THE JESUS MANIFESTO

I was quite startled when a high profile individual on social media declared that God was distributing special weekend blessings to his children and if you declared your address somehow this blessing would maneuver itself from behind the celestial wings of Cherubim and land at your doorstep (Heavenly DHL or something). Thousands of ‘Likes’ followed, as well as comments ranging from affirming the oncoming ‘special blessings’,  to some quiet voices warning others of the potential harm that could befall you for so freely declaring your physical address to faceless strangers. The thread grew in length, and before long, people began to rank and file, factions being formed. Some felt this was preposterous, a portrayal of Heaven as some priceless shopping mall with seasonal specials, while others, with some desperation in their voices clutched tightly every word that was spoken of approaching hope, of  pending breakthrough in their lives.  These voices mingled in-harmoniously as when bulls fight, uncoordinated, horns clashing, and as the dust rose I wondered how the main spectator of all this might have felt and thought. The main and most important spectator being of course Jesus Christ himself.  

What is a blessing anyway? Can it be held? If it can, I suppose then it is fair to suggest that it can also be packaged, box and ribbon, and also branded.  Is it a message? That too may be branded. Weekend Blessing Specials, Season of Breakthrough, Year of Favour. These are the themes commonly emblazoned upon many posters that belong primarily to the charismatic wing but extremely popular not just here in Malawi but worldwide. We are told to claim our blessings, seize that which was won on the cross for us. To possess plenty, for this is your birthright as a child of God. And when one listens closely beneath the Hallelujahs and praise songs, one begins to wonder whether they are nothing more than a distorted echo from the crackling sound of simmering material ambition. The desire to live luxuriously. And the author of the faith, a dirt poor Carpenter elevated on a cross looks down as His congregation kneels, closes its eyes, and dreams of LV bags. Or the new CL65 Mercedes.  But what is the seemingly forgotten message that He had initially said?

“And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come…” Haggai 2:7

The desire of all nations…the urge in the hearts of all people across the face of the Earth. What was this desire? What was it about this magnetic young man that attracted hordes from all rungs of society and orders of life to his presence. What did Jesus see in the constitution of Mankind that made him point to people and show them before their eyes what they had collectively felt and dreamt all along but had vaguely known? He had not uttered it in the inaccessible marble palaces of princes, or obscured it in the hieroglyphs of glorified pharaohs buried beneath mysteriously massive and unmovable stones upon the sands of Egypt. Thousands of eyes upon him, he announced it without discrimination. To fishermen, thieves, scholars, murderers, single mothers, brothers, merchants; upon open fields and along the sandy beaches of the sea and he spoke with sublime world shattering simplicity:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”

It is this simple truth that echoes through the ages. Jesus Christ showed us all that all that was great, all that was valuable and worthwhile, all that was worth striving for and grasping, all that elevates, the culmination of all our hopes, the beginning and the end of us rests within. There is nothing outside of you that can ultimately validate you, and every feeling of inadequacy that you might struggle with is a result of a cruel and imperfect world weighing heavily and oppressively upon you. A world that could have been better, but a world tarnished and ruined by people who had forgotten where their treasures truly lay. This is why He walked around comfortably in rags, for there was no fundamental difference between straw and silk. This is why he slept wherever his head lay for a dry cave in the Mediterranean Basin was as sufficient as a lofty villa of one of the Caesars.  He nullified traditions that seek to muffle your voice and rank you in the world, traditions that write out your destiny and seek to determine the path of your feet before you had searched for yourself and determined the direction your steps would take. He taught us that the pillars of strength required to support one against all the crippling sorrow and ills one sees in the world are found when you close your eyes and take hold of the treasure within.

