(note: three years worth of the Federal Outlook
as scanned images can now be found here.)

Selections from the "Federal Outlook"

December, 1960

(4/8/01) At a local university library I found the December, 1960 issue of the Federal Outlook, the newspaper of the United Federal Party of the short lived Central African Federation and have transcribed some of the more interesting pieces for the web. I find these old documents from the Rhodesias to be fascinating. The piece by Paul Hluzo is as good an analysis of the situation of that time as you will ever find. The Parliamentary speech by Captain Kirby may or may not strike you as prophetic. The pieces I have chosen are not representative of the newspaper as a whole. These are the most pessimistic statements found in that issue, but these are the ones which strike me as being the most interesting today. The rest of the newspaper was wholeheartedly optimistic about the future of: the Federation, the United Federation Party, race relations, Britain's willingness to grant independence before a one man one vote election, the success of the qualified vote system, the continued presence of whites in Africa, Africa itself, and of the Federation's chances of producing Rugby players as good as South Africa's. Not one of these hopes came through. It is how mistaken this optimism was that makes the Federal Outlook so fascinating today, as well as the fact that it is a window on the last days of the Cape system which had such a unique spirit and character.

-Background-

The Federation lasted from 1953 to 1963 and consisted of what are now Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe but were then Nyasaland, N. Rhodesia and S. Rhodesia. The Federation was self-governing, but not independent of Britain. Voting was restricted to those who could pass educational and financial requirements and this was openly admitted as being intended to make the majority of voters white. There were over 50,000 whites in N. Rhodesia and over 200,000 whites in S. Rhodesia at the time and almost none in Nyasaland. The idea behind this political system was that Africans were uncivilized and that as time went on they would become more civilized and slowly begin to pass the voting requirements in greater numbers until they came to be the majority of voters. It was felt that by the time this happened they would be advanced enough to run the country as well as whites. This qualified vote system was first instituted by Cecil Rhodes at the Cape Colony and was the system used in both Rhodesias. The Cape Colony abandoned this system when it was absorbed into South Africa which is why Hluzo says "The old liberalism of the Cape is now here with us." The idea that a qualified vote was the answer to Africa's problems would die within 3 years when the Federation died. The U.F.P.'s platform was that the qualified vote system of the Cape should be continued and that all reference to race should be removed from the legal system. Most of these references dealt with land ownership and education. The party was led by Sir Roy Welensky, of mixed Jewish/Afrikaner descent, who had a great popularity among those who shared these views. At the time that this isue of the Federal Outlook was written the U.F.P. was the most popular party among the almost all white electorate and most supported these policies. After it became clear that Britain would never accept the qualified vote system the white electorate turned against the idea of de-racializing the legal system. While the U.F.P. believed blacks would be ready to run Africa in a few short decades the parties which came to power after this believed it would be a few short centuries. What was then S. Rhodesia lived on until 1980 as Rhodesia when Mugabe took over and changed the name to Zimbabwe.

Transcription: I have reproduced the original exactly. This includes the excessive use of bold type and what seem to be errors such as opening quotation marks without closing marks and excessive use of commas such as "primitive peoples, or, at worst, of savages." The spell checker may have removed some of the British spelling, but I went back and re-spelled 'civilized' the wrong way.

African Ambition and European Fears

An African, Paul Hluzo, wrote the following thoughtful analysis. In it he emphasizes that interest in keeping the Federation intact must be founded on facts. History has proved that mere racial ambition is a sure approach to national suicide, he says. Mr. Hluzo lives at Bembezi. Here is what he has to say:-

"The Government must remain in civilised and responsible hands, because any Government worth the name must be acceptable both internally and externally. In the civilised world there are constitutions and standards set so that as far as humanly possible equilibrium should be the share of all concerned. Our aim, young as we are as a nation, is peace, law and order. Our background is God our Creator. Anything short of this is not acceptable. Ancestral worship as such has no place in our conventions and standards.

With regard to African ambitions, let us accept the fact that African race consciousness has taken the world by surprise. The more advanced members of the human family had all along been speculation whether the African would one day stand up and and ask for a share in the government of the country in which he lived . This is no longer a speculation but a reality. This reality has manifested itself in the form of African nationalism. Here there is a question to ask: Is African Nationalism a bad thing, or is it the motive behind it that is bad?

