The portrayal of Africans in agricultural films of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe): 1940s to 1950s

Abstract

One of the most effective cultural tools used by the colonial governments in Africa to make their rule acceptable to African indigenous populations was film. In Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe) the colonial government created the Central Film Unit whose major aim was to teach Africans new agricultural methods. The response by Africans to this colonial initiative was mixed. Some welcomed and enjoyed the films and made use of the skills that the films popularised, but others were cynical and viewed these films as a tool to consolidate British white settler rule in Rhodesia. This article analyses six colonial films produced in the 1940s and 1950s. The article argues that through the use of colonial films, the Rhodesia government was able to persuade African communal farmers to adopt modern methods of farming. The irony of this is that the use of modern farming methods made it possible for the same colonial authorities to later blame Africans for the ecological disaster in the communal areas.     

Genealogies of the colonial present: the rediscovery of the local in conflict management interventions in Mindanao,the Southern Philippines

This article argues that the current attention on indigenous institutions, and the ‘local’ more generally, in peace-building and conflict management bears similarities with colonial and post-colonial attempts at pacifying volatile borderlands. This will be illustrated through a historical case study of the Southern Philippine island of Mindanao, which has witnessed a recurring Muslim insurgency throughout different phases of its history. In an attempt to cope with these violent uprisings, both the American colonial authorities and the authoritarian Marcos regime, as well as a range of contemporary international NGOs, have endorsed traditional institutional avenues of informal mediation. The argument for the deployment of the local in state reconstruction and peace-building as propagated in current literature on hybrid peace should therefore be reframed as a reinvention of colonial governance techniques of indirect rule. It will hereby also be argued that the underlying rationale for this current deployment of local/traditional institutions of mediation and governance confirms and builds further upon a colonial framing of the non-Western other as incapable of modern, liberal democracy.     

法律移植与印度近代的社会转型

英国政治结构独具的法治主义传统使得由英国殖民统治所引领的近代印度社会转型与法律移植密切相关。英国法的输入奠定了"英—印法"体系的基础,法律移植通过为印度注入民主、自由、平等、权利等现代理念促进印度社会转型的同时,在解决社会陋习等方面问题上显得有些力不从心,传统文化的许多消极因素仍然困扰着印度社会及其诸多民众,贫穷和压迫并不罕见,全面实现社会平等、自由仍然任重而道远。     

19世纪末爪哇鸦片税收专卖承包制研究

鸦片税收专卖承包制一度被认为是华侨剥削印尼人民的罪证,19世纪末爪哇社会出现反鸦片风潮,殖民政府借机以鸦片公营专卖局取代了鸦片税收专卖承包制。本文作者指出,以公营代替私营,殖民者的最终目的在于从华侨手中夺过经济大权以获取更高的利润,华侨始终不过是荷兰殖民统治的工具。     

The problem with autocracy promotion

Recent scholarship has increasingly focused on the international dimensions of authoritarian rule, and the idea of autocracy promotion has gained considerable academic currency. While the literature on autocracy promotion has identified some clear patterns of external support for autocratic incumbents, it has so far failed to demonstrate that these efforts can best be understood as a unified, coherent set of foreign policies that constitute intentional efforts to promote a particular regime type abroad. This article identifies the key deficiencies of existing treatments of the concept and identifies a roadmap to establish some conceptual clarity on the topic. It advances a “strict” definition of autocracy promotion that requires a clear intent on the part of an external actor to bolster autocracy as a form of political regime as well as an underlying motivation that rests in significant part on an ideological commitment to autocracy itself. It also introduces a new typology that places autocracy promotion within the wider context of the international politics of authoritarian rule.     

