Tag: Africa

by Michael Baird

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.”

–Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Included in the “General Developments of Interest” report by R. S. Foster, Deputy Director of Education in Uganda, at the 16 February 1939 meeting of the British Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, was mention of the “progress in Art work, particularly painting and drawing, under the inspiration of Mrs. Trowell, who worked voluntarily.” He continued by expressing hope that the members of the committee would see for themselves the works produced by Trowell’s students which would be on display at the Imperial Institute in London later that year.[1] As the minutes demonstrate, despite not being employed in a formal capacity within the British colonial bureaucracy, Margaret Trowell came to be understood as not only an asset in the self-proclaimed and, at least partially, rhetorical “civilizing” goals of the British but also in the project of colonial governance more broadly.

Margaret Trowell first arrived in the British East Africa Protectorate in 1929 when her husband, a member of the Colonial Medical Service, was assigned to Kenya. In 1935, he was transferred to Kampala, Uganda, and it was there that—as the story goes—Margaret Trowell began teaching informal art making classes on the veranda of their house.[2] By 1937, her efforts had received sufficient enough attention from the leadership of the protectorate that a fine arts program was incorporated into the curriculum at Makerere University in Kampala, and Trowell, appropriately enough, was selected to be the inaugural director of the program that continues to bear her name.[3] She remained in this role until her retirement and return to England in 1958, splitting her time between the teaching of fine arts classes and curatorial duties at the Uganda Museum, which was, at the time, housed at Makerere.[4]

In the most general terms, this paper seeks to situate the fine arts program at Makerere during the Trowell era within the broader cultural and political context of the British Empire during its final decades of formal control in Uganda. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate that rather than apolitical aesthetic exercises, art education was a key component of the British colonial apparatus. Drawing upon digitized archival materials of the British government, Trowell’s own prolific writings, and secondary literature concerning the history of the program at Makerere, I seek to understand how a white, British-born woman came to be seen as an arbitrator of “authentic” Ugandan and, more broadly, African art; more importantly, however, I seek to turn my attention to the students of Trowell in order to consider how art education shaped the personhood of colonial subjects and how these students and their artistic productions became sites for debates regarding the nature of African personhood. In crafting this impressionistic portrait of the colonial subject-artist in Uganda, the corpus of postcolonial and decolonial thought from both within and without the African continent will prove indispensable. This literature will enable consideration of the psychological dimensions of colonial art education (and an exploration of the limitations of what may be possible in this regard) as well as its political functions, expanding upon the typical emphasis on pedagogy, ideology, and classroom operations that predominates in scholarship on colonial art education.[5]

Culture as an Arena of Colonialism

In his book Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o utilizes martial language to compare the cultural arena of colonialism to more familiar forms of colonial domination. He writes:

The oppressed and the exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environments, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves.[6]

He continues by discussing how this alienation from self on the part of the colonized results in an association with their antithesis—the colonizer—and their way of life. His discussion is reminiscent of and, in some ways, an extension of Antonio Gramsci’s conception of cultural hegemony. In “The Intellectuals” and “On Education,” Gramsci argues for the importance of ideology, socialization, and taste to class-based oppression and vertical stratification.[7] The cultivated desire by individuals to achieve the good life as defined by cultural elites facilitates continued exploitation. Thiong’o applies a similar critique to the relationship between colonizer and colonized; the forced alienation from one’s own culture and the simultaneous inculcation of the mores of the metropole subsumes the colonized within the order of the colonizer, creating a system of dependency or “colonization of the mind.”

Similarly, Nigerian novelist and essayist Chinua Achebe argues for the importance of culture as a dimension of the colonial project; however, in his essay “Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature” published in print in the collection The Education of a British-Protected Child, Achebe rejects the binaries laid out by Thiong’o. Drawing on the historical memory and experience of the Biafran War, Achebe takes issue with the core claim of Thiong’o that the use of English by African writers intrinsically replicates colonial power structures and modes of thinking.[8] For Achebe who comes from a country that does not have a lingua franca with the exception of English and that has experienced first-hand in horrific ways that violence that can occur through the exacerbation of cultural and political cleavages, English cannot simply be said to belong to the English. Culture is not owned but is rather a site of contestation and negotiation. To Achebe, English was a tool of anti-colonial struggle and ongoing nation-building.[9]

The disagreement could possibly be a reflection more of their respective positionality and citizenship than anything else—the existence of Kiswahili as a lingua franca in the area that constitutes the modern day nation-state of Kenya provided a readymade alternative for Thiong’o’s call for continued anti-colonial efforts—and a warning against the tendency for generalization that flattens the unique historic experiences of colonialism and possibilities for the postcolonial even amongst formerly British colonies on the African continent. Certainly, both Thiong’o and Achebe understand culture as an important arena of the colonization and the fight against it. The instrumentalization of culture—specifically language, dress, art, literature, and even architecture—by post-independence state builders in Africa like Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Léopold Sédar Senghor in Senegal illustrate the pivotal role of culture in continued agitation against what could be understood as the vestiges and continuing forms of colonialism.[10]

The Artist is not Present

Margaret Trowell begins her article “The Kampala Art Exhibition—A Uganda Experiment” with what seems to be a rather bold claim, albeit one that typifies the attitude in the United Kingdom at the time. She writes, “At first glance East Africa is probably one of the most disappointing parts of the world from the point of view of the student of indigenous art.”[11] She goes on to juxtapose this vacuum with the recognized sculptural canon of art that emerged from West Africa.[12] The representational, incredibly high relief forms of—for example—the so-called “Benin Bronzes” more readily aligned with European constructions of “fine art.”[13] Three dimensional, optically real art works depicting subject matter with human figures were well represented within the canon of European art history from its fabricated origins in the Greco-Roman world and also able to be rendered knowable and legible through the methodologies of art historical inquiry.

With the exception of isolated groups of works like the Benin Bronzes—regardless of the provisionality of their positioning within the category of art—sub-Saharan Africa was understood by Europeans to be devoid of art. Western understandings of art and what kinds of material culture were encompassed by that term were, and often still are, taken as natural, given, and universal. So too are the attendant hierarchies that privilege the so-called fine arts of sculpture and painting as well as the favored mimetic genres. According to the suppositions of evolutionist thought, the lack of art on the African continent was evidence of the inferiority of African populations, which were understood to be at an earlier point on the teleological timeline of human evolutionary “progress.”

As Aníbal Quijano points out, it was the Europeans—the very people situating themselves at the endpoint of the timeline they were producing—that were setting the rubrics and classificatory schemes by which culture was measured. He writes, “Through the political, military and technological power of its foremost societies, European or Western culture imposed its paradigmatic image and its principle cognitive elements as the norm of orientation on all cultural development, particularly the intellectual and the artistic.”[14] Addressing the African continent specifically, he continues, “What the Europeans did was to deprive Africans of legitimacy and recognition in the global cultural order dominated by European patterns.”[15]

As they become naturalized, categories and labels like art gain what seems to be a rationality or internal logic of their own, despite the reality that this production of knowledge is, by necessity, situated.[16] The presumed universality of that which arose out of a particular social and cultural context—regardless of how fictional—has material effects. The global distribution of what came to be called art divided the world and provided a rhetorical justification and impetus for colonial rule and, more specifically, for educational projects like that of Trowell in Uganda.

African Artist as Medieval European

Even as an agent of the European global effort of remaking the world in its own cultural image, Margaret Trowell espoused a broader definition of art than many of her contemporaries. The title of her first book, African Arts and Crafts: Their Development in the School, published in the same year that she became director of the fine arts program at Makerere, is instructive; she did not see the African continent or even East Africa as devoid of art and certainly not devoid of the potential for further production of art and refinement of existing practices, which was the cause to which she dedicated her career in this period.[17] In African Arts and Crafts, she offers a definition of art that challenges the binary of art/craft and the presumed hierarchy associated with the two. While art was often seen as—and continues to be, in some cases—the prerogative of the white male genius artist who is presumed to be intellectually engaged with art history and theory, craft was positioned as its antithesis. Craft was and is a highly gendered and racialized category associated with the “primitive,” rote adherence to tradition, and more corporal than intellectual engagement.[18]  

Trowell does not so much discard the categories of art and craft in their entirety but rather expand the category of art to include types of material culture often placed within the category of craft. She writes, “By art I think we should mean all worthy handicraft, from daily work and ploughing to cathedral building…art may seem a subject remote from many…but I wish to argue…[art] is near every one of us. It is universal and for all.”[19] In doing so, she seeks to elevate craft to the status of art and grant it the relative prestige reserved typically for art.

