Colonial Economy and Society economies identities settlers January

Colonial Economy and Society: - economies - identities - settlers January 30 – February 3

Colonialism II: Identities “Africans dance. They dance for joy, and they dance for grief; they dance for love and they dance for hate; • … Far more exotic than their skin and their features is this characteristic of dancing; … Perhaps all that paragraph should be put into the past tense, or rather into the passing tense…. ” • [Geoffrey Gorer, Africa Dances, 1949]

Colonialism II: Identities This colonialist commentary is revealing in its form and its content, as we see continuing here: “Africans used to dance until their families and clans were destroyed, until the constantly gnawing anxiety about taxes and military service and distant work clouded their lives, until missionaries forbade dancing as heathenish, and administrators stopped dancing because it disturbed their sleep or prevented people working, until they lost the physical strength necessary for the dance. They still dance in small villages where there is no administrator, no missionary, no white man. ” [Gorer, 1949, p. 213] •

Colonialism II: Identities This quote is at one and the same time about: - colonial images of who and what an ‘African’ is - collapsing of economic and political into the cultural and religious

Colonialism II: Identities What is missing is an understanding of what this multi-faceted process has created: - of Europeans - of Africa.

Colonialism II: Identities

Colonialism II: Identities Issues in cultural and social change: - what colonialism meant for African religions - relationship between religion and education - relationship between education and social change -

Colonialism II: Identities Issues in cultural and social change: - relation between these (education, social change), health and medicine - relation between education, politics, power

Colonialism II: Identities By early 20 th century --- nineteenth-century missionaries already had significant impact - ‘African’ versions of European church proliferated (Catholic, Protestant, etc. )

Colonialism II: Identities South Africa: - Ethiopian and Zionist churches especially popular - conscious resistance to idea of white European God!

Colonialism II: Identities "An African catechist preaching in an African village“ Church Missionary Gleaner, Sept. 1876

Colonialism II: Identities Bishop Charles Phillips, Rev. E. M. Lijadu, and elders of the church at Ondo, 1901. Courtesy of the Church Missionary Society, London.

Colonialism II: Identities Christianity posed problems for religious Africans: “We used to talk a lot about Christians. Even now we do. We don't think a lot of Christians. We don't believe in Jesus. We used to pray in olden times to our native god, Mwari, and to the midzimu, for rain. It always helped. Now we pray to Jesus and the rain never comes. ” (From ‘Statement of a non-believer’, Rhodesia 1937. See ‘Additional Readings’ for full account).

Colonialism II: Identities Christianity simultaneously attracted and repelled: - it resembled aspects of indigenous faiths (e. g. the role of saints in Catholicism) - It repelled because it was either contrary to indigenous beliefs (e. g. bride-wealth, polygamy) or incongruous with those beliefs (e. g. heaven/hell versus the role of the ancestors).

Colonialism II: Identities An orişa-house of Yemoja, Abeokuta (Southern Nigeria).

Colonialism II: Identities Christianity was also the ‘door’ to the Colonial social and economic world: culture, class, education. Rev. Samuel Johnson and his wife at their wedding.

Colonialism II: Identities

Colonialism II: Identities Christian Converts (Congo) Woman on right of Rev. Phillips was favorite wife of King; is now deaconess of the Church (1900). Christian Converts celebrating with a Christmas feast (1900)

Colonialism II: Identities “The people of the Congo, as we found them, were practically without religion. Fetishism takes its place in the list of systems of religion, but it must be considered as a negation, rather than anything positive; the absence of all which we understand as religion. There is no worship, no idolatry in Fetishism, only a dark agnosticism, full of fear, helpless and hopeless. Although the people are given up to this dark superstition, they are not atheists – the Bantu race has everywhere the name of God. ” • [Pioneering on the Congo, 1900]

Colonialism II: Identities (above) Mission House, Bopoto (Congo) c. 1900. (right, top) Fetish image ‘Nkindu’, Zombo (Congo). (right) Bopoto funeral dance.

