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The Possibility for Nonviolence

Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation in Africa

By Bill Sutherland and Matt Meyer
Africa World Press, 2000
279 pp., paperback, $19.95 (available from WRL).

Review by George M. Houser

uns and Gandhi in Africa is a courageous exploration of the possibility for and relevance of nonviolence in the struggle for justice and social change. It is not primarily a book about Africa. Rather Africa—and the struggle against colonialism and white domination on that continent—constitute the ground on which this exploration takes place.

No one is more suited to pursue such an exploration than Bill Sutherland, who has lived and worked in Africa for almost half a century, always as an acute observer of events and often as a participant in the struggle. Coming out of the pacifist antiwar movement, and as a veteran of the civil rights struggle in the United States, his life has been dedicated to bringing about nonviolent social change. Guns and Gandhi in Africa is based primarily on Sutherland’s observations, contacts and experiences, which gives credibility to the substance of the book. But it also represents a positive collaboration between Sutherland and Matt Meyer, who did most of the writing—often in the first person—and who adds his own insights to the experiences and conclusions they write about.

In his foreword to the book, Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes, “Bill has distinguished himself as a vital ally to our cause and as a friend. … [L]iving all these years on the frontiers in Tanzania [and before that in Ghana], Bill has provided hospitality, support and encouragement for untold numbers of people the world over …” (I was one of those who profited from Sutherland’s hospitality and support many times, in Ghana and later in Dar es Salaam.)

A prodigious amount of work went into the preparation of Guns and Gandhi in Africa. With the exception of flashbacks to Sutherland’s experiences in Africa going back to the early 1950s, before Meyer came on the scene, the substance of the book consists of a series of dialogues and conversations with an amazing number of key Africans who have been participants in the momentous changes in Africa over the last 50 years. As a team, Sutherland and Meyer traveled for weeks, in 1992 and 1998, covering East, West and Southern Africa, seeking out important players in the liberation struggle whom Sutherland had known and worked with over the years. The discussions probed into the methodology of the liberation struggle and the relevance of nonviolence. The range of those they met with is impressive. Just to mention a few, they talked to K.A. Gbedema, first Finance Minister of Ghana; Jerry Rawlings, President of Ghana; Sam Nujoma, President of Namibia; Nathan Shamuyarira, for many years Foreign Minister of Zimbabwe; Graca Machel, wife of the first president of Mozambique and Minister of Education; Archie Gumede, former co-chair of the United Democratic Front in South Africa; Walter Sisulu, first Deputy President of a free South Africa; Ela Ramgobin Gandhi, granddaughter of the Mahatma; and Pascal Mocumbi, Foreign Minister of Mozambique.

Perhaps the most challenging of these give-and-take dialogues were with the late Julius Nyerere, leader of the Tanganyika African National Union and President of Tanzania for twenty-three years, and Kenneth Kaunda, leader of Namibia’s United National Independence Party and President of Zambia for about 25 years. Nyerere pointed out that, although the struggle for Tanzanian independence was primarily nonviolent, for himself, “the nonviolence of our movement was not philosophical at all … . My opposition to violence is [to] the unnecessary use of violence.”

Kaunda was one African head of state who did embrace Gandhian nonviolence, in the years before independence in 1964. Yet Sutherland reports that Kaunda appeared in a general’s uniform on a ceremonial occasion at the time of independence. (George Loft of the American Friends Service Committee was with Sutherland at the time and with tears in his eyes said, “Ah, we have lost him.”) In the conversation with Sutherland and Meyer, Kaunda challenged them by asking, “Have you tried running a country on the basis of pacifist principles without qualification or modification, or do you know anyone who has?” The authors reported that the discussion went well into the night, “but the upshot was that nobody had a clear and definable answer. We were not really able to respond to Kaunda.”

Sutherland adds, “I began to realize that there may be something contradictory between true democracy and the modern state … Perhaps it is time … to discover another system of political organization besides the nation-state.” Toward the end of the book, as Sutherland and Meyer draw conclusions from their many conversations, they comment, “Pragmatism was the dominant theme of most of our dialogues … Nowhere can we find examples of ‘pure’ nonviolence or ‘pure’ armed struggle …”

But there were nonviolent successes (particularly in South Africa), some described in Guns and Gandhi, some not. And throughout all the dialogues, it is obvious that the commitment of the authors to nonviolence never wavers, although they are quite partisan in their sympathy for the freedom fighters. They state their conviction that “building a lasting peace will take strong dialogue,” and that ending cycles of violence will involve a radical shift in power relations in society. They contend that “the connectedness between means and ends … suggests that nonviolence must be a leading part of any constructive social movement.”

Although the main thrust of the book is in the dialogues, an unmistakable part of the story is Sutherland’s role in Africa. Sutherland frequently played an almost unnoticed part in helping things to take place by being in the right place at the right time. His suggestion to Gbedema, Nkrumah’s right-hand partner, probably was responsible for Ghana’s invitation to Martin Luther King Jr. to take part in the new nation’s independence celebration. I know that Sutherland arranged for a taped greeting from Nkrumah to come to us in New York when the American Committee on Africa had a celebration of Ghana’s independence at Town Hall. He was also responsible for Gbedema’s invitation to the White House for breakfast with President Eisenhower when publicity was given to a restaurant’s refusal to serve Gbedema (and Sutherland) on Route 40 on the way to Washington. Sutherland was a key organizer in the protest against the French testing nuclear weapons in the Sahara and represented the Tanzanian government in the discussions leading up to the sixth Pan African conference held in Dar es Salaam in 1974.

Because of Sutherland’s broad experience, this is a book that needed to be written and Meyer, collaborating with him, has seen to it that it was done. If Guns and Gandhi were primarily about Africa, it would need much fuller explanations of some events that are mentioned in passing but not explained, such as the Nkomati Accord between apartheid South Africa and the independent Mozambique government, the background to the ANC-Inkatha conflict in South Africa and what Ujamaa was really all about in Tanzania. There are a few minor errors on dates of events, such as when the Suppression of Communism Act was passed in South Africa (1950, not 1952), but the book is not dealing with history essentially. It is examining with care the relevance of nonviolence to one of the major developments of the 20th century, the struggle for freedom in Africa. And here it makes a real contribution.

WRL member George M. Houser was Executive Director of the American Committee on Africa for 26 years. Before that he was on the staff of the Fellowship of Reconciliation from 1941 to 1955 and Executive Secretary of the Congress of Racial Equality from1945-1955.