In 1915 a peculiarly fanatical form of Ethiopianism broke out in Nyassaland. Its leader was a certain John Chilembwe, an Ethiopian preacher who had been educated in the United States. His propaganda was bitterly anti-white, asserting that Africa belonged to the black man, that the white man was an intruder, and that he ought to be killed off until he grew discouraged and abandoned the country. Chilembwe plotted a rising all over Nyassaland, the killing of the white men, and the carrying off of the white women. In January, 1915, the rising took place. Some plantations were sacked and several whites killed, their heads being carried to Chilembwe’s “church,” where a thanksgiving service for victory was held. The whites, however, acted with great vigor, the poorly armed insurgents were quickly scattered, and John Chilembwe himself was soon hunted down and killed. In itself, the incident was of slight importance, but, taken in connection with much else, it does not augur well for the future.[54]
An interesting indication of the growing sense of negro race-solidarity was the “Pan-African Congress” held at Paris early in 1919. Here delegates from black communities throughout the world gathered to discuss matters of common interest. Most of the delegates were from Africa and the Americas, but one delegate from New Guinea was also present, thus representing the Australasian branch of the black race. The Congress was not largely attended and was of a somewhat provisional character, but arrangements for the holding of subsequent congresses were made.
Here, then, is the African problem’s present status: To begin with, we have a rapidly growing black population, increasingly restive under white tutelage and continually excited by Pan-Islamic propaganda with the further complication of another anti-white propaganda spread by negro radicals from America.
The African situation is thus somewhat analogous to conditions in Asia. But the analogy must not be pressed too far. In Asia white hegemony rests solely on political bases, while the Asiatics themselves, browns and yellows alike, display constructive power and possess civilizations built up by their own efforts from the remote past. The Asiatics are to-day once more displaying their innate capacity by not merely adopting, but adapting, white ideas and methods. We behold an Asiatic renaissance, whose genuineness is best attested by the fact that there have been similar movements in past times.
None of this applies to Africa. The black race has never shown real constructive power. It has never built up a native civilization. Such progress as certain negro groups have made has been due to external pressure and has never long outlived that pressure’s removal, for the negro, when left to himself, as in Haiti and Liberia, rapidly reverts to his ancestral ways. The negro is a facile, even eager, imitator; but there he stops. He adopts; but he does not adapt, assimilate, and give forth creatively again.
The whole of history testifies to this truth. As the Englishman Meredith Townsend says: “None of the black races, whether negro or Australian, have shown within the historic time the capacity to develop civilization. They have never passed the boundaries of their own habitats as conquerors, and never exercised the smallest influence over peoples not black. They have never founded a stone city, have never built a ship, have never produced a literature, have never suggested a creed.... There seems to be no reason for this except race. It is said that the negro has been buried in the most ‘massive’ of the four continents, and has been, so to speak, lost to humanity; but he was always on the Nile, the immediate road to the Mediterranean, and in West and East Africa he was on the sea. Africa is probably more fertile, and almost certainly richer than Asia, and is pierced by rivers as mighty, and some of them at least as navigable. What could a singularly healthy race, armed with a constitution which resists the sun and defies malaria, wish for better than to be seated on the Nile, or the Congo, or the Niger, in numbers amply sufficient to execute any needed work, from the cutting of forests and the making of roads up to the building of cities? How was the negro more secluded than the Peruvian; or why was he ‘shut up’ worse than the Tartar of Samarcand, who one day shook himself, gave up all tribal feuds, and, from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Baltic and southward to the Nerbudda, mastered the world?... The negro went by himself far beyond the Australian savage. He learned the use of fire, the fact that sown grain will grow, the value of shelter, the use of the bow and the canoe, and the good of clothes; but there to all appearances he stopped, unable, until stimulated by another race like the Arab, to advance another step.”[55]
Unless, then, every lesson of history is to be disregarded, we must conclude that black Africa is unable to stand alone. The black man’s numbers may increase prodigiously and acquire alien veneers, but the black man’s nature will not change. Black unrest may grow and cause much trouble. Nevertheless, the white man must stand fast in Africa. No black “renaissance” impends, and Africa, if abandoned by the whites, would merely fall beneath the onset of the browns. And that would be a great calamity. As stated in the preceding chapter, the brown peoples, of themselves, do not directly menace white race-areas, while Pan-Islamism is at present an essentially defensive movement. But Islam is militant by nature, and the Arab is a restless and warlike breed. Pan-Islamism once possessed of the Dark Continent and fired by militant zealots, might forge black Africa into a sword of wrath, the executor of sinister adventures.
Fortunately the white man has every reason for keeping a firm hold on Africa. Not only are its central tropics prime sources of raw materials and foodstuffs which white direction can alone develop, but to north and south the white man has struck deep roots into the soil. Both extremities of the continent are “white man’s country,” where strong white peoples should ultimately arise. Two of the chief white Powers, Britain and France, are pledged to the hilt in this racial task and will spare no effort to safeguard the heritage of their pioneering children. Brown influence in Africa is strong, but it is supreme only in the northeast and its line of communication with the Asiatic homeland runs over the narrow neck of Suez. Should stern necessity arise, the white world could hold Suez against Asiatic assault and crush brown resistance in Africa.
In short, the real danger to white control of Africa lies, not in brown attack or black revolt, but in possible white weakness through chronic discord within the white world itself. And that subject must be reserved for later chapters.