Malawi's Pitiful Progress

Praises lavished on the dead might not have any meaning apart from being the commonplace types of eulogies which most dead people receive. But in certain instances, it is impossible to avoid praising someone who has died.

Death brings foes together, and it even invites peculiar praises. This is a common phenomenon about it in general, but about extraordinary men, death only marks the inauguration of an era of remembrance.

There are individuals who continue being praised even though they have spent decades and decades in their graves. The mound of earth beneath which their bones lie might be negligible today, but their impacts among the human race continue being monumental.

Their short lives fail to be overshadowed by their long periods which they have been dead. And this is when death fails to have dominion.

Individuals like Mahatma Gandhi, Plato, Martin Luther Jnr (the politician), Martin Luther the theologian and many others continue having their impacts greatly felt in our lives today. Their wisdom has remained useful with the passage of time and their ideas continue shaping our lives in one way or another.

Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Malawi’s first president is another individual who can never be removed from the list of remembrance.

“Dr. Banda is one such individual who is very central to the history of Malawi. His contributions will continue being felt as long as we live,” says Edison Njembe, a third year history student at Chancellor College.

Banda’s death was full of paradoxes and contradictions. It brought with it different explanations of his life which included both praises and rebukes, because he was a rare character. Perhaps, good men are those whose legacy should have such contradictions.

He passed on thirteen years ago, but a lot of information about him continues coming out. In his speech to members of the History Society of Chancellor College some time back, Kings Phiri, a professor of history, intimated that a lot of information regarding Dr. Banda’s life will remain hidden in the mist of time if those individuals who were so close to him, and obviously know something about the former leader which no one else might know, die without revealing what they know.

“There is a lot of information about Dr Banda that remains hidden somewhere because those who know it are unwilling to give it out,” said Phiri.

When it comes to Dr. Banda’s closest confidantes, the names of John Tembo and Mama Tamanda Kadzamira immediately invade the minds of many Malawians. These individuals somehow hold a good chunk of our history, and should they die without revealing it, ours will remain a country with a cloudy history.

It was known, or at least believed, among most Malawians that Dr. Banda never sired any child in his lifetime, even though he had the pleasure of living in sin with Kadzamira for the rest of his life after returning (or coming) to Malawi from Scotland.

And now one Jimu Jumani Johansson is in town claiming that Dr. Banda is his father and therefore he wants to change his name so that the name Kamuzu Banda should be reflected in it.

Well, it might indeed sound ridiculous that someone just springs from ‘nowhere’ and claims that he is the former dictator’s son. Yet, on the other hand, one fails to understand where the young man might have gotten all the courage from.

There is something that gives him confidence, and some people know it, only that they are just economical with the truth.

What more with Focus Gwede one of Dr Banda’s close confidante revealing that he saw the former president’s three children with one of them being Jumani.

Jumani’s ‘mother’ Mirriam Kaunda was recently reported to have bashed Jumani’s claims of being Kamuzu’s son. But, a relative of hers was also previously quoted as saying that in 1973, the year when Jumani was born, some strange things happened in the country to the extent that Kaunda had to go and live somewhere else for some time. There could be more to that than what the relative revealed.

A lot has been said about Jumani, with some people branding him someone out of his mind while others argue that there could be a speck of truth in his claims. But such issues like those of children’s paternity usually need something more than “mere tantrums and palliatives” (to borrow Hon. Nicholas Dausi’s cliché) to be solved.

Proof in such issues seldom comes from the justice that our courts of law offer. On the other hand, it can only be realized after a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test is carried.

And since this is what Jumani is fighting for, why don’t we give him the benefit of the doubt so as to clear the mist. After all, the young man said that he is ready to sponsor the test. Should things fail to work to his expectations, he is going to be the loser and no one else. It appears he knows something, for such an issue cannot spring from nothingness.

“Jumani wants to trace his roots, and he is confident the former head of state is his father. He is ready for a DNA test, which can be the only proof of his roots. Let him do it, why deny him the chance?” said an anonymous citizen in this publication sometime back.

After all, why isn’t there his father’s name on his birth certificate? What is the explanation for his ‘mother’s’ absence in 1973 when he was born? If his father is indeed a Malawian of Indian descent as his ‘mother’ claims, why wasn’t the so-called father’s name reflected on the birth certificate?

Perhaps, the way things are progressing, the path towards discovering the truth will soon be found. Maybe, we will no longer be debating on whether or not Jumani is indeed Kamuzu’s son.

Yet, it appears clearing the mist regarding Jumani’s paternity will just be another gateway to more claims from more people that they are Dr Banda’s children.

“If what Focus Gwede said is anything to go by, more people are likely to come out claiming to be the former head of state’s children. This is a huge possibility,” said Joseph Manda, a Zomba-based political commentator.

But in the face of whatever happens after now, the fact remains that ours will remain a country with a blurred history until some individuals who possess information that would be very significant to the whole country come out in the open and declare what they know so that Malawi can have a clear shape.

And in the case of the confusion surrounding Jumani’s issue, it appears it is only a DNA test which can put the matter to rest, otherwise, it appears there can never be a convincing explanation of the truth. Such matters are seldom sorted out in courts of law.