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Letters On
Africa
from Ben
Schwartz
Dear
Rudy,
Thank you for refreshing my
memory. I should very much like to meet and talk with Mr.
Rogers. Although I would love to visit Cuba and capture their
theater and dance for world audiences, my Spanish is limited to
cafe con leche. My friend Mauro who is in charge of our
Argentina events is, of course Portuguese speaking. I would love
to go with Mr. Rogers along with my son. If Mr. Rogers is
willing I could help defer his expenses.
Anything I send you you are
welcome to use as you wish. As a young man I sold watermelons on
the streets of Washington. At the end of a summer my attorney
said I should buy six acres and an old house on the corner of
Wisconsin and Western Ave in Chevy Chase. I asked him how much
cash was needed and he replied $3000. down and $23,000 mortgage.
I told him I needed my money to get married and go to school.
So, he lent me the $3,000.
One year later the property
was zoned commercial and I sold it to Lord and Taylor for over a
million dollars profit. And from there to dealing with a very
wealthy oil man about whom The Ugly American was written, and
then as Vincent Astor's son ( Tony Marshall) as Vice-President
in Charge of investments for The African Research and
Development Company, then my own company Intervest, and so on.
I was involved in the most
exciting adventures in South Africa, Nigeria, Niger, Gabon,
Kenya, Southern Rhodesia ( I sent my 16 year old five years ago
to Zimbabwe) Ghana, Angola, et al. Did you read my attachment,
"Glory Days," that pokes a little fun at my naiveté.
So it is. When we meet
I will do my best to regale you with my tales of Africa
including delivering 50,000 dollars to Lumumba in Paris.
However, let God grant me a little more time for at least one
grand adventure, and I will give up thanks. I am hooked on
adrenalin and lust for adventure. As I grow older I realize that
Americans were cursed by Puritanical ideas.
"The only black woman I had ever touched was my mammy,
Maud. And she was seventy years old and smoked a corncob
pipe and used snuff. And now I was being asked to double-date
with two young maids whose skin was the color of ripe black
olives" (“Glory
Days” ).
After making money in Africa I returned to NY and bought The
Little Theater (next to Sardi's) and we opened with Langston
Hughes Tambourines to Glory starring Clara Ward, and featuring
Bob Guillaume, Lou Gosset, Mickie Grant, Roxy Roker, all young
and unknown artists.
Anyhow, it is a long story and much better told over a glass of
wine. I believe I can revolutionize and democratize theater.
Sound ambitious. It's a piece of cake.
By the way my daughter is a doctor at John Hopkins (after a
career in the Army) and lives in Towson.
Regards, Ben
*
* *
Dear
Rudy,
Thank you for your kind
interest in my stories. I write for my own pleasure and “Glory
Days” needs to be finished. My
trip was motivated by the same lust and greed that prompted the Conquistadors. "Glory
Days” is very personal. We went
to Africa to exploit. We went to make a fortune and come back to
London or New York and spend the money. To my surprise I fell in
love with the impossible, a black woman. Nor Lena Horne, but an
African woman six feet tall richer, better educated and much
brighter than I was.
I
write about the defeat of Colonialism, a defeat that after
Vietnam and Cuba we are just beginning to accept. Slavery, the
holocaust, and The Inquisition are the results of
"Colonialism" i.e. the taking of a people's resources
by a superior army. I write Glory days as a satire and point the
irony of White perception of their superiority. I knew Toure,
Lumumba, Vervord, Ian Smith, Welensky, Akintola, Festus Ekote
Iboh, Enaraho, Mandela, Jomo Kenyatta, Amadu Bello, Idi Amin,
and Nkrumah. Today the U.S. still indulges in Iraq this
colonialism and believes in the right to drop bombs on
innocent people.
I
believe with your editorial help I can give an insight into
the Africa of Change. When my son was sixteen I sent my son to
Zimbabwe to visit old friends. We ran into Mr. Mugabe
and that is another story. I would be happy to provide material
for your journal. At my age I am beginning to realize that most
of my life I have lived in Plato's cave, and not in a real
world.
I will send you more
material.
Regards, Ben
*
* *
Dear
Rudy,
I read your commentary on
Gangsters in Nigeria and was amused. We should do an article
entitled "Dash" (bribe) which was a way of life. A
character you will often meet in "Glory
Days" is Amadu Bello
(The Sardonna of Sokoto) who I first met in his Palace Parade
Grounds wearing the armor his ancestors had worn when conquering
Spain. He entered from one side preceded by 400 of his children
(wards of the state) who came bearing flowers for me.
During
negotiations he came to my rondeval at midnight with his
secretary and dictated a six million dollar letter of credit. I
asked him, " Sir, why are we doing it this way?" He
answered, "Because I do not trust my ministers!"
Several years later he was assassinated in his sleep. He was an
absolutely fair, just, and incorruptible officer of Africa. The
historic animosities between the Hausa, Fulani, Ibo, and
Christian are unrelenting and grim. During a meeting Bello began
speaking in Swahili, he looked at me and said, “your language
is better for business, but ours is better for politics.
Regards, Ben * *
* * *
update 26 July 2008 |
