Pub Date : 2022-01-28DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.775
Dag Henrichsen
A portrait of several generations of the Namibian Getzen-Kerina family reveals multicultural and cosmopolitan lives in this former German and South African colony of South West Africa. The lives and struggles of, in particular, Ida Getzen-Leinhos (alias Kaera, 1863–1926), Magdalena Getzen (alias Kasondoro, 1905–1977), and William Erich Getzen (alias Mburumba Kerina, b. 1932) provide a way to consider the complexity of central themes in Namibian history. With its strong roots in Herero society on the one hand and multicultural entanglements across the racial and ethnic divisions of segregated settler and apartheid society on the other hand, the Getzen-Kerina family history reflects subaltern experiences, networks, and worldviews that have shaped many Namibian families and influenced—often discretely—trajectories of defiance, antiracism, as well as anticolonial and antiapartheid resistance and liberation politics.
纳米比亚Getzen-Kerina家族几代人的肖像揭示了这个前德国和南非在西南非洲殖民地的多元文化和国际化生活。尤其是Ida gezen - leinhos(别名Kaera, 1863-1926)、Magdalena Getzen(别名Kasondoro, 1905-1977)和William Erich Getzen(别名Mburumba Kerina，生于1932)的生活和挣扎，提供了一种思考纳米比亚历史中心主题复杂性的方式。一方面，Getzen-Kerina家族在Herero社会中有着深厚的根基，另一方面，Getzen-Kerina家族在种族隔离和种族隔离社会的种族和民族分裂中有着多元文化的纠缠，这反映了下层社会的经历、网络和世界观，这些经历、网络和世界观塑造了许多纳米比亚家庭，并在一定程度上影响了反抗、反种族主义、反殖民和反种族隔离抵抗和解放政治的轨迹。
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Pub Date : 2022-01-28DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1040
Charles G. Thomas
The Uganda–Tanzania War was a military conflict between Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda and Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania. The roots of the conflict can be traced back to Amin’s seizure of power in Uganda in a coup against Nyerere’s ally Milton Obote in 1971. Their mutual animosity was then cemented by Nyerere’s approval of an invasion of Uganda by armed exiles the following year. The two countries continued to have strained relationships, leading to border disputes and faltering regional relations. Finally, in October 1978, Amin’s military invaded Tanzania and declared the annexation of all territory north of the Kagera River. This invasion convinced President Nyerere that Amin must be dealt with once and for all. Following a period of mobilization, the Tanzanian military forced the retreat of the Ugandan forces and prepared an invasion of Uganda. The Tanzanians then won a series of battles in southern Uganda, routing Amin’s military forces and their Libyan allies. Nyerere and the Ugandan exiles then focused on taking Kampala and installing representative government. These goals were accomplished in April of 1979 and the Tanzanians completed the removal of Amin loyalist forces in June, marking an end to the war. The Kagera War shaped much of the future for both countries. For Tanzania the war was seen as a unifying patriotic struggle. However, the economic strain of the war combined with the challenges of demobilization undermined President Nyerere’s struggling ujamaa villagization efforts. For Uganda the removal of the Amin regime was a welcome change, but not one that brought peace. The elected government of Godfrey Binaisa was removed in a coup and the return of Milton Obote to power led to a series of rebellions. The chaos released in the postwar period would only end with Museveni’s seizure of power in 1986.
