Transgressing Kamuzu Banda : the Rotberg affair and the suppression of historical research in newly Independent Malawi

Abstract

This article explores Malawi officialdom’s assault against an American historian, Robert Rotberg. Rotberg cultivated a close relationship with Malawian leader Hastings Kamuzu Banda during the final years of that nation’s liberation struggle, but abruptly found himself cast as an enemy of the newly independent nation. He incurred Banda’s wrath primarily due to a postscript in his pioneering 1965 account of anti-colonial politics in Malawi and Zambia, The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa. The book was banned, and Rotberg was declared persona non grata in Malawi. His research conduct was cited as one of the primary grounds for the extended closure of the National Archives of Malawi in 1967–68. This account of official Malawi’s displeasure with Rotberg illustrates the dynamics that played out as Africa’s decolonization spurred a surge of academic interest in African area studies during the 1960s. Africa’s post-colonial leaders were aware that the immediate post-independence period was formative. This effort to shape the parameters of historical and scholarly discourse denoted the extent of the Malawian regime’s determination to both assert its contemporary authority and frame its legacy.