from motives of conviction. Most, however, exploited it for political or personal ends.|
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The term "Coloured" and "Euro-African" are different names for the same community. They are names for the same idea that has animated the minds of the Euro-African and Coloured leaders of today.
From 1923 to 1931 the following organisations safeguarded the interests of the community in the Colony: -
- Cape Drivers' Association.
- The Euro-African Vigilant Association.
- The Rhodesian Cape Africander Association.
- The Coloured Community Service League - 1932.
Through the intervening twelve years since the founding of the League the unity of the two sections we hear about to-day was maintained. In 1943 this unity was pursued by a few leaders from motives of conviction. Most, however, exploited it for political or personal ends.
In Salisbury it served leaders alternatively as a red herring to draw across the path of internal administrative difficulties and as an instrument of semi-political dictatorship.
In Bulawayo it became a cloak for the personal ambitions of leaders. After all this limelight jockeying there arose The Euro-African Patriotic Society. The division of the Community both politically and socially thereafter became an accomplished fact.
It is questionable whether the leaders concerned really believe in the practicability of unity, at least in this generation. Suitability invoked it could make a relatively easy problem seem a big one, and, therefore, could cover up past delinquencies of the sectionalist policy in Rhodesia. The onus is now on the leaders to formulate a scheme that commands general approval.
To suggest that some of the present leaders have the political instinct or training to work their most delicate of constitutional systems which represent order and practice of toleration and behaviour, is to reveal little knowledge of these people. Indeed, if there is any community that offers peculiarly unfavourable soil to unity or federation in its real sense, it is the one.
Round table conferences have been held without any success in bringing about this federation. The evidence to the Coloured Commission, on the other hand, aroused bitter reaction to the statement that Euro-Africans were a menace to the Coloureds, and that they were living as natives, etc. Since then most non-union protagonists of a united Community have in mind, however, not such a union, but a loose federation based primarily on a centralised representative body or Council.
The pro-union envisage something quite different. They dream of a single united Community in which all component sections will be merged.
Most students of Coloured and Euro-African affairs until now discounted of a voluntary coalescence of the two sections, except perhaps in the loosest form. It is common cause to believe that to this day they are deeply driven racially and socially. It is an accepted theory that a political federation is definitely possible, because they fear discriminatory legislation and this concession to harmony in this particular subject is almost a voluntary one from both sections.
We have witnessed a Euro-African in the saddle of leadership very much against the wishes of the Coloureds, and the secretaries are grimly watchful of each other. The Community is bilingual like the South Africans. And yet, however strong might be the grounds for doubting the ripeness of the Coloured - Euro-African Community for a "natural growing together", the absence of a powerful, independent leader capable of uniting the community may hold great dangers to the general welfare of the whole Community. This fact demands from the Community utmost vigilance.
Even in the midst of the chaos of war there is an universal sense of planning. Men everywhere comprehend the imperative need to envisage destiny, and be ready to meet it.
The evergreen query: Whither now? The unity of the Community is a worthy Post-War Plan.
In later years Gaston Thornicroft emerged as an outstanding leader of the Coloured Community in Rhodesia. See - https://www.revolvy.com/topic/Gaston%20Thornicroft&item_type=topic.
Gerald Joseph Raftopoulos became the first and only Coloured Member of the Rhodesian Parliament. He won the Willowvale seat for the United Federal Party in 1962.
Note - Pic is of a Coloured family.
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