tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/colonisation-16364/articles
Colonisation – The Conversation
2024-03-18T23:20:44Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225780
2024-03-18T23:20:44Z
2024-03-18T23:20:44Z
‘Care is in everything we do and everything we are’: the work of Indigenous women needs to be valued
<p>It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group.</p>
<p>Working with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner’s office, we worked with <a href="https://caepr.cass.anu.edu.au/research/publications/caring-about-care">more than 100 Indigenous women across</a> Australia to talk about their interpretations and experiences of care. </p>
<p>“Mainstream” definitions and measures of care do not include the vast and complex ways care is defined by First Nations women. This includes care not only for people, but for communities, Country and culture. </p>
<p>It means important work goes unrecognised, uncompensated or misunderstood, leading to the marginalisation of this crucial work and the women who do it.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/definitions-are-often-very-western-this-excludes-us-our-research-shows-how-to-boost-indigenous-participation-in-stem-223465">'Definitions are often very western. This excludes us.' Our research shows how to boost Indigenous participation in STEM</a>
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<h2>Redefining the concept</h2>
<p>The Australian Human Rights Commission’s <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-social-justice/publications/wiyi-yani-u-thangani">Wiyi Yani U Thangani</a> report illuminates the crucial importance of the care provided by First Nations women. Our work follows and builds on this report.</p>
<p>An Indigenous woman from the East Kimberley told us:</p>
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<p>Well, care for me, as an Indigenous person, is not just caring for your family, it’s caring for your Country.</p>
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<p>Another woman from the ACT told us care is a disposition, and a means of respecting culture and heritage: </p>
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<p>[Care is] enveloped in everything we do and everything we are and everything about where we are going and paying homage again to our ancestors and who’s come before us. That’s what care is.</p>
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<p>This notion of care as a strength is an important insight from the women in this study. However, unpaid care is often unrecognised and undervalued in Australian policy, which while prioritising getting women into employment, has neglected funding and supporting the existing unpaid care work that women do. </p>
<p>What is evident from our study is that Indigenous women want more support for the care work they do, as well as better care services largely within Aboriginal community-controlled organisations to assist them in doing it.</p>
<h2>Care has consequences</h2>
<p>Women frequently linked their demanding care loads to ongoing colonisation, which continues to create damage to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. A woman from greater Sydney said:</p>
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<p>It’s colonial […] It’s just not being able to do things in the way we should be doing them […] because of the colonial structure and things like that. </p>
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<p>This includes the impacts of colonisation on gender roles, child removals, incarceration rates, poor health, poverty, racism and more. </p>
<p>It also includes the impacts of state institutions set up to “care”, but which are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/01/coalition-hails-success-of-cashless-welfare-card-and-says-kalgoorlie-will-be-next-site">often uncaring</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-children-are-still-being-removed-at-disproportionate-rates-cultural-assumptions-about-parenting-need-to-change-169090">may be violent and harmful</a>.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this requires Indigenous people’s care to heal, adding extra demands on existing care loads. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-women-dont-always-access-health-care-after-head-injuries-from-family-violence-heres-why-206084">First Nations women don't always access health care after head injuries from family violence. Here's why</a>
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<p>Many of the women interviewed in this study were also tired, and often carers needed care too. Some were in, or had been through, periods of utter exhaustion and illness due to trying to carry their stressful care load. A Central Australian woman told us:</p>
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<p>It’s hard. It’s draining. Every day just exhausted. Sometimes there’s days when I just can’t keep up with it. And I don’t want to listen, just go away. But those are days when they really need help. So yeah, it’s very exhausting.</p>
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<h2>Time is money, but no one gets paid</h2>
<p>Our research also included a time-use survey, which showed that all unpaid care activities accounted for, on average, 62% of our participant women’s time on a usual weekday (about 14.8 hours per day on average), with 48% of their time (around 11.5 hours) spent caring for others and/or caring for Country and culture specifically. </p>
<p>Because (lost) remuneration for this work was raised as a crucial point by Indigenous women during our interviews, we also calculated the approximate market value of this unpaid care work through using hourly award rates for corresponding care activities (sometimes called the replacement method, which understands the cost of this work in the paid market). </p>
<p>The estimated economic value of this work ranged between $223.01 and $457.39 per day (representing an estimated annual salary of between $81,175.64 and $118,921.40). This estimation is conservative as it does not include the multitasking of more than one care activity at the one time.</p>
<p>The estimation raises important questions as to what is owed to Indigenous women, not just because the economy free-rides on unpaid care, but also because much of this care work mops up the mess of colonisation. </p>
<p>Many of the women we spoke to also talked about how unpaid care and paid employment interact. </p>
<p>In addition to their unpaid care roles, most women in paid employment in this study had roles in the community sector which put them at the frontline of caring for community. They saw this work as part of their broader commitment to supporting their families, communities and advancing Indigenous peoples. It is therefore hard to draw a line for these women between paid and unpaid work, meaning it is rare to be able to “switch off”. </p>
<p>Often, employers didn’t realise the amount of unpaid care of this type women do in <a href="https://theconversation.com/during-naidoc-week-many-indigenous-women-are-assigned-unpaid-work-new-research-shows-how-prevalent-this-is-in-the-workplace-208454">their paid work roles</a>, even though this actually makes their paid employment successful. Women are also not paid adequately for these valuable skills.</p>
<h2>A new approach is needed</h2>
<p>Our research follows generations of Indigenous women who have long shown the strength of care, but also looks at how settler society makes this work harder. </p>
<p>This research underlines the importance of a new approach to supporting Indigenous women, in which their voices, ideas and needs are central, and where care is placed at the heart. This is different to just “fitting” Indigenous care into various settler models, policies and measures already in circulation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elise Klein receives funding from the Gender Institute at the Australian National University. She is a member of the Anti-Poverty Centre, the Accountable Income Management Network and a Co-Director of the Australian Basic Income Lab.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chay Brown receives funding from the Office of Gender Equity and Diversity at the Northern Territory Government. She is affiliated with ANU, Tangentyere Council, and Her Story Mparntwe. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kayla Glynn-Braun is a First Nation Wiradjuri Women whom is a project coordinator at The Equality Institute and Co-Foundered Her Story Consulting and lead on U Right Sis? project, Indigenous Knowledge</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet Hunt and Zoe Staines 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>
To First Nations women, ‘care’ is more broad and all-encompassing than traditional definitions. We need a new approach to capturing, and appreciating, their work, paid and unpaid.
Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University
Chay Brown, Managing Director, Her Story Consulting & Postdoctoral fellow, Australian National University
Janet Hunt, Honorary Associate Professor, CAEPR, Australian National University
Kayla Glynn-Braun, Director of Her Story, project coordinator at The Equality Institute, lead on U Right Sis? project, Indigenous Knowledge
Zoe Staines, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221743
2024-01-24T19:06:04Z
2024-01-24T19:06:04Z
What’s behind Woolworths, Aldi and Kmart distancing themselves from Australia Day?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571029/original/file-20240124-19-hrfn7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C613%2C4345%2C2448&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aussie-thongs-beach-254045218">Kairosing/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this month, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-11/woolworths-big-w-shops-australia-day-merch-sales-decision/103309612">Woolworths</a> announced it would no longer stock merchandise promoting Australia Day on January 26, a date surrounded by controversy.</p>
<p>While observed as a national public holiday for more than 90 years, a 2021 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/17/conservative-politicians-stoking-australia-day-debate-online-with-paid-ads-analysis-finds">ABC social survey</a> found 55% of Australians supported changing the date.</p>
<p><a href="https://insiderguides.com.au/why-is-australia-day-so-controversial/">January 26</a> marks the beginning of the colonisation of Australia, bringing violence, theft and oppression to the First Nations peoples who had lived on the land for more than 50,000 years. It is also called Invasion Day, Survival Day or Day of Mourning.</p>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/other-industries/more-aussie-businesses-adopt-woke-australia-day-stance/news-story/f31514b039e81173118174bf01215435">workplaces</a> including ANZ, Telstra and Woodside have encouraged the shift away from celebrating the date as Australia Day by offering employees an alternative day off.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-should-celebrate-australia-day-on-march-3-the-day-we-became-a-fully-independent-country-221015">Why we should celebrate Australia Day on March 3 – the day we became a fully independent country</a>
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<p>Woolworths is <a href="https://www.bandt.com.au/the-date-is-not-the-issue-kmart-jumps-on-board-australia-day-boycott/">not the only retailer</a> to distance itself from the date this year with Aldi announcing it will not stock Australia-themed products under its Special Buys promotion. Kmart has not sold items specific to January 26 since last year.</p>
<h2>The message the retailers are trying to send the community</h2>
<p>When corporations wade into sociopolitical activism, they commonly overplay social motivations and underplay expected gains to the bottom line. What is unusual about Woolworths’ position is that the company has defended this as a business decision first and foremost. </p>
<p>This raises questions about big retailers shying away from Australia Day merchandise for business rather than social reasons.</p>
<p>Why pursue a business-first, activism-second strategy? Does this appease shareholders? How does the public interpret “activism without activism” and is it authentic? Is this just a move to deflect away from exorbitant prices?</p>
<h2>A business case for activism</h2>
<p>Opposition leader Peter Dutton quickly labelled this as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/11/woolworths-big-w-australia-day-merchandise-dropped-sale-peter-dutton-boycott-calls">peddling woke agendas</a>”. But a Woolworths Group spokesperson cited a “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-11/woolworths-big-w-shops-australia-day-merch-sales-decision/103309612">gradual decline</a>” in demand for Australia Day-themed products. They also acknowledged the broader discussion of January 26th’s significance to different communities.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571030/original/file-20240124-27-vlojmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Large group of men and women protesting against Australia Day" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571030/original/file-20240124-27-vlojmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571030/original/file-20240124-27-vlojmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571030/original/file-20240124-27-vlojmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571030/original/file-20240124-27-vlojmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571030/original/file-20240124-27-vlojmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571030/original/file-20240124-27-vlojmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571030/original/file-20240124-27-vlojmg.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"></a>
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<span class="caption">A 2021 survey found 55% of Australians supported changing the date.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/search/australia-day-protest?image_type=photo">Shutterstock/Dave Hewison Photography</a></span>
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<p>A key reason to make a business case for corporate activism lies with <a href="https://www.smartcompany.com.au/business-advice/politics/shareholders-companies-yes-campaign-funding/">shareholders</a>. They typically oppose companies taking a stand on social justice issues believing businesses should “stay in their lane”.</p>
<p>Indeed, when Woolworths supported the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, it resulted in a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/8e057289-2aa9-49b1-a1cf-e1de85c769a8">backlash</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022242920937000">Academic research</a> indicates a brand’s activist position can harm shareholder returns. Investors view this as a misallocation of resources that threatens profit maximisation. Perceived <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022243720947682">risk of corporate activism</a> is heightened for businesses with large market share, like Woolworths. They have more customers to lose and fewer to gain. </p>
<p>In this instance, Woolworths took a business-first, activism-second approach. This likely appeases shareholders because making merchandising decisions is well within Woolworths’ remit. Also, by the retailer cloaking its activism as profit maximisation, shareholders are less likely to be concerned. </p>
<p>As for customers, they increasingly understand the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811111001561">duality of a brand’s motives</a>. If there are perceptions of sufficient social impact, self-serving motives are also deemed acceptable. Woolworths illuminated the profit-making motive while subtly bringing to light the problematic history of Australia Day. </p>
<h2>Activism without activism?</h2>
<p>While Woolworths led with business reasons rather than support of First Nations peoples, it was interpreted by the public as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/15/peter-dutton-woolworths-australia-day-boycott-blamed-teneriffe-store-vandalism-metro-teneriffe">political act</a>, eliciting debate and grandstanding. </p>
<p>A company of this stature with significant marketing intelligence could have correctly predicted this reaction and made a calculated decision to take a stand on an issue at the front of the public’s mind. Yet this looks like activism without activism. Woolworths brought a sociopolitical issue to the fore but operated behind the curtain of dollars and cents. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/change-the-date-debates-about-january-26-distract-from-the-truth-telling-australia-needs-to-do-197046">'Change the date' debates about January 26 distract from the truth telling Australia needs to do</a>
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<p>Consumers are discerning about corporate activism, requiring companies to move beyond marketing rhetoric and demonstrate meaningful actions. Usually activism attracts criticism when brands are perceived to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/post-gillette-other-brands-are-better-at-matching-practice-with-talk-but-dont-get-the-publicity-110595">woke washing</a> - that is, misleading consumers about prosocial corporate practices. Brand activism is therefore sometimes viewed as a “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016328722001793">fake marketing trick</a>” because brands are not backing up their stance on social justice issues.</p>
<p>Woolworths by contrast has taken concrete action - not capitalising on the “Australia Day” term and imagery in its marketing and merchandise on January 26.
This move falls short of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0743915620947359">authentic brand activism</a>.</p>
<h2>A deflection tactic?</h2>
<p>Australia’s fraught socioeconomic climate has put retailers in the spotlight. Currently, brands like Woolworths are facing media and political scrutiny for price gouging. In Queensland, there is a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-19/qld-grocery-prices-parliamentary-inquiry-woolworths-coles/103367088">parliamentary inquiry</a> into the discrepancy between prices paid to suppliers and those paid at the checkout. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and Senate are also holding inquiries.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571058/original/file-20240124-25-b1td3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Signs promoting Aldi and Woolworths" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571058/original/file-20240124-25-b1td3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571058/original/file-20240124-25-b1td3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571058/original/file-20240124-25-b1td3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571058/original/file-20240124-25-b1td3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571058/original/file-20240124-25-b1td3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571058/original/file-20240124-25-b1td3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571058/original/file-20240124-25-b1td3b.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"></a>
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<span class="caption">Is the stance against Australia Day a move to distract from the pricing inquiries?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rob1037/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Aside from making room for more profitable merchandise or advancing the reconciliation agenda, is Woolworths deflecting attention from its role in these problems? Changing the conversation to something time-bound (that is, likely to die down January 27th) may be beneficial. </p>
<p>Research speaks to such a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0363811194900558?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=849d29c54d921f66">values-based strategy</a>. Brands call on social initiatives to deflect from negative issues and improve future discourse about their business. In this case, directing discussion to their social responsiveness, even if secondary, enables Woolworths to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2021.1926954">divert attention away</a> from potentially exploitative practices. </p>
<h2>Corporate activism: an expanding and evolving strategy</h2>
<p>Woolworths’ approach to activism warrants examination. While the company took action that ostensibly opposes the celebration of Australia Day on January 26, they communicated a profit motive fitting for the largest grocery chain in Australia by market share. They skirted full-blown corporate sociopolitical activism, an approach that was possibly more digestible for shareholders and customers (politicians less so).</p>
<p>However, this approach is also less authentic. Woolworths states its <a href="https://mumbrella.com.au/what-brands-can-learn-from-the-woolworths-australia-day-debacle-812136">commitment to reconciliation</a> through the support of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and the Uluru Statement from the Heart. So where in this most recent decision was the marketing rhetoric that embraces and respects Indigenous Australians? This represents a lost opportunity to elevate the brand and promote the <a href="http://changethedate.org/">Change the Date </a>movement.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/welcome-to-may-9-the-true-australia-day-204555">Welcome to May 9 – the true Australia Day</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221743/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>
Profits, not social justice, appear to be why the big grocers are dropping support for Australia Day. But creating a distraction when they’re being criticised for high prices is also possible.
Amanda Spry, Senior Lecturer of Marketing, RMIT University
Daniel Rayne, Marketing lecturer, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217970
2023-11-22T14:37:55Z
2023-11-22T14:37:55Z
Good Jew, Bad Jew: new book explores why the west views brutality against Ukrainians and Palestinians differently
<p><em>In a recently published book Steven Friedman, who has written extensively on the political and social aspects of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, explores the racist underpinnings of the west’s responses to Israel’s war in Gaza. This is an extract from the book, <a href="https://www.witspress.co.za/page/detail/Good-Jew-Bad-Jew/?K=9781776148486">Good Jew, Bad Jew</a>.</em></p>
<p>Ugandan academic <a href="https://anthropology.columbia.edu/content/mahmood-mamdani">Mahmood Mamdani</a> sees a link between the violence of the coloniser and the slaughter of Jews and Slavs by the Nazis. The racial theories of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Houston-Stewart-Chamberlain">Houston Stewart Chamberlain</a> and others who claimed the Aryan race was superior meant that Jews and Slavs, who were both regarded as not Aryan, could be placed beyond the pale of civilisation and were thus candidates for the “laws of nature”, not of war. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Good-Muslim-Bad-America-Terror/dp/0385515375">Mamdani</a>, in World War II, the Nazis “observed the laws of war against the Western powers but not against Russia”, and not against Jewish civilians and resistance fighters. British, American and French prisoners of war were treated according to the rules of the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.32_GC-III-EN.pdf">Third Geneva Convention</a>, but Russians were not.</p>
<p>A bizarre feature of this distinction between the “civilised” and those ripe for the slaughter was that the Nazis’ Jewish prisoners of war serving in the Western armies were not slaughtered. But Russian soldiers were. This does not mean that Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners were treated entirely equally. Jewish prisoners were usually separated from others and there is some evidence that <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3685079">they were treated more harshly</a>. </p>
<p>But the vast majority survived the war and there is no evidence that any were killed because they were Jewish. Scholars have made various attempts to explain this. But perhaps the most plausible explanation is one that none of them offers – that serving in a Western European or American army meant that Jews, in the eyes of their Nazi captors, had attained at least a sufficient degree of “Europeanness” to save them from death. Serving in the Russian military conferred no such “honorary Aryan” status because Soviet Russia was considered a mortal enemy of the Aryan race – a “non-Western” presence in Europe.</p>
<p><a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/gassing-operations">Nazi extermination camps</a>, where gas chambers were used as instruments of slaughter, were all situated in occupied Poland, not in Germany. There were concentration camps in Germany, but these were forced labour camps, not death camps. An obvious explanation for this seemingly odd fact is that the Nazis worried that Germans might learn what was happening in death camps, and might not share their government’s view that wholesale slaughter was acceptable. </p>
<p>This was similar to the tactics of the architects of apartheid in South Africa. They ensured that brutality directed at black people was usually imposed in areas away from the gaze of white people. But it seems unlikely that this explanation would hold. Apartheid showed that human rights abuses do not need to be moved to another country to hide them from the sight of the dominant group. </p>
<p>Rather, it seems likely that the reason was that which Mamdani’s analysis suggests: by siting the camps to the east of Germany, the Nazis were, in effect, removing them from Western Europe where such barbarism was not considered acceptable. The east of Europe became, in a sense, a colony inhabited by people who were not considered Aryan and therefore not fully European. They were thus subject only to the “laws of nature”.</p>
<h2>Anti-semitism, racism and genocide</h2>
<p>Nazi anti-Jewish bigotry was originally labelled racism while bigotry against people who were not white Europeans was not. The context of the situation of the camps helps to explain that. Bigotry was acceptable only if it was directed at people who were not European. Mamdani cites <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/335802">A History of Bombing</a>, by the Swedish author Sven Lindqvist. He <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Good-Muslim-Bad-America-Terror/dp/0385515375">observes</a> that the Nazi genocide was</p>
<blockquote>
<p>born at the meeting point of two traditions that marked modern Western civilization: ‘the anti-Semitic tradition and the tradition of genocide of colonised peoples’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The first was (mainly) the prejudice of the right. The second produced the less obvious but still real prejudices which justified colonisation and continue to underpin mainstream European attitudes. Mamdani <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Good-Muslim-Bad-America-Terror/dp/0385515375">notes</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The fate of the Jewish people was that they were to be exterminated as a whole. In that, they were unique – but only in Europe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This point, he adds, was not lost on intellectuals from colonised countries, such as the Martinican thinker Aimé Césaire, who <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfkrm">wrote that</a> the European bourgeoisie could not forgive Hitler for</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the ‘coolies’ of India, and the ‘niggers’ of Africa.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This, of course, explains why a Europe that was justifiably appalled at the Nazi genocide had no great qualms about the wholesale slaughter of <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/the-colonial-legacy-and-transitional-justice-in-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo/">Congolese</a> or about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibian-traditional-leaders-haul-germany-before-us-court-in-genocide-test-case-71222">Herero genocide</a>. </p>
<p>It might be argued that the reason was not bigotry but distance. Events in Africa were simply not noticed in Europe because they happened far away, and few people were aware of them. But Mamdani’s view that race prejudice was at work is supported by the fact that these attitudes persist today, when communications technologies ensure that the Western mainstream knows what is wrought on people in far-off places. A clear example is the attitudes prompted by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/calling-the-war-in-ukraine-a-tragedy-shelters-its-perpetrators-from-blame-and-responsibility-212080">Russian invasion of Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>As numerous critiques have shown, European politicians and journalists <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/1/covering-ukraine-a-mean-streak-of-racist-exceptionalism">drew repeated attention</a> to the fact that the Ukrainians were white Europeans or “people like us” – and therefore “civilised” – in contrast to Iraqis, Yemenis, Syrians, Afghanis, Africans and, until not that long ago, Jews. </p>
<p>While this could be dismissed as the view of a bigoted few, the fact that Europe and the United States acted with a level of anger never directed at the Israeli state’s bombing of Palestinians, Saudi bombing of Yemen or Russian bombing of Muslim Chechnya and Syria suggests that Mamdani’s hypothesis explains this reaction too. That the United States led the charge, despite its own incursions into Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, could be explained as plain hypocrisy but could also fit in with Mamdani’s thesis. The Russians had broken the rules of “civilised war” by treating white European Ukrainians in a manner that should be reserved for colonised subjects. Had they restricted themselves, like the West, to visiting misery only on people who were not European, such as the Syrians whom they had earlier bombed, they would have acted well within “civilised” bounds.</p>
<h2>Racial experiments</h2>
<p>But it seems not always possible to restrict barbarism to the colonies. Mamdani <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/106769/good-muslim-bad-muslim-by-mahmood-mamdani/">shows</a> how European behaviour in Namibia set the stage for the Nazi genocide in Europe. It was in Namibia in the first years of the 20th century that Eugen Fischer, a German geneticist, conducted “racial experiments” on Herero people who were, as Jews would later be, interned in concentration camps. Fischer claimed to have shown that people born of mixed Herero and German parentage were</p>
<blockquote>
<p>physically and mentally inferior to their German parents.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Adolf Hitler <a href="https://dnalc.cshl.edu/view/15745-Eugen-Fischer-about-1938.html">read</a> Fischer’s book that made this claim, and later appointed him rector of the university of Berlin. One of Fischer’s students was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Josef-Mengele">Josef Mengele</a>, who conducted experiments in Auschwitz on Jewish human beings and who also selected victims for the gas chambers.</p>
<p>Nazism was, seen through this lens, what Franz Fanon <a href="https://grattoncourses.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/frantz-fanon-richard-philcox-jean-paul-sartre-homi-k.-bhabha-the-wretched-of-the-earth-grove-press-2011.pdf">suggested it was</a>: a form of colonial rule extended into Europe. It took the “anti-Semitic tradition” to its logical conclusion by relegating Jews to the status of Africans whose slaughter Chamberlain celebrated in his letters to the German Kaiser hailing the murder of Hereros. </p>
<p>We can see current attempts to align Jews with white supremacy and ethnic nationalism as attempts to escape this history and to position “good”, Zionist, Jews as the white Europeans that Nazism insisted they were not. This gives added significance to the fact that the first American writings claiming a “new anti-Semitism” devoted much effort to blaming black people for anti-Semitism, thus signalling that Jews shared the prejudices of the white European mainstream and so should never have been treated as the Congolese and Hereros had been.</p>
<h2>Zionism and violence against Palestinians</h2>
<p>The current alliance between the Israeli state and other ethnic nationalists is a further example of the attempt to become European. Viewed in this way, today’s right-wing Zionism is not, as it is sometimes portrayed, a departure from the movement’s supposed humanist past. There is a direct line from Herzl, whose Zionism was inspired by the music of a virulent anti-Semite, to the Israeli state and its supporters who find sustenance in the prejudices of <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-and-the-rise-of-white-identity-in-politics-67037">Donald Trump</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/viktor-orbans-use-and-misuse-of-religion-serves-as-a-warning-to-western-democracies-146277">Viktor Orban</a>.</p>
<p>Much the same impulse surely drives British Jews who today unite with those who had once excluded them from their clubs and, more recently, stereotyped them in novels. These stereotypes are used to denounce left-wingers whom the right has <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Specter-Haunting-Europe-Myth-Judeo-Bolshevism/dp/0674047680">always associated with Jewishness</a>.</p>
<p>Mamdani uses the term “conscripts of Western power” to describe those who were once oppressed by the West but are <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Good-Muslim-Bad-America-Terror/dp/0385515375">now allied to it</a>. But today’s “good Jews” are not conscripts; they are volunteers.</p>
<p>His argument also sheds new light on the visits of right-wing anti-Semites to the Yad Vashem memorial to Nazi victims, a practice aptly described by the Israeli journalist Noa Landau as <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2022-02-28/ty-article-opinion/.premium/the-writing-has-been-on-the-wall-for-yad-vashems-schnorrer-culture/0000017f-dc3a-d3ff-a7ff-fdbab8fd0000">“Shoah-washing”</a>. The Israeli anti-Zionist activist Orly Noy <a href="https://www.972mag.com/holocaust-antisemitism-israel-tool/">notes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If Zionism previously justified its crimes against the Palestinian people in the name of the Holocaust, today it uses the Holocaust as a tool to justify antisemitism itself in exchange for political profit. More than that: it allows an antisemite to define what antisemitism is. This is the bitter truth we face today – for the official State of Israel, the concept of the Holocaust and antisemitism are purely political means, and as such can be manipulated, distorted, and deceived, just like any other political tool.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nazi crimes are used by the Israeli state to justify violence against Palestinians. But viewed through Mamdani’s distinction, and the core role that Nazi mass murder plays in Zionism’s justifications, the Israeli state’s use of the Nazi genocide may also be seen as a continuing attempt to remind ethnic nationalists that by forming an ethnic nationalist state, Jews should be treated as the Nazis would not treat them – as fellow Europeans, rather than as “darker people” who are deserving targets of racism.</p>
<p>Noy’s reference to allowing anti-Semites to define anti-Semitism may also shed light on why today’s anti-Semites are happy to accept the invitation to mourn a Nazi slaughter that they usually excuse. An obvious explanation is that their admiration for the Israeli state makes a little hypocrisy necessary. </p>
<p>If their favourite ethnic nationalist state wants heads of government who feel that the Nazi genocide has received an unfair bad press to shed a ritualised tear for its victims, that is a small price to pay. But they may also be signalling that the establishment of an ethnic nationalist state, which itself colonises the “darker races”, entitles “good Jews” to the European status that the Nazis had denied them. This, of course, does not mean that “bad Jews” – those who are not fervent ethnic nationalists – deserve the same consideration.</p>
<p>The distinction between European and colonial wars may also shed more light on why “good Jews”, those who support the Israeli state, are so firmly supported by Western centrists and liberals. If Jews are, as the opponents of Nazi racism insisted, European, then the Israeli state can be seen as another colonial enterprise, which, in the view of some of its opponents, <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1652565">is exactly what it is</a>. And so its response to Palestinians is, in the eyes of its European allies, governed by the “laws of nature”, not by the “laws of war”. To brutalise Ukrainians is to violate the “laws of war” and is unacceptable to Europe and its heirs. To brutalise Palestinians is to follow the “laws of nature”. The Israeli state may do as it pleases to Palestinians without violating the code of those to whom “Europeanness” or “whiteness” is a valued identity – many of whom are liberals or centrists.</p>
<p>The distinction between European and colonial wars, then, throws important light on the new way in which Jews are viewed both by white supremacists and by mainstream Europe.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.witspress.co.za/page/detail/Good-Jew-Bad-Jew/?K=9781776148486">Good Jew, Bad Jew: Racism, anti-Semitism and the assault on meaning</a> is published by Wits University Press</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217970/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman 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 European bourgeoisie could not forgive Hitler because he applied in Europe colonialist procedures previously reserved for the supposedly inferior Arabs, Indians, and Africans.
Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215423
2023-11-01T02:30:58Z
2023-11-01T02:30:58Z
Bennelong and Phillip: wrestling with our historical assumptions through the entangled lives of two very different men
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555748/original/file-20231025-15-ucb047.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C3976%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A portrait of Bennelong, pre 1806, attributed to George Charles Jenner and William Waterhouse and on right, Captain Arthur Phillip, 1786, painted by Francis Wheatley.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/collection-items/portrait-bennelong">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite the inherent chance and coincidence of Australian history, there’s a certain sense of inevitability when we trace our national narrative in hindsight. The sequence of chapters in our textbooks and syllabuses seems logical and coherent. Colonisation follows European imperialism and exploration. Suffrage follows the discovery of gold. Federation is realised after a growing national consciousness.</p>
<p>There’s a reason historians construct timelines: drawing a thread between moments turns the past into a sequence that forms the skeleton of our stories. We make narratives out of stuff that happened over time.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Bennelong & Phillip: A History Unravelled – Kate Fullagher (Simon & Schuster)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>That form of chronological sequencing isn’t innate, however. Western historical practice feels natural because it’s the way many of us have learnt history. The discipline is presented and understood “chronologically” – but its intrinsic nature belies the attention required to craft and curate a seamless logic of time.</p>
<p>As postcolonial scholars such as Dipesh Chakrabarty and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-book-that-changed-me-how-priya-satias-times-monster-landed-like-a-bomb-in-my-historians-brain-176023">Priya Satia</a> have shown, the discipline of history itself has helped fashion a sense of inevitability, especially in histories of colonisation and imperial expansion. Indigenous histories and perspectives have often been relegated to the fringes of national narratives or framed in predictable tropes that saw them overwhelmed by historical “progress”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555752/original/file-20231025-21-i75r8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The cover of Bennelong and Phillip." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555752/original/file-20231025-21-i75r8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555752/original/file-20231025-21-i75r8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555752/original/file-20231025-21-i75r8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555752/original/file-20231025-21-i75r8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555752/original/file-20231025-21-i75r8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555752/original/file-20231025-21-i75r8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555752/original/file-20231025-21-i75r8w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&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"><a class="source" href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Bennelong-and-Phillip/Kate-Fullagar/9781761108174">Simon & Schuster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How do we nudge at that overwhelming sense of inevitability? How might we inhabit the past and consider its chance and open-endedness, as well as its contrasting cultural readings?</p>
<p>Kate Fullagar’s important new work, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Bennelong-and-Phillip/Kate-Fullagar/9781761108174">Bennelong and Phillip: A History Unravelled</a>, reaches into Australia’s early colonial history to tease out, quite literally, the threads of its past. In doing so, it brings a creative and original lens to a foundational relationship.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-book-that-changed-me-how-priya-satias-times-monster-landed-like-a-bomb-in-my-historians-brain-176023">The book that changed me: how Priya Satia's Time’s Monster landed like a bomb in my historian's brain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The book focuses on the curious entanglement between Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, and Woollarawarre Bennelong, a Wangal man born around 1764, who grew up by the Parramatta River. </p>
<p>Phillip was a British Royal Naval Officer with an extensive military career, including serving in the Napoleonic Wars and conflicts over Spanish colonies in South America. In 1786 he was appointed to lead the First Fleet, that famous flotilla of eleven ships filled with convicts and soldiers that established a penal colony in New South Wales in 1788. </p>
<p>Representing the might of a global and acquisitive Empire, Phillip has also been remembered for how he guided the colony in its early years (despite famine and unrest, as well as unimaginable isolation), along with his commitment to “<a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/governor_phillip_and_the_eora">establishing and maintaining friendly and peaceful relations</a>” with Aboriginal people. His official orders to “conciliate their affections” and “live in amity and kindness with them” have framed the ways early Australian colonial histories presented Phillip as an emblem of the Enlightenment and loyal servant of the British Empire.</p>
<p><a href="https://bennelongrevealed.com/">Bennelong</a> was also a diplomat, a speaker of multiple languages and a curious, gregarious interlocutor. The historian Keith Vincent Smith described <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/woollarawarre_bennelong">Bennelong’s childhood</a>, growing up on the banks of the Parramatta River spearing snapper and cutting sheets of bark to build his own <em>Nawi</em> canoe. He was initiated as a teenager, where </p>
<blockquote>
<p>scars were raised on his chest and arms and his upper front tooth was knocked out to show that he was a man. He could now take a wife and hunt kangaroos and dingoes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bennelong would have been about 24 when the First Fleet arrived. He was dramatically thrust into its world when kidnapped from a harbour beach in Manly in November 1789, along with Gadigal man Colebee, in a curious attempt to build relationships between the colonists and Aboriginal clans. </p>
<p>Despite that violent beginning, Bennelong became a critical member of that early intercultural dialogue and was also the <a href="https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/trailblazers/woollarawarre-bennelong/">first Aboriginal man to visit Europe and return</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555751/original/file-20231025-15-1i1sae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of Bennelong wearing a European jacket." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555751/original/file-20231025-15-1i1sae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555751/original/file-20231025-15-1i1sae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555751/original/file-20231025-15-1i1sae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555751/original/file-20231025-15-1i1sae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555751/original/file-20231025-15-1i1sae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555751/original/file-20231025-15-1i1sae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555751/original/file-20231025-15-1i1sae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=728&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 portrait in profile of Bennelong dressed in a European jacket and neckscarf surrounded by an oval frame decorated with Aboriginal weapons and curios.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110351425">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sailors-journals-shed-new-light-on-bennelong-a-man-misunderstood-by-history-111266">Sailors' journals shed new light on Bennelong, a man misunderstood by history</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Fullagar explores how the two men’s shared history did indeed shape Australia’s, but not simply in the way foundational narratives have tended to represent them.</p>
<p>Bennelong and Phillip’s life stories have been told and reproduced many times before – in histories, biographies and museum exhibits. Their figures grace our currency, monuments and galleries and their names mark our maps. They are perhaps better known as tropes than actual people – representing a curious, bifurcated tale of rationality and tragedy, Enlightenment and tradition, (colonial) beginnings and (Aboriginal) endings.</p>
<p>Yet when Phillip was speared through the shoulder at Kay-Yee-My (Manly Cove), in retaliation for Bennelong and Colebee’s kidnapping and imprisonment, no one could have known what lay ahead. Similarly, when the colony was experiencing famine and its very existence was uncertain, or when a smallpox epidemic wiped out approximately half of the surrounding Aboriginal clans, we cannot assume people knew what would come next.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555749/original/file-20231025-17-30uarf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting showing Aboriginal people spearing Governor Phillip." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555749/original/file-20231025-17-30uarf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555749/original/file-20231025-17-30uarf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555749/original/file-20231025-17-30uarf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555749/original/file-20231025-17-30uarf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555749/original/file-20231025-17-30uarf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555749/original/file-20231025-17-30uarf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555749/original/file-20231025-17-30uarf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of a painting that shows the spearing of Governor Arthur Phillip, circa 1790, by the Port Jackson Painter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spearing_of_Arthur_Phillip.jpg">Natural History Museum/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s difficult to understand the precariousness and contingency of this history. To do this, Fullagar reaches back in time, but does so in reverse, by inverting the narrative of their relationship. She does this to tease out the lives of the two men in their own right and on their own terms. Critically, her book also exposes the architecture historians draw on, such as using hindsight and chronology, as well as narrative, to make a story appear seamless. </p>
<h2>Beginning at the end</h2>
<p>Bennelong and Phillip begins at the end, with the funerals of these two men, inviting us to think about how their contrasting but intersecting lives were remembered. Then we move back in time, event by event, chapter by chapter, through the colonial period and before it, to their beginnings.</p>
<p>It’s an inspired approach that forces readers to wrestle with our own historical assumptions. It makes clear that for this period in Australia’s colonial past, the story certainly isn’t one of linear progress, but a messy, often shared, series of entanglements.</p>
<p>Given the history discipline’s own legacy in advancing settler colonialism, policing whose stories can be told, how and by whom, Fullagar is acutely aware of its limitations in retracing this period. Can a work of history, even one as original and imaginative as this one, successfully reclaim this story from the dominant narrative of early Australia, where the settler colony’s success is assumed, because we’re still living in it? It’s a question she wrestles with throughout.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-should-remember-boorong-bennelongs-third-wife-who-is-buried-beside-him-107280">Why we should remember Boorong, Bennelong's third wife, who is buried beside him</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When so much Australian historiography has framed the colonial period as a set of “befores” and “afters”, “pre-history” and “history”, or “firsts” and “lasts”, this book throws the logical sequence of the colony on its head.</p>
<p>Fullager manages to reach back in time to disrupt and pick apart the past, without assuming she can inhabit the minds of these two men beyond her own lived experience and world view. In a memorable scene, she describes Bennelong’s visit to the London’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverian_collection">Parkinson Museum</a> in 1793, where he and his Wangal Countryman <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/yemmerrawanne">Yemmerrawanne</a> were confronted with artefacts taken from Australia, including possibly spiritually potent objects and human remains.</p>
<p>She cleverly reframes and describes 18th century British culture and society as an ethnographical study, suggesting what it might have looked like through Bennelong’s eyes (subtly alluding to those early colonial accounts by <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tench-watkin-2719">Watkin Tench</a> and <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/collins-david-1912">David Collins</a>, which were full of cultural curiosity for the “other”). And she deftly manages and highlights the unevenness of the colonial archive, reminding us the inequity of our cultural memory doesn’t obviate the need to be attuned to a diversity of experience.</p>
<p>Bennelong and Phillip gives us a new, original lens onto this origin story. We see a larger, more complex picture of Phillip, for whom New South Wales was just one chapter of imperial service. And we’re offered a much richer, nuanced account of Bennelong, who Fullagar reads in context and on Country.</p>
<p>The book’s narrative reversal requires some skilful management to make sense. Fullagar uses helpful annotations at the beginning of each chapter, reminiscent of early colonial texts, which often included the same.</p>
<p>She also writes beautifully and clearly. That mastery of time and prose is essential, because this isn’t the sort of history book you can flick through on autopilot. Our narrative habit as readers to move forward through time is constantly being checked throughout. Maintaining that coherence requires work from the reader but, if this book is a little unsettling, that’s probably a good thing.</p>
<p>Bennelong and Phillip is a disciplinary accomplishment. Given its contribution to our national conversation, I was shocked to read reports of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/14/australian-catholic-university-condemned-over-totally-indefensible-cuts-to-humanities-programs">Australian Catholic University’s draft plans</a> to restructure more than 30 full-time equivalent jobs across the humanities, <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/western-civilisation-and-its-discontents/">Fullagar’s included</a>. In this ghastly “Hunger Games” scenario, colleagues compete for a reduced number of positions in their own area. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-research-shows-the-number-of-history-academics-in-australia-has-dropped-by-at-least-31-since-1989-213544">Our research shows the number of history academics in Australia has dropped by at least 31% since 1989</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Given the heated debate around the Voice referendum, which demonstrated Australian history is very much still up for grabs, the sort of historical contemplation and reconfiguration Bennelong and Phillip provides is both critical and timely. I can’t think of a worse moment for a university to walk away from such important work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Clark has received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
The heated debate around the Voice referendum demonstrated Australian history is still up for grabs. So Kate Fullagar’s new book, Bennelong and Phillip, is both critical and timely.
Anna Clark, Professor in Public History, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209987
2023-10-08T19:26:55Z
2023-10-08T19:26:55Z
Alienation and hidden histories: ‘unsettling’ new Australian stories reveal a distorted world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552235/original/file-20231005-26-1flnlj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3203%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rivunk/Pexels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Three new Australian short-story collections are very different in their style and approach to short-form fiction. However, these books – by veterans of the form David Cohen and Laura Jean McKay, and debut writer John Morrissey – are united by their tendency to cross genres and present the contemporary world in distorted (and occasionally disturbing) ways. </p>
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<p><em>Review: The Terrible Event – David Cohen (Transit Lounge); Gunflower – Laura Jean McKay (Scribe); Firelight – John Morrissey (Text)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Of the three, the stories in Cohen’s <a href="https://transitlounge.com.au/shop/the-terrible-event/">The Terrible Event</a> feel the most familiar in their treatment of the bizarre and uncanny aspects of ordinary life. Cohen grounds his narratives in everyday banalities, exploring characters who are often wrestling with malaise, discontent and loneliness. </p>
<p>Cohen won the 2019 Russell Prize for Humour Writing for <a href="https://transitlounge.com.au/shop/hunter-stories-men/">The Hunter and Other Stories of Men</a> and this follow-up collection is described as “hilarious” in one of the blurb quotes. However, as Erich Mayer <a href="https://www.artshub.com.au/news/reviews/book-review-the-terrible-event-david-cohen-2642145/">argues</a> in a recent review, these stories are not what many readers would understand as conventionally funny. </p>
<p>Mayer notes the grim subjects of many of the narratives, with protagonists who are often pushing at the boundaries of their own powerlessness, struggling to make a meaningful change or connection. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-are-only-passing-through-stories-about-memory-mortality-and-the-effort-of-being-alive-193628">'We are only passing through': stories about memory, mortality and the effort of being alive</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Expansive and mysterious</h2>
<p>The opening stories, The Terrible Event: a Memorial and Mr Cheerio, are the most explicitly satirical in the collection. The former deals with the attempt to memorialise an apparently horrific tragedy in an appropriate and respectful way. However, this task is approached with such delicate concern and consideration for the sensitivities of any potential audience that the true nature and horror of the “terrible event” itself are eventually entirely erased. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549514/original/file-20230921-15-81d6pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549514/original/file-20230921-15-81d6pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549514/original/file-20230921-15-81d6pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549514/original/file-20230921-15-81d6pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549514/original/file-20230921-15-81d6pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549514/original/file-20230921-15-81d6pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549514/original/file-20230921-15-81d6pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549514/original/file-20230921-15-81d6pm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>In Mr Cheerio, two young activists embark on a well-meaning crusade to draw attention to the plight of the dispossessed residents of their neighbourhoods (“the culvert dwellers”). However, their delight in the public attention they receive leads them into a spiral of competitiveness, where they attempt to top each other’s increasingly violent protests. </p>
<p>These are clever stories, but their observations – that the fear of causing upset and offence can easily lead to meaninglessness or total silence, that activists may be driven more by their own egos than the causes they promote – feel a little obvious in comparison to what follows. </p>
<p>The best stories in Cohen’s collection tend to be more expansive and mysterious. In Bugs, a recently divorced father rediscovers a beloved childhood toy and suddenly finds himself in a mental and physical decline that mirrors the deterioration of his doll. </p>
<p>The Holes details the lonely working life of a customer-service representative who becomes obsessed with a remote-working colleague. The History of Walking provides a series of brief observations on the seemingly unremarkable life of its protagonist and his stoic acceptance of both tragedy and persistent mild frustration. </p>
<p>The superb final story, The Enigma of Keith: Another Memorial, describes the attempts of its academic narrator to test whether roadside memorials have any effect on driving habits and traffic accidents. He does this by constructing a memorial at a random intersection and monitoring the area. </p>
<p>And he finds, to his surprise, that his memorial to the deceased “Keith” becomes an object of intense, emotional fixation. It invites online commentary and draws people to the location. The narrator is unable to detach himself at the end of his experiment: he feels a confusing sense of responsibility to Keith and his invented memory. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As I lay there in the dark, the question kept running in my mind: I created the memorial, but do I have the right to destroy it?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The theme of obsession recurs in subtly different ways between many of the stories in The Terrible Event. Characters become fixated on objects, experiences or people and are unable to withdraw, despite their better judgement. </p>
<p>In the longer stories, a slow, subtle comedy builds out of the gradual accumulation of absurdity. Seemingly mundane problems, situations and conflicts escalate in unexpected ways, due to either the obstinacy or haplessness of the protagonists. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/women-and-girls-at-risk-at-the-end-of-the-world-these-subversive-short-stories-reflect-our-anxieties-186823">Women and girls at risk, at the end of the world: these subversive short stories reflect our anxieties</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The consciousness of animals</h2>
<p>While it shares some comedic and satirical sensibilities with the Terrible Event, Laura Jean McKay’s <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/gunflower-9781922585943">Gunflower</a> offers a more radical approach to short-form fiction. </p>
<p>The 24 stories in the collection are divided into three thematically linked sections (“Birth”, “Life” and “Death”), and offer brief, jarring glimpses of the contexts and characters they consider. </p>
<p>Several of the stories touch on the conditions and consciousness of animals, in ways that are reminiscent of McKay’s award-winning debut novel, <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/the-animals-in-that-country-9781925849530">The Animals in That Country</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549515/original/file-20230921-19-wi3980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549515/original/file-20230921-19-wi3980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549515/original/file-20230921-19-wi3980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549515/original/file-20230921-19-wi3980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549515/original/file-20230921-19-wi3980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549515/original/file-20230921-19-wi3980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549515/original/file-20230921-19-wi3980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549515/original/file-20230921-19-wi3980.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"></a>
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<span class="caption">Laura Jean McKay’s Gunflower offers a radical approach to short-form fiction.</span>
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<p>The opening story, Cats at the Firefront, presents an alternative Australia, in which cats, dogs and horses are farmed for their meat, milk and hides, and livestock animals are treated as domestic pets. In Flying Rods, a woman bitten by a mosquito undergoes a Kafkaesque transformation into an insect. Rather than being horrified, she finds the physical and psychological shift to be invigorating and liberating. </p>
<p>Much like The Animals in That Country (where the outbreak of a viral “zooflu” affected humans in a way that allowed them to almost psychically perceive the thoughts and emotions of animals), Gunflower disrupts the boundaries between animal and human. </p>
<p>Human characters are portrayed as vicious and predatory in Territory’s brutal depiction of pig hunting. By contrast, in Those Last Days of Summer, a battery of hens are afforded a human-like voice through their poetic account of their confinement. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, the forced proximity between human and animal becomes a source of unease. A livestock management student is momentarily overcome during a practical class on <a href="https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1998177-overview">cannulation</a>. They find themselves starring into “the meaty darkness” of a living cow’s interior. McKay’s brief, paragraph-length mediation on the possibility of extinction, This Time, addresses the unavoidable entwinement of human and animal life in a time of climate crisis. </p>
<p>Many of the stories in the collection examine the experience of living in an environment that’s becoming increasingly unstable. Several stories deal with destabilising absences. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549516/original/file-20230921-21-lgrjaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549516/original/file-20230921-21-lgrjaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549516/original/file-20230921-21-lgrjaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549516/original/file-20230921-21-lgrjaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549516/original/file-20230921-21-lgrjaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549516/original/file-20230921-21-lgrjaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549516/original/file-20230921-21-lgrjaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549516/original/file-20230921-21-lgrjaf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Ranging revolves around a support group that has formed in a world where men have mysteriously vanished. In the title story, Gunflower, the crew and passenger of an all-female medical ship (which provides abortions on international waters to avoid the increasingly restrictive laws in the United States) discover all known landmasses have disappeared overnight, leaving them adrift on an endless sea. </p>
<p>This sense of loss is also present in some of the more mundane scenarios in the collection. Smoko follows a young supermarket worker’s attempt to stop a small yet meaningful workplace privilege being stripped away by management. </p>
<p>The Two O’Clock focuses on the declining memory and eventual disappearance of an elderly grandfather, and Twenty-Twenty sees a family of anti-vaccination homeopathic medical practitioners struggling to maintain their ordinary routines amid the shifting reality of the COVID epidemic and mounting infections.</p>
<p>The fragmentary nature of many of Mckay’s narratives, which cut off abruptly without clear resolution, contribute to the disorienting, often hallucinatory feel of the collection. </p>
<p>The stories in Gunflower move between genres and subjects with the queasy swiftness of a fever dream. They are united, however, in their exploration of life in an increasingly changeable and precarious word. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/about-time-science-and-a-declaration-of-animal-consciousness-9513">About time: science and a declaration of animal consciousness</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Firelight: realist and ‘fantastical’</h2>
<p>The final collection, Firelight, is John Morrissey’s debut. Morrissey was the winner of the Boundless Indigenous Writers Prize in 2020, and his work has previously appeared in <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/this-all-come-back-now">This All Come Back Now: an anthology of First Nations Speculative Fiction</a>. </p>
<p>Like Cohen and McKay’s collections, Firelight also moves fluidly between realist narratives and more fantastical subjects. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549517/original/file-20230921-25-xhaog7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549517/original/file-20230921-25-xhaog7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549517/original/file-20230921-25-xhaog7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549517/original/file-20230921-25-xhaog7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549517/original/file-20230921-25-xhaog7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549517/original/file-20230921-25-xhaog7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549517/original/file-20230921-25-xhaog7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549517/original/file-20230921-25-xhaog7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The opening story, Five Minutes, emphasises this alignment of strangeness and mundanity. In this narrative, a disillusioned government worker invents a story about the earth’s imminent destruction. In Australia, the settler population is instantly disintegrated by an impossibly advanced alien species, who then compassionately allow the Aboriginal population – in recognition of over 50,000 years of deep connection with Country – five additional minutes in which to say their goodbyes. </p>
<p>The cosmic unfairness of this narrative, where pleas for the value of life, history, culture are greeted with genial bemusement by alien invaders, reflects the narrator’s sense of helplessness and vulnerability in his job, his forced acquiescence to the conventions of office culture and the capricious control of his manager. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is a pitiable fate to sell one’s dignity to survive. To have one’s dignity valued at nothing though, to see it brought back to you, shopworn and yellowed at the edges – surely that is worse.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Explorations of disconnection and alienation recur throughout the collection. Special Economic Zone focuses on the impoverished and unacknowledged daughter of a mining magnate. When he dies, she is forced to journey into the heart of his crumbling and corrupted empire to receive a dubious legacy. Ivy follows the restless wanderings of a young man as he descends into paranoia while caring for his elderly mother in the suburbs. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549519/original/file-20230921-26-yqvq8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549519/original/file-20230921-26-yqvq8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549519/original/file-20230921-26-yqvq8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549519/original/file-20230921-26-yqvq8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549519/original/file-20230921-26-yqvq8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549519/original/file-20230921-26-yqvq8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549519/original/file-20230921-26-yqvq8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549519/original/file-20230921-26-yqvq8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Morrissey.</span>
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<p>Two entries in the collection verge on being straightforward horror stories. The Rupture is classically <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/promethean">Promethean</a> speculative fiction, with a team of scientists attempting to restore the extinct <a href="https://theconversation.com/extinct-but-not-gone-the-thylacine-continues-to-fascinate-us-201865">thylacine</a>, or Tasmanian Tiger, with unforeseen consequences. </p>
<p>The story recalls some of concerns about the treatment and exploitation of animals found in McKay’s Gunflower, questioning whether “scientific enquiry could not go hand in hand with love and compassion for non-human life”. Its ambiguous conclusion is wonderfully disturbing. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-bring-back-the-thylacine-we-asked-5-experts-188894">Should we bring back the thylacine? We asked 5 experts</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The final story, Tommy Norli, moves more in the direction of gothic horror, with a menacing ghost story about the crimes and legacies of colonial Australia. </p>
<p>To my mind, however, the stand-out pieces in this excellent collection are two novella-length narratives. The Last Penny offers up a harrowing family narrative about the life and death of the narrator’s brother Stephen, a youth pastor who is exposed as a notorious sexual predator. </p>
<p>Writing in prison, Stephen refers to an enigmatic vision that has been plaguing him – one that may relate to their shared past. This is another story that pushes into the territory of Australian Gothic, delving into hidden histories and the unresolved past. It begins in ordinary human horror and concludes with a nightmarish, surreal haunting.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549518/original/file-20230921-17-yqvq8c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549518/original/file-20230921-17-yqvq8c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549518/original/file-20230921-17-yqvq8c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549518/original/file-20230921-17-yqvq8c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549518/original/file-20230921-17-yqvq8c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549518/original/file-20230921-17-yqvq8c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1238&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549518/original/file-20230921-17-yqvq8c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549518/original/file-20230921-17-yqvq8c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1238&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>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Autoc, Morrissey fully leans into science-fiction tropes. The story is set in the distant future, after humanity has embarked on a project of interplanetary exploration. The premise of Autoc, which has some similarities to Dan Simmons’ sequence of space-opera novels, the <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/hyperion-9780553283686">Hyperion</a> Cantos, sees humanity inevitably re-enacting cycles of colonisation. </p>
<p>Due to the asynchronous nature of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-extreme-frontier-travel-booming-despite-the-risks-208201">space travel</a>, latter colony ships end up conquering and eradicating the civilisations founded by the ships that arrived hundreds or thousands of years before them. </p>
<p>On one planet, the citizens of a civilisation called “the Commonwealth” live with the anxious awareness of a more advanced rival colony visibly expanding across the surface of their moon. While their existence is relatively peaceful and comfortable, they know one day their unknown enemy will strike. </p>
<p>In what will prove to be the Commonwealth’s final years, a young woman begins to discover stories and theories about the earlier inhabitants of the planet: the Autocs. Their remnants may indicate the presence of something even more mysterious and ancient. As one character puts it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>we can identify where our clever ancestors went wrong, sending out those ships. They thought the universe would be nice empty space – virgin soil. But there are other entities on the planet. The Autocs had the good sense to submit to them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The vanished Autocs’ relation with these “other entities” may provide an alternative to the patterns of conquest and destruction that have entrapped the later generations of space-faring humans. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-gothic-from-hanging-rock-to-nick-cave-and-kylie-this-genre-explores-our-dark-side-111742">Australian Gothic: from Hanging Rock to Nick Cave and Kylie, this genre explores our dark side</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Firelight is a highly original and compelling collection. In this debut, Morrissey cleverly uses tropes of familiar genres to explore different facets of contemporary Australian life, particularly the legacy and experience of colonialism.</p>
<p>These three books are all innovative, bravely experimental and often unsettling Australian story collections. It is remarkable to see them all published in such close proximity to each other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209987/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Novitz 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>
It’s remarkable to see these three innovative, bravely experimental and often unsettling Australian story collections – by a debut author and two prize-winners – published so closely together.
