Understanding Anti-Colonial Revolutions in Africa

Understanding Anti-Colonial Revolutions in Africa

LITERARY RESISTANCE- POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE

- SIZWE BANZI IS DEAD (1972)

Sizwe Banzi Is Dead (originally produced and published as: Sizwe Bansi is Dead) is a play by Athol Fugard, written collaboratively with two South African actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, both of whom appeared in the original production

- THINGS FALL APART BY CHINUA ACHEBE

Casestudies From Sub-Saharan Africa

The "Decolonization Debate"

ARTISTIC RESISTANCE

Literary and Artistic movements that told the African story: Chinua Achebe " Things Fall Apart"; Athol Fugard's "Sizwe Banzi is Dead"

Told story of Colonialism and resistance

Music of resistance: Mariam Makeba of South Africa; Thomas Mapfumo of Zimbabwe; Hugh Masekela of South Africa e.t.c

Dance and performance in reserves

Drawing this Discourse from Adu Boahen

Intellectual Solidarity and Resistance

Important Questions to Consider

• Decolonization is always juxtaposed with terms like "transfer of power," or"withdrawal of power"

Transnational Route to Africa's Liberation

• More transnationalism at play
• Pan- Africanism- W.E.B DuBois (African American); Kwame Nkrumah(Ghana) George Padmore (Trinidad): Political movement
• Garveyism: Marcus Garvey (Jamaica roots) back to Africa movement
• Negritude: Leopold Sedar Senghor (Senegal), Aime Cesaire (Martinique)and Leon Damas (Guiana): Artistic movement

James Brown "Am Black and Proud" inspired Fela

Bob Marley: Zimbabwe

• What kind of solidarities led to resistance?
• What patterns did the resistance take?

Majek Fashek: Free Mandela

Religious Solidarity and Resistance

Youth/ Elite Solidarity/ Resistance

Argument is that the description of the events that led up to the final eviction of colonialists as transfer of power is Eurocentric and removing agency from the Africans

The only colonial power willing to give up power was Britain; France, Portugal and Belgium were practically evicted

Contents

Let's Listen to Sony Okosun

Last Two Weeks

Aladura Church in Nigeria

• National Congress of British West Africa soliciting for legislative rights for West African territories
• West African Student's Union in London- Focused on pursing the Pan- African agenda
• Political Parties like the National Council of Nigerian and Cameroon founded by Herbert Macauley in Nigerian; Conventions People Party of Ghana; African National Congress in South Africa
• These political parties and youth organisation became the facilities for negotiating Independence in West Africa

Decolonization- 1800s- 1914's

North Africa: Islamic Reformism, Modernization and Nationalism

• Egypt- Creation of the Salafiyya and the Muslim Brotherhood who wanted a blend of Islam with a bit of European idea of the nation state but maintained the Quran and Sunna as guiding state rules
• Algeria- Association of Ulama that refused collaboration with the French
• Morocco- Resistance led by the Morrocan League, The Istiqlal party and Mohammed V. After Mohammed V was betrayed by the French whom he sought to ally with; violence became the new order
• Sub-Saharan Africa: New forms of Africanized Christianities that revolutionized the bible and preached rebellion using the bible
• Polygamy was retained as opposed to Christian monogamy;cultural and religious protests; radicalized christianity with new African hymnology
• Examples: WatchTower in South and Central Africa; Zionist Movement; Ethiopian Church (Rastafarianism/ Gaveyism were influenced); Spiritualist Churches (Similar to Myalism in Caribbean)

• Definitions of Colonialism
• Operations Colonial Administrations
• Impacts of colonialism on Modern African Politics

Short Bio- Sony Okosun was a leading musician in Nigeria between the 1970s and 1980s. His style is a blend of Afro-reggae, High-life and Afro- Funk tinged with a Pan-African message. He eventually switched to hardcore gospel in his later years

Next Few Weeks

Religious Resistance

- Ahmadu's of Tukolor Empire in Present day Mali eventual declaration of Jihad against the French after failed attempts at treaty signing recourses to Jihad

