David Kaunda (David is also the Zambia leader’s second name) went to Chinsali, more than 100 miles to the west of Lake Nyasa. There he began his task, and soon became known as ‘Kafundisha’ (teacher) far and wide around the boma. It was a little-known area, in which until five years before, the white administrators had been engaged in military campaigns against the most powerful tribe, the Bemba.
This photo of young Kenneth Kaunda only came to light when I started researching our family tree recently and discovered them as I worked through paperwork and photographs from my late father-in-law, David R.C. Brown.
The little girl in the photo was my father in laws sister, Mary Brown, my husband's aunt. She was the daughter of the Rev. Dr. David McCulloch Brown (my husband's grandfather). Rev. Dr. Brown was a Church of Scotland Minister and Medical Doctor who was at the Lubwa Mission from 1927 until his death in 1947. He worked alongside Rev. David Kaunda, KK's father. KK received his early education here and Rev. Dr. Brown also tended to him when he had malaria and treated sores on his legs.
Acknowledgment and Thanks to Aileen A Brown to share this precious picture of the late President.
Background to his struggle
In most African countries the fight for independence has been against European colonial powers. It was never so simple in Zambia. Although the people wanted to end colonialism, they also had to look to Britain sometimes for protection against closer political opponents. These were the white settler politicians. The people were often disappointed when they expected Britain to stand up for them against the settlers. After all, the settlers were also white.
That is just one of the many difficulties which Kenneth Kaunda faced in his struggle. Others were caused by Zambia’s wealth and her geographical position in Africa. A glance at the map reveals the country’s importance in Africa below the equator. It is exactly in the middle of the southern half of the continent. The borders of Zambia touch those of Tanganyika, Malawi, Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Angola, the Congo - and even the Caprivi Strip, administered by South Africa......Continued...
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FIRST COUPLES OF ZAMBIA - THE KAUNDAS
By Eugene Makai
When in 1943, Kenneth Kaunda was asked by the missionaries at Lubwa Mission to return to Chinsali from Munali School in Lusaka where he had spent two years from 1941 to take up a position as a Teacher and boarding master at his old school at Lubwa, he did not hesitate. He was 19.
He had been one of 30 students from all over Northern Rhodesia chosen to attend the First African Secondary School in Lusaka.
Even though he would have continued with his education for another two years there was a critical shortage of Teachers at the Mission School and he had by now acquired a higher qualification than most of the staff there.
This development put Kaunda on a trajectory that would affect all our lives, not least his own.
Lubwa was the centre of the lives of the Kaundas going back to Reverend David Julizya Kaunda, Kenneth's father.
In those days, some of the visitors to Lubwa were John and Milika Kaweche Banda who were residents of Chinsali. They would take their daughter Mutinkhe, who was also known by her Christian name Beatrice shortened to its diminutive form of Betty, to receive medical treatment at the Mission dispensary.
The Kaweches later moved to Mpika where Mutinkhe went to school and completed her standards or equivalent of basic education.
Mr. Kaweche was a firm believer in girl education and opportunities for his daughter. So as soon as Mutinkhe was done she went to Mbereshi where she took an Elementary Teacher's Course for which she received a certificate in 1946.
Mutinkhe was to take up a position at the Mpika school but Mrs. Helen Jengwera Nyirenda Kaunda Kenneth's mother, was about to change her life.
Unbeknownst to Kenneth, Mrs. Kaunda visited the Kaweches in Mpika and saw Mutinkhe for the first time since her family left Chinsali when she was a girl. She enlisted the help of a friend who was a neighbour of the Kaweches and enquired into Mutinkhe. Satisfied with the reports she got and her own observations, she broached the subject of Mutinkhe being a suitable match for her son Kenneth to the Kaweches.
Kenneth Kaunda meanwhile was away in Mufulira attending a Scout camp with two of his closest friends, Simon Kapwepwe and John Sokoni. His mother wrote a letter telling him to call on the Kaweches in Mpika on his return to see his prospective bride.
When the trio arrived in Mpika from Mufulira in June 1946, Mutinkhe was told that they were resting in a hut. She went there but only found Simon and John as Kenneth had wandered out. She returned later and met him for the first time.
Kenneth's friends excused themselves after which he introduced himself to her. As Mrs. Kaunda ( Mutinkhe) recalled later, he went straight to the point catching her rather off-guard. She was speechless.
He asked her some questions but she remained silent as a sign of consent as custom dictated. After a few minutes she excused herself and went home.
The following morning, Kenneth called on Headman Chitulika and gave him Five Shillings (5/–) to be taken to the Kaweches as a token of betrothal (insalamu). Mutinkhe was informed of the formal proposal for marriage and asked if she was willing to engage Kenneth. She agreed.
