WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY
HISTORY 306: WAR AND SOCIETY IN AFRICA
2015-16
Tues/Thurs 10-11:30am
Room: DAWB 1-101A
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays,
noon-1:30pm or by appointment
Dr. Jeff Grischow
Office: DAWB 4-155
Tel: 884-0710, ext.3347
e-mail: jgrischow@wlu.ca
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Africa has experienced, and continues to suffer, a particularly high
incidence of warfare. This course studies war and society in Africa in the 19th and 20th
centuries, with a special emphasis on warfare and conflict since 1945. It examines the reciprocal
ways in which the conduct of warfare and the nature of the societies in which it occurs influence
and transform each other.
PLAGIARISM: Wilfrid Laurier University uses software that can check for plagiarism. Students
may be required to submit their written work in electronic form and have it checked for
plagiarism.
SPECIAL NEEDS: Students with disabilities or special needs are advised to contact Laurier's
Special Needs Office for information regarding its services and resources. Students are
encouraged to review the Calendar for information regarding all services available on campus.
ASSIGNED TEXTS
Ricardo René Laremont, The Causes of War and the Consequences of Peacekeeping in Africa
(Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2002).
Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (New
York: Basic Books, 2001).
Douglas Johnson, The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars: Peace or Truce, Revised Edition
(London: James Currey, 2011).
ASSIGNMENTS:
Value
Due Date
Review Essay (1800 words)
Term Essay (3500 words)
Participation (discussions)
Final Exam
20%
35%
15%
30%
October 8, 2015
November 20, 2015
TBA
After class call 886-FOOT for a walk or drive home - No Walk is Too
Short or Too Long!!!
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ANTICIPATED CLASS SCHEDULE
UNIT 1: PERSPECTIVES AND BACKGROUND
WEEK 1
10 September
WEEK 2
15 September
17 September
WEEK 3
22 September
24 September
Introduction and overview
Discussion #1: Perspectives on African Conflict:
Reading: Laremont, Chapter 1: Ricardo René Laremont, “The Causes of
Warfare and the Implications for Peacekeeping in Africa,” pp.3-18.
Colonialism, Independence and African Conflict:
Reading: Laremont, Chapter 2: Ali A. Mazrui and Robert L. Ostergard,
Jr., “From Pax Europa to Pax Africana,” pp.19-36.
Decolonization in Africa
- Film: Basil Davidson, The Rise of Nationalism
Discussion #2: Ethnicity and Conflict in Africa: Laremont, Chapter 3:
Crawford Young, “Pluralism, Ethnicity and Militarization,” pp.37-57.
UNIT 2: CASE STUDIES IN CONFLICT
WEEK 4
29 September
1 October
WEEK 5
6 October
8 October
Kenya and Mau Mau I: War and Decolonization
Film: No Easy Walk: Kenya
Reading: Martin Meredith, ‘The Winds of Change,’ Chapter 5 of The Fate
of Africa (New York: Public Affairs, 2011), pp.75-92. MLS.
The Congo Crisis and the Cold War, 1959-1965
Reading: Martin Meredith, ‘Heart of Darkness,’ Chapter 6 of The Fate of
Africa (New York: Public Affairs, 2011), pp.93-115. MLS.
Discussion #3: The Congo Crisis and the Assassination of Lumumba
Reading: (1) Excerpts from Church Committee, ‘Interim Report: Alleged
Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,’ Washington, 1975; (2)
Stephen R. Weissman, ‘An Extraordinary Rendition,’ Intelligence and
National Security, 25(2)(2010): 198–222. MLS.
Great Lakes: A Survey
Reading: Laremont, Chapter 5: Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, “Civil War,
Peacekeeping and the Great Lakes Region,” pp.91-115.
** ESSAY #1 DUE ON OCTOBER 8, 2015, TO TURNITIN.COM BY MIDNIGHT **
*** OCTOBER 12-16: READING WEEK, NO CLASSES ***
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WEEK 6
20 October
22 October
WEEK 7
27 October
29 October
WEEK 8
3 November
5 November
WEEK 9
10 November
12 November
Rwanda and Genocide
Reading: Martin Meredith, ‘The Graves Are Not Yet Full,’ Chapter 27 of
The Fate of Africa (New York: Public Affairs, 2011), pp.485-523. MLS.
Discussion #4: Rwanda I
Reading: Berkeley, Chapter 6: “The Defendant,” pp.245-284.
