This contribution is kind of a cheat. /u/Zeuvembie asked a very interesting question about bread a few weeks ago. I found the question interesting enough to do some research for, but never got around to writing anything up.
So, here goes!
The question is (paraphrasing) how did African bread-making differ from European bread-making during the 15th century "Age of Discovery".
As best as I can tell, there actually wasn't a tradition of bread making on the continent, aside from North Africa and Ethiopia.
Rather, it seems that societies along the West African coast and Atlantic Central Africa (that is, the coastal societies that Portuguese explorers would have encountered) relied on cereal porridge as a staple meal. That is, staple cereals like rice, millet, sorghum or fonio would be boiled into a thick, oatmeal-like porridge.
Both Randi Haaland^1 and J.D. LaFleur^2 note that these porridges existed along-side and were connected with beer. La Fleur explicitly mentions that these porridges could be allowed to ferment and turn into a sour bread-like dough. It's not too much of a stretch to see where slight variation in this fermenting process could produce a simple beer.
Now, there is something that can be said about bread making in Africa during the Age of Discovery. J.D. LaFleur's book Fusion Foodways of Africa's Gold Coast in the Atlantic Era examines records of Portuguese fortresses along the Gold Coast in the 16th century. He notes that West African cereals like millet or fonio don't produce enough gluten to yield soft, chewy bread.
So, he finds that the Portuguese did import European wheat to their Gold Coast fortresses, and baked wheat bread on-site. LaFleur finds evidence that there would have been less-desirable bread made by mixing wheat with local cereals. He speculates that the all-wheat bread would have been earmarked for important officers in the fort, while the lower-quality mixed bread would have gone to lower-status Portuguese or Eurafrican individuals in the fort.
1 "Porridge and Pot, Bread and Oven" by Randi Haaland. Cambridge Archaeological Journal / Volume 17 / Issue 02 / June 2007, pp 165-182
2 Fusion Foodways of Africa's Gold Coast in the Atlantic Era by J.D. LaFleur. 2012, Brill.
See also: West African Food in the Middle Ages: According to Arabic Sources by Tadeusz Lewicki. 1974(2008) Cambridge University Press.
I love me some good African history, so I'm very glad to see this here. There is so much to know about this amazing continent.
I'm going to post about 3 things that I research on (and please forgive the brevity of some of these posts, I am running on a thesis deadline :) )
Okay, so I meant to write a post about the Cairo Genizah, one of THE most important finds in Jewish history/historiography, for the Middle East floating feature and forgot, but then I remembered that Cairo is in Egypt and Egypt is in Africa, so here we go! Sorry if it's not quite what you all had in mind.
The concept of a genizah is one that is founded on a Jewish law which states that items upon which the name of God, or a verse from the bible, is written cannot be disposed of like regular trash- they must be treated as sacred and disposed of with reverence. Some people will do so by burying the items, which can include anything from a Torah scroll to a paper with a holy name scribbled on it. However, another popular solution was the creation of the genizah, which literally means "place where things are hidden away" (from the root g-n-z, "to hide away/store"). The genizah would generally be a side room, attic, or basement in the synagogue where any items bearing sacred text could be placed. Communal genizot were common all over the Jewish world, and some still exist today, though relatively burial is currently more common. (Many communities would actually bury the contents of their genizot every few years, though some, like the Cairo Genizah, did not.)
As is probably obvious, genizot are literally treasure troves to historians, and especially in the case of the Cairo Genizah, which had been in use since the ninth century and was housed in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Cairo. While in many genizot only religious texts, such as prayer books and sermons, would be stored, in the Cairo Genizah there is a vastly more broad-ranging array of texts, including whole sets of correspondence. In some cases, even relatively mundane papers might contain biblical phrases or names of God. In other cases, scholars hypothesize that simply the fact that these letters were written in Hebrew script (Judeo-Arabic, in which writing was Arabic language in Hebrew script, was quite common) would be enough for them to be consigned to the genizah. So far, we already have two major ingredients for a historical windfall: the purposeful saving of mundane documents and their preservation in this room. Two more included the status of Cairo as a major stop on international trading routes which Jews frequented, which means that documents from Jews from countless other places also ended up in the genizah, and the fact that for centuries the community did not remove things from the genizah due to superstition.
Often the claim is made that the genizah was "discovered" by Solomon Schechter, then of Cambridge and later of the Jewish Theological Seminary in NY, but this is not quite the case. In fact, by the second half of the nineteenth century, communal officials in Fustat were beginning to sell items from the genizah to universities on a piecemeal basis. The genizah was also visited by a number of amateur scholars, such as Abraham Firkovich (who ended up taking many documents from a different genizah in a Karaite synagogue in Cairo), Cyrus Adler, and Elkan Adler. The most prolific early discoverer and seller of Cairo Genizah material was probably Rabbi Solomon Aaron Wertheimer, a Jerusalem rare books dealer and scholar who wrote articles about his finds and sold/attempted to sell numerous fragments to universities, including the Bodleian Library at Oxford, recognizing their significance.
