Henry Masauko Blasius Chipembere
Henry Masauko Blasius Chipembere was a Malawian nationalist politician who played a significant role in bringing independence from colonial rule to his native country, formerly known as Nyasaland. From an early age Chipembere was a strong believer in natural justice and, on his return in 1954 from university in South Africa, he joined his country's independence struggle as a nationalist strategist and spokesman. In 1957, considering that the independence movement needed a strong leader similar to Kwame Nkrumah, and considering himself too young for this task, he joined with other young nationalists in inviting Hastings Kamuzu Banda to return to Nyasaland as the movement's leader.
From 1958, Chipembere orchestrated a campaign of civil disobedience against the colonial authorities that Banda insisted should be non-violent, but which the younger leaders allowed to become more violent, and which eventually led the governor of Nyasaland to declare a state of emergency over the whole protectorate in March 1959. This led to the arrest of Chipembere, Banda and other leaders of the Nyasaland African Congress and the deportation 72 of them to Southern Rhodesia, to the banning of the Congress party and to at least 51 African civilian deaths. Chipembere was regarded as a dangerous militant and imprisoned until late 1960: shortly after his release, he was prosecuted for sedition and imprisoned again until early 1963. Despite policy disagreements with Banda, on his second release Chipembere became a minister in Banda's cabinet in the run up to independence in July 1964. Barely a month later, Banda's autocratic style led to the Cabinet Crisis of 1964 in Malawi, when a majority of ministers who had voiced opposition to his style of government and several of his policies were sacked or resigned. Chipembere was not initially involved in this dispute and, although he did resign in sympathy with his colleagues, he attempted reconciliation during September 1964, until he and other ex-ministers were forced to leave the capital, Zomba, because of the hostility of Banda's supporters. After several months in Fort Johnston district, he and a few hundred supporters attempted an armed revolt in February 1965, which soon failed.
Chipembere was ill with diabetes and, with British government support and Banda's consent, he was taken to California to study and for treatment. He then taught in Tanzania before returning to California in 1969 to complete his doctorate and for further diabetes treatment, and he later taught at California State University. He died in exile in Southern California, of complications arising from diabetes.
Early life and career
Chipembere's father, Habil Matthew Chipembere, was a teacher from a prosperous Nyanja family, who was studying for the priesthood in the Church of the Province of Central Africa, a part of the Anglican Communion at the time of Henry's birth. Henry Chipembere was born in Kayoyo, then in Kota kota district, now Ntchisi district, in the Central Region of Nyasaland. His mother gave him the name "Masauko", which means "suffering" or "troubles", because it had been a difficult pregnancy.He was educated at Blantyre Secondary School, which also produced his later ministerial colleagues Augustine Bwanausi and Willie Chokani, up to School Certificate level. As university entrance generally required the Higher School Certificate, which was not offered at any school in Nyasaland at that time, around ten students from Nyasaland were sent each year to schools in Southern Rhodesia to complete their education, and Chipembere spent 1950 and 1951 under this scheme at Goromonzi secondary school in Southern Rhodesia, before proceeding to Fort Hare college in South Africa in 1952, from which he graduated in late 1954. For a little more than a year after returning, he worked in the colonial civil service as one of the first two African Assistant District Commissioners, and he served under local District Commissioners, first at Domasi and then at Fort Johnston, both in the Southern Province, and finally at Dedza in the Central Province.
On 30 December 1954, soon after his return from Fort Hare, he attended an informal meeting in Blantyre, with like-minded young Nyasaland Africans, including Kanyama Chiume, many of whom decided to ally themselves with the Nyasaland African Congress. This was a gradualist political organisation at that time, that had become almost moribund by 1950 but had revived under the vice-presidency and later presidency of James Frederick Sangala. It was, however, dominated by an earlier generation of politicians who had been with Congress since the 1940s and were demoralized by the party's failure to prevent the federation, in 1953, of Nyasaland with Southern and Northern Rhodesia. After his election as president in 1954, Sangala had angered some NAC members by allowing two NAC candidates to be elected to the Federal Parliament, and a number of them tried to unseat him.
In 1955, the governor considered that it was necessary to convince the African population the Federation was in their best interests and allay their fears. Accordingly, the Nyasaland government, with Colonial Office approval, increased the number of seats reserved for Africans on the Legislative Council from three to five. These African members would be nominated by Provincial Councils: although the Provincial Councils were largely composed of chiefs, their members were receptive to popular wishes, and they nominated Congress members or its supporters to the Legislative Council. In March 1956, aged only 25, Henry Chipembere resigned his civil service post in order to stand for election. He was elected by an overwhelming majority to represent the Southern Province, along with Chiume for the Northern Province, Ralph Chinyama, N D Kwenje and Dunstan Chijozi. The council also included eleven official government members, headed by the Governor, and six non-official European members.
