Dissent, Protest and Dispute in Africa

Toyin Falola, Emmanuel Mbah

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138220034
• eBook ISBN: 9781315413075
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides unique and detailed perspectives on different aspects of dissent, protest and disputes and how these have, in turn, continued to pose challenges in Africa. The contributors argue that, dissent, protest and most forms of disputes in Africa are the result of daily challenges that its people have faced and continue to encounter to this day. These challenges include, amongst others, demands for transparency, good governance and accountability; waves of instability that have created insecurity in most parts of the continent, an unsustainable level of youth unemployment, rapid population growth, a continent-wide healthcare and poverty crises and numerous environmental challenges.

The chapters elevate the debates on dissent, protest and disputes/conflict in Africa by adding new ideas and introducing new and useful interpretations. The book's strength lies in the contributors' ability to conflate colonial and postcolonial tendencies to show how challenges of the past are not so different from those of today, while also presenting important historical issues from various scholarly perspectives.

Dissent, Protest and Dispute in Africa will be of interest for students and scholars of African history, politics, and culture as well as those interested in social movements and civil society.

1 Introduction

Dissent, protest and dispute in Africa

Emmanuel M. Mbah and Toyin Falola

Introduction

The conception of this edited volume, Dissent, Protest and Dispute in Africa, originated from the 2011 Africa Conference moderated by Dr. Toyin Falola at the University of Texas at Austin from March 29 to 31 of that year. The theme of that conference was “Social Movements, Religion and Political Expression in Africa.” The conference aimed at generating an interdisciplinary dialogue about the historical and contemporary roles of Africa in fostering social, cultural and political change within the borders of its individual countries, throughout the continent, and around the world. Another goal of the conference was to engage participants in a dialogue about the concept of social movements, their evolution through history, and their implications for modern political, social and cultural issues. The fourteen chapters in this book not only represent a logical final step in the fulfillment of the conference’s main objective, but also reflect heavily on the nature of how protest, dissent, ethnic/land and other disputes have created numerous challenges for the continent today.

In many ways protest, dissent and most forms of disputes in Africa are the result of daily challenges that its people have faced and continue to encounter to this day. These challenges include, amongst others, demands for democracy, transparency, good governance and accountability; the various waves of instability—at times the result of inept politicians, but most recently from terrorism and rebellions—that have created insecurity in most parts of the continent, making life unsafe and unbearable, especially for the most vulnerable members of society such as children, women, the elderly and the sick; an unsustainable level of youth unemployment in a continent where the population is growing very fast and the propensity for the unemployed youth to steer toward protest, dissent, and in some cases, violence as a formula for addressing their plight in the continent; continent-wide healthcare and poverty crises that keep widening with the looting of state resources by corrupt politicians and some elites; and the numerous environmental challenges that are becoming more serious as a result of unsustainable socio-economic and political decisions such as those that stem from deforestation and agro-industrialization. These challenges have made protest, dissent and disputes in the continent inevitable. Ethnic differences, at times manifested over issues of land and boundaries, rent seeking and patronage compound the problems. It is worthwhile noting, as the chapters in Part I reveal, that not all protest, dissent and disputes end in conflict; many, including some that are protracted, are pursued peacefully. This was particularly true in ancient Africa where societies were successful at achieving cohesion while minimizing the disparate forms of protest, dissent and disputes.

A lot has been written about protest, dissent and disputes/conflicts in the continent. It would be a waste of space and time to review those works here. The authors in this book, however, have contributed to the ongoing debates about these problems by adding new ideas and introducing new and useful interpretations and examples on the issue of protest, dissent and disputes. The book’s strength lies in its ability to conflate colonial and postcolonial tendencies to show how challenges of the past are not so different from those of today, while also presenting important historical issues from various African perspectives. Thus, despite the numerous writings on protest, dissent and disputes in the continent, this edited volume still represents a balanced reflection on these issues, both in terms of scholarship and the array of topics covered.

Book design

The introduction—Chapter 1—to this edited volume frames the concept of protest, dissent and disputes in colonial and post-colonial Africa. The remaining thirteen chapters are divided into two sections: Part I—Protest and Dissent in Africa; and Part II—Ethnic/Land and other Disputes in Africa.

Part I opening chapter, Chapter 2, “The music of heaven, the music of earth, and the music of brats: Tuareg Islam, the devil, and musical performance,” by Susan J. Rasmussen, examines Islam, music and protest in Tuareg communities of West Africa. This chapter explores contestation, contradiction and flexibility in longstanding and changing attitudes toward music in the context of Tuareg cultural interpretations of Islam. It also examines viewpoints on several different genres of music, as expressed by composers, performers, audiences, Islamic/Qur’anic scholars and Islamist reformists, based on the author’s social/cultural anthropological fieldwork in socially stratified, semi-nomadic rural and urban Tuareg communities of northern Niger and Mali. The focus includes several different types of instrument, music, poetry and song. She notes that, as in some other Muslim communities, the production and consumption of music has been a matter of ambiguity and controversy among the Tuareg, who speak Tamajaq, a Berber (Amazigh) language, and reside in Saharan and Sahelian regions of Africa. The chapter offers insights into the wide range of local cultural interpretations of Islam regarding music, as well as the negotiations over African indigenous and syncretic religions. The chapter also assesses the extent to which, and in which ways, particular arguments in religious debate have shaped the nature and course of Tuareg music making and music production, and vice versa; and the extent to which, and how, the nature and course of music making and music production have shaped arguments in religious debates. She argues that, not solely the musical genres themselves, but also their performers, performance contexts, and the practices they evoke are the key foci of much moral discourse surrounding Tuareg music and Islam.