Colonialism II: Identities Islam was also an African religion. Unlike Christianity’s relation with various ‘pagan’ religions, its relation with Islam was one of distance and respect: - Islam was a religion ‘of the book’ - it had ‘clergy’ that Europeans could identify - it had embedded bureaucracy, taxation, associated social welfare system

Colonialism II: Identities Mosque at Kemta, Abeokuta. (Southern Nigeria)

Colonialism II: Identities Islamic manuscripts from Timbuktu - Christianity made few inroads in Muslim areas - Islam competitor of Christianity in colonized world

Colonialism II: Identities Maulidi (birth of the Prophet) Celebration, Lamu, Kenya

Colonialism II: Identities Religion was important to women as well as Men: these Algerian women are on their way to see a Marabout – Islamic savant (mystic or sufi).

Colonialism II: Identities To become Christian was to become educated, at least at the elementary Mission-directed schools which predominated. And vice-versa, for the most part. • ( see “Togo School Exam” in ‘Additional Readings)

Colonialism II: Identities Initially, many indigenous elite (Muslim and others) avoided Christian schools: sent children of slaves, former slaves - where this continued (e. g. the Sahara, Northern Nigeria), new social problems created - as colonial economy grew, it demanded literate, European language-speaking workers - Many Islamic regions and people ‘left out’ of colonial world/development

Colonialism II: Identities Even where benefits realized, opportunities were few -- and for the few: - British West Africa had handful secondary schools by 1930 s (e. g. Yaba College, Nigeria; Achiomota College, Gold Coast). - Uganda: Makerere College (1933): first in East and Central regions - South Africa: Fort Hare (1916)

Colonialism II: Identities Even where benefits realized, opportunities were few -- and for the few: - French West Africa: Ecole William Ponty (Dakar) 1920 s. - Egypt and Tunis: better opportunities in conjunction with traditional Islamic institutions

Colonialism II: Identities Everywhere, being educated meant: - speaking European languages - wearing European clothes - eating European food - accepting European ideas - imbibing European identity!

Colonialism II: Identities Seretse (future ruler of Bechuanaland) studying Law and Administration. Charlie Sjonje (Kenya) studying Arts. [1947]

Colonialism II: Identities “Can we object if a lucky few copy a social life we ourselves have created? ” (White South African, 1940 s) Congolese doctor with his Family, 1933.

Colonialism II: Identities But what did being educated to ‘be European’ mean to a black African in Colonial Africa? What did it mean to significant class of ‘mulattos’ – children of European men and African women? [See “Africa Dances: the Mulatto” in ‘Additional Readings’]

Colonialism II: Identities “Cookery classes in Lovedale [missionary centre], Cape Province, SA. Few Native girls have the advantage of a training in domestic science; those who do make apt pupils”

Colonialism II: Identities “[In South Africa], only one European child in a thousand has a European ‘Nanny’. ” This kind of domestic labour employed thousands of South African women.

Colonialism II: Identities Aburi Girls' School (Gold Coast, 1898)

Colonialism II: Identities A set of “do-don’t” messages about Good Housekeeping: industriousness, cleanliness, safety

Colonialism II: Identities South African men leaving the electric train which has brought them from the ‘suburbs’ (townships) into the city where they work. (1947) “In a single generation, these people are expected to to step from the pace of the ox to the tempo of modern civilisation, where time, speed and proficiency are the essence of progress”

Colonialism II: Identities Francophone West Africa: - policy of assimilation provided avenue to become ‘Black Frenchman’ - policy not practical: by mid-1920 s, over 13 million Africans in A. O. F. -1926 fewer than 50, 000 had achieved goal of citizenship, most of those in Senegal - 1945 still fewer than 100, 000

Colonialism II: Identities Shaped social and political profile of educated elite: e. g. Blaise Diagne (Senegal ) - member of French Parliament -tried to obtain French citizenship for all Senegalese: failed. -supported conscription WWI, forced labour: unpopular - but: saw colonialism as way forward ‘modernization’ (1872 – 1934)

