warm hearts in africa - assembly.wales documents/eur... · but it was his passionate campaign...

Warm hearts in Africa 1859 - 2009 The David Livingstone 150th Anniversary Lecture Rt Hon Jack McConnell MSP 17th September 2009

European and External Affairs Committee EUR(3)-04-11 : Paper 7 8 March 2011

Warm Hearts in Africa Livingstone Memorial Lecture 17th September 2009 2

Introduction

Ladies, gentlemen, distinguished guests.

We gather to mark a remarkable anniversary in the shared history of two

countries – Scotland and Malawi.

One hundred and fifty years ago, on this day, the son of a Scottish mill-hand

stepped on to the southern shores of a large lake in Southern Africa.

David Livingstone recorded the historic moment in just ten words in his diary:

“17th Sept. Reached Lake Nyassa from which the Shire emerges.”

His matter of fact entry told nothing of the horrors he had encountered on his

trek to this great discovery.

Thousands of leeches attacked him and his party as they paddled through

Lake Shirwa, to the south of the great lake.

Man-eating crocodiles skulked alongside his steamer the Ma-Robert

prompting him to record this terrifying incident in his journal.

“21st March 1859 A woman was taken off by an alligator near to where we

anchored, and we saw him dragging her up to a quiet spot to eat her.

A relative, probably her mother, stood wailing on the bank.”

But by far the biggest horror that Livingstone encountered was evidence of

the slave trade.

When his party passed through villages people ran terrified into their huts and

children screamed in terror for fear they were going to be stolen away.


Livingstone regularly came upon piles of forked sticks that had been used to

yolk captured slaves as if they were animals.

And just before he reached Lake Nyassa he met a large Arab slaving party.

David Livingstone had not only discovered the beautiful Lake of Stars, he had

also found the cold heart of the slave trade.

Colonel Rigby, the British Consul in Zanzibar at the time, estimated that every

year 19,000 slaves from the Lake Nyassa region passed through the Zanzibar

Customs House, most destined for South America.

Four times that number were killed during raids or died later from starvation

after their crops had been burnt by the slave traders.

It was nothing less than genocide.

Livingstone achieved much in his lifetime.

He escaped the clutches of poverty through that classic Scottish route -

education. He taught himself Latin in preparation for his medical studies at

Anderson College, now of course part of Strathclyde University.

And in November 1840, he qualified as a doctor, after gaining the licence of

the Glasgow Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons.

He made immense contributions to geographic and scientific knowledge,

opening up Central Africa to the world.

He championed education and fair trade for Africans, by Africans, and was

one of the few Europeans to challenge the Transvaal Boers and what he

called “their stupid prejudices against colour.”


But it was his passionate campaign against the East African slave trade that

was to give him heroic status in Malawi and beyond.

His dogged account of the atrocities he encountered led the British

government to finally force the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1873 to ban the sea

transportation of slaves along 1000 miles of Africa’s east coast.

Moral purpose

In Malawi the trees where Livingstone held meetings to discuss slavery are

now national monuments.

Zambia’s President Kenneth Kaunda described the boy from Blantyre as

“Africa’s first freedom fighter.”

And Livingstone’s moral purpose inspired generations of Scottish medical

staff, teachers, engineers and others to dedicate their lives to helping build

Malawi’s education and health service, develop its trade and sow the seeds of

self determination.

His moral purpose inspired me too, when five years ago as First Minister I

considered how best to develop Scotland’s contribution to the world.

My interest in Africa had been kindled by watching scenes from apartheid

South Africa on my TV. Reading of independence campaigns and the

struggles of newly independent states to survive the challenges of the early

years of freedom.

Quite how a sheep farmer’s son from the hills of Arran developed a life long

passion for African development when shopping in Saltcoats was an

adventure.


But the passion remains, so I can understand a bit of why the mysteries of

Africa captured the imagination and gripped the intellect of David Livingstone.

I became First Minister in 2001.

Since 1999 and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament we had worked

hard to promote Scotland internationally.

By 2005, our efforts to attract Fresh Talent, increase tourism and develop

business opportunities were bearing fruit.

