A Negro Views Africa

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30230, 7 September 1963, Page 3

A Negro Views Africa

A Kind of Homecoming. By E. R. Braithwaite. Frederick Muller. 268 pp. As a non-African negro visiting Africa for the first time. Mr Braithwaite has tried, by talking to Government leaders, teachers, tribes men and old-time colonials, to see how the newlyindependent States are coping with their new status. The result is n compassionate portrayal by a man who is perhaps in the best position to write about such things, for to be able to pass for an African, yet have lived in the Western world offered the author a rare opportunity. To illustrate the way independence has affected them, the author has chosen four states, vastly different both in approach to independence and in their development since independence; Guinea. Sierra Leone. Liberia and Ghana. Guinea represented a state in which the former French colonial administration had left the country independent, but not entirely trained for independence, for when the French left the country they took with them all movable equipment. The Africans left

to carry on are trying hard but it is a long painful process and money is short They are prepared to accept help from any nation, but the author’s viewpoint is that immediately they accept help from toe East they are branded Communist by the West, neither side seems capable of imagining a neutral Africa. As one African pointed out “Everyone listens to an African, because the African is to be wooed, solicited and pampered to make sure he enters the right political camp.” And throughout the book the African* seem well aware of this. In Sierra Leone on the eve of independence the author expected to find jubilation but found only apathy. This seemed difficult to explain until he was told the basic political set-up of the country. E”en so. it was rather incongruous to find the British Governor-General having to “sell” the idea of independence to the African*

Liberia represented a republic which, under President Tubman and with vast wealth —much of it supplied by the United States—gave the ouiward appearance of progress and material gain, yet did not touch the people themselves. There were still vast number* of illiterate, but everyone seemed to have complete faith in the President and great hopes for th* country * future. As. thia last choice, th* author found Ghana the most well developed. There wag little unemployment, th* African* were doing the work themselve*, rather than working under white instructor* and the country gave the moat promising outlook for the future. The book la an interesting study of how different colonial administration* have resulted in vastly different attitude* towards todependatue.