RE: CONGRATULATIONS TO JACK MAPANJE ON HON. DOCTORATE, FEB 20, 2015
Cuthbert Kachale
Thank you so much Achimwene for sharing,
Jack is always a very humble person. He was born like that.
It was in January 1961 when Jack and I first met at Box 2 or Zomba Catholic Secondary School. He was in Form 3 and I was in Form 1 and we became instant friends and have remained so ever since.
We met again as founder students of UNIMA at Chancoll Chichiri in September/October 1965.
In was during the mid-1980s when we met yet again, this time in Harare. He had come all the way from his University of Malawi to Chair an international Linguistics Conference at the University of Zimbabwe. It was always all smiles each time we met, as if it was always for the first time.
After that International Linguistics Conference, the University of Zimbabwe could not resist having in its midst such a very distinguished scholar. So they conferred upon him the title of “Writer in Residence”, which to the world of Academics is a very huge honour.
Only to hear a week later, that Jack was detained by the Banda regime. It was a shock to the Zimbabwe’s academics and all who came to know him. It was all over in the local press in Zimbabwe, reminiscent of the times Ba Saunders Kuwali died here in Harare, after kidney malfunction following detention by the Banda regime on the Mama story of “A man cannot do without a woman” which angered Banda. Ba Kuwali had to come into exile. He was on dialysis, prompting our mutual friend, Prof Lupenga Mpande to stop over and see him together with me at Parirenyatwa Hospital here in Harare. Prof Mphande was heading to an History international Conference in Lusaka.
That time, the Herald’s Headline read: “Banda’s Foe Dies”, an obituary in tribute to Ba Kuwali who had just passed on.
Jack and I last met again in Harare in the mid-1990s. This time he had come all the way from his University of York to chair Hare’s International Book Fair. Of course his literally works, including “The Chameleon” were in display. Also on display were Prof Paul Tiyambe Zeleza’s literally works, and he was also there to showcase his works. It was the only time I met Prof Zeleza after Chancoll Chirunga.
So Malawi was represented by two giant writers.
I had more time with Jack and we talked about many issues beginning with the his detention just after UZ had offered him the “Writer In Residence” status.
Let me quote him verbatim in answer r to some of my questions: “I was betrayed by members of my own English Department”. Of course I know who. When I asked him what happened to his family. His reply was “ The Vice Chancellor, Prof David Kimble made sure that my wife maintained her job and that my family were well catered for”. When I asked him whether he was aware that the academic world in addition to Father O’Marley were yelling for his immediate release. His answer was : “Yes, even the Kadzamiras wanted me out . But Banda refused”.
In the course of these personal exchanges, Jack broke the news to me that world of poets had recently knighted him as a world poet at Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
I congratulated him for this and joked with him over it by remarking: “I hope this wouldn’t go into your head”. We burst into laughter. And sadly parted as he saw me off.
Later it was saddening that his close friend while in Britain, Ken Saro Wiwa was detained and hanged for fighting for the rights of his Ogoni people in the Niger Delta as they protested against pollution without compensation by the oil rigging companies.
In his own words. Jack lamented: “It is a travesty of Justice”.
This Doctor of Arts (Honoris Causa) by the University of Bedfordshire is another honour befitting this great world scholar.
What surprises me is that our own UNIMA is blind to the great minds of Malawi. World renowned scholars like Prof Thandika, Prof Zeleza, Prof Jack Mapanje and many others are NOT honoured/recognized at home, by our home university.
Prof Landson Mahango died without any honour at home despite his contributions to a better world in the technoligal field.
Where is OUR OWN academic national pride.
Where is the University of Malawi.
Congratulations Jack The Humble One. Don’t worry about the University of Malawi. It is yet to get to the world trends in honouring great minds of the world, let alone the sons and daughters of Malawi herself.
UNIMA has not even recognized John Chilmbwe for his “Africa for Africans”.
Mzee.