{"title":"Uganda–Tanzania War","authors":"Charles G. Thomas","doi":"10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1040","url":null,"abstract":"The Uganda–Tanzania War was a military conflict between Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda and Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania. The roots of the conflict can be traced back to Amin’s seizure of power in Uganda in a coup against Nyerere’s ally Milton Obote in 1971. Their mutual animosity was then cemented by Nyerere’s approval of an invasion of Uganda by armed exiles the following year. The two countries continued to have strained relationships, leading to border disputes and faltering regional relations. Finally, in October 1978, Amin’s military invaded Tanzania and declared the annexation of all territory north of the Kagera River.\u0000 This invasion convinced President Nyerere that Amin must be dealt with once and for all. Following a period of mobilization, the Tanzanian military forced the retreat of the Ugandan forces and prepared an invasion of Uganda. The Tanzanians then won a series of battles in southern Uganda, routing Amin’s military forces and their Libyan allies. Nyerere and the Ugandan exiles then focused on taking Kampala and installing representative government. These goals were accomplished in April of 1979 and the Tanzanians completed the removal of Amin loyalist forces in June, marking an end to the war.\u0000 The Kagera War shaped much of the future for both countries. For Tanzania the war was seen as a unifying patriotic struggle. However, the economic strain of the war combined with the challenges of demobilization undermined President Nyerere’s struggling ujamaa villagization efforts. For Uganda the removal of the Amin regime was a welcome change, but not one that brought peace. The elected government of Godfrey Binaisa was removed in a coup and the return of Milton Obote to power led to a series of rebellions. The chaos released in the postwar period would only end with Museveni’s seizure of power in 1986.","PeriodicalId":166397,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131271217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-28DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.933
Adami Ali
In 869, slaves, mostly of African origin, revolted in Southern Iraq against their masters, living mainly in the city of Basra, and against the Abbasid caliphate. The slaves, referred to as Zanj in the sources, rebelled due to the harsh conditions under which they lived. They worked on large plantations where they were primarily employed in reclaiming land by removing the nitrous topsoil to make it arable. They toiled under terrible working conditions, received little sustenance, and suffered cruel and harsh treatment at the hands of their overseers. The rebellion was incited and led by Ali ibn Muhammad, a mysterious charismatic leader who was neither a slave nor a native of the marshy regions where he launched the movement that would cause the central authorities so much trouble for a period of 15 years. Ali ibn Muhammad and his band of followers attacked the plantations where the slaves worked and freed thousands of them. He promised the slaves that he would lead them to victory, wealth, and power. He also promised that he would treat them with respect and dignity and that he would never betray them. Ali ibn Muhammad and his followers established a polity in Southern Iraq and the region of Ahwaz (in Southwestern Iran). They constructed their capital, al-Mukhtara, deep in the marshes. The rebels utilized the marshes to conduct a guerilla war against their enemies. They defeated several armies sent by the local authorities in Basra and drove back caliphal forces sent to subdue them from Samarra and Baghdad. The Zanj were only crushed when the caliphate focused a considerable amount of its military and resources on subduing the revolt, eventually pushing the rebels back to their capital. Even after the rebel capital was besieged, it took the caliphal armies 2 years to capture al-Mukhtara. The rebellion took a heavy toll on the caliphate. The damage done to the economy, agriculture, and trade was devastating. Thousands lost their lives, irrigation systems were destroyed, and countless villages were abandoned. Even major cities such as Basra and Wasit were taken and sacked by the rebels, leaving much of the region devastated and depopulated. The caliphate suffered from losses of revenue and prestige and became further fragmented with regional dynasties and a rival caliphate rising to control much of its territory, leaving the Abbasid caliphs with little actual power beyond the capital.
公元869年，大部分非洲裔的奴隶在伊拉克南部起义反抗他们的主人，他们主要居住在巴士拉市，并反对阿巴斯王朝的哈里发。这些奴隶，在文献中被称为Zanj，由于他们生活的恶劣条件而反抗。他们在大型种植园工作，主要是通过去除含氮表土来开垦土地，使其可耕种。他们在恶劣的工作条件下辛苦劳作，几乎得不到食物，并在监工手中遭受残酷和苛刻的待遇。这场叛乱是由阿里·伊本·穆罕默德(Ali ibn Muhammad)煽动和领导的，他是一位神秘而有魅力的领袖，既不是奴隶，也不是沼泽地区的当地人。正是在那里，他发起了这场运动，给中央政府造成了长达15年的麻烦。阿里·伊本·穆罕默德和他的追随者们袭击了奴隶们工作的种植园，解放了成千上万的奴隶。他向奴隶们承诺，他将带领他们走向胜利、财富和权力。他还承诺，他将以尊重和尊严对待他们，永远不会背叛他们。阿里·伊本·穆罕默德和他的追随者在伊拉克南部和阿瓦士地区(伊朗西南部)建立了一个政体。他们在沼泽深处建造了他们的首都穆塔拉。叛军利用沼泽地对敌人进行游击战。他们击败了巴士拉地方当局派出的几支军队，并从萨迈拉和巴格达击退了派遣来制服他们的哈里发军队。只有当哈里发集中了大量的军事和资源镇压叛乱，最终将叛军赶回首都时，Zanj才被镇压。即使在叛军的首都被围困之后，哈里发军队也花了两年时间才占领穆赫塔拉。叛乱对哈里发造成了沉重打击。对经济、农业和贸易造成的破坏是毁灭性的。数千人丧生，灌溉系统被毁，无数村庄被遗弃。甚至像巴士拉和瓦西特这样的大城市也被叛军占领和洗劫，导致该地区大部分地区遭到破坏，人口减少。哈里发遭受了收入和声望的损失，并随着地区王朝和竞争对手哈里发的崛起而进一步分裂，控制了其大部分领土，使阿巴斯哈里发在首都之外几乎没有实际权力。
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Pub Date : 2022-01-28DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.997
Mariana Bracks Foncesca
