thanks for the history here, moses--
as for empire, i agree it was, and in new senses, still is, a feature of powerful states. the difference between european empires of the modern period, or late 19th and20th c varieties, is that they were created by states that conquered vast territories in lands that were distant from their own, and that a major, the major incentive was to control the resources and trade associated with those territories. it also became a sign of competing for prestige.
so rome, or charlemagne, or whoever in ancient times, conquered lands on their borders. control of land, or sea trade, was different from what england did in india or nigeria, where controlling trade and markets, acquiring goods, was important. finally this also meant, eventually, controlling labor--at times reinstituting forms of slave labor, imposing requirements to grow crops for international markets, like cotton or cloves, requiring subject territories to buy british goods, like cotton clothing in india or heroin in china, this was how contemporary state capitalism, mercantilism, marked european imperialism.
i keep getting the impression that these forms were more directly engaged in imposing their conditions and their psychological and intellectual values than earlier empires, like the turkish, that ruled over n africa but tolerated more the local people's ways. modern imperialists treated their subject peoples as inferior; but romans treated greeks as superior, and had greeks serve as tutors to their children. i don't know as much about turks, but i have the impression that the same was more or less true of their rule in arab lands. in the end, they became muslim, like those peoples whom they had conquered.
ken
On 9/9/12 8:06 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:
I don't mean to pile on, but let me offer a few more nuances for Toyin's benefit. Linking the Fulani Jihad with Boko Haram is extremely problematic, not only because it is ahistorical and conflates movements set in different historical and sociopolitical contexts but also because it seems to impose present anxieties on a historical event. I'll also contribute my two cents to some of the other ancillary issues that have come up.
- The Jihad was a movement to revive orthodox Islam as understood by Uthman dan Fodio and his fellow Fulani clerics, and in line with the theological traditions of his Torodbe (sp) clan. It was not a call to extremism and intolerance in the sense that we understand these terms today. It was not a movement to impose extremism. I'll concede that some extremist movements also ground their claims on the need to return to some theological orthodoxy, but most movements of religious orthodoxy are not extremist in nature. To therefore equate or relate the Fulani jihad to Boko Haram is a stretch at best. Boko Haram is campaigning against Christians, rejecting Western education, and all forms of Western modernity (never mind that they use Western martial technology in their campaign). The leaders of the Fulani Jihad celebrated and produced SECULAR knowledge. They cavorted with Christian Europeans. Particularly, Mohammed Bello, Dan Fodio's son and successor, befriended a succession of European Christian explorers (Hugh Clapperton, the Lander brothers, etc), accommodated them in his palace, obtained Western books and items from them, and, fascinated by "Boko" (or Western knowledge and technology) requested more symbols and products of Christian Western England and Germany. So, instead of being anti-Christian or anti-Boko, the leaders of the jihad went out of their way to attract Christians and their modernity into their realm. It is thus very unlikely that Dan Fodio would approve of Boko Haram's narrow, bigoted extremism, which has little or no anchor in any brand of Islamic orthodoxy.
- Dan Fodio personally forbade or banned suicide attacks (harin bakin wake in Hausa) after he established the caliphate. He rooted his objection in mainstream orthodox Islamic exegesis, which forbids suicide. Before then, suicidal or self-sacrificial attacks were a staple of pre-Jihad Hausa warfare. It is thus clear that the Jihad leaders would not approve of the suicidal attacks and suicide bombings of Boko Haram.
- The empire that the Jihad produced was highly decentralized and was only sustained by symbolic gestures and tributes and the exchange of goods--mostly slaves. It was not a very coherent state. Thus the notion that there is some continuity, ideological or otherwise, between the Jihad and Boko Haram is problematic. And, of course, as someone said earlier, Boko Haram arose and spread from the Bornu area, an area that not only resisted the Jihad but had its own distinct tradition of Islam. Furthermore, Boko Haram and Mohammed Yusuf, its founding leader, were heavily influenced if not inspired by a fairly recent renaissance of Wahabi political and conservative Islam, many elements of which contradict the tenets of the Fulani Jihad as described in the canons of the Jihad, most notably the "manifesto of the Sokoto Jihad" translated by Bivar.
None of the above is meant to play down the disruptive impact of the Fulani Jihad. The fact is that a lot of BAD and horrible things were done by people who were or claimed to be acting in the name of the Jihad—people who had the Jihad leaders' endorsement but mostly simply went about to do as they pleased in areas where they operated. Common Hausa folk and traditionalist peoples on the frontiers (many areas in today's Middle Belt) suffered in the hands of Jihad agents and mavericks. Decentralization also enabled the emergence of parallel, simultaneous jihads and spinoffs in multiple sectors and Sokoto could not monitor or control all that went on in the name of the Jihad. In fact the Jihad leaders seemed to lose control of their movement, and the Jihad became in many areas merely a secular war of pillage, quests for power, and slave raids.