From: MALAW...@groupspaces.com [mailto:MALAW...@groupspaces.com] On Behalf Of Louis Nthenda
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2015 7:05 PM
WHILE Bwana Fuwa La Moto was skipping church over the week end to dance to love songs and while Ojaji was explaining the metaphorical meaning of zikwanje in Malawi poetry, and Mzee was adding his ever-present voice to both conversations, the UNIVERSITY OF BEDFORDSHIRE, LUTON, ENGLAND was on FRIDAY NOVEMBER 20th conferring ON OUR ONE AND ONLY PROFESSOR JOHN ALFRED CLEMENT MAPANJE the degree of DOCTOR OF ARTS (HONORIS CAUSA) quote FOR (his) OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO LITERATURE AND POETRY unquote.
Please, my fellow netters, join me in congratulating our countryman on bagging one more honour in a foreign land. By this conferment, the University of Bedfordshire honours us too. Jack Mapanje,as we fondly call him needs no introduction. He accepted the degree at the Ceremony held at the University's Luton Campus, as befitting a poet, by reading a newly minted poem dedicated to his grandchildren.
Congratulations, Jack. You have done us proud.
I hear the title-fond Malawians at Ground Zero, as fitting descendants of the late departed Daniel Phiri of Western Pacific University, asking whether Professor Mapanje should now be PROFESSOR DOCTOR DOCTOR MPHIL BA Jack Mapanje. I don't think so. He will be what we have always called him: Jack Mapanje, poet.
Louis Nthenda
Cuthbert Kachale
We are talking of 50 years ago. I remember the last school he taught at and as First Headmaster was Balaka Secondary School. So we most likely met at that Chancoll Chichiri later than I remembered.
However, may I propose that today, 23 November, be declared the Nyasanet Jack Mapanje Day for this day only:
As such, here are tributes to Prof Jack Mapanje. I am afraid Wiki was caught a little wrong-footed.
Mzee
.................................................
a) Wiki says about Jack Mapanje:
Background[edit]
The child of Nyanja and Yao parents, John Alfred Clement ("Jack") Mapanje was born in Kadango Village, Mangochi District, Malawi.[1] He received his BA in education from the University of London and worked for a time as a lecturer in Malawi before returning to the UK to study linguistics at University College, London in the early 1980s.[2]
He subsequently became head of the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Malawi.[3]
b) The British Cponcil:
Malawian poet Jack Mapanje taught in Malawi Secondary Schools before he joined the Department of English at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, in 1975, first as a lecturer, then as Head of the Department of English.
He has a BA and Diploma in Education from the University of Malawi, an M.Phil. in English and Education from The Institute of Education London, and a Ph.D. in linguistics from University College London in 1983. His first collection of poems, Of Chameleons and Gods, was published in the UK in 1981 and withdrawn from bookshops, libraries and all instutitions of learning in Malawi in June 1985. He was imprisoned without trial or charge by the Malawian government in 1987, and although many writers, linguists and human rights activists, including Harold Pinter and Wole Soyinka, Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky and others campaigned
c) From Poetry Foundation:
Jack Mapanje
b. 1944
Poet Jack Mapanje was born in Malawi in 1944. He earned a BA from the University of Malawi before moving to England, where he earned an MPhil in English and education from the Institute of Education, University of London, and a PhD in linguistics from University College London. With dry wit and a spiraling narrative structure that incorporates techniques of Malawi’s oral storytelling tradition, Mapanje’s poems examine exile, imprisonment, and political power.
In 1975, Mapanje returned to Malawi to teach English at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, where he eventually became head of the Department of English. In 1981, he published his first book, Of Chameleons and Gods, which the Malawi government subsequently banned. This led to Mapanje’s arrest in 1987.