- Northern Nigeria and the Jihadist approach to the Royal Niger Company

Multi-Gendered Military resistance

- Behazin of Dahomey in present day Benin Republic use of the Amazons in his offensive against the French

- Yaa Asanteewa confrontation of the British in 1900s

Intense Military Confrontation

- Samouri Toure and the French founder of Wassolou Empire in Modern day Guinea

- Blend of military resistance and diplomacy

- Scotched Earth Policy

Prolonged Military Confrontation

- Asante Empire and the British

Diplomacy and Treaty Signing

- All these examples adopted diplomacy and treaty signing at one point or the other

Failed Diplomacy and Exile

- Jaja Opobo and exile to the West Indies

- Nana of Itsekiri and eventual exile to Ghana (Gold coast)

- Prempeh of Asante Empire and his exile to Seychelles

Alliances and Submission

- Yorubaland in South-Western Nigerian won by missionaries, submission and deterrence

Ideological Resistance

- Lat Dior Diop of Senegal and his rejection of the construction of tthe railway (Military and Ideological Resistanc)

• African Resistances to Colonial Rule
• Resistances from all spaces- local, global and transnational

Relevant Concepts To Engage

Do you Remember?

• 1880-1885: Proto-Colonial Period
• 1885-1945: Colonial Era
• 1885-1900: Period of Conquest and Occupation
• 1900-1919: Period of pacification and elaboration of systems
• 1919-1939: Colonial Rule Proper
• 1939-1945: Watershed between Colonial Rule and Decolonization

Questions

- Can you identify some of the African soldiers mentioned?

- What does this song tell us about the nature of Anti-colonial revolution in Africa?

Proletarian Solidarity and Revolution

New Timeline

Stages of Anti-Colonial Resistances

Stage 1: 1880-1919

Stage 2: 1919-1935

Stage 3: 1935-1970

Identity

• Embedded in a narrative
• When the narrative changes, Identity changes
• Identity is never a constant, its always in a flux
• So we can say we have identities not identity
• Identity is socially negotiation- involving actors who might be victims, victors or partners
• Decolonization as a quest for new identities; identities rooted in freedom , independence and self governance

• This occurred in the settler cash crop, African peasant cash crop economies and mining/industrial economies
• Unionization e.g Industrial and Commercial Worker (I.C.U) in South Africa
• Protests of workers in Mining economies
• 1919- Anti-pass protest in South Africa
• 1920- 40,000 mine workers went on strike
• 1927- Strike of Nyasa workers in Shamva mine in Southern Rhodesia
• European Oligopoly of cash crop economic and the loss suffered by the peasant who had developed a mono-agricultural economy led to revolt
• Aba Women's Riot of 1929 (Nigeria) protested against taxation and rising export prices; High rent rates paid by cotton producers of Uganda and unfair treatment of African farmers;Kenya fought against land rights in the Mau Mau Revolution

Timelines of Revolution

Where does this leave us?

Relatively Peaceful Transitions

• British West Africa: Ghana and Nigeria- Involved Negotiations with elites and different constitutional reforms that eventually gave over power
• French West Africa: Assimilation of other citizens of Africa into French citizenship; creation of Federation of french colonies and then Charles de Gaulle offered independence that meant making a choice between outright independence and maintenance of ties in 1958
• Only Guinea refused ties with France

• Toyin Falola
• Pre 1930s- Protests of Accomodation with colonialism and reducing exploitation
• Post 1930- Radicalization that sought to end forced labor, colonial land acquisition, excessive taxation, racism e.t.c
• 1945- More serious Radicalization triggered by the experiences of World War 2 and the Ethiopia experience

Richard Reid

• 1890-1920- Informal Protest
• 1920-1940- Semi Proletarian Protest
• 1940s-upwards- Proletarian Revolution

• Note that the transitions influenced the nature of domestic, international and regional politics that were going to come.
• Note that all regions did not get independence at the same time. While West Africa was in the process of negotiating and transiting to Independent rule; South Africa was still in the thick of apartheid.

