ZG:Do you consider yourself Malawian or Zimbabwean?

SL:Both, yeah, I mean I think I spent almost forty years in Zimbabwe and later in Malawi.

ZG:So, do you consider your roots to be in Zimbabwe?

SL:Well, yeah because that’s where I grew up and even when I speak in Malawi, they can still detect that I've got a Zimbabwean accent. Yeah, even my Chichewa has a Zimbabwean accent. [Laughs] My English in Malawi they know I speak Zimbabwean English than Malawian English which is more…Malawian English is more Scottish.

ZG:And your father is from Malawi?

SL:Malawi yes. He went down to South Africa to look for employment, but on his way, he stopped in Zimbabwe where he got a job first on the farms, then later on he found a job in the post office. Yes, so he was working as someone who was repairing telephones and also putting telephone lines from one big city to another, so that was his work.

ZG:Do you know how he came to find his accommodation in Zimbabwe?

SL:Ah, it was quite difficult in those days because there were certain areas that you had to live first when he found [work] in the mines, the mine compounds, there was what they call compounds, where he had worked first in Kadoma, which used to be called Gatoma in those days, but changed to Kadoma. So, he worked there and then went to, he proceeded to Johannesburg and then he came back to Malawi, I mean to Zimbabwe, Rhodesia then and found his job in the post office. Now, they had to go through the town council to find accommodation, which would take almost six months before you were provided one. Yeah, so which was in a squashed area, high-density area, no street, tarmac so on, dust road and so on. But that's how it was.

ZG:And he was single when he left Malawi?

SL:When he went he was single. Yes, he was single then that's when he you know with the arranged marriages that's when my mother was given to him because in their culture… my mother comes from Zambia, yeah in the Eastern part of Zambia, which is called Chipata and they had a similar, similar culture. Yeah, my father comes from Salima. Yeah, their culture was more or less similar, the central region and Chipata and so they had, they used to have these arranged marriages. So, my mother was given to my father when she was only 13. My father was about 50 and so the gap between a 13-year-old and a 50-year-old was just too wide. I was born when my mother was only 14; she almost died, because she was just too small. Yeah, then that’s how they met. Still there was friction between my father and mother because of the gap, yeah so…it went on and that's how we found ourselves dumped in the streets of Harare, yeah.

ZG:Do you remember much about growing up in Highfield?

SL:Yes, quite much yeah because we lived, because he was with the telecommunications, we started living in a town called ……… in Harare, Highfield Township and then he was transferred to Bindura, in the Eastern part of or err… Northern part of Harare and then Bindura with the post office, working repairing telephones and so on. Yeah, and the houses there were almost what you would call grass thatched houses which were built by the town council, there were no tarmacs there, dusty high density. I remember one time, one house caught fire, which spread into our house, because they were just too close and that's how dense it was and err... often in those days if you had a visitor you had to report to the police because certain townships were not allowed to have you know police, I mean a visitor, you had to report it to the township authorities. Yeah, if you came from like another city and went to another you had to report to the government, I mean to the authorities because of… I think they were sensing that I think it was a way of controlling Africans, you know free movement, yeah free movement and you couldn't pass through the white area after six o'clock.

So you'd be, you know I remember my father when I was tiny little boy, crying as he was carrying me being beaten severely by white people because we had passed through you know white area, yeah. And the police really humiliated him, they had, because he had his bicycle, he couldn't carry all of us, so we had to go quietly, you know even we were not even allowed to cough because they say you'd disturb the white people. So, they took the valve of the bicycle, you know threw them away so he had a flat tyre because he had been moving after six o'clock. And it was still, you know I mean the sun was still there, but just the fact that it was after six, he was in trouble, that I will never forget, because it stuck in my mind to see my own dad being beaten by police. And these were not white police officers.

ZG:They were black police?

SL:Yeah, but they had to have a white police officer, you know to see, he'd watch, you know see these black beating another black. So those are the instances when, if you talk about the townships white people could come and knock at your house at any time and errrm… yeah, so those are the instances where you are not sure who you were, yeah so…

ZG:Do you think it made a difference to your father because he came from Malawi? Was he surrounded by other Malawians?

SL:No, I think at that time Malawians were regarded as foreigners. No matter how best you contributed to the development of the country, you were still regarded as foreigners. I think they used to get Malawians as labourers. Yeah, so Malawians were more ah, people who were doing the dirty work if I may say so. Because you go into the mines, they were full of Malawians, Mozambicans, from Zambia and of course a few from Tanzania and the Congo and so on, Swaziland. Those were the people who worked in mines. Yeah so, they were really, the labour force came from these countries and Malawi wasn't developed, Zambia wasn't developed so all development under the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Rhodesia was more developed, because they took all the labour force from these countries and you talk about railway lines.

The railways there were three quarters were Malawians, or Zimbabweans or foreigners I should say, but mostly Malawian and then you go into… what else… people who cleaned in the streets were mostly foreigners. Zimbabweans were more and more working in the factories, but here and there you would find a few Malawians working in the factories. But also working in the farms, were mostly Malawian and working in the gardens for white people were mostly Malawian because they were coming from outside, they were very hard-working people. So white people wanted these who came from outside more than those, the local ones, because the local ones wanted good jobs, clean jobs, the white-collar jobs, yeah. And so, but they developed they helped quite a lot in the development.

