NF (1957) Going Home (26 page)
The papers were hot and uncomfortable under his coat. When at last the policeman went away, he left his mother and hastened to the house of one of the men who were directing the strike, but he was not there, and he did not like to leave these dangerous papers. He went to another house and another, but no one would tell him where the men were. So at last he returned to his own home, and all that night the mother and the children discussed what it was they should do. One of the daughters and one of the sons said they would stay in this city. Why go back home? There was nothing there, only the old people in the villages, and no work, and nothing to buy with money—no money even.
But Dickson and his youngest brother, who was only twelve years, and one sister said they would go with the mother.
But first they must get money from the people who employed them, and then there was the question of the papers.
On the next day the strike was finished. The mother and the youngest son, who worked as piccanin, or odd-job man in a house at the other end of the town, and the daughter, who was a nanny, went to tell their employers they must leave quickly, they must go home, their mother had died, or their father, or their child—anything, so as to leave quickly.
But Dickson, who had the papers under his coat and who seemed to see that policeman everywhere, waited until the night came. When the dusk had fallen, he was hurrying out of the gate of the township, when he did indeed see the policeman, who fell into step beside him, and said, ‘Where are you going?’
And Dickson said quickly, in a low voice: ‘We are going to Nyasaland, we are going home…’
And then the policeman swerved off and away, on his own business, and Dickson came quickly through the streets to the Mansions, and up the narrow staircase and to the kitchen.
In the morning, when we went to look for him, and could not find him, we examined the bundle of wet and torn papers. In it were copies of the
World Federation of Trade Unions Journal
from Britain, which is banned, and other journals from down south. There was a copy of the Industrial Conciliation Act. There were also two pamphlets, very worn, as if innumerable hands had held them, one called
Peoples of Soviet Asia Awake!
and the other
Fight the Devil Drink
.
Going to Northern Rhodesia means visiting the Copper Belt, which is the backbone of the country; so that unless one is careful one sees the place as a string of little mining towns. But the country is a vast, scarcely developed, hardly populated area with a tiny metal spine. From the point of view of the Africans, the Copper Belt and Lusaka are places to earn money in. Their life is based on the tribe and village much more than in Southern Rhodesia. For one thing, only about 5 per cent of the land has been alienated from them. For another, there has been no deliberate attempt to smash the tribal system, as is being done in Southern Rhodesia. Outside the towns, the Chief is the focal point of authority and respect, the symbol of the old feeling, where land is owned in common, everybody knows his or her place in the community and rights
and duties are not in dispute because they have been established for generations.
The paradox of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland is this: the Africans are avid for advancement, to acquire skills, to become educated, to find a place in the modern world. But because of Federation, because of their fear of the Southern Rhodesian and South African systems, which they see as identical, because they see every move the white settlers make as a trick to take their land from them, they are resisting what they most desire and need. They fall back on the Chiefs and on tribalism because that is something of their own, a protection against the destruction of their dignity as people.
What they are saying, in effect, is this: ‘If the price of entering the modern world, civilization as it is defined in Europe, of becoming industrialized, is to lose what small vestiges of liberty we still retain, then we prefer to remain what you call backward.’
The symbol of this choice is the Colonial Office.
‘As long as we can keep Colonial Office control here, it will save us from being handed over body and soul to the white settlers.’
And so, in Southern Rhodesia, officials argue bitterly: ‘We are advancing the Africans much faster than the Colonial Office because under our administration they are going to have no choice but to enter industrialism, to leave tribalism behind.’ And they really feel aggrieved about it because they cannot see the Africans as a people, as a people with its own soul.
This is one of the cases, I think, where liberty has become more important to a people than more money, better living conditions.
The Copper Belt is owned by two big companies, Anglo-American and the Rhodesian Selection Trust. The ramifications of the finance are involved; but, broadly speaking, Anglo-American is South African, that is, British capital; and the Rhodesian Selection Trust is American. That, at least, is how they are spoken of by the citizens of Northern Rhodesia, and a great deal of interesting gossip goes on about the rivalries between the two, their different methods of handling labour, and how Anglo-American is conservative by temperament,
while the Selection Trust is more flexible and go-ahead. But after two weeks in Northern Rhodesia I had formed an image in my mind of these two copper giants facing each other with an angry scowl, left hands secretly linked, while they shadow-boxed with their right.
The rate of exploitation in Northern Rhodesia is higher than in any other Colonial territory.