Chipembere and Chiume seized the initiative in the Legislative Council with their outspoken and aggressive participation in its proceedings. The existing members, mostly European, had conducted proceedings with traditional British decorum and restraint, and presumably expected the new members to behave similarly; but these two asked awkward questions and made radical proposals which unsettled and embarrassed the existing membership. Their assault on colonial policies and condemnation of Federation turned the transcripts of the council's proceedings in Hansard, into a bestseller, particularly among young Africans, who were totally unaccustomed to seeing other Africans challenging the colonial authority so openly. Chipembere later said that his behaviour here was inspired by Hastings Kamuzu Banda, whose speeches in London five years earlier against the Federation of Nyasaland with Southern and Northern Rhodesia had been similarly daring and inflammatory. In April 1955, at the 11th annual conference of the NAC, Chipembere and Chiume proposed secession from the Federation as official policy.
In November 1956, Chipembere wrote to Banda, then in semi-retirement in the Gold Coast, asking for his support in getting two African MPs, Manoah Chirwa and Clement Kumbikano, to resign from the Federal Assembly in Rhodesia, something which they had allegedly undertaken to do once they had officially protested against Federation in the assembly on Congress's behalf. Chipembere felt that their participation in the Federal Assembly weakened the Nyasaland African case for seceding from the Federation, which they had been adamantly and overwhelmingly opposed to in the first place. Banda, who had always regarded participation in the Federal Assembly as a betrayal, temporized and counselled patience, but Chipembere and Chiume nevertheless, on December 31, 1956, put a motion before Congress proposing that Chirwa and Kumbikano should be ordered to step down. In an eleven-hour debate, however, their motion was defeated, in part it is thought, because of the opposition of older members of Congress who regarded Chipembere and Chiume as too young and inexperienced to be taken seriously. It was probably this that determined the younger element to ask Banda, an older and highly respected man who had spent his entire adult life away from his native Nyasaland, to return and lead the campaign for secession.
In January 1957, Sangala was persuaded to resign, and was replaced as President of Congress by Thamar Dillon Thomas Banda, known as T D T Banda, who was initially supported by Chipembere, Chiume and other young NAC members, and a youth movement called "the Kwaca Boys", which was later transformed into the Congress Youth League. In March 1957, T D T Banda went to the Gold Coast to participate in that country's independence celebrations, and while he was there, he visited Hastings Banda in order to try to persuade him to return. Banda was still reluctant, and two weeks later Chipembere wrote him a letter repeating the request. Later that year, partly in response to further moves by Sir Roy Welensky, the Prime Minister of the Federation, towards attaining dominion status for the Federation, Banda finally agreed to return, but only on conditions which essentially gave him autocratic powers in Congress. Banda also threw his weight behind the demand for the resignation of the two Federal MPs, which happened shortly thereafter. One of Hastings Banda's preconditions was that he would become President of Congress, and the way for this was cleared when, in March 1958, T D T Banda was suspended over financial irregularities, a move orchestrated by Chipembere and Chiume, and was later removed from office.
In June 1958, Chipembere, Dunduzu Chisiza and Chief Kutanja joined Banda in meeting the Colonial Secretary, Alan Lennox-Boyd, in London to discuss a new constitution for Nyasaland. Lennox-Boyd ‘took note’ of their views but said he did not think Congress represented Nyasaland African opinion.
The following month, on 6 July 1958, Banda returned to Nyasaland after an absence of 42 years. At the Congress Annual General Meeting at Nkhata Bay on 1 August 1958, Banda was named President of the Congress, and he nominated Chipembere as Treasurer General. The campaign for independence began in earnest. Chipembere and most other leading Congress activists were in their late 20s or early 30s, but Banda was over 60. As well as the age difference, there was disagreement about Banda's role: the activists saw him as a figurehead, but he saw himself as the leader of Congress and expected their obedience. At that meeting, Banda also demanded and was given the power to appoint and dismiss all other party officers and members of its executive. Banda also appointed Chiume as Publicity Secretary, Dunduzu Chisiza as Secretary-general and four other young radicals to the party's executive committee, ignoring older moderates. However, he made it clear that he regarded his appointees as subordinates, not colleagues.