But as a prosperous, developed nation, I believed Scotland had a wider

responsibility than just promoting our own wealth and development.

There had to be a moral purpose to our international relationships too.

Scotland’s contribution

Just as David Livingstone had opened up Africa and laid the foundations for

African nationalism I believed it was now time for the people of a newly

devolved Scotland to use their skills and talents to make a lasting contribution

to international development.

Time for Scots to stand side by side with people in the developing world as

they battled poverty and disease, just as Livingstone stood side by side with

the Manganja tribe on the shores of Lake Malawi as they battled the Arab

slave traders.

International development is the responsibility of the UK government, but the

Scotland Act of 1998 made it clear that the Scottish government could assist

“the Crown in relation to foreign affairs.”


I believed the time was now right to offer that assistance, not least because of

the G8 Summit at Gleneagles and the international attention would we would

attract then.

In February 2005, Scotland’s first international development strategy was

published, based not on huge aid budgets, but on harnessing Scotland’s

biggest asset – its people.

I was determined this would not be a token measure. Our ambitions went

much further than immediate headlines or the fashionable campaigns of 2005.

We set out to maximise our impact. To help sustain development. And to help

an old friend.

Why Malawi?

We knew that our contribution would have little impact on Africa as a whole,

and even less if spread across continents. Of course we wanted to support

Scottish efforts in different places, and we did.

But our main effort needed focus. A sense of purpose that went beyond

grants and campaigns.

We had to target our national efforts.

It was not difficult to decide that our partner should be Malawi.

The special relationship between our two countries began 150 years tonight

with David Livingstone on the shores of Lake Malawi.

He did not live to realise his dream that Africans should join “the family of

nations”, but generations of Scots shared his passion for justice and right.


At Livingstone’s funeral in 1874 the Rev James Stewart was so moved that he

launched a scheme to found the Livingstonia mission in Malawi.

Dr Robert Laws, another graduate of Glasgow University, headed up that

mission for 50 years, helping build the foundations for Malawi’s education and

health services.

The formidable Mamie Martin was just one of thousands of Scots women who

have devoted their lives to the people of Malawi.

In the 1920s she set up a secondary school for girls at the Bandawe Mission

station.

She and her baby daughter died tragically of Black Water fever in 1927, but

her memory lives on today through the girls’ education fund set up in her

honour.

In 1959 when the British Government threatened to force Malawi into a

federation with Rhodesia, a move that would have left Malawi/Nyasaland in

the clutches of apartheid for decades, the General Assembly of the Church of

Scotland passed a motion calling for a “daring and creative transfer of power”

to the people of Malawi.

Ministers left petitions in church vestibules, and the letters pages of both the

Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman were alive with anger at the prospect of

Malawi being denied its freedom.

In a passionate speech to the House of Commons, the North Lanarkshire MP

Margaret Herbison evoked the spirit of Livingstone as she argued for Malawi’s

freedom.

Such was the pressure from all walks of Scottish life, the Colonial Secretary

Ian MacLeod was persuaded to abandon the Federation, and Malawi went on

to win its independence in 1964.


Even during the difficult years of independence, Scots held faith with their

Malawian friends and colleagues.

The friendship moved into a new stage as we moved into a new millennium.

In 2000 Strathclyde University launched the Malawi Millennium Project with

Bell College, the higher education college closest to Blantyre, Livingstone’s

birthplace.

And in 2004, the Scotland Malawi Partnership inspired by the Rev Andrew

Ross – one of Livingstone’s best biographers - was established to foster links

between our two nations into the 21st century. They were supported by the

Lord Provosts of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

MSPs visited Malawi in February 2005 in the first delegation from the Scottish

Parliament.

This shared history, this unfailing friendship between two small countries

convinced me that Scotland and Malawi could move beyond the traditional

donor-client model of development and develop a distinctive relationship.

One based on mutual solidarity and respect.

A relationship inspired by the dreams of young mill-hand from Blantyre.

My first visit to Malawi was in May 2005. Before I went I understood a little of

our shared history.

The work of the Scottish churches and generations of Scots who had

contributed to Malawi’s development and fought for its freedom.


