Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa: Reassessing the Cultural Legacy 1433183307, 9781433183300

This book studies the Afro-European and Euro-African past and present from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspect

437 93 2MB

English Pages 170 [178] Year 2021

Report DMCA / Copyright

DOWNLOAD FILE

Polecaj historie

Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa: Reassessing the Cultural Legacy
 1433183307, 9781433183300

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
Africa in Europe, Europe in Africa: Introduction (Yolanda Aaixelà-Cabré)
Part 1: Euro-African Memories
1. Sharing Memories of Global Encounters (Daniela Merolla)
2. Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming (Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré)
Part 2: Africa–Europe and Europe–Africa Cultural Heritage
3. How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe (Bernhard Bleibinger)
4. European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief (Jan Küver)
Part 3: Afro-European Sociopolitical Experiences
5. Understanding Ethnicity as Positional (Cristina Enguita-Fernàndez)
6. The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction (Youssef Akmir)
List of Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa Reassessing the Cultural Legacy

Edited by Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré

This book studies the Afro-European and Euro-African past and present from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. It addresses Africa as a whole, eschewing historical divisions between North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Its content exemplifies the extent to which the histories of Europe and Africa are intertwined, and the way European sources are usually privileged in the writing of historical accounts of cross-cultural encounters. Using post/decolonial studies, the authors’ point of view is based on anthropology, history, ethnomusicology, and film and literary studies. The authors argue that mutual experiences and imaginations have affected how cultural heritage and legacy are conceived and thought of, as well as memories and sociopolitical experiences. The aim is to establish and encourage a broader knowledge of Africa–Europe and Europe–Africa encounters, incorporating case studies of Euro-African and Afro-European legacies. The final goal is to favour a more relational point of view by comparing Euro-African and Afro-European realities.

Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré earned her PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Barcelona. She is Tenured Scientist at the IMF-CSIC in Barcelona, where she has been Vice-Director of Research.

www.peterlang.com

Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa 

This book is part of the Peter Lang Political Science, Economics, and Law list. Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production.

PETER LANG New York • Bern • Berlin Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa Reassessing the Cultural Legacy Edited by Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré

PETER LANG New York • Bern • Berlin Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda, editor. Title: Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa: reassessing the cultural legacy / edited by Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré. Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2021. Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020034802 (print) | LCCN 2020034803 (ebook) ISBN 978-1-4331-8329-4 (hardback) | ISBN 978-1-4331-8330-0 (ebook pdf) ISBN 978-1-4331-8331-7 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-8332-4 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Africa—Relations—Europe. | Europe—Relations—Africa. | Africa—Civilization—Western influences. | Africa—History— 1884–1960. | Africans—Ethnic identity. | Europeans—Ethnic identity. | Collective memory—Africa. Classification: LCC DT38.9.E85 A36 2021 (print) | LCC DT38.9.E85 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/2406—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034802 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034803 DOI 10.3726/b17473       Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.           Cover image: Colección Giménez-Ferrer, IMF-CSIC. "Oveng (Equatorial Guinea), December 25th 1932"

    The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council of Library Resources.         © 2021 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 80 Broad Street, 5th floor, New York, NY 10004 www.peterlang.com   All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

Table of Contents

Africa in Europe, Europe in Africa: Introduction  1 Yolanda A ixelà-C abré PART 1 Euro-African Memories 1. Sharing Memories of Global Encounters  19 Daniela M erolla 2. Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming   39 Yolanda A ixelà-C abré PART 2 Africa–Europe and Europe–Africa Cultural Heritage 3. How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe  63 Bernhard Bleibinger 4. European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief  85 Jan Küver PART 3 Afro-European Sociopolitical Experiences 5. Understanding Ethnicity as Positional  113 Cristina Enguita-Fernàndez 6. The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction  137 Youssef A kmir List of Contributors  153 Index  157

Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa: Introduction Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é IMF-CSIC (Spain), Barcelona

Analytical Approach to Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa is a book that allows us to reflect on the Euro-African and Afro-European past and present from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective.1 It seeks to explore the depth of the African subsumption by European narratives about Euro-African and AfroEuropean encounters and assess the place of Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa. As Small (2018:  1193–1194) has pointed out, the contemporary relationship between Europe and Africa started with Europe in Africa. The way Africa–Europe/Europe–Africa relations are presently described is profoundly undermined by ideological and methodological barriers that obstruct knowledge and critical thinking about existing narratives (Lindgren 2001). This book’s merit is that it deepens knowledge about the relationship between Europe and Africa from an interdisciplinary perspective, holding up a mirror that shows how European versions and points of view prevail over African ones. To move beyond European perceptions of Africans from the 20th century it is necessary to analyze Europe–Africa ‘dis-encounters’ using multiple methodologies. The book details the extent to which the histories of Europe and Africa are intertwined, and the way European sources are usually privileged in the writing of historical accounts of cross-cultural encounters. The authors of this book have spent years reflecting on the need to enrich oral and written sources. Merolla (2012, 2017), Aixelà-Cabré (2011, 2019), Akmir (2011), Bleibinger and Küver in this volume seek to combine oral and documentary sources, and Enguita-Fernàndez oral sources with fieldwork conducted on social networks. In doing so, they aim to give visibility to devalued

2

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

accounts in order to redirect classical themes or to focus on new ones. Deep down, the authors wonder, like Bondarenko (2015): has the past passed? The book addresses Africa as a whole, eschewing historical divisions between North and Sub-Saharan Africa because, as Merolla (2017: 215) proposes, African history is porous, with populations that migrated, traded and exchanged ideas. The division into two Africas was contrived and largely the result of a racialized European way of seeing and treating Africans that differentiated between those who belonged to a powerful culture in Muslim North Africa and those in Sub-Saharan Africa whose culture and history were dispossessed from them (Aixelà-Cabré 2017). Hence we choose to represent and interconnect all African regions. Following Hogarth (2013), we are obliged to ask ourselves which Africa and which Africans we are referring to when we seek answers that shed light on issues that have had impact across the continent. Our focus on Amazigh and Morocco (North Africa), Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon (Central Africa), Tanzania (Eastern Africa) and South Africa ensures the presence of representative cases from across the continent, and provides a good foundation for a study of these areas. This book uses as key concepts—“Euro-African”, “Afro-European” and “Africa–Europe/Europe–Africa”—to define different approaches and perspectives on the dis-encounter between the two continents. In general, Euro-African and Afro-European are understood as heritage created as a result of contacts between the two continents. Euro-African puts the accent on aspects with greater European imprint than African; Afro-European highlights experiences that privilege African imprints over European; and Africa–Europe/Europe–Africa addresses the cultural experiences of the two continents, whose word order indicates the predominant version of each narrative. Hence, the book’s originality lies in its specifically Euro-African and Afro-European memories, cultural heritage and sociopolitical experiences aim. Our point of view is based on Anthropology, History, Literature, and Ethnomusicology. A book of this kind is necessary because the construction of contemporary Europe has relied upon a type of colonialism with very distinctive Euro-African foundations. The European continent began the European construction project with a clear spirit of reconciliation and peace that resulted from its reflections on the 18th and 19th century western European colonial expansion. This peace process was carried out in the 1960s, at the same time as decolonization started in Africa. While decolonization was co-led by Africans, the construction of Europe was a western European endeavor that only later incorporated eastern Europeans. African identity seems to be perceived by Europeans as completely

Africa in Europe, Europe in Africa: Introduction

3

unrelated to their own roots, even though the colonization of Africa was the key to the financial, social, scientific and military advance of western Europe. For a very long time Africa was regarded as Europe’s ‘other’, but during the process of decolonization Europe was also came to be seen as Africa’s ‘other.’ Only recently have the two continents reassessed their relationships in terms of their commonalities and mutual borrowings and begun to acknowledge that they form part of a network of exchanges which was for a very long time obfuscated by racial and ethnic radicalism. Africa also had an extraordinary sociocultural impact on Europeans who either migrated there and then returned home or stayed in Africa for the rest of their lives, not to mention the fact that European languages and politics were also imposed and adopted across the African continent and are still part of its reality today. Migrants arriving in Europe from former colonies (including those in the African Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa) represented an important qualitative leap in the heterogeneity of European national-states and brought differences that made European cultural unity (desired if relative) more complex. Until then, the continent had not engaged with immigration models such as those in the USA or Canada. Migration from Africa also highlighted the need to value diversity in order to fight the prejudices that Europeans held against immigration. The influential field of Postcolonial Studies has always criticized the European concept of non-Western otherness for being a deeply Eurocentric approach. Postcolonial Studies emerged in the 1970s out of the work of Edward Said (1978), among others. Its emergence was a slow process and originated in the anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s in Africa, South East Asia, and the Caribbean where thinkers such as Fanon (2002) and others became role models for what would later become the “Third World.” Postcolonial analysis has proved that there are many historical, cultural and legal connections between the colonial and postcolonial worlds (Cooper 2005: 19), both in the African Mediterranean and in Sub-Saharan Africa. Decolonial studies have been essential to raising the need to overcome Euro-centric versions, and give more visibility to peripheral voices, re-centring the margins of memories, cultural heritage and sociopolitical experiences. As Mudimbe (1988: xi) and Mignolo (2018: 106) have stated, otherness is the result of a historical construction and the narratives related to Africa need to be reviewed. The Africa–Europe/Europe–Africa pasts that is the subject of this book connects the foundation of the colonies to today. This link between the 19th and 21st centuries has created a stereotyped approach to social characteristics and cultural values. This is what we want to subvert. Like Udegbe remembered (2001: 135), “Only few Europeans have had direct experience of Africa

4

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

through visits to parts of Africa or encounters with African communities in Europe. The majority … have had indirect experience through documentaries, news, literature, or works of art. Unfortunately, many of the impressions of Africa … even in the sciences have been negative.” Another of our key concepts is “cultural legacy.” This term is closely linked to “cultural heritage” due to its vertical perspective, but in this book cultural legacy is a cultural construct (Mbembe 2015) and not a version of linear, indisputable and definitive history. Kuvik’s definition (2003:  318) makes a useful starting point, he says that “Cultural legacies should then be defined as patterns (scenarios) of behavior or thought that are trasmitted from the past and enacted in the present.” For him, these may be implicit (unreflective replication) or explicit (deliberately propagated representations). Vecco (2010:  322) also tried to systematize the concept of “cultural heritage” and, indicating some limitations that were very close to the concept of “legacy”, preferred to use the notion of “patrimonie”: “in the concept of ‘heritage’ the vision is vertical but limited to what is being transmitted, while in that of patrimoine, which has a more social meaning, the vision is horizontal (…) more than just the simple inheritance.” The implicit verticality of Kuvik and Vecco’s “legacy” was strongly questioned by Mbembe (2015), who emphasized that heritages, although apparently vertical, are historical–cultural constructs. Black skin, for example, is a form of heritage, but one that was reviled by the Western gaze. For Mbembe (2015), rather than being an unchangeable inherited feature, Africans can overcome verticality, empower themselves and change the place the world has given to black skin and to Africans. For Santamaría Colmenero (2018) this is decolonising memory and for Vergès (2013) it is the emergence of a “war of memories” visible over tangible cultural heritage. Aixelà-Cabré (2019) qualified it as “contested cultural heritage” when referring to the postcolonial African rejection of certain places and monuments left by colonial Spain in Bata (Equatorial Guinea) and Al-Hoceima (Morocco). Thus, as in this book, we are considering the colonial past and explaining how it modified post-independence relations, we argue that mutual experiences and imaginations have affected how cultural heritage and legacy are conceived and thought of, as well as memories and sociopolitical experiences. We seek to show what elements prevail in notions relating to Africa– Europe/Europe–Africa relations. Because, as Castro-Gómez and Grosfoguel (2007: 19) have pointed out, a transition has occurred from modern colonialism to global coloniality. These reflections were necessary because cultural aspects of the relationship between Africa and Europe are still overlooked in the academic literature,

Africa in Europe, Europe in Africa: Introduction

5

and the need to outline the historical formation of stereotypes, gendered perspectives and imaginations is high, given that they remain in use mostly to the detriment of African populations. The work of Fleisch and Rihanon (2018) is essential in order to activate a method of addressing African realities using African perspectives and sources to neutralize European views. The promising research field that we seek to open up also owes major debts to the seminal work of Fanon (2002) on the cultural consequences of decolonization; Césaire (1970) on négritude as a way to challenge the narrative of the colonizer and the colonized; to Said’s accounts (1978) of false cultural representations mirroring how the Western world perceived the Middle East; and wa Thiong’o (1992) on the importance of African voices in decolonizing the mind. Other relevant theories and works include those in the field of Subaltern Studies by Thompson (1988) on oral history and Spivak (1993) on subaltern voices; in Postcolonial Studies by Mbembe (1999, 2001, 2006, 2010, 2015), who showed that European pre-eminence and power has undervalued African cultures and history, and that African history and politics must be reclaimed; and by Falola and House-Soremekun (2011:  1–17), who reminded us that this distortion was reinforced by a globalization that left Africa on the margins of the world. Several Decolonial Studies researchers have also been important influences, such as Mignolo (2011), who shows why a decoloniality perspective is needed, de Sousa Santos and Meneses (2014), with their Epistemologies of the South, and Quijano (2014), on the coloniality of power and knowledge. These arguments buttress the three general objectives of this book and its methodology. In order to exemplify some Euro-African and Afro-European memories, cultural heritage and sociopolitical experiences, oral and written testimonies and cultural production were gathered. The aim is to establish and encourage a broader knowledge of Africa–Europe and Europe–Africa encounters, incorporating case studies of Euro-African and Afro-European legacies, following previous research that sought out traces of Spanish colonialism in the history and migration of their African former colonies (AixelàCabré 2018a). The goal was to also favor a more relational point of view by comparing the past and present of Euro-African and Afro-European realities. There is an urgent need to study the link between Europe and Africa from a renewed perspective. Afro-European and Euro-African memories, cultural heritage and sociopolitical experiences need to be visible in order to counterbalance existing versions of the past, facilitating new explanations of the present as a basis for more reliable narratives of African and European dis-encounters.

6

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

In this book, Afro-European and Euro-African imprints on memories, cultural heritage and sociopolitical experiences are assembled from lived memories (data gathered from oral sources), narrated memories (data gathered from written sources), and literary and ethnomusicological analysis. The methodologies are based on interviews, participant observation, archives research, literary analysis and musicology. The research highlights African difficulties refocussing their memories in order to overcome European narratives of Afro-European experiences. We believe that putting new narratives into circulation helps overcome these limitations, and the analytical and methodological approach properly captures the potential of this research field.

How the Book Is Structured The structure of the book allows Euro-African and Afro-European memories, cultural heritage and sociopolitical experiences with a colonial legacy in contemporary Europe and Africa to emerge. This revision is essential because the African cultures, minorities and history that settled in Europe in the decades after the Second World War were conditioned by European colonialism and Africa’s past and cultural productions were devalued by the effect of the European gaze. Spain, Great Britain, France and Germany have imperial pasts of differing scopes, as the case studies indicate, and with the exception of Germany, all received migrants from their former colonies (Aixelà-Cabré 2018b). Knowledge about the different types and modes of Euro-African and Afro-European coexistence is analyzed from historical, cultural and comparative perspectives through postcolonial and decolonial lenses. This work should shed light on the current challenges facing Europe and Africa, which cannot properly be understood or successfully addressed as long as a stereotyped approach to social characteristics and cultural values related to African memories, cultural heritage and sociopolitical experiences persists. With African groups living throughout the European Union, the need to acquire, analyze and disseminate deeper knowledge about these topics is clear. Ignoring their specificities, self-narratives, hibridization and integration in Europe can lead to inequalities, as super-diversity (Vertovec 2007: 1045) can increase the complexity of coexistence and the need for new versions of diversity that reinforce African narratives. This book represents an opportunity to transcend disciplinary and contextual boundaries showing interactions between Europe and Africa and Africa and Europe as expressions of transforming cultural and social identities.

Africa in Europe, Europe in Africa: Introduction

7

But the book is also an interdisciplinary endeavor. We start from the basis that studying the complexities of the Africa–Europe/Europe–Africa mismatch requires multiple methodologies to be used simultaneously. We hope to contribute, on the one hand, to filling the existing gaps in the study of the cultural aspects integrated into the way of thinking about relations between Europe and Africa. On the other hand, we believe that the content of the case studies provides the reader with methodological ideas on how to conduct research in such varied contexts, making the book attractive to a variety of interlocutors, including academics and graduate students with a specific interest in Euro-African relations or international relations, as well as anthropologists, historians and political scientists who specialize in one continent or the other. Indeed, systematic analysis of Euro-African relations as a macro field of research remains nascent, and the proposed book may be influential and stimulating, especially as it relates to the fields of memory studies, cultural heritage and sociopolitical studies. In what follows we will see Merolla, Bleibinger and Enguita-Fernàndez look at Africa in Europe, while Aixelà-Cabré, Küver and Akmir examine Europe in Africa. The essays are organized into three parts. Part 1 addresses Euro-African Memories; Part 2, Africa–Europe and Europe–Africa Cultural Heritage; and Part 3, Afro-European Sociopolitical Experiences. In Part 1 of this book, Euro-African Memories, we examine the study of memories as an opportunity to make marginalized people visible. As Falola and House-Soremekun (2011: 1) have stated, Africa and black people have been historically marginalized. This is why Greenwood’s perspective (1994) on what people forget and remember is at the heart of completing the EuroAfrican and Afro-European versions of the past: as Altez (2017) has pointed out, Subaltern Studies has not always made conflicts with a colonial past visible. The aim is to learn about the contributions from African and European people to Euro-African and Afro-European memories. Memories of returning colonists and African populations settling from former colonies connect European integration with decolonization. This part refers to how European knowledge of Africa was built. The chapters ask which memories currently determine this Africa–Europe relationship. I want to underline that the case studies recover voices from the colonial period and the present using literature, films and oral history to reflect on the need to include African voices in Euro-African memories. In Chapter 1, Merolla’s work reflects on Afro-European memories from the perspective of African oral and written literatures and films. Her interest focuses on Amazigh Berber studies, analyzing the way that merging memories and reciprocity helps allow to go beyond essentialized identities to

8

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

create a new common present. Positioned firmly in postcolonial and decolonial studies, she examine how power relationships characterize the encounters between Africa and Europe, and the way cultural memory should be researched:  “ ‘what memories’, ‘by whom’ such memories are shared, and ‘for what kind of present’ ‘are they selected or forgotten?’ ” For Merolla, Post/Decolonial studies are an efficient tool to rethink the way we approach African memories in Europe. In Chapter 2, Aixelà-Cabré’s study aims contrasts Spanish colonial memories of the Moroccan Rif and Equatorial Guinea with Riffian and Equatorial Guinean voices to encourage other views and experiences in order to subvert certain current visions of Africa in Europe and certain European inheritances in Africa today promoted by the Spanish case. The chapter analyzes how race and gender conditioned social coexistence in the African colonies of the Spanish Protectorate and Spanish Territories of the Gulf of Guinea, from 1927 until 1956 and 1968, respectively, and where the naming of African populations revealed the cultural and linguistic construction of their differences. The results favor the revision of the Hispano-Moroccan brotherhood and Hispanising imperial rhetorics around Spanish colonialism in Africa. The case studies of Al-Hoceima and Oveng, situated on the margins of the colonies, lay bare colonial rhetorics, and show the deeply hierarchical and androcentric relationship between the Spanish and Riffians, and the Spanish and Equatorial Guineans. Aixelà-Cabré’s ethnography shows Spanish strategies to humiliate Africans as illustrated by the use of naming systems. Both Merolla and Aixelà-Cabré’s chapters confront African versions with European narratives, highlighting the need to gather more African voices to complete the Afro-European past. In Part 2, Africa–Europe and Europe–Africa Cultural Heritage, we propose to analyze cultural heritage from a multidimensional and multisited point of view as it embodies the contradictions in different contexts and periods over how to classify and preserve cultural identities (Aixelà-Cabré 2019: 24–25). It is not the aim of this section to debate about the invention of tradition in Africa (Spear 2003), but to illustrate two dimensions of cultural heritage in Europe and Africa (L’Estoile 2008: 267). One will analyze how African music was represented in the 20th century and the other how the presence of European imprints determined Iringa’s local cultural heritage (Tanzania). Both examples show culture and tradition to be dynamic entities linked to the interests of certain collectives in promoting processes of classification and identification at specific historical moments. The works demonstrate that the richness of cultural heritage derives from its powerful capacity to represent a group, either to criticize its disappearance, to enhance

Africa in Europe, Europe in Africa: Introduction

9

its recovery, or to promote its cataloguing (Vecco 2010, During 2011). Both case studies work on intangible cultural heritage—music and memories— as well as tangible cultural heritage, including places, objects and human remains, as in the rich Iringa case study. It is very striking how the imagination in the era of globalization, as formulated by Appadurai (1999: 6), can determine what is or is not considered Africa–Europe and Europe–Africa cultural heritage, given that a hierarchy implicitly emerges with European versions placed above African voices and experiences. In Chapter 3, Bleibinger’s work examines how Africa was imagined musically in Europe or by Europeans in the 20th century, and provides very good examples of how music was able to support an imaginary, and on how Africa was imagined and expressed musically by Europeans. He reviews musical, written and audiovisual sources, as for Bleibinger the imaginary is a wide field and it is not possible to cover all of the European imaginary of Africa in just a few pages. As he concludes, images can be instrumentalized in terms of old colonial accounts of “others”, which aimed at justifying the colonial rule— because the “colonial imaginary sells.” Bleibinger’s study on how Europe has imagined Africa musically reveals how Europe has looked at the African continent. In Chapter 4, Küver’s work reviews the history of the Iringa region in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, which was defined by the rise and fall of the local Hehe kingdom during the second half of the 19th century. As a stronghold of fierce anti-colonial resistance during the Hehe wars from 1891 to 1898, Iringa also played a prominent role in the history of colonial German East Africa. The shared historical heritage is deeply anchored in today’s regional and national memory. Küver contrasts the local story-telling with the commonly accepted authoritative historiography from international academic literature. A local claim for sovereignty of interpretation is the main theme that emerges. While the common historiography places the victimized bodies at the colonizers’ disposal, the presented alternative versions presented help them elude foreign control of their fate and restore the chiefs’ human integrity and dignity. Bleibinger and Küver’s works are the best examples of cross-cutting looks at Africa and Europe, and show the circulation of European stereotypes about Africa, first with regard to African music and the second concerning European damage to local African cultures as they seek to reconstruct their country politically and or socioculturally. In Part  3, Afro-European Sociopolitical Experiences, African experiences in Europe and Africa emerge as a way to analyze past and present relations between African and European people. Africans have always been

10

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

subordinated to Europeans and considered a subalternized group. African centrality is the main subject of this section, given that in both chapters African strategies of resistance and empowerment changed from being a transnational ethnic affirmation made when living in Europe (Adogame 2014; Malik 2014) to an elite interest in maintaining power inside colonial structures when European colonial powers controlled Africa. The case study by Enguita-Fernàndez shows their interconnections through Mbororo transnational migration, while Akmir reveals how Europe changed Africa from a local perspective. African communities from former colonies that now live in Europe are analyzed through the case study of France’s colonization of Cameroon. Colonial political history seen from Africa is reviewed through the case of northern Morocco’s colonization by Spain, an example of a colonial archive (Stoler and Strassler 2000). In order to understand the place African migrants have in Europe and in Africa, Everly (2014: 57) highlights the changes in terms of gender issues of Imazighen immigrants in Catalonia by studying a novel by Najat El Hachmi, and concluding that sociopolitical experiences in new contexts were a step in the direction of a difficult return, even when “there is no going home.” The colonial past was always there and has conditioned the integration of African minorities in Europe. Inequality and the lack of opportunities with regard to the European population were the main focus (Aixelà-Cabré 2020). In the case of sociocultural experiences, this section intends to reflect on the fact that many African groups have long been adapting to adverse situations, from European colonial pressure in their territories to the participation difficulties of arriving as migrants in Europe. Africans have faced these situations by activating their own sociopolitical identifications. But it should be said that these strategies are not peculiarly African, as research on migration and multiculturalism in Europe has shown: Baumann (1999, 2004), for example, studied sociocultural and religious integration and representation of European, Asian and African minorities in different cities in Great Britain and the Netherlands. What is most relevant here is that many Europeans have always devalued African social and cultural recognition, as Mbembe (2001) pointed out in his major scientific work. Colonialities were always present, distorting and underestimating African people and strategies, whether in terms of their political structures as tribes or clans, or their cultural identification with ethnic values, which were meant to prove that African standards were less worthy than European. In Chapter  5, Enguita-Fernández’s study of Mbororo migration to Europe shows the connection and reconnection with their identity being influenced by their African roots in the new context. She analyzes how certain social categories intersect in a complex framework that redefines identity

Africa in Europe, Europe in Africa: Introduction

11

affiliations. For Enguita-Fernàndez, ethnicity is a collective experience of identity under constant construction. Her research shows the need to understand identity as a result of diverse cross-cutting categories and that identity may vary in terms of the intensity of allegiance, meaning that it is not a fixed discourse. Enguita-Fernàndez concludes that Mbororo identity dynamics must be understood from the contingency, mobility, positionality and constant production. In Chapter 6, Akmir reproduces Spanish colonial strategies to manage its protectorate. His objective is to shedding light on the policies of attraction European powers—particularly Spain—conducted in Morocco. Spain faced having to devote all its strength to making its future occupation of Morocco an issue of patriotism. His work shows the collaboration of some elites in this. Akmir reconstructs and vindicates events that even today are explained more by Spanish and French voices than Moroccans. Akmir allows us to renew our scholarly focus on traditional topics in order to review how Afro-European sociopolitical experiences have been narrated. The archives consulted allowed him to go deeper into little-known aspects of official Moroccan policy regarding a series of phenomena linked to colonialism, such as the buying of loyalty and the collaboration of tribal chiefs. The two works mirror the complex relations that were created between Europeans and Africans in Europe and Africa. The final aim is to highlight the need to recover other ways of explaining Euro-African and Afro-European coexistence, especially when the most disadvantaged and powerless groups are recurrently African, because of their role as migrants and minorities in Europe, or because of the deficient work of some African chiefs as mediators between Europeans and their own populations. We hope that Africa in Europe and Europe in Africa helps consolidate a line of research that focuses on the relationship between the two that is characterized by studies that are more open to the colonial and post-colonial impact of Europe in Africa and of Africans in Europe, because colonial ties have historically conditioned a relationship that continues to have effects on both continents. We believe in promoting an inclusive analysis that allows the undervalued voices and expressions of Africans to emerge strongly by implementing methodologies that incorporate African voices. This will allow us to detect new themes and revisit classic ones, and thereby give other meanings to rich, plural cultural legacies, be they Euro-African or Afro-European. Using Post/Decolonial Studies helps new arguments to be deployed to repair the versions that form the ideological bases of the rhetoric around how we think about Europeans and Africans, and how we experience Euro-African memory, Africa–Europe and Europe–Africa cultural heritage and Afro-European sociopolitical experiences.

12

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

Last but not least, I want to praise the loyalty of the teams working on the four H2020 proposals (two RIA [Research and Innovation Action] and two RISE [Research and Innovation Staff Exchange]) submitted to the European Commission between 2015 and 2019 to obtain funding for this topic and which constituted the basis of this book. Needless to say, the projects always arrived well before the cut-off point but were not funded “given the budgetary resources available for the call”, a clear symptom of the difficulties researchers find prioritizing the public interest to unveil European sophisticated discourses undervaluing Africa to the quantitative data of African migration trends of a highly secured European Union. This European priority—Fortress Europe—correctly categorized by Mbembe (2006:  29–30) as necropolitics, continues to disregard team projects that study European rhetoric about Africa. I am sincerely grateful to the friends and colleagues who have participated in the elaboration in this book, which whom I enjoyed some project proposals, Daniela Merolla (The National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations, France), Bernhard Bleibinger (University Fort Hare, South Africa, actually IMF-CSIC), Jan Küver (University of Iringa, Tanzania), Youssef Akmir (Ibn Zohr University, Morocco), and Cristina EnguitaFernàndez (actually, ISGlobal). Others which support was essential in the projects submitted were Jacky Maniacky and Maud Devos, (The Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium); Ana Lúcia Sá, Eduardo Costa Dias and Luis Nuno Rodrigues (ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal); Cristina Udelsmann Rodrigues (The Nordic African Institute, Sweden); Axel Fleisch, (University of Helsinki, Finland; actually Goethe University, Germany); Crisanto Barros (University of Cape Verde, Cape Verde); Khadija Karzazi (University Hassan II Casablanca, Morocco); Philippe Fraiture (University of Warwick, Great Britain); Roula Abi Habib Khouri (Université Saint-Joseph, Liban); Ioan Horga (University of Oradea, Romania); Philipp Altmann (Universidad Central de Ecuador, Ecuador); Hachem Hicham (Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Maroc); Irene Lapuente (La Mandarina de Newton, Spain); Pep Bernadas (Orixà Viatges and Altaïr, Spain); Emma Martín Díaz (University of Sevilla, Spain); Catalina Iliescu (University of Alicante, Spain); and José Pardo-Tomás, Araceli González-Vázquez and Josep Martí (Institució Milà i Fontanals-CSIC, Spain).

Note 1. This research is part of the broader scientific production framed by three projects I  have directed at CSIC’s Institució Milà i Fontanals:  the EUIN Project “Enriching European Cultural Heritage from Cultural Diversity and Collaborative

Africa in Europe, Europe in Africa: Introduction

13

Participation” (EUIN2017–85108) (2017–2019), and the R&D Projects “African Memories: Reconstructing Spanish Colonial Practices and their Imprint in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. Towards a Spanish-African Cultural Heritage” (HAR2015– 63626–P) (MINECO/FEDER, EU) (2016–2018) and “Africans and Maghrebis in the Iberian Peninsula (1850–1975). A history on the margins of Spain and Portugal” (PID2019–108397GB–I00) (2020–2023) (MINECO/FEDER, UE). This work has been translated and revised by Emma Brown and Tom Hardy.

Bibliography Adogame, Afe. (2014). Reinventing Africa? The Negotiation of Ethnic Identities in the New African Migration Diaspora. In G.  Gertrud and S.  Grodz (eds.), Religion, Ethnicity and Transnational Migration between West Africa and Europe. Leiden: Brill, 12–36. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2011). Guinea Ecuatorial. Ciudadanías y migraciones transnacionales en un contexto dictatorial africano. Barcelona: CEIBA. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2017). Exploring Euro-African Pasts through an Analysis of Spanish Colonial Practices in Africa (Morocco and Spanish Guinea). Canadian Journal of African Studies 51 (1): 23–42. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2018a). Research on Spanish Colonialism in Africa. Introduction to English language edition. In Y.  Aixelà-Cabré (ed.), In the Footsteps of Spanish Colonialism in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. The Handling of Cultural Diversity and the Socio-Political Influence of Transnational Migration. Zurich:  LIT Verlag, 3–21 (Africanische Studien 59). Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2018b). The Management of Religious, Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Europe in the 21th Century. The variety of National Approaches. NY, Lewinston: Edwin Mellen. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2019). Ciudades, glocalización y patrimonio contestado. Una historia de Bata y de Al-Hoceima 1900–2019 (Guinea Ecuatorial y Marruecos). Barcelona: Ed. Bellaterra. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2020). The Presence of the Colonial Past: Equatorial Guinean Women in Spain. Itinerario. Journal of Imperial and Global  Interactions 44 (1): 140–158. Akmir, Youssef (ed.). (2011). Agadir en Torno a 1911, aproximaciones historiográficas hispano-marroquíes al Agadir de finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX. Rabat-Agadir: IHL – UIZ. Altez, Rogelio. (2017). Critica de los estudios subalternos: El lado oscuro de los “invisiblizados” durane el período colonial en las regiones venozolanas. In Vázquez Cienfuegos (ed.), Poder y conflictividad social en América Latina. Prague: Charles University in Prague and Karolinum Press, 115–126. Appadurai, Arjun. (1999). Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination. International Social Science Journal 160: 229–238.

14

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

Baumann, Gerd. (1999). The Multicultural Riddle. Rethinking National, Ethnic, and Religious Identities. New York and London: Routledge. Baumann, Gerd. (2004). Grammars of Identity/Alterity. A  Structural Approach. In G.  Baumann and A.  Gingrich (eds.), Grammars of Identity/Alterity. A  Structural Approach. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 18–50. Bondarenko, Dmitri M. (2015). Has the Past Passed? On the Role of Historic Memory. In Shaping the Relations Between African Americans and Contemporary African Migrants in the USA. Suomen Antropologi. Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 40 (3): 5–30. Castro-Gómez, Santiago & Grosfoguel, Ramón. (2007) Prólogo. Giro decolonial, teoría crítica y pensamiento heterárquico. In S. Castro-Gómez & R. Grosfoguel (comp.), El giro decolonial: reflexiones para una diversidad epistémica más allá del capitalismo global. Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre Editores, 9–23. Césaire, Aimé. (1970). Les armes miraculeuses. Paris: Gallimard. Cooper, Frederick. (2005). Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley: University of California Press. De Sousa Santos, Boaventura and Meneses, María Paula. (2014). Introducción. In Sousa and Meneses (eds.), Epistemologías del Sur (Perspectivas). Madrid: Akal, 7–16. During, Roel. (2011). European Heritage Discourses, a Matter of Identity Construction? In During, Roel (ed.), Cultural Heritage and Identity Politics. Nederlands: Silk Road Research Foundation, 17–30. Everly, Kathryn. (2014). Rethínking the Home and Rejecting the Past A  Feminist Reading of Najat El Hachmí’s l’Últim patriarca. Ambitos Feministas 4: 45–59. Falola, Toyin & House-Soremekun, Bessie. (2011). Introduction. Africana in the Margins, en Globalization and Sustainable Development in Africa, House-Soremekun & Falola (eds.). Rochester: University of Rochester, 1–17. Fanon, Frantz. (2002) [1961]. Les damnés de la terre. Paris: La Découverte. Fleisch, Axel, and Rihanon Stephens (eds.). (2018). Doing Conceptual History in Africa. New York: Berghahn Books. Greenwood, Davydd J. (1994). Los posibles pasados y posibles futuros de la antropología. Anales de la Fundación Joaquín Costa 11: 131–144. Hogarth, Christopher. (2013). Introduction. The Francophone African Intellectual Past and Present. In C.  Hogarth and N.  Edwards (eds.), The contemporary Francophone African intelectual. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK:  Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 1–25. Kubik, Jan. (2003). Cultural Legacies of State Socialism: History-making and Culturalpolitical Entrepreneurship in Postcommunist Poland and Russia. In G. Ekiert and S.  E. Hanson (eds.), Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. Assessing the Legacy of Communist Rule. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 317–351. L’Estoile, Benôit de. (2008). The Past as It Lives Now: An Anthropology of Colonial Legacies. Social Anthropology 16 (3): 267–279.

Africa in Europe, Europe in Africa: Introduction

15

Lindgren, Björn. (2001). Representing the Past in the Present. Memory-texts and Ndebele Identity. In M. Palmberg (ed.), Encounter Images in the Meetings Between Africa and Europe. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 121–134. Malik, Asiya. (2014). Remembering Colonial Pasts: Nostalgia, Memory, and the Making of a Diasporan Community. American Review of Canadian Studies 44 (3): 308–320. Mbembe, Achille. (1999). Du government privé indirect. Politique Africaine 73: 103–121. Mbembe, Achille. (2001). On the Postcolony. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press. Mbembe, Achille. (2006). Necropolitique. Raisons Politiques 21: 29–60. Mbembe, Achille. (2010). Sortir de la grande nuit. Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée. Paris: La Découverte. Mbembe, Achille. (2015). Critique de la raison nègre. Paris: La Découverte. Merolla, Daniela. (2012). Introduction. In Merolla, Jansen and Nait-Zerrad (eds.), Multimedia Research and Communication of Oral Genres in Africa. Zurich:  Lit, vii–xv. Merolla, Daniela. (2017). Beyond “two Africas” in African and Berber Literary Studies. In W.  E. A.  R.  van Beek, J.  C. M.  Damen and D.  W. J.  Foeken (eds.), The Face of Africa:  Essays in Honour of Ton Dietz. ASCL Occasional Publications no.  28 Leiden: African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL), 215–233. Mignolo, Walter. (2011). The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Mignolo, Walter. (2018). The Decolonial Option. In W. Mignolo and C. E. Walsh (eds.), On Decoloniality:  Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham:  Duke University Press, 105–245. Mudimbe, Valentin Yves. (1988). The Invention of Africa:  Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington and Indianapolis:  Indiana University Press; London: James Currey. Quijano, Anibal. (2014). Colonialidad del poder y clasificación social. In Sousa and Meneses (eds.), Epistemologías del Sur (Perspectivas). Madrid: Akal, 67–107. Said, Edward. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon. Santamaría Colmenero, Sara. (2018). Colonizar la memoria. La ideología de la Reconciliación y el discurso neocolonial sobre Guinea Ecuatorial. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 19 (4): 445–463. Small, Stephen. (2018). 20 Questions and Answers on Black Europe. The Hague: Amrit Publishers. Spear, Thomas. (2003). Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa. The Journal of African History 44 (1): 3–27. Spivak, G. C. (1993). Can the Subaltern Speak? In L. Chrisman and P. Williams (eds.), Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory:  A Reader. New  York:  Harvester Wheatsheaf, 66–111. Stoler, Ann Laura, & Karen Strassler. (2000). Castings for the Colonial: Memory Work in ‘New Order’ Java. Comparative Studies in Society and History 42 (1): 4–48.

16

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

Thiong’o, Ngugi wa. (1992). Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Nairobi: East African Publishers. Thompson, Paul. (1988). La voz del pasado. La historia oral. Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnanim. Udegbe, Bolarinwa. (2001). Gender Dimensions in the Images of Africans in Commercial Works of Art. In M. Palmberg (ed.), Encounter Images in the Meetings Between Africa and Europe. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 135–145. Vecco, Marilena. (2010). A Definition of Cultural Heritage: From the Tangible to the Intangible. Journal of Cultural Heritage 11: 321–324. Vergès, Françoise. (2013). The Monument as a Space of Friction. In Barclai (ed.), France’s Colonial Legacies. Memory, Identity and Narrative. Cardiff:  University of Wales Press, ix–xii. Vertovec, Steven. (2007). Super-diversity and Its Implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–1054.

Part 1  Euro-African Memories

1.  Sharing Memories of Global Encounters Daniela M erolla Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (France), Paris The present chapter’s aim is to contribute to the reflection on Afro-European memories from the perspective of African oral and written literatures and films, more specifically, that of Amazigh Berber studies, which are my fields of research.1 Some years ago, I  set off together with my colleague Kofi Dorvlo to research oral and written narratives on the ancient migrations of the Ewe people in Ghana. Today the Ewes inhabit south-eastern Ghana, where they arrived in the 17th century after a migration started from East Africa around the 11th century.2 My colleague and I  interviewed several people on such migration stories and among them a retired schoolteacher, Mr. Goodwill Seth Tamakloe. During our conversation, I explained that before doing research on Ewe oral literature in Ghana, I had worked on a similar topic on Berber (Amazigh) literature in North Africa. Mr. Tamakloe began to tell us about his knowledge based on stories transmitted orally—mouth to ear, so to say— but also on written texts, as he was a schoolteacher and history was one of his subjects. At a certain moment, he told us that according to oral narratives, the Ewes traveled from the area that is now on the border between Egypt and Sudan. He added that in such a journey they encountered and had exchanges with Berber peoples, before going south to Togo and Ghana. Then his story went on recounting the adventures of the Ewes under a cruel king, Agokoli I, according to a series of oral narratives that are well known in the area. Using a well-known technique of storytelling, Mr. Goodwill Seth Tamakloe incorporated my interests in Berber topics in his recollection of Ewe migrations. Narrative sequences indeed include alternative possibilities that may or may not be actualized by the storyteller: a certain event or act can be continued or brought to a conclusion. Thus, in any story, we have virtual

20

Daniela M erolla

sequences that may be actualized or not, goals that may be attained or not (Bremond 1966, 1980). When the storytellers narrate that the Ewes traveled throughout North Africa, the possibility of the encounter with other peoples in such regions does exist, and Mr. Goodwill Seth Tamakloe actualized this possibility in his story of the encounter of the Ewes with the Amazigh Berbers, to integrate my presence in his narration. For me, the presence of Berbers and Ewes in his story indicates not only the possibility of establishing links through a shared (if imaginary) past, but also the will to create a shared heritage in the present and to form a syncretic world out of our encounter. Storytelling is a wonderful tool for implementing the dialogue of different memories and their representations of colonial and postcolonial encounters. However, memories are not uncontroversial, and critical reflection as well as political choices are required. My anecdote points to the fact that memory of the past, whether recollected or invented, recreated or silenced, functions to create the present. ‘Cultural memory’ studies (Halbwachs 1950; Nora 1989; Erll, Nünning and Young 2008; Dermentzopoulos and Kosmidou 2016) show that recalling the past is not just an individual act but a process shaped by social networks and cultural models, which influence the ways in which elements of the past are represented for present and future aims. The forms that such a recalling can take are many. Institutions create national and collective identities by the selective remembering, forgetting, and even inventing or forging of significant events (fateful events or ‘figures of memory’, as in Assmann 1995: 129). National memory takes form through ‘the materiality of the trace’ (Nora 1989), such as memorials, sanctuaries, museums, archives, and iconic places—the Waterloo battlefields in present-day Belgium, for example—and through the less material forms of speeches, anniversaries, ceremonies, and rituals, all deliberate creations which the historian Pierre Nora includes under the term of ‘lieux de mémoire’. Through and by such ‘sites of memory’, structured collective remembrances become official history and dominant discourse. Paul Connerton (2008) adds yet another level of collective memory: that which can be bodily assumed and performed. ‘Embodied memories’ work in a somehow implicit way, particularly in the case of gestures and postures, all of which Connerton calls the ‘choreography of authority’—for example, when we automatically know when to stand up to greet somebody. The ‘sites of memory’ and the ‘choreography of authority’ refer to dominant and conventional forms of memorizing, but remembrance can also give voices to what is silenced in dominant histories. We think of the memories of events personally experienced or passed down from the bearer of the memory to the following generations (‘lived memories’). More complex is the case of

Sharing Memories of Global Encounters

21

oral genres that recount the past and adapt it to present times—such as myths and epic narratives often do—as they can be ‘sites of memory’ when they construct and affirm (internal) social structures and dominant history (e.g. of local conquerors, of male vs. female perspectives) or assume an alternative function when submitted to the imperialism of literacy, colonialism, and nationalism. In the latter case as well as in the case of lived memories, remembrance can make room for episodes obliterated by national histories and hegemonic representations of the past and thereby express often forgotten and negated histories and perspectives—as indicated by all the above-mentioned studies. If recalling is central to the construction of collective and cultural memory, forgetting also appears to be important. Connerton (2008:  60) notes that forgetting plays a role not just in the repressive forms of the damnatio memoriae, the erasure of facts and people from public memory, or, we can add, in what Ann Laura Stoler (2011) calls the cultural ‘aphasia’ which disconnects facts—or remembrances in our case—from the appropriate categories and concepts; forgetting also plays a role in the forming of new identities by contributing to ‘newly shared memories’ and ‘tacitly shared silences’ (Connerton 2008: 63). We construct, transmit, and even manipulate what to remember and how to remember it in view of present and future configurations of our identity. The differences and the oppositions in what we recall, how we recall, and what we make of these recollections as a group lead to situations in which collective and cultural memories are, more often than not, a battlefield.3 Afro-European memories do indeed include dialogues and controversies.

