Building on the Indigenous: Selected Essays 1981-1998

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Building on the Indigenous Selected Essays 1981-1998 .

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Anyange Press Ltd. P.O. Box 2034 K.isumu

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Copyright © 1999 by Bethwell A. Ogot All rights reserved. No Part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief • • passages m a revtew.

Typesetting, Illustrations and Cover design by: The Science and Engineering Research Center, Publication Unit P.O. Box 46727, Nairobi.

Printed and Bound in Kenya by: The Regal Press Kenya Ltd. P.O. Box 46166 Nairobi, Kenya

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Contents Preface: The Reappropriation ofAfrican Space and History

v

1. History, Ideology and Contemporary Kenya

1

2. The Struggle for the Third World. A Historical Perspective

11

3. University Development in Kenya - What Options?

25

4. Reflections on an African Experience

31

5. Mau Mau and the Fourth Estate 1952 - 1956

39

6. After the End of History

63

7. The Great Lakes Region

71

8. The Future of the Past in Africa. Reflections on the Post Cold War Era

99

9. The Construction of a National Culture

113

10. Building on the Indigenous: Reflections on Culture and Development in Africa

137

11. Social Sciences in the 21st Century. From Rhetoric to Reality

147

12. National Identity and Nationalism. Concepts and Ideologies

159

13. The Role of the University in Development

171

14. The Construction of Luo Identity and History

179

15. Africa: The Agenda of Historical Research and Writings

205

16. Museveni - The Ugandan Narcissus

223

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Contents 17. African Conflicts in a Global Context. A Research Agenda

233

18. Lessons of Experience. Higher Education Policy of the World Banlc in Africa

251

19. The Siege ofRamogi: From National Coalitions to Ethnic Coalitions, 1960 - 1998

277

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PREFACE The Reappropriation of African Space and History In the fll'St volume of these collected essays, which covered the period 1960 - 1979 and which corresponded with the first two decades of independence in Africa, I was chiefly concerned with affirming our identity, our humanity and Africa's historicity. We aimed at decolonizing ourselves or demythologizing our history, our behavior or indeed out mentalities. The works were largely nationalistic in spirit and Pan-Africanist in scope. In this volume II which covers the period 1980 to 1998, the focus of most of the essays is Africa's new place in the world. What place should be devoted, for instance, to national history? At a time when exchanges are becoming globalized, is there not a need to describe the gradual fading of national idiosyncrasies? Conversely, is reasserting the permanence of national history helping to put down roots and produce a sense of citizenship, or is it itself a form of voluntarism? Today, in an Africa that is in the process of construction and in quest of national cohesion, the consequences of ethnicization, whether age-old or endlessly renewed, are real. Where, then are the factors that bring people together to be found if not in history, through the creation of cultural identities in which the history of each contributes to the history of all, where each feels at ease without losing what is peculiar to him or her. This implies formulating a broad and open philosophical conception of the individual and society in which all people of good will can come together. That is the price, which Africans will have to pay to construct their young nations freely and in the social peace desired. These nations will thereby be prepared to confront the diabolical globalization (the latest form of colonization), the new technologies and their media train, a single way of thinking and all forms of extremism. What is needed is to establish a genuine plural civic education whatever the nature of the existing political regimes. By the same token, it means refocusing on rediscovering the pre-colonial historical spaces, more in accord with the state of mind of our collective memories. The ultimate goal is decolonized Africa where the contemporaneity understood as the space of present time-of the various aspects of the life of a people and that of its neighbours in the ''total" exercise of freedom, or freedoms, produces the feeling of participating in the "national" even international, adventure; in short, the feeling of existing. This is the individual as citizenactor, free and responsible for his or her own action.

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vi BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS In summary, what is quite apparent is that today we are obviously in the midst of work in progress on a vast scale, whereby Africans all over the continent are reappropriating their space and their history. This is a laudable and legitimate undertaking. For if history frees the African, the historian, through education and teaching, is also helping to liberate Africa. The essays in this volume are thus offered as a modest contribution towards the emancipation of Africa. Bethwell A. Ogot (Prof). Institute of Research and Postgraduate Studies, Maseno University, MASENO KENYA. 15th April, 1999

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CHAPTER 1

History, Ideology and Contemporary Kenya* In this Address, I intend to use the term "contemporary" to mean "our time", the period roughly covered by the theme of this conference, viz. "Kenya since 1940". It therefore covers the period within living memory. There are those who would argue that historians cannot seriously study contemporary history, partly because, in their view, some source material would not be available to provide the necessary information about events and trends in the very recent past, and partly because the detachment required to deal with yesterday's events in an objective and balanced way is lacking. These are the usual arguments advanced against the study of contemporary history. In my view they do not invalidate contemporary history, as has been shown by the works of many historians, starting with Thucydides. A contemporary historian is more often than not confronted with a surfeit of source material rather than a dearth of it, and the contemporary historian of Kenya is not likely to find a different situation. Nor should Kenya historians shy away from the still unresolved questions of the recent past, since any serious historical study must aim at bringing the past into a healthy dialogue with the present. It is for these reasons that the Association decided to devote this year's conference to the contemporary history of Kenya. In this address, however, I will not be discussing the general problems of studying contemporary history. Rather I shall confine the discussion to a dangerous tendency towards intellectual absolutism that is rapidly creeping into our analyses of all aspects of the contemporary scene in Kenya. In our discussions on literature, history, economics, politics, culture, education, etc., it is assumed by the absolutists that there can only be two approaches: the progressive and the neo-colonial or reactionary. It is further contended by the progressives that these different approaches do not simply represent healthy intellectual differences, but fundamental ideological positions which should 1 Presidential

address at the Historical Association ofKenya Annual Conference,

August 1981

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2 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS dete11nine whether one is pro-Kenya or anti-Kenya. There can be no neutrality in this confrontation which divides Kenyans into two absolutist and mutually hostile categories of WE and THEY. All intellectual debates must therefore be conducted in these absolutist terms of "he who is not with me is against me". Any writer who has the temerity to stray from this pre-determined route is bound to face intensive and sustained intellectual terrorism from both camps. Today, in Kenya, there are young scholars, especially historians, creative writers, political scientists and economists, who are scared of committing a single sentence to paper, in case they are ambushed by the terrorists. Such a situation, you would agree, inhibits, distorts and degrades necessary intellectual debates which should be going on about the contemporary history of Kenya. The historiography of this intellectual absolutism in Kenya would, in itself, be a very interesting subject of research. But one of its earliest manifestations was an anonymous Pamphlet allegedly produced by "Kenya Students Against Imperialist Education" and published in October, 1976. The Pamphlet stated that there were two types of Kenya intellectuals: "patriotic, revolutionary and anti-imperialist ones and the servile, pro-imperialists, anti Kenyan ones". (p".4.). The Pamphlet further asserts that the latter group are: "foreign agents", an assertion which has recently been repeated in a book, Thunder from the Mountains: Mau Mau Patriotic Songs by Maina_wa Kinyatti (1). The author of this book, who is a Lecturer in History at Kenyatta University College, and whose contribution to the study of Kenya history is peripheral, not only accuses .several Kenyan historians, by name, of being anti-Kenyan, but also of being "foreign agents". It is no longer therefore a question of intellectual disagreement-which is a sine qua non of intellectual development: it is now a question of whether the views held by these scholars are their own or those of their foreign masters! wa Kinyatti even goes to the extreme of portraying these scholars as enemies of the people! A review by Miss Adagala, in the Voice of Kenya "Book and Bookman" radio program repeated these wild accusations with alacrity and concluded that the traitors had at last been exposed! This shows how low historical discussion in Kenya bas sunk. The genesis of this absolutist approach might ultimately be traced back to the Marxist-Leninist ideology. In 1969, for example, Professor V. G. Solodovnikov, Director of the Africa Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR since 1964, presented a report on his institute at the All-Union Scientific th th Conference on Africanists which met in Moscow from October 20 to 24 • In his report, be argued that all scientific investigations should be subordinated to the task of promoting the victory of socialism over capitalism.

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History, Ideology and Contemporary Kenya 3 "If any kind of research fails to meet this requirement, it will necessarily fail to result in a full-fledged study. Marxist-Leninist ideology and scientific analysis constitute a unit of scientific knowledge in studying social phenomena." (2) He then goes on to say, and this is relevant to our discussion: "There are two basic trends in the Africanology of the world; a Marxist one and a bourgeois one. And there are also certain transitional trends. We are the leading force of the Marxist trend in the Africanology of the world and are responsible for diffusing Marx.ism-Leninism in Africa. We must be fighting scientists..." (3) It may, therefore, tum out that our so-called progressive and "fighting scientists" have foster parents outside Africa! Perhaps a word of explanation is necessary here. We are not talking about the Marxist methodology which, as we hope to show later, is an indispensable analytical tool. We are referring to the use of historiography as a conscious expression of Marxist dogma. Nor are we saying that history must not be informed by theory or ideology. On the contrary, we believe that history must be informed by theory, if it is to be related to other forms of knowledge. But theory is not something ready-made. We must ourselves engage in the formulation of the theory, taking nothing as given, and examining both the ideological and the material bases of our theory. It is only in this way that we can hope to identify the theoretical issue facing historians working in Africa today. We should attempt to work out our key categories and not simply to inherit categories from the past, or from other societies. For example, there are theoretical problems connected with the Revolution in former colonies. The Marxists argue, correctly, that after political independence, the second stage of the Revolution must aim at economic independence. To achieve this, it is necessary to have radical social and economic changes which inevitably involves changes in the class-structure of African societies. But we have to realize that the national bourgeoisie will take part in the fight against imperialism only as long as their positions are not consolidated. Once this is achieved they readily collaborate with the imperialists. And they, in tum, endeavor to strengthen the national bourgeoisie as a force capable of counteracting the social revolution. Thus the antiimperialist struggle is closely linked with the class struggle against the reactionary, exploiting elements in the African countries. But what constitutes "the people" has been changing constantly. At one time it was the bourgeoisie that constituted the "people" that had been banished

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4 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS from official history by the aristocracy. During the colonial period all Africans constituted ''the people", and their historical experience was regarded as insignificant. Even in societies where the "people" had been discovered, it is only recently, and as a result of feminist movements, that the role of women in society has been regarded as part of the "people" history. In Kenya creative writers, sociologists, educationists and historians have all discovered "the people" during the last fifteen years. Even the politicians are busy making all kinds of statements "in the interests of wananchi." The writers extol certain virtues which they associate with peasants - steadfastness, independence, hard work, honesty, love, generosity, etc. We accept that a history of the people must recapture and recover the lived historical experience of classes which official history banished from the record whether these classes be peasants, workers, women or simply Africans. The new history of Kenya must correct this deformation and restore the centrality of culture and consciousness to any historical account. But must we banish other classes from our people's history? How, for instance, does one write about the dissolution of the peasantry in Kenya without studying the non-peasant social classes in the social formation, without studying the relations between the peasantry and these other social classes, and without relating these social classes to the political infrastructure in the country? Historians have produced studies on the working class in Mombasa, on prostitution in Nairobi, on crime and society in Nairobi, on the crowd in Nakuru and Nairobi politics and on the struggle of the workers during the Emergency ( 1952 - 56) - all dealing with the "people" as defined by the radicals. But in all these studies, historians have found it necessary to situate their analyses in the relevant socio-economic and political contexts (4). This, in turn, has meant discussing the activities of the groups the progressives would prefer to dismiss as "non-people". Perhaps that is why there is a belief among the progressives that Kenya historians do not write about the people. The danger inherent in this approach which idealizes the people is that it soon degenerates into a qualitative grading of classes. The peasants, the proletariat and the progressives are considered to be more "people" than others. But do the peasants, the proletariat and the progressives (some of whom are bourgeoisie) have the same historical consciousness? Can we locate all these groups within a single conceptual framework? As historians we should insist on studying peasants and not the peasant, workers and not the worker, for the peasants or the workers lot has been very different in different societies and history is, above all, a discipline of context. Furthermore, it is assumed by the progressive writers that the idealized people are all good and the non-people are all bad. Kenya history is therefore

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History, Ideology and Contemporary Kenya 5 seen as essentially a struggle between good, represented by the people, and evil represented by the non-people. All colonial chiefs, civil servants, pastors, teachers, etc. were evil people, and they must therefore not find a place in the people's history of Kenya. The Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) and the then Kenya African National Union (KANU) since 1964, have provided machinery for exploiting the masses, and hence they cannot be included in the people's history. This is a Christian view of history which interprets every event in terms of the idealized Christ fighting the villainous Satan. Several attempts have been made in the past to construct history based on certain groups as the heroes of the story - monarchs, aristocracy, bourgeoisie, proletariat, peasants, Aryans, blacks, women and the result has always been the same: history becomes mystified. One comes to idealize one's own side, and to believe in one's own propaganda. Complex historical issues become simplified and over dramatised. A historical story should aim at understanding the past. It should not idealize any group - ethnic, national, peasants or bourgeoisie. It should recognise ·that virtue cannot be a monopoly of any group, not even the idealized group. That murder or adultery or theft is likely to be committed by a peasant or proletariat as by a bourgeoisie. Above all, it should recognise that historical writing demands integrity on the part of the writer. This, in turn, demands a critical appraisal of one's own preconceived ideas, one's own prejudices. History must therefore train us in independent judgement. It must seek to develop ability to evaluate, discuss and respond positively to our own cultures and environments as well as to those of other peoples. Thus history seeks to understand human development, human reality, the universe of values in which this or that group of men of the past lived; how and why people have lived and worked together in society, or failed to do so. The discipline can thus enable us to see our own universe of values in proper perspective by increasing our awareness of ourselves and our environment and helping us to understand "how we got this way". Thus history can be an excellent antidote to the narrowness of vision - whether this be ethnic, class or sex vision of history. A narrowness of vision leads us to interpret and judge past phenomena in narrowly contemporary terms. Kenya of 1950 is actually not the same society as Kenya of 1981. Kenyans of thirty years ago should not be judged and sentenced on criteria that would have been irrelevant and meaningless to them. This is the cardinal sin of anachronism which can be fatal to a historian. Finally, our historical studies must promote proper historical consciousness. Such historical consciousness should include at least two ingredients: It should help the people to understand that our lives are connected with the lives, struggles, achievements and understandings of previous generations of Kenyans

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6 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS and Africans. The second ingredient is that our historical consciousness should include an awareness that there is common moral responsibility inherent in the historical process, both backwards to our ancestors, and forwards to our children and grand-children. Armed with such historical consciousness, we should be able to understand and to interpret the contemporary history of Kenya seriously, critically and soberly without being derailed into intellectual blind alleys. What is the solution? The Marxists tell us that only socialism can ensure genuine national and economic independence. After political independence, there is a need to transform the national liberation movement into a revolution against imperialists and capitalists - this is an important feature of the revolutionary process in former colonial territories. During such a transformation, old production relations have to be destroyed. This, in a somewhat simplified form, is the old Lenin's thesis on the socialist revolution in the period of imperialism in the economically backward countries. One of the basic tenets of this thesis is that the working masses led by revolutionary parties and assisted by proletariat of the advanced countries are capable of embarking upon the road of building socialism without the necessity of going through the capitalist stage of development. It should be remembered that this was Lenin's solution, in the Russian context, to the problem posed by orthodox Marxism which believes that the countries liberated from colonialism can only proceed towards socialism through capitalism. Does the adoption of either of these positions help us to understand the essence of processes taking place in Africa today? My answer is "No". What we need are theoretically inspired studies dealing with such important subjects as agricultural transformation; the role of foreign capital; industrialisation; the creation and widening of state sector in the national economy; the social structure of African Society; the process of class formation; the development of the working class and the national intelligentsia; the evolution of the peasantry and:the national bourgeoisie. Already such studies are being produced. I would like to cite, in particular, the works of our political scientists who, while applying the Marxist methodology, have eschewed polemics, and have instead concentrated on the analysis and interpretation of our socio-economic situation. Apollo L. Njonjo's Ph.D. thesis on "The Africanisation of the White Highlands: A Study in Agrarian Class Struggles in Kenya, 1950-1974" (5) is, for instance, a major study which throws much light on the agricultural transformation taking place on the former "White Highlands". Concentrating largely on Kiambu and Nakuru districts, Njonjo reveals that by 1974, 91% of the owners had only 21% of the land and each had less than three acres, whereas 5% of the owners - those with over twenty acres, controlled 79% of the land. Even more important, he

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History, Ideology and Contemporary Kenya 1 discovered that 2% of owners - those with over 100 acres controlled 690/o of the land. Hence, despite mass exodus to the Rift Valley giving the illusion of an expanded peasantry, "the emergent distribution of land in the mixed farms exhibited one of the most concentrated patterns of land ownership existing in the world today." (6). Contrary to Colin Leys" thesis that the dissolution of the settler estates in Kenya has led to the demise of capitalism and the triumph of the peasant, Njonjo has demonstrated that Africanisation of the White Highlands has led to the evolution of a landed bourgeoisie and the dissolution of the peasantry. But the dissolution is not complete. He writes: "This marks a decisive point of difference between the form and destruction of the English peasantry took and the form the dissolution of the Kenyan peasantry is taking. In the former, the peasantry was, by large driven out of the land to become the basis of the industrial working class. In Kenya the dissolution takes place precisely at the same time as a highly emasculated peasantry continues to retain relations to patches of land and hence maintains the illusion of a property-owning class.

Here lies the roots of social conditions for authoritarianism in the political system; for in defending the illusion of property amidst its dissolution, such an emasculated peasantry forms fertile grounds for fascism, first expressed in populist terms." (7) His colleague, Peter Anyang" Nyong"o, has also been studying the peasant question in Kenya. He has shown that unlike the position discussed by Njonjo in the former White Highlands, the development of agrarian capitalism in Western Kenya was very much delayed. He points out that the majority of studies on agrarian capitalism in Kenya have been concentrated in Central Province and the former White Highlands and they do not fully apply to all regions (8). The researches of Njonjo and Anyang" Nyong"o have shown that regions and class antagonism manifested themselves differently in the two regions. In Kikuyuland, the re-distribution of the land of the former White settlers led to a class alliance between the landed capitalists (many of whom were loyalists) and the former Mau Mau supporters. This alliance changed the social content of politics in the 1960's. Indeed, according to Njonjo, the desertion of Kenya People's Union (KUP) by the Kikuyu can only be explained by the success of this alliance. Njonjo writes:

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8 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS "It would appear that the KPU in Kikuyuland was a very different social movement from the KPU in Luoland. In other words, the KPU in Nyao:za arose to conserve and pre-empt class stratification. The KPU in Murang"a, on the other hand, was a class movement dedicated not to conserve the community from class stratification, but to extend the capitalist transition to engulf the poorest and landless segments of the rural population by breaking up accumulating landed property." (9) If this analysis is correct, then it is misleading to write about peasants in Kenya as if they formed a homogenous group, as some of our populist progressives are fond of doing. Secondly, the presumed antagonism between the so-called loyalists and freedom fighters in Central Province ignores this class alliance, and much of what the writers who dwell in the so-called class conflict say are ideological constructions rather than the empirical record of past events. We should not simply constitute the past according to our own preconceptions. Other studies which have carried out the kind of investigations I am advocating are Gavin Kitching's Class and Economic Change in Kenya: The Making of an African Petite Bourgeoisie 1905-1970 (10), and Nicola Swainson's The Development of Corporate Capitalism in Kenya 1918-1977 (11). Besides the question of theory and its relation to history, which we have been discussing, the "progressives" have raised the question: "whose history are we writing?" They have answered that unlike the reactionary groups, who write about irrelevant issues, they write the people's history. But who are the people? Again to quote the anonymous pamphlet: 'surely it is only the mass of those working folk, who toil with minds and hands together, throwing up their own leadership, who can most truly b e counted as people. Those who gang as profiteers into an industrial complex certainly cannot! The professors of apologia, the purchasers of mass media, the slaves of entrenched privilege, are not the people". They look on the people as stupid or ignorant enough to be fooled, to be bought up and owned by them, policed by the slave minded, bitten at will by police dogs. · The orphans, disabled, the parking boys who beg, the victims of torture chambers, the protesters against more outrage, or those who make what they can in dollar currency ready for a quick get away by private plane? Who are the people of Kenya? The imperialist manipulated ones, the Ministers, the P.S.s, the directors held there by foreign superpower monopoly or those in growing slums, the detention camps, or the foodless, waterless huts of the

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History, Ideology and Contemporary Kenya 9 countryside? The farmers, the fishe1men, the overworked, underpaid working folk who will fight against new and old oppression, whose children in their abundance, with deep intensity watch the drama unfold... "

A people's history of Kenya, therefore, would include the peasants, the workers, the unemployed and the radicals. It would exclude the national bourgeoisie, the imperialists and the national intelligentsia. The We-They dichotomy is again introduced in absolutist terms. "We are the people", they tell us and "The history of Kenya must be about us and not about them". The people are thus conceived in an idealistic manner, collectively creating culture, toiling in the fields and in the urban centers and permanently enduring or resisting oppression by "them" the imperialists, the bourgeoisie, etc. It is true that the image of the "people" in Kenya's history, as in world history, has been changing very fast, especially during the last forty years. Until about the Second World War, the ruling class attitudes towards ''the people" (peasants, workers) were hostile. They regarded the "people" as primitive beasts of burden, irrational creatures whose lives mattered little. This represented a simple picture of class prejudice. But this is changing all the time, and Kenya historiography must reflect this trend.

ENDNOTES 1. 2.

3. 4.

London, Zed Press, 1980 V. G. Solodovnikov, Ten Years of the Africa Institute for Scientific Achievements and Tasks of Soviet Africa Studies (Studies on Developing Countries, No.55), Budapest, Centre for Afro-Asian Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1971, p. 37 Ibid., p. 37 For example, see Karim K. Janmohamed, A History of Mombasa c. 18951939: Some Aspects of Economic and Social Life in an East African Port Town During colonial Rule Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1976; Luise White, "Women's Domestic Labour in Kenya: Prostitution in Nairobi, 1950"" Working Paper No. 30, African Studies Center, Boston University 1980; F. Furedi, "The African Crowd in Nairobi: Popular movements and Elite Politics", Journal of African History. XVI, 2 of 1973, p. 275-290; M. Tamarkin, 'social and Economic Role of Nakuru Africans, 1919-1952", Kenya Historical Review, 6, nos 1 and 2, 1978, pp. 105-125; and S. Stichter Mimnt Labour in Kenya/Captialism and African Response. London, Longman, 1982.

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10 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS 5.

6.

7. 8.

Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1977 Apollo L. Njonjo, "The Kenya Peasantry: A Reassessment", Depart111ent of Government, University of Nairobi, Staff Seminar Paper No. 2, 1978/79, p. 19 Ibid., p. 20 P. Anyang" Nyong"o, "The Development of a Middle Peasantry in Kenya", Department of Government, University of Nairobi, Paper No. 7. n.d., pp. 4-

5 Apollo L. Njonjo, The Africanisation of the White Highlands, Ph.D. Thesis Chapter 6 10. New Haven, Heinemann, 1980 11. London, Heinemann, 1980.

9.

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CHAPTER2 The Struggle for the Third World A Historical Perspective* A survey of the relations of the rich and poor countries over the last forty years clearly reveals that major changes have taken place since the end of the Second World War. At that time no one was visibly concerned about the plight of the world's poor. At Bretton Woods, for example, the needs and interests of the underdeveloped countries were ignored, and Asia and Africa figured scarcely at all in the Post-war planning of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, except that it was assumed that China would take Japan's place as the leading power in the Far East. The idea of a Third World began to emerge in the late 1940s and early 1950's. At that time it did not refer to a group of countries. After the Second World War, the world was divided into two hostile camps led by America and the USSR. They offered two opposed alternatives to development: capitalism and socialism, First World and Second World. The Third World was to be created from the wreckage of the old, to offer a different path for humanity, a third alternative. Gradually, the Third World came to mean simply a group of countries that were contemptuously referred to as underdeveloped, less developed, developing, non-industrialized, the poor, the backward, the South. The list now included the independent states of Latin America as well as the ex-colonies of Asia and Africa. The emancipation of the world's majority, the Third World, offered the opportunity for a new political and economic order. The struggle for the Third World reaches back to the 1960s, when the newly fledged European Community was bracing itself to challenge American hegemony. It's symbol was the Yaunde Convention, signed in July 1963, which set up close economic ties between the EEC and eighteen African states formerly linked to France, Belgium and Italy. Then at the ftrSt United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in 1964, the developing countries put the

§

Public Lecture presented at Kenyatta University on 27th September, 1990

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12 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Third World on the map, and since then the rich nations have not been allowed to forget it. But the real impetus came in 1973, in the wake of the severe recession which followed the Y om Kippur war. As a consequence of the slowdown, in world economic growth and the intensification of industrial rivalry, no country, in the words of Mary Kaldor, could "afford to neglect", even "marginal markets". ( I ) As a matter of fact, Third World markets were no longer marginal by this time. In 1975 the non-OPEC developing countries took a larger share of US exports than the whole of the EEC, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union combined (2). The dependence of the EEC and Japan on trade with developing countries was even greater. As early as 1970, they accounted for no less than 43 per cent of Japanese exports and by 1978 some 40 per cent of EEC exports went to Third World Countries (3). With a stagnant world economy and shrinking investment opportunities, the struggle for the third world had thus become a major factor in World Politics by 1980. This is a many-sided struggle which defies easy classification. Sometimes, the most obvious feature is the conflict of interests between Western Europe and the United States; at other times a similar conflict arises within the EEC, for example, between Great Britain and France. This latter conflict emerged in the open in 1975 when the then French President Giscard D"Estaing put forward as plan for a "Latin African" block, tied to the French Monetary System, in opposition to the English-speaking African countries. Giscard's object was clearly to make France the dominant power in Africa before the British, following the latter's entry into the EEC, could challenge the influential position France had built up through the Yaunde" Convention. At the same time the Common Market was engaged in talks with the Arab countries - especially Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan - for trade preferences, and was forging links with Mediterranean countries outside the EEC, such as Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey. The aim was to create a Mediterranean free trade area, including North Africa, which - as Washington immediately perceived - would virtually close the market to American exports (4,5). The effects of the Lome Convention, negotiated in 1975 to replace the Yaunde" Convention, were similar. Here again preferential trading zone was set up, which now comprised forty-six African, Caribbean and Pacific developing countries and was tied to the enlarged EEC by reciprocal trade preferences and an aid program operating through the European Development Fund. Here were all the makings of a trade war, and the protagonists were the EEC and the United States, with Japan waiting in the wings to intervene, if and when her interests were jeopardized. The US response to the growing European influence in the Third World was to threaten any developing country which

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he Struggle for the Third World 13 offered reverse preferences to European countries (as provided for in the EEC agreements) with exclusion from its own general preference scheme. Its other weapon was to cut off US economic and military assistance. This it did when Peru decided to purchase Mirage aircraft from France; but the threat did not deter Argentine, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela from concluding similar deals (6). Thus the trade war was spread to Latin America, traditionally a US preserve, helped by the determination of most Latin American countries to free themselves from a dependence which too often meant buying disadvantageously in the most expensive market. Even before 1970, when the declaration of /Buenos Aires called for closer links between Latin America and Europe, Italy, Germany and France were breaking into the Latin American market as competitors with the United States (7). So also was Japan, with heavy investments in Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Peru (8). In the case of Latin America, United States" reactions showed clearly that when her interests are involved, she can be tough and ruthless. In Argentina a military coup unseated the Peronist Government, which had taken the initiative in seeking closer relations with Europe. In Chile, Allende was ousted with direct US connivance. Peru was brought to heel by the IMF, which compelled it to abandon its policies of self-reliance, and right-wing coups in Bolivia and Uruguay brought these countries into line also. The result of these US offensive actions was the virtual collapse of the Andean Common Market; the countries's successful grouping by which the Latin American countries had sought to strengthen their bargaining power against the United States and North American multinational Corporations. Chile, under Allende, had actively supported the Andean Pact. In 1975, after a year of argument and recrimination, the military junta which replaced him with US support, withdrew from the Pact, and the country was again thrown wide open to United States business and investment. In spite of the fierce United States backlash, the challenge to its jealously guarded economic hegemony in Latin America remained strong. This was partly because by 1~78 there were other factors intensifying the atmosphere of competition. One was the arrival on the scene of newly emerging industrialized countries such as Brazil, which also had to fmd outlets for their surplus industrial capacity. In 1978, Brazil launched an all-out drive to increase its trade in the Middle East and Africa (9). This inevitably brought it into competition with the EEC, particularly with France, which already by 1972 was the largest exporter of industrial equipment to the Arab World and was engaged in a concerted campaign to supply capital goods to Iran and other major Middle East oil-producing countries.

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14 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS The second factor was the increasingly acrimonious dispute between Japan, the United States and the EEC over Japanese surpluses, and insistent European and American pressure for restrictions on Japanese exports. One result of these disputes was to turn Japanese attention to alternative outlets, particularly in South East Asia. In this region, Japan found a sympathetic audience. For one thing, the so-called "Common Agriculture Policy" of the EEC - which is one of the main bones of contention between the EEC and the United States - was a major blow to the Australian and New Zealand agriculture. Following the British entry into the Common Market, both countries were given five years, until 1978 to cut down, if not actually eliminate, their traditional exports of relatively cheap farm produce (butter, cheese, meat) to the United Kingdom (10). Other Commonwealth countries, for example, Cyprus were similarly affected. The result was to build up resentment which erupted in April 1978, when the then Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser denounced the EEC as a "a narrow self-interested trading group trying to make the world dance to its tune" (11). Is it any wonder that Mrs. Margaret Thatcher last year vehemently opposed the candidature of Malcolm Fraser as the next secretary-general of the Commonwealth ! This forced Australia and New Zealand to draw closer to the Association of Southwest Asian Nations (ASEAN), which also were suffering from the growing wave of protectionism in Europe and the United States. By 1978 discriminatory restrictions on textile imports were provoking bitter reactions throughout the region. At the ASEAN Trade fair in Manila President Marcos called upon the ASEAN group to "look within itself to absorb the market displacement" caused by "protectionism in the region's traditional trading partners" and to 'search aggressively for new markets" (12). Even more serious in its implications was the hostility of the Unites States and the EEC to the efforts of developing countries to reduce their dependence on light industry and build up their investment in capital goods, particularly steel and ship-building. By 1978, Third World ship-builders, including South Korea, were winning 30 per cent of new orders. There was similar hostile reaction of the United States and Western Europe to the parallel threat from Third World steel. The Asian countries of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore popularly known as the "Gang of Four" (after the four leading followers of Chairman Mao in China after 1971 ), provide examples of successful cases of economic growth. Despite being relatively small, they came to dominate the external trade of developing countries. Furthermore, they developed economically through the promotion of exports and better still, through the

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he Struggle for the Third World 15 export of manufactured goods, contrary to the postulates of development • econonucs. For instance, in eighteen years, that is from 1961 to 1979, South Korea changed from being one of the poorest countries to a country with some measure of social wealth. Universal literacy was achieved and the proportion of the relevant age groups completing secondary education was greater than in Britain or Italy. By 1982, two-thirds of the population of 40 million people were engaged in non-agricultural work (one-fifth of the work force being employed in man•lfacturing). These startling results were achieved despite the fact that up to 1945, Korea was a Japanese colony and soon afterwards there occurred the terrible Korea war which caused the death of 1.3 million people and the maiming of other millions. And even when the two Koreas were created, defense still took a third of government spending. In this dispute, Japan declined to side with US and Western Europe, because she realized that the Western attempt to clamp down on Third World industrialization will indirectly affect Japan, already hit by the severe import restrictions imposed by the United States and Western Europe. The Western nations had dmianded that exports of steel making facilities and technology from industrialized nations to developing countries be restricted. Japan retorted that that would check, if not halt Japanese exports of steel-manufacturing equipment, such as it had provided to Brazil, Malaysia, Qatar and China. Hitherto, Japanese investment in Southeast Asia had mainly gone to laborintensive light industry. But now, faced by increasing discrimination in the West, Japan embarked on a policy of taking a lead in the economic development of the ASEAN region. She also shifted her policy from concentrating on laborintensive light industry to capital intensive industries, including steel, aluminium and chemicals. She supported the Indonesian state-owned oil companies and petrochemical complex in Singapore. Japan was also ready to lend its support to developing countries elsewhere. For instance, she built the petrochemical plant and oil refineries in Saudi Arabia. "What we are witnessing today", Helmut Schmidt, then Finance Minister of the Federal Republic of Ge11nillly, wrote in 1974, is "a struggle for the world product" (13). Subsequent events simply bear him out. The competitive struggle to capture Third World markets is now an essential ingredient of the industrial nations political strategy. Any realistic assessment of the North-South relations must be made against this wider canvass. When we tum to Africa, I would like to take the case of Zaire to illustrate the realities of the so-called ''North-South" relations.

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16 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS A full consideration of the troubles in Zaire would take us back beyond Mobutu's seizure of power (with Western connivance) in 1965 to the involvement of the Kennedy administration in 1961, and indeed, beyond that to the Belgian - inspired secession of Katanga under Moise Tshombe and the murder of Patrice Lumumba. It would also have to take account of the interests of the great international mineral corporations, Union Miniere, Tanganyika Concessions, and the Anglo-American Corporation, with their interlocking shareholdings and their lobbies in Westminster and Washington handsomely financed by European mining interests. Any such survey is clearly out of the question in a lecture such as this one, but we shall not understand current events in Africa if we sever them from their historical background. The complexities in Zaire were already visible by 1961 when Kennedy entered on the scene. Kennedy had essentially two choices. The one was to support his NATO allies (Britain, France and Belgium) who were backing the Katanga secessionists. The other was to support the UN, which was committed to maintaining a United Congo., Kennedy decided to line up the United States behind the UN because of the fear, real or assumed, that the secession of Katanga would result in the disruption of the whole country and open the door to Soviet penetration. But this meant finding a Zairean leader who could be supported by the west, and particularly by Washington. Hence the succession (so reminiscent of Vietnam) of a series of second and third-rate politicians - Kasavubu, Adoula, and the rest - all kept going by American money, until finally Tshombe was recalled from exile in the then Rhodesia, only to be ousted a few months later by Mobutu, a former sergeant in Belgian force publique. Mobutu looked like the 'strong man" the West wanted, but Zaire under Mobutu was, and is, a classical example of how a developing country should not develop. In spite of this or because of it, Mobutu has never forfeited the West's confidence in his ability to make Zaire safe for Western Capital. What all this suggests is that the relations between rich and poor countries are likely to follow a more devious and indirect route than seemed probable a decade ago. The chances for the developing countries of winning serious concessions by frontal attack, as was attempted at the Seventh Special Session and at the UNCTAD meeting in Nairobi, look small. The chances of their improving their position by direct bargaining with individual industrialized countries or groups of countries, look far more promising. The alternative course is for the developing countries as a whole to tighten their belts and rely on their own efforts - and there seems little prospect for the policy of selfsufficiency.

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he Struggle for the Third World 17 It is also probably true that such arrangements will enable a number of developing countries to secure a large share of the word's wealth. South Korea's close economic links with Japan, as its main supplier of advanced technology, have undoubtedly helped it to attain its exceptional average real growth rate of 10 per cent per annum over the last two decades. But there are dangers even in such an arrangement. First of all, there is the whole complex threat of "neo-colonialism", which has been discussed at inordinate length and needs no elaboration. But it is, nevertheless, real. The simple fact is that a poor country which decides to sup with a rich country needs a very long spoon, and not all poor countries are lucky enough to have one. The second danger is that special arrangements between particular developing countries, or groups of industrial countries, are bound to create tensions and divisions which may easily undermine Third World solidarity. For example, we have the oil-rich and the non-oil developing countries. In a world divided up in this way, it is therefore pretty obvious that some poor countries will be left out in the cold, or will finish up at best in a client status. In any case, it will be a very unequal world, with some developing countries pulling ahead and others lagging behind. Some, like South Korea and Brazil, will pursue a systematic policy of industrialization; more in all probability will continue, willingly or unwillingly, to fulfill their traditional role of suppliers of raw materials and tropical products to the industrialized nations. Here again, the dangers are evident. The Westem nations and Japan have encouraged the industrialization of such countries as Brazil, South Korea and Iran in order to secure markets for their own advanced technology and capital goods; but they are now finding that in doing so they have raised up competitors and rivals. Such Third World countries are now finding•themselves excluded by tariffs and quotas from Western Markets., From this survey, it is clear that the liberal world economy as it has existed since 1945, is on the way out. What we have to expect in its place, if present trends are a reliable guide, is something approximating to a world of regional blocks or super blocks, that is to say, of exclusive trading areas, hedged in by protective tariffs, in which groups of developed and developing countries are linked together by mutual interests and stand opposed to other groups of developed and developing countries similarly linked. For people nurtured in the belief that a free open-market trading system is the best guarantee not only of prosperity but also of peace - and they are certainly still the large majority - the spread of protectionism and the formation of closed trading blocs is a recipe for trade rivalry, political rivalry, and ultimately for war. But since the free-market economy has failed to provide employment and as a means of distributing the world's wealth, perhaps a regulated, regionally organized world economy, even

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18 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS if it is not perfect, may have tangible advantages to offer, both to the developed and to the developing countries. There has been much discussion about the shape and composition of such regional grouping and also about the consequences of a world organized in this way. This is too big a question to deal with here adequately. What we know is that there is a proliferation of economic blocs and preferential trade areas. The Latin American countries are still trying to make the Andean Pact work; the recently enacted United States - Canada Free Trade Agree1nent which came into effect on January 1, 1989, aims at creating an open market for trade and investment in goods and services between the two countries. In June this year, President George Bush called for the establishment of a free trade zone covering all the Americas and the Caribbean (14). Then there is "Europe 1992" - which is European Community's single market program. This provides the most ambitious model of markets oriented regionalism ever implemented. The EC, consisting of twelve member countries, will become a single market of more than 320 million consumers by the end of 1992, which is 50 million more than the USSR and almost half as big again as the US population. It will therefore have the size, the wealth and the productive capacity of a Great Power. It is by far the largest trading bloc in the world although much of it is in inter - European trade. How much of a threat is a single European market to the Third World? For example, the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific States), a group of 68 Third World countries linked to the EC through the Lome IV convention signed on 15th December, 1989 - a trade and aid accord - already feel haunted by the specter of a single European market, especially bearing in mind that the bulk of Africa's trade is with the EEC. What could be done to mitigate the obvious threat that a single European market poses to the Third World? Even a more important question for us in the South is ''what is to be the identity of the "new Europe" in the making? Will Europe 1992 see a rebirth of European chauvinism, a reawakening of imperial and colonial Europe? Will the aftermath of 1992 prove as disastrous for Africa as did those of 1492 and 1884? Christopher Columbus's landing in America in 1492 initiated the slave trade which devastated Africa for three centuries. In 1884, in Berlin, European powers partitioned Africa, leading to the conquest and exploitation of the continent. What is to be the impact of Europe 1992 on Africa? To make it worse, there is the Gorbachev phenomenon. President Gorbachev has been pressing for the creation of Greater Europe, or what he has called "a Common European house", from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains, a culturally and economically integrated Europe. ·\

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he Struggle for the Third World 19 Today, the socialist world as a whole has entered a period of profound socio-economic and political restructuring - popularly called ''perestroika". The transformation which is taking place in Eastern and Central Europe and in the Soviet Union will have profound and far reaching consequences not only on Europe but also on the global system. First, these changes are likely to result in the collapse of the COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) and the weakening of the Warsaw Pact. This is because the system which is being transformed is the Post-Second World War European system established in Yalta and Postdawn in 1945 and strengthened by the Helsinki Accord in 1975. Secondly, and central to the whole process of European transformation, is the question of German unity, which is bound to have profound implications not only on European, but also on the global political and economic systems. It is estimated that a re-unified Germany will be controlling about 25 per cent of the economy of W estem Europe. There is also the question of whether the countries of East and Central Europe and the USSR will be allowed to join the European Community. From the viewpoint of the Third World countries, there is the major question of how changes in East - Central Europe might influence their development. No categorical statement can be made at this stage. Eastern and Central Europe as well as the USSR could end up competing with many Third World countries in searching for new loans or direct foreign investments. But they could also become better, more efficient partners and open up new markets and sources of investments. To avoid being marginalised or even being re-conquered, the Third World must come to grips with the fact that the breakdown of the Yalta set-up heralds a major re-grouping of the world political and economic forces. Some of the most fundamental political and economic assumptions on which the world has operated are being rapidly undermined. The whole Soviet Empire of more than 100 nationalities may collapse and the USA may therefore remain the only Superpower - that is, the only nation with a worldwide military and economic influence and reach. These changes may also mark the end of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the end of a major American Military presence on the European mainland, the end of nonalignment, the Group of 77 and even the end of the Third World - because without the Second World - The Socialist World, you cannot have the Third World. In the religious realm, Pope John Paul II has announced that his ambition is to create the spiritual equivalent of Mikhail Gorbachev's "Common European house," based on the spiritual roots that have made Europe. Christianity will, in this papal scheme, "bind Europe together" ( 15).

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20 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS In the East, there is the imminent rise of the Pacific Region which includes Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand and the immensely successful Asian "newly industrializing countries" like Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore - as well as the larger Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) lands of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. By extension, the region includes USA and Canada. This is now regarded as the region of the future. What about Africa? The continent should not watch rather helplessly as it seems to be doing, but should begin to take a long, hard look at the emerging features of the World economy and evolve far-reaching means to face the challenge ahead. For too long we have appealed to the developed countries to create a New International Economic Order which would be mainly beneficial to us. Many of us are still waiting for this to happen! It is like waiting for the • second coming of Christ - it is not likely to happen in our generation ! In the history of regional or continental co-operation in Africa, a useful starting point is the first meeting of the OAU in Addis Ababa in 1963. The fundamental question that had to be settled at the meeting was the future political structure of the continent. The decision taken by the "Founding Fathers" was firmly in favour of nationalism based on colonial boundaries. They rejected, almost 11nanimously, any idea of a supra-national Pan-African federation as advocated by Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah. In retrospect, it is probably true that that decision was the only one that could have been taken at the time. The national leaders who took it owed their positions to the fact that they had inherited power over the state apparatuses that had existed before independence in each colonial territory. They had fought for independence within the framework of those boundaries. They saw their task as one of creating genuine political nations out of what had previously been no more than administered territories. The shape of the territories themselves reflected the outcome of the scramble for Africa by the European nation-states. However illogical the colonial boundaries, they offered the only workable basis for a Post -colonial dispensation. There was no acceptable way of revising boundaries. Politics in a narrow sense, in other words, were paramount, and economic considerations took a back seat. But the political dispensation had fundamental economic consequences. The new nation-states were economically small and weak. But once the political frontiers had been set in concrete, all decisions about economic co-operation would depend on the perception of each government as to national costs and benefits and the possibility no longer existed of a different wider concept of the parameters within which economic decisions might be taken.

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he Struggle for the Third World 21 These narrow dimensions within which economic policy had to be conducted placed stringent limits on what could be achieved. Every African government wanted to restructure its economy and its economic relations with the outside world. But that economy had been organized in colonial timer to supply a small range of primary products to the metropolitan markets. After independence, each of these small economic units sought to diversify its output and increase the range of manufactures and exports. But with their small domestic markets; lack of domestic linkages, poor infrastructure (other than the colonial export-import facilities e.g. railways) and other handicaps, it is no wonder that they found it difficult to identify any comparative advantage that they might exploit. In most of them import substitution seemed a natural way forward. But here again, small domestic markets, high costs and other disadvantages meant that very often the real economic cost-benefit equation of setting up import-replacing industries was either dubious or plainly negative. Such weaknesses pointed to the need to think about the possibility of greater economic co-operation, if not at a Pan-African, then at a sub-regional and regional levels. Africa already has in existence most of the regional and sub-regional institutions that it needs to pursue the goal of regional and continental economic co-operation. It is the utilization and effectiveness of these institutions that need to be improved. Besides the sub-regional economic institutions such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), CEAO, the PTA, SADCC, the Economic Community of Central African Customs and Economic Union (UDEA), there are over thirty other multi-national institutions, most of them sponsored by ECA or OAU dealing with matters ranging from technology and mineral resources development to cartography and management training. The Lagos Plan of Action proposed the establishment of an African Economic Community by the year 2000. Towards that goal, the Permanent Steering committee was established by the OAU Economic Summit in June, 1984, with the following terms of reference, inter alia: 'sbengthen the existing regional economic communities and establish other economic groupings in the other regions of Africa, so as to cover the continent as a whole.... ; Strengthen, effectively, sectoral integration at the continental level, and particularly in the fields of agriculture, f ~ transport and communications, industry and energy.

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22 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Promote co-ordination and hannoniV1tion among the existing and future economic groupings for a gradual establishment of an African Common Market". The major constraints that hamper regional co-operation in Africa are all too familiar and need be reiterated only briefly here. They include: economies which are competitive rather than complementary, oriented toward international rather than regional markets, vulnerable to ~ t i c . ~-u~~~?~ ~~wrt earnings and heavily indebted; poor infrastructure which agam is oriented toward servicing trade with Europe rather than with regional neighbor; a colonial legacy of language barriers and different currency zones; above all the absence of regional hegemonic powers that might contribute disproportionately to the collective good of regionalism e.g. Japan in South East Asia and West Germany in Eastern Europe. South Africa is the continent's most developed economy - but she develops her resources to de-stabilize regional integration among its neighbors. Hence, there is no African country strong enough economically to devote resources to underwriting regional activities. Let us hope that the Post-apartheid South Africa of de K.lerk and Mandela will be able and willing to play such a role. Indeed, the African countries are yet to decide on how best to precipitate, control and exploit the major "perestroika" going on in South Africa today. Without any doubt, the successful establishment of the African Economic community envisaged by the Lagos Plan of Action would depend, in the final analysis, on the extent of success that can be achieved at the sub-regional and regional levels with the co-ordination of national economic polices and harmoniVltion of national programs in critical economic sectors. It is encouraging to note that at the July, 1990 Summit Meeting of African Heads of State ad Government in Addis Ababa, it was resolved that an African Economic Community should be formed in 1991. This was a bold decision. The leaders further agreed that the ratification and implementation of the African Economic Community treaty will start in 1993. Thirdly, the Summit meeting hoped that Africa will have a single economic community by the year 2025 ( 16). The African leaders have thus given themselves a period of thirty-five years during which they hope the single economic community objective will be achieved. Let us hope that the rest of the world will allow Africa to move at this leisurely pace! We know, for instance, that through GAIT (The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) trade talks currently going on, the industrial countries are trying to tighten their control over the world economy in order to re-colonize the Third World through economic means. At the Uruguay round negotiations which are scheduled to end in December, 1990, the industrialized

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he Struggle for the Third World 23 countries are trying to re-structure GAIT to become a world trading orgaoi:zatioo that, together with the World Bank, the Ioternatiooal Monetary Fund, would more powerfully dictate the economic policies of the Third World The real issue is that of control over the World Economy. Can Africa afford to wait for thirty years? ( 17) In conclusion, we can draw at least four lessons from this general survey of the history of the relations of the rich and poor countries during the last four decades. First, the developing countries should not sit around waiting for the arrival of sympathetic and understanding Northern governments and corporations. Nations and communities have shifted from futures dependent on chance or simple reactions to other nations to willed futures. Only steady pressure and the build-up of self-reliant bargaining strength - in other words, solidarity and a common front - will get them anywhere at all. What is less clear is whether the Third World, especially Africa, can muster these qualities on a sufficient scale to make much difference. Secondly, the story we have tried to tell reinforces once again the old historical lesson that powerful nations ''very seldom let concern for the poor and oppressed ... determine their major long-texrn policies. Where their vital interests are at stake, they will fight for them as ruthlessly as their nineteenth century predecessors, and though we are told that the days of gunboat diplomacy are over, those of paratroop diplomacy certainly are not. The present Gulf Crisis is a case in point. Although Saudi Arabia has one of the worst human rights record, she has to be defended by America because the latter's interests are at stake. Thirdly, another aspect of North-South relations is the existence of ·client states, which can be relied upon in any confrontation to support the positions of the industrial nation oo which they depend. So long as there are leaders whose survival depends on the goodwill, if not the guns, of the rich countries, there are effective limits to Third World solidarity. Lastly, if the history we have traced point to divisions, conflicting interests, and potential defections in the Third World Camp, it also points to another characteristic feature of the current world situation, and that is the divisions and rivalries among the rich industrial countries, as they maneuver for leverage and access to raw materials and markets in the Third World.

ENDNOTES l.

Mary Kaldor, Disintegrating West, Hill and Wang, 1978, p. 152.

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24 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

The United States and World Development: Agenda 1977, Praeger, for the

Overseas Development Council, 1977, pp. 2, 89,201 Douglas Evans, The Politics of Trade, Halsted Press, 1974, p. 67. Evans, The Politics of Trade, p. 27 K.aldor, Disintegrating West, p. 100 Ibid., p. 161, 164. Ibid., p. 164-168. Evans, Politics of Trade, p. 167 Financial Times, April 20, 1978 Evans, Politics of Trade, pp. 70 - 71 Financial Times, April 15, 1978 Financial Times, May 27, 1978 The World Economic Crisis, edited by William P. Bundy, Norton, 1975, p. 110 Kenya Times, Nairobi July 2, 1990 p. 11 Economist, London, May 19 1990, p. 29 - 30. Daily Nation, Nairobi, 12.9.90 C. Raghavan, Recolonization: GA IT, the Uruguay Round and the Third World, Third World Network, Penang, 1990.

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CHAPTER3 University Development in Kenya - What Options ?§ It is a great pleasure and honor for me to address this important workshop aimed at discussing what specific specialization in University Education, Training and Research Maseno University College should develop. The importance of this task was foreseen in the Kamunge Report (1988) produced by the Presidential Working Party of which I had the honor to be Vice Chairman. The Report stressed that: " ....each of the four Universities should adopt an individual model of development based on its peculiar environment, specialization and excellence in education, training and research. In the light of the national development requirements, the development of public universities should be properly coordinated in order to increase complementarity in the utilization of resources in the provision of University education."(p. 71) The challenge before this workshop is therefore to attempt to formulate a model of development for Maseno University College, based on "its peculiar environment, specialization and excellence in education, training and research." From the early 1950s to late 1970s, University education in Kenya played a dynamic role in nation-building, especially by producing professional elites in the various walks of life. By 1980, University education in Kenya was beginning to pass over into mass education. Vast numbers of young people were queuing up at the door of what had been the monopoly of a few. The 1980s were therefore marked by a race to provide space, physical plant facilities, equipment and teaching facilities and programs to meet ever burgeoning student enrollments. Currently the four public universities have a total of over 40,000 students and it is reckoned that by the year 2000 this figure will have increased to at least 50,000. The public is already drawing attention to economic and financial constraints arising from this increase in social demand for education, Keynote address at The Maseno University College Workshop on Development Options, 5th - 7th December, 1991, Kisumu.

§

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26 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS which often raises questions concerning the profitability, quality and organiz.ation of education. The wide gap between the resources and social demand for university education poses a serious problem from which there is no easy escape. Debate is warming up over how to keep the content of education up-to-date in the rapidly advancing frontiers of knowledge. Hence, a workshop such as this one is welcomed as a way of securing grassroots inputs on issues and problems of university education. In our deliberations, we should examine the situation of Africa in what has been termed ''the world village". All regions of the world are today interconnected, notwithstanding national or regional peculiarities. We have therefore to view our problems in a global context. Africa itself is going through a period of profound change and transformation. A wide range of basic questions is emerging, reflecting the uncertainties of a world marked by upheavals which arise from inter alia, rapid scientific and technological progress, changes in the structures and organization of production, a high rate of unemployment, especially among the youth., Africa as a whole must come to grips with a new situation marked by upheavals and instability - phenomena which call into question traditional values. Turning to university education planning, there are two approaches which appear to be in conflict: The manpower requirement approach and the social demand approach. The former emphasizes the possible oversupply of graduates and high expenditures of university education. The latter emphasizes the right of all qualified individuals to university education. There is therefore a "mismatch" between University education and the employment system. There are, however, a few general comments we can make regarding this apparent "mismatch", which is not peculiar to Africa. First, there are risks in attempting to re-orient studies towards specific occupations. Can we predict what the world of work will be like in the year 2020 A. D? Secondly, there are at leasf two factors which can no longer be overlooked by those responsible for planning university education. Study programs must be diversified to take account of a wide range of occupational aspirations. Competition for senior positions in the public and private sector has become intense. More and more graduates will have to accept jobs, at least at the beginning of their careers, which do not fully correspond to their level of achievement or area of specialization. Diversified courses, preferably divided into majors and minors, should therefore be offered. We are virtually at the dawn of a new millennium. What kind of university education are we to offer for the 21 st century? Looking at trends, there are at least four major areas which are bound to influence our specialization,. training

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. University Development in Kenya - What Options ? 27 and research. The four areas are information and communication, basic sciences and high technology, cultural identity and environment. Starting with information and communication, it is a fact that the world is going through a period of transition to a new information society. A number of major transformations are taking place in structures, institutions and lifestyles as a result of the new information and communication technologies. Informatics, with its micro-computer, has made it possible to decentralize large systems and its entry into business life and the home has enabled millions of people to have readier access to information technology. These transformations are going to have an impact on our economy, political process, policy priority, educational needs and on some of our assumptions. For example, the basis of power is shifting from physical strength, land and money to knowledge. At the same time, our knowledge system is itself being transformed by the increasing quantity of data available, the growing sophistication of methodologies and by the creation of new paradigms by which we try to understand reality. Also, the key sectors of many economies are changing from resources to manufacturing to service and from traditional services to knowledge services such as consulting, communications and learning. The transportation of products is becoming less important that the communication of ideas. We are increasingly dependent on technology for our access to knowledge, our contact with the "real" world and our relations with other people. For example, there has been a revolution in audio-visual communication resulting in a significant increase in the number of broadcasting channels. Cable, satellites and video have given rise to far-reaching changes in the audio-visual landscape worldwide. The video technology, for example, has penetrated all cultures making the video • recorder an ordinary household commodity. Then there is the ·n ew production of information which is largely based on the interconnection of the technologies of informatics and telecommunications, usually referred to as telematics. These developments are affecting the written media, right through from the entering text on the word processor keyboard to the computer-assisted "desk top" end products. Finally, we are shifting in our thinking from linear logic to open systems. And occupations are being polarized between high-skill and low-skill jobs, raising the possibility of the emergence of a new feudalism with technolords and technoserfs Looking to the future, it is becoming evident that in the 21 st century, most jobs will be found in the information and communications field. In the industrial societies, the information sector, comprising the production, processing and distribution of information, already accounts for between one-

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28 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS third and one-half or upwards of the active population. This situation is spreading to some of the new industrial countries of South-East Asia. For us in the university, several challenges are posed by the information society. Information (in the sense of data) is no longer scarce in society. We are, on the contrary, drowning in information. The challenge is to change information into knowledge, to organize what we know into systems of understanding and to do this it is often necessary to reduce the quantity of information. We must have the skill to access information as well as the structures and methods to organize it, transform it and use it. The knowledge challenge of information society is therefore twofold: To rethink the objectives and content of general education, those fundamental skills, knowledge and values necessary for every person to function as a free human being (the goal of both liberal education and education for liberation); to rethink the various types of specialized skills that prepare persons for work in the information society. A second challenge for the university comes from the communications technologies, the increasingly integrated system of chips and satellite, computers and television, lasers and robots, artificial intelligence and artificial reality. This challenge is also twofold: To enlarge our concepts of the skills associated with the new "Literacy" and to explore the implications of communications for our consciousness and our sense of community. Since knowledge is the core of the information society, it must also be the core of university courses. Emphasis must shift from control of information and basic skills to understanding of complex systems, the various ways of organizing and reducing information, and the effect of such organization on how we perceive the world. The structuring and organizing of knowledge and an understanding of meaning systems (scientific, artistic, philosophic, religious) form a prime focus of the course content. A second area of priority is training in generic skills that may be adopted and used in a variety of situations. These include "literacy" in the various media of communication (visual, computer, print, oral, interpersonal), different logic systems, accessing information networks, entrepreneurship and effective participation in organizations. The third area of course content involves the delicate issue of values, meanings and perceptions, the elements from which goals and commitments are fashioned. Learners must be exposed to the various major religious, philosophical and political value/meaning systems that have emerged through history. They must understand the choices open to them and the implications of such choices, and they must build their own value/meaning systems for living in the 21 st century.

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University Development in Kenya - What Options ? 29 When we tum to science and technology, we find that the tendency in Africa has been to concentrate on applied sciences and technology. But it has been pointed out by scientists that one cannot apply what is not there., One has to haven science first in order to apply it. Also, what is science today is technology tomorrow. This means that there is a need for a firm foundation in the basic sciences; physics (including geo- and astro-physics) chemistry, biology and mathematics. Many policy makers in Africa tend to give lower priorities to these basic sciences. But it is now evident that science-based high technology is the quickest way to produce wealth. If we take physics for example, it has been described as the science of "wealth creation". If a nation wants to be wealthy, it must acquire a high degree of expertise in physics, both pure and applied. The basic science of biology leads to the high technology of biotechnology, which is one of the newer sciences. Biotechnology's applications in medicine, in agriculture and in energy, are expected to dominate the 21st century. Already, dairy farming has been revolutionized by using a genetic growth hormone that offers increases in milk yields of 15 to 20 per cent without raising feeding costs; and embryo duplication technique enables a single cow to produce twin calves five times a year; pyrethrum is already being produced by culturing root cells in a fermentation vessel, etc. Our universities and research institutions must start participating in the new bio-revolution if African farmers are not to be driven off the land. Maseno University College should concentrate on the basic sciences and science based high technology, leaving classical engineering to the other universities. When we tum to the important area of cultural identity, it is evident that the very basis of the cultural life of people is being threatened. The worldwide influence of a certain number of cultural models, the effects of advertising and the media, the standardization of tastes and life-styles induced by standardized production methods, the erosion of certain traditional values and the difficulty of identifying new one, all these phenomena help to explain the concern of very many societies, to preserve, defend and promote their cultural identities. Society expects education, especially university education, to help solve this problem. In order to play this new role, education systems must fight against the tendency to accord value only to the utilitarian aspects of their action which in some cases leads to reducing the importance attached to the humanistic and cultural dimension and content of education. More than ever before, in the face of pollution and all kinds of environmental destruction, human beings have become aware of their dependence on the natural environment and at the same time, of their own capacities for destruction, and thus also of their responsibility, which is closely

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30 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS bound up with all their activities, particularly those of scientific and education nature. Nature is part of the African heritage, and its preservation must become a theme in national policies. There is therefore a need to re-define the people's relations with their natural environment. Education has an important role to play in this. Despite considerable efforts at the national and international level, the degradation of the environment has continued over the last 20 years since the first United Nations Conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. At the same time economic growth in developing countries has been inadequate, particularly given current rates of population increase. The Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development has shown that protection of the environment and the promotion of economic growth are not separate challenges, since for most of the world the vicious circle of poverty is the essential cause of environment degradation. The university should develop two competencies for addressing these problems; the environmental sciences (including both the natural and the social and human sciences) and environmental education. Scientific information is needed to understand land, freshwater, coastal and ocean environments., to assess the state of natural resource base, and to detect the causes and effect of environmental stress.

Conclusion This general survey is aimed at suggesting that at Maseno we should aim at establishing a medium-sized university of about 5,000 students providing quality education and research. The university should aim at being part of the revolutionary advances in sciences and technology but which can also produce its own schools of social and economic thought which can transform the lives of millions of the Third World. As far as the degree structure is concerned, consideration should be given to the introduction of and/or strengthening the use of the major/minor or double major system to secure greater breadth of background as preparation for job placement.

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CHAPTER4

Reflections on an African Experience§ Professor Roland Oliver is regarded as one of the leading pioneers of African history. For forty years, he taught African history and supervised many research students at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He organized many seminars and international conferences where African historiography was discussed. Along with J. D. Fage he was founding editor of the Journal of African History. In 1962, also in collaboration with J. D. Fage, he produced A Short History of Afric1, which covered more or less the same time span as the present book (except that the latter also covers the Postcolonial period). And before he retired, he was General Editor (again with Fage) of The Cambridge History of Africa. He has now distilled all this experience into what he terms "a work of reflection, written for sheer pleasure during the first four years of my retirement from the first Chair of African history ever created in the University of London". In less than three hundred pages of lucid and readable prose, he has covered the history of continental Africa from the emergence of hominids about five million years ago to the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990. He has achieved this by concentrating on what he regards as significant themes, each of which has been treated chronologically. The themes discussed in the book include human origins, the origins of food production, historical linguistics, the civilization of Ancient Egypt, the spread of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to Africa, slavery and the slave trade, the caravan trade of pre-colonial Africa, African political systems and urbanization, the colonization of Africa and the experience of Post-colonial Africa. The first two chapters deal with the story of early man, which is derived mainly from archaeological and palaeontological evidence. It starts with

Review article first published in Journal ofAfrican History, 33 (1992), p. 477482. The African Experience. By Roland Oliver, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991. §

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32 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS hominid evolution, which he traces back to the earliest known remains of an omnivorous, bipedal creature called Australopithecus, dating back some four million years in Africa, to modem Homo Sapiens which emerged only within the last 40,000 years. Oliver is at his best in these chapters, in which he has digested extremely complex concepts to present a readable, exciting and insightful narrative, free from the usual dry jargon of the archaeologist. There are, however, two shortcomings. First, Oliver paints a linear picture of human evolution, with one stage leading inevitably to another, where many writers now see a more complex mosaic. Secondly, his story begins with the Australopithecus for no apparent reason. We know that the period prior to four million years ago represents an important gap in the fossil record. Should the uniquely human hominid line, for example, be extended back into the late Miocene epoch (about 8-9 million years ago)? What happened to Ramapithecus ( 14 million years ago)? Did his line continue to join that of Australopithecus? Oliver next deals with the Stone-Age, during which hunting and gathering was the universal mode of human subsistence until the domestication of plants and animals some 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. These virile Stone-Age peoples are the main ancestral stock of most of the present populations of Africa, and their achievements are well chronicled. Towards the end of the late Stone Age (about 18,000 years ago) riverside communities with diversified economies emerged. This process was particularly intensified during the Holocene Wet Phase, that is, between l 0,000 and 6,000 years ago when a riparian life-style became extensive and fully-developed, especially in the northern half of Africa. This culture appeared to have been most developed in the highlands of the Central Sahara about 8,000 years ago. Domestication of cereals - wheat and barley - made their appearance later, about 7,000 years ago in Lower Egypt and along the Mediterranean littoral. Oliver explains the fully developed agriculture of the Egyptian Neolithic in terms of the introduction of superior domesticates from the Near-East (the Levant). But could they not also have come from the North-West (Africa)? Ignoring much archaeological evidence from the Central Sahara, Oliver regards Ancient Egyptians - representing Afroasiatic speakers - as the originators of food production in Africa. Afroasiatic languages spread out as the languages of fully food-producing communities, this being especially associated here with cattle pastoralism. Oliver tends to over-emphasize the importance of cattle pastoralism as the cause of many developments in Africa's history, yet this is a topic upon which further research is clearly needed. In fact, the role Oliver assigns to the Afroasiatic language speakers in African history is so very similar to that assigned to the so called "Hamites" by Seligman that one wonders whether Oliver is not resurrecting the "Hamitic myth" in a new form.

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Reflections on an African Experience 33 The history of early agricultural communities in Africa is closely connected with the early history of ancient Egypt. According to Oliver, "Only in one tiny comer of Africa did the so-called food-producing revolution live up to its name. This was in the northern most six hundred miles of the Nile Valley, between the cataract region and the delta." But it is now evident that there is some connection between Neolithic Sahara - the heart of the African world at that time (which Oliver discusses in detail) - and Neolithic Egypt. Although the Nile Valley is generally thought to have been occupied since the Paleolithic, the accelerated development of the pre-dynastic culture is closely associated with desertification of the Sahara. The early Nile Valley civilization developed throughout the Saharan Neolithic period. Hence, there is a sense in which the Egyptian Neolithic can be regarded as a tributary of the Saharan. And yet Oliver is very reluctant to portray the Egypt of the Pharaohs as an African country and its civilization as an African civilization. Following the usual historiographical orthodoxy of Egyptologists, he explains the history of Ancient Egypt as evolving in total isolation from Africa, with occasional stimuli from the Near East. Nor does Oliver discuss the question which is becoming increasingly significant, namely, what relationships existed between the civilization of Ancient Egypt and the cultures of inner Africa. Culturally speaking, the central Sahara seems to have been the heart of the African world up to the first half of the first millennium BC. From here .different populations spread into the Nile Valley, southwards into basins of Senegal, Niger and the surroundings of the Nilo-Chadian depression and eastwards to the Hom of Africa. Is it not possible that the similarity of symbols, ideas and beliefs that has been noticed between the Nile Valley and other regions of Africa may be explained by the fact that they trace their roots to the central Sahara. Pharaonic civilization - which may thereby be regarded as an elaboration of the Central Saharan culture produced one of the world's first civilizations lasting from c 3100 BC to 332 BC. But Oliver tells us very little about this great civilization - its arts and crafts, its industries, its contributions to science, medicine, engineering, architecture, literature, education and religion. This is one aspect of the African experience he should reflect further upon. Instead, he seems to follow the Egyptologists in playing down the richness of this civilization. Moreover, Oliver might have discussed the point which has been made in various publications by the late Cheikh Anta Diop and several AfroAmerican scholars, that ancient Greek civilization had African and Semitic (Phoenician) roots. Dr. Martin Bernal has recently restated this thesis in Black Athena I. One would have expected Oliver to argue with Black Athena so that African civilization may be reconciled with world history. Instead, he has chosen to ignore these arguments.

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34 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Professor Oliver distorts the early history of the Nile Valley by treating the Nilotic Sudan (Nubia and Kush) as a mere extension of Egypt with no history of its own. The researches of Bruce Williams, for example, have indicated that the frrst monarchy in the Nile Valley was the kingdom of Ta-Seti in Lower Nubia. It preceded the Egyptian first kingdom by about 200 years. Williams has further argued that through the ages, there was a Pharaonic-type civilization developing parallel to Egypt from the A-group (3,300 BC) to the X-group (550 AD). And although there was constant effort by Egypt to control Nubia it is also evident that there is a distinct Kushite continuity from the early culture of Kerma through the empire of Napata and Meroe to the X-group. This deserves serious study. The historical autonomy which had prevailed in Africa started to be undermined between 500 BC and 1000 AD when the three West Asian religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - reached the northern half of Africa. Oliver explains how Judaism spread through North Africa as ''the religion of the trade route and the market place". It soon extended from North Africa to Saharan latitudes, from the Red Sea to the Atlantic. Oliver, however, fails to explain the significance of Judaism to Africa except that it introduced the concept of the "book''. It is thus presented largely as the religious activity of Jewish immigrants in Africa and not as part of African history. The section on Christianity is more detailed and well integrated in the history of Africa. But a major omission is the failure to discuss the interaction between Egyptian religious beliefs and the Judeo-Christian heritage. Moses, to whom the Jewish Law (the Torah) is ascribed, was steeped in Egyptian Mystery learning; the Hebrews were exposed to the Egyptian religious systems during their bondage in Egypt; and monotheism was encouraged and taught by Pharaoh Amen-Hotep (iv) (c.1370-1352 BC) long before Moses was born. Is it not possible that a number of elements in Judaism were derived from the Egyptian religious heritage? Similarly, several parallels have been indicated between Osirian drama and the New Testament. Moreover, several studies have revealed that many of the rituals, ceremonies and observances of the Christian Church were greatly influenced by the Egyptian Mystery priesthoods. This Egyptian influence on the early Church continued for about six centuries when Alexandria was the center of Christianity through prominent Church Fathers such as Origen, Clement, Athanasius, Tertullian, Cyprian, and St. Augustine. This significant spiritual and intellectual contribution of Egypt to the early Church has largely been ignored by Oliver. The history of Islam in Africa from 639 AD, when the Arabs invaded Egypt, to the eleventh century, when it had covered most of the northern half of Africa, including the Hom, is well covered in this chapter.