Sudan I
- Reading: Laremont, Chapter 4: Francis M. Deng, “Sudan: An African
Dilemma,” pp.61-89.
Sudan II
- Reading: Berkeley, Chapter 5: “Three Ph.D.s and a New Kind of
African Leader,” pp.195-226
Discussion #5: Sudan and Civil War
Reading:
(1) Jane Kani Edward and Amir Idris, “The Consequences of Sudan’s
Civil Wars for the Civilian Population,” in Daily Lives of Civilians in
Wartime Africa: From Slavery Days to Rwandan Genocide , ed. John
Laband (Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press, 2007), 227–52;
(2) Stephanie Beswick, “We Are Bought Like Clothes”: The War over
Polygyny and Levirate Marriage in South Sudan,’ Northeast African
Studies 8(2)(2001): 35-61.
Liberia
Reading: Laremont, Chapter 6: W. Ofuatey-Kodjoe, “The Impact of
Peacekeeping on on Target States,” Lessons from the Liberian
Experience,” pp.117-142.
Discussion #6: Liberia
- Reading: Berkeley, Chapter 1: “The Rebel,” pp.21-61.
Sierra Leone
Reading: Laremont, Chapter 7: Yusu Bangura, “Strategic Policy Failure
and State Fragmentation: Security, Peacekeeping and Democratization in
Sierra Leone,” pp.143-169.
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WEEK 10
17 November
19 November
Discussion #7: Sierra Leone
Reading: (1) Robert Kaplan, ‘The Coming Anarchy,’The Atlantic
Monthly, February, 1994, 44-76; (2) Rosalind Shaw, ‘Robert Kaplan and
“Juju Journalism” in Sierra Leone's Rebel War: The Primitivizing of an
African Conflict,’ in Birgit Meyer and Peter Pels (eds.), Magic and
Modernity: Interfaces of Revelation and Concealment, pp. 81-102.
Stanford: Stanford University Press. MLS.
NO CLASS
** ESSAY #2 DUE ON NOVEMBER 20 TO TURNITIN.COM BY MIDNIGHT **
UNIT 3: PEACE, RECONCILIATION, REPARATIONS
WEEK 11
24 November
26 November
WEEK 12
1 December
3 December
WEEK 13
8 December
Demilitarization and Democracy in Africa
Reading: Laremont, Chapter 11: Julius O. Ihonvbere, “Military
Disengagement From Politics and Constitutionalism in Africa: Challenges
and Opportunities,” pp.241-262.
Discussion #8: Democratization: Comparative Perspectives
Reading: Laremont, Chapter 12: Ricardo René Laremont and Habu S.
Galadima, “Lessons for the Transition to Democracy in Africa: The
Experience of the Military in Brazil, Chile, Nigeria and Algeria,” pp.263286.
Lessons from Southern Africa?
Reading: Berkeley, Chapter 4: “The Collaborator,” pp.143-193.
Discussion #9: Rwanda II
Film: Gacaca: Living Together In Rwanda
Reading: Theoneste Rutayisire and Annemiek Richters, ‘Everyday
suffering outside prison walls: A legacy of community justice in postgenocide Rwanda,’ Social Science & Medicine, 120(2014): 413-420.
MLS.
(A) Discussion #10: Mau Mau, Human Rights and Reparations – The
Kenyan Court Case of 2009-13
Reading: (1) David M. Anderson, ‘Mau Mau in the High Court and the
‘Lost’ British Empire Archives,’ The Journal of Imperial and
Commonwealth History, 39(5)(2011): 699–716; (2) Caroline Elkins,
‘Alchemy of Evidence: Mau Mau, the British Empire, and the High Court
of Justice,’ The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History,
39(5)(2011): 731–748. MLS.
(B) Conclusion and Review
5
HISTORY 306: WAR AND SOCIETY IN AFRICA
Assignment 1: Review Essay
Length: 1800 words
Value: 20%
Due: 8 October 2015
Instructions: Write a critical book review of Douglas Johnson’s The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars:
Peace or Truce. For this assignment, you are required to assess the strengths and weaknesses of
Johnston’s argument(s) and evidence. Pay particular attention to the following questions:
1. Many people believe that Sudan’s civil wars can be explained as an ‘age-old’ conflict between
the ‘Arab’ north and the ‘African’ south. Johnson argues that the causes were more complex and
deeply historical. What is Johnson’s main argument about the root causes of Sudan’s civil wars?