And the truth of the message applies even to those who had not necessarily heard it directly that way. Mohandas Gandhi stunned all protocol when he appeared before Queen Mary of England in his customary loin cloth prompting an astounded Winston Churchill to call him a ‘half- naked fakir’. The Mahatma understood that the pomp of an Earthly Empire upon which the sun never set was miniscule compared to the latent strength in one human heart. I am not saying that Gandhi was a Christian, but he understood the message. It was these notions that caused abolitionists to question themselves and their choices, with regard to slavery. They spent their quiet nights haunted by a still voice that reminded them that if Jesus died for all men equally, if we speak of these self evident truths and liberty, how can we then permit this atrocity? And from the crucible of this self conversation hosted within, men like Lincoln were made. It was the message expressed by the quiet and extraordinary strength that Nelson Mandela and the other Apartheid activists showed over decades of horror, decades that should have made beasts of them, but they stood steadfast as men draped with unshakable dignity. It was expressed by Vera Chirwa, the first female Malawian lawyer, unflinchingly looking at a dictatorship square in the eye, forgiving her captors for the injustice they were doing her. Jesus Christ suggested that everyone, born in the past, and yet to be born possesses this hidden treasure. And this is the timeless golden message that passes unnoticed through the centuries like a thin thread barely visible in the light. Visible only to those who are looking. Who are straining their eyes so that they might see. And from this revelation Jesus Christ became the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, for no single king offered his subjects the freedom to search within and to simply be. And to be complete in that simple being. He created a Kingdom with no borders, with no walls. But with a citizenry stretched through time. Children of the Light. Black, white, Indian, Malawian in AD 2014, Assyrian in 1300 BC – no difference. All might look within and transcend themselves across all time. This is salvation. All nations bow. And they do so willingly after understanding. I have come across people who ridicule religion without even having a decent thought about it, or considering what others are saying. God does not punish blasphemers on the spot for it would be like striking a blind man unaware that above him is a mighty and powerful sun illuminating and nourishing him.

We will always debate and argue on the dogma and particulars. When shall we pray? What is permissible to eat and drink? How shall we dress? The denominations will continue to exist and everyone must decide individually, even if you are irreligious that is your choice but the echo of such a beautiful message resonates around us all. An echo we cannot ignore.

Everyone has needs and has the right to ask God for what they need or even what they want, but let’s be careful we do not sully something that was pure. To be blessed is to know that you have a respectable place and purpose in the world; that your life is not a sequence of meaningless events; to soak the warmth of the sun in good health. To sleep peacefully at night. To live without hate or envy. That is a blessed life.

Let’s focus on that.

THE END OF MEN AND THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF WOMEN

From the outset we need to set the appropriate tone for these sort of discussions can become heated. Men are neither better than women nor are they worse. The world is simply comprised of good and bad people and the sun shines equally above them all as God decreed. This is no battle between the sexes. It is a dialogue under the stars at the baobab lyceum. Secondly, the failings, inadequacies, cruelty and excesses of men have been well documented and there is much literature on this which we will not add to at this point. We have heard much of the rapists, the absent fathers, the wife beaters and the misogynists...the number of women across all rungs of society, low to high, who have at some point in their lives suffered physical abuse and have spent years simmering in that painful silence is alarmingly high. But women have not been passive. They have set up their own stalwart defense against these injustices. They call it Feminism. But once again we are not talking about that. What we are discussing however is a major and pertinent cultural shift that is currently defining all relationships.

They say that a man looks for his mother in the women he meets. If this is the case then we are in a bit of trouble. You see, the thing is, our mothers no longer exist. 

The family is the nucleus of society, more so in many African societies. We could even say that society is the commonwealth of families pacing around in the arena of life. Most people who come from a two parent home had their father as a primary breadwinner. If this was you, this was entrenched in your psyche as you grew up. “My father pays bills.” You understood this.  “My father is head of this household.” This was straightforward. Also this realization then passed automatically into your subconscious. Your father’s role was understood to you. So was your mother’s. Your mother picked you up from school (my father probably picked me up from school less than 10 times in the 13 years of primary and secondary education). My mother cooked and cleaned. She did the shopping (my father till this day does not know the price of a bag of rice and frankly, lo and behold, neither do I). Gender roles were defined. These gender roles were not only clear, but they also created expectations. And it is these expectations that were implanted in you earlier in life that define all your future relationships as an adult. It is these misunderstood expectations that are leaving us slightly confused, because the social landscape has changed.

