Malawi - 100 Reasons Not to Celebrate 'Independence'

Ah, 6 July. Another opportunity for Malawians to pretend to celebrate independence. At least now it's just the pretense, when Kamuzu ruled the land, it was like North Korea up in this place. You couldn’t even breathe lest the state and its regime thuggery deem you unpatriotic.

We shouldn’t be celebrating independence and here are some reasons why. In summary, we shouldn’t be celebrating because we are actually not independent. Let me explain:

I will not bother you with the figures, but we are deeply DEPENDENT on foreign aid. I don’t know of an election that we funded using our own money and at some point, 40 percent of our budget was funded by white people and that is still true now, I think.   

Malawi the shithole

We RELY on the world bank and EU and USAID for grants and loans. Forget that we totally mess up the money when we get it, like the time we took a huge loan from China to build a stadium which we cannot use or when we got huge loans to build toilets or that time, we got a loan and bought faulty tractors from India.

Look around now, with COVID running riot, we need the international community to give us vaccines. If the Global Fund and the Bill Gates of this world stopped funding our hospitals, deaths would spike tomorrow. Malawians get to go to hospital for free and get ART for free because of donors.

Malawians can spew out babies like rabbits because they know that the donors will step in with handouts of mosquito nets for their malaria, water treatment drugs and even essential drugs in case one of their seven babies gets sick.

Malawians

At some point the Norwegians were paying part of our doctor’s salaries and if you ever go to a health institution, it's Europe everywhere. From the Library at College of Medicine to cancer wards and machines that matter at our hospitals.

It is as if white people feel so guilty of being racist in the past that they give us all we need at the basic level.

Wouldn’t you agree that the ‘Independence’ day should instead be a day to thank white people for all they have done and keep doping to our undeserving shithole of a country?

Yes, I said shithole because when Donald Trump said it he was deemed racist, but as someone who comes from the poorest country and having lived in the high-density areas there, I can assure you, we do indeed live side by side with shit. We are shit. Go to Blantyre or Tsoka Market and see where they place the fish for sale or the water they use to clean your vegetables…but don’t worry, if at all cholera breaks out, aid flows in.

Talk of training, essential government personnel have to wait for Israel or the UK or the US to offer them training, otherwise government wouldn’t have its civil servants going for further studies.  In the end, we are always toeing the line of the donors because they dictate how we behave after attending their schools or using their funds to attain skills.

Talk of schools, when I was growing up all books were printed with help from Canada and when the primary schools became free, the costs were mostly pushed to, you guessed it, white people.

 

We use the English language in school and offices and to have any sort of status, you need to know English – that is not independence because it just so happens that English is the language of our former masters.

We cherish a good bottle of sprite; our music is American and our movies too. We cannot point to any genre as being Malawian and our dress our food is all heavily influenced from the outside, just like a dependent nation.

Our biggest cash crops are tobacco and tea all cater to demands in Europe. If white people say we don’t want to smoke, we have no economy, if white people say we want to buy it at 1 dollar per kilo, we also have no choice. As such we are dependent not the other way round.

All Goes in Malawi

The same goes for the other part of the economy, we use the SWIFT system, have to buy oil in dollars and we cannot even ban the sale of second-hand clothes that choke local manufacturing capacity lest we anger the Americans. We are dependent.

While we export seeds and leaves, we import everything else from paint to sofas to radios even if the wood that was used to make the sofas is from right here. And that is a classic case of dependence, my people.

The technology is all foreign, we cannot even make toothpicks around here, if Google says it's blocking Malawi, we will be stuck with Bing and the list goes on. We are dependent, I said.

What is Malawian philosophy? What great theory has come out of Malawi so far? See? We are humanists, democrats, and we love Jesus and Muhammad and most of our local myths are based on Sophocles or Aesop. That is dependence because the Indians will tell you tales of Shiva and The Persians and Arabs will quote from their history and we have nothing. It's why we try hard to make some people like Kamuzu appear heroic when they are really just despots.

We love and need European Aid 

Our government is based on Greek texts and dictated to us by white folk and most treaties we sign and adhere to are all minted in white boardrooms.

What are we free to do? How independent are we? Independent from who? From What? Britain? Our biggest donor? The giver of English? The prime destination for our doctors? The owners of the CCAP churches?

 So, lets gather in our hootenannies and thank the white man for all he has and keeps doing, what would we be without him and on this day, let us celebrate our dependence without making it ironic.

Chewas think they made it in life

 The Chewa Heritage Foundation is looking for Chewa CVs. NonChewas need not apply! They want to see which Chewas have skills, you know, there might be some vacancies that might need a Chewa candidate in the Tonse future.

Though they are frantically trying to walk away from the release, two journalists have authenticated the release. They can deny it all they want; it is only because of the furore.

Nyau -Gold Standard of  'Malawian Culture'

We love our Chewa brothers, the history of Malawi is in part the history of the Chewas, but someone needs to call them out on their never-ending tribal myopia and mania.

Chewas came to Malawi in the 1500s, they found this land occupied by short people who they called Akafula. They brutally murdered them in what can be argued as the first ever genocide. I say this to highlight the fact that they should know that they came here from elsewhere, just like the rest of us. The only people who were here before history, we killed them all.

