Protests, Petitions and Persuasion

David S. Bone

Description

This is an exciting, comprehensive compilation of letters, petitions, songs, poems, cartoons and a fatwa composed by Malawi’s foremost martyrs and struggle heroes. The documents lay bare the chequered march of Malawi’s political and social history and give a glimpse into the minds of some of Malawi’s most notable figures and the challenges they faced in their time as they fought for change. They are accompanied by rich commentaries by respected authors on Malawian political history: Klaus Fiedler, John Lwanda, Isabel Phiri, and Kenneth Ross.

Sujets

• Histoire
• South
• History
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: Mzuni Press
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789996076251
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

PROTESTS, PETITIONS AND PERSUASION

Copyright 2023 David Bone

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission from the publishers.

Published by Mzuni Press P/Bag 201 Luwinga Mzuzu 2

ISBN978-99960-76-24-4 eISBN 978-99960-76-25-1

The Mzuni Press is represented outside Malawi by: African Books Collective Oxford ([e-mail])

www.africanbookscollective.com

PROTESTS, PETITIONS AND PERSUASION

A Compilation of Documents from

Malawi's History

Edited by David S. Bone

Mzuzu 2023

 4 Contents Introduction 6 David Bone 1.Mlozi bin Kazbadema and Kopakopa to Monteith Fotheringham, 1888 14 David Stuart-Mogg 2.24A Letter of Charles Domingo, 1911 Kenneth R. Ross 26 3.John Chilembwe’s Letter to the Nyasaland Times, 1914 31 Jennifer Aycock and Gift Kayira 33 4.40Mrs Bartlett’s Letter to Che Nkhokwe 1939 Megan Vaughan 42 5.Isa Macdonald Lawrence: Keynote Address, First Organizational Meeting of the Nyasaland African Congress. 1944 49 Melvin Page 50 6.55Petition against the Central African Federation Gift Wasambo Kayira 68 7.An Unsuccessful Protest with Momentous Repercussions for Malawi 72 Colin Cameron 8.77Shocking Religious Persecution in Malawi. 1968 Klaus Fiedler 85 9.Mr Mapanje, who are you? (Poems of Jack Mapanje) 1981 88 Angela Smith

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 5 Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi. 1992 93 Francis Bonongwe 108 The Chigodi Statement 1994 114 Isabel Apawo Phiri 119 Malawian Muslims’Fatwaon anti-Muslim Propaganda Machineries 127 David Bone 133 Charles Nsaku: Protest Songs, 1999-2007 138 John Lwanda InMemoriam: Malawi Forests, Trees and Environment: Rest in Peace. 2005 145 John Wilson 153 Humour and Social Protest: Drawing ‘Sit-tight’ Leadership in Haswell Kanyenje’s Political Cartoons. 2010-2014 159 Nick Tembo The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace: ‘Disturbing Trends of Lawlessness, Insecurity and Neglect of Thriving Injustices in Malawi. 2020 169 Gerard Chigona 173 Not yetUfulu.The Struggle against the Colonial Matrix of Power Continues 178 Felix Nyika Acknowledgements 189 Notes on contributors 190 Index 193

Introduction

6

David Bone ‘Protests, Petitions and Persuasion’ is a compilation of protests in a variety of forms, from the more recent eras of the history of Malawi, along with commentaries from scholars to explain and analyze their context and their significance.

The range of protests in this compilation is narrowed by the fact that behind all of them lies, in one form or another, the written word which limits their authorship to the educated and literate. Some of the documents selected are already well known but others have not previously been published. Though the documents chosen are not the only, or even the most important examples of protest in this medium, between them they are varied enough in terms of the eras from which they come, the forms in which they are presented, the tones that they adopt and the concerns with which they deal, to offer a fairly representative sample of the genre. Along with the commen- taries on them, they provide a series of snapshots, which offer some insight into a number of important personalities, events and stages in the history of Malawi as well as fresh perspectives on such important issues as the right to self-determination and non-violent opposition to a variety of forms of abuse, exploitation and oppression by the powerful in both colonial and post-colonial times. They also offer an opportunity to examine some of the causes that have given rise to people protesting against those in authority.

The reasons why the British authorities followed missionaries and traders into the region that is now Malawi are rather complex, though well documented. A major motivation was their desire to prevent the Portuguese from establishing control over parts of the southern part of the country, but also significant was the agency of Scottish missionaries and their commercial partners, the African Lakes

 7 Company (ALC) who were pressing for government intervention against Swahili-Arab traders with their dealings in slaves at the Northern end of the Lake.