Julian Novitz, Senior Lecturer, Writing, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207118
2023-09-19T23:58:08Z
2023-09-19T23:58:08Z
Colonists upended Aboriginal farming, growing grain and running sheep on rich yamfields, and cattle on arid grainlands
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533337/original/file-20230622-15408-ue0mbs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C9%2C794%2C425&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yam daisies on the left, cattle on the right</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cutting out the cattle, Kangatong/Eugene Von Guerard, 1856 </span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>First Nations readers are advised this article contains references to colonial violence against First Nations people.</em></p>
<p>In 1788 the First Fleet brought two bulls and four cows from the Cape of Good Hope and put them on grass on Bennelong Point, where Sydney Opera House is now. But there wasn’t much grass, and it wasn’t much good, so the cattle took off. Seven years later they were found 65 kilometres southwest, on the <a href="https://www.belgennyfarm.com.au/history/site-history/the-cowpastures-and-its-wild-cattle">Cowpastures</a> near Camden, a flourishing herd. By 1820 they were supporting an abattoir and a couple of tanneries. </p>
<p>The cows had found land that was deliberately made for grazing animals – kangaroos. In small patches and on extensive plains, Dharawal managers had performed cool burns to promote rich grass near water. When the cattle found this grass, they stayed.</p>
<p>It was the start of dispossession. Grazing animals trod on or ate the staple tubers such as murnong, on which local groups relied. These grew in rich beds, but were easily trampled. As colonists moved inland, they took Aboriginal land used for growing grain and ran sheep or cattle on it. </p>
<p>The effects of this upheaval are still with us today. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533344/original/file-20230622-16065-56d1vv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cows on Cowpasture New South Wales" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533344/original/file-20230622-16065-56d1vv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533344/original/file-20230622-16065-56d1vv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533344/original/file-20230622-16065-56d1vv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533344/original/file-20230622-16065-56d1vv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533344/original/file-20230622-16065-56d1vv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533344/original/file-20230622-16065-56d1vv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533344/original/file-20230622-16065-56d1vv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&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 Cowpastures at Camden were covered with grass for a reason.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Arthur Willmore, The cow pastures, New South Wales. 1874</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Without fire, the trees took over</h2>
<p>The newcomers who took the Camden country tried to keep it open, without scrub. There, John and Elizabeth Macarthur developed the <a href="https://merinos.com.au/australian-merino/">Australian merino</a> sheep. But they did not understand fire, and the bush got away. As <a href="https://rune.une.edu.au/web/handle/1959.11/18449">early as 1817</a>, the Macarthurs’ land “had become crowded – choked up in many places by thickets of saplings and large thorn bushes [<em>Bursaria spinosa</em>] and the sweet natural herbage had for the most part been replaced by coarse wiry grasses which grew uncropped”. </p>
<p>In 1848, Thomas Mitchell <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9943/9943-h/9943-h.htm">observed the effects</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The omission of the annual periodical burning by the natives (sic), of the grass and young saplings, has already produced in the open forest lands nearest to Sydney, thick forests of young trees, where, formerly, a man might gallop without impediment, and see whole miles before him. Kangaroos are no longer to be seen there; the grass is choked by underwood.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On good grass, stock fed themselves – they needed only shepherds or stockmen – but European crops grew reluctantly on Sydney sandstone. In 1789, English farmer James Ruse grew corn on better land at Rose Hill near Parramatta, but it still yielded poorly. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/before-the-colonists-came-we-burned-small-and-burned-often-to-avoid-big-fires-its-time-to-relearn-cultural-burning-201475">Before the colonists came, we burned small and burned often to avoid big fires. It's time to relearn cultural burning</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 1794, Ruse sold his block and joined the settlers crowding the rich flats of the Hawkesbury River. Here, he produced the <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/australian-agricultural-and-rural-life/first-farms">first successful</a> wheat crop.</p>
<p>Soon, corn, English <a href="https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2019/opinion/saving-our-wheat-from-climate-change">wet wheat</a> and barley were supplying government stores and the Sydney market.</p>
<p>On those Hawkesbury flats, Dharug people had long grown a key staple: tubers. They could not afford to lose the land. They gave some up, but the settlers wanted it all. In 1794, guerilla war <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Sydney_Wars/0mZZDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">broke out</a>. It lasted 22 years – Australia’s longest war – until in 1816 British soldiers finally <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/sydney-wars">broke Dharug resistance</a>. </p>
<h2>Tubers and grain</h2>
<p>Unlike the newcomers, the Dharug rarely ate grain. They preferred tubers. This was common – wherever it was wet enough, people across Australia relied on tubers, notably <a href="https://bie.ala.org.au/species/https://id.biodiversity.org.au/node/apni/2898257">warran</a> (<em>Dioscorea hastifolia</em>) in the southwest, and the yam daisy, murnong (<em>Microseris lanceolata</em>) in the southeast.</p>
<p>Women regularly dug over tuber fields to make the soil crumbly, and replanted tuber tops for the next harvest. For mile after mile where they had worked, the ground looked ploughed. At Sunbury, near Melbourne, Isaac Batey, a gardener in England, <a href="https://lily-tangerine-jegb.squarespace.com/s/David-Frankel-An-Account-of-Aboriginal-Use-of-the-Yam-Daisy-pages-2-3.pdf">saw a slope</a> of: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>rich basaltic clay, evidently well fitted for the production of myrnongs. On the spot are numerous mounds with short spaces between each, and as all these are at right angles to the ridge’s slope, it is conclusive evidence that they were the work of human hands extending over a long series of years.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533343/original/file-20230622-20-wxcrfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Yam daisy" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533343/original/file-20230622-20-wxcrfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533343/original/file-20230622-20-wxcrfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533343/original/file-20230622-20-wxcrfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533343/original/file-20230622-20-wxcrfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533343/original/file-20230622-20-wxcrfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533343/original/file-20230622-20-wxcrfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533343/original/file-20230622-20-wxcrfn.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yam daisy tubers were a staple for many groups in the south-east.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In country too dry for tubers – most of Australia – people <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2841785">grew grain</a>, notably native millet (<em>Panicum decompositum</em>). They chose land near water, burned the ground, spread seed, blocked channels to spread water, watched the seasons to know when to return, reaped the crop by pulling or stripping with stone knives, dried, threshed and winnowed the grain, and stored it in skin bags or ground it into flour.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542747/original/file-20230815-3698-dh1bzh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="native millet" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542747/original/file-20230815-3698-dh1bzh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542747/original/file-20230815-3698-dh1bzh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542747/original/file-20230815-3698-dh1bzh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542747/original/file-20230815-3698-dh1bzh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542747/original/file-20230815-3698-dh1bzh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542747/original/file-20230815-3698-dh1bzh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542747/original/file-20230815-3698-dh1bzh.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">Native millet (<em>Panicum decompositum</em>) grows happily across most of the arid interior. It was a vital foodstuff.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/macleaygrassman/8242315785">Harry Rose/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the Narran River, northwest of Lightning Ridge, the explorer and surveyor Thomas Mitchell <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9943/9943-h/9943-h.htm#trop-04">observed in 1848</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dry heaps of this grass, that had been pulled expressly for the purpose of gathering the seed, lay along our path for many miles. I counted nine miles along the river, in which we rode through this grass only, reaching to our saddle-girths.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Dispossession and reversal</h2>
<p>Even allowing for the modern expansion of irrigation <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/research/natural-environment/land/unlocking-northern-australia">in the north</a>, people probably farmed more of Australia in 1788 than we do now. </p>
<p>But we don’t crop the widespread grainlands of the arid interior. We leave them to cattle or camels. Our crops largely grow on tuber country, so a great many tubers have diminished or disappeared. How people use the land has essentially reversed since 1788, based on <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Biggest_Estate_on_Earth/u-R8BNRYSbMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=bill+gammage+biggest+estate+on+earth&printsec=frontcover">my research</a> into the subject. </p>
<p>This upended the lives of many species. It let inland birds such as galahs, crested pigeons, and later, little corellas, expand their range. When Europeans arrived, galahs were typically inland birds. Now they’re common from coast to coast. What changed? My research <a href="https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/47799/4/galahs_long.pdf">suggests</a> it was colonisation. Galahs feed on the ground. To get at tall inland grasses, they relied on Aboriginal grain cropping before contact. Afterwards, introduced stock shook or trampled grass – and expanded the galah’s range.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533341/original/file-20230622-17-zwid3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533341/original/file-20230622-17-zwid3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533341/original/file-20230622-17-zwid3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533341/original/file-20230622-17-zwid3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533341/original/file-20230622-17-zwid3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533341/original/file-20230622-17-zwid3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533341/original/file-20230622-17-zwid3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533341/original/file-20230622-17-zwid3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Famed colonial painter Eugene von Guerard captured traditionally managed parkland in many paintings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The crater of Mt Eccles west from Mt Napier, 1856</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But ground-dwelling small and medium-sized mammals and birds declined. Dozens of species became extinct or endangered. The <a href="http://www.ecosmagazine.com/?paper=EC14122">toolache wallaby</a> was gone in less than a century. The <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=136#:%7E:text=The%20decline%20and%20extinction%20of,herbivores%20and%20changed%20fire%20regimes.">lesser stick-nest rat</a> and the paradise parrot disappeared not long after newcomers, their stock, and new predators like cats and foxes invaded their habitats. Today, even the <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/species/koalas/listing-under-national-environmental-law">koala is endangered</a>. </p>
<p>Those who had cared for these species – the people of 1788 and after – were devastated by invasion. It’s possible they had more war dead than white Australia’s 103,000 in <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/advanced-search/people?roll=Roll%20of%20Honour">all its wars</a>. </p>
<p>Survivors were commonly driven or taken from their country, and the land they managed so carefully was made a resource to exploit, or left to burn randomly. </p>
<p>So much was lost. Gone are the stories, the dances, the paintings, the languages of ten thousand campfires, gone knowledge of land, sea and sky, the skill to care for every habitat, to grow local crops and husband native animals, to feel truly at home. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biggest-estate-on-earth-how-aborigines-made-australia-3787">The biggest estate on earth: how Aborigines made Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207118/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Gammage 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>
Newcomers in Australia found and took rich pastures made by Aboriginal fire. Without fire, pastures would revert to forest or scrub.
Bill Gammage, Emeritus Professor, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204530
2023-07-12T20:03:56Z
2023-07-12T20:03:56Z
French botanist Théodore Leschenault travelled to Australia in 1800-1803. His recently recovered journal contains a wealth of intriguing information
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526088/original/file-20230515-27-ummfq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=141%2C28%2C3626%2C2274&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Leschenault aboard the Géographe. Pencil on paper. Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Le Havre, inv. 13033.</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>Content warning: this article describes outdated and potentially offensive terminology when referring to First Nations people.</em></p>
<p>In the storeroom of a square-towered château in Burgundy, my genial hosts gestured towards a large, wooden chest of drawers. I pulled open a compartment and began sorting through bundles of old papers – house records from the 18th and 19th centuries. I was there, in 2015, on the trail of Théodore Leschenault, a botanist who had travelled to Australia in the years 1800 to 1803 with the expedition of discovery led by Nicolas Baudin. </p>
<p>The château belonged to Leschenault’s descendants, who had invited me to explore the family archives. There was a register detailing his divorce from his young wife Marguerite due to their “incompatible temperaments”. There were shells and rocks bearing faded ink labels. And there was a printed invitation to a funeral service held for him at the Madeleine church in Paris in 1826 after he died of a stroke. </p>
<p>All this was valuable research material but I felt a slight sense of disappointment. The original manuscript journal of his voyage to Australia was not there.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-voyage-of-nicolas-baudin-and-art-in-the-service-of-science-62038">Friday essay: the voyage of Nicolas Baudin and 'art in the service of science'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526109/original/file-20230515-2440-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526109/original/file-20230515-2440-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526109/original/file-20230515-2440-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526109/original/file-20230515-2440-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526109/original/file-20230515-2440-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526109/original/file-20230515-2440-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526109/original/file-20230515-2440-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526109/original/file-20230515-2440-9gqh6y.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Langlumé, portrait of Théodore Leschenault.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Private Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prior to this I had been working on a translation of the only version of the journal thought to exist, an incomplete copy made for the navy by an unknown hand. But then, in late 2016, out of the blue, the original journal in Leschenault’s own handwriting was put up for auction in Royan on the west coast of France. Where the journal had been for the previous 200 years was not revealed.</p>
<p>After bidding closed at €110,000 ($A180,500), the French government stepped in, seizing the journal as its own property, on the grounds that it had funded the original expedition. The journal was deposited with the National Archives of France, which in 2020 provided me with scans to use as the basis for <a href="https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/the-french-collector-journal-and-letters-of-theodore-leschenault">a new translation</a> that appears in my book The French Collector.</p>
<p>This journal contains a store of fascinating new information. Two previously unknown chapters describe the first part of Leschenault’s journey from Paris to Le Havre and onward via the Canary Islands and Mauritius to the west Australian coast. They offer much else besides, including insights into his fears and ambitions, an array of scientific observations, and impassioned discussions of slavery and the treatment of Indigenous peoples.</p>
<h2>A collecting frenzy</h2>
<p>Leschenault was 26 when he set out from France with the Baudin expedition to explore the “unknown coasts” of New Holland. Sociable by nature, with a head of blond curls, he came from a wealthy legal family and had been imprisoned during the French Revolution. A child of the Enlightenment, with an anti-religious and empirical cast of mind, he hoped to forge a career as a botanist.</p>
<p>When Leschenault went ashore for the first time on the Australian coastline in June 1801, at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographe_Bay">Geographe Bay</a> in the south-west, he immediately went into a collecting frenzy, picking up so many shells, pebbles and plants he couldn’t carry them all back to the boat. </p>
<p>Here he saw grass trees and <a href="https://www.bushlandperth.org.au/campaigns/celebrating-tuart-woodlands/">tuart trees</a>, black swans and a dingo, and had a much anticipated first encounter with some Wardandi Noongar men. Over the next two years, Leschenault collected thousands of plant and animal specimens as the expedition explored three sides of the continent.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535240/original/file-20230703-27-5yd59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535240/original/file-20230703-27-5yd59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535240/original/file-20230703-27-5yd59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535240/original/file-20230703-27-5yd59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535240/original/file-20230703-27-5yd59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535240/original/file-20230703-27-5yd59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535240/original/file-20230703-27-5yd59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535240/original/file-20230703-27-5yd59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&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 June 1801, Leschenault saw grass trees for the first time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-rare-bird-how-europeans-got-the-black-swan-so-wrong-161654">Friday essay: a rare bird — how Europeans got the black swan so wrong</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>All the officers and scientists on the voyage were required to keep a record of their experiences. Some are terse maritime affairs – lists of bearings, wind directions and similar data. Leschenault’s is among the most eloquent and wide-ranging. These writings all supplement the official record of the expedition, the <em>Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes</em>, published by François Péron and Louis Freycinet between 1807 and 1816.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526110/original/file-20230515-27-p8ikxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526110/original/file-20230515-27-p8ikxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526110/original/file-20230515-27-p8ikxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526110/original/file-20230515-27-p8ikxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526110/original/file-20230515-27-p8ikxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526110/original/file-20230515-27-p8ikxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526110/original/file-20230515-27-p8ikxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526110/original/file-20230515-27-p8ikxd.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">Journal of Théodore Leschenault, 1800-1802.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archives Nationales (France): MAR/5JJ/56/B.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Leschenault’s original journal is a battered-looking object, a large notebook with torn cloth covers, muddy-brown in colour, with the words “private journal” written on the front. Inside, the paper is well preserved and his handwriting spills in neat, brown ink along hand-ruled lines.</p>
<p>The two previously unknown chapters contain an invaluable ragbag of materials about the voyage. Into these chapters he copied a whole sheaf of loose-leaf jottings he had done earlier: private letters, interviews with travellers, short essays on different phenomena (atmospheric humidity, sea temperatures and phosphorescence), philosophical reflections, descriptions of plants and animals, alongside a more conventional daily narrative.</p>
<p>The emotional register of these early chapters shifts according to his imagined audience. When he sees the sea for the first time at Le Havre, for example, he describes for friends and family his terror at the thought that he might drown beneath the waves. But his language becomes more austere when detailing natural phenomena for scientific readers.</p>
<h2>Colonisation and slavery</h2>
<p>Some of the most unexpected passages in the new chapters relate to slavery and the effects of colonisation. In Australia, he quickly came to the conclusion that the local peoples, “far from a state of civilisation” and prone to treachery, disproved the idea of the “noble savage”. But the early chapters reveal that he arrived with sympathetic preconceptions.</p>
<p>While on Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, he learnt about the fate of the island’s original Guanche inhabitants – which gave him reason for concern. Spanish invaders had come with firearms and confronted a peaceful community of farmers. “Oppression and despair drove this people to extinction,” he writes. “Now we are setting out to visit unknown peoples; perhaps the moment of their discovery will be the start of their misfortune”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-myth-of-the-noble-savage-55316">Explainer: the myth of the Noble Savage</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Leschenault contemplates the bleakest of fates for Indigenous Australians, before changing his mind: “But no, that can’t be true, today governments are more enlightened, they will be just […]”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526111/original/file-20230515-19-i2fvqh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526111/original/file-20230515-19-i2fvqh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526111/original/file-20230515-19-i2fvqh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526111/original/file-20230515-19-i2fvqh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526111/original/file-20230515-19-i2fvqh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526111/original/file-20230515-19-i2fvqh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526111/original/file-20230515-19-i2fvqh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526111/original/file-20230515-19-i2fvqh.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">Inside the journal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archives Nationales (France): MAR/5JJ/56/B.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Leschenault also takes an interest in a marginal figure among the scientific staff, the teenage assistant gardener and former slave who was referred to by the derisive nickname Merlot (“little blackbird”). He sympathetically recovers the youth’s original name, Bognam-Nonen-Derega (meaning “everlasting happiness”), copies down details about life in his home village (in what is perhaps now eastern Nigeria) and records the story of how he was kidnapped at the age of 12 and sold to English slavers. Later, on Mauritius, Leschenault directly addresses moral questions around slavery. </p>
<p>It is, he declares, “an outrage against nature” but he understands why, for economic reasons, it cannot be abolished immediately. His sympathies are prone to fluctuation though: when he interviews an albino Mauritian slave girl, his manner seems much less compassionate.</p>
<p>The recently recovered journal traces Leschenault’s travels over the course of two years but comes to an abrupt end in Sydney, at the half-way point of the expedition. What happened afterwards – did he start to write a second volume, now lost? </p>
<p>When he abandoned the expedition due to illness at Timor in June 1803, he gave all his papers to Baudin: drawings, botanical notebooks, possibly even a sequel to the journal. But the whole bundle of papers disappeared without a trace. Perhaps they linger in some storeroom, awaiting their moment to re-emerge into the light …</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Gibbard has received funding for his research from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
Two previously unknown chapters of a 19th century French botanist’s journal offer insights into his fears and ambitions, scientific observations, and discussions of the effects of colonisation.
Paul Gibbard, Senior Lecturer in French Studies, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207864
2023-06-20T12:23:53Z
2023-06-20T12:23:53Z
Textile queen Maman Creppy has died: the last of West Africa’s legendary wax cloth traders has left her mark
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532901/original/file-20230620-18-mzmx1q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Courtesy Yvette Sivomey</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Dédé Rose Gamélé Creppy, who <a href="https://nouvelangle.tg/index.php/2023/06/07/togo-disparition-de-maman-creppy-la-doyenne-des-nana-benz/">has died</a> aged 89, was one of west Africa’s most influential wax cloth traders. She was the youngest, and the last living, “Nana Benz” – the legendary first generation of women cloth traders from Togo. </p>
<p>Wax cloth was a European adaptation of a classic Indonesian batik hand printing technique which created designs using hot wax. Areas of design were blocked out by applying hot wax over them to resist dye. The cloth was introduced to west Africa by Dutch and English textile manufacturers in the <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2018/08/cloth-copyright-and-cultural-exchange.pdf">late 19th century</a>. Women traders – who became experts at predicting what the market wanted – started feeding design and colour suggestions back to the manufacturers. They were integral to the cloth’s success. The Nana Benzes were particularly skilled at this. </p>
<p>Wax cloth became popular because its colours stood out, it could be easily tailored into stylish outfits for both men and women, the colours are fast – they wouldn’t fade when washed. Its patterns also had messages and broadcast images, from power and politics to beauty and wealth. They could speak to joyful or complex relations between men and women.</p>
<p>The Nana Benzes, a group of about 15 Togolese women, started trading in the wax print. The word “Nana” is a diminutive form of “mother” or “grandmother” and “Benz” is for the Mercedes-Benz cars some of them liked to drive – and which they were able to buy due to their big success. </p>
<p>As an anthropologist, I encountered Maman Creppy – as she was affectionately known – several times during research for my <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo25126083.html">book</a> Patterns in Circulation: Cloth, Gender, and Materiality in West Africa.</p>
<p>Rose Creppy’s story is an incredible one. She was one of Togo’s original Nana Benzes, who created a powerful empire founded on a monopoly over patterns – manufacturers distributed specific patterns only to specific women. A successful Nana could be the unique wholesaler for over 60 patterns, sold to traders from all over the continent.</p>
<p>These design ownership rights, combined with her entrepreneurial savvy and a deep knowledge of regional tastes and style, made Maman Creppy, like other Nana Benzes, a legend throughout west Africa. </p>
<p>Their craft however is sadly in decline. Since the early 2000s production of the cloth has shifted to Chinese factories. Today, no wax comes near the process.</p>
<h2>From beads to cloth</h2>
<p>Born in the southern town of Aneho on 22 December 1934, Maman Creppy was determined to become a successful entrepreneur. She started her career trading beads imported from Ghana. But, as she recalled in one of our many conversations, “this was hard manual work”. So, once she had acquired a small trading stock, she switched to cloth. </p>
<p>Maman Creppy initially traded in European-produced fancy-prints. These were less onerous to produce and hence cheaper. Africa’s fancy-print textile industry started in the early 1960s and many newly independent countries were using the textile industry to bolster their economies. </p>
<p>As Maman Creppy accumulated more capital, she switched to English wax-prints from Arnold Brunnschweiler & Company (ABC) and later to Dutch wax cloth from <a href="https://www.vlisco.com">Vlisco</a>.</p>
<p>Maman Creppy became a Nana Benz – one of the super-wholesalers of wax cloth. They originally collected the wax cloth from Ghana’s capital, Accra, in the 1940s but, by the late 1950s, shifted the centre of trade to the Lomé market in Togo’s capital. They transformed the Lomé market into a site of economic power and national prestige. </p>
<h2>Nana Benzes boom</h2>
<p>The heyday of the Nana Benzes was from the 1960s to the early 1980s. Traders flocked to the Lomé market, not only from Abidjan, Accra, Kumasi, Cotonou, Porto-Novo, Onitsha and Lagos, but also from Kinshasa and Libreville.</p>
<p>They benefited from a unique trading position. Trade rules in some post-independence African countries made it hard to trade in the cloth. For instance in Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah’s nationalist-protectionist policies placed high tariffs on imports. This made wax-print imports unprofitable. In Togo, low tariffs made the cloth cheaper. Nana Benzes therefore became a key part of the wax print trade and enabled the Dutch to penetrate other African markets. </p>
<p>The Nana Benzes also had a monopoly over patterns – many of them unique. For instance, they intercepted Yoruba trading networks that operated along the coastal corridor between Lagos and Accra, selling so-called Yoruba and Igbo patterns in specific colourways in Lomé. It was their effective monopoly over pattern rights that garnered the Nana Benzes unparalleled wealth.</p>
<p>The Nana Benzes soon established distribution rights for these classic designs from colonial firms, such as Unilever’s United Africa Company (UAC). In the process, they strengthened ties with European firms. This allowed them to exercise control over an emergent urban cultural economy of taste.</p>
<p>The Nana Benzes had cleverly inserted themselves into the restrictive retailing systems of European trading companies with whom they negotiated exclusive pattern rights to cloth distribution. </p>
<p>Amid changing political regimes, the women consolidated their power and economic interests by creating their own professional organisation in 1965, L’Association Professionelle des Revendeuses de Tissu, a body that negotiated trading policies directly with the state. They agreed on a low-tariff regime that made their Dutch and English cloth imports relatively cheap in comparison to others in the region. In return, they lent their branding power to the state, providing it with a felicitously modern entrepreneurial façade. </p>
<h2>The downfall</h2>
<p>The end of the Cold War and the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/161005">democracy movement</a> that liberalised political and economic spaces had serious consequences for the cloth trade. And for Rose Creppy. </p>
<p>A devaluation of the <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fabric/backgrnd.htm#:%7E:text=To%20address%20this%20situation%2C%20they,francs%20to%201%20French%20franc.">CFA franc (by 50%) in 1994</a> turned an everyday consumer good, wax cloth, into a near luxury almost overnight. Until then, wax cloth was available to most. When the price doubled, wax cloth became a luxury good. Many turned to cheaper alternatives, including counterfeits from China.</p>
<p>The liberalisation of the economy in post-Cold War Togo further derailed the Nana Benzes’ trade. The main distributor of wax cloth – Unilever’s United Africa Company – pulled out of the market and the Dutch manufacturer, Vlisco, took over its west African distribution points. This dismantled the system of exclusive retail rights that made the women’s trade profitable. </p>
<p>To add to the demise of the Nana Benzes, Chinese counterfeits entered the market in the early 2000s. </p>
<h2>Maman Creppy’s legacy</h2>
<p>Until her passing, Maman Creppy remained intimately connected to the market through her daughter, Yvette Sivomey, whom she initiated into the cloth trade in the early 2000s.</p>
<p>Like many of her older peers, Maman Creppy was married but lived independently with her children, whom she would later send to study in France; she owned a property in Lyon. In addition to her entrepreneurial activities, she held a ministerial position at the Lolan royal palace of her native Aneho. </p>
<p>Today a highly successful cloth entrepreneur herself, Sivomey works closely with Vlisco to rediscover and revive old patterns in new colour combinations. </p>
<p>The legacy of Dédé Rose Gamélé Creppy is preserved in her daughter’s work. It is alive and well, woven into the classic wax cloth patterns she co-designed and traded as one of the remarkable Nana Benzes, the women merchants of Togo.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nina Sylvanus 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>
Maman Creppy was one of Togo’s original Nana Benzes who had created a powerful wax cloth empire.