In Chapter 3, “Finding social change backstage and behind the scenes in South African theatre,” Nathanael Vlachos examines the ways in which members of South African community theater groups are using theater as a vehicle for self-formation, revealing forms of activism that are not only directed outwardly toward political transformation but also inwardly toward self-transformation. Community theater groups are commonly stereotyped by white theater makers in particular as being exclusively concerned with narrow political or didactic objectives that result in aesthetically superficial productions. Research conducted at the South African National Arts Festival in 2012 confirmed the persistence of such stereotypes. He remarks that many works by community theater groups that explored issues such as the stigma of HIV/AIDS were dismissed as “development theater” or “protest theater” and relegated to the “fringe” program of the festival in venues far outside the city center. Drawing on interviews and participant observation conducted with Umsindo Theatre Projects and the Khulumani Forum Theatre Group, he argues that, contrary to stereotypes that are rooted in race and class-based antagonisms, community theater is not only a profession but also a vehicle for imagining and enacting ethics. The members of both groups spoke proudly of their work in the theater industry and took aesthetic excellence seriously. At the same time, they also emphasized the virtues of self-confidence, discipline and critical social awareness that they had developed through work in theater. Greater attention to these groups can add to knowledge of collective ethical subjectivities and nuance understandings of the use of art by larger social movements, and also forge conceptual links between the aesthetic and the ethical.

Chapter 4 by Alain Lawo-Sukam, “Soccer and political (ex)pression in Africa: the case of Cameroon,” examines the important role that football (soccer) has played and continues to play in Cameroon politics in particular, and in African politics in general. As a sport it has been a significant metaphor for twentieth-century ideologues of the Right, Left and Center, finding its way in every conversation at homes, schools, hospitals, bars, market places and even among politicians. Alain examines the different mechanisms or ways that football in particular has been and is still being used by the state as a political tool to foster its political agenda, as well as how it constitutes for its opponents a discursive space to undermine the same agenda, noting that, although football is believed to be a neutral political space, it is not completely free of politics or political interference.

In Chapter 5, “Child labor resistance in southern Nigeria, 1916–1938,” Adam Paddock evaluates the role of child labor and employment issues among the Yoruba and Igbo people in southern Nigeria during the early years of colonial conquest. The chapter connects and interrogates various child labor disputes, the influence of British child labor laws, and the connection between child labor protest and new social programs. He argues that children played an important role in the development of protest movements which were instigated by a variety of social changes in the relationship between children and labor. Regardless of British claims to protect children and limit child labor, fundamental changes in the organization of society led to abuses that underpinned social protest. A shift in the role of children within society contributed to a social system where children were forced to negotiate between the demands of British colonial law and cultural expectations.

Chapter 6, by Mark Reeves, “M’Fam goes home: African soldiers in the Gabon campaign of 1940,” recounts the story of an African soldier under French colonial forces who in October 1940 decided to go home and spend time with his wife, rather than return to his post. His desertion, along with that of a comrade, created a minor stir amid the confusion of Gabon in the fall of 1940, where rival French forces battled for control of the African territory. From the French colonial archive, this incident sheds light on how Africans interacted with and reacted to the contestation of French colonialism between Vichy and “Free” French forces in 1940. The chapter uses Marcel M’Fam’s small act of defiance to read against the grain of French narratives of the “rally” of French Equatorial Africa (AEF) to Charles de Gaulle in 1940. Little has been written about AEF and its Gaullist “rally” in English; thus, in addition to augmenting that scholarship, his chapter revises interpretations which have excluded African perspectives on a military conflict dictated by European commanders contesting French regimes. Rather than a Eurocentric approach beginning with the fall of France, the chapter investigates the African perspective in a war where they became embroiled as soldiers in rival factions; but, more importantly, it also explores how these African soldiers acted to pursue their own interests within the spaces opened by the political and military chaos of 1940. Unperturbed by the ideological and metropolitan contest between Vichy and de Gaulle, some Africans, such as Marcel M’Fam, took the opportunity to go home.