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Reflections on an African Experience

35

Oliver, however, omits from the discussion the crucially important Africanization of Islam as the religion spread westward and south of the Sahara. With the exception of chapter 10, on slavery and the slave trade, chapters 8 - 12 (covering urbanization, agriculture, trade and state-formation from the Iron Age to the nineteenth century) are excellent syntheses and stand as probably the best chapters in the book. In chapter 10, Oliver begins by painting a very grim picture of slavery and the slave trade in African societies. He then asserts that "it is against such background of slavery and slave trading within Africa that the development of an intercontinental trade in African slaves must be considered" (p. 123). He goes on to argue, like eighteenth-century British slave traders and his colleague Professor John Fage before him, that since slavery and the slave trade had always been part of the African historical process, the export slave trade was merely incidental to slavery and not the cause of it. In his own words; the Atlantic slave trade ''merely provided new destinations for those who would have been enslaved in any case" (p. 123). But the researches of several scholars have revealed that the institution of slavery which existed in many parts of Africa in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries was not indigenous, but developed directly from the export slave trade. Even the rise of the militaristic states that Oliver discusses can partly be attributed to the export slave trade. There is also an important distinction which Oliver and other slave trade apologists should bear in mind. Slavery, as practiced in African societies, also existed in other societies. The Greeks enslaved the barbarians; and during the Roman Empire, slave populations included Greeks, Turks, Scandinavians, Arabs, Gauls, Jews, Persians and Ethiopians. Later, in the Black Sea region, millions of Ukrainians, Georgians, Circassians, Armenians, Bulgarians, Slavs and Turks were sold to the Islamic markets. In all these cases racial distinctions played no appreciable part in the slave economies. But as Professor Bernard Lewis has recently shown in his Race and Slavery in the Middle East - An Historical Enquiry (1990), things began to change in the late seventh century, when blackness of skin became a symbol of inferiority. Gradually racist stereotypes became linked with pro-slavery arguments in Islamic lands, culminating in Africa becoming synonymous with slavery. The world, especially the Western world, quickly forgot the eagerness with which they had bought and sold Europeans, Jews, Arabs and other people. It is this racial slavery, a new phenomenon which treated Africans as less than humans, that Oliver should discuss, and in doing so he should acknowledge the moral • blindness that led to centuries of immeasurable suffering for African peoples. In the next two chapters, Oliver discusses the history of Africa in the Nineteenth Century. Chapter 13 covers the first half of the century, characterized by the penetration of the interior by various strangers: The

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36 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Egyptian penetration of the Nile Valley; Swahili-Arab caravans into the interior of Eastern Africa; European explorers and missionaries in Central Africa; the Dutch and British settlers" expansion into the interior of southern Africa; the expansion of the Islamic states in West Africa and the consequent jihads; the spread of the activities of European missionaries and traders into the interior of West Africa; and in North Africa, a major upheaval which began with the French conquest of Algeria in 1830. The activities of these strangers, all armed with superior weapons, let to widespread political destabilization in Africa and eventually to European conquest and occupation. In chapter 14, Oliver describes rather briefly, the partition of Africa between the European powers. With the exception of Germany and Belgium's King Leopold II the rest of the European powers are portlayed as reluctant imperialists who would have been satisfied with limited territories. From the perspective of African history, Oliver argues that the so-called partition was "on the contrary a ruthless act of political amalgamation, whereby something of the order of ten thousand units was reduced to a mere forty" (p. 184). This, he implies, was not necessarily a bad thing for Africa. Of course, this process of creating larger political units had been going on in Africa for centuries and by the nineteenth century there were already large states such as Buganda, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Rwanda and Asante. Africa did not therefore need European imperialism in order to create large states. Another consequence of the partition mentioned by Oliver is that by creating these large, artificial political units, which sometimes contained as many as 300 ethnic groups, the ''tribal" concept came to assume a significance which was lacking in pre-colonial societies. After independence, ethnicity within national frontiers between the African states, both of them created by partition, continued to plague African governments. Oliver devotes the next three chapters ( 15, 16 and 17) to the colonial period. He begins by reaffuming his now familiar thesis that the frrst thirty years of colonial rule in Africa represented a slow process of colonial infiltration, "much of which was completely bloodless" (p. 138). Conquest was but one aspect of this infiltration. It is doubtful whether "colonial infiltration" as a euphemism for brutal and violent colonial conquest is likely to fare better than "pacification". Oliver himself provides many examples of brutal conquest and stiff and expensive resistance. The attack on the Asantehene Prempeh in 1895; the conquest of Oyo in 1893, of Benin in 1897; of Aro in 1901 and Kano and Sokoto in 1903; Congo in 1892; Buganda and Bunyoro in 1897; the Hebe in 1892; the Ndebele in 1803; the Shona in 1896-7; the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905; and the Herero wars of 1905 and 1907, ''when some three quarters of an entire population was exterminated by direct military action".

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Reflections on an African Experience 37 Oliver further argues that, in any case, resistance to conquest was not the most important feature of the early colonial scene. What was significant was that colonialism ushered in a new and better way of life. It brought peace, freed slaves, built ports and railways, introduced a money economy, promoted Christianity and Islam, introduced Western education and new forms of government, built hospitals and established a new judicial system. Oliver is thus using the "balance sheet" approach in discussing the colonial era; oppression and exploitation are counterbalanced by the "benefits of moderni2:ation". European imperialists are thus portrayed as harbingers of progress and colonialism is celebrated as a "civilizing mission". The fact of the matter is that European colonialism in Africa was a dictatorship imposed on Africa by violence and maintained by violence. It was an exploitative and racist system which is difficult to justify by discussing its merits and demerits. Oliver ends his colonial chapters by arguing that it was the colonial powers, especially Britain and France, who decided to grant political independence to their colonies. This fails to give any credit to African nationalism. Finally, Oliver describes the story of Post-colonial Africa. He sees nothing but disaster, economic decline and political tyranny. He attributes this to seven main causes: the developmental imperative inherited from the colonial powers; the socialist assumptions of new rulers; one-party rule; population growth; ruralurban migration and policy bias towards urban people; the oil price increase of the 1970s; and foreign indebtedness. No one seriously disagrees with the view that Africa is in the throes of a deep crisis. And fierce debates have raged on the causes and nature of the crisis, and the remedial measures that can be taken to resolve it. But these analyses and debates are not reflected in this book. Instead, Oliver simply follows the World Bank diagnosis of the African crisis, according to which obstacles to development are internal to the Third World countries. Accordingly, the World Bank, representing neo-classical economists, has recommended in many reports that African countries must "modernize" their "traditional" structures and attitudes holding back development, integrate themselves more firmly into the world capitalist system, and allow market forces to expand unimpeded. This is the analysis and prescription which Oliver has reproduced. And although he mentions the debt crisis for example, he does not seem to realize that it is simply a symptom of a major disease partly caused by the all-pervasive influence of the world recession on African economies. As a result, what has been called "an IMF - World Bank condominium" has been imposed over much of Africa. We might have expected from Professor Oliver an analysis which would take into consideration the interaction between "internal" and "external" factors within specific historical situations. Since this has not been done, the general image of economic stagnation portrayed in the

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38 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS book is misleading, for it obscures important differences in performances among and between classes, regions and countries, and it conceals profound processes of change taking place in African economies and societies. Throughout the book the question of periodization is confused by a tendency to see African history in terms of the periodization of European history. For instance, Oliver constantly refers to the Middle Ages in African history as if such an age ever existed. It must also be said that the book suffers from the generous use of derogatory nomenclature such as "Bushmen", "Negro", "Pygmy" and "Animism". All the same, the study of African history has been greatly handicapped by the lack of single-volume works of synthesis covering the whole span of time and continental in scope. The African Experience has gone a long way towards fulfilling this objective.

ENDNOTES 1.

Black Athena, Vol. I, 1987; Vol. II, 1991

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CHAPTERS Mau Mau and the Fourth Estate 1952 - 1956§ What can we learn about Mau Mau from a study of the press during this period? What important issues were raised and discussed? How reliable a historical source is the press? These are some of the questions I intend to discuss in this paper. Since practically all the African-owned newspapers were proscribed during the Emergency, I shall rely on three types of newspapers; (a) the Kenya Settler Press represented by The East African Standard, Baraza (which was owned by The East African Standard, but published for the Africans), Kenya Weekly News (published in Nakuru under the able editorship of M. F. Hill), Comment (representing the extreme right wing of settler opinion) and the Sunday Post (representing, like The East African Standard, the European liberal opinion); (b) Asian-owned newspapers published in Nairobi represented by The Colonial Times and The Citizen; and (c) The British press represented by The Times, Manchester Guardian and Observer. In 1950 a case was tried in Naivasha by a European magistrate and for the first time in the records of Kenya, the name Mau Mau appeared in the judgment delivered by this particular magistrate. It was supposed to be a secret movement and nobody knew the meaning of the name. In fact, as late as 14 September, 1952, the Chief Native Commissioner Mr. St. A. Davies stated at London airport that there was no terrorism in Kenya. He had arrived from Nairobi with Mr. John Wyatt, Kenya's Attorney-General, to see the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Oliver Lyttelton. He, however, clarified that "there is a subversive element and there has been a certain amount of trouble, but it is confined to a small area and it is not as serious as newspaper reports make out" (1). On the same day, Mr. Eliud W. Mathu, a Member of the Legislative and Executive Council of Kenya, and Mbiyu Koinange, a delegate of the Kenya African Union stated in London that no convincing evidence had been produced by anybody to establish the existence of Mau Mau (2).

Paper read at Historical Association Conference on "Mau Mau After 40 years". Kisumu, September, 1992. §

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40 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS It would therefore appear that the situation must have deteriorated very suddenly, more through panic on the part of the settlers and the government than due to any organized agitation on the part of a liberation movement. Symptoms of the consolidation of African nationalism in Kenya, and which appeared to be dangerous, resulted from the large public meetings which were being held in Central and Nyanza Provinces. Meetings with attendances ranging from 50,000 to 60,000 and addressed by Jomo Kenyatta and his colleagues in the Kenya African Union (KAU) were considered dangerous and the European settlers and the European press showed signs of nervousness. At the same time, tre1nendous propaganda started against Kikuyu leaders by the settlers, who were demanding Kenyatta's head on a platter. In fact, the settlers had been demanding Kenyatta's arrest since 1948. In a resolution submitted to the Government in March, 1948, the Kenya settlers Elector's Union Executive Committee said, "That the evidence of subversive propaganda is sufficient to justify this Committee in urging action against Kenyatta and others under the Deportation Ordinance: and that this Committee urges the Member for Law and Order to take such action forthwith." (3) However, whenever this matter was broached by the settlers, Governor Mitchell's reply invariably was that they had not enough evidence and in any case it would create a very serious situation. While during the tenure of office of Sir Philip Mitchell, a Governor of long and wide political experience in Africa, the settlers found they could not give vent to their fear by curbing African political expression, the opportunity was however taken as soon as he retired and the weak and muddling Colonial Secretary H. S. Potter became the Acting Governor. He yielded and seven bills were passed to strengthen the settlers"-hands in a situation they were planning and scheming to bring about. According to a report in the Times of 19th September, 1952, the main points in the seven bills were: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Control of the press and other organivitions Restriction of the movement of Mau Mau members Licensing of printing presses unless specially exempted, and powers to seize and destroy newspapers printed on unlicensed presses. A system of registration of societies with ten or more members was to be introduced. Amendment of the Kenya law to permit confessions made to police officers to be used in evidence. •

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Mau Mau and the Fourth Estate 1952- 1956 41

6. 7.

A Provincial Commissioner who satisfied himself that any person was member of Mau Mau could order his or her removal to a restricted area. Penalties for sedition were greatly increased.

During the interim period between the retirement of Mitchell and the arrival of Sir Evelyn Baring on 29 September, 1952, the settler press went all out to picture a situation in Kenya of the masses of African people in Kenya out to kill every European in the country. These reports were carried in the British press and the Mau Mau scare created a feeling in the minds of the British people that unless drastic measures were taken in Kenya the situation would develop into another Malaya. Four African unofficial members of the Legislative Council condemned what they called a campaign of misrepresentation which had "grossly exaggerated the extent of crime and subversive activities" in Kenya (4). Sir Evelyn Baring was rushed out and the settlers immediately presented to him exaggerated reports of a mass uprising in the country and demaocl.ed that a state of Emergency be declared. Sir Evelyn Baring, known for his anti-African attitude during the Seretse Khama affair, succumbed to the settlers" demands and on Monday night, 20 October, 1952, a state of Emergency was declared in Kenya under powers contained in an Order-in-Council of 19439. One hundred and thirty people, including Jomo Kenyatta, who according to a statement issued by the Colonial Office were "believed to have been mainly responsible for organizing disorder and lawlessness in the colony during the recent months" were arrested (5). It is noteworthy that not a single Opposition voice was raised in criticism of the emergency measures taken in Kenya when Mr. Lyttelton, the Colonial Secretary, made his statement about them in the House of Commons (6). The timing of the operation was arranged to coincide with the arrival of troops from the Middle East and from Uganda and Tanganyika. The declaration of the State of Emergency was followed by the introduction of numerous emergency regulations. On 15 November, I 952, Governor Sir Evelyn Baring announced the proscription of the Kikuyu Independent Schools Association (KISA) and the smaller, but more rabid Kikuyu Karinga Education Association (7). Subsequently, between JOO and 400 Kikuyu schools which had been started under the aegis of KISA and without any assistance from the government, missionaries or European settlers had, by the stroke of the pen been closed down. Between 60,000 and 70,000 students had, as a result, been thrown out on the sbeets on the ground that subversive teachings had been indulged in by some teachers in these schools.

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42 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS The real object seems to have been to prevent the Africans from acquiring education which would make it difficult for the settlers to obtain cheap, illiterate and uneducated labour for their farms. Other measures intended to control Mau Mau terrorism were announced by the Chief Secretary, Mr. H. S. Potter. These aimed at: 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

7. 8.

Closer policing of Kikuyu reserves with more police Post s on a permanent basis Closer administration by the establishment of sub-district officers and offices in Kikuyuland High-level review of the colony's intelligence services. Compulsory registration of all Kikuyu, Embu and Mero (KEM) peoples and their families and the obligatory carrying of registration certificates by all KEM members. A bill to provide a permanent measure for the closing of schools considered subversive by the Government Employment by the Government of an expert on "psychological warfare". This appointment was to be made partly to re-educate the Kikuyu and particularly to undo the harm to children tainted by Mau Mau teaching. A new emergency regulation to enable the Government to punish entire communities for lawlessness in their midst (8). The Kikuyu were to pay for part of the expenses caused by the Mau Mau movement. An extra tax of one pound was to be levied on all Kikuyu in certain scheduled areas, unless they could show that they had cooperated with the Government against Mau Mau before 23 December, 1952, when the Act came into force (9).

Armed with these powers, the government decided to introduce a reign of terror in Central, Rift Valley and Nairobi Provinces. It declared the area between Thomson's Falls and Nyeri a prohibited area and evacuated all African families from the area (10); a new order empowering the Governor to serve an "emergency restriction order" on any individual prohibiting him or her from being in any specific place or area, and requiring him/her to notify his movements in such a manner as may be specified, was gazetted; and district officers were given powers to remove any Kikuyu regarded as a threat to public order. No evidence was required other than the employer's report of personal suspicion ( 11 ). Thousands of Africans were arrested for what government communiques termed "official screening". The net was cast far and wide. In the rural areas,

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Mau Mau and the Fourth Estate 1952 - 1956 43 the Lancashire Fusiliers, the Kenya Regiment (an entirely settler regiment), the Kenya African Rifles, the Kenya Police Reserve (also made up largely- of settlers) beat up, kicked and tormented innocent Africans. Poor Africans were robbed of their possessions by so-called forces of law and order. For instance, by special orders published in the Official Gazette and signed by the Governor, Sir Evelyn Baring on 27 January 1953, all the African-owned cattle, crops and vehicles in Nakuru and Kiambu districts were confiscated (12). As the tempo of arrests continued, the settlers and their press gloated over their successes. The East African Standard, a local European paper reported on 12 January, 1953 that the total "bag" in the four-day operation was 25 Kikuyu "had been run to earth as the Maasai moran do with game on their native plains." A gruesome description indeed. An ordeal of terror and brutality was thus unleashed on many innocent people. Concentration camps sprang up at all police stations in Kikuyuland. Hundreds were herded into barbed wire enclosures where there was no sleeping room and where men, women and children had to face the dire cold of the Kenya Highlands standing or squatting all night. The day was no better because they had to be cross-examined and beaten to obtain confession. Regular third degree methods of the inquisition were practiced. Some were taken away and shot without any trail. Then there was the law that permitted any white man or the forces of law and order to shoot any person on sight who did not stop when challenged. The police in the Nairobi Province were instructed to 'shoot to kill" anyone who failed to answer their challenge immediately (13). On European farms, Africans, particularly the Kikuyu, were shot, mercilessly beaten, maimed and treated with the greatest humiliation. "At times and in places, they have been chided about unduly, treated with excessive roughness during raids on their huts", said the Kenya Weekly News of 13 March, 1953. This was indeed an understatement. Beatings of suspects to obtain evidence was rampant especially in Nairobi where Mr. John Timmerman, the notorious C .I.D. Chief (the Himmler of Kenya as he was called) and his henchman G. Heine presided over the torture chambers. Then there was the case of Captain Griffith's company which was engaged in operations in Nyeri. When charged with killing Africans for sport, he answered that they had been instructed to •shoot anybody he liked so long as they were black." The object of this was that Captain Griffith's company was shortly going to Malaya and he (Griffiths) "wished to increase his score of kills to 50" ( 14). He further explained to the court that the attitude of his battalion Commander with regard to Mau Mau kills was the same as that of others. There was a lot of competition, and his commanding officer had told him that their battalion had to beat the record of the 23rd Battalion, King's

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44 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS African Rifles, before their battalion went to Malaya. Griffiths added that he personally had given aslcaris five shillings reward for each tenorist kill~ and some company Commanders gave ten. The practice was known to his commanding officer who approved. The 23rd Battalion bad scoreboard barometer of kills (15). In a long editorial published on Saturday, 11 April, 19S3, the European owned paper Baraza commented on the actions of the forces of law and order as follows: "But while the security forces are starting to smash the Mau Mau gangs, for which the people of the country should be grateful, it is undeniably true that they are also making enemies. The police and the army are both guilty in this respect, the army less so than the police.... The numerous accounts of systematic assaults on prisoners which have reached Baraza leave no room for doubt that they take place. Except when men resist, violence at the time of arrest is 11nnecessary and indefensible, but that is when most of the trouble occurs. Even a man whose papers are in order and is going peaceably about his lawful occasions is often wantonly punched by the askaris who stop him. Baraza has heard of accounts which it believes to be reliable of lines of men waiting outside a police station to be question~ many of whom bore visible signs of heavy blows with a rifle. Large numbers of the population in the Reserves and in the towns, even those who want to see the Government win the war against Mau Mau, go in fear of the police because of the behaviour of so many of the force. One result of this is that information which might be useful to the authorities never comes in. If a man has doubts about the reception he will get in a police station, even when he is trying to be helpful, it is understandable if he stays away. And, of course, when an innocent man is beaten up, and large numbers undoubtedly have been, he is liable to become very bitter. He may, in fact, go to the other side. Baraza is informed that the strength of the Mau Mau gangs has definitely been increased in this way, and that many of the men now roaming about the forests have fled their homes not so much from a desire to help Mau Mau as to escape from the strong-arm methods adopted by the police .... Even worse offenders, though, than the regular police are members of the Kenya Police Reserve(K.P.R). The activities of the K.P.R. have gained many new recruits for the Mau Mau.

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Mau Mau and the Fourth Estate 1952- 1956 45 Once again, it should be clearly understood that by no means are all members of the K.P.R. to blame, but among this organization are groups of men of whom undisciplined sadists is not an unfair description. Young men in the K.P.R. can often be heard boasting of the way they have beaten up their prisoners, and some of the things done by some of the members of the force have so sickened others that they have taken drastic steps of making official complaints against their own comrades". The editor of the Baraza was sacked for his honesty and bluntness. The immediate European press reaction came from the extre111e right-wing and antiAfrican Comment It asserted that the ''public wanted to know" why a European owned Baraza was allowed to write such an editorial at that critical time, especially when it was going to be read by thousands of Africans. The Comment went on in a footnote to say that ..the above report was quoted in the London Observer the following morning. It would be interesting to know who is the Observer's own correspondent who cabled the information from Nairobi and what effect such gross exaggeration may have on home opinion ( 16).

The East African Standard came to the rescue of its sister publication when, in an editorial, it wrote: "It would be idle to deny that the reports and the allegations regarding the use of brutal methods and of rough handling of the public are widespread. It would be equally idle for the government or for senior officers of the departments to seek to contend that because not all these allegations have been substantiated there is oo basis for them. We have no reasonable doubt that in the gathering of evidence methods have been used which cannot be condoned or tolerated in a British Colony and that they have been employed because there was a belief in the minds of those who did so, that so long as the evidence was obtained, the methods would not be too closely scrutini:red.,, ( 17) The Kenya Weekly News in its column 'signed Print", which was usually written by its editor M. F. Hill, on 17 April, 1953, admitted the ill-disciplined acts of the Kenya Police Reserve when it said:

"It is time also, for the European Community to realize that the eyes of the world are upon them. This is their hour of trial.

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46 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS There is no room now for wild words and ill-disciplined acts. Let us pray that Major-General Fawkes will deal ruthlessly with those few members of the Kenya Police Reserve who have lost their heads and destroyed their trust." The Government reaction was given in an official statement issued in Nairobi on 17 April, 1953 stating: "No praise can be too high for the courage, endurance and good work of the security forces generally... Emergency conditions made it necessary for a large number of personnel to be enrolled in the Security Forces and employed in active operations, who lack the experience and the training which normally attach to members of the regular military and police forces. In such circumstances, occasional errors of judgment are inevitable on the part of the junior leaders and rank and file, whether they result in the casualties of our forces, to those opposed to the maintenance of law and order or to members of the general public. At the same time the Government strongly deprecates the general and usually unsubstantiated allegations of brutality and indiscipline that are made both by ill-informed or ill-disposed persons in speeches, and in the press in other countries and also locally in gossip and loose talk, or in letters to the Press in general terms." ( 18) First praise for the forces of law and order and then an admission that "occasional errors of judgment are inevitable" and a condemnation of those who practice "loose talk". A perfect Imperialist apologia.

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Under the expediency of an emergency, the government decided to remove all the Kikuyu who were working on European farms as they constituted a danger to public order and the safety of the White settlers. The desire to remove the Kikuyu had actually come from the European farmers and the Government responded by passing a new Regulation C which gave sanction to the removal of those Kikuyu whom the farmer had reason to suspect as being dangerous. When this movement originally started, the Government and the settlers did not realize

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that it could become a mass movement. But soon, due to the cruel manner in which it was carried out, it soon became a mass exodus. The way the Kikuyu were compulsorily evacuated from the European farms in Leshau Ward and from Kinangop was typical of the high-handed methods used in the rest of the "White Highlands". The East African Standard of 28 March, 1953 contended that the evacuation was carried out at short notice, and in such an arbitrary manner, that those concerned suffered personal hardship, discomfort and fright. Insufficient time was given to evacuees to settle their affairs and dispose of such of their possessions as they were unable to take with them. Menfolk were separated from the rest of their families. The reaction on the part of the Kikuyu left in the area was that if such was to be the manner of their evacuation, it would be better to go of their own accord, at their own time, and avoid the official transit channels if possible. The Kikuyu who moved out of the European farms were concentrated in shabby and ill-equipped camps. In some districts the white settlers took it upon themselves to pay the departing squatters and labourers only half the sum due to them for maize delivered and gave them a credit slip for the balance payable, according to the Kenya Weekly News, "at some time in the future" (19). By September 1953, the Times of London was claiming that the removal of the Kikuyu from settled areas had evidently been effective in quieting those areas. About 100,000 had been sent back to the reserves and it was calculated that about 60,000 remained to be screened. The paper admitted that repatriation was regarded as a severe penalty - by the settlers because of the hard and unsettled conditions in the reserves (20). Although the European farms were quiet, most of them began to experience acute labour shortage. The settlers naturally blamed the government for the move. Mr. S. V. Cooke, Member for the Coast in the Kenya Legislative Council, writing in The East African Standard of 30 April, 1953, had warned: "I have already put in a Notice of Motion to ascertain who were the men who advised the Governor to adopt a policy which has been so disastrous to the economy of a large part of the White Highlands" Thus even S.V. Cooke, who was regarded as a European liberal was only concerned about the economic effect of the mass exodus on European farms and not about the human suffering that this mass eviction entailed. In order not to lose face, the Government announced on 12 May, 1953, that transit camps used for the purpose of concentrating Kikuyu who wished to be repatriated to their homes would be closed. The explanation given, according to The East African Standard, was that the "cost of ninning the camps is

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48 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS considerable and that they make demands on manpower which could profitably be used elsewhere." Continuing, the paper added that "it is obviously desirable in the public interest that law-abiding Kilcuyu should continue in useful employment under proper control, rather than that they should be required to return to the over-crowded Kilcuyu districts, where the effect of large numbers of repatriates has already added greatly to the difficulties of the loyalists and the security forces in the battle against Mau Mau." (21) On 30 September 1953, the Government decided to abolish the policy of repatriating the Kilcuyu to the reserves because in the circumstances prevailing at the time it was impossible to absorb more than 100,000 who had already been repatriated or who had returned voluntarily. The decision had been taken, said the official announcement, "bearing in mind that large areas of the Kilcuyu reserve were either prohibited areas or unsuitable to bear a further influx of population." (22)

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With regard to the military aspect of the emergency, the press provides some useful information. We learn from the Times , for example, that the War Office decided on 29 May, 1953 to establish an East African Command, a separate Command with direct responsibility to the War Office and LieutenantGeneral Sir George Erskine was appointed as Commander-in-Chief, East Africa, with the temporary rank of General. These changes were made because it was felt by the British government and the settlers that the situation in Kenya demanded a second General Templer who could handle the military aspect of the emergency along the lines used in Malaya (23). According to the British, the Mau Mau problem was military. On assuming command, General Erskine launched several major operations. On 7 June, 1953, "Operation Eupsom" which was a combined action by men of the Lancashire Fusiliers, the Devonshire Regiment, the Buffs, the Kenya Regiment, the King's African Rifles, supported by the police and large numbers of the Kilcuyu home guards, was launched (24). Then there was "Operation Buttercup" which concentrated in Murang"a and which ran from 23 June to 4 July, 1953 (25). The R.A.F. announced on 10 July, 1953 that during the past ten weeks of operations in the Aberdare Mountains, four Harvard aircraft transferred from Bulawayo flew 183 Sorties against 85 different Mau Mau targets. They dropped 1,096 bombs and fired 69,000 rounds of ammunition (26). Two companies of the royal Inniskilling Fusiliers cordoned off two areas of Nairobi from 6 October 1953, with the aim of evicting between

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15,000 to 20,000 "illegal" Africans from the capital (27). No wonder Colin Legum of the Observer was moved to comment: "On paper, the hot war is an unequal battle. Twelve British and African

battalions, one R.A.F. bomber squadron, 12,000 police and almost 20,000 Kikuyu Home Guards (70 percent of whom, incidentally, had at one time taken the Mau Mau oath) are ranged against fewer than a thousand men, the total effective fighting force of Mau Mau. Less than half of them have fireanns." (28). And yet in the prohibited areas of the Aberdare and Mount Kenya forests Mau Mau gangs continued to defy British and African troops. It was therefore decided to use heavy pattern bombing of these areas. Four Lincoln bombers of Middle East Command were brought in from Aden. They were to take part together with the Harvards in air operations in the prohibited areas (29). At the same time, the 4th Uganda Battalion of the King's African Rifles, which had been operating in Kenya since the beginning of the emergency, was ordered back to Uganda, because when it moved to Kenya, Uganda was left without troops (30).

The Lincoln bombers were very successful in driving out most of the Mau Mau fighters from the Aberdare and Mount Kenya forests. On 20 October 1954, the second anniversary of the declaration of a State of Emergency, the War Council (the military and civilian body established in April, 1954, to direct operations against Mau Mau) issued a Report on the progress of operations against Mau Mau. The report stated that there was nothing in the military situation to suggest an early end of the emergency.. If more Mau Mau leaders were being killed, there was little to show that more were not being recruited. The Report described "Operation Anvil" as a turning point in the campaign. The operation, in which about 28,000 Mau Mau suspects were removed from the city of Nairobi, disrupted the organization which supplied Mau Mau fighters upcountry with recruits and with about a third of their administrative requirements. The male Kikuyu, Embu and Meru population of the city was reduced by more than half, and the introduction of the passbook system enabled a check to be made on the remaining 21,000. Post "Anvil" operations were designed to make the reserves independent of military help, leaving control in the hands of the police and the Administration, with assistance from the Home Guard. The report included a table (refer to Table 1) showing the increase, since the emergency began, in the strengths of the Military Forces and the Kikuyu Guard. The report also contained this significant paragraph:

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50 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS "The Emergency has made exceptionally heavy demands on the European manpower of the colony. Many of the Emergency Posts, such as District Officers (Kikuyu Guard), Screening Officers, Rehabilitation Officers and Field Intelligence Officers, demand a knowledge of the country, the African, and his language, and are difficult to fill from outside Kenya. In addition, it has been necessary to decide whether farmers in the troubled areas could make a more valuable contribution by maintaining production and controlling their labour, while also giving frequently parttime assistance to the Security Forces, or in full-time Emergency duties away from their farms. Sufficient men had also been left to sustain the remaining economy of the Colony efficiently. With these conflicting considerations in mind, the Government decided for planning purposes that the number of Kenya Europeans in the Security forces at any one time should not exceed 1000." (32)

This paragraph led The Times of London to comment that "a community whose administration has to calculate so nice a balance in the use of its manpower is in a state of war, and not far off from "total war" (33). On 3 May 1955 General Sir George Erskine left Nairobi for Ismailia after handing over the East Africa Command to his successor Lieutenant General G . Lathbury. His parting words of advice were: "it is important to watch that the natural desire for economy and a return to normal life does not lead to calling off the Emergency before it is over. I believe Kenya has to face a state of closer administration in all Native Reserves, and not only in Kikuyuland for many years. This requirement and a stronger police force are going to be very expensive." (34) The protracted war led 'signed Print" in the Kenya Weekly News of 3 June 1955, to lament that: "A year ago Sir Alfred Vincent told me of his belief that the failure of the British Government to adopt a plan put forward by General Montgomery for the establishment of military bases in East Africa played right into Communist hands and had the effect of encouraging the belligerent elements among Kenya Africans...... Obviously, if such a plan had existed three years ago, the Mau Mau emergency would now be over and the British Government would not be so concerned about the number of troops tied down fighting a handful of tattered maniacs in this colony." The last Lincoln bombers were withdrawn from Kenya on 28 July 1955. The Number 49 Lincoln Bomber Squadron had been ordered to Kenya in

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Mau Mau and the Fourth Estate 1952 - 1956 51 November 1953. It returned to Britain two months later and again came back to Kenya in December 1954. Since then the Lincolns flew 896 Sorties and dropped nearly 6,000,000 pounds of bombs on Mau Mau forest hideouts. With their withdrawal, the R.A.F. Harvards became active in support of ground troops dropping their 191 pound anti-personnel bombs. In addition, the K.P .R. Air Wing continued its effective work in reconnaissance supply drops, transport and spotting for the gunners (35). On 24 September 1955, the last R.A.F. bombers engaged in anti-Mau Mau operations were withdrawn from Kenya because, as the Commander-in-Chief said, there were no longer any targets in East Afiica for the R.A.F. , and "all that there were left of Mau Mau were a few small gangs wandering about the countryside with the sole object of obtaining enough food to live on." (36) By mid-February, 1956, General G. W. Lathbury estimated the strength of the gangs at about 1,800, of whom the Kikuyu numbered 1,450, Embu 200 and Meru 150 (3 7). At the end of March, General Lath bury announced that two British battalions, one K.A.R. battalion and certain ancillary units were to leave Kenya between April and June, a reduction of about 2,200 fighting troops. This was to leave one British battalion, four Kenya K.A.R. battalions, the East Afiican Reconnaissance Squadron and O company, the Kenya Regiment, making a total of about 4,300 fighting troops. He announced that "relentless pressure will be maintained against both the militant and passive wing of Mau Mau until both were defeated" (38). A military history of Mau Mau is yet to be written. Table I. Increase in Strengths of Military Forces and Kikuyu Guard Since Emergency Begun (31)

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30/9/52 3 l/ !0/52 30/4/53 3 l/ !0/53 30/4/54 3 1/8/54

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330 390 434 428 452

4,9 10 5,052 5,305 6,279 5,027 5,865

9,050 13,450 18,640 22,130

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52 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS We also glean useful information from the press about Mau Mau organization. We learn, for example, that the mass repatriation of the Kikuyu from European farms swelled the numbers of Mau Mau forest fighters considerably. Hence, the period from early 1953 to mid 1954 marks the time when Mau Mau fighters were at their greatest strength in the forest. They lived in permanent hideouts from which they conducted daring raids into the reserves. The strength of the Mau Mau force at this time was estimated at about 12,000. The policy-making body in the Aberdares was the so-called "Kenya Parliament" whose President was "Field-Marshall Sir" Dedan Kimathi, a former Kenya African Union organizer. The members of the parliament were mostly political types who gave themselves fanciful portfolios such as Secretary of State for the Colonies, Minister for African Affairs etc. They had departments under them. Below political body was the military organization known as the Kenya Land Freedom Army, which was further divided into battalions which were originally, known by numbers but which later carried names such as Locust, Bee and Snake. The Mau Mau officers wore embroidered badges of rank which were generally based on those of the British. Sergeants wore green sashes. Kimathi, however, instituted orders of knighthood and medals of his own. He himself was a "Knight Commander of the African Empire". There was even a medal given to women who assisted the fighters. The fighters tried to adopt a uniform headdress or hair-do; little tight curls, long and plaited. Mau Mau supplies were drawn from several sources. First, the passive wing in each location had a duty to provide support for its "territorial" battalion. Secondly, the gangs lived by trapping and raiding particularly of the stock on European farms. Thirdly, until "Operation Anvil" cleared Nairobi, much of their supplies came from there by rail. This included arms, ammunition, medicines and surgical instruments. By dint of killing and stealing, the fighters built up a stock of precision weapons, the biggest haul being a number of Manchester automatic rifles from Naivasha police Station. And lastly, there were the home-made guns. These were the forces against which were deployed the heavy bombers (39). It is surprising that Mau Mau did not wreck installations such as railways, telegraphs or hydro-electric works, when they could easily have done so.

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One other topic which attracted the attention of the press during this period was the repatriation of the Kikuyu from the neighbouring territories of

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Mau Mau and the Fourth Estate 1952 - 1956 53 Tanganyika and Uganda. The Kenya Government put much presssure on the two neighbouring states to evacuate all the Kikuyu back to Kenya as a way of containing the movement within the country. It is estimated that at the beginning of the Emergency, there were about 15,000 Kikuyu in the Northern Province of Tanganyika of which Arusha was the capital. They formed about 22 per cent of the African population in the district. A year later, there were only 7,800 men, women and children, the others having been deported or voluntarily returned to Kenya. The Tanganyika Government felt that this small group did not constitute any threat to security, but the Kenya Government insisted that all of them must be repatriated (40). Mau Mau struck for the first time in Tanganyika early on Christmas Eve, when within a mile of some carol singers and a few hundred meters from the main Arusha-Nairobi road, they shot and hacked to death a loyal Kikuyu family consisting of husband, wife and two children. The murders occurred at the end of the first day of a concerted police operation to round up Mau Mau suspects. In three days the police had detained 650 Kikuyu Mau Mau suspects. A major police operation was therefore launched in the Northern Province where the search for Mau Mau suspects was extended to cover several farms where Kikuyu labour was employed. Any unregistered Kikuyu or those suspected of any contact with Mau Mau, were placed in a guarded compound where they were questioned by the police and administrative officers. The Kenya police were stationed across the border, where they took over Mau Mau suspects expelled from Tanganyika (41 ). This large-scale police offensive against Mau Mau suspects, oath administrators and defaulters against the Registration of Persons Ordinance in Tanganyika continued up to the beginning of 1956 (42). · In January, 1954, all Kikuyu women and children in the Northern Province who at that time numbered about 5,000, were sent to a new restricted area in Tanganyika. The action was taken under a new Government measure aimed at preventing the spread of Mau Mau terrorism from Kenya to Tanganyika. Later a detention camp was established near Urambo to house Kikuyu detainees. In Uganda, it was discovered that the pattern which existed in Kenya among Mau Mau activists had been reproduced. Leaders had been removed but others had immediately sprung up in their place. In 1954, a Mau Mau gang was rounded up in Kampala, an organized cell system found, a Mau Mau court discovered and songs which were for the use of the movement. New arrivals were still coming, and the stepping up of operations in Kenya during that year made many Mau Mau sympathizers seek asylum in Uganda. As a result, the Uganda Government decided to take action. In 1954, 197 Kikuyu were deported to Kenya, and between January and March, 1955, a further 105 were repatriated.

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54 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Then on 26 April, 1955, a new Bill, the Specified Tribes (Restriction of Residence and Removal) Ordinance came before the Legislative Council of Uganda. The Bill sought to make it illegal for members of the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru ethnic groups to be in Uganda three months after the legislations came into force. The aim was to expel all members of the three groups from the country to prevent the spread of Mau Mau Organization. At that time, it was estimated that about 800 people would be affected by the decision (43). On 20 July, 1955, the Uganda Government deported 64 Kikuyu who had been detained for being Mau Mau members or failing to register under Uganda's anti Mau Mau laws. On the same train as the deportees, were 150 Kikuyu men, women and children voluntarily returning to Central Kenya before Uganda's new anti-Mau Mau legislation took effect in August (44).

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Within Kenya itself, the government made strenuous efforts to protect nonKikuyu peoples from what it regarded as Mau Mau contamination. But looking at the press evidence, it is clear that many more ethnic groups were involved in the Mau Mau movement than is usually acknowledged. For instance, an antigovernment organization known as UTSI, meaning "together" was started among the Digo in the Coast Province in 1953. It was estimated by the Government that about 90 percent of Digo males joined Utsi (45). Also the result of screening exercises from January, 1954 to July, 1955, revealed that many Luo, Luyia and Kamba people had taken Mau Mau oaths. For example, during one sweep of Nairobi suburbs, about 30 out of 180 Mau Mau activists were found to be Maragoli (46). In Ukambani, Mau Mau infiltrated into the area through the urbanized Kamba in Nairobi who were used by the Kikuyu as oath administering agents. On 26 June 1954, it was reported by the London Times that twelve people who were members of a complete Mau Mau Committee operating in Kisumu had been arrested. Out of these twelve, eight were Kikuyu and the rest were Luo. They operated under the name "Meru, Meru" (your Mother is your Mother). There was also the widespread use of gramophone records as a Mau Mau propaganda medium. For example, a gramophone record for a song in Kalenjin called Kaber Maasai Kole Chwang urged the killing of all Europeans and Maasai (47). In 1954 alone at least sixteen such records were banned by the Kenya Government as being "prejudicial to the maintenance of public order." Some of the banned records were made by a company in Kenya, while others were tape-recorded in Kenya and produced in Britain, South Africa and India (48).

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The existence and nature of anti-European and anti-Colonial activities among the non-Kikuyu peoples of Kenya is a theme which is crying out for serious research.

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The last topic I wish to touch upon is that of the detention and rehabilitation of Mau Mau suspects. There were so many references to detention and rehabilitation in the press during this period that would provide a valuable source for an independent study of the subject. Thousands of people were put behind barbed wire for being Mau Mau suspects. Detention camps were built at Mackinon Road, Manyani (between Voi and Tsavo) and Langata near Nairobi. By May, 19S4, there were more than 10,000 detainees at Langata camp, 7,500 at Mackinon Road and 6,000 at Manyani detention camp (49). The biggest charge against the detention camp system, especially in a colony where British justice was supposed to be practiced, was that these men had not been brought to trial and no charges had been made against them. The detained person had to prove his innocence instead of being presumed innocent until proved guilty. Also, he could not be represented by counsel. Furthermore, wives and children of detained persons were removed from their houses and sent back to the rural areas where often they had no means of subsistence. For example, following the detention of 24,000 Kikuyu, Embu and Meru men during Operation Anvil in Nairobi, some 3,400 women and over 6,000 children were repatriated to the reserves (SO). In towns, a grave social problem was caused by children left without parents as a result of the Emergency. The Minister for Local Government, Mr. W. B. Havelock, for the first time, was forced to recognize the problem of African juvenile delinquency found largely among the Kikuyu children "orphaned" by the Emergency (51). The chairman of the Save the Children Fund in Kenya, Dr. J. R Gregory, told members of the Nairobi Rotary Club that there were between 2,000 and 3,000 children wandering about the streets of Nairobi everyday, living out of dustbins and sleeping where they could (S2). An interesting study can therefore be carried out on the effect of the Emergency on the family as a social institution. In the detention camps, all inmates were screened and graded "white", "grey" and "black" according to the degree to which they were considered to have been contaminated. The "blacks" were the hard-core of the Mau Mau. For example, on 10 June, 19S4 at Mackinon road detention camp, it was found that

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56 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS out of 10,000 inmates there were 1,355 "blacks", 148 "whites" and the rest "greys". Apart from detention camps, the Kenya Government also established work camps. According to a letter written by the Provincial Commissioner, Rift Valley Province, published in Kenya Weekly News of 7 May 2 1954, the main consideration in siting work camps was the value to the colony of the work their inmates could perform. For example, Makutano camp was sited at Molo-Ravine fork, since the inmates were working on the Uganda main truck road. There were 1000 Kikuyu internees at Marigat work camp near Lake Baringo who worked on large irrigation schemes. A small camp was built at Kapenguria to take the Kikuyu rejects from Trans-Nzoia district. The inmates of this camp worked on land clearance for the Rift Valley Rural Secondary School and for the Indigenous Stock Breeding Centre. The three camps at Gilgil, Molo and Thompson's Falls were only holding camps where the inmates were sorted out before being transferred to work camps. The men detained in the work camps were paid to do manual work. There were also many work camps in Kikuyuland, Embu and Meru. The inmates were engaged in communal work such as building homeguard posts or new villages, rebuilding schools, bush clearing, bench terracing and irrigation work. In some instances, the Mau Mau rising was a blessing in disguise. Because of the urgent need to find useful work for increasing numbers of detained Kikuyu, the Mwea-Tebere irrigation scheme, for instance, was at last launched. On the Mwea plains of the Embu District, 400 square miles of until led land was to be used for resettling the Kikuyu from Murang"a and Kiambu. They were supplied with 10 and 20 acre plots on these plains and water was supplied by the irrigation schemes from the Tana River which were constructed by Kikuyu detainees at two large work camps (54). Coconut plantations on the island of Lamu, which over a period of years had fallen into decay, were reconditioned by Mau Mau convicts under the supervision of agricultural officers to bring increased yields and money into the pockets of the Arab and African growers (55). The world's first hand-made international airport, took shape under the shovels and stone-hammers of 4,200 Mau Mau detainees at Embakasi near Nairobi (56). Also, on Manda Island, a new aerodrome was carved from coral by Mau Mau detainees (57). Another example of projects in which Mau Mau labour was usefully and productively employed was the construction of the East African Portland Cement factory at Athi River. About 400 skilled and unskilled workmen of the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru people worked on this £1,750,000 project between 1954 and 1956 (58). More research should be carried out on the contribution of Mau Mau labour to the economic development of Kenya.

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But the people who were involved in these work camps were the ''whites" and the "greys". What happened to the "blacks"?. On 10 October 1954, it was announced by Reynolds News that Mr. Lennox-Boyd, the Secretary of State for the colonies, planned a new "Devils Island" in the middle of Lake Victoria, to which 10,000 or more ''unredeemable" Kikuyu were to be transported.. They were to stay on this uninhabited island for life. Five days later, the Minister for Internal Security in Kenya, Mr. J. W.Cusack, told The East African Standard that the island in question was Mageta Island. He said: "For some time the Government has been giving earnest consideration to the problem of what is to be done with those members of Mau Mau who are ostensibly irredeemable. It has been realized that these people must be kept away from the loyal Africans. We think that the best solution to the problem is to house them on one or more islands in Lake Victoria." (59) He pointed out that the idea of detaining people on islands was not new to the colony. Manda Island, off Lamu, was already being used for the detention of Mau Mau suspects, while penal settlement for convicts serving sentences for non-Mau Mau offenses had been established on the island of Sayusi, in Lake Victoria. "The only feature about the present scheme is that the men sent to Mageta will not have any definite sentence to serve." They could be kept there for the rest of their lives. Mr. Cusack added that it was hoped that the island camp could ultimately become self-supporting. Detainees would chiefly be put to work on the land with the primary aim of growing their own food. Convict labour from Sayusi was used to construct the first camp on Mageta. He concluded by saying that the Government was considering the establishment of other camps in the colony where the "grey" Mau Mau suspects could work for the agricultural betterment. Several sites on the banks of River Tana were considered suitable for this purpose (60). About 2000 "irreconcilables" were to be coQfined on Mageta island. What kind of life did these people live in such "exiled settlements"? A social history of these "Devil's Islands" is overdue. At the beginning of August 1955, there were 61,824 Mau Mau suspects behind barbed wire. About 15,000 of these were serving sentences after being convicted of specific offenses. The rest, about 43,000, were detained under Emergency regulations. The question was what was to be done with these thousands of people. Were they to be detained indefmitely ? It was decided by the Kenya Government that serious attempts should be made to rehabilitate the detainees and the convicts. The rehabilitation policy was based on the assumption that none of the convicts and detainees was

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58 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS permanently beyond reconciliation, though it may be many years before a change of heart occurred. The long process of the rehabilitation started with the labour camps and ended with the return to authority of the man's chief and thence to life among loyalists in his own village. The "bard core" were classified as dangerous and were not likely to be allowed to return to their home areas. They were later known as category Z. Some were detained on Manda Island and others on Mageta Island. On Manda Island, for example, this category of detainees spent most of their time improving their education in 'schools" set up by themselves between the lines of wooden houses in which they lived. Self-appointed teachers gave daily lectures, and some detainees took correspondence courses, paid for with money received from friends and relatives outside. According to prison officers on Manda Island, education was the chief interest of the over 500 category Z detainees on the island. They were educating themselves against the day when they would be released and they would resume the task of shaping Kenya's future on the lines that the Mau Mau intended. At that time (beginning of 1956) the total number of Mau Mau suspects detained under Category Z throughout Kenya was about 12,000 (61). The works camps were the start of a "pipeline" towards home. At the end of August 1955, there were 19,000 suspects in work camps. A person moved from a general work camp to one in his own part of the country (62). For example, Mau Mau detainees from Nyeri District in Central Province were turned into useful citizens at the Aguthi Rehabilitation Camp. When a detainee arrived, he was put into the first of four compounds, where he was employed on heavy agricultural work during the day and listened to lectures in the evening. In the second compound, detainees also carried out heavy agricultural work, but worked shorter hours. When they were promoted to the third compound they were given lighter agricultural tasks, and also time for sports and games. Finally, when they reached the fourth compound, they worked on carpentry, brick-making, gardening and building. They could then use the camp shop and recreation room, and they had more leisure time for sports. Everyone received 15/-- a month in wages. Those in the fourth compound got a further 3/- pocket money. Their wages were banked and handed over less taxes to those who were released, if they proved themselves after a week's probation in the location. Rehabilitation usually took between six months and a year (63). But the rehabilitation process was not always as simple and straight forward as that. Determined attempts were made by Mau Mau fanatics to revive the movement in Kenya prisons and work camps. A government report admitted that extensive Mau Mau cells had been uncovered in prisons and detention camps. For example, at the Athi River detention camp, out of a total of 2,000 detainees, 400 were fanatics, who were later transferred to Manda Island; 1,300

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were still virulently Mau Mau, 350 showed prospects for rehabilitation and only seventeen had reformed enough to do rehabilitation work themselves (64). In a typical detention camp, rehabilitation went through a series of stages similar to what we have already discussed in connection with work camps in the suspect's home area. For instance, in the case of Manyani detention camp, which was opened in April, 1955, about 30,000 Mau Mau suspects were admitted within a year, out of whom 12,870 were classified as "grey" or "white" and sent nearer their homes to work camps in Embu, Meru and Nakuru. Only 228 had sullenly stayed "black", and these were given a year to change their minds after which those who refused were sent to "exile". Spread over 570 acres and holding 18,200 men, Manyani detention camp was so vast that the earliest a man could hope to establish himself as a "white" was three months. Four times he had to prove himself a changed person. First, he had to attend Kikuyu or English language classes. Secondly, he had to actively denounce Mau Mau in his compound or, if he was an educated man, be prepared to assist on the teaching staff. The third stage was more dangerous: he had to make a full confession (recorded for loudspeaker use) and then expose Mau Mau leaders and hard core in his own compound. Lastly, after his confessions and statements had been checked for lies and reports on his compound behaviour had come in from informers, he appeared before Special Branch Officers who pronounced the final verdict on his endeavours to get re-classification (65). A detailed study of rehabilitation in these detention camps should pay huge historical dividends.

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In conclusion, it can be stated categorically that our survey of the press during the period 1952-1956 has revealed many aspects of the Mau Mau movements which historians should explore. And although practically all the newspapers studied were non-African, they nevertheless provide extremely useful data and insights which, used with other sources, should enrich our study of Mau Mau. It is also evident that the exercise would have been even richer and more rewarding if we had had access to African newspapers.

ENDNOTES 1. Manchester Guardian, 15/9/52 2. Ibid. 3. East African Standard, 28/3/48 4. Manchester Guardian, 30/9/52

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60 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS 5. Times, 21/10/52; Manchester Guardian, 21 /10/52 6. Manchester Guardian, 22/ 10/52 7. Times, 15/ 11/52 8. Manchester Guardian, 21/11/52 9. Manchester Guardian, 23/12/52 10. Manchester Guardian, 5/1/53 11 . Times, l 5/ l /53 and 12/2/53 12. Manchester Guardian, 27/1/53 13. Manchester Guardian, 4/4/53 14. Times, 26/11/53 15. Times, 27/ 11/53 16. Comment, 16/4/53 17. East African Standard, 18/4/53 18. East African Standard. 18/4/53, Times, 18/4/53 19. Kenya Weekly News, 13/3/53 20. Times, 17/9/53 21. East African Standard, 13/5/53 22. Times, 30/9/53 23. Times, 30/5/53 24. Times, 16/5/53 25. Times, 8/7/53 26. Manchester Guardian, 10/7/53 27. Manchester Guardian, 6/ 10/53 28. Observer, 1/ 11/53 29. Manchester Guardian, 18/ 11/53 30. Times, 18/11/53 31. Times 20/10/54 32. Kenya Weekly News, 5/11/54 33. The Times, 20/ 10/53 34. Manchester Guardian, 2/5/55 35. East African Standard, 28/7/55 36. Times, 24/9/55 37. East African Standard, 17/2/56 38. East African Standard, 30/3/56 39. Times, 11/7/55; 12/7/55 40. Times, 1/10/53 41. Times, 30/12/53 42. East African Standard, 26/5/55 43. East African Standard, 1/4/55; Times 29/4/55 44. Manchester Guardian, 20/7/55

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45. Times, 15/9/53 46. Times, 13/7/55 47. East African Standard, 22/4/55. Perhaps the anti-Maasai sentiments could be attributed to attempts by the Kenya Government to enlist the support of the Maasai against the Mau Mau. For instance, the Governor of Kenya is reported to have said: "1 ask the Maasai to attack Mau Mau wherever they find them and to cooperate to the full with the security forces by giving information of any gangs which may be moving through your area. Valuable rewards in the form of cattle will be given to the Maasai who bring in information which enables the security forces to hunt down Mau Mau gangs. " 48. East African Standard, 19/8/55 49. Times, 5/5/54 50. Times, 7/5/54 51 . East African Standard, 22/10/54 52. East African Standard, 10/6/55 53. Manchester Guardian, 10/6/54 54. Kenya Newsletter, No.64, Kenya Public Relations Office, September, 1954 55. Kenya Calling, 10/11/54 56. East African Standard, 28/1/55 57. East African Standard, 19/11/54 58. East African Standard, l 7/2/56 59. East African Standard, 9/10/54 60. Ibid. 61 . Times, 17/1/56 62. Manchester Guardian, 2/9/55 63. East African Standard, 13/5/55 64. Observer, 9/10/55 65. East African Standard, 13/5/55

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CHAPTER6

After the End of History§ The publication of Francis Fukuyama's book entitled The End of History and the Last Man, has resurrected, in a very serious way, the feeling that we live at the end of history. Much of the popularity of the book was caused by the fact that its publication coincided with the death of Communism in the former USSR and Eastern Europe. Its message was clear and simple: that Marxism as a guide to political construction was dead and that the political practices of the one-party States had lost their practical plausibility and hence their moral appeal. We had therefore come to the end of History, beyond which we could have activities but not history. The belief that History as a process embracing the whole of human life could come to an end goes back to Judeo - Christian Theology: Christians agreed that humankind's development proceeded on time-line from the Creation to the last Judgement with Christ's work and death as the central event on it. To Christian thinkers, human history has a plot, a purpose. It is the working out of a divinely scripted drama with a beginning (the Fall), a middle part (human life until the Second Coming) and an end in the Last Judgement. At the beginning of the 19th Century, change came to be the central concept in Germany, as it is in the world today. There was therefore a need to explain the world, not in terms of eternal and essential categories but historically. It was during this time that the German philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrick Hegel ( 1770 - 1831) declared in a lecture he delivered on September 18, 1806 that, "We stand at the gates of an important epoch, a time of ferment, when spirit moves forward in a leap, transcends its previous shape and takes on a new one. All the mass of previous representations, concepts, and bonds linking our world together are dissolving and collapsing like a dream· picture. A new phase of the spirit is preparing itself."

First published in the Maseno Journal ofEducation, Arts and Sciences, Vol. 2, No.I, 1994, pp. 71-76. §

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64 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS He set out a pattern of history which was very similar to the Christian one. For Hegel, History was a finite process, preceded and followed by a condition that was not strictly part of History at all. History's purpose was the realization of freedom. Until human beings lived in societies that had political systems, law and a literary culture, it was impossible for them to take an interest in freedom, and therefore impossible for them to live really historical existences. At the beginning of history stood the Idea as pure thought. This statement of Hegel's reminds us of the biblical saying that "In the beginning was the Word". The Idea "by which and in which all reality has its being and subsistence" began a necessary process of self-realization that was to make actual what so far had been only potential. In that process, all that was potential would, step by step, become actual. When the Idea began in its actualization in time and space, when it 'stepped outside" of pure potentiality first as inorganic life, then as organic life, and finally as human life, it became "conscious-of -itself', that is, there was now the possibility of reflecting on the Idea and its self-realization. Hegel referred to the Idea at that particular stage of its development as the Spirit, which would rush on and on until the time when all that was potential in it would have become actual and all need for development would have ceased. In short, that would be the end of History. What has been the role of various people in that cosmic process? Hegel maintained that once History had started, only certain peoples and nations contributed to it. Hegel, for instance, stated categorically that Africa was "unhistorical". He argued that most people are either condemned by adverse climates to a "merely sensual or vegetative state existence" or after having played a significant part, sink back into a historical state, as happened to the ancient Egyptians. The best a people could hope for was a brief moment in which their unique genius acted as the agent of the Spirit's advance. The only objective an actual historical individual - whether an individual hero or single people - can aspire to is to fulfil the imperatives of the world spirit as they appear to be in the historical period concerned, without attempting to forestall them, to hold them, or least of all, to reverse them. The great men of History - Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon - and the great peoples of history - the Greeks, the Romans and the Prussians - are those who have succeeded in discerning these imperatives and have taken them as the watchword of their actions, thus playing their part in the gradual victory of the spirit. The decisive struggle that advanced human freedom did not happen in the ahistorical countries, and so they did not count. Much happened , but not History.

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For Hegel, the State had been the key agent for reconciliation of the universal (the process of self-realization) and the particular (everything individual). He considered the state to be an ethical, civilizing institution. Only through it can the many with their blind self-interest be led to a level above brute existence. As the progress of freedom demonstrated, the state, like everything else, has been subject to development. The East (represented by the Persian Emperor), knew that only "one may be free", and nobody else, the Greeks knew that, 'some may be free", as the Greek citizens were (and women, manual workers, slaves and aliens were not), and modem word's appreciation (or the German view, according to Hegel) - that all are free - that any human being can live by the laws of a rational morality, work for a living and bring up a family in the setting of a modem economy, and have some kind of voice in a modem political system. What will be the characteristics of the ideal state, the one coinciding in time with the full self-realization of the spirit? In it the private interests of its citizens will be one with the common interests of the state, voluntarily and not by coercion. It is difficult to know whether Hegel believed that universal freedom had been achieved in the Prussia of Fredrick William Ill in which he lived and admired or in the Napoleonic empire which he praised. What we can safely infer from his writings is that he thought History had ended. Since History was a process of exploring the idea of freedom, that process reached its end once freedom was understood and (at least in principle) embodied in modem institutions. History, in short, was to him, an argument about human purpose; once that argument had concluded, there might be any amount of institutional change to realise rational freedom, but not History, strictly speaking. The question as to whether history was coming to an end was to cause deep divisions among Hegel' s successors. Those who held that reason had attained its goal - freedom had been attained - became conservative partisans of the established order. Others had little difficulty in demonstrating that disorder and violence were still disputing power with reason and that, consequently, the march of history was still continuing. The latter group comprised the "Hegelian Left", among whom one of the most eloquent representatives was the young Karl Marx (1818 - 1883). Although Karl Marx's mind had been shaped by the Hegelian system of thought which believed that History was indeed the history of freedom, he contended that freedom was not the idealist, semi-religious pursuit of a rational morality that Hegel thought; freedom lay at the end of further struggle, when society had brought its social, economic and political life under collective human control. He created a theory based on economic forces, a grand theory

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66 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS which would not only explain all of history but also deliver the tools for the eventual human redemption from all injustice. His was a new type of prophetic history for a Kingdom of God without God. Marx's world was a world of matter, of which the human world was merely the most complete segment. Neither God nor progress nor the absolute idea nor any other metaphysical entity could explain that world; they all were mere creations of the human imagination. In order to explain human phenomena properly, one must study how people make a living, what goods they produce, and how they do it. Marx called these arrangements of productive forces the mode of production. It shaped every aspect of human life, governed every change, and was itself not influenced by anything outside of itself, and it supplied its own driving force. Religion, ideas, art, or philosophy were not dynamic forces which could bring about change as other writers had thought: they were mere reflections of productive relationships, had no value in and by themselves, and had no power to change anything. They constituted a superstructure with no dynamics or strength other than that which they derived from their economic base. Art, philosophy, political ideas, and religion, once they were defined as mere reflections of existing modes of production, were by necessity tied closely to those people who uphold the status quo - those who own the means of production and are called by Marx the exploiters or the ruling class. Indeed, the whole superstructure represents a vast instrument of oppression directed against those who are struggling to change the productive relationships in accordance with the dictates of history, that is to bring about changes in the mode of production. Looked at in this way, the State is not an ethical educator (the idealist view represented by Hegel) - but the tool by which the exploiters hold the exploited in check. And religion refers not to a metaphysical reality but to mere illusions created and perpetuated in the interest of keeping the exploited servile; religion, for Marx, was the opiate of people. In Communist Manifesto published in 1848 and in subsequent works, Marx predicted the collapse of capitalism and the establishment of socialism (and later communism) either through a peaceful transition or by violent revolution. The new society, the new Babylon, would accomplish "appropriation of the means of production, their subjection to the associated working class, therefore the abrogation of wage-labour, of capital, and of their reciprocal relations." The common ownership of all means of production would bar the forming of social classes and establish a perpetual, stable, and perfect harmony between the mode of production, productive relationships, and the superstructure. Without an ongoing class struggle - since there would be no exploiters and exploited - that part of the superstructure which so far had supplied the tools of

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oppression would disappear. The new society of co-operating individuals would need no state apparatus to administer production and consumption. Goods would be dispensed on the basis of needs declared by individuals - "from everyone according to his ability, to everyone according to his need". With the happiness of all people assured, religion would lose its usefulness and simply fade away. Old history, with its tales of wars, dynasties, treaties and economic exploitation, would end. For a while historians could rewrite in the Marxist manner the story of the past prior to the great change. In the new age historians would have little to do except record technological progress, production increases, contentmen~ and happiness. While generations would come and go, true historical process itself would have ended and the goal of History would be reached. In 1989, Francis Fukuyama offered a new "end of history" thesis in an article entitled "The End of History" which was published in the journal The National Interest. (1). This was the year which witnessed the tide of the antiCommunist revolutions in Eastern Europe and the former U. S.S.R In it he argued that liberal democracy constitute the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution" and the "fmal form of human government" and as such constituted the "end of history". It should be emphasized that what Fukuyama is suggesting as having come to an end is not history defined as the occurrence of events, but History understood as a single, coherent, evolutionary process, which takes into account the experience of.all peoples in all times. This is the understanding of history which we have associated with Hegel and Karl Marx. Both of them, as we have seen, believed that the evolution of human societies was not open-ended, but would end when humankind had achieved a form of society that satisfied its deepest and most fundamental longings. Both thinkers thus posited an "end of history". For Hegel it was the liberal State, while for Marx it was a Communist society. True, they admitted, historical events would continue to occur, but there would be no further progress in the development of underlying principles and institutions, because all of the really big questions had been settled. But we now know, thanks to hindsigh~ that all the fundamental questions had not been settled. In his famous boolc, The End of Histoo: and the Last Man (2), Fukuyama revisits this old but basic question: "whether, at the end of the twentieth century, it makes sense for us once again to speak of a coherent and directional history of mankind that will eventually lead the greater part of humanity to liberal democracy?" His answer to this question is ''yes" for two separate reasons. He contends that there are two powerful forces at work in human history: the economic logic of modem natural science which "guarantees an

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68 BUILDING ON TIIE INDIGENOUS increasing homogeniution of all h11man societies, regardless of their historical origins or cultural inheritances". All countries undergoing economic modemiution must increasingly resemble one another and they have become increasingly linked with one another through global markets and the spread of a universal consumer culture. In short, we all end up in the "global village". Moreover, he concludes, the logic of modem natural science would sec111 to dictate a universal evolution in the direction of capitalism. Hence, the "global village" is a capitalist village. The second powerful force at work in human history is what he calls "the • struggle for recognition." This is because it is possible to have technological advanced capitalism in an authoritarian state. Economic interpretations of history are incomplete and unsatisfying, because man is not simply an economic • animal, living by bread alone. This non-materialist account of History is also borrowed from Hegel, although Fukuyama admits that its history goes back to Plato, who in the Republic noted that there were three parts to the soul: a desiring part, a reasoning part, and a part he called thymos or 'spiritedness". Human beings seek recognition of their own worth, or of the people, things, or principles that they feel are worth recognizing. According to Hegel, the desire for recognition, and the accompanying emotions of anger, shame and pride, are what drive the whole historical process. Each person desires to be recognized as a human being with dignity. Fukuyama agrees with Hegel and calls the 'struggle for recognition" and the accompanying emotions of anger, shame and pride, as what drives the whole historical process. Each person desires to be recognized as a human being with dignity. Fukuyama agrees with Hegel and calls the 'struggle for recognition" the very "motor of history". He concludes that it is the economic logic of modem science together with ''the struggle for recognition" that, over time, has led to the eventual collapse of tyrannies on both the Left and the Right. These forces drive even culturally disparate societies towards establishing capitalist liberal democracies as the end of state of the historical process. Liberal democracy is thus revealed as ''the meaning of history". It is not simply that 1989 - 1991 saw the restoration of democracy in Eastern Europe, Latin America and in a limited way in Africa, but that this is what history is all about. We are all marching towards Sayun, towards the new Babylon which will mark the "end of History". The great question then becomes: Can liberty and equality, both political and economic - the state of affairs at the presumed "end of History" - produce a stable society in which man may be said to be, at last, completely satisfied? Or will the spiritual condition of the creature who emerges at the end, the "last man" in history as Fukuyama calls him, deprived of outlets for his striving for mastery, inevitably lead him to plunge himself and the world back into the chaos

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and bloodshed of history? In short, the fundamental question posed by Fulruyama•s book is not whether liberal democracy will succeed against its present-day rivals - this it has to a large extent done - but whether liberal democracy is the final good which we all must seek. Fulruyama answers this by saying that what man has been seeking throughout the course of history was recognition. It is possible to understand the problem of politics over the millennia of human history as the effort to solve the problem of recognition - which is the central problem of politics because it is the origin of tyranny, imperialism and the desire to dominate. But simultaneously it is the psychological ground for political virtues like courage, public spiritedness and justice. All political communities must make use of the desire for recognition while at the same time protecting themselves from its destructive effects. If constitutional government has indeed found a formula whereby all are recognized in a way that nonetheless avoids the emergence of tyranny, then it would indeed have a special claim to stability and longevity among the regimes that have emerged on earth. But is the recognition available to citizens of liberal democracies "completely satisfying"? This is the crux of the matter. Wouldn"t the "last men" be with desire and reason but lacking thymos? And wouldn"t such a "last man" be less than a full human being? What we are suggesting is that the post-historical condition in which the "last men" live threatens to be exceedingly dull. Surely Marx's revolutionary followers led a more meaningful life during the 'struggle for the recognition" of the worker than the socialists in Stalinist Russia. By the same token, a liberal democratic world may be safe but dull; Hegel's account of the world of rational freedom is not exciting and, to the degree that the revised version of the "end of history" thesis of Fulruyama borrows from Hegel, it is bound to be unexciting too. It was the arch-liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill who feared that democracy might lead to stagnation, that we might turn into happy sheep, contented consumers without a serious thought in our heads. If liberal democracy has ''won" and is now the only historical option, we still have to worry about the post-historical situation. The vision of a pacified world, struggling with day-to-day economic and social problems, but subscribing to one core ideology - capitalism in a liberal democratic state - is bard to square with, for instance, the Islamic or Christian fundamentalism that is spreading in the world today. Not only that. Outside the developed industrial world, History is still very much in progress, and its ultimate destination not at all certain. In such countries, liberal democracy is still an uofmished journey.

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70 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS In conclusion, it is worth emphasizing that by common consent, liberal democracy has come closer than anything else to the status of "universal condition of mankind" and the royal road into the future. But it is this new, virtually monopolistic position that now, paradoxically, makes democracy an object of worried, often suspicious, take-nothing-for-granted attention. The gigantic blunders and spectacular inequities of the other aspiring universalism, that of the Communist State - administered society, used to make the suspected flaws of democratic processes seem insignificant by comparison. But the contradictions and blemishes which democratic practice could easily get away with them, could not escape critical gaze once the Berlin Wall had collapsed, nor be forgiven simply by pointing to the horrors of the ostensible alternative. Whatever the errors of the democratic way, it is now up to democracy and democracy alone to face up to and correct them. There is, for example, nothing in the nature of liberal democracy which prevents the demos from playing the tyrant. All democracies exhibit a combination of just and tyrannical behaviour. Hence, the problem at the end of history may be not so much that of making the world safe for democracy, as Woodrow Wilson wanted it, but of making democracy safe for the world. Then there is the problem of "the contented majority" as Kenneth Galbraith has called them. For the first time in history, more individuals see themselves as better, rather than worse off, as the result of market-induced, uninterfered-with inequality, and thus willingly offer their support to such sections of the political elite as promise to privatize or to keep private most aspects of their lives and so leave them free from politics - indeed, to unburden their private lives of all care for "civic glory and greatness" which was what democratic politics was all about at the beginning of the modem era. At the moment, democracy - no longer threatened from outside - may ( and should) attend without fear to its own inner dangers. It may well transpire that democracy's flaws will prove incurable, as the communist's flaws did. Nevertheless, one might with a clear conscience repeat Winston Churchill's verdict on democracy as the worst political arrangement except for all the alternatives.

