Kamuzu Banda’s memory and negotiation of power in Malawi

Abstract

This article explores how the competing narratives about Kamuzu Banda’s memory took place between 1964 and 2009 in Malawi, a period during which monuments and commemorative public holidays became the sites on which Kamuzu Banda’s memory was either reconstructed and inscribed or contested as national heritage and identity to yield legitimacy in a political struggle of negotiation of power. Drawing on archival and documentary sources, interviews and critical analysis of monuments, statues and public commemorations associated with Banda the article contends that although there were remarkable changes in reconstruction, re-interpretation and re/appropriation of Kamuzu Banda’s memory as national heritage, the utility, function and instrumentalisation of his memory remained the same for each government. Thus, just like in the autocratic government of Kamuzu Banda the re-interpretation of his memory during the democratic government of Bakili Muluzi and the re-inscription of his memory by his successor Bingu Wa Mutharika served the same particular political interests of legitimizing and supporting the government in power even though the rhetoric was made to sound and appear as serving the ideals of democracy in Malawi. Ultimately, the article shows that Banda’s memory became a site for the negotiation of power. The article contributes to our understanding of how public memory is mobilized by political elites to support and legitimize a government in power. It also points to the fact that meanings of heritage change with changing political situations.

Keywords:

• Memory
• history
• heritage
• Kamuzu Banda
• Bakili Muluzi
• Bingu Wa Mutharika
• mausoleum
• Statue
• Kamuzu day

1. Introduction

This article is about the struggle over Kamuzu Banda’s memory. It concerns itself with how changing governments in Malawi from 1964 to 2009, reconstructed national heritage and identity mainly through the memory of and counter-memory to the first President of the country Hastings Kamuzu Banda. Monuments and commemorative public holidays became the sites on which Kamuzu Banda’s memory was either inscribed or contested as a national heritage in a political struggle of negotiation of power by the political elites.

The article foregrounds a comparative and historical framework in the cultural politics of memory in Malawi. It provides a brief historical discussion of how Kamuzu Banda and his government sought to inscribe Banda’s memory as nationalist history. It also discusses how in the democratic era Kamuzu Banda’s memory was contested and challenged by President Bakili Muluzi and his United Democratic Front (UDF). It further shows how Banda’s memory was later reaffirmed and re-inscribed by the new government of Bingu Wa Mutharika and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). From this discussion, two significant observations are registered. The first is that during the dictatorship of Kamuzu Banda his memory was inscribed and constituted as part of Kamuzu Banda’s auto/biographical narration of nationalist history that excluded other contributors to an anti-colonial struggle. This resonates with Brutus Simakole following Caine and Holden that the auto/biographies of some of the leaders of movements and organizations that fought colonialism and for independence especially in Africa and Asia have acquired a high symbolical status in that they are deemed to be particularly illustrative of the narratives dealing with the end of colonial power and how the new nations were born (Simakole, 2012). Consequently, monuments and commemorative days were constituted that largely promoted Kamuzu Banda’s memory. A second observation is that the democratic dispensation provided new ways of thinking about how to commemorate in the public domain Malawi’s pasts in ways that appeared to respond to democratic ideals of liberties, inclusivity and recognition of important figures, events and places in Malawi’s history that were hitherto suppressed or ignored. This explicitly meant contesting, re-interpreting, reconstructing and re-inscribing Kamuzu Banda’s memory that was constituted in the public domain.

The main argument advanced in this article is that although there have been remarkable changes in reconstruction, re-interpretation and re/appropriation of Kamuzu Banda’s memory as national heritage, the utility, function and instrumentalisation of his memory remained the same for each government. Thus, just like in the autocratic government of Kamuzu Banda the contestation of his memory during the democratic government of Bakili Muluzi and the re-inscription of his memory by his successor Bingu Wa Mutharika served the same particular interests of legitimizing and supporting a government in power even though the rhetoric was made to sound and appear as serving the ideals of democracy in Malawi. Ultimately, the article contends that Kamuzu Banda’s memory was re/negotiated by three governments to serve and satisfy their particular interests. In making this argument, the article identifies itself with the discourses of heritage and memory, particularly public memory as heritage. I will return to these concepts later in the article.

There is now well-established literature on the relationship between memory, politics, and power in Africa, but little work has looked at these issues in the context of Malawi (Gavua, 2015; Marschall, 2010, 2017). On memory as public discourse, most scholars in Malawi have concentrated on memory related to nationalist and liberation struggles, for example, the different ways how martyrs are identified and commemorated, with little attention on how memory can function as an instrument for power (Lwanda, 2012; Nkhoma, 2012). Other scholars of memory in Malawi have focused on how public memories of the first president Kamuzu Banda have been challenged by contesting his monuments, statues, and mausoleums as inappropriate ways of remembering a dictator (Chirambo, 2008). Little scholarly attention has been devoted to demonstrating how Kamuzu Banda’s memory has been used as a means for negotiation and re-negotiation of power in Malawi. Daniel Wroe showed how the memory and nostalgia for former President Kamuzu Banda in Malawi’s central district of Lilongwe is a product of dissatisfaction with politics in Malawi in the present and also a consequence of how Banda ruled the country in the past and this has motivated the people in Lilongwe and central province to vote not only for his party but also to hold him in high esteem (Wroe, 2020). While his work is important in showing the influence of Banda’s memory in Malawi’s politics it did not demonstrate how the political elites have negotiated with Banda’s memory to legitimize their power and governments. This article extends the study on memory by offering a nuanced analysis of how memory is linked to heritage and identity and mobilised by political elites to negotiate power in Malawi and elsewhere.

A combination of historical modes of inquiry was applied during the research for this article. Qualitative interviews were conducted in the form of Key Informant Interviews with eight key persons from the Department of Museums and Monuments responsible for management and conservation of monuments, which include those associated with Kamuzu Banda. The key informants provided insights into the history, meanings and interpretation of Banda’s monuments. Documentary sources from the Department of Museums and Monuments in the form of reports and minutes on various memorial projects and commemorative events were analysed. These revealed the nuances and dynamics of the memorial projects. Local newspaper articles, particularly in The Times, The Nation and The Daily Times from the period 1965 to 2009 reporting on various commemorative events and memorial projects were examined. Audio recordings of speeches by Banda, Muluzi and Mutharika at various commemorative events were also examined. These illuminated the meanings and interpretations that were accorded to the memory of Banda. The recordings further revealed the history and politics that were involved with the memory of Banda. Archival materials in the form of hansards were critically examined. Hansards reviewed the official debates that took place in parliament surrounding the endorsement of commemorative days and memorial projects associated with the memory of Banda. A distinct approach that many scholars on Kamuzu Banda’s memory have not engaged with is an in-depth and critical analysis of monuments, statues and public commemorations associated with Banda, for example, Kamuzu Banda statue, Kamuzu Mausoleum and Kamuzu Day, in relation to the legitimation of power. Such an analysis reveals the varying ways in which the memory of Banda has been reconstructed and re-interpreted by the different governments to reinforce and rationalize their power. Thematic analysis on the data collected was employed. The article therefore discusses different histories, narratives, representations and interpretations that have been produced on Banda and highlight the purposes they served in different periods of Malawi’s history.

2. Memory, heritage and the instrumentalisation of the past

The article engages with discourses of public memory and heritage as constituted by the biography of Kamuzu Banda to understand how the past has been instrumentalised in Malawi by different governments. It is, therefore, important to examine what these discourses mean and how they relate to Banda.

