Come, Come and Mend

It is often in small little surprise meetings that you have amazing stories shared with you. Read the following poem written by a Malawian that I met over lunch a few weeks ago.
The poem is as follows.

Come, Come and Mend

Let me tell you a story concerning a Hockey Ground.
Chancellor College had a Hockey Ground
Near the heart of the campus it was situated.
Evergreen and beautiful it was.
But alas, it has now grown bushes, briers and thorns.
And the students plead,
Come, come and mend.

The administration did us a favour.
“We want to make your ground more beautiful”, It said.
Tractors came and ploughed the ground,
Toyota lorries came delivering the rich black soil,
Old grass was removed and new grass planted,
And yet the students broke into tears:
Come, come and mend.

As if the rehabilitation was not enough,
Taps were installed to bring water to the ground,
Splash, splash, splash, sounded the sprinklers.
“Not enough, not enough”, sounded the Administration.
A hedge of exotic trees was planted surrounding the whole ground.
“Not enough, not enough”, sounded the Administration.
A hedge of exotic trees was planted surrounding the whole ground.
“Not enough, not enough”, sounded the Administration.
A strong wooden fence was constructed outside the hedge surrounding the ground.
And the students cried,
Come, come and mend.

The Ground was now ready and ripe.
Never before had we seen a ground so beautiful.
“Administration”, the students inquired, “how much did you invest in our ground?”.
“K8,000”, it replied.
And that was before a new vocabulary came to us – devaluation.
And the students wept,
Come, come and mend.

Visitors can be entertaining, visitors can be damaging,
Like children of the ‘operational stage’ they came.
Came with sand, sawdust, mafuwa, firewood etc, etc,
With all these they wanted to play.
Of all the places we offered them, “Nay”, they cried.
Our Hockey Ground was turned into a playground.
And the students wept bitterly,
Come, come and mend.

With their firewood, they burned our grass,
With their mafuwa, they compressed our grass,
With their sawdust and sand, they choked our grass.
Jesus! Even the hedge and the fence were no more.
The well tended Hockey Ground went back to the Medieval Ages.
Never before had the students been so sad,
Crying, weeping and sobbing they were,
Come, come and mend.

Asked I the students who shall come and mend.
Looking at one another they said, “Eh! mm! iii!”
It was sad, for they couldn’t talk anymore,
And please, until you come back and mend,
Crying and crying will they be.
Crying for their dead Hockey Ground.
Until we see our Ground resurrect,
We shall never cease to say:
Come, come and mend.

This Malawian man now works in the field of justice and peace with the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace trying to ensure that Malawians live under a fair and just government. His name is Peter Ngulube Chinoko. We began talking about how hockey is popular in both Malawi and my home country of Canada, the difference being that as a Canadian, hockey to me is played on ice not on a field. This led my newfound colleague to discuss how a poem about a hockey field led to his exile from his country. The Republic of Malawi from independence in 1966 to 1994 was under single party rule led by Dr. Kamuzu Banda, the “life president” until discontent in the country finally brought about the change to democracy.

Chancellor College which is part of the University of Malawi was where Mr. Chinoko was a fourth year Bachelor of Education student (in 1988) when he wrote the above poem. It was in response to the destruction of their new, beautiful hockey ground. The cause of the destruction was a visit by the “life president” (read dictator), Dr. Kamuzu Banda. Whenever he would travel there would be a group of women (Mbumba) who would travel with him singing his praises, performing dances and generally being a sort of travelling pep squad. The stage for their performance was set up on the hockey ground and when they left it was completely destroyed. Such destruction was not considered the responsibility of the Office of the President or the Mbumba. At that time everyone was supposed to be so honoured to have a visit from Dr. Banda that complaints about destruction would not be tolerated.

When Mr. Chinoko wrote his poem it came to the attention of the government authorities, most likely through a group called the Young Pioneers which was an organization of young people who effectively spied on all Malawians and acted as a paramilitary force that could intimidate those who refused to tow the party line. There are even instances where Young Pioneers turned their own parents into the police for negative comments said inside the home against Banda. The university administration was instructed to punish him over his poem which was seen as an attack on Banda and his regime and as a result the students held a rally in support of him which was the first public demonstration against Dr. Banda and his regime in Malawian history.