Mapanje was detained in Malawi’s notorious Mikuyu Prison without charge from September 1987 until May 1991. During these four years, Mapanje wrote The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (1993) and most of Skipping without Ropes (1998), his second and third collections. While in prison, Mapanje was awarded the Rotterdam Poetry International Award in 1988.
d) The Poetry Article:
About Jack Mapanje
Jack Mapanje (b. 1944, Malawi), currently Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, is the author of 4 collections of poetry, the editor of several more, and the recipient of awards including the Rotterdam Poetry International Award and the African Literature Association (USA) Fonlon-Nichols Award. He studied in England, before returning to Malawi, where he rose to the position of Head of Department of English, University of Malawi at Chancellor College, which he held until his book Of Chameleons and Gods was banned and he was incarcerated for almost four years as a political prisoner in Mikuyu prison.
Many of the poems on this recording display defiance in the face of this experience, and Mapanje's introductions are striking for their matter-of-fact tone as they recount the awful happenings that inspired the poems: the religious persecution of his sister’s family in 'The House That Florrie Intended', for example, or political disappearances in 'Vigil For A Fellow Credulous Captive'. This is epitomised in his preface to 'Scrubbing the Furious Walls Of Mikuyu', in which he says "of all the prison poems I have written, this is my favourite little one." Political references are also often suggested allegorically, so that the singer of the 'Song of Chickens', horrified by the switch in its master's attitude toward it, is not openly linked to any human parallel.
etc.
-----Original Message-----
From: discussion list for things malawian [mailto:NYAS...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG] On Behalf Of Pia Likoya
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 1:40 PM
To: NYAS...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG
Subject: Re: [NYASANET] CONGRATULATIONS TO JACK MAPANJE ON HON. DOCTORATE, FEB 20, 2015
On Mon, 23 Nov 2015 06:36:51 +0200, Cuthbert Kachale <cuthber...@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>We met again as founder students of UNIMA at Chancoll Chichiri in September/October 1965.
mzee
what you've written above about jack being a founder student at chancoll chichiri contradicts the information i've got on him. i've read his official bio elsewhere and i know that he went to soche hill college where he trained as a teacher and graduated with a diploma in education.
he subsequently taught in several secondary schools before his enrolment at chancoll to study a ba in education which he completed in 1972. he could therefore not have been in your founder group in 1965.
*********************
* TO LEAVE NYASANET *
*********************
write to LIST...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG and, in the body of your message
(not the subject line), write: unsubscribe NYASANET OR go to
http://listserv.icors.org/CGI/wa.exe?SUBED1=nyasanet&A=1
Cuthbert Kachale
Achimwene,
Nothing special or very confined to hi, per se’, but just to have him in our mind as our flag carrier in poetry and hence we read more about him through the excerpts I posted, just for today. There is so much empathy and imagery in his poetry.
Imagine such a man being incarcerated by Banda just because of his ability to write in verse which is sometimes very subtle.
What Malawi lost, the world gained. Inn him and through his works, the plight of Diasporan Malawian intellectuals who had to leave, including you, are represented.
That indeed was the genesis of Malawi’s brain drain, caused by the bad politics of Banda.
Mzee
From: Louis Nthenda [mailto:louisn...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 4:16 PM
To: Cuthbert Kachale
Cc: Pia Likoya; NYAS...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG; <MALAW...@groupspaces.com>; Civil Society; Bwalo la Aphunzitsi
Subject: Re: [Malawitalk] RE: [NYASANET] CONGRATULATIONS TO JACK MAPANJE ON HON. DOCTORATE, FEB 20, 2015
Hi Achimwene,
Why should we declare November 23rd Nyasanet Jack Mapanje day? Why 23rd Nov?
Pat Chi
https://www.google.co.bw/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/18/archbishop-canterbury-doubt-god-existence-welby&ved=0ahUKEwjp96CHgafJAhUEuhQKHfnADMwQFgglMAA&usg=AFQjCNEjADz_Q_XFPTu8vExMUCk3z_CHRg&sig2=pUSQ8XlXN8Zc06IczCaaGw
Like the Archbishop who doubted about the existence of God, some of
us doubted Kamuzu's signature words, "Kwaaacha! Ufulu, Freedom,
Mtendere"
At very young we started doubting if we had Freedom/Ufulu to live and
think as free Malawians. Many were imprisoned without the luxury of
knowing what wrong they had done. Many had to imprison their thoughts
and views in order to survive.
