“Pax Colonia?”
Part 2
“Africans
dance. They dance for joy, and they
dance for grief; they dance for love and they
dance for hate;
… Far more exotic than their skin and their
features is this characteristic of dancing; …
Perhaps all that paragraph should be put into
the past tense, or rather into the passing
tense….”
[Geoffrey Gorer, Africa Dances, 1949]
Education: ‘Becoming European’
Everywhere, being educated meant:
- speaking European languages
- wearing European clothes
- eating European food
- accepting European ideas
- imbibing a European identity!
Education: ‘Becoming European’
- But what did being educated to ‘be
European’ mean to a black African in Colonial
Africa?
-What did it mean to significant class of
‘mulattos’ – children of European men and
African women?
(See “Africa Dances: the Mulatto” in ‘Additional Readings’)
Living the European Life
“Can we object if a lucky
few copy a social life we
ourselves have created?”
(South Africa, 1940s)
Congolese doctor with
his Family, 1933.
[NR Hunt, Colonial Lexicon, 1999: 83]
Shepherd & Paver, African
Contrasts, 1947: 253]
Civilization is … “Cooking”
“Cookery classes in Lovedale [misionary centre],Cape
Province, SA. Few Native girls have the advantage of
a training in domestic science; those who do make apt
pupils” [RHW Shepherd & BG Paver, African Contrasts, 1947]
Growing up in the Colonies
“[In South Africa],
only one European
child in a thousand
has a European
‘Nanny’.”
This kind of domestic
labour employed
thousands of South
African women.
[RHW Shepherd & BG Paver, African Contrasts, 1947: 74]
Civilization is. . .“Good
Housekeeping”
(above)Aburi Girls’s School (Gold
Coast, 1898)
(right) A set of “do-don’t” messages
about good housekeeping – keeping
fire and smoke from infants.
[Rev. D. Kemp, Nine Years at Gold
Coast, 1898:204]
NR Hunt, Colonial Lexicon,
1999: 271]
“From the pace of the ox…”
South African men
leaving the electric train
which has brought them
from the ‘suburbs’
(townships) into the city
where they work.
“In a single generation,
these people are expected to
to step from the pace of the
ox to the tempo of modern
civilisation, where time,
speed and proficiency are
the essence of progress”
[RHW Sheopherd & BG Paver, Sfrican Contrasts, 1947: 56]
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
Francophone West Africa:
-policy of assilimiation provided avenue to
become ‘Black Frenchman’
- policy not practical: by mid-1920s, over 13
million Africans in A.O.F.
-1926 fewer than 50,000 had achieved goal
of citizenship, most of those in Senegal
- 1945 still fewer than 100,000
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
Shaped social and political profile of educated
elite: e.g. Blaise Diagne (Senegal )
-Diagne became member of
French Parliament.
-tried to obtain French
citizenship for all Senegalese;
failed.
-supported conscription
WWI forced labour
-saw colonialism as way
forward ‘modernization’
(1872 – 1934)
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
British West Africa:
- “Social-hybrids”, “been-to’s” (as in ‘been to
Europe’) characterized educated elite
- accepted European beliefs about progress,
modernization, role of ‘middle class’
- were well represented among professionals
in main cities
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
-believed in need to use European concepts of
unity, nationhood to overcome pre-colonial
tribal divisions
- believed in need to impose European
governmental systems to overcome precolonial multiplicity of polities and ruling
systems (eg. National Congress of British
West Africans, 1920)
- not broad based organizations
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
Pan-Africanism:
- West Africans who studied in Europe
were introduced to ‘pan-africanism’
- leaders born in America, related to ‘Back
to Africa’ movement (Edward Blyden,
Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Dubois)
- had no power but brought African
colonial situation to world attention
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
Pan-Africanism:
- by mid-1920s, Africans decided that any
plan for African progress had to be decided
by Africans and directed from Africa
- turned to ideas about nationalism and
national unity
Marcus Garvey and Pan-Africanism
Universal Negro Improvement Association
(founded 1917, Harlem):
The Universal Improvement Association represents the hopes
and aspirations of the awakened Negro. Our desire is for a
place in the world, not to disturb the tranquility of other men,
but to lay down our burden and rest our weary backs and feet
by the banks of the Niger and sing our songs and chant our
hymns to the God of Ethiopia. . .
"Look to Africa for the crowning of a Black king; he shall be
the Redeemer.“
[Garvey, New York, 1924]
http://www.raceandhistory.com/Historians/marcus_garvey.htm
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
East and Central Africa:
-in settler colonies, no need for
professional teachers, lawyers,
administrators
- education created large semi-skilled class:
technicians, civil servants, office workers
- most had a ‘glass ceiling’ determined by
race
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
South Africa:
-had longer history of educated Africans:
professionals numerous but segregationist
laws still applied
-1912 South African Native National
Congress founded: believed in British
ideals
-1923 ANC small, elite group: internal
dissensions impeded progress
The SANNC 1912
These men were typical of the early educated
elite, as alienated from their fellow Africans as
from the British they failed to impress.
[J Schadeberg, ed. Nelson Mandela and the Rise of the ANC 1990: 14]
Natives’ Representative Council
This council was established in 1936 to consider
legislation affecting the Native Peoples of the
South African Union.
[Shepherd & Paver, African Contrasts, 217]
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
Christianity, education, search for well-paying
work commensurate with education:
- took Africans into towns, along with
uneducated, unskilled relatives
- for some, opportunity to escape control of
elders, former masters, men
- for others, chance to escape from social
status: anonymity
‘Becoming European’ (cont.)
Christianity, education, search for wellpaying work commensurate with
education-- in practice, town rarely lived up to
promises: gave rise to re-invented village
communities, self-help groups, dependency
relations, new forms of poverty.
- few were actually able to live ‘like
Europeans’
‘Becoming…’: health and medicine
Colonialism also realized in health, nutrition,
practice of medicine:
-cross cut gender roles in households, agegrades, social hierarchy, and powerful role
traditional healers (men and women)
-initially men drawn into health care
-later women: mid-wives, nurses.
- European belief system intruded at most
basic and personal level
Traditional Medicine Persists
Traditional treatments could still be purchased.
Here, “discussion on the curative powers of dried sand-shark”.
[RHW Shepherd & BG Paver, African Contrasts, 1947: 127]
Traditional Medicine Persists
Traditional Healer
“Witch Doctress whose sombre figure still throws a dark shadow of ignorance and fear over the lives of many.”
[RHW Shepherd & BG Paver, African Contrasts, 1947: 132]
“New” Medicine
Students spend a year at Fort Hare, then go on to
Johannesburg for training as “Medical Aids”.
[Shepherd & Paver, African Contrasts, 128;
“New” Medicine
Native Nurses c.1930 working for Union Miniere du HautKatanga.(Congo)
NR Hunt, A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, 1999: 177]
“New” Medicine
Yakusu (Congolese) mid-wives c.1931
NR Hunt, A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, 1999: 212
‘No Simple Act…’
"Neither imperialism nor colonialism is a
simple act of accumulation and
acquisition… Out of imperialism, notions
about culture were classified, reinforced,
criticized or rejected."
[Culture and Imperialism, Edward W. Said]