grinding exploitation, there is little time tosit back and contemplate the meaning oflife. But it is precisely suffering that tearsthe veils of vanity and egoism and inducesone to ask just what life is all about. Be­cause of this, an Afro-Asian writer is in anextremely favourable position today. He isalso able to evaluate a broad span of humanculture, since he has a knowledge both oftraditional cultures, albeit raped bycolonialism and imperialism, and that ofthe West, which for the past few centurieshas led the rest of the world. He must askhimself just what has happened to Westernculture that human values have becomevague, shadowy things. He must translatethis dialogue between the values of his owncivilisation and those of the West into ameaningful literature for the whole ofmankind, and not something that speak') foronly a section of humanity.

This is what James Baldwin has beenable to achieve, and why he is one of themost meaningful writers of our time. Hehas been able to relate the negro's oppres­sion in America to the white American'scivilisation and culture, and show that theyare integral parts of a single unit. He hasshown that the negro himself can never befree in white American society until thewhite American himself is free in a realsense. The negro is oppressed because thewhite American ascribes to him his worstfears. He is oppressed because so manyuntruths lay stored in the hean of the whiteAmerican who can only free himself byfacing them courageously.

Enver like Baldwin lived in a milieuwhere different races and cultures arestruggling to find and create a commonnational identity. Such an identity musttranscend narrow, parochial interests andbe based upon what is permanently valu­able in human history, and must be thesummation of human experience through­out the ages. South Africa, represented byEurope, Asia and Africa, is in a position tobring about such an evaluation. Enver triedto respond to the South African challengein just this manner.

THE FACT THAT HE DID SO AS AN INDIANwas of additional importance. For theIndian cannot make any significant contri­bution to South African culture unless heregards himself as a permanent part of theSouth African soil - which be generallydoes not do, for he has one foot in SouthAfrica and another in India. And the fact~at Enver was able to respond as he didIS proof enough that there already exists inSouth African society elements for the birthof a true South African nationhood. For inthe final resort the true representative of aworthy South African way of life will notbe the politician with his clamour for non­racialism, but the artist who will definewhat is best in the human race, those valuesthat unite the human race into a brother­hood based upon dignity. e

Books&theArts

Neo-Colonialism/The Last Stage of Im­perialism by Kwame Nkrumah (Thomas

Nelson & Sons Ltd. 42s.)THIS IS A SUBJECT which Africa feelsvery deeply about. It is important that anoutstanding African has now written abook on the topic of neo-colonialism beforethat word becomes a hackneyed term.There is no doubt that Dr. Nkrumah feelsvery deeply about the subject. The toneof the book reveals the man himself, hisconcern and his challenging plea to Africa.His main thesis is sustained throughout thebook - this being that Africa must urgentlyand openly unmask the evils of neo­colonialism before they reduce the conti­nent to economic and political impo1:ence.Nkrumah defines neo-colonialism as theefforts of powerful outside nations to ex­ploit, influence and rule the new indepen­dent states.

In vigorous and well-developed argu­ments Dr. Nkrumah argues that neo­colonialsim is the ultimate stage of im­perialism. Africa has neo-colonialism toblame for all the ills that have beset herduring the colonial period and after it. Theargument is made that Africa has vastnatural resources, vast tapped and untappedpotential in all fields, but Africa still re­mains poor and is still being used as aresources reservoir by the highly developedcountries which under the guise of aidprojects are in fact getting more from Mricathan they are putting in.

To Dr. Nkrumah, this is the classicalstruggle between the "haves" and "havenots." He uses the Marxian argument that

THE NEW AFRICAN/MARCH 1966/33

inevitably capitalism is bound to produceits own crisis and conflict as the gap be­tween the rich and the poor grows biggerand bigger. "World capitalism has post­poned i~ crisis but only at the cost oftransforming it into an international crisis."

The sum total of this relationshipis dangerous for Africa and the world."The danger now is not civil war withinindividual states provoked by intolerableconditions within those states, but inter­national war provoked ultimately by themisery of the majority of mankind whodaily grow poorer and poorer."

Dr. Nkrumah's concern for the effectsof interested capitalism in Africa is deeplyfelt. He puts into clear focus the variousmethods now employed to solve the prob­lems of world poverty. He is contemptuousof the ways they are applied in Africa. Hetears off the screens that have been usedin Africa to hide the real interests of power­ful nations in their aid programme. This isthe most revealing part of the book. It isnot only closely and passionately argued ­it is also fully documented by examplesand figures. The aid-giving states are in fact" parasite " states whose welfare states canonly survive by exploitation. The sheep'sskin is, in fact, hiding a wolf and if Africais to survive she must very quickly upsetthe system. The poor countries, Dr.Nkrumah pleads, must now take theinitiative instead of standing by watchingthe powerful rich nations chum the watersaround them.