Everything revolved around Kamuzu and even saying "Kamuzu" required
mental gymnastics to make sure the word come out right.
The national intellectual capacity was greatly compromised as we more
or less became zombies dancing to the whims and wishes of Kamuzu. We
could not express independent thoughts or question anything for fear
of MYP or Malawi Youth League.
It is heartening that we have those who learned sane regardless of
what they were subjected to or went through.
What we lack is documentation of some of those who survived and those
who perished under one party/life president period so that no Malawian
should ever be subjected to such life.
___________________________________________________________________________________> etc.--
Fuwa la Moto
"A secret is when nothing is said"
----------------------------------------------------------------
You are subscribed as pmchi...@gmail.com
Unsubscribe: http://groupspaces.com/MALAWITALK2/unsubscribe
Manage your subscriptions: http://groupspaces.com/my/subscriptions
----------------------------------------------------------------
Mailing list powered by GroupSpaces - manage your group online
http://www.groupspaces.com/e/about
--
saved by Christ Jesus to serve Him only
Box 962,ZOMBA
cell:(+265) 0888 345 369
alt.email:patrick...@yahoo.com
blog:http://chinguwo.blogspot.com/
Ambumulire N. Itimu
Congratulations to Prof. Jack Mapanje!
Ambumulire N. Itimu-Phiri, PhD
Mzuzu University
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 11/23/15, Pat Chi <pmchi...@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: [BwalolaAphunzitsi] Re: [Malawitalk] CONGRATULATIONS TO JACK MAPANJE ON HON. DOCTORATE, FEB 20, 2015
To: fuwal...@gmail.com
Cc: "Cuthbert Kachale" <cuthber...@gmail.com>, "Louis Nthenda" <louisn...@gmail.com>, "Pia Likoya" <pial...@gmail.com>, "<MALAW...@groupspaces.com>" <MALAW...@groupspaces.com>, "Civil Society" <civs...@sdnp.org.mw>, "Bwalo la Aphunzitsi" <bwalo-la-...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, November 23, 2015, 8:01 PM
You received this message because you are subscribed to the
Google Groups "Bwalo la Aphunzitsi" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails
from it, send an email to bwalo-la-aphunz...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to bwalo-la-...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/bwalo-la-aphunzitsi.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Cuthbert Kachale
While already in exile in 1994 when Malawi changed from the One Party State it was from 1966 to 1994, moved on to the Multiparty Democracy as from 1994, one evening I was listening to an interview between the BBC and Chancoll’s “The Writers’ Corner” members. The question was as writers, how did they view the change in the political dispensation.
One member said: “We now have so much freedom to write that we do not know what to do with it.”
To me that sounded like a mental/intellectual prison exodus explosion. It was like people kept in a dark dungeon for many decades and suddenly taken to see light.
This is just to throw light on what Ba Fuwa has just said below:
“Many had to imprison their thoughts
and views in order to survive.”
Ba Pat Chinguwo is very right. UNIMA must do something, especially given the impending Access to Information and the verification and vindication and entrenchment of Academic Freedom under the current APM rule.
Mzee
Nothing special or very confined to him, per se, but just to have him in
our mind as our flag carrier in poetry and hence we read more about him
through the excerpts I posted, just for today. There is so much empathy and
imagery in his poetry.
Imagine such a man being incarcerated by Banda just because of his ability
to write in verse which is sometimes very subtle.
What Malawi lost, the world gained. In him and through his works, the plight of Diasporan Malawian intellectuals who had to leave, including you, are represented.
That indeed was the genesis of Malawi’s brain drain, caused by the bad
politics [and policies] of Banda.
Mzee
From: Louis Nthenda [mailto:louisn...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015
Hi Achimwene,
Why should we declare November 23rd Nyasanet Jack Mapanje day? Why 23rd
Nov?
>
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 10:32 PM, Cuthbert Kachale
Cuthbert Kachale
This makes a lot of sense, Achimwene.
