Uhuru
In his acceptance speech for the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, William Faulkner spoke of the great truths that are essential in an enduring work of art. He referred to these themes as “the verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed.”
Robert Ruark needed such truths to provide a foundation for Uhuru. It was this search that caused him so much difficulty in writing the novel, and which took so long (and so many missed deadlines) to resolve. In the end, Uhuru dwells on the nature of justice in a country with a system in which true justice is so difficult to define. The result was Ruark’s most complex novel, not in its structure (that honor belongs to The Honey Badger) so much as in its characters’ motivations and inner conflicts. It is an interweaving of many threads that becomes a tapestry depicting the traumatic transition of Kenya — and, by extension, all of Africa — from a tightly run colony to an independent, quasi-democratic country. There are many conflicts in the book, although the basic one is between black people and white people. The conclusion Ruark finally reaches is that, in spite of this, there are no real blacks and whites, but only many different shades of gray.
Each of Ruark’s other major novels can be classified relatively easily. Something of Value is a classic adventure story with a symmetrical structure. There is a hero, a villain, and a large cast of supporting characters. The Mau Mau cause may or may not be justified, but their methods can never be excused. Poor No More is an autobiographical novel whose universal theme (in the Faulknerian sense) is betrayal and the cost of ruthlessness and greed. The Honey Badger is an examination of the price of art to the artist himself. In terms of their themes, truths, and values, any of these could have been written by novelists from Tolstoy on down. Uhuru is not so easy to classify, mainly because it has a hero with many faults, an anti-hero with many good qualities, villains of several degrees of evil, and many protagonists who are neither wholly good nor wholly evil. If there is a real villain in the book, however, it is not a person, but rather the system that evolved in Kenya over the course of sixty years and created tragic, irreconcilable differences among its people. No matter how the book ends, justice will not be served because it cannot be.
***
When Ruark first conceived his great novel of emerging Africa, it was projected as a direct sequel to Something of Value. Unfortunately, he found himself restricted by the characters he had already created in the earlier book. The McKenzie family had been drawn with a fine hand, and there was no room for later alterations to fit the demands of the new plot. Consequently, Ruark had to abandon his original idea. The Nightingale family provided him with a cast of models, as well as the basic philosophies of the moderate white element in Kenya, so he created new characters to fit the plot based upon some of them.
Many readers open Uhuru expecting to find a professional hunter as the hero. They do find a PH — Brian Dermott — but he is not the hero nor even the major character. What’s more, because he was partly drawn from Peter McKenzie, who in turn was based on Harry Selby, there are similarities among the three, but in Dermott’s case disturbing differences as well. Anyone approaching Uhuru with preconceived notions about plot and characters will have some difficulty fitting Dermott into his expectations. This, I believe, accounts for the ambivalence toward Uhuru that has existed since its publication and which is even more pronounced today. Ruark’s admirers are now mainly hunters and people with a strong interest in Africa and animals, and Brian Dermott does not fit their idealized image of the professional hunter. He is not larger than life. He has serious failings that outweigh his virtues, and his role is to provide the pivot point that forces the real hero, the Kikuyu lawyer/politician Stephen Ndegwa, to choose between doing what is right for his country and doing what is beneficial for himself.
The novel opens in the summer of 1960. Kenya is approaching independence, and Jomo Kenyatta is still in prison. Various black political parties are jockeying for position. Their leaders are busy forming alliances and just as readily abandoning them, hoping to win power when the British pull out. The white settlers are watching events with serious trepidation. The more extreme element is talking about a pre-emptive strike — unilateral independence in the Rhodesian mold — or armed resistance to black rule, or at the very least, preparation to resist if necessary. Moderate whites are looking for a way to save what they can by cooperating with moderate blacks in forming a country which is tolerant of racial differences.
The first part of the novel focuses on the hanging, in August 1960, of the young white Kenya police reservist, Peter Poole, for the murder of a black man in Nairobi. Until then, no white had ever been executed for killing a black. In fact, in Kenya executions of white people were almost unknown, even for murdering another white. There were demonstrably different standards of sentencing, depending on the killer’s race. There was no question Poole was guilty. The only contentious issue was whether the killing had been premeditated. If not, it was believed, there were grounds for requesting the British government to commute the sentence to a long imprisonment. The Poole case, in the novel as in real life, was symbolic for both sides and placed the British government in an impossible position. If Poole died, it faced the possibility of armed revolt by the white settlers; if Poole was reprieved, it would poison relations between Britain and whichever black party achieved power after independence. There was no possible compromise.
