African Slavery in the Islamic World

Slavery in Islamic Africa has been a fascinating subject to which many scholars have referred, but of which no detailed monograph has emerged. If the subject of Islamic slavery in Africa has failed to arouse the interest which has attended the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the New World, it must be said it compares with the latter in scale and scope, and outdistances the more popular subject in its length of duration. Indeed, so pervasive is the subject of slavery in African societies, that one cannot appreciate fully the social, economic or political dimensions of the African past and present without some reference to it. Moreover, slaves of African origin formed a vital thread in the living lines of economic production in the Near and Middle East and formed the cord of economic activity in Islamic Africa itself.

Quotation from the preface of John Ralph Willis, (ed.), Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, volume II, The Servile Estate, (London: Frank Cass: 1985), p. vii.

Today's Walk

This morning after my morning koko and koose I took a tro-tro down to Nkrumah Circle and walked down Nkrumah Blvd. through Makola Market. I then cut through Makola Square and walked past the post office and cut through Ussher Town. I emerged across the street from Fort Ussher. Fort Ussher was a slave fort founded by the Dutch and later taken over by the English. It is one of three slave forts in Accra all of them on the same street, the others being Fort James founded by the English which I also walked past and Fort Christensborg  founded by the Danish and taken over later by the English. After exiting Ussher Town I walked along the recently renamed John Evans Attah Mills High Street parallel to the coast which is where all the slave forts are located. Every president of Ghana since the establishment of the Fourth Republic has been named John. I walked past the James Town Palace and crossed the street at the light house. From the street I had a good view of the fishing village on the beach and the Gulf of Guinea. I then walked past Fort James and Tabon Hall (Brazil House) which is "The Cradle of Tabon People." One of our graduate students is doing an MPhil on the Tabon who were Blacks who came to Accra from Brazil. Despite the importance of the Tabon to the Black Atlantic there has not been a lot of scholarship on the group. Then my left foot which I smacked in a drainage ditch yesterday started to hurt again. So I took a cab back home for 12 cedis.

More numbers on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

I came across a good table which provides a breakdown of the importation of slaves to the Americas from 1519-1867. I have compressed and summarized the data below. The overwhelming emphasis by American Left-wing academics on the US role in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to the almost total exclusion of much larger importers like Brazil is completely unjustified. It would be far more justified to concentrate on tiny Barbados to the exclusion of the rest of the hemisphere than to make the US the focus of teaching and research on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade as is currently the case. At 3.7% the US role merits a footnote, but not the overwhelming majority of attention that it currently receives from American Left-wing university professors to the detriment of understanding the institution as a whole with its much larger Caribbean and Brazilian components.

British Mainland North America - 360,400 or 3.7%
Jamaica - 1,077,100 or 11.2% (three times as many as the US)
Barbados - 491,000 or 5.1% (more than the US)
British Leewards - 304,200 or 3.2%
British Windwards and Trinidad and Tobago - 362,000 or 3.7% (more than the US)
Guianas - 403,400 or 4.2% (more than the US)
French Windwards - 304,200 or 3.1%
St. Domingue (Haiti) - 787,400 or 8.2% (more than twice as many as the US)
Spanish America - 427,200 or 4.4% (more than the US)
Spanish Caribbean - 791,900 or 8.2% (more than twice as many as the US)
Dutch Caribbean - 128,700 or 1.3%
North East Brazil - 898,800 or 9.3% (more than twice as many as the US)
Bahia - 1,036,100 or 10.7% (more than twice as many as the US)
South East Brazil - 2,042,300 or 21.1% (more five times as many as the US)
(Sub-Total for Brazil  - 3,977,200 or 41.1% [more than ten times as many as the US])
Other Americas - 110,400 or 1.1%
Africa - 131,200 or 1.4%
Total - 9,657,100 or 100%

Source:

David Eltis and David Richardson, "Prices of African Slaves Newly Arrived in the Americas, 1673-1865: New Evidence on Long-Run Trends and Regional Differentials," in David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kenneth L. Sokoloff,  (eds.), Slavery in the Development of the Americas  (Cambridge University Press, 2004), table 2, pp. 188-189.

The Unconstitutionality of the Deportation of the Volga Germans and the Liquidation of the Volga German ASSR

A large number of prominent scholars vehemently deny that the USSR was guilty of racial discrimination or genocide in part because the 1948 Genocide Convention and the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination did not exist yet during World War II. They therefore claim it is anachronistic to hold the Soviet government accountable to these international legal standards. People like Francine Hirsch have argued that we should seek to understand what the Soviet government "thought" it was doing within its own officially stated ideological conceptions and terms and not what the objective results of its actions were as measured against later scholarly and legal understandings of the concept of racial discrimination (Hirsch, pp. 40-41). Of course nobody makes such excuses for Nazi Germany or South Africa under apartheid. It is only the USSR that is still blessed with such stalwart defenders in the western academy against the charges of racism.

There, however, can be no doubt that the Soviet deportation of the Volga Germans and the liquidation of the Volga German ASSR was illegal under Soviet constitutional law as established by the 1936 USSR, 1937 RSFSR, and 1937 Volga German ASSR constitutions regardless of the underdeveloped nature of international law at the time. Collective punishment was clearly illegal under article 102 of the 1936 constitution which assigned sole responsibility for determining the guilt of an individual to the Soviet courts rather than administrative decree. Thus Soviet constitutional law required individual charges and trials in order to make any finding of guilt regarding violations of Soviet law and the meting out of punishment. This prohibition on arbitrary administrative punishment was even more forcibly articulated in article 93 of the constitution of the Volga German ASSR which required that all punishments be sanctioned by the appropriate courts and procurators. There were no trials or individual charges brought by any procurator against the vast majority of the more than 370,000 men, women, and children forcibly expelled from the Volga German ASSR and dispersed across Siberia and Kazakhstan. Assigning collective guilt to whole nationalities as the 28 August 1941 decree by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (Ukaz 21-160) did also violated article 123 of the all union constitution which prohibited all forms of discrimination both direct and indirect on the basis of race or natsional'nost. The deportation itself with its massive confiscation of personal property clearly did not accord with article 10 of the USSR constitution which guaranteed the protection of "the right of personal ownership by citizens of the proceeds of their labor and savings, personal homes and auxiliary holdings, and objects and amenities of personal consumption." This right is reinforced in article 94 of the Volga German ASSR constitution. The special settlement restrictions contravened articles 21 and 123 of the 1936 Soviet constitution (articles 18 and 127 of the 1937 RSFSR constitution) establishing a single Soviet citizenship for all Soviet citizens in which all of them enjoyed the same civil rights regardless of geographic location or nationality. The liquidation of the Volga German ASSR on 7 September 1941 by decree from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow had no legal basis under Soviet constitutional law. Article 16 of the 1937 RSFSR constitution required that all territorial changes within it be first approved by its highest organs. Likewise article 15 of the Volga German ASSR constitution also required approval from its own organs before any changes could be made to its borders (Shadt, pp. 287-296 and Skuchaev, p. 94).

There has long been a school of thought that the systematic and blatant violations of the 1936 Soviet constitution were so great that discussion of the matter in legal terms was superfluous since the document was violated far more than it was observed. There is validity to this opinion. But,  a number of scholars argue that Stalin's mass crimes against various citizens of the USSR had not yet been outlawed by international law and were therefore legal. This argument can not be allowed to stand. Crimes such as the deportation of the Volga Germans were illegal under existing Soviet law. The position of Stephen Wheatcroft that Stalinist repression unlike Nazi killings was "legal" completely falls apart upon even the most superficial reading of the 1936 Soviet, 1937 RSFSR, and 1937 Volga German ASSR constitutions (Wheatcroft, p. 1321, p. 1335, and p. 1348). It is clear that Stalinist repression including the deportation of the Volga Germans violated a great number of articles of the 1936 Soviet and 1937 RSFSR constitutions and can in no way be deemed to have been "legal" under the fundamental laws of the USSR. If it were not for people like Wheatcroft minimizing Stalin's crimes by claiming they were "legal" we could dispense with noting the legal protections provided on paper by the Soviet, RSFSR, and Volga German ASSR constitutions were explicitly and repeatedly violated by the Soviet government. After all the moral wrongness of mass deportations, theft, denial of national self-determination, racial discrimination, and genocide do not depend on what is written in any particular document.

Sources:

Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 1936 (Moscow: CO-Operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers, 1936).

Francine Hirsch, "Race without the Practice of Racial Politics," Slavic Review, vol. 61, no.1 (spring 2002), pp. 30-43.

Konstitutsiia [Osnovnoi Zakon] Avtonomnoi Sovetskoi Sotsialicheskoi Respubliki Nemtsev Povolzh'ia 1937 reproduced in V. Auman and V. Chebatoreva, Istoriia rossiiskikh nemtsev v dokumentakh (1763-1992 gg.) (Moscow: MIGUP, 1993), pp. 141-156.

A. Shadt, "Pravoi status rossiiskikh nemtsev v SSSR (1940-1950-e), in A. German, Nemtsy v SSSR v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny: Poslevoennoe desiatletie, 1941-1955 gg. (Moscow: Gotika, 2001), pp. 287-312.