On a related note, the notion that the Sokoto Caliphate was not an empire or that the leaders of the jihad were not empire builders or imperialists because early 19th century Hausaland was a feudal and not capitalist context is inaccurate and relies on a very restrictive and narrow Leninist definition of imperialism. Abu seems to forget that Lenin was not defining or describing imperialism as a generic concept or practice but was specifically describing what some call the third wave of empire or post-industrial revolution empires/imperialism in Africa and parts of Asia. Before the modern wave, there were ancient and medieval empires and imperialists—in EVERY continent of the world. The Romans built an empire, so did the Greeks, the Persians, the Phoenicians, Tsarist Russia, the Mongols, the Han of China, etc. These folks were imperialists in non-capitalist contexts. Closer home, the leaders of ancient Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Bornu, Oyo, Asante, etc were imperialists—also in non-capitalist contexts. They built vast empires encompassing diverse peoples and geographies. The Sokoto Caliphate was among a later generation of African empires of the 18th and 19th centuries (Zulu, Lunda, Fante, and Dahomey are other examples). The people who built the caliphate, like the folks who built its contemporary empires in other parts of Africa were imperialists. In fact in the case of the caliphate, the leaders' political and administrative practices in regard to their subdued tributary states and vassals were eerily similar to the practice of Indirect Rule instituted by British imperialists later.
There is perhaps no greater evidence that the Caliphate was an empire and that the founders were imperialists than the writings of the Caliphate/Jihad leaders themselves. It is generally agreed that Dan Fodio was a fairly apolitical, studious cleric and occupied himself mostly with theological and intellectual issues, but his son, Mohammed Bello, was an avowed, unabashed imperialist, who espoused overtly imperialist ideas and claims in his writings. His Infakul Maisur is in some spots an imperial manifesto, proclaiming manifest destiny over many areas of what are today Northern Nigeria and the Middle Belt—even areas that were not and would never be conquered or influenced by the caliphate. His recorded conversations with European visitors to his palace and his communication with other Europeans clearly indicate that Mohammed Bello saw the Caliphate as an imperial realm and wanted to extend it as far south as he could and to impose tributary obligations and indirect control on as many people as he could.
On a final note, I think the problem we have is that because imperialism (or empire) is today a bad word, we assume that it has always been so. This is not true. Empire building (and imperialism) was a coveted vocation and most states aspired to become empires. Most statesmen for long periods of history aspired to become imperialists even though their aspiration may not have occurred to them in those exact terms. Imperialism was the ultimate mark of greatness for a state, the highpoint of state prestige, and it was a rare indicator of personal greatness as a state builder to be known as an imperialist. This remained the case until Europeans in the late stage of empire gave imperialism a very bad name with the massacres, genocides, and unbridled atrocities that occurred in the name of empire and imperialism. This is why the pushback against designating certain imperial practices as imperialism started. It is a lesson on how the conceptual anxieties of the present can intrude into our understanding of historical events and phenomena. But as scholars and intellectuals we should resist allowing our ideological unease to inform and inflect our conceptual deployments.
Today, we cringe when the word "imperialism" in the generic sense is applied to practices and histories that were imperialist, especially when those histories were made by non-European actors. This should not be the case.
On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 10:04 AM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <toyinvincentadepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
Dan Fodio is celebrated as a hero because he won a military campaign which he imposed on victim states in order to pursue a politico-religious vision.
All the rest of his valorisation is a consequence of that.
Hitler is vilified as a villain because he lost the war he initiated.
He lost partly or even largely because he overeached himself.
If he had contented himself with overrunning Eastern Europe and massacring Jews, if he has not attacked France and Britain or the Soviet Union, or his ally Japan had not attacked the US, most likely he would be celebrated today in history as the great man who freed Germany from the strictures of the Treaty of Versailles, laid the foundations for modern Germany by boosting her industrial production in his emphasis on producing advanced military equipment and cheap vehicles for the average person, spearheaded innovative and devastating military strategies, inspired German nationalism, etc etc. His racism and Jew massacre would be noted as an unfortunate aberration.
Alexander 'the Great' , Napoleon Bonaparte , Queen Victoria, the Roman Empire, all these are examples of imperialists, people who wage war to impose their rule on others without provocation, amassing large territories under their control.