ZG:Was there any division in the black communities along the lines of ethnicity?

SL:Tribal. That's true because, well more and more what the interesting part was if you had the Ndebele people form the south in Bulawayo and then Shona people, Malawians or foreigners like Malawians, Mozambicans were put in the middle. Yeah, if there was a conflict between the Ndebele and Shona Malawians were like, you know put in the middle of the two, they were like the third class. You know they used to have quite strong conflicts like they would do, say when God created the people, he started with the Shonas, then came the Malawians, then came Ndebeles when he was very, very tired. So, the Ndebeles would say similar things, God created Ndebeles, then came the Malawians, then when he was very, very tired he created the Shona people. So that's how they used to laugh at each other. They would not allow a Shona to marry a Ndebele or a Ndebele to marry a Shona, but you could marry a Malawian, yeah because Malawians were very polite. So that way they respected a Malawian or a Mozambican, Mozambicans were very [gap] because there was another tribe called the Sena. Sena people were like err aggressive, ruthless, you couldn't fight a Sena people because he was a fighter.

Yeah, so that was the conflict between the ethnic, between the Shona and Ndebele it was quite strong, but Malawians were like the third-class citizens. When I say Malawians that includes Zambians and Mozambicans, people who came from other countries, but also there were insults which were also used on Malawians or foreigners. That people who come from far and who follow the railway line. So that connotation when it is spoken in Shona was a bad one. They would say "something in Shona" the one who comes from far or [something else in Shona] the one who follows the railway line and you stop where it ends and you find a job there. The Shona they used to call the Ndebeles "matsiti" which was a bad language and the Ndebeles would call "mashina" calling the Shona. So those were words used on each other which now they are not used but they were just like words for confrontation, yeah. So, then Malawians they were like in between. So, if you want to find someone good then the Shona would rather choose a Malawian than Ndebele, for the conflict between the two has no more or less faded away, now you find many Shona marrying Ndebele and Ndebele, Shona especially among the educated, but the old folk still stand on their… yeah.

ZG:Can you describe to me growing up in the township, day-to-day life? Involvement in any sports, associations…?

SL:Yeah, sports I think we were just as everyone else except that during that time sports were separate from the white people, there were different leagues for the white people and the blacks. But it came later after the Rhodesia and Nyasaland sports were mingled. But then we had many Malawians play for Zimbabwe in the national team, there were quite a number of Malawians who were… because they were born there, we had people like Moses Chunga, which is a Malawian surname and then Frida Phiri, Phiri as you know [is a Malawian name] and many, many, you know Mali, the best goal keeper there. So there were many, many Zambians and Malawians who played for the national team because they were born there. So in sports we accepted each other, in the beginning of the political struggle we got involved because we are all under the Rhodesian Federation and Nyasaland. So we thought more or less the same way, to fight the same enemy.

ZG:So do you think people felt united by the Federation?

SL:Yeah, by the Federation we felt united because when there was a fight before the split which came up later on, because we were the ZAPU, you know the Zimbabwe People's Union you know, and then we had the Malawi Nyasaland Congress and in Zambia what they called ANC which was first before they all split up, with Nkumbula in Zambia, then when they split up it was between ANC with Nkumbula and Kenneth Kaunda of UNIP (United Independence Party). And then in Malawi there were also, they banned the Nyasaland Congress Party then which they formed the Malawi Congress Party with Dr Banda coming in, so when these political leaders came, we fought as a united front. So like me with the Youth League, I would fight for UNIP or Malawi Congress Party or ZAPU at that time. Even meetings, the political leaders would have joint meetings, I remember when Dr. Banda, Kenneth Kaunda came together in Highfield, when it exploded into riots, we all went together. So there was that togetherness, togetherness.

But then the white man was clever that he started what they call divide and rule, so that he would come to this group and lure them with money and then there more splits and more splits, so with more splinter groups there was confusion among the black people, they didn't know who to support. Yeah, so that also came with ethnic groups, yeah, but growing up in the townships was err there were no, even if our neighbour was a Malawian, there were no ill feelings in that time, except when it came to marriages. To marriage yeah, or if there was a fight between two people then there was trouble because then people would fight with their group. But otherwise, day to day life was quite normal people would accept Malawians as brothers.

ZG:Do you think there were any issues of class within the black community?

SL:Yes. There were issues there because there were the educated who were like the high class, then came the middle class and then the lower class. The lower class were those who worked in the streets, sweeping the streets, they were the lower class, people who worked in the railway lines, people who like my father who worked in repairing telephones they were all the lower class people and then the middle class were those who were like clerks, who worked in schools, teachers.

ZG:And those jobs tended to be held by people from within Zimbabwe?

SL:Yes, because very few, if you were Malawian you had to speak Shona fluently, or you had to be born in Zimbabwe not just coming from Malawi to help, but errr…the fathers never spoke Shona fluently. Like my father he spoke Shona but he, you could detect in some words, with the pronunciation of words. Because there was a time, there was a time where we started fighting each other in Zimbabwe, like they wanted to know which part you belonged to, or which country you came from so the Shona people started rising up against all foreigners, literally all foreigners. They would ask you to pronounce a word like err, Chicken. Chicken in Shona is pronounced [speaks in Shona] which is difficult for Shona to pronounce, [attempts to demonstrate how people would mispronounce the word in question] they would say what is the Chicken in Shona, [more words in Shona] would mean little chicken, there can you say it? So Malawians would say [differently] and then they would beat him because he couldn't pronounce the…, then when they came to the Sena people they would say, "don't ask me go and ask his father there, he knows the word for rooster" and then they would fight.

