Exploitation and Misrule in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa

307 Pages·2019·2.72 MB·English

by  Kenneth Kalu

AFRICAN HISTORIES
AND MODERNITIES
Exploitation and
Misrule in Colonial and
Postcolonial Africa
Edited by Kenneth Kalu · Toyin Falola
African Histories and Modernities
Series Editors
Toyin Falola
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX, USA
Matthew M. Heaton
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA, USA
This book series serves as a scholarly forum on African contributions to
and negotiations of diverse modernities over time and space, with a
particular emphasis on historical developments. Specifically, it aims to
refute the hegemonic conception of a singular modernity, Western in
origin, spreading out to encompass the globe over the last several decades.
Indeed, rather than reinforcing conceptual boundaries or parameters, the
series instead looks to receive and respond to changing perspectives on
an important but inherently nebulous idea, deliberately creating a space
in which multiple modernities can interact, overlap, and conflict. While
privileging works that emphasize historical change over time, the series
will also feature scholarship that blurs the lines between the historical
and the contemporary, recognizing the ways in which our changing
understandings of modernity in the present have the capacity to affect
the way we think about African and global histories.
Editorial Board
Akintunde Akinyemi, Literature, University of Florida, Gainesville
Malami Buba, African Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies,
Yongin, South Korea
Emmanuel Mbah, History, CUNY, College of Staten Island
Insa Nolte, History, University of Birmingham
Shadrack Wanjala Nasong’o, International Studies, Rhodes College
Samuel Oloruntoba, Political Science, TMALI, University of South Africa
Bridget Teboh, History, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14758
Kenneth Kalu • Toyin Falola
Editors
Exploitation
and Misrule in
Colonial and
Postcolonial Africa
Editors
Kenneth Kalu Toyin Falola
Ted Rogers School of Management The University of Texas at Austin
Ryerson University Austin, TX, USA
Toronto, ON, Canada
African Histories and Modernities
ISBN 978-3-319-96495-9 ISBN 978-3-319-96496-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96496-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018953347
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover credit: Mira / Alamy Stock Photo
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
P
reface
Resentment to colonial exploitation and consequent underdevelopment of
the colonies was the common theme around which Africa’s nationalists
rallied to confront the colonial government, and push for political inde-
pendence. Through various means, African nationalists opposed colonial
rule and sought for self-government, ostensibly to curb the exploitation
that colonialism represented and to work for the economic development of
the continent. Nationalist rhetoric suggested that political independence
would bring an end to exploitation of the continent by foreigners, restore
the dignity of the African, and chart a course for sustainable development
for the benefit of Africans. In a way, colonialism was seen as the evil that
must be eliminated in order to give Africa its rightful place in the global
political economy. Guided by this mindset, political independence became
an end to itself, rather than a means to an end. Consequently, Africans
came together irrespective of ethnicity or religious beliefs to fight against
the perceived common enemy of that era—European colonial masters.
Colonial rule began to crumble in the middle of the twentieth century,
with Ghana gaining political independence in 1957 and several other
countries becoming independent in the 1960s. Based on the rhetoric of
nationalist leaders of that era, and the misconception that self-governance
meant the same as good governance, Africans welcomed political indepen-
dence with excitement and hope. The expectations were that independent
African states would deliver good governance that would generate devel-
opment and unleash the potentials that were suppressed under colonial
rule. However, the first decade of political independence produced series
of crises that almost questioned the idea of political independence. A few
v
vi PREFACE
years after independence, the political and economic conditions in many
African states deteriorated. Military coups became more of a norm than an
aberration. By the end of the 1970s, almost every country in Sub-Saharan
Africa was facing one political crises or the other. Civil wars, ethnic and
religious conflicts, and general social disorders had become commonplace
across the continent. Africa’s economy did not fare any better—several
failed attempts at industrialization left the countries with burdensome
public debt and deteriorating public infrastructure. As the government
failed to provide basic social services, discontent grew among the popu-
lace, who had looked up to political leaders to bring real development.
If political independence were to produce inclusive institutions, eco-