Cultural Memory and Its Discontents Cultural memory may conflate also with the notion of ‘heritage’ and with the interrogations as to what should be protected or not. What sites should be preserved when there is no agreement? What commemoration should take place or not, when it points to the suffering of a group of ancestors? An example is provided in the commemoration of the so-called discovery of America, by the various statues of Columbus erected in many cities of North America. Such commemoration and such statues are nowadays opposed and challenged by Amerindian activists who have obtained the right to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day.4 Another case is the statue of South African politician Cecil Rhodes, who implemented brutal institutional racism in the 19th century. The statue was removed, and defaced during the removal, from the campus of the University of Cape Town in 2015 after large

22

Daniela M erolla

student demonstrations. Even more appalling, and widely debated and analyzed, is the example of the statue of the so-called Negro of Banyoles, whose stuffed remains were exposed in the Darder Museum of Banyoles (Spain) and, after a series of heated polemics, repatriated and buried in Botswana in 2000. In the latter case, the controversy was reopened in 2015, when it was discovered that the museum had made a secret silicone mould of the stuffed body and that three sculptors intended to make a statue from the mould. Again, there were vociferous complaints that making a statue from the mould was a form of inhuman racism; on the other side, the sculptors defended themselves by claiming that it was a case of cultural memory. As a follow-up to the debate, a petition was started to remove the statue of the slave dealer Antonio López in Barcelona and to rename the location after the activist Dr Alphonse Arcelin, who started the campaign for the repatriation of El Negro’s body.5 The antiracist protests after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis (USA, 25 May 2020) prompted an international wave of actions against the statues of various historical figures, which were toppled, dumped, coated with red paint. As iconic ‘lieux de mémoire’ for what (hegemonic) society wants to commemorate, such statues become targets of iconoclastic actions to implement changes hic et nunc, revealing the urgency felt by demonstrators for social justice and equality. Several activists claim that these actions are only the latest deeds in a long series of requests to remove the statues addressed to local and national authorities6 —requests which have not been answered, despite the fact that the involvement with slavery, murder and racism of the represented historical figures were well documented. This is certainly the case of Edward Colston (1636–1721), slave trader and member of the United Kingdom’s Parliament, and King Leopold of Belgium (1835–1908) who enforced colonial rule in Congo with the utmost brutality, resulting in the decimation of the local population.7 Other cases are more complex and give rise to controversy. The statue of Mahatma Ghandi was removed from the university campus at Accra in Ghana (2018), and other sculptures of him were tampered with in South Africa (2015), France (2017), the United States (2020), and the Netherlands (2020), because of his writings and offensive attitude towards Africans when he was in South Africa (Desai and Goolam  2015). On the other side, Ramachandra Guha (2018) writes that Ghandi was a man of his time who expressed racist ideas when he was in his twenties, but who knew how to change and no longer spoke of the inferiority of Africans in his mature adulthood. Cultural memory in terms of popular culture is also controversial, as we see in the Netherlands, where a growing contestation is directed towards the figures of the helpers of Saint Nicholas (who takes the place of Father Christmas

Sharing Memories of Global Encounters

23

in Dutch festivities). The helpers, called Zwarte Piets (Black Petes), appear during the festivities celebrating the arrival of the saint in the Netherlands, supposedly from Spain, in the period of November and December. The Black Petes are expected to reward ‘good’ children and punish disobedient ones; but this latter element is less important today, and the Petes primarily scatter spicy biscuits all around for children and adults alike. These helpers are usually impersonated by white boys and men whose faces are painted black. The Black Petes were and often still are characterized by stereotyping elements, such as red mouths, enslaver’s gold earrings, and the inability to speak Dutch in a correct and fluent way. The contesters see the Black Petes as a visible representation of the racism still haunting the Netherlands. The counter-demonstrators, in favor of the Petes, on the contrary, see such figures as belonging to Dutch national history and to their own cherished childhood memories.8 The counter-demonstrators do not want to let the Black Pete disappear from the Dutch landscape, nor do they want to change its color—as it was also suggested to invent, for example, a Blue, Violet, Green, or White Pete.9 John Helsloot (2012: 11) develops the hypothesis that the Black Petes (nowadays also impersonated by women) constitute an embodied memory: they cannot be isolated from the carnivalesque context in which they appear, expressing liberty and contestation, cross-dressing and otherness for all the participants. Such a carnivalesque experience incorporates memories of past performances, including the Petes’ masking, which have become inextricable from the embodied memory. As a bodily-lived experience, the Black Pete experience cannot be expressed or discussed in rational terms (Helsloot 2008, 2012). It becomes a ‘choreography of authority’, in Connerton’s terms, which could explain why counter-demonstrators refuse even to add ‘Colour Petes’ to the Black ones. Pressurized by the wave of demonstrations, local authorities and members of national governments react, presenting a large range of positions, from recognizing the need for change (as in the case of Dutch Prime Minister Rutte acknowledging his change of perspective on the ‘Black Petes’) and removing a controversial monument (as in the case of the statue of the slave trader Robert Milligan from outside the Museum of London Docklands), to refusing to knock down public statues (as in the case of French President Macron) and accusing ‘the mob’ of criminal acts, because people should follow democratic routes and campaign for a statue’s removal (as in the case of United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson), or threatening the ‘statue vandals’ with ten-year prison sentences (as in the case of United States President Donald Trump). Whatever the response, the activists’ forceful action has (re) positioned cultural memory and its discontents at the center of the public

24

Daniela M erolla

debate. This marks a significant shift from the discourse of various strands of populism in the last few decades. Building on the majority’s anguish linked to the new migratory waves, populism has forged and propagated a nostalgic attitude toward imagined ‘pure’ national tradition and history. Persánch (2020) calls such strands ‘magical populism’: they oppose both post-war multiculturalism and a national identity that may include its discontents in terms of discrimination of color, ethnicity, gender, social class. Cheryl Hudson (2016) raises questions on what is historical writing and memory in her article (‘History is not a morality play:  Both sides on #RhodesMustFall debate should remember that’) concerning the South African case. Looking at the diffusion of similar demonstrations on British and American campuses, we can ask with Hudson whether the removal and defacing of the statue of Cecil Rhodes is the only way to ‘correct’ the public presence of an unacceptable and unforgivable figure in history and whether apartheid and racism should be canceled from the ‘visible’ national memory and from the sites of memory. In the case of the Black Petes, we could ask whether the contesters foster a ‘forgetting’ of the existence of Black Petes in Dutch popular culture to allow new common Dutch identities to flourish. Looking at the counter-demonstrators in favor of retaining Black Petes, are they in the grip of their embodied memories and cultural aphasia (Helsloot 2012), thus denying the suffering of their ‘Others’ by promoting ‘cultural memory’? The question remains, however, as to how to do justice to the victims of violence and to the ambiguity of memories. What aspect prevails (does Rhodes’s racism weigh more heavily than his endowment to let scholars do research at Oxford; does Ghandi’s racism in his twenties weigh more heavily than his later position and spiritual example) and for whom? And what happens with the sites of memory of national victories that are tragic defeats for the ‘Others’? Or when the reality of the Black Pete as a racist token—and nowadays a relic of it—is simply denied? The examples above point also to another central characteristic of memory: its affective, emotional charge and investment. Historian Luisa Passerini (2008) claims that we should study the value of emotions in creating and transmitting memories among generations and cultural groups, which she also calls the intersubjectivity of memory. Emotions and intersubjectivity are fundamental in her discussion of European identity: Memory, which is a form of subjectivity, would not exist without its emotional undertones and components, and the same applies to identity, of course. For instance, when we talk about European identity, what we mean is not only an intellectual and political engagement, but also an affective investment towards

Sharing Memories of Global Encounters

25

being European, and being European cannot exist without feeling such, even if this entails sometimes contradictory sentiments. This has been observed for both individuals and collectives.10

Turning to Afro-European encounters and legacies, the creation of Spanish identity in relation to colonization and decolonization is a case in point. As indicated by Alda Blanco (2007: 2), the ‘dialectics of remembering and forgetting’ can be clearly recognized in the fact that ‘the Spanish “empire” has come to be almost exclusively identified with the conquest and colonization of the Americas and the Philippines’. Blanco points out that Spain’s ambivalence towards its African 19th century colonial past can be read in the scarcity of ‘commemorative sites to [such] imperial memory in present-day Madrid’s urban topography’. Spanish literature gives space mainly to the ‘inscription of the empire’ in the Americas, but Africa is also concerned. Blanco (2007: 6) provides the example of popular theater pieces of the mid-19th century: the war against Morocco was performed as a patriotic event in plays such as Los moros del Riff […] and El pabellón español en África, just to mention two of the many pieces that were staged during the duration of the war’.11

Such theater texts and novels defended the legitimacy of Spain in North and Equatorial Africa and contributed to the construction of Spanish identity by extolling patriotic feelings. Clearly, such remembrances are controversial, and we will see below how the ‘other side’ of these memories plays a role in the battlefield of Afro-European memories.

Literature as Memorialization Literature can be seen as a particular site for memorialization. Storytellers are active users and producers of memories, and oral and written literature as well as cinema are forceful media for creating collective memory ‘by recollecting the past in the form of narrative’—as noted by Astrid Erll and Agnes Rigney (2006: 112). In this section, two broad ways of literary memorializing of the Africa–Europe encounter are discussed.

One Side of the Story. An African Ambiguous Adventure An example of the first strand of literary memorializing is found in L’aventure ambiguë (The Ambiguous Adventure) by the Senegalese writer Cheikh Hamidou Kane (1961).12 Kane’s novel became a famous work in the field of African literature, and it is still considered one of its founding texts. The memories that the novel narrates are those of a Fulani boy, Samba Diallo,

26

Daniela M erolla

who goes to France to study.13 Diallo acquires French education and, at the same time, tries to retain the memories of his childhood and of his religious education to create a coherent new identity. Under the pressure of sweeping colonization and oppression, his attempt ends in failure, and he is stabbed to death when he returns to Senegal.14 The intricateness of remembering and forgetting in the novel is described by Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi, quoting a fragment from a dialogue in which the Aventure’s character the Most Royal Lady wonders about what Diallobé children will learn at the new school (‘I want to ask you: can one learn this without forgetting that, and what one learns, is it worth what one forgets?’— Kane 1972: 34). Mudimbe-Boyi (1999: 148) asks: what events, facts, and characters of the past should be retained and inscribed in the national history in order to create the collective memory? In other words, what should be forgotten and what remembered?

The story ultimately shows that the remixing of memory and knowledge is impossible in the context of colonization, but several dialogues express the will to create a shared heritage in a present syncretic world—something that I mentioned earlier when presenting the anecdote of the retired schoolteacher, Mr. Goodwill Seth Tamakloe. One example is provided by the character of Samba Diallo’s father, when he tells a French figure: Nous n’avons pas eu le même passé, vous et nous, mais nous aurons le même avenir rigoureusement. L’ère des destinées singulières est révolue. (Kane 1961: 24) We have not had the same past, you and ourselves, but we shall have, strictly, the same future. The era of separate destinies has run its course. (Kane 1972: 79)

To interpret this remark, we need to remember the colonial rhetoric of the cleavage in time between Europe and Africa. The notion of time was central to the imperialist project of European ‘modernity’ in the 19th and 20th centuries. Colonial narratives hinged on temporal dislocation:  although Europeans and their Others physically existed at the same time (they could meet each other), they were not ‘contemporary’ and not seen as ‘coeval’ (Fabian 1983: 31). In this line of reasoning, there was thus a synchronous existence but no contemporaneity of those deemed to be ‘modern’ or ‘primitive’ (Augé 1999: 55). By such an ideological discourse, being primitive could be accepted as a shared bygone past, but only when a divisive development in the past, in the present, and in the future was imposed. On the contrary, the character speaking the quoted remark from L’aventure ambiguë (Samba Diallo’s father) reverses the imposed relation: he acknowledges the different

Sharing Memories of Global Encounters

27

past but resolutely refutes the cleavage in time to forcefully assert a shared present. In the dialogue, at the same time, it is tactfully forgotten that the shared present derives from the violence of colonization. Critical studies tend to agree on an elaborated incorporation in the novel of elements of the autobiographical narrative of the writer, who as a boy went to study in France.15 The autobiographical elements are restructured in the broader narrative of the (failed) attempt to combine forms of knowledge derived from local knowledge, Islam, and French schooling. Published a year after the granting of independence to Senegal in 1960, L’aventure ambiguë can be read as the literary transformation of ‘lived memories’ into a site of collective memory. As collective memory, the novel refuses what it presents as the ambiguous compromise of French assimilation with a flavor of ‘Africanity’ reduced to childhood remembrances. The impossible-to-overcome cultural clash will characterize African literatures in European languages on the eve of national independences. We recognize the theme of the amalgamation of different forms of knowledge and memories in the acclaimed film Keita, l’héritage du griot (1995) by the director Dani Kouyaté (Burkina Faso), which develops such a theme with an outcome different from that of Cheikh Hamidou Kane. Keita makes use of the central figure of one of the most emblematic oral epic narratives of West Africa: the Mande hero known as Sunjata Keita. The story of Sunjata has been transmitted in the form of narrative poems and nowadays is also rewritten in other media and shared in the international cultural area including modern Mali, Guinea, Gambia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The story concerns the adventures and the heroic deeds of King Sunjata Keita (or Mari Djata) and the foundation of his Islamic kingdom in about the 13th century. As noted by Jan Jansen (1998: 14–16), the epic of Sunjata is entertainment but also living history, because its characters’ names are present patronymics linking the people carrying them to their ancestors’ roles and interactions in the epic. Through the figure of King Sunjata, the film Keita, l’héritage du griot shows that syncretism is possible. The epic hero was able to reconcile Islamic and pre-Islamic knowledge to create an extended trading empire. In the film, Sunjata is the exemplary model for the young schoolboy Mabo, who—like the main character Samba Diallo of Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s the Ambiguous Adventure—is caught between school and local knowledge. Cultural memory of the past, the film tells us, is indispensable to create an organic (African) person. The film shows that the memory of the Sunjata epic is at risk in the new school system when school programmes follow only a European model. The school operates a repressive form of amnesia by ‘ignoring’ the knowledge

28

Daniela M erolla

of the past memorialized in the Sunjata epic. One exhilarating scene concerns the origin of human beings. We see the boy Mabo reading from a school text that human ancestors were apes. At this point, the character Djeliba, the griot who has knowledge of genealogies and the memory of the Sunjata epic, intervenes in the scene. Djeliba explains to a confused Mabo that ‘great kings’ were at the origin of the creation of the (Mande) world and that these kings are his ancestors. But the gap—and even clash—between school and oral knowledge is not impossible to fill, as Mabo is able to memorize the epic, to incorporate it, and, following in the footsteps of Sundjata, to operate the hopefully successful syncretism of cultures in his own time. The film has an open ending, signaling that in the contemporary world each person should find his/her own balance in mixing and merging.16 The close relation that Djeliba and Mabo develop underscores the affective link to the cherished cultural past. We see in the case of Keita, l’héritage du griot that cultural memories in the form of African oral narratives are represented as indispensable knowledge that must contribute to the present if a new project of Africanity is to take form, a project including (acceptable?) European legacies of the colonial encounter, represented here in the main form of science and technology. We may also note that, in both novel and film, the idea that ‘l’ère des destinées singulières est révolue’ is spelled out only for the African characters. These works focus on the conflicting memories and results of the Europe– Africa encounters in their impact on African individuals and collectivities, as only Africans are expected to adapt to the new configuration of the world.17

Reciprocity in Ambiguity and the Creation of New Memories More recent African works show the recognition of the ‘ambiguous adventure’ as a mutual endeavor and one of reciprocity, the Afro-European encounters impacting also the once self-defined ‘modern’ world. Under this aspect, African literatures and films, resonating with recent trends in postcolonial literatures created by displacement and migration, develop what can be seen as a second strand of literary memorializing. A first example is As mulheres do meu pai (2007) (My Father’s Wives  – trans. Hahn, 2008)  by the Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa. This novel retraces the convoluted effects of mixing and merging and of ‘lies made of many truths’, through the parallel stories of the novel’s creation—written in the notes and fragments of Agualusa’s authorial voice that pepper the main text of the novel—and of the main character Laurentina’s search. Laurentina goes to Africa to meet Faustino Manso, her supposed biological father; but

Sharing Memories of Global Encounters

29

when she arrives, he has already died. She begins to record various characters’ memories of her father’s travels along the whole southern African coast, and finally she discovers that he was infertile and that all his lovers and ‘children’ had tacitly agreed to uphold Faustino’s fictive paternity. McNee (2012: 19) notes that in her journey to retrace paternity and identity, Laurentina finds a genealogy of women, lovers, mothers, and sisters who take control ‘over the paternal narrative’. The lived memories of the various characters contribute to the construction of a new and yet unstable identity for Laurentina. The ambiguous intersection between colonial legacies, filiation, and personal choices is expressed from the beginning in Laurentina’s reflections, when she writes about herself and her boyfriend Mandume in the following terms: Mandume decided to be Portuguese. He does have the right. However, I don’t think that to be a good Portuguese person you have to renounce your entire ancestry. I’m sure I’m a good Portuguese woman, but I  also feel a little bit Indian; and now at last I’ve come to Angola to find out whether there’s anything in me that’s African. (Agualusa 2007: 14)

The existent analyzes convincingly show that the novel constructs a new discourse on Creolism, going beyond—thanks to multivocality and hybridity— the binary opposition between Portugal and Angola and beyond biological and racialized conceptions of filiation and identity.18 Treating the theme of mixing and choosing, the novel also makes ironic commentaries on ‘reciprocity’ in a playful way, as in the following quotation when Mandume presents his Portuguese school friend to his Angolan father. The father is convinced that the school friend (‘a blonde lad’) is also Angolan: [Manduma’s father]: ‘You weren’t born in Angola?! […] Get away! You talk as though you were Angolan …’ [Manduma’s school friend]: ‘Man, there were only brothers in my neighbourhood. At school too […] We choose between being Cape Verdean and being Angolan. I choose to be Angolan.’ (Agualusa 2007: 36)

If in the latter, ironic passage, a Portuguese subject ‘chooses’ to be Angolan because of his neighborhood—which seems to imply socio-economic conditions of marginality—the position of the character Laurentina is more ambiguous. In Elisa Antz’s words (2012: 273), Laurentina combines a yearning for authenticity and belonging […] with a ‘hybrid’ conception of identity where various ‘selves’ merge […] Hence, while ‘roots’ and ‘hybridity’ correspond to different perceptions of cultural identity in postcolonial theory, they do not do so in Laurentina’s world view.

30

Daniela M erolla

On his side, Hughes (2017: 116) adds a further level of complexity, referring to decolonial studies and the risk of ‘flattening’ the colonial references: The juxtaposition of these voices [of multiple characters] with that of a narrator-character points to the excess and ambivalence of mimicry: a narrator who is ‘not quite’ the author, a father (Manso) who is ‘not quite’ the prolific progenitor alleged, and a contradictory hybridity (Mandume and Laurentina) over which hang colonial stereotypes carried into the present.

Merging multiple collective and individual remembrances—all of them subjective, invented, manipulated, and manipulating, but partially truthful in their intersubjective dimension and as mutual endeavor—Laurentina tries to imagine new shared cultural memories for the Afro-European encounters. Another complex example of mutual exchanges is offered by the Amazigh Berber film Iperita. This film is an example of the controversial quality of memories and the question whether and how it is possible to integrate conflicting memories in a new European identity configuration. In 2017 Mohamed Bouzaggou, an Amazigh (Berber) writer from the Rif in north Morocco, released a self-made production, the film Iperita. The film was realized with very little means thanks to the help of Bouzaggou’s own village. The director could not find Moroccan distributors but obtained the support of another Amazigh Berber film director, Mohamed Amin Benamraoui, who is active in Belgium and received multiple awards for his first feature film Adiós Carmen. The title Iperita refers to the Spanish term for the toxic mustard gas used for the first time by German troops at Ypres in Belgium during the First World War. The gas forms large blisters on exposed skin and attacks the lungs; it is now prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention. The film stages the memories of a veteran of the war in the north of Morocco during the Spanish and later the French attacks against the Republic of Rif established by Abd al-Krim al-Khattabi (1921–1926).19 At the same time, the film exposes the present-day consequences of the use of toxic gas in the Rif, something that is denied not only by the previous colonial power, Spain, but also by the national and local Moroccan government. The government silence is confirmed by historian Bruce Maddy-Weitzman (2011:  158), who writes that since 2000 a number of Spanish and international scholars and journalists have highlighted the systematic use of gas against Riffian soldiers and civilians during the anti-colonial fighting, and the official marginalization of the survivors’ demands of help: until now, Moroccan authorities have ignored Amazigh demands and been unwilling to ask the Spanish government for acknowledgment and compensation

Sharing Memories of Global Encounters

31

[…] In Spain, as well, the subject was almost entirely kept out of the public eye, at least until recently.

The film’s narrative links present marginalization and poverty in the Rif, with official corruption and denial of the past. In the logic of the film, the Moroccan denial is due to corruption and to civil servants who are uninterested in the well-being of the population. The film shows that hospitals and decent health care are seriously lacking in the region. The film’s representation corresponds to the demand for hospitals, strongly expressed by the demonstrations which have taken place in north Morocco since 2016 and which are still going on, notwithstanding the wave of arrests of protesters and activists. In terms of collective and lived memories, the remembrances of the retired Spanish soldier, José, are central to the film’s narrative; and the act of remembering is central to recognition and change. José returns to north Morocco sixty years after the Rif War and discovers the effects of the toxic gas still haunting the population, which has the highest percentage of laryngeal cancers in Morocco. At the end of the film, José shares his memories of the use of the gas during the bombings of the Rif along with local teachers and activists, and his sharing allows the silence to be broken and the corrupt government officers to be exposed. Under such an aspect, the film expresses the need not only to take responsibility for past military crimes but also for reciprocity and the identification with the ‘Other’, a theme developed in the relationship between the Spanish retired soldier and the Amazigh Berber characters. Berber young people oppose the indifference and the corruption of the local government, but it is José’s return to the Rif and his shared memories as perpetrator and witness of the use of iperita that make a change possible. The film’s narrative seems to tell us that the only way to construct a shared and better present is when memories of past wrongdoings are made expressible and are shared, which somehow reminds us of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ s approach.20 When the film was screened in a cinema in France, the public commented that such war memories were sometimes shared within families, but they were not spoken out openly, thus remaining lived memories without entering the collective and publicly shared form of cultural memories. One member of the public told the director: ‘You have put it on stage and you have done something that we want to show to our children, to the whole world’—which underlines the necessity of the transgenerational and transcultural transmission of memory.21

32

Daniela M erolla

As mentioned in the first part of this chapter in reference to Spanish theater pieces (Blanco 2007), the memories aired in the Iperita film also remain controversial. Scholars in Morocco and in Spain support the allegations that toxic gas was used in the Rif War, and Catalan parliamentary members supported by NGOs (such as La Asociación para la Defensa de las Víctimas del Gas Tóxico en el Rif, and the Amazigh World Assembly) have called on Spain to investigate such allegations. However, as of today no clear answer has been given, and scientific studies have not yet been carried out to verify the allegations that the use of chemical weapons has led to the high rate of cancer in the area.

Sharing Memories, Sharing Heritages? As exemplified in the second strand of literary memorializing of the Africa– Europe encounter, merging memories and reciprocity can be used to go beyond filiation and essentialized identities to create a new common present. In the wave of decolonization, postcoloniality, and migration flows, power relationships continue to characterize the encounters between Africa and Europe, and cultural memory should be interrogated by a group of wellknown questions—such as ‘what memories’, ‘by whom’ such memories are shared, and ‘for what kind of present’ are they selected or forgotten? A further layer of complexity is added by renewed (or hoped-for renewal of) collective memories and identities which are reinterpreted in old terms. A drawing appeared in one of the major Dutch newspapers, NRC Handelsblad, on 8 February 2018 and can be taken as an example to illustrate this point. The drawing represents a stylized tree whose reddish crown is in the form of Europe while the brownish trunk connects it to its roots, represented in the form of the African continent. This drawing accompanies an article on a book collectively published by Afro-European writers, entitled ZWART, AfroEuropese literatuur uit de Lage Landen (Black, Afro-European Literature from the Netherlands, Atlas Contact, 2018) and edited by Vamba Sherif and Ebissé Rouw. Although the text of the article is somewhat sympathetic with the endeavor of the writers and their demand to be ‘seen’ and recognized as Black European authors renewing the Dutch literary field, the image tells us another story. Africa is represented as ‘roots’, feeding the European ‘tree’ with its flourishing crown. In the iconic comparison, Africa looks barren and knotty; moreover, the dimensions are completely wrong, with Europe looking much larger and more imposing than the African continent. What this image shows is the reverse of what is called for by the proponents of the book. Europe is represented as the central locus of artistic creation, and mutual

Sharing Memories of Global Encounters

33

recognition is not represented by the image of the draining of the fertile ‘sap’ from the South to the North. Moreover, the tree trunk in the drawing ‘links’ the continents through what we know is now the deadly Mediterranean Sea for many who try to migrate to the North, making—for those who are aware of it—the iconic metaphor of the sap nurturing the European crown untenable and showing the reddish crown colored by blood. Unfortunate and ill-fitting as this image is, it is not just a failing of the individual designer but the result of a long-term, internalized set of attitudes and collective memories. The drawing is in itself an expression of cultural memory: the ‘imperial reason’ constructed, imposed, and ‘lived’—albeit in diverging and opposing positions—in the experiences of many individuals worldwide since the Renaissance (Mignolo 2007). The ongoing process of merging and mixing that hinges on individual and collective agency is our contemporaneity22 and—as indicated at the beginning in reference to my fieldwork encounter with Mr Goodwill Seth Tamakloe—cultural actors may use narrative tools already known and readily available for incorporating their and other people’s presence and expectations into their world. As to the Afro-European encounters, what we need is the political will for inclusion and the capacity to create a new narrative from multiple collective memories, searching for the nuances and incorporating diverging bodily-lived experiences, to foster the formation of a sense of shared, affective belonging. We need courage as well, to discuss again and again the many forms of exclusionary rhetoric that have been deployed in populist discourses by political figures in Europe and the Unites States who manipulate the anxiety created by contemporary merging and creolization to make claims for European traditions and whiteness, mixing and fusing these claims with anti-immigrant views. At the same time, such populism fosters anti-European feelings going beyond neo-national rhetoric and the strictures of present-day European Union economic and social politics to attack the emergence of a renovating project of Europeanism. ‘The very concept of European identity becomes useless or even counterproductive, if it is used to connote demarcation rather than solidarity with the Other’ (Passerini 2012: 132). Inclusion and sharing of contradictory Afro-European memories becomes, in this framework, a pivotal passage for an inclusive new world beyond totalitarian utopias and dystopias.

Notes 1. I would like to thank the conveners of the conference ‘Euro-African Memories: Colonial and Postcolonial Spanish Legacies in Morocco and Equatorial

34

Daniela M erolla

Guinea’ (IMF-CSIC Barcelona, 14–15 March 2018), Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré and Araceli González Vazquéz. 2. Ewe oral narratives of migration are usually defined as xotutu. The massive Ewe exodus was probably caused by the progressive expansion of other populations, probably the Yoruba (Amenumey 1997: 15–16, Gayibor and Aguigah 2005: 6–7). 3. See Blanchard and Veyrat-Masson 2008. 4. Mindock 2018. 5. The Movimiento Panafricanista por la Reparación Africana y Afrodescendiente de Europa inititated the petition, addressing the Municipality of Barcelona:  ‘We demand that the Barcelona City Council remove the statue and name of the slave dealer and genocidal “Antonio Lopez” in order to be renamed “Dr Alphonse Arcelin” Square in tribute to the medical doctor and activist for the African reparation.’ The statue was removed in 2018. See ‘Farewell celebration for the Antonio López statue’ at https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/farewell-celebration-for-the-antoni-lopez-statue-2_620919.html 6. See for example the article by Malik (2020). 7. Selective remembering and forging of significant events are particularly evident in the case of Edward Colston’s statue. His philanthropic actions (for members of the Whig party and of the Anglican Church only) were ‘selected’ by the local bourgeoisie at the end of the nineteenth century as a symbol of civic unity of the city of Bristol to be opposed to the nascent workers’ claims (Dresser 2016). 8. See Helsloot (2008) and Wekker (2016). Detailed description of the first contestations in 2008 and 2011, their repression, and counter-contestations are in Helsloot (2012). 9. See for example the news ‘Bedreiging om kleurenpiet: De lol is er nu wel vanaf’ (Threat of Coloured Piet: The fun is now over) and ‘Oldenzaler (73) weer Sinterklaas: “Als er witte Pieten meedoen stop ik”' (Oldenzaler (73) again Sinterklaas: ‘I will stop if White Petes participate’) (Loohuis 2018). 10. Luisa Passerini (2008) ‘Connecting emotions: Contributions from cultural history,’ Historein 8: 121. 11. See also Marie Salgues (2010) Teatro patriótico y nacionalismo en España: 1859–1900. 12. English Translation: Kane 1972 (Trans. Katherine Woods). 13. Samba Diallo discusses his ‘hybrid’ state at 112–113 and 158–161. 14. We note that this novel presents Africans as caught between two worlds:  modern Europe and traditional Africa. It thus reproduces the dichotomy set by the evolutionary progress approach, although from the perspective of Africans and in a critical form. 15. Cailler (1982), Little (2000) and Lazarus (2004). 16. Gugler (2003: 36–43), Rwafa (2015). 17. ‘We would do well to remember in any case that the others have spent a good part of their time trying to situate themselves in relation to the time of those who invaded them. And they have not tried to solve the problem in just one way. They have either reactivated ancestor worship […] or projected themselves into the future.’ (Augé 1999: 49) 18. Antz (2011), Fornos (2011), McNee (2012).

Sharing Memories of Global Encounters

35

19. The Republic of Rif was declared in 1921 against Spanish occupation and the French protectorate of Morocco established in 1912 and accepted by the sultan Yusef ben Hassan. 20. Hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were held in 1995–2002 under guidance of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The aim of reconciliation was to be attained through full disclosure of events and actors of violence by the perpetrators, who could then demand amnesty. 21. Cinema Jean Vigo, Gennevilliers (France). Film projection organized by the association Tamaynut France and by the Association des Travalleurs Maghrébins de France (ATMF) 16 November 2017. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmHNBBXySw 22. If there is a difference from the past, it is eventually in the intensity and frequency of present eclecticism. Marc Augé (1999: 110) sees the shrinking of time and space— and the coeval-ness of all people—as a central characteristic of contemporaneity defined as ‘supermodernity’.

Bibliography Agualusa, José Eduardo. (2007). As mulheres do meu pai. (My Father’s Wives, 2008. Trans. Hahn, London: Arcadia Books). Amenumey, Divine Edem Kobla. (1997). A brief history. In Francis Agbodeka (ed.), A Handbook of Eweland:  The Ewes of Southeastern Ghana. Accra:  Woely Publishing Services, 15–16. Antz, Elisa. (2012). Roots, seduction and mestiçagem, in José Eduardo Agualusa’s My Father’s Wives. In A. Nünning and K. Marcel Sicks (eds.), Turning Points: Concepts and Narratives of Change in Literature and Other Media. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 269–284. Assmann, Jan. (1995). Collective memory and cultural identity. (trans. John Czaplicka). New German Critique 65: 125–133. Augé, Marc. (1999) [1994]. An Anthropology for Contemporaneous Worlds. First published as Pour une anthropologie des mondes contemporains. Paris: Aubier. Blanchard, Pascal and Isabelle Veyrat-Masson (eds.). (2008). Les guerres de mémoires. La France et son histoire. Enjeux politiques, controverses historiques, stratégies médiatiques. Paris: La Découverte. Blanco, Alda. (2007). Spain at the crossroads:  Imperial nostalgia or modern colonialism? A Contracorriente: Revista de Historia Social y Literatura en América Latina 5 (1): 1–11. Bremond. Claude. (1966). La logique des possibles narratifs. Communications 8: 60–76. Bremond, Claude and Cancalon, Elaine D. (1980). The logic of narrative possibilities. New Literary History 11 (3): 387–411. Cailler, Bernadette. (1982). L’Aventure ambiguë: autobiographie ou histoire d’un peuple? French Review 55 (6): 742–751. Connerton, Paul. (2008). Seven types of forgetting. Memory Studies 1 (1): 59–71.

36

Daniela M erolla

Dermentzopoulos, Christos and Rania Kosmidou. (2016). Introduction:  Special issue: Studies in cultural memory. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 12 (1): 3–6. Desai, Ashwin    and Goolam  H. Vahed. (2015). The South African Gandhi:  StretcherBearer of Empire. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Dresser, Marge. (2016). ‘Obliteration, contextualisation or “guerrilla memorialisation”? Edward Colston’s statue reconsidered.’ Open Democracy. https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/madge-dresser/obliteration-contextualisation-or-guerrilla-memorialisation-edward-colst  (August). Erll, Astrid and Ansgar Nünning in coll. with Sara B.  Young (eds.). (2008). Cultural Memory Studies:  An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook. Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter. Erll, Astrid and Agnes Rigney. (2006). Literature and the production of cultural memory: Introduction. European Journal of English Studies 10 (2): 111–115. Fabian, Johannes. (1983). Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press. Fornos, José Luís. (2011). Cronotopias multiculturais e polifonia em As mulheres de meu pai, de José Eduardo Agualusa. Nau Literária, Porto Alegre 7 (1): 1–12. Gayibor, Nicoué Lodjou and Angele Aguigah. (2005). Early settlements and archaeology of the Adja-Tado culture zone. In B. N. Lawrence (ed.), The Ewe of Togo and Benin. Accra: Woely Publishing Services, 1–13. Guha, Ramachandra. (2018). ‘Setting the record straight on Gandhi and race.’ The Wire. 23 December. https://thewire.in/history/setting-the-record-straight-on-gandhiand-race Gugler, Josef. (2003). African Film. Re-imagining a Continent. Bloomington / Cape Town / Oxford: Indiana University Press / David Philip / James Currey. Halbwachs, Maurice. (1950). La mémoire collective, Jean Alexandre (ed.). Paris: PU de France. Helsloot, John I.  A. (2008). De ambivalente boodschap van de eerste “Zwarte Piet” (1850). In E. Doelman and J. Helsloot (eds.), De kleine Olympus. Over enkele figuren uit de alledaagse mythologie. Amsterdam: KNAW Press, 93–117. Helsloot, John I.  A. (2012). Zwarte Piet and cultural aphasia in the Netherlands. Quotidian: Journal for the Study of Everyday Life 3: 1–20. Hudson, Cheryl. (2016). History is not a morality play: Both sides on #RhodesMustFall debate should remember that. The Conversation, January 30 http://theconversation. com/history-is-not-a-morality-play-both-sides-on-rhodesmustfall-debate-shouldremember-that-53912 Hughes, Arthur. (2017). Celebrating the absent father in José Eduardo Agualusa’s My Father’s Wives. Research in African Literatures 48 (2): 112–128. Jansen, Jan. (1998). Inleiding (Introduction). In Sunjata. Het beroemdste epos van Afrika. Delft: Elmar, 7–22.

Sharing Memories of Global Encounters

37

Kane, Cheik Hamidou. (1972) [1961]. L’Aventure ambiguë. Paris:  Julliard. Translated as Ambiguous Adventure. [Trans. Woods, Katerine. (1972). Ambiguous Adventure. London: Heinemann]. Lazarus, Joyce Block. (2004). Islam and the West in the fiction of Cheikh Hamidou Kane. Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures 58 (3): 179–190. Little, Janet Patricia. (2000). Autofiction and Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s L’aventure ambiguë. Research in African Literatures 31 (2): 71–90. Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce. (2011). The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States. Austin: University of Texas Press. Malik, Nesrine. (2020). ‘When polite petitions and humble pleas are ignored, protest is essential.’ The Guardian. 14 June. McNee, Malcolm K. (2012). José Eduardo Agualusa, and other possible “Lusofonias.” Luso-Brazilian Review 49 (1): 1–26. Mignolo, Walter D. (2007). Introduction. Coloniality of power and de-colonial thinking. Cultural Studies 21 (2–3): 155–167. Mudimbe-Boyi, Elisabeth. (1999). The state, the writer, and the politics of memory studies. Twentieth Century Literature 23 (1): 143–161. Nora, Pierre. (1989). ‘Between memory and history: Les Lieux de Mémoire.’ Representations (Special Issue: Memory and counter-memory) 26: 7–24. Passerini, Luisa. (2008). Connecting emotions:  Contributions from cultural history. Historein 8: 117–127. Passerini, Luisa. (2012). Europe and its Others: Is there a European identity? In D. Stone (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 120–138. Persánch J. M. (José M. Pérez-Sánchez). (2020). Towards the end of the white guilt era? The rise of nostalgic whiteness and magical populism. Kairos: A Journal of Critical Symposium 5 (1): 1–17. Rwafa, Urther. (2015). (Re)inventing African oral traditions and national heritage(s) through film images: The case of Keita, The Heritage of the Griot (1995) and Kare Kare Zvako: Mother’s Day (2004). Communicatio 41 (4): 459–470. Salgues, Marie. (2010). Teatro patriótico y nacionalismo en España:  1859–1900. Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza. Sherif, Vamba and Rouw, Ebissé (eds.). (2018). ZWART, Afro-Europese literatuur uit de Lage Landen Landen (Afro-European Literature from the Netherland). Amsterdam: Atlas Contact. Stoler, Ann Laura. (2011). Colonial aphasia: Race and disabled histories in France. Public Symposium 58 (3): 79–190. Wekker, Gloria. (2016). White Innocence:  Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race. Durham: Duke University Press.

38

Daniela M erolla

Film Bouzaggou, Mohamed. (2016). Iperita. Morocco: Taziri Production. Film. Kouyaté, Dani. (1995). Keita, l’héritage du griot, San Francisco, CA:  California Newsreel. Film.

Internet Sources ‘Bedreiging om kleurenpiet: De lol is er nu wel vanaf (Threat of Coloured Piet: The fun is now over),’ RTLNieuws, 14 November 2014. http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/ artikel/1518496/bedreiging-om-kleurenpiet-de-lol-er-nu-wel-vanaf. ‘Farewell celebration for the Antonio López statue,’ Info Barcelona, 26 February 2018 http://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/farewell-celebration-for-the-antoni-lopez-statue-2_620919.html Loohuis, Anne. ‘Oldenzaler (73) weer Sinterklaas:  “Als er witte Pieten meedoen stop ik”‘[Oldenzaler (73) again Saint Nicholas:  ‘I will stop if White Petes participate’].’ Tubantia, 17 November 2018. http://www.tubantia.nl/oldenzaal/ oldenzaler-73-weer-sinterklaas-als-er-witte-pieten-meedoen-stop-ik~a9581e60/ Mindock, Clark. (2018). Indigenous People’s Day: Why Columbus Day is being replaced in some American cities and states. Independent, 8 October. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/indigenous-peoples-day-columbus-day-native-americans-slavery-a8569301.html Petition ‘Reclamamos al Ayuntamiento de Barcelona que retire la estatua y nombre del traficante esclavista y genocida ‘Antonio López’ y que sea renombrada ‘Plaza del Dr.Alphonse Arcelin’, en homenaje al médico panafricanista y activista por la reparación africana’. Movimiento Panafricanista por la Reparación Africana y Afrodescendiente de Europa, 2015. http://www.change. org/p/recla mem-a-l-aju nta ment-de-ba rcelona-que-ret i r i-l-est %C3% A0tua-i-el-nom-del-traficant-esclavista-i-genocida-antonio-l%C3%B3pez-i-que-sigui-renomenada-pla%C3%A7a-del-dr-alphonse-arcelin-en-homenatge-al-doctor-panafricanista-i-activista-per-la-reparaci%C3%B3-africana

2.  Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é IMF-CSIC (Spain), Barcelona The aim of this chapter is to unveil the relations established in some colonial contexts in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea among the Spanish and their populations through postcolonial and decolonial lenses.1 This analysis will be based on recovering memories from former civil Spanish settlers, testimonies that oppose to Moroccan and Equatorial Guinean memories in order to analyze the intercultural relations. The central premise is that there were contexts in which complicities between populations were minimal, leading to a strong segregation and racism in terms of gender, despite the fact that Santa Isabel, or especially Tétouan, managed better ethnicities and cultures, which in some sense was used to improve the image of Spanish colonialism in Africa, as their strictest practices in other areas became invisible (AixelàCabré 2019). As I will show, the naming system used to refer Africans during this period severely anonymised and humiliated both men and women.2 The chosen case studies are Al-Hoceima (Rif region, Protectorate of Morocco) and Oveng (Bata district, Spanish Territories of the Gulf of Guinea), places where the Spanish imposed their interests and perspective of the world throughout colonization (Martín Márquez 2011). Highly androcentric and hierarchical social and work relations took place, converging with colonial rhetoric, refuting the concept of “race” that Francoism tried to promote, and toughening exploitation systems (Nerín 1999: 49–51). Al-Hoceima and Oveng were the center of contexts in which Spanishness was activated from a colonial imposition, protecting and benefiting Spaniards. The cases are examples of stories that prove the Spanish colonial civilizing rhetorics of Hispano-Moroccan brotherhood and of Hispanising Equatorial Guinea were not just a narration with the intention of justifying the colonial action, pretending to be better than other European colonialisms, but it were

40

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

integrated in the Spanish memories3 by constituting the basis of a generalized practice of Spaniards or because they were the clear majority in the city limits and lived within a complete framework of Spanishness (Al-Hoceima), or because they were a clamorous minority in the territory and such Spanishness protected them (Oveng). The topic is necessary to denounce colonialities (Quijano 2014) and to create other narratives of cultural Hispano-African encounters given that race and gender between Spaniards and Africans have not been enough studied on Morocco out of archives (Rodríguez Mediano 1999, Mateo Dieste 2005). Only Nerín’s (1999) work on Equatorial Guinea combined documental data with interviews. Furthermore, the research in Al-Hoceima has been scarce with the exception that of Martín Corrales (2008) and Aixelà-Cabré (2019), because Hart’s (1976) ethnography did not study the city of Al-Hoceima, and research in Oveng is non-existent. My research offers an accurate picture of the little worlds where people moved, always gravitating around the extended stereotypes endorsed by colonial structures. The few parallel realities and points of contact between communities are evidenced with segregation and racism activated from a gender perspective (Walsh 2018: 16). On the one hand, segregation will be studied from “intersectionality”, term coined by Crenshaw (1995) and developed by Stolcke (2018) to outline the multiplicity of factors that potentially condition the attitudes of everyday life. This is due to the fact that it obvious that classism, racism, and sexism fed on each other. The case studies showed the strict control between groups. Its perspective is fundamental to understand the construction of inequalities in all of its dimensions. In Al-Hoceima and Oveng there were no real possibilities to interact in equity (including high classes in the Moroccan case). On the other hand, mestizaje (métissage) will be worked from Stolcke’s point of view (1998, 2010, 2018), for whom mestizaje has a social, political, gender, and cultural discourse and practice. In the case of Equatorial Guinea, mestizaje was basically practized to abuse women, and not to mix them together. It is for this reason that its visibility in today’s Equatorial Guinea society is not the result of a social and constructive pact of the intercultural encounter. In Morocco’s case, mestizaje was rejected due to the permanent difficulties for intercultural marriages during colonialism although Al-Andalus inheritance was rhetorically used to justify peace and concord between Spaniards and Moroccans, given their common inheritance and blood mix in the past, according to the narrative encouraged by Hispano-Moroccan brotherhood discourse of Franco’s regime. Despite efforts from Franco’s regime, Spanish colonial rhetoric was anchored to Catholic indulgence (Aixelà-Cabré

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

41

2017:  30), created from small subtle cultural and racial supremacy (Nerín 1999), with tensions extending to present times (Iliescu 2017: 177). My final aim is to show that coloniality (Quijano 2014), as ideology and methodology (Lindgren 2001:  121), influenced these local histories. The research explores the depth of the African subsumption by Spanish narratives in North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Contexts of Study The case study of Spaniards settled in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea during the colonial period is based on a highly representative selection of people that lived in two areas, Al-Hoceima in the Rif region (Morocco) and Oveng in the Bata District (Equatorial Guinea). Both places reflect the kind of activities that Spaniards developed with greater profusion in the two countries:  a small familiar urban business in Morocco and a big plantation in Equatorial Guinea. Al-Hoceima also offers a relevant exception on Spanish settlements in the Spanish Protectorate as it was a city mostly inhabited by this nationality. There, Spaniards did not mix too often with Moroccans, something shared by Spanish colonization in the Equatorial Guinean mainland, represented by the case of Oveng. In fact, Oveng was isolated from other plantations, 100 km far from Bata (its only European city in the whole mainland at the beginning of 20th century); it was populated by few Spanish people in comparison to the black population,4 and there were few full emancipated blacks compared to Bioko Island. On the other hand, it is also relevant that Al-Hoceima exemplifies the trade balance of Spain in Morocco, because the Protectorate basically imported Spanish manufactured goods to be sold there, while Oveng offers a local picture of the isolated plantations of Equatorial Guinea. This business is based on the logic of exploitation within the colonial territory, exporting primary products to the metropolis. Finally, the Rif region and the Bata district received their Spanish migrations in the same periods: migrants started to settle in the mid-1920s, and after the Civil War, this increased with the Franco regime after the victory of the rebel military, although the numbers were always inferior in Equatorial Guinea than in Morocco.

