tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/anti-colonialism-25265/articles
Anti-colonialism – The Conversation
2023-12-11T11:34:01Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219542
2023-12-11T11:34:01Z
2023-12-11T11:34:01Z
Benjamin Zephaniah: how the poet’s linguistic anarchy and abolitionist politics impacted education – and me
<p>Like so many others who work in education, I was devastated to hear the news of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-benjamin-zephaniah-became-the-face-of-british-rastafari-219515">Benjamin Zephaniah’s</a> death. His work has profoundly shaped our understandings of <a href="https://theconversation.com/whiteness-is-at-the-heart-of-racism-in-britain-so-why-is-it-portrayed-as-a-black-problem-181742">race</a>, language and education – and his work continues to have enormous influence in classrooms around the world.</p>
<p>I first encountered Benjamin’s writing when I was at secondary school. Our English teacher used his poetry to explore issues of local and global injustices. Like him, she encouraged us all to challenge normative ways of using language and reject the linguistic hierarchies that shape schools. She, like Benjamin, saw teaching as a political act.</p>
<p>My school was located in a racially diverse, working-class area of a post-industrial town in the north of England. The issues that Benjamin examined – <a href="https://theconversation.com/whiteness-characterises-higher-education-institutions-so-why-are-we-surprised-by-racism-93147">race</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/whiteness-is-an-invented-concept-that-has-been-used-as-a-tool-of-oppression-183387">whiteness</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/racial-wealth-gaps-are-yet-another-thing-the-us-and-uk-have-in-common-185646">capitalism</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-at-60-the-shameful-truth-about-british-colonial-abuse-and-how-it-was-covered-up-218608">colonialism</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-black-people-feel-safe-and-have-confidence-in-policing-191521">injustice</a>, hostile <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-police-wont-acknowledge-institutional-racism-in-their-race-action-plan-heres-why-that-matters-183853">policing</a>, state violence and, of course, <a href="https://theconversation.com/you-cant-even-talk-english-so-dont-talk-how-linguistic-racism-impacts-immigrants-in-the-uk-182173">language</a> – were so pertinent to us all. He wrote about things that children, parents and teachers alike recognised. </p>
<p>For many of the children in that school, Benjamin’s work will have been the first time they encountered published literature that was written in a language that represented how they spoke and that talked about the things that mattered to them. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VtwmXjrMkAk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>This paucity of diverse educational materials continues to this day. By far, the majority of literature that children study in schools is <a href="https://litincolour.penguin.co.uk/assets/Lit-in-Colour-research-report.pdf">written by white authors</a>. It overwhelmingly features white protagonists and is overwhelmingly written in “standard English”– a colonial variety of the language that <a href="https://benjaminzephaniah.com/poetic-thoughts/">Benjamin outrightedly rejected</a>.</p>
<p>Benjamin’s work, by contrast, is shaped by his <a href="https://autonomies.org/2019/06/why-i-am-an-anarchist-benjamin-zephaniah/">anarchist</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/feb/20/poetry.features">abolitionist</a> principles. It challenges readers and listeners to examine how language education policy, discipline practices and curricula normalise <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00405841.2019.1665415">anti-Black linguistic racism</a>. </p>
<h2>Linguistic injustice</h2>
<p>Benjamin’s work draws its power from the fact that he refused to separate out issues of language injustice from broader dimensions of social injustice. For him, anti-Black language policing was simply part of the same logics of anti-Black policing more broadly. His work is part of a long history of <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526143938/">Black resistance to British policing</a> – which includes the policing of language.</p>
<p>His 1996 poetry collection <a href="https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/propa-propaganda-533">Propa Propaganda</a>, for example, brought together issues of racist policing, Black culture, hostile immigration rhetoric, and linguistic colonialism. The opening lines to his poem, Neighbours, capture just that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am the type you are supposed to fear</p>
<p>Black and foreign</p>
<p>Big and dreadlocks</p>
<p>An uneducated grass eater.</p>
<p>I talk in tongues</p>
<p>I chant at night</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My first permanent academic post was in the Department of Education at Brunel University London, where Benjamin was Professor of Creative Writing. Our offices were in the same building. I will never forget the time that he came to speak to my pre-service English teacher education group – mostly made up of students of colour from working-class backgrounds. </p>
<p>He showed up and simply said to the class: “What do you want to hear about?” “Linguistic justice,” came their reply. </p>
<p>For three hours, we sat, captivated, listening to his stories and wisdom about <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-black-children-in-englands-schools-are-made-to-feel-like-the-way-they-speak-is-wrong-198830">anti-Black linguistic racism in schools</a>, the criminalisation of Black youth in Britain and the colonial histories of standard English. He firmly rejected the mainstream narrative that speaking in standard English is the solution to granting marginalised children justice. </p>
<p>Those conversations inspired my students to engage in similar anti-racist efforts in their own teaching. I went on to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/lit.12277">collaborate with one of my students</a>, drawing on Benjamin’s ideas. We facilitated workshops with young children where they critiqued ideologies of <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Linguistic-Prescriptivism/Beal-Lukac-Straaijer/p/book/9780367557843">linguistic prescriptivism</a> and how England’s education policies are linguistically oppressive.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Benjamin Zephaniah poses for a photo in a room with a group of trainee teachers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564582/original/file-20231208-23-szw8dy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564582/original/file-20231208-23-szw8dy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564582/original/file-20231208-23-szw8dy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564582/original/file-20231208-23-szw8dy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564582/original/file-20231208-23-szw8dy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564582/original/file-20231208-23-szw8dy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564582/original/file-20231208-23-szw8dy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benjamin Zephaniah with a group of PGCE English students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Cushing</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Years later, Benjamin agreed to collaborate on a research project I led on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13613324.2023.2170435?src=recsys">language and race in schools</a>. Part of the project involved secondary school pupils in London reading his 2020 novel, <a href="https://www.booktrust.org.uk/book/w/windrush-child/">Windrush Child</a>. The teacher used the text as a springboard to encourage the children to examine how language, colonialism, race and discrimination intersect in Britain. </p>
<p>At one point, Benjamin’s protagonist in the book says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are some white people who think that white is de best, de standard, and everyone else is coloured. And because they think they are the best, they think they have de right to rule over us. You know ‘bout slavery?’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As part of the project, we interviewed Benjamin on camera and showed the videos to children in the classroom. They were enthralled. </p>
<p>They discussed how their own experiences of schooling have been shaped by whiteness, linguistic standards and colonial curricula. This experience reminded me of my own schooling in the 1990s – of hearing his poetry for the first time and of hearing my teachers talk about language, activism, and social injustice.</p>
<p>Benjamin had an incredible capacity to talk about complex issues with razor sharp clarity. He showed how linguistic hierarchies were a product of colonialism and slavery. </p>
<p>He rejected any theories of social justice which place the burden on marginalised communities to modify their language. He was an abolitionist and an anti-colonial activist through and through, <a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-colonialism-and-slavery-why-empire-needs-to-be-removed-from-the-uk-honours-system-129311">rejecting</a>, in 2013, an OBE because of its language of empire. </p>
<p>Despite his untimely passing, Bejamin’s words will continue to push back against the systems and structures of language policing which are so embedded within them. His work is needed more than ever before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219542/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Cushing receives funding from the Spencer Foundation, the British Educational Research Association, and the British Association of Applied Linguistics.</span></em></p>
For many school children, Benjamin Zephaniah’s work will have been the first time they encountered published literature that talked about the things that mattered to them.
Ian Cushing, Senior Lecturer in Critical Applied Linguistics, Manchester Metropolitan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199232
2023-02-07T13:30:39Z
2023-02-07T13:30:39Z
W.E.B. Du Bois, Black History Month and the importance of African American studies
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508198/original/file-20230205-15-zit4rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C124%2C4094%2C3225&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scholar-activist W.E.B. DuBois in 1946.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/william-e-b-dubois-sociologist-scholar-and-cofounder-of-the-news-photo/159788642">Underwood Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The opening days of Black History Month 2023 have coincided with controversy about the teaching and broader meaning of African American studies. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1153434464/college-boards-revised-ap-african-american-studies-course-draws-new-criticism">On Feb. 1, 2023</a>, the College Board released a revised curriculum for its newly developed Advanced Placement African American studies course.</p>
<p>Critics have accused the College Board of caving to political pressure stemming from conservative backlash and the decision of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/22/1150259944/florida-rejects-ap-class-african-american-studies">ban the course</a> from public high schools in Florida because of what he characterized as its radical content and inclusion of topics such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">critical race theory</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/879041052/william-darity-jr-discusses-reparations-racial-equality-in-his-new-book">reparations</a> and the <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter</a> movement. </p>
<p>On Feb. 11, 1951, an article by the 82-year-old Black scholar-activist W.E.B. Du Bois titled “<a href="https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b210-i014">Negro History Week</a>” appeared in the short-lived New York newspaper The Daily Compass. </p>
<p>As one of the founders of the NAACP in 1909 and the editor of its powerful magazine <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-crisis">The Crisis</a>, Du Bois is considered by historians and intellectuals from many academic disciplines as America’s <a href="https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/815-turning-high-fashion-into-politics-henry-louis-gates-jr-on-web-du-bois-and-the-new-negro-movement-of-1900">preeminent thinker on race</a>. His thoughts and opinions still carry weight throughout the world. </p>
<p>Du Bois’ words in that 1951 article are especially prescient today, offering a reminder about the importance of Black History Month and what is at stake in current conversations about African American studies. </p>
<p>Du Bois began his Daily Compass commentary by praising <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Fugitive_Pedagogy/dnUZEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=carter+g+woodson&printsec=frontcover">Carter G. Woodson</a>, founder of the <a href="https://asalh.org/">Association for the Study of Negro Life and History</a>, who established Negro History Week in 1926. The week would eventually become Black History Month.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An elderly black man dressed in a dark business suit poses for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508201/original/file-20230205-23-27sr65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black historian Carter G. Woodson in 1946.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2016/02/lcm-trending-african-american-history-month/carterwoodson/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Du Bois described the annual commemoration as Woodson’s “crowning achievement.” </p>
<p>Woodson was <a href="https://www.nps.gov/cawo/learn/carter-g-woodson-biography.htm">the second African American</a> to earn a doctorate in history from Harvard University. <a href="https://guides.library.harvard.edu/hua/dubois">Du Bois was the first</a>.</p>
<p>Du Bois and Woodson did not always see eye to eye. However, as <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=7f443ffde35747ba69faca210faff07145fab78c">I explore</a> in my new book, “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374293154/the-wounded-world">The Wounded World: W.E.B. Du Bois and the First World War</a>,” the two pioneering scholars always respected each other.</p>
<h2>Reckoning with history and reclaiming the past</h2>
<p>Du Bois’ connection to and appreciation of Negro History Week grew during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/w-e-b-du-bois-and-black-history-month/">During this time</a>, whether in public speeches or published articles, he never missed an opportunity to acknowledge the importance of Negro History Week. </p>
<p>In the Feb. 11, 1951, article, Du Bois reflected that his own contributions to Negro History Week “lay in my long effort as a historian and sociologist to make America and Negroes themselves aware of the significant facts of Negro history.” </p>
<p>Summarizing his work from his first book, “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Suppression_of_the_African_Slave_tra/04mJJlND1ccC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade</a>,” published in 1896, through his magnum opus “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Black_Reconstruction_in_America_1860_188/Nt5mglDCNHEC?hl=en">Black Reconstruction in America</a>,” published in 1935, Du Bois told readers of the Daily Compass piece that much of his career was spent trying “to correct the distortion of history in regard to Negro enfranchisement.”</p>
<p>By doing so, the nation would hopefully become, Du Bois wrote further, “conscious that this part of our citizenry were normal human beings who had served the nation credibly and were still being deprived of their credit by ignorant and prejudiced historians.”</p>
<p>In addition to championing Negro History Week, Du Bois applauded other Black scholars, like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/E-Franklin-Frazier">E. Franklin Frazier</a>, <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2015/02/11/black-history-month-charles-s-johnson-scholar-race-relations/23256961/">Charles Johnson</a> and <a href="https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collections/shirley-graham-du-bois">Shirley Graham</a>, who were “steadily attacking” the omissions and distortions of Black people in school textbooks. </p>
<p>Du Bois went on to chronicle the achievements of African Americans in science, religion, art, literature and the military, making clear that Black people had a history to be proud of.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of black men, women and children are marching on a street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508199/original/file-20230205-504-ix6lu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">W.E.B. Du Bois, third from right in the second row, joins other marchers in New York protesting against racism on July 28, 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/prominent-african-americans-residents-of-the-city-paraded-news-photo/530843082?phrase=web%20du%20bois&adppopup=true">George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Du Bois, however, questioned what deeper meaning these achievements held to the issues facing Black people in the present.</p>
<p>“What now does Negro History Week stand for?” he asked in the 1951 article. “Shall American Negroes continue to learn to be ‘proud’ of themselves, or is there a higher broader aim for their research and study?”</p>
<p>“In other words,” he asserted, “as it becomes more universally known what Negroes contributed to America in the past, more must logically be said and taught concerning the future.”</p>
<p>The time had come, Du Bois believed, for African Americans to stop striving to be merely “the equal of white Americans.”</p>
<p>Black people needed to cease emulating the worst traits of America – flamboyance, individualism, greed and financial success at any cost – and support <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/web-du-bois">labor unions</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3041154">Pan-Africanism</a> and <a href="https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/web-dubois">anti-colonial struggle</a>. </p>
<p>He especially encouraged the systematic study of the imperial and economic roots of racism: “Here is a field for Negro History Week.”</p>
<h2>Black history and Black struggle</h2>
<p>Looking ahead, Du Bois declared that if Negro History Week remained “true to the ideals of Carter Woodson” and followed “the logical development of the Negro Race in America,” it would not confine itself to the study of the past nor “boasting and vainglory over what we have accomplished.” </p>
<p>“It will not mistake wealth as the measure of America, nor big-business and noise as World Domination,” Du Bois wrote in his article.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Under a large headline that reads The Shame of America, a newspaper advertisement lists a number of lynchings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337712/original/file-20200526-106815-f764c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1922, the NAACP ran a series of full-page ads in The New York Times calling attention to lynchings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6786">New York Times, Nov. 23, 1922/American Social History Project</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, Du Bois believed Negro History Week would “concentrate on study of the present,” “not be afraid of radical literature” and, above all else, advocate for peace and voice “eternal opposition against war between the white and colored peoples of the earth.” </p>
<p>Were he alive today, Du Bois would certainly have much to say about current debates around the teaching of African American history and the larger significance of African American studies. <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/05/specials/dubois-obit.html">Du Bois died</a> on Aug. 27, 1963, in Accra, Ghana. </p>
<p>But he left behind his clairvoyant words that remind us of the connections between African American studies and movements for Black liberation, along with how the teaching of African American history has always challenged racist and exclusionary narratives of the nation’s past. </p>
<p>Du Bois also reminds us that Black History Month is rooted in a legacy of activism and resistance, one that continues in the present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199232/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chad Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As the 20th century’s preeminent scholar-activist on race, W.E.B. Du Bois would not be surprised by modern-day attempts at whitewashing American history. He saw them in 1930s and 1940s.
Chad Williams, Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/185932
2022-08-08T12:19:37Z
2022-08-08T12:19:37Z
75 years ago, Britain’s plan for Pakistani and Indian independence left unresolved conflicts on both sides – especially when it comes to Kashmir
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475023/original/file-20220720-13-79gmsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C1%2C1007%2C579&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Leaders in New Delhi agree on the plan to partition India: From left, Jawaharlal Nehru, Hastings Ismay, Louis Mountbatten and Ali Jinnah.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/during-an-historic-conference-in-new-delhi-lord-mountbatten-news-photo/104401851?adppopup=true">Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1947, the United Kingdom was exhausted. World War II had ravaged its military and economy, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117389_12">anti-colonial movements</a> had begun to challenge empires. Within the Indian subcontinent, the U.K. faced two powerful, seemingly irreconcilable nationalist movements: one calling for the creation of Pakistan, a homeland for the Muslims of South Asia; the other for India, a pluralist democracy.</p>
<p>The U.K. chose to partition the region and withdraw. Under the terms of the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/parliament-and-empire/collections1/collections2/1947-indian-independence-act/">Indian Independence Act</a>, the subcontinent was formally divided into two new dominions at midnight of Aug. 14, 1947 – <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/partition-of-india/oclc/311769360">75 years ago this month</a>. </p>
<hr>
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<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/audio-narrated-99682">narrated by Noa</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Dividing a diverse land of hundreds of millions of people was far messier than the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-british-royals-monumental-errors-made-indias-partition-more-painful-81657">Partition plan itself</a>. Around 1 million people died, and more than 12 million were displaced, by the <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-other-side-of-silence">mass violence that broke out immediately afterward</a>.</p>
<p>One particularly complicated piece of this history, which I have written about in my work as <a href="https://polisci.indiana.edu/about/faculty/ganguly-sumit.html">a scholar of Indian politics</a>, is the fate of the regions known as “princely states,” which had some autonomy under the British. This dilemma still shapes the region, especially in Jammu and Kashmir, which has been ridden with conflict ever since.</p>
<h2>Time to choose</h2>
<p>Under British rule there had been two classes of states. One set of states, those of British India, were directly ruled from London. The other, the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511583292">princely states</a>,” were nominally independent as long as their rulers recognized the “paramountcy” of the British Crown.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white map shows India before independence from the United Kingdom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475026/original/file-20220720-20-x38x1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475026/original/file-20220720-20-x38x1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475026/original/file-20220720-20-x38x1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475026/original/file-20220720-20-x38x1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475026/original/file-20220720-20-x38x1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475026/original/file-20220720-20-x38x1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475026/original/file-20220720-20-x38x1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map of India before the Partition shows the areas considered ‘British India’ and the ‘princely states,’ also called ‘Indian states.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/map-of-india-before-the-partition-of-the-british-indian-news-photo/1216140133?adppopup=true">Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Under the terms of this doctrine, these “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521267274">princely states</a>” could largely manage their internal affairs but had to defer to Britain on three critical policy issues: defense, foreign affairs and communications. Around the time of independence and Partition there were approximately 562 such states, many of them quite small.</p>
<p>As the British prepared to depart, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03086539308582896">Lord Louis Mountbatten</a>, the last British viceroy – the British monarch’s representative in India – decreed that the rulers of the princely states had a choice: They could join either India or Pakistan. Independence, as an option, was effectively ruled out.</p>
<p>Moreover, Mountbatten added two important stipulations: that the states could be merged with India or Pakistan on the basis of demographic features and their geographic location. Accordingly, predominantly Muslim states would go to Pakistan and others to India. Finally, he also stipulated that states that were geographically situated inside the borders of one of the two emergent countries, regardless of their demographic composition, had to join that particular country.</p>
<h2>Dragging their heels</h2>
<p>The vast majority of the rulers of the princely states, despite harboring reservations about this plan, recognized that they had little or no choice and <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/ramachandra-guha/india-after-gandhi/9781447281887">acceded to either India or Pakistan</a>, though a few did have to be prodded or cajoled. However, a small number of them, for a variety of complex reasons, were reluctant to agree to the terms that Mountbatten had spelled out.</p>
<p>Three of them proved to be especially trying. The first of these was the monarch of Jammu and Kashmir, in the northwest. <a href="https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526156167.00011">Maharaja Hari Singh</a> was a Hindu ruling over a predominantly Muslim population. To compound matters, his state lay between the two emergent countries of India and Pakistan. </p>
<p>India, which was created as a secular state, wanted to incorporate Kashmir to demonstrate that a predominantly Muslim region could thrive in a Hindu-majority country committed to secularism. Pakistan, on the other hand, sought Kashmir because of its physical proximity and Muslim majority.</p>
<p>Singh was unwilling to cast his lot with either of the two states. He did not wish to join India because he was aware that India’s principal nationalist leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, had socialist leanings and would likely induce him to dispense with his vast landed estates. Simultaneously, he was averse to joining Pakistan because he was mostly at odds with <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/book/the-crisis-kashmir-portents-war-hopes-peace">his predominantly Muslim subjects</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A black and white photo of a formal portrait of a man with a mustache and a headwrap with a feather." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475027/original/file-20220720-12-lvvdju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475027/original/file-20220720-12-lvvdju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475027/original/file-20220720-12-lvvdju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475027/original/file-20220720-12-lvvdju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475027/original/file-20220720-12-lvvdju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475027/original/file-20220720-12-lvvdju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475027/original/file-20220720-12-lvvdju.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of the Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-maharaja-of-kashmir-hari-singh-circa-1920-1939-news-photo/104416016?adppopup=true">Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even after the independence of Pakistan and India was declared, Singh <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Great_Divide.html?id=OJygzgEACAAJ">vacillated about which country to join</a>. In October of 1947 a tribal rebellion broke out in Poonch, a district of Jammu and Kashmir. As his troops sought to quell the rebellion, the insurgents quickly found military support from Pakistan.</p>
<p>As the rebels approached his capital, Srinagar, Singh appealed to India for military assistance. Nehru, India’s first prime minister, agreed to provide assistance as long as two conditions were met. Singh would have to obtain the support of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, the leader of the largest popular and secular political party in the state, and he would have to formally sign <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520076655/war-and-secession">the Instrument of Accession to India</a>.</p>
<p>After Singh agreed to the conditions, India sent troops into the state, leading to a <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/conflict-unending/9780231123693">war with Pakistan</a> – the first of four between the two countries, the most recent in 1999. The first conflict came to a close in 1948 with Pakistan gaining control over a third of Kashmir.</p>
<p>Neither country has wholly reconciled itself to Kashmir’s status. India claims the state in its entirety, as it became a part of its territory legally. Pakistan, however, has historically held the view that Kashmir was ceded to India by a ruler who did not represent its majority Muslim population. Indeed, this dispute between two nuclear-armed powers remains a potential global flashpoint.</p>
<h2>Consequential choices</h2>
<p>Another contentious case involved the Muslim ruler of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001946460704400404">the state of Hyderabad</a>, well inside central India, who did not wish to join India. Nehru initially sought to negotiate an end to this impasse. However, when the ruler, the Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan, proved resistant to his requests, Nehru authorized the use of force to ensure the state’s integration into India.</p>
<p>Finally, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0019464616651167">a third difficult case was Junagadh</a>, a princely state in western India. The ruler, the Nawab Muhammad Mahabat Khan Babi III, acceded to Pakistan despite its predominantly Hindu population. Unhappy with <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230277519_3">his decision</a>, which defied the directive that states located within the new dominion of India should accede to it, India’s leaders sent in troops to reverse the outcome. To legitimize the decision, the government held a referendum in 1948, in which over 90% of the citizenry voted in favor of the accession.</p>
<p>The departure of the British from their Indian colony left a host of unresolved issues, ranging from the traumas of the Partition to the ongoing dispute over Kashmir. These consequences still shape geopolitics in the region, and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sumit Ganguly has received funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation and the US Department of State.</span></em></p>
The fate of the so-called princely states was a particularly contentious issue during India’s Partition, which killed about 1 million people and left millions more displaced.
