Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:31:26.795Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

TIME AND DISTANCE: REFLECTIONS ON LOCAL AND GLOBAL HISTORY FROM EAST AFRICA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2019

Richard Reid
Richard Reid*
Affiliation:
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper is concerned with East Africans’ perceptions of the intersection between their own, highly charged and contested, local histories, and the global past, as well as their place in it. The two case studies on which the paper is based – Eritrea and Uganda – have much in common in terms of recent history, not least in their experience of prolonged violence, and thus taken together they elucidate distinctive characteristics. Yet they also illustrate broader phenomena. On one level, particular interpretations of local history – both the deeper, precolonial past and the more recent, twentieth-century past – are utilised to critique the flow of global history, as well as the impositions of globalisation, and to emphasise the bitter experience of marginality and lack of agency. At the same time, the global past – conceptualised as the evolution of an intrusive, imperialist, hypocritical global order imposed by foreigners, usually Western in provenance – is seen as omnipresent and pervasive, and thus the arguments made around marginality serve to remind us, paradoxically, how central these communities are (or should be) to the framing of global history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 29 , December 2019 , pp. 253 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for example, Jeremy Adelman, ‘What Is Global History Now?’, Aeon, 2 March 2017; Drayton, Richard and Motadel, David, ‘Discussion: The Futures of Global History’, Journal of Global History, 13 (2018), 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Global History, Globally: Research and Practice around the World, ed. Sven Beckert and Dominic Sachsenmaier (2018).

2 Hall, Stuart, ‘The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity’, in Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation and Postcolonial Perspectives, ed. McClintock, Anne, Mufti, Aamir and Shohat, Ella (Minneapolis, 1997)Google Scholar; Global History: Interactions between the Universal and the Local, ed. Hopkins, A. G. (Basingstoke, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Cooper, Frederick, ‘What Is the Concept of Globalization Good for? An African Historian's Perspective’, African Affairs, 100 (2001), 189–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John Lonsdale, ‘Globalization, Ethnicity and Democracy: A View from “the Hopeless Continent”’, in Globalization in World History, ed. A. G. Hopkins (2002).

4 Burbank, Jane and Cooper, Frederick, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, 2010)Google Scholar; Globalization in World History, ed. Hopkins; Manning, P., ‘African and World Historiography’, Journal of African History, 54 (2013), 319–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Young, Crawford, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven, 1994)Google Scholar.

5 Thornton, John, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 (Cambridge, 1992, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Larson, Pier, Ocean of Letters: Language and Creolization in an Indian Ocean Diaspora (Cambridge, 2009)Google Scholar; ‘Special Feature: Africa and the Indian Ocean’, Journal of African History, 55 (2014). See also the path-breaking work by Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993).

6 Evans, Richard J., Cosmopolitan Islanders: British Historians and the European Continent (Cambridge, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 ‘The Long View: Scholars Assess the State of History’, Times Higher Education, February 2018.

8 David W. Phillipson, Ancient Ethiopia. Aksum: Its Antecedents and Successors (1998); Schoenbrun, David, A Green Place, A Good Place: Agrarian Change, Gender, and Social Identity in the Great Lakes Region to the 15th Century (Portsmouth, NH, 1998)Google Scholar; Ehret, Christopher, ‘Bantu Expansions: Re-envisioning a Central Problem of Early African History’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 34 (2001), 5–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Museveni, Yoweri Kaguta, Sowing the Mustard Seed: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda (Oxford, 1997), 14Google Scholar.

10 For example, see Museveni, Yoweri K., What is Africa's Problem? (Minneapolis, 2000), 163–4Google Scholar.

11 Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Rise of Christian Europe (1965), 9–11.

12 A. G. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa (1973), 32; see also Fuglestad, Finn, ‘The Trevor-Roper Trap or the Imperialism of History: An Essay’, History in Africa, 19 (1992), 309–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 G. W. F. Hegel, quoted in Archives of Empire, vol. II: The Scramble for Africa, ed. Harlow, Barbara and Carter, Mia (Durham, NC, 2003)Google Scholar, 21, 28.

14 Twaddle, Michael, ‘The Ganda Receptivity to Change’, Journal of African History, 15 (1974), 303–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a contemporary assessment of Buganda's supposed capacity for progress, given the correct tutelage, see A. M. Mackay (ed. by his sister), A. M. Mackay, Pioneer Missionary of the Church Missionary Society to Uganda (1890).

