JMEH 01-2010, incl. Hodge, Bamba and Cooper

Transcription

Journal of Modern European History
Vo l . 8 | 2 0 1 0 / 1
Modernizing Missions: Approaches to «Developing»
the Non-Western World after 1945
Edited by Andreas Eckert,
Stephan Malinowski and Corinna R. Unger
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Journal of Modern European Histor y
Zeitschrift
Re vu e
für
moderne
d’ h i s t o i r e
Co n te n ts
Inhalt
europäische
e u ro p é e n n e
Vo l. 8 | 2 0 1 0 / 1
Geschichte
co n te m p o ra i n e
Ta b l e d e s m a t i è r e s
Editors
4
Forum
Frederick Cooper
Writing the History of Development
5
Modernizing Missions:
Approaches to «Developing»
Joseph M. Hodge
British Colonial Expertise, Post-Colonial Careering
and the Early History of International Development
39
Corinna R. Unger
Industrialization vs. Agrarian Reform:
West German Modernization Policies
in India in the 1950s and 1960s
39
Abou B. Bamba
Triangulating a Modernization Experiment:
The United States, France, and The Making of
the Kossou Project in Central Ivory Coast
39
Constantin Katsakioris
Soviet Lessons for Arab Modernization.
Soviet educational aid towards Arab countries after 1956
39
Moritz Feichtinger and Stephan Malinowski
«Eine Millionen Algerier lernen
im 20. Jahrhundert zu leben».
Umsiedlungslager und Zwangsmodernisierung
im Algerienkrieg 1954–1962
39
in Überschriften: PUNKT; KOMMA ODER DOPPELPUNKT ???
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4
Editors
Jörg Baberowski
Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Unter den Linden 6
D-10099 Berlin
e-mail: baberowskij@geschichte.
hu-berlin.de
Manfred Hildermeier
Universität Göttingen
Seminar für Mittlere und Neuere Geschichte
Platz der Göttinger Sieben 5
D-37073 Göttingen
e-mail: [email protected]
Eugenio Biagini
University of Cambridge
Robinson College
West Road
UK-Cambridge CB3 9EF
Jörn Leonhard
Universität Freiburg
Historisches Seminar
Lehrstuhl für Westeuropäische Geschichte
Werthmannplatz, KG IV
D-79085 Freiburg im Breisgau
Wl⁄odzimierz Borodziej
Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28
Instytut Historyczny Uniwersytetu
Warszawskiego
PL-00927 Warszawa
Philippe Burrin
Institut universitaire de hautes études
internationales, rue de Lausanne 132
CH-1211 Genève 21
Norman M. Naimark
Stanford University
History Department
Bldg 200 Rm 113, Stanford,
California, 94305–2024
Lutz Raphael
Universität Trier
FB III/Neuere und Neueste Geschichte
Universitätsring 15, D-54286 Trier
Andreas Eckert
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Philosophische Fakultät III
Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften
Unter den Linden 6
D-10099 Berlin
Paul-André Rosental
Sciences Po
27 rue Saint-Guillaume
F-75337 Paris Cedex 07
Jose Harris
University of Oxford, St. Catherine’s
College, Manor Road
UK-Oxford, OX1 3UJ, GB
e-mail: jose.harris@st-catherines.
oxford.ac.uk
Andreas Wirsching
Universität Augsburg
Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste
Geschichte
Universitätsstraße 10
D-86159 Augsburg
Ulrich Herbert
Universität Freiburg
Historisches Seminar
Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste
Geschichte
Werthmannplatz, KG IV
D-79085 Freiburg im Breisgau
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Forum
5
Frederick Cooper
1
Development seems to have many lives despite numerous attempts to kill it off.
Orthodox economists at first contended that there could be no development economics, only correct economics – describing markets but not intervening in them.
Although the establishment failed in the 1940s and early 1950s to prevent scholars
like W. Arthur Lewis from putting the new subdiscipline on a solid foundation,
P. T. Bauer kept up an assault from the 1950s to the 1970s on the very idea of a
development project within economics. In the 1980s, the banishment of development from the summits of the economic profession in the name of market orthodoxy seemed for a time to be complete.2
1. The End of Development?
But if Bauer got his Lordship, Lewis got his Nobel Prize.3 The announcement of the
death of development turned out to be premature, and such established economists as Jeffrey Sachs abandoned their position as advocates of imposing market
discipline on emerging societies and became, instead, proponents of consciously
planned and expensively financed initiatives by states and international organizations to fight poverty around the globe.4 The market, we are now told, does not
work miracles. If poor people are to meet basic human needs, if entire categories
of people are not to be excluded from the knowledge, technologies and freedom
of choice from which the majority of the world’s population now benefit, then
the market needs help. In poorer states, leaders and ordinary citizens continue
to believe that they have a claim on some of the resources of the world’s richest
regions, and a large array of individuals, organizations and governments in the
wealthy countries think they are right. Through the provision of credit to small
1 I am grateful to Daniel Speich for his attentive
and thoughtful reading of a draft of this article.
2 P. T. Bauer, Dissent on Development (Cambridge,
1972); D. Lal, The Poverty of Development Economics (Cambridge/Mass., 1985).
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3 R. Tignor, W. Arthur Lewis and the Birth of Develop
ment Economics (Princeton, 2005).
4 J. Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibili-
ties for Our Time (New York, 2005).
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Frederick Cooper
enterprises to help them move forward with large-scale projects that contribute to
the remaking of regions, development efforts continue, and many people in rich
and poor countries make their careers through such efforts, providing a range of
ideas and talents, as well as a set of institutional interests, to development.
If assaults from the right – for all the backing they at times received from international financial institutions and conservative think-tanks – failed to exclude
development initiatives from the realm of political possibility, the left has also
assaulted the legitimacy of development. Development has been criticized as a conspiracy to make the world safe for capitalism, as self-serving alliances of local elites
and foreign businesses to exploit peasants more effectively, and as sinecures for
Westerners who peddle their expertise. And development soon proved grist for the
deconstruction mill: development was a discourse, and discourses can be taken
apart to show how an agenda of reinforcing existing power structures lies beneath
their benign surfaces. In this instance, the language of development can be shown
to be not so much a program for improving the lives of the poor as a means of
marking and reinforcing global hierarchy: a division between developed and underdeveloped, between advanced and backward, between modern and traditional –
new forms of the older distinctions between civilized and barbarian, between superior and inferior. The Western worker for an NGO may think he is helping people
grow more string beans, but he is really naturalizing Western modernity, inscribing on the world a single path for betterment to which people should aspire, even if
they are unlikely to get very far.5
But development has survived such assaults too, and for a basic reason. However much validity there is in critiques of self-serving development institutions and
ideologies, they do not bring piped water to people who lack it; they do not ease the
burdens of women caught between rural patriarchies and urban exploitation; they
do not distribute readily available antidotes to childhood diarrhea and malaria in
areas of high infant mortality. Sensitive as most authors are to the reality of problems in much of the ex-colonial world, it is not clear that celebrations of «indigeneity» or hope that «social movements» will provide local answers where top-down
development projects have failed address the range of problems that impoverished
societies face. They do not address the possibility that indigenous social structures
and social movements – not just external colonialism and global capitalism – can
be oppressive and reactionary as well as liberatory.
Assertions that development is a project of self-evident benefit and critiques of
development as the imposition of an unwanted modernity are in fact mirror images
of each other.6 Neither comes to grips with the specificity of global, local and
5 A. Escobar, Encountering Development: The Ma-
king and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton,
1995) and W. Sachs, ed., The Development Dic-
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tionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power (London, 1992).
6 This analysis of alternative critiques of the deve-
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regional structures of power that reproduce poverty. But each also has merit – the
former in keeping open the possibility of finding solutions to problems, and the latter in tearing down the arrogance that often attends attempts at wide-scale reform.
In practice, the two viewpoints are engaged in a dialogue of the deaf, taking place in
different fora and different languages; in theory, they should have something to say
to one another.
2. Historical Analyses in place of Metacritique
The papers in this issue of the Journal of Modern European History have something
important to offer in their focus on concrete historical instances, rather than
maintaining themselves at the level of abstractions and generalizations. Nearly
seventy years have passed since the British government launched its Colonial
Development and Welfare Act of 1940; the French government would follow six
years later with its Fonds d’Investissement en Développement Economique et
Social. Most African countries have been self-governing for fifty years, some
Asian ones even longer, while Latin American states have been self-governing for
approximately 180 years. There are experiences to be examined. And they are not
uniform, not entirely negative. During the 1960s and into the 1970s, most African countries experienced significant, if modest, economic growth, and, more
important, life expectancy rose consistently, infant mortality fell, education
became more accessible, and literacy expanded rapidly. Some formerly colonized
countries of Southeast Asia, like Malaysia and South Korea, moved from sellers of
raw materials to significant industrial producers. State action was an important
component of the transformation of Southeast Asian economies.7 In the not-sodistant African past, for all the evidence of corruption of local elites and the expatriation of profits by foreign investors, people who grew cocoa and workers in copper mines had reasonable expectations that they could get a little something out of
participation in economic activities and that, as citizens, they could expect something from the state. Africans eagerly sought education at home and abroad, and
expected that their skills would contribute to development and be appropriately
rewarded.
The oil shocks and world-wide recession of the 1970s changed all that, and the
structural adjustment policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF ) in the 1980s undermined the social policies that gave people hope and
possibilities, without producing the kind of market miracle that was promised.8
lopment concept is spelled out in the «Introduction» to F. Cooper and R. Packard, eds., International
Development and the Social Sciences: Essays in the
History and Politics of Knowledge (Berkeley, 1997).
7 For a discussion of various economic and social
indicators of progress in Africa – its ups and
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downs and the unevenness of its effects – see
F. Cooper, Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge, 2002), chapter 5.
8 J. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and
Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt
(Berkeley, 1999).
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Frederick Cooper
The politics of development became the politics of the write-off, denying the
legitimacy of Africans’ claims on global resources, and placing blame on bad governments and not on invidious global structures. In Africa, the results of the
«development» era (1950s through early 1970s) were mixed, but those of the «postdevelopment» era were almost unremittingly negative in economic terms and
worse in political terms.9 Efforts to build a politics of citizenship were undermined
by the failure of citizenship to offer much of anything in the way of services and
opportunities. If the decline of development funding and state initiatives in economic matters, decreasing economic regulation, and the firing of bureaucrats and
soldiers were supposed to unleash a wave of local creativity, that creativity often
took the form of warlords organizing local armies, of underpaid civil servants organizing rackets of all sorts, or structures of clientage and dependence becoming
entrenched.10 Orientation toward local initiative and improvision did not necessarily produce happy results.11
There is much in the openings and closures of development politics for scholars to examine, not least of which are the early years of independence, the focus of
the papers in this volume. That «development», as constituted in the early years of
independent government in Africa and Asia, had its roots in the colonial era is
widely acknowledged among scholars. For some, this genealogy is enough to discredit the development project – development seems like colonialism by other
means, a new name for what was once called the «civilizing mission». The present
papers fit in with other historical research that presents a more complicated picture. The arrogance of colonial development is present in a particularly extreme
form in the paper of Moritz Feichtinger and Stephan Malinowski on the forced
resettlement villages of Algeria, linked to French counterinsurgency. The continuity of personnel in British development efforts across the line between colonial and
postcolonial situations is Joseph Hodge’s contribution.12 An aspect of development
history easily glossed over in the rush to treat development as a single orthodoxy
imposed on ex-colonial states is brought out in the articles of Abou Bamba, Corinna
9 V. Jamal and J. Weeks, Africa Misunderstood or
Whatever Happened to the Rural-Urban Gap
(London, 1993).
10 For a compelling discussion of such developments in post-1980s Chad and Cameroon, see J.
Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience: An Anthropology of
Economic Regulation in Central Africa (Princeton,
2005). See also P. Kaarsholm, ed., Violence and
Political Culture and Development in Africa
(Athens, 2006), and E. Bay and D. Donham,
eds., States of Violence: Politics, Youth, and Memory in Contemporary Africa (Charlottesville, 2006).
11 The much-cited book of James Scott, contrasting
the simplifying and totalizing logic of the big
project with the virtues of small-scale initiative
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(what he calls metis) misanalyses both: he fails to
see the ways in which big projects were redefined
as they were implemented and the possibility of
complex local arrangements turning predatory
and destructive. J. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How
Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition
Have Failed (New Haven, 1998).
12 For a related analysis of continuities in personnel
and approach, see V. Dimier, «L’institutionnalisation de la Commission européene (DG Développement) du rôle des leaders dans la construction d’une administration multinationale
1958–1975», Revue Etudes Internationales 34
(2003) 3, 401–427.
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9
Unger and Constantin Katsakioris. Together, they reveal that countries as varied as
India, Egypt and the Côte d’Ivoire could maneuver among industrial powers – the
United States, Germany and the USSR , as well as former colonizing powers – competing for influence and business, and they could try to work with different models
of how development could be done.
3. Development and Colonialism
A dynamic view of development history starts with the colonial period itself. The
term «colonial» – and concepts that follow, such as «colonial mentality», «colonial
legacy», or indeed «postcolonial» – gives a misleading coherence to a historical
phenomenon that was, after World War II, becoming increasingly uncertain.13 And,
notably in French and British Africa, the relationship of development and colonialism underwent a dramatic change. It is the reconfiguration of colonialism and
development in the 1940s – not a timeless essence of colonialism – that constitutes
a point of departure for asking what did and did not change with independence.14
With hindsight, one can find concepts and projects that can be aggregated into a
long-term history of «development»: assertions of civilizing missions, claims to be
exercising trusteeship, the building of railroads, hospitals and schools, all of which
were sometimes subsumed under a rhetoric of European-directed progress. But
when influential colonial officials in both Britain and France tried in the early
1920s to put all this together into a specific policy called «colonial development» in
the one case and «mise en valeur» in the other, the governments rejected the initiative. They did so in part because they did not want to invest metropolitan funds in
the colonies – colonies were supposed to contribute to Britain and France, not the
other way around. And they did so because colonial policy after World War I had
taken a conservative shift – the governments fearing claims to the rights of the citizen coming from people who had contributed to the imperial war effort. Interwar
policy played down the remaking of African society, justified colonial rule as a wise
policy of conserving traditional ways of life and traditional leadership, which
should be modified only slowly and within its own cultural terms, and celebrated
chiefs and princes while denigrating as inauthentic the Africans who had gone the
furthest to follow a European pathway. The imperial state protected and benefitted
from an ensemble of diverse peoples and cultures. The Depression of 1929 deepened the inward-looking nature of imperial regimes: the franc and sterling zones
could provide insulation against the crisis-ridden world economy, while the social
13 On conceptual issues in the study of colonialism,
including the overused and problematic concept
of «modernity,» see F. Cooper, Colonialism in
Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley,
2005).
14 A fine, down-to-earth study of a colonial develop-
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ment project that Africans turned into a political
issue, claiming their own vision of what it should
be, is M. Van Beusekom, Negotiating Development: African Farmers and Colonial Experts at the
Office du Niger, 1920–1960 (Portsmouth/NH,
2002).
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Frederick Cooper
tensions of declining employment and cash incomes could be sloughed off from
cities and mine towns to a less visible countryside.15 Interwar colonialism refused
to follow a developmentalist vision of itself.
The unreality of this view of an Africa of tribes caught up with French and
British rulers in the late 1930s: urbanization, wage labour and commodification
had become realities whatever the rhetoric of colonial rule, and the slow recovery
from depression intensified pressure on woefully neglected urban infrastructures. That the British West Indies were part of the same imperial system as British Africa – but hardly fit a tribal model of colonial society – posed a problem that
hit officials in London hard when a series of strikes and riots broke out in Jamaica,
Trinidad and Guyana between 1935 and 1938, accompanied by strike movements
in Northern Rhodesia and several African port cities. Although officials in Africa
at first recommended measures to restrict urban migration and enhance the
power of chiefs, such a policy failed to address the empire-wide nature of the
problem, and officials finally began to think in terms of development when considering a remedy for the nexus of poverty and disorder that was striking the parts
of the empire that were most visibly participating in the imperial economy. Here
lay the genesis of the Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940. Not the
least of its breakthroughs was in setting forth its goal as raising the standard of
living of indigenous populations, particularly wage workers. Money was to be
spent not just on projects that promised immediate profits but on housing, education and other social services, as well as on research. Because of the war, little
could actually be done, but the continuing labor tensions in Africa during and
after the war made the turn to developmentalist colonialism even more of an
imperative after 1945.16
Whatever the possible ways of theoretically defining development, the historical sequence sketched above established a conception that has proven durable:
state projects, channeling resources in ways that the market does not, with the goal
of improving the conditions that foster economic growth and higher standards of
living. If many development economists saw their objective as fostering the long15 The British Colonial Development Act of 1929
was advertised as a means of creating jobs at
home rather than improvising welfare in the colonies, and in any case very little money was
spent under its auspices. Colonial officials under
the Popular Front in France made in 1936 another attempt to get funding for colonial development, but, like the attempt in the 1920s, it was
rejected by the government. The Vichy government also considered a large-scale development
effort and also did not fund or implement it. S.
Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy 1914–1940 (London, 1984); M. Havinden and D. Meredith, Colonialism and Deve-
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lopment: Britain and Its Tropical Colonies,
1850–1960 (London, 1993); C. Coquery-Vidrovitch, D. Hémery and J. Piel, eds., Pour une histoire du développement: Etats, sociétés, développement
(Paris, 1988); C. Cotte, «La politique économique
de la France en Afrique noire (1936–1946)»,
Thèse de troisième cycle d’histoire, Université de
Paris VII, 1981; M. Ochonu, Colonial Meltdown:
Northern Nigerian in the Great Depression (Athens
OH, 2009).
16 F. Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The
Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996).
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run preconditions for market economies, they at least recognized that markets
would not bring about such conditions themselves. Such a conception has its consequences: Development as a state affair entails relations of power; it demands and
rewards expertise; it presumes inequality and hierarchy, even if it claims to be promoting a leveling upward of all people’s living standards. The way in which development came into the political arena thus shaped patterns for the future, but not
necessarily in ways its early architects expected.
If colonial governments, by calling their programs «development» were trying
to turn the conflicts of empire from a political into a technical and financial problem, they failed in their attempts, for the reverse came to pass.17 Development
became a claim-making construct for post war social and political movements in
Africa. Such was even more the case in India, where the Indian National Congress
put pressure on the British government in the 1940s and made development into a
core element of its own assertion of power and legitimacy after independence in
1947.18 The colonial regimes did have a strong assertion of their unique role
through their claims to expertise.19 But even the most technically oriented aspects
of developmentalism turned out to have a political edge, such as the use of statistical methods. Development, unlike earlier claims to a civilizing mission, was
quantifiable. Measurement could be used to show the inadequacy of colonial
efforts. In South Africa, for instance, a school of social research was formed during
the 1940s at the University of Capetown around social scientist Edward Batson’s
development of «the poverty datum line,» statistical techniques for measuring
poverty. Batson and others saw that statistically based arguments could have more
of a political impact than seemingly less objective ways of defining a problem.
Whatever the analytical flaws of such methods, they marked out a terrain that
demanded resources – arguments used against apartheid policies in South Africa
and in favor of development strategies, particularly directed against the impoverishment of people fully implicated in the wage economy.20
Badly shaken by the Japanese takeover of most of the European colonies of
Southeast Asia, by the discrediting of racial ideologies during the Nazi debacle, and
17 James Ferguson’s argument about the intention
of post-colonial governments and international
aid organizations to depoliticize issues of economic inequality applies to the intentions of officials in the 1940s as well–but not to the effects
of their actions. One might investigate similar
gaps between intentions and effects in the present. The Antipolitics Machine: Development, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in the Third
World (Cambridge, 1990).
18 S. Bose, «Instruments and Idioms of Colonial
and National Development: India’s Historical
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Experience in Comparative Perspective», in Cooper/
Packard, International Development, 45–63.
19 J. M. Hodge, Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens, 2007).
20 D. G. Davie, Poverty Knowledge in South Africa:
From Liberal Reform to Radical Politics, forthcoming. The current research of Daniel Speich
should also shed considerable light on the use of
statistics, particularly of GNP, in building the
conceptual and rhetorical arsenal of economic
analysis.
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Frederick Cooper
by ferment in the colonial world itself, both France and Britain saw development as
the key means by which they could re-establish imperial legitimacy. Development
was part of a wider policy by which colonial regimes sought to give modernizing
elites – not just pseudo-traditionalist leaders – a stake in the changing imperial
regime. France went the furthest in declaring in its constitution of 1946 that all its
overseas subjects had the «qualities» of the citizen–equivalent political and civil
rights, including that of moving to European France and seeking jobs. African politicians sat in the French legislature in Paris. Britain insisted that each of its colonial
territories was on its own path toward greater self-government within the Commonwealth, but it, too, tried to articulate a wider imperial citizenship under the
Nationalities Act of 1948, creating a kind of second-order citizenship derivative
from the nationality accorded by a Dominion (Canada, Australia, etc.), but also
applying to colonial subjects from Jamaica to Kenya a policy that also gave the
«imperial citizens» the right to enter the United Kingdom. Whatever the ambiguities of imperial citizenship, it provided a powerful basis for social and political
movements to make claims, and there was no clear stopping point in such claims
other than equality with other imperial citizens, including equality of standard of
living.21
4. Development and Modernization
Neither power had fully anticipated the consequences of this policy shift: colonialism, as a moving target, became rapidly more vulnerable than it had been in an era
of a more stolid, conservative colonial regime. Britain and France found themselves
trapped between the possibility that their strategies of containing colonial ferment
might fail, on the one hand, leading to revolution, or that they might succeed, on
the other, leading to the obligation to bring colonial citizens up to a European standard of living. The article of Feichtinger and Malinowski reveals both sides of this
dilemma in a single case: the coerced relocation of thousands of Algerians, in the
midst of a war of colonial rebellion and repression, into controlled villages where
they underwent what the authors called «forced modernization» – a program of
agricultural development, education and reform of gender roles intended to make
them better off and more content. Here we find the extremes both of a logic of
counterinsurgency and one of making colonized people into something they did
not necessarily want to be – a man, with wife and children, adapted to «modern»
rhythms of production and family life. Looking at a wider context, the combination
of elements in French politics becomes even more complex. Muslim Algerians at
the time were French citizens, and they had the right to enter and seek jobs in Euro21 For an early version of my ongoing work on citi-
zenship and empire, see «Alternatives to Empire: France and Africa after World War II», in
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The State of Sovereignty: Territories, Laws, Populations ed. D. Howland and L. White (Bloomington,
2009), 94–123.
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13
pean France, where their labour was in demand. Legally, Algerians in France had
the same rights as any other French person and were not supposed to be subject to
the kind of controls police typically reserved for immigrants, although the police
found ways to keep Algerians under surveillance (and to subject them to a brutal
instance of police violence in Paris in 1961). In a sense they were in a position to
«develop» themselves via access to higher wages and the possibility of remitting
some of their income to families in Algeria. More surprising, the French government – in another move to woo Algerians away from rebellion – adopted in 1958 a
program of what Americans would call affirmative action, reserving a proportion of
jobs in the civil service in both Algerian and European France for the recognized
social category, «les français musulmans d’Algérie». Efforts were made in European France to provide housing and other services to help acculturate Algerians to
life in France.22
Something similar was going on in Kenya after 1952. These were the years of
the Mau Mau Emergency, the brutal repression of a rebellion in Central Kenya that
involves mass relocations of peasants to cut off rebels from their supply base,
internment camps, torture and arbitrary punishment.23 But at the same time, the
state abolished restrictions on Africans growing lucrative cash crops that competed
with production on European farms, and attempted programs of improving land
access and security to select African farmers. As Hodge points out in his contribution to this volume, Kenya’s leading agricultural reform project, the Swynnerton
plan, was considered a great success. Meanwhile, the government undertook a program to «stabilize» urban work forces in key sectors, hoping that more regular
work, higher wages, better housing, and urban social services would wean Kenyans
away from their rural lifestyle and tendency to move back and forth between wage
labor and agriculture. The program turned the male worker, his wife and his children into something like a European worker, and all under the watchful eye of
teachers, nurses and bureaucrats.24
The juxtaposition of these efforts and the language in which officials and journalists talked about them reveal at the same time a deep anxiety that Africans were
really primitive, atavistic people, ready at a moment’s notice to go a binge of throatcutting, and hope that with modest incentives Africans were ready to adapt to their
place in an ordered class society, as yeoman farmers, owners of urban property or
22 T. Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization: The
Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca,
2006); A. Spire, Etrangers à la Carte: L’administration de l’immigration en France (1945–1975)
(Paris, 2005); R. Branche, La torture et l’armée
pendant la guerre dl’Algérie 1954–1962 (Paris,
2001).
23 On government violence and arbitrary punishment during the repression of Mau Mau, see D.
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Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty
War and the End of Empire (New York, 2006).
24 F. Cooper, On the African Waterfront: Urban Disorder and the Transformation of Work in Colonial
Mombasa (New Haven, 1987). On the rural side,
see S. Berry, No Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan
Africa (Madison, 1993).
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14
Frederick Cooper
wage workers. These were the two faces of the implicit version of modernization
theory that had developed among French and British bureaucracies well before it
was systematized by American social scientists. There was brittleness about this
way of thinking that could lead toward excesses of violence, or toward helping Africans gain a place in modern society. The reference point, of course, was ethnocentric: the end point of modernization was widely perceived to be European or North
American society. Academic modernization theory was in large part social scientists’ effort to take account of and provide a theoretical basis for the modernizing
policies developed in colonial bureaucracies.25
What is underplayed in critical analyses of development discourses and projects is how much this way of thinking provided people in the colonies with a basis
for making claims – for economic resources, for political voice, for recognition of
their existence as a «nation» among nations. In the mundane context of strike
negotiations in Dakar in 1946, a Senegalese trade unionist captured the situation
precisely when he silenced his French counterpart by stating, «Your goal is to elevate us to your level; without the means, we will never succeed».26 The Kenyan
leader Tom Mboya played this line brilliantly: as a trade union leader, he obtained a
large settlement for Mombasa dockworkers in 1955, and as leader of a political
party, he helped put Kenya on the track toward independence by positioning himself as the modernizing alternative to what British leaders perceived as a backwardlooking political movement.27 Leading politicians in French West Africa were
explicit in seeking political strategies that were both «horizontal» – based on solidarity among Africans, expressive of their collective ethos – and «vertical», a continued connection to European France from which Africans could insist upon entitlements that only the rich partner could provide.28 What is important here is that
social and political activists were not making claims as supplicants, but as citizens.
If imperial regimes were going to assert that the inhabitants of colonies belonged
within the polity, then those people could claim as entitlements what other citizens
expected.
A double transformation was at play in the middle of the twentieth century:
first, the increasingly solid foundations of the welfare state in Europe, and with
it the notion that citizenship implied entitlements to a certain level of social secu25 The American framework for understanding
26 Transcript of interview, 15 January 1946, between
modernization is inadequate. The prior development of a politics of modernization in French
and British bureaucracies also makes clear that
however much the Cold War shaped the contours
of modernization theory in the 1950s, it cannot
be seen as its point of origin. See also F. Cooper,
«Modernizing Bureaucrats, Backward Africans,
and the Development Concept», in Cooper/
Packard, International Development and the Social
Sciences, 64–92.
representatives of the Union des Syndicates of
Saint-Louis, and the Director of Personnel and
the Director of Finance of the Government General, K 405 (132), Archives du Sénégal.
27 Cooper, On the African Waterfront.
28 See several entries in the Senegalese newspapers
La Condition Humaine, 25 February 1953, 31 May
1956. I will be developing this argument further
in current research.
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)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
15
rity – a significant expansion of the entailments of citizenship; second, the possibility that people in the colonies could acquire at least some of the «qualities» of the
citizen – and with it social and economic as well as political entitlements.29 It was
in this context that development became less a matter of benevolent outsiders
assisting needy people in backward areas of the world than of citizens claiming
entitlements.