To understand Trowell’s views on what art is, it is necessary to consider her educational history and intellectual influences. Before she was an art educator, she was an artist herself; she attended the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London from 1924-1926. After recognizing her interest in art education, she enrolled at London University Institute of Education. There she was a student of Marion Richardson—a British educator and author who was known for her approaches to teaching art making and handwriting to school-age children—who had an indelible impact of Trowell’s educational philosophy and understanding of art. Richardson emphasized giving children the space to develop their artistic practices on their own terms, at least in theory.[20] Juxtaposed with the technical exercises and emphasis on the copying of old “Masters” inherited from the Academic system, this philosophy was quite radical.

While it is true that Richardson’s approach, at least arguably, granted children more autonomy and agency, its underlying rationale was steeped in primitivist and even evolutionist logic. Richardson was interested in what she understood to be the “purity” of art produced by those who were understood to be on the margins of or most untouched by society. To her the works of children, the incarcerated, and the mentally ill, especially when their natural development was not hindered by external societal interventions, was an art that was more pure and more human. Not only does this understanding require, by necessity, a biopolitical division of humanity that is then naturalized and supposedly evidenced (tautologically) by the art produced, but it also requires the presumption that a natural state of humanity exists and that some individuals are less developed and, therefore, closer to that point.

At the same time that Trowell was studying under Richardson, the British Arts and Crafts Movement, although certainly past its apogee, was still a major cultural force. Although there was quite a bit of diversity of thought among its key proponents, in general, the Arts and Crafts Movement could be understood as a reaction to modernity, industrialization, and even the Enlightenment more broadly. For figures like John Ruskin and William Morris, the antithesis to the ailments of modern means of production was medieval Europe.[21] For Ruskin and Morris, medieval Europe, especially as exemplified by the Gothic cathedral, represented a time when humanity was closer with nature, craftspeople were closer to their work which may continue for multiple generations and did not involve factory methods of production, and the Enlightenment emphasis on rationality had not foreclosed the possibility of transcendent experience. Unsurprisingly, their view of the medieval period was romantic and ahistorical and said more about the period in which they were writing and their thoughts about it than any empirical reality of the medieval period.

The symbol of the medieval European craftsperson was a recurring theme in Trowell’s writings on Ugandan artists.[22] At various points, this was a reflection of reality as she saw and understood it or more of an aspirational model that she hoped to cultivate through her art education program. For Trowell, the medieval European functioned similarly to how it did for Ruskin and Morris. She saw in her students, and in African populations more broadly, the potential for art to continue existing alongside and inextricable from life itself, as opposed to the European modernist tenets of “art for art’s sake.”[23] In her mind, the African artist was free from the trappings of mechanization and individualism and was, therefore, producing art that was more “pure.” British-Ugandan artist and art historian Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa points to an additional function of this image of the medieval craftsperson in the imagination of Trowell. She argues that, in a way that was not necessarily the case for figures like Ruskin and Morris, Trowell also desired a return to what she perceived of as the intensity of religious piety during the medieval period.[24] For Trowell, art education was not and should not be separated from missionary efforts.

This marking and fetishization of difference between colonist and colonial subject—whether it be through the image of the child or that of the medieval European craftsperson—created the impression that somehow Trowell’s students were outside of modernity and time itself. It reinforced European evolutionist narratives of linear and teleological progress with African individuals positioned behind Europeans, either as not fully developed (children) or mythic but historical previous Europeans (the romanticized and exoticized image of the imagined medieval craftsperson.)[25] The ambiguous and, at times, seemingly contradictory relationship of Trowell to her students illuminates what could possibly be considered the central paradoxes of the British “civilizing mission”: Namely, the need to continually mark difference between the colonizer and colonized precluded accomplishment of the rhetorical goals of civilizing efforts. In other terms, if the stated aim to civilize was successful, it would have obviated the legitimizing rationale of colonial relations. Additionally, Trowell’s belief in the British obligation to assist in the evolutionist development of African populations was fundamentally at odds with her desire to maintain the purity of African art and the relationship between Africans and material culture.

An “Authentically” African Artist

The students at Makerere and the art works that they produced became arenas in which British colonial officials and intellectuals debated these theories and apparent contradictions. Writing about this time period in the British colonies where indirect rule was being more widely adopted in places like the Uganda and during which the end of British control in some parts of the world started to seem like less of an incredibly distant prospect, art historian Sunanda K. Sanyal argues, “It was no secret in this era that Makerere had been a pawn in the protectorate administration’s experiments with education.”[26] He goes on to outline some of the different factions within the Western faculty at Makerere. On one hand were those who adhered to strict evolutionist thinking. If Ugandan students were simply at an earlier stage in the process of human development, then a curriculum that mirrored British educational institutions was ideal. For Trowell and others who espoused the so-called “Adaptation Theory,” there was a belief that there were cultural distinctions between Europeans and Africans and that the best curriculum for the university would consider and incorporate both.[27] While in theory this view left space for alternative forms of knowledge production and challenged the presumed universality of Western thought, it relied upon an essentialist view of culture that, in practice, revealed more about the British image of Africa than truly emic forms of knowledge production. In other words, cultural relativity did not equate to cultural pluralism or equality, especially in a colonial context where power in its various manifestations was so asymmetrically distributed.

As a proponent of Adaptation Theory and, furthermore, as someone who believed and valued the supposed purity of African art, Trowell wrote extensively about the need to maintain the African nature of the work of her students. Ideally, education would permit the students to “adapt” the useful elements of European thought while developing according to the lines of their essential cultural characteristics.[28] To this end, Trowell discusses her exhaustive efforts to limit the exposure of her students to Western fine art and reproductions. She also insisted on a bottom-top approach in the classroom, arguing that she had minimal influence on the works of her students; she went so far as to famously give up her artistic practice during periods of her time as director of the fine arts program at Makerere as to not affect unduly the work of her students.

Taking her statements of wanting to maintain the African-ness of the works of her students at face value, one might expect to see students working in any of the media—for example, basketry, decorated gourds, body adornments, or musical instruments—and/or adopting the subjects or forms of any of the Ugandan material culture Trowell exhaustively surveys in African Arts and Crafts or Tribal Crafts of Uganda.[29] Up until this point, I have only seen evidence of her students working in two-dimensional media, painting and printmaking, as well as sculpture of which there is no evidence for longer lineage in Uganda.

It is instructive to pause for a moment and consider a print by Trowell herself. (Figure 1) The image depicts two black women bending over in order to—it seems—scrutinize a pot that is in the central focal point of the composition. The figure on the left is in a profile view while the one on the right is in a frontal view, but the both their faces are inscrutable, submerged almost completely into shadow. In the distant background are gently rolling hills upon which undifferentiated and anonymous masses of people stand. The scene calms; it is pastoral and idyllic and the labor of the women, if that is what is occurring, is represented as leisurely contemplation. Without an ability for the viewer to discern the faces of the main figures, they seem to function more as passive objects for consumption by the colonial gaze than subjects capable of returning that gaze. The color of their clothing and the dramatic shading echoes the forms of the vessels scattered on the ground, which themselves follow the same diagonal across the picture plane as the anonymous masses behind.