15 Apolo Kagwa, The Kings of Buganda, ed. and trans. M. S. M. Kiwanuka (Nairobi, 1971; 1st edn, 1902); Mukasa, Hamu, Uganda's Katikiro in England, ed. Gikandi, Simon (Manchester, 1998; 1st edn, 1904)Google Scholar; Ehrlich, Cyril, ‘The Uganda Economy, 1903–1945’, in History of East Africa, vol II, ed. Harlow, V. and M., E. Chilver (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar.

16 ‘Education, Civilisation, and “Foreignization”. The Kabaka’s Pamphlet, 1935’, in The Mind of Buganda: Documents of the Modern History of an African Kingdom, ed. Low, D. A. (London, 1971)Google Scholar.

17 Hancock, I. R., ‘Patriotism and Neo-traditionalism in Buganda: The Kabaka Yekka (‘the King Alone’) Movement, 1961–62’, Journal of African History, 11 (1970), 419–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 ‘Annexure to the Appeal by Kabaka Mutesa II to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 11 March 1966’, in Mind of Buganda, ed. Low, 222.

19 D. A. Low, Buganda in Modern History (1971), 245–6.

20 Both poems are in p'Bitek, Okot, Song of Lawino & Song of Ocol (Johannesburg, 1984)Google Scholar. They were first published in 1966 and 1967 respectively.

21 Kiwanuka's, Ben preface in Forward to Freedom, Being the Manifesto of the Democratic Party (Kampala, 1960)Google Scholar.

22 See, for example, H. M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent (1899; 1st edn, 1878), vol I.

23 This formed part of a Leverhulme Trust-funded project between 2012 and 2015 concerned with historical culture and consciousness in Uganda since the mid-nineteenth century. In their interviews, conducted in selected communities across the country in the attempt to achieve geographical spread, the research team aimed for a cross section in terms of age, gender and occupation. Informants included teachers, priests, farmers, shopkeepers and traders. They were asked – in a mixture of English and vernacular languages – about the importance of ‘national history’, and of history as a subject more broadly, including as taught at school. What follows is a modest sample of those interviews, which are anonymised to protect informants.

24 Interview, Bugobero, farmer, c. forty-three years old, 25 January 2014.

25 There is a wider literature exploring these issues: see for example History and Ethnicity, ed. Tonkin, Elizabeth, McDonald, Maryon and Chapman, Malcolm (London and New York, 1989)Google Scholar; Recasting the Past: History Writing and Political Work in Modern Africa, ed. Peterson, Derek R. and Macola, Giacomo (Athens, OH, 2009)Google Scholar.

26 Interview, Bugobero, teacher, c. thirty-five years old, 26 September 2013.

27 See, for example, Apolo Kagwa, cited in Nannyonga-Tamusuza, Sylvia Antonia, Baakisimba: Gender in the Music and Dance of the Baganda People of Uganda (New York, 2005), 212Google Scholar.

28 Interviews in Bubutu, unemployed, c. forty years old, 15 January 2014; Bugobero, teacher, c. thirty-five years old, 26 September 2013; Mbale, teacher, c. twenty-eight years old, 26 January 2014.

29 Interview, Mbale, teacher, c. twenty-eight years old, 26 January 2014.

30 Interview, Bugobero, teacher, c. thirty-five years old, 26 September 2013.

31 Interview, Mbale, teacher, c. twenty-eight years old, 26 January 2014.

32 Interview, Mbale, teacher, c. fifty years old, 1 February 2014.

33 Interview, Mbale, farmer, c. sixty years old, 24 January 2014.

34 Interview, Bugobero, teacher, c. thirty-five years old, 26 September 2013.

35 Interviews in Bugobero, farmer, c. forty-three years old, 25 January 2014; Mbale, teacher, c. twenty-eight years old, 26 January 2014.

36 Interview, Mukono, agricultural consultant, c. forty years old, 22 January 2014.

37 Interviews in Mbale, teacher, c. twenty-eight years old, 26 January 2014; Kitindya, priest, c. fifty years old, 6 February 2014.

38 Interview, Mbale, teacher, c. twenty-eight years old, 26 January 2014.

39 Interview, Mbale, teacher, c. fifty years old, 1 February 2014.

40 Interview, Bubutu, unemployed, c. forty years old, 15 January 2014.

41 Interviews in Mukono, agricultural consultant, c. forty years old, 22 January 2014; Mbale, teacher, c. twenty-eight years old, 26 January 2014.

