Paper long abstract:

Mapanje (1989, 1995) and Mphande (1996) make a persuasive case for the significant role of written poetry in challenging Dr Banda's one-party hegemony. The contested terrain, as Mphande notes, was orality. Orality is a dominant medium where literacy levels are low. I argue that far from being silent, the popular musicians and dramatists (as orature) - were much braver than the literary poets. While written poetry was often presented in coded and dense texts, the musicians' and actors' lyrics and texts were usually much more explicit. Writers used folk tales and other appropriations from traditional culture as templates to critique Dr Banda's autocratic regime. The oral practitioners went further, critiquing Dr Banda's regime using the same templates while also pointing out the socio-economic suffering of the peasantry.

Since 1994, as written critiques of governments have become muted, musicians have become louder and forceful 'voices on behalf of the poor'. Thus orature has been a continuous tool whereas written poetry is an intermittent response to political and social events. This response to social and political events has been, over the 1958 to 2006 period, been affected by economic, social and political factors. Further, while written literature tends to be concerned with human rights and democracy issues, orature is concerned with these as well as socio-economic rights; a distinction reflective of class issues and education in Malawi. I posit that assessments of Malawi's social, political and economic culture excluding oral critiques miss significant and critical factors impacting on developmental changes in Malawi.