Final curtain lowered for Professor David Rubadiri

Dear Tingasiga;
James David Rubadiri of Malawi, rightly claimed by Tanganyika, Uganda, Kenya and Botswana, was really a pan-African. We claim him as Ugandan because he grew up in Uganda, receiving his entire primary and secondary education at King’s College Budo, basic university education at Makerere and 10 solid years as a lecturer at the same university. Though he left Uganda 42 years ago, his name is familiar to all who have had contact with African literature, for he is best known for his very accessible poetry and his great novel, No Bride Price.

How does one write a brief comment on the life of Rubadiri, a giant that straddled Africa and beyond, a multifaceted life of epic struggle and adventure, of triumph and disappointment, of extraordinary generosity and sacrifice, of a thrilling pen in a foreign language his own, of involuntary dislocations and ultimate victory?

This column is too short to accommodate separate considerations of Rubadiri the son, the brother, the husband, father, student, leader, teacher, dramatist, writer, poet, novelist, connoisseur of the arts, photographer, public intellectual, sportsman, administrator, freedom fighter, political prisoner, diplomat, rebel, exile, family man, fallible human, Christian, now in his glory. I will limit myself to personal memories of the man and a couple of his adventures that have received little mention in the eulogies that have been published since his death at age 88 on Saturday, September 15, 2018.

A more detailed account of his life and times will be posted on my website www.mulerasfireplace.com
After completing his university education at Makerere College in 1956, Rubadiri returned to Nyasaland, joined the department of education and, more importantly, the struggle for independence, alongside colleagues like Orton Chirwa, Kanyama Chiume, Dunduzu Chisiza, Henry Chipembere and a young lady called Gertrude Mabel Uzanda. Gertrude, three years older than Rubadiri, was a teacher, a graduate of Fort Hare University in South Africa, where she had been Robert Mugabe’s classmate. She and Rubadiri got married on September 14, 1957. The young couple taught together at Dedza Secondary School in Central Nyasaland. Their first child, Kwame, was born at Dedza on June 11, 1958.

Meanwhile, the Rubadiris continued their work in the struggle for independence, and were among those who were detained, together with Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda on March 7, 1959. The Rubadiris would stay in jail for more than one year. The nationalists won their struggle, and when Nyasaland became independent on July 6, 1964, Rubadiri became his country’s first ambassador to the UN and USA.

However, things fell apart very quickly. Prime minister Banda wasted no time, embarking on an authoritarianism that quickly erased the dreams and hopes of those who had fought for his return and ascendency to power. He ordered Rubadiri to vote with the British and Americans at the UN and to support Ian Smith’s plans for Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
Meanwhile, a rebellion against Banda broke out in the cabinet back home. Though he sided with the rebels, Rubadiri requested and obtained permission to return to Makerere University. He and his family arrived in Kampala in April 1965.

With demands from Malawian colleagues that he clarifies his position on the crisis in the cabinet, Rubadiri wrote a public letter rejecting Banda’s authoritarianism and the Malawian ruler’s support for South Africa’s apartheid regime. Banda responded to Rubadiri with a note that read: ‘You come to Malawi and I will feed you to the crocodiles.’
Rubadiri declined the invitation and chose exile in Uganda. Paul Theroux, who was a young American Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi, had taught under Rubadiri at Soche College in Blantyre. Writing years later, Theroux recalled: “David Rubadiri angered Banda to the point of the Malawian president setting his Israeli-trained Young Pioneers to harass Rubadiri’s mother, who was still in Malawi. (Rubadiri’s father had died a year before.) I received specific instructions through a mutual friend: Help Mrs Rubadiri, locate the family Peugeot and the set of good china (a dinner service for 12) and drive to Uganda.”

Theroux happily obliged and drove 4,000km on poor roads to deliver Rubadiri’s mother and his valuables. Rubadiri then requested Theroux to deliver a verbal message to an exiled colleague in Dar es Salaam. The latter gave a message to Theroux to deliver to a Greek friend in Malawi. Banda’s intelligence service discovered the contents of the communication and Theroux was thrown out of Malawi, losing his secondary school teacher’s job. Rubadiri secured a job for Theroux as a lecturer at Makerere University. Theroux would go on to become a celebrated writer at Makerere and, like Rubadiri, a great friend of Rajat Neogy, with whom he edited Transition, and later, international fame as a writer and literary critic.

For me, the greatest memory of Rubadiri is that of a very bright and kind man who made my refugee experience in Nairobi easier and enriching. One of the positive sides of exile was that one had easy exposure to some of the greatest minds, brought together by the storms that ravaged Africa’s young countries. Uganda was arguably one of the hardest hit in Africa. Among the notable departures from Uganda at that time were people like Rubadiri, Okot p’Bitek, Tibamanya Mwene Mushanga, Edward Rugumayo, Okello Oculi, Rajat Neogy, Ali Mazrui and Peter Nazareth.

Rubadiri, p’Bitek and Mwene Mushanga were at the University of Nairobi. Rubadiri offered me an open invitation to join them in the Senior Common Room at the University of Nairobi every Friday afternoon. It became a weekly highlight for me. I would sit down and just receive from their overflowing fountains of knowledge and high-level debate. Their discourse was a free graduate course in Africana, logic, philosophy and critical thinking. Their conversations would become suitably animated as liquor, which they consumed like thirsty riverside eucalyptus trees, took effect. Yet they would remain focused on the subject.

Mushanga was forever challenging, pushing, questioning. p’Bitek would interject with comments and questions that almost always induced laughter. Rubadiri, who was the only one who had had experience in government, diplomacy and a spell as a political prisoner, would listen without interruption, then make an observation, his baritone adding weight to his argument.

The three men were atheists, and they were merciless in their ridicule of my Christian faith and testimony. All done with endearing smiles, of course. Pity that we did not have portable recording devices in those dark ages. Sadly p’Bitek died at the age of 51 in 1982. Mushanga followed at about age 82 in 2014. Now the angels have lowered the final curtain on Rubadiri’s play. Happily his final Act was a most pleasant one.

Rubadiri surrendered his life to Jesus Christ 12 years ago and spent his final years sharing the Good News with his people. Therefore, we know that he is now in his glory. Though our flesh mourns his passing, we give thanks to God for his 88 years of service on Earth and for his assured eternal life. Rubadiri, who is survived by his first wife Gertrude Uzanda, 91, his second wife Janet Shalita, 88, their 10 children and several grandchildren, will be buried in Mzuzu, Malawi on Saturday, September 22. It will be a celebration of the life of one of the last among the great men and women who fought for Africa’s political and intellectual liberation.

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