Seventeen
My money is melting under this tropic sun faster than I am soaking up the reality about me. For two days now I’ve moped about my hotel room with no visitors or telephone calls. In the newspapers are items telling of monster mass meetings, of vast educational rallies; I’d have liked to have attended those events, but I hear of them only after they have taken place. My frequent visits to the Convention People’s Party’s headquarters do not elicit any information about what is transpiring, and I cannot escape the feeling that my seeking information has somewhat frightened the African politicians.
I’m of African descent and I’m in the midst of Africans, yet I cannot tell what they are thinking and feeling. And, without the help of either the British or the Africans, I’m completely immobilized. Africa sprawls far inland and my walking jaunts about Accra are no way to see this life. Yet, I cannot just take a train or a bus and go; the more I ask about jungle conditions, the more I’m dismayed. The general state of affairs in the country is not conducive to the safety of wandering tourists. There are but few hotels in Accra, Takoradi, and Kumasi, and their accommodations are of a sort to discourage the heartiest of travelers. Trekking into the interior can only be done with the aid and consent of the government, for, without it, one does not have access to the government resthouses that are stationed at intervals in the jungle. Beyond that, one must depend upon the willingness of the Africans or the British to put one up in their private homes! This does not mean that the British would forbid anyone’s going off alone into the jungle to trust his luck, if he was fool enough to want to do it…. Neither do I say that this has been expressly arranged; it just works that way.
Each time I entered a store, the Indian or Greek or Syrian merchant wanted an account of my opinions. I suspect that my attitude caused a lot of background talk, for my reactions were open and direct and I could not order them otherwise. When something struck me as being strange, I erupted with questions; when something seemed funny, I laughed; and when I was curious, I dived headlong to uncover the obscurities…. Moreover, being obviously of African descent, I looked like the Africans, but I had only to walk upon a scene and my difference at once declared itself without a word being spoken. Over and above these liabilities, I had a background steeped in Communism, yet I was no Communist.
My thought processes were of interest even to the British banker who cashed my travelers’ checks.
“Well, sir, what do you think of all this?” he asked me.
“You know, I’ve only been here a few days,” I tried to evade him.
“I mean, don’t you think that the people are happy?”
“I’ve seen so little—”
“Don’t you think that we’ve done a lot for them?”
“I haven’t seen very much of life here yet,” I stalled.
He knew damn well what I thought, but I was determined not to give him the satisfaction of letting him hear me say it. He leaned forward as he spoke and his tone was low, urgent, confidential:
“You American chaps are three hundred years ahead of these Africans. It’ll take a long time for them to catch up with you. I think that they are trying to go too fast, don’t you? You see, you American chaps are used to living in a white man’s country, and these fellows are not.”
In his attempt to influence my attitude, he was using the old tried and trusted British technique of divide and rule.
“I don’t know about that,” I said, smiling at him.
He counted out my pound notes through the barred window.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Good morning, sir,” he sang out.
“So long,” I said.
There was no room for jockeying or making tactical moves in a colony; the European was at close grips with the native who was trapped in the European net of trade and religion. Every casual remark of the dubious stranger had an implied bearing upon policy. Whether you danced or not, whether you were interested in a given scene or not, whether you laughed or not—all of these items were weighed, examined, and filed away in the minds of the upper-class African or British civil servant. A sort of living dossier was kept on you: what you said casually at Mr. So-and-so’s luncheon table was discreetly and questioningly served up to you at Mrs. So-and-so’s dinner table on the evening of the same day. It was check and double-check.
So far my random observations compel me to the conclusion that colonialism develops the worst qualities of character of both the imperialist and his hapless victim. The European, on duty five hundred miles from the Equator, in the midst of heat and humidity, can never really feel at home and the situation breeds in him a kind of hopeless laziness, a brand of easygoing contempt for human life existing in a guise that is strange and offensive to him. Outnumbered, he feels safe only when surrounded by men of his own race and color. Since, for questions of policy, he cannot live with the native, he develops an indifference for the land that grows the food. His food is transported over vast distances and at great cost for which the native must pay in the form of taxes. Hence, the European tries without success to convince himself that he is worth all of this bother and care, but he never quite can. His basic concerns are centered upon the wealth of the country, upon doing his job so that no crass criticisms will be heaped upon his head. The social setting produces a chronic suspiciousness about the ultimate meanings of the most ordinary ideas and remarks of the natives, and there is a continuous undertow of concern about the possibility of the native’s developing a mood of rebellion, for, at bottom, no matter how jaunty the European pretends to be, he cannot rid himself of the idea that what he and his kind are doing is stealing….
