Colonial intent as treachery: a poetic response

Abstract

‘Bird, or How I Became an Acholi Poet’, is a poetic response that demonstrates wer, Luo for song, as a site for knowledge making and social memory as well as a method for resistance and decolonization. This poem features the voices of war veterans, Ugandan exiles who fought in the 1978–79 Liberation war between Tanzania and Uganda, who shared their stories with me during my doctoral fieldwork. One such is Capt. K, who joined the Ugandan exiles in Tanzania after a violent purge of ethnic Acholi and Lango officers and soldiers by Amin in 1972. As he shares his story, Capt. K describes the colonial British as filled with roro. This Luo term, denoting treachery, describes the colonial intent of the British: the creation of ‘the thing’ out from which Fanon’s notion of decolonization is the creation of the [hu]man. I reflect on how ‘bird’, ‘weather’, ‘map’, and ‘grammar’, concepts from Morrison, Brand, Sharpe and Spillers, form the foundation to think about the colonial spectre. I conclude that wer is a decolonial space from which Ugandans can articulate their own humanity beyond the colonial narrative as part of a continuing anti-colonial struggle.

‘Oiseau, ou Comment je suis devenu poète Acholi’, est une réponse poétique manifestant le wer, mot Luo désignant le chant, en tant que lieu de fabrication de la connaissance et de mémoire sociale mais aussi en tant que moyen de résistance et de décolonisation. Ce poème comprend les voix de vétérans de guerre, d’exilés ougandais qui se sont battus dans la Guerre de libération de 1978–79 entre la Tanzanie et l’Ouganda et qui m’ont fait part de leurs histoires pendant mon travail de doctorat sur le terrain. L’un d’entre eux, Capt. K, a rejoint les exilés Ougandais en Tanzanie après une violente purge ethnique d’officiers et soldats Acholi et Lango par Amin en 1972. En partageant son histoire, Capt. K décrit les colons britanniques comme étant pleins de roro. Ce terme Luo, dénotant la trahison, décrit l’intention coloniale des britanniques: la création de ‘la chose’ dont découle la notion de décolonisation de Fanon est la création de l’homme (l’humain). Je réfléchis en quoi les concepts d’‘oiseau’, de ‘temps’, de ‘carte’ et de ‘grammaire’ de Morrison, Brand, Sharpe et Spiller, constituent la formation pour réfléchir au spectre colonial. Je conclus que le wer est un espace décolonial à partir duquel les Ougandais peuvent articuler leur propre humanité au-delà du récit colonial dans le cadre de la lutte anticoloniale persistante.

Keywords:

• post-colonial
• anti-colonial
• Uganda history
• colonial intent
• colonial durability
• decolonisation

Mots clés:

• postcolonial
• anticolonial
• histoire ougandaise
• intention coloniale
• durabilité coloniale
• decolonisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statement of Ethics

The research was conducted with approval from the University of British Colombia. All interviewees have been anonymised and gave consent to be interviewed for the purposes of this research. The interviewer clearly communicated the scope and purpose of the research project to all interviewees. All interviewees gave consent to be interviewed for the purposes of this research. All interviewees also consented to interviews being used for publication purposes.

Notes

1 Captain K shared his memory of the value of each coin: how many constituted a monthly wage or how many could pay for a motor scooter, for example.

2 Another definition of fissure is an anal tear, another way to think about the painful failure of the colonial project.

3 In Luo, roro, the word for treachery is very close to ororo, the word for Black mamba, a particularly venomous snake. As I wrote and edited this piece, the words were interchangeable, I think, as I conceptualized colonialism also as a deadly poison.