Cambridge 38

After completing his baby-kissing, hand-pumping tour of Africa, "Soapy" Williams was chided by a national magazine portraying him, clad in a tribal robe and bow tie, proclaiming, "You too can become an African expert in three weeks." That Governor Williams learned little from his grand tour is evident in a brief article in Cambridge 38's special edition on Africa. Williams relies on the sonorous, empty phrases of officialdom--"African countries need economic assistance designed to meet national objectives and to create national stability"--to convey his random impressions of the continent.

With the exception of Williams' article, the recent special issue of Cambridge 38 presents a fairly solid, informative introduction to African political and economic problems. All sixteen articles are of course couched in general terms, and gloss over important differences between African states. I found Martin Kilson's study of single-party governments most interesting; it is a concise explanation of the authoritarian single-party system, which, the author rightly concludes, "will become a general pattern in African states." A second most interesting contributing is the article on African law, by Boston lawyer Archibald McColl, which, like Elliot Berg's survey of American industry in Africa, presents hard facts. Jeffrey Butler's article on Africa's new leadership suffers most from pious generalization--e.g. "the quality of leadership will continue to be of crucial importance."

My greatest criticism of the issue arises from the section entitled "Africans on Africa." Five of the six articles were transcribed from tape-recorded interviewers. Thus the writing frequently is married by inept expression or by the inevitable twist given by interviewers' questions. Although African opinion could have been the would have been new to most interesting part of Cambridge 38, a section that would have been new to most readers, the resulting articles were choppy and without factual substantiation. By limiting the interviews to representatives of Nigeria, Mali, Ghana and Guinea, the Cambridge 38 staff also failed to consider the interesting problems faced by nations of the former A.E.F. or by Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. The fifth transcribed article, drawn from an interview with a South African representative, introduces Lewis Nkosi's bitter criticism of spartheid. Nkosi, an African who has been exiled from his native South Africa, believes that apartheid will lead to "a merciless cutting of heads."

Two articles by Cambridge 38 staff members finally deserve recognition. Thomas Bethell surveys the series of faux pas and unfortunate incidents marring recent African-American relations, a justly critical survey with some well-considered (though hardly original) conclusions. Simon Lazarus strings together a number of quotations concerning the Peace Corps, intended to emphasize the inherent limitations of the Corps. Both articles round out a valuable issue of Cambridge 38, by far the best of the six generally mediocre numbers of 1960-61. The magazine's staff could well devote further issues to similar themes.