Njinga Mbande was a sovereign of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms in the 17th century. She is remembered as a strong leader who challenged the Portuguese conquest of Angola. As heir to the Ndongo kingdom, she negotiated peace agreements with the Portuguese administration and was baptized. But diplomacy was not enough to guarantee the peace, security, and integrity of the Ndongo state. Military resistance was necessary to resist Portuguese advances and guarantee her political survival. Njinga Mbande defied the Portuguese armies and became the leader of a group of nomadic warriors called Jagas. Leading powerful battalions, she retreated inland and conquered the Matamba kingdom, which was ruled by women. The military superiority of Njinga’s army and her ability to build alliances made her the most feared figure in the Angolan wars in the 17th century. With great bravery and wisdom, she effectively defended her state and resisted Portuguese expansion in the region. For more than thirty years, Njinga resisted her enemies, defeating and deceiving them many times. She died when she was more than eighty years old without ever being captured or subjected. In the 20th century, Njinga Mbande’s public memory was transformed to represent nationalist resistance to earlier colonialism in Angola. She became known as the Angolan Queen, a national heroine in independent Angola, and is also remembered in the folk traditions of peoples of African descent in the Americas. It is important to stress, however, that she was the ruler of two states, and she never ruled the entire territory of what is now Angola.
{"title":"Queen Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba","authors":"Mariana Bracks Foncesca","doi":"10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.997","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.997","url":null,"abstract":"Njinga Mbande was a sovereign of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms in the 17th century. She is remembered as a strong leader who challenged the Portuguese conquest of Angola. As heir to the Ndongo kingdom, she negotiated peace agreements with the Portuguese administration and was baptized. But diplomacy was not enough to guarantee the peace, security, and integrity of the Ndongo state. Military resistance was necessary to resist Portuguese advances and guarantee her political survival. Njinga Mbande defied the Portuguese armies and became the leader of a group of nomadic warriors called Jagas. Leading powerful battalions, she retreated inland and conquered the Matamba kingdom, which was ruled by women.\u0000 The military superiority of Njinga’s army and her ability to build alliances made her the most feared figure in the Angolan wars in the 17th century. With great bravery and wisdom, she effectively defended her state and resisted Portuguese expansion in the region. For more than thirty years, Njinga resisted her enemies, defeating and deceiving them many times. She died when she was more than eighty years old without ever being captured or subjected. In the 20th century, Njinga Mbande’s public memory was transformed to represent nationalist resistance to earlier colonialism in Angola. She became known as the Angolan Queen, a national heroine in independent Angola, and is also remembered in the folk traditions of peoples of African descent in the Americas. It is important to stress, however, that she was the ruler of two states, and she never ruled the entire territory of what is now Angola.","PeriodicalId":166397,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115700373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-28DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.568
K. Salhi
North African historiography is interested in the history of mankind, though it tends to overlook the contribution of half of humanity: women. Women are often characterized by virtues of sobriety and purity, or the conventional attributes of wives, mothers, and mistresses common in pre-Roman times. Within an erroneously interpreted Muslim tradition, prevalent since the Ottoman period, the Algerian woman was under patriarchal protection and considered a genitor, destined to perpetuate the group. It was expected that she stayed in a private, enclosed space, inaccessible to any foreign male gaze. The veil she wore created around her body an impermissible mobile believed to control her desires. In reality, the fantasizing of its representations has contributed key points to the Western—mostly French—history of women in Muslim-influenced Algeria. The haremic image of polygamy in general essentially problematizes Western Muslim societies. The Western imagination of the past, as well as that of all contemporary societies, has long nurtured the Muslim East, characterized by the appealing odalisque, far removed from any consideration and daily concerns. The examination of the contexts in which Algerian women have become hypervisible as centers of debate and protest is no less essential to the understanding of Algeria than the history of the successive roles and challenges women have taken and experienced. Political attitudes, predominantly male, led to the introduction of the restrictive Algerian Family Law in postcolonial Algeria. Women have become the focal point for a contemporary dutiful discourse that presents itself as saving Muslim women, and that can be construed to pose a dilemma to the Western emancipation model. Women’s critical role in the unpredictably rapidly developing nation has marked events and national realizations. Despite Algerian women’s participation in various struggles and the roles assigned to them in nation-building, or even the centrality of social, political, and religious life consequential in gender relations, they demonstrate predispositions for transformational roles.
