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ABSTRACT
While the study of organised violence is considered essential to understanding the history of the West, and accordingly imbued with various layers of meaning and remembrance, war is widely regarded as inimical to the modern nation in Africa and stable development more broadly. Using examples drawn from primarily from East Africa, this paper considers the ways in which warfare in the deeper (‘precolonial’) past has been framed and envisioned in recent decades, in particular by governments whose own roots lie in revolutionary armed struggle and who began life as guerrilla movements. While in some cases particular elements of the deeper past were indeed mobilised in pursuit of contemporary political goals, in many other scenarios histories of precolonial violence were beheld as problematic and unworthy of remembrance. This paper highlights the paradox and ambiguity which has attended the memory of key aspects of Africa’s deeper past.
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Notes
1. A sample of writings from East Africa which capture the dark imaginings of Europeans would include Burton, The Lake Regions of Central Africa; Speke, Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile; Stanley, Through the Dark Continent; and Mackay, Pioneer Missionary of the Church Missionary Society. For analysis, see Reid, “Revisiting Primitive War”; and Porter, Military Orientalism.
2. Brantlinger, “Victorians and Africans”.
3. Kopytoff, The African Frontier. especially Kopytoff’s own introduction.
4. Ranger, “Towards a Usable African Past”.
5. Hall and Malesevic, Nationalism and War.
6. Notably Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning. For a compelling account of histories of national catastrophe drawing on the examples of the American South after 1865, France after 1871, and Germany after 1918, see Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat.
7. I am thinking here of Anthony Beevor, Andrew Roberts, and numerous others.
8. For example, Reid, “The Fragile Revolution”. See also Uzoigwe, “The warrior and the state in precolonial Africa”, in Mazrui, The Warrior Tradition in Modern Africa.
9. Hodgkin, “The relevance of “Western” ideas,” 66; also, Coleman, “Tradition and Nationalism in Tropical Africa”.
10. For useful summations of the European experience, see for example Howard, War in European History, 13–14; and more detailed examinations in Parker, The Military Revolution; and Tilly, Coercion.
11. For example, Oliver, “Discernible developments in the interior”; Chretien, The Great Lakes of Africa. See also Schoenbrun, “Conjuring the Modern in Africa”.
12. Kagwa, The Kings of Buganda, 124; Reid, Political Power in Pre-Colonial Buganda; Médard, La Royaume du Buganda au XIXe siècle. For Bunyoro, see Nyakatura, Anatomy of an African Kingdom; Doyle, Crisis and Decline in Bunyoro. On Busoga: see Cohen, The Historical Tradition of Busoga; and for Toro and the western kingdoms, Steinhart, Conflict and Collaboration.
13. Atkinson, The Roots of Ethnicity, 271–2; Lamphear, “The evolution of Ateker “New Model” Armies”; Lawrance, The Iteso, 13–16.
14. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, 289–94.
15. Speke, Journal, 547; see also Nyakatura, Anatomy, 100; Roscoe, Twenty-Five Years in East Africa, 254; The Bakitara or Banyoro, 314.
16. Zimbe, “Buganda ne Kabaka [Buganda and the King],” 83, 107.
17. Kagwa’s early writings – many of which were produced on his own printing press – include Basekabaka be Buganda – ‘the Kings of Buganda’ (1901); Empisa za Baganda, ‘Customs of the Baganda’ (1907); and Ebika bya Baganda (1912), ‘Clans of the Baganda’.
18. In Roscoe’s The Baganda: an account of their native customs and beliefs (London, 1911), Chapter 10 is devoted to ‘Warfare’ which also appears intermittently throughout the lengthy tome. A useful overview of the relationship between the two men appears in Rowe, ‘Roscoe’s and Kagwa’s Buganda’.
19. Rowe, “Myth, Memoir and Moral Admonition,” 24–5; Kabaka Daudi Chwa, Education, Civilisation, and Foreignisation in Buganda, 104–8.
20. Zimbe, “Buganda”; Rowe, “Myth”, 24; and Miti, “A History of Buganda”.
21. Rowe, “Myth,” 24–5.
22.. Lubogo, “A History of Busoga,” 3.
23. K.W, “The Kings of Bunyoro-Kitara”; K.W, “The Kings of Bunyoro-Kitara Part II’ and ‘Part III’,” respectively.
24. Nyakatura, Anatomy. This was first published as Abakama ba Bunyoro in 1947.
25. Kamugungunu and Katate, Abagabe b’Ankole. (‘The Kings of Ankole’); much of this material was translated into English and included in Morris, The Heroic Recitations of the Bahima of Ankole.