Nina Sylvanus, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Northeastern University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204536
2023-05-09T01:50:37Z
2023-05-09T01:50:37Z
With independence off the table for now, what’s next for New Caledonia’s push for self-determination?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524818/original/file-20230508-174052-qxlqc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C12%2C7873%2C5444&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mathurin Derel/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s <a href="https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/speech/address-new-caledonias-congress">visit to New Caledonia</a> a few weeks ago made few headlines. In fact, it barely made the news. </p>
<p>Yet, her visit came at a crucial juncture for the French overseas territory, which is trying to negotiate a viable path towards a lasting self-determination, which balances the rights of New Caledonia’s Indigenous populations with the political reality of three failed independence referendums.</p>
<p>A new country is still emerging just off Australia’s coast, albeit in a slow path towards decolonisation in a process guided, but not governed, by France. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1648808198303023104"}"></div></p>
<h2>Self-determination is not a straightforward path</h2>
<p>Officially, the subject of sovereignty has been put to bed for a while, with the defeat of the most recent referendum on full independence in late 2021. A large majority <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20211213-new-caledonia-says-non-to-breakaway-from-france-for-third-time-referendum-independence-kanak-flnks">voted to remain part of France</a>, albeit with a very low turnout rate. </p>
<p>However, the main pro-independence group, the <a href="https://www.cairn.info/la-presence-kanak--9782738103994-page-241.htm">Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front</a> (FLNKS) refused to recognise the result, as most Indigenous New Caledonians had boycotted the poll due to the traditional burial and mourning rituals following a high number of COVID deaths in the community.</p>
<p>Talks resumed in <a href="https://asiapacificreport.nz/2023/03/31/flnks-message-to-french-pm-about-kanak-humiliation-over-referendum/">Paris last month</a> around the validity of the third independence referendum in 2021 and on ways to devolve powers further. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1647511157698334720"}"></div></p>
<p>Even the fact the Ministry of Overseas France, which oversees France’s vast remaining colonial holdings, is still talking about these things is in stark contrast to the Anglo-Saxon, winner-takes-all approach to referendums. </p>
<p>Compare, for example, the United Kingdom government’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-top-court-rule-legality-new-scottish-independence-referendum-2022-11-23/">refusal to authorise a new independence referendum in Scotland</a>, despite 62% of Scots having voted to remain in the European Union in the Brexit vote. Nationalists there contend that conditions have fundamentally changed since the failed <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-61798553">2014 independence referendum</a>. </p>
<p>In the case of New Caledonia and other former French possessions, there is an understanding that issues as complex as Indigenous rights take time and patience to explain and execute. And that systems and institutions need time to gain trust. </p>
<p>Before Wong became the first <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/04/25/new-caledonia-the-stone-in-french-diplomacy-s-shoe_6024320_5.html">Australian minister ever to address New Caledonia’s Congress</a>, she first met representatives of the Customary Senate, a 16-member Indigenous body that consults with the government on issues related to the Indigenous Kanak people.</p>
<p>As Wong diplomatically put it in her <a href="https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/speech/address-new-caledonias-congress">address to the legislature</a>, “New Caledonia is at a complex, historic juncture”. Its path to decolonisation is not a straightforward question of restoring power to the traditional owners of the land. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-new-caledonias-final-independence-vote-could-lead-to-instability-and-tarnish-frances-image-in-the-region-172128">Why New Caledonia's final independence vote could lead to instability and tarnish France's image in the region</a>
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<h2>A unique power structure</h2>
<p>Indigenous Melanesians, who reclaimed the once-pejorative term “canaques” and adopted the word <a href="https://www.iwgia.org/en/kanaky-new-caledonia/4689-iw-2022-kanaky-new-caledonia.html">Kanak for themselves</a>, make up 40% of the population. A further 10% is made up of Polynesians (largely from Tahiti or another French Pacific territory, Wallis and Futuna).</p>
<p>Despite a long colonial history – first as a penal colony, and later as a destination for French free settlers – New Caledonia’s European population has only ever accounted for 40% of the population. Today, <a href="https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/4964074">around a quarter of the 270,000 New Caledonians</a> identify as having European heritage.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-new-caledonias-instability-is-not-just-a-problem-for-france-154567">Why New Caledonia's instability is not just a problem for France</a>
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<p>But almost as large as the European population are those of mixed heritage. A legacy of colonisation, workers from Vietnam, Vanuatu, Algeria and other former French colonies settled in New Caledonia, married and had children. These New Caledonians often hold the balance of power in the political process. </p>
<p>As a result, a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2760677">complex web of power-sharing structures</a> has emerged over the past 20 years to give a voice to all New Caledonians. There are three provincial governments. One, called South Province, is centred around the capital, Nouméa, on the main island and is home to two-thirds of the population and the majority of the economic activity. </p>
<p>To balance out the disproportionate power of Greater Nouméa, two other provinces, North and Loyalty Islands, were established. Both have Kanak majority populations.</p>
<p>This seemingly unwieldy power structure has been designed from the bottom up. The basic law of New Caledonia, as <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/JORFTEXT000000393606">enshrined in an amendment to the French constitution</a>, is referred to as “organic law” because it is not prescriptive, but rather, flexible. </p>
<p>For example, while some local councils hold elections for the Customary Senate seats, others do not. This is true to the spirit of the organic law – that each Kanak tribe can determine its own system, under a broad umbrella. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1654258968305475584"}"></div></p>
<h2>Charting a path forward</h2>
<p>The French state has progressively devolved power to New Caledonia since the historic <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/new-caledonia/new-caledonia-country-brief">Nouméa Accord of May 1998</a>. Its predecessor, the Matignon Accord, was essentially a peace agreement that ended an occasionally bloody campaign for independence from France, led by the the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front. </p>
<p>Today, the coalition holds 20 of the 54 seats in the quasi-federal parliament that Wong addressed. And, in December, Louis Mapou became the first independence politician to hold the post of president of New Caledonia. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1654263222432591872"}"></div></p>
<p>The coalition’s mission remains a sovereign, independent New Caledonia, or Kanaky (<a href="https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/Kanaky/180860">the group’s preferred name for the new country</a>). Yet, given the complex demographics, it has failed to win a majority in three referendums.</p>
<p>For now, the country remains a French territory, albeit one with substantial autonomy. France maintains responsibility for defence, internal security and currency controls. </p>
<p>But New Caledonia <a href="https://dpa.bellschool.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/2021-01/dpa_discussion_paper_anthony_tutugoro_2020_05_incompatible_struggles_reclaiming_indigenous_sovereignty_and_political_sovereignty_in_kanaky_and_or_new_caledonia.pdf">now has many of the rights associated with statehood</a>, including a New Caledonian citizenship that sits alongside French. It now has the right to conduct foreign policy and trade talks with its Pacific neighbours. Japan recently opened a consulate in Nouméa and other countries are beefing up their presence to counter Chinese influence in the region. </p>
<p>This most recent devolution of powers made Nouméa an obvious stop for Wong, who also visited <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Australia-foreign-minister-visits-Pacific-islands-with-eye-on-China">Tuvalu on the same trip</a>, completing her pledge to visit every member of the 17-member Pacific Islands Forum in her first year.</p>
<p>In doing so, on <a href="https://www.senat-coutumier.nc/aires-coutumieres/carte-des-autorites-coutumieres">Djubéa-Kaponé land</a>, she pledged deeper partnership with a key regional ally and one of the world’s largest nickel producers. And she gained insight into one of the world’s most ambitious power-sharing structures created since the fall of apartheid in South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204536/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Wastnage has previously received funding from the French Ministry of Overseas France and has written a tourism guide to New Caledonia funded by the South Province government of New Caledonia. </span></em></p>
Officially, sovereignty has been put to bed with three straight independence referendum defeats. But France is continuing to devolve powers to its territory in an ambitious power-sharing experiment.
Justin Wastnage, Adjunct Industry Fellow, Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200851
2023-03-15T13:37:56Z
2023-03-15T13:37:56Z
Toyin Falola: 3 recent books that explain the work of Nigeria’s famous decolonial scholar
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514433/original/file-20230309-28-bgy994.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Toyin Falola has turned 70.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy Olusegun Olopade</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://notevenpast.org/professor-toyin-falola-living-and-globalizing-the-humanities/">Toyin Falola</a>, distinguished <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/history/faculty/falolaoo">professor of history</a>, is one of Africa’s most accomplished intellectuals. Born Oloruntoyin Falola in 1953 in the Nigerian city of Ibadan, he grew up in a sprawling, polygamous household that practised Islam, Christianity and ancient Yoruba spirituality. </p>
<p>This confluence of multiple worldviews and religions reflects in his thinking and in his massive academic output. Falola has produced something like 200 books in all areas of the human and social sciences, and travels widely to deliver lectures at conferences and public events.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerian-historian-and-thinker-toyin-falola-on-decolonising-the-academy-in-africa-184188">Nigerian historian and thinker Toyin Falola on decolonising the academy in Africa</a>
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<p>Africa and its diasporas (including Africans in the US, Brazil, Cuba and the Caribbean) are his overriding concern and sites of study. In Falola’s handling, Africa is endlessly fascinating and resourceful, both culturally and intellectually. </p>
<p>Since he is so productive, it’s difficult to offer a cohesive account of his multifaceted work. In the process of working on a book about Falola, I think perhaps the best way to understand his impact is to identify his core values and philosophies and how they recur across his recent output.</p>
<p>His 70th birthday has been celebrated with a renewed flurry of books. I’ll focus on just three of them here.</p>
<h2>1. African Spirituality, Politics, and Knowledge Systems</h2>
<p>Published in 2022, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/african-spirituality-politics-and-knowledge-systems-9781350271944/">African Spirituality, Politics, and Knowledge Systems</a>: Sacred Words and Holy Realms was in part inspired by Falola’s interactions with a Nigerian political scientist, <a href="https://carleton.ca/africanstudies/people/samuel-ojo-oloruntoba/">Samuel Oloruntoba</a>. Falola used Oloruntoba, who engages in intense late night prayer sessions, as a sounding board in writing the book.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514471/original/file-20230309-26-id7yv9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover in black, brown and yellow with an image of an African statue of a head." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514471/original/file-20230309-26-id7yv9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514471/original/file-20230309-26-id7yv9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514471/original/file-20230309-26-id7yv9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514471/original/file-20230309-26-id7yv9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514471/original/file-20230309-26-id7yv9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514471/original/file-20230309-26-id7yv9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514471/original/file-20230309-26-id7yv9.jpeg?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>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bloomsbury</span></span>
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<p>Here, Falola is interested in the spiritual power of the spoken word, a concept not only familiar to Christianity and other religions, but also to Nigeria’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yoruba">Yoruba</a> <a href="https://web.ccsu.edu/afstudy/supdt99.htm">spirituality</a> – in this case ogede, a ritual form of incantation. The spoken word is seen as being imbued with life and power and therefore has the ability to transform lives.</p>
<p>While Falola explores African spiritual formations, in the book he also seeks links to global cultural practices. In the process he affirms our common humanity and the continuities across cultures. He draws links between Christian worship and Orisa spirituality, a religion that is polytheistic (worshipping many gods) and is practised in south-west Nigeria, parts of Benin and Togo. It was also spread across the world through the transatlantic slave trade.</p>
<p>In this book, Falola is refocusing our attention on the primal power of the spoken word as an agent of consciousness and transformation.</p>
<h2>2. Decolonizing African Studies</h2>
<p>Also in 2022, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decolonizing-african-knowledge/1296996BE948B52843872FAA948447BE">Decolonizing African Studies</a> was released. This book is particularly relevant for the South African context. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773">#FeesMustFall</a> student protest movement that grew out of the University of Cape Town as part of an attack on the legacy of the arch-colonialist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a> became a nation-wide campaign. It sparked fervent debates on <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-decolonisation-131455">decolonisation</a> and the institutional legacies of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid’s</a> white minority rule.</p>
<p>European colonialism had a <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/07/how-africas-colonial-history-affects-its-development/">devastating impact</a> on the African continent. Slavery, colonial rule and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/neocolonialism">neocolonialism</a>, which is a covert and often non-violent form of ongoing colonialism, had a similar impact on all African communities.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boydell & Brewer</span></span>
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<p>Indeed what these harmful encounters did to the African self was to effect a schism or disconnect within it, which has resulted in many forms of identity crisis – what the US sociologist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/W-E-B-Du-Bois">W.E.B. Dubois</a> called “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-consciousness/">double consciousness</a>” and other thinkers have called a form of alienation. Simply put, colonial belief systems, morals and culture were imposed on traditional African belief systems, causing this tension. </p>
<p>In this book, Falola attempts to heal the broken African self by bypassing colonial archival sources. Instead, he undertakes a form of intellectual therapy by engaging with “alternative archives created by memory, spoken words, images and photographs”, as the blurb of the British edition puts it. A key component is the use of autoethnography (ethnographic research drawing on the researcher’s own life story) for recovering traces of African memory lost in the colonial haze. In this book, oral narratives and personal viewpoints merge in creating an authentic African knowledge system.</p>
<h2>3. African Memoirs and Cultural Representations</h2>
<p>The most recent major book by Falola is <a href="https://anthempress.com/african-memoirs-and-cultural-representations-hb">African Memoirs and Cultural Representations</a>, released in 2023. In this work, Falola analyses the memoirs of grossly under-studied west African writers who worked largely in the traditional vein – that is, within the perspectives of precolonial west African thinking. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514476/original/file-20230309-20-k4b0hf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover showing a photograph of a man in traditional African attire sitting and reading into a microphone from a large book." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514476/original/file-20230309-20-k4b0hf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514476/original/file-20230309-20-k4b0hf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514476/original/file-20230309-20-k4b0hf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514476/original/file-20230309-20-k4b0hf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514476/original/file-20230309-20-k4b0hf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514476/original/file-20230309-20-k4b0hf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514476/original/file-20230309-20-k4b0hf.jpeg?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>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anthem Press</span></span>
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<p>In this manner, African perspectives, beliefs and norms are recuperated as a way of furthering a decolonial project. In addition, the book highlights the nature and purity of the African voice beyond the colonial framework. In other words, what it means to hear African voices outside the strictures or filters of colonial thought systems.</p>
<p>What these three books do is to outline Falola’s positions on a global decolonial project. He has also recently co-edited the <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-45759-4">Palgrave Handbook on Islam in Africa</a> and a multi-volume <a href="https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-030-28099-4">book project</a> on women’s studies and female agency in Africa. Such is the scope of this African scholar.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-decolonisation-131455">Explainer: what is decolonisation?</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Falola’s copious research outputs debunk the fallacy that Africa was without history, consciousness or mind. Such myths were promoted in the grand narratives of colonialism and the European imperial project. And more importantly, Falola’s work serves as a powerful antidote to the constant onslaughts of <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/afropessimism">afropessimism</a> and probably by extension, <a href="https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/new-york/what-is-afropessimism-politics-society-and-anti-blackness/">anti-blackness</a> in the contemporary age.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanya Osha receives funding from the Andrew M. Mellon Foundation but writes in his personal capacity.</span></em></p>
With over 200 publications to his name, his three most recent books give a sense of why he is so famous as a historian.
Sanya Osha, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198812
2023-02-22T15:32:01Z
2023-02-22T15:32:01Z
Rock art as African history: what religious images say about identity, survival and change
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510268/original/file-20230215-15-yt0qm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After colonial contact, indigenous Africans acquired horses and guns, and raided settlers as a means of resistance.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Sam Challis</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To “read” the history of times before writing, scholars have traditionally used excavated evidence. Remains like dwellings, burials and pots can reveal a lot about how people lived long ago. In southern Africa, there is another archive to “read” too: rock art. Rock art is primarily a record of spiritual beliefs – but also reflects the events that these beliefs made sense of.</p>
<p>Hunter-gatherers in the region, ancestors of today’s San or BaTwa, made rock art for thousands of years before African herders and farmers arrived from the north 2,000 years ago and European colonists followed by sea 350 years ago.</p>
<p>As a result of these contacts between groups of people, ethnic and economic boundaries became increasingly blurred. Rock art changed too, in technique and subject matter.</p>
<p>Rock art tells a tale of people meeting, negotiating, fighting, trading with and marrying one another. The tale is told not in simple narrative, but in spiritual beliefs. Our recent <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/722260">paper in Current Anthropology</a> outlines the nature, scale and effects of contact between people in southern Africa, and the ways in which indigenous people produced images that engaged with change. It shows that contact and colonisation, in time, created a “disconnect” with the past that can be understood by looking at changes in rock art. </p>
<p>The disconnect apparent in the rock art reflects the disconnect in indigenous society more generally. It reveals the mixing and changing – and survival – of different people’s beliefs about the universe. It charts southern African history and, although it is “written” in terms of spiritual beliefs, it is the only record that shows what happened from the San perspective.</p>
<p>It often shows the struggle to resist subjugation, and it depicts beliefs about the forces that could be summoned to resist.</p>
<h2>Shifts in rock art</h2>
<p>What the San painted or engraved on rock was their vision of what happened in a trance state. The artists entered this trance state in order to establish <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/12/1099">connections with animals and spirits in the landscape</a>, to influence their movements, and to derive the power to make rain and heal the sick. </p>
<p>Rock art was never unchanging, but new traditions and styles appeared when African farmers arrived in southern Africa from about 2,000 years ago, and when pastoralism was later introduced. Further changes came with the <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0134215">arrival of Khoe-speakers about 1,000 years ago</a>. These Khoe-speaking herders were themselves descended from earlier mixing between hunter-gatherers and east African pastoralists.</p>
<p>Changes appeared in the rock art’s content – for example the animals and materials portrayed – and in the artistic techniques used.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507048/original/file-20230130-24-3evymd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two images of antelope painted on rock surface" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507048/original/file-20230130-24-3evymd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507048/original/file-20230130-24-3evymd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=180&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507048/original/file-20230130-24-3evymd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=180&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507048/original/file-20230130-24-3evymd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=180&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507048/original/file-20230130-24-3evymd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507048/original/file-20230130-24-3evymd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507048/original/file-20230130-24-3evymd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eland antelope, painted (probably) before and after contact between San and other groups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Sam Challis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Eland antelope (the one with the most spiritual power for the San) were once lovingly drafted and shaded. Later they appeared in bright, chalky and vivid colours, rendered in a posterlike and blocky fashion. The drop in pigment quality was likely due to the breakdown of trade networks brought about by marginalisation, then <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262547793_The_forgotten_killing_fields_San_genocide_and_Louis_Anthing's_mission_to_Bushmanland_1862-1863">slaughter</a>, of indigenous people, but still they called on the power of the eland to help them. </p>
<p>We see pictures of cattle and sheep appearing in rock art, and finger-painted and engraved patterns associated with girls’ initiation, common to pastoralist and hunter-gatherer societies. The images show that people’s identity (ethnicity) and the way they survived (economy) weren’t divided into clear groups. Hunters were not necessarily all San, and all San were not necessarily hunters. The blurring of boundaries between groups increased with time. </p>
<p>As time went on, all these people became subject to extermination policy, slavery and marginalisation. But rather than being passive receptors of change, they used their religion, comprising multicultural beliefs, to survive. This can be seen in the rock art they created.</p>
<h2>Spiritual concepts of water</h2>
<p>Conceptions of the rain, in the form of images of water bulls and water snakes, are particularly useful for examining cross-cultural influences. </p>
<p>For African farmers, snakes were associated with water. Hunter-gatherers and herders with whom they came into contact acknowledged this because they, too, already had beliefs about water and the animal entities embodied by it. </p>
<p>People from different language groups may have gathered together for girls’ initiation ceremonies at sites where the great water snake emerged. At these locations, this spiritual creature’s body, the <a href="http://www.driekopseiland.itgo.com/">undulating rock</a>, is covered with markings to appeal to it – the markings that also appear on the initiates’ tattoos, face paint, clothing and bags. </p>
<p>The control of water, to make rain for pasture and crops, was traded (bartered for cattle) between groups, very likely for centuries. Rock art images of water snakes, water bulls and domestic cattle intertwine and superimpose one another; sometimes water snakes have cattle horns. Often, water bulls or water snakes were depicted being killed to make their blood – the rain – fall. </p>
<p>Water was also extremely important to those wishing to combat the encroaching colonists. By this time the people of southern Africa, regardless of background, held many <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280623580_Binding_beliefs_the_creolisation_process_in_a_%27Bushman%27_raider_group_in_nineteenth-century_southern_Africa">beliefs in common</a>. The people or entities that lived underwater could be called upon to influence situations: torrential rain to wash away the tracks of stolen animals, for example. </p>
<h2>Raiding and escape</h2>
<p>By the time colonists arrived, hunter-gatherers had sheep, and <a href="https://dsae.co.za/entry/sintu/e06478">isiNtu-speakers</a> (African farmers) had adopted aspects of hunter-gatherer beliefs, and vice versa. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510269/original/file-20230215-4182-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Painted image of human with some animal features" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510269/original/file-20230215-4182-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510269/original/file-20230215-4182-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510269/original/file-20230215-4182-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510269/original/file-20230215-4182-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510269/original/file-20230215-4182-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510269/original/file-20230215-4182-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510269/original/file-20230215-4182-kb2qti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=729&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Xhosa warrior painted in the Windvogelberg mountains of the Eastern Cape, possibly as a ‘commission’ including war medicine obtained from the San.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Brent Sinclair-Thomson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>San were increasingly marginalised from well-watered pasture suitable for domestic herds of African herders and farmers. Some became herders themselves, some mixed with farmers and some became raiders. Then, with the expansion of settler farms in the 18th century (which they also raided) they were <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-bandit-slaves-and-the-rock-art-of-resistance-165107">decimated, hunted and enslaved</a>.</p>
<p>In the rock art, baboons became a symbol of protective power to enable raiders to escape unharmed. The root of a powerful medicine, <em>so-|oa</em> or <em>mabophe</em> – closely associated with baboons – enabled stock thieves to pass unnoticed, and “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15740773.2017.1487122">turned bullets to water</a>”. We see this in the paintings of people taking on the power and features of baboons, appearing alongside horses and cattle.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-bandit-slaves-and-the-rock-art-of-resistance-165107">South Africa's bandit slaves and the rock art of resistance</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Horses, the magical vehicles of violence, passage and escape, were kept and cared for by their new owners – the raider groups. They painted themselves in scenes before, during and after raids, not as a diary entry but as part of the [<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sam-Challis/publication/280623828_Re-tribe_and_resist_the_ethnogenesis_of_a_creolised_raiding_band_in_response_to_colonisation/links/5efb0cf6299bf18816f37af0/Re-tribe-and-resist-the-ethnogenesis-of-a-creolised-raiding-band-in-response-to-colonisation.pdf">ritual</a>] of ensuring the outcome was favourable and the memory made positive. </p>
<p>We can now see changes in rock art, from “traditional” animals like rhebok and eland, to those showing rain bulls being killed, rain snakes captured, people with shields and spears, or riding horses alongside baboons, <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/722260">in a new light</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Challis receives funding from the South African NRF African Origins Platform and is a member of the Bradshaw Foundation Rock Art Network</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brent Sinclair-Thomson received funding for this research from the South African National Research Foundation African Origins Platform. </span></em></p>
Changes in southern African rock art reflect the mixing of groups of people after they came into contact with each other.
Sam Challis, Senior Researcher, University of the Witwatersrand
Brent Sinclair-Thomson, Support staff, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195933
2022-12-10T05:52:03Z
2022-12-10T05:52:03Z
Climate crisis in Africa exposes real cause of hunger – colonial food systems that leave people more vulnerable
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499297/original/file-20221206-8597-1i0jaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zawadi Msafiri is seen in a withered maize crop field in Kilifi County, Kenya. The drought situation started in 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Dong Jianghui/Xinhua via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the waning hours of the year’s biggest climate change conference – COP27 – we learned of a deal to create a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/countries-agree-loss-damage-fund-final-cop27-deal-elusive-2022-11-20/">loss and damage fund</a>. This is essentially a source of finance to compensate poor countries for the pain they are incurring because of climate change. An often-cited example of such suffering is the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa region, which has put some <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/november-2022/horn-africa-extreme-drought-deepens-hunger-region-facing-conflict">22 million people</a> at risk of severe hunger. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.undp.org/press-releases/statement-un-development-programme-administrator-achim-steiner-outcome-cop27-climate-negotiations">some</a> have heralded this agreement as long overdue <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/at-cop-27-joy-over-loss-and-damage-fund-is-tempered-by-reality-104497">climate reparations</a>, <a href="https://www.wri.org/news/statement-breakthrough-cop27-establishes-fund-aid-vulnerable-countries-facing-severe-climate?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=worldresources&utm_term=91a1d58e-bf89-4ceb-b8d4-863c6a3e917d&utm_content=&utm_campaign=cop27">others</a> point out that the loss and damage fund does nothing to address the root causes of climate change - fossil fuel emissions. </p>
<p>Here I seek to raise a different concern: this approach glosses over the fact that the types of food production systems that the global community has fostered in Africa leave the poorest more exposed and vulnerable to climatic variability and economic shocks. These food production systems refer to the ways people produce, store, process and distribute food, as well as the inputs into the system along the way.</p>
<p>Historically smallholder and women farmers have produced the lion’s share of food crops on the African continent. Over the past 60 years, global decision makers, big philanthropy, business interests and large swaths of the scientific community have focused on increased food production, trade, and energy intensive farming methods as the best way to address global and African hunger. </p>
<p>This approach to addressing hunger has failed to address food insecurity on the continent. Moderate to severe food insecurity affects nearly <a href="https://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cc0640en">60% of Africans today</a>. It’s also resulted in food systems that are now more vulnerable to climate change. </p>
<p>The idea that the solution is to produce more dates back to the colonial period. It’s bad for the global environment, highly vulnerable to climate and energy shocks, and does not feed the poorest of the poor.</p>
<p>I approach this topic as a nature-society geographer who has spent his career studying agricultural development approaches and food systems in west and southern Africa. Through this work, I have come to see agroecology as more accessible to the poorest.</p>
<h2>Vulnerable food systems</h2>
<p>Each time there has been a global food crisis, variations on the formula of increased agricultural production, trade and energy intensive farming methods have been the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2020.1823838">favoured solution</a>. These include the first Green Revolution of the 1960s-1970s, commodity production and trade in the 1980s-1990s, the New Green Revolution for Africa and public-private partnerships in the 2000s-2010s.</p>
<p>Many scholars now understand that food security has <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919221001445">six dimensions</a>, of which only one is addressed by food production. </p>
<p>Looking at all six dimensions reveals the complex drivers of hunger. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>food availability - local production and net imports </p></li>
<li><p>access - the ability of households to acquire food that is available</p></li>
<li><p>utilisation - the cooking, water and sanitation facilities needed to prepare healthy food</p></li>
<li><p>stability of food prices and supplies over time</p></li>
<li><p>sustainability - the ability to produce food without undermining the resource base</p></li>
<li><p>agency – people’s ability to control their food systems, from production to consumption. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Decolonising African agriculture</h2>
<p>So, how did we get here?</p>
<p>Certain countries and businesses profit from productionist approaches to addressing hunger. These include, for example, Monsanto, which developed the herbicide <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jennifer-Clapp/publication/365767722_The_rise_of_big_food_and_agriculture_corporate_influence_in_the_food_system/links/63822891c2cb154d292d030b/The-rise-of-big-food-and-agriculture-corporate-influence-in-the-food-system.pdf">Round-Up</a>. Or the four companies (Archer-Daniels-Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus) that control <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/23/record-profits-grain-firms-food-crisis-calls-windfall-tax">70%-90% of the global grain trade</a>. </p>
<p>The productionist focus is also engrained in the agricultural sciences. Tropical agronomy, now known as “development agronomy”, was central to the colonial enterprise in Africa. The <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429351105-3/political-agronomy-101-william-moseley">main objective for colonial powers</a> was to transform local food systems. This pushed many African households away from subsistence farming and the production of food for local markets. Instead, they moved towards the cultivation of commodity crops needed to fuel European economic expansion, such as cotton in Mali, coffee in Kenya, and cacao in Côte d'Ivoire.</p>
<p>While forced labour was employed in some instances, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/geography/geography-general-interest/peasant-cotton-revolution-west-africa-cote-divoire-18801995?format=PB&isbn=9780521788830">head taxes</a> became the preferred strategy in many cases for facilitating commodity crop production. Forced to pay such taxes in cash or face jail time, African farmers begrudgingly started to produce cash crops, or went to work on nearby plantations.</p>
<h2>Loss of risk management practices</h2>
<p>Accompanying the transition to commodity crop production was a gradual loss of risk management practices like storage of surplus grain. Many farmers and herders in Africa have had to deal with highly variable rainfall patterns for centuries. This makes them some of the foremost experts on climate change adaptation. Farmers would also plant a diverse range of crops with different rainfall requirements. Herders moved across large areas in search of the best pastures. </p>
<p>In the name of progress, colonial regimes often <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41145912.pdf">encouraged herders to be less mobile throughout East Africa</a>. They also pushed farmers via taxation policies to store less grain in order to maximise commodity crop production. This opened up farmers to the full, deadly force of extended droughts, a <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820344454/silent-violence/">situation that is well documented in northern Nigeria</a>.</p>
<p>Many problematic approaches have continued in the post-colonial period. </p>
<p>Various <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0905717107">international and national policies</a> and programmes have encouraged African farmers to produce more crops, <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/brownjwa23&id=479&collection=journals&index=">using</a> imported seeds, pesticides and fertilisers in the name of development or hunger alleviation. </p>
<p>Even though African farmers may be producing more, they are left exposed to the ravages of variable climatic conditions. </p>
<h2>Agroecology and the way forward</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.fao.org/3/ca5602en/ca5602en.pdf">Agroecologists</a> can offer a different way forward. They seek to understand the ecological interactions between different crops, crops and the soil and atmosphere, and crops and insect communities. They seek to maintain soil fertility, minimise predation from pests and grow more crops without using chemical inputs. </p>
<p>Agroecologists often collaborate with and learn from farmers who have developed such practices over time and are in tune with local ecologies. This combination of experiential knowledge and formal science training makes agroecology a more decolonial science. It is also more accessible to the poor because there’s no need to buy expensive inputs or risk becoming indebted when crops fail.</p>
<p>The fact that agroecological farming is <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/food-health/corporate-take-over-african-food-security">less expensive</a> has not been lost on the business community. They would lose out substantially if conventional farming approaches were no longer associated with hunger alleviation. </p>
<p>Furthermore, those in the agricultural sciences who have supported productionist approaches to hunger alleviation also see agroecology as a threat as it could lead to a decline of prestige and research funding.</p>
<p>There are signs that the global community may be on the <a href="https://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/insights/news-insights/news-detail/Is-the-global-food-system-on-the-cusp-of-a-major-shift-/en">cusp of a major shift in thinking</a> with regard to food systems, climate change and hunger. </p>
<p>A global food crisis has led some to question why previous solutions have not worked. We also now have an emerging, more decolonial science of agroecology that is increasingly accepted within the <a href="https://ijsaf.org/index.php/ijsaf/article/view/27">United Nations system</a>. It’s backed by a powerful social movement that refused to back down when corporate agricultural interests tried to hijack the 2021 <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-022-09882-7">UN Food Systems Summit</a>. </p>
<p>In some cases, there are also large institutional <a href="https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/global-food-nutrition-security/topic/agroecology_en">donors</a> experimenting with agroecological approaches, something almost unheard of a decade ago. </p>
<p>Lastly, there is a new set of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-021-10247-5">leaders</a> within some African governments who understand what agroecology offers.</p>
<p>The ravages of climate change and hunger do not occur in isolation, but are part of the system we have built. That means we can build something different. The current crisis lays bare this problem and the right combination of new ideas, resources and political will can solve it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William G. Moseley receives funding from the US National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>
The ravages of climate change and hunger do not occur in isolation, but are part of the system we have built.