So they were more afraid of the Sena people because they would retaliate, Malawians naturally were quiet people, reserved people, but also they had to keep their jobs, only Malawians were feared in areas of witchcraft. Yeah, anyone from Malawi was, I don't know it was just in their mind set that anyone who came from Malawi was very strong in witchcraft. So they were careful how to handle a Malawian, or someone from Mozambique if it was an elderly person it was regarded someone who knew witchcraft. Yeah and also like the South Africans they used to say that Malawians you know were cannibals. So anyone from Malawi was a cannibal. [Laughter] So you come to Malawi, anyone from Congo was a cannibal. So it's a tribal thing which means they want to belittle you. Yeah.

ZG:Can you tell me about your teenage years in Harare, the time when you worked at the Tennis Club and your time with the 'Black Shadows'?

SL:Those days were difficult for me…I went to the tennis club and the golf club to pick up balls and so on, it was desperate trying to find food and so on and when you had a job I remember the first time before I started going there I had a job to scrub a white man’s home, I was working for one as a garden boy as a person who cleaned the house and ironing the clothes and I was very small.

ZG:How did you find those jobs?

SL:Ah, someone who was working next door said I will find you someone because they are looking for someone to work as a…so you are like …even…No matter how old you were among the white people you were called a boy, any black person was a boy and then any black person calling a person would call him boss and any white lady no matter how whether you are a girl you had to be called madam. So those are …you never call anyone, or no matter how small you were you couldn't call by your first name. So you were madam you know, so that was the…and then every black person had to have an identity, an I.D. card you couldn't travel without an id card. Found without an id card, you were real, real punished. You could go to prison for that. A white person would go free but not a black person. So I was struggling because I didn't have an id card, because as I grew up in the streets I didn't have parents who would register me to the government, so the only job I could get was in the streets, I mean with the white people working in the house as a garden boy and then they give you work which was very hard to finish in a day so like you couldn't be expected to finish in a day and at the same time you had to scrub the floors, you know real shine, you know, glitter and then to iron his short and when you iron the shirt it had to look as if it was coming from the shop, no crease, and you would be asked to iron twice because there was a little crease somewhere. So you had to really do properly and if you broke one glass means half of your salary was gone, your wages. So that’s how you were almost like a slave. That’s how you could be insulted any time, but also living during that time picking up balls at the tennis court you had to do it properly…even the way you threw the ball to the man or the woman, you had to throw it properly, so your friends had to train you. But if you were delayed or if you threw the ball quickly you had to use the …

[explains how the ball should bounce and the position of the racket]

SL:The language they would use on you was just horrible and you had to keep quiet because you are working, but if you threw that ball over near his head three times that means you were not going to be paid, so you had worked for nothing that whole day. So those were the pains we experienced [goes on to explain how they could make mistakes as a caddy and lose balls and then not be paid]

So when you ask me a question about the black shadows, the black shadows was a gang which formed like a family. We were all like orphans we all had nothing to lose, we started breaking into homes, breaking into cars, stealing car radios, sometimes we would go and scratch a car just you know to revenge because we had been insulted at the golf club or at the tennis club. Then the only way for me to revenge was for me to go round the parking areas and scratch all these brand new cars with a screw driver or puncture all the cars, the tyres. All I just wanted revenge, how can he insult me? Working in the white man’s home when I was insulted I used to do quite some terrible things. Fortunately, I didn't know about poison. But if I had known poison that there was poison somewhere I know exactly that I would have poisoned the white person, all trying to take out what was in me to revenge. Because every time I remember as a young boy how I wish I could kill a white person. All the time was ringing in my mind the way my father was humiliated in my presence and they spat on him and they made him to kneel down. And I remember my father was kneeling down and they put their legs [demonstrates how they rested their legs upon his father as he knelt] they asked my mother to clean his shoes with her dress. And I had never seen my mother’s underwear only that day when she was stripped like. So the anger was so strong from that time.

So when I came into the political struggle partly there was fighting for freedom, but partly for me it was revenge, personal. So much so that when I became a Christian, it didn't leave me. Yeah, it was haunting me, even when I became a Christian preaching the word of God it was still in my mind that I never trusted a white person and it took me, well if you have read from my book when I encountered Patrick Johnstone, he was taking care of me. But in my mind, I was still thinking of killing him. [laughter] Yeah, I was still thinking of killing him. [Reminisces about a man who married a white woman and the anger he felt about white men raping 'our girls' and the different treatment of the white man to the black man who had sexual relations with a white lady. He would be put in prison]

So the anger in me was just too much.

So growing up in the streets you appreciate I was growing up with this bitterness which came from my father. I think I was only four, I remember I was only four that time when this happened to my father. Then I was only four when I went with my father to his work and this white man…I don't know what my father had done but he used one of the most horrible language to my father, almost stripping naked his mother the language he used so my father was saying "thankyou sir" and I thought how can say Thank you, this man is…I was so small but it kept here [points to his head]. It was recorded. It only took God 7 years later when I became a Christian and God spoke to me and said Stephen you are enslaving yourself, you need to let go please and when I allowed that thing to go away from me that was when I could accept white people as people, I could accept him as a fellow human being.