5. Development after Decolonization
Saying this brings us to the next transformation, easily underestimated in arguments about the continuities of neo-colonialism: independence turned entitlement
into supplication. European powers might choose to provide expertise and capital
to their former colonies – as all the papers in this collection make clear – but they
did not have to. Officials in the middle and late 1950s were quite frank about how
much of a burden they felt from colonized people’s insistence that they were entitled to – as one French politician put it -»equality in wages, equality in labour legislation, in social security benefits, equality in family allowances, in brief, equality in
standard of living».30 Such considerations were part of the cost-benefit analyses
that France and Britain – having long avoided getting so explicit – undertook
around 1956 and 1957. It was as a consequence of this kind of thinking that the
French government (in 1956) reversed its centralizing view, particularly of economic policy, in favour of what it called «territorialization», allowing elections
under universal suffrage that produced African governments that were given
authority over their budgets, out of which they had to pay, using their taxpayers’
money, the salaries that civil service unions negotiated and the cost of social services. In 1957 the British government undertook a cost-benefit analysis of each colony, and when the results came in that Britain stood more to gain from a positive
post-independence relationship with its former charges than from continuing to
maintain sovereignty, it gave the government of Harold Macmillan a basis on
which to negotiate independence agreements, regardless of whether the Africa
hands had pronounced a particular territory «ready» for independence.31
The other side of colonial powers’ shedding obligations was that newly independent countries acquired the possibility of shopping around for patrons. The
Soviet Union, the United States and Germany – as the papers of Katsakioris,
Bamba, and Unger make clear – were quite willing to play this game alongside the
former colonial powers. The game was not played among equals, for a few patrons
with deep resources existed among many potential clients with a great need for
29 In addition to my Decolonization and African So-
ciety, see A. Eckert, «Regulating the Social: Social
Security, Social Welfare and the State in Late Colonial Tanzania», Journal of African History 45
(2004), 457–489, and J. Lewis, Empire State-Buil-
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ding: War and Welfare in Kenya, 1925–52 (Oxford,
2000).
30 P.-H. Teitgen, Assemblée Nationale, Débats, 20
March 1956, 1072–1073.
31 Cooper, Decolonization, chapter 10.
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16
Frederick Cooper
resources. The patrons were capable of inflicting great harm as well as providing
useful assistance: the arming of client states or opposition movements has had
deadly effects long after Cold War rivalries became irrelevant.
At the end of the 1940s tried the United States to assert a leading role in development, even as colonial powers were still claiming development as their domain,
but, in relation to its economic might, it was a miserly contributor to aid programs
and at times a bastion of market orthodoxy. That such non-colonial states as those
of Scandinavia joined the development apparatus was another sign that development was becoming a postcolonial question. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights of 1948 both proclaimed that each human being had a right to a minimal
level of sustenance and enshrined the principle of state sovereignty. In that sense,
the internationalization of development had a double meaning: it was a matter of
universal concern, but fragmented responsibility.
The world of development has offered a variety of approaches and a variety of
linkages to scholars and practitioners in ex-colonial polities; development orthodoxies have been far less orthodox than images suggest. Indeed, the Economic
Commission for Latin America was articulating a highly critical view of the benefits of international trade and investment from the late 1940s, long before development economics or modernization theory had attained any academic stature in the
United States, producing a lineage of critical economics that extended to Africa
through such scholars as Walter Rodney and Samir Amin.32 The fashions of
«Western» economics have themselves varied. The «big push», balanced growth,
unbalanced growth, growth with redistribution, basic needs, structural adjustment, sustainable development, microcredit – all these have had their place in
the development pantheon, sitting alongside institutional tendencies to emphasize
«one size fits all» and arrogant assertion that the latest theory represents the
ultimate.33 The «Washington Consensus» – market-driven development – of the
1980s was neither a full consensus nor a durable one, even among some of its
leading exponents, including, eventually, the World Bank. Shifting fashions could
be a problem as well as a virtue – producing fads and bandwagon jumping in development organizations – but the heterodoxy of development thinking over the
nearly seventy years of development history should be recognized. The articles in
this collection effectively illustrate the availability of alternatives shortly after decolonization – whether and how they are used is yet another question with no single
answer.
32 Economic Commission for Latin America, Eco-
nomic Survey of Latin America 1949 (New York,
1951); W. Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London, 1972); S. Amin, Accumulation on a
World Scale (New York, 1974).
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33 H. W. Arndt, Economic Development: The History
of an Idea (Chicago, 1987).
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17
6. The Good, the Bad and the History
The endless debates over whether foreign aid is good or bad; whether development
attacks universally recognized evils such as poverty, sickness, illiteracy and female
subordination, or whether such aid imposed a Western modernity on people who
have their own way of living – all of these issues might take on a different slant if
one poses the questions historically.34 Aid is «foreign» (and it is aid) because of a
«we»-»they» distinction that it both presumes and reinforces: the wealthy give to
the poor. But the boundary of the «we» and the «they» has a history. For a brief
moment after World War II, the imperial «we» – with all the paternalism, hierarchy
and, at times, violence that concept implied – meant that colonized people had a
different sort of language: a language of rights and entitlement, to use. In some
contexts, they had an institutional structure in which to articulate those demands
as elections for representatives to the French parliament in Africa or participation
of African deputies in debates in France.
Alternative «we’s» to both imperial incorporation and national separation
appeared on the horizon for a time: turning empire into confederation or commonwealth, in which former colonies and metropoles would participate as equals in
certain governmental functions while acting autonomously in territorial affairs35;
a Third-World bloc that could mutually provide trade connections, capital formation and expertise bypassing ex-colonial powers; international revolution creating a
Communist bloc that would aggregate and exchange material and intellectual
resources; or an idea of «global citizenship» that refuses the social and economic
cloistering that state sovereignty implies and insists that all people, by virtue of
their humanity, are entitled to have their basic needs met. The latter view, seemingly the most utopian of all, has been present in the background ever since the
fading away of colonial empires, coming to the fore in periodic public mobilizations, such as the Jubilee 2000 campaign: the ultimate rationale for development
programs crossing political boundaries is that the «we» and the «they» are not so
separate after all.36
It is the particular pattern of decolonization that defined development as a relationship between unequal states rather than any of the alternatives. Once small,
poorly endowed countries proliferated, each leadership, uncertain of its hold on
power, had more of an interest in cultivating patron-client relations with rich countries, corporations or international financial institutions than it did in intensifying
34 W. Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the
West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill
and So Little Good (New York, 2006); Sachs, End
of Poverty.
35 This possibility was if anything the most commonly accepted by both African and European
French politicians in the late 1940s and early
1950s, unraveling after the «territorialization»
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reforms of 1956. The episode is one of the subjects of my current research.
36 For expansive views of what development can
mean, see A. Sen, Development as Freedom (New
York, 1999); M. Nussbaum, Women and Human
Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge, 2000).
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
18
Frederick Cooper
economic relations with equivalently poor countries. Uncertain that governments
could respond to the demands of a citizenry that had briefly shaken the power of
wealthy colonial empires, the leaders of new states generally became wary of
democratic politics and of activist organizations–trade unions, farmers’ associations, etc. – and more concerned to use their control over the interface between
national and international economies to keep control of resources in their own
hands. They became what I have elsewhere called «gatekeeper states». They were
in this sense successors to colonial states, which had also tried to insure that economic and political relations passed through the nodes they controlled – a strategy
of using vertical ties and trying to limit horizontal ones (that is of colonized peoples
with each other). Gatekeeping became a crucial aspect of the development regime
as it took shape after independence (a topic underemphasized in the papers in this
volume), for governing elites had a great opportunity to control the narrow channels left by the shortcomings of colonial development, insuring their friends and
clients would have access and their rivals would not.37
The most compelling of all the critiques of current development practices flows
from this historical pattern and its structural consequences: the turning of capital,
expertise and long-distance connections into a resource by governing elites; concentrating resources rather than making them more accessible to people who need
them most; and the formation of networks of clientage between elites of rich and
poor countries, without the realistic possibility of sanction by democratic processes. Both developed and underdeveloped countries use the fiction of a sovereignty regime to maintain their vertical connection without clear accountability:
the sovereignty of the developing countries protect them from interference in their
«internal» affairs, while donor countries, financial organizations and NGOs, if they
want the relationship to continue, need the permission of the receiving country to
act within it. African leaders have proven quite adept at sidestepping the everchanging demands of international financial institutions – at least when it comes
to their personal interests and control.38
What is least persuasive – because the least historical – in the critiques of development practices and ideologies is a juxtaposition of «good» indigenous practices
and «good» social movements against «bad» development. Africans and Asians
have been involved for centuries in short- and long-distance trade relations; kingdoms and empires have come and gone; people have been incorporated willingly or
by violence into polities; and those polities have in turn been shaped and reshaped
by the wave of European colonisations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
37 I have developed an argument around the gate-
38 See the arguments from very different view-
keeper state in Cooper, Africa since 1940. See also
my «Possibility and Constraint: African Independence in Historical Perspective», Journal of
African History 49 (2008), 167–196.
points of Easterly, White Man’s Burden, and J. Ferguson, Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal
World Order (Durham, 2006).
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%',
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
19
in which even the most oppressed have been far from passive participants. The economic elites of South and Southeast Asia draw on centuries of experience in building the commercial networks that in the sixteenth and seventeenth century
attracted European explorers and traders, whose own wealth depended on integrating those elites into commercial networks centered on Europe. The phase of European political domination and exploitation in Asia did not eclipse the relevance of
control of land, credit, commercial savvy and networks by indigenous elites. In
Africa, commercial networks were more vulnerable to colonial and then postcolonial states, but the power of entrenched interests and networks in local, regional
and international networks is no less important for that fact.
The very narrowness of commercial channels developed by colonial regimes
has made gatekeeping an effective strategy for self-serving rulers. Rivals tried to
develop networks that bypassed government control. In the 1980s and the 1990s
Angola was an extreme example of a gatekeeping state dependent on tight control
of oil revenue, fighting a gate-circling rebellion enriched by diamond smuggling (a
pattern that outlived the support both sides had from Cold War allies). The economic and social strategies of actually existing communities are the products of
these histories, and both the valuable experiences of managing complex environments and the linkages that serve narrow interests at home and abroad are consequences of this long history. The myth of «community» is not a compelling point of
departure for finding alternatives to current development strategies – this myth
can be as self-serving for a ruling clique as the myth of «modern» expertise has
been for international financial institutions.39
Some scholars have posited «social movements» as an alternative to approaches
to development centered on top-down expertise and state actors. Others advocate
modesty as the alternative to the big projects. The first argument has a point, but
not as a generalization: how does one distinguish a process of network building
and community mobilizing that produces institutions of microcredit that benefit
thousands of artisans and farmers from a movement that produces a Pol Pot? The
category of social movement is in itself of little help, nor are appeals for «radical
connectivity». Radical connectivity can produce vicious movements – think of
those that devastated Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1990s, the Lord’s Army of
Uganda that still fights on, various movements in the eastern Congo since the late
1990s, etc. The value of connectivity depends on the institutions to which connection is made.40
39 The Cameroonian journalist Axelle Kabou has
vigorously dissected the use of the myth of African authenticity by African rulers anxious to avoid the accumulation of wealth in any hands but
their own. Et si l’Afrique refusait le développement?
(Paris, 1991).
40 Here lies the problem with alternatives to deve-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%'4
lopment articulated by Arturo Escobar. There is
much in the possibilities he offers, but at his level of generalization, they could as easily make
things worse as better: Encountering Development
and «Development, Trans/modernities, and the
Politics of Theory», Focaal: European Journal of
Anthropology 52 (2008), 127–135.
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20
Frederick Cooper
The development idea, from the time it came into colonial thinking to the present, reflected a coming to grips with the fact that markets in themselves do not
necessarily provide the conditions for economic growth and human welfare – in
imperial, national and local economies. Indigenous communities may contain and
pass on valuable knowledge of how to use local resources, but their leaders have
blind spots and motivated by self-interest as much as are outside «experts». Sharing ideas and expertise across regions – «South to South» – may play a bigger part
in present and future development efforts than criticism of an all-effacing «North»
allow. One can give due weight to the asymmetric nature of colonial and postcolonial relationships and still move beyond assumptions that «development» is an
exogenous imposition on self-sustaining societies. People’s wants and expectations
have been formed through interaction and adaptation as well as through efforts at
maintaining social integrity.41
To say this is to point to the importance of questions of who intervenes, for what
reasons, through what relationships, and to what effect. There is no evading,
through generalized praise or denunciation of «development» or «modernity», the
importance of analyzing specific situations. Colonial and postcolonial states; development «experts» around the world; African and Asian governments; international
corporations and financial institutions; landlords, peasants and workers; men and
women – they all bring their histories to their places in addressing these issues.
«Community» no more represents primal innocence than does the IMF . The people who devise plans for reforming agriculture, like landlords and peasants, come
to development encounters with their experiences, with their own (always limited)
visions of themselves and the future, and their own interests. So, too, do the builders of dams and factories, the people who might be flooded out by the dam or
employed by the factory, and others whose vested interests might be threatened by
any benefits that an innovation might confer. Colonial states tried to direct development efforts in their own directions and were faced with the unintended consequences of their efforts, not least of which were changes in the institutional and
rhetorical resources which people in the colonies had to express their demands.
Independent states tried to turn development into a national project, while fearing
that a too-involved citizenry might find the state’s efforts wanting, or that the
unevenness of development might provide resources that could be used against
governing elites’ interests.
The era of colonial and postcolonial development was not without its successes
from the 1950s to the 1970s, and one of the consequences of the 1970s world recession and the harsh and short-sighted policies imposed on poor countries by
international financial institutions was the destruction of the modest expectations
41 See for example P. Peters, eds., Development En-
counters (Cambridge/MA, 2001).
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)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
21
people had as citizens of self-governing countries – access to water, health care,
education, transportation, regional and international markets, and other resources
that individuals and families could use in different ways. Government intervention
means something different when a politics of citizenship shaped – to some degree
at least – its contours, and another when networks of clientage (within and across
national boundaries) proceed with few countervailing forces. These complex trajectories, and the even more complex ways in which different sets of actors fit into
them, shape the possibilities that exist for change.
The colonial genealogy of the development concept and the vested interests that
people in development institutions have acquired do not in themselves show that
their actions today are a force for harm, any more than the assumption that poor
people will better their condition if left to their own devices is a force for the good.
The outcomes of development initiatives have ranged from the disastrous to the
mitigated. But the question is: to what alternative scenario are they being compared? When states are not capable of providing the basic infrastructure for commerce, education and health, economies of extraction and predation may become
the most attractive alternative. Such processes benefit particular interests inside
and outside the countries in question, but the benefits for «global capitalism» are
dubious, and the harm to the populations of poor countries immense.
The most important unintended consequence of the advent of development in
colonial and then postcolonial politics has been to set out an issue that can be talked
about in its painful concreteness around the globe. There is no intrinsic reason
why the situation of near-starvation of children in a refugee camp in Chad should
create controversy in Geneva or London. That it does may contribute to certain
images of «them» – the poor and the abject – but it also emphasizes the complicity
of «us» in the past and future of all people. It raises questions of who is connected
to whom, through what past trajectory and with what future implications. Within
«underdeveloped countries», the development idea, from its entry into the colonial
lexicon in the 1940s, carried the implication that states should «develop» their people, that those people should have a say in how the process is carried out, and that
something is wrong with a local government and world institutions when people
do not benefit from such a process. The history of development suggests that in the
future as in much of the past; the consequences of actions cannot be evaluated by
generalizations about «modernity» or «development», whether by advocates of
development initiatives or by their critics. There is no substitute for specific analysis of contexts and possibilities when the goal is to examine who is helped, who is
hurt, and who might find unexpected opportunities or constraints in programs for
economic change. And if in the past we can trace the consequences – positive, negative, intended, unintended – of specific actions, in the future we need to be able to
assess responsibility and accountability. Most important of all, the history of development is a history of changing expectations.
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)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
22
ABSTRACTS
Frederick Cooper
Although some scholars think of economic development as a project of self-evident
benevolence and others consider it as the imposition of an unwanted modernity,
recent scholarship, such as the articles in this volume, suggest a more complex history. Colonial governments from the late 1930s sought to assert legitimacy and foster the cooperation of colonized people via development programs, but development quickly became politicized – a basis for claims on the resources of empire, an
insistence on voice in deciding what development policies should be. The history of
development suggests that in the future as in much of the past the consequences of
actions cannot be evaluated by generalizations about «modernity», neither by
advocates of development initiatives nor by their critics. There is no substitute for
specific analysis of who might find opportunities or constraints in programs for economic change. Through the politics of development, poverty became an issue not
only in remote parts of Africa or Asia, but also in New York and Geneva. Most important of all, the history of development is a history of changing expectations.
Die Historiografie von Entwicklung
Manche Wissenschaftler halten wirtschaftliche Entwicklung für eine selbstevidente
Wohltat. Andere sind davon überzeugt sind, dass sie anderen Menschen eine keinesfalls gewünschte Modernität auferlegt. Die Aufsätze dieser Ausgabe des JMEH
führen in eine viel komplexere Geschichte ein. Die Kolonialregierungen der späten
1930er Jahre wollten mithilfe von Entwicklungsprogrammen ihre Herrschaft legitimieren und die Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Kolonisierten fördern, doch Entwicklung wurde rasch zu einem politisierten Begriff – er wurde Grundlage von Ansprüchen und Forderungen nach Rechten und Ressourcen, die sich nun gegen das Empire
richteten und mit entschieden, was Entwicklungspolitik zu sein hatte. Eine solche
Geschichte von Entwicklung hütet sich vor generalisierenden Urteilen und Vorstellungen von «Modernität», unabhängig davon ob der Begriff von den Protagonisten
dieser Geschichte affirmativ oder kritisch verwendet wurde. Es geht kein Weg an
konkreten Fallbeispielen vorbei, die sich mit der Frage beschäftigen, wem Modernisierungsprogramme nutzten und wem sie schadeten oder welchem Gewinn welche
Kosten gegenüberstanden. Dank der Entwicklungspolitiken wurde Armut nicht nur
in den entlegensten Gebieten Afrikas oder Asiens als wichtiges Thema problematisiert, sondern auch in New York und Genf. Von besonderer Bedeutung ist aber, dass
die Geschichte von Entwicklung eine sich stets verändernder Erwartungen ist.
Ecrire l’histoire du développement
Pour certains scientifiques, le développement économique est un bienfait évident
en soi. D’autres sont convaincus qu’il impose une modernité à ceux qui ne l’ont ni
souhaitée, ni demandée. Les articles de cette édition du JMEH inaugurent une histoire beaucoup plus complexe. Les gouvernements coloniaux de la fin des années
1930 souhaitaient légitimer leur domination à l’aide de programmes de développement qui renforçaient la coopération entre les colonisés. Toutefois, le développe-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%))
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
ment devint rapidement un concept politique et politisé à partir duquel l’on exigeait
des droits et des ressources. Ces revendications étaient désormais dirigées contre
l’Empire. On exigeait la participation aux décisions concernant ce que devait être la
politique de développement. Une telle histoire du développement se méfie des
jugements généralisés et des conceptions habituelles de ce qu’est la «modernité»,
et ce indépendamment de l’utilisation affirmative et/ou critique desdites conceptions par les protagonistes de cette histoire. Des exemples concrets qui posent un
certain nombre de questions se sont avérés absolument nécessaires, parmi elles: à
qui profitaient ces programmes de modernisation? A qui nuisaient-ils? Quel(s)
profit(s) confronte(nt) quel(s) coût(s)? Grâce aux politiques de développement, la
pauvreté a été désormais non seulement problématisée dans les régions les plus
reculées de l’Afrique ou de l’Asie, mais également à New York et à Genève. Cependant il est également très important de ne pas oublier que l’histoire du développement est toujours une histoire des attentes qui changent.
23
ABSTRACTS
Frederick Cooper
New York University
King Juan Carlos I of Spain Building
53 Washington Square South, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10012
[email protected]
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)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
24
Modernizing Missions:
Approaches to «Developing»
Joseph M. Hodge
British Colonial Expertise,
Post-Colonial Careering and the Early History
of International Development
This article attempts to deepen our understanding of the colonial-postcolonial transition by examining and documenting the continued and active involvement of
some of the many technical officers who had their professional start as part of the
British colonial service, but who later went on to subsequent postcolonial careers in
international development. It begins with a brief overview of the post-1945 generation of colonial officials, surveying their early background and experiences and the
numerous postcolonial career paths they took. As a way of fleshing out these trajectories further, the article centers on a particular set of rural development projects in
Kenya in the 1950s and 1960s, highlighting some of the colonial agricultural officers involved who went on to prominent international careers, most notably with
the World Bank. As Bank policy shifted in the late 1960s and 1970s towards an
emphasis on agriculture and rural modernization, these former colonial experts
found their field experience and knowledge in great demand. Many rose to positions of leadership and were instrumental in formulating some of the Bank’s most
high profile Integrated Rural Development Programs (IRDP ).
The study, thus, offers a different and novel approach, one that treats development as history, and that uses history as the methodology for studying development, rather than employing development theory to explain history.1 In doing so, it
seeks to gauge whether the developmental narratives and frameworks laid out during the last years of empire were reproduced after the end of formal colonialism,
and whether through the lingering presence and influence of these former colonial
experts they became part of the conventional wisdom and lexicon of international
organizations and postcolonial states. In other words, it examines their careers and
work as an important thread of continuity across the seemingly fundamental rupture of decolonization and independence.
1 N. Cullather, «Development? It’s History», Dip-
lomatic History 24 (2000) 4, 642.
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)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
25
1. Personnel
According to Anthony Kirk-Greene, as many as one-third of Britain’s last generation of Colonial Service/Her Majesty’s Overseas Civil Service officers went on to
some kind of relevant overseas activity. Many continued to work in the former colonial territories for a number of years, or for the British government as part of the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Ministry for Overseas Development
(which later became the Overseas Development Administration). Others became
involved in the burgeoning network of international organizations such as the
UN’s specialist agencies and the World Bank. Others still were hired as advisers by
international charities and consultancy companies.2
The percentage of professional officers from departments such as agriculture,
forestry, survey and veterinary who went on to related postcolonial employments
was, given their level of specialized knowledge and expertise, even higher. The current study is based on interviews, correspondences and surveys gathered from
approximately ninety former British colonial officials between August, 2006, and
July, 2008. Most of the respondents were originally based in the colonial agriculture and agricultural research services, or related natural resource fields such as
fisheries, forestry, geology, irrigation, land use surveying, soil conservation and veterinary. In addition, the career profiles of another fifty British colonial officials who
were involved in agriculture and rural development in the post-World War Two
period have been constructed from the Oxford Development Records Project and
the United Nations Career Records Project, housed at the Bodleian Library in
Oxford (See: Table I, page 26).
Several clear patterns emerge from this survey. About one-third of these officials (32 per cent) continued working in the same country for a period of years following independence (some for as long as ten or twelve years), or else were hired
on by independent governments in other former colonial territories. Owing to their
specialized knowledge and extended field experience, there was for many of them a
relatively seamless transition from being late colonial technocrats to becoming
postcolonial, international development experts. Roughly half (49 per cent) would
find themselves working for the British government at some point in their postcolonial careers. Most of these were involved in the UK ’s foreign and overseas efforts,
filling the ranks of Britain’s own international development agencies. Just over half
(53 per cent) would also find their services in demand among international organizations such as the World Bank (17 per cent), or else the Food and Agriculture
Organization (14 per cent) and other United Nations agencies such as UNDP ,
UNESCO , UNCTAD and the ILO . Not surprisingly, a large number would also
become employed at overseas or international agricultural research centers, either
2 A. Kirk-Greene, «Towards a Retrospective Re-
cord: Part I – What Became of Us?», The Overseas
Pensioner 82 (2002), Oct., 30–34; idem, «Decolo-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%)6
nization: The Ultimate Diaspora», Journal of
Contemporary History 36 (Jan 2001), 1, 133–151.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
26
Joseph M. Hodge
Table I: Post-Colonial Employment*
Remained After Independence
Another Former Colonial Territory
Department of Technical Cooperation/Ministry of Overseas Development/
Overseas Development Administration
Colonial/Commonwealth Development Corp
1
12
UK Agricultural Research Stationsb
13
f
g
8
World Bank
23
FAO
19
Other United Nations Agenciesc
11
CGIAR Systemd
10
9
Private International Companies/Consultancy Firmsf
27
Freelance Consultancyg
52
Academic
21
Total
d
e
2
UK Overseas Research Institutesa
Private, Non-International
c
8
2
Other International Organizationse
b
22
British Council
UK Government
a
9
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Commonwealth Secretariat
*
35
3
286
The data in this table is based on information from 87 survey respondents and 50 ODRP/UNCRP
career profiles. Many listed more than one postcolonial career.
These include the Tropical Products Institute, the Centre for Overseas Pest Research, the Land
Development Division of Overseas Surveys (later, Land Resources Development Centre), the Commonwealth Mycological Institute, and the Natural Resources Institute.
These include the Cambridge Plant Breeding Institute, the Scottish Plant Breeding Institute, Scottish Horticultural Research Institute, Glass House Crops Research Institute, John Innes Horticultural Institute, East Malling, the National Vegetable Research Station, and the Grasslands Research
Institute.
Includes the UNDP, UNFPA, UNESCO, UNCTAD, ILO, UN International Civil Aviation Organization, and the UNHRC.
The CGIAR network includes ICRISAT, ICARDA, IITA, ISNAR, CIP, IRRI, CIMMYT, and ICRAF.
Includes the IMF, Asian Development Bank, WaterAid, the International Union of Local Authorities, the Church Missionary Society, and the CCTA.
Includes Hunting Technical Services, Harrison Fleming Advisory Services, Shell Research, Unilever
Plantation Group, Booker Agricultural and Technical Services, the Metal Box Co., Imperial Chemical Industry, Dunlop, and many others.
Includes World Bank, FAO, UNESCO, UNDP, UNIDO, ODM/ODA, USAID, DANIDA, IFAD,
CIDA, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Nordic Board, Asian Development
Bank, European Commission, OXFAM, IDRC (Canada), and many others including most developing countries.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%)8
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
27
UK -based such as the Tropical Products Institute or for the Consultative Group
for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR ) network. Finally, a large number
(20 per cent) were scooped up by private international companies and consultancy
firms like Hunting Technical Services, or else ended their careers as freelance
international consultants (38 per cent), often working on a contract basis for the
same agency or organization that had previously employed them.
2. Early Background and Experiences
It should be noted that much of the evidence for this study comes from direct personal reminiscences that detail the past life experiences of the respondents. When
using oral testimony of this kind it is important to be aware of the often dynamic
relationship between the interviewer and interviewee. Interviews must be seen as
«knowledge transactions», in which the nature of the context surrounding the
transaction must be considered carefully.3 The interviewer’s own predisposed
assumptions and presence may lead to a suppression or even invention of memory.
In this particular case, we should be mindful that the testimony from these former
colonial officials is what they have said as retired officers some forty or fifty years
after the events, and may or may not reflect how they felt at the time. But while we
must be sensitive to what Stephan Miescher calls the «situation of the narration»,
oral testimonies still provide valuable insights into historical processes and practices such as colonial development schemes.4
Most of the officials examined in this study were first recruited to work overseas
in the 1940s and 1950s, and it was during this period of late colonialism that their
thinking about development and modernization first began to gel. As Chart I indicates, the majority of these men were selected for their first assignments in the
colonial empire between the years 1945 and 1960. This makes them part of the last
generation of highly-trained, colonial technical officials, who were hired during
what some historians have referred to as the «Second Colonial Occupation,» but
who in practice ended up overseeing the final unraveling of British control in the
late 1950s and early 1960s.5 Although they were stationed throughout the empire,
most spent their colonial years on tour in sub-Saharan Africa, with the greatest
numbers being assigned to Kenya (28), Tanganyika (25), Nigeria (23), Uganda (15),
Nyasaland (14), the Gold Coast (10), Northern Rhodesia (10) and Sierra Leone (7).
Outside of Africa, Trinidad (7), where the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture was located, and Malaya (7) were the most common postings (see: Chart I and
Table II, page 28).
3 C. van Onselen, «Peasants Speak: The Reconst-
ruction of a Rural Life from Oral Testimony»,
Journal of Peasant Studies 20 (1993) 3, 494–514.
4 S. Miescher, «The Life Histories of Boakye Yiadom Akasease Kofi of Abetifi, Kwawu,» in African Words, African Voices: Critical Practices in Oral
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%)9
History, ed. L. White, S. Miescher and D. William
Cohen (Bloomington/Indiana, 2001), 162–193.