The Kaweches then formally accepted the generous token of 5 Shillings considering that Six Pence (6d) or 1 Shilling (1/–) was usually enough for the purpose.
Their wedding took place in August 1946 and was celebrated first in Mpika and then at Lubwa in Chinsali. They travelled to Lubwa on the back of a lorry with their belongings. A reception was held at Lubwa with dancing into the wee hours. Kenneth's pupils also attended the event. Donations amounting to Three Pounds (£3) were collected.
And so three months to her 18th birthday, Betty Mutinkhe Kaweche became the lifelong wife, friend and companion of 22-year-old Kenneth David Buchizya Kaunda with whom she was destined to shape the future of Northern Rhodesia.
☆The Kaundas - one of the most enduring couples of our time and an iconic first couple of Zambia.
Credit: Zambia Our Heritage
1959
Whatever the consequences, we are prepared to pay the price of freedom in this country.
There is no excuse for the government ban on Zambia. It is unfair and unjust. If our speeches are inciting violence then the government has every right to arrest us. We preach non-violence. We are muffled because the government has a guilty conscience. They know what we say is true.
1960
What is it that we are fighting and sacrificing for? One, we want to get rid of foreign domination in any form. Two, we are determined that the present bogus constitution must go. Three, that the majority must rule. Four, that there never can be any other safe repository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves, which in fact means that you will never be respected unless and until you yourselves control the reins of power.
Our problem is practical, not ideological. After all, there are 3,000,000 of us and only 72,000 whites.
I know my wife and my children are crowded together in a two- roomed shack. The shack is an oven when it is hot, a refrigerator when it is cold. But that is the whiteman’s fault, not mine. That is what I am fighting against!
1961
We are all handling a very difficult situation in Northern Rhodesia. It is one of those human problems mankind has had to face. Let us approach it as calmly as we can and avoid hysteria. So far I have not come across any responsible African leader who advocates a racial approach to our problem and none at all who says ‘drive Europeans into the sea’.
1962
We in Northern Rhodesia can look back with pride to the pre- Federation days, because we lived happily then as people who Her Majesty’s Government was deliberately preparing for self-government. We had our troubles then, but they were the sort one finds in any normal society.
The business community and the people of Northern Rhodesia as a whole must see for themselves that the so-called Federation is a convenient tool by which the interests of this country are constantly subjected to those of Southern Rhodesia.
I would like to stress once again that all of us have made mistakes in the past - and being human we will make some more in the future. What is important is that men do not live in the past, they live in the present and prepare themselves for their future. Let all of us be constructive.
1963
We intend to create a society in which private enterprise will play its full part in the development. It is only by the combined effort of government and private enterprise that we can fully develop our resources and utilise our manpower.
With a rapidly increasing population we have a very high proportion of young people and when we think about the general welfare and improvement of the country, we are thinking mainly of the younger age group.
We have declared that at the end of the period of self-government we are going to remain in the Commonwealth of Nations, acknowledging the Queen of England as nominal head of that organisation. For any country to be accepted within the Commonwealth, that country must show clearly that it is going to follow a realistic policy
- the policy of non-racialism.
We would like an opposition that is non-tribal, non-racial and non-religious (by non-religious of course, I mean one that is not based on any religious grouping). A sweeping victory at any given election is no mandate to legislate against the formation of an opposition.
Industrial strife, and strikes, especially when they are unconstitutional, can only have the effect of deterring more investment in our country and can be very damaging to its economy. I am sure we are capable of establishing three-cornered, healthy relations between government, employers and employees.
Government is going to crack down very heavily on any mischievous persons trying to fan the flames of tribalism or racialism anywhere.
I would definitely personally support any national campaign launched by church leaders and others to beat down excessive drinking. I agree it is the greatest single menace to our country and I have, I think, already described it as a cancer eating into the most treasured possession we have in Zambia - man.
It is our intention that the status and standing of the House of Chiefs should be maintained within the framework of the constitution, and that Ministers should obtain the advice and opinions of the House on all matters which are the direct concern of the Chiefs and their peoples.
ZAMBIA’S INDEPENDENCE CABINET, which became effective on 24th October 1964. President: The Hon. Dr K. D. Kaunda. Vice-President: The Hon. R. C. Kamanga. Ministers—Foreign Affairs: The Hon. S. M. Kapwepwe; Home Affairs: The Hon. M. M. Chona; Finance: The Hon. A. N. Wina; Justice: The Hon. J. J. Skinner; Local Government: The Hon. S. Wina; Transport and Works: The Hon. A. G. Zulu; Land and Natural Resources: The Hon. S. Kalulu; Agriculture: The Hon. E. H. K. Mudenda; Education: The Hon. J. M. Mwanakatwe; Labour and Mines: The Hon. J. H. Chimba; Commerce and Industry: The Hon. N. Mundia; Housing and Social Development: The Hon. H. D. Banda; Health: The Hon. M. Sipalo; Information and Postal Services: The Hon. P. W. Matoka...... Continued...