O. Skuchaev, "K voprosu o prichinakh i pravovykh osnovaniiakh deportatsii nemtskogo naseleniia iz Povolzh'ia," in A. German (ed.), Grazhdanskaia identichnost' nemtsev v gody Velikoi Otchestvennoi Voiny i v istoricheskoi pamiati potomkov (Moscow: Gotika, 2001), pp. 88-97.

Stephen Wheatcroft, "The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repressions and Mass Killings, 1930-45," Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 48, no. 8, (Dec. 1996), 1319-1353.

Putting things in perspective

In the big scheme of things the sins of the US against the peoples of Africa pale before those of Europe. People in Africa and of African descent in the Caribbean know this. It is only Western Leftists that like to pretend that the US importation of 400,000 African slaves in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade is a greater sin than the European importation of 8 million slaves from Africa into Brazil and the Caribbean where many of them were worked to death growing sugar cane. It is only Western Leftists who think that asymmetrical political relations between the US and various African countries are morally identical to what the Portuguese did in Angola and Mozambique, the French did in Algeria, the Belgians did in Congo, and the British did in Kenya. The CIA's murder of Lumumba and overthrow of Nkrumah were bad, but they are not on the same moral plane as tiny Belgium's murder of 10 million people in Congo. The perverse desire of American Leftists to paint the US as the source of all evil to the exclusion of all other sources is an inverse form of chauvinism. For them the US has to be the sole focus of everything evil even when as in the case of the international slave trade  it had a  very tiny role.

More on the African Slave Trades of which 1.3% went to the US

I have discussed this with a number of Africans and citizens of Caribbean nations and the complete "hijacking" as one Ghanaian graduate student put it of the discourse on the slave trade by Americans is something they greatly resent. Over 30 million Africans were shipped out of Africa as slaves to the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, and other destinations. Out of that 30 million only 400,000 ended up in the US. That is a total of 1.3%. That means 98.7% of the slaves forcibly transported out of Africa went to other countries. Yet reading the blogs of American academics you would think that 100% of the slaves shipped out of Africa were sent to the US. Ten times as many slaves were sent to Brazil as the US and a far higher percentage of them died from maltreatment. Yet you would never know this fact from reading US academic blogs. You would instead be left with the impression that no slaves were ever shipped out of Africa to any place other than the US. In reality of course less than 2% went to the US about the same number as went to Barbados and far less than went to Brazil, Jamaica, or Cuba.

An African Fall?

Recently in three authoritarian African states the ruling party has won a majority of over two thirds in parliamentary or senate elections. These three states are Togo, Burkina Faso, and Zimbabwe. The same family has been in power in Togo since 1967. Zimbabwe has been ruled by Robert Mugabe and ZANU since 1980. Burkina Faso has been under the rule of Blaise Compoare since 1987 when he came to power in a coup that involved the assassination of Thomas Sankara, one of Africa's most visionary leaders. The consolidation of power by the current ruling authoritarian establishments in these elections is a clear move away from greater political liberalism and tolerance in these countries. Already there have been protests and at least 50 arrests in connection with the elections in Burkina Faso. Political repression of opponents of the existing regimes in Togo, Burkina Faso, and Zimbabwe will no doubt now increase as a result of the recent election results.

Sixto Rodriguez- Cold Fact

 I saw the documentary Searching for Sugar Man on my Emirates flight from Accra to Dubai on my way to Bishkek this June. Like most Americans I had never heard of Sixto Rodriguez whose musical career was a total failure in the US despite his brilliant song writing. What makes the story so interesting is that Rodriguez became a huge hit in South Africa where his albums sold hundreds of thousands of copies without him ever having an inkling as to his popularity in that country. The South African distributors of his albums never bothered to send him any royalty checks during the 1970s and 1980s. Among many Afrikaner youth Rodriguez was considered a musical icon on the same level as Elvis or the Beatles. At any rate I really like his music. You can check it out for yourself. I have embedded his first album from 1970 here.

Back in Africa, History Department Renovations, and Another Strike

I arrived back in Legon several days ago, but the History Department was undergoing renovation. So I could not get access to my office. After a year they have finally installed sockets for the Internet in our offices. They have also put blinds in our offices. They are also supposed to give us a Polytank so that we will at long last have water in the washroom.

We are also on strike again. The government did not pay us, although they fully paid faculty at every other university in the country, all of our back pay. They paid the first two installments before I left and then stopped paying us after we had all gone on vacation and could no longer do anything. We were also supposed to get our annual research grants before August first. Last year we did not get them until December. I hear the research grant has doubled and that would be a very good thing. So until we get our arrears and our research grant we are not teaching classes again which officially begin next week. The predictions are that the government will pay us and classes will start by August twelfth.

Critique of Post-Colonialism

During my absence from the internet I read a  lot about post-colonialism. It seems to suffer from a number of problems as a coherent field and despite reading thousands of pages I still don't grasp exactly what it all means. If all it means is that the damage done to indigenous societies by colonialism did not end with formal independence and that "post-colonial" writers are people staking out a position in opposition to that damage then it is not very useful. Firstly, because while everybody agrees that despite antecedents in the work of Frantz Fanon that post-colonialism only developed in the wake of the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978. Yet, the idea that colonized societies continued to suffer the effects of colonialism after formal independence and that people in Africa and elsewhere should actively oppose these aftereffects predates Said's work by over a decade. Kwame Nkrumah's, Neo-Colonialism, The Last Stage in Imperialism was published in 1965 to a very negative reaction by the Johnson administration which actively assisted his overthrow in a military coup the following year. Nkrumah's work clearly showed that the economic relations between African countries and their former colonial masters continued to exist to the detriment of Africa despite formal decolonization and nominal political independence. As a descriptive term neo-colonialism in considerably clearer than post-colonialism or postcoloniality. In line with Nkrumah's work the 1960s and 1970s saw a number of scholars unambiguously and critically write about the continued economic exploitation of Africa by the former colonial powers. This was part of a larger intellectual development that saw the emergence of dependency theory, world systems theory, and the concept of underdevelopment. Authors such as Andres Frank, Immanuel Wallerstein, Samir Amin, and Walter Rodney clearly argued that there was a continuing negative effect on international economic structures and patterns as a result of prior colonial rule. Yet with the exception of Robert Young there seems to be almost no acknowledgement of this earlier work by present day post-colonial scholars. Instead these post-colonial writers seem to have largely rejected the central importance of political economy in favor of an overwhelming emphasis on European representative culture, particularly literary culture, as the central problem facing Asia and Africa during the last couple of centuries. Of course Africa itself is greatly underrepresented by these writers who tend to be Indian and like the Palestinian Edward Said professors of literature rather than historians, political scientists, and economists. It seems to me that Rodney was correct in noting that the marginalization and exploitation of Africa was primarily a matter of the imbalance of power between Africa and Europe rather than resulting from any discourse. In other words the negative portrayals, images, and representations of of Africa in Europe and the the US have been crafted to justify inequalities and exploitation imposed by other means. They are not the cause these inequalities in themselves, but rather one of its effects.

A comparative look at the numbers in the slave trade

Despite the overwhelming attention paid to it in comparison to the role of Africa, the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean, and Latin America the US played a comparatively small role in the international slave trade. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade to begin was considerably smaller than the combined Trans-Saharan and Trans-Indian Ocean slave trades. These far less well known slave trades lasted from about 650 to 1905 and totaled about 17 million African slaves (John Ralph Willis, fn. 2, p. x). The much shorter lived Atlantic slave trade saw the arrival of around 10 million surviving Africans in the Western hemisphere during the 16th to the 19th centuries (Polian, table 1, p. 18).Contrary to the impression given by US commentators the number of slaves sent to the US during this time was only a small fraction of these men and women.

The single largest importer of slaves shipped across the Atlantic was Brazil dwarfing the US by a factor of ten. The US ceased importing slaves by 1808 by which time the total number of imported slaves was only around 400,000 or 4% of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. In contrast Brazil imported over 4 million slaves from Africa or about 40% of the total to survive the Middle Passage (Bergad, 96). In the Caribbean even very small islands imported almost as many slaves as the US. The British shipped 387,000 slaves to tiny Barbados by 1807, almost as many as were transplanted to the US (Kiple, p. 106). Large islands received many more slaves than the US. Spanish Cuba received 780,000 slaves or almost twice as many as the US (Bergad, p. 97).  The Spanish and British imported over 1 million slaves into Jamaica (Eltis, p. 188). Brazil continued to import slaves into the 1850s and only abolished slavery in 1888, twenty three years after the US did. Yet by the 1860s there were some 4 million slaves of African descent in the US versus only 1.5 million in Brazil and 370,000 in Cuba, less than half the number originally transplanted (Bergad, p. 97). In 1834 at the time of emancipation, Barbados had a mere 82,000 surviving slaves or less than a quarter of the number imported. Deaths exceeded births by a constant 4-5% annually on the island from 1676-1725. Jamaica was slightly less deadly with an annual death rate of 3-3.5% above births during the 18th century (Kiple, p. 106). These difference were due in large part to the huge differences in mortality rates stemming from a far better diet in the US (Bergad, pp. 98-100 and Kiple, pp. 117-118). They also stem in large part from the fact that plantation owners growing sugar cane in Brazil and the Caribbean literally worked to death many of their slaves (Bergad, pp. 102-103). The far deadlier conditions suffered by slaves in Brazil and the Caribbean like the very existence of Black slaves outside the US is something that is almost never mentioned by US commentators.

