Curious male figures in History from Eurimperialism to Afrocolonization

Merideth Fate of page 23 -

He was venerated in hymns and prayers; supporters recited phrases like, 'I believe in Kwame Nkrumah'. From early morning, queus would form marital disputes to sickness, infertility, job recommendations, financial assistance and settlement of debts. No matter how busy he was, Nkrumah always endeavoured to find time for them.

He possessed a magnetism evident to all who encountered him. A lithe figure of medium height and slim build, with a prominent forehead, receding hairline and soulful eyes, he exuded vitality. An American writer, John Gunther, who me him at a dinner given by Arden-Clarke at Christiansborg Castle in July 1953, was struck by his charisma. Nkrumah was wearing national costume: a Roman-like toga in silk kente cloth, with the left arm and shoulder left bare. 'His movements and gestures have power, ease and an almost animal-like magnetism,' wrote Gunther. 'He neither struts nor shows exaggerated reserve.' His whole life was dominated by politics. A bachelor, he took no interest in sport, or food, or personal comfort. Baptised a Catholic, he had once seriously considered a career as a Jesuit priest and was still attracted by the sense of single-minded purpose it involved. He did not smoke or drink. When Gunther asked him what he did for relaxation, he replided: ' Work.' He was fond of music, both classical and the local dance music called highlife. When a friend suggested he should listen more often to classical music to help him relax, he promply ordered two hundred records. BUt the only one he listened to, over and over again, was the 'Hallelujah Chorus' from The Messiah.

Behind all the hurly-burly, Nkrumah was a lonely figure, distrustful of his close colleagues, rarely confiding in them. He enjoyed the company of women, but feared intimacy and declared he had no time to get married. One of the most trusting relationships he formed was with the governor's private secretary, Erica Powell, an Englishwoman who had arrived in the Gold Coast in 1952. When he first invited her to dinner at his home, Powell consulted Arden-Clarke who encouraged her to accept. ' You know, Erica,' said Arden-Clarke, 'Nkrumah is a very lonely man. A very lonely man.'

Nkrumah often telephoned her late at night. 'Sometimes I listened whie he became more and more drowsy and slurred his speech,' she recalled in her memoirs. 'But if I suggested hanging up he would immediately come to life.' He arrived at her flat unexpectedly one evening, complaining about the crowd of people hanging around his own home and promptly fell asleep. She encouraged him to find a quieter residence, and also coaxed him into taking interest in food and personal fitness.

In 1955 she joined his staff as his private secretary. The gossip in Accra at the time was that she was his mistress but she always denied it. In her memoirs she protrays Nkrumah as moody, erratic, impatient, and volatile, but also charming and considerate when it suited him. 'The trouble was that his moods could change so rapidly,' she wrote. Despite all the frustrations and the exhausting pace of his schedule, she remained a key figure in his entourage, working closely with him for more than ten years. Nkrumah once confided to her that she was the only person on whom he could rely for unbiased advice.


After winning the 1954 election, Nkrumah seemed set to make rapid progress towards independence. But he encountered unexpected resistance centered on his conduct of government. In the final stages of colonial rule, the Gold Coast, once a model colony, was riven by such bitterness, division and violence that it appeared in danger of breaking up.

At the core of the crisis was cocoa money. To protect cocoa farmers from price fluctuations, the colonial authorities had established a Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB) which each year fixed a guaranteed price for farmers and acted as the sole buyer, grader, seller and exporter of cocoa









Merideth Fate of page 121 - 131



Verwoerd acknowledged that his 'ideal' of total territorial separation would not be reachyed for many years, but the goal needed to be set. The only solution to hte 'rivalry and clashes' endemic between the races was to give each one 'mastery' over its own area. At the end of this grand design, Verwoerd confidently expected South Africa would consist of flourishing black homelands living side by side in peace with an ever-prosperous white state. Unveiling his master plan in 1959, he announced that henceforth South Africa would become a 'multi-national' state with separate homelands for eight black 'nations'.

Facing the onslaught of white supremacy, the ANC held fast to its multiracial principles. Mandela, who had once ligned himself to the Africanist wing within the ANCE, was now fully committed to a multiracial future for South Africa, impressed in particular by the dedication shown by radical whites to the cause, notably white communists. Africanists, however, had become increasingly critical of the direction taken by the ANC, condemning the alliances it was willing to make with other racial groups to oppose apartheid. They especially resented the clause in the Freedom Charter declaring that South Africa belonged to 'all who live in it, black and white'. In the Africanist view, the only true 'owners' of South Africa were Africans. Others had merely 'stolen' the country.

