Struggle and Transcendence: My Journey to Studying for a PhD in History
In this essay, I write about the challenges of growing up as a queer boy in Zambia and eventually finding my purpose in life through education and service.
In a few weeks, I will be starting doctoral work in the History Department and History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, affectionately known as Wits. I wrote this essay during the week I took off between Christmas and New Year’s and under the shadow of a global pandemic that is increasingly looking gloomy. To write a hopeful note at this time seems a bit unfair but — at the same time — perhaps what we all need is a little bit of hope, even if it comes from reading about seemingly tiny steps forward in a friend’s professional life. This isn’t an academic article, neither is it an intellectual biography. It is more of a personal essay reflecting on how I found myself pursuing a career in academia at Africa’s top higher education institution after what seems to be an eventful life in my 33 years on earth, a life full of learning and changes.
It goes without saying that I stand on the shoulders of giants: my teachers, friends, and family. This story owes as much to the ancestors who came down Lake Tanganyika to southern Africa centuries ago as to the teachers and administrators at my undergraduate institution, Georgetown, who took under their wing this lost, poor, traumatised African boy and moulded him into a responsible citizen. In early 2020, I completed my Master’s thesis on reading communities in Soweto high schools in the 1970s cum laude. The rest of the year revealed the depth of my friendships and close relations. I got a lot of help from my friends during a year when the pandemic disrupted my career plans and threatened my livelihood. At the same time, because of the pandemic I got some new experiences that I would have otherwise not had. These included teaching my first undergraduate southern African history class online, conducting research on governance and transparency issues in Zambia, conducting life history interviews on the African National Congress’s Radio Freedom in Zambia, and working as an assistant on a revised edition of an important work of African LGBTQ history, Boy Wives and Female Husbands.
Right now, it seems pretty natural that I should be embarking on research into Black performance and politics in South Africa during late apartheid. I’m excited for the journey ahead and very grateful to have funding to pursue my studies full time. Moreover, I will be surrounded by some of the best historians in Africa and a wider intellectual community in the social sciences. I will be working under Prof. Sekibakiba Lekgoathi, whose scholarly accomplishments and skills as a teacher inspire me. At the History Workshop, I join a group that has included scholars like the renowned late sociologist Prof. Belinda Bozzoli. The current scholars there such as Prof. Noor Nieftagodien, Drs. Ali Hlongwane and Arianna Lissoni are highly accomplished but also humane scholars of South African history. History Workshop academics are activist-scholars, who have not merely chronicled history but participated in creating it. It gives me pause that my mentors are so illustrious, but also encourages me to courageously take on the task ahead.
In 2012, I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in History and minor in Theology from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. I was young but not so young. The life I was dealt meant that, since a young age, I did not have the luxury of being carefree. My mother had made it clear to me that her hopes of escaping a life of poverty lay squarely on my shoulders. She had done so much, through blood, sweat and tears, to get me through secondary school in Zambia before I got a Sixth Form scholarship from the Pestalozzi International Foundation. I remember the day I told her about the scholarship after coming home from the post office; she rolled on the floor, clapping her hands in the traditional Bemba greeting of praise. That is the only time I had seen my mother do that. Tertiary education in Zambia is expensive and, barring a government bursary, there is no way my mother could have afforded it. Pestalozzi was a great, mind opening, experience which led to a scholarship to Georgetown.
