Propaganda and media subversion in Malawi

Part 1: Origin of Propaganda

Propaganda can be defined as information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause. Its origin is traced from the Roman Catholic Church in its utilisation of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Committee for the Propagation of the Faith). This was an order of the church established by a papal bull in 1622 in order to suppress the Protestant Reformation due to the perceived apostasy — the customs of heathenism that found their way into the Christian church and allegedly forced the Catholic church to lay aside the humble simplicity of Christianity for the pomp and pride of pagan priests and rulers (Baran and Davis, 2012: 76). It was a moment of crisis for the Catholic Church as Martin Luther, John Wycliffe and John Huss accused the church of substituting the requirements of God with human theories and traditions. This was in the wake of the nominal conversion of Constantine, in the early part of the fourth century that caused great rejoicing; and the world, cloaked with a form of righteousness, walked into the church such that the work of corruption rapidly progressed.

In these hard times that threated the Catholic church, the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Committee for the Propagation of the Faith) was instituted to counter the Reformers accusations. Gradually, the term propaganda came to refer to a certain type of communication strategy which aims at propagating specific beliefs and expectations. The ultimate goal of propagandists is to change the way people act and to leave them believing that those actions are voluntary, that the newly adopted behaviors—and the opinions underlying them—are their own.

Misinformation and Disinformation as propaganda tool

During the Second World War, the Germany Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler was synonymous with usage of propaganda. The tactic involved simplifying the complexity of the war and repeating that simplification over and over again in order to persuade people to buy the concept of the war and convincing the masses into enlisting in the army. Fritz Hippler, head of Nazi Germany’s film propaganda division, said that the secret to effective propaganda is to:

(a) simplify a complex issue and

(b) repeat that simplification over and over again (World War II, 1982).  

This is why effective propaganda is covert: it persuades people without seeming to do so; features the massive orchestration of communication; and emphasizes tricky language designed to discourage reflective thought.

Journalists cerebrating world press freedom day in Malawi

Spin doctors believe that the end justifies the means. Therefore, it is not only right but necessary that half-truths and even outright lies (misinformation) be used to convince people to abandon ideas that are “wrong” and to adopt those favored by the propagandist. Propagandists also rely on disinformation to discredit their opposition. They spread false information about opposition groups and their objectives. Often the source of this false information is concealed (anonymous sources). Does it now come by surprise that there abound stories in print, social media and the broadcast media that quote unidentified source or wittily hides under anonymous sources? Treat such stories with pinch of salt as they are a product of propaganda.

Propaganda and Democracy  

Harold Lasswell, in 1927, coined the Propaganda Theory in which he posits that the power of propaganda was not so much the result of the substance or appeal of specific messages but, rather, the result of the vulnerable state of mind of average people. (Baran and Davis, 2012). Lasswell argued that economic depression and escalating political conflict induces widespread psychosis, and this renders the minds of people vulnerable to even crude forms of propaganda. When average people are confronted daily by powerful threats to their personal lives, they turn to propaganda for reassurance and a way to overcome the threat.

In Lasswell’s view, democracy has a fatal flaw ̶ it seeks to locate truth and make decisions through openly conducted debates about issues. But if these debates escalate into verbal or even physical conflict between advocates for different ideas, then widespread psychosis will result. Spectators to these conflicts will be traumatized by them. Lasswell’s conclusion is that even relatively benign forms of political conflict were inherently pathological. When conflict escalates to the level it does in Malawi during campaigns or political turmoil, an entire nation could become psychologically unbalanced and vulnerable to manipulation.

Even routine forms of political debates that ensue between the five major and rival parties: the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), the UTM, the United Front for Democracy (UDF), and the Peoples Party (PP); could escalate into conflicts threatening the social order especially during elections due to ensued campaign attacks by candidates competing for the political mantle. Propaganda theorists’ presumption is that political action is maladjustive, political participation is irrational, and political expression is irrelevant”. But how do you maintain a democratic social order if any form of political debate or demonstration is problematic? Lasswell had an answer to this question: replace public discourse with democratic propaganda.