Methodological Approach to Euro-African Collections: Lived Memories and Narrated Memories This research opens issues on methodology, gender, and otherness, outlining the Spanish colonial footprints in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea,

42

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

using memories as a central concept. The analysis will provide the difference between lived memories and narrated memories (Aixelà-Cabré 2019:  29). Lived memories are based on interviews, and narrated memories on data from archives, personal documents, letters, etc. The methodology of this research is grounded on anthropological fieldwork in Spain, Morocco,5 and Equatorial Guinea,6 and, on historical research from archives, studying different kinds of personal and commercial documentation of the Colección Giménez Ferrer, as described below. The information gathered allows us to analyze Spanish memories from how they reconstructed their Euro-African pasts to how Moroccans and Equatorial Guineans felt their actions.

Lived Memories in Morocco Lived memories are built by the story lives of two families settled in Al-Hoceima, one Spanish and another Riffian. They both represent the first settlement of Spaniards and Moroccans: the Spaniards from 1926, the Moroccans after 1956. The preeminent Spanish voices on lived memories7 are María and Pepe. Their biography has been reconstructed by extensive interviews. María was born in Al-Hoceima in 1936, where she remained until the 1960s. Her parents were part of the first civilian Spanish people established in the city. They remained there until 1972. She currently lives in Alicante. Her brother, Pepe, was born in Melilla in 1931 and currently lives in Almería. He left Morocco in 1957 and never returned. Colonization enriched their family. They passed from middle-low-social class when they arrived to middle-upper social class when they returned to Spain after colonial independence. Nowadays they enjoy a comfortable life. The Riffian informants selected to be face the Spanish voices are Soumaya, Mustapha and Merien. Soumaya was born in Einsolen in 1932. She is a widow. She has lived in the same family house in Al-Hoceima since 1961. Her husband Mustapha was born in Einsolen in 1922. He saved money during lustrums to buy the family house. He died recently. Merien was born in Al-Hoceima in 1967. She has lived in Barcelona province since 1998 and travels once a year to Al-Hoceima.

Narrated Memories: Spaniards in Equatorial Guinea Narrated memories are based on the study of different documents of the Colección Giménez Ferrer, composed by 73 legal papers, different notarial requirements, and economic balances, 198 personal and business letters, 9

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

43

photographs, and 8 personal documents. The documentation has been complemented by interviews with Spanish and Equatorial Guinean individuals. The documents allow us to approach Irmina Margenat and Ramón Reig, couple without children that lived in Equatorial Guinea from 1927 until 1968. The information obtained has been contrasted with Eduard Giménez Ferrer, who gently rebuilt the conversations maintained by his parents and the Reig family. Ramon was the main manager at a coffee plantation, while Irmina was a housewife. Their migration to Africa was encouraged by the Spanish state that offered advantages in obtaining land for Spaniards who settled there, which was motivated by the relevant earnings that Spanish colonization of America left to many Spanish former colonists, and interpreted as compensation for the loosing Cuba and the Philippines.8 In fact, when the Reig family returned to Spain after Equatorial Guinean independence, they had passed from middle-low social class to middle-upper social class: Equatorial Guinea offered bigger possibilities to Spaniards to become rich than Morocco. Equatorial Guinean memories will offer a different approach to Spanish memories. The selected voices gathered are Adolfo 1, who is 63 years old, Fang, and married. He has three sons and daughters. Felipe is a 65-year-old Fang and lives in Malabo. José Luís is 59 years old, Fang, divorced. Remei is a 68-yearold Bubi woman. Adolfo 2 is a 80-years-old, Fang, and he lives in the USA.

Gendered Memories from the Moroccan Rif. Spanish Colonial Segregation and Racism Spanish and Moroccan memories are from Al-Hoceima, a city located in the Riffian area of the Spanish Protectorate, site in a Spanish military enclave in 1925. It was completely Spanish for decades, apart from the Riffian soldiers that lived in the military barracks of the surroundings, the few Moroccan businessmen and Jews, and those Riffians that come and return after work every day from douar (little villages). Al-Hoceima did not show the sociocultural porosity between Spaniards and Moroccans offered by other Moroccan colonial cities as Tétouan. This is relevant because the efforts made by Spanish officials to facilitate Moroccan integration and settlement by building houses failed, given the extensive Spanish migration received, and the poorness of the Riffians to buy or rent households. As a result, Al-Hoceima was a completely Spanish city located in an occupied country:  in 1933, Spaniards made up 91% of its population (Aixelà-Cabré 2019: 81). As Pepe and Maria described, Al-Hoceima’s daily life, business, and leisure centers were for Spaniards and, regarding spatial segregation: “There was only coexistence by going to the market, but that’s it … It was not a mixed society.”

44

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

This general picture is fundamental to understand the distant relationship maintained between civilian Spaniards and the Moroccans until the 1950s, when Riffians started to settle in Al-Hoceima. It also explains that Spanish customs and the language were generalized in the city, and that the majority of Spanish civilians did not know Chelja (the Amazigh Riffian language) or Arabic, but Moroccans were the ones who spoke Spanish. During decades, Spaniards ignored Moroccan people and culture. There was an indifference regarding their specificities and their ignorance of the contrast between Arabs and Imazighen. Maria remembered the language used by them, “Chelja”, but, from her point of view, the Chelja language did not mean there were cultural differences between Moroccans, although she knew that Arabic was a different language. It is true that the difficulties that Spanish civilians had to distinguish these groups, on the one hand, was due to the fact that the Spaniards were living in a region of Riffian majority, where they had no opportunities to contrast the Riffian language and culture with the Arabic one, and, on the other hand, Spaniards superiority inherent to the fact of being the colonizer, and the control maintained by officials to not promote sociocultural interaction. Nonetheless, as a result, Spaniards had a superficial knowledge of Moroccans. Indeed, among the military cadres and interventors (Villanova 2004), the influential and rich Spanish civilian men of Al-Hoceima were the only exceptions of having deeper Moroccan knowledge inside the Spanish civilian community. Spanish women of this reduced social group were mostly excluded, given that, in general, they had no access to know Moroccans not included in their labor services, because Spanish women were preserved from the “inherent” risks to contact with Moroccan men, especially the younger and single females. However, the general superficial relation between rich Spanish civilian men and the few rich and middle-high class Moroccans, including Jews, illustrated, from the intersectional perspective, the few spaces of contact available between the groups, shading topics of gender, class and race. Spanish male androcentric relevance in a public and political sphere was always there. Thus, the symbolic frontier between communities was evident, and mestizaje was forbidden in practice given the large obstacles established by the Spanish state regarding mixed marriages (Rodríguez Mediano 1999: 186– 187). Juan stated that these marriages were forbidden:  “there were none there. No Spaniards married Moroccan women! No subject of the protective country could marry a subject for the protected country.” So, it was generalized that there was a non-existent relation between Spaniards and Riffians, except for the subordination work tasks. Few exceptions, such as Buhia’s friend of Pepe, never lost their condition of Moor, which limited

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

45

their integration in other groups of friends. As Pepe summarized, “we were the colonisers!” Before Independence, there were no mixed marriages, but just after, three young Spanish women married Moroccans: a policeman, a merchant, and the owner of trucks. Pepe said that the Spanish people of Al-Hoceima were shocked. This reaction was not shared with the same rejection by the Moroccan community, if we compare it with Mustapha’s story. He always explained that, before marriage, he had a Spanish girlfriend that finally left Al-Hoceima. For sure, this relation would not have been be preferred by the Moroccans, but it could be interpreted as a way to reconquer the power in their own land, with the symbolic prize to relate to inaccessible Spanish women. The superficial contact between populations favored the generalized assumption that Spaniards, as Spain, were carrying out a civilizing mission in Africa. As Pepe remembered, somewhat saddened after many meetings talking about his past in Morocco, “the relationship with the Moroccans was good, but our superior feeling towards the natives was constantly there.” The civilizing mission imbued on Pepe’s memories explicitly included the colonizers discourse of superiority, a narrative that was extended in Al-Hoceima over decades, clearly inspired by the idea of conquest that Spain had applied to the Americas (Todorov 1987). For Pepe, “After the conquest of Al-Hoceima, my parents went to the city … It was 1926… The Spaniards started to arrive to these conquered lands.” The main concepts used by Pepe to summarize their Moroccan occupation are “conquest” and “natives”, terms used without a self-conscious reflection of the real effects that these concepts would have had on the other’s construction, and on their mutual coexistence in daily life. For Pepe, there was no discussion that Spain arrived and conquered territory to offer a better life to colonized populations. In the entrails of the conversations, as alibi, the need to reverse Moroccan poverty and fragility surfaced, “they lived in subhuman conditions.” As María summarized, “the Moors were hungry.”

Naming, Relations, and Gender in Al-Hoceima (the Rif Region): Moors, Mohamadillos and Morillas A proof of Spanish ignorance between Riffians and Arabs was the naming process, notorious for their lack of interest to distinguish them. Usually they called everybody moro / mora, and morillo / morilla, if not they used Mohamed for all men if they forgot or ignored their real name, being extended inside the Spanish community in an informal way. Another naming was Mohamadillo, diminutive with pejorative connotations, although morillo / morilla was the common term for Moroccan men and women. These

46

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

aspects show the superficial treatment that a large part of Spaniards gave the Moroccans, in an unequal relationship that remained until independence, and that was brought to Spain when they returned, being useful terms to refer to Moroccans, specially moro / mora. Many arguments confirmed that being Muslim was the main characteristic to group all Moroccans and to stereotype the Moroccan population (Martín Corrales 2002; González-Vázquez 2011). This could explain why the more usual concept to refer to men and women in Al-Hoceima was Moors, given that for a large part of the Spanish community the concept reflected a Muslim that religion agglutinated their identity, establishing the main difference between Spaniards. This religious centrality of Moroccan identity was shared and promoted by Spanish colonial officials and militaries. Gender perspective and gender othernesses were part of the inevitable effects that the colonization process and cultural coexistence promoted. In fact, gender was expressed in double direction, Spaniards over Moroccans and Moroccans over Spaniards, but the relation was fully contaminated by stereotypes and barriers about the kind of relationships that both communities could build. It is true that their daily contact brought opportunities to correct the deviation, but as the cooperation was established in a hierarchical interaction and distant position, and also due to the dependency of Riffians on the Spaniards, the opportunities to demystify stereotypes profusely extended in both communities, were finally blocked. The few exceptions of close relationships between Spaniards and Moroccans during colonialism were related more to a civilizing mission perspective, as symbolized in the Hispano-Moroccan brotherhood narrative, rather than an equal bond between the individual and families. The actions implemented were closer to Spanish help and charity: the cases revealed collaboration understood as a way to tutelage Spaniards to Moroccans, as was the case of María and Pepe’s mother. In fact, María remembered the visit received by “Moors” in Alicante after independence, but it was as a result of her husband’s postcolonial relation with his workers, a reflection of the promoted rebuilding of the Hispano-Moroccan brotherhood in postcolonial Al-Hoceima. On the other hand, the social presentation of the body had their own preferences for each community, but the Moroccans that worked for Spaniards had to wear a shirt and trousers as Spanish men did. This obligation did not extend to Riffian women who could work cleaning houses, neither to men that did not work with the public. Out of these occasions, Moroccan women and men dressed with their classic djellaba, haik, and mandil.

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

47

Riffian voices confirmed the distant relationship between communities. Mustapha explained himself as one of the Moroccans that had more Spanish “friends” in the 1950s. He was popular because he repaired sewing machines when all middle-classes Spanish women had one at home. After clarifying the kind of relations he had with his clientele, his daughter Merien explained that he never met Spaniards after work. It is for this reason that there is a need to insist that Hispano-Moroccan relationships were rare, as reflected in the exceptionality of having Moroccan friends, a possibility in the hands of men not women, and never between different sexes. In these cases, Moor as the word to classify who they were always came up. Male and female Moroccans generally remained inaccessible for the Spanish community, as research confirms. The constant difficulties of Spanish voices to explain Moroccan specificities did not imply that Spanish interviewers did not offer an image about how Moroccans were and which were their daily needs. Informants recognized that different stereotypes surrounded them as, for example, treachery and aggressiveness. From 1927, after Spanish pacification of the Riffian territory, the Moroccan image was softened and detached from being the Moor fanatic, or refractory to progress (Martín Corrales 2002). Interviewed Spaniards and articles read in Heraldo de Alhucemas agreed on the city’s great security. The quietness about the potential dangerousness of Moroccan men changed after independence. As María explained, her husband, like other Spaniards, was concerned about the immediate period of decolonization and he searched for ways to self-protection: “my husband … taught me to pray in Arabic thinking that this would save me if I was attacked!” On the other hand, memories built up of male and female voices have filtered the meaning of Moroccan women, clearly influenced by the colonial construction of female otherness. Certainly, during Spanish colonialism, female Moroccan images were completely veiled and they walking behind a man. These images could be seen in Al-Hoceima’s daily life, among part of the Riffian women that returned from the market to their douar. As Juan remembered: “They walked behind men. They carried logs or lead donkeys. Women were … inferior beings.” In the background, there was the strong belief that those women were victims of polygamy and of the patriarchal Muslim culture (Ovilo y Canales 1885), a standpoint used to reinforce a theoretically European superiority because in the European continent it was affirmed that women were socially better treated (Aixelà-Cabré 2000). Thus, it is not surprising that both María and Pepe insisted on the idea that Moor women were always confined to their homes and depended on their husbands, forgetting their personal experience with those Riffian women that

48

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

worked for their parents, or even those women that come alone two times a week to sell eggs from their douar, as Soumaya did. Maria’s explanations were quite amazing regarding her mother’s workers with this general topic of Moroccan women, because her mother always had female Riffian workers. It was also shocking that reports by young Riffian girls abused by Spanish men came from Pepe, not María, although they both knew perfectly well about the events. He blushed and confessed, “there were … who abused the young girls.” In his opinion, the abuse was linked to the poverty of Moroccans. Nonetheless, it needs to be added that, although these young girls were victims, Moroccan prostitutes received different considerations. María did not mind talking about this. As she said, “the prostitutes knew everybody. They did not do anything, they did not mix, they did not bother us …” Therefore, the female Moroccan image is an open remark that still persists. Probably the image was, at the same time, for internal and external consumption, reinforcing the need to justify Spanish colonization. Yet, surprisingly, the results have not unwittingly balanced female otherness construction and practices, with their own experience with Riffian women during the last sixty years. Doing so would entail an empathy effort with Moroccans after colonialism that has not been recorded. Last but not least, interview analysis of male and female Spanish Moroccan memories pointed out that men have been more focused on than women. On the one hand, male agglutinated the worst Spanish look of Moroccan otherness being more present than women images in conversations. On the other hand, female memories were less explicit, condensing a victimization justified by their dependence on patriarchal men. From their point of view, male dominance was conditioned by the Muslim religion. Yet, another dimension is offered by Moroccan voices. In general, female Riffian memories that had contact with Spaniards did not stop to distinguish Spanish gender: their memories are marked by Spanish power, subordination, and abuse. Only male Moroccan memories of Spaniards sometimes refer to Spanish imprint in a more positive way, depending on the treatment received by the Spanish community. Nevertheless, it seems that today male and female Moroccan memories of Al-Hoceima can offer a positive reinterpretation of the Spanish imprint, but this is a narrative exclusive to generations of Moroccans that have not lived during colonial times. Spanish and Moroccan contacts always implied dependence and inferiority, marginalizing the intersectional effects facilitated by social classes, as Spaniards always represented the strongest and superior culture, reproducing faithfully the background of Hispano-Moroccan brotherhood rhetoric, something that only changed after their coexistence when colonialism finished.

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

49

To conclude, the clearest proof of the colonial effect that impacted the Moroccan population was that Riffians could not empower their own land, rent and buy houses in the city of Al-Hoceima until the end of the Spanish colonialism. They could not enjoy the health and education systems, or the advantages of employment in services or fishing industry. María and Pepe never thought about that. Pepe only remembered with sadness that they had to leave Al-Hoceima at night, carrying a few belongings. This experience was traumatic for him. However he, as María, still did not emphasize with their male and female Riffian neighbors. When Pepe remembered his departure from a Spanish point of view, when he affirmed, “it was Spaniards’ fault.” These facts show the difficulties to encourage the reflection about their life in the Rif and the effects of Spanish colonialism in Morocco until 1956 and later, and to renew the gender stereotypes on Moroccans and Riffians living in Spain.

Gendered Memories from Equatorial Guinea. Spanish Colonial Segregation and Racism Ramón Reig and Irmina Margenat were the main decision-makers of a coffee plantation9 that opened in 1927 in Oveng, in the mainland of Equatorial Guinea, formerly called Río Muni. The continental region was not effectively colonized until the beginning of the 20th century, and never acquired the same Spanish investment and population than Fernando Poo and, its capital, Santa Isabel. Oveng was a little village in the forest, while Bata was the most relevant city of the mainland, located on the coast. It was founded by European militaries, and settled by a white minority population. Spanish colonization was held more by men than women: from 1930 until 1968, females represented between three and four quarters of the total white population.10 The lack of European women was used to justify gender relations between Spanish men and Equatorial Guinean women: while men strictly protected the short number of white women, some abused the blacks. Ramón Reig, as a male voice, only addressed management issues as administrator and political events of the colony in his letters. The most personal topics of social and family daily life do not appear, because it was Irmina who wrote about them to their friends and partners. Ramón’s concerns were the plantation, the balances and inventories that perfectly showed their different needs. The correspondence goes from the beginning of the Hacienda and their illusions, until their departure, with their “hopes truncated.” In Oveng, Reig was a small landowner compared to other Spaniards, but he felt part of the elite. As Eduardo explained, “they started to meet at the casino of Bata with the rich and powerful landowners.” During the autonomic period

50

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

(1963-1968), Reig ascended to a very important position in the European white society, becoming a member of the Chamber of Commerce of Bata, and representative of the guineanos adoptivos (Equatorial Guineans adopted), Spanish citizens who have to facilitate the continuity of Spanish interests when the country obtained its colonial independence (Obiang Biko 2016: 157). Irmina Margenat, as a female voice, always dealt with more familiar topics of everyday life, their illnesses, needs, or concerns. She did not write about management issues until her last letters, which should help to justify her husband’s demand of money from the other partners to face the plantation’s difficulties. As the financial injection was rejected, Ramon and Irmina left the coffee business, opening a factory inside the plantation where they worked together until their return to Barcelona. The factory sold products to Equatorial Guineans. The change in terms of colonizer and colonized relation, gender conception, and division of tasks is relevant, believing that the Reig family letters showed their superiority as Spaniards, and the gender construction of middle and higher social classes in Spain, where women had to be housewives and not work. This gender division of tasks included a division of spheres of competence and influence, closer to the catholic androcentrism than Spanish missionary extended in Equatorial Guinea, between Equatorial Guineans and Spaniards (Pujadas 1983). However, the Reig family’s desire to stay in the country changed their status and gender practices: they both worked, not only Ramon, and did it for Equatorial Guineans, reversing the power relations extended during previous colonial times. Life in plantations was synonym of isolation, for Europeans and Africans. Two Spaniards lived with 143 black population in 195311 in Oveng (Irmina and Ramon), and in all the Bata district, in 1942 there were 301 Spaniards, and 698 in 1950.12 Solitude was felt by the Spanish families. The managing the business made free time difficult. At the end, there was generally no urban life to strengthen ties near their plantation, because white population places for leisure activities were in Bata. So, necessarily Irmina and Ramon’s coexistence was with their African workers, who lived inside the plantation, in an enclosure prepared for them. Segregation was explicitly ruled, and for Nerín (1999), it constituted a kind of apartheid system. Ramón and Irmina’s plantation, called Hacienda Virgen de Montserrat, was owned by five Spanish partners, being Ramon the manager and one of its owners, simultaneously. The plantation had 100 hectares, the minimum size to be considered a large plantation, and its owners “landowners.” Irmina and Ramon represented a powerful minority in the Bata district. In Oveng, they had no support and tutelage from the military, soldiers and

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

51

officials, as in Bata. Their preeminence was obvious in rights, facilities, and comfortable life in comparison to the African population: their richness was possible thanks to the Equatorial Guinean disempowerment. The Spanish metropolis justified work as a source of progress, promoting labor, often recruited by force, over the name of prestación personal (conscripted forced labor). From the colonial structures, the figure of the non-emancipated, full emancipated and, partially emancipated emerged in 1928. The legal distinction visualized Spanish superiority, but allowed for the Fernandino black minority13 of the Bioko Island to access easily the full emancipated status. As other European colonialisms did in Africa, Spain developed a paternalistic colonial discourse and, under a primitivistic argument, they justified its occupation to promote civilization and culture, but the proposed changes, explained as a source of “progress”, were Christian conversion and work (Sá 2018; Aixelà-Cabré 2017). Thus, life for the African population in the plantations was close to Europeans, and strongly related to obedience:  Equatorial Guineans without just rights lived separated from their communities of origin and families, worked almost every day, and had the lowest salaries in comparison to Nigerian and Sierra Leonean workers, as balances from the coffee plantation evidenced (Colección Giménez Ferrer). Spanish comments about African workers showed the rejection of Africans to work, as Eduard Giménez expressed, “The problem was … the braceros … [They] did not want to work because the jungle gave them enough.” Outrage and injustice to Equatorial Guineans, and other African populations, justified in race terms, apart from the Fernandinos case, was promoted by Spain in all spheres: socially, economically, judicially, politically, and culturally. The colonial rhetoric of white superiority opened many fronts, as were space segregation between Europeans and Africans, their ignorance of vernacular languages, their obsession to change the social presentation of their bodies understanding that their acculturation required dressing, or the shocking image of Spanish men and women transported on the shoulders of Equatorial Guineans in gadgets composed of chairs with awnings. Social and political systems, judicial policies, and daily life actions, exalted and legitimized the distinction between native populations and Europeans (Nerín 1999). Spanish men and women internalized the most widespread image since the 19th century of black approached as the “savage” that had to be endowed with civilization and culture (Bonelli 1944: 4). As Eduard concluded: “Black people … had no culture.” For Sánchez Gómez (2006: 1074) the only project was to Christianize and evangelize “savages” and “childish” settlers.

52

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

The image of the African “savage” denied Equatorial Guineans rights, avoiding comparing cultural and religious practices with the Spanish ones. Preconceived ideas of colonial culture, civilization and progress appeared in the letters of Ramon and Irmina. The texts showed the unequal and hierarchical relations with the Equatorial Guineans, emerging Spanish politics of naming. For Ramón Reig they were generally morenos (dark), and for Irmina always negros (blacks). These concepts revealed a politically “correct” or “incorrect” language, because morenos was acceptable, but negros, not. For example, Ramón used negros only when Autonomy started, the worst moments of the colony for Spanish interests, as a kind of explicit critic of what was going on, and what symbolized the Equatorial Guinean political and cultural empowerment. His change in the naming to negros shows the creation of the Spanish Equatorial Region in 1959, when the Spanish Territories of the Gulf of Guinea acquired the status of overseas Spanish provinces, and 1963, when the Autonomous Region of Equatorial Guinea was created. As Adolfo’s testimony concluded “they had no idea what to do with us!”14

Naming, Relations, and Gender in Oveng (Bata Region): Miningas and Boys Names that usually appeared talking about Equatorial Guinean population were boys and miningas (mininga means woman in Fang language). Boys as homeworkers, but miningas as “free sexual women” for white men. Spanish men and women talked usually of boys, replacing the Equatorial Guinean names, but miningas were only pronounced by men with a perverse smile, while for Spanish women the word evoked their sexual competence in the colony. For Equatorial Guineans, miningas and boys exemplified the unequal relations between Spaniards and Equatorial Guineans, and the general abuse that colonists exercised over them all. Equatorial Guinean women worked hard in the plantations in the same conditions as men. For example, the Reig family had as least one female bracero that appeared in a photograph surrounded by coffee plants. Nevertheless, young Equatorial Guinean women were marked by the sexual abuse (Nerín 1999: 107–156). The inequality according to the color of the skin and the inferior situation of women took too many Spanish men to abuse them, taking advantage of their dependency and their impossibility to revolt. Thus, these Spanish men in the colony avoided the strong sexual control that existed in Spain with the Francoism dictatorial regime. The term used to name those women and that synthetized the reification of Equatorial Guinean women with a sexual meaning was miningas. Miningas do not appear in the consulted documental sources, although they were a strong attraction to Spanish men that colonized the country, and

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

53

that had to spend years there without their wives or family. For Eduard, as other informants, “The miningas, refers … well … it refers to the Spanish man that had a wife in Spain, and ‘friends’ in Equatorial Guinea.” Eduardo remembered that Irmina, as other Spanish wives that lived in Equatorial Guinea, considered it to be unacceptable to talk about miningas: “they felt horrified thinking their men were having sex with black women.” And the thing is that the word mininga entailed flavor, feelings, and sexual intercourse for the men that lived in Equatorial Guinea. Eduardo remembered that “The Garriga had a mininga.… Garriga had one there, but never brought her to Spain … I do not know if they had children.” So, miningas represented the sexual abuse of a part of the Spanish men over Equatorial Guinean women. They could not reject because of their inferiority and dependence as poor, black, and women. For Spanish women, miningas hid the use that Equatorial Guinean women did of their sexuality to obtain their needs and empower themselves. Jose Luís concluded, The miningas were marked by a relationship of subordination … the whites abused, without seducing them. They were limited by their autonomy, by hierarchy, and by extreme necessity. Relationships were not free or consensual, they were not egalitarian … how many children were recognised, how many marriages were celebrated? None. That proves that mestizaje was a result of sexual abuse.

As Nerin (1999: 156) detailed, the Spanish state forbade mixed marriage to preserve the minority group from the risk of being absorbed by the black majority. On the other hand, gender reveals male workers at Spanish homes, not only in the plantations as braceros, a more known and studied figure, as Martino (2017) did. In general, the houses of white people had all kind of amenities, sometimes including swimming pools, and always domestic service. Young male workers, boys, were those who did this work. It does not mean that there were no young Equatorial Guinean females working at houses; it is only that men workers were preferred. Female workers were hired when the owners had children. Eventually, young women ironers and stitchers went to the houses, but they were not internal workers like the men. So, as Eduard perfectly summarized, “The boys were the domestic workers in Equatorial Guinea … Female service, I do not think the Reig family had any. They were boys … always men.” As housework was undervalued in terms of gender for the Spanish, there was a pejorative meaning applied to male workers. Choosing men to do this kind of work was a way of domesticating Equatorial Guinean men, removing their masculinity related to forest tasks and war, feminizing them. For Equatorial Guineans it was humiliating,

54

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

worse than their work on the plantations, although they were offered certain advantages. As José Luís stated, “Fang men were brave and warriors. They would never have chosen the option of being boys if they had been free men.” A second important argument is that boys were always from Equatorial Guinean. This is a big difference regarding the contracts established in the plantations to sow, to plant, to collect. For these tasks, plantations had to contract men from other African nationalities, given the difficulties to hire male and female Equatorial Guineans workers. This was the case of Hacienda Virgen de Montserrat. For the Spanish, Equatorial Guinean boys offer higher security in the event of problems, such as robbery or abuse of white women and children. So, boys were in all colonist homes, being offered by law to any Spaniard or emancipated individual.15 If there was a problem, Equatorial Guinea had strong rules to control them, not like Africans who could escape and return to their country. As Eduard concluded, “They were not Nigerians, they were all Equatorial Guineans for sure. They were trustworthy people with permanent contracts.” For the Reig family, as others, it was important that boys wore white European clothes. As Eduard remembered, “The waiter was dressed in a white jacket to serve the table as in the army.” The clothing, including gloves, visualized the rhetoric of a civilisatory mission and the acculturation task carried out by Europeans, and this effort was strictly inside European homes, as can be seen in the case of the boy homeworkers. As Martí (2012:  327) concluded, nakedness reinforced the colonial otherhood in a discourse which defended the hierarchy of European culture. Hacienda Vírgen de Montserrat was closed in 1965. Eduard was sure that “if there was no autonomy and independence, the Reig’s would never have left Guinea!” In fact, their efforts to recover their properties in Spain continued. They participated in different political initiatives that former colonists organized in Spain to defend “their rights” in Equatorial Guinea.16 As evidence, the legalization of Hacienda Vírgen de Montserrat took place throughout postcolonial Equatorial Guinea, 1996, twenty-eight years after colonial independence, and sixty-nine years after its constitution, but it was obligatory to sustain former colonists’ legal initiatives in Spain. Different powerful political parties gave them support in different ways, something difficult if the Spanish state truly self-criticized Spanish colonialism explaining the abuse that took place there. Fifty years later, it is still unresolved if Spanish colonization in Equatorial Guinea was or not a controversial action, and it has not being revised the treatment that Equatorial Guinean men and women received there.

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

55

Closing Remarks Studying the influence of the variables of race and gender in the marginal colonial locations of Al-Hoceima and Oveng has shown that they determined the coexistence between Spanish and African populations to different intensities. Interculturality was strongly limited in Al-Hoceima, being non-existent in Oveng, out of the abuse of Equatorial Guinean women. This was protected by the Spanish civilizing project, as Riffian and Equatorial Guinean men and women were subject to varying forms of social and sexual hierarchization, which used work to legitimate their exclusion, subordination and humiliation, as naming system demonstrated. Making these experiences of Spanish colonialism visible allows such colonial policies and practices to be criticized. If the side effects of the memories of the civilizing mission continue to hide new opposing stories that reveal more partial Spanish memories, it will be impossible to promote visibility for Moroccans and Equatorial Guineans, providing information on their resistance which were activated to soften the imperial rhetoric. Spanish colonial experiences gathered for this research were not general in the whole of Spanish Protectorate or have not enough explained in Equatorial Guinea, and its knowledge allows us to bear Spanish civilizing mission, demonstrating that Spanish colonialism developed similar racial policies or women abuses of British, French or Belgium empires in Africa. For example, when Spanish colonialism had the opportunity to build a city from nothing, it turned their back on the colonized population, as occurred in Al-Hoceima, denying Tétouan experiences of positive coexistence as its main characteristic. On the other hand, Equatorial Guinean data compiled for the work were highly similar to the whole mainland plantations and very close to others from the Bioko Island, but Santa Isabel city concentrated the image of the Spanish coexistence in the Spanish Territories of the Gulf of Guinea. The approach reveals the Spaniards’ internalization of Spanish imperial rhetoric in its two main territories of Spanish Africa, and explains the contemporary roots of some Spanish views, genderization, and naming othering processes.

Notes 1. This work was supported by the Research and Development Project ‘African Memories: Reconstructing Spanish Colonial Practices and their Imprint on Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. Towards a Spanish-African Cultural Heritage’ (2016–2018) (HAR2015–63626–P, MINECO/FEDER, UE), and by the Project Europa Investigación ‘Enriching European Cultural Heritage from Cultural Diversity and Collaborative Participation’ (2017–2019) (EUIN2017–85108), both from the

56

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

Ministry of Economy-Competitiveness of Spain, and both directed by Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré. The chapter was translated by Emma Brown. 2. About naming places in Africa, see Alderman (2016). 3. On balanced memories and shared history, see the forthcoming work Aixelà-Cabré, “Colonial Spain in Africa: Building a shared history from memories of the Spanish Protectorate and Spanish Guinea.” Culture & History Digital Journal, 9 (2)  (in press). 4. For example, in 1942 301 white population with 19,238 black population lived in the Bata district; in 1950, 698 white population with 19,173 black population. Resúmenes estadísticos del Gobierno General … 1943, 5; and Resúmenes estadísticos del Gobierno General … 1955, 30–31. 5. Al-Hoceima’s fieldwork started in 2015, and includes the interview of 35 people, 9 Spanish, 24 Riffian, and 2 from other parts of Morocco; the study of files in the Archivo General of the Administración, AGA of Alcalá de Henares; twenty issues of the fifty of the postcolonial newsletter Heraldo de Alhucemas (number 25 to number 45); some censuses of the Spanish Protectorate of the colonial period, and different publications written by former colonists such as Rubio and Alfaro (1992). 6. Oveng’s fieldwork started in 2015, although my intense fieldwork in Equatorial Guinea was from 2004 to 2012, including multi-sited ethnography in African and European countries. Oveng’s research includes the study of the Colección Giménez Ferrer; interviews to 6 Spaniards, and 17 Equatorial Guineans; the Resúmenes estadísticos del Gobierno General de los Territorios Españoles del Golfo de Guinea from 1942 to 1959; and the analysis of different texts written by former Spanish colonists such as Miranda (1940), Menéndez (2008) or Reuss (2008). 7. From the ethics researcher point of view, anonymity has been preserved, out from who preferred to be cited by their real name. 8. The story is exemplified by Eduard. He had a close family kin that were in the military and that made a fortune in Cuba and the Philippines. As he explained:  “In Cuba, when the disaster hit because it was all lost, they were told that the consolation price would be Equatorial Guinea.” 9. To say that a lot of work has been done on the cocoa plantations in Fernando Poo, and something about the wood plantations in Río Muni, but those of coffee are quite unknown. 10. Resúmenes estadísticos del Gobierno General … 1955, 58–65. 11. Resúmenes estadísticos del Gobierno General … 1955, 49. 12. By sex, there were 220 men and 81 women in 1942. There is no data by sex in 1950. Resúmenes estadísticos del Gobierno General … 1943, 5; Resúmenes estadísticos del Gobierno General … 1953, 31. See complete statistics above, endnote 4. 13. The Fernandino were an elite in Fernando Poo until the end of the 1940s when they lost the major part of their power. They descend from ancient black slaves liberated by the British in Fernando Poo from Sierra Leona. 14. Adolfo 2 has written a highly recommended memory book (Obiang Biko 2016). 15. Resúmenes estadísticos del Gobierno General …. 1955, 211. 16. Different Spanish deputies made initiatives to recover the proprieties of former Spanish residents in Equatorial Guinea. For example, Proposition of Law no. 161/000686 defended in the Foreign Commission of the Congress of Deputies in 2009.

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

57

Primary Sources Interviews Cited Adolfo 1. Born in 1957 in mainland Equatorial Guinea, he was Fang, married and has three daughters. He worked as a technician and had a medium–high salary by Equatorial Guinean living standards. Interviewed in Malabo in July 2010. Adolfo 2. Born in Mbini, he was a 80-years-old. He lived in the USA. Interviewed in Barcelona in March 2017. Eduard. He was a Catalan man born in Barcelona in 1939. His parents were co-owners of a plantation of coffee in Oveng, Bata district, Equatorial Guinea. Responsible of the Colección Giménez-Ferrer, ceded to Institució Milà i Fontanals del CSIC (Barcelona) in 2018. Interviewed from 2015 to 2020. Felipe. He was a Fang man born in the continental region of Equatorial Guinea in 1952, lives in Malabo and has held various positions in the Obiang Nguema government. Interviewed in Malabo in July 2020. José Luís. He was a Fang man born in Bata district (Equatorial Guinea) in 1958. He is lawyer and lives in Barcelona. Ongoing interviews in Barcelona since 2011 until 2019. María. She was an Andalusian woman born in Al-Hoceima (Morocco) in 1936, where she remained until the 1960s. She lives in Alicante and is 81 years old. Interviewed in Alicante in May 2016. Merien. She was a Riffian woman of 53 years old. She was born in Al-Hoceima (Morocco) in 1967. She has lived in Barcelona province from 1998 and travels once time year to visit her mother in Al-Hoceima. Ongoing interviews in the province of Barcelona since 2011 until 2020. Pepe. He was an Andalusian man born in Melilla (Morocco) in 1931 and lives in Almería. His parents were part of the first civil Spanish people established in Al-Hoceima. He left Morocco in 1957 and never returned. Interviewed in Almería from 2015 to 2018. Remei. She was a 68-year-old Bubi woman. She moved to Spain in the 1970s. Ongoing interviews since 2009. Soumaya. She was a Riffian woman born in Einsolen (Morocco) in 1932. She was 85 years old. She is the mother of Merien and mother-in-law of Hamid. Interviewed in Al-Hoceima in September 2016.

Archives Consulted Colección Giménez Ferrer. Institució Milà i Fontanals, CSIC, Barcelona. Dirección General de Marruecos [(15) 3] and archives of the Alto Comisionado [(15) 13]. Archivo General de la Administración, Alcalá de Henares.

58

Yolanda A ixelà-C abr é

Bibliography Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2000). Mujeres en Marruecos. Un análisis desde el parentesco y el género. Barcelona: Bellaterra. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2017). Exploring Euro-African pasts through an analysis of Spanish colonial practices in Africa (Morocco and Spanish Guinea). Canadian Journal of African Studies / La Revue canadienne des études africaines 51 (1): 23–42. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2019). Ciudades, glocalización y patrimonio contestado. Una historia de Bata y de Al-Hoceima 1900–2019 (Guinea Ecuatorial y Marruecos). Barcelona: Ed. Bellaterra. Alderman, Derek H.  (2016). Place, Naming and the Interpretation of Cultural Landscapes. In P. Howard (ed.), The Routledge Reseach Companion to Heritage and Identity. London: Routledge, 195–213. Bonelli Rubio, Juan. (1944). Curso sobre África española. El Problema de la colonización. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. (1995). Mapping the Margins: Interseccionality, Identity Polítics and violence Againts Women of Color. In K. Crenshaw, N. Cotanda, C. Peller and K. Thomas (eds.), Critical Race Theory. The Key Writings That Formed the Movement. New York: The New Press, 357–383. González-Vázquez, Araceli. (2011). Las ciudades santas y prohibidas de Marruecos. In Gómez Pellón and González-Vázquez (eds.), Religión y patrimonio cultural en Marruecos. Una aproximación antropológica e histórica. Sevilla: Signatura Ediciones, 263–297. Hart, David Montgomery. (1976). The Ait Waryaghar of the Moroccan Rif. An Ethnograpy and History. Tucson (Arizona):  Wenner Green Foundation for Anthropological Research Inc./ The University of Arizona Press. Iliescu Gheorghiu, Catalina. (2017). Equatorial Guinean migrants in Spain. An analysis of implicit discourse. Hispanófila 181: 169–189. Lindgren, Björn. (2001). Representing the Past in the Present. Memory-texts and Ndebele Identity. In M. Palmberg (ed.), Encounter Images in the Meetings Between Africa and Europe. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 121–134. Martí, Josep. (2012). África: Cuerpos colonizados, cuerpos como identidades. Revista de Dialectología y Tradiciones Populares LXVII (1): 319–346. Martín Corrales, Eloy. (2002). La imagen del magrebí en España. Barcelona: Bellaterra. Martín Corrales, Eloy. (2008). La marroquinización de una ciudad colonial Española:  Alhucemas, 1925–1956. In J.  A. González Alcantud (ed.), La ciudad magrebí en los tiempos colonials:  invención, conquista y transformación. Barcelona: Bellaterra, 201–231. Martín Márquez, Susan. (2011). Desorientaciones. El colonialismo español en África y la performance de identidad. Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2011. Martino, Enrique. (2017). Dash-peonage:  The contradictions of debt bondage in the colonial plantations of Fernando Pó. Africa 87 (1): 53–78.

Memories of Segregation, Racism, Gender and Naming

59

Mateo Dieste, Josep Lluís. (2005). Amores prohibidos. Fronteras sexuales y uniones mixtas en el Marruecos colonial. In A. Planet & F. Ramos (eds.), Relaciones HispanoMarroquíes:  Una vecindad en construcción. Melilla:  Ciudad Autónoma de Melilla, 128–159. Menéndez, José. (2008). Los últimos de guinea. Madrid: Sial. Miranda, Agustín. (1940). Cartas de la Guinea. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. Nerín, Gustau. (1999). Guinea Equatorial. Història en blanc i negre. Barcelona: Empuries. Obiang Biko, Adolfo. (2016). Guinea Ecuatorial:  Del colonialismo español al descubrimiento del petróleo. Madrid: Sial. Ovilo y Canales, Felipe. (1885). La Mujer Marroquí. Madrid:  Imp. de Manuel G. Hernández. Pujadas, Tomás L. (1983). La iglesia en la Guinea Ecuatorial. Río Muni. Barcelona: Ed. Claret. Quijano, Anibal. (2014). Colonialidad del poder y clasificación social. In B. de Sousa and M. P. Meneses (eds.), Epistemologías del Sur (Perspectivas). Madrid: Akal, 67–107. Resúmenes estadísticos del Gobierno General de los Territorios Españoles del Golfo de Guinea. CSIC: Madrid. Volums 1943 to 1958. Reuss Galindo, Erika. (2008). Memorias de una ‘colonial’ en Guinea Ecuatorial. Culturas Populares. Revista Electrónica 6, 14pp. Rodríguez Mediano, Fernando. (1999). Delegación de Asuntos Indígenas, S2N2. Gestión racial en el Protectorado Español en Marruecos. Awraq 20: 173–206. Rubio Alfaro, Plácido, and Lacalle Alfaro, Santiago. (1992). Alhucemas en mi recuerdo Ediciones: Málaga. Sá, Ana Lúcia. (2018). The Construction of the Image of the Indígena in the Spanish Territories of the Gulf of Guinea (1904–1912). In Y.  Aixela-Cabré (ed.), In the Footsteps of Spanish Colonialism in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. Zurich:  Lit Verlag, 101–125. Sánchez Gómez, Luís Ángel. (2006). África en Sevilla:  la exhibición colonial de la Exposición Iberoamericana de 1929. Hispania LXVI (224): 1045–1082. Stolcke, Verena. (1998). Brasil:  uma naçao vista através da vidraça de raça. Revista de Cultura Brasileña 1: 207–220. Stolcke, Verena. (2010). A  propósito de fronteras y mestizajes. In M.  Ventura (ed.), Fronteras y mestizaje:  sistemas de clasificación social en Europa, América y África: 19–29. Barcelona: Servei de Publicacions de la UAB. Stolcke, Verena. (2018) [1992]. Racismo y sexualidad en la Cuba colonial. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. Todorov, Tzvetan. (1987). La conquista de América. El problema del otro. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Villanova, José Luís. (2004). El protectorado de España en Marruecos. Barcelona: Bellaterra. Walsh, Catherine E. (2018). Decoloniality in/as Praxis. In W. Mignolo and C. E. Walsh (eds.), On Decoloniality:  Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham:  Duke University Press, 15–102.

Part 2  Africa–Europe and Europe– Africa Cultural Heritage

3.  How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe Ber nhar d Bleibinger IMF-CSIC (Spain), Barcelona When people imagine or talk of African music, they often mention rhythm, dance and drums as the main characteristics. One could talk of a popular imagination in this regard, an imagination which on the one hand, in our days, appears somehow outdated, but, on the other hand, even though it is a kind of unreflective imagination, it still may have consequences for Europeans of African roots. In an interview in 2019 the actress Thandi Sebe1 stated that she was either given roles which somehow would explain her blackness (e.g. when she played an Afro-American) or roles which catered for popular clichés or images and which link the African image with music and dance: “Sometimes I am offered the role of a ‘dancer’. But I can’t dance at all.” (Wolf 2019)2 Even though other types of African instruments and music, such as the Mbira music from Zimbabwe, have found their way to different parts of the world during the last four decades due to Zimbabwean musicians and publications by scholars, such as Berliner (Berliner 1978; Chipendo 2015), it is still “the rhythm” that drives the European imagination. Of course, rhythm is an important component of African music, if we think in Akadinda music with its inherent patterns (Kubik 2010a: 47–85; Wegener 1990) or polyrhythmic drum ensembles in West Africa or the djembe-phenomenon which we have witnessed since the beginning of the 1980s in Europe. Since then a number of djembe schools or places where one can learn how to play djembe have been established in major cities in Europe (Polak 2006: 166) and today even smaller music schools in a variety of European countries offer djembe lessons. In fact, we are often exposed to musical imaginations and representations of Africa, if we think in documentaries or in movies. In the latter case it is often music of fictional character which serves to underline stereotypes of

64

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

our popular imagination—be it through somehow “traditional” or “typical” African music which, by giving the audience the illusion of realism, aims at establishing a feeling of authenticity, or be it through newly composed music which intends to instil fear or a feeling of uncertainty. Another field where we find imaginations and even inventions of African music is that of academia which, to a certain extent, fulfils the expectation of its own—partly positivistic—dictate. The following chapter will not deal with the African musical imagination, but focus on how Africa was imagined musically in Europe or by Europeans in the 20th century—be it in form of music, written or audiovisual sources; some brief excursions to previous centuries in this chapter are meant to make musical imaginations of the 20th century more understandable. The topic imagination is a wide field. It would be impossible to cover all European imaginations of Africa in a few pages. In this chapter I only offer a few thoughts and examples on how music, in general, can lead to or support an imagination (and what it might mean), and on how Africa was imagined and expressed musically by others (i.e. by Europeans).