Chewas by and large learned how to trade and live with others and endure modern problems such as slavery and colonialism together. From Chilembwe to Yatuta Chisiza, Malawians of all tribal calling stood up until they took down white rule.

As soon as the country won the war over colonial rule, however, Chewacentrism reared its ugly head. Kamuzu was put at the centre of Malawi and his policies were to be Chewacentric. Malawians have never had a frank discussion on how tribal thought gave us that dictator.

He moved the capital from Zomba to a dusty patch close to his tribal homeland, he filled government positions with his tribesmen. The ‘new‘ country was to be named after their kingdom and while that was only fair since they were/are the dominant group, they started pushing it.

The Shameless Release

Tumbuka, among other tribal languages, was taught in schools, they stopped it, they held book-burning sessions just like the dark ages or Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

They did not want teachers from the north, so they sent them packing and forcibly transferred them away from the Chewa heartland.

Quota System was first implemented by a heavily Chewanised administration. People had to change names to make them sound Chewa to make it in life.

They made their tribal language the national language and set up a Chichewa Board at Chancellor College, funnelled money into developing their language. Even Yao children grew up learning ‘Maliro ndi Miyambo ya a Chewa’ as if they didn’t have their own rites. You see. they justify it as trying to promote national unity, but notice how they only want others to erase their identities and adopt theirs. Strange unity, this.

Just like before, Malawians of all calling banded together to fight the Chewacentric MCP tyranny. People lost their lives and some families will never be whole again because they stuck their neck out and dared a Chewa backed Kamuzu. Malawi won.

For the record, Most Chewas voted against multiparty politics in the early 90s, they also overwhelmingly voted for MCP in the following general elections - meaning to say - they wanted Kamuzu Banda to stay on.

As a matter of fact, no matter what any other candidate says, the Chewa block always largely votes MCP nonetheless. They are a tribal cabal by definition.

When the Mutharika dynasty rose up and plunged Malawi into another sunken phase, Malawians rose up again from Timothy Mtambo, who can barely speak Chichewa, to Winiko. Malawi rose up again and won.

As soon as MCP got back in power, it seems the old thinking still exists.

Many people are comparing the latest move by the Chewa body to Mhlakho wa Ahlomwe, they are wrong. What the Lhomwe were doing was just them trying to do what the Chewas started back in the Kamuzu days. The Chewa wrote the tribalism book.

So, what do we do now? Well, Chewas will not change in our lifetimes, they are always going to feel like the rest of us are deputy Malawians, after all we speak their language, when one googles ‘Malawian culture,’ their Nyau comes up. Let them be, the solution to the folly lies in two things that you might not be thinking of: A strong UTM and 50+1!

As soon as they try to make Malawi a Chewa project, UTM should get out of the Tonse Alliance and band with another party that will starve them of the votes needed to make government in the 50+1 system. Let them be MCP/Chewa and let them face the rest of the country at the ballot.

Maybe it is a mistake to pretend that they are superior. Maybe it is time someone got an injunction against teaching Chichewa to nonChewa people. Maybe it is time we made all languages in Malawi official.

Give us dictatorship - Chewa voting patterns in 93 Referendum

You see a Chewa man can live in Nkhatabay for forty years and not even learn the local language because they feel others must bow to their culture. When someone speaks Chichewa with Yao or Lhomwe accent they also get laughed at because you see, you can never be Chewa if you are not.

Time to end the hegemony. If they want a kingdom, we can split up the country, it's not like we would mind not being in the same country with our Nyau-wearing, rat-eating neighbours. What will we lose?  

If they feel this is their country, then we can let them have it. 

The truth is, Chewa districts harbour some of the poorest Malawians, if you go to Nsundwe it's not uncommon for Nyau to raid a market and take other people's property, they also harbour some of the biggest illiterate folk and we saw how they needed a whole 21 point to enter college under quota. 

Instead of trying to band with the rest of the country to uplift the nation and make it better, they don't want to leave their 1800 thought behind. Some are very proud to be ignorant and the entitlement of some is sickening. They behave as if everyone in Lilongwe or government should pay homage to the Chewa landowners and kings. 

Politicians love them poor, ignorant. They lionize Kamuzu Banda and make them blindly vote MCP because they are promised entitlement. They believe that they need to be fed and petted like precious dogs. 

Someone had to say it.

Disclaimer: I am not a subject of Gawa Undi, in fact, fuck Gawa Undi and he can send me his CV, I am out of tissue paper. 

 

 

 

I have no regrets; Tembo looks back at his life lived so far

He has been at the head of the central bank, University of Malawi,  Press Corporation, he has been ministers and is considered to be the closest crony Kamuzu Banda has, so far he is the longest serving parliamentarian in Malawi and heads the opposition in Parliament, but that is far from being all that makes John Zenus Ungapake Tembo.

I landed an exclusive with John Tembo on condition that I will stick to my promise that I will not ask political questions; of course we both knew that was not true for a man like Tembo.

No regrets for me...

I was ushered into his Area 10 house’s living room at exactly 2:10 pm, I was made to wait for a couple of minutes and I wondered what the interview would be like, with the man that had been a politician over thirty years before I was born.