Very few people had a mother who went to college. Or earned much money. The success of every family was a direct function of the caliber of men in that family with the women making massive uncelebrated contributions in the background. Economic resources were trapped in the world of men. In the name of progress (which is a good thing) doors opened for women and they now had more opportunities to make different choices. Women changed their outlook and the shape that their lives would take. Credit must be given to women. They have had to look deep within themselves and break past barrier after barrier, sidestep the trappings of complacency, and overlook the temptation to succumb to fear rather than self actualize themselves. I have had the opportunity to have discussions with some of these women. I have watched them and have learned from them. In fact I actually think women have an inner strength that when unleashed is greater than a man’s . Women can and often go through calamities and emerge with a silent fortitude that would leave men broken and bitter. Women might cry and mourn for days, even weeks on end. But at some point they steady themselves and emerge from this abyss and lift one foot ahead of the other and keep walking. How they do it I don’t know. Men commit suicide at a rate that is 4 times higher than women. This tells us something. So women in general have made many strides. But the process is incomplete and there are new problems for whenever you solve one problem or a set of problems, new ones inevitably result. Working in the professional world with these emancipated women, speaking the same language and competing for the same jobs, I always vaguely sensed that there was something amiss. Something I could not grasp. Something I pondered long and hard for to define.  Things just didn’t feel right with the puzzle I was trying to complete. And then one day it became clear because of a single incident. I was at a funeral. As custom has it, the men huddled around each other and contributions had to be taken to organize transportation and other expenses. I watched curiously as a bill was handed over to a man younger than I and it was said to him by one of the senior members in the group “You are working now. You will settle this.” I watched him nod nervously in acknowledgement but I knew him personally and knew he could not afford what was handed to him. No one inquired as to whether he was in a position to meet the obligation. That obligation was automatic and independent of his resources. This same young man had an older sister with a much better job than he, but the thought that she needed to contribute hadn’t even entered anyone’s mind. Then it became clear. In our social evolution, women have been granted the right to earn as well as men but the obligation to provide has not necessarily passed. This holds huge ramifications.

I have always felt uneasy with the rhetoric of some women that describe men as free to do whatever they wished. Unbound by any chains, with only the sky above them soaking the golden sunlight. True, men traditionally did not have the restrictions placed on women. During my mother’s younger years, her professional options were to be either a secretary or a nurse or something on that level. My father had no such barrier. But he did have tremendous responsibility. The higher he went the more dependents he had. That was all. A man earning one Kwacha did not possess that one Kwacha. Part of it went to other people. Some deserving, others not so much. That was the reality. That is the underbelly of being a breadwinner. Other people chew your bread while you are baking. Many women I have met see their income almost as pocket money though they are earning as much or maybe even more than their male counterparts. “Even in the Bible it’s a man’s duty to provide.” One lady confidently said just the other day. Most unmarried women I have met and have had discussions with cannot really conceive of going into a marriage as the financial head of that marriage. If they did so, it would be done reluctantly and a fair measure of bitterness would be shown to the husband. So this is where the expectations of men and women are at loggerheads and our generation is in the thick of things. A man is expecting his wife to be there for him the way his mother was there for his father. But that age is ended. Listening to men there is one sentiment that I persistently hear. Men feel that women are unsupportive. They feel that they have to become eagles, soaring the skies alone, for their partners will not help them. The era where a man will begin with a single mattress to carve his life with his fiance (as many of our parents began together) has set its sun. "If you wish to be married make sure you are rich first," I heard someone say.  Men thus become two different people. The person they are when they are with their partner, and the person they are when with other people. It’s really a form of theatre. But men have recoiled and think it necessary if they hope for any sort of peace. “The demands of women are endless. She doesn’t know me.” a married man of a few years on the brink of divorce recently said with his head in hand.  Women are also in their own haze. Having grown up seeing their fathers head households they also expect men to be “men” even though many women now out earn most of the men they meet. So the world of women changed when they began to define themselves. And somewhere along the line women adopted an “I can have it all” attitude. Career (even though the work place is unfair and people with connections and incontestable skill get further). Family (even though the risks of childbirth rise with age so you can’t have a child “whenever you want”). Health (even though we are mortal and can die anytime). Interestingly I have not met a man who thinks this. Men are almost gambling with what they have hoping they made the right bets. In life you win here and lose there. That’s how men think. The plight of men has fundamentally remained the same. Brick by brick, build your life from the ground up till you stand on your own two feet. Provide. This is your measure. Boys in all countries struggle to become men as they nervously try to find where they fit in the world. A woman can say to a man “Be a man about things!” A man cannot in the same vein say to a woman “Be a woman!” it would just sound strange. This reflects the invisible expectations still resting on men’s shoulders. So women are communicating with men through a microphone of contradiction. One moment you are a strong, independent superwoman. Next thing you say something like “I can hold my own but I just want a man who I know that if I couldn’t, he could hold things up for both of us.” That’s exactly the same as saying “Hold things down for both of us.”  And this coupled with the ubiquitous illusion of Mr Perfect, women have burdened men with a long list of expectations that are many times contradictory. "I want a man who is strong but also vulnerable". What? Either you are strong or you are vulnerable. One or the other. And not only that, these expectations on men have no reciprocal standard for women. All focus is on us. I have read inflated sentiments directed towards men with phrases like “be an epic lover”.  “Remember she chose you.” “A man ought to…a man should aspire…a man has to….etc” But ladies what demands have you placed on yourselves? This is selfish and unfair. Men are not scared of independent or successful women in the traditional understanding of fear. Men (experienced ones) just know that today’s woman is increasingly hard to coordinate a life with. A woman with ambition will follow that ambition without blinking (that is the nature of ambition) and a man will just not know his role. Some men are just avoiding headaches by steering clear because they feel they cannot reconcile ambitious women with a happy home. There is a trend with American men ordering brides from Eastern Europe, for they feel, apparently, American women have become insatiable.  But that’s America. But the sentiment is the same. Men feel they cannot make women happy regardless of what they do while women discover what they truly want. And if you cannot make someone happy regardless of what you do?  Might as well do less. If you are 35% of the Perfect Man your partner wishes you to be, she will clobber you with the 65% that you fall short. If you are 95% of the Perfect Man, you are no better, you will be smothered unconscious with the missing 5%. All are injured. Might as well do less. So women complain of the end of men, an era of boys they call it. Men complain of the disillusionment of women.