Sumit Ganguly, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations, Indiana University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/187295
2022-07-19T13:59:04Z
2022-07-19T13:59:04Z
Remembering Frantz Fanon – six great reads
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474856/original/file-20220719-14-ilkort.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fanon was among the early exponents of decolonisation.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46134450">Tony Webster/ Minneapolis Police Department. Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Frantz Fanon, the Martinique-born psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and leading pan-Africanist, would have been 97 on 20 July 2022. </p>
<p>He left a remarkable imprint. His views influenced many in the field of mental illness as well as pan-Africanist thinkers and anti-colonialism and black liberation campaigners. </p>
<p>Fanon’s wide-ranging interests can be gleaned from his writings on numerous subjects including politics, psychiatry and even sports. Six articles from our archives attest to Fanon’s influence and legacy. </p>
<h2>Psychiatry in colonial society</h2>
<p>Fanon highlighted how, by institutionalising patients, psychiatric hospitals tended to further alienate them from their communities. It also became clear to him, while working as a psychiatrist in Algeria between 1953 and 1956, that patient integration was impossible in colonial societies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fanon-and-the-politics-of-truth-and-lying-in-a-colonial-society-102594">Fanon and the politics of truth and lying in a colonial society</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Mental illness and post-colonial societies</h2>
<p>Decolonial thinking is often associated with literature from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Yet the scholarship goes back much further, and has no shortage of impressive exponents from the global south. Among these, Fanon enjoys preeminence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-fanon-still-teaches-us-about-mental-illness-in-post-colonial-societies-102426">What Fanon still teaches us about mental illness in post-colonial societies</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Fanon played soccer from a young age and it became part of his life. As a psychiatrist, he even attempted to use soccer as part of therapeutic interventions for patients. His views on the sport mirror his damning eloquence against colonial and capitalist exploitation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fanon-on-soccer-radically-anti-capitalist-anti-commercial-and-anti-bourgeois-79087">Fanon on soccer: radically anti-capitalist, anti-commercial and anti-bourgeois</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One of the seminal moments in the anti-colonial struggle and the history of pan-Africanism was the All-African People’s Conference in Ghana in 1958. Ghana was then the only African nation to have achieved independence from colonial rule. When Fanon rose to speak, not many knew who he was. But what he said that day inspired many with its militancy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/revisiting-frantz-fanon-memories-and-moments-of-a-militant-philosopher-59914">Revisiting Frantz Fanon: memories and moments of a militant philosopher</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Fanon wrote a number of books and articles. The best-known of these is arguably The Wretched of the Earth, published months after his death in 1961. A book published in 2021 to mark the 60th anniversary of the global classic features his most important quotations, which continue to resonate today. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/quotes-from-frantz-fanons-wretched-of-the-earth-that-resonate-60-years-later-173108">Quotes from Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth that resonate 60 years later</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As fate would have it, Franz Fanon and Nelson Mandela, among the best-known proponents of African liberation, were born in the same week in 1918 and 1925, respectively. Mandela’s birthday, which is celebrated globally, falls on 18 July. Fanon’s is two days later, on 20 July. The two great men have one more thing in common: they both admired and were hugely influenced by the Algerian revolution of the 1950s.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-mandela-and-fanon-learned-from-algerias-revolution-in-the-1950s-107736">What Mandela and Fanon learned from Algeria's revolution in the 1950s</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187295/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Fanon left a remarkable imprint, his views influencing many in the field of mental illness as well as pan-Africanist and anti-colonialism thinkers.
Thabo Leshilo, Politics + Society
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183850
2022-05-30T14:13:26Z
2022-05-30T14:13:26Z
Kenya’s ‘patriotic’ choral music has been used to embed a skewed version of history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465751/original/file-20220527-23-mveqt7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A choir performs during independence day celebrations in Kenya.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Choral music – patriotic choral music in particular – is a significant genre in Kenya’s political history. </p>
<p>Patriotic music is defined by how it engages citizen to praise and express sentiments of national affiliation. In the Kenyan context patriotic choral music has been used to influence behaviour and the forming of a national identity. </p>
<p>We <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/epdf/10.10520/EJC-f184b6256">traced the history</a> of the music to explore how it has been used in this way in the country. We found that songs that were composed and performed in the immediate aftermath of Kenya’s struggle for independence urged the public to forget colonial injustices to build the new country. </p>
<p>This music was used to create political heroes out of individuals at the expense of the hosts of people who contributed to the country’s independence. It continues to be used as a political tool. This is primarily done through a distribution network that involves airplay on both private and state broadcasters, and during national holidays. </p>
<h2>A long tradition</h2>
<p>Choral music was used to amplify former President Jomo Kenyatta’s widely publicised rhetoric of “forgive and forget”. </p>
<p>Kenya’s first president introduced the idea in his speech to the nation at the first celebration of Kenyatta Day – later renamed Mashujaa (Heroes) Day – on 20 October 1964. He <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279155301_Jomo_Kenyatta's_Speeches_and_the_Construction_of_the_Identities_of_a_Nationalist_Leader_in_Kenya">proclaimed that</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the foundation of our future must lie in the theme: forgive and forget.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It would later become a motto closely linked to his presidency. His policies inaugurated a national culture of selective socio-political amnesia.</p>
<p>This persists in contemporary Kenya. </p>
<p>Most of the choral music composed and performed in Kenya as ‘patriotic music’ has been embraced and influenced by the government through the Permanent Presidential Music Commission (PPMC). </p>
<p>The commission was established in 1988 under President Daniel arap Moi, Kenya’s second president. The government agency deals with the entertainment functions of the state, among others. </p>
<p>Music researchers <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40319249">Hellen Agak and Kakston Mindoti</a> observe that the commission scrutinises all Kenyan patriotic choral music to ensure that it conforms to the social and political ideals of the government. The commission also examines the quality of music and messages communicated.</p>
<p>Over different government regimes, patriotic choral music has been presented to the public through the national broadcaster and during state celebrations of national days. The music presented is curated through the commission. </p>
<p>During these celebrations, a few selected canonical choral pieces have continued to dominate through different governments and political regimes. </p>
<h2>The telling of history</h2>
<p>Our research focused mainly on the music of Enock Ondego, one of Kenya’s pioneer composers. Ondego’s ‘Huu ni Wimbo wa Historia’ (This is a Song of History) is perhaps the main choral composition that has persisted through different regimes.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ixZ2Mg-fEb4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>‘Huu ni Wimbo wa Historia’ was composed in May 1964. It was <a href="https://www.kwani.org/publication/kwanini-series/7/the_life_of_mzee_ondego.html">first performed</a> before President Kenyatta by the children of Samburu Primary School. </p>
<p>The song foregrounds the importance of the anti-colonial struggle in Kenya’s history. It opens with a plea to the audience to pay attention to the message. </p>
<p>It is a narrative of the experiences of different victims during the <a href="https://uca.edu/politicalscience/dadm-project/sub-saharan-africa-region/british-kenya-1920-1963/#:%7E:text=British%20Government%20Evelyn%20Baring%20declared,militants%20on%20October%2022%2C%201952.">1952 emergency period</a>. The lyrics suggest that the struggle for Kenya’s independence was a collective moral phenomenon. Lines 7 and 8 – “there was sorrow in the country Kenya” and “all the people were very sad” – capture this reality. </p>
<p>In lines 14 and 15, the song further explains that there was “matata” (trouble) and that “many people died because of freedom”. </p>
<p>Yet, the history documented in the choral song is a selective one.</p>
<p>Despite the promise of its title, ‘Huu ni Wimbo wa Historia’ foregrounds only Kenyatta’s involvement in the freedom struggle. It does this by focusing on the supposed physical and emotional violence he faced as an individual. This erases the contribution of everyone else in the country’s struggle for independence. </p>
<p>The song initially mentions that Kenyatta was arrested together with other freedom fighters. But the others remain unnamed and unacknowledged (lines 4, 5 and 6). </p>
<p>Lines 20, 21, 22 and 23 invoke the memory of how Kenyatta and other representatives travelled to Britain to negotiate for Kenya’s constitution. Again, the lyrics foreground Kenyatta only. The promise of a collective identified by the idea of ‘representatives’ suddenly collapses into the singular. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When he reached there … he was beaten with rotten eggs … The father of the nation did not mind … he won and came back with a constitution for our country, Kenya. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rather than recognising that Kenya’s constitutional victory was the result of collective endeavour, the song suggests that it was produced by the individual efforts of Kenyatta. </p>
<p>This silencing takes on added significance when considering the original naming of the commemorative day upon which this song reflects: Kenyatta Day. </p>
<p>The individuality cult of Kenyatta is central in understanding how music became a site where heroes were purged from Kenyan history, or where their role in the making of the nation was undermined. </p>
<p>Such narratives risk promoting socio-political, historical and even economic exclusion in the process of nation formation. </p>
<p>To echo literary professor Pumla Dineo Gqola’s work on <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/what-is-slavery-to-me/">postcolonial slave memory in South Africa</a>, forgetting and remembering are framed within power hierarchies, where “unremembering is a calculated act of exclusion and erasure”. </p>
<p>In the current government, songs such as ‘Huu ni Wimbo wa Historia’ continue to get significant airplay, especially on national holidays. </p>
<h2>Influencing memory and history</h2>
<p>By relying on such music for entertainment during state commemorative events, the presidential music commission plays a crucial function in statecraft, especially in the context of influencing memory and history. </p>
<p>But the musical and performance component of the songs also reveals that it is multi-layered. </p>
<p>The emotive tone and mood of ‘Huu ni Wimbo wa Historia’ demonstrate the immensity of the pain endured in the anti-colonial struggle. Feelings of despair and sorrow are painted through repetition and by onomatopoeic sounds, such as ‘woooi woooi’ (line 11). </p>
<p>Such sounds capture the general mourning response of the public not only to Kenyatta’s arrest, but also to the deaths and torture witnessed after the state of emergency was declared. </p>
<p>Hence, the song’s text seems to call for a celebratory turn towards the future, while simultaneously ruminating in the pain of the past through non-linguistic verbal signifiers that reach their full effect only in performance. </p>
<p>This shows that patriotic choral music in Kenya, although repeatedly used as a political tool, also shares the potential for contesting meaning and drawing listeners’ attention to different layers of significance embedded in musical texts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183850/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Music has often been used as a political tool to urge Kenyans to forget the sins of colonial and post-colonial regimes.
Doseline Kiguru, Research associate, University of Bristol
Patrick Ernest Monte, Lecturer of Music, Kabarak University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177041
2022-02-16T15:12:40Z
2022-02-16T15:12:40Z
Radio has a rich history as a weapon of the liberation struggle in southern Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446073/original/file-20220213-19-16de5ed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Radio, known for decades as <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/1111882">‘Africa’s medium’</a>, has many magical qualities. It’s an intimate medium with the ability to transcend borders. It chimes with Africa’s strong <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/African-literature/Oral-traditions-and-the-written-word">oral culture</a> and it is ephemeral – it lives in the present moment. Because of this, radio served as a powerful tool in the <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000046767">liberation struggle</a> in southern Africa.</p>
<p>Radio leaves no incriminating paper trail. It allowed freedom fighters to counter colonial propaganda and helped leaders in exile maintain a presence with supporters back home. Unlike print media, which dominates the “first drafts of history”, radio’s ephemerality makes it difficult to study. With little concrete content in archives (and often only in the archives of the oppressor), historical analysis has been parochial, anecdotal and sporadic.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover in green with the words 'Guerilla radios in Southern Africa' and an illustration of a portable radio against a background of camouflage fabric." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446074/original/file-20220213-23-jvb7nm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/guerrilla-radios-in-southern-africa/">Guerrilla Radios in Southern Africa: Broadcasters, Technology, Propaganda Wars and the Armed Struggle</a> (2021) is a collection of essays that fills many of the gaps in the study of media’s role in the liberation struggle. Focusing on clandestine radio broadcasting, it shines a light on how rebel broadcasters in Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa disrupted and dismantled the propaganda of colonial powers.</p>
<h2>Battle of the airwaves</h2>
<p>In the second half of the 1900s, southern Africa’s liberation from white colonial powers, including the UK, Portugal, and, in South Africa, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> state, was complicated by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War</a> between the US and Soviet Union and their allies. </p>
<p>The armed struggle involved a battle for the hearts and minds of citizens. National airwaves were dominated by state-controlled radio designed to maintain the status quo. But this was soon disrupted by the establishment of guerrilla broadcasters – often set up by exiled citizens – in Lusaka, Maputo, Harare, Luanda, Brazzaville, and Luanda. As <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/western-Africa/The-formation-of-African-independence-movements">winds of change</a> swept the continent, newly independent states often hosted the guerilla stations of nearby states still seeking independence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-as-a-form-of-struggle-scenes-from-late-colonial-angola-128019">Radio as a form of struggle: scenes from late colonial Angola</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Now, for the first time in a single publication, historians from a range of institutions have published information on these broadcasters’ producers, policies, listeners and content. They did this by sifting through the archives and conducting interviews with former participants and audiences.</p>
<h2>Many challenges</h2>
<p>Edited by Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi, Tshepo Moloi and Alda Romão Saúte Saíde, the book’s eleven chapters illustrate how the battle for the airwaves took on a heroic David-and-Goliath character. Rebel broadcasters operated with limited resources and very little training – as discussed in the chapter Radio Republic South Africa by Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu.</p>
<p>Alda Romão Saúte Saíde’s chapter outlines the experiences of the self-taught A Voz da Frelimo (Voice of <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-struggle-for-freedom-in-mozambique-jstor/mwVRhh_vPQsA8A?hl=en">Frelimo</a>). Broadcasters trained on the spot, each performing a variety of roles.</p>
<p>Staff were also increasingly scattered, as Robert Heinze’s chapter on <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-west-africa-peoples-organisation-swapo">Swapo</a>’s Voice of Namibia explains. And as countries acquired independence and state-owned international services offered to carry guerrilla messages, the stations were weakened through loss of funding and decentralisation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-zulu-radio-dramas-subverted-apartheids-grand-design-126786">How Zulu radio dramas subverted apartheid's grand design</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Acquiring news was also a challenge. The stations were not especially known for news-breaking reporting. Most recycled news items from the colonists themselves, from local state broadcasts or the BBC’s Africa Service. They reframed them by offering commentary – with information from exiles being an exception.</p>
<h2>Sonic encounters</h2>
<p>Despite these challenges, the book tells how it took only one short, crackling sonic encounter with the voices of the resistance to capture hearts and revive spirits. A major success of the book is its rich qualitative focus on listenership, previously absent in research.</p>
<p>Mhoze Chikowero’s chapter on Zimbabwean exiles explains that the broadcasters themselves had only a sketchy idea of who might be tuning in. Although their message was clear, broadcaster Gula Ndebele remembers: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our audiences were largely imagined.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So it would be interesting for former broadcasters to read about the memories of their listeners. Although audience statistics are absent, it’s clear the broadcasters weren’t speaking into a void. Many listeners attribute their political awakening to the broadcasts. In the Zimbabwean context, a listener recalls how the broadcasts urged him to sign up for military training.</p>
<p>Marissa J. Moorman’s chapter includes recollections of adolescent <a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-as-a-form-of-struggle-scenes-from-late-colonial-angola-128019">Angolan</a> listeners, many of whom “hid to listen”, often in groups and without their parents knowing.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-in-ghana-from-mouthpiece-of-coup-plotters-to-giving-voice-to-the-people-131709">Radio in Ghana: from mouthpiece of coup plotters to giving voice to the people</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Tshepo Moloi explains how the “trial and error” approach of tuning in to <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/radio-freedom-history-south-african-underground-radio-chris-smith">Radio Freedom</a> in South Africa further electrified audiences. A listener recalls: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>One quiet night as I twiddled a transistor radio, searching for a disco music station, I heard the statement, ‘the terrorist regime of Ian Douglas Smith’, delivered in thick African tones … my body tensed with every turn of the knob.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Moloi’s chapter argues, convincingly, that Radio Freedom helped to revive the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/african-national-congress-anc">ANC</a>’s dormant reputation among <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/black-consciousness-movement-bcm">Black Consciousness Movement</a> supporters, encouraging them to join the movement’s armed wing, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">MK</a>, in exile.</p>
<p>The battle for the airwaves became linked with the armed struggle – most famously symbolised by Radio Freedom’s iconic opening machine gunfire riff. Almost all chapters highlight this relationship. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-is-thriving-in-south-africa-80-are-tuning-in-176846">Radio is thriving in South Africa: 80% are tuning in</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The broadcasts also transcended the armed struggle. They suffused all aspects of civilian life – domestic, cultural, even spiritual. For instance, Dumisani Moyo and Cris Chinaka’s fascinating chapter plumbs the memory of Voice of Zimbabwe <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/zimbabawean-independence-day">veterans</a>, who explain how they built links with spirit mediums in order to unsettle the confidence of black Rhodesian army soldiers, appealing to their religious beliefs.</p>
<h2>Insightful</h2>
<p>Edited volumes often lack focus or collate chapters with spurious connections, resulting in interesting but disparate collections. That is not the case here. The editors’ tight focus on a single medium in a connected geographical area has resulted in a cohesive and thought-provoking read. </p>
<p>The book will be an insightful read for scholars of media, culture and history, as well as anybody interested in southern Africa’s past. We may never have a full picture of the role played by guerrilla radio in the liberation struggle, but this book goes some way towards stamping down some important history that might otherwise be lost.</p>
<p><em>Guerrilla Radios in Southern Africa: Broadcasters, Technology, Propaganda Wars and the Armed Struggle is available from <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/guerrilla-radios-in-southern-africa/">Wits University Press</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martha Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The role played by guerrilla radio in the liberation struggle will not be lost to history, thanks to books like this.
