The African
A Novel
By WILLIAM CONTON
first edition 1960
Chapter 5
pages 53-55
Liverpool next day was gray, cold, wet and foggy; and the promised land looked most unpromising from the deck of the ship. Once ashore, however, the towering buildings, massed traffic, and attractive shops kept us staring and gaping while waiting for our trains to various parts of the country.
The sight of white people
en masse was itself something which required some getting used to; but the thing that took us really aback was our first sight of a white man sweeping a gutter. He was a short, seedy-looking, rather dirty man, with heavy working boots and stained, well-worn clothes, but unmistakably a white man nevertheless; and actually, standing right down in the gutter sweeping it, collecting the rubbish on a shovel and tipping it into a wheelbarrow. We stood in utter disbelief, at some little distance from him, expecting him at any moment either to vanish like a gremlin down the nearest drain, or else to turn dark brown. I suppose if you had asked us beforehand who swept gutters in England, we should have replied, after a moment or two's reflection, that we supposed some of the English drains, at least, must have the honor of being swept by white men; for even all the stowaways and workless migrants from Africa and the West Indies could not provide enough labor for so many menial tasks. But no one had prepared us beforehand by any such question; and the sight of that man almost felled us.
"Thank God for bringing me here," breathed Appiah reverently, the first among us to recover his breath. "I always suspected there was some good reason for my coming to Britain."
And I think that summed up how most of us felt. We did not lose respect for the white man - very far from it. What we did lose, however (and long overdue was the loss), was an illusion created by the role the white man plays in Africa: that he is a kind of demigod whose hands must never get dirty, who must not be allowed to carry anything heavier than a portfolio or wield any implement heavier than a pen. Without realizing it, we had come to think of the white man only in the role of missionary, civil servant, or senior business executive, one who was always behind the desk, never in front of it. We saw him as one who always gave orders, never took them, who could have any job liked for the asking. So, to realize that that man was perfectly happy working in that gutter (snatches of his melancholy whistling reached us faintly where we stood) was a most salutary experience. It was now possible for us to like the white man. For before you can like (as distinct from merely admiring or emulating), you must feel kinship, a shared humanity, the possibility of common experiences and destinies. As we resumed our walk past the sweeper, he looked up and grinned cheerfully at us, leaning for a moment on his brush. We waved and grinned back; and in that mute exchange of greetings there was erased in a moment the memory of the behavior of the stewards on board. The latter had acted as if the gods had decreed that the black man should minister and the white man be ministered unto, and that they were stewards and we passengers only by special dispensation. Our friend the road-sweeper, on the other hand, was so far from harboring any such notions that he had found time to give us, in his own way, a welcome to Liverpool.
We were soon to find, as countless thousands of colonial students in the United Kingdom must have found, that the Britisher at home is an altogether different creature, and a much more lovable one, than the Britisher overseas. Perhaps the same applies to most people. Abroad, too, we all to a greater or lesser extent are conscious of treading a stage; of having to live up to, or live down, a national reputation. The white man abroad has to prove that he is superior to the black man; the black man abroad has to prove that he is not inferior to the white man. The proving of both cases involves much play-acting, much assumption of false roles. The only solution is for the colonial student to be offered, and to accept unreservedly, a "home from home" on the hearth of a British family; a family not necessarily wealthier than that of our road sweeper, but certainly no less free from false ideas as to the proper position of white men and black men vis-a-vis each to share a home in the fullest sense of the words, to feel genuinely "at home," facades fall, pretense ceases, masks are removed, and it is rare indeed that the real man does not attract. My years in the United Kingdom were to teach me that the ordinary British home can undo the harm done by die-hard imperialists far more effectively than all the money invested in Colonial Development and Welfare Funds and Colonial Students' Hostels (indispensable as these are), and all the Colonial Office receptions, dances, tours and conferences put together.
Inside Dust Jacket - Front & Back Flap:
The African is the odyssey of a man voyaging between violent eddies of disparate civilizations, who must at every turn decide in which pattern he shall learn and love and lead.
It is the story of Kisimi Kamara, born in a remote village in the West African colony of Songhai, who is educated first by missionaries, then in England, and who becomes the first Prime Minister of his country when it achieves independence. From the vividly portrayed bush background through the sojourn, both idyllic and tragic, in England to his dramatic triumph in creating and leading to victory a new native party, Kisimi is at once a symbol of African aspirations and a warmly realized protagonist.
The African is wholly unlike any other novel to come out of Africa. Its author, who is Headmaster of the high school in Accra, Ghana, is a man deeply involved in his people's efforts to compress centuries of educational, social and political achievement into a few short decades. He has written here a book which should stand as a landmark of African fiction and African ideals. With its supple and forthright style, it introduces to American readers a writer of remarkable qualifications for bringing alive the ideals and realities of his continent and relating an absorbing tale of an unforgettable man of our times.
William Conton was born in 1925 in Bathurst, Gambia, West Africa, the son of a clergyman. He was educated in schools and colleges in West Africa and in England, receiving a B.A. from Durham University. He lives in Accra, Ghana, with his wife and three sons and one daughter.
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Colonialism Explained