That said, it was Solomon Schechter, then the Reader in Rabbinics at Cambridge, who ended up opening up the world of genizah scholarship. While originally he'd disregarded the genizah fragments which Wertheimer had attempted to sell to Cambridge and which had ended up at Oxford, in 1896 he was approached by two sisters, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, who were scholars of Semitic languages and who had purchased (possibly from Wertheimer, who at the time was living in Cairo and selling genizah fragments) pages which they thought would interest him. Schechter examined them and discovered that they included pages of a Hebrew manuscript of the Book of Ben Sira, a second-century Jewish work, part of some Christian canons, which had previously been known to exist only in Latin and Greek. He was thrilled and notified his opposite number at Oxford, Adolf Neubauer- who then went digging in his own collection of genizah fragments purchased from Wertheimer, found his own pages, and beat Schechter to publication. However, it was Schechter who beat Neubauer to immortality- Schechter journeyed to Egypt with a letter of introduction from the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Rabbi Hermann Adler (who was also the brother of the aforementioned Elkan Adler), and took almost 200,000 fragments out of the Ben Ezra Synagogue. (Apparently, the rabbi told Schechter to take whatever he liked, and, Schechter reported, "I liked it all.")
The study of the fragments from the Cairo Genizah quite literally revolutionized the study of medieval Jewish history. There is simply no other way to put it. Through fragments in the genizah, scholars have found everything from a full thousand-year-old copy of Rabbi Saadia Gaon's translation of the Torah into Arabic to a page of Maimonides's commentary on the mishna in his own handwriting to eyewitness accounts of the First Crusade to the first known sample of, funnily enough, Yiddish writing (from the 14th century). So many details of medieval Jewish life have been discovered through the responsa, correspondence, documents and miscellaneous papers found in the genizah that it sometimes feels like half the articles on the time period include "through the documents of the Cairo Genizah" somewhere in the title. The scholar S D Goitein wrote a six-volume work, A Mediterranean Society, entirely based on information gleaned from the genizah which goes through medieval Jewish life in North Africa and elsewhere detail by detail. (I used it once for a class project and it is not only dizzying in its scope but microscopic in its attention to even the smallest nitpickiest facts- absolutely fascinating.) Through marriage and divorce documents, business letters, amulets, medical prescriptions, rabbinic responsa, and more, the day to day life of these Jews over a period of hundreds of years was uncovered in vastly more detail than ever thought possible and totally changed the way that scholars conceived of the era. People like Maimonides and Rabbi Judah HaLevi, key figures in Jewish history, had their lives and fates fleshed out through the genizah's documents. It's genuinely hard for me to try to encapsulate the sheer massive amount of new info here.
Until today, scholars spend vast amounts of time going through genizah fragments, piecing them together, and, now, often publishing them online. It's absolutely amazing what they've been able to accomplish. I highly recommend checking out the Cambridge genizah collection, where you can search in English and see translated fragments. There's also the Friedberg Genizah Project, which aims to digitize genizah fragments from collections around the world in one place.
If you're interested in the Cairo Genizah, I HIGHLY recommend Sacred Trash, by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole. It's a fascinating and highly readable account which was my own first exposure to it.
The Great Walls of Benin are considered the largest pre-modern earthworks in the world. They were so massive that they took up as much material as the great pyramid of Cheops and their total surface length was four times the length of Great Wall of China (depending on how you measure the Great Wall of China). The British unfortunately burned down most of Benin City in a punitive raid.
http://ringmar.net/irhistorynew/index.php/2018/10/14/the-walls-of-benin/
The Oromo people of Ethiopia and Northern Kenya have their own, indigenous, democracy called the Gadaa system. It involves electing an Father of the Land, Father of the Sceptor, Father of the Cows,etc.
Back when our founding fathers were debating the best way to govern a society the Oromo people had been doing it for hundreds of years.
No one really knows how far back the Gadaa system goes because it relies on oral history.
The Oromo people, an ethnic group of 50 million, speak Oromifa, a Kushidic language. The language is a direct descendant from the Ancient Egyptians, and the largest language spoken in the Kushidic language family.
The Oromo people are one of the largest stateless nations in the world and undoubtedly the largest in Africa.
Ethiopia hold the unfortunate and rare distinction of being essentially the only African nation to successfully resist European colonization, humiliating Italy in 1896 at the Battle of Adowa. While they would eventually be defeated in a renewed Italian campaign several decades later, it was a short-lived occupation which would soon see a coalition of Allied forces push Italy back out. As I seem to have fallen into something of a pattern with these floating features, today I'll be visiting one aspect of this resistance to European oppression, namely some of the arms that the Ethiopians carried, and the complicated history of arms acquisitions which they labored through.
Through the 19th century, Ethiopia had worked to acquire a wide variety of arms in an attempt to present a more modern and capable fighting force. This effort came mostly into its own under the Emperor Yohannes IV who took ascended the throne in 1871. His predecessors had worked to acquire an odd and varied assortment of mostly outdated European arms, some as ancient as the old matchlocks, but this began to change under Yohannes thanks to agreements with the British, although this too remained in small quantities, receiving a mere 725 muskets and 130 rifles at the onset of his reign. Nevertheless, despite only 1/6th of his 60,000 man army carrying firearms and a smaller number still trained in European-style tactics, he was successful in demolishing a well armed, European-trained force from Egypt in a series of engagements in 1875-'76 as the Ottomans unsuccessfully sought to expand into Ethiopian territory.
