George Simeon Mwase

rdf:langString George Simeon Mwase

rdf:langString George Simeon Mwase (c. 1880–1962) was a government clerk and later businessman and politician in colonial Nyasaland. He became politically active in the 1920s under the influence of the ideas of Marcus Garvey and his "Africa for the Africans" movement, and was instrumental in founding the Central Province Native Association in 1927. Mwase joined the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) in 1944, soon after its formation, and later participated in its executive. By the late 1950s, the gradualism of Mwase and many of his contemporaries was rejected by a younger generation of more radical NAC members. He was marginalised and left the NAC and became a supporter of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Today, Mwase is probably best remembered as the author of a document later edited and published by Robert I. Rotberg in 1967 as "Strike a Blow and Die". This was an English translation of his 1932 essay comparing race relations in Nyasaland at the time of the Chilembwe uprising and the early 1930s, but it is most noteworthy for its second-hand account of that uprising and the motivation of John Chilembwe. Its authenticity and conclusions have been questioned by other scholars.