Transnationalism

• This is an important lens for understanding conflicts in Africa
• It was a conversation between Africa, the United States and the Caribbean what Paul Gilroy calls "The Black Atlantic"/ Black Modernity
• The challenges of the black race became similar and thus the fight for freedom in Africa became a responsibility of the Black world- A Pan- African ideal

OUR CONCERN

• INTELLECTUAL RESISTANCES
• CULTURAL RESISTANCES
• RELIGIOUS RESISTANCES
• PROLETARIAN RESISTANCES
• TRANSNATIONAL RESISTANCES
• NATIONALIST RESISTANCES
• LOCAL UPRISINGS
• ANTI-COLONIAL ORGANISATIONS

Solidarity and Resistance

• What informs solidarity and how does solidarity shape resistance?
• Marx- Solidarity is informed by class struggle and so the kind of solidarities in society is essentially economic- bourgeoisie and proletarian
• Weber- Solidarity can be informed by other factors beyond the economic and thus resistance can be cultural and social
• The nature of African resistance blends the Marxist and Weberian approach- Economic, Intellectual, Cultural, Religious, e.t.c

• Last Week/ Coming Weeks/ Housekeeping
• Lessons from Aime Cesaire
• Do you Remember?
• New Timeline
• Relevant Concepts to Engage
• Let's Listen to Sonny Okosun
• The Decolonization Debate
• What About Us?
• Timeline of Revolution
• Our Concern
• Religious Solidarity and Resistance
• Intellectual Solidarity and Resistance
• Cultural Solidarity and Resistance
• Youth/Elite Solidarity and Resistance
• Proletarian Solidarity and Resistance
• Relatively Peaceful Transitions
• Where does this leave us?
• Transnational Routes to Africa's Liberation

Engaging Collins and Burns

What important information does Collins and Burns provide on the decolonization in Africa?

Dominant Narratives

1) The Impacts of the two World Wars on Proletarian revolution in Africa

2) The Two World Wars and new international peace orders and treaties that critiqued colonialism

3) Western Intellectual Production and the criticism of colonial

4) Anti-colonial intellectual production in the Black Atlantic

5) Proletarian Revolution in Africa in resistance to forced labor, the new war economy and depression

6) The African nationalist and the independence

Criticism

- The idea that nationalism and resistance in Africa was triggered by the changes in international politics

- An African bourgeoisie-centred history of nationalism and the struggle for independence in Africa

- What was the nature of the revolution before the interventions of these "fathers of the nation"

- What was the role of the masses in the fight for independence?

- What was the role of women as well?

- What forms of resistances took place in Africa asides the political?

- Are there other revolutions that preceded those of a figure like Chilembwe?

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Lessons From Aime Cesaire

Lessons from Aime Cesaire

1) Robin D.G Kelley describes Discourse on Colonialism as a third world manifesto, why?

Reinvoking J.F Ade Ajayi

1) Capitalism is incapable of establishing a uniform concepts of rights for all men and women

2) The concept of a barbaric Negro is a European Invention

3) It is only a sick civilization that colonizes

Thesis one: Exchange and contact between civilization is oxgen but the colonial encounter was not in anyway oxgen instead it thingified the colonized and brutalized the humanness or the consciousnesss of the colonizer. It is this brutalization of the conscience of the colonizer that makes Europe and the West the bed of contradiction: home of civilization yet home to Nazism. Aime Cesaire argues that capitalism and Christianity inherently created the roots for numerous forms of domination exhibited by the colonizer on the colonized and on themselves.

It is now possible to write the history of the conquest and the establishment of European rule in terms of two sets of human beings rather than in terms of the contemporary view of Europeans as gods dealing with sub-human natives. (Ajayi 2000, 167)

Thus, although the Europeans were generaly masters of the colonial situation and had political sovereignity and cultural and economic dominance, they did not possess a monopoly of initiative during the colonial period. (Ajayi 2000, 171)

Questions:

• What alternative forms of justice is he prescribing for post-independence Africa?
• Is Discourse on Colonialism a lamentation, is it prescriptive or is it simply a re-reading of Western conceptions of modernity?