Nationalism as such is not a bad thing, for any nation which is proud of its achievements is prepared to die rather than sacrifice what it believes to be the mainstay of its institutions.

In Africa today the wind of change is blowing, but it is not blowing from only one direction. As a result of the two World Wars the African was enabled to travel far and wide, and thus came into contact with people of other lands who sat and talked with him on equal terms compared wit the master and servant level in his homeland. Thus the African's political horizon widened, his political taste was sharpened.

The attitude of the African politician tends to be both aggressive and arrogant. Black audience in the urban areas completely fail to afford one an opportunity to assess the real aspirations of the black mind. Parliamentary speakers are never given a good hearing, neither is the African point of view ever logically put forward, Courtesy and good manners at these meetings are conspicuous by their absence.

To appreciate the dangers inherent in African Nationalism one must know the African's political attitude before the advent of European administration. Parliament as such was non-existent in African society. The true legislator was tradition, and the traditional laws were administered by rulers with the help of councilors and native courts (inkundla). The will of the people was behind these African institutions. African law offered protection within the tribe. To kill and plunder outside the tribe was both a virtue and valour. To go against the wish of the tribe, i.e., the majority, was death.

The modern African politician is not far removed from the law of his forebears. 'He who is against the will of the majority, let him die.' This is the root cause of intimidation. However, the African politician is a shrewd man, for he knows the accepted standards of the civilised world. Thus great care is taken in drawing up a political constitution so that it may be acceptable to civilised people outside his group He abhors and denounces violence in his Constitution, but in practice he encourages it, with riots and hooliganism, at public meetings.

PARTNERSHIP

We now come to the fears of the white men. Our political leaders, Sir Roy Welensky and Sir Edgar Whitehead, are wedded to the a policy of partnership. They have full support from all men and women of goodwill and a strong Parliamentary backing, e.g. the vote on the repeal of the Land Apportionment Act. Their policy is that government must remain in the hands of civilised people for the foreseeable future; that the Federation must be kept intact; that partnership is the keystone of our multi-racial edifice.

civilised and responsible' hands does not mean civilised, responsible white hands for all time- far from it. But it does mean that the country is not prepared to take the Congo risk. Our black brother politicians have shown beyond doubt that chaos and suffering are not only condoned but deliberately encouraged, with utter disregard of constitutional means. The rule of the jungle at our stage of development cannot be tolerated, for our Constitution has plenty of room for orderly natural political evolution, without any need to resort to revolution in our midst. Ours is democracy whose foundation is tolerance.

Our franchise is so arraigned that the vote may be exercised by responsible minds. Ours is a gradual process which is neither too fast or too slow. The idea is to avoid racial representation when the time comes for suitable Africans to enter our Territorial Parliament. Indeed, we all dread the day of a Black Opposition.

The old liberalism of the Cape is now here with us. Let us demonstrate to the world that a multi-racial society with sound, good leadership will bear good fruits, for the admiration of our external friends and for our own internal equilibrium.

Federation has Unanswerable Case

"Appeasement and Expediency will Fail"- British M.P.

A very strong case for Federation was put recently by Captain Henry Kirby in the debates on the address of the Queen's Speech in the House of Common.

Captain Kirby said that in his opinion the Federation had an unanswerable case.

"It stands for British law and order in Central Africa- yes, even today, after the resignation of Sir Robert Tredgold. It stands for educational and economic advance in Central Africa. It stands for those standards which the white man, and the white man alone, has given to the black Continent and which are the only hope for the future of Africa."

The Federation stands also for ever-growing partnership between the races, Captain Kirby continued. "Those who abuse the Federation, who wish to destroy it, stand for a Congo-United Nations solution, which is no solution at all, which is a madhouse leading to murder, rape, pestilence, hunger, poverty- in a word, anarchy.

