Full text of "Drum"

See other formats

DRUM

i I

BLACK LITERARY EXPERIENCE

UNIVERSITY

MASSACHUSETTS

%k %

^eeUcatc<M

^MC ^izc^ced and 99t€uU exa^wfiU^ <^^ t^ecn. Uve^

dutce^^ul wen. fu^t ^tnut^^le^ ^% di^^Utif, ^t^-
dctenmuuiti(M cutd attc^atc li&en<itc<^.

^K et ti^ne u/iicK 9K€Utef <^ t^ tftcuUtif^tn^t couKt&i-

cxclccdc <w dUcnedit aun Aena^e^ ^ ^^me a^td
a6n4i€id. it ^t^mc^ imfoeft€itiviC t^at we ^tfUue

iHduAiducuU t^€it t^ €4/Lene/iZ%c, 6ut U
&efut/c<^HtUue to- ^nead tA^. mea^tiMf */
t^% me^^€t^, ^^ a^ to^ ^a^a and tAu^
en/icuice die fLa%tcciftiiti(^ a^d uuA^df^etHCHt
o^ t^ pHO^^e^* €«fAte^ €mU ^enue to^
ieif^ten t^ caUvtenAol n^atune o^

4tnu^^^ * v(

STAFF

Co-Editors Paul W, Barrows

Edward J. Rogers

Fiscal Imogene Lewis

Rosa J. Emory

Lay Out Clement Roach

Clyde Santana

Literary Lawrence E. Baugh

Barry Bishop
Carolyn Boiling
Joan Johnson
Michael Patterson
Janis Peters

Image Co-ordinators Clyde Santana

Clement Roach
L, Tommy Rocha
Randell Ramos

Photography Editor . Eugene Niles

Jetta C. Eraser
Steven Texiseira

Administrative Secretary Lorraine Harvey

Distribution Lutricia Black

Steve Monteiro

Office Staff Charline Abbott

Leslie Banks
Marcia Cooper
Ella Garrison
Reggie McDonald
Deborah McFarland
Rose Roberts
Greg Triplett

THE DRUM, SPRING 1974
Vol.5 No. 3

Editorial, circulation and advertising
offices located at 426 New Africa House,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Mass. 01002.

Printing; Gazette Printing Co., Inc., Northampton, Mass.

CONTENTS

Dedication

5 Editorial

6 Famine in Ethiopia

11 African Liberation Movements in South Africa:AComment on

the Present Anti-Colonial and Anti-Imperialist Movements
18 An Interview with Chinua Achebe

25 Noted Black Women ... An Interview

26 The International Implications of African Liberation Struggles
34 Africa and the Black Dispora

42 A Way-Station from Our Past

Paul W. Barrows

Birku Menkir

Mfundi M. Vundia

Lawrence Baugh

Carolyn Boiling

Dovi Afesi

Nana Kobina Nketsia

Melvin Smith

Dawn in the Heart of Africa

Patrice Emery Lumumba

For a thousand years, you, Africa suffered like a beast.
Your ashes strewn to the wind that roams the desert.
Your tyrants built the lustrous, magic temples
to preserve your soul, preserve your suffering.
Barbaric right of fist and white right to a whip.
You had the right to die, you also could weep.
On your totem they carved endless hunger, endless bonds.
And even in the cover of the woods a ghastly cruel death

(continued)

Was watching, snaky, crawling to you

Like branches from the holes and heads of trees

Embraced your body and your ailing soul.

Then they put a treacherous big viper on your chest:

On your neck they laid the yoke of fire-water.

They took your sweet wife for glitter of cheap pearls.

Your incredible riches that nobody could measure.

From your hut, the tom-toms sounded into dark of night

Carrying cruel laments up mighty black rivers

About abused girls, streams of tears and blood,

About ships that sailed to countries where the little man

Wallows in an ant hill and where the dollar is king.

To that damned land which they called a motherland.

In a frightful, merciless mill, crushing them in dreadful pain.

You are men like others. They preach you to believe

That good white God will reconcile all men at last.

By fire you grieved and sang the moaning songs

Of a homeless beggar that sinks at strangers' doors.

And when a craze possessed you

And your blood boiled through the night

You danced, you moaned, obsessed by father's passion.

Like fury of a storm to lyrics of a manly tune

From a thousand years of misery a strength burst out of you

In metallic voice of jazz, in uncovered outcry

That thunders through the continent like gigantic surf.

The whole world surprised, wakes up in panic

to the violent rhythm of blood, to the violent rhythm of jazz.

The white man turning pallid over this new song

That carries torch of purple through the dark of night.

The dawn is here, my brother! Dawn! Look in our faces,

A new morning breaks in our old Africa.

Ours alone will now be the land, the water, mighty rivers

Poor Africa surrendered for a thousand years.

Hard torches of the sun will shine for us again

They'll dry the tears on eyes and spittle on your face.

The moment when you break the chains, the heavy fetters.

The evil, cruel times will go never to come again.

A free and gallant Congo will arise from black soil,

A free and gallant Congo-black blossom from black seed!

Patrice Emery Lumumba

EDITORIAL

An assessment of the status of the political involvement and development of Third
World students/people on campus and in our communities back home, reveals that there
leaves much to be desired. Much of our revolutionary spirit has been replaced with apathy,
indecisiveness and insecurity. As one Brother put it, "it seems as if everything; the economic,
social and political situation, is getting just as bad as it was back in the fifties, but the only
difference is that nobody gives a damn. Everyone is just content to let what happens, hap-
pen." Through observing the situation, this sadly seems to be the case. Brothers and even
Sisters are again being overtly harrassed and intimidated by the local functionaries. On the
job scene we have reverted to our familiar position of the last hired, first fired bunch, very
content to "lay up" on our old lady's welfare check. Even in our "isolated Utopia's" (Am-
herst, Mt. Holyoke, Hampshire etc.) the number of overt racist-oriented attacks and assaults
are increasing everyday, while so many of us sit up in our rooms unconcerned, intellectualiz-
ing over a "J." The significance of African Liberation Day has meant no more than a cheap
ride to D.C. and back, for the weekend.

It seems as though the government, the media and elements among ourselves, have all
collaborated to destroy or re-define our direction. With the endorsement of a welfare check
(and they come in many forms), a "Superfly" movie, and a big shipment of dope, they have
proceeded to completely reverse our directives. When we should be about organizing and
politicizing on all levels, our priorities have returned to full-scale partying, hustling and even
killing one another.

What does all this mean, especially to those of us who eke out an existence day to day
slowly embalming ourselves to a certified death in Am-Hearst? (As our programs get phased
out more and more everyday). It is simply a cold slap in the face that will (must) awaken us
(again) to the precarious nature of our existence here. Time is something that we have never
had and it is vital that we begin at once to use this precious time in search for new directives
to give needed guidance and inspiration to those of us who so badly need it. Walter Cronkite,
Harry Reasoner, or any of the traditional accommodationist mentalities that are beamed upon
us cannot solve these problems for us, rather they will only serve to mis-guide or confuse us
—even more. Our direction can only come from hard and painstaking analysis, which must
be done by none other than ourselves.

For inspiration and guidance, Africa seems to be one of the best of possibilities for us to
begin (again) to explore. Besides the fact that the various struggles and successes on the con-
tinent could serve to inspire and to some extent give guidance, these struggles are extremely
vital for us to begin to understand because their outcome will indirectly or directly effect our
lives here in Amerika. Most important, there are many, many other concrete ways that we—
Africans and Afro-Americans— can aid one another.

It is partially for this reason that the DRUM has decided to donate an entire issue, as well
as sections of subsequent issues to come, to explore and publicize for your inspirational
analysis, articles, essays, various accounts and other literature of and about Africa. Thus we
may be able to draw from these experiences the understanding that the nature of their struggle
indicates much about the nature of our struggle. Hopefully this will aid us in a necessary
reversal of our growing negative trend.

Paul W. Barrows

FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA

Paraphrased from 'Combat,' a journal of
World Wide Federation of Ethiopian Students

By Birku Menkir

It has now been almost a year since a rempant
famine in Ethiopia began to take its heavy tolls. The
imminence of a drought in West Africa and some
regions of East Africa has been known for the last five
years; at least, to the experts and government officials
of several countries in Africa.

As if such a problem of this magnitude could be
wished away, these government officials waited in
utter silence for the famine to spread unimpeded,
destroying tens of thousands of people and a corres-
ponding number of cattle. Even after the famine had
developed into full swing, disastrously spreading at
an incredible rate, the problem was minimized and con-
sidered not serious enough to merit international
attention.

In Ethiopia, Haile Selassie's government covered
up the famine, aware of its political implications in and
outside Africa. This government was so corrupt and
unstable that it suppressed any information about the
famine even to the extent of killing seventeen students
in Wollo, a province of Ethiopia.

News of this human devastation in Africa trickled
into the western press only a few weeks ago. Likewise,
people in this part of the hemisphere, either comforted
themselves with the idea that they were far removed
from the tragedy or proceeded to go about their daily
business in utter ignorance.

At any rate, since the famine exists independent
of peoples awareness, a brief description and analysis
of the famine in Ethiopia seems long overdue
particularly for the Third World community which has
not made any significant effort to have an impact on
the famine situation in Africa.

The Ethiopian famine which wrought a human
tragedy in its wake defies description. Death, despair,
fear, insecurity and helplessness have gripped a
reported fifth of Ethiopia's estimated 25-30 million peo-
ple. According to statistics 250,000 people have
already perished and are dying at a monstrous rate of
500 people per day. The pictures from the starvation
zones depict men, women, and children in the most
misery-ridden situation conceivable. Children have
collapsed on their mother's backs. Pregnant women
have miscarried. The aged have mellowed agonizingly
to death. The whole northern half of the country reels
in the grinding teeth of starvation. An entire
province— Wollo— has been completely devastated.
The provinces of Tigre, northern Shoa, parts of
Begemder and Harrar were severely hit by this disas-
ter.

Ethiopia's cattle population, which equals the
total number of people in the country, has made it the
"ninth largest cattle (producer) in the world." i
However, here too the catastrophic famine has taken
its share of cattle toll. A U.N. estimate shows that 80-
90% of the cattle in north Ethiopia has been
decimated.2 Consequently the price of cattle per head
has also been reported to have shot down to $3.00 as
against the national average of $8.00. A grave irony of
this grim tragedy is the news that, for the first time,
Ethiopian exported meat reached the super markets of
Europe. The famine has indeed brought windfall
profits for the capitalists and greedy speculators.
Surely, this is "a famine that left the rich richer and
the poor dead."^

Agricultural experts have continued to dub the
country as the "granary of Africa and the Middle
East.""* Despite the realities of famine in the period of
1965-66, there was an impressive 30% grain and
agricultural surplus for the decennium of 1956-69.
Unlike most subsistence economies, Ethiopia shows a
rate of agricultural growth which continues to exceed
the demographic rate.^ The total agricultural surplus
was accumulated from a 15% land area although half
the total land area in Ethiopia is arable land. This
means Ethiopia's vast rural population works on a
small portion of land, thus this situation militates
against production and the accumulation of surplus.
To this can be added, the neglect that the agricultural
sector of the economv "enjovs" from the government.
The state budget in 1972-73 reveals an expenditure of
$191,797,669 for defense, internal law and order and
information purposes as against $14,983,749 for
agricultural production. This is an incredible 1280%
rise over the agricultural sector. It does not demand a
terrific imagination to see a chronic government
misdirection in both surplus appropriation and
utilization.

It therefore does not come as surprising to realize
that even under normal circumstances the Ethiopian
people live under the constant threat of death. Article
2991 of the 1960 Code stipulates that tenants can
surrender as much as 75% of their labor produce.
Actually the rate is sometimes higher for the tenant is
subjected to a host of parasites: clergymen, local
gentry, government revenue collectors, and his land-
lord. That the peasant survives despite these odds is
proof of his subtle creativity and wisdom. A
"nutrition survey" taken in 1965 at 52 sites reported
that "there (exists) an average caloric deficit of up to
400 per person per day."* Malnutrition has remained

a salient feature of the feudal order for ages. This
makes the famine case severe in Ethiopia. The
rampancy of famine waves is exemplified by the
failure of one or two provinces from escaping under-
going famine conditions every one or two years.
Furthermore, in Ethiopia, a hospital is a rarity, a
doctor an exception (ratio 1: 75,000) and state health
expenditure a pittance 0.50 cents per person per year.
The mortality rate (60%) is one of the highest in the
world, and half the country (although undeclared) is a
perpetual malaria disaster area.

It still remains the central question, why do the
Ethiopian people go hungry despite the surplus
agricultural production borne of their toil and sweat?
Who appropriates, utilizes or consumes this surplus
and what for? Who stockpiles it in the palace
granaries and elsewhere? Who hoards grain? Who
uses grain for price speculation and why especially at a
time when the people are undergoing harrowing
famine conditions? Why does famine exist side by side
with an "impressive 30% total agricultural surplus?" ^
What is the root of this dilemma? The root lies in the
antagonistic class contradiction between the peasant
masses on the one hand and the landlords, the
compradors and "blue bloods" on the other. Locked in
this antagonistic contradiction, the cries, misery and
woes of the peasant become the happiness of the
landlord. The back-breaking toil of the tillers is the
fruit of the wealthy landlord. Consequently, the
peasant ekes out a dreadful existence. Repressed by
the feudal state, terrorized by an obscurantist church,
demobilized by centuries of traditional inertia,
manipulated by greedy profiteers and exploited by the
landlord, his is a life of sorrow from dusk to dawn and
from birth to the grave.

This famine in 1973 thus brings forth, to a sharp
focus, a number of central questions. How can
Ethiopia's rural masses break out of the vicious cycles
of periodic famine eruptions? How can they root out
the poverty which has enclosed them within the
confining perimeters of misery, stagnation, and of
squalor for thousands of years? How can the tillers,
tenants and peasants of the vast countryside, bound to
the soil in space and time, realize their full human
possibility and enjoy perforce the products of their
labour free from the life devaluation contexts of
successive famine flare ups? How can the people lead
a vibrant and confident life free from the con-
founding anxieties of starvation and disease? Is it
really tenable to hold that the famine is only drought-
induced? Are drought, natural calamities and famine
assorted attributes of the prevailing stratified
bourgeofeudal order or are these its consequences, and
perhaps the very raison de etre of its longevity? It is
the answers to these questions that determines whether
or not one stands for the total elimination of famine or
its postponement. Acknowledging that famine can be
rooted out never to come again or denying that it can is
the litmus paper which distinguishes the revolu-
tionary position from the liberal and Samaritan
meliorists.

This present famine in Ethiopia has been preceded
by famines of the cruelest types. In order to link this
present famine with its counterparts in the past and to
establish a continuum whole, we need to examine
Ethiopia's famine, and misery-ridden historical past.

A considerable agricultural surplus, sufficient to
sustain a general subsistence, has co-existed with a
famine situation. This was even much more true for
Ethiopia's past where bumper crops on one side of the
region and famine on the other have always had a
'unity of opposites' character. Why a situation of
famine amid a situation of plenty will be elaborated in
the analysis of Ethiopia's history.