Martha Evans, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146408
2021-06-17T15:10:07Z
2021-06-17T15:10:07Z
Kenneth Kaunda: the last giant of African nationalism and benign autocrat left a mixed legacy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358636/original/file-20200917-24-1xzswgv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda at the inauguration of former South African president Thabo Mbeki in 2004.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/dr-kenneth-kaunda-former-president-zambia-born">Kenneth Kaunda</a>, the former president of Zambia, who has <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/former-president-kenneth-kaunda-passes-away-aged-97/">died in hospital in the capital, Lusaka</a>, at the age of 97, was the last of the giants of 20th century African nationalism. He was also one of the few to depart with his reputation still intact. But perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, the standing of the man who ruled over Zambia for 27 years is clouded with ambiguity.</p>
<p>The charismatic president who won accolades for bowing out peacefully after losing an election was also the authoritarian who introduced a one-party state. The pioneer of “African socialism” was the man who cut a supply-side deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The nationalist leader known for personal probity planned to give huge tracts of farmland to an Indian guru. The revolutionary who gave sanctuary to liberation movements was also a friend of US presidents.</p>
<p>I met him in 1989 when I helped organise a delegation of 120 white South African notables for a conference with the then-banned and exiled <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/brief-history-anc">African National Congress</a>, which was fighting for the liberation of black South Africans, in Lusaka. “KK”, as he was known, shed tears as he welcomed guests, who included the <a href="https://hsf.org.za/about/about-the-helen-suzman-foundation">liberal MP Helen Suzman</a>, known for her defiant opposition to the apartheid government.</p>
<p>By then, he’d been president for a quarter of a century and seemed a permanent fixture at the apex of southern African politics. And yet, as it turned out, he was on his final lap.</p>
<p>He exuded an image of the benign monarch, a much-loved father to his people, known for his endearing quirks – safari suits, waving white handkerchiefs, ballroom dancing, singing his own songs while cycling, and crying in public. And yet there was also a hard edge to the politics and persona of the man, whose powerful personality helped make Zambia a major player in Africa and the world for three decades.</p>
<h2>The early years</h2>
<p>Kenneth David Kaunda was born in Chinsali, Northern Zambia, on October 24 1924. Like so many of his generation of African liberation leaders, he came from a family of the mission-educated middle class. He was the baby among eight children. His father was a Presbyterian missionary-teacher and his mother was the first qualified African woman teacher in the country.</p>
<p>He followed his parents’ profession, first in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), where he became a head teacher before his 21st birthday. He also taught in then Tanganyika (Tanzania), where he became a lifelong admirer of future president Julius Nyerere, whose “Ujamaa” brand of African socialism he tried to follow.</p>
<p>After returning home, Kaunda campaigned against the British plan for a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230270916_12">federation</a> of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which would increase the powers of white settlers. He took up politics full-time, learning the ropes through working for the liberal Legislative Council member <a href="https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-33474">Sir Stewart Gore-Browne</a>. Soon after, as secretary general of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress, he was jailed for two months with hard labour for distributing <a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/zambians-campaign-independence-1944-1964">“subversive literature”</a>.</p>
<p>After his release he clashed with his organisation’s president, Harry Nkumbula, who took a more conciliatory approach to colonial rule. Kaunda led the breakaway Zambian African National Congress, which was promptly banned. He was <a href="https://biography.yourdictionary.com/kenneth-david-kaunda">jailed for nine months</a>, further boosting his status.</p>
<p>A new movement, the United National Independence Party <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3172067">(UNIP)</a>), chose Kaunda as its leader after his release. He travelled to America and <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/kenneth-kaunda-the-united-states-and-southern-africa/introduction-kenneth-kaunda-and-zambia-united-states-relations-before-1975">met Martin Luther King</a>. Inspired by King and Mahatma Gandhi, he launched the <a href="https://cdn.website-editor.net/74225855d7734800bb2b5c38f2c1cf16/files/uploaded/chachacha.pdf">“Cha-cha-cha” civil disobedience campaign</a>.</p>
<p>In 1962, encouraged by Kaunda’s moves to pacify the white settlers, the British acceded to self-rule, followed by full independence two years later. He emerged as the first Zambian president after <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/25/newsid_2658000/2658325.stm">UNIP won the election</a>.</p>
<h2>The challenges of independence</h2>
<p>One challenge for the newly independent Zambia related to the colonial education system. There were no universities and fewer than half a percent of pupils had completed primary school. Kaunda introduced a policy of free books and low fees. In 1966 he became the first chancellor of the new <a href="https://www.unza.zm/international/?p=history">University of Zambia</a>. Several other universities and tertiary education facilities followed.</p>
<p>Long after he was ousted as president, Kaunda continued to be warmly received in African capitals because of his role in allowing liberation movements to have bases in Lusaka. This came at considerable economic cost to his country, which also endured military raids from the South Africans and Rhodesians.</p>
<p>At the same time, he joined apartheid South Africa’s hard-line prime minister <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/balthazar-johannes-vorster">BJ Vorster</a> in mediating a failed bid for an internal settlement in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1975. He attempted the same in South West Africa (Namibia), which was then administered by South Africa. But <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/pieter-willem-botha">President PW Botha</a>, who succeeded Vorster after his death, showed no interest.</p>
<p>Kaunda helped lead the <a href="https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and-regimes/non-aligned-movement-nam/">Non-Aligned Movement</a>, which brought together states that did not align with either the Soviets or the Americans during the Cold War. He broke bread with anyone who showed an interest in Zambia, including Romania’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolae-Ceausescu">Nicolai Ceausescu</a> and Iraq’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/saddam-hussein-how-a-deadly-purge-of-opponents-set-up-his-ruthless-dictatorship-120748">Saddam Hussein</a>, while also cultivating successive American presidents (having more success with <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/james-carter/">Jimmy Carter</a> than <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/ronald-reagan/">Ronald Reagan</a>). He invited China to help build the <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0330/033064.html">Tazara Railway</a> and bought 16 MIG-21 fighter jets from the Soviet Union <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0205/020532.html">in 1980</a>.</p>
<h2>African humanism</h2>
<p>Kaunda’s economic policy was framed by his belief in what he called “African humanism” but also by necessity. He inherited an economy under foreign control and moved to remedy this. For example, the mines owned by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/British-South-Africa-Company">British South African Company</a> (founded by <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a>) were acquired as a result of colonial conquest in 1890. Kaunda’s threats to nationalise without compensation prompted major concessions from BSAC.</p>
<p>He promoted a planned economy, leading to “development plans” that involved the state’s Industrial Development Corporation acquiring 51% equity in major foreign-owned companies. The policy was undermined by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/mar/03/1970s-oil-price-shock">1973 spike in the oil price</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/04/archives/as-copper-goes-so-goes-zambia.html">fall in the price of copper</a>, which made up 95% of Zambia’s exports.</p>
<p>The consequent balance of payments crisis led to Zambia having the world’s second highest debt relative to GDP, <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11985187.pdf">prompting IMF intervention</a>. Kaunda at first resisted but by 1989 was forced to bow to its demands. Parastatals were partially privatised, spending was slashed, food subsidies ended, prices rocketed and Kaunda’s support plummeted. </p>
<p>Like many anti-colonial leaders, he’d come to view multi-party democracy as a western concept that fomented conflict and tribalism. This view was encouraged by the 1964 uprising of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/13/archives/rhodesia-holds-leader-of-cult-kaunda-says-alice-lenshina-calls-for.html">Lumpa religious sect</a>. He banned all parties other than UNIP in 1968 and Zambia officially became a one-party state four years later.</p>
<p>His government became increasingly autocratic and intolerant of dissent, centred on his personality cult. But Kaunda will go down in history as a relatively benign autocrat who avoided the levels of repression and corruption of so many other one-party rulers.</p>
<p>Julius Nyerere, who retired in 1985, tried to persuade his friend to follow suit, but Kaunda pressed on. After surviving a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/01/world/failed-zambia-coup-weakens-leader.html">coup attempt in 1990</a> and following food riots, he reluctantly acceded to the demand for a multi-party election in 1991. </p>
<p>His popularity could not survive the chaos prompted by price rises and was not helped by the revelation that he’d planned to grant <a href="http://www.minet.org/TM-EX/Fall-91">more than a quarter of Zambia’s land</a> to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who promised to create a “heaven on earth”). The trade union leader Frederick Chiluba won in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/02/world/zambian-voters-defeat-kaunda-sole-leader-since-independence.html">landslide victory in 1991</a>.</p>
<h2>The last years</h2>
<p>Kaunda <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4283286.stm">won kudos abroad</a> for what was considered to be his gracious response to electoral defeat, but the new government was less magnanimous. It placed him under house arrest after alleging a coup attempt; then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/01/world/founder-of-zambia-is-declared-stateless-in-high-court-ruling.html">declared him stateless</a> when he planned to run in the 1996 election (on the grounds that his father was born in Malawi), which he successfully challenged in court. He survived an <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/shot-kaunda-claims-attempt-on-life-1.99800">assassination attempt in 1997</a>, getting grazed by a bullet. One of his sons, Wezi, was shot dead outside their home in 1999.</p>
<p>The 1986 AIDS death of another son, Masuzgo, inspired him to campaign around HIV issues far earlier than most, and he stepped this up over the next two decades. After Chiluba’s departure, he returned to favour and became a <a href="https://thenews-chronicle.com/a-life-that-defies-expectations-a-tribute-to-kenneth-kaunda-at-96/">roving ambassador for Zambia</a>. He reduced his public role following the <a href="https://www.lusakatimes.com/2012/09/19/mama-betty-kaunda-dies/">2012 death</a> of his wife of 66 years, Betty.</p>
<p>Kaunda will be remembered as a giant of 20th century African nationalism – a leader who, at great cost, gave refuge to revolutionary movements, a relatively benign autocrat who reluctantly introduced democracy to his country and an international diplomat who punched well above his weight in world affairs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Kaunda will be remembered as a giant of 20th century African nationalism – a leader who gave refuge to revolutionary movements, a relatively benign autocrat and an international diplomat.
Gavin Evans, Lecturer, Culture and Media department, Birkbeck, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151238
2020-12-06T09:57:11Z
2020-12-06T09:57:11Z
Namibia’s democracy enters new era as ruling Swapo continues to lose its lustre
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372573/original/file-20201202-13-1knov4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The results of the latest <a href="https://elections.na/RegionalCouncil.aspx">regional</a> and <a href="https://elections.na/RegionalCouncil.aspx">local government</a> elections in Namibia show just how much the political landscape has changed in the country since independence from South Africa <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/namibia-gains-independence">in 1990</a>. </p>
<p>The South West Africa People’s Organisation (<a href="http://www.swapoparty.org/index1.php">Swapo</a>) – the former liberation movement that has governed the country since independence – used to win by huge margins. But, increasingly, Namibians are losing trust in its ability to run the country. They are making different political choices. </p>
<p>For the first time, Swapo suffered numerous defeats at regional and local levels of government in elections held last month. The loss of control over several second tier levels of governance and even more on the local level bordered on humiliation. </p>
<p>This increases the influence of other parties dramatically and will have an impact on Namibia’s future governance. The fact that <a href="https://neweralive.na/posts/jobs-mayoral-dream-comes-true">Job Amupanda</a>, a social movement activist in his early 30s, is the new mayor of Windhoek’s municipality, points to how dramatic the changes are. </p>
<p>Swapo’s poor showing in this year’s regional and municipal elections mirrors its humiliation in the 2019 national polls. From the whopping 80% it won in 2014, it got only 65%. President Hage Geingob was reelected with a humiliating 56% (2014: 87%). </p>
<p>The results were driven by growing <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/1/exclusive-corruption-in-namibias-fishing-industry-unveiled">corruption</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-grown-up-after-a-generation-into-independence-but-not-yet-mature-74571">governance failures</a> and <a href="https://www.bti-project.org/content/en/downloads/reports/country_report_2018_NAM.pdf">abuse of office</a>. The lack of good governance and poor delivery has been exacerbated by a fiscal crisis and recession <a href="https://neweralive.na/posts/bank-of-namibia-expects-worst-recession-since-independence">since 2016</a>. </p>
<h2>Electoral blow</h2>
<p>Many of the country’s 14 different regions are spatial hubs for culturally and linguistically distinct groups. Their voting behaviour, to some extent, reproduces existing identities. Up until fairly recently, Swapo was the only party with support among almost all population groups, and in the urban “melting pots”. This seems over.</p>
<p>For the <a href="https://elections.na/RegionalCouncil.aspx">14 regional councils</a>, which are the second tier of government, Swapo’s votes dropped from 83% in 2015 to 57%. The elected council members appoint three representatives each to the National Council, the <a href="https://www.parliament.na/index.php/national-council">upper house of parliament</a>, where Swapo currently holds 40 of 42 seats. This will change fundamentally, and it is likely to just secure an absolute majority. </p>
<p>The southern regions of Hardap and //Karas went to the Landless People’s Movement. Central-western Erongo went to the Independent Patriots for Change, which also made some inroads in <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/96962/read/Swapo-loses-29-local-council-seats-in-the-north">Swapo’s northern strongholds</a>. Kunene in the north west went to the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/OfficialOppositionNamibia/">People’s Democratic Movement</a>. Swapo also lost its absolute majority in the central and eastern Khomas, Omaheke and Otjizondjupa regions.</p>
<p>There are 57 municipalities in Namibia. In the <a href="https://elections.na/LocalAssembly.aspx">local authority elections</a> Swapo garnered just 40% (2015: 73%) of votes. It maintained full control only 20 of the 52 municipalities (out of 57) and town councils it previously held.</p>
<p>Most urban centres, including Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, went to other parties or <a href="https://www.namibiansun.com/news/opposition-shuns-swapo-in-coalitions2020-11-30">coalitions</a>. </p>
<p>A disaster was the loss of the capital Windhoek. From holding 12 of the 15 seats in the municipality since 2015, Swapo now has <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/96932/read/Swapo-loses-control-of-Windhoek">only five</a>. </p>
<h2>Early warning signals</h2>
<p>Swapo’s loss of appeal among both <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/96902/read/Ruling-party-bleeds-rural-and-urban-votes">urban and rural voters</a> started with the national elections of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-11-26-namibian-elections-the-sands-are-shifting-slowly/">2019</a>. It has now taken an unexpected dramatic turn with the regional and local election results. </p>
<p>The results of last year’s national election showed <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-is-showing-wear-and-tear-after-30-years-under-swapo-rule-133703">wear and tear</a> on the part of the party. </p>
<p>Panduleni Itula, a Swapo member who stood as an independent candidate, scored almost 30% of votes, personifying the dissatisfaction among party followers. Expelled since then, he formed a new party, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVlQ-H0Xv2o">Independent Patriots for Change</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/OfficialOppositionNamibia/">People’s Democratic Movement</a> more than tripled its parliamentary seats as the official opposition. The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lpmnamibia/">Landless People’s Movement</a>, a new force, became the third strongest party. </p>
<h2>Self-righteousness and intimidation</h2>
<p>Following the poor electoral showing last year, Geingob reassured citizens <a href="https://neweralive.na/posts/ive-heard-you-geingob-president-elect-to-address-nation-tonight">“I have heard you”</a>. He declared 2020 the <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/196809/archive-read/The-Year-of-Introspection">“year of introspection”</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, since late November 2019, more details emerged over the scale of corruption in the infamous <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/1/exclusive-corruption-in-namibias-fishing-industry-unveiled">#fishrot scandal</a>, Namibia’s <a href="https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/sidebar/the-spoils-of-fishrot-tracking-the-property-holdings-of-key-figures-in-namibias-biggest-bribery-scandal">biggest bribery scandal</a>. Two ministers and several leading officials of state-owned enterprises were implicated.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372561/original/file-20201202-14-47gx28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372561/original/file-20201202-14-47gx28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372561/original/file-20201202-14-47gx28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372561/original/file-20201202-14-47gx28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372561/original/file-20201202-14-47gx28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372561/original/file-20201202-14-47gx28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372561/original/file-20201202-14-47gx28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Panduleni Itula, a former Swapo official, is among the new breed of politicians offering an alternative.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hildegard Titus/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Geingob’s proclaimed introspection was limited to an <a href="https://www.namibiansun.com/news/swapo-introspection-a-joke2020-07-27">internal self-examination</a> by government, with no visible results. This infuriated Namibians. </p>
<p>Party leaders continued to brush aside the dissatisfaction and resorted to blaming scapegoats. </p>
<h2>Deflection and scapegoating</h2>
<p>Addressing soldiers at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwunrqKtWt8">end of August</a>, defence minister Peter Hafeni Vilho accused the country’s minority white community, supporters of “regime change”, “misguided intellectuals” and “unpatriotic” citizens of being bent on <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/204057/archive-read/Defence-minister-in-white-greed-storm">seeing the government fail</a>.</p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/204139/archive-read/If-the-shoe-fits-wear-it">linked the white community</a> to all governance failures, arguing that they alone were responsible for the current inequalities. This provoked a rebuke pointing to <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/204363/archive-read/Not-Every-Shoe-Fits-Every-Foot">the government’s failures</a>.</p>
<p>The party’s spokesperson Hilma Nicanor accused “outside forces” of trying to unseat the <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/96987/read/30-towns-villages-reject-Swapo">“victorious”</a> governing party.</p>
<p>In mid-October Geingob bemoaned the growing number of whites (estimated at less than 5% of the population) registering as voters. He claimed they intended to support anything but Swapo, and <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/205522/archive-read/Geingob-claims-whites-declared-war-against-Swapo">declared</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>I will not forget that. People are declaring war against Swapo.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Martin Shalli, the former commander of the Namibian army, speaking at a rally in early November, urged the crowd to <a href="https://www.namibiansun.com/news/slit-defectors-throats-2020-11-09">slit the throats of Swapo defectors</a>. Public outrage forced him to <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/96378/read/Shalli-apologises-ECN-still-under-pressure-to-act">apologise on national television</a>.</p>
<p>It speaks in favour of Namibians that such intimidation did not prevent them from voting for the parties of their choice. This makes democracy the winner and Swapo the loser.</p>
<h2>The future of Namibia’s democracy</h2>
<p>Swapo’s downfall from an undisputed hegemonic liberation movement in power since independence means that Namibians are entering a new era. The elections in November 2020 have indeed put Namibia’s political culture at a crossroad. </p>
<p>For starters, it is not yet sure how the Swapo-led central government will relate to the regional and communal governments it has lost to the opposition. </p>
<p>Frustrated members of the Swapo establishment have suggested that the party, which controls the central government, should make the fiscus <a href="https://www.namibiansun.com/news/we-control-national-budget-swapo2020-02-10">withhold funds</a> to financially starve towns and regions governed by other parties.</p>
<p>This stresses the emerging centrifugal tendencies, fuelling regional if not tribal animosities. It is not in keeping with the <a href="http://www.swapoparty.org/zoom_in_94.html">“One Namibia, One Nation”</a> slogan from Swapo’s anti-colonial struggle days.</p>
<p>Notably, Geingob dismissed such suggestions, declaring that all those elected into office are supposed to serve all people and <a href="https://www.namibian.com.na/97002/read/Govt-wont-starve-opposition-controlled-areas---Geingob">no funds will be withheld</a>. This is encouraging at a moment when Namibia enters a new democratic turf.</p>
<p>The four years on the road to the country’s next National Assembly and presidential elections in 2024 might be bumpy. But democratic hiccups are part of a healthy pluralism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151238/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is a member of Swapo since 1974. </span></em></p>
The November 2020 local and regional elections have indeed put Namibia’s political culture at a crossroads.
Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/149003
2020-11-08T09:11:34Z
2020-11-08T09:11:34Z
Women’s memories of food offer insights into Mozambique’s liberation struggle
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367566/original/file-20201104-15-1opvl7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Jonna Katto</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We don’t just taste food. Aromas, visual images, sounds and touch are equally part of our eating experience. Food also evokes feelings. We can experience it with joy but also with displeasure. This sensorily evocative power of food makes it an important site for remembering the past, which in turn influences our relation to food in the present.</p>
<p>There is much important literature in Africa that deals with <a href="https://theconversation.com/investing-in-science-can-help-put-food-on-africas-plates-64017">food security</a> and the biological necessity of eating. However, my research explores how food is connected to remembering and making sense of the past, especially a violent past.</p>
<p>Food was not my main focus when I set out to conduct <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2020.1793518">research</a> on women ex-combatants’ lived experiences of the Mozambican liberation struggle in northern Niassa province. Yet food and cooking continually came up in my life history interviews with them.</p>
<h2>The women of the struggle</h2>
<p>The Mozambican <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/the-struggle-for-freedom-in-mozambique-jstor/QRl-vPcs?hl=en">liberation struggle</a> against Portuguese colonial rule was mainly fought in the northern bush thickets. Led by the Mozambique Liberation Front (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Frelimo">Frelimo</a>), it lasted from 1964 to 1974. The combatants and civilian populations that supported them lived in very difficult bush environments.</p>
<p>Most of these combatants were young people. I was interested especially in Frelimo’s female detachment, many of whom were in their early teens when recruited. Their main job in the military camps in the beginning was to cook for the male soldiers. However, after 1967 they started receiving military training and became comrades-in-arms, mostly mobilising the population to support Frelimo and working in the bush nurseries and hospitals.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367509/original/file-20201104-23-117mwis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two rustic structures of logs and woven sticks with a rooster pecking at the earth in the foreground and a grassy veld in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367509/original/file-20201104-23-117mwis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367509/original/file-20201104-23-117mwis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367509/original/file-20201104-23-117mwis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367509/original/file-20201104-23-117mwis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367509/original/file-20201104-23-117mwis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367509/original/file-20201104-23-117mwis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367509/original/file-20201104-23-117mwis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A full granary of maize in N’kalapa in Mozambique.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Jonna Katto</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I interviewed 34 female ex-combatants, starting with their childhood memories. This was followed by an interview on their work and life during the struggle and a third on their experiences after independence. I also conducted individual and group interviews with 15 male ex-combatants.</p>
<h2>Food and danger</h2>
<p>Growing up in the rural communities of northern Niassa, most remembered their childhood foodscapes as plentiful. Their principal food was <em>wugadi</em> (stiff porridge from maize flour) with an accompanying dish of beans or the leaves of pumpkins, beans or sweet potatoes boiled with salt.</p>
<p>But war disrupted normal village life. In peace time, seasonal changes brought different foods, the rainy season associated with the joy of a new growing cycle. But in the time of war the ex-combatants remembered rain further intensifying the painful conditions of the bush.</p>
<p>Food became a constant struggle. Due to heavy bombardments by the colonial troops, the cultivation of crops was extremely difficult. There were periods in which the guerrillas experienced intense hunger and were forced to eat things considered inedible during peacetime. </p>
<p>One ex-combatant, Rosa Mustaffa, remembers how the guerrillas were forced to eat just about anything that happened in their path, just to “get rid of the feeling of hunger”. Others observed the monkeys to see which roots they were digging up. What didn’t kill the monkeys was considered suitable for humans too.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367516/original/file-20201104-17-1yv0i87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three dishes of food in different metal plates rest on a woven mat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367516/original/file-20201104-17-1yv0i87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367516/original/file-20201104-17-1yv0i87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367516/original/file-20201104-17-1yv0i87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367516/original/file-20201104-17-1yv0i87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367516/original/file-20201104-17-1yv0i87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367516/original/file-20201104-17-1yv0i87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367516/original/file-20201104-17-1yv0i87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wugadi and pumpkin leaves cooked with red onion and tomatoes, with dried usipa fish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Jonna Katto</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Food became associated with danger. The “things of the bush” could kill a person. Helena Baide explained how the guerrillas cooked poisonous fruits and roots to eat, taking the whole day and changing the cooking water continuously. Ash was added to the water to mitigate the bitter taste associated with poison.</p>
<p>Honey and game meat were the main sources of nourishment, but hunting posed a danger as it could alert the enemy to their location. The guerrillas learned to farm and cook differently in wartime. They cultivated small, dispersed fields on river banks, partially under the cover of trees. Hearing the noise of aeroplanes, they would flee to nearby bunkers. Or they farmed in the moonlight.</p>
<p>The noise of the pestle and smoke from cooking fires could also draw the enemy’s attention. Often cooking was done at night under the cover of trees.</p>
<h2>The taste of freedom</h2>
<p>For many, the promise of liberation carried food-related dreams. This is the future that Assiato Muemedi spoke of imagining during the war:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I will cook with cooking oil, build a house and open a big field to eat food with my children. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>After being demobilised, the transition to civilian life was easier for some than others. Many of the young female ex-combatants had been forced to leave home so early that they had not learned, for instance, how to cook and farm properly.</p>
<p>Those that were older found it easier, and they spoke of continuing the work of their ancestors, cultivating crops such as beans, maize, potatoes (regular and sweet) and cassava.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367565/original/file-20201104-15-1oh6388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A hand stirs a steaming and battered metal pot with a spoon. The contents resemble a stew." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367565/original/file-20201104-15-1oh6388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367565/original/file-20201104-15-1oh6388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367565/original/file-20201104-15-1oh6388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367565/original/file-20201104-15-1oh6388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367565/original/file-20201104-15-1oh6388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367565/original/file-20201104-15-1oh6388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367565/original/file-20201104-15-1oh6388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cooking beans with cabbage, carrots, green pepper and potatoes in a refogado of oil, tomatoes and red onion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Jonna Katto</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For most ex-combatants, food in peacetime has in many ways been a “liberating” experience of pleasure and fulfilment. Many experience freedom to cultivate, to eat together in peace with family or to buy basic items from nearby markets. This has helped to forget the bad things they ate in the bush.</p>
<p>Yet eating has not only been a positive experience. The idea of “eating badly” is, in the ex-combatants’ accounts, strongly associated with their current experiences of social division and inequality.</p>
<p>During the struggle, Frelimo’s political talk of unity, freedom and a future good life gave the combatants strength to endure hardship. And they remember that, while they ate badly, they ate together and shared the little they had.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-african-food-basket-should-be-full-of-beans-and-other-pulses-60207">Why the African food basket should be full of beans and other pulses</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Yet these days the former comrades-in-arms of the Niassa forests are divided by space, education and class. Most of those in leadership were transferred to Maputo after independence as part of Frelimo’s state-building project.</p>
<p>The ex-combatants in Niassa criticise the elite in Maputo for eating well at the expense of the majority of their former colleagues, who are unable to participate in the new consumerist modernity. In this context, it is the imagined diets of the nationalist elites that have come to symbolise freedom and liberation.</p>
<h2>A bitter aftertaste</h2>
<p>The official history of the Mozambican independence war is a linear narrative that proclaims the happy ending of liberation. Yet this narrative ignores the violence that is intimately part of its lived history.</p>
<p>Liberation takes on many different meanings in contemporary Mozambique.</p>
<p>Studying the ex-combatants’ food memories shows how the history of liberation is not a closed process. They continue trying to make sense of their past and present experiences (and even future anticipations) of violence. Food plays a role in this.</p>
<p>Even today bodily memories of food-related violence persist. So while food again animates their senses, liberation has, for many, a slightly bitter aftertaste.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonna Katto received funding for this research from the Finnish Cultural Foundation. She is affiliated with Ghent University and the University of Helsinki. </span></em></p>
The ex-combatants’ food memories show how they continue trying to make sense of both their past and present experiences of violence.
Jonna Katto, Postdoctoral researcher, Ghent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/142155
2020-07-16T17:56:37Z
2020-07-16T17:56:37Z
Provincial governments are setting the stage for more violence against Indigenous Peoples and their lands
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347710/original/file-20200715-27-pq5doj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C25%2C4155%2C2679&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An RCMP officer looks on as supporters of the Wet'suwet'en Nation block a road outside of RCMP headquarters in Surrey, B.C., in January 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent legal reforms in Alberta and Saskatchewan suggest both provinces could be gearing up for more violence against Indigenous Peoples, even as both commit to reconciliation. </p>
<p>Historically, Canadian state violence against Indigenous Peoples has included direct force and <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/thunder-in-my-soul">invoking laws</a> to intimidate and dispossess. These provincial reforms expand police powers, introduce military-style weapons and sanction the increased use of force by private individuals. None consider treaty obligations.</p>
<h2>Alberta targeting Indigenous protesters</h2>
<p>Alberta’s <a href="https://docs.assembly.ab.ca/LADDAR_files/docs/bills/bill/legislature_30/session_2/20200225_bill-001.pdf">Critical Infrastructure Defence Act</a> came into effect on June 17 despite <a href="https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/hundreds-protest-bill-1-in-calgary-edmonton-1.5020732">significant public opposition</a>. It is now illegal to be in areas designated as “essential infrastructure” without a reason. Essential infrastructure is broadly defined. It even includes highways.</p>
<p>Violations of the act can result in fines of $1,000 to $10,000 for the first offence and up to $25,000 for subsequent offences. Jail terms extend up to six months. But the penalties are limitless, because every day permits a new infraction.</p>
<p>Introduced in the midst of Wet’suwet’en land defence and passed during the COVID-19 emergency, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-as-protests-flare-up-alberta-bill-aimed-at-stymieing-demonstration/">the Alberta act targets Indigenous people who protect the land, the environment, Indigenous women and Indigenous self-determination.</a></p>
<p>The legislation also introduces more opportunities for authorities to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/19/canada-police-fail-indigenous-women-saskatchewan">harass and intimidate Indigenous Peoples in their daily lives.</a> Merely walking along a highway can violate the law. Indigenous Peoples sometimes walk along highway routes as they often have few safer options <a href="https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/canada0213webwcover_0.pdf">despite the dangers in doing so.</a> </p>
<p>It remains to be seen if Alberta will, contrary to its treaty obligations, enforce the act on First Nations territories. <a href="https://docs.assembly.ab.ca/LADDAR_files/docs/hansards/han/legislature_30/session_2/20200226_0900_01_han.pdf#page=12">The question was raised</a>, but not answered, during the legislative debate.</p>
<p>Indigenous land defenders have been met with force on their land in other provinces. July 11 marked the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-did-canada-learn-anything-from-the-oka-crisis/?utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links">30th anniversary of Kanesatake</a>. Québec police and eventually the Canadian military were sent in when Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawks) resisted the expansion of a golf course on unceded Mohawk territory. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A convoy of vehicles with First Nations flags drive along a road" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347706/original/file-20200715-25-1f43dmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347706/original/file-20200715-25-1f43dmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347706/original/file-20200715-25-1f43dmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347706/original/file-20200715-25-1f43dmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347706/original/file-20200715-25-1f43dmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347706/original/file-20200715-25-1f43dmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347706/original/file-20200715-25-1f43dmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People take part in a convoy to commemorate the 30 year anniversary of the Oka crisis in Oka, Que., July 11, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the support of British Columbia’s government, <a href="https://bccla.org/news/2020/03/release-wetsuweten-bccla-and-ubcic-release-explosive-letter-revealing-bc-solicitor-general-authorizing-rcmp-deployment-contradicting-public-statements/">the RCMP also used force against Indigenous protesters on Wet’suwet’en land.</a> </p>
<p>Prof. Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark from the University of Victoria explains how Canada was built on the <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/633282/summary">criminalization of Indigenous peoples</a>. The discursive depiction of Indigenous men as criminals allowed the state to suppress Indigenous resistance while deflecting from the state’s own colonial violence.</p>
<p>Alberta’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act furthers Indigenous criminalization.</p>
<h2>Militarizing Saskatchewan’s conservation officers</h2>
<p>Provincial governments are also finding ways to employ more officers with more powers and more weapons.</p>
<p>In 2017, Saskatchewan gave conservation officers <a href="https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/saskatchewan-creating-new-protection-team-to-curb-rural-crime">expanded investigative and arrest powers</a>. The province’s Ministry of the Environment also purchased <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-conservation-officers-ammunition-carbines-1.4988312">military-style semi-automatic weapons for conservation officers</a>. The stated threat used to justify the purchase of these deadly weapons? Officers work in “remote” or “rural” areas and encounter “high-risk individuals.”</p>
<p>Indigenous leaders have <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/disturbing-unnecessary-fsin-decries-decision-arm-conservation-officers-1.4883138">raised concerns about arming conservation officers</a>, particularly given the disproportionate policing and state violence directed at Indigenous communities. <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1695/index.do">The courts</a> and <a href="http://www.ajic.mb.ca/volume.html">numerous inquiries</a> reinforce these facts.</p>
<p>Even before they were armed, conservation officers played a key role in Indigenous dispossession. </p>
<p>As we explained in an earlier article, Saskatchewan conservation officers charged law professor Sylvia McAdam (Saysewahum) and her brother, Kurtis, with building a cabin on their ancestral family’s land in Treaty 6 territory. The land had been designated a provincial park. At trial, the responsible conservation officer testified that treaty obligations were not considered when the charge was laid.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/law-professor-put-on-trial-for-trespassing-on-familys-ancestral-lands-114065">Law professor put on trial for 'trespassing' on family's ancestral lands</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Treaty 6 promises Nêhiyawak (Cree) the right to hunt in their traditional lands. As McAdam explains in <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/nationhood-interrupted">Nationhood Interrupted</a>, Nêhiyawak have never understood Treaty 6 to mean that they were ceding their land or resources.</p>
<p>Shortly before the case was dismissed, McAdam’s aunt Rose Morin disclosed to her that conservation officers had established checkpoints surrounding Big River First Nation. They wanted to search vehicles for an alleged hunting violation. The move was seen as a reminder to the community that Canada’s laws were stacked against them. </p>
<h2>Fighting rural crime</h2>
<p>Indigenous communities have also <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskatchewan-trespassing-plan-racial-tensions-1.4891278">expressed concerns about laws that empower individuals to use violence in response to “rural crime.”</a> There is fear that white farmers will feel empowered to use lethal force against Indigenous peoples in racially charged circumstances.</p>
<p>In 2018, Gerald Stanley was acquitted of second degree murder by an all-white jury in the killing of Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old Nêhiyaw man from the Red Pheasant First Nation. Boushie and his friends had driven onto Stanley’s farm looking for help with a flat tire. Claiming that his gun went off by accident, Stanley shot Boushie in the head at close range. In the wake of Stanley’s trial, some Saskatchewan farmers called for the <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan-racism-gerald-stanley-colten-boushie/">right to use force against those they deemed to be intruders</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people carrying signs and pictures of Colten Boushie in front of the courthouse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347712/original/file-20200715-35-5v2aug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347712/original/file-20200715-35-5v2aug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347712/original/file-20200715-35-5v2aug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347712/original/file-20200715-35-5v2aug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347712/original/file-20200715-35-5v2aug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347712/original/file-20200715-35-5v2aug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347712/original/file-20200715-35-5v2aug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Family and supporters of Colten Boushie hold signs during a rally outside of the Saskatchewan Provincial Court in North Battleford, Aug. 18, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The case highlights the extent to which private property, trespassing and <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/how-the-death-of-colten-boushie-became-recast-as-the-story-of-a-knight-protecting-his-castle/article37958746/">“the intruder narrative”</a> have justified violence by private individuals against Indigenous Peoples.</p>
<p>Stanley’s acquittal was <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-the-wheat-king-and-the-killing-of-colten-boushie-92398">widely criticized</a> as an example of the racist violence inflicted on Indigenous peoples by non–Indigenous people who have Canadian law on their side. The Crown made the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-one-year-after-the-acquittal-of-gerald-stanley-little-has-changed/">controversial decision not to appeal</a>. </p>
<p>Jury selections, the RCMP’s conduct, disregard for treaty obligations, bias against Indigenous people — all were the subject of much <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/colten-boushie-gerald-stanley-explainer/article37938180/">public debate</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-am-a-mikmaq-lawyer-and-i-despair-over-colten-boushie-93229">outcry</a>. </p>
<p>None of these concerns have been squarely addressed.</p>
<p>Instead, Saskatchewan <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/amendments-sask-trespass-laws-become-official-1.5128355">amended</a> its <a href="https://www.canlii.org/en/sk/laws/astat/ss-2019-c-26/latest/ss-2019-c-26.html">Trespass to Property Act</a>. It diluted the legal liability that might arise from the excessive use of force against an alleged trespasser. Alberta similarly amended its <a href="https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/laws/astat/sa-2019-c-23/latest/sa-2019-c-23.html">trespass legislation</a> in December 2019. </p>
<p>Rural crime has also served as justification for other legislative changes. It was invoked to justify arming and extending police powers to Saskatchewan’s conservation officers. Alberta is considering the creation of a “<a href="https://docs.assembly.ab.ca/LADDAR_files/docs/hansards/han/legislature_30/session_2/20200622_1330_01_han.pdf">voluntary civilian corps</a>” to also fight rural crime.</p>
<p>Saskatchewan and Alberta claim commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. Yet both have passed laws that fortify patterns of colonial violence against Indigenous communities and lands. </p>
<p>The militarization of law enforcement, expanded police powers and empowerment of civilian violence have long marked white colonial violence on Turtle Island. It appears that provincial governments are gearing up for more of the same.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142155/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The passage of laws in Alberta and Saskatchewan granting police greater powers and weapons are seen as a direct attempt to stifle protests by Indigenous Peoples.
Reem Bahdi, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Jillian Rogin, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Sylvia McAdam, Assistant Professor, Law, University of Windsor
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128019
2019-12-02T14:11:02Z
2019-12-02T14:11:02Z
Radio as a form of struggle: scenes from late colonial Angola
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304475/original/file-20191129-95236-1krw2be.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One August night in 1967 in the village of Mungo in central Angola, the local colonial administrator walked into a bar to buy cigarettes. As he entered, he noticed furtive gestures. The barman, Timoteo Chingualulo, turned down the volume on the radio and Chigualulo’s friend, António Francisco da Silva “Baião,” a nurse at the health delegation, changed the station.</p>
<p>After the administrator left, they returned to the original programming: Radio Brazzaville broadcasting the show <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=XxtNa5hQmacC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=radio+angola+Angola+Combatente&source=bl&ots=XukJLj6ITd&sig=ACfU3U3lGGdcwO84EjSFIKSyJyd07twd7Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWnIX2oo_mAhXDrHEKHd9ZBgsQ6AEwCHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=radio%20angola%20Angola%20Combatente&f=false">Angola Combatente</a> (Fighting Angola). The administrator could hear the show from his veranda. He reported this to the police, who arrested the two men – and took the offending radio. </p>
<p>The police found no evidence that the men were members of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Popular-Movement-for-the-Liberation-of-Angola">Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola)</a>, the liberation movement fighting for independence from Portugal. The movement was responsible for creating Angola Combatente, which was broadcast from Brazzaville in the neighbouring Republic of the Congo. </p>
<p>But, as the police document recounts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is inferred that the accused are partisans of an independent Angola, who, for now, are trying to satisfy their ambition by sending out the Brazzaville broadcasts publicly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I heard and read stories like this over and over in interviews and archival research I did on radio and the state in Angola for my new book <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Powerful+Frequencies">Powerful Frequencies: Radio, State Power, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931-2002</a>. During research for my previous book <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Intonations">Intonations</a>, musicians and others remembered listening in hiding and using the colonial state broadcaster to promote their music. </p>
<p>In Powerful Frequencies, I argue that the colonial state and independent state used radio to project their power. But, like the story of Chingualulo and da Silva, listeners had their own ways of getting and disseminating information and news. Radio broadcasting and listening is not just about content, though. How radio works is as important as what radio says. Technology matters to, but doesn’t determine, how people produce meaning. The history of radio and state in Angola should remind us that the problems of fake news, bots, and infiltrated media ecosystems that make the headlines today have antecedents. They are also human problems that require human solutions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304468/original/file-20191129-95236-qwby2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304468/original/file-20191129-95236-qwby2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304468/original/file-20191129-95236-qwby2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304468/original/file-20191129-95236-qwby2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304468/original/file-20191129-95236-qwby2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304468/original/file-20191129-95236-qwby2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304468/original/file-20191129-95236-qwby2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304468/original/file-20191129-95236-qwby2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The official Angolan broadcaster or Emissora Oficial de Angola under construction between 1963 and 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fernão Simões de Carvalho</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Clandestine listening</h2>
<p>An <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13037271">anti-colonial war raged in Angola from 1961 until 1974</a>. This shaped life in the Portuguese territory, including the habits of how Angolans listened to radio.</p>
<p>Many sought out news and information from a variety of sources. The colonial administration censored the local press and radio, controlling for news about the war and the national liberation movements that fought it. People – whether African labourers or black civil servants or white settlers – tuned into national and international broadcasters. The BBC, Radio France Internationale, the Voice of America, and Radio Moscow all broadcast in Portuguese. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-11011.html">Portuguese secret police)</a> followed these broadcasts, often transcribing them word for word, calling them “anti-Portuguese broadcasts”.</p>
<p>Angola Combatente or Voz Livre de Angola (the National Front for the Liberation of Angola’s programme broadcast from Kinshasa) worried the secret police and Portuguese military the most. Listening to them could get you arrested. That is what happened to Chingualulo and da Silva. </p>
<p>Many listeners remember hiding out to listen – tucking themselves in small quiet places (under beds or desks) or in empty, open-air ones (soccer fields or rural backyards) – and passing along the information to other supporters of independence and nationalist activists. Some radio listeners recall the thrill of secret listening.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304439/original/file-20191129-95211-ccnmt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304439/original/file-20191129-95211-ccnmt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304439/original/file-20191129-95211-ccnmt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304439/original/file-20191129-95211-ccnmt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304439/original/file-20191129-95211-ccnmt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304439/original/file-20191129-95211-ccnmt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304439/original/file-20191129-95211-ccnmt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304439/original/file-20191129-95211-ccnmt1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s latest book on Angolan radio.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ohio University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The records</h2>
<p>In the thousands of pages of transcribed programmes and of police reports related to radio, the secret police and military archives resound with nervousness. Despite winning the ground war, the liberation movement radios, in particular, unnerved Portuguese colonial officials. They speculated that even civil servants and “Europeans” listened. They worried about what they called the “electrifying effects” on listeners of liberation movement broadcasters, whose sounds sizzled across borders. And they proposed jamming the broadcasters but settled on counter-propaganda.</p>
<p>Bouncing electromagnetic waves off the ionosphere in shortwave, what liberation movement broadcasters (and other international radio) gained in distance they lost in quality at the point of reception. </p>
<p>The records I went through included police and military transcriptions that inscribe the fading, the lost sentences, the buzz of atmospheric interference, and the trailing off of sound. </p>
<p>Listeners in the territory, some like Chingualulo and da Silva, amplified the broken messages. Others passed along what they heard, becoming transmitters in their own right. Similar to Algerian listeners of the Voice of Algeria that <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/">Frantz Fanon</a> described in <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/a-dying-colonialism/">A Dying Colonialism</a>, people in the Angolan territory pieced together choppy sentences, imagining guerrillas in the bush and diplomatic sessions that debated their freedom at the United Nations.</p>
<p>Radio became a form of participating in the struggle. As <a href="http://www.campusincamps.ps/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/fanon-this-is-the-voice-of-algeria.pdf">Fanon</a> wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Claiming to have heard the Voice of Algeria was, in a certain sense, distorting the truth. But it was above all the occasion to proclaim one’s clandestine participation in the essence of the Revolution. It meant making a deliberate choice … between the enemy’s congenital lie and the people’s own lie, which suddenly acquired a dimension of truth. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Canny listeners understood that the liberation movements and the colonial state (in programmes on the Emissora Oficial de Angola/Official Angolan Broadcaster) broadcast propaganda, or what Fanon calls “lies”. </p>
<p>They didn’t believe everything they heard, no matter what the source. But they also understood the stakes: independence or continued oppression under Portuguese rule.</p>
<p><em>Powerful Frequencies: Radio, State Power, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931–2002
by Marissa J. Moorman is published by <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/">Ohio University Press</a>. Order your copy over <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Powerful+Frequencies">here</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128019/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marissa J. Moorman received funding from Fulbright Hays and the American Council of Learned Societies for the research on radio in Angola. </span></em></p>
The Portuguese colonisers were not the only ones who could use radio for control. A new book tells how popular radio broadcasts from Angola’s liberation fighters were used as weapons in the struggle.