Formatting the Hard-Disc: A Few Introductory Thoughts on Imagination In 2015 I was invited to write a musical play for a function which commemorated the separation of a region called “Rupertiwinkel” from the rest of the old Salzburgian territory in the year 1816.3 The instruction I received indicated that the piece should, on the one hand, refer musically to this historical event and, on the other hand, pay attention to the current situation in the region (which in 2015 was characterized by a high influx of immigrants from the middle East and Africa). As a sort of timeless reference to migration in one piece of the play, the “Gingerbread Fandango”, I used musical elements from different music cultures of the world which, as I realized later during the rehearsals and the performance in 2016, fueled the imagination of players, singers and the audience. One singer stated that she imagined the taste of gingerbread whilst singing and dancing and a clarinet player imagined one passage like Klezmer music and improvised it that way. Most interestingly the string players gave the introduction, that is a passage which I had imagined and written on the basis of elements of Xhosa musical bow music,4 a south American touch. In my imagination it should have been played by one or two persons on imirhubhe (sg. umrhubhe) musical bows, not too fast and in the manner people in the grass—and bushland of the Eastern Cape would play it. But since the conductor could not relate with bow music from Africa,

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

65

he took the passage faster and emphasized the rhythm. This doesn’t mean that the passage was less African, but that African elements may have been incorporated into the musicians’ imagination indirectly and been applied correctly—that is through imagining music from Latin America which, to a certain extent is based on African elements, if we think in the transatlantic connections since the 18th century.5 When I  later played the piece to students in South Africa it immediately triggered an imagination again. Some of them started dancing explaining that it sounded like African music and people dancing, that is they imagined themselves and other people in a musical activity. Asked what triggered the imagination, they answered that it was the rhythm (specifically the cross-rhythm and the change from double to triple meter), the melody and the tonal shift, that is they drew from their cultural memory from their hometowns and villages and from knowledge they had obtained during their studies. The example shows how music can be imagined by different parties, that is the composer and the performers who produce musical structures, sound and expression based on imagination, and the audience who turn the same sound again into an imagination and, based on this imagination (as the students from the University of Fort Hare in South Africa did it), into rhythmic movement. In all these cases the images produced or used were the products of earlier exposure and experience and/or of cultural memory. The composer and the performers had an imaginative fundus of sounds and pictures from the past which they could turn into actions taking place in the present or, due to a lack in this fundus, they chose something else from their store of knowledge, something that provided affinities with the music to be performed. Deriving from the Latin word imago which means picture or image, imagination may refer to phantasy or to peoples’ ability to create images in their phantasy or to a process, that is to the creation of pictures or images of something or somebody in our phantasy or inner world. Also adjectives, such as imaginable, imaginative or imaginary point at first to the intangible nature of these pictures and images. Yet there is another aspect attached to imagination: the possibility to turn what was imagined into action or into something tangible, visible or audible to others. The adjective imaginative may therefore be used synonymously for inventive. With the aspect of imagined possibilities, we enter another dimension of imagination:  time. Imagination is not only situational, but it can be temporal and trans-temporal. It draws from the past to create in the present a possible future scenario or product. Musical imagination has been approached from different angles, for example from neuroscience and psychology, whereby musical imagery, as referred to by Andrea Halpern, is defined as the “experience of ‘replaying’ music by

66

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

imagining it inside the head” (Halpern 2003: 217). That, for instance, would mean that we can—in our imaginary world—recreate or repeat the past. A specific focus of neuroscience lies in how the brain processes information, establishes links, creates schemas which help to anticipate or make predictions and how emotions may be evoked. Some of these processes lead to old survival mechanisms. Prediction is so important for survival that evolution appears to have created more than one predictive mechanism. One way that organisms prepare for the future is by mentally enacting different future scenarios through the process of imagination (Wilson and Gilbert, 2005). Imagining future scenarios is not limited to humans. In running a maze, the brain areas associated with different spatial trajectories are activated when a mouse pauses to consider its options (Johnson and Redish, 2007). That is, the neural regions associated with different pathways are active, suggesting that the stationary mouse is imagining different routes. (Huron and Hellmuth Margulis 2012: 577)

Some of these predictive mechanisms are automatic. Huron and Hellmuth Margulis mention in this regard listeners who are familiar with a playlist and who will automatically anticipate the beginning of the next song. The example again gives us a temporal dimension of the word imagination. It does not only refer to an inner picture or scenario, but to something that might, could or should happen next. Having evolved from survival mechanisms, anticipation is connected with emotions. The cerebellum, one of the oldest parts of the brain and therefore occasionally called reptilian brain, as Levitin explains, is involved in timing and the coordination of body movements, and connected with emotional centers of the brain, the amygdala and the frontal lobe; that is centers involved in remembering emotional events, planning and impulse control. Through these connections our ancestors were able to detect danger. A  rhythmic sound or noise, for example made by a branch in the wind, would be identified as not dangerous, whereas a change in rhythm or its density could be perceived as approaching danger, for example a predator. In consequence emotions, such as fear, would be evoked which would lead to a reaction, for example escape. In our modern contexts the cerebellum is involved in the timing of musicians (Levitin 2006: 170–171, 178–179, 182). Even though neuroscience is not in the center of this chapter, it provides some aspects worth noting here, for it is—as mentioned above—concerned with establishing schemas and the development of people, their tastes and musical preferences. According to Levitin, infants show a preference of consonances over dissonances, with age two they develop a preference for the music of their cultural environment. New musical preferences are again developed in the teen years, that is in a time of emotionally charged self-discovery

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

67

and social bonding with groups one wants to belong to (Levitin 2006: 221, 223–226). This means that human beings are able and keen to incorporate musical models to differentiate themselves from others and to define themselves in society. Most important are schemas (Levitin equally uses the expression familiarity), for they form the frame of peoples’ perception, cognitive processing, understanding, expectations (and with it anticipations) and experience (Levitin 2006: 230). Music can evoke strong experiences and emotions. In the field of empirical psychology, it was Abraham Maslow who coined the term peak experience to describe a state in which persons experience a “loss of fear, anxiety, inhibition, defence, and control” (Gabrielsson 2012: 548). They feel awe and humility and surrender before the experience (Ibid.). According to Maslow the easiest ways to get to a peak experience were sex and music. At the end of the 1980s Alf Gabrielsson started a project on strong experiences in music which mostly support Maslow’s criteria for peak experience. In his descriptive system for SEM (Strong Experience with Music) he reports that memories and a variety of inner images can be evoked by music. Among the images he mentions we find “nature, people, situations, events, dreams of another environment, another life, something different and better” (Gabrielsson 2012: 558).6 SEM can also be caused by imagined or inner music (Gabrielsson 2012: 558–559). The ability of music to induce images is also recognized in music therapy (Hanser 2012: 853). On the other side images can be used to evoke emotions for performances. Starting with a quotation by Heinrich Neuhaus who states that a virtuoso will be able to “recreate the artistic image of the composition” (Neuhaus cited in Woody and McPherson 2012: 401) Woody and McPherson elaborated on emotions in the lives of performers. In this context they also mention how performers may apply imagery and translate it into sound, that is by imagining a visual image or by imagining an emotional scenario in which one is involved (Woody and McPherson 2012: 413). This approach may lead to acceptable results, but it may also lead to confusion and discouragement, if students cannot relate to the imaginary offered by their teachers. Most interestingly it was the least and the most developed musicians who used the “purely felt-emotion approach”, whilst middle ranged musicians tended to a cognitive translation process. (…) experienced musicians develop a repertoire of performance-directed emotions. By mentally dwelling on an imagery example and the evoked emotion, they have access to appropriate expressive performance devices stored in memory. (Woody and McPherson 2012: 414)

68

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

In 1993 Philip Tagg (Tagg 1995:  35–46) explained that, if musical structures are culturally embedded, and if music is a sort of symbolic system, then musical structures are carriers of symbolic content which through their culturally perceived meaning can be clearly distinguished and defined. Seeing a connection between musical structures, social groups and social action, he undertook an empirical research in which test persons had to imagine and describe movie scenes for film-music which was unknown to them. In this project the group around Tagg tried to establish a connection between verbal-visual associations of test-persons and musical elements of the pieces which evoked associations. On that basis he developed a typology of musical signs consisting of four main categories. One of these categories are the Anaphones. Anaphones, are imitations of existing extra-musical models when creating (musical) sounds. They are divided into acoustic Anaphones (akustische Anaphone, which imitate sounds like thunder or birds etc.), kinetic Anaphones (kinetische Anaphone, which imitate movement, e.g. running, flying etc.) and tactile Anaphones (taktile Anaphone, which try to imitate the perception one has when one is touched by somebody or something). A good example of acoustic, kinetic and tactile anaphones would be Bernard Herrman’s music for the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, for the music imitates the screams of the victim, the movement of the murderer and the piercing feeling when the victim gets stabbed. Tagg’s experiment shows how people create similar associations, that is imaginations, evoked by a specific musical structure which is culturally defined and loaded with a particular symbolic meaning.

Popular Imagination: Visual and Sounding Otherness After the dance the father says to his sons: ‘Sons! I know two daughters of a king in Africa; they would like to marry and have lots of money.’ The sons respond: ‘We want that, because they are so rich’, they leave the room, return sitting on the shoulder of other guys, and ride to the king’s daughters. The king is sitting on a chair on top of a table (…) and his daughters, Urschl and Xaverl, sit next to him, but below on a bench next to the table. The sons of the farmer ride around in the room, the king’s daughters fall in love, and the farmer, who chose the shorter way over mountain and valley and who heard the words of the king’s daughters, demands his sons to quicken their courtship. This happens; the king agrees, because they are respected men. Then the horsemen explaining that they have still to finish some errand, ride through the kitchen door, return with blackened hands, get off their horses, dance with their brides and blacken them, whilst dancing, their faces in a caressing way*; for the amusement of the audience. (…) Footnote: * Now they look like African ladies. (Hartmann 1880: 175)

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

69

Hartmann’s account refers to a type of improvised play performed after threshing grain, the last work of farmers, their servants and maids before the winter season, and a moment when people could relax and have some amusement in the rural regions of Southern Germany and Austria. The texts were improvised in the regional Bavarian dialect, and traditional dances and music were performed. There is nothing really African in the play. The king’s daughters don’t even have African, but Bavarian names, that is “Urschl” and “Xaverl.” The only reference to Africa is, when the king and his daughters are mentioned as Africans and when the king’s daughters’ faces are blackened to make them look like African ladies. Otherwise people are all the same. The African king who appears in the play as the deus ex machina and safes the farmer and his sons has a superior position. He is the authority in this moment. He needs to be asked for permission for the marriage, and it seems as if his daughters are involved in the process of decision making as well. At the end all people dance and are happy and in love. According to Hartmann this kind of play was popular in Bavaria during the 18th and early 19th century. This might explain the naïve or even almost innocent character of the play: working class people of that region and during that time didn’t have much knowledge of Africa.7 They might have seen a painting of St. Mauritius in some churches and they might have been told by their priests that one of the three holy kings must have been black and therefore an African. Maybe they had heard of African people in the service of some French officers. Otherwise people in rural regions were hardly exposed to Africa—whether directly or in form of written or oral sources. Germany didn’t have any colonies at that time and therefore no reports from Africa which might have enriched the local imagination; be it visually or musically. Besides that, the grade of education, and—due to that—a certain lack of knowledge, might serve as explanation why the imagination of Africa in above-mentioned play was rather poor, simple and not politically charged. The example shows that adequate imagination depends on the exposure to realistic models. Without models (or adequate schemas), imagination may be nothing but falsifying fantasy, that is a pure invention. In the beginning of the 20th century we find examples of music and plays which are evidence of contacts or which reflect certain fashions, if we think in Gershwin’s Jazz-Opera Blue Monday or Krenek’s Opera Jonny spielt auf. Both are influenced by Afro-American music. The main character in Krenek’s opera is a black Jazz musician. Being a symbol of the cultural freedom during the Weimar Republic and a great success when it was staged in 1927, and translated and played in several countries, it was later prohibited in Nazi-Germany and even condemned at the exhibition Entartete Musik in Düsseldorf in 1938.

70

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

The poster of this exhibition even showed a black musician with a saxophone and the star of David (Maurer Zenck and Fetthauer 2006). Whilst the influence and imagination of Africa in the above mentioned examples does not happen directly, but through Afro-American music, composers in the first half of the 20th century had, in fact, occasionally the possibility to travel and to imagine non-European countries musically on the basis of the experiences they had abroad, for example Albert Roussell who got ideas for his opera-ballet Padmâvati in India or Karol Szymanowski who had traveled Algeria and Tunisia and turned his experiences into the piece Chants du Muezzin;8 some of these compositions depict elements of non-European music others rather sound experimental European and could be described as orientalisms (Said 2003). Compositions by both composers were played at the 14th festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music which, together with the third congress of the International Musicological Society, took place in April 1936 in Barcelona. At the same festival the conductor 9 and composer Pedro Sanjuán was present as well. In the promotion material which Sanjuán left with Robert Gerhard and Higini Anglès, the organizers of the congress and the festival, we find an old programme text for a concert given on the 24th of February 1933 in Madrid which featured Liturgia Negra— Cuadros, one of Sanjuán’s compositions. The subtitle Cuadros already refers to images, paintings or sketches which then are described by Sanjuán himself in the programme. During the colonial time, as he explains, slaves from the West African coast, used to conduct their rituals in Cuba and transmitted these from one generation to the next. Even though these rituals are not any longer visible in public, they are conducted privately. Initiates then follow the rhythm of the sacred drums and dance under the influence or spell of a supernatural force until they fall in trance. Especially the Afro-Cuban rhythm (el rítmo afrocubano) inspired his work, as Sanjuán emphasizes. The first movement, Comparsa Lucumi, describes a procession in the streets of Habana, the second, Changó, is dealing with a deity which oversees activities connected with African magic (it includes a ritual dance). The third movement, Oggún, which is structured like a dialogue, is dedicated to Changó’s brother who feeds the rays of the moonlight and again features Afro-Cuban dance rhythms. The fourth movement, Iniciación, depicts an initiation ritual using the chant of Babalueyé, the god of resurrection and the reunion of the spirit with matter.10 Pedro Sanjuán’s musical imagination of African has a very practical reason. Originally he came from the Basque country and grew up in Castilla. In the early 1920s he moved to Cuba which he considered his second motherland and where he founded the Orquestra Filarmónica de Habana. At that

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

71

time he was already an acknowledged conductor who received invitations to the United States, Mexico, France, Germany, Hungary and Switzerland.11 In Cuba he became part of a movement initiated by a group of intellectuals and artists called Grupo Minorista which supported the idea of a new Cuban national identity which payed attention to the cultural expressions of all ethnicities in the country, and that included Afro-Cuban cultural expressions. In this connection Pedro Sanjuán at first promoted Afro-Cuban pieces composed by his students Amadeo Roldán and Alejandro García Caturla, and later he himself contributed compositions, such as Liturgia Negra, cuadros sinfónicos (1929–1931), Danza Ritual (1942), and La Macumba, sinfonía ritual (1948) among others (Perón Hernández 2012). The idea, imagination and promotion of this new Cuban nationalism and Afrocubanismo was carried by an agenda and by agents, and with the Orquestra Filarmónica de Habana the composers of the group had an effective medium at hand in the country. Besides that, the musical imagination of this new Cuba was spread via performances abroad. With Fernando Ortiz they had an intellectual whose concept of transculturality, which was developed in the above context and published in the early 1940s (Ortiz 1983), accepted and promoted the emergence of new forms on the basis of old ones. Pedro Sanjuán’s afrocubanist oeuvre served a specific context and movement, as he contributed to a new nationalism in Cuba initiated and supported by the Group Minorista. One may, in fact, discuss the outcome which sounds like—at that time—contemporary, modern, and partly minimalist European music mixed with Afro-Cuban elements, but that was the objective of the exercise: to contribute to a new Cuban nationalism by paying attention to different cultural expressions, that is by including musical characteristics of all of its people. Sanjuán’s fascination of Afro-Cuban elements lasted for a long time and over several years he composed music which fits into the afrocubanist idea. Even during his exile in the United States his Afro-Cuban pieces were played (Perkins 2004: 19).12 As mentioned before, Sanjuán belonged to the group Minoristas, in which we also find Ortiz, the creator of the term transculturation. The term, if we follow Kubik’s interpretation, could mean that at the end people who had intense cross-cultural experiences, won’t just be vehicles who transport traditions to the one and the other way. Due to cohesive psychological forces, as he explains, a new idiom will be bound to the old one. At the end an individual will no longer only belong to its culture of origin, but due to cultural experiences new configurations of cultural references will be established. The reconfigurations of cultural resources can change during an individual’s life (Kubik 2010b: 1–2). In consequence, this would

72

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

mean that our musical imagination—through cross-cultural experiences and enrichment—changes too. People worldwide are exposed to each other through modern media and means of communication and—be it willingly or not—they are subject to and take part in imaginative processes. In a variety of movies real African music may be used to help the audience to emotionally engage and imagine a situation, that is to create a feeling or an illusion of realism or authenticity, if we think in the movie Zulu, especially the moments when the Zulu warriors sing and the British soldiers anticipate an attack, or Ayub Ogada’s “Kothbiro” in The Constant Gardener (2005). Ogada’s musical contribution creates a feeling of relevance and of somehow being part of the story, because the listener can identify with his music and through it with particular scenes in the movie (e.g. the scene in the market). Since the WOMAD festival in 1988 and consequent tours and collaborations with Peter Gabriel and other artists, Ogada’s music had gained fame in the Western music scene.13 It was known through concerts and recordings and therefore not alien to the ears of Westerners. Besides that, being diatonic and based on a minor and a major chord,14 pieces like “Kothbiro” suited Western musical schemas. By combining the familiar (e.g. the before-mentioned musical characteristics) with the exotic (e.g. the language and sound of the nyatiti among others) it provided a perfect musical subtext to the movie, in which a British activist investigates the scheming of a Western pharma group in Kenya. Ogada’s song served as a bridge and was able to establish an emotional closeness and empathy. Film music composers may also use clichés to create feelings of insecurity which in turn fuel our imagination and emotions. A  good example in this regard is James Horner’s music for Jumanji.15 Whenever the box with Jumanji is found a drum rhythm can be heard which changes irregularly from double to triple meter. Whilst the drums, following a popular cliché, represent Africa and quasi localize the game and the creatures related with it, the irregular rhythmic changes create an impression and feeling of unpredictability that leads to fear. The irregularity which makes rhythmic anticipation impossible leaves the listener in a state of insecurity. It expresses musically what the game of Jumanji is about:  the players never know what happens next and are constantly in fear of another scary surprise. Jumanji is not only evidence of the working mechanisms of transmitted clichés (drum=Africa) and the before-mentioned anaphones (rhythm=movement associated with a specific region, here Africa), but also of the production of feelings as discussed by neuroscience (unpredictable rhythmic change=danger and in consequence fear).

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

73

Whilst cinemas are (normally) safe places and the danger is imagined via pictures and sounds, we may also find contrary situations where people are in danger and find a safe place in their positive imagination of the “others.” It was during the war, when my mother16 entered a room in her grandmother’s house where strange sounds were coming from. Still today she remembers the horrified faces of her mother, her grandmother and her uncle when they noticed her. Her uncle was the first to find his self-control again. Two thoughts crossed his mind in this moment:  either sending her away and being at risk that she would talk to others about her family listening to strange music (as a matter of fact, they listened to the Feindsender, the enemy’s broadcasting, which was prohibited during those days) or making a deal with the kid. He went for the second solution and allowed her to listen to “African” music, if she would keep it secret. When they listened to Jazz (!) he started to tell her how people danced, and his niece imagined African people in their traditional outfits, all of them happy, free and far away from the war. My mother kept the secret and it wasn’t the last time that they would listen to music and that she would imagine African people—a soothing imagination which gave her hope in a time of insecurity, violence and constant danger. It is most unlikely that the musicians who played that piece of Jazz were in Africa and danced in traditional costumes. They most probably recorded the music in some European or American recording studios and in European outfits. One cannot even be sure, if the pieces were played by Africans. Even though the musically imagined Africa was an illusion or fantasy, it is a good example of how music linked with soothing images or narratives can be used as an escape and how it can lead to a positive imagination of “the others.”

Africa—Imagined, Judged, Assessed, Constructed, Dictated and Co-authored Early descriptions of African music made by missionaries or people working for colonial authorities give us—on the surface—a different and often judgmental picture which lack imagination, that is the imagination of knowledge and skills inherent to musical performances or cultures of the others. In the following examples from the 18th and early 19th century musical instruments17 of the amaXhosa in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa are, for instance, benchmarked against the Khoi. The Caffrees have no musical instruments but such as are used by the Hottentots; except that I  once saw a miserable kind of flute among them, that does not deserve description. (Le Vaillant cited in Dargie 1988: 41)

74

Ber nhar d Bleibinger Their skill in music is not above the level of that of the Hottentots. They have in fact no other instruments except the two in use among the latter, and a small whistle made of the bone of some animal, and used sometimes for giving orders to their cattle when at a distance. (Barrow cited in Dargie 1988: 41) The Koossas are much behind hand with some of their neighbours with regard to music. Instruments proper to themselves they do not appear to have, for only those of the Hottentots are to be seen among them, and not so well constructed. (Lichtenstein cited in Dargie 1988: 41)

The above mentioned quotes are above all judgmental statements, whilst the following provides some useful description: They likewise use instruments of music. One is a bow with a piece of quill fixed near one end of the string on which they blow, which make an agreeable sound. The women have a calabash hung to a bow string, on which they beat and sing in harmony with the beating. The words they use are the names of friends, rivers and places they can recollect, having not songs … (Campbell cited in Dargie 41–42)

An earlier account worth to be mentioned is that of Peter Kolb.18 As explained by Erica Mugglestone, Kolb not only provided a detailed description of instruments, but also a true appraisal of Khoikhoi music (Mugglestone 1982: 94–115). All of the above quotations derive from travel accounts from the first and the two last decades of the 18th and the first decade of the 19th century. Since people and regions were in the center of these accounts information on music and musical instruments is in most cases rather thin. A common characteristic of all of the above descriptions is that they assess and to a certain extent compare music cultures. But comparison and judgment is only possible on the basis of acquired schemas; be they acquired personally in one’s own environment or during traveling in foreign environments. So, the quotes above tell us more about the writers and their preferences than the actual music they were exposed to. Judgmental statements, such as “not above the level of that of the Hottentots” or “The Koossas are much behind hand with some of their neighbours”, not only reflect a colonial attitude which, for the sake of its own existence and survival needed the construction of superiorities and inferiorities, but that of an elite class in white society that had the privilege to travel and to describe the others; the average poor white farmer neither would have had the time nor an interest (maybe not even the education) to write that sort of account. As a matter of fact, the European representation—and imagination, if we want so—of “the others” goes back several centuries. Radano and Bohlman mention in this connection Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia Universalis (1650) and Guillaume Chenu de Laujardière’s Relation d’un voyage à la côte des

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

75

Cafres (1686–89) among others. And as they point out, accounts of the 18th century related with the slave trade often aim at establishing social, racial and religious inferiority of black people (Radano and Bohlman 2000: 17). With the beginning of the 19th century we enter the time of travel accounts which, on the one hand are published in form of books, and, on the other hand, feed people’s imagination via public lectures and notes in newspapers. The 19th century is a period of discoveries and revolutions and music histories which, as Allan shows (Allan 1962:  86–127), represent particular philosophies. Most of these music histories were concerned with European music and only exceptionally the music of others was included, for example by Fétis (Allan 1962: 89–90). If the Great-Man Theory with all its different derivations was the underlying idea in the development of preferably European music histories and conservatories in the first half of the 19th century, evolutionism became a dominating ideology in the second half, especially, if we think in the ways music of “the others” was treated in Western music histories. The influence of evolutionism is most obvious when explaining musical developments from the most primitive to the most developed musical cultures, as in the works by Spencer, Rowbothom and Parry. Whilst the development of scales in Rowbothom’s sense happens like a gradual adding up of tones, Parry’s model suggests a nucleus of a fourth or fifth as the origin of all scales (Allan 1962: 111–114). It is important to note, that the music of indigenous people (including people from Africa) was used to exemplify different stages of human development. They were part of an imagined global musical situation, part of a model established by Europeans on the basis of their schemas and assumed natural laws. Writings in the context of German diffusionism, even though they provide new options, if we think in Bernhard Ankermann and the ideas of cultural bridges, migration and cultural mixing (Ankermann 1901; Ankermann 1905), still show traits of evolutionist thinking. An interesting case in this regard is that of Marius Schneider, an exponent of the Berlin school of comparative musicology who refers to Africa in his writings, and who, in the first half of the 20th century, built one of his central theories on the idea of a tonal nucleus (like Parry did before him) from which musical scales derived. In his Geschichte der Mehrstimmigkeit (History of Polyphony), first part, Die Naturvölker, published in 1934, he ordered musical material available at the Phonogramm-Archiv Berlin and in medieval European manuscript in form of tonal circles. Aware of possible criticism concerning his methodological approach he explained that it was neither his intention to establish direct cultural-historical connections between medieval European and living traditional music nor to single out one Urform (i.e. a primordial stage at the beginning of the evolution of polyphony), because there are many

76

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

ways chords can be created and performed. Yet, by ordering the material in form of four Tonalitätskreise or simply Kreise (tonal circles which also referred to cultures and geographic areas), one would see a musical line of development. Like his predecessors he was interested in universal laws and convinced that similar tonal and formal prerequisites would lead to similar harmonic principles. Nonetheless, his tonal circles or areas are coined by models of the Kulturhistorische Ethnologie. Africa appears twice, namely in Kreis 2 (pigmy tribes in general) and Kreis 4 (more highly developed African primitive people). In his model traditional people of Africa in Kreis 4 belonged to the most developed (Bleibinger 2005: 160–165). They were part of an imagined universal model which included local distribution of different musics, their development and, to a certain extent, their interrelation. Schneider had no direct contact with Africans when he wrote the first edition of his book, instead he had to work with recordings and documentations in the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv.19 Whilst Africa was only one part of Schneider’s overview and his focal point was tonality, other writers coined by Western academic traditions created an image in which African people were naturally rhythmic and African music was above all defined by rhythmic complexity. As Kofi Agawu points out in The Invention of African Rhythm, African music was quasi invented (Agawu 1995) and the tendency of connecting Africans with the image of rhythmic and dancing people can be traced back several centuries. According to him remarks on African rhythm made in the 11th century by Ibn Butlan were reproduced in the discourse on African music in later centuries and led to the image of African rhythm which is “complex, superior, but ultimately incomprehensible” (Agawu 1995:  381). He underlines his argument by starting with statements made by representative scholars such as Hornbostel (1928: 52), Waterman (1948), Jones (1949), Nettl (1986), Senghor (1956) and Nketia (1974) among others, in which the before-mentioned characteristics were emphasized. His main criticism could be summarized in the following way: Western academia uses Africa as source for imaginary play, and the image of Africa is manipulated. Unveiling the real Africa would in consequence have an effect on the discourse of the West. Also the comparative method may be used to reinforce prejudices by a writer, for one side of the opposition can come short or even be silenced. Besides that, there are lexical gaps, and African music might not be looked at critically, but rather be mystified. Solutions, as Agawu suggests, would be to change from an ideology of difference to an ideology of sameness, in order to be enabled to see real differences (ibid. and Agawu 2003: 227–237). One would also have to ask who, as

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

77

he says, “orchestrates the dialogue” (Agawu 1995: 394), and in consequence Africans should be empowered and be able to represent themselves. A similar tenor can be heard in The Invention of African Art Music by Nepomuk Riva (Riva 2019) who assessed cross-cultural music productions in the Western world which either included African musicians or were organized by Africans. The Western image of Africa, so his main argument, is an invention which serves European political and economic interests. In this collective image Africa appears as counterpart of Europe which, like in Said’s theory of orientalism, could be described as wild, animalistic and uncivilized (Riva 2019: 130). The colonial stereotypes produced via this imagination assist, to a certain extent, the distribution of albums containing African musical elements, as in the case of Pieces of Africa (1992)20 by the Kronos Quartet, Lambarena: Bach to Africa (1993) produced by Hughes de Courson and Pierre Akendengué, and Mozart the Egyptian I+II (1997+2005) by Courson and Ahmed El Maghraby. These three productions not only reproduce colonial stereotypes to sell albums, but are evidence of the financial dependence of African musicians who otherwise have difficulties in the Western music market. Zulu Music Meets Mozart (2006) by MoZuluArt, an ensemble consisting of three Zimbabweans and an Austrian pianist, represents a different approach, for it is a standing ensemble which uses Mozart’s music to develop new vocal lines for performances in isicathamiya style.21 Besides that, it performs African music together with Western colleagues. Their performances have, to a certain extent, educational character, because they inform the audience about Africa, and coming from Africa some members of the group are trusted as primary source of information which is transmitted to people via active and direct interaction.22 By doing so, one could say, MoZuluArt, as a mixed African-European group, helps through combined self-representation to rethink and re-imagine Africa in the West. They offer a modernized image of Africa, I dare to say, which is the result of a teamwork, negotiated, overhauled, adjusted and evidently co-authored. Seen from that angle the group is, to a certain extent, an expression and pars pro toto of a new global consciousness, which has the courage to reflect, question and correct images23 in an entertaining way. The question of representation and imagination is complex and not necessarily one-sided or one-way. In fact, a number of ideas lined out by Veit Erlmann (Erlmann 1999), are applicable to the before-mentioned examples, for instance, that music serves as a mediator in global contexts and that it functions as an interactive social context, and that Africans and Europeans represented each other for centuries (Europe too was invented by Africans); no local identity can be constructed on the basis of a demarcated local space only, but one needs the other, the common spaces and narratives. This translates

78

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

down to cultures which obtain their multiple and fluctuating identities from contacts with the others. Besides that, what he describes as “historical ethnographies of colonialism” are active as “histories of the present”; as we could see in the examples above, colonial historicism sells. According to him global reality is an imagined totality which, to a certain extent, is the product of an “epistemological symbiosis between African and Western modernities” (Erlmann 1999: 4). Seen from that angle, Africans and Europeans imagined and made each other. Erlmann even talks of a co-authoring of global identities, of interdependencies and complicities.

Summary and Afterthought—Africa as Mirror Sounds and images and emotions are part of old survival mechanisms which later, on the basis of acquired schemas, facilitated predictability and anticipation in a variety of contexts. They may evoke feelings of insecurity or fear or, as explained before, they may have a soothing effect and create the illusion of a safe place, if we think in the use of music in movies in order to instill fear or music’s soothing effect on people who are in danger. Yet the meaning of images, music and sounds may change, for it is constantly enriched and redefined by a person’s environment. Images and imaginations of the “other” may also be utilized to define, demarcate and localize one’s own community, or to reposition people in a new global and interconnected world. But images do not just emerge. As the before-mentioned examples showed, images are filled with  –culturally defined– meaning. And the extent to which meaning attached to images corresponds with reality depends on the information obtained and incorporated before creating an image (if we think in the example of the late 18th century Bavarian play in which Africans are basically like Bavarians due to lack of information and prejudices at that time and region). Nowadays we see us in a situation in which information can be acquired directly, for example through festivals or concerts of mixed international music groups. Besides that, we still incorporate information indirectly and sometimes unconsciously (e.g. musical elements which have come to us via other countries). To a great extent images can be manipulated and instrumentalised, if we think in old colonial accounts of “the others” which aimed at justifying colonial rule, or movies in which images of “the others” are used to instil fear, or the international music market where colonial images of “the others” are used to sell products. Colonial imaginary sells. Yet, the process of imagining “the others” and Africa in particular, seems to have taken new turns over the last century. Whilst travelers, missionaries and colonial staff held authority

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

79

over the creation of images of “the others” in the past, today’s modern media and opportunities to travel allow people from different countries to co-author the imagination of themselves and “the others”; we only have to think in internationally mixed music ensembles. People come closer to each other and have a chance to correct images. They are given the possibility to leave their national and ethnic prisons. Africa, as we could see, can be found on all levels: the broader public, academia, the global market, the entertainment industry etc. And, of course, the European image of Africa can be wrong because of lack of information and contrary. It can be that of the good, helping and soothing African, the dangerous and unpredictable African, the underdeveloped and the most developed, the totally different and the similar. One finds images of the politically disempowered and empowered, of exploitation and complicity. The images couldn’t be more contradictive. But, as we could see, images are often linked with agendas and they are transtemporal (i.e. they draw from the past and are effective in the present). The history of the European imagination of Africa is evidence of a learning process in which Europeans also tried to correct and to understand their own position and misinterpretations by mirroring themselves, be it in academia or the broader public. A good example of that mirroring process would be Walter Wippersberger’s satire “Das Fest des Huhnes. Das rätselhafte und unberührte Österreich.—Kayonga Kagame zeigt uns die Welt” (“The festival of the chicken. The mysterious and untouched Austria.— Kayonga Kagame shows us the world”), broadcasted by the ORF in 1992. In that movie an African anthropologist applying Western perspectives and methodologies and accompanied by their Austrian servants, that is guides, body guards and carriers who—of course—wear the traditional outfit (i.e. lederhosen), explores parts of Austria to gain a deeper understanding of the customs of the indigenous people. When he finds the churches empty, but the beer tents filled with people who eat chicken, drink liters of a yellowish fluid, sing and even dance a chicken dance, he comes to the conclusion that the chicken has replaced the old sacrificial lamb. As a matter of fact, people are simply drunk and out of their senses in some of the scenes, the music is loud and the movement of people partly uncontrolled. Wippersberger mirrors through juxtaposition: on the one side the dignifying academic, on the other side the drunk, music making and dancing mad crowd, and as result a wrong image. The scene invites Westerners to imagine themselves through the eyes of an African. Having an African anthropologist as leader of the expedition and narrator who discusses his findings like scientific facts plays with the Westerners’ perception, expectation and imagination of a serious and academic documentary which deals with the others. Wippersberger gives us a hint

80

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

how one-sided academic models may influence, enrich and distort the imagination of the unknown other, and he indirectly questions the validity of academic as well as collective imaginations and representations. It is interesting to note that in 1995 Agawu (Agawu 1995: 386) criticized Western academics for dignifying and mystifying a performance in order to create a clean image suitable for Western academia rather than stating when African performers were simply drunk or out of tune. But unlike the above-mentioned scene in Wippersberger’s movie, Agawu’s remark was not part of a satire.

Notes 1. Thandi Sebe originates from South Africa. 2. “Manchmal wird mir die Rolle einer” Tänzerin “angeboten. Ich kann aber überhaupt nicht tanzen.” (Thandi Sebe cited in Wolf 2019). 3. The separation was a consequence of the Napoleonic wars between 1797 and 1815. For more information on historical events in the region between 1800 and 1816 see Hans Roth (2004). 4. The introduction was supposed to be played by umrhubhe, the Eastern Cape mouth bow. I had imagined it to be played calmly and not to fast by one person, as if being in the African bush in the evening after a hot day. But since there were no imirhubhe available the passage had to be performed by strings. The conductor chose a higher tempo and emphasised the rhythm which then made the first bars of the piece sound Latin American. African characteristics were the Xhosa scale, cross-rhythms and harmony based on the tonal shifts made on mouth bows. Musical bows basically amplify overtones. If one amplifies the harmonics 4, 5 and 6, for example f, a and c, and shifts these tones one second up by shortening the string, one can produce the tones g, b and d, that is the material of a hexatonic scale, the so-called Xhosa scale, which is comparable to the Lydian mode. 5. See for instance Gerhard Kubik’s study on Angolan Traits in Black Music, Games and Dances of Brazil (1979) or Ortiz’ idea of transculturality which will be dealt with later. 6. An interesting case of music as stimulus for imagination and a means of escape from harsh reality is that of the singer Sathima Bea Benjamin, as described by Carol Muller (Muller 2008: 174). 7. Most probably it was different in the major cities, if we think in the story of the black boys in Heinrich Hoffmann’s children Book Struwwelpeter, published in 1845. In this story three white boys tease a dark-skinned boy until St. Niklas, who had told them not to do so, dips them into a barrel filled with ink. 8. Holding Higini Anglès, Biblioteca de Catalunya, Barcelona, Box H.A., III Congrès SIM, XV Festival, Folder:  “Ms. originals del Programa del XIV Festival de la SIMC—Barcelona 1936”, (contains programme texts and programmes of the 14th festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music). 9. As announced in La Vanguardia, 19 March 1936, page 11.

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

81

10. Holding Higini Anglès, Biblioteca de Catalunya, Barcelona, Caja H.A., III Congrès SIM, XV Festival, Folder:  “Ms. originals del Programa del XIV Festival de la SIMC—Barcelona 1936.” 11. Ibid. 12. Perkins (2004: 9) mentions Sanjuán’s “Canto Yoruba” in connection with a concert of the Goldman Band which took place on the 21st of June 1942 in the Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. 13. “Ayub Ogada”, in website: Realworldrecords, URL: https://realworldrecords.com/ artists/ayub-ogada/, accessed: 02 October 2019 14. Changing from a minor to g major. 15. I refer to the original movie from 1995. 16. Born in 1938. 17. They refer to the musical bows uhadi (with a calabash as resonator) and umrhubhe (without resonator). 18. He traveled the Cape between 1705 and 1713. 19. When he served in the German intelligence service (Abwehr West) in Northern Africa, he had direct contact with Northern African people. 20. The “African” musicians who participated in this project do not live in Africa, as Riva points out. Talking of “Black Atlantic” might therefore be more adequate (Riva 2019: 130–131). 21. Best known from Paul Simon’s album “Graceland” (1986) featuring the Zulu isicathamiya group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. 22. Video clips by MoZuluArt are accessible online, for example https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=gSCkAbJy9XA. In this trailer they also teach the audience the famous click song “Iqirha lendlela.” 23. Academia contributes to this consciousness as well, if we think in Radano’s and Bohlman’s Music and the Racial imagination (2000) or Olwage’s Composing Apartheid (2008) among others. They deal with constructed images of the others.

Primary Sources Biblioteca de Catalunya, Barcelona. Holding Higini Anglès, Caja H.A., III Congrès SIM, XV Festival, Folder:  “Ms. originals del Programa del XIV Festival de la SIMC— Barcelona 1936”, (contains programme texts and programmes of the 14th festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music).

Bibliography Agawu, Kofi. (1995). The Invention of “African Rhythm.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 48 (3): 380–395. Music Anthropologies and Music Histories. Agawu, Kofi. (2003). Contesting Difference. A Critique of Africanist Ethnomusicology. In M. Clayton, T. Herbert and R. Middleton (eds.), The Cultural Study of Music—A Critical Introduction. New York and London: Routledge, 227–237.

82

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

Allan, Warren Dwight. (1962). (unabridged and corrected republication of the 1939 edition). Philosophies of Music History. A Study of General Histories of Music 1600 –1960. New York: Dover. Ankermann, Bernhard. (1901). Die afrikanischen Musikinstrumente. Ethnologisches Notizblatt III (1): 1–132. Ankermann, Bernhard. (1905). Kulturkreise und Kulturschichten in Africa. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie (37): 54–84. Berliner, Paul F. (1978). The Soul of Mbira. Music and Traditions of the Shona People if Zimbabwe. Berkeley /Los Angeles / London: University of California Press. Bleibinger, Bernhard. (2005). Marius Schneider und der Simbolismo. Ensayo musicológico y etnológico sobre un buscador de símbolos, Pondicherry and München: VASA-Verlag. (Alteritas. Münchner ethnologische Impressionen, Vol. 2, ed. By Matthias Samuel Laubscher). Campbell, J. (1815). Travels in South Africa. London: Black Parry. Chipendo, Claudio. (2015). Towards a changing context and performance practice of mbira dzavadzimu music in Zimbabwe. Ph.D. Dissertation, East London / South Africa: University of Fort Hare. Dargie, Dave. (1988). Xhosa Music. Its Techniques and Instruments with a Collection of Songs. Cape Town and Johannesburg: David Philip. Erlmann, Veit. (1999). Music, Modernity, and the Global Imagination—South Africa and the West. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gabrielsson, Alf. (2012). Strong Experiences with Music. In P. N. Juslin and J. A. Sloboda (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Music and Emotion. Theory, Research, Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 547–574. Halpern, Andrea R.  (2003). Cerebral Substrates of Musical Imaginary. In Isabelle Peretz and R. J. Zatorre (eds.), The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 217–230. Hanser, Suzanne B.  (2012). Music, Health, and Well-Being In P.  N. Juslin and J.  A. Sloboda (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Music and Emotion. Theory, Research, Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 849–877. Hartmann, August. (1880). Volksschauspiele. In Bayern und Österreich-Ungarn gesammelt. Mit vielen Melodien, nach dem Volksmund aufgezeichnet von Hyacinth Abele. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtl. Hornbostel, Erich Moritz von. (1928). African Negro Music. Africa 1 (1): 30–62. Huron, David and Hellmuth Margulis, Elizabeth. (2012). Musical Expectancy and Thrills. In P.  N. Juslin and J.  A. Sloboda (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Music and Emotion. Theory, Research, Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 575–604. Johnson, Adam and Redish, A.  David (2007). Neural ensembles in CA3 transiently encode paths forward of the animal at a decision point. Journal of Neuroscience 271: 12176–12189. Jones, Arthur Morris. (1949). African Music in Northern Rhodesia and Some Other Places. Livingstone: Rhodes-Livingstone Museum.

How Africa Was Imagined Musically in Europe

83

Kubik, Gerhard. (2010a). Theory of African Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Volume 1. Kubik, Gerhard. (2010b). Theory of African Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Volume 2. Levitin, Daniel J.  (2006). This Is Your Brain. The Science of a Human Obsession. New York: Dutton (Penguin Group). Maurer Zenck, Claudia and Sophie Fetthauer, Sophie. (2006). Ernst Krenek. In C. Maurer Zenck and P. Petersen (Hg.), Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen der NS-Zeit, Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, http://www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de/ object/lexm_lexmperson_00001293. Last accessed 16 October 2019. Mugglestone, Erica. (1982). The Gora and the Grand Gom-Gom:  A Reappraisal of Kolb’s Account of Khoikhoi Musical Bows. African Music 6 (2): 94–115. Muller, Carol A. (2008). Music of South Africa (=Focus on World Music Series, Focus: Music of South Africa). New York and London: Routledge. Nettl, Bruno. (1986). Africa. In D.  Randel (ed.), The Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 16–24. Nketia, Kwabena J. H. (1974). The Music of Africa. New York: Norton. Olwage, Grant (ed.). (2008). Composing Apartheid. Music for and against Apartheid. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Ortiz, Fernando. (1983). Contrapunteo Cubano del Tabaco y el Azúcar. La Habana: Editorial De Ciencias Sociales. Perkins, Boyd B.  (2004). The Documents, Personal Music Collections, and Artifacts Contained in the Goldman Band Library at the University of Iowa. An essay submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Volume I. Perón Hernández, Greta. (2012). Pedro Sanjuán y el afrocubanismo musical en el context de la vanguardia cubana de la década de 1920. Cuadernos de Música Iberoamericana 23: 87–106. Polak, Rainer. (2006). A  Musical Instrument Travels Around the World. Jenbe Playing in Bamako, West Africa and Beyond. In J. C. Post (ed.), Ethnomusicology. A Contemporary Reader. New York and London: Routledge, 161–185. Radano, Ronals and Bohlman Philip V.  (2000). Introduction:  Music and Race, Their Past, Their Presence. In Radano, Ronals and Bohlman Philip V (eds.), Music and the Racial Imagination. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1–53. Riva, Nepomuk. (2019). The Invention of African Art Music. Analyzing EuropeanAfrican Classical Cross-over Projects. In C. Peres de Silva and K. Hondros (eds.), Music Practices Across Borders. (E)Valuating Space, Diversity and Exchange. Bielefeld: Transcript, 127–150. Roth, Hans. (2004). Vom Ende des Erzstifts Salzburg bis zur Grenzziehung von 1816. In EuRegio Salzburg—Berchtesgadener Land—Traunstein. Heimat mit Geschichte und Zukunft. Trostberg: Erdl Druck Medien, 58–66. Said, Edward. (2003). Orientalism. London: Penguin. Reprint with new Preface.