William G. Moseley, DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography, Director of Food, Agriculture & Society Program, Macalester College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195830
2022-12-05T14:01:27Z
2022-12-05T14:01:27Z
Why Britain should immediately withdraw from Mauritius’ Chagos Islands
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498697/original/file-20221202-12-ij0794.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators from the Chagos Islands protest for Britain to end its "illegal occupation".
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by JEAN MARC POCHE/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Britain is on the cusp of decolonising Mauritius – again. The first attempt at decolonisation took place in 1968 but went unfulfilled when London kept hold of an island group that had long been regarded as Mauritian territory: the Chagos Archipelago.</p>
<p>In recent years, the international community has handed down a clear and consistent view that Britain’s occupation of the Chagos Islands is <a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-ownership-of-the-chagos-islands-has-no-basis-mauritius-is-right-to-claim-them-177461">illegal</a>. Now, London and Port Louis are engaged in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/03/uk-agrees-to-negotiate-with-mauritius-over-handover-of-chagos-islands">talks</a> over the future of the islands – the final act, perhaps, in the decolonisation of Mauritius.</p>
<p>Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, <a href="https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2022-11-03/hcws354">has suggested</a> that an agreement on the status of the Chagos Archipelago will come “by early next year”. </p>
<p>But what might a settlement look like?</p>
<p>The answer depends almost entirely on what can be agreed about the future of Diego Garcia, the largest island of the Chagos group. It’s the site of a critical US military base that Britain has dutifully hosted for the past 50 years.</p>
<h2>The American elephant</h2>
<p>It is hard to overstate the legal and political pressure that Britain faces to withdraw from the Chagos Islands. No fewer than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/22/uk-suffers-crushing-defeat-un-vote-chagos-islands">116 national governments</a>, the <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2019/ga12146.doc.htm">UN General Assembly</a>, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-mauritius/african-union-urges-britain-to-cede-chagos-islands-end-colonial-rule-idUSKBN1XW1GG">African Union</a> and the <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/icj-delivers-chagos-advisory-opinion-uk-loses-badly/">International Court of Justice</a> have called upon Britain to cease its occupation of the islands. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/28/un-court-rejects-uk-claim-to-chagos-islands-in-favour-of-mauritius">settled opinion</a> of the international community is that Diego Garcia and the rest of the Chagos Archipelago belong to Mauritius, not the United Kingdom. This is not much of a grey area.</p>
<p>But complying with international law is a voluntary act. </p>
<p>For a long time, Britain’s policy was that the Chagos Islands would be returned to Mauritius when they were <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/questions-on-the-british-indian-ocean-territory-have-long-been-a-bilateral-matter-between-the-uk-and-mauritius#:%7E:text=When%20we%20no%20longer%20need,needed%20them%20for%20defence%20purposes.">no longer needed</a> “for defence purposes”. In his written statement to announce talks with Port Louis, Cleverly appeared to reaffirm this commitment by insisting that “any agreement between our two countries will ensure the continued effective operation” of the base on Diego Garcia.</p>
<p>The elephant in the room is that Britain does not now need – and, in fact, has never truly depended upon – the Chagos Archipelago for military purposes. Only a handful of British military personnel cycle through Diego Garcia. What, then, is London waiting for?</p>
<p>In reality, it is US forces that use the island of Diego Garcia as a logistics hub and staging post for military actions across the Indo-Pacific. As they negotiate with Mauritius, British leaders are therefore mostly interested in securing guarantees that America’s military interests will not be harmed by a transfer of authority to Port Louis. </p>
<p>This is what will shape negotiations over the territory’s future.</p>
<h2>Difficult talks ahead</h2>
<p>Four scenarios stand out as realistic.</p>
<p>First, Britain could relinquish its claim to the Chagos Archipelago without delay, and with few or no strings attached. This would be the “cleanest” way to uphold London’s obligations to Mauritius under international law. It would then be up to Port Louis and Washington to decide upon the future of the base on Diego Garcia.</p>
<p>Second, London could suggest a <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/finding-compromise-chagos-islands-saga">staged approach</a> to decolonisation. The opening phase would see Britain return the so-called “Outer” Chagos Islands to Mauritius – that is, the 57 islands of the archipelago that have never been used for military purposes, which are scattered around 100 miles north and west of Diego Garcia. But in exchange, Port Louis would grant London temporary sovereignty over Diego Garcia (a rump British Indian Ocean Territory) so that the base there could continue its operations uninterrupted for a specified amount of time.</p>
<p>Another variant of this option would be for Britain to acknowledge Mauritian sovereignty over the entire Chagos Archipelago – including Diego Garcia – but negotiate to access rights for itself and the United States.</p>
<p>Finally, talks could break down altogether. This is a real possibility. Decision-makers in London are unlikely to agree to anything that Washington cannot support.</p>
<h2>The case for full decolonisation</h2>
<p>Strictly bilateral talks might not be the best way to resolve the Chagos dispute. The United States must be engaged in the process, too.</p>
<p>Indeed, finding a long-term agreement between Washington and Port Louis is complicated by Britain’s persistent attempts to serve as an intermediary. Colonialism and illegality are hard to accommodate in diplomatic accords, after all.</p>
<p>Britain ought to announce the full and unconditional decolonisation of the territory as a backdrop to Mauritius and the United States discussing the issues that concern the two of them: basing rights, a status of forces agreement, and support for a resettled Chagossian community, to name three.</p>
<p>America’s military is hosted by a diverse cast of national governments on every continent. Dealing with Mauritius should be no more difficult than negotiating with Australia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, or South Korea.</p>
<p>Either way, London has no constructive role to play in these discussions, which concern the territory’s future rather than its past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Harris 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>
As they negotiate with Mauritius, British leaders are mostly interested in securing guarantees that America’s military interests will not be harmed by a transfer of authority to Port Louis.
Peter Harris, Associate Professor of Political Science, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/190343
2022-09-10T04:13:30Z
2022-09-10T04:13:30Z
The Queen has left her mark around the world. But not all see it as something to be celebrated
<p>From the very beginning, Queen Elizabeth II’s reign was deeply connected to Britain’s global empire and the long and bloody processes of decolonisation. </p>
<p>Indeed, she became Queen while on a royal visit to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/09/08/princess-elizabeth-queen-kenya/">Kenya in 1952</a>. After she left, the colony descended into one of the worst conflicts of the British colonial period. Declaring a state of emergency in October 1952, the British would go on to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-truth-british-empire-caroline-elkins-mau-mau">kill tens of thousands of Kenyans</a> before it was over.</p>
<p>Is it possible to disentangle the personal attributes of a gentle and kindly woman from her role as the crowned head of a declining global empire that waged numerous wars and resisted those demanding independence across the globe? </p>
<p>Even though she was a constitutional monarch who generally followed the lead of her parliament, many of Britain’s ex-subjects don’t think so, and some historians agree, with <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/09/08/maya-jasanoff-mourn-queen-not/">one commenting</a> that “Elizabeth II helped obscure a bloody history of decolonisation whose legacies have yet to be adequately acknowledged”.</p>
<p>Here in Australia, too, while some Australians remember with nostalgia the time they waved small flags along the route of royal tours as children, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2022/09/09/what-first-nations-people-are-saying-following-queen-elizabeths-death">one Indigenous scholar</a> has pointed out that the queen “wasn’t a bystander to the effects of colonisation and colonialism”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-royal-family-cant-keep-ignoring-its-colonialist-past-and-racist-present-156749">The royal family can't keep ignoring its colonialist past and racist present</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>It depends who’s remembering</h2>
<p>How the queen and her reign is being remembered depends on where the remembering is taking place and by whom.</p>
<p>This isn’t a new phenomenon. Unforgettable is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/25/william-and-kate-caribbean-tour-slavery-reparations-royals">the royal tour of the Caribbean</a> in March 2022, when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were bluntly told by the prime minister of Jamaica the region was “moving on” from the British monarchy.</p>
<p>Others, too, noted the British monarchy was a constant reminder of the period of slavery, with a government committee in the Bahamas urging them to offer “a full and formal apology for their crimes against humanity”. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1567942498772729860"}"></div></p>
<p>This ongoing process of national distancing from a British royal past is continuing today, even in the week of the queen’s death.</p>
<p>In India, for example, only days ago the once grand boulevard of empire, Rajpath (and before that Kingsway in honour of the British Emperor of India, George V) <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/delhi-central-vista-avenue-inauguration-live-updates-kartavya-path-pm-modi-1997747-2022-09-08">has been renamed Kartavya Path</a> and headed with a giant statue of Subhas Chandra Bose, one of India’s most strident (and controversial) anti-British nationalists.</p>
<p>At the unveiling of this statue, India’s nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that “another symbol of slavery has been removed today” and urged all Indians to visit the site.</p>
<h2>Complicated histories</h2>
<p>The theme of a “complicated historical relationship” with the monarchy is also prominent in South Africa, with <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-died-africa/?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1">one African news site</a> declaring that “South Africa’s relationship with the British monarchy is as complicated as it gets”.</p>
<p>It was in South Africa that Elizabeth declared her intention to devote herself to Britain’s “imperial family” of colonies <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/queen-elizabeth-ii-country-commonwealth">on her 21st birthday</a>. But it was also on the question of South Africa’s apartheid regime that the queen showed a rare moment of dissent with one of her prime ministers, <a href="https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a34764793/the-crown-queen-margaret-thatcher-feud-apartheid-sanctions/">refusing to accept</a> quietly Margaret Thatcher’s decision not to join other countries in placing economic sanctions on the regime. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, Iraq’s <a href="https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq/iraq-mourns-the-death-of-her-majesty-queen-elizabeth/">complicated history</a> with the United Kingdom, which stretches back to the 1920s, <a href="https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq/iraq-mourns-the-death-of-her-majesty-queen-elizabeth/">has also been noted</a> in local reports. More recently, <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/">hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed</a> during the war that Britain began alongside the United States, Australia and other nations in 2003. </p>
<p>In Malaysia, <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2018/07/70-years-later-malayan-emergencys-legacy-lives-on/">the role of the British in massacres</a> and mass resettlement programs during the bloody Malayan Emergency (1948-60) and the period of decolonisation is also still clearly remembered. Not only did this conflict rumble on during the early years of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, all attempts at an inquiry into events in Malaya have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup">stymied</a> by British governments. </p>
<p>Even in neighbouring Ireland, which has sought to smooth relations with its nearest neighbour, <a href="https://www.irishpost.com/news/deepest-condolences-president-of-ireland-leads-tributes-following-death-of-queen-elizabeth-239729">President Michael D Higgins</a> has spoken euphemistically of Queen Elizabeth’s relationship with “those with whom her country has experienced a complex, and often difficult, history”.</p>
<p>Newspapers there also ponder what her death might mean for <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/world/uk/2022/09/08/susan-mckay-queen-elizabeths-death-is-an-earthquake-for-unionists/">Northern Ireland</a>, the site of the Anglo-Irish conflict euphemistically known as the “Troubles” as well as recent strained relations.</p>
<p>The queen may have “charmed” <a href="https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/britain/queen-elizabeth-ii-will-be-best-remembered-for-charming-the-irish-nation-during-her-successful-visit-here-in-2011-41972820.html">some in Ireland</a> with her commemoration of those who fought the British there. But few will have forgotten the role of the British army in Northern Ireland, including the now infamous “Bloody Sunday” Massacre of 1972, nor the queen’s <a href="https://www.irishpost.com/news/anger-queens-speech-appears-dismiss-fight-justice-bloody-sunday-victims-vexatious-claims-175999">statement on behalf of Boris Johnson’s</a> government rejecting its victims’ demands for justice. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-monarchy-has-benefited-from-colonialism-and-slavery-179911">Five ways the monarchy has benefited from colonialism and slavery</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Some might suggest the tortured history of the declining British Empire should be seen as separate from the reign and person of Elizabeth II. Certainly nothing suggests the queen was particularly bellicose in her demeanour.</p>
<p>But as <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/paine-the-rights-of-man-part-i-1791-ed">Thomas Paine</a> once remarked, while a monarch might personally be kind and generous, they remain the monarch, the head of the state which fights its wars and (on occasion) commits its crimes – all in the name of the Crown.</p>
<p>The role of Queen Elizabeth II in the history of British colonialism will continue to be debated well after her death.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Fitzpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
Is it possible to disentangle the personal attributes of a gentle and kindly woman, from her role as the crowned head of a declining global empire that waged numerous wars? Many don’t think so.
Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188908
2022-09-08T17:13:08Z
2022-09-08T17:13:08Z
Seven times people discovered the Americas – and how they got there
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483191/original/file-20220907-20-oi2zhy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5734%2C2742&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Vikings got to the Americas long before Columbus.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/vikings-ships-on-horizon-stormy-ocean-1090110953">vlastas/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Columbus landed in 1492, the Americas had been settled for tens of thousands of years. He wasn’t the first person to discover the continent. Instead, his discovery was the last of many discoveries. </p>
<p>In all, people found the Americas at least seven different times. For at least six of those, it wasn’t so new after all. The discoverers came by sea and by land, bringing new genes, new languages, new technologies. Some stayed, explored, and built empires. Others went home, and left few hints they’d ever been there.</p>
<p>From last to first, here’s the story of how we discovered the Americas.</p>
<p><strong>7. Christopher Columbus: AD 1492</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three ships" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Replicas of Columbus’s ships sailed to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#/media/File:1893_Nina_Pinta_Santa_Maria_replicas.jpg">E. Benjamin Andrews/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1492, Europeans could reach Asia by the <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/silk-road">Silk Road</a>, or by sailing the Cape Route around the southern tip of Africa. Sailing west from Europe was thought to be impossible. </p>
<p>The ancient Greeks had accurately calculated that the circumference of the Earth was <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/152473a0">40,000 km</a>, which put Asia far to the west. But Columbus botched his calculations. An error in unit conversion gave him a circumference of just 30,000 km. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-amazing-astronomical-discoveries-from-ancient-greece-136197">Four amazing astronomical discoveries from ancient Greece</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This mistake, with other assumptions born of wishful thinking, gave a distance of just <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0025570X.1992.11996024">4,500 km</a> from Europe to Japan. The actual distance is almost 20,000 kilometres.</p>
<p>So Columbus’s ships set sail without enough supplies to reach Asia. Fortunately for him, he hit the Americas. Columbus, thinking he’d found the East Indies, called its people “Indios”, or Indians. He ultimately died without realising his mistake. It was the navigator Amerigo Vespucci who realised Columbus had <a href="https://www.livescience.com/42510-amerigo-vespucci.html">found an unknown land</a> and in 1507 the name America was applied in Vespucci’s honour.</p>
<p><strong>6. Polynesians: AD 1,200</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sketch of a Polynesian canoe" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doubled hulls gave Polynesian canoes more stability on the open ocean.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Fijian_druas_%28NYPL_Hades-2359184-4043540%29.jpg">NYPL/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Around 2,500 BC, a seafaring people <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03902-8">sailed from Taiwan</a> to find new lands. They sailed south through the Philippines, east through Melanesia, then out into the vast South Pacific. These people, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Polynesia">Polynesians</a>, were master navigators, reading wind, waves and stars to cross thousands of kilometres of open ocean. </p>
<p>Using huge double canoes, the Polynesians <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1586/polynesian-navigation--settlement-of-the-pacific/">settled</a> Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, and the Cook Islands. Some went <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1408491111">south to New Zealand</a>, becoming <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-017-9110-y">the Maori</a>. Others went east to Tahiti, Hawaii, Easter Island, and the Marquesas. From here, they at last hit South America. Then, having explored most of the Pacific, they gave up exploration and forgot South America entirely.</p>
<p>But evidence of this remarkable voyage remained. The South Americans acquired <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.0703993104">chickens from Polynesians</a>, while the Polynesians may have picked up <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440307000805">South American sweet potatoes</a>. And they shared more than food. Eastern Polynesians have <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2?from=article_link">Native American DNA</a>. Polynesians didn’t just meet Native Americans, they married them.</p>
<p><strong>5. Norse: AD 1,021</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A viking ship" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Osebergskipet, a viking ship constructed in AD 820.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osebergskipet#/media/Fil:Osebergskipet_2016.jpg">Petter Ulleland/wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to Viking sagas, around AD 980, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erik-the-Red">Eric the Red</a>, fierce Viking and cunning salesman, named a vast, icy wasteland “Greenland” to <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/iceland-greenland-name-swap">entice people to move there</a>. Then, in AD 986, a boat from Greenland <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/icelanders">spotted the coast of Canada</a>.</p>
<p>Around <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03972-8">AD 1,021</a>, Erik’s son Leif established a settlement in Newfoundland. The Vikings struggled with the harsh climate, before war with Native Americans ultimately forced them back to Greenland. These stories were long dismissed as myths, until 1960, when archaeologists dug up the remains of <a href="https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/top-destinations/lanse-aux-meadows">Viking settlements in Newfoundland</a>.</p>
<p><strong>4. Inuit: AD 900</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An Inuit skin boat" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inuit boats were built from walrus or seal skins stretched over driftwood or whalebone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ian.macky.net/secretmuseum/eskimo_umiak.jpg">The Secret Museum of Mankind</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just before the Vikings, the Inuit people travelled <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1251-y">from Siberia to Alaska</a> in skin boats. Hunting whales and seals, living in sod huts and igloos, they were well adapted to the cold Arctic Ocean, and skirted its shores all the way to Greenland. </p>
<p>Curiously, their DNA is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1251-y">closest to native Alaskans</a>, implying their ancestors colonised Asia from Alaska, then went back to discover the Americas again. </p>
<p><strong>3. Eskimo-Aleut: 2,000-2,500 BC</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An Inuit family" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?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">Inuits have a distinct history from other Native Americans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Eskimo_Family_NGM-v31-p564-2.jpg">George R. King/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Inuit descend from an earlier migration: that of speakers of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eskimo-Aleut-languages">Eskimo-Aleut languages</a>. These are distinct from other Native American languages, and might even be distantly related to Uralic languages such as <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2010.00239.x">Finnish and Hungarian</a>. </p>
<p>This, with DNA evidence, suggests the Eskimo-Aleut was a distinct migration. They came across the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Bering-Sea">Bering Sea</a> from present-day Russia to Alaska, perhaps <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1987.89.1.02a00020">4,000-4,500</a> years ago, partly displacing and mixing with earlier migrants: the Na-Dene people. </p>
<p><strong>2. Na-Dene: 3,000-8,000 BC</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mother and son in a canoe" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Na-Dene people may have arrived in Alaska 10,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Hareskin_canoe.jpg">Canadian National Exhibition/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another group, the Na-Dene, crossed the Bering Sea to Alaska around <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1251-y">5,000 years ago</a>, although other studies suggest they settled the Americas as long as <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1987.89.1.02a00020">10,000 years ago</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1251-y">DNA from their bones</a> links them not to modern people in the Eskimo-Aleut group, but to Native Americans speaking the Na-Dene language family, such as the <a href="https://www.navajo-nsn.gov/">Navajo</a>, <a href="https://denenation.com/">Dene</a>, <a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/northwest-coast/tlingit">Tlingit</a>, and Apache people. Na-Dene languages are closest to languages <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC25007/">spoken in Siberia</a>, suggesting again that they represent a distinct migration.</p>
<p><strong>1. First Americans: 16,000-35,000 years ago</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ancient tools" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clovis points uncovered at a site in Iowa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture#/media/File:Clovis_Rummells_Maske.jpg">Billwhittaker/wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Almost all Native American tribes – Sioux, Comanche, Iroquois, Cherokee, Aztec, Maya, Quechua, Yanomani, and dozens of others – speak <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Indian-languages">similar languages</a>. That suggests their languages evolved from a common ancestor tongue, spoken by a single tribe entering the Americas long ago. Their descendants’ low genetic diversity suggests this founding tribe was small, maybe <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030193">less than 80 people</a>. </p>
<p>How did they get there? Before the last ice age ended 11,700 years ago, so much water was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3083538">locked up in glaciers</a> that sea levels fell. The bottom of the Bering Sea dried out, creating the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1705966114">Bering Land Bridge</a>. America’s first people just walked from Russia to Alaska. But the timing of their migration is controversial.</p>
<p>Archaeologists once thought the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Clovis-complex">Clovis people</a>, living <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.0704215104">13,000 years ago</a>, were the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-clovis-point-and-the-discovery-of-americas-first-culture-3825828/">first settlers of America</a>. But evidence <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02137-3">now suggests</a> humans arrived in the Americas much earlier. </p>
<p>Finds in <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1207663?casa_token=i79Z6iFCPuwAAAAA:onB6l4Ih9BSvJY9a6rTuKDjv9pD1_EEaPJlwmjsk1qVgjDcqotjX2jlmzXMg-Kh1fqxMMXLhUeMvIw">Washington</a>, <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba6404">Oregon</a>, <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1201855">Texas</a>, the <a href="https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=sciaa_staffpub">east coast of the US</a>, and <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.1600375">Florida</a> suggest people reached the Americas long before the Clovis people.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fossil-footprints-prove-humans-populated-the-americas-thousands-of-years-earlier-than-we-thought-168426">Fossil footprints prove humans populated the Americas thousands of years earlier than we thought</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586">Footprints in New Mexico</a> date to 23,000 years ago. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0">Stone tools</a> in a Mexican cave may date to 32,000 years ago. A <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.903795/full">butchered mammoth</a> from Colorado dates to 31,000-38,000 years ago. And traces of fire put <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307716">humans in Alaska</a> 32,000 years ago. </p>
<p>Some of these dates could be incorrect, but with each new discovery it seems increasingly unlikely that they’re all wrong.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Map showing sites of pre-Clovis sites" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Geographic distribution of pre-Clovis sites. Numbers provided are ‘years ago’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicholas R. Longrich/Google Earth</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An early migration would neatly solve a major mystery. 13,000 years ago, a vast glacier, the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1601077113">Laurentide Ice Sheet</a>, buried Canada in ice up to three kilometres thick. If people arrived in North America then, how did they cross the ice? Southeast Alaska’s rugged coast, full of glaciers and fjords, was likely impassible, and early Americans probably lacked boats. But 30,000 years ago, the ice sheet hadn’t fully formed. </p>
<p>Before the ice spread, people could have hunted mammoths and horses east from Alaska into the Northwest Territories, then south through Alberta and Saskatchewan into Montana. Remarkably, humans may have settled the Americas <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-94408-w">before western Europe</a>. Yet that might make sense. Alaska’s Arctic is harsh, but Europe had <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2011.02536.x">potentially hostile Neanderthals</a>.</p>
<h2>The end of discovery</h2>
<p>1492 was the last discovery of the Americas. Following the voyages of Columbus, Magellan, and Cook, the scattered descendants of humanity’s diaspora were finally reunited. Aside from a few <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140804-sad-truth-of-uncontacted-tribes">uncontacted tribes</a>, everywhere was known to everyone. Discovery was impossible.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Old wooden ships" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Captain Cook’s ships, Resolution and Discovery, off the coast of Tahiti.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27Resolution%27_and_%27Discovery%27_off_the_coast_of_Tahiti_RMG_D2537.tiff">Samuel Atkins/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the story of the Americas’ settlement is still being written, and our understanding is evolving. The Eskimo-Aleut may have been <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1987.89.1.02a00020">two different migrations</a>, not one. Genes <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14895">hint at the possibility</a> of other, early founding populations. And given how little evidence the Polynesians and Norse left of their visits, it’s conceivable there were other migrations, ones of which we have little evidence. </p>
<p>There’s so much we don’t know. No one can discover the Americas anymore, but there’s a lot left to discover about their discovery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas R. Longrich 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>
Columbus’s was the last of at least seven discoveries of the Americas.
