A Guest of Honour (56 page)

“And in the towns—in industry—where are the profit—sharing schemes for African workers? Many international companies operating here have stock purchase plans or profit—sharing plans for their employees in other countries, outside Africa. Why must Africa be the exception? These companies should develop appropriate schemes for our workers, incorporated in bargaining agreements with the trade unions. There are many other possibilities and they all need recognition of trade union initiative at government planning level. A workers' investment corporation could be set up as a prelude to other business activity, to get Africans into the sector of our economy at present dominated by expatriates. It makes more sense than throwing stones and looting foreign shops, as some Young Pioneers did last month at Temba.… Why shouldn't we have a people's bank, a state—aided bank to help our small farmers and shopkeepers who can't raise loans from ordinary banks? The self—management scheme can be adapted to small factories, too; you can set up in towns a system parallel to that of the rural areas. Factories, shops—a whole industrial unit can be controlled by the workers who run the management through their own board of administration, while managerial staff and engineers are appointed by the government. The foreign investor doesn't own those factories and shops. They may not run as efficiently as the foreign firm would have run them, the profits may not be as
high as they would have been, but there are no shareholders in other countries waiting to take the profits away. I know a small foundry that's just closed down because it wasn't making enough money to satisfy the white man. But it was earning enough to satisfy the twenty—six men who worked for him.… They have now joined the unemployed …

“When we vote on this motion, there are two things to remember, and both show the state appointment of the Secretary—General of UTUC as something to be condemned by this Congress. One—whatever the avowed position of the trade unions in relation to political power, UTUC can't avoid fulfilling its main function, which is to convey the discontent of the workers it represents. No appointed S.-G. will get round that. Two—the role of the trade unions in an independent state is not to become purely functionary, a branch of the Ministry of Labour, but to see that the type of society being planned based on the people's labour is in accordance with the
aims
of the people. In the United Trades Union Congress constitution there is laid down as one of its aims ‘the maintenance of the UTUC as one of the militant branches of the movement which will build the socialist state under the political leadership of the People's Independence Party.' I call upon Congress to defend that branch of the Party, or betray the Party itself.”

Shinza's supporters battered the assembly with their hard—heeled acclaim. A flash of acknowledgement lit across his face, a taste of something; but the sort of sustained applause that comes strength after strength, from every corner and tier, and sweeps a man higher and higher above opposition, was not there. Instead there was a strange atmosphere of consternation. He sat down. The debate went on but there was the feeling that nobody listened; yet a crystallization was taking place in every creak of a seat, every uneasy shift of position, in the echoes stirred like bats when voices came from certain quarters, and even—Bray felt absurd portents press in—the boredom of the thugs from the Young Pioneers. Others were talking and now Shinza like Mweta said nothing. But Mweta's silence, his presence, was growing, spreading over the people who sighed, scribbled absently, avoided each other's eyes, sat forward tensely, or back, waiting. And before the vote was taken it was there: Mweta's silence had spoken to them. It was
that,
then, for which Shinza had been listening,
from the beginning, behind the debate. Now Bray heard it, felt it—no word for how it was apprehended—as Shinza must be doing. The waverers were overcome with their hands, so to speak, in midair for Shinza. They voted for
him,
seated there asking nothing of them in his robe, because he expected it of them.

Shinza took the cigarette out of his pocket now. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth and was lighting it with Rebecca's present, that always worked first try.

So that's my man Bray thought; that's my man.

He found himself with Dando and Shinza in one of the bars of the Great Lakes Hotel; if it were true that anyone ever “found himself” anywhere: by haphazard more purposeful than would appear, the pull of a fascinated reluctance had brought them slowly from group to group at the cocktail party going on in the Golden Perch Room. He hadn't known whether to expect Shinza to turn up at all; Dando's was the first voice he heard— “What sort of sex symbol, without a between to its legs”—declaiming over the latest piece of redecoration, the huge stuffed lake perch that had given the room its name and now had the upper half of a woman's body, in gilded plaster, in place of its own fishy head.

Many of the delegates had never seen the inside of a place like the Great Lakes before. They stood about overcome by unfamiliarity with the required manner of eating and drinking in such surroundings and were ignored by waiters who disdained to initiate them, hurrying past with gins and whisky—sodas for those who knew how to appreciate these things. When Mweta (in a correct dark suit) moved among them lemonade in hand, and himself pressed them to the plates of tidbits and drinks, they sat down solemnly to the treat they were bidden and blindly ate the bits of shrimp on sticks; some even became roistering among themselves, as the drinks went down, while the professional politicians and the people who sat on company boards drank steadily and achieved nothing more than the glowing
self-importance associated with social drinking. The triumphs and resentments of all factions seemed to be contained this way, a feast following a funeral as it does a wedding.

Shinza was wearing the same crumpled holiday shirt, as if he had come with the object of making his presence a jarring note. He was seen with various knots of people, never in the vicinity of Mweta, apparently talking detachedly. Now he was surrounded by a few young men like a dangerous object that may go off any moment. One, older and a little drunk, was the leader in boldly taking him up—they were asking questions about
autogestion—
“Was that the blacksmith's place in Kinshasa Road you're talking about?—But one of my in—laws worked there and he's got a job at a boiler—makers' place now.” “So what, man.” Someone was ashamed of the level of the question. “—But who owns these farms and factories, then—the government?”

Roly Dando had had a great deal to drink; his companions were head—down, entranced over their glasses while poker—faced he talked louder and louder until his voice reached out into the neighbouring discussion— “of course, respect for trade union action's just a pious hope in African states. You know that, for God's sake, don't you, Shinza?—Of course he does. Knows it as well as I do.”

