The British Empire Library


Capricorn - David Stirling's Second African Campaign

by Richard Hughes


Courtesy of OSPA


Review by Jonathan Lawley (Northern Rhodesia 1960-69)
Those who lived or served in East Africa or the territories of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in the 1950s and '60s may remember the Capricorn Africa Society. Richard Hughes' book reminds us that had its ideas been adopted there might have been a very different future for the region.

In Capricorn the author gives us some fascinating and highly detailed insights into an organisation set up in 1949 by the visionary and idealist Col David Stirling. With his war record in the Western Desert, as a founder of the SAS, and with his charm, energy and contacts, Stirling was well qualified to influence and lead in a situation calling for courage and imagination. Working with like-minded people in Southern and Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, all due to be part of the Federation, as well as in Kenya and Tanganyika, he foresaw a future where Africans, Europeans and Asians would live together and fulfil themselves without consideration of background or race.

The Capricorn ideal was timely because the Federation, essentially involving partnership between the races, was being set up. In Kenya too there was the prospect of a fresh start following the traumas of Mau Mau.

The problem in the Federation was that though the almost exclusively white electorate in Southern Rhodesia had voted for it in 1952, whites in that country had well entrenched privileges, which it soon became apparent they were not going to relinquish lightly. Apart from the franchise, there were whites-only trade unions, many of whose members were recent British immigrants. Together they blocked the very African advancement which had to be achieved if partnership was to become a reality. On top of this, entrenched racism in that country included blanket discrimination against Africans in shops, restaurants, hotels and public places, and what was worse, the routine denigration of blacks for instance by white shop girls. Even the term 'African' or the title 'Mr' was regarded by many whites as too liberal. Not surprisingly, perhaps, in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland blacks were adamant in their opposition to a future that involved a leading role for Southern Rhodesian whites.

To my family, ex-India and supportive of Federation and of the idea of partnership, many white attitudes and practices seemed almost suicidally short sighted. To us therefore, Capricorn's ideas seemed totally appropriate. The Society's problem was to get them accepted by the almost exclusively white electorate whose bona fides would need to be apparent to the black majority. Gaining the support of white politicians would have helped but Capricorn had set its face against a political role. Even Garfield Todd who would have had much in common with the Capricorners had minimal contact with them. Huggins and Welensky barely get a mention in the book! A sympathetic press and a well directed publicity campaign might have made a difference but this was not forthcoming. All I remember is a display featuring Capricorn in a Salisbury shop window in 1955. Stirling and his colleagues relied mainly on influencing like-minded, influential people with the implication that their ideas were destined to win the day in the end.

The book tells the sometimes tortuous story of the struggles within the organisation both to determine what it stood for and the strategy needed to gain support. Many blacks saw Capricorn as a device to maintain white privilege. Nyerere in particular, who only saw a future for Black Nationalism, would have none of it. The Citizenship College in Kenya and Ranche House in Southern Rhodesia, though imaginative, were hardly likely to fit the bill. They fulfilled other educative and political roles however and became Capricorn's legacy in Africa. Meanwhile as time passed and white attitudes and practices failed to change, it must have been clear to most Capricorners that any chance of their ideas taking root were slipping away irrevocably.

The book has some poignant insights into the Society's high point, the Salima conference in 1956. For many delegates this was their first ever-real contact across the racial divide. The conference, which captured public imagination and media attention, provided a unique opportunity to take advantage and move ahead. However the chance was squandered and it was downhill all the way after that. It becomes increasingly clear that David Stirling's sometimes overbearing style and reliance on high-level contacts with people of doubtful commitment to a continuing British role in Africa were getting nowhere. The reader is left wondering what might have been had white settlers shown more imagination and foresight or successive British governments a greater sense of purpose.

Readers who remember the issues of the day and have followed the fortunes of the region will appreciate both the honesty of Richard Hughes' approach and the detailed account of this important period in colonial history.

British Empire Book
Author
Richard Hughes
Published
2003
Pages
321
Publisher
The Radcliffe Press
ISBN
1 86064 919 X
Availability
Abebooks
Amazon


Library


Armed Forces | Art and Culture | Articles | Biographies | Colonies | Discussion | Glossary | Home | Library | Links | Map Room | Sources and Media | Science and Technology | Search | Student Zone | Timelines | TV & Film | Wargames


by Stephen Luscombe