The route to Cline Town was very much like what I had always imagined a pilgrimage to be—hundreds of hurrying, long-robed figures; men, women and children, hooting cars, cyclists with their robes spread behind them like multi-coloured pillions—and others like myself, curious sightseers, black and white, all impatiently eager to see . . . what? There was something festive rather than religious in the air. The houses and shops which lined the route were crowded with people, every window, door and balcony seemed full of faces, people watching, smiling, joking aloud to each other, already in the mood for whatever was to come.
At Cline Town the main thoroughfare was joined by a narrow, dusty road which led off left between several large, handsome bungalows. At this junction numerous perspiring policemen were directing the cars and vans to parking places while vainly trying to keep the road clear to other traffic. As the cars and vans disgorged their occupants into the already-thick stream of people, police tried to urge them forward along the side street, now thickly lined on both sides by people who seemed disinclined to move. Adding to the general hubbub were several men with large collection boxes slung round their necks who harangued or wheedled the onlookers into reluctant charity, in contrast to the large numbers of beggars who hawked their disabilities with a kind of casual assurance. Today was everyone’s day and the spirit of giving was in the air.
I slowly forced my way along this crowded pathway; the going became easier as the road widened. Now along its grassy, tree-shaded verge, veiled women and small children sat grouped together on attractively woven prayer mats, all dressed in their gayest colours, as if for a picnic. Young and old women, fat and thin women; women with round, fleshy faces and bulging arms, thin-faced, handsome Mandingo women in beautiful gauze head-dresses and hands and feet dyed blue-black with indigo—ugly women, beautiful women. I had seen nothing like them on my hinterland travels. If some of these beauties had been at Kabala, well . . . And I saw shy women, lowering their eyes as I looked at them; bold women, casually locking glances with me, their teeth fleetingly white behind slightly parted lips. I was getting a good long look of what African women could be like, and I was liking most of what I saw.
A short distance farther along, the pathway sloped gently downward at one side into a wide, grassy bowl-like amphitheatre, in which were already gathered thousands of men, each sitting cross-legged on his prayer mat, each adding his colourful costume and fez to the magic kaleidoscope, which seemed to repeat itself in varying shades and patterns as far as the eye could reach. Near the lip of the amphitheatre, farthest from the roadway, was set up a small, shaded dais with microphone and loudspeaker system; from this the chief imman would lead the faithful in prayer; near to this dais and slightly behind it was a wide platform with chairs for, I supposed, certain important visitors. The warm, bright air was filled with the buzzing of thousands of whispered conversations and controlled laughter. I wanted to find a point of vantage. Overlooking the roadway and concourse were bungalows set high on steep wooden or concrete pillars, with wide verandas now crowded with onlookers, mostly European. I called up to one of these groups and asked to be allowed to join them. They promptly agreed, and soon I had a clear, unrestricted view of everything.
Soon the cry went up: “H.E. has arrived. H.E.’s here.” And threading its way slowly through the crowds was an open touring car, in the rear seat of which sat the Governor and his wife, lightly, coolly, informally dressed, bowing and smiling to the people on both sides, who set up a resounding cheer which attested to the popularity of them both. The car stopped at the edge of the concourse, and a way was cleared for them through to the platform, where other dignitaries had apparently been awaiting their arrival, for soon they were seated, and, with them the Prime Minister and several others. Someone (I could not from that distance see who it was) mounted the small dais and immediately the crowd was hushed to complete silence. Everyone stood, then he began to intone the familiar prayers, pausing occasionally for the murmured response which rose from the assembly in sonorous waves. Now they knelt, each on his little prayer mat, and time and again they all bent forward until their foreheads touched the green earth. From where I stood it seemed as if a strong but gentle breeze had started at the roadway and blown across their ranks so that the fabulous human mosaic rippled forward and backward in easy undulations. Whenever the imman spoke, his voice re-echoed tinnily over the assembly, but it seemed to have little to do with the real progress of the service, as everyone was already well versed and fully familiar with all its parts. This was something each one performed each day and every day until it was part of living, not to be confused or forgotten. I was seeing the evidence of a vital religion, something completely different from anything I had ever before witnessed. These people did not need a Billy Graham to exhort them to religious fervour; they had not assembled here to be preached at, stimulated or encouraged to greater religious effort. They were here, voluntarily, to spend an hour or so in communal worship, celebrating something which was as immediate to them as birth and death.
Then it was over and the concourse broke up into hundreds of groups—families, relatives, friends, neighbours—greeting each other with the overspill of an annual experience shared again, the end of the rigours of fasting, the promise of feasting, the forgetting of tomorrow and its multitude of shortages. The magic carpet split itself up, the pieces forming and re-forming smaller patterns, till they themselves broke in dispersal to become a thick, slow-moving line along the narrow road.
That evening I dined with the Governor, his wife, and a few other persons invited to make up a little group for dinner; altogether about eleven persons, five couples and myself—odd man in.