ENDNOTES 1. Francis Fukuyama ''The End of History" The National Interest , 1989 2. Francis Fukuyama , The End of History and the Last Man, The Free Press,

1992

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CHAPTER 7 The Great Lakes Region§ A historian attempting to reconstruct the history of the interlacustrine region of East Africa between 1200 and 1500 of the Christian era is faced with several major problems. First, the 300 years represent an era for which we have scant oral tradition or linguistic date. Nor do we have any adequate archaeological data. The oral traditions, for example, are replete with legendary father-figures who are variously identified as gods, fathers of all the people, founders of clans, or as introducers of food crops (such as banana or millet) or of cattle. The stories of their exploits have been forged into popular traditions whose historical validity is difficult to establish. It is not surprising, therefore, that historians such as C. Wrigley have concluded that the Chwezi myths, for example, contain no valid information about the early history of the interlacustrine region. To accept that the Chwezi spirits referred to in myth and cult were actual kings of a fifteenth - century kingdom in the interlacustrine region is, he says, like believing that Odin and Freya were kings of ancient Sweden, even though the Ynglinga Saga assures us that they were. ( 1) Secondly, the historians working in this region face a major problem of bias with regard to the relationships between the agriculturalists and pastoralists. In many history books and articles the pastoralists are portrayed as civilizing conquerors who introduced law and order where anarchy formerly reigned supreme. The agriculturalists, on the other hand, are painted as docile and silent majorities who neither initiated any developments nor founded any state. Rwanda provides an excellent example of this bias, and Kagame, for instance, finds it difficult to believe that the state of Rwanda could have borrowed any institution from the agriculturalists. Nor is he prepared to accept the idea that any "Hutu" ruled over noble, "Hamitic" pastoralists. (2) We hope to show in this chapter that state formation among the agriculturalists in this region ante dates the advent of most pastoralists. We also hope to show that for a long time th

First published in General History ofAfrica, Vol. 4: Africa.from the 12 - Jrfh Century. Editor D.T. Niane, Chapter 20, pp. 498-524, 1984. UNESCO, Heinemann, University of California Press §

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72 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS there was peaceful coexistence between the agriculturalists and the pastoralists prior to the major state formation processes of the fifteenth century, which to a large extent were responsible for the creation of social classes or castes in this region. In this connection, it is important to emphasize that the terms "pastoralists" and "agriculturalists" are occupational and not ethnic terms. The interlacustrine traditions reveal that when pastoralists lost their cattle and were unable to recoup those losses, they became cultivators; and when cultivators acquire cattle, they became pastoralists. (3) This change of occupation was continually occurring in the region, both at the individual and at the group levels. Another problem facing a historian working in this region during this period is chronology. For the last twenty years several scholars, working with a combination of the generational principle, tie-in references and eclipses mentioned in traditions, have done a great deal of work on Bantu and Nilotic chronologies. But a closer reading of this voluminous literature shows that there is no general agreement either on the chronology of individual states or on a general chronological framework for the whole interlacustrine region. For example, the reliability of the Bito genealogy in Bunyoro has recently been called into question by Henige. (4) In Rwanda also, the problem of chronology is of fundamental importance. Kagame has argued for a founding date in the tenth century of the Christian era, offering a royal genealogy from 959. (5) Vansina, however, maintains that the first seven names of Kagame's list, with the possible exception of Gihanga, are not historical persons. According to Vansina, the state of Rwanda was founded during the latter part of the fifteenth century. (6) But even if we were to be able to solve the question of the chronologies of individual states, we should still have to integrate the chronologies of Rwanda, Gasaka, Bunyoro, Kiziba, Mpororo, Buganda, Busoga, Nkore, Karagwe, lhangiro, Kyamutwara B11zinu and Sukuma into a basic chronological structure covering our period. And that is a very difficult task. The fmal problem facing a historian working in this region is that most of the published histories until recent times were court-centered. They discussed the origins and development of centralized states in the interlacustrine region on the basis of court traditions. For instance, in Rwanda, the works of Pages, de Laeger and Kagame are largely based on court traditions. Such histories are bound to be limited, especially with regard to sections of society living away from royal enclosures. Having noted the major problems, we should now turn to the history of this region, which for historical convenience is discussed under four headings: the Kitara complex, the Kintu complex, the Ruhinda complex and the Rwanda

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'The Great Lakes Region 73 complex. The te11n "complex" has been tased to emphasize both the multi-ethnic nature of the region and the confluence of cultural traditions that constitutes its history. But, at the same time, the four complexes are interconnected and merge into a general history of the region.

The Kitara complex The history of the Kitara complex, which covers geographically most of the present Bunyoro, Toro and neighbouring portions of Nkore, Mubende and Buganda, has recently been studied by Dr. Garole Buchanan. (7) It is probably the oldest state system of the interlacustrine, and its history is usually conceptualized in terms of three groups of invaders: the Batembuzi, the Bachwezi and the Babito. We should note that this historical conceptualization, which to a large extent reflects the historical division of the Kitara complex into three ID8in periods, is significantly silent about the Bantu-speaking peoples, whose languages dominate the area. Are we to deduce from this that the Bantuspeaking majority rarely observed history and never participated in it? In order to answer this question, it is essential to remember that the arrival of most Bantu-speakers predated that of the three groups. Dr Buchanan has postulated that the period between 722 and 1200 of the Christian era witnessed some of the earliest remembered migrations into the Kitara complex. The first cluster of clans to settle .in this area was probably of central Sudanic origin, and thus originally from the north or north-west. (8) There is no unanimity among scholars about the early history of the central Sudanic peoples, but the linguistic evidence suggests that they were probably in this area before the earliest Bantu-speakers. If this is the case, it would mean that, on the basis of archaeological evidence, they were in the area before the fourth century of the Christian era. (9) The first Bantu-speaking clans seem to have come from the region to the west of Lake Mobutu (Albert) and to have settled throughout the region south of the Nile. According to their traditions, they were predominantly agriculturalists, cultivating eleusine and sorghum, although some of them kept live-stock. Buchanan has suggested that these early Bantu migrations into the interlacustrine area occurred in the tenth and eleventh centuries, on the grounds that the oldest strata at Kibiro (c. tenth century) showed no evidence of the dimple-based pottery which has been linked to the presence of Bantu-speaking peoples. (10) Some of these Bantu clans were later involved in the formation of a number of small agricultural states, which Buchanan associates with the Batembuzi period of Kitara history and tentatively dates from c. 900 to 1300. ( 11) If she is right, then it would provide an answer to the question posed above

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74 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS

regarding the role of the Bantu-speakers in the history of this region. The answer would be that, at least in the case of the Batembuzi, we are not dealing with invaders in the sense of some immigrant pastoralists; rather, we are dealing with the earliest Bantu groups in the area. Buchanan's work represents the first serious examination of the preBachwezi period. Hitherto historians and other scholars have referred to the Batembuzi period as ''the reign of the gods" and have considered the Batembuzi to belong more to mythology than to history. According to Kinyoro tradition, there were nineteen Abakama Abatembuzi or "pioneer kings", (12) whereas Nkore tradition records only four, to whom no collective names is applied. Some of these kings, such as Hangi, Kazoba and Nyam11hanga, were ancestor spirits worshipped by the Bachwezi. Buchanan was able to penetrate the thick mist of the Batembuzi only by placing less reliance on court traditions than on clan histories. One of the earliest political units she identifies was the chiefdom of Bugangaizi, established by the Bagabu clan, who are remembered in tradition as Batembuzi and whose founder was Hangi. The Bayaga - whose original name was Basehe - are another pre-Bachwezi clan who probably migrated from the Semli.ki valley at about the same time. Their traditions associate them with the coming of cattle (probably not long-homed) into the area and the salt-work site at Kibiro on Lake Mobutu. Another group whose pre-eminence seems to have had an economic basis is the Basita clan. This clan is among the largest in the interlacustrine region. The people are identified with Sitta, a founder of one of the clans of Bugisu, with the Abendega (sheep) clan of Buganda and Busoga, with the Baswaga of Bakonjo, and with the Byabasita of Kibale; they figure significantly in the traditions of Nkore, Kiziba and Buhaya states, where they are associated with an earlier form of chiefship, predating the Bahinda. Their rise to power and their extensive dispersal would appear, from their traditions, to have been due to the fact that they were iron-workers. The place-name "Mbale" or "Kabale", which is found in Mwenga, in Bugisu (in Uganda), in north-western Tanunia and in western Kenya, is linked in the traditions with settlements of the Basita. By about 1250 there was already a number of small Bantu chiefdoms east of the Ruwenzori Mountains, either offshoots of the Batembuzi of Bugangaizi or created in imitation. For instance, according to Lwangira, the first king of Kiziba lived between 1236 and 1263. (13) But at the same time there were several other Bantu-speaking societies organized into smaller political units such as lineages and clans. The history of the Baranzi clan provides a link between the Batembuzi and the next dynasty in the Kitara complex - the Bachwezi. According to Kinyoro tradition, the founder of the clan, Bukuku, was a commoner and an

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The Great Lakes Region 15 official in the court of .Isaza (c. 1301 - 28), the last of the "pioneer kings". He is supposed to have taken over from Juz.a and at the same time he is regarded as the grandfather of Ndahura (c. 1344 -71), the gieat ruler of the Bachwezi period. The clan itself had the grasshopper and the civet cat as its totems and it probably came from the Busongora area in the west. As is explained below, both totems are important in Buganda and Busoga history as names of pre-Kintu, and therefore pre-Bachwezi, groups that moved from west to east across the grasslands to the shores of Lake Victoria. As we have said, Bukulru, an agriculturalist, provides a genetic relationship between the pioneers and the Bachwezi. Ndahura's foster-father was according to Bunyoro and Nkore traditions, a potter by trade, who came from a Bakopi clan. (14) Hence Ndahura's other name, Karubumbi (from muhumbi or potter). Perhaps these traditions were intended to legitimize the position of Bukulru, a commoner who rose to great fame. Nevertheless, such traditions are widespread in the region, and they should be interpreted to mean that the origins and developments of the centralized states in the interlacustrine region cannot be accounted for entirely in terms of alien pastoral aristocracies. Internal factors, including local initiatives might provide a more convincing theory. The succession ofBukuku Isaza's throne was resisted by several chiefs, who objected to being ruled by a commoner. Bukuku crushed the rebellion, although dissatisfaction became widespread and provided an opportunity for Ndahura to seize the throne and found the Bachwezi dynasty. The traditions of Bunyoro and Nkore are agreed that this dynasty consisted of two rulers Ndahura and Wamara - and a regent, Murindwa, who acted as such when his brother Ndahura was away on war expeditions. In spite of this unanimity on the names of the rulers, and despite the existence of voluminous literature on the Bachwezi dynasty, there is still no agreement among historians about the validity of this literature. Huntingford suggests that the Bachwezi might have been of "Hamitic" stock related to the Sidama of south-western Ethiopia. (15) Oliver asserts that the Bachwezi were historical figures and that "on the whole it seems likely that the Ganda Kingdom of Chwa was identical with that of the Chwezi, and that what the Bito conquered was already... a single political unit dominated by the Hima pastoralists under the kings of the Chwezi clan. ( 16) Earlier, Crazzolara had thundered that the Bachwezi and the Bahima were the same people, and both groups were Luo. (17) Posnansky, on the basis of archaeological evidence, accepts the historical existence of the pastoralist Bachwezi, and the correlation of the Bachwezi with the Bigo culture, which he dates at 1350 - 1500. Indeed he goes further, to identify Bigo as the capital of a pastoral kingdom ruling over western Buganda between 1350 and 1500.

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76 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Although all the above authors accept the historicity of the Bachwezi, Wrigley, almost alone still maintains that they constituted nothing but "a pantheon of a familiar kind, a collection of named and individualiZt'Ai divinities, imagined as a 1'11man kin-group writ large, and mostly associated with the more prominent features and forces of the natural world". In this chapter, we accept the historicity of the Bachwezi. We therefore proceed to discuss the major developments which took place in the Kitara complex from 13S0 to I SOO as part of East Africa history, and not as an aspect of East Africa mythology. There are two major theories about these developments. There are those historians who argue, like Oliver, that the Bachwezi empire was founded following the incursion of the pastoralist Bahlma. They disag;ee, however, as to where the .Rahima came from. The older view was that they came from the north-east, probably from southern Ethiopia. Recently, some members of this historical school have suggested that the Rahima might have come from the south. Thus Chris Ehret, discussing the cultural influence of the Southern Cushites in the interlacustrine region, has opined: This late continuation of Southern Cushites as important pastoralists in the southern half of the lacustrine region raises the intriguing possibility that the latter-day Tutsi and Hima pastoralism, most significant in the southern half of the region, is rooted in the Southern Cushitic culture and so derived from the east rather than the north. (20) This infiltration of the region by the Bahima is supposed to have occurred in the thirteen and early fourteen centuries. Then, during a period of instability, they and their allies amongst the earlier settlers gradually acquired an aristocratic status over the agricultural population and in the fourteenth century established their loosely structured state. The other theory, which is rapidly gaining ground, is that the Bachwezi were local rulers who emerged as a result of the economic and demographic changes that were taking place in the interlacustrine region. It is clear that the empire of Kitara was created by Ndahura (c. 1344-71 ), a great warrior king, who extended the small chiefdom of Bugangazi over a vast area which included Bunyoro, western Buganda, Toro, northern Kigezi, the Sese Islands, Nkore, Kiziba, Karagwe, part of north-eastern Rwanda and part of western Kenya. Ha lacked the military power, the bureaucracy and the means of quick communication to be able to establish a centralized state over this vast area. He therefore relied more on agents who were appointed to represent the king in the various areas. This loosely organized empire seems to have had salt, cattle and iron as its economic mainstay.

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King Ndahura, who often led his own anny, was captured during an invasion of Jhangiro in Bukoba, when an eclipse of the sun caused panic among his troops. On his release, he prefe11ed to migrate westwards rather than return as a disgraced king to his capital at Mwenge. Tradition is silent on his subsequent fate. . He was succeeded by his son Wamara (c. 1371-98), who on security grounds moved his capital from Mwenge to Bwera. Wamara's reign was even more turbulent than that of his father, largely because it witnessed the advent of several immigrant groups. Among those were the Jo-Oma (or Bahima), most of whom came from the Agoro mountains region; the Bantu-speaking clans from the east associated with the Kintu complex (see pp. 89 - 91 below); an invasion from the south which probably represented an advance group of the Bashambo clan; and the Luo, who began to infiltrate into Kitara from north of the Nile. There is as yet no agreement as to whether the Jo-Oma were Luo or Bahima, although recent research by Webster and his team at Makerere would favour the latter. (21) Be that as it may, the important point to emphasize is that, according to the historical reconstruction we are outlining here, the Bachwezi were not Rahima or Luo: they were a Bantu aristocracy who emerged in western Uganda in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As a result of the arrival of the Babima pastoralists (whether from the north only or from the north and south) and of the Luo during the reign of the last Bachwezi king, the loosely structured empire became multi-ethnic and multilingual. Internal tensions arising from the problems of political integration developed which could not be resolved, and the empire collapsed. King Wamara had attempted to enlist the support of the immigrants by appointing them to important political posts. For instance, Miramira of the Bashambo clan and Rugo and Kinyonyi of the Balisa clan were appointed Wamara' s representatives around Lake Masyoro in the areas which became Kitagwenda, Buzimba and Buhweju. R•ihinda, a Muhima, was placed in charge of the royal herds; Nono, a member of the Basita clan, bec~e a deputy chief in Karagwe; Kagoro, a Luo, became the chief military commander; and Wamara formed a blood brotherhood with Kantu, who had emerged as the leader of the Bantu clans of eastern origin. All these overtures, however, were construed as appeasement by the immigrant communities, who soon developed into overmighty subjects. Then there occurred a great famine, followed by a cattle disease which spread all over the empire. Dissatisfaction became widespread. Kagoro, Waman\'s military commander seized the opportunity to stage a coup against the Bachwezi, who were mercilessly massacred and their bodies thrown into water. The Bachwezi aristocracy, which in any case could not have been a large

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78 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS one, was thus annihilated or, as tradition put it, "disappeared". The coup marked the end of the Bachwezi Empire. It was replaced by two conglomerations of states: the Luo-Babito states of Bunyoro-K.itara, K.itagwenda and K.iziba; and the Bahinda (Bahima) states further south in Karagwe, Nkore, Kyamutwara, lhangiro and possibly Gisaka (see Fig. 7.2). The collapse of the Bachwezi Empire led to a fierce struggle between the Luo and the Bahima (the Babito and the Bahima) for the political control of the region; the history of the successor states for the next three centuries should be viewed in the context of this struggle for political hegemony. Beginning with the Luo successor states, it is important to emphasize the theory advanced in this chapter, that historical developments in western Uganda cannot simply be explained in terms of a conquest theory which regards successive waves of pastoralist conquerors as the carriers of civilizations. (22) As already mentioned, the Luo started to arrive in K.itara during the reign of Wamara. But before this, the Luo-speaking peoples had already dispersed from their land of birth, probably in the southern Sudan. The northern Luo apparently remained in this region, but the central and southern Luo moved south into the area of the Agoro Mountains. A glotto-chronological study of the Luo dialects has suggested that this separations occurred in 870 (+ 200), that is, between 670 and 1070. (23) Oral tradition indicates that the Luo-speakers continued their gradual expansion and dispersal during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (see Fig. 7 .1 ). These dates receive corroboration from linguistic evidence, which suggests that the proto-central and southern Luo separated between c. 1170and 1470. (24) By the end of the fourteenth century, four Luo communities had emerged: one group lived near the Agoro mountains; another lived along the Nile near the north end of Lake Mobutu - the Pakwac triangle; a third occupied the area between Nimule and Shambe (Baar); and the ancestors of the Joka-Jok lived somewhere south of Mount Agoro. (25) According to Luo traditions, they encountered several non-Luo groups in the Agoro mountain area. On arrival, they found the Muru, amongst whom they settled and with whom they extensively intermarried. It was from this mixed population that the Joka-Jok and the Pawir-Pakwac groups, who moved away, derived. The Luo-speakers who stayed behind in the Agoro mountain area were later joined by the Jo-Oma (Bahima) about 1320-60. At this time the former were primarily hunters and agriculturalists, and they seem to have learnt about cattle-keeping from the Bahima pastoralists. Following the outbreak of a cattle disease in the area, a large number of these pastoralists were later forced to migrate. They crossed the Nile into the Bachwezi empire during the reign of King Wamara, as we saw above. Those who remained behind were absorbed by

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80 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS the Luo-speakers who, under their king, Owiny I (1409-36), had established Tekidi, one of the earliest Luo states. (26) According to Luo traditions, Owiny married Natworo, a Muhima girl, by whom he had a son, Rukidi. Later, Prince Rukidi broke away from his father and, with his followers, migrated towards Pakwac. After Kagoro's coup, he was invited by earlier Luo migrants into Kitara to assume political leadership there. He and his followers became known as the Babito, and he founded the new Babito dynasty of Kitara (c. 1436-63) as related below. From these accounts of life in Tekidi we can infer that at this time it was extremely difficult to know who was a Luo and who was a Muhima, given the mixed descent of the population. It is probably because of this that Crazzolara and other writers refer to these Luo-speaking Bahima as Luo. Further north, in Baar, a similar ethnic fusion was taking place between the Luo and the Madi. Several royal clans such as Patiko, Nyimur, Padibe, Atyak (Kwong), Koc and Pagaya, which were to play significant roles in the history of the northern part of this region, emerged from this historical crucible. For example, we know that the Patiko, led by Labongo from Pari-Baar, migrated to the Nile in the Pakwac triangle. Some of them, including another clan called Anywagi (Anywah), accompanied Rukidi on his march into Kitara. We are also told that the Bakwonga (predominantly of central Sudanic origin), Bacwa and Bagaya (both clans of northern Luo origin) migrated southwards and crossed into the Kitara empire. Buchanan contends that this must have occurred at least one generation before Rukidi. (27) Thus the idea of a Luo army marching into the Kitara empire must be discarded as without foundation. Small groups continued to expand northwards into the Sudan, westwards into Zaire, eastwards into Ethiopia, and southwards into Kitara, Busoga, Bukedi and western Kenya. From the traditions of Bunyoro, Kiziba, Nkore and Karagwe, it is evident that the Babito and the Bahima found it easier to topple Wamara's government than to control the empire. The new rulers created and propagated the myth of Bachwezi disappearance. They also tried to legitimize their positions by claiming genetic links with the Bachwezi. Unfortunately, such propaganda failed to impress their subjects. The Bachwezi-appointed chiefs sought to control their areas. The Barisa royal clan, for example, succeeded in creating independent chiefdoms in Buzimba and Buhweju. (28) Also in Pawir, the Luo royal clan succeeded in retaining its political independence, although very much under the shadow of Bunyoro-Kitara. In all the other places, a mixture of force and guile had to be used in the establishment of Luo and Bahima rule. In Kiziba, for example, the struggle went on for over a generation before Kibi (c. 1417-44), a Luo hunter, succeeded in establishing a Luo hegemony. Through political intrigues and generous distribution of game meat, he managed

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to win the support of several important cJans such as the Bagaba - the old royal clan of the Batembuzi - the Basiita and the Baranzi. (29) The struggle in Bunyoro-K.itara lasted even longer. Although Kagoro had organized a successful coup, he was unable to unite the Luo, let alone the whole state. He ensured, however, that the royal regalia such as drums were left behind for the Babito. In the end, the Luo sent for Rukidi, who agiced to come, accompanied by his followers, the Babito. He found that in several parts of the country the people were hostile. In Bwera, for instance, the hostility towards the new regime was such that Rulcidi was forced to remove his capital from there to Bugangaizi, the heart of the old Batembuzi state. He was also faced with the problems of legitimacy and of creating an integrated state from a multi-ethnic society. This situation did not stabilize until after 1500, when Bunyoro began to expand towards the Bahinda states and Rwanda. (30) As we saw earlier, the Bachwezi had appointed Miramira of the Bashambo clan and members of the Balisa clan as chiefs in the area around Lake Masyoro. Following Wamani.,s death, there ensued a struggle for supremacy. Two Babito brothers - Wakole and Nyarwa - managed to kill Miramira and to establish the state of K.itagwenda, with the collaboration of the Bashekatwa. (31)

The Ruhinda Complex The geographical focus of this complex is the present K.igezi district, Ankole, the Bulcoba district in Tao:zania and parts of Burundi and Rwanda. During the period under consideration, the main states that were involved were Nlcore, the Buhaya states of Karagwe, lhangiro, K.iyanja, Buzin7.a and Kyamutwara, as well as some parts of the future kingdom of Rwanda such as Ndorwa (see Fig 7.2). Despite the existence of international boundaries and language barriers, the region possessed a historical coherence which dates back to the period under consideration. For instance, the impact of the :Rahima/Batutsi pastoralists seems to have been greatest in this area. Several old clans, such as the Basiita, Bagahe, Basigi, Bazigaaba, Bakimbiri, Bashambo, Baitira, Batsyaba, Bagyesera, Baishekatwa, Bungura and Babanda, are widely scattered throughout the area. This is particularly important in this region where clans, especially the larger ones, tended to present chiefdoms with mixed populations, rather than exogamous descent groups. (32) Many Bahima have been incorporated into Bantu clans, and Bantu families incorporated into Batwa clans and vice versa. This homogeneity is confirmed by the fact that today most inhabitants of the area speak Rukiga, Ruhororo, Runyankore or Runyambo - all closely related dialects - or Runyarwanda. Another factor, which has fostered

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Figure 7.2 The Bachwezi and the Immigrants (B.A. Ogot)

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The Great Lakes Region 83 historical coherence, is that most groups in the area had some experience of the expanding Rwanda state. But that story is outside the scope of this section. By about 1200, traditions suggest that the forest belts were much more widely spread than they are today and that the Batwa, a group of forest hunters and gatherers, occupied the belts. They hunted large game, including elephant and buffalo. (33) Gradually Bantu agriculturalists began to move into the region, largely from the south and west. They cleared the forest and established permanent settlements, where they grew millet and sorghum. They also hunted and worked iron. For instance, the Barongo were pre-eminently iron-workers and hunters long before the advent of the Bahima in Buzinza. (34) We also learn from the traditions of the Basinga clan that their ancestor Kasinga was a blacksmith and a sorcerer in Karagwe. He was chased away by his brother, Muhaya, and he took refuge in Ndorwa before the coming of the Batutsi. (35) Initially, the Bantu-speakers organized themselves on an extended family basis, with the heads of families constituting the highest authority. Sitting together, they looked after the welfare of, and administered justice for, the group. But as more immigrants moved in, clan organization developed. We should, however, emphasize that when we speak of clans in this region, we are not necessarily talking about people descended from the same ancestors. The custom of blood brotherhood, for instance, encouraged newcomers to join old families and some incoming groups sought the protection of powerful clans by joining them and adopting their languages and customs. Indeed, changing from one clan to another seems to have been an accepted practice in this region. In this way, the clans became political organizations with territorial boundaries. The chief of a clan was also the chief of the land, and the area was named after the dominant family. Thus Busigi, for instance, was occupied largely by the Basigi, Bugahe largely by the Bagahe, and so on. Large clans such as the Bazigaaba, the Bagyesera, the Basigi and the Babanda had a king or chief (Mwami), who was both a political and a religious leader. He was responsible for the well-being of people, livestock and plants. Most of them were also rain-makers. (36) For instance, we learn from tradition that the Bagahe in Ndorwa around Lake Bunyoni, the Basigi in Busigi (an area in Rwanda) and the Babanda Kinkizi were rain-makers. By the beginning of the fifteenth century, it would appear; some of these Bantu clans had established dynasties. For instance, we know that members of the Basiita clan ruled in Nkore, Karagwe and in other Buhaya states before the Bahinda took over. Rwanda historical traditions refer to a group of people called the Barengye, who were agriculturalists. They are regarded as being among the earliest inhabitants of the Rwanda region, concentrated particularly around Nduga in what is now western Rwanda. They employed huge and rather

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84 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS crude iron hoes. (3 7) The Barengye are supposed to have been wiped out by the Babanda long before the arrival of the Batutsi. (38) Fortunately, we know that today the Barengye are found in north-west Tanzania and in western Uganda, from Bufumbira to Toro. It would therefore appear that this ancient, Bantuspeaking, iron-working community was widely distributed in Rwanda and in south-western Uganda prior to the arrival of the pastoralists. In most of these areas they provided ruling families. Another ancient clan of cultivators, who were probably amongst the earliest inhabitants of Rwanda and south-western Uganda, are the Bungura, who according to d"Hertefelt were numerically strong in Ruhengeri (north-western Rwanda) in 1960. (39) Unfortunately, no traditions relating either to migration or to state formation have been recorded among the Bungura - a fact which suggests antiquity. The Bazigaaba also seem to have formed part of the earliest agricultural stratum in the region. We know that in Rwanda they established the Mubari state in the far east of Rwanda, which had a king (Kabeija) and a royal drum (sera) when the Banyiginya first appear in history. (40) But they are also found in large numbers in Nkore and in the Rujumbura county of Kigezi. In each of these three areas they have a different totem: the leopard in Rwanda, the antelope in Rujumbura and a striped cow in Nkore. As Professor Denoon has pointed out: This distribution and diversity points firmly towards the existence of a multi-clan state (presumably Mubari) whence a diaspora migrated over a long period of time, retaining the name Bazigaaba initially as a political term and ultimately as a social category, and retaining the totemic signs of the original clan composition of the Bazigaaba state. (41) There were other Bantu-speaking groups, such as the Banyangwe, Basiita Banuma and Baitira, who played significant roles towards the end of the fifteenth century, when the Bahinda began to rule Nkore. The only other clan that should be mentioned in order to illustrate the kind of politics which had evolved in the western lacustrine area by the beginning of the fifteenth century is the Baishekatwa, whose totem was ensenene. They are found in Rwanda (where the Bahondogo, who once ruled Bugyesera, are supposed to be an offshoot), Kigezi (where they are the oldest inhabitants of Rujumbura), Toro and Nkore. We also learn from Buganda traditions that the ensenene clan of the Buganda entered Buganda from the west, accompanying Kimera, as outlined below. It would appear therefore that the

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The Great Lakes Region 85 Baishekatwa are a very old, western . Uganda clan, extending from the Busongora to southern Rwanda. So far the discussion has been confined to the Bantu-speaking cultivators. Attention should now be turned to the pastoralists. First it is important to reiterate what has already been said, that the origin of the pastoralists in this region is uncertain. A northern origin has been postulated, but, as Rennie has pointed out, "one should not rule out the local development, perhaps in or around Karagwe, of pastoralists as a way of life". (42) Secondly, the widely held belief that the pastoralists in this area came in as conquerors who, from the very beginning, established pastoral aristocracies over the agricultural populations needs modification in this area, as in Kitara. Several instances of peaceful coexistence between the pastoralists and agriculturalists can be cited. (43) Indeed, until the fifteenth century, when several pastoralist states emerged (as related below), it was mostly the clans, as has already been shown, that provided ruling dynasties. A group like the Bariisa, for example, is regarded as one of the oldest pastoral clans in the region. According to their traditions, they migrated from the north, possibly from Bunyoro, to Karagwe in the south. From Karagwe they moved back northwards through the present Kigezi and western Nkore. When they reached Mpororo, the clansmen dispersed in all directions. Amongst them was a family consisting of three brothers - Kateizi, Kinyonyi and Rugo - and a sister, lremera, who were led by an eagle to the court of King Wamara, the last of the Bachwezi rulers. One of the brothers, Kateizi, dropped out and settled in Buhweju, where he married local women, adopted agriculture and founded the sub-clan of the Bateizi. The other two brothers and their sister finally reached the Bachwezi court. Iremera married the king, Rugo was appointed to rule over Buzimba, and Kinyonyi became Wamara' s agent in Buhweju. Each was given a royal drum and a hundred heads of cattle by the king. (44) From this tradition, it is clear that not all pastoralists started as rulers. Not did they all end up as rulers, as the fate of the Bateizi illustrates. Among the later pastoralist immigrants are three clans - the Bashambo, the Basiita and the Bahinda - that played leading roles in the founding of new clans in Nkore, Karagwe, lhangiro and Kiziba. Tradition has it that the Bashambo came from the north and settled in and around Ndorwa in northeastern Rwanda, from where they dispersed northwards and eastwards into Nkore and eastern Kigezi. (45) They were probably Bahima who entered the Bachwezi state before or during the Bachwezi reign. The Basiita were apparently moving in the opposite direction to the Bashambo. They seem to have spread northwards from a centre in or around Karagwe. During Bachwezi

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86 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS times, they provided rulers in Karagwe and Nkore, where Nono and Karara acted as agents of the Bachwezi. There is much controversy surrounding the origin of the fmal group, the Bahinda. Nkore traditions claim that the Bahinda were descendants of the Bachwezi and that Ruhinda, the founder of a series of dynasties in Karagwe, Kyamutwara, Nkore and lhangiro, was the son of Wamara, the last king of the Bachwezi. (46) De Heusch, on the other hand, has suggested that the Bahinda were Nilotes. He argues that when the Luo invaded Bunyoro, they defeated the Bachwezi, who then retreated southward into Bwera and Nkore, which were protected from the incursions of the Luo by the fortifications of Bigo. A branch of the Luo, the Bahinda, out flanked the retreating Bachwezi and descended upon them from behind, via Karagwe. They fmally defeated King Wamara in Nkore and then provided new dynasties for Nkore, Karagwe, lhangiro and Kyamutwara. This theory has been convincingly refuted by Karugire. (47) Denoon has advanced the theory that "Ruhinda was a Mugyesera, from Gisaka either extending the power of that state, or breaking away from it. (48) He supports this by pointing out that the Bagyesera and the Bahinda share the same monkey totem; that the Bafurnbira and Batoro refer to Nkore as "Bugyesera" - the kingdom of the Bagyesera; that the total absence of the Bagyesera clan in Nkore, which is nevertheless surrounded by the Bagyesera diaspora, can only be explained by accepting Bahinda as the local name for the Bagyesera; and fmally that the known magnitude of the Bagyesera power is compatible with the theory. They were the dominant power in western Nkore and eastern Kigezi until the late seventeenth century, and they raided as far north as Busongoro and Mwenge. All that Denoon has shown, however, is that there was a dominant pastoral group in this region who could perhaps be identified with the Bagyesera. Whether it is possible to go a step further and identify the Bagyesera with the Bahinda is not clear from his account, especially as he has not demonstrated the connection between Ruhinda and the Bagyesera. It would appear that Bunyoro traditions, as recorded by Nyakatura, provide an acceptable account of Ruhinda' s origin. According to him, Ruhinda was a rich pastoralist (Muhima) who lived during the reign of King Wamara. (49) He gained eminence at the Bachwezi court and was appointed chief herdsman. When Kagoro staged his successful coup, Ruhinda drove away some of the royal herds into Karagwe. It was Ruhinda and his followers, according to Karagwe tradition, who introduced long homed cattle into Karagwe. At this time the Basiita and Banyangwe clans, who had been given drums as symbols of authority by the Bachwezi, ruled this southern area. Nono, a member of the Basiita clan, ruled in Karagwe; Nkombya and Karara, both of the Banyangwe clan, ruled in lhangiro and Nkore respectively.

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The Great Lakes Region 87

Few kings of the early years can be dated as fmnly as Ruhinda. Dynasties of four states - Buzinza, Kyamutwara, Karagwe and Nkore - claim descent from his sons. Calculations based on the four genealogies give Ruhinda a composite date of c. 1405-47. Kiziba tradition refers to Ruhinda in the generation c. 1417 - 44. When Ruhinda reached Karagwe, he used his great wealth in cattle to oust Nono from power. He then proceeded to establish a fmn base of operations in Karagwe, whence he later moved north to Nkore. There he secured political control by concluding a political deal with the large and influential Banyangwe clan. In return for their acceptance of his leadership, the Banyangwe were guaranteed freedom from persecution or confiscation of their goods. Like Rukidi, Ruhinda also tried to persuade his subjects through carefully worked-out propaganda that he was a descendant of the Bachwezi. He left his son, Nkuba, in charge of Nkore and turned his attention to Kyamutwara and Ihangiro. In the former, he killed Mashare, Wamara's agent, and installed Nyarubamba, another of his sons. In Ihangiro, he probably worked through collaborators, who poisoned lhangiro of the Abayango clan, another agent of Wamara. He sent his youngest son, also called Ruhinda, to rule over lhangiro. Finally, he moved to Buzinza, deposed Nshashame and installed another son. Thus, having gained a foothold in Karagwe, Ruhinda quickly overran the surrounding area, deposing Bachwezi agents and replacing them with his sons. He was well on the way to creating a Bahinda state in the south similar to the Babito state in the north or the Rwanda state created by the Banyiginya of Buganza, when he died in BU7-in1A. With his death, the large area of his influence became fragmented. His sons, who had acted as his agents, now became independent rulers of their respective areas and founded the dynasties of Karagwe, lhangiro, Kyamutwara and Buzin1A. These Bahinda successor states of Kitara were small and were to remain so for a long time. From this survey, it is evident that the period following the "disappearance" of the Bachwezi saw the emergence of several states in the interlacustrine regions: Gisaka, the Buganda states, Rwanda, Ndorwa of the Bashambo, the Babito states and Buganda (which we have not yet considered). With the possible exception of Buganda, most of the new states had a marked pastoralist element. Ruhinda was a herdsman, whereas the Bagyesera, Banyiginya and Bashambo were pastoralists. The Babito, though initially hunters and agriculturalists, rapidly acquired the characteristics of pastoralist rulers.

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88 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS

The Rwanda complex In discussing the early history of Rwanda, we shall adopt Vansina's outline, as modified in a major interpretative essay by J. K. Rennie. (51) In doing so, we are fully aware of the immense influence of the works of Kagame and of the White Fathers generally. (52) But these works suffer from two major defects: first, they are court-centered, and therefore tell us little about the reactions of the societies that were being incorporated into the Rwanda state; and secondly, their objectivity is severely limited by the authors" belief in the outmoded Hamitic theory. Briefly stated, Kagame and the White Fathers maintain that the present Rwanda was formerly occupied by a motley of Bantu families and clans that exhibited little political organization. Into the region came a cohesive group of pastoral "Hamitic Tutsi" from the north, who introduced pastoralism, ironworking, concepts of kingship, a caste society and a number of new crops. Under their leader, Gihanga, they established a number of Tutsi dynasties from the tenth century of the Christian era, which were eventually incorporated into the Rwanda State. Through diplomacy, conquest and economic power, based on the Tutsi control of cattle, their state gradually expanded to include all of modem Rwanda. Through a system of vassalage in which the Bantu ("Hutu") received the use of cattle in return for services and loyalty, the conquered were assimilated into this state. It also marked the origin of the class system in Rwanda or what the sociologist Maquet has termed "The Premise of Inequality" in Rwanda. (53) In order to have a balanced picture of the early history of Rwanda; it is imperative that we should examine the histories of the pre-Nyiginya states and societies. According to tradition, the first inhabitants were almost certainly forest hunters and gatherers, represented by the Batwa. Besides hunting, they practiced pottery and basketwork. Later, when the agriculturalists began to arrive and to clear the forests for permanent settlements, the hunters brought skins and meat to them in exchange for salt and iron goods. The Bantu-speaking agriculturalists grew sorghum, kept livestock and bees, hunted and developed village industries. They wore goatskins and barkcloth and they organized themselves into lineages and clans under the leadership of lineage heads or chiefs respectively. (54) By the fifteenth century, many of the Bantu-speakers were organized into small states. Each state comprised several different lineages under a ruling lineage headed by a mwami (chief or king), who was both a land chief as well as a ritual leader in charge of rain-making. (55) The position was thus similar to that already described in the Ruhinda complex. There is evidence that some of

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The Great Lakes Region 89

these lineages - for example, the Rubunga lineage of the Singa clan and the Heka lineage of the Zigaba clan - had acquired cattle before the establishment of the Nyiginya clan in Rwanda, and that several major states had emerged before the advent of the Nyiginya clan. Each of them was controlled by a dominant clan, although we should reiterate that clan names at this time were more in the nature of political labels than names of exogamous groups descended from some eponymous ancestor. It is generally agreed that seven major clans had pre-Nyiginya states. These were the Singa, Zigaba, Gesera, Banda, Cyaba, Ongera and Enengwe. (56) Of these seven, three - the Singa, Zigaba and Gesera are recognized as abasangwabutaka, that is those who were there before anybody else, or the original owners of the land in Rwanda. (57) What was the nature of these states and how were they incorporated into Rwanda. The first part of this question will be discussed below, but the second part in most cases falls outside the scope of the present discussion. According to Tutsi traditions, the oldest state in Rwanda was probably established by the Renge lineages of the Singa clan. Although loosely organized, it covered most of modem Rwanda except the eastern section. History has not, however, preserved any name for this area. What is clear from the traditions is that the Renge had developed a complex concept of ritual kingship. We learn that at the end of the sixteenth century a body of ritual experts known as Tege, and claiming descent from Nyabutege, were incorporated into the state institutions of Rwanda. Nyabutege is supposed to be a descendant of Rubunga, a Renge ritual specialist from whom Gihanga, the founder of the Tutsi clans of Rwanda, adopted the drum and the Renge ritual code of royalty. (58) By the middle of the seventeenth century, all the Renge states had been absorbed into the expanding Rwanda state. In the far east of Rwanda was the Mubari state of the Zigaba clan, which apparently covered an extensive area. The Nyiginya clan is first mentioned in the history of Rwanda, receiving the hill of Gasabo from the Zigaba rulers. (59) The former were allowed to have their own chief, but he was to be under the jurisdiction of the latter. At this time, the two groups intermarried freely. However, the Mubari state of the Zigaba lost its independence by the end of the sixteenth century, when the Rwanda ruler Yuki II Gahima took their drum Sera from them. In spite of the loss of political independence, the dynasty managed to survive until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Kigeri III Ndabarasa (1765-92) killed the king and ended the dynasty. Small groups of the Zigaba migrated to different parts of south-west Uganda, where they played leading roles, as shown above.

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90 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Closely related to the Zigaba were the Gesera, who ruled over the powerful state of Gisaka and managed to maintain its independence until the nineteenth century, when it finally disintegrated and was annexed by Mwami Rwogera (c. 1830-60). But Gesera rule continued until the twentieth century in two small states which had broken away from Gisaka: Busozo in the south-west of Rwanda which was apparently founded in the early seventeenth century, and Bushiru in the north-west. (60) In north-central Rwanda was another state, Busigi, under a rain-making chief. Busigi was not finally incorporated into Rwans:fa as a state until the early part of the twentieth century. (61) Several other smaller states could also be mentioned, but enough evidence has been given to show that the new state of Rwanda was not being established over stateless peoples. For a long time Gisaka, for instance, was as well organized as the young state of Rwanda. These states, varying in size and strength, had evolved institutions of kingship as well as ritual power over the land and rain. Some of these political and religious institutions were incorporated into the new state of Rwanda as it expanded during the next three centuries. Indeed, court rituals in Rwanda were politically effective largely because they incorporated agriculturalist and pastoralist rituals, and a number of agriculturalists were given important ritualist positions in society. They therefore developed a vested interest in the system. From about the fifteenth century, the number of pastoralists increased sharply in these states. Initially, they were not a dominant caste, and in some areas they may even have been clients of the cultivators. Vansina has produced enough evidence to show that, in the north-east, north-west and west of Rwanda, there was a peaceful coexistence between the pastoralists and the agriculturalists. The system of vassalage that was to characterize the relationship between the two groups developed after 1500, during a period when both groups had to be incorporated into a new Rwanda state. Although it is always risky to argue from the present to the past, it is generally accepted that at least nine of the major Rwanda clans are Tutsi, and hence probably originally pastoralist. The nine clans are the Sindi, Nyakarama, Ega, Shambo, Sita, Ha, Shingo, Kono and Hondogo. They have evolved a nationalist charter which traces the origin of all Tutsi clans back to Gihanga, a mythical founder. These pastoralists did not move in large cohesive groups. They came in small groups until by the end of the fifteenth century they were numerically strong enough to form powerful lineage organizations in the south, where they soon clashed with the agriculturalists. But, with the exception of two groups, none of these lineages was strong enough in the fifteenth century to form an independent state. The exceptions were the Hondogo and the Nyiginya. The

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· The Great Lakes Region 91 former had settled around Lake Mugesera in the south and had established a political organization which enabled them to drive the Gesera eastwards into Gisaka. The second group, the Nyiginya, were to form the ruling dynasty of Rwanda. They had come from Mubari in the east and settled, as we have seen, at Gasabo in central Rwanda around Lake Muhazi. By the end of the fifteenth century they had succeeded in establishing a centralized state with institutions that incorporated both pastoralists and agriculturalists. The creation of an independent territorial state of Rwanda, its consolidation and expansion are themes which fall outside the period under consideration. (62)

The Buganda, Busoga, Mount Elgon region According to Cohen, the period between 1100 and 1400 witnessed the movement of a number of Bantu-speaking clans from the Mount Elgon-Lake Victoria region. It is not clear what caused this major dispersal. Kiwanuka has suggested that the 'south-eastern advance of the Luo had some influence on these migrations". It is evident from Luo tradition, however, that this movement predates the earliest Luo migration in this area by at least a century. These Bantu-speaking groups were to have a significant role in the political developments in their new homelands after 1100. One section of this migration included the Kintu complex of clans, which Cohen suggests migrated south of Lake K yoga and were responsible for the founding of a number of tiny states, including Buganda, along the northern shores of Lake Victoria. (63) It is not clear whether a person called Kintu ever lived. What seems to be evident is that the Kintu figure is associated with a complex of Bantuspeaking clans whose totems are the leopard and the lions. According to Buganda traditions, the major stopping places of Kintu - such as Nnono, Buvvi, Bukesa, Mangira, Magonga and Butwala - are identical with the leopard clan land in Buganda. Similarly, Kanyanya and Lwadda, which today are among the most important lands of the lion clan in Buganda, are traditionally regarded as Kintu's stopping places. The lion-leopard complex of clans had been preceded on the northern coast of Lake Victoria by a number of Bantu-speaking clans, among them the manis, civet cat, colobus monkey, bird, lungfish and reedbuck. In Buganda, the clans are called the banansagwa or those "found in the place". Politically, these groups had clan's heads who operated independently from one another. Only the reedbuck clan had created a multi-clan chiefdom of Bugulu, headed by the igulu in what is today southern Busoga. The chiefdom was centered on a large pottery industry and an important religious shrine, both controlled by the ruling lineage of the Abaise Igulu. The clan had been migrating in an east-west direction along

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92 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS the northern coast of Lake Victoria. Its first encounter with the lion-leopard complex was in Bugulu. Another group of the banansagwa who met the K.intu complex of clans in the Bugulu area was the lungfish clan. According to their traditions, collected by Cohen in Busoga, Buganda and on the islands on Lake Victoria, they left a place called Bumogera between Kisumu and Mount Elgon, where they were important fishe1111en and iron-workers. (For the clans and places mentioned in this account, see Fig. 7.3.) It is not clear when they left their original home or why. From Bumogera they crossed Lake Victoria: some went to south Busoga; others to the Buvuma Islands; others to Busagazi on the Kyaggwe coast, from where Mubiru, a lungfish leader, passed inland to Mangira, where be found K.intu. The section of the clan that went to south Busoga was led by Walumbe; they met the K.intu group at Bugulu. It would appear at this time that the Kintu figure or symbol emerged as the leader of the lion-leopard complex. He married Nambubi, the daughter of Walumbe, and thus began the important relationship between the lion-leopard and the lungfish clans. The lgulu was obviously uneasy about these immigrant groups. According to tradition, he was the person who, perhaps using an oracle, advised Kintu or the lion-leopard families to leave. Kintu and his followers decided to travel westwards until they came to Buswi.kira, which is still regarded in Busoga traditions as the "landing place" of Kintu and Nambubi in their travel from Ggulu or "heaven". It would appear that what is referred to in the Buganda genesis story as Ggulu or "heaven", which Kintu left behind, is a symbolic representation of Bugulu and her shrine. Soon they were followed to Buswikira by their in-laws, the lungfish clan led by Walumbe. But there soon developed a struggle between lion-leopard and lungfish groups over the distribution of lands, which eventually drove the Walumbe contingent a few miles west of Buyanirwa, where they established a permanent settlement. The traditions of the AbaiseMaganda of Busoga record that Walumbe is their most important deity, whose shrine is still closely guarded by the lungfish clan. According to Busoga traditions, Buswikira was the centre of Kintu's activities in Busoga. The traditions further claim that the Abaiselsumbwa and AbaiseKyema ruling groups, who founded the chiefdoms of Bunyole, Bukasango and Bukyema on the lakeshore, are descended from K.intu's sons. From Busoga, Kintu moved westwards into what was to become the nucleus of Buganda. Besides the leopard-lion clans, other groups that tradition records as having accompanied Kintu or followed in his wake from the east were: elephant, otter, duiker, hippo, dog and yam. They also encountered the

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The Great Lakes Region 93

Figure 7.3 Kintu to Kimera (B.A. Ogot)

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94 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS section of the lungfish clan led by Mubiru, who had already arrived in the area, and who were hostile to Kintu and his followers. But a more serious threat facing K.intu came from King Bemba of Buddu. Besides the chiefdom of Bugulu, which has already been considered, the chiefdom of Bemba located in Buddu was the only other pre-Kintu, Bantu, multi-clan, political organization in modem Busoga and Buganda. A clash between Kintu, who had allied himself with one of the indigenous clans - the colobus monkey clan - and King Bemba soon ensued. The latter was killed, and K.intu or his successor proceeded to establish the nucleus of what was to develop into the state of Buganda. This reconstruction of the histories of Buganda, Busoga, eastern Uganda and western Kenya during this period has also helped to bring out the point which has been made repeatedly in this chapter, that several small states were established in the interlacustrine region by Bantu-speaking agriculturists before the pastoralists became politically important In the area under discussion, and during the period 1200-1500, it would appear that the activities of the pastoralist were peripheral. Buganda, in particular, and the small states of Busoga to a certain degree, emerged as forest states whose economies depended more on agriculture than on a combination of pastoralism and agriculture with the resulting caste systems and class structures. Even demographically, we know that the banansagwa or the original inhabitants of Buganda were agriculturalists; the K.intu complex of clans were also agriculturalists, and K.imera and his followers from the west, whose story is related below, became primarily agriculturalists. Both Cohen and Buchanan have noted that some of the clans of the K.intu complex seem to have moved west into the K.itara complex. (64) Since the entry of the Kintu groups into the centre of what is today Buganda appears, according to Cohen, to have occurred immediately before the emergence of the Bachwezi rule in western Uganda, it is therefore quite plausible that the section migrating west could have arrived in Kitara during King Wamara's time, as discussed above. (65) By this time a person by the name of Kantu had already emerged as the leader of the eastern immigrants. As already noted, King Wamara made blood brotherhood with him, as part of his strategy of incorporating immigrants into the established system. But this eastern group seems to have posed a special threat to Wamara. Their leader, Kantu, was killed, an event which, according to Bunyoro traditions, greatly affected the stability of the empire. (66) Feeling insecure, groups of clans began to move away towards the equatorial forests along the northern shores of Lake Victoria. This west-east migration to Buganda brings us to one of the unresolved historical problems of the interlacustrine region- the Kimera complex.

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The Great Lakes Region 95 Kimera (c. 1344-74) is often identified with the Kitara area. Even more important, he is identified as the founder of a new dynasty in the small chiefdom of Buganda. (67) Much of the controversy surrounding Kimera bas been concerned with the identify of his clan. One tradition bas linked him with the bushbuck clan of Luo origin. Another tradition links him to the grasshopper clan of the Bahima. Kiwanuka, for instance, relying on a history of the grasshopper clan written by Kaggwa, argues that Kimera was probably a member of the Busoga dynasty, who had established themselves at Kisozi. In any case, be adds, quoting Gorju approvingly, "Kimera's coming to Buganda seems to have antedated the arrival of the first Babito rulers in Bunyoro. (68) What would appear to be important is not the personal identity of Kimera. We should try to understand the meaning of the Kimera traditions, or what we have called the Kimera complex. It would appear that the Kimera traditions deal with the migrations of several refugee groups that were fleeing from the Bachwezi empire into the equatorial forest from the time of Ndahura to the collapse of that empire. Initially, they were apparently escaping from the general insecurity which had been generated by Ndahura's military activities. Kimera himself seems to have left Kitara at this time. With the death of Kantu, followed later by the collapse of the Bachwezi rule, more refugees left Kitara to seek refuge in Buganda, just as they sought refuge in Nkore and other areas which offered political stability. Tradition is silent on the routes followed by these refugees. It is quite possible that the earliest groups, such as the one which included Kimera, may have established settlements or even states en route, in the same way as the lionleopard families were doing in Busoga. Moreover, the refugee groups were multi clan and multilingual. Some of them were probably indigenous Bantuspeaking groups of Kitara; some were pastoralist Bahima; some were Luo hunters and agriculturalists; and some were Bantu clans originally of the Kintu complex. According to Buganda traditions, the Kimera complex included the following clans; buffalo, bushbuck, grasshopper, squirrel, crow and hart. So if a researcher collected the tradition of the busbbuck clan in Buganda, as Crazzolara did, be would conclude that Kimera and his followers were Luo. If he restricted himself to the grasshopper clan, as Kaggwa and his translator, Kiwanuka, have done, he would conclude that they were Bahima. (69) Moreover, in using the date of the establishment of Bito rule in Bunyoro-Kitara as an argument against regarding Kimera as a Luo, one should remember that, as already indicated, many Luo groups preceded the Babito in Bunyoro. As people fleeing from various regimes, their ideology was understandably anti-Bachwezi, anti-Babito and anti-Bahima. It is not surprising that traditions linking Buganda to any of the three groups have been suppressed,

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96 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS even where the evidence is overwhelming. For instance, when we compare the Bachwezi traditions of Bunyoro and Nkore with the traditions of Buganda, which rarely refer to the Bachwezi, we find several similarities which historians cannot afford to ignore. In Bunyoro and Nkore the gatekeeper of King Isau of Kitara was Bulrulu of the BaJanzi clan. On the Sesse Islands the traditions of the otter clan - which is as small as the Balanzi clan - name one Bukulu. In Bunyoro and Nkore, the daughter of Bukulu, and hence the mother of King Ndahura, was Nyinamwiru. The Kiganda equivalent is Namuddu, who is widely found in Sesse legends. From the west we learn that Bukulu's grandson was called Mugasha, and in Buganda tradition gives the name of Bukulu's grandson as Mukasa. We learn from the traditions of Nkore that Mugasha disappeared in Lake Victoria. In Buganda, W amala, who is a descendant of Bukulu, is associated with the making of the same lake. Moreover, just as the Bachwezi spirits are deified in the Kitara complex area, the Baganda deify the spirits of the descendants of Bukulu, such as Nende and Mukasa. Is it not possible, therefore that the descendant ofBukulu in Buganda were Bachwezi? To go back to the fleeing clans that constituted the Kimera complex, it would appear that, just as they left Bunyoro at different times, they also arrived in Buganda at different times. Unfortunately, all these refugee clans, irrespective of when they reached Buganda, now regard themselves as part of the Kimera migration, largely because people like to associate themselves with success. Kimera, the leader of refugee groups founded a new dynasty and a state that brought together the thirty-five clans that had settled in the area from different directions. Each clan wanted to participate in the monarchy, and therefore there arose in Buganda the custom of each clan presenting wives to the Kabaka, giving each the opportunity to provide his successor. (70) By 1500 the migration and settlement period of Buganda history had ended The consolidation and expansion of the new kingdom belonged to the future.

ENDNOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

C. Wrigley, 1985 and 1973 Kagame, 1955, p. 112 See S.R. Karugire, 1971 D.P. Henige, 1974 Kagame, 1959. The genealogy begins as follows: Gihanga I (959-02), Gahima I (992-1025), Musindi (1025-58), Rumesa (1058-91), Nyanume (1091-1124), Rukuye J. Vansina, 1960 C.A. Buchanan, 1974

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The Great Lakes Region 97 8. Ehret, 1974, p. 8 9. Ehret, 1967, p. 3; J.E.G. Sutton 1972 pp. 11 and 23. 10. S. Pearce and M. Posnansky, 1963; S. Chapman 1967; J. Hiemaux and E. maquet, 1968, p. 43. 11. See also J. Nyakatura, 1947. His genealogy would suggest 869-96 for the first Batembuzi and 1301-28 for lsau, the last. 12. ibid., pp. 6-65. 13. F.X. Lwamgira, 1949, p. 65. 14. Nyakatura,op. cit., A.G. Katate and L. Kamugungunu, 1967 edn 15. G .W.B Huntingford, 1963, p. 86 16. R. Oliver, in R. Oliver and G. Mathew (eds), 1963-76, vol. 1, pp. 181-2 17. J.P. Crazzolara, 1950-4, vol. 2, pp. 94-7 and 102-3. In this chapter, I shall use the correct spelling, Luo, and not the old, Europeanized version, Lwoo. 18. M.Posnansky, 1966,pp.4-5 19. Wrigley, 1973, p. 226 20. Ehret,1974c,p. 11 21. See J.b. Webster, 1978 22. 22. See Oliver and Mathew, op. cit p. 180, B.A. Ogot, 1967, vol. 1. pp. 46-7, Posnansky, op.cit., p.5. 23. Blount, and R.T. Curley, 1970. lam of course aware that many linguists no longer believe in glotto-chronology. 24. ibid. 25. Ogot, op. cit. - the Joka-Jok were already in western Kenya in the late fifteenth century. 26. Buchanan, op. cit., p. 181. 27. ibid. 28. K.K. Nganwa, 1948, pp. 6-7, P.K. Kanyamunyu, 1951. 29. Lwamgira op. cil 30. On the expansionist policy of Bunyoro-Kitara, see B.A. Ogot, volume V, Chapter 26. 31. See A. Wheeler, 1971. 32. F. Geraud, 1977, p. 24. 33. See Z. Rwandusya, 1972. 34. I.K.Katoke, 1975,p. 14. 35. Geraud, op. cit., p. 28. 36. "In Rwanda the rain-makers are mostly descendants of the local kings of the Bantu clans", A. Pages, quoted by Geraud, ibid., p. 30. 37. J.K. Rennie, 1972, pp. 18-9. 38. Geraud, op. cit.,p. 27. 39. M. d"Hertefelt, 1971, table 8.

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98 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61 . 62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

M. Pauwels, 1967.208 Denoon, 1972, p. 6. Rennie, op. cit., p. 23. Karugire, op. cit., pp. 122-3. Kanyamunyu, op. cit. The Bashambo women are supposed to have married the Bachwezi. See Geraud, op. cit., L. de Heusch, 1966. Karungire, op. cit., 126-7. ibid. Denoon, op. cit., p. 10. Nyakatura, op. cit., pp. 65-6 and 290; see also F.X. Lwamgira, "History of Karagwe, Ihangiro, nyamitwara, etc", 11npublished MS. pp. 1-3 Karugire, op. cit., pp. 130-1 and 137-42. Vansina, op. cit., Rennie, op. cit. Kagame, 19S4, 1959, 1961 and 1963. J.J. P. Maquet, 1961. M. d''Hertefelt, 1963, pp. 4104, Vansina, op. cit., p. 78. Vansina, op. cit., pp. 77-8. Kagame, 1955. Kagame, 1954, p. 56. Kagame, 1955, p. 13. Kagame, 1954, pp. 53-4. d"Arianoff, 1952. Pauwels, op. cit., p. 223. According to Rennie's chronology, which is a modification of Vansina's only three kings fall within our period: Ndahiro Runange (1424-51), Bdoba s/o Bdahiro (1451-78) and Samembe s/o Ndoba (1478-1505). D.W. Cohen, 1972,esp. pp. 70 ff; M.S.M.S. Kiwanuka 1971,p. 33. Bachanan, op. cit. D.W. Cohen, in Webster, op. cit. Nyakatura, op. cit. Kiwanuka, op. cit., pp. 36-41 . ibid., pp. 40-1, A. Kaggwa, 1905; J.L. Gorju, 1920. Grazzolara, op. cit., A. Kaggwa, 1971 . Kiwanuka, op. cit., pp. 91-110.

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CHAPTERS The Future of the Past in Africa Reflections on the Post Cold War Era§ Beginning in the late 1940's, the East-West conflict (later renamed the Cold War) and its various dimensions such as power politics, nuclear confrontation, philosophy and ideology, and social policy moulded the international system into an essentially bipolar structure. However, this basic structure was only established to its full extent in the field of nuclear confrontation, while on other levels of conflict it was obscured and distorted by other developments. Decolonisation, for example, allowed the programmatic build up of the Third World outside Cold War. Furthermore, both camps contained more or less large minorities who modeled themselves on the pattern of society taken from the other side - the socialists and communists in the West and the Trotskyites in the East. Furthermore, although it has been emphasized by students of international relations that the main thematic issues during the period of the Cold War (1945 1989) were power, economic strength and ideology, which produced a "warped stability" and a "code of acceptable behaviour, which helped spare humanity the devastation of a Third World War" it should not be forgotten that the dominant issue for the majority of the world's population during this period was colonialism and the aspirations for freedom embodied in the Atlantic Charter. The people of Asia, the Middle East and Africa were more concerned about the control of their lives, land and resources by Westem Europeans than they were about comm11nism. Their struggles were often subsumed within the bipolar struggle in which the notion of freedom was often reduced to a simplistic anticommunism. This is the sense in which Western powers offered a type of freedom that rested on a negative sense of freedom from communism. The positive aspects of liberty and justice for individuals and nations was subsumed within the Cold War power imperatives. That is why, for the majority of the

f Presented at the 1995

Historical Association ofKenya Conference on "The

Post-Cold War Era and the Future of Scholarship in Africa." K.isumu

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100 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS people on earth, the same period of history produced ferocious and hot regional wars fought either through proxy armies, for example, in Angola or directly as in Vietnam, Korea and Afghanistan. The structural imposition of the Cold War through superpower interests and the attempt to extend the ideological conflict, inflicted behaviour that was far from acceptable, resulting in the deaths of more than 20 million people. These struggles, in the case of Africa, resulted in the attainment of political independence by the new nation-states between 1951 and 1991. In establishing the new nation-states, the western model was used, and the past of Africa was ignored or treated as irrelevant. Also, as Geoffrey Barraclough has argued in his book, Contemporary History ( 1), the "rise of the masses" is one of the most important features of the world since 1945. But this rise to democratic participation has at times been offset by the power imperatives of the North and the severely limited economic power of the masses is counterbalanced by the dominance of the world economy by the United States, the European Union and Japan. The development strategies applied in the Third World were those from the West. And in Africa the dynamics of social reality were still seen through what Paul Richards refers to as the "refracting lenses of "mainstream" debates in European social philosophy or Comparative Historiography." (2) Then there came the years of wonder, 1989 - 1991. The Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall fell and Germany was unified, Russia headed towards becoming a normal nation and communism died! The three years truly ushered in a new phase in world politics. Yet the impact of the end of the Cold War has not been unidirectional. The tense confrontation between the two armed camps has disappeared and in this sense ideological conflict seems to have come to an end, at least for the moment. But conflicts of economic and political interests are becoming more and more common among the major nations of the world, and more and more tense. The Cold War has ended, but hot wars rage in more than thirty countries and regions. The wave of immigrants from poor territories to rich countries and the influx of people from rural areas to cities have reached unprecedented scale, forming what the UN population Fund has called ''the Current Crisis of mankind". It is also the age of "everyone for themselves", where the strongest trample down the weakest. Financial and economic strategies are formulated primarily on a world scale, without taking any account of each country's special socio-cultural circumstances. The same economic medicine is prescribed for all socioeconomic ailments. Diversity is treated uniformly, irrespective of the country's natural and human resources, culture, history, or vision of the future.

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The Future ofthe Past in Africa: Reflection on the Post-Cold War Era 101

The concept of security in the Post-Cold War era has also changed. It is no longer looked at in te111is only of inter-state relations. The maintenance of world security and stability requires strategies to combat poverty, ignorance and exclusion - (exclusion of the masses and exclusion of the intellectuals, exclusion of the women and exclusion of the youth from democracy and exclusion of many nations from global decision-making). Hence, international security can only be maintained today by promoting education and the transfer of knowledge; by helping countries to help themselves so that they become partners in world trade; raising standards in rural areas; arresting urban decay; enforcing the rule of law and effecting operation of justice; guaranteeing freedom of expression and the establishment of democracy. In short, it is the happiness of citizens that we must seek in order to have a more stable, less unbalanced world. There are two discernible trends which have become more pronounced with the end of the Cold War. First, there is the trend towards the globalization which means that more and more aspects of life on the part of increasing numbers of people are being integrated into the interrelations and chains of action which currently or potentially stretch round the world. The economic data of stock exchanges and the investment decisions of those in charge of capital, the migration consideration of those living under difficult circumstances, the tourist horizons of the comfortable middle classes, drug-dealing and forms of organized crime, AIDS menace, the danger of ecological catastrophe such as the gradual disappearance of the tropical rain forest or the expansion of the hole in the ozone layer, the international and transnational exchange of culture - these and many others, are examples of the intensifying movement towards the globalization of social relations. But who should form and control these relations? What institutions and organizations can effectively meet the challenge of globalization? How do we legitimize decisions m~e by a few people or a few nations, say in the Security Council or in the G7? These are some of the issues which still await solution The world has witnessed tremendous material progress in the second half of the twentieth century but unfortunately the benefits have not been distributed equally, causing greater division than ever between the rich nations of the North and the poor nations of the South. But globalization has created a second and opposite trend-fragmentation. This is because globalization triggers widespread insecurity because it dissolves structures which have been in existence for a long time and melts traditional collective identities. Hence, the process is met by resistance, which has in the meantime become so strong that a trend against globalization may now be discerned, namely the increasing fragmentation of larger political units. This is

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102 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS something which should not only be interpreted as the break-up of multinational state organization, although this is indeed a process which nowadays has particularly explosive force (not only in Eastern Europe, but also in parts of Asia, Africa and Canada). Fragmentation is also taking place where the acknowledgement of global or universal values is being delayed or rejected out of hand in the name of cultural independence. This attitude can, for e,cample, be observed in the debate on the protection of human rights or on democracy. Perhaps we can best illustrate the problem of cultural resistance or fragmentation by considering the rapid globalization of culture through the multinational media concerns. Since 1962, when Marshall Mcl.11ban described the rise of a "global village" in bis book Gutenberg Galaxy (3), the phrase has been adopted, and indeed, it bas become a clicbe". But the idea of a "global village" is only partly true. People have a primary need to belong, to have a sense of place, context, and safety. Today, we are seeing a contradiction in global expansion. Accompanying the rise of a world economy and culture, we are seeing a kind of collapsing going on, a pulling-in, a coming together. As people feel more than ever surrounded by expanding, uniform horizons of often cruel socio-economic seas, they more keenly hunt out sheltered coves in which to feel secure. Wherever we look today, we see this happening. In the old Soviet Empire, tiny communities are killing each other over claims to bits of earth. In the United States, the "multiculturalist" movement, now entrenched in major universities, seeks to inculcate heightened ethnic and racial awareness in students. Everybody is looking for symbols on which they can get a hold. Even in a long-established kingdom like the United Kingdom of Britain, this search for symbols can be discerned. Although over 1.5 billion people today speak English worldwide, yet in 1993, the British Parliament found it necessary to pass a law to promote the use of Welsh. Since Wales was annexed in 1536, there has always been a Welsh resilience that English rulers could not crush. The present resurgence of Welsh in Wales is something that the champions of "global village" idea would have trouble explaining. The population is only 2.9 million, but since 1991 the number of native language speakers has been rising. In the Scottish highlands, we see a similar ~nd. Although Gaelic is virtually dead, the Scotts have other symbols of themselves around which to mobilise, including whisky. In a survey carried out in 1994, three-quarters of the Scots said they were Scottish, not British, and 44% said they wanted their own parliament. Both the Welsh and the Scots are simply trying to show that they are not English. But in this search for belonging in different parts of the globe there is often evident a sense of difference, of distrust or even of disdain.

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The Future ofthe Past in Africa: Reflection on the Post-Cold War Era 103 The search for belonging often leads to separation, extreme nationalism, xenophobia, racialism, fascizm and religious and ethnic fundamentalism. And today, this new irrationality threatens our societies. The hopes we have fostered of curbing this via the spread of enlightenment and humanity, the internationalization of trade and the adoption of liberal democracy remain illusions. Every society has to contend with the fact that it contains different groups with different interest and unequal privileges Societies generate different forms of integration with different degrees of efficiency. In addition to ideological and symbolic orientation (upon which nobody can rely alone), the power monopoly of Central authority is regarded by many to be especially dependable. However, integration based on force requires a great deal of effort if the state monopoly on power is to be secured. And history teaches us that those who limit themselves in this respect place themselves in a precarious situation because the need for regulation increases faster than the capacity for such. Explanations for the current world scene and attempts to comprehend it culturally and politically have emerged in several ways. Fundamentalism and a return to extreme nationalism have been advanced as possible solutions to the current cultural and political malaise. In societies with appalling disparities in income, with traditional family and communal life put under severe stress by new economic and financial imperatives and with rampant corruption among business and ruling classes, movements which appeal to "old values,, such as Christian or Islamic fundamentalism have gained ascendancy. And recently Professor Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard University has advanced the provocative argument that the Cold War bipolarism has been superseded by what he called "Clash of Civilizations,,, a thesis based on the premise that Western, Confucian, Islamic, Slavic-Orthodox, Japanese, Hindu civilizations, among several others, were rather like water-tight compartments whose adherents were, at bottom, mainly interested in fending off all the others (4). Buried alive, as it were, during the years of the Cold War, these civilizations, according to Huntington, rose as soon as the stone was rolled off, dusted themselves off, and proceeded to claim the loyalty of their adherents. It is doubtful whether Huntington included African civilizations among 'several others,,. It would appear that even in this new scenario, the African past has been overlooked. Huntington's main concern is with the state of the West - a concept which remains unexamined throughout the essay. 1n making itself during the last four centuries or so, the West, through its tremendous intellectual and cultural contributions, has helped make the others as well. But now, he contends, we have come to the end of this trail. He is concerned about the "de-

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104 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Westernization" of societies, their "indigenintion" and apparent willingness to go their own way. This is a worrying, though inevitable, trend. In an alarming way, he concludes that, ''The next world war, if there is one, will be a war between civilizations". This is an obsolete idea, since one of the great advances in modem cultural theory is the realization, almost universally acknowledged, that cultures are hybrid and heterogeneous. And as a distinguished Palestinian scholar, Professor Edward W. Said, has convincingly argued in his books, Orientals ( 5) and Culture Imperialism (6), cultures and civilizations are so interrelated and interdependent as to defy any unitary or similarly delineated description of their individuality. It is therefore misleading to attempt to force cultures and people into separate and distinct essences as Huntington has attempted to do. Before Huntington, we had Francis Fukuyama, a theorist and apologist of the exultant Western tradition. His book, The End of History and the Last Man (7), was acclaimed by George Gilder in the Washington Post Book World as "awesome .... a landmark - profoundly realistic and important -supremely timely and cogent.... the first book to fully further the depth and ranges of change now sweeping through the World!" Whether one accepts its arguments or not, Fukuyama's book is definitely important in that it deals with the forces that have shaped and will continue to influence the course of world history. (See (8)) He contends that the end of the Cold War and triumph of liberal democracy constitute the end of history, ''the end of mankind's ideological evolution" and the "fmal form of human government". In analysing these issues, Fukuyama gives Africa very casual and spurious treatment, a practice which he shares with Hegel and Marx. The kind of liberal democracy and mature capitalism he talks about do not exist in Africa. The Westminster and other foreign models of government that were bequeathed to Africa by the European colonialists have largely failed to work. And so have single-party systems and military regimes. The multi-party systems are not doing any better because they are nothing more than perverted forms of Western models which continue to ignore African history. There is also the crisis of the state itself. The kind of liberal state he refers to is non-existent in Africa. It would therefore appear that, in accordance with Fukuyama's own prescription, Africa has not yet reached the end of history. This conclusion could probably be extended to include most of the Third World. There is therefore an urgent need for these countries to produce their own theories, analyses, ideologies and methodologies to explain their own place in the world. In other words, the production of·historical knowledge in these countries can no longer be left to the champions and apologists of Western hegemony as has tended to be the case hitherto.