Malawian Journalists denouncing Government's use of propaganda on MBC 

Lasswell’s propaganda-for-good was adopted by the Office of War Information in the USA as its basic strategy during World War II. In the Cold War that followed that global hot war, using agencies such as the Voice of America, the United States Information Agency, the Office of International Information and Educational Exchange, and the State Department, it served as the foundation for numerous official efforts to counter Communism and spread democracy. No wonder, contemporary regimes in Africa and worldwide, adopt this as they institute similar agencies to be used in churning out democratic propaganda. These agencies range from public broadcasters, Government newspapers and press agencies. From this premise therefore, it should not be surprising that Government in Malawi uses the public broadcaster, the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), the Ministry of Information (Malawi News Agency and the Malawi Film Unit) to diffuse negative publicity against its initiatives and project a positive image for the government of the day. This is Lasswell’s democratic propaganda.

The gist of the argument by spin doctors is that people are so irrational, so illiterate, or so inattentive that it is necessary to coerce, seduce, or trick them into learning bits of misinformation. The argument is simple: If only people were more rational or intelligent, we could just sit down and explain things to them, person to person. But most aren’t given Malawi’s illiteracy levels that hovers around 70% and this makes most people children when it comes to important affairs like politics. How can we expect them to listen to reason? It’s just not possible. In the post-World War II United States, for example, this became known as the “engineering of consent”, a term coined by the father of modern public relations, Edward L. Bernays. Engineering consent is a democratic tenet as it expands freedom of press and speech to include the government’s freedom to persuade. Only by mastering the techniques of communication can leadership be exercised fruitfully in the vast complex that is modern democracy, because in a democracy, results do not just happen. Therefore, Malawi should not therefore be surprised when Government uses spin doctors for suppressing opposition messages: average people are just too gullible. They will be taken in by the lies and tricks of others/ opposition parties. If opponents are allowed to freely communicate their messages, so spin doctors must stop opponents from blocking Government’s actions and convince people to join the cause. This is a critical tenant that democracy promotes.

Given this, so how do communication experts justify the use of crude forms of propaganda? Watch out part two in which I discuss forms of propaganda and the difference between black, white and brown propaganda.

WHYGHTONE MOVESI KAPASULE is Malawian Journalist and Communication expert with specialisation in political economy of the media, media research, broadcasting and public relations.

Glaring policy gaps expose girls to early marriages

By Whyghtone Kapasule and Tiwonge Ndau

The entire Nimbire Village in Traditional  Authority (T/A) Mlomba in Machinga wake up on Monday morning, 12 August, 2019 to the sad news that Amidu Frank, 19, has eloped a 13 year old girl, Khadija Yusufu (not her real name) to Blantyre City.

Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare Child Protection team in Machinga District reported the issue to T/A Mlomba who, together with chief Chibondo, informed the incident to Machinga Police Station.

“This happened just after our efforts to withdraw the girl from the marriage which was blessed the girl’s mother Abiti Khadija, proved futile” says Annie Gabriel, Machinga Child Protection Officer.

This saga according to Gabriel, tore the family apart as the girl’s father, Frank Sibu, frowned on the marriage of the girl in that fragile age, while the mother approved it.

“I visited the parents and underscored the need for them to talk sense to their child so that she should withdrawal from the marriage and continue with her studies.

“However, the mother verbally abused me. I knew she wouldn’t understand me and I proceeded to Traditional Authority Mlomba and Chief Chibondo so that they can intervene. Rightly so, they reported to police but weeks elapsed without police action.

It was this indecisiveness on the part of the police that gave the two chances to strategise and leave the village for Blantyre City.

Away at a distance of about 550 kms from Machinga, Martin Tembo and his wife Eliteke Kanyasko of Efelanja Village in T/A Mthwalo in Mzimba were struggling with the same case on 5 August, 2019. Their 13 year old daughter, Ireen (not real name) did not sleep in their house the previous night and she was nowhere to be seen through that day.

A rigorous search sent them to utter paralysis as the discovery was too much to bear. Their little girl had married a 20 year old man in a neighboring village of Chisangano in that flip of the two days she went missing. They immediately reported the matter to Ekwendeni Police Unit.

