Madonna and Malawi: a social economic discourse

The amount of publicity that the issue of Madonna has generated for malawi is far greater than the department of tourism has ever achieved since its existence. When Dr Matthews Chinombo Mtumbuka asked me to talk about the economic gains vs safeguarding our dignity with regard to Malawi and Madonna, I had this to say. At the foremost it is imperative to indicate that the Madonna saga to Malawi is as 2010 is to South Africa- though on a smaller scale.

Firstly it is imperative to look at the efforts that this lady is doing to conscientize the outside world about the realities of the HIV and AIDS pandemic to the Malawi society, this to say should be understood bearing in mind that our country is one of the few countries in this part of Africa that has HIV programmes that other countries are modeling upon, despite our economic capacity and edge we do not have ARV wait lists or wait periods like the ones some big economies like South Africa have. All this is because of the government’s openness to admit that we have a crisis before us, and the need for a multi level involvement in mitigating and cutting through some of the challenges that the country is experiencing as a result of this pandemic. You will appreciate that although people would not admit this fact HIV and AIDS is the second forex earner after tobacco, by extension, the need for continued donor involvement in this premise cannot be overstated, the coming in of Madonna on the scene should be viewed as a socio conscience of the bigger economies who have the capacity to lift us out of this situation.

On the other hand, i am one of those guys that strongly believes in development from within, that the nation should be able to generate its own wealth through its capable citizenry, however this was lost during the past era of Muluzi, we could have been miles by now. However when you talk about development you have to understand that even though you might have wonderful ideas and the dignity to protect, it is imperative to have some outside hand to pull you out of the poverty trap, this might be done with even minute impact on your vision, whether monetary or just mentoring. That is why you will find that at every level of development practice there are development agents working as either facilitators or enablers. I was in India between January and March, this is a society that is modeling its development on peoples efforts however you will understand that even behind those self help initiatives there are outside actors. We appreciate the inherent dignity and the intrinsic ability that every human being is endowed with but it is imperative to appreciate the limitations that societies face in the journeys to achieve sustainable socio economic empowerment or livelihood.
That is why Madonna to Malawi is like a projector depicting to the outside world different premises through which other economic actors can penetrate through, others may even think about working with the president on the Nsanje port, as a viable economic investment that would go million steps in assisting Malawi to move out of donor dependency, the Madonna paradigm has to it, the potential to be viewed as both a catalyst and as well as a development discourse that is pregnant with numerous possibilities

With people like Madonna you cannot run away from bad publicity, that is the work of tabloids, they thrive on creating and picking up the dirty part of a situation, as of now you will understand that she is working towards building of girls academy, this is apart from the other programmes that she has about Malawi. The Madonna saga as a socioeconomic paradigm, should be objectively dissected and you will realize the massive long-term positive and negative impact that the discourse has to the future of our nation.

On a lighter note you will appreciate that to some people Malawi is perceived as a district somewhere close to Malaysia, a case is that of our friend Christopher Mwangupili, his brother sent him some items from California when he had been sent there for his military training, this package ended up in Malaysia, it was sent back to Mwangupili senior in America, with the word that the postal service could not pick where Malawi was..

I am not Madonna’s advocate but am only trying to objectively piece together the impact that this thing as a socio economic discourse has in its potency.