections at the store.
Starting today and throughout the weekend, 15% of sales from the MaxAzria collection will also go to the foundation. If you’re in the Los Angeles area make sure to stop by the Max Azria store this weekend and help this great cause.
Max Azria
8026 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA.
888) 201-0227
The event was hosted by actress Mena Suvari who launched H.E.L.P. Malawi, a new foundation designed to spread hope, education, love and protection to the children of Malawi. There are over one million children in Malawi who live without a parent, a home or an education and this foundation is meant to aid those in need.
One of the featured collections at the Max Azaria store was the Lori Leavitt's "Panthera Collection," which consists of bracelets, rings and cuff links. 100% of the jewelry proceeds will help the foundation. We spotted Macy Gray and Kelly Hu browsing through the collections at the store.
Starting today and throughout the weekend, 15% of sales from the MaxAzria collection will also go to the foundation. If you’re in the Los Angeles area make sure to stop by the Max Azria store this weekend and help this great cause.
Max Azria
8026 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA.
888) 201-0227
Friday, 20 April 2007
Zimbabwe and Malawi: the eternal bond that binds us
By Daniel Fortune Molokele
Last updated: 04/19/2007 23:49:59
THIS past week, I took some time to reflect on the common heritage that Zimbabwe shares with the people of Malawi.
This rather rare special focus on the Malawi was occasioned by the mere fact that I visited the Thyolo district of southern Malawi recently as part of a field team sponsored by an international NGO I now work for that has medical relief support projects in Malawi.
This was my second ever visit to Malawi. My first visit was in September 2003 as part of the MISA Zimbabwe team that was dispatched to Blantyre and Dar es Salaam, in the aftermath of the unjust closure of the Daily News.
Historically speaking, Malawi and Zimbabwe converge at the level of
colonialism. Both countries were colonised by the same European imperial power, Britain.
Specifically, it was during the controversial years of the central African federation of between 1953 and 1963 that our colonial history was at its closest. This was during the days of the ill-fated triple partnership between Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia. It was thus after the collapse of the federation that the two countries' destinies somehow diverged in terms of political direction.
It then happened that Nyasaland became the independent Malawi under Kamuzu Banda and Northern Rhodesia became Zambia under Kenneth Kaunda. Sadly for Southern Rhodesia, things had to go the longer route. Unlike the other two countries, it had its own unique experience of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in November 1965.
Thereafter it became known simply as Rhodesia under the leadership of Ian Smith. It was not until after the bloody liberation struggle that the country also got its full independence in April 1980.
Thereafter it became known as Zimbabwe under the leadership of Robert Mugabe. Sadly for most of us, he remains the only post-independence leader the country has ever known.
But it is also trite to mention that both Kaunda and Banda ruled their respective countries for almost three decades each until they were swept out from power. Mugabe somehow appears to have learnt two clear lessons from those two founding presidents.
Firstly, one can stay in power as long as they can, as long as it is at least thirty continual years. Secondly, be prepared to sacrifice your country at the altar of self aggrandisement, a feat he appears to have really learnt from Banda who allowed a lot of talented Malawians to leave the country leaving it to continue to suffer as one of the world’s poorest countries.
Mugabe, like Banda, appears to believe that it is okay to allow the country to continue to sink deeper into the abyss, as he remains the captain of the ship. It is no wonder that Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has recently likened Zimbabwe to a sinking Titanic!
Last updated: 04/19/2007 23:49:59
THIS past week, I took some time to reflect on the common heritage that Zimbabwe shares with the people of Malawi.
This rather rare special focus on the Malawi was occasioned by the mere fact that I visited the Thyolo district of southern Malawi recently as part of a field team sponsored by an international NGO I now work for that has medical relief support projects in Malawi.
This was my second ever visit to Malawi. My first visit was in September 2003 as part of the MISA Zimbabwe team that was dispatched to Blantyre and Dar es Salaam, in the aftermath of the unjust closure of the Daily News.
Historically speaking, Malawi and Zimbabwe converge at the level of
colonialism. Both countries were colonised by the same European imperial power, Britain.
Specifically, it was during the controversial years of the central African federation of between 1953 and 1963 that our colonial history was at its closest. This was during the days of the ill-fated triple partnership between Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia. It was thus after the collapse of the federation that the two countries' destinies somehow diverged in terms of political direction.
It then happened that Nyasaland became the independent Malawi under Kamuzu Banda and Northern Rhodesia became Zambia under Kenneth Kaunda. Sadly for Southern Rhodesia, things had to go the longer route. Unlike the other two countries, it had its own unique experience of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in November 1965.
