I open this write-up with the quote of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is reported to have said to Asa Philip Randolph, the leader of the African American civil-rights movement when he invited him to the White House to discuss issues concerning the oppressed black African Americans.
After Philip tremendously presented his grievances on the discrimination of his fellow black people, Roosevelt said to him gently “Philip, all what u have said about the oppression of your people I agree with; but Philip! I want you to do something for me, go and organize your people thoroughly and make me do what u have said and something that I may want to do it but am not doing it.”
I regard the aforesaid high profile discussion as a lesson that we are to learn if we are fighting for any course.
Coming to the issue that has crumpled the brains of Malawi Muslims, ignited by the sentiments made by the former president Bakili Muluzi that; Muslims should not blame government on their minimal presentation, I believe that the former president did not conceal his position on the matter in discussion. He pointed out that if we need to be included we should be united, courageous and most importantly to hold higher qualifications.
To grasp the inference of the statement we need to analyse these elements:
Unity
Allah in the Holy Quran is calling Muslims to be united, “And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided’ {Āli `Imrān, 103}. Here, unity should not be observed only when praying Salah but rather in everything what Muslims do. It is sad to disclose here that our Sheikhs and Muslims in general can stand together in one line when praying symbolizing the unity but after Salah the story is different.
Reflecting from the wrangles between the current and the former office bearers of MAM in a couple of month ago, it clearly depict that there is no strong unity among the Muslims in the country. Yes, if we ask the indigenous Muslims of the northern and central districts of Malawi that are we united? I strongly believe that their answer will be No! perhaps due to many reasons of well-known by all i.e. all Islamic schools and developments are positioned in one side of the country.
Education
To claim in totality that Muslims in Malawi are not educated is the song of old days. Proudly, I can argue here that in recent years Muslims have produced a number of young graduates both male and female from different Universities across the world (though the number is inadequate). However, some of the question to be answered are, how courageous are these graduates? What level of exposure do they present to the nation? Do they present themselves that yes we can do it, or they wait for someone to do it for them? I wish if they could be like the former secretary general of MAM who exposed himself that he is capable and educated enough hence recruited as UNIMA staff.
Other technical questions to be reflected on are what I quote from the writing of my comrade Ex-soldier Vinjenje of which I concur with.
“…a wise man will not utter a word before taking a close look in to a smoke that has caused fire burning, up to date the enhancement of Muslim educational backbone in the country is zero, all what we have is giving a Malawian Muslim student a secondary and an under graduating box of peanut, where are masters and PhDs scholarships that my big brothers in VIPs benefited from? Was it particularized for that generation only? How many Muslims acquired masters or PhDs since then? Does the Muslim association of Malawi plan any visionary structure of what a Muslim ummah would Malawi have at a so and so period of time? Or are our leaders’ failures? Nothing tangible that can be pointed out done by the Muslim leaderships within an Islamic arena itself and yet we are talking of government representation.”
Again, here who to blame? The Quran explicitly states that “Verily Allah does not change the condition of people (ummah) until they change what is in themselves”(Quran 13:11). The equation here is simple; let us be the change that we need to see.
On other hand we should also acknowledge the fact that one cannot be just picked up overnight to be a District commissioner or any other high position in the civil service without going through the organizational procedures (hierarchy). Our graduates should be dedicated when discharging their duties, have a vision and most importantly they should be patient.
In wrapping up, I should state here explicitly that there is no any kind of War (be it physical and or intellectual) that can be won by the fragmented, education less, and disorganized Ummah.If we change, things will enthusiastically change!
well writ