He is definitely a collector, his living room which spans the size of a volleyball court is laden with vintage ornaments, and four sets of Ivory block the fireplace, pure copper bowls and containers fill cabinets, gold plated gourds…

A painting the size of a three-quarter bed hangs over the fireplace, there are several over picture frames but among them, the biggest picture of a person is of Kamuzu, a youthful Kamuzu standing behind a chair and placing his hands on it, whoever lives in this house, I concluded, must love Kamuzu Banda.

“very close in as much as a politician, a president of a party later on of a nation…I became a very senior follower of Kamuzu and royal to him, I became a royal servant of Kamuzu which I am still, although he is late, I pledged royalty to him and I pledge royalty now, to him to the foundations of his policy in the party and in the government,” he said, slowly.

Those who say Kamuzu was dictator have wrong literature, to Tembo kamuzu was not a dictator, he was a nationalist and a fighter for freedom, democracy which today’s youths should actually emulate.

He said the fact that Kamuzu left his medicine practice in Ghana and Europe to liberate Malawians from bondage speaks of the man Kamuzu was.

Tembo sees little difference between the politics of 1961 and now and actually said democracy was there too it is why Kamuzu had a competitor of the United Federal Party member from Kasungu and himself opposed by a Mr. Mwase in his Dedza constituency.

Tembo had a smooth run in the thirty or so years Kamuzu Banda was in power, most of Kamuzu's friends fell out of grace and were exiled, and detained without explanations…I can cite the likes of Jen Mlanga and Focus Gwede.

After MCP was voted out of the limelight at the start of the 90s, Bakili Muluzi was to become of on John Tembo's worst nightmares, he was constantly telling Malawians that Tembo has blood on his hands  and knows something of the 1983 Mwanza murders in which four prominent cabinet ministers were mysteriously slain.

And yet Tembo was soon working with Bakili Muluzi, did he not feel bitter over the court hustles that the Muluzi regime dragged him through?

“Dr. Muluzi and I speak to each other now …if you ask him properly he will tell you that it was all wrong to accuse me of murder, I went through a lot of bad things in the opposition, I was arrested several times, went to jail several times I was acquitted in all of them.

"I think anybody who holds and maintains hatred in his heart is not a politician, he is a crook,” he said, then paused allowing me to take down his exact words.

But I was unconvinced, all this talk about Banda being a dictator about murders such as that of Mkwapatira Mhango has to have a basis, so if Kamuzu was not a dictator and Tembo clean in all the dark ages Decades Malawi went through, why is Kamuzu's name still crimson?

“It’s his political enemies beginning with the colonialists...after all the colonialists imprisoned Kamuzu and even sent him to Gweru in Rhodesia and knew later it was wrong this is why he became the first prime minister of this country they knew he was fighting for the poor,” said Tembo, briefly disturbed by a phone call.

The Manchester United fan, a mug sits on one of the shelves to certify his claim. He says he loves reading politics, sports and philosophy and has a lot of books in his private studies at his Area 10 and Blantyre residences.

His secretary Mrs. Chinangwa is busy seeing to parliamentary bills that Tembo will be seeing to as leader of opposition. But at 80, something looks normal; he looks 50 and still very active, active as a 35 year old. I had to ask, what is his survival kit made of?

Well, he used to play soccer and do athletics but that was in his youth.

“I live well, I eat well and I look after myself, I am active in life. Old age is what a person thinks about himself: Some people are old so early and some are young so late in life, it depends on the mental interest of the person,” He said, still inserting pauses in his speech stride.

Despite taking pride in his wife, Ruth who he said is a great cook and a professional dietician; he still maintained that food is just a small part of life.

And then he dwelt on his wife; he first met her when he was a university chap in Lesotho and her in secondary school and the next time he met her in London some years later, he could not wait another moment.

Was he ashy guy so as to meet a girl in college and wait till he was a minister to ask her out?

“A proposal is made when you are ready to propose marriage and when you propose marriage it means you know the person…at the time we were both mature, she is the one god chose for me. She is a magnanimous woman, very loving, very responsible and a very straight Christian,” said Tembo

After dating her for three years, he married her in 1969. He boast of her England trained culinary prowess, he married her while she worked as a dietician at a Leeds hospital.

“She is an excellent cook, I grew up eating nsima, and up to bow I like nsima with ndiwo, whether its vegetables, meat or fish,” said Tembo.

As a person, Tembo revealed that his principals are linked to his growing up in the village where he herded his grandmother’s sheep, goats and cattle, gardening and doing almost all that the village puts to a youth man.

With a Christian background of a father who started as a teacher and ending up as a reverend, Tembo remembers his father as a very kind person who liked people with people liking him back, he along his 8 siblings had to move from mission to mission.

“My father was a reverend of the CCAP church…very disciplined, he taught all his children to be disciplined, you should also ask about my mother, she was a very kind and generous woman, everybody who visited her house did not leave without eating something, that was her philosophy,” said Tembo.

He says he is proud father, saying he never used a rod on his children and let associations in school and society. All of them graduates and working outside Malawi.

After teaching for a brief stint, Tembo joined politics and he says his success in politics stems from the fact that since his youth he has always been committed to people and his experience in teaching and head mastering fostered his values of excellence and discipline.