The popular image of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade as primarily a US crime against humanity is completely inaccurate. Around 96% of slaves imported to the Western hemisphere went to places other than the territory of the US. Brazil alone accounted for 40% of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and Jamaica 10%.  Yet it is the US rather than Brazil or Jamaica that is consistently portrayed as as the dominant country in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in the popular imagination.

Sources:

Laird W. Bergad, The Comparative Histories of Slavery in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

David Eltis and David Richardson, "Prices of African Slaves Newly Arrived in the Americas, 1673-1865: New Evidence on Long-Run Trends and Regional Differentials," in David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, Slavery in the Development of the Americas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Kenneth F. Kiple, The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

Pavel Polian, Against their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2004).

John Ralph Willis, ed., Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa: Volume II: The Servile Estate (London: Frank Cass, 1985).

Soviet Heroes: Kyrgyz, Russian, and German

One of the places I visited in Talas Oblast was the Cholponbai Tuleberdiev memorial complex. This complex is dedicated to Kyrgyz heroes military and otherwise although unfortunately it has nothing on heroes from Kyrgyzstan belonging to other ethnic groups. Kyrgyzstan was and still is to a much lesser extent a poly-ethnic state. As such many of the contributions to the construction of the Kyrgyz SSR as well as accomplishments benefiting the USSR as a whole came from ethnic minorities in the republic. This was especially true during the Second World War. In addition to ethnically Kyrgyz hereos like Cholponbai Tuleberdiev from Talas Oblast there were Russians such as Ivan Panifilov, Ukrainians, Tatars and others. Some of these heroes such as Cholponbai Tuleberdiev are well remembered even today. The Kyrgyz SSR and today the Kyrgyz Republic, however,  has not remembered all heroes equally. There is a definite emphasis today on ethnic Kyrgyz heroes and a subsequent marginalization of the role of ethnic minorities. During Soviet times there was a greater emphasis on the international composition of the military during World War II, although Russians were given far more attention and credit than they deserved in comparison to other nationalities. One nationality that had already during the war been written out of the official Soviet narrative were the ethnic Germans. I have written about the contribution of ethnic Germans to Soviet victory over Naziism in both the Red Army and in partisan units elsewhere on this blog. A large number of ethnic Germans from Kyrgyzstan were among those Soviet soldiers that fought against Nazi Germany. In February 1942, the Soviet government awarded Afanasii Kluger from the German settlement of Luxemburg near the city of Kant just outside the capital of Frunze (today Bishkek) the order of the Red Star for his earlier participation in the defense of Moscow (Krongardt, p. 235). The role of ethnic Germans from Kyrgyzstan and other areas of Central Asia in the Soviet military during World War II remains a seriously under researched topic.

Sources cited:

G.K. Krongardt, Nemtsy v Kyrgyzstane: 1880-1990 gg. Bishkek, "Ilim" 1997.

This is a statue of Cholponbai Tuleberdiev who was posthumously awarded the medal Hero of the Soviet Union after sacrificing his life in a battle on 6 August 1942  in order to save the other men fighting besides him. He was only 20 years old.

Pictures from my summer vacation in Talas Oblast Kyrgyzstan

Here are two photographs of me taken this summer at the Manas-Ordo Complex in Talas Oblast.

In Transit

For the last seven weeks I have been without access to the internet so naturally I have not posted anything here recently. I am currently in the Dubai International Airport on my way back from Kyrgyzstan to Ghana. Now that I again have access to the internet posting will resume at a more or less normal schedule.

Illegal Immigration from China is a Growing Problem in Ghana

This week the Ghanaian government detained 168 illegal Chinese immigrants operating illegal gold mines in the country. They will all be deported back to China. In March the government expelled 120 Chinese without proper documentation working on illegal gold mines. The government has vowed to continue to crack down on illegal Chinese immigration and gold mining. The Ghanaian population is not very happy at the consistent and blatant violation of its immigration and mining laws by the Chinese.

Once in a while somebody on the Left is Right

The criticisms from the right of Dr. Loomis, the poster child and new martyr for many liberal left academics in the US, are many and not very interesting. The fewer criticisms of Dr. Loomis from the left on the other hand are much fewer, more interesting, and much more accurate. I am not sure what to make of this other than I prefer honest left anarchists like Chomsky to charlatans who are handmaidens to the establishment like Loomis any day of the week. Speaking of left anarchists, the best critiques of Dr. Loomis are here and here. Although not from an anarchist this left-wing critique of Loomis is also spot on. Unfortunately, I think there are far too many people like Loomis and not enough like Chomsky in American academia today.

Malaria again

Fortunately, I have almost finished everything I need to do before my vacation starts next Saturday. Because this weekend was completely used up recovering from another bout of malaria.

Koko

I have taken a great liking to Koko for breakfast in the morning. It is basically a millet porridge laced heavily with ginger and other spices. I buy it in a bag from the market woman behind Legon annex every morning for 50 peswas. The only problems are that it is really hot, like molten lava, when you first get it and I can never get the sugar she puts at the bottom of the bag to dissolve.

Thoughts on Africa Unity Day Weekend

In many ways Africa has greatly advanced since 1963 when the OAU was founded. Except for Western Sahara there are now no more official colonies in Africa. The last European colonial powers left the continent in 1975. Namibia got its independence from South Africa in 1990. Apartheid as practiced by the White minority governments in South Africa and Rhodesia has been eradicated from the continent. Mandela was elected in 1994. So many of the key the issues that dominated the OAU in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s have now been resolved.

Other positive advances have been the development of indigenous democratic states. This has been less successful than the removal of colonialism and apartheid. So while Ghana has established a functioning two party democratic republic dictatorships still rule Togo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, and other countries in Africa. There is an active freedom movement in Togo, but it gets very little attention even in neighboring Ghana and France and Germany continue to support the dictatorship in Lome. Certainly, the movements for greater democracy, transparency, and human rights in Africa still have a long way to go. 

Social and economic advancement has been highly uneven in Africa and in individual African states. Illiteracy, poverty, and poor infrastructure are still problems even in successful states like Ghana. In less fortunate states like Congo they are far worse. But, the days when all of Black Africa could be blithely written off by US commentators as a failure are over. Even if the US and Europeans wish to close their eyes to economic developments in Africa the Chinese have not. 

There is no doubt that overall things are better in Africa today than they were for most of the existence of the OAU/AU. Some of the fastest growing economies in the world are now in Africa. Cheap electronics and other consumer goods from Asia are becoming available to more and more people in Africa. I have yet to encounter anybody in Ghana who did not own a mobile phone. I purchased mine here for $20 and while cheap it was not the cheapest option available in the country. So overall life in Africa is better than it has been and will hopefully be even better in the future. 

Happy Africa Unity Day Everybody

Tomorrow is Africa Unity Day in honor of the foundation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. Because it falls on a Saturday this year Monday is a day off for all public employees such as myself.

Done Grading

I have now finished grading all 193 students I had in my four classes this semester. Next semester I only have two classes to teach so it will be a lot less work during test time. At least this year I got them done early so I am not stressing out at the last minute trying to get them all done.

Western Sahara Again

Monday was the 40th anniversary of the beginning of armed struggle for independence for Western Sahara. The struggle began against Spain on 20 May 1973 and continued against Morocco until 6 September 1991 when a ceasefire was signed between Rabat and the Polisario. Sahrawis under occupation in the towns of Smara and Bjdor organized demonstrations to commemorate the event. The demonstration in Bjdor, however, was violently dispersed by Moroccan security forces. This follows on the decision by the UN Security Council this month to reauthorize the peace keeping forces in Western Sahara, but without any mandate to monitor human rights violations. The UN peace keeping force in the Western Sahara, MINURSO (UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara) is now the only such existing force without authority from the Security Council to monitor human rights.

Source: allAfrica.com

More State Violence in Togo against Demonstrators

There have been a whole string of recent protests in Togo involving women wearing red and in some cases baring their breasts. As I mentioned earlier unlike in Europe female public nudity is not a casual affair in West Africa. Its presence means that the women are really, really, really angry. There has also been some violence by youths against property associated with some of the demonstrations. A car was lit on fire and some windows smashed. But, for the most part the protests have remained nonviolent. Yesterday, the Togolese security forces again responded to peaceful demonstrations with violence by  firing tear gas into a crowd of protesters.

More Spanish Translation

The Spanish translation of my article, "Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water: The Russian-Germans in the Labour Army" is now available here as well. You will have to scroll down a little bit to find it.

End of the semester

I am finishing things off here for the semester. I have graded all my exams and entered all my grades except for one class at City Campus that I am still waiting on. I hope the scripts arrive soon. I need to have everything wrapped up here for the semester in the next two weeks.