OF GREAT INTEREST TO AFRICA will be his

34/THE NEW AFRICAN/MARCH 1966

eye-opening examples of how outside capi­tal in Africa is here first to serve outsideinvestors, and only incidentally, the peopleof Mrica. The working of internationalfinance is examined and exposed in a fineanalysis of the Congo situation - an idealexample of neo-colonialism. A particularattack is made on the United States andhow that country through the screens ofthe C.I.A., U.S.I.A., Peace Corps andHollywood has operated its capitalist in­terests in Mrica. The leader of the PeaceCorps, Sargent Shriver, is personally men­tioned as a good example of the guisesthat are used in this warfare. Moral Re­armament comes in for a good close lookas well. But the most important point hemakes here is that no country can call itselfindependent when it employs foreigners atthe policy-making level: a hint heredirected at Malawi, where all top civil ser­vants are still British. The crisis in South­ern Rhodesia has certainly shown to us overMalawi the importance of Dr. Nkrumah'sfears of neo-colonialism.

What then is the answer to thi~ greatthreat to Africa? Dr. Nkrumah believesthat it is only African Unity that can saveAfrica from neo-colonialism. A UnionGovernment for the whole of Africa isthe only solution. "Faced with a newsituation, those who practise neo-colonial­ism would adjust themselves to this newbalance of world forces in exactly thesame way as the capitalist world has inthe past adjusted itself to any other changein the balance of power." The knock-outpunch is in one sentence "The danger toworld peace springs not from the actionof those who seek to end neo-colonialism,but from the inaction of those who allowit to continue."

This is an important book and one thathas come out at a most opportune time.Its main interest does not lie in what issaid but in what still lies unsaid in it.It is a deeply personal book which somemay dismiss as emotional. The emotion init in fact is not only the emotion of Dr.Nkrumah. It is the emotion of Mrica. Neo­colonialism will no longer be a mere sloganin Mrica and those from outside Africawho through neo-colonial methods havetried to make it sound like a slogan will nowbe suspect. I t is a significant contributionto Mrican political writing. e

VitalLinks

Willfried Feuser

An Anthology of African and MalagasyPoetry in French edited by Clive Wake

(Oxford University Press)poesie fJi'lJante: Tribune internationale depoesie editee aGenefJe, No. 14, September-

October 1965IN BRITAIN, FRENCH AFRICAN POETRY isoften thought to smack of Paris boulevardsand cafes. If one gets to the bottom of thismisconception, what one finds is mostlyignorance with a dash of prejudice. Fewpeople have actually read any of the Africanpoets in the French original.

Mr. Wake's anthology will go a longway towards clearing the ground not coveredby the Moore/Beier Modern Poetry fromAfrica (Penguin 1963). It gives the Englishreader a fair cross-section of Frenchmaterial otherwise hardly available to him;he either has to hunt for individual editionsof the various poets or he must try to gethold of a collector's item like Senghor'snow somewhat dated Anthologie de laNouvelle Poesie Negre et Malgache. Wake'scollection will also be useful for literatureclasses in African universities.

In his introduction Mr. Wake does notwaste much time on Negritude, which heconsiders "as much a product of Frenchculture, with its intellectualisation and itslove of literary manifestoes, as it is a re­action against it." But he assigns it to itsrightful place as a politico-cultural move­ment that has by now become historical,though one may not agree with his conten­tion that Negritude really belongs to Sene­gal.

The close association of Negritude poetry- especially Aime cesaire's brand of it _.with Surrealism is an undisputed fact ofliterary history. Mr. Wake goes beyond that;he shows the strong link between Negritudeand 19th-century French Romanticism,comparing the role of the poet-mage intowhich Senghor casts himself.

"Seigneur, vous m'cnJez fait Maitre-de­langue . . ." with the self-stylisation ofVictor Hugo. He detects an even moreobvious correspondence in the Romantic'sand the Negritude poet's conception ofnature, quoting Hugo's" Tout Parle? Ecoute bien. C'est que vents,ondes, fiammes, Arbres, roseaux, rochers,tout vit!

