AFRICA AFLAME
Rustin, Bayard
Africa Aflame By Bayard Rustin FROM the Suez Canal to the Cape of Good Hope colonial powers are facing unrest, arson, murder, civil disobedience, and organized violent rebellion. At long last...
...Non-violent resistance to injustice is perhaps the only method that can keep Africa from turning further toward communism and black nationalism, for it is the only power method ultimately capable of drawing a clear line between progressive and reactionary elements...
...The more difficult struggles will take place where Europeans have settled in large numbers...
...Kuame NKrumah, American-educated leader of the Convention Peoples Party, became the prime minister of the Gold Coast—the first black prime minister in Africa—as the culmination of an essentially non-violent resistance campaign...
...In Kenya, 30,000 Europeans control two-thirds of the best land, leaving one-third for the use of 5)/2 million non-Europeans...
...they have now begun seriously to fear the United States because of its backing of the European colonial powers...
...Today the revolt is not merely for food and national freedom, but frequently against white people and against Christianity...
...It is important to point out a few basic facts concerning the area with settler governments...
...As Stewart Meacham pointed out in a recent letter from India, "In the eyes of Indians (and Africans) today a single Michael Scott is worth 50 cathedrals when it comes to Christian testimony regarding race arrogance and tyranny...
...Imperialism of the second type includes such areas as Kenya, South Africa, and the Rhodesias...
...They look upon Africa as their home...
...And Africans have moved too far ahead to accept such an idea...
...He turns his youth over to a semi-fascist military group known as the Skeit commandos, for practice in fire-arms...
...Men often ask what the answer is to the settler problem in the light of the rise of African nationalism...
...It has a constructive program...
...Don't speak the lanBAYARD RUSTIN recently returned from Africa where he interviewed native leaders in several countries and studied the explosive racial situation first hand...
...African leadership will move more and more toward direct action to satisfy the people's hunger for land, decent pay, the right to vote, civil rights, and ultimate national freedom...
...In the case of South Africa, they have developed a new language...
...In short, the European nations resisted NATO until America promised to help them hold on to their colonies...
...Occasionally they are nurtured further by desperate patriots who find the white settlers and missionaries aloof or in outright opposition to national freedom...
...Let us not forget that such men as Alan Paton and Michael Scott are white settlers...
...Some of their ancestors settled there as long as 300 years ago...
...Development of more such men in the future depends in large part on using a method that does not ultimately by its nature exclude their assistance...
...After considerable pressure they were brought into line by the United States but at the same time they promised to join NATO if and when the United States was prepared to help them hold on to the basis of their raw materials and the areas where they sold cheap manufactured goods...
...African leaders are aware of this compromise and are quick to inform visitors that the United States' backing of colonialism in the UN springs from this agreement...
...One prominent West African leader recently admonished his young lieutenants, "Build your nation...
...By insisting that Africans do all manual labor he has lost in large part the use of his hands and his respect for work...
...Rustin is college secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, lectures widely for the FOR and the American Friends Service Committee, and has worked extensively in the field of race relations...
...But when the African discusses the struggle against colonialism, he basically divides Africa south of the Sahara into two major types of imperialism: the areas where European domination has been primarily for economic exploitation and the areas where in addition to such economic motivations the Europeans settled to make a homeland...
...A change of leadership from white exploiters to black exploiters is not worth the struggle, but just such a limited change is highly possible unless a revolutionary method is used that can recognize evil everywhere it exists—even in the African community—and accepts good everywhere it exists— even from the European settlers...
...It does not require compromises with non-progressive forces as violence does...
...While some leaders permit their distrust of America to drive them toward Communism, wiser leaders have turned to the examination and use of the power of non-violent resistance...
...Very real gains have been made in the last few years in such areas as the Gold Coast and Nigeria...
...Don't wear the clothes of the exploiting European, wear the toga of Nigeria...
...The recent arrests and imprisonment of white South Africans in the campaigns of resistance to the Ma-lan government is a clear demonstration that non-violent resistance can bring together men of good will regardless of their color...
...These anti-white and anti-Christian trends have a certain historical logic...
...If the black and white men of good-will embrace non-violence, if they take unto themselves the suffering that so complicated and unjust a situation has made inevitable, if they are prepared to face floggings, imprisonment, and death without retaliation—then, and probably only then, a multi-racial democratic and peaceful society can exist in Africa from the Suez Canal to the Cape of Good Hope...
...Most Europeans and settler political leaders seem blinded to the fact that continued frustration is followed by fear, hatred, and aggression...
...Long ago Europeans described these sections of Africa as "the white man's grave" and did not settle there, but concentrated on economic exploitation...
...In Kenya white men almost automatically respond to the violence of the Africans with counter-violence, and black men are well nigh helpless to dissociate themselves from the Mau Mau since that seems to involve treason to African independence...
...The settlers have developed an economic, cultural, and political way of life that differs considerably from that of the European natives from which they came...
...If the means are good, the end will be good...
...Then the European and settler governments will be induced or forced to modify their views and recognize just demands...
...guage of the exploiters, speak the tongues of Nigeria...
...The New York Post carried serially Rustin's account of time served on a southern chain gang for violation of segregation laws...
...Thus, in South Africa, the old slogan of the Dutch Reformed Church has become the strategy of the Nationalist government—"separation of non-European from European in both church and state...