149 Years Ago Today in Circassia

Today is the 149th anniversary of the Battle of Qbaada Meadow (Kransaia Poliana) in which the Russian Imperial army finally defeated the Circassians and proceeded with the final mass deportation of the population into the Ottoman Empire. While many scholars place the first modern genocide in Armenia in 1915 and others in Namibia during 1904-1907, I think a good case can be argued that 1863-64 in Circassia deserves this distinction. Today is the day that Circassians around the world commemorate the massive expulsion of most of their population from their ancestral homeland in the Caucasus into the various territories of the Ottoman Empire. According to Walt Richmond out of some 1.5 million Circassians in 1860 over 600,000 or more than a third perished as a direct result of this forced dispersal.

More evidence of Soviet racism

This card used by police in the USSR to identify different nationalities by facial phenotypes is further evidence of my contention that natsional'nost in the USSR often served the exact same function as race. Indeed often as in the case of this card the only difference is the word being used. Distinguishing between groups of people based upon a perceived physical appearance inherited due to a particular ancestry is indeed a central component of racial classification. The fact that people like Francine Hirsch and Amir Weiner want to deny that this is racism by claiming that natsional'nost or ethnicity or whatever other word they use instead of race is not race does not change this fact. 

Spanish Translation

My article "Hewers of Water and Drawers of Water: the Russian-Germans in the Labour Army" has now been translated into Spanish by Jorge Bohn. The Spanish title is "Lenadores y Accareadores de Aqua: Los Ruso-Alemanes en el Ejercito de Trabajo." You can find it for download on the FB page Collctividad Wolgadeutsche - Alemanes del Volga.

Naked Women Demonstrate against the Dictatorship in Togo

Yesterday there was another demonstration in Togo against the dictatorship there. This time a number of women stripped naked as part of the protests. These were not young women, but rather mothers and grandmothers and there was nothing erotic about the brief film clip I saw of the demonstration. It as well as some still photographs can be seen at the FB page Liberte pour Togo-Freiheit fuer Togo.  In West African society female public nudity is taboo and the tactic of the naked demonstration is viewed as a way of shaming the dictatorship. I haven't been able to find any news stories on it yet so I have no idea what impact the demonstration has had. But, for a West African government to be subjected to such a demonstration is a sign of extreme discontent. Another general demonstration against the regime involving both men and women, but presumably wearing all their clothes is scheduled for 21 May 2013. The demonstrations against the regime in Togo have been getting more frequent, more extreme, and more angry.

More on the Deportation of the Crimean Tatars 69 years ago (18 May 1944)

The International Committee for Crimea has a number of my pieces on the deportation of the Crimean Tatars. Among them is my very first academic conference paper which I delivered at Columbia University in 2000. It also has this timeline of the history of the Crimean Tatars from 1917-1994 and another conference paper given at Columbia in 2004 as I was finishing my dissertation. Finally, the abstract to my dissertation itself which has a lengthy section on the Crimean Tatars.

69 Years Since the Deportation of the Crimean Tatars (18 May 1944)

This Saturday is the 69th anniversary of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars from their peninsular homeland on the Black Sea to the deserts of Uzbekistan and the wet forests of the Urals. The NKVD rounded up almost the entire population and took them to rail stations where they were stuffed like cattle into box cars. In three days over 180,000 people had been expelled from their homes and sent on a long and arduous journey eastward. The official reason for the deportation was the false charges of treason brought against the whole population by the Stalin regime. However, the number of Crimean Tatars that fought with the Germans, about 10,000, was quite small compared to a number of other nationalities that were not subject to wholesale deportation. Upon arriving in Uzbekistan and the Urals the Crimean Tatars were placed under special settlement restrictions. On 26 November 1948, the Soviet government decreed the deportations and special settlement restrictions to be forever. The death of Stalin on 5 March 1953 brought about an eventual end of the special settlement regime and on 28 April 1956 the Soviet government freed the Crimean Tatars from these restrictions. They, however, were not allowed to return to Crimea in any significant numbers until 1987 near the very end of the Soviet regime. Even today they still face obstacles to resettling in their homeland and nearly 100,000 still remain in Uzbekistan.

For further reading see this bibliography.

Great News: Dorje Gurung has been released

Dorje Gurung has been released from jail in Qatar and is finishing up the paperwork to allow him to fly home to Nepal. He should be on a plane on the way home tomorrow. I want to thank everybody who signed the petition and helped raise awareness of this case. The Grinnell alumni were very impressive in organizing on his behalf especially Scott Wittstruck. I also think this points to some deeper structural problems regarding foreign labor involved in teaching such as myself in a number of countries and not just Qatar. Fortunately, where I teach in Ghana our problems are comparatively minor. But, since education is increasingly a task performed in many countries by immigrant labor I think we should start to think about these issues.

Bleg for a fellow Grinnell Alumnus

Dorje Gurung, a former chemistry teacher at Qatar Academy and citizen of Nepal has been arrested and charged with "insulting Islam." He faces up to seven years if convicted. Here is the Washington Post article on the case. It has been a very long time since I last saw Dorje Gurung. He was at Grinnell College at the same time I was. He graduated in 1994 and I graduated in 1992. I did not know him that well, but from reading the news accounts of this incident I definitely do not believe he should spend seven years in a foreign prison for a crime I do not think he committed. Instead he should be released and allowed to return home to Nepal. I also believe that the Qatari government can be persuaded to take this particular action. Here is the online petition asking the Qatari government to release Dorje Gurung. There is also a FB page dedicated to working for his release. Please make sure that all requests to the government of Qatar and its representatives as well as public posts regarding this matter remain polite and civil. Offending the Qatari authorities will not help free Dorje.

Today's Meeting

Today we had a long departmental meeting primarily to discuss the overhaul of our graduate program. In fact it was an all day off campus retreat. It was generally agreed that there needed to be a much stronger emphasis on historiography, theory, and methodology. It was also agreed that we needed to move away from an excessive focus on Ghana to be more Pan-African in our overall orientation. So the program for the new incoming graduate students will emphasize this new direction.

Happy Victory Day

Today in 1945, the Allies finally defeated Nazi Germany. About 70,000 soldiers from Kyrgyzstan fought and died in the Soviet Red Army achieving this victory. This is considerably more men than the US military lost in Vietnam. The total population of the Kyrgyz SSR in 1939, however, was just barely over 1.5 million people.

Another reason I am glad my life is boring

Today at lunch Dr. Smith regaled me with the story of her week long experience with the Ghanaian criminal justice system helping a 22 year old white American male who was arrested for possession of cannabis, although the actual charge ended up being use of cannabis which carries only half the potential sentence. To avoid turning this blog post into an African version of War and Peace I will summarize. The kid got busted with a joint. People arrested for drug charges, armed robbery, and murder are evidently ineligible for bail in Ghana. He spent four days in jail rather than the three months the judge was initially contemplating due to Dr. Smith calling in all kinds of favors to talk to various law enforcement officials as well as getting a big name lawyer for the kid. So in the unlikely event that I ever need the services of somebody in the criminal justice system, say I get robbed and I want to recover my property, I will be contacting Dr. Smith who is evidently now good friends with the entire legal system of Ghana. My week was much less eventual. The highlight was going book shopping with the rest of the department on Friday. An event Dr. Smith missed because she was busy with the above story.

Socialized Dentistry

It turns out that Ghana not only has socialized medicine, but it also has socialized dentistry. I broke a tooth a while back and I had a filling fall out of another tooth. So I need to get those two teeth fixed. Fortunately, I can get everything except the x-rays (65 cedis) free. The last time I went to a dentist in the US the bill was $4000.

A good historical interpretation

With all the revisionist scholarship on the Stalin era out there it is always good to come across a quotation like the one below which pulls no punches.

It is our firm belief, supported by research into the history of the "German-Labor Army Conscripts" in the camps of the Urals, that these mobilized Russian Germans were not free citizens of the USSR, but people repressed  due to their nationality, and placed in special settlements. They appeared as part of the composition of the "special contingent", representing a marginal group in Soviet society employed in forced labor under conditions of strict limitations of their rights and freedoms. 

Source: V.M. Kirillov and N.V. Matveeva, "Trudmobilizovannye nemtsy na Urale: sostoyanie i novye aspekty issledovaniya problemy," in A.A. German (ed.), Nachal'nyi period Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny i deportatsiya rossiiskikh nemtsev: vzglyady i otsenki cherez 70 let (Moskva: MSNK-Press, 2011), p. 627. Translated from Russian to English by J. Otto Pohl.

Walking around campus

I do my best thinking while walking around campus. However, inevitably my thinking is always interrupted by  students calling out "Dr. Pohl.". Which leads me to the conclusion that while nobody in the White world has ever heard of me I actually am known and respected by a number of people here in Legon. If you asked me  a couple years ago whether I would be known upon sight by any significant amount of people anywhere in Africa I would have thought you were crazy. But, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

May Day 1945 Karaganda

The Karaganda coal mines made extensive use of forced labor, both convicted prisoners and mobilized members of the labor army, during Stalin's lifetime. On 1st May 1945, a methane explosion in mine no. 20 in the Lenin Coal Trust in Karaganda killed 85 people including 13 Russian-Germans working as part of a labor army detachment.