They were all British, the men senior Government employees in various departments in Freetown, and, as is usual with such semi-formal occasions, all cautious of speech and deportment in the presence of H.E., in spite of our host’s easy and friendly example. While sipping pre-dinner aperitifs the conversation was vague, guarded and rather boring. The women, excepting Lady Dorman, seemed content to listen to their husbands and made the occasional indeterminate noise of approval whenever, from habit, they recognized the signal for intervention. Talk about the mass assembly that morning and the previous night’s revelry soon wore thin, and, in some devious way, conversation got around to Sierra Leone and its future as an independent entity; and by the time dinner was announced it might be said that the “ice was broken” and people were speaking their piece. Sir Maurice took little part in the talking at this time, and Lady Dorman, with charming skill, intervened only to fill any hiatus which threatened to widen into general silence.
Some of the men surprised me. It is true that I had been in the country but a short while, had seen little of the land or the people; but even that little was not to be discounted out of hand. People had talked with me, frankly and freely in most cases. My black skin had something to do with it, I was sure, for it very likely presupposed an immediate sympathy and willingness to understand. However, I had seen and heard a few things, and here I was with men who were positioned close to the centre of events. I asked questions and met only with half-answers and evasions. I was told that everything in Sierra Leone was proceeding according to plan, but no one would tell me whose plan was being operated. I was told that what might seem to me to be apathy and indifference was in fact a highly commendable reserve peculiar to the people of Sierra Leone, but no one would tell me how it was that Africans in a predominantly illiterate country could be so amazingly reserved about something as emotionally loaded as freedom and independence. I was told that there was very little unemployment in the country, yet no one would explain why, on any day and every day, thousands of idle men and women could be seen sitting about the town, dejected and hopeless, without any prospect of honest employment. They sounded knowledgeable and authoritative, these men, but after what I had seen and heard, not very convincing, and even the way they spoke seemed to imply a certain personal distance from the th
ings they said.
Listening to them I realized that they believed in the lightness of everything they said, without any pomposity or effort to convert me. They were simply right and knew it. When they spoke about leading the Africans gradually towards self-government and progress, there was no doubt about their firm belief that it was their responsibility and right to regulate both the pace and degree of progress, in spite of any attempts by Africans or others to interfere. They considered most African leadership outside Sierra Leone to be “reactionary”, irresponsible, and very probably in the pay or control of Communists. They insisted that they knew and liked the Africans and really understood them.
“How much of this is reciprocated by the Africans?” I asked one of them, a handsome grey-haired man.
“All of it,” he replied. “In Sierra Leone we operate in terms of equality and understanding. We are here only until there are qualified Africans ready to take our place, and these are being trained every day to do just that. In my department there are several very good boys who, in a few years’ time, will be able to take over much of the responsibility.”
I wondered how old those “boys” were. Since I had been in the country I had discovered that an African was a “boy”, irrespective of his age, unless his social status or economic position insisted otherwise. Perhaps there was an honest intention to train Africans to take over all the administrative posts, but it seemed to me that, from my experiences in the short time I was in the country, the process was likely to be very protracted.
I had had occasion to visit some of the departments on some matter or other and discovered that, except at ministerial level, no African was either willing or able to take any initiative or responsibility for decisions. I remember spending an entire day at the Department of Transport trying to clear up a certain matter which seemed very simple and straightforward to me, but which the African-in-charge insisted must await the decision of his superior, an Englishman. When I finally saw that gentleman and was moved to comment that I felt the African official could just have easily attended to it, he explained that it would have pleased him if that had been done, saying, “That is our main difficulty here, these fellows are afraid of responsibility. Probably it is our fault, because we have conditioned them over the years to wait for our final O.K. Now it is proving a big drawback. They are very capable fellows, provided the operational sequence is laid out for them, but as soon as it is a matter for responsible decision, they shy from it.”
Yet here I was being told that it was working well and smoothly. I could not help remembering that these men were all remaining at their posts after independence to keep their departments smoothly operative. From their manner as much as their words, I did not think they believed there were likely to be many changes in the near future which would affect their jobs. Then an idea struck me. These men were not really involved. They were here to do work which could not, as yet, be done by indigenous personnel, and that was all that mattered. They would probably have behaved similarly in Bristol, Brazil or Buganda.
“How much real social life is there between black and white?” I asked.
“We all get along splendidly,” he said, expansively. “None of the difficulties you find in other places. Black and white meet and mix socially without any bother at all.”
“I don’t know that I’d go that far.” It was his wife speaking. Her voice was as gentle and assured as she expressed this disagreement with her husband’s remark. It pleased and surprised me, coming as it did from “inside the camp”, so to speak. “Now and again the groups meet vaguely at some special function, but apart from that I wouldn’t say there was much real social intercourse. I mean there’s hardly any entertaining done across the two groups.”
Although she spoke quietly I think that everybody heard her. Her husband made some vague reply which did nothing to detract from the obvious truth of her remark. Did I detect the fleeting reflection of a smile on the Governor’s face?
