Uncovering the African enigma

Christopher Blackstone bemoans the continuing echoes of European colonialism and the failure to see the strengths of the African people

I have long held the view that the expansion of the British Empire was one of the most detrimental episodes to the social fabric and long-term economic wellbeing in the history of Britain. I should stress that this criticism applies to colonialism rather than the trade aspects. The establishment of trade posts and ensuing alliances had positive benefits for all concerned, but what followed in the 19th century, while often producing some lasting benefits for the recipients, introduced structural weaknesses into the British economy that remain apparent. Particularly in the social divide created by public schools, which were largely set up to provide management for the colonies and the education of colonists’ children. This diverted the best British brains into careers removed from the industrial revolution and the sciences upon which the wellbeing of developed nations was founded. The decline of Britain as a manufacturing nation began simultaneously with the rapid expansion of its colonies. India, often referred to as the Empire’s "Jewel in the Crown", was not really a colony. It was certainly a creation of the British, bringing together disparate states into a – for a time – unified entity with the introduction of the railways. But only relatively small land areas were totally controlled by the British. However, when the same types of Christian Europeans set foot in Central and South America in the 16th century, North America and South Africa in the 17th century, and Australasia in the 18th century, the results were very different, even though the indigenous peoples – South America excepted – were similar in social structure. They were nomadic, tribal-pastoralist and agricultural social groupings who had not retained any evidence of urban cultural civilisations as witnessed in Europe and Asia, although the advances occasioned by the Iron Age seem interestingly to have been common throughout the world. So what happened? Well, colonisation of North America and Australasia led to complete subjugation of the indigenous people and, indeed, virtual annihilation in instances. The North American Indians and the Australian Aborigines have been confined to sparse territories and very few reach the higher echelons of national governments. This did not happen in Africa, which met a very different fate at the hands of the colonists. Most of the indigenous peoples survived and are today in control of their own destinies, but the process of this happening does seem in retrospect to be a complete farce.

With the exception of Egypt and Ethiopia – whence Christianity arrived in the 6th century, and latter-day Emperor Haile Selassie claimed direct descent form Solomon and the Queen of Sheba – in the remainder of this vast continent, at least until the 19th century, when traders in the coastal settlements of South Africa moved inland, there were no clear-cut nation states. Instead it was a multitude of monarchies, chieftains and societies, covering hundreds of diverse groups. It was into this arena that the Europeans marched, claiming almost the entire continent as their possession. Even Belgium, which had only been a country in its own right for a handful of decades, joined the fray and claimed vast chunks of central Africa. At this point, British prime minister, Lord Salisbury, said: "We have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where they were!" While the colonialists did provide infrastructure, administration was meagre. Middle managers from Europe became responsible for vast areas in Africa. Meanwhile, education was left to missionaries who, however well-meaning, were totally misguided in their condescending desires to recreate European cultural and social values. I was witness to one example as late as the early 1960s, when I stayed on a mission station in a remote part of Ethiopia. The sole role of the genial Anglican missionary was to distribute the King James version of the bible to the locals, seemingly oblivious to the fact that these people had had Christianity in their midst for at least as long as the British, and had their own bibles that were naturally written in their own language, Amharic! The colonists, with their tidy minds, tried to consolidate the hundreds of groups under their administration into a number of distinct tribes, and failed to recognise the essential nature of the social structures established over centuries.

Last year, economist Jeffrey Sachs, gave a series of five Reith Lectures entitled, "Bursting at the Seams". Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, a special advisor to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and Time magazine has twice nominated him as among the 100 most influential world leaders. A prime subject of these talks was Africa and I – as someone who had been intimately involved with the continent for decades on industrialisation and related social issues – became increasingly angry at the tenor and woolly nature of his arguments. I have subsequently read the full transcripts of these lectures, and the debates that followed them, and my humour has not improved. When a 53-year-old man holds up as his gospel the sayings of US president John F Kennedy, quoting speeches that were invariably written by others a total of 22 times, one has to wonder. If the only concrete example of improvement in the lives of poor people that this allegedly influential man is able to give, is the provision of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, it really is a matter for despair that such condescension displayed by the colonialists is still alive and kicking. Not once does Sachs give any idea of what sort of civilisation is appropriate in Africa, and what jobs the poor are going to take up. His solution is that old bromide of foreign aid, aid, and aid again. In order to introduce an element of reality into the situation one needs to define where civilisation is going, and how far it is possible for the world created by European and Asian societies to be replicated in Africa. One of the major, perhaps the major problem, as it is elsewhere in the world, is population growth. Shortly before I first ventured into Africa in 1963, the total population numbered 200m. Three decades later, shortly after I had stopped doing major industrial projects there, the population was 450m. Fertile regions such as in Ethiopia, which previously produced two crops a year had become barren wildernesses, while poverty increased vastly as man was increasingly occupying land that was not readily conducive to human existence. Fundamental questions need to be addressed: do we really want to encourage Africans to emulate the so-called developed countries, with rural dwellers transferred into urban sprawls such as in China and India, or confined in boxes such as in Tokyo, and indeed most major cities? It is simply no good people like Sachs vaguely relying on that old theory that technology will solve the problems. We have to develop some alternative ways of living that avoid the depredations of other parts of the world. In fact, Africa, the continent from which humans originally evolved has, in my personal experience, some unique features, which as a species we lose at our peril. There is something that gets into the soul of those who make their life there, which may be to do with the fact that nowhere else have I found such a profound understanding of the role of every form of life on this planet, from the dung beetle through to serpents, elephants and giraffes. Each species, when left alone by humans, has a clearly defined role in the ecology of a region, and this commune with nature seems to be a founding spirit in the people themselves. Rarely does one find a more gentle and sweet natured people, whatever may be said about constant wars and the corruption of many national leaders, both of which are legacies of the colonialist era. There is, however, a fundamental problem in the manner of the adoption of a European industrial society, and there is strong evidence of this in South Africa. That is that the African peoples – for whatever reason and I have heard many – do not seem to be willing or temperamentally inclined to follow careers in engineering and the technical skills required in an industrial society. On a recent return to industrial projects in South Africa, after a 20-year absence, I was shocked to find that key engineers in manufacturing were still whites, despite the efforts of the government’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) programme – the same men were just 20 years older and gloomy about the prospects of any of the younger generation, of whatever race, following them. Between South Africa and the countries bordering the Mediterranean, there is no example of any significant indigenous industrial conurbation without input of expertise from outside the continent, in spite of the abundance of natural resources and the attendant industries that these breed. I am neither sufficiently knowledgeable nor qualified to pinpoint the solution for the future of Africa – it is far too multifaceted an issue. Yet I do have considerable practical experience in the continent and, in appreciating the positive side – the glories of its land, people and resources – I have a strong feeling that Africans will overcome the self-interested influences of Europeans, and presently the Chinese, and show other peoples in the world that there is a better life than the stifling, soulless, consumer-led civilisation that so many hold so dear but, I firmly believe, cannot be sustained. cs