Contact, dialogue extraodinaire

If the Devil is your neighbour, there may be some merit in maintaining a certain level of cooperation, albeit at arms-length in the interest of progress on some domestic issues. We read from the Bible that God and Satan were on talking terms and once reached an agreement for the latter to torment a man called Job. God knew that Job’s extraordinary misery, courtesy of the Devil, would produce a strong character that we would all learn from.

 

It was this kind of reasoning that pushed Malawi’s first president Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda into maintaining diplomatic relations with apartheid South Africa and colonial Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), to the ridicule and scorn of some of the most outspoken African leaders of the time.

Malawi’s unique needs at the time demanded that such a policy should be followed. First of all, there were so many Malawians living and working in South Africa (especially in the gold mines), and many more were trekking there every year under a programme called Wenela.

Malawi’s economy was in its infancy and could not provide employment to many of these deserving young people. Therefore, Wenela was a much-needed outlet. Moreover, Malawi depended on a whole range of South African-manufactured goods for consumption and also needed South Africa for advanced medical services.

Needless to say that the landlocked country needed Mozambique for access to the port.

It was, according to Kamuzu, hypocrisy of the highest order to stock your shops with South Afrian beef and wine and jam, while shouting all kinds of insults against the South African regime, which is what some African governments were doing. In any case, of what use was it to engage in this kind of bickering? Why not confront the offending regime and get to talk to them in order to make them see sense? On the first State visit by a black leader to South Africa in 1971, Kamuzu said: “It is through this kind of contact that you will get to know that there are civilised people other than white.”

Malawi also needed funding for some of its major projects, such as the building of a new capital in Lilongwe. None of the traditional multilateral and bilateral partners was willing to provide this level of funding, forcing Kamuzu to turn to Pretoria. And, lo and behold, Pretoria responded by advancing a loan to Malawi. The rest is history.

Come to think about it, Kamuzu would have been the last person to condone a racially segregative regime. He had himself seen some of the worst effects of racial segregation. As he walked from Kasungu to South Africa in the early years of the 20th century, he stopped over at Hartley in Southern Rhodesia, where he got employment at a hospital. He was so appalled by the manner in which white doctors treated blacks that his resolve to become a medical doctor gained momentum, because he thought after returning home, he would treat his nationals humanely and save them the embarrassment of the kind of bigotry he had noticed in Southern Rhodesia.

From Hartley, Kamuzu proceeded to South Africa and later to the United States of America, where he enrolled at Wilberforce Academy before attending a number of tertiary institutions to eventually qualify as a medical doctor from Mehary Medical College. During his stay in America in the 1930s, he had the unfortunate experience of observing some lynchings of black people by the Ku Klax Klaan, a criminal grouping that was willing to do anything to defend and promote white supremacy over blacks in America. Often, they would execute extrajudicial persecution of perceived black wrong-doers.

Later, Kamuzu went to Britain to obtain a British qualification, without which he could not practise in Nyasaland. As he was planning to return home, he was stabbed with the news that the white nurses in Zomba had expressed their unwillingness to work under a black physician. This stunned Kamuzu so much that he decided not to go back to Nyasaland, but stay and work in Britain.

When the Federation was imposed on the two Rhodesias and Nyasaland in 1953, Kamuzu became one of its bitterest critics and wrote several papers to that effect. He vowed to oppose the Federation, whose main purpose was to safeguard the interests of the white minorities in the three territories. His personal experience in terms of racial prejudice and segregation could not allow him to smile at this kind of arrangement.

Would such a man have undergone a complete makeover to condone apartheid in South Africa? I personally do not think so. In fact, perhaps unknown to most people, Kamuzu provided a great deal of logistical support to the South Africa’s ANC and later to Rhodesia’s ZAPU and ZANU freedom movements.

As we celebrate Kamuzu Day this week, let us remember that we have had a leader who championed the policy of contact and dialogue extraordinaire, and in doing so was prepared to be demonised by others while believing in his heart that this policy would go a long way in helping him to deliver, locally and internationally.

—The author is a social communicator and a printer at heart.