The Aids Pandemic, the Prophet Billy Chisupe, and the Democratization Process in Malawi

This article presents the case of Billy Chisupe, an elderly subsistence farmer living in the Machinga district of southern Malawi, who in August 1994 had a dream in which ancestral spirits showed him a tree whose bark they said contained the definitive AIDS cure. It took several months for this message to reach the general public, but after that literally tens of thousands made their way to Chisupe's hamlet to take the medicine in the form of a reddish potion called Mchape ("Cleanser"). The question is posed what connection, if any, this has with the ongoing democratization process. We shall begin by presenting the case. This will be followed by an interpretation of its underlying images, and we shall conclude with a brief assessment of what this tells us about the local understanding of both AIDS and Demokalasi. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]