5 D. A. Low and J. M. Lonsdale, «Introduction:
Towards the New Order 1945–1963», in History
of East Africa, ed. D. A. Low and A. Smith (Oxford, 1976), 13.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
Joseph M. Hodge
28
No. of Individuals
Chart I: First Year of Overseas Service or Work
Year
Table II: No. of Officers Who Served in Each Colony/Territory
Aden
2
Nyasaland
Jamaica
1
British Somaliland
1
Ascension Island
1
Sarawak
2
14
Kenya
28
Burma
1
Assam
2
Sierra Leone
7
Leeward Islands
1
Ceylon
1
Australia
1
Singapore
1
Malaya
7
Colonial Office, London
3
Bahamas
1
Solomon Islands
1
Malta
1
East Africa High Commission
1
Basutoland
1
St. Helena
1
Mauritius
1
Fiji
2
Bechuanaland Protectorate
4
Sudan
2
Montserrat
2
Gambia
Bengal
1
Tanganyika
Nigeria
23
1
25
Gilbert and Ellice Islands
1
1
Trinidad (ICTA)
7
North Borneo
1
Gold Coast
10
British Cameroon
1
Uganda
15
Bermuda
Northern Rhodesia
British Guyana
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%),
10
1
Hong Kong
1
Zanzibar
1
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
29
Across sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere at this time a new kind of colonial
social engineering and state intervention was embarked on. As part of the Colonial
Development and Welfare Acts of 1940 and 1945, subventions of capital, research
facilities and new organizational and administrative abilities were dramatically
increased, enabling colonial bureaucratic power to be extended into rural areas as
never before.6 A great surge in training and recruitment of both administrative and
technical personnel also took place, with over 12 000 new appointments made
between 1944 and 1957. Nearly 40 per cent of the new recruits were in the technical fields.7
Among the new cohort of recruits were those whose careers are surveyed here.
They would have been in their early to mid-twenties when they first began, which
means that all but a couple of them were born before the Second World War, with
the majority between 1920 and 1939. Perhaps not surprisingly, quite a few came
from families with connections to the empire (in some cases having been born overseas, while in others knowing of close family relations who had spent time working
in one or more territories).8 The great majority of those who became involved in
colonial agriculture or agricultural research came from rural backgrounds, often
born and raised on family farms, or reared in small villages in Wales or Yorkshire or
Scotland. For them, working overseas held obvious attractions since the opportunities for farming in the UK at this time were limited and declining. Some were also
motivated by the desire to help improve the lives of colonial peoples.9
Perhaps even more crucial than their background in shaping their attitudes and
perceptions about development were their early colonial experiences. Often, it was
in these formative years as colonial experts that key conceptual methodologies and
development strategies were first devised, or that critical mistakes were made and
lessons learned, which would stick with them for the rest of their lives. For despite
the vast influx of financing, expertise and state bureaucracy, many of the new development ventures of the early postwar years proved to be problematic, and at times,
6 F. Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The
Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996), Ch. 5; M. Van Beusekom and D.
Hodgson, «Lessons Learned? Development Experiences in the Late Colonial Period», Journal of
African History 41 (2000), 29–33; S. Clarke,
«A Technocratic Imperial State? The Colonial Office and Scientific Research, 1940–1960», Twentieth Century British History 18 (2007) 4, 453–
480.
7 A. Kirk-Greene, On Crown Service: A History of
HM Colonial and Overseas Civil Services 1837–
1997 (London-New York, 1999), 52, 77.
8 Information in this paragraph is based on interviews I conducted in May and June, 2007: Interview with Alexander Storrar, Lodsworth, Eng-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%)4
land, 10 June 2007; Interview with Alec
McCallum, Bristol, England, 3 June 2007; Interview with J.A.N. Wallis, Leominster, Herefordshire, 1 June 2007; Interview with Hubert
Allen, Marston Village, Oxford, England, 30 May
2007; Interview with Anthony Cole, Abergavenny, Wales, 4 June 2007.
9 For some examples of colonial service recruits
who were motivated by philanthropic intentions,
see: Interview with John Davis, Ross-on-Wye,
Herefordshire, 31 May 2007; Interview with Tom
Unwin, Milverton, England, 13 June 2007; Interview with Ronald Watts, Gilwern, Monmouthshire,Wales, 4 June 2007. See also, R. Watts,
Eyes on Africa: A Fifty Year Commentary (York,
2005), 6.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
30
Joseph M. Hodge
unworkable. As colonial regimes increasingly resorted to heavy-handed state measures and compulsory legislation to solve rural problems, they inadvertently deepened social discontent and anti-colonial resistance in many territories.10 Such
structural inadequacies often ignited bureaucratic tensions and policy debates, not
only between metropolitan ministries and local colonial administrations, but
within the colonial state itself, between, for example, administrative and technical
departments as well as among personnel within separate departments. Such tensions contributed to what sometimes amounted to a governmental impasse. Much
of the friction and paralysis of late colonialism also reflected the competing aims of
policy itself, as colonial governments strove to balance the imperatives of reasserting order and stability on the one hand, and intensifying production and productivity on the other.11
3. Rural Development: The Swynnerton Plan and the
Million-Acre Settlement Scheme
One of the most influential colonial development ventures was the plan for the
intensification of smallholder agriculture in Kenya, better known as the Swynnerton Plan. The plan was named after Sir Roger Swynnerton, the Assistant Director
of Agriculture for Field Services between 1951 and 1954. In the early 1950s, Swynnerton, along with Leslie Brown and Alexander (Sandy) Storrar, began laying out
the blueprints for the scheme, which called for the introduction of high-value cash
crops such as coffee and tea, and the consolidation of individual land holdings in
the African reserves.12 The Plan drew heavily on Storrar’s pioneering work with
farm planning on European farms in the western region of Kenya, as well as Leslie
10 The historiography on local responses to the late
imperial initiatives is considerable and has
grown extensively since the 1980s. See, for example, L. Cliffe, «Nationalism and the Reaction
to Enforced Agricultural Change in Tanganyika
during the Colonial Period» in Socialism in Tanzania: An Interdisciplinary Reader, ed. L. Cliffe
and J. Saul (Nairobi, 1972), 17–24; W. Beinart,
«Soil Erosion, Conservation and Ideas about Development: A Southern African Experience,
1900–1960», Journal of Southern African Studies
11 (1984) 1, 52–83; D. Throup, The Economic and
Social Origins of Mau Mau 1945–53 (London,
1988); S. Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison, 1990);
L. L. Bessant, «Coercive Development: Land
Shortage, Forced Labour, and Colonial Development in the Chiweshe Reserve, Colonial Zimbabwe, 1938–1946», International Journal of African Historical Studies 25 (1992) 1, 39–65; F. K.
Danquah, «Rural Discontent and Decolonization
in Ghana, 1945–1951», Agricultural History 68
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%+&
(1994) 1, 1–19; F. Mackenzie, Land, Ecology and
Resistance in Kenya, 1880–1952 (Portsmouth, NH,
1998); D. L. Hodgson, «Taking Stock: State Control, Ethnic Identity and Pastoralist Development
in Tanganyika, 1948–1958», Journal of African
History 41 (2000), 55–78.
11 For a fuller discussion of these conflicting imperatives and constraints see, J. M. Hodge, Triumph
of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development
and the Legacies of British Colonialism (Athens,
2007), 207–253.
12 For details of the Swynnerton Plan see, R. J. M.
Swynnerton, A Plan to Intensify the Development
of African Agriculture in Kenya (Nairobi, 1954);
M.P.K. Sorrenson, Land Reform in Kikuyu Country (London, 1967);A. Thurston, The Intensification of Smallholder Agriculture in Kenya: The Genesis and Implementation of the Swynnerton Plan,
Oxford Development Records Project, Report 6
(Oxford, 1984). See also Bodleian Library of
Commonwealth and African Studies (BLCAS)
MSS Afr. s. 1717, Swynnerton Plan, Box (18) L. H.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
31
Brown’s ecological surveys of Central and Nyanza Province. Both techniques were
adapted to the African reserves in the mid-1950s, where areas were divided into different ecological zones based on the association of different plant communities
with certain kinds of soils and rainfall.13 This allowed high-value cash or food crops
to be identified for every zone: Above 7000 feet was the tea zone, while between
7000 and 5000 feet coffee was planted; below that were crops like pineapple in a
narrow altitude band, and then horticultural crops like snap beans and cashews; in
drier areas such as the north side of the Abedares and around Mount Kenya, pyrethrum was selected.14 In the coffee zones east of the Rift Valley, for example, farms
were laid out on the ridge sloping down, with the area divided into food crops on
the top, fodder and wetland crops at the bottom, and coffee in the middle. Farmers
didn’t get their coffee trees until they had bench-terraced the land along the contour and planted a patch of napier grass, used for mulching, down at the bottom.15
The government provided the planting material and other inputs on credit, as well
as marketing and extension services.
Behind the new approach in Central Providence was the reality of increasing
individual ownership and open rebellion during the Mau Mau emergency, which
gave the colonial administration extraordinary power to reorganize land use and
tenure.16 Elsewhere, in Western Kenya, increasing accumulation and land hunger
was fueling a spontaneous enclosure movement in many districts, which officials
endeavored to co-opt and direct.17 The Swynnerton Plan actively sought the consolidation of existing land units and the creation of freehold, individual farms with legal
title in the high potential zones of Central Province and later Nyanza. The aim was
to establish a wealthy African landed elite, but also middle peasant households on
smallholdings of at least seven to ten acres, which, it was estimated, would be able to
earn a yearly income of about £100 over and above the family’s subsistence needs.18
Brown, Box (20) V.E.M. Burke, Box (26) G. A.
Classen, Box (80) T. Hughes-Rice, Box (122) Sir
C. Pereira, Box (149) A. Storrar, Box (150) Sir
R. Swynnerton, Box (163) J. A. N. Wallis.
13 L. Brown, «Development and Farm Planning in
the African Areas of Kenya», East African Agricultural Journal 23 (1958) 2, 67–73; A. Storrar, «The
Principles of Farm Planning», Tropical Agriculture 36 (July 1959) 3, 161–169; BCASL MSS Afr.
s. 1717 Swynnerton Plan, Box (18) L. H. Brown,
Box (149) A. Storrar.
14 The following information on crop selection and
zoning comes from an interview with Hugh
Bennison, Tenterden, Kent, 11 June 2007. From
1956 through to independence, Bennison was
an Agricultural Officer in Machakos District and
then a Regional Agricultural Officer in the Eastern Rift Valley and later in Central Kenya.
15 Throup, Economic and Social Origins of Mau Mau,
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%+'
140–59; Mackenzie, Land, Ecology and Resistance
in Kenya, 156–67.
16 Throup, Economic and Social Origins of Mau Mau,
140–59; Mackenzie, Land, Ecology and Resistance
in Kenya, 156–67.
17 D. Anderson, Eroding the Commons: The Politics
of Ecology in Baringo, Kenya 1890–1963 (Athens/
OH, 2002), 215–31; N. E. Makana, Changing Patterns of Indigenous Economic Systems: Agrarian Change and Rural Transformation in Bungoma District, 1930–1960 (Ph.D. diss., West
Virginia University, 2005), 263–322.
18 For details see, Thurston, The Intensification of
Smallholder Agriculture in Kenya, 45–54; J. Heyer,
«Agricultural Development Policy in Kenya from
the Colonial Period to 1975», in Rural Development in Tropical Africa, ed. J. Heyer, P. Roberts
and G. Williams (New York, 1981), 101–107.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
32
Joseph M. Hodge
In doing so, planners hoped to stabilize rural class relations through the consolidation of a significant group of more «energetic» or «rich» farmers together with a
predominant mass of secure and prosperous middle peasants. They also consciously furthered the emergence of a poor and landless class whom, they assumed,
would work for the wealthier smallholders or be sopped up by other forms of
employment.19
The Swynnerton Plan came to an end in 1959, but the technical experience
gained from it would help lay the basis for a massive international aid program –
coined the Million-Acre Settlement Scheme – which was conceived in the early
1960s as the key element in Britain’s withdrawal from Kenya. With funds from the
World Bank, the Commonwealth Development Corporation and the UK government, the program envisioned lending money to Africans to enable them to buy
former European land with the aim not only of intensifying production on the
farms selected, but also of putting more Africans on the land through denser patterns of land settlement. In the end, roughly 1.2 million acres of land in what was
then the European highlands were transferred into the hands of some 35 000 African smallholder families. According to Christopher Leo, the scheme played a pivotal role in forging the new political and economic order on which post-independence Kenya would rest.20
The idea was for the government to purchase parcels of high-potential, underdeveloped land from Europeans that were suitable for the introduction of higheryielding crops. Initially, the scheme was limited to two types of holdings: yeoman
or «assisted owner» farms of 50 acres for more substantial African «progressive»
farmers (i.e., those with at least 10 000 shillings of working capital), and smaller
peasant holdings of 15 acres. In all, roughly 1800 yeomen and 6000 peasants were
settled on 180 000 acres by September 1963. The initial plan thus targeted the better-off peasants and emerging African capitalist farmers, and there is also evidence
that settlement authorities used the recruitment campaign, especially among the
Kikuyu, to favor those who had remained government loyalists during the Mau
Mau Rebellion.21 In 1962, the program was dramatically expanded through the
introduction of new high density schemes designed to accommodate thousands
more smallholders in order to address the growing problems of unemployment
and landlessness.
19 B. Berman, Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya:
The Dialectic of Domination (London, 1990),
366–371.
20 C. Leo, «Who Benefited from the Million-Acre
Scheme? Toward a Class Analysis of Kenya’s
Transition to Independence», Canadian Journal
of African Studies 15 (1981) 2, 201–222; idem,
Land and Class in Kenya (Toronto, 1984), 72.
21 LDSB files, for example, show at least one
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%+)
Dundori assisted owner was a prominent loyalist
who had been one of the Crown witnesses at the
Kapenguria trial, and when he fell behind on his
loan repayments and was in danger of eviction,
the Director of Settlement, Sandy Storrar, interceded personally with the chief commissioner to
get him placed in a different settlement scheme.
See Leo, Land and Class in Kenya, 84–85.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
33
However, because most of the settlement schemes were on the peripheries of
existing African reserve lands, about six million acres of the highlands remained
intact as large blocks devoted to large scale ranching and plantation agriculture.
Much of this land remained in the hands of white settlers who were either unwilling or unable to be bought out. A separate, Land Bank loan program provided loans
outside of the settlement schemes for a substantial number of African farmers to
purchase large-scale farms. About 140 farmers had purchased 229 large farms by
1964.22 The Kenyan government built upon this and the "assisted owner" program
throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, thus laying the basis for the gradual Africanization of large-scale agriculture by the early 1980s. According to Leo, the main
purpose of the scheme was not so much to help the landless as to preserve largescale, estate agriculture. A combination of assistance and social control was
employed, with the aim of shoring up social stability by co-opting a significant
number of the middle and lower peasantry. At the same time, the financial underwriting of the transfer process helped to avoid investor panic over fears the economy might collapse.23
The Kenyan authorities were not alone in showcasing rural development projects like the Swynnerton Plan and the Million-Acre Settlement Scheme. As Christophe Bonneuil has shown, colonial regimes across Africa in the postwar years
planned and implemented similar land resettlement and agricultural development
schemes.24 In the British case, perhaps the most well-known of these mega-projects was the massive but disastrous East Africa Groundnut Scheme, undertaken by
the Lever Brothers and the Overseas Food Corporation in Tanganyika in 1948. By
the mid-1950s, there were over seventy major agricultural development initiatives
in operation throughout the British colonies. They included the Gezira Cotton Irrigation Scheme in the Sudan (which began before the war but was substantially
expanded in the postwar years), the Anchau Settlement Scheme and the Niger
Agricultural Project in Nigeria, the Sukumaland Development Scheme in Tanganyika, the Mwea and Perkerra Irrigation Schemes in Kenya, the Kigezi Resettlement
Scheme in Uganda, the African Farmer’s Improvement Scheme and the Peasant
Farming Scheme in Northern Rhodesia, and the Nyasaland Master Farmer’s
Scheme.25 What makes these various projects significant is not so much the origi22 Nonetheless, by 1968, somewhere between two-
24 See C. Bonneuil, «Development as Experiment:
thirds and three-quarters of the former Schedules Areas, much of it large plantations and ranches, remained under European ownership. See
G. Wasserman, «Continuity and Counter-Insurgency: The Role of Land Reform in Decolonizing
Kenya, 1962–1970», Canadian Journal of African
Studies 7 (1973) 1, 133–148.
23 See Leo, Land and Class in Kenya, 112. See also
idem, «Who Benefited from the Million-Acre
Scheme?», 201.
Science and State Building in Late Colonial and
Postcolonial Africa, 1930–1970,» Osiris 15 (2000),
258–81. See also Van Beusekom and Hodgson,
«Lessons Learned?»; Hodge, Triumph of the Expert.
25 See BLCAS MSS Afr. s 1425 E. B. Worthington
Papers, Box 2, Agriculture, 1944–1950: Colonial
Office, «Notes on Some Agricultural Development Schemes in the British Colonial Territories,» October 1955.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%++
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
34
Joseph M. Hodge
Absatz wg. Umbruch gemacht
nality of their designs. The land use planning models and policy concerns on which
they were based had in many cases been worked out before the war. What seems
noteworthy is the magnitude and intensity of government activity they initiated
into nearly every aspect of rural colonial peoples’ lives, and the enduring influence
they continued to exert over development planning and practice long after the
eclipse of colonial state power.
4. Personal and Conceptual Continuities
Of all the late colonial development schemes, those pioneered in Kenya under the
Swynnerton Plan and the Million-Acre Settlement Scheme were among the most
influential. When the World Bank carried out its first comprehensive study of agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1960s, for example, it paid careful attention to Kenya. Over forty per cent of its case studies focused on this country
alone, including five schemes that were originally laid out under the Swynnerton
Plan.26 A surprising number of the officers involved would go on to occupy important positions in the international development community in the 1960s, 1970s
and 1980s.
Indeed, for those colonial planners fortunate enough to be involved, it is no
exaggeration to say that these schemes cemented their reputations and future
careers. Swynnerton, for example, rose to become the Permanent Secretary of the
Ministry of Agriculture in Kenya before moving on to work as the Agricultural
Adviser for the Commonwealth Development Corporation in the 1960s. Looking
back years later, Swynnerton had these words to say about the legacy of his and
other colonial agricultural officers’ careers: «What would the World Bank, FAO ,
ODA and ODM and its associated institutions, CDC and British consultancy firms
have achieved in Third World development had they not had the highly professional cadres of the Colonial Agricultural Service to draw on – and this applies to
the French and Belgians also?»27
Another key player in both schemes was Sandy Storrar, the son of a Scottish
farmer who first went to Kenya in 1943 as an agricultural district officer in Nyanza.
In 1953, at the age of 32, he was promoted to Assistant Director for the whole of the
Rift Province, where he was involved not only in the Swynnerton Plan but also the
Perkerra Irrigation Scheme, which used Mau Mau detainees as laborers to dig the
canals. His big move, however, came in 1962 when he was appointed the Director
of Settlement for the Kenyan highlands. Indeed, Storrar was the principal architect
26 In addition to the Swynnerton schemes, the
Bank also studied the Mwea Irrigation Scheme
in Kirinyaga District. This was far more than in
any other country, which included two in Uganda, two in Mali, and one each in Tanzania, Upper
Volta, Chad and Ivory Coast. See J. C. de Wilde,
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%+7
Experiences with Agricultural Development in Tropical Africa, Volume II: The Case Studies (Baltimore, 1967), 3–240.
27 See, BLCAS MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 476, Box 7 (48)
Sir Roger Swynnerton. See also, BLCAS Mss Afr.
s. 1717 (150) Sir Roger Swynnerton.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
35
of the Million-Acre Settlement Scheme, purportedly drawing up the plans along
with his deputy, Dick Henderson, in just five days.28
Like Storrar, Peter Nottidge and John Goldsack also were key players in the
Million-Acre Settlement Scheme. Nottidge, who was born and raised in Kenya and
had spent several years as a district extension officer working on large-scale European farms in Nakuru and Eldoret, was put in charge of all land transfers
(about 300 000 acres) and subsequent smallholder development west of the Rift
Valley.29 Goldsack began as an agricultural officer in Nakuru in 1956, before being
posted to Nairobi as a soil conservation and planning officer in the Department
of Settlement. From 1962–67, John was in charge of all sub-division planning
for each area under the scheme.30 It was Nottidge and Goldsack who were responsible for writing what in effect was the first published record of the project in
1967.
The vision of development shared by these men can perhaps best be seen in the
pages of their report.31 As had been the case with the Swynnerton Plan, the principle of increasing and intensifying production through the consolidation of land
holdings and the conferring of individual land titles remained at the heart of all the
settlement schemes. If plotholders were going to repay their settlement charges
and development loans, then they were going to have to generate a certain amount
of net income over and above their family’s subsistence needs. Income targets varied depending on the type of settlement; the high density schemes had net income
targets ranging from £25 to £70 annually, while the low density and yeoman
schemes had projected cash incomes as high as £100 and £250 per annum. Regardless, the logic of the plan implied doing away with subsistence agriculture and
communal forms of land tenure. Such low-input sustainable agriculture was comparable to «maintaining the status quo» or being stationary, and would inevitably
be replaced, as population grew, by more value added systems that would increase
the standard of living.32 This was the goal of the Million-Acre Scheme, and it was
still a goal of the World Bank in the 1990s when it commissioned J. A. Nick Wallis,
a former colonial agronomist who had worked on the Swynnerton Plan, to undertake a review of the most successful attempts by the Bank to develop intensified
farming systems throughout the world.33
28 Interview with Alexander Storrar, Lodsworth,
31 See C. P. R. Nottidge and J. R. Goldsack, The Mil-
England, 10 June 2007; BLCAS MSS Brit. Emp.
s. 476, Oxford Development Records Project,
Box 7 (46) Storrar, Alexander.
29 Letter to author from Peter Nottidge, Bethesda,
Maryland, 29 January 2007.
30 Interview by telephone with John Goldsack, 8 July 2008; Letter to author from J.R. Goldsack, 29
January 2007, enclosing CV.
lion-Acre Settlement Scheme, 1962–66 (Nairobi,
1967).
32 Interview with J. A. N. Wallis, Leominster, Herefordshire, 1 June 2007.
33 See J. A. N. Wallis, Intensified Systems of Farming
in the Tropics and Subtropics, World Bank Discussion Paper No. 364, (World Bank, Washington/
D.C., 1997).
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%+6
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
36
Joseph M. Hodge
Critics have long railed against the economic ideological biases of this
approach.34 The real purpose of rural transformation, they argue, is to motivate
peasants to «modernize» by making the transition from traditional isolation to integration in the national and international economy. Instruments such as changes in
land tenure and agricultural inputs are designed to draw subsistence farmers and
their lands into the commercial sector through the production of a marketable surplus. While this may be true, it is no less important to stress the politics of modernization. Nottidge and Goldsack’s approach involved extensive planning at every
stage – from the production of contour survey and land classification maps to
hydraulic surveys and drainage schemes to the devising of basic farming patterns
and model budgets – all of which enhanced state control and supervision over farmers. It also involved explicit political and counterinsurgency objectives. The MillionAcre Settlement Scheme was devised in large part «[w]ith the specific intention of
relieving serious political tensions that had been built up on account of land shortage in many African communities [...] It was, therefore, necessary to embark on a
bold large-scale scheme for the transfer of land ownership from Europeans to Africans which would [...] in the course of time, help absorb many of the unemployed».35
In other words, it aimed at stopping a land grab or revolution.36
And in this respect, the Kenyan strategy was a resounding success. Organizations like the World Bank, which had been a major financial partner together with
the UK government in the scheme, liked what they saw and were eager to enlist its
architects. In the mid-1960s under George Woods, the Bank began to recognize
the importance of broadening its activities in Africa, especially in the areas of agriculture and education. In 1965–66, it established two regional missions to help
African countries prepare projects for external financing, one in Abidjan, which
drew heavily on former French colonial expertise, and the other in Nairobi.37 Sandy
Storrar, who retired from the colonial service in 1965, was recruited to set up and
head the Bank’s Agricultural Development Service (ADS ) for Eastern Africa, which
he later described as a «natural continuation» of his earlier work.38 Although the
ADS was attached to the Nairobi Mission office, it was a self-financing outfit that
employed personnel on long-term contracts to assist regional governments in the
preparation and management of agricultural projects. David Gordon, the first
Chief of Mission in Nairobi, described the ADS staff as «[ . . . ] long-time residents of
East or Central Africa, agriculturists and practical farmers, with a wide knowledge
34 C. Payer, «The World Bank and the Small Far-
mers», Peace and Change 16 (1979) 4, 298–300.
35 Nottidge and Goldsack, The Million-Acre Settlement Scheme, 1.
36 Interview by telephone with John Goldsack,
8 July 2008.
37 Oral history interview, Roger Chaufournier, July
22, 1986; 02 1981–1989 project; World Bank
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%+8
(WB) IBRD/IDA 44 Oral histories; R. W. Oliver,
George Woods and the World Bank (Boulder,
1995), 188.
England, 10 June 2007; Oral history interview,
Alexander Storrar, 1986, 02 1981–1989 project,
WB IBRD/IDA 44 Oral histories, 2.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
37
of conditions and potentialities in this region. They spend most of their time in the
bush, tramping or Land Roving over embryonic ranching schemes, laying out
tracks or water and soil conservation works, inspecting crops and cattle, and chivvying local administrators for equipment, supplies or boundary adjudication.»39
What Gordon meant by «long-time residents» of course was the hiring of old
colonial hands. The Bank gave Storrar the power to select his own staff and he did,
bringing with him six of his former officers including three ex-Kenyan settlers
because, as he put it, «I wanted people who really had experience [ . . . ] and this was
something new for the Bank. There were certain people in the Bank who were concerned that Bank employees would be associated with running the projects [ . . . ] I
got very angry with them. You’re telling me you don’t want people who know what
it’s all about? You want people from outside? This [was] not on, my blokes knew
Africa, [they] spoke the language [ . . . ]»40 Among the former colonial staff that Storrar hand-picked to join him at the ADS were Dick Henderson, Victor Burke and
Peter Nottidge.
After four years at the ADS , Storrar went on to Washington to work in the Projects Department. In 1972, he was sent out to be the Agricultural Adviser for the
Bank’s Indonesian Resident Mission, and in 1977, he was promoted to Chief of
Mission for Bangladesh in Dacca. Storrar ended his Bank career as a senior adviser
on agricultural development policy back in Washington from 1983 to 1986. Peter
Nottidge took over from Storrar as head of the ADS unit for several years until he,
too, was transferred to Washington, where he spent another twenty years working
on integrated agricultural and forestry development projects in South Asia. John
Goldsack left Kenya in 1970 to join the UK ’s Overseas Development Administration. For the next 18 years, he served as a senior agricultural adviser until he left the
ODA in 1988 to serve as the UK Minister and Permanent Representative to the
UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.41
With the advent of Robert MacNamara as Bank President in 1968, the new
focus on Africa and a new shift in development priorities became even more apparent. MacNamara placed agriculture and rural development front row and center,
targeting forty per cent of total Bank investment to this area, with benefits designed
to accrue principally to small farmers and the rural poor.42 The Bank’s shift towards
rural development created a large demand for recruits with tropical agricultural
expertise, who in practice were often drawn from among the ranks of the last gen39 D. L. Gordon, «Nairobi Office Opens», Internatio-
J.R. Goldsack, 29 January 2007, enclosing CV.
nal Bank Notes, May 1967.
England, 10 June 2007
41 Oral history interview, Alexander Storrar, 1986, 02
1981–1989 project, WB IBRD/IDA 44 Oral histories; Letter to author from Peter Nottidge, Bethesda,
Maryland, 29 January 2007; Letter to author from
42 Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, United
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%+9
Nations Career Records Project (hereafter UNCRP: United Nations Career Records Project),
MSS Eng. C. 4719 fols. 179–221 Donald Pickering; Oral history interview, Roger Chaufournier,
July 22, 1986; 02 1981–1989 project; WB IBRD/
IDA 44 Oral histories.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
38
Joseph M. Hodge
eration of colonial professionals. As Donald Pickering notes, «. . . for historical
reasons agricultural staff throughout the Bank were disproportionately British
ex-colonial servants in the 1960s and 1970s.»43 Middle level managers in the agricultural sector had comparative freedom in their recruitment choices and thus
tended to select «their own kind». Pickering himself was among them, having once
been a colonial research agronomist and senior agricultural officer in Nigeria. He
joined the Bank briefly in 1967 and returned again in 1973 as a Tropical Agricultural Specialist in the newly created Agricultural and Rural Development Department. And there he remained for another fifteen years working his way up to
Senior Agricultural Adviser for the African Region.