The following day, police went to Chisangano village and arrested the 13 year old girl, Ireen and her husband Timoteo Zgambo. The two spent a night in a cooler and the following day they were released and were told to separate ways as the girl was very young to be married.

Alas! That gesture was a little too late. Little did they know that lreen had been part-taking of the forbidden fruit for some time and that Timoteo had planted his seed in her womb. This discovery added salt to the injury of the two parents. But the quest to have their 13 year daughter get educated compelled them to refuse send her into marriage threatening that any plans to marry the minor will attract the police wrath.

Senior Chief Kachindamoto - policies need be strengthened to protect girl child from responsibilities of marriage

“Inspite of all this, Timoteo went ahead and married our daughter. Ireen went straight to Timoteos house after being released in police custody. Till now, we do not know how to go about this whole issue,” narrates Tembo.

“As   am talking to you now, my daughter is still at Timoteos house, still married and expecting a child in that fragile age. As a mother, I cry for my child because she is still very young for the responsibilities of marriage and later alone pangs of pregnancy.

The setting for the two stories may be different but their misfortunes and implications are the same. This phenomenon is a thorn in the global fight against girl child marriages.

Although the 2017 constitutional amendment raised the marriage age to 18 for both girls and boys and was lauded as a significant milestone, child marriages persist in the country.

It is not surprising therefore that statistics by World Vision Malawi released in August 2019 on Child Marriages paint a gloomy picture as 42 percent of young girls in Malawi get married before reaching 18 years of age annually, while the new Marriage Law barks toothless from a distance.

All this is happening when Malawi is one of the 20 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa which committed to ending girl child marriages by the year 2020 under the Ministerial Commitment on Comprehensive Sexuality, Education and Sexual Reproductive Health Services for Adolescents.

For Paramount Chief Kyungu of Karonga, there are no two ways to go about this problem. He said the fight against girl child marriages can be won if policies are rescanned and intensified.

“I have been championing against girl child marriages for 4 years now and I have concluded that much work need be done on the grassroots.

“Government and all stakeholders need to put an extra gear in changing chief’s mindset on girl child marriages as well as the parents and the children themselves.”

However, T/A Mlomba of Machinga blames the persistent problem of girl child marriages to the conduct of police towards the issue.

“Here in Machinga the police are not helping us at all. Each time we report such cases to them they ignore us. This renders our efforts to root this problem, futile,” laments Mlomba.

She squarely blames the elopement of Khadija Yusufu to police indecision.

“We need government to devise guiding policies on how the police and courts should handle girl child marriages’ cases. They need to know that such cases require swift action in order to save the gild child,” said Mlomba.

Inkosi Gomani V of Ntcheu, the World Vision Ambassador for end child marriages advised the police not to grant bail to perpetrators of girl child marriages.

He told journalists in one of World Vision functions on child marriages in Ntcheu that traditional leaders need to compliment the police role in the fight against girl child marriages arguing:

“We need to develop a policy that should dethrone all chiefs that overlook young girls as they get married willy-nilly”.  

However, National Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), James Kadadzera refuses to take the punches from the chiefs. In his observation, the courts are to blame for granting bail to perpetrators of girl child marriages.

 “The police we do not give police bail to anyone suspected of defiling a minor. We treat girl child marriages as defilement such that no bail can be granted by the police. If the country sees that we are not winning this fight, let us hold hands to revisit the policies where possible other than pointing fingers at us,” he said.

Sharing his perspective on the matter, Beautify Malawi Trust chairperson Sunduzwayo Jere refuses to hip the blame head on the police but rather the policies.

“Our policies on girl child marriages are weak hence the need for the country to re-energize and come up with policies that are very strong so that girl child marriages should be dealt with decisively in the country,” Madise said.

Traditional Authority Kachindamoto of Ntcheu who is also a champion for girl child education in the country supported the idea of strengthening the laws altogether.

She gave an example of her community that formulated strong by laws on girl child marriages that have helped save her community from the vice.

