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The Bear
Sovereignty In Post-Colonial Africa
2/27/2008
    
            An analysis of the policies proposed by the various American presidential candidates shows that each potential candidate appeals to the American people in a common way.  All of their policies are justified to the American people by appealing to the American nation, the proper role of the government, or an American tradition.  Barack Obama justifies his proposed fiscal policy because the current fiscal policy, “...robs the state of critical investments in infrastructure...”   Hillary Clinton justifies her advocacy on behalf of veterans because, “our country fulfills its obligations to those who have served and sacrificed for the nation.”   John McCain justifies his opposition to abortion because, “courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.” In essence, he opposes abortion because it violates the tradition of judicial restraint.  Every policy is justified on fixing the nation, fixing the government, or restoring tradition – yet a person can discard their nationality, their state, or their traditions, while at the same other people can accept them as near absolute truth.  Therefore, these three forces occupy a unique presence within our lives.   These powerful forces become the basis by which we understand our environment; it becomes a question of how best to promote the nation, how best to constitute the state, or how best to promote tradition.  The answer to these questions determines how people understand society; necessarily, with any particular constitution of society, some people benefit while others lose.  While some people do benefit from any particular understanding of the nation, the state, or tradition, the dual nature of these forces, that they provide understanding for people while allowing others power, shows that these forces are neither good nor bad; they exist to teach, and become good or bad only dependent upon how they are used.

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            In order to understand why these forces of power act as teachers for people, it is necessary to understand what these forces of power are; and in order to understand what these forces of power are, it   is first necessary to examine historical conditions where the nation, the state, and traditions, have all been created, so that we may understand the reasons behind their constitution and importance.

             One of the most recent examples where a nation has been created, was South Africa, after the fall of the Apartheid regime; this new nation, founded against the systemic discrimination of the past, served to socially bind the people of South Africa together.  The history of South Africa is the history of colonialism; in the 1800's, it consisted of independent Dutch Boer states.  The biggest state in these Boer states was Transvaal; however, after establishing Cape Colony south of Transvaal, the British annexed all of these states and declared them to be South Africa.  However, when the white British came into contact with the black Africans, a problem arose, which the British dealt with through the law.  The British created anti-miscegenation laws, which legally enforced segregation; they sequestered many Africans in Bantustands, where they forced many blacks to live in a region with few resources,  and put into place anti-black policies to protect and serve the white people living in South Africa.  This had the effect of socially separating the white people and the black people; this style of governing became known as Apartheid. 

       With the fall of Apartheid, and the establishment of a new South African government, it became necessary to make people identify with this new nation.  Apartheid had the effect of creating social conditions where black people and white people were separated; they socially became two separate nations of people.  Apartheid became a symbol of forced social separation.  Thus, in order for there to be a new nation that encompassed all of South Africa, like the new government claimed to do, there needed to be a new nation of people, a new identity, that incorporated everyone under the new South African government.  Realizing this need, the new South African government commissioned the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or the SATRC. The SATRC was a commission that was seemingly separate from the government, and publicly recounted thousands of examples of the social distortion that occurred during Apartheid.  For instance, Lars Buur writes about an instance where someone claimed to have been excluded from a bar on the basis of their race – those who worked in the SATRC only cared if it was a symbol of the evil of Apartheid.   Thousands of injustices were publicly recounted, which resulted in the vilifying of everything that was associated with Apartheid – Apartheid became evil.  This contrasted with the new government, which became good, because it was not Apartheid.  As a result, people who lived in South Africa, and who lived through evil, could all come together and embrace what was good.  In essence, the SATRC told the creation story of the new South African nation; in the beginning, there was systemic segregation between the whites and the blacks, until the people of South Africa realized and rejected this as wrong.  Because this story was told endlessly through the media, and because many people thought that Apartheid was wrong, many people accepted new South Africa as right; thus a new nation of South Africans were born.