Source: O.A. Jakowenko and A.A. German, "Arbeitsmobilisierte Deutsche in Kasachstan", in A. German and O. Silantjewa, "...In Arbeitskolonnen fur die gesamte Zeit des Krieges." Zeitzungen und Forscher berichten uber uber die Deutschen in der Trudarmee (Moskau: IVDK-Medien, 2012), p. 272

O.A. Yakovenko and A.A. German, "Trudmobilizovannye Nemtsy v Kazakhstane, in A. German and O. Silant'eva, "...V rabochie kolonny na vse vremya voiny." Ochevidtsy i issledovateli o nemtsev v trudovoi armii (Moskva: MSNK-Press, 2012), p. 273.

Chairman Mao, Chairman Avakian, Chairman Pohl

Tonight I acted as Chairman in the transfer ceremony of the History Students' Association of Legon (HISTAL). It felt strange to be called Chairman. But, I did promise them that unlike Chairman Mao that I would not subject them to a Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution or any long speeches.

More on why I don't mind toiling in complete obscurity anymore.

Ideally we should all just ignore gratuitous insults. But, in reality it is not always easy to do. It is perhaps best if one is never in a position where it is not an issue. Being a complete nobody means that I don't have to worry about the type of ridiculous personal attacks that more famous scholars have to endure.

A Response to Ilya Somin

For the last six years Ilya Somin of the Volokh Conspiracy has been agitating to refashion May First from a day to celebrate working men and women to a day to commemorate the victims of communism. Now I am all for commemorating the victims of communism, but I also support keeping May First as an international workers' day as well. Somin's reasoning for wanting to use May First as the day to commemorate the victims of communism is that the USSR and other communist states hijacked the holiday as a "propaganda tool." But, if that is his logic than he should advocate that Victims of Communism Day be not on May First, but on May Ninth or Victory Day. The USSR and its satellites did not receive their legitimacy and justification after 1945 from being international workers states. The main source of real legitimacy both internally and externally for these regimes was the role of the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany. Somehow I do not think that Somin would advocate that the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Holocaust be remembered as a day to commemorate the victims of the victorious Allies, foremost among them the USSR, but also including various communist partisan movements in East Central Europe such as those fighting under Tito in Yugoslavia. However, if the point is to target a day adopted by the USSR and other communist states to prop up their regimes then 9th May is an infinitely better day than 1st May. Even today in post-Soviet states 9th May is a huge holiday compared to 1st May and in real terms it has been for decades. I of course do not advocate that Victim of Communism Day be on 9th May either. The accomplishments of the people of the USSR in defeating Naziism were quite real and people in the former Soviet states are rightfully justified in celebrating this victory. Victims of Communism Day should be on a day that is an anniversary of one of Stalin's crimes. For instance 28th August which is the anniversary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet decree ordering the deportation of the Volga Germans to Siberia and Kazakhstan. This makes a lot more sense than playing into the fiction that the USSR was actually some sort of workers' paradise and therefore the embodiment of 1st of May as an international day for working men and women.

Happy May Day!

Today is a holiday in Ghana as it is in most of the world. The First of May is traditionally Labor (or Labour in countries like the UK and South Africa) Day for just about everybody outside the US. That means as a state (public) employee I get the day off.

The advantages of not being well known

I see now that there are definite advantages to being a completely unknown nobody. They were not so apparent to me a couple days ago. It is true nobody agrees with me, but I am not important enough for anybody to bother with either. This last benefit is generally highly underrated.

Strike Results

Today I got my first of four installments of back pay for 2012 in addition to my normal pay. I got about $150 extra dollars. It is not huge, but it is a lot better than nothing.

The semester is almost done

Except for final exams the semester is pretty much over. The final exams are next month. Next semester I will have a lighter teaching load. Instead of teaching two undergraduate courses and one graduate course at main campus and two undergraduate courses at city campus I will just have one undergraduate course at each. For the second semester next year I will also have a graduate course. This will allow me to devote more time to researching and publishing.

Togolese Independence Day

Tomorrow is Togolese Independence Day. While Togo has been nominally independent since 1960, it has spent most of its existence under the French and more recently German supported dictatorships of Gnassingbe Edyadema who ruled the country from 1967 until his death in 2005 and since then his son Faure Gnassingbe. There is an active movement by Togolese civil society in opposition to the current regime  that has staged frequent large scale demonstrations against the dictatorship. Unfortunately, this movement gets very little coverage. Even in next door Ghana the freedom struggle in Togo is largely ignored.

The Struggle for Freedom in Togo Continues

Yesterday, the government of Togo reopened the primary and secondary schools that were closed a week ago in the wake of police violence against demonstrators that left two dead. In addition to the 12 year old boy shot in Dapaong, a 22 year old student died of cardiac arrest after being hospitalized for wounds sustained during the protests. Many teachers, however, have boycotted returning to work adding to their demands that the Togolese security forces responsible for the two deaths be brought to justice.

"Expertise" is part of the problem of ignorance not part of the solution

I have decided that nobody calling themselves an "expert" as opposed to being described as such by their colleagues in the field can be trusted. In fact expertise as such does not really exist I have concluded. Sure some people know more about some things than other people do. But, people who make a big production about having special knowledge and insist on sharing their "expert" opinions are often the most ignorant people on the face of the planet. It has made me fully realize that I am not now nor have I ever been an expert on anything. Although I still like to share my opinion on things as I tell my students, "question everything, especially me." After all while I have some more knowledge than them,  I am not an "expert" and I am certainly not perfect. Like all humans I am deeply flawed. The complete lack of humility even in the face of being completely wrong that accompanies most self described "experts" makes me reject the term. I had not really thought about this until recently in these terms, but the fact that so many US academics claiming to be "experts" in certain areas can be radically wrong about basic facts in the areas they claim to be "expert"s in has convinced me that the whole notion of "expert" as title is a problem. People calling themselves "experts" are more often than not a key part of the problem of ignorance and misinformation rather than a solution to it.  I hope to God that there are not too many "experts" on the Caucasus that have been teaching for more than twenty years who think that the Karbardians and Balkars are a single people. But, given the dreadful state of  academia in North America I just don't know.

If this is what most US academic specialists on the Caucasus believe why wonder the US media is confused

I see that on Ann Little's blog that a commentator called Northern Barbarian claiming to have been teaching about the Caucasus for 20 years seems to be almost as confused as the US media. Among other things he claims that there is a Karbardino-Balkar people. No, there was a Karbardino-Balkar ASSR, but the Karbardians are Circassians and related to the Cherkess and the Balkars are Turkic and related to the Karachais. He also claims that the Germans occupied  the North Caucasus during 1942-1944 and that the Soviets only retook the area in 1944. The Germans never occupied Chechnya proper and the Soviet Red Army had already recaptured the areas inhabited by the soon to be deported Karachais in 1943. In fact the mass deportations from the North Caucasus by the Soviet NKVD had already started in 1943 with the deportation of the Karachais on 2 November 1943. I don't expect the US news media to know that despite the existence of a Karbardino-Balkar ASSR in the USSR that the Karbardians and Balkars are separate and very distinct peoples who speak totally unrelated indigenous languages. But, if you claim to be a professor specializing in the history of the Caucasus and teaching classes about it for 20 years then such ignorance is completely inexcusable. How do people like this get tenure at US universities? For the record I do not claim to be an expert on the Caucasus. I only know enough to know that unlike Moshe Gammer, Walt Richmond, and Brian Williams I am not an expert. Claiming that there is a single Karbardino-Balkar people, however, is an error that no "expert" teaching the subject for 20 years should ever make.

My Random Thoughts on the Relationship between Boston and Chechnya

I am rather unimpressed with the US media coverage of the events in Boston. The level of ignorance about Chechnya, Kyrgyzstan, and Islam they have in general displayed is almost as great as their lack of knowledge about Africa. There does not seem to be any connection with the terrorist attacks in Boston with Chechens, Central Asia, or Islam other than the fact they were committed by two people of Chechen descent from Kyrgyzstan. Why they committed these crimes may or may not have been motivated by factors pertaining to their ethnic and religious background. But, at this point it is impossible to know anything other than the crimes were the responsibility of two individuals and not of an entire nationality.

On the other hand I am glad to see that many bloggers seem to recognize that contrary to the claims by Francine Hirsch that racial categories can only be based upon biology and genetics that ethnicity and religion work just as well. In fact the Chechens were one of the groups racialized and subjected to genocide by Stalin. A fact vigorously denied by Francine Hirsch, a tenured professor at University of Wisconsin who has set the orthodox party line for Soviet nationality studies. I am still at a loss as to why it is only regarding the history of the USSR that there is a militant refusal to acknowledge that racial discrimination can be based upon ethnicity, nationality, and religion as well as biology.