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The Future ofthe Past in Africa: Reflection on the Post-Cold War Era 105 Recently, for example, Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean, has argued in an article in Foreign Affairs that the significant difference between the 21st century and the preceding centuries is that there will be three centers of world power (Europe, North America and East Asia) as opposed to two in the twentieth (Europe and N. America) and one (Europe) form 1500 - 1900. He cogently argues that today, E . Asia has arrived on the world stage, to stay. Western thinkers, he contends, have considerable difficulty in finding the right paradigms to describe a world where non-Western powers are emerging. Their natural impulse is to assume that, as they succeed, these powers will become more like Western societies (an ass1Jmption implicit in the "end of history" thesis) or that there will be a "Clash of civilizations". Neither is likely, he declares. He argues that the difficulty that Western minds face in grasping the arrival of East Asia arises from the fact that we are witnessing an unprecedented historical phenomenon: a fusion of Western and East Asian cultures in the Asia-Pacific region. It is this fusion, not a renaissance of ancient Asia glories, that explains the explosive growth of the Pacific and provides the possibility of continued peace and prosperity in the region, he concludes. This should be food for thought for those of us who believe that African development must be based on African renaissance. The Western assumption is that all countries and regions will model themselves after Europe and America, that the natural progression of history will lead to all societies becoming liberal, democratic and capitalist. This assumption (which seems to have been validated since the end of the Cold War) creates an inability to accept that other cultures or social forms may have equal validity. For example, for Islamic societies to progress, they must become more western. A belief in the universality of one's ideas can lead to an inability to accept the principle of diversity. What is the position of Africa? Are we part of the new consciousness among the formerly colonized and oppressed peoples of the world? And if so what is our exact intellectual contribution to this consciousness? A quick survey of conference and seminar proceedings, books, articles and speeches on Africa reveal one important fact: they all suffer from the new disease of "Afropessimism". They talk of crises and predicament and they promote bewilderment and hopelessness among the masses. Since African countries have lost, in the post-Cold War era, the influence they once wielded as objects of international competition, their leaders and scholars concentrate on discussing their marginalization. On the whole, there is a lack of a clear, well thought-out idea of what we Africans can become and want to become in the near future. Africans must work out their priorities - Africans of all classes must

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106 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS develop a clear picture of their future - with realistic and related aims and a clear framework. The framework must be part of a vision of society shared by all. Such a lack of meth~ of clear proposals by ourselves about our future explains why current speeches and writings about Africa's future are simply an echo of the latest foreigners" theories about alternative development. Two broad currents can be distinguished in Africa today: post-colonialism and post-modernism. Both are foreign. Both already have their adherents in Africa. First, post-colonialism emphasises the new modes and forms of the old colonial practices. For example, Paul Johnson, once a Left intellectual and now a bewildered one, writing on "Colonialism's back - and not a moment too Soon" (10). argued that "the civilized nations" ought to take it upon themselves to recolonize Third World countries ''where the most basic conditions of civilized life had broken down", and to do this by means of a system of imposed trusteeship. His model is explicitly of a nineteenth-century colonial one: He says that, in order for Europeans to trade profitably, they had to impose political orders. These are the kind of theories which have influenced the foreign policies of Western countries which remain interventionist in the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa. An American journalist, William Pfaff who writes a syndicated column for the International Herald Tribune, has recently written an almost insulting article entitled "A New Colonialism - Europe must go back into Africa", published in the influential American journal Foreign Affairs (11). "The destitution of Africa has been an all but forbidden topic in political discourse for reasons as comprehensible as they are disabling The time has arrived, however, for honest and dispassionate discussion of this immense human tragedy, for which the Western Countries bear a grave if partial responsibility and which will worsen if not addressed". Then talking of what he calls "The Return of the Bwana", he continues: "Much of Africa needs, to put plainly, what one could call a disinterested neocolonialism. Africans acknowledge the immensity of their crisis and the need to consider hitherto unaccepted remedies". He acknowledges that the idea of a new form of colonialism is likely to be unacceptable, but, he concludes, "in the absence of an alternative, it must be considered." He suggests that the European Union, as an institution, should

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The Future ofthe Past in Africa: Reflection on the Post-Cold War Era 107 collectively assume the responsibility of rehabilitating their former colonies, in cooperation with Africans_ Similar proposals had been made by Professor Ali A. Mazrui in an article called "Decaying Parts of Africa Need Benign Coloniz.ation" (12). Even more recently, Mazrui has prescribed recoloniution as "Africa's greatest hope" (13). Such theories of despair, coming either from foreign advocates who champion interventionist policies or from their local disciples do not help us much to understand the African realities, let alone plan a future for ourselves. They ignore the fact that it was colonialism that arrested the normal development of African societies by first creating artificial political units and later transfonning them into latter-day nineteenth century European nation states. Recoloniz.ation would imply a second disregard of African history, with probably more serious consequences. In history, postmodernism asserts, first that all historical consciousness is an ideological product of the present and only reflects power relations of the present. In other words, the past does not exist. In the words of F. R. Ankersmit, ''there is no past that is given to us or to which we could compare these two or more texts in order to find out which of them does correspond to the past and which does not" (14). All knowledge systems are held to be the characteristic expressions of power structures rather than the products of disinterested reason. Hence the scholarly pursuit of truth is but an elaborate mask that conceals the universal will-to-power. As Hans Kellner had charged "truth" and "reality" are the authoritarian weapons of our time (15). Secondly, it maintains that even had it existed, the past cannot be known because its direct traces are interpreted and hence "invented" by scholars in the present. The only meaning of history, therefore, is that which the historian chooses to give it in accord with his own sensibility and disposition. What the other historians see as an event that actually occurred in the past, the postmodernists see as a "text" that exists only in the present - a ''text" to be construed and interpreted by the historian much as a poem or novel is by the critic. Hence, historians are invited to be "inventive", "imaginative" and "creative". They are anxiously self-conscious these days acutely aware of the ''textuality" of their subject-matter and of the ways in which they are interpreting not facts but "discourses". To quote Kellner again, there is no 'story out there" to get straight. Story narrative is always the historian's construction. For him, "historical text becomes a text among others, to be studied for the art of its composition, the devices required by the discourse of historical writing and the means by which it claims to represent reality". (16).

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108 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Third, the postmodernists believe that the shibboleth of "objectivity" must be dismissed. And although historians normally try to reconcile variant interpretations by reference to facts rather than by arguments over the nature of narratives as such, postmodemism denies factuality and seeks to dissolve referentiality. It therefore denies the very intellectual foundation of current professional historical practice. Fourthly, postmodernism affirms that there is no genuine divide between fact and fiction, and hence no distinction between history and literature. For post modernists historical narratives are ''verbal fictions", the contents of which are as much invented as found and the forms of which have more in common with their counterparts in literature than they have with those in • science. Finally, it does not seek a consensus, for that would mean imposing the relative view of one person or of a class/race/gender, on all others. Hence, postmodernism does not seek one single verity. The movement has produced profound theoretical disputes about the relationship of language to thought, meaning and reality which cannot be brushed aside. It has also generated important discussions about the nature of knowledge and how to obtain it. But it is not clear whether the textualist case has been conclusively established. Is postmodemism in Africa likely to be anything more than just another of those intellectual fashions that the continent is periodically exposed to? Will a disregard of the past and an acceptance of discontinuity in history enable African scholars to "create" or "invent" the future as the postmodernists believe? The most prominent postmodemist Africanists are the historians David William Cohen and E. S. Atieno Odhiambo and the Congolese Philosopher V. Y. Mudimbe. In Siaya:The Historical Anthropology of an African Landscape ( 17), David W. Cohen and E. S. Atieno Odhaimbo study "The way in which people - in ordinary, common place activities - have produced society and culture not only through social practice but also through the formation of histories and anthropologies". They dispense with the usual historical jargon and methodology, and write in a readable style in which fact and fiction mingle. But the statement quoted above shows clearly that they are postmodemists who are determined to deny the existence of any knowable social and cultural history. One does not have to be a postmodernist to know that historians live, act and think in their own

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The Future ofthe Past in Africa: Reflection on the Post-Cold War Era 109 present and that every age demands a history written fonn its own standpoint. but that should not imply that every generation has to reinvent everything. The same authors have also written Burying S. M. : The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power ( 18) and are now writing a book in the same postmodemist vein that will deal with the murder of Robert Ouko. Provisionally entitled Unspeakable Bodies, it will discern ''the practices, programs, discourse and theories (seated within Kenya) through which Kenyans locate, constitute, operationalize, reproduce, comprehend, represent and theorize distinctive fields of political interest". In the field of philosophy, Valentin Y. Mudimbe has been very articulate in spreading the new gospel of postmodernism. His book, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Foundation of Knowledge (19) was hailed as a historical landmark, especially in North America where it won the Herskovits Award. He showed that the very ideas and interpretations of "Africa" and African culture held by African intellectuals were the product of European and North American social science and humanities. He argued that historical truth cannot be absolute in the philosophic sense - which no historian worth his salt has ever claimed anyway. Last year, he produced a sequel to the early book, The Idea of Africa (20) which "is about an idea, the idea of "Africa". What is it and how is it related to contemporary literature?" History, philosophy and literature are juxtaposed to constitute what he calls " ...a mosaic which, although bearing witness to an idea of Africa as expounded within the Western tradition, including, indeed, Africa's reactions to the idea, does not elaborate on ancient descriptive designations of the continent, but rather invites questions about their credibility, about the authenticity of the African identities, geography, and mythology presented in the literature". Both books are not about Africa's Civilizations. They deal with what he calls third level discourse based on selected texts. In five years" time, a new millennium will begin. It will obviously be built on new paradigms. From discernible trends, it would appear that the twentyfirst century will be one of tremendous upheavals, accelerated change and unceasing renewals in a radically different economic, geopolitical and cultural context from which humanity has known to the present day. Science, technology, communication and information technology will radically change the structure of knowledge and the individual and collective destiny of the earth's peoples. With the globalization of markets and the growing enforcement of regional blocs, the world situation will be one of

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110 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS exacerbated commercial, financial and cultural competition and scientific and technology rivalry on an unprecedented scale. International aid will continue to dwindle. But if granted it will be on draconian terms, inspired by a thinly disguised desire to create situations of hegemony or dependency. Africa will have to rely more and more on its own strength. It will have to take its own destiny in hand, and its true future lies in its sons" and daughters" ability to design, forge and enhance a process of renewal of liberation and progress, without which it will never participate as a credible, responsible and respected partner in international relations. Africa, and African scholars, have to cope with these problems. How can we fail to see, together with the difficulties, the enormous potential that Africa has within it, the enthusiasm held in reserve, the formidable creative force that is waiting only for the opportunity to express itself? Africa must be helped by its leaders and scholars to draw on its vital strengths and on all its future potential, so that it may pave its way to development and become a full partner in the world community. This is the real alternative.

Conclusion During the Cold War, the world was divided into two antagonistic blocs who felt it was their responsibility to look after global security. But today, security requires the moral and intellectual solidarity of humankind. It is the responsibility of all of us. It is also an ethical issue which must promote certain values such as justice, equity and freedom. Since it involves all of us, it must imply the institutionalization of democracy, not as structures, borrowed or indigenous, but as an ethical system. Secondly, the globalization of problems such as energy, environment, economy and diseases, require a global approach. This implies that decisionmakers need intellectuals, scientists, economists, media specialists in order to reach rational decisions. But decision-makers everywhere dislike intellectuals, because they are usually noisy and arrogant. They also say things which threaten the position of those who surround the leader. The courtiers become anti-intellectual and isolate the leader from reality, especially global reality. Thirdly, it is now evident that peace and prosperity cannot be achieved through the imposition of models - democratic, legal political and economic. Different countries and societies therefore need intellectuals who can formulate paradigms and models on which endogenous development can be based. But such intellectuals must not be those who will simply support the powers that be or worse still, those who will seek to discredit them for the sake of attaining

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The Future ofthe Past in Africa: Reflection on the Post-Cold War Era 111 power for themselves. Africa needs dreamers, philosophers, and poets. In short, we need creators of utopias, not myopias. Fourthly, there is the problem of global ungovernability. We have democracy which is not prepared to take on board the views of the minorities and which has now led to a dictatorship of the party. We have systems which want to obliterate cultural identities. We have an international situation in which market is god and we have therefore to find a new relationship between the market and global solidarity. In the name of fic:edom of the press, we have a new threat of the media taking over the political arena. a fact which is contributing to global ungovernability. Finally, we have the growth of unemployment, urban decay, and population globally. For example, we know that there was a link between unemployment and the rise of Fascism in Ge11niilly and Spain. Are we heading for that? With regard to population growth, we know that about one million new children are born everyday. Will we be able to govern the world without curtailing this rate of population growth? The global institutions set-up after World War II are not adequate to the situation. A new world order based on culture and moral values and not on economics or ideologies is needed. We have to re-learn to live together and to dream together. Are our scholars ready for the task?

Endnotes Barraclough, Geoffrey, An Introduction to Contemporary History, London, Watts, 1964, 2nd ed p.124. 2. Richard, Paul Coping with Hunger: Hazard and experiment in an African Rice Farming System, London, Allen and Unwin, 1986, p.2. 3. McL,1han, Marshall, Gutenberg Galaxy,1962 4. Huntington, Samuel, Foreign Affairs, July/August, 1993 5. Said, Edward, Orientals, Chatto & Windus, London, 1978 6. Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, Chatto and Windus, London 1993 7. Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and the Last Man, Avon Books, New York, 1992 8. B. A. Ogot, "After the End of History", Maseno Journal of Education, Arts and Sciences, Vol. 2. No. l 1994, 71-76 and Building on the Indigenous, Chapter 6, p. 63-71, Anyange Press, Nairobi, 1999. 9. Mahbubabi, K.ishore, "Asian Cultural Fusion" Foreign Affairs January/February, 1995, p. l 00 - 111. 10. Johnson, Paul, "Colonialism's Back - and not a Moment Too Soon" The New York Times Magazine, April 18, 1993 . 1.

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112 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS 11. Pfaff, William, "A New Colonialism - Europe must go back into Africa", Foreign Affairs, January/February, 1995. 12. Mazrui, Ali "Decaying Parts of Africa Need Benign Colonization", in International Herald Tribune, August 4, 1994 13. Sunday Nation, February 5 1995. 14. Ankersmit, F.R. History and Theory, 1990, P. 28. 15. Kellner, Hans Language and Historical Representation: Getting the Story Crooked, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989, p. 301 16. Ibid. p. 270 17. Cohen, David W. and E.S. Atieno Odhiambo Siaya:The Historical Anthropology ofan African Landscape, James Currey, London, 1988. 18. Cohen, David W. and E.S. Atieno Odhiambo Burying S. M. : The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power, London: James Currey,1992. 19. Mudimbe, Valentin The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Foundation of Knowledge Indiana University Press and James Currey, London, 1990. 20. Mudimbe, Valentin The Idea of Africa, Indiana University Press and James Currey,London, 1994

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CHAPTER9 The Construction of a National Culture§ Culture and Development: A Shifting Focus The histories of most societies indicate that, in working out developmental priorities, the sequence is usually from the economic and technological priority to social concerns and finally to cultural problems. The predominant emphasis on output goals, such as capital formation and the raising of gross national product (GNP), soon leads to problems of social justice: equity and human rights. In other words, the reckless pursuit of wealth, unaccompanied by broader social objectives, aggravates social tensions and generates disharmonies and conflicts which are bound to have unsettling effects on the social order. Often, during these first two stages of development, the cultural objectives of development are either left undefined or stated in very general and vague te101s. It is usually when the forces of destabilization are unleashed that societies are forced to show more concern for culture. This normally means making an attempt to find an alternative approach to development, and a realization that the concept of development itself is value-loaded. In short, it is during this third stage that societies realize that the development paradigm is not an economic matter but a cultural one. With the attainment of political independence, Kenya, like other African countries, was preoccupied with the question of modernizing and developing the new nation. Development as a process and an objective was interpreted to mean modernization, defined largely in economic terms. Culture was not accorded a central place, either as a goal or as an instrumentality. It was still believed that traditional values and institutions were incompatible with modernity. Economic growth and development were of such paramount importance that tradition and

First published as Chapter 8 in Decolonization and Independence in Kenya 1940-93. Edited by Bethwell A. Ogot and W.R. Ochieng, James Currey, London, 1995,pp.214-236.

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114 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS social institutions that stood in the way of the attainment of these objectives had to give way. In the minds of many Kenyan leaders, modernization was also equated with Westernintion. In the 1960's and early 1970's, Western countries were referred to in development literature as "modem", "industrial", "affluent" or "developed" and the countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa as "underdeveloped" (later "developing'). Development came to be seen as a process of change towards those types of social economic and political systems to be found in Western societies. Western societies were once in that original state, the traditional stage, and they had transformed themselves into modem societies by passing through various development phases before reaching their final developed stage. From this it was inferred that African countries, including Kenya, would inevitably go through the same process and stages of development. They could not modernize unless they altered or abandoned their traditional institutions, beliefs and values to suit the demands of development.( I) A detailed discussion of this theory of modernization as applied to Kenya is found in Edward W. Soja's book, The Geography of Modernization in Kenya -A Spatial Analysis of Social, Economic, and Political Change. According to Soja, the colonial impact had produced "transitional societies", or those societies " in transit" between traditional and modem ways of life. Nation-building and changes accompanying modernization are crystallized around the drive to build cohesive, national communities within the state area. In "transitional societies" such as Kenya, therefore, the process of social mobilization must promote the weakening of traditional forms of organization and behaviour and provide "alternative avenues for alternative means of regrouping and restructuring of traditional society within a modern framework".(2) Abandoning traditional institutions was thus considered by the modernizers as a precondition for development. Instead, these so-called ''transitional" societies were to adopt economic, political, social and psychological processes characteristic of Western societies. The modernization writers, however, did not realize that institutional transfer, that is, the wholesale and indiscriminate adoption of the Western institutional framework, was infinitely more complex and difficult than technological transfer. How was Africa in general, and Kenya in particular, to go about changing traditional institutions and the associated value system? The possibility that the so-called traditional societies could modernize themselves without necessarily having to discard their institutions, beliefs and values was never seriously discussed until the latter part of the 1970s and the early 1980s, when it became evident that the one-dimensional economic man created by the economists was finding himself in a spiritual void and alienated from his

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The Construction ofa National Culture 115 physical and social environments. Culture contributes to an individual's or nation's sense of identity by providing bases of social integration and offering guidelines to action during periods of uncertainty. So, during the first decade of the Nyayo era which we are considering in this chapter, we find that there was a general realization in society that culture has to move to the centre stage to influence the process of economic growth and the distribution of its benefits. Attempts were therefore made to reconceptualize "modemintion" and "development" and to emphasize development policies, strategies and programmes which took into account the cultural dimension and objectives of any process of economic and social change.

Development of the Social Sector In a paper written in January 1980, Dr Ben Kipkorir, then Director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Nairobi, concluded that the social-cultural sector of the Kenyan nation was still under-developed. He bemoaned the fact that, although the founding father of the Kenyan nation, Jomo Kenyatta, was an eminent anthropologist, who had risen to political prominence by championing the cause of Kikuyu traditions, Kenya, under his leadership, was increasingly shaped by Western cultural values. The country lacked a dynamic cultural policy; it had no ministry of culture; it had a National Theatre that was national in name only, but Western in every other ways; it had a Cultural Centre that was in reality a centre of European culture; and it had a National Museum which was supposed to be the chief repository of national culture but which was preoccupied with biological and palaeontological research. Kenya had not even ratified the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Cultural Chapter for Africa, adopted at Port Louis, Mauritius, in July 1976. The cultural future of Kenya, according to Kipkorir, looked bleak (3). But perhaps Kipkorir had overpainted the blealcness of Kenya's cultural scene. Much had been attempted and achieved towards the development of the social sector by the government, some institutions and individuals. To begin with, political leaders and ~ocial thinkers were agreed that, in the words of the OAU Cultural Charter for Africa, colonization had introduced cultural domination which "led to the depersonalization of part of the African peoples, falsified their history, systematically disparaged and combated African values and tried to replace progressively and officially, their languages by that of the colonizer". They further agreed that there was a need to develop the social environment through cultural revival and innovation. There was, however, disagreement as to what constituted development in the socio-cultural field. The purists were only interested in the culture of the

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116 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS past, in rernaining true to their cultural heritage, in authenticity. Such people put more emphasis on the preservation of cultural traits, beliefs and practices. Others were interested in the arts or aspects of traditional knowledge and practices which they believed had contemporary relevance. For instance, the Kenya Government attempted, in Sessional Paper No. l O of 1965 entitled African Socialism and Its Application to Planning in Kenya, to convey the spirit of the extended family to the state and the nation through the principle of mutual social responsibility. It looked at the concept of mutual social responsibility as an extension of the African family spirit. A few social thinkers argued that a more dynamic and creative view of culture must be adopted, which would lend support to living creativity by paying special attention to artists and writers. They thus saw socio-cultural development in terms of creative innovations which related more to the needs and aspirations of contemporary societies. New art had to be created to be displayed in art galleries or exhibition halls; new music had to be composed to be performed in concert halls on the stage to a passive audience; and new plays had to be written to be performed in national theatres. This was because the social settings for the new creative works were also different. Instead of kinship groups or ethnic festivals and rituals, we now had educational institutions, churches, political parties, sport organiz.ations, trade unions and similar organiz.ations. The creators of the new works often used traditional art forms, mythology and symbolism, but they did this in a creative manner that reflected contemporary experience. Despite the different approaches adopted towards the problems of sociocultural development, there was a general consensus that priority should be accorded to those social programmes which promoted the growth of national consciousness instead of ethnic loyalties. The heated debates on Kenya's cultural policy which were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s were agreed at least on four broad objectives. First, the African heritage had to be made meaningful to the present generation. Secondly, contemporary society and its arts and culture had to be interpreted in the context of the achievements of the African past. Thirdly, there was general agreement that Kenya could not, and should not isolate itself from the scientific and technological developments that were taking place in the world, in order to preserve and develop her cultural heritage. Finally, the leaders and thinkers were united on the point that African cultural heritage must be a vehicle for promoting national unity.(4) In order to achieve the above objectives, some thinkers advocated a synthesis of the dualities that they believed constituted the realities of contemporary Africa: the dualities of traditional and contemporary, ethnic and national, indigenous and foreign. One of the most serious attempts to formulate a cultural synthesis was carried out by Kwame Nkrumah, whose concept of

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The Construction ofa National Culture 117 "African personality" was generally received sympathetically all over the continent. These ideas later received a more elaborate treatment in his theory of consciencism. According to Nkrumah, traditional African culture and Western and Islamic traditions coexist in Africa in a state of tension and conflict. Traditional African culture is characterized by a humanist and socialist ethos, Western culture is motivated by acquisitive capitalist values and Christian ideas of man as sinful and Islam has its own rules on how to organize a society and on what is a good life. Nkrumah argued that a new harmony needs to be forged between these elements from the three roots. A new ideology to replace the African traditional ideology was required. The philosophy behind this social and ideological revolution is what he called consciencism. It would enable African Society to synthesize traditional, Islamic and Western cultures into an amalgam animated by humanist values.(5) Other cultural syntheses were also suggested. Kenneth Kaunda tried to combine the humanist values of traditional culture with Christian ideas of man to produce the philosophy of humanism.(6) In the famous Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 on African Socialism and Its Application to Planning in Kenya, the Kenya government attempted a synthesis between the socialist ethos of traditional culture and the acquisitive capitalist values of the West. The result was capitalism dressed in socialist clothing. More recently, Professor Ali Mazrui of Kenya, in his famous television series and book entitled The Africans, has argued, like Kwame Nkrumah, about Africa's triple heritage. But, whereas Nkrumah looks forward to a new and complete synthesis of the triple heritage, Mazrui foresees a reconquest of Africa's cultural space by traditional and Islamic culture.(7) But how were all these theories and models to be implemented on the ground in Kenya? First, it was realized by both the Kenya government and the University of Nairobi that a research and documentation centre was needed to provide information on socio-cultural institutions, mythology, rituals, oral literature, history, music, dance, visual arts, material culture and aesthetic values of the different nationalities of Kenya. Such a research centre was also to test some of the assumptions about social and cultural development needs and strategies. Besides the research and documentation needs of the country, there was the question of the cultural image of the university, which had to be changed from that of a colonial institution promoting Westem values to that of a national institution with an African personality. Such a transformation called for an organized research institute in African studies. There was, however, considerable debate as to whether it was really necessary to have an Institute of African Studies in an African university. The

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118 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS opponents of the idea argued vigorously that all departments of an African university are, in effect, departments of African studies. Special research institutes dealing with African studies should only be established in non-African universities. In 1965, the Institute for Development Studies was established at the University of Nairobi, with two main divisions: the Social Sciences Division and the Cultural Division, each with a director. The writer was privileged to be appointed the first Director of the Cultural Division. It was this Cultural Division of the Institute that developed into the Institute for African Studies in August 1970, when Nairobi University College became an independent national university. The Cultural Division was given formal responsibilities for promoting and conducting original research in the fields of African archaeology, history, social anthropology, musicology, linguists, oral literature, traditional arts, crafts and belief systems. Multipurpose in conception and interdisciplinary in organization, it was intended that the Cultural Division (and later the Institute of African Studies) should make a major contribution to the need to Africanize the content of cultural instruction within the university and throughout the Kenya nation, both by the production of teaching materials and by the rapid dissemination of research results through university lectures, public displays and publications. The Institute soon attracted some of the most original and creative minds in the East African cultural field: Okot p"Bitek, Owuor Anyumba, Taban lo Liyong, William R. Ochieng", Elkana Ongesa, Washington Omondi, H.S.K. Mwaniki, George W. Mathu, Janet M. Bujra, Achola Pala, G.M. Manani, Francis X. Nnaggenda and P.N. Kavyu. Many foreign scholars were also attracted to the institute. The Institute was able to develop resources in subject areas not catered for in the structure of the university. It also helped the university to develop as a centre for the creative arts. Finally, the Institute served as a link between the university and institutions and ministries responsible for national development in the social and cultural fields. On the government side, the Ministry of Culture and Social Services was created in 1981. This was a clear demonstration that culture was no longer on the periphery of government planning. The Ministry was charged with responsibility for initiating cultural activities and coordinating cultural programmes in the country. It was to "rehabilitate, develop and integrate indigenous cultures to national life". But the task of organizing cultural programmes was not left to the Ministry of Culture and Social Services alone. In 1981, the District Socio-Cultural

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The Construction ofa National Culture 119 Profiles Project was formulated jointly by the Institute of African Studies of the University of Nairobi under the directorship of Dr. Ben Kipkorir and the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. It was generally realized that, in framing and implementing development programmes, knowledge of local social and cultural practices enables the nation to avoid costly errors. The Institute's material culture project also made great strides in the period from 1977 to 1982. The collection, preservation and documentation of the material culture of all the peoples of Kenya had been a basic concern of the Institute since its inception in 1965. The systematic collection was started by Jean Brown, an expatriate Research Fellow of the Institute. She was succeeded by Sultan Samjee in 1976. He started research into the methodology of systematic collection, documentation and conservation. The aim was to document material culture items in order to understand their relevance to society. The studies were meant to give insight into traditional technology and how this could be further developed and integrated in national development. In the same year, 1981, the then Ministry of Higher Education took a significant step towards integrating African culture in education. It introduced oral literature in the secondary school syllabus and made it compulsory. Kenya was now taking steps to liberate herself from cultural imperialism. But even this literary innovation was hotly debated. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the historians had succeeded in establishing the authenticity of oral traditions as historical sources. But the historians were careful not to treat oral traditions separately as a distinct genre or branch of history: they were used merely as sources in conjunction with other sources, such as archaeology, linguistics, anthropology and written sources to reconstruct the precolonial history of Africa. But the students of literature decided to create orature, or spoken literature, as opposed to written literature. A major debate then ensued, especially when oral literature was introduced in schools, colleges and universities as a subject. Those opposed to the inclusion of oral literature in school, college and university syllabuses argued that oral literature encouraged tribalism, especially among the youth, and that it promoted the study of belief systems and cultural practices, such as ritual sacrifices, that were obsolete and irrelevant to the present and future needs of Kenya. Thirdly, they argued that oral literature was based on race and asked what oral literature Kenyans of Asian or European origin would study. Finally, the opponents warned that there was a real danger of romanticizing oral literature by assuming that all African writers must make use of oral traditions in order to produce good books. They quoted, with approval, Wole Soyinka's warning that the African writer needs an urgent release from the fascination of the past. They urged that each work should be

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120 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS judged on its own merit, for there were excellent African works of literature, such as A. K. Annah's Why Are We So Blest?, that do not make reference to African traditional life. Are we to condemn such works? But the champions of oral literature, led by Ngugi wa Thiong"o, Owuor Anyumba, Taban lo Liyong and Okot p''Bitek - all of the University of Nairobi contended that oral traditions, which include folk-tales, legends, myths, beliefs, songs, poems, tongue-twisters, puns, proverbs and rituals, offer a dynamic source of content and form in the search for authentic African literature. And they emphasized that oral literature must be viewed as part of a living and vigorous tradition, not a dead past. The African youth must therefore be exposed to this reservoir of African culture, especially as the traditional "fireplace schools" are non-existent or obsolete. The proponents of oral literature had won the debate by the end of the first nyayo decade. A problem closely related to the issue of oral literature was that of national languages and development. It is reckoned by linguists that there are about 1,250 African languages, a quarter of all the languages in the world. But, at the Berlin Conference in 1884, the European capitalist powers carved out Africa with a multiplicity of peoples, cultures and languages into different linguistic zones. African countries came to be defmed and to define themselves in terms of the languages of Europe: Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone African countries. The political frontiers drawn up at the Berlin Conference and adopted by OAU were thus not only political and economic but also cultural. Since the attainment of political independence, most African countries have continued to define themselves in terms of the languages of imperialist imposition. The language of the former colonizer has tended to remain the main vehicle for educational activities and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese dominate the school syllabuses. There are also African lingua francas, such as Kiswahili, Hausa and Lingala, used between speakers of different languages. But the choice of language and the use to which language is put is central to a people's defmition of themselves in relation to their natural and social environment. English has been recognized as the official language in Kenya. All official documents are published in English. It is also the medium of instruction from standard four primary school to university. Kiswahili is the national language. This is appropriate since Kenya is the undisputed homeland of Kiswahili. It played a very significant role in communication between the different nationalities of Kenya during the struggle for independence. Hence, Kiswahili is also the political language of Kenya. In the rural focus for development strategy, Kiswahili is playing a fundamental role as an instrument of administration and mass mobilization.

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The Construction ofa National Culture 121 During the first Nyayo decade the teaching of Kiswahili in schools, colleges and universities was vigorously promoted. In 1983, for example, 100,000 0level candidates sat for the Kiswahili language examination. In 1985, 500,000 students were examined in Kiswahili at standard eight level, following the introduction of the 8 4 4 system of education in the country. Kiswahili is also an examination subject in teacher training colleges and a degree subject at national universities. But Kiswahili must also be developed as a vehicle for promoting Kenyan culture. The Kenyans and the government have an obligation to promote the language as an important cultural heritage, and this was already being attempted during the period under discussion. But what is the future of the other national languages? Are they doomed to a slow death? In April 1986, President Moi raised the question of the use of mother tongues in formal education. He said that the mother tongues should be used as the medium of instruction in the lower classes of primary school. He emphasized that there were many children who could not read, write or speak in their mother tongues. In many Kenyan families he pointed out, children only spoke English. This was an unhealthy situation which he said should be corrected. The issue of language in education had long been a controversial one in Kenya. But the statement of President Moi is supported by results of research in child development, which has shown that children learn best in their mother tongues, especially at the early stages. The mother tongue is the most potent to awaken the dawning imagination through songs, stories, nursery rhymes, folktales and proverbs; it touches the heart as well as the brain. Moreover, the language is part of the child's cultural heritage. Much of the African culture is embedded in the oral traditions, music and dance, which are all expressed in mother tongues. Hence, the mother tongue should be an important medium of instruction and a useful tool of social and cultural development. Another factor which has been established through educational research in Africa is that the use of foreign languages such as English and French has contributed to high failure rates in public education. Because of poor mastery of these languages, African students find it difficult to understand concepts in many subjects. Despite these well-established advantages the teaching of mother tongues and their use in instruction has been played down in Kenya since independence. The decline of the mother tongues had actually started much earlier, in the late 1950s, when the colonial educators became alarmed at the poor performance of Africans and Asians in the English language in public examinations. They attributed such poor results to the fact that Africans and Asians were taught their

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122 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS mother tongues in standards one to four, in line with the Beecher Report of 1949, which had recommended such a policy. The African leaders had opposed the policy because they believed it was part of the overall strategy of giving the Africans inferior education. They demanded that English be the medium of instruction right from standard one. This idea was given official support in the Ominde Report of 1964, which endorsed the use of English as a medium of instruction from standard one. The report stated dogmatically, "We see no case of assigning the vernaculars to a role to which they are ill-adapted, namely the role of being the educational medium in the critical early years of schooling." The report therefore relegated the mother tongues to what it called "domestic verbal communication". The new language policy created more problems than it solved. Children learned English by rote and their writing skills deteriorated. They could neither read nor write in their mother tongues; and teachers discovered that it was difficult to teach other subjects in lower primary without using mother tongues. The Gachathi Report of 1976 reversed the Ominde Report. It recommended that the medium of instruction from standard one to three should be the language predominant in the school's catchment area. In the urban areas, where children came from different ethnic groups, the report recommended K.iswahili as the medium of instruction. In all schools, the report recommended that Kiswahili should be taught as a subject from standard one and English should be used as the medium of instruction from standard four. The 8 4 4 syllabus for primary schools emphasized the teaching of mother tongues and their use in instruction in lower primary. But even this policy was faced with many problems. Many children had not mastered the mother tongues; and there was a general lack of teaching materials in all Kenyan languages, especially primers. Moreover, there was a lack of qualified teachers since the younger teachers were the product of the Ominde Report period, when mother tongues were ignored in schools. But are we to limit the use of indigenous languages to the classroom? African peoples are today faced with an encroaching, universal and alienating modernism, and they are finding it absolutely necessary to go back to the use of their mother tongues, full of life and reason, as a guarantee of their identity. The language debate in Kenya became more general and widespread in 1977, when Ngugi wa Thiong"o publicly announced that he would henceforth write in Gikuyu after seventeen years of involvement in Afro-English literature. He had come round to the conclusion that African literature can only be written in African languages, that is, the languages of the African peasantry and working class.

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The Construction ofa National Culture 123 What generated much heat was not the question of writing in African languages. This was nothing new, although Ngugi sometimes tried to create an orthodoxy out of the language problem. Galcaara wa Wanjau had written novelettes, songs and poems in Gikuyu in the early 1950s; the students at Maseno High School had produced Thuond Luo (Luo Heroes) in the 1940s; and Shadrack Malo had written short stories and folk-tales in Dholuo. In 1966, Christian Konjra Alloo, a Taovmia Luo, wrote Otieno Achach, a full-length novel, in Dholuo and, in 1983, Okoth Okombo published Masira Kindald, a novella. In Uganda, Sir Apolo Kagwa and M. B. Nsimbi had written stories in Luganda. Then came the great African humanist, Okot p''Bitek, whose novel in Acholi, Lak Tar ("White Teeth'), was published in 1953. In 1965, he wrote Wer pa Lawino, the Acholi·version of his famous Song of Lawino, published in 1966. The former was not published until 1969. At a time when English was supposed to reign supreme in East Africa, Okot p''Bitek wrote in the language of his people and without any apology. Kiswahili literature goes back to the eighteenth century, when verse literature flourished around Lamu. In the early part of the nineteenth century, the focus shifted to Mombasa, where nationalist poets like Muyaka bin Haji were writing their mashairi. So Ngugi was not doing anything new. What created much controversy was that Ngugi had become prescriptive. He declared that only those works written in African languages qualified to be called African. Since 1977, Ngugi has written in Gikuyu (with Ngugi wa Mirii) a play, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I will Marry When I Want), a novel, Caitanni Mutharabaini (Devil on the Cross), a musical drama, Maitu Njugira (Mother Sing for Me), another novel, Matigari ma Njinuungi, and three children's books. His case for the total production of African literature in African languages has been vigorously stated in his book Decolonizing the mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, which is dedicated ''to all those who · over the years have maintained the dignity of the literature, culture, philosophy, and other treasures carried by African languages". But Ngugi ignores the fact that, as an established writer, whatever he has written in Gikuyu has immediately been translated into English for wider distribution. A new author, writing for a small ethnic community, faces formidable problems, which should not be glossed over. The other Kenyan writer who has taken up the challenge of producing serious works of literature in indigenous languages is Grace Ogot. She has published a novel Miaha (The Strange Bride), a novelette, Ber Wat (The Beauty of a Relative) and a folk-tale, A/oo Kod Apu/-Apu/. Her most ambitious work to date is the novel in Dholuo, Simbi Nyaima, published in 1983. It is a historical novel which deals with the settlement of modem South Nyanza in western

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124 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Kenya in the eighteenth century and the formation of the different social groups in the area. Topics such as the role of women in decision-making processes, in trade and in the evolution of the new ethno-linguistic identities; the intergenerational conflicts; the use and abuse of political power, especially in a plural society; and the problems of corruption and immorality, particularly among the wealthy and the powerful, are dealt with in this novel. It is true, as we have argued, that the African languages were neglected during the immediate post-independence period, and more recently by the enthusiasm of the Kenyan youth for English, which they see as the way into the modern world. But Kenya is a land of many nationalities, many cultures and many languages. These cultures should not be preserved as museum pieces for the curious tourist or a foreign scholar with a taste for the exotic. They should be developed as living cultures so as to enrich the national culture. The development of regional cultures must involve the development of regional languages and literatures. In this way, Kenya will end up with multilingual literatures of all her peoples, and this will constitute the national literature. Kenyan literature must be seen not simply as literature in English but as literature which has been created by authors of many Kenyan nationalities writing in their own languages - Kiswahili, Kikamba, Gikuyu, Luhya, Kalenjin, Kimaasai, Dholuo, etc. - as well as in English. Kenyan literature will thus be a collective name for dozens of literatures. Instead of dividing the people, this will actually enrich the spiritual lives of the citizens of Kenya, and bring closer unity based on understanding and appreciation of one another's values. But, for such a policy to succeed, the different literatures must aim at stressing both the universals and the peculiarities and must maintain creative relations with one another. In that way, each regional literature will make its own contribution to the cultural treasure-house of Kenyan literature. The artistic taste of readers should be developed by literary critics so that they can enjoy reading works from different regions. This also means organizing the work of literary translation systematically. The Kenyan readers will then be given the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the best works of literature, local and foreign, and this will enhance their spiritual development. Since independence, very little had been done to promote Kenya's heritage of arts and crafts. The designs which decorated objects like gourds, wooden vessels, shields, leather garments and personal ornaments; the beautiful beadwork; wood sculpture; the carving of dolls, human and bird heads and grave posts; pottery and basketry - all these constituted a rich artistic heritage which awaited development. True, art and design courses were offered at the University of Nairobi, and later at Kenyatta University. But these courses were merely perpetuating the elitist idea of "art for the few". In order to disseminate

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The Construction ofa National Culture 125

artistic activities as widely as possible, creative activities involving all sections of society and at all levels should have been organized.(8) Consequently, many talented Kenyan . artists were condemned to oblivion for lack of opportunities to show off their talent. Most of them could not afford the expenses of staging an exhibition in the expensive commercial art galleries of Nairobi and other urban centles. Those who were lucky enough to get appointments to exhibit found assistance at foreign cultural ccmbes, notably the French Cultural Centre, the Goethe Institute, the American Cultural Centre and the British Council. But these are foreign centes which are primarily concerned with promoting the cultures of their respective countries and which, therefore, cannot be relied upon to organiz.e national artistic activities. After all, art is a product of society, born out of the experience of the artist in a particular environment. Any meaningful art must reflect the dynamic and contradictions of the society of the artist. It must have form, content and history. A national organization or institution is therefore needed to develop indigenous artistic talent. It was in this context that an art exhibition organized in Nairobi by the Ministry of Culture and Social Services in December 1981 was greatly welcomed. The exhibition entitled Utamaduni wa Sanaa and including about four hundred items of paintings, sculptures and material culture selected from all over Kenya, was organized to coincide with the Jamhuri (Republic) week, because the artists felt they have a role to play in making independence meaningful. This was the first exhibition of Kenyan art and material culture which gave the local artists a forum to express themselves and a Kenyan audience a chance to view, appreciate and share Kenyan works of art based on the ideas that bind them together as a nation. Some of the artists whose works were exhibited showed anger at the way the Kenya society was developing while other artists of hope saw a chance of the society being reborn. It was a proud beginning, which raised great expectations but which unfortunately has never been repeated. It should have been followed by the establishment of a national art gallery and shops where works of art and crafts could be sold in urban areas. Local artists have therefore continued to rely on foreign cultural centres in Kenya for assistance and encouragement. Another area of artistic creativity is music, which is easily the most po"°etful cultural medium in any society. This is especially so in countries like Kenya, where the other forms of communication and cultural expression, such as the written work, are not yet fully developed. The history of many developing countries where colonial domination was a factor shows that the colonized people were always able to express themselves

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126 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS through song and dance in complete defiance of their oppressors. In Kenya, for example, the people resisted cultural domination with as much vigor as they resisted economic exploitation. African songs, dances and musical instruments, such as wandindi, shiriri, chemonge, chivuti, bang"o, nyatiti, orutu, obokano, litungu, limba, marimba and drums, were not driven out of existence by the colonial system. Revolutionary songs, such as mutherego, spread like bushfire throughout Kikuyuland in the 1930s. Even in the urban areas the ngoma performances, consisting of song and dance provided the main entertainment and commentary on current affairs for Africans. During the weekends, Kinyamkela dance was performed at Nubian Kibera and Swahili Pumwani in Nairobi. Kiso/coto dances entertained Kaloleni residents and manyatta slumdwellers of Kisumu. The most famous venues for these ngoma performances were at Pangani in Nairobi, Mnazi Moja in Mombasa and Bondeni in Nakuru. These were weekend showpieces, which attracted whole towns. It was a mass movement on a country-wide basis, against which the colonial "civilizing mission" failed. Then there was the twarab music, which is a fascinating mixture of different languages, traditions, musical sounds and Kiswahili poetry. The music has had a major cultural and political impact on the East African region, especially Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania. The most representative of this music has been included in a collection of twarab songs by a Dutch researcher, Dr. J. Knappert, called a Choice ofFlowers. This . local heritage of a rich repertoire of songs has had, all along a relevance to Kenya's environment and traditional values. With independence, there was the need to produce the kind of music and dance that would be in tune with post-independence realities. The country has traditional forms of music belonging to over thirty-six indigenous Kenyan nationalities, in addition to Indian and European-oriented forms. The teaching of foreign-oriented forms had been concentrated at the East African Conservatoire of Music in Nairobi and in educational institutions. As a private venture, the Conservatoire had to charge high fees to private students, which, in effect, cut off those willing and able to study music but who lacked the finances to pay for tuition. But there was no centre for the teaching of African music and dance. All these music forms met once a year during the Kenya Music Festival. The festival started in 1927 as a private organization which catered solely for the Europeans living in Kenya. It was sponsored by the British Council and its primary aim was to promote European music. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, other musical festivals, organized by Africans, emerged in different parts of the country. These festivals were autonomous. Among such festivals were the Nairobi Music Festival in Eastlands, the Nyanz.a Music Festival (later Western

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The Construction ofa National Culture 127 Kenya Music Festival), the Coast Music festival and the Music Festival in Eldoret. In 1969, these different festivals merged into the Kenya Music Festival, which became a government undertaking and which saw phenomenal growth and improvement in the late 1970s. It incorporates all classes and traditions of music - Western, Oriental and African. The festival involves primary and secondary schools, training colleges and, more recently, universities, churches and other non-institutional groups. The festival has for many years served as an important talent-tapping forum. It is meant to encourage the study and creation of music. But unfortunately, not much has been done to help the many talented children, the budding vocalists and composers, who possess talent but lack guidance or knowledge to develop their musical careers. The question that was increasingly crying for an answer was: How was the country to nurture these creative talents? A department of music was inaugurated at Kenyatta University in Nairobi in 1970. Initially it offered a certificate course, which was later replaced by a Diploma in Education course. In 1977, the Diploma course was discontinued and instead a Bachelor of Education degree course in music was introduced. But, since this course was intended largely for producing graduate music teachers for secondary schools, what was to happen to the many other talented young people who might not meet the minimum entrance requirements into a university or who merely wished to develop their music talent without any intention of becoming teachers? It was in response to such a demand that, in early 1982, the government toyed with the idea of starting a school for music, drama and dance, whose graduates were to teach and train dancing groups in the rural areas. The school was to enable Kenya to harmonize her various cultures in order to enable each cultural group to understand and appreciate the cultural values of other groups. This was to bring about the mutual understanding essential for the nation's development. But this idea came to naught. There were those culture experts who contended that this was a backward-looking idea. They argued that it was high time the country looked at music as an industry and the musicians as people drawing from the past but moving forward, capable of performing to audiences far beyond their ethnic or national boundaries and being accepted as not just Kenyan musicians, but also good musicians. It was while the debate about the necessity for such a school was still raging that President Daniel T. arap Moi decided to appoint a high powered Presidential National Music Commission, in November 1982, "to prepare detailed plans and recommendations on the preservation and development of music and dance in the Republic". The Commission was to be chaired by

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128 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Professor Washington Omondi and was to consist of five other top musicologists in the country -Peter Kibukosya, Gerishom ldanani, Boniface Mganga, Geroge Kakoma and Senoga Zake - as members. This was the first time that a head of state in Kenya had taken a deep personal interest in solving the problems hindering the development of music in the country. The Commission spent five months in the field and about a year in analysis and writing. More than 10,000 people submitted their views either orally or in writing to the Commission. The most widespread demands from all sections and geographical areas of Kenya were three: l. The need for an institution where musicians of various kinds could learn and pursue their trade. In other words, the people were demanding a national institute of music and dance with country-wide outlets. 2. The need to incorporate the teaching of traditional music at all school levels, just as oral literature and drama were beginning to be part of the curriculum. 3. The need for a national organi:zation representing all the people involved in music development. The commission presented a 214-page report on the music situation in the country to the President in January 1984. On the same occasion, the President made the . Commission permanent and appointed it to implement the recommendations of its report. The report included. 81l\9DK other things, how best to improve and develop the nature and character of the performance of the traditional and non-traditional music and dance. The Commission produced 367 recommendations on research, dissemination and development of music and dance; music education; music and dance performance; music in the media; musicians; and the training of music personnel. The government had thus come to realize the importance of music for entertainment and in uniting people and mobilizing them for national development. It decided to have music taught in all schools and at teacher training colleges. But the Presidential Permanent Music Commission seems to have got off to a slow start. And, by November 1987, when the President moved the Commission from the Ministry of Culture and Social Services to the Office of the President, its activities had almost come to a standstill. At the beginning of 1988, the Commission announced its programme of establishing an archives centre of Kenyan music and dance. It also planned to transcribe various Kenyan national songs into a song book to be used in schools.

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'I'he Construction ofa National Culture 129 But, of the three major demands presented to the Commission by the public, only one bad been implemented by the end of l 988~ namely the introduction of traditional music in schools and colleges. The other two demands, especially the establishment of a national institute of music and dance, which was regarded as critical, were yet to be implemented. There was, however, the International Music Academy, which was to be built at Kisumu with some assistance from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization (UNESCO). The construction started in 1988 and, on completion, it would train music personnel, conduct research, document African music and offer music recording facilities. An area that has been ignored completely is that of popular music. Like other areas of development, popular music must change with time. But, because of the tendency to look down upon popular music, little or no assistance has been provided to pop music groups, despite the fact that it is the music with the widest following, especially among the youth. Generally speaking, there is a lack of musical instruments in the Kenya market for those who wish to play or they are too expensive; and the musicians are generally out of work. Conseq••ently, the Kenya market is flooded with music from America, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean and even from other African countries, especially Zaire, Cameroon and South Africa. This music is available twentyfour hours a day, everywhere. There is the stereo in the home, in the car; there are music videos; and there are Walkmans. This foreign musical diet must be assimilated into the local cultural milieu, into a local popular musical tradition. Another major aspect of our theme relates to culture and literature in society. It has a historiography which reflects an encounter between contemporary history and the socio-economic and political realities. The cultural nationalism of the 1950s and the 1960s finds expression in optimistic literature. The writer is part of the nation-building effort, a teacher with a direct influence. The late 1960s and the 1970s in Africa witnessed a general disillusionment with independence, developmentalism and modernism. The people had sought and found the political kingdom, but not much had been added to them. There was therefore a renewed struggle against neocolonialism and cultural decoloniution was interpreted to mean the search for a new sociocultural order. Most of the writers invoked socialist ideology in their fight against imperialism and many of them claimed to speak for the "people" against the national elite or the dependent bourgeoisie, who were regarded as the local enemy. By the 1980s, it was becoming evident that the new African societies demanded much deeper and more comprehensive analyses than the doctrinaire socialist rhetoric that was being offered. The writers had to make the society

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130 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS aware of itself by having social visions by being builders of the future rather than destroyers. They had now to explain Africa to fellow Africans and not to foreigners. The discussion on culture and literature in Kenyan society has therefore to be conducted against this historiographical backdrop. The post-independence literature of Kenya has generally concentrated on interpreting the experience of colonialism and independence. The novelists, the short-story writers, the playwrights and the poets have tried to provide some meaning to the changes that have taken place in society and in individual lives. They have discovered that colonization has alienated the African from his culture, from his roots. They have also noticed that alienation has continued during the post-independence period, as a result of a strong presence of cultural neocolonialism. Africans themselves now exploit and dehumanize each other, sacrificing their cultural identity. The writers are unanimous that, in order to remake the Kenya society, it is essential to re-evaluate what has been done to the African societies in the past and what we are doing to one another today. The conflicts between indigenous and foreign cultures, between past and present, run through almost all of the literature of Kenya. But the conflicts are never simple or clear-cut. The characters in these literary works are men and women whose lives have undergone so many changes that they can no longer choose between two ways of life. The line between what is indigenous and what belongs to the present is indivisible. Hence most of the characters do not want to, or cannot, choose. Many are also unable to forge a synthesis. Those who suffer most in Ngugi wa Thiong"o's novels, for example, are those characters who attempt to reconcile the opposing forces by selecting from the past and the present or from the local and the foreign, those things which are most useful or relevant. Waiyaki in The River Between is a case in point. He fails to convince both sides on the need for reconciliation and he is therefore sacrificed. Ngotho in Weep Not Child is also such a person, who is sacrificed because he is 11nable to reconcile his traditional beliefs with the violence of rebels. Thus the sensationalized image of the educated African as "a child of two worlds" is a gross over simplification of the socio-cultural reality. From the works of other Kenyan writers, such as Leonard Kibera (Voices in the Dark, 1971; Potent Ash, 1968), L. Okola (Drum Beat, 1967), Jared Angira (Juices, 1970; Soft Corals, 1973; Silent Voices, 1972), Charles Mangua (Son of Woman, 1971; A Tail in the Mouth, 1973), Meja Mwangi ( Carcass for the Hounds, 1974; Going Down River Road, 1976; Kill Me Quick, 1973; Taste of Death, 1975), Rebecca Njau (Ripples in the Pool, 1975), Grace Ogot (Land Without Thunder, 1968), G. K. Murua (Never Forgive Father, 1972) and Francis lmbuga (Betrayal in the City, 1977), we glean a picture of a new Kenyan society that is fragmented into three main discordant elements. First, there is the

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The Construction ofa National Culture 131 wealthy and insecure elite; secondly, there is a poor and frustrated urban working class; and finally, there is a mass of people who fit nowhere - the peasantry, the unemployed urban migrants living off their relatives or by their wits, criminals, beggars and prostitutes. Thus the experience of independence has often been painful and hollow for many Kenyans, in both the rural and the urban sectors. What is the cure for this fragmentation? Many of Kenya's writers adopt a moralistic approach to this question. Some writers have chosen to remain uncommitted about the situation. They are convinced, however, that part of the answer lies in each individual attempting to synthesize the contrary influences in his or her own life. Some of the writers have adopted a negative stance by refusing to see any meaning in independence and have blamed both individual frustration and alienation as well as social fragmentation on the policies adopted by the ruling elite. They therefore place their hope in a revolution. Still others see great hope in the future. For such writers, the optimists, the conflicts between the past and the present and between the indigenous and the foreign can be resolved, if the Africans can reaffirm the traditional humanistic ideals, such as pride, respect, self-confidence, dignity, industriousness and communal spirit. They believe that the problems of individual frustration and social fragmentation have been caused by the neglect and devaluation of the old African values. One need not be powerful or wealthy to be considered a valuable and respectable person. These writers are thus condemning the imported value system, which tends to stress the importance of wealth and power at the expense of all other norms. The problem of culture and literature in Kenyan society is perhaps best illustrated in the works of Ngugi wa Thiong"o. He regards writing as "an attempt to understand myself and my situation in society and in history"(9) As an Afro-English writer, he portrays himself as a cultural exile. Hence, writing to him is a quest for identity. This quest is pursued in his trilogy: The River Between, Weep Not Child and A Grain of Wheat, which together represent a history of colonialism in Kenya. They start with the alienation of land and end with the alienation of the social and individual psyche of the colonized. He considers colonialism as a major cause of alienation, of universal exile, because it destroys the cohesion of society. In his fourth novel, Petals of Blood, which covers the first twelve years of Kenya's independence, Ngugi raises the important question as to what should be done about alienation, which continues to afflict the post independence period. In an independent Kenya, what is the answer to alienation? Ngugi does not provide a satisfactory answer to this question, except to predict a resurrection of the old colonialism, which he says will bring the same disasters.

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132 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS He raises another basic question, however: "how best to build a true communal home for all Africans"(IO) To do this, Ngugi suggests that the exile must first of all return home. The African and the Caribbean exiles are in search of themselves and their place in the world, which should end "in a kind of homecoming".( 11) Once they are back, they should be actively involved in the construction of a new home. But the writer's position, according to Ngugi, must be a dual one, simultaneously swimming in the main stream of his country's history and standing on the bank watching. He writes: "And the novelist, at his best, must feel himself heir to a continuous tradition. He must feel himself, as I think Tolstoy did in War and Peace or Sholokov in And Quiet Flows the Don, swimming, struggling, defining himself, in the mainstream of his people's historical drama. At the same ti.me, he must be able to stand aside and merely contemplate the currents. He must do both: simultaneously swim, struggle and also watch, on the shore."(12) But in the 1970s and 1980s, Ngugi increasingly became the swimmer and not the bystander. Whereas Homecoming, his first collection of essays, contains some of his articles and lectures covering the 1960s and distilling his ideas on culture and literature in society, his second collection of essays, Writers in Politics(13) serves a similar purpose for the 1970s. But it is evident from the latter book that Ngugi's thoughts had evolved in the interim period. In Writers in Politics, he now reveals himself as an uncompromising champion of cultural independence who has not taken the plunge. He has identified his alienation, his exile, and has decided to fight it. Marxist ideology runs through each of the thirteen essays. They all repeat the same abstract generalization: since capitalist or neo capitalist society is divided between a ruling minority idle class and a dominant majority working class, true literature is produced for and by the majority. He therefore calls for the production of a peasant and working-class literature in Kenya. Ngugi does not test this doctrinaire view of society and literature against the socio-cultural realities in Kenya through detailed analyses. As a petty-bourgeois intellectual, Ngugi merely states rather dogmatically what he regards as his class role in society as well as his ideological assumptions about the Kenya society. He is thus still in search of himself and his place in the world. Culturally, he is still in socialist exile. And, since he believes in a cyclic concept of history, we must await his second homecoming to participate in the construction of "a true communal home for all Africans".

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The Construction ofa National Culture 133 The ideas of Okot p"Bitek could serve as a conclusion to this discussion on culture and literature in society. Though a Ugandan, Okot p''Bitek contributed immensely towards the development of African culture in Kenya. In fact, he spent most of his working life in Kenya and not in his homeland. He worked in the Extra-Mural Department of the University of Nairobi at Kisumu in the 1960s. In the 1970s he moved to Nairobi, first in the Department of Sociology, then in the Institute of African Studies and fmally in the Department of Literature, where he merged sociology and literature. At the national level, P''Bitek was in demand everywhere, addressing large public gatherings. He soon gained eminence through his writings, teaching and public lectures as a cultural critic of modem African society. Okot p''Bitek, who died on 20 July 1982 at the age of 51 at his Kampala home was loyal to his African roots, and his scholarship was geared towards integrating African philosophy into modem development challenges.(14) He was concerned, like all the Kenyan writers we have considered, with how to create a new African society from the shambles left behind by the years of slavery and colonialism. He did not believe in irrelevant traditionalism. He instead called for change within the framework of African philosophy, as opposed to Ngugi, who is calling for change within the Marxist context. An intellectual to him is one who understands, interprets and promotes the thoughts and beliefs of his people. The African intellectuals must therefore be those who attempt to incorporate African ideas or philosophies into African social institutions. Those who are going to implement development policies must be deeply versed in African philosophy and culture and not experts who are well versed in foreign philosophies and cultures but who are thoroughly ignorant about the homeland. But for Okot p"Bitek philosophy and culture are one and the same thing. He believes that "Culture is philosophy as lived and celebrated in a society."(15) The dichotomy between philosophy and culture is false and, in any case, is part of the Western tradition, which is irrelevant in Africa. The view of culture as something separate and distinguishable from the way of life of a people, something that can be put in books and museums and art galleries, something which can be taught in schools and Universities for examination purposes, or enjoyed during leisure time in theatres and cinema halls - the western tradition that regards culture as something that can be bought and sold, where the artist is some very special fellow who is paid with money for his works - is entirely alien to African thought( 16) He therefore urges that what is going on under the label "culture" in the towns and cities, in schools and universities and in the Ministry of Culture should be based on a relevant social philosophy, otherwise they will not

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134 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS contribute anything moral to life. In short, culture should not be "a thing added like sauce to otherwise unpalatable stale fish"(l 7)

Ethnicity, Culture and National Integration Since the Second World War, movements rooted in ethnicity have assumed a global dimension and enhanced ferocity. New assertions of distinctiveness and claims to cultural autonomy manifest themselves not only in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, but also in countries like the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Spain, Belgium, France and Yugoslavia, which are normally considered to be stable with well-established political institutions. These movements have a strong cultural component. Cultural symbols drawn from tradition are manipulated for political mobilization. And, since ethnicity cuts across class-based interests and identities, the goals adopted by ethnic groups often override the growth and development of objectives of the wider society of which, politically speaking, they are a part. In the process, a new mystique gets invested into the notion of culture and begins to provide powerful motivation for new trends. Such trends often result in the politicization of culture, which has its own inherent dangers. It can lead to the erosion of cultural values, conflict or even violence. But ethnicity and cultural differences are not bad in themselves, nor can they be obliterated. All nations in the world today posses a vast assort1nent of different peoples, customs, languages, traditions and life styles. This means that every nation is multiethnic and multilingual in its make-up and hence multiculturalism is destined to be one of the distinctive features of the world of the future. This diversity is needed to enrich and inspire contemporary life as well as to protect it from the dulling and deadening effects of modem technology. The new Kenya, which is multilingual and multiethnic, will have to cultivate new attitudes and new ways of living together if recognition of the equal dignity of all cultures is to become an everyday reality. Since independence, one of the basic objectives of Kenyan leaders has been to build a national political community as a basis for maintaining state power. The question that has sometimes been asked is about the nature of this political community. Is it to be an all-embracing political community or is it to be selective or even exclusive? There are those who contend that the national political community must include all Kenyan nationalities and all classes: peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, the elite, former loyalists and forest fighters. This was the thesis put forward by Jomo Kenyatta, who refused to classify Kenyans on the basis of past history. He argued that history should be used to unite Kenyans and not to divide them. He therefore preached the doctrine of

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The Construction ofa National Culture 135 "we all fought for independence" and suggested that the divisions of the past be buried in order to build a new nation, a new Kenya. Those who condemn the Kenyatta thesis would like to reopen old wounds and to use history to divide Kenyans into the sheep and the goats. Maina wa Kinyatta and Ngugi wa Thiong''o for example, believe that the only true Kenyan nation must be a proletarian one. Those who wish to develop a multicultural and multiethnic Kenyan nation are condemned as petty bourgeoisie, who want to promote a false consciousness, and therefore they do not belong to the new national political community, the new Babylon that is to be created by the Kenyan Marxists.(18) It should, however, be emphasized that what is really at stake is the question of national identity. What kind of civil society Kenya should have is ultimately dependent on the question of national identity, which is basically a cultural question. In Kenya, as in most African countries, people do not live in a nation state. They live in a state with a nation still to be built, but with many nationalities, with multiple identities. But the goal of the construction of a national culture, that is, the objective of self-examination which we have sketched in this chapter, must be to transform Kenya into a modem nation state embodying our political and cultural identity. In the words of John Lonsdale, an eminent historian who has contributed immensely to the study of Kenya history, "If we have to construct a new national political culture, new national political communities, we have to broaden our historical experience to embrace the multicultural and multi-ethnic Kenyan State."(19)

Endnotes 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

See Tom Mboya, ''The Impact of Modem Institutions on the East African", The Challenge ofNationhood, London Andre Deutsch, 1970, p. 168-181. Edward W. Soja, The Geography of Modernization in Kenya - A Spatial Analysis of Social, Economic and Political Change, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 1968, p. 1-2. B.E. Kipkorir, "Towards a Cultural Policy for Kenya: Some Views". Institute of African Studies Seminar Paper No. 131, 29 January, 1980. For a fuller discussion, see Kivuto Ndeti, Cultural Policy in Kenya, Paris, UNESCO Press, 1975. Kwame Nkrumah, Consciencism, London, Heinemann, 1964. Kenneth Kaunda, A Humanist in Africa, London Longmans, 1966. Ali A. Mazrui, The Africans - A Triple Heritage, London BBC Publications, 1986.

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136 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

See Jean Brown, "East Africa's Heritage of Arts and Crafts", in East Africa's Cultural Heritage, Contemporary African Monographs Series No. 4, Nairobi, East African Institute of Social and African Affairs, 1966. Ngugi wa Thiong"o, Secret Lives, London, Heinemann Educational Books, 1975. Preface. Ngugi wa Thiong"o Homecoming , London Heinemann Educational Books, 1972, p. xix. Ibid., p. 94. Ibid. p. 39. London, Heinemann Educational Books, 1981. See the following works: Okot p''Bitek, African Religions in Western Scholarship, Nairobi, East African Literature Bureau, 1971; Okot p''Bitek, Religion of the Central Luo, Nairobi, East African Literature Bureau, 1971; Okot p''Bitek, Africa's Cultural Revolution, Nairobi, Macmillan books for Africa, 1973; Okot p''Bitek, Song of lawino, Nairobi, East African Publishing House, 1966; Okot p''Bitek, Artist, the Ruler, Nairobi, Heinemann Kenya Ltd., 1986. Artist, the Ruler, p. 13. Artist the Ruler, p. 14. Quoted by Herbert Read in, To Hell with Culture and Other Essays, New York, Schocken Books, Third Printing, 1976, p. 106. See Ngugi's Ba"el ofa Pen, Trenton N.J., Africa World Press, 1983. John Lonsdale, "Mau Mau Through the Looking Glass", Index on Censorship, London February 1986, Vol. l l, No. 2, p. 22.

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CHAPTERlO Building on the Indigenous: Reflections on Culture and Development in Africa§ The Historical Association of Kenya decided at its last conference in Kisumu in March, 1995, to devote the present symposium to what I regard as a crucial issue for the future of the world: the issue of development. In recent history, there has been a tendency to look at development almost entirely in economic terms. Although very important, economics cannot be regarded as the deepest level of life. And in any case, when we look at the picture of global development, what do we see? The expenditure on armaments, especially by the smaller developing countries is still increasing and actual wars are being waged between neighbouring countries and within them. Right extremism is on the rise as a reflection of disillusion, despair, and flagrant inhuman policies. The world economic crisis is continuing with reduced rates of economic growth, limited expansion of international trade protection and retaliation policies, erratic exchange rates, 11nstable financial markets, lower prices of primary commodities and serious macro-economic imbalances in many countries. Domestically in the industrial countries, one may mention the decreasing resources for education and social welfare, the increasing cost of medical care and social insurance, and the spreading use of drugs, especially among the youth. In the developing countries, particularly in Africa, there is in addition, the burden of external debts and the growing unemployment. Furthermore, the introduction of new and revolutionary technology while economic growth is limited, raises difficult questions. The new technologies are widening the gap between the developed and developing countries. This reduces the comparative advantage of low cost labour, reduces the competitiveness of the world markets, and accentuates the social and economic "duality" in many developing countries.

§ Presented

at the Historical Association ofKenya 's Symposium on "Develo~ment in Africa since the 1960s", University of Eastern Africa, Baraton, 29th - 30 April, 1995

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138 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Pressure on governments, as a result of such changes, increases, in both developed and developing countries. One way of absorbing the pressure has been to reduce the government responsibilities by shifting politically to the right, introducing de-regularization and privatisation measures, and more generally changing basic systems of state management, whether it is called liberalization or restructuring. In these conditions, the underground, or the informal sector, may grow, and moon-lighting (extra-jobs) increases, so do movements of dissent, which challenge the established social and political system, stimulated by a variety of internal, external or ideological motivations. The Governments react by enforcing law and order. For some people, science has been the entry point in looking at the future of development. Thanks to science and the new technologies, man has made wondrous progress in every sector from medicine to biotechnology to communications to physics. Amazing possibilities have been opened to him in the conquest of knowledge, of nature. Science research is being pushed further by intensive research on the human brain, the fusion energy, fifth and later generations of computers, deep-sea mining and space technology. All these and many others are technological developments, which have increased the human capacity to do things. On the negative side, one notes the increasing environmental dangers of pollution in water and air, the dangers of accidents related to nuclear reaction and hazardous chemical materials, the serious effects on the ozone shield protecting human life on earth, and the recent problem of ships sneaking in oceans to dump toxic wastes on the shores of the developing countries. In addition, we have the sustained droughts in Africa and the reported erratic climatic changes, which might be indicators of basic atmospheric imbalances on a global level. But people do not live only by economics, public order or science and technology. Before these, they have concepts and beliefs (religious, ideological or philosophic), they have their value systems which define the priorities and qualities of social relations; they have their attitudes, aspiration, hopes, fears, expressions and manifestations of ethical and traditional codes of conduct. Besides biological living, a human being in society expresses himself or herself in art and literature. Products of such expressions, over generations and centuries, accumulate in written words, spoken language, played music and performed dances as well as in works of art and monuments. Those expressions, which have the value of "beauty", "harmony" and "authority" remain, and continue to be appreciated and valued not only where they originated, but by humanity as a whole. Culture, in this way becomes a cohesive factor in building human societies. Identity of "culture" within a group, on the basis of language, history, religions, values, hopes, fears, is the founding stone of society.