The final chapter in Part I, Chapter 7, ‘Disgraceful disturbances’: TANU, the Tanganyikan Rifles, and the 1964 mutiny,” by Charles Thomas, examines the mutiny of the Tanganyikan Rifles in 1964 and its political effect on the then state of Tanganyika. In the three years since independence, Julius Nyerere and his TANU government had undertaken a number of ambitious programs within Tanganyika to develop the former colony into a self-sufficient state. However, within this process remained central questions about the state’s inherited colonial structures, notably the Tanganyikan Rifles. The Rifles, formerly the 6th Battalion of the King’s African Rifles, had become the military of Nyerere’s government, but became a victim of neglect and power struggles within and without the state. The end result was an angry mutiny that swept through the Colito Barracks and then Dar es Salaam from January 19 to 25, when Nyerere called in British troops to end the chaos. In the years following Nyerere’s reassertion of control, the mutiny has been interpreted as a military coup, a plan by Nyerere’s rival Oscar Kambona, a plot to reassert imperial control, or even a communist revolution gone wrong. However, the most recent scholarship has placed it as a protest against the deteriorating labor conditions and prestige of the armed services. The chapter examines the events of the mutiny and addresses its various interpretations in scholarship, from the more fanciful conspiracy theories to its own conclusions of skilled labor discontent and a revolt against the progressive Tanganyikan state that was stripping the military of its traditional prerogatives.

Part II examines ethnic/land and other disputes in Africa. Chapter 8, “The role of ethnicity in political formation in Kenya: 1963–2007” by Tade O. Okediji and Wahutu J. Siguru, presents a historical account of the role of ethnicity in the formation of political alliances in post-independent Kenya. Since the inception of independence in 1963, the contestation over land ownership has played an integral role in political alliances and has intensified ethnic divisions. Okediji and Siguru argue that, at the core of the formation of political parties, existing grievances over land ownership remains a critical aspect in political alignment, though ethnicity has neither been pernicious to political development, nor has it resulted in civil conflict, as experienced in other African countries. However, to the extent that these inequalities persist among the ethnic groups, political alliances have been utilized as a form of redressing the rent-seeking activity of the political elites who tend to belong to the ruling ethnic group. The chapter provides a theoretical exploration that illustrates how political party formation in post-independence Kenya has its foundation in the unequal distribution of land—specifically, the displacement of the Kalenjin, Maasai, and a portion of the Abaluhya from their lands in the highland region by British settlers and the subsequent redistribution of land to Kikuyu elites by founding president Jomo Kenyatta at the inception of independence.

In Chapter 9, “Land, boundaries, chiefs and wars,” Toyin Falola examines violence that has involved communities in disputes over land and boundaries. This issue deserves our focus in part to show how colonialism generated ruptures in local communities and unleashed rival claims over territories leading to territorial disputes and violence. Boundaries of power (between individuals) and of authority (between communities) were not always easy to delineate, creating the need to use violence to resolve them. Issues around locations of lines and objects were sources of troubles, generating conflicts. The creation of reservations led to annexation disputes. He argues that the establishment of political units that involved the fragmentation of communities were often sources of conflicts.

Alexander Meckelburg in Chapter 10, “Borders and boundaries within Ethiopia: dilemmas of group identity, representation and agency,” examines the issue of boundaries, identity politics and contradictions/disputes in Ethiopia. Since the 1991 regime change the Ethiopian government has decentralized domestic politics in a federal system, often referred to as “ethnic federalism.” The system has brought with it the creation of ethnically defined federal states separated by federal borders. As much as the new political framework fostered an unprecedented empowerment of many groups and communities in the multi-cultural state, these boundaries have also created contradictions for group identity and citizenship. Border disputes within Ethiopia have become notorious displays of inter-regional power bargaining, and the politicization of autochthony. While citizenship rights are enshrined in regional constitutions, the federal borders have created new minorities. Some groups find themselves merely separated by federal borders; some migrate across domestic borders and regions. In both cases, questions of belonging, agency and representation arise on the heels of the political attempt to contain frontier relations and the territorialization of ethnic identification. The chapter takes inspiration from international boundaries studies to tackle a set of questions: do domestic boundaries between federal states in Ethiopia function in a similar way to international borders? Can we gain from the study of international borders in trying to assess similar questions within countries? Are the borderlands that emerge between such regions equally instructive for the study of politics?

In Chapter 11, “Rural agrarian land conflicts in postcolonial Nigeria’s central region,” Sati Fwatshak examines the various types and causes of agrarian land conflicts in this area and makes the following arguments:

•The frequency of ethno-communal, religious, and political conflicts in the urban centers, nationwide but especially in northern Nigeria, since the return to democracy in 1999 have attracted more public and scholarly attention at the expense of rural/agrarian conflicts.

•Publications on the theme are few and largely treat the conflicts as parts of the general conflict trend in the region and not isolated as a category or theme.

•Studies of such conflicts are fragmented and are based on village, local government or state area, leaving out the regional context.

•Non-historians, including political scientists, sociologists, journalists, etc., have dominated studies in rural/agrarian conflicts in the region and have presented the subject more from the phenomenological/episodic, rather than the historical perspective.

The chapter is descriptive and analytical and relies heavily on archival materials and a wide variety of secondary sources across disciplines.

In Chapter 12, “The evolution of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• 1 Introduction: dissent, protest and dispute Africa
• Part I Protest and dissent in Africa
• Part II Ethnic/land and other disputes in Africa
• Index