Page 23 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

Ida Z. Chilembwe – Pioneer Nyasa Feminist 11

Please Brethren, some good friends send us a box of clothing – second-
hand, torn garments such as shirts, trousers and jackets will cover our
bodies.
We thank God that the building did not take fire. Only our clothing was
destroyed. Oh, how it will rejoice in my heart if some brother will send
me a baptizing suit as I have a large number awaiting baptism before the
year closes.
Yours sincerely, John Chilembwe.
This begging letter adds pathos and a very human dimension to Chilembwe and
displays a very personal frailty also emphasising the lack of basic resources
available to the man who would shortly send shock waves throughout Nyasaland
and beyond. Many of the Young Turks amongst the fellow-Yao upper hierarchy
of Chilembwe’s followers were champing at the bit for action against the British,
specifically the estate owners and planters. Chilembwe’s future foot soldiers, the
Lomwe (then called Nguru), refugees who had fled to Nyasaland to escape
Portuguese oppression in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) largely as
recently as the previous decade, probably believed they had little to lose and
possibly much to gain in terms of land acquisition in their newly adopted country
should any revolt prove successful.
Despite Chilembwe’s undoubted charisma, tenacity of purpose and
proven leadership skills, how could such a clearly frail, sickly man in worsening
health hold together such a fast-moving, dynamic situation for what proved
another three years?
For that answer I propose we should look no further than the woman
Chilembwe was pleased to call his helpmeet, Ida. Having read the little there is to
discover about her life and having studied photographs of her for some forty years
I have come more and more to the conclusion that, despite raising three or four
children and investing her considerable energies in evangelisation, teaching,
social work and community building, the determined young woman
metaphorically returning my gaze was latterly the fulcrum of the aging, sickly and
near-blind Chilembwe’s ultimate triumph. Ida’s appearance at the Commission of
Enquiry was, for her, an exercise in survival for the sake of her remaining family,
John’s legacy, and the dispersed Mbomwe community she had invested her life in
creating. One can well imagine her glowering resentment and grim determination
in Court not to cooperate in any meaningful way with her azungu interlocutors.
I firmly believe that Ida Zuoa Chilembwe’s contribution to Malawi’s
earliest manifestations of a desire for self-determination should be recognised
officially – and perhaps also that a more tangible form be considered in the shape
of a statue of her standing proudly beside her own inspiration, mentor and