Welcome Bingu, Farewell Flags of Dictatorship

BY JAMES CHAVULA

The body of president Bingu wa Mutharika arrived at Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe on Sunday for a funeral spree which will cost overtaxed Malawians K150 million (about $800 000).

No offence to 78-year-old Mutharika, the homecoming of his remains from South Africa makes a few of us remember the rising-sun flag which he pulled down and outlawed against majority will in 2010.

MUTHARIKA BLANKETED IN HIS CLOTH OF DICTATORSHIP

As per tradition, the casket carrying the fallen dictator was draped in the full-sun cloth that replaced the black-red-green flag of new dawn. 


With only chiefs consulted amid public outcry, the deceased campaigned vigorously for the red-black-green flag conceived to mirror the country’s phenomenal shift from poverty to prosperity—a “miracle achieved” or “works of my hands”, he used to say. Change is nothing without benefiting the poorest of the poor.

CHIEFS AND MUTHARIKA'S CLOTH 

So, ask not how many queues—for sugar, fuel, forex, drugs and other essential things—the casket in the “flag of prosperity” bypassed before it lied in state at the New State House in the capital where the national tour starts.

Instead, ask how many of the onlookers will be pleased to see the imposed feel-good flag live after Mutharika, especially because he has left the country much poorer than he found it in 2004.

TIME TO REVERT TO THE RED SUN OF NEW DAWN

Of course, Mutharika’s successor, Joyce Banda, last year said it all with seriousness: “The ‘flag of Mutharika’s dictatorship’ will be the first thing to change if I assume the presidency in 2014 General Elections”. Now that nature has allowed the dictator’s fate to pave the way for Her Excellency, JB might as well use this as an early opportunity to give lovers of democracy a reason to celebrate the promised change, including the reversion to the abolished flag which used to keep Malawians hoping and working hard all day every day.

And who knows, the burial of Mutharika on April 23 2012 may be the last we see the stinking symbol of “one man’s battle against the nation”. This is my simple prayer: May all icons of the repressive regime be reversed with no reverence for the dead.