Introduction. Started class with a 10 minute excerpt from the film Uganda Rising (click to view) to highlight the idea of Colonialism and the "Scramble for Africa" (late 1800s) which is ongoing and to attempt to put present day issues in historical context.

• Note: think about this kind of video for Youtube project—very short (10 minutes), informational.
• “Scramble for Africa” by European powers. Exploitation of African people and uprooting of spiritual values by Christian missionaries. Mindset is that barbarians are inferior and we have to educate them, and civilize them. “Doing this for THEIR” benefit, when you are beating them with a club
  

European Colonialism over Africa

• Britain and other colonial powers exploited tribal differences to consolidate their control. Colonial powers succeed by playing sides against each other. Colonial powers consolidated control over African countries to extract valuable natural resources.
• British took the largest part of Africa- divide and rule (North to South) Uganda, Sudan
• French took East West- Madagascar
• Belgium took middle part – Congo
• In addition, Belgium took Rwanda, which was divided by North-Islam and South-Christian
• Portuguese
• Italians
• Germans – committed first genocide (in Namibia)
• This colonial history was carried into Uganda’s first independent reign.
• The first independent president was from the north but was soon overthrown by Idi Amin.
• We can still see the effects of the British rule in Africa. For example, the British ruled the Arabs in northern Sudan and the blacks in southern Sudan as separate colonies. They combined the areas in 1956, and this has contributed to the civil war and the genocide in Darfur. Slave labor took over five million lives. Colonialism leaves the question who belongs and who doesn’t?
• National Resistance Army (NRA)
• Alice L. and the Holy Spirit movement- could tell which time they are coming and where they are going to attack
• Coin and Lord’s resistance army- used terror to build his army, was shunned by Alice
• In the post-colonial period, dictators in power received loans from Western institutons (IMF and World Bank), whose repayment was conditioned on structural adjustments to the economy, negatively impacting the poor, who did not in the first place benefit from the loans.
• Colonialism was falsely justified by the arrogant Eurocentric concept that the Europeans were bringing "civilization" and true religion to the “barbarians.”
• www.ugandarising.com
• 
  

Three events separated modernity form the middle ages

1. Discovery of America
2. Renaissance
3. Reformation

Modernity characterized by

1. Conquest/European domination of the globe
2. Eurocentric superiority
3. Speed of change quickens
   1. You can build and work faster than using oxen
4. Reliance on inanimate power
   1. Industry plant: People move to city and only contact is with laborer
   2. Stratification created
      1. Now there was a divide in the people—the rich and poor were distinctly different and lived in different regions. Before the rich and poor were always in contact (even going to church together). Factories built-- people move there and now contact is only with workers.
5. Wage labor, commodification
   1. Paid by hour, not paid as artisan (skills didn't matter). This type of wage is based on repetition rather than creativity.
   2. Automation of factories
6. Formal schooling
   1. Intended to produce a common English culture (to prevent a revolt, fearful of what happened in the French Revolution)
   2. Subject of English language – for common culture; this helped keep the poor feeling a common heritage with the rich and thus staving off discord and revolt.
      
7. Secularization
   
   1. Parts of society untouched by church or faith (economic, political, social realm; occurring in the 13th - 14th century).
      
   2. Church used to be the center of people’s life (point of reference for all things)
   3. There was now a division between Church and industry/economics.
      
8. Urban life
1. Tied closely with #4 (the industrial plant).
9. Autonomous human mind
   
   1. Instead of God/tradition - philosophy, such as Rene Descartes' I think therefore I am, leads to all traditions becoming suspect
   2. Knowledge based on reason and empirical evidence. Questioned everything. Scientific inquiry becomes the paramount means of knowing. How did the church get so irrelevant?
      
10. Science and rationality
    
    1. Science becomes western culture's meta-narrative, an empirical understanding of the world prevails on tradition/religion
       

From Imperialism to Post Colonialism

• Imperialism "The practice, theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory." Edward Said (1993:8)

• Colonialism "Colonialism, which is almost always a conseuence of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on distant territory." Edward Said (1993:8)
  • this is not new or a “Western” concept, the people of God were always ruled by other nations
    

Examples of empires

• Roman (31BCE-476CE)
• Moors (750?-1450)
• Ghana Empire (750-1203)
• Mongolian Empire
• Aztecs
• Ottoman
• Vijaynagara
• Incas

• 1918 Germany gives up colonies
• 1945 Japan, Italy gives up colonies
• 1945-65 most European countries give up colonies

1. Continued control of former colonies through
   1. International Monetary Fund: A dictator acquires large amounts of debt that is not spent to help average citizens. This debt ended up impoverishing the country.
      
   2. Economic influence
      
   3. Local elite beholden to former rulers
      
2. Development
   1. The idea of development emerges as bringing modernity to third world countries, which are encouraged to follow a western model.

The evolutionary race idea is still present in these practices : West is best.

Third World: a term coined in 1952 to describe countries that were not aligned with the United States (first world) nor with the Soviet Union (second world).
Development: a term used to describe the process of becoming "modern" and Western; "the West is where other countries should aim to be." The term "developing nations" although perhaps better than "third world," but is still paternalistic and betrays the neo-colonialist tendency to assume that the West represents the ideal to which all other countries aspire. This assumption needs to be questioned.

Post-Colonialism

Questions about the colonized nations identity. Who are they? What should they do?
Hybrid cultures are being formed.

Edward Said's 1978 Orientalism was a landmark post-colonial work.

• The effects of colonialism and neo-colonialism on present day cultures, do they shun the colonial power completely or do they acknowledge their presence within the country’s history? Are we at the end of colonialism, in the middle, or at the beginning of something new? This is a current conversation. How do we be the church in the midst of this? “Our understanding of ourselves came from you, so who are we? This was all your perspective.”
• Opposed to colonialism in all its forms, particularly economic domination (by neo-liberal empire?), yet still trying to figure out who they are and who they would like to be (speaking of countries that were colonized).
• Post-colonial writers struggle with the question of identity: who are we? can we go back to a self-understanding from before colonialization? do we even want to do that? Moreover, how does the church fit into self-understanding?
  
  

Learning Task:

As far back as you can go, what is your family history in relation to empire, colonialism, settler/domination colony. Did your family experience French, British or American style empire? Trace their experience through time, up to today.

What is your social location today in regards to empire, colonialism?

Share your stories in groups of 4.