Maurice Halbwachs theorised memory through the framework of ‘collective memory’, as a shared representation of the past set within the cultural, political, religious and economic needs of the present (Halbwachs, 1994). Correspondingly, public memory refers to ‘a body of beliefs and ideas about the past that help public or society understand both its past and its present, and, by implication, its future’(Gillis, 1994). Even though it may draw its references from the past, public memory is very much concerned with the present, manifesting itself through such sites of memory as monuments, memorials and commemorations as well as in public recollections.

The discourse of heritage is another significant theme informing this article. Various scholars have sought to define heritage using different approaches (Littler & Naidoo, 2005; Petersen, 2015; Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996). This article adopts the understanding of heritage advanced by John Tunbridge and Gregory Ashworth. Heritage, they argue, is largely concerned “with the very selective ways in which material artefacts, mythologies, memories and traditions become resources for the present” (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996, p. 6). In their understanding, “heritage is not a passive process of simply preserving things from the past that remain, but an active process of assembling a series of objects, places and practices that we choose to hold up as a mirror to the present, associated with a particular set of values that we wish to take with us into the future” (Turnbridge and Ashworth, 1996, p. 655). This conceptualization of heritage is crucial in analyzing how the memory of Banda has been selected, preserved, reconstructed, valorized and contested as heritage not for its own sake, but to satisfy and serve particular government interests in Malawi.

The uses of heritage and memory in domestic politics, especially in power struggles and the creation of national identity, have been addressed by numerous heritage studies scholars in the southern African context (Manetsi, 2017; McGregor & Schumaker, 2006; Minkley & Mnyaka, 2015; NieftagodieN, 2015; Petersen, 2015; Ranger, 2004; Werbner, 1998). Terrence Ranger has shown how in Zimbabwe the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) manipulated the liberation history into what he calls “Patriotic history” in order to legitimize itself in power (Ranger, 2004). Similarly in South Africa Thabo Manetsi has written on how state sponsored memory and heritage projects promote the narratives of African National Congress Party (ANC) at the expense of other movements against apartheid in order to entrench its power (Manetsi, 2017). As will be shown in this article, the memory of Kamuzu Banda has been at the heart of consolidation of power and construction of heritage through commemorations and monuments by political elites in Malawi.

3. Re/Constructing sites of public memory in Malawi

Two important approaches inform the way spaces of public memory are constituted in Malawi. The first approach is informed by what Laurajane Smith calls an Authorized Heritage Discourse. Under this approach, members of the Monuments Advisory Council, a body of heritage experts affiliated with the Department of Museums and Monuments, are responsible for designating some sites, and dates as monuments or public holidays. They recommend sites and dates to the minister responsible who, through parliament, endorses them as gazetted (Samba, 2018). The second approach is more directly related to government politics where the president using his constitutional powers declares a certain day or site/object to be a monument or public holiday. This is an approach whereby those in government influence what should be heritage. It is an approach very much grounded in the dominant ideology thesis, which at its core stipulates that those in power determine how the past should be remembered and by implication what memory and heritage should be inscribed (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996). This article focuses on this approach. However, in some cases, the decisions of the experts in the Monuments Advisory Council are also influenced by the government in power (Samba, 2018).

The Monuments and Advisory Council in Malawi categorized monuments into five groups: graves of important colonial explorers, missionaries, chiefs who are deemed to have played a greater role in Malawi’s history, soldiers who died in First and Second World wars, and some individuals who died during Malawi’s struggle for independence; war fortifications; buildings including churches constructed during the early colonial period and those that are related to Malawi’s struggle for independence; painted rock shelters; and sites of significant natural beauty such as Cape Maclear (Juwayeyi, 2011; Chilachila, 2018, Samba, 2018). According to Chrisy Chiumya, “Malawi’s attitudes towards archaeology and immovable cultural heritage can also be attributed to Banda’s convictions and his government policies.” Chiumya has shown that 19 national monuments that were gazetted between 1968 and 1985 reflected Kamuzu Banda’s bias towards what should be national monuments (Chiumya, 2012). For example, it was also common during Kamuzu Banda’s rule to inscribe his name on public infrastructure, for example, roads, hospitals, schools and on other material spaces to entrench his memory in the public for the support of his rule. Mostly this was to assert that he was the singular champion of Malawi’s development agenda. I will return to this in detail later in the article.

The Department of Antiquities (which became the Department of Museums and Monuments) has also been responsible for taking a leading role in organizing the events on public commemorations. These are especially public holidays that celebrate or commemorate specific events in Malawi’s history. Since 1964 five dates have been inscribed onto the national public and commemorative calendar. These dates are 15 January known as John Chilembwe’s Day which celebrates the uprising of John Chilembwe in 1915 against the British. 3 March is the Martyrs Day that commemorates Malawians, who contributed to the anti-colonial struggles. 14 May is Kamuzu Day which celebrates the life of Kamuzu Banda. 6 July is Independence Day. 14 June was at one time Freedom Day celebrating the end of Kamuzu’ Banda’s dictatorship. But as will be shown later in the article, it was removed on the commemorative calendar by President Bingu wa Mutharika as a way of sanitizing the memory of Banda.

Some of these public holidays are associated with sites or memorials that help narrate the event. For example, Nkhata Bay Memorial in Nkhata Bay is associated with Martyrs Day, Independence Arch in Blantyre is associated with 6 July, and the Chilembwe Memorial Pillar is associated with Chilembwe’s Day on 15 January. The Department of Museums and Monuments is active in making sure that the monuments are well conserved before the day of the events on these sites (Samba, 2018). Reuben Chirambo and Bryson Nkhoma have discussed how 3 March (Martyrs Day), 6 July (Independence Day) and 14 May (Kamuzu Day) were celebrated during the time of Kamuzu Banda. Both have argued that the celebration of these days promoted Banda as the leading figure during the anti-colonial struggles while excluding others whom Banda perceived as his enemies. And this worked to legitimize his dictatorial rule (Chirambo, 2005; Nkhoma, 2012). In fact, Kamuzu Banda’s ruling Malawi Congress Party had even declared that “songs should praise only Banda and no other party leader” (Short, 1974, p.150). It was for this reason that in 1994 when Bakili Muluzi came to power, he began contesting and reinterpreting these public memories. For example, the definition of martyrs included also those who fought against the dictatorship of Banda. Muluzi also declared 15 January as Chilembwe’s Day to give prominence to the role played by John Chilembwe during the anti-colonial struggle thereby countering the narrative of Kamuzu Banda as the sole figure in the anti-colonial struggles.

The three successive governments in Malawi of Kamuzu Banda, Bakili Muluzi and Bingu Wa Mutharika created a tradition of commemorative days, monument building, naming, and renaming that was marked by subjective definitions of Malawi’s heritage centering on the memory and counter-memory of Kamuzu Banda. In what follows, I provide a context to the politics of Banda’s memory in Malawi by briefly situating Banda’s autocratic rule.