I knew of Livingstone’s legacy, of Robert Laws, Mamie Martin, Andrew Ross,

and of course Colin Cameron, a proud member of Malawi’s first post

independence government.

I was prepared for the Scottish street names - Kirk Road, St Andrews Street,

and for Blantyre, Malawi’s biggest city named in honour of Livingstone’s

birthplace.

I was still taken aback by the depth and warmth of the welcome we received

everywhere we went.

From Montfort College where Scots expertise was helping blind children read,

to Bottom Hospital where Scots midwives had given up their annual holiday to

help train their Malawian colleagues.

Malawi’s challenges

I saw the many challenges facing Malawi.

A universal primary education system with few teachers, sparsely equipped

schools and millions of children eager to learn.

A national health service struggling to cope with a HIV/Aids epidemic and the

scourge of malaria with less staff and equipment than an average Scottish

hospital.

A country trying to feed 14 million people on the produce grown by women in

small, arid maize gardens.

A government attempting to grow a sustainable economy in a land where

most men did not have a job and only a tiny percentage of the population

went to college or university.


But just as Livingstone was not deterred by hordes of slave traders, or the

missionaries by disease, then I knew that Scots today would do their very best

to support the people of Malawi.

Working together

On the final day of that first visit, President Mutharika and I discussed ways

that our two countries could work together.

The list was long: support for Malawi’s healthcare system, economic growth,

enterprise and vocational education, governance, science and technology.

He spoke about his ambitions, his determination that Malawi would move on

from corruption, annual famine and the HIV/Aids plague.

I spoke of our determination to be long term friends not fair-weather visitors.

But not once did we mention aid, we talked instead about people helping

people.

An exchange of experience and expertise that would benefit both countries.

The Co-operation Agreement that we signed here in Scotland in November

2005 was much more than a concordat between two governments.

It was a solemn promise; undertaken on behalf of the people we represented,

for our two countries to work together to build a better future.

I have been overwhelmed by the success of our approach since.

I have been heartened by how much people in Scotland gain from their

relationship with Malawi.


They understand the world better, they learn new skills and above all they feel

a sense of achievement, of making a real difference.

There are so many examples of people power but I want to focus tonight on a

few. Not because I think that they are any better than any of the other work

that is going on, but because I think that they each illustrate what I think is so

distinctive about Scotland and Malawi’s partnership. And they are new.

Young people

I have always believed that international education should be at the heart of

the school curriculum.

As education minister I introduced a Global Schools strategy in September

2001.

Its aim was to enable young Scots understand what holds us together as

global citizens.

So when I decided to strengthen our historic relationship with Malawi I was

confident that this would provide opportunities for young Scots and Malawians

to learn about their world together.

Tomorrow North Berwick Secondary School is celebrating its Malawi Day,

where they will be joined by the local primary schools in the area to launch a

campaign to raise money for Mary’s Meals Sponsor a School Programme.

And next June, 20 young people from North Berwick will visit their friends in

Katunguwiri Community Day Secondary School.

They will work in the school kitchen they have helped build. They will attend

classes, learning what it is like to study geometry or history with nothing more

than a few textbooks per class.


And they will share their love of music with the local community. Scots voices

blending with Malawians in a celebration of each other’s cultures.

A group of students from Holyrood Secondary School have just returned from

Malawi and their now annual visit to their three partner schools, where they

worked, learned and laughed together over the summer.

These are just two of the 200 schools that today are linked with a school in

Malawi.

Five years ago there were less than 20 such partnerships. I hope that in the

next five years there will be another 200 Scottish and Malawian schools

learning from each other.

Professional expertise

Last week I met with a Scot who has made his life, and his reputation, in

London.

John McAslan is one of the UK’s leading architects. His firm has worked on

prestigious projects such as Kings Cross Station, the University of

Manchester and the Royal Academy of Music.

His latest project is much more modest, and attracts no fee, but it has the

potential to change lives for good.

His practice has designed a prototype classroom block for Malawi, working

first with the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative in the Neno district.

John’s classrooms are not concrete huts, with a dark interior and rough floors,

but sustainable, light, airy buildings that are sensitive to the local climate and

culture.