            While the economic conditions of the people of South Africa provided a basis for understanding how a new nation of South Africans was able to be built around a common social context, it becomes necessary to understand the condition of Indochina and Vietnam, in order to realize how the creation of a new state occurs. A state differs from a nation, because a state is a government that is located in a capital of a region - it is a political and economical force, whereas a nation is just a social community of many people. In the case of Vietnam, the creation of the Vietnamese state is intricately linked to the period of French colonialism.    

                           
            Prior to the French colonization of Vietnam, there was no state of Vietnam; there were existing political-cultural ties in the territory, mostly which were with China.  However, the French built up in the capital of the region, Hanoi, the system of education as well as its infrastructure.  This had three major effects during the period of colonialism: existing political-cultural ties were broken, and new ones were forged with Hanoi at the center; the capital became the means to achieve new wealth, prompting people to journey to it for wealth; and the ability of the government to govern administratively, politically, and economically, was greatly enhanced.  The combination of these effects produced the existence of a new state.

            The existing political-cultural ties were broken, and replaced with new ties that centered around Hanoi.  The French built up the education system around Vietnam – this meant that people were looking towards their territory for their path to their future.  People perceived that their future lay not in traveling to China, but lay in traveling to Hanoi.  People believed that their future lay within the territory that they lived in, and thus the French were able to govern far more effectively by manipulating the future of the people.
            The capital became the means to achieve new wealth.  The French invested money in the capital, and the money allowed access to more prosperous jobs – instead of continuing life as a farmer, a person could go to school and become a salaried government worker, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or get any other job that the schooling system could offer.  Thus, some people began, in essence, a pilgrimage to Hanoi; people believed that their future was in Hanoi, and there were jobs to prove that belief correct.

             Through the schools and investments in infrastructure, the French created a bureaucratic class that was capable of administering policy over the territory.  With the creation of the new schools, there existed a class of people who were ideally placed to become bureaucrats for the French in Vietnam.  These people learned how to speak French in the French created schools, thus they were given jobs to act as translators from the French to the natives.   They were unable to become administrators in other districts, because they lacked the access and the means; however, the French government had the ability to implement the laws and policies within the territory that they governed.

            Combined with the consolidation of economic power in Hanoi, and the creation of a new bureaucratic class that was capable of administering laws and policies, the government in Hanoi had unprecedented access to economic and political wealth, which translated into a government that was capable of capable of governing relatively independently.  After Vietnam was officially de-colonized, the government in Hanoi essentially became the center of a new state.  It had the economic base, the administrative means, as well as the consolidation of power, that enabled it to perform functions in the manner of a state; thus, a new state was formed where there was no state before.

            While the creation of a new common social context prompted the establishment of a new nation in South Africa, and the economic promotion of a capital in Vietnam helped create the necessary power for the establishment of a state, the invention of tradition helped ideologically justify the establishment of a new nation-state in Kenya.  The term tradition brings to mind a shared sense of history and identity – that a certain group of people have experienced certain situations, which make them a certain group of people.  However, as Mudimbe writes about tradition, “...tradition sometimes reflects a poor image of a mythical past” ; essentially, although sometimes tradition reflects the past, many times tradition is a selected interpretation of events that have occurred in the past for a political benefit.  Under the British rule, traditions were invented in the territory of Kenya that promoted the nation-state among the people.
            While a colonial power in Kenya, the British needed to invent traditions among the people of the Kenyan territory in order to justify the Imperial Monarchy as a ruler; there was no existing power structure that would have enough influence over the territory of Kenya that could have effectively persuaded the people to accept colonial rule.  Therefore, the British began a systematic campaign to change the beliefs of people, so that the people would recognize the British as the rulers over a place known as Kenya.  The British promoted a static definition of beliefs for the people they ruled over; peoples' place of living, rituals, festivals, and perception of power, were all changed and codified to justify British Imperial rule.  This justification, under the guise of tradition, allowed for the creation of a nation-state after colonialism ended.