October has been dubbed the Chisiza Month. The Chisizas wanted us to be free politically fom the dictatorship of the Ngwazi.
Jack Mapanje wanted us to be free mentally and intellectually. So November as the Jack Mapajnje Month in honour of a fighter for our freedom of expression and mental emancipation would be in order.
Political freedom without mental freedom is incomplete. There is the need for mental emancipation.
During the course of my discussion with Jack during the mid-1990s when he came to chair the Harare International Book Fare, I heard him talk to a fellow poet from Zimbabwe about the need to break the “Prison Walls”. I would like to think the two referred to walls of oppression of the freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
Mzee.
From: Louis Nthenda [mailto:louisn...@gmail.com]
Instead of having only one day - November 20th or 23rd as Jack Mapanje Day- to commemorate quote the freedom that we was robbed unquote, - why not have a whole week (Jack Mapanje Week) or the whole month of November (Jack Mapanje Month)?
After all, the 23rd has come and gone and people haven't yet finished revealing zimene ziri kukhosi kwao. A longer period would enable us to exchange views and news in a more meaningful way.
Nothing special or very confined to hi, per se’, but just to have him in our mind as our flag carrier in poetry and hence we read more about him through the excerpts I posted, just for today. There is so much empathy and imagery in his poetry.
Imagine such a man being incarcerated by Banda just because of his ability to write in verse which is sometimes very subtle.
What Malawi lost, the world gained. Inn him and through his works, the plight of Diasporan Malawian intellectuals who had to leave, including you, are represented.
That indeed was the genesis of Malawi’s brain drain, caused by the bad politics of Banda.
Mzee
From: Louis Nthenda [mailto:louisn...@gmail.com
]
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 4:16 PM
To: Cuthbert Kachale
Cc: Pia Likoya;
NYAS...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG; <MALAW...@groupspaces.com>; Civil Society; Bwalo la Aphunzitsi
Subject: Re: [Malawitalk] RE: [NYASANET] CONGRATULATIONS TO JACK MAPANJE ON HON. DOCTORATE, FEB 20, 2015
sophie mhoni
from it, send an email to bwalo-la-aphunzitsi+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to bwalo-la-...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/bwalo-la-aphunzitsi.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Bwalo la Aphunzitsi" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwalo-la-aphunzitsi+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
Cuthbert Kachale
Some of you might be asking WHY and Wherefore should Nyasanet devote the month of November to Prof Jack Mapanje.
What did he do for Malawi.
My answer is that Jack took off from where Medson Silomela and Yatuta Chisiza left off.
The excerpts below from Prof/Dr/Mr Reuben Makayiko Chirambo amply testify WHY a member of his own English Department went to Kamuzu and betray him, leading to his four year detention. That lecturer was rewarded by rapid promotions and so forth.
Reuben Chirambo is a very gifted writer and in my view, he wrote the most comprehensive piece on Operation Bwezani on the MYP that I have ever read.
You can either follow the link or google the heading and you will be amazed as to what and how Jack fought for us using poetry under Banda’s very noses.
Hence his betrayal and Banda refusing any appeals for his release
Mzee.
Orality and Subversion in Jack Mapanje's Of Chameleons and Gods
Reuben Makayiko Chirambo
University of Malawi
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/view/4227/4756
2 In this article, I argue that some of Mapanje's poems in Of Chameleons and Gods lend themselves to a subversive reading to annoy a dictator such as Banda in that, among other things, the poems demystify Banda and openly undermine his legitimacy. Even as a dictatorship, the regime of Banda and the MCP relied heavily on a hegemonic discourse that both popularized and legitimized it.5 In so far that Mapanje's poetry constituted a counterhegemonic discourse that threatened to undermine Banda's popularity and challenge the MCP's legitimacy, it was considered subversive. This may explain why the collection was withdrawn from schools, and why Mapanje was later arrested. This article, using a selection of poems from Of Chameleons and Gods, shows the specific elements of Banda's dictatorship that Mapanje sought to undermine and challenge.
