Global Voices Online

In recent years, Malawi's soccer scene has been less exciting due to poor performance of national team, The Flames. Its performance has attracted a number of bloggers calling for action now. At the heart of the matter are issues of coaching and finances. Such problems have not only affected the national team but also many clubs. Malawaian bloggers look at the whole situation from different angles.

Peter Jere in his post Malawi National Team: What is the problem and way forward? he muses over his own early days when there was no tv in Malawi yet he could follow the game. He shows pride in Malawi's soccer history but wonders at the poor performance. He has someone to blame though:

Let me agree with those who blame the football administrators in Malawi. In additional to players, these people are killing football. They all know what used to happening in football for a player to be identified and pick for training. They all know that we used to having the coca-cola trophy where teams all over the country compete. They also know we used to having regional select that were competing and out of that prayers were identified. But it’s a shock that the same people went through this process this time around fail to do like wise in Malawi soccer. They were suppose to force matters and make sure that Football standards are maintained and that we maintain our tradition in national team player identification…. Finally, let us do something about our nation time we are to retain our old glory.

Austin Madinga's Big Mouth blog deals with one particular issue: Coaching. Having found some green pasture after some hustles with local sports field, Madinga gives a fare well to a veteran soccer player and coach, Kinnah Phiri.

Happily for me he was suddenly whisked away by South African premier outfit Free State Stars to mentor the boys there. Oh, am so happy for him! So am I happy to get to hear much less of him! Fare thee well Kinnah!

However, a Malawian blogger based in Bermuda, Kondwani Moyo gives more insight into the soccer problems in the country in a post titled Don’t blame Constantine Yet!!!!!!!!!!! :

Further to the talent we have, we have also seen great coaches come in and go. Manfred Hoener was in the country and he left, Alan Gillet came and he went, Kim Spliedsboel came and left, the said controversial Bukhard Ziese came and left, many others came and went but results never came except for Kim who had exploits in the Cosafa Castile Cup. I think we have had good coaches and excellent talent. If we failed to get results, then something is wrong somewhere, and I don’t think one person is responsible, especially someone who has been in charge for less than a year. There are several problems I have noted in most Malawians – by this I don’t mean non-Malawians are any better, I only know one group of people and that is Malawians. I list below some of the general problems I have seen:

1. Lack of resources
2. Lack of continuity
3. Poor football administration
4. Sports is generally not encouraged as a stand alone career
5. Some of our talent cannot handle fame and celebrity status
6. Lack of government serious commitment to sports in general
7. Envy and lack of respect for each other, resulting from unhealthy competition for positions and influence.
8. Because of the above, we want to apportion the blame on our expatriate coaches who we praise before and soon after hiring them, and blame them for failing to deliver after 5 games, which in turn will lead to……….
9. Hiring another expatriate coach, and another and another and another, without sorting out the root of the problem.

A Psalm for the President

Sunday 15th July was declared a national day of prayer in Malawi. President Dr Bingu wa Mutharika had called for divine intervention following an impasse on the National Budget. Opposition members of Malawi National Assembly have refused to pass the budget. The opposition demands that the speaker first effects their petitions to declare vacant seats of government members who are said to have crossed the floor.

Joe Mlenga attended a Church service and wrote Psalm 1 for Bingu:

Therefore Dr Mutharika needs Godly advice because ultimately all that the president does will prosper and the wicked will be blown away like chaff just like Psalm 1 prophesies. May God speak to President Mutharika at this important time and may the Lord bring close to him only the people that will give him Godly advice and not wicked counsel. May the Malawi leader meditate on God's word day and night. It is well with Malawi and the President. God is working out something and a great shaking will take place and a great repositioning and replacement will occur for the good of the Dr Mutharika and Malawi. Amen!

¹ Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

And while Joe Mlenga provides the Psalm, Peter Jere in South Africa defends the president's decision for the national prayers in a post titled The Power of Prayer.

Firstly we need to know that the fact that the President asked the Church to pray shows that this president believe in God and that he walks with Him. Now since the President walk with God, he is able to see things that are happening in the spiritual realm and also able to take up a spiritual step through prayer. We need to know that it is different when it’s the President calling upon the nation to pray. In the bible, we have many instances where Kings and leaders called upon the Lord for intervention. I don’t have to remind you the many instances in the bible here because they are many. However we need to know that God respect his word when a national leader calls upon His people to pray. God comes down to do what He knows best when it’s about serious issues negatively affecting His people.

Why AIDS deaths in Malawi

A regular diasporic blogger in Malawi's Chichewa language wonders why so many people catch HIV and die of AIDS in Africa and not in Europe, where he claims that sexual immorality is rampant. He doubts the claim that AIDS is linked to sex and therefore believes and agrees with Thabo Mbeki that AIDS is a disease of poverty:

Kusanena mosapyatira mawu, azungu kuno amapanga chisembwere (sex) mwachisawawa mwinanso kuposa mmene anthu amapangira kumudzi kuja. Asapitetu kokamwa zakumwa zowawa, ndiye kuti akamachoka kumeneko agwetsa (one night stand). Achinyamata achichepere (teenagers) ndiye amangogonana mwachisawawa http://living.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1251&id=1567992006 , zomwe ndikuwona kuti sitingafananize ndi momwe achinyamata achichepere ku Malawi amachichitira za chisembwere. Azimayi ndi azibambo kusintha amuna kapena akazi ogona nawo imeneyo sinkhani. Izitu ndizomwe mmalawikutheba wakhala akuona ndimanso ake komanso anthu ena azofufuza achitirapo ndemanga http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6101970.stm. Ndiyeno ngati zinthu ziri choncho ndi chifukwa chiyani kumudzi kuja anthu ambiri mbiri akufa ndi za ma edzi. Pamene pa nkhani ya chisembwereyi machitidwe ake sitikusiyana kweni kweni. Mwinatu titi edzi ndi ya amphawi, as Thabo Mbeki put it ‘disease of poverty' Ndikafika pamenepo nzeru zatha. This world of ours!

Without beating about the bush, Europeans are very promiscuous sometimes even more than my home folks. If they go drinking, they end up having sex with someone (one night stand). Youths are even worse, having anytime anyhow and I think this is not how our boys and girls back home. Men and women just change sex partners anytime and anyhow. This is what I have seen here in foreign lands. And if the situation here, why is it that many people die of AIDS back home? Why not here in Europe? May be we should say AIDS is a disease for the poor as Thabo Mbeki put it ‘disease of poverty'

Malawi blogger campaign for SourceForge.

A Software Developer and System Administrator with interest in cross-platform, open source software, Soyapi Mumba takes time to explain the good side of SourceForge.

You see, for desktop apps, SourceForge provides open source projects with download services so that users can download and then install your application. But web applications don't need downloading, rather, support for various server-side scripting languages, server side database access, monitoring tools and bandwidth. The requirements are different. For the non-commercials users, the “Sourceforge for Web2.0″ can run mandatory ads on every application and impose bandwidth restrictions. You can then allow developers to run their own ads and provide them with monitoring tools so they see for themselves when it's time to go “pro”. That should be workable, right?