84

Ber nhar d Bleibinger

Schneider, Marius. (1934). Geschichte der Mehrstimmigkeit. Historische und Phänomenologische Studien. 1. Teil, Die Naturvölker, Berlin: Borntraeger. Senghor, Leopold. (1956). Africa-Negro Aesthetics. Diogenes 4 (16): 23–38. Tagg, Philip. (1995). Beitrag zu einer Typologie des musikalischen Zeichens. In M.  Heuger and M.  Prell (eds.), Popmusic Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (= Forum Musik Wissenschaft, Band 1). Regensburg: ConBrio, 35–46. Waterman, Richard A. (1948). Hot Rhythm in Negro Music. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 (1): 24–37. Wegener, Ulrich. (1990). Xylophonmusik aus Buganda (Ostafrika), Wilhelmshaven: Noetzel. Wilson, Timothy D. and Gilbert, Daniel T. (2005). Affective forecasting: Knowing what to want. Current Directions in Psychological Science 14: 131–134. Woody, Robert H.  and McPherson, Gary E.  (2012). Emotion and Motivation in the Lives of Performers. In P. N. Juslin and J. A. Sloboda (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Music and Emotion. Theory, Research, Applications. Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 401–424.

Internet and Press Sources “Ayub Ogada”, in website:  Realworldrecords, http://realworldrecords.com/artists/ ayub-ogada/, last accessed 2 October 2019. La Vanguardia, 19 March 1936. MoZuluArt DVD Trailer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSCkAbJy9XA, last accessed 9 October 2019. Wolf, Thembi. (2019). Wir haben mit jungen schwarzen Schauspielern über ihre Rollen gesprochen. In Bento (03.02.2019). URL: http://www.bento.de/gefuehle/schwarzeschauspieler-in-deutschland-und-ihre-rollen-von-tatort-kommissaren-fluechtlingenund-vodoo-zauberern-a-05141439-1ecd-4675-86d6-ef205751d848, last accessed 7 February 2019.

4.  European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief Jan Küver University of Iringa (Tanzania), Iringa I am Mpangile Wangimbo the son of Sengimba the beautiful, the one with the sweetest breasts giving the strongest medicine from God. I drank that medicine from her breast so you cannot mess with me! (Mpangile Wangimbo, February, 1897)

Introduction Allegedly with these words, Mpangile Wangimbo, the vicegerent of the Hehe people, addressed his tormentors during his public execution in Iringa on 23 February, 1897. He was executed by the same German occupiers who had instated him as native chief of Eastern and Central Iringa region just about two months earlier in an effort to establish efficient colonial administration. The execution procedure, together with the circumstances leading to it, is a contested field of historical interpretation until today. Iringa is an administrative region in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. In 2012 it had a population of roughly one million, of which about 150,000 lived in the regional capital Iringa Town (United Republic of Tanzania 2013). Iringa offers a range of natural and cultural heritage attractions, including the prominent history of the rise and fall of the local Hehe kingdom during the second half of the 19th century, which is deeply rooted in today’s regional and national memory. As a stronghold of fierce anti-colonial resistance during the Hehe wars from 1891 to 1898, Iringa also played a prominent role in the history of colonial German East Africa. This paper was conceived out of my own practical experiences from the applied heritage conservation programme fahari yetu1—Southern Highlands Culture Solutions. In the course of the project work I repeatedly came across the legacy of the German colonial history in Iringa appearing to be the

86

Jan Kü ver

unspoken “elephant in the room.”2 The confrontation with the topic triggered strong emotional reactions on my side. On one hand I  felt a strong fascination for the events in the past and the potential prospects for present conservation of this history. At the same time, it also caused a feeling of discomfort, as the experiences of colonial violence seemed to be insufficiently addressed until today. As a German in Iringa I knew that I would have to reflect and legitimize my own role in researching and preserving the colonial heritage. This paper examines the early colonial history of Iringa from the theoretical angle of critical heritage studies as coined by the work of Laurajane Smith. Her concept of heritage pursues a political agenda of challenging and renouncing of what she calls the “authorised heritage discourse”, which justifies and perpetuates a Western-dominated understanding of heritage and its management (Smith 2006). Critical heritage studies instead advocate the adaptation of the discourse to post-colonial contexts and settings under inclusive participation and empowerment of formerly disenfranchised people and voices. Furthermore, Smith and Campbell (2016) suggest to redirect heritage studies and management towards a focus on the emotional meaning of heritage resources to the actors relating to it. Against this theoretical backdrop, the idea of shared heritage serves as conceptual tool to address the post-colonial context of the study with its peculiar set of conflicting memories and interests in representation. This includes to address the strong emotions that are often triggered through memories of injustice, disenfranchisement and exploitation experienced in colonial history. Through inclusive collaborative management efforts, the shared heritage approach seeks to negotiate and reconcile such differences to be able to instead concentrate on the shared aspects and commonalities in the regarded heritage subject (Mabulla 2017). The investigation contributes to the current debate between Tanzania and Germany about the value of their shared colonial heritage and appropriate measures of its conservation. The examination employs a historical story-telling approach based on the narration of Serafino Lanzi, a current representative of the Hehe royal clan of the chiefs who was interviewed in the course of fahari yetu. Thereto the events around Mpangile’s execution provide a number of relevant themes to frame the interpretation. I have utilized verbatim quotes where possible to situate the reader in the narrative of the interviewee himself. The narration is supported by observations and experiences from the field, conceptual and content-related alignment from academic literature review, and historical document evaluation.

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

87

Access Biography—Serafino Lanzi and the Mkwawa Dynasty I knew Serafino through our work with fahari yetu whereby he provided interpretations for applied heritage site conservation and connected us to interview partners. In the course of our collaboration I had noticed that he seemed to be driven by a deep personal passion for tracing the Hehe history and would be able to tell us a deep and reflected version of the story of the Mkwawa family. Serafino is born on 10 December, 1971 Serafino in Kiponzelo, Iringa Rural District, to his mother Juditha Sengimba and his stepfather Angelo Mfilinge, both Hehe people. His biological father is the Italian mission worker Luidino Lanzi. His childhood is characterized by the RomanCatholic Mission context his parents come from and irritations in society about his obvious mixed-race background. From 1978 to 1986, he lives on his maternal grandfather’s and great-grandmother’s farm in Isalavano, a village in Mufindi District, not far away from Kiponzelo. The grandfather as the head and the great-grandmother as the medical custodian of the Ngimba clan personify the origins and history of the Hehe people and bring Serafino to learn about the old ways of life which would become a life-long interest and shape his future. After both elders have passed away Serafino returns to his parent’s house in Kiponzelo in 1986 and attends a vocational secondary school nearby from 1987 to 1990 to become a carpenter. Short after finishing his training he starts working for a big timber company, but falls seriously ill for months until he finds cure through traditional Hehe medicine. He does not resume his employment and struggles to find a sustainable occupation around Iringa for a couple of years. In 1993, he moves to live with relatives in Dar es Salaam to undergo further professional training as a driver and electrician. In 1997, he begins to work with Doctors with Africa CUAMM, an Italian NGO protecting and promoting health in Africa. CUAMM relocates Serafino back to Iringa to work for their programmes hosted by the Roman-Catholic mission in the region. In 1998, he marries his wife Veronica, a woman originating from Dodoma, and they start a family. Until 2015, five children are born, three sons and two daughters. In 2001, Serafino’s contract with CUAMM expires and he has to re-orient himself in terms of employment. He gets the opportunity to work for different tourist lodges in Iringa region and discovers his professional destiny in the tourism industry. Serafino decides to settle in Iringa Town where he works for different tour operators and later on his own account. In tourism he can combine his love for history and nature as a tour guide and heritage

88

Jan Kü ver

custodian. At the end of the 2000s he is appointed to the regional tourism committee consisting of various stakeholders in the industry. From 2014 until 2016 he participates in several fahari yetu project activities, including the interpretation and memorial erection at the Kitanzini Hanging Ground at which his ancestor Mpangile had been executed. Serafino’s life story offers several themes for exploring the history of Iringa and the Mkwawa family in particular. First of all, as an offspring of the Ngimba clan he belongs to a side line of the Muyinga chief dynasty, Mpangile’s mother Sengimba (= daughter of Ngimba) arguably was the most powerful female figure in Hehe history. As implied in the opening quote of this chapter, Sengimba had derived her power from her command over Hehe medicine, the protective and curative use of which is another recurrent theme in his life. At the same time Serafino’s story bears references to the social order of new Iringa, such as the Christian missions becoming a cornerstone of life replacing the old ways. His mixed-race origin and experience furthermore point towards the strained relationships between social groups in the colonial system.

The Story of Mpangile Wangimbo It is the 22nd February 1897, in the recently established garrison town of “New Iringa”, German East Africa. The small town on a highland plateau in the South-Central part of the colony has just been founded about half a year earlier by the German colonial occupiers of what used to be the land of the Hehe people. The Germans had established their regional headquarter just about 15 kilometers away from what they called “Old Iringa”, the fortified capital of the famous Hehe chief Mkwawa they had demolished two years earlier in the course of the Hehe wars.3 The highland weather is pleasantly moderate, even though during the rainy season from December to May occasional cloudbursts can happen at any time. The German authorities hope that the rain will not interfere with the public execution that is scheduled for the afternoon. They are still hunting the powerful chief Mkwawa who has fled into the bush from where he wages a guerrilla war against the colonial appropriation of his country. As a measure of breaking the resistance, German commander Tom von Prince has introduced regular public executions of alleged collaborators with Mkwawa. The executions are carried out at a designated execution ground established along a local thoroughfare in form of public spectacles that Mkwawa’s subchiefs (vanzagila) had to attend. They also drew large crowds of onlookers who were to be deterred from supporting the fugitive Mkwawa (von Prince

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

89

1908: 60). Today the list of convicts for execution contains prominent names, Mkwawa’s brother Mpangile, their half-brother Mgungihaka, and three of Mkwawa’s sub-chiefs (vanzagila).

Installation as Native Chief Mpangile is a popular figure among the Hehe. He was born about 1870 (Nigmann 1908: 20) during the tribal wars marking the rise of the Hehe kingdom4 under his father chief Munyigumba and is therefore still a young man compared to his older brother Mkwawa who was born in 1855. He was raised to become a Hehe warrior and fought in the German wars during the first half of the 1890s, Arnold (1995: 107) even suggested that he possibly had been the commander of the Hehe in the battle of Lugalo in 1891, in which a German military expedition had been annihilated. After the establishment of New Iringa, Capt. Tom von Prince wants to harness Mpangile’s popularity to undermine Mkwawa’s power and influence. He decides to install him as vicegerent of Uhehe, hoping that Mpangire would be able to bind enough following to make the Hehe attitude swing pro-German and do away with the spirit of resistance. Mpangile’s ceremonial inauguration as Hehe chief is a colorful event that takes place in New Iringa on Christmas Eve December 24, 1896. A  huge, festively decorated crowd of townspeople awaits the new chief on the parade ground in front of the German military station. More than 500 Askari soldiers5 in military line-up play the tambourine to accompany von Prince, Mpangile and other German and Hehe dignitaries marching in. Von Prince addresses the crowd and hands Mpangile the German imperial flag and a splendid sword upon declaring him the chief of the Hehe people. In the afternoon the festive activities continue, including a donkey race, prize shooting and beef barbecue (Glauning 1898: 51; von Prince 1908: 63f). During the months before and after his inauguration, Mpangile is going in and out the house of Capt. von Prince and his wife in New Iringa and the Benedictine mission station in Old Iringa. Available first-hand accounts of interactions with him draw a stunningly charismatic picture of him. The Benedictine priest Alphons Adams (1899: 54f), who taught Mpangile reading, writing, German language, Christian religion and European courtesies, glorifies him as a young, handsome king who displayed a free, good, intelligent and distinguished demeanor, intellectual curiosity, patience and perseverance in learning. Magdalene von Prince’s diary of the years in Iringa (1908) contains frequent entries about interactions with him, depicting him as “of imposing stature and energetic demeanour that distinguishes him from

90

Jan Kü ver

his surroundings” (57), “a tall, handsome man with open facial features, a free look, and a generally impressive character” (55), and “confident, conversant, curious, gallant charming” (61–62). She also describes how they exchanged gifts, giving him red wine, gin and ham, and receiving a housemaid and an ox in return (61–62).

Trial and Conviction The more positive Mpangile’s characterizations are, the more surprising comes his execution just about two months into his term as native chief. Following a series of attacks on German outposts by Mkwawa and his troops in which several Askari soldiers are killed, Mpangile, Mgungihaka and the sub-chiefs are detained on 14 February, 1897, to spend more than a week in the lock-up of the military station in Iringa. Benedictine priest Adams visits him on 21 February and is shocked seeing him chained to the wall in miserable physical condition. In his account, Mpangile begs him to plead to Capt. von Prince to spare his life and just send him to the coast (Adams 1899; 58ff). Serafino’s uncle Salehe, another respondent I interviewed, claims that Mpangile’s condition in prison resulted from a self-imposed hunger-strike, and that he played the local music instrument Marimba to keep himself and his fellow detainees entertained. On 22 February, the accused are court-martialled in the military station, found guilty of treason, and sentenced to death by hanging. Until today the whole process of Mpangile’s trial and conviction is a contested field of inconsistencies and contradictions concerning the reasons for it to happen, and the interests of the involved actors. Interpretations revolve around the following aspects:  collusion with Mkwawa against the Germans, collusion with the Germans against his brother, and jealousy and adultery.

Collusion with Mkwawa against the Germans The German official version shows that Mpangile was sentenced to death for colluding with his fugitive brother Mkwawa, specifically aiding him in his war of resistance against the Germans through leaking information that had led to targeted guerrilla attacks on outposts and killing of three Askari soldiers (von Prince 1908: 70ff). In his account of his personal relationship with Mpangile during the months before the execution, Adams (1899: 56) notices that Mpangile had been in close contact with his elder brother and apparently considered to assist him in the fight against the Germans. At one occasion Mpangile seeks advice from Adams on his plan to flee to join his brother in

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

91

the bush. It appears that he was undecided and torn between the loyalty to his brother and the promising new life in Iringa under the Germans. Adams concludes that Mkwawa enforced moral influence over Mpangile to aid him in the resistance. Adams’ and Magdalene von Prince’s accounts corroborate each other in painting a positive picture of Mpangile as a cultivated and intelligent man ready to adopt the way of life of the Germans, whose moral integrity on the other hand led him to remain loyal to his roots and family and betray the German cause.

Collusion with the Germans against His Brother Mpangile was collaborating with the Germans to catch Mkwawa, so he started different strategies to draw his older brother to Kalenga and set him up. He slept with Mkwawa’s wives to make him come in anger. But Mkwawa sent people to warn Mpangile that he is more powerful than him and that he would kill him for what he is doing. He arranged a big feast in Kalenga with music, food and beer, and spread the word that he would come to attend. The Germans asked Mpangile about the rumours and in his eagerness to ingratiate himself with them he told them that he had set up the event and made sure his brother would come. But Mkwawa did not show up, the Germans were looking for him all night but no one came. Claiming that he had betrayed them, they arrested Mpangile instead, tortured him and finally hung him in town. (Serafino Lanzi, September 2018)

Serafino draws a less positive picture of Mpangile’s character and alleges him to be a traitor to his brother Mkwawa. According to his interpretation, Mkwawa was suspecting that Mpangile would set him up to be captured, and ran a counter-scheme to eliminate his younger brother instead. Pizzo (2007: 197f) elaborates that the brothers had fallen out since the fall of Mkwawa’s fortified headquarter in Kalenga in 1894.6 Arguing that his brother had not been able to protect the Hehe kingdom, Mpangile began to push for Mkwawa’s abdication, fancying to ascend the throne himself. Since then Mkwawa was full of mistrust against his younger brother and did not send him to the following negotiations with the Germans because he feared that Mpangile would submit to the Germans. Still from Pizzo’s argument it doesn’t become clear if Mpangile actually plotted against his brother, or if it was Mkwawa’s paranoia that made him set up his younger brother. Yet it is likely that Mpangile and Mkwawa really had an ambiguous relationship and that the ambiguity contributed to the eventual killing of Mpangile. We can also note that Serafino’s interpretation gives Mkwawa the active role in the course of events, it takes away the agency from the Germans of detecting and punishing a treachery scheme.

92

Jan Kü ver

Jealousy and Adultery In addition to accusations of collusion with both sides it could have been very ordinary human emotions that finally led to Mpangile’s death. There are stories of Mpangile committing adultery with the wives of the key antagonists on both sides. In the quote above, Serafino accuses him of sleeping with Mkwawa’s wife to provoke a reaction. In line with this assertion, Pizzo (2007: 210) cites a key informant saying that Mpangile and Mkwawa indeed collaborated behind Prince’s back, but then Mkwawa fell out in anger with his brother for sleeping with his wives and arranged “evidence” for the Germans that proved their collaboration. On the other side I  have shown the infatuated picture Capt. Tom von Prince’s wife Magdalene (1908) drew of Mpangile. Michael Pesek (2017) suggests that Magdalene possibly had a romantic or sexual relationship with Mpangile. Her husband Tom discovered the liaison and ordered to execute the sultan out of jealousy. Or even if there was no actual sexual contact between the two, Tom may have noticed her obvious infatuation with Mpangile and jealousy eventually biased his judgment in the court-martial.

The Execution After the sentence the convicts are to follow the execution procedure immediately. My grandfather told me that after the judgement by the commander the convicts had to walk up the Legezamwendo street until the execution place on the edge of the escarpment. For the executions they had selected a place on a high point so that the officers at the Boma could see what is going on up there. They had also deliberately chosen a spot along the thoroughfare connecting the old Hehe capital in Ng’uluhe with the fortified one in Kalenga. That means many people were passing there who they wanted to threaten with the executions and the dead bodies. (Serafino Lanzi, September 2018)

The course of events during the execution itself is another field of contestation. Von Prince (1908: 60) elaborates that convicted prisoners were usually sentenced to death by hanging. When dangling on the gallows they were given a coup de grâce to grant them an immediate death. Adams’ (1899: 59) remembers that in Mpangile’s case the executioners, because they saw no blood running to the ground from the first shot, fired a second shot on him to make sure he would be dead. He adds that this need for a second shot led to superstitious interpretations among the Hehe people afterwards. They fired at him but the bullets did not enter his body. Mpangile Wangimbo just looked at them with contempt and boasted in front of them saying ‘I am

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

93

Mpangile Wangimbo the son of Sengimba the beautiful, the one with the sweetest breasts giving the strongest medicine from God. I sucked that medicine from her breast so you cannot mess with me!’ The Germans said this guy will not take us for fools and brought a metal hook. They thrusted it into his throat and hung him up to die in a torturous manner. (Serafino Lanzi, September 2018)

In this version of the story Mpangile’s invulnerability to bullets forced the Germans to resort to a different method of despatch. The power to withstand bullets is attributed to the war medicine that has been crafted in the royal Muyinga family7 under the great custodian Sengimba and therefore creates a link of personal empowerment for Serafino as descendent of the same family. Adams (1899:  74) reports that Mpangile’s last words before dying on the hook were an appeal to his people shouting “Kapirimbo (Capt. Tom von Prince) wants to kill me; go now to join my brother in the wilderness and wage war!” His words imply that in the face of death, he finally reconciled the differences with his older brother Mkwawa and submits to the cause of fighting for the freedom of his people.

Aftermath Another mystery surrounding the story and execution of Mpangile Wangimbo is what happened to his dead body after the execution. Most of the dead bodies of the executed were just thrown to the crows and hyenas into the ravine behind where the mosque is nowadays. The ravine was called kisima cha bibi, the grandmother’s well. But sometimes the relatives of the dead came to retrieve the bodies. We were told that the two brothers of Mkwawa, Mpangile and Mgungihaka, were buried somewhere near where the Samora Stadium is today. Unfortunately, we do not know the exact location but they were buried. (Serafino Lanzi, September 2018)

It seems likely that the Hehe community would not just leave the bodies of two important members of the royal family to the ravens and secure their bodies for a proper burial. Yet only very few people happen to remember that a burial took place and apparently there was no proper grave site or gravestone erected back in the days. What adds to the mystery is that the reconstructed collection history of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin shows that the skull of Mpangile had been among objects received from German East Africa in 1898 (Weber 2005: 72f, 154; cited after Ivanov and WeberSinn 2017: 130). In case the skull really went to Berlin, the Germans must have decapitated Mpangile’s dead body after the execution and either threw

94

Jan Kü ver

the headless body into the ravine, from where it was recovered by Hehe people, or buried it themselves in the place remembered by the community. After the end of the Hehe wars the Kitanzini area became one of the first settlements for Hehe people moving to town from the villages. Today it is a very poor neighborhood in Iringa. Today the hanging ground in its middle is still remembered by some of its residents, even though it seems that the memory began to fade with the removal of the mango tree from which the convicts were hanged. That tree was there for a long time until it was finally cut in the 1980s. We were told that the ones responsible for cutting it went mentally ill short after, probably they were haunted by the ancestors who hung from that tree. (Serafino Lanzi, September 2018)

The Power of Medicine and Ancestral Worship War Medicine and Its Custody In the opening quote of the chapter Mpangile identifies what he calls “medicine” as the source of his strength to prevail over death in his confrontation with the German oppressor in Iringa. In Hehe tradition, the chief traditionally owed his position partly to his genealogy as member of the Muyinga dynasty, partly to his own ability and intelligence, and partly to lihomelo, the war medicine he commanded (Redmayne 1968a:  424, 429). Many Hehe people believe that is was the possession of this medicine that enabled Munyigumba and Mkwawa to unite the Hehe people during the tribal and anti-colonial wars (Redmayne 1968b:  45). Chief Mkwawa’s war medicine was described as a black mass stored in a cow horn, which was carried clearly visible for friend and foe by one of his closest confidants during every war campaign (Fülleborn 1906: 217).Their soldiers would take this medicine of magical and immunizing nature by dint of which they would become invisible to their enemies (Crema 1987: 19). When it was time for him to marry his first wife, Munyigumba decided to marry a daughter of the Ngimba clan because the Ngimbas were known to have very strong war medicine. (Serafino Lanzi, September 2018)

Mpangile refers to his mother Sengimba as the dispenser of the spiritual power he possessed. Sengimba became Munyigumba’s first wife at the beginning of his reign in 1855 and until 1879 gave birth to six children, three sons and three daughters, among them Mkwawa and Mpangile (Nigmann 1908: 20). Soon after their marriage she became the custodian of Munyigumba’s war

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

95

medicine. This gave her a strong position in the male-dominated Hehe society, Arning (1896: 243) describes her as a woman of extraordinary energetic nature who influenced her husband in how to conduct his war campaigns. The tradition of female custodians of lihomelo in the Mkwawa dynasty lives on until today, that is as illustrated by Fischer (2016) in reporting an outcome of a research project on local worship and healing helmed by fahari yetu. Fischer introduces the present female spiritual authority of the Hehe and examines her role of mediating rituals of ancestral offering and communication between the chief with his great-grandfather Mkwawa.

Talking to the Ancestors Beyond a mere war context, Hehe medicine can be regarded as a reification of spiritual power that helped the people of Uhehe to cure diseases, master harsh weather conditions and protect themselves against evil deeds. Spiritual power had to be gained or mediated through communication with the ancestors who would share their advice with the living generation. It has been handed down that the great chief Mkwawa drew a lot of strength and war strategy from regular conversation with his deceased father Munyigumba. The Germans tried to get a picture of Mkwawa but they did not succeed. My grandfather told me that it had occurred to his father Munyigumba in his dreams before he died that there would come people with white skin to the Hehe land. And that these white people would not be good people, that they would come to take the land from us, to govern us, and to make us bow down to them. Mkwawa had to swear an oath to his father that we would never allow the white man to touch or even see him. (Serafino Lanzi, September 2018)

Available European accounts (Kiepert 1886; Adams 1899; von Prince 1908) unanimously report that Mkwawa never attended European visitors himself but always sent mediators on behalf for negotiations. There are also no existing photographs of the Chief that would give an idea of his personal appearance. Fülleborn (1906: 208) concedes that no European can pride himself of having seen Mkwawa knowingly, except for the corpse after his death. The Germans had noticed the importance of ancestral worship for the fugitive chief. After Mpangile’s death, Capt. von Prince gave order to raze the whole enclosure of the family grave in Rungemba where his father Munyigumba was buried. We can regard this as an act of deliberate spiritual warfare and emotional debasement, aiming to crush Mkwawa’s morale by disconnecting him from his ancestors and their support and advice. Serafino doubts that the Germans would have been powerful enough succeed with

96

Jan Kü ver

desecrating the grave as they would have to overcome the ancestors’ protection of such sacred place. The ancestors reside in the place where they lost their life or where their remains are buried and chase intruders with bad deeds away in the shape of bees, scorpions or snakes. He also believed that the souls of Mpangile and others executed at Kitanzini continued to live in the hanging tree and took possession of those who came to fell the tree. I  could personally observe Serafino’s spiritual connection to the ancestors when he spoke to his great-grandfather Mwangimba, Mkwawa’s bodyguard and confidant in the German wars, at Mlambalasi, and the great Sengimba at her suicide spot in Kikongoma. Through worshipping the ancestors in these places their power and strength can be reified as medicine to be transferred to other places or conferred upon the descendants.

Tracing the Spirit of Resistance The story of Mpangile’s installation and execution in his own land showcases the arbitrary violence and destructive ideology of colonialism. On the other hand, it also exemplifies the spirit of defiance, resistance and deceit against the colonial conquest that served and still serves as a source of pride for the people of Iringa.

Mkwawa’s Resistance Mpangile’s brother Mkwawa chose a path of violent resistance against the Germans. The legend says that, after the heavy losses in the battle of Lugalo, he swore another oath on the grave of his father Munyigumba, that he would never again campaign against the white man in open battle (Fülleborn 1906:  209). Instead he transformed his tactics and shifted to a decentralized, concealed form of warfare based on the uncertainty of when, where and against whom he would strike. This made him a less predictable hence much more dangerous enemy that the Germans truly feared and admired. In her diary, Magadalene von Prince vividly describes the unease, fear and resentment that the German and allied inhabitants of New Iringa felt during this period of constant harassment and attack. She writes “we are facing a people controlled by the will of one person. Mkwawa’s mighty hand is tangible everywhere, all our thoughts and worries revolve around ‘HIM’ (von Prince 1908: 83).” After Mkwawa is finally dead and defeated,8 she notes “we have to give our highest esteem to the Hehe as the enemy. Many of them loyally supported their former ruler till death (von Prince 1908: 157).”

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

97

Mpangile’s Defiance In both local tradition and written accounts of his execution, Mpangile’s demeanor in the face of death ooze the spirit of defiance against the colonial subjugation of his people. Denying death through the method chosen by the oppressor and imposing another one gives him an active role in the procedure instead of just being victimized and eliminated. Interestingly, the invulnerability to bullets through war medicine and the killing by hanging appears as foreshadowing the events in the Maji war nearly 10 years later. The Maji warriors similarly relied on war medicine to make their bodies bullet-proof, and many of them were hanged in public executions by the Germans in punitive expeditions (Giblin and Monson 2010). The symbolism conveyed in the Hehe version of Mpangile’s execution therefore places the Hehe war in a line of anti-colonial resistance events. Adams (1899: 74) reports that Mpangile’s last words before dying on the hook were an appeal to his people shouting “Kapirimbo (Capt. Tom von Prince) wants to kill me; go now to join my brother in the wilderness and wage war!” The colonial record takes a similarly admiring stance as the local tradition and draws a picture of moral redemption and integrity. The words imply that in the face of death, after being lost in transition between the old and the new world, Mpangile finally reconciled the differences with his older brother Mkwawa. In the very end, he recognizes that the way into the future cannot lead through a path of oppression but only through fighting for the freedom of his people. His call can be interpreted as an allegory for the fight for freedom of all Africans from colonial rule and a pre-cursor of the later anti-colonial independence movement.

Between Complicity and Deceit—Navigating the Colonial System During the German wars many Hehe supposedly decided to cooperate with the Germans for their own health and safety yet still deceived them in providing information or assistance. In her diary, Magdalene von Prince observes how allied Hehe still subtly supported or protected their fugitive chief Mkwawa. She suspects that most local guides accompanying troop detachments would make sure to not reveal the Chief’s position and deliberately lead the Germans away when knowing he was near. On march they would also always make sure to scan the area from the hills ahead of the soldiers and find ways to secretly supply the fugitive with food (von Prince 1908: 184f). In her interpretation the people were torn apart between two alternatives, the chief as their heritage and cultural identity, and the German establishment as a new opportunity. With their behavior they could show loyalty to both

98

Jan Kü ver

sides: “The people wanted peace for their land, but they did not want to buy it through betraying their sultan.” Less romanticizing, Pizzo (2012) coins the described behavior “cunning tactics.” In contrast to the common colonial narrative he conceives Africans as active, self-interested participants in the colonization process, who played different roles as adversaries, power-brokers or system beneficiaries. These roles had to be negotiated in a system of general inferiority status given to them (Pizzo 2012: 75). While openly opposing the colonizers usually led to their violent oppression and abuse, a smart way of collaboration involving covert opposition gave them opportunities to exploit the colonial system for their own benefit. Apparently, in the months before his death Mpangile was masterly able to win over the German authorities and became a powerful and actor and beneficiary of their administration. At the same time, he secretly assisted his brother in organizing the insurgency. In the end he possibly overdid playing both sides and fell between all stools. A couple of decades later, we see history repeating in the story of Mpangile’s nephew Sapi. Similar to his uncle he was able to use his wits and popularity to use the colonial system of inequality, now the British edition, to serve his own interests (Brockmeyer 2017: 20ff). Nevertheless, one afternoon in April 1940 an obviously drunk Sapi turned up at the Boma, the central administration building in Iringa, and began to cuss the British officials, shouting that this would be his country, that he would recognize no European whoever he may be, and that if the Germans would take Dar es Salaam he would take Iringa back for the Hehe people (Brockmeyer 2017:  23f). The outbreak, which revealed not only his deep loyalty to his people, but also an ambiguous identification with the previous German oppressor and current enemy of the British, led to his removal from the chieftaincy and eventual death in forced exile at the other end of the Tanganyika territory. Serafino claims that Hehe leaders and ordinary people deceived the Germans in many things. In one of our discussions of puzzling historical pieces together, he vehemently questioned the German narrative of opening and investigating the grave of Mkwawa’s father Munyigumba in Rungemba. In his opinion the Hehe, whether the living or the ancestral spirits, would never have allowed the Germans to desecrate their chiefs’ graves. Instead they must have led them to a wrong grave to protect themselves and satisfy the foreigners demands. In this case the cunning behavior of the people, whether having actually happened in the past or being attributed to them in the present narration, serves the Hehe to obtain agency and recover the command over historical interpretation.

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

99

Human Remains and Their Whereabouts Mpangile’s Head According to local memory in Iringa, Mpangile’s body was buried in a place near the execution ground. Yet the question of the whereabouts of his skull remains to be answered. Under the guise of anthropological research purposes, in imperial Germany thousands of skulls and bones of deceased subjects were sent to Germany from the African and other colonies, to be subjected to racist pseudo-scientific measurement procedures. The digitized archive of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin mentions receipt of the skull in 1898 in two documents.9 None of Hehe respondents I interviewed had been aware of the possible removal of Mpangile’s skull from Iringa when I shared the results of my investigation into the German archives with them. Serafino immediately went to trace direct descendants of Mpangile in Iringa and other parts of Tanzania, who also had not idea that part of the remains of their great-grandfather could still be retrievable from a basement storage of the museum in Berlin. Serafino showed strong interest to find out if the skulls is still available and if yes, to initiate a joint restitution project of returning it to Iringa to display it in the Iringa Boma museum established by fahari yetu.

The Skull of Chief Mkwawa Mpangile’s skull is not the only human remain from the Mkwawa family around which stories of German removal and storage entwine. The story of the skull of his brother Mkwawa is widely known and as famous as disputed. The official record says that his body was buried right near the site of his demise while the head was chopped off for evidence and submitted it to Capt. Tom von Prince in New Iringa. After having it provisionally dried and treated, von Prince made a photograph of it and kept it in his house for some time, as it is described in detail by his wife in her diary (von Prince 1908: 180). He then apparently ordered the station physician to cook of the flesh before sending the skull to Dar es Salaam about two months later. Baer and Schroeter (2001: 187f) assume that von Prince sought to keep the human remains of his nemesis as a family trophy and sent it privately to an unknown anatomy in Germany for professional preparation. After preparation in Germany the skull likely was sent back to Iringa, as the Benedictine missionary Michael Hofer describes a visit to the station where he and other guests examined the skull at the dinner table just after it had arrived in a post parcel from Dar es Salaam (Hofer and Renner 1978: 199). It remains unclear what happened to

100

Jan Kü ver

the skull from there until it was identified in the Anthropological Museum in Bremen and returned to Iringa more than 50 years later.10 While Tom von Prince died in the battle of Tanga in World War 1, it is possible that his wife Magdalene took it to Germany after his death and later sold or donated it to the museum. Although chief Adam Sapi acknowledged, that the skull he received in 1954 was the one of his grandfather Mkwawa, the returned skull was never subjected to a DNA test to confirm its authenticity. During our interviews and site visits, Serafino repeatedly suggested that the skull presented in the Mausoleum in Kalenga may not be Mkwawa’s but one that has been mistakenly taken for it. He argued that the Germans did not know how the chief look like and depended on local Hehe residents to identify the dead body. Because most of the Hehe people were deeply loyal to their chief, they may have tricked the German authorities and presented a body which was actually not the right one to them. Serafino claims that there are Hehe elders who remember that Mkwawa had been dead before already and that his body with skull was secretly buried in either Kalenga near his old fortress, or at his father’s family burial site in Rungemba. As a researcher, I personally do not believe in the factual accuracy of these assertions, as they would render the later demand and subsequent search for the skull pointless. I  rather read them as political claims. The story of the violent removal, search and eventual return of the relic is official historiography that has been coined by the German and British colonial authorities as key actors. Re-writing it from an alternative perspective can be regarded as an effort of re-claiming the sovereignty of interpretation over the sequence of historical events that took place. In Serafino’s version the chief eluded himself from colonial capture until after his death and thereby from the role of the victim being mutilated and denied his human dignity. Deceiving the oppressor puts the chief and the Hehe people in an active position of power instead, and receiving a proper burial restores the integrity of the family history.

Mkwawa’s Tooth Even after giving the skull into public custody, the von Prince family kept on holding a personal relic from the human remains of the chief. They had broken out a tooth from the skull and cased it into a golden stamp of the family coat of arms. Over more than 100 years von Prince’s descendants had developed a desire for reconciliation and prepared for a visit to Iringa to return the tooth to Abdul, then reigning chief of the Hehe and great-grandson of Mkwawa. The handover took place in Kalenga on 19 July, 2014, the 116th

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

101

anniversary of the day of the chief’s death, as the climax of the Mkwawa cultural festival organized by fahari yetu. During their visit the von Prince descendants were accompanied by a TV production team of the German WDR Fernsehen who produced a documentary of the return of the tooth (see Braun and Lerch 2015). In the depicted interviews several von Prince family members describe the tooth as a curse that had brought various misfortunes such as physical and mental diseases over the family. When they finally hand the tooth over, it feels like a strong relief from a massive burden that had been laid on them. Interestingly, with the handover the curse seems to be transferred to the Mkwawa family. Only a few months later chief Abdul died of a sudden heart attack. Other family members began to whisper that this happened because no clan elders had been involved in the return procedure. Since the death of her father the tooth is in custody of Abdul’s daughter Fatuma Mkwawa.

Munyigumba’s Remains The digitized records of the collection of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin document the receipt of remains of chief Munyigumba together with the skull of Mpangire in 1898.11 In an act of spiritual warfare, in 1897 the Germans had rased the enclosure of the tomb of Mkwawa’s father in Rungemba, a place Mkwawa allegedly visited every full moon to bring offerings to and communicate with his deceased ancestor (Stierling 1957:  28). Stierling, the head physician of the Schutztruppe in Iringa, had been entrusted with opening Munyigumba’s grave and retrieving the remains of the chief. In his account be describes how local Hehe informants pointed him to the right grave and how he retrieved the skeleton from it. He then supports his belief that he really dug our Munyigumba’s skeleton with reference to the examination results on the retrieved skull he received from Prof. Luschan in Berlin (Stierling 1957: 27f). In several discussions Serafino vehemently contested the removed remains to be the ones of Munyigumba. In his opinion it wouldn’t have been possible for the Germans to open the real grave of the chief. First of all, he was convinced that Munyigumba, a man of great vision who had been able to foretell significant events such as the coming of the Germans, would have shielded the grave by ancestral protection which the Germans would not have been able to break. Secondly, Serafino referred to the subversive attitude and behavior of the local Hehe people by the time and believed that they wouldn’t have pointed the intruders to the right grave. They would have tricked them by showing them a wrong grave to protect the integrity and

102

Jan Kü ver

eternal rest of their great chief. And indeed, Stierling just approximates to have identified the right grave in his account, even noticing that they acted obstinate upon his inquiries (Stierling 1957: 28). Similar to the story of the skull of Chief Mkwawa, Serafino’s take on Munygumba’s remains strives to gain sovereignty of interpretation over historical events, giving the Hehe people the control over the situation and restoring the dignity of the chief and his family.

Concluding Reflections The local claim for sovereignty of interpretation is the main theme that emerged from the examined case of shared historical heritage in Iringa. The respondents’ narrations of the events challenge the authoritative historiography laid out in academic literature, which is based on the trope of the local actors as powerless, devoted victims. The accounts of Mpangile’s behavior in prison as well as defiance on the gallows call can be read as political arguments for the recognition of the Hehe as active key players in the course of events. The same applies to the cases of questioning the removal of human remains from the Hehe royal family. While the common historiography has the victimized bodies under the colonizers’ disposal, the presented alternative versions elude them from foreign control of their fate and restore the chief’s human integrity and dignity. After recognizing local heritage narrations with their alternative views and interests, these should not only be regarded in their difference from hegemonic historiographies, but also be examined after their similarities. Concerning Iringa history, we find that even the cited colonial records single out chief Mkwawa as the key actor in the war around whom all thoughts and action revolved, which shifts, whether unwillingly or not, the qualitative focus from the justification of the colonial conquest to the resistance against it. Also, both local tradition and written colonial accounts of Mpangile’s demeanor and last words in the face of execution ooze the spirit of defiance and resistance against the colonial subjugation of himself and his people, and draw a similarly admiring picture of his moral redemption and integrity. The whole theme is a good example of shared heritage with its conflicting as well as corresponding interests and inherent power relations that need to be balanced in the course of current re-interpretation and management. Shared heritage is characterized by the ambiguity of interpretations, and it is this ambiguity with its doubts and uncertainties that creates ongoing mystery around the subject and adds to the overall attraction of the heritage resource. The collaborative conservation and management of the shared

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

103

colonial heritage of Iringa requires to bring forth such alternative, ambiguous interpretations and voices and share them with German and international audiences, as a means of empowering the formerly disenfranchised local community. The sharing and mediation of alternative local interpretations to German and international audiences may lastly be the role designated for me as the foreign researcher. I have to acknowledge that, despite all knowledge I have gathered on the matter, I cannot be the local voice. At the end of the day, as a German living and working in Tanzania, I still represent a hegemonic side view of the world. Jan Kuever, let me tell you something. You may come and do research and get to know everything that is written in the books and what the people tell you. But there will still be something that only natives can know or feel about the things that happened, something that you cannot feel or know because you cannot be as close to it on the inside! (Serafino Lanzi, December 2018).

Serafino’s statement is a very direct reflection of my positionality as a researcher as well as heritage practitioner gathering, interpreting and conveying knowledge about the culture and history of the local people in Iringa. I have conducted this study in a post-colonial context that evokes a historical anthropological research setup of a foreign white ethnographer gazing on non-white native subjects. Furthermore, in my case this evocation was augmented by the situation of being a German researcher looking at a local heritage configuration strongly shaped by German colonial history. I remember one experience related to the latter from an early fahati yetu project presentation event in Kalenga, the old political center of the Hehe chiefdom. A group of Hehe elders had dressed up in traditional garment to illustrate the cultural importance of our project and I met Fatuma Mkwawa, the daughter of the then reigning chief for the first time. After the event we passed by the Chief Mkwawa Museum and Memorial Site for a photo shooting. I remember how irritated I was when Fatuma greeted me very brusque and apparently avoided to pose with me in front of the family gravestones. The elders accompanying us obviously felt bad about it and tried to explain. While in their opinion the Hehe people in general nowadays have a joking relationship12 with the Germans, she would be one of the few still getting emotional about the violent subjugation of her ancestors and me as a German coming to lead a new project of historical conservation and representation. One enters the translation process from a specific location, from which one only partly escapes. In successful translation […] something different is brought

104

Jan Kü ver

over, made available for understanding, appreciation, consumption. At the same time, the moment of failure is inevitable. An awareness of what escapes the “finished” version will always trouble the moment of success. […] Such an awareness of location emerges less from introspection than from confrontation (you are white, European, etc.) and from practical alliance (“on this, at least, we can work together) (Clifford 1997: 182f).

The failure he refers to is exactly what Serafino mentions in his quote, that my work will lack a certain taste of originality because there are some intangible meanings and emotions that I cannot access as an outsider. He also reminds me that I make a translations from a position of power when I interpret Hehe perspectives on the colonial history of Iringa. I  have to acknowledge that, despite all knowledge I have gathered on the matter, I cannot be the local voice. At the end of the day, as a German living and working in Tanzania, I  still represent a hegemonic view of the world. From that realization, my designated role as a foreign researcher may just be to share and mediate alternative local interpretations to German and international audiences. I do not accept that anyone is permanently fixed by his or her “identity”; but neither can one shed specific structures of race and culture, class and caste, gender and sexuality, environment and history. I understand these, and other cross-cutting determinations, not as homelands, chosen or forced, but as sites of worldly travel: difficult encounters and occasions for dialogue (Clifford 1997: 12).

