Peter Mackay (31 July 1926 – 17 April 2013) was a British journalist and political activist in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Tanzania.
Early life
Peter John Sutherland Mackay was born in London on the 31st of July 1926, his father was Major George Mackay in the Gurkha Rifles, and his mother was Christine Mackay (née Bourne). He had one sister, Jean and one brother Angus. Mackay's grandfather was the Reverend George Sutherland Mackay, who served for thirty years as minister of the United Free Church in Doune, near Stirling. Mackay had two uncles that had joined the British Army, also in the Gurkha Rifles, and Royal Air Force respectively, with a third uncle working as a tea planter in India.
Mackay was educated at Temple House, Stowe School, Buckingham-shire from 1940 to 1944, and while there he was there he was Prefect of the library before becoming a head boy in his final year. After leaving the school, he joined the Scots Guard and became the youngest captain in the Brigade of Guards at the age of twenty-one. In 1950 he quit the Army and sailed to Ruwa in Southern Rhodesia where he began training as a trainee tobacco grower. He later became a reporter on The Rhodesian Farmer, which was based in Salisbury (Harare).
Political activities
The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland were formed in October 1953, this is the same year that Mackay met David Stirling, the founder of the SAS and the multi-racial Capricorn Africa Society, Stirling was driven to form a federation of racial equals in Central and East Africa that would be independent but still loyal to The Queen and the Commonwealth. North Rhodesia (Zambia), South Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Nyasaland (Malawi), Tanganyika (Tanzania), Kenya and Uganda were the countries that Stirling wanted to target, to form a buffer between the political unrest caused by the apartheid movement in South Africa, and the Nkrumah-style black nationalism which was descending from the North of Africa.
Mackay joined the Interracial Association; he worked on bringing their magazine Concord from an idea into a reality, it was the first multiracial magazine in the colonies. Mackay moved his office as the journalist Elias Mtepuka was not allowed to use the lift to enter his office in Salisbury, Mackay also rented an office in his name for Joshua Nkomo, as Nkomo was prohibited from renting an office in the European area of Salisbury. In 1955 Mackay and Chad Chipunza were the two executive officers for the Capricorn Africa Society in Salisbury, Mackay worked on preparing illustrative graphs for the Capricorn Contract.
In 1956 Mackay organised the Salima conference in Nyasaland alongside T. J. Hlazo, members of different ethnic groups attended and signed a document, the Capricorn Contract. The Capricorn Contract called on the all-white rule to be replaced with a racial partnership in the Central African Federation. Mackay left behind Stirling's Capricorn after 18 months with the society; instead he wanted to pursue working with Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Nyasaland and Joshua Nkomo of Southern Rhodesia who was making demands for majority rule.
Tsopano
Mackay wanted to make a magazine that would report in an unbiased manner unlike the articles in the Nyasaland Times. Mackay applied for a meeting with Dr Banda, who was a political prisoner after Operation Sunrise, to discuss the magazine; however, his access to Banda was denied. Jimmy Skinner, who was a friend of Mackay's was able to gain a meeting with Banda to discuss the magazine, the original name of, 'marawi', was decided against; instead Mackay decided on Tsopano.
The first of thirteen issues was launched in 1959, the magazine was in English and was printed in Salisbury for Nyassa's, it was for the people to read an unbiased view of African feeling within Nyasaland. There were 1,200 copies printed of the first issue, and this sold out on the first day they were available to buy.
Key government initiatives were discussed within the periodical, these included; the Devlin Commission and the Monckton Commission. All issues were printed under censorship which had been enforced after the Government had declared a state of emergency in Nyasaland, at the start of 1959. The thirteenth issue was published in 1961, the Malawi Congress Party won the election, and it was reported that the Government was running out of money for advertisement. This lack of money is a theory why the fourteenth issue of the magazine has a mock version; however, a printed copy of the magazine never occurred.