A comparison with the work of one of her students that she published to illustrate a 1947 essay in the journal Man is provocative.[30] (Figure 2) Appropriately enough, she did not attribute the work.[31] Even without access to the coloring of the original (if it is even still extant,) parallels can still be drawn in terms of the rural subject matter and anonymous figurative forms positioned alongside material culture that would have been recognizable, in a general sense, to Western audiences. Despite (or more accurately perhaps, because of) her stated desire to facilitate growth of Ugandan art along its own lines, preserving its essential African nature, the images of Africa produced by her students seem to replicate Trowell’s own essentialized and stereotypical view of Africa and its peoples. She positioned herself as the arbitrator of authentic African-ness and, unsurprisingly perhaps, saw her ideas of African reflected back at her from the picture planes of her students.

It was these kinds of images that found a market in the West and that received the approval of colonial officials like Trowell. To Western eyes, these were authentic representations, because they conformed to the images that Europeans already had in their minds. In Orientalism, Edward Said discusses how the marginalized can psychologically internalize both discursive and visual representations of themselves.[32] At Makerere, Ugandan artists were not only looking at and consuming exoticizing and primitivizing images but producing them. And finding success within the liberal and capitalist hegemonic colonial order through it.[33]

Can the African Artist Speak? Further Directions

Despite Margaret Trowell’s claim that she wanted to minimally interfere with the work of her students, she was the ultimately authority within the classroom and a privileged based on her nationality and ability to navigate the cultural spheres of the metropole and the Ugandan colony. As already noted, her draconian limits on what was acceptable for her students to be exposed to and draw inspiration from insured that she was herself playing a role in maintaining the contours of what may be artistically possible for her students. It also presumed that Uganda and its peoples had not been an active and connected part of the international system before the arrival of the British in a sustained way. As Quijano notes, Trowell had the full weight of the military and economic power of the colonial United Kingdom to enforce her cultural vision, her cultural values, and to set the terms of engagement.[34]

Given this fact, what, if anything, can a historian say about the students on their own terms? What can be recovered? This portrait of the Ugandan artist at Makerere during the Trowell era, perhaps by necessity, reveals more about British concerns and anxieties—about their supposed cultural superiority and the universality of their cultural rubrics, about the impact of modernity and mechanization on material culture, about the tenuousness of their colonial rule, about their images of themselves and the African continent—than any reality of the African continent or its peoples.

In her famous essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak urges caution in attempting to recover the voices of the already marginalized, lest one perpetuates another level of violence; another act of silencing built on historical acts of silencing.[35] Is there a way to avoid simply projecting the anxieties and debates of my current moment into my images of Trowell’s students at Makerere? To avoid reading agency where there is none or where it would not have been conceived of in that way by the individuals themselves?

US American writers Simon Gikandi and Saidiya Hartman, in “Rethinking the Archive of Enslavement” and “Venus in Two Acts,” respectively, provide alternative ways of engaging with the archive that may prove useful in considering the students at Makerere in their own terms. Gikandi proposes the reading the archive, which is itself a testament of the power of hegemonic forces, for slippages and secondary narratives that reveal lived realities of those who are not the authors of the archive.[36] Hartman pushes the possibility of the archive perhaps a bit further, arguing for paint[ing] as full a picture of the lives” of marginalized individuals featured within the archive by “exceed[ing] or negotiat[ing] the constitutive limits of the archive…by advancing a series of speculative arguments and exploiting the capacities of the subjunctive.”[37]

If the subaltern cannot speak, can they at least make noise? Could the strength of that noise be its illegibility?[38] Its inability to be captured, fixed, subsumed within the presumed universal epistemological confines of knowledge production deriving from the Western Enlightenment? In his provocatively titled “Can the Mosquito Speak?” Timothy Mitchell raises the question as to whether nonhumans can be agents of history.[39] Could the artworks produced by Trowell’s students speak? Were they agents in the history of colonialism? Do they continue to be?

In her autobiography, African Tapestry, published the year before she left Uganda to return to the United Kingdom, Margaret Trowell writes about her experiences with one student, Gregory Maloba.[40] For his part, Maloba would ultimately become a fairly well-renowned sculptor in East Africa. For instance, his work still remains in the permanent collection of the Uganda National Museum. In the passage, Trowell emphasizes—a position that she often adopts in her writing—the great efforts and lengths that she went to in order to reduce exposure of her students to what she understood as external influences. She employs the anecdote to highlight her sacrifice with the goal of cultivating a kind of sympathy in the reader for her, but, regardless of the veracity, might we understand the narrative in a different light?

In the text, she recounts how despite her best efforts to keep Maloba from reproductions of canonical and contemporary European art, she found him one day having snuck into her personal library in her house while she was away. According to her, he was there to look at her books of European art history. For Trowell, this was a source of endless frustration as she so desperately sought what did not exist in reality but was a product of her mind, her own fictional image of the African artist. Instead of loss, perhaps we might see resistance. We might see an African artist, as modern and as contemporary as everyone around him, navigating a highly asymmetrical colonial structure, adopting what is useful and disregarding what is not.

Might there be other Gregorys?

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[1] “Minutes of the Ninety-First Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies,” Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies: Minutes of 15th-95th Meetings, 1939, 6.

[2] Margaret Trowell, African Tapestry (London, United Kingdom: Faber and Faber, 1957), 103.

[3] Elisbeth Joyce Court, “Margaret Trowell and the Development of Art Education in East Africa,” Art Education 38, no. 6 (1985): 35–41.

[4] This antecedent to the Uganda National Museum was moved to its current location on Kitante Hill in Kampala in 1954.

[5] For instance, see Hamid Irbouh, Art in the Service of Colonialism: French Art Education in Morocco, 1912-1956 (London, United Kingdom: I.B. Tauris, 2012); J.P. Odoch Pido, “Pedagogical Clashes in East African Art and Design Education,” Critical Interventions 8, no. 1 (2014): 119–32; and Sunanda K. Sanyal, “Modernism and Cultural Politics in East Africa: Cecil Todd’s Drawings of the Uganda Martyrs,” African Arts 39, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 50–59.

[6] Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (London, United Kingdom and Portsmouth, New Hampshire: James Currey Ltd. and Heinemann, 1986), 3.

[7] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (London, United Kingdom: Lawrence and Wishart, 2003), 3-43.

[8] Chinua Achebe, “Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature,” in The Education of a British-Protected Child (New York City, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 96–106.

[9] Ibid.

[10] For an overview of Mobutu Sese Seko’s policy and state-sponsored program of Authenticité, see Sarah Van Beurden, Authentically African: Arts and the Transnational Politics of Congolese Culture (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2015). On the École de Dakar and twentieth-century art in Senegal in the decades following Léopold Sédar Senghor’s time as president, see Elizabeth Harney, In Senghor’s Shadow: Art, Politics, and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960-1995 (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2004).

[11] Margaret Trowell, “The Kampala Art Exhibition—A Uganda Experiment,” Oversea Education: A Journal of Educational Experiment and Research in Tropical and Subtropical Areas 10, no. 3 (April 1939): 131.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Though it should be said that the status of the Benin Bronzes as art—while more widely agreed upon at the time of Trowell’s writing—was relatively recent. In the proceeding decades, debates raged as to how they should be considered and even as to their origins (attributed variously to Egypt or waves of migration from the north,) with some scholars expressing skepticism that they could have been the artistic productions of sub-Saharan Africans. For this history, see Annie Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1994).

[14] Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality,” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2–3 (2007): 170.

[15] Ibid, 170.

[16] Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2002), 13-15.

[17] Margaret Trowell, African Arts and Crafts: Their Development in the School (London, United Kingdom: Longmans, Green and Co., 1937).

[18] The art/craft binary mirrors the relative privileging of mind over body within Cartesian dualism. On the implications of normative dualism, see Alison M. Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Allanheld, 1983).

[19] Trowell, African Arts and Crafts, 33.

[20] Marion Richardson, Art and the Child (London, United Kingdom: University of London Press, 1948); Rosemary Sassoon, Marion Richardson: Her Life and Her Contribution to Handwriting (Bristol, United Kingdom: Intellect Books, 2011).

