On Saturday June 26, 2021 a small but very important procession marched in the streets of Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, towards the city council buildings bearing the familiar rainbow colors, and marking — according to the Malawi Human Rights Commission — the first ever openly LGBTQ+ public event. This development was…

I move and live in this colonially confected demarcated world as nothing: a nothing that thinks, feels and dreams; a nothing that wrestles with deeply existential matters in between standing vocabularies on the one side, and problems which are not congruent for them, on the other: vocabularies about things imported…

“I am because We are” I have always been a bit apprehensive, somewhat socially anxious and awkward, for as long as I remember. But things took a dark turn in April 1998 when my mother died following a short, severe illness. In the ensuing years, my coping strategy was emotional…

“People who are transgender, particularly transgender women of color, experience appalling levels of violence, and this violence is exacerbated by poverty and racism. […] Marriage equality and celebrity culture will not solve it. Neither will political agendas focused on unquestioned assimilation. Gaining rights for some while ignoring the violation and…

Aftermath of the Malawi General Election of May 2019 (Part 2) – Election Annulment by the Malawi High Court Correction: In my September 2019 piece with the same title, I had said there had only been two multiparty elections with an outright majority outcome in Malawi since independence. This is…

Aftermath of the Malawi General Election of May 2019 (Part 1) — Court Petitions and Large Protests Background Malawi had a general election for all three representational levels of government (Local, National and Executive) on May 21, 2019. However, by May 24, 2019 both leaders of the main contesting opposition…

Of Corpses and Death: This Essay isn’t meant to be Intelligible Twice, in the same living room — 8 years apart, I stared through the glass of a coffin at the lifeless bodies of first my mother and then my father. Dead bodies, including those of deeply cherished loved ones…

OPINION: WHY MCP & UTM MIGHT NOT WORK TOGETHER IN PURSUIT OF A NULLIFICATION — ELECTORAL POLITICS Below are a few brief remarks on the political incentives operating in the post-inauguration period in Malawi after the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) declared the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Peter Mutharika winner of…

Letter to a Fictional “God-Fearing” Nation Opening Prayer: Dear God, any similarities to actual persons or events in this piece are purely coincidental. In Jesus’ name, Amen. I am a non-believer: I prefer this term to atheist which has become a code word for the activities of privileged white European…