[Talks about his children for a while and their relations with white people]

Now you go to Zimbabwe and you find people like me still there and the conflict in Zimbabwe you hear now, people don't understand. [Talks about the lack of understanding between the black people in Zimbabwe and the political world]. They forget that when Mugabe, his two children died, in prison they refused him to go and bury his children even with the handcuffs. So, people forget that many Africans have a history and where they are coming from, they have never dealt with that history. So when the day came that Zimbabwe was given independence they want to put a cement block on top, it is not easy, there are still a lot of Africans in Zimbabwe who went through a lot of bitterness, a lot of bitterness and some I have seen attending court cases and these young boys went and raped this farmers daughters and I said I'll just go and chat to these prisoners and I sit down and why did you do this? "Mr Lungu, they did this and this to my father to my mother, to my sister so it was a revenge. In court nobody listens, they are discussing what happened and manslaughter and so on, but nobody went to talk to this person, why did you do this. They don't look at his background so this person is sentenced to life imprisonment. I think there is a lot of injustice in the world but you don't condone what he's done, but you look at the background behind it all. What we went through in Zimbabwe, Africans were humiliated in many, many, many, many areas. I remember one guy in the township where I lived. He had three dogs and you know what he named his dogs? One of the dogs was Ian, then another dog was Douglas and another dog was Smith. All of these names were those of the Prime Minister Ian Smith and he said to me, "my friend I have no way of insulting him, if I said to Ian Smith now you are a dog they would arrest me, so I named all of my dogs his names." So I burst out in laughter, he was trying to express himself through the dogs. So I asked him what happened and he said that he was beaten severely and he showed me his leg where he had been beaten so severely that he couldn't walk. He said he was coming from a funeral but he had a puncture so he had to walk but now he couldn't go back. If he had cycled through the city, it would have been five half past five o'clock, but because he had to walk, he had been explaining to these people but it didn't mean anything and they real messed him up. So all that was his anger.

[Talks about the problems after independence in Zimbabwe. Lack of counselling and integration.] People are still hurting.

So growing up in the streets of Zimbabwe that was one of the things. The education system was bad. The standard of education among the black people was lower among the whites was high and the black people were asked to start at a certain age about 7 I think in those days whereas white people started at five. When white people finish university, they were still young and here was the black person still struggling and when he came to a certain age if he failed twice, he was not allowed to go back so we had many school drop outs who couldn't repeat because, they were over age.

ZG:You attended school for a short period.

SL:Yes, a very short period, I would say 5 months but even those 5 months, two weeks and then I would sneaked away and go three weeks yeah…

ZG:Were there other children from Malawi?

SL:No not from Malawi, in those days we guided ourselves. I don't know as young as we were we never looked at tribe, among children it wasn't a big deal. In those days jobs were easy to find not as it is now. Jobs were easy to find and they were even recruiting people from Malawi and Zambia to come and work so those who came were the lower classes. You couldn't get jobs as teacher or banker, but even in those days not many people worked in banks. They were all white men’s jobs. If someone you found in the bank, he was a sweeper or someone who stood by the door, those were the jobs for the black people. Even at the airport the steward for example they were all the white man’s job. Yeah so even if you got a degree, you had the same qualifications you would get more salary than a black person, the salary would be almost tippled, whereas the black persons was almost peanuts. Not really nothing, so you would struggle to survive. You could get in the police force but the African could just be the constable when a white person the same qualification was a senior police officer. So a black person had to work under these young people even if you were been working for ten years, young white guy comes into the police force, he was already the boss. So the imbalance was just to white all the time.

Yeah so growing in that environment you saw these things you know, these balances. I was thinking oh, this is what happens because the white person comes wears his sergeant black belt you know and the African has to salute to the white man, and the black person was always used as an interpreter. If a white person wanted to use brutality he used a black police officer to beat another black, you know the brutality which was there. You know the white man is standing there, watching another black police officer beating another black, he had to obey that and continue. So he has to continue beating even if you are in a pool of blood. So all those things we used to see them as small boys. When you are caught by a black police officer, he is all by himself he'd look around and say don't do it, quickly run, go. So he would make you run because the white officer is not there. But if you had a white officer, ohhh, you were in trouble. So we grew up in such kind of environment. But also the environment within the community, I think black people lived as a community. No matter from which tribe you came from. If I ran out of salt I could go to my neighbour and ask for salt, or I ran out of sugar I go to my neighbour and ask for sugar. That's how we lived as a community. Yeah. But also there were suspicions from the Shona people with the Malawian people, foreigners cos, the same mentality, maybe they are using witchcraft. There was all these things happening so that's why you had, we used to have a church for Malawians the CCAP. In Zimbabwe it was only for Malawians. The CCAP yeah…The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian.

ZG:Was this the church where your father used to preach?