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Pub Date : 2022-01-28DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.939
F. Becker, Michelle Liebst
Slaves, ex-slaves, and their descendants have taken multiple and complex routes toward emancipation in East Africa. Their experiences varied regionally, with status contests most clearly traceable in those areas where slavery had been most concentrated, especially on the coast. As scholars have established, the legal abolition of slavery did not lead directly to emancipation in East Africa, but it contributed to the quick erosion of slavery-based labor regimes around 1900. Ex-slaves pursued economic security and livelihoods through access to land and wage labor and sought to shed the stigma of slave origins by seeking religious affiliations, education, ethnic identities, and kinship ties. Routes to emancipation were highly gendered as female slaves within owners’ households lacked both political support and legal rights to their children. Moreover, male ex-slaves’ ambitions to assert their own patriarchal status by controlling women could be a major obstacle for ex-slave women’s search for emancipation. Although political independence in the 1960s encouraged the condemnation of slavery as an aberration from a different era, slavery-derived social differences linger, and people with a genealogy of slavery may face status implications in certain situations. Though East African societies, rural ones especially, are readily characterized as timelessly egalitarian, they struggle to this day with the legacy of slavery and incomplete emancipation.
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Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.753
E. Aryeetey
The expressions, “informal economy,” “informal sector,” and “informal employment” reflect statistical terms and definitions used to describe various aspects of informality. They are the result of several decades of work to develop a framework that adequately represents the multifaceted nature of informality as it applies not only to developing countries, but also to other transition and developed economies. The informal sector is generally viewed as the set of activities of small unregistered enterprises, while informal employment refers to employment within the formal or informal sector that lacks any form of protection, whether legal or social.1 The informal economy is a broader concept that encompasses all of these elements in their different forms, including their outputs and outcomes. The many different views about the drivers and composition of the informal economy in Africa have influenced various prescriptions and policy responses. On the one hand, some have viewed informality as being inimical to investment and growth, given that the activities undertaken usually fall outside of official regulation and control. The policy response has, therefore, often been to clamp down on or formalize the activities and relationships within the informal economy. On the other hand, informality is sometimes viewed as critical for growth and poverty reduction, given that the informal economy is inextricably linked to the formal economy while also serving as an important source of livelihood for millions of people. As a result of this, some effort has recently gone into providing a more supportive environment to enhance productivity within the informal economy and minimize its inherent vulnerabilities in the last decade. In the face of increasing globalization and access to new technologies that will drive the future of work, there is concern about the future of informal economic activities. Whether new technologies lead to a decline or upscaling of the informal economy in Africa will depend on several elements. Technology will not only shape how informality in Africa is viewed, but will influence the kind of activities undertaken, its links with the formal economy, and ultimately, the public policy response, which will itself be shaped by advances in technology.