Three broad conceptualizations roughly
corresponding to specific mode of productions have
historically underpinned the attitudes of ruling classes
in explaining any disaster, much less famine:

1) In analyzing the famine disaster in West
Africa certain bourgeois persons carefully avoided the
political, social and economic environs and presented
the problem as the regions losing struggle against the
environment. The encroaching Sahara Desert, at the
rate of thirty miles per year, was said to prevail over
the region's fragile ecological balance. Lack of rain,
drought and ecological imbalance are the starting
points of the bourgeois explanation of famine.

2) In societies like Ethiopia where the feudal
priestly ideology pervades the terrain, the tiniest
problem, which this ideology cannot explain, is
associated with the anger of God and/or the evilhood
of man. This notion associates the origin of famine
with the anger of God and leads its erstwhile adherents
to prescribe 'praying' as a necessary cure-all. Those
whose praying is heard in God's chamber can solicit
his mercy and placate his anger. Die or live they will
be saved. To a people gripped in a situation of mass

starvation, totally lost as to the way out, such a simple
prescription, will, indeed, be a purposeful solace.
Their death from hunger by the thousands can thus
continue for many among the dead might enjoy
heavenly bliss.

3) The other view which sharply contrasts and
criticizes the other two conceptions is the explanation
which seeks to understand anything, much less
famine, from the material totality of the internal and
external situations that precipitated the problem. This
conception criticizes the bourgeois viewpoint for its
arbitrary exclusion of the socio-economic and political
reality and its undue emphasis on the natural factor.
The moment one begins to abstract the natural factor
from the socio-economic reality, he succumbs to
idealism. Adverse natural conditions operate differ-
endy in feudal, capitalist and socialist socio-economic
structural frameworks. The same conditions of
drought tend to be much more severe in a feudal
society than in a capitalist or socialist society. That is
because although the drought originates from climatic
factors, it transforms into a social problem governed
by the logic and dynamics of class relations in the
given society it occurs. To put this viewpoint in a
historical perspective, we need to elaborate the genesis
of famine from the earliest times.

There was a long period in history where no
country could maintain immunity from famine
flareups. This long historical epoch extends from the
earliest times until the collapse of feudalism and the
emergence of capitalism on a world scale. The onset of
the Industrial Revolution heralded the emergence of
machinery replacing capitalist manufacture based on
the division of manual labour. The Industrial
Revolution, thus, inaugurated a qualitative change in
the methods of production. The transition from an
organization of the division of labour based on manual
manufacture and handicrafts to industrial machinery,
steam engine, etc. marked an "essentially different
period' of capitalism. Consequent upon the
revolutionization of the mode of production in
industry and agriculture is a corresponding
revolutionization of the social process of production
(means of transport and communication, river
steamers, ocean steamers, telegraphs, saihng vessels
etc.). Thus with the development of capitalism and the
industrial revolution, the nature of famine underwent
a profound transformation. What was famine like
prior to the Industrial Revolution? During those
early times, communication and trade were un-
developed. Then societies were more or less, self-
contained, self-dependent and self-enclosed entities
little or no link and access between the same region,
much less other regions and countries. The natural
economy that prevailed in these societies had no
structural connection with the occurrence of drought
and other adverse geological and climatic turbu-
lences. To be sure, there was a connection. But the
dominant tendency was that famine was a natural
calamity, for the modern safety valves that wipe out
famine were not to be found then. Thus those who
had relatively advanced economies suffered from
natural calamities in as much as those who were rela-
tively undeveloped. Ancient Rome, Greece, China

and Axum suffered terrible famine outbursts at a
time when they had had advanced economies. It was
equally true for Britain, Gaul, Prussia and European
Russia who had had a relatively backward economic
bases. A recorded 450 famines were known in
Europe from 1000-1850 A.D.

We now live in a different historical epoch where
famine due to droughts cannot be allowed to occur in
a few developed countries, while it is made to exist in
the rest of the under-developed world. This is the era
of imperialism and monopoly capitalism which has
integrated in its undervelopment ring even the
remotest rural backwater in the Third World. Thus,
when famine exists during this reign of monopoly
capitalism, it is because the structural integration of
these societies to world imperialism has given rise to
the conditions of immobility and

'underdevelopingness.' The consequence from this
imperialist relationship is the artificial superimposition
on these backward economies of a style of life which
blindly immitates the metropolitan centres particularly
by the dominant interests in the periphery. The
backward ruling classes whose destiny is much more
dependent on the moods of Washington or Paris than
their own peoples, can freely mess with the lives of
their 'subjects.' They indulge in hoarding, grain
speculation and create artificial scarcities to steal the
last possession of the starving masses entrapped in a
famine crises. This, in turn, accelerates the famine
crises like wild fire to other regions. In the imperialist
era, famine is not a result of absolute want, rather
whatever its incidental origin, it develops from the
policy of throwaway prices which the profiteering
classes launch against the labouring masses. Only the
oppressed people in the world are vulnerable to
famine eruptions at this monopoly stage of capitalism.
It is against a background of this larger context that
the history of famine in Ethiopia must be reflected.

An expose of the eternal inherent irrationality of
the feudal system, which brought about bloodshed, the
stagnant convention current of waste, extravagance,
decadence, misery, disease and famine in Ethiopia is
quite necessary if only because the essence of these
features exist in the country to this day. Warlords
styling themselves as kings with ambitions to be king
of kings (emperors) organized powerful bases to
thrust and intrude into territories of other warlords
with equal, if not more, pretentions. The insuing
battle saw either the mutual destruction of the con-
tending warlords or the vanquishing of one at the
expense of the other. This long drawn feudal epoch
was characterized, in general, by the grabbing of the
land of peasants and the subjugation or annihilation
of whole populations and communities. There was/is
an arbitrary imposition of various forms of tenure
whose multiplicity is highly adapted to the
preservation of the landlord rule of terror and
obstruction. Forms of rent and taxation were very
irregular and their frequency and arbitrariness further
vitiated the production of agriculture. Compulsory
services and exhortations jumped or fell with the
incidence or ebb and flow of warlord conquests. Some-
times, whole communities were often reduced to a
landless status. The permanent state of agitation

postponed the need of developing towns. Law,
n\orality and justice followed the tastes and prejudices
of the warlords.

There were instances where the male sector of the
population was seriously underpopulated and tilling
was taken up by women and children. Recruited to a
warlord army which saw killing as a profession
coupled with this army's strong anti-labor psychol-
ogy, the peasantry was functioning ironically both as
the killer and the killed. No doubt these conditions of
feudalism created the prerequisites for vast famine
devastations. There were natural, political and
economic factors for the ravages that warlord
contentions for power brought about. Each warlord
styled himself as a king and aspired to be 'king of
kings.' Since the historic Ethiopian kingdom in the
feudal epoch was much more a confederal aggregate
than either a federal or unitary organizational entity,
there were wide policy differences among the contend-
ing warlords. Each warlord could enhance his prestige
bv sending and/or accepting his envoys from Europe.
He could make diplomatic deals with one European
power or another and buy much needed firearms from
Europe. Thus the fight to centralize or decentralize, to
expand or to secede and to unify or to be independent
existed, as it suited, the presumed advantage of each
warlord and his son, who inherited his father's
pretentions. The resultant vector of this commotion
was at best a circulatory stagnation and at worst total
devastation. There could not have been development
under such kind of chaos and disorder.

Ethiopia's geographical setup also contributed to
the disunity of the feudalists into regional centres of
power. Its mountaineous vastness is still impregna-
ble creating serious communication bottlenecks. The
economy, as it is to a large extent today, was self-
contained, and self-dependent with undeveloped
exchange (market) relations, low labor productivity
(despite a considerable agricultural surplus) and with
no ability for capital accumulation. Technique was
also at a primitive stage. Industries were local and of

the cottage and handicrafts variety. The ruling class
was uncreative, uninterpreneural and used whatever
surplus, such as existed, for ostentatious consumption.
Trade was undeveloped, limited only to the import of
firearms for the export of hides, coffee and slaves.
Towns, even after they grew up were mere show cases
of feudal and church pageants. Such a feudal,
economic, political and technological environment led
to the unmistakable result of a complete paralysis of
the productive forces.

By way of conclusion, it can be suggested that
under the present conditions, the Ethiopian peasant is
made to live for one evil purpose alone, that is, in order
for the feudal barons to exploit him. No other
conclusion can be a satisfactory outcome from the kin
of feudal relations that we have come to see prevailing
in present day Ethiopia. Types of tax payment in the
present famine stricken province of Tigre alone runs to
thirteen. In the neighboring Begemder it reaches well
over twenty-six. A new agricultural income tax has
been imposed by the government on the already tax
burdened masses. Forms of rent payment are so
exploitative, that it leave the peasant with only his
skin so that he may continue his toil for the landlord.
With the intervention of imperialist commercial agri-
culture, even the remaining portion— peasant
existence itself— has been put under a big question
mark. Such is the devastating reality of the Ethiopian
people, a reality so cruel and ugly that it is an every day
condemnation of those who vegetate in its bosom.

By any standard one cares to adopt, Ethiopia
remains the crudest autocracy in this century. No
press. No assembly. No association. Informers
abound. The secret police are everywhere. People are
hung in public. The government hangs people, even
after it has killed them. Public flogging is the
system's mainstay. Corruption permeates the
bureaucracy from the palace down to the last centre of
local authority. It seems that embezzlement, tax
evasion, exhortations and fraud are the programmes of
the government. The prime motive is exploitation of
the people. Everything else is predicated to this goal.

With famine, death and disease, the cup of misery
of the common tiller-peasant and tenant has been
overflowing. War, pillage and drought combined has
increased the peasant's emiseration with geometric
progression. It was a cruel past which will never be
forgotten. It was cruel because a tiny fraction was
enjoying fully all the luxuries of life while the vast
masses were enslaved, exchanged, priced, devalued, de-
humanized and degraded. History is long, but the
wronged millions will surely rise in a stormy upsurge
to give the last coup de grace to their despoilers of
centuries.

FOOTNOTES

1 Robert L. Hess, Ethiopia— The Modernization of Auto-
cracy, Cornell University Press, 1970, p. 87.

2 FAO-WFP/22 Release, October 26, 1973

3 Sunday Times, November 25, 1973.
■• Robert L. Hess, p. 87.

5 Ibid.

' Chikonaw Bezabih, Ethiopia-Sfflfus of Public Health
Challenge (publication of ESUNA), Vol. IX, No. 2, p. 7.
' Robert L. Hess, p. 86.

ROOTS TO ROOTS

when the stormy rains can\e
They washed away everything

But the stems and roots.

And even the stems depended on the roots.

The roots lay bare

And all the dirt was washed from their crevices.

The bare roots were without soil.

Without the protection of the soil

They would never bear fruit with their stems.

For they knew that if they did
When the rains stopped
And the sun began to blaze
And dry the surroundings

There would be no way to give food to that fruit.

The fruit would shrivel and die.

The roots could only lay close to the soil

And hope for water enough for their own salvation

And the salvation of the stems.

fiope that soon they would find a way
Back to the soil.

Mungu Kimya Abudu

African Liberation Movements in Southern Africa:

A Comment on the Present

Anti-Colonial and Anti-Imperialist Movements

By Mf undi M. Vundla

In the area of Southern Africa the oppressed
peoples are presently waging a heroic struggle
against colonialism, imperialism, and apartheid. The
question of settler regimes in Southern Africa is a
complicated question. Whilst in the Portuguese colo-
nies one finds the phenomenon of classical colonial-
ism, i.e. the colonies being governed from an out-
side or foreign source with a colonial administra-
tion to enforce the laws of the metropolitan power.
The territories of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South
Africa are altogether a different phenomenon; these
areas constitute the main bulwark of imperialism on
the African continent. These white territories after
years of colonial exploitation have emerged into
economically advanced industrial states— character-
ized by the merger of industrial and banking capital.
We can observe these states as subimperialist in
character,— states whose main purpose is to protect
and foster the growth of domestic and foreign
capitalist ventures. This area, whilst it presently
constitutes the industrial heartland of the continent
of Africa, is seen by the present settler regimes as a
potential beach-head for penetrating independent
African countries. This time, in order to recolonize
Africa the white settlers intend to tie in African
countries as satellite states firmly revolving around
the capitalist orbit controlled by Pretoria and Salis-
bury.

THE PORTUGUESE COLONIES: forty years of
Salazarist rule, of clericofascist stagnation and
strangulation, have most definitely mocked the
"civilizing mission" that was once often advanced by
apologists of colonialism. Open pillaging and
plunder have been the order of the day in the Portu-
guese colonies. If Portugal were taken as represent-
ing the center and the colonies as the periphery we
observe a classical colonial relationship at work; the
periphery serves as the reservoir of natural resources
and the center as the transformer of raw materials
which are then flooded to the colonies and the world
market at the discretion of the center. The peoples of
the Portuguese colonies experienced a dual oppres-
sion—as workers and as national groups. We there-
fore observe the confluence of race and class oppres-
sion.

The principal movements in Angola are UNITA
and MPLA, and in Mozambique it is FRELIMO.
These movements are nationalist, anti-colonial and
therefore anti-imperialist. The Portuguese colonies
are presently involved in the national-democratic
revolution— forcibly rejecting years of colonial, white

supremacist ideology. The struggle is also an anti-
latifundia redistribution of land to the land-thirsty
peasantry— resting it from the absent landlord class
of Portugal.

The Leninist strategy of world revolution in the
era of imperialism was based on three fundamental
contradictions; between the proletariat capital, be-
tween the oppressed nations and imperialism, and
amongst the imperialists themselves.

The author would like to take a brief look at
the territory of Guinea-Bissau, because it presents
a classic national liberation struggle that has
borne success. The territory is a former Portuguese
colony which has recently declared itself an inde-
pendent sovereign state after a decade of armed
struggle. The struggle has been successful enough
to drive the Portuguese colonial army of occupa-
tion to the urban centers— all that is needed in this
area is for the Portuguese to discuss surrender terms.

African people in Southern Africa are a defeat-
ed people; it takes vision, perseverance and convic-
tion about final victory to convince a people subju-
gated for over a century about the national libera-
tion struggle. An exposition on the difference be-
tween a worker and a peasant is in order here; by
worker the author refers to that strata in society
which faced by the fundamental question of exis-
tence decides to sell its labor power to an employer.
A worker is therefore tied to the wage system and
in the course of the performance of his duties as a
worker he comes into contact with individuals who
are also workers. This contact is crucial because the
worker realizes that labor is a collective effort, and
he along with other workers constitute a class dis-
tinct and apart from the people who do the hiring.
Perhaps the crucial difference between a worker
and a peasant is the fact that he creates surplus
value (e.g. he makes fifty pairs of shoes a day; tnese
shoes are sold for $30.00 a pair, and he is paid $30.00
a day; the total value he creates in an eight-hour
day amounts to $1500.00. The employer pockets
$1470.00; $1470.00 constitutes surplus value.) This
exploitative relationship between worker and his
employer heightens the consciousness of the con-
tradiction that exists between the two.

A peasant is an individual who makes a living
by tilling a plot of land usually his own. He pro-
duces agricultural products only for himself and
his family, if he has one. Rarely does it occur to the
peasant to produce for the market as he rarely pro-
duces a surplus. His production is therefore at sub-

sistence level. This occupation which is carried
out by the peasant is highly individualistic in char-
acter, it lacks the collective ring which one notices in
labor performed by a worker. Quiet often the tools
the peasant uses are antiquated and the peasant,
due to his isolation, harbours great suspicion for the
new and innovation.