Tout est plein d'ames."(Les Contemplations)

and the well-known lines of Birago Diop'scharacter Sarzan-Ie-Fol, the man guilty ofthe crime of lese-ancetre:

" Ecoute plus SOUfJentLes Chases que les EtresLa Voix du Feu s'entend,Etends la Voix de l'Eau.Ecoute dans le VentLe Buisson en sanglots:C'est le Souffle des Ancetres."Thus what overzealous critics used to

call " typically African " (meaning, ofcourse, "exotic") may at second sightyet emerge as a universal theme - a featurewhich the author of La Civilisation deI'Universel ought to register with pleasure.It would be one-sided to contend that theawareness of the omnipresence of the ances­tors is something exclusively Mrican. Whatof Japanese society? European? Long be­fore Senghor uttered his wish,

"Que je respire l'odeur de nos Marts,que je recueille et redise leur fJoixvivante . .. "

the Swiss poet, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer,had his chorus of the dead chant,

"Wir Toten wir Toten sind groessereHeere

als ihr auf der Erde, als ihr aut demMeere ... "

We should not forget that the outlook ofAfrica's spokesman of Negritude was alsoconditioned by Leo Frobenius, who didnot merely dwell on the values of theAfrican cultural heritage but also showedits vital links with the world's cultures.Senghor admits that Frobenius was farmore than a teacher for th·e early protagon­ists of Negritude, and he goes on to say,"Those of his books that appeared inFrench, Histoire de la Civilisation africaineand Le Destin des Civilisations, were amongthe sacred books of a whole generation ofblack African students."

Among the younger poets included inthe anthology, clearly the most outstandingis Tchicaya U Tarn' si of Congo-Brazza­ville. He is still groping for his origins, asearch that is symbolised by the tree.

" 0 m(l genealogie improbable!De quel arbre descendre? ..."Though there is an English translation of

U Tam'si's volume Brushfire by Uill Beier(Mbari Publications Ibadan 1964), weshould be grateful to Mr. Wake for havingmade part of his poetry available in the

original, as earlier French editions by minorpublishers are hard to come by.

THE STUDENTS OF AFRICAN LITERATURE in­terested in the development of a regional oreven national consciousness will be well­advised to secure the September-Octoberissue of poesie vi'lXl1lte, the internationalpoetry magazine published in Geneva. Inits laudable effort to bring poetry out of itsisolation, poesie vivante does not alwayssteer clear of a facile " Do-It-Yourself "

One-manCrusade

Suzanne Cronje

Thinking with You by Tai Solarin (Longmansof Nigeria, 4s. 6d)

TAl SOLARIN'S INTEGRITY has long filled mewith awe. He is the most independent andoutspoken journalist I have come across any­where, and he is Nigeria's most ruthless anddetermined critic. Thinking with You is asel:ctio~ of his articles in the Nigerian press;whilst It does not contain his most controversialwork, it is representative of his one-man ~rusade

against igeria's besetting sins: corruption, lackof purpose, pretentiousness and hypocrisy. Hesees Nigeria rushing headlong for disaster. "Ihave ~een feeling sick during the past 24 hours,"he ~ltes ~fter discovering that Nigeria's tradeStatiStiCS disclosed once again vast expenditureson the import of luxury goods and a largetrade deficit: "This is the source of my sick­ness: the source of our slow but sure death:the beginning of our inevitable doom." Hisremedy: "w~rk, hard work, without prestigeand make-believe ... " His prescriptions areoften more specific, and although they haveevo~ed h?stile reactions, the simple reasoningbehmd ~IS proposals is seldom attacked. It isusually Irrefutable.

opttnusm, but it is extremely useful as asource of information. In the copy underreview the editors have decided 'to devotehalf of their space to the poetry of a singleWest African country, the Ivory Coast. ItsMinister of Culture, the writer BernardDadie, conveniently gets the lion's share,but we also find contributions - of varyingpromise - by N'Gom Bayma, Ake Loba,Assoi Adiko, Maurice Kone, and a longreview of a lecture on Ivorian poetry byAnoma Kanie. e

One of Solarin's favourite targets is the sys­tem of Church education "doled out by yourerstwhile colonial masters and missionaries." Hecampaigns for the secularisation and re-orienta­tion of Nigerian education; he is himself head­master of a now famous school which hefounded in protest against the stranglehold ofthe churches. Solarin is a nationalist, but hisnationalism is not of the portmanteau varietywhich is prone to define excellence as theAfrican way of doing things. He urges hisfellow-Nigerians to decolonise their minds, andfinds no contradiction in writing that "thenoblest institution in the world is the PrivyCouncil. To tear ourselves from it so prema­turely, as we have done with the dawn ofrepublicanism, exposes us to the gravest ofdangers . . . In this early stage of our repub­licanism, a free Nigerian with the London­based Privy Council for those who cared, wouldhave been our healthiest hat-doffing to interna­tionalism and absolute justice."

