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Abstract:
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During the first 30 years of Malawi’s independence (1964-1994), the country was under
President Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s one-party authoritarian rule. In line with Banda’s
nation-building ideology, Malawi pursued the policy of one nation, one party (the Malawi
Congress Party), one leader (Life President Banda) and one national language (Chichewa).
Despite the fact that Malawi is multilingual and multiethnic, the Banda regime
created a political atmosphere under which non-Chewa ethnic and/or linguistic identities were suppressed. A political system was established that muzzled academic and other freedoms. Academia,
for instance, was deprived of its critical and objective voice. The then only university, the
University of Malawi, was carefully monitored to ensure that so-called subversive
disciplines or topics were not on offer. Sociolinguistic research was one of the academic
disciplines that did not enjoy meaningful academic freedom. The demise of the Banda
regime in 1994 and the adoption of a new constitution that embraces various freedoms
(including academic freedom) have meant that there are no longer political constraints on
academic freedom. However, new forms of constraint on academic freedom have arisen. These are economic constraints, many emanating from the research-funding agencies’ agendas. |