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By Root 713 0

every month from the compulsory workers’ check-off scheme; who never in their congresses attack absenteeism, ghost workers, scandalously low national productivity. Above all, workers whose national president at last year’s All-Africa Congress refused to leave his hotel room until an official Peugeot 504 assigned to him was replaced with a Mercedes. His reason you remember: that workers’ leaders are not, in his very words, ordinary riff-raffs. You find that funny? Well I don’t. I find it tragic and true. Workers’ leaders are indeed extraordinary riff-raffs. There has been, for a few years now, a running battle between me and the Civil Service Union. You know that, don’t you?” Yes, roared the audience, laughing. “The reason for our little disagreement is because I have not attempted to hide my opinion of them as plain parasites.” More laughter. “Those of you who follow our battles may remember that it all came to a head last year when I wrote a stinging editorial on the eve of their Annual Congress.” There was smiling recognition on some faces, some nodding of the head and scattered remnants of laughter. “In their communiqué at the end of the Congress they referred to certain bourgeois, elitist hack writers who are no more and no less than running dogs of imperialism!” Loud laughter. “You probably didn’t know who they were alluding to but it was their way of replying to my editorial. Their way is indeed peculiar. Our proverb says that the earthworm is not dancing, it is only its manner of walking.” Laughter.

“The charge of elitism never fails to amaze me because the same people who make it will also criticize you for not prescribing their brand of revolution to the masses. A writer wants to ask questions. These damn fellows want him to give answers. Now tell me, can anything be more elitist, more offensively elitist, than someone presuming to answer questions that have not even been raised, for Christ’s sake? Give us the answer! Give us the answer! You know it was the same old cry heard by Jesus Christ from his lazy-minded, soft-brained, bread-hungry hangers-on in Galilee or Gadarene or wherever it was.” Tremendous outburst of cheers. “Give us a miracle! Give us a miracle and we will believe in you. Cut out the parables and get to the point. Time is short! We want results! Now, now!” Renewed laughter and more cheers greeted this unexpected and quixotic exploitation of the Holy Writ. “No I cannot give you the answer you are clamouring for. Go home and think! I cannot decree your pet, text-book revolution. I want instead to excite general enlightenment by forcing all the people to examine the condition of their lives because, as the saying goes, the unexamined life is not worth living… As a writer I aspire only to widen the scope of that self-examination. I don’t want to foreclose it with a catchy, half-baked orthodoxy. My critics say: There is no time for your beautiful educational programme; the masses are ready and will be enlightened in the course of the struggle. And they quote Fanon on the sin of betraying the revolution. They do not realize that revolutions are betrayed just as much by stupidity, incompetence, impatience and precipitate action as by doing nothing at all.” Mixed, cautious applause. He paused as if to consider his next move.

“I think I should take the advantage of this forum to propound the new radicalism which I believe we should embrace.” Applause of expectation. “First and foremost, this radicalism must be clear-eyed enough to see beyond the present claptrap that will heap all our problems on the doorstep of capitalism and imperialism… Please don’t get me wrong. I do not deny that external factors are still at the root of many of our problems. But I maintain that even if external factors were to be at the root of all our problems we still must be ready to distinguish for practical purposes between remote and immediate causes, as our history teachers used to say.” Smiles of recognition. “May I remind you that our ancestors—by the way you must never underrate those guys; some of you seem too ready to