70 I THE NEW AFRICAN I MAY 1965

The River Between by lames Ngugi (Heine­ runs through much of the South African fiction. allow for easy transition from one scene to mann, 18s.) Nadine Gordimer's A World of Strangers and another in a way that would suggest a clear And A Threefold Cord by Alex la Guma Occasion for Loving can be related to lames progress of the novel. The action tends to (Seven Seas Books, 3s. 6d.) Ngugi's The River Between by the singular jump and most of the scenes are not allowed Emergency by Richard Rive (Faber and Faber. effort of their heroes not to let their private to develop sufficiently to give the novel its :! Is.) feelings be submerged by the unreasonable accumulative power. Quartet (New Voices from South Africa) edited demands of the tribe. The only difference is by Richard Rive (Heinemann Educational that in South Africa the tribal chief is white NGUGr'S ADVANTAGE OVER the South African Books, 6s. 6d.l . and the warring elements are separated by writers represented here stems from the fact colour. that he has situated his characters in a com­ IF COLLECTIVISM AND THE CENTRALISATION of In communities where morality is largely munity where choice can be seen to be real so authority in the hands of the chief and elders prescribed, the area of personal choice is that personal failure or success can be assessed still seems to be the driving ideology behind perilously narrow; consequently, impulsive be­ in universal, human terms. Such an assess­ even the most modern of the African states, the haviour threatens the very existence of the ment to be possible requires certain minimum African novel seems determined to challenge social order. Society has to move very swiftly conditions of freedom. the central assumption that such a social order against any of its members who find personal As the stories in Quartet seem to suggest, in is a basis for a good life or individual self­ fulfilment outside accepted social patterns of South Africa there is often very little distinc, fulfilment. behaviour. Nadine Gordimer's characters are tion between choice and necessity. PaUl Frequently the hero of the modern African always given the opportunity to bale out before Anderson of Alf Wannenburgh's story, Debut, novel comes to grief bec:luse of a certain dis­ tragedy strikes since the white rebels are usually admittedly clumsy and ineffectual, did not harmony between his private vision and the aliens who seems to arrive in the country from choose to be a member of a privileged white ossified formg of moral behaviour prescribed Europe with their return air tickets securely minority. In order to convince us that Ander­ by tradition. This is no less true of South pinned inside their briefcases. In lames son's faults are personal ones Mr. Wannen­ African fiction than it is of fiction elsewhere in Ngugi's novel Waiyaki is reduced to shame and burgh should have redeemed for his character Africa. And since prescribed moral behaviour disgrace as the result of his nonconformity, and a certain amount of individuality and unique­ was sanctioned mainly by African religious his only escape would be to emigrate to Nairobi ness beyond the mere attributes of the tribe. systems, the present rebellion of the new and be swallowed up by big city life. Thus Because he has failed to do this his satire falls African hero against tribal morality signifies a urbanisation takes on a new significance for flat; Anderson is merely a scapegoat for the truly African secularism. It is a secularism African literature. rest of white South Africa. which could have been only delayed so long as In the same way in most of these stories the the African communities remained closed IN N::iUQI'S NOVEL the hero and heroine are blacks enjoy an unearned virtue simply because societies; for in the African society revolt caught between warring factions of traditional they happen to be the oppressed. Their nobility against the moral wisdom of the tribe was and Christianised Kikuyus, and though the hero is in their suffering and just as gratuitous. It is always seen to be an aberration and an evil, makes an admirable attempt to reconcile the a nobility that is given rather than achieved with excision rather than accommodation of the two cultures, both within himself and in the and it is this failure to suggest a variety of defective limb, as the only solution. dismally divided community, he fails because human possibilities for their characters which As I see it, this rebellion of the African hero as an educated African he has begun to set deprives much of the work of these writers of also constitutes the African novel's final sub­ great store by his own personal aspirations; certain universal qualities so readily felt in the version against the traditional forms of African also he shows the same ambiguities and fiction