The incorporation of such a large number of ex-colonial officials into the World
Bank was not without its challenges. Pickering’s initial impression of the Bank was
that its staff had an incomplete comprehension of the issues involved.44 Former
colonial officials often displayed arrogant attitudes which, at times, according to
Pickering, resulted in restricted views on development possibilities and a tendency
to look at borrowers and their staff from a distinctly British ex-imperial perspective.45 Yet, overall, relations between former colonial servants and other members
of the Bank staff – especially Americans – were congenial. Many would concur
with Tony Cole, who had worked in Kenya on the Million-Acre Scheme before joining the Bank in 1970, and who feels that British colonials and Americans in the
early years were generally «on the same page».46 Part of the reason for this convergence lies in the fact that many of the American and British members of the Bank
came from similar backgrounds, having been in the armed forces during the Second World War and, in many cases, having been involved in the same campaigns.
John Ducker, who had served in the Eastern Aden Protectorate in the 1960s before
getting an offer from the Bank in 1969, recalls that there was a kind of natural
affinity and ease of communication among the people he worked with at the Bank,
which stemmed from them having had similar experiences working in colonial or
former colonial countries.47
The sort of vision that this generation shared is perhaps best captured by MacNamara himself, who by all accounts was the one who really set the tone for what the
43 UNCRP, MSS Eng. C. 4719 fols. 179–221 «Some
44
45
46
47
Personal Reflections on a Career with the World
Bank, 1967–1988,» by Donald C. Pickering, ff. 198.
UNCRP, MSS Eng. C. 4719 fols. 179–221 «Some
Personal Reflections,» ff. 185. For similar comments by Sandy Storrar see BLCAS MSS Afr.
S. 1717 (149) A. Storrar, ff. 63–66.
UNCRP, MSS Eng. C. 4719 fols. 179–221 «Some
Personal Reflections,» ff. 199.
Interview with Anthony Cole, Abergavenny,
Wales, 4 June 2007.
In the Department of Public Utilities, for examp-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%+,
le, one of the divisions was headed by an American who had formerly run the Philippines power
system, while another of the divisions was headed by a British ex-colonial who had been in
charge of the East African Power and Light Company. In the telecommunications division, one of
his colleagues was Indian and had been brought
up in the Indian Civil Service, while still another
was American but had worked for the Palestine
Administration before joining the UNRRA.
See Interview with John Ducker, Ampney Crucis,
Cirencester, 6 June 2007.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
39
Bank did in the late 1960s and 1970s. MacNamara, according to Pickering, had an
absolute confidence in the power of technology to resolve physical problems, coupled with a fervent belief in the need to alleviate poverty in the developing countries.
He had profound faith in the superiority of technical «know how» over traditional
ways – a faith that could and did sway staff judgments. In agriculture, these judgments frequently hinged on the better returns that improved technology supposedly
offered over traditional methods and the acceptance of that technology by «target
populations». Such judgments were often made in the context of patchy basic data
on such fundamentals as soil and climate, and sometimes with only lukewarm
reception from recipient governments.48 Those British ex-colonials whose early personal experiences and thinking were shaped by the success of the Swynnerton Plan
and the Million-Acre Settlement Scheme tended to agree with MacNamara. And as
they rose through the ranks of the Bank’s hierarchy, and transferred from one Resident Mission to another, they carried this vision with them; they read each new project and its set of problems through the filter of the Kenyan highlands in the 1950s.
5. The World Bank’s Integrated Rural Development Programs
Nowhere is the long shadow of late colonial thinking more evident than in the
Bank’s Integrated Rural Development Programs (IRDP ) of the 1960s, 1970s and
1980s. The IRD programs involved an array of conservation measures, land-use
planning models and resettlement programs designed not only to raise agricultural
output, but also to increase the capacity of the land to absorb a burgeoning surplus
population. The new rural development strategies of the 1960s and 1970s aimed to
create the conditions for the long term social and economic viability of rural communities, and to improve the standards of living of the rural poor by balancing the
imperatives of growth and welfare and the distribution of resources between the
rural and urban sectors.49
One of the earliest and longest running IRD Programs in the history of the
World Bank was the Lilongwe Land Development Project in Malawi, which began
in 1968 and continued through various phases for nearly twenty years. The Lilongwe scheme was one of four integrated development programs launched by the
Malawian government – with assistance from the World Bank – in an attempt to
broaden the country’s agricultural base and increase productivity through the
introduction of new cash crops.50 In the Lilongwe area, smallholders were given
48 UNCRP, MSS Eng. C. 4719 fols. 179–221 «Some
Personal Reflections,» ff. 193.
49 United Nations, Integrated Approaches to Development in Africa: Social Welfare Services in Africa
(New York, 1971).
50 See, P. T. Mkandawire, The World Bank and Integrated Rural Development in Malawi, Working Paper No. 1 CODESRIA (Dakar, 1980). Elias
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%+4
Mandala’s examination of the Shire Valley Agricultural Development Project in the Lower Tchiri
Valley provides an excellent analysis of one of the
early IRD Programs in Malawi. See, E. Mandala,
The End of Chidyerano: A History of Food and Everyday Life in Malawi, 1860–2004 (Portsmouth/
NH, 2005), 131–163.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
40
Joseph M. Hodge
«innovation» packages that included hybrid seeds and fertilizers in order to intensify maize production and free up both land and labor to grow high quality, confectionary groundnuts for the export market. As part and parcel of the approach, the
project also aimed to reorganize existing land tenure patterns through the replacing of communal tenure rights with consolidated holdings under registered deeds
of freehold title. The Lilongwe scheme, along with the other IRD programs in
Malawi, was identified by the Bank’s ADS team in Nairobi and run by expatriate
staff recruited by them. In fact, Peter Nottidge was the first manager of the Lilongwe Project, overseeing an estimated $58 million budget for rural infrastructure
investment, irrigation, conservation measures, surveying, extension services and
credit provisions. It was projected to increase net family income by about $125 million and generate an exportable surplus of $11 million per year. By 1979, approximately 1.2 million acres supporting 103 600 farm families were incorporated
within the project area.51
The scheme was transformative in design, seeking to establish not only a fixed
system of commercially-oriented agriculture, but to inculcate new «modern»
attitudes among farmers. In this respect, the outcomes were far from satisfactory.
A World Bank audit that was done on the scheme in the 1980s showed that despite
the vast amounts invested, the project had produced no sustained increase in maize
yields and possibly a decrease in groundnut yields. One of the problems was that
the state’s subsidies on maize seeds and fertilizers only benefited the top 25 percent of farms. Worse still, under Nottidge’s direction, extraordinary sums were
spent on soil conservation measures and the surveying of smallholders’ farmers,
which had no lasting impact at all.52 The introduction of mechanical terracing
using bulldozers – a practice which Nottidge copied directly from Kenya – proved
disastrous as the top soil on many farms was simply pushed up into huge banks in
a futile effort to stop erosion. Millions were spent surveying and registering every
small farm in the Lilongwe area in the hopes that this would lead to a more productive use of the land. However, in the face of opposition from the local land committees, which were dominated by area chiefs and headmen, it was decided to allocate
land rights by family units rather than by individual title.53 Moreover, the demarcation teams stopped short of land consolidation, deferring instead to individual family units to do so on their own through voluntary plot exchanges. The reliance on
prominent male elders to sit on the land committees and disseminate information
51 G. H. R. Chipande, «Smallholder Agriculture as
a Rural Development Strategy: The Case of Malawi», Ph. D. thesis, University of Glasgow, 1983,
Ch. IV; F. L. Pryor, The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity and Growth: Malawi and Madagascar, A
World Bank Comparative Study (Oxford, 1990),
72–75.
52 See, World Bank, Malawi Lilongwe Land Develop-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%7&
ment Program, Phase III: Project Performance Audit Report, (Washington/D.C., 1981); Interview
with Stephen Carr, Zomba, Malawi, 24 June
2008.
53 C. Ng’ong’ola, «The Design and Implementation
of Customary Land Reforms in Central Malawi»,
Journal of African Law 26 (1982) 2, 122–123.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
41
about the scheme also proved detrimental, since these were matrilineal societies
where women played a crucial role in the devolution of land rights.Thus, many of
the same principles and techniques that were developed by colonial experts in
Kenya were applied by Nottidge’s team in Malawi, but with very different results.
Another good example of the Bank’s integrated rural development approach
was its long-time support for the Indonesian government’s Transmigration Program, which between 1969 and 1989 relocated some 730 000 families or over 3.5
million people from the densely populated «inner islands» of Java, Bali and Lombok to the less populated «outer islands» of South Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi,
Maluku and Irian Jaya.54 It has been described as the largest government-sponsored voluntary resettlement program in world history, with the result that by the
mid-1990s it is estimated that over ten percent of the population of the outer lands
was Javanese.55 The Bank’s involvement in the Transmigration Program began in
1976 with two pilot projects in southern Sumatra. Five additional projects were
approved during the third five-year plan together with an Estates and Smallholder
Program, which brought the Bank’s total commitment by the mid-1980s to some
$1.2 billion. The projects were important because of the «integrated» approach to
resettlement they introduced to the program: An agricultural «package» was provided to each new settler family, which included five to twelve acres of land (of
which roughly three acres were cleared for food crops and two-and-a-half acres for
rubber trees), free planting material and seed, fertilizer and extension services for
up to three years. They also received a house and subsistence supplies for one year.
These projects were intended as exemplary models, with technical assistance being
provided to the Ministry of Transmigration to aid in the coordination of the overall
program.56
It is interesting to note that a number of the Bank’s staff who contributed to the
project were from British colonial backgrounds, including Sandy Storrar, who was
Agricultural Adviser both to the Bank’s Resident Mission and to the Government
of Indonesia from 1973 to 1977 when the scheme was first being laid out, and Tony
Cole, who was involved in the project in the 1980s.57 It would be going too far to say
that this project was modeled directly on colonial experiences and ideas. Indonesia
under Suharto’s regime, as Bradley Simpson has recently shown, developed its
54 The central island of Java is one of the most
densely populated areas in the world. In 1986, at
the height of the transmigration program, its population was roughly 100 million (774 people/
square kilometers, with two-third of farm families living on subsistence plots of less than half a
hectare, and with an estimated increase in new
urban residents of 1.6 million each year. See
B. van Arcadie, Indonesia: The Transmigration
Program in Perspective, World Bank Country Study (Washington/D.C., 1988).
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%7'
55 See C. MacAndrews, "Transmigration in Indonesia: Problems and Prospects", Asia Survey 18
(1978) 5, 458–472; M. Zaman, "Resettlement
and Development in Indonesia", Journal of Contemporary Asia 32 (2002) 2, 255–266.
56 Van Arcadie, Indonesia, Ch. IX.
57 For details see Oral history interview, Alexander
Storrar, 1986; 02 1981–1989 project; WB IBRD/
IDA 44 Oral histories; Interview with Anthony
Cole, Abergavenny, Wales, 4 June 2007.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
42
Joseph M. Hodge
own vision of military modernization in which U.S . trained economists and technocrats, in conjunction with army leaders, promoted a highly authoritarian and
state-driven model of development.58 Nevertheless, there certainly were affinities
with earlier colonial thinking. Storrar, as outlined above, developed his own «integrative» approach in the 1950s and 1960s, beginning with the idea of farm planning on European farms and then in African areas under the Swynnerton Plan.
This kind of comprehensive planning was developed further under the MillionAcre Scheme with Storrar, Nottidge and Goldsack, and became the signature of the
integrated rural development strategies of the 1960s and 1970s. It reached its peak
of refinement with efforts like the Indonesian Transmigration Program, where
state-sponsored transmigration groups received extensive support and subsidies
from the government over the initial five-year period, including transport infrastructure, land, housing and social services.
6. Conclusion
Although this article has focused predominantly on the continuities in thinking
and practice between late colonial development and early postcolonial rural modernization, the case should not be overstated. The breaks were no less significant.
One important difference in the case studies examined here lies in what might be
termed the causal mechanisms of each as compared with the policy formulations
and implementation. To put it another way, colonial administrative and agricultural officers in Kenya in the 1950s were responding to a worsening crisis of land
shortages, landlessness, rebellion and growing demands for independence. The
Swynnerton Plan and later the Million-Acre Settlement Scheme were developed by
officers in the field, who, in their own words, were trying to head off an already
unfolding social and agrarian revolution.
Their success in this effort, however, seems to have encouraged them to contemplate and design even larger and bolder projects in subsequent years. Working
for the World Bank, with its substantially greater resources and inspiring leadership, only enhanced their confidence. But although the policy formulations applied
by the Bank in Malawi and Indonesia in the late 1960s and 1970s were strikingly
similar to the late colonial archetypes, the outcomes were not. In both cases, Bank
officials sought to activate a process of rural modernization and transformation by
importing models generated elsewhere and imposing them from above in ways
that significantly misread the local context and landscape. The results in both cases
were disappointing and even controversial.
As criticism of the IRDP approach began to build, the Bank shifted its priorities
once again.59 This was partly a reflection of the changing of the guard. The «old
58 B. Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian
Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960–
68, (Stanford/CA, 2008).
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%7)
59 For criticism of the Bank’s IRD programs see
C. Payer, «The World Bank and the Small Farmers», Peace and Change 16 (1979) 4, 293–312;
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
43
boys» network and atmosphere described earlier by Pickering and Ducker began to
change towards the end of the 1970s with the expansion of the Bank’s Young Professionals Program and the broadening of the scope of recruitment. The new generation, alarmed by the ecological costs of earlier projects, embraced a new vision
of sustainability. In the 1980s, the Bank began adding important environmental
criteria to its policy formulations, encouraging governments in Sub-Saharan Africa
and elsewhere to be more aggressive in developing and implementing sustainable
environmental policies and expanding basic health services and female education
aimed at lowering family size. This was considered a way of tackling the problem of
rapid population growth, which, in the Bank’s view, was leading to serious environmental degradation and lower agricultural productivity.60 At the same time, largescale, high-input showcase projects fell out of favour as the new rural development
strategies of the 1980s called for low-input, labour-intensive and environmentally
supportive practices.
Despite the differences and shifts in development discourse, what is clear from
this brief survey is that the remobilization of former colonial personnel constitutes
an important and hitherto neglected legacy of the late British – and European –
colonial empires. The World Bank was not the only international organization to
actively seek out and recruit British colonial technical and professional officers.
Similar linkages and trajectories could be followed for those who found employment with the FAO, or for the many ex-officials who continued to work for the British government as part of the ODM and ODA . Nor were former British colonial
personnel unique. As Swynnerton intimated, this was a general European phenomenon, which involved the redeployment of Belgian, Dutch and French expertise as well. Former French colonial administrators were instrumental, for example, in the institutionalization of the Directorate-General of Development in the
European Commission. Many others became domestic civil servants, relocating to
the Ministèr de la Coopération, which was responsible for overseas technical cooperation, or were kept on «détachement» as technical advisers to the new African
governments.61 It is my contention that by unearthing this web-like network of
communications and careers, and following the movements and interactions of
these crucial ideas, practices and people, we gain a much fuller and more critical
understanding of the origins and history of the so-called «Age of Development».
G. Williams, «The World Bank and the Peasant
Problem», in J. Heyer, P. Roberts and G. Williams, eds., Rural Development in Tropical Africa,
(New York, 1981), 16–51; R. Chambers, Rural Development: Putting the Last First, (London, 1983).
60 See World Bank, Population Growth and Policies
in Sub-Saharan Africa, (Washington/D.C., 1986);
idem., Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth, (Washington/D.C., 1989).
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%7+
61 See especially V. Dimier, «For a New Start? Resettling Colonial Administrators in the French
Prefectural Corps (1960–1980s)», Itinerario 28
(2004) 1, 49–66; idem., «Administrative Reform
as Political Control: Lessons from DG VIII,
1958–1975,» in: The Changing European Commission, ed. D. G. Dimitrakopoulos (Manchester,
2004), 74–85.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
44
Joseph M. Hodge
List of Abbreviations
CCTA
Commission for Technical Cooperation in Afrika, South of the Sahara
CDC
Commonwealth Development Corporation
CGIAR
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
CIDA
Canadian International Development Agency
CIMMYT
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
CIP
International Potato Center
DANIDA
Danish International Development Agency
FAO
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
ICARDA
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas
ICRAF
International Council for Research in Agroforestry
ICRISAT
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics
IDRC
International Development Research Council
IFAD
International Fund for Agricultural Development
IITA
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
ILO
International Labour Organization
IMF
International Monetary Fund
IRRI
International Rice Research Institute
ISNAR
International Service for National Agricultural Research
ODA
Overseas Development Administration
ODM
Ministry of Overseas Development
UNCTAD
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNDP
United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNHRC
United Nations Human Rights Council
UNIDO
United Nations Industrial Development Organization
USAID
United States Agency for International Development
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%77
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
British Colonial Expertise, Post-Colonial Careering and the
Early History of International Development
45
ABSTRACTS
This article examines the connection between late colonial development efforts and
post-colonial, rural development policies and programs. It does this by mapping
the contributions of several technical officers who had their professional start as
part of the British colonial service in the 1940s and 1950s, but who later went on to
subsequent careers in international development. Many of these officials were
recruited to work for Britain’s overseas development administration or the UN’s
specialist agencies and the World Bank. Others were hired as advisers by international charities or consultancy companies, bringing with them the development
strategies first devised during their formative years as colonial experts. After a
brief overview of the early background and experiences of the colonial officials
surveyed for this research, the article examines two important development
schemes implemented in Kenya in the 1950s and 1960s: the Swynnerton Plan and
the Million-Acre Settlement Scheme. It highlights the careers of several agricultural officers involved in these projects, who later rose to positions of leadership
with the World Bank. These former colonial experts were instrumental in formulating some of the institution’s most high profile, Integrated Rural Development Program including the Lilongwe Land Development Project in Malawi and the Transmigration Program in Indonesia.
Britisches koloniales Fachwissen, post-kolonialer Karrierismus
und die Frühgeschichte der internationalen Entwicklungshilfe
Dieser Artikel untersucht die Verbindungen zwischen spätkolonialen Entwicklungsbemühungen und postkolonialen landwirtschaftlichen Entwicklungspolitiken und
–programmen. Dazu erstellt er eine Art Kartographie von Entwicklungsexperten,
die in den 1940er und 1950er Jahren als Mitglieder der britischen Kolonialadministration ihre berufliche Laufbahn begannen und anschließend im Rahmen der internationalen Entwicklungshilfe Karriere machten. Viele dieser Beamte wurden rekrutiert, um für die britische Überseeadministration, die Sonderorganisationen der
Vereinten Nationen oder die Weltbank zu arbeiten. Andere brachten die in ihren
ersten Lehrjahren als Kolonialexperten erlernten Entwicklungsstrategien in ihre
neue Arbeit als Berater internationaler Wohltätigkeitsverbände oder privater Agenturen ein. Nach einem kurzen Überblick über den persönlichen Hintergrund und die
Erfahrungen der Kolonialbeamten, die zu diesem Zweck befragt wurden, untersucht der Artikel zwei wichtige Entwicklungsprogramme, die in den 1950er und
1960er Jahren in Kenia umgesetzt wurden: den Swynnerton-Plan und das Million
Acre Settlement Scheme. An diesen Projekten lassen sich die Werdegänge einzelner Agrarexperten nachvollziehen, die später in der Weltbank führende Positionen
innehatten. Einige von ihnen waren an der Konzeption von Projekten beteiligt,
denen erhebliche Aufmerksamkeit zukam: die Integrierten Ländlichen Entwicklungsprogramme (Integrated Rural Development Programs), zu denen das Lilongwe
Land Entwicklungsprojekt in Malawi und das Transmigrations-Programm in Indonesien gehörten.
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46
ABSTRACTS
Joseph M. Hodge
Expertise coloniale britannique, carrières postcoloniales et les premiers temps de l’histoire du développement international
Cet article examine la connexion entre les derniers efforts de développement de la
période coloniale et les politiques et programmes de développement postcoloniaux. Il fait ceci en cartographiant les contributions de plusieurs officiers techniques
dont les débuts professionnels se firent dans les services coloniaux britanniques
dans les années 1940 et 1950, mais qui, plus tard, continuèrent en poursuivant des
carrières dans le développement international. Beaucoup de ces officiers furent
recrutés pour travailler dans l’administration britannique pour le développement
d’outre-mer ou pour les agences spécialisées de l’ONU et de la Banque mondiale.
D’autres furent engagés comme conseillers par des sociétés de bienfaisance ou des
compagnies d’experts-conseils internationales, apportant avec eux les stratégies
de développement d’abord élaborées pendant leurs années de formation en tant
qu’experts coloniaux. Après une brève vue d’ensemble des antécédents et des
expériences des officiers coloniaux inspectés pour cette recherche, cet article examine deux importants plans de développement mis en œuvre au Kenya dans les
années 1950 et 1960 : Le plan Swynnerton et le projet de bonification de plusieurs
millions d’acres (Million Acre Settelment Scheme). Il souligne les carrières de plusieurs officiers d’agriculture impliqués dans ces projets, et qui, plus tard, ce sont élevés jusqu’à des positions de direction avec la Banque mondiale. Ces anciens
experts coloniaux contribuèrent à formuler certaines des actions les plus en vue de
l’institution, les programmes de développement de l’intégration rurale (Integrated
Rural Development Programs) incluant le projet de développement de la région de
Lilongwe au Malawi (Lilongwe Land Development Project) et le programme de migration en Indonésie (Transmigration Program).
Joseph M. Hodge
Department of History
220 Woodburn Hall
P.O. Box 6303
Morgantown, WV 26506–6303
USA
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47
Corinna R. Unger
Industrialization vs. Agrarian Reform:
West German Modernization Policies
in India in the 1950s and 1960s
In 1958–59, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG ) built a new embassy in New
Delhi, India. When West German craftsmen imported a power drill to drill holes
into the marble panels used for construction, the Indian workers protested for fear
that their manual labor would become dispensable and they would lose their jobs.
To calm the heated atmosphere, the German engineer on-site assured them that
the tool would only be used in constructing the embassy. According to the German
ambassador in New Delhi, this incident, which he considered an expression of the
alleged Indian «weakness of indolence», undermined Prime Minister Jawaharlal
Nehru’s belief that India could skip several stages of development. Obviously, India
was anchored much too deeply in ‹anachronistic› social structures to become
‹modern› any time soon.1
This anecdote is telling of the West German perception of India in the postwar
era. Having gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, India received much
attention from West German observers in the 1950s and 1960s. It also obtained a
large part of the FRG ’s financial aid: DM 38.5 million between 1956 and 1960
alone, i.e., more than fourteen percent of all West German development aid.2 As
the world’s largest democracy and a direct neighbor of communist China, India
possessed immense strategic importance and became one of the most prominent
battlegrounds of the Cold War. Economically, the subcontinent’s rapid population
growth and its largely ‹undeveloped› markets caused excitement among industrialists and economists alike. While the FRG fully recognized Great Britain’s ‹special
interests› vis-à-vis India, West German companies competed fiercely for contracts
and investment opportunities. Symbolically, India was considered vital to Bonn’s
Alleinvertretungsanspruch, i.e., the FRG ’s exclusive claim of representing Germany
and its policy of sanctioning countries that recognized the GDR . India, as the larg1 West German embassy in New Delhi, Report
No. 1160/60, June 23, 1960, Politisches Archiv
des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin (PA), B 34/209.
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2 Foreign Office, Referat 407, Memorandum, No-
vember 10, 1960, PA, B 61–411/142.
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48
Corinna R. Unger
est and most outspoken of the non-aligned nations, was considered vital in this
regard.3
Under Nehru’s leadership, the country followed a pragmatic development
approach. Nehru propagated what he called ‹democratically planned collectivism›
– a socioeconomic system based on a combination of democratic and socialist elements that would provide the basis for egalitarian development and make India a
modern, independent power.4 Nehru’s socialist rhetoric, his contacts to the Soviet
Union, and his critique of American capitalism made Western observers fear that
India might join forces with the Soviet Union at some point. Once that happened,
other Third World countries might feel encouraged to follow India’s example, triggering a process that would greatly improve Moscow’s chances of deciding the Cold
War in its favor.
Therefore, the Western governments, led by the United States, offered development aid to India, which, like many new nations, was considered to be suffering
from ‹backwardness› – a concept measured in terms of a country’s annual growth
rate, GNP, and literacy rate.5 By supporting economic growth and improving the
overall standard of living, the donor countries hoped to undermine socialism’s
attraction.6 Accelerating economic growth through foreign investments would not
be sufficient, though. To make overall development possible, the individuals
involved had to change, too. The concept of modernization embodied this universalistic approach: It implied abandoning traditional forms of social behavior, religion, and politics; becoming efficient and rational; and trusting in the power of science. Becoming modern would make ‹them› like ‹us› – ‹us› being the industrialized
countries and the elites of the so-called developing nations.7 Proponents of modernization rarely defined the exact kind of modernity they had in mind; rather, they
stressed that the ‹old ways› had to make way for change.
As Odd Arne Westad has argued, the Cold War in the Third World can be understood as a competition between East and West over the best model of moderniza3 Letter from the Foreign Office, Referat 711, to the
Press and Information Agency of the Federal Republic, December 12, 1958, PA, B 58–8/17. Also
see A. Das Gupta, Handel, Hilfe, Hallstein-Doktrin: Die bundesdeutsche Südasienpolitik unter Adenauer und Erhard 1949 bis 1966 (Husum, 2004).
4 J. Nehru, «The Importance of the National Idea:
Changes Necessary in India», in Decolonization:
Perspectives from Now and Then, ed. P. Duara
(London, 2004), 32–41, 39. For an overview of
Nehru’s development plans, see F. R. Frankel,
India’s Political Economy: The Gradual Revolution
(Princeton, 1978), chapters 3 and 4; G. Lanier,
Die Entwicklungspolitik Indiens von 1947 bis 1967:
Die Zeit der Illusionen (Frankfurt am Main et al,
1991); R. Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of
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the World’s Largest Democracy (New York, 2007),
209–231.
5 See D. Speich, «Travelling with the GDP through
early development economics’ history», Working
Papers on the Nature of Evidence: How Well Do
Facts Travel?, 33/08, http://www.Ise.ac.uk/collections/economicHistory/pdf/FACTSPDF/HowWellDoFactsTravelWP.htm.
6 See, for example, Foreign Office, Referat 407,
Memorandum: Cooperation with the developing
countries (foreign policy design and measures),
October 1, 1958, PA, B 58–8/13a, 9.
7 I use terms like «development,» «modernization,» «Third World,» and «developing countries»
without marking them individually but am aware of their ideological overtones.
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West German Modernization Policie in India in the 1950s and 1960s
49
tion.8 With regard to industrialization, however, the contrast between the two models
was much less pronounced than many contemporaries liked to portray it. Both concepts relied on economic planning, emphasized science and technology, and had little patience with remnants of ‹traditional› life. The Soviets propagated their own
state’s success in turning an agrarian society into a highly industrialized nation
within a period of thirty years without sacrificing social justice and equality (according to their terms). The Western countries talked about freedom and democracy but
came to realize that such ‹abstract› concepts appeared less attractive than the promise
of fast economic growth and individual wealth, however modest.9 What was therefore
needed was an all-encompassing model that could counter the Soviet promise.
