Africa Rising
The New Africa. By Smith Hempstone. (Faber, 45s.) I Speak of Freedom. By Kwame Nkrumah. (Heinemann, 25s.)
NOWADAYS age is probably as important as class in determining how people talk, how they dress and how they look at life. Of course there has always been a certain amount of friction between young and old, and both enjoy the martyrdom of being slightly misunderstood. But we are now approaching a complete breakdown in communication between age-groups.
A very refreshing thing about The Observer is that it frequently gives the points of view of both sides in the Age War. Bridget Colgan, for example, when she writes about avoiding frustrations in babies never forgets that parents get frustrated too. And a recent correspondence following the series "Miserable Married Women" included a tart lec- ture from a 7-year-old girl who thought that women should look after their children properly and try to love them, and if they are bored why did they have them in the first place?
Fads Exposed Somehow or other, The Observer seems to have posted spies in most of the age-cliques, and as soon as anything new happens, whether it's a major trend or a minor fad, back come intelligence reports that are informative, unselfconscious and equally free from the stuffiness that plagues some ageing writers and the private intolerance that walls in some young ones.
Why did teenagers flock to buy music that sounds like a needle-scratchy dance record of the late twenties? What makes the staid and middle-aged rush lemming-like to Sunday afternoon tombola sessions? Both of these questions have recently been answered in The Observer.
Fogeys Defended New waves and old guard meet hostilely but on reasonably equal terms in the review pages.
The Observer is generally among the first to notice new movements in writing, art and music. Yet recently Harold Nicolson published a spirited and witty defence of literary old-fogeyism.
More important, the atmosphere of the paper makes it possible for the different ages to talk freely and frankly about touchy subjects. They've just concluded a discussion on "Teens and Sex" that was thoughtful, unsensational and very helpful as a basis for discussion.
Just for the way in which it helps you keep up with how the other age-half lives, The Observer is worth every penny of the sixpence it costs. But this isn't the only reason for taking it. J.B.L.
War
Is this comparison with Inside Africa inevit- able? Indeed it is. There is the same respectful wave towards Lord Hailey's Survey—a classic, says Gunther; monumental, says Hempstone- as we go speeding towards the rapids, in which reportage, history, political gossip and specula- tions about Communist penetration become gloriously mixed together. There are even those bizarre bits of information one can neither make use of nor entirely put out of mind. 'Mali has more than twice as many camels as Christians.' `Sierra Leone imports far more beer than soap.' `The first motor-car did not reach Monrovia un- til 1916, when one was unloaded by mistake.' The echoes of Gunther are unfortunate, because, by restricting his area of operations, Mr. Hemp- stone has done a much better job of work. He has taken the middle belt of twenty-six territories between the Sahara and the Congo. Most of these, now independent, are the succession States of the French Empire, and I know of no other book in English which provides such a clear and comprehensive account of their origins and recent development.
The Hempstones began their travels in the Horn of Africa. Manifestly, they were puzzled by the way in which Sudan managed to combine a military dictatorship, and a first-class British- trained civil service, with Communist influence in schools and trade unions. What could it mean? Alas, only 'that US cannot hope for an alliance here, but we can hope for friendship.' Ethiopia is easier because one can, or could when the Hempstones were in town, start with the Emperor and take it from there. The Russian loan and the Ilyushin need not distress the West, because the Emperor knows what be is doing. Ethiopia's future looks bright, says Mr. Hempstone, who must have been jumping to his conclusion just about the time the conspirators were preparing their attempt to get rid of the Emperor.
Mr. Hempstone fares better when he is dis- cussing territories which have lately achieved in- dependence. He tells what has happened, and prudently qualifies his judgments. Mr. Hemp- stone's trouble is that, having felt obliged to offer more than a straightforward account of Africa today, he has failed to get to grips with such factors as nationalism, economics, climate and language. His relentless pursuit of detail, instead of producing a meaningful pattern, only leads him back, again and again, to troubled reflections on democracy and Communism. Such reflections are profitless. Africa is only at the beginning of its revolution. Few political parties represent social classes or ideological groups, and in the new States the unifying influences of a common lan- guage, a common culture and a common economic interest are lacking. These parties and these States, like the idea of Pan-Africanism, are by-products of colonialism, and they will not long survive the withdrawal of the colonial powers. Forces which helped to create Europe and its conflicting nationalisms are already beginning to be felt. It is no accident that Ghana, rapidly developing its economy and increasing its edu- cated and commercial classes, presents the clear- est picture of thrusting nationalism, European- style, irredentism and all President Nkrumah goes half-way towards acknowledging this in I Speak of Freedom. Only half-way, though. He sees differences of culture, language and ideas in Africa. He agrees that the economic development of the continent should be planned as a whole. But of course he is deter- mined to develop Ghana at all costs, and the more successful he is, the less willing Ghana will be to rkk her prosperity in a political union on equal terms with poor and unstable States. This collection of his speeches, beginning with his return to the Gold Coast in 1947 and closing with his appearance before the United Nations General Assembly last September, explains why Nkrumah, so successful at home, has won few independent African States to his side. Nobody could have been more reasonable, less emotional, than he has been in handling the gradual transfer of authority from Britons to Ghanaians. He is a national leader. He understands his own people. But he does not understand Africa. His Pan- Africanism is all emotion. The only unifying element he can point to is the African continent: `we are all Africans.' His speeches take no account of practical differences, even when they stare him in the face. Significantly, he has dedi- cated his book to Patrice Lumumba, a man who found time to call a Pan-African conference in Leopoldville while his Congo State was in fragments.
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