Reflecting on Muluzi's Pitiful Progress

REFLECTING ON MULUZI’S PITIFUL PROGRESS

They that have an insatiable desire to get more often get less, for life is no respecter of human decisions. It is something packed with all sorts of paradoxes and contradictions. And for former president Bakili Muluzi, at least for the moment, life appears to be nothing but a pitiful voyage that has thrust into the mist of time all his past moments of glee.

BY ANANIYA ALICK PONJE

If this life that we live is to have a noble meaning, all of us need to have courage in our greatest moments of sorrow. Then afterwards, glee will shine upon our faces as we finally break through so that peace may ultimately become our companion.

Yet, in the midst of life, peace is no commonplace commodity; it resists the temptation to be the overriding entity in human affairs. Thus, sorrow oftentimes finds it way in, especially if we allow it to be part of our progress.

And if this life were some kind of progress in which human beings can apply the basic tenets of logic, after serving this country for ten years, with or without all faithfulness, former president Bakili Muluzi was supposed to be having a peaceful rest at his BCA residence now. He would be engrossed in a life bursting with pleasure and comfort; a life in a land of a gentle breeze and bowing bloom.

But Muluzi’s current state of affairs defies this conventional prediction. It is one crammed with pain and misery; a life driven by the impulse to survive, even if it is a mere existence.

“Life tests us all; it gives us the grand opportunity to survive and down moments are great opportunities for us to start afresh,” wrote an American pastor in a religious essay.

But in all truth and fairness, Muluzi’s present progress is one that cannot be even envied by a slave, for what is life if one lacks inner peace. What is life if all one can think of once they wake up in the morning is the probability of chances that are there that they will be acquitted in a corruption case; or how to deal with a broken marriage; or still what to do to improve one’s health.

And as if these problems are not enough already, there are wrangles in the once mighty United Democratic Front (UDF), a party that won him the first democratic presidential seat. That again should be a robber of peace; a cause of worry for the former head of state.

Of course, it is usually the nature of Malawi politics for its players to seldom have peaceful rests. But, for Muluzi things are beyond that, for we all know that most former politicians find themselves in states of agony after squandering their ‘political’ money with all extravagance, only to be left hurting at the end.

Yet, Muluzi has money – and perhaps money to burn. But in the midst of all the money that he has, it is glaringly obvious that there is one supreme thing that he lacks, which is peace.

“Since elections in 2004, I have not been a free man,” confessed Muluzi recently.

Such is the irony of money. It fails to buy the most important necessities of life; they are all given to all of us free of charge. That is why even if Muluzi might have millions and millions of kwacha, still peace will be that distant commodity to him as long as all or any of the bitter developments that are keeping him company refuse to shift.

Some people, especially those he is intimate with, have said those kind words that heal deep wounds, to him, so that he may conceive the illusion of peace that calms the situation a little bit. But are these kind words healing tomorrow’s sorrows, or they are just weakening today’s enthusiasm?
“Problems of life often teach us how to be strong; they are not there to bring us down or to shame us, for it is when we defeat them that courage becomes an important aspect of our lives,” writes John Parker in the introduction of his book called The Splendor of Troubles.

But for Muluzi, it is hard for most of us to accept that his current troubles will strengthen him. After all, for what should they strengthen him? He is out of politics where strength and courage are the most important requirements.

Essentially, the former head of state is being prosecuted by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) – which ironically, it is his own administration that established – because of being suspected to have diverted into his personal bank account donor funds amounting to K1.7 billion. Whether he indeed did it or not, only justice can tell; but the point remains that the man is not at peace.

“I have been a haunted person in this country. In 2006, I was charged with the so-called corruption that I diverted donor money into my personal account,” Muluzi was recently quoted as saying.

Such a bitter revelation from the horse’s mouth categorically implies that things are worse for him. The revelation is not only a call for sympathy, but also a form of catharsis that will ease the situation for a little while.

It is typically the personality of most politicians – even those that have retired – to be economical with the truth, even if it is a kind of truth that is affecting their lives. But Muluzi has defied this traditional prediction and has come out in the open to say that to him, peace is like gold dust.

And offering him sympathy may help him find peace as finding relief in your problem is fine. But it will not cure the problem; it will only rest it for some time.

To add salt to Muluzi’s wounds, his marriage with Patricia Shanil came to a bitter end recently. The former first lady emptied the contents of her heart and said she had divorced Muluzi because she wanted peace of mind.


“The former lady instructed me to speak on the issue. She said she walked out of marriage because she wanted peace. She said she did not want anything from the former president. All her clothes are still at the BCA residence,” said Women in Law in Southern Africa (Wilsa) Malawi executive director Seodi White.

The paradox of Shanil’s decision to leave Muluzi is that in her search of peace of mind, it is obvious that she has left the former head of state in a more confused state. In her search of peace, she has left the former head of state searching for more peace.

Marriage is not affair that comes to an end like a job contract; it is supposed to be taken as a life-long commitment between husband and wife. And a decision to terminate a marriage affair is never made on the spur of the moment. It may take a long period of consideration and consultation to reach that painful decision of parting ways with one’s spouse. Yet Muluzi is a victim of divorce for the second time. He first separated with Annie, his wife of 30 years, in 1999.

Above everything, marriages seldom end after positive mutual agreements – and things are always worse where one of the two parties complains to have been a victim of lack of peace. And marriage ties severed in a court of law often tell of a kind of repression that has been going on in one or both of the parties.

But, does Muluzi deserve our sympathy?

Perhaps all of a sudden, we may not sympathise with him much. Maybe we should ask him to remember where he is coming from, and why he created the mess he has got himself into in the first place. Or is he just a victim of the invisible hand of fate that chooses not who to visit?

But still more, maybe we should sympathise with him, as we are not fully aware whether he created any mess for himself or not.

And even if he did, perhaps it is incumbent upon us to let justice take its course as it always does. But on our part, maybe we should let mercy be in our hearts, for mercy is greater than justice; it is better than a chemist’s drug and a surgeon’s knife. Mercy heals wounds which no drug in the world can. That is why people need loving the most when they deserve it the least.

On the other hand, if Muluzi is the architect of his own agony then all his positive struggles will be meaningless. All what will be left in history books when he is gone is a hazy and miserable statement of a leader whose rest after ruling was characterised by pain and suffering incited by his own hands.

Muluzi’s health is also something that invokes or may invoke our sympathy. If truth be told in its fullness, the way the man walks, stands, speaks and sits tells a story of a troubled soul that is waiting for that craved moment of restoration. The agony reflected on his face is vivid for all to see.

It is in sickness when the presence of a loved one is most valued. But Muluzi is suffering in the absence of her. Even when he was in hospital in South Africa, Shanil was somewhere in Balaka at her village spending her time with her mother and father.

She even reached the point of dragging her husband to court for failure to pay her K2 million as government allowances for taking care of him when he was receiving medical treatment in the UK last year.

“I discussed this issue with him many times and we did not agree. That is why I went to court. I wanted the money to help my children,” Shanil was quoted as saying.

If in such a situation, we may confidently say there was peace between the two, then there is no such thing as a lie in this world. Why would such a family matter that deserved all confidentiality find its way into the public domain if there was mutual peace in the family?

Above all, it is clear that Muluzi is living in great agony, with all the problems that are haunting him. He came out in the open to say that he is not at peace, but such a message does not make the mare go. It may only act as a catharsis but even a catharsis has never been known to rob tomorrow of its sorrow.