Nyasaland: Africa's Next Danger Spot:

...Once this secret is discovered, it will be impossible to restore the African's original faith and trust in his white protectors...

...Africans who have traveled abroad realize the extent of the censorship in their midst and show extreme resentment over the manipulative intent at work in all information media...

...Following a visit by the Reverend Michael Scott, Chief Gomani—who had collaborated with the British by sending his young men to fight against the Japanese in World War II and against the Communists in Malaya—called upon his people to resist the federation proposals by Gandhian methods, rather than by force...

...Of these, over 200,000 are plantation workers who have small gardens which they are allowed to cultivate rent-free...

...This is not a main source of friction, but, with the spread of education and political consciousness, it will steadily increase...

...Scott was de-ported to Britain without a hearing...

...NYASALAND: AFRICA'S NEXT DANGER SPOT The British protectorate, already the scene of rioting and sabotage, may prove to be another Kenya By Keith Irvine THE PROSPECT for Africa today is one of spreading violence...

...The aim of this censorship is, incidentally, a double one: to preserve the self-image of the whites, and to prevent the Africans from imitating the less admirable traits of Western civilization...

...It was patently without foundation, but it had a certain element of psychological truth because it approximated the wish-dream of Nyasaland's reactionary whites—and the Nyasalanders knew it...

...Finally, he was officially deposed and banished from his home and property, and the charges against him were dropped...

...6. Resentment of censorship and other methods of attempted thought control...

...The growing gap between black and white was emphasized even more recently by an order excluding African barmen from white clubs...

...The double result is that white complacency is reinforced and black fury increased...

...2) that the thangata (tenant) system be abolished and replaced by a modern wage-paying system...

...Whites were met with the cry: "Go home, strangers, this is our land...

...What, then, lies behind the current unrest...

...When he returned to Nyasaland, he was rearrested and placed in a hospital to await trial...

...Resentment over the color bar, or other manifestations of "master race" attitudes, is profound...

...In August and September 1953, villagers rioted, sabotaged roads and telephone lines, and looted isolated houses...

...Whether these steps will be taken remains doubtful...

...Tribesmen surrounded the police car driving Gomani away and rescued the chief, who, on Scott's advice, sought sanctuary across the Portuguese border...

...Federation under the rule of Sir Godfrey Huggins's gerrymandering government is therefore in direct opposition to their wishes, not to speak of the professed Western principle of self-determination...

...The situation has been much aggravated by the fact that a great deal of land is not used by the owners...

...Since federation, an income-tax bill has been introduced in the Central African Parliament which would impose taxes for the first time on Nyasaland Africans...

...The deposition of these popular leaders by police and troops often led to outbreaks of violence...

...Furthermore, African unity is impaired because young blood tends to emigrate to other regions...

...The question is complicated by the fact that the owners—some of whom are pleasantly paternalistic and some of whom are not—develop the plantations on an agriculturally sound basis which benefits the whole Nyasaland economy...

...The tribe has reacted to these events as might be expected...

...Often called "the Switzerland of Africa," Nyasaland is a snake-shaped stretch of land 520 miles long—the Siamese twin of Lake Nyasa, which lies along its eastern border...

...After Kenya, the next storm center may well be the British Protectorate of Nyasaland—now officially a part of the Central African Federation—where many signs of disaffection have already appeared...

...For years, official policy in Central Africa, as in the Sudan and elsewhere, has been to shelter a tradition-directed African society from the brutal facts of the outside world "for their own good...

...The plantation-owners came to Nyasaland in the 1890s, when slave raids had depleted the population and impoverished the survivors...

...On July 1, 1954, the first postage stamps of the new federation of Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were issued, bearing the portrait of Queen Elizabeth...

...It has a population of 4,400 whites, 7,000 Asians and close to 2.5 million Africans...

...For example, last year two African clerks were discovered using Government stenciling equipment to run off a sheet accusing the Government of poisoning sugar supplies to render the African population sterile...

...To Nyasalanders, this innovation is another source of resentment...

...Small wonder that no amount of technical talk about the economic advantages of federation can offset their bitterness, and that they say the Queen has completely forgotten them...

...Even if they are, it is now too late for such palliatives to produce more than temporary effects...

...What is more, unconquered Nyasaland has passionately nursed the aspiration to become a self-governing territory on the Gold Coast model...

...In the latter territory, a "Lost One" can earn a wage 15 times greater than at home...

...Africans already pay a poll tax, and they say that (although at this stage few would be financially eligible) they object in principle to bearing the burden of taxation without enjoying the privileges of citizenship, such as the vote...

...Nyasaland's land question resembles the familiar Kenyan pattern...

...he has nothing but contempt or mistrust for those who further confuse him by deliberately telling him half-truths...

...Less than 500 Africans have the suffrage in South Rhodesia, only five in North Rhodesia, and none at all in Nyasaland...

...The remainder, not being employes, are required to pay rent for their land...

...Nyasalanders in particular felt that, despite economic discontents, at least the culminating insult of the color bar had not previously existed in their country...

...Armed bands of Africans attacked schools, court houses and bomas (local administrative centers), and clashed with police...

...Hitherto, income taxes have been paid in the territory, but only Inbusiness concerns and non-Africans...

...Apart from the German-backed uprising led by American-educated John Chilembwe in 1915, Crown protection has meant peace for the Nyasalanders...

