A look into "The Freetown Bond. A Life Under Two Flags"

I don’t know what it is about Freetown. It is a small city, spread along a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic to the north and a range of mountains to its south. And as far as cities go, it is somewhat unprepossessing, and is not all that old, either, compared to say, Jerusalem, Timbuktu, Rome or Benin: Its most recent founding dates to not much more than a couple of centuries ago, although in some contexts it has been known to describe itself, not without a touch of irony, as “ancient and loyal”. Perhaps it is this sense of rootedness and loyalty that ensnares the imagination of those who were born there and who grew up among its narrow streets and lanes.

But it is not just its own citizens, but outsiders too who, for good or ill are drawn to it and who never seem able to divest themselves of its charms. Indeed, some have written about what amounts to a love-hate relationship that arises from the city’s irritating habit of seducing and repelling almost simultaneously. Others are much less ambiguous and remain captivated till their dying day. However, the telling of its story has not always been worthy of the city and it was with much anticipation that I looked forward to Eldred Durosimi Jones’ telling when I heard he was writing his memoir. I fully expected that he was going to give an account in which the city was bound to be a prominent participant.

I have not been disappointed. Man and boy, Eldred Jones is the quintessential Freetonian, with connections spanning the city from the Maroon Town neighbourhood in the west where his mother's family originated to the village atmosphere around Holy Trinity Church in the east where he grew up. His description of his early school days at Holy Trinity Infant School is especially evocative because this blogger also started school there and remembers the formidable Teacher Carrie, who left her mark on her charges, if you know what I mean. Perhaps some of us needed a firmer hand than others, but the progression to the CMS Grammar School was more or less a natural trajectory that Eldred Jones made with enviable ease.

That school, now called the Sierra Leone Grammar School, is another institution that has left a mark-all along the West African coast and even beyond-and is only a few decades younger than the city itself. Jones’ descriptions of what went on there are highly entertaining, and indeed provide some lessons as well. He reminds us that the school was a creation of the Church Missionary Society, which also founded the first institution of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa, and which, in due course, Jones was to progress to as he dug his roots deeper into the city. The fact that the college, Fourah Bay College, was temporarily displaced by the exigencies of the Second World War to a place outside Freetown only emphases its pathway towards becoming a national institution. Now Fourah Bay College is part of the University of Sierra Leone and the mark it has made in the development of higher education and in other spheres not only in Sierra Leone, but in the whole of West Africa as well and even farther, is almost legendary.

After graduating from Fourah Bay, Eldred Jones went on, in the mid-fifties, to read English at Oxford. Predictably, after that, he went right back to Freetown, pulled by that bond in the title of the memoir. Apart from sabbaticals abroad, necessary for recharging his batteries, he has stayed at Fourah Bay, deeply entrenched in its academic life but also in the social life of the city as well, weaving town and gown together into a single seamless garment. Besides, the college was a vantage point from which he observed, participated in and indeed occasionally become embroiled in in some of the tumultuous events that engulfed the city, as the capital of a country, stumbling its way into democratic governance.

As Eldred Jones relates in modest and subdued tones, his academic achievements and honours, combined with his commitment to duty mark him as one of the truly great personalities of the city. This is even more remarkable because for the best part of two decades he has been vision-impaired up to the point of blindness. But by his own admission, a lot of what he achieved would not have been possible without the help of his wife, Marjorie, who also co-authors “The Freetown Bond” and who, in her own right, is a most remarkable Freetonian too.

The question then is, is “The Freetown Bond: A Life under Two Flags” worth its $45.00 price tag? Well, the answer to that depends. If you enjoy a western income, it is worth every cent of its 174-page content. But for the earner of Sierra Leone Leones, the price may very well be too steep. But wherever you derive your income this is a book that you must try your best to get hold of.

Tell Fren Tru

Tears & Cheers

Spring has been unusually late this year, so the strategy of hibernating in the tropics during the northern winter has not been wholly successful. Instead, we walked right into a barrage of chilling winds, sleet, snow and rain.

            But now, at last, thankfully, Nature is showing signs of reverting to its usual rhythm. The sun shines and warms the air to a pleasing 18C. Not before time. Time too, evidently, for a lady of iron to die in a stylish venue. Can’t imagine how or why she should have chosen to die at the Ritz Hotel in downtown London except, perhaps, that it was a final act of provocation towards the proletariat with whom she had those epic fights during her heyday.

            Even without her dying where she did, the old battle lines are still as fresh as they were thirty years ago, and some with appropriately long memories are showing little respect for the dead. One has often heard it said that “people will dance in the streets” when some controversial character (usually a family member) or the other dies, but it must be highly unusual to actually witness a literal execution. There was always the possibility, I suppose.

            These local wars are of course interesting, but where I was taken aback was to hear that Mrs Thatcher was a great anti-apartheid warrior who fought tirelessly to have the ANC unbanned, and for Nelson Mandela to be freed from prison so that he could lead his nation to a better place. 

             In 1996, the Independent newspaper reminded us of Mrs Thatcher and her party's attitude to justice in apartheid South Africa. It was not pretty:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/from-terrorist-to-tea-with-the-queen-1327902.html#

         

            So, I can’t imagine what the conversation would go like when, in the fullness of time, Mandela and Thatcher shall meet.

Tell Fren Tru

Compensation

There is a tiny little island some twenty miles up the Sierra Leone River. You would think, judging by its size, that this island would be of little importance, if any at all. But it is a hugely important site in the history of Sierra Leone.

Of course, on the scale of geological time, the history is a short one. Very short. But, in modern terms it is a long one. Three hundred years. In those three centuries, the island’s fortunes waxed and waned and waxed and waned again.

The basis of those fortunes was slaves. The island, Bunce Island, to keep to its modern name, is only 13 acres in size. But it was from this island that thousands of Sierra Leonean Africans were shipped to slavery in America and the Caribbean. To bring about this feat, European slavers built a structure, which they called a “factory” for processing the human crop, the merchandising of which was to create vast wealth for the participants in the trade.

And of course, in order to protect their assets, the slavers’ factory was also built as a fortified castle. That, however, did not prevent it from being attacked by rivals and it being razed to the ground from time to time. Think of the modern trafficker and his distaste for competition and you’ll get the picture. But, in the end, the Brits prevailed, as they often did in those good old superpower days.

       Britain prevailed also when it came to ending the evil trade in the early 19th century, and so Bunce Island entered its final phase of decline. But it has never ceased to capture the imagination and has become a must-see heritage site for visitors as well as Sierra Leoneans interested in remembering. So, it was not a surprise when the novelist, the late Graham Greene, visited the island when MI6, the British Intelligence outfit posted him to Sierra Leone during World War II. What was surprising to me is Greene’s recollection of his visit in which he had expressed sympathy for the slavers who had been buried in the “crumbling little cemeteries,” as he called them, on the island. It didn’t make sense at the time I read it. Here was this “liberal” man who should have been able to rise above the level of the European functionary exercising seigniorial rights in the land where his masters were pulling all the strings. All empathy for the perpetrators and none for the victims. It was puzzling.

          Seven decades on, the matter was to be clarified, now that it has been revealed that Greene’s family did own slaves up to the time of abolition in the 1830’s, when those who held slaves demanded, and got, substantial compensation from the British government for giving up their human possessions. Greene is of course among distinguished company, as the list of present day inheritors is a virtual Who’s Who of today’s British establishment: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-colonial-shame-slaveowners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition-8508358.html

But the question that remains a-begging in many minds is who, among the central players, are yet to be compensated?

For which, read “victims.”

Tell Fren Tru