Dunduzu Chisiza

Chisiza (left) with Mary and Rex Collison.

Dunduzu Kaluli Chisiza (1930 - September, 1962) was a Malawi Bahá’í who was named a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh for pioneering to Ruanda-Urundi.

Biography

Chisiza was born in Malawi as the youngest of eleven children with his father being a village headman. He attended the Presbyterian Livingstonia Boarding School where he achieved good grades but experienced racism. In the late 1940's he moved to Iringa, Tanzania, where he began working as a clerk at a Police Records Office but ultimately moved to Kampala, Uganda, to attend Aggrey College and further his education.

One of Chisiza's teachers at the College, Frobisher Kagwa, introduced him to the Bahá’í Faith and he attended a talk on the Faith and met Alí Nakhjavání who inspired him to become a Bahá’í with his declaration taking place in 1952. In February, 1953, he attended the Kampala Intercontinental Teaching Conference held to launch the Ten Year Crusade and at the conference he volunteered to accompany Rex and Mary Collison to Ruanda-Urundi to assist them in teaching the Faith as a translator. Due to a government decision the Collison's were only allowed to stay in the territory for eighteen months and upon their departure Chisiza moved to Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, in 1955.

In Salisbury Chisiza found work as a clerk interpreter for the Indian High Commission and was elected to the Local Spiritual Assembly however he also joined the African National Congress political party and was warned several times by the Local Spiritual Assembly, an Auxiliary Board member, and Shoghi Effendi, that this was against the Bahá’í principle of political non-involvement. In 1956 he was deported from Southern Rhodesia due to his political activities and he returned to Malawi settling in Blantyre. He continued his political involvement after arriving in Malawi and his voting rights were removed in October, 1956, and he expressed he felt the decision was fair.

In 1957 Chisiza received a scholarship to study in England and he settled in Birmingham where he studied Development Economics at Fircroft Collage. He was in England when Shoghi Effendi passed and attended his funeral expressing his grief and meeting with Alí Nakhjavání again at the funeral. He returned to Mawali in 1958 and married Towela Humbo Myamtawali. He was imprisoned due to his political activities in 1959, but after his release in September 1960 he was named the Secretary General of the Malawi Congress Party and in 1961 he was elected to the Legislative Council of Malawi and named parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance. He also visited India in 1961 and wrote the book Africa: What Lies Ahead which incorporated Bahá’í principles.

As of 1962 Chisiza had become disillusioned with the disunity within the Malawi Congress Party and that year he visited the Bahá’í House of Worship in Kampala. He met with Oloro Epyeru and Kolonario Oule and as a result of their consultations he decided to resign from politics. He was killed in a car accident after returning to Malawi reportedly while travelling to a meeting at which he intended to resign from the Malawi Congress Party.