It is rare for academic professors to abandon their students for any other cause; yet if they do, we understand them, for they are very busy members of the academia. They are involved in research projects that are aimed at boosting course outlines that should reflect what is expected of university students the moment they step into the corporate world.
Yesterday, 27 May, marked one hundred solid days of the fight for academic freedom. This is a fight which appears to last forever; it has been marked by frustrations, contradictions, and desperation. Yet, in whatever way it may go, one thing is obvious: that we all look to the president who in his capacity as the chancellor of the University of Malawi (Unima) can put the matter to rest.
Closing a university college is not a thing that buys pride for any government. It entails failure in leadership and management unless there is any emergency like that which struck Virginia Tech. University in Blacksburg, Va. in the United States of America where a villainous student nipped the lives of more than thirty of his schoolmates before shooting himself. And things are worse when two main constituent colleges of a university are closed following a matter that could be easily negotiated and resolved.
Now a commission of inquiry has been established to find out what really sparked the current stand-off which has now turned to be between Chancellor College and The Malawi Polytechnic and the University Council. But amidst all this, one thing fails to make sense. Is the president really telling Malawians that Mukhitho did not tell him what happened? If he doesn’t trust the IG why can’t he bring both Dr. Chinsinga and Mukhitho together so that he hears both sides and resolve the matter in closed doors?
It is in circumstances like this through which hindsight blows as strongly as possible. Mutharika vigorously made a promise that he would not allow a university college to be closed while he remains in power. And the easy contradiction clearly reminds us that politicians shouldn’t be trusted, for when they assume power, voters no longer matter.
Of course, it is not necessarily the issue of being a good or bad politician that matters in this cloudy stand-off. In essence, it is leadership that does. The greatest of all leaders is he who is willing to follow his people. Such a leader finds ways of sitting down, meditating and making compelling decisions that should be applauded by the majority, in all truth and fairness.
But of late, Mutharika has shown that he is more a boss than a leader. Our president takes pleasure in driving and not leading. Coupled with the crooked advice that he gets from Ntaba and company, he sees no reason why the majority should matter.
Chanco and Poly lecturers are human beings – and those with high integrity for that matter. They have contributed a lot to numerous policies that government has adopted and is using them. They are the ones that are shaping numerous young men and women who are in some of the most challenging government positions, and such people are not difficult to reason with, yet they are not easy to bulldoze.
They are educated fellows and it shouldn’t have been difficult for the president to reason with them other than pronouncing at a public function that Mukhitho is not going to apologise to anyone. And there is a popular paradox that has now sprouted out of the president’s sentiments and his decision to institute a commission of inquiry that should establish what really happened between Mukhitho and Chinsinga.
Now the implication is that the president was making his thorny comments out of ignorance. At least, this is what we are compelled to believe. Perhaps, he was told something that he has now chosen not to believe.
Otherwise, it doesn’t really make sense to institute a commission of inquiry in a matter like this which even now can be easily settled. In his capacity as Unima Chancellor and Chief Commander of the Malawi Police, Mutharika would simply invite the varying parties and give them two or three words that would finally bring them to a mutual point. No one may say with all conclusiveness that it would be very hard for the president to bring the parties at variance to a mutual point.
And now, the commission of inquiry is just an establishment that is going to bring in unnecessary complications. It is going to consume funds that – no matter how little – could be used for other good purposes. Furthermore, it is going to take time thereby unnecessarily stretching the unproductive period.
The whole issue got blown out of proportion by the president himself. If only he did not utter the scathing comments that Mukhitho cannot apologise, the stand-off couldn’t have reached this point. The willing lecturers would have come to a roundtable with other parties so that the issue could be settled the earliest. In fact, this is what acting president of Chanco Academic Staff Union Dr. Jessie Kabwila-Kapasula has been saying all this while: that they are always open for discussions.
But Mutharika chose to inform Malawians that Mukhitho is the finest police chief Malawi has ever had and therefore cannot apologise to anyone (on anything). Such promulgation from the head of state disturbed many a people who saw the issue to be one that could be easily resolved. And from then, what was nearly going to be the end of the impasse only turned out to be the beginning.
Events that happened in the past once again come alive in a situation like this. Chancellor College students who are in their fourth year now are constantly reminded of their unfortunate beginning. It is a beginning that was characterized by two months of stay at the college without any lecturer turning up for a class. After the orientation which ran for three weeks, the students were to watch TV for a period that seemed to last forever.
Some decided to go back home and wait for the day when their lecturers would return to class. Now, these unfortunate students who were supposed to finish their undergraduate studies in October or thereabout are back in their homes, once again waiting for when their lecturers would return to lecture rooms. The wait has been long already, yet if they have to be fully baked, it is a necessary wait.
Academic freedom is an aspect that surrounds every lecture, every academic research project, every academic paper, and therefore in practice, it affects students more than it does their lecturers. That is why these students stood in solidarity with their professors in their quest for the realization of this freedom; for they well know that they are its principal beneficiaries.
In 2008 when Chanco lecturers went on a strike, it was not in protest that they should be granted academic freedom. Rather it was a fight for a salary increase which the president clearly told them was out of reach. But for the sake of their students, the university dons accepted a 20 percent increase. It appears that is where Mutharika saw the weakness in these professors.
Their “giving in” might have been passed off as a weakness, yet in real sense it wasn’t. The lecturers put under consideration many things including the economic standing of this country and finally found it wise to accept the “meager’ offer. Perhaps that was recorded somewhere to be used as a reference point for the president so that once the lecturers “played” with him again, he would brush them aside and “concentrate on more important issues.”
People of letters like university dons are easy to lead, yet they are very difficult to drive. They may be easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. That is where Mutharika’s hurdle lies. He will lead them with all ease where it makes sense, but he will not drive them where they do not understand the purpose. He will govern them with coveted policies, but he will not enslave them by supporting a police chief who has placed spies in lecture rooms.
Our president may have the authority to do whatever he desires, including telling Mukhitho not to apologise to university lecturers. He even has all the power to institute a commission of inquiry to establish what went wrong, but that does not mean we shouldn’t raise our skepticism. After all, he too is human, and is bound to make errors like all of us.
That is why we keep asking if the commission of inquiry is going to put the matter to rest once and for all, with numerous cases on court files. Isn’t the commission of inquiry creating more complications in a matter that has many already? Or has the president done that simply because he has authority to do it?
The art of being a president – like any other leadership art – should be a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. We must always see in our leaders those qualities of positive influence, not necessarily peculiar authority.
We may talk about leadership, about authority, even about pride. But everything settles on one aspect of college education that is deemed to be under threat. This is academic freedom. Why should our sovereign constitution grant it when the IG – supported by the state president – cannot guarantee it?
With all what has been said about academic freedom, it makes sense to conclude that most of us now understand what it is all about. Just like William Orville Douglas said “the most important aspect of freedom of speech is freedom to learn. All education is continuous dialogue – questions and answers that pursue every problem on the horizon. That is the essence of academic freedom.”