Nicholas R. Longrich, Senior Lecturer in Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Bath
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/185441
2022-06-23T14:29:00Z
2022-06-23T14:29:00Z
Kinyafranglais: how Rwanda became a melting pot of official languages
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470539/original/file-20220623-51620-2s4nw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rwanda has four official languages; Kinyarwanda, English, French and Swahili.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephanie Aglietti/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today, Rwanda is a melting pot of official languages. Although <a href="https://nalrc.indiana.edu/doc/brochures/kinyarwanda.pdf">more than</a> 99% of Rwandans speak Kinyarwanda – a Bantu language and the country’s mother-tongue – Rwanda has three other official languages: French, English and Swahili. </p>
<p>How did the Central African nation end up with four official languages? Looking at the country’s language policies and history can help us to decode the linguistic trends. As a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0021909619885974">researcher in these fields</a>, I’ve found that though transitions have overlapped, and that various languages are now used interchangeably, Rwanda’s melting pot of languages has also brought various benefits.</p>
<p>Between 1899 and 1918, Ruanda-Urundi – today’s Rwanda and Burundi – was colonised by the German empire and was ruled indirectly. This relied on local leaders and so the German language never really took root. </p>
<p>In 1923, following the first world war, Belgium administered Ruanda-Urundi as the seventh province of Belgian Congo. This was done under a League of Nations mandate. French was adopted by the central administration as the <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/NEH/rwhistory.htm">official language</a>. Flemish, Belgium’s most widely spoken language, was mostly used by missionaries and administrators at the local level. After independence, the 1962 constitution consolidated French and Kinyarwanda as official languages. </p>
<p>Rwanda seemed well-entrenched within the Francophone sphere until the end of the 20th century. But from 1990 to 1994, France <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2307/2658125">offered</a> increasing economic and military assistance to the Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana. And after Habyarimana’s plane was shot down on 6 April 1994, <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/africa/rwandan-genocide">around</a> 800,000 Tutsi were killed in retaliation. France was <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rwanda-ils-parlent-T%C3%A9moignages-lhistoire/dp/202141888X">accused of complicity</a> – either defined as unresponsiveness or direct involvement – in the genocide for failing to protect civilians and using <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/11/rwanda.insideafrica">Opération Turquoise</a> to prop up the Hutu regime. </p>
<p>Closely associated with the colonial era and a genocide, the French language was progressively sidelined as Paul Kagame rose to power. In just over a decade (1996-2009), Rwanda switched from French to English. At the time, English was then only used by a minority of Tanzanian and Ugandan immigrants, including the new government incumbents. </p>
<h2>The adoption of English</h2>
<p>Rwanda’s switch to English can either be viewed as a large-scale linguistic gamble or a carefully crafted transition. In 1996, the constitution <a href="https://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/afrique/rwanda.htm">enthroned English</a> as an official language; in 2007, Rwanda <a href="https://www.eac.int/eac-partner-states/rwanda">joined</a> the East African Community; in 2008, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275122876_Policy_without_a_plan_English_as_a_medium_of_instruction_in_Rwanda">English became</a> the medium of instruction at all school levels; and in 2009, Rwanda <a href="https://thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries/rwanda">became a member</a> of the Commonwealth. </p>
<p>In education, East African Community membership enabled Rwanda <a href="https://researchmap.jp/read0060133/published_papers/14967519?lang=en">to harmonise</a> schools and universities’ curricula with neighbouring member countries. Comparatively higher than Francophone West Africa in the 2000s, the East African Community economic growth rate <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2014/wp14150.pdf">also spurred</a> the flow of goods and labour from and to the Indian Ocean, thus helping Rwanda overcome its landlocked position. </p>
<p>Tilting towards the English-speaking sphere <a href="https://thegiin.org/assets/documents/pub/East%20Africa%20Landscape%20Study/08Rwanda_GIIN_eastafrica_DIGITAL.pdf">significantly increased</a> Rwanda’s attractiveness in terms of foreign direct investment and official development assistance, especially from the US and the UK. </p>
<p>But apart from mere economic parameters, does the imposition of new languages fit in with the lives of Rwandans?</p>
<h2>Kinyafranglais</h2>
<p>Colonisation, genocide and changes in official languages have resulted in the hybridisation of languages. A mix of Kinyarwanda, French and English – dubbed <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/rje/article/view/111556">kinyafranglais</a> – has become a household “language”. Conversations slip from one language to another and sentences are peppered with words from all of them. </p>
<p>The mix of languages can also be seen beyond the household. In 2011, public curricula reverted to Kinyarwanda as the medium of instruction for the first three years at primary school. English was introduced from the fourth year and French was sidelined. Some private schools still bolster French and English as the language of instruction. </p>
<p>Government announcements are made in English on international issues, in Kinyarwanda when domestic audiences are targeted and in French for Francophone-specific items. Citizens in their 30s and above are more likely to master French while those who graduated from high school or university after the pivotal year of 2008 speak fluent English. And city-dwellers, being more exposed than rural people to foreigners and English media, tend to have a slightly better command of English. </p>
<p>This far from complete transition to an all-out English environment is likely to persist for two main reasons: the resilience of Kinyarwanda and Swahili; and Rwanda’s double allegiance to the <a href="https://www.francophonie.org/">Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie</a> and the Commonwealth. </p>
<h2>Local trends</h2>
<p>Looking to the future, things may continue to shift. Throughout the years, Kinyarwanda never ceased to act as the vernacular lingua franca. In parallel, recent eastward pressures are reinvigorating Swahili within and beyond its traditional military, Muslim and business circles. </p>
<p>Regulations from the African Union and East African Community <a href="https://www.eac.int/press-releases/138-education,-science-technology-news/2419-eac-sectoral-council-on-education,-science-and-technology,-culture-and-sports-scestcs-adopts-roadmap-for-implementation-of-kiswahili-and-french-as-official-languages-of-the-community">encourage</a> the use of Swahili in official documents. And last year Rwanda requested Tanzania <a href="http://apanews.net/en/news/rwanda-seeks-to-hire-kiswahili-teachers-from-tanzania">to dispatch</a> Swahili teachers with a view on upgrading it as a principal subject at school.</p>
<p>With infrastructure projects connecting the Swahili-speaking area ranging from Eastern DR Congo to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Mombasa in Kenya, Swahili’s status is rising in the hub that Rwanda has turned itself into.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremie Eyssette 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>
Colonisation, genocide and changes in official languages have resulted in the hybridisation of languages. A mix of Kinyarwanda, French and English is dubbed kinyafranglais.
Jeremie Eyssette, Assistant Professor, Chosun University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/185170
2022-06-19T08:04:17Z
2022-06-19T08:04:17Z
How Patrice Lumumba’s assassination drove student activism, shaping the Congo’s future
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469237/original/file-20220616-24-a6b4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protestor holds a picture of Patrice Lumumba.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hatim Kaghat/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During a <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/06/10/king-philippe-of-belgium-arrived-in-lubumbashi-in-dr-congo/#:%7E:text=In%20a%20historic%20trip%20to,wealth%20for%20his%20own%20benefit.">recent visit</a> to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), King Philippe of Belgium made a speech to the national parliament in Kinshasa expressing his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/09/belgium-king-philippe-democratic-republic-congo-colonialism/#:%7E:text=King%20Philippe%20of%20Belgium%20expressed,took%20the%20throne%20in%202013.">“deepest regrets”</a> for the exploitation and oppression of Belgian colonialism. </p>
<p>The European nation <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Belgian-Congo#:%7E:text=Belgian%20Congo%2C%20French%20Congo%20Belge,Belgium%20from%201908%20until%201960.">ruled</a> the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1908 until 1960. Before that it had been a <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/belgian-king-establishes-congo-free-state">personal colony</a> of Leopold II, Philippe’s great great grand uncle, for more than 25 years.</p>
<p>Philippe also addressed students at the University of Lubumbashi, in the capital of the Southeastern province of Katanga. “Today, let’s look towards the future,” <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/212613/drc-king-philippe-of-belgium-presents-his-regrets-for-the-wounds-of-the-past/">he urged</a>. Philippe declined to expand on his regrets, and only mentioned the colonial past, “our shared history,” in veiled terms. </p>
<p>His exhortation to dissipate colonial memories is particularly problematic in Lubumbashi. It is only a few kilometers away from where Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first Prime Minister, was <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/792-the-assassination-of-lumumba">assassinated</a>. This happened in the <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/792-the-assassination-of-lumumba">presence of</a> the Katangese secessionist leader Moïse Tshombe and his Belgian advisers on January 17, 1961.</p>
<p>Lumumba’s tooth, which had been kept by the Belgian policeman who destroyed his body, will finally be <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/05/25/drc-belgium-to-return-patrice-lumumba-s-tooth/">repatriated</a> to the DRC – a gesture <a href="https://jacobin.com/2020/08/patrice-lumumba-daughter-belgium-congo-teeth">his family have been requesting</a> for a long time. </p>
<p>Belgian researcher Ludo De Witte has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/17/patrice-lumumba-50th-anniversary-assassination">described</a> Lumumba’s murder as the most important assassination of the 20th Century. A charismatic leader, Lumumba embodied the struggle for pan-Africanism and Congolese unity. He unequivocally <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV0m0xItGgE">denounced Europe’s racist oppression of Africa</a>. His vision of decolonisation, as a process of total liberation, marked millions of people in the Congo and around the world.</p>
<p>While Belgium has <a href="https://www.lachambre.be/kvvcr/pdf_sections/comm/lmb/conclusions.pdf">partly acknowledged</a> its responsibility for the murder, no protagonists have been brought to justice. A parliamentary commission found that King Baudouin, the monarch at Congo’s decolonisation, was aware of plans to assassinate Lumumba. However, Baudouin’s complicity <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/lumumba-tooth-belgium-unfinished-reckoning-colonial-past/">remains to be officially recognised</a>.</p>
<p>The commission “tried in a way to limit the damages with its conclusions” and <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/lumumba-tooth-belgium-unfinished-reckoning-colonial-past/">shied away</a> from linking Belgium directly to the assassination. That was because <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/lumumba-tooth-belgium-unfinished-reckoning-colonial-past/">“the diplomatic, ideological and financial consequences would be extremely great.”</a></p>
<p>This might be why King Philippe is focusing on moving forward. His speech in Lubumbashi positioned Congolese students as a future-oriented group with whom Belgium could forge a new partnership. </p>
<p>But there’s a crucial element missing from this logic: the specific role historically played by university students in further entrenching decolonisation in the Congo. This appeared most strongly during the 1960s.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/students-of-the-world">forthcoming book</a> on the history of this movement, as well as in <a href="https://chimurengachronic.co.za/reform-and-revolution-at-the-univesity-of-lovanium/">previous</a> <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/political-life-of-the-dead-lumumba-cold-war-histories-and-the-congolese-student-left/5CAB511BE7B085E0E9D138D93B350BB8">publications</a>, I argue that Lumumba’s death triggered students towards the political left. It created a generation of intransigent activists. These students pushed for total liberation from exploitation and oppression, as Lumumba had envisioned. </p>
<p>Many students today <a href="https://vimeo.com/155515032">still feel committed</a> to this tradition, and might not easily accept the clean slate envisioned in the monarch’s call to turn away from the past.</p>
<h2>Shifts in the student movement</h2>
<p>Congolese only began accessing universities a few years before the end of the Belgian regime. This was much later than in other colonial territories in Africa. This was a deliberate move by colonial officials, afraid that educated Congolese would challenge the status quo.</p>
<p>But as the anticolonial struggle was taking off, the Belgians revised their judgement and authorised the opening of two universities. They hoped that having been given access to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpeBFqrtWEg">last echelon of European education</a>, educated Congolese would support the maintaining of strong ties between Belgium and the Congo.</p>
<p>In the late 1950s, some students adopted the moderate tone that the Belgians had wished for. Several leading student figures from this period, whom I interviewed for <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/students-of-the-world">my book</a>, told me how they had criticised the politicians as demagogues unfit to rule the Congo. They argued that only a properly trained elite like themselves, and not uneducated politicans, could lead the country towards development and prosperity.</p>
<p>But, in the aftermath of Lumumba’s assassination in 1961, the student movement shifted. Its orientation became a vocal voice in defence of a fully independent Congo and for a more radical break with the colonial era. Students became increasingly critical of their Belgian professors and began identifying with revolutionary figures from Africa, Asia and Latin America.</p>
<p>The murder opened the eyes of many to the violence of neocolonialism. Lumumba immediately became viewed as both <a href="https://lup.be/products/106908">a martyr and hero</a> by people around the world. This strongly impressed students and they felt like it was their role to continue the work he had started.</p>
<p>The student movement of the 1960s adopted Lumumba’s commitment to pan-African unity. It built on his conviction that independence involved more than a political transition. It had to be a revolutionary process that abolished economic exploitation and ensured mental liberation from colonial worldviews.</p>
<h2>Student demands</h2>
<p>Students denounced the continuous power of Belgian administrators and faculty at Congolese universities. They demanded the Africanisation of curricula and the democratisation of governing boards. </p>
<p>Their activism transformed higher education. It paved the way ultimately to the nationalisation of universities. But it also reverberated beyond university campuses, challenging the political elite’s refusal to continue the unfinished decolonisation of Congolese society and economy.</p>
<p>After General Mobutu Sese Seko <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mobutu-Sese-Seko">staged a coup</a> in 1965, he attempted to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/political-life-of-the-dead-lumumba-cold-war-histories-and-the-congolese-student-left/5CAB511BE7B085E0E9D138D93B350BB8">co-opt students</a> and change their ideas about radical independence. </p>
<p>However, Mobutu’s uneven adherence to the ideal of Congolese nationalism alienated the students. By the end of the 1960s university students <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=Ph2OV5gAAAAJ&citation_for_view=Ph2OV5gAAAAJ:LkGwnXOMwfcC">continued</a> to oppose Mobutu’s increasingly dictatorial power. This was despite the fact that the regime suppressed critical voices. </p>
<p>Their protests were violently repressed and did not succeed in immediately challenging the president. Yet, they planted seeds that grew over the years and led to the powerful movement for democratisation of the 1990s. I believe that this significantly weakened Mobutu’s power and contributed to his ultimate downfall in 1997.</p>
<p>In June 1970, when King Baudouin went on the first Belgian royal visit of Congo since independence, he stopped, together with President Mobutu, at Lovanium University in Kinshasa. In an interview with students from that time, they told me how they sprayed the royal delegation with water. It was an expression of their opposition to the regime and unfinished decolonisation of their university.</p>
<p>King Philippe didn’t experience an incident like this. Yet, it doesn’t mean that students aren’t looking critically at the relationship between Belgium and Congo. Students <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_January_2015_DRC_protests">rose</a> up in 2015 against then President Joseph Kabila’s attempt to change the constitution. Recently, they have <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/19/dr-congo-free-youth-activists">protested</a> against the ongoing war and massacres of civilians in Eastern Congo.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pedro Monaville receives funding from the University of Michigan, the National History Center, the Spencer Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, Vocatio, the Council on Library and Information Resources, and New York University Abu Dhabi.</span></em></p>
Lumumba’s death triggered students and created a generation of activists that pushed for total liberation from exploitation and oppression.
Pedro Monaville, Professor, New York University Abu Dhabi
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/181642
2022-04-22T10:41:29Z
2022-04-22T10:41:29Z
Colonialism: why leading climate scientists have finally acknowledged its link with climate change
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459297/original/file-20220422-18-oxwv8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4281%2C2843&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Campaigners have long argued for recognising colonialism as a climate-shaping force.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Climate_March_0241_(34210342272).jpg">Edward Kimmel/Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)‘s <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/">sixth and latest report</a> on the impact of global warming on our planet, published earlier this month, reiterates many of its predecessors’ warnings: chiefly that climate change threatens <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm">global disaster</a> if we do not act to avert it. Yet it contains one key difference. For the first time in the institution’s history, the IPCC has included the term “colonialism” in its report’s summary.</p>
<p>Colonialism, the report asserts, has <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf">exacerbated</a> the effects of climate change. In particular, historic and ongoing forms of colonialism have helped to increase the <a href="https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/65708/4/Climate_Colonialism_pre_print.pdf">vulnerability</a> of specific people and places to the effects of climate change.</p>
<p>The IPCC has been producing scientific reports on climate change since 1990. But in its more than 30 years of analysis, it has never yet discussed the connections between climate change and colonialism: until now.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-key-points-in-the-ipcc-report-on-climate-change-impacts-and-adaptation-178195">Five key points in the IPCC report on climate change impacts and adaptation</a>
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<p>The addition of one new term to the IPCC’s lexicon might not seem significant. But <a href="https://www.lehigh.edu/%7Eamsp/eng-11-globalization.htm">colonialism</a> is a deeply complex word. Referring to the practice of acquiring full or partial control over another group’s territory, it can include the occupation of that land by settlers as well as the economic exploitation of land to benefit the colonising group.</p>
<p>In Australia, where I come from, British colonists invaded Aboriginal people’s land in the late 18th century and have since worked to establish a permanent settlement there. This was not a peaceful process. It involved violent acts of dispossession including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2019/mar/04/massacre-map-australia-the-killing-times-frontier-wars">widespread massacres</a> of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/islander-labourers">forced removal</a> of those people from their land, and the <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/bringing-them-home-report-1997">forced separation</a> of children from their families. </p>
<p>Connecting climate change to such acts of colonisation involves recognising that historic injustices are not consigned to history: their legacies are alive in the present. Researchers <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.2395">have shown</a>, for example, that the scale of bushfires in Australia today – including the catastrophic <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666449620300098">fires of 2019-20</a> – is not being exacerbated by climate change alone. It’s also amplified by the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623520601056240">colonial displacement</a> of Indigenous people from their lands and the disruption of their <a href="https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol25/iss4/art11/">land management practices</a> that skilfully used controlled burning to help landscapes flourish.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Fires burn in a forest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459282/original/file-20220422-15-jv13m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459282/original/file-20220422-15-jv13m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459282/original/file-20220422-15-jv13m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459282/original/file-20220422-15-jv13m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459282/original/file-20220422-15-jv13m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459282/original/file-20220422-15-jv13m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459282/original/file-20220422-15-jv13m9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The spread of bushfires in Australia has been influenced by preventing Indigenous people from managing their lands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bertknot/8225104985">Bertknot/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>This is why it’s significant that the term colonialism is not only included within the full, more technical part of the latest report. It’s also included within the concise “<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf">summary for policymakers</a>”, the most widely cited and read part of the IPCC’s reports.</p>
<p>By connecting climate change to colonialism in this summary, the IPCC is sending a message to the governments and policymakers of the world that addressing the effects of climate change cannot be achieved without also addressing the legacies of colonialism. It’s a message that also acknowledges how the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-what-is-climate-justice">climate justice movement</a> has long campaigned for the recognition of the unequal effects of climate change on different groups of people.</p>
<h2>Timely connections</h2>
<p>Several reasons stand out as to why the IPCC has finally chosen to acknowledge this link. The people most impacted by colonisation have campaigned for – and gained greater access to – the IPCC’s process of creating reports. Previous reports were <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2954">critiqued</a> for lacking authors from Indigenous groups and non-Western nations. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/colonialism-was-a-disaster-and-the-facts-prove-it-84496">Colonialism was a disaster and the facts prove it</a>
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<p>In the latest report, by contrast, about <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/04/06/ar6-author-selection/">44% of authors</a> are from “developing countries and countries with economies in transition”, up from 37% in the previous report. Authors also come from <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0309133310373719">more diverse</a> disciplinary <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-key-points-in-the-ipcc-report-on-climate-change-impacts-and-adaptation-178195">backgrounds</a>, including anthropology, history and philosophy as well as science and economics. </p>
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<img alt="Five white people sit behind a table on a stage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459283/original/file-20220422-26-vlvlv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459283/original/file-20220422-26-vlvlv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459283/original/file-20220422-26-vlvlv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459283/original/file-20220422-26-vlvlv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459283/original/file-20220422-26-vlvlv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459283/original/file-20220422-26-vlvlv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459283/original/file-20220422-26-vlvlv2.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">
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<span class="caption">Previous IPCC working groups have been criticised for their lack of diversity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/takver/10078217474">John Englart/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>There has also been a steadily growing body of literature demonstrating the connections between climate change and colonialism since the IPCC completed its fifth report in 2014. For example, Potawatomi philosopher and climate justice scholar <a href="https://seas.umich.edu/research/faculty/kyle-whyte">Kyle Whyte</a> is cited in the latest report for his research on direct links between dispossessing Indigenous people of their land and environmental damage.</p>
<p>Yet for all the significance of the IPCC’s new acknowledgement, it is only one part of the latest report that develops this connection. IPCC reports are composed of three sections produced by different <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/">working groups</a>. The first section assesses the physical science of climate change; the second covers the impacts of climate change; and the third deals with potential ways to lessen these effects. Only the second section discusses colonialism.</p>
<h2>Climate history</h2>
<p>As a historian of climate knowledge, I’d argue that an analysis of colonialism should also be included in the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/working-group/wg1/">first section</a> covering climate science. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/habsburg-empire-created-modern-climate-science/575068/">Research</a> is increasingly showing that climate science is rooted in imperialism and colonialism. The historian Deborah R. Coen <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo24768042.html">has shown</a> that key elements of contemporary climate change science owe their origins to the <a href="https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/making-climate-history#:%7E:text=Funded%20by%20the%20Leverhulme%20Trust,physics%20and%20a%20global%20climate.">imperial ambitions</a> of the 19th century <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/austrian-history-yearbook/article/abs/economic-development-in-the-nineteenthcentury-habsburg-empire/7A5B3DD5FAA808EC242CBE4E48D71AE5">Habsburg Empire</a>. It was Habsburg imperialist politics, for example, that helped scientists develop an understanding of the relationship between the development of local storms and atmospheric circulation.</p>
<p>What’s more, much of the historic meteorological data that contemporary climate scientists rely on was produced by colonising powers. Take the data <a href="https://webs.ucm.es/info/cliwoc/intro.htm">extracted by scientists</a> from the logbooks of mid-19th century English ships. This information was recorded as part of an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26455496?seq=1">effort</a> to better connect territories colonised by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-monarchy-has-benefited-from-colonialism-and-slavery-179911">British Empire</a> and speed up the exploitation of other people’s land and water.</p>
<p>How the IPCC will deal with these types of connections between climate change and colonialism remains to be seen, but I hope it will soon acknowledge colonialism in all three of its working groups. What is already clear is that the links between climate change and colonialism are legion, and involve confronting an uncomfortable range of legacies.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harriet Mercer is a member of the Making Climate History project, which receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>
The IPCC’s latest climate report discusses how colonialism has shaped climate, a breakthrough for the climate justice movement.
Harriet Mercer, Research Associate in Climate History, University of Cambridge
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180655
2022-04-11T12:41:31Z
2022-04-11T12:41:31Z
L’or rouge : l’ascension et la chute de l’empire de l’huile de palme en Afrique de l’Ouest
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457424/original/file-20220411-6515-e90lih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Un baril rempli d'huile de palme dans le comté de Nimba, au Liberia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edwin Remsberg/GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Depuis des milliers d'années, le palmier à huile, originaire d'Afrique de l'Ouest, entretient une relation intime avec l'homme. L'expansion très rapide des palmeraies dans toute l'Afrique occidentale et centrale après <a href="https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1759-5436.2002.tb00003.x">une période de sécheresse datant de 2 500 ans environ</a> a favorisé la migration humaine et le développement de l'agriculture ; à leur tour, les hommes ont favorisé la propagation des palmiers à huile en dispersant leurs graines et en pratiquant la culture sur brûlis.</p>
<p>Des preuves archéologiques montrent que les fruits du palmier et leur huile faisaient déjà partie intégrante de l'alimentation des Africains de l'Ouest <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618210004726">il y a 5 000 ans</a>.</p>
<p>À l'exception des plantations « royales » de palmiers à huile, établies au 18ème siècle pour la production de vin de palme dans le royaume du <a href="https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/pre-colonial-history/the-history-of-the-kingdom-of-dahomey/">Dahomey</a>, tous les palmiers à huile d'Afrique de l'Ouest poussaient dans des bosquets sauvages ou semi-sauvages.</p>
<p>Les femmes et les enfants ramassaient les fruits tombés sur le sol, tandis que les hommes récoltaient des grappes de fruits en grimpant au sommet des palmiers. Ces fruits étaient ensuite transformés en huile de palme par les femmes, selon <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303022475_Humans_and_oil_palm_Elaeis_guineensis_Jacq_exploitation_in_Orile-Owu_Southwest_Nigeria_ca_1450-1640_AD_Archaeo-botanical_evidence">un long processus</a> et à forte intensité de main-d’œuvre qui consistait à faire bouillir et à filtrer les fruits frais avec de l'eau de façon répétitive. Des méthodes similaires sont <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJo0L4Em4bY">encore largement utilisées</a> dans toute l'Afrique de l'Ouest. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Des femmes préparent de l'huile de palme en Côte d'Ivoire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SIA KAMBOU/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>Alors que l'huile de palme rouge pure était extraite du mésocarpe externe charnu du fruit du palmier, les femmes, souvent aidées par des enfants, cassaient également les graines de cet arbre pour fabriquer de l'huile de palmiste brune et claire.</p>
<p>L'huile de palme était, et demeure, un ingrédient clé de la cuisine ouest-africaine, comme le plat simple composé d'igname bouillie, d'huile de palme et de <a href="https://scitechafrica.wordpress.com/2020/08/24/how-potash-kanwa-were-the-common-cooking-salts-in-nigeria-until-colonial-era/">sel gemme</a> (Kanwa), et de <a href="https://www.africanfoods.co.uk/banga-soup.html">soupe Banga</a>.</p>
<p>Dans toute l'Afrique de l'Ouest, l'huile de palme était utilisée pour la <a href="https://www.byrdie.com/african-black-soap-2442627">fabrication du savon</a>; aujourd'hui, le savon noir yoruba Dudu-Osun est une marque déposée au Nigeria. Au royaume du Bénin, l'huile de palme était utilisée pour les lampadaires et comme matériau de construction pour les murs du palais du roi. Elle a, par ailleurs, trouvé sa place dans des centaines de rites et de produits médicinaux différents, notamment sous forme de pommade pour la peau et comme antidote commun aux poisons. En outre, la sève des palmiers à huile était récupérée pour la production de vin de palme, et les feuilles de palmiers fournissaient du matériel pour les toits en chaume et les balais.</p>
<h2>Le boum du début du 19ème siècle</h2>
<p>L'huile de palme est connue en Europe depuis le 15ème siècle. Ce sont les marchands d'esclaves de Liverpool et de Bristol qui, au début du 19ème siècle, ont commencé à en importer à plus grande échelle. Ils connaissaient ses multiples usages en Afrique de l'Ouest et l'achetaient déjà régulièrement pour nourrir les esclaves déportés vers les Amériques. </p>
<p>Avec l’<a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/abolition.htm">abolition de la traite des esclaves</a> vers les Amériques en 1807, les négociants britanniques d'Afrique de l'Ouest se sont tournés vers les marchés européens et les ressources naturelles comme matières premières, en particulier l'huile de palme. À cette époque, les principaux principaux aliments, riches en matières grasses et en lipides en Europe étaient d'origine animale – comme le saindoux ou l'huile de poisson – des produits pour lesquels il pouvait être difficile d'assurer un approvisionnement régulier. Ainsi, le marché de l'huile de palme constituait un débouché tout trouvé.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Des hommes de l'éthnie Igbo de la région des Oil Rivers, dans l'actuel Nigeria, apportent des calebasses pleines d'huile de palme pour les vendre à un acheteur européen, vers 1900.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image © Jonathan Adagogo Green / The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY NC SA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cette huile était utilisée comme lubrifiant industriel, dans la production de fer blanc, dans l'éclairage public et comme matière grasse semi-solide pour la fabrication de bougies et de savon. Dans les années 1820, les progrès de la chimie ont facilité le passage à la production industrielle de savon à grande échelle. </p>
<p>Des quantités toujours plus importantes d'huile de palme – passant de <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=sOJT4suWIHkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=lynn+martin+palm+oil&ots=J3_JrPHJ2p&sig=Z4WeYoryn-B_rHa_eGO2uwMPJ-A#v=onepage&q=lynn%20martin%20palm%20oil&f=false">157 tonnes métriques par an à la fin des années 1790 à 32 480 tonnes au début des années 1850</a> – ont été introduites au Royaume-Uni par de petits négociants ouest africains. </p>
<p>Ce négoce n'était fait pas pour les coeurs sensibles. Une fois par an, les négociants passaient jusqu'à six semaines à naviguer sur de petites goélettes vers l'une des nombreuses stations commerciales de la côte ouest-africaine. Il y avait plusieurs douzaines de stations commerciales dans la région des Oil Rivers, dans l’actuel delta du Niger, centre du commerce de l'huile de palme en Afrique occidentale.</p>
<p>Les commerçants européens vivaient et commerçaient entièrement sur des voiliers abandonnés. C'était en partie pour essayer d'éviter les maladies mortelles, comme la malaria et la fièvre jaune, mais aussi parce que les autorités locales les empêchaient de construire sur la terre ferme. Le commerce intérieur était étroitement contrôlé par des courtiers locaux et des chefs de village. </p>
<p>Les commerçants européens donnaient à ces courtiers des marchandises européennes, telles que des ustensiles de cuisine, du sel et des tissus. Ensuite, ils attendaient à bord de leurs navires le retour des courtiers qui pouvait parfois durer des mois. De nombreux courtiers africains étaient eux-mêmes d'anciens esclavagistes. La traite des esclaves dans le delta du Niger n'a pas immédiatement pris fin avec l'abolition, mais s'est poursuivie parallèlement au commerce des palmiers <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/compatibility-of-the-slave-and-palm-oil-trades-in-the-bight-of-biafra/6B193629047B284B5DBF1DED84E0D723">jusque dans les années 1840</a>. Les courtiers en palmiers et les négociants européens ont continué à utiliser le même réseau et le même système que ceux développés pour le commerce des esclaves.</p>
<p>En attendant, les tonneliers des négociants européens assemblaient de grands fûts pour contenir l'huile de palme. </p>
<p>Il y avait principalement les bosquets sauvages et semi-sauvages existants en Afrique de l'Ouest pour satisfaire la demande européenne. Dans l'arrière-pays des Oil Rivers et dans de nombreuses autres régions, on pouvait trouver une abondance de palmiers à huile sauvage à récolter. Quelques autres palmiers étaient plantés. Les Krobo dans le sud-est du Ghana, où quelques palmiers à huile poussaient naturellement, avaient commencé pratiquer la <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/219338">culture systématique</a> pour répondre à la demande européenne.</p>
<p>Au Dahomey également, de nouvelles plantations ont été créées. Certaines régions du sud-est du Nigeria se sont tellement concentrées sur la production d'huile de palme qu'elles sont devenues totalement dépendantes des importations d'ignames en provenance du nord. Toutefois, il n'y a pas eu de transformation radicale et à grande échelle de la gestion des terres, de la propriété ou de l'écologie.</p>
<h2>L'essor des courtiers en huile de palme</h2>
<p>Les producteurs ouest-africains ont répondu avec succès à la demande accrue d'huile de palme européenne en modifiant et en développant les méthodes de production existantes à petite échelle. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Ekeh2/publication/271198175_History_of_The_Urhobo_People_of_Niger_Delta/links/5ca37a86299bf1b86d5fb394/History-of-The-Urhobo-People-of-Niger-Delta.pdf#page=488">Les jeunes hommes</a> s’occupaient de la récolte des grappes de fruits frais – un travail dangereux. Pour le traitement de l’huile de palme, une autre méthode, beaucoup moins exigeante en main-d'œuvre, a été mise au point. Il fallait attendre que les fruits frais fermentent, avant d’être piétinés dans de grandes fosses creusées dans le sol, ou parfois dans de vieilles pirogues. L'huile ainsi obtenue était beaucoup plus sale et indigeste ; elle était également moins chère, mais cette nouvelle technique a permis d'en produire à plus grande échelle qu'auparavant. </p>
<p>Le transport de l'huile de palme représentait beaucoup de travail : il fallait transporter des calebasses remplies d'huile le long des chemins forestiers jusqu'à la rivière la plus proche et travailler sur des pirogues. Cela constituait une source de revenus en espèces pour les jeunes hommes, mais ce sont généralement les hommes plus âgés et déjà plus riches, et en particulier les chefs, qui tiraient le plus grand profit de « l'or rouge », grâce au travail de leurs épouses et de leurs esclaves et au contrôle du commerce. </p>
<p>La richesse et le pouvoir pouvaient être acquis grâce au courtage, et les structures de pouvoir locales étaient profondément liées au commerce de l'huile de palme. Un courtier particulièrement puissant à cette époque était <a href="https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/44e838ff-fe08-34d3-9a29-0fd82697a7d9">William Dappa Pepple</a>, le <em>amanyanabo</em> (roi) de Bonny (dans l'actuel sud-est du Nigeria) de 1837 à 1854.</p>
<h2>Prise de contrôle coloniale</h2>
<p>À la fin du 19ème siècle, des chimistes ont découvert que l'hydrogénation pouvait être utilisée pour transformer les huiles végétales en margarine. Celle-ci a joué un rôle de plus en plus important dans l'apport de graisses dans l'alimentation de la classe ouvrière urbaine croissante d’Europe. Alors que le volume des importations d'huile de palme d'Afrique de l'Ouest vers le Royaume-Uni s'est stabilisé entre les années 1850 et 1890, la production à grande échelle de ce nouveau produit comestible a relancé la demande d'huile de palme au début du 20ème siècle. </p>
<p>Entre 1854 et 1874, la France et la Grande-Bretagne avaient <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/western-Africa/Colonization">déjà commencé</a> à créer des colonies européennes officielles au Sénégal, à Lagos et sur La Côte-de-l'Or (Gold Coast). L'Afrique occidentale britannique a fini par intégrer la Sierra Leone, la Gambie, la Gold Coast et le Nigeria (avec le Cameroun britannique).</p>
<p>Dans les années 1930, l'Afrique occidentale britannique <a href="https://www.commodityhistories.org/sites/default/files/working-papers/WP05.pdf">exportait environ 500 000 tonnes de produits du palmier par an</a>. Ces produits ont continué à jouer un rôle majeur dans les économies rurales d'Afrique de l'Ouest, mais ils ont échappé progressivement au contrôle local sous l'administration coloniale; la richesse et le pouvoir potentiels que l’huile de palme avait procuré à la population locale <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/from-wealthy-entrepreneurs-to-petty-traders-the-decline-of-african-middlemen-in-eastern-nigeria-19001950/AF389C8BB7B87CEB1E1475D404D3AFFA">avaient disparu</a>. </p>
<p>De plus, alors que les puissances coloniales continuaient d'étendre leur influence ailleurs dans les tropiques, une évolution qui allait changer la donne s’annonçait lentement : l'essor de la plantation de palmiers à huile. </p>
<p>En quelques décennies, des étendues de forêts d'Asie du Sud-Est ont été défrichées, créant une voie rapide vers des plantations de monoculture à l'échelle industrielle, mettant ainsi fin à la position de l'Afrique de l'Ouest en tant que plaque tournante mondiale de la production d'huile de palme. </p>
<p><em>Une version de cet article a été initialement <a href="https://chinadialogue.net/en/food/red-gold-a-history-of-palm-oil-in-west-africa/#:%7E:text=Oil%20palm%E2%80%93human%20relations%20in%20West%20Africa%3A%20a%20long%20history&text=Archaeological%20evidence%20shows%20that%20palm,in%20cleared%20and%20burned%20areas.">publiée</a> sur China Dialogue</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pauline von Hellermann 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>
L'huile de palme est l'une des denrées agricoles les plus disputées du 21ème siècle, mais sa relation avec l’homme remonte à des milliers d'années.
