Racist attitudes in central Africa during 1940's and 1950's

In my last post I mentioned the anti-Semitism I heard during my boyhood in central Africa (and indeed later when I returned to Britain). Much more prevalent in Rhodesia in the late 1940's and 1950's was racism.

I don't know how racist or anti-racism my parents were, but I know that they respected our African servants by calling them by their African names - and treated them (almost) as equals. I remember very well how my mother would sit with us at the table with our house servant (known in those days by all as a 'house-boy' despite the fact that he was a married man in his late thirties), Daasan, and talk about the Kenyan Mau-Mau (the terrorist/freedom fighters led by Jomo Kenyatta, who would later become first President of an independent Kenya).

Daasan claimed to be a great supporter of the Mau-Mau, saying that one day the whites would be driven out of Rhodesia or slaughtered if they stayed. When my mother asked if he could kill her children, Daasan answered with a big grin, and a grim sense of humour, 'Oh no, donna (lady), I could not kill any of you! No, I will go next door and kill them, and the house-boy next door will come in and kill you!' We all laughed.

Also, I recall my parents deploring the way some of their friends and acquaintances called their servants with demeaning names like 'Ticky' (threepence) or 'Sou-Sou' (sixpence); and in one case 'Sixpence' for their 'house-boy' and 'Poison' for their cook!

Despite their more liberal approach, I don't think my parents questioned the very real segregation that existed in Luanshya. The Europeans lived in rather grand style in detached brick bungalows with large yards (maintained by black 'garden boys') in tree-lined streets. The 'blacks' lived in segregated African townships, apart from house servants who lived in a picinin kai-ah (little house - usually a single room dwelling) at the far end of a 'European' back-yard. There was a hospital for 'Europeans' and an 'African' hospital. (My father, a pharmacist, worked at both - and preferred the African hospital.)

I think my parents were well aware that 'colonial' Africa was coming to an end and accepted that the day was not far away when black Africans would gain their independence. Their views were also possibly moderated by the fact that we, as a family, attended a church sponsored by the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) and the leading voice calling for an open franchise was Kenneth Kaunda, a 'mission boy,' i.e., he'd been educated at a Church of Scotland sponsored mission (hence his Scottish pre-name, Kenneth).