[21] See John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, 2nd ed. (London, United Kingdom: Smith, Elder, and Company, 1867). For a general introduction to the Arts and Crafts Movement, see Elizabeth Cumming and Wendy Kaplan, The Arts and Crafts Movement (New York City, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991).

[22] Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa, “Margaret Trowell’s School of Art or How to Keep the Children’s Work Really African,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Race and the Arts in Education, ed. Amelia M. Kraehe, Ruben Gaztambide-Fernandez, and B. Stephen Carpenter (London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 85–101.

[23] Frequently, Trowell in her writings would easily slip between specifics and generalizations. She did not hesitate to philosophize on African nature and African art more broadly. This reductionist and totalizing tendency is perhaps not surprising and is part of the larger colonial image of the continent, but it should be said that this elision is hers and not one that I am making.

[24] Ibid.

[25] On “colonial difference,” see Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993).

[26] Sunanda K. Sanyal, “Modernism and Cultural Politics in East Africa: Cecil Todd’s Drawings of the Uganda Martyrs,” African Arts 39, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 51.

[27] Ibid, 51-56.

[28] Sanyal and Wolukau-Wanambwa.

[29] Trowell, African Arts and Crafts: Their Development in the School; Margaret Trowell and K.P. Wachsmann, Tribal Crafts of Uganda (London, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1953).

[30] Margaret Trowell, “Modern African Art in East Africa,” Man 47 (1947): 1–7.

[31] The question of anonymity in the reception of African art in the West has been the subject of important studies, especially regarding the intentional obfuscation of authorship to conform to Western perceptions of African art. Investigation of naming practices in the fine arts program at Makerere though remains fertile ground for future exploration. See, for instance, Sidney Littlefield Kasfir, “One Tribe, One Style? Paradigms in the Historiography of African Art,” History in Africa 11 (1984): 163–93.

[32] Edward Said, Orientalism (New York City, New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 25-28.

[33] The role of art in relation to the colonial, capitalist international system also merits further exploration. In their seminal essay for critical museum studies, “The Universal Survey Museum,” Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach highlight how perceptions of fine art erase or mystify the accumulation of labor that produces it and how myth of the creative genius reinforce meritocratic ideals. The overlap between these values and the liberal ideology that fueled colonialism and the expansion of Western hegemony seems significant to consider in the context of colonial art education. Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach, “The Universal Survey Museum,” Art History 3, no. 4 (1980): 448–69.

[34] Quijano, 2-3.

[35] Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (New York City, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 66–111.

[36] Simon Gikandi, “Rethinking the Archive of Enslavement,” Early American Literature 50, no. 1 (2015): 81–102.

[37] Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts,” Small Axe 12, no. 2 (June 2008): 11.

[38] Fred Moten, “Resistance of the Object: Aunt Hester’s Scream,” in In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 1–24.

[39] Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity, 19-53.

[40] Margaret Trowell, African Tapestry (London, United Kingdom: Faber and Faber, 1957), 104.

Bibliography

Achebe, Chinua. “Politics and Politicians of Language in African Literature.” In The Education of a British-Protected Child, 96–106. New York City, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.

Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Coombes, Annie. Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1994.

Court, Elisbeth Joyce. “Margaret Trowell and the Development of Art Education in East Africa.” Art Education 38, no. 6 (1985): 35–41.

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By Nathanaël Micolod

“Independence is worth what are worth or what want its leaders”. In his novel “African leaders facing their people” then-Minister of Development of newly-independent Mali Seydou Badian Kouyaté suggested that leaders, above all, determined the future of African countries after independence. In 1961, Modibo Keïta became the first President of Mali, promising socialist development. Yet despite the promises and hopes that accompanied independence, the socialist experiment in Mali was short-lived, as a coup deposed Keïta in 1968, changing the economic direction of the country. This essay will examine how this came to be, studying how the slave trade and colonialism affected the future prospects of Mali after independence and the goals of independence leaders, the strategies employed by the new government, and critically look at their effectiveness, exploring the causes behind the failure of socialist planning. The essay concludes that this derives less from the worth of Mali’s leaders than in the government setting for itself overly ambitious goals, significant economic constraints inherited in part from the colonial era which hampered successful planning, and the lack of popular concertation and control over policy.
As a result of rising demand for raw materials at home, as well the high potential for investments and new markets for goods, Europe began between the 1870s and 1900s its “scramble for Africa.” By the 19th century’s end, French Sudan (present-day Mali) was under direct French colonial administration, linking the other French colonies of Senegal and Algeria. While France’s stated goal in Africa was the assimilation of the colonies into its whole, in practice French rule was repressive, with a heavily centralized administration led by white local elites (Mamdani 1996). Nevertheless, French colonial rule of Mali quickly proved unattractive to the French, as the administrative costs of running the colony exceeded the profits the colonial government could extract, particularly because of its large swathes of inhabitable territory and paucity of natural resources. As the trans-Saharan trade ended and West African coasts prospered, the French colonial government continued passively to rule over French Sudan, with little attempt in developing the area (Suret-Canale et al. 1976). In the 1950s, with independence movements prospering around the world, French Sudan attempted a short-lived alliance with its more prosperous neighbor Senegal — the resulting Mali Federation, formed in September 1959, successfully bargained for independence with the French and gained its formal independence on July 1960, before coming apart in September of that year, with Modibo Keïta becoming the first president of Mali. To Keïta, the main objectives of African leaders was to “resolve problems of subsistence, of living conditions, of the struggle against illiteracy, and especially of giving back to African man his confidence in himself, and forever ridding him of the inferiority complex which colonialism has created in him” (Speech in Bouaké, Ivory Coast 1962). To achieve this objective, the Union Soudanaise-RDA (the ruling and only party in the country) assembled an extraordinary congress in September 1960 and unanimously voted to lead the country towards a socialist path to development.
While socialist planning was meant ultimately to improve the conditions of the poorest and working classes, there was an understanding that certain objectives, such as economic independence, were to take priority in the short-term. As stated in the Malian Five-Year Plan: “The ultimate objective of the planning of our economy is the improvement of the standard of living of the population. However, the investible surplus realized through the implementation of planning cannot be totally divested for that particular purpose: a great portion of this surplus must be divested to exports and investment.”
Attempts at a socialist path to development, such as the Malian Five Year Plan of 1961-1966, overall failed to produce the results planners had hoped for. The new government mobilized its resources, creating thirty-six new state enterprises, with the goal for them to eventually grow large enough so as not to require foreign capital and guarantee Mali’s economic independence on the global stage. The government established a new rural network of cooperatives, created its own national currency, and established a treasury for foreign exchange control. Nevertheless, despite the “prerequisites” to successful socialist development being established, development failed in practice, which dissuaded further planning attempts after 1966 until the coup that would depose Keïta and the US-RDA in 1968. As the new government that overthrew Keïta would put it: “The first Five-Year Plan […] has resulted in an unmitigated failure, despite some commendable realizations in the industrial sector and some spectacular realizations in the field of infra-structure[…]. The inefficiency of the productive sector, the low level at which modern enterprises have been operating, and the absence of a taxation system adapted to the rural world have both prevented the realization of an export output sufficient to cover imports and of a surplus revenue that would have allowed to cover the ever-increasing recurrent administrative costs. Consequently, a point of equilibrium could be reached only be reached by resorting to an inflationary currency circulation and by external indebtedness” (Programme Triennal De Redressement Économique Et Financier 1972).

