Government by Euphemism
TColonial Secretary has announced that he 1 proposes to take a calculated risk by ending the state of emergency in Kenya; and the Welen- skyite Central Alrimn Examiner is now urging a similar policy for Nyasaland. 'A time to be bold,' its editorial says, castigating the authorities for
heir failure to set up the machinery necessary to bring the emergency there to an end. No reason- able person, it argues, doubts the necessity for the measures which were taken eight months ago: but 'the state of emergency is still in force because no rational permanent security legislation has been introduced to replace it, and no attempt has been made to create resettlement areas in which de- tainees can be rehabilitated.'
It is possible to welcome the sentiments but deplore the phraseology. The fact that the Exam- iner has to talk in terms. of 'resettlement' and 'rehabilitation' is ominous. Hola camp, we recall, was established for rehabilitation: and the districts chosen for the reception of Mrs. Mafekeng and others could be described as resettlement areas (and very soon will be, we do not doubt; the apologists for apartheid will find it an extremely useful euphemism for banishment).
The hard fact is that if an administration-- either through its incompetence, or because its
policies ignore the desires of the great bulk of the population, or both—creates such resentment and resistance that it is . frightened into imposing emergency measures, little real progress can be made until it has been found possible to get rid of the men responsible, and appoint successors who know and .care about what is felt in the country. With Kenya the situation is different : there, the appearance of the Mau Mau—even if it is conceded that its spread was encouraged by the authorities' foolishness—created a situation which has made any quick return to normal im- possible: Mr. Macleod's proposals, for all their tentativeness, represent a reasonable attempt to get the restoration process moving a little faster. But in Nyasaland there need be no such problem. The emergency, as the Devlin Report showed, existed more in the minds of the authorities than in the hearts of the people. The only resettlement and rehabilitation really needed there is of the authorities who provoked and then mishandled the crisis last summer.
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