MANY CONFLICTS ON A CHANGING CONTINENT

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26887, 13 November 1952, Page 8

MANY CONFLICTS ON A CHANGING CONTINENT

AFRICA

IBv

MARGERY PERHAM,

C.8.E.)

IReprinted from “The Times”)

With news from Africa assuming even more prominence in the worlds newspapers, this seems a suitable time to consider whether there are any deep conditions, common to the whole of Africa, of which the present disturbing events are symptoms. The answer is not reassuring. 1 becomes clear that among many recent changes none is more pregnant than the sudden exertion, in a continent which has long lain P 3? under European control, of a political will which, in parts of British and Commonwealth territories, and beyond looks like developing into an ill-will towards white men or at least towards their system of rule; and IS _3_ S a P" pening at a time when Western Europe, which has lost political and economic control of the other con " tinents. is beginning to take up seriously the immense task of civilising and developing this vast neighbouring backward region. with Britain, whose political initiative has done much to evoke African ambitions, and whose government ana influence are. so widespread througn the continent, lies the almost impossible task of trying to ensure that ner African peoples, while demanding European civilisation, do not make it impossible for Europeans to help them to obtain it. The Mental Approach

Africans in the British dependencies are not suffering from oppression or from such extreme poverty and congestion as is seen in India. The problem is, above all, one of political psychology. Success in handling it, with which success in all urgent practical plans is bound up, therefore depends much upon the mental approach of British people to it. The British have made large adjustments to the changing Africa, but many oldestablished attitudes of mind still seem to hinder acceptance of some of its more unexpected and unwelcome developments. One is the familiar claim that only a small minority is disaffected and that the rural millions are friendly and loyal. True, perhaps, but are they an effective oi permanent majority? The fact, easily verified in London, is that nearly every young African who rises above this unconscious mass and becomes aware, through education and travel, of the world beyond Africa, and the place in it of himself, his colony, and his race, is tempted to project all his resultant bitterness at the one obvious target, the colonial power. His influence, seeping down, gives the same “seditious” colour to the vague discontents of a disintegrating society, especially in and around the problemridden towns.

Another response is to emphasise the humanitarian record and the undoubted benefits of British rule, forgetting that even beneficencfe can have a crushing effect upon those whose greatest needs are for self-expression and self-respect. The natural result, as the West African press so clearly illustrates, is that Africans seek out and exaggerate examples of imperial selfishness and build up myths of a former golden age. Deadly Disparagement

Is there not, also, too much reiteration of the case, all too easy to make, against African ignorance and incapacity, disparagement which falls with deadly effect upon the minds of people needing every encouragement in their upward struggle. Gloom or regret, for example, about West African constitutional advance will not stop, but may well embitter, its progress. It is too often forgotten that events in Africa are the result of the sudden, belated penetration of primitive tropical Africa by modern Europe, which began effectively only in the time of men still alive today. The unprecedented social strains thus set up among the tribes cannot be eased by blaming Africans and justifying British rights and intentions but only by daring and imaginative remedies. A further illusion is that the relationship between governments and their African subjects is still wholly bilateral. But the winds of equalitarian ideas are now blowing uncontrollably upon Africa from all quarters, some doubtless poisoned with hostile intention, but all giving Africans external support for their new internal assertions.

The conclusion must be that Britain and her colonists have not only a duty but an overwhelming interest in working with and not against the awakening African desire to catch up quickly with the rest of the world. If, in the psychological situation which threatens in Africa, tnis growing desire is opposed, or even too grudgingly met, Britain and the other colonial powers may find one day that they have nothing less than a delinquent continent upon their hands. It is against this background that we must set the changing posi • tion of the white settlers. ‘ Tneir fathers, when such'pioneering was an undisputed virtue, built their societies, and above all their economies, upon the reality of African inferiority which they found. African advance, freely encouraged and accommodated elsewhere, now demands in settled areas the most hazardous reconstruction of the foundations of society. Hence, within British and, still more, within Commonwealth Africa arise deep conflicts of principle and practice.

This exacerbating issue tends to throw the wider African picture out of perspective. The colonists, our kinsmen, have achieved great things and their established regional and minority rights claim Britain’s utmost recognition. But, with imperial, international and American action developing alongside it, colonisation cannot claim to be the only civilising agency for Africa. It is highly localised, and in British dependencies (including Southern Rhodesia) colonists number only some 200.000 in an African population of more than 66.000,000. Beyond the immediate question of white settlement there looms the immensely larger problem of civilising Africa’s vast areas and populations, and it would be ultimately fatal, above all for themselves, if, by too great a reliance upon their present individual superiority and economic contribution, this European minority should find themselves in a position which seemed to lie across the main road of African advance.