On the upcoming MCP convention where a few young brains are ready to take him on for the post of the MCP presidency, Tembo could not only say that he is barring no one and said those declaring that they are candidates are not bonafide MPC members because the convention is the one supposed to decide that.

“The choice of candidates is the responsibility of the convention, it’s not therefore my responsibility to break the rules, regulations and tradition of the MCP and start saying I am the candidate, I will stand as a candidate, it’s not for me, it’s the responsibility of the people of the MCP if you find anyone saying I will be, he is not a member of the MCP, he is not, he is somebody who is trying to exploit members of the MCP,” said Tembo, rattled.

On the quality of the debate of the Malawi Parliament, Tembo bemoaned the immature people who come to parliament to get rich.

“When you find people becoming MP of this political party next time they join another, and another time they join another, those are not politicians. Multiparty politics does not mean prostitution of one’s life in politics,” charged Tembo.

He vehemently denied the rumours that went to town that he was on the card to being the second vice president in the Joyce Banda’s regime.

He also trashed the accusations that he is now a lesser opposition politician because President Banda has appointed his son and relatives to top positions namely Nancy Tembo to the Electoral Commission and Tembo’s own son to the diplomatic office in England.

“Never, I mean people who say that don’t even know who president Joyce Banda is and who I am...they don’t know… do you think I am in a position to go to a president of a country to say go and appoint Morgan Tembo to this or his wife that or my son to that?

“Do they think I can do that? It shows ignorance: No Malawian citizen is barred from appointment in the government if qualified,” said Tembo.

On Bingu Wa Mutharika’s leadership, Tembo just had a sentence on it.

“Argghh it was hopeless, declamatory …he destroyed the foundation and dignity of this country,” said Tembo and refused to expound.

He reminds me that his life is not over to describe his highs and lows and proudly declared that he has no regrets, whatever came to his life bad or good he took it, moved on

“I haven’t reached my highest point [in life]…In a normal life of person, you take the full range of experience, but there is no experience I regret for,” said Tembo.

“I have never changed, I stick to my principles…I believe in the dignity and life as a Malawian and of Malawians…I believe in the dignity of African, there are people such as Nkrumah, Sékou Touré, Kenyatta who have inspired me…,” said Tembo.

He revealed that he is a musical person and enjoys classical music, he enjoys listening to his daughter who when she come from overseas plays the piano and the classical guitar.

An extensive traveler, boasting that he has been everywhere in all the continents and the only significant country he has not been is Australia.

On the current situation rotten economy Malawi is swimming in, Tembo said Malawians need to focus of agriculture and be handworkers.

“We have to develop our own country, we must be hardworking, this country is agricultural, priority must be given to agriculture, over 80 percent of our people live in the rural areas and are involved in agriculture…”

Still on the economy, Tembo said the current bad economy is partly due to bad economic management saying the current standing of the Kwacha to the Dollar speaks for itself, when he was Reserve Bank governor, he says Kwacha was at K2 to a the British Pound which he said was no mean feat.

He also rained on the people that have led to the woes rocking the University of Malawi where some students at Bunda had to live in grass thatched houses and some are currently being housed where there used to store cement, among other woes.

“The people that led to that are not serious, university education should be university education, you only do what you can afford and develop quality students,” said Tembo.

Matchipisa Munthali, The Malawian Mandela, Still Strong at 87

(Cannot reveal more details in this article, wait for his book: Matchipisa: An Autobiography which is being written now, i will edit it myself!)

27 years in prison under Kamuzu’s rule has earned him the nickname “Mandela,” at 87, he has not given up on politics…

He says he will stand again for the position of MP in 2014 if people want him to, he won’t say the party he will represent but he swears standing for DPP will be madness.

“DPP is the worst regime ever, MCP’s brutality was acceptable because people were illiterate and we were under one party,” he charges.

That is Matchipisa Munthali born 15 August 1925; a rich man by any standard: in his prime he had 22 canoes, 2 trawl nets, 30 cows, 22 goats, 13 sheep, 7 houses in Rumphi, 7 houses in Mzuzu, two Tata Trucks, 1 Toyota Venture, a Rest House, A bottle store and has a boat under construction and a deep water trawling license being processed.



Grace and Matchipi - Still Growing Strong 



He was arrested for his active role around the cabinet crisis period since he was Kanyama Chiume’s representative and a popular politician in Rumphi. He fled to Tanzania and went to China where he studied guerrilla warfare and he boasts of coming out top of his class.

Upon arrival in Malawi with his guns, he was arrested as he was trying to recruit rebels and was charged with high treason, he was convicted and sentenced to five years and the government kept on holding to him after the sentence under the ‘Prevention Act.’

Matchipisa says he actually planned to form a party (Malawi Democratic People’s Party) and when Chakufwa Chihana also said he had a party in mind when they met at Maula prison, the two agreed that whoever goes out first will announce party first.

He was released on 12 June 1992 and after suing government for wrongful arrest he was given K4.5 million which still sets him apart from many ex-cons.

He has lost three times as Member of Parliament and he is not giving up yet. In 1997 he stood as an independent, in 2004 he represented as UDF and in 2009 as independent again.

“Chakufwa feared me, he instructed people not to invite me to executive meetings when I was in Aford, he intimidated people in my constituency and sponsored violence when I was standing as an independent MP in 1997, he even dressed me down at a rally in Rumphi,” said Matchipisa.