Thereafter it became known simply as Rhodesia under the leadership of Ian Smith. It was not until after the bloody liberation struggle that the country also got its full independence in April 1980.
Thereafter it became known as Zimbabwe under the leadership of Robert Mugabe. Sadly for most of us, he remains the only post-independence leader the country has ever known.
But it is also trite to mention that both Kaunda and Banda ruled their respective countries for almost three decades each until they were swept out from power. Mugabe somehow appears to have learnt two clear lessons from those two founding presidents.
Firstly, one can stay in power as long as they can, as long as it is at least thirty continual years. Secondly, be prepared to sacrifice your country at the altar of self aggrandisement, a feat he appears to have really learnt from Banda who allowed a lot of talented Malawians to leave the country leaving it to continue to suffer as one of the world’s poorest countries.
Mugabe, like Banda, appears to believe that it is okay to allow the country to continue to sink deeper into the abyss, as he remains the captain of the ship. It is no wonder that Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has recently likened Zimbabwe to a sinking Titanic!
Malawi gets a strong dose of Taiwanese know-how
Publication Date：04/19/2007 Section：Panorama
By Alexander Chou
Few of his colleagues at the Bureau of Food Safety under the Cabinet-level Department of Health knew that Cheng Hwei-wen, the bureau director, had helped found the School of Pharmacy at the University of Malawi in 2006 before joining the government. He did not talk about his act of kindness; for him it was simply a part of his commitment to Buddhism.
Taiwan, a recipient of U.S. assistance during the 1950s and 1960s, had long known that a truly independent country could never rely entirely on help from others. As a popular Chinese proverb says, "Heaven helps those who help themselves." Through industrial development and sound government policies, the country became less reliant on economic assistance. A major part of achieving that goal was to build a large work force of educated, highly skilled people. After 1949, the government expanded education to increase literacy rates. Thousands of students studied abroad as well. What Cheng tried to accomplish in Malawi followed the strategy Taiwan had adopted earlier: making education the top priority.
Cheng, who held a bachelor's degree in pharmacy from National Taiwan University and a doctorate from the School of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco, applied his expertise to help Malawi, a landlocked, predominantly rural country in southern Africa. Starting in January 2006, Cheng taught pharmaceutics and led students to undertake further research into traditional African medicine.
As to why he chose Malawi despite having contracted malaria on an earlier visit there, Cheng said he was inspired by Robin Broadhead, principal of the College of Medicine at the university. The 63-year-old pediatrician from Liverpool, England, had worked in Malawi for 16 years.
Cheng first met Broadhead on a trip to Malawi. While en route to a pharmaceutical conference in West Africa, he visited Taiwan's medical mission in Malawi. Cheng then took a trip to the University of Malawi. Cheng recalled Broadhead giving him the valuable advice that "We are not here for the salvation of Africa; rather, we are here to learn from Africa. Learn from the Malawians carefully, and you will reap more than they will." Those words made a deep impression on Cheng.
By then, the University of Malawi had been trying to recruit qualified pharmacy professors for more than two years, but its efforts were in vain, according to Cheng. An article in an academic journal confirmed his opinion. "Malawi needs pharmacists. There is no School of Pharmacy in the country and currently there are around 60 pharmacists for a population of 10 million," a Feb. 26, 2005 article in Pharmaceutical Journal stated. While discussing the school, the article added that it would offer courses aimed specifically at dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic and various tropical diseases.
Looking over the condition of the school's facilities, Cheng was moved to action. "The most striking fact was that the classrooms and necessary equipment were not ready," Cheng said. "The funds to maintain the department were not quite there yet. Nevertheless, they were very optimistic and confident that the department would begin operations in January 2006 as planned. Perhaps, it was their optimism that moved me. I promised them that I would go back again to teach."
Cheng ended up doing more than teaching. Before he got started, he felt that it was necessary for Broadhead to get a better understanding of the medical resources Taiwan would be able to offer. By visiting Taiwan, Broadhead could see the fruits of research and development in the field of traditional Chinese medicine in Taiwan.
Through careful arrangement with the Republic of China embassy in Lilongwe, Broadhead came to Taiwan in November 2005. During his 10-day visit, he was taken to the Taipei Medical University and Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis in Taipei City, where he looked at pharmaceutical equipment, facilities and the state of the school's research in modernizing traditional herbal medicine.