4 Mapanje wrote most of the poems in Of Chameleons and Gods in the 1970s, with Banda's autocracy in mind and in an attempt to engage with it. His poetry demystifies Banda by interrogating the messianic claims attached to, and implied by, his names and titles, as well as by challenging his claims of benevolence and his pretensions to immortality, among other things. Mapanje's poetry characterizes Banda's regime as a brutal dictatorship characterized by the absence of a fair judicial system that would prevent torture and detention without trial, a regime that crushed people's dreams and aspirations for freedom and prosperity—the very things people fought and died for during the struggle for independence. It mocks Banda's display of power and majesty as hollow and a travesty of reality. Mapanje's poetry, therefore, exposes Banda's dictatorship in Malawi for what it really was.
5 Mapanje adopted the role of a traditional oral poet, the imbongi, and borrowed techniques from oral praise poetry in the country. In traditional society, the role of imbongi that Mapanje makes claim to is both as a praise singer and a critic………
6 Mapanje's project in Of Chameleons and Gods is anticipated in his 1974 dissertation, The Use of Traditional Literary Forms.13 In it he suggests that, for African poets in the face of draconian laws that prevent them from speaking out against despotism in their society, recourse to oral traditions, particularly of praise poetry, is the best alternative to silence. He suggests that oral poetry provides "modes of thought and a source of metaphor" to camouflage critical messages "and inspiration" to challenge autocratic leadership.14 Mapanje remarks that, given the kind of censorship and the manipulation of oral traditions that sustained Banda's dictatorship, writers "were forced to find alternative strategies for survival, alternative metaphors for the expression of our feelings and ideas."15 The alternative strategies and metaphors are borrowed from the same oral traditions appropriated for the praise and worship of Banda. In Mapanje's poems, they are used to criticize and unmask what Tiyambe Zeleza calls Banda's "lies, deformities and fantasies of ruthless, unproductive power."16
7 The poem "The Song of Chickens" (4) protests against a master who protects his chickens from hawks only to prey on them himself. Mapanje says he wrote this poem in 1970 following the visit of South African president John Vorster to Malawi.17 In 1967, while most African countries boycotted South Africa because of its apartheid policies and practices, Banda established diplomatic relations and signed trade agreements with South Africa. By hosting Vorster, Banda betrayed his neighbors, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia, which hosted African National Congress (ANC) freedom fighters. He also defied the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which designated southern African countries to act as frontline states against South Africa. Not only did Banda host Vorster in Malawi; he also reciprocated the visit in 1971.
8 In the first stanza of the poem, the chickens ask their master why, after putting on a fight to protect them from predators—using bows and arrows and catapults, his hands "steaming with hawk blood" (4)—he has tuned to prey on them himself. They question him: "Why do you talk with knives now, / Your hands teaming with eggshells / And hot blood from your own chickens? / Is it to impress your visitors?" (4).
9 The poem can be read as criticism of Banda. It criticizes him for his lavish entertainment of the visiting South African president and also attacks Banda's Messianic claims. It asks him why, after calling himself a Savior and Nkhoswe of his people, he has turned into a beast that preys on his people. Banda, who led the nation to independence, lectured everyone on how he sacrificed a successful medical career in Britain and Ghana to come back to liberate his people from white domination and exploitation. Yet, about six weeks into independence, in August and September 1964, Banda forced into exile some of his colleagues with whom he fought for independence for disagreeing with him. These included Kanyama Chiume, Orton Chirwa, and Masauko Chipembere, the very individuals who had invited him back to Malawi, offering him the leadership of the independence movement, the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC). From 1964 and throughout his reign, Banda practiced Machiavellian politics of eliminating his opponents and critics by means of detention, forced exile, and death. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, the time captured in the poem "The Song of Chickens," Banda arrested, tortured, and killed hundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to become members of his Malawi Congress Party, salute the flag, or attend his official functions. Many of them and others were forced into exile.18 It is for these reasons that Mpalive-Hangson Msiska suggests the poem becomes "an allegorisation of the political situation in Malawi through the idea of the keeper turned poacher, where the everyday practice of slaughtering chicken for guests becomes a metaphor for the leadership's betrayal of the ideals of the anti-colonial struggle."19Mapanje suggests in the poem that the behavior of the master, in this case Banda, who protects but then destroys, is both hypocritical and sadistic………
……………………………………
Ba Chirambo’s list goes on to paragraph 30
Cuthbert Kachale
These scholarly works by both Ba Reuben Makayiko Chirambo and Ba Dr Francis Moto are a MUST Read.
