FEAR FACTOR

Yesterday is gone, its hangover is the memories we cherish.  Today is painful, probably because of we swallowed a bitter pill. Tomorrow is surely coming. Let the hope for a better society and a better Malawi be overwhelmingly refreshed as often as the sun keeps rising in the east trailing all the way to the west.

Times have changed. Together we can mitigate the course of time by engaging both long and short term factors. Youngsters, we are a generation that calls on the government to fear the people if liberty and democratic principles are to be upheld because the opposite of this pattern (i.e. people fearing the government) only classifies those in authority as oppressors.

Government is our servant and not the master. Whatever government’s activities are, that is all bound to be accountable in the eyes of the 14 million plus people in this country since flow of information is the concrete currency for democracies.

The question arises: do we fear our government or the government fears us? Whatever the answer is, hold it close to the chest. Too much power corrupts and that equals bad government grows out of too much government.

Malawi is not the same. For better or for worse, that is up to every one of us to conclude. The fear factor is fast raping freedoms and rights in this country. Freedom is not supposed to be feared, freedom is to be respected. We must not be scared to exercise democratic rights, we need to be responsible.

Fellow youth, we cannot afford to lose Malawi to fear. Fear cannot build this nation, it can only destroy and devalue it. In this age, fear no longer functions to secure our survival and prosperity otherwise then we are a sad lot because it is in fear that terrible things happen.