of AJex la Guma. art who:e mode was celebrative and whose equivocations of modern heroes everywhere main function was restorative through the who have submitted to the cult of self-doubt harmonising of individual being with that of and scepticism. ONE EXPERIENCES A GREATER IRRITATION and the traditional community. This seems to me a very worthy successor to impatience with Mr. Rive's novel, Emergency, Ngugi's first' novel, Weep Not, Child, which whose leading characters have turned suffering WAIYAKI, THE HERO of lames Ngugi's novel, is dealt with the Mau Mau conflict. Ngugi's main into an excuse for self-righteousness. Andrew representative of an entire breed which is sub­ achievement is a series of evocative passages Dreyer, especially, has no individuality to speak versive to the extent that it is constantly trying which are distinguished by their lack of con­ of but merely performs as the alter-ego of the to enlarge the area of personal choice against trivance or any striving after effect for its own writer, full of gl ib talk and wise-cracks which the demands of tribal affiliation. Yet this con­ sake. There is no reason to doubt that Ngugi do nothing to ill uminate the full extent of his flict between the individual and the tribe or owes a special debt to the Nigerian, Chinua humanity. In the same way the intellectual between tribe and tribe during which individual Achebe, whose Things Fall Apart seems to have bric-a-brac to which the writer is constantly feelings are hopelessly submerged, is not only greatly influenced him. The main failure of calling our attention, the titles of books in the the central theme of lames Ngugi's novel, it Ngugi's writing so far has been his inability to shelves or classical records on the record player, THE NEW AFRICAN I MAY 1965 I 71

are supposed to suggest a certain knowledge­ ably it is Andrew Dreyer. as sensitive as hell, suggest is the unlimited range in which they ability. In fact they merely confirm our suspi­ who makes a nobler choice than the others. can show their humanity. Most of La Guma's cion that this cataloguing is a strategy which is characters have the weight and value of real meant to do the work of characterisation. To living people; they wage their fight for survival fight ag;,inst apartheid or not to fight is the IT IS INSTRUCTIVE TO TURN to Alex la Guma to against a brutal regime, and what is left after only choice the characters are allowed to make see how he copes with this problem of Iimted they have spilled their blood is their undeniable but since this choice is imposed from above choices imposed by an authoritarian society. humanity. Where Rive's characters are unable (they either have to fight and suffer persecution Though Threefold Cord is less successful than to make love convincingly simply because they or be passive and still suffer persecution) the La Guma's previous novel, it still offers certain are cardboard boxes and not human beings, La range of their choice is narrowed down to that clues to his success. Within the limited choices Guma's characters carry the very stench and presented by a rigid apartheid regime. Predict- available to his characters what La Guma does sweat of living people. •

to serve colonialism". And behind the work stood conviction which compelled him to attack Undoing all forms of oppression. whether shown in the Britist. massacre of Indians at Amritsar. To the Editors European responsibility for the slave-like the damage working conditions in Japanese industry, or the cruel labour laws of British Kenya-to mention Lessons of Disaster only a few cases. T. N. W. Bush Alek Fraser deprecated but was not dis­ couraged by the pettiness of his Church and its SIR,-The editorial entitled "The Lessons of Fraser of Trinity and Achimota by W. E. F. preoccupation with minor issues and squabbles. He won through in spite of this and established Disaster" in your March issue seemed to me Ward (Ghana Universities Press) designed to encourage the use of violence in Colabar by Donald M. McFarlan (Nelson) the educational foundations upon which was later built much of the human leadership of South Africa. IF TIlT' \NGlICAN CHURCH of the early 201h free Africa and parts of Asia. His was the The moral you drew from the recent abor­ century had kn('lwn the things "that belong to educational revolution which made the political tive attempts was not that sabotage was a wrong its peace" it would have honoured and en­ revolution of Nkrumah and others possible and tactic but that the wrong sabotage tactics were couraged Alek Fraser as one of its greatest inevitable. For those who wish to understand used. And in case the point was missed you modern priest-missionaries. By doing so it the new Africa and Asia, this book is essential added that these "sabotage tactics ... must be ~'Hlld have gai.ned the trust and