Matchipisa says he will stand again in 2014 if his people ask him to. He is still strong, he manages his wealth alone, he travels long distances on foot and the only ailment he has is that to speak to him you have to speak louder.

“I think staying in prison is the reason I am healthy, all my contemporaries are too old, it must be the prison food and it’s why I don’t eat hybrid chicken up to now,” says Matchipisa.



Mandela's Stone House at Mlowe



He is involved in multiple charity projects, he was instrumental in bringing electricity to Mlowe, he dug deep to help build Mlowe Community Day Secondary School, he has built houses for his sisters, he has lorries that ferry people to and from Mlowe since the bus services stopped.

“For me being an MP is not about making a name or getting the money, I want to help the community, I just want to develop the area, and it’s why I built a rest house, bottle store here.”

The most interesting story about ‘Mandela’ is when he wrote his wife Grace Nkhwazi from prison to get married and went to reclaim her after coming out of prison, not many can take back a wife after 20 or so years with another man.

Kamuzu Must Die From Malawi’s History- Celebrating Him Is Satanic

By Bright Mhango

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, to some Malawians and Africans, was a statesman worthy emulating and that he has to be celebrated and given a special place in Malawi’s History. To others, like me, celebrating Kamuzu is like re-installing Adolf Hitler as Germany’s Chancellor. In this rant, I will raise reasons why Kamuzu should only be celebrated by witches.

I will start by dispelling the myth that Kamuzu was the one who fought for independence for Malawi, and that he was a good man.

When the four Young Turks; Masauko Chipembere, Dunduzu and Yatuta Chisiza, Kanyama Chiume plus Orton Chirwa launched their opposition against the 1953 Federation of Nyasaland and Rhodesia, Kamuzu was in England. He refused to come to Malawi fearing that his extended family would prey on his money even though Nyasaland had paid part of his fees for him to become a doctor in Malawi.

It was only after he was sued for impregnating his secretary, Mrs. French in England and given marching orders in Ghana for operating an abortion clinic that he came to Malawi. There was nothing patriotic about his refuguish move.

The likes of Masauko Chipembere were doing just fine, the reason they invited Kamuzu was because he was old and thus instrumental in convincing the chiefs that didn’t take the Turks seriously when they preached independence.  Chipembere and Chisiza had already made their names as daredevils and the Hansard was selling like porn because of their revolutionary statements in the white dominated Legislative Council.

It was the young Turks who paraded Kamuzu around Malawi and gave him the post of MCP president on a silver platter. The Turks are the guys that wrote his swaying speeches and did some of the translation; yes translation, because the Malawian who wrote about his tribe in America did not speak his own language.

With the Vocal Turks, Operation Sunrise soon landed Kamuzu and his three mates at Gweru Prison in Zimbabwe where they laid out plans together. When Kamuzu was released and toured the world in the name of leader, his friends languished at Kanjedza. Kamuzu delayed securing their release to make political headway, finally releasing them on the day of the MCP convention in Nkhota Kota where he was made Life president of MCP.

They chanted down the British Babylon together and soon they won independence but Kamuzu wanted all the power; keeping a firm grip on six key ministries and not respecting the Turks and friends in public. The Turks felt like the rest of the Animals in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. They fought together and the pigs wanted it all?

It was only natural that the Turks, just like they did with the ‘Bush Meeting’ that sparked Operation Sunrise, meet again - producing the Kuchawe Manifesto that ultimately sparked the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. It was not even a crisis, the ministers wanted to check Kamuzu’s unjustifiably huge powers. Naturally Kamuzu refused and a vote of no confidence was proposed against him.

 Of course Kamuzu tricked the parliament and stayed on in power, he fired the ministers and the anarchy started.

Orton Chirwa and wife Vera were rewarded with a death sentence becoming Africa’s longest serving prisoners of concise. Dunduzu Chisiza was found dead on the Zomba-Blantyre road, Yatuta was betrayed by his Greek buddy and gunned down, and Chipembere went into exile.

Of course, the court did not find any evidence to nail Kamuzu for the Mwanza murders but what did you expect? What do dictators do with evidence?

As if that is not enough, Kamuzu took a queer attitude towards people from the districts north of Nkhamenya, who for lack of a better term, I will term Northerners. The only crime these people seem to have committed was to embrace Scottish education especially as pioneered by Dr. Robert Laws at Khondowe.

What followed was the banning of ChiTumbuka from MBC and The Daily Times at the onset of the 70’s. I once spoke to Manjawira Msowoya who explained how he and his fellow Northerners were booed at MBC by workmates after the ban was announced, you should have seen the look on his face.

Studies by the likes of Noam Chomsky and Ajit Mohanty suggest that tribal children learn better in their mother tongue at basic level, this was what was going on in Malawi with ChiTumbuka being taken up to JCE level in Tumbuka areas.  Kamuzu pulled out Northern languages from the Syllabus and had all the books burnt.

Tongas and Senas had to study ‘Maliro Ndi Miyambi ya Achewa’ as if they had no funerals and customs. I know a teacher who was slapped for teaching in ChiTumbuka soon after the ban and the church elders at St. Peters Parish in Mzuzu were nearly arrested for preaching in ChiTumbuka.

