"You may own the country, but we have all the money"

One of the things that surprised me after I had arrived in Malawi and had looked around for a little while is that a significant part of Malawians is of Indian decent. Even though they have been here for generations – I guess since the time when both India and Malawi were part of the great British Empire – they have not integrated with the African Malawians at all. They are not very visible in the streets, politics, offices or public transport. They pretty much mind their own business. Or rather: businesses. Because that is what they do: they run most of the businesses in Malawi. And boy, are they doing well for themselves, here in one of the poorest countries in the world. Most of them are very rich indeed. Which leads to their comparative invisibility in public life. They do not walk, cycle or ride mini-buses like the Africans do: they drive around in very expensive cars and live in very big mansions that have very high barbed-wired walls around them.

Having said that though, in another way entirely they are too very visible in the public sphere. Lilongwe’s old city centre’s ‘skyline’ is dominated by two enormous mosques. It is quite an unexpected sight when you first happen upon them. In a country where 80 percent of the population is Christian, in its main street there is not a building to be found that looks like a church. Whereas the 15% that is Muslim not only own all the shops in the high street but have managed to build their houses of worship there as well. This bizarre divide between the small but very rich ‘immigrant’ population and a majority of poor Africans sometimes gives rise to – in my mind - painful scenes. Like this one, which takes place every Friday lunch time:

Here is a gathering of penniless African women waiting for a hand-out from Indians driving out of the gates of the mosque in their Mercedes and BMW’s after the Friday service. Another such painful experience is watching Indian shop owners at work in their establishments. They sit on an elevated structure near the cash register, looking down from up-high into the till that is operated by an African, overseeing the rest of the shop and generally bossing their staff around. It is truly depressing.

Predictably, Indians do not seem to be particularly popular amongst Malawians. Maybe it is because of these labour relations that remind of the Industrial Revolution, maybe it is because of the smug phrase they sometimes use to indicate the difference between themselves and the native Malawians: “You may own the country, but we have all the money.” I wonder what sensitive soul came up with that beauty? In any case not the friendly Indian business woman I met in her new restaurant just 20 metres past the mosque. Here we had a long and interesting chat about how she had started out. Having immigrated only 5 years ago, she and her husband now owned 2 businesses. Actually, even as we were talking she was in the process of starting business number 3: an internet café at the back of her restaurant. But the main reason they had immigrated to Malawi was not business, it was religion. It turned out I was talking to a converted Hindu: she was the first minister of the First Asian Pentecostal Church of Malawi…