BURSTING SHACKLES IN AFRICA
Lens, Sidney
Bursting Shackles in Africa by SIDNEY LENS This is the fifthby Mr. Lens onrecently returnedis the author of and concluding installment of a series of articles Africa. Labor executive and...
...It wants to weaken, perhaps destroy, the new capitalist class...
...Ghana, as the first Negro country to free itself after World War II, drew his bitterest barbs...
...Africa can tip the scales towards the Soviets, towards neutralism, or towards a re-dedicated West—depending on whether we join in helping the revolution or staying "neutral...
...Now that Ghana, Guinea, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Sudan, and Tunisia have gained their independence, the struggle is only beginning...
...All the delegates agreed this was an excellent idea...
...This is a tragedy born of blindness...
...Nasser feels that the first step towards true democracy must be to break this tie, not only juridically but in life itself...
...Unless you view the problem in perspective, you are liable to founder on details...
...It's a bloody dictatorship...
...In the Union of South Africa our ambassadors have not even entertained a single African in the embassy...
...At the moment we are following a "neutralist" course, on the side of the European powers...
...One faction proposes a rapid rate of development, the doubling of income in ten years...
...It is true, as the Dominion Party spokesman says: The African is not yet competent to rule himself...
...All revolutions are short of capable civil servants, economists, professors, thinkers...
...Nasser, unlike Communist leaders in China and elsewhere, does not pretend that his is a true democracy...
...But it would never have been ready under European rule...
...This was the first time die peasant was voting as a free man...
...Hastings Banda, the Nyasaland leader who practiced medicine in England for thirty years, be classified as "civilized...
...Judged this way, all of emerging Africa is making progress, but at a varying tempo, some slower, some more rapid...
...The sooner our State Department understands this the better for Africa—and for us...
...Some said yes...
...Here again the fragmentation of the revolution into left, right, and center factions is apparent...
...For the future in Africa belongs to the African...
...Not the corruption that either continues over to the new day or is born out of new opportunities...
...Africa is at the threshold of a new day, finding its own political forms, working out its own destiny...
...Bursting Shackles in Africa by SIDNEY LENS This is the fifthby Mr...
...the cynic only hopelessness...
...In this sense Africa, too, is not "ready...
...The story of emerging Africa must be told in terms of direction...
...The left wing, which seems to have Nasser's ear at the moment, is non-Communist but strongly anti-capitalist...
...But in the precarious immediate moment of social change they are veiled in confusion and caught in the cross-currents of idealism and nepotism, democracy and dictatorship, hope for the future and ineptness for the present...
...A member of Nkrumah's own party, S. I. Iddrisu, called a press conference to admit that he had received $5,600 and that other officials up the ladder had received even more...
...Perhaps a classic example of the inadequacy of observation is the esti mate of Ghana by white supremacists in Africa...
...The press is controlled, the state puts people in jail without trial, and as yet, there have been no true national elections...
...As each speaker rose he shouted, "United Party," and the crowd shouted back, "Justice...
...Look at Ghana," an of ficer of the Dominion Party told me...
...The Savundra scandal was again dusted off for wholesale derision...
...Others said no...
...Eventually he hopes to forge a multiparty parliamentary system, a free press, and all the other accoutrements...
...The whole idea of imperialism was to checkmate freedom, enrich the mother countries, not the native people...
...Now these shackles are burs ting...
...The feudal lord ran the show...
...The 1959 elections recorded this progress...
...Inside Nasser's movement the intellectuals are waging bitter battle over the tempo of progress...
...I N THE broad sweep of history, revolutions against injustice stand out as high points of progress...
...Those black people just aren't ready to rule themselves...
...On the spot and in the flesh there is nothing beautiful about the African revolution—except in an obscure, long-term, spiritual sense...
...Though we couch our phrases in diplomatic nuances we support France, Portugal, Belgium, and Britain rather than the native people, because France, Portugal, Belgium, and Britain are our NATO allies...
...The government vehemently denies such charges but the United Party's request for an inquiry commission has been disregarded...
...Not the personal idolatry which is so reminiscent of Stalinist days in Russia (though it is nowhere nearly so pronounced either in Ghana or Egypt...
...Nkrumah was berated for banning election meetings at Sekondi-Takoradi the day before...
...A leader of the party insisted that "for the forseeable future" the white man must rule the Federation because if it gave power to the black man he would abuse it...
...He several books on foreign affairs and American labor and has contributed to many American publications, including the Yale Review, the Harvard Business Quarterly, Fellowship, and Liberation.—THE EDITORS...
...But Nasser will not permit the conflict outside this narrow circle...
...There were no parties, no slates, no free press...
...Yet in the light of Egypt's experience, it constituted a big step forward...
...At its last convention, which I attended for a few hours, it discussed techniques for excluding African voters by imposing a "civilization test...
...Looming ahead are more formidable barriers: hunger, poverty, disease, and—even more important—tradition, superstition, old value patterns...
...These are remarkable charges coming from a ruling class that had just imposed an "emergency," had imprisoned more than 2,000 Negroes without trial, and was talking of further limiting the franchise so that the overwhelming majority of the population would have no say in government...
...Savundra was an international adventurer who came to Ghana to seek mining concessions, and later claimed —after he was deported—that he had spread tens of thousands of dollars in bribes but had been double-crossed...
...The 1959 balloting in which 90,000 candidates ran for 30,000 local offices was a farce by our values...
...They talk of democracy, he said, but they strangle their opposi tion, they put people in jail without trial, they tolerate corruption...
...The dispute arose over how stiff to make the test...
...For us in America this is a vital factor in our own future...
...Emerging Africa is no exception to the rule...
...Yet, though the conclusions are false, there is some merit to the allegations...
...again, "United Party" and the response, "Freedom...
...Not the episodic transgressions on the western form of democracy...
...At this moment, so soon after independence, the liberal can see tomorrow's blessings in embryonic form...
...Freedom from imperialism, it is evident, is only the prelude to new struggles and new disputes—but on a higher social and economic level...
...so far are rudimentary...
...This is the true measure of Africa's progress...
...If one seeks for a Western-style democracy he will seek in vain...
...Not everywhere, but in many places peasants were electing peasants to guide their own village life...
...The Dominion Party of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is as racist and bigoted a force as you will find anywhere on this globe...
...Labor executive and author, Mr...
...while the more moderate section wants to incorporate this class into the revolution...
...But which revolutionary nation ever has been...
...Some weeks later in Accra, Ghana, I attended an outdoor meeting of 4,000 Africans who were adherents of the United Party, Premier Kwame Nkrumah's opposition...
...Under Farouk and the British he always voted as his feudal lord told him to...
...for the first time thousands of feudal stooges were turned out to pasture...
...the other favors a slower rate, over a twenty-five year period...
...Lens onrecently returnedis the author of and concluding installment of a series of articles Africa...
...The mood of the meeting was bitter...
...but to him, Egypt is now in a transition period in which the first step is to build peasant self-confidence...
...Lens from an extensive journey through Africa...
...the Russians, by contrast, have been expelled from the country because they have...
...otherwise he might lose water rights, land tenure, sometimes even his personal liberty...
...Should men like Dr...
...Not the factionalism that sometimes immobilizes action...
Vol. 24 • March 1960 • No. 3