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JOHN MWANAKATWE, the man who desegregated education
Walima T. Kalusa
The bulletin & record, Volume IV, Issue 01, February 2014
The late John Mupanga Mwanakatwe was a Zambian icon who scored several “firsts” as an intellectual, educator, politician and lawyer. He was the first Zambian to obtain a university degree, the first African in the country to head a secondary school before independence, and the first Minister of Education in the post independence cabinet in 1964. He would later go on to hold several important positions, ending his illustrious life as an accomplished cilvil servant, politician, author and lawyer.
Who was this multi-talented man and how did he accomplish so much in life?
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Mr Elijah Mudenda, the scientist, freedom fighter and politician who helped steer Zambia towards independence
Walima T. Kalusa
The bulletin & record, Volume III, Issue 07, August 2013
To most Zambians, the late Elijah Kaiba Mudenda was a devoted nationalist who, in spite of his impressive education and the high offices he held, enlisted in the liberation movement out of which Zambia was born in 1964.
But Mr Mudenda was more than a freedom fighter. He was also a highly qualified scientist who dedicated his early life to carrying out research on maize to make the country's staple crop more resistant to diseases and thus increase its yield. And after Zambia's independence in 1964, he as a minister of several ministries, further played a leading role in crafting policies that profoundly shaped the Zambian economic and political landscape.
(Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia - Fergus Macpherson)
In 1961, the “Cha-Cha-Cha” campaign of civil disobedience and political awareness began in earnest. This entailed strikes, arson, blocking of the roads, boycotts and protests in Lusaka and across the country. This campaign was named after a popular dance in the early 1960s, and symbolized that it was time for Britain to ‘face the music’ of Zambian independence.
Zambia a country study
by Howard Simson
Zambia a country study
by Howard Simson
ISBN 91-7106-237-8
Printed by The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study surveys and analyses Zambia's socio-economic development during the First two decades of’ its existence as an independent state. The character of the development crisis facing Zambia today can best be understood in historical perspective. In Chapters 2 and 3 we briefly explore the pre-colonial and colonial periods, with the emphasis placed on obtaining a clear picture of the socio-economic structure of Britain's Northern Rhodesian colony on the eve on Independence. In Chapter 4 we describe Zambia's political and economic systems, and analyse the emerging class structure of the society. Chapters 5 and 6 provide comprehensive accounts of Zambia's economic and social development between 1964 and 1984. In Chapter 7 we explain the Zambian government's new strategy for financial stabilization and economic restructuring, and assess the country's medium term economic prospects. Finally, in Chapter 8, we outline the extent and direction of foreign aid to Zambia.
Introduction
At Independence in 1964, Zambia was relatively rich compared to neighbouring states; by 1979 Zambia had a GDP/capita of US $ 580 as compared to $ 239 in Tanzania and $ 210 in Malawi. Nevertheless, the combined effects of the collapse of the copper price and the intensification of the Zimbabwe liberation struggle in the mid-1970s, led Zambia to become a major recipient of foreign economic aid. Between 1974 and 1980 aid to Zambia increased by 300 per cent. Massive assistance was received from China in connection with the building of the TAZARA Railway, while Western aid streamed into the agricultural sector, infrastructure, health and education. As the economic crisis worsened in the early 1980s, Zambian economic development was severely constrained by the shortage of foreign exchange and consequently, the role played by foreign aid in Zambian society became increasingly important. In particular, the World Bank, which is by far the largest institution providing multilateral loans to Zambia, began to play a collaborative role in the designing of Zambia's structural adjustment policies. In its 1981 report Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank called for sweeping changes in the practices of bilateral donors: while calling for an increase in total aid to the region, it requested bilateral donors to scale down aid for new development projects and to contribute instead to coordinated support for market-oriented industrial rehabilitation and agricultural diversification policies. (See A-26.)Page 85
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THE FREEDOM TRAIL
The bulletin & record (B&R) Vol V. Issue 1, February 2015
The Southern African Freedom Trail, an idea originated by a group of young people collectively called The Lusaka Global Shapers Community.
Most South African countries did not achieve their independence until 30 years or more after Zambia had obtained hers. During this period, Zambia was in the forefront of efforts to help liberate countries still under minority rule.
The independence eventually found by South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique owed much to Zambia's unequivocal support which, as a result, had caused Zambia to become victim of bombings and covert attacks by anti-liberation forces.
The map attached highlights significant locations around Lusaka that were used by liberation forces.