4. Kamuzu Banda, Nationalist historiography and Patriotic history

Kamuzu Banda has taken such a central place in the discussion of nationalist historiography in Malawi (Short, 1974; Baker, 2001; K. M. Phiri, 1998). I will not go into much detail of this matter but only present a brief summary, in relation to the issues of memory, politics and representations of Banda after independence. Indeed, memorialisation has been an integral part of the various contradictory processes of state formation in Malawi from the pre-colonial era to the era of resistance to colonial conquest; to the emergence of the post-colonial state. For example, on its 13^th Annual Conference from 3 to 5 August in 1957 the African National Congress made resolutions to inscribe eight commemorative days for the Nyasaland colony (as Malawi was formerly known). The commemorative days that were proposed were in the spirit of colonial resistance. For instance May 26 was proposed as Gomani’s Day to commemorate the death of Inkosi Gomani who was hanged to death by the colonial apparatus.¹ After independence, the commemorative tradition continued but as already mentioned it was exclusive as it was centering more on Kamuzu Banda. Owen Kalinga argued that the 1964 cabinet crisis in which some ministers explicitly protested Banda’s policies was a watershed moment of how Banda’s megalomania and considerable self-aggrandizement set up his memory as a site of contestation and struggle for his successors (Kalinga, 1998). Kalinga noted that “a major casualty of the 1964 cabinet crisis was free discussion of the recent political history of the country” (Kalinga, 1998, p. 540). This was because no one was allowed to mention the names of Henry Chipembere or Kanyama Chiume together with the other ministers whom Banda had designated as “rebels” following the crisis. In fact, to mention their names in everyday conversation was “illegal” and could easily lead to one’s detention in one of the notorious camps that were mushrooming in the country (Ibid, p.540). Consquently, “their role in the anti-colonial struggle was being deliberately obliterated from the memories of Malawians” (Ibid, p.540). Only the memory of Kamuzu Banda was being promoted and his role in the anti-colonial struggle being narrated at the exclusion of others. Following Terrence Ranger, what was being crafted as history in the public domain during Banda’s era could be understood as what he referred to as “Patriotic history” (Ranger, 2004). For Ranger “Patriotic history” is presentation and representation of liberation history to the public through various forms while excluding, downplaying and eclipsing the role of those deemed as dissidents to the ruling government. Ranger showed how the new government in Zimbabwe saw nation-building as the exclusive terrain of ZANU-PF with Robert Mugabe at the center as a means to consolidate Mugabe’s rule. Like in Zimbabwe, Kamuzu Banda’s patriotic history was propagated at many levels through state-controlled press; in youth militia camps especially the militant Malawi Young Pioneers and in school history courses and textbooks. Banda and his Malawi Congress Party controlled the production of history by among other strategies, censoring what was to be written as history in schools and universities (Kalinga, 1998). In fact the history that was written put much emphasis on Banda’s role while excluding the role of those he perceived as his political nemeses. This was Banda’s politics of forgetting. Indeed Banda’s name and representations were omnipresent in Malawi’s public domain. I recall an inscription of “Long Live Kamuzu” on the slopes of Soche Mountain that was lit at night as a monument and constant reminder to the Malawians of the role that Banda played in Malawi’s history. Figure 1 shows the name of Kamuzu Banda on the slopes of Soche Mountain.

Figure 1. An inscription of Kamuzu Banda’s name on Soche Mountain.Source; Malawi-Nyasaland Historical Moments.

Reuben Chirambo provided an interesting anecdote to illustrate and emphasise Banda’s manipulation of public memory and history in Malawi:

If a foreign dignitary were to visit Kamuzu Banda in Malawi, he would arrive through Kamuzu International Airport in the capital Lilongwe. He would then be driven through Kamuzu Procession Road from the airport past Kamuzu Round About en route to see Banda in Blantyre. In case of an accident on leaving Lilongwe, he would be rescued by soldiers from Kamuzu Barracks, graduates of Kamuzu Military College who, with Banda’s permission, would fly him by helicopter to Kamuzu Central Hospital. Nurses attending him would have come from Kamuzu College of Nursing of the University of Malawi. Upon discharge from the hospital, the trip by helicopter to Blantyre would afford him a view of Kamuzu Dam, two Kamuzu Bridges over the Shire River and on approaching Blantyre, a magnificent view of Lower Shire where there is Kamuzu Cattle Ranch and one more Kamuzu Bridge. Before taking leave of Kamuzu, he would be taken to Kamuzu Stadium through Kamuzu Highway to be entertained by traditional dances by Kamuzu’s mbumba (Chirambo, 2005, p. 300).

The above quotation demonstrates that the kind of public memory that was inscribed during the Kamuzu Banda era was a political construction, derived from the needs of autocratic rule. This appropriation of memory to legitimize oneself has also been observed in other parts of the continent. Kodzo Gavua’s work is compelling on how monuments are linked to heritage, identity and political agendas. He explored the relationships that may be found between monument building and definitions of heritage to show how successive governments in Ghana employed physical constructions to define heritages that objectified their respective ideals and interests to legitimize and promote themselves in the process of gaining and sustaining power mostly revolving around the memory of Kwame Nkrumah (Gavua, 2015). His work has resonance in understanding that governing party politics informs the constitution of national heritage in the public domain through monuments and commemorative days informed by dominant ideology using the memory of Kamuzu Banda in Malawi.

It was therefore during the era of Kamuzu Banda that “Patriotic history” through commemorations and holidays was instituted to celebrate the life and role of Banda during the anti-colonial struggles as one of his techniques to power. For example, the festivities, performances and speeches during the Independence Day on 6 July revolved around the figure of Banda as the sole liberator of Malawi (Chirambo, 2005). Infact 6 July was chosen in line with the political biography of Banda. He arrived in Malawi after almost 40 years abroad on 6 July 1958. In this way, the arrival of Banda was presented as the dawn of freedom and independence. In the next section, I therefore present how 14 May was celebrated in an exclusivist and narrow fashion whose sole project was maintenance of Banda’s political legitimacy and stranglehold on power.

5. From Queen’s Day to Kamuzu Day

14 May in Malawi is Kamuzu Day. It was initially designated to celebrate Kamuzu Banda’s official birthday. However, the paradox is that Kamuzu Banda’s precise birthday is not known. Even his year of birth, 1898, that appeared in his passport was an approximation by the passport officer in South Africa, where Kamuzu Banda got his first passport to travel to the United States. Kamuzu Banda himself revealed that when he could not provide a birth certificate or give the year of his birth, the officer looking at how tall he was gave him the year 1898 (Short, 1974). In the multiparty democracy, it is no longer presented as a birthday but rather a special day in which Malawians are asked by the state to remember and appreciate the life and legacy of Kamuzu Banda as a “founding father” of the Malawian nation (Republic of Malawi, 2007). Kamuzu Day is a clear example of a commemorative public holiday that came into being with the sole objective of magnifying Kamuzu Banda’s image and deeply entrenching his autocratic leadership in what has been termed by Reuben Chirambo as Kamuzuism (Chirambo, 2005). According to Chirambo, Kamuzuism was the tendency by the ruling Malawi Congress Party to mobilise political support for Banda through various cultural representations that were framed to praise his name and eulogise his legacy mostly at the expense of his perceived political opponents. While Chirambo was interested in praise songs for Banda at political rallies, commemorative holidays, for example, Kamuzu Day, also constituted Kamuzuism.

In April 1967, the speaker of parliament, Chidzanja, announced to members of the parliament that a new public holiday has been created and it would be called “Kamuzu Day,” replacing “Queens day.”² The announcement was received with applause (The Times, 1967d, p. 5). The Secretary General of Malawi Congress Party Albert Muwalo in his press statement to the public provided a background to Kamuzu Day:

May 14 each year has been observed in Malawi as well as in other Commonwealth countries still under British rule as an official birthday of Queen Elizabeth the second. Since Malawi attained her republican status in July 1966, we now have the President of the Republic who is the Head of State and Government. The position of the Queen as Queen of Malawi therefore automatically disappears. But May 14 will remain a public holiday in Malawi and it will be called ‘Kamuzu Day’ after the head of State and government, H. E the President of the Republic of Malawi (The Times, 1967a, p.1).