“关东州”的殖民文化研究——以日语教育为中心

"关东州"的日语教育始于日俄战争期间,随着租借期限的延长,其殖民教育政策及措施在不断地发展。到"九.一八"事变之前,其奴化教育体系已然成型,同时,为了长期维护日本的殖民统治,推进普及日语教育策略,还建立了奖励学习外语的"语学检定"制度。在《关东州人教育令》颁布后,奴化教育达到了顶峰,以实现对大连地区乃至整个东北进行文化侵略和殖民奴化教育的目的。     

Colonial and indigenous influences on local power structure in the Philippines

This article explains how colonial and indigenous influences have shaped local power structure in the Philippines by looking at features of colonial and governing systems that have developed over time. The following periodisation is referred to: Spanish Colonisation (1521–1896); the Revolutionary Government (1896–1902) including the Filipino-American War (1898–1902); American Colonisation (1902–1935); Philippine Commonwealth (1935–1945) including Japanese occupation during World War II (1941–1945); the Independent Republic (1946–1972); Dictatorship (1972–1981); and Redemocratisation (1986–1991). Throughout the history of the Philippines, power structure inequality has characterised the political process, preserving the interests of the elite. Patterns of inquality, traditionally based on ownership and accumulation of land, can be traced to Spanish colonial rule when control over farmlands was concentrated within the principalia. Moreover, elite domination of electoral office had historically been assured through limiting suffrage to the educated and landowners. With monetisation of the economy in urban centers, patronage systems have been eroded but elites now use other tools, including coercion, to secure their place. Even in contemporary times, patterns of elite domination persist through democratisation efforts, effecting the rule of what could be considered an elite democracy in the country today.     

Colonial Legacy and Foreign Aid: Decomposing the Colonial Bias

It is well-known that donors give considerably more foreign aid to former colonies than to countries lacking past colonial ties. Unfortunately, we know relatively little about why this is the case. For one, there is almost never a theoretical justification for the inclusion of colonial history in statistical models. For the other, the only explicitly made rationale by Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2009) actually predicts an interpretational problem: colonial history not only increases a former colony’s saliency to the donor, but also has left deep marks on recipients’ social and political institutions today. Both aspects shape how much aid a donor transfers to the recipient. This leaves ambiguous the meaning of the routinely found positive, sizable, and significant coefficient of colonial history on aid flows. We solve the inferential quandary by using a decomposition approach from labor econometrics. Our results show that about 75–100% of the colony effect on foreign aid stems from the greater saliency that donors give to policy concessions from former colonies.     

伪满洲国的日语教育

“满洲国”期间,日本为巩固其统治,大力推行对东北人民的奴化教育。奴化教育的重心就是强制推广日语教育。日伪当局通过建立“新学制”、强制开设日语课、增加日本人教师、编纂教科书、实施日语检定考试、开设日语学校等手段,对“满洲国”进行了长达十四年的殖民教育。     

News constructs of customary identity versus democratic practice: the case of Lindiwe Dlamini and Mswati III of Swaziland

Abstract

If colonial Africa was governed through ‘indirect rule’ or ‘decentralised despotism’ (Mamdani 1996:8), its legacy remains surprisingly intact post independence. If the notion of the tribe lay at the heart of indirect rule and was effected by institutional segregation, such identities were discursively produced and sustained by being constantly flagged through a range of institutional structures in order to produce ‘willing subjects’ (Foucault 1977). The media has increasingly played a central role in flagging such identities as well as those that contest them, notably a civil identity.

This article examines how ethnic identity continues to be discursively deployed in opposition to democratic governance by focusing on one incident, namely the choice of the Swazi monarch‘s twelfth bride at the annual Reed Dance and its contestation by the bride's mother. The Times of Swaziland covered this dispute and provides an interesting case study. The analysis identifies how the contestations between customary and human rights discourses in this one African location are variously deployed and negotiated by the social actors in this instance, and it teases out the contradictions and tensions between them.     

