Going Home - Doris May Lessing [115]
And the inevitable note of virtue: ‘Tear gas shells are considered throughout the world to be the most humane method of mob control…’
More effective, perhaps, than the tanks and the humane tear gas shells, was the fact that the entire leadership and local administration of the African Mineworkers’ Union were put into prison, seventy in all, where they still are, on this date.
Three days ago, in Southern Rhodesia, a State of Emergency was declared, and the troops and police were called out, because the railway workers threatened to go on strike.
The strike, it seems, has not been much of a success, but since practically no news has come out of Central Africa for the last week, it is difficult to know what is in fact happening.
One may be quite certain that whatever methods the Government is using are entirely humane and decent, and in the best interests of the Africans themselves—though they cannot be expected to be intelligent enough to see it.
One may be quite certain that in the Federation, Government officials, even when calling out troops armed with sten guns and riot guns—described by the Rhodesia Herald thus: ‘The riot gun is 28 inches long, with a barrel of 12 inches, and a bore of 1½ inches. It weighs 7 lbs, has a rubber recoil pad on the butt, and may be fired from the shoulder or hip as circumstances require’—these Government officials, using troops at the mere threat of a strike, and protected by the most comprehensive and high-handed legislation against dissidence yet seen anywhere in the world outside the Union of South Africa or Nazi Germany, are still talking fervently about Partnership, British fair play and Advancement.
Personally, like the Africans, I prefer the straight-forwardness and lack of hypocrisy of Mr Strydom.
September 26, 1956
NOTE I—Fifty-six officials of the African Mineworkers’ Union having been kept in prison for several weeks, the Chief Justice of Northern Rhodesia ruled that their arrest and detention had been illegal. Whereupon the Legislative Council of Northern Rhodesia—the white settlers’ Parliament—passed a law banning fifty-three of them from returning to the Copper Belt. Thus the effective leadership of this union has been removed. This law had to be approved and signed by a British-appointed Governor, one of whose tasks it is to watch over African interests.
The most effective and the biggest African trade union in Central Africa has therefore been deliberately crippled—for the time being at least—by the white administration acting hand in hand with the mining interests and backed up by a British-appointed Governor.
When, in the Union of South Africa, Strydom and his gang smash opposition organizations, they at least attempt to draw a cloak of legality over the performance. But to the honour of South Africa there is still a liberal voice which has not yet let itself be silenced. In Central Africa there are no white people prepared to protest openly against the contempt for democracy and decency shown by their Government; although I know there are some who are ashamed of what is being done, even if they don’t say so. There is no white opposition; only black opposition—and the Africans have no effective vote.
NOTE II—A few days ago I had a letter from a relative in Southern Rhodesia saying she had met and talked with Lord Malvern at a party. He said: ‘We prohibited this woman for her own good; and in any case, what she doesn’t realize is that she was made a prohibited immigrant years ago, and we only let her in this time by accident.’
This cheers me up: the existence of this sort of Alice-in-Wonderland inefficiency seems to me the one way in which Central Africa is superior to the Union.
NOTE III—In this book I have made various statements about the possibility of Communism becoming democratic. Since writing