Tribute to Robert Chasowa, the student activist

 Robert  – a brilliant young man,

Whose life had just began.
Robert -  an inspiration to his peers,
Who would have lived to be one of our engineers,
Had the regime not decided his life to terminate
And his death suicide to simulate.
Robert – We will rest not, we will take no repose, your death we shall investigate

 No one explains better the history of the struggle between good and evil than Edmund Burke. Time and again those who profess to be good seem to clearly outnumber those who are evil, yet those who are evil seem to prevail far too often.

Seldom numbers determine the outcome but those who claim to be good men, sometimes just a few, must be willing to stand up and fight for what they know to be right. There are numerous examples of the sad and awful scenario being played out over and over again in the political history of Malawi.

Within a very short space of time, Malawi can no longer validly claim to be the most peaceful and secure country, let alone the warm heart of Africa. It just can't! The occurrence of life and property threatening incidences is now the norm rather than the exception. Just in the past two months, to be precise from July 20, 2011 to date; Malawi has witnessed many sad, man-made and unexplained incidences of violence.

Blantyre and Lilongwe recently saw strange fires gutting markets, eroding the working capital that the vendors had painstakingly accumulated after years and years of toiling. Nothing, no amount of money of goodwill sentiments, can compensate their loss. The Malawi police are still investigating.

Robert's parents laying wreaths

Lawrence Bisika, Mike Kakatera , an innocent vendor of fritters, and probably many others we will never hear about, will always bear scars of wounds inflicted by bandits; bandits that are seemingly beyond the long arm of the law. The thugs responsible for these people scars are for reasons best known to the regime, beyond apprehension and prosecution.

Rafiq Hajat's Institute of Policy Interaction (IPI) is officeless. Reverend Sembereka, is now minus a home. Again the bandits that threw molotov cocktails at the IPI office and the Reverend's homes are roaming about, freely, licensed to strike again at their whims.

The latest event however tops the bill: Robert Chasowa – a promising university engineering student – is no more. Reminiscent of the Mwanza Case; the police say his death is self-inflicted. Looking at theory they are putting up, a kindergartener could have done a better job. Robert's death will not remain a mystery for too long: because what goes up must come down. As Lucius Banda sang in Mabala:

"Zowuluka zonse zikawululka,
pali tsiku lose limodzi zatadzatere"
Robert – Rest in Peace, you are our inspiration.

 The most heartbreaking thing, as we wait for providence to intervene and send us a real Moses, no one, repeat no one, has to date been brought to book. The Malawi Police, just as they did with Mwanza four, know and are sitting on the truth and hence protecting the culprits. The police, just as the protected Muluzi's architect of terror, Marshal the Dukes, they are today shielding the master-minders of this evil and mocking the dead.

Armed with the knowledge that even the strongest man is not strong all the time, we can opt to sit and wait for the day when justice and judgment will come. Unto each life some rain fall and definitely, one day, the rain will fall into ours.

On the other hand, just as Martin Luther King pointed out "the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy", perhaps now that we know Bingu's measure and measures; it is high time we the youth pursue our own agenda.

What has tied our hands that we have now reached the extent of allowing evil to triumph? Why are we sitting by and doing nothing? Let us all stand up and be counted, speak up against evil and speak out against evil men and their sinful deeds. We should never despair; but if we do, we should work on in despair.

“Be not deceived;" the Bible says, "God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7).

And we should always remember, if not for Robert's sake but for ourselves that those who fail or refuse to do good in the face of evil are sowing some dangerous seeds. They are doing nothing good as Jesus commanded them to do; they are helping evil to win and have ceased being good and have become partakers of the evil they did nothing to stop.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Are we – all of us – all talk but no trousers?

The Wise One writes from the RSA

Nyasa Times 27 Sep, 2011

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Source: http://www.nyasatimes.com/malawi/2011/09/26/tribute-to-robert-chasowa-the-student-activist/
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