Faces opened up to make way, gleaming. Shinza smiled slowly with closed lips and ran his first finger along them in a parody of apologetics. “Well, I'm learning—fast.” They were pleased with him; they laughed. Ras Asahe, who had dragged Bray off to the bar, addressed Shinza through Bray. “Oh yes, we believe you, my friend. There's only one way to make you learn, though.”

“… talking into your beard, this business about the workers and the government building the socialist state for the benefit of the workers,” Dando was saying. “In African states the economy can only be developed to the detriment of the workers. For a hell of a long time to come. That's a fact. I don't care what political creed or economic concepts you want to name, the realities of production and distribution of wealth remain the same, just the same, right through the continent. No, no—I know what's coming—don't trot out what happened in Europe a hundred years ago, because you know the answer to that one, too. The sacrifices squeezed out of the European working classes in the nineteenth century enabled Western economies to reach a point where they could acknowledge the demands of the poor bastards
who'd sweated their guts out. It was possible for one reason only: the point had been reached without disturbing the pattern of growth. Within limits, they'd come to a stage where increased consumption leads to greater investment.”

Shinza and Dando were shoved into the cockpit by the smallness of the bar, the drink in their veins, the curiosity of their companions—and also something else, an awareness of each other in the same room. Shinza took up the exchange with the air of a man who has done with argument. “And why is that impossible?”

“Because, my dear Shinza, in Africa today internal saving's nonexistent. Nonexistent or unproductive. A few quid stuffed into a mattress along with the bugs. And consumption's so low it's impossible to restrict it any more to encourage increased investment, so your salary freezes won't help. Wealth is distributed in an irregular and morally unjustifiable way, but I'm damned if anyone knows what to do about it. Trade unionism's all trussed up because it's come on the scene long before complete industrialization has taken place.”

“Spouting Marx to defend black capitalism! Remember who you're working for these days, Dando.” Shinza pulled down his bearded mouth, half—humouring, half—patronizing. “—All you're saying's the workers won't feel the benefit right away—”

“—Not Right away or Left away or Middle—of-the-road away—you can talk till kingdom come. Have a drink, Edward. —Come on, man, look after the gentlemen,” he berated the barman. The circle drew in closer. “Edward and I were talking about these things when you were all a lot of snotty—nosed kids … he knows what I'm saying.”

“What's this rubbish about trade unionism being ‘tied up.'” Shinza took a swallow of Dando's round of whiskies. “Listen—what it has to do is make a choice. For the sake of economic development, it can become an organ of the government's policy—making machinery—which means any criticism of government incompetence is out—finished. Then union activity's restricted to one thing—ensuring the allegiance of workers in productive industries. Now
that's
something that perpetuates your famous inequitable distribution of national income, all right. You hand out the big money to dignitaries, you foot the bill for a massive police force to keep everyone quiet. And all that represents unproductive expenditure, ay? So the trade unions'll be able to congratulate themselves on consolidating the political power of the elite. —But there's another way—”

Dando started shaking his head while Shinza was speaking. “—Defence-of-the-workers'-interests line. Tell me another one, do.
Inevitably
leads to a slowing of economic growth. All your ideas about activities based on the workers' productive role can have only a very limited effect. Either you get the workers to buckle down and shut up—”

Shinza was waving an arm at him— “That's what you've tried to do, that's what you've tried!”

“Oh nobody's denying there're plenty of doubts about the unions' ability to put their policies into practice. We know that.” Bray, also on Dando's whisky, found himself borne into the argument. “Until now, the trade union leader's metamorphosis into a political's forced him to compromise … that's one of the principle causes of weakness here. But the fundamental weakness is a mixture of the two—industrial underdevelopment plus the political responsibility trade unionists have had to assume.”

“Oh for Christ' sake. The only thing is, take that political responsibility properly—” Shinza's hands extended under something invisibly heavy— “No holds barred,” Dando said. Bray turned on him— “You'd agree that a big say in the drafting of an economic development plan is one of the basic demands of most African trade unions, Roly?”

“Listen to it: demands, demands—” Dando began showing off, appealing to his audience.

But to them Bray was as much a part of the performance as he was. “… it's the only way to overcome the contradiction between demands that aim at short—term results, and measures you're going to have to take if you want to establish a real development policy. Of course the difficulties are enormous … it's risky …”

Every now and then Dando momentarily lost grip and talked out of some hazy response twitching through the alcohol in his brain— “Risking your life every time you cross the road, feller.”

“… the position of the unions and the government could become irreconcilable.”

“Ha-ha, ha—ha-ha.” Dando wasn't laughing; he shadow—boxed above the bar. “Tread lightly, Bray, eggs underfoot, y'know.” His attention lashed back, drawn to Shinza. “You get your trade union membership largely from public administration, apart from the mines. If you start cracking down on bureaucracy, there'll be cutbacks. How're you going to get these people to agree without losing hundreds of members?”

“I couldn't care less about your few hundred bloody bureaucrats if we can gain thousands of peasants. Forget it, man—”

Two or three people had started singing PIP songs, at first raggedly, and then, with the African inability to sing out of tune even when drunk, in noisy harmony. Roly had become defiant without knowing what about; he looked very small and white, his thin greased hair standing up sparsely at the crown, his glasses turning on this target or that. “Better than the whole damn bunch of you, I can tell you that. More guts than some of you'll see in a lifetime … I don't trust him as far as the door, old bastard … but
you,
wet behind the ears, the lot of you, you won't see another one like him, not for
you
to start telling me—”

Bray felt an old affection for poor Dando, never standing on the dignity of his office but keeping for himself the exactions of personal response, no matter how battered or ridiculous he might emerge. Only an African state would employ a man like that; anywhere else, his professional ability would be lost against considerations of professional face.