Unfortunate for the North, 80% of the police stations were filled with Chewa speaking officers to partly enforce the ban and to check rebels. Even today, villagers are forced to speak in Chichewa when being interrogated or giving evidence.

To come from the North was suddenly a problem to Kamuzu; led by John Tembo late in his rule he brought on the Quota system to check the numbers of Northerners in secondary schools and colleges. Brothers and sisters had to shed ‘Northern’ names to adopt those from the Chewa speaking tribes to stand a chance.

Call it what you may but the 1980s deportation of teachers of Northern origin to the North was the most traumatising. It was not just teachers, hundreds fled across the borders and their crime was the same, being Northerners.

If not for a Mr. Jungubawa felling a tree onto the road leading to Livingstonia’s water source, a government 110 defender full of poison would have accomplished its mission. Livingstonia by then was fully behind Chakufwa Chihana’s revolutionary messages.  Of course none of you cares about that genocide attempt, but I do, I was there in Livingstonia. And thanks to the likes of November and Paul Jungubawa, that 110 Defender was evenly smashed and popularity for Chakufwa Chihana trebled.

As if that is not enough, Kamuzu made speeches calling an end to regional discrimination to ironically call for it. While he splashed millions on his pet capital city, he swore not to develop the North and called people from their ‘Rebels.’

My grandfather at Mlowe, the home of Kamplepo Kaluwa and myself, told me that the lakeshore road had to be diverted at Chiweta to pass via Phwezi and Mzuzu to avoid developing the Mlowe and Nkhatabay areas because they were the homes of some of the so called rebels, in fact the so called Northern Corridor was only sanctioned after war in Mozambique made Nacala a bad route. Why such passion at hating and for what? Being a Chirwa or a Chiume?

 I have come to be Northerner because of Kamuzu. My friends are from Lilongwe, Dowa and I from the North. I cannot speak my language elsewhere in Malawi or people will call me names. I am certainly not going to get employed in some companies because I am from the North.

Kamuzu crushed dissent like lice. Good journalism was a crime. Pollock Mhango was detained (1981) for seven years and beaten mad for writing; Mkwapatira Mhango was bombed (1989) in his house killing him, his two wives and five children. This was just after Kamuzu said that facts of his lavish official hostess were being leaked to international media by Mkwapatira and family. Maybe, you cannot feel the gravity because you are not a Mhango.

We cannot pin down what my distant grandfather, Matchipisa Munthali did to deserve 27 years behind bars, or why Atati Mpakati lost, first his fingers, to a parcel Bombing and later his life in a KGB style assassination.

People lived in fear under Kamuzu, I remember being with my grandmother, NyaChikoko when Kamuzu death was announced, she sighed and told stories of how her house was forcibly used as a guest house by MCP officials and how drunkards were clubbed to death by the Malawi Young Pioneers for behaving in a rebel manner.

Miniskirts and long hair were banned while our friends in Jamaica and USA enjoyed hair and bare thigh. Though I was young, I recall how jittery people were at the passing of a plane believed to be carrying the Ngwazi or at the chime of the national anthem. Only the rare breeds partied and gardened during public holidays. Was that not a gaol of some sort?  Smells like Taliban controlled Afghanistan to me.

Yes, you remembered the Youth Week! Good as its intentions were, the implementation was via Chinese channels and that part hurts a lot.

The saga continues

Kamuzu Banda was the only Black Person that thought Apartheid was good. When everybody was breaking ties with South Africa, he was busy strengthening trade links. Here is a guy who criticised the Federation and called for independence of Malawi.

If you are reading this from Lilongwe you should know that you are in the blood city, it was built with funding from the oppressive South Africa. In addition, Kamuzu said at the OAU that Egyptian planes that were scheduled to start bombing South Africa should not pass through Malawi.

Banda’s hypocrisy also played out in Mozambique where he supported both the oppressive Portuguese government and the rebels? How sick is that? Supporting both Renamo and Frelimo resulted into Malawians killing Malawians sometimes as they were in both fighting sides.

The Britons asked to build Bangula dam, which would have been bigger that Sudan’s Gezira Damn but using lame excuses such us the fear of Bilharzias, Kamuzu rejected the move effectively assuming responsibility of today’s blackouts.

Personal enrichment is also another noxious thing about Kamuzu, coming to Malawi as a broke sex scandalist with a medicine career begging to be banned, he died with wealth estimated at half a billion US dollars.  Why the past and current governments haven’t properly looked into his wealth is a question for all of us to ponder on.

This is the guy who clashed with Orton Chirwa on the pace of Africanisation in the 60’s, what does he produce as a solution? Kamuzu Academy. Taking 80% of the budget allocation to education to set up a school that taught Latin and Greek. Did Malawi not need a hundred MCDEs -as they were called?

The guy was a schizophrenic, its why he dubbed himself the mouthful title ‘His Excellency The Life President (Paramount Chief) Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda,’ thirteen years before his death as quoted in The Independent of UK on 27 November 1997, said “Government here means Kamuzu. Kamuzu is Malawi. So be frank when speaking about government. You know you are speaking about Kamuzu, that’s all whether you like it or not.” Is Malawi Kamuzu now?  So this is where Muluzi copied his “afune asafune” phraseology?