In their 2018 Child Marriage Fact Sheet, UNICEF Malawi observes that policies need be articulated well in the guiding framework against girl child marriages so that all stakeholders adjust their roles as well.

“We have, in collaboration with PLAN International and Ujamaa Pamodzi, introduced some reflection action circles in various villages targeting girls that dropped out of school for various reasons so that they are counseled and return to school.

UNICEF said this project has been very successful as more than 28 girls have gone back to school with some being withdrawn from early marriages.

Plan International suggested the need to realign the National Constitution so that it addresses the problem of girl child marriages, the initiative it started from 2016 to date, with various stakeholders.

Girls Not Brides Malawi laments the path that the Country has taken observing it risks the country failing to eradicate early and forced marriages by 2030 and meet Goal 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) which compels countries to eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage; and female genital mutilations.

Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare said it has uplifted itself towards the fight against girl child marriages and it hopes law makers will support the cause and pass relevant framework to protect the girl child.

Until this is realised, girl child marriages will continue scourging the country and the attainment of the United Nations’ SDG Goal 5.3 will remain a far-fetched dream.

Children stuck in floods of hopelessness

Unforgettable disaster. 106 dead. 172 missing. 230,000 displaced. 1.1 million affected. The figures are speaking for themselves. The devastating floods in 2015 which hit hard the Lower Shire districts of Nsanje and Chikwawa attracted global attention. Three years later, some children are still stuck in the floods of hopelessness courtesy of the natural disaster which is slowly being forgotten. WHYTONE KAPASULE reports on how the government and development partners are paying a blind eye to the education plight of little survivors of the floods. 

She is in her teens. She is the survivor of the floods that hit East Bank in Nsanje in January 2015 and it seems she has a gift of longsuffering. She is one of the two girls that have attained ripe age of 17 but still sit under trees and tents to learn. Lack of classrooms and desks at the school has forced many girls of her age to drop from school as they could not cope up with sitting on the floor and get inconvenienced with the stand-up-and-sit-down exercise, a common phenomenon in any learning process. No child has been selected to secondary in the three years that they had been learning under trees and tents, after floods relocated them into this hopeless sight. And yet she presses on, letting nothing obscure her vision of becoming a nurse.

Malita Makoko is a standard seven learner at Namiyala primary School in Fatima, Nsanje. The yard on the upland ground on which the school is situated is dotted by classes being conducted under trees due to lack of proper classrooms. They brave heat in the humid air pressure in the Lower Shure Valley where temperatures on this day reached 45 degrees Celsius. As she indicated, learning under trees and tents, in such blistering sun is no venture for the feeble minded. The steaming temperatures are not only a constant disruption in learning but also damage to their eyes. 

“Our problems are shared: Skin burn and splitting headache due to the heavy sun. This also affects our eyes as we try to force look onto the chalk boards which is a recipe for a common eye disease here – trachoma. We can’t keep complaining. It’s a case of endurance for the resolute or withdrawal for frail minded,” she said. 

Malita and her friend running away from whirl wind that shook the tent

This is the sorry spectacle that we witnessed when we visited Namiyala Primary School, just after Fatima in late November, 2017 before the closure of the third term. From a distant junction where the road to Usiyana branches off from the Fatima-Bangula road, we could hear classroom noise. From such noises, one could assume that all is well. But alas! This was the age of innocence. In the blistering sun of the Lower Shire where temperatures can go as high as 50 degrees Celsius, we found children braving steaming, humid heat in one of the few classroom tents that are still standing which houses standard three learners. This is worsened by the fact that there are 260 pupils in the class, clearly too large a population for the tent. 

The sad situation of children still learning under trees and tents, three years after their school was relocated, was heart renting. These are tents that government and its partners erected upland to be used as classrooms, in response to the 2015 floods. But at this point, most of them have been blown away or run down by winds such that most classes are being conducted under trees. 

The numbers of pupils used not to be like this in its original location. But the relocation into other communities has seen the pupil population more than doubling, hence the 260 learners in this class. Their teacher, Thomas Banda, is braving even the worst impacts. He said classroom management becomes a problem.

