The Kenya Gamble
By SIR STEPHEN KING-HALL WHEN the news came over the wireless that the Conservative Party had won the General Election, much champagne was con- sumed in Nairobi and the White Highlands of Kenya. Today it has turned to vinegar in European stomachs. The Conservative Government, which (according to the textbooks and the rather Vic- torian view of British politics hitherto held by the majority of Europeans in Kenya) would be firm for a policy of promoting a gradual and cautious march forward towards the inevitable goal of full-scale African participation in the government of Kenya, has taken a leap forward into the dark. Proposals which, three years ago, would have made a Socialist government blink with astonish- ment and may still be regarded by Right-wing Labourites with some reservations, are now the policy of HMG.
To many Europeans the manner in which this revolutionary policy has been launched adds insult fo mortal injury. For five weeks a multi- racial conference wrangled in London. Its pur- pose, so far as the British Government was concerned, was to provide a smoke screen de- signed to conceal the fact that the policy had already been settled in its broad outlines before a single white or black face was to be seen at the conference. To pretend that the constitutional proposals for Kenya are the fruits of a give-and- take discussion among the Europeans, the Asians and the Africans at the London Con- ference is to elevate humbug and hypocrisy to the level of high principles. It has come as a grievous shock to Kenyan Europeans to discover that, although the Socialists are by definition either cads or woolly idealists, they are honest in their foolishness, whereas the Tories, being gentlemen, will always put on a white tie before the dinner party at which the guest will have his throat cut when the brandy (vintage Macleod) begins to circulate.
What next?
The Europeans in Kenya are suffering from shock and in this condition men and women can- not be expected to be very rational; so one must discount much that they say about what they will or will not do. I have very little doubt that as the first effects of shock pass away the great majority of Europeans, official and unofficial, will do their best to make the gamble pay off. The civil ser- vants will do their best because British colonial administrators are specialists in accepting with imperturbability, the opinion of their political masters that the man on the spot is nearly always wrong and then labouring devotedly to prove by results that the politician, with his far- seeing wisdom, was right after all.
The unofficial Kenyans (Europeans) will do their best to prevent Kenya from falling into chaos because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by attempting to sabotage the new dispensation. The Asians, whom the African nationalists regard as Enemy Number One and a community ripe for the plucking, are in a justifiable state of extreme apprehension. They are out on a limb which has no connection with any tree except one with roots in Kenya. Of recent years the European in Kenya has been commendably liberal in his social attitude to- wards the racial question. To quote one of many examples : no one bats an eyelid as well-dressed Africans mingle with the European-Asian com- munity in the top social enclosure at the race meet- ing. The African intelligentsia feel that the Asian is much more disposed to patronise him than is the European. Moreover, the small Asian is the trader to whom the African owes money.
But the question upon whose answer every- thing depends is whether the African leaders can solve the complex problem Mr. Macleod has put on their plate.
A bitter struggle for power, so intense that it hovers on the edge of violence, is now taking place among men such as the brilliant, ruthless and unpredictable Tom Mboya (of the Luo tribe), Mr. Odinga (a Luo), Dr. Kiano (a Kikuyu) and Mr. Kodhek (a Luo). I should demand a very high premium to write a life policy for ten years on any of these personalities. Far away in banish- ment in the northern deserts of Kenya sits Jomo Kenyatta, the father of Kenyan African nation- alism and the convicted mainspring of Mau Mau, He has become a myth and every African leader must demand the release of this Kikuyu person- ality. If there is one certainty in ,the midst of much doubt it is that Mr. Mboya would regard the reappearance of Kenyatta on the political scene as a disaster of the first order of magnitude.
At the moment of writing Mr. Mboya is pre- cariously seated at the driving wheel of the African political bus. Although he is only thirty years old—and according to traditional African ideas this youthfulness is a serious disadvantage to leadership—he has immense talent, especially in his ability to arouse mass emotion. He is born to be a dictator and it seems likely that %Oleo, elections are held• on the new franchise the , national party he is now organising will sweeP the country and be the majority in the Assemb Y.
The question which only events can answer whether Mboya is 'the best African dictator we 11 got' in Kenya and whether, if or when his pol cal power is sanctified by the holy (if somewl at unnecessary—in this case) process of democratic elections, Mr. Mboya as a Minister will be eithtt able or willing to behave in a responsible manner. Will he recognise that, as only a few hundred Africans are at present administratively cont. petent to hold middle-grade positions, there 011' be chaos if he does not put co-operation with the indispensable Europeans and Asians as ht5 priority task? Those who know him best assert that he is not likely to be willing to do this and that even if he were, his rivals would out-bid hi There are moderate African leaders—the WOcd leader should be printed in small type—O° know the facts of life, especially the econortic facts in Kenya and the absolutely vital part pla3ed in this respect by those whom Mboya describes as 'the immigrant races.' But all over the wold. and nowhere more so than in Africa froill Nairobi to Cape Town, the moderate man is of no account today.
It would be futile to attempt prophecy about the course of events in Kenya. The roulette wbetel is still spinning and croupier Macleod has n°t even bothered to say 'Hen ne va plus.' From the African gamblers the stakes are still being throb° on the table.
The big European firms, the banks, oil corn' panies, insurance companies, etc., profess to hope and believe that after some years of confusion the situation will stabilise itself under a rather inefficient African-dominated government, but that business will be good. But these great firnis are gambling in emergent nations all over the world; they have no option. They must go on going on, and losses in a collapsed Kenya might be offset by profits in Ghana or Venezuela.
What can the Kenyan European do at this juncture? Very little except carry on with business as usual and await developments. Then, if it /5 reasonably clear who is the African boss, real European-African negotiations may take place and replace the bogus performance of the L( don Conference. It is essential for the good of Kenya, and this means also the good of tht six and a half Million .non-political, unsophisti- cated Africans, that the Europeans should do their best to keep calm and steady and to spend the next eighteen months in organising and pre- paring themselves for the crucial bargaining which, if the Kenya gamble is to succeed, will have to result in a reasonable compromise be- tween thdEurOpeans and Asians and an African leader who can control his own people whilst recognising that, for at least a couple of decades, Kenya is sunk unless kept afloat by non-African skills, experience and capital.
Those Europeans who shun the gambling table so suddenly, and I must say rather indecently, put in front of them by HMG had better decide that if they can and do return to England they will vote Socialist at the next election. Will they so vote? Not they ! It will be Tory to a man. The Africans are not the only people -much in- fluenced by emotion.
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