This is no blame-game. Relationships have never been easy but these are the new dynamics and mass disappointment is what we are now seeing. Ladies and gentlemen we need to talk. I am sure we can figure something out. But not without pain. The pain of total honesty.

COLONIZED EXPATRIATES

I have never really understood poetry. And every time I hear it recited, I have the suspicion that it is the tone we would have were we regularly speaking to Angels, Demons and Deities. I find it unearthly. So whenever I am listening, I do so as a wide eyed child learning new words from conversing adults and most of it passes over my head until I hear some phrase that is so potent I shudder inwardly  with a sense of wonder and I am like “Yes, I get that. Deep. How did she think of that?” So I was at an open mic poetry session, no determined theme, no structure, just you, your pad, your thoughts, your voice. A young lady with dreadlocks took the stage. Her eyes were fiery and she began to speak. Her words were loaded with feeling, her delivery was piercing and she was a daughter of Africa reminding her brothers and sisters that the fight was not over as “They are trying to colonize us again”. That was her recurring line in her stanzas. “They are trying to colonize us again.”    Her piece was the longest and it was met with enthusiasm and as she spoke, in my mind flashed images of Robert Mugabe, Kamuzu Banda, Kwame Khrumah, Patrice Lumumba and Belgium’s King Leopold II. Why these particular images out of all potential ones, I don’t know. I just remember these men in my mind’s eye. When she finished she was given a hearty cheer. We had been reminded that “They are trying to colonize us again.” There were a few white people in the audience and as always when there is rhetoric of this nature where racial lines are demarcated, elephants appear in the room. I looked across the hall and wondered how they felt. I wondered how I felt.

To be colonized. What does that mean?

Two weeks later I was at a country club. And speaking of country clubs what are they? Not one in Texas, or Melbourne but one in Lilongwe, Lusaka, Dar-Es-Salaam or Lagos. What’s the idea behind them? This particular one had a wall pasted with its previous chairmen. From the 1980s, the initials and surnames of expatriates (and in those days expatriates were almost exclusively white) were emboldened proudly. Further on, down a flight of stairs, were pictures of a bygone era, members merrily sipping their lagers at some fundraising event back in the 80s. I walked passed this notice board without paying too much attention, played my one hour of social football and when we were leaving the club in a drove of weary knees, I almost felt something lightly scratch my back. I turned around and in the corner was a look of disdain from the faces of some members sitting at a table. They were whispering. And their whispers had the same disdain as their eyes. Someone in my accompanying group commented “they are unhappy because of the noise we are making.” I have never watched a sport played in silence so I replied “We are coming from a football match. There are sporting facilities here which we regularly use, as we paid to be here. As they did.”  And so I held their gazes for a moment and then left.