Given the above, the political attitudes of the
worker and the peasant cannot be expected to be the
same. The experiences of revolutionary movements
is that it is difficult to get the peasant to think in col-
lective terms. The peasant, due to his isolation and
his being tied to the soil, is rendered highly individu-
alistic; his fear of losing his small plot of land often
leads at best to sluggish support for revolutionary
movements. A great deal of politicization has to be
done to heighten the revolutionary commitment of
the peasant.

In this respect Amilcar Cabral has this to say:
"In Guinea it must be said that the peasantry do not
constitute a revolutionary force. A distinction
must be made between a physical force and a revolu-
tionary force; physically the peasantry represent a
great force, it is almost the majority of the popula-
tion. They produce agricultural goods and it almost
controls the nation's wealth, but it has been our ex-
perience that it has been extremely difficult to con-
vince the peasant to fight. " Years of degradation,
being tied to the soil have had a significant effect
to blunt the revolutionary fervor of the peasantry in
Africa. When one looks at the other strata of Guin-
ean society one realizes that the most politically ad-
vanced elements in the national liberation struggle in
Guinea-Bissau come in the main from working class
elements in the society. The reason for this phenome-
non solely lies in the class question of the national
liberation struggle, not only in Guinea but in the
whole of Southern Africa. By class, we mean rela-
tionship to the means of production— i.e. whether
one is a worker, selling his labor power to the labor
market, or whether one actually owns the means of
production and, for that reason, belongs to the
bourgeoisie. There are, of course, elements in any
society that occupy in-between positions in this
stratification, for example those elements that are
either self-employed or that are in the liberal profes-
sions or in the civil service; these could be said to
comprise the petty-bourgeoisie. While all these
groups in society are aware of the colonial oppres-
sion meted against them by the Portuguese, the
manner and extent of militancy against the status
quo is tied to the class question. Those elements that
have moved to the urban areas of Portuguese
Guinea, withness at first hand the degree of exploita-
tion directed at them; they see the Portuguese work-
er being paid fifty-five escudos* and they having
to make do with ten escudos**. Here the character and
level of the exploitation is glaring and goes a long
way to convince the black worker about the need
for all forms of struggle including armed struggle,
in order to radically uproot the oppressing colonial
power. It is from this group that the militants for
the anti-colonial struggle have come. Most of these
elements are new arrivals to the urban centers
and therefore have very strong bonds with the
countryside. They have been the main force in in-
culcating progressive thinking among the peasant-

ry. This group has tirelessly worked to unveil to
the masses of the people the urgancy of armed con-
flict against Portugal and its army of occupation
in the colonies.

ZIMBABWE (RHODESIA) Zimbabwe represents
a classic case of British orchestrated duplicity. This
country, like all British possessions in Africa re-
ceived at the turn of the century a form of representa-
tive government— meaning that there was put into
existence an Administration whose main purpose
was to administer the country in all areas save for
finance, foreign affairs and defense, areas to be in
the hands of the colonial power— in this case Great
Britian. With the height of the independence to the
majority of the people in the country— in this case
African people, Zimbabwe had a large white popula-
tion of British ancestry. This sector of the popula-
tion experienced a whole gamut of privileges as com-
pared to the indigenous peoples. The African people
virtually had no political power, no economic rights
worth talking about and were practically landless.
Political persecution of revolutionary movements
was rampant throughout the country. Using the
typical strategy of divide and rule, Britain proceded
surreptitiously to sabotage the independence move-
ment in Zimbabwe. Utilizing local reactionaries
among the indigenous bourgeoisie the British
government proceeded to break the Zimbabwe Afri-
can Peoples Union (ZAPU) into two rival organiza-
tions, leading to the creation of the Zimbabwe Afri-
can National Union (ZANU) led by missionary pro-
tege Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole.

While engineering the split in the independence
movement the racist White minority proceeded to
unite their ranks and urged the British government
to grant complete political power to them. The Brit-
ish hedged, and the White minority acted swiftly by
declaring themselves an independent sovereign
state. This unilateral declaration of independence,
constituted an open and flagrant violation of the
British-created sovereignty over her possessions.
When the United States declared itself an indepen-
dent state and shirking the colonial exploitation of
the British government, the British government
responded by sending troops to the United States
to suppress the rebels. In Zimbabwe this was not
the case. In fact the British have just come short of
recognizing the fascist and racist regime led by the
rebel Ian Smith. The British administration, acting
on the basis of protecting its financial ventures in
this region, has proceeded not only to ignore the legit-
imate political organizations of the African people,
but to further split the remnants of the resistance
against the British sellout. Again utilizing in-
digenous reactionary forces the British government
has strategically placed certain reactionary ele-
ments as spokespersons for the African majority in
the country. Bishop Muzorewa has taken the man-
tle of "leader" of the African people and is prepared
to accept the Smith regime if it would recognize the
minute African bourgeoisie as a co-partner in the
arena of government. Of course all this prostitution
has not paid off. The reactionary Smith regime is de-
termined not to compromise an inch, for this would
bring his illegal goverriment under strong criticism
from the right-wing elements within his political
party, hence undermining his own power base.

This fortress of Elmina Castle was one ot many such castles used by the Europeans to protect their "treasures in Black gold" as v\ell as
stations for the replenishment of supplies to facilitate the successful completion of "the triangle of trade."

Given the above, the political parties ZAPU
and ZANU have come to the realization that a na-
tional liberation struggle which is part of the world-
wide anti-imperialist struggle cannot be negotiated
in an atmosphere replete with chandeliers and Scotch
whiskey but must thoroughly prepare the masses
of the people for armed struggle against the opres-
sive White minority regime.

The world progressive forces have responded
positively to the struggle of the Zimbabwean
peoples. These countries continue to provide all ma-
jor materials needed in physically destroying the
might of the enemy in the field of combat. The social-
ist countries have lived up to the Leninist doctrine
of proletarian internationalism recognizing that the
struggle against imperialism, and U.S. imperialism
in particular, has many fronts.

The extent of the physical confrontation against
the enemy, whilst not indicating overnight victory
for the revolutionary forces, has led amongst other
things, to the creation of an Axis Powers in this re-
gion—an alliance leading to a joint command of
troops by Portuguese, South African and Rhodesian
regimes. This in turn has prompted the revolution-
ary movements in the region to unite their forces in
recognition of the national liberation struggle in the
whole of Southern African. Initial results of the joint
ZAPU and ANC military command have been very
encouraging. The level of political maturity of the

revolutionary movements in Southern Africa is en-
couraging, given the colossal difficulty of their
struggle. Le Duan, the First Secretary of the Workers
Partv of Vietnam maintains in his book The Vietna-
mese Revolution: Problems and Essential Tasks, that
an anti-colonial, national liberation struggle has to
heighten at all costs the promotion of dissent among
enemy forces; once this task of splitting the ranks of
the imperialists is achieved it is only a matter of deci-
sive battles that are needed to break the back of the
enemy. The African Liberation Movements, like all
progressive anti-imperialist movements, aware of
contradictions among the ranks of the enemy are
seriously heightening these contradictions. It seems,
therefore, that the struggle in Southern Africa has
to grow, and it will grow given the fact that it is
only in the constant application of theory to prac-
tice that improvements are made in any worthy en-
deavour and especially that which involves the
liberation of a people subjected to years of colonial
enslavement.

SOUTH AFRICA The fascist state of South Africa
is run not by a crowd of conservative, backward ra-
cists as it is made to appear in Western capitalist
countries. South Africa is a settler-colonial and a
sub-imperialist state.

In the seventeenth century Dutch settlers colo-
nized what today is called South Africa with a view
towards creating an artery of expanding European
commerce. Half-way stations along the route were

to serve as points where the vast and expanding
merchant fleets would undergo repairs and obtain
fresh provisions for the long trips to the Far East.
With the discovery of mineral resources in South
Africa the indigenous populations were subjected
to the loss of land and brutal exploitation. Of course
the indigenous elements waged heroic battles against
the aggressors but the sheer superiority of the vast
arsenal of modern military equipment possessed by
the settlers rendered any further resistance by the
African masses futile. Quite clearly the emergent
capitalist powers of the time were not going to allow
their vast investments in South Africa to be
threatened by the militant indigenous peoples. South
Africa also represents a unique political situation;
the country presently cannot be said to be a colony
at least in the classical sense. South Africa repre-
sents a special type of colonialism. Whilst South
Africa is not governed by a metropolitan power,
the country— by virtue of its very strong traditional
links with the advanced capitalist countries of
western Europe, and lately the U.S.— is considered
to be a crucial country within the sphere of influence
dominated by the capitalist countries. It produces
more than two-thirds of the world's gold output
(excluding the Soviet Union); it is the world's
largest producer of diamonds and chrome ore. It is
situated in the southern seas, an area strategic to
capitalist commerce. It has come to be regarded in
Western imperialist circles as the 'guardian' of the
Indian Ocean. In this respect South Africa can be
classified as an imperialist country. Along with Great
Britain, South Africa mans the notorious Simons-
town Naval base whose sole reason to existence is
the policing of the southern tip of Africa against pro-
gressive thought and revolution. South Africa is in
essence a sub-imperialist country in that it carries
out imperialist acts with the massive infusement of
military aid from the dominant imperialist powers of
the day— namely those of Western Europe and the
United States.

Internally South Africa exhibits one of the most
vicious forms of racism in human history. "Apart-
heid " an African word meaning separation is the
basic philosophy of the ruling class in South Africa.
It has its basis in the protestant/calvinist doctrine of
predestination: the belief that peoples of African
descent are to be regarded as people not capable of
conducting the affairs of life without the guardian-
ship of the White race by the will of the creator.
Frederick Engels, writing about slavery, maintains
that the emergent merchant bourgeoisie of Western
Europe had to postulate the doctrine of racial in-
feriority to justify the enslavement of African
peoples.

NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENTS IN
SOUTH AFRICA: the struggle in South Africa
is taking place within the international context of
transition to the socialist system, of the breakdown
of the colonial system as a result of national libera-
tion and socialist revolutions, and the fight for
social and economic progress by the peoples of the
whole world.

We in South Africa are a part of the zone in
which national liberation is the chief content of
our struggle. The African people and other non-
white groups within the South African population

experience the most brutal form of racial oppression;
they are not allowed by law to vote, have labor
unions, strike, or own land.

It has been the experience of the revolutionary
movements in our country that the rural masses
possess revolutionary potential. It is only under
conditions of armed struggle that it becomes pos-
sible to organize those on European farms. The
urban proletariat is destined to be the vanguard of
the struggle in our country, not only by reason of
its advanced social and organizational role but al-
so because of its numerical strength. The revolu-
tion in our country cannot succeed unless the work-
ing class is mobilized and exercises hegemony over
the revolution in practice and in fact no other class
exists in our country that can exercise the role of
leader and organizer of the revolution. The middle
classes and the petite bourgeoisie elements among
the oppressed people are too weak to play the role of
vanguard. In our country the vanguard role of the
working class is not a question of preference, it is
an actual necessity. Since the seventeenth century
the Afrikaner/Dutch section of the white population
has looked at the English part of the settler popu-
lation rivals; this was justified since the British
have continously regarded the Afrikaner as an in-
ferior in cultural terms. This manifestation of
English chauvinism was one of the pillars of the
birth of the reactionary idealogy of Afrikaner na-
tionalism. The Afrikaner bourgeoisie, spreading all
manner of myths about the "Black Danger" and
the "danger" of the Anglicization of the Afrikaner/
Dutch element of the white population, propagated
the idealogy of Afrikaner exclusiveness which was
the cornerstone of the present idealogy of Apartheid.

The emergence of South Africa into an indus-
trial state has resulted in the English and Afrikaner
elements making common cause against the African
people who constitute the major part of the popula-
tion of South Africa. The growing militancy of the
African peoples has forced the once hostile fac-
tions amongst the white population to unite against
the African population, who constitute the main
threat to white privilege and political domination.

No where in Africa does one observe such a
thorough laying of an industrial base as in South
Africa. Whilst the main area of economic investment
was in the area of the extraction of raw materials like
the mining industry, we now observe a new phe-
nomenon of foreign financial penetration particu-
larly in the area of the manufacturing sector of the
economy. In any society the manufacturing sector
of the economy is the main area where economic
growth critical to a country's balance of payments
occurs. The main beneficiary in the manufacturing
sector of the South African economy has been
foreign corporations from the U.S., West Germany,
Japan and the United Kingdom.

The Leninist analysis reveals that although com-
modity production in a capitalist society is at higher
levels than, for example, in a feudal society, the
owners of the means of production (bourgeoisie)
proceed to thoroughly capture the domestic market
and through the growth of monopolies, proceed to
export capital with a view towards expoliting work-
ers of other countries. This in brief is a description
of the phenomenon of imperialism.

ILLUSIONS

i can only dream

of brown thatched huts

beneath palm trees

with roofs defying

the sky's beginning;

of cajoling cackling birds

telling sleepers of a new dawn;

of muted feet across

earthen floors

humming a lullaby

that soothes

the baby on her back.

i can only dream

of rising

and lazily sipping coconut milk

beneath the warmth of noon.

clang, clang, clanging

erupts my sleep

in a volcano of noise:

sounds of the rushing el.

and i lie still

ready to sleep

and dream again of home.

Irma McClaurin
from Song in the Night

ANOTHER MAN'S LAND

as I awaken from a dream
unconsciously thinking this
plot, this farm, this country,
this world and universe is
another man's land

In conscious dreams this
land is mine to be
shared in life and

death so
man can share the wealth
of dreams to live

and be buried
there

Reality wills
no dream, no land to rest
my head for this is another
man's land

I feed on dreams
beyond life only

time will tell this
land is mine

Perhaps my head should be
my soul and it will have
a place for me and "all God's children"

Kenneth Ralph Cuffee

//////?????/////

in silent nights

made holy by the sacrifices of body and blood
of knownless brothers and sisters
I rest, unsafe that I may
at any time

now contribute to that holiness of a
silent night
waiting, not to be any longer

a death wish/or/the reality
which so claims
our mission
Tell me . . . come back to me

from your graves this night
whisper no longer the chants of, life/death has
decomposed ....
Come up from the mounds of earth dressing your bones
Unlock Your lone coffins and arise from the bottoms

in which you were placed
Come with your dreams and crown us here with them now.
Come with the forces that so made you fall back onto the
mud an bleed

My blood no longer runs red and free as yours did
it runs thick and colorless
along a trail taken by cowards who sit with me
robed in the guise or rhetoric and many-fingered-hand-shakes.
Come to me in the way those before have comeback
in the cries of babes unborn

tears that evaporate into bullets
in boyhood faded into manhood
come to me from the depths you have been placed
and bring life to this body that moves in
the spirit of true agony

come to me me me

tenajol cormier

An Interview With Chinua Achebe

By Lawrence E. Baugh

his home, but the feeljngs expressed could
be applied not only in Nigeria, but wher-
ever Third World peoples are struggling
against the burden of European oppres-
sion. We could not cover this topic as in
depth as we would have liked. Basically
it is the gist of three long conversations
that I had with him.

