What is Msimangu referring to when he says, "The tragedy is not that things are broken, The tragedy is that they are not mended again."

A priest in the novel says, “The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again…It suited the white man to break the tribe, but it has not suited him to build something in the place of what is broken” (56).

The white man fears if provided the opportunity, the natives will gain and education and become powerful powerful leaders in their own right. This causes the "white" man to avoid truly helping the natives at any cost in order to continue to exploit them for their own personal gain.