Soon after this demonstration the university administration told Mr. Chinoko that his family had requested that he return home immediately. As he got on the bus he was handed an envelope that he was instructed to open at home. Once on the bus he opened the letter and it told Peter that he had been permanently expelled from Chancellor College and his Bachelor of Education studies were terminated. Arriving in Lilongwe to stay with his sister for the night enroute to his home village he found out that there was more punishment planned for him. His sister’s husband was a police officer who told Peter that just at the end of the day the station received instructions to arrest him but that since it was outside business hours no action would be taken until the next day so he needed to get out of sight. Peter escaped to his village to see his family and then not knowing what to do sought asylum with the Catholic bishop in his village’s diocese. The bishop sequestered Peter in a room from which he didn’t emerge for four months while the police continued to look for his whereabouts. Realizing that he couldn’t continue to stay hidden forever, the bishop arranged for fake government documents for Peter and he was able to leave the country.

The church put him up in Rome where he was able to continue his studies at the Vatican. Peter told me that he became fluent in Italian and considered never returning to Malawi but the bishop that was his patron told Peter that he had an obligation to return to Malawi as soon as it was safe in order to fight against the kind of situations he had found himself in from ever occurring again. Peter stayed in exile for four years, only finally returning when Dr. Kamuzu Banda lost power. As I mentioned above Peter remained true to the wishes of his patron and he is now the Executive Director of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP). The CCJP will be one of the major observers during next years election in Malawi to ensure that it remains a fair and equitable event. In a recent poll of organizations working in the field of election monitoring the CCJP was voted the most trustworthy and accurate of all working in this area. It is important for this work to continue so that there will never be a repeat of expulsion and attempted arrest over writing a simple poem about a destroyed hockey field.

From Dictatorship to Democracy

Dr. Kamuza Banda, member of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) who was prime minister at independence in 1964 became the first president after Malawi became a republic in 1966. In 1971 he was declared president for life (dictator) and he remained in that post until a referendum was held in 1993 calling for multiparty democracy. In 1994 elections were held and Banda’s party, the MCP lost. What is fascinating is the role the Catholic Church played in that transition from “life presidency”. Due to roving party faithfuls called the “young pioneers” everyone was afraid of speaking against the government. One could never know who was a member of the pioneers and sometimes friends and even family members were turned in for speaking against Banda. This changed in 1992 when the Catholic bishops in Malawi simultaneously had a letter read that detailed the complaints that until that point had been felt but had been unspoken. The Catholic bishops of Malawi had met in secret to draft the letter. In order to have it distributed to every parish in the country they employed ambulances staffed by nuns. Usually in Malawi, even to this day one cannot travel through regions without being stopped by police roadblocks. The nuns in the ambulance had to drive with the sirens on so that they would not be searched at the roadblocks and the letters would be discovered. Those I have spoken to told me that the letter came as a complete shock and how to react to it was mixed. On the one hand what was in the mind of the majority was finally being spoken allowing for a tremendous release, yet there was fear of reprisal and of who might report you if you reacted positively to the letter. At that time the parliament was nothing more than a rubber stamp body for the decisions made by Banda and all the real decisions were hashed out at the MCP headquarters which was beside the United States embassy. The decision was made to assassinate all the bishops in retaliation for their public attack on the government and on Banda. What was unknown to the MCP was that the American embassy was using eavesdropping equipment to listen in on this decision. What the Americans then did was to transmit this to the BBC, which broadcast it live. So all of Malawi got to hear the plan to kill all the bishops and the MCP knew nothing about it until they left their meeting room. Once it was out in the open the MCP knew that they couldn’t kill the bishops so all they could do was to kick the foreign bishops out of the country. This was the beginning of the end of one party rule and within 2 years there was multi-party democracy with a different party holding the seat of president.