The annual profits from the copper mines have reached £50,000,000, of which more than half leaves the country for external shareholders. The annual wage bill for the Africans is less than £5,000,000.
I was going to Kitwe-Nkana, under the aegis of Anglo-American. With their representative in Salisbury, a most courteous and helpful man, I had had the by now familiar interview, during which I had been able to agree, with every sincerity, that the industrialists were against the industrial colour bar and for African advancement, and that the white trade unions were in comparison reactionary.
I therefore took the plane north to Ndola.
Ndola is a small-scale Bulawayo or Salisbury, and I had no wish to stay there; but I wanted to find the friend of a friend who lived there, a man who spends his time investigating African conditions of living, and who could give me the sort of information I wanted. For in a town in Southern Rhodesia twenty-four hours with a couple of anthropologists investigating urban Africans had taught me more than interviews with several dozen officials. (Incidentally this couple had asked permission to do a survey on the effects of the colour bar on the lives of the white people; this caused great offence—they were instructed to stick to the Africans.)
But I could not find the man I wanted. The address given me by the bank turned out to be an empty house, and I pursued various false scents without result. The time was not wasted, because my African taxi-driver, having heard I was a journalist from Britain, talked without inhibition or a moment’s pause about what he thought about Federation, Partnership, white supremacy and so on. Nothing new; but I had, after all, chosen his taxi at random. Again I was struck by the comparative independence of the northern people; no Southern Rhodesian
African would ever express himself to a stranger with such confidence.
There being no train, plain, or coach to Kitwe-Nkana, I went by taxi, harangued all the way by my driver. An expensive business; 50 miles so far as I can remember.
Kitwe-Nkana has one hotel, at which I found a bed with difficulty. Everything is so overcrowded in all these cities that one has to book weeks in advance.
I tried to get through to my hosts at the mining offices, but it turned out to be Labour Day and an official holiday. Therefore I went in search of Mr Katilungu, President of the African Mineworkers’ Union. The taxi-man knew at once who he was and where I might find him. ‘At this time of day he will be at his house.’
This taxi-driver was a Southern Rhodesian, come up to the Copper Belt in search of higher wages. But he did not like Northern Rhodesia, in spite of the wages. ‘They do not enjoy themselves here as well as we do,’ he said. But I think he was simply homesick.
He asked me spontaneously, ‘Why are these trade unions? What is the good of them? Why do you want to see Mr Katilungu?’
I explained the purpose of a trade union.
‘Yes, I know that is what is said. But our wages are still very low, and already trade unions have been here many years.’
And then, after listening politely to what I said: ‘Congress is good, yes. Congress makes white men frightened. But white men do not mind trade unions.’
Mr Katilungu has a little house in one of the townships. It was filled with people—a friend of his, a visiting Chief from the Northern Province, was there with his entourage of young men.
So there was a three-cornered interview.
The Senior Chief, a very dignified old man, expected and got homage from Mr Katilungu, and everything that was said was translated for his benefit.
Discussion about the trade union centred, of course, around the industrial colour bar, and about the attempts by the Companies to form a stooge union, the Salaried Staffs Association.
Federation: ‘Even the whites don’t like it,’ said Mr Katilungu. ‘All the Copper Belt money goes to Southern Rhodesia. Everything has gone up in price since Federation.’
And the Senior Chief joined in here to say: ‘They promised us complete social, economic and political equality. They have broken their promise.’
Capricorn: ‘They were campaigning here for Federation, trying to get us to support it. Now they want us to forget that campaign, and to believe they are for racial equality.’
During the discussion children were drifting in and out of the room, perching on the arms of chairs, standing by the knees of their elders. A tiny child came and climbed on my knee, sat staring with solemn interest into my white face. This touched me very much, though I told myself it was nothing but sentimentality that it should.
It was the Senior Chief who particularly interested me. The moment I began to ask questions about what was happening out in the country, he said: ‘I am glad the foreign journalist is interested in the people in the villages as well as the people in the towns.’ I think he was a little resentful because I had been asking questions mainly of Mr Katilungu.
I asked about the position of the Chiefs. He emphasized that the Chiefs were superior to the District Commissioners, that only they had the right to distribute land, and that because of their strength and authority the Northern Rhodesian Government had not been able to destroy the people’s cattle as had been done in the south.
As soon as he finished talking, one of his young men said in English: ‘Yes, but a Chief the Government doesn’t like is deposed. And the District Commissioners put what they call troublemakers into prison. We young men are always going to prison. And don’t forget to write in your articles that it is the District Commissioner who tries a man, as well as sending him for trial. The District Commissioner can do as he likes.’
