Free Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih Page A

Inspector of
Primary Education.
    Here the Englishman intervened to say that he didn’t know the
truth of what was said concerning the role Mustafa Sa’eed had played in the
English political plottings in the Sudan; what he did know was that Mustafa Sa’eed
was not a reliable economist. ‘I read some of the things he wrote about what he
called “the economics of colonization". The overriding characteristic of
his writings was that his statistics were not to be trusted. He belonged to the
Fabian school of economists who hid behind a screen of generalities so as to
escape facing up to facts supported by figures. Justice, Equality; and
Socialism — mere words. The economist isn’t a writer like Charles Dickens or a
political reformer like Roosevelt — he’s an instrument, a machine that has no
value without facts, figures, and statistics; the most he can do is to define
the relationship between one fact and another, between one figure and another.
As for making figures say one thing rather than another, that is the concern of
rulers and politicians. The world is in no need of more politicians. No, this
Mustafa Sa’eed of yours was not an economist to be trusted.’
    I asked him if he had ever met Mustafa Sa’eed.
    ‘No, I never did. He left Oxford a good while before me, but
I heard bits and pieces about him from here and there. It seems he was a great
one for the women. He built quite a legend of a sort round himself — the
handsome black man courted in Bohemian circles. It seems he was a show-piece
exhibited by members of the aristocracy who in the twenties and early thirties
were affecting liberalism. It is said he was a friend of Lord-this and
Lord-that. He was also one of the darlings of the English left. That was bad
luck for him, because it is said he was intelligent. There’s nothing in the
whole world worse than leftist economists. Even his academic post — I don’t
know exactly what it was — I had the impression he got for reasons of this
kind. It was as though they wanted to say: Look how tolerant and liberal we
are! This African is just like one of us! He has married a daughter of ours and
works with us on an equal footing! If you only knew, this sort of European is
no less evil than the madmen who believe in the supremacy of the white man in South
Africa and in the southern states of America. The same exaggerated emotional
energy bears either to the extreme right or to the extreme left. If only he had
stuck to academic studies he’d have found real friends of all nationalities,
and you’d have heard of him here. He would certainly have returned and
benefited with his  knowledge this country in which superstitions hold sway;
And here you are now believing in superstitions of a new sort: the superstition
of industrialization, the superstition of nationalization, the superstition of
Arab unity; the superstition of African unity. Like children you believe that
in the bowels of the earth lies a treasure you’ll attain by some miracle, and
that you’ll solve all your difficulties and set up a Garden of Paradise. Fantasies.
Waking dreams. Through facts, figures, and statistics you can accept your
reality; live together with it, and attempt to bring about changes within the
limits of your potentialities. It was within the capacity of a man like Mustafa
Sa’eed to play a not inconsiderable role in furthering this if he had not been
transformed into a buffoon at the hands of a small group of idiotic
Englishmen.’
    While Mansour set out to refute Richard’s views, I gave
myself up to my thoughts. What was the use of arguing? This man — Richard — was
also fanatical. Everyone’s fanatical in one way or another. Perhaps we do
believe in the superstitions he mentioned, yet he believes in a new, a
contemporary superstition — the superstition of statistics. So long as we
believe in a god, let it be a god that is omnipotent. But of what use are
statistics? The white man, merely because he has ruled us