This valuable collection of essays brings together papers on the differing approaches
of European powers to the administration of colonies in the period 1890-1960; and
contrasts these policies with realities on the ground as seen in the lives and careers of
individual officers.
The essays discuss the differing ways both of organizing a colonial administration,
and of defining its role. They describe, in a thought provoking way and with a wealth of
concrete examples, how the aims and principles laid down by the metropolitan power are
translated and modified when confronted by realities on the ground. The examples are
drawn mostly but not exclusively from Africa, reflecting the immense variety of peoples,
language and geography of that continent. Thus the reader can see the differences as well
as the common features of colonial administrations in territories as varied as the old
German colony of South West Africa, French West Africa and the Belgian Congo in the
period before WWI. There are also articles on the Portuguese and Italian Ministries of
the Colonies.
One valuable contribution of this collection lies in the different ways in which
problems common to all colonial powers are dealt with: the tensions between the
metropolitan government and the colonial administration (J Vandelinden on
The Government of the Belgian Congo 1908-1960); the differences in handling the local
administration of the Eingeborene ” indigenous population in German East Africa and
South West Africa; the blend of French and British colonial organization discussed in
Guido Melis’ article on The Italian Ministry of the Colonies.
A British reader brought up to think of indirect rule as a primarily British device,
originating in the Indian Native States in the Nineteenth Century and developed
particularly by Lord Lugard in Nigeria in the early Twentieth Century, may be surprised to
see the concept discussed and used in some form in German East Africa, Rwanda and
Burundi and parts of French West Africa as well.
A particular feature of this collection is the treatment of the work of individual
colonial administrators on the ground. Again, the range of material is wide, from the case
studies of individuals in French Sub-Sahara in J-P Royer’s article on The colonial
administrator as ''Jack of all trades'’ to Anthony Kirk-Greene’s discussion of the British
district officer, which uses one man’s background motivation and career to illuminate a
generation. The British emphasis on ‘all round qualities’ when selecting and training
future administrators is paralleled by the importance attached to the “qualities morals
indispensable” by successive directors of the Belgian University Institute of Overseas
Territories (L. De Clerck p.l92).
There are some particularly good quotes from reports and diaries of the early French
administrations. What strikes this reviewer are features of the French administrator’s life
which would be instantly recognizable even to someone coming relatively late to colonial
administration in a British territory. For instance, the emphasis on the importance of
touring. Of course the means vary and change from the early days of pacification in the late
Nineteenth Century to the pre-independence period of the 1960s, paralleled in the transition
from bush paths and tracks to laterite and even tarmac roads. There are descriptions here of
touring by bullock cart with a retinue of bearers, police and medical staff. But even post
WWII the horse (and the bicycle) was still a valuable means of transport for the touring
officer. What stayed the same was the ethos which saw direct contact with ordinary life in
the villages as essential to the formation of good judgment in the touring officer, and to his
ability to interpret and implement policy in the light of local circumstances.
Perhaps the most vivid passages in this collection relate to the careers and
individual experiences, particularly of the first generation of administrators. Few in
number and often spread over vast areas (in 1910 there were 140 territorial
administrators for the whole of the Belgian Congo), civilian administrators often had
to manage difficult relationships with the military as well as with the expatriate
commercial interests.
One Commandant de Cercle in Timbo, French Guinea, in 1898 criticised the penal
methods used by his military colleagues to enforce ‘discipline’ on the local
population. He says of the captain in charge of the local military contingent:
“Le coup de corde lui est familier”. The district officer, as representative of the civil
power, had to fight hard to confine the military to disciplining the soldiers, and not to
use summary justice on the civil population (J-P Royer, p.225).
This is not a book which aims to discuss the ends of policy or the evolution of
European colonial policies as the era of independence approached. Nevertheless
remarks of early administrators make clear some of the benefits they saw
themselves as providing “... Le role pacificateur et les avantages ... de notre
justice impartiale et gratuite” . The colonial administrator was seen as an
“ambassadeur de la civilization frangaise et des valeurs de la Republique”.
Lord Lugard expresses essentially the same idea, less grandiloquently, in speaking
of the role of political officer as to “educate (the Native Chiefs) in the duties of
Rulers according to a civilized standard ...(to end) a system which holds the lower
classes in a state of slavery or serfdom... and to incalculate the unspeakable
benefit of justice, free from bribery and open to all”.
Such sentiments and the concomitant emphasis on the preservation of law and
order, which might have been greeted with cynicism a generation ago, take on a new
value in the light of the breakdown of civil society in many parts of Africa in the
post-colonial period.
Critics of the colonial period have seen the slogan of ‘Philanthropy and Five Per
Cent’ as far too favourable a characterization of the aims of the colonial power. Yet
alongside the aspirations of the early bush DO to end slave raiding and slave trading,
to do away with violence, bribery and corruption, it is difficult not to sense the silent
assent of those forgotten village meetings.
For all the emphasis on economic development in the post WWII period leading
up to independence, the main articulated request of the local western educated
elites was for the transfer of political control. Successive British governments
responded to this by the drafting of ‘Westminster’ style constitutions. It was
recognized that the timescale was short; in Nigeria barely 60 years or three
generations. But it was politically incorrect (although the term was not yet current)
to query whether other powerful cultural forces such as family, ethnic solidarity,
religion and education - not to mention economic resources - were in place to
ensure the successful transplantation of a political system assumed to be the
expression of universal human rights.
Contemporary events elsewhere have shown the shortcomings of policies whereby
outside governments, neglecting local factors and institutions, seek to impose
‘democracy’ on societies with complex social, political and religious institutions of their
own. In the colonial era under discussion, and with few exceptions, the withdrawal of the
colonial powers from Africa exposed the political institutions they had sought to build as
fragile experiments, unable to sustain the transfer and exercise of power through stable
institutions. There must be a lesson here for those who seek to bring democracy by force
of arms to societies suffering from evil rulers.
|