{"title":"Informal Economies","authors":"E. Aryeetey","doi":"10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.753","url":null,"abstract":"The expressions, “informal economy,” “informal sector,” and “informal employment” reflect statistical terms and definitions used to describe various aspects of informality. They are the result of several decades of work to develop a framework that adequately represents the multifaceted nature of informality as it applies not only to developing countries, but also to other transition and developed economies. The informal sector is generally viewed as the set of activities of small unregistered enterprises, while informal employment refers to employment within the formal or informal sector that lacks any form of protection, whether legal or social.1 The informal economy is a broader concept that encompasses all of these elements in their different forms, including their outputs and outcomes.\u0000 The many different views about the drivers and composition of the informal economy in Africa have influenced various prescriptions and policy responses. On the one hand, some have viewed informality as being inimical to investment and growth, given that the activities undertaken usually fall outside of official regulation and control. The policy response has, therefore, often been to clamp down on or formalize the activities and relationships within the informal economy. On the other hand, informality is sometimes viewed as critical for growth and poverty reduction, given that the informal economy is inextricably linked to the formal economy while also serving as an important source of livelihood for millions of people. As a result of this, some effort has recently gone into providing a more supportive environment to enhance productivity within the informal economy and minimize its inherent vulnerabilities in the last decade.\u0000 In the face of increasing globalization and access to new technologies that will drive the future of work, there is concern about the future of informal economic activities. Whether new technologies lead to a decline or upscaling of the informal economy in Africa will depend on several elements. Technology will not only shape how informality in Africa is viewed, but will influence the kind of activities undertaken, its links with the formal economy, and ultimately, the public policy response, which will itself be shaped by advances in technology.","PeriodicalId":166397,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127456227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1151
R. Grant
Accra is one of the largest and most important cities in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of this article is to assess the evolution of urban studies in Accra and its main historical and contemporary foci. Early knowledge on urban Accra is fragmentary and orientated toward European contact points and urban plans, ostensibly from the gaze of Europeans. Writings from Euro-Africans such as Carl Reindorf provide a different prism into the precolonial, indigenous, urban society, whereas most indigenous urban knowledge was situated in the oral tradition at this time. Around independence, officially appointed social anthropologists wrote about an indigenous community in Tema and surveyed the multiethnic Accra environment. From independence in 1957 until the early 1980s, social scientists viewed the urban settlement as an alien, Western intervention. Local scholarship on Accra was sidelined as the academy in a poor, emergent nation became preoccupied with the genesis of nation-state building and the establishment of viable academic departments in national universities, and growing proportions of migrants regarded “home” as somewhere else, that is, ancestral villages. In the 1970s Accra was inserted into world history and social history, and social scientists began to study residential geographies, but scholarship at the city-scale remained sparse. Engagement with world and social histories and the social sciences demonstrated that history matters, but not in linear and teleological ways. The liberalization era ushered in by structural adjustment policies (SAPs) in 1983 invigorated studies of Accra’s urban impacts and effects. Much of this research was disseminated by international scholars, as Ghanaian scholars had to contend with the negative impacts of SAPs on their own universities and households. Since the turn of the 21st century, scholarship on Accra, and African cities in general, has been increasing. Diverse research questions and a multiplicity of methodologies and frameworks seek to engage Western urban theories and other variants, undertake policy-relevant work, assess ethnic and residential dynamics, contribute to international urban debates, and advance postcolonial and revisionist accounts of urbanism. Viewed at the third decade of the 21st century, scholarship on Accra is of diverse origins, encompassing scholarship from locals, members of the diaspora, and international urbanists, and a promising tilt is local–international collaborations co-producing knowledge.
{"title":"Urban Studies of Accra","authors":"R. Grant","doi":"10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1151","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1151","url":null,"abstract":"Accra is one of the largest and most important cities in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of this article is to assess the evolution of urban studies in Accra and its main historical and contemporary foci. Early knowledge on urban Accra is fragmentary and orientated toward European contact points and urban plans, ostensibly from the gaze of Europeans. Writings from Euro-Africans such as Carl Reindorf provide a different prism into the precolonial, indigenous, urban society, whereas most indigenous urban knowledge was situated in the oral tradition at this time. Around independence, officially appointed social anthropologists wrote about an indigenous community in Tema and surveyed the multiethnic Accra environment. From independence in 1957 until the early 1980s, social scientists viewed the urban settlement as an alien, Western intervention. Local scholarship on Accra was sidelined as the academy in a poor, emergent nation became preoccupied with the genesis of nation-state building and the establishment of viable academic departments in national universities, and growing proportions of migrants regarded “home” as somewhere else, that is, ancestral villages.\u0000 In the 1970s Accra was inserted into world history and social history, and social scientists began to study residential geographies, but scholarship at the city-scale remained sparse. Engagement with world and social histories and the social sciences demonstrated that history matters, but not in linear and teleological ways. The liberalization era ushered in by structural adjustment policies (SAPs) in 1983 invigorated studies of Accra’s urban impacts and effects. Much of this research was disseminated by international scholars, as Ghanaian scholars had to contend with the negative impacts of SAPs on their own universities and households. Since the turn of the 21st century, scholarship on Accra, and African cities in general, has been increasing. Diverse research questions and a multiplicity of methodologies and frameworks seek to engage Western urban theories and other variants, undertake policy-relevant work, assess ethnic and residential dynamics, contribute to international urban debates, and advance postcolonial and revisionist accounts of urbanism. Viewed at the third decade of the 21st century, scholarship on Accra is of diverse origins, encompassing scholarship from locals, members of the diaspora, and international urbanists, and a promising tilt is local–international collaborations co-producing knowledge.","PeriodicalId":166397,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125863082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.966
Mohammed Bashir Salau
The two versions of the autobiography that Nicholas Said published offer insight into 19th-century conditions in five continents as well as insight into life as a child, slave, manservant, and teacher. As a child in the 1830s, Said was enslaved in Borno, marched across the Sahara Desert, and passed from hand to hand in North Africa and the Middle East. After serving as a slave in various societies, Said was freed by a Russian aristocrat in the late 1850s after accompanying the aristocrat in question to various parts of Europe. In the 1850s, Said also traveled as a manservant for a European traveler to South and North America. Ultimately he settled in the United States, where he authored two versions of his autobiography, served as a teacher and soldier, got married, and disappeared from sight. This article compares the two versions of the autobiography that Said published, provides an overview of Said’s life, charts the development of scholarly works on Said, and draws attention to the primary sources related to the study of Said and his autobiography.
