Ethnic patriotism and the East African revival: a history of dissent, c. 1935-1972 (2014) - PETERSON Derek

Résumé du document

In his study Derek Peterson tries to define the debates around identity and solidarity in East Africa after the colonial era. Nowadays these issues are still a place for struggle. Indeed the oppositions presented in his study are still relevant.

Once methodological and archival issues are studied, this paper deals with a bit of contextualization and a state of art relative to these issues. Then the main theses are discussed in the light of Derek Peterson and on previous historiography. Finally the conclusion deals with the wider issues of continuity in time and constructivism as a historical paradigm.

Extraits

[...] Finally, when it comes to religion historiography used to deal with the idea of continuity from native African religions to African adaptations of Christianism. This was mainly due to the fact that Christian missionaries themselves tried to build on the old religions, studying native African religions to find similarities that could be used to convince people to adopt Christianism. This very idea was appropriated by African scholars themselves such as John Mbiti who considered African Christianity as 'an extension of the old religion'[18]. [...]

[...] They felt that 'indiscipline and sexual deviancy'[29] were a threat to the social order they tried to build for their tribe. Sexual control can also be understood as a will not to mix, to protect ethnic purity while facing diversity. Ethnic patriotism also took the form of a cultural work, in order to find pre-colonial forms of identity. The idea was to challenge the nation- building process by creating alternative narratives. What is striking here is that this work on pre- colonial history was still focused on morals and conduct. [...]

[...] First of all, there is the idea that 'to Africans the oral, to Europeans the written'. This is a very approximative way of thinking, in my mind. By saying this we forget that some parts of Africa do have a strong written tradition: Egypt, the Maghreb, but also the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and the Swahili coast. We also tend to deny that from the 20th century more and more Africans produced themselves written archives whether acting as political, religious or cultural actors. [...]

[...] Ethnic patriotism and the East African revival: a history of dissent, c. 1935-1972 (2014) - Peterson Derek In his study Derek Peterson tries to define the debates around identity and solidarity in East Africa after the colonial era. Nowadays these issues are still a place for struggle. Indeed, the oppositions presented in his study are still relevant. Once methodological and archival issues are studied, this paper deals with a bit of contextualization and a state of art relative to these issues. [...]

[...] In the end we are facing a religious movement which paradoxically appeared much less conservative than a secular one. However, this is not a rule. Pentecostalism which arrived later did carry a political message linked to conservatism too, as showed Ruth Marshall in her study of Pentecostalism in Nigeria.[39] We cannot then clear Christian movements from waves of conservatism in Africa. V. What about Nation-States? Here would be my main negative critics towards Peterson's work. He dealt with two solidarity projects: the East African Revival and ethnic patriotism. [...]