Words are strange personalities. They
have many faces, depending upon the
user and often to whom they apply. People
don't take the time to analyze all the mean-
ings of words so their horizons unfortu-
nately become very limited in scope and
consequently the realities of certain situa-
tions are distorted. Take the topic "African
Liberation Struggles." To many this topic
means the struggles of African peoples in
Mozambique, Angola and the racist
regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa.
But the topic upon analysis lends itself to
a much larger definition. It is also the
famine in the Sahel, Ugandan struggles
for autonomy and frankly, the battles that
all Third World peoples have in the wake
of a newly found freedom to identify with
themselves, rather than with concepts
transported to them from afar.

The struggle then shall be wide and
varied. It will occupy many levels and be
structured in such that the previous stage
is firm before action is begun on another.
One might free oneself from the physical
presence of an oppressor, but his mental
indentation shall probably exist after he is
dead. To paraphase a famous saying, "The
sun shall never set upon the British
Empire."

This is an interview with Chinua
Achebe, a great African writer. We talked of
many things, but primarily of African mo-
tions towards liberation. He spoke of this
liberation as coming in stages understand-
ing that this motion does not stop once "in-
dependence" is achieved. Often his perspec-
tive was in the cont-ext of Nigeria, which is

Baugh: Mr. Achebe, what was your child-
hood like?

Achebe: My upbringing was in a village,
a small village, and I say that because I
think it is significant. My father was a
teacher in the Anglican church, but when
I was a child he had retired from active
teaching and we lived in the village. About
half the village was christian, so there were
two sides— the Christian community and
the traditional part that was always there.
So in my childhood I looked at the world
from the Christian home at what might be
called the "heathen." I was fascinated by
what was going on, a sort of division of
the world into two. I just had a natural
curiosity to find out what it was like on the
other side. This other side was supposed
to be bad, uncivilized, heathenish but I
did not believe this, I wanted to know. Al-
so, the village was not divided in a very
rigid way. My father was very devout
Christian but this did not prevent him from
having brothers, cousins, and friends who
where not Christians. There was an inbuilt
sense of accommodation in this system. You
thought the other people were misguided
but you did not really express it in a harsh
way.

You thought of Christianity as some-

thing that was "in" for the future. It was
where you got your education, good job,
etc. Therefore you might become Chris-
tian simply on that score. Not always, but
sometimes. This was a way in which the
traditional religion was undermined. You
saw that the things of Christianity were
the necessities of the future, or so you as-
sumed.

This is how things were for me as a
child. I was very curious about the rituals,
festivals and so forth, but I was only near
enough to see, not to participate.

Baugh: What type of formal education did
you receive?

Achebe: Well, the missionary education
which was widespread in Africa at the
time, was spearheaded by the church. The
colonization of Africa was undertaken by
three groups; the missionaries who led the
way, the traders, and the administration
or government. These were the three arms,
the church, commerce, and the colonial
government. Of these three, the church
took the greatest interest in education.
They set up schools and established a
pattern. Chances were, that if you wanted
an education, you had to get it through
a missionary school.

The norm was the kind of education
you would expect of Victorian England, on
a heavy base of evangelical Christianity.
A rigid training in reading, writing and
arithmetic slanted toward Europe and
not Africa. When you were studying
geography, it was more likely to be that of
Europe rather than that of Nigeria. If it was
history, that history would be Europe's
not Africa's.

There were a number of reasons for
this. One was the attitude that there was
nothing in Africa, no history, no culture
that was worth studying. Another attitude
was that if there was something, it was not
recorded. This would come later, when there
were African scholars "to uncover" African
history. As they did so it began to be inte-
grated into the curriculum. When I was
growing up, there was no African literature.
You read Shakespeare, you read Dickens
but that was all. The few African writers
who existed were not widely known. This
is an area that has changed. In the last
twenty years "African Literature" has
grown enormously and become well known.

What I am trying to say is that there
were two reasons why my education de-

veloped the way it did. First, there was the
prevailing attitude that Africa had nothing
to offer and second, the material on Africa
was not available. The availability was to
come later.

Baugh: How big a part did oral tradition
play in your education?

Achebe: In formal education, not very
much. But traditionally, in the village, the
oral tradition was a major part of your edu-
cation. The good thing about my situation
was in living in the village, I was exposed
to both oral and formal education, although
oral was not comsidered as education at
this time. You saw the festivals, you heard
the stories and the old men talking. You
were exposed to the brilliance of their con-
versation which is an art among non-literate
peoples. You see dancing and hear the
music. All this was done outside the school
and the church, because both places dis-
couraged these types of activities.

Baugh: What do you remember about
colonial rule?

Achebe: That is a very big question, and it
is hard to determine where to begin. As a
child, you are born into a situation and when
you realize what is happening, you are
no longer a child. To begin, as long as I
can remember, there was the presence of
Europe. It was not a situation to be under-
stood but rather accepted. You actually
saw very few white people, but those you
saw were very powerful. There was the in-
spector of schools who might come once in
six months or once in a year. There was
the district officer who came once a
year and took the salute of all the school
children and conducted "Empire Day"
celebrations to commemorate Queen Vic-
toria. This is what you saw and so you as-
sumed this the way things were ordered.

There was really no way of growing up
thinking of an alternative or even a chal-
lenge. It was not until the forties that a
questioning of the system became audible—
the beginnings of African Nationalism.
However, I will use Nigeria as an example
because that is what I know best.

From the end of the second world war
there was a group of people who said, "Wait
a minute. What is this arrangement by which
we are servants in our own country? The
war that was just fought was for democracy
and equality. This is what we were told. How
do we fit into that?"

When Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin

had their conference at MaUa in 1944 or
thereabouts before the United Nations was
formed, a message was set from Nigeria,
asking where we colonial peoples came in,
in all of this. This was spearheaded pri-
marily by Dr. Azikiwe, who had been edu-
cated in America. There were stirrings be-
fore him, but when he returned to Nigeria
in 1937 things began to change. He worked
mostly in journalism, and created a string
of newspapers around the country which
for the first time could really get down to
the ordinary people who could read and
write or listen to others. Slowly the mes-
sage got through even to peasants who
were illiterate. For the first time clerks and
teachers and humble workers became ex-
posed to the argument for nationalism.
Once planted, it spread farther and farther
away from the small professional elite
throughout Nigeria and to the rest of West
Africa. It touched Kwame Nkrumah and
he went off to America under the inspira-
tion of Dr. Azikiwe. From that moment till
independence, it was a question of momen-
tum, of forming and refining weapons of
political action. By 1960, the colonial pow-
ers were ready to leave. It was in these times
of political ferment that I went to primary
and secondary schools and the university.
It was a period of great excitement, be-
tween the second world war and 1960.

Baugh: How was the transition between
colonialist rule and independence made in
Nigeria? Was it a bloody war or a transfer-
ence of the reins of power by declaration?

Achebe: Well, in Nigeria it was a fairly
bloodless handover. There was some vio-
lence, such as miners going on strike and
being shot down, but on the whole the
British, after a long period of turmoil,
seemed to lack the resolution to hang on.
After hundreds of years of holding India
down and a changing attitude around the
world towards colonialism, the British were
ready to acquiesce. It also had something
to do with the Labor Party coming to power
in Great Britain. They had a different at-
titude towards colonialism. Somebody like
Churchill could never understand the idea
of colonial freedom. He said he was not
made prime minister to preside over the
liquidation of Her Majesty's Empire. When
parties changed and Churchill lost power,
the Labor Party looked differently at coloni-
al independence and India gained her free-
dom. Once that was done the idea was
created of independence for non-white parts

of the empire, was always an accepted idea,
ever since the American Revolution,
Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South
Africa. For non-white parts of the empire,
India's independence was crucial, although
it did not mean automatic acceptance of
the notion of African independence.

I remember when I was a student
hearing a British resident say "There's
nothing wrong with the Nationalist
Movement, it reminds me of what happened
in England at the time of King John." Now
that was the twelfth century or thereabouts,
which was the frame of mind and time
scheme that people like him had. Perhaps
in five hundred years we could be like
them!

Kwame Nkrumah came back from
America with a genius for organization.
He organized the Gold Coast very quickly,
very effectively. The Nationalist Movement
proceeded very rapidly throughout the rest
of West Africa.

Baugh: Were there any particular groups
which acted as a vanguard and did they
assume power after the revolution?

Achebe: The vanguard was usually the
worker. Certainly, in Nigeria and Ghana the
worker's movements organized into politi-
cal units which made the situation very dif-
ficult for the colonial regime. But there was
still a certain amount of struggles and dis-
pute. The colonial power did not say, "be-
cause you are challenging our position, we
will hand over to you." They devised sys-
tems to ensure that wherever it was pos-
sible, this power was handed to those of
their choice. This naturally did not mean
the most radical or militant or articulate
people around, but the most conservative.

whenever the colonials departed, they pre-
ferred to hand over to the person who was
the "friendliest" towards them and their
interests.

But they were not always successful.
In Ghana for instance, Nkrumah's organi-
zation was just too effective for them to get
a foothold. What happened there was a
colonialist rear-guard action after inde-
pendence, to topple the new regime.

Baugh: How did these new systems lend
themselves to economic sanctions?

Achebe: In Nigeria and other places where
the colonials were successful in putting
their people in, there was no problem at all
for them in the economic sphere. In some
places where there were large white-owned
plantations, modern farms and industry,
there was only nominal change. Only a
handful of Africans were affected, and the
system continued more or less like before.

It is necessary however, to say that
this was not true of all of Africa. There were
countries which adopted a radical approach
to their economies from the beginning or
soon after. Sekou Toure's Guinea and
Nyerere's Tanzania are good examples.
The situation is thus complex, whenever
you talk about bringing Africa together,
you cannot ignore the structural differences
that exist between such countries and the
others. How do you marry radiculism to
reaction?

Baugh: How have traditional nation-
boundaries such as for Hausa or Ibo peoples
come to light in these developments?

Achebe: This is a crucial question for Africa.
The boundaries that were made in 1884 at
the Conference of Berlin when Europe par-
celed up Africa had no relationship to the
natural or geographic facts of the continent.
They were not concerned with who spoke
what or did what; they were quite arbitrary.
Kinship and family structures were ignored.

In Nigeria where there were three major
ethnic groups— Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba—
and many minor ones the British were fully
aware of the cultural differences which ex-
isted and often used these differences to
their own advantage. For example, in Ni-
geria the British were more content with the
Moslem north than with the peoples of the
south, who were talking about nationalism.
For years under the colonial system, people
who migrated from the south to the north
were forced to live outside the city proper in
what was called "the village of strangers."

This type of activity was encouraged by the
British and consequently created problems
after they left.

Baugh: How did these "created boundaries
affect tribal structure?

Achebe: The first thing I would like to say
is about the word "tribe," which has often
been used to obscure many African insti-
tutions and place their validity in question.
An example would be the Biafran War. The
word tribe— because of its negative and
pejorative connotations— tends to distort
the picture of what happened. Tribesmen
would always fight, it is part of their pre-
logical nature. No need then to attempt to
analyze the political and economic causes.

When the colonials came to Africa they
found nations; not of a few people, but
millions. These nations had cultures, politi-
cal and economic structures already. They
had all the things that a nation would need:
political institutions, religion arts and
crafts, ways to deal with their environment.
They were not the tribes rushing around
throwing spears. However, let me address
your question.

Africans were not taken into account
when these boundaries were drawn up. The
man simply went with the ground on which
he stood. The nations that lived in Nigeria
prior to that had long ago worked out sys-
tems of living side by side. They had policies
and even markets that satisfied their mutual
needs. The new European boundaries served
European, not African, necessities. Afri-
cans were just incidental.

Baugh: Were traditional hierarchies affect-
ed?

Achebe: Yes. When the British came, the
first thing they did was to discover who
the leaders were. They found out who were
the kings, chiefs, sultans, and emirs. Once
these people were identified, they were
either co-opted or eliminated. I must men-
tion that this was only in places where you
had this structure. Some places in Africa
don't have kings or monarchial forms of
government ana it was, as a result, harder
to deal with these people.

For instance, in Eastern Nigeria where
there are Ibo people, the colonialist's had
a great many problems. The Ibo had a
republican form of government, they had
no kings or centralized forms of authority.
Therefore, the British could not pinpoint
any one source to deal with. Unfortunately
what they eventually did was to create

"kings," give them the powers of authority
and rule through them. The policy failed
totally and had to be abandoned after wide-
spread riots in 1929.

In places where there were traditional
kings the British used them as long as they
were obedient. No matter how powerful
they were traditionally, they became sub-
servient to the lowest British district officer.

Baugh: I see a story developing. First, there
are nations of traditional peoples, Ibos
and Yorubas, who had well developed cul-
tural systems. Next comes the colonialist
who, with the aid of power and religion,
divide up and try to eliminate that culture
from existence, for in that culture they see
no validity. And finally, in the present, we
have a kind of independence tempered with
neo-colonialism. My question is what is
the shape of African future?
Achebe: The complexity of the face of
Africa does not lend itself to these types of
generalized questions or definitions.
Realistically, unless you cleanse yourself of
all taints of colonialism, you still have to
have your revolution. You might have a
flag, a president and a national anthem,
but that is not independence. Perhaps
only a first stage. The second is when you
discover your real strength and use it to
establish social order and equality. Some
countries will proceed more slowly than
others, but all must proceed some day.
There are still those who fight these no-
tions, those that do not want this discovery,
but it shall come.

To address a question of a United
States of Africa, again I shall say that
Africa is a very complex continent. Western
forms of unification might not be applicable
owing to this complexity. There are many
things which have to be worked out. The
whole of the United States of America can
be fitted nicely into the Sahara. India can be
fitted into the Congo. Africa is very large.

Baugh: What is the role of the writer and
the intellectual in the future of Africa?
Achebe: I think it is a very central position.
The writer has a very special, very sensi-
tive position. He must be all over, every-
where so that he can see, feel, sense and
speak out. Some of us are doing this. Some-
times we might be critical, but it is our func-
tion to be critical, to question easy and slick
solutions, expose hypocracy and cant, to
take a harsh look at things. Writers as a rule

are not involved in the political squabbling
that takes place, so they can have the dis-
tance and the flexibility of comment. But
that does not mean standing apart. We
are involved directly in the ferment. We
must be close enough to the center to see
and understand. My upbringing was in
the period of initial ferment, it is part of
my life. I am, as a writer, an African writer,
involved, but because of my temperament,
also somewhat detached.

An Egyptian journalist said at the
funeral of President Nasser: "An African
writer must be near enough to see what is
going on and far enough away so that he
can write about what he has seen."

If one seriously looks at America, and
the plight of the African-Americans, one
discovers many parallels with other Third
World struggles around this planet. We to
struggle in the mist of an educational
system which constantly tell us things that
simply are not true about ourselves and
other people. There is an economics which
controls current futures and also political
structures which are oppressive. But every-
body presumably knows this, and it is even
more widely mouthed, although an overview
would see that our progression is coming in
stages. The sad fact that I fear is that these
motions are going into the grain of Ameri-
ca, with possible irreversibility, and this
could never be construed as freedom. It
might be assimilation, but not freedom.