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Building on the Indigenous 139 In this contex~ Africa should welcome a serious examination of its development record to identify approaches that go beyond those of the past that have left her, thirty five years after independence and twenty eight years after development assistance began, at a higher level of poverty than it was when it regained independence. Is there, for example, a cultural dimension that has been missing in this experience? Have the development processes of the past ignored that ensemble of ideas, mechanisms, institutions, and artifacts that have explicitly or implicitly guided the behaviour of the African people in a given group, region or country? Have we, for example, ever stopped to think of the cultural dimensions of good governance? Following World War II, western social scientists began to view change and development in Africa, Asia, and Latin America through two main schools of thought: the socialist (or Marxist) and capitalist. Both were replicated throughout Africa. What do they say about culture and development? Taking the socialist Project firs~ we note that it was treated by its creators and followers as the embodiment of universal truths. Its a priori truthfulness replaced the development of a concrete relationship toward one's own historical and social circumstances, the development of a rational relation toward one's cultural heritage and possibilities. Secondly, the Project contained a manichean image of the world, a division between the evil past and the radiant present, between reactionary capitalism and progressive socialism. It disregarded with disdain the achievements of the "bourgeoisie society... Moreover, the socialist societies when inaugurated sanctified discontinuity as their prime development principle. No positive value was attached to the pre-revolutionary times, no traces of undeniable wisdom were found in the experiences of the past - which was to be erased, eradicated. Everything was to begin anew; identity was to be created in reaching toward modernity. However, experience from the socialist Project has demonstrated two things: firs~ the idea of radical discontinuity led to an unselective de-linking with the past that made the socialist societies incapable of establishing a rational relation toward the present socio-economic conditions, needs, ecological and social limits. It prevented them from identifying what was functional and rational in the past and creatively integrating it with the modem. Secondly, experience has shown that the consequences of past development are deeply rooted in the cultural, value, and psychological systems. They can not be simply evicted by economic and political interventions, radical as they may be (1). _ In other words, experience has shown that continuity is necessary in order to be able to identify the real source and magnitude of problems. Continuity is also necessary in order to develop a rational trans-ideological and transnational

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140 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS relation to human achievements in whatever time they evolved (past or present), in whatever political system, and by whatever class they were initiated, bourgeoisie or proletariat. The Socialist Project has failed. We are today told that the solution for the crisis lies in returning to the real levers of progress, to the free market, parliamentary democracy, to the Western model of modemiution and development. But the question is not whether we should develop or not develop. The real question is how to develop. And this is not a technical question but a philosophical one. Development is a value-laden te1111, because it attempts to respond to deeper social and philosophical questions. We need development in order to improve the human condition, in order to bring social justice and h11man happiness. For the last three centuries, progress and development have been conceived in the West in almost exclusively material terms. For at least two centuries, progress was a sacrosanct teim in the Western Society. No one dared question or criticise progress without opening himself or herself to charges of being reactionary, old fashioned, of stone-age mentality. This has changed in the West. Progress is no longer viewed as sacrosanct, but indeed as a double-edged sword which cuts both ways: it improves the standard of material living and it destroys ecological habitats and the cohesion of societies. Now what progress was in the West some years past, development has become in the Third World or the South: it is a sacred cow which cannot be offended or questioned. It is not sufficiently perceived that the idea of development is as loaded as the idea of progress. The struggle over the meaning of development is one over philosophies which inform and guide the end of human life.

Culture and Development in Africa It is now becoming evident that in order to analyse and discuss the concept of development in Africa, we have to consider both the quantitative parameters of the problem as well as the qualitative dimensions of the development challenge. But do we have an effective framework of analysis for such a broad view of culture and development? From a quick review of the current literature, it would appear that this is lacking. What is certain, however, is that a cultural identity which provides a coherent framework within which norms of behaviour are articulated and which allows for the incorporation of new elements is essential if a society is to have relevant and effective institutions. And without such institutions no real development can take place.

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Building on the Indigenous 141 Probably, the failure of dependent development in Africa might be traced to the absence of such institutions. Moreover, the absence of a viable cultural framework in this sense tends to create social fragmentations with westernised minority elites and alienated majorities confronting each other. Without social cohesion, it is difficult to have viable, stable and confident nations. There is therefore a need to put "cultural identity" at the center of development paradigm.

The Cultural Dimension of Development In order to discuss the cultural dimension of development, we have to start by defining culture. For this paper I shall use the definition of culture adopted at the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies, held in Mexico City in 1982, which stated: "Culture may be said to be the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterise a society or social group. It includes not only arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs." From this broad defmition of culture it is clear that the whole paradigm of development needs to be refocused to include the promotion of cultural identity and the empowerment of the people. But this is easier said than done. For over fifty years, scholars and policy makers have been saying that we should take culture into account when discussing development. Hence, the issue is not whether but how. For instance, how do we take culture into account both scientifically and practically? How should multi-disciplinary research on culture and development proceed? How can social sciences such as anthropology, sociology and history provide practical help to African societies? How can we forge close links between those professionals who study culture and the decision-makers in Africa? After all, we have a precedence: social anthropologists operating in Africa were for a long time actively involved in the colonial enterprise. How can we effectively involve our anthropologists, sociologists and historians in the post-colonial enterprises? At the theoretical level, the issue is how to adopt economic and political institutions to local conditions. Many scholars now accept that with the failure of dependent development in Africa, it is imperative to know what kinds of development is likely to succeed on the continent. They are also agreed that we are not likely to answer

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142 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS that question unless we take African cultures more into account. Claude Ake, a distinguished Nigerian political scientist has affirmed that "building on the indigenous is the necessary condition for self-reliant development to which there is now no alternative."(2) But how? He answers that "We build on the indigenous by making it determine the form and content of development strategy, by ensuring that development change accommodates itself to these things, be they values, interests, aspirations and or social institutions which are important in the life of the people. It is only when developmental change comes to terms with them that it can become sustainable."(3) In other words, the structures and values of different societies should be the point of departure of a dynamic development instead of regarding them, as we often do, as obstacles to development. But how? Do we adapt policies and management to cultures or do we adapt the cultures themselves, promote cultural change, possibly by westemizing the Africans. Ali A. Mazrui has also discussed these themes at length in his book Cultural Forces in World Politics. In it, he 'seeks to demonstrate that differences in skills and technique are, on the whole, more basic than differences in income. And these skill differences are profoundly affected by culture. "(4) He characterizes traditional African societies as "Cultures of nostalgia rather than of anticipation", cultures that move slowly, value prestige instead of achievement., "impressive when judged by standards of charity and solidarity", but where "productivity and effectiveness are less than optimal." (5) The survival of this local culture, he asserts, has advantages and disadvantages. "On the negative side, rural culture may be in any case a culture of poverty and indigence. On the positive side, much of the countryside is the repository of what is authentic and distinctive in a particular society." (6) Mazrui, however, admits that cultural change will be needed, but he pleads that it be done slowly. "If the "modernisation of the countryside could be delayed for another generation or two, it could give the society as a whole a better chance to choose a path of "modernization" which would not be excessively based on "Westemization".(7)

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Building on the Indigenous 143 But again, Mazrui does not really tell us how this might be accomplished. How can modernization be delayed? There is thus this widespread perception of failure in African development and the belief that cultural dimensions have somehow been left out of the equation. But everywhere we confront a similar question: How might we do better by taking culture into account? A review of the social science literature for the last three decades or so reveals that little attention has been given to this question of how to take culture into account in development. Recently applied cultural studies have been affected by postmodernism and consequently the scholars concerned have directed their efforts toward the seeking of one's self through ethnographic encounter. The problematique of anthropology has been shifted so that not only can ''we not judge another culture but also we may not be able to apprehend it". The encounter between the Self and the Other has taken center stage, and in the process, practical questions have been submerged. There is therefore a need for a new wave of applied cultural studies, an interdisciplinary pursuit featuring vigorous contributions from anthropology and sociology. For example, the anthropologists should explore the interactions between participatory processes and cultures; how culturally sensitive processes can be created to mobilize and share indigenous knowledge, critique it, and supplement it with experience from other settings through comparative studies. We must also think of new ways of combining cultural knowledge with decision-I11aking at local and international levels. · If the new approach is to succeed, it would be necessary to review cultural studies programs in our universities to discover the gap between what is needed by our societies and what we actually do in these institutions. Most of the anthropological courses and teachings tend to be descriptive, abstract and indifferent to concrete information needed by all economic and political decision-makers in Africa. Anthropologists, sociologists and historians very seldom take part in discussions among political leaders and experts in economy and finance. This is a division in knowledge that has been imposed and accepted in our universities as well as in our political systems. We have seen Westem experts in economics regularly consulted by the African political leaders, imposing programs and orientations without regard to the traditional cultures and systems of solidarities prevailing in very old and deeply rooted societies in nomadic, pastoral, peasant, and mountain cultures. The result has been a total rupture between, on one side, economists often sure of their theories and politicians motivated by their inclination to enjoy more power and, on the other side, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians isolated by their scholarship.

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144 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS In reviving applied cultural studies, we should make a distinction between ethnography which describes facts and features without any theoretical ambition, and anthropology which shows the social, political, and economic mechanisms through which a society or a social group generates its meaning and its scale of values. Understanding this difference, we can then move to a comparative study of several groups and social systems and attempts to evaluate the positive and negative results of different systems. We need to move toward an applied anthropology seeking not only erudition and accumulation of information about socio-cultural groups but also concrete criteria to suggest solutions for a development based on cultural history or new cultural needs emerging not only in the global society but also in several ethnocultural groups ignored, marginalized in the context of colonial states or by the new nation-states. This marginalization or even elimination has happened frequently in many African countries since their independence ( 1960 1990). Eventually, reasons for failure as well as for successes in these countries should be identified and put forward to enlighten the new policies initiated since the collapse of the 'socialist" or communist model and the "end of history," or the triumph of liberalism and the market economy. What I have tried to suggest in this paper is that a debate should be opened in Africa on professional training, systems of education, cultural initiatives, scientific research, and teaching in the field of social and h11man sciences. The human sciences are particularly weak, uncritical, underdeveloped in African countries, in which they are needed the most to improve the intellectual climate and to open the necessary exchange with modern western or eastern thought. For so many years, strategies for development have been unbalanced, giving priority to economism and neglecting humanistic and ethical concerns even in the west. We see clearly today the dramatic results of such a strategy for a hegemonic economy deprived of humanistic consciousness. The current discourse on human rights is more a device to hide the gap between wealthy and poor societies than a true engagement to deliver millions of people from oppression, hunger and exploitation. Finally, our review of current literature on development has revealed that a true internalization of commitment to development must come first from a pact between the government and its own people - those who govern with those who are governed. Without this precondition, external partners such as donors will find themselves, as they have in the past, playing fiddle to the wrong drummer. In tum, African countries will find themselves continuously dependent both financially and administratively while their own human and capital resources seek safer havens abroad. The new approach to more efficient management, must therefore be based upon an appreciation of indigenous culture and values,

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Building on the Indigenous 145 and must have as an ovet1iding objective, the release of energies, creativity and ingenuity of Africans in their bid to take upon themselves the responsibilities for their own societies. In short, the main objective must be the empowennent of the African person.

ENDNOTES 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Nandy, A. Tradition. Tyranny and Utopias. Oxford University Press, Bombay, p.6 Ake, Claude, "Building on the Indigenous" in Recovery in Africa: A Challenae for DevelQPment Cooperation in the 1990s, ed. Pierre Fruhling, Stockholm: Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1988, p. 19 Ake, Claude, Ibid. p.21 Mazrui, Ali A. Cultural Forces in World Politics, London, James Currey, 1990, p. 1,4 Mazrui, Ali A., op. cit. p. 202 Ibid., p. 203 Ibid., p. 203

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CHAPTER 11 Social Sciences in the 21st Century From Rhetoric to Reality1 As a distinct field of inquiry, the social sciences are relatively recent historical phenomena dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. Comparative analysis reveals that the development of modem social sciences, far from being smooth and unavoidable, was deeply problematic, uneven and often truncated In this paper, I intend to adopt a historical perspective which should clearly spell out the major characteristics and dilemmas of social science in its interaction with societal institutions at particular historical junctures, and I also hope to demonstrate that the emergence and evolution of social science, at least in Western Europe and the United States of America, has as its major focus, the historically changing relationships between the social sciences as modes of institutionally reproduced discourse and the institutions and policy legacies of the modem state. In such a historical perspective, two periods of major realignment of social science stand out. The frrst period is that of the emergence and formation of modem social 'science disciplines. As a form of discourse on society, social science takes shape in the increasingly interventionist liberal constitutional states of late nineteenth - and early twentieth century Europe. In intensive debates, proponents of the possibility of a professionalized scientific discourse on society tried to demonstrate the viability of such an enterprise. To achieve this, they had to show that the new forms of discourse had a scientific-intellectual legitimacy. But the new intellectual projects of social science did not only achieve a. grounding and a consolidation in intellectual terms. Equally important, they had to obtain international legitimacy in the scientific world. In other words, they had to fmd ways to institutionalize and reproduce their particular forms of discourse in knowledge-producing institutions. The rise of the modern,

at the 3rd Historical Association of Kenya 's Symposium, Egerton th th University, Egerton, 5 - 6 August, 1995

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148 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS research-oriented university exactly in this era, constituted such a base for successful institutiona1iution in several countries, especially in the U.S.A., where there was full-scale establishment of social science in academic institutions. Thirdly, the new social science disciplines had to establish some kind of linkages to politico-administrative institutions and to draw on a degree of politico-epistemic affinity with societally significant broad policy traditions. Later, when the effects of increasing industriativ.1tion and urbaniution became more prevalent, social knowledge was applied in specific areas such as public health and sanitation. However, the use of social knowledge was limited in scope, and larger, more abstract issues tended to fall outside its application. In fact, the routine application of social science techniques to public policy formulation did not occur until the capitalist welfare state became a feature of liberal democracies after the Second World War. And that brings us to the second period which stands out in historical perspective. The demand for social scientific expertise was a direct outgrowth of the expansion of the welfare state. The state required information oriented towards the formulation of policy. Also, the expanded state could afford to pay for it. It did this either through direct state employment of professionals in bureaucratic positions, or through the funding of universities or organizations devoted to social research. The result was an unprecedented process of large-scale institutionalization of empirical and policy-oriented social science, especially in the 1960s and since social science was being increasingly linked up to the world of policy-making and planning through a plethora of new institutions and new instruments. It was now reasonable to speak of policy-pe1111eated social inquiry, inside academia and in a number of new institutions outside the university. In such a situation, the social sciences no longer had to devote major efforts to establishing their scientific legitimacy - which, at least up to the 1950s, was a major dilemma for disciplines such as sociology and political science in a number of countries in continental Europe. But the modern social science had still to contend with the dual dilemma of avoiding societal irrelevance while upholding scholarly integrity. The danger was that a social science such as sociology might prosper as an academic discipline without any empirical foundation, and, on the other hand, empirical research might expand in utility oriented institutions without any aim to advance the state of sociological knowledge. The social sciences continued to evolve with successive attempts to analyse and comprehend social change and dysfunction. Eventually, experiments in and the application of varied research techniques and methodologies, generated an

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Social Sciences in the 21 st Century: From Rhetoric to Reality 149

established discourse which attempted to account for social structures and societal transformations. But soon, the social scientists realized that they also had to create a demand for their technical knowledge by marketing their expertise. Often, social scientists have attempted to forge alliances with political interests and movements seeking hegemony or the resbucturing of society. And in general, it has been discovered - and this is relevant to our symposium - that ~ sociological location of intellectuals during different periods is important in determining policy and political impact of the social sciences. But this theorem poses questions of objectivity and (political) policy neutrality. In other words, there are problems posed by "patron - client" relationships. Intellectuals are often portrayed as neutral observers of the political and social conflicts affecting the rest of society. During the 1992 general elections in Kenya, for example, we had a group that referred to itself as "neutral scholars." The expertise of the scholars is supposed to lie in "objective" social knowledge - hence, they tend to dissociate themselves from class, gender, religious or ethnic interests. Moreover, it is argued that the concerns the social scientists have for social problem-solving and the promotion of social harmony make it impossible to "take sides" on questions of policy. On the other hand, forging links with political interests and movements can bring social scientists rewards and enhanced prestige. Both the state and other important organizations make available funds and research grants for the application of social knowledge to policy - making and problem - solving. Furthermore, social scientists may enhance their status when they are asked to sit on commissions of inquiry, task forces, research projects, etc. Many public and private research organizations and advisory bodies fund social research for policy purposes. The marketing of social research and skills for social problem-solving therefore, can lead to occupational promotion and professional prestige, in addition to extending the political influence of social scientists. However, some social scientists have decried these activities, criticising them for contributing to the legitimization of hegemonic ideologies and reinforcing an elite structure of political and social power. But often, such critics are merely expressing legitimate opposition to the existing order except that they also do it by allying themselves with alternate political movements. The current of social thought thus changes from one which justifies and is supportive of the social structure, to a call for its fundamental restructuring. So where is the ~•neutrality" in this?

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150 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS The process usually leads to periodic and temporal polam.ation. During periods when the social scientific community is aligned with hegemonic interests, it can have considerable influence in policy formulation and lending legitimacy to those in positions of power (e.g. the 1960s onwards). When the radical critics (or the vanguard to use the proper political parlance) advance alternative political vision, this legitimacy comes into question and the structure of power is challenged among social scientists attempt, in such a context, to expand their political and policy influence. From the opposite end of the spectrum, one could also adopt a historicalcomparative framework to look at the subject from the state's changing requirements for social research. A look at North America and Western Europe, for instance, identifies three periods. Until the later 1940s, state policy was typified by a classical liberal or laissez faire approach. The next period up to the 1970s, was characterized by greater state involvement, such as the implementation of welfare reforms. Throughout the 1980s, however, many liberal-democratic states have sought to curtail these interventionist practices. For the most part, laissez faire state abstained from interfering in social and cultural matters. Health care, poor relief and education, for example, were largely the responsibility of private institutions or other groups in civil society such as the Churches. Thus the social sciences evolved without state support during this early period. As the post-World War II expansion became fmnly entrenched in the 1950s and 1960s., many liberal-democratic states began to use social research for policy purposes. Social scientists constituted a significant membership of the "reform coalitions" which were forged. They gained access to resources and enhanced the role of social science in policy formulation. In addition, new organizations and structures were formed to coordinate, promote and conduct social scientific research, for example, research institutes outside of academies devoted to particular policy areas, agencies designed to oversee bidding for government research contract and councils which set standards and priorities for the allocation of state funds. .These developments contributed to the prestige and political significance of social science. But they also tended to transform the practice of research into little more than a service industry producing a commodity - social research - for purchase. The state could purchase this research - commodity from external sources or generate its own by directly employing social scientists. This view contrasts with the earlier interpretation which had social scientists successfully creating a market for their research skills.

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Social Sciences in the 21st Century: From Rhetoric to Reality 151

•

The economic crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s contributed to the decline of coalitions between refonnist political actors and like-minded social scientists. It led to severe cutbacks in research funding. New coalitions based on neoconservatism gained power in Britain and the United States with the declared intention of restructuring state and society. Their agendas, which included the reduction of bureaucracy and the withdrawal of the state in favour of market driven economies, required little in the way of social research that was not derived from classical liberal economics. In both countries, the utility and scientific objectivity of research for policy purposes was questioned. The Reagan administration, for instance, viewed the social sciences as biased towards the welfare state and towards the cause of the political opponent. Margaret Thatcher wheeled out economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman to legitimate an economic strategy. On the other hand, the arrival of new conservative coalitions has provided openings for social scientists whose research is pro-market in orientation and tends to be critical of the interventionist welfare state. In the U.S.A. research institutes such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enteiprise Institute are sponsored by, and receive funds from, corporate business sector. Their interests lie in promoting policies critical of "big government,, and those which champion market solutions to social problems. Even the Brookings Institute, which was closely aligned to the domestic reforms of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, has backed off its traditional progressive - liberal stance. Other concerns of the New Right coalition, such as the decline of "traditional American values,, (see Thatcherism and its concern with traditional "British values,) and the need for a more belligerent foreign policy, have become the focus of research institutes. In Canada, the neo-conservative agenda has been articulated by organiutions like the Institute for Research on Public Policy, the Frazer Institute and the Bronfinan Institute. This shift in orientation in North America and Western Europe may simply constitute the latest fad in social scientific research. The need for research resources which are limited and the desire to improve the status of their fields of inquiry may have provoked social scientists to tailor their work to the changing political climate. But what seems more likely is that, the new requirements of the state during a period of economic crisis have forced the social sciences to be more explicitly political and contentious in their policy prescriptions. From this historical survey, it is evident that the rationalist or positivist paradigm, which conceived of social science as a discipline conducting objective and scientific research in its efforts to analyse society and provide rational policy choices to alleviate social problems appears to be in decline. The present situation is one of great instability wherein political forces, with

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152 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS opposing ideological viewpoints as to the role of the state and the organi:iation of society, put forward contending policies in their attempts to gain power and legitimacy. This struggle, therefore, bas revealed the motivations surrounding research practices and its uses, and bas contributed to repudiating the previously widespread belief that the social sciences could inform policy-making because they were objective and free from ideological bias.

Social Sciences in Kenya: The Need for an Evaluation There is an urgent need to write a historiography of social sciences in Africa. In Kenya, for example, how many social science departments do we have in public universities? How many institutes and organizations in the public sector are engaged in social science research? What is their contribution to social knowledge and to the solution of social problems? Toe political context in which the positivist social sciences were transfeired from the West to the Third World was not conducive to debate or questioning of their epistemological basis. Doubters and dissenters remained minority voices, until positivist social sciences were seriously challenged in the West itself during the 1970s. Simultaneously, the traditional political context of colonialism and to an extent neo-colonialism changed, providing a new context conducive both to political and intellectual self-assertion by some African social scientists. This expanded consciousness led to a critique of Western positivist social sciences for their ethnocentrism, their exaggerated claim to universality, their focus on causes of under-development through factors internal to these societies without adequate weight given to the role of colonialism. They were accused of serving the political and economic interest of the West and thus perpetuating intellectual colonialism and dependence. There were calls for intellectual decolonization, liberation and self-reliance, adaptation rather than wholesale, thoughtless adoption of Western social sciences; and finally there were loud calls for indigenization. But much of such outpourings were mere rhetoric. With few exceptions, most of the social scientific literature in Kenya is not oriented to Clllllulative growth of knowledge in any specific field or in social sciences as a whole. Generally, it lacks theoretical orientation and theoretical framework. And wherever a theoretical framework is used, it is not itself subjected to critical assessment. Most African social scientists are wanting in methodological rigour and conceptual insight. Most of them are pre-occupied with the social, economic and political situation in their countries. True, their empirical studies and conceptual insights make us more aware of social life and problems in

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Social &iences in the 21st Century: From Rhetoric to Reality 153 African societies, but their theoretical and methodological contribution to social science, as an international academic discipline, is limited. They also produce studies which emphasise the verification of Western concepts and propositions in a non-Western context. Anthropology, for example, started in Western Europe as a science of other (non-Western) cultures. Can we have "home anthropologists"? And what is the implication for the actual framework of anthropology as the study of non-Western societies by Western scholars? The same problem applies to sociology which is essentially a product of Western society. A considerable proportion of sociological knowledge (including concepts, theories and methodological procedmes) has been invented by Western scholars and verified by Western facts. To what extent is this corpus of knowledge relevant or applicable to non-Western societies, including Africa? Objectivity in some intellectual circles in Kenya is assumed to be synonymous with value neutrality - a sort of amoral stance towards moral and political implications of social knowledge. But this is both a morally and scientifically indefensible position. The classical adage that knowledge is power has greater truth in the modern context with the availability of mass media and effective indoctrination techniques. The choice of problems for study is guided and made within a value framework. What values a scholar uses to choose the problem he studies eventually affects the distribution of power in a society and also its policy outcomes. Thus by assuming the stance of value neutrality (as some Kenyan scholars try to do) a social scientist does not become truly objective but only indifferent to the political and moral consequences of his work. True objective requires that a social scientist puts his value cards on the table, that is, specifies by what values he is being guided in choosing the problem he is studying and what type of social outcomes he expects. Once he has made these choices he should remain neutral with regard to the formulation of his hypotheses, collection and interpretation of his data. Value neutrality, if interpreted to mean abandoning the responsibility to foresee social implications of studies in the light of one's own reasoned and considered judgement, turns scholars into mancwins or intellectual mercenaries.

Need for scientific creativity: There is also an urgent need for scientific creativity in Kenya. Normally, such scientific creativity flourishes in a given set of social-structural and cultural environment. It seems to be directly related to the "cultural ethos" of science, that is, organi~ skepticism, fieedom to doubt and dissent and a critical and objective appraisal of scientific work.

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154 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Although there is some intellectual fe11nent in many parts of Africa, including Kenya, there is not sufficient appreciation of the need for scientific creativity. The major thrust of social scientific work in Africa still re,,,ains imitative and emulative. Most of the African ~ial science community remains predominantly at the intellectual periphery of the Western intellectual centers. Not many accept creativity as an important part of their role and often become "captive minds" or worse still "retailers of knowledge." In Kenya, creativity in social sciences is comparatively low. In economics, for example, original contribution of Kenyan economists to the discipline is negligible. The same applies to sociology, political science, psychology and anthropology. An indication of lack of creativity, and the prevalence of emulation is the absence of high quality textbooks and the indiscriminate use of the textbooks produced in the West. In psychology, for example, practically all textbooks used are from the West. At times, even the examples and illustrations used for teaching are taken from Western societies. One therefore gets the distinct impression that not many Kenyan social scientists accept creativity in knowledge as an essential part of the professional role. In this connection, it would appear that the human sciences have faired better in Kenya. Creativity has been shown in literature, philosophy, history, religion and music.

Fragmentation of the Social Sciences: The pattern of specialization and segmentation of Western social science has been reproduced in Kenya. Each discipline is evolving in isolation, both in teaching and research. Interdisciplinary, multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary concerns with common theoretical conceptual and methodological frameworks are absent. The application of different disciplines for a holistic view of Kenyan society, culture and the understanding of significant problems is rare. And there is no visible movement towards unification of social science knowledge. This uneven and segmented social science has made the scientific interpretation of Kenyan society difficult. Partly due to the privilege of development economics, development, for example, has generally come to be viewed merely as economic development resulting in a narrow view of society. How does economic development affect social, political, cultural and technical spheres? What non-economic factors facilitate or limit economic development? What is the cost of economic development in political, social and cultural terms? What is balanced, even and comprehensive development of society? These are

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Social Sciences in the 21 st Century: From Rhetoric to Reality 155 questions which have not been seriously asked, nor have their answers been formulated by Kenyan social scientists. The appropriateness and relevance of indicators of development imported from W estem intellectual centers and international centers and international organi:zations such as the World Bank and IMF, have not been seriously scrutinized. An example is the now fashionable concept of 'social development" and its indicators which usually include the extent of literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality rates, the availability of modern medical facilities, access to clean water and housing, etc. These indicators, in fact, do not measure social development as derived from development theory. True social development must be reflected in degrees of social cooperation or absence of conflicts between various groups, classes, communities, in adequate flexibility of social structure manifested by upward social mobility, and the removal of barriers against weaker and underpriviledged groups and the emergence of new, differentiated groups and organizations performing specialized tasks.

What is to be done? One response to lack of social relevance and utility of imported knowledge is to promote what is usually called "indigenization" of social sciences. But what does the concept mean? The meaning, in my view, must include dispensing with foreign consultants and greater use of national experts, and substantive and methodological reorientation. This includes self-awareness and rejection of borrowed consciousness, desirability of alternative human perspective on human societies, attention to historical and cultural specifics and opposition to false universalism. All these imply the building of institutional capacity, reorientation of research on one's own society and the participation of national social scientists in constructing distinctive conceptual framework and metatheories which reflect the world views, social, cultural experience and perceived goals. But indigenization must not bar transnational cooperation in research or become an obstacle to the universalization of social sciences. In conclusion, we should ask the following question: "What explains the present state of social science, its patterns of growth, imitative and emulative rather than creative thrust, inability to offer a critique of the existing social order, failure to contribute to the formulation and evaluation of policies of development, national security and national integration, polarization in part of the social science community, and apathy, indifference and lack of vitality in another?

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156 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS (i) The pattern of growth and style of evolution of social sciences in Kenya is considerably affected by their over-integration with, and over-exposure to, the Western social scientific tradition which is itself a consequence of its colonial tradition and its peripheral status within the dominant U .S.A. and Western economic and cultural systems. This over-integration to one intellectual tradition conditions social sciences in Kenya to accept uncritically paradigms, theories, conceptual frameworks, and definition of significant problems from Western social science. Naturally, intellectual dependence produces intellectual sterility: Segmentation and uneven development is also largely the result of such dependence. (ii) The locus of social science in Kenya is also conditioned by several internal factors such as limited scope to doubt and to dissent; a social structure in which high status, power, privileges and prestige are attached to political positions and those in civil bureaucracy. As a result, the status of scholars, particularly social and human scientists, is low which militates against professional pride and devotion to intellectual work. (iii)Priorities in the allocation of resources and perception of the role of intellectuals, particularly social scientists, by the ruling elite also, to some extent, explain the stunted growth of social sciences. Social and human sciences receive the lowest priority in capacity building and research. Furthermore, the ruling elite and the bureaucracy generally tend to view social scientists as radicals and negativistic critics of the elite. Except for economics, there is a general lack of appreciation of the potential contributions other social sciences such as sociology, political science, psychology, history and anthropology can make toward imparting a scientific outlook to the citizen, promote scientific understanding of national problems and make positive contribution to the formulation and evaluation of public policies. (iv)One must also take account of the nature and structure of the community of social scientists. It appears that a cohesive and strong community has not yet emerged. Social scientists are not only divided by their disciplines but also by their personal animosities, professional rivalries and intense ideological intolerance. There is no overall national organization of social scientists. The single discipline - oriented associations are either inactive or moribund and meet infrequently. They do not exert much influence on their members to develop professional competence and excellence. Nor do they promote a positive image of social science and exert pressure on public institutions in their support. This weak and nascent community of social scientists has yet clearly to define its contributions to the understanding and solution of national problems. Most members do not engage in creative

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research and those who do, limit it to minor, academic and technical problems. They shy away from national ideological debates on important issues. A small number of those who have joined this debate have aroused adversary positions which has led to a breakdown of communication and inhibited competitive paradigms and schools of thought which could enrich each other by mutual criticism and debate. There is therefore a need for a Social Science Association in Kenya that would complement and overcome the intellectual limits of discipline - based social science, disciplinary overspecialization and professional balkanization. The council would develop social science infrastructures; train the next generation of scholars through Fellowship programs aimed at increasing the flow of talented graduate students in the social sciences into research and teaching careers; and organize workshops and conferences for social scientists. The problem for such a Council will always be funding. Africa, including Kenya, has no Research Foundations, there are no privately fmanced Research Institutes, besides those financed by foreign NGOs. It is high time Kenya had a Social Science and Arts Research Council which would provide funding, on a competitive basis, for social and human sciences research. Also it is high time serious consideration is given to the possibility of establishing a broad-based Institute for Social Sciences similar to the old East African Institute of Social Research at Makerere or the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in Lusaka. These colonial initiatives, which were established in every region in Africa, carried out much of the pioneering work in the social sciences and yielded some excellent works, which informed colonial policies. We desperately need such an institute where contemporary social problems would be used as a research laboratory, which would provide the testing ground for theories and hypotheses, and in the course of doing so, generate new knowledge about fundamental features of human behaviour and social institutions. The generated scientific knowledge would provide the basis - in facts and legitimacy - for informed policy making. The country also needs, I dare suggest, a Center for Policy Studies, which would coordinate research and commission publicatiohs on major contemporary policy • issues.

ENDNOTES 1.

Mazrui, Ali A. and J.F. Ade Ajayi ''Trends in Philosophy and Science in Africa" Chapter 21, especially p. 656-677 on Social Sciences, in General Histroy of Africa Vol. VIII - Africa Since 1935, eds. Ali A. Mazrui and C. Wondji. Oxford-Berkeley-Paris: Heinemann - California - UNESCO, 1993.

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158 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS 2. 3.

Abdel, M. and A.N. Pandeya (eds.) lntelllectual Creativity in Endo1ienous Cultures. Tokyo: United Nations, 1981. A.G. Gragon (ed.) Intellectuals in Liberal Democracies. New Yor~ Praeger, 1987.

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CHAPTER 12 National Identity and Nationalism Concepts and Ideologies§ The modem nation-state would hardly exist without the ideology of nationalism to sustain it, a doctrine that was born early in the nineteenth century and that, by the middle of the twentieth century, had become one of the most powerful and dynamic social forces in history. In the anti-colonial struggles of the Third World, for example, nationalist ideologies proved to be powerful weapons (1). In countries such as India, Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana and Kenya, among many others, the early nationalist ideologies attempted to unite diverse peoples under the banner of a single national idea without raising the question whether the concept of nationhood which had evolved in Europe and the Americas was suitable for the ethnically pluralistic societies that were soon to become independent within the boundaries of former colonial territories. To the majority of Africans, for example, nationalism meant the removal of colonialism, it meant Uhuru. freedom, with the hope that other things would be added later. But the acceptance of the concept of nationhood by the African leaders unquestionably influenced the way the Africans define themselves. They became Nigerians, Kenyans, Ugandans etc (2). But we now know, given the problems of an ethnic nature that the post-colonial states subsequently ran into, the anti-colonial movements were, in fact, the product of a temporary convergence of various sectional, economic, regional and ethnic interests within the colonial territories, joined solely by their common interest in getting rid of the colonial masters. When the appeal for a new sense of national identity was made, it was often couched in the language of the former colonizers. Hence, many Africans did not have a strong sense of attachment to the emergent nation in which they found themselves. Many continued to identify themselves with

Keynote address presented at the Commonwealth Association ofMuseums seminar on "Museums and National Identity-Broad Perspectives", September 17-28, 1995, South Africa and Botswana.

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160 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS their ethnic groups. Thus the initial cohesiveness that sustained national identity in Western Europe was absent in many African countries at the moment of independence. Hence, most African countries, like others in the Third World, are still trying to cope with the opposing tendencies of a unifying secular nationalism that was dear to the "Founding Fathers" of these nations, and the centrifugal tendencies of regional, ethnic, linguistic, religious, and communal identities that command the loyalties of many hundreds of millions of citizens of those nations. Also, as current developments show, national issues and problems of national identity have become dominant in the political discourse of the postCold War era in Eastern Europe. The violent eruptions in Bosnia, Crotia, Moldova, Georgia; the abysmal way in which the newly independent Baltic States have been treating their Russian and Polish minorities; the break-up of the Czech and Slovak Republic; the future of the 25 million ethnic Russians who live outside Russia; and the Hungarian minorities in Slovakia, Romania and the former Yugoslavia - all these examples, and many others, should be enough to convince anyone who believed that post-communist political discourse would concentrate on the issues of democratization and the development of the market economies to think differently. This is partly because issues which most Western societies have settled through trial and error, accommodation, or drastic forced adjustment, in the course of their histories, are still open questions that the people of Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe must grapple with. Among these issues, are conflicts that are engendered by nationalism which threaten the whole fabric of the body politic. In contrast to the nationalism of the anti-colonial struggle, there is the nationalism of the post-colonial states, as expressed in the ideology of the State, which encompasses and subsumes all prior and partial identities. Its proponents argue that the integration of the new nation requires the demise of the preexisting ethnic groups. This kind of nationalism usually denies all subnational ethnic loyalties and requires unconditional allegiance to the state, considered as the embodiment of the nation. It also tends to be illiberal and anti-democratic. With some justice, Walker Connor (1972), has referred to such a process as state-building and nation-destroying (3).

The Concept of the nation-state In order to understand state nationalism, it is imperative that the concept of the nation-state which assumes an equivalence between the State (which is a political term) and the nation (which is essentially a sociological concept) should be discussed. The model of the nation-state developed in Europe in the

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eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the majority of cases it was initially cultural or ethnic. It crystallized around an existing cultural or linguistic community that desired to free itself from foreign domination. Language was a necessary defence against alienation, against loss of identity and against domination. The Hungarian nationalists under their leader Lajos Kossuth, modernized Magyar to become an official language and turned the writing and speaking of Magyar into a test of patriotism. The same applied to the Serbians who developed written Serbian to express their nationalism. Moreover, some Western states succeeded in fusing their disparate ethnic groups into nations through the absorption by "ethnic cores" of peripheral ethnic groups into the State they controlled. Such absorptions were done either . peacefully or through conquest. For example, expanded English nationalism absorbed first Wales and later Scotland and imposed English as the language of the State. The same applies to the beginning of the French State where a Frankish core absorbed other ethnic groups into a French-speaking State. In other words, the development of premodem ethnic communities into modem nation-states had always been mediated by historical contingencies and conscious political effort. Hence, modem nations are political constructs. Eugen J. Weber's noted study, Peasants into Frenchmen (1976), shows how, at the time of the French Revolution (from which the French nation in the modem sense stems), few rural folk in the largely rural society of the ancient regime thought of themselves as being distinctively 'French' - indeed, many of them did not even speak French (4). Cohesion was the fruit of a deliberate, centralized, and at times, harsh political effort, whether undertaken by centralized state bureaucracies, cultural elites, or others. Thus arose the "nationality principle" which identified state and nation and which led to the current world system of so-called nation-states. This was the ideal model to which most nations aspired. On the ground, however, most people in Europe remained "non-state nations," subordinated to multinational empires such as the Tsarist, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires, that did not finally break up until after the First World War. The few "nations" which were able to create their "nation-states" through political unification were: France, Germany, Italy, England and Spain. Others did so through separation from larger entities: Norway, Belgium, Poland - sometimes by war and violence. To make it worse, several European countries such as England, France, Portugal, Spain, Holland, Germany and Italy, established their own overseas multinational colonial empires in which the "nationality principle" did not apply. These empires eventually broke up after the Second World War, leading to the multinational and polyethnic states of today, with a few nationstates such as Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland and Somalia. The majority of the

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162 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS peoples of Africa and Asia, for example, are still nations without states Yoruba, Zulu, Igbo, Asante, Luo, Baganda, Kikuyu, Mossi, Mandika, Barotse, Kurds, Tamils, Tibeteans. In Western countries, ethnic minorities and nondominant nationalities have continued to subsist since 1918, resisting incorporation or assimilation into the dominant "nation-states." Hence, one of the basic unresolved issues in many parts of the world today is the apparent contradiction between the conception of the modem nation-state and the pervasive reality of multinational and polyethnic states.

Theories of nations and nationalism There are at least five major theories of nations and nationalism that are of particular relevance to the contemporary world. These are: nationalism as a primordial phenomenon based on rational or objectively valid criteria on the basis of which the world can be divided up into different national communities; nationalism as the subjective consciousness of the members of the community; nationalism as a functional requirement of the modem state; nationalism as a specific form of politics that groups use under certain historical circumstances in opposition to the State; and finally, the Marxist interpretation of nationalism (5). We shall proceed to make few comments about each theory. First, there are those political scientists who view the nation as an objective fact, consisting of people who share a certain number of objective traits such as language, customs, history, religion, culture, economy and territory. According to this view, the "nation" exists as an objective reality in history whether all the people involved are aware or conscious of its existence or not, prior to the emergence of the nation-state and that the nation-state we know today is simply the political expression in its purest form of the nation. Nations, defined in this manner, are singular, unique, specific units that are clearly distinguishable from other similar units. In the words of Kedourie, "In nationalist doctrine, language, race, culture, and sometimes even religion, constitute different aspects of the same primordial entity, the nation. The theory admits here, that it is of no great precision, and it is misplaced ingenuity to try and classify nationalisms according to the particular aspect which they choose to emphasize. What is beyond doubt is that the doctrine divides humanity into separate and distinct nations, claims that such nations must constitute sovereign states, and asserts that the members of a nation reach freedom and fulfillment by cultivating the peculiar identity of their own nation or by sinking their own persons in the greater whole of the nation." (6)

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National Identity and Nationalism: Concepts and Ideologies 163 Thus the nation, according to this theory is seen as a non-historical entity directly rooted in some transcendent or natural order. Secondly, some scholars have contended that it is not a series of objective traits that define a nation but the subjective awareness of it by its presumed members. A nation thus becomes the expression of a common consciousness; a common will to be a nation, and not the other way around. Gellner, for instance, defines nations as "groups which will themselves to persist as communities." (7). He states categorically that "it is nationalism which engenders nations, and not the other way around." (8) Benedict Anderson writing in the same year as Gellner goes even further in his definition of a "nation" He writes: "A nation is an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them or even hear them, yet in the minds of each, lives the image of their communion." (9) Nations are thus no more than subjective perceptions of certain objectively existing facts or indeed of "invented" facts. For the emergence of nationalism, Gellner argues that literacy and a higher culture are essential. In his own words: "Nationalism is not the awakening of an old, latent, dormant force, though that is how it does indeed present itself. It is in reality the consequence of a new form of social organization, based on deeply internalized, education-dependent high cultures, each protected by its own state." (10) Antony Smith, on the other hand, explains the rise of nationalism in terms of what he calls the "ethnic revival" that has taken place in the world since the eighteenth century. He attributes a pivotal role in this process to the intelligentsia: " ..a project which must be realized by transforming the components of the ethnic community they have rediscovered and seek to regenerate. It is not the community as such which draws the zeal and activity of the intelligentsia, but the community transformed according to a particular bluepri.nt, in short, the nation" (11) At the same time, Smith maintains that the intelligentsia plays this crucial role not for the bette11nent of the state or for the general welfare of the nation, but for their own self-interests. It should be emphasized that even for Anderson,

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164 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS it is the literates, the lexicographers, philologists, folklorists, artists, publicists, composers, as well as other professional intellectuals, including museum curators, who furthered the imagined communities that were to become the nation-states of the modem world (12). To the works of Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson and A. D. Smith, should be added those of Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger. All these studies demonstrate close links between ethnicity and nationalism and national identity. In their writings, both Ernest Geitner and Eric Hobsbawn emphasized the idea that nationalism was a relatively recent creation, specifically a response to the upheavals of the industrial revolution and the evolution of modem bureaucratic states.13 One other work which contributed to the demystification of nationalism was The Invention of Tradition by Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger which demonstrated that nationalist mythologies were historically contingent creations (14). A third school of thought gives a more prominent role in nation-building to communications, instead of the intellectuals or the printed page. The school links the development of national consciousness with the communications revolution which began in the nineteenth century with railroads, telegraph, and widespread secular public education systems. It is through effective communication that people lose their local, parochial identities and loyalties in order to identify themselves with the larger economic and political unit, the nation (15). This functional approach to nationalism seems to be an aspect of the larger theory of modernization, which sees the nation as an essential ingredient in the process of modernization and the ideology of nationalism as its necessary concomitant. According to modernization theory, the process of nation-building and development of the modem state entails the transformation of agrarian, pre-industrial societies into industrial, market-oriented economies. In such a process, the nation, or better still, the nation-state replaces the clan, the tribe, the ethnic group as a focus for the individual loyalty and as a claim on the individual's social and political, as well as ideological, commitment. But recent events in all parts of the world have highlighted the danger of imputing a direct relationship between modernization and the weakening of ethnic identity. Modernization theories had assumed, as we have stated above, that effective national integration will follow from a process of economic development (16). The spread of communication, increased urbanization and industrialization were supposed to lead to the assimilation of the inhabitants of all regions into the mainstream of national life, the transcending of ethnic parochialism, the transference of their loyalties to the state and their eventual fusion into a homogeneous nation. That was the theory.

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Today, we know that modernization, in itself, is not a sufficient condition for breaking down ethnic identities. If anything, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that in some cases, it leads to a stJengtbeniog rather than a weakening of ethnic identification. Part of the reason is that often, certain regions perceive that their natural resources are being exploited by a dominant political center for the benefit of the latter. The Shaba province of Zaire and the Cabinda enclave in Angola have charged the central government of engaging in discriminatory redistribution. On the other side, are cases where underprivileged regions feel that a state controlled by a 'dominant other• is paying too little attention, in economic tettns, to their regions. Hence given the unequal effects of the modernization process, ethnic identity may actually be accentuated, resulting in the gradual development of the feelings of sub-nationalism. Fourthly there is the theory which regards nationalism as a specific form of politics that groups practice under certain historical circumstances in the opposition to the State. The advocates of this theory argue that the historical significance of nationalism as a movement arises only when it is used for political ends with the objective of controlling or possessing the power of the State. Nationalism thus understood, can be expressed in three different ways: (i) when groups wish to secede from an existing state in order to form their own state; (ii) when nationalist political groups wish to introduce major political and constitutional reforms as happened in Turkey under Ataturk; and (iii) when politically fragmented but ethnically similar groups struggle to create larger states or supra-states as has been the case with Arab nationalism ( 17). A version of this theory which sees nationalism as a form of politics has been developed by J. Rothschild in his book entitled Ethnopolitics ( 1981 ). The core concept here is what he calls politicised ethnicity which, according to him, is not the expression of some form of primordial attachments, but rather an instrument in the struggle for power. directly linked to the process of modernization. He argues that in certain societies, "politicised ethnicity has become the crucial principle of political legitimation and delegitimation of systems, states, regimes and governments."( 18) In his conceptual framework. politicised ethnicity is not absolutist, it is a variable, it is invented. it is utilitarian and may be used or discarded by an ethnic group in accordance with the group's economic and political interests. Hence, much of what is usually considered as nationalism is nothing but politicised ethnicity. The fifth and the final theory of nationalism we wish to comment on relates to the Marxist interpretation of the "national question." Orthodox Marxists were

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166 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS more interested in the class struggle under capitalism than in the national question. They argued that whereas the bourgeoisie is nationalist, ''the proletarians have no fatherland," according to their master's dictum. In practice, however, the masters, Marx and Engels, developed the controversial and almost racist concept of nations with history and nations without history. The former represented by Germany had developed state structures that enabled them to progress economically and to expand their territory. The latter group, who according to Engels included the Slavs, was destined to disappear, because they had failed to become ''nations with history." For many decades, nationalism was considered by the Marxist as a purely bourgeois ideology, a false consciousness. In the multinational federation of the Soviet Union, it was expected that national differences would co-exist harmoniously, within the socialist economic and political structure, to the extent that all objective reasons for national oppression and separatism - as may exist in capitalist countries - would have disappeared. A new historical community, the 'soviet people" was to evolve. Events in 1989-1990 in the Soviet Union shattered this illusion. As a result of perestroika , nationalist movements were on the rise, leading to the collapse of the Union and the subsequent declaration of independence by several states. The dissolution of the U.S.S.R., the collapse of communism, the ensuing upsurge of ethnic nationalism in Eastern Europe and the increasing exhibition of racism in the West, has given a new and urgent focus to the problems of ethnicity, nationalism and identity. The events have exposed the global nature of ethnic conflicts and consequently, ethnic or 'tribal' particularism can no longer be viewed as an African problem. Moreover, the end of the Cold War has eroded the influence of Marxist nationalist analysis, both as an analytical tool as well as a practical program. Ethnicity and nationalism, which were often discussed by the Marxists as forms of irrational false consciousness, cannot any longer be explained away in this way. They are with us in one form or another and we have to attempt to understand their workings. Given the complex nature of nationalism and national identity issues which I have attempted to outline in this Address, where do museums fit into this picture? Do they have anything to offer, for example, to the discourse on cultural identity, which is part of modem nationalism? Is it not true that some so-called "national" museums merely reflect the dominant culture of the nation, while ignoring completely other nationalisms and identities? Even more importantly, how can museums apply and communicate ideas on nationalism and national identity in their activities and programs? In many African countries, archaeological collections, for example, tend to concentrate on early

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National Identity and Nationalism: Concepts and Ideologies 167 roan or woman and Stone Age cultures. They pay scant attention to the complex cultures that evolved in many parts of the continent and which provide direct links with present-day populations. This kind of presentation peipehlates Engel's idea of ''people without history", and has led to what has been telmed 'archaeological nationalism'. Similarly, ethnographic materials in many a museum are displayed in a static manner which can only suggest changelessness. Another area where the curators of national museums are confronted with tricky and sensitive issues to address, relates to the commemoration of international or national events and the construction of national monuments. During the last few months; for example, the Westem countries, Russia, Japan and Israel have been celebrating the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Each nation has emphasized features of the war that it regards as relevant. The Germans have celebrated the end of the War in terms of national self-reappraisal; the Israelis have emphasized the significance of the holocaust museums; the Japanese have, through the Hiroshima and Nagasaki monuments, sought to remind the world of the dangers of nuclear warfare; and the French, the British, the Americans and the Russians, have, in different styles emphasized, in a jingoistic manner, their invincibility and power. How should the Africans, the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Chinese, the Koreans celebrate the end of this war? It is obvious that the manner, style and emphasis for each country will be influenced, to a considerable extent, by its nationalism. For example, the Chinese Americans have attempted to remember what they term 'The Forgotten Holocaust' through exhibitions which show the victimization of China by the Japanese army between 1931 and 1945. The exhibits have dealt with the Rape of Nanking (now Nanjig) and with Japanese biological experiments on Chinese in Manchuria. A total of 340,000 civilians were murdered including women (who were raped first) and children and 20 million Chinese died in World War II. The Japanese biological warfare operated in Harbin, Manchuria for the duration of the war. The Japanese experimented with plague, anthrax, typhoid, cholera, vivisection without anesthetic, and dehydration; used poison gas in 193 7 against Chinese troops and dropped plague bombs. There is also the story of the comfort women. The survivors who are mostly in their seventies have come forward to demand restitution and apologies from the Japanese government. It is ironical that despite the enormity of this "holocaust"' the Chinese government has preferred to forget it, focusing not on past Japanese crimes but on winning Japanese investments and loans to promote development of the market in China. In such hostile circumstances, it is difficult for any museum curator to mount any meaningful exhibition in China itself.

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168 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS The problem does not apply only to commemoration of international events. It can be even more complicated and sensitive with respect to national events. In the new South Africa, for example, how would a national museum commemorate the Great Trek or Africa Day? How would a museum curator treat the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in Zimbabwe? Where do leaders like Lord Delamere of Kenya, Moise Tshombe of Zaire, Ian Smith of Zimbabwe fit in the national pantheon or gallery? I hope these and many other relevant issues will be thoroughly ventilated during the next few days. For it is at such international conferences, I believe, that we can learn to be more respectful of each other's values and positions, or to free ourselves from the clutches of prejudices, ethonocentrism and from the dogmatism of particular 'national' or ethnic values and interests.

ENDNOTES 1.

2.

3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

For an analysis of Third World nationalisms, see Hugh Seton-Watson (1977), Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism. London: Methuen; Elie Kedourie (1970, Nationalism in Africa and Asia: New York; New American Library; Byod C. Shafer (1972), Faces of Nationalism. New York, Hancourt Brace; Rupert Emerson ( 1960), From Empire to Nation: The Rise of Self-Assertion of Asian and African Peoples. Boston: Beacon Press. See John N. Paden (ed.), Values. Identities and National Integration: Empirical Research in Africa, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1980. Conner, Walker "Nation Building or Nation Destroying", World Politics, Vol. 24, No.3, 1972 Weber, Eugen J., Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of the Rural France 1870-1914. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1976. See Benjamin Akzin (1964) State and Nation. London: Hutchinson University Library; Frederick Hertz (1944), Nationality in History and Politics. New York, Oxford University Press; Elie Kedourie ( 1985), Nationalism, London, Hutchinson and Co.; Ernest Gellner (1983), Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press; Hans Kohn ( 1948), The Idea of Nationalism. New York: The Macmillan Co. Kedourie, E .• Nationalism, p. 73 (1985) Geitner, E., Nations and Nationalism Ibid., p.55 Anderson, Benedick, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, p. 15

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National Identity and Nationalism: Concepts and Ideologies 169 10. Geitner, E. Nations and Nationalism, p.48 11. Smith, Anthony, The Ethnic Revival in the Modem World. Cambridge University Press, p. 133. 12. Anderson, Imagined Communities, Chapter 5 13. Hobsbawn, E., Nations and Nationalism since 1780, Cambridge, 1990. 14. Hobsbawn, E. and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge University Press, 1983. 15. Deutsch, Karl W., Nationalism and Social Communication. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 16. See, for example, Gabriel Almond and James Coleman, The Politics of Developing Areas, Boston, 1960. 17. For a detailed discussion of this theory, see John Breuily (1982), Nationalism and the State. Manchester University Press 18. Rothschild, Joseph, Ethnopolitics. a conceptual Framework. New York: Columbia University Press, p.2

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CHAPTER 13 The Role of University in Development§ Permit me to begin with a few stark facts to place the topic of "The Role of University in Development" in its proper context. For the context is, I believe, crucial to your theme in various ways, and the key to the transition from theory to practice. Let us focus our minds first on the gap - a gap which is rapidly becoming a gulf - between the socio-economic situation of the richest and poorest countries of the world. In the economic field, two outstanding features are already apparent in the world situation, namely, the globalization of markets and the growing trend towards the organization of regional blocs. This has already led to an intensification of commercial and financial competition, a logical consequence of which will be the gradual erosion of international solidarity. The world's North is a direct beneficiary of this gap. The terms of trade are such that the South is actually working for the North's prosperity and falling deeper into poverty and debt. The global market is such that tariff and other barriers to the marketing of Third World products cost the developing countries some SOO billion dollars per year - six times what the poorer countries spend on such social priorities as basic education, primary health care, clean water and the elimination of malnutrition. Whereas 90% of scientific and technological potential was held by 10 per cent of the world's population in the 1980s, this gap, instead of shrinking, continues to grow wider. Scientific and technical personnel, in particular, constitute only 9 in every 1000 workers in the developing world compared with 81 in every 1000 in the industrialized world. Despite having 80% of the world's population, the developing countries account for only 4% of global research and development expenditure, and they possess only one twentieth of the world computers. The city of Tokyo, for example, has more telephones than the entire African continent.

§.Keynote

address presented at the Postgraduate Student Seminars - Kenyatta University, 16th - 18th October, 199S.

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172 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Futurologists are already predicting that 70 per cent of the products which we shall be consuming in the year 2000 - barely four years from now - have not yet been invented. To take the example of the agriculture of tomorrow, future studies reveal that in roughly ten years' time, the face of the world could be altered more radically than in the course of the previous millennium by technical innovations once thought to be impossible. Tomatoes which do not rot have already been produced in the laboratory and some experts consider that they have the technology needed to produce 12 harvests a year for any product. At present, a weekly tomato harvest is being gathered in certain environments in Holland by means of soilless agriculture, or hydroponics. The people responsible expect to have a harvest every night or even one every hour in the near future. Thus, a form of agricultural production which is independent of the poverty or the fertility of the soil and the cycle of the seasons no longer seems to be a dream. Chlorophyll - bearing algae are already being grown in containers. An unprecedented media revolution is taking place before our very eyes. Societies which had managed, with varying degrees of success, to survive until the present in ideological or cultural isolation, have been suddenly propelled into constant contact with the outside world. Reciprocal influences are on the increase. Interdependence is becoming a universal norm. Interpersonal communication is also becoming global. The technology is improving and has already reached an impressive level of sophistication. Satellites have expanded the range of the media, crossing the frontiers and intensifying the circulation of information. Computer technology provides easy access to databases linked up into multiple networks, each adding to the others store of information. The important point to emphasise, in this context, is that development today is, by any definition, knowledge - intensive. 95% of the micro-chip as we know, is immaterial investment. The key to economic success is product and process innovation. The greatest natural resource is no longer what lies in the ground but rather what lies in each individual waiting to be developed - human intellect and creativity. This implies development of education systems as a whole - and the University has a major role here, since knowledge is the source of knowhow. With regard to socio-cultural and political development, it is worth noting that multi-party democracy has become a universal value - at least the grammar of it - even if the vocabulary may vary from region to region or even from country to country. The same is true of the promotion of human rights, the rights of women and of the child. Individual and group idiosyncrasies are being solely tested. A powerful movement of cultural, behavioural and axiological synchronization and homogenization is reshaping our view of things in the fields

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The Role of University in Development 173 of economics, ideas, society, morality, ethics, values, life-style and international relations. The notion of human development is essential here. Even in economic terms it no longer makes sense to think of the development of the workforce simply in terms of vocational or professional training. In a context where accountability and creativity are at a premium, the human-factor - attitudes, aspirations, values - become crucial. The socio-cultural dimension has come to impinge critically on economic performance. In other words, apart from economic considerations, we also have to ask the question: development for what? The answer can only be greater fulfillment for all, not simply more consumption for some. Development must enable each person to live in freedom in a world where ecological balance and human dignity are universally respected. For human resource development therefore, the main investment, like the main outcome, is people. In discussing the current asymmetries in the world, I have cited figures which are particularly disturbing because they concern sectors vital to growth in our knowledge - intensive world. Gaps in these areas, reinforced by phenomena such as brain drain (over thirty thousand African Ph.D.s are currently working in industrialized countries) and the increasing privatization of basic scientific and technological information, are inevitably self-reinforcing. But one cannot - it seems to me - meaningfully talk about the role of university in development without taking this context into account. It highlights both the urgency of the task and the constraints that have to be overcome if it is to be successfully accomplished.

The Socio-economic Situation in Africa A study published in 1990 by the Executive Secretary of ECA showed that there was an alarming deterioration in the continent's principal micro-economic indicators. There was a reduction in per capita income of 2.6 per cent per year between 1980 and 1988; a fall in investment, within the GDP, from roughly 25.2 percent in 1970 to 15.8 per cent in 1988, and a rise in inflation from 15.1 per cent in 1980 to 21.3 percent in 1988. This situation has clearly had alarming effects on the standard of living of the people and their living conditions, chief amongst which are a reduction of one fifth in private consumption and a reduction of a little over 15 per cent in paid employment at the same time as real salaries have lost a quarter of their value. Unemployment affected 13 per cent of the economically active population in 1988, representing 30 million Africans in the wage-earning sector

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174 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS and 95 million under-employed. Poverty was found to be the daily lot of three out of four Africans. At the same time, we note that population growth recorded over the 20 years between 1970 and 1990 was particularly significant in sub-Saharan Africa, where it reached 3.25 per cent Nearly 50 per cent of this population was under 15 years of age while the corresponding figure for the industrialized countries barely reaches 20 per cent. Furthe1111ore, UNESCO's World Education Report of 199 l confirms this grim picture. It reveals that seven out of eight children under 15 years of age lived in developing countries, the fastest growth rates being in sub-Saharan Africa (3.75%); Africa has the highest percentage of illiterates although the world's largest number of illiterates is in Asia. While public expenditure per pupil in industrialized countries was about $2,000 per year, expenditure in Africa was $70 per pupil. Also, in industrialized countries, 36% of those in the age cohort of secondary school graduates go on to some form of higher education, the figure for Africa was only 2.1 per cent. After living for decades above its means by contracting all kinds of loans which were either misappropriated or wasted on expensive prestige projects that were badly thought out, Africa had, by the end of the 1970's accumulated a foreign debt of $48.3 thousand million. By 1988, the debt stood at $238 thousand million, i.e. more than 80 per cent of the continent's GDP and more than 314 per cent of its exports of goods and services. The World Bank, in its annual report (1994) noted that growth rate in Africa was about 1.4 per cent. This should be seen in relation to a population increase of 3 per cent which confirms the downward trend in per capita income.

Role of University in Development Given such low economic growth rates of our continent, and such a sharp population increase in a competitive and hostile global environment, what role can an African university play in promoting accelerated and sustained development? Put in simplistic and crude terms, I would say that poverty is the problem. Development is the issue. And I believe that education in all its forms (including University education) is the solution. In other words, the answer, in my view, is in the human mind and in the political will to develop human resources. More and better education will be needed if African countries are to confront and solve their problems. Education curbs population growth; education forges attitudes of tolerance and comprehension; and, as we stated earlier, development today is knowledge-intensive.

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The Role of University in Development 175 If African universities are to play a positive role in development, they must first radically recast themselves instead of reproducing archaic patterns which are completely unsuited to the needs of independence and the objectives of the contemporary world. In other words, the idea of a university must be rethought and the plant restructured. What kind of university, then, do we need which would represent the engine of development? First, the new university must be able to use its scientific, technical and human resources to solve specific problems which confront the population at large. Towards that end, it must build up an infrastructure enabling it to train, in situ, all the agents of development the continent needs in order to free itself economically, scientifically and culturally. It is only in this way that a university will be able to promote economic and social progiess, democracy, liberty and social justice. Such a university would be a driving force in creativity, the advancement of science and in global thinking. How many of our universities can today be said to be centres of creativity and knowledge? What is their contribution to global thinking? Universities which merely recycle obsolete data, ideas and values can only retard development. Secondly, the product of such a new university must be an agent of development. We must aim at producing a graduate who is well versed in theory, technically operational and highly motivated. He or she must be a person of good judgement, a thinker as well as a person of action, who is able to integrate into the world of work and culture; a well-equipped person, capable of working independently and with initiative, armed with necessary skills on the personal, professional and social levels. It is only such a product who would be a conscientious and responsible citizen, a constructive, creative and active agent of development. We must therefore ask ourselves the question: What kind of graduates are we producing from our universities today? Can they be agents of development? Thirdly, the new African university must have as its practical aim the shaping of a cultural and national identity, the creation of an African awareness of belonging to a sub-region, a region and a continent. It must encourage an awareness of problems linked to the history and development of society and produce individuals who are sufficiently aware of the phenomenon of underdevelopment and the historical causes and contextual factors that create such situations. They must also be able to understand economic, political, military, scientific and technological problems in the global context. The new African university will then be well-equipped for passing on knowledge, for research, for dialogue and for constructive interaction and co-operation with the world of work and centres of economic, technical, administrative and scientific decision-making. It will be a place for study, reflection, and for practical and

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176 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS civic training and from where intellectuals can go to work with people on the ground either by helping them to make more positive use of traditional knowledge, or by taking measures from the top to the bottom of production structures to ensure the circulation of knowledge and information, or, in industry, agriculture, trade, craft enterprises and the business world, by consolidating any initiative which might encourage scientific progress, increase labour productivity and resolve the specific, everyday problems of the people. In a world where advances in micro-electronics and information technology are revolutionizing traditional work practices and where innovation has become the key to economic success and survival, the closer involvement of education especially University education - with the world of work should not lead to a markedly more :"vocational" approach. At all levels of competence, a grasp of principle, creativity and flexibility are among the major professional assets. There is also the practical necessity for African universities to contribute to national development through technical innovation and by solving problems in the social sphere. This entails research. And yet evidence from African universities indicates that research activity has had great difficulty in establishing a base, i.e. the critical minimum mass of researchers in any particular discipline, the facilities, equipment, literature and links at an international level, which are essential for any meaningful research, are generally lacking. Worse still, external funds are the major source of financing research. In any case, much of the university-based research is rarely utilized. There is therefore an urgent need for national policies aimed at making university basic research productive. One way is to devise ways and means in which universities can collaborate with local industries and the government to promote national and regional development. The universities, the public and private sectors should jointly determine research priority areas. Having done this, the government could establish joint industry - university research centres throughout the country to carry out research in those priority research areas. Such government initiatives are now found in most countries. In Japan, for example, priority is given to studies on clean energy, artificial intelligence, precision manufacturing and biotechnology. In the United Kingdom, there is the £20 million a year Teaching Company scheme which aims at using new graduates in joint industry/academic research projects. In Canada there is the Corporate Higher Education Forum and Science Council of Canada which promotes university - industry research. In the context of what is currently happening in Africa, such proposals may seem unrealistic. But I know of no alternative if Africa is ultimately to solve the problems of poverty, disease, environmental degradation, debt and population explosion, if the kind of violence we have seen in Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi

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The Role of University in Development 177 and Liberia is not to become a general conflagration threatening the welfare of all. There is, however, a need to clear our minds of some of the confusion which has clouded educational theory in recent years. It is now fashionable to say that education should be more specifically vocational or professional, that our straitened economic circumstances require a more intensive output of technologists and engineers and that we can no longer afford to give the arts and the social sciences the pre-eminence which a liberal education once afforded them. Nobody in his senses would deny the element of truth which is implicit in these views. We all have to earn our living, by one means or another; and, as we move forward into an increasingly technological world, we are correspondingly more dependent on specialised skills. But earning a living is not the sole purpose of our life; and, even if it is a necessary condition of existence in society, it is not its end or its final justification. We are more than the mere sum of our current economic needs; we are participants in a social and political enterprise which vindicated itself in terms of the values which it has progressively generated during our history. And the purpose of education particularly university education - is to equip us to confront those values from time to time, to question their contemporary manifestations and to modify their application without destroying their relevance to our capacity for selfdevelopment as human beings. In short, we need a civil place in which to live, a civil place in which to feel at home; and, if our circumstances will not readily provide it, we must educate ourselves to adapt them. Certainly the gloomy prognosis we have discussed does not favour us at the moment. The post-colonial period in Africa has witnessed more radical and extensive social change than any other period in our history. There is an assertion of individualisation and a defiance of conventional authority which have led some pessimistic observers to question whether our country is still governable at all. And yet perhaps, as so often in history, present discontents contain the seeds of future remedy. One of the ironies of our current condition is the fact that, at a moment when all the arguments for sustaining economic growth are compelling us towards the larger units of manufacture and exchange which alone can maximise the economies of scale and realise the full potential of the industrial capacity of Africa, the social instinct of the people seems to be tending in the opposite direction, towards smaller aggregates of government and administration, in which we may feel that we have individual personalities once again and can identify ourselves with local interests and concerns in a manner which has been increasingly denied us as the nation state has gradually extended its control over the detail of our daily lives. Behind the current dispute about the

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178 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS alternative means of giving form and substance to the concept of democracy, one can sense a desire to redefine and redetermine the social ends to which economic power is to be directed. The eminent body of socio-economic futurologists, the Club of Rome, were certainly driven to this conclusion when, in their second report, Mankind at the TurninK Point (which significantly modified their first report, The Limits of Growth), they admitted that "the complex world problem is to a great extent composed of elements which cannot be expressed in measurable tet1ns .... the real limits to growth are social, political and managerial and finally reside within the nature of

man." Our education system must attempt to understand the nature of man, and the means by which it might be modified or reshaped. And if education (including university education) is to contribute to a new and more realistic articulation of our social system, we must not forget that it will still be the purpose of that system to preserve the values which provide the grounds on which we claim the right to live in ordered peace and liberty; and, if it is to promote more honest and intelligent communication between individual members of our society, we should remember that it is by nouns and verbs that we shall still need to communicate. Our universities must therefore continue to teach grammar. In short, without disciplined discourse, there can be no civil place for ourselves and our children. Can our universities provide this disciplined discourse?

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CHAPTER14 The Construction of Luo Identity and History§ For the last four decades, heated debates have been conducted in learned journals and books about the use and importance of oral traditions in African studies. Are they reliable? Are they valid? Can we use them for dating? Are they relevant to the contemporary situation in Africa or are they merely of antiquarian interests? Such questions, I wish to argue in this paper, do not deal with the real issues about which we should hold a major debate. We need studies which seek to achieve an understanding of a people through a study of their treasure-chest, the profounder aspects of their culture-knowledge, of their history, their literature, their world-view and their philosophy, their language, their art, not for curiosity, and not for antiquarian interest, but as fit explanation for contemporary situations. In my own field of history, the use of oral traditions as a source of African history has continued to win great recognition from modem African historians. Efforts have been made to produce general works which seek to offer guidelines on the nature of oral traditions, the problems involved in their use and interpretation, how they become historical texts and their integrity as historical evidence. But a much more fundamental question we should be discussing in this context is the nature of historical reality and its relation to historical method. This in turn determines the fundamental orientation of perception and thought ingredient in a given approach to reality. For example, one of the major concerns of anthropologists and historians with oral traditions is whether or not they are 'true'. What we normally mean by this question is whether oral tradition conforms to our concept of truth. But we should also be concerned in knowing how other people view the past and how they define historical truth. For one of the aims of collecting oral traditions must be to get the people's view of history - call it folk history, as opposed to our view of their history. If that is Presented at the International Conference on "Words and Voices: Critical Practices of Orality in Africa and African Studies" Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Italy, February, 24-28, 1997. §

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180 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS the case, then the question of veracity in their terms is more important than veracity in our terms. This is because primary sources do not directly determine the mode of reconstructing the past; they only offer a narrative space for several explanatory accounts. Furthermore, in our attempt to understand the nature of historical reality, we should address ourselves to such questions as the forms and criteria of understanding history. How did historical consciousness evolve in a particular tradition? And in what specific forms? What things are worth remembering and why? What is the historical foundation and formation of self-understanding? What is the role of individual experiences in the common memory? What is the nature and form of communication between different traditions and experiences of history? The answers to all these questions should emphasise the point that an evaluation of oral tradition as historical evidence must depend upon detailed ethnographic knowledge of the social functions of folk history, its manner of transmission, its variability within any one society, the criteria for historical truth, and other features of history as a system within the culture under study. We have to study the way in which whole societies and segments of society have thought about themselves in relation to what they understood as their past and their knowledge of it. We will discover that such a concept of history is logically related to other fundamental concepts in a particular society, and that such a concept of history itself has a historiography.