Pauline von Hellermann, Senior Lecturer, Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180037
2022-03-29T19:14:22Z
2022-03-29T19:14:22Z
Terra nullius has been overturned. Now we must reverse aqua nullius and return water rights to First Nations people
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454894/original/file-20220329-13-9nc040.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C8541%2C1936&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Environmental Justice Australia</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Terra nullius has been overturned. Now we must reverse aqua nullius and return water rights to Traditional Owners. </p>
<p>In recent decades, important progress has been made on land rights for Traditional Owners, with more than 50% of Australia under some form of <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=b59b2cc5-51f6-4815-94c4-eb454e2f2f7e&subId=717204">Indigenous title</a> (including non-exclusive native title). But until now, we’ve had much less progress on water rights. </p>
<p>For millennia, Indigenous Australians maintained all water in Australia. After European colonisation, the rights to water were stolen. Almost none of it has come back. Where did the rest of the water go? Overwhelmingly, to settlers who used them to expand their <a href="https://theconversation.com/water-injustice-runs-deep-in-australia-fixing-it-means-handing-control-to-first-nations-155286">agricultural interests</a>.</p>
<p>Victoria has now begun to return water to Traditional Owners. Last week, the government <a href="https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/water-traditional-owners-south-west-victoria">returned</a> 2.5 gigalitres (GL) to <a href="https://www.gunditjmirring.com/">Gunditj Mirring</a> in Victoria’s south-west. Earlier this year, 1.36GL was <a href="https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/successful-connections-project-delivers-extra-water">set aside</a> for Traditional Owners in northern Victoria, and in late 2020, 2GL from the Mitchell River <a href="https://theconversation.com/victoria-just-gave-2-billion-litres-of-water-back-to-indigenous-people-heres-what-that-means-for-the-rest-of-australia-150674">was returned</a> to <a href="https://gunaikurnai.org/">Gurnaikurnai</a> in Gippsland. While welcome, this is only a start. </p>
<p>Victoria’s recent returns make it the leader in the eastern states, but competition is scarce. To date, there have been no tangible water handbacks in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13241583.2021.1970094">New South Wales and Queensland</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454514/original/file-20220327-15-3njp84.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454514/original/file-20220327-15-3njp84.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454514/original/file-20220327-15-3njp84.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454514/original/file-20220327-15-3njp84.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454514/original/file-20220327-15-3njp84.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454514/original/file-20220327-15-3njp84.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454514/original/file-20220327-15-3njp84.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tati Tati Traditional Owners and MLDRIN staff conducting an Aboriginal Waterways Assessment. Tati Tati Country, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tati Tati Kaiejin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why are water rights so important?</h2>
<p>Water rights go well beyond commercial and economic gains. For First Nations people, water and the health of waterways are fundamental to health and well-being, including reviving <a href="https://www.mldrin.org.au/what-we-do/cultural-flows/">cultural flows</a>, improving physical health, <a href="https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/3628637/Final-Water-REPORT-spreads.pdf">restoring connection</a> to spirit and culture, aiding self-determination, and making it possible to care for Country. </p>
<p>Land is important. But Australia is a dry country, and without water, there is no life. For instance, before colonisation, Gunditjmara in south-western Victoria created one of the world’s oldest and most extensive aquaculture systems to farm short-finned eels. The Budj Bim complex is now <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1577/">UNESCO-listed</a>. </p>
<p>Most Australians are aware of terra nullius, the legal fiction that Australia belonged to no one before European settlement. </p>
<p>But very few know about <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/publication/35022">aqua nullius</a>, a similar fiction suggesting Traditional Owners had no rights to the water they had used for millennia. </p>
<p>To challenge this, First Nations people have long called for redistribution of water, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. </p>
<p>Since European colonisation, there have been vanishingly few opportunities for Indigenous communities in Australia to advance and strengthen their economies. It is vital that we recognise the central role played by aqua nullius and the long history of colonial resource rationing in stymieing Indigenous enterprise. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-its-time-to-talk-about-our-water-emergency-139024">Australia, it's time to talk about our water emergency</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These first allocations are welcome. But they cannot be an afterthought. Without more, the Victorian government could recreate the water version of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24046991?seq=1">rations regime</a> of government-controlled food distribution Indigenous Australians lived with until the 1960s.</p>
<p>For decades, Indigenous Australians were not permitted to <a href="https://theconversation.com/water-injustice-runs-deep-in-australia-fixing-it-means-handing-control-to-first-nations-155286">have a voice</a> in how our nation’s water is allocated and used. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454517/original/file-20220327-29-x2igv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454517/original/file-20220327-29-x2igv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454517/original/file-20220327-29-x2igv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454517/original/file-20220327-29-x2igv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454517/original/file-20220327-29-x2igv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454517/original/file-20220327-29-x2igv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454517/original/file-20220327-29-x2igv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tati Tati elder and grandson at Margooya Lagoon, a culturally significant wetland on Tati Tati Country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tati Tati Kaiejin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While these recent water returns in Victoria are vital first steps, the volumes of water are still too small to underpin the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/26423289.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A75f4ff536b66ef48d84a945b3e7f5d7c&ab_segments=&origin=">restorative justice</a> approach needed for the environment and Aboriginal peoples. </p>
<h2>Tinkering around the edges</h2>
<p>In the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s most important agricultural catchment, <a href="https://www.mldrin.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/1342_MILDRIN-16pp-Report-Lana_v3-min-1.pdf">just 0.2%</a> of all surface water <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13241583.2021.1970094">entitlements</a> are owned by Aboriginal organisations, and 0.02% of all available groundwater. </p>
<p>Of this tiny fraction, the majority is low reliability. That means Aboriginal people are unlikely to get access to their water at all unless it has been a particularly wet year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454896/original/file-20220329-19-620hs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="figure" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454896/original/file-20220329-19-620hs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454896/original/file-20220329-19-620hs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=725&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454896/original/file-20220329-19-620hs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=725&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454896/original/file-20220329-19-620hs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=725&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454896/original/file-20220329-19-620hs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454896/original/file-20220329-19-620hs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454896/original/file-20220329-19-620hs0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Murray-Darling Basin surface water entitlements held by First Nations and Traditional Owners.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.mldrin.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/1342_MILDRIN-16pp-Report-Lana_v3-min-1.pdf">MLDRIN and NBAN</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Four years ago, the federal government announced A$40 million to buy water rights for Traditional Owners in the Murray-Darling Basin. Not a dollar has been spent. </p>
<p>In New South Wales, <a href="https://www.miragenews.com/opportunity-to-obtain-water-access-licences-736731/">unused water rights</a> across 55 different sources have recently been listed for sale. Not one of these was returned to Traditional Owners. </p>
<p>In the Northern Territory, delays in water allocation planning processes continue to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13241583.2022.2049053">limit access</a> to the Aboriginal Water Reserve – the policy that is supposed to provide Aboriginal people in the NT access to water resources and opportunities for economic development. New laws could make this problem <a href="https://theconversation.com/regressive-changes-to-northern-territory-water-laws-could-undermine-indigenous-rights-166561">even worse</a>. </p>
<h2>Handing out water rights: a new form of rations?</h2>
<p><a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/informit.207368893147384">Colonisation</a> of Australia resulted in Europeans gaining control over Aboriginal populations and the resources they relied on. This had a devastating effect on Aboriginal access to traditional resources. From the 19th century until the mid-20th century, Europeans introduced a regime of government distributed rations for Indigenous Australians. </p>
<p>As a result, First Nations peoples were rewritten, both in law and in society, as landless people trespassing on Country once their own. </p>
<p>Given this history, you can see why First Nations groups might be sceptical about these recent handbacks. While the announcements sound good, they represent a very small volume of overall water flows. </p>
<p>Take the recent announcement of 1.36GL set aside for Traditional Owners in Northern Victoria. Where did this water come from? From an extra 4GL of water recovered from the <a href="https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-10/201027%20-%20Landmark%20Connections%20Project%20Delivered.pdf">Connections</a> irrigation modernisation project. While that sounds laudable, the allocation for Indigenous use represents just 0.5% of the total volume of water (433GL) recovered from this 12-year project. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454516/original/file-20220327-15-dw1gw2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454516/original/file-20220327-15-dw1gw2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454516/original/file-20220327-15-dw1gw2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454516/original/file-20220327-15-dw1gw2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454516/original/file-20220327-15-dw1gw2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454516/original/file-20220327-15-dw1gw2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454516/original/file-20220327-15-dw1gw2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454516/original/file-20220327-15-dw1gw2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Breakdown of how recovered water has been shared in Victoria’s irrigation modernisation Connection Project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What would real progress look like? Over in Western Australia, a major 2020 <a href="https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2020-03/Schedule%2010.pdf">Indigenous land use agreement</a> in the Geraldton region included rights to around 17% of the available water. </p>
<p>So while Victoria’s recent announcements are a step in the right direction, we cannot help but point out that they reinforce longstanding inequality by giving agricultural interests, who already hold vast land and water entitlements, even more water. By contrast, Victoria’s Aboriginal nations, who have barely any land and water, must divide up these miniscule offerings. </p>
<h2>Overturning aqua nullius requires much more</h2>
<p>We now have clear <a href="https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/returning-water-rights-to-aboriginal-people">pathways</a> for the return of water in ways which adequately tackle the staggering and ongoing injustice of aqua nullius. </p>
<p>To achieve water justice, we would have to see significant transfers of power and agency in water governance. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victoria-just-gave-2-billion-litres-of-water-back-to-indigenous-people-heres-what-that-means-for-the-rest-of-australia-150674">Victoria just gave 2 billion litres of water back to Indigenous people. Here's what that means for the rest of Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There are positive signs. The Victoria government is working with Traditional Owners on a <a href="https://www.water.vic.gov.au/aboriginal-values/the-aboriginal-water-program">new roadmap</a> for Indigenous access to water. <a href="https://www.mldrin.org.au">Advocacy groups</a> are helping tailor the shift of water management functions to each Indigenous nation to match their capacity. </p>
<p>These recent handbacks are only the start of what’s needed. In the ongoing quest for self-determination, water is key. If governments are serious about tackling the harm caused by the forced takeover of Indigenous waters and lands, we need more significant transfers of power, agency, and water.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Kennedy is the CEO of Tati Tati Kaiejin, an Indigenous-owned organisation, and is on a part-time secondment to the Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning (Victoria). Melissa receives funding from the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Project ID CE200100025) where she is a Research Fellow in the Places Program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Kennedy Is the Director of Tati Tati Kaiejin and Deputy Chair of Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (MLDRIN). Brendan receives funding from the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Project ID CE200100025) where he is an Enterprise Fellow in the Places Program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sangeetha Chandrashekeran receives funding from theAustralian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Project ID CE200100025) where she is Senior Research Fellow in the Places Program.</span></em></p>
Water rights are beginning to be allocated to Indigenous Australians – but there’s a long way to go to reverse the legal fiction of aqua nullius.
Melissa Kennedy, Research Fellow - Participatory research and engagement, The University of Melbourne
Brendan Kennedy, Enterprise Principle Fellow in Cultural Economies and Sustainability, The University of Melbourne
Sangeetha Chandrashekeran, Senior Research Fellow, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177320
2022-03-28T19:15:32Z
2022-03-28T19:15:32Z
The book that changed me: I’m a historian but Tony Birch’s poetry opened my eyes to confronting truths about the past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453762/original/file-20220323-25-h835ov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=723%2C24%2C3323%2C2556&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">William Barak, Figures in possum skin cloaks, 1898.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In this series, writers nominate a book that changed their life – or at least their thinking.</em></p>
<p>Sixty years ago, when the historian E.H. Carr famously asked <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/What_is_History/eL9JNAAACAAJ?hl=en">What is History?</a>, he determined the answer to be a constant dialogue between the present and the past. The past is “what happened”, he explained. “History” is the process of its analysis and inquiry.</p>
<p>The History discipline of Carr’s era is readily recognisable today. The subject we study at school and university is still framed by rules of research and evidence, as well the critical examination of sources and the teaching of skills.</p>
<p>But it has been increasingly pushed and prodded since the 1960s by new methods of interpretation and analysis. These approaches prompted vital historical revisions and asked important questions of the discipline. </p>
<p>If public archives selectively prioritised the histories of leading public figures, as feminist, working class, migrant and Indigenous historians insist, then whose perspectives might have been excluded? Whose voices have we failed to listen to?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453759/original/file-20220323-27-5d6db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453759/original/file-20220323-27-5d6db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453759/original/file-20220323-27-5d6db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453759/original/file-20220323-27-5d6db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453759/original/file-20220323-27-5d6db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453759/original/file-20220323-27-5d6db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453759/original/file-20220323-27-5d6db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453759/original/file-20220323-27-5d6db3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tony Birch pictured in 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UQP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They’re questions that resurfaced for me when I first read Tony Birch’s collection of poetry, <a href="https://corditebooks.org.au/products/broken-teeth">Broken Teeth</a>, in 2016. I had been working on a history of Australian History, which sought to tell the various ways Australia’s national story had been imagined. But in contemplating Birch’s work, I was forced to reimagine the scope of the project.</p>
<p>To me, his poetry felt as powerful as any of the history books I had been studying, not only with its commentary on “what happened”, but as a statement on historical practice.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-book-that-changed-me-how-h-h-finlaysons-the-red-centre-helped-me-see-country-and-what-we-have-done-to-it-177151">The book that changed me: how H.H. Finlayson’s The Red Centre helped me see country – and what we have done to it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Deeply affecting</h2>
<p>Broken Teeth includes quiet, sometimes haunting pieces about family, love, and place. We see the texture — sometimes sparse, sometimes richly imagined — of Melbourne, including slices of family life, Merri creek, and chroming kids. It also covers the territory of History, perhaps unsurprising given Birch’s training as a historian at Melbourne University.</p>
<p>There’s a touching tribute to the Japanese historian, <a href="https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/hokari-minoru-27543">Minoru Hokari</a>, who Birch gently farewells in verse, as well as a cool depiction of an anatomy museum that echoes Wiradjuri writer Jeanine Leane’s account of colonial archive-keeping in <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/poetry/states-of-poetry/states-of-poetry-act/states/2971-states-of-poetry-act-cardboard-incarceration-by-jeanine-leane?tmpl=component&print=1">Cardboard Incarceration</a>. </p>
<p>Other pieces relate the history of the Wurundjuri leader, <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/william-barak">William Barak</a>, who led the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/coranderrk">Coranderrk mission</a> in the late 19th century and fought for Aboriginal recognition.</p>
<p>But it’s the poem Footnote to a History War (archive box no. 2) that shakes me out of my disciplinary comfort zone. Based on letters between Aboriginal people who were living on reserves and missions and the Victorian government agencies which oversaw them, the “conversation” that correspondence produces is deeply affecting.</p>
<p>Two verses cited here give a sense of what Birch describes as the poem’s “call and response structure” between “the voice of the archive” and “the voice of Aboriginal people”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>iv<br></p>
<p>my colour debars me<br>
my child is dead<br>
& I am lost<br></p>
<p>we are broken into parts<br>
our home left in the wind<br>
& it grows colder here<br></p>
<p>my wife is aborigine<br>
I am half caste<br>
and I am, Sir, dutifully yours<br></p>
<p>I await your response<br></p>
<p>v<br></p>
<p>he wears a suit [issue no. 6]<br>
hat [issue no. 7] & possesses<br>
one pair of blankets<br></p>
<p>she has on loan<br>
one mullet net &<br>
two perch nets<br></p>
<p>their children are gone:<br>
one [toxaemia]<br>
one [pneumonia]<br></p>
<p>one [ditto]<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Over ten parts, Birch’s Aboriginal correspondents and their institutional “protectors” paint a harrowing picture of government control and Indigenous desperation. These were lives under constant <a href="https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-22.html">surveillance and regulation</a> for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. The fact they were assiduously <a href="https://prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/explore-topic/aboriginal-victorians-1830s-1970s/board-protection-aborigines">recorded in official archives</a>, but largely absent from Australian History during the same period, is an example of the discipline’s striking hypocrisy.</p>
<p>I can’t help but wonder how I catalogue this piece of work? Is this “poem” also a work of “History”? Can I add it to my canon of Australian historiography? In the end, I do just that.</p>
<h2>‘Licking at the edges’</h2>
<p>Part elegiac tribute, part stunning critique, Footnote to a History War is an exploration of “the past”, as well as how that past has been archived, parsed, and controlled by History’s gatekeepers.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453768/original/file-20220323-27-5eu7nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453768/original/file-20220323-27-5eu7nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453768/original/file-20220323-27-5eu7nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453768/original/file-20220323-27-5eu7nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453768/original/file-20220323-27-5eu7nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453768/original/file-20220323-27-5eu7nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453768/original/file-20220323-27-5eu7nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453768/original/file-20220323-27-5eu7nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&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">Goodreads</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While its assemblage is creative, taking excerpts and placing them side by side to construct mood, form and shape in a creative process, the poem was built directly out of the archive and its emotion is not confected.</p>
<p>“A great poem cuts through the crap”, Birch writes in the preface to Broken Teeth. That’s exactly what I get from Footnote to a History War. Is it any wonder that the Gomeroi poet and legal scholar <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/fire-front-first-nations-poetry-and-power-today">Alison Whittaker</a> describes Aboriginal poetry as potent and powerful for the way it “licks at the edges of the colonisers’ language”?</p>
<p>As poetry, Footnote to a History War is both poignant and pointed. As a form of History, moreover, it leads us to confronting truths about the past, and the discipline itself.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Extract from Footnote to a History War (archive box no. 2) appears courtesy of the author.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Clark receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
Can a poem tell us more about the past than a history book?
Anna Clark, Australian Research Council Future Fellow in Public History, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179112
2022-03-22T16:56:50Z
2022-03-22T16:56:50Z
Red gold: the rise and fall of West Africa’s palm oil empire
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451547/original/file-20220311-26-mxnv4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A tub of palm oil in Nimba County, Liberia</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edwin Remsberg/GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/red-gold-the-rise-and-fall-of-west-africas-palm-oil-empire-179112&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>For thousands of years, the oil palm - indigenous to West Africa – has had an intimate relationship with people. An explosive expansion of oil palm groves throughout western and central Africa in the wake of <a href="https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1759-5436.2002.tb00003.x">a dry period around 2,500 years ago</a> enabled human migration and agricultural development; in turn, humans facilitated oil palm propagation through seed dispersal and slash-and-burn agriculture.</p>
<p>Archaeological evidence shows that palm fruit and their oil already formed an integral part of West African diets <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618210004726">5,000 years ago</a>.</p>
<p>With the exception of “royal” oil palm plantations, established in the 18th century for palm wine in the Kingdom of <a href="https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/pre-colonial-history/the-history-of-the-kingdom-of-dahomey/">Dahomey</a>, all of West Africa’s oil palms grew in wild and semi-wild groves.</p>
<p>Women and children collected loose fruits from the ground, while men harvested fruit bunches by climbing up to the top of the palms. The fruit was then processed into palm oil by women, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303022475_Humans_and_oil_palm_Elaeis_guineensis_Jacq_exploitation_in_Orile-Owu_Southwest_Nigeria_ca_1450-1640_AD_Archaeo-botanical_evidence">through a time-consuming and labour-intensive process</a> involving repetitively boiling and filtering the fresh fruits with water. Similar methods are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJo0L4Em4bY">still widely used</a> throughout West Africa. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451810/original/file-20220314-100476-u8jtrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women prepare palm oil in Cote d'Ivoire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by SIA KAMBOU/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While pure red palm oil was derived from the palm fruit’s fleshy outer mesocarp, women also, often with the help of children, cracked the palm kernels to make brown, clear palm kernel oil.</p>
<p>Palm oil was, and remains, a key ingredient in West African cuisine, including the simple dish of boiled yam, palm oil and <a href="https://scitechafrica.wordpress.com/2020/08/24/how-potash-kanwa-were-the-common-cooking-salts-in-nigeria-until-colonial-era/">Kanwa salt</a>, and <a href="https://www.africanfoods.co.uk/banga-soup.html">Banga soup</a>.</p>
<p>Throughout West Africa, palm oil was also used in <a href="https://www.byrdie.com/african-black-soap-2442627">soap making</a>; today Yoruba black Dudu-Osun soap is a trademark Nigerian brand. In the Benin Kingdom, palm oil was used in street lamps and as a building material in the king’s palace walls. It also found hundreds of different ritualistic and medicinal uses, in particular as a skin ointment and a common antidote to poisons. In addition, the sap of oil palms was tapped for palm wine, and palm fronds provided material for roof thatching and brooms.</p>
<h2>Early 19th-century boom</h2>
<p>Palm oil has been known in Europe since the 15th century. It was Liverpool and Bristol slave traders who, in the early 19th century, began larger-scale imports. They were familiar with its multiple uses in West Africa and had already been buying it regularly as food for slaves being shipped to the Americas. </p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/abolition.htm">abolition of the slave trade</a> to the Americas in 1807, British West Africa traders turned to European markets and natural resources as commodities, in particular palm oil. At the time, the main sources of fats and oils in northern Europe were animal-based – such as lard or fish oils -– products for which it could be a challenge to secure regular supplies. There was a ready market for palm oil.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451809/original/file-20220314-21-ok27tm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Igbo men in the Oil Rivers area of present-day Nigeria bring calabashes full of palm oil to sell to a European buyer, c. 1900.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image © Jonathan Adagogo Green / The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY NC SA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Palm oil was used as an industrial lubricant, in tin-plate production, street-lighting, and as the fatty semi-solid for candle making and soap production. Breakthroughs in chemistry, in the 1820s facilitated a change to large-scale, industrial soap production. </p>
<p>Ever larger quantities of palm oil – increasing from <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sOJT4suWIHkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=lynn+martin+palm+oil&ots=J3_JrPHJ2p&sig=Z4WeYoryn-B_rHa_eGO2uwMPJ-A#v=onepage&q=lynn%20martin%20palm%20oil&f=false">157 metric tonnes per year in the late 1790s to 32,480 tonnes by the early 1850s</a> – were brought to the UK by small-scale West African traders. </p>
<p>The trade was not for the faint-hearted. Once a year, traders would spend up to six weeks travelling in small schooners to one of the many trading stations on the West African coast. There were several dozen trading stations in the Oil Rivers area of today’s Niger Delta -– the heartland of the West African palm oil trade.</p>
<p>European traders lived and traded entirely on abandoned sailing ships. This was partly to try and avoid deadly diseases, such as malaria and yellow fever, but also because local authorities didn’t let them build on land. Inland trade was controlled tightly by local brokers and village chiefs. </p>
<p>European traders gave these brokers European goods such as cooking utensils, salt and cloth. Then the traders waited on board their ships for them to return, sometimes for months at a time. Many of the African brokers were themselves former slave traders. The slave trade in the Niger Delta did not immediately stop with abolition but continued alongside the palm trade <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/compatibility-of-the-slave-and-palm-oil-trades-in-the-bight-of-biafra/6B193629047B284B5DBF1DED84E0D723">until the 1840s</a>. Palm brokers and European traders continued to use the same network and system developed for the slave trade.</p>
<p>While waiting, the European traders’ coopers would assemble large casks to hold palm oil. </p>
<p>It was largely West Africa’s existing wild and semi-wild groves that furnished European demand. In the hinterland of the Oil Rivers and many other areas, there was an abundance of wild oil palm that could be harvested. Some planting did take place; the Krobo in southeastern Ghana, where fewer oil palms were growing naturally, began <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/219338">systematic cultivation</a> in response to European demand.</p>
<p>In Dahomey, too, more plantations were set up. Some parts of southeastern Nigeria focused so much on the production of palm oil that they became completely reliant on yam imports from further north. However, there was no large-scale, radical transformation in land management, ownership or ecology.</p>
<h2>The rise in oil palm brokers</h2>
<p>West African producers successfully responded to growing European palm oil demand through the modification and expansion of existing small-scale production methods. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Ekeh2/publication/271198175_History_of_The_Urhobo_People_of_Niger_Delta/links/5ca37a86299bf1b86d5fb394/History-of-The-Urhobo-People-of-Niger-Delta.pdf#page=488">Young men</a> did the dangerous work of harvesting fresh fruit bunches. In palm oil processing another, far less labour-intensive method, developed. Fresh fruit was left to ferment and then stamped on in large pits dug in the ground, or sometimes in old canoes. The resulting oil was much dirtier and inedible. It also fetched lower prices, but the new technique enabled much larger-scale production than before. </p>
<p>There was plenty of work in transporting palm oil, carrying calabashes filled with oil along forest paths to the nearest river and working on canoes. This brought some cash income for young men, but it was generally older, already wealthier men, and in particular chiefs, who were able to profit most from “red gold”, through the labour of their wives and slaves and from control of trade. </p>
<p>It was through brokerage that most wealth and power could be gained, and local power structures were deeply enmeshed with trade in palm oil. A particularly powerful broker at this time was <a href="https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/44e838ff-fe08-34d3-9a29-0fd82697a7d9">William Dappa Pepple</a>, the <em>amanyanabo</em> (king) of Bonny (in today’s southeastern Nigeria) from 1837 to 1854.</p>
<h2>Colonial takeover</h2>
<p>In the late 19th century, chemists discovered that hydrogenation could be used to process vegetable oils into margarine. Margarine played an increasingly important role in supplying fats for the diet of Europe’s growing urban working class. While the volume of imports of West African palm oil into the UK levelled off between the 1850s and 1890s, large-scale production of this new edible product stimulated renewed demand for palm oil in the early 20th century. </p>
<p>Between 1854 and 1874, France and Britain had <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/western-Africa/Colonization">already started</a> to create formal European colonies in Senegal, in Lagos, and in the Gold Coast. British West Africa eventually included Sierra Leone, the Gambia,the Gold Coast, and Nigeria (with the British Cameroons).</p>
<p>In the 1930s, British West Africa <a href="https://www.commodityhistories.org/sites/default/files/working-papers/WP05.pdf">exported around 500,000 tonnes of palm produce annually</a>. Palm produce continued to play a significant role in West African rural economies, but local control of the trade eroded under colonial administration; the opportunities for wealth and power palm oil had offered local people <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/from-wealthy-entrepreneurs-to-petty-traders-the-decline-of-african-middlemen-in-eastern-nigeria-19001950/AF389C8BB7B87CEB1E1475D404D3AFFA">were no longer available</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, as the colonial powers continued expanding their reach elsewhere in the tropics, a game-changing development was slowly beginning: the rise of the oil palm plantation. </p>
<p>Within a few short decades, expanses of Southeast Asian forest had been cleared, creating a fast track to industrial-scale monoculture plantations, thus ending West Africa’s position as the global hub of palm oil production.</p>
<p><em>A version of this piece was originally <a href="https://chinadialogue.net/en/food/red-gold-a-history-of-palm-oil-in-west-africa/#:%7E:text=Oil%20palm%E2%80%93human%20relations%20in%20West%20Africa%3A%20a%20long%20history&text=Archaeological%20evidence%20shows%20that%20palm,in%20cleared%20and%20burned%20areas.">published</a> on China Dialogue</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pauline von Hellermann receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust (I currently hold a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship)</span></em></p>
Palm oil is one of the 21st century’s most contentious agricultural commodities, but its relationship with humans goes back thousands of years.
