TO RACIALIST INFECTION from the Union has been spreading, inevitably,
northward through Africa. The doctrine of white supremacy is bound to create its black antithesis, and if the infection were to spread unchecked there could in the long run be only one result—the expulsion of the white minorities. It is in the light of this possibility, which would have consequences hardly less unfortunate for the blacks than for the whites, that the achievement of the recent Capricorn conference on the shores of Lake Nyasa should be considered. From all the terri- tories of British East and Central Africa came Africans. Euro- peans, Asians, Goans and Coloureds, to sit down together and discuss the draft contract which, the organisers hope, may yet form the basis for a new citizenship in Africa. Now the details of this contract are interesting, but—and here I intend no criticism of Colonel David Stirling, that admirable and ener- getic idealist—they don't strike me as being of prime impor- tance. The function of the Society is rather to point the only (the multi-racial) way out of the growing black-white dicho- tomy which could be resolved otherwise only by disaster. And the Society's greatest achievement so far lies less in the 'draft contract' than in the simple fact that it brought good men from all the races together to agree that barren racialism, of whatever hue, is no answer at all to the problems of Africa.
* * *
Previous page