Tai Solarin has so far avoided involvementin party politics, and therefore escapes beingidentified with any specific anti-governmentfaction; but his incisive criticism of Nigerianauthority and public administration leaves nodoubt about his anti-establishment views. Hispublishers doff their hats to Nigeria and ask,"Where else in Africa would Tai be freeto speak out so pungently and critically withoutfear of reprisal?" There is some truth in thisremark, but I remember a number of other out­spoken critics who have quietly disappearedfrom the pages of the Nigerian press. Solarin'ssurvival as a columnist is partly due to thefact that he cannot be bought off and partly tothe tendency of those in power to regard himas a sort of court-jester whose criticism appearstoo enormous to belong to the realm of reality.It is Nigeria's tragedy that the truth seemsgrotesque.

·.THE NEW AFRICAN/MARCH 1966/35

WhoseBourgeoisie?

Matthew Nkoana

An A/man Bourgeoisie by Leo Ku.per (YaleUniversity Press 21s.)

THIS BOOK IS A SOCIOLOGICAL study of racialconflict, race attitudes and the political prob­lems of South Africa. It is probably the mostcomprehensive of its kind to have been under­taken so far, and contains a wealth of valuableinformation covering about everything underthe apartheid sun. It is also without doubt themost significant book on South Mrica in manyyears.

Everything is here for anyone who wants toknow South Africa and understand its prob­lems . . . everything, except the sunshine forwhich the country is renowned! Cold factsand figures, deployed in vigorous prose, hit youbetween the eyes and sear the mind.

Kuper handles the subject with a depth ofsensitivity, understanding and sympathy forthose who suffer oppression and frustration.Reading his book is a moving experience. AsI read, I wondered how I could have thoughtof myself as spiritually hardened by my owntraumatic experiences, being born, bred andliterally battered in the apartheid cauldron.Such is the power of his portrayal.

He writes of " the subordination or relegationof Africans to the category of things, and theuse of terror and other extraordinary powers ofrepression." Kuper goes on:

"The controls over Africans affect notonly the elaboration of life. They are em­bedded at the very root of living. Theygovern subsistence, survival. At the gatewayto employment, residence, domicile, move­ment, freedom, stands the Government, likeSt. Peter, admitting to Heaven or consigningto Hell. The analogy to Heaven is no doubtmisleading. Most employment of Africans isrewarded at a level inadequate for the satis­faction of basic needs. And the saintly conductwhich qualifies for paradise consists in fallingwithin prescribed categories, giving no offenceto representatives of Government, and forthe most part satisfying the labour needs ofthe White man.

ce The main instrument, and the symbol,of domination is the pass, that is to say theregistration or reference book 'with particularsas to identity, permission to reside in thearea, employment, and tax. In a very real-sense, the African is subordinated to hispass, a form of what Georg Simmel classifiesas subordination to a thing ... "

36/THE NEW AFRICAN/MARCH 1966And then he quotes from an article by

Lewis Nkosi entitled" I am a Reference Book"and describing "the dehumanising quality ofsubordination toa thing, a pass" - an articleinspired by the death of two Africans whocrept under blazing factory walls to rescuetheir reference books. Commenting on thistragedy, Nkosi writes:

"But it is not heroism - and certainlynot bravado - that can make a man go tohis death in an attempt to save a Passbook.

" The motive is simply FEAR - the reali­sation of what his life will be worth withouta reference book.

"For a reference book has ceased to be amere book of identification. It is interchange­ahlewith the man himself ...

" I do not live apart from my own referencebook any more. In fact I have decided Iam the Reference Book!

"It stands for my personality. It deline­ates my character. It defines the extent ofmy freedom. Where I can live, work, andeat.

"Whenever I see a police constable lookingat me, the lifting of his eyes is at onceadequate to make me understand that myright to walk the streets, to be about in aWhite area, even to confront my now beingcalled into question.

"And the only answer equally adequateis the production of a reference book.

"This at once assures the officer that Iam a peaceful man and not a gangster orghost ...

