Partners - Eastern Africa (1940s)

[Music] these boys are learning about the world we're home is in Eastern [Music] Africa the huge and very area comprising Kenya and Uganda and tanganika and nasand and Northern risia all British dependencies in some parts European settlers have built their [Music] homes modern cities have grown up full of busy activity there is a white man's Africa and it seems prosperous enough [Music] side by side with the Africans the European carries on his own trade and commerce he brings new crops and new methods the tongue plant from Asia grows well in Eastern Africa with African labor and European machinery it yields its oil to make our paints and varnishes rice can be grown on a large as well as a small scale Factory methods help to standardize the product czel rubber tea coffee cotton minerals tobacco oil off they go to all parts of the world are no longer any slaves for sale but this is all the Europeans Africa it depends on black labor and all around it is another Africa the old Africa the Africans the white man can plant tea and Export it he can introduce Modern Machinery he can pay Africans to pick the tea and work the machines but what effect does all this have on the Africans existence are straggling labor lines a good enough substitute for the Social Life Of The Villages the country is naturally poor great stretches are arid and Barren the Africans Africa is still primitive they make their Pottery without even a potter's wheel their tribal background is still with them they still dance as our ancestors must have danced [Music] their agriculture is one of shifting cultivation their grains like Millet are often poor in nutritional value they live in windowless Huts day in day out endless labor is spent on pounding the grain by hand some tribes possess cattle but what counts is generally the number of beasts that a man owns not their quality or the value of their products render Pest and other diseases take heavy toe and in the background is the tsif fly which renders huge tracks uninhabitable by cattle to get rid of cetti you must burn the bush or clear it in other ways nor is Africa a healthy place for the Africans the setti transmits sleeping sickness to man as well as disease to cattle malaria is everywhere sometimes Farms have to be abandoned because malaria is so bad [Music] in flowing streams the malarial mosquitoes cannot breed but in stagnant Waters they are dangerous for one swamp that can be filled in there are hundreds still spreading fever the wigglers that will hatch into mosquitoes can't live under a film of oil but armies of men would be needed to spray all the marshes and pools of this vast region there is too much to seize too many parasites sapping African energy lepers once roamed England they roam Africa today they can be well looked after some of them even cured of their disease but unfortunately there is no room for all of them poverty disease backwardness how can we tackle them only by a partnership between European and African a partnership in which the African is trained to deal with his own problems man lives off the land land badly cultivated becomes useless gullies eat it out rain washes away the soil and floods the fields the European can teach the African how to avoid erosion by planting or by Contour cultivation to stop the water carrying away the soil when land has been cleared of tetti it can be resettled and cultivated Africans can be trained in the proper methods of clearance they can put up more Huts or they can learn to make bricks and build better houses with Windows and separate rooms white man is devising inoculations against rinder pest but these will be of no avail unless the African is willing to use the new methods Africans are hungry for food they're hungry for health they're hungry for education that is why the British taxpayer is helping the development of the [Music] colonies education includes Health wherever there is a child welfare Clinic African mothers are learning [Music] there are two few clinics and there are two few schools but where schools exist the partnership between European and African people and European and African ideas is obvious Africans learn how and what to teach other Africans the primary school is not all book learning the children are educated in [Music] cleanliness girls are taught how to cook and how to se boys March gay off with their band to learn new methods of cultivation in the school garden perhaps much of the old African life is bound to go the white man is helping to put something in his place [Music] of [Music] above all there's needed a partnership of [Music] knowledge secondary schools have their quads and their dormitories [Music] the Pioneers in Eastern Africa wouldn't have believed what Africans can learn and do medical students learn the secrets of the human body African girls qualify as trained nurses today European and African surgeons operate together and African doctors are practicing among their own people it's no longer just White man's magic special workers examine water for pests like malaria mosquitoes East Africans are learning other techniques that would have seen beyond the bounds of possibility a short half century ago [Music] here are the beginnings of a new culture which has its roots deep in the Earth [Music] Africans have learned the skilled jobs of modern steel work the country couldn't be run without these educated Africans many offenses are Tried by native law in big towns there may elaborate Law Courts entirely African with a bench drawn from several tribes Clark takes down the evidence the procedure is a blend of European and African African councils have taken on much of the business of local government meanwhile old institutions persist with their traditions in many areas Chiefs still meet their people in ceremonial state this Chief is being presented with an offering of first fruits this is now a symbol only for today taxes are paid in money Eastern Africa has a host of problems pressing upon it legacies of the bad old days of the Arab slave trade disputes over land between white settlers and African cultivators difficulties over wage labor in mines and plantations difficulties over health over sanitation over agriculture over better feeding above all looms the problem of how to bring modern civilization to tribal culture without destroying what was good in the old without sacrificing human values in the process there is no single recipe we must experiment but the experiments must be experiments in Partnership between Europeans and Africans their chief aim to give more responsibility to the Africans themselves