Two documents, written in 1888, are from an unusual and interesting source. They take the form of letters from two of the most prominent of these Swahili-Arab traders, Mlozi bin Kazbadema and Kopakopa, addressed to an agent of the ALC and complaining of unfair treat- ment they were receiving at his hands. The contents of the letter and David Stuart-Mogg’s commentary on it suggest a rather more nuanced picture of the relationship between Swahili and Europeans than offered by contemporary European accounts which tend to portray their dispute as a war against evil slavers. They suggest that for all the high-minded rhetoric of the Scots, the rivalry and antago- nism between the two parties had much to do with the desire of each to maximize their exploitation of the human and natural resources of an area that belonged to neither of them.

By the time the next two documents were written the British Colonial system had become well established. They both give penetrating critiques of how, under it, the good of the people of Malawi was generally subservient to the needs of the European incomers. The first takes the form of a frequently quoted letter, written in 1909, by Charles Domingo, a Livingstonia Mission educated African religious leader who protested against the way in which the people of Malawi were being failed by the main European players: government, mission and settlers. Kenneth Ross explains the context of and reasons for the protest and asks, ‘Did anyone ever give a more comprehensive indictment of colonialism than (Domingo’s) six words, “too cheaty, too thefty, too mockery.”’

The second is a letter of protest to theNyasaland Timesfrom John Chilembwe ‘in behalf of his countrymen’ in 1914, the year before his

 8 uprising. More grammatically correct and no less eloquent than Domingo’s protest, as Gift Kayira and Jennifer Aycock explain, it is a measured and clearly argued condemnation of the large scale and systematic misuse and exploitation of Malawian soldiers and carriers in a war between European powers. The letter was quickly withdrawn from the newspaper, and the protest unheeded. The following year Chilembwe took up arms against the British.

The issue of exploitation of Malawi’s people and resources under the colonial system continued to be a cause of discontent in the period between the wars and provides the background to the next document in the compilation. This takes the form of a letter of protest from the 1930s, not from a Malawian, but from a European woman landowner to a local Village Headman complaining of his lack of cooperation in ensuring that she had a reliable labour force. The letter, and Megan Vaughan’s commentary on it, illustrate at a micro level, not only the exploitative nature of the system ofthangata, but also the mentality of privilege that underlay the landowner’s assumptions.

The keynote speech given by Isa Macdonald Lawrence in 1944 at what was effectively the first meeting of the Nyasaland African Congress is put into its context and analyzed by Melvin Page. Though perhaps under-recognized today, Lawrence was one of the leading, and most radical of Malawi’s nationalist leaders of his era. His address, as Page explains, while not couched in the terms of fiery protest, contained echoes of Chilembwe’s demand that Africans’ sacrifices in a World War should be rewarded as well as echoing Marcus Garvey’s calls for unity and progress. The radical implications of this call would not likely have been lost on his audience.

Problems around the regulation of land and labour persisted unresolved through to the 1950s and were among the factors which fuelled Malawians’ fears and distrust of proposals to link Nyasaland

 9 in a Federation with Northern and Southern Rhodesia. There was widespread opposition to this, largely on the grounds that any linkage, dominated as it would be by Southern Rhodesia’s white settlers, would lead to a system of control that was even more disadvan- tageous to Malawians than that of Colonial Nyasaland. This oppo- sition to the imposition of Federation, against the will of Malawians, is clearly spelled out in a petition in 1953 to Queen Elizabeth II, from Malawi’s Paramount Chiefs, advised by a prominent British based expatriate, Dr H.K. Banda. Gift Kayira explains that the significance of this document is not only in its articulate protest against Federation but also that it ‘embodies the deep-seated historical ills which defined British colonialism in Malawi’ and helped set off a chain of events that led to the State of Emergency in 1959. The petition fell on deaf ears but the fears expressed in it proved well founded. Federation was imposed later in 1953 and was resented and resisted. Even violently repressive efforts by the Federal forces to suppress this opposition, culminating in the 1959 State of Emergency, proved ineffective and the Federation was dissolved in 1963.

In 1962 Dr Banda, who had headed resistance to Federation, formed his first government with a cabinet full of people who had appointed and supported him. However, by around the time of Independence, in 1964, serious strains within that cabinet had developed over Banda’s increasingly autocratic style which culminated in the ‘Cabinet Crisis’. The first to resign was Scottish lawyer Colin Cameron, the Minister of Transport and Communications, in protest against the Prime Minister’s intention to impose detention without trial. Circum- stances at the time meant that Cameron never actually wrote a letter of resignation to Banda, but he explains in detail the circumstances surrounding his protest, and its significance. One of the groups to suffer most from the harsh treatment of a regime that would brook no dissent were Malawi’s Jehovah’s