According to Ba Dr Moto:
"[Malawi Government] Having put in place an effective machinery that was to
oversee what Malawians said and wrote, Malawian poets and playwrights resorted to using
language and literary devices that only the 'initiated' could understand".
This explains WHY it took an "initiated" in Jack's UNIMA English Department to betray Jack to Banda.
Mzee.
From: discussion list for things malawian [mailto:NYAS...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG] On Behalf Of Pia Likoya
>Imagine such a man being incarcerated by Banda just because of his ability to write in verse which is sometimes very subtle.
in a paper (see link) francis moto presented at a conference at chanco he describes in minute detail and by 'decontextualisation' of some of jack's poems, how the latter was able to run rings around the censorship board.
http://community.eldis.org/.59ee8358/The%20Semantics%20of%20Poetic%20and%20Dramatic.pdf
Cuthbert Kachale
Thank you so much Ba Dr Lwanda. I believe the net and I am now better informed.
Mzee.
From: John Lwanda [mailto:lwand...@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2015 5:05 PM
To: cuthber...@gmail.com; 'Louis Nthenda'
Cc: 'Pia Likoya'; 'NYAS...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG'; MALAW...@groupspaces.com; 'Civil Society'; 'Bwalo la Aphunzitsi'
Subject: Re: [Malawitalk] RE: CONGRATULATIONS TO JACK MAPANJE ON HON. DOCTORATE, FEB 20, 2015
Mzee,
I think Jack Mapanje also has honours from University of London and Stirling University [which was the first to honour him, if I am not mistaken].
john
Cuthbert Kachale
From: Felix Mnthali [mailto:fm5...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2015 10:16 AM
The most accurate bio is the one by the Poetry Foundation.
On 23 Nov 2015 15:34, "Cuthbert Kachale" <cuthber...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you for the correction, Ba Pia of GB,
We are talking of 50 years ago. I remember the last school he taught at and as First Headmaster was Balaka Secondary School. So we most likely met at that Chancoll Chichiri later than I remembered.
Cuthbert Kachale
Thank you so much Achimwene, for the leads and measures the writers and poets had to adopt or resort to, and camouflage their works.
Under Banda, the University of Malawi was an academic prisoner. No Freedom of Speech or Freedom of Expression. No Academic Freedom. No access to Information. All works subjected to censorship.
However, that underestimated the ingenuity of scholars and the academia.
Banda was a ‘perfect and water-tight’ dictator. At least he thought so.
Mzee
From: Louis Nthenda [mailto:louisn...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2015 6:11 PM
With regard to Censorship under Kamuzu, this is what Jack Mapanje wrote (Society of Malawi Journal Vol.64 No. 3, 2011) :
Quote
There is one secret that Dr. Alifeyo Chilibvumbo, Dr. John Kandawire and Dr. Matthew Schoffeleers shared under the state of siege in which they worked in the University of Malawi. These three shared with those of us they could trust the methods they used in order to deal with Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda‘s Censorship Board. When they were invited to international conferences to present their research on African class systems in despotic societies, for example, and the Censorship Board insisted on vetting their papers before they were presented, as the Board was wont to do, these scholars sent watered down versions of their papers to the censors. After these dummy papers were cleared, they took the originals and presented them at the conferences uncensored!