Notes 1. Fahari yetu is a Swahili term translating to “our pride” and refers to the programme’s guiding principle of making people proud of their origins, culture and history. 2. “The elephant in the room” is a methaphorical idiom for an obvious problem or controversial issue that no one wants to discuss. Laurajane Smith (2016) introduces the term to heritage studies whereby she refers to the importance of emotions and affects in relation to cultural heritage. The colonial heritage of Iringa as an “elephant” follows this interpretation in a way as it triggers strong emotional references but is hardly addressed in public debate. 3. The Hehe wars, as they were coined by Alison Redmayne (1968a), describe a conflict between the German imperial forces and the Hehe people in the South-Central part of German East Africa during the final decade of the 19th century. The conflict arose from both sides’ interest in the lucrative ivory and slave trade caravans through central Tanganyika which the Germans strived to control without Hehe road tolls and raids, and eventually culminated in the lengthy conquest of Uhehe, the land of the Hehe. The Hehe wars became a defining sequence in the history of the German colonialization of East Africa due to the grim resistance of the Hehe under their famous chief Mkwawa. Key events of the Hehe wars are the annihilation of the first German military expedition into Uhehe in the battle of Lugalo in August 1891, the destruction of the fortified Hehe capital Kalenga in the second expedition in

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

105

October 1894, the establishment of the German garrison town of “New Iringa” in 1896, Mkwawa’s ongoing guerrilla war against the German establishment in Iringa from 1896 to 1898, and finally the chief’s death in July 1898. For a detailed course of events in the Hehe wars see Redmayne (1968a), (1968b), Pizzo (2007, 2012), and Ngassapa (2011). 4. The German Lieutenant Hans Glauning’s (1898: 5–6) defined the Hehe people as “a mixture of all the peoples that were subdued by a great rulers’ dynasty during a time period of 40 –50 years.” Chief Munyigumba Mwamuyinga, who reigned from 1855 to 1879 (Nigmann 1908: 9), is commonly credited with subjugating and uniting the local clans and chiefdoms of the area into one people, and expanding the territory in campaigns against neighboring groups including the Sagara, Bena, Sangu and Ngoni. The Hehe now had the reputation of being a warrior people. His son Mukwavinyika Mwamuyinga, in short Mkwawa, who reigned from 1881 to 1898, further expanded the empire against the Kimbu, Nyamwezi and Gogo in the North, to gain access to the caravan trade that went through their lands. For detailed accounts on the history of the Hehe kingdom see Nigmann (1908), Ngassapa (2011), Arning (1896, 1897) and Redmayne (1968a, 1968b). 5. Askari is a Swahili term for guard or soldier. In German East Africa it became the common term for the African soldiers who fought for the Germans during the colonial conquest until WWI. In the beginning many Askaris were brought from Sudan and Mozambique. After colonial administration was established, most soldiers were recruited from subjugated local ethnic groups. For detailed accounts on the role and life of Askari soldiers see Michels (2009), Moyd (2014) and Giblin and Monson (2010). 6. In the beginning of the 1890’s Kalenga, the capital of Uhehe, had become a prosperous and industrious town of about 4000–5000 inhabitants which attracted people and visitors from various other places. It was surrounded by a stone wall of four meters in height and at least five kilometers in length, giving it the appearance of a German town during the 30 Years’ War in 17th century Europe (von Schele 1896). The centralization of the Hehe kingdom through the establishment of a fortified capital can be regarded as the biggest achievement of Chief Mkwawa which sets him apart from other local chiefdoms in the area. It marks the apex of the Hehe kingdom as Winans (1965: 438) remarks “the whole Hehe state seems to have operated from a fixed centre, at least for the brief period of two generations which mark it zenith.” The Germans knew that they would have to capture Kalenga in order to break the resistance of the Hehe people. Towards the end of the dry season 1894 the new German Governor himself, Col. Baron von Schele, led the campaign against the Hehe capital with Capt. Tom von Prince as second in command. The heavy artillery shelling of Kalenga began on 28 October 1894 and went on for two days. On 30 October the German troops stormed and captured the fort. The massive stone fort was shattered in ruins, but Mkwawa himself had fled into the bush and continued the war of resistance from there. For a detailed course of events see Ngassapa (2011), von Schele (1896) and Pizzo (2007). 7. Before the 19th century the Hehe highland was inhabited by a number of clans who had established themselves in small chiefdoms and shared language and culture. While the majority of the population of these chiefdoms was of Bantu-speaking origin, during the 17th and 18th century an immigration of Semitic- and Nilotic-speaking

106

Jan Kü ver

groups into the area took. According to the Hehe origin myth, the forebear of the Muyinga dynasty was a light-skinned hunter of Habesh origin in Ethiopia, who came into Uhehe from the neighboring Usagara in the North-West. He fathered a son with the daughter of a local clan chief who was named Mwamuyinga, meaning the son of a nomad or roamer in Hehe language (Ngassapa 2011: 40). Mwamuyinga became the first ruler of the Muyinga dynasty around 1730 (Nigmann 1908: 8). In the 19th century his descendants Munyigumba and Mkwawa would become the great rulers of the Hehe people. For detailed accounts on the Muyinga genealogy see Ngassapa (2011), Nigmann (1908) and Malangalila (1987). 8. After more than one and a half years on the run, in July 1898 Mwawa finally could not elude himself any more from the German hunt. Sergeant Merkl provides a vivid report of the tedious pursuit (von Prince 1908: 180f), ending with how he tracked him down with a small detachment on 19 July, when they discovered the dead bodies of the chief and his bodyguard after they had shot themselves. “The man they found him with was Mwangimba. He was Mkwawa’s cousin, his loyal bodyguard and his closest confidant. When Mkwawa could not run any longer and wanted to kill himself, Mwangimba insisted the chief to kill him first so that he could prepare for Mkwawa’s arrival in the next world. They knew that there is God and that after death they would reach to another place and another life. Mwangimba was the uncle of my grandfather mzee Ngimba.” (Serafino Lanzi, September 2018). Serafino’s words illustrate that the death of chief Mkwawa marks the probably biggest caesura in the history of Iringa. The quote reads as Mkwawa’s final self-determined acknowledgment that it was time for him to go and take the old Iringa with him. His demise would make way for a new era with a new way of life in Iringa. And it was Serafino’s ancestor who sacrificed himself to enable the transition from the old to the new Iringa. In undying loyalty his great-grand-uncle accompanied the chief on his last journey of letting go of his kingdom. 9. ID numbers I/MV 0719 and E 575/1898. Source: SMB-digital. Online collections database (2019, April 10). Retrieved from http://www.smb-digital.de. 10. After the end of World War 1, the Hehe forwarded a demand for return to the British administration who incorporated it into the Treaty of Versailles, committing the Germans to return the skull within six months of coming into force of the treaty (Green 1961:  1–2). Although the Germans were willing to comply to the treaty’s demand, they failed to trace and identify the right skull in the anthropological museums and archives in question (Green 1961: 40–41, 43, 47–49). In 1951 the issue garnered attention again, this time fueled by the initiative of the then governor of Tanganyika, Sir Edward Twining, who had visited Iringa and heard the tale from Adam Sapi, reigning chief and grandson of Mkwawa. Following two years of correspondence with relevant authorities in Germany, it was finally suggested that the skull might be in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Bremen (Green 1961: 50). After measuring the cephalic indices of Adam Sapi and other descendants of Mkwawa, Sir von Twining traveled to Bremen and personally identified the skull in cooperation with the German authorities (Green 1961:  51–58). Finally, on 19 June 1954, 56 years since the day the Germans hacked off Mkwawa’s head, the skull was returned in a plastic casket to Chief Adam Sapi and other Hehe dignitaries in a solemn ceremony in Kalenga. It was placed on a pedestal below a portrait of the great chief inside a mausoleum specially built for this sacred relic (Green 1961: 59–61).

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

107

11. SMB-digital. Online collections database (2019, April 10). Retrieved from http:// www.smb-digital.de. 12. Joking relationships is an anthropological concept coined by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (1940) describing a relationship between two people that involves a ritualized banter of teasing or mocking. It takes place, for example between a man and his maternal mother-in-law in some South African indigenous societies. The joking relationship is an interaction that mediates and stabilizes social relationships where there is tension, competition, or potential conflict, such as between in-laws and between clans and tribes. Hehe people commonly identify themselves to have a joking relationship with the Ngoni people through which the long-standing history of war between the two groups is mediated. Seemingly more recently, many Hehe characterize their present relationship with the Germans as a joking relationship as well, indicating that there should not be resentment any more without denying the burden of enmity and colonial violence from the past.

Bibliography Adams, A. M. (1899). Im Dienste des Kreuzes: Erinnerungen aus meinem Missionsleben in Deutsch-Ostafrika. Augsburg St. Ottilien: Commissionsverlag Michael Seitz. Arning, W.  (1896). Die Wahehe. In F.  V. Danckelman (ed.), Mitteilungen von Forschungsreisenden und Gelehrten aus den Deutschen Schutzgebieten (Vol. 9). Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler, 233–246. Arnold, B.  (1995). Die Schlacht bei Rugaro 1891 (Iringa, Tansania). Der Verlauf der Kämpfe und Ursachen der Niederlage des Expeditionskorps der kaiserlichen Schutztruppe für Deutsch-Ostafrika. In P. Sebald, P. Heine, and Heyden, U. van der U. van der (eds.), Studien zur Geschichte des deutschen Kolonialismus in Afrika: Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Peter Sebald. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 94–113. Baer, M., and Schröter, O.  (2001). Eine Kopfjagd:  Deutsche in Ostafrika:  Spuren kolonialer Herrschaft. Berlin: Links. Brockmeyer, B. (2017). Doing colonialism: Reading the banishment of a “native chief” in the Tanganyika territory. http://doi.org/10.4119/UNIBI/indi-v7-i1-151 Clifford, J. (1997). Routes. Travel and translation in the late twentieth century. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press. Crema, E. (1987). Wahehe, a Bantu people. Scientific library new series: Vol. 1. Bologna, Italy: EMI. Fischer, G. (2016). Talking to Chief Mkwawa: Multivocality and negotiation in an ancestral offering in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands. Ethnography 17 (2): 278–293. Fülleborn, F.  (1906). Das Deutsche Njassa- und Ruvuma-Gebiet:  Land und Leute, nebst Bemerkungen über die Schire-Länder. Deutsch-Ostafrika. Wissenschaftliche Forschungsresultate über Land und Leute unseres ostafrikanischen Schutzgebietes und der angrenzenden Länder, Vol. 9. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. Giblin, J. L. and Monson, J. (eds.). (2010). Maji: Lifting the fog of war. African social studies series (Vol. 20). Leiden: Brill.

108

Jan Kü ver

Glauning, H. (1898). Uhehe. In Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft (ed.), Verhandlungen der Abteilung Berlin-Charlottenburg 1897/98. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 40–67. Green, L. G. (1961). Great road north. Cape Town: Howard Timmins. Hofer, M., and Renner, F. (1978). Im Dienst und Schutz des Höchsten: Bruder Michael Hofer erzählt sein Leben. Sankt Ottilien: Eos. Ivanov, P.  and Weber-Sinn, K.  (2017). Collecting Mania and Violence:  Objects from Colonial Wars in the Depot of the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin. In L.  Reyels (ed.), Humboldt Lab Tanzania. Objekte aus kolonialen Kriegen im Ethnologischen Museum, Berlin. Deutsch-tansanische Perspektiven. Berlin:  Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 66–149. Kiepert, R. (1886). Victor Giraud’s Reise nach den innerafrikanischen See 1883 bis 1885. Globus, 50 (4): 49–55. Mabulla, A. Z. P. (2017). Greetings. In L. Reyels (ed.), Humboldt Lab Tanzania. Objekte aus kolonialen Kriegen im Ethnologischen Museum, Berlin. Deutsch-tansanische Perspektiven. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 14–17. Malangalila, F. F. A. (1987). Mwamuyinga, mtawala wa Wahehe. Peramiho, Tanzania: Benedictine Publications Ndanda. Michels, S. (2009). Schwarze deutsche Kolonialsoldaten: Mehrdeutige Repräsentationsräume und früher Kosmopolitismus in Afrika. Histoire: Bd. 4. Bielefeld: Transcript. Moyd, M.  R. (2014). Violent intermediaries:  African soldiers, conquest, and everyday colonialism in German East Africa. New African histories. Athens Ohio:  Ohio University Press. Ngassapa, D. N. (ed.). (2011). Mukwavinyika Mwamuyinga na kabila lake la Wahehe. Dar es Salaam Tanzania: Dar es Salaam University Press. Nigmann, E.  (1908). Die Wahehe.:  Ihre Geschichte, Kult-, Rechts-, Kriegs- und Jagdgebräuche. Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler. Pizzo, D. (2007). “To Devour the Land of Mkwawa”: Colonial Violence and the GermanHehe War in East Africa c.  1884 –1914. PhD. Dissertation. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Pizzo, D. (2012). “Cunning Tactics”: Indigenous responses to the imposition of German colonial rule in East Africa. History Research 2 (2): 73–109. Prince, M. von. (1908). Eine deutsche Frau im Innern Deutsch-Ostafrikas: Elf Jahre nach Tagebuchblättern erzählt (3rd ed.). Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler. Radcliffe. Brown, A. (1940). On joking relationships. Africa 13 (3): 195–210. Redmayne, A. (1968a). Mkwawa and the Hehe wars. The Journal of African History 9 (3), 409–436. Redmayne, A.  (1968b). The Hehe. In A.  Roberts (ed.), Tanzania before 1900. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 37–58. Schele, O.  F.  von. (1896). Uhehe. In F.  v. Danckelman (ed.), Mitteilungen von Forschungsreisenden und Gelehrten aus den Deutschen Schutzgebieten, Vol.  9. Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler, 67–74. Smith, L. (2006). Uses of heritage. Heritage studies. London, New York: Routledge.

European Footsteps in the Land of the Chief

109

Smith, L. and Campbell, G. (2016). The Elephant in the Room: Heritage, Affect, and Emotion. In W. Logan, M. Nic Craith and U. Kockel (eds.), Wiley Blackwell companions to anthropology. A companion to heritage studies. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 443–460. Stierling. (1957). The Hehe royal graves. Tanganyika Notes and Records 46: 25–28. Weber, K.  (2005). Objekte als Spiegel kolonialer Beziehungen—Das Sammeln von Ethnographica zur Zeit der deutschen kolonialen Expansion in Ostafrika (1884–1914). (Master’s thesis). Humboldt-Universität, Berlin. Winans, E.  V. (1965). The political context of economic adaptation in the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika. American Anthropologist 67 (2): 435–441.

Media Sources and Official Data Braun, B.  and Lerch, D.  (Author) (2015, June 10). Der Zahn des Häuptlings— Versöhnungsreise nach Tansania [Television broadcast]. WDR Fernsehen. Pesek, M.  (2017). Die kleinen Geheimnisse der Magdalene von Prince [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://bwana-lettow.blogspot.com/2017/07/die-kleinen-gehemnisse-der-magadalene.html United Republic of Tanzania (2013). 2012 Population and Housing Census. Population Distribution by Administrative Areas. Dar es Salaam.

Part 3  Afro-European Sociopolitical Experiences

5.  Understanding Ethnicity as Positional C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez ISGlobal (Spain), Barcelona

Introduction In the initial pages of Fictions of Feminist Ethnography, Visweswaran (1994) invites us to think about the categories that determine the differentiated positions among women. From reflexivity, and through a simple anecdote, she shows how she suddenly finds herself separated from her grandmother, “not only by language and generation, but by class and culture” (Ibid: xii). Indeed, reflections on how certain social categories intersect in a complex framework that redefine identity adscriptions are not new, especially regarding those debates coming from black feminist perspectives (Crenshaw 1991). On this matter, Amina Mama’s assertion on “[t]‌he analysis of how gender identities can mitigate or consolidate ethnic identities would be very instructive”1 (Salo 2010: 16) also brings light to the purpose of this chapter, that is to think about ethnicity as a collective experience of identity that is under constant construction. Thus, beyond gender, and making reference to identity adscription and its intensity, Mama also appeals to disclose ethnicity as a non-permanent form of collective tie. In short, the above references point out two relevant aspects that will be addressed throughout this chapter. On the one hand, there is a need to understand identity as a result of diverse crossed categories which shapes a shared 2 experience, and on the other hand, apprehending that identity (ethnic or not) may vary its intensity in terms of adscription, meaning that it is not a fixed discourse. In turn, both elements intertwine in a way that confirms the need to recognize identity as fluid, either in performative practice or as an inherent feature of an analytical category, contrary to what has been stated in some stances (Brubaker and Cooper 2000: 6). Therefore, beyond considering it as multiple or even optional (Waters 1996), identity must be ontologically and epistemologically rethought as fluid.

114

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

That said, it is arguable that this approach might collapse with common images about indigenous groups. In that respect, based on the case study of the Mbororo Fulani from Cameroon, this chapter is aimed at reflecting not only on how ethnic discourses may be raised, but rather on how they are reconstructed by its own actors according to variations of the social context. In that sense, popular clichés that circulate around the Mbororo must be taken into account, as they can be identified in various ads or promotional materials from travel agencies (Enguita-Fernàndez 2019:  156–157; Loftsdóttir 2012: 28–30; Loncke 2015: 16–17) and boost a kind of romantic image that represents them as nomadic herders. This representation encapsulates a cultural reality on which processes of identity configuration are actually being constantly redefined. At the same time, these dynamics must be analyzed in interaction with regional and sociopolitical factors, but also under the frame of a necessary global and interconnected perspective (Hannerz 1998: 18). Certainly, the almost mythical and even exotic and ancestral portrait of those Mbororo nomadic herders plays a central role when revising the ethnic parameters on which an identity consciousness is being built and increasingly rooted inside the community itself. However, a transnational approach becomes a key perspective to understand the dialogue between national and ethnic identities, as well as the potential ambivalence of different ethnic experiences in the context of postcolonial Africa. Therefore, based on theoretical and ethnographic referents,3 the purpose of this text is to present some reflections and issues of analysis in order to assess the dynamics through which cultural and ethnic boundaries become fluid and flexible. In this sense, the point is that, while being strengthened in Cameroon, the ethnic collective experience of the Mbororo people seems to weaken in broader contexts. More specifically, the interest lies in how individuals and those cultural frontiers interact with wider ethnic categories that operate both in Cameroon and other countries. They open up towards a social interaction that goes beyond physical boundaries which also finds another space to develop in new technologies, the Internet and social networks, (Beneito-Montagut 2011: 717). This research is framed within several perspectives and scientific contributions, especially from the field of identity and ethnicity, emphasizing those researches conducted in African contexts. Obviously, though not being the direct focus of the research, those works on migration which highlight transnationalism and multiculturalism of contemporary societies, as provided by postcolonial studies, especially Brah (2011), have been very useful to analyze the construction and redefinition of identities beyond physical mobility and breaking Eurocentric positions (Chakrabarty 1992: 1).

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

115

The aim of this research is to delve into how identity is indeed a construct that must be conceived as mobile. Thus, contributions from post-structuralism (and even from phenomenology) offer an appropriate perspective. Likewise, the use of the term “identity” is no longer considered risky as an analytical category since there is a commitment to conceive it as a strategic and positioned concept that, in fact, refers to a process of collective construction that is intersected and not unified (Hall 1996:  3–4). In addition, the terms referring to ethnic categories used throughout this text should also be considered as labels that frame cultural archetypes. In turn, they become constructs of practice, grasping the identity experience to which they appeal in a performative and interactive way, in line with Bourdieu’s habitus (2008: 90). This positioning accepts how problematic the use of ethnic labels is (and has been) in social sciences in general and in migration studies in particular (Glick Schiller 2008: 3–5). Certainly, engaging with an ethnic lens might lead to interpreting this approach as aligned with a methodological nationalism orientated towards a container model of society (Ibid. emphasis added). It has been argued that a nationalist thinking tends to naturalize societies as discrete units of analysis, “organically related to, and fixed within territories”, as if the world could be divided into “bounded, culturally specific units”, as stated in a seminal work by Wimmer and Glick Schiller (2002: 305). Nonetheless, our proposal here is to explicitly state that ethnicity is not static but fluid, and indeed reflects “divisions based on class, gender, generation, religion, region of origin, or politics among members of the ‘same’ group” (Glick Schiller 2008: 3). Furthermore, the complexity of the use of the term “ethnicity” is unavoindingly linked to colonial history, should also be acknowledged and, in fact, well-known Africanist authors such as Amselle (1999:  11–23) and Bayart (1999:  81–107) firmly challenge its validity and legitimacy because of this origin. Despite being aware of it, and without denying the impact of colonialism on the creation of ethnic realities for domination purposes (as stated by the abovementioned authors), this chapter intends to vindicate the value and significance of ethnicity, especially in African societies, as a relevant factor of political life, rooted in local cultural practices, but also subject to historical transformations (Burnham 1996: 168). Again, this should not be understood as neglecting the presence of inherited colonial structures as part of transborder nation-building projects that characterized the colonial and imperialist period (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002: 305, 312). According to this perspective, appealing to ethnicity could still be thought of as persistently colonial nationalist thinking, which actually permeated anthropology. This would lead to overlooking the influence of

116

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

colonial regimes by translating nation-building processes into the study of ethnic groups with no state as culturally bounded units (ibid: 305). However, even if one opts to go beyond ethnicity as a unit of analysis to avoid a biased perspective resulting from methodological nationalism,—or methodological ethnicity (Glick Schiller 2008)—, it should be acknowledged that this “concept has become increasingly important for political and social relations in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa” and, indeed, “categories of ethnicity appear to play an essential role” among African populations (Keese 2016: 2, italics by the author). However, ethnicity should not be exclusively related to African people in African contexts. In a recent book, Aixelà-Cabré (2018b) argues that it is an appropriate term to draw upon in order to understand how identity can be expressed and how diversity is managed in contemporary European societies. So, although postcolonial societies are structured under an unequal and hierarchic system framed during the colonial rule (Aixelà-Cabré 2018a; Bayart 1999: 93; Geschiere 2009: 14, 208; Mamdani 2001: 654–655), meaning that ethnic labeling and its use may cause structures of power and domination, this text aims to trace ethnicity within a historical and contextual perspective. This will allow us to frame it as an instance of “identity and difference” and as “essentially relational and processual” (Pelican 2015a: 5). Therefore, and following a need to rediscover analytical frameworks (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002: 325), it is necessary to reclaim the topical relevance of Barth’s most popular publication Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (1969), whereby he offers the key elements to avoid essentialist perspectives by focusing on the boundaries that define cultural diversity, rather than the assumed “morphological characteristics of cultures” of which ethnic groups would be the “bearers” (Ibid. 12). Instead, they should be considered “as a form of social organisation” (Ibid. 13). From a methodological point of view, basic ethnographic techniques have been deployed, like participant observation and key informant interviewing4 (including structured and semi-structured interviews, and informal conversations). Specifically, for this research, fieldwork in Cameroon was carried out throughout different visits in 2014 and 2015, though my relationship with the Mbororo community started in 2009, followed by continued and intermittent annual visits. Due to the transnational nature of this research, the Mbororo people living abroad were contacted in the frame of a “multisited ethnography” (Marcus 1995). Thus, fieldwork in Cameroon was combined with fieldwork in some European countries, like Belgium, England and France, which I visited between 2016 and 2017. Apart from data collected through the ethnographic fieldworks in Cameroon and Europe,5 and due to

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

117

the abovementioned significance of online social interactions for the topic of analysis, Facebook posts and other materials extracted from various social networks have also been considered, approaching to what is known as a digital ethnography (Dalsgaard 2016). These sources will be reviewed throughout the three parts of the text is structured: the first one is intended to describe the Mbororo community and its context in Cameroon; the second part will explore their condition as an indigenous population, as a relevant reference for their ethnic discourse; and a last part will aim to analyze how this ethnic discourse is developed in the context of transnational migration to finally propose some issues for further analysis.

The Mbororo in Cameroon: From the Stigma towards a Sociopolitical Recognition The Mbororo are recognized as a subgroup conforming the large ethnolinguistic group called Fulani.6 The latter are usually known to dwell throughout the Sudan-Sahel zone, from Mauritania to the Central African Republic (CERCP 1998: 9). The presence of Fulani groups throughout the territory has to do with a long history of migration. On the one hand, as a result of transhumance and the search of pasture lands, they reach territories where migratory groups became more or less temporary minority communities. On the other hand, domination and power are related with movements linked to the jihad of the 18th and 19th centuries. Both movements will respectively define the nomadic communities and the ones tending to settle, thus creating divisions among the Fulani themselves (Virtanen 2003: 48–50). Having said that, in Cameroon the “Mbororo” ethnic category identifies the Fulani nomadic herders, and as an ethnic group they are distinguished from the Fulbe group, a distinction that is not free from confusion. Following Burnham (1996: 12), and from an emic perspective, the ethnonym Fulani is the term that refers to the ethnolinguistic family that encloses cultural models, on the one hand, of the Fulbe, the sedentary and settled Fulani, and on the other, the Mbororo, the Fulani nomads and pastoralists.7 From a synthetic point of view, apart from Islam and cattle as cultural referents, Fulani people feel united by the Fulfulde language (known as Pulaar in West Africa) and pulaaku, which refers to an “ideal· public behavior (Virtanen 2003: 27), an ethical-moral code of modesty and control, which in turn expresses a cultural sense of superiority and distinction.8 Both the Mbororo and the Fulbe mainly inhabit the northern half of Cameroon, although there are also some Mbororo groupings located throughout the rest of the country, arriving to

118

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

the East province of Cameroon and the Central African Republic. Despite the difficulty of obtaining census data concerning nomadic or semi-nomadic people, according to recent reports (IWGIA 2019: 485), it is estimated that there are more than 1 million Mbororo people living in Cameroon, representing 12% of the population.9 The Mbororo people are conceived as an ethnic minority, with a lifestyle that places them in conditions of marginality. Considered culturally and religiously different in some regions of the country (Pelican 2008: 540–541), livestock and pasture, apart from being one of the main economic sources of the nomadic and semi-nomadic groups and families in rural areas, they are also the cultural and social basis of a lifestyle that the community itself defends with great pride, becoming the fundamental pillar for the construction of an identity consciousness. Moreover, the discourse of an NGO called Mboscuda, led by a literate and urban Mbororo elite, insists that it is due to this lifestyle that the Mbororo people are excluded and discriminated against the political, cultural, social and educational spheres of the country. In this regard, one of my informants, Abdoul, stressed: “The name Mbororo is just to distinguish from others, it is not because it refers to a different group, and it is to tell the difference between other Fulani.” Thus, the term Mbororo actually defines a distinction and, indeed, other authors like Burnham (1996: 12, 97), Dupire (1970: 288), Loftsdóttir (2007: 5) or Virtanen (2003: 1) point out that it is an ethnonym that simply refers to the Fulani nomads, peuls de brousse or fulbe ladde (Baba 2004: 30). However, the ethnonym Mbororo has a pejorative overtone, being a word by which the sedentary Fulbe described their nomadic Fulani “brothers.” Dognin (1981:  140) indicated that, in fact, the term was refused by those it appointed, as it evoked a rejection of the unknown and a disdain towards an unstable and insecure life, characteristic of an “unterritorialized” territoriality, inherent in nomadism. On this subject, Loftsdóttir (2007: 20, note 11) indicates that in Cameroon the label Mbororo was considered “degrading, referring to backwardness.” At the same time, Abdoul once informed me that the word Mbororo etymologically meant “cow” or “ox” in Fulfulde. Although he took it as an identifying reference for a life exclusively linked to livestock, it is also true that the assimilation to an animal evokes a notion of “primitive”, such as “no-men”, referents that he himself listed while talking about the negative adjectives that the Fulbe used to speak about the Mbororo. The Mbororo are not too popular among the Cameroonian society (Enguita-Fernàndez 2014:  7), there is a whole set of social representations that stigmatize them as “primitive” or “non-advanced” and foreigners who still practice nomadism and are devalued because of their sociocultural

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

119

specificities (Pelican 2008:  540). Given their late arrival in the country, around the early 20th century, the Mbororo are seen as newcomers in the social imaginary (Ibid.) that together with their nomadic life with no clearly defined ties to any territory, neither regional nor national, they have moved them away from claiming any right (Tonah 2005: 58) related to the ideal of citizenship, which apparently would require a territorial affiliation. In terms of all the aforementioned, it is important to highlight what some authors call the “political awakening” of the Mbororo community (Mouiche 2012: 33, 150) within the framework of a multi-party system and the (relative)10 democratization of the Cameroonian state policy in the early 1990s (Ibid. 152). Faced with this setting of political openness that facilitated new forms of popular political organization and association, in 1992 a group of young Mbororo from the west and northwest regions of Cameroon created the abovementioned NGO, Mboscuda, with the aim of revaluing Mbororo cultural identity and to encourage, within the community, economic diversification and literacy as strategies to overcome the situation of social marginality (Pelican 2012: 118–120). The political course lived by the community since then, with the foundation of new associations11 throughout the country, has fostered an identity reconfiguration and a growing demand for an ethnic recognition. Mouiche (2012: 173) underlines how the pejorative tone of the so-called “Mbororo”, formerly negatively assimilated by the community itself, currently gives rise to an empowerment that revolves around an ethnic identity without complexes. Therefore, thanks to the associative movement, along with the search for links to human rights associations and international development organizations, which has allowed them to be placed on the agenda of the international movement for the indigenous people (Pelican 2012: 120), the Mbororo have carried their collective experience towards the state and its institutions, and before several international agencies. This fact is especially relevant considering the long history of marginalization that the Mbororo community has suffered, not only from other ethnic groups but also from its own Fulbe “brothers.” However, this empowerment and cultural pride led by a Mbororo elite does not omit the changes in the environment and, indeed, the progressive settlements,12 the increasing rates of schooling and the growing distance towards the traditional economy based on livestock have not meant that their cultural roots have been forgotten, which have been paradoxically strengthened. In fact, the archetypical image revolving cattle and nomadism acts as an ancestral reference to all this struggle for social and political recognition. What is more, it is the basis to reconstruct an identity consciousness based

120

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

on ideals of authenticity and purity. This would reinforce a so-called cultural distinction with other Fulani groups in Cameroon, the Fulbe, who apparently would have lost the ideals and the identifying features of “fulanity” (that is, everything about “being Fulani”).13 Apart from the stigma and negative experiences lived by the Mbororo in Cameroon, actually, the idea of a certain cultural purity is one of the emblems for the whole community and it is at the background of many of Mboscuda members I could interview, as Tidiane exemplifies:  “We for example, who are already in town, there is a modification of our way of life … But there are our brothers who remained intact in their way of doing things.” In spite of all the efforts towards sociopolitical integration of the Mbororo community mainly driven by Mboscuda (Mouiche 2011:  85–87), this apparent untouchability seems highly appreciated among the community itself, and it is the core of how Mbororo see themselves. However, what we can highlight until now is that the collective experience of Mbororo identity is being constantly built, and it can be expressed in other forms.

Entering the Global Arena: The International Movement of Indigenous Peoples, Debates, Challenges and Milestones The process of identity reconstruction and ethnic awareness is also reflected on the fact that the Mbororo have been awarded the status of indigenous peoples, which has intended to play a role in the international agenda. On another level, especially from a social science perspective, reflecting on the implications of the inclusion of African communities into that category has been necessary. Hence, on the basis of criteria defined by the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), an organism reporting to the African Union, in Cameroon there are two large groups identified as indigenous peoples. On the one hand, there is the hunter-gatherers known as Baka or Bagyeli (the so-called Pygmies), and, on the other hand, the Mbororo pastoralists (ACHPR-IWGIA 2006: 15–16; ILO 2015: 9; Mouiche 2012: 18; Pelican 2015a: 40).14 In both cases, this identification follows the principles of the ILO-convention 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which include marginality, discrimination, cultural distinction (with respect to other hegemonic cultural forms) and self-identification. In light of all this, it is interesting to reflect on the process of strengthening cultural and ethnic borders to a point where “Mbororo” has become a delimited category as an indigenous people and an ethnic minority in Cameroon. Moreover, this distinction and exclusive treatment only takes shape in some specific countries such as Cameroon, Chad and Central African

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

121

Republic (ACHPR-IWGIA 2006:  16–17), unlike other countries, where it seems that Fulani groups are generally categorized as a whole. Therefore, including the Mbororo community into the indigenous category, alongside the associated discourses promoted by various Mbororo associations and local NGOs, makes it necessary to endorse a critical approach to this notion because, in spite of being unquestionable in America or in Pacific regions, it becomes complex when it is applied in areas from the African continent, due to the wide and diverse history of migrations, assimilation and conquests (Pelican and Mayurama 2015: 50), and, thus, the great trajectory of movements and interactions between different social groups (Amselle 1999:  23–24). So, indigenous issues can be initially understood under an American context, directly linked to the right and access to land and referring to a sort of primordial culture uprooted by the colonial action. However “the idea of indigenous Africans does not represent some sort of miraculously pre-colonial existence”, because, in fact, “the vast majority of Africans, for instance, are descended from the continent’s original peoples, leading some observers to question the appropriateness of some African groups having special indigenous status” (Igoe 2006: 400–401, 402). Nonetheless, Igoe (Ibid: 402) points out that widening the indigenous category is due to the growing diversity of realities that can be characterized as such, causing the global movement of the rights of indigenous peoples to be finally defined in terms of cultural distinctiveness. Indeed, the fact that certain communities from the African continent and other indigenous peoples around the world may share experiences of subjugation, marginalization, discrimination and/or dispossession, has placed Africa within the indigenous international movement (Ndahinda 2014: 24). That being said, “indigenism” has been endowed with a more inclusive character (Hodgson 2009: 23), moving away from a perspective that appeals to the idea of “first inhabitants” towards a one that claims the distinctiveness and marginality of certain populations in relation to other hegemonic groups. In fact, unlike in America or the Pacific, the indigenous movement in Africa is more focused on the struggle for their own rights and recognition from the states than on criticizing European colonialism and imperialism (Pelican and Mayurama 2015: 51). Despite a growing interest,15 including Africa in the indigenous movement is still not far from controversy. In spite of the continuous reference to aboriginality, it is in the notion of a distinctive culture that the indigenous discourse finds its place in the African continent, which, in turn, directly appeals to ethnicity at the same time (Hodgson 2009: 24). In this regard, Kuper (2003) warns about the tendency to create and categorize collective

122

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

cultural identities as “primitive” cultures, highlighting the essentialist rhetoric of indigenous discourses. In that sense, Pelican (2008:  552) properly suggests that the United Nations has tended to prioritize hunter-gatherer peoples, such as the Baka or Bagyeli, and nomadic herders, such as the Mbororo, assuming that they act like a kind of representative of the original human population. All in all, it also shows the value and role of external agents in the creation of ethnic realities (Aixelà-Cabré 2013: 87), which in turn are tied to identity categories rooted in “experiences of colonialism and aid dependency” (Igoe 2006: 402).16 Although the indigenous international movement has contributed to the public recognition of collective rights, as well as the empowerment of indigenous peoples, the monolithic rhetoric of the indigenous discourses and the expansion of ethnic assertions, in a context where references to autochthony and belonging are on the rise, seem paradoxical in a world that aims to become globalized (Geschiere 2012: 53; 70). From this perspective, and in the context of the struggle for citizenship rights, the tension between ethnic identities (which in turn are shaped by a global movement of recognition of collective cultural particularities) and national identities comes to light in a climate of a general concern about belonging. In this context mechanisms of exclusion/inclusion become relevant, as well as the emergence of, first, cultural boundaries between the ethnic others with whom one interacts (Barth 1969: 15) and, then, the definitions of authenticity in relation to the indigenous category. Back to Cameroon, we can identify an uncertain commitment on behalf of the Cameroonian government towards the protection of indigenous minorities, though it is stated in the constitutional reform17 of 1996 (Kossoumna Liba’a 2012: 202–203; Pelican 2013: 14, 16). Moreover, due to their progressive abandonment of pastoralism and nomadic life, it seems that there are some suspicions towards the identification of the Mbororo as an indigenous population (Pelican 2009: 58; 2012: 121). Despite all these challenges, the Mbororo people constitute an internationally recognized group, being Mboscuda the most effective actor in representing the community on a national and international level (cf. Hickey 2011: 37, 41; Pelican 2008: 547). In addition, their action and their degree of social and political participation stand out above the Baka and Bagyeli, the other groups also identified as indigenous peoples (Mouiche 2011: 92). Both populations are the main characters of the events organized in Yaoundé (and in other locations) during the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples every 9th August. However, an imbalance of discursive empowerment can be identified among both groups, either by the different degree of literacy between them or, also,

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

123

due to the proximity of some members of Mboscuda to the governing bodies, which seem to endow them with a certain inevitable prestige and legitimacy, as observed while attending these events during my fieldwork in Cameroon. Based on the above, it is clear that the Mbororo community has redefined its margins on a national level by delimitating and claiming their status as citizens and challenging the popular conceptions that place them as eternal foreigners, as well as on an international level, by connecting with the indigenous movement and being recognized as a population with a distinctive status. Pelican (2008: 553, 2011: 434) has already highlighted the benefits that the status of indigenous peoples has reported to the Mbororo community, for instance the possibility of traveling outside the country in the context of international training programs for indigenous people, which overall introduces a sense of strategy. In fact, among some of the informants contacted throughout the fieldwork, both in Cameroon and in Europe, a language in terms of results and benefits can be identified, directly appealing to the effectiveness of the indigenous category for the Mbororo community in Cameroon, as supported by Mamadou, one of my Mbororo informants, when asked about participating in the indigenous global movement “I can say that it was a very wise decision.” In spite of this, the controversy and discomfort generated by the presence of the indigenous movement in Africa still exists. However, it may be solved by understanding “indigeneity as a particular category of ethnicity that (…) here serves as an example of ethnicity as a political resource” (Pelican 2015b: 137). So, when thinking about the case of Mbororo indigenism, here it may be translated as a balance between the discourse of autochthony -by reclaiming national recognition and belonging, in order to access the resources of the State-, and the discourse of ethnicity -by stressing a cultural distinction, not only towards other hegemonic ethnic groups within the Cameroonian territory, but also within a transnational Fulani identity-. Then, it is important to analyze ethnicity from a contextual perspective that takes into account the dynamism and fluidity of identity reconstructions, because “cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories (…) they undergo constant transformation” (Hall 1990: 225). That is to say that sociopolitical dynamics should not be separated from an exercise of identity reconstruction, in this case, enhanced by an associative movement that has structured a discourse of a political identity demand based on intensifying the links of community belonging which is built on the recognition of experiences of discrimination and the revival of certain cultural elements. Thus, ethnicity and politics are intersected and arose together, so that the configuration of an identity discourse has been possible thanks to the strategy of political demand and,

124

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

in turn, this involvement in the political and international scene has been allowed by a narrative of a delimited ethnic identity.

Once in Europe: Identity (Re)connections The migratory trajectory of the Fulani groups throughout the African continent, as already mentioned, reflects a dispersion that paradoxically appeals to a common past and culture. Indeed, transhumance, grazing and cattle rearing become nearly ancestral elements in the Fulani founding myths (Dupire 1962: 34), although in turn they give an inherently diffuse and mobile sense of identity. The world of cattle, as well as grazing and, consequently, nomadism and mobility, are references associated with the Fulani people, usually described as people without borders even in non-academic media.18 Thus, the ascription of the Mbororo to the movement of indigenous people may even crystallize them in an essentialized image, as a kind of original population (Kuper 2003: 389) of nomadic herders who do not succumb to the course of time; paradoxically, a static image of a people that bring along the culture of movement (Virtanen 2003: 130–133). Elsewhere (Enguita-Fernàndez 2019: 60–61), it has already been raised whether nomadism, as a cultural reference, has meant to internalize a sense of mobility and an impulse to travel among Fulani populations. Thus, focusing on transnational migration to Europe opens up a new context of reflection around the Mbororo identity experience, as part of those “regimes of mobility” (Glick Schiller and Salazar 2013: 185–190) linked to a culture of movement which imbues the Fulani identity in general, and the Mbororo identity in particular. With this, it should be emphasized that migration is not a new phenomenon among Fulani groups. This implies drawing the attention towards the process of rural-urban migration among the Mbororo, as a phenomenon that has enhanced a clear identity consciousness. Several works have related changes in the environment and the sociopolitical context with changes in the collective ethnic consciousness (Davis 1995:  214; Enguita-Fernàndez 2012:  95, 99; Pelican 2009:  57, 2012:  116–17). In this respect, the Mbororo associative movement in Cameroon, led by a literate elite, and educated in urban settings, has been a key element in the progressive process of settlement, as well as in the construction of identity discourses and social and cultural claims, which have allowed for broader international connections, such as participating in the international movement of indigenous peoples. Likewise, in urban contexts an identity renegotiation arises that is not so much echoed on an exaltation and a visibility of cultural features, but rather it seeks to strengthen

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

125

community ties through cultural referents that empower them in terms of equality since “they no longer saw themselves as marginalized pastoralists but as an empowered Cameroonian minority” (Pelican 2009: 57). In terms of transnational mobility, it should be recalled that Mboscuda not only configured an identity discourse and directed the strategies for sociopolitical recognition among the Mbororo, but also encouraged to create an educated Mbororo elite (Pelican 2011:  434) that, due to the activity of the association and the links with international organizations in the frame of development programs especially addressed to women and youth, has been able to enjoy new opportunities such as international travel (Pelican 2011: 434). This means participating in international meetings, seminars or different sort of trainings related to human rights and community empowerment. For Pelican (Ibid. 433), these forms of mobility have been promoted by the Mbororo elite, exposed to urban life and politically engaged. According to my informants’ experiences, these travels, especially those related to women’s empowerment programs, can be categorized as round trips, since they have an impact on community of origin in Cameroon, by further reinforcing the experience of a collective ethnic identity as an indigenous people as well as strengthening the sense of a community identity. In addition to this type of mobility, permanent residences in Europe were also identified throughout the fieldwork, giving some continuity to that educated Mbororo elite. Transnational migration and permanent residence in Europe among the Mbororo seems fairly recent and not a very widespread phenomenon, except for some of my informants who had lived outside Cameroon for 15–20  years. Both the reasons for their journey and their adscription with the Mbororo people have not always been very explicit19 from the beginning, a fact that is contrasted with the activism of the subjects interviewed in Cameroon and members of Mboscuda. In this sense, and unlike the abovementioned round trips, this mobility does not have such a clear “return effect”, in terms of community ties and identity claims, despite some activity in social networks. Thus, the social bounds with the community of origin seem to fade or, in any case, transform. However, the relevant point is to review the local representations and perceptions among the Mbororo, by crossing the views from Cameroon and Europe. First, it has been found that Mbororo residents in Cameroon have built an ambivalent perception of their peers who live abroad. On the one hand, their action is positively valued by some informants, supporting their sensitization task through social networks.20 Yet, on the other hand, their position outside the country and outside the community itself is perceived with distrust, in a tone that shows a certain sense of “betrayal” (sometimes

126

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

their actions are even considered as political activism against the current Cameroonian government, rather than a defense of the Mbororo community). Secondly, Mbororo residents in Europe point out an attachment to the cultural values of the fulanity among the Mbororo community in Cameroon; an attachment that, at times, is perceived as an obstacle to the adequate socioeconomic development of the community itself. Furthermore, some informants were skeptical of the everlasting rhetoric of cultural authenticity that emerges from the Mbororo ethnic claims. So, the increasingly distant nomadic and pastoral life seems to challenge yet again the legitimacy of the discourses on the cultural authenticity produced and defended by the Mbororo community in Cameroon. Thus, unlike the configuration of an ethnic discourse that in Cameroon appeals to a collective experience of identity, such a community strength seems no to be clearly identified among the Mbororo informants in Europe. In fact, there are several works that outline the high associative degree of migrant communities in Europe21 (Kaplan 2007; Massó 2013), whose activity is seen in terms of community solidarity while maintaining and strengthening ties with their communities of origin. On the contrary, the Mbororo contacted during the fieldwork have not explicitly showed their commitment on these type of activities, even considering that current new technologies can facilitate the establishment of community ties on a transnational level. In fact, social media can become a space to claim certain ethnic identities, as is the case of what can be called a Fulani macro-community that is built and reinforced through many online platforms, either WhatsApp groups, Instagram or Facebook accounts, such as Zone Fulbe, Tabital Pulaaku, and Fulanitube.22 As a whole, the findings from this research at least suggest the need to challenge the existence of a collective and common Mbororo narrative, as there have been certain broken ties and a cultural detachment between the Mbororo residents in Cameroon and Europe. However, the disarticulation of the identity discourse and the detachment towards certain Mbororo cultural referents detected in Europe should not be interpreted as a sign of forgetfulness or integration in the countries of residence. From a performative perspective of identity, this should be understood as a process of transformation, like a mechanism of readjustment 23 of cultural referents based on wider networks, which, in this case, finds in Islam how to give continuity to a feeling of belonging associated with the cultural features of fulanity, which has already been determined as fluid and in reconstruction on other occasions (EnguitaFernàndez 2012: 101–104). Certainly, Islam has been one of the most important issues referred to by all informants residing in Europe. This fact that can be related to the process

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

127

of fulbeization, a concept coined by Burnham (1991, 1996) and Schultz (1984) with regard to the dynamics of ethnic and religious conversion by groups with other ethnic origins as a mechanism of incorporation to the Fulbe society from the north of Cameroon, within the context of constructing the Fulbe theocratic states of the 19th and 20th century. In general, fulbeization was considered to be an urban phenomenon (Schultz 1984: 49) and it is related to cultural patterns associated with the dominant Fulbe group, which included sedentarization or adopting an orthodox Islam, although it had many more implications (Burnham 1991:  78). The application of the concept of fulbeization among the Mbororo residents in Europe opens the way to analyze Islam in terms of continuity of the Mbororo identity experience in Europe, and even allows to question some assertions that locates the religious dimension outside the ethnic ones, and hiding the religious life of South-Saharan migrant communities in Europe (Frederiks 2014: 223). This is somehow aligned with Glick Schiller’s (2008: 2) claims for accounting the “multiple pathways of local and transnational incorporation” through a “non-ethnic approach to migrant settlement.”