SL:Yes, he used to preach there and my mother was in the women’s guild. You know she would wear a uniform. So these were for Malawian. And they spoke in Chichewa. Although some of the Chichewa language used was a mixture. Because they worked in the mines and also in the railway lines and the post office they spoke a language which they called "fanacolo", it’s a "lapa" a mixture of Zulu, English, Chewa it was called the mine language. Yeah it was called fanacolo. “fanacolo” it's a Zulu word which has been put in that language meaning like this; “fanacolo”. It is also mixed, like slang but it was adopted as amine language, but those who couldn't speak English that's the language they spoke, yeah they spoke “fanacolo” or in Zimbabwe it used to be called "chilapalapa". All those that worked in the mines, who worked in the farms, or the white suburbs and garden boys and cooks and so on they talk “chilapalapa”. Because that's how they could communicate with a white person, and say come here [speaks in “chilapalapa”] yeah so that's the language they used.

ZG:You say there was the CCAP church exclusively for Malawians were there any other societies or associations for Malawians?

SL:Yes there were the burial societies which were formed in Zimbabwe for Malawians because when there was a burial Malawians used to struggle, like getting a place for the cemetery and then coffin, buying a coffin, so they used to struggle to afford it. So they had to form a burial society which in advance, they'd buy a graveyard, then also they knew where to buy a coffin so that a Malawian wouldn't struggle, so it was like a society of Malawians, then we started spreading, then you had ethnic groups, Tumbukas were on their own, and Tonga's were Tongas on the own, within Zimbabwe and then you had the Bemba's from Zambia, yeah and the Senga from Zambia and so they became like ethnic groups which spread out the whole Zimbabwe. They became very big burial societies around Zimbabwe. Even now you go there they are so big, they've become real big.

ZG:And was your father a member of a burial society?

SL:Yes. Any Malawian had to be otherwise if there was a funeral you would struggle. But when there was a funeral, they handled all the, the burial society you know buying the coffin and everything and so on. During my time when I was small, they were very small groups but they started growing bigger and bigger.

ZG:Was there any link between these groups and the political parties when they began to form?

SL:Yes, there were links because each burial society had to belong to a political party, according to the ethnic groups. Because if you had a Bemba they would belong to, depending on where Kumbula was a Bemba, or Bemba went to join ANC, and then the other Senga from Chipata, the Eastern regions, from Lusaka to the eastern regions they all belonged to Kenneth Kaunda, yeah. And even some of Malawians too joined to help Kaunda, Zambians who spoke Chichewa joined Malawi Congress Party to help in the struggle in Zimbabwe, so they were helping each other according to ethnic groups and as long as you spoke more or less the same language. So was in Mozambique, but Mozambique at that time had to be one of the secret groups because they had started already the freedom struggle. Although in Zimbabwe during that time it was very secret from the early sixties. When we were doing all the petrol bombs it was very secret, the struggle which were fighting from within. Then there was the group which was being trained outside from the early sixties which was coming through Chinoi, Charundu, from Zambia and so on, coming down into Harare which was confronted by these soldiers around Chinoi area so the whole group which came first because at that time they had learned tactics of hit and run and so on. The first ethnic groups started coming together joining the political struggle.

ZG:Can you tell me some more about the first meetings you attended in Highfield?

SL:The political meetings? Ah yeah, those meetings were, well let me tell you. The first one which we had was 1958 or 1959 one was when Dr. Banda came to, yeah, I think it was 1958. When Dr. Banda came to Zimbabwe, to address the rally there and then later on was arrested and put into Gwero prison. It was there that the fireworks started because the white people thought by arresting him it was going to be a quiet thing that it would destroy all of the noise from the black people and that was a big mistake, because that's when now everything was an explosion, that became all the riots from there on.

ZG:So it was a public meeting?

SL:It was a public meeting and he came to address there, and he couldn't speak either Chichewa because he had been in prison for forty years, so he spoke English as an English person. Yeah and he was aggressive and he was the first political leader who challenged white people in public he challenged because he said we have come to do two things here. One is to break this stupid federation, to call it stupid in public, man that was ooooh, it was fireworks, with white soldiers around him, telling them I don't fear you and I have come to break this stupid federation and to attend our own independence, to stand on our own. And he spoke about being humiliated and so on. And it was the first time a black man had heard another black man saying all that was inside us. My you should have been there to see it, ooh the excitement! The anger! You know that meeting didn't finish well because we started stoning all of the police cars and we just took hold of stones and stoning, because now there was no fear.

ZG:And how old were you at that time?

SL:I think I was born in 1942, so in 1958 I was 14? Somewhere there, that's where we started the fireworks and then there were also in 1960 when Edgar Whitehead, the Prime Minister then came to address the meeting, to address the black people in the townships at the Jennings Cyril Hall, he came there and he didn't know that we carried stones, to stone the Prime Minister and started throwing our shoes and our stones and you know and they had to take him by the window they lifted him by the window and they started shooting live guns and then that was another chaos that day. When it finished well… There were several political meetings because they used to be held in Jennings Cyril Hall in Highfield, which became the centre, yes that was the centre of all political rallies.

ZG:Who would attend the rallies?