respect of reading. changed for others"-violence, that is. directed lOde pendent Africa and ASia and wiped out the against persons rather than property. damage done by centuries of association with "CALABAR" IS QUITE DIFFERENT in every way. Editorial speculation on probable future the forces of colonialist suppression and pater­ It might be called an old fashioned missionary developments is perfectly valid, but you should nalism. But this was not to be. The facts adventure story with all the thrills and excite­ be careful to distinguish between speculation narratcd in this book tell the story of rejection ments. But it is much more than this. It is a and advocacy. by Chu~ch and State of an exceptional prophet. useful prelude to the larger Fraser volume, You claim that "The idea that this is the end and their luke-warm co-operation with a pro­ since. it paints a vivid and sometimes horrifying of revolution should be reserved for the estab­ gressive educationist and ecumenisl who was at picture of the tribal anarchy which was the lishment" with the implication that those not least as far in advance of his times and con­ inevitable aftermath of the white slave trade in for the revolution are in fact helping to "prop temporaries as Colenso of Natal. West Africa. It tells of the efforts of early up the establishment by their subservience" Sent to Coventry by ordinary white coll'ninl­ missionaries to grapple with this massive and, again lest the point be missed, you spell isls for condemning British colour prejudicc psychological and sociological situation which out your lessons for aspirant saboteurs. and for championing Indian nationalism. his was chnracteristic of most parts of Wesl Africa. The Liberal Party of South Africa, of which forthrightness made him an embarrassment and It explains in part the difficulties with which I am a member, absolutely rejects the use of a challenge to many of his superiors as well as Frascr had to contend. It does more than this violence and would deny that it is either a to his best friends and most loyal subordinates. and admits the fact that missionary altruism practical solution to the problem or a way of It was nol comfortable working with Frnser. was in large part offset and cancelled in Africa intrOducing the non-r

swimming baths. reading in the shade and ventilation of some of the finest library build­ bridge or London or Manchester or Harvard. And they have succeeded when they got there, because the standards were really the same.

FROM THE LATE FIFTIES. however. criticism has been growing. Political leaders in independent countries, whose economies trembled at the prospect of maintaining these institutions, have questioned their objectives. Between the col­ leges of the University of East Africa there is. as Mrs. Macpherson rightly says, a lot of co­ operation. But the fact that the colleges in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam have come into existence ten years later has led them to be They Built for the Future. by Margaret Mac­ South African matriculation certificate, and two intensely critical of what they thi&k to be the pherson (Cambridge University Press. 25s.) years prior to the "A" level requirement of other-worldliness of Makerere. Many British Legon, Ibadan, Salisbury and Makerere. Their and American observers concur: they think that work will be gathered round the need to pro­ there is something complacent about the posture UNIVERSITIES HAVE BEEN GROWING up in African duce administrators, agricultural and veterinary of Makerere sheltering under the assurance of countries to the .north of the Republic for the officers, or lawyers, or doctors, or engineers. high academic standards designed to prove no past fifteen years. They have, with the excep­ The need for teachers is pressed so hard that more than what is now quite well known, that tion of the university at Salisbury, been planned several universities are having to do much as the African is capable of true scholarship. primarily to meet the needs of Africans within the University of Basutoland, Bechuanaland The Makerere myth. furthennore, is fed by their territories, none. however making dis­ and Swaziland, where some students will be two very similar aristocratic traditions which crimin<\tion on the grounds of colour nor able to water down the academic content to were given strong encouragement throughout refusing hospitality to a large number of allow for courses in education and periods of the conservative fifties-that of the elect British students from other lands. There are now at practice teaching to be carried on without public school feeding the elect British univer­ least fourteen of these universities or university lengthening their period of study. sity, and that of the Kiganda feudal aristocracy, colleges in English-speaking Africa alone. An