The French intellectual, Michel
Foucault, expounded a thesis on knowledge and power; and more precisely
‘power–knowledge’. For present purposes
and at the risk of some serious reprimanding from Foucauldian purists, a severely
reductionist version of the thesis is that power produces knowledge but at the
same time power and knowledge imply one another. Knowledge flourishes in the
presence of power. Knowledge must involve the understanding of the power
dimensions involved in the production of knowledge. Knowledge is a major
resource of power.
The Constitution obliges the
State to actively promote the welfare and development of the people of Malawi
by progressively adopting and implementing policies and legislation aimed at
achieving, among others, gender equality; adequate nutrition for all in order
to promote good health and self-sufficiency, adequate health care, commensurate
with the health needs of Malawian society and international standards of health
care; enhance the quality of life in rural communities and to recognize rural
standards of living as a key indicator of the success of Government policies;
provide adequate resources to the education sector and devise programmes in
order to eliminate illiteracy in Malawi, make primary education compulsory and
free to all citizens of Malawi, offer greater access to higher learning and
continuing education; The Constitution also states that the State shall promote
national goals such as unity and the elimination of political, religious,
racial and ethnic intolerance. Regarding economic management, the Constitution
states that the State shall nurture a market economy and long–term investment
in health, education, economic and social development programmes in order to
achieve a sensible balance between the creation and distribution of wealth
among the people of Malawi. I am quoting the Constitution liberally here. The
point is that those of our public officers that are obliged to develop and
implement national policies are not doing the people of Malawi any favours. It
is what they are paid for.
I went through the State funded
education system in Malawi between 1978 until 1997 when I left the college that
the gods apparently love the most. The education system had its challenges but
we cannot compare with the tragedy of our system today. Folks who cannot afford
to pay the fees that private schools are charging are bound to get a raw deal
for their child. It is a situation where if you are an office messenger in the
public sector, your child will probably be an office messenger as well if not
worse off.
Is it not treasonous that we
continue to hear of theft of drugs in public hospitals (that is when the drugs
were available)? Our mothers continue to needlessly die during child birth.
Children dying because of lack of this or other. How much does it cost to fix
an elevator? How can we have a whole poster at a referral hospital announcing:
‘Do not charge for carrying patients’?
The socio–economic profile of the
country reveals stagnation. The economy has remained perilously agro–based. The
poverty levels continue to grow. There are less than 250,000 main telephone
lines in the country. There are less than 400,000 internet users in the
country. There are five ports on the shores of Lake Malawi. There are less than
2,000 kilometres of rail line in the country. There are less than 10, 000
kilometres of tarmac roads in the country. I went to Robert Laws Secondary
School in 1988 and left in 1992. The road from Jenda to Embangweni did not have
tarmac. It does not have tarmac today. [Someone is shouting construction is
underway. I will celebrate when the road is finished.]
There has been a pettiness; a
laissez faire attitude to governing in this country. We can do better. At the
moment, our main political parties are deep in throwing mud at each other. No
clear explanation of what plans are afoot for governing between 2019 and 2024.
The Constitution presupposes a
critical citizenry that demands that those who exercise the political and legal
authority of the State do so following a system – an algorithm – that is
founded on the values of the Constitution itself. A bio–constitutional
algorithm. So far, the country has been corrupted by different shades of political
malware taking the country in a meaningless merry–go–round.
If a good education implies
attainment of knowledge, it follows that an uneducated general population lack
knowledge. If knowledge is a resource of power, then a ‘knowledgeless’ society
is powerless. A lack of ‘power–knowledge’ shall imply that a whole general population
is incapable to critique; I dare say. Critique, I argue, is an integral part of
governing under a bio–constitutional algorithm. The absence of critique in our
country has led to the political yobism we witness around us. Critique is not
merely pointing out that there is a problem. It is a sustained pursuit of a
culprit and calling the culprit to account. We rarely do that hence our public
officers – especially the political–public officers – have been getting away
with murder. As the political campaigning gets fierce, the citizenry ought to
see through the (most likely) empty rhetoric that will bombard them.
Mongokumbutsana. Nsima–yi tisachepetse. Nsima–yi tisiyiretu.
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