Conclusion: An Approach to Ethnicity from Its Positionality On the basis of the above, the understanding of the experience of a Mbororo ethnicity could be now located at a counterpoint to the narrative of the collective identity that is claimed in Cameroon, especially focused on the condition of an indigenous population. On the whole, the interrelation between the identity dynamics expressed by members of the Mbororo community in the Cameroonian context -where a Mbororo elite has built a strong community discourse in terms of a distinctive ethnicity—and in a European context,— where part of said elite seems to be far from the referents that define a collective identity experience in the context of transnational migration,—compels us to understand ethnicity from a mobile perspective that would not insist on identities as homogeneous and objectively analytical concepts (Brubaker and Cooper 2000). Instead, it should be appraised as “discourses, matrixes of meanings and historical memories that, once in circulation, can form the basis of a certain identification in a specific economic, cultural and political context”24 (Brah 2011: 153). Indeed, we are dealing with the (re)definition of the parameters on which an identity narrative is being constructed that, in fact, reveals the existence of an agent ethnicity, not stalled, based on a practical mimesis (Bourdieu 2008: 118) that places that collective experience of identity under the logic of the habitus.

128

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

Based on this, the expressions of the Mbororo identity have been analyzed critically in both contexts and, based on Avtar Brah’s assertions about the notion of difference (2011: 123–156), it becomes useful to contextualize it. Thus, in Cameroon, it has been inevitable to think about the discrimination and the stigma suffered by the Mbororo as opposed to the hegemony of the figure of the Fulbe. Similarly, this inequality (that is rooted, as mentioned, in an inherited hierarchical colonial system) has been re-appropriated and instrumentalized in terms of acquisition of rights and sociopolitical recognition. It is for this reason that the Mbororo ethnic experience in Cameroon can be interpreted in terms of a discourse of equality within the difference. As a whole, it has implied that the Mbororo identity experience in Cameroon is defined in an intersected way, identifying certain categories that cross its demarcation, especially the social status. In this sense, the apparent weak appeal to “the Mbororo” in Europe should also be read in these terms, including the different position occupied by the subjects that make up this identity experience. In this regard, appealing to the difference and to a Mbororo distinction may not be significant for migrant subjects in European contexts Thus, the identity experience may be based on other referents, such as Islam, in what we can call a discourse of equality in the common, where “the common” is no longer an experience of discrimination as experienced in Cameroon, but other identifying references. From this point of view, the narrative of the Mbororo identity in Europe has been read as repositioned, and subject to transnational processes. In this way, what can be identified in Europe as part of a migratory process, has allowed us to stress the identity as multiple and extremely mobile, apart from considering that, as already mentioned, the Mbororo ethnicity itself actually refers to mobility. Given the contrasts and the variability of “the Mbororo” between Cameroon and Europe, and even beyond idea of a fluid fulanity, we must recall Brah, once again, when she states that “the processes of frontier building and the specific criteria invoked in a specific situation is subject to political, cultural and economic contingencies” (Brah 2011: 207).25 In this way, from a framework that allows us to adopt a transversal perspective, it is proposed to further analyze these Mbororo identity dynamics from the contingency, insisting on understanding identities from their positionality (Anthias 1998: 2) and in constant production (Hall 1990: 222).

Notes 1. Own translation from the original source in an edited publication in Catalan: “L’anàlisi de com les identitats de gènere poden mitigar o consolidar les identitats ètniques seria molt instructiva.”

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

129

2. Bearing in mind that “the notion of individual identity is an oxymoron” (Martín Díaz 2003: 165, own translation from the original). 3. This text draws from my ethnographic research among the Mbororo people in Cameroon and Europe, on which my doctoral research and PhD dissertation in University of Barcelona (2019) is based. 4. To preserve anonymity and confidentiality, participants will be cited using pseudonyms. Likewise, some locations and personal information will be omitted to avoid further identification. 5. To complement participant observation as the main source of ethnographic data, a total of 42 interviews with key informants were performed in all locations. Certain difficulties in accessing Mbororo informants in Europe narrowed down the number of interviews that were finally carried out, somehow limiting the conclusions of the study. Snowball sampling was used to identify other members of the Mbororo community living abroad, albeit some evasive attitudes among these potential participants were encountered when informally talking about Mbororo culture-related topics during early interactions. Despite being significantly informative situations, they finally refused to be interviewed. Lastly, migration to Europe as a recent phenomenon among the Mbororo also hindered access to more informants. 6. Also known as Peul. Loftsdóttir (2007: 4), in line with Burnham (1996: 12), points out that the “Fulani” ethnonym is of Hausa origin and is used in the English academic tradition, while “Peul” [or “Foula”, see Cantrelle and Dupire (1964)], would be a Wolof word that designates the same category and its use is more related to the French tradition. 7. Not directly referring to these contrasting ethnonyms, Boutrais (2007: 19) affirms that “there are two main Fulani groups: ‘settled Fulani’ (inhabitants of villages and towns) and nomads or pastoralists, called the ‘cattle Fulani’.” 8. Pulaaku has to be understood from a phenomenological perspective that includes a variety of behaviors and attitudes, ranging from cattle raising, emotional restraint, intelligence, the cultural heritage or the commitment to the Fulani customs (Burnham 1996:  53). For a deep and updated analysis, see Virtanen (2003) and Mari Sáez (2012). 9. According to recent data from the United Nations Population and Vital Statistics Report (last update: 16/09/2019), the estimated census in Cameroon in 2017–2018 was 23.794.164 (see http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic-social/products/ vitstats/seratab2.pdf, last accessed on September 2019). 10. Relative or even “cosmetic” (Nyamnjoh 2002), marked by political patronage and domination (Hickey 2011: 31) of the government of the still-existing president, Paul Biya, in power since 1982. 11. Under the umbrella of Mboscuda (Mbororo Social and Cultural Development Association), there are Mboyascam (Mbororo Youth Association of Cameroon), Ajembo-Est (in French, Association des Jeunes Mbororo de l’Est) or Adjema (in French, Association pour le Développement des Jeunes Mbororo de l’Adamaoua) among others. 12. Sedentarization seems to be accelerated due to environmental issues (Kossoumna Liba’a 2012: 80), but the link with grazing and livestock regulations, and “re-grouping” mechanisms imposed by colonial regimes (Ibid: 77), also encouraged by settlement policies of the postcolonial Cameroon (Mouiche 2011:  74), cannot be dismissed.

130

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

13. In a passage of Moi, un Mbororo (Bocquené 1986), a transcript of the autobiography of an Mbororo called Ndoudi Oumarou it is stated that “[a]‌Mbororo can do without religion, but he cannot live free from the rules that make the Fulani what he is. We have a way to lead us that belongs only to us, people of the world of oxen and bush. We deny it to the Fulbe of the cities. They abandoned it” (Ibid. 309, own translation from the original in French). 14. The Indigenous World (2019) report published by the International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) also includes the Kirdi communities from the Mandara Mountains in northern Cameroon. However, the indigenous movement in Cameroon is led (with more or less organizational and representative resources) by the Mbororo and the Baka/Bagyeli, which are the communities that participate and have a leading role in the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in Cameroon, celebrated every 9th August. 15. For works related to the topic, see Hodgson (2009), Ndahinda (2014) or Pelican and Maurama (2015), among others. Obviously, as part of the current interconnected world, there are many public online platforms which also reflect the need, not only to internationalize the concerns, but to express the topical relevance of indigenous people’s issues in the African continent, such as Laimaru Network or Minority Rights Group. 16. This idea is underpinned by the persistence of colonial epistemology within the Western system of international cooperation and development (see Adlbi Sibai 2016). 17. “The political liberalization of the 1990s in Cameroon was marked by a constitutional reform on the 18th January 1996, which establishes a decentralized unitary state, recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples and protects minorities (…) The article 57 (2)  provides that the Regional Council, which is the deliberative organ of the region, must reflect the different sociological components of the region” (Mouiche, 2012: 7, own translation from the original in French). 18. See Carayol (2013). 19. As already mentioned, some informants even refused to do interviews when initiating conversations on these questions (becoming informative non-informants, because somehow their attitude was more than significant for the research). 20. The public Facebook account called Laimaru Network is one of the main platforms where abuses to Mbororo community rights are reported. 21. This is illustrated by Senegalese communities, as reported by those works. In spite of it, not all African groups enjoy such a visibility in migration contexts. For a recent analysis on Equatorial Guineans in Spain, their invisibility and detachment of Spain’s colonial memory, see Aixelà-Cabré (2020). 22. Surrounded by flags from different countries, the text “Fulani, one people, one language” from a post published on the Fulanitube public Facebook profile (10/03/2014) can be an appropiate example of this Fulani macro-community. 23. Djenabou’s point of view is quite telling in that sense: “I think we have all changed culturally, (…), people take the good and mix it with what they have, you select what works for you and what works for your situation and your family, and you mix it with other things that you have learnt, or that you have borrowed from other cultures or societies!” 24. Own translation from the original in Spanish. 25. Own translation of the original in Spanish.

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

131

Primary Sources Interviews Cited Djenabou. Mbororo, 41 years old. She was born in the Northwest province (Cameroon). Married, with three children. She has been living in England for 15 years. In England she attended university for 2 years. She had several part-time jobs, until she finally got a full-time job as a bank employee. Interviewed in England in July 2017. Mamadou. Mbororo, 49 years old, born in the Northwest province, Cameroon. Married, with two children, he comes from a family of cattle traders. He studied at university up to the Master’s level. He currently lives in England. He was one of the founding members of Mboscuda. Interviewed in England in March 2017. Tidiane. Mbororo, 30  years old, born in Adamaoua province, Cameroon. He is currently living in Yaoundé. Married, with two children. He studied at the University of Yaoundé II. At the time of the interview, he was not working. He is a member of the Mboscuda national office in Yaoundé. Interviewed in Cameroon in August 2016.

Bibliography ACHPR-IWGIA. (2006). Indigenous Peoples in Africa:  The Forgotten Peoples? The African Commission’s Work on Indigenous Peoples in Africa. Copenhagen:  Eks/ Skolens Trykkeri www.achpr.org, www.iwgia.org, www.iwgia.org.sw163.asp (Last access 8 March 2012). Adlbi Sibai, Sirin. (2016). La cárcel del feminismo. Hacia un pensamiento islámico decolonial. México D.F.: Akal. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2013). Els amazics al Marroc: de la invisibilitat social a la reivindicació col·lectiva. Perifèria. Revista de Recerca i formació en Antropologia 18 (2): 81–90. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda (ed.). (2018a). In the Footsteps of Spanish Colonialism in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. The Handling of Cultural Diversity and the Socio-political Influence of Transnational Migration. Zurich: Lit Verlag (Africanische Studien 59). Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2018b). The Management of Religious, Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Europe in the 21th Century. The Variety of National Approaches. NY, Lewinston: Edwin Mellen. Aixelà-Cabré, Yolanda. (2020). The presence of the colonial past:  Equatorial guinean women in Spain. Itinerario. Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions 44 (1): 140– 158. doi: 10.1017/S016511532000008X. Amselle, Jean-Loup (1999) [1985]. Ethnies et espaces. Pour une anthropologie topologique. In J. L. Amselle and E. M’bokolo (ed.), Au Coeur de l’Ethnie. Ethnies, tribalisme et état en Afrique. Paris: Ed. La Découverte, 11–43. Anthias, Floya (1998). Evaluating diáspora: Beyond ethnicity? Sociology 32 (3): 557–580.

132

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

Baba, Abdoulahi. (2004). Between Pastoral and Sedentary Lives:  Realities of Mbororo People in Ngaoundal Area (Northern Cameroon). Master Thesis, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of TromsØ. Barth, Fredrik. (1969). Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget. Bayart, Jean François. (1999 [1989]). El estado en África. La política del vientre. Barcelona: Bellaterra. Beneito-Montagut, Roser. (2011). Ethnography goes online:  Towards a user-centred methodology to research interpersonal communication on the internet. Journal of Qualitative Research 11 (6): 716–735. Bocquené, Henri. (1986). Moi, un Mbororo. Autobiographie de Ndoudi Oumarou, Peul nomade du Cameroun. Paris: Karthala. Bourdieu, Pierre. (2008) [1980]. El sentido práctico. Madrid: Siglo XXI. Boutrais, Jean. (2007). The Fulani and Cattle Breeds: Crossbreeding and heritage strategies. Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute 77 (1): 18–36. Brah, Avtar. (2011) [1996]. Cartografías de la diáspora. Identidades en cuestión. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños. Brubaker, Rogers and Cooper, Frederick. (2000). Beyond identity. Theory and Society 29: 1–47. Burnham, Philip. (1991). L’éthnie, la réligion et l’état: le rôle des Peuls dans la vie politique et sociale du Nord-Cameroun. Journal des africanistes 61 (1): 73–102. Burnham, Philip. (1996). The Politics of Cultural Difference in Northern Cameroon. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Cantrelle, Pierre and Dupire, Marguerite. (1964). L’endogamie des Peul du FoutaDjallon. Population (Institut National d’Études Démographiques) 19 (3): 529–558. Cercp. (1998). Pullorama. Cahier du Centre d’Études et de Réflexion sur la Culture Peule 1. Pulaaku. Yaoundé: Société de Presse et Editions du Cameroun. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. (1992). Postcoloniality and the artifice of history: Who speaks for ‘Indian’ pasts? Representations 37: 1–26. Crenshaw, Kimberle. (1991). Mapping the margins:  Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Standford Law Review 46 (6): 1241–1299. Dalsgaard, Steffen. (2016). The ethnographic use of Facebook in everyday life. Anthropological Forum 26 (1): 96–114. Davis, Lucy. (1995). Opening political space in Cameroon: The ambiguous response of the Mbororo. Review of African Political Economy 22 (64): 213–228. Dognin, René. (1981). L’installation des Djafoun dans l’Adamaoua camerounais. Les djakka chez les Peul de l’Adamaoua.” In C. Tardits (ed.), Contribution de la recherche ethnologique à l’histoire des civilisations du Cameroun. Vol.1. Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 139–157. Dupire, Marguerite. (1962). Peuls Nomades. Étude descriptive des Woodabe du Sahel Nigérien. Paris: Institute d’Ethnologie.

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

133

Dupire, Marguerite. (1970). Organisation Sociale des Peuls. Étude d’Ethnographie Comparée. Paris: Plon. Enguita-Fernàndez, Cristina. (2012). Desmarcant el rostre. Aproximació etnogràfica al tatuatge i l’escarificació facial entre els Mbororo de Camerun. (Unpublished Master Thesis). Dpt. d’Antropologia Cultural i Història d’Amèrica i Àfrica. Universitat de Barcelona. Enguita-Fernàndez, Cristina. (2014). Managing ethnicity through the body:  Tattoo and facial scarification ethnography among the Cameroon’s Mbororo. The Scientific Journal of Humanistic Studies 6 (10): 1–9. Enguita-Fernàndez, Cristina. (2019). Etnicidades en movimiento. (Re)presentaciones identitarias en un contexto global. Los peul mbororo, entre Camerún y Europa. PhD. Antropología Social. Universitat de Barcelona. Frederiks, Martha. (2014). Religion, ethnicity and transnational migration between West Africa and Europe: An epilogue. In G. Smith and S. Grodz (eds.), Religion, Ethnicity and Transnational Migration between West Africa and Europe. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 219–229. Geschiere, Peter. (2009). The Perils of Belonging. Autochthony, Citizenship and Exclusion in Africa and Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Geschiere, Peter. (2012). Política de la pertenencia:  Brujería, autoctonía e intimidad. México D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Glick Schiller, Nina. (2008). Beyond Methodological Ethnicity: Local and Transnational Pathways of Immigrant Incorporation. Willy Brandt Series of Working Papers in International Migration and Ethnic Relations, nº 2/08, Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare and Department of International Migration and Ethnic Relations, Malmö University. Glick Schiller, Nina and Salazar, Noel B. (2013). Regimes of mobility across the globe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 39 (2): 183–200. Hall, Stuart. (1990). Cultural identity and diaspora. In J.  Rutherford (ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 222–237. Hall, Stuart. (1996). Introduction: Who needs identity? In S. Hall and du P. Gay (eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity. London: SAGE Publications, 1–17. Hannerz, Ulf. (1998). Conexiones transnacionales. Cultura, gente, lugares. Madrid: Cátedra. Hickey, Sam. (2011). Towards a progressive polítics of belonging? Insights from a Pastoralist “Hometown” Association. Africa Today 57 (4): 28–47. Hodgson, Dorothy L. (2009). Becoming indigenous in Africa. African Studies Review 52 (3): 1–32. Igoe, Jim. (2006). Becoming indigenous peoples: Difference, inequality and the globalization of East African identity politics. African Affairs 105 (420): 399–420. ILO. (2015). Les Peuples Autochtones au Cameroun. Guide à l’intention des professionnels des médias. Cameroun: Publications du Bureau International du Travail.

134

C r istina E nguita-F er nàndez

IWGIA. (2019). The Indigenous World 2019. Copenhagen: IWGIA. Kaplan, Adriana.(2007). Las migraciones senegambianas en España: una mirada desde la perspectiva de género. In F.  Iniesta (ed.), África en diáspora. Movimientos de población y políticas estatales. Barcelona: Fundació CIDOB, 153–168. Keese, Alexander. (2016). Ethnicity and the Colonial State. Finding and Representing Group Identifications in a Coastal West African and Global Perspective (1850 –1960). Leiden: Brill. Kossoumna Liba’a, Natali. (2012). Les éleveurs Mbororo du Nord-Cameroun. Une vie et un élevage en mutation. Paris: L’Harmattan. Kuper, Adam. (2003). The return of the native. Current Anthropology 44 (3): 389–402. Loftsdóttir, Kristín. (2007). Bounded and multiple identities. Cahiers d’études africaines 185: 1–24, http:// journals.openedition.org/etudesafricaines/6740. Loftsdottir, Kristín. (2012). Les Peuls WoDaaBé du Niger. Douce brousse. Paris: L’Harmattan. Loncke, Sandrine. (2015). Geerewol. Musique, danse et lien social chez les Peuls nomades wooɗaaɓe du Niger. Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie (Col. Hommes et musiques). Mamdani, Mahmood. (2001). Beyond settler and native as political identities: Overcoming the political legacy of colonialism. Comparative Studies in Society and History 43 (4): 651–664. Marcus, George E.  (1995). Ethnography in/of the world system:  The emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 95–117. Mari Sáez, Almudena. (2008). Construcción de la identidad de las mujeres africanas en la región del Borgou (República de Benín). In L. Suárez, E. Martín & R. Hernández (coords.), Feminismos en la antropología:  nuevas propuestas críticas. XI Congreso de Antropología de la FAAEE, Donostia, Ankulegi Antropologia Elkartea, 21–37. Martín Díaz, Emma. (2003). Procesos migratorios y ciudadanía cultural, Sevilla: Mergablum. Massó Guijarro, Ester. (2013). Hospitalidad y cosmopolitismo migratorios:  África y la diáspora senegalesa. Migraciones 34: 111–137. Mouiche, Ibrahim. (2011). Democratization and political participation of Mbororo in Western Cameroon. African Spectrum 46 (2): 71–97. Mouiche, Ibrahim. (2012). Démocratisation et intégration sociopolitique des minorités ethniques au Cameroun. Entre dogmatisme du principe majoritaire et centralité des partis politiques. Dakar: CODESRIA. Ndahinda, Felix. (2014). Historical Development of Indigenous Identification and Rights in Africa. In R.  Laher and A.  Korir Sing’Oei (eds.), Indigenous People in Africa. Contestations, Empowerment and Group Rights. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa, 24–44. Nyamnjoh, Francis B. (2002). Cameroon: Over twelve years of cosmetic democracy. News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3: 5–8. Pelican, Michaela. (2008). Mbororo claims to regional citizenship and minority status in North-West Cameroon. Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute 78 (4): 540–560.

Understanding Ethnicity as Positional

135

Pelican, Michaela. (2009). Complexities of indigeneity and autochthony:  An African example. American Ethnologist 36 (1): 52–65. Pelican, Michaela. (2011). Mbororo on the move: From pastoral mobility to international travel. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 29 (4): 427–440. Pelican, Michaela. (2012). Mbororo pastoralists in Cameroon:  Transformations in identity and political representation. Afro-Eurasian Inner Dry Land Civilizations 1: 113–126. Pelican, Michaela. (2013). Insights from Cameroon. Five years after the declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Anthropology Today 29 (3) 13–16. Pelican, Michaela. (2015a) Masks and Staffs: Identity Politics in the Cameroon Grassfields, New York, Oxford: Berghahn. Pelican, Michaela. (2015b). Ethnicity as a political resource. Indigenous rights movements in Africa. In University of Cologne Forum ‘Ethnicity as a Political Resource’ (ed.), Ethnicity as a Political Resource. Conceptualizations across Disciplines, Regions, and Periods. Bielefeld: Transcript, 137–151. Pelican, M. and Mayurama, J. (2015). The indigenous rights movements in Africa: perspectives from Botswana and Cameroon. African Study Monographs 36 (1): 49–74. Salo, Elaine. (2010). Entrevista amb Amina Mama. In VV. AA. (ed.), Africana. Aportacions per a la descolonització del feminisme. Barcelona:  Oozebap—Espai Àfrica-Catalunya, 7–17. Schultz, Emily A.  (1984). From Pagan to Pullo:  Ethnic identity change in Northern Cameroon. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 54 (1): 46–64. Tonah, Steve. (2005) Fulani in Ghana. Migration History, Integration and Resistance. Accra: Research and Publication Unit, University of Ghana. Virtanen, Tea. (2003). Performance and Performativity in Pastoral Fulbe Culture. Helsinki:  Helsinki University Printing House, Research Series in Anthropology, University of Helsinki, Finland. Visweswaran, Kamala. (1994). Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Waters, Mary C.  (1996). Optional Ethnicities:  For Whites Only? In S.  Pedraza and R.  Rumbaut (eds.), Origins and Destinies:  Immigration, Race and Ethnicity in America. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Press, 444–454. Wimmer, Andreas and Glick Schiller, Nina. (2002). Methodological nationalism and beyond: Nation-state building, migration and the social sciences. Global Networks 2 (4): 301–34.

Internet Sources Carayol, Rémi. (2013). Planète peule:  rencontre avec un peuple sans frontieres” Jeune Afrique journal, 18th March 2013. Available at:  http://www.jeuneafrique. com/138138/societe/plan-te-peule-rencontre-avec-unpeuple-sans-fronti-res/ Post “Fulani, one people, one language” published on the Fulanitube public Facebook account (10/03/2014).

6.  The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction Youssef A kmir Ibn Zohr University (Morocco), Agadir

Introduction To begin, we believe it appropriate to set out the methodological lines underpinning this paper in order to emphasize its thematic and academic value. That means shedding light on what led us to study the policies of attraction European powers in general and Spain in particular conducted in Morocco. The Moroccan empire’s geographical proximity led Spain to become deeply involved in designing its future and meant that the modification or preservation of the Moroccan status quo became the focus of Spanish foreign policy. In Madrid it was known that Morocco’s colonial distribution was already a fait accompli and that the slightest negligence on the part of Spanish diplomacy could end up depriving the country of a new and mouth-watering expansionist enterprise. There was fear of hypothetical frustrations that might raise discontent among Spanish political forces and public opinion; all the more so given the unhealed wounds inflicted by the loss of the last overseas colonies. All of this meant Spain faced having to devote all its strength to making its future occupation of Morocco an issue of patriotism. In order to achieve this yearned-for objective, the Spanish government thoroughly and carefully designed a meticulous policy of attraction for the neighboring empire. By implementing such rigorous plans of attraction towards Moroccan society, Spain was sure to end up forging bonds of sympathy and submission, and thereby avoid potential acts of local resistance. The thematic specificity of this paper made us aware of the lack of historical studies on this issue. We nevertheless believe that archive material can compensate for the lack of literature. The documentary sources we consulted in Moroccan and Spanish archives have been essential. These consist of a series of reports, some of which were exchanged between European

138

Youssef A kmir

delegates in Tangier and their respective foreign ministries, which provide the researcher with first-hand information. Thanks to their content we have been able to learn, at close quarters, the plans and strategies of attraction that the European powers in general and Spain in particular conducted in Morocco. Other documentation, written in Arabic, is made up of varied correspondence between the sultan, his representative in the city of Tangier and the Makhzen administration in various Moroccan cities. These documents have allowed us to go deeper into little known aspects of official Moroccan policy regarding a series of phenomena linked to colonialism, such as the unlawful occupation of goods and properties by the European community based in Tangier, the illegal acquisition of lands in areas adjacent to the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, the involvement of the European powers in acts of corruption and political patronage, the buying of loyalty and the collaboration of tribal chiefs, among others. The information the Moroccan manuscripts contain has allowed us to reconsider the issue of European policies of attraction in Morocco from a new perspective that aims to overcome the superficiality of arbitrary trials and the adventures and misadventures of summarizing works in order to reconstruct a new historical reality in which analysis and comparison between the content of the sources consulted is made clear.

The Moroccan Crisis and European Attraction Endeavours The economic deficit caused by price rises had immediate repercussions within society. Representatives of the Makhzen and the Moroccan administration’s officials took advantage of this crisis to accumulate great fortunes in illicit manners. A  document from 1905 clearly shows how the Treasury and Foreign Affairs Ministries bought silver for themselves from a European trading company and sold it to the Moroccan mint.1 In 1906, the qabila people of Beni Mahdan sent a letter to the former governor of Tétouan condemning him for the illegal sale to a German resident of a usufruct plot belonging to that qabila.2 The documentation from the time also provides a view of how the state of turmoil suffered by the Moroccan economy encouraged the ambition of the foreign legations and their protégés. In 1897, Abdelmayid Ben Chekroun, a dignitary from the city of Fez, informed the sultan’s representative that the British embassy in Tangier had named Muchi Bibi Ben Chetoun, a Moroccan Jew, as intermediary between the traders in Fez and the English merchants.3 In 1889, the US ambassador in Tangier sent a card to the sultan’s representative asking him for tax exemption and commercial freedom for all those under the country’s protection.4 Another document dated 1900 shows how

The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction

139

the French legation in Morocco asked the sultan for large sums of money to compensate its protégés for the robberies they had suffered in the al-Heyayna region. The French representative also asked for commercial freedom for all French subjects.5 In 1910, the German consulate in Fez received 200 reals from the Makhzen in compensation for looting suffered by its protégés in the region of Ayn Tuttu.6 The same year, Muley Abd al-Hafid sent a decree to the judge of Tétouan, Tehami Afilal, permitting foreign residents of Tétouan to buy all types of goods.7 The imperial decree was issued following pressure exerted on the sultan’s representatives by the Spanish legation. This affirmation is based on another piece of correspondence sent in the same year by the Spanish minister in Tangier to the Makhzen, in which he asked for immediate notarial regularization of all goods belonging to Spanish residents in Morocco.8 Foreigners and their protégés were not content with the sultan’s numerous compensations, but dedicated themselves to promoting multiple irregularities. Moroccan documentation from the time reveals the reality of a group that managed to widen the socioeconomic inequality of the whole country. Various reports from the Makhzen administration mention the whims of foreign residents and their protégés. In 1910, a dignitary from Tétouan called Ahmed Rhuni sent the Makhzen news of some German residents who were improperly appropriating public goods in the region of Ras Adar.9 Despite the strict detention and punishment measures taken by the sultan, the offences committed by this group continued.10 In 1911, treasury officials in Tangier sent a letter to the sultan’s representative warning him of various foreigners and protégés who were refusing to pay taxes.11 The economic crisis provoked enormous social discontent. Moroccan society blamed its ills on foreigners interfering in the country’s affairs and the sultan for protecting them. Many qabila found themselves exposed to hunger and misery. Through the documentation consulted, we see an indignant rural Moroccan population that resorted to acts of anarchy to alleviate the misfortunes of its economy and demonstrate its discontent. In correspondence dated 1900 it was shown how the qabila people of Douar Sjásja attacked the estate of an English resident located in the outskirts of Tangier and seized livestock worth 800 reals.12 From another document in the same year it is deduced that the inhabitants of Beni Yeddir totally disobeyed the Makhzen’s orders and dedicated themselves to raiding the goods caravans that passed through the region. In 1902, the sultan’s representative in Tangier sent a letter to the governor of Tétouan to inform him of a robbery suffered by a Portuguese livestock trader in that qabila. According to this report, the qabila people of Beni Yeddir came away with spoils of 11 cows.13

140

Youssef A kmir

That same year, the sultan received news from Tangier of a campaign by the qabila people of Fahs against that city. The same letter referred to numerous robberies, fires and acts of destruction suffered by part of the city as a result of this attack.14 The social disorder led to another type of crime—banditry—which specialized in kidnapping foreigners and negotiating the price of their freedom. Moroccan documentation from the time shows that most of the bandits were qaids15 taking advantage of the sultan’s weakness to rebel against his authority. The bandits managed to form their own militias to carry out their activities. A document dated 1902 describes how the qaids of Anyera, Muhammad al-Duwaz and Ahmad Bulays, kidnapped two English soldiers in the area around Tétouan.16

Piracy: An Expression of Qabila Discontent with the European Presence in Morocco The rejection of the central power, the Makhzen, the lack of the basic elements of life and xenophobia towards foreigners motivated the spread of the criminal phenomenon of piracy. It was carried out by the tribes of the Riffian coast and was the main source of economic income for many qabila people. Religious leaders gave it (religious) authorization and it was considered one of the best acts of war against foreigners. The emergence of piracy was a response to the trading activities that began to become familiar in the Moroccan Mediterranean from the second part of the 19th century onwards. European boats carried their goods towards the Rif region, taking advantage of scant customs control and high demand for certain items, such as arms. The illegal manner in which these operations were run was condemned on various occasions by the sultan. In November 1896, the Moroccan government protested to the English legation in Tangier about contraband products from Gibraltar being sold in the Rif. The protest had no effect (Ayache 1986:  209). In 1897, the sultan’s representative in Tangier received orders on the need to exercise maritime vigilance and to embargo all foreign vessels engaging in contraband on the Riffian coast.17 All foreign goods sold in the region of Alhucemas were subject to the trade monopoly of Bocoya’s qabila population. They bought the items in order to distribute them in the other qabila. Commercial relations between Riffians and European traders were not always good, with scams and swindles on both sides. In this environment of reciprocal prejudice and distrust a group emerged that dedicated itself to raiding merchant ships, kidnapping their passengers and demanding large sums of money to release them.

The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction

141

In the late 19th century the acts of piracy in the Rif intensified. In October 1896, a Spanish vessel had to intervene to apprehend a ship “crewed by Moors” carrying five French prisoners.18 On 14th August 1897, two boats with eleven Moors from Cebadilla, qabila of Bocoya, raided an Italian boat called Rictar loaded with wood and took the crew prisoner.19 Thirteen days later an attack was made on the same coasts of Cebadilla on the Portuguese boat Rosita de Faro from Orán by four boats containing Moors from the village of Tiamit Bocoya, they seized clothes and a dinghy and took Captain Juan Rosendo and four sailors with them.20 In October 1898, the French merchant ship Prosper Coren was also attacked by Riffians who took the entire crew hostage.21 The Moroccan government’s reaction to the acts of piracy was robust. In 1897, its representative in Tangier received the order to provide the maritime fleet with soldiers and weapons to punish the qabila of Bocoya.22 But despite the sultan’s good intentions, the attacks and kidnappings produced large amounts of tension at international level. Foreign legations in Tangier expressed their concern about the insecurity in Riffian waters. Some powers negotiated directly with the Riffians for mercy for their citizens; others preferred the sultan’s mediation. Some even attempted both options at once. This was the case with Spain, which negotiated the rescue of its sailors with the Moroccan government while seeking the collaboration of notable Riffians behind its back. Both methods were commented upon in the diplomatic correspondence of the time. On November 6th 1897, Spain’s plenipotentiary minister in Tangier informed the minister of state of the arrival of a rifleman sergeant in Rif, “a Bocoya native”, who will take charge of the negotiation with his tribe.23 On October 13th 1898, the minister of war informed the state that “the Moor called Mohan Hamadi” was in Alhucemas at the disposal of the maritime authority for collaboration on the Spanish hostages issue.24 In terms of diplomatic efforts with Morocco, Spain asked the sultan for significant compensation for what its citizens were suffering in the Rif. On December 26th 1896, the Spanish minister in Tangier sent the minister of state the following information: Today payment has been completed of one hundred and twenty-six thousand three hundred and five pesetas agreed with Bricha as compensation for murders, aggression and looting of the boat María Luisa. The sum was deposited in the Bank of Spain.25

Other countries’ were no less intransigent than the Spanish. England demanded to be present at all diplomatic events relating to the issue of piracy.

142

Youssef A kmir

France was not satisfied with pressuring the sultan—it intervened directly in the process of rescuing and exchanging captives, provoking major international complications. In October 1987, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and English diplomats condemned the French representative in Morocco for causing the rescue negotiations in the Rif to fail, alleging that the French agent turned up in order to support their assertion that the hostages were still in Bocoya.26 The French attitude to the piracy problem was also condemned by the sultan, who presented an act of protest to the Spanish and British representatives.27 Ultimately, if piracy was considered profitable for the inhabitants of the Riffian coast, it was no less so for the powers interested in breaking the status quo in Morocco. The aggressions suffered by foreign boats in the Rif were becoming a valuable bargaining chip for squeezing more profit out of the delicate Moroccan question. It seems surprising that the same powers dedicating themselves to ruining the Moroccan market with their goods, in defiance of fiscal and customs controls, should approach the government to condemn the behavior of their Riffian clients. It therefore follows that the complaints about piracy were mere pretexts for convincing the sovereign that the best way to maintain order was to establish a European protectorate in Morocco.

The Foundations of the Spanish Policy of Attraction in Moroccan Territory In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Spain had to take a series of measures in Morocco to prepare the ground for a coming occupation. The first was social in nature and consisted of providing advantages in the form of rewards and protection to prestigious figures in many qabila in order to facilitate intervention in the most important regions of northern Morocco and protect the interests of Spain there. The political and colonial measures consisted of annexing the border territories that surround Melilla and Ceuta through purchases or acquisitions, always with the collaboration of the highest classes of Moroccan society. The economic arrangements consisted of relying on Spanish capitalists to invest in Northern Morocco, specifically in the financial, commercial and mining sectors, thereby blocking all foreign (mainly French) initiatives with the same goal.

The Colonial Component From 1898 to 1912 the interest in promoting the Spanish policy of attraction in Morocco made clear the need to extend the borders of Ceuta and Melilla.

The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction

143

This extension had three motives: the first was to take advantage of the state of disunity that existed between the Moroccan population and the Makhzen to expand the two North African territories and appropriate lands across the whole northern part of Morocco; the second was closely associated with the issue of ensuring Spain’s sovereignty in those areas, after the foreign claims that had affected the whole coastline of the Moroccan Mediterranean;28 the third and last consisted of the strategy of appropriating large areas of land to facilitate Spain’s intervention on the day the status quo was broken in Morocco. With this in mind, Spain commissioned a core of (mainly military) experts to study the possibility of extending and acquiring new lands in the mentioned area. The interesting report by Emilio Barrera on the purchase of territories in the vicinities of Ceuta and Melilla,29 and the opinions of Marenco on the purchase of lands clearly reflect the desire to annex and control new regions in Morocco.30 Both documents refer to the efforts of the Commander General of the Alhucemas area to appropriate a great number of territories through purchases and negotiations with the inhabitants of Ait Abdelah, Beni Boufrah and Axdir. The same documents also allude to the arrangements of the Captain-General of Melilla with regard to the annexation of Kert, Zaio, Quebdana and the Zebra Plain. Finally, reference is made to General García Aldave and his suitability for acquiring the regions of Ain Yir, Cudia Seriya, Cudia Federico, El Marsa and Castillejos. According to the Captain-General, the project of annexing new regions in Ceuta was good for the defence of the Spanish territory and if achieved, Spain would receive the advantages of controlling half the route to Tangier, being mistress of the Zoco del Tlatza, one of the two essential stops on the way from the inland douars to Ceuta, and have contact with the richest parts of Anyera and El Haus.31 The two military reports placed emphasis on the importance of securing the collaboration of prominent figures in Beni Uriagel, Gueleya, Beni Boufrah, Anyera and El Haus to facilitate the work of acquiring land.

Economic and Strategic Components One of the most important reasons for promoting the acquisition of territories in northern Morocco was the problem of insecurity in Ceuta and Melilla due to Western expansionist claims along the whole Moroccan coast. Successive foreign threats and the fragility of the status quo caused great concern in Spain, which dedicated itself to occupying land and investing significant capital in it. These investments at times ran up against the strategic and economic interests of France, a dangerous, major competitor.

144

Youssef A kmir

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the need to encourage Spain’s economic interests in Morocco became clear. To this end, significant capital was dedicated to investing in the mining, commercial and financial sectors (Sandoica 1982: 127). The idea of investing in Morocco received great support from the government as well as from pressure groups and public opinion. As a result, institutional circles emerged that defended any action aimed at developing Morocco’s natural wealth in their publications. La Asociación Española para la Exploración de África, La Sociedad HispanoMauritánica, La Sociedad de la Geografía Comercial y Mercantil and La Sociedad de Africanistas y Colonistas all focussed their attention on serving Spanish interests in Morocco. At the start of the 20th century other new societies of the same nature were incorporated into this institutional circle. The Centros Comerciales Hispano-marroquíes and the Liga Africanista Española defended the goals of this profession through their activities (Villanova 2014: 137–160). This initiative meant Spanish investments in the southern neighborhood experienced major growth. Between just 1907 and 1912, nine Spanish businesses set up in northern Morocco with capital of 26,120,000 pesetas (Morales Lezcano 1986: 221). From the early 20th century the mining sector was the one that most attracted Spanish capitalists. The extensive Riffian mountains revived the desire to discover and develop deposits in the region. Thanks to the effective pressure Spanish capitalism exerted on both the country’s economy and politics, the government sent various scientific expeditions to the Rif to make this social class’s dream a reality. So it was that the minister for development visited Melilla and its surroundings accompanied by a group of engineers. It should also be recalled that much of the capital invested in the mining sector belonged to figures with great influence in both the Spanish economy and politics. It is sufficient to point out that the Compañía Norteafricana was led by the conservative politician Antonio García Alix, and that the Sindicato Español de las Minas del Rif was chaired by the prominent liberal politician, Villanueva (Allendesalazar 1990: 137). The Riffian mines’ wealth was the reason for these investments and their exploitation was the goal. At the time it was said that the iron mines of Beni Bu Ifrur were 25% larger than the richest of Bilbao’s mines. The problem lay in taking control of these deposits and tapping that wealth. The anarchy that characterized Riffian society, its complete rejection of everything foreign and the ambitions of France, which sought to capitalize on the situation, were obstacles in the way of investment projects in various regions. On more than one occasion Spanish mining capitalism came under pressure from France. The dispatching of a French group, half-military, half-commercial, from

The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction

145

Algeria to cross the Moulouya River in order to reach the Beni Bu Ifrur mine (Bachoud 1988: 47), and French attacks on Spanish mines at El Haxra clearly demonstrate the challenge.32 The French intention to invest in Riffian territories was a reality that was always condemned by the dignitaries in many qabila and members of the Spanish military. The Captain-General warned of the danger the French presence in the area might cause. Meanwhile, the commander of the Alhucemas military division stated in his reports that the region’s inhabitants had received telegrams from a French businessman interested in buying their land.33 In the same context Marenco’s correspondence is worth mentioning, in which he expressed fear of French expansion following consecutive acquisition of lands along the whole Moroccan coastline.34 The threatening situation France provoked only benefitted qabila dignataries, who took advantage of the circumstances to sell land to Spain at the prices their wanted, earning great fortunes.

The Social Component and Buying the Services of Tribal Cheijs: From Chieftanship to Collaboration In terms of the social component, which was based on rewarding dignitaries in each qabila in order to facilitate Spain’s interference in Morocco, it is worth quoting various figures who engaged in this work; people who aspired only to make profit from services provided to the powers interested in occupying Morocco, such as Yilali Ben Dris and Roghi Buhmara. The latter maintained a relationship with Spain characterized by the generous services provided. In fact, many powers had important relationships with him and with his representatives without the sultan’s consent. Víctor Ruiz Albéniz recognized in his monograph that the fruits of the Spanish colonial policy grew during the Roghi era. Albéniz stated that in the Riffian countryside, specifically in Guelaya, the most absolute peace was already enjoyed thanks to Roghi’s presence and constant activity: after subduing each Riffian qabila one by one, imposing tribute obligations on them and punishing rebels with harsh raids, he quickly showed a desire to live in close friendship with Spain. The soldiers were under strict orders not to bother the Spaniards of Restinga and Kebdana in the slightest (Ruiz Albéniz 1994: 42). Roghi’s skill not only helped him maintain business relations with Spain, but also with France. So it is that we find him negotiating with French capitalists over the development of the iron mines and the possibility of setting up a factory in the Restinga region. French capitalists expected somewhat more from Roghi than the establishment of a factory, because at the same time

146

Youssef A kmir

there was talk of an agreement between Buhmara and France over the expansion of a French commercial port in Restinga; a fact that could have seriously harmed Spanish interests in the area (Allendesalazar 1990: 130–136). Various figures acquired great social prestige and significant wealth in reward for their collaboration with Spain. The attitude of another important figure who collaborated with the Spanish army on the eve of the penetration into Morocco should be mentioned; it was an attitude that shifted between friendship and enmity, as defined by the historian Carlos Federico Tessainer y Tomassich, along with the stages of the intervention in the Maghrebi empire. This was Sidi Ahmed Raisuni, whose relationship with Spain deserves further study, at least in the years of mutual loyalty. It would be an exaggeration to say that Raisuni’s prestige came solely from his contacts with Spain. Raisuni was a Sharif with ancestry traced to the Prophet’s daughter and a person of great intelligence. He was aware of the fragile state of the Moroccan Makhzen and began an initiative in which it was important to have warriors and dominions. The deteriorated situation allowed Raisuni to take over the whole region of Aaqba Hamra in 1906, which links Tangier with other Moroccan cities. Spain was aware that collaboration with Raisuni was a fundamental part of arranging its penetration into northern Morocco. That is why it dedicated itself to negotiating the forms of intervention with him. The interviews granted to a Spanish journalist express Raisuni’s appreciation for Spain. In one of them, the Sharif said that he was, Spain’s loyal friend, and not afraid of it. Not so France. I fear the behaviour of their soldiers and men (…). I received a letter from Alcazarquivir that made me aware of the arrival of troops – Spanish troops. I replied that they could be sure of the loyalty of Moroccans and told the governor to provide the troops that were necessary (Tessainer y Tomassich 1992: 210).

