In of the many conversations at the NGO offices during my fieldwork, the Executive Director vividly recalled watching a particular play as a university student in 1988. Despite the decades that had passed since that time, he remembered it with impressive accuracy, and talked about how it shaped his outlook and career. “It was called They Call it Africa, that was the title of the play. And it was powerful. It had shown how international aid comes from there, to the end [here]. And for me even today I see that happening.” The clarity of his memory is all the more impressive since this play was only able to be performed once: after it premiered in the Great Hall at the University, police went backstage questioned the actors, and a few days later the playwright’s office was ransacked, and the permit from the censorship board went missing (Magalasi 2012).
It took several days of searching, but we managed to get our hands on perhaps the only surviving copy of the play, the sight and feel of the typewriter-written text forming an instant a conduit between a past conversation and our current one. The full play has four acts, and makes a sharp commentary of oppression during colonial period, in the post-independence dictatorship years, and under international development.
We decided to reperform an abridged version of the play as part of our conference. It struck a chord not just with the audience, but also the journalists in attendance on the day. It is a reminder that while it can be tempting to focus on the recent past when seeking to diagnose issues of funding and power, these issues have a long tail.
They Call it Africa was peformed in the Little Theatre, May 15 2024 as part of the The Call it Sustainability conference.
Written by: Joe Chimwenje and David Kerr, 1988
Director: Thokozani Kapiri
Actors: Mercy Ching’amba, Success Masauli, Nyokase Madise, Hambani Magalasi
Synopsis: They Call it Africa explores issues of power, class and colonialism in three historical periods (pre-colonial [which was in fact a veiled political commentary of the dictatorship years], colonial, and international development post-independence) through the eyes of time-travelling alien researchers. In reviving this dangerous play from the vault, we consider how, if at all, debates about power and international development have moved on. What would aliens report back to their leader if they came to observe Malawi today? What will they see if they come 35 years into the future?
