Page 58 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

46 The Society of Malaŵi Journal

Fighting alongside the popular Chipembere may not have been easy for
Catherine, especially with young children. One strategy that the Chipemberes
used was that of hosting of tea parties. This enabled them to engage with a wider
group of people and Catherine was key to this setup as the hostess.
Henry Chipembere was never out of trouble with the colonial authorities,
and, later, with Dr Banda once he decided to side with his young ministerial
colleagues during the Cabinet Crisis.
The Cabinet Crisis of 1964 saw the Chipemberes restricted to Malindi
area by an order by Dr Banda. This was a period of great suffering and discomfort
for Catherine and her children, despite the support and protection they got from
the local population. When Chipembere became a guerrilla leader and went hiding
in the Namizimu forest, the rest of the family had gone from living in a ministerial
8
house in Zomba to hiding in houses in rural Malindi.
This separation seems to have strengthened Catherine’s resolve to stick
by her husband’s fight. However, given her young children and the activities
around her husband’s uprising, she may have felt a bit safer to be away from the
centre of the ‘revolution’. It is evident that as much as Catherine supported her
husband, as a wife of a busy politician, and as a mother of young children, her
active involvement was somehow limited during the early years. But this
limitation may have been due to her knowledge of her husband’s stubbornness.
For example, after the rest of the ministers broke with Banda while Henry was in
Canada she tried to advise him to stay in Canada and not return home, a message
she passed on via Henry’s brother whose response was: ‘’Do you think he is going
9
to listen to us?’
Baker records that Henry Chipembere was aided by American diplomats,
10
and elements of the British colonial service to escape Malawi. These were plans
11
and executions that Dr Banda was fully aware of.
Catherine and the children were left in Malawi. Given the atmosphere of
fear and intimidation at the time, one can only imagine the anguish and stress
Catherine would have been in; especially knowing that her husband had been
evacuated out of the country. Although Dr Banda did not usually, with some
exceptions, like the Moto Village episode, entertain the arrest of women, he
readily used them as bait for their ‘dissident’ men. Anyone who knows the

Dialogue Across Diasporas: Women Writers, Scholars and Activists of Africana
and Latina Descent in conversation. New York: Lexington Books, page 215.
8 See for example Baker, Colin 2001 Revolt of the Ministers: The Malawi
Cabinet Crisis 1964-1965. London: I.B. Tauris, pages 206 – 207.
9 Baker, Colin. 2008. Chipembere: The missing years. Zomba: Kachere, p.79.
10 Ibid, pages 237 – 273.
11 Ibid, page 237.