And they cost the same to build as the miserable concrete huts used by

children across sub-Saharan Africa today.

The Government of Malawi needs to build an additional 25,000 classrooms

over the next decade if it is to meet its target of increasing net enrolment for

primary education to 95 per cent, and to 30 per cent for secondary education.

John’s concept, if adopted across the country, will mean that the Malawi’s

next generation of schoolchildren will learn in a sustainable, high quality

environment.

Education should not end when a student leaves school. But in Malawi for the

overwhelming majority of children it does.

During my first meeting with President Mutharika he stressed the importance

of vocational education to Malawi’s development.

But in a country of 14 million people, the majority under 25, there are only

seven public further education colleges.

Only 1000 students a year win one of the highly coveted places to study

subjects such accounting, carpentry and agriculture.

But Scots have the people with the skills and knowledge to support Malawian

staff as they develop their service.

Next week 20 Malawian principals and vice-principals, and 12 other staff

members, will travel to Scotland to mark the end of a remarkable year-long

training project.

A consortium of Scottish colleges, led by Adam Smith College, has worked

with Malawi’s public colleges in a groundbreaking exchange of experience

and knowledge.


A scheme that started as networking has flourished into true friendship

according to Dr David Astill, of Adam Smith College.

Healthcare

Scottish doctors and nurses made a significant contribution to Malawi’s health

care long before there was government funding available to support their

work.

Dr Liz Grant’s work to pull together the health strand of the Co-operation

Agreement has reaped huge benefits.

Health professionals from across Scotland share their time and expertise with

colleagues in Malawi.

Scottish universities are working with the University of Malawi to develop a

new medical curriculum incorporating online teaching resources to help train

more medical students.

Thirteen primary care clinics in Scotland and Malawi have a remarkable link

sharing, in real time, advice and knowledge on patient care. And Scots learn

lessons from Malawi as much as Malawi staff learn from their Scottish

colleagues.

In a country where more than one in ten is HIV positive, life expectancy is 48

years old and there are only 1.6 doctors and 28.6 nurses per 100,000 people,

this support from Scotland makes a real difference.

It saves lives.

Ordinary people, extraordinary things

For me one of the most uplifting aspects of our renewed relationship with

Malawi is that of ordinary people achieving extraordinary things.


Linda McDonald is a midwife in Edinburgh’s Simpson Memorial maternity unit.

During a long night shift in late May 2005, a colleague handed her some

photographs from a typical day in Bottom Hospital, Lilongwe’s main maternity

unit.

The pictures told their own terrible story. Heavily pregnant women lying on

bare concrete floors, waiting, often in vain, for a bloodstained mattress, on

which to give birth.

Frail, newborn babies asleep in wooden boxes, wrapped in traditional cloth in

a desperate attempt to keep them warm, and alive.

And two doctors, supported by a handful of nurses, somehow managing to

provide care for 12,000 women a year.

Linda passed the pictures back to her friend, but instead of forgetting the stark

images as she got on with her busy life, she decided to make a difference.

And what a difference she has made in only four years. Her best selling

MUMs recipe books have raised around £200,000.

She gave some of the money to Scottish Television’s successful appeal to

build a new maternity unit to replace Bottom hospital.

That appeal raised an astonishing £750,000, money Sir Tom Hunter matched

pound for pound, and early next year a modern emergency maternity unit will

open in Lilongwe – thanks to the people of Scotland.

Linda is investing the rest of her fundraising efforts in training for Malawian

midwifes and feeding stations in some of the country’s poorest districts.


And she gives of her time too, having just returned from a six-month stay in

Malawi where she – and her husband Ian - worked day and night in the very

hospital that inspired her incredible journey.

I am not suggesting that we all take off tomorrow for Malawi on an incredible

journey, just as David Livingstone did 150 years ago, or as Linda McDonald

did in January this year.

But these two very different individuals embody the ideal that makes our

friendship with Malawi so special, and so different from traditional aid.

There is virtually no corner of Scotland, from Shetland to Stranraer; no walk of

life, nor age group where this friendship now flourishes.