Today they are all heroes because the developments they initiated are celebrated while the human cost paid for their victories is minimised in general historical memory.
thanks
toyin
On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Abdullahi Azare <barauab@gmail.com> wrote:
Is shame for you just write on something you don't know or you have little about is better to keep off than to write a lie against someone this hero sheikh usman bn fodio is a well-known in Yoruba among sofa's that is the Islamic scholars in Yoruba land to pabricate a story like this is tarnishing your image becouse even those whomever would read know you are just writing rubbish and I challenge you on this.
On Sep 8, 2012 3:40 PM, "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu> wrote:
>
> To conflate Boko Haram with Uthman dan Fodio is counter-productive
> and misleading. To link the group with Maitatsine may be closer to reality .
>
> Dr. Gloria Emeagwali
> www.africahistory.net<http://www.africahistory.net/>
> www.esnips.com/web/GloriaEmeagwali<http://www.esnips.com/web/GloriaEmeagwali>
> www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos<http://www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos>
>
> ________________________________
> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU [toyinvincentadepoju@gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 4:22 PM
> To: usaafricadialogue; Mwananchi; wolesoyinkasociety; Jos ANA Discussion List; nigerianauthors; mbariliterarysociety; writerswithoutborders@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BOKO HARAM : THE EDUCATIONAL IMPERATIVE : INTEGRATING WESTERN AND ISLAMIC CIVILISATION AND EDUCATION
>
> The Nigerian Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has initiated a war and waged it for years against the Nigerian government, Christians and Muslims it considers its enemies in the Muslim dominated Northern Nigeria.
>
> The group describes the goal of this war as that of compelling the government to make the country an Islamic state and to drive Christians out of Northern Nigeria.
>
> The group has carried out spectacular large scale murders, possibly in the thousands, of Christians and government agents, and targeted or killed individual Muslims, in pursuit of its goal.
>
> The group, whose popular name name Boko Haram, means Western education is forbidden, also bombs schools.
>
> The current situation can be described as one of confusion within Northern Nigeria and the rest of Nigeria since there seems to be no harmony of perspectives on how to manage this crisis.
>
> The ideological vision of Boko Haram, its similarity to the less virulent but also violent Maitasine uprising in the North some years ago, and the relationship between ideology and violence as a means of enforcing a perspective of Islam on a populace demonstrated by Uthman Dan Fodio<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usman_dan_Fodio>, the father of contemporary Islamic civilisation in Northern Nigeria, implies that the central issues at stake in this struggle against Western civilisation need to be addressed at the level of ideology and practice.
>
> Failure to do this implies that such uprising could recur as they have in the past, in various forms, from Dan Fodio to the present.
>
>
> Uthman Dan Fodio initiated a jihad - in this case, an effort at Islamisation through violence- as a means of imposing his preferred form of Islam on the Northern Nigerian Muslim Hausa population.
>
> Boko Haram, like Maitasine in the past, is also engaged in a violent jihad to impose its form of Islam on the Northern Nigerian population, Muslim and non-Muslim.
>
> The jihad initiated by Uthman Dan Fodio eventually tried to push into the rest of what is now Nigeria until it was stopped in the South-West.
>
> Boko Haram has also initiated a similar jihad, but so far, has been unable to penetrate significantly beyond the North.
>
> This recurrence of efforts to impose an ideological orientation through violence, as in the jihad of Uthman Dan Fodio and his successors and the later examples of Boko Haram and Maitsine suggest that such developments may be expected to continue as a continuity can be traced from from the time of Dan Fodio to the present.
>
> What is the challenge here?
>
> How best may Islam in Northern Nigeria be accommodated to the overwhelming presence of Western civilisation, the civilisation Boko Haram is fighting against?
>
> The sheer paradox and possibly even frustration experienced by these Islamic terrorists in their fight against Western civilisation is that the central tools of that fight are derived from the secular culture of the West, the guns, bombs and communications technologies developed after the West had defeated the suffocating hold of the Christian church, a hold that was a deterrent to bold scientific and technological development.
>
> While recognising this paradox, the delusions of fanatics like Boko Haram should not blind us to the real issues that such fanatical behaviour might led one to dismiss as backward and deluded.
>
> People of religious faith might want something more not evident for them in the overwhelmimg dominance of Western civilisation.
>
> It is stated that some Muslims in Northern Nigeria are uneasy with Western education although that does imply support of the violence of Boko Haram or Maitasine.
>
> How should such uneasiness be addressed?
>
> Can Islamic civilisation and education replace Western education successfully in today's world?
>
> Is it possible to harmonise both?
>
> If so, what are the essential qualities of both forms of civilisation and education that need to be harmonised for best results?
>
> Addressing these issues implies that a central question is addressed without resorting to extreme solutions that support completely one position or another, for or against Western or Islamic education.
>
>
> Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
> Compcros<http://danteadinkra.wix.com/compcros>
> Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
> "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
>
>
>
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