A week later I was back.

This time I was seated at a table, suit on straight from work. This time I wasn’t there for social football. I was there for two reasons. The first was to have a meal. The second and more important reason was to appraise people. Yes to appraise people. If we are in the bad habit of looking at one another with disdain in an arena where we stand on equal footing then maybe we need to fully gauge one another. I watched as people walked in, some to the gym, some to the restaurant, some to the fields, some to the bar. Some people I knew, others were strangers and as they socialized in this club in an instant something that I had vaguely known now became articulated in my mind. A generation ago this place was built to make white people comfortable. That was its prime purpose. It was seen as a barrier of defense against “The barbarian hoardes”. And this is an attitude that many white people had then and some still do today. To illustrate the general feel I will take an example from history. There is the historical record of a discussion between one of the Emperors of Rome and his advisors. The Emperor seeking glory and world conquest kept pushing for expansion, to spread Rome’s shadow across all lands upon all the Earths soil. One of his advisors then cautioned him and said “If we spread ourselves too thin, the barbarians will infiltrate our culture and ultimately will dilute us. We will decline. And everything we have built will fall to ruins. Let’s stop here.” That was the policy. Stop here. Interact at arm’s length, even be cordial, but for goodness sake do not become infected. And in Malawi’s context with our history with the Brits, this suited perfectly with the British temperament with its obsession with manners. People possibly hostile towards you but groomed in such a manner as to not appear vulgar. They often reminded themselves “We are Brits in a colony. Never forget.”

But that is certainly the past. At least to the extent it was once taken to.

This is 2014. Having never lived in the colonial era I only understand it within a historical lens with no direct personal experience. However, every black person who learns of it feels a cold horror descend upon him or her. This is the reality of being black. We need not hide from it. It is all part of our unique journey to self respect and affirmation. Where you finish counts more than where you began. And many of us begin with self-doubt.  What was the difference between the colonizers and the colonized? It was principally education. Education was and still remains the tool that elevates people.  Now it so happens that the nature of education has changed  fundamentally  since the days of Rhodesia and Nyasaland due to arguably the most important invention of all time : The Internet. The internet has forever changed the way a human being and knowledge interact. Ignorance is fast becoming a bad habit. A white person in 1980 sitting at a country club in Africa might puff himself with airs of superiority as a “bastion of knowledge and culture” but there simply is no sound basis for this now. Knowledge is more readily available now than it has ever been. And it will only spread. You can learn to tie a Windsor knot right now if you don’t know how. Google it.  The generation born post 1980 is possibly the most privileged generation that ever lived for it collectively knows more than all previous generations combined. Are we wiser? Can’t say. But we certainly know more things and this knowledge is more accessible.

To clarify, everyone has the freedom of association. You have the liberty to choose who you will spend your leisure time with. However if you look down on other people based on some arbitrary feeling of superiority then I pity you. No anger. Not anymore. Just pity. For you are a living ghost, chained to the past walking among the living who are facing the light. And for those who have been on the receiving end of overt or covert racism, beware the seduction of pain. Suffering sometimes mysteriously causes you to forever dwell on it rather than simply move away. You need not focus on the slight, real or imagined. Your dignity is unassailable. And herein lay the strength of an incarcerated Nelson Mandela, head bloody but unbowed.Master of his fate. Captain of his soul. For within himself he was aware that it was his captors who were chained, not he. That it was the wider world around him that was a gloomy prison no different to the tiny cell on Robben island. This is no assault on any race or skin color. This is about individuals and the people we chose to be. There is much to be done to assist the understanding between peoples, cultures, countries and races. The world is still a complex place and there is a long way to go to build a better world. But this has always been the case, and we have somehow arrived here. We choose to look forward. Yes, there are other forms of colonisation. More subtle ones, economic instruments, but we weren't looking at these. The colonized walk among us. Some of them are white. The rest of us are free.