Revolutionary and Enemy of the Revolution
Mira Fechter
May 4, 2022
November 22, 1929
Murray William Kanyama Chiume is born in Usisya Village, Nkhata Bay District, Malawi.
1944
Chiumemoves to Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) to attend school.
1949
Chiume is admitted to Makerere College in Kampala, Uganda, a prestigious university atwhich Chiume would study medicine.
1951
Kanyama Chiume abandons medicine because he “could notstand human dissection.” Hewent on to study education, specializing in physics, chemistry, and biology.
1953
Chiume attends Ramjas College in Delhi to study law.
1956
Chiumeabandons his education after being asked to stand for Nyasaland’s first elections in1956.
1957-1961
Chiume is active in the Nyasaland African Congress and in organizing and mobilizing thenationalist movement with Nyasaland.
1962
Chiume is appointed Minister of Education, and once the government is officially formed, heis moved to the post of Foreign Minister.
1964
Nyasaland achieves its official independence, and the country is named “Malawi” by the newPresident, Dr. Hastings Banda, to whom Chiume washis closest advisor.
Song sung at independence
Tiyende pamodzi ndi mtima umodzi! (Let’s march forward in one spirit!)
Tiyende pamodzi ndi mtima umodzi (Let’s march forward in one spirit)
Eee, A Banda tiye! Tiyende pamodzi! (Banda, let’s march!)
A Chipetiye! Tiyende pamodzi! (Chipe, [Chipembere] let’s march!)
Tiyende pamodzi ndi mtima umodzi (Let’s march forward in one spirit)
Eee, A Chirwa tiye! Tiyende pamodzi! (Chirwa, let’s march!)
Kanyama tiye! Tiyende pamodzi! (Kanyama, let’s march!)
Tiyende pamodzi ndi mtima umodzi (Let’s march forward in one spirit!)
Image: Hastings Banda
Banda’s young life in Nyasaland, education at prestigious universities such as University of Chicago and University of Edinburgh, and outspoken opposition to the CAF made him a premier candidate for leader of the Nyasaland African Congress and later Prime Minister of the fledgling government of post-colonial Nyasaland, two roles which he ultimately accepted, and ones that Kanyama Chiume strongly lobbied for.
Moto! Moto! Wayaka! (Fire, fire is ablaze!) Moto, wayaka! Moto, wayaka! (Fire is ablaze! Fire is ablaze!) A Malawi? (Malawians?) Amalawi safuna: (Malawians don’t want:) Chipembere, Kanyama (Chipembere, Kanyama,) Willie Chokani! (Willie Chokani!)
“He banned women from wearing trousers or mini-skirts. He prohibited kissing in public. He ordered haircuts for long-haired tourists. He banned bell-bottom jeans and banned over-the-collar haircuts for men as he considered them a sign of decadence. He censored the mail, jailed his opponents, declared himself President-for-Life and ruled Malawi for three decades until the age of 96.”