Of course, by this time, sympathy for the Kenya settlers in Britain was minimal. The colonial office viewed them as a bunch of drunken, wife-swapping troublemakers, who were forever demanding this and complaining about that, and generally obstructing attempts by London to govern the colony in the best interests of the entire population, not just one segment. This view of the settlers was promoted by the anti-colonial media and drew on fifty years of Kenya’s reputation as the adultery and alcohol capital of the empire. Whether the judgement was fair is irrelevant. The result was the increasing isolation of Kenya’s sixty thousand white settlers, who felt betrayed by the British government and friendless in an anti-imperial world.
The story begins with Brian Dermott driving into Nairobi to meet two new clients arriving at Embakasi Airport. Very quickly we learn that Dermott is an alcoholic, who is subject to strange fits when he drinks and has been on the wagon for six months. His doctor has told him he must give up drinking or face an early death. This is almost exactly Ruark’s own situation when he was writing the novel, and he imposes his condition on Dermott, detail for detail. Dermott is part of a family of land-owning white settlers with a farm near Mount Kenya. He is divorced, and his ex-wife, Valerie, lives in London. She is Kenyan by birth, but the Mau Mau Emergency proved she was not Kenyan by inclination, and she has fled to the safety of “home.”
Dermott’s clients are a wealthy American, Paul Drake, and his sister, Katie Crane. Katie is also a divorced alcoholic on the wagon. A suicide attempt failed, and her brother has brought her on safari in the hope of rekindling her enthusiasm for life. Dermott and Katie are two sides of the same coin — damaged people at odds with their world. The safari leaves town, has a very successful beginning, and Dermott suggests the clients take a day to relax while he drives back into Nairobi. He wants to be present for the hanging of Peter Poole and whatever that event brings — or does not. Back in Nairobi Dermott has one drink, then another, and is soon off the wagon. His partner, Don Bruce, another professional hunter and ex-Mau Mau fighter, asks Dermott if he would buy his farm. Bruce has learned his infant son has been tagged for human sacrifice by the black underworld carrying on with the remnants of Mau Mau, and he wants to get his family out of the country.
At dinner that night, Dermott becomes drunk and belligerent, deliberately insulting black people who are dining in the Grill Room at the New Stanley Hotel — an enclave that was previously “whites only.” Among the diners are three black political leaders: Matthew Kamau, Abraham Matisia, and Stephen Ndegwa. Kamau and Ndegwa are leaders of rival parties, in an uneasy alliance; Matisia is Kamau’s enforcer, a smoothly evil, educated African, greedy for everything the white man has that he does not. Kamau is an ascetic, mission-educated Kikuyu who takes the high road uttering fine words while Matisia does the dirty work he acknowledges but would rather not know about. Ndegwa is a lawyer, a pragmatic Kikuyu who straddles the cultural divide, keeping his traditional Kikuyu wives in their shambas on the Reserve while having a westernized, café crème wife in a modern house in the suburbs. He has a law partner, a wealthy Asian named Vidhya Mukerjee, who gives him access to the third pillar of Kenyan society.
These are the main characters who make the plot work. Ruark draws in all the various types who then inhabited Kenya: Asians, Belgian refugees, extremist whites, cynical, educated blacks, traditional Kikuyus, politicians, recently arrived Englishmen anxious to tell the settlers what they should do, and moderate settlers fearful of the future but determined to stay in the land they created. Because of the number of characters and subplots, it is difficult to give a brief synopsis of the story, following every thread through which Ruark creates his portrait of Kenya.
Dermott fights the bottle and watches his country deteriorate. He proves to have a strong streak of intolerance, both of black politicians and people like his English brother-in-law, George Locke. Locke is a physician who now lives on the family farm and has all kinds of “progressive” ideas about how the farm, and the fledgling country, should be run, just as he prescribes how Dermott should quell his drinking. Dermott eventually falls in love with Katie Crane, but Katie is killed by Matisia’s terrorists when they kidnap a small Kikuyu boy for sacrifice in an oathing ceremony, part of their program to sabotage the moderate elements who would defuse their plans for the country. In revenge, Dermott shoots and kills Matthew Kamau on Delamere Avenue outside the New Stanley Hotel. He is arrested for murder.
Stephen Ndegwa, meanwhile, has been drawn into a plan by the moderates, led by Dermott’s Aunt Charlotte, for a land-sharing, profit-sharing scheme they hope will satisfy the requirements of both whites and blacks in an independent Kenya. The plan is sabotaged by Matisia’s men, but a Belgian woman, Matisia’s mistress, passes information to Ndegwa about the machinations of Kamau and Matisia. The lawyer is thus put in a position to destroy his political rivals and place himself in line for political power. After Kamau’s murder, however, Brian Dermott’s brother approaches Ndegwa and asks him to defend Dermott when he goes on trial. Because of what happened to Katie Crane, and because of Dermott’s mental state, Ndegwa knows he can save him from the hangman’s noose, if not from prison. He also knows, however, that doing so will destroy his own political career. Philip Dermott tells him that if Brian Dermott hangs, as Peter Poole did, the extremist settler elements are ready and willing to turn Kenya into a charnel house that would make the Mau Mau pale by comparison. Thus Ndegwa must choose between his own career and the well-being of his country. He chooses to defend Dermott, and the book ends.