Not only did the success in the conflict ensure Ethiopia remained out from the Ottoman thumb, but it also provided a veritable windfall as some 20,000 Remington rifles. Although soon to be supplanted by magazine-fed repeaters, the single-shot, breech-loading Rolling Block rifles were nevertheless an effective, modern arm, and that bonanza alone placed Ethiopia as one of the best armed nations on the continent, just as the "Scramble for Africa" began to take shape in the 1880s.
In hindsight, the next series of moves are quite ironic. Sahle Maryam, the King of Shewa, had been building up an alliance with the French, and more importantly, the Italians, through the 1880s. The French saw it as a way to counter British influence in the region, and the Italians thought he would be a useful tool to counter Emperor Yohannes IV as they sought to exert more influence in Northern Ethiopia. The Italians, in 1884 agreed to provide Sahle with 4,000 Vetterli Rifles, a repeating rifle used by the Italians themselves, as well as a 10 year contract to provide 50,000 Remingtons. The French as well provided Sahle with arms, mostly older French or Belgian models that French merchants sold to him at considerable markup. Additional Italian gifts were also forthcoming beyond the contract, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition as well.
By the mid-1880s, Sahle had amassed a considerable arsenal, and at first the overtures of friendship by Italy seemed like they were going to pay off! Italy occupied Massawa in 1885, and Emperor Yohannes IV found himself assailed on two fronts as the Italians pressed along the northern coast and the Mahdist War in Sudan spilled over the western borders. When Yohannes IV fell in battle with the Mahdists, Sahle usurped the throne, declaring himself Menelik II, and signed the Treaty of Wuchale, a very conciliatory document recognizing the newly formed Italian colony of Eritrea, and which Italy considered to have placed Ethiopia under protectorate status.
For the next several years, Menelik II maintained the status quo, using his access to European arms via Italy to continue to modernize his forces as he sought to consolidate his rule over Ethiopia itself. Not only did tens of thousands more rifles arrive from Italy, both via purchase and as gifts, but other countries as well, such as Russia which in 1891 presented the Emperor with a gift of 10,000 rifles. By the early 1890s, some 25,000 rifles were being imported to Ethiopia per year. The variety of sources meant that the Ethiopians possessed a vast and varied array of small arms, of which only some were a modern, repeating design. While especially strong in terms of domestic use, it did nevertheless present an inadequate picture against any European power which.
Hoping to standardize, and also looking to find more independence from Italy in terms of their supply chain, the Ethiopian government attempted to contract for 100,000 German rifles in 1893, although they were rebuffed, as the German government didn't wish to become caught in the middle. Other countries were not so reticent. In 1894, Austria shipped some 4 million cartridge cases, and the Italians themselves noted with some worry the arrival of French Gras rifles, not to mention Hotchkiss machine-guns and modern artillery. The simple fact of the matter was that after having spent the better part of a decade supplying Menelik II with large quantities of arms to get on his good side, Italy had created a force it couldn't actually control. In the 1889 Treaty of Wuchale, the Italians had claimed it made them the conduit for Ethiopian foreign relations and thus Ethiopia their protectorate, but the clause was out of the Amharic version Menelik II had read, and when he discovered this, he denied the clause, and in 1893, entirely repudiated the treaty. Relations deteriorated quickly, and in late 1894, war had broken out between Italy and Ethiopia.
Mustering a force of some 10,000 Italians and 7,000 Eritreans, the Italians marched into Ethiopia expecting an an easy victory of European superiority, but were instead in for a rude awakening. Although the estimates vary wildly, the Ethiopians possessed anywhere from 300,000 to 600,000 rifles, of which a significant portion were modern, breech-loading, and often, repeating arms such as the French Gras, Russian Berdan, and British Lee-Metford, not to mention the Italian-supplied Vetterlis and Remingtons. If anything, there were more arms available than could be used, the limiting factor not the availability of rifles, but the availability of men who were adequately trained in their use. Nearly 200,000 men were raised for the force that went to meet the Italian invaders, and while only about half carried firearms, it spoke little to availability, but rather to the system of levies which had brought men into service who simply didn't know their use so preferred the more traditional implements of war such as spears or bows. Meeting at Adwa, Menelik's forces carried out a veritable massacre, wiping out roughly 50 percent of the Italian forces, and forcing the new Treaty of Addis Ababa, which assured Italy's complete recognition of Ethiopian sovereignty, soon to be followed by the opening of formal diplomatic relations with other European powers.
The power of the gun in Ethiopia's independence did not go without notice, and in the years after the Italian humilation, foreign observers in Ethiopia continually commented on how widespread their possession was, and the pride with which the Ethiopians brandished them, and expounded upon their knowledge of the workings. Nor did Ethiopia stop in its acquisitions. Certainly some acquisitions continued in the same, hodgepodge manner as before, and acquisition was not always easy due to European stonewalling. The first few years after victory, it appeared that Ethiopia was on the path of only further imcreased military might. 30,000 rifles arrived from Russia in 1898, as well as 8 Maxims, and 150,000 Gras Carbines in 1900 from France. So many arms were coming in though it was well beyond the needs of the military, resulting in many being sold or traded, many of them ending up in British and Italian colonial possessions.
