Congo Nerves Rosalynde Ainslie,
M. Mainza Chona, T. R. M. Creighton
The Schizoid State
Margaret D. Budd, J. F. Lethbridge
The Black Box H. Tudor Edmunds After Wolfenden Harry Thorpe
Tourist in Africa A. Khaki, T. 0. Beidel man
No Room for Hooper John Coleman
The Proms G. H. Bosworth
Exports D. C. B. Swinden Democracy Vicente Cirbau CONGO NERVES SIR,—In an otherwise admirable article on Congo Nerves in the Central African Federation, Mr. Creighton concludes with the generally accepted ex- planation of the Congo crisis—that is, lack of politi- cal and general education before independence. Elsewhere in his article Mr. Creighton takes Mr. Oginga Odinga to task for 'dismissing recent events in the Congo as just part of decolonisation.' I was cot present at Mr. Odinga's press conference so can- not say how far this is an accurate interpretation of what he said, but I have a copy of his press state- ment, and interviewed him myself the following day. it seems to me that the case he put to me deserves some publicity, because it is the very point that is still being missed by reporters and commentators in the press in this country. Mr. Odinga said in his press statement: 'What is happening in the Congo is a result of Belgian misrule. Africans were ill-treated. This is why, as individuals, they have retaliated. Europeans should draw the correct moral from this. They should readjust themselves so that they can live with Africans as fellow-citizens. White people in Central and South Africa should note.' He elaborated to me by saying that if the atrocities committed by Belgians in the past were to be weighed against atro- cities committed by Africans to date, the African record would hardly merit the banner headline treat- ment it has received.
Belgian sins, in short, have been those of commis- sion, and not simply those of omission, though the omissions may be important. Not only are we less than a lifetime away from the period when basketfuls of African hands, cut off as punishment for failure to provide sufficient ivory and rubber, were delivered to • Leopold's agents along the Congo; not only are more and more stories of Belgian reprisals against 'mutin- ous' towns where Africans refused to surrender their arms to Belgian soldiers leaking out, but the whole much-vaunted 'civilising' policy of paternalism exer- cised since 1908 by the Belgian Government has received a credit that it cannot conceivably have deserved. What must the denial of all political and trade union rights, until a year or so ago, have meant in effect but a complete political repression? One estimate of the number of political prisoners in the Congo a few years ago is as high as 4,000.
The tragedy of the Congo is therefore not that the Belgians 'gave' the Congolese no political education but rather that tkey vigorously repressed all attempts at political self-expression. The lesson for govern- ments farther south is in Mr. Odinga's warning— against repression, and the refusal to sacrifice white privilege.--Yours faithfully,
ROSALYNDE AINSLIE
Africa South, A bford House, Wilton Road, SW!
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