Pauline von Hellermann, Senior Lecturer, Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/178547
2022-03-08T07:16:59Z
2022-03-08T07:16:59Z
Charles Njonjo and the genesis of Kenya’s fixation with security
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450073/original/file-20220304-21-tkaj0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charles Njonjo, then Kenya’s Attorney General, hosts Helen Suzman of the Progressive Party in the South African parliament in Nairobi in 1971.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Keystone/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Charles Njonjo, the first Attorney General of independent Kenya, <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/national/article/2001433264/former-attorney-general-charles-njonjo-is-dead">died</a> earlier this year at the age of 101. Writers of obituary essays have rendered competing verdicts on his life. </p>
<p>The activist John Githongo warmly remembered Njonjo as a <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/reflections/2022/01/03/the-charles-mugane-njonjo-i-knew/">‘steadfast friend and a man of his word</a>’. </p>
<p>The politician Miguna Miguna, by contrast, gave a <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/opinion/star-blogs/2022-01-03-miguna-miguna-the-charles-njonjo-i-know/">dark valedictory</a>: ‘Rot in hell, Charles Njonjo’, he wrote. ‘You represent all the problems Kenyans want and must rid themselves of’.</p>
<p>Njonjo saw himself as a stalwart defender of Kenyans’ liberties. In his day he was a prolific contributor to political conversation. His favourite theme was the relationship between law and liberty. On one memorable occasion he lectured parliamentarians for an hour and 45 minutes, insisting that preventative detention -— the incarceration without trial of people pre-judged as dangerous to the political order —- was entirely constitutional. </p>
<p>The legal and administrative regime that he defined and defended was meant to guard the security and prosperity of Kenya’s wealthy and entitled upper classes. It was a regime that was paranoid about dissent, scornful of the poor, and focused on the security of property. It was a regime where —- in the name of the common good -— many categories of people found themselves incarcerated.</p>
<p>That is why it is worth inquiring again into Charles Njonjo’s life. It is not to humanise a man who <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/op-eds/2022/01/04/the-charles-mugane-njonjo-kenyans-suffered/">disregarded the humanity</a> of so many people. It is that, in unpacking the human history behind Kenya’s political institutions, we can see —- and also challenge —- the logics that uphold injustice in our contemporary times.</p>
<h2>Early years</h2>
<p>Charles Njonjo’s father, Josiah Njonjo, was a divisional chief under Kenya’s colonial government. He was one of the founders of the Kikuyu Association, an early political party. He was by no means a pliable tool of British self-interest. </p>
<p>African farmers taking their cattle from one part to another were forced to pass through European farms, risking fines and imprisonment. He asked government to <a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books/about/Kenya_Land_Commission_Evidence.html?id=KFXnG8fTUYcC&redir_esc=y">rectify the injustice</a> (Page 133):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Seeing that both we and the Europeans are children and subjects of the King, surely it is only fair that all the children should be given equal justice? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is not surprising that Chief Josiah’s son would become a lawyer. In the late 1940s Charles Njonjo was in England, studying at Exeter and the London School of Economics, where he chaired the <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/mboya-njonjo-and-their-unbridled-ambition-to-gain-political-power-183608?view=htmlamp">East African Students’ Union</a>. He applied for a post in the colonial civil service, but insisted that the terms of his employment should match those offered to Europeans. When Kenya’s government refused, an indignant Njonjo entered Gray’s Inn to study law. </p>
<p>He returned to Kenya in January 1955 to take up his first government post: as temporary Assistant Registrar General. British intelligence operatives thought him possessed of an <a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C12302982">‘anti-European outlook’ and ‘potentially very dangerous’</a>. </p>
<p>When he landed in Nairobi he was found to have in his luggage a prohibited publication: George Padmore’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Africa-Britains-Empire-George-Padmore/dp/B0000CHLCT">Africa: Britain’s Third Empire</a>, a vituperative critique of Britain’s colonial project in Africa.</p>
<p>Here is one way to see Charles Njonjo. Formed by his father’s conservative loyalism and by his own experiences with colonial racism, he spent his career wielding the tools of English culture and identity to demand recognition, respect, and authority from European and American brokers of power. </p>
<p>By 1963 he was Kenya’s Attorney General, the first African to hold the post. He was famously fastidious in his manner, appearing always in a three-piece Saville Row tailored pin striped suit, with a watch chain looped across his waistcoat and a red rose of carnation in his buttonhole. </p>
<p>He complained on the floor of Kenya’s Parliament about politicians who ‘dressed like shamba men (gardeners)’. </p>
<p>At a time when most African states were hastily placing Africans in the topmost positions of the civil service and the military, Njonjo insisted that British policemen, soldiers and civil servants were essential. ‘Should we lower our standards … just because a man has a black face?’, he asked (Daily Nation: 17 Dec. 1966). </p>
<p>He scorned cultural nationalists’ efforts to make Swahili into Kenya’s national language. Kenyans should not be ashamed of speaking English, he told parliamentarians, because it was ‘not an Englishman’s language but an international means of communication’. </p>
<p>He insisted that Kenyans should ‘avoid as much as possible an attempt which would make us narrow in our outlook’ (Daily Nation: 26 July 1969). It is for this reason, perhaps, that Njonjo was a consistent defender of Kenyan women’s liberties. He derided the nationalist impulse to confine public culture within traditionalist moulds.</p>
<p>Women should be allowed to exercise the ‘right to choose their own fashions and makeup and men should not interfere’, he averred (Daily Nation: 8 Oct. 1969). </p>
<h2>Denigration of the poor</h2>
<p>The Kenya that Njonjo sought to create was meant to be -— in his words —- the ‘greatest living example of democracy, justice and peace’ (Daily Nation: 10 Dec. 1966). But there was no space for the poor: they were disreputable, a danger to the public good.</p>
<p>In 1968 Njonjo pushed through a new law giving authorities the power to remove prostitutes and beggars from cities and send them to work for their parents on the land. He called beggars ‘lazy people who think they can enrich themselves at the expense of others’ (Daily Nation: 20 Dec. 1968). </p>
<p>Under Njonjo’s tenure punishments for crimes of property were disproportionately harsh.</p>
<p>The incarceration of dissidents, detention without trial, the expansion of prisons—all of this was, for Njonjo, a means of guaranteeing Kenyans’ freedom. In 1977, while defending the detention of dissidents by government, he warned that ‘Kenya’s freedom could disappear overnight if adequate public security was not provided’ (Daily Nation: 7 Jan. 1977). </p>
<p>It was, among other things, a rationale for expanding the power of Kenya’s president. When in 1968 opposition activists pressed for the creation of a new post – a Prime Minister, who would control and advise President Kenyatta – Njonjo called the proposal ‘misconceived, meaningless and pitiful’ (Daily Nation: 19 October 1968). Eight years later, Njonjo warned Kenyans that it was a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/11/archives/kenyans-told-not-to-press-changes.html">‘criminal offence’</a> for anyone to ‘compass, imagine, devise, or intend the death or deposition of the President’. The mandatory sentence for any such offence was death.</p>
<p>A great many people lost their lives and their freedom in those years. A great many people spent years in prison as a guarantee for the security and liberty of Kenya’s rich and propertied classes. </p>
<p>Some of the detainees were well known. Raila Odinga — now a leading contender in Kenya’s presidential elections — was detained from 1983 to 1988, from 1988 to 1989, and from 1990 to 1991. Amnesty International adopted him as a <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr32/007/1991/en/#:%7E:text=Raila%20Odinga%20is%20a%20supporter,to%20be%20detained%20without%20trial.">prisoner of conscience</a>. The famous novelist Ngugi wa Thiongo was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40759669">detained</a> in December 1977 for ‘activities and utterances which are dangerous to the good government of Kenya’. Other people suffered anonymously. </p>
<p>That, then, is another way to see the late Njonjo: the ruthless defender of entrenched inequality, an architect of a legal and political system that advantaged the wealthy and criminalised the lives of the poor. </p>
<h2>Fall from grace</h2>
<p>Njonjo’s downfall, when it came, was swift. On 1 July 1983, he announced that he was resigning his position as Minister for Constitutional Affairs. He was accused of scheming, in the company of Kenya Air Force men, to oust President Daniel arap Moi. Moi appointed a Commission of Inquiry to go into Njonjo’s affairs, and over the course of 109 days Kenyans were transfixed as a parade of witnesses opened up Njonjo’s dirty laundry for public inspection. </p>
<p>The political and legal system that Njonjo built, however, has endured. In a recent article the journalist Patrick Gathara <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/features/2020/09/11/kenyas-gulag-the-dehumanisation-and-exploitation-of-inmates-in-state-prisons/">argued</a> that contemporary Kenya’s prisons ‘carry the DNA of their forebears’. According to a 2015 <a href="https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/world_prison_population_list_11th_edition_0.pdf">report</a> Kenya has incarcerated more of its citizens than any other country in eastern Africa, outside Rwanda and Ethiopia.</p>
<p>Today Kenya’s elite lives behind security walls, while — under the guise of counter-terrorism — Kenya’s police target poor and marginal residents of Nairobi. As Gathara argues, this is a legacy of colonial government. It is also a legacy of Charles Njonjo. In working to protect Kenyans’ liberties, he made the incarceration and punishment of the poor seem to be a moral necessity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178547/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek R. Peterson has received funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p>
The Kenya that Njonjo sought to create was the ‘greatest living example of democracy, justice and peace’ – but there was no space for the poor.
Derek R. Peterson, Professor of History and African Studies, University of Michigan
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177636
2022-02-24T15:12:20Z
2022-02-24T15:12:20Z
How the US and UK worked together to recolonise the Chagos Islands and evict Chagossians
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447796/original/file-20220222-19-sc19ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Citizens of the Indian Ocean island of Chagos at the High Court in London.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stefan Rousseau/PA Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 15 February 2022 the Mauritian flag <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60378487">was raised</a> on two Indian Ocean atolls, Peros Banos and Salomon, both belonging to the Chagos archipelago. This was the first time that Mauritius’ flag was raised in the Chagos Islands, even though there is <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/the-chagos-islanders-and-international-law/ch4-the-1965-lancaster-house-agreement-and-international-law">clear evidence</a> that these 60 islands form part of its sovereign territory. </p>
<p>Currently, the UK maintains control over the archipelago. The whole of Mauritius used to be a British colony, the Chagos islands were detached in 1965, from the Crown Colony prior to granting Mauritius independence. A new colonial territory was created – effectively recolonising the archipelago – under the name ‘British Indian Ocean Territory’ (BIOT). </p>
<p>The largest and most heavily populated island in the archipelago is Diego Garcia. This island was <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/psp.1754">home to the majority of the nearly 2,000 exiled Chagossians</a> who are prohibited from returning. Today, this island is home to a <a href="https://www.navifor.usff.navy.mil/ncts-diegogarcia/">US Naval Communication Station</a> with a few thousand US troops and international support staff. </p>
<p>I’ve <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10612-021-09570-4">carried out research</a> on the recolonisation of the Chagos Archipelago, the forced eviction of the Chagossians, and the role of both the UK and US governments in this. </p>
<p>Despite the archipelago’s name – which indicates it is a British colony – the forcible eviction of the Chagossians was set in motion in the US. As part of the <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627791694/basenation">US strategy to expand its military bases around the world</a>, Diego Garcia was <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Diego_Garcia/pfxK0J40ab0C?hl=en&gbpv=0">identified</a> in 1958, as an ideal location for a future military base by a US naval officer. </p>
<p>The island was considered particularly desirable both because of its location in the Indian Ocean and its <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691149837/island-of-shame">small population that could easily be removed</a>. Bases are a critical element of the US hegemon, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374172145/howtohideanempire">a hidden empire</a>, which benefits US defense and intelligence interests. The base in Diego Garcia has been a vital location for manoeuvres across the Indian Ocean, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0020-7985.2004.00291.x">including enabling the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq</a>. </p>
<p>The removal of the local population would ensure that there would be <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/united-states-overseas-basing-an-anatomy-of-the-dilemma/oclc/492037352">no political calls for sovereignty</a> or <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/military-power-and-popular-protest/9780813530918">social movements</a> that could curtail military operations. In 1960, the process of acquiring the islands began with <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v21">a secret conversation</a> between the US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the British Minister of Defense Peter Thorneycroft.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2000/413.html">communication</a> between British government officials:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the primary objective in acquiring these islands…was to ensure that Her Majesty’s Government had full title to, and control over, these islands so that they could be used for the construction of defense facilities without hindrance or political agitation and so that when a particular island would be needed for the construction of British or United States defense facilities Britain or the United States should be able to clear it of its current population. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Americans in particular <a href="https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2850&context=gc_etds">attached great importance</a> to the freedom of manoeuvre that comes from operating on an depopulated island.</p>
<h2>Circumventing laws</h2>
<p>The 1960 conversations resulted in the UK detaching the Chagos Islands from Mauritius for the purpose of recolonisation. This separation from Mauritius was unlawful and went against a UN <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/Independence.aspx#:%7E:text=General%20Assembly%20resolution%201514%20(XV)%20of%2014%20December%201960&text=The%20subjection%20of%20peoples%20to,world%20peace%20and%20co%2Doperation">resolution</a> and the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-11">UN charter</a>.</p>
<p>In order to circumvent international law, the British Parliament, and the US Congress, the British Indian Ocean Territory was created using an <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/orders-in-council/">Order in Council</a>. This uses Royal Prerogative, a discretionary power to implement actions without parliamentary authority. </p>
<p>In 1965, in what became known as the <a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/the-chagos-islanders-and-international-law/ch4-the-1965-lancaster-house-agreement-and-international-law">Lancaster House Agreement,</a> Mauritius was granted independence on the condition that it relinquish the Chagos Islands to Britain. </p>
<p>The following year, the US drafted an agreement for the lease of the islands from the UK. The agreement took the form of an <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20603/volume-603-I-8737-English.pdf">Exchange of Notes,</a> where the Chagos Islands were leased to the US for an initial 50-year term with <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20603/volume-603-I-8737-English.pdf">an option</a> for a 20-year extension. This option was exercised in 2016, extending occupation to 2036. </p>
<p>Notably, the two countries avoided using a treaty for this purpose, bypassing the need for domestic legislative approval in both countries.</p>
<p>Having secured ownership, the relocation of the indigenous people that lived there commenced. </p>
<h2>Forced evictions</h2>
<p>Chagossians, who were forcibly evicted from Diego Garcia, are <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Indian_Ocean_Perspectives_on_a_Strat/y4QRAAAAYAAJ?hl=en">prohibited</a> from seeking employment on the US Naval Base. Chagossians can’t even visit the island of Diego Garcia. </p>
<p>The forced eviction of the Chagossians, who it is estimated had a population of nearly 2000, occurred in four stages between 1967 and 1973. </p>
<p>The first stage was the <a href="https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/227-f-supp-2d-603849646">prevention</a> of re-entry of Chagossians who left Diego Garcia for medical or tourist purposes in 1967. This was done without any notice.</p>
<p>The second stage was the implementation of <a href="https://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/871/Bancoult-v-McNamara/">import restrictions</a> that created scarcity and made remaining on the island difficult. </p>
<p>The third stage involved threats and coercion. This took two forms. First, in poisoning, shooting, gassing, and burning all pet dogs on the island. Second, in demolishing the homes of Chagossians. These actions were <a href="https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2003/2222.html">ordered by</a> the British Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory, Sir Bruce Greatbatch. The orders were carried out with the assistance of the US Naval Construction Battalions. </p>
<p>The depopulation was finalised with the <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmfaff/memo/147/ucm5402.htm">1971 Immigration Ordinance No.1</a>. It prohibited Chagossians from entering or remaining on the islands.</p>
<p>The exiled Chagossians were mostly left homeless and destitute in the Mauritius, some were sent to Seychelles. They were left to live in dilapidated shacks in slums, without support or employment opportunities. Although some <a href="https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2003/2222.html">meager compensation</a> was handed down, this came years after lengthy court battles and amounted to about £1000 (about US$1300) per person, although not all received this sum. The resulting insecurity and trauma has had <a href="http://www.chagosislandersmovement.com/">a profound impact</a> on those directly affected and on subsequent generations of Chagossians. </p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>On the request of the UN General Assembly, the <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/169/169-20190225-01-00-EN.pdf">International Court of Justice, on 25th February, 2019,</a> deemed the detachment of the Chagos Islands from Mauritius and their incorporation into a new colony unlawful. The UN General Assembly passed <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3806313?ln=en">Resolution 73/295</a> on 22nd May, 2019 obligating the UK to withdraw its colonial administration within six months. </p>
<p>These decisions demonstrate that international attention is on the UK to relinquish its unlawful colonial hold on the archipelago. What is missing is an acknowledgement of the enduring role of the US in these international crimes. Beyond holding the US responsible for its role in depopulating the islands, it is clear that without the participation of the US, the harm caused, especially to the Chagossian people, will not be repaired. </p>
<p><a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Mauritius-makes-play-for-future-with-US-base-on-Diego-Garcia">Mauritius has already offered the US a 99-year lease of Diego Garcia</a> in an effort to shore up US support for its efforts around the return of the Chagos Islands. It’s still not clear whether the US will allow the Chagossian people, that it insisted be removed, to return.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anamika Twyman-Ghoshal 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>
Attention is on the UK to relinquish its hold on the islands. What’s missing is an acknowledgment of the enduring role of the US in this international crime.
Anamika Twyman-Ghoshal, Senior Lecturer, University of Gloucestershire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177381
2022-02-21T17:52:22Z
2022-02-21T17:52:22Z
Chagos Islands: Mauritius’s latest challenge to UK shows row over sovereignty will not go away
<p>A superyacht hired by Mauritius recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/08/mauritian-ship-takes-scientific-team-to-contested-chagos-islands">set out</a> to conduct a scientific survey of the Blenheim reef, 230km off the coast of Diego Garcia in the <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/debate/chagos-question">Chagos archipelago</a>. A group of Chagossians accompanied the scientists in what <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/mauritius-sets-sail-chagos">has been hailed</a> as an “historic” event by Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth. </p>
<p>This trip was controversial not only <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2022-02-14/chagos-islanders-living-in-sussex-criticise-problematic-flag-raising">among Chagossians</a> but also because the international legal status of the islands has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-mauritius-and-the-uk-are-still-sparring-over-decolonisation-40911">in contention</a> for the past 60 years. The visit took in the outer atolls of Peros Banhos and the Salomon, the last to be inhabited by Chagossians before the British government removed them in the 1960s to establish an American military base in the archipelago. </p>
<p>This was the first time Chagossians were visiting their homeland without UK support. The Mauritian flag was raised by Mauritian officials on both atolls and on Blenheim reef. At stake is the issue of Mauritian sovereignty.</p>
<h2>British involvement</h2>
<p>The Chagos archipelago is a collection of seven coral atolls made up of over 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, about 500km south of the Maldives, midway between Tanzania and Indonesia. <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/oceanindien.2003">In the late 18th century</a> French planters established coconut plantations and brought in enslaved people, initially from Senegal, and later labourers from Madagascar, Mozambique and India to work on these plantations. </p>
<p>Today many of those identifying as Chagossians are the descendants of these enslaved and indentured labourers. Some research refers to them as the islands’ <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20179938?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">indigenous people</a>. </p>
<p>These issues are significant because of the historical and contemporary relationship of the UK, US and Mauritius with the islands. The Chagos islands, which were dependencies of Mauritius, came under British sovereignty in 1814, having formerly been part of the French empire. </p>
<p>Internationally, the islands were largely neglected until the cold war. In the 1960s the US and the UK jointly identified Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, as an ideal location for a military base in the Indian Ocean. Consequently, in 1965, the UK government <a href="https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sand-gcybilj2-copy.pdf">detached</a> the Chagos islands from Mauritius and from Seychelles. </p>
<p>While some islands were already uninhabited, between 1967 and 1973 the remaining population, around 1,500 inhabitants, was <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/debate/chagos-question">removed and relocated</a>. Some were resettled in Mauritius, some in Seychelles and some in the UK. Laws were subsequently passed by the UK government to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10854681.2021.1888514">prevent people resettling</a> to the islands. </p>
<p>Britain created a new colony from islands formerly part of Seychelles and Mauritius (the former were returned to Seychelles on its independence in 1976)- the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). In 1966 the UK and US concluded the agreement to establish a joint military facility on the BIOT island of Diego Garcia. The agreement was to last for 50 years with an option of a 20-year rollover which was triggered in 2016. The agreement now lasts to 2036.</p>
<h2>Contemporary litigation</h2>
<p>Considerable litigation has been brought before the UK courts and the European Court of Human Rights by Chagossian Oliver Bancoult and as a group action by the Chagos Islanders regarding <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004204416/Bej.9789004202603.i-293_013.xml">the right to return</a> to the islands. In recent years there have been three important decisions.</p>
<p>In 2010, the UK established a no-fishing protected area around the Chagos archipelago. Mauritius claimed this infringed Mauritian fishing rights and instituted proceedings against the UK under <a href="https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf">international law</a>. </p>
<p>In March 2015, the tribunal established under international law, to which the matter had been referred for <a href="https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/annex8.htm">arbitration</a>, ruled in favour of Mauritius. It held that the UK had breached its obligations under international law and, in particular, the fishing rights of <a href="https://www.pcacases.com/pcadocs/MU-UK%2020150318%20Award.pdf">Mauritius</a>.</p>
<p>Since Mauritian independence in 1968, consecutive governments have challenged the detachment of the Chagos islands, claiming they are part of Mauritius. In 2019, the International Court of Justice published an <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/169">Advisory Opinion</a> in response to a request from the United National General Assembly on behalf of Mauritius, stating that decolonisation had <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/mauritius-v-uk-chagos-marine-protected-area-unlawful">not been lawfully carried out</a>. </p>
<p>In particular, it said that detaching the Chagos archipelago from Mauritius was not based on the free and genuine will of the people. Consequently, the UK’s continuing administration of the Chagos archipelago was unlawful.</p>
<p>The United Nations <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12146.doc.htm">accepted this Advisory Opinion</a> in a resolution that ordered the UK to withdraw from the archipelago within a period of six months. Almost four years on, the UK <a href="https://theconversation.com/chagos-islands-uk-refusal-to-return-archipelago-to-mauritius-show-the-limits-of-international-law-127650">has still not done so</a>. Instead the British government continues to hold that neither the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion nor the UN resolution have any legally binding effect. </p>
<p>The UK has consistently indicated that it will cede the islands to Mauritius once they are no longer required for defence purposes. The UK has made a number of financial payments to Chagossians and is currently delivering about £40 million in support to <a href="https://www.chagossupport.org.uk/post/2017/03/02/british-government-comment-on-40m-support-package-for-chagossians">improve the livelihoods</a> of those in Seychelles, Mauritius and UK</p>
<p>Mauritius has said that the recent visit was not intended as a hostile act towards the UK. Nor was it an overture to resettlement. Nevertheless, it is a clear indication that Mauritius is not going to let the dispute of sovereignty disappear any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sue Farran 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>
By raising the Mauritian flag on the Chagos Islands, the east African nation has reasserted – if only symbolically – its claim to sovereignty.
Sue Farran, Reader of Law, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.