After approaching Menelik II to clamp down on the illegal arms trade under the 1890 Brussels Act, and being essentially rebuffed, the bordering Colonial powers took matters into their own hands. Coming together, the result was the 1906 Tripartite Treaty between France, Italy, and Great Britain, which included provisions that seriously limited the importation of arms into the country, and in any case was designed to regulate the levels of influence each power could exert on Ethiopia, regardless of Ethiopia's interest in the matter.
During the Great Trek, the Voortrekker leader, Piet Retief was killed by the Zulu for being accused as a sorcerer. The Zulu king ordered the Zulus to attack the Voortrekkers, killing about 500 of them. This resulted in more Boer farmers helping the Voortrekkers, including Andries Pretorius.
Prior to the battle, there were multiple skirmishes between the Voortrekkers and the Zulu. On the day of the battle of Blood River, against all odds, 464 Voortrekkers beat back between 10,000 and 20,000 Zulus, without a single death for the Pioneers.
Absolutely bonkers.
I live in the Congo right now because of work, and I find the recent history of Ebola to be quite fascinating. Ebola wasn't identified until 1976. Was Ebola affecting communities on a small scale prior to this but it was assumed to be something else or is it suspected to have evolved around that time to be able to jump from humans to whatever it's animal carrier is (presumably bats)? It's my understanding that it is quite stable evolutionarily because the current Zaire strain is similar to the first version in 1976. Subsequently, how have isolated populations of this main strain been able to spread all over tropical Africa?
One topic that I have been itching to write about, but which I doubt there ever will be a question about, is the Luba-Lunda complex. So, I'm gonna take the opportunity of this feature to write about these cultures. Fair warning: the tone of this post is gonna be a lot of "Gee whiz! these guys were fascinating!" and a lot of scholarly name-dropping. I apologize in advance.
Let's start off with a Map to orient everyone. This depicts the Luba kingdom (vertical stripes) and the Lunda "empire" at the greatest territorial extent circa late 1700s or early 1800s. Though the map labels it an empire, Jan Vansina has suggested that in reality the situation was more like a commonwealth of conquest-states that shared a Lunda ruling class, and the monarchs of the various conquest states all payed tribute to the Mwata Yamvo or Mwaant Yav (tr. "serpent lord") of the Lunda homeland as the most senior and respected Lunda lord.
The Luba and the Lunda were ethnically distinct from each other, but indications are that the Luba were first in the region to develop complex social hierarchy that resulted in kingship, and that this Luba political innovation influenced the Lunda, who modeled their own kingship system on Luba lines. (It's more complex than this, as there were lots of other societies similarly neighboring and influenced by the Luba. John Yoder argues that the Kanyok people who lived between the Luba and the Lunda homeland were actually influence by both societies).
One indication of this influence is that there are marked similarities in the culture-hero myths of the Luba and Lunda.
The basic outline of the Luba myth is that long ago, the Luba people were ruled over by a terrible and ugly tyrant named Nkongolo. While he was trying to expand his kingdom by conquering neighboring Songye people, he encountered the wandering prince Ilunga Mbidi who came from far away (some traditions call him a prince from the Kunda people).
Nkongolo extended the customary hospitality to Ilunga Mbidi, and the prince soon demonstrated himself to be a powerful warrior and cunning strategist. Ilunga quickly earned a place as one of Nkongolo's generals, and led Luba armies from victory to victory. In recognition for this, Nkongolo allowed the victorious foreign prince to marry both of his sisters.
However, things soon turned sour. Many traditions say that an oracle gave Nkongolo a prophecy that a son of Ilunga would topple Nkongolo and the line of Ilunga would rule the Luba. Other traditions say that scheming members of Nkongolo's court whispered into the king's ear about how Ilunga's victories made him popular with the people, and how Ilunga might easily replace him as king.
Either way, the traditions agree that Nkongolo then tried numerous stratagems to arrange the assassination or execution of Ilunga Mbidi. However, each time, Ilunga Mbidi was either warned or could sniff out and avoid the plot and avoid it. Finally, Nkongolo sent soldiers to go and arrest Ilunga Mbidi, but he was warned and fled back to his homeland, leaving his wives and children behind.
In the Luba tradition, Ilunda Mbili's son by his wife Mabenda was named Kalala Ilunga. Kalala Ilunga grew up to be like his father, winning glory and fame as a warrior and strategist, and in turn earning the fear and envy of his uncle Nkongolo. The cycle of stratagems and escapes repeated, until Kalala Ilunga grew tired of it, gathered an army and challenged his uncle openly. Kalala Ilunga fought his uncle on the battlefield, slew Nkongolo, and took over kingship of the Luba people, and ushered in an age of greatness.
The Lunda telling focuses on Cibind Yirung (Luba name for him is Tshibinda Ilunga) who was Ilunga Mbili's son by Bulanda. Echoing the motif of a wandering prince like his father, Cibind Yirung left Luba kingdom and ended up among the Lunda where he married the princess Ruwej and brought many political and technological innovations.
So, according to the origin myths of the Lunda, their hero-king comes from the Luba and brought Luba ideas.
Now, according to Thomas Q. Reefe in the Rainbow and the Kings, linguistically there is evidence for Luba influence on Lunda, but also of Lunda influence on the Luba.