A Brief Collection of Older Posts on Chechnya

I am not going to claim to be an expert on Chechnya. I know enough about Chechnya to know that there are very few such experts in the world and one of them, Moshe Gammer very recently died of cancer. But, I have been writing professionally about their deportation in 1944 since 1997. So despite not being an expert I do have some familiarity with the history of the nationality. Since the US media is flooded with bad commentary about Chechnya, I thought I would link to some old posts of mine providing a brief history of the Chechens. The most important event in recent Chechen history in shaping their national development was Stalin's deportation of nearly the entire population to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in 1944. The collective memory of this ethnic cleansing has been an important tool for political mobilization of the Chechen people and plays a similar role in their understanding of their own history as the Holocaust does for Jews and the Armenian Genocide does for Armenians. The 1944 deportation is why there are still Chechen communities in Kyrgyzstan. They are the descendants of the Chechen survivors of the deportations and special settlement regime who did not return to Chechnya during the Khrushchev era. The best short introduction to the history of the Chechens is Moshe Gammer, The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule (London: Hurst and Co., 2005). If you want to know more about Chechnya and its people I suggest you check out Gammer's book and turn off your television.

Ghanaian Supreme Court starts hearing on election petition

The big news in Ghana now is the Supreme Court case by the NPP (New Patriotic Party) seeking to have 4,670,504 votes from the 2012 elections annulled due to alleged fraud and irregularities. This would be a sufficient number to throw the presidency to the NPP rather than the current ruling NDC (National Democratic Congress). The court proceedings are being broadcast live on Ghanaian television and radio.

Another UTAG update

It looks like the government has agreed to pay our arrears in four installments in April, May, June, and July. This is a little bit better than the old plan of May, July, and September, but not a whole lot better. I  had hoped for at least April, May, and June.

UTAG update

Apparently some sort of compromise on the payment schedule for arrears has been reached between the government and the UTAG leadership, but neither party has released any details of the new agreement.

The UTAG Strike is Over

The university faculty union has called off the strike after a recent meeting with the government. We did not get any of our demands met. The government still intends to pay the arrears in three installments in May, July, and September rather than in a lump sum. The strike by doctors and pharmacists at state hospitals here, however, is still going on.

Lethal Police Violence in Togo Kills a 12 Year Old Boy

Yesterday, the Togolese security forces killed a twelve year old boy in suppressing a student demonstration in Dapaong. The use of violence by the Togolese dictatorship against peaceful demonstrators has become a common occurrence in recent months, but this is the first reported fatality among protesters. Last week demonstrations by students in support of striking teachers took place in a number of locations in Togo. The regime has reportedly now temporarily closed all primary and secondary schools in Lome including private ones.

Academic Bias in the US

There is a Fulbright Scholar here who is an expert on Angolan history. I asked him today if Dr. Laumann's presentation here on Friday in which the MPLA and Cuba could do no wrong was typical of US scholars dealing with Portuguese speaking Africa. He said that it was not. But, nonetheless the fact that one can be a tenured professor in the US and essentially parrot the official Cuban line without any new original research as if it was objective scholarship still troubles me even if he is in the minority. It speaks of the double standard at US universities regarding communist regimes. No university for instance would ever hire somebody who parroted the old propaganda line of apartheid South Africa and rightfully so. The inability to properly criticize socialism, however, still seems to dominate US academia.

The Tenured Radical now claims that a powerful Palestinian Lobby in the US is trying to Silence her and other Militant opponents of making Israel accountable for the Crime of Apartheid

I see the Tenured Radical who is hell bent on making sure the radical experiment called Zionism is never undone has a blog post whining about how she and other militant opponents of BDS are being silenced by a supposedly powerful Palestinian lobby in the US. If you don't believe me go to her blog and go read it. I can't make this stuff up. If I could I would be writing fantasy novels and outselling J.K. Rowlings. The Palestinians are a stateless people living in forced dispersal and under military occupation and apartheid. Their oppressors are unconditionally supported by the US government, media, and both major political parties. In academia there are only a few tiny voices of dissent critical of Israel and they have been constantly opposed by the traditional LEFTIST support of the Zionist project as represented by the Tenured Radical and others who are opposed to Palestinian rights. I wish the people who do support Palestinian rights did have the power to silence people like the Tenured Radical, but alas the power balance is all her corner. She will never be fired for her position on Palestine. Something that has not been true for a number of people critical of Israel such as Norman Finkelstein.

There was indeed mass murder by Tito's regime in Yugoslavia (1945-1948)

Where did the myth that there was no state mass murder in Yugoslavia under Tito come from? I keep seeing descriptions of Yugoslavia under Tito on LEFTIST blogs like the Marxist Crooked Timber that describe it as some sort of Balkan Sweden. Because in order for this outright lie to be credible at all you have to completely ignore the years 1945 to 1948. Executions and deaths in concentration camps under Tito were responsible for the death of over 55,000 ethnic Germans alone, nearly 17% of the minority's population.  That is almost as many people as the number of Americans who died fighting in Vietnam and this figure does not take into account deaths among other ethnic groups such as Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Hungarians, Albanians, and others. It is a whole lot more people than Pinochet killed in Chile, the Argentine Junta killed during the "Dirty War", or the South African security forces killed during apartheid. Yet none of the LEFTISTs defending Tito at Crooked Timber and other places would ever deny that the 30,000 people murdered in Argentina during the "Dirty War" constituted mass murder even though it is a much smaller number than the total number of people exterminated by Tito's forces.

Now is not a good time to get get sick in Ghana

The Ghana Medical Association the union representing doctors at state hospitals such as the one I go to for outpatient consultation along with the Government Hospital Pharmacist Association have been on strike since last Monday when they withdrew outpatient service. Now they are threatening to stop emergency services starting this Monday if the government does not pay them their outstanding arrears. Other than a few private clinics and hospitals, the only medical facilities still working in Ghana for non-emergency outpatient care are the military and police hospitals and the Cuban Doctors Brigade.

Today's presentation (Dennis Laumann)

Normally when we have outside speakers come to the department they speak on a topic related to Ghana as do the speakers from inside the department. They also are sometimes quite boring. Today Dennis Laumann from the University of Memphis spoke to the department on Cuba's role in Angola and its significance during the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond.  He was certainly not boring. Nor did he hide the fact that he was an unabashed partisan of Cuba and the MPLA before it converted from Marxism-Leninism to capitalism. He is evidently a member of the Communist Party USA which I was unaware still existed. Although if Dr. Laumann is representative of the organization today they seem to have shifted away from advocating a Soviet model to supporting a Cuban model.

Update on Book on German Colonialism in West Africa

Last night the fellows of Commonwealth Hall (Vandals) had a social get together and I ran into Wazi Apoh, one of the editors of the book in which my latest published piece appears. Apparently, I never sent him a postal address to give to Lit Verlag in Berlin. So I have now rectified that oversight and I hope to eventually get a personal copy of the book.

New Publication on German Togoland now in Print

The article I co-wrote with a PhD student here for the conference in Winneba in 2011 has now been published as a book chapter. J. Otto Pohl and Felix Y. T. Longi, "The Relative Failure of German Togoland as a Model Cotton Colony" appears in Wazi Apoh and Bea Lundt (Eds.), Germany and its West African Colonies: "Excavations" of German Colonialism in Post-Colonial Times (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2013), pp. 185-200. I still have not gotten my copy of the book, but an associate of mine with a chapter in the book showed me a copy of it yesterday so I know it has now come out in print.

Labor Unrest in Ghana

A larger and larger portion of the workforce in the state sector of the Ghanaian economy are going on strike. UTAG (University Teachers' Association of Ghana) which represents faculty at Ghana's universities is still on strike. We have now been on strike for a week. An earlier strike by primary and secondary school teachers has ended. But, yesterday doctors and pharmacists at state hospitals went on strike. They will no longer be delivering any outpatient service for the time being. Now it appears that court workers will also be going on strike as well. While the government has failed to pay arrears to public employees in education and medicine for 2012 it has at the same time given an ex-gratia payment of over 20 million dollars to 230 members of parliament, a figure over four times what it owes to university faculty. So it is not a lack of money that prevents the timely payment of arrears.

What is happening in Legon

I finally finished grading all my mid-term exams. I am going to have to do finals at a much faster rate. As soon as I get the tests I need to plow through as many as possible, say fifty or sixty a day. Finals will be in May. Right now we are still on strike which means I am not giving any lectures here in Legon. But, I still have other work related stuff to wrap up including revising a book chapter. Tomorrow one of our PhD students has his viva followed by a departmental party. This will be the first PhD produced the department since I started working here.

Why we are on Strike

Okay, the issue behind the strike are the arrears on the part of our salary called the professional allowance which is about half of what we earn. They already paid the arrears on the other half called the basic salary. The current salary we receive still has the professional allowance pegged at the 2011 level without the 2012 "Market Premium" adjustment. This adjustment was an 18% increase in public employee salaries. But, the Ministry of Finance was instructed to freeze the actual paid salaries of university faculty at the 2011 levels. The union has demanded that the government immediately start paying this increase and pay the arrears from this increase for the year 2012 immediately in one lump sum. Currently, the government owes each faculty member at the University of Ghana a net payment of about 3,000 to 4,000 cedis. UTAG already took the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to court and won a judgement against them. But, the current government position is that they will pay the arrears in installments of three in May, July, and September. The government has not said anything about starting to pay the "Market Premium" on a regular monthly basis so that arrears do not accumulate in the future.