At Georgetown, I navigated a difficult switch from the natural sciences to humanities, a crisis of faith, and coming to terms with the reality that no matter what I did or how hard I tried, I could not change my sexuality. Continuing to try to do so would just lead to further emotional distress. I am grateful that, at Georgetown, I had the resources of professional counsellors to help me understand that my emotional disposition was not an illness (or even the result of demon possession, as one pastor from my hometown who conducted an exorcism on me when I was a teenager had me believe) but a natural part of how some people are made. I can’t lie, it was a heavy cross to carry from childhood and for many years I was forced into deep silence and shame, unnecessary and harmful. I have an intense personality and had really taken to heart the demeaning messages I had received, mainly from conservative Christianity, about queer folk. But, somehow, a voice kept telling me that my life had inherent dignity and was worth living. I was also fortunate to meet Professors who held my hand during this difficult period, giving me enough space to flourish into my own person without judgement. Particularly, three Professors come to mind: Fr. Raymond Kemp, STL, Dr. Irene Jillson, and Dr. Mary Jane Barnett. It is not an exaggeration to say that had these three people not walked into my life, I likely would not be alive and where I am today.
In the years between graduating college and today, I have held a few jobs. Firstly, I worked as an Associate Teacher at Beauvior, The National Cathedral Elementary School. That was an intense year, as many teachers in their first year will tell you. I think my paternal instincts were awoken by spending so much time with those eight- and nine-year olds. On the last day of class, I literally sobbed as the parents led their children out of class. Beauvior is the elementary school for the children of the who’s who in Washington, thus we had the best resources and best teachers, two very essential components of successful schools. After Beauvior, hearing about mother’s increasingly fragile health back home, I chose to return to Zambia to be closer to her. During my undergraduate years, I spent virtually the whole four years away because neither I nor my family could afford flights home. Also, I think, I needed the distance to process the many questions I had about my life. It was the first of my many exiles.
When I got back home from Washington, I was struck by the conditions that my mother lived in. Not abject poverty, yes, but it was still a very spare existence compared to what I had become used to. It is easy for us to forget our roots, where we come from. I’m a city boy, a Copperbelt boy, and in many ways a township boy. I spent most of my childhood growing up in Twibukishe, a mining township in Kitwe complete with identical houses on identical streets separated by wire fences. This was before my mother was retrenched from the secretary job in the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines she had held for more than twenty years and we moved from rented room to cottage to friend’s or relative’s home, and even a short while stayed in the makeshift classrooms of the school my mother ran with a relative, turning a corner into a bedroom. At that time, Zambia’s economy was under so much strain that people’s terminal benefits evaporated overnight. Just after I had left for my Sixth Form scholarship in England, mother finally decided to stay in her barely completed own home. What strikes me about growing up on the Copperbelt is that while the province is modern in terms of infrastructure and even the attitudes of most people, most people live under extreme economic difficulty and often have to live subsistence lives in cities. This is in sharp contrast to the many millions of dollars being extracted from the ground, enriching the foreign mining companies and a few government fat-cats.
Back in Zambia, I was fortunate to join Lubuto Library Partners, a small well-run Non-Governmental Organisation and was rapidly promoted to Country Director. I worked for Lubuto for more than four years, including a stint in Illinois studying for a Master’s in Library and Information Science (also obtained cum laude). After these years working in Zambia, I was ready to move on and gave my notice. Sad to leave my co-workers, the Zambian children we were serving and librarian colleagues, it was also a moment to take stock of what I had done with my one wild and precious life and what the future held. It should also be mentioned that my mother passed away during these years back in Zambia and my sister and I laid her to rest. Although I was shattered by her early death, I hold fond memories of mother, ba Kili, Christine. Many of these memories are held in photographs I have of her. Like the one when she was smiling while hugging me at a prize giving ceremony at Mukuba Secondary School, after I had scooped prize after academic prize and taken home so much Cowbell powdered milk (the prize) and feasted on it that I developed an upset stomach. There’s another photo of her probably taken before I was born, it is a portrait and I think my favourite. She is smiling, her wet look Afro glistening, a simple but beautiful white blouse, earrings and a necklace. She has so much hope in her eyes. The photo has a sticker at the back, John Chadwick, P.O. Box 22443 Kitwe, Zambia, Tel: 216803, 137–0A.
