In 1972 two disgruntled Lebanese young men hijacked a South African plane and forced it to land at Chileka Airport. They had grudges against a Mr. Oppenheimer, a South African diamond tycoon, whom they had worked for but apparently never got their dues. They, therefore, wanted to get even with him by hijacking a South African and launch a forced dialogue with their debtor from Malawian soil.
Naturally, Malawi’s then Head of State, Dr. Kamuzu Banda, was not amused one bit by this development. He was so enraged that he instructed Brigadier Matewere, who was then the highest ranking Malawi Army officer, to do anything possible to apprehend “those rascals, gangsters in the air!”, promising that once apprehended they would “rot in jail”.
In the past one week plus, we have witnessed the acts of what I would call, in Kamuzu style, “rascals and gangsters on school grounds”. On the night of 21st September rascals on Robert Blake school grounds blazed what had stood as a treasured national asset for six decades. The infantile rogues decided to set the school ablaze, targeting the most valuable structures, namely the library, the storeroom and the science laboratories.
The youngsters had grudges against the new administration at the school, which turned out to be way stricter than the previous administration. They could roam freely and do what they wished when the previous head teacher was in control. The new head teacher could not tolerate such nonsense but, instead, required them to refrain from smoking, not to bring mobile phones to class, engage in general cleaning at the hostels, attend preps in the evening, among other regulations. They could not take it. they wanted unlimited freedom.
They, therefore, resolved to get even by incinerating the school structures. They though by doing so they would be getting at the new head teacher and his staff. Evidently their hideous act was preceded by meticulous planning. It was not, as some people think, a spontaneous reaction to an ineffectual meeting between staff and students reported to have taken place some hours before the inferno erupted.
The inferno was intense, a pointer to the fact that some highly inflammable materials must have been used. The buildings at Robert Blake had asbestos roofs, which were meant to resist fire as asbestos is naturally fireproof. The asbestos completely shuttered under the intense heat from the fire. This columnist believes that petrol was used in the attack, which is a pointer to the meticulous planning referred to earlier. The gangsters must have pooled some funds together, must have organized jerry cans to contain the fuel and must have organized transport to ferry the fuel from Dowa Boma or from Dzaleka or from Dowa Turn Off. A lot more information than what has been given here has been gathered but is, at the moment, kept under wraps because the relevant authorities are still investigating the saga.
It is not the school administration that has been punished by this misconduct of gigantic proportions. It is the entire nation of Malawi. Robert Blake Secondary School was a national asset bequeathed by the Dutch Reformed missionaries to the people of this country. It was built on the foot of Kongwe Mountain in Dowa District. Many times the names Kongwe and Robert Blake are used interchangeably. When the school opened its doors in or about 1960, there were very few secondary schools in the country, namely Blantyre, Zomba Catholic, Dedza, and Mzuzu Government Secondary Schools and possibly one or two others. In its heyday, Robert Blake was arguably among the best public schools in Malawi. Up to the 1980s it was the only Malawian school offering the prestigious subject of Additional Mathematics, whose examinations used to be set and marked by the Associated Examining Board of London. Alumni of Robert Blake have permeated every sphere in Malawi and further afield. Among them are eminent professors, lawyers, doctors, engineers, politicians, musicians (one of the greatest musicians this country has known, Wambali Mkandawire, passed through the corridors of Kongwe), writers, pastors, architects, accountants, among many other professions.
Anybody who thinks that all these emerged from a school environment that had no regulations had better think again. What those Kongwe rascals were demanding was, at best, a pipe dream, a fanciful scheme. There is not a school in this world that runs without regulations. Resorting to arson will not make the authorities bulge.
It will take a good deal of financial resources to restore Robert Blake to what it was before the infamous attack. What the young rascals did traumatized not just the school administration but, even more so, the alumni throughout the world.