In 1959 the Africanists broke away from the ANC to form their own group, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), demanding 'governmentof the Africans, by the Africans, for the Africans' and promising they announced a campaign of mass protest against the hated pass law system, the mainstay of government control of the African population, which requiredd every African over the age of sixteen to carry a pass proving their right to be in a 'white' area; thousands went to prison every week for failing to produce a passbook on demand. On 21 March 1960 plice in Sharpeville, a black township fifty miles south of Johannesburg, opened fire indiscriminately on a crowd of PAC demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 186. Most of the casualties were shot in the back as they fled the gunfire.

The Sharpeville massacre became a permanent symbol of the brutality of the apartheid regime. It provoked a storm of African protest -- marches, demonstrations, strikes and violence. Many whites feared that South Africa might be on the verge of revolution. An outburst of international condemnation added to the atmosphere of crisis. Western attitudes towards South Africa, hitherto ambivalent, became markedly more hostile. A United Nations Security Council resolution blamed South Africa's racial policies for causing 'international friction'. Foreign investors, fearing imminent upheaval, deserted in droves.

To all criticism, both domestic and foreign, Verwoerd remained impervious. Nothing was to shake his faith in apartheid. Far from being willing to make concessions, he ordered a massive crackdown. Using emergency powers, the government banned the ANC and the PAC and detained thousands of anti-apartheid dissidents. Few activists escaped the dragnet. Within weeks, the back of African resistance was broken.

Despite being driven underground, the ANC still believed that mass action might yet shake the government. In 1961 ANC activists devised plans to stage a three-day national strike to be followed by a wave of 'mass non-cooperation'. The key figure in this new campaign was Nelson Mandela. Abandoning his legal practice and forsaking all chance of a family lfe with his young wife, Winnie, and their two children, he decided to commit himself wholeheartedly to working as an underground leader.

A warrant for Mandela's arrest was soon issue. But with the help of a network of Communist Party supporters, who had years of experience of working underground undetected, he evaded capture for month after month, moving from town to town, urging support for the strike and advertising his activities through telephone calls to newspapers. Much of the work he carried out at night, growning used to spending his days in hide-outs. He disguised himself with different outfits, dressing in workment's overalls or chauffeur's clothes, growing a beard and wearing round, rimless spectiacles. After dark he often appeared as a night-watchman, dressed in a large grey overcoat and cap pulled over his eyes and occasionally sporting large earrings. Because of his success in dodgeing the police, the press dubbed him the Black Pimpernel, and African version of the Scarlet Pimpernal, a fictional character who evaded capture during the French Revolution.

To counter the strike threat, the government passed new laws enabling it to detain anyone without trial and orderreed the largest mobilisation of the army and police since the war. Night after night, police carried out raids in African townships; all political meetings were banned; and employees threatened with mass dismissals. Despite the display of might, thousands of workers in major towns answered the strike call. But the overall result did not match Mandela's expectations. On the second day he called off the campaign.

The failure of the strike convinced Mandela that there was nothing further to be gained from continuing with protest action and the only alternative available was to resort to violence. Years of demonstrations, boycotts, strikes and civil disobedience had achieved nothing. Each occasion had been met with government reprisals. Mandela believed that a limited campaign of sabotage would scare off foreign investors, disrupt trade and cause sufficient damage to force the white electtorate and the government to change course.Mandela's thinking was influenced strongly by revolutionary enthusiasts in the underground Communist Party who had already decided to form armed groups as a prelude to engaging in guerrilla warfare. With ready access to the Soviet bloc and China, they were planning to send recruits outside the country for training. The armed struggle, they believed, would receive massive support from the oppressed African population and soon bring the apartheid regime to an end. They cited the example of Cuba where Castro's revolution had shown how a small group of revolutionaries could gain mass support to win power. What made a particular impact from the Cuban example was Che Guevara's 'detonator' theory of revolution, the idea that armed action on its own would create a momentum among the population.

But while Mandela was persuaded about the need for an armed struggle, other ANC leaders were vehemently opposed to it. At a secret meeting in June 1961, the arguments raged back and forth. By the end of it a compromise was reached. It was agreed that the ANC would remain committed to non-violence, but that it would not stand in the way of members who wanted to establish a separate and independent military organisation. The new organisation - Umkhonto we Sizwe, meaning Spear of the Nation - rapidly took shape. With Mandela as chairman, it was essentially

(p.130: "... Confrontation was what was needed in Rhodesia, not psuedo-diplomacy.")