Unquote
With regard to inspiration and how artists got around censorship within Malawi borders, here is Jack Mapanje again (in the same paper):
Quote
(Matthew ) Schoffeleers‘ work on Malawi creation myths was particularly exciting to those of us budding writers and artists. As we practised our craft, there were times when we felt that the authenticity of our work was being hobbled by our adoption of foreign, largely European, images and metaphor, mostly acquired through our university studies. Schoffeleers‘ research opened to us a vision of the deeper roots of our society. Some of us adopted and reinterpreted his research in order to make our creative efforts authentic. Others used his work as metaphoric or symbolic representation of life under a most repressive dictatorship, a dictatorship that was entirely a new experience for us; for which we had never been prepared.
Unquote
LN
Cuthbert Kachale
Thank you so much for sharing, Ba Dr Lwanda,
I believe it would be advisable for as many of us on the net as could be possible to join and be members of the Society of Malawi Journal. I have been invited and so I will join.
Mzee
From: John Lwanda [mailto:lwand...@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2015 7:33 PM
To: cuthber...@gmail.com; 'Louis Nthenda'
Cc: 'Pia Likoya'; 'NYAS...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG'; MALAW...@groupspaces.com; 'Civil Society'; 'Bwalo la Aphunzitsi'
Subject: Re: [Malawitalk] RE: CONGRATULATIONS TO JACK MAPANJE ON HON. DOCTORATE, FEB 20, 2015
... and talking of things past, the current issue of The Society of Malawi journal has Dr Louis Ntenda's recollections of the Malcolm X incident at Oxford, his experiences in newly independent Malawi, being a soldier for the Zambian Army ... etc .
John
Mzondi W.J. Moyo
| How can one join? Mzondi Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
|
Cuthbert Kachale
I hope the posts below answer your question <a Mzondi Moyo.
Mzee
From: David Stuart-Mogg [mailto:david.st...@btinternet.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2015 12:57 AM
To: 'Cuthbert Kachale'; NYAS...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG
Subject: RE: [NYASANET] CONGRATULATIONS TO JACK MAPANJE ON HON. DOCTORATE, FEB 20, 2015
Mzee & netters,
The Society of Malawi Journal (Historical & Scientific), formerly the Nyasaland Journal, has been in continuous publication since 1948. It is understood to be the oldest such publication in uninterrupted publication remaining in Africa. Since its inception the Patron was always the colonial governor and, since independence, every successive Head of State has graciously consented to continue that association.
In recent years the Journal has been originated by myself, as editor, in the UK and subsequently published in both the UK and Malawi. New subscribers should contact the Society in Blantyre [society...@africa-online.net] direct regarding membership.
As a special offer to any interested parties in the UK only, I have a very small stock remaining of the latest issue (Vol. 68 - No. 2, 2015) available at £5.00 per copy including postage. This issue contains the excellent article by Dr. Louis Nthenda, already mentioned by Dr. John Lwanda, which I really cannot recommend too highly. Other articles in this issue are: Prester John, John Chilembwe & the European Fear of Ethiopianism by Dr. T. Jack Thompson; A Historical Perspective of 50 Years of Mental Health Services in Malawi by Genesis Chorwe-Sungani, Dr. Diana Jere, Dr. Lucy Kululanga and Chitsanzo Mafuta; A Note on Scouting in Nyasaland 1950 - 1964 by Professor Brian Morris.
Payment by BACS or cheque. Please email me to reserve a copy and for payment details.
If you would like to contribute an article or paper to be considered for publication in the Society of Malawi Journal, please email me to discuss - all are welcome!
Zikomo,
David
From: Louis Nthenda [mailto:louisn...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 8:56 AM
To: Cuthbert Kachale
Subject: Re: Society of Malawi Journal
Check out this site and scroll for details and who to write to in Malawi.
http://www.societyofmalawi.org/about.php
2016 Subscription due 1st January / includes 2 issues of the journal
Malawi rsidents: MK8,000
Overseas US$40
But the Secretary will give you procedure details when you write directly to her at the address on the site.
Good luck.
LN
On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 2:04 PM, Cuthbert Kachale <cuthber...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you so much, Achimwene.
What does it take to be a member of the Society.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Bwalo la Aphunzitsi" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwalo-la-aphunz...@googlegroups.com.