An old nationalist in new nationalist times: Donald Siwale and the state in Zambia: 1948–1963

Abstract

Donald Siwale took the positive view that governance in colonial Northern Rhodesia could be beneficial to the people. He was a pace‐setter amongst the early educated elite and served in numerous capacities as a mediator. He was also a moralist and social critic. This article examines his thought and career in the late colonial period, when he straddled between prominence in the African National Congress and positions within the hierarchy built upon Native Authorities. He participated vigorously in the African Representative Council throughout its existence, 1946–1958. As an improver, he could not forego the opportunity to prod the administration, for example, by joining the Provincial Development Team. Opposing Northern Rhodesia's incorporation into the Central African Federation, he expounded on the nature of chiefs as repositories of legitimacy. Nationalism, however, drew on increasingly populist sources, isolating the educated elite as a differentiated class. The discussion examines his background and relationship with the Chieftainesses Waitwika of the Namwanga, Siwale's own group, and his ineffectiveness in the face of the ‘Nsokolo crisis’ of 1952–1953 when the neighbouring Mambwe peope and their chief inaugurated anti‐colonial defiance.