All I have been trying to say it that when you celebrate Kamuzu, when you let people that pioneered his policies like John Tembo and when you give respect to queer questionable women like Cecilia Kadzamira, you make some of us shiver. I was shocked to hear that Tembo is now a church elder but I know that’s typical of the church, even Pope Benedict backed gay molesting priests?

When you build grand mausoleums for dictators, adopt their names, policies and name landmarks after them, you make us remember what we are trying hard to forget. I wonder if they have a street named after Hitler in Germany.

Yes we know to many of you he is a hero, of course he is the guy that made you rich, that made your culture and language official, that gave you the ‘elite’ status among your fellow Malawians but if I am to belong to Malawi, it should be that without big brother posters looking down on me and reminding me of the Nazism that I, my kind and others have been through.

Why Malawi SHould Celebrate Kamuzu Banda

By Hastings Ndebvu

“Systems of government are dynamic and they are bound to change in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of the people… During my term of office, I selflessly dedicated myself to the good cause of Mother Malawi in the fight against poverty, ignorance, disease among other issues: but if within the process, those who worked in my government or through false pretence in my name or indeed unknowingly by me, pain and suffering was caused to anybody in this country in the name of nationhood, I offer my sincere apologies. I also appeal for a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness amongst us all.”

 

This is an excerpt of a statement of apology by the country’s first president the late Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda on January 4, 1996 shortly after being acquitted in the infamous Mwanza Trial.

Kamuzu knew he had left behind a two face legacy. One, of a celebrated icon and the other, the bigger one unfortunately, of an iron fisted ruler people would not dilly dally to incorporate in the brackets of the ruthless of dictators to have graced the African continent.

True to the his fears, Kamuzu’s name still splits the political pundits, the intellectuals, the academicians and indeed the men on the street with some hailing the “Lion” as Kamuzu was fondly known, as the greatest leader the country has ever had and others loving to hate the Ngwazi to an extent of calling for a complete edit of the country’s history scrolls just to rid the nation of the what they say is a nauseating and stinking episode of Kamuzu’s rule in the history of the nation.

Granted, Kamuzu, had his flaws, just like his predecessors and successors. Infringements of people’s rights, the ruthless Malawi Young Pioneers, the detentions without trial, the overzealous censorship of works of art and the staged “accidents” that claimed the lives of some innocents sons of this nations indeed left a stain on the fabric of our nation’s history.

But that be as may to suggest that Kamuzu be erased from the annals of our history is toeing a step too far, it is to say the least, throwing a bouncing baby together with the bathwater.

 As former president Bakili Muluzi used to say during his reign, “History safuta ayi, olo ingaipe bwanji! (You do not erase a country’s history, whether it’s good or bad). As a nation, keeping the history of Kamuzu can not only be due to what Atcheya rightly used to say. Rather it is the silver lining to Kamuzu’s cloud that as a nation, we must revel in and take aspirations . The flaws? Should they not  serve as a board the nation should draw its lessons from?

 The Life of Kamuzu Banda, the son to Mphonongo Banda and Akupingamnyama, should

Give Malawians the atleast something to draw pride from. Both as an individual and a leader of our state.

Humble beginning

As an individual, Kamuzu portrayed a never give up and never say die attitude in his quest for a better life.  At a tender age of  13 he  set off, on foot, with his uncle Hannock Msokera Phiri for Hartley, presesent day Zimbabwe, where he, a year later proceeded to Johannesburg to work in the mines in his chase for a better life. Perhaps it is this hardworking attitude  that forced Bishop W.T. Vernon of the African Methodist Church to offer to pay Kamuzu’s tuition fee at A Methodist School in the United States of America on the condition that Kamuzu funds his own passage to Uncle Sam.

His hard work saw him further his education which climaxed in the attainment of a second medical degree from the University of Edinburgh. This however was just a preamble to a greater service of liberation which Banda would pay to his native and indeed our country Malawi.

Breaking the “stupid” federation.

 Kamuzu’s enviable sense of patriotism while in Diaspora deserves special mention. He already had his sights on breaking the “stupid” federation even when he was in the cold lands. While overseas Kamuzu never for once forgot his native country. While at Bloomington, he wrote several essays about his native Chewa culture in particular and Malawi in general. In all this, Kamuzu was keenly following the events in this country and was bold enough to end his 42 stay abroad to come home and lead his kinsmen to freedom. Quite a bold leader.

When fighting the federation, Kamuzu risked his won life and indeed that of the majority of Malawians fighting for the same cause as his. But being the Brave leader Kamuzu was, he caused a stir enough to make the British protectorate rise up and take notice of the struggle of Malawians in their attempt to break free from the federation. Despite Being arrested on March 3 1959 for his role in the “Operation Sunrise,” Kamuzu was never deterred and continuing leading his country to independence when he got out of  Gwelo (now Gweru) in April 1960.

He traveled to Britain to partake in independence talks which resulted in the Britain, through its Secretary of State for African Affairs R.A Butler to bow down to the mounting pressure and agree to end the Federation in December 1962. 4 years later and six years after his return Kamuzu successfully attained independence for the country and choose the name “Malawi” to replace Nyasaland.

