AFRICA'S DOUBLE REVOLUTION
Lens, Sidney
Africa's Double Revolution by SIDNEY LENS This is the fourth of a series of articles by Mr. Lens on Africa. The concluding installment will appear in the March issue. A roving and careful...
...Four yeans ago it seemed certain that it would be the first one of the three to achieve independence...
...When the European says, "We're leaving," he means, "We're willing to let you rule, but there must be a 'transition' period in which we keep our armies here and receive certain guarantees that we can continue our business unhindered...
...In 1953 the Kabaka was exiled because he opposed a unified government...
...The doors of hotels and movies can be opened to him without disturbing racial relations too drastically...
...The European now is on the defensive, countering each native demand with strategic maneuver rather than naked terror...
...It is a relatively simple matter to give the African certain human rights...
...Unlike Kenya, which is a colony, Uganda is under United Nations trusteeship...
...The African is in the process of a double revolution...
...Piercing the barriers of discrimination is a step forward, but it does not strike at the root of the issue...
...Two years later he was permitted to return when he agreed to participate in the government...
...The racial conflict is not merely a color issue or a freedom issue...
...For the African the word "freedom" is all-encompassing...
...He is the author of several books on foreign affairs and American labor and has contributed to many American publications, including The Nation, Yale Review, and the Harvard Business Quarterly.—THE EDITORS...
...For while the European powers and the settlers in most places are willing to pave the way for independence, they intend to fight as long as possible to preserve their economic largesse...
...But the divisions between the fourteen principal tribes, especially between the Buganda and the rest, have throttled the ambitions of Uganda's nationalists...
...He is combining the national revolution with the social one—fighting for freedom, dignity, equality, and laying the groundwork for a viable economy that can raise living standards beyond $50 and $80 per capita a year...
...The kingdom of Buganda, headed by a 35-year-old Kabaka (king), constitutes one of the four provinces of the country...
...That is where the war breaks out anew...
...They are resigned to the national revolution but not the social revolution . When the African says, "Get out," he means not only, "Give up political power and take your army and police home," but, "Give us control over our own economic resources...
...To achieve this double goal the African seeks, in the course of his struggle for freedom, to gain real, rather than mythical, control over the economy...
...Uganda forms the third sector of East Africa, together with Kenya and Tanganyika...
...The same is true of hotels...
...In Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, a Negro can attend the movies side by side with Europeans but he does not often avail himself of the opportunity because the price is far too high...
...A roving and careful student of world affairs, Mr...
...These new forms of race relations in emergent Africa differ radically from the raw racism of South Africa...
...How easy it is to implement such a strategy is indicated by Uganda...
...The big stick is gone, but in its place is a strategy of division, of playing on the historical schisms in the African ranks...
...it is an economic class issue as well, and there is the rub...
...Lens recently returned from an extensive journey through Africa...
...ADJUSTING to the new Africa is a difficult problem, particularly for the privileged Europeans...
...But lately there have been rumblings...
...Africa's Double Revolution by SIDNEY LENS This is the fourth of a series of articles by Mr...
...It has only a small settler population...
Vol. 24 • February 1960 • No. 2
