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ABSTRACT
Histories of decolonization in Africa tend to present a unidirectional process with the eventual independent states as the seemingly natural outcome, thus ignoring or distorting actions and actors with transnational or translocal agendas. In the case of Burundi, decolonization is presented either as national liberation or as a prelude to ethnic conflict within a national frame of reference. Both strands eclipse the initial exclusion of Burundian independence, which hit the Muslim or Swahili minority in Burundi’s urban centers. In this paper, I demonstrate how from 1955 onwards several Muslims in Burundian towns along Lake Tanganyika contributed significantly to the creation of a state from which they were eventually excluded. Thus, analogous to the French Revolution, the Burundian decolonization devoured its children. I continue explaining how political stances of some Muslim protagonists gradually diverged in light of the exclusionary politics of colonial authorities and Burundian nationalists. The omission of such local and translocal, national and transnational histories stands in the way of understanding – both of and in Burundi.
Acknowledgements
The paper is largely based on archival and field research while working at Ghent University, with the support of the Research Foundation - Flanders. I complemented and wrote the piece while working at Leipzig University. I thank my informants and research assistant in Bujumbura, as well as Aidan Russell, Adam Jones and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For insightful analyses of the place of resistance and continuity in post-independence historiography, see Cooper, “Conflict and Connection,” 1516–45 and van Walraven and Abbink, “Rethinking resistance,” 1–40.
2 Russell, “Punctuated Places.”
3 With ‘Swahili identity’ I refer to a Swahili-speaking, Muslim and urban identity, derived from the East African coast, but appropriated in East Central Africa in the wake of the late nineteenth-century caravan trade. Apart from language, religion and urbanity, also dress, food and music, as well as family ties and mobility mark connections with the Swahili coast. See Castryck, “Living Islam” and Gooding, “Slavery.”
In this article, I use Muslim and Swahili interchangeably, because in the area and the era under scrutiny almost all Muslims in Burundi belonged to this Swahili community (bar a handful of Omani and Gujarati merchants) and the entire community was or became Muslim. I do not consider Muslim and Swahili to be synonyms, but in this particular setting both qualifications de facto refer to the same people.
4 See Young, Postcolonial State.
5 See Magrin, “En attendant”; Bierschenk and Spies, 50 Jahre; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Fiftieth Anniversary.”
6 See Chafer and Keese, Francophone Africa.
7 For an approach addressing possible other outcomes and scales, see Cooper, “Possibility and Constraint,” 167–96.
8 Castryck, “Hidden Agenda,” 191; Kofman, “Citizenship,” 123, 125; Kymlicka and Norman, “Return of the citizen,” 354, 360; von Lieres, “New Perspectives,” 146.
9 Russell, “Punctuated Places.”
10 Deslaurier, “Un monde politique”; Deslaurier, “Rwagasore,” 15; Gahama, “Les partis”; Russell, “Punctuated Places.”
11 For a detailed reconstruction of the Burundian decolonization process, see Deslaurier, “Un monde politique.”
12 For an analysis of the religious dimension of this story, see Castryck, “Living Islam”.
13 African Archives – Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Brussels [hereafter AAB], BUR (222)6/2, Recensement et enquêtes démographiques 1934–1950; AAB, Ra/RU (160)2-11, Rapports C.E.C. Usumbura, 1949–1958. For a detailed account of the history of Muslims in urban Burundi, see Castryck, “Moslims in Usumbura.”
14 Gooding, “Islam”; Zöller, “Crossing Borders.”
15 Chrétien, Grands Lacs, 188; Mworoha, Histoire du Burundi, 240–2.
16 Mworoha, Histoire du Burundi, 237 and 240. I explain elsewhere why people settling in Bujumbura during the first decades of the twentieth century, were, became, or remained Muslim: Castryck, “Living Islam,” 268–74.
17 For more detail on Belgian colonial anti-Islamism, see Kagabo, L’Islam, 34–45 and Castryck, “Moslims in Usumbura,” 90–120.
18 Dickerman, “Economic and Social,” 382; Kagabo, L'Islam, 73.
19 Castryck, “Moslims in Usumbura,” 129–41, 217–26; Castryck, “Living Islam,” 274–80.
20 For a historical analysis of the attribution ‘Congolese’ in the nearby context of urban Kigoma-Ujiji, see Castryck, “Bordering the Lake.”
