“We are gagged and brainwashed that we can’t write objectively. Our fingers are twisted that we can’t hold a pen. Our feathers are clipped and out legs chained.”
Reads a Malawian poem of protest, during the reign of President Banda.
You may say, that was then. What does it have to do in this our modern world, you may ask.
If the Malawian protest poem relevance today eludes you, among plausible explanations is that you are of mental ill-health – brainwashed.
All around us all over the world, the elements of the Malawian poem pervade, are elevated and prevail as the norm.
And I despair.
Sometimes back, when our nation’s population was 40 million we had only 30 psychiatrists, but with 500+ members of parliament.
How else can you explain this gross anomaly if not a nation in significant mental ill-health?
As in significantly brainwashed, unable to be objective.
A nation seemingly cheering on its dispossession of its fundamental human rights; and at an exorbitant cost to its population – materially and mentally.
Sadly, the status quo of insufficient public mental healthcare services isn’t an outlier. It seems the norm across public services provision in general.
Well, 2026 estimates suggest that we, Ugandans, are now a population of over 52 million.
This week the multiple-days long swearing in of our ‘newly’ elected leaders will chew up significant resources.
Yes, the number of members of parliament remains 500+ strong and going higher.
How things remains the same now as it were then; I dare say worse may be?
They come into ‘power’ at a time when a piece of legislation that scares me deeply is awaiting sign off by the ‘newly elected’ president.
A bill I am told is good for me, but one that I feel curtails my ideal life.
Food for thought, it is poetic that President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of Malawi, reigned from 6th July 1996 to 24th May 1994 when he lost the first multi-party elections in Malawi.
Happy reflective week!
the Humanist view 
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