nomic growth, and social stability, African leaders who took over political
power from the colonial masters needed to first dismantle the colonial
structures that were designed as instruments of exploitation and predation.
However, subsisting postcolonial realities have shown that African leaders
either were not prepared for the task ahead or lacked the understanding,
courage, foresight, and integrity needed to effectively work for the trans-
formation that would produce real social and economic emancipation of
the people. The failure to effectively dismantle the colonial governance
structures and to transform such institutions as the civil service, the police,
the judiciary, and other government agencies into organs for serving the
citizens meant that political independence became mere symbolism, with
little positive real changes for majority of Africans. In some ways, political
independence can be described as mere transfer of the instruments of
exploitation from European colonial officials to a few Africans who had
received some Western education in the mid-twentieth century.
Contributors to this volume have explored representations and images
of colonial and postcolonial exploitation in literature and rhetoric, as well
as through case studies that exemplify persistent governance failures from
the era of colonial exploitation to postcolonial misrule and perversion
across the African region. Overall, there is an emerging consensus that
African states must transform the governance institutions that have fos-
tered exploitation and produced underdevelopment and poverty across
the continent. Such transformation is necessary to rupture lingering colo-
nial legacies and put the African state on a credible path to sustainable
development.
Toronto, ON, Canada Kenneth Kalu
Austin, TX, USA Toyin Falola
c
ontents
1 Introduction: Exploitation, Colonialism, and Postcolonial
Misrule in Africa 1
Kenneth Kalu and Toyin Falola
Section I Encounters: Texts, Images, and Fiction 25
2 Rupturing Neocolonial Legacies in the African Novel:
Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Matigari as a Paradigm 27
Damlègue Lare
3 Decolonial Visions in Mid-Twentieth- Century African
Rhetoric: Perspectives from Kwame Nkrumah’s
Consciencism 51
Nancy Henaku
4 Images of Colonialism in the Text of Two African Female
Poets 77
Gabriel Bámgbóṣé
5 Migration and Exile: The Exotic Essence of Life in Bessie
Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather 101
Joshua Agbo
vii
viii CONTENTS
6 Ingrid de Kok’s “A Room Full of Questions” and South
Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission 125
Michael Sharp
7 Identity, the “Passing” Novel, and the Phenomenology
of “Race” 145
Mawuena K. Logan
Section II Encounters: Spaces of Subjugation and Dominance 163
8 Precolonial Imaginaries and Colonial Legacies in
Mobutu’s “Authentic” Zaïre 165
Daviel Lazure Vieira
9 World War II and West African Soldiers in Asia,
1943–1947 191
Oliver Coates
10 A Colonizing Agricultural Company in Somalia: The
Duke of Abruzzi’s Società Agricola Italo-Somala in the
Italian Colonial Fascist System 217
Alberto Cauli
11 The Magical Hour of Midnight: The Annual
Commemorations of Rhodesia’s and Transkei’s
Independence Days 243
Josiah Brownell
12 Colonial Ideologies and the Emergence of Two Spaces:
The Nigerian Experience 277
Bright Alozie Chiazam
Index 295
n c
otes on ontributors
Joshua Agbo holds a PhD in Exile and Postcolonial African Literature
from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. His research focuses on
Bessie Emery Amelia Head’s novels, approached from the angle(s) of exile,
migration, trauma, and postcolonial studies. His research interests further
stretch across African history, linguistic/literary stylistics of African litera-
ture, and Afro-Caribbean studies. He is the author of How Africans
Underdeveloped Africa: A Forgotten Truth in History (2010) and Dead
Wood (2015), as well as the co-editor of the book Linguistics: An
Introductory Text. He is also a member of several academic bodies/associa-
tions, and some of which include Modern Language Association (MLA),
African Literature Association (ALA), Association of Child Development
and Communication Disorders, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA),
Great Northern Postcolonial Network, New Routes Old Roots Network,
Refugees & Migration Ph.D.  Network, and Postcolonial Studies
Association. He has published both nationally and internationally. His essay
was shortlisted for the “Barbara Harlow Prize for Excellence” in 2017.
Gabriel Bámgbósẹ́ is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at Rutgers
University, New Jersey, USA. He has taught in the Department of English
at Tai Solarin University of Education, Nigeria. He has also taught Yorùbá
as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) in Africana
Studies Program at New York University, New York. His interests in schol-
arship include African literature, folklore, and popular culture; African
women’s poetry; and feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial thoughts.
Bámgbósẹ́ is also a poet and the founding editor of Ijagun Poetry Journal.
ix