Marissa J. Moorman, Associate Professor of History, Indiana University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/104602
2018-10-23T12:18:55Z
2018-10-23T12:18:55Z
Massacre in Malaysia: why the quest for an investigation into alleged UK colonial crimes faltered
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241050/original/file-20181017-41129-13v6pku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">British troops were operating against communist insurgents in the Malay Emergency when the massacre took place.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205232396">© IWM (D 88041)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Let bygones be bygones. Let sleeping dogs lie. But not everyone would agree: for decades the families of 24 people allegedly massacred by UK soldiers in 1948 at Batang Kali, Malaysia, have been trying to get the UK to investigate – without success. Their efforts recently came to the end of the line when an application to the European Court of Human Rights <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-186724">was rejected</a>. </p>
<p>The families, led by Nyok Keyu Chong, thought the UK should investigate because in 1948 Batang Kali was within the British Empire. There had been investigations in the past, but Chong thought they were not good enough, and that new information from the Royal Malaysia Police and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Slaughter-Deception-at-Batang-Kali/dp/9810813031">a 2009 book</a> would make a difference. However, the UK government refused a new inquiry, and an appeal to the UK Supreme Court was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/nov/25/relatives-lose-fight-for-inquiry-into-1948-batang-kali-massacre">unsuccessful</a>. In desperation the families turned to the European Court of Human Rights, which has now ruled that the European Convention on Human Rights <a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2018/10/04/european-court-rejects-call-for-probe-into-batang-kali-massacre/">cannot help them</a>.</p>
<p>The backdrop to this case is a 21st-century revision of how we view events of the past. Wrongdoing that was once swept under the carpet is now being reexamined, with people <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-a-nation-apologise-for-the-crimes-of-its-past-66525">asking important questions</a> about the UK’s reliance on slavery and colonialism.</p>
<p>The official line just after the Batang Kali massacre was that a number of “bandits” had been shot while making an attempt to escape custody. In 1969 The People newspaper reported that the victims were killed in cold blood, and several of the alleged perpetrators appeared on TV to confirm this new version of the events. The Labour government at the time said it was taking the matter very seriously, but after the Conservatives won the 1970 general election the investigation was cancelled. </p>
<h2>The right to truth</h2>
<p>In the wake of awful events, finding out exactly what happened, and why, takes on a special significance. After the fall of apartheid in South Africa, the country embarked upon a process of “truth and reconciliation”. A <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">commission</a> was established, with the power to grant amnesties in return for information. Getting to the truth was so important that South Africa was willing to sacrifice the ability to prosecute people who had done terrible things.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241628/original/file-20181022-105754-1itokg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241628/original/file-20181022-105754-1itokg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241628/original/file-20181022-105754-1itokg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241628/original/file-20181022-105754-1itokg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241628/original/file-20181022-105754-1itokg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241628/original/file-20181022-105754-1itokg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241628/original/file-20181022-105754-1itokg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241628/original/file-20181022-105754-1itokg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Apartheid-era police colonel, torturer and murderer Eugene de Kock at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission headquarters, 1997.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jann_Turner_with_Eugene_de_Kock,_TRC_Headquarters_in1997.jpg">George Hallett</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The UN General Assembly has gone so far as to promote the idea of <a href="http://undocs.org/A/RES/68/165">a “right” to the truth</a> in respect of the most serious human rights violations. It also <a href="http://undocs.org/A/RES/65/196">proclaimed</a> March 24 as an annual “day for the right to the truth”. These efforts are designed to encourage states, but that is as much as the UN can do here – encourage. Since the General Assembly is not a parliament and does not make international law, there is a problem when states refuse to be “encouraged”.</p>
<p>This is what faced the families of the victims of the Batang Kali massacre. Spurred on by changing attitudes to colonialism, families’ leader Chong thought the time was right to request a new public enquiry. The UK government refused, so Chong tried, in effect, to use UK and European human rights law to enforce a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020589317000586">right to the truth</a>. </p>
<h2>A disappointing outcome</h2>
<p>International human rights law has long recognised that some past violations have effects that continue into the present day: these are called “<a href="http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/10.1163/ej.9789004158832.i-273.16">continuing violations</a>”. The clearest example is <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/ced/pages/conventionced.aspx">enforced disappearance</a>, where it is accepted that the uncertainty and anguish felt by relatives continues until the fate of the missing person is known. The events at Batang Kali cannot be characterised as enforced disappearances so the law as it stands, disappointingly, does not recognise that they give rise to a “continuing violation”. </p>
<p>Sometimes when new information about events even in the distant past (including cover ups) comes to light, it can trigger a present-day obligation to investigate. This is because the right to life contains not only a duty not to deprive people of their life arbitrarily, but also a duty to investigate suspicious deaths. The European Court found that there were not enough new developments in relation to Batang Kali.</p>
<p>The European Court <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-127684">has said</a> that it might look into the failure to investigate historical events that go against the very foundations of the European Convention, such as war crimes or crimes against humanity. This would be to protect the underlying values of the convention. However in the Batang Kali case, the European Court said that such “convention values” cannot help where the events took place before the European Convention on Human Rights even existed.</p>
<p>The European Court of Human Rights is a great institution that has real power to promote justice. And it has in the past recognised that proper investigations promote the right to truth. In the Batang Kali case it could have found that refusing to investigate the alleged events and cover up gave rise to a “continuing violation”. It could have found that new materials supplied by Chong were a significant new development. Finally it could have found that a present-day “convention value” is to investigate credible allegations about the worst excesses of colonialism. The European Court invented the “convention values” test <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-92142">only recently</a>, and it is in its power to put events to that test. Given this historic opportunity, it is profoundly disappointing that the court declined to put itself on the frontline in the quest for a right to the truth.</p>
<p>It was, and indeed still is, possible for the UK government to instigate a public inquiry into the events of 1948. With concerted political pressure it might still happen – and while at least some of the people who were there as children are still alive and able to find out why their parents were killed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Sweeney receives funding from The British Academy, the British Council, and the European Union.</span></em></p>
British troops allegedly killed 24 unarmed villagers in Batang Kali in 1948, but the government still refuses a public inquiry.
James Sweeney, Professor, Lancaster Law School, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/89189
2018-04-05T11:24:26Z
2018-04-05T11:24:26Z
Decolonise science – time to end another imperial era
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213235/original/file-20180404-189798-krb5ws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-cholera inoculation in Calcutta in 1894.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anti-cholera_inoculation,_Calcutta,_1894_Wellcome_L0037329.jpg">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sir Ronald Ross had just returned from an expedition to Sierra Leone. The British doctor had been leading efforts to tackle the malaria that so often killed English colonists in the country, and in December 1899 he gave a lecture to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce about his experience. In the words of a <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/11/262/36">contemporary report</a>, he argued that “in the coming century, the success of imperialism will depend largely upon success with the microscope”.</p>
<p>Ross, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his malaria research, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5152371/pdf/indmedgaz71415-0037c.pdf">would later deny</a> he was talking specifically about his own work. But his point neatly summarised how the efforts of British scientists were intertwined with their country’s attempt to conquer a quarter of the world.</p>
<p>Ross was very much a child of empire, born in India and later working there as a surgeon in the imperial army. So when he used a microscope <a href="http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/11/04-020735/en/">to identify</a> how a dreaded tropical disease was transmitted, he would have realised that his discovery promised to safeguard the health of British troops and officials in the tropics. In turn, this would enable Britain to expand and consolidate its colonial rule.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213186/original/file-20180404-189795-1fj81jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213186/original/file-20180404-189795-1fj81jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213186/original/file-20180404-189795-1fj81jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213186/original/file-20180404-189795-1fj81jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213186/original/file-20180404-189795-1fj81jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213186/original/file-20180404-189795-1fj81jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213186/original/file-20180404-189795-1fj81jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronald Ross at his lab in Calcutta, 1898.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/cvjeq4gp?query=ronald+ross">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ross’s words also suggest how science was used to argue imperialism was morally justified because it reflected British goodwill towards colonised people. It implied that scientific insights could be redeployed to promote superior health, hygiene and sanitation among colonial subjects. Empire was seen as a benevolent, selfless project. As Ross’s fellow Nobel laureate <a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478/">Rudyard Kipling</a> described it, it was the “white man’s burden” to introduce modernity and civilised governance in the colonies.</p>
<p>But science at this time was more than just a practical or ideological tool when it came to empire. Since its birth around the same time as Europeans began conquering other parts of the world, modern Western science was inextricably entangled with colonialism, especially British imperialism. And the legacy of that colonialism still pervades science today.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Listen to the audio version of this in depth article here:</em></p>
<iframe src="https://player.acast.com/5e29c8205aa745a456af58c8/episodes/5e29c8365aa745a456af58cb?theme=default&cover=1&latest=1" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="110px" allow="autoplay"></iframe>
<hr>
<p>As a result, recent years have seen an increasing number of calls to “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01696-w">decolonise science</a>”, even going so far as to advocate scrapping the practice and findings of modern science altogether. Tackling the lingering influence of colonialism in science is much needed. But there are also dangers that the more extreme attempts to do so could play into the hands of religious fundamentalists and ultra-nationalists. We must find a way to remove the inequalities promoted by modern science while making sure its huge potential benefits work for everyone, instead of letting it become a tool for oppression.</p>
<h2>The gracious gift of science</h2>
<p>When a slave in an early 18th-century Jamaican plantation was found with a supposedly poisonous plant, his European overlords showed him no mercy. Suspected of conspiring to cause disorder on the plantation, he was treated with typical harshness and hanged to death. The historical records don’t even mention his name. His execution might also have been forgotten forever if it weren’t for the scientific enquiry that followed. Europeans on the plantation became curious about the plant and, building on the slave’s “accidental finding”, they eventually concluded it wasn’t poisonous at all.</p>
<p>Instead it became known as a cure for worms, warts, ringworm, freckles and cold swellings, with the name <em>Apocynum erectum</em>. As the historian Pratik Chakrabarti argues in a <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719083129/">recent book</a>, this incident serves as a neat example of how, under European political and commercial domination, gathering knowledge about nature could take place simultaneously with exploitation.</p>
<p>For <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gift-of-civilisation-how-imperial-britons-saw-their-mission-in-india-80302">imperialists</a> and their <a href="http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/history/why-we-ruled-the-world">modern apologists</a>, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/civilization-west-and-rest/killer-apps/">science and medicine</a> were among the gracious gifts from the European empires to the colonial world. What’s more, the 19th-century imperial ideologues saw the scientific successes of the West as a way to allege that non-Europeans were intellectually inferior and so deserved and needed to be colonised.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213187/original/file-20180404-189827-fs3q8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213187/original/file-20180404-189827-fs3q8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213187/original/file-20180404-189827-fs3q8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213187/original/file-20180404-189827-fs3q8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213187/original/file-20180404-189827-fs3q8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213187/original/file-20180404-189827-fs3q8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213187/original/file-20180404-189827-fs3q8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A racist caricature of European scientists visiting Africa. The severed head on the right is that of Ronald Ross.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/g6ceqpfd?query=ronald+ross">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the incredibly influential 1835 memo “<a href="https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/victorian/topic_4/macaulay.htm">Minute on Indian Education</a>”, British politician Thomas Macaulay denounced Indian languages partially because they lacked scientific words. He suggested that languages such as Sanskrit and Arabic were “barren of useful knowledge”, “fruitful of monstrous superstitions” and contained “false history, false astronomy, false medicine”.</p>
<p>Such opinions weren’t confined to colonial officials and imperial ideologues and were often shared by various representatives of the scientific profession. The prominent Victorian scientist Sir Francis Galton <a href="http://galton.org/books/hereditary-genius/text/pdf/galton-1869-genius-v3.pdf">argued that</a> the “the average intellectual standard of the negro race is some two grades below our own (the Anglo Saxon)”. Even Charles Darwin <a href="https://archive.org/details/descentmanandse09darwgoog">implied that</a> “savage races” such as “the negro or the Australian” were closer to gorillas than were white Caucasians.</p>
<p>Yet 19th-century British science was itself built upon a global repertoire of wisdom, information, and living and material specimens collected from various corners of the colonial world. Extracting raw materials from colonial mines and plantations went hand in hand with extracting scientific information and specimens from colonised people. </p>
<h2>Imperial collections</h2>
<p>Leading public scientific institutions in imperial Britain, such as the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and the British Museum, as well as <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo11235268.html">ethnographic displays of “exotic” humans</a>, relied on a global network of <a href="https://theconversation.com/exhibit-b-puts-people-on-display-for-edinburgh-international-festival-30344">colonial collectors and go-betweens</a>. By 1857, the East India Company’s London zoological museum boasted insect specimens from across the colonial world, including from <a href="https://archive.org/details/catalogueoflepid01east">Ceylon, India, Java and Nepal</a>.</p>
<p>The British and Natural History museums were founded using the personal collection of doctor and naturalist <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/PDF/Delbourgo%20essay.pdf">Sir Hans Sloane</a>. To gather these thousands of specimens, Sloane had worked intimately with the East India, South Sea and Royal African companies, which did a great deal to help establish the British Empire.</p>
<p>The scientists who used this evidence were rarely sedentary geniuses working in laboratories insulated from imperial politics and economics. The likes of <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/darwins-voyages.aspx">Charles Darwin on the Beagle</a> and botanist <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/endeavour_voyage_01.shtml">Sir Joseph Banks on the Endeavour</a> literally rode on the voyages of British exploration and conquest that enabled imperialism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213202/original/file-20180404-189827-gpmaku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213202/original/file-20180404-189827-gpmaku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213202/original/file-20180404-189827-gpmaku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213202/original/file-20180404-189827-gpmaku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213202/original/file-20180404-189827-gpmaku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213202/original/file-20180404-189827-gpmaku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213202/original/file-20180404-189827-gpmaku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir Hans Sloane’s imperial collection started the British Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_-_Room_1-_Sir_Hans_Sloane_(16543339595).jpg">Paul Hudson/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other scientific careers were directly driven by imperial achievements and needs. Early anthropological work in British India, such as Sir Herbert Hope Risley’s <a href="https://archive.org/details/TheTribesAndCastesOfBengal">Tribes and Castes of Bengal</a>, published in 1891, drew upon massive administrative classifications of the colonised population.</p>
<p>Map-making operations including the work of the <a href="https://www.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/india-maps/survey/great-trigonometrical-survey">Great Trigonometrical Survey</a> in South Asia came from the need to cross colonial landscapes for trade and military campaigns. The geological surveys commissioned around the world by <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03086538408582669?journalCode=fich20">Sir Roderick Murchison</a> were linked with intelligence gathering on minerals and local politics. </p>
<p>Efforts to curb epidemic diseases such as plague, smallpox and cholera led to attempts to discipline the routines, diets and movements of colonial subjects. This opened up a political process that the historian David Arnold has termed the “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QzaWUtZwAXIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">colonisation of the body</a>”. By controlling people as well as countries, the authorities turned medicine into a weapon with which to secure imperial rule.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213176/original/file-20180404-189807-gmvlqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213176/original/file-20180404-189807-gmvlqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213176/original/file-20180404-189807-gmvlqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213176/original/file-20180404-189807-gmvlqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213176/original/file-20180404-189807-gmvlqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213176/original/file-20180404-189807-gmvlqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213176/original/file-20180404-189807-gmvlqv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Imperialist Cecil Rhodes planned a railway and telegraph line to connect Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism#/media/File:Punch_Rhodes_Colossus.png">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>New technologies were also put to use expanding and consolidating the empire. <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo3632875.html">Photographs</a> were used for creating physical and racial stereotypes of different groups of colonised people. <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9007.html">Steamboats</a> were crucial in the colonial exploration of Africa in the mid-19th century. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/111/1/16/133299">Aircraft</a> enabled the British to surveil and then bomb rebellions in 20th-century Iraq. The innovation of <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/403267">wireless radio</a> in the 1890s was shaped by Britain’s need for discreet, long-distance communication during the South African war.</p>
<p>In these ways and more, Europe’s leaps in science and technology during this period both drove and were driven by its political and economic domination of the rest of the world. Modern science was effectively built on a system that exploited millions of people. At the same time it helped justify and sustain that exploitation, in ways that hugely influenced how Europeans saw other races and countries. What’s more, colonial legacies continue to shape trends in science today.</p>
<h2>Modern colonial science</h2>
<p>Since the formal end of colonialism, we have become better at recognising how scientific expertise has <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-ancient-india-changed-the-world-with-maths-84332">come from many different countries</a> and ethnicities. Yet former imperial nations still appear almost self-evidently superior to most of the once-colonised countries when it comes to scientific study. The empires may have virtually disappeared, but the cultural biases and disadvantages they imposed have not.</p>
<p>You just have to look at the statistics on the way research is carried out globally to see how the scientific hierarchy created by colonialism continues. The <a href="https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2017/life-sciences-medicine">annual rankings</a> of universities are published mostly by the Western world and tend to favour its own institutions. Academic journals across the different branches of science are <a href="http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?type=j">mostly dominated</a> by the US and western Europe. </p>
<p>It is unlikely that anyone who wishes to be taken seriously today would explain this data in terms of innate intellectual superiority determined by race. The blatant scientific racism of the 19th century has now given way to the notion that excellence in science and technology are a euphemism for significant funding, infrastructure and economic development.</p>
<p>Because of this, most of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean <a href="http://200.41.82.27/536/1/Escobar%20Arturo_Encountering%20development_cap%201%20al%203.pdf">is seen</a> either as playing catch-up with the developed world or as dependent on its scientific expertise and financial aid. Some academics have identified these trends as evidence of the persisting “intellectual domination of the West” and labelled them a form of “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/rev/article-abstract/4/2/119/1561565?redirectedFrom=fulltext">neo-colonialism</a>”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213206/original/file-20180404-189830-18ei4jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213206/original/file-20180404-189830-18ei4jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213206/original/file-20180404-189830-18ei4jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213206/original/file-20180404-189830-18ei4jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213206/original/file-20180404-189830-18ei4jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213206/original/file-20180404-189830-18ei4jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213206/original/file-20180404-189830-18ei4jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not all international collaborations are equal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usarmyafrica/4567209861/in/photostream/">US Army Africa/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Various well-meaning efforts to bridge this gap have struggled to go beyond the legacies of colonialism. For example, scientific collaboration between countries can be a fruitful way of sharing skills and knowledge, and learning from the intellectual insights of one another. But when an economically weaker part of the world collaborates almost exclusively with very strong scientific partners, it can take the form of dependence, if not subordination.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-008-2211-8">A 2009 study</a> showed that about 80% of Central Africa’s research papers were produced with collaborators based outside the region. With the exception of Rwanda, each of the African countries principally collaborated with its former coloniser. As a result, these dominant collaborators shaped scientific work in the region. They prioritised research on immediate local health-related issues, particularly infectious and tropical diseases, rather than encouraging local scientists to also pursue the fuller range of topics pursued in the West.</p>