SL:All political parties. From Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe. They used to come together. But of course, we had ZAPU meetings of their own and then when they split up then that’s where the confusion started because we used to have the ZAPU and ZANU and then came Abel Muzorewa when these guys were, you know, detained. Because now our leaders were in prison and in detention, so what do we do? Let’s follow whoever comes. So there would come this Muzorewa and he would tell us…then came the Pearce Commission where they wanted us to agree whether to call for the UDI which Ian Smith had declared and the black people we said "no" we are not going to agree on the UDI, that time that black people won. That was the first time that we were given a chance to say our mind. So then onwards, because the elections were only among the white people the black people were not given the right to vote. Those who were given the right to vote were the few selected what we call 'puppets' of the white people, were in parliament under the federation but they had no voice, like the chiefs they had the chiefs who were in parliament, selected chiefs and business men, who were members of parliament under the federation of Zimbabwe under Ian Smith. These people were the voice of the black people, but really, they were not the voice of the black people. Because they say that the chiefs are controlling everyone in Zimbabwe, everyone was under at least a chief, but there were other black people like Malawians who didn't have chiefs in Zimbabwe, Zambians who didn't have chiefs in Zimbabwe. But we were in Zimbabwe as residents, but we couldn't vote, we had no voice because we are foreigners. But when it came to something which we had to vote for the government, Malawians were included. Yeah, so that was the confusion. So that also, they were creating enemies between the Shona people and the Malawians because they were being used by the government to voice out for the government, but already we had been politicised by Dr. Banda and Nkumbula. So I think quite a number of us cared for what we did.

ZG:So do you remember some of the more private meetings?

SL:Yeah, secret meetings there were quite many you know for some of us we were told at secret meetings to cause havoc in the cities or government institutions or electric pylons or some of the sell outs, at things like beer halls which really what the white government was doing was to build more beer halls, before they should drink as much as, you know beers, so they became stupid. They were not thinkers. So those are the areas we targeted to blow up. Because the white people they were building more beer halls than schools. Yeah, there were less schools and more beer halls. So each township, which they started building the township the first thing which came there was a beer hall, and a police station, so as to control and then the schools come later and then the clinic would come later. So first number one was the beer hall.

But also the system of education was very, very poor. Hence some of the guys you would see educated at university in South Africa or went to UK, went to America, those who went to the UK or America were like a threat, they were sharp, they had been exposed to the outside world. There were not very few who were educated in Zimbabwe itself. So they wanted to really pin down the black people.

ZG:And was it those who had been educated in America or the UK that were conducting the meetings?

SL:Yeah, most of those were like Dr. Banda who spent his time at Oxford University, Edinburgh University. He did his PhD in medicine and the he went to Harvard in the states. So those guys were like a threat. You know Jomo Kenyatta was at one in Britain. Those guys were most feared because they were to get education. They made sure not to give him, but then he obtained his degree. So these guys got their education and were respected but also feared. They would try as much as they could to eliminate... we had a doctor, ahh what was his first name? Dr. Parirenyatwa - they killed him. Faked a train, car train crash. It was a fake.

ZG:Which party did he belong to?

SL:He was with ZANU before they split up and him, because he spoke openly and he was very intelligent guy, medical doctor, so they killed him, with the fictitious train crossing where there was a car, but they killed him first, put the car there and then the train, yeah.

ZG:So the meetings you attended were held by the NDP?

SL:Yeah, the first ones, the National Democratic Party, which became when they band it, it became ZANU, I mean ZAPU and then they split, that came later on.

The secret meetings they would call one by one.

ZG:Where was it that you held the secret meetings?

SL:There were some rocks, and the townships were being built to those rocks but you had to make sure when you came one by one, to those rocks and that was where the secret meetings were held. But we used to go sometimes some 20km away near this bush area it was also. But in some secret homes where we met one by one. We never met in the house of the top leadership because they were always being watched but we went to the places they least expected.

ZG:And weren't you involved with the city youth league?

SL:Yes. That's where I was strongest, because even when others were right in the bush, we used to go to organise the supplies, like the beer halls I'm talking about, and places where white people were working at to great subdue the black person. Number one was the beer halls; number two was some of the areas you know... During Christmas, white people used to play games where they would abuse a black person, making sports of a black person. You know they would put maybe a pole, a big pole and on top of the pole they would put a 2-pound piece of meat, steak. So they would put oil or grease this pole and then they wanted to slip on it you know they had to struggle because of the grease to get up. So it was there, we would say why are these people being used. I can remember there as a small boy thinking that man is being used as sports, for their entertainment. Also, there were areas where they would use dogs to err run after black people, for them it was like a sport, when a black person was mauled and bitten by these dogs. They would laugh at the top of their voices and some of us would see some of the black people suffer and you know they would still have beaten us against animals. Many people my age have become anti animal because of the way animals were used against us.

ZG:Could you tell me a bit about how aware you were of the political situation in Malawi when you were in Zimbabwe?

SL:Yeah, in Malawi it was really like erm fireworks when Dr. Banda came. The first leaders who were there you know, they were like very mild, they wouldn't take the whole political situation on fire. But as soon as Banda came, he became awfully challenging of the people and the riots in Malawi became more and more. And the arrests and many people were killed.

ZG:Were you aware of this when you were in Zimbabwe?

SL:Yes, the news used to come down. That also was an inspiration. Yes, it was an inspiration for Zimbabwe, but the grip on Zimbabwe was rather strong because the white government had invested so much in Zimbabwe so it was like paradise for the white people, so more and more, to let go of Malawi was not a big deal, because they were not losing much in Malawi. They used the labour from Malawi and Zambia to Zimbabwe. So, losing Malawi was no big deal so when in 1964 the British had to give independence to Malawi, you know self-government, self-rule, that affected us very much in Zimbabwe because we would hear that one has gone out of the federation, so next was between Zimbabwe, I mean, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia. So later on, Zambia got its independence, so then the whole federation was destroyed. Then we thought that by getting Malawi and then Zambia that Zimbabwe was going to be easy but ahh I think we underestimated the grip of Ian Smith and the white government and settlers because many of them had a lot of wealth in Zimbabwe. Even those who were living here had invested a lot in Zimbabwe and some had two, five, ten farms which went for miles and miles just one person’s. So, the grip was just strong and the military was quite strong and then also they had the help from the white South Africans who came to help. And of course there were some British people who came as mercenaries to help. So we were confronted by this big strong army force.

