COMMUNICATIONS
Newman, A Mr. William J.
East Africa and Rhodesia, in its issue dated May 30, 1957, commented editorially, in a column headed "Notes by the Way," upon the special Africa issue of DISSENT (copies are still available!)...
...The first article, entitled "Africa finds its Voice," is by a Mr...
...Quite a number of the writers have only a very superficial knowledge...
...published in the summer of 1956...
...He also makes the equally wild 'allegation that the "kipande seeks to make sure the African appears on European plantations when he is scheduled to be there...
...now Sir Anthony) Eden in an absurd attempt to appease the Egyptian dictator Nasser, who imagined that this southerly neighbour would promptly accept his sway...
...Is there one non-European in Kenya, missionary, merchant, official, or farmer, to whom that phrase commends itself...
...What records of the past three-quarters of a century he has read, if any, I cannot imagine...
...If so, it will not be denied by anyone who knows the territories...
...I was unaware of it...
...and if he has kept even the most superficial touch with events in the past decade he will scarcely deny that Great Britain, at any rate, has been engaged in rapidly, many people think much too rapidly, accelerating the advancement of Africans, not in resisting it...
...Does that mean that ambitious Africans are ready to lead revolutionary movements...
...William J. Newman seems to think that Mau Mau is the name of a tribe, for he writes: "The African is amazing in his adaptability and the Mau Mau is indeed the exception to the rule that the African can in fact adjust to town life...
...There have been some derisory books about Africa—more often than not from the U.S.A.—but I should have said that the overwhelming majority of Europeans who have lived in East, Central, or West Africa have quickly acquired a real affection for the African...
...Plastrik asserts that the Colonial Powers have "painfully and fanatically resisted each step" in the emergence of Africa as an historical reality...
...East Africa and Rhodesia, in its issue dated May 30, 1957, commented editorially, in a column headed "Notes by the Way," upon the special Africa issue of DISSENT (copies are still available...
...He sees Mau Mau not as a tribal conspiracy but as a rebellion justified by the failure of the Government to redress grievances...
...I should not describe his dozen pages in that way...
...He sees the African on the Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia as "facing the Marxist stance...
...A Mr...
...In the same paragraph the analyst asserts that "compulsory labor has been continually practiced in Kenya since 1919...
...I dissent emphatically from almost all its judgments about the East and Central African territories, and I should be astonished if that were not the attitude of anyone who really knows the territories between Southern Rhodesia and the Sudan inclusive...
...So Mau Mau "took to the field of battle...
...And is there one who will endorse the statement that "Colonial rule by definition implies force as an instrument of rule...
...That revolution, he says warningly, "will almost of necessity take on the bloody face of a Mau Mau and the idea of democratic self-government will go down the drain...
...But anyone who will believe that Colonel Ewart Grogan is "a Colonial official in East Africa" would, I suppose, believe anything...
...That will be news to the British forces then in the country, including the admirable and loyal Sudan Defence Force...
...Does he imagine that any ordered self-respecting community will or should have the decisions about the form of its Government made by a "bloody-faced Mau Mau...
...Mr...
...We print below the complete editorial contained in this British colonial journal, together with a reply by William J. Newman, one of the contributors to the African issue.—EDITORS An American Quarterly Magazine called DISSENT has published a special number about Africa...
...As an example of wrapping up harsh fact in cotton wool, consider this statement: "Africa is well supplied Continued on page 414 Continued from page 338 with the raw material of revolutionary movements which have a mystique centered around a drive for power...
...I must confess that I have also never heard of the Martin L. Kilson who "analyzes in scholarly detail" the origins and causes of the Mau Mau rebellion...
...British Colonial rule has been beneficent, not brutal...
...Stanley Plastrik, of whom I have never heard in connection with any aspect of African affairs...
...Independence was not wrested from Great Britain by force, but granted prematurely by Mr...
...He has some strange notions...
...He is rash enough to write that the Sudan obtained its independence by "conquest...
...I doubt whether a dozen Africans in that area could define the last two words...
...For example, he is of the opinion that the West has for two centuries treated Africa as "an object of derision...
Vol. 4 • September 1957 • No. 4