Ostensibly changing from Queen’s Day to Kamuzu Day was a means of jettisoning Malawi’s colonial baggage. However, I would like to contend that in essence this was mere repackaging of old colonial traditions to make them appear anew. Kamuzu Banda’s government did not want to abandon the political rituals and festivities associated with the day. Instead, it saw how effectively the day could continue being used to praise the leadership of the country, this time not praising the Queen but Kamuzu Banda himself. As Carolyn Hamilton observed following Achille Mbembe, “post-colonial societies seek to rescript much of the same material in situations of political improvisations” and drawing on David Herwitz, “there is the logic or grammar of difference that occurs in the way that post-colonial heritage ‘games’ repeat past heritage ‘games’ with a difference, accepting and intervening in the rules of the game” (Halmiton, 2015, p. 255). Indeed, the Banda government had ventured into the heritage game by playing with old colonial traditions while changing the rules of the game to meet its political interests. In his justification for the creation of Kamuzu Day to parliamentarians, Chidzanja argued that “it was fitting that Malawi should pay tribute to her leader, Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda in this way” (The Times, 1967b,p.5).

The main event for the day was held in Zomba (then the capital city). Other events would take place at the regional level, with Malawi Congress Party regional chairman representing Kamuzu Banda. At the district level, the District Commissioners would represent the president. The first Kamuzu Day was celebrated on 15 May 1967 in Zomba.³ The Times reported the following day “that people all over Malawi turned in thousands to celebrate Kamuzu Day” (Times, 1967e, p. 5). The paper gave what it maintained was a description of the event:

The President greeted his people from a bright red Rolls Royce on his official birthday yesterday. Wearing a full morning dress with a grey top hat, he waved to crowds lining the street of Zomba. Dr Banda travelled in the open-top car to the Kamuzu Day trooping of the colour, at Zomba Gymkhana club. His guest there was Chief Jonathan who travelled from Nyambadwe House for the parade. The colour was trooped by the 1^st Battalion of the Malawi Rifles who saluted the President and ended the ceremony with three cheers. During the afternoon, after lunch and reception at the state house, Chief Jonathan ascended Zomba Plateau (The Times, 1967e, p. 1).

Chirambo also captured vividly the activities, pomp and ceremony associated with Kamuzu Day during Banda’s regime. He wrote that on this day birthday wishes were delivered mainly in the form of songs than cards. The songs prayed for Kamuzu Banda’s long life and praised him for the leadership of the country, and as was always the case, they also pledged loyalty to him personally (Chirambo, 2005, pp. 188–190). I also recall in the late 1980s, attending the Kamuzu Day Celebrations at Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre. The acrobatic displays by the Malawi Young Pioneers, a paramilitary wing of the Malawi Congress Party and the color matching and singing by the Malawi Police Band with their trumpets and drums, and the parades by the Malawi Army were the spectacle of excitement for the audience. Kamuzu Day was essentially a day of merriment and celebration. It allowed Kamuzu Banda to enjoy a party mood with Malawians. This gesture of partying with Malawians seemed to strengthen his bond, connection and patriarchal relationship with ordinary Malawians. This had the effect of popularizing his regime. Banda could also make some political announcements on this day. For example, on the first Kamuzu Day in 1967, he announced the release of the political prisoners. One of the prominent to be released was N. A Mwambungu, former Member of Parliament for Karonga North, who was serving a five-year prison sentence (The Times, 1967c, p. 1). On Kamuzu Day in 1983, Kamuzu Banda expressed anger at four prominent politicians who later became the subject of the Bakili Muluzi government’s inquiry into the atrocities of Kamuzu Banda’s regime, Dick Matenje, Secretary-General of the Malawi Congress Party, Aaron Gadama, Minister for the Central Region, Twaibu Sangala, Minister of Health, and David Chiwanga, MP for Chikwawa District. It was alleged they were against some of the policies of Kamuzu Banda. On 17 May they were arrested at a roadblock in Zomba. Two days later they were all found dead in a crashed car after what was reported to be a “road accident” in Mwanza near the Mozambique border at Thambani (Donge, 1998). Thus, Kamuzu Day apart from being a day of celebration was also a day for Kamuzu Banda to challenge his political opponents.

6. Contesting and re-interpreting Banda’s memory in democratic Malawi

A number of scholars have written on the political events that led to the ouster of Banda’s regime and ushering in of democracy (Chirambo, 2001; Gilman, 2009; K. M. Phiri, 1998). The democratic era in Malawi witnessed national identity, monuments, and national holidays surrounding the memory of Kamuzu Banda being questioned. When Bakili Muluzi came to power in 1994 he began to contest public memorialization of Kamuzu Banda because they mainly focused on promoting Banda’s name while excluding others. He was on a drive to efface the public memory of Kamuzu Banda from the landscape. In the process, Kamuzu Banda’s name was removed from structures and institutions associated with his memory. For example, the Kamuzu Highway in Blantyre was changed to Masauko Chipembere Highway in memory of Masauko Chipembere whom Kamuzu Banda had once designated as a “rebel” during the cabinet crisis. Kamuzu Stadium was changed to Chichiri Stadium and Kamuzu International Airport to Lilongwe International Airport, reflecting the places where they are situated. While Bakili Muluzi could invest time in doing away officially with Kamuzu Banda’s memory he could also recast Banda’s memory to tarnish Banda’s legacy. This was expressed in the language of “restitution for injustices.” Bakili Muluzi’s drive at restitution for the injustices of Kamuzu Banda’s government involved instituting a Compensation Tribunal in 1994 to compensate victims, specifically the ones who could not access the courts for redress. In 1994, a Commission of Inquiry into the alleged political murders in 1983 of four prominent members of parliament, Aaron Gadama, Dick Matenje, Twaibu Sangala and David Chiwanga was set up. Their bodies were exhumed, and a national memorial of reburial took place as part of dealing with the terrible past of Kamuzu Banda. Later, a memorial pillar inscribed with the names of the murdered parliamentarians was erected at Thambani in Mwanza district as a reminder of the brutal murders on the site and also as a monument to Kamuzu Banda’s brutal regime. Thus, the memorial pillar represents and mediates Malawi’s traumatic history. Figure 2 shows this memorial pillar.

Figure 2. Memorial Pillar to the 1983 Mwanza Murders at Thambani in Mwanza. Source; Author.

Commenting on the above memorial practices Jan Kees van Donge argues that nations need memories and that there is in many contemporary African states a need to create a memory of the period between independence and reintroduction of multipartyism. That process often takes the form of inquests into human rights abuses which can result in trials (Donge, 1998, p. 91). I would like to further argue that while such memories were presented to serve the democratic ideals of human rights they were also used to legitimize and support Bakili Muluzi’s government as a promoter of human rights in the country. Muluzi’s politics of memory finds expression in Yael Zerubavel’s assertion that “when a society undergoes rapid developments that shatter social and political order, its need to reconstruct the past is as great as its desire to set its future agenda” (Zerubavel, 1994, p. 105).

With reference to post-apartheid South Africa, Ali Hlongwane and Sifiso Ndlovu argued that “the advent of a memory boom is symptomatic of a society that has emerged from years of conflict and repression.” They further contended that “the dominant meaning of such a boom relates, to a large extent, to the use of history and memorials in rationalising the foundation of new states and evolving a new identity” (Hlowanwane & Ndlovu, 2019, p. 5). They went on to explain that the most effective way to reflect the birth of a new nation is through the introduction of new national symbols which are crucial for redefinition of a nation and its identity. This process as understood by the government of Bakili Muluzi meant recasting and reinterpretation of Banda’s memory in a new democratic nation of Malawi.