I don’t think the Senior Chief understood these remarks. He said something in his own language, which sounded to me like a demand for them to be translated; but Mr Katilungu went on quickly, talking about something else.
That afternoon, in that small, hot room, I was seeing the
clash between the two different kinds of African leadership: the traditional and hereditary, and the new leadership of the towns. It seemed to me that the great courtesy and deference shown by Mr Katilungu towards the old man was the willing deference of a man who knows himself to be stronger and can afford to give way, all the more so because with a part of himself he wished to pay homage to the old ways.
As for the young men, save for that one who spoke about troublemakers, they sat and said nothing, leaving their elders to speak for them.
At the hotel I found my room already shared by a young woman called Eileen. She was a fat, phlegmatic, freckled girl who sighed at every second breath, while she told me the story of her life, which she did at once.
It seemed that Eileen was thirty years old, and she lived with her Mom in Salisbury. Mom did not allow her to smoke or to drink, although she allowed her married sister to smoke and drink because she was married. Eileen was a typist, earning £65 a month; although she could earn far more if she wanted to move to another firm which was offering her £80. But she was used to her boss, and preferred being respected to earning more money. But last year she had got restless and went to Johannesburg, where she at once secured a job out of 120 applicants. But she got homesick at the end of the first week and went back to Salisbury. Then she got restless again and applied for a job on the Copper Belt at £80 a month, and got it; but Mom said: ‘You are a nice girl, Eileen, and you’ll never be happy with those rough types on the Copper Belt.’ So she had thrown up that job before even starting.
Almost at once, restlessness had set in again; and she had come up here with five other girls just to see.
‘And besides,’ said Eileen, ‘some of these men here earn more than £200 a month. You don’t catch me working after I am married.’
While she was telling me all this, she was dressing, and I lay on the bed and listened.
The indolence of heat emphasized her characteristic lassitude, and it took her over an hour to dress. Finally she stood before the looking-glass, in a tight dress with pink flowers all
over it, pink beads, pink sash. A little girl’s dress. And the fat, timid face was that of a fifteen-year-old. She went out saying she must get a breath of fresh air; and ten minutes later I saw her on the verandah with a glass of whisky, half-full, a cigarette, and a young copper miner. There is a shortage of women on the Copper Belt.
This hotel may aim to offer other amenities, but it is a drinking hotel above all. I imagined that Southern Rhodesia was talented for drinking; but I had seen nothing till I went to the Copper Belt.
Around the corner from the hotel is a bar. Outside the bar are rows of cars. At sundown, the families come driving in; the men leave wives and children in the cars and go into the bar. From time to time they come out with a drink for the wife and a lemonade for the children, and then go back into the bar. And so they all spend the evening, until the bar closes.
As for me, I went back into the bedroom and studied the newspapers.
At that time the African National Congress had imposed a boycott on shops that had used unfair trade practices.
At that particular moment, in the early part of May, the boycott had been called off on the Copper Belt, but was still in effect in Broken Hill. The newspapers were full of it.
The boycott movement is more than an effort to force equal dealings in shops between black and white. It is also a trial of strength for Congress. Here is a news item from that time:
‘A warning to the Government that the African National Congress has already a Government within the Congress that will one day rule Northern Rhodesia was given at a meeting here today. The Congress warned the Government that they wanted no interference on boycotts. Resolutions passed at the meeting included: (1) A protest against the District Commissioner and the District Officer asking for identification certificates in the compound area and fining those without them. (2) The boycott would end when the person who was imprisoned for nine months on charges arising from the boycott was released. (3) The reasons for the boycott were the imposition of Federation, equal representation when the Northern Rhodesian constitution is changed, shop prices are too high in
comparison with African wages, and Indians have monopolized African trade so that Africans could not start their own businesses.’
And: ‘When the Indians in Broken Hill say that Congressman have threatened customers there is no truth in it. The African National Congress believes in non-co-operation, but without violence. If there have been threats, they have not been by Congressmen. We are not barbarians. To end the boycott is simple: prices must be reduced, and colour discrimination completely abolished by the Government. We are not worried about the Colonial Secretary’s refusal to see Mr Nkumbula…and we shall never see him. All the African beer-halls must be abolished; we want to enter the European bars. The anti-boycott movement will never end the boycott simply by calling us foolish…’