Echoes From The Past
Greetings from Malawi, Africa and our Team at Good Soil Academy,
I’ve been thinking and reading a lot these days about the history of Malawi, Africa. Every culture and country is unique and Malawi is no exception. The story of Malawi’s history is a rich and complex tapestry of various tribal influences, such that at least eleven varying tribal and ethnic groups have had an influence on Malawian culture and tradition. These tribes include Tonga, Tumbuka, Ngoni, Chewa, Senga, Ngonde, Kamanga, Nsenga, Yao, Manganja, Lomwe and Kololo, to name a few. Even to this day one’s tribal affinity group is closely aligned with an individual’s identity. And almost every Malawian you meet will be able to tell you about their clan and tribal identity.
The modern Malawi we know today, although fully independent, has also been shaped and influenced by outside influences which predominantly include Portuguese occupiers in the south of Nyasaland (the historic name for Malawi) and British/Scottish colonial interests from the North. These outside interests presented both as colonizing and missionary interests. Later outside interests included South African missionaries and American missionaries.
To know a country, one must know and respect its history. I’m in the midst of reading an excellent book by John McCracken aptly entitled “A History of Malawi.” If you ever want to understand the 19th and 20th century of the Malawian story, this book, although a scholarly treatise, is a “must read.”
The book is an unvarnished account of the positive and negative influence of historic missionary and colonial efforts in Malawi. It also recounts the modern pathway to Malawian independence in 1964. For example, most people probably don’t know that the heirs of the famous missionary David Livingstone became some of the largest landholders in Nyasaland. And most westerners are unaware that 19th and early 20th century missionaries were complicit in both highly positive and significantly negative contributions to modern Malawi. Throughout the 19th and early 20th century of Malawi, there are missionary heroes and, sadly, there are missionaries who replaced tribal slavery, outside slave trading and ivory trading with an agricultural model that replicated the European model of dependent serfs and land barons. Large landed settlers (sometimes heirs of missionaries) influenced British colonial policy in ways that fostered local dependency while frequently discouraging and punishing entrepreneurship. And in central Malawi there was the added sad practice of some missionaries who introduced apartheid along with their gospel.
If you listen closely, you can still hear and sometimes see the echoes of the positive and negative influences of these early missionaries and colonists. It is so important to learn from the successes and mistakes of those who came before us. In most cases, history tells us that mistakes and failures come from those who were unwilling to listen to the people they came to serve. Often people came with preconceived ideas of what Nyasaland and Malawians needed. At Good Soil Partners, we try hard to listen even to the echoes. That’s how authentic transformation starts. We want to come alongside, to partner, and to encourage Malawians by equipping them to realize their dreams, not our dreams.