It was against the above political background that in 1994 Kamuzu Day was erased from the public calendar. The two terms of Bakili Muluzi, therefore, did not celebrate Kamuzu Day as Muluzi did not want the fond memory of a dictator to be promoted under his government. Instead Muluzi declared 14 June to be Freedom Day and a public holiday. On Freedom Day Malawians could be remembering how they fought against the dictatorship of Banda to usher in democracy. Thus, 14 June could be used to recast the memory of Banda as a dictator and his government as repressive. However, it appeared that Bakili Muluzi realized the political significance that 3 March, Martyrs Day, could unleash to prop up his political agendas, especially as a platform to castigate and vilify the Kamuzu Banda regime and project himself as the champion of democracy and human rights that the country had lacked for many years. For example, on 3^rd March of 1998, one year before the general election, Bakili Muluzi, for the first time in his presidency, attended a public commemoration of the Martyrs Day to open and inaugurate the Mikuyu Prison Museum (Muluzi, 2002). Mikuyu Prison was the notorious maximum prison during Kamuzu Banda’s regime where his political opponents were detained without trial. By opening it on Martyrs Day, Bakili Muluzi extended the dimension of the martyrs to those who were imprisoned by Kamuzu Banda. This is well illustrated in his speech:

You Honour, Cabinet ministers, Ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that the Minister of National Heritage invited me to officially open this facility on the 3^rd of March, Our Martyrs Day because there can be no greater monument to our Martyrs than this Museum, right here, at the seat of brutality, torture, and gross abuses of Human Rights (Muluzi, 2002, p. 114).

The opening of the Mikuyu Prison allowed Muluzi to remind the Malawians of the atrocities of Kamuzu Banda, the significance of Mikuyu Prison as a monument to the history of an iniquitous political system, a brutal penal institution, and the resilience of generations of ex-political prisoners who mid-wifed a new democratic Malawi. This was more critical to Muluzi especially at the time when the country was gearing up for the general elections at which Kamuzu Banda’s Malawi Congress Party was also contesting. In fact, Muluzi won the elections ushering in a second term for his presidency. Figure 3 shows the former President Bakili Muluzi holding a leg iron in a Punishment Cell at the then Mikuyu Detention Camp marking the end of torture by officially converting this prison famed for its notoriety into a Prison Museum.

Figure 3. Bakili Muluzi holding a leg iron in a Punishment Cell during the Opening of Mikuyu Prison Museum. Source- Zomba Prison.

When Bingu Wa Mutharika came to power in 2004 he began re-interpreting the biography of Banda contrary to Muluzi’s interpretation. The need for President Mutharika to seek grassroots support when he had broken away from the United Democratic Front, the party that helped him to power, was directly responsible for the reconstruction and re-interpretation of the memory of Kamuzu Banda. In 2004, when President Bakili Muluzi had failed to push for the third term he endorsed Mutharika to be his successor. Muluzi vigorously and relentlessly campaigned for Mutharika. Muluzi introduced Mutharika to public rallies all over the country. He would always assure the Malawians that while he was a political engineer, Mutharika christened himself as an economic engineer for he had been an economic advisor to many presidents in Africa. It must be noted that Muluzi’s choice of Mutharika as the presidential candidate for the UDF did not please some senior party members who were aspiring to succeed him. Mutharika’s nomination led to massive resignations of some elites in the party, some of whom went on to establish their political parties. The most prominent one was Justin Malewezi, who had been vice president of Muluzi since 1994. It appeared that by personally choosing Mutharika as his successor, Muluzi hoped to influence Mutharika on some of the important decisions of the party and government. But as subsequent events would dramatically unfold, this would turn out to be a miscalculated move on the part of Muluzi.

It was in his inaugural speech on 24 May 2004 that Mutharika set out agendas that would be in complete contrast to the party that had aided him to power. When he began his first term, he separated party functions from government business, stopped giving monies to people as gifts at party functions, waged an anti-corruption drive against the former cabinet ministers, and was publicly declaring that he would not shield even the former president from the corruption charges if there be evidence.

In the assessment of 100 days of Mutharika’s presidency, Desmond Phiri highlighted some of his actions. Phiri noted that contrary to expectations Mutharika had acted fast to distance the state from the UDF machinery. Among other things, this had involved refusing to fund party functions from state coffers and limiting the number of party rallies that could be covered live by the electronic media. Phiri also cited cutting government expenditure by among other things reducing the size of the cabinet and foreign trips. And, unlike his predecessor, Mutharika repeatedly praised contributions that he claimed the late Kamuzu Banda had made to the development of Malawi despite his human rights record (The Nation, 2004, p.1).

These developments did not augur well with the United Democratic Front, especially the former president who had supported Mutharika. As a result, a rift and political animosity emerged between the former president and his successor. The discord between the two began to surface in the public. On 18 October 2004, during a meeting with the Malawi Human Rights Commission Mutharika complained that Malawi must have one president at a time and not two leaders as some people in the UDF wanted: I want to change things but some people are pulling my jacket and behaving as if Malawi must have two presidents. I don’t understand this. Malawi like any other country must have one president. You must assist in making people understand this (The Nation, 2004, p.1).

This schism came to a head on 5 February 2005 at the Kamuzu Institute of Sports, where Mutharika was attending a government function. Mutharika announced his resignation from the party that had sponsored him to power. The president argued that his zero tolerance for corruption had made him enemies in the party which had been fighting him incessantly for the previous seven months. Two weeks after announcing his resignation, Mutharika launched his party, the Democratic Progressive Party, which had lured a chunk of members of parliament from both the two dominant opposition parties, the Malawi Congress Party and the United Democratic Front. Virtually all independent members of parliament also joined his new party (The Nation, 2005, p.2). Nonetheless, the president lacked the majority in parliament. During his first term, therefore, he led a minority government against a strong majority opposition. The UDF, disgruntled by Mutharika’s betrayal was determined to impeach him with the help of MCP. They petitioned the speaker of Parliament to invoke Section 65 of the Constitution of Malawi, which forbids MPs to ’cross the floor’ i.e. leave parties that sponsored them into parliament to join other parties represented in parliament. Mutharika was threatened. This would have cut the patched-up numbers of his new party in parliament and exposed his presidency to real impeachment possibilities. This threat, plus the fact that his party lacked a political grassroots infrastructure to cultivate popular support, and establish a power base, led him to seek ways to undermine the opposition. While he was able to stall the process of expulsion from the parliament of members of the legislature who had “crossed the floor” to support him through protracted court battles, and by using his prerogative powers to prorogue parliament whenever the issue of Section 65 was raised, it was popular support of his government that he needed most.

In the first term, “Mutharika governed under the shadow of illegitimacy because he refused to have presidential fresh elections to confirm his mandate following his resignation from UDF and establishing his party while in government” (Chirambo, 2009, p. 79). His popular support was untested. “He needed any form of popular support he could get and it seems this led him to adopt the cultural populism that had characterized Banda’s reign. He began salvaging Banda’s praise titles, for example ‘Ngwazi’ to claim qualities for himself that would help him to connect with Banda’s sympathisers and gain their affection” (Ibid,p.79).