Mr. Achebe spoke of a "second stage"
to African liberation struggles. It would be
after the initial fight, it would be to adjust
yourself to your environment. To examine
your past, before slavery, and see how this
fits in 1974 and beyond. We too in America
must examine our past and see how we
might "fit" in American society. We might
discover that we do not fit at all. We might
discover that we do. This must not be done
solely on a collective level but also on an
individual level. You must know your
mind; who and what you are, and then
decide whether or not you will make it in
America. George Jackson spoke of the
reality of your past in the shaping of you,
of the question 'how might a man reconcile
his future if he has not reconciled his
past?'

African liberation. Black liberation on
the planet Earth will come in stages, not
all of it coming in the first week. We shall
see it in ourselves and the world around.
Unite with yourselves. Peace.

"^iMI

v-K

A B]k/Woman/Speaks

^Sdeep/blk/soil
they have tried to pollute me
with a poison called America,
they have tried to

scorch my roots
with dope

they have tried to
drown my dreams with alcohol
with too many men who spit
their foam on top of my fruit
till it drops

rotten in America's
parks.

but i am deeeeeEEEp
blue/blk/soil

and you can hear the
sound of my walken
as i bring forth green songs
from a seasoned breast
as i burn on our evening bed
of revolution

i, being blk
I woooOOOMAN

know only the way of the womb
for i am deep/red/soil

for our emergen Blk Nation.

Sonia Sanchez

HAIKU

your love was a port

of call where many ships docked

until mornrng came.

1971
Sonia Sanchez

Noted

Black

Women

AN INTERVIEW WITH
MALAIKA HAKIM

By Carolyn Boiling

Q. As a black woman and native of South Africa, what is
the woman's role in the struggle for African Liberation?

A. The South African Woman, like the black woman in
America, has never been at the tail of the Liberation Struggle.
Side by side in 1912, when the first Nationalist Congress on
the Continent was formed, the black woman was the
organizer of the community. In 1960, the Sharpeville
Massacre took place, where black men and scores of women
and children were gunned down. This is demonstrated today
in 1974, bv the presence of South African women in exile
along with their men. Therefore, the role of the black woman
is always in existence. Also, in South Africa, the white man
wanted the manpower of good "Basskap" (good servant), so
he educates men first because they are a necessary source of
energy. As a result, the black woman's potential is never
developed nor recognized at the same pace as her man.
Hence, the black man is not accountable for my being
projected in a negative sense, by the world community.
Furthermore, we can travel back to the history of the Zulu
nation where Nandi's role of a mother, helped to develop and
build her son Shaka, to be the early Pan-Africanist Warrior
in thelSOOs.

Q. Apartheid is a system of government based on racial
discrimination, oppression and exploitation of black South
African peoples. Giving your own personal experiences,
what is Apartheid in reality?

A. Apartheid is a systematic form of government which is
designed to divide and rule the black people internally, in
South Africa. This government has not only divided us as a
nation and people, but has defined us as a scum of the world
community, The South African Government is very
contradictory. It is one of the founding members of the
United Nations. Yet, the government of South Africa does
exactly the opposite of what the United Nations represents
and completely ignores the Declaration of the Bill of Rights.
As a result, still in 1974, the voices of the Third World
Community remain unheard, upon the deaf ear of the
oppressor. I am not impressed by the slow^ painful pace of so-
called change in South Africa. Increased wages,
desegregation of some public facilities, and additional
employment are but pacifers to keep me and my people silent
for a few davs. We have no power where its needed the most,
in our economy. I want the change in the system in totality!!

The Bantu Stands that have been created are no
different from the American Indian reservations that exist
here in the United States. There are no natural resources on
this land, land space is very limited, therefore they are
colonies within a colony, with no economic power for self-
determination and future planning. .-Apartheid is perpetuated
through endless laws that bar the African from meeting with
more than ten people. Freedom of movement is restricted
from one area to another. Laws separate a man from his wife
and family. All political prisoners are sent to an island, and
laws bar an African from obtaining an education within his

own land. An African cannot enter an urban setting unless
he has a pass. He cannot stay there more than 72 hours with-
out a work permit. He cannot establish his residence in an
urban area unless he has lived there since time of birth or has
worked there for an employer continuously for ten vears.

Q. Realizing that a great number of United States corpora-
tions are making substantial profit returns, how does this
affect your attitude towards supporters of the Apartheid
system of government?

A. Money speaks and the capitalists will do anything in their
power to protect their interests over and above all humanity.
There are no limitations and there is little I can do because I
am not in the bargaining arena. The role of the capitalist has
no principles and accountability to the human race.

Q. Should the black woman in South Africa in this time
and history fight for Liberation and engage herself in the
forefront of the Women's Movement?

A. I feel that maintaining black unity within the family
structure and inside the usurper's structure is crucial for the
black family to keep an unshakeable unity in the struggle of
oppression. The reason being, as a black family unit we have
too many enemies and we cannot combat all of them at the
same time, less we lose our major goal. In South Africa, the
black man is oppressed, the black child is oppressed, the
black nation is oppressed, the black continent is oppressed,
hence the BLACK WORLD IS OPPRESSED!! We cannot
afford the luxury of exposing our internal conflicts. If we
have a goal of self-liberation of the whole black world, let's
get liberation and build a new society. A society where vou
will not find any black child, black woman or black man
oppressed because our goal will be one; and that will be the
goal of serving man with his basic needs in life.

Q. Is there a relationship between the struggle of black
people here in the United States and that of South Africa?
A. ^ es. The Black people in the United States and those of
South Africa must learn from their mistakes. Black people
must interpret the game of the man with accountabilih," to
promote the liberation of South Africa, so our struggle is the
same. The downfall of black people in South .Africa will
mean the downfall of the black man woman here in Amerika.

Dovi Afesi is an Assistant Professor of
African History and Political Science in
the W. E. B. DuBois department of Afro-
American studies at the University of
Mass. Amherst, campus. Afesi, who is
from Ghana, did his graduate work at
Michigan State University where he
specialized in international economic
relations, political science and African
history. He teaches courses related to
these fields, and has offered a two
semester course on "Liberation Struggles
in Africa." Dovi is currently researching
the historical relationship between
Africans in America and Afro-
Americans, using Dr. Aggrey as the
central focus.

THE INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF
AFRICAN LIBERATION STRUGGLES

By Dovi Afesi

Were it not for its ultimate importance, we need
not be reminded that the present political subdivisions
of Africa were the direct result of European avarice for
economic abundance and dominance. Mainly in order
to satisfy their needs and egos, Europeans scrambled
for, and partitioned Africa by arbitrarily dividing the
continent into colonies, and thereafter imposed foreign
legal, linguistic, political and cultural domination on
the African people. Thus within the colonial context
we take cognition of the fact that it was Europeans
primarily, who established current national
boundaries, propagated alien although supposedly
universal ideals, and in the process imposed physical,
cultural and ideological imperialism. The
consolidation of colonialism meant not only that
Africans were politically ruled by others, but also that
their world view had to be defined through, and in
congruence with European sensibilities and
peculiarities. In essence, colonialism involved more
than the physical, economic and political control of
Africans, it involved the attempt by Europe to recreate
Africa after its own image.

Here-in lies a crucial dimension to the significance

and thrust of liberation struggles as currently evident
on the continent. African liberation aims at the liber-
ation of the land, the emancipation of the people from
physical-external control and above all, it aims at
wiping out the vestiges of all negative cultural and
ideological impositions. In Africa, furthermore, a
liberation struggle is not total or genuine unless it aims
at the expurgation of all incongrous and incompatible
ideologies and values, foreign or otherwise, and
creating a society which is the embodiment and
reflection of the indigenous value systems of the
African people.

In other words, since colonization involved
physical as well as spiritual/mental bondage, so by
force of logic, decolonization (liberation) must mean
not only the exercise of self-determination by Afri-
cans but also the exorcising out of Africa all elements
of the "colonial mentality," all exploitative and op-
pressive systems and mechanisms of domination. As
the revolutionary Chinese have demonstrated, genu-
ine liberation requires the translation of political
power and freedom into economic, cultural as well
as ideological power. A people alone must control

the totality of their destiny through a substantial
control of their politics, materials and human re-
sources; the people, (and not foreign powers) alone
must determine the direction and content of their
socio- "spirimental" (spirit/mental) life.

Defined in such a way, it becomes obvious that
Africa as a whole remains fundamentally a non-
liberated continent. For, basically not even the so-
called independent states (much less the non-inde-
pendent ones) have muscled the capacity to control and
direct their destinies. While we recognize that the
independent nations achieved the laudable feat of
booting colonialism in the derriere, it is also true they
merely succeeded in mid-wifing the birth of neo-
colonialism. Therefore, although nominally
independent, the wealth of these nations continue to
grease the avaricious machinary of western cap-
italism. The basic fact of the situation then is that
despite independence, the economic relationships
between the African nations and their former colonial
masters— a relationship which was based on ex-
ploitation—economic as well as ideological— remains
shockingly unchanged. If the colonial relationship was
based on a calculated and massive transfer of African
resources to sustain western economies and fatten
European stomachs, and if in spite of independence
the same relationship prevails, then it follows that
Africans, under the anaesthetic effects of national
anthems and national flags, continue to feed the
glutinous mouths of western society, while they
themselves eat less that what comes out of you and I
after a good meal!

In reality then, independent Africa has just about
failed to redress the control factor responsible for the
continents servitude: the unbridled exploitation of
her resources for the benefit of others; made possible
by among other things, control of our minds. Thus
despite tremendous amounts of resources, Africa
continues to be relatively poor, for like a Jonah, the
resources have been "full-stomachly" swallowed by
corporate and capitalist industrialism and neo-
colonialism (It is intriguing to wonder how Jonah,
while in the whale's stomach, convinced the monster to
eject him . . . did he pinch it, tickle it, or perhaps
something as drastic as pissing in it?!!).

While these conditions are bad enough, it gets
worse in Southern Africa, an area almost the size of
U.S. Here we cannot even speak of nominal
independence, for these countries are still in the jaws of
rank colonialism and setder white minority rule. In
these countries (Angola, Mozambique, South Africa,
South West Africa and Rhodesia) where Africans are
faced with unyielding colonialism, white supremacist
minority rule, genocidal policies and practices, they
have no alternative but to engage in armed

revolutionary struggle. It is appropriate that it is these
countries that we most often associate with liberation
struggles, but it is apparent that while not involved in
actual armed struggle, the rest of the continent is also
faced with the necessity to forge revolutionary
doctrines by which to transform psuedo-independence
into genuine liberation and freedom. From this point of
view we are arguing that the concept of liberation is
pertinent to the whole continent. The difference
between the non-independent and independent
sectors is a matter of degree, not kind: revolutionary
armed struggle in one and revolutionary ideological
struggle in the other. The desired goal of course, being
the ultimate liberation of the whole continent from all
forms of oppression, suppression and exploitation.

But liberation in Africa faces formidable oppo-
sition from the forces and vested interests of western
monopoly capitalism, imperialism and neo-colonial-
ism. The most salient feature of this western opposi-
tion is the fact that it is international in nature. In 1885,
the countries of Western Europe, with the stroke of an
international conference, agreed among themselves to
take over and rule Africa. In the 1960's these same
European nations, plus the U.S. have tacitly agreed
that by any means necessary, they must keep Africa
servile, so she can continue to be the source of cheap
material and human resources. The primary motive
factor behind this unholy alliance is economic, for
Europe particularly and the U.S. to a lesser extent,
directly depend on Africa for the survival of their
economic and thus political systems.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry assumes that Africa
is "poor." Yet the industrial, financial and political
elites know that's only half the truth, and that Africa is
"poor" only because her multiple resources have been
and continue to be used for the development of Europe
and U.S. In fact the Presidents of Chase Manhattan,
IBM, GM, Gulf, BP, Firestone etc. etc.; the Kaisers, the
Rockerfellers, the Fords etc. etc. know, they know the
truth— that Africa is super rich. The governments and
corporate giants of Europe and the U.S. (but not the
Tom, Dick and Harry's) know the actual and po-
tential wealth of Africa. They know that agricultural-
ly, Nigeria is the largest producer of palm oil, that
Ghana ranks first in the world in cocoa production,
that coffee, tea etc. grow abundantly in both East and
West Africa. They know that Senegal and Nigeria
together produce more peanuts than any other
country, that Malagasy provides the western world
with half the worlds supply of vanilla. Firestone and
Goodyear certainly know the value of their rubber
plantations in Liberia. The textile industries in Brit-
ain know that their wool comes from South Africa,
that Egypt and the Sudan are major suppliers of
cotton. Team Ghana with Gabon and Chad and you

have a veritable source of tropical hard woods. From
the Portuguese controlled colonies of Mozambique
and Angola flow sugar cane, more coffee, cashew
nuts and you name it.

And how about below the African soil? Is Africa
really poor, when it contains as much as twice the iron
reserves of the U.S. Is Africa poor when its coal
reserves have been estimated to be enough to last
another three hundred years. And does Africa not
have 40 per cent of the world's potential hydroelectric
power? Our colonizers and neo-colonizers know that
despite hundreds of years of being exploited, Africa's
mineral deposits remain so huge that the continent is a
virtual store house for decades and even centuries to
come. Africa is currently the world's leading source of
uranium and other fissionable raw materials. Just this
year new deposits estimated at 25 billion dollars have
been discovered in tiny Burundi. Africa produces
more than 90 percent of all the diamonds in the world.
{You don't have a wedding ring on your finger do
you?). South Africa, Ghana and Rhodesia produce al-
most two-thirds of all the gold in the world (but don't
ask whether Fort Knox is in Africa!). The African
"copper belt" accounts for one quarter of the world's
copper. Manganese and Bauxite are abundant in
Ghana and Guinea. Chromium, cobalt, zinc, tin and
asbestos, to name just a few, are also found in large
quantities. Africa, South of the Sahara, used to be
thought to be dificient in oil. But ask Gulf about what
it is doing with its 150 million dollar investment in
Angola! And within the last ten years, has Nigeria not
become one of the top ten countries in oil production?

And what has all these got to do with liberation
struggles? Everything! To test this, read the resources
over again and ask; but why isn't Africa "developed"
rich, powerful? Ask yourself who eats all of Ghana's
cocoa, who eats and drinks Africa's coffee, tea,
peanuts and cashew nuts? Who uses all that rubber
which is produced with so much cheap labor in
Liberia? How about all that gold and diamonds and
copper and what not . . . isn't that a whole lot of
money, wealth? To this last question we say certainly,
the resources represent a lot of wealth, but it is wealth
for those who control and not those who are
controlled.