All this does not mean that Lunda/Moxico and Luba/Bemba languages* have evolved in isolation, for complex phonological shifts and tonal changes have occurred within and between these two language clusters and their neighbors. There is also ample evidence of Luba-Lunda borrowing. Perhaps the distribution of mulopwe, the Luba term for sacral king, is the best example of borrowing across the Luba/Bemba and Lunda/Moxico belts. The term is used in various forms among the Songye and the Luba-Kasai of the Luba/Bemba cluster to designate a chief. It entered Ruund** from the Luba and was later transferred to other Lunda/Moxico languages - along with the Luba verb kupyana, meaning "to inherit" or "to succeed" - as mpanya mulopwe which became nswan mulapw in Ruund, singnifying the titleholder who was second to the chief.
Some other terms with political import that apparntly were borrowed from the Luba include:
- mfumw meaning "superintendent of" or "chief", from mfumu
- nsal ya kalong meaning "headdress of red parrot feathers" from Luba roots.
- vudey - a from of respectful acknowledgement to a Ruund chief - meaning "yes sir", adapted from eyo vidye, the general Luba greeting between men, which means "hail god"
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....However, the number of Luba terms in Ruund is not overwhelming, and Hoover concludes that "the Ruund system appears to be basically indigenous with a number of Luba concepts and offices incorporated, suggesting a relatively peaceful synthesis through intermingling populations and through communication over time"
Borrowing has gone the other direction, too, from the Lunda/Moxico belt east to the Luba. Some terms have entered the Luba vocabulary from Lunda/Moxico languages without passing through Ruund. Mukishi, meaning "ancestral spirit" was probably borrowed at an early date. Some other kiLuba political terms of similar origin are kulambula, "to pay tribute", mulambu, "tribute", and mwanaute or mwanabaute, "first son of a chief".
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The direct impact of the nuclear Lunda upon the Luba is most clearly seen in the Luba genesis myth. The name Nkongolo Mwamba is derived from Lunda terms. To the Luba, the rainbow, nkongolo is formed from two snakes coupling in the sky, and the creation of a rainbow arc going from horizon to horizon is likened to a snake creeping across the sky. Nkongal is the Ruund word for "rainbow"; and it is apparently of proto-Lunda/Moxico origins, but it may have been transformed along the Luba/Lunda borderland before being adopted as nkongolo by the Luba. Concepts of rainbow and serpent are mingled in the Lunda/Moxico bel with the term chiyaz a ngomb meaning "rainbow", "dragon", and "mythic serpent that digs rivers and eats people". The correlations here are striking. The serpent that eats people in the Lunda tradition is transformed into Nkongolos cruelty (episode 2) in the Lunda genesis myth, and in the episode of Nkongolo and the Island (20) Nkongolo tries to divert the Lomami river by digging a new course for it...
*Here, Reefe is referring to languages like Lunda and Moxico which exist in a language cluster, and the separate Luba and Bemba languages in a separate language cluster. Lunda/Moxico and Luba/Bemba does not mean Lunda and Moxico are synonyms, ditto Luba and Bemba are not the same thing.
** Reefe here uses the term Ruund to refer to the people of the Lunda homeland. The people/region is also called "nuclear Lunda" and the land is sometimes called Ruwund.
Oh man! My time to shine!
Here are a few fun facts about Cameroon which you might not know. 🇨🇲🇨🇲🇨🇲
1 - Cameroon got its name after a bunch of Portuguese sailors, upon "discovering" the area, sailed their ship up the Wouri River (where the modern city of Douala is now located), literally dipped their hands into the river, and brought up a big handful of these big fat prawns which the river is famous for. "Ah," they said, "los camerones!" (Portuguese for "prawns.")
Douala later developed as a city because the Douala people were the main go-betweens for slave traders, raiding inland tribes for slaves and selling them to the Portuguese.
2 - Cameroon's current leader, Paul Biya, is the longest-serving non-royal African head of state, at around 45 years. He was originally the PM under the old president, Ahidjo, but then bribed a bunch of French doctors to tell his boss that he had cancer, requiring him to go to France for treatment. Upon leaving the country, he staged a coup, took the government, sentenced the old president to death and... welp, that was it.
3 - When they get together at government events, Paul Biya and the presidents of Gabon (Bongo) and Equatorial Guinea (Obiang Nguema) can all chat together in their shared "native" language, Fang/Bulu.
4 - One of the few completely indigenous written languages in Africa is native to Cameroon. It's Bamoun/Bamum, and was developed by the sultan of Foumban specifically to evade and wage war against white invaders and preserve their culture.
Source: former Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon. ❤️🇨🇲
I'm bored at work, so I guess I'll do a very quick write-up on Muammar Qaddafi’s Regime.
Muammar Qaddafi rose to power in 1969 and retired his dictatorship until 2011. Before his fall, he was a powerful leader, whose rise was witnessed by a nation. Inspired by anti-anti-colonel Egypt, Qaddafi expressed distaste with Libya’s pro-pro-western monarchy. As he attended military college, his dissatisfaction with the monarchy grew, until September 1, 1969, when he and others staged a revolution. Qaddafi emerged as the leader of this revolution, and his assent into power officially began. Over the course of forty-two years Qaddafi would isolate Libya from their neighbors and Western countries.