ZG:When Malawi gained independence did people want to return to Malawi, did people want to go back?

SL:Yes, there were many people who were determined but also, they had the question of, well Malawi wasn't as developed as Zimbabwe so people went to Zimbabwe because of the cash. For example, people come from Africa to Britain because of the power of the pound. £100 is many, many Kwacha you know...

So when they thought about Zimbabwe, first it was good because they all used the pound. The same British pound. In Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. You know we had the head of the Queen in our pound. We used to use the pound and pence. So when independence came they changed to Kwacha. And then Zambia also Kwacha, Kwacha and Tambala. Then Zimbabwe remained on their own. So they used the pound for a while and later changed to dollar.

People were afraid to go back to Malawi at first because they were afraid to lose their jobs. Money in Malawi was not enough, the money the way people were paid was less. Even if you were a teacher, even with the same qualification you were paid more in Zimbabwe than in Malawi. Then there were the first women like my wife who were employed in the bank among the white ladies who almost segregated her during tea time, even after independence because she felt out of place.

To answer your question, those Malawians who were in Zimbabwe who returned to Malawi were only those with the top positions, like Alec Banda, he was in Zimbabwe. After independence he went back to Malawi and became a cabinet minister. But most remained in their jobs. Zimbabwe was like the bread basket for Malawi as well. There were good job opportunities, better salaries. Malawi didn't have factories, or the mines, even the railway lines, the railway line was single, so they didn't have much really.

ZG:Can you tell me some more about you and the black shadows and how it became political?

SL:Well, that spilled over, when I think I was about 18 or so, it became political because we were one of the notorious gangs and we had nothing to lose, so throwing things like petrol bombs was no big deal for us. My gang they were almost about thirty people, yeah. There were the people I moved with to do some real bad things, we were about 16. People joined because one they wanted protection and two because they wanted people to keep the turf, you know the area. So it grew to that number. But those who did the real bad things and were involved in the political struggle, there were just those few. We got as much information as we could, you know stabbing, at the beer halls. When they would say tomorrow we are going to strike because they needed young people who would stop people getting onto the buses. So we were those young people who went and stoned the buses. And so we just had to go on top of the buses with tear gas and guns to allow people and say to them alright but when you come back you will find them. Police would take some of them back to their homes and that was there we used to beat people and do them a lot of damage in those areas.

ZG:Were there any sports clubs or associations that you were a member of?

SL:I joined a youth club first which was the erm dynamos, one of the big teams in Zimbabwe. It was entertainment. I used to like sports but I was too much focused on the political side but also because I wanted to survive, my gang you know all of this, the breaking in... it was all to survive. I wanted to stay alive, you know I lived under a bridge. It was also the political but I wanted to survive. It was very much a mixture of both for me, well for a few of us.

ZG:Was the membership of the political groups quite a young membership, what were the ages within the political groups?

SL:Oh, the political groups there were many people, young people were like the youth league and then older people were those who were in the, like the cell groups, of each section you know party groups, this one was the chairperson, all the ranks there and then another section of the township there was, it was how they used to control the running of the political party and it was from these that information was spread out very quickly.

We knew about a strike within seconds, yeah and if we were to hit something we knew about it within seconds but of course the white government used to send and pay a lot of money to informants, so they had a lot of informants among the black people who would join the party as members but actually those were the ones who really destroyed us, ahhh because these informants pretended to be like us but you find out that what you wanted to do has been intercepted, yeah.

ZG:So was there a great deal of suspicion within the parties?

SL:There was because we didn’t know who to trust. The government had the money, now you give them a poor person, let’s say, you know in those days if you give them 10,000 Zimbabwean dollars that’s quite a lot of money, so even 5000 was a lot of money, so to get 5000 which was going to go a long way because given in a full year wouldn’t earn that, so to these informants the government gave a lot of money. And even this too they knew it was risky, because if they found out, it was a death sentence to that person. We didn’t play games, yeah, because to consider many people dying because of this one person, you know we had people who were killed in the 1000s in Mozambique when they raped young children it was terrible, but when the black people like mission, the guerrilla fighters slaughtered almost every missionary there including one day old child, it was big news around the world, you know big news, but when black people died in Chimoi, you know terrorists had been killed but we were, they called us terrorists but we were saying no we are not terrorists, this is our land, it is you who are terrorists, because you came to get what is not yours. You see so the use of the language there. That’s why I was against this title. I wanted my gang name ‘out of the Black Shadows’ that was the name of my gang and then because when we struggled, later in the middle of the struggle I became a Christian, so I quit the fighting, because I didn’t come to the end of the struggle, so there is no way I could call myself a Freedom Fighter, no.

[Talks about disappointment at publishers choosing this title but then working to change it when the book was re-published.]

