The Penguin Book of Modern Speeches (available at Text Book
Centre and maybe elsewhere locally) reproduces a fascinating collection
of speeches that have influenced history, and today I write about two
among them.
The first, delivered in 1960 to the South
African Parliament by then British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, was
about the “winds of change” that were blowing through Africa, spelling
out Britain’s intended withdrawal as a colonial power in Africa and
seeking to sway white South Africans towards abandoning apartheid.
Before
he delivered the speech, Mr Macmillan went on a six-week African tour
that ended in South Africa. There he met with Prime Minister Verwoerd
and tried to explain the need for change brought about by the two world
wars.
Some saw the policy outlined in Macmillan’s
speech – which he knew his audience would find unacceptably inconvenient
– as an abdication by Britain of Africa and the abandonment of the
white settlers. Even among the black nationalists there was an ambiguous
reaction.
They had been prevented from meeting Mr Macmillan and at first
were skeptical about his speech. But even at the time Nelson Mandela
thought it was positive, and when he spoke to the British parliament in
1996 he referred to the address.
Albert Luthuli agreed with Mr Mandela, stating that Mr Macmillan had given Africans inspiration and hope.
When
Mr Macmillan ended his speech a shocked Mr Verwoerd immediately
responded, saying that “there must not only be justice to the black man
in Africa, but also to the white man”.
He said the Europeans there had no real other home, and that they provided a strong defence against Communism.
British
Conservatives also felt betrayed by Mr Macmillan’s speech and Lord
Kilmuir, a member of Mr Macmillan’s Cabinet, complained that “few
utterances in recent history have had more grievous consequences,”
adding that “in Kenya the settlers spoke bitterly of a betrayal”.
And
hardline imperialist Lord Salisbury felt that European settlers in
Kenya, alongside the African population, “would prefer to be under
imperial rule regardless”.
The second speech I have
selected was given in Birmingham in 1968, exactly 50 years ago, by
British MP Enoch Powell, who forecast a terrible future for Britain
thanks to what he saw as the excessive immigration into the country –
including of Asians from Kenya.
Mr Powell’s became
known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech, an allusion to a line from
Virgil’s Aeneid that he quoted: “As I look ahead, I am filled with
foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with
much blood.”
It caused a political storm, and led to
his dismissal from the Shadow Cabinet by Conservative Party leader
Edward Heath, who said it was “racialist in tone and liable to
exacerbate racial tensions”.
In the speech Mr Powell
recounted a conversation with one of his constituents, who said to Mr
Powell: “In this country in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have
the whip hand over the white man.”
In 1960, Mr
Macmillan was trying to help the white South Africans – as well as the
many conservative supremacists among his own people in Britain – to come
to terms with letting go of what they had previously enjoyed and taken
for granted.
The situation was no longer tenable, and
to reach a longer term sustainability it was clear they would need to
accept significant shorter term losses.
Then in 1968,
Mr Powell previewed the fears being expressed by Donald Trump today. Mr
Powell’s language was infinitely more elegant than that of America’s
President, but they both play to the same fear of loss.
The
difference is that while Mr Macmillan was confronting the fears of the
elite, Mr Powell and Mr Trump capitalised on those of people much lower
down the social and economic ladders.
Even today the
issues raised in the two speeches are far from fully resolved. Ever
since, leaders like Mr Macmillan have sought to uplift those they sought
to influence by adopting higher principles that lead to inclusive
societies where citizens can rise from a state of dependence to one of
full participation in society, while others like Mr Powell allow people
to dream of holding on to untenable pasts.
For sure we must support and strengthen the former, and condemn the latter.
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