The Rentier State: Oil-related Legislation And Conflict In The Niger Delta,Nigeria

Oil presents a horrendous paradox in Nigeria. It provides enormous wealth and means of patronage to the rentier state and its joint venture partners, the transnational oil companies. However, to large sections of the local oil-bearing communities, the commodity is mainly a source of anxiety and misery. Dating from colonial history, the state has made systematic and sustained efforts to disfactor the local oil-bearing Niger Delta communities from asserting or holding any consequential stakes in the oil resources underneath their soil. In this ironic political game, the state employs the unmitigated paraphernalia of law and public policy to privilege itself and its business partners primarily within the oil industry. This leaves the local oil-bearing communities with limited breathing space, hence, their massive resort to violent protests. This study critically examines the emergence of the contemporary rentier state and how the latter mobilizes and exploits the instrumentality of rule making to entrench and advance its rent-seeking interests in the Nigerian oil economy. The rent-seeking interests and devices of the federal state not only underlie but also complicate the oil conflict.     

论1898～1935年美国在菲律宾经济政策的旧殖民性——以国际比较视角和档案为基础的分析

美国在菲律宾殖民统治时期的经济政策对菲律宾政治、经济和文化的发展有深刻影响。但从国际比较视角看，美国在菲律宾殖民统治时期的经济政策呈现出旧殖民性的特点，而不是学术界主流观点认为的新殖民主义，主要表现：失败的土地改革，保守的贸易政策，有限的工业化。     

缅甸有现代化进程吗？——兼论第三世界国家现代化进程的起点

现代化是一个从传统农业社会向现代工业社会全面转变的历史过程,不等于工业化。第三世界国家的现代化进程开始于殖民统治时期,部分封建国家的“防御型现代化改革”也可以视为该国现代化进程的启动。第三世界国家政治上的独立和明确的工业化战略的提出只是这些国家现代化历史进程划分不同阶段的标志,而不是现代化的起点。因此,目前经济发展水平较低的缅甸也有一个缓慢但是比较完整的现代化进程。     

The Wilsonian moment and the rise of Anticolonial nationalism: The case of Egypt

This article examines the influence of Woodrow Wilson's rhetoric of national self-determination on the Egyptian nationalist movement in 1918-20 as a case study in the impact of the Wilsonian Moment on emerging anticolonial movements. It traces the impact of Wilsonian discourse on Egyptian expectations for the postwar international order, on the way they envisioned their place within it, and on the rhetoric and actions they utilized to fulfil these expectations. It concludes that the experiences of the Wilsonian Moment radicalized Egyptian national demands, transformed the Anglo-Egyptian colonial relationship, and left a legacy of disappointment and bitterness among Egyptians towards liberal internationalism. The article ends by contextualizing the Egyptian case within the surge of anticolonial nationalism in the wake of World War I, and positing the Wilsonian Moment as a watershed in the transformation of colonial relations.     

The Legacy of Western Overseas Colonialism on Democratic Survival

Using an original dataset that covers the period from 1951 to 1995, we consider the enduring effects of Western overseas colonialism on the democratic survival of postcolonial democracies. We treat colonialism as a holistic phenomenon and differentiate the relative effects of its legacies with regard to the level of economic development, social fragmentation, and the relationship between the state and civil society. We find that Western overseas colonialism, a factor often overlooked in recent large- n studies, continues to have an effect on the survival of democratic regimes. We further find that the legacy of specific colonial powers has an important effect on survival as well. Unlike previous studies, we find that former Spanish colonies outperform British colonies when colonialism is conceptualized holistically. However, when we break colonial legacy into separate components (development, social fragmentation, and the relationship between the state and civil society), we find that the advantages former British colonies enjoy are attributable to the legacy of the state/civil society relationship. Moreover, we show that at least in the case of former British colonies, time spent under colonial rule is positively associated with democratic survival.     

Independent Media Commission: Report on Audience Research – Election 1994

SUMMARY

In the era of postcolonialism the idea of an ‘African mind’ is tempting. However, constructing a notion such as the decolonised mind is theoretically problematic, as ‘African’ thought is located within the Western discourses of modernity. In order to theorise ‘African’ thought in its positivity, it is necessary to move beyond the binary oppositions of coloniser: colonised and West:Africa, and thus outside the Western teleological discourses of modernity that provided the conditions for colonial expansion in the first place. This article argues that an approach which takes local culture seriously is possible in a theory of articulation. It is necessary to realise that ‘Africa’ itself is a political, economic and cultural construct, and that this construction is the effect of complex articulations of political, economic, cultural and other discourses and practices. This entails that the very enabling conditions of postcoloniality, and the application of the term, have to be examined. A cultural studies using a theory of articulation would look at the way in which ‘Africa’ and ‘African thought’ are mobilised within the conditions of global capitalism.     