“It becomes hard to mark all 260 assignments within a lesson period. The allocated classroom time does not match with the number of exercise books to be marked. I just mark those that I can manage within the period,” said Banda. 

Hopeless kids, stuck in ruins for three years while hope vanishes in thin air.

This irony cannot be more pronounced. Children are given a raw deal. Head teacher of the school Bright Chipojola, could not miss his frustration when we asked him to shape a picture of the situation. He indicated that he is under no illusion at all that in its current state, the schools prospects are not bright anymore. For him, the floods came, washed away their school and washed away the schools impressive performance in Primary School Leaving Certificate Examinations such that they have never produced a single student to a national secondary school since the school was relocated in January 2015. This is due to the problems that get compounded at the school with each passing day. 

It is hard to imagine that the school has conducted lessons for only 4 days in the two weeks since schools were opened on January 8, 2018. In a telephone interview on January 18, 2018, Chipojola singled out rains as a constant disturbance in the teaching and learning process which results in dismissal of classes for lack of conducive environment in this rainy season.

Since the floods hit the area three years ago, there have been various interventions intended to ease the plight of those that were affected.  While the rest of the responses have been way inadequate, not one of them has had anything to do with construction of classroom blocks at the relocated school. Namiyala Primary School is in the area of Village Headman Chabe who singled out the Malawi Red Cross Society as having constructed decent houses for some of those that were affected, leaving out the schools.  

But Malawi Red Cross Society’s Public Relation Manager, Felix Washon said, out of the many sectors that were created by government to coordinate the floods response, his organisation responded to the sector they were allocated to by government – housing and health. The education sector was given to other partners.

Seeing there is no help coming, parents and guardians of the children at Namiyala primary school took up the task of constructing at least a class block themselves. Each family contributed K650 per month for the moulding of bricks. It was a slow process this one, without question, but it materialized as the bricks were used to construct the only block standing on the site. But misfortunes never come singly! The contractor that Nsanje District council hired to construct the block abandoned the site in October, 2017, leaving the block at window level.

Abandoned! The only initiative started at Namiyala since 2015. 

Nsanje District Education Manager, Towela Masoka Banda said the class block at Namiyala is being constructed with Local Development Funds and is at window level. She further said the intervention has reached to another school in Usiyana, Chikonje, which suffered the same fate.   

Chairperson for Nsanje District Council, Mavuto Kamba said the council is doing its utmost within the available resources while waiting for interventions from other partners to sponsor the other remaining class blocks for the school to be complete.  He however, could not comment on the disappearance of the contractor from the site and asked for time to gather information from the council. 

Paradoxically, Director of disaster responsible for recovery in the Department of Disaster and Risk Management, Paul Kalilombe, said the fate of the school could be a result of failure by the council to include the schools in the Malawi Floods Emergency recovery project.

“Districts had to identify schools to be rehabilitated under the project. But since it’s an ongoing project, may be the schools will be rehabilitated. But the council should have more information,” said Kalilombe.

And so the story goes in Nsanje East Bank: of a community that was hit worse by floods in January 2015 and had many houses destroyed, property washed away and social institutions collapsed including four primary schools that had to be relocated, in the force of the floods. This is the story that triggered the nightmare of primary school education in this part of the district. And it is a story that is getting worse and worse as the years go by while help seems to have vanished into thin air.

It is a tale of children stuck in floods of hopelessness and remain invisible. A story that gets fresh in 2018 as floods now have started ravaging communities in Lilongwe and Mzuzu, sending shivers down the spines of many in the disaster prone district of Nsanje. A story that gets raw now as the learners have clocked three years under tents and trees. It is a tale of a failed promise of how children become invisible and forgotten once the story of disasters dies down. 

This article came out in the Nation Newspaper on 22 February, 2018.

Glaring Disparities in Education in Malawi

Education is key to development. But how can Malawi develop when the education sector lacks in promotion of equitable, quality and accessible education? This is a story that brings to fore the plight of less advantaged village learners in Malawi. Watch how a disabled learner hustles to access primary education.