23 AUGUST 1935, Page 8

THE COLOUR-CHALLENGE

By MARGERY PERHAM RIOTING between negroes and Italians in Jersey city : huge demonstrations in Harlem simul- taneous prayers in Ethiopia and negro America for " peace and independence " : intense interest in the West Indies : meetings in London of the International African Friends of Abyssinia : grave warnings from M. Candace, a negro deputy in the French Chamber : offers to send contingents from the Gold Coast and Zululand : demonstrations by Somalis in Djibouti : offers of help and sympathy from the Levant : Syrian and Egyptian recruits for the Ethiopian army : an Ethiopian mission to Japan. What is the significance of these and other incidents ? Are they the writing on the wall, and, if so, how should we interpret that writing ? Is it meant for Italy or for white imperialism in general ?

First, as to its practical meaning. Can the coloured peoples of the world do anything to affect the issue of the war, if it comes to war ? If the fighting should be prolonged, and poignant and dramatic news should beat upon these alert sympathies, there will undoubtedly be more, and more passionate, reactions, offers of help, demonstrations, attacks on Italians and Italian buildings. All this will afford moral support to the Emperor and embarrassment to those responsible for the demonstrators. But it is doubtful if it will achieve much more than this, especially in the first stages of the struggle. There is, of course, one coloured Power—if yellow should become a colour—which could take effective action. Japan, whose traders are knocking on the doors of all the subject, and half-subject, peoples of the Near and Far East, might bid for their admiration by preventing Italy from doing in Africa what she herself is doing in China. A loan and arms—the two must go together—might, if offered in time, make the whole difference to the war by allowing the Ethiopians to prolong fighting until the next rains.

But its immediate practical effectiveness in Ethiopia is the least important aspect of the remarkable reaction that has shown itself in the last two weeks. It is a new thing in world history, ominous or promising according to the point of view, and worth very serious attention. Take Africa first. It is a very different continent from the days of Adowa or even of the Ashanti war and the IVIatabele rebellion. No electric shock ran through it then. But since then the motor-car has pushed its way across bush and through jungle : hundreds of schools have poured out their literate and semi-literate products ; newspapers are read, and even produced, by Africans. Large urban populations have accumulated which know something of what is going on in the world. There has been a South, and a West, African Congress. In Europe and America, African students from all parts meet each other and also Indians and other coloured students, and return home after exchanging their views of white imperialism. The tribal masses may still be largely insulated against the electric shock, but the politically aware count far beyond their numbers. Hardly existing at the time of Adowa, there arc thousands of them today and there will be tens of thousands to- morrow. Already they could begin to drive a wedge of distrust between their less educated brethren and their foreign governments. General Smuts and Colonel Reitz are the least likely men to raise a black scare yet both, as South Africans, have expressed their grave fears as to the effects of such a war upon black and white relations in the rest of Africa.

Let us try to see this Ethiopian crisis through the eyes of educated Africans both within, and without, the continent. We must remember that wherever they are in close touch with white civilization the dominating factor in their lives is the sense of inferiority. Whether in Johannesburg, Accra, Monrovia, Nairobi, Kingston, Havana, New York, Nashville or London, the negro can hardly pass a day without the social or economic handicap of a black skin being brought home to him. Africans are on the whole cheerful and unvindictive, yet a deep bitterness pervades their literature. Imagine what it means to them, surveying the map of a world in which they almost everywhere occupy the lowest status as ex-slaves, while in their own continent they are parcelled out among European Powers, to see one or two regions marked as independent.

Liberia has long occupied first place with Africans as the symbol of their freedom: now Ethiopia, suddenly challenged, swims into the sky as a twin to the " lone star." As Liberian realities count for little beside the country's symbolic importance, so it does not matter now that Ethiopia is predominantly non-negro and the enslaver rather the representative of that race. She is African and free. Here indignation against Italy turns into suspicion towards the other colonial Powers. No wonder, say Africans, that European imperialism, long intent on the subtler subjugation of Liberia, cannot re., until there is no part of the continent where a free African can raise his head to remind the subjected millions what freedom means. The activities of France and England, and even of the League of Nations, over the crisis are thus watched with little hope and considerable cynicism. " When Thieves Fall Out " is the title of a Gold Coast article.

In different degrees the coloured peoples who believe themselves oppressed or bullied by white imperialism, and, above all, the Indians, are sharing in the feelings of the negrocs. Among them, too, sophistication has spread In the last thirty years : like the Africans, they have learned to pillory us with our own ideals. And in the last ten years the Communists, if they have achieved no more, have taught the leaders of these peoples to express their indictment of capitalist-imperialism in common terms. To this indictment Sedition Acts and all the Penalties they impose arc no real answer : it can only be net by disproving whatever reason it contains. In the Covenant, by the promises of the Mandates system and by a score of individual declarations, the imperial Powers are pledged to disprove it. They can never have dreamed that one of their number would be so foolish, let alone so criminal, as to face them with so clear a test as this.

International good faith, the prestige of the West, Dritain's standing with her Coloured Empire, are all involved in this crisis. This is widely recognized over here. It may not be so clearly realized how right the Africans and their sympathizers are in their peculiar concern for Ethiopia. To agree with them it is not necessary to idealize that country ; to pretend that its inhabitants are yet a nation—though they are well on the way towards it—or to deny the slavery and other shortcomings. The ruling people in the combination of their civilisation, history, Christianity, pride and potential wealth are unique in Africa. England, France and Belgium arc much troubled at some of the results of their attempt to impose Western civilisation upon Africans. England especially is trying hard by " indirect " methods to preserve the best of the old Africa and to stimulate a flagging initiative. In Ethiopia -for Liberia is not in this picture—lies the one oppor- tunity for Africans to civilise • themselves. There are ways in 1985 by which a backward nation may obtain civilising influences without paying for them with its independence. A free Abyssinia, civilised by the common altruistic services of the Western Powers—what a great human experiment that would be I It would also help to give Africans all through the world the thing they most need for their own sakes and our own—racial self-respect.