ZG:Can you tell me about the films that you talk about watching in your book?

SL:Well what do you want to know?

ZG:Were they cowboy films?

SL:Ahh those were cowboy films, western films yeah. That’s where I learnt also a lot of violence, err they didn’t do good to me. That’s where I learnt a lot of violence a lot of you know using my revolver, you know to me, I started having a revolver at the age of 12. It was in dangerous hands, unresponsible young man, you know, so I learnt a lot, how to break into homes, sabotage, all that. It was the films. I’d watch what they’d do, you know walking into doors, breaking into homes, breaking into cars it was all from those films. But I used to like it especially the fight, the cowboys which they used to use, the main actor, you want to act like him, yeah.

ZG:So the cinema was quite accessible?

SL:Yeah, it was just about how much, 3p in those days. But to get that 3p you had to go into the gulf club, you know for the whole day, 20p for the whole day so that 20p then sometimes I would go to my aunt’s place and she would take all to feed herself. You know so to find £1, you know to make £1 was a struggle, a real struggle and to make £10 was a struggle so to buy clothes was also a struggle, yeah. We lived that poverty. I remember as well when I was on the streets, I used to have my shirt out you know like young people do, because my shorts had these two holes in the back so to cover the holes I had my shirt out and I used to wear these slippers but there were half, the whole heal was gone. You know these slippers you just put on here and then sometimes it would get break because it was rubbing so would use wire to hold it together. So that’s how I struggled, yeah. And I remember even the old, old shoe I picked up from the garbage bin it had no sole here, you could see all the toes. So I remember I used to kneel down because people would see. So I had my first actual pair of shoes when I was 20, 21 years old. When a white missionary bought me a pair of shoes.

ZG:So the cinema was one form of entertainment, how about music?

SL:Yeah there was music. Yeah there was Zimbabwean music, but the most popular one was any music which came from Congo. Yeah, music from Congo, at that time we used to call it Zaire, that was the music people loved so much. Although the Zimbabwean music was more and more, but Zimbabwean music was going very much on the political,

Some they would be band and then, we also used to listen to news of the Soviet Union. We never used to listen to the BBC, because people had done away with British BBC, because BBC used to broadcast into Zimbabwe, Malawi, the Federation, so all our news came from BBC so people started disregarding BBC news and we used to get… all the Zimbabwean political leaders would be allowed to broadcast from the Soviet Union from Moscow. So we used to get these and we would gather round the radio and they used to give horrible names to all Ian Smith, to all the whites, to Ian Smith and we used to love it, yes! And they would tell us and this is what we are going to do, blah, blah, you know and it was an inspiration. And they would tell us look. we cannot be behind; Ghana got their independence and they would come up with all these men and countries which had obtained their independence. So, the news from Soviet Union was quite an inspiration to most young people, but then we had also they used to tell us, introduce this station to many other people, so these political people would print on these old type writers, they would type and type and cut with scissors and give to us young people, where we distributed house to house during the night at 2am, you know sneak in the house and put it under the door and so on to give them the frequency, yeah. That’s how we distributed. Or if they were staging a strike, we’d and distribute so that no-one is going to work, yeah.

ZG:Was there much support for those coming from Malawi in terms of extended family in the communities?

SL:Yeah, there was support and those who were not Christians would do sacrifices for protection on the roads because in those days they used to walk, like my father went on foot from Malawi to Zimbabwe, but during the night they had to sleep in the trees and they would be tired so that in the trees when he falls asleep he would fall out, but also there were lions so there were many, many dangers, until they got to Zimbabwe.

ZG:And did your father have any family already in Zimbabwe when he arrived?

SL:No people just went without knowing anybody, or there were those that went because there was someone who was there who wrote letters, but because letters took months or before they got there, and because of how they used to travel, it took such a long time, you couldn’t predict when you would arrive there, so you just appeared in Bulawayo and started looking. In the townships most townships, like my township they used to put bog loud speakers in the towns so when you arrive in the towns, you’d go to the township office and then they would announce your name, “so and so, there is someone at this office please come and pick up your visitor, so they would come and walk to the office to pick up a visitor, yeah.

Some would leave their wives and children when they went to Zimbabwe and started working. For the first two years, they used to go back with clothes, money, to give to the family, they would go back, two years later they’d go back, but eventually they got use to the lifestyle in Zimbabwe and then they would find a beautiful woman in Zimbabwe and they would marry that person, whether it was in church they never told about the wife back home, so many wives suffered because of that, many children suffered, because here was this man now married in Zimbabwe. Those who were clever they would take their wives with them, the second trip in the period the gap of two years, the second two years they would take their wife back. So those you would find in Zimbabwe with a Malawian father and a Malawian mother were really clever. But you would find most Malawians who are in Zimbabwe, except those who married a Malawian family in Zimbabwe, but most would go and marry a Zimbabwean lady and so they have paid dowry, according to Zimbabwe because most people in Malawi don’t pay, except up north, the Tonga. But most people, in central region they just pay a rooster, yeah one chicken, that’s enough, that’s how expensive you are you know, [laughs].

And all the children belong to you in the centre but up north because of the dowry the children they belong to the husband.

[He then explains that he was given the name Lungu by a man who was helping him to get a job. He didn’t know his father’s name because he left when he was only four, but a man told him he should take the name Lungu as his father was from Malawi.]