Roots of Luo Historiography The Luo, like all other people, have always thought about the past as reflected in the present and as a basis for predicting the future. Lessons from experience were worked out collectively and preserved through the participation of many people in their construction, recitation, and performance. An individual had to know the history of his or her community, because his/her identity and status derived from his or her connections to a community. Oral traditions were developed to record such histories and they changed in response to new challenges and situations. Within the broadly collective narratives, individuals also reflected on their personal experiences, and on those of other communities, and constructed their own visions of the past. In other words, for many centuries, the Luo have been producing popular historical literature in their language. These histories had authority, significance and meaning both for the individuals as well as for collectivities. The construction of Luo identity and history is therefore a process in which many people, both African and non-African, have taken part. This has produced

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The Construction ofLuo Identity and History 181 different discourses of knowledge through which the Luo past has been constructed by different experts in order to gain credibility for their versions of the past. This, inevitably, has led to a struggle for control of voices and texts initially among the popular historians and later between them and academic guild historianso First, at the mi[ and the duo/ and siwidhe, instructions were given by recognised experts in the different fields such as sipna (history · or oral literature), agriculture, customs and warfare. By the eighteenth century, the institution of mi[ had evolved among the Luo. Leaders from different neighbouring settlements met and agreed on where they could establish their chir, which was a kind of informal school. It was usually situated under a big tree at the junction of a number of paths. On any normal day, it lasted from about ten to two o'clock. Young people between ten and thirty years attended chir for instruction, while male adults discussed current affairs and played the game of ajwa (bao). The traditional historians taught the young men the stories of their 'settlements' (gwenge, singular gweng') and how these had combined to form the larger units pinje (singular piny), which were autonomous territorial units into which, by the nineteenth century, the Luo people were divided. Each piny (Asembo, Uyoma, Sakwa, Gem, Alego, Nyakach, Kano, Ugenya, K.isumo, Seme, Karachuonyo, Karungu, Kadem, etc) taught its youth about its earlier history before arrival in Siaya, its settlement in Luoland, its evolution in Central Nyanza or later in South Nyanza. Practically all these pinje were multi-clan and multi-ethnic political groupings. Hence, their histories had to deal with the histories of the different non-Luo groups (their identities, their statures - for example, people who were conquered and remained on the land and hence continued to sacrifice on behalf of the land; or refugees (jomotur ) or jodak (clients) who worked for the land owners). The youth were also taught about leadership and the different types of leaders in the pinje and their evolution those who had a traditional claim to positions of authority and those who earned positions of influence because of their talents: jobilo (priest-diviners or prophets), ogaye (peace-maker), osumba mirwayi ('general), jodong' lweny (war leaders), olcebe (a wealthy person). The instructions at the chir also included the history of the interactions between the Luo and the Bantu and other Nilotic groups in Southern Uganda and Westem Kenya. There were, for example, considerable exchange of knowledge and ideas - economic, religious, cultural and linguistic - between the Luo and the Bantu - speaking groups. Besides sigana (history), instructions were given in agriculture, wealth creation, war and customary law.

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182 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS The duo/ (a hut in the middle of gunda bur or multi-clan or multi-lineage village) gathering took place from about seven in the evening to the time of going to bed. It was a much smaller group, a kind of tutorial group, where similar subjects were covered, except there was time for the young to raise questions on any obscure points. ( l) Young girls' education was carried out in siwidhe (the house of a respectable old lady, pim ). Cookery, good behaviour, story telling and singing were the most important subjects. (2) Thus in the chir, duo/ and siwidhe individual and collective identities were constructed as history by the various experts. To use the words of the conference organizers, Luise White and David Cohen in their Conference Proposal, Africa in general and the Luo in particular could, during this time "be studied, known, understood, and represented" with "reference to the narrative and interpretive practices of Africans themselves". In short, Africans "could themselves comprehend, interpret, and narrate in a useable manner, their worlds". Their "voices" were dominant. The constructed identities and histories may not have been true, but they were acceptable because they did not conflict with the conception of identity of the audience addressed. And as they forged identities at the village, local and regional levels, the Luo were simultaneously forging an identity for themselves as a "nation".

From Orality to Literacy or the Containment of African Voices With the onset of colonialism in the future Kenya in 1895, the written word gradually replaced orality. A people without writing, it was alleged, could not have history or culture or religion. The Africans suddenly became voiceless and memories could no longer be reconstructed. The chir, duo/ and siwidhe were soon to be replaced by mission schools where the emphasis was on the word of God, the white God. In the rest of Luoland, silence prevailed, which the visitors construed to mean ignorance and helplessness. European eyewitnesses now replaced the African experts on Luo culture and history. Their accounts usually took the form of lists of numerous details of material culture, social divisions, customs and belief. Sir Harry H. Johnson, Special Commissioner for East Africa, wrote about Luo villages, clothes, agriculture, cooking, hunting, smoking, religion, health and games (3). Missionaries such as Reverend N. Stam (4) and Reverend H. Hartman (5), published articles describing Luo religious beliefs and practices, marriage and burial customs, physical ornamentation, diet, rites, sexual habits, taboos and lifecycles, which revealed their idea that most customs of the "poor slaves of ignorance" were unchristian and bad. A colonial administrator A. Northcote (5)

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The Construction ofLuo Identity and History 183 wrote an article on the relationship of the Luo to other Nilotic peoples, their physical characteristics, dress, weapons, politics, land ownership, settlement patterns, rules of inheritance, marriage ceremonies, funerals, religion and witchcraft. Obviously, the treatment of all these topics in one article could not be comprehensive. Such studies by amateur anthropologists did not show how the society was integrated. No serious efforts were made to relate the traditions to the society and its environment, or to investigate the circumstances of transmission or testimony. The interest of the pioneer administrators and missionaries in writing on the history and culture of the Luo people derived more from a wish to record the quaint and strange than from an attempt to achieve what Evans-Pritchard called a "constructive integration of events"(6). But unlike in other places such as West Africa, South Africa, Buganda and Kikuyuland, these European writers produced no 'historical model• which could influence local and international readers and students. Indeed, no serious or standard work on Luo culture or history was produced at this time. The Luo also did not have the Leakeys who could claim authority based on having "grown among them". Nor did they have colonial administrators or missionaries claiming to know their traditions "from the insider's point of view", merely by having spent many years amongst them. C. W . Hobley and W. E. Owen were the nearest examples to what one would regard as foreign experts on the Luo. But neither produced any substantial work on the Luo. Hobley published a few descriptive articles in journals (7), while Owen who had a long relatively 11ninterrupted residence in Western Kenya (1918 - 1945), is less known for the article he wrote on food production amongst the Luo (8) than for his archaeological and palaentological study of Western Kenya. He also acted as an informant to Evans-Pritchard during his brief survey of Luo 'tribes' and clans in 1936. The Luo were thus able to retain, albeit in silence, autonomy over their past and traditions until after the Second World War. In 1946, when the colonial Social Science Research Council decided to post four social anthropologists to Kenya, the colonial government admitted that the ethnic groups which it was most anxious to have studied because they were also the groups about which the ethnographical literature on Kenya was most deficient were (a) the Luo, (b) the Gusii, (c) the Abaluhya and (d) the Bantu of the Coastal Province (Mijikenda, Taita, Taveta). The Abaluhya had been studied fairly thoroughly by Dr. G. Wagner shortly before the war and the results of his research were later published under the title The Bantu of North Kavirondo in two volumes in 1949 (9). Dr. Mayer was assigned to study the Gusii while Dr. A.H.J. Prins carried out extensive research on the Coastal Bantu. With regard to the Luo, Dr.

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184 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Andrzej Waligorski, a Polish scholar, seems to have carried out extensive research among the people. When Professor I. Schapera who had been appointed by the Kenya government, on the advice of the Colonial Social Science Research Council, as consultant for the research project, visited Dr. Waligorski in the field in 1946, he was impressed by his thoroughness and his command of the Luo language which enabled him to converse with elders ( 10). A. Southall later appreciated the generous way in which W aligorski shared his own knowledge of the Luo with him. He, however, regretted the circumstances in which Waligorski had been "prevented from publishing his own much more extensive material" ( 11) Whoever prevented the publication and whatever the circumstances, it is unfortunate that the only results of Waligorski's extensive research seems to be two articles published in Polish (12), and an unpublished paper on 'soil Selection among the Luo". By 1936 when the first Luo ''voices" were heard, after three decades of silence, the process of "knowing the other" in colonial Kenya had not produced European experts on the Luo. Hence, the first Luo writers (who wrote in Dholuo) did not write in response to colonial works or to correct biased versions of the past, as no serious colonial historiography had developed with regard to the Luo. This contrasts sharply with the situation in Kikuyuland at this time. By the time Jomo Kenyatta was giving the African point of view on Kikuyu customs and traditions in FacinK Mount Kenya (1938), W. S. and K. Routledge, who were settlers with academic training, had produced, With a Prehistoric People:. The Akikuyu of British East Africa, London, 1910, and Father Cagnolo of the Catholic Mission of the Consolata Fathers had published The Akikuyu. The Customs, Traditions and Folklore, Nyeri, 1933. Kenyatta himself had studied anthropology under B. Malinowski in London where he was exposed to foreign methodologies and epistemologies. His book should therefore be placed within the colonial setting where the Africans were now beginning to use the new academic sites to engage in colonial debate. In his book, the African voice is heard clearly on such important and controversial matters as land tenure, female circumcision, the Gikuyu system of education as distinguished from the European style of education, European civilization and Christianity.

Encyclopedic Informants How were historical traditions preserved and transmitted amongst the Luo? This is a question which has received inadequate attention. The Luo had no "court historians", no "griots" and professional tellers of accounts. But they had recognized specialists who instructed the youth in chir and duo/ as we have

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The Construction ofLuo Identity and History 185 discussed. They also had ritual experts such as keepers of tong liswa (sacred spears),jojimb koth (rain makers), Jobilo (spiritual leaders and prophets). Such specialists were experts in the traditions that were historically relevant to their functions and they acted as guardians of those traditions. But in addition to specialists, there were also a few individuals who were recognized as experts on all aspects of local history. They learnt many different versions of tradition and then used these to reconstruct their own histories of communities. These are the people P. Pender Cutlip (14) has called encyclopedic informants. And are they informants or historians? Whatever answer we give to this questions, ooe thing is clear: The practice of history consists of a discussion of the relations between the texts of historians and the real past. Do these specialists engage in such a discussion? The first works by Luo 'Eocyclopedic informants' were published before the Second World War. Their primary objective was to preserve for posterity the traditions and customs of the Luo, "how our ancestors lived". They represented the first major writings by the first generation of mission-educated Luo. Written in Dholuo and intended for Luo audiences, they constituted powerful African voices on the traditions, customs, history and identity of the Luo people. They did not merely record traditions: they carried out serious investigations from which they produced authoritative works of reference. True, they did oot give the names of their informants nor discuss their methodology, nevertheless, they represent serious attempts towards the construction of Luo history and identity. Weche Moko Mag Luo (Luo traditions, Customs and Folklore) (15) was written by Zabloo Okola and Mikael Were. The former came from Gem in Siaya and was a teacher who later became a pastor while the latter, who was born in C. 1893 was a teacher, a pastor and later a President of African Tribunal. lo his Foreward to the book, W.E. Owen recommends it on three grounds: it was the first book to be written by Luo people from Central Nyaou; the traditions and customs recorded would enable the Europeans to understand the way of life of the Luo; and lastly, he hoped this would inspire other Luo people to write books. In other words, Owen, who had already lived in Nyanza for about eighteen years and who regarded himself as an expert on Luo culture was conceding that this was an authentic African voice which deserved respect. Another missionary, A. W. Mayor, Headmaster of Maseoo School, wrote the Preface to the book. He stated that the book would promote development in two ways: first it would provide new literates with serious reading material, and this was likely to encourage the culture of reading. And this was particularly important in this case, as the authors were Luo. Secondly, he was concerned

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186 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS that already the children of Luo Christians were ignorant of the customs and traditions of their people, and the book would, in his view, provide a co11ective. The contents of the book comprised migration and settlement, how the Luo preserved traditions and how they aided memory, war and peace, leadership, long-distance journeys, rain-making, birth rituals, the meaning of Luo names, religion, witchcraft, taboos, "wife inheritance", proverbs, customary law and wealth. The second book by an 'encyclopedic informant' was Luo Kitgi gi Timbegi (Luo Customs and Traditions, 1938) (16). The author who hailed from Karachuonyo in South Nyanza was a SDA. padre before he became Chief of Karachuonyo and later Secretary of African District Council, South Nyaoza. Subjects covered include Luo leaders, the Council of Elders, religion, war and warriors, food and eating habits, fishing, oath-taking, establishing a new home and house construction, the "owners of the land" and their clients, marriage customs, mothers and children, death of an elder, tragic deaths, animal husbandry, leisure-time activities and sports, farming and rain-making, trade and co-operative work, witchcraft, hunting, boat-making and ritual, going on a journey, diseases, folk tales and proverbs. Mboya explains that he wrote this book with the intention of preserving Luo customs and traditions, for he believed that a country's development cannot be based on foreign ideas and practices. The indigenous culture must therefore provide the firm foundation on which new structures and institutions can be erected. God provided all communities with wisdom to devise their own customs and institutions. We would be acting contrary to God's wish if we borrowed wholesale other people's cultures and institutions. In any case, history has shown that people who live by borrowed ideas are never respected even by the people from whom they borrow. Hence, the necessity to be one's self. But one cannot do this unless he or she knows the culture of his or her people. Paul Mboya was thus preaching authenticity with a very clear and powerful voice in 1938. Both of these works were, in effect, distillations of the corpus of knowledge which had for many years been imparted at chir and duo/. They represented the first major movement from orality to literacy in the process of constructing Luo history and identity. They soon became classics which were read in primary and intermediate schools. They formed part of the cultural baggage Luo children carried along with them in their life cycles from childhood to adulthood and they provided a firm ethnic base as well as an armour against the corrosive impact of foreign cultures. Their value, in fact, increased with the passing of the years so that, today, they have become sanctified as the fmal authorities on Luo culture and traditions.

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The Construction ofLuo Identity and History 187

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But that is the problem. Once wri~ these traditions became codified and frozen by 1938. Today, they do not reflect the many cultural changes which have taken place since that time. They convey the impression that Luo culture has remained static despite the momentous changes which have taken place. To the youth, and even to the present generation, many of these revered customs appear irrelevant and do not help them to understand their history, their identity and the complexities of the human predicament.

Contributions of Professional Social Anthropologists As we have seen above, the results of the research of A. Waligoski, the first professional social ~nthropologist to work in Luoland, were never published. Hence, the two papers published by Evans-Pritchard in 1949 and 1950 based on research carried out in Central Nyanza in 1936, in effect, marked the first significant contribution to Luo studies by a professional anthropologist. The two essays were, on the whole, excellent in their detail, given the short period he spent in Central Nyanza, and are a tribute to one of the greatest field research anthropologist of the twentieth century. Professor Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) took his M.A. in Modem History at Oxford in 1924 and his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics, with C.G. Seligman and B. Malinowski as his teachers. His thesis was based on fieldwork among the Azande of the Southern Sudan and between 1931 and 1932 he carried out fieldwork among the Nuer (Naath) of Southern Sudan. He gave invaluable help to his teacher Seligman in his compilation of the Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan ( 1932). Between 1932 and 1939, he worked among the Anuak (another ]ii-speaking group) and the Luo of Kenya. In 1937, he published one of his most influential works, Witchcraft Oracles and Magic Among the Azande and 1940 saw the publication of the Nuer, the first of the Nuer trilogy which were to end with Nuer Religion in 1956. During a six week visit to Luoland in 1936, Evans-Pritchard was assisted by Archdeacon W.E. Owen and especially by a Luo pastor, Rev. Ezekiel Apindi from Alego. In introduction to the first paper "Luo tribes and Clans" published in 1949, he states: "This paper is sketchy and the survey on which it is based superficial. ... All (it) claims to do is to show that the Luo have the same type of (social) structure as the Nuer". This assumption is not proved anywhere in the paper - it is simply applied. And the concept of 'tribe', 'sub-tribe' clan or lineage is not properly defined. He identifies the Luo 'sub-tribes" and gives approximate population and density for each one. According to him, each 'sub-tribe' (Oganda) was an autonomous

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188 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS unit and had a dominant clan or lineage, with maximal, minimal and stranger lineage attached to it. He wrongly assumes that no political offices existed, just influential men. He asserts that among the Luo, political values are expressed in kinship terms and "the politico-territorial system is reflected in the lineage system" (18). He introduced the incorrect, but influential, theory that the "Luo tribes", like other "tribes", are segmentary societies made up of a series of agnatic lineages all of which trace real or mythical descent from a common ancestor, usually the eponym. He produced genealogies to show that all the twelve 'tribes• of Central Nyanza - Kano, Alego, Gem, Nyakach, Kisumo, Kajulu, Seme, Asembo, Uyoma, Sakwa, Yimbo and Ugenya - trace descent from their eponyms. His theoretical model did not apply to many of the pinje he studied. His concepts were derived from Western thought and were often not adequate to analyse some aspects of African life. For the most important factor in 'tribal' identification was not the element of kinship: ideology, leadership roles (ritual, spiritual, military, political and economic) ·were important factors in the determination of collective identities in the piqje, which, incidentally, were not simply kin groups. They were territorially-defined multi-ethnic polities composed of several semi-autonomous settlement and settlement clusters. And amonpt them there was a great deal of diversity in both the nature of their political diversity and their degree of political centralization. Another area in which Evans-Pritchard's article was influential, in a negative sense, was with reference to Luo expansion into formerly Bantu areas. He provided a simplistic and somewhat mechanical formula that "Luo expansion at &he expense of the Bantu was like a line of shunting trucks, each Tribe driving out the one in front of it to seek compensation from one yet further in fron~ generally a Bantu tribe". What actually happened is that in most areas where immigrants encountered Bantu groups, they formed multi-ethnic 'plural' communities. In Bunyala, Yimbo, Rusinga Island, Mfang'ano Island, Kano, Seme, Kisumu, Gem, Ugenya, Bantu groups considerably influen~ the nature of the society they eventually united to fonn. Hence, it is the histories and • identities of these 'plural• societies that we should be constructing from the fifteenth century onwards. It was these collectivities that evolved to form the Luo "nation" by the early 1950s. On the other hand, it ia worth noting that the detailed traditions for each piny that Evans-Pritchard collected are extrentely valuable and they compare favourably with those that S. Malo collected in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Nevertheless, though a trained historian, Evans-Pritchard paid little attention to the historical dimensions of these traditions compared for example, with the

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The Construction ofLuo Identity and History 189 seminal articles he wrote on the Zande culture, where he emphasised internal changes in an African society in an African setting ( 19) His second paper on "Marriage Customs of the Luo of Kenya" was also based on the information provided by Ezekiel Apindi. It represented an attempt to provide a parallel account, a scholarly analysis, of Luo marriage customs. It, however, did not go beyond the accounts that had already been provided by the "encyclopedic informants" (20), especially as it is confmed to information obtained from one piny. Alego. A. Southall was the third anthropologist to work in Luoland. He paid two visits to South Nyanza in 1950, accompanied by two former students of Makerere, B.F.F. Oluande from Gem and N.C. Otieno from Ugenya, as his research assistants and interpreters. Most of the information seems to have been provided by Paul Mboya. He was greatly influenced by Evans-Pritchard's ideas on lineage formation among the Luo. Furthermore, he based his theoretical model on piny Karachuonyo, which is not typical in the sense that many of the settlements in Karachuonyo were based on kinship relations. No wonder he concluded that the Luo see segmentation and the establishment of a gweng (settlement) by the segments as a natural extension of family relationships. (21) The works of Evans-Pritchard and Aidan Southall were to influence considerably the researches of Dr. Gordon Mc. L. Wilson, an American, who was appointed a Government Sociologist to work among the Luo in the 1950s. He produced two reports. The first one on "Luo Customary Law" published in 1954, adopts the indigenous political structure and lineage formation models prescribed by Evans-Pritchard and A. Southall respectively. It is based on court records and information supplied by Central Nyanza elders and discussed with South Nyanza elders for corroboration. It restricts itself to the Luo Customary Law pertaining to land. His second report on marriage laws and customs was published in 1955. It owes much to Evans-Pritchard's paper already cited on the same subject. His other sources were Shadrack Malo, then President of the African Appeal Court, Central Nyanza, " ..who wrote a paper in Dholuo which I translated and checked with groups of elders of all locations and from three research assistants, representing three different Luo tribes, who wrote brief essays from information supplied to them by their own Libamba elders on headings supplied to them by myself; from Mr. Paul Mboya's unpublished manuscript and finally, from my own field research". (22)

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190 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS The two reports were later combined into one volume and published under the title of Luo Customary Law and Marriage Laws and Customs in 1961. (23) The main comments we should make on these anthropological studies are that none of them covered the entire "national" system of the Luo. They dealt with researches, with narrow scope, relying on one or two informants, usually the same people, through interpreters. Their training tended to foster the use of western analytical model to interpret their findings. And writing in English, their works were, ipso facto, largely directed to their foreign professional colleagues. But more importantly, their research contributed to freezing and reifying fluid African cultures into "tribes" that became the exclusive identities of the Luo. Their texts were socially being constituted as authority in competition with the encyclopedic informants. On the other hand, their works marked the beginning of a process in which social scientists tried to listen to the voices of those who had apparently been silent. But were they capable of describing "the other"? And apart from foreign methodology, were they saying anything that the "encyclopedic informants", on whom they relied anyway, had not said?

From Anthropology to History The collection and publication of the historical traditions of Central Nyanza clans by Shadrack Malo inaugurated the 'age of history'. He collected these materials between 1948 and 1951 and published them initially as pamphlets, one for each clan, as they were collected. The texts deal mainly with the movements of the Central Nyanza clans after they arrived in Kenya. Malo himself was not a trained historian. He was a teacher of Kiswahili at Maseno School who through personal effort gradually became one of the recognised "Encyclopedic informants" on Luo culture and history. He belonged to one of the submerged Gusii clans - Sidho - in piny Kano. He wrote Luo Without Tears, a grammar conversation book, for teaching non-Luos the language. He also wrote Sigend Luo ma duogo Chuny (Luo Merry Stories), a collection of stories, tongue twisters and riddles. He later became President of African Tribunal Court, and in that capacity, made a substantial contribution to Wilson's book on Luo Customary Law, as we discussed above. Informants were assembled for him at chiefs' barazas, where the different versions of traditions were hammered out into authorized versions, one for each piny. These were soon accepted by the public as standard texts and as representing the 'true' stories of ''what actually happened". Oral traditions were thus transformed into historical texts to which the historian was supposed to apply his tools. He later edited these texts, omitting some sections or versions

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The Construction ofLuo Identity and History 191 which appeared to contradict the authorized version, and published them in a book entitled Dhoudi Mag Central Nyanu (Clans of Central Nyanza -1953) (24). The book, in essence, represents an elaboration of the traditions collected by Evans-Pritchard in 1936. The only difference is that Malo's book had the stamp of authority of the Luo elders in the different Central Nyanu pinje and hence did for historical traditions what Okola, Were and Mboya books had done for cultural traditions - froze and sanctified them. Malo himself does not show any awareness of the problems involved in collecting oral traditions and in using them as history. Samuel G. Anyany's book, Kar chakruok Mar Luo (the Beginnings of the Luo-1953) (25) was based on material he collected from 1947. He also read the works of the Luo "encyclopedic informants" - Okola, Were, Paul Mboya and Malo. Above all, he was greatly influenced by the articles written by Father Crazzolara which were published in Uganda Journal. These he read when he was a student at Makerere College, where he studied history. He talks vaguely about information he derived from talking to his friends among the Acholi, Lango and Padhola without identifying them. He therefore emphasized the common heritage of the ]ii-speaking people as an important factor in the construction of Luo history and identity. Indeed, for Ayany Luo history encompasses the histories of the Northern, Central and Southern Luo, which he regards as the national history of the Luo. At the same time he is acutely aware of the intensive interactions and intermarriage that have occurred between the Luo and their neighbours. He therefore stresses . the physical, cultural and economic impact of these non-Luo peoples on Luo history and identity. It was specifically written as a work of history in Dholuo and therefore addressed to Luo audience to whom he made a passionate appeal on the importance of knowing their history and on working diligently and honestly to develop their 'nation', in close collaboration with their neighbours. Though a trained historian, Ayany provided no theoretical framework within which his reconstruction of the past could be examined. Nor did he discuss the methodology or how a tradition becomes a text and how a text is transformed into history. Furthermore, he does not critically analyse Luo traditions or CrazzQlara's evidence, but merely reproduces them to support his populist history of the Luo nation. His book should therefore, be regarded as a continuation of the popular processing of the Luo past outside the work of the academic guild.

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192 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS

Makerere Arts Research Prize and All That This prize was founded by the College Council in 1946 and was awarded for research in an approved subject in the Faculty of Arts. The first recipient of this prize was Simeon H. Ominde, a Luo from Kisumu, Nyahera, for his essay on "The Luo Girl form Infancy to Marriage". His fieldwork was done during successive vacations under the supervision of A.Southall. The essay discusses in great detail, the education of a Luo girl-child and can be taken to represent the kind of education that took place in siwidhe under the supervision and guidance of pim. It was first published under the same title in 1952 and has been reprinted several times (26). Its impact has been enormous in the definition of the place and role of a Luo woman in society and history. In presenting an analytical interpretation of The Luo Girl from Infancy to Marriage Atieno Odhiambo has written: "The text was a witness to a process of recovery: the recovery of what was embedded in Luo tradition. In this process Ominde acts as a communicator for his oral informants. The print culture through which the author ushered the Luo Girl had its own hallowed history: it empowered the literate. In the previous half-century, it had empowered them through content: they knew the bible and the prescribed syllabi. The Luo Girl empowered Luo tradition. It was a message, but at the same time it was a new message; that amplified and reinforced old values. In doing this it made the further ideological statement about continuity between the past and the present." (27) The book also appeared at the time of what Atieno Odhiambo has termed in the same article, "the Luo renaissance". The Luo "articulate citizens" were engaged in constructing the Luo nation and forging the Luo identity and Ominde' s Luo Girl made a contribution to this process. For the next two years no prize was awarded. But in 1950, the writer won the prize for his essay on 'social and economic History of the Luo of Kenya: 1870-1910" (28). My chief informant was Michael Were. Although he had coauthored their book with Okola on Luo customs and traditions, I discovered that his knowledge of Luo 'national' history which included the histories of the Jiispeaking peoples, was wide and deep. He was particularly knowledgeable about the Luo system of education and about their religion, and how these had changed during the period under discussion. The information he gave me on these two topics was so new, so original and very detailed and up to now I have

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The Construction ofLuo Identity and History 193

seen no reference to it in any publication. When I embarked on my professional research on Luo history in 1959, Were was again to play a major role in assisting me to construct Luo history and identity. · The following year, 1951, another Arts Research Prize award was made to Henry Owuor Anyumba for his essay on "The Place of Folk tales in the Education of Luo Children." (28) For Anyumba, this was the beginning of a distinguished career during which he made enormous contribution to the study of Luo oral literature. He published papers on Oigo (or love) songs, spirit possession among the Luo, nyatiti (harp) music and on Luo folk tales. Later at the University of Nairobi, together with Taban lo Liyong and Okot p'Bitek, they provided a major centre for the study of Luo oral literature. Okot p'Bitek wrote his Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol while Taban lo Liyong wrote his Eating Chiefs ( or Luo Culture from Lolwe to Maal Kai). The spirit of the time is reflected in Taban lo Liyong's Introduction to his book. He explains that from Malakai in the North, which is on the bank of the greatest African river which the Luo call Kir, to the bottom of Lolwe (or Lake Victoria) live a people. They call themselves Luo. He asserts that he was not interested in collecting traditions, mythologies, folktales. Anthropologists had done that. His job was to create literary works from what anthropologists collect and just record. He proceeded to create forty-three literary pieces. He is, of course, aware that among the Luo, each subgroup has its own slant to the same story. He is also aware that the retelling of these stories is likely to touch on some nationalistic feelings. This, he says, is as it should be. He concludes, "to live, our traditions have to be topical; to be topical they must be used as part and parcel of our contemporary contentions and controversies (30). The work of Okot p'Bitek on The Reli1iion 'of the Central Luo, Anyumba on spirit possession among the Luo, Maura Gary on J~k Lagoro of Pajule, Aidan Southall on the concept of jok in Aluruland, all raised such a host of fascinating questions about the relationship between religion and politics among the Jiispeakers. · When oral literature was introduced in the Department of Literature at the University of Nairobi, Anyumba became its head and until his death, he carried out major researches on Luo oral literature defined to include music and dance. The Luo now felt they were a people with a rich culture, literature, music and dance. In short, they were a people with a distinct identity and a rich heritage.

Traditions, History, Identity and Pragmatism From the 1950s, the Luo increasingly used history and traditions in a pragmatic manner in order to create identity. For example, in an attempt to

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194 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS · provide a solution to African ( especially Luo) social and economic disabilities, Oginga Odinga founded the Luo Thrift and Trading Corporation (LUTATCO). This decision also represented a determination to get rid of the colonial notion of the "lazy Luo" who could only be a clerk and not a businessman. LUTATCO built Ramogi House, established Ramogi Press and bought Ramogi farm. Odinga baptised himself as "Jaramogi", and Richard Achieng Oneko became Ramogi Achieng' Oneko. Thus business had to be organized on ethnic lines to create a new image of the Luo as entrepreneurs. It was also at this time that Luo Union, whose first branch had been founded in Nairobi in 1922, developed into a major organization in both urban and rural areas. Wherever two or three Luos were gathered together in East Africa, the occasion called for the formation of a Luo Union branch. Soon branches were formed in all the major towns of East Africa and in all the pinje Luo in Nyanza. In 1953, the branches came together to form Luo Union (East Africa), with Odinga as the frrst elected Ker (or President). The choice of the title itself was significant. The term for political power in Alur, Acholi, Pad.bola, Joluo, Luo and Shilluk is Ker. Whoever possesses Ker is the ruler. These people had similar royal regalia (jamiker or masana miker) such as kom ker (royal stool), bulker (royal sacred drum), tong ker (royal spear) and la ker (royal garment). Thus the Luo deliberately chose an ancient title of symbolic magnitude, for the leader of their union. The merger of the two movements - economic and cultural - on Odinga led to the emergence of a strong cultural nationalism among the Luo. The main emphasis was on cultural identity and history was invoked to sustain it. At all public rallies and meetings, the Luo now referred to themselves as Joka-Nyanam (the river-Lake people) or Nyikwa Ramogi (the descendants of Ramogi), and thereby giving the mistaken view that all Luo groups descended from one person - Ramogi. The works of Paul Mboya, Zablon Okola and Michael Were became their cultural bibles. As part of decolonization, more and more Western-educated elite began to develop an interest in their cultural and historical background, especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This cultural nationalism eventually resulted in the formation of nationalist movements. It was this cultural nationalism which sustained Oginga Odinga between 1966 and 1969 when he formed an opposition political party, Kenya People's Union, and it was the same cultural nationalism that enabled him to form another opposition political party in 1991, Ford-Kenya. In short, this cultural nationalism, responding to various political and economic challenges of modem Kenya has produced a powerful Luo sub-nationalism.

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Professional Historians Take Over In the late 1950s and early 1960s, academic historians were now beginning to hear the voices of those who had been voiceless. At the same time, it was being asked whether historians and other social scientists were at all capable of describing the Other. How do you accommodate the new voices and at the same time understand "otherness"? Ultimately, the crucial question being raised in the 1950s was: were non-Western histories legitimate subjects of historical research? As Steven Feierman has written: "The specialist work of historical reconstruction served to take the people about whom anthropologists had always written and to insist that they be placed within the larger historical narrative. The change in context required a change in how historians understood agency. Previously mute people had now to be seen as authors and actors. Exotic cultures were not new to the academic imagination, but the style of description was new. The new knowledge broke with a long intellectual tradition that treated exotic cultures as though they existed at a different time from the rest of humanity, stone age, or bronze age, or iron age peoples, remnants of the past, not living in the same world where historians live, not subject to the same political and economic forces." (31 ).

In the 1960s and 1970s African academic historians began to play an active part in the description and analysis of African history. From being mere observers, African historians became both observers and actors. But the problem was how to translate oral traditions, the vehicle of historical information, into a form of history that befitted modem times. There was also the epistemological problem. An African past, with it's own social forms, mythologies and values, was now to be fitted into an alien Western model. This was the task some of us had to undertake., This meant going beyond Malo, Ayany and Crazzolara who did not have to bother with theoretical reflections on the nature of oral traditions and their significance as an historical source. In their production of popular texts they followed their sources closely without too much comment on their historicity, thereby reifying oral tradition. In my research, I collected traditions from as many informants and from as wide a geographical spread as possible. In this task, I had to confront the problem of feedback. Most of my informants were the same people who had participated in the Malo meetings where standard versions were worked out. The question I had to ask myself therefore was: are these new oral traditions or

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196 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS are they regurgitations of formalized texts? As we have observed, there had been a continuous interaction between not only the contents but also the textures of oral and written sources since 1936. I was therefore being confronted in the 1960s with a mixture of oral and written discourses. Then there was my conviction that oral sources were primary sources analogous to written documents. I therefore tried to put forward a convincing case that a verifiable past could be reconstructed from these primary sources. This argument ignored what this paper has already demonstrated, that oral traditions are synthetic products of communal and individual historical composition which change constantly through time. They could not therefore be compared to documentary evidence. The work of constructing Luo history and identity was to be greatly extended in two directions. First, the research of David Cohen (32) in Busoga and J. B. Webster (33) and his team at Makerere University revealed that the assumption that the early Southern Luo migrants shared a common culture ignored their contacts with various non-Luo groups: Madi, Bantu-and Atekerspeakers, and their experiences in diverse environmental zones. These diverse influences led to the development of many differences, not only between the Southern Luo and their Sudanese and Northern Uganda relatives, but also among the Southern Luo communities themselves (34) These differences and mergers had to be accommodated in any construction of Luo history and identity. Attempts of the Luo to discuss a collective identity by distinguishing themselves from their neighbours were critiqued and rejected. Secondly, within Nyanza itself, the complexity of Luo history and identity have been confmned through the painstaking researches of several scholars: P.A. Abuso, H.O. Ayot, Th. Ayot, J. Butter1nan, M.J. Hay, W.R. Ochieng', A. Odira, P.C. Oloo, L.D. Schiller, O.J. Opinya, E. Onyango Odiyo (35). But the main objective of these works was still to demonstrate that a verifiable past for Africa could be reconstructed by using oral traditions as primary sources. From the 1970s , however, oral traditions increasingly came under heavy criticism as sources for African history. It was argued that reliable chronologies would never emerge from these sources which, in my case, were constantly changing through time. Such critiques were summarized in David Henige's Oral Historiography (36), and heated debates continued to be conducted in an annual journal of historical methods, History in Africa, edited by him since 1974. Basically, oral traditions were being rejected as "objective sources" for the reconstruction of the African past. As African historians, we failed to articulate any new definition of autonomy. In fact, we felt helpless as we realised that African historical scholarship, which in many regions had existed for over four hundred years, was

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The Construction ofLuo Identity and History 197 being assimilated into Western epistemology. Indeed, the 'idea' of Africa was being re-invented by 'Western' scholarship, and consequently, African historiography was being westemized and hence alienated. We abandoned researches on, and studies of, the pre-colonial history of Africa. But for how long can we continue to isolate Africa from the rest of the world? Is it enough to continue to affirm differences? I think the time has come when we should re-integrate and re-introduce Africa into world history by adding African experience to global historical patterns. This implies understanding Africans on their own tc::1111s, using their perspectives. It also means recognising oral traditions as key sources for the writing of intellectual and cultural histories in Africa. In recent works in the various disciplines, such as anthropology, linguistics and archaeology , this point is being appreciated. For a long time, the "idea" of Africa for many outsiders was anthropological: It helped to define the 'other' in Africa: barbarian, uncivilized, pagan, animist, primitive, colonized. Currently, great efforts are being made to reintegrate anthropology with African History, and hence to assimilate the 'other' in Africa into world history. In the case of the Luo, the book by David Cohen and E.S. Atieno Odhiambo, Siaya. The Historical Anthropology of an African Landscape (37) is a gallant move in this direction. But for the other outsiders, the 'idea' of Africa was archaeological. An evolutionary model that introduced significant distortions into African history was adopted by archaeologists in the 19th Century. It demonstrated the progressive course of human society from a primitive stage of savagery to an advance stage of civilization. By the mid-20th Century, the typological stages of savagery, barbarism and civilization were replaced by bands of huntergatherers, tribal chiefdoms and states. Recent research in archeology has increasingly questioned the suitability of applying to Africa evolutionist model which produced universal histories that tied together the world's parts in a coherent narrative of a rise to civilization from savagery and barbarism. The same could be said of historical linguists, who are doing a sterling job by replacing linguistic classifications based on dubious racial theories and like archaeologists, are adding a major time-depth to African history. We learn from Jewish tradition that in the beginning was the Word. In other words, language is regarded as the origin of formed reality. If this is the case, then it is imperative that we should understand the origin of formed reality. What is the character of this reality? What are the fundamental words and ho,v did truth rise in sound? What is the language of revelation in Africa? Is there any special language of mystical experience? We need to know how language

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198 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS in Africa has been used to symbolize things, the world-view, essential beings, ideals and reality as a whole. A bold attempt towards this goal has been made by J. Vaosina in another pioneering book, Paths in the Rainforests (1990), in which he has applied the ''words and things" approach to produce a brilliant synthesis of 3000 years of Equatorial African history. He defmes traditions as 'self-regulating processes" which "consist of a changing, inherited, collective body of cognitive and physical representations shared by their members. The cognitive representations are the core. They inform the understanding of the physical realm, and do so in terms of the guiding principles of the tradition. Such innovations in turn offer the substance of the cognitive world itseli'. (38) We thus see that in the search for the universality of human experience in Africa, there has been a change of emphasis from the institutional to the social, from facts to processes. Anthropologists have turned to history, archaeologists are increasingly emphasizing process, culture and sociology in their recent studies and linguists are closely collaborating with historians. The interdisciplinary character of African history has been revived and it has become possible to synthesize a coherent, continuous, convincing and reasonably comprehensive narrative of Africa's pasts, stretching back several millennia. In this endeavor, oral traditions are again being accepted as valuable expressions of African perspectives. They have to be interrogated afresh and new questions raised. And the current broad intellectual concern with memory, history, meaning and experience is already yielding insights into the historical consciousness of those whose experience have rested mostly in the hands of others. Several questions, however, remain to be tackled. First, there is the urgent need to define the relationship between popular productions of knowledge, which is going on all the time, and those of the academic guild. What status do we give to the historical knowledge produced outside the work of the guild? V ansina, for example, has recently designated 1948 as the birth date, not of African history, but of African history in academia. But he is, however, aware that African history existed before 1948, complete with its historians, both official and communal. As he admits, "This trend never died. As they become literate, local historians all over tropical Africa began to write histories in vernacular languages for the benefit of their communities. This process continues". (39)

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The Construction ofLuo Identity and History 199 But is this part of African historiography? Vansina does not think so because much of it is written by non-academic historians. But why should the historiographical field be restricted to the academic guild alone? He gives no answer to this question. Secondly, there is the fundamental problem of the relationship between the scholar and his or her audience. Historian.co do not reconstruct the past in vacuo, but with particular audiences in mind. Despite Vansma's attempt to assimilate African historiography into "universal categories", he however, realizes the dilemma into which such a conclusion would lead us. He is concerned by the fact that the writing of African history is the only case on a large scale dominated by outsiders even today. He writes: "This is a continuing anomaly. In all other major parts of the world, and that includes the major so-called Third World areas, the writing of history, academic history included, has primarily ' been conducted in the area itself, by authors of the area, in the languages of the area, and for audiences in the area. But in tropical Africa, the writing of academic history was organized by 'outsiders' and ever since, the epicenters of this activity have remained outside Africa, despite all effort to alter the situation. It is a crucial anomaly". He continues: " ..... Outsiders initiated academic history here. They created the University departments, and they wrote the frrst substantive histories. They set up the framework within which African historians later worked, and they 'trained' them how to write academic history. The pioneers wrote for an outside audience which shared their world views and social practice, not for an audience in Africa itself, except for African historians of Africa and a few others who had absorbed Euro-American academic culture. When ' African scholars began to take their destinies into their own hands, they unwillingly continued to write their major works to a large extent for the same academic audience rather than for their own natural population..... . While these authors attacked imperial history and promoted national history, they continued to write in English or in French, thus limiting access of their local audiences." (40)

Vansina strongly believes that this anomaly goes to the heart of historiography because it affects the fundamental relationship between author and audience. He would like us to address two questions: Whose history are we writing? Is it for ourselves or for the African audience? He then concludes that "However difficult to achieve, authors, insiders and outsiders alike, must strive to reach 'natural' audience and thus end this anomaly of African historiography." (41) I agree.

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200 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Africa needs to reclaim its history. We have done it in the past, we can do it in future. And the future began a long time ago.

Conclusion From this Luo narrative, several conclusions can be drawn. First, the survey raises the fundamental questions of how to recover suppressed or marginalized voices and move to the production of alternative, non-statist histories. The solution to this problem partly lies in questioning the absolute authority of the written documents and partly in being sceptical about universal and unilinear accounts of history. Secondly, the narrative has emphasised the importance of the indigenous African actors and their contribution to history. According to this particularist perspective, the producers of knowledge are the most qualified to offer an authentic form of representation. But this raises another question. Does the authority bestowed on a body of knowledge depend on western epistemology or on its own epistemology and effective applicability within a given context? The paper has suggested that indigenous knowledge is also authoritative within its own cultural system. The task is then to develop a model whereby western and indigenous knowledge can be integrated within a community into a form of knowledge that the people concerned will consider authoritative, that is, effective and legitimate regardless of cultural origin. Thirdly, the study cautions against relying entirely on the particular and the individual in the study of African history, for there are global factors which contribute to the construction of African history and identity. Furthermore, much of the knowledge on Africa is being produced outside the continent and it is therefore necessary to avoid intellectual approaches which would parochialize African studies. Hence, African history must be studied as part of world history.

ENDNOTES 1. 2.

3. 4.

Ogot, B.A. (1950), Social and Economic History of the Luo of Kenya, 1970 - 1910 Arts Research Prize Essay, Makerere University Library Cohen, David William, 1985, 'Doing social history from pim's doorway', in Oliver Zuoz (ed.), Reliving the past: The Worlds of Social History. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press. Johnston, Sir Harry H. (1902), The U&anda Protectorate, Volume II.. London: Hutchinson and Co. Stam, Rev. N. (1910. "The religious Conception of the Kavirondo". Anthropos (5) (2,3), 359-362, Vienna.

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Hamnan, Rev. H. (1928) 'some Customs of the Luo (or Nilotic Kavirondo) Living in South Kavirondo", Anthropos. 23 (1 and 2), 263-265, Vienna. 6. Evans-Pritchard, E.E., (1962), Essays in Social Anthropology. London, p. 24. 7. Hobley, C. W. (1902) "Nilotic Tribes of Kavirondo". in Eastern Uganda: An Ethnolo&ical Survey; (1903). "Anthropological Studies in Kavirondo and Nandi", Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 33 (July - December) 325 -359, London (1898). "Kavirondo". The Geo&IJll)hical Journal. London, Vol. VII. 8. Owen, W. E. (1932). "Food production and Kindred Matters Amongst the Luo", The Journal of E,A, and Uganda Natural History. April - July, Vol. XI, No. 45-46 9. Wagner, Gunter (1949) The Bantu of North Kavirondo 2 Volumes, London, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press for International African Institute. 10. Schapera, I (1947). Letter from I Schapera to the Chief Native Commissioner, Nairobi on Social Anthropologists posted to Kenya. (Personal Archives). 11. Southall, A. (1952). Linea&e Formation Amon& the Luo, International African Institute, Memorandum XXVI, Acknowledgments. 12. Waligo'rski, A . (1952), "Gleboznawstwo Pierwotne: Rozpoznanie I wybo'r gleb pod uprawe ws'ro'd nilockich Luo", Lud (wrocldaw), 39, 1952, 181227; 'studia nad weizia terytorialoa: Rodzinna Wschodnioafrykanskiego plemienia Luo", Etnom PolfilQb 7, 1967,299-362. 13. 'soil selection Among the Luo", Kisumu: District Archives (Unpublished paper), no date. 14. Pender Cutlip, (1973). "Encyclopedic Informants and Early Interlacustine History", International Journal of African Historical Studies, 6, 198-210. 15. Okola, Z . and Were, M. (1936). Weche Moko Mag Luo, Nairobi: Church Missionary Society Bookshop. 16. Mboya, Paul (1938). Luo Kitgi gi Timbegi Nairobi: East African Standard Ltd. 17. Evans-Pritchard. E. E. (1965) "Luo Tribes and Clans". In The Position of Women in Primitive Societies and Other Essays in Social Anthropology. London: Farber and Farber Ltd., 205-227. (First published in RhodesLivingstone Journal, 7, 1949, 20-40, Capetown). 18. Evans-Pritchard, ditto, p. 214 19. Evans-Pritchard. "Contribution to the Study of Zande Culture", in Africa 1960 (Volume xxx No. 4): Africa, 1963 (Volume xxxiii, No. 3) and Africa. 1965 (Volume xxxv, No. 1)

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202 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS 20. Evans-Pritchard. E. E. (1950): "Marriage Customs of the Luo of Kenya". Africa (20), 2. pp. 132-142, London 21. Southall, A. (1952) Lineage Formation Among the Luo. International African Institute. Memorandum XXVI. 22. Wilson, G.M. Marriage Laws and Customs 1955. Report to the Kenya Government, Nairobi. 23. Wilson, G.M. (1961) Luo Customary Law and Marriage Laws and Customs. Nairobi, Government Printer. 24. Malo, S. (1953). Dhoudi Mag Central Nyanza, Nairobi: Eagle Press. 25. Ayany, S. G. (1952). Kar Chakruok Mar Luo. Kisumu: Self-published. 26. Ominde, S. H. ( 1952). The Luo Girl From Infancy to Marriage. London Macmillan and Co. Ltd. 27. Atieno Odhiambo, E.S. (1992). "The Context of the Luo Girl from Infancy to Marriage", Maseno Journal of Education. Arts and Science, volume 1, No. 2, pp. 187-194. 28. Ogot, B.A. (1950). 'social and Economic History of the Luo of Kenya: 1870-1910. Makerere College Arts Research Prize. Makerere Library. 29. Owuor, Henry A. (1961) "The Place of Folk Tales in the Education of Luo Children". The Arts Research Prize Makerere College. Also see papers by the same author: 'spirit Possession among the Luo of Central Nyanz.a". typescript. Kampala; East African Institute of Social Research. (n.d.) .. "Luo songs" in Introduction to African Literature: An Anthology of Critical Writings from 'Black Orpheus'. Ulli Beier (ed.) London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd. 1967, 50-56. 30. Taban lo Liyong (1970), Eating Chiefs: Luo Culture from Lolwe to Malkal, selected, interpreted and transmuted. London: Heinemann (p. ix-x). 31 . Feierman, S. Chapter 2. "Africa in History. The End of Universal Narratives", in After Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Placements (Ed.) Gyan Prakash, Princeton University Press, 1995, p. 52. 32. Cohen, David W. (1983), "Luo Camps in Seventeenth Century Eastern Uganda: the use of migration tradition in the reconstruction of Culture", Sprache und Geschichte in Africa (SUGIA), 5 PP. 145-75. 33. Webster, J. B. and Onyango Ku Odongo (eds.) (1976. The Central Luo during the Aconya, Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau; A History of Uganda Volume I, J.B. Webster (ed.) and Volume II, D. Denoon (ed.). The manuscripts of these two volumes have never been published; A.T. Adefuye, "Political History of the Paluo 1840 - 1911" Ph.D. Thesis, (lbadan, 1973): Ronald R. Atkinson, "A History of the Western Acholi of Uganda C. 1675-1900", Ph.D. Thesis Northwestern University, 1978; John Tosh, Clan Leaders and Colonial Chiefs in Lango. Clarendon Press, Oxford,

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1978; Ralph S. Herring, "A History of the Labwor Hills," Ph.D. Thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1974; John E.Lamphear, The Traditional History of the Jie of U&anda, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976. 34. Ogot B.A. (1996), The Jii-speakin& Peoples of Eastern Africa. K.isumu: Anyange Press Ltd. 35. Ayot, Henry 0. A History of the Luo-Abasuba of Western Kenya from A.O. 1760-1940, Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1979; Butterman, Judith M. ''Luo Social formations in Change: Karachuonyo and Kanyamkago, C. 1800-1945", PhD. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1979; Hay, M.J. ''Economic change in Luoland: Kowe, 1890-1945". PhD. dissertation University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1972; Kenny, Michael G., "The relation of oral history to social structure in South Nyanza, Kenya" Africa 47, 3 (1977), pp. 276-88; Ochieng, W.R. (1974) An outline History of Nyann up to 1914, Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau; Ochieng, W.R. (1975) A History of the Kadimo chiefdom of Yimbo in Western Kenya, E.A. Literature Bureau; Odira, A., "A History of Kanyada people up to 1914", Kenyatta University; Olang', D.A.D., "A History of the Karachuonyo C. 1500-1900", B.A. Graduating Essay, University of Nairobi, 1972; Oloo, P.C., "History of Settlement: An Example of Luo Clans in Alego (15001918), B.A. Graduating Essay, University of Nairobi, 1969; Odiyo, E. Onyango, 'state Formation Among the Luo: The case of Alego, 1500-1920, M. Phil. thesis, Moi University; 1991. Onyango-Ogutu, B. and A.A. Roscoe, Keep My Words: Luo Oral Literature, Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1974; Schiller, Lawrence D., "Gem and Kano a comparative study of stress in two traditional African political systems in Nyan7,3 Province, Western Kenya, C.1850-1914", Department of History Seminar Paper, University of Nairobi, 1977; Opinya, Ondere J., "History of Kano: A study of the Stranger elements of Wang'aya, Sidho and Kasagam". B.A. Graduating Essay, University of Nairobi, 1969. 36. Henige, David, Oral Historiography. New York: Longman, 1982. Also see D.P. Henige, The Chronology of Oral Tradition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974. 37. Cohen, David S. and Odhiambo, Atieno E.S., SIAYA: The Historical Anthropology of an African Landscape: Nairobi: Heinemann, Kenya, 1989. Also see David W. Cohen, The Combin& of History. Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1994. 38. Vansina, Jan. Paths in the Rain forests. Towards a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990. 39. Vansina, Jan, Livin& with Africa, University of Wisconsin Press, p.42

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204 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS 40. ditto p.240 41. ditto p. 242

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CHAPTER 15 Africa: The Agenda of Historical Research and Writing§ Since the later 19th Century, the study of African history has undergone radical changes. From about 1885 to about 1960, most of Africa was under the yoke of colonialism; and hence colonial historiography held sway. According to this imperial historiography, Africa had no history and therefore the Africans were a people without history. Any historical process or movement in the continent was explained as the work of outsiders, whether these be the mythical "Hamite" or the Caucasoids. In particular, the European presented themselves as the main actors in any significant transformation of the African continent, leaving the indigenous populations as essentially passive recipients of all such externally generated "progress". In other words, traditional African culture could produce only historical stasis and all meaningful historical change was identified with Western experience. Even the colonial social anthropologists whose research was intended to discover, understand, and appreciate Africans on their own terms, merely succeeded in freezing and reifying fluid African cultures and societies into "tribes" that, in their view, became the presumed primary identities of all Africans. They thus contributed to the image of Africans as a people remote, unchanging, exotic, and isolated from modernity. Such a picture of Africa and Africans, was consistent with the colonizers vision of their own mission in Africa as bringing change, civilization, and enlightenment to a continent lost in its own past and to people who represented their "early ancestors." Consequently, African history was for the most part seen as the history of Europeans in Africa - a part of the historical progress and development of Western Europe and an appendix of the national history of the metropolis. The presence of the Europeans in Africa was therefore justified, among other things, by their ability to place Africa in the 'path of history.' (1) But like all oth~r people, the Africans have always thought about the past as reflected in the present and as a basis for predicting the future. And African 1 Lecture presented at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 11 th

March, 1997..

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206 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS history existed before 1885, complete with its historians, both official and communal. Even a written historiography existed in Africa from the 15th century: Annals, Hadith, tarikh, chronicles and history books were produced in North, East, South and West Africa as well as in Madagascar (2). And Vansina has recently conceded, "This trend never died out. As they became literate, local historians all over tropical Africa began to write histories in vernacular languages for the benefit of their communities. This process continues."(3). In other words, Africans have been writing history for their communities in their own languages for over 400 years. This represents a study of the African past in its own terms using local concepts, ideas and jargon instead of "universal categories." Is this part of African historiography? The colonialist historians did not think so. And Vansina, writing in 1994, did not think so either because, for him, African historiography starts in London in 1948, with the work of Roland Oliver. We have therefore to address the issue of the production of history by non-academic or popular historians and the struggle for control of voices and texts between them and the academic guild historians.

Nationalist History The Africanist response to this colonialist historiography was to discover purposive change in an African past which dealt not only with "barbarous tribes in picturesque but irrelevant comers of the globe," to quote Trevor-Roper's notorious phrase, but with human communities whose institutions and cultures deserved respect in their own terms. An academic historiography distinct from anthropology and from administrative reports began to take shape from the 1950s, largely from the University colleges that had been created in several colonies. Recovery of Africa's true, dynamic record of achievement in the past was key part of the enterprise. They wanted to construct a verifiable past for Africa. In a sense this new African historiography was a development of, and significant factor in, the intensification of national liberation movements, that is, it was part of the decolonization process. The frrst phase had essentially a 'demonstrative' character. It was necessary to demonstrate that African history could be written, that it was an academic discipline in its own merit. Local documentary and oral sources existed that could produce respectable history. And academic historians were now beginning to hear the voices of those who had been voiceless. But were nonwestern societies legitimate subjects of historical research? There was also an epistemological problem. An African past, with its own social forms mythologies and values, was now to be fitted into an alien Western

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Africa: The Agenda ofHistorical Research and Writing 207 model. This was done by reading W estem models of development into the African past. In the case of oral tradition, those of us who were involved with their usage were convinced that oral sources were primary sources analogous to written documents. We therefore tried to put forward a convincing case that a verifiable past could be reconstructed from these primary sources. Many of the controversies and debates on oral tradition that took place subsequently were over this issue which, it is now generally agreed, is untenable, since oral traditions are synthetic products of communal and individual historical composition which change constantly through time. They could not therefore be compared to documentary evidence, as some of us tried to do in the 1960s. A rediscovery of the pre-colonial history of Africa was necessary in order to bring the old civilizations to light, and to place new value on African culture and art. The pre-colonial past was therefore given equal status, if not a higher one, to the more modem era. The historians appropriated cultural materials which anthropologists had previously treated in largely ahistorical terms. Thus African ancient kingdoms were resurrected, cultural heroes such as Sundiata were discovered and achievements in all walks of life were demonstrated. Cheikh Anta-Diop wrested Egyptian civilization from the Egyptologists and restored it to the mainstream of African history. Political independence in the 1960s created the necessary conditions for the flowering of the New African Historiography. History departments and research institutes established at the new African universities were handsomely endowed with research and publication funds. This is what crystallized into the Nationalist history of the 1960s. The African historian celebrated the rise of the new states and praised the achievements of the African nationalists. Preference was given to the themes of African history considered useful to the development of the new state structures. They gave the new states historical identity by writing national histories (such as A History of Tanzania or a History of Zambia) stretching back into the remote past. Thus the Nationalist historiography provided the African nationalists in the new states with a legitimizing ideology. Born at the same time as the New African Historiography was a new sociology of development, which had even greater certainty. Economic wellbeing and 'take-off seemed to be promised and guaranteed to every African state, provided it followed the route indicated by the Western democracies and expounded in detail by the then economic chief priest of the West, W. W. Rostow, in a work that was considered as the 'bible of development', The Stages of Economic Development ( 1960). This 'modernization theory' had its

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208 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS counterpart in a liberal historiography which interpreted the whole of African history in a developmental perspective. This liberal historiography and modernization theory were everywhere in the ascendant in the middle of the 1960s, favouring an ordered decoloniution, through agieement rather than armed struggle. The decline of the liberal and nationalist version of African history in the late 1960s and 1970s As we have already indicated, there is always a close link between theory and practice in historiography, between historical works and the changing political and socio-economic contours. By this time, neo-colonialism was becoming a reality in most African countries. The 'decade of development' had failed to produce any tangible results because the development programmes were based on the presuppositions of neo-liberal economics and on external models (see a similar situation in the 1990s). Africa was troubled by continued crises of political instability and economic depressions which, in the main, were resolved by military coups and an increased tendency towards authoritarianism, bureaucratic centralism and a rigid re-enforcement of the executive and its capacity for repression. The economic and political models of the 1960s had failed. A deliberate parallel came to be drawn between the growing disaffection of the African no longer feeling represented by the new 'elites' of the 1960s, and the birth of a radical historiography. Radical critics, most of them students of the 'founding fathers' of African history, attacked their mentors for falling prey to a false notion of autonomy which combined the mystification of pre-colonial culture and the misconceptions of a particular western theory, that of modernization. Such an idea of autonomy, they contended, only promoted its opposite, the legitimization of political elites who were really the instruments of neo-colonialism, leaving unexamined the socio-economic basis of continued domination and under-development. What was needed to overcome this crises was a history which looked beyond politics to the underlying determinants of the socio-economic order. New agenda for historical research and writing emerged. Economics and 'underdevelopment' were substituted for states, trade and politics, and the radical scholars identified peasants, workers and later women as important agents of historical change. Social history and conflict took over the main stage from chiefs, politics and undifferentiated 'Africans'. A new field of historical demography soon emerged, followed by the histories of climate, drought, famine, technology, agriculture, food and nutrition, health and therapeutic

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systems. Oral traditions were critically re-examined and rejected because reliable chronologies could never emerge from these sources. Written sources, especially colonial records, were also subjected to critical examination. Two major schools of African historiography emerged to tackle the new challenges. One was the under-development or dependence school which was imported from Latin America and which was quickly accepted by many scholars as a persuasive reply to the question of development and tradition. Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is a classical statement of this theory. The dependence theory also generated a protracted debate on the nature of the post-colonial state and its external and internal limits. But the historians soon discovered that the dependence theory lacked concepts with which to analyze African history before the emergence of the capitalist world system, or internal processes since then, without subordinating them to external determination. The other approach that was adopted at this time to challenge the hegemony of nationalist historiography was Marxism. It attracted a growing number of younger intellectuals who were dissatisfied with bourgeois and capitalist theories, processes and practices of development in Africa and around the world, and who wanted to articulate an alternative version and paradigm of development. A heated debate on pre-capitalist modes of production was initiated by the French Marxist anthropologists and economists. It was soon adopted by historians and the debate brought notable contributions on both method and historical interpretation. In particular, it stimulated a critical re-reading of Marxist analytical categories on a less ethnocentric basis so that Western derived 'laws of development' were no longer arbitrarily imposed on phenomena which required to be understood in their specificity. In short, Marxism . gradually came to be seen as a method rather than as providing a grand theory, an all-purpose explanatory scheme. Moreover, the debates initiated by Marxist scholars stimulated a critical revision of many themes previously covered in African historiography. For instance, nationalist writings of the anti-colonial resistance were enriched by analysis of the formation of class in resistance movements. Marxist analysis also extended to enrich the theme of liberation struggle whose form and objectives led to a wide discussion centered on the meaning and political weight of what was termed the 'second independence' of Africa. In summary, the radical scholarship of the 1970s brought African history into the main streams of the historical discipline by applying theory, perspective, and techniques tested elsewhere to Africa. The originally undifferentiated history of 'Africa' proliferated into a range of technically defined subfields -

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210 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS economic history, gender, historical demography, social history, ecological history - comparable to those found elsewhere in the discipline. But much of this debate remained at the level of theory. By the early 1980s, the highly abstract structuralist emphasis of the 1970s and the pessimistic criticism by historians trained in the 1960s had played themselves out. Unfortunately, African historical scholarship had, by this time, been assimilated almost completely into Western epistemology. The African historians who had failed to articulate any new defmition of autonomy, joined the Western historiographical tradition with its claims to universalism. They thus contributed to the alienation of African historiography which in many regions of the continent had existed for over four hundred years, to its increasing Westemi:zation and fmally to the new 'invention' of African societies as objects of knowledge from which those very societies are excluded. Indeed, the 'idea' of Africa itself was being re-invented by 'western' scholarship. ·

Getting Back to the Practice of African History From the mid-1980s, the desire to find a truly African history or to find 'African perspectives' that would enable one to understand Africans on their own terms was increasingly being expresses. The search was for a link between the African past in 'its own terms' and the terms relevant to both the practical issues and cultural self-expression of present-day Africa. It was now being accepted that the universal categories created by the various historical paradigms ultimately represent only the Western culture from which they originated. New paradigms were needed which could combine universals with the autonomy of African experience, identity and self-expression. In other words, scholars were beginning to be skeptical about universal and unilinear accounts of history, especially as they related to Africa. Once again, there seems to be a link between theory and practice in the new African historiography which emerged in the 1980s and early 1990s. In development studies, the 1980s has been described as Africa's "lost decade", characterized by economic decline and social decay. The situation deteriorated further following of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 which left the neo-liberal ideology to reign supreme. Can the neo-liberal paradigm explain the complex contours of the African past? Can it provide effective solutions to the continent's woes? If not, what are the alternative perspectives: Are they homegrown or imported? If imported, how relevant are they to the African experience? In short, how do we historicize the present in Africa? What paradigms shall we adopt in the study of the so-called African crisis? What

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Africa: The Agenda ofHistorical Research and Writing 211 fresh methods, epistemologies and theories do we need in order to understand the present crisis in Africa? Since the 1980s, a new period began wherein emphasis was shifted from institutions to society and its internal transformations. Post-structuralism or post-modernism emerged as the new 'gospel'. The adherents contended that the conditions on the African continent contained unique features which could not merely be subsumed under a universal theory. The major debate in African history therefore became centered largely on the tension between the universal and the particular, with the post-modernists emphasizing the particular. Consequently, African history largely shifted from emphasis on the globally to locally significant. Such studies have also focused on the indigenous African actors and their contribution to history. In other words, the main emphasis has been on the search for the personal and the subjective. In much of the social history that has been produced by the new African historiography, Africans are portrayed as real persons, with voices and will of their own. Also, these works have revealed many dimensions of African life that were over-looked by the structuralists. For instance, there are those studies dealing with colonialism and culture, especially with the production of knowledge in a colonial setting. How did European discourse inscribe "otherness" on non-European populations? How did it convert African societies and nations into 'tribes' or African social institutions, practices and thought into 'tradition'? What did the Africans themselves think of the new structures that were being imposed on them or the new identities that were being inscribed on them? Some recent studies have attempted to recover such histories (4). Colonial experience has been re-studied from colonial archives - court files, police reports, prison files, medical department files, mission letters - as well as recollections of African and nonAfrican survivors. Such studies have retold the stories of the lives of Africans in a more meaningful manner. In addition, scholars are beginning to study what can only be described as "the struggle for history." Why were certain events remembered and not others? What made narratives creditable? And to who? Why was oral history rejected and not autobiography? How does one recover the historical consciousness of a largely illiterate people living under colonialism? All these questions relate to a larger issue of how Africans' history-making was implicated in establishing or contesting power (5). African scholars joined the worldwide protest by non-European intellectuals against reduction of them to objects of study. Then we have the gender studies which initially concentrated on the differential impact of colonial rule on women and men. Though established in the 1970s in Africa, studies of women matured into gender studies only later in

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212 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS the 1980s. The basic issue in these studies was stated succinctly by a Uganda lady, Christine Obbo: "Kinship groups recruit members through marriage and b ~ the prize of membership in kinship groups is the acceptance of social defmitions, duties and obligations. Social identity, the division of labour and property transfers are anchored in kin relationships which are maintained in part, through systems of gender stratification - that is, the gender system. Much ideology surrounding kinship and other relations between men and women and defmes them according to whether they are social males or social females and specifies the norms for each gender. The beliefs and values associated with each gender in turn force men to behave according to this gender differentiation. Biological differences are elaborated into social differences as well as power inequalities: men and women have unequal access to scarce and valued resources of society ( 6)." Hence becoming a woman or becoming a man entails the routinization of the gender prescription. Scholarship has been geared towards understanding these seemingly permanent inequalities and disadvantages. But even in this case, the African scholars should be granted their intellectual autonomy to produce their own appropriate type of knowledge, to respect their own historical specificity. For example, at the 1995 Beijing Women World Conference, African women perceived of lesbianism and feminism as culture-specificisms peculiar to the West and therefore had no claim to universality. Even the concept of "the family" was contested at the same conference, with the African women defining it to mean husband, wife and their offspring, and some Western delegates seeking to extend its meaning to include marriage between homosexuals. There is also the recent emergence of gay and lesbian politics in Zimbabwe and South Africa (7). Other gender studies I have been involved with during the last three years have attempted to relate gender studies to the issue of indigenous knowledge. Two of them have dealt with the general theme of women, disease, medicine and change and they have raised the question: Does authority bestowed on a body of knowledge depend on western epistemology or on its own epistemology and effective applicability within a given cultural context? There has also been a return to the history of ethnic identities. The stereotype of the 'tribe' - long rejected by African historians as pejorative and ahistorical, owing to its implication of unchanging and anachronistic attitudes, but never examined as a construct of the human imagination - has been replaced with historical reconstructions of its invention and its political and personal

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utility to its creators. These historical studies have demonstrated close links between ethnicity and nationalism and national identity. Indeed, it was the methodology used to study nationalism that was applied to the study of ethnicity (8). In African studies, the treatment of identity and ethnicity has become increasingly central. In a recent book edited by Thomas Spear and Richard Waller entitled, Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa, the authors of these provocative essays make an important contribution to the continuing debate on the process of being, becoming and indeed transforming individual and corporate identities. The book is a study and interpretation of what it means to be a Maasai now and in the past. But even more important historiographically, it offers a serious analysis of the theoretical implications of ethnicity for understanding identity. The Maasai are seen as part of an historically dynamic process whereby "different economic groups, ethnically defined ... participated as a matter of course in a common interdependent regional economy and culture."(9) Their concept of "being Maasai" is basically instrumentalist and the affirmation and negotiation of identities as well as the process of articulation, upholding and disputing moral values are seen here as integral to ethnicity. The book demonstrates that a sense of community has been central to Maasai identity, and that over time this has adapted and evolved according to needs and circumstances. For example, today Maasai identity is • being increasingly contested and redefmed under the influence of fundamental shifts in land tenure and the surrounding economy and in the transformation from communal to individual ownership and orientation. It represents a shift in Maasai priorities from that of struggle for control over cattle to one of control over land. There are also new and conflicting responses by Maasai to outsiders. The authors conclude that ethnicity is neither static nor necessarily strictly defmed; it can be fashioned and transformed. In a similar study, the role of the Mijikenda in the development of Mombasa from mid-nineteenth century to the 1930s has recently been examined exhaustively in a fascinating book, Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda written by Dr. Justin Willis. He focuses on the changing concepts of ethnicity and identity and gives an account of the continuing redefinition of being Swahili and the invention of Mijikenda identity in the 1930s as a dynamic response to the interventions of the colonial state and the perceptions of its local representatives. The study underscores an important point, that is, that ethnic identity is constantly being negotiated and defmed, re-negotiated and redefined, in everyday discourse (10).