And the native, when he looks at the white man looming powerfully above him, feels contradictory emotions struggling in his heart; he both loves and hates him. He loves him because he sees that the white man is powerful, secure, and, in an absentminded and impersonal sort of way, occasionally generous; and he hates him because he knows that the white man’s power is being used to strip him slowly of his wealth, of his dignity, of his traditions, and of his life. Seeing that there is nothing that he can do about it, he loses faith in himself and inwardly quakes when he tries to look into the future in terms of white values that are as yet alien to him. Charmed by that which he fears, pretending to be Christian to merit white approval, and yet, for the sake of his own pride, partaking of the rituals of his own people in secret, he broods, wonders, and finally loses respect for his own modest handicrafts which now seem childish to him in comparison with the mighty and thunderous machinery of the white man.
In the end his own land lies fallow, his skills waste away, and he begins to prefer menial jobs with white families which will enable him to buy tinned food shipped from Europe. He no longer fishes for herring; he buys them in a can; he no longer burns local fats; he depends upon kerosene; he abandons his weaving and buys cloth from Lancashire; he goes to mass and learns to cross himself, and then he goes to the Stool House to propitiate the spirits of his long-departed ancestors.
This afternoon, after taking a nap, I went upon the veranda to escape the humidity of my room. A young African boy was there, wrapped and bundled in his cloth, stretched upon a bench; he glanced at me, then leaped quickly to his feet and hurried off. He turned his head and stared at me as he went around a bend of the veranda…. Why had he been so apprehensive? I sat and looked about; the veranda was empty. I had forgotten my cigarettes and went inside my room to fetch them; when I returned the young African was there upon the bench again. Seeing me, he rose at once and walked quickly off. There was no doubt about it; he was afraid…. He had thought that I was a European and would be offended at his presence. But what could I say to him? Merely to speak to him might well frighten him even more….
Eighteen
I decided to try something on my own; I’d rent a taxi and start making short trips out of the city and into the neighboring villages. Good God, whoever heard of seeing Africa by taxicab?
I knew that ba
rging out into tribal villages alone in a taxicab was rash. Being alone and with no knowledge of the language, I’d miss a lot that I’d want to know, but, being alone, unannounced, with no guide or interpreter, I’d catch the native African without warning; he would have no chance to dress up or pretend; the chiefs would have no opportunity to get out those big and ridiculous umbrellas. The idea appealed to me.
Wearing a sun helmet and a T-shirt, with a camera slung over my shoulder, I ambled out to a line of waiting taxis at the hotel entrance. The drivers began honking their horns, trying to attract my attention. I went to an elderly man, feeling that he would think twice before trying any tricks or cheating….
“What’s the nearest village that’s worth looking at?”
“Don’t know, Massa.”
“You know some villages. You live here, don’t you?”
He scratched his head and eyed me speculatively.
“There’s Labadi, Massa.”
“What kind of a village is it and how far is it?”
“Three miles, Massa. It’s where the beach is…. And they fish there. Cost you two pounds, Massa.”
“What do you think I am?”
He guffawed and his eyes avoided me.
“Three shilling an hour and one shilling a mile, Massa.”
“All right,” I agreed. “Let’s go.”
Labadi lay athwart the highway to Tema, the big port that was under construction. The driver raced along with a carelessness that made me wonder if he saw the cars coming in the opposite direction. Before I knew it, he was pulling up alongside rows of wooden huts with rusty tin roofs.
“Labadi, Massa.”
“Lock your car and come with me,” I ordered him, expecting him to demur. But he didn’t. I found that that was the only way to get any consideration out of a native; he’d been conditioned by the British to being ordered and would obey only when ordered.
Labadi was a small fishing village and was a mixture of the primitive and the modern. The houses that fronted the highway were mostly of wood or cement, but when I poked behind them I came across the usual mud hut crowned with thatched straw. I walked as though I knew where I was going and the taxi driver followed me.
“Massa know somebody here?”
“No. Why?”
“Better see chief, Massa,” he advised me.
“Why?”
“Always see chief, Massa.”
“Where is the chief?”
“Don’t know, Massa.”
I knew that his counsel was sound, but I decided to ignore it. I pushed on and saw compounds alive with black men, women, and children. They glanced up at me, pausing in pounding their fufu, grinding pepper, or mending fish nets. Sheep, goats, turkeys, guinea hens, and pigs mingled with the naked, dirty children. Here the women did not bother to cover their breasts; they must have thought that I was an African schoolteacher or some government worker. I walked down winding paths bordered by tall weeds.
“Any snakes around here?”
“Yasa, Massa. Snakes all round here—”
I paused, hearing a droning, dashing sound.
“Is that the sea I hear?”
“Yasa, Massa.”
I headed for the sea, not knowing where I was going, but not wanting to give the impression that I was wandering. I noticed that the men stared at me long after I had passed. Then suddenly, a voice yelled:
“Hey, sar!”
I turned and a brown-skinned boy ran up to me.
“Where’re you going, sar?”
His voice had a hard, direct quality. He confronted me with purpose.
“I’m just looking around,” I said.
“Oh,” he said, studying me. “Are you an American, sar?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, sar. What do you want to see?”
“First, I want a drink of coconut milk from one of these coconuts on that tree,” I said.
