Talk:2011 Malawian Air Fouling Legislation

This Article Is About Nothing of Consequence

I believe that this article has no merit, and has been written for the sole reason of discrediting George Chaponda, the Minister of Justice at the time.

The "farting" interpretation of "vitiating the air" was initiated by the anti-government press in Malawi, and sensationalised around the World by the foreign gutter press. The incompetent, Malawian authorities made no effort to inform the public of the actual wording of the Bill, or what its intended purpose was. A few days after the story had become an international one, Chaponda was giving a general interview on a radio show. At one point the interviewer started to badger Chaponda about the fictitious farting-law, and kept repeating the word "fart/farting". Chaponda became flustered, and started rambling. In confusion he said that public farting was bad, that one should go to a toilet to release it, and appeared to vigorously defend its being made illegal in the proposed Bill. His confused words were immediately pounced on by critics of himself, and the administration to which he belongs, and were elevated by them to an official statement that public farting would be made illegal.

No changes to the proposed Bill were needed, Public farting in Malawi remains legal, just as it is elsewhere in the World.

The radio interview is at http://www.malawithewarmheart.com/interviews.php?linkid=16841, and the farting nonsense begins at 20½ minutes into it.

This Wikipedia article should be deleted. Peter Nkosi (talk) 13:13, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

• As the main author, I can assure you that I simply came across the stub and expanded it in a lighthearted mood. I know next to nothing about Malawian politics and had no sinister intent. You could request deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. I doubt that it would be accepted. The subject is clearly notable according to the main criterion used in Wikipedia: a number of reliable independent sources took note of it. As you say, although the incident was silly it did illustrate incompetence in the reaction of the authorities, which was compounded by Chaponda's poor performance in the interview, and caused a sensation in the foreign gutter press. At a more serious level, if we start to remove articles or edit their content so they do not give offense to politicians we would be drifting into very dangerous territory. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:16, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

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Aymatth2, thank you for explaining the origin of the article.

I want to emphasise that I was not trying to defend any politicians and that I do not care about their feelings, or if they are offended. I wanted to point out that there was never any intention of banning public farting in Malawi, despite what some of your unreliable sources may have said. If the subject is clearly notable, then it is not because of any farting-ban as such, but about how a fake story can be quickly spread around the World on the internet, being picked-up by lazy, unprofessional journalists to fill a space in their newspaper. Celebrities who need something to say, so that can get a bit of publicity in the press, then spout their 2 cents worth, giving the issue further exposure. Because "a number of reliable independent sources took note of it" does not make the story true.

The stub for this article started off with a single BBC reference (published 04-Feb), which tried to give a balanced report about the misinterpretation being put on the wording of the new law. The false story had been concocted and propagated 1½ weeks earlier by two biased articles published by Nyasa Times (NT), an insanely anti-government, on-line, and unregulated newspaper. The first article (25/26-Jan) begins with "farting" as its first word, and does not once mention the actual wording of the proposed law. The second article by NT (30-Jan), your reference #8, bragged how their first one had captured the attention of the World, but still did not mention the exact wording. That was left to the BBC article to reveal, ie "vitiating the air". Neither of the NT articles is available any longer on-line from their website, but I found them at.

First: http://testing.iq4news.com:80/feed/farting-be-punishable-local-courts

Second: http://shelleyzross.com/2011/01/31/law-and-odor-malawi-president-to-make-breaking-wind-a-crime/

I am going to let you win this debate, because I am not clever enough to understand the procedure for deleting articles. Also, you as a Wikiboss predict that I will fail to have it removed. In any case, from your talk page I see that:

"Wikipedia's goal is not to present the truth about each topic but to present what is thought about each topic, giving greatest weight to the most widely held opinions."

So, what we have here is an article written by someone for a laugh, and who knows next to nothing about Malawian politics. The justification for not deleting it will be that the false story was reported extensively on the internet, and that enough people believe it, so it must prevail, because it is far more interesting than the truth.

Finally, there is another Wikipedia article which includes this false, farting issue, viz "Traditional Courts in Malawi"; it looks like you contributed to that too. This simple villager gives up, and acknowledges that The First World Knows Best.Peter Nkosi (talk) 09:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)