Improved Discipline

The union discipline in enforcing the withdrawal of teaching by faculty is much better this year than it was during last year's strike. That strike never had as great of adherence as the current one does. I am told that a big part of the reason for the better enforcement this year is that a lot of people are really angry. So there is a much greater united front in refusing to teach this year.

Union Meeting

Today there was an emergency UTAG meeting regarding the strike. We are withdrawing teaching until such time as they update our whole salary to the 2013 level and pay us the arrears due to this cut in a single lump sum. Part of our salaries are still frozen at the 2011 level. The government has said it will pay the arrears in three parts during May, July, and September. But, if they do not restore our salaries to their proper level then we will constantly be amassing arrears. So that needs to be done immediately. The union has said that the three part installment plan is unacceptable and that the government needs to pay all of the arrears in a single lump sum.

BTW: Do not expect any of the poser "progressive" LEFT-wing blogs like Lawyers, Guns, and Money who falsely claim to care about labor issues and Black people to mention anything what so ever about this strike. Even though it a very large industrial action involving eight university campuses and thousands of faculty members almost all of whom are Black it won't get a single mention by any US "progressives." They do not care about the labor rights of Black people.

A Middle Aged Man with an Old Blog

Sometimes I think this blog has lived beyond its expiration date. After all most blogs don't live even five years and this one is approaching nine. I never had a lot of readers or comments, but recently it seems like I have a lot less than I used to have. Part of the problem is that my actual life is quite boring. I know some people in the US think I have an interesting life because I spend all my time in countries that appear strange and exotic to the average American. But, really living in a country for an extended period of time is very different from coming for a few weeks as a tourist. You don't get to see new and exotic things every day for years. So I don't have a lot of interesting observations to note anymore. Maybe both the blog and myself have entered that boring stage of middle age?

Another UTAG Strike

Two days ago UTAG, our faculty union, called a strike over the issue of back pay. According to the head of the union the government owes us a total of 10 million cedis (5 million dollars) or about 3,000 to 4,000 cedis for each lecturer. The government wants to pay the money in three installments between May and September, but UTAG is insisting that the strike will continue until the arrears are all paid in a single lump sum. So with any luck I will have an extra $1,500 to $2,000 sometime soon.

Any suggestions?

Okay I am almost finished with my second article comparing Soviet treatment of the deported peoples with South African apartheid. The first one was published last year in Human Rights Review. However, given that the official academic line for most journals is that there never was any racial discrimination or "racial politics" in the USSR under Stalin (this is exactly what they write in the peer review reports) does anybody have any suggestions where I should try and get it published? This article notes the similarities in ethnos theory in the two countries as well as discriminatory practices and deals with the common influence of Shirokogorov on South African volkekundiges and Soviet ethnographers.

Russian crackdown on Twitter and Facebook

For anybody who follows the news in Russia it appears that the government is attempting to censor the content of various social media, most notably Twitter and Facebook. As far as I know they are not making any moves right now to block access to Blogger. According to my site meter I do receive a comparatively large number of hits from Russia. Although how many of these are actual readers I have no idea.

Wanted: Better Enemies

Say what you want about the Marxist-Leninists at least they had a coherent ideology. It is true that it led to millions of unnecessary deaths, but the basic idea of using the power of the state to forcibly develop the economy and improve the basic living conditions of the descendants of the surviving majority has a certain utilitarian appeal. I do not think improving the economic conditions of life for the children and grandchildren of the 90% of the Soviet population that survived Stalin's massive use of violence at all justifies his crimes. But, I can understand the logic behind it. However, today the radical LEFT in the US is focused completely and totally on justifying and supporting everything ever done by the US Democratic Party since FDR and demonizing everything ever done by the US Republican Party since Nixon. This makes me miss the communists. Because the Democrats have not had a coherent ideology of any sort for the most part other than that on the vast majority of issues since WWII they have agreed with the Republicans. The replacement of Lenin with LBJ as the new revolutionary icon just seems so wrong. I am pretty sure that Ho Chi Minh would have agreed with me on this.

Computers

Today I took my lap top into ICT to have some problems fixed. I was worried I was going to have to get a new computer soon. But, it looks like the 30 minutes or so of work the technician did will be sufficient to keep my lap top alive until the end of the year. I should have money to buy a replacement by then. I am told that I should go back to Toshiba rather than getting another Sony. Given my experience with both brands I would definitely say that Toshiba is a much better brand.

How did Ralph Nader become the number one enemy of the Radical US Left?

I do not understand the radical leftists that control US academia. According to the blogosphere or at least Lawyers, Guns, and Money which represents this elite their two greatest enemies are Glen Greenwald and Ralph Nader. I have no idea who Glen Greenwald is and do not particularly care. I know Ralph Nader is an American of Lebanese heritage who has been involved in various US political issues for a long time. I voted for him in 2000 because I was convinced that the two main parties were so closely attached to Israel that if one of them won they were going to get us involved in a war with an Arab country. I was right. George Bush went to war against Iraq. I understand that the US LEFT is strongly pro-Zionist and anti-Arab, but there has got to be a better enemy for them than Nader. How about Rashid Khalidi at the University of Columbia now that Edward Said is dead? Or maybe Chomsky? Really, I would never have pegged Nader as the arch villain of the American LEFT. It is like reading Stalinists and Maoists denounce Tito for being a "right-winger".

Sixty four years since Operation "Priboi"

The largest wave of Stalinist deportations from the Baltic States took place 25-30 March 1949. Earlier smaller waves took place in Lithuania in spring 1948 and all three Baltic States on 14 June 1941. Code named "Operation Prioboi" the March 1949 deportations were summed up on 18 May 1949 by S. Kruglov in a report to Stalin.

From the territory of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian SSRs were exiled 30360 families of kulaks, nationalists and bandits (94779 people), of these men - 25,708, women - 41987, children - 27084, of this number: from the Lithuanian SSR - 9518 families (31917 people), from the Latvian SSR  - 13624 families (42149 people), from the Estonian SSR -7488 families (20173 people).

Source:

N.F. Bugai (ed.), Narody stran Baltii v usloviiakh  stalinizma (1940-e - 1950-e gody):  Dokumentirovannaia istoriia  (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2005), p. 74.

Questioning the Nation State

The nation state model of organizing society in which each ethnic group as defined by language has its own state has in many ways caused more problems than it has solved. In Europe the creation of relatively homogeneous nation states came about only through the massive use of violence to remove minorities through partition, expulsion, and extermination. That is it took World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the massive expulsion of ethnic Germans from East Central Europe, and the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia during the 1990s to reach the current state of rough correspondence between states and nations. Whether the human costs involved in reaching this stage of development was worth it or not is rarely debated. It is just assumed that the nation state is natural and that events like the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia were necessary.

While in Europe the nation state has been largely achieved through the shedding of rivers of blood, in Africa the realization of the idea remains virtually non-existent. Most African states are multinational states with a large number of ethnic groups speaking different indigenous languages. These groups unlike in Europe do not each have their own exclusive state to give their nation political self determination. Instead they are forced to share state sovereignty with other ethnic groups. Ghana is not an Akan state, South Africa is not a Xhosa state, and Nigeria is not a Hausa state. The European pattern of violent partition, expulsion, and extermination to create homogeneous nation states has been avoided by most African states. The result is that these states are very different from those in Europe and much of Asia where the nation state model has triumphed.

This leads to the question of whether the existing African states should be called nations at all. If we do call them nations what do we call the various ethnic groups inside them seeking modern forms of political representation? Because when people talk about the Ghanaian nation they mean something very different from the Hungarian or Kyrgyz nation. There is no Ghanaian language or common myth of being a single extended family for one thing. There is only a common Ghanaian state founded in 1957 from the territories of the British Gold Coast colony and the British Togoland League of Nations Mandate. This state is composed of a number of ethnic groups none of which is a state bearing people. Ghana is a multi-ethnic state rather than a nation state and this pattern is widespread throughout Africa.

Lunch

Today I had kenkey and pepper for lunch at the Night Market. I passed on the dry fish. The flies seems to like the fish a bit too much and I definitely do not want to catch cholera. The kenkey and pepper cost me only 50 peswas (25 cents). So it is possible to find things even cheaper than Ramen noodles to eat. The big expense in all meals here seems to be the meat, chicken, or fish.

Comments

It always amazes me when I get a comment from a new person here. It is evidence that I have readers I did not know about. I got one the other day. I wonder if there are anymore out there?

Obituary for the Socialist Workers Party

When I did my post-graduate work to earn my MA and PhD at SOAS from 2001-2004 the Socialist Workers Party had a constant low level presence around the various University of London campuses. It was a strange Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyite entity with its own cult of personality around Tony Cliff who founded the party.  Every summer they would sponsor a conference called Marxism that would have various speakers, musicians, and a big book sale. I once saw China Mieville give a talk on zombies and Lenin at one of these conferences, I believe it was Marxism 2003. Now I am told as a result of a rape scandal that the party has basically fallen apart and is in its death throes. Of course in terms of having any real effect on British politics the SWP was a complete non-entity. But, it did attract the support of a lot of geeky London undergrads who would probably have become libertarians in the US. Its role in providing an outlet for socially awkward youth seems to have been far greater than its actual intellectual or political influence in the UK. Nonetheless, despite my ideological differences with the communists in the SWP I have fond memories of arguing with their members over issues ranging from Lenin to Palestine to Chechnya. I don't know if the radical left in the UK or anywhere else in the English speaking world will be able to find a replacement for the SWP. It was in almost all aspects a completely anachronistic organization during the years I came in contact with it. After all 2001 was not 1917. So perhaps now the era of organized Marxist-Leninist politics in the English speaking world has finally come to a fitting end.

