The Politics of Sub Saharan Africa- Lecture 1

TIA
o This is Africa
o You dont need to explain things (things just happen), or
if you do theyre explained by simple things, such as
tribalism etc
o Suggestion bad things happen organically.
The Dark Continent
o Victorian view of Africa still largely prevalent
missionary work, the 3Cs (Christianity, commerce and
civilization).
Thought in west that we need to go save Africa,
or save Africans from themselves.
o Victim or monster ie Blood Diamond, Constant
Gardener, Cry Freedom.
The hero would often be white.
o The other, the heart of darkness- (book which was
written in 1899, but sill feels fresh/relevant- worry)
o Disaster porn stereotypes.- Africa as a place of
misery.
o Disease, war, famine, floods, genocide.
Life as nasty, brutal and short- Hobbes quote.
Ebola crisis- identity of Africa as a place of disease
o Originating diseases, i.e. HIV/AIDS.
o Africa seen as threatening the health of the world
Africa as place of conflict and civil war
o CAR & South Sudan
o These are conflicts that happen out there Westerners
arent nearly as concerned.
Intervention
o Europeans have to go in and save Africans.
o The French at forefront- suggestion they never left Africa
French intervene on African conflicts once a year
on average.
Idea they actual ever gave independence is
questionable
Civilizing and rescuing mission

Africa Works
Need to move away from idea that things in Africa arent
rational- away from TIA explanations
There are rules- different to the ones we may think of
TIA explanations are lazy and dangerous.
Why doesnt aid workthere are many good reasons.
Many respects aid cant work under current system-

 They lock in stereotypes.

They hide the deeper causes.
What we know
Africa made up of tribes, not states, etc
o but congers up images of backwardness, locked in,
violence against all Tribal hatres and genocide
o Rwanda 1994 most famous
o Attempt to poorly explain it as Hutu and Tutsi tribal
hatred
o But H and T in pre-colonial times werent different tribes,
but more of a caste system- you could move between as
it was determined by wealth, interchange and
intermarriage.
o Both speak same language, same culture
o Shows problem with suggesting its tribal
o Tribes werent cast in stone until colonial timesEuropeans wanted to compartmentalise people to easily
deal with them- divide and rule
They solidified positions
i.e. Belgium gave identity cards to in Rwanda to
Hutu and Tutsi with identity depending on how
many cattle you had
Belgians favoured Tutsis, gave their children
school etc
Thus it created competition and tension, as there
was a fight over resources bound up with identityforces importance on identity
o This type of tribalism is new- not old. Not primordial.
Dates back not very far, just to colonial period.
o Violence generated by colonial legacy
Famine
o Epiothia, Darfur
o Images of starving African children/babies.
o We start to think its unfortunate but ;natural- rains
didnt come, crops didnt grow, people starved, maybe
send some aid.
o But famines dont just happen- they are politically driven
o In Ethiopia at start of Famine, there was enough food,
the ruling class had it all and kept it from pol opposition
and poor
o Same with Irish potato famine
Disease and Death
o Tend to think of diseases as act of god
o Cant blame anyone that Ebola broke out
o But very rarely are full blown pandemics acts of god- we
dont see these in Europe

European countries have well organised health

services
Europeans tend to grow up healthy, have clean
drinking water etc
o HIV/AIDS spread in a different way in Africa to how it
spread in North America
o Need to think why dont African nations have health
services?
Africa is not a country
o None of states are natural
o Lots of hard edges- drawn with ruler. Trade offs between
colonial powers
o i.e. strip in Namibia. The Gambia
o 800 languages. Not going to be natural states. Wont
usually be one ethnic group.
o Nigeria- religious divide- how do we turn that into a
nation.
In Europe idea of nation very important- people
willing to die
How do you do that in arbitrarily constructed
boundaries?
o Fair to talk about African states in same way we talk
about European states?
o When European powers left, they didnt leave a
functioning state apparatus. They werent set up like
that
Africa as a homogenised Mass
o The diversity of SSA
o 800 languages
o 10% of the worlds population
o All the great religions represented
o Hundreds of ethnic groups
o Large states Nigeria = 124 million
o Microstates Sao Tome = 100, 000
Pre-colonial History
o Africa societies were not undeveloped, uncivilized
groups living under Hobbesian conditions. European
expansion set back civilization.
o African history didnt being in 1870
o Kingdom of Axum in Ethiopia (4th Century), the Ghana
Empire (10th Century), the Ashanti (17th Century), the
Shona (builders of Great Zimbabwe 13th Century).
o Military powers ie the Zulu in the 19th C
Suggestion Europeans were all powerful force that
came in- but only invention of gun that gave
advantage
For centuries Africans resisted the Europeans

Isandlwana- British army destroyed in field by

Famous comparison
o In 1957 Ghana and South Korea had the same GDP.
o If you asked economists in 1950s, most wouldve placed
bet on Ghana.
o S.Korea mostly made of famers, backwater.
o Why did South Korea develop and Ghana not?
How did we get here?
o Slavery (estimated, in modern terms, to have cost the
continent $777 trillion).
Impact on development- continuity, food security,
social cohesion, history, attachment to land. So
unstable.
Slavers interested in young and healthy.
Aid is effectively money owed
o Colonialism (only Ethiopia and Liberia escaped).
Do European countries owe? For atrocities at the
time and the problems that the colonies inflicted
subsequently.
o Underdevelopment (colonial economies left African
economies exposed).
Many still have same extraction economies that
colonies set up.
o Colonial politics left a legacy of tribalism.
o Neocolonialism ie the French.
TIA
o Africa is not another world.
o Simple explanations are unhelpful.
o As are clichs and stereotypes.
o Next lecture European engagement with Africa and a
history of race.