Ethnicity,Colonial Legacies,and Postindependence Issues of Identity Politics in North-East India

The idea of indigenousness has been evoked to legitimize group exclusive claims including separate territories in North-East India. By analyzing experiences in Meghalaya and Manipur, the article argues that the colonial ethnic categorization that produced “ethnic conglomerates” has generated a number of problems leading to conflict in the postindependence period. First, certain composite identities have been formed by bringing together under a single umbrella a range of distinct indigenous groups' identity, often leading to the suppression of smaller identities within the larger group. Thus, the smaller groups struggle to have their own identities recognized. Furthermore, the imposed ethnic categorization has enabled the contemporary political class, which has simply perpetuated the colonial system, to use cultural identity and “indigenousness” instrumentally to their own advantage.     

Militarism,states and resistance in Africa: exploring colonial patterns in stabilisation missions

ABSTRACT

The article explores how stabilisation missions reproduce the patterns that constituted colonial states. Following African historiography, the article argues that stabilisation’s militarised approach to neutralising resistance, its racialisation of targets and its aim to constitute and reform state authority evoke how colonial states were forged by the inseparable relationship between authority, force, race, production and resistance. However, it will be shown that those patterns cannot be fully understood without an account of the broader structure of coloniality and imperialism. In so doing, the article aims to contribute to bring together different literatures on contemporary peace-building interventions and contemporary militarism by examining the relation between militarism, coloniality and imperialism. It focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo to show how an intensified use of force against resistance, added to frames that see Congolese politics as deviant, has guided the goal of restoration of state authority, and with it, different economic reforms, all of which have reinforced the military and economic power of national and international elites, without reporting significant benefits to the population at large.     

Engaging with the post-secular moment in post-9/11 Afghanistan: the search for a ‘humanist’ political discourse

9/11 and the subsequent war on terror in Afghanistan have severely challenged the idea of a world politics based on secular modernity. While the post-9/11 Afghan society remains troubled with the post-secular conflict between the so-called Islamic-terrorist and secular-democratic forces, the need for a ‘humanist’ political discourse that could pave the way for peace has become paramount. This paper explores the viability of ‘post-Islamism’ as an alternative humanist political discourse. It sets out to demonstrate how a post-Islamic humanist discourse, which is defined by the dialogic process of developing a hermeneutical understanding of Islamic philosophy, has the potential to not only carve the way for peace amidst perilous entanglement between politics and religion in post-secular Afghanistan, but also vindicate Islam of its unjustified denigration in the contemporary world.     

Is democracy the only game in town? Tension between immigrants' democratic desires and authoritarian imprints

This article borrows from the literature on transitional democracies to examine levels of support for democracy and non-democratic alternatives among immigrants travelling from partly and non-democratic countries to Canada. It evaluates how immigrants who grew up under authoritarian rule come to adapt to democracy. The findings indicate that immigrants from partly and non-democratic countries experience tensions in their adaptation to democracy, expressing strong democratic desires but also manifesting what could be interpreted as lasting imprints of their socialization under authoritarian rule. Immigrants from partly and non-democratic countries exhibit strong support for democracy (they almost all believe it is a good form of government, the best one, and understand democracy in broadly similar terms as the rest of the population). Yet, if democracy is the main game in town for the immigrants, it is not the only one; immigrants from partly and non-democratic countries are significantly more likely than people socialized in a democratic political system to support other forms of governments that are non-democratic. The article thus argues for the lasting impact of authoritarianism on people's democratic outlooks despite the presence of strong democratic desires.