Page:MALAYSIA BILL RHODESIA AND NYASALAND BILL (2) (Hansard, 11 Juli 1963).djvu/4

 Indeed, throughout all these ground swells of upset and disorder this white minority in central Africa was trying to plan the orderly, economic and political growth of these three States. I know that in retrospect it is easy to chastise these people because they themselves in multi-racialism could not keep up with the pace of Africanisation elsewhere. My hon. Friend the Member for Flint (Mr. White) mentioned that part of this was the cause, that a lot of the nations surrounding central Africa were themselves becoming Africanised and getting independence, and this was causing greater difficulties for the multi-racialists within the Federation.

My view is that they struggled hard but the pace of Africanisation was much too fast. But I still think that the Federation could have won had it not been for forces around them, forces outside their territories, visiting politicians who were not weighing their words carefully in the countries concerned, fanning the flames of Africanisation in those territories.

Her Majesty's Government must take a large share of the blame for this. But the Federal Prime Minister in the Federal Assembly quite openly accused Her Majesty's Government in a speech on 8th April when he said that this had been a story"of treachery and deceit". That there had been duplicity and double dealing in negotiations with British Ministers, and now with the secession of Nyasaland and the break-up of the Federation the Government had been guilty of a miserable and abject surrender.

It also means that in these operations the Government have shocked the white people out there. They had pleased the Africans and had given some credence to the slogan,"Violence pays". Dr. Banda, Mr. Joshua Nkomo and, in part, Mr. Kenneth Kaunda have all threatened in their various ways, and this is now partially their reward. The U.N.I.P. magazine always carries the slogan,"Violence pays; peace does not pay". This hastening end of the Federation experiment is part of their reward.

I wonder if hon. Members realise how damaging words can be to the African mass, whether in this House or in the countries concerned, to any large mass of semi-illiterate people no matter whether Africans or not. The winds of change have been sweeping through Africa, telling people to fight for the vote, and because of their semi-illiteracy and being unaccustomed to democratic terms they take it literally meaning that and take up their spears and pangas and decide that that is what they should do.

People should be very careful not to fan the flames of the ambitious and of the politicians who desire quickly to take office, especially when there is no economic stability in the countries concerned. It will be on our heads when independence is granted and if tyrannical rule follows because there is economic instability in the State stern authoritarian measures have to follow. I particularly have Nyasaland in mind.

The message of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) was that we had never been able to give them economic stability before they politically emerged. This is one of the tragedies of most of the States within Africa. Ghana was an example. Although it was much richer than Nyasaland is, and probably much richer than Nyasaland ever will be, it has a black authoritarian rule. Political opposition has been wiped out. The freedom and liberty of the subject has been restricted, there is detention without charge and political prisoners are in jail. We do not have to talk about Greece or Spain which have suffered civil wars and send political prisoners to jail. This is a new emergent nation where democracy was built with a Parliament, Government and Opposition. It has all been rent asunder, however, and it is easy in small territories which are economically unstable for this to happen.

I should like for a moment to paint on a larger canvas. We are witnessing the Balkanisation of Central Africa. In due course the Pan-African movement—P.A.F.M.E.C.S.A.—may succeed in its long-term goal of Africanising Central Africa, possibly stretching down to the tip of the South. When these fall to their pressures Pan-Africanism will lose its unifying force and then they may revert to fighting each other economically. Therefore it is a shallow unity. Once this bond, this unity they have—Pan-Africanism, fighting the South and Central Africa—is broken there will be economic