Going Home - Doris May Lessing [79]
Then they asked questions.
‘In Britain, where there must also be many different tribes, do the tribes quarrel among themselves; or have they learned to get on well together; and is there a colour bar?’
I said that in Britain there was colour-prejudice among the ignorant and poorly-educated people, but there was no colour bar as it is known in Central Africa.
Whereupon I was asked how it was possible that the great white man could be poorly educated and ignorant?
I said that in Britain there were large numbers of poor and ignorant people, though not nearly as poor as the people in Africa, and these did all the hard work of the country, just as the Africans did here.
What did I think of Partnership?
I said I thought Prime Minister Todd and his men were quite sincere about Partnership. This was received in non-committal silence.
Why was it that when white people came out from Britain, first they were indignant about the colour bar and the treatment of the Africans, and then they very fast became just as rude and cruel as the old Rhodesians?
I said there were two reasons. One was that any white person who really fought against the colour bar was not popular among his own kind; and someone who had just emigrated from his own country to a new life here had great pressure put on him to conform. And besides, among any people, and no doubt that went for the Africans, too, there was never more than a minority who rebelled against a Government or a system.
This was received in silence; I think a dissenting one.
I said that the most important reason was that a number of the people who came out from Britain were not necessarily the best; and when they suddenly found themselves in the position of baases, able to push other people around, it went to their heads—I had been going to say that no doubt a certain number of Africans, if given the chance, would like to push other Africans around, a trend which was already very evident; but I was not allowed to get so far, for a stamping roar of approval went up, and what I was saying got drowned in the noise.
Then one of the teachers recited a piece from the American Declaration of Independence, and another came out and acted for us the old father in Cry the Beloved Country, mourning for his son:
‘And now for all the people of Africa, the beloved country. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, God save Africa. But he would not see that salvation. It lay afar off, because men were afraid of it. Because, to tell the truth, they were afraid of him and his wife and Msimangu and the young demonstrator. And what was there evil in their desires, in their hunger? That men should walk upright in the land where they were born, and be free to use the fruits of the earth, what was there evil in it? Yet men were afraid, with a fear that was deep, deep in the heart, a fear so deep that they hid their kindness, or brought it out with fierceness and anger, and hid it behind fierce and frowning eyes. They were afraid because they were so few. And such fear could not be cast out, but by love.
‘It was Msimangu who had said, Msimangu who had no hate for any man, I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they turn to loving they will find we are turned to hating.
‘Oh, the grave and the sombre words.’
We all listened in complete silence; and it was like being in church, too grave an occasion for applause.
And afterwards we, the white people, went to another juke-boxed, Coca-Cola’d milk bar, full of white youth who had just come out of the cinema, and the Africans went back to their brick rabbit-holes.
Standing in the dust outside a long row of brick rooms, looking in: table and chairs raised to the ceiling on ropes, two narrow iron bedsteads crammed in, covering all the floor-space, and about a dozen people sitting on the beds. Four young men, who were legally living in the room; four young women, their ‘spares’ a visiting preacher; four old wives, jolly and fat; and a sampling of small children. They were singing a syncopated hymn-tune to mouth-organs