VIOLENCE AND THE END(S) OF COLONIALISM
Southern Methodist University (SMU), DALLAS.
September 20-21, 2019.
We are taking part this year annual conference at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. – September 20 – 21, 2019
Thanks to Olivier J. Tchouaffe, PhD, Spokesman of The Committee For the Release of Political Prisoners – CL2P
One of the main persistent concerns in Africa is violence that was first generated by colonialism, and later on perpetuated in independent African countries after independence.
While it is clear that colonialism created a legacy of violence in Africa, it is also relevant to point out that violence was not only a tool of domination, but also a tool of resistance. While in Discourse on colonialism Aimé Césaire carried out an extremely painstaking and rigorous autopsy of colonialism and the ways in which the “colonial mission” had organized the dehumanization of the colonized, Frantz Fanon in his masterpiece entitled The Wretched of the Earth did not only vehemently condemn colonialism as violence in its natural state, but he advocated violence as the only tool left to the subalterns to overcome colonial subjugation. Fanon’s powerful essay that is very often considered the “bible of decolonization” remains the object of passionate debate especially with regards to his theses on violence. In fact, Fanon argues that colonialism represents ‘violence in its natural state and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence’ (Fanon 1967, p.48).
The African continent seems to have always been, from colonial times to now, a theater of extreme violence. Whether one looks at the formation of postcolonial nations or the crisis of citizenship in Africa, governance, dictatorships, armed conflicts in Africa, humanitarianism, interventions or the history of colonization and immigration, not to mention the African diasporas in Europe and in North America, or even the place of Africa in the globalized world, one is at the heart of discussions pertaining to the (non) existence or literally the manufacture of “lesser persons” by means of physical, psychological and symbolic violence.
Our workshop would like to reconsider the question of violence in African context, and seek to understand the processes, political conditions and human rights dimensions of violence both as oppressive and liberating. By looking at violence and the end(s) of colonialism, we will not only be interested in revisiting colonial and nationalist violence in Africa, but also the distinctiveness of Africa’s contemporary predicament with regards the criminality, corruption, conflict and chaos that seem to have become permanent in Africa. This attention to questions of betrayal and collaboration, accountability and reconciliation, and the historicity of contemporary issues distinguishes this work from the existing literature.
Themes that can be of interested include but are not limited to:
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Colonial violence and the “colonial misunderstanding”
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Violence as resistance
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Apartheid and violence
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Rape as a weapon of war
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Civil Wars and armed conflicts
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Genocide in Rwanda, DRC and Sudan
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Globalization and violence
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Immigration and violence
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Injustice and Corruption
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Neocolonialism as violence
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Sacrificial violence
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Violence and the remapping of social relationships
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Revolutionary violence
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Racism and discrimination
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Islamic Terrorism
The conference will be held at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX , September 20-21, 2019.
The Committee For The Release of Political Prisoners – CL2P