Early within Qaddafi’s rule Libya became a hot spot for international terrorism. Backing both the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Irish Republic Army, Qaddafi became known as the “mad dog of the Middle East.” He retained his anti-Western views and forced both the United States and the United Kingdom out of Libya over the span of twenty years. The explosion of foreign troops was part of Qaddafi’s pan-Arabism beliefs, and he called for the Arab World to “fight the West.” Fighting the West included fighting Arab states who supported the West (or had positive interaction with the West) as those states went against pan-Arabism. The radicalization of Libya caused tensions with countries surrounding Libya and further separated the state from pan-Arabism and into terror based jihadism. When the pan-Arabism movement failed to succeed Qaddafi turned to the pan-African movement and decided to uplift African countries rather than Arab countries. (These countries that benefited from the movement did not touch Libya.) These strained international relations would reaper in the late 1990s with UN sanctions placed on Libya that would not be lifted until the next decade.
One of the more interesting things about Qaddafi’s reign was his self imposed title of “Brotherly Leader.” Libya’s state denies he had any absolute power, instead in 1977, power laid in the hands of the General People’s Congress. This meant public functions laid in decisions made by the people, not a sole leader. However, this lasted shortly as in 1979 Gaddafi renounced the GPC and made himself Qāʾid (Leader, Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution) of the Libyan state. Qāʾid (as a title) existed for the sole year of 1979, as he self appointed the rank of Colonel, but is frequently used to describe all of Qaddafi’s rule. The regime ran on Qaddafi’s philosophy of the Green Book, and later began to take interest in foreign oil. The Green Book functioned on Qaddafi’s belief that Lybia was a vast tribe who needed a “genuine democracy” not “power given to representatives or a parliament.”
Further in the book Qaddafi renounces both a capitalist and communists economic system, later on it seems Libya rejects this view of economics as oil becomes an economic driver. Under Qaddafi the public sector began to flourish while the private sector was failing; former private professionals were forced to work under the state or bring their skills to the black market. In what was once declared a stateless state, the state was now everything. As Libya became a distributed state, this dystopia continued to be funded by oil revenue.
The late 1980s and 1990s herald in a new wave of terrorism and unrest inside (and outside) of Libya. Unstained allegations of Libyan backed terrorist groups landed Qaddafi’s Libya in hot water. While there were terrorist connections in the past, and attacks across the 1990s, many were unable to be successful tied to Libya. Despite this Ronald Regan used his power to aid the UN in establishing sanctions against Libya. The most notable incident would be the Lockerbie bombing in which Libya would “accept responsibility but not complicity.” Despite Libya’s Western struggles Qaddafi had been working on rebranding their image. In fact, back in 1998 most Arab solidarity had been dismissed, and Libya had issued an arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden. Even amongst the sanctions Libya continued to improve their image, and Qaddafi was the first Arab leader to condemn the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. By 2003 his speeches emphasizing Libya’s understanding of their international roles allowed the UN sanctions to be lifted; as well as George W. Bush lifting sanctions placed by the United States. Qaddafi had managed to rebrand Libya into a “friendly partner to the West.”
Despite these international changes, the decline of Qaddafi’s dictatorship began in the 2000s. Qaddafi had pushed away any Arab allies, instead he fully embraced Libya as an African nation. This African identity would not be able to save his regime as the Arab Spring’s influence crept into Libyan society. Economic stratification was at an all time high, (thanks to oil and lack of private sector jobs) and citizens believed he put himself before them. Despite Qaddafi taking action to protect his rule, the success of revolts elsewhere lead to his ultimate downfall. The rebellion began in Benghazi as Libyans smashed a representation of the Green Book. Next, posters were being torn down and the people were calling for him to be outed. The National Transitional Council formed as a para military unit who began to fight state supported troops. The situation acme more dire when NATO intervened in March of 2011, taking the rebels side to “protect citizens from their imminent annihilation.” By August of 2011 Tripoli had fallen and Qaddafi along side his family, went into hiding.
By October of 2011, Libya was in complete revolt and NATO had ordered an air strike on Qaddafi’s convoy. Qaddafi reached out to NATO with no success and the strike against Sirte led NTC rebels to his hiding spot. The forty-two year regime ended on October 20, 2011 with the death of the dictator. Qaddafi’s death remains a mystery, with some claiming he was killed in crossfire, others say he was lynched and dragged through the streets; video evidence supports neither of these claims, however it cannot be said these acts did not happen during the timeline. Libya was officially liberated from Qaddafi on October 23, 2011 at a ceremony in Benghazi, finally marking the end of Qaddafi’s influence and reign.
Mezran, Karim. Review: Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi. (Middle East Policy Council, Washington D.C.) nd.
Ajami, Fouad. Gaddafiphilia. Newsweek, 25 Jan. 2013, p. 01. (Academic OneFile)
Business Insights: Essentials."Gaddafi's rise and fall." (UNB - United News of Bangladesh.) 28 Oct. 2011.
Aljazeera, Gaddafi: Libya dignity under attack. 2 Mar 2011. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/03/201132113120236750.html
al-Qaddafi, Muammar. The Green Book. 1975. pg. 9
Finn, Peter. The rise and fall of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi. The Washington Post. Aug 25, 2011.
Asser, Martin. The Muammar Gaddafi story. (BBC London, London.) October 21. 2011.
What a great feature.