Along the way, Ruark’s extensive knowledge of Kenya produces excellent hunting scenes from the Drake safari — especially of leopard hunting, by then Ruark’s favorite big-game pursuit — and detailed portraits of traditional Kikuyu life seen through the eyes of Stephen Ndegwa and his tribal wives. Ndegwa has an older wife who sees the country, its politics, and its people one way, and a younger wife who sees them another. Through their conversations, Ruark conveys the many facets of Kenyan culture without lecturing or resorting to unduly long stretches of description or background. Don Bruce and his infant son, who is marked for sacrifice, allow Ruark to expound upon witchcraft, oath-giving, and the traditional African fears that dominate life even as black children attend mission schools and the country prepares to govern itself.
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Uhuru was published on June 25, 1962. It was chosen as the Book-of-the-Month Club selection and very quickly climbed onto the New York Times best-seller list. The novel was already in the top ten when it was banned in South Africa, which helped propel it into fourth place. Events in Africa were unfolding by the day, in waves. Having Africa constantly in the headlines naturally focused attention on the book. Critics read it and wrote about it, while countries like Kenya and South Africa, where racial tension and the prospect of tribal warfare were not just material for novels, searched it for threats of sedition. South Africa was then a tightly controlled racist society, with a propensity to ban books and motion pictures on almost any pretext. It would have been surprising if Uhuru had not been banned; still, the news was taken as evidence that it must contain more than a little threatening truth, and this helped sales considerably.
Critics trotted out most of the clichés reserved for blockbuster novels of the time. Terms like “proud and prophetic” and “explosive and sprawling” are critical codewords for a particular type of novel — and generally not the kind that endures beyond next year’s Christmas list. Ruark had enemies and detractors among the New York and London critics. Many of them disliked him for his strong views and belligerent manners. Others objected to his political opinions, especially concerning the capabilities of black Africans. Although the term “politically correct” was not yet in general use, it might have been invented just to describe what Robert Ruark was not. Late in life, Ruark said he would like to see even one of his novels reviewed on its own merits and not in terms of a critic’s views on blood sports, but obviously Uhuru was not to be the one.
One critic referred to the novel as a “deluge of profanity and human degradation that only Robert Ruark can concoct,” which is a very strange and unfair criticism when you consider the recent activities of the Mau Mau and the atrocities in the Congo and elsewhere that had become daily fare for newspaper front pages. Ruark did not invent anything that had not actually occurred, and reading the novel today in light of forty years of subsequent bloodshed, torture, and death in many parts of Africa, it actually seems understated. The Mau Mau oathings Ruark describes in both of his major African novels were real, not fictional. Witchcraft was integral to African tribal life then and still is today. Of course, in the intervening forty years the limits of acceptability in both print and film have expanded considerably, and what was shocking in 1962 would not rate a passing glance in 2000. Still, the level of personal animosity coloring the book reviews is surprising.
For Ruark the author, the reviews may have been painful, but for Ruark the businessman, who saw sales rising even as the reviews became more damning — or because of them — the results were gratifying. People bought the book and read the book, and Ruark pocketed the better part of half a million dollars from his guarantee from McGraw-Hill, from the paperback rights sold to Fawcett/Crest, and from the Book-of-the-Month deal. Uhuru went into print, and stayed in print (in paperback at least), for many years. Today it shows up on bookshelves throughout Africa. If anything, it is more common to find Uhuru in a library in a remote corner of the continent than to find Something of Value, although both have become mainstays of modern Africana.
The decolonialization of Africa produced some literature, but less than might have been expected given its explosive nature and the lurid events occurring in countries like the Congo. In Kenya, there was Elspeth Huxley, writing from the moderate, dispossessed colonial’s point of view. In France there was Jean Larteguy, an ex-army officer who wrote from the French Army’s viewpoint about the loss of Indochina and Algeria (The Centurions and The Praetorians) and then about the Congo mercenaries (The Hounds of Hell), many of whom were French professional soldiers or Foreign Legion veterans. Even so, Lartéguy was writing less about colonialism than about the evolution, and move to the left, of French society as its empire collapsed, Nicholas Monsarrat wrote two notable novels about emerging Africa (The Tribe That Lost Its Head and Richer Than All His Tribe) which were published in the 1960s and describe the coming of independence in a fictional country, a large island similar to Madagascar but which Monsarrat placed off the west coast of Africa. Like most stories set in fictional countries, however, both novels are more like fables than serious social commentary grounded in harsh reality. Also, because the country and its tribes are fictional, the novels do not carry the genuine anthropological or social impact of a novel like Uhuru, which utilizes the real culture and customs of the Kikuyu as an integral part of the book.