ADVANCE OR RETREAT

"What is the choice before us in British Central Africa? It is either an advance into federal prosperity or a retreat back into the jungle. A long, intensive, subtle and sinister campaign has been waged, and is still being waged, in Britain against the white man in Africa. This psychological warfare, this war of nerves, is aimed at the engineering of consent to the breaking up of the Federation and destruction of the last major British bastion. A blueprint for this operation is now available, in the guise of the advisory Monckton Report.

"This document is a masterpiece in the Pavlovian technique of subjective conditioning. As I see it, Nyasaland is to be permitted-encouraged may be the more correct term- to opt out of the Federation. Indeed, the Malawi Congress party is de facto in control in Nyasaland today, and this despite the fact that Dr. Banda does not speak the language of the Nyasa people whom he is to rule de jure if the Colonial Office has its way.

"The British Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia will then, no doubt, be accorded its so called freedom and this will leave us with a truncated Southern Rhodesia. Luckily for itself, and for its 211,000 Europeans, Southern Rhodesia is a self-governing Colony and will be able-indeed, compelled, in my view- to make urgent common cause with the republican Union of South Africa.

"PHONEY" AFRICAN STATES

"Meanwhile, two more new and 'phoney' African States-Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia-will apply to join the United Nations and will forthwith come under United Nations protection-trusteeship, I believe they call it-and Fred Karno's United Nation's army will go in a la Congo. The basic tragedy is that the British Government seem to believe that by selling our white kith and kin in Central Africa down the river we can appease a tiny handful of black professional African agitators and self-seekers, and somehow gear them and their makeshift and 'phoney' allegiance to the British Commonwealth. Noting could be further from the truth.

Appeasement and expediency will fail in Africa as they have failed everywhere else in history. Part of the Pavlovian technique is to depict the clash in Africa today as one between black and white. History will prove this to be nothing of the sort. The real collision coming in Africa is one between black and black.

Look at the Congo, at Kenya and Uganda. Look at that little fellow-travelling dictatorship in Ghana, our tragic haste in handing over administration and government to a handful of self-seeking Africans who cannot administer and cannot govern is betraying tens of thousands of our own countrymen, women and children into the hands of, at best, primitive peoples, or, at worst, of savages.

WILL BE BUTCHERED

"Nor is this all. We will be sentencing simultaneously tens of thousands of black innocents, men and women, who will surely be butchered at our going. In Africa today a tiny handful of foreign-trained black agitators scream for political freedom, but the political freedom is something that the mass, the overwhelming millions, of utterly childlike simple, illiterate and intimidated Africans-intimidated by other Africans- do not understand and do not want.

"In any case, freedom is something which cannot be enacted into being by legislation. A three-line whip never brought freedom to anybody, least of all, perhaps, in this House.

"The basic problems in Africa today, alas, remain massive poverty, hunger, stupendous ignorance, disease and the lack of communications. What Africa needs today and will need for decades to come is not political freedom based upon the shifting sands of the United Nations or upon Mau Mau oaths, or even upon Malawi terrorism or Dr. Nkrumah's form of government. What Africa needs today is education and more education, health services and housing, massive economic investment and development.

"That is something for which both races, black and white, should and could work together. In the beginning, they were as parent and child; today, they stand as teacher and pupil. Eventually, in the future, but not for decades to come, they may become, and I hope most sincerely that they will become, equals and co-partners. That is precisly what the Federation is trying to achieve in British Central Africa today.

"Our over-riding duty in this country and in the house is to sustain and support them in every possible way rather than sabotaging them, as I believe we may do unless we are very careful".

The Federal Outlook had several pages of very short quotes underneath the photo of the speaker. All were from recent United Federal Party functions. The three most interesting were:

Mr. A.J.W. McCLEOD "...If we have miscegenation our nation is doomed..."
Mr. J.B. YEBO "... Many African people have not joined us, not because they do not like Federation, but because they are afraid of intimidation ..."
Mr. T.A. NYAZIKA "...If put into effect, the principal of one man one vote will descredit us for generations to come..."

The ...'s are in the original. I looked up the names of all the people quoted in these selections on the internet and could not find any mention of them, but there is a T. S. Nyazika who is currently an important figure in the Movement for Democratic Change and recently ran for a parliamentary seat in Umtali. He may well be a descendent of T.A. Nyazika.

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