<p>In the case of Cameroon, local scientists’ most common role was in collecting data and fieldwork while foreign collaborators shouldered a significant amount of the analytical science. This echoed a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1022374703178">2003 study</a> of international collaborations in at least 48 developing countries that suggested local scientists too often carried out “fieldwork in their own country for the foreign researchers”.</p>
<p>In the same study, 60% to 70% of the scientists based in developed countries did not acknowledge their collaborators in poorer countries as co-authors in their papers. This is despite the fact they later claimed in the survey that the papers were the result of close collaborations.</p>
<h2>Mistrust and resistance</h2>
<p>International health charities, which are dominated by Western countries, have faced similar issues. After the formal end of colonial rule, global health workers long appeared to represent a superior scientific culture in an alien environment. Unsurprisingly, interactions between these skilled and dedicated foreign personnel and the local population have often been <a href="https://ejournals.unm.edu/index.php/historicalgeography/article/view/2916/2395">characterised by mistrust</a>. </p>
<p>For example, during the smallpox eradication campaigns of the 1970s and the polio campaign of past two decades, the World Health Organization’s representatives found it quite challenging to mobilise willing participants and volunteers in the interiors of South Asia. On occasions they even saw resistance on religious grounds from local people. But their stringent responses, which included the close surveillance of villages, cash incentives for identifying concealed cases and house-to-house searches, added to this climate of mutual suspicion. These <a href="https://ejournals.unm.edu/index.php/historicalgeography/article/view/2916/2395">experiences of mistrust</a> are reminiscent of those created by strict colonial policies of plague control. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213217/original/file-20180404-189816-17c5lex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213217/original/file-20180404-189816-17c5lex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213217/original/file-20180404-189816-17c5lex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213217/original/file-20180404-189816-17c5lex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213217/original/file-20180404-189816-17c5lex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213217/original/file-20180404-189816-17c5lex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213217/original/file-20180404-189816-17c5lex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Polio eradication needs willing volunteers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/5331065350">Department for International Development</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Western pharmaceutical firms also play a role by carrying out questionable clinical trials in the developing world where, as journalist Sonia Shah puts it, “<a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/body-hunters">ethical oversight is minimal and desperate patients abound</a>”. This raises moral questions about whether multinational corporations misuse the economic weaknesses of once-colonised countries in the interests of scientific and medical research.</p>
<p>The colonial image of science as a domain of the white man even continues to shape contemporary scientific practice in developed countries. People from ethnic minorities <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/blacks-in-stem-jobs-are-especially-concerned-about-diversity-and-discrimination-in-the-workplace/">are underrepresented</a> in science and engineering jobs and more likely <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/10/black-stem-employees-perceive-a-range-of-race-related-slights-and-inequities-at-work/">to face discrimination</a> and other <a href="https://royalsociety.org/%7E/media/Royal_Society_Content/policy/projects/leading-way-diversity/picture-uk-scientific-workforce/070314-diversity-report.pdf">barriers to career progress</a>.</p>
<p>To finally leave behind the baggage of colonialism, scientific collaborations need to become more symmetrical and founded on greater degrees of mutual respect. We need to decolonise science by recognising the true achievements and potential of scientists from outside the Western world. Yet while this structural change is necessary, the path to decolonisation has dangers of its own.</p>
<h2>Science must fall?</h2>
<p>In October 2016, a YouTube video of students discussing the decolonisation of science went surprisingly viral. The clip, which has been watched more than 1m times, shows a student from the University of Cape Town arguing that science as a whole should be scrapped and started again in a way that accommodates non-Western perspectives and experiences. The student’s point that science cannot explain so-called black magic earned the argument much <a href="https://www.goodthingsguy.com/opinion/science-must-fall/">derision and mockery</a>. But you only have to look at the racist and ignorant comments left beneath the video to see why the topic is so in need of discussion.</p>
<p>Inspired by the recent “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall">Rhodes Must Fall</a>” campaign against the university legacy of the imperialist Cecil Rhodes, the Cape Town students became associated with the phrase “<a href="https://theplasticblackgirl.wordpress.com/2016/10/16/why-sciencemustfall-critics-are-missing-the-point/">science must fall</a>”. While it may be interestingly provocative, this slogan isn’t helpful at a time when government policies in a range of countries including the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/science-funding-crisis">US, UK</a> and <a href="https://thewire.in/science/research-budget-biotech-iiser">India</a> are already threatening to impose major limits on science research funding.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C9SiRNibD14?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>More alarmingly, the phrase also runs the risk of being used by religious fundamentalists and cynical politicians in their arguments against established scientific theories such as climate change. This is a time when the integrity of experts is <a href="https://theconversation.com/sorry-michael-gove-we-really-do-need-experts-heres-why-62000">under fire</a> and science is the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-year-of-trump-science-is-a-major-casualty-in-the-new-politics-of-disruption/">target of political manouevring</a>. So polemically rejecting the subject altogether only plays into the hands of those who have no interest in decolonisation.</p>
<p>Alongside its imperial history, science has also inspired many people in the former colonial world to demonstrate remarkable courage, critical thinking and dissent in the face of established beliefs and conservative traditions. These include the iconic Indian anti-caste activist <a href="https://www.thequint.com/news/india/rohith-wasnt-alone-it-is-not-easy-being-a-dalit-science-scholar">Rohith Vemula</a> and the murdered atheist authors <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/anti-superstition-narendra-dabholkar-shot-dead">Narendra Dabholkar</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-31656222">Avijit Roy</a>. Demanding that “science must fall” fails to do justice to this legacy. </p>
<p>The call to decolonise science, as in the case of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/27/decolonise-elite-white-men-decolonising-cambridge-university-english-curriculum-literature">other disciplines</a> such as literature, can encourage us to rethink the dominant image that scientific knowledge is the work of white men. But this much-needed critique of the scientific canon carries the other danger of inspiring alternative national narratives in post-colonial countries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213193/original/file-20180404-189813-1vortpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213193/original/file-20180404-189813-1vortpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213193/original/file-20180404-189813-1vortpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213193/original/file-20180404-189813-1vortpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213193/original/file-20180404-189813-1vortpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213193/original/file-20180404-189813-1vortpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213193/original/file-20180404-189813-1vortpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A March for Science protester in Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Decolonise_science_-_Melbourne_-MarchforScience_on_-Earthday_(33823454150).jpg">www.wikimedia.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, some Indian nationalists, including the country’s current prime minister, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/indian-prime-minister-genetic-science-existed-ancient-times">Narendra Modi</a>, have emphasised the scientific glories of an ancient Hindu civilisation. They argue that plastic surgery, genetic science, aeroplanes and stem cell technology were in vogue in India thousands of years ago. These claims are not just a problem because they are factually inaccurate. Misusing science to stoke a sense of nationalist pride can easily feed into jingoism.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, various forms of modern science and their potential benefits have been rejected as unpatriotic. In 2016, a senior Indian government official even went so far as <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolhapur/Doctors-prescribing-non-ayurvedic-medicines-are-anti-national/articleshow/52058067.cms">to claim that</a> “doctors prescribing non-Ayurvedic medicines are anti-national”.</p>
<h2>The path to decolonisation</h2>
<p>Attempts to decolonise science need to contest jingoistic claims of cultural superiority, whether they come from European imperial ideologues or the current representatives of post-colonial governments. This is where new trends in the history of science can be helpful.</p>
<p>For example, instead of the parochial understanding of science as the work of lone geniuses, <a href="http://www.shpusa.com/shp_books/brokered-world">we could insist</a> on a more cosmopolitan model. This would recognise how different networks of people have often <a href="http://transnationalhistory.net/interconnected/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Raj_Relocating_Modern_Science_Intro.pdf">worked together</a> in scientific projects and the cultural exchanges that helped them – even if those exchanges were unequal and exploitative.</p>
<p>But if scientists and historians are serious about “decolonising science” in this way, they need to do much more to present the culturally diverse and global origins of science to a wider, non-specialist audience. For example, we need to make sure this decolonised story of the development of science makes its way into schools. </p>
<p>Students should also be taught how empires affected the development of science and how scientific knowledge was <a href="http://www.jstor.org.idpproxy.reading.ac.uk/stable/pdf/23274552.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ab99fb230972b93201ccc7624f5d45f24">reinforced, used</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK481423/#ch6.s2">sometimes resisted</a> by colonised people. We should encourage budding scientists to question whether science has done enough to dispel modern prejudices based on concepts of race, gender, class and nationality.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213224/original/file-20180404-189813-v68nek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213224/original/file-20180404-189813-v68nek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213224/original/file-20180404-189813-v68nek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213224/original/file-20180404-189813-v68nek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213224/original/file-20180404-189813-v68nek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213224/original/file-20180404-189813-v68nek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/213224/original/file-20180404-189813-v68nek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Schools need to teach the non-Western history of science.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Istambul_observatory_in_1577.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Decolonising science will also involve encouraging Western institutions that hold imperial scientific collections to reflect more on the violent political contexts of war and colonisation in which these items were acquired. An obvious step forward would be to discuss repatriating scientific specimens to former colonies, as botanists working on plants originally from Angola but held primarily in Europe <a href="http://archive.sajs.co.za/index.php/SAJS/article/view/161/231">have done</a>. If repatriation isn’t possible, then co-ownership or priority access for academics from post-colonial countries should at least be considered.</p>
<p>This is also an opportunity for the broader scientific community to critically reflect on its own profession. Doing so will inspire scientists to think more about the political contexts that have kept their work going and about how changing them could benefit the scientific profession around the world. It should spark conversations between the sciences and other disciplines about their shared colonial past and how to address the issues it creates.</p>
<p>Unravelling the legacies of colonial science will take time. But the field needs strengthening at a time when some of the most influential countries in the world have adopted a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01001-9">lukewarm attitude</a> towards scientific values and findings. Decolonisation promises to make science more appealing by integrating its findings more firmly with questions of justice, ethics and democracy. Perhaps, in the coming century, success with the microscope will depend on success in tackling the lingering effects of imperialism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89189/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rohan Deb Roy received funding from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and the Wellcome Trust.</span></em></p>
A long read on how science’s dark imperial past still shapes research today – and what to do about it.
Rohan Deb Roy, Lecturer in South Asian History, University of Reading
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74770
2017-06-19T08:57:15Z
2017-06-19T08:57:15Z
Rodrigo Duterte risks losing support if he gets too close to Donald Trump
<p>The president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has become one of the world’s most notorious politicians. He revels in being referred to by nicknames such as “Duterte Harry”, “The Punisher”, and “The Trump of the East”. Outspoken and populist, he is best known for his unrelenting and violent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/07/world/asia/rodrigo-duterte-philippines-drugs-killings.html?_r=0">war on drugs</a>. But outsiders are confounded by his election and continuing popularity.</p>
<p>As an anti-establishment figure and political outsider, he is frequently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asias-version-of-donald-trump-may-be-the-philippines-next-president/2016/05/06/f2c30f12-120b-11e6-a9b5-bf703a5a7191_story.html?utm_term=.fb45ae291493">compared to Donald Trump</a>. But Duterte has not sparked the division associated with his American counterpart. Despite an undoubtedly abrasive character, his popularity stretches far and wide. Some of his <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/rodrigo-dutertes-campaign-of-terror-in-the-philippines">most fervent supporters</a> are middle-class, highly educated, urban Filipinos. He does not represent the views of the most dispossessed, nor the most marginalised.</p>
<p>Instead, Duterte represents an ever-present brand of Philippine anti-colonialism. In the years immediately preceding Duterte’s election, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/8919369/Multiple_Nationalisms_and_Historical_Discourses_in_the_Philippines_Identity_Crisis_">I identified</a> a huge growth in anti-colonial and anti-American sentiments expressed in the mainstream media.</p>
<p>These contemporary anti-colonial sentiments have a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Philippines/The-Spanish-period">long and powerful history</a>. The Spanish colonised the Philippines from 1521, and during the mid-18th century, resistance spread, leading to the first claim of independence in 1898. In the same year however, the US purchased the Philippines <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Philippine-American-War">from the Spanish</a>.</p>
<p>The US was invested in “developing” the Philippines and creating an alliance, due to its geographical position as a <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flohri_cartoon_about_the_Philippines_as_a_bridge_to_China.jpg">stepping stone to China</a>. (Indeed, the Philippines’ strategic position is the primary reason the US continues to take an interest in the country.) American forms of political, legal, and educational institutions were implemented, and English was taught. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172922/original/file-20170608-32325-fbkj5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172922/original/file-20170608-32325-fbkj5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172922/original/file-20170608-32325-fbkj5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172922/original/file-20170608-32325-fbkj5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172922/original/file-20170608-32325-fbkj5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172922/original/file-20170608-32325-fbkj5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172922/original/file-20170608-32325-fbkj5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emil Flohri (1869-1938) Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Subsequent improvements in health care and education were evident, particularly for the middle classes – which led many to accept American control. <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-11-12/heres-backstory-why-us-has-such-close-ties-philippines">Protection offered</a> during the World War II occupation of Manila by the Japanese, further cemented the US’s position as saviour and ally.</p>
<p>The Philippines was formally granted independence in 1946, yet remained closely tied to the US, which maintained a large military base there. The US is also one of the major aid donors to the Philippines and has been a primary destination for <a href="https://www.iom.int/files/live/sites/iom/files/Country/docs/CMReport-Philipines-2013.pdf">permanent Filipino migrants</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166983/original/file-20170427-15102-14yekxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166983/original/file-20170427-15102-14yekxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166983/original/file-20170427-15102-14yekxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166983/original/file-20170427-15102-14yekxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166983/original/file-20170427-15102-14yekxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166983/original/file-20170427-15102-14yekxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166983/original/file-20170427-15102-14yekxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">G.I.s in the Philippines during WWII.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/1477871637/in/photolist-3fAtKt-qi85WY-eb6j56-4Qd1qM-4uSaqa-654QJs-oHMuTm-4uDB9v-SWAHSb-7EQiPN-oXuDQv-6Cfyes-qThkZM-2oypWH-2Q9H7T-5PHjgc-7hdH9h-joimuk-7h9EhM-RoAyXm-m1P8Dh-dxmRLi-9Z2Kom-5NuEYk-4yhvhm-ebbyT5-eq653e-dGzHk6-aD6nep-RHG7Sy-3KQJH9-cm5WEh-pHAUMG-azx8nC-7hdHEy-ejDwjk-aLBGjZ-ebbAHC-Cir1u-9BqTbZ-ebbWVN-ebbyvC-dxsjGU-eb61sr-dryRk9-dh5862-ab1nUi-7h9EjH-NAkT5-phjoUk">The U.S. Army/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But after the fall of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/19/magazine/reagan-and-the-philippines-setting-marcos-adrift.html?pagewanted=all">Ferdinand Marcos</a> in 1986, dissent towards the Americans – which had sponsored the dictator’s regime and ultimately gave him protection – grew. This led to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/28/world/philippines-orders-us-to-leave-strategic-navy-base-at-subic-bay.html?pagewanted=all">closure of the military base</a> in 1991. While ruling administrations of the late 1990s supported US influence due to perceived economic and political benefits, anti-American and anti-colonial sentiment did not wane among the educated middle classes – those most negatively affected by Marcos and his martial law, corruption and imprisonment of detractors.</p>
<p>Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, took significant steps to rebuild the US-Philippine alliance. The <a href="http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2016/01/13/what-you-need-to-know-about-edca.html">Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement</a>, signed in 2014, grants the US military an extended stay in the Philippines. The following year, an agreement was made allowing the <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2015/08/how-the-philippines-plans-to-revive-a-former-us-naval-base/">US to revive</a> a deep-water naval base in Subic Bay, in the face of increasing hostility from China. </p>
<p>The Aquino administration attempted to justify the move by highlighting the significance of the US’s market size and the strategic threat of China. But anti-colonialists were against a renewed US military presence, believing it threatened the independence of the Philippines. </p>
<p>For it was actually the Aquino administration and the political elite who were perceived as more of a threat than China. Anti-colonial voices were concerned about corruption plaguing all levels of administration following <a href="http://www.up.edu.ph/evolution-of-the-pork-barrel-system-in-the-philippines/">revelations in late 2013</a> of a scam which implicated more than 100 members of the Philippine government (across party lines) over the alleged misuse of £140m of public funds.</p>
<p>The Philippine political elite was perceived as behaving just like the American colonisers – exploiting the populace for personal gain. </p>
<p>Duterte, on the other hand, despite his long career, was considered to be outside this traditional political elite. Not only was he free from accusations of corruption, he decided to make naming and shaming corrupt politicians one of his keystone policies. On top of this, he long espoused anti-colonial and anti-American ideals. His campaign promised to build a more cooperative <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-china-idUSKCN1201KJ">relationship with China</a> and neighbouring countries. He is thought by many to place the Philippines before his personal interests.</p>
<h2>Politics is a Duterte business</h2>
<p>Considered against the backdrop of deep anti-American and anti-colonial sentiment in the Philippines under Aquino’s administration, Duterte’s election was almost inevitable. His success is different to that of other populist movements and – aside from the language and machismo – comparisons with Trump do not stand. The political experience of the Philippines is not that of the West.</p>
<p>Despite countless <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/19/philippines-duterte-incites-vigilante-violence">human rights abuses</a>, Duterte retains <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/philippines-rodrigo-duterte-president-80-per-cent-approval-survey-mass-drug-killings-vigilante-a7362221.html">high levels of support</a>. He remains committed to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-03/duterte-to-push-ahead-with-name-shame-in-drug-war-as-deaths-rise">naming and shaming</a> politicians involved in the drugs trade. But if he does not stick to his anti-colonial promises and end the American military presence, he will risk alienating a significant proportion of his support. </p>
<p>Since Trump entered the White House, Duterte’s anti-American stance has waned significantly. He has reneged on certain promises and has openly <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/rodrigo-duterte-praise-donald-trump-president-philippines-deep-thinker-realist-wealth-intelligence-a7687406.html">praised Trump</a>. For his part, Trump is one of the only Western leaders to support <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/03/philippines-rodrigo-duterte-donald-trump-white-house-invite">Duterte’s war on drugs</a>. It could be the beginning of an unexpectedly close relationship. But it would be one that risks losing the popular support that put Duterte in power in the first place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maddy Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Anti-American and anti-corruption stances have given the president of the Philippines broad appeal.