Who depends on these resources and therefore
has need to, and interest in control and manipulation?
Certainly the Peoples Republic of China has not
depended on nor controls African resources. Eastern
European countries and the Soviet Union have not
been in the habit of feasting on them either. That
leaves Western Europe and the United States. But it is
Western Europe, the former colonial master who is
particularly dependent on Africa, and thus has the
greatest reasons for maintaining control. Clearly, while

their major industries may not grind to a halt, there's
no doubt that without African resources, European
industries will resemble a replay of a sports action in
s-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n! This is clearly evident from the
following data, which suggests the extent of Western
Europe's dependence on African raw material
resources:

Britain

30% (of all her) iron ore

45% (of all her) copper

45% (of all her) bauxite

50% (of all her) chrome ore

70% (of all her) asbestos

80% (of all her) cobalt

80% (of all her) manganese

90% (of all her) antimony

France

30% (of all her) cotton

40% (of all her) iron ore

50% (of all her) zinc

85% (of all her) lead

100% (of all her) phosphates

Germany

10% (of all her) iron ore

20% (of all her) manganese

25% (of all her) chrome

71% (of all her) phosphates
That these countries heavily depend on and exploit
Africa is self evident. The case of Portugal is even more
blatant. This, the most backward and anachronistic
European power is completely depended on Angola,
Mozambique and Guinea Bissau for the daily survival
of her people. Is it any wonder that her fascist leaders
would rather commit murder and genocide on Africans
than risk stravation by giving independence?

While the United States has not been a colonial
power in Africa, she did reap economic benefits—
initially in the form of African manpower. (Ed. note:
Hence, the Afro- American slave experience) Today the
American expansion into Africa is more elaborate. For
a rapidly increasing number of American industries,
Africa has become an investors heaven. In the
independent nations, but primarily in the non-
independent states, Hilton hotels and Holiday Inns
rise up faster than spring flowers. American giant
corporations; Ford, GM, Boeing, Gulf, Mobil, Texaco,
IBM, Kodak, Polaroid, Du Pont and 390 others are
breaking profit records as fast as they set them by
doing business in Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia
and South Africa.

From the continent as a whole, America exploits
numerous important raw materials for industry and
the consumer table. Millions of American kids have
made the chocolate bar into an American institution,
yet hardly anybody knows that it is the African farmer

who toils and sweats to produce the cocoa. "The real
thing" and the "Pepsi generation" soft drinks may
use cola extracted from West African cola nuts. The
"don't you wish you use . . . type soaps" may come
from African coconut oils. Coffee, another American
institution, partially comes from Africa.

Certainly American industry and technology have
produced some of the fastest and best jets, missiles
and the lunar modules that went to the moon. But
jet engines and missiles and lunar modules cannot be
built without high grade chrome— from Africa!
Housewifes as well as bachelors cook with pots and
pans made from West African aluminum. The list
goes on, but (to mention a not so pleasant one) the
first atomic bombs made by the U.S. could not have
been manufactured except for the rich uranium
from the Congo.
Collective Imperialism

The essential objective of colonialism and neo-
colonialism is exploitation. But such exploitation
cannot exist when a people are liberated; that is in
control of their destinies. With regards to Africa, this
explains why western capitalist economies are united
in their opposition to liberation, and why they support
the racist 5 million whites who suppress 40 million
Africans in Southern Africa. It is clear why the
governments of the U.K. and U.S.A. consistently
protect and defend South Africa in the U.N. It is clear
why "corporate- America" is encouraged by
"government-America" to invest one billion dollars in
South Africa annually.

The unholy alliance of Western Europe, America
and white settler colonialists cannot afford to allow
liberation movements to succeed anywhere on the
continent. It believes in the domino theory. Thus,
although it is Portugal which is fighting in Angola,
Mozambique and Guinea, the 120,000 Portuguese
soldiers on the African soil are supported by these
practitioners of collective imperialism. The bombs and
the planes which carry them, the naplam that burns
Africans, the machine guns and hand grenades which
suddenly explode an African life into bloody
death— these and all the war machinery come from the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which
the U.S. dominates.

After America had learned how to fight guerilla
war in Vietnam, American soldiers transferred their
"know how" to the Portuguese, who in turn killed
Africans. Unable to shoulder the cost of the expensive
war, fascist Portugal turned to Law and Order Nixon,
who by executive act in 1972 made more than 400
million dollars available to the Portuguese. When Ian
Smith and his racist followers defied Britain, the
British failed to flex their military muscle against kin
and kith, but did not hesitate to send the royal navy
into action against Blacks on a tiny Carribean island

that wanted independence. Despite all the
moralization, British pounds and American dollars— in
the billions— constitute the backbone of the South
African economy, a country whose political leader
declares that "Africans can NEVER claim political
rights." To further emphasize he added, "Not now,
not in the future, under no circumstances can we grant
them those political rights— neither now nor ever!"
Finally is it not ironic and revealing, that while the U.S.
is sending her Peace Corps to our villages, her bombs
and guns and planes give war and death to our people.

It is clear that those who covet our resources could
not have our best interests at heart. This simply
implies that Africans must recognize the international
nature of the enemy and act accordingly. The fact is
that Angola is not fighting Portugal, Angola is fighting
a system. It is not just the South African white who is
responsible for the dehumanization of the African— he
is only part of a larger system. In reality, when that
African guerilla fighter faces the Portuguese soldier's
gun and sees death, he is in fact facing the collective
spirit of the West. Africans then must also begin to
respond to oppression and exploitation on a collec-
tive level. In other words for the liberation struggle
to be successful, it must be Pan-Africanized. Since
neo-colonialist control depends on the use of balkan-
izing intriques to create numerous but weak political
states; liberation, organized on a Pan-African basis,
must possess vital ingredients— unity and self-reli-
ance—which are the most potent antidotes to imperi-
alist aggression and exploitation.

Finally, outside of the African continent, the
Black diaspora must realize that we suffer similar fates
of oppression primarily because we are an African
people. Except for differences in time, Cabral,
Mondlane and Lumumba suffered identical fates as
Hampton, King and Malcolm X. Though thousands of
miles apart, each of these people died in the struggle
for the liberation of the Black man. But we do more
than just suffer together. We have a natural duty to
struggle together, to emote together, to demonstrate
strong mutual concern. Certainly men like Garvey and
Du Bois have contributed far more to Africa than
many of her own sons and daughters. In return men
like Malcolm X, and emotions like Black pride— afro's
and all— drew some of their inspiration from the
Mother Land.

In response to the international nature of the op-
pressor system— African's, no matter where, must
adopt a united and collective stand. Africans and Afro-
Americans especially, must strive to achieve that kind
of political— cultural bond that will enhance our
capacity to concretize mutually collaborative
supportive programs and ideas— towards the final
liberation of our people. ■.-,. ■, -,1 ,.

Ujamaa na Uhuru!!

NOISES

anticipating the arrival of noises

of clashing sounds,
which describing themselves
of us -
to sit in suppression

and forces them to look into our eyes
once again-beating
beating our only issues

too death-early grave,
the only clean and decent burial,

excepting itself-while presenting us
the mess-that bus intervenes;
transporting our means

subverting our extremes -
sitting preaching to us the snakes,
moving within the westerly direction

baking out deaths with infection,
to contaminate our only issues -

too blown dead tissues,
anticipating the arrival of noises
of clashing-

the screams,
the nightmares of lost blackened dreams,
i hope the deaf, dumb, and blind
will not seize the time
the nile

is long overdue, overdue

overdue-due-due-due
to
drown
our blues.

Clyde Santana

OBSERVATION

and what of the old bearded man collecting bottles

who pulls a burlap bag behind?

if we speak of love,

what of his black body arched over the city

opening the scales of strangers

carrying the dirt of corners to his hunched corner?

if we know of love

we rest;

while the world moves wrenched by collection.

Sonia Sanchez
1968

N -.

--.-'^

W"^^

.t^^^.

CAN YOU HEAR DISTANT DRUMS

Can you hear distant drun\s

talking drums

connin' fast

saying the new world

a rebirth of the past

talking drums

comin' fast

comin' strong
comin' on.

But where are the new idols

Fashioned of recycled clay

reconstituted Negroes

leftovers from our sit in days.

Where lie the humble dwellings

In high rise coops or tenement slums

Where polluted city haze

Greet each successive rebirth of the sun.

Summer days in the park

partyin' from noon to dark

Drinkin' Bali Hai Wine

Smoking that dope

and runnin' some jive.

Dancing in the street

to sultry beats

tappin' feet on the street
summer heat and concrete
tappin' feet on the street
summer heat, congas beat
summer heat, congas beat.

Can you hear distant drums

talking drums

coming fast

saying the new world

is a rebirth of the past

talking drums

coming strong

coming fast

coming on.

Makeda

Africa and the Black Diaspora

By Nana Kobina Nketsia IV

Nana Kobina Nketsia IV is a chief of the Essikadu, from Ghana. He was chairman of the board of directors
of the Ghanaian Film corporation. During the regime of Kwame Nkrumah, he served as Director of the
Ghanaian Institute of Art and Culture, and as Ambassador-at-Large for dealing with questions concerning
African unity. He has academic degrees from Oxford University. He is currently a Professor of African studies
and Anthropology at Hampshire College, and an adjunct professor of African culture in the W.E.B. Du Bois De-
partment of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The following thesis: AFRICA AND THE BLACK DIASPORA, gives us some of Chief Nana's views on
the history and present fate of Africa and the Black Diaspora.* Michael Patterson

In my last paper of the Third Annual Du Bois
Lecture Series I called attention very briefly to the
ideas of the Ghanaian Pan-Africanist leader Casely-
Hayford concerning the nature of the inevitable and
necessary cooperation between Blacks of the diaspora
and those at home in Africa for the future of the
race. These ideas were set out especially in his book
called Ethiopia Un-bound. The overall title of the
Series was "Europe in Africa: the Ghanaian Experi-
ence" and I dealt particularly with the very long and
disastrous period of slavery and the relatively short
one of Colonialism during which the British Govern-
ment and European Christian missionaries actively
superimposed European life and ideas and espe-
cially their "peculiar conception" of God which
still remains and continues to plague us.

The point of this paper, however, is to give you
some idea what Africans have, since the 18th cen-
tury, thought and done about their Brothers and Sis-
ters in the New World. In 1787 the Ghanaian,
Ottobah Cugoano pubhshed his "THOUGHTS
AND SENTIMENTS ON THE WICKED TRAFFIC
OF THE SLAVERY AND COMMERCE OF THE
HUMAN SPECIES," in London, in which he con-
demned outright the hypocrisy and wickedness and
insensibility of Christian Europe and offered some
suggestions for the abolition of slavery and slave
trade and the education and rehabilitation of the
black bondage. And he believed and trusted in God
to bring about these reforms, for as he said,

"And whereas we consider our case before God
of the whole universe, the Gracious Father and
Savior of men; we will look unto him for help and
deliverance. The cry of our affliction is already
gone up before him, and he will hearken to the
voice of our distress; for he hears the cries and
groans of the oppressed, and professes that if they
cry at all unto him, he will hearken unto them, and
deliver them."
Cugoanu was a great Christian and very truly be-
lieved in God, and had no doubts that Slavery was
transgression against the laws of God and for which
the white Christian world should regret and sincerely
repent and for which he said, "every one that dwelleth
in the land ought to mourn and sigh for all the abom-
inations done therein, and for the great wickedness
carried on thereby." But furthermore and more im-'
portantly, he believed that there was purpose in
whatever God did, and could therefore perceive

*"Black diaspora" refers to the dispersion of a people from their
homeland. The word was originally used in referring to the
bondage forced upon the Children of Israel. The Black diaspora
refers to the dispersion of the Children of Africa during slavery,
to various parts of the western hemisphere.

blessings coming out of the curse of slavery, "and
that many beneficent purposes might speedily arise
and flow from it, and be more readily promoted "but
this was impossible until and unless Europe went
into sack-cloth and ashes and sought divine guid-
ance; and as a first step he opined:

"I would propose, that there ought to be days of
mourning and fasting appointed, to make enquiry
into that great and pre-eminent evil for many
years past carried on against the Heathen nations
(and here he included the Indians in this country)
and the horrible iniquity of making merchandise of
us, and cruelly enslaving the poor Africans: and
that you might seek grace and repentance, and find
mercy and forgiveness before God Omnipotent;
and that he may give you wisdom and understand-
ing to devise what ought to be done."

Secondly he would propose that a total aboli-
tion of slavery should be made and proclaimed; and
that universal emancipation of slaves should begin
from the date thereof and in the following manner in
his own words,

"And if such a proclamation be found advisable
by the British legislature, let them publish it, and
cause it to be published, throughout all the British
Empire, to hinder and prohibit all men under their
government to traffic either in buying or selling
men; and to prevent it, a penalty might be made
against it of one thousand pounds, for every man
either to buy or sell another man. And that it
should require all slave-holders, upon the imme-
diate information thereof, to mitigate the labour of
their slaves to that of lawful servitude, without
torture or oppression; and that they should not
hinder but cause and procure some suitable means
of instruction for them in the knowledge of the
Christian religion."
But beyond the acquisition of the knowledge of the
Christian religion the slaves should be taught agri-
culture and technology to equip them for their future
life in the colonies and also,

"it might be another duty for Christians, if in the
course of that time, to make inquiry concerning
some of their friends and relations in Africa: and if
they found any intelligent persons amongst them,
to give them as good education as they could; and
find out a way of recourse to their friends; and as
soon as they had made any progress in useful
learning and the knowledge of the Christian reli-
gion, they might be sent back to Africa, to be made
useful there as soon, and as many of them as could
be made fit for instructing others."
Now turning to Africa itself, Cugoano proposed that
a fleet of war ships be sent especially to the slave coast

to prevent further transportation of slaves to the
New World. Britain should set an example in this for
all other Christian countries to follow. And he
particularly emphasized that "The Dutch have some
crocodile settlers at the Cape, that should be called to
a particular account for their murders and inhuman
barbarities." Instead of enslaving the African,
Britons should educate them to develop themselves
and their land, for if

"they would take compassion on the inhabitants
of the coast of Guinea, and to make use of means
as would be needful to enlighten their minds in the
knowledge of Christianity, their virtue, in this
respect, would have its own reward. And as the
Africans became refined and established in light
and knowledge, they would imitate their noble
British friends, to improve their lands, and make
use of that industry as the nature of their country
might require, and to supply those that would
trade with them, with such productions as the na-
ture of their climate would produce.

I must point out that Cugoano insisted on Chris-
tianity and Civilization only as a means of fulfilling
and not destroying the African Personality. He had
lived in Europe and particularly in London too long
to appreciate the baneful effect of a wholesale adop-
tion of European institutions in Africa. He appre-
ciated the values of African family life of coopera-
tion. He maintained that "Liberty and freedom,
where people may starve for want, can do them little
good. We want many rules of civilization in Africa;
but in many respects, we may boast of more essen-
tial liberties than any of the civilized nations in
Europe enjoy; for the poorest amongst us are never
in distress or want, unless some general and universal
calamity happens to us." Again it greatly amazed
and infuriated him to think that with baptism Africans
in the New World should lose their names, and once
again he stoutly maintained "no name, whether
Christian or Pagan, has anything to do with bap-
tism; if the requisite qualities of knowledge and faith
be found in a man, he may be baptized let his name be
what it will. And Christianity does not require that
we should be deprived of our own personal name, or
the name of our ancestors." He of course maintained
the necessity of diffusing Christian knowledge
among Africans, but this must be done by rational
methods by wise and pious men the scriptures hav-
ing been duly and necessarily translated into African
languages. What by all means should be avoided
were "the many Anti-christian errors which had
gone abroad into the world, and all the popish super-
stition and nonsense, and the very assimilations unto
it." The Africans should be given the substance and
not the external trappings. They, the Africans,

"do not need any unscriptural forms and cere-
monies to be taught to them; they can devise super-
stitions enough among themselves, and church
government too, if ever they need any."