Several explanations may be given for the failure of socialist planning in Mali during this period. Mali was first of all an especially poor country, with a GNP about three times lower than its neighbor Senegal, and such limited resources proved quite constraining to Mali’s socialist experiment. In their study of economic development in Tanzania, Gerald K. Helleiner (1972) proposed a distinction between “basic” and “self-imposed” economic constraints. Whereas “basic” constraints represent the endowments a state planner is provided with (the stock, present and future of the factors of production — land, labor and capital), “self-imposed” constraints the political, social or economic rules imposed by socialism. Mali experienced several “basic” economic constraints. Its distance from the sea, and particularly its limited infrastructure (owing to the scarce attempts by the French colonial government to develop such infrastructure) made the transport of goods for imports and exports much more costly. Mali also lacked the infrastructure necessary to produce energy domestically, leading to dependence on entirely imported oil and other sources of energy. The country was poor in natural resources, fertile soils and water sources; it also faced high population growth, social heterogeneity, lack of human capital (skills and knowledge in most sectors of the sectors of its economy), and finally an overall lack of financial resources and savings (Martin 1976). All of these conditions combined to create a particularly difficult backdrop for successful planning.
The Malian Five-Year Plan relied on increasing output in agriculture to raise domestic income, but the production of its main cash-crop, groundnuts, only continued to fall over the period of the Five-Year Plan. Climate conditions, while a part of it, do not fully justify the overall failure of agricultural production. Peasants resisted attempts at the collectivization of agriculture, refusing to participate in programs such as the “Groupements ruraux de production et de secours mutuel.” The government failed to provide sufficient incentives for peasants to participate in government programs, and this alongside the worsening of peasant conditions after the Plan led to growing distrust for socialism (Jones 1972). The Malian socialist experiment struggled with insufficient popular support, as despite some enthusiasm in the early years following independence the lack of popular consultation or popular control quickly encouraged distrust of the government and socialism.

Planning also struggled from seeking both growth and development. As scholar William Jones put it: “The politicians saw the primary purpose of the socialist option as structural change — having the state take over the commanding heights of the economy and probably a good deal more. The planners expected to have both structural transformation and fast economic growth. Indeed, far from expecting the structural transformation to impose economic costs on society, they thought it would start paying its way immediately and provide a surplus to finance other investments” (1969). However, the attainment of growth and development, besides being somewhat antithetical, were hampered by the basic economic constraints listed earlier, and the economic costs of structural changes could not be shouldered by state enterprises as they failed to create the profits planners had hoped for.
The inability of state enterprises to produce as per expectations created inflationary pressures. As public investments rose, so did administrative costs rise as well as transfers to public corporations. By 1962, Mali shouldered a 4.6 billion Malian Franc (MF) deficit in its balance-of-payment. While administrative costs skyrocketed, employment in administration saw only small increases and little improvement in its ability to manage its public sector. Public corporations continued to receive subventions even as they failed to produce the profits planners had hoped for, preventing economic development rather than enabling it (Crespo et al. 1966). The monetary system was forced to continue to sustain a failing public sector, doubling the amount of money in circulation and overall doubling the price of goods and services in the country. The country’s struggling domestic market required the importation of many consumer goods; and as importation failed to keep up with domestic demands, causing rising prices on the black market, the government was forced to rely on foreign debt, approximating 110 billion MF by the end of 1968.
The planning process itself it also at fault in the failure of socialist planning in Mali. Preliminary drafts of the Five-Year Plan drawn in 1959 lacked any serious statistical foundations, which only became available in 1961; this caused discrepancies between the goals of the Plan and how feasible such goals were to attain, particularly as the amount of public expenditure which had been supported by the French colonial administration had been greatly underestimated. The planners, ignoring the country’s basic economic constraints, hoped for a whopping 8.3% annual growth, exceeding all other countries in the world at the time. However, the planning staff was both insufficiently funded and insufficiently manned to comprehensively manage state enterprises (Gaud 1967), and lacked the power to enforce its authority as several investments occurred without the Ministry of Planning’s consent (Crespo 1966).

However, these economic factors do not explain what prevented planners from changing course while they had time to do so. Scholar Claude Meillassoux (1970) proposes that the answer lies in the socio-political composition of Malian society. The “Parti Soudanais Progressiste” (PSP) was a political party created in 1945, largely composed of the traditional aristocracy which had begun to form before the colonization of Mali by France. Receiving significant pushback from the US-RDA, which had been gaining momentum through the acquisition notably of the merchant class’ support, the PSP eventually adhered to the US-RDA. However, despite restrictions on foreign activity initially favoring the merchants, the socialist policies of the new government soon challenged the merchants. The creation of the Malian Franc (which restricted trading operations by the merchants), the strict regulation of foreign trade, and the state holding a quasi-monopoly in both foreign and domestic trade led the merchants to become the primary opposition group to Keïta’s regime.
Meanwhile, a new bureaucratic class developed, monopolizing political power; however, the challenge of the merchant class required the consolidation of this political power by seizing economy power as well. This was done through the development of an extensive public sector “under the label of ‘socialism,’ which provided [the bureaucratic class] with a convenient ideology to bring the economy under their control” (Mefflassoux 1970). This created a situation where undermining expenses in the public sector would go directly against the interests and power of the bureaucratic class — instead of reorganizing the public sector in an attempt to make it more profitable, it tended to further create state corporations. As the largest employer in the country, it had control over the distribution of profits, using this to consolidate their position of power. Rather than radically change the conditions of the peasantry following the end of colonial rule, the peasantry found itself exploited again by the new bureaucratic class, which held interests which differed from its own — a situation enabled by the lack of popular participation or control in the policies of its new government.

In conclusion, the failure of socialist planning in Mali may be attributed to a variety of factors. Economic constraints and poor planning led to inefficient public sectors, setting the country on a path to rising inflation and foreign debt. While resources might have been reallocated or reorganized to avoid this outcome, the lack of avenues for popular participation enabled the new bureaucratic class to maintain the status quo and defend its economic and political power instead of improving the peasantry’s living conditions, using socialism as a label to pursue their own interests while stripping it of its substance and promise.

Works Cited

Crespo, Alberto Sánchez et al. “Trois Expériences Africaines De Développement: Le Mali, La Guinée Et Le Ghana”. Desarrollo Económico, vol 5, no. 20, 1966, p. 577. JSTOR.
Gaud, Michel. Les Premières Expériences De Planification En Afrique Noire. Éditions Cujas, 1967.
Helleiner, G. K. “Socialism And Economic Development In Tanzania”. The Journal Of Development Studies, vol 8, no. 2, 1972, pp. 183-204. Informa UK Limited.
Jones, William I. “The Kéïta Decade: Economics Of The Coup”. Africa Report, 1969.
Jones, William I. “The Mise And Demise Of Socialist Institutions In Rural Mali”. Geneva-Africa, 1972.
Mamdani, Mahmood. Citizen And Subject. University Press, 1996.
Martin, Guy. “Socialism, Economic Development And Planning In Mali, 1960-1968”. Canadian Journal Of African Studies / Revue Canadienne Des Études Africaines, vol 10, no. 1, 1976, p. 23. JSTOR.
Mefflassoux, Claude. “A Class Analysis Of The Bureaucratic Process In Mali”. The Journal Of Development Studies, vol 6, no. 2, 1970, pp. 97-110. Informa UK Limited.
“Programme Triennal De Redressement Économique Et Financier”. Les Plans de Développement d’Afrique Noire. Ediafric, 1972
Suret-Canale, Jean, and Till Gottheiner. French Colonialism In Tropical Africa, 1900-1945. Heinemann, 1976.

By Jaylon Crisp

Introduction

In today’s world economy, more than 45% of the world’s supply of cocoa used in chocolate products comes from Côte d’Ivoire, also known as the Ivory Coast, with about 70% sourced from the associated West African region. However, out of the estimated 100 billion in revenue made by the chocolate industry, the producers of Ivory Coast only receive around 4% of the capital gains. The average paid cocoa worker only receives the equivalent of $0.78 for a day’s work (Collins 2022). Despite the efforts of the Ivorian government, a combination of lobbying, government corruption, and outsourcing to other cocoa producers, allows the chocolate industry to make maximum profits at the expense of the cocoa workers. To compensate for the decreasing returns, cocoa farmers turn to one of the most questionable forms of labor: children.