26. Bennett, Mirambo of Tanzania, 1840–1884 For contemporary accounts, see Broyon-Mirambo, “Description of Unyamwesi,” London Missionary Society Archives (SOAS Special Collections), Central Africa, Incoming, Box 3: Southon to Thomson, 28 March 1880, encl. ‘History, Country, and People of Unyamwezi’.
27. See ‘Speech by the President of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’, in Ranger (ed.), Emerging Themes of African History.
28. Kabeya, King Mirambo, ix–xi.
29. Ranger, “Connexions between “Primary Resistance” movements and modern mass nationalism”.
30. Quoted in Ranger, “Connexions,” 636.
31. Ibid., 635–6.
32. Pateman, Eritrea; Haile, “Historical Background to the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict,”; Cliffe and Davidson, The Long Struggle of Eritrean for Independence and Constructive Peace, 12–5; and Gebre-Medhin, “Eritrea (Mereb-Melash) and Yohannes IV of Abyssinia”.
33. Mazrui, “Soldiers as Traditionalizers”.
34. I myself argue for this in my Warfare in African Histoy.
35. ‘Political substance and political form’, speech at the opening of a political seminar for National Resistance Council members, 6 September 1989, in Museveni, What is Africa’s Problem?, 163–4.
36. Author’s field notes and informal interviews, Kampala, 6 August 2010. Kibuka was a warrior from the Sesse Islands on Lake Victoria whose help was recruited by the kabaka of Buganda during a particularly bruising war with Bunyoro, possibly in the sixteenth century. He was killed in the fighting, despite being able to fly, and at some point afterwards was elevated even higher to become the main lubaale or national spirit of Ganda warfare.
37. Museveni, Mustard Seed, 137.
38. Beattie, The Nyoro State, 31–2, 58; Ingrams, Uganda, 241–2; and more recently, ‘Kabalega: the symbol of colonial resistance’, NV, 9 January 2012.
39. ‘Kabalega named national hero’, New Vision (Kampala), 10 June 2009; author’s field notes and informal interviews, Kampala, 16 August 2012. For rather more sceptical interpretation, based on the President’s need for Nyoro political support and economic co-operation, see ‘Gen. Museveni woos Banyoro with medals’, The Observer (Kampala), 16 June 2009.
40. See for example ‘Uganda’s president admits gays part of Africa’s heritage, Changing Attitude, 3 April 2012; Rao, “Re-membering Mwanga”.
41. Lunyiigo, Mwanga II.
42. Hallencreutz, “Thomas Mofolo and Nelson Mandela on King Shaka and Dingane,”; and Granqvist, Culture in Africa, 185.
43. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 274–5.
44. Hamilton, Terrific Majesty, 202–3.
45. See for example Golan, Inventing Shaka; Wylie, Myth of Iron. Of course, Shaka was one of those characters who transcended national boundaries. A Ugandan informant, asked to reflect on the significance of the precolonial past, enthused not about a figure from Uganda’s history, but about how he was inspired by ‘the history of … past great people and their contributions to the communities that they came from e.g. Shaka Zulu in South Africa among the Zulu people; hence the spirit of fighting and protection of your people that may be oppressed and exploited by superior groups.’ Indeed, the same informant was inspired by ‘the philosopher of nationalism and patriotism like Nyungu ya Mawe among the Ndebele’ [sic], and more generally there was succour from the deeper past in terms of ‘how societies protected themselves from external aggressors’, which was a central motif for this particular interviewee: Interview with Khaukha Musungu Paul, Bubutu, Uganda, January 2014.
46. Lonsdale, “Some Origins of Nationalism in East Africa”; and Davidson, Which Way Africa?.
47. Gulliver, Tradition and Transition in East Africa.
48. Hodgkin, Nationalism in Colonial Africa, 173.
49. Ibid., 174.
50. See for example ‘Introduction’ in Suso and Kanute, Sunjata.
51. Hodgkin, Nationalism, 174.
52. Kabeya, King Mirambo, x.
53. Ibid., x–xi.
54. Nyerere, Ujamaa.
55. Stanley, Dark Continent, 384.
56. Syahuka-Muhindo, The Rwenzururu Movement and the Democratic Struggle; Kyaminyawandi, The Faces of the Rwenzururu Movement. See also Peterson, “States of Mind”.
57. This is described in exactly these terms in The Kabaka of Buganda, The Desecration of My Kingdom.
58. Low, Buganda in Modern History, 245–6; ‘Address to the Nation by the President Dr. A. Milton Obote on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of independence on 9th October 1968ʹ, Kabale District Archives COM18/CM157/Independence and Republic Celebrations and Labour Day.