It is here that the experience of Makerere under the Kabaka and his Saza chiefs. Mrs. observer isolated in South Africa can guess the should be shown as important. In the last five Mecpherson is quite conscious of the lush part they are playing in the political awakening years its peaceful undergraduate teaching has quality of this living, gained from these re­ of the African continent when he learns that at been convulsed by several efforts to meet the markably similar sources; and she manages to Makerere University College, whose history is criticism of politicians that it was living within convey a sense of immense overseas riches told in this book, there.are tlver one thousand an ivory tower. There have been short courses rained upon the hill and fructifying into the students. for administrators who have required no higher sheer physical bounty of courts. towers, topless Something of the.. weight given to university educational Qualifications for entrv than that pillars, clocks, common rooms, telephones. education in the national development can be they occupied important posts; and for several clumps of flowering trees and vistas along understood from the ~act that the only or­ years A.I.D. money has sent teams of young lawns. which to other eyes obscures rather than ganisation in Uganda whose business exceeds American garduates to take a course at the reveals the links between higher and lower that of Makerere is the Uganda Electricity Institute of Education prior to two years' education in Uganda. This is Xanadu; while Board, which operates the whole of the Owen teaching in East Africa. out on the plains teachers who are ill-qualified FaIls power network and supplies electricity to and overworked struggle to give an "A" level Kenya as well as to the tiniest Asian stores in education in high schools with no libraries. nor remote corners of Uganda. BUT WHILE THESE THINGS are duly catalogued books to put in them, and no contact with the by Mrs. Macpherson she regards them as no world of reading or of art or of science. IT IS NOT, OF COURSE, in these material terms more than items in a continuum. She is much alone that one will think of higher education more concerned to record the jolly voices of in Africa. But it shows that to Britain and the builders chanting all the time the college's America, as well as to the independent African motto, Pro future aedificamus. Which implies THESE ARE THE CRITICISMS which are often made countries who have accepted the gift, a univer­ the past. With the faint voices of generations of Makerere. And Mrs. Macpherson has not sity is likely to be one of the three of four of jolly builders puffing the dust softly from only done nothing to forestall or meet them: main tributaries running into a national myth one pile of annual reports to another in the she leaves them out of the record. One feels -the head of state himself, the legislature, the dark of a basement. that she should have· collected some of the religious bodies, whether dying or emerging, Makerere belongs to the early generation of evidence which points towards the impossibility being three others. Dc. Nkrumah has thus African universities born soon after the Second of building up an institution of so unfamiliar given his name to the university at Kumasi, but World War into societies so shy that they had a kind in Africa without nourishing a slightly only provided that it became a university of nothing to say about the kind of university fanciful myth. Some people have come only science and technology; and Dr. Azikiwe is they would like to have. Thus the University slowly to believe in the value of a university building a new university almost in his own of Ghana at Legon, the University College of in their new country: others are still quite front garden at Nsukka in Eastern Nigeria, Ibadan in Nigeria, and Makerere University mystified as to why it should be there at all. where programmes are offered in physical College, under the gentle but conservative Here is a fertile field for sales tal1<: and decep­ education and journalism. New universities paternalism of the University of London, have tion. This book would have been more useful appearing in Basutoland, Malawi and Zambia hardened into types: their students, fully pro­ if it had chronicled more of the disappoint­ are tailored to meet political and economic vided for in feudal halls looking out on to ments and heartsearchings and severity of limitations. Like Nsukka they are taking in quadrangles or stately parklands, supplied with thought that have gone to the making of students at "0" level. a little below that of the cricket and football fields, tennis courts and Makerere. • Published by Gransight Holdings Ltd., t2 Gayfere "Street, London, W.I. and Printed by Stevenago Printing Works Ltd., High Street, Stevenage, Herts