Decline in Readership since 2009

Walt Richmond, one of the very few people to ever comment on this blog, left a comment recently stating that people do not care about Africa and Africans. I suspect that is true for most of the world outside of Africa. But, it seems particularly true regarding those who read and write blogs. I looked at some stats today that showed that my readership had declined by over 80% since 2009 when I was based in Kyrgyzstan. Now maybe these stats are wrong, but if they are true that is a pretty stunning decline. I am not sure why the decline would be so great. But, maybe there is relatively a much higher interest in reading blogs written in Central Asia than those written in Africa?

The very poor record of socialists on racial equality

It has occurred to me that despite their claims to have eliminated racism that socialist regimes were historically every bit as bad if not worse than the worst capitalist states such as apartheid South Africa in this matter. Cuba seems to be the only socialist state in which racial discrimination actually decreased rather than increased after the revolution. In the USSR there were the bloody national operations that fell heavily upon diaspora groups like the Germans, Poles, Finns, Greeks, Latvians, and Estonians during 1937-38. Then there was the wholesale internal deportation and deprivation of civil rights imposed upon the Koreans, Germans, Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Meskhetian Turks, and other stigmatized groups in the 1940s. In China there was the wholesale persecution and annihilation of the cultural institutions of the Tibetans, Mongols, and Uyghers, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. In Vietnam there was the systematic mistreatment of ethnic Chinese in 1978-79. In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge exterminated the majority of the country's ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese, Thais, and Cham. So it is not surprising that people who continue to spring from the same ideological base as Stalin, Mao, Le Duan, and Pol Pot continue to support policies that treat different groups of people differently and unequally on the basis of their ancestry and lineage.

On this topic I am interested in learning more about the Vietnamese government's persecution of its Chinese population during the late 1970s. It appears that the exodus of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam was in response to a campaign of racist persecution by the Vietnamese government, but that they were not actually forcibly expelled from the country. Rather after being plundered and subjected to significant harassment they were given the option of settling in New Economic Zones or leaving Vietnam, and the vast majority chose to leave. If anybody has any suggestions for reading on the subject please put them in the comments.

More on Left-Wing Racism

I see that the Left-Wing racists at Crooked Timber who strongly denounced the slight reduction in the very high standard of living of the White people in Greece are now denouncing the IMF's policies in even richer, but still White Cyprus. Policies that will also make rich White people less rich.  But, these same people have been completely silent on the recent further impoverishment by the IMF of poor Black people in Ghana and other African countries through the forced elimination of fuel subsidies. It is clear from this support of the structural racism I outlined above that the American and European LEFT does not consider Black people in Africa to be real people deserving of the same rights, opportunities, and material benefits as White people in Europe. This is a far worse form of racism than the utterance of racial slurs by powerless poor rural Whites in Mississippi.

Grading Rubric

I have some students that do very well. I have other students who do not do so well. The difference between the two groups is that the first type does the reading and pays attention in class while the second does not. There are no magic formulas for getting a good grade.

More on Togo police battle protesting journalists

Here is a fairly good summary of yesterday's protest and its suppression by the Togolese security forces.

Togo police battle protesting journalists

More Government Violence in Togo

Right across the eastern border of Ghana is the city of Lome in Togo. It is the seat of a repressive dictatorship that continues in power with the active support of the French and US governments and more importantly the passive support of racist American liberals. Today security forces used tear gas to break up a demonstration in Lome the capital of Togo. The demonstrators were protesting new restrictions on the country's media. The government can now revoke media licenses without going through the courts. Around 50 journalists were involved in the protest and 3 were injured. This is just the latest in a long string of protests by people in Togo recently against the dynastic dictatorship of Faure Gnassingbe who inherited rule of the country from his father in 2005.

You won't ever find anything about the ongoing struggle for freedom and human rights in Togo on any self proclaimed "liberal", "progressive", or "radical" blogs. This is because they do not believe that the people in Togo or anywhere else in Africa are fully human. They believe it is perfectly acceptable to reinforce international racist structures in which France and the US support the regime in Togo against the people of Togo. To absolve themselves of any wrong doing they think all they have to do is condemn poor rural whites in Mississippi who are prejudiced against Black Americans. Then they become "good people" opposed to racism.  But, it is not poor rural whites in Mississippi who are propping up the Togolese regime. It is the progressive governments of France and Obama that are keeping the current dictator in power just as his father was backed by Paris and "progressive" US presidents like Johnson and Clinton. You wouldn't see such complete silence by leftist bloggers if there was a military regime in a white country like Greece or Spain. The international left was as vocal against Franco and the Greek Colonels as they are completely silent regarding Togo.

Source: Agence France-Presse

Fiction

I do not watch television anymore. If somebody sends me a documentary on DVD I will watch it. But, other than that I only watch films on airplanes. This undoubtedly cuts me off from my indigenous Obruni culture to a large extent. I do, however, read popular fiction written in the US. I like mysteries and crime novels and the big book store across the street has a much better selection of these types of books than any book store I have ever seen in the US. Lately, I have been reading a lot of Michael Connelly novels. I know it is not high literature, but I find it far more entertaining.

We have electricity again!!!

Today after four whole days with no electricity what so ever, my office finally has power. I have no idea how long it will last, however.

What is going on at work.

Except for Wednesday which was a holiday the electricity has gone out in the history department every single day. When it went out on Thursday the electricians refused to come out and fix it. Apparently they said they were tired of coming out to fix it and so they were not ever going to solve the problem. So now the history and English departments have had no electricity at all for three whole days running and it is really hot and humid. I can stand about 30 minutes in my office in the afternoon, but not any longer, without the air conditioning and fan. Evidently the problem is that when they built our new offices last summer they forgot to add any carrying capacity to the building's wiring to allow it to run the additional air conditioning units they added. They also knew about this problem at the time and decided it was too much work and expense to do it right then. So now it looks like the history and English departments at the University of Ghana will be without electricity indefinitely. I guarantee you that this would not ever happen to the Business school.

8 March 1944

This Friday is International Women's Day. It is also the 69th anniversary of the deportation of the Balkars from their Caucasian homeland to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The Balkars are not a very large nationality even by the standards of the North Caucasus. Their history is nonetheless representative of a number of small ethnic groups in the USSR. Most notably in the fact that the decision to deport the Balkars was made before the regime concocted the false charges of treason used to justify this ethnic cleansing. If you are looking for material on the Balkars or any other national group from the Northwest Caucasus some of the best writing comes from my good friend Walter Richmond. I have linked to two of his pieces above.

The Week

Tomorrow is Ghanaian independence day so I do not have to go to Accra to teach at City Campus. I do not know what I will do tomorrow. Today we had no power in the office for most of the day.

Reputations and Rankings

If I go by reputation and rankings all of the WHITE universities in the world appear much better on paper than my institution. But, we get between three and six presentations by PhD students and faculty from Europe and the  US here a semester and most of them are pretty weak. Even if they are sending us their absolute worst representatives because we are in Black Africa and not worth the effort, it indicates that their overall quality is far inferior to their reputation. However, in some cases the presenters are portrayed as the best that a certain institution in Europe or the US has to offer. In which case why are we rated so far below these institutions internationally? Our best graduate students are doing much better work and frankly I would be embarrassed to send somebody to Europe from here to give the type of mediocre presentations that they routinely send us. If anybody has any thoughts as to why this is the case I would greatly appreciate their comments.

Class today

Today in class it was clear that not a single student had done all of the assigned reading and the mid-term exam is next week. I know people tell me if I want the students to do the reading that I have to give a quiz every class. But, that is a lot more work grading for me since the class has 110 students. Should not people in their twenties be mature enough to do the reading on their own without me having to test them on it every week? Is it too much to ask that at least one student, less than 1% of the class, do all the reading for any one class session? I do not know where the habit of not doing any reading for class came from. But, it is the single greatest obstacle to the university becoming a world class institution.

Former Soviet Archives

From best I can tell the archives of the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan are still both partially open with regards to researching Stalinist repression even though both states are run by dictators. Whereas those of democratic Kyrgyzstan have reclassified everything to do with Soviet violations of human rights as secret and top secret. Scholars writing on the Russian-Germans conscripted into the labor army are still citing a number of different archives from the RF and Kazakhstan. In contrast those writing about the subject on Central Asia recently only cite archives from Moscow and none from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. I know for a fact as a result of going to the TsGAKR in Bishkek last summer that these documents are indeed now off limits in Kyrgyzstan despite the fact that many of them were published earlier. I assume that those in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan have also been reclassified. But, I have no evidence other than the lack of citations in recent scholarship. Can anybody confirm the status of the archives in these three states regarding research into Stalinist repression?