![]() ![]() There I had been taught that the notion of 'tribe' was little more than a racist term with a myriad of negative connotations, and its use in student essays brought quick professorial rebuke. I had only recently come to Malawi from graduate school in the United States. The fragmentation of Malawi along ethnic lines perplexed me personally. This assault was broad in its scope, but it had been most strikingly symbolized for all Malawians by President Kamuzu Banda's decision in 1968 to remove the Tumbuka language-spoken by the great majority of the Northern Region's people-from its status as an official language of the country, banning it wholly from radio broadcasts and newspapers. It was also partly the result of the Malawi Congress Party's actions against the strongly entrenched position within Malawian society of comparatively welleducated bureaucrats and civil servants from the Northern Region. This was partly a result of the 'Cabinet Crisis' of late 1964, which fractured pre-Independence political alliances along fault lines of ethnic and regional identity, with a group of Chewa-speaking politicians from the Central Region ultimately gaining the political upper hand. Tribalism', that troubling enemy of the dominant party's programme of 'nation-building', had quickly come into the open after Malawi's independence. Nationalism, not only in Malawi, but in many other areas of Africa as well, had been a basically negative force, directed against colonialism, with little positive vision about the nature of the new society after colonialism's demise. In retrospect, the answer seems quite straightforward. Why had nationalism and nationalist unity evaporated so rapidly? The official rhetoric in the government-controlled press and radio about 'building the nation' and the Malawi Congress Party's endless sloganeering for 'Unity, Loyalty, Obedience and Discipline' were belied by the fact that many Malawians who, according to the received wisdom of the times, should have known better, were ardent 'tribalists' with no love for the Party and its grandees or for its stated goals. It was evident that despite the fact that Malawi had won its independence from Britain just four years earlier, its nationalist movement was already a spent ideological force. In 1968, the year of the Nigerian Civil War, many had predicted, with abundant optimism, that 'Northern Malawi is going to be the next Biafra'! To clinch his argument, he pointed out that in the south 'people actually live in round houses, while we here in the North use square ones'! This proud claim of cultural superiority for the people of the Northern Region on the basis of the design of their houses called to mind the attitude of many of my students from the Northern Region. It was clear that this answer both puzzled and frustrated him, and he then assured me that, as I continued my journey, I would soon recognize that the Northern Region was a better place than the south because its people were 'more civilized' and 'more progressive'. I said that I found all parts of the country attractive. ![]() The teacher was not satisfied with such generalities, and he pressed me, asking me specifically if I enjoyed the Southern Region, where the University was located, as much as I did the Northern Region. I replied that I liked it and thought it an interesting place. ![]() ![]() In the course of my work, I had met a primary school teacher in a village deep in the hills, many miles from the main road. On holiday from the University of Malawi, I was then travelling in the Northern Region to do field research on the area's pre-colonial history. With a significantly lower buyout for Harbaugh, it’s much easier for the Wolverines to move on if they feel it’s the best course of action.A conversation on a windy Malawian hillside in late 1969 planted the seed of this book in my mind. Harbaugh signed a four-year extension with his salary getting cut in half after Michigan had an abysmal 2-4 record in 2020. This isn’t the first time Jim Harbaugh has undergone a staff shakeup, but it’s the first time he’s done so after a year in which his own job status came under doubt. Jay Harbaugh’s new deal is under the same base salary as well. He’s set to make $415,000 in his first year and $430,000 in his second. Nua is on another two-year deal after his initial contract with Michigan expired in January. He’ll still make less than co-offensive coordinator Josh Gattis’s $900,000, though. The former tight ends coach earned a promotion to co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach. Moore’s salary is up to $550,000 in 2021, in line with the change in his job title. Bellamy, a former football player at Michigan who coached West Bloomfield high school to a state title this past season, is on a two-year deal starting at $225,000. ![]()
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