In addition, while Muluzi and the UDF had removed Banda’s name from several public infrastructures in the euphoria of the transition to democracy Mutharika reinstated the name and started honouring Banda-as-a-founder of the nation, hoping to elicit popular support for this move. This was a ploy to seek sympathy not only from the wider Malawian population which began showing disillusionment of the Bakili Muluzi regime due to rampant corruption but also specifically from Kamuzu Banda’s central region, which still showed strong support and sympathy with Kamuzu Banda and his Malawi Congress Party (Wroe, 2020). The dynamics in the parliament at that time meant that the Members of the United Democratic Front would rally against him. It was only with the Malawi Congress Party that he could reach for any form of alliance. Against this unstable political situation, Bingu Wa Mutharika turned to Kamuzu Banda’s memory by reviving it to gain popularity from Kamuzu Banda’s sympathizers across the political spectrum for his survival. Several legacy projects on Kamuzu Banda were initiated. First, in August 2004, Bingu Wa Mutharika declared that the names of some institutions be reverted to that of Kamuzu Banda “in recognition of late Banda’s achievements.” For example, Lilongwe International Airport was reverted to Kamuzu International Airport, Chichiri Stadium to Kamuzu Stadium and Lilongwe Central Hospital to Kamuzu Central Hospital (The Nation, 2004, p.2). Mikuyu Prison Museum was closed indefinitely. The reason for its closure was that there was terrible congestion in Malawian prisons. So the government wanted to decongest the other prisons by relocating the prisoners to Mikuyu Prison. A former curator at the museum explained that the closure of the museum was a loss in Malawi’s history of dictatorship. He argued that the Mikuyu Prison Museum narrated the story of “a path to democracy and that future generations would have learnt more about the circumstances of transition to democracy” (Tembo, 2018). However, considering the politics that were prevalent during Bingu Wa Mutharika’s reign the reasons for its closure could be political rather than congestion in prisons. It is not surprising that 14 June, Freedom Day, was no longer observed as a public holiday. Bingu Wa Mutharika during this time was sanitizing the history of Kamuzu Banda for his political gains after he had left the United Democratic Party, the party that supported him to power.

On 6 October 2004, speaking in Kasungu district, home of the late Kamuzu Banda, at a function to celebrate the elevation of 15 Chewa chiefs Bingu Wa Mutharika attacked his predecessor Bakili Muluzi for failing to recognize the achievements that Kamuzu Banda had made. He told the chiefs that “it was sad that seven years after Kamuzu Banda’s death government has not been able to build a mausoleum.” The president repeated his pledge to have the mausoleum built as a matter of urgency when he announced that “I will source funding for the monument if there is no money. Whether you like it or not there was Hastings Kamuzu Banda who at one point ruled this country, and this is in history books. Even if you destroy the books facts will remain the same” (The Nation, 2004, p.2). Following the president’s announcement the government allocated a sum of K20 million (about $25,000) in the 2004/2005 budget for the construction of a mausoleum for Kamuzu Banda. According to the minister responsible for sports and culture, Henry Chimunthu Banda, the construction of the mausoleum was supposed to be done in phases. The first phase was the tour by stakeholders led by the Department of Museums and Monuments to countries, such as Ghana and Kenya to see how other mausoleums were built. The second phase was the designing which involved architectural landscaping. The third phase was the actual construction of the mausoleum, which would among other things, include a museum, office block, library, VIP lounge, recreation centre and statue of the late Kamuzu Banda. The whole complex would be called Kamuzu Memorial Park. The minister said the mausoleum project was intended to highlight the history of Malawi from the time the country was under colonial rule to the death of the former head of state: “This will include the struggle of our country to break from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the state of emergency in 1959, and attainment of independence from the colonial powers. This will assist school children to visualize and conceptualize the history of Malawi before 1994” (The Nation, 2004, p.2).

It was in such a political climate that Kamuzu Day was reinstated through parliament on 1 March, two days before, Martyrs Day, in 2007 (Republic of Malawi, 2007, p.1–2). The motion to reinstate Kamuzu Day was moved by a Member of Parliament of Malawi Congress Party, Kamuzu Banda’s party, from Lilongwe North West, Ishamael Chafukira. It was seconded by the Minister of Finance, Goodall Gondwe of the Democratic Progressive Party, and the party of President Mutharika. Chafukira moved the motion by saying:

This House requests the government of the Republic of Malawi to declare May 14 a public holiday on its official calendar to honour the first head of state, Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, father and founder of this nation in view of the resounding contributions he made and in line with the spirit world wide to accord a place in the history of their nations to men of that stature (Republic of Malawi, 2007, p.24).

Chafukira further argued in the motion that restoring the Kamuzu Day government would place the former head of state on the same footing as other heroes such as John Chilembwe. He also suggested that the government should erect Kamuzu Banda’s statue, possibly at the new parliament building being constructed in Lilongwe. In response, as government Chief Whip, Gondwe supported the idea but wondered why Kamuzu Day was not considered at the time Chilembwe Day was established. In a way, Gondwe wanted to ridicule and scorn Bakili Muluzi’s United Democratic Front government for doing away with Kamuzu Day. It is important to mention that during this motion the members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, exchanged harsh words with those of the United Democratic Party, accusing them of effacing Kamuzu Banda’s memory by scrapping Kamuzu Day from the calendar. The motion was voted, passed and Kamuzu Day was reinstated (Republic of Malawi, 2007).

If there was a debate in parliament on the reasons for reinstating Kamuzu Day, the general public did not sit back. A look at some of the newspapers on 9 May 2007, the month of Kamuzu Day, reveals the tensions. One letter writer attempted to reason why 10 years after his demise Kamuzu Banda was becoming a hero, and what had happened for him to move from a dictator in 1994 to a hero in 2007. He offered three reasons. First, he argued that after the 1994 elections Kamuzu Banda was seen through the new administration (the Bakili Muluzi administration). Thus, people had high expectations of the new regime, and they were much disillusioned by it when it failed to meet them. He cited growing food insecurity in the country, which was not the case previously. The second argument was that it was now revealed to all that some of the injustices were not committed or decreed by Kamuzu Banda but by some of his henchmen. The third reason was that the persistent “torture” by Bakili Muluzi on Kamuzu Banda, especially dragging the old and ailing Kamuzu Banda to court to answer some charges committed by his regime encouraged some sympathy from a large section of Malawians (Donge, 1998). He concluded that the love of Kamuzu Banda and his rise to heroism was the outcome of an understanding of his role in Africa and an expression of disillusionment with Bakili Muluzi in whose decade-solid social structures of Malawian life were falling apart. Perhaps it was quantifiable: drug abuse grew, corruption was almost normal, while disorder and punishment went unpunished (The Nation, 2007, p.20–22). For him, there was therefore public nostalgia for Kamuzu Banda amid growing disenchantment with the Bakili Muluzi government.

Another letter writer was unhappy with this show of nostalgia. Her criticisms and arguments through her contribution blatantly exposed the fact that the day was invented to support Banda’s regime. She argued that according to research that she made at the national archives of Malawi, Kamuzu Day is a continuation of the British tradition that was meant to honour the Head of State. She further argued that “President’s Day” would be better than calling it using the personal name of who so ever would be in power because of the divisive nature of personal names. These comments by these two contributors reveal two important things about Kamuzu Day in Malawi. First, they reveal that Kamuzu Day was a repackaging of an old colonial cultural form to prop up Kamuzu Banda’s regime. Second, the Day came to be reinstated for political expediency which was dressed up as nostalgia.

7. Post-Banda memorial/heritage complex; mausoleum and statue

It was on 14 May 2006, when President Bingu Wa Mutharika officially opened the Kamuzu mausoleum in the capital city Lilongwe next to the new Chinese-funded National Parliament Complex. The site is designated as part of Kamuzu Memorial Park, which in its initial plans was to include among other things a library stocked with books and literature about Kamuzu Banda and an interactive centre showcasing some other personal effects as supposedly defining Kamuzu Banda (Gomani-Chindebvu, 2018. On this occasion, the president once again vilified the Bakili Muluzi government for trying to erase Kamuzu Banda’s name from public memory. The president eulogized and praised Kamuzu Banda by describing him “as a true national hero who laid a foundation stone for the country’s development and inspired other African leaders in their struggle for independence.” He went on to explain that “empirical research shows that civilized people preserve their history, while those that are primitive destroy their history. We the people of Malawi are civilized and will therefore preserve and cherish our history. My government will continue to honour this hero, our national hero Ngwazi Dr Kamuzu Banda” (The Nation, 2006, pp. 1–3). Bingu Wa Mutharika re-inscribed Kamuzu Banda’s memory as Malawi’s heritage through the mausoleum as Ken Lipenga has asserted following Stuart Hall,

The historicity of the statue cannot be overemphasised. As part of a national heritage, a statue is one of the ways in which the nation slowly constructs for itself a sort of collective social memory. Just as individuals and families construct their identities in part by ‘storying’ the various random incidents and contingent turning points of their lives into a single, coherent, narrative, so nations construct identities by selectively binding their chosen high points and memorable achievements into an unfolding ‘national story (Lipenga Jnr, 2019, p. 5).