Part 2- Race
Quick history of Race
Race, as we understand it, is largely late 19th C construct
Greeks and Romans didnt think about race in terms of skin
colour and genetic traits
For the Greeks race was largely determined by environment
and geography
Blood only starts to become an issue in medieval times
(relating to Jews)- Jewish stain travelled through the blood.
Racism first appears in dictionary in 1910.
Aristotle on race

North and cold countries- people are full of spirit but deficient in skill
and intelligence
A forgotten history
some of roman legionaries stationed in Britain wouldve been
black
the Moors ruled the Iberian Peninsula for 700 years
(Mali/Niger)- wasnt seen against natural order (Christians
more upset they were being ruled by Muslims, not white ruled
by black)
Queen Elizabeth 1st had black servant in 1580s/employed
black musicians
Shakespeares Othello is of high status and married to white
woman- no one wouldve seen it as a problem- but by the 19th
C that wouldve been appaling.
Small lack middle class in Lodnon in 1700s. African
communiteis becoming successful.
Skin Colour
Mixed marriages were socially acceptable (India)
Elizabethans generally thought that skin colour was
associated with environmental factors- i.e. Africans were
burned black
Many Elizabethans genuinely perplexed by the birth of mixed
race children.
Skin colour did not designate traits.
Alessandro deMedici- first duke of Florence (1529)- mixed raceproblems had nothing to do with race.
Changing attitudes
The slave trade (who is a natural slave?)
o The people shipping them over were good christians- so
in order to justify it, they didnt think of them as not
really human, or sub0-human. Developed hierarchy of
race. They are not really us.
o Natural slave as general policy that black people are
naturally slaves, whites not.
Growing nationalism
o Allows people to think in terms of us and them
o Best way to justify being part of us is to suggest the
others are bad or out to get you.
Social Darwinism and eugenics (traits)
o Survival of the fittest
o When linked to social development- becomes nasty
o Competition- only the strong survive
o Sets in motion idea that might is right- if we are winning
its because we are better and they are inferior
A hierarchy of races

War and conquest as a means of natural selection

o Conflict got rid of the weak- purifying process.
Pliny the Elder vs The Dark Continent
Devoid of History
o See the eradification of African history- it only started
once Europeans came.
o When Romans were writing about Africa, it was a
fascination, somewhere you wanted to explore
o Rewritten as the Dark Continent- place of war,
cannibalism, disease
o Far simpler to engage.

Eugenics
Developed by a relation of Darwin, Francis Galton
Positive hereditary traits could be imporved/preserved through
selective breeding
o Breed the best traits into people
o Breed the best people together to form a perfect society
o For Victorians, at the top of the chain were white
Europeans.
mixed breeding was bad for all concerned. E.g. horse and
donkey= mule
o if you mess with the bloodline, you create a
degenerative society.
respected as science until 1930s in US, UK and Nazi Germany
o in American south great deal of attatchment until
1940/50s.
UCL had a prof of Eugenics until well into 20th C.
Discovering Africa- Victoria Falls
Livingston discovers them
But the locals had lived next to it for long time
Idea that things had to be discovered by Europeans to become
important became widespread
Things had to be given names
Pre-Colonial Africa: Nubia
Egypt being separated from black Africa as it was a
Mediterranean African state.
Kingdom of Nubia was black kingdom- erased from historypyramids ignored etc
Ethipian Empire(s)
Christians since 500BC, communities here. Arc of Covenenant
supposed to be here
Association with Western civilization bound up in Ethiopia
was a powerful military force- defeated Italian army in 1890s

Military Power: The Zulu

Invention of maxim gun that Europeans became the top of the
pile and top race
Ideological ground-work had already been set- Africa should
naturally belong to others- Europeans.
Slave Trade and Underdevelopment
Between 16th and 19th C Africa lost 12 mil people to trans
Atlantic slave trade
Millions of others died as a result
African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission
estimated in 2001 that slavery coast African economy $777
trillion and asked for it to be repaid.
Dependency theorists (strong Marxist)- you cant ignore
slavery. Think about poverty and economy in historical terms
o Cant get away from Idea west Africa completely
destabilized during this period
o Stops idea that all countries can get rich by getting on
their bike
Europeans took advantage of others.
How do we rebalance the idea that rich countries are rich
because poor countries are poor.
Bristol and Slavery
Colston- huge benefactor to the city- but all his and familys
money came from slavery
Between 1698 to 1807 over 2,000 ships set sail from Bristol to
Africa and then on to plantations in the Americas, carrying
over half-a-million slaves.
Bristol was built on slavery and tobacco
Should Bristol apologise?- decided not to, but to offer regret
Should there be restitution?
Nigeria, Egypt & SA- economic and political powerhouses
of all Africans are Nigerians
S.Afric economic powerhouse
Egypt- strategic location- largest Arab- African state.
North Sudan-South Sudan breaks the boundary between Muslim
arab north and Christian black south
Ethiopia- only country not to be colonised.- Also Liberia, but it was
somewhat an outpost of US set up by slaves.
Ghana first country to gain independence in 1957.
3 parts
French speaking, English speaking and Arabic speaking parts.
Arabic- North.

French- West
English- South and East Africa
All the borders in scramble for Africa in 1880s when borders were
drawn.
Late 1950s quick and rapid decolonisation.
Tribal- a way of othering Africans.