The dehumanising attacks of Women in Lilongwe

There is no excuse that any Malawians can give about this morning's attack over women in Lilongwe. They are a shame to us as a country, a shame to our democracy and a shame to our cultural values that puts special respect and status on women as anakubala.

Why should we see our sisters naked or mothers naked.

The challenge we have as a society is accepting that we all have equal rights and nobody can take them away. We have shed blood for it, we have been beaten, injured and lived for it for 17 years.

Someone, somewhere needs to find a long term solution to the issue of vendors, when they are not in the streets the hooligans do not feel better as they end up loosing their market.

I should not fear walking in my own streets which for years I have called home, neither should my sister or Mother fear dressing how they like for fear of the same.

Either we lack a serious youth development programme, that will engage the jobless young people now becoming terrorists in our own country that they can lead productive lives.

Please stop politicising youth loans, give them to professional youth workers and we will have a meangiful impact on interventions made to address the challenges young people are facing.

I am now scared, there is too much anger in Malawi and our statements as Leaders seem to fuel and not heal the pain being felt across the country. What happened in Lilongwe has nothing to do with politics, it is a state of lawlessness where abused young people are venting their frustration on what they see as a weaker opponent.

I am ready to quit work and develop a programme for youth in streets, that will transform the thugs we have into entreprenuers, if someone is willing to invest in these young people.

Very soon, after the women have stopped wearing what they want in our towns, the same vendors will pounce on us, rob us and even kill us for being frustrated with the current limited opportunities.

The two warnings we have had in Lilongwe should jolt any sensible leader into action than talking and condemning someone after the fracas.

The first one was unplanned and it turned into violence, this morning as I walked through Malangalanga, I saw angry faces, frustrated faces and eager faces that will one day not be able to control.

Let us invest meangifully without political strings in our young people that we should turn their energy, overzeleousness and anger into productive machineries to end unemployment and poverty among the majority of our citizenry.

Though the memory of being attacked publicly and dehumanly paraded naked can never be erased, I wish to offer my sincere apologies and regret to all the women who suffered the dehumanising attacks.

We are ashamed to be called Malawians men, who attack women in the 21st century.

God heal the pain and anger of this nation!

Comments

Gerald said…
The president should have known this is a sympton of deep seated problems and that he needs to curb this problem but more importantly address the underlying causes. Well said in the article, sooner or later it will unprecedented levels of pickpocketing, robberies and all forms of violence against fellow men.
January 17, 2012 at 12:43 PM
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