Modernization theory, as it was formulated by American social scientists in the
mid-1950s, was such a model. Inspired by liberal anti-communism, it provided
existing practices of foreign aid with a scientific basis and professionalized them,
and it offered a lingua franca of progress. Conveniently, modernization also served
private and state economic interests: it implied higher levels of consumption in the
respective countries, and industrialization required large amounts of foreign
investments and imports, which the Western nations were eager to offer. Applying
the rhetoric of modernization made economic interests appear politically responsible and helped to garner public support for business interests. Hence, one needs
to differentiate between the ‹ideology› of modernization and its appropriation by
proponents of the liberal market economy. This does not mean reducing Western
modernization agents to Cold War warriors or money-hungry imperialists. Economic, political, and modernization interests were not mutually exclusive. In fact,
many development experts truly believed in their mission to improve the living
conditions in the former colonies (which they found unacceptable) as well as in
their capability of doing so.10 The FRG ’s Wirtschaftswunder suggested that it was
possible to overcome destitution and poverty with external support, and many felt a
responsibility to pass on the help they had enjoyed after the war. Apart from its
symbolic value, West Germany’s reconstruction had very real political significance
in the conduct of the Cold War in the Third World. Whether called Magnettheorie,
modernization theory, or convergence theory, all of these models relied on capitalism’s potential to convince non-aligned nations to reject communism because it
could not match the West’s promise to satisfy ever-increasing consumer demand
and, simultaneously, ensure individual freedom and democracy.11
8 O. A. Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World
10 See G. Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern So-
Interventions and the Making of Our Times (New
York, 2005).
9 See, for example, Foreign Office, Memorandum,
October 1, 1959, PA, B 12/340. Also see Ministry
of Economics (BMWi), V A 4 to the undersecretary of the Chancellery, July 13, 1960, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BAK), B 102/55957.
cieties: Agents of Change in South Asia, 1950–1970
(Baltimore-London 1985).
11 See D. C. Engerman, «The Romance of Economic Development and New Histories of the Cold
War», Diplomatic History 28 (2004) 1, 23–54.
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50
Corinna R. Unger
So was there a specific West German approach to modernization and development? As one step toward answering this question, I will analyze West German
development policies vis-à-vis India in the 1950s and 1960s by discussing two case
studies: an industrialization project, the steel mill Rourkela, and an agrarian
reform project, the cooperative district project Mandi. Rourkela and Mandi represent two different modernization approaches: top-down via industrialization, and
bottom-up via agrarian reform.
1. Modernization via Industrialization? Rourkela as a Test Case
Rourkela, a steel mill built by West German companies in the Indian state of
Orissa, close to Kolkata (then Calcutta) in the 1950s, mirrored the Federal Republic’s postwar economic success: its massive export capacity, its high-quality industrial products, and its innovative technologies, and all of that only a decade after the
end of the war. Excelling economically helped West Germany to reinvent itself as a
peaceful, productive nation, regain international respect and freedom of action,
and enhance its visibility on a global scale.12
In the early 1950s, West German businessmen and bureaucrats in the Ministry
of Economics began to emphasize the potential of India’s markets. A member of
the FRG ’s embassy in New Delhi summarized their arguments in 1953: «India is
the only remaining area [ . . . ] that is awaiting development and that is destined to be
developed. Our economy would [ . . . ] be affected if it did not participate in [ . . . ] solving the challenges India is confronted with wisely and generously out of self-interest.»13 Fearing that India was too fragile to withstand Soviet influences, Bonn’s
strategists theorized that the country’s industrialization would result in socioeconomic prosperity, which would make India less dependent the USSR and draw the
country closer to the West via commerce, culture and consumption.14
India’s own development policies focused on rapid industrialization, too, as the
Second Five-Year Plan (1956–61) stated most clearly.15 To achieve the projected
increase in steel production, foreign investments and technology imports were
imperative. Accordingly, the Indian government approached the Krupp Company
about the construction of a steel mill in the early 1950s. Krupp accepted the offer
and, in cooperation with other West German companies, founded the so-called
India Consortium. In 1956, its representatives signed a contract with the Indian
12 See the contributions in Auswärtige Repräsentati-
onen: Deutsche Kulturdiplomatie nach 1945, ed.
J. Paulmann (Köln et al, 2005); also see G. de Syon, «Lufthansa Welcomes You: Air Transport and
Tourism in the Adenauer Era», Selling Modernity:
Advertising in Twentieth-Century Germany, ed.
P. E. Swett, S. J. Wiesen, and J. R. Zatlin (Durham, London, 2005), 182–201.
13 West German embassy in New Delhi, Report
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No. 352/53, April 27, 1953, BAK, B 102/6403, folder 1.
14 See BMWi, V C 1 c, Memorandum, December
20, 1955, BAK, B 102/55858.
15 K. Röh, Rourkela als Testfall für die Errichtung von
Industrieprojekten in den Entwicklungsländern
(Hamburg, 1967), 43; Lanier, Die Entwicklungspolitik Indiens, 65–67, 107–132.
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51
government, agreeing to sell and ship all necessary material, and to advise the
(state-owned) Indian company, Hindustan Steel Ltd., on the construction of a mill
that would produce one million tons of raw steel per year. The Indian government
would pay the companies USD 4.6 million for their work and counsel. The size of
the planned steel mill – equipped with the most advanced, largely automated technology – and the construction of a workers’ village for 100 000 persons required
the participation of more than 3000 West German subcontractors. To prepare the
designated area for the industrial complex, more than 30 villages were torn down,
and about 40 000 inhabitants – most of them Adivasis – were ‹resettled› coercively.16
Construction started in 1956. Soon the West Germans came to realize that their
idea of «building a steel mill in the jungle» (the state of Orissa was considered one
of India’s less developed areas) was far more difficult than anticipated.17 Logistics
were insufficient, the Indian bureaucracy worked in complicated ways, and transportation was slow. Competition among West German companies and conflicts
within the Indian administration threatened to keep the steel mill from being
completed on time.18 In 1958, the India Consortium, the Federal Republic, and
Hindustan Steel agreed to share the costs of sending West German experts to
Rourkela and training Indian engineers in the FRG . Arguing that the transfer of
knowledge was an essential part of technical aid, the Foreign Office paid for this
program out of its development aid fund.19 Consequently, Rourkela, which had
started out as a private enterprise, became an integral part of the FRG ’s development aid program.
The fact that West German corporations received such broad support from the
government was characteristic of the FRG ’s development aid policy: Bonn rejected
the multilateral approach favored by many other Western nations, especially the
United States, and pleaded for bilateral, privately organized projects; this was supposed to increase efficiency and favor German as well as Third World interests.20
16 See the records in BAK, B 102/6403; Röh, Rour-
kela; Das Gupta, Handel; C. R. Unger, «Rourkela,
ein ‹Stahlwerk im Dschungel›: Industrialisierung, Modernisierung und Entwicklungshilfe
im Kontext von Dekolonisation und Kaltem
Krieg (1950–1970)», Archiv für Sozialgeschichte
48 (2008), 367–388. On the expulsion of the Adivasis, see Rourkela und die Folgen: 50 Jahre industrieller Aufbau und soziale Verantwortung in der
deutsch-indischen Zusammenarbeit, ed. AdivasiKoordination in Deutschland e.V. (Heidelberg,
2007).
17 Letter from the West German embassy in New
Delhi to the Foreign Office, August 6, 1958, PA,
B 61–411/134.
18 See Gutehoffnungshütte Sterkrade AG, Report
on the execution and status of the construction of
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%6'
the blast furnace Rourkela, January 8, 1958, PA,
B 61–411/134; Röh, Rourkela, 256–278.
19 See Foreign Office, III B 7, Memorandum: Historical development of the metallurgical plant
Rourkela, not dated (1964), PA, B 61 III B 7/132.
20 See, among others, BMWi, VI B 3, Memorandum, May 24, 1967, BAK, B 102/71766. Also see
H.-I. Schmidt, «Pushed to the Front: The Foreign
Assistance Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1958–1971», Contemporary European History 12 (2003) 4, 473–507; M. Pohle Fraser, «‹Not
the needy, but the speedy ones›: West German
development aid and private investment in the
Middle East, 1960–67», in The Aid Rush: Aid regimes in Northern Europe during the Cold War, vol.
2, ed. H. Ø. Pharo and M. Pohle Fraser (Oslo:
Oslo Academic Press, 2008), 217–243.
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52
Corinna R. Unger
Apart from its economic importance, Rourkela presented the Federal Republic
with a diplomatic challenge: if the project failed, Indian goodwill might crumble
and Nehru might recognize East Germany. For that reason, the FRG was willing to
invest a lot of money and diplomacy to guarantee Rourkela’s success and India’s
loyalty. Hence, it agreed to restructure the Rourkela debts by granting India a longterm credit – a decision that effectively undermined Bonn’s policy of granting
short-term credits only.21
Financial problems were not the only source of Rourkela’s trouble. Ethnic and
political conflicts broke out among the Indian workers, many of whom were labor
migrants and clashed with the Orissa population over caste status and religion.22
Competition among unions, communist agitation, and dissatisfaction with the
dangerous working conditions resulted in strikes and violence. Technical problems, workplace accidents, and mismanagement hampered production. To make
matters worse, the West German workers in Rourkela were accused of enjoying a
colonial lifestyle and treating their Indian colleagues disrespectfully.23
According to the West Germans involved, many of Rourkela’s problems were
caused by what they understood as the lack of a modern work ethic among the Indians. They complained that the Indian workers were unwilling to take charge and
neither understood the value of labor per se nor showed the required professional
ambition.24 If they did not internalize the value of industrial work, Rourkela’s production would never reach the projected output and India’s industrialization would
remain a dream, West German observers believed.25
Undoubtedly, there was a dire need to transfer managerial and technical knowledge. Yet the West Germans involved did not restrict their efforts to technical training but also talked about ‹education› (Erziehung), which implied the notion of a
civilizational slope. In formulating guidelines for the FRG ’s development aid policies in 1957, a high-ranking bureaucrat stated that West German aid should focus
on «educational tasks in the widest sense», especially on «education toward sensible economic conduct».26 An expert advisory board argued similarly in 1961: «If
21 See Das Gupta, Handel, 82, 134–135, 312; J. White,
24 See, for example, the report by J. Bodo Sperling,
«West German Aid to Developing Countries», Inthe director of the German Social Centre in Rourternational Affairs 41 (1965) 1, 74–88, 78; Foreign
kela, about the organizational and managerial siOffice, III B 7, Memorandum: Historical developtuation in Rourkela, July 1962, PA, B 61– 411/183.
ment of the metallurgical plant Rourkela, not dated
Also see Sperling’s book The Human Dimension of
(1964), PA, B 61 III B 7/132. The Foreign Office
Technical Assistance: The German Experience at
emphasized that the credit was part of the FRG’s
Rourkela, India (Ithaca, 1969).
efforts to encourage the Indian government to 25 See, for example, the letter from the West German
consulate in Dacca to the Foreign Office, Septem«take a political position in favor of the West and to
ber 29, 1959, PA, B 61–411/240. The British helstrengthen it in its opposition against communist
ped to build another steel mill, Durgapur in West
infiltration». Foreign Office, Abteilung 4, MemoBengal.
randum, December 14, 1957, PA, B 61–411/107.
22 See Röh, Entwicklungspolitik, 281–284.
26 Foreign Office, Abteilung 4, Memorandum with
23 See «Rourkela: Russen auf dem Dach», Der Spieattachment, April 9, 1957, PA, B 58–407/12.
gel, March 30, 1960, 22–34.
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53
one wants economic development aid to succeed, one has to remodel those people’s thinking through patient, tedious training».27 And Walter Scheel, the Federal
Republic’s first minister for development aid, believed that a «change in values»
was required. The Third World societies had to internalize «the importance of work
and craftwork, the value of the individual, [ . . . ] and dynamic thinking instead of
static-feudalistic ways of living» if foreign capital investment was to bear fruit.28
It is difficult to determine the degree to which those arguments were influenced
by the colonial concept of ‹training for work› (Erziehung zur Arbeit), but obviously
the idea of a ‹civilizing mission› continued to exist in some Germans’ thinking
long after the formal end of colonial rule.29 In fact, the ‹colonial mentality› seems
to have persisted largely independent of a nation’s status as a colonial power.30 This
holds true both of (West) Germany and of the United States: Representatives of
both countries, in their activities in the Third World, exhibited a more or less
explicit belief in the West’s civilizational superiority.
Freed from its imperial character, the postcolonial ‹training for work› appeared
to be a philanthropic element of the Western ‹modernizing mission›. Rourkela,
and many other industrialization and infrastructure projects in India and elsewhere, mirrored this effort toward comprehensive modernization. Like the large
hydroelectric dams that were erected in many Third World countries in the 1950s
and 1960s (see Abou Bamba’s contribution in this issue), the steel plant was
expected not only to accelerate industrialization but also to modernize the workers
involved. Linking the processes of industrialization and individual modernization
was popular among social scientists in the 1960s. Among others, the American
sociologist Alex Inkeles argued that the experience of factory work had a similar
effect on individuals as school had on children, teaching them to think and act
rationally.31 The case of Rourkela made clear, though, that the factory was not as
effective a modernizing agency as envisioned. The ‹success› of modernizing individuals depended on a vast variety of factors that were either ignored (gender being
one of the most prominent) or difficult to control – apart from the question of
whether, given the choice, those individuals felt a desire to ‹become modern› at all.
27 Minutes of the fifth meeting of the advisory
council to the Deutsche Stiftung Entwicklungsländer on July 9, 1963, in Bonn, September 3,
1961, BAK, B 161/85.
28 Walter Scheel, Speech given at the FriedrichEbert-Stiftung, July 9, 1965, Archiv des Liberalismus, Gummersbach (AdL), A 33–110.
29 See J. K. Wilson, «Environmental Chauvinism in
the Prussian East: Forestry as a Civilizing Mission on the Ethnic Frontier, 1871–1914», Central
European History 41 (2008) 1, 27–70; S. Conrad,
«‹Eingeborenenpolitik› in Kolonie und Metropole: ‹Erziehung zur Arbeit› in Ostafrika und
Ostwestfalen», in Das Kaiserreich transnational,
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ed. S. Conrad and J. Osterhammel (Göttingen,
2004), 107–128.
30 See A. Eckert, «Spätkoloniale Herrschaft, Dekolonisation und internationale Ordnung: Einführende Bemerkungen», Archiv für Sozialgeschichte
48 (2008), 3–20, 7.
31 See A. Inkeles, «Making Men Modern: On the
Causes and Consequences of Individual Chance
in Six Developing Countries», The American
Journal of Sociology 75 (1969) 2, 208–225. Similarly, see D. Lerner and W. L. Schramm, Communication and Change in Developing Countries (Honolulu, 1967).
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54
Corinna R. Unger
Furthermore, the expectation that Rourkela would provide the basis for the region’s
overall economic development proved wrong. Instead, it became a huge, isolated
industrial site, and the old town of Rourkela receded into a ‹slum›, reminding
Western visitors of British industrial cities of the nineteenth century.32
Rather surprisingly, the steel mill itself turned out to be a success story. After
years of interrupted production and financial losses, Rourkela ‹took off› in the second half of the 1960s. The Indians assumed full control of the technical administration in 1965, and the number of West Germans working in Rourkela was
reduced from 232 to 40. India’s steel production increased to more than six million
tons in 1975.33 Probably none would deny, however, that the financial and social
costs of this hard-won success were very high.
2. Alternative Positions on Development
Citing Rourkela’s multiple problems, the Ministry for Economic Cooperation (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit, BMZ ), which had been established in 1961, became an outspoken critic of the industrialization approach:
«Financing expensive metallurgical plants helps only a few. Our efforts focus on
the individual, especially on education. No Mark without a man.»34 To a certain
degree, the BMZ ’s critique was motivated by the effort to improve the ministry’s
standing vis-à-vis the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Economics. Both claimed
that development aid was a policy tool to be employed as flexibly as possible, and
they countered all efforts to define a development agenda that better matched the
(alleged) interests of the new nations. In this situation, the ‹Rourkela experience›
proved useful to the BMZ : its staff could point to the huge amounts of tax money
effectively lost, to the negative publicity Rourkela generated, and to the general disillusionment that accompanied industrialization projects. Instead of building
high-tech steel mills in the ‹middle of nowhere› and naïvely expecting them to
modernize the surrounding areas and populations, greater attention should be
paid to local conditions and interests, and the projects should be evaluated more
systematically, the BMZ argued.35
The ministry’s critique coincided with the Indian government’s attempts to
revise its modernization approach in the early 1960s. A severe drought had caused
32 See A. Kundu, «Urbanisation in India: A Con-
trast with Western Experience», Social Scientist 11
(1983) 4, 37–49, 46; I. Roth, «Industrial Location
and Indian Government Policy», Asian Survey 10
(1970) 5, 383–396, 389; Dr. Karl Atzenroth, Report on a journey to India by a delegation of the
parliamentary committee on development aid,
April 2, 1965 to April 26, 1965, BAK, B 213/3568.
33 See Fifth Expert Report on the metallurgical
plant Rourkela, April 1966, BAK, B 116/21635;
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%67
K. Nagaraj, «Iron and Steel», Social Scientist 5
(1977) 6–7, 139–159, tables 1 and 4; Röh, Rourkela, 466–470.
34 BMZ, letter from I B/1 to Dr. Ülshöfer, August 4,
1965, BAK, B 213/3568.
35 See BMZ, II B 1, Memorandum: The FRG’s bilateral technical aid (general questions, positions,
types of support, procedures), not dated (1962),
PA, B 58–8/12.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
55
a food crisis in India in 1957–58, and the government realized that it had to intensify its efforts to solve the country’s food problems. Simultaneously, the United
States and the Aid India Consortium (constituted by the World Bank and several
Western nations) began to pressure the Indian government to increase its food production. They feared that social unrest could destabilize the region if India’s food
situation deteriorated. New agrotechnologies (High Yielding Varieties, artificial
fertilizers, pesticides), irrigation and extension technologies, and new marketing
strategies would have to be put in place to decrease or even end India’s reliance on
external food aid, many Western and Indian experts agreed. When Nehru died in
1964 and Lal Bahadur Shastri was elected prime minister, C. Subramaniam, the
new minister of agriculture, awarded food production a prominent position in
India’s Third Five-Year Plan. From the perspective of the United States, India’s
most influential (though not most popular) donor, establishing competitive market
structures and increasing India’s trade capacity was decisive, with wheat and rice
taking the place of steel as the motor of modernization.36
This approach stood in marked contrast to Nehru’s efforts (shared, in part, by
the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization) to encourage rural
reforms on the village and regional levels to make increased agricultural production the basis of overall economic growth and development.37 In the late 1940s, the
Indian government had established the Grow More Food Program, a community
development program that aimed at promoting social change a nd economic
growth on an egalitarian basis. The Ford Foundation, which Nehru invited to help
– support from an independent philanthropic institution being much more attractive than US government aid with strings attached –, invested large amounts of
money into India’s community development over the course of the 1950s. In accordance with the Ghandian idealization of the village as the nucleus of democratic
Indian society, emphasis was placed on small model farms and cooperatives in
densely populated rural areas.38
36 See Frankel, India’s Political Economy, chapter 6;
Lanier, Entwicklungspolitik, 208–209; M. Bearth,
Weizen, Waffen und Kredite für den Indischen Subkontinent: Die amerikanische Südasienpolitik unter
Präsident Johnson im Dilemma zwischen Indien
und Pakistan, 1963–1969 (Stuttgart, 1990), 218–
219; J. H. Perkins, Geopolitics and the Green Revolution: Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War (New YorkOxford, 1997); K. L. Ahlberg, «’Machiavelli with
a Heart’: The Johnson Administration’s Food for
Peace Program in India, 1965–1966», Diplomatic History 31 (2007) 4, 665–701; R. J. McMahon,
The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States,
India, and Pakistan (New York, 1994), 308–335.
37 On the FAO’s position, see, for example, Alfredo
Saco, Chief, FAO Regional Analysis Branch,
«Farm Production and Income as Related to Eco-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%66
nomic Growth.» Reproduction from: Problems of
Development. Series of Lectures on Economic
Growth, University of Madrid, January – February 1961. Published by OEEC, June 1961. Translation from Spanish original. FAO Archives, Rome, Record Group (RG) 12, Box ES/ECO 327,
Folder «12.13 Means of Influencing Agricultural
Growth Rate EAd»; letter from P. G. H. Barter to
Dr. V. G. Panse, August 28, 1964, ibid., Box ES/
ECO 312, Folder «Development Branch 1964».
Also see A. L. S. Staples, The Birth of Development: How the World Bank, Food and Agriculture
Organization, and World Health Organization
Changed the World, 1945–1965 (Kent/OH, 2006),
105–112.
38 See Frankel, India’s Political Economy, 101–106;
Lanier, Entwicklungspolitik, 128–130, 149–157, !
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56
Corinna R. Unger
Rural ‹development from below› was also favored by some of the critics of Western modernization policies. Walter Scheel stated in 1964 that Third World industrialization was necessary to provide the basis for intensive agriculture but that agricultural development needed to be given a more prominent role in development
planning – a view shared by several members of India’s Planning Commission.39
Others were much more skeptical of industrialization in general. Most prominently,
ordoliberals like Wilhelm Röpke and Bellikoth Ragunath Shenoy disputed modernization theory’s assumption that Third World countries’ most important task was to
raise their gross national products through industrialization.40 According to Röpke,
one of the masterminds of West Germany’s social market economy, there was a
danger of ‹overindustrializing› the world while neglecting agriculture. He believed
that developing nations should continue to do what they knew how to do best,
namely low-scale agriculture. This argument went hand-in-hand with the plea to
acknowledge that there was no universal model of development. Some ordoliberals
believed in a ‹natural› difference between rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, which neither could nor should be overcome with ‹artificial› means.41
Behind some of those essentialist arguments stood the fear that the existing
global order might fall prey to a revolution initiated by the newly independent
nations. Once the developing countries established modern industries, many individuals working in labor-intensive agriculture would become unemployed. If they
left their villages to become factory workers, they would constitute an urban proletariat that was easily susceptible to communist rhetoric. The First World’s living
standards and security would be endangered by the Third World’s growing ‹overpopulation›, which would be accelerated by the break-up of traditional family structures and production communities. Conservative observers believed that instead of
modernizing the developing countries one had to focus on strengthening traditional, ‹organic› structures.42 Hence, they tried to restrict Third World populations
to specific ways of life and areas of living.43
168–186; Perkins, Geopolitics, 176–180; M. Bhattacharyya, «Rural Development in India: A Survey of Concepts, Strategies and Experiences»,
United Nations Economic Bulletin for Asia and the
Pacific 36 (1985) 1, 36–47; V.R. Gaikwad, «Community Development in India», in Community
Development: Comparative Case Studies in India,
the Republic of Korea, Mexico and Tanzania, ed.
R. Dore and Z. Mars (London-Paris, 1981), 247–
334.
39 See Walter Scheel, «Europas Rolle bei der Agrarhilfe für Entwicklungsländer». Speech given at
the FAO’s regional conference (October 26–31,
1964) in Salzburg, October 28, 1964, AdL, A 33–
87. On the Indian position, see Frankel, India’s
Political Economy.
40 W. Röpke, «Die unterentwickelten Länder als
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%68
wirtschaftliches, soziales und gesellschaftliches
Problem», in Entwicklungsländer: Wahn und
Wirklichkeit, ed. A. Hunold (Erlenbach-Zürich,
1961), 11–82, 31. Also see B. R. Shenoy, «Der
richtige Weg zu Indiens Fortschritt», ibid., 139–
156; J. V. van Sickle, «Alte und neue Theorien des
wirtschaftlichen Wachstums», ibid., 111–121.
41 See Röpke, «Die unterentwickelten Länder,» 37,
24–27. On Röpke and his thought, see A. J. Nicholls, Freedom With Responsibility: The Social
Market Economy in Germany, 1918–1963 (Oxford,
1994).
42 See, for example, the speech by Foreign Minister
Heinrich von Brentano, «Foreign policy aspects
of cooperation with the developing countries»,
Stuttgart, November 24, 1956, PA, B 58–8/2.
43 I would like to thank Quinn Slobodian for sha-
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57
To keep the rural populations on the land, improving the rural living conditions
was considered essential. Agricultural cooperatives (no conservative monopoly, to
be sure), which had a long tradition both in Germany and India and were heavily
promoted by India’s Planning Commission, seemed to provide the perfect solution. By pooling material and labor resources, they would make production more
efficient and encourage individual achievement without endangering communal
solidarity. This would lead to a higher standard of living, which would neutralize
the attraction of collectivization. In short, cooperatives would respond to the
demand for a more efficient, yet stable agrarian order that guaranteed food sufficiency and kept people on their land.44
Similar discussions had taken place in the 1920s and 1930s concerning Central
Europe’s agrarian and demographic situation, and many colonial powers had
talked about the dangers of ‹overpopulation› in their overseas territories. The similarity between pre- and postwar discussions seems especially remarkable with
regard to the Nazis’ radicalization of population policies and their brutal implementation during World War II . However, one should not overstate the continuities, I believe. Nazi population policies had their roots in much older discourses
that were not uniquely German.45 Furthermore, without equating Nazi experts
with French or British colonial officers, one should remember that the transfer of
colonial knowledge, practices and personnel to the postcolonial era was a widespread European phenomenon.46 What was new in the postwar discussions was
ten, Stiftungen und Politik: Zur Genese des gloring his manuscript «Against Modernization
balen Diskurses über Bevölkerung seit 1945»,
Theory: Ordoliberal Utopia and the Third World
Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemin the 1950s» and his expertise on ordoliberaporary History, 4 (2007) 1–2, http://www.zeithislism with me.
44 See the letter from the West German embassy in
torische-forschungen.de/16126041–Frey-2–2007;
New Delhi to the Foreign Office, April 28, 1960, M. Connelly, Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population (Cambridge/MA, 2008);
BAK, B 102/55957; attachment to Otto Schiller’s
A. Bashford, «Population, Geopolitics, and Interletter to the Foreign Office, Referat 407, June 10,
national Organizations in the Mid-Twentieth
1959, PA, B 61–411/271; Foreign Office, Referat
Century», Journal of World History 19 (2008) 3,
407, Memorandum, October 1, 1958, PA, B 58–
327–347.
8/13a, 22. Also see Röpke, «Die unterentwickelten Länder,» 38–42; A. Hunold, «Freies Bauern- 46 See the contribution by Joseph Hodge in this issue; also see V. Dimier, «For a New Start? Resetttum als Programm für unterentwickelte
ling Colonial Administrators in the French PreLänder», Entwicklungsländer, ed. Hunold, 125–
fectural Corps (1960–1980s)», Itinerario 28
137. For a Cold War-inspired evaluation of the po(2004) 1, 49–66. For a discussion of the nexus
tential of cooperatives, see P. N. Driver, «The
between German policies in the colonies and in
New Role of Cooperatives for India», Journal of
the occupied Eastern territories, see B. Kundrus,
Farm Economics 45 (1963) 4, 850–887. On intra«Kontinuitäten, Parallelen, Rezeptionen: ÜberIndian debates about cooperatives (inspired by
legungen zur ‹Kolonialisierung› des Nationalsothe Chinese example) and the Planning
zialismus», WerkstattGeschichte 15 (2006) 43,
Commission’s efforts to multiply their number,
45–62; R. Gerwarth and S. Malinowski, «Der
see Frankel, India’s Political Economy, 118–120,
Holocaust als ‹kolonialer Genozid›? Europäische
124–127, and 140–142.
45 See T. Etzemüller, Ein ewigwährender Untergang:
Kolonialgewalt und nationalsozialistischer VerDer apokalyptische Bevölkerungsdiskurs im 20.
nichtungskrieg», Geschichte und Gesellschaft 33
Jahrhundert (Bielefeld, 2007); M. Frey, «Exper(2007) 3, 439–466.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%69
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
58
Corinna R. Unger
the global perspective that made population growth appear as a global problem to
be tackled across regions and continents. This perspective gained relevance due to
decolonization and the more general concern with security, wealth, and stability.47
In the early 1960s, the looming sense of crisis suggested that immediate political
action was necessary in order to prevent global ‹chaos›. In this situation, and
encouraged by agricultural experts and the West German embassy in India, Bonn’s
Foreign Office decided to participate in an Indian agricultural project, the Intensive
Agricultural District Program (IADP ), and to do so by establishing cooperatives.48
3. In Favor of the Farmer? The Agrarian Cooperative Project Mandi
IADP , which became the nucleus of India’s Green Revolution, was a package extension program that aimed at stabilizing India’s agricultural situation. In reaction to
the 1957–58 food crisis, Nehru had asked the Ford Foundation for help once again,
and the foundation had sent a team of US experts to India in 1959. Their recommendations on how to improve Indian food production became the basis on which
the Indian government set up model districts to test new growing, irrigation, and
marketing techniques in order to increase agricultural production. While India
paid for IADP ’s logistics, the Ford Foundation and several Western governments
sponsored selected districts.49
The FRG decided to support a project in Himachal Pradesh, a mountain region
bordering Tibet. West German experts had also considered Sambalpur, a region
close to Rourkela, which was favored by Krupp officials, who hoped that an agricultural development program would improve the steel workers’ food situation and
generate favorable publicity. But the area and its inhabitants seemed much too
‹backward› to make serious headway in a relatively short period of time, and so
Mandi, an area of about 990 square miles and 1500 hamlets, was chosen.50 Having
been granted a sum of DM 7.5 million (USD 1.875 million), three agricultural
experts and six technicians established their headquarters in the town of Sundernagar and began to set up a cooperative structure in the district.51 Whereas the Ameri47 See C. R. Unger, «Toward Global Equilibrium:
Indian Modernization and American Philanthropy, 1950s to 1970s», Journal of Global History 5
(2010) 3 (forthcoming).