...More recently some settlers talked of "partition...
...NKrumah's slogan was "positive action without violence for independence now...
...While the average African earns less than $200 a year, Europeans earn from $600 to $1,200 annually...
...Africa needs the skill, the Christian concept of respect for human personality, and the democratic tradition that the liberal white settlers can contribute...
...West Africans are pleased when their leaders refer to freedom for East and South Africa...
...II No one in Europe or Africa sees any final solution to this unique problem...
...They felt that having been devastated by war they could not put so large a share of their national income into armaments as NATO required...
...In South Africa, almost 8,000 men, women, and children have been arrested or flogged as a result of their Gandhilike resistance to unjust laws...
...African leaders, perhaps because they have little to lose and much to gain, face this psychological reality...
...In general African politicians have begun to distrust the slower and often fruitless constitutional methods of inquiries, commissions, petitions, and round tables...
...But no one takes this seriously...
...In South Africa, 87 per cent of the land is held by 2% million Europeans, leaving 13 per cent of the land to approximately nine million non-Europeans...
...More basically, however, these trends spring from the effort to build a national consciousness...
...The conquest of Africa began centuries ago...
...Don't ape your exploiters, build your nation...
...The effect of such discrimination is grave enough for the African, but at least he is in revolt against it and looks to better days...
...They talk of having their civilization engulfed by "an ocean of blacks" if they grant any economic or political concessions, to say nothing of accepting full democratic participation by non-Europeans...
...In these areas, where the black men do practically all the manual labor, settlers cannot economically permit partition...
...The African understands that the many mandates, protectorates, trusteeships, colonies, and semi-independent areas differ in numerous cultural, economic, and political respects...
...Build Africa...
...As long ago as 1930, after his visit to South Africa, George Bernard Shaw warned the white settlers there that they were becoming "a flabby race...
...They cannot consider returning to Europe...
...It depends not on weapons but on the will of just men...
...The colonial powers resisted joining NATO for economic reasons...
...The end cannot be known, for in reality it will be the culmination of the means used...
...It can struggle for national freedom and civil rights, and at the same time resist within the African community such evils as tribalism, mistreatment of women, and widespread disease...
...Such areas in Africa are the only part of the globe where Europeans settled to make a homeland without ultimately making certain, by semi-annihilation and European immigration, that the native populations were reduced to a small minority...
...I hope that black Africa will accept the non-violence of Gandhi which by its nature rejects both rigid totalitarianism and racial nationalism, for in this method lies the key to the future...
...Men who want Africa to be free will readily recognize the importance of a power method that works for justice for all, regardless of race or creed...
...Successively Africans were tortured, economically controlled, and politically dominated by white Europeans who simultaneously laid claims to a belief in democracy and Christian virtue...
...Without such a program Africa may reach independence but miss freedom...
...This will drive a wedge between the liberal and illiberal elements in the settler population...
...When black non-violent resisters have brought injustice to the surface, progressive white settlers can be challenged...
...These areas are located either in the comfortable highlands or far enough from the equator to provide a temperate climate...
...In both Europe and Africa it is generally conceded that freedom will come first to the areas that do not have a large white settler population...
...In the Rhodesias, 37,000 of the 39,000 black miners recently participated in a disciplined no work campaign...
...Yet some creative means must be found to bring the European governments and settler governments into a democratic working relationship with rising African nationalism...
...Chattel slavery was instituted in 1619...
...At present the National Council of Nigeria and the Camer-oons, most vocal independence party in those areas, is debating the use of non-violence as the party's official struggle method...
...The settler's fear drives him to a strange form of moral suicide not too dissimilar from the behavior of Americans who defend segregation and discrimination...
...The first type of imperialism, having much in common with India of 40 years ago, includes such areas as Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the Gold Coast, and French West Africa...
...North, South, East, and West, build Africa...
...For the European the situation is without hope and thus is more dangerous...
...Many now believe that "the only thing that Europeans understand is a demonstration of power...
...Don't worship the gods of the exploiters, worship the Gods of your nation...
...It can include and will encourage the participation of the white settler of liberal tradition and sentiment...
...In both South Africa and Kenya there is complete segregation in public places, living quarters, and jobs...
...On the other hand, faced with the rise of African nationalism on the part of people who greatly outnumber them, they have become pathologically fearful...
...More than one million Kenya Africans are sharecroppers...
...For them the choice is to move quickly toward freedom or to lose their positions of leadership...
...In his desperation he ends by fearing not only the African, but himself also...
...The present impasse is not only a threat to world peace but a situation in which both oppressors and oppressed are demoralized...
...Non-violence is inclusive, while violence in Africa will move in one of two uncreative directions—either toward communism or toward black nationalism...
...In the cities of South Africa he bars his windows...
...The likelihood is that the movement will be toward communism, for in a situation where violence is used, it will be the communist who will have the greatest political skill, money, and organizing ability...
...Ill The revolutionary leaders of Africa not only distrust Europeans and the settler governments...
...In addition the settler builds a culture that is turned in upon itself— ingrown, defensive, and thus limited —and a way of life that encourages misunderstanding and hatred...
...At long last Africa is in revolt against hunger and colonialism...
...When they ask for the solution to so complicated a problem they do not get a satisfactory reply, for they want to know what the end result will be...
Vol. 17 • February 1953 • No. 2