Raisuni’s collaboration with Spain also had the advantage of serving to convince the population of the interests Spanish colonization could encourage. For this purpose, the Sharif called a meeting with representatives of Yebala at the sanctuary of Muley Abd al-Salam to announce the duty to adopt a friendly position towards the neighboring country (Tessainer y Tomassich 1992: 210). Such appreciation towards Spain by Raisuni provoked great discontent among the international powers. In 1911, France’s representative in Morocco advised the sultan of the tax harassment foreigners were suffering from Raisuni. The French ambassador stated in his letter that Spanish traders and their protégés were exempt from the taxes.35

The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction

147

To better understand the policy of attraction towards Raisuni, I  used as a foundation a report drawn up by one of the advisers representing the Compañía Española de Colonización en Marruecos. The report was sent to the king, Alfonso XIII. The document is dated 1916, one year after the company’s foundation. The text meticulously describes the meeting with Cheij Muley Ahmed Raisuni and the different rounds of negotiations held with him. The aim of approaching the Sharif lay in the need to make him the protector of the business this company sought to carry out in the north-western part of the protectorate in exchange for appetizing rewards. The meeting between the country’s representatives and Raisuni took place at a time when tensions were emerging between Sharif and the High Commissioner (Ahmed Rhouni 2001: 146–148). The report contained exhaustive and varied information that may appear insignificant, but which allows us to perform a historiographical reconstruction of the different political and social phenomena of the time. For example, the report contains an anecdote about the Sharif demanding that the representatives of the Compañía Española de Colonización bring a dentist from Madrid to visit him and that the medical attention should precede the negotiations. This fact demonstrates, on the one hand, the advances in the health and hygiene sector among the Spanish elites and, on the other, that the influence and authority the Raisuni exerted in the north-western region of the protectorate was such that he was able to impose the conditions on the company for negotiating with the region. On this subject we read: We were accompanied by the dentist Alejandro Martínez Arroyo, from Madrid, who was brought by the company on its own account to care for the Sharif, who in our June 23rd conference had given the interpreter Cerdeira (Ahmed Rhouni 2001:  148) the urgent task of sending him a dentist. With Tétouan lacking adequate resources, we offered to bring a person from Madrid who had our complete trust, an offer the Sharif gratefully accepted […] The Sharif gave us an extremely warm welcome, starting the conversation with very expressive displays of his gratitude about the dentist the company had brought him, praising the skills of this medical practitioner and the attention and care with which he attended him.36

During this period, all Raisuni’s contacts with the Spanish authorities were paralyzed. The campaigns of persecution led by Silvestre in Larache and Tangier to take over Zinat, an area controlled by Raisuni, and the failed attempt on his life on January 11th 1915 (Madariaga 2005: 121), made relations with the High Representative, Francisco Jordana, increasingly distant. Raisuni no longer trusted Spain’s intentions and continued to maintain his power over the different qabila. The report that is the subject of this study

148

Youssef A kmir

portrays a Raisuni who is disappointed by the conduct of the Spanish authorities, but willing at the same time to negotiate with Spanish capitalists the price of the business they intend to carry out in exchange for protecting them and providing them with order and security.37 At the start of the conference with the Sharif, the company’s representatives presented him with a collection of photographs of all the work, construction and projects carried out up to that point by the Compañía Española de Colonización: the Ceuta-Tétouan railway, Hotel Alfonso XIII in Tétouan, Cerámica Tetuaní, flour and ice factories and electrical plants all set up in the area, views of the agriculture colonies in Guert and Kert, and other photos. At his behest, the company’s action plan was explained to him with extensive elaboration of the company’s aim of giving value to and exploiting the country’s natural wealth. In order for the Sharif to easily get involved in the company’s projects, the representatives granted him capital participation that gave him the right to proportional profits from the businesses already in operation; in the new businesses, or the new contributions he made to the company, part of the ownership would be reserved for him. Faced with the mouth-watering prospect of becoming a partner, the Sharif asked whether the mentioned company would dedicate itself, first of all, only to developing works of immediate and direct benefit to the qabila people, they being the parties who needed attracting. But he also wanted to know whether the company was willing to sidestep the government and join him. The response given by the company’s representatives was the following: He was answered, and it was confirmed to him, that: we represented Spanish private action, entered into by a group of national parties and capitalists to act in Morocco and with that company in particular. We had nothing to do with official action, to which we were linked by no other ties than those that unite all of a nation’s subjects with their government […] with a rift with the government suiting neither him nor us in any way. That we, as Spaniards, were subject to the government’s action, whose cooperation was on the other hand essential for facilitating the carrying out of the public works that he, like us, considered necessary and urgent for the pacification and prosperity of the area.38

From the text cited a clear interest is evident in convincing Raisuni to revive his contacts with the High Commissioner. Raisuni would use that interest astutely and skilfully to convert the Compañía Española de la Colonización into an intermediary between him and the Madrid government. The Sharif was convinced that this was a company with significant capital and privileged relationships with the highest political spheres. That is why he made the proposal of being a partner of the company conditional on the influence the company could exert on the government to attend to and satisfy his demands.

The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction

149

It meant granting him the means and elements necessary to expand to 3000 men the “Mehalla of 1000 Mohaznis” maintained with Spanish subsidies.39 The report concluded thus about Raisuni’s mood: The Sharif showed that, as we had arrived at a time when a wall was being raised between the Spanish Makhzen in the area and him, he was prepared to demolish it if we handled the resolution of these issues directly with the Madrid government; that he believed in us because of the trust we had inspired in him, was certain that we had spoken frankly to him and that we would tell him soon whether it was possible or not to obtain what he wanted from the government, in order to adopt, if the answer is negative, the attitude that best suits him; that he was giving us proof of wanting to be our instrument and that this was the final definitive step that had to be taken to finally resolve everything.40

Raisuni’s attitude to Spain did not always follow the line of friendship and collaboration, as just a few years later he joined the qabila in the north-eastern part of Morocco in declaring war on the Spanish army. And if the relationship between Spain and the Sharif was friendly in nature at the outset that was because he was aware of the advantages it gave him; advantages that were the source of a fortune that was well invested in the Jebli resistance movement he himself led. The collaboration of qabila dignitaries and their influence was considered an essential part of establishing the Spanish presence in the whole northern part of Morocco. The advantages and rewards offered to this qabila minority increased their affinity for Spain; an affinity that was publicized on more than one occasion. Mentioning just a few events confirms this hypothesis. The declaration of submission by the dignitaries of Ulad-El-Bach, Beni-kitum, Ulad-Daud and el Berkanin, after the visit of Alfonso XIII to Melilla reflects the degree of collaboration and support these prominent figures offered to Spain (Ruiz Albéniz 1994:  174). In the same sense, it is also necessary to mention the written correspondence in Arabic exchanged between the most prestigious leaders of the Hawz, Anyera and the authorities in Ceuta. This correspondence reveals the loyalty of the qabila dignitaries to Spain and their willingness to collaborate with it. In one of these letters, a prestigious figure called Muhammad Ben Ali declares his loyalty to General García Aldave and tells him that his qabila will never betray Spain or obey the orders of Raisuni (Temsamani 1987: 57). Among these documents is correspondence sent by dignitaries from Anyera to the governor of Ceuta on April 10th 1910. In it, the dignitaries state their willingness to facilitate the submission of all the tribes to Spanish authority in exchange for monetary reward. The same dignitaries continued to warn the governor that they had received offers from another European

150

Youssef A kmir

power, but the territorial adjacency of their qabila to Ceuta meant they counted on Spain (Temsamani 1987: 57).

Conclusion Placing tribal leaders at Spain’s service was an endeavor that greatly benefitted Spanish colonial action in northern Morocco. The fruits of this work would be noted over subsequent years when these leaders dedicated themselves to serving the interests of Spain, helping the army in its efforts to occupy rebellious qabila, and facilitating the acquisition of lands throughout the protectorate. The pacts between Spain and qabila leaders and local chieftains indicate, on the one hand, the need to resort to strategies that would speed up the seizure of capital in hostile territory; but such intervention was, incidentally, slow and timid. On the other, it demonstrates the lack of coordination between the precursors of Spanish political control:  this provoked continual failed wars and delayed the definitive occupation of the whole area of the protectorate by decades, until, practically, 1929–1930, when the Spanish army, excited by the surrender of Abd al-Krim, carried out extermination campaigns against the Riffian people which colonialist military historiography called “disarmament and pacification” campaigns.

Notes 1. Archive Mohamed Daoud of Tétouan, AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 5, TR 61, 1905. 2. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 6, BJ 9, 1906. Editor’s note: Qabila was the Arabic term used to name tribe in North Morocco. Its Berber equivalent was taqbilt, dhaqbitsh in Riffian Amazigh. 3. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 5, TR 32. 4. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 5, TR 80. 5. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 5, TR 50. 6. Royal Archive of Rabat, ARR, folder 72, Hafid period. 7. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 6, BJ 49. 8. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 7, BJ 51. 9. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 7, BJ 144. 10. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 8, BJ 64. 11. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 8, BJ 16, 1911. 12. ARR, folder 245, S 251, 1900, Azizi period. 13. ARR, folder 763, S 151, 1902, Azizi period. 14. ARR, folder 573, 1902, Azizi period. 15. Editor’s note: Qaid was a rural chief at the head of tribes. 16. ARR, folder 573, 1902, Doc.cit. 17. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 5, TR 29, 1897.

The Case of Spain and Its Policy of Attraction

151

18. General Archive of Palace, AGP, Box 13.104/3, 8 Octuber 1896. 19. AGP, Cª 13.104/3, 17 August 1897. 20. AGP, Cª 13.104/3, 27 August 1897. 21. AGP, Cª 13.104/3, 11 de octubre de 1898. 22. AMDT, Manuscripts and Documentation Section, folder 5, TR 29, 1897. 23. AGP, Cª 13.104/3, 6 November 1897. 24. AGP, Cª 13.104/3, 13 Octuber 1898. 25. AGP, Cª 13.104/3, 26 December 1896. 26. AGP, Cª 13.104/3, 1 Octuber 1897. 27. AGP, Cª 13.104/3, 7 Octuber 1897. 28. “Las defensas de Ceuta”, La Época, 16 December 1898. See also, “Ceuta, Canarias, Gibraltar”, La Época, 28 November 1898. 29. AGP, Box 15599/15, Morocco, 1910. 30. Ibídem. 31. AGP, Box 15599/15, Doc. cit. 32. AGP, Box 12956/18, Letter from Mr. Mac Pherson about an incident in the Rif mines, 21 February 1910. 33. AGP, Box 15599/15, Doc.cit. 34. AGP, Box 15599/15, Doc.cit. 35. ARR, folder 97, Hafdí period, 1911, Report written by the Foreign Press and Information Officer in Tangier. 36. AGP, Box 15837/3. 37. AGP, Box 15837/3, 1916. 38. AGP, Box 15837/3, Doc.cit. 39. Ibídem. 40. AGP, Box 15837/3, Do.cit.

Archives Consulted Archive Mohamed Daoud, Tétouan, Morocco (AMDT) General Archive of Palace, Morocco (AGP) Royal Archive, Rabat, Morocco (ARR)

Bibliography Ahmed Rhouni, Abou Al-Abbas. (2001). Umdat al rawuin fi tárij tittauín. Edited and corrected by Jahfar Bellhaj Soulami. Tetouan: Tétuán Publicaciones de la Asociación Tetuán- Smir. Vol. II. 146–148. Allendesalazar, José Manuel. (1990). La diplomacia española y Marruecos 1907–1909. Madrid: ICMA. Ayache, Germain.(1986). Dirasat fi tarij al-magreb, (in Arabic), Estudios en Historia de Marruecos. Casablanca. Bachoud, Andrée. (1988). Los españoles ante las Campañas de Marruecos, 1909–1914. Madrid:España-Calpe.

152

Youssef A kmir

Hernández Sandoica, Elena. (1982). Pensamiento burgués y problemas coloniales en la España de la Restauración (1875–1885). PhD. Vol.I. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Madariaga, Maria Rosa de. (2005). En el Barranco del Lobo, Las guerras de Marruecos. Madrid: Ed. Alianza Editorial. Morales Lezcano, Víctor. (1986). España y el norte de África, el protectorado en Marruecos, (1912–1956). Madrid: UNED. Ruiz Albéniz, Víctor. (1994) [1921]. España en Rif (1908–1921). Melilla. Temsamani Khalouk, Abdelazizi. (1987). Cien documentos inéditos sobre Tánger a finales del silo XIX, y principios del XX. Dar al-Niyaba 4 (13): 60–68. Tessainer y Tomassich, Carlos Federico. (1992). El Raisuni, aliado y enemigo de España, PhD, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid. Villanova, José Luis. (2014). La Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid y el colonialismo en Maruecos entre 1876–1912, a través las actas de las reuniones de su consejo de Administración. In Y.  Akmir (ed.), Agadir en Torno a 1911, aproximaciones historiográficas hispano-marroquíes al Agadir de finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX. Rabat-Agadir: IHL—UIZ, 137–160.

List of Contributors

Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré From 1999 to 2001, Aixelà-Cabré was Acting Curator in the Ethnological Museum of Barcelona (Spain). From 2001 until 2008, she was Lecturer at the University of Alicante (Spain). Since 2008 she is Tenured Scientist at IMFCSIC (Barcelona) where she has been Vice-director of Research (2015–2018). Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology (University of Barcelona in 1999). Her fieldwork has been in Egypt, Morocco, Equatorial Guinea and Spain, and multisited ethnography in Switzerland, England, the Netherlands, Cameroon and South Africa. Her last R&D Project is “Africans and Maghrebis in the Iberian Peninsula (1850–1975). A  history on the margins of Spain and Portugal” (AFROIBERIA) (PID2019-108397GB-I00; 2020–2023). She is the author and/or co-editor of 13 books and 77 book chapters and articles in national and international journals. Her last books are Ciudades, Glocalización y Patrimonio Contestado. Una historia de Bata y de Al-Hoceima 1900–2019 (Ed. Bellaterra, 2019) and The management of ethnic, religious and cultural diversity in Europe in 21th century (Edwin Mellen, 2018; translated by Ed. Bellaterra, 2019). Her last articles are “The Presence of the Colonial Past: Equatorial Guinean Women in Spain” (Itinerario 2020) and “Colonial Memories and Contemporary Narratives from the Rif” (Interventions 2019). Her last work as editor is In the footsteps of Spanish Colonialism in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea (Lit Verlag 2018, previously published by CSIC in 2015). Youssef Akmir Youssef Akmir is Professor of History of Spanish-Moroccan Relations at the Ibn Zohr University in Agadir-Morocco. He received his Ph.D. in Contemporary

154

L ist

of

C ontr ibutor s

Spanish History from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2002. In the course of his professional career, he has participated in various research projects and conferences on the history of Spanish-Moroccan relations. His publications include: Agadir en torno a 1911; Aproximaciones historiográficas hispano-marroquíes al Agadir de finales del siglo XX y principios del XX; De Algeciras a Tetuán 1875–1906; Orígenes del proyecto colonialista español en Marruecos; De la Potencia Invasora a la Potencia Protectora: la percepción de España en el norte de Marruecos (1860–1923). Bernhard Bleibinger Bernhard Bleibinger is a Researcher at the IMF-CSIC (since 2020). From 2007 until 2020 he has been Professor and Head of the Music Department (2007-2015) at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. He obtained his PhD (subjects:  Musicology; Anthropology; History) at the LudwigMaximilians Universität München in 2003. He has participated in several projects and published on Indigenous Xhosa music, with an emphasis on songs of Xhosa women in Mkonjana (2007) and Applied Ethnomusicology since 2008. Besides that, he has been part of an international award-winning team, which has made Alexandre de Riquer’s “Excalibur” the second most translated Hispanic text after Don Quixote. In his research, he has dealt with topics, such as applied ethnomusicology, history of ethnomusicology, indigenous music in the Easter Cape and music and symbols. Among his research output we find publications, such as, “Altes neu gemacht und Neues alt gedacht: Beispiele von modifizierten, adaptierten und reinterpretierten Musikinstrumenten und –stücken bei den Xhosa im Eastern Cape in Südafrika” in Altes neu gedacht—Rückgriff auf Traditionelles bei Musikalischen Volkskulturen (2014) and Marius Schneider und der Simbolismo. Ensayo musicológico y etnológico sobre un buscador de símbolos (VASA-Verlag, 2005). Cristina Enguita-Fernàndez Cristina Enguita-Fernàndez has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology (University of Barcelona in 2019). She has a degree in Psychology (UAB, 2007)  and in Social and Cultural Anthropology (University of Barcelona, 2010). In addition, she has also been trained in international development project management (UOC-Red Cross, 2013). Her main areas of research are the anthropology of the body, identity politics, indigeneity, and ethnic diversity in Postcolonial Africa, as well as migration and transnational mobility. Her regional specialization is in Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular Cameroon,

List of Contributors

155

where she has developed her fieldwork among the Fulani Mbororo people. Currently, she is working at ISGlobal (Barcelona) as social scientist. She is involved in a project about community perceptions and acceptability of malaria preventive treatments among pregnant women in four sub-Saharan countries. Some of her works are “Managing Ethnicity through the Body”, The Scientific Journal of Humanistic Studies (2014), and “The COVID-19 epidemic through a gender lens: what if a gender approach had been applied to inform public health measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic?” Social Anthropology (2020) (with Marbán-Castro, Manders, Maxwel and Matta). Jan Küver Jan Küver is an Anthropologist and Heritage Practitioner holding an M.A. in Sociology and Ethnology from the University of Goettingen, Germany. Since 2007 he serves as a lecturer and administrator at the University of Iringa, Tanzania. He is also the Director of fahari yetu—Tanzania Heritage & Culture Solutions, an NGO implementing applied culture and heritage conservation projects in Tanzania. fahari yetu is a Swahili term translating to “our pride” that refers to the organization’s general mission to empower the community through awareness-raising about, active participation in, and supporting economic livelihoods from the living culture and heritage of Iringa Region. Fahari yetu’s key achievement to date has been the historical restoration and establishment of Iringa Boma—Regional Museum and Cultural Centre which Küver coordinated from 2013 to 2016 with seed funding from the European Union. Küver’s project work in Tanzania serves as case study for his Ph.D.  in Heritage Studies at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany. His research investigates the link between cultural heritage, history and community development and seeks to refine ethnographic approaches to heritage studies. Daniela Merolla Daniela Merolla is Professor in Berber Literature and Art at the INALCO, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Sorbonne ParisCité). She taught and did research in African Literatures and Media at Leiden University until 2015. Her research focuses on African oral literary productions as well as on written literatures in African and European languages. She published among others: Afrikaanse Letterkunde. Tradities, genres, auteurs en ontwikkelingen (African literatures. Traditions, genres, authors and developments) (with Mineke Schipper and Inge Brinkman) Amsterdam: Amsterdam

156

L ist

of

C ontr ibutor s

University Press, 2019; Les cinémas berbères. De la méconnaissance aux festivals nationaux (edited with Kamal Naït Zerad and Amar Ameziane), Karthala, Paris (May 2019); Searching for Sharing: Heritage and Multimedia in Africa (edited with Mark Turin), Open Book Publishers, Cambridge U.K. 2017; “Rif:  littérature.” Encyclopédie Berbère, XLI, 2017, pp.  6956–6972; 2017;  “Beyond ‘two Africas’ in African and Berber literary studies. The Face of Africa.” Essays in honour of Ton Dietz, edited by Wouter van Beek, Jos Damen, Dick Foeken, ASCL, Leiden University, the Netherlands, 2017, pp. 215–235; Multimedia Research and Documentation of Oral Genres in Africa—The Step Forward, Köln: Köppe Verlag, 2012 (edited with Jan Jansen and Kamal NaïtZerrad); Transcultural Modernities:  Narrating Africa in Europe, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2009 (edited with Elizabeth Bekers and Sissy Helff); De l’art de la narration tamazight (berbère), Éditions Peeters, Paris, Louvain, 2006.

Index

A Adogame, Afe 10 Africa 1–12, 19, 25–28, 32, 39, 41, 43, 45, 51, 55, 63–65, 68–70, 72–73, 75–79, 85, 87–88, 93, 114, 116–17, 121, 123 Central 2, 12 Eastern 2 in Europe 1, 7–8, 11 migration to 43 North 2, 19–20 Postcolonial 114 South 2, 12, 22, 65, 73 Sub-Saharan 2, 3, 41, 116 visions of 8 West 27, 63, 117 Africa–Europe 1–5, 7–9, 11, 25, 32 cultural heritage 7–9, 11 encounter 25, 32 pasts 3 relations 1, 4 African 1–12, 19, 21, 24, 25, 27–29, 31–33, 40–41, 50–52, 54–55, 63–65, 68–70, 72–73, 76–80, 99, 114–17, 120–21, 124, 143 coast 29, 70 communities 4, 10, 120 cultures 5–6, 9 difficulties 6 dis-encounters 5

films 7, 19, 28 former colonies 5 history 2, 5 identity 2 image 63 imprints 2 in Europe 4, 6, 8–11 literatures 27, 28 magic 70 Mediterranean 3 memories 6–8 migration 12 music 8–9, 63–65, 72–73, 76–77 musicians 77 narratives 6 nationalities 54 oral literatures 7, 19 oral narratives 28 perspectives 5 populations 5, 7, 8, 51, 55, 116 realities 5 rejection 4 savage 52 strategies 10 subsumption 1, 41 territories 142–43 versions 8 voices 5, 7–9, 11 workers 50–51 written literatures 7, 19 Afro-American Music 69–70

158 Afro-Cuban 70–71 cultural expressions 71 dance 70 elements 71 rhythm 70 Afrocubanismo 71 Afrocubanist 71 Afro-European 1–2, 5–9, 11, 19, 21, 25, 28, 30, 32–33 coexistence 6, 11 cultural heritage 2, 5–6 encounters 1, 5, 25, 28, 30, 33 experiences 6 imprints 6 legacies 5 literature 32 memories 2, 5–7, 19, 21, 25, 33 past 1, 8 present 1 realities 5 sociopolítical experiences 7, 9, 11 versions of the past 7 writers 32 Agawu, Kofi 76–77, 80 Agualusa, José Eduardo 28–29 Algeria 70, 145 Al-Hoceima 4, 8, 39–46, 48–49, 55 conquest of 45 Alhucemas 47, 140–41, 143, 145 Amazigh 2, 7, 19–20, 30–32, 44 Berber Studies 7, 19 Berber characters 31 Berbers 20 Chelja 44 demands 30 film 30 film director 30 literature 19 Riffian language 44 writer 30 World Assembly 32 Androcentric 8, 39, 44 relations 39 relationship 8 relevance 44 Augé, Marc 26 Austria 69, 79

I ndex Austrian 77, 79 pianist 77 servants 79 Ayache, Germain 140

B Barth, Fredrik 116, 122 Baumann, Gerd 10 Belgium 12, 20, 22, 30, 55, 116 empires 55 Bouzaggou, Mohamed 30 Boys 23, 52–54 colonist homes 54 homeworkers 52 male workers 53 Brah, Avtar 114, 127–28 British 24, 55, 72, 98, 100, 138, 142 activist 72 campuses 24 colonial authorities 100 edition 98 embassy 138 empires 55 officials 98 representatives 142 soldiers 72 Burnham, Philip 115, 117–18, 127

C Cameroon 2, 10, 114, 116–20, 122–28 and Europe 116, 125–26 associative movement in 124 colonization of 10 East province of 118 fieldwork in 116, 123 north of 127 northwest regions of 119 views from 125 west regions of 119 Cameroonian 118–19, 122–23, 125–27 context 127 government 122, 126 minority 125 society 118

159

Index state policy 119 territory 123 Central African Republic 117–18 Césaire, Aimé 5 Chad 120 Chakrabarty, Dipesh 114 Clifford, James 104 Colonial 2–4, 6–11, 20, 22, 25–26, 28–30, 39–43, 46–52, 54–55, 70, 73–74, 77–78, 85–86, 88, 94, 96–98, 100, 102–104, 115–16, 121, 128, 137, 142, 145, 150 accounts 9, 78, 102 action 39, 121, 150 archive 10 cities 43 conquest 96, 102 culture 52 discourse 51 distribution 137 encounter 28 expansion 2 experiences 55 footprints 41 heritage 86, 103 historicism 78 history 85–86, 103–04, 115 imaginary 9, 78 impact of Europe 11 imposition 39 independence 42, 50, 54 legacies 29 locations 55 measures 142 memories 8 narratives 26 officials 46 otherhood 54 past 4, 7, 10, 25 period 7, 41 policies 55 political history 10 powers 10 pressure 10 regimes 116 representations of 20 rhetorics 8

rule 9, 22, 78, 97, 116 segregation 43, 49 stereotypes 30, 77 strategies 11 structures 10, 40, 51, 115 system 88, 97–98, 128 system of inequality 98 territory 41 violence 86 worlds 3 Colonialism 2, 4–6, 8, 11, 21, 39–40, 46–49, 54–55, 78, 96, 115, 121–122, 138 modern 4 Coloniality 4, 5, 41 ideology and methodology 41 of power and knowledge 5 Connerton, Paul 20, 21, 23 Cooper, Frederick 3, 113, 127 Crenshaw, Kimberle 40, 113 Cuba 43, 70–71 the loosing of 43 rituals 70 Cultural heritage 2–9, 11, 85 attractions 85 contested 4 intangible 9 local 8–9 tangible 4, 9 richness of 8

D De Sousa Santos, Boaventura 5 Decolonial Studies 3, 5, 8, 11, 30 Decoloniality 5 Dutch 23–24, 32 identities 24 festivities 23 landscape 23 literary field 32 national history 23 newspapers 32 popular culture 24 Dystopias 33 totalitarian utopias 33

160

E Eighteenth century 2, 65, 69, 73–75, 78, 117 Emotional 24, 66–67, 72, 86, 95, 103 centers of 66 debasement 95 events 66 meaning 86 reactions 86 scenario 67 Emotions 24, 66–67, 72, 78, 86, 92, 104 for performances 67 ordinary human 92 the value of 24 Empire 25, 27, 137, 146 in the Americas 25 inscription of 25 neighboring 137 trading 27 England 116, 141 Equatorial Guinea 2, 4, 8, 39–43, 49– 50, 52–55 colonial contexts 39 mestizaje 40 Equatorial Guinean 8, 39, 41–43, 49, 51–55 abuse of 55 disempowerment 51 guineanos adoptivos 50 memories 39, 43 men 53–55 names 52 power relations 50 rights 52 voices 8 women 49, 52–53, 55 workers 53–54 Ethnic 3, 10, 79, 113–20, 122–28 affirmation 10 borders 120 boundaries 114 categories 114–15 consciousness 124 discourses 114 experiences 114 groups 116, 119, 123

I ndex identities 113–14, 122, 126 labels 115 lens 115 minority 118, 120 prisons 79 radicalism 3 recognition 119 values 10 Ethnicity 11, 24, 113–16, 121, 123, 127–28 collective experience 11, 113 Ethnomusicology 2 Euro-African 1–2, 5–7, 11, 41–42 coexistence 6, 11 cultural heritage 2, 5–6 encounters 1 foundations 2 imprints 6 key concept 2 legacies 5, 11 memories 2, 5–7 pasts 42 realities 5 relations 7 socio-political experiences 2, 5–7 versions of the past 5, 7 Euro-centric versions 3 Europe 1–11, 25–26, 28, 32–33, 63–64, 77, 116, 123–28 construction of 2 contemporary 2, 6 experiences in 9 Fortres 12 in Africa 1, 7, 11 integration in 6 minorities in 10–11 multiculturalism in 10 post-colonial impact 11 process of decolonization 3 Europe-Africa 1–5, 7–9, 11, 28 cultural heritage 7–9, 11 dis-encounters 1 encounters 28 pasts 3 relations 1, 4 European 1–3, 5–12, 19, 21, 24–28, 30, 32–33, 39, 41, 47, 49–51, 54, 63–64, 70–71, 73–75, 77, 79, 89,

161

Index 95, 98, 104, 116, 121, 127–28, 137–38, 140, 142, 149 accounts 95 Black 32 city 41 clothes 54 colonial expansion 2 colonial powers 10 colonial pressure 10 colonialism 6, 121 community 138 construction 2 context 127 continent 2, 47 countries 63, 70, 116 cultural unity 3 culture 54 damage 9 dis-encounters 5 endeavor 2 homes 54 identity 24, 30, 33 image of Africa 79 imaginary 9 imagination 63, 79 imprint 2 inheritances 8 integration 7 knowledge 7 languages 3, 27 legacies 28 militaries 49 model 27 modernity 26 music 71, 75 narratives 1, 6, 8 people 7, 9 perceptions 1 policies of attraction 138 political and economic interests 77 population 10 powers 11, 137–38 pre-eminence 5 protectorate 142 representation 74 rhetoric 12 societies 116 sources 1

stereotypes 9 superiority 47 traders 140 trading 138 traditions 33 versions 1 views 5 visitors 95 way of seeing 2 white society 50 whiteness 33 women 49 European Union 6, 12, 33

F Falola, Toyin 5, 7 Fieldwork 1, 33, 42, 116, 123, 125–26 Film 27–28, 30–32, 72 Amazigh Berber 30 music 72 logic of 31 Fleisch, Axel 5 France 6, 10, 12, 22, 26–27, 31, 71, 116, 142–46 French 11, 23, 26–27, 30, 55, 69, 139, 141–42, 144–46 agent 142 ambassador 146 assimilation 27 attacks 30, 145 attitude 142 businessman 145 capitalists 145 commercial port 146 education 26 expansion 145 legation 139 merchant 141 officers 69 presence 145 prisoners 141 representative 139, 142 schooling 27 subjects 139 voices 11

162 Fulani 25, 114, 117–18, 120–21, 123–24, 126 boy 25 founding myths 124 from Cameroon 114 groups 117, 120–21, 124 identity 123–24 macro-community 126 nomadic herders 117 nomads 117–18 people 117, 124 populations 124 Fulanity 120, 126, 128 Fulbe 117–20, 126–28 group 117, 127 sedentary 118 society 127 theocratic states 127

G Gabrielsson, Alf 67 Gender 8, 10, 24, 39–41, 43–46, 48–49, 50, 52–53, 55, 104, 113, 115 conception 50 construction 50 division 50 for the Spanish 53 identities 113 of Imazighen 10 othernesses 46 perspective 40, 46 practices 50 relations 49 race and 8, 40, 55 stereotypes 49 Gendered 5, 43, 49 imaginations 5 memories 43, 49 perspectives 5 German 9, 30, 75, 85–86, 88–91, 93–94, 96–101, 103–4, 138–39 archives 99 audiences 103–4 authorities 88, 98, 100 colonial history 85, 103

I ndex consulate 139 diffusionism 75 establishment 97 imperial flag 89 in Tanzania 103–4 language 89 military expedition 89 narrative 98 occupiers 85 official version 90 oppressor 94, 98 researcher 103 resident 138 troops 30 wars 89, 96–97 Germany 6, 12, 69, 71, 86, 99–100 Ghandi, Mahatma 22, 24 Glick Schiller, Nina 115–16, 124, 127 Great Britain 6, 10, 12

H Halbwachs, Maurice 20 Hall, Stuart 115, 123, 128 Halpern, Andrea R. 65–66 Hartmann, August 68–69 Hehe 9, 85–89, 91–104 anti-colonial resistance 9, 85, 97 attitude 89 community 93 chief 88–89 chiefdom 103 dignitaries 89 elders 100, 103 history 87–88 informants 101 kingdom 9, 85, 91 leaders 98 medicine 87–88, 95 people 85, 87–89, 92, 94, 98, 100–3 perspectives 104 residents 100 royal clan 86 royal family 102 society 95 tradition 94 wars 9, 85, 88, 94

163

Index warrior 89 Hispanising 8, 39 rhetorics 8, 39 Hispano-African encounters 40 Hispano-Moroccan brotherhood 8, 39–40, 46–48 discourse 40 narrative 46 rhetoric 48 House-Soremekun, Bessie 5, 7 Hungary 71

I Identity 2, 10–11, 21, 24–26, 29–30, 33, 46, 71, 77, 97, 104, 113–16, 118–20, 122–25, 128 adscription 113 affiliations 11 configuration 30, 114 consciousness 114, 118, 119, 124 cultural 29, 97, 119 discourse 123, 125–26 dynamics 11, 127–28 experience 115, 124, 127–28 local 77 national 24, 71 reconstruction 120, 123 transnational 123 Imagination 9, 63–66, 68–75, 77, 79–80 European 63, 79 in the era of globalization 9 local 69 musical 64, 65, 70–72 musicians 65 of players 64 people 75 popular 63–64, 68 unreflective 63 Imperial 6, 8, 25, 33, 55, 89, 99, 139 memory 25 pasts 6 rhetorics 8 reason 33 Imperialism 21, 121 Indigenism 121, 124

Indigenous 21, 75, 79, 114, 117, 119– 25, 127 aboriginality 121 Africans 121 category 121–23 discourses 122 global movement 123 groups 114 international movement 121–22 issues 121 minorities 122 movement 121, 123 people 21, 75, 79, 119–21, 123–25 People’s Day 21 population 117, 122, 127 status 121 Iringa 8–9, 12, 85–91, 94–104 Boma museum 99 colonial heritage of 103 German colonial history 85 history of 86, 88, 104 memory in 99 New 88–89, 96, 99 Old 88–89 people of 96 region 9, 85, 87 Rural District 87 Town 85, 87 Italian 87, 141–42 diplomats 142 mission 87 NGO 87

J Jazz 69, 73 Jazz-Opera 69 musician 69 Jews 43–44

K Kane, Cheikh Hamidou 25, 27 Keese, Alexander 116 Khoikhoi 74 music 74

164 Kouyaté, Dani 27 Kubik, Gerhard 63, 71 Kuper, Adam 121, 124

L Legacy 4, 6, 85 colonial 6 concept of 4 cultural 4 Literary 6, 25, 27–28, 32 analysis 6 field 32 memorializing 25, 28, 32 transformation 27 Literature 2, 4–5, 7, 9, 19, 25, 32, 86, 102, 137 academic 4, 9, 86, 102 African 25 Afro-European 32 Amazigh 19 Berber 19 Black 32 Ewe 19 Ghana 19 lack of 137 memorialization 25 North Africa 19 oral 19 Spanish 25 The Netherlands 32 written 25

M Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce 30 Maghrebi 146 empire 146 Makhzen 138–39, 140, 143, 146, 149 administration 138–39 representatives of 138 Spanish 149 Mamdani, Mahmood 116 Marcus, George E. 116 Mbembe, Achille 4, 5, 10, 12 Mbororo 10–11, 114, 116–28

I ndex associations 121 associative movement 124 community 116–21, 123, 126–127 cultural identity 119 distinction 128 elite 118–19, 125, 127 ethnic category 117 ethnic claims 126 ethnicity 127, 128 ethnonym 118 Fulani 114 identity 11, 120, 124, 127–28 indigenism 123 informants 123, 126 label 118 migration 10 narrative 126 nomadic herders 114 pastoralists 120 people 114, 116, 118, 122, 125 transnational migration 10 Mboscuda 118–20, 122–23, 125 Memories 2–9, 19–21, 23–33, 39–43, 45, 47–49, 55, 67, 86, 127 ambiguity of 24 among generations 24 African 5–8 Afro-European 2, 5–7, 19, 21, 25, 33 collective 32–33 conflicting 28, 30, 86 cultural 21, 28, 30, 31 embodied 20, 24 Equatorial-Guinean 39, 43 Euro-African 5, 7 female 48 gendered 43, 49 historical 127 lived 6, 20–21, 27, 29, 31, 41–42 margins of 3 merging 7, 32 Moroccan 43, 48 narrated 6, 41–42 new 28 newly shared 21 of injustice 86 of past 23, 31 quality of 30 recovering 39

Index Riffian 48 shared 21, 31 sharing 32 Spanish 40, 42–43, 55 study of 7 war of 4 Men 23, 39, 44–49, 51–55, 118, 146, 149 Equatorial Guinean 53–55 Fang 53–54 free 54 humiliated 39 Moroccan 42, 44–45, 47 no- 118 patriarchal 48 Spanish 46, 48–49, 51–53 white 52 workers 53 Meneses, María Paula 5 Mestizaje 40, 44, 53 Equatorial Guinea 40 Morocco 40 Methodology 5, 41–42 Methodological 1, 6–7, 41, 75, 115–16, 137 approach 6, 41, 75 barriers 1 ethnicity 116 ideas 7 lines 137 nationalism 115–16 point of view 116 Métissage 40 Mexico 71 Mignolo, Walter 3, 5, 33 Migration 3, 5, 10, 12, 19, 28, 32, 43, 64, 75, 114–15, 117, 124–25 African 12 flows 32 history of 117 Mbororo 10 rural-urban 124 Spanish 43 stories 19 studies 115 to Africa 43 transnational 10, 117, 124–25, 127 Military 3, 31, 41, 43–44, 50, 89–90, 143–45, 150

165 barraks 43 cadres 44 crimes 31 division 145 enclave 43 expedition 89 half- 144 historiography 150 rebel 41 reports 143 Spanish 43, 145 station 89–90 Miningas 52–53 Equatorial Guineans 52 free sexual women 52 means 52 Mission 45–46, 54–55, 87, 89, 142 Benedictine 89 catholic 87 civilisatory 54 civilizing 45–46, 55 Italian 87 Mkwawa 87–103 brother 89–93, 96–99 chief 88, 94–95, 97, 99, 102–3 cultural festival 101 dynasty 87, 95 family 87–88, 99, 101 fugitive 88, 90, 97 grandfather 95 great-grandson 100 great-grandfather 95 Museum and Memorial site 103 Mohamadillos 45 pejorative connotations 45 Moor 44, 47, 141 condition of 44 fanatic 47 women 47 Morenos 52 Morillo/a 45 Moroccan 8, 11, 30–31, 39–40, 43–49, 137–143, 145–46 archives 137 brotherhood 8, 39–40, 46, 48 businessmen 43 cities 138, 146 coast 143

166 colonial cities 43 community 45 denial 31 distributors 30 documentation 139–40 economy 138 empire 137 friends 47 government 30, 140–41 Hispano- 8, 39–40, 46–48 identity 46 image 47, 48 integration 43 Jew 138 knowledge 44 Makhzen 146 manuscripts 138 market 142 Mediterranean 140, 143 memories 43, 48 men 44, 45–46, 47 mint 138 occupation 45 otherness 48 people 44 policy 11, 138 population 46, 49, 139, 143 poverty 45 prostitutes 48 Rif 8, 43 society 137, 139, 142 specificities 47 status 137 territory 142 voices 48 women 44–48 Morocco 2, 4, 11–12, 25, 30–32, 39–43, 45, 49, 137–46, 148–150 cancers in 31 European protectorate 142 footprints in 41 French representative 139, 142 lived memories in 42 north of 30 occupation of 11, 137 penetration into 146 policies of attraction 137–38 Protectorate of 39 scholars in 32

I ndex Spanish interests 144 Spanish residents 139 Mouiche, Ibrahim 119–20, 122 Movie 68, 72, 79–80 Mpangile 85, 88–99, 102 Mudimbe, Valentin Yves 3 Mudimbe-Boyi, Elisabeth 26 Music 8–9, 63–79 ability of 67 actual 74 African 8–9, 63–65, 72–73, 76–77 Afro-American 69–70 Akadinda 63 cross-cultural 77 cultures 64, 74 European 70–71, 75 film- 68 histories 75 Horner 72 imagining 65 information on 74 international 78 International Society for Contemporary 70 indigenous people 75 inner 67 intangible cultural heritage 9 Khoikhoi 74 Klezmer 64 market 77–78 Mbira 63 mixed 79 Mozart 77 Ogada 72 strange 73 therapy 67 traditional 75 use of 78 Western 72, 75, 77 Xhosa 64 Zimbabwe 63 Zulu 77

N Naming 8, 39, 45, 52, 55 African populations 8 genderization 55

167

Index othering 55 politics of 52 process 45 systems 8, 39, 55 Negros 52 Nineteenth century 2–3, 9, 21, 25–26, 51, 69, 73–75, 85, 117, 127, 140– 42, 144 Nketia, Kwabena J. H. 76

O Obiang Biko, Adolfo 50 Ortiz, Fernando 71 Oveng 8, 39–41, 49–50, 52, 55 Bata district 39, 41

P Pelican, Michaela 116, 118–25 Performance 64, 67, 80 Portugal 12, 29 Portuguese 29, 139, 141–42 Postcolonial Studies 3, 5, 8, 114

Q Qabila 138, 139–42, 145, 147–50 dignitaries 145 leaders 150 minority 149 people 138, 139–40, 148 population 140 rebellious 150 Riffian 145 Quijano, Anibal 5, 40, 41

R Race 8, 39–40, 44, 51, 55, 87–89, 104 concept of 39 mixed- 87, 88 terms 51 variables of 55 Racial 3, 41, 55, 75 policies 55

radicalism 3 supremacy 41 Racism 21–24, 39–40, 43, 49 apartheid 24 inhuman 22 institutional 21 representation of 23 Rhodes 24 segregation 39, 40 Redmayne, Alison 94 Rif region 39, 41, 45, 140 Riffian 8, 30, 42–44, 46–49, 55, 140–42, 144–45, 150 area 43 clients 142 coast 140, 142 countryside 145 girls 48 informants 42 language 44 majority 44 memories 48 men 47 mines 144 mountains 144 neighbors 49 people 150 qabila 145 society 144 soldiers 30, 43 voices 47 waters 141 women 46–48 workers 48 Rihanon, Stephens 5

S Said, Edward 3, 5, 70, 77 Sanjuán, Pedro 70–71 Segregation 39–40, 43, 49–51 Senghor, Leopold 76 Shared heritage 20, 26, 86, 102 Sociopolitical experiences 2–7, 9–11 South Africa 2, 12, 22, 65, 73 Spain 4, 6, 10–12, 22–23, 25, 30–32, 41–43, 45–46, 49–54, 137–38, 141–47, 149–50

168 colonial 4 interests of 142, 150 legitimacy of 25 Spanish 5, 8, 11, 25, 30, 31–32, 39–55, 137, 139, 141–50 Africa 55 archives 137 army 146, 149–50 city 43 civilizing mission 55 civilizing project 55 colonial memories 8 colonial rhetoric 40 colonialism 5, 8, 39, 47, 49, 54–55 colonization 41, 43, 48–49, 54, 146 customs 44 diplomacy 137 economy 144 elites 147 empire 25 foreign policy 137 former colonists 43 gender 48 government 30, 137 hostages 141 identity 25 ignorance 45 interests 50, 52, 144, 146 legation 139 literature 25 memories 39–40, 42–43, 55 men 46, 48–49, 51–53 metropolis 51 migration 43 military 43, 145 mines 145 missionary 50 narratives 41 pacification 47 people 41–42, 45 policy of attraction 142 politics of naming 52 Protectorate 8, 41, 43, 55 representatives 142 settlers 39 soldier 31

I ndex state 43–44, 53–54 strategies 8 superiority 51 Territories of the Gulf of Guinea 8, 39, 52, 55 theater 32 voices 42, 47 women 44–45, 47, 52–53 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 5 Stolcke, Verena 40 Stoler, Ann Laura 10, 21 Switzerland 71

T Tangier 138–41, 143, 146–47 Tanzania 2, 8–9, 12, 85–86, 99, 103–4 local cultural heritage 8 Southern Highlands 9, 85 Tétouan 39, 43, 55, 138–40, 147–48 The Netherlands 10, 22–23, 32 The Rif 30–32, 41, 45, 49, 140–42, 144 Thiong'o, Ngugi wa. 5 Thompson, Paul. 5 Transnational 10, 114, 116–17, 123–28 approach 114 ethnic affirmation 10 Fulani identity 123 level 126 migration 10, 117, 124–25, 127 mobility 125 processes 128 Twentieth century 1, 8–9, 26, 41, 49, 64, 69–70, 75, 119, 127, 142, 144

U United States 22–23, 71

W Walsh, Catherine E. 40 Wangimbo, Mpangile 85, 88, 92–93

169

Index Women 23, 29, 39–40, 44–55, 74, 113, 125 abuses 55 black 53 Equatorial Guinean 49, 52–53, 55 European 49 free sexual 52 genealogy of 29 Moor 47 Moroccan 44, 46–47 Riffian 46–48 Spanish 44–45 47, 52–53 white 49, 54

X Xhosa 64

Z Zimbabwe 63 Zulu 72, 77 movie 72 music 77 warriors 72