" My life is nothing without a pass . . ."As long as this is the case, obviously

more of us will die in hell-fires in the future,groping for our reference books. Our souls."The book abounds in such instances of

oppression and the bitter reactions of thevictims to it, the traumatic experiences oftheir day-to-day lives, and is richly documented.His research took Kuper into every nook ofAfrican society, searching into countless_ soulsaffected by the apartheid machine and itsvaried ramifications. Doctors, traders, teachers,nurses, clerks (Kuper's "African bourgeoisie "),all have their bitter say. And less directly, butequally carefully documented, political and civicleaders, shebeen queens and women rioters, thelot.

BUT I HAVE ONE BIG QUARREL with Dr Kuper ­about his interpretation, his slanting, of much ofthe political material (and there is plenty ofit) at his disposal. I find the very title of thebook at best confusing and, at worst, mislead­ing. And this is not mitigated but somewhataggravated by his elaborate explanation (Chapter1, Part 1) of how he came to apply the termbourgeoisie to various occupational categoriesamong Africans.

If it were merely for convenience that theterm bourgeoisie is used (to lump togethervarious categories which would appear otherwiseindescribable taken as a whole), it might pardon­ably be written off. But the ideological under­tones which accompany it are unmistakablein establishing the author's political bias, accord­ing to which it is clear that Kuper wants anAfrican bourgeoisie created in South Africa. Heis here pointing a way forward for South Mricawhich is to wean away sections of the Africanpeople from the oppressed masses by creatingan identity of interests between them and theWhites in a multiracial (or nonracial) bourgeoisset-up.

In Marxist terms, as the author seems toagree, it is preposterous "to describe as abourgeoisie the African traders, professionals,

and clerks with whom this study deals." Heagrees that a bourgeoisie is "the class whichowns the means of production - and conse­quently wields political power - by control ofthe state and the propagation of the ideologieswhich promote its domination," to use his ownwords.

Kuper then gives his reasons why, in thoseterms, " it may seem a verbal fantasy to describeas a bourgeoisie" his African bourgeoisie."Their property rights are weak, in the sensethat no sanctity attaches to the little propertythey own," he writes. " Even these meagre rightsthey cannot protect - far less can they builda structure of power on the basis of privateproperty. Their lack of property is linked withpolitical subordination."

If we -are not yet totally confused aboutKuper's African bourgeoisie, he next gives usthe following lines for good measure:

" Secure and remunerative employment maybe regarded (by whom?) as a fonn ofbourgeois property, but African employmentis basically insecure and, on the whole, notvery remunerative. It is difficult for Africansto maintain respectability under the pass laws,which control their freedom of movement andsubject them to routine raids and surveillanceby the police. And they have little incentiveto respect the laws which encompass theirinferiority, or to give their loyalty to a societywhich denies them the full enjoyment of theirachievement."Fair enough. But what is the author driving

at? Surely it is not for nothing that Kupertalks so avidly of an African bourgeoisie, wellknowing that it portrays a non-existent stateof affairs?

Why, then, this assiduously cultivated imageof an African bourgeoisie knocking at the doorfor recognition? Kuper represents it as thesocially most aggrieved and most politicallyrestive group in South Africa, and thereforeby implication potentially the most dangerousfrom the point of view of the Whites. Inprojecting this image of his African bourgeoisie,there is a surprising lapse in Kuper's other­wise superb command of the facts - a factwhich can only be interpreted as deilberate mis­representation in his eager advocacy for admis­sion of African traders, professionals and clerksinto the ranks of the privileged White society atthe expense of the multitude of their fellows.

"Furthermore," Kuper writes, "the con­tacts of the African bourgeoisie with Whitesare mainly at the level of the lower strata ofpetty officials and policemen, so that thehigher racial status but low achievement ofthe Whites confronts the higher achievementbut low racial status of the Africans. Theresulting tensions engender a more acuteawareness of social disabilities precisely with­in the class of the African bourgeoisie."Such misrepresentation of the facts would be

bad enough for a layman, but for an academicwho has undertaken extensive research in thisfield it is shocking. Anyone who knows anythingabout customary segregation and the presentapartheid social dispensation knows that thetrue position is the direct opposite. Africandoctors, if they work in hospitals, mix withWhite doctors, sisters and perhaps some nurses,who are certainly not petty officials and police­men. If they have their own practices, thes'eare situated in the African areas where thereis no mixing of races. African nurses mix withWhite sisters and doctors in hospitals. Teachers,when they did mix with Whites, met schoolsupervisors and inspectors and certainly notpeople of low achievement. African traders areconfined to the African areas, and so are clergy­men.