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The Future of African Historiography There are several pending problems of historical scholarship in Africa. First, post-modem approaches to the study of the past have dominated African historiography for over a decade now, and there is little doubt that they have provided refreshing and differentiated frameworks of interpretation and analysis through attention to the position of subject, observer and audience in discourses about the past. But as Jane Parpart states, the utility of post-modem thinking to the study of Africa continues to be a matter of debate (11). As a philosophy post-modernism was hotly debated in academic circles in the 1980s and there is no need to repeat those arguments here. Suffice it to say that post-modernism became part of the resurgence of modem philosophers of pragmatic and empirical orientation, who emphasized contemporary values and who joined the French post-structuralists in challenging the major tenets of modem scientific and social knowledge. They focused on discourse, diversity and subjugated knowledge in the construction of meaning in societies. The reservations of African scholars stem from several factors. First, postmodernism seeks to disclose the partiality and contentiousness of any purportedly universal social theory. And yet it does not offer a radical critique of capitalism. In fact, it appears to be basically Euro-centric neo-liberalism. Hence, it is itself a grand theory, a universal narrative. Applying postmodernism to African studies would therefore be tantamount to introducing a conceptualization of Africa that is fundamentally neo-colonial. Secondly, post-modernism elevates difference as a value that is in opposition to traditional value. But this kind of stress on difference produced colonial historiography, colonial anthropology stressing the exotic and the racist anti-racism of negritude. In most cases difference has often meant inferior, primitive, animist, backward. But for how long can we continue to isolate Africa from the rest of the world? Is it enough to continue to affirm differences? I think the time has come when we should re-integrate and re-introduce Africa into world history by adding African experience to global historical patterns. This implies understanding Africans on their own terms, using their perspectives. It also means recognizing oral traditions as key sources for the writing of intellectual and cultural histories in Africa. Thirdly, it is the contention of some scholars that Africa needs both particularist and universalist theory. The post-modernist emphasis on the particular argues that all identities are local, contingent and freely chosen. And hence, he who writes and produces knowledge also becomes important because

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self-representation is seen as the only authentic form of representation. Universalist theory, on the other hand, assumes that all social entities can be studied in the same way. It provides the basis for comparison by focusing on the structural aspects of social life. It tends to portray Africa as just one of many regions in the world with little identity of its own. That is why such theories were rejected in the 1970s. But on the other hand, we cannot argue, like the post-modernists, that only Africa's peculiarity matters, especially at a time when the broader context is increasingly being shaped by global forces that lie far beyond the reach of individual agency. African history therefore needs intellectual pluralism of contending perspectives and it would be unfortunate if one school tries to create hegemonic control of the research agenda (such as happened with modernization, under-developmentalism, Marxism, neoliberalism when they tried to create intellectual hegemonies). Finally, post-modernism is regarded by some African scholars as a threat to well-established historical methods for studying societies. Such scholars insist that there is a domain of social reality called history. Therefore, they argue that the epistemology of historical thought which deals with dynamic conditions of historical knowledge cannot be left to some bastardized inter-subjective approach in the names of fracturing, breaking, or deconstructing. The second pending problem relates to the urgent need to evolve modes of critique of African sources, written and oral, within the academy and without. True, in the search for the universality of human experience in Africa, there has been a change of emphasis from institutional to the social, from facts to processes. Anthropologists have turned to history. For a long time, the "idea" of Africa for many outsiders was anthropological. It helped to defme the "other" in Africa: barbarian (c.f. Berbers), uncivilized, pagan, primitive, colonized. Currently, great efforts are being made to reintegrate anthropology with African history, and hence to assimilate the "other" in Africa into world history. This demands new methodologies and epistemology. A gallant effort in this direction has been provided in the book by David Cohen and E.S. AtienoOdhiambo, Siaya: The Historical Anthropology of an African Landscape (12). But for other outsiders, the 'idea' of Africa was archaeological. An evolutionary model that introduced significant distortions into African history was adopted by archaeologists in the 19th century. It demonstrated the progressive course of human society from a primitive stage of savagery to an advanced stage of civilization. By the mid-20th century, the typological stages of savagery, barbarism, and civilization were replaced with bands of huntergatherers, tribal chiefdoms and states, which in many ways reflect the same 19th century intellectual baggage. Basically, all of our current archaeological

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216 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS formulations of how civilization arose depend to some extent on 19th century European presumption about what civilization is. The progressivist mode in African history and archaeology took the guise of denying progress to African societies. Recent prehistoric African societies were viewed as stuck in a profound statis that had endured for millennia. Grahame Cl~ Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University wrote in his 1969 World Prehistory, "By comparison with the role it played during the earlier stages of prehistory Africa ..... had, except for part of its Mediterranean Coastal Zone, already relapsed into provincialism during the late Pleistocene. From this time, much of the continent remained a kind of cultural museum in which archaic cultural traditions . .. continued to adapt to ecological change and even on occasion to display idiosyncratic variations without contributing to the main course of human progress."(13) This mirrored Hegel's 19th century sentiments about Africa fairly closely. Similar views were expressed by Sonia Cole, a synthesizer, publicist and biographer of Louis Leakey, who, in her Prehistory of East Africa ( 1954, revised edition 1963) tried to contrast a glorious Stone Age with a miserable later prehistoric period, by asserting that in earliest times East Africa was "a center of evolutionary progress" and by no means the cultural backwater that it became later." (14) Recent research in archaeology has increasingly questioned the suitability of applying to Africa evolutionist model which produced universal histories that tied together the world's parts in a coherent narrative of a rise to civilization from savagery and barbarism ( 15). There is an urgent need for more archaeological research based on new methodologies and approaches, if we are to add the necessary time-depth to African history. Unfortunately, there are very few archaeologists working in Africa, and many of these are pre-occupied with the history of early man. There is, however, one institution which is doing a sterling job in this field. I refer to the British Institute in Eastern Africa, which is sponsored by the British Academy, and has been active since l 960 in research into the history, archaeology and related subjects such as anthropology and oral tradition. It has published major works on Kilwa, Manda, Aksum, Soba in Sudan, Kibiro in Bunyoro, Shanga - a Muslim trading community on the coast of East Africa, pastoralism and agriculture. It publishes its own annual journal, Azani~ in which the results of recent and current research are published and archaeological methodologies discussed.

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Africa: The Agenda ofHistorical Research and Writing 217 Similar revisionism is discernible among historical linguists, who are actively replacing linguistic classification based on dubious racial theories and, like anthropologists and archaeologists, are working closely with historians, and are adding, through their work, a major time-depth to African history. Jan Vansina, for example, who fortunately for African history, is a historian, linguist and anthropologist all rolled into one, has made a bold attempt in another pioneering book, Paths in the Rain Forests (1990), in which he has applied the "words and things" approach to produce a brilliant synthesis of 3000 years of equatorial African history ( 16). In East Africa, linguists such as Chris Ehret, Bernd Heine, Derrick Nurse and others have contributed immensely to the study of language and history in Africa ( 17). The major handicap in this case is that there are very few trained African linguistic historians. We thus see that in the search for the universality of human experience in Africa, there has been a major change of emphasis from the institutional to the social, from facts to processes. Anthropologists have turned to history, archaeologists are increasingly emphasizing process, culture and sociology in their recent studies and linguists are closely collaborating with historians. The inter-disciplinary character of African history is being revived and it has become possible to synthesize a coherent, continuos, convincing, and reasonably comprehensive narrative of Africa's pasts, stretching back several millennia. In this endeavor oral traditions are again being accepted as valuable expressions of African perspectives. They have to be interrogated afresh and new questions raised. And the current broad intellectual concern with memory, history, meaning and experience is already yielding insights into the historical consciousness of those whose experience have rested mostly in the hands of others. Several questions, however, remain to be tackled. First, there is the urgent need to define the relationship between popular productions of knowledge which is going on all the time, and those of the academic guild. What status do we give to the historical knowledge reproduced outside the work of the guild? Of must the historiographical field be restricted to the academic guild alone? Secondly, there is the fundamental problem of the relationship between the scholar and his or her audience. l-listorians do not reconstruct the past in vacuo, but with particular audiences in mind. As Jan Vansina has recently pointed out, the writing of African history is the ohly case on a large scale dominated by outsiders even today. He writes: · "This is a continuing anomaly. In all other major parts of the world, and that includes the major parts of the so-called Third World areas, the writing of history, academic history included, has primarily been conducted in the

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218 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS area itself, by authors of the area, in the languages of the area, and for the audiences in the area. But in tropical Africa the writing of the academic history was organized by 'outsiders', and ever since, the epicenters of this activity have rer11ained outside Africa, despite all efforts to alter the situation. It is a crucial anomaly. 11 He continues: "Outsiders initiated academic history here. they created the university departments, and they wrote the first substantive histories. they set up the framework within which African historians later worked, and they 'trained' them how to write academic history. The Pioneers wrote for an outside audience which shared their world views and social practice, not for an audience in Africa itself, except for African historians of Africa and a few others who had absorbed Euro-American academic culture. When African scholars began to take their destinies into their own hands, they unwittingly continued to write their major works to a large extent for the same academic audience rather than for their own natural populations ... while these authors attacked imperial history and promoted national history, they continued to write in English or in French, thus limiting access of their local audiences. Implicitly they still looked for approval of their work in Europe or North America as a guarantee of its high technical standard. 11 ( 18) V ansina strongly believes that this anomaly goes to the heart of the matter of historiography because it affects the fundamental relationship between author and audience. He would like us to address two questions: Whose history are we writing? And for whom are we writing it? Is it for ourselves or for the African audience? He then concludes that "However difficult to achieve, authors, insiders and outsiders alike, must strive to reach 'natural' audiences and thus end this anomaly of African historiography." ( 18) For those who take comfort in the fact that the historiography of African history has always run parallel to the successive intellectual movements which have unfolded in the historiographies of Europe and the Americas, V ansina's answer is simple: that is to be expected from a transplant! Nor does it alter the fact that the parallelism between the historiographies remains overwhelming and still points to a certain degree of alienation of African history from its natural audiences. Moreover, almost always "historians of Africa have followed their siblings rather than preceded them" (20): nationalist history, oral history, the

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market economy school, the dependency theorists, the Marxists of the mode-ofproduction school, the post-structuralist cultural anthropology, post-colonial studies and post-modernism - all are manufactured in Europe and the Americas from where they are exported to Africa as finished 'universal categories,' where they are imbibed and indiscriminately applied! This is a serious problem. These few interpretative frameworks have dominated the interpretation and representation of complex processes and events on the African continent They have shaped knowledge and knowledge processes within Africa and on the African past. How far can African historians emancipate their writings from these powerful frameworks? Reflecting on similar problems in a recent historiographical essay, John Page has concluded in the following somber manner: "In the last analysis, it does need to be asked whether European concepts of history are suitable for the understanding of African history. It is possible, indeed, to believe that the idea of history as we have come to know it in modem Europe was not one applicable to precolonial African society." He continues, "For the moment we have very little African history written by Africans who are untainted by European conceptions and significances of their own past." (21) Fage's article later provoked Atieno-Odhiambo to pose the following questions: "Has the time come to question our unitary acceptance of the hegemonic episteme which posits that the discipline of history uniquely belongs to Western civili7.ation? Alternatively can Africans articulate an African gnosis that stands independently of these western traditions in our study of African history? Need African epistemes be intelligible to the West? Need the study and practice of history be tied to the guild of historical study at the university academies?" (22) ·

In short, is autonomy of African history possible?

ENDNOTES 1. 2.

See for example, Prof. Roland Oliver's "Introduction" to The Cambrid&e Histozy of Africa, Vol. VI: 1870-1905 From Timbuktu, See Tarikh Es-Soudan Edited by 0. Houdas and M. Delafosse, Paris: Leroux. 1913; Tarik El-Fettah edited by 0. Houdas, Paris: Leroux, 1900; other tariks are known from Hausaland, Bornu and Gonja. Ethiopia has had a written oral historiography since at least the 13th

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220 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS

3. 4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12

13 14

century; at least nine histories of Yorubaland were published between 1852 and 1900; A.H.J. Prins, "On Swahili Historiography," Journal of the East African Swahili committee, 28( 1958), p. 26-41. Vansina, Jan LivinK with Afric1, University of Wisconsin Press, 1994, p.42 See, for example, David William Cohen and E.S Atieno-Odhaimbo, Bwying S.M.: The Politics of Knowled&e and the Sociolo&Y of Power in Africa, Port111outh,N.H., 1992.Heineman, London:James Currey, 1992. Cohen, David William, The Combin& of Histoey, Chicago, 1994. The University of Chicago Press Obbo, C. "Gender Stratification and Vulnerability in Uganda," in Colour, Class and Coung:y: Experiences of Gender, Edited by G. Young and Bette J. Dickerson, pp. 182-196. London and New Jersey: Zed Books Ltd., 1994. Some of the recent gender studies from Kenya include: Luise White, 'separating the Men from the Boys: Constructions of Gender, Sexuality, and terrorism in Central Kenya, 1939- 1959," International Journal of African Historical Studies, 23 1990, pp. 1-27; Cora Ann Presley, K.ikyyu Women, the Mau Mau rebellion, and social chan&e in Kenya, (Boulder, Colo., 1992); Tabitha Kanogo, Crossing Boundaries: African Women's Experience in Colonial Kenya ( 1998). Works that have contributed to the demystification of nationalism are E . Gellner, Nations and Nationalism. Oxford, 1983; E. Hobsbawn, Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge, 1990; Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger (eds.) The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983; Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities: reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso Editions, 1983. A.O. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford, 1986. Spear, Thomas and Richard Waller (eds) Being Maasai: ethnicity and identity in East Africa. London: James Currey, 1993. p.4. Willis, Justin, Mombasa, the Swahili and the Makin& of the Mijikenda. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Also see Ethnicity. Nationalism and Democracy in Africa (ed.) B.A. Ogot, Maseno University College 1996. Parpart, J.L. "Is Africa a Post-modem Invention?". A Journal of Opinio11, Vol. XXIII /I, 1995 p.16. Cohen, David William and E.S. Atieno-Odhiambo, SIAYA; The Historical AntbropoloKY of an African Landscape. Nairobi: Heinemann, Kenya, 1989. Grahame Clark, World Prehistory, Cambridge University Press, 1969, p. 181. Sonia Cole, The Prehistory of East Africa, Hammondworth: Penguin, 1963, p. 40

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Africa: The Agenda ofHistorical Research and Writing 221 15 For an excellent discussion of archaeological historiography, see A Histo[Y of African Archaeolo&Y edited by Peter Robertshaw, London: James Currey, 1990 16 Vansina, Jan, Paths in the Rain Forests: Towards a Histo[Y of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990. 17 See, for example, John A. Distefano, "The Pre-colonial History of the Kalenjin of Kenya. A Methodological Comparison of Linguistic and Oral Traditional Evidence," Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1985. Chris Ehret recent works include. ReconstructinK Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian). University of California Press, 1995 and The Historical Reconstruction ofNilo-Saharan (1998). Published in Berlin 18 Vansina, Jan LivinK; with Africa. p. 240 · 19 Vansina, Jan LivinK; with Africa, p. 242 20 Ibid., p. 242 21 Fage, J.D. "Reflections on the Genesis of Anglophone African History after World war II," Histo[Y in Africa 20, 1993. 22 Atieno-Odhiambo, E.S. "Democracy and the Emergent Present in Africa: lnte11ogating the Historical Assumptions," Paper read at CODESRIA Africa Zamani. Workshop on "Historical Legacy and the democratiution in Africa," April, 26-29, 1994, p.99

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CHAPTER16 Museveni-The Ugandan Narkisses§ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Cu"ent English defmes narcissism as a "tendency to self-worship, absorption in one's own personal perfections". It is derived from the name of a Greek youth Narkissos, who fell in love with his reflection in water. Museveni's autobiography shows him as the Ugandan Narlcissos who bas fallen in love with his reflection in Uganda's muddy political waters. He has turned Uganda's historical record into a narrative of selfjustification. And although all autobiographies are narcissistic to some degree the careful shaping of a public self-image, monuments to self-love built for posterity - not all are as trapped in narcissism as this book is. For Museveni, it is not so much how the past dictates the present that is important, but rather how the present manipulates the past. The book is the story of his own personal role "in the struggle for freedom and democracy in Uganda over the past 30 years." It took sixteen years to write. He believes that it is he and his colleagues who fmally sowed the "mustard seed" of freedom and democracy in Uganda in the 1980s, after frrst clearing the land of the rocks and weeds of a corrupt system. In other words, he gives no credit to Uganda nationalism in the attainment of the country's political independence. Indeed, he doubts whether there was any Uganda nationalism before him. In other words, all was darkness in Uganda until God willed that there shall be Museveni, and then all was light! The book is also a record of Museveni's ideological development from youth to the present. As a secondary school boy in the 1960s, he was a Democratic Party (D.P.) sympathizer - a kind of D.P. 'youth winger' - largely because the Bahima Chiefs and the Catholic leaders in Ankole were members of the party. At the university of Dar-es-Salaam (1967-70), be developed a coherent ideological outlook which was largely Marxist. In 1970, he joined Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), while he was working in the Office of the President, in A Review Article of Sowing ofthe Mustard Seed by Y oweri Kaguta Museveni, MacMillian Publishers Ltd, London, 1997.

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224 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Obote's office, as a Research Assistant. He did this, he explains, not out of conviction, but rather for convenience. This was pure opportunism! It is true Museveni has written a revealing and, in its way, a candid book. But the book has many flaws, of both style and substance: the tone of self-satisfaction and self-congratulation and it is partial and glosses over some complex episodes. And besides his close comrades - most of them from South-West Uganda, be is personally harsh on everybody else. He bad low opinion of practically all his teachers at the University of Dar-es-Salaam; be condemns all D.P. leaders as lacking "a dynamic leadership", "conservative men", with "limited perspective",; and the "UPC leadership were generally an uncouth breed, anxious to get rich as quickly as possible using state apparatus" (p. 45); and Y.K. Lule had "aversion to democracy". He however, reserves much of the venom for Obote who is demonized throughout the book as the major cause of all problems in Uganda since independence. It is evident that Museveni's main motive for writing this book - apart from the one already referred to of portraying himself as the saviour of Uganda - was to erase completely the figure of Obote from the history of Uganda. Unfortunately for him, Obote is a much more substantial figure than Museveni implies and his contribution deserves a critical and serious appreciation which would go beyond the sympathetic political biography that has been written by Professor Kenneth Ingaham (I), the frrst Professor of History at Makerere University and a former Nominated Member of the Uganda Legislative Council where he first met Obote. Museveni writes, for example, that as school boys in Western Uganda between 1965 and 1966, he and his friends - Martin Mwesiga, Mwesigwa Black, Valeviano Rwaheru and Eriya Kategaya - were 'staunchly anti - Obote." (p. 19) He himself hated Obote at that time because he frustrated the East African Federation idea against the support of Nyerere and Kenyatta (p. 18). This is far from the truth. In January 1963, for instance, Prime Minister Obote accompanied Prime Minister Rashidi Kawawa of Tanganyika to England to discuss independence for Kenya, because the East African Common Services could not function properly while Kenya remained a colony. As Harold Macmillan, the then Prime Minister of Britain has recorded in his memoirs, At the End of the Day 1961 - 1963 (2), Duncan Sandys, the Colonial Secretary for Commonwealth Affairs, spent several hours on January 28, 1963, "being reproached (and almost insulted) by Mr. Kawawa and Mr. Obote." Kenya became independent on 12 December, 1963 and early in 1964, a meeting was held in Uganda, which led to the signing of the Kampala Agreement which created the East African Common Market. It was this agreement which was revised in 1966 to create the East African Community which functioned fairly

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well until it collapsed in 1977. But until Obote was overthrown in 1971, he and the Uganda government supported the regional grouping. Hence, Museveni's schoolboy hatred for Obote for opposing the idea of the East African Federation is one of the many distortions and fabrications in the book aimed at demonizing Obote. Furthermore, Museveni asserts that Obote would rather support Nkrumah's notion of a continental union because he knew it was impractical. "In the case of an East African Union which was feasible, opportunists such as Obote, who were also political dwarfs, feared its realisation because they wanted to remain big fish in small ponds." (p.18). The historical facts do not support Museveni's strictures. During the meeting of African Heads of States and Governments, Addis Ababa in May 1963, at which the Organisation of African Unity was formed, Nkrumah made a passionate speech in support of union government. It is on record that Milton Obote was one of the African leaders at the conference who strongly argued in favour of regional groupings. There is also the need to critically assess the Obote I period, 1962-1971 . Museveni characterizes it as a time of intrigues and corruption, with no meaningful development. But any objective evaluation of the whole period would show it as the greatest era of prosperity in Uganda. The economy was kept on a sound and expanding basis and much of the money generated was used to expand education and health facilities throughout the country. Politically, Museveni accuses Obote of being unscrupulous and cites the way in which he misled the traditionalists in Buganda and then, after some years, "made an about-tum over the same issues." (p. 19). He, however, does not discuss the issues. For instance, the independence constitution, which established Buganda in a federal relationship with the rest of Uganda, created more problems than it set to solve. Both Obote and Kabaka of Buganda believed that they could establish a working relationship between UPC and Kabaka Yeka. Museveni condemns this alliance as opportunistic and sectarian, but he does tell us what could have been done, given the independent constitution, which attempted to marry a monarchical and authoritarian regime with a parliamentary system. Moreover, the same independence constitution had provided for the holding of a referendum in the Lost Counties - a disputed area between Buganda and Bunyoro. This area had been excised from Bunyoro and given to the Baganda at the close of the nineteenth century as a reward for their loyalty. For sixty years the Banyoro demanded their counties back but the British were not able to make amends. Buganda had become too powerful for any ruler to offend it. During the constitutional conference in London, it had been resolved that within two years of independence a plebiscite should be taken in the Lost Counties.

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226 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Nobody thought that Obote would have the courage to implement that resolution. But he did and forever incurred the wrath of the Baganda. The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants voted to return to Bunyoro. This is what ruptured the UPC/KY alliance, and not Obote's unscrupulousness. The Kabaka, as President of Uganda, refused to sign the Bill transferring the Lost Counties to Bunyoro - this in itself was unconstitutional. Buganda leaders then engaged in a series of maneuvers intended to engineer the overthrow of Obote. The election of Grace lbingira from Ankole as UPC Secretary General to replace John Kakonge, was part of the conspiracy supported by Buganda leaders, to oust Obote, with the help of the Americans and the British who were made to believe that Obote was a communist. Hence, the split in the UPC at this time was not between the left (Kakonge) and the right (lbingira) a Museveni would like us to believe. It was a split between the pro and anti-Obote forces. Then there was the motion moved in parliament by David Ocheng, an Acholi friend of the Kabaka who had been elected as Kabaka Yekka Member of Parliament. It accused Obote and ldi Amin of theft of gold, ivory and coffee from Congo. Parliament voted that a Commission of Inquiry should be set up. Museveni claims that no Commission of Inquiry was set up (p. 38). This is a strange claim, for it is on record that on 27th February, 1968, the Minister for Internal Affairs, Basil K. Bataringaya, appointed a Commission of Inquiry into the allegations made by David Ocheug. He appointed Justice Sir Clement Negeon de L'Estang, of the Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa, Justice Henry Ethlewood Miller, a Judge of the High Court of the Republic of Kenya, and Justice Augustine Saidi, a Judge of the High Court of the United Republic of Tanzania. L'Estang was to be Chairman of the Commission and Samuel William Wako Wambuzi of the Uganda Ministry of Justice was to be Secretary. This was obviously a high powered Commission. Ocheng's allegations were found to be baseless, and Obote, Amin and Minister Onama were found to be innocent (3). But as the English Guardian commented at the time, the allegations were made "to create optimum conditions for a coup." Indeed, without consulting the Prime Minister, President Mutesa had, unconstitutionally requested the British Government for troops and arms, and Brigadier Shaban Opolot, then army commander, who was closely associated with Buganda, was to carry out the coup -on 22nd February, 1966. Three battalions of troops had been sent to Ankole and Bunyoro for training on 21st February. And as Obote stated in parliament: "I would not have minded if in their plots they were using political tactics alone. But immediately they began to interfere with the armed

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Museveni - The Ugandan Narkissos 221 forces, I was concerned, and it is because of their interference with the armed forces that I and my colleagues decided that we must act to save the country from chaos and bloodshed." Instead of a small section of the anny staging a coup in the name of one man, Milton Obote acted. What happened is now history. And it is that history that Museveni has distorted to suit his goal of demonizing Obote.

The Role of the Army Museveni regards the army as having been the main political problem in Uganda in the 1960s and 70s. During the colonial period, British military recruitment favoured the North and West Nile, especially the Acholi, Langi and Teso. The southern and western peoples were trained to serve in the Public Service, in schools and churches, in large scale fanning and in small scale businesses. This kind of ethnic division of labour was not peculiar to Uganda. The British practised it in all their colonies. For instance, in India, the army and the police were reserved for Sikhs and Guldcas. In Kenya, most of the recruits into the anny came from the Kamba and Kalenjin. Museveni accepts this, but blames Obote for not changing it. Instead, he expanded it and used it for sectarian aims. While there is some truth in this accusation, the subsequent history of Uganda saw the intensification of the military factor and its sectarian nature. ldi Amin was a military dictator who recruited largely his own West Nile people, especially the Kakwa and the Nubi from the Sudan, into the anny. In fact, it can be said that Amin created for himself a private anny within the national anny. And according to Museveni, by the end of Amin's rule in 1979, about 500,000 Ugandans had died, many of them Acholi and Langi. (p.45) He concludes that this is the "high price Uganda paid for a corrupt, mismanaged and secretarian anny." (p. 41) What about Museveni himself? He admits that he was possessed, since his college days at Dar-es-Salaam, with the control of the anny as a solution to political and economic power. He unashamedly admits that his principal aim was to create "a non-Nilotic armed group" in Uganda (p.98) Towards the achievement of that goal, he and his colleagues who were largely westerners formed the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) in 1971 in Dar-es-Salaam. They received anns from FRELIMO and the Tanz.ania government and later from Gaddafi and infiltrated these into Uganda in order to end what he calls "the monopoly of arms by the northerners." By the time of the collapse of Amin's regime, on 11 April, 1979, the Fronasa force (largely Museveni's personal anny)

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228 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS had grown to 9000 while Obote's Kikoosi Maalum numbered only 1500. Under both Presidents Y.K. Lule and Godfrey Binaisa, Oyite Ojok for Obote and Museveni continued to recruit their kinsmen into the army with the latter accusing the former of recruiting only the northerners and the former accusing Museveni of recruiting only the Banyarwanda. By the time they took over in 1986, the National Resistance Army had 20,000 soldiers under its command. The few northerners remaining in the army were either eliminated or forced into exile. Museveni's prejudice and hatred against the northerners is further revealed in his assertion that "the whole community in Acholi and Lango had become involved in the plundering of Uganda for themselves." (p. 178). Some of the northerners might have been corrupt, but to condemn whole communities indiscriminately as Museveni does is merely to express some deep-seated hatred. He uses this condemnation to justify his punitive measures against the northerners probably in search of a "final solution". As Museveni continues, with the help of the Americans, to hunt for "bandits" - as he calls northern leaders who are fighting for human dignity - thousands are dying in the unending civil war while others are herded into "protected camps." Is this not genocide? Recently, Museveni has even defended the activities of his eldest son, Mohoozi Kainerugaba, who was accused by several Uganda M.P.s of recruiting 200 fresh graduates from Makerere University to serve in the army's Presidential Protection Unit (PPU) that protects his father. His son has no right to carry out army recruitment, and many of these recruits were, in the father's words - "his friends" (read Westerners). (4). Can one be more secretarian and authoritarian than this? It is easy, in retrospect, to demonize Obote and the "northerners" and make it appear as if he was merely responding to the ethnic paranoia of his people. The reality, however, was much more complicated as we have tried to suggest. Looking at the evidence presented in this book, it is obvious that Museveni sees himself as the Earnest "Che" Guevara (the legendary South American guerrilla leader) of Africa. He gives details of war strategies, plans and battles, ending up with a kind of guerrilla warfare manual which he expects other progressive African leaders to adopt in order to 'sow the Mustard Seed" in their countries. Is it any wonder that since he came to power in Uganda, he has used people like Paul Kagame in Rwanda and Laurent Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to apply the teachings of his manual in their countries. Kagame was of course, an officer in the National Resistance Army of Uganda, and many of the so-called Kabila Tutsi death squads operating in Congo where they have been accused of killing scores of Hutu children and women refugees,

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Museveni - The Ugandan Narlcissos 229 as well as innocent Congolese civiljans, are actually Ugandans or Rwandese trained by Museveni. No wonder the New York Times of June 15, 1997 was so lavish in its praise of Museveni. It wrote: Yoweri Museveni is a "leader secure in his power and his vision. The recent victory of Laurent Kabila's troops over Mobutu Sese Seko's government anny in Congo marked perhaps the most impressive of Museveni's moves in the international area." Obviously the United States and other European powers, seem to see the role of Museveni in the Eastern and Central Africa as that of removing certain regimes from power and replacing them with those that will put the interests of foreign business before the needs of their people. This is tantamount to recolonisation of Africa with the collaboration of native guerrilla leaders!

External Facton One of the weaknesses of this autobiography is its attempt to play down or ignore external factors that have influenced the history of Uganda. For instance, the involvement of Obote in the internal affairs of the former Zaire, Rwanda and Sudan gave much political ammunition to his enemies at home. For instance, Obote's hatred of Moise Tshombe, the then Zairian Prime Minister, whom he regarded as an agent of neocolonialism, made him support the National Liberation Committee, located in north-eastern Zaire, which opposed Tshombe's government. Buganda was sympathetic to Tshombe, and this explains the genesis of the "gold scandal" allegations which almost brought the government of Obote down. Also, the immediate cause of the overthrow of Obote's government in 1971, was the discovery of a conspiracy between the Israeli government and Uganda Defense Minister, Felix Onama and Idi Amin., Army Commander, to support the rebels in Southern Sudan. At the request of Israel, the two had been channeling large amounts of funds from the defense budget and anns from Uganda's reserves to the southern Sudanese rebels. When the deficit in the defence budget was discovered, Obote demanded explanation, on his return from Commonwealth Conference in Singapore, from Amin and Onama. Threatened with discovery in the act of deflecting public funds into the wrong channels, Amin and Onama, encouraged by the Israeli government whose role in the Sudan was bound to be exposed, decided to stage a coup to save themselves. In the case of Museveni himself, he has said almost nothing about his involvement in the Rwandese revolution which installed the Tutsi-dominated regime. To what extent was Uganda involved in this war? What about America and other European Countries? What about Southern Sudan? Is Museveni supporting the Southerners? Is America playing the role formerly played by

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230 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS

Israel of using Uganda to contain Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism? These are important foreign policy issues which affect not only Eastern Africa, but Africa, and indeed, the whole world, and Museveni should have shared his knowledge and insights with us. One country whole role in the history of independent Uganda is dise11ssed extensively by Museveni is TannniS\. In particular, the significant contribution of her former President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who is gieatly admired by both Obote and Museveni, is highly appreciated in the book. But even in this case, Museveni failed to understand why the Tanzanians in g ~ and Nyerere in particular, had a high regard for Obote as a nationalist and pan-Africanist He complains that the Tannoiaos had "tended to overestimate Obote whom they regarded as a socialist, a nationalist and a patriot and therefore, as a positive force in politics not only of Uganda, but of Africa as a whole. The reality, however, was the opposite. The fact of the matter was that not only was Obote useless as far as the pan-African struggle for liberation was concerned, he was actually a very negative force whose sectarianism further aggravated Uganda's problems." (p.103) Unfortunately for Museveni, many African leaders, including Nyerere and Kaunda, recognised Obote's contribution to the liberation struggle, especially his firm stand on Rhodesia and South Africa. His lack of appreciation of external factors is particularly revealed in his account of the origin of the Moshi Conference called by Nyerere in March, 1979 to form a new, broad-based movement, the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF). Museveni gives himself much of the credit in persuading Nyerere to convene it because the latter had lost confidence in Obote. He writes: "the Taonoians were anxious to put together a Ugandan front, other than Obote, whom they now knew was a liability both inside and outside Uganda. " (p. l 05) The truth is quite different. As the Taonoian invading forces proceeded apace from South-western Uganda towards Kampala, Nyerere decided that Obote and Vice-President Rashidi Kawawa should fly to Masaka to be ready to move into Kampala with the victorious invaders. Obote and Kawawa actually went as far as Bukoba, before they were recalled to Dar-es-Salaam by Nyerere. The reason was not because Nyerere had changed his mind about Obote: The reason was that the British intervened. As David Owen, who was Foreign Secretary in James Callaghan's Labour Government has revealed in his autobiography (5), the Tanzanian government had approached Britain for logistical help in the war with Uganda. But the Buganda lobby in London succeeded in convincing the British government that Obote would be totally unacceptable in Buganda as president of Uganda. They, instead, suggested Yusufu Lule. Hence, the British government offered military assistance to Taonnia on condition that Obote

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Museveni - The Ugandan Narkissos 23 l played no part in the scheme of things. This then is the origin of the hurriedly convened Moshi Conference from which Obote was excluded, and hence, the appointment of Y.K. Lule, my old teacher of education psychology, as chairman of UNLF. He was not elected by the conference as Museveni writes: the British directed Nyerere to nominate Lule. It is interesting to speculate what might have happened if Nyerere's original plan had been put into effect. Suffice it to say that the powerful intervention of one external player significantly changed the course of Uganda history.

Building of a Democratic Future Museveni has blamed the civil war in Uganda on Obote's reft1sal or failure to allow the emergence of civil - rather than ethnic-based party competition. He argues that bad Obote allowed a citizen's politics in the 1960s, a non-ethnic principle of political affiliation might have taken root. This is partly correct and it applies to most of Africa not only at that time but even now. Museveni himself has not allowed a civic- based party competition. The Uganda constitution of 1995 allows no political party activities ''because they would bring political polarization" (p. 195) For political parties to function properly, there must be social classes and Ugandaos, according to Museveni, are "overwhelming of one class, peasants" (p.195) He concludes: "what is crucial for Uganda now is for us to have a system that ensures democratic participation until such time as we get, through economic development, especially industrialiution, the crystalliution of socio-economic groups upon which we cao then base healthy political parties." (p.195) This is one of the arguments that the advocates of one-party states used to invoke. On 10 July, 1997, the Uganda parliament passed a Bill making the National Resistance Movement the sole political party of Uganda. The aim is to consolidate power in the hands of one group indefmitely at the expense of those who have refused to join the movement. It is also a violation of the constitution as it violates the fundamental freedoms of association and assembly. Thus the no-party movement is now compelling everyone to be a member by law. And as was the case with the one-party system, the movement government in Uganda is gradually substituting the rule of many tribes with the rule of one tribe. Unlike Obote who championed multi-partism, Museveni has instead imposed a no-party personal dictatorship, buttressed by the army, on the country. In the end, his regime will be no different from other autocracies and he is simply delaying its collapse.

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Conclusion Freud once argued that the smaller the difference between two people the larger it was bound to loom in their imaginations. This effect, which he called the narcissism of minor difference, is especially visible in Uganda. The conflicts in Uganda about which Museveni has pontificated at length in his autobiography, were not driven by irreducible historical or ethnic differences. Rather they were ignited by nationalist ideologues like Museveni who turned the narcissism of minor differences into the monstrous fable that the people on the other side (read Obote) were genocidal killers (see skulls in Luwero triangle), while they themselves were blameless victims, despite acts of cruelty and vandalism meted out to Acholi, Lango and Teso districts ·by the National Resistance Army. At the moment only one side of the story is being heard, thanks to the powerful propaganda of Western media that hail Yoweri Museveni as a shinning example of the new leadership in Africa. I hope the story of the other side will one day be told so that this narcissism of minor difference in the history of Uganda can be exorcised.

ENDNOTES l. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Ingaham, Kenneth, Obote: a Political Biography, Routledge, London, 1994 Macmillan, Harold, At the End of the Day 1961-1963 London, Macmillan, pp. 292-93, 1973. Mpambara, S.M The Gold Allegation in Uganda, Kampala, Milton Obote Foundation, 1967. Daily Nation, Nairobi, August 26, 1997 Callaghan, James, Time to Declare, London: Michael Joseph, 1991, p. 274

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CHAPTER 17 African Confflcts in a Global Context A Research Agenda§ For some decades now individual aggressiveness and collective violence have been the subject of research, along with the question of fmding rational means to resolve social conflicts. The outbreak and consequences of two world wars stressed the urgency of a systematic analysis of the political, military, socio-economic and psychological conditions that give rise to a bellicose show of power and growing political and ideological tensions between social orders inimical to one another or existing in a state of world-wide rivalry. As the Second World War gave way to a gradual escalation of the Cold War between the capitalist and socialist orders of society, the scientific study of possible ways of regulating conflict received a new impetus, and a new science of peace and conflict grew out of this study. A great deal of this research was concentrated on the analysis of direct manifest violence within the inter-societal or international context, especially in the discipline of international relations and military studies. To a large degree, this research can be labeled as 'causes-ofwar' research, and its take-off was very much determined by the catastrophic experiences during World War II. This type of research was further induced by the basic patterns of the Cold War, and its practical aims were conflict avoidance, conflict resolution and conflict management within the context of the East-West conflict formation. Although Cold War ideology was formulated in terms of East-West competition, control of Third World resources and suppression of social revolutions were the major imperatives of Western imperialism. It was realized, especially by the United States, that the US-USSR conflict was less likely to take place in Europe or America and that the greater risk to US power lay in the 'grey areas' of the Middle East and South-East Asia. And almost all the 150 or so §Keynote address presented at the 5th Historical Association ofKenya Conference, "Conflict in Post-Colonial Africa", November 1st - 2 nd, 1997, Kisumu.

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234 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS wars fought during the Cold War took place in the Third World - the only exception being Greece. Expansion of export production and market liberalization often required violent repression rather than democratic government. Both super-powers involved Cold War ideology in seeking to extend their control and influence in the Third World through maintenance of client states, arms export, arms intervention, as well as covert operations. Third World dictatorships were created and supported during this period by outside military powers. The US, for example, between 1950 and 1979, provided arms, equipment and services to socalled "friendly governments" worth a total of $107.3 billion and trained nearly 500,000 foreign military personnel during the same period. It was these trained people who were to be responsible for serious acts of violence against populations in their countries (1). We need a study of how super-powers created African fascism. The US, for example, was directly responsible for turning Third World regimes into brutal and corrupt military dictatorships, such as Somou in Nicaragua, Marcos in the Philippines, the Duvaliers in Haiti and Mobutu in former Zaire. Many of the armed conflicts in the Third World involved super-power military interventions in national liberation struggles. For example, in the Angolan conflict which started in 1975, over 200,000 government forces were pitched against 15,000 anti-Communists guerrillas supported by South African arms and troops. The Angolan forces were supported by 20,000 Cuban troops, 1,000 Soviet advisers and 2,500 East Ge1111ans. Similarly, in the Ethiopian conflict, over 400,000 government troops were supported by 1,400 Soviet advisers and arms and 13,000 Cuban troops fought against 45,000 Eritrean troops supported by Iraq and Syria. Hence, the so-called Cold War era was, for most parts of the Third World, a period of actual wars and tremendous violence, suffering and insecurity. The arms build-up and the arms supply during the Cold War primarily involved conventional weapons for use in the Third World. Klare and Aronson have described this vast trade in weapons as the "international repression trade." As a result of this lethal trade, regions like the Hom of Africa and Central America became some of the most militarized regions in the World. But not all wars in the Third World during the Cold War were proxy wars of the super-powers. The militariution of the Third World encouraged all manner of armed conflicts by brutal military regimes and often equally violent opposition movements. The result was widespread disappearances, torture, death squad activities, killings and other human rights violation. The full extent of the devastation caused during the Cold War period by wars in the Third World wars which euphemistically are referred to as "low intensity conflicts" - will

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African Conflicts in a Global Context: A Research Agenda 235 probably never be known. But a comprehensive study of these "low intensity conflicts" in Africa is urgently needed. The old Cold War "high politics" agenda has not disappeared entirely: arms races, guet1illa threats, nuclear proliferation, regional conflicts, shifting alliances, etc. They may be intensified because of the high price of structural adjustment programmes. They may also constitute the other side of a new regionalism: regional centres for strategic rather than economic dominance. There is increasingly sophisticated and lethal arms imports by the South. These include the latest high-tech fighters, frigates, missiles and tanks. As Michael Klare cautioned, "....as we proceed further into the 1990s, it appears that the decline in East-West hostilities is being counter-balanced by an increase in regional Third World conflicts, and that wars of this type will be fought at everincreasing levels of violence and destructiveness." (2). Also, the New World Order (or Disorder) may be marked by the further development of regional military - industrial complexes in which aspirant middle powers advance both their economic and strategic interests through the establishment of quite sophisticated technological capacities for weapons' design and production. Some of these, for example, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Israel and South Africa, were supported in the Cold War era by the superpowers. They are now being joined by others such as Egypt, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and Kenya. But besides Egypt and South Africa, which have well developed and diversified domestic arms industries, the other African countries have a very limited (mainly munitions) arms production. There may thus be a coercive as well as a developmental aspect to regionalism in the future (3) All these factors point to the need for serious strategic studies within the continent of Africa. Such studies are at their embryonic stage at the moment. Although the so-called East-West conflict occupied peace and conflict studies from the fifties to 1990, the North-South and the Third World gradually found themselves in the limelight of scientific attention as an independent field of study. Discussion of such problems as these led to a critical re-appraisal of the traditional analytic conceptions of power and peace, conceptions which were gradually formulated in a considerably more sophisticated way. For instance, peace and conflict studies began to distinguish between two types of violence: direct acts of violence (involving persons or states) and institutional or structural violence, when people are killed or conflict arise as a result of socially determined conditions or order. Structural violence is observable wherever

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236 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS people are living under unjust social conditions and are, therefore, deprived of the chance to realize their human potentialities. Such structural violence occurs both in intra-societal conditions and within the international society at large, and in many cases it is the result of a particular inter-linkage of internal and international factors inducing deprivation and premature death. The extent not only of relative poverty among certain levels of society, but also the extent of mass absolute impoverishment in the Third World, give insight into the problems and extent of structural violence. And since the problems of the Third World cannot be considered in isolation from the development of the world economic system, it has become of primary importance to come to te1111s with the historical development, structure and reproductive dynamism of this world economic system. To date there are only a few systematic analyses of international society that are theoretically as well as empirically based. It is, however, true that in recent years peace and conflict studies have analyzed in detail some of the conflict - formations of international societies, especially those of East-West and North-South conflicts, and contributions from social scientists have increasingly applied themselves to an analysis of the so-called inter-capitalist conflict-formations (USA-EECJAPAN). For example, the resurgence of the United States and its ascendancy as the world's only superpower has been one of the most dramatic developments since the passing of the Cold War. But the accumulation of so much political, economic, military and cultural clout by the United States is breeding an arrogance that is unpleasant and possibly dangerous. Never before in modem history has a country dominated the earth so totally as the United States does today. While Washington tries to compel other nations to embrace its policies of isolating Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Libya as "pariah states," it has refused to pay $1 billion in past dues owed to the United Nations, has been reluctant to increase spending on foreign aid to poor countries and more recently, has rejected a world-wide ban on land mines. The essential question now is whether the United States, the world's only superpower, may be tempted to abuse its dominant position through unilaterism. The only consolation is that although the United States may reign as the World's dominant economic, military and cultural force, its power still has limits. As the world's largest debtor, Washington owes the rest of the World more than $1 trillion - much of it to Japan - and remains wlnerable to the whims of its creditors. While the United States remains the World's paramount economic engine, its share of the global economy is much smaller than in the days after World War II, when America accounted for a quarter of world output. There is also the general resentment to the role played by the US dollar as the World's reserve currency. Europe's drive to create a single currency - the

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African Conflicts in a Global Context: A Research Agenda 237 Euro - is motivated in part by the desire to develop a counter-weight to the dollar - a European currency so trustworthy that it could be held as reserves instead of gold and so broadly recognized that it could be used as a standard of exchange in international trade. When this is achieved, the overriding importance of the dollar will be reduced in the World. Likewise, South East Asian countries are trying to create a single currency around the yen so that the United States can no longer call all the shots. What we still lack are wellfounded analyses in detail of the diverse conflict-formations between the societies of the Third World. Furthermore, we need a theoretical approach and appropriate empirical analyses of the interdependence of these conflict formations as well as a theory of the political economy of the international society as a whole. The need for such all-round analyses makes itself acutely felt when long-term development processes of individual problem areas have to be determined.

Developments in the Current Situation Is it the goal of all previous historical development to produce a uniform humanity? The emergence of a world policy and a world system of states covering the whole earth is a process which can be understood only historically. About a hundred years ago, a world system of states was taken to mean the global expansion of the European state system, perhaps including the USA, and the control of the World policy from the European centre. Much has changed since then. A dualistic leadership of the world emerged during the Cold War era. But this was not the only determining factor. The pluralism of the many small and medium powers gradually asserted itself vis-avis the two super-powers. These other nations were not simply puppets but also actors who caused turbulence. Here one of the most difficult problems of any policy of securing peace arises, the control, something analogous to govemability, of the small by the large almost always turn out to be a problem. History by no means confmns the theory that the small powers always act simply as auxiliaries to the great. The state pluralism of today, in contrast to the nineteenth century, is undoubtedly a secondary phenomenon but through the complication of securing peace, it might assume a greater significance in the future. The interdependence of all problems of world policy, the impossibility of solving economic and social problems within the framework of the regulations of national states, the shrinking of the possibilities of defense for small powers - all this limits the influence of conflicts of secondary rank; but every rift between the powers of

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238 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS the first rank have a multiplier effect on the differences between the small powers and appreciably increases the problem of controlling them.

The Post-Cold War Era The massive shift in the global balance of power that followed the collapse of Eastern Europe has profound implications for global stability, prosperity and African development. It is likely to lead to increased social and economic polariution and a growing political instability as the logic of a deregulated global market is more aggressively imposed by a hegemonic power that has little need to compromise in the absence of a rival hegemonic power or a widely accepted rival ideology. This transformation of the global political economy has to be deciphered. We ha,·e to analyze what is going on and where we are heading. Some even think that we are no longer changing because we have reached the "end of history." How is Africa reacting to all this? Deprived of a monitoring infrastructure and of research funds, it has not come out yet with a blueprint of the causes and consequences of global change. This is in marked contrast to what is going on in the North where there is a scramble among International Relations specialists on transformation studies, most of which are concerned with the position of the North in the global system. Dramatic changes in the global economic, strategic, political and environmental "orders" in the 1990s have posed major challenges to established assumptions and prescriptions, analysis and praxis. Hence, the importance of analytical research on the South, including Africa, which would help us to grasp the new conceptual geography. Most of the research on intra-societal structural violence conditions has been concentrated on those cases and areas in which such structural violence developed into manifest political violence. Only a very small minority within the social sciences has worked on basic questions occurring in the analysis of total social orders like capitalist social order and their contribution to human wellbeing. In other words, the question of what kind and what type of structural violence is systematically developed within prevailing capitalist social order has not been one of the major focuses of research within social sciences in Africa. For what is considered, from one perspective, as a peaceful condition, for example, the specific structure of the prevailing status quo, may easily be considered as the very expression of structural violence by those suffering from this status quo, and, hence, as something that must be changed. If social systems in such a context prove to be inaccessible to social change and collective learning processes and if their power structures are highly petrified, then social

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African Conflicts in a Global Context: A Research Agenda 239 and political violence - as paradoxical as this may sound - very often tum out to be the only means of social communication. In more concrete terms, the current orthodoxy of neo-liberalism contends that the deregulation of markets and prices, the privatiz.ation of enterprise, the scaling back of the government and the liberaliution of trade are desirable policy initiative that will enhance both efficiency and welfare. This conviction is held despite the fact that its implementation is bound to involve extensive intervention in the affairs of sovereign states and a lot of human suffering either through bloody fights or structural violence. The multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and IMF ren1ain both resolute and optimistic: resolute in their insistence on the validity of their orthodox policy package and optimistic in their forecasts that short-tetiu pain will lead to long-te,n1 gains. Where is the evidence? And how long is long? Secondly, they believe that in the New World Order (or Disorder), national sovereignty must frequently be over,idden if we are to build a better world. It is a question of the end justifying the means. Since the advocates of neo-liberalism accept the logic of salvation through global deregulation, they support the idea of intervention as a means of enhancing human welfare, increasing social equality, promoting democracy and protecting human rights. But how does one convince those who are suffering that things will be better in the future, especially given the fact that the orthodoxy is based on no evidence? An IMF study exploring the link between its structural adjustment policies and hiiman welfare concluded that even its estimates of short-term welfare effects were "primarily based on deductive reasoning and not on the evidence itself."(4). Other writers have also challenged the hegemonic position of neo-liberalism. Thomas Callaghy, for example, has remarked, regarding global transformation: "... the brilliant vision of global transformation via the magic of the market and the ballot box that has been propounded by W estem leaders is flawed .... in a number of ways....... I) it underestimates the role of the state in economic transformation; 2) it misperceives the link between economic transformation and political regime type; and 3) it seriously underestimates the role and importance of larger contextual factors, i.e., institutions, knowledge, attitudes, and infrastructures that underpin states, markets, and regimes." ( 5) The result of the widespread imposition of these policies on reluctant and economically distressed recipients has been an increasingly unstable and

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240 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS unmanageable world in which economic imbalances have grown to a point where they are inhibiting investment and generating increased social and political conflicts. And these conflicts will intensify as people's expressed wishes are continually disappointed; as people feel more economically, socially and politically threatened in a volatile and patently unfair world; and as people become more cynical about the political process. Analytically, despite a veritable explosion of research and writing on the new international political economy, there is thus far no seminal work that attempts to come to terms with the post-SAP political economies and cultures. We need informed analysis and praxis given the multiple changes and challenges.

The Exploding ''Complex Emergencies'' In the final part of this Address, I would like to make a few remarks on what has been called the exploding "complex emergencies." Today, we are at a critical juncture in the history of human and planetary evolution. The ecosystem is rapidly collapsing around us: desertification and other forms of environmental degradation are expanding; tropical forests are disappearing fast; climatic change leading to the greenhouse effect, global warming, acid rain and ozone depletion, pose major threats to human and planetary health.(6) Much of humanity is also faced with a crisis of survival. Let us look at some statistics. About 30% of the global labour force, that is, about 820 million people, according to ILO records, were unemployed at the beginning of 1994. The figures are higher now. About one billion out of world population of about 6 billion in 1997, go hungry every day. 1.3 billion people in the South live in absolute poverty. The nuclear stockpiles in the world are estimated to contain 900 times more explosive power than was expended in World War II, including 10,000 nuclear warheads. Despite the end of the Cold War and the so-called "peace dividend," global military expenditures continue to be extremely high: an estimated $767 billion for 1994 (7). Between 1945 and 1992, there were 149 major wars in the world. But in 1994 alone, there were 164 armed conflicts, many of them ethnic wars, in the world (8). According to 1995 estimates there were 27 million refugees world wide (this figure excludes those people displaced in their own lands), the majority of them in Africa. Most of these refugees have fled from war, violence and human rights abuses. In short, contrary to the image painted by the prophets of neo-liberalism, the world, since the end of the Cold War, is now experiencing an intensification of violence: domestic, sexual, religious, ideological, economic, social and military. Events such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the Tokyo Subway gas attack

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reflect deepening insecurity. The results are "complex emergencies" which combine armed conflicts with the collapse of economic, political and social institutions, environmental destruction, poverty, displacement and massive slaughter and t'ethnic cleansing," for example, in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and Algeria. The tholocaustt did not end in Nazi Gennany. It continues in many shapes and forms. The exploding ttcomplex emergenciestt have their roots in the worsening global political economic crisis. Without sounding alarmist, the world seems to be moving towards greater conflict, destruction and despair instead of peace, justice and ecological renewal. And yet dominant analyses and solutions by the neo-liberals affirm that globalisation is inevitable because it is technically determined. It is part of the inexorable rise of the global village. And that things are bound to improve. We have thus become powerless and prisoners of globalisation! We therefore desperately need more comprehensive analyses which would help us to understand the roots of modem dilemmas. By way of illustration let us take one of the dominant ideology often invoked by the neo-liberals to address the global crises and provide solutions. I refer, of course, to Malthusianism which derives its name from the doctrine articulated by Thomas Malthus in 1778 (9). This doctrine attributes virtually all major social problems to human population growth and advocates population control as the solution to these problems. It blames global environmental destruction, poverty, hunger and political instability on massive and unprecedented increase in human population in the Third World. The advocates of the doctrine therefore look to what they call the ft contraceptive revolution" as the most effective remedy for these problems. Even in the South, most governments as well as NGOs and intellectuals seem to accept this position imported from the North. But these arguments must be examined in their historical contexts. These neo-Malthusian arguments came into existence following the emergence of the United States as the Worldts leading military and economic power after World War II, and the texplosion' of population in the Third World. US leaders began to see the deepening global disparity between the global demographic and economic power as a threat to US hegemony in the world. By 1948, the US had about 50% of the worldts wealth but only 6.3% of its population. Hence, vast amounts of money have been given by private foundations and the US government for population research, programme design and implementation. Contemporary Malthusian analysts who work within the population control paradigm advocate population stabilisation as a substitute for social justice and political - economic transformation.

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242 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS The US Vice-President Al Gore in his best-selling book, Earth in the Balance, has identified population stabilisation as the "first strategic goal" to save global environment. Biologist Garret Hardin has been popularising the "lifeboat ethic" which claims that all people on the planet r,annot be saved and that the drowning poor and weak should be allowed to die for the sake of the survival of the planet and the survival of the fittest. In his book. Livin& Within Limits (1993), Hardin advocates such measures as reduction of food and development aid to poor countries and tighter immigration laws in the North (10). Maurice King, a Professor of Public Health in Britain has also invoked this disaster ethic in his appeal to WHO to sacrifice the health of some people for the sake of planetary health ( 11 ). A radical US environmental group called Earth First argues that famines in Africa and the Aids epidemic are nature's mechanisms for dealing with population explosion, and hence little should be done to alleviate the suffering. None of these Malthusian environmentalists wants to consider the possibility, nay the certainty, that it is the global forces of capital, technical expansion and militarism that are destroying the environment and human survival mechanisms, forcing enormous numbers of people from the South to seek, for example, emigration to the North.

Population vs. Economic Growth Many economists tend to approach "overpopulation" as a developmental problem. They assert that to the extent that population growth "frustrates" economic growth in the Third World, it contributes to the widening income gap between the North and the South and the increasing dependence of the South on the North, ultimately threatening the stability of the entire global and financial system. Such analysis fails to acknowledge that a sustainable society cannot be achieved within existing inequitable patterns of distribution and poverty. Hence, research must be directed towards examining either the global politicaleconomic forces which have produced inequality and poverty or the strategies necessary to achieve social justice. At the 1974 World Population Conference in Bucharest, the Third World delegations argued that development itself is the best contraceptive. This has been condemned by the neo-Malthusian analysts as an obsolete theory which has little validity in the contemporary period of population explosion and worsening global crisis. Increasingly, they see population control itself as the most cost-effective investment in development possible. But the cost-benefit analysis fails to acknowledge that whatever costs are averted by birth reduction are not necessarily translated into social development and environmental protection.

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Population and Security In the post-Cold War era, population is rapidly re-emerging as a 'top' national security concern in the US. Malthusian analysis is attributing global political conflicts and instability to scarcity of resources resulting from expanding population. They warn that in the years ahead, worsening environmental degradation and resource scarcity could lead to greater conflicts and violence across the world. Population analysts in the North fear that unless high population growth rates in regions such as Africa (sub-saharan Africa it is 3.0 percent) are brought down quickly, the resultant migration, urbanisation, youth unrest and ethnic and religious conflicts will threaten political stability, endangering the entire global economy. They are particularly concerned about the largely young unemployed population in the Third World which they refer to as a social and political time bomb ready to explode. Yale historian Paul Kennedy, author of widely acclaimed Preparing for the Twenty First Century, argues that historically revolutions and other forms of political unrest have occurred more often in countries with young populations, especially those with an excess of "energetic, frustrated, young men." (12) Kennedy further asserts that the "demographic imbalance" between the rich and the poor countries constitute the 'backdrop' to all other important forces of change taking place in the world today ( 13). Policy analysts in the West further assert that the relative decline of western populations poses a threat to survival of values associated with democracy such as individual rights, private property, rule of law and orderly government. Hence, they fear that representative governments in the West might be forced to compromise their "most cherished" democratic values. In "The Clash of Civilisations," a highly celebrated article published in Foreign Affairs in 1993, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington predicted a diminution of Western influence in World affairs in the context of unequal population trends and competition between Western and non-Western civilisations (14). Paul Kennedy in his book already cited also voices his anxiety over the possible decline of Western power as a concern with the fate of global democracy: "This relative diminution of their share of world population presents the industrial democracies with their greatest dilemma over the next thirty years. If the developing world manages to raise its output and standards of living, the West's proportion of economic output, global power, and political influence will decline steadily, simply because of the force of

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244 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS numbers; which in tum has raised the interesting question of whether 'Western values' - a liberal social culture, human rights, religious tolerance, democracy and market forces - will maintain their prevailing position in a world overwhelmingly peopled by societies which did not experience the rational scientific and liberal assumptions of the enlightenment." ( 14) But despite the rhetoric, it is evident from historical evidence that since World War II, the desire for global democracy is not the fundamental motivation of policy makers in the West. They have been more concerned with the fact that unequal global population dynamics could shift the geopolitical balance in the World to the detriment of Western countries, especially the US. Rather than advocating greater global economic equality, arms control and other fundamental solutions, the neo-Malthusian experts look to population stabilisation in the poor countries as the major solution to global security crisis. Giving voice to eugenicist beliefs, some analysts are calling explicitly for severe control of fertility from women in the South and for increased fertility from women in the North. Paul Kennedy justifies this by arguing that in order to move the world towards a "better demographic balance," fertility rates in poor countries should be lowered while they should be raised in the richer ones (16). Concerned with population 'implosion' (as opposed to 'explosion' in the South), many countries in the North, for example, France and Sweden have been pursuing pronatalist policies which encourage women to have more children. Even Japan which contributes billions of dollars for population control in the Third World is at the same time exhorting Japanese women to bear more children in order to avert a domestic population 'implosion' ( 17). European Population Programme Action has explicitly called for such increases as tax incentives, low-cost or free child and maternal welfare services and other support, to encourage child bearing and child-rearing in Europe. Who is fooling who? Surely, social support for child bearing and child rearing which is already available to women in the North should be extended to all people everywhere as a basic universal human right.

Conclusion The global security crisis must be seen in relation to the deepening contradictions of capitalism and militarism and violent forms of repression and resistance engendered by those forces. Widening inequality, poverty and environmental collapse are accelerating the process of dispossession, destitution and migration across the world. As subsistence economies, local cultures and communities are destroyed, people

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have no choice but to survive in the global capitalist economy and competitive consumer culture. The modem ideals of democracy, freedom and equality kindle young people's desire to be 'somebody' in the world. Yet the hierarchy and inequality built into the global economy and society lock out most youth from occupations that provide self-esteem and dignity. In the absence of serious efforts to ease these global inequalities, the experience of young people in the Third World, and especially in Africa, will be defined increasingly by scarcity, unemployment, anxiety, anger, despair and powerlessness. Increasing numbers of people struggling to survive in the informal sector of the economy by engaging in crime and prostitution will have little or no stake in the status quo. In a world culture which glamorises war and violence through movies and where weapons are easily bought and sold, angry and confused youth devoid of future prospects will be easily lured into joining armies, armed insurgencies, gangs and other violent enterprises. There are also psychological factors to be considered. Weakening family and community ties in the modem era have not been replaced with alternative modes of human commitment and social organisation. The denial of human emotional needs such as bonding, trust, affection and a shared spiritual orientation to life in the modem world has resulted in a plethora of pathological behaviours ranging from greed, dominance, wife-beating, child abuse, drug abuse, violence to obsessive needs for attachment to sports teams, nations, and leaders who project an image of strength. Indeed, this emotional need for acceptance and belonging underlies the popularity and extremely violent, often self-destructive sects, militias, ethno-nationalist and religious fundamentalist movements in the World today. At the global level, the effectiveness of multi-lateralism is rapidly being eroded. The World Bank, IMF and the United Nations itself are not democratic institutions. Hence, UN decisions and actions, in effect, represent the interests of the dominant global powers which make the largest contributions. For instance, the UN has allowed Israel and more recently the Democratic Republic of Congo to defy Security Council resolutions because of their alliance with the West, while it has mercilessly enforced resolutions against countries like Libya, Sudan and Iraq. It is becoming increasingly clear from a study of recent world events that Western interests rather than considerations of human rights, peace and international security, seem to be the chief determinants of which aggressions will be punished and who will be deemed to have violated international law. Despite reports of hundreds of thousands killed, maimed, raped and displaced in wars in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the United Nations vacillated for a long

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246 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS time in a posture of complicity and appeasement. Thousands of civilians have been killed in Algerian towns and villages, most of them women and children. The killings were sparked off when in an election the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was heading to win with a landslide majority in 1992 was annulled by the army with the connivance of the United States of America. The reason for the US stand is that she suspects that FIS could establish an Islamic State if it won. About 80,000 people have been killed since 1992. Why have these slaughters not caused any international outcry or condemnation as others have done? Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, are not as consistently vocal and outraged as they have been in the case of other African countries accused of violating human rights. And why has the United Nations only reacted mildly to the Algerian slaughter? Then there is the global information imbalance. The media plays a key role in the "manufacturing of consent," and its domination is the North's most effective weapon in trying to persuade the South to embrace the capitalist model of development. About 90% of the international news and information for newspapers around the World is filtered through four news agencies located in the North: Associated Press International (API), Reuters, Agence - France Presse and United Press International (UPI). The television giants, Reuters Television, World Wide Television, Cable News Network (CNN) and the BBC dominate the production and distribution of practically all the foreign news to television stations across the World. The goal of the media is not the dissemination of truth as much as the maintenance of the global status quo. They are not independent entities but a global corporate enterprise with monopolistic, interlocking control over the collection and dissemination of what it constitutes as news. We need research on the media in Africa. Is it part of the "global corporate enterprise?" What is its role in "manufacturing consent?" And whose consent? What is its role in analysing the fundamental problems that face Africa today? Does it merely fan conflicts or does it promote conflict resolution through objective analysis of global issues? These are import questions crying out for serious research.

Challenges to Social Movements Dominant social groups have sought either ideologically or financially to co-opt or violently to suppress progressive social movements. As the authority of central government in Africa weakens and NGOs: increase their power to mobilise people, external institutions such as the World Bank, foreign governments and other funding agencies and organisations seek increasingly to control local organisations and people's movements such as environmental,

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African Conflicts in a Global Context: A Research Agenda 241 h11man rights, women, and religious groups. Offers of large funds to resourcestarved local activists "professionalises" their services, making them vulnerable to the lures of money, travel and media fame, thereby separating them from the popular movements they initially set out to serve. The example of the National Convention Executive Council (NCEC) in Kenya would make a very interesting case study of how a local pressure group that originally set out to campaign for comprehensive constitutional reforms has been transformed into a local agent of foreign interests through large injection of foreign capital. An US-based NGO, International Republican Institute, it is alleged, has given NCEC US$4 million (Kenya Shillings 248 million) and the Church of Canada has donated US$4, 193.5 million (Kenya Shillings 260 million) to the pressure group, for the purpose of derailing general election (19). We are familiar with the role of collaborators during the colonial period; it is high time serious studies were made of neo-colonial collaborators such as the NCEC.

A new paradigm of partnenbip needed The final point I wish to make is that, from this brief survey of global problems, there is a need to challenge this belief in globalisation, the new imperialism, both politically and intellectually. We have to gain an appreciation of the calamity that awaits us if present trends continue unchecked. In order to do this, it is becoming increasingly clear that part of the solution may lie in the reconstitution of a world of sovereign nations, linked economically, but able to impose socially and culturally rooted, and politically legitimated, values and priorities in their economies. It may be necessary to revive the idea that development is a complex, slow and ultimately self-motivated process that can be assisted only if one respects the vital importance of social and political stability and coherence as a precondition to economic growth and efficiency. How to do this should become one of the priority areas of research. This view of political economy implies a redefinition of the role of the state in guiding economies so that they are responsive to particular social, cultural and political circumstances. To play this role, societies have to develop appropriate ideologies and a high degree of national institutional cohesion. And the states have to play key roles in the definition of property rights, financial regulation, financing of long-teim social and economic infrastructure, and the development of capabilities. Above all, states must manage potential sources of conflict so that these do not destroy the very possibility of improved human welfare or economic efficiency. James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank has talked of the "the challenge of inclusion" as the key development challenge of our time. In his

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248 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS keynote address at the annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in September, 1997 - he admitted that the Bank had learned from its past mistakes. He said: "The- time has come to get back to the dream: the dream of inclusive development." He drove home to the rich nations that without more equality there would be neither peace nor global stability. He concluded: "What we are seeing in the World today is the tragedy of exclusion. Whether you broach it from the social or the economic or the moral perspectives, this is a challenge we cannot afford to ignore.11 He added that the objective was to reduce glaring disparities both within and between countries, thereby bringing more people into the mainstream. I concur (20).

ENDNOTES 1.

Klare, Michael and Cynthia Aronson, SY.PJ)lyin& Repressioq, Washington D. C.: Institute for Policy Studies, 1981, pp. 41, 48, 103-104; Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism. Boston: South End Press, 1979. 2. Michael T. Klare, "Deadly Convergence: the arms trade, nuclear/chemicaVmissile proliferation and regional conflict in the 1990s," in Michael T. Klare and Daniel C. Thomas (eds). World Security: Trends and Challen&es at Centwy's End. New York: St. Martin's, 1991, p. 170. 3. Nadir A.L. Mohammed, "Military Absorption of Skilled Labour in Africa and the Prospects of Conversion," in African Development Penpectives Year Book 1996: Reiional Perspectives on Labour and Employment Edited by Karl Wohlmuth, Hans H. Bass, Robert Kappel and Markus Wauschkuhn. 4. P.S. Heller, et al, "The Implications of fund-supported adjustment programs for poverty," IMF Occasional Paper No. 5 8, Washington D. C., 1988. 5 . Thomas M. Callaghy, "Vision and Politics in the Transformation of the global political economy: lessons from the Second and Third World, 11 in Robert 0. Slater, Barry M. Schutz and Steven R. Dorr (eds), Global Transfonnation and the Third World, Boulder, Co.: Lynne Rienner, 1993, p. 237. 6. Edward Goldsmith, The Way: An Ecolo&ical World View, Boston: Shambala, 1993, p. xi. 7. UNDP, Human Develo.pment Report, 1994, p. 48.

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African Conflicts in a Global Context: A Research Agenda 249 8. 9. I O. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

UNICEF, The State of the World's Children 1996, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 13. Thomas Robert Malthus, An Esyy on the Principle of Population. ed. Philip Appleman, New York: W.W. Norton, 1976. Garret Hardin, Livin& Within Limits: EcololO'., Economics and Population Taboo. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Maurice King, "Health is a sustainable state," The Lancet, vol. 336, Sept. 15, 1990,pp. 666-667. Paul Kennedy, PreJ>arin& for the Twenty First Centwy. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 34. Kennedy, Preparing, p. 46. Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilisations," Foreign Affairs, volume 72, No. 3., Summer, 1993, p. 32. Kennedy, Preparing, pp. 45-46. Ibid., p. 343. Okuta Yuki, "A Move to Outlaw All Abortions - Revision of the Eugenic Protection Act," Asian Women Liberation, No, 2, 1980, p. 4. United Nations Economic and Social Council, Rqx,rt of the European Population Conference, Geneva, March 23-26, 1993, p. 7. Sunday Times. Nairobi, October 19, 1997. Guardian Weekly. October 5, 1997.