I did quite some research on the early days of Nyerere's tenure as head of state of Tanganyika and Tanzania (after the union with Zanzibar in 1964). Wrote my bachelor thesis on this (currently doing my M.A. in Ethiopia) and I'm preparing and article on this for a journal. Let me share something, but please bear with me, because I'm only having access to my phone, because I am currently exactly in Tanzania. If you're interested, I might write more extensive.
Shortly after the Tanganyikan independence in 1961 - the process to independence is an interesting story as well, because Tanganyika go it "for free", they weren't even thinking of getting it as early as they did - there was quite some debate of how to shape the new country. Among many things, one of the issues was how and if the the European and Asian (mostly Indian) minorities should be integrated. This did not only extend to the percentage of "African", mean black, ethnical African in this context, in civil service, government and private enterprises, but also to the question of citizenship itself. A very vocal minority, led by powerful worker unions, pushed for an African-only citizenship, thus creating a kind of reverse-Apartheid. These unions started to form a party (which name I sadly can't remember, but I can look it up), together with disenfranchised TANU members, the nationalist movement of Nyerere. Nyerere himself was arguing heavily against their proposal, even accusing them to embrace Hitler. After several months of debate and strikes he seems to have had enough. Legislation was introduced which would enable to police to preventivly detain and/or deport opposition without legal remedies. This is remarkable, because previously Nyerere championed human rights. Retrospectivly those were the first steps to the one-party state which would only get abolished in 1995. It is also important for contemporary Tanzanian politics, because current president Magufuli acts in the same manner against political opponents.
In my opinion, Nyerere was shocked and concerned about the fierceness of opposition against his open society. His overriding ideal was that of unity of the people and the political elites, as he considered true opposition to be artificial, as long as free debate inside the governing party was guaranteed. He later voiced some regret over some of the measures he introduced.
Bjerk, Paul. 2015. Building a Peaceful Nation: Julius Nyerere and the Establishment of Sovereignty in Tanzania, 1960-1964, University of Rochester Press.
Nyerere, Julius. 1968. Uhuru na Umoja - Freedom and Unity, Oxford University Press.
#The Royal Navy and East Africa 1933-45
The Royal Navy had a long history in East Africa. From ~1840, it had operated anti-slavery patrols along the coast. The ships on this station often included African ratings in their crews. At first, these were Kru people from West Africa, but it was found to be too expensive to ship them over. From 1870, these 'Kroomen' were replaced with 'Seedies', Muslim sailors mainly recruited from Zanzibar. Freed Africans would also serve, though unlike the Kroomen and Seedies, they were seen as more fit for work as stokers rather than seamen. By 1881, 11.5% of the RN's men in the Indian Ocean were non-white. In 1907, slavery was abolished in Zanzibar, while the RN's rules on recruitment became more stringent. This essentially halted RN recruitment of East Africans. However, WWI would lead to a number of manpower shortages, causing recruitment to restart. One of the first naval engagements of WWI would come in Zanzibar harbour, when the old British cruiser Pegasus was sunk, and the gunboat Helmuth damaged by the German cruiser Konigsberg. Both of the British ships had native seamen aboard.
Moving into the 1920s, though, the RN wanted to reduce its commitments to the defence of Britain's colonies. The Washington Naval Treaty had put a relatively stringent limit on the number of ships available to the RN. It was less willing to use these ships to defend the East African coast, preferring to defend British possessions in South-East Asia, which were under significant threat from Japan. Spending on the expansion of the naval base at Singapore precluded spending on other, more minor colonies. In 1923, Lt-Commander Whitehouse, commanding Mombasa's port, would write a report on the defence of Kenya. In this, he called for the establishment of a small naval reserve for minesweeping and coastal defence in the Mombasa area in the event of war. The Admiralty was generally receptive, as Japanese raiding forces might well strike against Kenya. However, such forces had to be funded not by the Admiralty, but by the local colonial government. The Kenyan Government was unwilling to fund it, not unless the Ugandan Government also paid for part of it, as Uganda also relied on Mombasa harbour. This was not possible under the existing legislation, so the proposal bogged down in bureaucracy.
In 1931, the legislation was amended to allow for multiple colonies to fund a single defence force. A bill to introduce a naval reserve in Kenya was brought before the Legislative Council and passed, though full implementation was delayed until the colony's finances were more clear. In 1932, Admiral Martin Dunbar-Nasmith, commanding the East Indies Station, made a visit to the colony. This visit encouraged local notables to pressure the government into establishing the reserve. The following year, the Kenya Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (KRNVR) was established. It drew its ratings from local Africans, while its officers were European colonists. Parades began in March 1933, with sailing training being carried out on a cutter imported from the UK. Facilities were initially limited, as was the role of the force - just minesweeping, anti-submarine patrols and providing an Examination Service for the naval base at Kilindini.
While Uganda and Zanzibar were providing a third of the funding for the KRNVR, Kenya was still unwilling to shoulder the costs of administering it. The Kenyan Government pushed for the Admiralty to pay for this, but the Admiralty was unwilling. It wanted local governments to pay for their own defences, so it could spend money elsewhere. This meant that the KRNVR was run by a local amateur body, and was not subject to naval discipline, regulation or pay scales. With the limited facilities, lax discipline and poor pay, the KRNVR found it difficult to retain men. A group of regular African ratings was soon formed, to serve as a nucleus for the volunteer force. These served under similar conditions to the local soldiers or askaris, and were drawn mainly from the Kamba ethnic group, seen by the British as being more suited to seafaring. A similar force was also formed in Tanganyika.