21 Castryck, “Moslims in Usumbura,” 143–6; AAB, BUR (67)9, Propositions concernant l'établissement des communes dans les CEC d'Usumbura; AAB, BUR (69)2, Note relative au problème de l'administration d'Usumbura, 2 août 1960; AAB, BUR (222)6/2, Recensement et enquêtes démographiques 1934-1950; AAB, Ra/RU (160)2-11, Rapports C.E.C. Usumbura, 1949–1958.
22 Russell, “Punctuated Places.”
23 For a more detailed description of these events, see Hunt, “Noise,” 471–94.
24 For more information about the Ruzizi petitioners, see Deslaurier, “Un monde politique,” 380.
25 The figures, the quotes and, unless indicated otherwise, most of the information used in the description of the women’s protests are derived from Hunt, “Noise,” 485–88.
26 AAB, BUR (74)4 c7, Administration de la Sûreté - Bulletin d'information, N° 0570/267/B.I. 208, 28 mars 1958. All translations are by the author.
27 AAB, BUR (74)4, Les incidents de Rumonge; AAB, BUR 74(5), Hôpital de Rumonge – Personnel swahili.
28 For a description of TANU’s anti-colonial activities, see Iliffe, Modern History, 521–76.
29 For an assessment of the political and symbolic importance of Louis Rwagasore, see Deslaurier, “Rwagasore.”
30 AAB, BUR (74)4 c7, Administration de la Sûreté - Bulletin d'information, N° 0570/267/B.I. 208, 28 mars 1958.
31 The other ‘Rwagasore cooperative’ was the Coopérative des consommateurs et commerçants du Ruanda-Urundi. See Deslaurier, “Un monde politique,” 377–90.
32 See Chrétien, “Une révolte,” 1678–717.
33 Iliffe, Modern History, 523–52; Geiger, TANU Women.
34 Iliffe, Modern History, 529–30, 550–52, 570–71; Said, Life and Times.
35 Deslaurier, “Un monde politique,” 359–60.
36 For a comparable West African evolution from transnational or pan-African stances towards nationalization along colonial territorial lines, see Cooper, “Possibility and Constraint,” 167–96.
37 For a more detailed account, see Deslaurier, “Un monde politique,” 229–39 and 806–15; Castryck, “Moslims in Usumbura,” 152–9.
38 AAB, BUR (69)4, Procès-verbal de la session du 24 au 27 mai 1960 de la Commission intérimaire du Burundi.
39 With mono-ethnic I refer to Rundi as one ethnic group, sharing one language, and one political and religious culture. Notorious divisions between Hutu and Tutsi, not to forget Ganwa and Twa, mark social and political divisions or stratifications amongst Rundi people, rather than different ethnic groups per se – at least for the period under scrutiny.
40 AAB, BUR (69)4, Procès-verbal de la session du 5 au 8 avril 1960 de la Commission intérimaire du Burundi.
41 The short biographical profiles are based on interviews in Bujumbura in August–October 2004 and September–October 2011; AAB, BUR (66)4:2, Lettre N°232/M.62/D de l'ATde Bururi au Résident de l'Urundi, objet: Enquête sur mouvements subversifs - secret; AAB, BUR (69)3, Sûreté: groupe de travail, fiches des divers islamisés indigènes - secret - 1958–1959; ‘Annexe I: Contribution du chef Salumu (Rumonge)’, in Abel, Musulmans noirs, 79–90; Deslaurier, “Un monde politique,” 281, 304–5, 355–60, 401–5 and 654–62.
42 Nimtz, Islam and Politics; Said, Life and Times.
43 Dietze and Naumann, “Revisiting transnational actors,” 415–30.
44 According to other sources, he was originally from Kigoma (AAB, BUR (74)4 c7, Administration de la Sûreté - Bulletin d'information, N° 0570/267/B.I. 208, 28 mars 1958).
45 Castryck, “Living Islam,” 274–85.
46 AAB, BUR (283), Véhicules détenus au 15-IX-53.
47 The information that Salum Bicuka died before independence is derived from two interviews only. I have not been able to find cross-confirmation.
48 Archives Nationales du Burundi, Bujumbura, AA 393(1), Coubeau O., Note au sujet des terres occupées par les Waswahili, 1933.
49 Kagabo, L’Islam, 167.
50 Castryck, “Living Islam,” 287, 290–4.
51 Gakumba, “L'Islam,” 39.
52 For more insight in citizenship in African historical contexts, see Hunter, Citizenship.