Thus, the Kamuzu Banda mausoleum became the monument through which Malawi’s nationalist history is retold. Speaking on behalf of Kamuzu Banda’s family Ken Kandodo, a nephew of Banda, thanked Bingu Wa Mutharika’s government for honouring its pledge to build the Kamuzu Banda mausoleum. “We thank your excellence for your personal interest, ensuring that the workmanship is of high quality” (The Daily Time, 2006, pp. 1–3).

The mausoleum has two compartments. The upper part is the replica of the tombstone. The actual tombstone where Kamuzu Banda is buried is on the ground floor with an inside chamber, which is restricted to the public. The mausoleum has some symbolic features. Engraved on the mausoleum are the four cornerstones of Unity, Loyalty, Obedience and Discipline that Kamuzu Banda in his 30-year reign, 1964–1994, advanced as the so-called foundational principles of his government and the country. The epigrams on the mausoleum claim Kamuzu Banda as the father and founder of the Malawi nation. At the front of the mausoleum are several steps leading up to an arch where there is a life-size portrait of Kamuzu Banda. There are 24 pillars as part of the structure representing the districts of Malawi during Kamuzu Banda’s time. As one goes up, four pillars represent the additional districts that were added during the democratic era. There are also large-sized photos of lions that symbolize his power as he was referred to as the Lion of Malawi. One photo depicts 71-year-old Kamuzu Banda in 1969 holding a flywhisk given to him by Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya. As a Christian and elder in a Scottish Presbyterian Church, his favourite scripture Psalm 23 “the Lord is my shepherd” is inscribed on one of the plaques. The assistant curator at the mausoleum told me that Kamuzu Banda’s body was preserved to last for 100 years (Mbali, 2018). The biography of Kamuzu Banda that is told by the assistant curator, presents a sanitized version of Kamuzu Banda’s “great lived life” with no mention of his brutal regime. It presents Kamuzu Banda as the hero of the anti-colonial struggle and one who triumphantly rescued the nation from British bondage. According to Chirambo, this monument constitutes “the nationalist memory of Malawi and in ways recovers and re-imagines the nation’s postcolonial history” (Chirambo, 2010, p.551). Its failure lies in the absence of other prominent figures with whom Kamuzu Banda fought together with. Perhaps, this is what heritage and memory work does. It is always selective. Figure 4 shows the Kamuzu Mausoleum.

Figure 4. Kamuzu Banda’s Mausoleum.Source,;Department of Museums and Monuments.

It seems apart from capitalizing and instrumentalising the memory of Kamuzu Banda for his political gains Bingu Wa Mutharika had other grand ambitions of inscribing the country’s memory for the imagination and inspiration of the nation. This was evident when in 2005 he had instructed the Ministry of Lands to set aside a piece of land within the vicinity of the government’s central administration, the Capitol Hill, for what would be the country’s supposed national mall or national memorial park. With a team from the Department of Lands and the Department of Museums and Monuments, he surveyed the portioned land and suggested how structures would stand. In a similar fashion to the Egyptian pharaohs and Roman emperors who could design and commission obelisks and grand monuments, Bingu Wa Mutharika designed and sketched a memorial tower that would dominate the capital’s skylines for the memorialization of the war dead to be erected at the park that would be called Umodzi Memorial Park (Gomani- Chindebvu, 2018; Samba, 2018, Chilachila, 2018). The memorial park was to host among other things a state-of-the-art national museum, a library centre, a cultural village, a botanical garden and other recreational facilities (Gomani-Chindebvu, 2018).

On Remembrance Day 11 November 2007, the memorial tower was officially opened by Bingu Wa Mutharika. On the walls surrounding it, the names of the fallen soldiers who served in different military missions are inscribed. One could suspect that Bingu Wa Mutharika might have been inspired by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the United States capital dedicated to United States troops who had served in the Vietnam War (Savage, 2003). Unlike the Heroes Acre in Zimbabwe, which memorializes the heroes of the liberation struggle in that country, the memorial tower remembers Malawian soldiers who died fighting either during the First or Second World War and other peacekeeping missions that Malawi has been involved in. The memorial park is at some elevated ground making the drive up towards it like climbing the steps to a temple on a hilltop. In a way, this gives the site its prominence in the city’s landscape.

On Kamuzu Day, in 2009 Mutharika unveiled the statue of Kamuzu Banda on the ground of this memorial park next to the memorial towers. Figure 5 shows the statue. It is a bronze statue, which weighs 680 kg and stands 3-m high. Its South African sculptor, Jean Doyle, had also produced statues of Nelson Mandela and Angolan Agostino Neto (The Daily Times, 2009, pp. 1–3). The statue shows Kamuzu Banda in his trademark suit and flywhisk. Like at the mausoleum, the epigrams depict Kamuzu Banda as the father and founder of the nation. On the statue are quotations from Kamuzu Banda’s speeches, one of 1958, when he arrived at Chileka Airport to join the independence struggle against British colonial rule, in which he was reported to have said, I have come back to break their stupid federation and to give you my people the Africans of this country your government and independence. I have come back home to act as a bridge, to break the gulf of disunity between the races: between the Europeans and the Indians on one hand, and my people, the African people of this country (Chirambo, p.551). In his speech, Bingu Wa Mutharika explained that he was restoring the honour, which was stripped of Kamuzu Banda. He announced that the government would put up other statues at the memorial park in honour of the countries’ heroes and add a park where children would have fun. What was interesting during the unveiling of the statue was how the honorific term Ngwazi appeared on the plaque twice in reference to Kamuzu Banda and Bingu Wa Mutharika. Both Kamuzu Banda and Bingu Wa Mutharika were once accorded such titles by the Ngoni Chiefs. The statue, therefore, seems to project Mutharika as Banda’s “heir.” Chirambo argued,

For many, the staging of the unveiling of the statue and the statement of the plaque seemed not merely coincidental but things by which Bingu sought to gain popular support for the purpose of winning the elections. The statement that the statue of Ngwazi Banda was unveiled by Ngwazi Bingu establishes a direct connection between them, one succeeding the other (Chirambo, 2009, p. 88).

Figure 5. Statue of Kamuzu Banda; Source, Department of Museums and Monuments.

Conspicuously missing at the unveiling of the statue was the leader of Malawi Congress Party, John Tembo, and former president, Bakili Muluzi, and his United Democratic Front, who had shunned the unveiling ceremony. John Tembo claimed that he did not receive the invitation letter. While the United Democratic Front spokesperson alleged that the function was highly politicized. Perhaps, it is important to mention that this was a campaign period and it was only five days to go before the polls. UDF spokesman Robert Jamieson argued that “what Mutharika is doing is to confuse the electorate. He wants to disfranchise the electorate that is with Malawi Congress Party. The timing of unveiling the statue is very bad, he wants to win votes from Malawi Congress Party. Why didn’t he do it before the election or after the election if at all he will win? These people want to make political capital but they have got it wrong this time” (The Daily Times, 2009, pp. 1–3). Mutharika went on to win the elections with a landslide victory for his second term in office. Gavua commented on how monuments influence electorate votes when he wrote why the NDC government in Ghana built the monument for King Tackie Tawiah 1, the twentieth-century King of the Ga state in Accra with the hope of winning the votes in that Accra region (Gavua, 2015, p. 106). It is important to note that both the mausoleum and statue of Kamuzu Banda were enlisted as a national heritage site in the inventory of Malawi’s tentative list of ungazetted monuments by the Department of Museums and Monuments (Samba, 2018).

