Leonard Bloom - Identity and Ethnic Relations in Africa

LEONARD BLOOM

First published 1998 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge

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Copyright Leonard Bloom 1998

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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 98073507

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-32183-0 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-32184-7 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-429-45240-6 (ebk)

In 1976, when living in London, I went to Lancaster University to participate in a Colloquium on Psychology and Religion. One lecture was being given by an absurd exhibitionist and, deciding I would tolerate no more of it, I left the lecture hall and there, to my surprise and joy, found someone else who had left for the same reason. That someone answered to the name of Len Bloom. We spoke and chatted for the duration of the lecture and the next day when the conference was finished we returned on the train together. By the time we reached London a firm friendship had been cemented and, I believe, will only dissolve when the blow of death falls upon one of us. At the time I was new to Psychology, new to Psychoanalysis, an ex-public schoolboy, a failed priest and like an alien from Mars who had been suddenly cast upon a new planet. The friendship that was established on that train journey I could only attribute to my new friends peculiar genius for relating to any human being whom he encountered on this earth. So many of us can only relate to people within our particular village whether its inhabitants be all of one race, one class, one age or one outlook. We were from different villages and Lens special gift was his ability to bridge the gap. This remarkable book validates that first impression. For six years Len has lived with three teenage African street-kids.

It is notoriously difficult to bear the bitterness of a deprived person at close quarters. I have, as a psychoanalyst, occasionally managed it on the basis of a daily contact of 50 minutes but to invite three deprived youngsters into my house to share my homelife with me is heroism of a high order. But what Len has achieved is more than this because three adolescents are all Africans whose childhood years were spent under the regime of Apartheid. It is impossible to think that they would have had no hostility towards the white man. To have bridged this and become to them a surrogate father and mother is an heroic triumph of the human spirit. It is the sort of achievement that sparks the spirit of hope in a world so torn with ruthless self-interest, cynicism and generalizes despair. Len is a realist and he knows well enough the corruption and mismanagement by governments of the countries in their charge but he decries those social scientists who despair and say there is nothing to be done. Psychology has a task and he has no doubt about what it is. It is a breath of fresh air to read Len Blooms definition of what constitutes Psychology:

Psychology is more than skills and techniques. It must also generate insight into the human condition and stimulate sympathy for the pains of living, even though the pains may be caused by socioeconomic and political factors, (p. 7)

So here is no sentimental idealist but someone who realizes what Psychology needs to be if it is to have an impact upon our social world. Len Bloom has a scientists passion for the problems throbbing in the hearts of people in the numerous societies of post-colonial Africa. He has worked in Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa and I doubt if there can be many with such a penetrating understanding of the currents of suffering afflicting these ancient cultures. So Len believes that the Social Sciences have a role to play in shaping the structure and ethos of post-colonial societies in Africa and says trenchantly:

social scientists do both their profession and their societies a disservice if they surrender the study of social problems to politicians and administrators, (p. 39)

Psychologists have an active role to play in society. Cynicism is the emotional attitude of passive spectators. This book of Lens is a clarion call to action.

Len Bloom believes that there are certain factors that are shared by all human beings no matter to which culture they belong. He is not a cultural relativist. He believes that there are certain fundamentals that we all share and this gives him a basis for saying that we need both as psychologists and human beings to find the common ground and then from this to be tolerant of cultural differences. For instance he criticizes severely those African psychologists who deride any psychology which has been spawned in the First World. Len Bloom knows that there is much of value in the psychological traditions in the western world. He clearly favours the understanding that has come from psychoanalysis and believes that its insights into the emotional life of humans are of great value to the emerging problems in Africa. He is more sceptical of the psychometric tradition within Psychology, believing that the obsession with accurate measurement is at the cost of missing what is most essential in human life. He is clearly struggling to find a psychological outlook that is adequate to encompass the depth and richness of his diverse experience of human beings in the birth-pains of a great social crisis. I doubt if he has found a model that satisfies what he is looking for but clearly psychoanalysis both in its theory and practice approximates best to what he is looking for.

There are two snares for the anthropologist or social psychologist engaged in experiential research work within a foreign culture. He may either remain so academically detached that he fails to get any insight into the minds of those whom he is trying to understand or he submerges himself into the culture so entirely that he loses the observers perspective. Len Bloom avoids both these traps. He never for a moment pretends he is other than English, than Jewish, than White and it is clear that his adopted family respect him for maintaining his integrity. With this stance firmly in place he is able to empathize truly with his subjects. He does not pretend to understand things which may be baffling and disturbing. When Bongani and Danil announced that they must follow the rites of circumcision by going into the jungle as