Maddy Thompson, PhD Candidate in Social and Cultural Geography, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/71838
2017-04-27T16:09:39Z
2017-04-27T16:09:39Z
More than an oppressor’s language: reclaiming the hidden history of Afrikaans
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166816/original/file-20170426-2841-jw0hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Award-winning Hemelbesem is a black Afrikaans hip-hop artist.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The language of Afrikaans remains a contested issue in South Africa. The controversy over the <a href="http://www.sun.ac.za/english/Lists/news/DispForm.aspx?ID=4027">medium of instruction</a> at traditionally Afrikaans universities such as Stellenbosch has brought this to the fore again. Should it be in Afrikaans, English, a combination, or a hybrid which will include other South African languages?</p>
<p>The institution has to find ways to continue to advance Afrikaans without the perceptions and experiences of racist behaviour associated with early and ruling Afrikaner nationalist practices. It’s essential to consider the current status of Afrikaans, as well as its history.</p>
<p>Many South Africans of every hue have contributed to the language’s formation and development. Afrikaans also has a “black history” rather than just the known hegemonic apartheid history inculcated by white Afrikaner Christian national education, propaganda and the media.</p>
<p>Afrikaans is a <a href="https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/cll.44/main">creole language</a> that evolved during the 19th century under colonialism in southern Africa. This simplified, creolised language had its roots mainly in Dutch, mixed with seafarer variants of Malay, Portuguese, Indonesian and the indigenous Khoekhoe and San languages. It was spoken by peasants, the urban proletariat whatever their ethnic background and even the middle class of civil servants, traders and teachers.</p>
<h2>Afrikaans more black than white</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">Afrikaans</a> is a southern African language. Today <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Minority-of-Afrikaans-speakers-white-20130422">six in 10</a> of the almost seven million Afrikaans speakers in South Africa are estimated to be black. It’s a figure that will by all indications increase significantly in the next decade.</p>
<p>Like several other South African languages, Afrikaans is a cross-border language spanning sizeable communities of speakers in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. In South Africa and Namibia it’s spoken across all social indices, by the poor and the rich, by rural and urban people, by the under-educated and the educated.</p>
<p>Yet, when the white Afrikaner nationalists <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">came to power</a> in South Africa in 1948 they brought a set of ideas about society, social organisation, the economy, culture and language. Under apartheid, language was deployed as a tool of tribalism, in the service of this divide-and-rule policy.</p>
<p>One of the undoubted successes of Afrikaner nationalist hegemony was the creation of the myth that they, and only they, spoke for those identified as “Afrikaners”. Also, that their worldview was the only significant expression of being Afrikaans speaking. These nationalist culture brokers suppressed oppositional and alternative thought within the Afrikaner community. They also minimised the role and place of black Afrikaans speakers in the broader speech community.</p>
<p>It’s therefore not surprising that socio-political history often casts Afrikaans as the language of racists, oppressors and unreconstructed nationalists. But it also bears the <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">imprint</a> of a fierce tradition of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, of an all-embracing humanism and anti-apartheid activism. </p>
<h2>Arabic script</h2>
<p>In 1860 one of the students in a Cape Town madrasah (an Islamic school), a descendant of slaves, copied a prayer in his exercise book. Today the surviving fragments of that book reveals a history that somehow remains hidden to the vast majority of South Africans. The exercises in that book, also called a “koplesboek” (head lesson book), are written in “Cape Malay dialect”, the colloquial language of the time.</p>
<p>Apart from the phonetic spelling, any contemporary Afrikaans speaker would recognise it as near-modern Afrikaans. In this case, written in Arabic script. This is but one example of a well-known tradition of <a href="http://alma.matrix.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AjamiIntroductionFallou.pdf">a'jami scripts</a> produced in the Cape Muslim community in the latter half of the 19th century and well into the 1950s.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A South African Muslim man in Cape Town, South Africa. The Cape Malay community’s earliest members were slaves brought to South Africa by the Dutch. They are the group that first introduced Islam to South Africa, and were the first to use written Afrikaans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Bothma/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Achmat Davids in his path-breaking <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Afrikaans-Cape-Muslims-Talatala/dp/1869192362">The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims</a> (2011) found a similar “koplesboek” dating back to 1806. To give some historical perspective: this was as early as the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/britain-takes-control-cape">second British occupation</a> of the Cape Colony. It was when <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-shaka-zulu">Shaka</a> was only a young man of 19 on the verge of his evolution to a notable military leader, great Zulu king and conqueror. </p>
<p>Arabic-Afrikaans was also used in daily communication, the making of shopping lists and political pamphlets. For the Cape Muslims, a literate community, this language was the bearer of their most intimate thoughts and their religion.</p>
<p>Offshoots of this language community self-identified as “Oorlams”. They disseminated what was called Cape Dutch during the late 1780s and early 1800s to the northwestern Cape Colony, today’s west coast of the Northern Cape and southern <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272915807_Is_there_a_Namibian_Afrikaans_Recent_trends_in_grammatical_variation_in_Afrikaans_varieties_within_and_across_Namibia's_borders">Namibia</a>. They played a major role in its <a href="https://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/vf-uiu/Record/uiu_4468573">establishment</a> as the language of trade, culture and education.</p>
<p>However, not everyone thought that Cape Dutch could express learning, writing or upper middle class culture. It was derided by the upper classes of the Cape Colony, be they Dutch or English-speaking. </p>
<p>The opinion of Chief Justice Lord JH de Villiers quoted in Herman Giliomee’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Afrikaners-Biography-Reconsiderations-Southern-African/dp/0813930553">The Afrikaners: Biography of a People</a>, was that this language was,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>poor in the number of its words, weak in its inflections, wanting in accuracy of meaning. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Simplicity, brevity and vigour</h2>
<p>Around 1870 the first steps towards the battle between various views on the nature of Cape Dutch, or what would become known as Afrikaans, were taken. Some of the leading figures of what would become known as the “first language movement” (1874–1890) strenuously denied the creole nature of the language. For them Afrikaans was “a pure Germanic language” of “purity, simplicity, brevity and vigour” (quoted in Giliomee). </p>
<p>The Genootskap van Regte Afrikaanders (GRA, the Society of True Afrikaners), established in 1875, actively sought to foster a nationalism among white Cape Dutch speakers. “Afrikaans” became their linguistic vehicle and “Afrikaners” their label. They sought to write a nationalist history of oppressors and victims (also Giliomee).</p>
<p>The GRA sought to actively demarcate “their language” to the point of diminishing and stigmatising other speakers’ claim to it. They declared their own version of Cape Dutch as prestige “Burger Afrikaans”, the distinct “white man’s language”.</p>
<p>Doggedly, these early Afrikaner language nationalists and their successors modified, standardised and modernised a spoken language. The racial prejudice and middle class bias underlying many of their choices had far-reaching implications. In denying the commonality of their fellow Afrikaans speakers who were descendants of slaves, indigenous people or simply poor, they were elevating the language to a narrow ethnic nationalist cause. Afrikaans was constructed as a “white language”, with a “white history” and “white faces”.</p>
<h2>Nationalism severely diminished</h2>
<p>In a disastrous policy decision, Afrikaans was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">imposed</a> as a language of instruction on black, non-Afrikaans speakers in 1974. The impact was the point of ignition for the Soweto uprising in 1976 and along with it, suspicion of its speakers.</p>
<p>Afrikaans was labelled “the language of the oppressor”. The slogan was rightly an emotive, visceral response to Afrikaner ethnic, nationalist hegemony and its concomitant coercive state power. However, it also <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">obscured</a> the experiences, lives and histories of black and non-nationalist Afrikaans speakers. </p>
<p>Today, more than two decades into a democratic South Africa, Afrikaner nationalism has been severely diminished and along with it the standing of Afrikaans in the public sector. Nonetheless, in the private spheres of culture, private education, the media and subscription television Afrikaans has seen an exponential growth.</p>
<p>Yet Afrikaans has a <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">multifaceted nature</a>, numerically dominated by its black speakers. Rather than viewing Afrikaans through a single lens it is today acknowledged as an amalgam consisting of a variety of expressions, speakers and histories. It’s in this spirit that the debate on the medium of instruction at universities such as Stellenbosch has to be conducted.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited, updated version of an <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">article</a> Prof Willemse wrote for Mistra in 2015.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hein Willemse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Afrikaans is very much a black language. The apartheid government’s ploy to construct it as a “white language”, with a “white history”, denied the commonality of the language across race and class.
Hein Willemse, Professor of Afrikaans, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/72893
2017-02-26T16:59:36Z
2017-02-26T16:59:36Z
Morocco’s membership of the AU: has unity finally been achieved?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158091/original/image-20170223-24090-19d4wxb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Morocco's return to the African Union raises questions about the body's continued commitment to anti-colonialism and its pan-Africanism. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>The African Union (AU) has always considered Morocco <a href="https://www.au.int/web/en/AU_Member_States">the only country missing</a> from its fold. After a 33-year absence, it was <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/morocco-rejoins-african-union-33-years-170131084926023.html">recently admitted </a> to the continental body to become its 55th member. </p>
<p>With this last piece of the jigsaw now in place, does it mean that African unity has finally been achieved? Or is the current picture of the AU likely to be ephemeral?</p>
<p>The criteria to become a member of the African Union are simple. The organisation is open to all African states and accession requires approval by a <a href="https://au.int/web/sites/default/files/pages/32020-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">simple majority of the existing members</a>. Though being an African state seems a straightforward requisite, there is ample room for interpretation. </p>
<p>Take for example efforts by Haiti, a Caribbean state, to accede to the union. This would require the AU review its reading of pan-Africanism. Other possible new members are states that could be formed as result of secession as well as European overseas territories that are part of Africa but represent the last vestiges of imperialism. </p>
<h2>Beyond Africa</h2>
<p>The dominant view of the AU reduces Africa to its continental definition. Accordingly, the objective is the political union of the African landmass and the adjacent islands.</p>
<p>This view has been used in relation to Haiti. The country has sought membership <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2012/0229/Long-distance-relationship-Haiti-s-bid-to-join-the-African-Union">since 2012</a> on the grounds that it was the first black republic in history. Though perceived by many as belonging to Africa culturally, the AU rejected the island’s application in 2016 on the grounds that it was <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/30342/haiti-will-not-be-admitted-african-union-member-state-next-summit-kigali-rwanda">not an African country</a>.</p>
<p>But there are other interpretations of pan-Africanism. One view, for example, is that the <a href="http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africanaage/essay-pan-africanism.html">African diaspora is an integral part of the continent</a>, another is that racial identity – in the sense of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/negritude/">négritude</a> – or cultural identity makes people eligible for African citizenship.</p>
<h2>Breakaway states</h2>
<p>Even within the narrow continental vision of pan-Africanism, there is still room for new members. Somaliland is one potential future candidate. It broke away from Somalia in 1991 and has acquired <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/11/economist-explains">state-like functions</a>, such as the autonomous provision of public goods, and is a potential candidate for membership. But, for the time being all AU member states view it as a part of Somalia. None recognises it as a state. </p>
<p>Other secessionist movements, such as the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-17546620">Barotseland kingdom</a> that transcends Zambia, could also gain independence from current nation states. New states based on the geographic imagination of <a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-border-disputes-are-set-to-rise-but-there-are-ways-to-stop-them-44264">pre-colonial borders</a> could form and eventually request accession to the AU.</p>
<p>There is a precedent for this: South Sudan broke away from Sudan in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14069082">2011</a>, to become an independent state, followed by <a href="http://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00013730.html">accession to the AU the same year</a>. </p>
<h2>Africa’s “last colonies”</h2>
<p>The AU understands Africa as a sealed off geographic entity. Yet it remains remarkably quiet about the many bits that are geographically part of the continent but do not consider the AU their home. Take the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/regions/octs_en">European overseas territories</a> which include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Spain’s <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14114627">Ceuta</a>, <a href="http://www.melilla.es/melillaPortal/index.jsp">Melilla</a> and the <a href="http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/canary.htm">Canary Islands</a>, </p></li>
<li><p>France’s <a href="http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/africa/re.htm">Réunion</a>, </p></li>
<li><p>Portugal’s <a href="http://www.madeira.gov.pt/">Madeira</a>, and </p></li>
<li><p>the UK’s <a href="http://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/">St Helena</a> and the <a href="http://www.chagos-trust.org/">Chagos Archipelago</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>And there’s one more: in 2011 France <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20150925-video-mayotte-revisited-island-indian-ocean-islandfrench-department-comoros">reintegrated</a> Mayotte as one of its territories. While the AU <a href="https://www.au.int/web/en/newsevents/25583/highlights-meetings-auc-chairperson-during-68th-unga">“hopes”</a> that Mayotte will return to the Comoros, it shies away from taking concrete action. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780511880223">“last colonies”</a> could in principle exercise self determination and join the AU after successful independence. Yet, that seems highly unlikely in the near future given the overwhelming sense of belonging to a European country. </p>
<h2>Quitters</h2>
<p>Inclusion is not the only issue facing the African Union. Some existing members could also withdraw. The union’s Constitutive Act makes provision for <a href="https://au.int/web/sites/default/files/pages/32020-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">cessation of membership</a> – a procedure that only requires a written request and a one year waiting period. </p>
<p>Countries seeking a binding federalist union, such as <a href="http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/African_Union.html#_edn27">Libya under Gaddafi</a>, unsuccessfully opposed this exit option, though in practice only Morocco ever left the organisation.</p>
<p>But others could consider doing so.</p>
<p>Take Cape Verde. In 2007 the European Union and the island nation off the coast of Senegal established a <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=URISERV:r13018">special partnership</a> that prepares it to qualify for future accession talks with the EU. This would entail it exiting from the AU.</p>
<p>In the Comoros there have been movements to <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/public/Research/Africa/0709comorospp.pdf">replicate the experience of Mayotte to join France</a>. Though these have been met with resistance by both the Comoros government – who fears secession – and France – who fears costs – an exit remains conceivable.</p>
<p>More perils for AU membership lurk where countries are part of competing regional organisations, such as the <a href="http://www.lasportal.org/Pages/Welcome.aspx">Arab League</a> or the <a href="https://www.cplp.org/">Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries</a>. These offer identities transcending the continent and should they become more binding members will have to choose between them and the AU. In particular the <a href="https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/330/european-neighbourhood-policy-enp_en">European Neighbourhood Policy</a> is designed to increase the magnetic pull of the EU for North Africa.</p>
<h2>Expelling members</h2>
<p>The AU Constitutive Act makes no provision for expelling members. Only suspension is foreseen in cases when a government has come to power trough <a href="https://au.int/web/sites/default/files/pages/32020-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">unconstitutional means</a>. However, with a two-thirds majority, AU members could vote to introduce a provision for expelling.</p>
<p>Should that happen, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic <a href="https://global.britannica.com/place/Saharan-Arab-Democratic-Republic">(SADR)</a> would be first on the list. In the past, most African states considered Moroccan occupation of the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/wi.html">Western Sahara</a> a form of colonisation. They legitimised the claim of the SADR to govern the Western Sahara, which triggered Morocco’s exit in 1984.</p>
<p>But the tide is turning.</p>
<p>The growing support within the AU for Morocco <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/morocco-the-aus-prodigal-son">despite its occupation of the Western Sahara</a> makes a dismissal of the SADR more likely. It also indicates that anti-colonialism has lost vigour, which reduces the likelihood of an assertive claim by the AU to the “last colonies”.</p>
<h2>Revisiting pan-Africanism</h2>
<p>The AU’s narrow geographic interpretation of Africa seems to have reached its zenith with the accession of Morocco. But important inconsistencies remain. The AU is likely to come under pressure in the future to review its reading of pan-Africanism, both from inside and outside the continent.</p>
<p>It took Morocco 33 years to rejoin. Over the coming 33 years, the AU’s shape is likely to continue changing. We have not seen the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/21/bring-back-ideology-fukuyama-end-history-25-years-on">end of history</a> yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72893/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Mattheis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The African Union sees Africa as a sealed off geographic entity. Yet it remains remarkably quiet about the many bits of Africa that are geographically part of it but do not consider it their home.