In March 2018, after completing my notice period at work, I used the modest severance pay to take a 21-day solo trip around southern Africa. I drove from Lusaka to Johannesburg in my third-hand Japanese SUV, stopping in Harare, the Bvumba Mountains and Mutare, Great Zimbabwe ruins, and old Venda in Limpopo. On the way back, taking a circuitous route, I stopped in Gaborone, Francistown, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls then on back to Lusaka. After a couple of months, I travelled to Dehradun in northern India and for most of the rest of that year, volunteered at the PestalozziWorld village there, working with children to improve their reading among other tasks — food and accommodation were provided (PestalozziWorld is a sister organisation to the one which had sponsored my own high school diploma in England). Kasonde sir or bhai, as I was known to the children from Nepal, India and Tibetan communities in exile, danced with the children, discussed our homes and shared in community rituals. I also went on a few solo trips around India, such as to Dharamshala — the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, where I got the chance to sit in on his teachings. I also visited the Taj Mahal, Mumbai and New Delhi. India was fun and beautiful and gave me the chance to read and think, I’ll forever be grateful for that moment in my life.
It was during my time in India that I decided that the best use of my life, the best way I could be of value to the world, is to become a researcher and study history. While I was in India, the colonial era law, called Section 377, that criminalised consensual same-sex sexual behaviour between adults was overturned. Decolonisation was gathering apace and it was a beautiful thing to perceive, LGBT people in India could now be free. From India, I chose to come to South Africa because of the quality of higher education here and also as a way of escaping a life of living under the burden of irrational homophobia. I hope that a day will come when Zambians will see that real diversity is a gift and not a curse. In the meantime, the ghosts of white male missionaries, including that of the much beloved David Livingstone, smile from their graves at the efficiency with which their views of human sexuality, and the place of women in society, reign supreme in that part of southern Africa. Still, I am on African soil and close to home. And, although South Africa isn’t perfect — violence towards women, queers and foreigners is a continuing issue — being prosecuted by the state for simply being alive is one less worry I have to live with.
In my first venture into South African higher education, during my Master’s, I studied really hard, took some coursework, and eventually forged my own research question. I gravitated towards studying print culture in Soweto among the Class of 1976 and spent countless hours reading secondary sources, poring over old newspapers and documents and sitting at the proverbial feet of my elders, those who participated in the Soweto uprising. I couldn’t have asked for a better Master’s topic. Through my research, I looked courage, humanity and hope in the eye. That these young, Black and African students rose to challenge a racist and oppressive system still amazes me. (Read my MA dissertation here). The Class of 1976 showed us the power that astute political imagination and relentless organising have to topple oppressive systems. They also demonstrate the power of debate, reading and popular culture in setting the stage for mass political movements.
‘Why study history?’ some people ask. For me, it is for precisely these reasons. History offers us lessons for the present. There are a limited number ways in which society can organise itself and looking at the past can give us hope that the injustices of today need not be so, learning from how others have overcome them. It can also teach us to avoid the pitfalls of the past such as electing despots in democratic systems. History also gives us a sense of being and identity. The question, ‘igama?’ or ‘who are you?’ can partially be answered by peering into the past. Covid-19 has robbed us of many of this older, brave, generation. Faced with such huge obstacles to rebuilding, we must take a leaf from those who have gone before us. It seemed hopeless before but our freedom fighters kept going for months, years, decades. A better world is possible but the work is hard and won’t happen without sacrifices.
I have been fortunate so far in life. It’s not every queer Zambian boy from the Copperbelt who gets to pursue their dreams and, while doing so, give back to society. The humanities are an important field of study that help in achieving peace on earth. I’m so lucky to be on the cusp of making a modest contribution to further understanding the humanities in Africa, and to southern African history in particular, and possibly making a decent life for myself. My mother always told me to tell the truth and be truthful, never being afraid to expose the wrong I see. In my career, I hope to pursue a similar line, using truth as a guide in what a write. Like Steve Biko, guided by truth, I will write what I like. Despots and charlatans beware, a new generation of African intellectuals is arising.