Nadine Gordimer - A Guest of Honour

Bray was aware of his own cold smile and shrug; he reached for the wine after all. “It depends where you draw the line — what does and what does not constitute opposition? There’s a difference between a radical approach to labour problems and radical opposition to the government. That’s where the confusion comes in. In the choice of economic priorities, can a government afford to take action without the support of the majority of an organized labour movement?”

Mweta smiled as a man does when dealing one by one with objections for which he is prepared. “We have the support.”

“That’s not borne out by what’s been happening in the last few months.”

Mweta didn’t believe that was what he meant. He answered words put in Bray’s mouth. “That business today was a perfect example — an attempt to push the unions into the position of political opposition. Well, as you saw for yourself, it failed. That answers the question whether or not we have the support.”

He said dryly, kindly, “Edward failed. You won.”

Mweta showed no signs of distress. He no longer said, trust me. He no longer urged to explain himself. “So you think it’s between Shinza and me — never mind economic prosperity.” He was half — joking, in his new confidence.

“I think that’s the way you see it.”

“Opposition — especially political opposition — from trade unions can only be allowed when it’s clear the governing class is working to consolidate its own benefits rather than for the development of a progressive economy,” Mweta said, confining himself to concern to be exact. “When it’s only an attempt to discredit the government, the government has no choice except to break these people, ay? — even to use force, probably.”

“—I wonder what it was you won.”

But they both rendered the remark harmless by a kind of nostalgia, regretful, giving way to each other; what’s-done-is-done.

He had held in himself the necessity ever since the mission was accomplished in the glare of the carpark that morning— “my old friend, Semstu”—that he would have to give an account of himself on that behalf this evening; here. Why? — now the whole intention was irrelevant. And by the same token it was not necessary for Mweta to admit to him that he was allowing the Company to equip a private army. The evening passed. Each had what he left unsaid. Yet they talked a great deal. Mweta was eager to discuss some mistakes he admitted, difficulties, some doubts — particularly about members of his cabinet. The frankness was a substitute for a lack of frankness. It was perhaps not calculatedly ingratiating — an unconscious appeal (to loyalty? sympathy?) that did not yield an inch. The business of whether Bray was staying on in the country was not mentioned either; Mweta merely remarked that he supposed the work in Gala must be nearly finished? He did not ask why Olivia hadn’t come. And if he had? — what answer, what hastily offered and hastily accepted lie?

Congress remained restlessly divided on everything it discussed. The margin of order at each session was very narrow. Shinza stared out over the auditorium, disdainfully unkempt. He looked more and more like a stranger who suddenly appears from the wilderness and takes up a place to the discomfiture of other men. Even his supporters seemed to approach him at the remove of Goma, the cheerful Basil Nwanga — men more like themselves. Bray wrote to England (he took advantage, these days, of having something objectively interesting, such as the Congress, to tell Olivia about, to make a long letter to her possible) describing Shinza as “an uncomfortable reminder that ideas are still on the prowl. Beyond the charmed circle of the capital’s glow, the whole country …”

It was a letter that would be read aloud to the family or friends. “Interesting,” and nothing in it that anybody couldn’t read. What was happening between himself and Shinza, Mweta — there was no word of that; one confidence, like another, was not possible. Yet — reading it over (he sometimes read over his letters to her several times, now) — he saw that the remark about Shinza reflected some truth about his attitude towards him that had come unconsciously through the studied tone.

He was included in discussions at the Goma house in Old Town. Of course it was his talk to Semstu — using the claim “my old friend” that day sitting in that oven of an ancient car with the plastic rose at eye — level — that, to the rest, made him proven and acceptable; Shinza, no doubt, banked on things more durable and of longer standing. But maybe they were right: the smallest act can be more binding than the largest principles. Shinza’s group themselves continued to attack, through every issue debated, what Goma called “the ossification of Party leadership,” although, gathered in the Goma house, they knew that the defeat of the Secretary — General motion was their defeat at this Congress. They seemed determined that delegates should have in their ears, even as they voted this opposition down, demands for more initiative for the basic units of the Party and a transformation of antiquated social and economic institutions. They pressed the need for simple living, discipline and sacrifice, instead of what they called the careerism of the new ruling elite. Bray remarked privately to Shinza that they were beginning to show the symptoms of puritanism typical of a pressure group. Shinza smiled, picked at his broken tooth; “That’s what’s wrong with pressure groups in the end, ay — it’s all they’ve got to do with themselves.”

But in the closing day’s debate on the President’s opening address, he made a brilliant assault on Mweta’s position without appearing to attack him personally, and pleaded passionately for a rejection of the “false meaning of democracy that sees it in the sense of guarding the rights of the great corporate interests and the preferential retainment of ties with the former colonial power.” He summed up the “spirit of dissension” that had “sprung up everywhere at Congress, because it is in people’s hearts and minds” by pronouncing with a turning from side to side of his bushy — maned head like a creature ambushed, “Independence is not enough. The political revolution must be followed by a social revolution, a new life for us all….” And he quoted, his hands trembling, not quite resting on the table in front of him,

“Go to the people

Live among them

Learn from them

Love them

Serve them

Plan with them

Start with what they know

Build on what they have.”

It was audacious; this Chinese proverb was, after all, the favourite quotation of Nkrumah, who had both professed socialism and set himself up as a god … but Shinza could hardly be reproached, through association, with similar aspirations, because Mweta, like Kaunda, had continued for some time to recognize the deposed Ghanaian head of state. Later, interviewed by a visiting English journalist and referred to as “the fiery political veteran whirled back like a dust — devil from the Bashi Flats,” Shinza was quoted as asking, “When we have built our state, are we going to find the skeletons of opposition walled up in the building?” (Olivia sent the cutting at once.)

The man chosen for the closing address to Congress was traditionally a right — hand man of the Party leader; now that the Party leader was the President, the choice was generally taken to signify a coming man in the government. There was talk that John Nafuma, Secretary of Presidential Affairs, was going to be the one. But it was Ndisi Shunungwa, Secretary — General of UTUC, who gave the address.

On the Sunday there was a big Party rally; many delegates stayed on for it and people came by lorry and on foot for miles. The Independence Stadium, used for the first time since the Independence celebrations, had been tidied up for the occasion; the weeds, the damage done by the rains and by people who (it was said) had removed parts of the stands to use as building material — all this was cleared and made good, apparently by the generosity of the Company, using the gardeners and workmen who still maintained Company property with the green lawns and beds of cannas that had created a neat, neutral environment for white employees in colonial times. Bray was there with Hjalmar Wentz and his daughter Emmanuelle, and heard the Chairman thank the Company, among others that he referred to as “sponsors”—an international soft — drink firm had provided delivery trucks to transport old people and parties of school children.