Child laborers are often a mix of orphans, the children of other cocoa workers, or slaves sold to plantations. With little to no compensation, Ivorian kids face long work hours and, in some circumstances, dangerous work conditions (Busquet et al. 2021). At the surface level, it may seem that the Ivorian families and farmers are to blame for allowing such a heavily taboo practice in their work. However, to understand why child labor is so common in the West African cocoa industry, one must understand the bigger picture that Ivory Coast is a part of, from the colonial past of chocolate to the globalizing market of the 1950’s and beyond. Once the power dynamics of the Ivory Coast are better understood, then it may be more clear why the farmers make so little and child labour is so common.

Historical Background: Slavery, the Colonial Transition, and a Postcolonial Market

Originally, cocoa trees were once only native to South America, but during the 19^th century, cocoa trees were first introduced to West Africa with Portuguese plantation owners bringing the plant to the islands of Principe and São Tomé. These islands would be the origins of the cocoa suppliers we know today. Plantation owners forced many Africans into legal forms of slavery, forcing the slaves into living in small huts on the islands. In 1876, the cocoa plant was brought to mainland Ghana, a neighboring country to the Ivory Coast. (Saripalli 2021). During the colonial period of Ghana, the country was inhabited not only by the British colonists, but German missionaries and entrepreneurs as well.  The cocoa plants initially thrived in the hot tropical weather, and the beginning of a new colonial trade empire began. In the following years, cocoa production would establish a booming cocoa trade akin to the one established in South America, leading to the spread of cocoa throughout the coastal West African countries.

As the main cocoa producing country shifted from Ghana to the Ivory Coast in the 1920’s,  eurocentric-origin chocolate confectionary companies became exponentially richer due to more availability of cocoa, along with the colonists that ran the trade. Like other colonized nations though, the indigenous laborers of the Ivory Coast made considerably lower wages than the middle men and chocolate manufacturers of the trade operation. During the mid-20th century, the postcolonial wave would strike the shores of West Africa, eventually leading to the independence of the Ivory Coast in 1960. Along with this freedom came the liberation of the colonial cocoa plantations, now mostly under the control of the Ivorian citizens (Ludlow 2012). Futures were looking hopeful for the African nation, as a new government established a communal-style tenure system to cocoa production, a model which would lead to Ivorian farmers earning a much larger sum from their harvests. As the country shifted from colonial to postcolonial, so too did the power dynamics that controlled the cocoa market. Power went from the colonial master of the nation to the ruling Ivorian elite, which established the communal tribe tenure farming system mentioned previously. While farms in these tribes have no legal papers documenting what land or plantations they owned, ownership of plantations and of land plots were usually agreed upon collaboratively by farmers and landowners. The Ivorian government encouraged expansion and increased production, converting forests into more arable land. (Anti-Slavery International 2004) Unfortunately, the boone of wealth would only be temporary, as more change was soon to follow.

The death of traditional colonialism would soon mark the birth of neoliberalism. The end of colonial rule in West Africa would also mark the economic shift towards a globalized capitalist market. Empires of rule were replaced by chocolate company giants such as Mars, Cadbury, Nestle, and others (Food Empowerment Project 2022). Once tapped into the globalized market, these companies naturally chipped away the price of cocoa with competitive pricings and economic/political manipulation, making the raw cocoa product increasingly unsustainable for the nation. The depreciating market, combined with aging trees and decreasing land availability for production, would force the Ivorian government back into trade relations with similar dynamics of those during the colonial era. Expansion ceased in the 1980’s, but the consequences were still much apparent. The Ivory Coast was struggling to match production quotas to meet the needs of the country. All the while, chocolate companies hid their suppliers of cocoa in favor of a consumer-friendly image for a seemingly innocent product. As the chocolate companies we’re familiar with today achieved unprecedented growth, the source of their success continued to struggle economically and politically. The result was a weak supporting infrastructure, impoverished cocoa workers, a rising market for child-trafficking, children working in cocoa plantations rather than attending school, and an inherited invisibility (at least until the last 20 years or so) to the public sectors of consumers.

Similar to Rolph Trouiott’s ideas of a subjective past and historicity, the narrative of chocolate to consumers has historically left out the details of the laborers who made the product possible (Trouillot 1995). It is often understood that Africa is inherently poor and without a history. A common trend for many antiquated products, chocolate companies adopt the facade of a sanitized reputation, burying the truth behind flashy advertisement campaigns. Once again, the subaltern voices are silenced in favor of the protection of eurocentric interests. 

In the perspective of Michelle Murphy, the people of Ivory Coast are forced to carry the colonial burden from 150 years ago (Murphy 2017). The cocoa farmers do not have a choice either, as cocoa production is essential for most smallholder families to make a living in the generational struggle of chocolate. Unlike the chemicals that accumulate in the physical body of the subaltern people in Murphy’s case study, the cocoa tree has accumulated in the economic structure of the Ivory Coast. And like the chemicals accumulated inside us, it is unlikely that the Ivory Coast will ever  be able to abandon their cocoa, as it is their most stable link between them and the modern global market that supports their income flow Ivorian citizens have become reliant on.

Contemporary Ivorian Dynamics: Economic and Sociocultural

While sentiments on child labour understand that the practice is morally wrong in more developed countries like the US, the sociocultural dynamics of Ivorian Families are not the same as others. As mentioned previously, child laborers range from trafficked children, orphans, and children of cocoa workers. However, a large portion of child laborers fall into the familial category, especially for the small-holders farms that are family-owned. Child workers are often recruited by close or extended family members, a practice that is considered normal in the culture developed by decades of cocoa. A scholarly article from Milande Busquet et al. reveals that under the Sustainable Livliehood Approach of understanding the child labour in Ivory Coast plantations, a narrative is formed in which child labor becomes a commodity for the child, the community and the family. (Milande et. al 2021). With information collected from small-holder farmers in both Ghana and the Ivory Coast, the ethnographic researchers observed the communal tribal culture interconnected to the idea of land and property ownership. Tribal communities run plots of land through sharecropping-like systems, with each family responsible for a section of land. Children are included in this community and are viewed culturally as potential human and social capital. As cocoa is often the primary source of income for many families, children are often expected by the community to work under the adults to learn the craft of harvesting and processing the raw cocoa rather than going to school. The job is often seen as the child’s link to being a part of the community with work often being viewed as an internship, as well as a chore. The work prepares the children for their futures of harvesting cocoa, learning practical information while also helping the family in collections and processing.

It should be emphasized that many of the interviewed cocoa workers felt the children would be better learning a more traditionally academic education. However, due to poor infrastructure and unreliable education sources, parents often find themselves convinced that the children are better off staying with family and helping with work, a guaranteed certainty that will always be available for them. Under this perspective, child labor becomes a negative consequence of the resulting poverty from a struggling, unstable government resulting from the abuse of Western ideals. This approach to understanding resembles more closely the Global Value Chains perspective also discussed in the article(Milande et al. 2021). With both perspectives, we can understand the work of children in the family is an improvised form of cutting corners, supervising the children, teaching practical skills, and helping the family. While this may seem like a wholesome spin on child labor, one should remember that the only reason for the need to improvise these values is because large companies refuse to pay families livable wages that only adults need to perform to meet quotas. Additionally, while the larger portion of child laborers are from families, a portion of the children are still orphans or trafficked into the work, in which the values mentioned do not apply. They do not have the supervision of the family to look after them.

In addition to sociocultural dynamics in the Ivory Coast, the economic dynamics of trade are also helpful in understanding the systems of exploitation in play. Raw product goes through many middlemen, such as pisteurs, traitants, and cooperatives before being sold to exporters. With such a complex system of trade, it becomes clear how farmers can often become exploited in price. The blame of the complexity is partially due to  the liberalization of the cocoa market in 1999 (Anti-Slavery International 2004). 

The Modern Struggle: Issues that Remain, and the Modern Trade Dynamics

The year 2000 marked the release of Slavery: A Global Investigation, a documentary which explores modern forms of forced labor, including the Ivorian children (Woods and Blewett 2000). The documentary exposed the truth about the labor crisis in West Africa, revealing the desperateness of the workers and the children accessory to the operation. With the truth of chocolate exposed, the public became outraged with the associated companies. Boycotts and protests ensued, marking one of the first times in which the Western world was critiquing its own practices. 