            The British codified into practice the living conditions of the natives of Africa, by establishing stable villages where there was no such villages before.  The work of establishing stable villages was largely done by the church, which accompanied the colonial rule, as Ranger writes, “...in Africa, there had not existed villages of this size or stability....the Basel Mission villages, far from offering African cultivators a means of protecting their values, operated rather as mechanisms of authoritarian European control” .  In essence, the church went through the territory establishing villages, and in turn these villages became the place where people lived; because these villages were of sufficient stability, they became part of the territory of Kenya.  These villages provided the infrastructure for the concept of 'Kenya' to be spread over the whole territory; for if there was no stability in these villages, a stable nation could not exist among them.

            Beyond the establishment of the villages, which changed the way that people lived throughout the territory, the British introduced new festivals that were associated with this new style of living.  For instance, they introduced a festival of harvest, when no festival of harvest had existed before.  A festival of harvest was a time during the year where the entire village would come together to celebrate the harvest.  This re-enforced the idea amount the people that they lived in villages, for it was people from the village that would harvest the food that people from the village raised, and it was people from the village that ate the food that people from the village harvested.  These festivals served to remind people that they lived in a village, and since because of the annual nature of  these festivals, a new village identity was formed.

            There were other festivals introduced that served to remind people of the intended structure of power in Kenya.  For instance, the British introduced Coronation day, where people celebrated the Monarch of England.  This had the effect of reminding people the ruler of the territory was good, and a reason to celebrate.  In addition, according to Ranger, “...the British made sure that the military and administrative traditions were related to the dominant traditions within the greater territory” .  These traditions, served to remind the Kenyan people that the military of Kenya was their military, and that the administration of Kenya was their administration; therefore, the invented traditions served to consolidate the beliefs of the people of the territory of Kenya, to correspond with the necessary balance of power for a stable Kenyan nation-state. 

            After the fall of colonialism, these invented traditions ideologically justified the existence of a nation-state in Kenya.  These invented traditions served to create a common territory that people became identified with; a person lived in a town, that was located in a territory, which was governed by a government, which was ruled by a leader.  An invented  balance of power had become set in the traditions of people; therefore, although colonialism ended, the peoples' traditions did not change, and by extension their perception of power did not change.  It did not matter if the Kenyan national government was weak, because as long as the traditions remained, the people would ally themselves with the Kenyan government;  it was not by decree that those who lived within the Kenyan territory considered themselves Kenyan, but through common festivals and common traditions. Overall, the invented traditions re-oriented peoples beliefs, to the point that those beliefs ideologically corresponded with the stability of a nation state.

            It has been shown that there are different ways how a nation-state has been constructed – it has been shown through the social, economic, political, and ideological methods.  The nation is a social construct; a certain group of people define themselves together based on a certain common interpretation of their shared historical context.  The state is an economic and political eventuality; if the economy is sufficiently consolidated around a certain area, and education is geared towards promoting the state, a government will be powerful enough to be called a state government.  The nation state is ideologically justified through its presence in tradition, because a common context is established that links the people of a certain territory to a certain shared identity.  Overall, the concepts underlying the creation of a nation, a state, or a tradition, are vital to understand politics, and the general operation of  society.  It is important to understand how they are appealed to, how they are used, how they are created, and they exist to teach people about the world.  It is impossible to determine whether the concept of a nation, or the concept of a state, or the concept of tradition, are good or bad – it depends upon the intentions of the actors that control the power in their particular construction.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong with inventing new traditions, because the previous traditions may have been invented themselves; the creation of a new nation can allow people to come to terms with their past, while the creation of a new state may provide sustenance for more people than was previously allowed.  The problem arises when these forces promote self-destructive behaviors among the people – for instance, they are bad when people become convinced that they are not people, but objects; or they are bad when leaders use their resources and power for tyrannical purposes.  This is the quandary that plagues those who study government and social sciences – how can the benefits of the nation or the state be secured, while removing the negative effects that the nation or state may create.  I freely admit, this is the question of my studies.

Works Cited

Ranger, Terence. 1983. The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
            Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread            of Nationalism. London: Verso

            Mudimbe, V. Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of             Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

            Buur, Lars. 2001. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission: A Technique of Nation-State formation. In States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the     Postcolonial State, ed. Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat, 149-181. Durham:      Duke University Press.

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