I have stated these ideas of Cugoano at some
length because in essence they sum up what all rea-
sonable and well-meaning people both Black and
White since then have advocated; that slavery was in-
human and should be abolished; that steps be taken
before abolition to educate the slave and make him a
useful citizen where he was; that emancipated and
educated in religion and the mechanical arts he
should be made to share these gains and blessings
with his benighted people in Africa that he could

not reunite with his own people if he was christian-
ized and educated out of his culture, himself and an-
cestral roots; that as a Christian he should still bear
his own name and not classical names such as Cassius
and Ptolomy and Alexis.

Ottobah wrote nearly two centuries ago but he
has since been very closely followed by a number of
his countrymen in these ideas. Early this century
Chief Sam from the Gold Coast thought out and
boldly attempted a plan to send back to Africa several
hundreds of Black Americans which was foiled by
the British Colonial Government of the Gold Coast,
and the first batch consequently suffered great priva-
tion. And as many of you already know it was Chief
Sam who employed Marcus Garvey in his London
office and whose ideas influenced the young Garvey
to greater ideas and far greater deeds later.

Missionaries of the colonial period of course
never heeded ideas such as Cugoano's about bap-
tism, the changing of names and the introduction of
the external trappings that might harm African peo-
ple. Both the French policy of Assimilation and the
British Indirect Rule did the same thing— the deper-
sonalization of the African. In the Gold Coast it was
apparent in the 1870s that the combined operation of
British jurisdiction. Christian evangelization and
legitimate commerce had produced the European ideal
of a Ghanaian who was actively appropriating some
of the material culture and institutions of civilized
life and which behaviour the Supreme Court Ord-
inance of 1876 was drawn up to clinch and acceler-
ate. For if any person chose English Law in his re-
lationship with another, actually or by construc-
tion, then he excluded the operation of native African
law. Section 19 underlined,

"No party shall be entitled to claim the benefit of
any local law or custom, if it shall appear either
from express contract or from the nature of the
transactions out of which any suit or question may
have arisen, that such party agreed that his obli-
gations in connection with such transactions
should be regulated exclusively by English law."
The authors in the Colonial Office in London of the
Ordinance were Sir Julian Paohcefotte and Mr. Fair-
field, and in a minute in the Colonial Office records,
the latter drew a distinction between "mere Natives
who have adopted the usages of civilized and chris-
tian life" and declared,

"If a Native is an educated man, living in a town,
carrying on trade and married to one wife by a
Christian minister, it would be absurd to deal with
him otherwise than under civilized man."

In the mid 19C. much harm had been done to
make Ghanaian leaders seriously ponder about rem-
edies, and among the many thinkers, writers and
political leaders of the period only Casely-Hayford's
ideas go beyond the seas along the middle passage
to his Brothers and Sisters in the New World. But be-
fore that he seriously questions the missionaries:

"Why, for example, would not the native convert
sing his native airs in Church? Why should he not
attune his horns, his adziwa, his gomey, or for
that matter, his adankum, to the praise of God,
much as the Israelites of old praised Jehovah upon
the cymbal and the harp? Again why should not
the native be invited to church by the call of the big
drum. . . Why in the name of reason and common
sense, should not the native bear his own name and
wear his own garments? .... There will never be

anything like genuine Christianity on the Gold
Coast . . . till the missionaries have begun from the
beginning to build up a national Church on scien-
tific lines— a Church wherein the Spirit of Christ
will be all in all, and the 'letter' a dead thing."
In his book Ethiopia Unbound Hayford considers
among other things Race Emancipation— General
Considerations under which he discusses the con-
tributions to the race by Dr. Edward Blyden, and Race
Emancipation— Particular Considerations: under
which he discusses African Nationality. Under the
former he compares the works of Dr. Du Bois and
Booker T. Washington with that of Blyden and
writes, that while the two were promoting the materi-
al and social advancement of particular branches or
sections of the Black Race, Blyden "had sought for
more than a quarter of a century to reveal everywhere
the African himself; to fix his attention upon origin-
al ideas and conceptions as to his place in the econ-
omy of the world; to point out to him his work as a
race among races of men; lastly, and most important
of all, to lead him back unto self-respect." He did not
say that to minimize the work and contributions of
Du Bois and Washington, but it was to underline the
singular contribution of Blyden in delineating the
particularly rich soul of the Black man at home and
abroad. And I must say that the extraordinary con-
tribution, for that matter, of the African from the
New World has been to represent and emphasize the
uniqueness of the entire race and not any particular
tribes or sections of it. Thus, George Padmore, Dr.
Du Bois, Fanon and Blyden will always draw together
all sections of Africa and other parts of the Black
World. Now in discussing African Nationality Hay-
ford in fact gives the entire chapter to Afro-America.
And as far as he was concerned there are no Afro-
Americans as such, for he contends:

"Looking at the matter closely, it is not so much
Afro-Americans that we want as Africans or
Ethiopians, sojourning in a strange land, who, out
of a full heart and a full knowledge can say: If I
forget thee, Ethiopia, let my right hand forget its
cunning."
And he had no doubts that in spite of the fact that
the Black American had unfortunately but inevitably
lost his language and other national characteristics
he is still black spiritually which was all that mat-
tered. He argues:

"Now, if the soul that is in the Ethiopian, even in
the United States, remains Ethiopian, which it
does; to judge from the coon songs which have en-

riched the sentiment of mankind by their pathos,
then I say the forgoing words, true as everyone
must admit they are, points distinctly to the im-
possibility of departing from nature's way with
any hope of lasting good to African nationality."
To Casely-Hayford both the Africans at home and
those abroad need both science and technology as
well as African culture, history and heritage. And it
was for Africans to give back the latter to their
brothers in the New World while they must expect to
be taught science and technology by their brothers
in the New World. He says:

"There are probably but a few men of African
descent in America who, if they took the trouble
by dipping into family tradition, would not be able
to trace their connection and relationship with one
or the other of the great tribes of West Africa; and
now that careful enquiry has shown that the in-
stitutions of the Aborigines of Africa are capable
of scientific handling, what would be easier than
for the great centers of culture and learning in the
hands of Africans in the United States to found
professorships in this relation? In order of Provi-
dence, some of our brethren aforetime were suf-
fered to be enslaved in America for a wise purpose.
That event in the history of the race has made it
possible for the speedier dissemination and adop-
tion of the better part of Western culture; and
Lady Africa's sons in the East and in the West can
do peculiar service unto one another in the com-
mon cause of uplifting Ethiopia and placing her
upon her feet among the nations. The East, for
example, can take lessons from the West in the
adoption of a sound educational policy, the kind of
industrial and technical training which would en-
able aboriginals to make the best use of their lands
and natural resources. And, surely, the West
ought not to be averse to taking hints from the
East as regards to the preservation of national in-
stitutions, and to adopt distinctive garbs and
names. . . . "
And lastly Hayford saw the cardinal place that
language occupied in this programme:

"I should like to see, he said, Ethiopian Leagues
formed throughout the United States much in the
same way as the Gaelic League in Ireland for the
purpose of studying and employing Fanti, Yourba,
Hausa, or other standard African languages, in
daily use. The idea may seem extraordinary on the
first view, but if you are inclined to regard it thus,
I can only point to the examples of Ireland and
Denmark, who have found the vehicle of a nation-
al conservancy and evolution. If the Danes and
Irish find it expedient in Europe, surely the matter
is worthy of consideration by the Ethiopian in the
United States, in Sierra Leone, in the West Indies
and Liberia. "

Hayford wrote this in 1911, and it was after
some thirty-seven years that Herskovitz started the
pioneer African Studies Programme in this country
at Northwestern, followed by Boston University five
years after, and by U.C.L.A. in Los Angeles eleven
years after. It is said that

"Professor Herskovitzs' concern for African
studies had both academic and practical motives.
He believed that American social scientists did not
take sufficient account of cultural differences; that
generally accepted and social theories were chiefly
applicable, in fact, only to Western experience; and

that many social sciences were thus 'culture bound.'
He was also concerned that so few Americans
possessed any comprehensive knowledge of
Africa— indeed it was sometimes said in the 1940's
that the few African experts in the United States
could hold a convention in a telephone booth."
Professor Herskovitz died in 1963. In 1968 there
were some forty college and university programmes
dealing with African Studies. And now with the in-
stitution of Black Studies Programmes on almost
every Campus in the country there is a tremendous
dissemination of knowledge of Africa going on. And
Casely-Hayford must be really happy in his grave
because all the languages he recommended and much
much more are being taught, and mostly to Black
students in these institutions. And I am convinced
that the Black students who are studying these
languages have more than mere academic interest in
their pursuit. There is a movement of mind and a
great deal of diffusion at the moment in the black
world; more and more of our brothers and sisters
are every summer visiting their motherland, some
bearing African names and speaking these languages
and much sympathy and concern is being generated
over underdevelopment and the issues in South
Africa, and Angola and Rhodesia and the poverty
and famine and political instability.

But this identity and concern to do something,
however little, has always been there. Indeed when
Ottobah Cugoano was writing these ideas above in
1787, free Blacks because of racial prejudice in the
white-dominated churches, were establishing their
own churches which they labelled African. In the
same year appeared also because of their traditional
communalism in the face of discrimination and un-
certainty, the first mutual benefit societies— the Free
African Societies of Philadelphia and Newport. Not
only did they care about needy members and the
wives and children of deceased members (just as
many African Trade Unions and Mutual Benefit
societies still do) but much concern of both these
churches and societies was in connection with the de-
praved and terrible state of African society and its
woeful state of underdevelopment. And it was in
this spirit that Daniel Coker the founder of the
African Methodist church of Baltimore declined to
accept the position of first Bishop and go to Sierra
Leone as a Missionary; and he wrote back in 1820,
"My soul cleaves to Africa."

The first person who seriously urged Blacks to
go to Africa and help was Paul Cuffee (whose father
must have been Fanti, Akan or Ashanti) of Westport
in Massachusetts. He was a shipowner and a mer-
chant, and in order (as he saw it in his day) to civilize
and christianize Africans in Sierra Leone, he took 38
blacks there in 1814 at his own expense. The African
Institution of Boston was obviously also very much
concerned, and they sent in 1812 a letter to Paul
Cuffee expressing their desire "most cheerfully to
sacrifice ease and many other privileges and com-
fort, for the purpose of diffusing light and civiliza-
tion and knowledge in Africa." From the West
Indies and Brazil also, many people went to West
Africa as lawyers, doctors, missionaries, locomotive
engine drivers and educators. And the descendants
of many of them are still providing very useful
service to their communities. Names in Ghana which
readily come to mind are the Christians, Abensetts,
the Clarks; and the most memorable educator was

Master Briton, the Jamaican.

I think, however, that one Black American Enter-
prise in Ghana must have greatly convinced Casely-
Hayford of the Tightness of this appeal to our
brothers here for technical help. And this was the
AFRICAN UNION CO, (INC.) Builders and Con-
tractors, Engineers, Furniture Manufacturers,
Produce Merchants, etc. The African Union was an
association of prominent and most highly esteemed
Black citizens of the United States, by whom it was
started in 1914 three years after Hayford had pub-
lished his Ethiopia Unbound. The President was
Mr. Charles W. Chapelle who was born in Georgia
in 1872, the son of a Methodist preacher. The Vice-
President was Mr. W. R. Pettiford of Birmingham,
Alabama, and at the time President of the Negro Na-
tional Bankers' Association. The Secretary was Mr.
J. L. Jones of Cincinatti, Ohio then President of the
Central Regalia Co.; and among other members were
the Hon. R. R. Jackson, then Major-General of the
Uniform Ranks of the Knight of Pithias, and Hon.
Emmett J. Scott of Tuskegee Institute Ex-Secretary
to the United States Secretary for War, then Secre-
tary and Treasurer of Howard University.

Of the objectives of the Company the Red Book
of West Africa writes in 1923, "This undertaking is,
apart from its success as a first rate business organi-
zation, thoroughly deserving of every encomium
because of the altruistic principles upon which it was
founded, and which are the motive force of its activi-
ties." It goes on to say that company was founded
"for the training of young men of West Africa in
mechanical trades and commerce, as well as for their
spiritual welfare. And the scope of the company's
operations from Sekondi along the Railway to
Coomassie demonstrates the efficiency with which
the business is conducted, and the highly satisfac-
tory results which are attending it as an important
educational factor." In Sekondi alone where Mr.
Hayford was practicing law at the time, the company
employed some two hundred and thirty people at
their establishment in Chapel Street which was
equipped well with machinery and other appliances
for the rich variety of operations there. I recently in-
terviewed Mr. Chappelle's own driver who told
much about the work done there and who learned
three trades under his master. Some of the most
beautiful and solid buildings in Sekondi were con-
structed by the company; and these include the
Barclays Bank and the residence of the late Hon.
J. G. Christian. The Company also cultivated sugar
cane and citrus plantations. Engineer Chappelle
was a great asset and influence in Ghana.

So far, so good. On the whole, however, there
are still several more reasons and areas which
must be pondered and covered to make effective dif-
fusion possible and rewarding. There is first of all
the historical connection and the presence of the
African in the New World and the survival and the
influence of his culture there. There is then the colo-
nial period and experience, and the post-colonial
struggle to build viable and stable states. But even
before then there is the aweful period of the Slave
Trade in Africa and Slavery in the New World, and
my experience as a student in Africa and as a teacher
here is that Africans are mostly unaware of the awe-
ful depersonalization of their brothers in the New
World, and most American Blacks do not know the
full effect of the Slave Trade on African society and

the African character. And there is also the situation
in which many or all these countries find themselves
where they have to develop a multi-tribal or multi-
racial and multi-cultural peoples into single har-
monious nations. Then of course there is that ab-
solutely important problem of the conquest of or
adjustment to the tropical or semi-tropical environ-
ment where the problems of tropical diseases, tropi-
cal agriculture and tropical architecture for instance,
should be seriously and quickly tackled.

Historically much of the information about the
African in the period of Slavery and the Slave Trade
is of tremendous importance and is involved in the
commercial expansion of the metropolitan countries,
the foundation of the American colonies and the
Carribean. In other words since Africans could not
write at the time, much of our history of the period is
concentrated in European archives, libraries, mu-
seums and private collections. Also a measure of
the political, social and economic organization as
well as the value systems, religious ideas and prac-
tices, especially the African's conception and ideas
of God and the lesser gods, the manifestation of the
spiritual in actual life, man's relationship with na-
ture from the pre-slavery era to colonial times, all
this is to some extent still to be found in the New
World; and a great deal of the contemporary living
culture in these places could only be explained with
reference to Africa, and especially to West Africa. I
have seen here in America, in Surinam and in the
Islands the very popular silver bracelets which Black
women wear, which are centuries old and are only
now vanishing from West Africa where they origin-
ated. I have seen hair styles and dances in Surinam
and Guyana which are West African; particularly I
have seen very popular Yoruba dances in Cuba and
Guyana and the Ashanti court dance, the Adowain,
in Guyana where it is also called the court dance. And
I have tasted the very ancient food of apitsi in Guyana
to my great surprise. I have seen the annual Ahanta

(Ghana) festival dance of Ebise in Surinam; and
there is the famous John Conu dance in most of the
Islands which commemorates the triumphs of John
over the Dutch in the Western region of Ghana in
the 18th century. I could go on and on. In other
words much pattern of thought and behaviour can
be really meaningful there with reference to Africa.
Once again, Surinam offers an interesting example
of West African life, especially Ghanaian. The matri-
lineal organization, Chieftancy, the military organi-
zation especially the use of the Akansafo (coroman-
tyr marital songs) and the power of the talking
drum, the Akan state form, the influence of the
priests,— all this is a living but a historical record
which no African scholar can lightly set aside. Both
the Akan language and the Akan drum language
are being taught in some Colleges here in America
and Black scholars who would like to visit or work
among the 'BUSH NEGROES' would find the study
most rewarding and enjoyable.