Kuper goes on: "The same consequenceflows also from the circumstance that it isthis class which has provided many of thenew leaders in the independent African states.These leaders have achieved internationalrecognition ... Their world stature ..•accentuates the anguish of hereditary racialinequality in South Africa. The pressure forsocial change is felt most keenly by the'African bourgeoisie. The lives of the peasantryand the proletariat are not likely to beradically transformed in the near future. Thebourgeoisie, on the other hand, has the world­to gain if the conditions in other parts ofAfrica could prevail in South Africa."Nothing can surpass in absurdity the impli~

suggestion that the most downtrodden sectionsof the African community in South Africawould feel the least pressure for social changesimply because there seemed no likelihood -ofradical transformation in their lives in thenear future. Here Kuper would have us belieVethat sheer ambition and not the pressure ofeconomic circumstances is the main if not thesole driving force. The argument turns upsi~

down all reputable, valid social theory.

KUPER ALSO ASSUMES that the handful ofdoctors, teachers, petty traders, clergymen, nurs~and clerks are the only people among Africanswho can read, and therefore the only ones whoknow what is happening outside South Africa'.borders. This is of course not so. The over­whelming majority of literate Africans, who be­cause of their abject social conditions are mostsusceptible to the wind of change, are found out­side the precincts of Kuper's African bourgeoisie,a minute fraction of the African population.

If the validity of this interpretation of Kuper'spolitical message is still in doubt, the clinchingargument is provided by the author himself inconcluding the chapter with _the following warn­ing:

"The term bourgeoisie is thus chosen notonly to describe the upper occupational cate­gories in African society with certain tenden­cies to class formation but also to emphasisein terms of social change and prospectivepower their role at the apex of subordination.It is their interests which will shape Africanaction and aspiration, perhaps along evolu­tionary lines through th'e raising of the colourbar and progressive recognition of achieve­ment. Or the bourgeoisie, thrown back on theAfrican masses by denial of entry into thedominant society, may interact with them toforge a nationalist movement with the goal ofAfrican domination ... Or the bourgeoisiemay be divided, and sections may seek ful­filment in a revolutionary struggle aimed atthe creation of a socialist state and the des­truction of bourgeois property."Behind this argument, thinly-veiled by the

air of objectivity, is the dilemma that facestraditional liberal opinion in South Africa. Theydread the spectre of a revolution that wouldradically transform the social set-up, opting forevolutionary change that would make it possiblefor them (and their kith and kin) to retainprivilege.

They believe that by sharing privilege withthe African elite, thereby depriving the Africanmasses of enlightened leadership, they couldindefinitely postpone the day of reckoning. But,faced with the granitelike intransigence of theapartheid rulers, they are driven to lose th·eirreason by sheer despair, and to see ghosts allround. Hence this nonsensical talk of " Africandomination." •

In a further article, MATTHEW NKOANA willdiscuss Professor Kuper's chapter on U Politi­cal Choice - Racialism OT N onracialism."

THE NEW AFRICAN/MARCH 1966/37

ColonialLegacy

Marcia Wright

History of East Africa: Volume 11, edited byVincent Harlow and E. M. Chilver asistedby Alison Smith (Oxford University Press£4 4s.)

Th, Making of Tanganyika by Judith Listowel(Chatto and Windus 50s.)

TO WRITE THE HIS TORY of any Mrican countryis a profoundly difficult task. Lady Listowelcomes out of her complex assignment of tracingthe emergence of one of the most importantAfrican nations, from the days of Arab, Germanand British colonialism to the threshold ofTanzania, with high marks.

Unfortunately, she cannot be given full marks.In spite of the diligence with which she hastaken testimonies from participants in theTanganyika struggle for independence and theskill with which she has assembled these intoa narrative, her story sometimes lags becauseof the employment at times of the kind ofwearisome administrative prose typical of theolder school of writers on Africa who analysedits history largely as a series of constitutionalinteractions between rulers and ruled.

Although Lady Listowel is not uncritical ofAfrican nationalists, she is clearly on their sideand sympathetic to their difficulties. Occasion­ally, however, elements of the old patronisingpaternalism creep in. She writes, for example,that "Beneath the easy ripples of an Africansmile, there flows a strong hidden current ofelemental superstition and fear. That this cur­rent has sometimes been canalised by theirpresent leaders into a groove of principle isalmost a miracle." Elsewhere, writing of oneof the Tanzanian politicians for whom she hasmuch less affection than for President Nyerere,she declares that "It was one of the mistakes

of the British that they allowed these ambitiousyoung men to become either teachers or socialworkers, and made no resolute attempt tocompel them to take up the more exactingdisciplines of science or engineering." Yet ifJulius Nyerere had been forced to adhere tothe terms of the scholarship which took himto Britain in 1949 and to study biology - andnot to read, as he did, for an Arts degree ­it could be argued that the history of Tanganyikawould have been very different.

