Book Review: Africa: The African Nettle
| Date | 01 September 1966 |
| Author | Edgar S. Efrat |
| Published date | 01 September 1966 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206602100345 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
409
despite
its alleged
insights,
lacks
the
very
dynamism
of
Africa's
new
societies.
We
are
given
immensely
detailed
data
and
one's
head
swims
with
compressed
party
names.
Yet
the
big
"Why" is
always
there
for
the reader
seeking
a
more
holistic
presentation
and
less
overworked
typologies.
Very
little
attention
is
paid
to
the
non-political
restructuring
of
African
societies
and
the
economic
tensions
which
are
playing
so
vital
a
part
at
present
as,
for
example,
mounting
unemployment.
Thus
mal-
integration
might
be
less
closely
related
to
the
absence
of
truly
national
institutions
than
to
the virtual
certainty
that
millions
of
Africans
who
have
got themselves
a
little
education
find
that
the
former
and
permanent
unemployment
are
likely
to
be
the
same
thing.
There
is
lots
of
mobility
but
it
is
hither
and
yon.
Whatever
political
dispensation
they
are
living
under
now
(or
in
the
future)
the
political
culture
of
the
continent
will
rotate
around
one
thing:
millions
will
have
to
share
poverty.
This
clearly
has
immense
political
implications.
Because of
the
single-mindedness
of
this
volume,
which
misses
the
multiplex
complexity
of
Africa's
present
development,
one
cannot
avoid
the
observation
that
Africa
is
very
much
the
plaything for
those
caught
up
in
the vast
upsurge
of
the
behavioural
sciences.
McGill
University
PETER
C.
W
GUTKIND
THE
AFRICAN
NETTLE.
Dilemmas
of
an
Emerging
Continent.
Edited
by
Frank
S.
Meyer.
1965.
(New
York:
John
Day
Toronto:
Longmans.
2 53
pp.
$6.25)
The
editor
of
this
volume
chose
for
his
motto the
line
from
the
letter
read
by
Hotspur
in
Shakespeare's
Henry
IV
"Out of
this
nettle,
danger,
we
pluck
this
flower,
safety
It
sets
the
tenor
of
the
eleven
essays and
the
editor's brief introduction.
Since
Meyer
is
a
senior
staff
member
of William Buckley's
National
Revtew
and
author
of
The
Mouldings
of
Communs8ts
(1961),
In
Defense
of
Freedom
(1962)
and
the
editor
of
What
is
Conservatism
(1964),
one
may
well
surmise
the
orientation
of
the
present
work.
It
may be
refreshing,
however,
to
confront
occasionally
minority
opinions of
critics
that
are non-grata
in
emergent
Africa,
and
attitudes
not calculated
to
win
friends
in an
anti-colonialist
world
nor
influence
votes
among
the
members
of
the
Afro-Asian
majority
of
the
United
Nations.
In
the
editor's
words,
the
authors
of
these
essays,
although they
range
all
along
the
political
spectrum,
lower
the
temperature
of
what
he
describes
as
the
present
torrent
of
words
flowing
in
one
mighty
stream
of
denunciation
of colonialism, of
the
"historic wrongs"
done
to
the
black
people.
They
all
have
intimate
knowledge
of
Africa, either
as natives, or
as
longtime
residents
of
African
countries,
or as
close
students
and
observers
of
African
affairs.
Because
they
are
all
deeply
concerned
for
the
well-being of
Africa,
Meyer
assures
the
reader,
they
use
reason,
not
emotion,
to
assess
the situation,
they
consider
possible
solutions
under
concrete
circumstances,
instead
of concocting
unreal-
istic
and
soul-satisfying
abstractions
to
fit
Utopian preconceptions.
To continue reading
Request your trial