59. Lee, African Armies and Civil Order; Gutteridge, Military Regimes in Africa.
60. See various contributions in Mazrui, The Warrior Tradition in Modern Africa.
61. For example, Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa, 33–8.
62. Kapuscinski, The Emperor.
63. For fascinating contemporary analysis, see Halliday and Molyneaux, The Ethiopian Revolution; and Schwab, Ethiopia. See also Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution, 1974–1987.
64. Thompson, Governing Uganda, 104–5.
65. For an eloquent examination of the imagery, see Leopold, Inside West Nile, 57–67. See also Kyemba, State of Blood.
66. It was later translated into English as White Teeth.
67. ‘Message to the Nation by His Excellency the President General Idi Amin Dada, on British citizens of Asian origin and citizens of India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh living in Uganda … .12th/13th August, 1972ʹ, Speeches by His Excellency the President General Idi Amin Dada.
68. For a selection of contemporary, often sensationalist, assessments, see Melady and Melady, Idi Amin Dada; Martin, General Amin; Donald, Confessions of Idi Amin; Kamau and Cameron, Lust to Kill; and Richardson, After Amin.
69. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; and Toward the African Revolution.
70. See for example Alessandrini, Frantz Fanon.
71. Museveni, “Fanon’s theory on violence”; Ngoga, “Uganda,” 92. See also Museveni, Sowing the Mustard Seed, 24–5.
72. McDougall, History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria.
73. See for example Clapham, African Guerrillas.
74. Connell, Against All Odds.
75. ‘National Democratic Programme, Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, March 1987ʹ, in Cliffe and Davidson, Long Struggle, 207–8.
76. Author’s field notes and informal interviews, Eritrea, 1997–2008. See also Reid, “Writing Eritrea”.
77. Reid, “States of Anxiety,” 256–7. Warnings of the dangers of history have been incorporated into the very constitution of Rwanda, revised on 26 May 2003: see http://www.rwandahope.com/constitution.pdf.
78. Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia, 94, 99.
79. Assefa, “Tewodros in Ethiopian historical fiction”.
80. See for example Milkias and Metaferia, The Battle of Adwa.
81. Author’s field notes and informal interviews, Addis Ababa, 2005–2014; Orlowska, “Forging a nation”.
82. ‘Political substance and political form’, speech at the opening of a political seminar for National Resistance Council members, 6 September 1989, in Museveni, What is Africa’s Problem? 163–4.
83. Author’s field notes and informal interviews, Uganda, 2010–2015; see also Reid, “Ghosts in the Academy”.
84. ‘Oyike Ojok, one of Uganda’s best soldiers’, New Vision.
85. See for example ‘Tito Okello: the president who was kept on his toes’, New Vision, 25 January 2012.
86. By Human Rights Watch, The scars of death; Abducted and Abused; and Uprooted and Forgotten. See also Allen and Vlassenroot, The LRA.
87. Reyntjens, The Great African War; and International Crisis Group, South Sudan.
88. The Dale, The History of the Peloponnesian War, 2–3; and Samuel, “Epical History,” 6.
89. ‘Epical History: the idea of nation’, in Island Stories: Unravelling Britain. Theatres of Memory, Vol II, 8.
90. Hobsbawm, On History, 6–7.
91. Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990–1992. It is worth noting, however, that Tilly – a historical sociologist – has attracted criticism from historians, some of whom see the catchy formulation as overly materialistic: see Hall and Malesevic, “Introduction”; in Nationalism and War, 5, 11.
92. Lemarchand, “War and nationalism: the view from Central Africa”.
93. For example, Williams, War and Conflict in Africa; Chabal, Engel and Gentili, Is Violence Inevitable in Africa?; Kaarsholm, Violence, Political Culture and Development in Africa; Nhema and Zeleza, The Roots of African Conflicts; and Nhema and Zeleza, The Resolution of African Conflicts.
94. Howard, The Invention of Peace and the Reinvention of War.
95. Buzan and de Wilde, Security.
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Richard Reid
Richard Reid is Professor of African History in the Faculty of History, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of St Cross College. His work has focused particularly on the history of political culture, historical consciousness, warfare and militarism in Africa, notably eastern and northeast Africa, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania, and he has also written on the continent more broadly. He is the author of several books, including A History of Modern Uganda (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Warfare in African History (Cambridge University Press, 2012), and Frontiers of Violence in Northeast Africa: genealogies of conflict since c.1800 (Oxford University Press, 2011). Reid is a former editor of the Journal of African History, and the revised third edition of his A History of Modern Africa: from 1800 to the present (Wiley) will appear shortly.