48 See the correspondence in PA, B 61–411/271;
Foreign Office, letter from Referat 709 to Otto
Schiller, September 1, 1959, ibid.
49 Ford Foundation, Agricultural Production Team,
and Indian Ministry of Food and Agriculture,
India’s Food Crisis and Steps to Meet It (Delhi:
Government of India, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, 1959). Also see Lanier, Entwicklungspolitik, 209–222; Rosen, Western Economists, 76–83;
Perkins, Geopolitics, 182–183, 240–241.
50 See letter from the West German embassy in
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%6,
New Delhi to the Foreign Office, January 19,
1961, PA, B 61 III B 7/93; letter from the Federal
Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Forestry
(BMELF), V II B 2, to the Foreign Office, August
6, 1960, PA, B 61–411/143; letter from the West
German embassy in New Delhi to the Foreign
Office, April 1, 1960, PA, B 61–411/267.
51 See Agreement between the Government of the
Federal Republic of Germany and the Government of India on the implementation of a collaborative advisory program aimed at agricultural
development in the district Mandi in Himachal
Pradesh, May 14, 1962, BAK, B 116/21635; Foreign Office, Referat 801, Allocation of funds out
of the development fund (Kap. 0502 Tit. 669),
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59
can experts focused on introducing new, technologically advanced cultivation
methods and production techniques, the West German program was supposed to
«enhance agriculture on a broader basis» by including advice on soil fertility, animal husbandry, dairy farming, fruit and produce growing, agricultural technology
and economics, statistics and planning, and irrigation. An agricultural workshop
equipped with tools, machines, and vehicles imported from the FRG offered practical training and courses.52 Originally, there was also a plan to build a community
center in Sundernagar, but after several years of budgeting, Bonn, citing financial
reasons, decided against the center. Nonetheless, the staff worked toward establishing close relations with the villagers. In stated contrast to their American colleagues, who traveled across the district to supervise the application of the new
techniques, the West Germans lived in Mandi for a period of five years, a measure
that was supposed to give them better insight into the farmers’ daily problems and
strengthen communal cooperation.53
Political observers regarded the West German project as a success. Within three
months, the use of fertilizer tripled, 5000 farmers joined the cooperatives, and the
general level of income increased. The Indian government recommended the model
to be copied, and – to Bonn’s great dismay – the GDR was suspected of doing just
that.54 In 1967, the FRG extended its activities to two more districts, Kangra and Nilgiris, and the Indian government repeatedly expressed its satisfaction with the West
Germans’ work.55 To some, Mandi proved that «the fight over India’s future will be
decided on the field and cannot be won by means of forced industrialization».56
Mandi’s apparent success also satisfied those who regarded the project as a
chance to show the world that the FRG was a leading, innovative force in development aid.57 The United States had been pressing Bonn for years to contribute larger
September 4, 1961, PA, B 61–411/272; Foreign
Office, Referat 407, Abridged report of the special meeting of the IRA for the cooperation with
the developing countries on May 17, 1961, concerning bilateral measures of support for India,
May 1961, PA, B 61–411/258.
52 Von Hülst, Report on the state of the work by the
German Agricultural Assistance Team in the district Mandi/H.P., India, not dated (May/June
1963), PA, B 61 III B 7/93. Also see letter from
the West German embassy in New Delhi to the
Foreign Office, May 25, 1959, PA, B 61–411/142.
53 See letter from the West German embassy in New
Delhi to the Foreign Office, July 20, 1962, attachment: Dr. G. Schütz, Memorandum, PA, B 61–
411/231. Also see BMELF, letter from VII A 5 to
the Minister, April 26, 1968, BAK, B 116/ 21637.
54 BMELF, VII B 7, Notation for the Minister, January 19, 1966, BAK, B 116/21634; Foreign Office,
III B 2, Official journey to India, February 8–28,
1963, March 3, 1963, PA, B 61 III B 7/91.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%64
New Delhi to the Foreign Office, September 18,
1964, PA, B 61 III B 7/134; BMELF, letter from
VII A 5 to the Minister, April 26, 1968, BAK,
B 116/21637. The funds the FRG invested into
the three Indian agricultural projects in 1967
amounted to DM 19 million (nearly five million
dollars). See letter from the Minister for Economic Development (Wischnewski) and the Secretary of State (Brandt) to the Chancellery, February 3, 1967, BAK, B 136/2985.
56 K. Natorp, «Mandi – ein vorbildliches Entwicklungsprojekt: Ein früher hungernder indischer
Distrikt liefert heute Nahrungsmittel», Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 29, 1965, 18,
BAK, B 116/21634.
New Delhi to the Foreign Office, February 14,
1962, PA, B 61–411/272.
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60
Corinna R. Unger
amounts of money to Western development aid. Although the FRG fulfilled its
ally’s demands on the institutional level, many West German experts were critical
of US development policies and practices. They believed that American agencies
were wasting money by investing in large, highly visible, multilateral projects
instead of trying to bring about long-lasting, structural changes on a bilateral
basis.58
The West German tendency to see development aid as an arena for transatlantic
competition gained momentum because the Federal Republic, although a prosperous nation, had smaller financial resources than the United States, which meant
that it could not rely exclusively on expensive new technologies and artificial fertilizer in stimulating production. In addition, the American experts picked their
model districts first, choosing those that promised the fastest results and most
visible success. Consequently, West German diplomats feared that the FRG ’s activities would not receive adequate attention.59 The only way out of this dilemma
was to consciously reject technocratic modernization approaches, or at least to
complement them with ‹old-fashioned› structural measures. The ‹low-modern›60
cooperative model stood in clear contrast to the ‹high-modern› approach embodied
by IADP .
So did Mandi fulfill its supporters’ hopes? In the late 1960s, a sociological study
of the project concluded that «[t]hough, in terms of membership and volume of
business transaction, the cooperative movement has made some headway, its
actual working has been found to suffer from some anomalies and malpractices, of
which the poor and illiterate farmers appear to be the worst victims.»61 Those farmers who joined the cooperatives belonged to the middle and upper classes, whereas
the economic situation of the landless workers worsened over the years – a symptom that plagued IADP in general. Some, including the authors of the study,
blamed this disappointing development on the ‹ignorant› farmers who, buried
under «the dead weight of age-old customs and traditions», resisted all kinds of
supposedly useful innovations. At the same time, the authors acknowledged that
the project itself contained several flaws. For example, German cows that were
introduced to Himachal Pradesh gave much more milk than local cows but due to
58 See, for example, Foreign Office, Dg 41, Memo-
randum, November 27, 1958, PA, B 61–411/111;
letter from the West German representative at
the OECE to the Foreign Office, March 17, 1961,
PA, B 58/115.
59 Foreign Office, Referat 414, Abridged minutes of
the departmental meeting at the directors’ level
on December 9, 1960, concerning the GermanAmerican financial talks, December 9, 1960,
PA, B 58 III B 1/324. Also see the letters from the
West German embassy in New Delhi to the
Foreign Office, April 1, 1960, PA, B 61/411/267;
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%8&
January 1, 1961, PA, B 61 III B 7/93; and February 14, 1962, PA, B 61–411/272. Also see
BMELF, letter from VII B 2 to the Foreign Office,
August 6, 1960, PA, B 61–411/143.
60 J. Gilbert, «Low Modernism and the Agrarian
New Deal», in Fighting for the Farm: Rural America
Transformed, ed. J. Adams (Philadelphia, 2003),
129–146.
61 C. Rajagopalan and J. Singh, Adoption of Agricultural Innovations: A Sociological Study of the IndoGerman Project Mandi (Delhi, 1971), 108.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
61
their large size were neither able to climb the region’s steep hills nor to drag the
ploughs used for farming, and their maintenance costs substantially exceeded the
returns from higher milk sales.62 Similarly, the fertilizers and hybrid varieties were
so expensive that many small farmers could not afford to take up the new techniques. To actively participate in modernization was, clearly, an economic privilege.63 In addition, professional and cultural differences created unforeseen problems. According to villagers’ accounts in Mandi, the West German agricultural
experts entered the villages wearing suits and driving cars, calling to mind the presence of British colonial officers, which spawned fear that their land would be taken
away. Disagreements between Indian and German agricultural specialists about
the correct modernization approach complicated matters further.64
In 1967, a senior BMZ bureaucrat concluded that Mandi had succeeded in
increasing agricultural production but had failed to reach its community development goals. The West German advisors had neither managed to train a sufficient
number of Indians nor to establish the necessary structures to allow for Mandi’s
independence from foreign support.65 Such a structural dependence on the First
World was exactly what the promoters of the cooperative approach had wanted to
avoid. Moreover, it was not the cooperative structures but the extensive use of fertilizer that proved to be the most effective way of increasing production levels and
that secured of India’s independence from external food aid (though not from
Western credits and fertilizer imports) in 1972.66
4. Conclusion
Rourkela and Mandi both mirror the large gap that existed between modernization
theory and modernization practice that James Ferguson has diagnosed so convincingly. Industrialization and large-scale infrastructure projects often suffered from
short-sighted planning, mismanagement, and unexpected problems on the
ground. The Green Revolution succeeded in increasing agricultural production,
but in the long run its ‹side effects› took a heavy toll: the use of pesticides and new
irrigation techniques caused ecological damage while the commercialization of
agriculture led to social unrest in many rural areas.
62 See ibid., 98 (quote 101).
63 For an account of similar experiences in Alipur,
see A. Gupta, Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India (Durham-London 1998), 166–183.
64 Radhika Johari (York University, Toronto), who is
working on an anthropological study of the IndoGerman Changar Eco-Development Project,
kindly shared this information with me. Email
from Radhika Johari to the author, January 14,
2009. On the conflicts between Indian and German experts also see the letter from the West
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%8'
German embassy in New Delhi to the Foreign
Office, August 31, 1961, PA, B 61 III B 7/93, and
von Hülst, Report on the state of the work by the
German Agricultural Assistance Team in the district Mandi/H.P., India, not dated (May/June
1963), ibid.
65 Letter from Ministerialrat Schneider (BMZ) to
Ministerialrat Dr. Eiche (BMELF), July 12, 1967,
BAK, B 116/21637.
New Delhi to the Foreign Office, November 19,
1968, BAK, B 116/21637; Bearth, Weizen, 193.
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62
Corinna R. Unger
In trying to explain the problems encountered in implementing modernization
projects, accusing the locals of lacking a Western work ethic and being unwilling to
give up their ‹traditional› ways of life is obviously not the answer. A different, similarly one-sided approach would be to argue «in defense of the irrational peasant».67
This carries the danger of portraying Indian laborers and farmers solely as victims
of developmentalism. Two things are important here: For one, many individuals in
the Third World wanted to participate in development programs, and many of them
did achieve significant rates of ‹improvement›, whether measured in terms of
access to education, increase in rates of production, or economic output. Secondly,
the majority of the individuals in question took active part in development whether
or not they considered the changes they experienced a result of modernization.
One needs to look more closely at the ways in which they appropriated the imported
techniques and plans, combining ‹traditional› and ‹modern› practices that developed a dynamic of their own in a manner largely unanticipated by the planners.68
In addition, it is important to bear in mind that politics on the local level often
played a much greater role than government programs (many of them instrumental to nation-building), international organizations, or Western donor countries.69
What, then, do the two case studies tell us about West German modernization
approaches? I would argue that one can identify specific West German ideas about
Third World development but that there was no paradigmatic modernization concept ‹made in FRG ›. What was distinct about West German thinking regarding
development and modernization was the somewhat stereotypical focus on ‹hard
and honest› work, on achievement and efficiency, and on high quality. All of those
‹values› rendered aid seemingly ‹technical› and allowed the possibility of presenting aid as a non-political, non-ideological activity of a peaceful, altruistic nation.
Thus, development aid contributed to the invention of a West German national
identity that offered a clear break with the past. Promoting a Third Way also helped
to emphasize that the Federal Republic was an independent nation despite its strategic dependence on the United States. In that sense, West German development
aid was at least as much about coming to terms with American hegemony as it was
about claiming a spot among the former colonial powers in the postcolonial scramble for markets and influence.
‹In the field›, however, different ideas about the right way to modernize seems
to have mattered only to a limited extent. National cultures of development
and modernization, if they existed, would have been largely defined by language:
67 K. Nair, In Defense of the Irrational Peasant: Indian
Agriculture After the Green Revolution (Chicago,
1979).
68 See T. M. Li, The Will to Improve: Governmentality,
Development, and the Practice of Politics (Durham,
2008); J. Springer, «State Power and Agricultu-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%8)
ral Transformation in Tamil Nadu», Agrarian Environments: Resources, Representation, and Rule in
India, ed. A. Agrawal and K. Sivaramakrishman
(Durham, 2000), 86–106.
69 See Gupta, Postcolonial Developments, chapter 2.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
63
The use of specific terminology could suggest the existence of specific national
approaches which, however, were not all that different from each other. The ideological background of modernization policies differed from country to country
(and also within countries), but the practices of and experiences with Third World
modernization were strikingly similar.
Those similarities were not at all restricted to Western development agents.
I would argue that the line of division did not run between South and North but
between elites and ‹masses›, since modernization was an elite project. Elites in the
First and Third Worlds shared the belief that one had to prevent the growth of specific ‹segments› of the population on the national and on the global levels. As stark
as the contrast between India and Germany might have been, the differences
between Delhi’s and Bonn’s bureaucrats and experts in thinking about the future
seem to have been rather marginal. Indian elites feared that they would lose their
economic and social privileges if the number of individuals belonging to the lower
‹castes› was allowed to increase without restriction. Western elites feared that their
material and political security might be at risk if the Third World populations
increased at an even faster pace than in industrialized societies. In the Federal
Republic, pre-1945 discourses about ‹order›, ‹organic growth› and ‹planning› heavily influenced such thinking,70 and the Cold War created a space in which older
ideas and approaches were recycled and re-applied to a new, global setting.
70 See A. Leendertz, Ordnung schaffen: Deutsche
Raumplanung im 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen,
2008); also see the contributions in Planung im
20. Jahrhundert, ed. P. Nolte and D. Gosewinkel,
Geschichte und Gesellschaft 34 (2008) 3.
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64
ABSTRACTS
Corinna R. Unger
Industrialization or Agrarian Reform?
West German Modernization Policies in India
in the 1950s and 1960s
This article takes into view different West German positions on Third World modernization and studies how they translated into development programs in India in the
1950s and 1960s. Two projects serve as case studies: The steel mill Rourkela
embodied the industrialization approach favored by representatives of West German business and economic interests, most of who were convinced in the need for,
and the advantages of industrialization as the most effective path toward overall
modernization. The other case study is the agricultural cooperative project Mandi,
which, in part, mirrored the anti-modern (and, in some instances, anti-American)
critique of the Western modernization model and focused on gradual improvement
instead of radical change. This approach rested on the belief in the need for a stable
Third World order able to withstand communism, and, linked to that, the fear of
‹overpopulation›. India’s development and modernization policies and programs
are integrated into the discussion of the two case studies. In conclusion, the article
considers the role of the Cold War and decolonization for modernization policies as
well as the contrast between modernization theory and practice.
Industrialisierung oder Agrarreform?
Die westdeutschen Modernisierungspolitiken in Indien
in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren
Der Beitrag behandelt unterschiedliche westdeutsche Positionen zur Modernisierung der Dritten Welt und untersucht am Beispiel Indiens in den 1950er und 1960er
Jahren, wie sich diese Differenzen in der Entwicklungspolitik niederschlugen. Als
Fallstudien dienen zwei Projekte: Das Hüttenwerk Rourkela verkörperte den Industrialisierungsansatz, den viele Vertreter westdeutscher Geschäfts- und Wirtschaftsinteressen favorisierten. Die meisten von ihnen teilten die Überzeugung, dass
Industrialisierung nicht nur unumgänglich, sondern auch der vielversprechendste
Weg zur umfassenden Modernisierung sei. Das landwirtschaftliche Genossenschaftsprojekt Mandi wird als zweites Fallbeispiel behandelt. Mandi spiegelte die
antimoderne (und zum Teil antiamerikanische) Kritik am westlichen Modernisierungsansatz und setzte auf graduellen Wandel statt auf radikale Veränderung.
Dahinter stand der Glaube an die Notwendigkeit einer stabilen Ordnung in der Dritten Welt, um dem Kommunismus Einhalt zu gebieten, und, damit verknüpft, die
Sorge vor ‹Überbevölkerung›. Die indischen Entwicklungs- und Modernisierungskonzepte werden in die Diskussion der beiden Projekte integriert. Abschließend
diskutiert der Artikel die Rolle des Kalten Krieges und der Dekolonisation für die
Modernisierungspolitik sowie den Gegensatz zwischen Modernisierungstheorie
und -praxis.
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)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
Industrialisation ou réforme agraire?
Politiques de modernisation ouest-allemande en Inde
dans les années 1950 et 1960
65
ABSTRACTS
Cet article prend en ligne de compte les différentes positions ouest-allemandes
dans la modernisation du Tiers-Monde et étudie comment elle s’est traduites dans
des programmes de développement en Inde dans les années 1950 et 1960. Deux
projets servent de cas d’études: l’aciérie Rourkela incarne l’approche par l’industrialisation favorisée par les représentants des intérêts d’affaires et économiques,
dont la majorité était convaincue de la nécessité, et des avantages de l’industrialisation comme chemin le plus efficace vers une modernisation générale. L’autre cas
d’étude est le projet de coopérative agricole Mandi, qui, en partie, reflète la critique
antimoderne (et, par certains côtés, anti-américaine) du modèle de modernisation
occidental et se concentre sur l’amélioration graduelle plutôt que sur le changement radical. Cette approche reposait sur la conviction de la nécessité d’un ordre du
Tiers-Monde stable, capable de résister au communisme, et, liée à cela, à la peur de
la «surpopulation». Les politiques et les programmes de développement et de
modernisation de l’Inde sont intégrés dans la discussion de ces deux cas d’études.
En conclusion, cet article prend en considération le rôle de la guerre froide et de la
décolonisation pour les politiques de modernisation autant que le contraste entre
la théorie et la pratique de la modernisation.
Corinna R. Unger
German Historical Institute
1607 New Hampshire Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20009, USA
email: [email protected]
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)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
66
Abou B. Bamba
The United States, France, and the Making of
the Kossou Project in Central Ivory Coast 1
Toward the end of the 1960s, authorities in the Ivory Coast decided to build the
Kossou Dam, a hydroelectric dam on the Bandama River near the geographic center of the Francophone country. Initially conceived as a technopolitical measure to
meet the growing energy demand of the most economically successful country of
France’s former colonies, the damming experiment soon emerged as a multipurpose regional development project aimed at correcting the regional disparities that
tarnished the Ivory Coast’s phenomenal economic growth.2
This article focuses on the Kossou modernization experience and the sociopolitical transformations that it caused. I argue that the nationalist enthusiasm that
followed the country’s independence in 1960 all the way through the first decade of
postcolonial nation-building provided the Ivorian authorities with an opportunity
to flesh out their electrified vision of the country’s future. Such a vision, which
linked modernization with the potentials of electrification, was hardly new. In fact,
1 For their support and critical readings of earlier
versions of this article, I would like to extend my
gratitude to Ian C. Fletcher, Larry Youngs, Isa
Blumi, Tim Stoneman as well as Uwe Lübken,
Thomas Adam, Sonya Michel, and the participants of the 2007 Young Scholars Forum at the
University of Texas, Arlington. My appreciations
also go to Corinna Unger and Stephan Malinowski for their subsequent encouragement and
suggestions on how to improve and make the article publishable.
2 Incorporated into the expanding French colonial
empire in the late 19th century, the Ivory Coast
officially became a colony in 1893. By the early
1950s, it had emerged as the most successful
of France’s territories in West Africa. In 1960,
the Ivory Coast became independent along with
the other territories that constituted French West
Africa. For an overview of the history of the
country, see P. Kipré, Côte d’Ivoire: La Formation
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%88
d’un peuple (Paris, 2005); L. Gbagbo, Côte d’Ivoire:
Economie et société à la veille de l’indépendance,
1940–1960 (Paris, 1982); A. Zolberg, One-Party
Government in the Ivory Coast (Princeton, 1964);
I. Wallerstein, The Road to Independence: Ghana
and the Ivory Coast (Paris, 1964). On the postwar
economic growth in the Ivory Coast that soon came to be known as the «Ivorian (economic) miracle,» see N. B. Ridler, «Comparative Advantage
as a Development Model: The Ivory Coast», Journal of Modern African Studies 23 (1985) 3, 407–
417; R. M. Hecht, «The Ivory Coast Economic
‹Miracle›: What Benefits for Peasant Farmers?»,
Journal of Modern African Studies 21 (1983) 1, 25–
53; M. O’Connor, «Guinea and the Ivory Coast:
Contrasts in Economic Development», Journal of
Modern African Studies 10 (1972) 3, 409–426;
S. Amin, Le développement du capitalisme en Côte
d’Ivoire (Paris, 1967).
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
The United States, France, and the Making of the Kossou Project in Central Ivory Coast
67
as early as 1959, the Ivorian leadership had bet on the production of hydroelectricity as a significant step toward modernity. With the support of the French colonial
authorities, they undertook the construction of the Ayamé Dam, the country’s first
economic infrastructure of this kind. At this juncture, the Ivorian ruling elite predicted that hydroelectric power would help secure the welfare of the Ivorian people
while simultaneously providing the basis for national industrialization, which they
considered the «pre-condition for the creation of the modern state».3
Like Ayamé, Kossou was viewed as an embodiment of this symbolic linkage
between electricity and the genesis of a modern Ivorian society. Unlike Ayamé,
however, the construction of Kossou went beyond the traditional bilateral relations between metropolitan France and its (post)colonies. In a context where they
were trying to diversify, albeit timidly, the international partners to be enlisted
for their country’s modernization, the Ivorian authorities not only called upon
France. They also demanded help from the World Bank and, later, called for U.S.
expertise and capital, which soon arrived in the form of technical know-how
through Kaiser Engineers and loans administered by the Export-Import (Exim)
Bank of the United States.4 The less than friendly response of the French diplomats to this American involvement in the electrification program of the Ivory
Coast is succinctly analysed in this article. Beyond the Franco-American tensions
over the Ivorian postcolony, however, I suggest that the American presence in the
electrification program of postcolonial Ivory Coast confirmed the pervasiveness of
U.S. know-how in the practice of comprehensive regional development both in
France and the Ivory Coast. Besides the shared perception of electricity as both a
tool of modernization and the quintessential symbol of modernity, this was due to
the fact that regional development of the type promoted by the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA ) had reemerged as a favorite technique in the transnational world
of modernization.5
This article sheds light on some of the assumptions that informed the modernist and transcultural process of the damming of an African river. It contends that
while recent studies on U.S .-inflected transnationalism have unveiled the dynamics of the transmission of values and know-how across societal and national borders, few have scrutinized the triangulated nature of the transfer of American ideas
and values to most of the (post)colonial societies of the latter part of the twentieth
3 Fraternité, 31 July 1959.
4 For the history and function of the Export-Import
Bank of the United States see W. H. Becker and
W. M. McClenahan, The Market, The State, and
the Export-Import Bank of the United States, 1934–
2000 (Cambridge, 2003); and for a first-hand
account by a key Ivorian actor, the former ambassador to the U.S. and later Minister of the Economy of the Ivory Coast (1966–1977), see H. K. Be-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%89
dié, Les Chemins de ma vie: Entretiens avec Eric
Laurent (Paris, 1999), 84–87.
5 On the birth, death and rebirth of the TVA model
as a favorite modernization paradigm around the
world see A. B. Bamba, «Branchements Transatlantiques: The Circulation of the ‹TVA Idea› in
the United States, France, and the Ivory Coast».
Paper discussed at the 2007 Young Scholars
Forum, Arlington, Texas, 29–30 March 2007.
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68
Abou B. Bamba
century.6 Taking the Ivory Coast as a case that crystallizes U.S .-inspired transnationalism in a postcolonial situation, it appears that the concept of triangulation is a
necessary detour for anyone trying to make sense of the American presence in the
modernization landscape in Francophone Africa. But, as we shall see, the roots of
triangulation reach deep; they can be traced as far back as the postwar years, when
French colonial subjects increasingly showed their dissatisfaction with France’s
mission civilisatrice.
1. The Rise of the Politics of Triangulation: Decolonization, Postwar
Developmentalism and the American Century
Historians of modernization theory and diplomacy have recognized that the coming of the American Century and the Cold War in the postwar years operated as a
historical conjuncture that fuelled the diffusion of an American-inflected understanding of development.7 In fact, both the production of new economic spaces,
which the maintenance of American global economic hegemony necessitated,
and the containment policies of the United States in the context of the emerging
Cold War forced American diplomats and modernizers to take steps toward the
establishment of an empire aimed at bringing the rest of the so-called Free World
into the fold of what American cold warriors saw as legitimate (meaning: American-style) modernity. From Italy to Indonesia, from Latin America to India and
Vietnam, the American economic planners and social engineers initiated spectacular modernization programs informed by a U.S .-centric understanding of the
good life.8
While recent studies on modernization theory have dramatically expanded our
understanding of the historical consequences of these illusive attempts at imposing an American-orchestrated modernity on foreign peoples, few have discussed
6 On the issue of U.S. transnationalism, see
S. Chan, ed., Chinese American Transnationalism:
The Flow of People, Resources, and Ideas Between
China and America during the Exclusion Era (Philadelphia, 2006); R. Duncan and C. Juncker, eds.,
Transnational America: Contours of Modern U.S.
Culture (Copenhagen, 2004); T. Bender, ed.,
Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley, 2002); M. Kipping and O. Bjarnar, eds.,
The Americanization of European Business: The
Marshall Plan and the Transfer of US Management
Models (London, 1998); G. M. Joseph et al, eds.,
Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural
History of U.S-Latin American Relations (Durham, 1998).
7 O. A. Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World
Interventions and the Making of Our Times (New
York, 2005), esp. chapter 4; N. Gilman, Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%8,
War America (Baltimore, 2003); D. C. Engerman
et al, eds., Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War (Amherst,
2003); Nick Cullather, «Development? It’s History», Diplomatic History 24 (2000) 4, 641–653.
8 B. R. Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations,
1960–1968 (Stanford, 2008); C. R. Unger, «Modernization à la Mode: West German and American Development Plans for the Third World»,
GHI Bulletin 40 (2007), 143–159; M. Adas, Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and
America’s Civilizing Mission (Cambridge, 2006);
C. Fisher, «The Illusion of Progress: CORDS and
the Crisis of Modernization in South Vietnam,
1965–1968», Pacific Historical Review 75 (2006)
1, 25–51; M. Latham, Modernization as Ideology:
American Social Science and ‹Nation-Building› in
the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill, 2000).