 Such an achievement may now, 49 years down time, seem a not so important feat for some of the people in this country to give Kamuzu the credit he desearves for achieving it. But malice aside, it can not be an exaggeration to say that this country will forever be indebted to Kamuzu for firstly breaking the stupid federation as he termed it and secondly for leading the nation to its independence.

These were no easy feats. They had been tried before by the Likes of John Chilembwe but, without taking anything from them, not achieved. People like John Chilembwe lost their lives and Kamuzu was well aware of such a threat when he came home. But he came all the same to fight neither for himself nor for his family but for the people of the entire nation. Kamuzu, for this feat has every reason to be hailed as a hero of this nation.

This well accounted history of our independence should be taught within ourselves with pride. Our kids in our schools must know this piece of history like a pastor should his words. They too must be able to take pride In the fact that a person from their own country was able to rise up against the white man in as early as the 1960’s to ensure that they enjoy the freedom they are enjoying. That their parents bury to the grave the notorious Thangata. That were able to jump into any bus and lounge themselves in any seat in that bus, next to anyone without feeling ashamed of their skin color.

Even more to tell them that a country like South Africa Had to wait until the early 1990’s to enjoy such freedoms owing to a delayed attainment of freedom. Why then should we as a country fail to honor Kamuzu?

Visionary leadership and national development

 After taking over the reins of power from the British, Kamuzu showed right away that he had come to develop the nation through massive infrastructural development. Shortly after attaining independence, Banda promised that he would enact the University of Malawi. He proved to be as good as his words as his words when the University of Malawi opened its doors in 1965 in line with Kamuzu’s vision of bringing development to his people by empowering them with sound education.

To appreciate the magnitude of Kamuzu’s achievement in assembling the University of Malawi, which ended with the formation of the College of Medicine in 1991, one just has to appreciate that since then, the country has had just a single University in the name of Mzuzu merely turned into one from an already established secondary school. It therefore is not an exaggeration to say that the majority of the country has is and will continue to s benefit from university education because of Kamuzu. Why then should we as a nation fail to celebrate the life of Kamuzu?

Banda’s vision of transforming the country also manifested itself through the various infrastructural Development Policies (DEVPOLs) documents that Kamuzu adopted for the development of the country since 1964. These are the policies that saw Kamuzu singlehandedly, relocate the capital city from Zomba to Lilongwe against the wish of the British government who opted for the capital city to shift to Blantyre.

Kamuzu instituted the Capital City Development Corporation which catapulted the building of the capital city. A new road connecting Blantyre, Zomba and Lilongwe was built under this initiative, the government seat at Capital Hill and other buildings that we are still proud of as a nation today such as the Malawi Hotels Limited, currently trading as SunBird Hotels were built. It was under Kamuzu that the country experienced its first economic boom during the mid to the late 1970s owing to Kamuzu’s sound management of the country’s major companies.

 It would also be absurd to delete from the history of this country the dynamic leadership with which Kamuzu Banda made Malawi almost a Hunger Free nation during his entire reign save for some few and far between notable years of famine such as 1949.

  Kamuzu encouraged Malawians to invest heavily in their agricultural fields to ensure a hunger free nation. A wise encouragement this was considering that the majority of the populace was illiterate. The farm clubs which were playing a crucial role in providing advisory and farm inputs assistance to the local farmers proved to be of massive importance in making the national granaries full year in year out. As a country we only need to cast our memories back to the past few years in which the country’s granaries run out of its stocks to appreciate the magnitude of Kamuzu’s wise leadership that enabled him to make Malawi a food secure nation for three decades.

It may also sound absurd but it is true that Kamuzu need to be hailed in his efforts in his role in promoting the rights of women in this country. Kamuzu’s reign was very supportive of women rights as compared to other African government of his era. This was evident by the formation of the Chitukuko Cha Amayi m’Malawi, (CCAM), a grouping which aimed to address and fight the challenges that our mothers faced during Kamuzu’s reign.

 In terms of international relations, there are also some lessons that we can draw from Kamuzu. Controversial as his association with the Apartheid government of South Africa might have been which Kamuzu got a lot of stick for anyway, Kamuzu chose a plausible approach by urging fellow African leaders to concentrate on convincing the South African government that apartheid was an evil than need not show its face on earth. Quite an a plausible approach than a hostile approach which many African countries wanted to take.

When all about why Kamuzu must be celebrated by the nation is said and done, it is worth exposing and highlighting the atrocities that the Africa’s “odd man out” committed to some of the countries personalities, societies, tribes, regions and at times to the country in general. We as a nation need to be vigilant in arresting any possible re-emergence of such calamities.

That said, let the country be not blinded by the consequences of such calamities so much as so forget the service that Kamuzu rendered to this nation. If he admitted and apologies to those he or his cronies hurt in his name during his reign, why then should we as a nation not demonstrate the “God fearing nation” we as a nation fame ourselves for and celebrate the positives of the great man who founded and fathered a great nation that is our country.

Today, on his day, let us celebrate the life of a brave man who dared death to liberate his people. Let us take pride in a leader who instilled discipline, unity and obedience in his nation to the admiration of many a leader, including our incumbent president. The leader who deserves to be  hailed as the cornerstone of this nation.

i will counter this tommorow.....