The memory or “legacy” projects on Kamuzu Banda by Bingu Wa Mutharika did attract different views from both within and outside the country. There was a mixed reaction among the participants to the British Broadcasting Corporation radio debate on Kamuzu Banda’s mausoleum. This debate was later captured and reported in the local newspaper. The question posed was “what do you think? Is this a waste of money or a suitable memorial? How important is it to honour the dead?” One respondent reacted by saying that “Kamuzu deserves more than whatever we can do because Malawi is where she is because of him—no tribal wars and peaceful” (The Nation, 2005, p.4). Another in support argued that, “the democracy in Malawi has taken Malawi back 200 years, and it has to take a lot of time to make up standards set by Kamuzu Banda. Banda will always be the number one leader for Malawi. He deserves the monument.” One respondent who was against the mausoleum maintained it was uncalled for at a time when people are dying of HIV/AIDS, hunger, and poverty. He asked if it was not enough that his casket was golden. One of the civil society organizations, the Malawi Care’s advocacy group, welcomed the project of the mausoleum when it released a press statement arguing that it was ideal that “the first president should be buried in a mausoleum. He deserves it. People who did good things in the past should be respected despite whatever atrocities they might have committed” (The Nation, 2005, p.4). At a scholarly level, Kamuzu Banda’s monuments have also received some criticism. Reuben Chirambo has argued that “monuments that seem to only celebrate Banda’s reign without necessarily taking into account the atrocities of his reign are problematic” (Chirambo, 2008, p. 145). Jack Mapanje and Steve Chimombo, once imprisoned and exiled by Kamuzu Banda, in their “resistance poems” argued that “Kamuzu Banda was a dictator undeserving of such posthumous memorialization and that the narratives constituted in the monuments do not represent the interests of the victims of his dictatorship” (Chirambo, 2010, p.551). Instead of celebrating his heroism, they have claimed that Kamuzu Banda’s monuments should narrativise his repression, injustices and the innocent blood that he shed in his autocratic rule (Ibid,p.551). Extracts from Mapanjes’s poem “A Monument to a Tyrant” and Chimombo’s poem “The Sinking Cenotaph” read:

Was it for erecting this marble

Mausoleum for Hastings Banda

That …

Hundreds of thousands of freedom

Fighters [were] accidentalised, imprisoned,

Exiled (Mapanje, 2007, p. 21).

The memory chills over Kamuzu’s bones.

Cold marble mourns over his mausoleum,

Built for the demagogue of all times (Chimombo, 2009, p. 128).

It is important to explain that while the above sentiments indicate resistance or involvement of the public in determining how the country should memorialize its past still the Malawian public and intellectuals have great difficulty in making any effective challenge to the state’s commemoration of the past. Unlike in other countries, for example, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa where communal or local commemorations challenge the hegemomy of state memorialization such alternative memorializations do not exist in Malawi. The cultural activities of the current ethnic-based heritage associations celebrate mainly their intangible heritage, which does not challenge or question the dominant state memorialization in Malawi (Kaira et al., 2019; Lusaka, 2020). Perhaps the current activities of Malawi Lost History, an organization which seeks to promote commemorations and recognition of Malawians who are not included in the state’s pantheon of memory will inaugurate modes of memorialization that counter the state sanctioned memory.

The above discussion of Mutharika’s initiatives on new heritage projects involving the monumentalisation and memorialization of Kamuzu Banda only reaffirms that memory and history are never stable, or settled but always contested and negotiated. I argue that by re-inscribing Kamuzu Banda’s memory as Malawi’s national heritage through monuments, Kamuzu Day, naming and renaming the institutions after Kamuzu Banda, Bingu Wa Mutharika managed to find a supportive political base in Kamuzu Banda’s central region, which contributed helping him to hold on to power at the time of political crisis.

8. Conclusion: On memory, power and heritage

The article has demonstrated how Kamuzu Banda’s memory was appropriated, recast and re-inscribed by three successive governments in Malawi in their quest to reconstruct the national heritage that revolves around his memory. It has been argued that all these attempts at promoting, reconstructing and recasting Kamuzu Banda’s memory were political technologies for each government to negotiate power to legitimize and sustain itself. This resonates with the dominant ideology thesis which attempts to understand how heritage is produced and interpreted. It argues that the interpretation of heritage is endowed with messages which are deliberately framed by the existing power elite to legitimize the existing dominant regime. Or that each government, upon assuming power, must appropriate itself control over cultural capital if it is to legitimate the exercise of such political power (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996, p. 47).

The article brings to light a debate on who defines national heritage and under what kind of circumstances heritages are defined. In this article, it has been shown that the inscribing, constitution and definition of heritage are the preserve of the governments and their ruling political parties to serve their interests. The article further points to the fact that heritage is not something, which is just given. Rather heritage is a product of social, cultural and political processes and it can change its meaning and interpretation in response to changing political situations. At the center of the discussion in the article is how memory is elusive and selective and open to manipulation by political elites and those aspiring to power. The memory of Kamuzu Banda was manipulated and contested with different governments for the purposes of legitimizing the government in power. Ultimately, Banda’s memory became a site for the negotiation of power in Malawi.

Although not within the scope of this article, a reflection beyond 2009 shows that Kamuzu Banda’s memory still occupies a central and significant place in Malawi’s contemporary politics. This demonstrates the continued relevance of Banda’s memory in the power struggles waged by different political actors in Malawi.

Acknowledgments

The research for this article was part of doctoral research when I was student in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa from 2016 to 2019. I am grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Doctoral Fellowship grant at UWC’s Center for Humanities Research which made this research possible. I am deeply indebted to Professor Leslie Witz, who supervised my thesis. I am particularly grateful to members of staff of Department of Museums and Monuments of Malawi for granting me interviews and free access to important memorial and commemorative sites and documents which shaped and framed this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mwayi Lusaka

Mwayi Lusaka holds a doctorate degree in History focusing on heritage issues from University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Previously he held the position of Principal Ethnographer inthe Department of Museums and Monuments of Malawi. Currently he is a Lecturer inthe Department of History and Heritage Studies at Mzuzu University in Malawi.

Notes

1. Other days that were proposed for commemorative prayers include: February 15 Chilembwe Day (1915); May 15 Treaty Day (1891); June 2 Anti-federation Day (1953) August 18 Cholo Day (1953); September 3–5 Federal Imposition Day (1953); October.15 Congress Day (1944); November 15 Congress Branch Day (1944).

2. It is important to note that the real birthday of Queen Elizabeth II is 21 April. However, because of harsh weather in April in UK the official birthday was designated to be on the second Saturday of June when the temperatures were warmer. Perhaps colonial Malawi had chosen 14 May for its own convenience to celebrate the Queen’s birthday as the Queen’s Day. Worth mentioning is also the fact that 24 May was celebrated across the British Empire as the Empire Day to celebrate the British Empire. And Malawi used to participate in such festivities.

3. This was because the actual 14May had fallen on Sunday so the celebrations were shifted to Monday 15^th.