There are a number of other blemishes inthe book. For example, Lady Listowel omitsfrom her bibliography the work on the Tan­ganyika Territory by F. S. Joelson, the right­wing editor of East Africa and Rhodesia. Itmight have supplied some revealing glimpsesof the rulers' racial ·assumptions in the earlydays of the Mandate. And the spelling ofAfrican names is sometimes erratic: Mr.Chiume's first name is given as "Kanyame";and President Nyerere's is rendered as "Kam­berage" instead of " Kambarage." Names meanmuch in nationalism; and one wishes that LadyListowel had discussed how Tanganyika got itsname. She is aware of the importance ofSwahili as a unifying force for TANU. Buther discussion of the making of Tanganyikais, with the exception of interesting referencesto President Nyerere's literary ventures, almostentirely in political and economic terms. Anation, however, has a soul as well as a body- as WaIt Whitman asserted in DemocraticVistas so movingly a century ago - and somereference, should have been made to ShabaanRobert, the Swahili poet after whom a streetis named Dar es Salaam, and his role inthe potential creation of a national literatureand language. Finally, there will be those whowill criticise Lady Listowel's account (in anappendix) of the Army Mutinies of 1964 asinjudicious and epiphenomenal.

With whatever reservations, however, oneputs down her book, there can be no doubtthat it is an important work, both in the provi­sion of material and in its lively and outspokenanalysis, for the understanding of modem EastAfrica. •

HERE IS A COLONIAL legacy, encompassing andreflecting the mixed successes and failures of

. imperial administration in the area. Somechapters are excellent, as original essays orsynthesis, others display a very limited horizonand preoccupation with superficial issues. Thehistorical research now undertaken on the subjectof East Mrica is different not only becauseindependence has raised new questions aboutthe past to be 'explored by increasing numbersof Mricans for themselves, but also becaustsince 1961 new archives have been opened tofeed the new and older scholars with materialintimately related to the development 'of thecountries. Furtheremore, history faculties inDar-es-Salaam and Nairobi now supplementMakerere, assuring a more equitable spread ofresearch.

This volume of the Oxford History coversthe colonial period, from the beginning of ad­ministration about 1890 to 1945. A dozenauthors contribute chapters, each territory beingtreated separately within a time period, beforeor after the First World War, and under topics,generally administrative, economic and social.In this way, readers following 'a specific countrywill have to skip over the parallel chaptersdealing with its neighbours. Without wishingto encourage provincialism, we must recognisethat for the present East Africa is made up ofvery distinct states and ask how East Africans,for whom the volume was created, might reactto its presentation of their history.

D. A. Low sets a smart pace with his well­articulated essay on Kenya up to the FirstWorld War, a pace which slows up in JohnMiddleton's discussion of changes in Africanlife up to 1945. The reasons for his problemare evident from George Bennett's excellenttreatment of settlers and politics in Kenya, forthe European preoccupation ·with flamboyantsettler pretensions subordinated Africans inhistorical writing as in the economy of thecountry. We are just emerging from this era,with such works as Welboum's East AfricanRebels. Dr. Middleton, an anthropologist bytraining, owes much to Welboum, and does notcarry the subject to any new synthesis. •

38/THE NEW AFRICAN/MARCH 1966UGANDANS HAVE LONG BEEN TREATED to a highstandard of historical research, partly becausetheir country has never been considered any­thing but African and thus has been sparedthe false starts which clutter literature onKenya. Buganda's centralised monarchy arousedinterest in the early colonial days, not leastfrom such Baganda leaders as Apolo Kagwawho wished to put forward a special interpre­tation. The three contributors on Uganda knowthe country well, all having been connected withMakerere College; their earlier works had al­ready proven their competence, and provided asound basis for elaboration and refocus. Pro­fesor Low's essay does justice to the tradi­tionally dissident parts, Busoga, Bunyoro andthe Nilotic provinces as well as Buganda, whilenot losing sight of the British military andadministrative measures which forged the modemstate. Cranford Pratt's chapter on administra­tion and politics 1920-45 and Cyril Ehrlich'stwo chapters on economic history are equallywell--wrought and comprehensive.