Zanzibar was happy to pay for the KRNVR, but in 1938, it formed its own force. This was the Zanzibar Naval Volunteer Force (ZNVF). It consisted of 20 African ratings, with six serving as a permanent nucleus, with three European officers under the command of C. G. Somers, formerly the customs officer for Zanzibar. It was given two ships, to serve as minesweepers. Unlike the KRNVR, which was intended to be subordinate to British naval policy, the ZNVF was intended to give the protectorate a degree of autonomy. Somers was given the rank of Lieutenant-Commander so he would be on a closer level to regular RN officers, while the ZNVF's uniform buttons had the Sultan of Zanzibar's personal seal, rather than the traditional naval anchor.
These forces served as a way to encourage collaboration from local elites, while enforcing the traditional and colonial power systems. The KRNVR received particular support from Kenya's relatively privileged Arab population, especially from Sir Ali bin Salim, the Arabian representative on the Legislative Council. Sir Ali provided a headquarters for the KRNVR in 1934, and, in 1938, handed over his house and gardens to the Admiralty for use by the KRNVR. This decision may have been motivated by his navalism, but may also have resulted from ethnic tensions within the colony, with Sir Ali fearing 'that eventually it will fall into Indian hands'. In return, he was granted the honorary rank of Captain in the RNVR. In 1939, Hassanali Suleman Verjee, director of the Kenya Fish and Supply Company, offered the KRNVR the MV Kenya Fish free of charge for the duration of the war. The KRNVR was less popular with the European community in Kenya, who disliked the cost of the service. It also posed a threat to the status of poor Europeans; there was no provision for death or disability suffered on service, which would impoverish the wives and dependants of any casualties. To counter this dissatisfaction, the KRNVR mainly employed Europeans as officers, and enforced a strict colour bar. European officers and ratings were forbidden to visit hotels, bars and other premises that were under African or Asian management. Following the start of WWII, a pension was implemented, with a minimum rate of £140 for officers and £100 for other ranks. This was seen as being sufficient to keep a woman in the lifestyle expected for a 'lady' in Kenya.
Navalism in the colonies was also encouraged by the regular RN. On the 18th August 1939, the cruiser HMS Kenya was launched. As I've previously covered here, the RN named ships after colonies to encourage a closeness between the Navy and the colonies; Kenya was no exception. The Governor, Brooke-Popham, raised a number of public donations to present gifts for the ship. This included a welfare fund of £200, as well as £560 worth of goods, each engraved with the statement 'Presented by the Colony of Kenya'. The ship's crest, a lion, was chosen by colonial personages, and the gifts were presented by Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, who had spent time in the colony. These gifts, and the exploits of the ship, were well publicised within the colony. That said, the main aim of these measures was to draw the European population closer to the RN, and each other. Brooke-Popham sent a message to be read at Kenya's launch, and which was reported in Kenyan newspapers; this message emphasised the RN's role in protecting the trade on which Kenya depended, and it's part in the 'civilising mission' that Kenyan settlers saw themselves participating in.
When the war began, the KRNVR had two minesweepers, the Ndovu and Nguvu, and four motor launches (MLs). These were manned by 32 European officers, 8 European ratings, 44 African seamen and 4 Asian. Their war was quiet, until the Italian declaration of war in June 1940. This set in train a campaign to contain and destroy the Italian forces in Italian East Africa (modern Ethiopia, Eritrea and much of modern Somalia). The KRNVR supported the British Empire forces carrying out this campaign. In September 1940, it would receive a new minesweeper, the Lindi, while Nguvu was replaced by HMS Oryx. With these ships, it would clear minefields, and carry troops to raid Italian positions. Three of its MLs would be used to sweep the coast for dhows carrying supplies, and KRNVR signalmen manned signal stations at Mogadishu and Kismayu. To supplement the original force, 23 more European officers, 28 European ratings and 55 African ratings were recruited; one African was also promoted to Petty Officer. In 1941, with Italian East Africa under British control, two motor launches and the whale-catcher Impala were sent to the Persian Gulf for the next two years. The ZNVF, meanwhile, could not legally be deployed outside the protectorate's waters. Their war was a lot more boring, sweeping a channel for mines that never came. The closest they came to battle was with European companies, which were unwilling to release their workers for this seemingly pointless service.
Does anyone know if there were trade routes between the different Geo political zones of Africa (North, East, West, Central and South Africa), when ever I try to search such trade routes in Africa I only get trade between West Africa and North Africa via the Trans Saharan trade routes or more rarely between East Africa, Somalia and North Africa, but nothing between let's say West and East Africa through the Sahel or between Central African states like the Congo and Forest West African peoples like the Igbo.
Where is this art from, and where can I get more for a classroom?
May I take the opportunity to link this question of mine in this thread? It's got significant upvotes but no answer yet, which I totally understand if there's no one to answer it but I see many folks in this thread with extensive knowledge about various parts and times in Africa so...
Welcome to the eighth installment of our Summer 2019 Floating Features and Flair Drive.
Today’s theme is the History of Africa, and we want to see everyone share history that fits that theme however they might interpret it. Share stories, whether happy, sad, funny, moving; Share something interesting or profound that you just read; Share what you are currently working on in your research. It is all welcome!
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