“Oh really.” Was the reply “Do you know that she has had
three abortions?”
No I didn’t know that. Neither was it any of my business. At
the time I just thought it was an awkward response to a very plain remark that
I had made. And then I went home. As the shadows thickened in the silent night,
I began to wonder how my friend knew that my colleague had had any abortion let
alone three, or whether it was true. They were remotely acquainted and even if
they were friends and knew each other to a greater degree, I didn’t see how it
was appropriate to bring something like that up in casual conversation with a
third party, in this case me. I wasn’t concerned at all with whether it was
true or not for it wasn’t my life. What I was concerned with was how something
that intimate could be public knowledge if it indeed was. And anyway what is
“Public Knowledge”? The following day I woke up and began to listen more
intently to the people around me.
That was a year ago.
We are all rather aware of it. There exists too much gossip.
Seedy, undignified and engrained. Unbeneficial, distasteful, unproductive. The
gossip is so established, so palpable, it seeps through our whole society and
saturates us across multiple layers. It stretches up from the bottom, swiping
at the private lives of anonymous people, people who have not yet distinguished
themselves in society, to those who dwell among the heights of politics and the
board rooms of corporate companies. A CEO’s private life will be discussed by clerks
during their lunch breaks and they will speak with the tone of familiarity. A new employee will start a new job and as he
or she is being oriented across different departments, everyone will know of him.
The Diaspora of Malawi, citizens who have long since breathed the air
descending the slopes of Mulanje, are in the know, chattering away about the
lives of individuals thousands of miles away from them. And we return in kind.
“He works as a bus driver in America, but comes on holiday with his Dollars
trying to look fancy.” See what I mean?
The gossip is also a multi headed beast like the Hydra of
Greek mythology. One obvious head is people’s sex lives – who are their
partners; where they live; an STD they had at some point; HIV status . Another
is their finances, the salary she earns, the new plot of land she has bought,
the mortgage he has taken, the car someone is about to order, (though he hasn’t
ordered it yet, “people” are in the know). And when one steps back for a minute
and observes, one is struck by the interest, effort, energy and enthusiasm
people display when they talk about others. They forget and ignore the ever
rising and pressing problems that have slowly risen from their feet to their
waists and rising further to ultimately drown them. The natural question I
asked following my observations was how did things get to this point...and I
think I have the answer in part.
History.
In 1964, Nyasaland ceased to exist and we became Malawi. Dr
Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the father of the nation, then proceeded to rule as a
dictator. The government under which a
person is born determines the kind of life a person shall live. Under a
dictatorship, the idea of the dictator as a far reaching and overt presence
seeps into a person’s mind and lodges itself there. Speaking to people who
lived during that time and listening to their stories you get a sense of the
uneasiness they were subjected to day after day. The fear they lived under. I
once heard an old woman, eyes dim and whitened by former sight say “Kamuzu was
like God looking over us all.”
Freedom of speech was removed and people lived in constant
check of every word they spoke. One was fearful of spies, so much so that one
could lie in one’s own bed and be nervous of one’s husband or wife. Neighbors
living in polite society smiled at one another, visited each other’s homes, had
their children play with one another but always harbored hidden suspicion.
People disappeared simply for expressing a contrary opinion. This meant that
one had to be supremely careful of
what the person standing next to you thought of you. This person may not have
had direct bearing to your success, they would not pay your rent or put fuel in
your car, but they had the vague possibility of ruining you. One negative report to the authorities about you and
you could be finished. Lose your job, or maybe even more. That was the coarse
reality my parents’ generation lived under for almost 30 years. This led to an interesting
cultural phenomenon. People became content with being small. Being small and
hidden, so that one was safe. One was content to be part of an inconspicuous grey
lump of clay rather than to be a slab of sapphire. Doing too well, saying too
much, going too far, would mean that you are now visible to everyone and being
visible to everyone meant being a large target and being exposed not only to
enemies but even anonymous people or half acquaintances that may have the desire
to harm you. One must never underestimate the envy that exists in society. And this was further extended by people
believing that being unnoticed and content with anonymity was being humble.
Risk aversion which we currently see on a national level resulted, and not only
risk aversion, but the most ambitious, the most aggressive, were subjected to
the mercy of those content to live safely in a shell. Years living in this taut
atmosphere of suspicion and distrust also led to us developing a hypocritical
morality. A morality based solely on appearances. I have not yet seen a single
night club in Malawi that has a condom dispenser. Not one. This is in a country
where there is not a single family without someone who died of AIDS. We prefer
the appearance of propriety over the actual substance of it. We unknowingly
inherited this cultural history. We currently have a national financial scandal
of mammoth proportions. A God fearing nation? Really?
The future & success of every society rests in its
brightest and most determined individuals. These individuals must have the
courage to look within and grow into themselves. As Paulo Coelho said “Anyone
that interferes with the destiny of another can never achieve his own.” This
gross concern over the lives of others is choking and stifling. It diverts
attention and energy and ultimately robs people of their talents and their
future. It’s a very common occurrence for someone to pull you aside and “address”
an area of your personal life by stating “People are saying…” Which people? And
why is the opinion of mere acquaintances so important to an individual life? In
truth this characteristic is endemic to small societies in general, but we have
taken things a little too far. To grow into your own element you need first
simply mind your own business.
The gossip is so entrenched in Malawi, rather than consider
the more important aspects of this article, someone will be more concerned with
finding out “who was the colleague who has had the three abortions.”
