African Realities
Shepherd, George W. Jr.
one notably encouraging aspect of this change, it seems to me, is reflected in the surprising volume of sales of the two books—serious, penetrating, and sophisticated as they both are. America's...
...In the process, some of their interests conflict with particular interests of the United States and our Western allies...
...Four out of five on the newsstands are by writers with little academic or critical prestige," says a publisher, "and their books continue to outsell the 'quality' paperback by a large margin...
...His sketches of men like Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika and Leopold Sedar-Senghor of Senegal demonstrate the high caliber of character and ability that have emerged among Africa's leaders...
...Our historic knowledge of what Africa was like at the time Western man first arrived there in the Fifteenth Century has developed to the point where we know that many Africans were not living in "the stone age" and that there were several "central governments...
...Despite the author's great respect and sympathy for Africa's new societies and leaders, he can never quite free the interpretation from a sense of regret that the colonial period has been so little understood or appreciated by Africans...
...Society and Polity contains several unfortunate statements and omissions...
...Miss Carter, one of America's leading authorities on South Africa, finds little new or encouraging there since the time she wrote The Politics of Inequality...
...African scene, because even experts do not agree on what they see in Africa or what outsiders should try to do in this emergent area...
...America's reading habits are changing, too...
...Like many admirers of African nationalism, Melady has great respect for the new leaders...
...George H. T. Kimble's work, Tropical Africa, has received a great deal of attention from American specialists on Africa, although its interest and value should by no means be confined to this group...
...He summarizes the history and contemporary problems of a number of the new African states and their leaders and offers a great deal of interesting material, much of it through first-hand interviews...
...Professor Carter personally knows many of the leaders of the new states, and her account is plainly stated as a broad sweep of impressions...
...Gwendolen Carter's perceptive account of her travels and researches in Independence for Africa captures the spirit of a great continent on the move toward what most of her people, perhaps over-confidently, assume will be a brighter future...
...Their judgments are not always similar to ours, as the Congo case has well demonstrated...
...Yet to condemn them and to label their leaders Communists or Russian stooges and to grow angry in the face of anti-Western criticism will not serve us well in Africa...
...Many new and hopeful developments in Tanganyika have brought a "wind of change" to East Africa...
...In the Rhodesias, the issue of who shall rule has not yet been resolved...
...Miss Carter's accounts of conditions in the regions influenced by white settlers are particularly good...
...She is quite right that the areas from Nairobi down through Salisbury to Capetown present the most difficult of all African problems...
...In discussing the character of new West African governments, Miss Carter's warning to refrain from hasty judgments about their non-democratic character comes as a welcome voice of detached reasoning at a time when many condemnatory conclusions are easily hurled about...
...All of these authors agree that a much greater respect for the integrity and the ability of new African leaders should be an integral part of America's response to Africa...
...We are "lucky to live when we do," as Mark Van Doren said, "at least so far as good books are concerned...
...As Miss Carter so well demonstrates, economic growth in the Central African Federation cannot save it unless there is a corresponding rapid growth in equality of political and economic opportunity for Africans...
...He demonstrates well the simultaneous limitations of life under harsh economic conditions in certain regions and the immense possibilities of other areas...
...With knowledge based upon a close study of Africa and an attitude of patient helpfulness, the United States can be the most important nation in the future development and well-being of Africans...
...Nevertheless, high-quality paperbacks are appearing this spring in such astonishing numbers that even one whose avocation it is to keep track of them finds it difficult, though fun, to try...
...True...
...This is perhaps best defined as the colonial mood...
...Settlers appear to have reluctantly accepted the inevitability of African predominance in government...
...And this is an improvement...
...The same inflexible racialist policies of the Afrikaner government continue...
...This militant movement advocates direct action tactics to achieve full African control in the Union...
...A great deal of careful research over several years has gone into these two volumes...
...As a trained social scientist, she brings the analytical perspective needed to cut through to the essence of issues...
...It is undeniable, of course, that westerns, mysteries, historical novels, and tales of sex and violence still make up a large proportion of our paperbacks...
...The Kariba scheme can be no substitute for African majorities in the legislative assemblies of the Rhodesias...
...This is wonderful...
...There is little of the balanced moderation in the newer movement to compare with the older African National Congress, which it has now ominously surpassed in strength and numbers...
...Also, it is strange that a discussion of Portuguese policy should leave out any reference to those basic points which are under primary dispute at the United Nations, namely, the forced labor system and the policy of "Identity" in which the Portuguese assume their overseas regions to be an integral part of Portugal, and refuse to recognize them as colonies...
...Kimble's first volume, Land and Livelihood, is unquestionably the better, although it may not be found to be so interesting as the second, Society and Polity...
...These governments are determined to set their own independent course...
...Kimble clearly aspires to be America's Lord Hailey, and nothing has been produced in the United States to equal it in terms of comprehensive research since Raymond Buell's 1926 book, The Native Problem in Africa...
...South Africa remains the baffling, unsolvable enigma...
...However, he has little to say about some of the immense difficulties and the frustrating failures that have plagued these new states...
...Perhaps the most striking development has been the emergence of the Pan-Africanist movement under Sobukwe...
...Thomas P. Melady's Profiles of African Leaders goes to the other extreme in its mood of breezy praise for the accomplishments of Africa's new leaders...
...Also, there is a closer similarity between Lord Hailey and Kimble than simply comprehensive coverage...
...We are going to need to understand Africa and her leaders far better than we do...
...Yet at the same time Africans benefit from European confidence in schemes like Kariba, which is, in part, based on an assumption of nonviolent transition...
...Since Kimble is a geographer, his work reflects a magnificent zest for the interesting and unusual in the African terrain...
Vol. 25 • June 1961 • No. 6