Frank Mattheis, Senior Researcher in Global Studies, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/65130
2016-10-04T06:17:35Z
2016-10-04T06:17:35Z
Algerian feminism and the long struggle for women’s equality
<p><a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20160914-algerian-women-protest-against-violence/">Amira Merabet</a>, a 34-year-old woman, was burned alive in the Eastern Algerian town of El Khroub in August. Her crime: refusing a man’s advances.</p>
<p>The murder shocked Algeria, and protests were held across the country – in <a href="http://www2.horizons-dz.com/?Rassemblement-citoyen-a">Constantine</a>, <a href="http://www.lesoirdalgerie.com/articles/2016/09/11/article.php?sid=201812&cid=4">Oran</a>, <a href="http://www.tsa-algerie.com/20160910/rassemblement-a-alger-hommage-a-amira-merabet-brulee-vive-a-constantine-video/">Algiers</a> and <a href="http://www.elwatan.com/actualite/rassemblement-a-bejaia-hommage-aux-femmes-victimes-de-violences-18-09-2016-328878_109.php">Béjaïa</a> – to pay tribute to female victims of violence.</p>
<p>This was not a crime without precedent. In Béjaïa, Merabet’s photo was placed among that of women assassinated by Islamists during the 1990s. They included 17-year-old <a href="http://www.lematindz.net/news/19975-nassima-rend-hommage-a-sa-soeur-katia-bengana.html">Katia Bengana</a>, who was killed for refusing to wear the hijab. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138862/original/image-20160922-22530-1b7kj4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138862/original/image-20160922-22530-1b7kj4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138862/original/image-20160922-22530-1b7kj4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138862/original/image-20160922-22530-1b7kj4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138862/original/image-20160922-22530-1b7kj4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138862/original/image-20160922-22530-1b7kj4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138862/original/image-20160922-22530-1b7kj4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">El Watan, September 18, 2016</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The linking of these two murders shows that memories of the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/2010/11/2010118122224407570.html">civil war</a> that raged from 1992 to 2002 remain vivid in Algeria. And Merabet’s death shows that Algerian women’s struggle for rights is neither over nor forgotten.</p>
<h2>Revolutionary women</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139035/original/image-20160923-29902-1oyl4uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139035/original/image-20160923-29902-1oyl4uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1034&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139035/original/image-20160923-29902-1oyl4uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1034&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139035/original/image-20160923-29902-1oyl4uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1034&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139035/original/image-20160923-29902-1oyl4uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1299&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139035/original/image-20160923-29902-1oyl4uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139035/original/image-20160923-29902-1oyl4uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1299&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Battle of Algiers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/aa/The_Battle_of_Algiers_poster.jpg">Film Fan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Female activists have long challenged their marginalisation in male-dominated environments. And Algerian women’s struggles go back to the revolutionary war of 1954-1962.</p>
<p>In 1956, Algerian women participated in a series of <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-d-histoire-moderne-et-contemporaine-2012-4-page-164.htm">terror bomb attacks launched by a nationalist guerrilla network</a>. The campaign was later popularised by Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 film <a href="https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4214-the-battle-of-algiers-turns-fifty">The Battle of Algiers</a>.</p>
<p>In 1958, during a nationalist meeting at the Casablanca Labour Exchange, a group of Algerian women <a href="https://sinedjib.wordpress.com/2016/09/08/un-livre-guer/">spoke before hundreds of men</a>, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You make a revolution, you fight colonialist oppression but you maintain the oppression of women; beware, another revolution will certainly occur after Algeria’s independence: a women’s revolution!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The women had to speak up because the nation’s anti-colonial revolution was so strongly dominated by men. But their words could also be seen as the indirect result of French colonialist propaganda, which claimed to want to <a href="https://stichproben.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/p_stichproben/Artikel/Nummer12/Nr12_MacMaster.pdf">“emancipate” Muslim women</a>, but which was also intended to counter Algeria’s nationalist struggle during 1957-1959.</p>
<p>Indeed, the colonial authorities’ campaign of <a href="http://orientxxi.info/lu-vu-entendu/le-devoilement-des-femmes-musulmanes-en-algerie,1466">unveiling Muslim women</a> led to the showcasing of “emancipated women” to promote French ideals. </p>
<h2>Women intellectuals in Algeria</h2>
<p>In 1947, the anti-colonial Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD) created the Association of Algerian Muslim Women (AFMA) despite its patriarchal structure.</p>
<p>Run by <a href="http://www.elmoudjahid.com/fr/mobile/detail-article/id/35916">Mamia Chentouf</a>, the AFMA promoted a type of feminism that was devoted to charitable activities, acknowledged and defended the biological differences between men and women, and affirmed Arab-Muslim culture.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138856/original/image-20160922-22537-koe5m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138856/original/image-20160922-22537-koe5m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=128&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138856/original/image-20160922-22537-koe5m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138856/original/image-20160922-22537-koe5m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=128&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138856/original/image-20160922-22537-koe5m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138856/original/image-20160922-22537-koe5m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138856/original/image-20160922-22537-koe5m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">L'Algérie libre, September 1, 1950</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Between 1949 and 1950, the MTLD’s newspaper <em>L’Algérie libre</em> published a lecture by Lebanese feminist <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183p4ww">Anbara Salam Al Khalidi</a> highlighting women’s participation in Arab civilisation; solidarity messages from Egyptian feminist <a href="http://doria-shafik.com/doria-shafik-egyptian-activist-feminism-egypt.html">Doria Shafik</a>; and echoed debates within the Arab-Muslim world about the “role of women”. </p>
<p>The newspaper argued the issue could only be resolved in a cultural framework free of Western influence.</p>
<p>The Algerian revolution that followed, and the <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230234291_10">violence against women</a> it entailed (arrest, torture, rape and murder) undoubtedly contributed to wider recognition of women’s involvement in the anti-colonial struggle. It demonstrated that a woman such as <a href="https://sinedjib.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/nassiba-kebal/">Nassiba Kebal</a>, a young activist who was arrested and mistreated by colonial authorities, could suffer as much as any other activist. </p>
<p>Still, progressive statements promoting gender equality in a free Algeria faced conservatism from nationalists little accustomed to female activism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138857/original/image-20160922-22502-1u4ioh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138857/original/image-20160922-22502-1u4ioh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138857/original/image-20160922-22502-1u4ioh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138857/original/image-20160922-22502-1u4ioh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138857/original/image-20160922-22502-1u4ioh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138857/original/image-20160922-22502-1u4ioh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138857/original/image-20160922-22502-1u4ioh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Voix du travailleur algérien, juillet 1957</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Veils and short skirts</h2>
<p>Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Algerian women in France were also critical to developing narratives of feminism in the Muslim context. </p>
<p>The French-based Algerian Workers’ Trade Union (USTA) passed a motion during its first convention in 1957 on “<a href="https://sinedjib.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/liberation-femme/">Algerian woman’s liberation</a>” and appointed <a href="https://sinedjib.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/m-k-roubaix/">Kheira Moujahadi</a> to represent a delegation of working women on its executive committee. </p>
<p>The union was close to the Algerian National Movement (MNA), and chaired by veteran nationalist leader <a href="https://sinedjib.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/messali-hadj-2/">Messali Hadj</a></p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138861/original/image-20160922-22537-14l6apv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138861/original/image-20160922-22537-14l6apv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138861/original/image-20160922-22537-14l6apv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138861/original/image-20160922-22537-14l6apv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138861/original/image-20160922-22537-14l6apv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138861/original/image-20160922-22537-14l6apv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138861/original/image-20160922-22537-14l6apv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Voix du peuple, juillet 1961</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The USTA’s newspaper, La Voix du travailleur algérien, published in 1958 an article by a woman known as <a href="https://sinedjib.wordpress.com/2015/05/27/algerienne-front-travail/">Yamina B.</a> which argued for emancipation by giving a voice to Algerian working women. Young female unionists such as Baya Maanane and activist Fatma Mezrag also promoted women rights to male audiences during May 1 Labour Day meetings that same year in Northern France. </p>
<p>The second convention of the USTA passed a motion on Algerian women’s emancipation, after women publicly expressed their discontent with their situation. Some, like <a href="https://sinedjib.wordpress.com/2015/05/27/intervention-hedjila/">A. Hedjila</a>, criticised the French authorities’ unveiling “masquerade” and stressed that women’s emancipation belonged to unionists. </p>
<p>For Messalists, the evolution of women’s status was not “an issue of veil or short skirt”. </p>
<p>But the USTA’s efforts to advance women’s rights were not enough. Unionist <a href="https://sinedjib.wordpress.com/2015/05/27/intervention-fatma/">Fatma Mezrag</a> said in 1959 in Lille, a working class town in the north of France, that fighting colonialism would not be enough to liberate Algerian women. She said men had to address their selfishness, lust and oppression. </p>
<p>She clearly recognised that French colonialism wasn’t the only obstacle on the path of Algerian women’s liberation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139572/original/image-20160928-27034-64up9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139572/original/image-20160928-27034-64up9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139572/original/image-20160928-27034-64up9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139572/original/image-20160928-27034-64up9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139572/original/image-20160928-27034-64up9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139572/original/image-20160928-27034-64up9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139572/original/image-20160928-27034-64up9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Algerian News, May 1957</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This <a href="https://www.cairn.info/resume.php?ID_ARTICLE=LMS_255_0103">singular feminist movement</a> ended with the collapse of Messali Hadj’s movement on the eve of Algerian independence that cool place in 1962. </p>
<p>And despite the progressive views of some male leaders within the country, Algerian women couldn’t directly challenge religious oppression, economic exploitation, or nationalist patriarchy in a newly independent Algeria. </p>
<p>Still, history shows that they could, if only temporarily, shift the conversation in favour of equality, modernity and emancipation, especially among the working class. </p>
<h2>The struggle continues</h2>
<p>In recent years, there has been a revival in interest in the history of the Algerian women’s movement from <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719091070/">colonial</a> to <a href="http://www.pressesdesciencespo.fr/fr/livre/?GCOI=27246100015160&fa=author&person_id=1382">post-colonial</a> eras. </p>
<p>This is largely because women are still having to fight for equality in Africa’s largest country. </p>
<p>Across Algeria, women are <a href="http://www.elwatan.com/regions/ouest/actu-ouest/adrar-des-jeunes-filles-organisent-un-sit-in-inedit-26-09-2016-329461_222.php">protesting against unemployment</a> and <a href="http://www.aps.dz/societe/46795-le-projet-aswat-dz-pour-la-protection-des-droits-des-femmes-en-alg%C3%A9rie-lanc%C3%A9-%C3%A0-oran">campaigning for their rights</a>.</p>
<p>They are doing so not as pioneers, but as members of a women’s movement that goes back generations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nedjib Sidi Moussa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Muslim women are often criticised for their lack of political involvement, but Algerian women have embraced both anti-colonial and feminist movements.
Nedjib Sidi Moussa, Associate research scientist, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54644
2016-03-01T19:05:58Z
2016-03-01T19:05:58Z
How the political crises of the modern Muslim world created the climate for Islamic State
<p><em>How do we account for forces and events that paved the way for the emergence of Islamic State? <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/understanding-islamic-state">Our series on the jihadist group’s origins</a> tries to address this question by looking at the interplay of historical and social forces that led to its advent.</em></p>
<p><em>In the penultimate article of the series, Harith Bin Ramli traces the Muslim world’s growing disaffection with its rulers through the 20th century and how it created the climate for both the genesis of Islamic State and its continuing success in recruiting followers.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Islamic State (IS) declared its re-establishment of the caliphate on <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/29/isis-iraq-caliphate-delcaration-war">June 29, 2014</a>, almost exactly 100 years after the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/archduke-franz-ferdinand-assassinated">was assassinated</a>. Ferdinand’s death set off a series of events that would lead to the first world war and the fall of three great multinational world empires: the Austro-Hungarian (1867-1918), the Russian (1721-1917) and the Ottoman (1299-1922). </p>
<p>That IS’s leadership chose to declare its caliphate so close to the anniversary of Ferdinand’s assassination may not entirely <a href="http://www.jonathanhtodd.com/2014/06/27/6-degrees-geopolitcal-separation-franz-ferdinand-isis/">be a coincidence</a>. In a sense, the two events are connected. </p>
<p>Ferdinand’s assassination and the events it brought about (culminating in the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/treaty-of-versailles">1919 Treaty of Versailles</a>) symbolised the <a href="http://ejil.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/2/463.full">final triumph of a new idea</a> of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sovereignty/">sovereignty</a>. This modern conception was based on the popular will of a nation, rather than on noble lineage. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113015/original/image-20160226-26719-1crjex5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113015/original/image-20160226-26719-1crjex5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113015/original/image-20160226-26719-1crjex5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113015/original/image-20160226-26719-1crjex5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113015/original/image-20160226-26719-1crjex5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113015/original/image-20160226-26719-1crjex5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113015/original/image-20160226-26719-1crjex5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated on June 28, 1914.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria_-_b%26w.jpg">Carl Pietzner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In declaring the resurrection of a medieval political institution almost exactly 100 years later, IS was announcing its explicit rejection of the modern international system based on that very idea of sovereignty. </p>
<h2>Early secularisation</h2>
<p>Other than the Ottoman Sultanate’s <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2014-11-19/myth-caliphate">very late and disputed claim</a> to the title, no attempt has been made to re-establish a caliphate since the fall of the Abbasid dynasty at the hands of the Mongols in 1258. In other words, Sunni Islam has carried on for hundreds of years since the 13th century without the need for a central political figurehead. </p>
<p>If we go further back in history, it seems that <a href="http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100141493">Sunni political theory</a> had already anticipated this problem. </p>
<p>The Abbasid caliphs began to lose power from the mid-ninth century, effectively becoming puppets of various warlords by the tenth. And the caliphate underwent a serious process of decentralisation at the same time. </p>
<p><a href="http://ilsp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/hurvitz.pdf">Key contemporary texts on statecraft</a>, such as Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi’s (952-1058) Ordinances of Government (<em>al-Ahkam al-sultaniyya</em>), described the caliph as the necessary symbolic figurehead providing constitutional legitimacy for the real rulers – emirs or sultans – whose power was based on military might. </p>
<p>As in the case of the <a href="http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/buyids">Shi'i Buyid dynasty (934-1048)</a>, these rulers didn’t even have to be Sunni. And they were often expected to provide legislation based on practical and functional, rather than religious, considerations. </p>
<p>The Muslim world, then, had arguably already experienced secularisation of sorts before the modern age. Or, at the very least, it had for quite some time existed within a political system that balanced power between religious and worldly interests. </p>
<p>And when the caliphate came to an end in the 13th century, both the institutions of kingship and the religious courts (run by the scholar-jurists) were able to carry on functioning without difficulty.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113020/original/image-20160226-26673-dwg0r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113020/original/image-20160226-26673-dwg0r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113020/original/image-20160226-26673-dwg0r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113020/original/image-20160226-26673-dwg0r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113020/original/image-20160226-26673-dwg0r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113020/original/image-20160226-26673-dwg0r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113020/original/image-20160226-26673-dwg0r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWilayah_Abbasiyyah_semasa_khalifah_Harun_al-Rashid.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was the 19th-century Muslim revivalist and anti-colonial movement known as <a href="http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1819?_hi=3&_pos=1">Pan-Islamism</a> that was responsible for reviving the Ottoman claim to the caliphate. The idea was revived again briefly in early 20th-century British India as the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/Khilafat-movement">anti-colonial Khilafat movement</a>. </p>
<p>But anti-colonial efforts after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, even those primarily based on religious beliefs, have rarely called for a return of the caliphate. </p>
<p>If anything, successors of Pan-Islamism, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, have generally worked within the framework of nation states. Putting aside doubts about their actual ability to commit to democracy and secularism, such movements have generally envisioned an Islamic state along more modern lines, with room for political participation and elections.</p>
<h2>Modern utopias and old dynasties</h2>
<p>So why evoke the caliphate in the first place? The simple answer is that it has never been completely dismissed as an option. </p>
<p>In Sunni law and political theology, once <a href="http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e989?_hi=0&_pos=3182">consensus</a> over an issue has been reached, it is hard for later generations to go against it. This was why Egyptian scholar <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/09/religion-islam-secularism-egypt">Ali Abd al-Raziq</a> was removed from his post at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Azhar_University">Al-Azhar University</a> and attacked for introducing a deviant interpretation after he wrote an argument for a secular interpretation of the caliphate in 1925.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113021/original/image-20160226-26697-17h3h4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113021/original/image-20160226-26697-17h3h4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113021/original/image-20160226-26697-17h3h4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113021/original/image-20160226-26697-17h3h4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=765&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113021/original/image-20160226-26697-17h3h4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113021/original/image-20160226-26697-17h3h4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113021/original/image-20160226-26697-17h3h4r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thinkers such as Abul Ala Mawdudi tried to place a revived caliphate within some type of democratic framework.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAbul_ala_maududi.jpg">DiLeeF via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As <a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-inevitable-caliphate/">many</a> <a href="http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/13267/new-texts-out-now_madawi-al-rasheed-carool-kersten">recent</a> <a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/recalling-the-caliphate/">studies</a> show, the idea of the caliphate and its revival has had a certain utopian appeal for a wide spectrum of modern Muslim thinkers. And not just those with authoritarian or militant inclinations. </p>
<p>Some leading Muslim revivalists such as <a href="http://muhammad-asad.com/Principles-State-Government-Islam.pdf">Muhammad Asad (1900-1992)</a> and <a href="http://www.meforum.org/151/islams-democratic-essence">Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903-1979)</a>, for example, have tried to place a revived caliphate within some type of <a href="https://www.academia.edu/421254/Democracy_in_Islam_The_Views_of_Several_Modern_Muslim_Scholars">democratic framework</a>.</p>
<p>But, in practice, the dominant tendency here too has really been to seek the liberation or revival of Muslim societies within the nation-state framework. </p>
<p>If anything, national aspirations and the desire to modernise society existed before the formation of the new political order after the first world war. The majority of the populations of Muslim lands welcomed the fall of the three empires, or at least didn’t feel very strongly about the survival of traditional ruling dynasties. </p>
<p>And, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, most dynasties that stayed in power did so by reinventing their states along modern, mainly secular, models. </p>
<p>But this did not always succeed. The waves of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/7/newsid_3074000/3074069.stm">revolutions</a> and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/1/newsid_3911000/3911587.stm">military coups</a> that swept the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world throughout the 1950s and 1960s amply illustrate that popular sentiment identified traditional dynasties with the continuing influence of colonial powers. </p>
<p>In Egypt, under the Muhammad Ali dynasty (1805-1952), for example, the control of the then-French Canal epitomised the interdependent relationship between the dynasty and Western power. This was why <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/focus/arabunity/2008/02/200852517252821627.html">Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970)</a> made great efforts to regain it in the name of Egyptian sovereignty when he became the country’s second president in 1956.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113027/original/image-20160226-26679-ul3rf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113027/original/image-20160226-26679-ul3rf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113027/original/image-20160226-26679-ul3rf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113027/original/image-20160226-26679-ul3rf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113027/original/image-20160226-26679-ul3rf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113027/original/image-20160226-26679-ul3rf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113027/original/image-20160226-26679-ul3rf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inauguration of the Suez Canal at Port Said, Egypt, in 1869.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASuezkanal1869.jpg">Public domain via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dissolving political legitimacy</h2>
<p>Either way, the success of the new Muslim nation states could be said to be predicated on two major expectations. The first was improvement of citizens’ lives – not only in terms of material progress, but also the benefits of freedom and the ability to represent the popular will through participatory politics. </p>
<p>The second was the ability of Muslim nations to unite against outside interference and commit to the liberation of Palestine. On both counts, the latter half of the 20th century witnessed abysmal failures and an increasing sense of frustration with Muslim leaders. </p>
<p>In many places, populism eventually gave way to authoritarianism. And the loss of further lands to Israel in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War">1967 Six-Day War</a> revealed the inherent weakness and lack of unity among the new Muslim nations.</p>
<p>Anwar Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel after the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/6/newsid_2514000/2514317.stm">1973 Yom Kippur War</a> was widely seen as an act of betrayal, for breaking ranks in what should have been a united front. His decision to do so despite lacking popular support in Egypt only revealed the extent to which the country had evolved into a dictatorship. </p>
<p>Sadat’s consequent <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/6/newsid_2515000/2515841.stm">assassination</a> at the hands of a small radical splinter group of religious militants acted as a warning to other Muslim leaders. Now they couldn’t simply ignore or lock away religious critics, even if the majority of the population still subscribed to the secular nation-state model. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113031/original/image-20160226-26697-q9jcf8.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113031/original/image-20160226-26697-q9jcf8.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113031/original/image-20160226-26697-q9jcf8.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113031/original/image-20160226-26697-q9jcf8.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113031/original/image-20160226-26697-q9jcf8.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113031/original/image-20160226-26697-q9jcf8.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113031/original/image-20160226-26697-q9jcf8.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel was widely seen as an act of betrayal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APresident_Anwar_Sadat_of_Egypt_arrives_in_the_United_States.JPEG">US Department of Defence Visual information via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This idea was reinforced by Iran’s <a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution-of-1978-1979">1979 Islamic Revolution</a>, as well as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure">failed religious revolution</a> in the holy city of Mecca the same year. </p>
<p>Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, Muslim leaders around the world increasingly made compromises with religious reactionary forces, allowing them to expand influence in the public sphere. In many cases, these leaders increasingly adopted religious rhetoric themselves.</p>
<p>Showing support for fellow Muslims in the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1987) or the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intifada">First Palestinian Intifada</a> provided an opportunity to manage the threat of religious radicalism. National leaders probably also saw this as an effective way to deflect attention from the authoritarian nature of many Muslim states. </p>
<p>And, as demonstrated by <a href="https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2015/09/12/did-saddam-hussein-become-a-religious-believer/">Saddam Hussain’s turn to religious propaganda</a> after the 1990-91 Gulf War, it could be used as a last resort when other ways of demonstrating legitimacy had failed.</p>
<h2>The longer view</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/Persian-Gulf-War">The Gulf War</a> also brought non-Muslim troops to Arabian soil, inspiring <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military-july-dec96-fatwa_1996/">Osama bin Laden’s call for jihad</a> against the Western nations that participated in it. And it eventually led to the US invasion of Iraq. That set off a chain of events that created in the country the chaotic conditions that enabled the rise of Islamic State. </p>
<p>If the IS leadership is really an <a href="http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mideast-crisis-iraq-islamicstate/">alliance between ex-Ba'athist generals and an offshoot of al-Qaeda</a>, as has often been depicted, then we don’t have to go far beyond the events of this war to explain how the group formed. But the rise of Islamic State and its declaration of the caliphate can also be read as part of a wider story that has unfolded since the formation of modern nation states in the Muslim world. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/86c958c2-ff78-11e3-8a35-00144feab7de.html#axzz367SAUfPl">some commentators</a> have pointed out, it’s not so much the Sykes-Picot agreement and the drawing of artificial national borders by colonial powers that brought about IS. </p>
<p>The modern nation-state model – as much as it’s based on <a href="https://nationalismstudies.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/benedict-anderson/">a kind of fiction</a> – is still strong in most parts of the Muslim world. And, I believe, it’s still the preferred option for most Muslims today. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113024/original/image-20160226-26669-1pzyzn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113024/original/image-20160226-26669-1pzyzn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113024/original/image-20160226-26669-1pzyzn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113024/original/image-20160226-26669-1pzyzn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113024/original/image-20160226-26669-1pzyzn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113024/original/image-20160226-26669-1pzyzn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113024/original/image-20160226-26669-1pzyzn3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People of Arak toppled the Shah’s statue in Bāgh Mwlli (central square of Arak) during 1979 revolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AIranian_Revolution_in_Arak.jpg">Dooste Amin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the long century that has passed since the first world war has been increasingly marked by frustration. It’s littered with the broken promises of Muslim rulers to bring about a transition to more representative forms of government. And it has been marked by a sense that Western powers continue to control and manipulate events in the region, in a way that doesn’t always represent the best interests of Muslim societies.</p>
<p>An extreme <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-arab-spring-five-years-on-a-season-that-began-in-hope-but-ended-in-desolation-a6803161.html">high point of frustration</a> was reached in the events of the so-called <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12813859">Arab Spring</a>. The wave of popular demonstrations against the autocratic regimes of the Arab world were seen as the first winds of change that would bring democracy to the region. </p>
<p>But, with the possible exception of Tunisia, all of these countries underwent either destabilisation (Libya, Syria), the return of military rule (Egypt), or the further clamping down on civil rights (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other Gulf monarchies). </p>
<p>I would hesitate to describe IS’s declaration of a caliphate as a serious challenge to the modern nation-state model. But the small, albeit substantial, stream of followers it manages to recruit daily shows it would be wrong to take for granted that the terms of the international order can simply be dictated from above forever. </p>
<p>When brute force increasingly has the final say over how people live their lives, it becomes harder for them to differentiate between the lesser of two evils.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is the eighth article in our series on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/understanding-islamic-state">historical roots of Islamic State</a>. <a href="http://bit.ly/UnderstandingIS">Download our special report</a> collating the whole the series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harith Bin Ramli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The rise of Islamic State and its declaration of the caliphate can be read as part of a wider story that has unfolded since the formation of modern nation states in the Muslim world.
Harith Bin Ramli, Research Fellow, Cambridge Muslim College & Teaching Fellow, SOAS, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.