{"title":"Nicholas Said","authors":"Mohammed Bashir Salau","doi":"10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.966","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.966","url":null,"abstract":"The two versions of the autobiography that Nicholas Said published offer insight into 19th-century conditions in five continents as well as insight into life as a child, slave, manservant, and teacher. As a child in the 1830s, Said was enslaved in Borno, marched across the Sahara Desert, and passed from hand to hand in North Africa and the Middle East. After serving as a slave in various societies, Said was freed by a Russian aristocrat in the late 1850s after accompanying the aristocrat in question to various parts of Europe. In the 1850s, Said also traveled as a manservant for a European traveler to South and North America. Ultimately he settled in the United States, where he authored two versions of his autobiography, served as a teacher and soldier, got married, and disappeared from sight. This article compares the two versions of the autobiography that Said published, provides an overview of Said’s life, charts the development of scholarly works on Said, and draws attention to the primary sources related to the study of Said and his autobiography.","PeriodicalId":166397,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132280257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-22DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1098
A. Lissoni
Launched in 1961 by leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa and the South African Communist Party (SACP), Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) was the military wing of the ANC until its disbandment in 1993. The initial stage of MK’s armed struggle involved sabotage against government installations and other symbols of the apartheid regime by a small group of operatives. Under increasing repression by the apartheid state, and thanks to the support received from African and socialist countries, MK adopted a strategy of guerrilla warfare as armed struggle assumed an increasingly central role in the liberation struggle, although the military was understood as an extension of political work, that is, linked to the reinvigoration of political struggle and organizations. Geopolitical constraints prevented MK from waging a conventional guerrilla war, and from the 1970s MK adjusted its strategy by turning to armed propaganda and people’s war. While debates on the role of MK in South Africa’s liberation are often reduced to the relative success or failure of military strategy and action, the history of MK remains a sensitive topic post-apartheid, carrying significant weight both symbolically and in the lives of thousands of people who served in its ranks, including women, who joined and participated in MK throughout the three decades of its existence.
{"title":"Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK): The ANC’s Armed Wing, 1961–1993","authors":"A. Lissoni","doi":"10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1098","url":null,"abstract":"Launched in 1961 by leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa and the South African Communist Party (SACP), Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) was the military wing of the ANC until its disbandment in 1993. The initial stage of MK’s armed struggle involved sabotage against government installations and other symbols of the apartheid regime by a small group of operatives. Under increasing repression by the apartheid state, and thanks to the support received from African and socialist countries, MK adopted a strategy of guerrilla warfare as armed struggle assumed an increasingly central role in the liberation struggle, although the military was understood as an extension of political work, that is, linked to the reinvigoration of political struggle and organizations. Geopolitical constraints prevented MK from waging a conventional guerrilla war, and from the 1970s MK adjusted its strategy by turning to armed propaganda and people’s war. While debates on the role of MK in South Africa’s liberation are often reduced to the relative success or failure of military strategy and action, the history of MK remains a sensitive topic post-apartheid, carrying significant weight both symbolically and in the lives of thousands of people who served in its ranks, including women, who joined and participated in MK throughout the three decades of its existence.","PeriodicalId":166397,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123863840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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