Bingu wins again

Bingu Wa Mutharika has officially been re-elected as Malawi's president. Many people are happy about this and I think I am, too. While I was driving around yesterday, I saw this sticker:

In case you can't read it, it says "Be proud of Malawi. Peaceful Elections. YES WE CAN!"

I had seen it a few months ago, too and laughed because of how much it resembles Obama's famous "Yes we can!" line. Africans love Obama, so much so that they actually have an Obama chitenje.


When I saw it yesterday, after the elections have come and gone, I was actually encouraged by it. Obama says "yes we can" to change. What kinds of change, I am not quite sure about. I don't remember him being too specific. It seems to me like Obama wants to change everything and anything, perhaps the world, which is a little too idealistic for me. Attempting to change everything may not be a good thing, maybe it will....who knows. Malawians know that their government isn't perfect. They know that Bingu isn't perfect. They also know that it cannot be perfect, not in this life time. They just wanted to have peaceful elections unlike so many of their neighboring countries. They set a reasonable goal and encouraged their people to meet that goal. I am thankful for the Malawian people and for their peaceful nation.

Although America is peaceful in theory, during our elections people can get pretty rough with each other. I was in the the Academy staff lounge this week talking about politics with some co-workers. They disagreed completely and voted for different people, but always were polite and even laughing with each other during their debate. America could learn something from Malawi.