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CHAPTER 18

Lessons of Experience Higher Education Policy of the World Bank in Africa§ Since the 1980's, higher education, globally, has been characterised by quantitative expansion, fmancial constraints, increased diversification of courses and programmes, closer links with industry and other external agents and government concern with rationalisation, relevance, "value for money" and accountability. Consequently, problems of academic freedom, university autonomy and the relations with the government have had to be redefined, expenditures reduced, new sources of funding sought and the utilization of existing resources improved. · Furthermore, profound reforms of institutional structures and styles of management have been introduced especially in the North, in order to increase the responsiveness of higher education institutions to changing financial, economic and social pressures. In fact, higher educational institutions have increasingly been viewed as industrial or entrepreneurial organisations to which concepts such as strategic management or Total Business Management can apply. In Africa, the economic trends of the l 980's were characterised by structural adjustment programmes (SAPS) (the new orthodoxy of the Bretton Woods financial institutions), an unprecedented debt crisis, and a sharp fall on the prices of export commodities leading to a dram~tic shrinking of revenues in almost all African countries. The social accomplishment most African countries achieved in 1960s and 1970s have been eliminated by the debt crisis and the new economic re-orientation, leading to severe cuts in social services such as health and education, items which are essential for long-term development. All these problems have their impact on governance, planning, access to and use of available resources and the rights which determine whether groups and individuals are included or excluded or whether they have equal access to entitlements such as education and health care. In Africa, recent literature on higher education emphasis·e s the problems of mass social demand, decline in the

§

Public lecture given at Maseno University, April 27, 1998

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252 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS financial resources and decline in quality and staff morale. This is largely because the political, social and economic contexts have imposed strong restraints on reform and management improvements in public institutions. The challenge facing African countries in the I990's and beyond is how to effectively manage the greatly expanded university system in the context of fiscal austerity so that the benefits of the expansion can be realised. It is in this context that the World Bank has been publishing policy statements that define its position with respect to higher education. The fundamental assumption underlying most of the policy recommendations is that developing countries have limited capacity to increase revenues and assoc iated expenditures under current economic conditions. Hence, there is a need for governments to adopt 'structural adjustment policies" to re-allocate resources. The first such policy paper entitled Education in sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adj ustment Revitalization and Expansion was issued in 1988 (I). This study analysed the problems confronting higher education in Africa and focused largely upon cost-containment, both at national and, more particularly, at the institutional level. The main emphasis was therefore restoring quality and containing costs, and the policy paper expressed concern regarding the need to develop managerial capacity for the implementation of refonn . (World Bank, DC. Washington, especially chapter 6, p. 68-80). But the Bank was aware that there cannot be any universal prescription for all the higher education ills in Africa. National differences and particularities had to be recognized. It said:

"for these reasons, there is no attempt here to prescribe an education policy for the continent - that would be inappropriate and futile. Instead, the focus is on generalizations - on addressing trends and issues that, because of their importance in many African countries, assume importance for the whole continent." (2). And yet this is what the Bank proceeded to do in its next major JX>licy document published in 1994. in which it tried to provide a recipe for creating institutions not only in Africa but in the whole world. The book entitled Higher Education: The lessons of Experience (3) was the product of a lengthy period of study and analysis, including both geographical case studies as well as commissioned studies relating to various aspects of university governance and management. The publication contained a clear vision of the World Bank 'mcxlel' higher education system developed from the principles. practice and conditions of higher education across the world. To illustrate the key areas for reform, the

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Higher Education Policy ofthe World Bank in Africa 253 study contained many examples of what it regarded as good practice from different countries and regions. In short, the document reflects the lessons which could be drawn from the observation of higher education reform experience in an international perspective. The four areas identified for reform were: l.

2.

3.

4.

Differentiation of public institutions and encouragement of the private sector. According to the Bank, universities are expensive institutions which should not be established unnecessarily. Instead, governments are advised to develop middle-level colleges with programmes that are flexible enough to respond to demands of the emerging labour markets. A second strategy of expanding higher education without increasing government expenditures is by encouraging the development of private institutions. (4). Diversifying funding of public institutions and providing performance incentives. The objective of the financial reforms is to shift the burden of payment from the government to those benefiting most directly from the services through cost-sharing. Also incentives should be provided to public institutions to introduce reforms by linking government funding to proven performance. (5) The role of government should be redefined so that higher education is state supervised and governed by incentives and market forces rather than direct control from government. It is recommended that more autonomy in decision - making with respect to programmes, funds as well as in the appointment of academic and administrative staff, be given to the universities. The Bank, however, adds the caveat that such autonomy must be tempered with institutional accountability. (6) Policies should be designed by government to promote quality and equity (both socio-economic and gender) objectives (7).

These are the four gospels, according to World Bank, which should be accepted in all developing countries, especially in Africa, so as to make educational systems in these countries more relevant, effective, and responsive to the challenges and needs of the on-going economic liberalization processes. They however, raise many policy issues which should be ventilated thoroughly. This paper briefly reviews these four broad areas of reform in the ftrSt place; and then, secondly, discusses the prospects of higher education in Africa in the twenty-ftrSt century. But before we discuss the Bank's prescriptions in detail, there are methodological and structural problems raised in the policy document which should be addressed ftrSt.

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254 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS First, for Africa, much of the analysis presented, and many of the conclusions/recommendations of the 1994 policy document were not new. lo many ways, they represented a logical extension of the conclusions of the 1988 study. lo particular, the book refers explicitly to the extension of policy-based lending. "The Bank has been most successful where it helped shape a coherent sub-sectional development program and supported the implementation of policy reforms and investments through a series lending operations, as in China. "(8). A country has to accept wholesale the Banks blueprint in order to qualify for loans. According to the policy document, "Countries prepared to adopt a higher education policy framework that stresses a differentiated institutional structure and diversification resource base, with greater emphasis on the private providers and private funding, will continue to receive priority." (9) But, and this is the second issue to be raised, the specificity of higher education in different settings is a crucial factor. The diversity of country situations and circumstances critically influence the nature and policy analysis in higher education. Caution is therefore required in generalizing about higher education systems, their problems and strategies for addressing them. Rather than making universal prescriptions, policy on higher education should present a review of policy options that should be considered under different conditions. To a certain extent the policy paper recognizes the crucial issue of country specificity versus the blueprint when it says: "Each country must therefore develop policy framework that best fits its particular circumstances. This book draws lessons from a wide range of country and institutional experiences from both the industrial and developing worlds. A review of these experiences reveals many clear differences, but at the same time, also some convergences in regard to the principal features of successful education reform systems. This book, is intended to capture the commonalties as well as the differences in order to inform the process of policy analyses and policy choice in countries intent on improving equity, the efficiency and quality of their higher education systems." ( 10)

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Nevertheless, the Bank still insists that the commonalties and convergence are more important than the spec.ificities and the differences. Thus, for all its caveats about national difference and particularity, the World Bank policy document is too much driven by a particular formula, a particular recipe. Thirdly, the comparative approach adopted by the Bank is sometimes misleading. Examples are quoted from a wide range of cultural, political and geographical contexts in order to illustrate the general principles. But in many cases, the analysis is inco11ect or superficial and profound inferences have been drawn from disparate examples. For instance, the methods employed in Britain for quality assessment are recommended for universal application whereas in Britain itself, they are still the subject of fierce debate. Also, the South East Asian countries of South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong are cited in the book as models of state-University relations. This is based on a misreading of history and on what the situation is now. The fact is that higher education in these countries, especially in South Korea, was for a long time tightly controlled by governments, especially in favour of science and technology. Furthe11nore, the debate about state control versus market forces is not yet over. Historically, there has been a great deal of dispute about the formula (protectionism versus free market, manpower planning versus the market) that produced Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. Hence, adopting the countries as the model does not do justice to the continuing debates among the economists and historians about the emergence of these economies and to the complexity of the historical lessons that can be learned. Fourthly, there is the question of donor coordination and implications. In the African context, the Bank has been emphasizing the importance of donor coordination in the reform programme. The creation in 1990 of the working group on Higher Education under the "Donors to African Education" (DAE) initiative has further reinforced the Bank's profile with higher education donors, ensuring that the World Bank analysis of the problems facing higher education and its recommendations are at the forefront of the issues considered by the policy-makers of both the donor community and senior persons in African higher education. The rationale behind the increase in donor coordination makes sense in terms of cost-effectiveness, and a means to ensure that projects and programmes to assist higher education are indeed complimentary (and that maximum benefit is therefore passed to the recipient country or institution). However, it does reduce the options available to African policy-makers, should they not wish to conform to the blueprint for higher education now on offer by the World Bank.

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256 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS From these general considerations, we now intend to discuss in some detail each of the four prescriptions provided by the World Bank for treating higher education ills.

1. The Development of Variety Amongst Institutions within the Higher Education Sector, including the Establishment of Private Institutions. The bank contends that in any national higher education system, structures should be diversified by creating low-cost alternatives to conventional institutions. Non-university institutions in the higher education sector include polytechnics, short cycle vocational colleges, distance education programmes, community colleges (American Style), adult education colleges. Such institutions can enable countries to expand access to higher education without imposing excessive burdens on public funds. They are cheaper to fmance, running shorter courses, with lower per student cost. Also, those institutions appear to be able to respond more flexibly to market demands. But many of these institutions already exist in many African countries. In Kenya, for example, there are four national polytechnics, several technical schools, institutes of science and technology and a distant education college. So there is already a variety in higher education institutions in the country. The crucial factor is that in order to maximize the benefits of flexibility and to ensure student demand for short cycle courses, links between those courses or institutions and the conventional regular higher education system should be established. In the absence of such links, short cycle courses may be perceived as second rate, and this will reduce their acceptability to students and employers. On the other hand, the possibilities of credit transfer or the development of institutional links can help to improve the popularity of low cost alternatives to conventional institutions and increase the flexibility of the higher education system, to meet changing labour market needs, for example through short courses for professional or continuing education. Furthermore, even where non-university institutions have been established, they are sometimes even more underfunded than universities, and can become what has been termed "academic parking lots" for excess students. The World Bank is, however, aware that any of these non-university institutions can at any time be diverted from its original mission and be upgraded to full-fledged university. The process, known as academic drift, is strongly criticized by the Bank, which regards the development of universities out of colleges and polytechnics as an aberration and an unnatural evolution. The policy therefore condemns the pattern of development which gave

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Higher Education Policy ofthe World Bank in Africa 257 university status to Makerere, Nairobi, Egerton, Kenyatta, JKUAT, Maseno University College, Legon University, Ahmadu Bello (or indeed on the recent confetm~nt of university status on British Polytechnics). But is this argument true in a historical perspective? Was the creation of Moi University, for instance, a more 'natural' development than that of all other Kenyan Universities which reached university status through the upgrading of more vocationally oriented pre-existing colleges? The World Bank, moreover, has argued that University development is expensive. Rather than create new institutions, many countries especially in Africa, have upgraded existing institutions using the strength of well-established universities in their country as a shield and support for fledging colleges. It is interesting to note that World bank prescription notwithstanding, the Kenya government has stated in the National Development Plan 1997-2001, that during the plan period, the Commission for Higher Education will explore the possibilities of middle-level colleges starting degree programmes ( 11 ).

Expanding the Private Sector From the evidence collected within both the developed and the developing world, it is clear that private universities offer a real alternative and form an important component of higher education system. Several Asian countries, for example, have large private higher education sectors. Indonesia (58% of national enrollment), South Korea (66% of enrollment), Japan (76% of enrollment) and Philippines (85% of enrollment). Kenya, which has one of the most developed private university system in Africa, has only 5% of the total university student population attending private institutions. Private universities increase the provision of university education and expand higher education enrollment at no extra public cost. They respond more flexibly to market demands for specialist skills. On the other hand, they have disadvantages: they tend to concentrate in narrow areas (business, accounting, computer). In Africa, especially in Kenya and Zimbabwe, they are closely related to a church, and this could lead to them having a narrow focus. At the same time, this is one of the areas where lessons of experience, especially those from Asia, can be misleading. In several Asian countries, private higher education institutions are subsidized by the government. In Indonesia and Japan, 20-30% of the private institutions expenses come from the government, those in South Korea and the Philippines receive less than 10% (12). And because they subsidize these institutions, the Asian governments exercise some measure of control over them. Besides the usual concern with physical facilities, academic programmes, teachers qualification, student selection criteria, the government of Korea and Philippines, for example,

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258 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS regulate both the amount of tuition that can be charged in private higher education institutions and the number of students thereby limiting income. In Africa, public universities will continue for a long time to be funded by the state and hence, tuition fees are likely to remain low. The tendency will be that the advantaged students, who receive their secondary education in good private and public schools, will go to the subsidized public universities, while the less advantaged, less well qualified students will go to the more expensive private universities. Where is equity in such a scenario?

2. Diversifying of the Funding of Public Institutions The Bank's gospel is that the public sector is financially over-extended. Hence, government expenditures on higher education must be reduced. The Bank therefore proposes the following solutions: (i) User charges should be introduced at tertiary level to cover living expenses and some or all tuition costs - which should be passed from the state to parents. Those who cannot pay should be given loans rather than grants. Thus confidence is expressed in loans as an effective instrument for cost recovery. It is also an equitable system because the future income of students rather than the present income of parents fmance current expenditure. Moreover, in the Bank's view, loans are pro-efficiency. Students work harder than when they are not financing their studies themselves. (ii) In addition to cost-sharing, the Bank prescribes that funding sources should be diversified through developing alumni associations for financial benefit to the universities; by encouraging private donations; through income generating activities such as continuing professionaVvocational courses, contract research, consultancy services, study abroad programmes; and through re-designed criteria for resource allocation by adopting input and output based funding approaches. The crucial question to be addressed is not, as the World Bank suggests, the diversification of funding sources, but of their adequacy and efficiency. The economic, scientific and technological problems facing Africa today cannot be solved by investing less in education, but by investing heavily in education, especially higher education. The evidence from all parts of the world indicate that education and training, especially in science and technology, are the keys to survival as well as development in future. European countries, U.S.A., Japan, South Korea, to name but a few, all put education and health as their top most

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Higher Education Policy ofthe World Bank in Africa 259 priority because they all realize the role of quality training and research in the socio-economic and political transformation and development of their nations. Why does the World Bank and other external groups and organiz.ations asswne that African countries can develop without heavy investment in education and training? Indeed, it is because of the yawning technological gap between Africa and the developed world that the former must invest heavily in education and training now. The goal should be to secure adequate finances for the tertiary institutions while improvements in internal efficiency is encouraged. Moreover, even where public spending needs to fall in the short te1n1, it should always be an open question as to whether expenditure on education (and other aspects of hwnan development) need to increase while other heads, for example defense, decline. It is, therefore in my view, the responsibility of African scientists, scholars, businessmen, political leaders and thinkers to resolutely resist any external influence of reducing investment in higher education. User charges at the tertiary are also premised on the asswnption that private returns to tertiary are high. This used to be the case in the 1960s and 70s, but this is no longer true in many African countries. The salary structures in African countries where the social adjustment burden has been greatest, have changed dramatically. Consequently, the private rates of return to tertiary study have been much reduced. In such circwnstances, the impact of user charges on enrollment is uncertain (13). Nor is it a fact that higher education in Africa is mainly conswned by the rich, as is apparently asswned. And even if this was the case, is it not likely that reducing tertiary subsidies would exclude the poor even more thoroughly than is happening at present. Various studies sponsored by the World Bank and other donors have recommended that African Universities should aim to generate income equivalent to 300/o of their recurrent expenditure requirements from student fees and other sources. Is this realistic at the moment? And as the UNESCO policy paper on Higher Education has warned, charging realistic fees is too sensitive an issue because of the possible adverse consequences on issues of social justice, mobility and equity (14). The establishment of a comprehensive, effective loan system for students in higher education institutions is a complex and somewhat technical issue. And in any case loan schemes have their own problems. Would they preserve equity? Evidence tends to indicate otherwise. To the extent that the poor were previously excluded, loan schemes tend to confirm their exclusion. Moreover, there are high start-up costs, high default rates and very long pay-back periods. It has been estimated that on standard terms it takes fourteen years for a

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260 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS government to recover 500/o of the cost of the first crop of student loans, assuming all graduates get jobs and none default. In Kenya, for example, 75 per cent of university graduates who have benefited from student loan scheme since 1974, had not repaid the money by the end of May, 1997. In fact, only 20,000 out of 93,000 beneficiaries are currently repaying the loan.(15). Thus loan schemes do, in fact, require governments in the short run, to spend more money on higher education. The grandiose strategy stated in The National Development Plan 1997-2001 on how to improve the education sector in Kenya is a good example of the dilemma higher education in Africa faces. According to the plan, the Higher Education Loans Board is to be restructured and capitalized so that it can give loans to all qualifying students. Virtually all university students, the Plan notes, will require the loan, which covers food, accommodation, book and personal allowances. No wonder the Kenya Government has had to go to the WoI'ld Bank to borrow money to capitalize the loan scheme! Universities are also supposed to undertake a wide range of income generating activities primarily through the use of their facilities and expertise. But universities in Africa are already collapsing because they are underfunded, and consequently, without seed money and heavy investment in management, they are unlikely to generate funds that could make any difference. The same problem applies to the mobilization of resources from the business communities and alumni. It is a fact that in many parts of the world, there are annual campaigns to solicit gifts from alumni as well as private donors. Experience in such countries indicate that substantial funds can be raised from these sources. But a closer study of these universities reveals that such efforts are succeeding partly because the institutions themselves have successfully developed strategies and organizations to secure funding from the private sector and alumni in a significant way. For example, many of them have established foundations or created development officers to raise funds in a professional way. This requires considerable managerial and fund-raising skills and is not left to any administrative or academic Tom, Dick and Harry. In many institutions, Presidents or Vice-Chancellors spend much of their time talking to potential donors and business people. The other important factor that has encouraged private contributions and endowments is that governments in such countries often encourage private contributions by providing income tax deductions for gifts made to eligible, nonprofit higher education institutions. In Chile, for example, private companies get tax exemption on 50% of the value of donations to universities, and in India 15% of contributions are deductible.

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Higher Education Policy ofthe World Bank in Africa 261 African countries, with the possible exception of South Africa, have not established the necessary infrastructure and organization, and therefore the prospects of alumni support and private contributions becoming a really significant form of income generation in the near future are slight. Nor have tax regimes been established that would encourage donations. Any sound policy on education must be backed up with financial and resource commitment. We have noticed how the World Bank policy has succeeded in persuading African governments to slacken on their financial commitments to higher education on the assumption that alternative sources of finance can be found. But as we have attempted to show, the suggested alternative financial sources are neither viable nor sustainable as the base of new financing options - at least in the foreseeable future. The financial model advocated by the World Bank should therefore be treated with a great deal of caution. Furthermore, as two leading experts on University financing have warned: 'since revenue diversification implies also diversifying the outputs and activities of the university system, this process may lead to a change in the role of universities away from traditional teaching and research. If revenue diversification is pressed too far, on too broad a front, serious issues concerning the role of the university may arise." ( 16)

3. Redefining the Role of Government in Higher Education It is the view of the World Bank that ways must be found to reduce the level of government control over higher education institutions. It requires a policy that encourages the state to step back from being the key player to become an enabler instead. This includes allowing more autonomy in decision-making with respect to both programmes and funding as well as in the appointment of academic and administrative staff, autonomy tempered by institutional accountability. It also includes reducing the dominance of government determined enrollment quota in favour of labour market and student demand. Independent oversight agencies such as the Commission for Higher Education in Kenya rather than government ministries are advocated to monitor higher education systems (17). This gospel, which the World Bank has propagated everywhere in the developing world is one of the factors which has led to the belief that public Universities are facing a crisis in governance. This is partly because those in the university are demanding autonomy while the government is insisting on

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262 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS accountability. Can these imperatives be reconciled? Aren't both autonomy and accountability essential to the viability and vitality of public higher education? The academics and administrators must recognize that public universities are too important and expensive to society to be left to their own devices. They often view the demand for accountability as an alien invasion of collegial selfgovemance, forgetting that only organizations which are totally self sufficient can be totally self-governing. Public Universities are not voluntary associations created for and supported by their members. Hence, academic freedom and university autonomy should not be invoked in order to militate against necessary changes. On the other hand, public universities, if they are to serve society well, must not become creatures of the state, tightly bound by rigid rules and regulations issued from the Ministries of Education. They cannot perform their unique mission without sufficient freedom to choose the best means of achieving their assigned goals in teaching, research and service. The unique character of the academic enterprise requires an unusual amount of autonomy. Its success depends upon the achievement of a multiplicity of educational goals through the individual creative efforts engaged in highly diverse, intellectual tasks. A public university system also requires a diversity of institutions that pursue many different missions. A University system and its campuses cannot therefore be controlled like an agency or industry (apology to the advocates of the 'entrepreneurial' university) where the products are few and means of producing them are clear and routine. Creativity can be cultivated, but never commanded or completely controlled. Reform of governance must bring as many changes in attitude and action on the campus as with the government. The university must accept that the price of autonomy is accountability. Similarly, society should not allow public universities to become creatures of the state. They should not, by the same token, let them become the captives of campus and party politics or of factional interests. University communities will have to develop workable governance systems that produce timely and realistic decisions for their institutions as well as allowing for full participation in the decision-making process. ln other words, criticism and reforms must begin from within. Unless universities can govern and regulate themselves in a manner that satisfies both the public's needs and professional obligations, they will be controlled inevitably by external pressures and outside agencies. Evidence from developed countries regarding state/university relations tend to contradict the Bank's teaching. We have been witnessing in recent years, greater government involvement in what should be taught and how higher

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Higher Education Policy ofthe World Bank in Africa 263 education should be funded than before in countries like Gennany and Australia, for example. In many of these industrialized countries, the governments increasingly see public higher education as an extension of public policy, supporting particular areas of research, withholding funds from other areas, insisting on improving efficiency, teaching quality and aspects of quality control as pre-requisites for continued support. In Britain, for example, the Jarrat Committee was appointed to investigate university efficiency. In its report ( 1985), it recommended that Universities should have more businesslike structures, that the Vice Chancellor should be Chief-Executive and not the first among equals and to receive training; that small high-level planning and resource committees instead of the usual numerous academic committees, be formed; and the introduction of performing indicators and staff appraisal and development. The University Funding Council (UFC) was established to supersede the old university grants committees. Its main function is to supervise the fmancial management of higher educational institutions, which compete for teaching and research funding based on agreed performing indicators. This has led to internal restructuring, retrenchment, mergers and the introduction of new revenue earning ventures. Surely the British Government, like the other governments of developed countries, is not stepping back from being a key player, but is instead becoming more interventionist. Why then are African Governments being asked to abdicate their responsibility in the education sector? It would appear to keen observers of the international trends that the state would continue to have an important role in higher education in the 21st century. The government has to critically reassess the place of higher education and the different types of institutions needed in a national system. It has to assess how much of the public purse can legitimately be used to subsidize higher education. The government must, therefore, have the machinery to implement interventionist policies. For instance, the government may still have to direct that the university should undertake researches in certain critical areas; it needs a mechanism of overseeing, raising and maintaining quality, through staff appraisal, financial incentives and other inducements.

4. Focusing on Quality, Responsiveness and Equity (18) Governments all over the world are now demanding evaluation in new areas of academic life such as the quality of teaching, research programmes, services, efficiency in resource utilization and general efficiency in institutional management. In short, governments are demanding "value for money" and accountability, and in many countries, especially in developed countries,

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264 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS growing use is being made of perfonnance indicators. And although African countries have little experience with evaluation/accountability mechanisms, it is clear that African universities will be put increasingly under pressure, especially by their governments, to increase efficiency and to make better utilization of resources. In Kenya, for instance, public universities still lack a recognized mechanism of evaluation, quality assessment and accountability. It is essential, in my view, to develop a Higher Education Monitoring and Evaluation System which will be extended to all public universities. Such a system - which can only be developed with the assistance of the government - will allow universities and the faculties and departments within them, to evaluate perfonnance on a regular basis according to a set of indicators including inputs, outputs, operating costs, staff profiles, work-load, contact hours and utilization of resources. Measures to improve quality should include staff development, improvement in libraries, equipment and facilities and selective funding, for example, through incentive grants. The effectiveness of such measures must be carefully monitored, to ensure that resources allocated for quality improvements actually achieve this objective. Internal Efficiency of institutions can be achieved through measures designed to achieve economies of scale, improved utilization of resources (staff, buildings and equipment) and the reduction of repetition and wastage. In order to achieve economies of scale, it may be desirable to encourage appropriate mergers or other fonns of restructuring, but such measures may reduce quality or fail to generate cost savings. The expected costs and benefits of any proposed re-organisation of institutions or programmes must therefore be carefully analysed to ensure that efficiency gains will be achieved. Studies of internal institutional efficiency must also include a comprehensive analysis of efficiency in resource allocation focused on undergraduate higher education and covering cost effectiveness and the ratio of instructional inputs to enrollments and graduates; drop-out rates; unit costs in relation to output; and productivity of universities, which should deal with elective or appointment systems of ViceChancellors; analysis of current faculty salaries and full or part time hiring practices. With regard to external efficiency, (which can broadly be defined as the amount of society's resources expended on higher education activities and the output mix and its impact on the distribution of skilled labour), this can be increased by ensuring that programmes are sufficiently flexible to meet changing labour markets needs. It is important to take account of manpower needs in planning expansion of higher education, but past attempts at centralized manpower planning and forecasting have proved unsuccessful ( 19). Rather than

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Higher Education Policy ofthe World Bank in Africa 265 relying on rigid manpower forecasts, higher education planning should be based on careful analysis of current employment patterns, including analysis of relative wages, social and private rates of return and tracer studies of graduates to reveal employment and unemployment trends. Still on quality, the World Bank is finally saying that all the reforms being advocated for higher education in Africa will only succeed if they improve the quality of training, research and advisory services to the benefit of national economies. In order to do this, universities must recruit high quality students from secondary schools. They must also recruit and retain highly qualified staff who are promoted on merit and rewarded by university determined salaries and remuneration system. In both cases, equity problems must be attended to, both on socio-economic as well as on gender basis. They deal with the degree of access to higher education by various groups in society and with effects of higher education on income distribution and social mobility.

Larger Issues As we have discussed, the World Bank policy on higher education emphasises differentiation, privatization, vocationalization, diversification of funding, efficiency, relevance and equity, Most of these issues are technical and utilitarian. But shouldn't higher education be concerned with other issues and principles which are more fundamental? For instance, what are universities for? What is their function? The Bank's answers to these questions are purely utilitarian. To begin with, the World Bank report starts from an economic premise about the scarcity of resources rather than an educational one about the issue of quality. This is the big difference in approach to higher education between UNESCO and the World Bank. The former stresses quality, relevance, interAfrican and international co-operation and management. Financing of higher education, for UNESCO, is part of management (20). The World Bank's thesis, on the other hand, is that Africa's universities will only be revitalized by reducing their dependence on state funding by charging full cost, non-subsidized fees. But beyond the familiar watch words of quality, equity, relevance, is a process of how education systems can help populations in Africa achieve integrated lives and identities. Quality, according to the Bank, is an adjunct to budgetary issues (what else can one expect from a Bank?) The Bank therefore presents the problem of higher education as one of budgetary crises. But this is only half the picture.

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A Utilitarian Concept of Higher Education The Banlc report recommends a higher education which is applied, vocational, private, and diversified. But Africa, like other continents, needs institutions for 'unapplied' teaching, learning, reflection and research. This is because of the powerful and continuing sense of technological, intellectual and cultural dependence upon the West and the consequent need to think out its own course and model of development. The Report of the International Commission on Education for the 21 st Century headed by Jacques Delors, former President of the European Union entitled Leaming: the Treasure Within (21) has brought out this point clearly in Chapter 3. The Chapter attributes the tremendous economic growth achieved in the last half of the 20th century to the capacity of humanity to control its environment by harnessing science and education. However, while recognizing and appreciating this role of science and education, the Commission emphasises that the role of education should be considered from a much broader perspective than merely that of facilitating economic growth; it should be seen from the broader perspective of a crucial agent for human development. For many countries, the Commission points out, education is largely demanded, or sought for "economic purposes", that is to provide skills needed in particular economic activities. But rapid technological changes and the increasing trend of employment in the tertiary sector has raised the need for investment in intangibles in an effort to prepare the labour force for the intangible types of work, creating the need for intellectual and social skills as opposed to specific skills. This is a new challenge to the education system where it is required to train people to be more innovative, adjustable and adaptable to rapid changes taking place in the modem societies. Will African countries be capable in the near future to rise to these new demands on the education system, given the extent to which these countries are pre-occupied with the development of an educational system to create specific job skills. The Chapter reveals the existing high levels of inequality in the distribution of knowledge, whereby in 1990, 42.8% of R & D spending took place in North America, against 23.2 in Europe and 0.2% in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, subSaharan Africa will not be able to make a significant impact on the investment research, thereby petpetuating the region's dependence on imported technology. It is clear that dependence will not be broken without Africa being able to allocate more financial resources on research, which unfortunately is seen as a luxury in many of these countries. Universities represent the most likely places for training of original thought and the conduct of basic research which in the last resort are the only means by

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which societies can take control of their destiny. Such function within a diversified higher education system is not a luxury that can be dispensed with for a period, pending better economic times, but an integral part of the development process itself. Few challenges are more immediate or more important for African Universities than that of identifying relevant devises for recreating and rewarding an intellectual ethic, academic commitment and research productivity.

Universities as Part of an Integrated Education System. The World Bank policy document makes the case for reforms in terms of the savings that will be released from the tertiary sector for allocation to secondary and primary levels. It could be argued, however, that the analytical separation of higher education from the other levels is largely artificial and that the education system should be taken as an integrated whole rather than as sections competing for resources. What happens at the University directly and indirectly affects much of what goes on elsewhere in the system. Thus, through its involvement in teacher training, school examinations, curriculum development and text-book writing, the university contributes substantially to primary and secondary education. The lecturers are also in a good position to conduct research on the real functioning of the education system itself. Ever since the Jomtien Conference or the World Conference on Education for All held at Jomtien, Thailand, 1990, donors have been under pressure to reduce their support for higher education. The World Conference did not advocate this: it asked governments to determine if additional support for basic education can be obtained. The post-Jomtien period has addressed this issue. Have governments and donors changed their policies to direct more funds to basic education? Was more funds for basic education to come about through additional moneys for education or through re-allocations within the sector.? It is evident that donor institutions and lending agencies are shifting their focus in financing education from tertiary and secondary education to intervention programmes designed to benefit basic and girls education. According to the World Bank Report on poverty reduction released in October, 1996 (22), diversion of funds to girls' basic education is meant to reduce rampant poverty among many households in the Sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries. In Kenya, it is estimated that about 4 7 per cent of the rural population live in abject poverty while in urban areas 30 per cent of the population is poor.

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268 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS The interventionist policy being pursued by the World Bank and lending agencies is based on the premise that basic education is a key element in developing human capital. "The poor benefit more from basic education than from any other level as they are rarely able to afford the money and the opportunity cost of sending their children to secondary schools and beyond". (23) The other advantage of basic education to the poor is that individual wage gains tend to be larger for primary education. For these reasons, investment on secondary education by the World Bank has remained at about 20 per cent of the total lending for the education sector while lending for the university has dropped from US$ 66.8 million in 1993 to only US$ 14 million in 1995. And yet expenditure on higher education in Africa which in 1980s fell from 0.7% to 0.5% of the GNP is estimated to decline further. Based on forecasts of GDP growth as an optimistic indicator of higher education budget growth, and forecasts of enrollments based on current primary and secondary school enrollments, real public expenditure on higher education in Africa is likely to fall by a further 25.8% by the year 2000 (25). Worse still, the proportion of students in Africa expected to proceed to higher education averages about 4-5 percent compared with 41-51 percent of the same cohorts in industrialised societies. And since the development of higher education is generally accepted as being closely correlated with economjc development, the challenge is how we can, in Africa, give equitable access to every eligible African who is qualified and needs a university degree of his/her choice. With public expenditure on higher education declining, with donor funding being shifted to basic education, with about 5 per cent only of the eligible age group proceeding to higher education institutions, and with the knowledge gap between Africa and the rest of the world getting wider and wider, it is evident that this down trend can only be halted by the African countries themselves investing heavily on higher education.

Higher Education and Capacity Building This is not a new concept. In the past, it was implemented through the various strategies aimed at developing human resources through training. But, recently, capacity building has become also a new aid approach, particularly in reference to research and evaluation capacities, planning and analysis capacities, and community involvement and local participation capacities (25).

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Higher Education Policy ofthe World Bank in Africa 269 While recognizing that capacity building derived in part from a donor concern to get the policy environment right for structural adjustment programmes, there is also strong insistence that analytical capacity building must be viewed outside the scope of donor-recipient relationships. There are many kinds of analytical capacities required at the national and local levels serving many pwposes and only relatively few are dependent upon international expertise or international linkages or are affected directly by external assistance. Strategies for capacity building must support the efforts of local educators to meet specific needs for information within their own environments. Capacity building in this sense is a local process of empowerment as well as of technical capacitation. It is best judged by its utility for improving local decision-making through the continuous demand for useful information that it can provide. Capacity building must also be closely linked to capacity utilization at all levels; hence, capacity utilization becomes an indispensable measure of sustainability. Capacity building in this sense involves strengthening the ability of decision-makers to make better use of research and analysis, and to strengthen the relationships between the users (clients) and researchers/analysts. With regard to research capacity, this is defined as the ability the research or evaluation community has to replicate itself through training its next generation of research analysts and through producing useful knowledge which is cumulative. Hence, one should be cautious about special projects to build capacity outside the local structures of government or higher education. Such special projects based on special arrangements (in order to obtain quick results under the technical assistance mode) make it difficult to reproduce the necessary expertise locally. In addition, they can make capacities dependent upon external resources. Some donors still seem to be more interested in policy analysis for their own agency work than in supporting national policy analysis capacities, just as they continue to give preference to training abroad over against strengthening local training capacities, despite lip service in the favour of the latter. The same holds true of many short term consultancies which have become a major source of income for many consultants from Africa. These consultancies can set the research agenda and undermine the general research capacity because they drain research institutions of their capacity. The promotion of research capacity through the continuous further training of individuals does not make for a mature research environment. Similarly, small grants for research projects and networking (without a concomitant strengthening of institutions in regions where institutional capacity is very weak) may not result in any impact for the pwpose they have been conceived. As the concern for policy-based reforms grows, consultancies and evaluations will have to be embedded in wider

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270 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS institutional capacities. and there is plenty of funds to promote the process. A 1988 United Nations Development Program (UNDP) survey says that Tanv,ni~ for example, paid about 1,000 foreign experts over USS 200 million - two thirds of what it receives in technical assistance or about a quarter of Taovtnia's total agro-export earnings. Local experts were left to scramble for the crumbs, which was less than 0.5 per cent of the total consultancy budget. For the sub-Saharan Africa, it is reckoned that over USS 4 billion from foreign donors go back to experts from donor nations! The World Bank should therefore change its policy to de-emphasize reforms and to give preference to capacity-building in Africa. In South East Asia, for instance, the Bank has over the years, emphasized capacity - building in science and technology. In Africa, there is an even greater need for the countries to depend on their own cadres of scientists and scholars who can be involved in the selection and adaptation of imported technologies and in the creation of local variants and alternatives. If we are to end the technological dependence of Africa, therefore, there is need for a massive collective effort to support the creation and sustenance of national and regional intellectual and scientific communities that can play a central part in the application and development of relevant types of science and technology.

Conclusion What are universities for? A central and sometimes seemingly unanswerable question in the debate over the nature of education systems has always been that of "what are universities for?" After many decades of debate the issues remain familiar; it is only the priorities and the intensity of the criticisms leveled at universities which appear to change. The socio-economic environment in which universities exist must be seen to be particularly critical: If universities are costly institutions at the apex of an education system (whatever the dimensions of the structure below them whether a pyramid or a broad-based structure), they must appear to have a sure and welldefined contribution to return to the societies which support them. This is something which universities as a whole appear to find particularly difficult to do. Their contribution to societies will be determined by a combination of factors: Who they educate, and at what cost; the structures of the institutions themselves and their relationships with government; ease of access for potential students (with or without traditional qualifications); the level of fees charged, and fmancial provision for students who are not readily able either to pay the fees or to support themselves (including grants, loans or easy access to paid

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Higher Education Policy ofthe World Bank in Africa 211 employment); the nature of research undertaken within institutions and whether or not it is of international significance; where institutions derive· their funding and whether they are able to generate substantial additional income; and if institutions do generate additional income, whether this brings with it increased autonomy to fund internally - defined priorities, or whether instead external funding brings conditions which will reduce institutional autonomy, or deflect effort from the attainment of academic excellence? If research is undertaken to a significant extent, given that staffing is likely to be limited, there will be issues over the priority given to teaching students, the training given to teaching staff, the facilities available to them for teaching provision, and the size of classes. Further significant issues relate to what is taught and to what level; the balance of provision between disciplines, and whether subjects are predominantly vocational and relate to an 'open' job market; or whether instead subjects are considered intrinsically valuable in terms of 'scholarship', and in training students to think critically and to develop their powers of analysis for future roles in life. It is the balance which is struck between these considerations, and how institutions fit within overall educational provision which will to a large extent determine the contribution they make to society. Unfortunately, however, conditions are rarely such that careful and logical analysis can be made and choices taken as to which way institutional or - ideally - national priorities should be made. Universities in most countries are costly and inflexible institutions and are therefore extremely vulnerable to external agendas. Furthermore, in many countries, the university is an institution under siege, and its response is largely defensive. Ironically too, there is a sense in which the more ambitious a university is in its attempts to serve society, the greater the chances that it will diversify too far and will fail very publicly to meet its new •

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The manner in which higher education was established in Africa is salutary in this respect, and it is worth taking a brief glance at the changing conditions under which higher education in former British Africa, for example, has developed. After decades of inertia and stalling by the British Government, the Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940 finally allowed provision for the funding of higher education in British colonies. Previous educational commissions had debated the likely nature of higher education in the colonies, and the Asquith Commission was therefore able to prepare its Report (1945 (a) in reaction to earlier debates s and (b) in the light of contemporary educational debate in Europe. The timing of this Report was crucial: while earlier reports had stressed the need for vocational edu~ation and the need to charge fees, the

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272 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS Asquith Commission's recommendations reacted against "mass production vocational machines", to focus instead upon educating a small minority of promising students for "leadership". Leadership qualities were to be instilled at high cost through a broad liberal education, intended to equip its beneficiaries with the values necessary to take their countries to self-government. Provision was to be high quality and free. As the anticipated demand was small, the sustainability of the system was given scant consideration. University research was recommended, but was to be 'fundamental' and 'utilitarian results were not expected (26). As independence was achieved, the role expected of the universities changed significantly. The Ashby Commission of 1960, funded by the Carnegie Corporation sought to re-define the missions of African universities and the contributions which they might make to national development. The Commission recommended that provision should be focused on 'vocational' education and introduced the manpower planning rationale, thereby also recommending large-scale expansion. For the frrst time, the 'relevance' of educational provision became an issue. At this time, the Commission recommended "an educational system which could not be sustained without massive aid", thereby creating the near inevitability of future difficulties when donor policies changed (27). No attempt was made to re-examine the "Ashby model" of higher education in terms of its costs and future viability, and the model was therefore perpetuated (28). Relevance and cost have continued to be issues of debate, increasingly at odds with social demand. The 1962 Tananarive Conference (sponsored by UNESCO) extended the anticipated functions of universities in Africa, including the requirement "to ensure the unification of Africa" (29) and a very broad social and cultural role, in addition to the new entrenched economic role of human resource development. It also recommended reductions in the cost of the structures of universities, a call which went unheeded in the economic optimism of the 1960s. At the 1972 Accra Workshop (organized by the Association of African Universities, which the author attended) leading academics reacted angrily to the criticisms made at Tananarive, and sought to justify the costs of universities. By doing so, they extended the roles of the universities still further in terms of community service and nation-building, making way for the 'development university' ideal of the 1970s (30). It was impossible, however, that all these roles could be adequately fulfilled, and changed economic climate and development strategies of the 1970s and 1980s meant that the criticism of institutions of higher education for their costs (and alleged decline in quality.) began in earnest. The 1980s and early 1990s saw increasing financial hardships, and in the late 1990s, there is

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Higher Education Policy of the World Bank in Africa 273

now considerable uncertainty about the roles universities can most effectively undertake, and how they can be funded. The debate continues and has intensified, now being undertaken by universities (usually in a polemic manner), governments and multilateral and bilateral donors, who often simply prescribe remedies without proper diagnosis.

African Universities of the Future African universities need to define a role and a purpose that is their own. In the early years of national universities the mission, as we have discussed, was self-evident and undisputed. It was to provide high level manpower and to conduct useful research. More recently the universities have become the object of different and sometimes inconsistent and competing perceptions of what they are supposed to be doing. Employers, the Ministry of Education, the government more generally, parents, faculty members and students - all have a different view of what the university might be accomplishing. Sorting out these different perceptions and accommodating them in institutional form is a prerequisite for a meaningful university system. We need different kinds of research to supplement that of the Bank in telling us how universities really work. What is the role and function of a ViceChancellor in an African University? How do faculty members actually survive with low salaries? How do women students get through the system at all, with dignity and commitment intact? The answers to such questions may help to begin the needed process of re-definition. The challenge is to come up with a vision and a strategy that can enable African universities in the long term to avert the threat of intellectual dependence which their short term deterioration has created.

ENDNOTES 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adjustment. Revitalization. and Expansion, World Bank, DC. Washington, chapter 6, pp. 68-80, 1988. Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, p. 7 Higher Education: The Lessons of Experience ,World Bank, Washington DC. 1994 Higher Education, p. 5-6 Higher Education. p. 6-8 Higher Education, p. 8-10 Higher Education, p. 10-12 Higher Education, p. 7

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274 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS 9. Ibid. 10. Higher Education, p. 26-27 11 . Republic of Kenya, National Development Plan 1997-2001, Govt. Printer, Nairobi, 1990, p. 139 12. James, Estelle "Private Finance and Management of Education in Developing Countries: Major Policy and Research issues". Issues and Methodologies in Education DevelQPment: An IIEP series for Orientation and Training, 5: International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO, 1991 . 13. see Colcough, C. and J. Manor (Eds.). States or Markets? Neo-Liberalism and the Development Policy Debate. Claredon Press, Oxford, 1991 14. Strategy for Chan&e and Development in Higher Education. Policy Paper on Higher Education, Paris. UNESCO, 1993 15. Press statement by Chacha Nyaigotti-Chacha, Secretary, Higher Education Loans Board, East African Standard, June, 21, 1997 16. Albrecht, Douglas and Adrian Zidennan, FinancinK Universities in Developin& Countries. Washington DC: Education and Employment Division, Population and Human Resources Department, The World Bank, Document N. Three/92/61 , p.13, 1992 17. Hi&her Education, p 8-10 18. Hi&her Education, p 10-12. 19. Republic of Kenya, Ministry of Education, Sessional Paper No. 6. of 1988 on Education and Manpower Trainin&, Nairobi, 1989 20. see The UNESCO Policy paper for ChanKe and Development in Higher Education 1993. 21 . Learnin&: The Treasure Within, UNESCO, Paris, 1995. 22. see Article by Kihumba Kamotho in East African Standard, Oct. 12, 1996 23. The World Bank Report on Poverty Reduction, World Bank, Washington DC, October, 1996 24. Ziderman, A. and Albrecht, D. 1995 Financin& Universities in Developin& Countries. London: The Falser Press, 1995. 25. The African Capacity Buildin& Initiative; Towards Improved Policy Analysis and Development Mana&ement, World Bank, Washington, 1991 26 . . Rmort of the Commission on Higher Education in the Colonies, Asquith Commission, 1944-45, Cmd. 6647 27. Ashby; E., University: British. Indian and Africa: 1966, P 269 28. Also see Eric Ashby, African Universities and Western Tradition. London: Oxford University Press., 1964 29. Tananarive Report, UNESCO, 1963, p.19

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Higher Education Policy ofthe World Bank in Africa 215 30. Creatin& the African University: Emer&in& Issues of the 1970s. Eds. by T.M. Yesufu, London: Oxford University Press, 1973. Published for the Association of African Universities.

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CHAPTER19 The Siege of Ramogi: From National Coalitions to Ethnic Coalitions, 1960 -1998§ That chloroform sleep Woke me up in dream only to find Ramogi under siege (1).

In launching a 260-page report entitled 1997 General Elections in Kenya, compiled by the Institute for Education in Democracy, the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, and the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), the NCCK General-Secretary, the Rev. Mutava Musyimi took issue with the political parties, arguing that they relied almost entirely on patronage with none of them having an independent base, a clear ideological identity or a firm policy foundation. He said there was need for Kenyans and their leaders to re-examine their commitment to the ideals of democracy and their love for their nation (2). He was particularly disappointed that the elections had shown quite clearly that ethnicity still reigns. The question is this: Why has Kenya failed to produce a workable multiparty and multi-ethnic political order, 35 years after independence? Perhaps a look at the relationship between state and society in Kenya might provide part of the answer to that basic question. We should look at the process of state building in relation to the civil society in Kenya. Generally speaking, state building refers to the process of integrating a country by improving relations among different ethnic and religious entities and uniting them under shared political and economic systems. It also includes the integration of

§Presented at the Historical Association ofKenya Conference, "Missed Opportunities in Development: Kenya since the 1950s", July 200 - 4th , 1998, Eldoret

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278 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS different economic sectors. Moreover, it must entail the strengthening of the institutions of the State to make them more effective in advancing the welfare of its citizens and in managing society in line with the State's mandated authority. State building thus implies that integrating the disparate groups and determining the relations between them and the State can only be accomplished through collective decisions of all the parties involved and on the basis of carefully negotiated terms that are acceptable to all. In other words, State building should be done in a democratic manner. But a quick look at the history of Africa during the last thirty years or so reveals a sad trend: in most countries the State has generally been highly centralized, authoritarian and self-serving. There is uneven distribution of power, and uneven access to resources, leading to many conflicts. Also, in most of these countries, no mechanisms for economic, political and social integration of different social entities have been developed.

State Building in Kenya Following independence, State building in Kenya was widely perceived as forging a nation-state with a common culture and identity. Ethnic groups were expected to give up their identity and to adopt some common national culture. As a result, a unitarist centralizing strategy of State building based on coercion was adopted by the Kenyatta regime. Following this policy, the Kenya government embarked on a path bound to lead to increased repression and to mounting ethnic conflict. No foundation was laid for sustainable and genuine multi-party democracy, nor were democratic institutions that would ensure that neither the majority nor the minority ethnic groups were threatened with permanent exclusion from power and resources for development,, built. In this Address, I plan to demonstrate this by considering the fate of one of the majority groups in Kenya - the Luo, in independent Kenya. At the first Lancaster House Conference held in London in January and February in 1960, the African delegation formed a united front, a national coalition. Soon after return from London, cleavages appeared among the African Elected Members, which led to the formation in the same year of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU). The two African political parties had very similar objectives which aimed at welding together the independent, district-oriented local power groupings which had emerged since 1945 into a national c.oalition. They were, however, different in their political and regional orientation. KANU was the party of the majority nationalities - the Kikuyu and the related Embu and Meru peoples of Central Kenya and the Luo from the shores of Lake Victoria, among

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The Siege ofRamogi From National Coalitions to Ethnic Coalitions 219

the other smaller groups. By contrast, KADU was the party of the small ethnic groups in the Rift Valley (the Kalenjin, Turlcana, Samburu, and the Maasai), North-Eastern Province, the Coast and sections of the Abaluyia. To a large degiee, both parties represented national coalitions. This political configuration, it should be noted, has persisted to the present. For example, in 1992, when multi-party democracy was re-introduced, similar coalitions emerged, with KANU representing the old KADU group and FORD-Kenya, FORD-Asili and the Democratic Party representing the Kikuyu and related groups and the Luo. In the Uhuru na Kenyatta elections of 1961, K.ANU was swept to power with the support of the Kikuyu and the Luo. Even as early as this, ideology already counted less than ethnicity in determining political loyalties. On being released from restriction during the later part of 1961, Kenyatta assumed the leadership of K.ANU. The May, 1963 General Elections were really a replay of the 1961 elections with K.ANU winning with the massive support of the Kikuyu and the Luo. It was Kenya's last experience of national multi-party elections until those of December 29, 1992. When Kenyatta became President of the new Republic of Kenya on 12th December, 1964, he moved fast to abolish regional administration and the Senate, concentrating control in Nairobi. Furthe1mure, instead of ruling through K.ANU, he decided to retain the Colonial Provincial Administration, making it directly responsible to his office. Soon Provincial administration was exerting more political power than they had during the 75 years of British rule (3). Instead of strengthening the Kikuyu-Luo alliance that had swept him to power, Kenyatta now decided to consolidate his position among his own Kikuyu people through government patronage, civil service and parastatal appointments, low-interest loans, government contracts, and rural and urban land grants. As Marshall S. Clough has revealed in his thoughtful book, Fi&htina Two Sides: Kenya Chiefs and Politicians, 1918-1940, Kenyatta government of 1963-1978, was committed to moderate politics and was re-organized around a personality cult. Although his government was dominated overwhelmingly by a Kiambu clique, he also promoted Kikuyu nationalism as he had done in the 1920s and 1930s. But unlike the inter-war period, Kenyatta was now promoting Kikuyu nationalism and unity in the Greater Kikuyuland, which included Kikuyu people in diaspora (4).

Kenya as a Single Party State On the day that Kenya became a Republic, KADU, as an opposition party

dissolved itself and its remaining members voluntarily joined KANU, thus creating a de-facto one-party State. A government of national unity was created.

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280 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS But soon open schisms emerged, with the party dividing itself into two factions, the moderates led by Kenyatta and Mboya, the radicals led by Oginga Odinga and Bildad Kaggia. In other words, the phenomenon of K.ANU A and K.ANU B was already a reality by 1965. Kenyatta regarded this healthy development as a threat to the stability of the country and a challenge to his authority. He decided to use brute force, a response which he was to use repeatedly in future. John Keen, the leader of K.ANU backbenchers who had been campaigning for the creation of the East African Community was detained, the first detention without trial in independent Kenya. Another thorn in Kenyatta's side was Odinga's close ally and chief political strategist, Pio Gama Pinto. A Kenyan born political activist in Goanese, Mozambique and Kenyan liberation and Specially Elected MP, he was the only non-African to be detained with hard-core Mau Mau fighters and nationalists. He was murdered at the age of 37 on February 24, 1965, in Nairobi, a few days after Kenyatta had sought legal counsel about ways to deal with "this bloody Goan." His was thus Kenya's first post-independence "political murder. "(5). The factional strife within the party became increasingly bitter. Kenyatta decided to bring it to an end by eliminating from the party supporters of the radical faction. At the notorious ruling party's delegates conference at Limuru, Odinga was removed from his position as party Vice-President. He resigned from the party and from the Cabinet, supported by Achieng' Oneko and Bildad Kaggia to launch a new political party in April, 1966 (6). Kenyatta's national coalition had thus collapsed. And as George M. Anyona, MP, Kitutu Masaba, and Chairman, Kenya Social Congress, has written, "From that time onwards, Kenya has never been the same again." (7) . .

Odinga and the Kenya People's Union 1966-9 The party that Oginga Odinga formed in 1966, the Kenya People's Union (KPU), was a socialist party, supported by about one fifth of members of Parliament, the majority of whom were Kikuyu and Luo. The party opposed the growing conservatism and Western orientation of the K.ANU leadership. Even more relevant for the purpose of this Address, KPU aimed at replacing the persistently ethnic basis of politics with a cleavage based on ideological, class or socio-economic grounds. (8) This was a golden opportunity to build a multiparty and multi-ethnic democracy. If this challenge had been faced through dialogue, Kenya would be a different country today. Instead, the government rushed through Parliament in one day the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which requires MPs who defect to another party to resign and face election. This was the genesis of the defection disease which

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The Siege of Ramogi From National Coalitions to Ethnic Coalitions 281 has bedeviled multi-party politics in Kenya. The Speaker of Parliament proceeded to declare vacant the seats of 29 Members of Parliament who had already defected. Many other members felt intimidated and therefore withdrew their support from KPU in order to retain their seats. The resulting by-elections in 1966, usually referred to as the "Little General Election," was heavily rigged, especially in Central Province. The KPU won nine seats, virtually all in Nyanz.a Province. Ethnicity and State power again proved more influential than class or ideology in determining political preferences (9). A national coalition (KPU) was thus turned into an ethnic party through State coercion. Kenyatta decided to rely more upon the allies from the old K.ADU, especially Ronald Ngala and Daniel arap Moi (who in January, 1967, was appointed Vice-President), in order to meet what he referred to as the "Luo menace." Kenyatta told a political rally at Kamkunji in Nairobi that he wanted the KPU "obliterated" and crushed "like snakes." (10).

Multi-party Politics 1966-1969 A comparative study of how Presidents Kenyatta and Moi responded to multi-party politics would pay huge historical dividends. It would definitely facilitate what the organizers of this conference have called "an introspective discourse on Kenya's quest for development," partly explain why Kenya has so far failed to develop multi-party democracy, and, thirdly, and more germane to our topic, it would explain why the Luo have been in the opposition for almost thirty years. Professor Henry Mwanzi, writing on the subject of "Of the Luo and Odingaism" has attempted to explain the Luo predicament in the following manner: "The initial withdrawal of Odinga from KANU, marked the beginning of Odingaism in what came to be known as 'Luoland'. The Luo mentally and psychologically seceded from Kenya and lived in a world of their own 'Luoland.' They became more and more inward looking and romantic to use William Ochieng's phrase. That was Odingaism. Jaramogi exercised control over both the minds and actions of the vast majority of Luospeaking people. This resulted in the exhibition of extreme tribalism by the Luo, a vice which Odinga encouraged and enjoyed." ( 11) Such personalized and over-simplistic accounts have often been offered by people like Henry Mwanzi who are only interested in disseminating political propaganda against the Luo whom they regarded as pathological oppositionists.

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282 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS But the problem, as we are trying to show in this Address is much more complex. Let us look at what actually happen~ during these three years of multi-party politics. First, KANU, during this period, refused to accept the legitimacy of the opposition. Strict control was exercised over the political process: branch registrations were delayed by the Registar of Societies; and the Provincial Administration harassed opposition leaders (some of whom were detained) and refused to license their meetings. In 1968, a new law requiring all candidates for local and national elections to be endorsed by a political party was passed, which effectively abolished independent candidacy and prevented the KPU from putting up candidates in those areas where their branches had not been registered. During the local government elections in the same year all 1,800 KPU candidates were disqualified on Kenyatta's instructions, because they could not fill nomination papers correctly. The government was thus not only isolating the Luo, but also ensuring that they had no voice in mainstream politics. Secondly, in January, 1969, C.M.G. Argwings-Kodhek, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, M.P. for Gem and one of the few Luo MPs who had not joined KPU, was killed in what was called an "accident." In July of the same year, KANU's Secretary-General and a Luo Minister, Tom Mboya, was gunned down by a Kikuyu assassin in Nairobi. The Luo rioted in Nairobi and Kisumu. Kenyatta was again using violence to silence the people who were largely responsible for making him President. Ethnic polarization became almost total. The dominant issue was no longer that of political ideology or policy: it was now a question of ethnic survival. In response to Luo anger, Kikuyu elite, led by Kenyatta himself, initiated a massive oathing campaign in which almost every adult Kikuyu male was forced to swear in mass oath-taking ceremonies at Gatundu, and on the pain of death, to keep the Presidency in the House of Mumbi. Since the Kikuyu have subsequently never taken the cleansing oath, one can only assume that the oath is still binding. Furthermore, in October of the same year, and just before the first post-dependence general election, Kenyatta decided to take the battle to Luo's own backyard. During the opening of the New Nyanza Hospital in Kisumu, Kenyatta lambasted the KPU, calling them "locusts" and threatening to crush them into flour (12). The crowd reacted by asking Kenyatta to produce Tom Mboya. The President's bodyguard and the General Service Unit opened ft.re on the crowd, leaving at least 100 people, including women and children, dead. Historians often refer to this event as the "Kisumu Incident." A more appropriate description would be the "Kisumu massacre," and it is high time a

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The Siege ofRamogi From National Coalitions to Ethnic Coalitions 283 suitable monument was erected to commemorate the courage of these human rights' martyrs. Immediately afterwards, the KPU was banned and its leaders detained. The Members of Parliament detained were Oginga Odinga (Bondo), Luke Obok (Alego-Usonga), Okelo Odongo (Kisumu Rural), Okuto Bala (Nyando), Odero Sar (Ugenya), Wasonga Sijeyo (Gem), Miguda Ondiek Chilo (Nyakach), and Ramogi Achieng' Oneko (Nakuru). These Members of Parliament joined other Luo men and women, especially trade union leaders, who were already detained. A strong military and police presence was established in Luoland following these detentions. This kind of mass arrest of leaders only happened to the Kikuyu during the Mau Mau war. Kenyatta was now borrowing a leaf from the Colonial State. He even decided to use one of the most notorious colonial prison camp for detention. While his colleagues were detained together and saw one another, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was isolated and s~yed alone in Hola prison camp for two years. With the Luo threat out of the way, Kenyatta then called the General Election of 1969 (12). A rule requiring six months' membership of KANU was introduced in order to prevent the remaining KPU leadership from taking over KANU in Luoland. Former prominent members of KPU were to find it impossible to secure approval to stand in the 1969 elections or the next two elections. Oginga Odinga and Achieng' Oneko, for example, were refused clearance in 1974 and again in 1979, after Kenyatta's death, despite the fact that both had been permitted to rejoin the ruling party on their release from detention. These events demonstrated two fundamental features of Kenyan political culture: the refusal of government to accept challenges to its right to rule, and the rapid reversion of the constitutional opposition to its ethnic bastion. These two features still persist in our political system. With KPU proscribed, Kenya once again became a one-party State and KANU was to remain the sole political party for about twenty-two years. But throughout the Kenyatta period, KANU remained a weak organization and lacked ideological coherence. Kenyatta himself did not attempt to mobilize or control the masses through the local party apparatus, as Moi was to do later. The party did not meet, had no powers and was subordinated entirely to the power of the executive branch of the government. For example, after the Limuru Conference in March, 1969, there were no formal party sub-branch or national elections until 1979, after Kenyatta's death. The 1970s saw the development of Kikuyu hegemony over the economic and political life of the country. Central Province became the most economically developed and successful area. As well as dominating the world of business, the Kikuyu and their related peoples also engaged in aggressive land acquisition in the Rift Valley and at the Coast, moving extensively outside

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284 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS their original homelands. The causes of the tribal clashes of the 1990s may be traced back to this Kikuyu expansion. With the exception of the Luo, Kenyatta attempted to incorporate other ethnic groups into the country's political economy. His refusal to incorporate the Luo fully into his coalition was symbolized by the fact that after the events of October, 1969, he never visited Nyanza Province again. Nyanza's economic and educational stagnation can partly be traced to this antagonistic policy of the Kenyatta regime.

Moi Regime and the Luo When Moi took over in 1978, the important question was whether Kenyatta's single-party dictatorship could survive under him. Could it continue to satisfy its clients since the patronage resources were dwindling due to a changed global economic situation? Would he be willing to incorporate the Luo into this new political and economic order? These questions can only be answered with reference to specific ethnic groups. To the Kikuyu, for example, the new President's attempt to restructure Kenya's political economy, to broaden the development base, and to reward his allies in the Rift Valley and in the Western and Coast Provinces was bound to alienate them since it threatened their dominant political and economic position. The Luo, on the other hand, remained grieved because they were excluded from the restructured Kenya's political economy. Many of their leaders were still permanently excluded from political activity. By the beginning of 1982, tensions within the Kenyan elite over the future control of the State had reached fever point. The Kikuyu were organizing for a possible coup. Oginga Odinga and George Anyona prefe11ed the constitutional approach. Following their failure to secure approval as KANU candidates, they decided to challenge the ruling party by seeking to register a new, radical party, the Kenya Socialist Alliance. The Registrar of Societies refused the registration and shortly afterwards legislation (drafted by Njonjo's legal advisor Paul Muite) was rushed through Parliament by Vice-President Mwai Kibaki to make Kenya a de-jure single party State. The August l, 1982 coup d'etat of the Air Force was to confrrm the exclusion of the Luo from mainstream politics. In the period of repression and retaliation following the attempted coup, the Luo suffered heavily because both Hezekiah Ochuka Rabala and Pancras Okumu Oteyo the purported coup leaders, were Luo. Oginga Odinga was placed under house arrest, his son Raila detained and several of the coup leaders were hanged.

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The Siege ofRamogi From National Coalitions to Ethnic Coalitions 285

Moi's Party State, 198S-90 Following the 1983 General Election, President Moi decided to revive the party and to use it as the means by which the government could control political debate. For the frrst time in Kenya's history, a party became the main focus of authority, relegating Parliament and the MPs to a subordinate position. The only Luo in the KANU Executive Council was David Okiki Amayo who had lost his seat in the 1983 election and was therefore no longer popular in his area. He could therefore not speak on behalf of the community. But this new stress on the party had no ideological content, which is important in building a self-sustaining and cohesive political party. Ideology is also useful in providing authority and legitimacy to a political order. In the absence of any ideology (desperate efforts were made to tum Nyayoism into an ideology without much success), President Moi soon discovered that, like his predecessor, he had to rely more and more on coercion. The State engaged in a wave of detention, arrests and imprisonment of alleged subversives involved in the so-called Mwakenya movement. Again most of the people arrested, imprisoned and detained were Kikuyu and Luo. The murder of Foreign Minister Dr. Robert Ouko in February, 1990 further alienated the Luo from the system. It suggested that a new era of political violence was dawning. Although the State had become increasingly authoritarian during the late 1980s, the Moi government had so far refrained from murdering its opponents, unlike Kenyatta's "Kitchen Cabinet," who were widely believed to have eliminated Pio da Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya, ArgwingsKodhek, Ronald Ngala, and J.M. Kariuki from the political scene.

Multi-party Politics 1990-1998 When multi-party politics were re-introduced in early 1990s, the Luo who had never become part of the establishment since 1966, found themselves naturally in the opposition. Matiba and Charles Rubia proposed to Oginga Odinga, the doyen of opposition, that he should be the leader of the opposition in order to revive the Kikuyu-Luo alliance of the 1960s. They even agreed that Odinga would be their presidential candidate, a promise they were to refuse to honour two years later. Scared of possible Kikuyu-Luo alliance, the government responded by detaining Matiba, Rubia and Raila. But the reform movement continued to gather momentum, eventually forcing the government to recognize a multi-party political system. The majority of the Luo, who had always been in the opposition, now decided to follow Oginga Odinga in FORD-Kenya.

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286 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS But even in the opposition, the Luo were still besieged. The US Embassy officials, the British Government and the Kikuyu were now determined to exclude Odinga from any political leadership. It was now becoming clear that the Kikuyu-Luo divide in FORD-Kenya reflected deeper social antagonisms. Ethnicity thus remained the most powerful force in Kenyan politics, both in the ruling party as well as in the opposition. George Nyanja and Stephen Ndichu asserted that the Kikuyu will never tolerate Luo leadership (14). Davidson Kuguru, the Minister for Home Affairs and National Heritage, KANU's Assistant Treasurer and MP for Mathira in Nyeri, declared at Karatina's Jamhuri Day Celebrations that the Kikuyu would never agree to be governed by an uncircumcised Luo like Oginga Odinga. FORD subsequently split into two, with Odinga and Matiba leading the two factions. When the 1992 General Elections came, KANU, led by Daniel arap Moi won. The Luo, now led by Oginga Odinga as the Official Leader of Opposition in Parliament continued to be in the cold. In May, 1993, Odinga introduced a policy of co-operation with KANU. He now believed that the only constitutional way of ensuring that the Luo community was not entirely left out of decision-making and its share of the resources of the State was to co-operate with KANU and Moi. The government, in tum, promised to develop Nyanza. He was supported by a large number of older Luo MPs, - but the younger, more radical, elements in the party such as James Orengo and Raila Odinga opposed the strategy. Other critics also felt that his reconciliation with Moi had compromised him, a charge which Odinga vehemently denied. In his steadfast support for co-operation, he was supported by the Luo populace. There were even talks about the possibility of FORDKenya entering in a coalition with KANU. But that was not to be, for on 20th January, 1994, the 82 year old Jaramogi Oginga Odinga died in Kisumu. Moi ended the co-operation because he was insulted at the funeral of Odinga and he could not see anybody in FORD-Kenya he could do business with. The Luo continued to be in the political and economic cold. Michael Wamalwa Kijana who succeeded Oginga Odinga as leader of FORD-Kenya in the early part of 1994 failed to consolidate the party's strength in his home area of Western Province and its appeal to the Luo voters was soon challenged by Raila Odinga's revitalized National Development Party (NDP) at the end of December 1996. So that when the 1997 General Elections came in December, 1997, Raila Odinga's NDP captured practically all the parliamentary seats in Luoland. The elections once again demonstrated the primacy of ethnicity over ideology. They also completed the isolation of the Luo who, for the first time in history of independent Kenya, were not represented in the Cabinet.

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The Siege ofRamogi From National Coalitions to Ethnic Coalitions 287 But early 1998, Raila Odinga, the leader of the NDP announced, much to the amazement of many Kenyans, that his party had decided to co-operate with KANU and its leader President Moi. History was repeating itself. He was at pains to emphasize that his party co-operation with KANU was for the betterment of Kenya as a nation. On the accusation that he may be a sell-out seeking to betray the cause of the opposition in Kenya through co-operation with KANU, Kenya's longest serving political detainee has vehemently dismissed such allegations as cheap, outdated propaganda which seeks to evade the fundamental issues Kenyans are facing today. Only time will tell whether Raila Odinga's new political strategy will re-incorporate the Luo in the mainstream of Kenya politics. In the meantime, Ramogi is still under siege.

Conclusion Kenya's history during the last thirty five years has clearly demonstrated that the political elite in the country and their followers still view democracy as a game of exclusion and inclusion - about access to power and the privileges that go with inclusion and the penalties that accompany exclusion. That is why winning and losing presidential elections in Africa is not a simple matter: it means the exclusion of the losing ethnic groups from power and distribution of resources and development, as we have tried to illustrate in the case of the Luo. Kenya's political culture is now well established as one of ethnic groups using representatives, civil servants and other influential people to compete for power and resources from the centre. The competition for power has been fought between ethnic coalitions built around powerful individuals. The question to answer is this: Can a multi-party democracy work in a situation where one group controls the centre and the distribution of patronage and development? Can the soon-to-be-established Constitutional Reform Commission of Kenya achieve much if the process is conducted against the background of ethnically polarized politics? The answer to both questions seems to be "No"! The solution to our problem would seem to lie with the kind of state building we discussed at the beginning of this Address. I refer to a kind of state building that leads not to "nation-destroying," but to the internal integration of Kenya through the improvement of relations amongst the different ethnic and religious identities and through the establishment and strengthening the institutions of the State to make them effective in promoting the welfare of all its citizens. It can be done.

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288 BUILDING ON THE INDIGENOUS

ENDNOTES 1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

6.

Angira, Jared "The Siege of Ramogi" in Poems from East Africa, Edited by David Cook and David Rubadiri, Heinemann 1971, p. 8-9 Daily Nation, June 17, 1998 See C. Gertzel, "The Political Studies, Political Administration in Kenya," Journal of Commonwealth, vol. 4, no. 3, p. 201-15. Clough, Marshal S. Fighting Two Sides: Kenya Chiefs and Politicians, 1918-1940, Niwo: the University Press of Colorado, 1990 See Oginga Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru, Heinemann, London, 1967, p. 284-97 See Cherry Gertzel, The Politics of Independent Kenya, East African House, Nairobi, 1970, p. 54-74; Oginga Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru, p. 297300.

7.

Anyona, George M. "Tribute to Odinga," The Standard. February 5, 1994,

p. 13 8. See Susanne D. Mueller's unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, "Political Parties in Kenya: The Politics of Opposition and dissent, 1919-1969," Department of Politics, Princeton University, 1972. 9. See Che11y Gertzel, The Politics of Independent Kenya, p. 73-124. 10. See David Goldsworthy, Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget, Nairobi: Heinemann, New York: Africana Publishing, 1982, p. 268; J. Kenyatta, Suffering Without Bitterness: the Founding of the Kenya Nation, Nairobi, EAPH, 1968, pp. 343-344 11. Mwanzi, Henry, Kenya Times, February 16, 1994. 12. Jeremy, Murray-Brown, Kenyatta, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973, p. 380. 13. Goldsworthy, D. Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Foraet, Heinemann, London, p. 285-6. 14. Weekly Review, 28 August, 1992, p. 19 and September 1992, p. 4-5.

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