Transcript
Page 1: Portugal's Stand in Africa.by Adriano Moreira; William Davis

Portugal's Stand in Africa. by Adriano Moreira; William DavisReview by: William RydalInternational Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 39, No. 1 (Jan.,1963), p. 133Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Royal Institute of International AffairsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2610575 .

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Page 2: Portugal's Stand in Africa.by Adriano Moreira; William Davis

AFRICA 133

Portugal's Stand in Africa. By Adriano Moreira. Trans. from the Portuguese by William Davis et al. New York: University Publishers. 1962. 265 pp. $3.95.

THERE is doubtless something to be said for the ethos and purpose of Portuguese colonial enterprise, and one would welcome a reasoned statement of Portugal's case for sheltering Angola and Mozambique from 'the wind of change.' But this collection of papers read to learned societies in Portugal over recent years by her Minister of Overseas Affairs does not meet that need. It is published presumably to capture the attention of that section of educated American opinion which has not fallen under the anti- colonialist spell. Unfortunately, the approach to the problem of Africa is subjective, the language often esoteric-while the habit, familiar to the citizens of the Estado Novo, of painting the Soviet devil large on the back- cloth of the African scene can only alienate the intelligent 'Anglo-Saxon' student.

Dr. Moreira begins by tracing the course of the propaganda assault on African opinion through the Bandoeng and Cairo Conferences and the Accra gatherings of 1958. He then discourses on the new 'neutralism' fathered by President Tito in Europe and exploited by the Afro-Asian group of nations at the U.N. Assembly. Finally, he descants on various aspects of 'the Portuguese formula,' which is embodied, apparently, in the Decrees of 1961 repealing the Estatuto dos Indigenas, setting up Provincial Settlement Boards and remodelling the municipal institutions. But in the whirl of words he never seems to get nearer defining this formula than generalities on the policy of safeguarding human dignity and social justice, with no colour bar, and the replacement of arid doctrine by paternalistic care for 'the conduct of people in their routine daily life . . . in their local communities.'

The texts of the decrees are given in an Appendix. WILLIAM RYDAL.

The African Image. By Ezekiel Mphahlele. London: Faber & Faber. 1962. 240 pp. Bibliog. Index. 21s.

MR. MPHAHLELE wrote his autobiography in Down Second Avenue,1 when he was still teaching in South Africa. For the past few years he has been living the life of a voluntary exile in Nigeria, the United States and France. He writes from the position of a non-nationalist. 'The pain of not being nationalists lies in the cold realism of it. ... We who look forward to a South Africa with a non-racial society where there won't be any need for minority fears, appeal to the nobler elements of human nature, even when we know that the white ruling class is far gone. . . .' (p. 74). He describes his search to find an independent existence; independent from both white tyranny and black nationalism. He rejects negritude with its anti-Western posturings. For him then, there is no future in a South Africa in which the white man does not feature.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is political, in which he considers the concepts of the African personality-' a charming phrase . . . at best, it can be but a focus, a coming into consciousness. It's no use pre- tending that it means anything in practical terms' (pp. 19-20); negritude (which he rejects); and nationalism. His views are refreshingly typical of much that is being written by African intellectuals today. It is not necessary

I London: Faber & Faber, 1959.

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