REMEMBERING DU: AN EPISODE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MALAWIAN POLITICAL CULTURE

In September of 1962, Dunduzu Kaluli Chisiza, Secretary Generalof the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), ‘prison graduate’and prospective Minister of Finance for Nyasaland, died in acar crash. Immediately, rumours began to circulate that thiswas no accident but a case of political murder. For the firsttime, ‘car accident’ became a metaphor for politicalviolence in colonial Malawi. This article examines the availableevidence pertaining to the accident and concludes that althoughit appears not to indicate foul play, much of it was not madepublic and this, coupled with a troubled political climate,bred suspicion. It is argued that the rumours about DunduzuChisiza's death demonstrate a popular awareness that the imageof political consensus advanced by the MCP during the late 1950sand early 1960s was false. Further, the rumours reveal a profoundambivalence about the growing personalization of rule underDr H. Kamuzu Banda. While the Cabinet Crisis of 1964 was thefirst public demonstration of leadership rupture, it was a culminationof tensions rooted in an earlier period, tensions which werealready felt by many and expressed through rumour in 1962 andafter.