Becoming The Muse

If you were having coffee with me, I would be glad you dropped by. It’s a bit cloudy with a chance of light showers, perfect weather for a warm cuppa; so do sit down, tell me what’s going on?

I would tell you that I worry about the world, for some reason this statement I picked from some random movie has been rattling around in my head.

Wait, to be honest its not just some reason, its observation of a thousand and one little things and its not from any random movie, its from a psychological thriller called Enemy. You know the sort of movies you watch and get to the end and ask yourself, “what did I just watch?”  Confusing movie aside, in one scene a character lecturing what I presume is a philosophy class makes the following observation:

The system tells us 3 lies That:

•We are free, we are not

•We can change the world, we cant

•we change the system from within, it doesn’t

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that sometimes its as if we are machines of flesh built for a lifetime of servitude, all we are trying to do is work work work work yet only succeed in lining the pockets of others.

Are we free?

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you I worry about the Corona Virus even though so far in Africa no official cases have been detected.  

We could either be very very lucky or maybe our early detection skills might be a little ineffective. I was watching a news clip with health officials saying they are ready to fight this virus and I could picture emergency services personnel dressed up as riot police with shields and baton sticks ready to do what they do best.

Whenever the government tries to reassure me they have something under control you can forgive me being a little skeptic.

Dr Li Wenliang the hero doctor who tried to raise alarm about the corona virus died on Friday. In December when Li posted about a SARS-like illness outbreak at his hospital in Wuhan, asking friends and family to take protective measures; authorities summoned him and other doctors for rumour-mongering and making false comments on the internet, then had him sign a document promising not to do it again or face prosecution. He later contracted the virus from a patient when he returned to work.

Can we change the world?

If you were having coffee with me, I would ask if the world can really change. Someone at Barnes & Noble thought it would be a great idea to promote diversity by introducing a new range of classic novels with cover art featuring black people; The Diverse Editions to celebrate Black History Month

Well simply changing the cover on a book will not change the story in its pages and if they really wanted to promote diversity why could they not; oh, I don’t know, do a drive to publish more books by diverse authors. No surprise that they caught some social media backlash and you may be relieved to learn that they are no longer going through with the Diverse editions.  

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you about how our president tries to clean up the country, we may have failed to clean out corruption but hey we can at least clean up the streets even if it means flying a helicopter about 90km to and posture while sweeping as an retinue of staff and security looks on, instead of maybe I don’t know, using the money they spent on that exercise in actually cleaning up.

Changing the system from within

If you were having coffee with me, I would say hello democracy, that wonderful system where we can elect the leaders we want to deliver the things we wish for. On paper it seems to be such a wonderful system but in practise democracy seems like an elaborate ruse, designed to preserve a certain status quo.

Malawi constitutional court made a landmark ruling last week when they annulled the election results  from the May 2019 polls due to widespread irregularities, and ordered fresh elections be held. Elections in Africa usually end up with contested results, violence, allegations of voter rigging and intimidation, yet regional observers always wave them off as being free and fair. We had elections in 2018 which are not without similar “issues” although the constitution court dismissed the application.

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that Malawi gave people hope that maybe judiciary systems would stop being ‘captured’ and might take notes on how to get election results over turned. Its interesting to note that though the judges did not outright declare the elections stolen, they simply said the evidence of rigging was so widespread and blatant that “the integrity of the result was severely compromised“.

But what happens next then, what changes? Well Malawi’s president and the electoral commission have already filed for an appeal to this ruling. The games we play.

If you were having coffee with me I would ask if we really can change an unchanged changing world? Do tell me, what’s been happening in your neck of the woods, and have a great week

~B

Oh yes its heart week coming up any special plans? Well if you are looking for some ideas on what to get someone do take a quick dash to find out what a blogger’s love language feels like on my post below (click on image to go to post)

**Update turns out in the movie the character is a history teacher and will be teaching a class about dense theory, Hegel and Marx, the patterns of history and the relationship of dictators to control