...Gradually, however, the purpose of this censorship has been transformed, so that facts are kept from Africans not for their own good but for the greater security of the white settler community...

...Never conquered by the white man, Nyasaland, according to one observer, was a "whirlpool of migrant tribes, war and slave-raiding" until British missionaries and businessmen led it under the Crown as a protectorate with "the consent and desire of the chiefs and people...

...What was obtained for nothing should not be used to charge rent," they say...

...Known as the "Machona" or Lost Ones, over 90,000 of these are now working in Southern Rhodesia and over 42,000 in South Africa...

...However, now that it is federated with the Rhodesias, where a different racial climate prevails, they anticipate infiltration of the "master race" attitude...

...The place of the "Lost Ones" is taken by members of the Anguru tribe, who emigrate to Nyasaland from Portuguese Mozambique in order to obtain the relatively high wages that Nyasaland has to offer...

...By July 1953, no less than 150,000 Nyasalanders were known to have left their native land...

...2. Federation...

...Gomani suffers from Huntingdon's chorea, a nervous complaint...

...Increasing population pressure on African land stirs resentment when nearby tracts, reserved for future white use, lie idle...

...Nyasalanders, however, regard the Anguru as foreigners unversed in the traditions of their country...

...Among the uneducated, mistrust of white motives takes other and more localized forms...

...Two proposals have been advanced by responsible local authorities for diminishing existing tensions: (1) that all unutilized land be taken over for controlled African settlement at an arbitration figure...

...4. Recent treatment of chiefs...

...In international affairs, they appear to adopt a viewpoint which roughly parallels that of Indian Prime Minister Nehru...

...The Africans in general felt that, since the white man has broken the constitutional guarantees offered to the aborigines of Australia no less than those to the Red Indians of North America, and to the colored population of South Africa no less than that of South Rhodesia, the colored man could rest assured that these constitutional guarantees, too, were not worth the paper they were written on...

...In the disturbances that broke out several months after the "Gomani affair," a large number of white-appointed chiefs and village headmen were deposed by Nyasa tribesmen, who then set up others in their stead...

...Chiefs were deposed, troops and aircraft called out, and reinforcements brought in from Tanganyika and Southern Rhodesia by the Nyasaland Government before the rebellion, which broke out in five of the eight Southern Provinces, as well as at points in the West and North, was quelled...

...Replying, Sir Godfrey "greatly regretted" this attitude and hoped that the senders would have "second thoughts...

...Stirred to the depths by little-understood forces loose in the world, the African demands to be treated as an adult...

...The Nyasaland Government arrested Gomani, thus provoking the whole Angoni tribe, since tribal lands are vested in the sacred person of the chief...

...The bulk of this land is owned by about half a dozen large companies, mainly producers of tea and tung...

...But certain differences do exist: While the Kenya settlers are individual farmers, Nyasaland's 500 white settlers either own or help operate plantations...

...Vast tracts of land were obtained from local chiefs, often in exchange for as little as a few bolts of cloth or a few bottles of gin...

...When in 1952 the rent, which for years had stood at 1, was raised by 160 per cent to conform to the higher wage scale, the non-wage-earning farmers reacted strongly and questioned—as they have been doing repeatedly since 1903—the principle by which they pay rent at all...

...The situation has two particularly disturbing features...

...Although this occurred in adjacent North Rhodesia, the rumor achieved wide circulation in Nyasaland...

...In March, the Blantyre branch of the Nyasaland African Congress sent the following telegram to Prime Minister Huggins: "We Africans of Nyasaland reject any payment of income tax until such time as we have attained self-government in the Protectorate, there is no discrimination on the ground of color, and we have full freedom in our land of birth...

...Before the September 1953 outbreaks, the Nyasaland African Congress alleged not only that rents were being increased, but that the acreage of gardens was being reduced and marriages were being controlled by estate-owners (to prevent unmarried daughters of tenants from leaving the estates by marrying "outsiders...

...Since federation took place last year, the whites, no doubt disturbed by the uprisings, have been reported emigrating to South Africa faster than new arrivals can take their place...

...The Congress stated that Africans were determined to remain on the estates rent-free, open more gardens and cut firewood as they chose until the owners produced receipts for the original land purchase...

...1. The land question...

...5. The color bar...

...Only occupation rights, they say, were granted to the white man...

...Over three-quarters of a million Africans live in the Shire Highlands...

...The growing number of educated Nyasalanders are sensitive to developments throughout the world, as well as in Africa...

...Today, the plantation-owners, who have no title deeds, allege that certificates of claim, given them by the first British Consul General, grant them legal ownership of the land...

...3. Proposed taxation without representation...

...The most celebrated instance of this is the deposition of 80-year-old Chief Gomani in early 1953 by the Nyasaland Government...

...First, past troubles have had little or no connection with Communism...

...Although the federation was resisted by all sections of African opinion in the three territories, opposition was strongest in Nyasaland...

...These six sources of discontent in Nyasaland add up to considerable cause for alarm in Central Africa...

...However, the chiefs and their descendants claim that the land never was and never could be sold...

...The plantations are mostly located in the South (where the troubles broke out), in a region called the Shire Highlands...

...The exact proportion of land in full use is unknown, but one owner put the figure in the neighborhood of 29 per cent and other reports confirm this...

...Secondly, future outbreaks will have racial repercussions throughout a continent that is already becoming increasingly oriented against the West...

...For some unknown reason, this is calculated in proportion to wages earned in the area...