He was taken aback for a moment, then he turned to one of the crowd of men who had gathered behind him. He spoke to them in his tribal language and one of the boys ran toward a coconut tree and scaled it, monkeylike.
“Where did you learn such good English?” I asked him.
“At missionary school, sar,” he said proudly.
“Do you work?”
“Yes, sar. I’m an electrician,” he said.
A mass of shy black children began crowding about. Playfully, without attempting to take a picture, I pointed the lens of the camera at a boy and he shuddered, burst into tears, and ran off screaming.
“What happened to him?” I asked the young electrician.
“Nothing, sar. He’s just scared.”
“How many people are in this village?”
“I don’t know, sar.”
“You live here?”
“Yes, sar. With my mother and father.”
I noticed that many of the children’s entire heads were gripped with sores and that yellow matter streamed from their eyes.
“What are those sores on their heads?” I asked.
“Yaws, sar,” came the prompt reply.
“Are many of them like that?”
“Yes, sar. Most all of them, sar.”
“Are they being treated?”
“They are talking about it, sar.”
“How many babies die here during the first year of their lives?”
“I don’t know, sar.”
(I was afterward informed, in Accra, that the infant mortality rate was more than 50 per cent during the first year of life.)
“What’s your nationality?” I asked him.
“Fanti,” he said proudly. “Oh, sar, here’s your coconut.”
“Aren’t you a Gold Coast man?” I asked pointedly, accepting the coconut. “Thank you….”
He grinned at me; he knew what I meant. At no time did I hear an African identify himself as other than belonging to a tribe. It was only after I had prodded him that he would identify himself as a Gold Coast citizen. They wanted their country to be free, but the idea of a national identification was too new to have sunk home in their minds so that they could give an automatic reply.
“What’s your profession, sar?” he asked me.
“I’m a writer,” I said.
“You write for the newspapers, sar?”
“Sometimes. But mostly I write books.”
“Do you think somebody in America would give me a scholarship, sar?”
“Perhaps; but you have schools here.”
“But I want to go to America, sar.”
“What makes you think they give scholarships in America?”
“They’re rich, sar.”
“I was born there and nobody ever gave me one,” I told him.
He stared, then looked off. He turned to me with a timid smile.
“But you are rich, sar; aren’t you?”
“No. I’m not. I was born as poor or maybe poorer than you are now,” I told him. “I’m not rich.”
“But you went to a university, sar?”
“No.”
“Then how did you become a writer, sar?”
“Because I wanted to be a writer.”
He could not understand that. He yearned for an education, but he did not associate personal will with it. He felt that only the generosity of somebody else could open the door to education for him.
“You can study right here in Labadi and be anything you want to,” I told him.
He shook his head and smiled doubtfully.
“What kind of mission school did you attend?”
“Methodist, sar.”
“Did you like your teachers?”
“Yes, sar. They were very kind.”
“May I see where you live?”
“Oh, yes, sar,” he said eagerly. “Come along, sar.”
I told the taxi driver to go back to his car. I followed the boy, and a swarm of black children trailed eagerly after me. We went past stagnant lagoons that stood but a few yards from thatched mud hu
ts.
“There are a lot of mosquitoes here, aren’t there?”
“Oh, yes, sar.”
“Why don’t they fill in these lagoons?”
He stared a moment before answering. I suspected that the reason was that some god was connected with the lagoons….
“I don’t know, sar,” he said.
“Is there much malaria and yellow fever here?”
“Yes, sar. We have it all the time. But there’s not so much right now.”
I noticed that the children’s bellies looked like taut, black drums, so distended were they. Almost every child, boys as well as girls, had monstrous umbilical hernias. We came to a broad lagoon across which a few rotting logs had been placed as a bridge. He walked surefootedly across and I hung back, going slowly, balancing myself. The children, for some reason, stopped at the water’s edge. We skirted a small pond in which men and women were bathing, their black skins streaked with white lather.
“Tell me, in school did they tell you not to worship fetish?”
“Oh, yes, sar,” he said, his eyes round with seriousness.
“And if they caught you doing fetish, what did they do?”
“They whipped you, sar.”
“And would they put you out of school for it?”
“No, sar. I don’t think they ever do that.”
“Your family—Is everybody Christian?”
“We’re all Christians, sar,” he said emphatically.
We were now passing between swish houses. The yards were of red clay and clean-swept. Women sat pounding that inevitable fufu…. I paused and watched a mother dart her black and gnarled fingers in and out of a huge wooden mortar into which her daughter rammed a long wooden pole, pounding boiled yams, cassava, plantains. They both looked at me and smiled; the daughter glanced down each time she sent the end of the pole plunging into the soft, yellowish mass of fufu; but the mother, confident that her hand would never be crushed, stared at me and then burst into a laugh, hanging her head.
“How many times a day do they make this fufu?” I asked.
“In the middle of the day and at night, sar.”
“Now, look—you are an electrician. Why don’t you invent a machine to pound that stuff?”
Black Power Page 17