For Broadhead, the trip was important because he was convinced that Cheng was fully capable of "learning from the Malawians." Since Cheng had experience with finding new applications for traditional Chinese medicine, he could bring the same skills to bear on African medicine. In a telephone interview April 13, Broadhead said that after being accompanied personally by Cheng to Taiwan's hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, he was more than willing to welcome Cheng to join the team in Malawi.
Taking a sabbatical from Taipei Medical University, where he had taught pharmacy for many years, Cheng started preparing for Malawi. Creating a syllabus for his students-to-be did not worry him. Equipment such as projectors, computers and other electronics would be a problem, as Malawi was one of the poorest countries in Africa. These items were abundant in Taiwan, however, so Cheng purchased equipment for the new school before he left for Malawi, since he felt the students there deserved the same tools as their counterparts in Taiwan.
In Malawi, Cheng directed his students to research traditional African medicine. He taught them how to design questionnaires so they could gather information. These were distributed to over 100 local healers, and as a result, the students learned the medicinal properties of over 100 herbs, said Cheng. He trained students to input data into computers and edit the material into a professional format. Cheng's plan was to collate their findings and publish a book about traditional African medicine, which could become a vital record and a useful reference for researchers.
To broaden the students' pharmaceutical knowledge, Cheng decided to arrange a study tour to Taiwan for two lecturers and three of the first eight students in the department. Cheng and his students at the College of Pharmacy at Taipei Medical University prepared to receive the visitors. The three students--John Mponda, Lumbani Makwakwa and Collins Minyaliwa--began their 10-day program on July 24, 2006, which included analyzing Chinese herbal medicine with members of the doctoral program at TMU, meeting with pharmacy students from institutions such as National Taiwan University and the National Defense Medical Center, as well as visiting Sinphar Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., a local company that created new drugs from Chinese herbal medicines.
Minyaliwa commented, "Professor Cheng is a good person. Before he came to Malawi and helped the School of Pharmacy, the best you could do was to become a pharmaceutical assistant dispensing drugs in a local pharmacy." Now, Minyaliwa would like to establish a company of his own to produce medicine. Mponda said he planned to become a college professor and teach pharmaceutics in his home country.
The two lecturers, Mwapatsa Mipando and Chikumbutso Mtegha, stayed on after the students left, spending three months studying at various institutions in Taiwan. Along with placements at TMU and CMU, they visited the Pharmaceutical Industry Technology and Development Center, a government-funded research institute. "I was able to see how traditional medicines are evaluated for them to meet the standards required for human use," Mipando wrote in a report about the study tour. "Also, new methods of processing natural products were shown to me." He said he hoped to later use those techniques to do pharmacological analysis on Malawian herbs.
While the study trips to Taiwan were productive, Cheng was aware of the challenges in building a group of pharmacists. He knew that holding on to students would be difficult, since many would likely quit their studies and pursue employment. Yet, he stressed that education was always a valuable investment. "Even if only one student became determined to stay and serve in Malawi, it would be worthwhile," he said.
By Alexander Chou
Few of his colleagues at the Bureau of Food Safety under the Cabinet-level Department of Health knew that Cheng Hwei-wen, the bureau director, had helped found the School of Pharmacy at the University of Malawi in 2006 before joining the government. He did not talk about his act of kindness; for him it was simply a part of his commitment to Buddhism.
Taiwan, a recipient of U.S. assistance during the 1950s and 1960s, had long known that a truly independent country could never rely entirely on help from others. As a popular Chinese proverb says, "Heaven helps those who help themselves." Through industrial development and sound government policies, the country became less reliant on economic assistance. A major part of achieving that goal was to build a large work force of educated, highly skilled people. After 1949, the government expanded education to increase literacy rates. Thousands of students studied abroad as well. What Cheng tried to accomplish in Malawi followed the strategy Taiwan had adopted earlier: making education the top priority.
Cheng, who held a bachelor's degree in pharmacy from National Taiwan University and a doctorate from the School of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco, applied his expertise to help Malawi, a landlocked, predominantly rural country in southern Africa. Starting in January 2006, Cheng taught pharmaceutics and led students to undertake further research into traditional African medicine.
As to why he chose Malawi despite having contracted malaria on an earlier visit there, Cheng said he was inspired by Robin Broadhead, principal of the College of Medicine at the university. The 63-year-old pediatrician from Liverpool, England, had worked in Malawi for 16 years.
Cheng first met Broadhead on a trip to Malawi. While en route to a pharmaceutical conference in West Africa, he visited Taiwan's medical mission in Malawi. Cheng then took a trip to the University of Malawi. Cheng recalled Broadhead giving him the valuable advice that "We are not here for the salvation of Africa; rather, we are here to learn from Africa. Learn from the Malawians carefully, and you will reap more than they will." Those words made a deep impression on Cheng.
