Chewanisation, Chewalisation or Chewafication are concepts that crudely refer to the domination of the majority Chewa over every tribe in Malawi, especially culturally (language being primo). Intellectuals (if there any in Malawi) have resisted it, resist it, and will resist it. It’s natural. No one wants to be dominated. But Chewanisation is here; alive and well.And all Presidents, dead or alive, and citizens have been unconsciously promoting it.
Chewanisation was adopted at independence, for nation building purposes, and became official in 1968 when the language of the Chewa, chiChewa, was adopted as the national language of Malawi and English the official language. All in the name of building the nation.
Despite Kamuzu being fired from power 31 years ago, the culturaly domination of the Chewa is unstoppable. One can say, powered by voodoo in the absence of statistics, the trend we are going through shows, in 50 years’ time, there will be total annihilation of other languages, which will retain their names, phonetics (sound), syntagmatic, and paradigmatic structures only.
How did we get here?
You will recall, those who are older than 70 years, that when the church and state started school in Nyasaland, the furthest one would go was standard six. To get to standard six, you spent about three years in preprimary before you started Standard 1. The languages of instruction in the school, preprimary, were local, chiChewa, chiChitumbuka, chiYao, chiLambya, etc.
A girl in Mangochi (where education started?) would go to school to learn and read in chiYao, with all the attendant the cultural context. She would understand new concepts very quickly. A boy in West Nyasa (Tongaland) would learn in chiTonga and read in chiTonga. The cultural context would help him. And so and so forth.
I don’t know what happened (if you know, let us know) but in the Northern Region all education was in chTumbuka until between 1964 and 1968.
So, came 1968. The language of instruction became the language of the majority. It changed from ciNyanja, the language spoken by the majority in central, to chiChewa. The spelling, too, changed from ci to Chi. The culture of the chewa was taught. In MCE chiChewa literature, you read books like Kukula ndi Mwambo, Maliro ndi Miyambo ya aChewa, whose goal was to make children see themselves as Chewa. This was happening away from the center of power.
Two authors may help explain this. These are by the Italian Antonio Gamsci’s Prison Notebooks (1921-1935) and the French philosopher, Louis Althuser’s, On the Reproduction of Capitalism (1970). Gramsci wrote that ideology or cultural hegemony becomes dominant slowly, little by little, until the victim becomes its proponent. No coercionfor consent is needed by the State.
Writing almost 40 years later, Althuser qualified hegemony and introduced two ways in which it spreads, through theRepressive State Apparatuses and secondly through Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) of Control are both used by the state to maintain power. Repressive Apparatuses include the bring army, the police, the courts, and guards. These have the authority to deal with wayward citizens and them into the mainstream. Rape of children attracts 44 years in prison. All men with erotic capital wantonly to share are thus brought into line.
The ISAs comprise the religious institutions, parents, media, educations, examinations boards, censorship boards and others. These tell people which God to believe and what to believe when and where. They prescribe and ban books. They dictate morality. The longer they operate discretely and subtly; underground. Kamuzu might have known their power.
Today, the literature chiChewa books are no longer studied by force (if you believe MANEB is innocent). But, the chiChewa is the language you use every today. Its words are percolating into other languages faster than one would imagine. Tonga language has words like kadzidzi (mantchichi), agogo (ambuya), atsikana (amwali), and even aziliska (domesticated from abusa or azibusa), azigogo chalo (viyembwi). They sound Tonga but they are not. What will happen in 50 years?
Have you ever wondered that in a group of seven Yaos or Tumbukas or Senas or Lhomwes, the language spoken is chiChewa yet they have Ndamosya Yao; M’gumano wa Sena, Mang’anja or Mulhakho wa Lhomwe as cultural resistance platforms; with paramount chief?
Cultural ideology spreads subtly and discretely and we offer our consent. So is Chewanisation.
