From South African Scouts website
Nelson Mandela was patron of the South African
Scouts, and said:
“The international Scout movement is a world
leader in youth education, and has particular relevance to the needs of youth
in Africa and the emerging democracies around the globe.
I am pleased with the progress of Scouting in
South Africa, and in the steps which are now being taken to make the programme
accessible to more young people. The importance of a high moral code, which is
at the foundation of the Scout movement, cannot be stressed too highly.” (1)
As a letter writer in The Guardian
(16 June) points out Mahatma Gandhi supported the caste system. This and the
row about the Baden-Powell statue illustrates that historical figures are
shades of grey, and are a mix of positive and negative aspects. Given the
daubing of the Winston Churchill statute, the recent repeat of David Olusoga’s
documentary on the Windrush scandal and the way a hostile environment was built
from when the Windrush was sailing here in 1948, highlighted the racist views
of Churchill and the pressure he put on the Cabinet from 1951 to examine the
issue of immigration by ‘coloured’ people. It also highlighted uncomfortably
for Labour Party members racist attitudes of Clem Attlee and a number of Labour
MPs.
The Dilemmas about Baden-Powell
In the first edition of my Black & Asian History Heritage in the UK
ENewsletter in October 2003 I wrote the following piece re-Baden-Powell.
‘An area of possible
research is the role of the Scout Movement in organising young people in the
colonies as well as Britain, what values they inculcated with regard to Empire
or internationalism, and what opportunities they provided for Scouts from the
Empire to visit Britain. This suggestion has been triggered by reading the book
‘I Was There. St. James’s, West Malvern’ arranged by Alice Baird (Littlebury
& Co, 1956). Alice Baird was the Head Mistress of St. James, a private
girls’ school in West Malvern. She was a keen supporter of Scouting and Girl
Guiding, and knew the founder Baden-Powell and his wife, who sent their
daughter to the school.
‘The inspiration he had
given to the youth of other nations was strongly impressed on me by the
Jamboree at Wembley in 1924, and even more by the great Jamboree at Arrowe Park
in 1929. There were thousands of Scouts from all parts of the world. At Arrowe,
Scouting was an international expression for India as well as for Norway, for
Britain as well as for Hungary; an ideal of the good life which appealed to all
alike.’ (Baird, p. 513)
Between 26 January and
8 March 1929, Baird went on a Canadian Pacific Cruise to the Western Islands
and North West Africa, along with the Baden Powells. They stopped at Gibraltar,
Monaco, Majorca, Algiers, Tangier, and Grand Canary. Then on to the Sierra
Leone. It was ‘a great surprise. I had had a vague idea of a hot, dreary
unremarkable town, swarming with chocolate and ebony inhabitants. Everywhere we
went they welcomed us in the most friendly way. Everyone was genial and
cheerful. The winding roads climbed up and up between tropical trees and shrubs
to a height from which we could see a great distance over mountains and forest
and sea. Then, conducted by African Boy Scouts, we saw native dancers
accompanied, or on might say, impelled by the most vigorous playing and
thumping of various instruments of music, up till then, unknown to me. There
were native diving boys all around the ship all day. When we came back in the
evening, one canoe was empty except for its paddles, for its owner had dived
and had never reappeared.’
At Dakar ‘Mountains of
pea-nuts hemmed in the way to the quay, and up and down the quay stalked tall,
dignified Senegalese in their vivid blue robes. Great and important public
buildings seemed to be accidentally plunged down on untidy waste sandy land. A
long motor drive in the desert behind, and the first sight of vultures and
queer Rackham-like baobab trees.’
The cruise returned to
Liverpool via Tenerife, Casablanca, Madeira, Cadiz and Lisbon. (Alice Baird. p.
397)
‘Early in the morning,
perhaps at six or seven o’clock, we would hear that the Scouts in Gibraltar or
the Canary Isles or Tangier, Dakar, Freetown or Lisbon had come on board to
greet the Chief; that he had gone off with them, or was inspecting their troops
or talking to their leaders, Then, later in the evening, as we left our port,
groups of Scouts gathered round the Chief.’ (Baird, p. 514)
On 27 January 1941 she
attended the Memorial Service for Baden-Powell at Westminster Abbey. ‘Men and
women of all ranks and races came to do honour to the dreamer whose dreams came
true.’ (p. 515-6) ‘I saw an Arab Scout wearing the beautiful mourning robes of
Palestine, the black robe and white head-dress, like that worn by Lawrence of
Arabia. I saw an Indian Scout, wearing the magnificent plumed mourning
head-dress.’ (p.516) She also comments ‘Framing the picture, the ancient grey
aisles and pillars of the Abbey, the spiritual heart of the Empire where rest
so many great and famous men.’ (p.517)
(Since writing the
above Postscript has advertised the reduced price availability of the book by
Robert H. MacDonald: Sons of the Empire. The Frontier and the Boy Scout
Movement, 1890-1918 …)’
I do not recall receiving any comment back on this item from the
historians of Black Britain who it was sent to.
The
Scouting Movement In Africa
Baden-Powell is commemorated in parts of Africa because
of the Scouting Movement. (2)
From School website
There is the Lord Baden-Powell Memorial School in
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It teamed up with the Scientology Volunteer Ministers
Africa Goodwill Tour in 2012 to have some of the students complete Disaster
Response Specialist Training. A singer
Grace Paul performed an original Swahili song based on the motto of the
Ministers, with the students joining in the chorus: “No matter the situation, something can be done
about it.” (3)
In 1960 Kwame Nkrumah
initiated the Ghana Young Pioneers Movement to replace the Scouts which were
seen as the relics of colonialism. (4) The Movement no longer exists, but the Ghana Scouts
do. (5)
(4) Ebenezer Obiri Addo. Kwame Nkrumah: A
Case Study of Religion and Politics in Ghana. University Press of America.
1999
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