Out in the street women’s organizations in various quasi — uniforms — the only uniform thing about their dress was its combination of red — and-black PIP colours — sang full strength. One of the Young Pioneer groups had a tea — chest band going. Now and then, shouting Party slogans, holding their flags and banners tottering above people’s heads, these celebrants surged into the foyer and made it impossible for lobbying delegates to make themselves heard, or for traffic to move up- and downstairs to where the secretarial committee responsible for the agenda sat in the mezzanine. Press cameras rose like periscopes out of the crush; flash bulbs puffed and caught faces in sudden lightning. A countering surge of impatience rather than the efforts of Party stewards sent the singers and chanters giddying back into the street among children, icecream tricycles, and the motorcycles of the police.
The heat of October — the white settlers used to call it suicide month — held siege outside, but the Luxurama was air — conditioned; in this refrigerator smelling of smoke and chewing gum Bray heard every word fall, suddenly clear of the noise and thick — headed humidity. Mweta walking in to give his opening address matched the mood of confidence Bray felt all around in the quick eyes white against black faces, the tense composure of people who hold ready within them, untouched as yet by any blight of counter opinion, the speeches they have prepared, the points they are going to send home. And Shinza was up there somewhere on the stage among the Executive and Central Committees; slowly the face detached itself; the beard, the way of looking up easily, not out into the auditorium but to one side, as if some invisible confidences were being made to his inclined ear. There he was.
Mweta’s tunic had the variation of a small — patterned scarf in the neck; it made a reddish blur from a distance under the lights of the stage, and made one aware of his face among all others even when one was not looking at him. His skin shone; he was healthy and handsome. He began by speaking in his warmly confidential way of the instability of the government machine which was taken over less than a year ago, with the repatriation of the colonial administrative staffs greatly increasing an already chronic shortage of manpower. The country’s skills always had been largely provided by expatriates because the colonial power had “thought it unnecessary” to develop the skills of the local population — that was the well — known policy of colonialism. “We were not ‘prepared’ for independence by the white man and when we fought for it and won, we took our country into our bare hands.” From the very first day the fact had been faced that much of the administration and skilled labour would have to continue to be done by expatriates — with the difference that “we are the employers, and they are our employees, now: we pay the piper and call the tune.” Considering this difficult, this dangerous, this precarious state of the country when it fell at last into the hands of its rightful owners, how did it look now?
Mweta broke off and looked out and around into tiers of spread knees and faces that he must have been able to half — see in the dimness of the house lights beyond the glare that enveloped him on the stage. He bared his face, a Sebastian to many arrows. And seemed to pluck them, harmless, from his flesh, in advance: yes, there had been certain difficulties, labour troubles in industry and public works, all of which were really the direct consequence of the colonial legacy, the problems shelved and shirked under colonialism, always put aside for another day. “That day is ours”—he switched suddenly to his football — stadium, mass — meeting voice, so that for a moment it was too much for the microphone, and the phrase flew back and forth about the walls— “that day is ours and it has to be dealt with by us just as if the government had created those problems instead of inheriting them. It is easy to please people for the time being, to put something into their hands and send them away happy — for a little while. But what happens when they come back with hands outstretched again, and this time you have nothing to offer, because you have strained the country’s economy beyond its resources?” The needs of economic development, at this stage, must prevail over all others. The welfare of the country as a whole was what the government had in mind when it did not, could not and would not accede to the demands of the mineworkers, which were not based on the economy of an independent, developing country, but harked back to the economy that had existed in colonial times. It was understandable that this confusion could arise in the minds of the workers … and of course in this country everywhere there were individuals ready to take advantage of the confusion for their own ends. But “the PIP government has to stand tall and look over the heads of its people.” The PIP government was settling industrial disputes in the way that served the long — term interests of the workers better than they perhaps could realize — in fact in their best possible interests, as well as those of the country as a whole. “During the European war, the British government in the U.K. took special measures, including forbidding the right to strike, in order to keep up industrial output. We are at war, too — with the underdevelopment of our country, with backwardness and poverty. I will never take the easy way out, if it means losing that war. I will never put myself in the position where the people of this country must be turned away empty — handed.”
On the last syllable of the high — sounding phrase he produced his usual trick of confronting himself with another concrete accusation — there had been another problem that had had to be dealt with in these first few months. He had given a full statement to the nation at the time, but of course he would always regard it as a special responsibility to account to the Party for what was done in the Party’s name. A Preventive Detention Bill had been introduced; a measure to put a stop to any underhand attempts to throw the country off balance at the time when it was still finding its feet. As he had already pointed out, in certain sections of the community impatience for the fruits of freedom could temporarily overcome the people’s natural good sense. They were then in danger of falling victim to those sly disruptive forces that appeared all over the new Africa, trying to persuade people to sabotage themselves. It was easy to fan grievances; easier than to satisfy them through hard work and the controlled and orderly growth of the country. “When we have built our state we shall be able to tolerate the quibblers and the plotters as harmless madmen and we won’t need preventive detention. It is a temporary measure for our new kind of state of emergency — an emergency not of unrest but of the necessity to get on with the job, unmolested by pests.”
There had been a third problem, and this one also was not this country’s alone, but common to emergent Africa. Often there was instability and unrest in neighbouring states; stable and peaceful countries found themselves in the position of having to play host to refugees “of one kind and another.” These refugees knew perfectly well that they enjoyed the shelter of the country on the strict condition that they did not abuse it. No country could tolerate the presence of “plotting foreigners who violate the right of asylum by bringing arms into the country, and by using the ordinary, peaceful activities of the people as a cover for a traffic in weapons.” Fish trucks transporting food from the lake to the capital had been used in this way by refugees. He would not allow anyone to “conduct a war at our expense.” These people had been told to leave; and they could consider themselves lucky that they had not been tried in a court of law. The decision about whether such exiles should be tried for bringing in arms lay with the Attorney — General, and he would not fail to act if such incidents occurred again — other refugees could take note.