Letter from Africa: Africa looks back on its pioneering leaders

KASUNGU, Malawi: A surprising exercise in revisionism is taking place in this quiet country, a southern African democracy tucked away in an obscure corner of Africa’s Rift Valley that is not generally known for surprises or, for that matter, news.

Rival political parties here are competing over ways to honor the country’s first president, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, a man whose stern and prolonged rule would have to place him near the top of any list of Africa’s most absolutist leaders.

To know the full, official name of this man, who died in 1997, after 31 years of rule is to get the picture. Newspapers were obliged to call him His Excellency The Life President (Paramount Chief) Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the Ngwazi. The unfamiliar last word means conqueror in Chichewa, the national language. For good measure, Banda, who was indeed a medical doctor, also carried the titles of minister of foreign affairs, defense, justice and agriculture.

Despite Banda’s many excesses, including calling political opponents “food for crocodiles,” the Malawian Parliament recently voted overwhelmingly in favor of honoring him. This follows the construction, a few years ago, of an expensive mausoleum in the capital, Lilongwe.

These days, in a country that has managed to democratically elect two presidents in Banda’s wake, the country’s politicians are locked in a contest to claim his mantle, which the current president, Bingu wa Mutharika, summed up simply in a recent speech, saying that Banda had devised a “development agenda for the country.”