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69
how the globalization of the American developmentalist paradigm operated as a
subtle critique of the European colonial powers’ civilizing mission, especially at a
time when colonial subjects in Africa and elsewhere were calling for the end of
colonial rule. Having realized that the «disintegration of the old colonialism is
inevitable», American policymakers in the 1950s came to the conclusion that the
«old concept of the ‹white man’s burden› is obsolete and provides no valid justification for colonialism».9 They proposed instead a new teleology of progress for the
colonized peoples. Furthermore, American economic planners used their own
colonial experiment in the Philippines and its reliance on the expertise of the engineers as a template that the Europeans should emulate. In so doing, not only did
they equate mechanization with modernity but, in sharp contrast to European colonialism, they also saw their civilizing/modernizing mission as «one of tutelage
rather than paternalistic domination».10
Of course such a perception was replete with an exceptionalist sense of superiority that associated European colonialism with backwardness, even as it built on
the racialized ideology that sustained Europe’s long history of expansionism.11
These contradictions notwithstanding, the emergence of the American Century
invariably acted as a force that threatened to dislodge European rule in the colonial
world. This was all the more so possible since the diffusion of American-style developmentalism provided the colonial subjects with an alternative model to the extant
colonial modernity, which many of them increasingly regarded as an ineffective
sociopolitical arrangement for bringing about real social change in the colonies.12
Postwar developments in the Ivory Coast involving Kouamé Binzème shed an
interesting light on this historical process, especially if we pay attention to the strategies he deployed in order to criticize France’s colonial rule in West Africa. Acting
as the mouthpiece of a group of disgruntled Ivorian planters, this French-educated
Ivorian lawyer decided in the fall of 1948 to write directly to American Marshall
Plan administrators to enlist their active support for what he anticipated would be
the effective modernization of his country.13 Binzème’s plan for the modernization
of the Ivory Coast was striking in more than one regard. From the outset, it boldly
9 Henry A. Byroade, «The World’s Colonies and
12 M. Frey, «Tools of Empire: Persuasion and the
Ex-Colonies: A Challenge to America,» Department of State Bulletin, 16 November 1953, 656.
10 M. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science,
Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance
(Ithaca, 1989), 406–410.
11 M. Adas, «Improving on the Civilizing Mission?:
Assumptions of United States Exceptionalism
in the Colonization of the Philippines», Itinerario 22 (1998) 4, 44–66. For an early perceptive,
if overlooked, formulation of this idea, see
M. Ugarte, «The New Rome», in The Destiny of a
Continent (New York, 1925), 123–148.
United State’s Modernizing Mission in Southeast Asia», Diplomatic History 27 (2003) 4,
565–566; Adas, «Improving on the Civilizing
Mission?», 48–49; D. Little, «Cold War and Colonialism in Africa: The United States, France, and
the Madagascar Revolt of 1947», Pacific Historical
Review 59 (1990) 4, 527–552.
13 National Archive and Records Administration
(College Park, Maryland, hereafter USNA), RG
469, Box 7: Maître Kouamé Binzème, «Le Développement économique de la Côte d’Ivoire: Plan
d’action,» 2 September 1948.
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70
Abou B. Bamba
argued for an active participation of the United States in the Ivorian postwar development drive, almost to the exclusion of the French colonial state. As the lawyer
put it himself, his program was informed by the «principle of partnership (association) between American capital and African labor».14 Implicitly critiquing the
French doctrine of colonial mise en valeur, which was more exploitative than beneficial to the colonial subjects, Binzème added that the Ivoiro-American partnership
in the domain of development should, above all, «protect the integrity of indigenous natural resources» while at the same time promoting «freedom, economic
progress, and social betterment for the Africans».15
In practical terms, however, the Binzème Plan was a reappropriation of some of
the programs that the French Fonds d’Investissement pour le Développement Economique
et Social (FIDES) had initiated in the Ivory Coast earlier. These included the industrial exploitation of strategic minerals such as manganese, iron, silver, gold, and
oil.16 Still in line with FIDES program, Binzème hoped to mechanize Ivorian agriculture and forestry for a better exploitation of their resources.17 Against France’s protectionist policy, which limited the import of foreign consumer goods into French
overseas territories, Binzème solicited the «active collaboration» of American industries to meet the «unsatisfied needs» of the indigenous peoples.18 Finally, the lawyer
requested that American financial groups participate in the creation of a venture
firm whose aim would be the exploitation of his country’s natural resources.19
It is not clear how American Marshall Planners responded to Maître Binzème’s
proposals. Nor can we ascertain whether the French colonial authorities took notice
of his correspondence with the Americans. Still, the attitude of the Ivorian lawyer
crystallized a tendency visible throughout the larger French empire in the postwar
period: the nationalist politics of triangulating development. If modernization had
emerged as a transnational ideology that most people espoused, French colonial
subjects increasingly came to doubt the modernizing capability of Paris and its
imperial extension. In contrast to France’s mission civilisatrice, people like Kouamé
Binzème emphasized the potential benefits of the American way of life and the
modernization theory that informed its expansion.
The dangers inherent in the politics of triangulating modernization were not
lost on the French colonial administrators. They reacted with massive development
projects through FIDES and by dubbing American modernization techniques. For
instance, under the Productivity Mission program, French colonial authorities sent
hundreds of their agents to the United States.20 They also invited a number of
14 USNA, RG 469, Box 7: Maître Kouamé Binzème
15
16
17
18
to ECA/Paris, 2 September 1948. (Emphasis in
the original).
Ibid.
Binzème, «Développement économique,» 1.
Ibid., 2–5.
Ibid., 6–7.
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19 Ibid., 8.
20 Centre des Archives d’Outre Mer (Aix-en-Pro-
vence, hereafter, CAOM), 2 FIDES 911: Commissariat Général à la Productivité, «Organisation
des missions françaises de productivité aux
Etats-Unis en 1956,» January 1956.
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71
American experts to France to train French colonial specialists, making sure that
France remained the sole mediator in the postwar modernization of the Ivory Coast
and the larger empire.21 If desperate, these actions suggested that knowledge, comparison, and translation had become transnational historical forces in the postwar
world of French imperialism. Despite these efforts, or maybe because of them,
independence became inevitable, and in 1960 the country proclaimed its formal
separation from France.22
However, French authorities did not give up their role as mediators. In fact, they
continued to deploy similar efforts so as to check the possibility of a bilateral relationship between the Ivory Coast and the United States, even after the country had
gained independence. Perhaps no other instance epitomizes this continuity
between the colonial and postcolonial modernization drives better than the making
of Kossou, which relied heavily on French mediation, although it was American
money and technical know-how that kept the project on track. As we shall see, the
missionary activities of French experts such as the chairperson of the French Commission Nationale pour l’Aménagement du Térritoire or the researchers of the Office de
la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre Mer (ORSTOM ) proved crucial in turning an original U.S .-Ivory Coast developmentalist encounter into a triangular
socioeconomic modernization experiment.
2. Framing a Francophone Postcolony:
Modernization, Regionalization, and the Impact of French Expertise
In late February 1969, Philippe Lamour, the chairman of the French national
agency on regional planning, visited the Ivory Coast. A man who had been intimately involved in the postwar modernization drive in metropolitan France,
Lamour was a veteran of planning.23 Chief Officer of the firm set up for the rehabilitation of the Lower-Rhône region or Compagnie du Bas-Rhône Languedoc (CBRL ),
he had emerged in the 1960s as «one of France’s great economic managers».24
21 CAOM, 2 FIDES 911 : «Rapport préliminaire,» 8
February 1951.
22 Kipré, Côte d’Ivoire, 141–144; J.-P. Gourévitch, La
France en Afrique. Cinq siècles de présence: Vérités et
mensonges (Paris, 2004), 242–244; F. Cooper,
Decolonization and African Society: The Labor
Questions in French and British Africa (New YorkCambridge, 1996); Y. Benot, Massacres coloniaux, 1944–1950: La IV è république et la mise au
pas des colonies françaises (Paris, 1994), 146–157;
Gbagbo, Côte d’Ivoire, 91–102; G. Chaffard, Les
carnets secrets de la décolonisation (Paris, 1965),
29–59, 100–131; R. Schachter Morgenthau,
Political Parties in French-Speaking West Africa
(Oxford, 1964), 88–90. For a memoir by one
of the major protagonists of these events, see
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%9'
F. Houphouët-Boigny, Chronique de la décolonisation (Abidjan, 1986).
23 For an overview of Lamour’s life, see J.-R. Pitte,
Philippe Lamour (1903–1992): Père de l’aménagement du territoire en France (Paris, 2002). For some
of Lamour’s ideas regarding regional planning,
see P. Lamour, «Land and Water Development in
Southern France», in H. Jarrett, ed., Comparison in
Resource Management: Six Notable Programs in
Other Countries and Their Possible U.S. Application
(Baltimore, 1961), 227–250; P. Lamour, «Les
Plans d’aménagements régionaux en Italie et en
France», Politique étrangère 21 (1956) 1, 61–84.
24 E. Weber, «Nationalism, Socialism, and National-Socialism in France», French Historical Studies 2 (1962) 3, 232–307, 282.
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72
Abou B. Bamba
Thanks to his proven experience in regional development, Monsieur Lamour had
been commissioned to study the social issues regarding the relocation of the individuals about to be displaced by the construction of the Kossou Dam, and ultimately
to lend his expertise to remedy the problems arising from this project. The Frenchman reportedly carried out his task to the satisfaction of the Ivorian authorities and
then returned to France.25
In many respects, the Lamour visit also brought some degree of contentment to
the French diplomats posted in Abidjan. They were observing the mushrooming of
competing private consulting firms that tried to tap the booming Ivorian economy,
and, simultaneously, the development of what the chief of French Aid Mission in
the Ivory Coast denounced as «unofficial technical assistance» (assistance technique
parallèle). In this context, the Lamour mission seemed to provide an opportunity
for French Ambassador Jacques Raphaël-Leygues to reassess his policy options and
chart a new course of diplomatic action.26 Thus, only a couple of months after
Lamour’s departure, he issued a warning: because the French Ministry for Foreign
Affairs was «seemingly hesitant to provide technical assistance personnel to the
company in charge of the development of the Bandama valley, SCET -Coopération
and other French firms have been, or are, planning to provide high-level experts to
this new and very important Ivorian agency». The diplomat added: «Such a course
has the advantage of helping to prevent that foreign experts exercise a monopoly in
the making of the Kossou project.»27
While Ambassador Raphaël-Leygues did not explicitly name the national origins of the «foreign experts» he feared were gradually excluding the French from
controlling the Kossou operation, it is obvious that he had an eye on the United
States. For years, French diplomats and political pundits had been trumpeting that
the U.S . was increasing its interest in Francophone Africa.28 In this context,
Raphaël-Leygues’s recommendation that SCET -Coopération and other French
firms be prodded in the Kossou venture was meant to contain the expansion of
America’s informal empire in the economically most attractive of France’s former
colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. While such a move is understandable given French
hysteria over losing influence in the pré carré, it is also true that many French deci25 Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères,
(Paris, hereafter AMAE), série: DAM/sous-série:
CI, Carton 1888. Hubert Dubois (Chargé d’Affaires) to Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, 18
March 1969.
26 For the idea of «assistance technique parallèle»,
see Centre des Archives Diplomatiques (Nantes,
hereafter CAD), Abidjan, Carton 55 : «Note sur
les sociétés, cabinets et bureaux d’Etudes en Côte
d’Ivoire», 6 February 1969. For views on the
mushrooming of consulting firms, see Ariane
Deluz (interview), 7 January 2005; Jean-Pierre
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%9)
Dozon (interview), 1 February 2005; Jean-Louis
Boutillier (interview), 1 March 2005.
27 CAD, Abidjan, Carton 55 : Raphaël-Leygues to
Secrétaire d’Etat aux Affaires Etrangères, 18 July
1969.
28 G. R. Manue, «La Seule voie pour l’Afrique Francophone: L’Europe», Europe, France, Outre-mer,
January 1963, 56–60; J. Knecht, «La Visite de
M. Houphouët-Boigny à Washington coïncide
avec un regain d’intérêt des Etats-Unis pour
l’Afrique», Le Monde, 24 May 1962, 9.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
73
sionmakers and commentators overlooked the fact that the culture of U.S . regional
planning had already been studied by quite a few French planners, including such
a key expert and consultant for SCET -Coopération as Philippe Lamour.29
To make sense of this conjuncture, one must return to the post-1945 years,
when the informal American empire was not only consolidating its hold over the
minds and souls of people like Kouamé Binzème, but also over a large segment of
Europe’s liberal intellectuals and technocrats.30 Consequently, French society came
to confront modern American culture with an unprecedented intimacy. For
instance, American consumer durables found their way into French households
while Hollywood movies were inundating French screens. At the same time, hundreds of French business and political elite visited the United States as part of a vast
economic training program.31 It was only logical that these transatlantic encounters would eventually pave the way for the circulation of American ideas and techniques regarding modernization in postwar France and beyond.32
Within the context of the globalization of the American Century, the escalating
Cold War, and postwar decolonization, the reach of American ideas and technical
know-how for rapid development was further expanded to the so-called Third
World that emerged during the postwar years.33 This was particularly true in the
case of the transfer of what David Ekbladh has aptly called the «TVA model» of
modernization, a development technique that utilized American democratic principles and grass-root activism along with soft centralized planning to achieve a balanced sociopolitical transformation of a particular region.34 Initiated in the 1930s
29 On the influence of the TVA experiment on
30
31
32
33
Lamour, see Pitte, Philippe Lamour, 56–59;
Philippe Lamour, Le Cadran solaire (Paris: Robert
Laffont, 1980), 278–81.
V. de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe (CambridgeLondon, 2005); R. Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France: Renovation and Economic
Management in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge-New York, 1981).
K. Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization
and the Reordering of French Culture (Cambridge,
1995); R. Kuisel, Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization (Berkeley, 1993); F. Costigliola, France and the United States: The Cold Alliance Since World War II (New York, 1992).
K. R. Pedersen, «Re-Educating European Management: The Marshall Plan’s Campaign
Against Restrictive Business Practices in France,
1949–1953», Business and Economic History 25
(1996) 1, 267–274; Kuisel, Seducing the French,
131–153; L. Boltanski, «Visions of American Management in Post-War France», Theory and Society 12 (1983) 3, 375–403.
M. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%9+
Social Science and ‹Nation-Building› in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill, 2000); A. Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of
the Third World (Princeton, 1995); C. E. Pletsch,
«The Three Worlds, or the Division of Social
Scientific Labor, circa 1950–1970», Comparative
Studies in Society and History 23 (1981) 3, 565–
590; J. E. Orchard, «ECA and the Dependent Territories», Geographic Review 41 (1951) 1, 66–87;
A. L. Moffat, «The Marshall Plan and British
Africa», African Affairs 49 (1950), 302–308.
34 D. Ekbladh, «’Mr. TVA’: Grass-Roots Development, David Lilienthal, and the Rise of the Tennessee Valley Authority as a Symbol for U.S.
Overseas Development, 1933–1973», Diplomatic
History 26 (2002) 3, 335–374. The literature on
the TVA is quite vast. While some of the scholarly contributions to the study of the TVA experiment are very critical, others adopt a celebratory
tone. See, for example, W. L. Creese, TVA’s Public
Planning: The Vision, the Reality (Knoxville,
1990); N. L. Grant, TVA and Black Americans:
Planning for the Status Quo (Philadelphia, 1990);
M. J. McDonald and J. Muldowny, TVA and the
Dispossessed: The Resettlement of Population in !
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
74
Abou B. Bamba
Chart: Map of Kossou
the Norris Dam Area (Knoxville, 1982). Of course,
the classic text on the TVA as a truly American «democratic» experiment is D. E. Lilienthal,
TVA: Democracy on the March (New York-London, 1944). Moreover, a number of researches
have mined the tangled links between the TVA,
the New Deal, and the reassertion of American
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%97
democratic liberalism in the interwar period. For
a representative sample of these, see S. M. Milkis
and J. M. Mileur, eds., The New Deal and Triumph
of Liberalism (Amherst, 2002); C. Sussman, ed.,
Planning the Fourth Migration: The Neglected Vision of the Regional Planning Association of America
(Cambridge- London, 1976).
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
75
during the New Deal to help bring regions traversed by the Tennessee River into
the fold of American modernity, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s techniques of
integrated regional development emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as an omnipresent icon that many modernizers in the postcolonial nation-states of Africa and Asia
strove to emulate as they attempted to effect multipurpose damming schemes of
their own.35
The Kossou experiment in Central Ivory Coast was indicative of these larger
trends of incorporating American modernization techniques into local developmental practices. As we shall see, however, what made the Ivorian example unique
and perhaps worthy of investigation was its reliance on the expertise of French
development personnel (coopérants), who worked to triangulate American modernization concepts while they secured the continuity of France hegemony overthe
Ivorian postcolony.
To better understand Kossou and the incidence of French mediation on its making, we should place the whole modernization experiment within the context of the
regionalist turn that the Ivorian development planning underwent in the mid1960s. In effect, with an increase in the flow of French coopérants and bureaux
d’études to the Ivory Coast in the 1960s and 1970s, the early post-independence
period witnessed the deployment of a vast survey program, which was largely carried out by French research agencies. Known as Etudes Régionales, these investigations, which lasted from 1962 until 1965, were meant to assess the development
potentials of the various regions of the Ivory Coast. Besides making the various
regions of the Ivory Coast legible for development planning, the Etudes Régionales
signaled the incorporation of regionalist concerns into the discourse of how to support the alleged Ivorian economic miracle.
An interesting indicator of this shift in development strategy was provided, if
obliquely, by a 1967 article written by Hugues Lhuillier, a French expatriate and
junior economist at the Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre
Mer. Reappropriating both the developmentalist ideas that informed the TVA
experiment along with American economist Walter Isard’s notion of «location
economy», Lhuillier argued that earlier modernization and nation-building
endeavors in the Ivory Coast had performed rather poorly because they lacked
not only a clear definition of strategies for regional development but also a sound
35 R. Rook, «Race, Water, and Foreign Policy: The
Tennessee Valley Authority’s Global Agenda
Meets ‹Jim Crow›», Diplomatic History 28 (2004)
1, 55–81; N. Cullather, «Damming Afghanistan:
Modernization in a Buffer State», Journal of American History 89 (2002) 2, 512–537; J. Nashell,
«The Road to Vietnam: Modernization Theory
in Fact and Fiction», in Cold War Constructions:
The Political Culture of United States Imperialism,
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%96
1945–1966, ed. C. G. Appy (Amherst, 2000),
132–154; J. Oliver, «The Application of TVA Experience to Underdeveloped Countries» in The Economic Impact of TVA, ed. J. R. Moore (Knoxville,
1967), 26–40; R. E. Hamilton, «The Damodar
Valley Corporation: India’s Experiment with the
TVA Idea», Ph.D. Dissertation, Duke University,
1966.
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76
Abou B. Bamba
conceptual frame for organizing ideas related to such planning.36 Most importantly, the French coopérant criticized the previous Ivorian development strategy
because it did not include specific methods for making viable projections with
regard to regional development, the result of which was the unevenness of Ivorian
economic development.37 In order to get around these limitations, he proposed a
number of measures: First, regional growth poles for industrial decentralization
should become a part of national planning so as to distribute growth evenly in the
national space.38 Secondly, since national planners had to work with preliminary
sketches produced by regional planners, there should be collaboration between the
two for stronger coherence in development programming.39
Ivorian authorities heeded these recommendations and took further steps to
enlist the continued counsel of Lhuillier, who would eventually work for the Ivorian
Ministry of Development Planning. Furthermore, ORSTOM was recruited to draw
up a five-year plan for the entire country, a plan that ultimately enshrined regionalist
precepts in the planning of Ivorian economic development. As many ORSTOM
researchers subsequently pointed out, one effect of this move was the explicit effort
in the ORSTOM-produced Loi-Plan of 1967–70 to fight against what were perceived
to be «regional disparities» and uneven development in the Ivory Coast.40 In many
regards, the Kossou regional development project was one of the brainchildren of
this regionalist tilt. As we shall see, however, French control over the making of Kossou was a precarious situation, especially because the multipurpose damming project occurred within an international financial context marked by the Ivorian need
for developmental funds, which the French government was reluctant to provide.
3. Securing Funds for Kossou: Development and the Politics
of International Finance
Historically, plans about construction of the Ivory Coast’s largest hydroelectric dam
were revealed as early as 1960, when the newly independent Ivory Coast asked
Electricité de France (EDF ) along with American Kaiser Engineers and Constructors to carry out hydrological surveys in order to spot the ideal location for the country’s third hydroelectric complex.41 Equipped with the first results, the Ivorian plan36 H. Lhuillier, «Outils et cadres pour une planifica-
tion régionale», Cahiers ORSTOM, série Sciences
Humaines IV (1967) 2, 61–111. For the story of
the French reappropriation of American-inflected regional development ideas as well as Walter
Isard’s «location theory» see F. Perroux, «Notes
sur la notion de pôle de croissance», Economie
appliquée 64 (1950), 307–320; W. Isard, «The General Theory of Location and Space-Economy»,
Quarterly Journal of Economics 63 (1949) 4, 476–
506.
37 Lhuillier, «Outils et cadres,» 62–63.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%98
38 Ibid., 104–05.
39 Ibid., 109.
40 G. Ancey and M. Pescay, La Planification à base
régionale en Côte d’Ivoire: Le Plan 1981–1985 et ses
antécédents (Paris, 1983) ; J.-P. Trouchaud, «Recherche d’un cadre régional de planification en
Côte d’Ivoire», in Etudes de géographie tropicale
offertes a Pierre Gourou (Paris, 1972), 463–476.
41 République de Côte d’Ivoire/Autorité pour
l’Aménagement de la Vallée du Bandama, AVB:
Opération Kossou (Abidjan, 1971), 8.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
77
ners hurriedly submitted an application to the World Bank. The international
financial institution rejected the plan because of its high cost and low profitability.
It was the consequences of this rejection that threatened to dislodge French domination over the Kossou project, while it provided the United States with an opportunity to push for larger involvement in the making of the expected Ivorian economic
miracle.42
In fact, reacting to this rejection, the Ivorian ambassador to Washington, Henri
Konan Bedié, accused the bank of having a bias against Francophone Africa and
implicitly criticized France’s inaction in this matter. Anticipating an appeal, the
ambassador, reportedly «on instruction» from the Ivorian president, requested that
French diplomats intervene «in favor of the Bandama».43 His efforts were disappointed, however, and all the more so since indiscretions revealed that the World
Bank rejection had been encouraged by the French members of the international
financial institution.44 The ensuing bitterness of the West Africans must have
momentarily cooled Franco-Ivorian relations. As a result, EDF was outbid by
Kaiser Engineers, which not only developed a more thorough feasibility study in
1966, but also encouraged the Ivorian government to submit its damming project to the Exim Bank.45 Alarmed by this supposed American encroachment, the
French commercial attaché in Abidjan concluded that the «total exclusion of any
French participation (through EDF ) in this new study» as well as Kaiser’s pretense
to control works sub-contracted to French laboratories, could «give a certain weight
to the rumors that the new Ivorian economic policy is in favor of the United
States».46
The French diplomat may have been right. An indication was provided by
Bedié, newly promoted to Minister of Finance, who, as a further reprisal of French
inaction and opposition, requested that France no longer have any direct involvement in the new Bandama venture.47 President Houphouët-Boigny apparently
agreed. This is why he directly wrote to President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ ) soon
after the World Bank rejection and asked for U.S . participation in the Kossou
project. In his response to the Ivorian request, the American president assured his
Ivorian counterpart that the U.S . government had «given this matter [the Kossou
42 On the rejection, see World Bank, Appraisal of the
45 Bancroft Library, Edgar F. Kaiser Papers, BANC
Agricultural Aspects of Proposed Bandama River
Project (Washington DC, 1966).
43 AMAE, série: DAM/sous-série: CI, Carton 1888:
Incoming Telegram, 13 October 1965.
MSS 85/61c, Carton 328/1c: Memorandum for Record (by Earl G. Peacock), 13 May 1966; ibid., Peacock to Connor, 23 May 1966. See also Lyndon B.
Johnson Library (Austin, hereafter LBJ Library),
National Security File (NSF), Country File, Box 91:
Memorandum for W. W. Rostow, 1 May 1967.
MSS 85/61c, Carton 328/1c: Earl G. Peacock to
J. R. Conner, 29 March 1966.
46 AMAE, DAM/CI, Carton 1888 : Commercial Attaché (Abidjan) to Ministre de l’Economie & des
Finances, 3 February 1966.
MSS 85/61c, Carton 328/1c. Joseph Rucinski (Vice President of Kaiser Industries Corporation) to
Willem van Ravesteijn (Paris Office), 6 May
1966.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%99
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78
Abou B. Bamba
project] our thorough attention and shall continue our efforts to be of help».48
LBJ instructed the Exim Bank to study the Bandama project and suggest options
for an American backing, which the bank did in 1968.
If anything, the involvement of the United States in Ivorian modernization
projects turned the cold alliance between the United States and France into something akin to a hot peace. In fact, provisions for a U.S . loan to the Ivory Coast in
1968 increased tensions between the United States and France. This is confirmed
by the fixation of French diplomats on the U.S . to the exclusion of Italian and later
Canadian interests, whose representatives also became involved in the Kossou
project.49 The politics of Ivorian postcolonial electrification, however, shed light on
more than just the mechanics of international finance and its connections to development in the postcolonial worlds of Africa and Asia. In fact, a closer look at the
boosting of the «Ivorian miracle» through the multipurpose damming scheme on
the Bandama River reveals more than anything else that triangulation was almost
always at work in the transfer of American know-how to the postcolonial societies
of Francophone Africa.
4. Practicing Postcolonial Triangulation: Ivorian Authorities, French
Coopérants, and the Making of Kossou
It is not clear why the Ivorian authorities called specifically upon Philippe Lamour
to consult and give expert advice regarding Kossou. It is equally uncertain whether
they knew about Lamour’s postwar visits to the United States to observe the TVA
experiment. But Lamour served as a postcolonial node that effectively triangulated
American social engineering knowledge to make Kossou a smoother developmental experience. Once in the Ivory Coast, the chairman of the CBRL lectured against
viewing the production of electricity as an end in itself, for the Ivory Coast «could
well build thermal plants which would be both more powerful and cost-effective».
Taking the TVA lessons of comprehensive regional development to heart, Lamour
advised the Ivorian planners that they should tend to the societal transformations
that the damming scheme would effect in the Bandama Valley: «Agriculture, fishing, and animal husbandry – these are what will be the major activities.» The central Ivory Coast region, he prophesied, would effectively «witness rapid [economic]
expansion.»50 As he left the country, Lamour «promised he [would] submit a brief
memorandum to the Ivorian government within three weeks in which he would lay
48 LBJ Library, National Security File (NSF), Special
Head of State Correspondence File, Box 29:
Lyndon B. Johnson to Félix Houphouët-Boigny,
13 December 1965.
49 For an elaboration on this point, see A. B. Bamba, «Complicare una ‹Risposta Molto Semplice›:
L’Assistenza allo Sviluppo degli Stati Uniti e il
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%9,
‹Miracolo Economico› della Costa D’Avorio,
1960–1975», in Gli auiti allo sviluppo nelle relazioni internazionali del secondo dopoguerre: Esperienze a confronto, ed. L. Tosi and L. Tosone, (Padova,
2006), 29–49.
50 Fraternité Matin, 5 March 1969.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
79
out the objectives to be pursued so that Kossou become a success story in the larger
frame of the aménagement du territoire in the Ivory Coast».51 Before submitting his
memorandum, the Frenchman recommended having a census of the people to be
displaced by the construction of the dam. As he had done in Languedoc-Roussillon,
Lamour also encouraged the Ivorian authorities to survey the valley in search of
land to be irrigated for agriculture. Most importantly, he requested that comprehensive development road maps (schéma directeurs d’aménagement) be drawn up for
both the Bandama Valley and southwestern Ivory Coast, which were expected to
host the displaced population from the Kossou reservoir area.52 Thus, although
U.S . money and technological expertise were building the Kossou Dam, this was
largely done through the intervention of a French Americophile.