Again much as we read in Bossman and other
European authors some fair descriptions of the ma-
terial culture of West Africa of the period of slavery,
it does look to me that a clearer picture emerges from
the study of this culture transplanted into the New
World at the time. I have seen in the markets of
Surinam, Guyana, Haiti, Brazil and Jamaica roots,
seeds, barks of trees and other things used for cura-
tive purposes just as they are so employed in West
Africa today, and in many cases they carry the same
African names still; and even where these names
are Creole of takitaki etc., they are often translitera-
tions of their African names. For there are many
plants in Surinam which carry the same Akan names,
but I also came across one with the takitaki name of
"Gedu dede me dede" meaning" Could God die I
would die." Now that same plant which the Akans
of Ghana call "Nyame bowu na meewu" means the
same thing, and signifies the immortality of God.
Moreover there is much historical evidence of the
diffusion of this kind of knowledge from Africa.
Steadman in his Expedition to Surinam, published
in 1774, tells the story of Granman Quacy a slave
from Ghana who had a commanding knowledge of
the curative properties of herbs, roots, etc. and who
as a result was invited to Holland and honoured by
the Prince of Orange, and whose formulae were
studied by Linnieus. His Quassie Bitter (Quassie
Amara Li) I believe, is still in use.

Again cultural relations cannot subsist in
vacuole. Cultural ideas, values and institutions,
since their transfer from Africa, have in some signifi-
cant cases been subjected to new ideas, values and in-
stitutions in the New World. Necessary synthesis or
fusions have thereby resulted which should have rel-
evance in contemporary Africa. Outstanding in this
respect is the way in which traits of African religion
have been carried over into those New World coun-
tries where Catholicism prevailed or still dominates,
and syncreticisms between African and Christian
sacred beings and rituals have taken place. Haiti,
Brazil and Cuba are some such places. These syn-
creticisms are worth studying by African Scholars.
I met in Cuba in 1965 a black priest who with un-
doubted sanctity and honesty and in environments
very much like a chief's court in West Africa, minis-
ters to hundreds of Cubans, both black and white,
and from all walks of life. On his altars both African
Gods and Catholic saints jostled for space. I ob-

served the same phenomenon in Haiti and here
particularly during the yam and rice annual festivals
both Christian and African elements merge without
any apparent incompatibility. And Harold Cour-
lander brings this out fairly well in The Drum and
the Hoe. He writes,

"The family ancestors whose good will has made

the harvest possible having been taken care of the

food, is now shared among the extended family

and the saints and God, led by the hougan or

pret savane."

In West Africa some drums are sacred because they

communicate like human, and create and stir man to

great feats of daring and bring man into touch with

Divinity. Much attention, therefore, is paid to them

during the annual festivals when the sacred rites are

being performed. They are clad in white and fed

sacred food like the ancestors and the lesser gods.

Here is what Courlander says of the service for the

Assotor Drum, the largest and most sacred of all the

Haitians drums— the drum for all the Gods and spirits

of the country:

"The Assotor drum is dressed in the finest cloth-
ing and kerchiefs for the mange (feast). It is the
king of everything.

When the mange assoto is ended, when the drum
has been fed, there is an immediate mass held in
church for the souls in purgatory."

I said earlier that African scholars have much to
learn from this. The colonial agents, especially the
missionaries of the colonial regimes in Africa, drove a
wedge between the so called 'Christian civilization'
and 'heathen life' which still is very much in evi-
dence, and which for all practical purposes stopped
the merging of African ideas of the sacred rituals
and institutions with Christian ideas and institutions,
especially in the rites of passage everywhere in Africa.
And this is the problem of the 'dual man' as Casely-
Hayford put it.

There are very serious spiritual, social, political
and economic problems facing the black man on the
Continent and in the New World, which only under-
standing, tolerance, patience and mutual respect for
natural difference could solve. And the first real
step will be taken in Tanzania this June, when the
Sixth Pan-African Congress meets there for the first
time on African Soil. And Dr. Fletcher Robinson
writes:

"The Sixth Pan African Congress is an effort to
motivate and mobilize Black people globally to
begin to move towards self-reliance and self-deter-
mination collectively, as a 'nation' of people. (We
have already demonstrated that involvement in a
common action will serve to unify us in spite of our
very diverse interest.) A main focus of the Con-
gress is to consider the application of science and
technology as tools of liberation for Africa and
African people. "
Nothing can be more welcome at this particular
moment of our history, and especially as it comes
from our Brothers and Sisters from America. AND
SO IT SHOULD BE! Three central figures of our
discussion from the 18th century to our times, Dugo-
ano, Hayford and Du Bois, all wanted us to believe
(and I know they are right) that Slavery, far from be-
ing a curse, could be a blessing. On the eve of
Ghana's independence Dr. Du Bois sent a message to
Nkrumah charging him with the duty of continuing
the Pan African movement declaring solemnly:

"I hereby put into your hands, Mr. Prime Min-
ister, my empty but still significant title of 'Presi-
dent of the Pan-African Congress,' to be bestowed
on my duly-elected successor who will preside
over a Pan-African Congress due, I Trust, to meet
soon and for the first time on African soil, at the
call of the independent state of Ghana."
Nkrumah consequently called in 1958 the first ALL
AFRICAN PEOPLE'S CONFERENCE and the first
INDEPENDENT AFRICAN STATES CONFER-
ENCE which later has blossomed into the ORGANI-
ZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY.

As everybody knows, it was not easy to organ-
ize the O.A.U., and it was therefore inevitable for
African leaders to concentrate their efforts to bring
about unity on the Continent itself first. So that
apart from the brief appearance of Malcolm X in
Cairo, the Organization of the Black Diaspora has
not participated much in this otherwise, a march of
togetherness, since the last Pan-African Congress of
1945. In June therefore, BLACK BROTHER WILL
MEET BLACK BROTHER AND BLACK SISTER
WILL MEET BLACK SISTER in Tanzania; and for
Du Bois, Hayford and Malcolm this is necessary,
healthy and inevitable if the black man should con-
tinue to survive and progress in this sad world; and I
must entreat you to ponder on the following state-
ments from the three as we wait to meet in Africa:
From MALCOLM

"Just as the American Jew is in harmony (politic-
ally, economically and culturally) with world
Jewry, it is time for all African-Americans to be-
come an integral part of the world's Pan-African-
ists, and even though we might remain in America
physically while fighting for benefits the Consti-
tution guarantees us, we must 'return' to Africa
philosophically and culturally and develop a
working unity in the framework of Pan-African-
ism."
Du Bois: The following is from Du Bois' THE CON-
SERVATION OF RACES.

"We cannot reverse history; we are subject to
the same natural laws as the other races, and if the
Negro is ever to be a factor in the world's history—
if among the gaily-colored banners that deck the
broad ramparts of civilization is to hang one un-
compromising black, then it must be placed there
by black hands, fashioned by black heads and hal-
lowed by the travail of 200,000,000 black hearts
beating in one glad song of jubilee.

For this reason, the advance guard of the Negro
people— the 8,000,000 people of Negro blood in
the United States of America— must soon come
to realize that if they are to take their just place in
the van of Pan-Negroism, then their destiny is not
absorption by the white race."
Casely-Hayford. from ETHIOPIA UNBOUND,
Race emancipation; African Nationality.

"How extraordinary would be the spectacle of
this huge Ethiopian race— some millions of men-
having imbibed all that is best in Western culture in
the land of their oppressors, yet remaining true to
racial instincts and inspirations, customs and institu-
tions, much as did the Israelites of old in captivity!
When this more pleasant picture will have become
possible of realization, then and only then, will it be
possible for our people in bondage metaphorically
to walk out of Egypt in the near future with a great
and a real spoil.

THE BLACK BEING

The Black being

ran silently from his being black

locked in? or out of? or from what?
Such are

the personal hells and/or

heavens of
each mother's son and

fathers daughter
in the being black of their black beings . . .

tenajol cormier

UNTITLED LOVE POEM NO. 6

You showed me your Africa

hidden in the mouth

of a village copper mask

careful not to spill

its many secrets;

hidden in the folds of cloth

newly woven

and dipped in colors

from the robes of Ra.

You sought the uninherited legacy

spoken by ebony carvings

whose searching eyes told

of kinship.

And I showed you my Africa

soft, round . . .

a brown bubbling well

sweet with secrets

moving to the rhythms

of forgotten drum beats

your hands knowingly played.

And together we crossed hills

swam flowing waters

found rainbows in the darkness

behind half-closed eyelids.

Irma McClaurin
from Song In the Night

A WAY-STATION FROM OUR PAST

Elmina Castle, located in the southern coastal region of Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) 90
miles west of Accra, is one of the best preserved of some thirty structures which the Europeans
built along the coast during their colonial invasion of West Africa. From the 15th century these
castles were used as trading posts and slave holding stations by various European nations,
including the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British. Elmina itself was one of the major stations
for the British during their colonial control of the Gold Coast.

The rape of Africa resounds from Elmina. It is estimated that 200,000 British pounds of
gold — African gold — were shipped annually from its shores. It is said that even today the
stench of the slave trade remains there, suddenly assaulting the unsuspecting visitor with the
nauseating odor of accumulated excrement and blood — three centuries of organic leavings from
generations of tortured human beings. The tens of millions of Black people who were forced
through dungeons in places like this for more than 300 years, bound across the Atlantic to the
Carribean and the Americas, have left for us a rude reminder of the severity of our struggle.

A liberation cry was most surely heard among our forebears in the slave pens at Elmina
Castle. Today the cry reverberates across the seven continents urging persistent action; and the
response by the sons and daughters of Africa steadily gains effectiveness. African liberation
pertains to all of us. It is one struggle; it is now; and it is here.

M.W.S.

OBSERVATION OF A "MILITANT"

he stood engulfed in his blackness

puzzled, he profiled on the corner
seeing himself a grey shadow in sunlight
seeing himself on the wall

a target; still and relaxed
puzzled as to where he began
and the other crowded images
STOPPED!!!!!

tenajol cormier

"AMERICA NEEDS A KILLING

AMERICA NEEDS A KILLING

THE SURVIVORS WILL BE HUMAN."

—Michael Harper

, There Will Be No Survivors

slinging it carelessly

over his back

he walks

the only

open path.

picking

them off

two

two.
cracked picture windows
reflect the haunted
calmness of the body,
standing alone between today
and yesterday
he nestles it
between his shoulder
& ear.

cocking the trigger
.... hesitating

only

once.

Irma McClaurin
from Song In the Night

The day will come when

my poetry locked in my room

will no longer be sacred
and planned government eyes

will be scanning every word I write
Yes, but my words will be processed

as i will be canned,

packaged, industrialized.
The time will come

because even now freedom of

choice has collapsed and

as the wishes of one man

and a few strong men

who must have their way

become the way
The time has come to

Damn the status quo

for it stands in the way of the people
We must renew

the pyramids of Egypt

the workshop of knowledge of Timbuctoo

and sanctify the beauty and courage of the Zulu

And with all these things as right

we be reactionaries

we be the people of a dark and beautiful past

we be here to . . .
Damn the status quo.

Makeda

Acknowledgements

The Staff of the DRUM would like to thank:

For their articles and interviews: Dovi Afesi

Chinua Achebe
Birku Menkir
Mfundi Vundia

For poetry: Makeda

Sonia Sanchez
Tenajol Cormier
Irma McClaurin
Mungu Kimya Abudu
Kenneth Ralph Cuffee

Photography: Tshakka Henderson pp. 13 and 42
Clement Roach pp. 16 and 23
Dalton Brown page 32
Dick Nichols page 24

For re-production of their images: Dana Chandler page 45

Clyde Santana pages 40 and 43
Arturo Lindsay page 30
Clement Roach page 41

And especially Brother Melvin W. Smith whose invaluable donation of his time and advice has done so
much to spurn the efforts of the staff in acquiring a greater sense of organizational responsibility and a
criterion for excellence.

Also, the DRUM would like to take this space to introduce EUGENE NILES and DAVID THAXTON as the
upcoming Editor and Assistant-Editor respectively. It will be the responsibility of these two capable in-
dividuals collectively with the efforts of the Staff (new recruits as well as those returning next year), to not
only maintain the quality and relevance that subsequent Staff efforts have tried to maintain, but to always
strive to make DRUM that much more relevant and politically directed, so that DRUM will continue to edu-
cate and inspire its readers, in the area of Black and Third World literature. Please support the efforts of
these dedicated Brothers and Sisters, for what we get out of the DRUM can be no more than what we put
into it.

Ed. Note: The DRUM would also like to acknowledge, for the usage of our cover, "The Angolan Free-
dom Fighter," The Liberation Support Movement (Information Center) B.C. Canada.

Nov. 2, 1973

Dec. 7, 1973

U,N, Recognizes

Admit Guinea-

Guinea-Bissau

Bissau to OAU

NEW YORK - The United

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia —

Nations General Assembly

Guinea-Bissau, having issued

today voted a draft resolution

its Declaration of In-

in recognition of the

dependence recently, was

independent state of Guinea-

rewarded for its action by

Bissau.

being admitted into the

The measure, passing by a

Organization of African Unity

vote of 93 to 7, with 30

as a full member.

abstensions, strongly con-

IN TAKING a seat at the

demns "the policies of the

conference table in Addis

government of Portugal in

Ababa's Africa Hall, Guinea-

perpetuating its illegal

Bissau became the 42nd

occupation of certain sectors

member of the 10-year-old

of the Republic of Guinea-

organization and received a

Bissau and the repeated acts of

standing ovation.

aggression committed by its

The proposal to admit the

armed forces against the

new nation, which has been

people of Guinea-Bissau and

known as the African Party for i

Cape Verde. The resolution

Independence of Guinea and \

also, in conformity with the U.

the Cape Verde Islands

N. Charter, specifically draws

(PAIGC), was made by

the attention of the Security

Algerian Foreign Minster,

Council to Portugal's illegal

Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Mr.

presence in Guinea-Bissau and

Bouteflika said the admission

invites all member states.

of Guinea-Bissau would be a

agencies, and organizations of

contribution to the liberation

the U.N. System to render all

of African territories under

necessary assistance to the

foreign domination.

government of Guinea-Bissau.

mftg^t-t-^feSHfc

WLM %»6IIWi*m

Amilcar Cabral
September 14, 192'4-January 20, 1973

SUPPORT

AFRICAN
LIBERATION

MAY 25, 1974

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Drum"

See other formats