2. What evidence does he present in support of his argument?
3. Is Johnson’s argument convincing? Why or why not?
4. Does Johnson’s book prove that we must understand a country’s deep past in order to recent
conflicts? Why or why not?
5. What is your overall assessment of the book as a resource for undergraduate History students? Is
it useful? Why or why not?
Assessment:
You will be assessed in a number of areas:
-
Your analytical ability in identifying and summarizing Johnson’s argument, and understanding
and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of its logic and his evidence.graphic history format.
Your ability to write a well-structured, clear and grammatically correct essay.
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HISTORY 306: WAR AND SOCIETY IN AFRICA
Assignment #2: Historiographical Essay
Assignment 2: Critical Comparative Review Essay
Length: 3,500 words
Value: 35%
Due: 20 November 2015
Sources: For this essay, you must use at least 8 books beyond the course textbooks. You may use articles
in place of books – I will consider three scholarly, peer-reviewed articles as the equivalent of one book.
Instructions: Choose one of the following options:
Option 1: Political Leaders/Revolutionaries, Conflict and Warfare
Choose an African leader/revolutionary from the list below and write a critical review of the scholarship
on that leader:
Gamal Nasser (Egypt, 1956-1970)
Ahmed Ben Bella (Algeria, lived 1916-2012)
Mengistu Haile Mariam (Ethiopia, 1970s-1990s)
Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia, 1975-2012)
Idi Amin Dada (Uganda, 1971-1979)
Yoweri Museveni (Uganda, 1986-present)
Thomasn Sankara (Burkina Faso, 1980s)
Amilcar Cabral (Guinea-Bissau, 1963-1973)
Yaa Asantewaa (Ghana, lived 1840–1921)
J.J. Rawlings (Ghana, 1981-2001)
Patrice Lumumba (Congo), 1925-1961)
Mobutu Sese Seku (Zaire (Congo), 1965-1997)
Samora Michel (Mozambique, lived 1933-1986)
Jonas Savimbi (Angola, lived 1934-2002)
Agostinho Neto (Angola, lived 1922-1979)
Holden Roberto (Angola, lived 1922-1979)
Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe, 1980-present)
John Chielmbwe (Nyasaland/Malawi, lived
1871-1915)
Shaka Zulu (South Africa, lived 1787-1828)
Ruth First (South Africa, lived 1925-1982)
Joe Slovo (South Africa, lived 1926-1995)
Nelson Mandela (South Africa lived 1918-2013)
Winnie Mandela (South Africa, 1936-present)
Steve Biko (South Africa, lived 1946-1977)
*I might update this list as the class progresses. If this happens I will post the update on MLS.
Option 2: Themes*
Choose one of the topics from the list below and write a critical review of the scholarship on that
theme:
General
-
Africa and World War Two
Warfare and Decolonization in Africa
The Cold War in Africa.
Conflict in Africa since 1945.
The United Nations and the Cold War in
Africa.
Civil Wars in Africa since 1945
The impact of war on African women
West Africa:
-
The causes of Nigeria’s Biafran war.
Conflict in Nigeria Since Independence
The Crises in Liberia and/or Sierra Leone,
1980s-1990s.
Revolution and Decolonization in Guinea
Bissau (Portugal)
North Africa
Southern Africa:
-
-
The Algerian War of the 1950s.
Egypt and the Suez Crisis, 1950s
Egypt, Israel and the Six-Day War, 1967
The causes of the civil wars in Sudan
Darfur and Sudan in Historical Perspective
Horn of Africa:
-
The Ethiopian revolution of the 1970s.
The causes of the Ethiopian-Eritrean war.
The Ethiopian famine of 1984-5 and the EPLF
revolution.
-
Violence and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle in
South Africa.
The African National Congress (ANC),
violence and the fall of apartheid.
The ‘First Chimurenga’ in
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
The liberation war in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.
The anticolonial war in Angola.
The anticolonial war in Mozambique.
East & Central Africa:
-
The Somalian-Ethiopian war of 1977-1978.
-
Conflict in Somalia in the 1990s.
-
Darfur and Sudan in Historical Perspective
Mau Mau in Kenya.
The Ugandan Revolution of the 1980s
The Rwandan Crisis of the 1990s.
Decolonization in the Congo
The Congo Crisis of the 1960s.
-
*I might update this list as the class progresses. If this happens I will post the update on MLS.
