Ethnicity, language and national unity: The case of Malawi

Abstract

In late 1976, in the Mkuyu detention camp, outside Malawi's old colonial capital, Zomba, there were detained fifty-five university graduates. Forty-five were from the Northern Region (4). Between 1975 and 1976 many senior administrators and lecturers at the University of Malawi were detained. Over 90 per cent were from the Northern Region. In early 1976 sixteen people employed at the vital National Statistical Office were detained. All were from the Northern Region (5). Children from northern Malawi now being enrolled in school are being entered by their parents as non-Northern in origin and with new surnames. As a growing manifestation of a deepening 'Chewa' ethnic awareness, anti-Northern policies are common in Malawi today, destroying rapidly the remaining shreds of the national feeling inspired by the movement against the Central African Federation in the late 1950s and early 1960s and bring into question continued political stability once President Kamuzu Banda, already in his late seventies, passes from the scene.