Colonialism II: Identities British West Africa: - Social-hybrids: “been-tos” (as in ‘been to Europe’ or ‘been to the city’) characterized educated elite - accepted European beliefs about progress, modernization, role of ‘middle class’ - were well represented among professionals in main cities

Colonialism II: Identities Believed in need to use European concepts of unity, nationhood to overcome pre-colonial tribal divisions: - believed in need to impose European governmental systems to overcome pre-colonial multiplicity of polities and ruling systems (e. g. National Congress of British West Africans, 1920) - not broad based organizations

Colonialism II: Identities Pan-Africanism: - West Africans who studied in Europe were introduced to ‘Pan-Africanism’ - leaders born in America, related to ‘Back to Africa’ movement (Edward Blyden, Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Dubois) - had no power but brought African colonial situation to world attention

Colonialism II: Identities Pan-Africanism: - by mid-1920 s, Africans decided that any plan for African progress had to be decided by Africans and directed from Africa - turned to ideas about nationalism, national unity [see ‘Additional Reading’ – BBC Story of Africa “Between the Wars: Nationalism and Vision, section on Pan Africanist Congresses]

Colonialism II: Identities Universal Negro Improvement Association (founded 1917, Harlem): The Universal Improvement Association represents the hopes and aspirations of the awakened Negro. Our desire is for a place in the world, not to disturb the tranquility of other men, but to lay down our burden and rest our weary backs and feet by the banks of the Niger and sing our songs and chant our hymns to the God of Ethiopia. . . "Look to Africa for the crowning of a Black king; he shall be the Redeemer. ” [Garvey, New York, 1924]

Colonialism II: Identities Colonialism also realized in health, nutrition, medicine: - cross cut gender roles in households, age-grades, social hierarchy, and powerful role traditional healers (men and women) - initially men drawn into health care: later women: mid-wives, nurses European belief system intruded at most basic and personal level

Colonialism II: Identities Traditional treatments could still be purchased. (c. 1947) Here, “discussion on the curative powers of dried sand-shark”.

Colonialism II: Identities Traditional Healer: “Witch Doctress whose sombre figure still throws a dark shadow of ignorance and fear over the lives of many. ” (c. 1947)

Colonialism II: Identities Students spend a year at Fort Hare, then go on to Johannesburg for training as “Medical Aids”. (c. 1947)

Colonialism II: Identities Native Nurses working for Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga, Congo (c. 1930)

Colonialism II: Identities Yakusu (Congolese) mid-wives c. 1931

Colonialism II: Identities "Neither imperialism nor colonialism is a simple act of accumulation and acquisition… Out of imperialism, notions about culture were classified, reinforced, criticized or rejected. " [Culture and Imperialism, Edward W. Said]

Colonialism II: Identities On the one hand: Emergence of new social classes, growth of urbanization and extended ‘world’ in which some Africans worked and traveled: led to break-down of traditional community, ‘ethnic’ identities.

Colonialism II: Identities On the other: Insecurity of these new situations often caused Africans to re-invent (if not ‘invent’) bonds of so-called “tribal affinity”.

Colonialism II: Identities Colonial political economy often reinforced process of creating ‘tribal collectivity through: - tax structures - land settlements - migration patterns. Colonial administration encouraged ‘use’ of this identity to gain economic, political advantage Colonial ethnography took care of the rest!

Colonialism II: Identities Congo c. 1900 “Specimens of Native Dress”

Colonialism II: Identities (left) “Moorish” woman in city attire. (right) ‘Beautiful Fatmah’ – Moorish woman. (below) Young “Moorish” Woman

Colonialism II: Identities The impact of being both European and African (both ‘white’ and ‘black’) had deep psychological implications as well, as Franz Fanon chronicled in his disturbing work, based on his practice in Algeria.

Colonialism I: Economies To be cont. : Colonialism III: Settlers