The colonial periods severed Zanzibar from itscoastal relationships. The political and economiccentre of Kenya moved inland and the rulersof German East Africa, having politically super­seded the Sultan of Zanzibar on the coast,were determined to end economic dependence onZanzibar, especially as it became dominated in­creasingly by Britain. John Flint, in a concisesummary of colonial history up to 1950, dealswith the process by Vt-hich the Sultan wasdivested of his effective authority, from abolitionof slavery to the ·creation of a -legislative councilincluding first Asians and Arabs and laterAfricans as well. The economic background,fluctuating copra and spice prices, is especiallywell integrated.

THE MOST RADICAL EX-COLONY in East Africa,Tanganyika, is least served by the Oxford His­tory. W. O. Hendersonadopts the interpretationof the 'German administration developed byCharles Dundas, composer of the Atrocity Re­port of 1918, an interpretation which became theorthodox British view. The succession of re­volts and military punishments did indeed occur,but parallel development of a more benevolentcivil administration, notable for its educationpolicy and· emphasis on peasant agriculture, asfor efforts to retain and use indigenous leader­ship, is neglected. Otto Raum's essay on Africansociety in German times is as warm as Hender­son is distant. The wealth of fascinating detailis, however, devalued by Raum's lack of docu­mentation and a central argument.

Tanganyika under the British Mandate ex­perienced an extraordinary period of ratherarbitrary government, -which sometimes inad­vertently introduced revolutionary measures.Byatt's Local Courts Ordinance unleashed semi­anarchy in Bukoba by curtailing chiefly powersand Cameron's Indirect Rule, imported fromNigeria, created paramount chiefs and an :aris­tocracy which were often unnatural and there­fore easily toppled by a nationalist party. Pro­fessor Ingham has not begun to touch thesevital issues of practical administration and leavesus skating on the surface of European rivalries.

The Oxford History of East Africa, Volume11 (one more will follow) conta'ins so much thatit has become hefty and expensive. One wouldnot wish, however, to sacrifice the estimablebibliography of published and unpublishedmaterials which caps it off. The heirs to this,as the other colonial legacies may question thevalue of some portions, but the many very goodchapters will stand alone and give solid supportto ongoing research. •

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The Trees

You asked fora letter, my l(Yl)e, whichsent me off reminiscing of theMany other letters I hadsent, to so manyother flowers that faded.The leaves on which I scrawledwith sweat dripping from myheart. Words that I kneYJ) notexisted also faded, and finallyerased with Autumn and age.I remember the first flow·erso pretty, so bright.I remember the first lettersent to my flower at nightwith words like sword and kill.No. I did not know the sharpnessof the blade. Of death noinkling had I.Yes, I look back still sweatingand thinking. The fragrant sweet,and Autumn's here again.The lecwes go first, I remember,then you fade, pretty flower,and wither. But nowMy eyes are old an-d clearThrough the dying foliage I canstill see some beauty.I cannot let you fade,So I must hold the leavesand not let my bare branchesscrawl OfJer you feYJ) remaining le(lf}es.Don't fall. Defy Autumn this last yearbefore the demolition men come.

Soul food is made from

black-eyed peas,

says Jason

The winters here and through the longsummer past

we planned and loved and dreamt of thedays

when OUr life would truly be joy, butit's not to be. For today I walk in streets

that arebare, with only snow, and the faces of thenatives all staring at me.The intruder they think;But am I?I walk the lonely road, with a vision that

wasonce real, so pure, so true, 'twas youthat kept me warm and free from lies and

pain.It was not enough I complained.Now there's naught, and here am Iwinter and snow, alone, just I.I can hear your call, is it not over?Can we start anew, amid all this horrorof mistrusts and hates, seen through barren

gates?Oh love, don't cry, it's not I just lifethat flips like a coin with it's two sidesof joy and sadness. We reap them bothThe clock goes not back, life goes onwe grieve, we laugh, through my perpetual

frownWhere are you? Your voice grows fainterI smell death this horrid winterThere is an old man on the corner, in the

snowgrimacing, pretending he is laughingI know better, I S(JfJ) him once beforewith his scythe in Sammara. Speak louder

love,the winds are blowing your words away;What is it? Oh, him.It's me he wants, not you.I have a bill to pay and ifs latemy time is up, interests ran outrll wait over there for you, where it's always

summerPut on a warm coat.