Freedom Fighter and Other Stories

"Freedom Fighter" This short story is a fictional depiction of how young freedom fighters in Malawi exalted Hastings Banda, an older and more experienced man, almost into a messianic position in order to gain the people's support. The story shows how Banda (the character Khumbo Bomani in the story) began to believe in his own legend and to exercise absolute power, despotically curtailing the very freedoms the independence movement had fought to establish. "Meeting at Mount Mlanje" David Mitchell is the Attorney General in Nyasaland. Urbane and sophisticated, yet full of sensibilities and ideas, he appeals strongly to District Commissioner Kevin O'Brien's wife Mary, and he wants to appeal to her. He convinces the idealistic Mary that the British presence in Nyasaland is benign and that any perceived superiority to the natives is a mere pose on the part of the British. "The Collector" Anil Patel is a "modern" man, Trinidadian by birth and Indian by heritage. He and his wife Dhara agree to have a "modern" marriage in that they only want one child and they both want the freedom to pursue their careers. "The General" Born of Chinese parents in Jamaica, young David Lee is sent to China to connect with his village and his Chinese heritage. However, while he is there he is swept up into the war between Chiang Kaishek's Kuomintang and the Red Army. The ideals of Communism appeal to him, and he joins up with Mao on the Long March. "Waiting for the End" John Evans from St. Kitts-Nevis finds navigating white society difficult. He travels in sophisticated circles because of his Ph.D., but he knows that there are still many barriers in black-white relations, the foremost being sexual. He is careful and circumspect.