David Livingstone went to Africa, and Malawi, armed with a moral purpose: to

work alongside Africans to free them from the evils of slavery and through

education and trade, give them the tools to develop their great continent.

He, unlike his contemporaries, respected African cultures and beliefs. He saw

himself as a fellow human being, a teacher not a colonial master.

Linda McDonald and all the other Scots – young and old - who have worked

in, and with, Malawi since 1859 share Livingstone’s core beliefs of solidarity,

justice and respect.

A model for development

Generations of Scots have shown that we all have a responsibility – and the

ability – to make a difference.

The determined passion of the Make Poverty History campaign was evidence,

if it were ever needed, that today’s generation is as determined to make the


world a better place, as those missionaries who gave their lives in Bandawe,

Livingstonia and Ekwendeni.

Each one of us can contribute to Malawi’s development – whether it is through

sharing a love of music or saving the lives of new-born babies.

And by contributing to Malawi’s development we are contributing to our

understanding of how the world works.

By making our relationship with the people of Malawi a personal one, we

make the fate of the world our personality responsibility.

It is down to us. We each have a responsibility to make the world more

sustainable, peaceful and fair.

And I believe that the partnership between Scotland and Malawi is an

example for other countries to follow. It offers a new model of international

development, by people for people.

We live in an increasingly interdependent world.

It is a world that Livingstone would have understood.

His life and legacy can reward, inform and develop the people of our two

countries.

150 years on, the governments of Malawi and Scotland should consider a

joint scheme of awards in his name to recognise special achievement and the

search for global knowledge.

• Scholarships for learning

• Research into our shared history and future challenges


• Awards – David Livingstone medals for young and old Scots and

Malawians who are global citizens of distinction.

Country to country

For the last 150 years the fate of our two countries has been intertwined.

David Livingstone is Scotland and Malawi’s national hero. In fact the

Malawians say they discovered David Livingstone.

Together we fought the UK government for Malawi’s freedom.

And together we are trying to build a better world.

President Mutharika and his government have made significant progress in

five years, in food security, economic growth and healthcare.

But development takes time and country-to-country links must recognise this

reality.

A partnership between two countries, such as Scotland and Malawi, cannot

be at risk from a change of government, and I pay tribute to the current

Scottish government for recognising this.

And I must pay a heartfelt, personal tribute to Peter West and the Scotland

Malawi Partnership for their work – without their time, energy and inspiration,

the link between our two countries would be so much less effective.

The commitment to work together must be long-term, as it is with Scotland

and Malawi.

Churches and faith groups will continue to play a key role.


Aid agencies must welcome country-to-country links as an opportunity not a

threat.

The scale of the challenges facing the world today is too large, too important

to all our future well-being, to be the sole responsibility of development

professionals and politicians.

They alone cannot bear the burden.

Resources are important too. The Scottish government’s international

development budget may be modest but it has been an important catalyst.

However the biggest, and most importance resource that any country has is

its people.

The link between Scotland and Malawi works because people felt that they

can make a contribution to development, beyond buying a goat for Christmas

or a direct debit once a month.

It works because the students of Holyrood Secondary School understand the

global economy better, not through text books or the internet but through their

friendships with the students of the Catholic Institute Primary School.

It works because people like Peter West, Linda McDonald and David Astill -

and their colleagues in Malawi - know they are part of a national effort.

They know too that the national effort would not, could not, work without their

skills, their knowledge and their commitment.

It is this harnessing of individual talents and energies under a common moral

purpose that makes the Scotland Malawi partnership work, and convinces me

that it would work elsewhere too.


David Livingstone arrived 150 years ago tonight on the shores of Lake

Malawi.

This ragged trousered, self-taught, factory hand had, through sheer hard work

and determination, escaped the grinding poverty of his early life, and travelled

to a place no European had been before.

He opened up Africa to the world, helped end the slave trade and sowed the

seeds of African nationalism.

He stood up for what he believed in and struck out against injustice wherever

he found it.

He changed Scotland and Malawi and by doing so, he changed the world.

Now it is our turn.

warm hearts in africa - assembly.wales documents/eur... · but it was his passionate campaign...

Documents