To quell the disapproval of child labour, in 2001, the chocolate industry collaborated together to announce the Harkin-Engel protocol, an anti-child labour initiative to eliminate all chocolate sourced from cocoa plantations using children workers by the year 2005. While the initiative was first very promising to the future of the chocolate industry, once fallen out of the news’ proverbial eye, companies became lax in their procedures. The deadline to end unethically sourced chocolate was missed, extended, and missed again. Eventually, the chocolate companies reformed their directive, aiming to reduce unethically sourced cocoa by only 70%. While the Harkin-Engel protocol failed to meet their initiatives time and time again, the chocolate paraded the minimal changes they did make with large press reports to maintain the facade that change is occurring. The project continues to be a major failure, with little to no enforcement of the rules by the industry and virtually zero legal action against those who disobeyed the ethical sourcing protocols (Siegel and Whoriskey 2019). As of 2023, the Harkin-Engel protocol still has yet to cut child labor by 70%.

The Ivory Coast along with Ghana, the two largest cocoa producers in West Africa currently,  have recently taken another approach to increase financial gains in the country. Both countries implemented the Living Income Differential (LID) premium into their trade systems with manufacturing exporters (Collins 2022). The labor premiums charge an extra $400 for every ton exported from the countries. The $400 premium price was decided by both collaborating governments to request the bare minimum to allow for livable wages in the cocoa trade. While the premium laws provide promise for a better future, chocolate companies have already found loopholes around the requirements to pay more. By buying cocoa from a middle-man agency inside the countries rather than directly from the farmers and producers, the large companies are not required to pay LID premiums. Additionally, chocolate companies can displace LID premiums by dodging the origins differential, a premium based on provenance and inspected quality of the cocoa beans, qualities that can be very easily manipulated. The Ivory Coast and Ghana continue to attempt the enforcement of LID, with more West African countries accepting the premium to create a standard charge in Africa. Additionally, boycotts and manipulating the supply of cocoa in circulation have also been used as rebellious acts to persuade the stubborn chocolate companies to accept the premium as an industry standard.

Even as the systems of colonial rule recede into the past, the persistence of power dynamics and the abuse of the Ivory Coast continues into the present. Borrowing ideas from Ann Stoler about non-linearity of history, an analysis of the history of cocoa production highlights the uncanny similarities of labor sources and economic trends of modern day (Stoler 2016). The establishment of new laws, governments, and freedoms only become overshadowed with remaining colonial dynamics. The recursiveness of control, or lack of, remains, even with countries like the Ivory Coast and Ghana as a free nation.

Conclusions

The practice of child labor is best understood as an unfortunate byproduct of a nation perpetually performing the same service as their colonial ancestors. Restrained by the practice of neoliberalism and a global market, the people of Ivory Coast and West Africa experience poverty by forces outside their control, despite growing the base product for one of the world’s most popular sweets. However, there is a sociocultural aspect for child child laborers in the familial category which work due to their families believing it’s more beneficial for them and the community. This introduces a perspective where child labor in this category lies in a gray area, where neither outcome is completely favorable due to the instability of the Ivory Coast.

Regardless of any events during the creation of the West African cocoa empire and beyond, the only reason the plant was grown in Africa was because colonists saw the opportunity as a great way to maximize profits at the expense of the exploitation of Africa’s land and its people. The damage from the unforgiving plague of colonialism leaves the region with open wounds that postcolonial theory has only recently attempted to fix, albeit with heavy resistance with the companies implicated. Pushback for change continues today with big chocolate companies, as values are placed not in people, but money.

In my own opinion, the Ivory Coast will never be able to fully decolonize, as the countries’ infrastructure is essentially made on foundations of past colonizers’ intent. It’s plausible for the nation and other cocoa-associated West African nations to decolonize politics and development of the countries, but for a country like the Ivory Coast which primary sources of income are based off colonial systems, it’s hard to imagine a transition to a decolonial-based source of capital without endangering the people of the nation. It truly speaks volumes that even the country’s name is colonial in language and their main export isn’t even native to their country. In true decolonial theory, the Ivory Coast would become radically different from the raw cocoa producer observed today, if even possible at all. The only solution to such a substantial problem is to acknowledge the history, mend the damage, and most importantly, act against the companies feigning innocence. Once these actions are taken, maybe West Africa will decrease child labor.

Bibliography:

1. Collins, Tim. 2022. “Ivory Coast battles chocolate companies to improve farmers’ lives.” Aljazeera, Dec. 8, 2022. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/12/22/ivory-coast-battles-chocolate-companies-to-improve-farmers-lives#:~:text=Ivory%20Coast%20produces%20around%2045,to%20the%20World%20Economic%20Forum. 
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By Tarleton Hunt

Introduction

Postcolonialism helps us understand the historical legacy of colonialism, examine power dynamics, and shape our future. South Africa is a unique and intricate case as it has a complex and deeply rooted history of racism through its postcolonial past. Postcolonialism is a relevant framework for understanding the country’s history and its ongoing struggles with inequality and injustice. By analyzing the complex history of postcolonialism, apartheid, and white supremacy, we see how this is recognized today in South Africa.

Analyzing the Past

South Africa has a complex history marked by centuries of conflict, exploitation, and racial oppression. In his book Orientalism, Said argued that traditional structures reproduce and reinforce the cultural and political values of the West while marginalizing and excluding alternative perspectives and knowledge systems from non-Western societies. He suggested that this has led to a Eurocentric view of the world, in which the West is seen as the center of civilization and non-Western societies are seen as primitive or backward (Said, 1978). By looking into the complex past of South Africa, we can have a better understanding of how the effects of colonization and racial discrimination are still relevant today.

Colonization

South Africa was colonized by European powers, primarily the Dutch and British, beginning in the 17^th century. The first European settlement in the country was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 at Cape of Good Hope which was used as a stopping point for ships traveling to and from the Far East. During colonization in 1652 by the Dutch, the Slavery and Forced Labour Model took place (SAHO, 2021). This was the original model of colonialism by the Dutch and subsequently exported from the Western Cape to the Afrikaner Republics of the Orange Free State and the Zuid-Afriaansche Republiek. With this, many South Africans are the descendants of slaves brought to the Cape Colony from 1653 until 1822 (SAHO, 2021). In the late 18^th century, the British took control of the Cape Colony from the Dutch, and they too expanded their territory and clashed with the indigenous populations. They introduced the system of indentured labor which brought thousands of Indian and Chinese workers to South Africa to work in the sugar cane fields and golf mines. Said argues that the West’s construction of the “Orient” is not only a reflection of reality but also a projection of its own desires and fears onto the region. With this, Western intervention in South Africa for economic exploitation was justified (Said, 1978). Furthermore, the idea of the “Orient” as primitive and exotic was also used to justify the portrayal of African cultures and traditions as backward and in need of Western intervention (Said, 1978).

In 1910, the British colonies of Natal, the Cape Colony, Transvaal, and the Orange Free State were merged to form the Unions of South Africa, a self-governing dominion within the British Empire. The new government was dominated by white Afrikaners and the British, who enacted a series of racial segregation laws known as apartheid. In 1948, apartheid took place. Under apartheid, black Africans were denied basic rights and freedoms and were forced to live in separate areas. In addition, institutions like schools and hospitals with separated based on color. This infamous system would not be banned until the early 1990s. In May 1961, the Government of the Unions of South Africa declared the country would be a Republic.

Apartheid

Racism is deeply rooted in South African society, dating back to the country’s colonial and apartheid past. During Apartheid which lasted between 1948 to 1994, the government institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination against non-white South African citizens, in all aspects of life. This included education, employment, housing, political affairs, and more.