42 Interview, Bubutu, unemployed, c. forty years old, 15 January 2014.

43 Interview, Bugobero, teacher, c. thirty-five years old, 26 September 2013.

44 Interview, Mukono, agricultural consultant, c. forty years old, 22 January 2014.

45 Interview, Kitindya, priest, c. fifty years old, 6 February 2014.

46 Interview, Mbale, farmer, c. sixty years old, 24 January 2014.

47 Interview, Hoima, priest, c. sixty years old, 17 January 2013.

48 Interview, Hoima, priest, c. sixty years old, 17 January 2013.

49 Chameleon, or Chameleone, is a Ugandan Afrobeat singer, born Joseph Mayanja.

50 Born Robert Kyagulanyi, Bobi Wine is a popular musician who made international headlines briefly in 2014 when he was denied a UK visa on account of his virulently homophobic lyrics. He is now a political activist and an increasingly vocal and influential critic of Museveni.

51 Interview, Bulucheke, trader, c. forty-five years old, 20 February 2014.

52 Interview, Mukono, agricultural consultant, c. forty years old, 22 January 2014.

53 Interview, Bulucheke, trader, c. forty-five years old, 20 February 2014.

54 Interview, Manafwa, local councillor, c. sixty-seven years old, 20 October 2013.

55 Interview, Bulucheke, trader, c. forty-five years old, 20 February 2014.

56 Interview, Hoima, priest, c. sixty years old, 17 January 2013.

57 For an exception, and one which hopefully marks the beginning of a new field of research, see Lorenzi, James de, Guardians of the Tradition: Historians and Historical Writing in Ethiopia and Eritrea (Rochester, NY, 2015)Google Scholar.

58 Formal citations are therefore unavoidably truncated. The vast majority of informants were either former guerrilla fighters from the liberation war of the 1970s and 1980s, many of whom were now government officials; or current national service recruits, who made up a substantial proportion of Eritrea's youth. Some of this material has been written up in Richard Reid, Shallow Graves: A Memoir of the Eritrean–Ethiopian War (forthcoming).

59 See, for example, www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmqFD0-_oN8&t=1150s; and www.eriswiss.com/president-isaias-afewerkis-speech-on-the-occasion-of-the-26th-independence-day-celebrations/.

60 Iyob, Ruth, The Eritrean Struggle for Independence: Domination, Resistance, Nationalism 1941–1993 (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar, ch. 5.

61 See, for example, G. K. N. Trevaskis, Eritrea, a Colony in Transition (1960); Pateman, Roy, Eritrea: Even the Stones Are Burning (Lawrenceville, NJ, 1998)Google Scholar.

62 Yohannes, Okbazghi, Eritrea: A Pawn in World Politics (Gainesville, FL, 1991)Google Scholar, 103.

63 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1967).

64 Interview with former member of the Unionist Party, Asmara, 31 August 2006.

65 For an overview of the Italian period, see Bereketeab, Redie, Eritrea: The Making of a Nation, 1890–1991 (Trenton, NJ, 2007)Google Scholar, ch. 4.

66 For EPLF visions, and supportive assessments of those visions, see Behind the War in Eritrea, ed. Davidson, Basil, Cliffe, Lionel and Selassie, Bereket Habte (Nottingham, 1980)Google Scholar; Firebrace, James, with Holland, Stuart MP, Never Kneel Down: Drought, Development and Liberation in Eritrea (Trenton, NJ, 1985)Google Scholar; The Long Struggle of Eritrea for Independence and Constructive Peace, ed. Cliffe, Lionel and Davidson, Basil (Trenton NJ, 1988)Google Scholar.

67 Author's field notes and informal interviews, Eritrea, between May 1998 and September 2002.

68 Author's field notes and informal interviews, Eritrea, between December 2002 and August 2008. See also Reid, Richard, ‘Mourning and Glory: Toward Affective Histories of Violence in Africa over la longue durée’, Emotions: History, Culture, Society, 1 (2017), 113–36Google Scholar.

69 Council on Foreign Relations, ‘Authoritarianism in Eritrea and the Migrant Crisis’, 16 September 2016, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/authoritarianism-eritrea-and-migrant-crisis.

70 Author's conversations with asylum-seekers in London, since c. 2002.

71 Sally Tomlinson and Danny Dorling, ‘Brexit has its roots in the British Empire – so how do we explain it to the young?’, New Statesman, 9 May 2016; Julianne Schulz, ‘Why the dream of Empire 2.0 is still “cobblers”’, The Guardian, 11 February 2018.

72 For example, Priyamvada Gopal, ‘Yes, we must decolonize: our teaching has to go beyond elite white men’, The Guardian, 27 October 2017.