Assessment:
You will be assessed in a number of areas:
-
Your judgement in selecting appropriate, scholarly sources.
Your analytical ability in understanding, evaluating and comparing the authors’ arguments and
evidence.
Your ability to write a well-structured, clear and grammatically correct essay.
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Format Considerations:
1. Thesis: Students are reminded that an essay is not simply a narrative of events, but an exposition
presenting a thesis or argument in answer to some question or problem. In this case, your thesis
should evaluate the relative merits of the two books.
2. Footnotes/Endnotes: Facts that are common knowledge do not need to be footnoted. Assume you
are writing for another student in History 229 who has read the texts and attended classes. Where
you use arguments, interpretations, or specific details from a particular source, then the source
must be footnoted.
3. Quotations: The occasional use of quotations to introduce an author’s ideas can be useful, but
frequently student essays rely far too heavily on quotations. In essays of this length, quotations
should be used sparingly, if at all.
4. Plagiarism: Anytime an author’s sentences or phrases are copied directly, the borrowed words
must be placed in quotation marks, and a footnote citing the source must be provided. Any
attempt to pass off another writer’s writing as your own is plagiarism. Students are warned that
essays that are copied directly in their entirety or in part from another source are plagiarized, and
will receive a failing grade.
Late papers will be subject to a late penalty of 3% per day, including weekends.
Turnitin.com: You must submit your written work in electronic form to Turnitin.com. I will download
the essays from the site and grade them electronically.
Participation
Value:
Based on:
15%
10 Discussion Classes
The participation grade will be based on overall evidence of preparation for the ten discussion classes. Participation
is more than attendance; you will be expected to contribute regularly to the discussions, based on a systematic
reading of the assigned readings. Your participation grade will reflect the quality of your comments and how
strongly they are rooted in the readings. The discussion classes are in your hands. As much as possible I will take a
back seat and confine my role to moderating student-driven discussions. Attendance is very important and missed
discussion classes will result in grade deductions.
Final Examination
Date:
Duration:
Venue:
Content:
Format:
Value:
December examination period, date TBA.
2 hours
TBA
All Lectures and readings.
Identifications and essays. Further details will be given in class.
30%
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History 306 Essay
Instructions for Turnitin.com
All students are required to submit an electronic copy of their essays to Turnitin.com. To submit your
copy, follow these instructions:
1. Go to www.turnitin.com
2. If you already have a user profile, simply log on (upper right hand corner of the home page).
3. If you don’t have a user profile yet, click on “Create user profile” (upper right corner of the home
page), and follow the instructions for creating your user profile.
4. Once you are logged on, enter the History 306 ID number: 10418666
5. And the enrolment password: HI306
6. Then follow the instructions for submitting your paper. Make sure you submit your paper into
the right folder. When you have successfully submitted it, you will be given a reference number;
if you don’t receive this number, then you have not followed the instructions correctly and must
try again
** No HI306 essays will be accepted, either in hard copy or turnitin.com, after
December 9, 2015 **
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Notes
1. Students with disabilities or special needs are advised to contact Laurier's Accessible Learning Office
for information regarding its services and resources. Students are encouraged to review the Calendar for
information regarding all services available on campus.
2. Students are expected to be aware of and abide by University regulations and policies, as outlined in
the current Undergraduate and Graduate Calendar.
3. Students must reserve the examination period as stated in the Undergraduate Calendar under Academic
Dates. If you are considering registering for a special examination or event, you should select a time
outside the examination period. Consult with the Undergraduate Calendar for special circumstances for
examination deferral. (Applicable to Undergraduate students only.)
4. The penalties for plagiarism or any form of academic misconduct are severe and enforced at all times.
The Student Code of Conduct and Discipline, and the procedures for investigating and determining
appropriate disciplinary measures for breaches of the Code are given in the current Undergraduate and
Graduate Calendar. Wilfrid Laurier University uses software that can check for plagiarism. Students may
be required to submit their written work in electronic form and have it checked for plagiarism.
5. Students are to adhere to the Principles in the Use of Information Technology. These Principles and
resulting actions for breaches are stated in the current Undergraduate and Graduate Calendar.
6. Students' names may be divulged in the classroom, both orally and in written form, to other members
of the class. Students who are concerned about such disclosures should contact the course instructor to
identify whether there are any possible alternatives to such disclosures. Additional information on the
Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act at Laurier is available at the Privacy Coordinator
Office.