Interesting remark about that there are people that think that Malawi doesnt have a common culture.Every country has a common culture and this is what seperates them from their neighbors. For example, when you think of a Zimbabwean or Tanzanian, there are certain traits that you imagine people from that country to have. A major component being language. Of course, Malawi is made up of different ethnic groups with different cultures. When we speak of Malawi culture , we talk about thoe traits, or practices that are unique to Malawians, this include largely, history and personality.... For example , as a whole , Malawians are passive people, but it is rumoured that the Yaos are more aggresive and less passive but over all, they are more passive then , lets say Yaos inother countries.. Every culture has differet sub-cultures that male up that groups. But there is an overall culture. This is why you can tell a Kenyan from a Malawian....- luckily for us, unlik countire like Kenya Malawi is not one of those countries where ethnicity is a major divider of our peoples. We cant always tell where a person is from by there name or the way they look. In other African countries you can.  Malawi does have a common culture .When we speak of culture we mean language, religion, and ethnicity which is comon to the majority albeit having various different culturre, languages ets... When we say we will show Malawi culture, obviously, the culture of the majority will prevail, but ths does not mean that the habits of the sub-cultures or minority groups can not be displayed.

Pope wrote:

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Ms Tinga wrote:  Malawi does have a common culture .When we speak of culture we mean language, religion, and ethnicity which is comon to the majority albeit having various different culturre, languages ets... When we say we will show Malawi culture, obviously, the culture of the majority will prevail, but ths does not mean that the habits of the sub-cultures or minority groups can not be displayed.-- Edited by Ms Tinga at 00:19, 2006-05-22 Firstly let me tell you that religion is not culture and to tell the world that it is our national culture is like lying to a kid.Secondly I would encourage you to prepare three major cultural activities which will represent South,Central and North.All in all I support your ideas of holding such a function.May God Bless all of you in the working committee,you are a pride of our nation. -- Edited by Pope at 09:44, 2006-05-22

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Hi Pope,

 

Thanks for your words, I didnt think you were 'hating ' on the ideas.. Maybe this should be opened in a diferent thread, but since Im an anthro. major I love talking about culture!

Religion is an aspect of culture, just as linguistics, rites, tradition, etc.... Using the example that youve highlighted though, one can say that Muslims countries, for example share a common cultural aspect, like , they mostly dress in hajib...or it is a part of their culture to have arranged marriages to have certain rituals... in otherwords there religion determines aspecs of theri culture... so religion is embedded in culture. As a predominantly Christian country, when we speak of Malawi weddings for example, it is part of our culture to have it in a church... As far as single common cultural tiats, a lot of the aspects proabbly dont stand out becasue we see this as normal being from that culture... It is a part of Malawi culture to have the entire families involved in a wedding - (both muslims and christians)...wearing chitenjes is part of Malawi common culture. Language is a part of common malawi culture for every country. But of course, every country has different cultures within it...including countries like the USA, england south Africa. No country is uniform. An example, if one were doing a show about American culture you can use the cowboy as a symbol but the cowboy does not represent all of America. So you can do representations of Malawi culture were u use one single aspect of the culture to represent the majority, or you can pick something from the N, or from the S or from the C, and hihglight these things as something done in those regions..... you can pick an ethnic group in that regions and say for exaple..the Yaos do this and that. This does not mean you need to speak about each and every group becasue as you mentioned there are several groups in Malawi. To find one practice that represents all 3 for a show depends on the people that know about the culture, people who are willing to perform and /or have the talent etc.. so it can be challenging to be fair and balanced....Okay, something like dancing when u walk in a church at weddings would be something that is national in Malawi and done by all groups...when people gwada or bow , this is national culture.....but overall, I think it is a big part of the ministry opf culture to go around and tell people "this is Malawian culture" b/c otherwise culture does get lost... In Kenya for example you go to the airport and all u see are Masaii artifcats etc... they are by all means not the only ethnic group in Kenya...but if u do a show about Kenya u can show the Masaai dance, and then show things from other groups rather then showing all dances from all groups...which can be hard...