Cape to Cairo
PATRON: Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery. NOT since Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, prob- ably, has a more subjective compilation appeared than Ronald Segal's Political Africa (Stevens, £2 10s.), 'a Who's Who of Personalities and Parties.' The ineffectual moderates get the most scathing treatment. Lawrence Katilungu, whom the Times has recently been running as an alternative to Kenneth Kaunda in Northern Rhodesia, is damned for accepting membership of the Monckton Commission—a decision which 'has undoubtedly eroded his political influence': and Sir de Villiers Graaff is dismissed as 'a gentleman farmer who breeds prize Friesians and has substantial family interests in property and finance. Under his leadership, the opposition United Party has failed consistently to oppose.' On Verwoerd. Welensky and Whitehead (a trio separated only by Jaja Wachuku and Inuwa Wada) the biographer is hardly more scathing.
Mr. Segal justifies himself and his assistant compilers by arguing, in his preface, that this is not a dictionary of politics 'drained dry of all opinion. We believe that the domination of one race by another is wrong and stupid'; and he has since claimed that in any case, the comment is readily distinguishable, which is certainly true. But even those who mistrust Mr. Segal for his Africa South (and like it still less now a is in exile) will find this work indispensable for its unravelling of political and personal strands. from Cairo to the Cape.
Previous page