Racial segregation, sanctioned by law, was widely practices in South Africa before 1948. When Daniel F. Malan gained office in the National Party, it extended the policy and gave it the name apartheid. One of the most significant acts under the apartheid system was the Group Areas Act of 1950. This act established residential and business sections in urban areas for each race and members of other races were barred from living, operating businesses, or owning land in them. This in turn led thousands of non-white South Africans to being removed from areas for white South Africans. Furthermore, separate educational standards were established for non-white South Africans. Black South African children were trained for manual labor and menial jobs and higher universities were prohibited from accepting non-white students.

The struggle against apartheid became a major focus of the international community in the 20^th century. Frantz Fanon’s ideas and works are seen in the struggle of the anti-apartheid movements, which were both non-violent resistance and armed struggle (More, 2016). Fanon’s view of the psychological effects of colonialism also highlights the legacy of apartheid, including the persistence of racial inequalities and the challenges of achieving true reconciliation. Fanon writes, “decolonization is always a violent event” (Fanon, 1963). With this, South Africa met their oppressors with equal violence for independence. In 1994, after years of protests, boycotts, and sanctions, South Africa held its first democratic elections with Nelson Mandela elected as the country’s first black president. The violence of apartheid was present in everyday life, upheld by white citizens who beat their employees and assaulted black strangers at a whim. Inevitably, white violence created reciprocal black violence (Msimang, 2020).

The Present

The end of apartheid marked a major milestone in the country’s history, but South Africa continues to struggle with the infamous legacy of its colonial past and the ongoing challenges of inequality and social injustice. We see this struggle in South Africa’s culture, architecture, politics, and education system.

Culture

Institutional racism is still very present in post-apartheid South Africa. Police brutality and violence against black people today are a legacy of apartheid. The architects of apartheid were so effective in implementing a system of institutional oppression and racism that despite its end nearly 26 years ago, apartheid continues to have a strong hold on South African justice institutions (Magaisa, 2021). Today, much of the initial promise to improve the lives of all South Africans remains unfulfilled. After over 20 years in power, the African National Congress (ANC) continues to experience poverty, inequality, violence, health crises, and corruption. Since the end of apartheid, many black South Africans continue to experience discrimination and marginalization in various aspects of their lives including education, employment, housing, access to healthcare, and more. In addition, there have been incidents of racial violence and hate speech, particularly targeting foreign nationals and other minority groups. The South African government has taken steps to address racism by adopting the Promotion of Equality to Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (PEPUDA), which prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. In addition, the government has also established several institutions like the South African Human Rights Commission and the Equality Court to investigate and prosecute cases of discrimination. Furthermore, South Africa has made progress in addressing racism, including the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights violations during Apartheid, and the adoption of progressive policies aimed to promote racial equality to address past injustices. Despite these efforts, racism remained a pervasive issue in South Africa. There is still much work to be done to address racism in South Africa. This includes addressing the ongoing economic disparities between white and black South Africans and improving fair access to education, healthcare, employment, and more.

Architecture

Identifying architecture and urban landscape design in South Africa is. One of the key aspects of this is the struggle for identity and cultural expression. With a long history of colonization, the country has been dominated by Western design. As a result, many architects in South Africa have attempted to incorporate traditional African design elements into their work as a way of reclaiming cultural identity and challenging Western architectural norms. Another aspect to note about urban design is politics. During apartheid, the built environment was used as a tool of social control, with non-white communities forcibly relocated to designated towns and segregated from white communities. In the post-apartheid era, there has been a push to create more inclusive and integrated spaces that reflect the diversity of South Africa.

Politics

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa has been regarded as a proponent of human rights and a leader on the African continent. However, reports of corruption among government officials often emerge, and in recent years, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has been accused of undermining state institutions to protect corrupt officials and preserve its power as its support base has begun to wane. The frustration of the youth is clearly seen as they are becoming increasingly disillusioned with politics. Citizens aged 18-29 (the largest segment of the voting population) have the lowest registration in over a decade (Malala, 2019).

Education System

The South African education system is broken and perpetuated poverty and inequality. The country’s education system is characterized by crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, and a relatively poor educational curriculum continuing the cycle of inequality for the new generation. Although there is significantly higher participation in educational facilities since the end of apartheid, poor funding for safe infrastructure greatly affects the outcome of proper education. The lack of funding for education and appropriate, clean facilities reduces the ability for a successful education (Mohamed, 2020).

Analysis of How the Past is Seen Today

Through analyzing the past and present, we are able to make a clear understanding of how the past is seen today. Through culture, architecture and urban planning, politics, and economics we see how the past still plays a part in South Africa today.

Architecture and Urban Planning

There is debate about the role of architecture and urban design in addressing social and economic inequality in South Africa. Schnitzler’s Democracy’s Infrastructure shows how such administrative links to the state became a central political terrain during the antiapartheid struggle and how this terrain persists in the post-apartheid present. Furthermore, she examines how seemingly mundane technological domains become charged territory for struggles over South Africa’s political transformation. Furthermore, Schindler argues that the “physical exclusion prevents members of minority groups from partaking in the civic life of the community; makes it extremely difficult or physically dangerous for some people to access wealthier communities and jobs” (Schindler 2015).

Politics and Economics

The end of apartheid greatly changed South Africa’s political system, including the adoption of a new constitution and the establishment of a democratic government. Due to the legacy of systematic racism from apartheid, major political issues regarding land reform, reparations, and addressing historical injustices still circulate. Apartheid continues to shape South Africa’s present through its impact on the county’s economy. Under apartheid, the white minority controlled most of the country’s wealth and resources while black South Africans were systematically excluded from economic opportunities. This segregation has had a lasting impact on the country’s economy, widening the inequality between racial groups, with higher levels of unemployment and poverty among black South Africans.

Culture

Post-apartheid still affects the social and cultural relations in South Africa. Through Antonio Gramsci, we see the struggle for cultural and political power after apartheid. In South Africa, apartheid policies were reinforced through the creation of a white-dominated cultural and education system that perpetuated racial hierarchies. Gramsci’s ideas about cultural production and hegemony have been influential in understanding the dynamics of postcolonialism in South Africa and the ongoing struggle for social justice and equality. Apartheid was designed to keep different racial groups separate from each other which created deep social divisions that are existent today. There are still significant disparities in wealth, education, and employment. With this cycle continuing to circulate, it affects future generations from being given fair opportunities for education and employment. Chatterjee’s analysis of the post-apartheid era focuses on the country’s struggle to reconcile its past with its present. He argues that South Africa’s political and cultural elites have adopted a “cosmopolitan” approach to governance, which prioritizes integration with the global economy and the adoption of Western-style democracy. Furthermore, he argues that this approach has led to the continued marginalization of many black South Africans.

Conclusion

Through analyzing postcolonialism through these intricate webs of racism, we are able to see how the past is still seen today in South Africa. Postcolonialism in South Africa is an ongoing process of reconciliation, healing, and transformation as the country seeks to address the legacy of colonialism and create a more equitable society for all its people. Through this analysis of the past in the present, our understanding of the deeply rooted racism in South Africa can facilitate reparations and reconciliation, through understanding and improving the lives of oppressed black South Africans.

Sources (Chicago):

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Msimang, Sisonke. “The Legacy of Violence in the Struggle for South Africa.” Africa Is a Country, December 22, 2020. https://africasacountry.com/2020/12/the-legacy-of-violence-in-the-struggle-for-freedom-in-south-africa.

Schindler, Sarah. “Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination and Segregation through Physical Design of the Built Environment.” The Yale Law Journal – Home, April 2015. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/architectural-exclusion.

Mohamed, Shenilla. “South Africa’s Broken and Unequal Education Laid Bare.” Amnesty International, February 11, 2020. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/02/south-africa-broken-and-unequal-education-perpetuating-poverty-and-inequality/.

Malala, Justice. “Why Are South African Cities Still so Segregated 25 Years after Apartheid? | Justice Malala.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, October 21, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/21/why-are-south-african-cities-still-segregated-after-apartheid.

Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books

Schnitzler, Antina Von. Democracy’s Infrastructure: Techno-Politics and Protest after Apartheid. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.

Fanon, Frantz (1963) “On Violence” The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press 1-62