By then, the University of Malawi had been trying to recruit qualified pharmacy professors for more than two years, but its efforts were in vain, according to Cheng. An article in an academic journal confirmed his opinion. "Malawi needs pharmacists. There is no School of Pharmacy in the country and currently there are around 60 pharmacists for a population of 10 million," a Feb. 26, 2005 article in Pharmaceutical Journal stated. While discussing the school, the article added that it would offer courses aimed specifically at dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic and various tropical diseases.
Looking over the condition of the school's facilities, Cheng was moved to action. "The most striking fact was that the classrooms and necessary equipment were not ready," Cheng said. "The funds to maintain the department were not quite there yet. Nevertheless, they were very optimistic and confident that the department would begin operations in January 2006 as planned. Perhaps, it was their optimism that moved me. I promised them that I would go back again to teach."
Cheng ended up doing more than teaching. Before he got started, he felt that it was necessary for Broadhead to get a better understanding of the medical resources Taiwan would be able to offer. By visiting Taiwan, Broadhead could see the fruits of research and development in the field of traditional Chinese medicine in Taiwan.
Through careful arrangement with the Republic of China embassy in Lilongwe, Broadhead came to Taiwan in November 2005. During his 10-day visit, he was taken to the Taipei Medical University and Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis in Taipei City, where he looked at pharmaceutical equipment, facilities and the state of the school's research in modernizing traditional herbal medicine.
For Broadhead, the trip was important because he was convinced that Cheng was fully capable of "learning from the Malawians." Since Cheng had experience with finding new applications for traditional Chinese medicine, he could bring the same skills to bear on African medicine. In a telephone interview April 13, Broadhead said that after being accompanied personally by Cheng to Taiwan's hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, he was more than willing to welcome Cheng to join the team in Malawi.
Taking a sabbatical from Taipei Medical University, where he had taught pharmacy for many years, Cheng started preparing for Malawi. Creating a syllabus for his students-to-be did not worry him. Equipment such as projectors, computers and other electronics would be a problem, as Malawi was one of the poorest countries in Africa. These items were abundant in Taiwan, however, so Cheng purchased equipment for the new school before he left for Malawi, since he felt the students there deserved the same tools as their counterparts in Taiwan.
In Malawi, Cheng directed his students to research traditional African medicine. He taught them how to design questionnaires so they could gather information. These were distributed to over 100 local healers, and as a result, the students learned the medicinal properties of over 100 herbs, said Cheng. He trained students to input data into computers and edit the material into a professional format. Cheng's plan was to collate their findings and publish a book about traditional African medicine, which could become a vital record and a useful reference for researchers.
To broaden the students' pharmaceutical knowledge, Cheng decided to arrange a study tour to Taiwan for two lecturers and three of the first eight students in the department. Cheng and his students at the College of Pharmacy at Taipei Medical University prepared to receive the visitors. The three students--John Mponda, Lumbani Makwakwa and Collins Minyaliwa--began their 10-day program on July 24, 2006, which included analyzing Chinese herbal medicine with members of the doctoral program at TMU, meeting with pharmacy students from institutions such as National Taiwan University and the National Defense Medical Center, as well as visiting Sinphar Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., a local company that created new drugs from Chinese herbal medicines.
Minyaliwa commented, "Professor Cheng is a good person. Before he came to Malawi and helped the School of Pharmacy, the best you could do was to become a pharmaceutical assistant dispensing drugs in a local pharmacy." Now, Minyaliwa would like to establish a company of his own to produce medicine. Mponda said he planned to become a college professor and teach pharmaceutics in his home country.
The two lecturers, Mwapatsa Mipando and Chikumbutso Mtegha, stayed on after the students left, spending three months studying at various institutions in Taiwan. Along with placements at TMU and CMU, they visited the Pharmaceutical Industry Technology and Development Center, a government-funded research institute. "I was able to see how traditional medicines are evaluated for them to meet the standards required for human use," Mipando wrote in a report about the study tour. "Also, new methods of processing natural products were shown to me." He said he hoped to later use those techniques to do pharmacological analysis on Malawian herbs.
While the study trips to Taiwan were productive, Cheng was aware of the challenges in building a group of pharmacists. He knew that holding on to students would be difficult, since many would likely quit their studies and pursue employment. Yet, he stressed that education was always a valuable investment. "Even if only one student became determined to stay and serve in Malawi, it would be worthwhile," he said.
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