Britain is being asked to work out a political theorem in which the two elements of numbers and civic competence are at once incommensurable and variable. To this the Central African federation proposals offer no

j certain contribution. Constitution, for multi-racial and uneven socieS should not follow Britain, a and solid democracy, in concentrate™ parliamentary sovereignty. -jv • should rather disperse power as far as possible between black and mixll areas in order to provide polities, education, to divert the opposition! between races, and give both of the security of a rigid, written mT perially guaranteed framework, if th2 racial-constitutional puzzle could h. solved, a developing Africa could absorb vast numbers of European? though these are not likely to attain a majority in any territory north of the Zambezi. If it cannot be solved, the modern world’s unhappy ana inJ poverishing method of meeting concilability with complete partition may be the only remedy. Looking at the continent from the outside, it may be asked whether the Commonwealth and Britain are adapt* ing their central institutions to accom’ modate the new Africa. African colonies aspiring to full self-govem. ment will probably make equality status a sine qua non of remaining in the Commonwealth, and a rebus on the doorstep of this august club would be deeply humiliating. Ht Ve the member nations been asked to put this question upon their agenda? Asian affirmative response can be ex. pected. So can the negative of South Africa’s present Government, though time may suggest to them botn the unwisdom of alienating almost the whole of the population with which they have to share the continent and also the future mediatory value to Africa of British influence and of the Commonwealth link. Australia and New Zealand, for their part, might weigh the future significance of the continent, whose massive bulk hei between them and Europe, as it itin into autonomous life. Secondly, Britain’s own response io government would seem to be the remarriage of the Commonwealth Mela, tions (formerly Dominions) and Colonial Offices, divorced in 1925. African dependencies, unlike the Asian, are likely to attain self-govern-ment with all too brief a preparation for it. With the present separation of departments this would cause the abrupt transport of their files from the region of Victoria street to Downing street, which would suddenly cut off these still under-developed excolonies from needful scienific and other services. It would also harm the morale of the Colonial Office as it saw the major colonies one by one exultantly renouncing its authority, while those smaller ones remaining would, with each departure, more deeply resent their continuing public tutelage. If the departments were reunited, then, within the four walls of a single great Commonwealth ministry, each member, irrespective of status, could maintain its appropriate relationships with Britain. The African territories, which have many common interests and also prospects of increasingly close mutual association, would not be divided up between twe departments according to their size and their uneven and changing political status.

The Colonial Service Such a reorganisation, which might require a single co-ordinating Cabinet Minister, might seem at first to ask too much of the foundation members of the Commonwealth. Yet it need make no difference to their independent diplomatic relationship with Britain while, on the credit side, it might not only allow them to enter into a fuller economic and military partnership with Britain in the affairs of a developing Commonwealth, but might also prevent the African and other colonies from breaking out of this great association. If this kind of reorganisation should prove impossible, I second best would be a new ministiy serving the African territories. Thirdly, the Colonial Service urgently needs reshaping for its changing task. In politically advancing territories it is being put to a very severe strain, professional and personal, that may impair its ability to carry through the final exacting process of creating succession governments. Men entrusted with the supremely important duty should have the dignity and security of belonging to an imperial service of experts and advisers from which they could be posted as need arose.

The greatest contribution Britain could make to a potentially grave predicament would be to train competed African leaders and professional experts and to work with them as partners. This will not be easy in view of the great gap between the tribal mass and the western-educated Africans, nearly every one of whom is on an intellectual rack stretched between Africa and Europe, a position not conducive to moderation. Yet, unless these are accepted and, indeed, generously assisted in their difficult leadership, they may be outflanked by impatient xenophobic, forces breaking up lawlessly from below, led by small organised urban and industrial groups who will teach the masses to look for a more speedy millennium than that offered by the gradualist West. Great Effort Needed The effort of winning African cooperation will be great, above all for the European communities. New and horrible possibilities of violence are opening up. The proper line between maintenance of order and repression will be hard to draw. But those who are offering Christianity or higher education to Africans know very well that these can be fully shared only in a relationship of equality. This equality, already happily possible at the highest level, is surely the idealhowever distant, to be openly and urgently pursued, in every sphere. It is the only one for which African! will work wholeheartedly with Britons. If the cost is high, so is the prize, the winning of Africa, which lies so close to Europe, by filling her vast cultural vacuum with the best we have , to give. f British Africa, divided and malleable until a few yeai;s ago, is now over large areas quickly hardening into self-realisation. Its new and scattered leaders may very soon draw together in the hope, which may not stop at British frontiers, that Africa, so long the slave, servant or beneficiary of other continents, shall, like them, b 6" come a continent in its own right, its peoples free to choose for themselves to which side of the world they will belong. If the present division in the world continues, with its balance of peoples, resources, and strategic space, the choice of the last uncommitted continent may De decisive for the future of our civilisation.