For example, that the ANC headquarters were for over a decade located in the sanitary lane between Cairo and Chachacha roads, a building that was bombed multiple times by forces sent by the apartheid government of South Africa. Few know that Nelson Mandela was elected deputy and acting president of the ANC at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre. Likewise, many do not know that there was a place in Kabwata called the African Liberation Centre where South African, Zimbabwean, Namibian, Angolan and Mozambiquan liberation movements held offices, and that the office was headed by Edward Nkoloso, who became famous for his attempt to train Zambian astronauts? These are some of the locations highlighted on the Freedom Trail map.
Losing lived Afro-Asianism: Kenneth Kaunda and Rambhai Patel
Yesterday, on 17 June 2021, the world lost Kenneth Kaunda. In 1964, he became Zambia’s first president. He is remembered today as a key figure in not just the North Rhodesian struggle for independence, but also for his solidarity with liberation movements elsewhere, particularly in Southern Africa. But Kaunda was also one of the last living figures of early Cold War Afro-Asianism. Both in his political methods and in his personal friendships, Kaunda’s reach spanned multiple continents, and this was especially apparent in his connections with India. As his longtime correspondent and later biographer Colin Morris claimed, Kaunda was “possibly the only world leader since Gandhi to preach and practice non-violence from a position of power.”
It was inevitable that over the years, Kaunda was criticized for practicing pacifism imperfectly, particularly in the context of his support for the freedom movements in Zimbabwe and Namibia. Of this, too, Morris was not unaware, though he added that “only from some university lecture rooms and pulpits do thoughts on grave moral issues emerge as clean-cut propositions marching irresistibly to neat an unambiguous conclusions.” To some extent, it fell to Morris to make sense of Kaunda’s philosophy of non-violence, as the editor of Kaunda’s thoughts on the issue.
As Kaunda himself made clear in his meditation on violence and non-violence, published in 1980 by Collins as Kaunda on Violence, his political methods and ideas drew on many different sources. As obituaries now start to appear in media across the world, photos are recirculated in which Kaunda appears alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Bayard Rustin, and many others. It is all the more striking that in Kaunda’s own account of his political development, pride of place is given not to well-known political figures but to Rambhai Patel, an Indian shopkeeper in Lusaka, who first furnished Kaunda with his own translations of Gandhi’s writings. Kaunda notes: “I in turn fed these ideas into my earliest political speeches where, it seems to me now, they shone like gems in a river of mud. It was a noble gesture on Rambhai’s part.”
Who was Rambhai Patel? Kaunda’s characterization of him as a shopkeeper does only tell part of a more complex story. He was Kaunda’s exact contemporary, also born in 1924. Besides a shopkeeper, he was one of a larger group of Indians in Lusaka who were affiliated with the African National Congress in the 1950s. As Kamini Krishna has noted, ANC meetings in Lusaka took place in an Indian shop on Cha Cha Cha Road, run by another trader who was an active member of the ANC and later of the United National Independence Party (UNIP), Narain Bhagga. Rambhai Patel, on his part, was involved with the Zambian struggle enough to earn him a local nickname, Kanjombe. It is as Kanjombe that Patel reappears in accounts of the movement. When Kaunda was jailed, Kanjombe provided him with food. And as noted in Living the End of Empire, Kanjombe in fact supported multiple freedom fighters financially, and Kaunda was not the only one to whom he distributed literature on the Indian struggle for independence. As most literature of this kind was proscribed, this type of informal circulation was often the only way to access such texts.
Kaunda does point to Rambhai Patel’s wider engagement with the Zambian struggle for independence when he notes that “of course my friend Patel has always insisted that the help he gave me was an investment in Zambia’s future. He thought it wise to try to spot winners amongst the young hopefuls jostling one another near the top of the heap in the infant nationalist movement.” Between the lines, Rambhai Patel appears as a contemporary, a compatriot, and a friend. In the last words dedicated to Patel in On Violence, Kaunda formulates the relationship as a debt: “I owe Rambhai Patel much and see why Jesus made a shrewd businessman the hero of one of his parables of the Kingdom.”
Kaunda’s later relations with India were much more public. His first visit to the country in 1958 would be continued by state visits in later years. His collaboration with Indian members of the World Peace Brigade, who supported the Zambian struggle from Dar es Salaam, has been described by, among others, Jake Hodder here. But as Gewald, Hinfelaar and Macola note in Living the End of Empire, the majority of Indian traders who supported the nationalist struggle did so in secret, for fear of retaliation from the authorities. The open acknowledgment to Patel in On Violence, then, is a testament to the importance Kaunda attached to Patel as a living connection and connector between independence struggles across Afro-Asia.
Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president, dies aged 97 on 17 June 2021
One of Africa’s last surviving liberation leaders dies in hospital in Lusaka while being treated for pneumonia. Zambia's first president and one of the last of the generation of African leaders who fought colonialism, has died aged 97. Kaunda was admitted to a military hospital in the capital, Lusaka, on Monday suffering from pneumonia.