On the continent itself, South Africa would have been the natural place for a novelist to emerge to document these earth-shaking changes. South Africa had a long history of literature springing from Afrikaner society, writing about the “white tribe of Africa,” its mysticism and its Old Testament values, its two-century quest for freedom, and its ingrained religious and racial conflicts. At the time, Stuart Cloete was the pre-eminent South African novelist, and he was also a writer of world renown. Like most Afrikaners, however, Cloete was more concerned with the struggle and the future of his people than with the travails of emerging black countries to the north. While South Africa continued to produce novels and plays that gained (and still have) global stature, such as Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, almost all dealt with apartheid and its evils in a particularly South African context.
It is for these reasons, as much as for the novel’s considerable merits, that Uhuru gained and retained such a prominent place in postcolonial literature. The new black governments of Africa, the liberal lecturers at the London School of Economics, and the African specialists in the State Department may not have liked Ruark’s message, but they could not deny its truthfulness.
***
Anyone reading Robert Ruark’s syndicated newspaper columns from 1960 to 1962 will be struck by the contrast between their strident disapproval, and even rage at what was being allowed to happen in Africa, and the sympathetic insight of Uhuru. Dreadful events occur in Uhuru, but there is a level of understanding for most of the characters and for the situation in which they find themselves. Even Abraham Matisia, the sadistic mastermind who engineers murder and human sacrifice on Matthew Kamau’s behalf, is not completely despicable. Newspapers and daily journalism — especially commentary on current events, the essence of column writing — are extremely shallow by comparison with novels, but that hardly accounts for the different tone of Ruark’s writing in the two forms. It is almost as if, knowing the novel was being written for posterity, Ruark did not allow his personal feelings to eclipse his belief in what was right and what was wrong. He might allow himself to vent his rage in a newspaper column against a man like Patrice Lumumba, whom he held responsible for Harry Taylor’s death, but he did not allow that animosity to dictate Matthew Kamau’s character.
There are many small truths in Uhuru. Early in the book, Don Bruce says to Brian Dermott, “I don’t think I’ll be able to live under these apes. I don’t think that violence is going to be the thing that drives the white man out of Africa, Brian. I think it’ll be constantly living with this bloody arrogant incompetence that’ll send us screaming mad.” Forty years of subsequent experience, from Nigeria to Somalia, from Cape Town to the Sudan, have proven how prescient that was. But a page later Dermott reflects on the people around him in the Grill at the New Stanley: “All I can spot on this dance floor is the kind of Kenya cowboy that got us into this mess in the first place, and it doesn’t do my disposition very much good to reflect that I’m one of them.” That is about as even-handed as literature gets.
Ruark recognized and wrote many small truths, but it is doubtful he managed to find one that Faulkner would acknowledge as the basis for an enduring work of literature. Although all the characters contribute to the plot, and each reflects on his personal situation or the problems facing the country, Stephen Ndegwa’s logical self-analysis provides the closest thing to a concentrated message. Ndegwa would be a hero in any book, yet he is not without faults by any means. If Brian Dermott is a tortured alcoholic who eventually becomes almost deranged, Ndegwa is an intelligent, educated, thoughtful, and honorable man whose sins are laziness and cynicism. In the end, faced with the difficult choice he must make, he concludes that he is at least partly responsible for Kamau’s and Matisia’s actions because he recognized them at the time for what they were, but took no steps to curb them. That being the case, it is only right he should pay for his neglect with the destruction of his own political ambitions, and atone for his failings by saving Kenya through the defense of Brian Dermott.
Uhuru does not have a happy ending, but it does have a hopeful one. In emerging Africa there were certainly men like Stephen Ndegwa, just as there were men like Kamau and, unfortunately, all too many like Abraham Matisia. For most of the next half century, in most black African countries, the Matisias rose to the top of the heap. The Ndegwas were either pushed aside, destroyed, or forced to flee.
On the settler side, Brian Dermott was typical of a particular type of settler, the anachronistic professional hunter who valued the land the way it was, the animals the way they were, and the tribes in their old ways — not wearing trousers and attending mission schools. Many of those people left Kenya at the time of independence. Some went to South Africa, whose apartheid regime welcomed white reinforcements. The moderates like Charlotte Stuart and the rest of Dermott’s family mostly stayed put and tried to run their farms under the new regimes. Some succeeded, but the tide of history was against them. All of these things are accurate and true, but they do not add up to the great “verities of the heart” to which Faulkner referred. Perhaps the fact that Ruark was unable to find any such verities around which to build his novel says everything necessary about the society he was depicting. On the other hand, that Ndegwa is cast as the hero of the novel reflects one piece of truth Ruark acknowledged: Kenya’s future lay in the course of action that was chosen by its black population. There was little the white settlers could do, one way or the other, to alter it.