John D. Hargreaves

The Idea of a Colonial University

On 1 February 1971 one student of the University of Ibadan was killed, and several were injured, by police who had been called to the campus as a result of student demonstrations originating in allegations of corrupt administration in a hall of residence. The Vice-Chancellor, testifying before a judicial enquiry appointed by the head of state, remarked (with specific reference to the residential system) that the university structure at Ibadan remained “subcolonial”.1 His words were taken up, and given an interpretation which he had probably not intended, by a subsequent witness (a radical young sociology lecturer called Dr Onoge), who defined a colonial university as one which paid greater attention to its standing in the eyes of foreigners than to the relevance of its activities to the needs of its own country. Both men agreed that much of the framework within which their university operates had originated outside Nigeria; but whereas the Vice-Chancellor seemed to direct his criticism at relatively superficial aspects, such as physical facilities, his colleague was attacking intellectual assumptions of a more fundamental nature. It is manifestly true that Ibadan (and other universities in Africa and elsewhere) originated in a particular phase of British colonial policy; it may be salutary for British academics (who are often perspicacious in criticizing policies in which they are not personally involved) to consider how far these alien importations did, as was hoped, bring with them ideas and values of universal reference, and of specific applicability to the needs of twentieth-century Africa.

French West Africa in the First World War

In a general way, we have always known that the first world war was a period of peculiar importance for French West Africa. Colonial historians emphasized the contribution of African troops to Allied victory, and two American writers, in 1934 and I978, attempted general accounts of their role; critics of colonialism soon discovered that the raising of these forces provoked formidable revolts against French rule.2 Senegalese patriots noted how Blaise Diagne used wartime conditions to confirm the citizen rights of the originaires, but criticized his readiness to help Clemenceau resume the recruitment of sujets in I9I8.3 Drs Andrew and KanyaForstner have recently reminded us of how the war saw the climax of French imperial expansion ;4 the brief Governor-Generalship of Van Vollenhoven has inspired both hagiography and controversy concerning the methods and priorities of French colonial government.5 As in recent years historians have turned to assess the importance of the war for African history,6 a number of well-researched monographs have appeared, but Marc Michels long-awaited book at last makes it possible to assess the subject as a whole. It is a masterly work, which has all the merits of the French doctoral thesis massive documentation, systematic presentation, concern to relate particulars to broad general themes but is more lucidly and concisely presented than we are always entitled to expect. Dr Michels sub-title distinguishes his two themes of contributions and reactions. The contributions to the French war effort required from the peoples of A.O.F. were both military and economic; in each case more was expected than from Equatorial Africa, judged too backward, underadministered and under-populated to provide appreciable aid to the Mother Country, (p. viii). The idea that African soldiers might not merely assist in the control and expansion of the French empire, but help make up the number of French conscripts lost under the military law of 1905, originated with Charles Mangin, veteran of Fashoda, protege of Archinard, and author of La force noire. In I9I0 Mangin and four colleagues surveyed the manpower resources of A.O.F. providing detailed (though highly dubious) population estimates for each cercle, and deducing possible quotas of recruits. Michels careful scrutiny shows this survey while providing important unwitting testimony on such matters as the uneven progress of pacification, the ethnic stereotypes of French administrators, the interest of southern Dahomeans in trading military

Book reviews : Robert O. Collins (Ed.) The Partition of Africa: Illusion or Necessity. New York, Wiley, 1969. pp. 239.

This bibliography on a specializcd and elusive topic maintains the traditional excellence of the Hoover Institution Bibliographical Series. It is &dquo;one product of a project to collect, translate, and edit a volume of documents issued by the Portuguese African nationlist movements ... [to] serve as a foundation for future research on nationalism and related topics in the Portuguese African territories.&dquo;

7.95 (cloth),

Historical Perspective&dquo; series. In part this is attributable to an exceptionally maladroit style of writing, in part to a scrappy and sometimes repetitious scleme of exposition. Historical events and generalisations are recorded disjointedly, where they can be made to bear some sort of relation to the contemporary situation; there is little sense of continuity or change in the development of the many African communities mentioned, and little use of historical eBidence to illuminate real questions about the past. For example, one prominent general theme is that Africans have been resisting Portuguese rule for a very long time; this is very true, but only in discussion of the most recent period does the nature and basis of African resistance appear at all clearly. The author, reasonably enough, regards the Portuguese empire as an anomaly in the modern world; he rarely comes to grip with the fascinating question of how this anomalous empire has succeeded in surviving when the African colonies of every other power (except Spain) have achieved political sovereignty. &dquo;Historical perspective&dquo; is never easy to proBide; Mr. Chilcote’s method seems to be to analyse the contemporary situation through the eyes of an intelligent and well-informed American liberal, and then garnish the argument with historical data in order to create an illusion of depth. One may accept the general analysis and yet feel that it gains little added cogency from this sort of magpie historicism.

3.95 (paper)

Historians sometimes claim to be making their own modest contribution to the African revolution by re-establishing the identity of Africas pre-colonial past. But it should not be thought that the relevance of their work to modern Africa can end there, nor even that this is the most difficult of the adjustments of perspective which they will need to make. Now that the colonial flags are coming down, European and African historians will need to look back—so far as is humanly possible, without anger—and try to answer the question of how the Europeans came to be there as rulers. (An even more difficult task, still not seriously begun, will be to appraise the lasting historical importance of their rule.)