“That used to be true some time ago,” someone else intervened, “but there’s a lot more mixing now. Quite a number of the chaps are going out to Britain to qualify and returning, so there’s much more that’s common between us nowadays.”
A military-looking gentleman said, “You writer chaps set too much store by such things, you know. After all, the Africans would very likely prefer to be with their own people. Nothing to do with prejudice or anything like that, you know.”
I did know, but I wanted to see how far some of them were prepared to go to preserve the myth of social integration.
I thought of a European schoolmistress I had met on a short visit to the colony’s international school. She had carefully explained that, as soon as the European children entered their teens it was advisable for them to be sent back to Europe, lest they mature too quickly, and added that the educational facilities in Sierra Leone were unsuitable for European children beyond primary level. I think I rather shocked her by suggesting that the best results might be achieved if everybody worked hard to provide the best possible educational levels for all the children, black and white.
Like that schoolmistress, most of these persons here at the dinner table, thought of themselves as part of a group, distinct and separate from the “other group”, but paying lip service to whatever tenuous bridges occasionally materialized between them. Yet there was no denying that these were intelligent, cultured charming people.
After dinner we sat on the wide patio underneath a tall, spreading tree in which electric lights were cleverly concealed to provide illumination without conflict with the pleasant, natural surroundings. Large bats and tiny yellow moths flitted noiselessly among the branches, and as I sat there looking up beyond the pale green of the lower lighted branches to the faintly discernible silhouettes of the gently waving top, I remembered how, long ago as a small boy in British Guiana, I would slip outdoors at night and sit quietly beneath the tall, fruit-heavy sapodilla trees, waiting until the marauding bats touched the topmost fruit, sun-ripe and bursting with goodness, and sent them crashing through the leaves to land unimpaired upon the thick cushion of dry glass I had earlier heaped under the tree.
It was not a dull dinner party by any means. Some of the guests had quaintly amusing stories to tell, and were very witty in a well-bred, restrained sort of way, which allowed for laughter without too much gaiety. Soon after ten o’clock, as if by pre-arrangement, wives looked at husbands, who obediently fidgeted apologetically and rose. I was about to follow but Sir Maurice laid a detaining hand on my shoulder and said, “Not you, we’ve not talked yet.”
The formalities of departure were quickly concluded and with replenished glasses, Sir Maurice, his wife and I sat down with the one guest who, like our host, had said very little during the earlier part of the evening.
“How was the trip up-country?” Sir Maurice asked.
I told him of the places I had visited, people I had met, and something of the impressions I had gained from things seen and heard.
“Do you feel the same bewilderment about our approach to independence—or rather its approach to us?” he asked.
I confessed that, though I had heard a great deal in apparent defence of the situation, I still felt that I would favour the words “lethargy” or “apathy” in preference to the word “reserve”, which had been used at official level to describe the general attitude to approaching independence.
“Tell me in plain English,” he prompted.
“I get the feeling,” I said, “that very few people, either in the colony or the protectorate, feel personally involved in either the spirit or the political fact of independence. The very fact that it was necessary for you to go on trek to ‘sell’ the idea to the Africans illustrates my point.”
“May it not also illustrate the desire and intention of Her Majesty’s Government to keep the people directly informed on what their new status will mean to them?” This from the other guest,
who I shall call Mr. Bixby.
“If the entire scheme had, throughout its development, the understanding of all sections of the population, irrespective of whether they were willing to support it, or otherwise, there should have been no need for Sir Maurice to tell them about it at this rather late date. But I could not help observing that, in spite of Sir Maurice’s efforts and those of his wife, there seemed to be very little interest in, let alone enthusiasm for, such an important event.”
“You must not be too easily led astray by the seemingly obvious,” Mr. Bixby defended. “I am very closely involved with several aspects of independence, and some of the preparations for it, and I know that the African at all levels is keenly enthusiastic. Personally I am sure that they are approaching it in the best possible spirit.”
Sir Maurice’s face lit up with a smile. I had the sudden idea that he had deliberately invited me to meet with the other guests that I might learn something of the perplexities of government; they were men who, in order to do their job well, were compelled by circumstances to take a line most favourable to themselves.
“Perhaps that’s true,” the Governor said. “From the moment it was decided that Sierra Leone would become independent, my business was to work to bring it about under the most favourable conditions. The present situation may not be ideal, but it provides an atmosphere in which everyone can work together without distracting or inhibiting frictions. It cannot be denied that there is a certain diffidence, shall we say, which is regrettable at a time when everyone should be enthused and stimulated, but it is preferable to a state of bitterness, agitation and unrest. Perhaps we who have administered the country have not ourselves always been fully aware of the wider field of our responsibilities, and have not, as a result, planned as carefully as we might for this impending event. But too-lengthy reflection on past omissions can be of little help now. The British Government is committed, fully committed, to the policy of granting independence to its colonies as soon as events indicate that such a step can be undertaken to achieve the best interests of the people of those territories. But political independence is only part of the foundation on which must be built the more complicated structure of economic viability and progressive social institutions.
A Kind of Homecoming Page 19