French mediation in the making of Kossou was not restricted to the missionary
activity of Philippe Lamour, though. In fact, in the context of the increasing internationalization of the Kossou project, other French actors would rise to prominence. This included ORSTOM , whose researchers would help the French foreign
assistance apparatus (cf. Coopération) secure a position of advantage in the market
of postcolonial expertise in the Ivory Coast.53
As early as June 1969, Mohamed T. Diawara – the Ivorian minister for development planning – had asked Pierre Etienne, one of the Orstomians who had carried
out the census campaign of the Etudes Régionales, to take charge of the sociological
survey of the villages to be displaced by the construction of the Kossou Dam.54 A
month later, the Swiss consulting firm Bonnard & Gardel wrote to ORSTOM Director General Guy Camus and proposed a partnership: «We believe that the work
being carried out by your agency, and specifically by Messieurs Etienne, Chevassu
and Michotte, justifies and would make a collaboration on our part most rewarding.»55 The United Nations Development Program (UNDP ) further confirmed the
prestige and power of ORSTOM as an intellectual resource in the implementation
of the Kossou operation. After visiting the Ivory Coast in mid-1969, UNDP experts
concluded that the country lacked not only sufficient knowledge to develop the
resources of the Bandama Valley, but also skilled personnel and trained social scientists to «carry out successfully (mener à bien par eux-mêmes) a project as huge and
complex» as Kossou. In light of this weakness, the international agency requested
51 AMAE, série DAM, sous-série Côte d’Ivoire, Car-
ton 1888: Hubert Dubois (Chargé d’Affaires) to
Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, 18 March
1969. See also CAD, Abidjan, Carton 61: Hubert
Dubois (Chargé d’Affaires) to Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, 18 March 1969.
52 Ibid.
53 A. B. Bamba, «Epistemic Memories and the Making of Post-colonial Expertise: The Rise of ORSTOM in the Development Planning of the Ivory
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%94
Coast». Paper presented at the 20th Biannual
Meeting of the African Studies Association of
Germany (VAD), Frankfurt am Main (Germany),
24–27 July 2006.
54 Archives Nationales de France (Paris, hereafter
ANF), Fonds ORSTOM, F 17 Bis 90.17, Article
20: Note à l’attention de Monsieur le Sécretaire
Adjoint, 10 June 1969.
55 ANF, Fonds ORSTOM, F 17 Bis 90.17, Article
20: Bonnard & Gardel to Camus, 24 July 1969.
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80
Abou B. Bamba
that the expertise of ORSTOM be mobilized.56 Given the hegemony of the Orstomians on the Ivorian epistemological landscape, the request was granted. Furthermore, Pierre Etienne was appointed as part-time consultant with the Autorité pour
l’Aménagement de la Vallée du Bandama (AVB ), the agency set up in 1969 to carry
out the Kossou project.57
It would be a mistake to conclude that all of the American technocratic knowledge used in the making of Kossou filtered through France and its expatriate extension in the Ivory Coast. This was far from being the case, especially in a post-independence context in Africa marked by what a contemporary French observer called
a relative «trend toward the loosening of old imperial ties».58 In fact, as early as
1963, a group of Ivorian parliamentarians and lawmakers had visited the TVA
installations in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area.59 Although at present no evidence
allows us to gauge the impact of the Tennessee Valley tour on the Ivorian visitors, it
is clear that both David Lilienthal and the TVA model exerted a lasting influence on
the Ivorian policymakers. Revealing the effects of this spell, Raphaël Saller – the
man who ran Ivory Coast’s early development planning – flatteringly proffered in
1962, when he met Lilienthal: «I know about you and about TVA , so I know TVA
isn’t just dams.»60 The Ivorian minister, who had reportedly longed for «fifteen
years» to meet Lilienthal, even reminisced having sent «two of his men to TVA in
1946 because ‹There was the center, the mecca for planned development the world
over›».61
Beyond the flatteries of an eccentric French-born Saller, whom Lilienthal himself described as «not really an Ivorian»,62 the radiance of the TVA model reached
deep into the very elitist imagination of the regional planning world of the Ivory
Coast. President Houphouët-Boigny himself had expressed interest in the TVA as a
model when he first met David Lilienthal.63 Consequently, the Autorité pour
l’Aménagement de la Vallée du Bandama was juridically patterned on the Tennessee
56 ANF, Fonds ORSTOM, F 17 Bis 90.17, Article
20: Rapport de la mission du PNUD pour le
projet de Kossou, [en] Côte d’Ivoire, July-August
1969; ibid., Paul-Marc Henry (Deputy Director of UNDP) to Camus (Director General of
ORSTOM), 11 September 1969.
57 ANF, Fonds ORSTOM, F 17 Bis 90.17, Article 55:
Note à l’attention de Monsieur le Directeur Général, 20 October 1970.
58 J. Chazelle, «Les Moyens d’action des grandes
puissances», in Politiques nationales envers les
jeunes Etats, eds. J.-B. Duroselle and J. Meyriat,
(Paris, 1964), 81.
59 These visitors included Raymond Kouassi Goffri
(vice president of the National Assembly), Aimé
Barou (secretary of the National Assembly), Alphonse Boni (chief justice), Dr. Apagny Tanoe,
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%,&
60
61
62
63
Mrs. Jeanne Gervais, and a certain Mr. Assamoua. For details, see USNA-South East Region
(Atlanta, GA), RG 142, Records of TVA International Visitors Center (IVC), Box 1: Report on operations for the period of six months ended in 11
December 1963. See also ibid, Box 2: Log book
0–1963, 4 August 1963.
D. E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Vol. 5: The Harvest Years, 1959–1963 (New
York, 1964), 349.
Ibid., 349–50.
Ibid., 183.
Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University,
David E. Lilienthal Papers, Box 483 : Lilienthal to
Diawara, 1 June 1969.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
81
Valley Authority.64 In this light, besides its name, which easily recalled the TVA ,
the maître d’œuvre of the Kossou operation was the first non-sectoral modernization
agency in the postcolonial history of the Ivory Coast whose goal it was to achieve the
comprehensive and integrated regional development of the Bandama Valley.65 Perhaps it was in its statutory positioning within the Ivorian administrative landscape
that AVB came closest to the TVA model. In a country that had largely inherited the
French Jacobin tradition of centralized government, AVB was given a semi-autonomous status that effectively removed the agency’s actions from the jurisdiction of
any given ministry. AVB was placed under direct presidential supervision in an
effort to bestow the new agency with a flexibility that would enhance its efficiency.66
While these actions strengthened Ivorian oversight on the making of Kossou,
the need for more funds to run the whole regional development operation helped
the French government to achieve a diplomatic comeback. The setback that had
allowed the American Kaiser Engineers to win the bid to build the Kossou Dam had
left many French expatriates with a feeling a bitterness. This atmosphere encouraged some members of the expatriate community to accuse the Ivorian leaders of
favoritism toward American interests.67 Alarmed by these developments, and in
full appreciation of its potentially negative consequences with regard to the maintenance of French hegemony in the Ivory Coast French diplomats decided to act dexterously. In the late 1960s, they started to gather intelligence reports on the financial implications of the damming experiment.68 Furthermore, some French
diplomats opted to call for a direct involvement of France in the implementation of
Kossou’s social programs.
For instance, a note intended for the French ambassador suggested that since
Kossou had turned out to be an irreversible venture (despite French opposition), it
was in the interest of France not to remain a passive spectator. Rather, Paris should
provide developmental funds for the resettlement of people to be displaced because
of the filling of the Kossou reservoir. In fact, the note’s author argued, if France’s
diplomats had missed the opportunity to get involved in the initial infrastructural
transformations that the damming required, they could not afford to be bystanders
in the social transformations that Kossou was likely to cause. Ultimately, the note
64 V. Lassailly-Jacob, «Un Exemple éphémère de
planification du développement: L’AVB en Côte
d’Ivoire centrale (1969–1980)», Cahiers d’Etudes
Africaines 26 (1986), 333–348, 334.
65 République de Côte d’Ivoire, Kossou: Un Vaste
programme de développement intégré (Abidjan,
1973), 12–24; M. S. Kalms, «L’Intervention de
l’AVB dans la région centre Bandama de la Côte
d’Ivoire», in Le Développement: Idéologies et pratiques (Paris, 1983), 79.
66 Lassailly-Jacob, «Exemple éphémère», 335.
67 AMAE, DAM/CI, Carton 1888. Commercial At-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%,'
taché (Abidjan) to Ministre de l’Economie & des
Finances, 3 February 1966; AMAE, DAM/CI,
Carton 1885 : Ambassadeur de France to [unidentified] correspondent, 25 June 1964.
68 CAD, Abidjan, Carton 61. [Anonymous writer],
«La situation politique et économique en Côte
d’Ivoire: Les Projets de San Pedro et de Kossou»,
November 1969; CAD, Abidjan, Carton 61:
J. Bourgeois, «Les Operations Kossou et San
Pedro et les besoins de financement de la Côte
d’Ivoire», 28 August 1969.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
82
Abou B. Bamba
concluded, French intervention in the Kossou project was ideal since any involvement in the social and population issues would have a «deep and lasting impact»
on the people of the region.69 Given these suggestions, it was only understandable
that the missionary activities of French nationals such as Philippe Lamour or the
researchers of ORSTOM received the blessing of the French embassy in Abidjan.
By their participation in the making of Kossou, these actors eventually turned
the regional development experiment into a transatlantic and triangular technosociopolitical saga that aimed at bringing the central Ivory Coast into the fold of
modernity.
5. Conclusion
In hindsight, we know that the making of Kossou suffered from the modernist
hubris that informed the planning of so many modernization experiments. In fact,
the political élan at orchestrating technopolitical changes in the central Ivory Coast
did not survive the crises that challenged the Ivorian miracle during the 1970s:
bureaucratic centralization within AVB , the jealousy of civil servants in the various
technical ministries, the competition of other sectoral development agencies that
felt their spheres of actions were being encroached by AVB ’s activities, and the burden of foreign debt – all of these factors converged to turn Kossou into another
short-lived modernization experiment. As a consequence, AVB was closed in 1979
along with the Autorité pour l’Amenagement de la Region du Sud-Ouest (ARSO ), the
other regional agency established in the late 1960s to carry out the modernization
of the Ivorian Southwest region.70
These setbacks notwithstanding, the story of the making of Kossou is indicative
of how fruitful the concept of triangulation can be in interpreting postwar modernization drives in Francophone Third World countries. While this article has focused
on the case of the Ivory Coast, there is reason to believe that similar triangular processes were at work in such diverse countries as Morocco, Senegal, and Gabon.71
Furthermore, moving away from a monolithic understanding of developmentalism
– even within the so-called West – this article has shown how competing national
interests between France and the United States provided colonial subjects and
postcolonial leaders with a number of opportunities to rearticulate their visions of
69 CAD, Abidjan, Carton 61. [Anonymous writer],
«Note pour M. L’Ambassadeur,» 8 May 1969.
70 For a brief discussion of these problems, see A.
Dubresson, «Dernière la contradiction, l’Etat:
Discours et pratique de l’aménagement du territoire en Côte d’Ivoire», Politique africaine 21
(1986), 77–89; Ancey/Pescay, Planification à base
régionale, 99–115.
71 J.-L. Cohen and M. Eleb, Casablanca: Colonial
Myths and Architectural Ventures (New York,
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%,)
2002), 275–299; P.-M. Durand, «Les Relations
franco-américaines au Gabon dans les années
60 ou la ‹petite guerre froide›», in Les Relations
franco-américaines au XXe siècle, ed. P. Melandri
and Serge Ricard, (Paris, 2003), 117–138; P. J.
Schraeder, «From Berlin 1884 to 1989: Foreign
Assistance and French, American, and Japanese Competition in Francophone Africa», Journal of Modern African Studies 33 (1995) 4, 539–
567.
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83
modernization and nation-building. As it turned out, these opportunities also bore
the seeds of challenges, which became apparent by the end of 1970s.72 Still, one
cannot deny the magnitude of the transformations that Kossou and other regional
development endeavors wrought on the Ivorian landscape of social change planning.
72 P. Wick and J. S. Shaw, «The Côte d’Ivoire’s
Troubled Economy: Why World Bank Intervention Failed», Cato Journal 18 (1998) 1, 17–18;
World Bank, Ivory Coast: The Challenge of Success
(Baltimore, 1978).
The United States, France, and the Making of the Kossou Project
in Central Ivory Coast
ABSTRACTS
This article attempts to analyze the complex history of the postwar modernization
drives in Francophone Africa. It focuses on the damming of the Bandama River in
central Ivory Coast. Adopting a transnational historical approach, I argue that the
making of the Kossou damming experiment necessitated the importation of regional
planning à la Tennessee Valley Administration, i.e., modernization in the style of
the New Deal. While such U.S.-inflected modernization approach informed the Bandama project, it was, however, mediated through the expertise of French development workers and social scientists – a process I call triangulation. Although shortlived, the Kossou experiment supports the claim that competing national interests
between France and the United States provided (post)colonial societies in the Francophone world with a number of opportunities to rearticulate their visions of modernization and nation-building.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%,+
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
84
ABSTRACTS
Abou B. Bamba
Triangulation eines Modernisierungsexperimentes:
Die USA, Frankreich und die Realisierung des Kossou-Projektes
in der zentralen Elfenbeinküste
Dieser Artikel versucht, die Modernisierungsschübe der Nachkriegszeit im frankophonen Afrika in ihrer Komplexität zu fassen und zu analysieren. Er setzt dabei den
Akzent auf das Stauen des Bandama-Flusses in der zentralen Elfenbeinküste. Indem
ich einen transnationalen historischen Ansatz wähle, versuche ich aufzuzeigen,
dass die Realisierung des Kossou-Staudammexperimentes eine regionale Planung
erforderlich machte, die sich an der Tennessee Valley Administration orientierte –
das heißt Modernisierung im Stil des New Deal. Obgleich ein solcher US-amerikanisch gefärbter Modernisierungsansatz das Bandama-Projekt entscheidend prägte,
wurde dieses mithilfe des Fachwissens französischer Entwicklungshelfer und Sozialwissenschaftler entworfen: ein Prozess, den ich Triangulation nennen möchte.
Trotz der kurzen Lebensdauer des Projektes ermöglichten die konkurrierenden nationalen Interessen Frankreichs und der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika den (post)
kolonialen Gesellschaften der frankophonen Welt eine Reihe von Gelegenheiten,
ihre Vorstellungen von Modernisierung und Nationenbildung neu zu artikulieren.
Trianguler une expérience de modernisation:
les Etats-Unis, la France, et la mise en œuvre du projet Kossou
dans le centre de la Côte d’Ivoire.
Cet article tente de complexifier l’histoire de la modernisation d’après-guerre
conduite en Afrique francophone. Il se concentre sur la construction d’un barrage
sur le fleuve Bandama dans le centre de la Côte d’Ivoire. Adoptant une approche
historique transnationale, je soutiens que l’expérience de la construction du barrage de Kossou a nécessité l’importation d’une planification régionale dans la ligne
de la Tennessee Valley Administration, i. e. la modernisation dans le style du New
Deal. Quoiqu’une telle inflexion américaine dans l’approche de la modernisation
informa le projet Bandama, il était, cependant, conçu par l’entremise de l’expertise
des travailleurs au développement et des chercheurs en sciences sociales français
– un processus que j’appellerais triangulation. Bien qu’éphémère, l’expérience de
Kossou appuie l’affirmation que la compétition des intérêts nationaux entre la
France et les Etats-Unis a fourni aux sociétés (post)coloniales dans le monde francophone un grand nombre d’opportunités pour réarticuler leurs visions de la modernisation et de la construction de la nation.
Abou B. Bamba
Hobart & William Smith Colleges
History Department
606 S. Main Street,
Geneva, NY 14456–3397
USA
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)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
85
Soviet Lessons for Arab Modernization:
Soviet Educational Aid to Arab Countries
after 19561
The subject of this paper is the educational cooperation between the Soviet Union
and the Arab countries during the Cold War, with emphasis on the period between
the mid-1950s and the 1970s. The years of decolonization and national affirmation
in the Southern Hemisphere witnessed an unprecedented emergence of new ties
between the communist superpower and most Afro-Asian countries.
Western observers, diplomats and journalists, as well as scholars of international relations and of the Soviet Union, devoted much energy to map out, interpret
and forecast the East-South relations and their consequences. In the ensuing
abundant literature – testimony to the pervasive fear of communist expansion –
issues such as military cooperation, economic relations and anti-Western political
coalitions occupy a prominent place. Only moderate attention is given to topics
like technical assistance, technological transfers or the implementation of developmental programs, while any systematic interest in the scientific and educational cooperation between the «Second» and the «Third World» is practically nonexistent.
This paper thus focuses on a so far neglected subject: the educational aid and
the training programs that the Soviet Union offered to its Arab partners, as a means
to induce «progressive changes» and modernization in the Arab world.2 The
1 I am particularly grateful to Corinna Unger, David
Engerman, Stephan Malinowski, Antonis Liako,
Tasos Anastasiadis, Vaggelis Karamanolakis and
Lina Ventoura for their critical remarks, aid and patience. I am also greatly indebted to my anonymous
readers for their extremely accurate comments.
2 I use the term «modernization» and the expressions with the attributive adjective «progressive»,
i.e. «progressive changes» or «progressive transformation», interchangeably, but with a preference for the second, because the adjective «progressive» (progressivnii) was, undoubtedly, more
representative of the communist vocabulary.
On the other hand, in the Russian language of the
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%,6
Soviet period, the term «modernization» (modernizatsiia) was either used with reference to equipment and machinery (modernizatsiia oborudovaniia), or it had a very negative meaning: it
signified some historians’ anachronistic and «anti-scientific» use of «terms and evaluations» of
their time in order to designate «phenomena and
events of the past of a different quality, which
leads to a distortion and falsification of history».
See Bol’shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia [Big Soviet
Encyclopedia], 1954, vol. 28, 40. Taking seriously
the warning of the Soviet encyclopedis, I would
like to acknowledge both the historicity and the
relativity of the terms.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
86
Soviet-Arab educational cooperation provides an axis of analysis that helps juxtapose the convictions and aspirations of both parties within the historical context of
decolonization and the Cold War. For Moscow, educational aid and cooperation was
a channel for the transfer of Soviet knowledge and the implementation of ideas for
modernization. Moscow was aiming for a partnership with its own dominating
influence. For radical Arab leaders, the attraction of the Soviet model consisted in
the opportunities it offered for state-building, social engineering, rapid economic
growth and, last but not least, national sovereignty. The Algerian Ahmed Ben Bella,
for instance, put it this way: «if the Russians did not exist, we should have to invent
them»3. The educational aid of the Soviet Union and of other European communist
countries was extremely important to fulfil these expectations. Ideology was not the
main motivation, pragmatic considerations were much more crucial.
A point to be made here is that education, nationalization and the development
of the public sector are linked together as vehicles of further modernization, and
that educational aid can play a considerable role in this context. Both the Soviets
and many Arabs recognised this and, as it is to be demonstrated below, built their
co-operation accordingly. Moreover, the fact that the Soviet and Arab views on the
issue converged suggests the following hypothesis: despite cultural differences,
shared secular beliefs and compatible interests and views about modernization
prevailed and became the main foundation for the Soviet-Arab partnership during
the Cold War.
Towards the end of the 1950s, Iraq emerged as a close partner of the Soviet
Union in the Middle East. The Soviet-Iraqi «breakthrough» offers a good point
of entry to inquire into the motives and objectives of Soviet-Arab cooperation in
general.
1. The Soviet-Iraqi «Breakthrough»
Until July 1958, Iraq was ruled by a pro-Western authoritarian government and
belonged to the military committee of the anti-Soviet Baghdad pact. The country’s
oil reserves were fully and exclusively controlled by the Western-owned Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC ). After Brigadier Abdel Karim Qasim seized power on July 14,
1958, Iraq’s foreign and domestic policies came under attack. The young nationalist ruler also targeted the IPC ’s monopoly and, in December 1961, reduced the percentage of the country’s territory to be conceded for exploitation from 100 to 0,5.
However, let us not forget that Quasim was not the only leader who attempted
to uproot foreign interest in the region. Almost a decade earlier, Iranian nationalist
3 Quoted by a senior Front de Libération Nationale
(FLN) official, Hocine Zahoune, during a discussion with a Soviet delegation. Russian State Archive of Literature and Art [Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Literatury i Isskustva, hereafter
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%,8
RGALI], f. 631, op. 26, d. 4827, p. 8. The statement initially appeared in an interview with Ben
Bella in the newspaper Alger Républicain, 4 April
1963.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
Soviet Educational Aid to Arab Countries after 1956
87
leader Mohammed Mossadeq had been engaged in an uncompromising struggle
for the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company – the predecessor of
BP – but ill-prepared and without any support, he was not able to withstand the
Western embargo, and the CIA -instigated coup finally overthrew his government
and put his plans on hold.4 In 1956, on the other hand, Gamal Abdel Nasser gained
a great victory when, backed by the Soviets, he resisted the tripartite aggression and
nationalized the Suez Canal.5
Qasim’s revolution also earned Moscow’s approval. «We are certainly glad that
those events took place in Iraq», said Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet vice-president of
the Minister’s Council, to the American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles. «We
are supporting Qasim’s government.» Then Mikoyan made it clear what was really
at stake: «What will happen if the Arab governments follow an independent policy
and manage their own resources by themselves? As far as the oil is concerned, it
will not disappear. We don’t need this oil, and the Arabs will still sell it to the same
Western European governments, but they will sell it at regular commercial prices,
which is only right.»6
At that point, however, nationalizing the country’s oil industry was not an easy
affair at all. On the one hand, Western corporations were controlling the world’s
«open» market and were consequently in the position to impose an embargo on
Iraqi production just as they had previously done in Iran. On the other hand, Iraq
depended on Western technology and expertise, with a significant portion of the
technical and scientific staff of the IPC coming from the West. In fact, the Iraqi oil
industry was foreign at its core.
Now Qasim’s government and Iraq’s newly founded oil ministry put pressure
on the IPC to «Iraqize» the industry’s technical staff. Their efforts have apparently
paid off: within five years the percentage of foreign specialists dropped from 70 to
22 percent. British-educated Iraqis replaced the British engineers.7 At the same
time, the government took steps to diversify the country’s foreign partnerships. A
high-level Iraqi delegation visited Moscow and addressed the issue of the national
oil industry’s future development. Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the CPSU ,
informed the delegation: «our specialists will readily help you to discover your
resources. You have all the conditions for the development of your national industry.» He predicted that Iraq «could be transformed into a paradisiacal nook.»
4 W. R. Louis and R. Robinson, «The Imperialism
6 V. V. Naumkin (ed.), Blizhnevostochnyi konflikt
of Decolonization», The Journal of Imperial and
Commonwealth History 22 (1994) 3, 462–511;
M. A. Heiss, Empire and Nationhood. The United
States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil, 1950–1954
(New York, 1997), 15–19, 73–79, 92–97, 203–219.
5 H. Carrère d’Encausse, La politique soviétique au
Moyen Orient 1955–1975 (Paris, 1975); M. Ferro,
Suez (Bruxelles, 1982).
1957–1967. Iz dokumentov Arkhiva vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii, [The Near East Conflict 1957–1967. From the Documents of the Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation],
v. 2, Moscow, Mezhdunarodnii fond «Demokratiia», p. 256.
7 O. Gerasimov, Irakskaia neft’, [The Iraqi Oil]
(Moscow, 1969), 100–101.
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)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
88
On March 16, 1959, Iraq and the USSR signed an economic and technical cooperation agreement. Shortly after that, Soviet geologists arrived in Iraq to detect and
evaluate oil fields, and a few others began to work in the oil industry.8
The Iraqi government took one major step to ready itself for the day of nationalization: it decided to invest in education to train future engineers and experts,
which was indispensable for the long-term development of the national oil sector.
Aware of the significant need for such an investment, the Iraqi government turned
to the USSR . The Soviet example of rapid development and modernization as well
as the recent Sputnik success (1957) were among the reasons the Soviet option
seemed particularly attractive. Moscow lent a willing ear to the Iraqi request and
offered some 50 scholarships per academic year. Each year the Iraqi government
also sponsored the studies of around 320 undergraduate and graduate students at
Soviet universities, such as Moscow State University, the Moscow Energy Institute
and others in many Soviet Republics. During the academic year 1959–1960, 784
Iraqis were studying in the USSR ; two years later their number reached 1306.9 Iraq
became the first non-communist country to engage in such an extensive educational cooperation program with Moscow, and by far the first non-communist
«exporter» of students to the motherland of socialism. Ironically enough, some of
the program’s graduates ended up working for the IPC or for other foreign companies in the Emirates, in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.10 Nevertheless, many of them
also served in the Iraq National Oil Company. Though Quasim was overthrown and
killed in February 1963, the company was turned into a state monopoly when, in
June 1972, once again with Soviet support, the government of Ahmed Hassan Bakr
and Saddam Hussein realized Qasim’s plans and nationalized the IPC ’s assets and
the country’s oil sector.11
The case of Soviet-Iraqi cooperation highlights the importance of education for
the implementation of plans for national development in former colonial countries. It also demonstrates that Arab aspirations not only fit to Moscow’s foreign
policy objectives against the West but were also reminiscent of the Soviet experience and were awarded legitimacy according to the Marxist-Leninist principles.
8 A. A. Fursenko, ed., Arkhivy Kremlia. Prezidium
TsK KPSS. 1959–1964, [Kremlin Archives. Presidium of the CC of the CPSU. 1959–1964]
(Moscow, 2008), 837, 842; Gerasimov, Irakskaia
neft’, 70–73.
9 «Sprava ob okazanii Irakskoi Respublike pomoshchi v podgotovke spetsialistov v vuzakh Sovetskogo Soiuza», [Report on the aid accorded to the
Iraqi Republic for the training of specialists in
the higher education institutions of the Soviet
Union], 9–11–60, State Archive of the Russian
Federation [Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi
Federatsii, hereafter GARF], f. R-9606, op. 1,
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%,,
d. 522, p. 5. See also the files d. 521, pp. 42–43
and d. 869, pp. 42–45.
10 See a report on Iraqi and other alumni: GARF,
f. R-9606, op. 1. d. 3092, p. 3.
11 Interesting and complementary accounts on those evolutions: E. K. Valkenier, The Soviet Union
and the Third World. An Economic Bind (New
York, 1983), 23. H. Shemesh, Soviet-Iraqi Relations, 1968–1988. In the Shadow of the Iraq-Iran
Conflict (Boulder-London, 1992), 44–47, 70–81;
J. Stork, Middle East Oil and the Energy Crisis
(New York, 1975), 189–194.
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89
2. Arab Aspirations and Soviet Perspectives
In the immediate aftermath of decolonization, it had become clear that national
independence as such did not fulfil Arab expectations with regard to national development and sovereignty. The postcolonial states were obviously «not sovereign»
considering that foreign powers were supposed to guarantee their defence and
their financial stability. Entire sectors of their economy were under the control of
Westerners, while the professors, doctors, engineers and the educated élite in general were very often Europeans. The Arab nationalists of the 1950s and 1960s,
including the communists, found this situation hardly acceptable. The overwhelming majority of them believed that a strong state should control the country’s
reserves, manage the economy, foster the social development and organize education and national culture. For these Arab «modernizers», the keyword was «development», which was usually associated with the expansion of the public sector, the
«nationalization» of natural resources and the «Arabization» of human resources.
Additionally, these instances of nationalizations aimed at not only political and
geopolitical gains but also at financing the modernization of Egypt and Iraq, respectively. They were considered the first indispensable and obvious steps toward the
implementation of plans for national development and modernization. In their
effort to realize those goals, the Arab countries gained the favour of the communist
countries, particularly of the Soviet Union.
In what amounted to a major shift in Soviet foreign policy from Stalin to
Khrushchev, Moscow supported, overtly or discreetly, most of the Arab national
claims vis-à-vis the Western world and endorsed Arab demands for cooperation.
The new Soviet leadership regarded the anti-colonial struggles as a significant
opportunity to weaken North-South ties and to replace them with East-South ones.
They also recognized the opportunity to expand their influence in the Southern
Hemisphere. The USSR ’s involvement in the Suez crisis was a signal directed to
the colonial and postcolonial countries that Moscow was eager to support their
national struggles despite their anti-communist stance. But much more significant
was the fact that the USSR was eager to engage in a global battle in order to win a
strategic alliance with non-Western countries, and that Moscow was ready to accept
the cost of its political investment. After all, Nikita Khrushchev was confident in
the capability of the Soviet system to «bury capitalism» and believed that the Soviet
experience represented a perfect opportunity for the national aspirations of the
non-Western countries. This self-consciousness was particularly noticeable with
regard to the «backward» Third World, but was not always as obvious in relation to
the developed West. It is thus worth mentioning that while the Soviets were discredited after the invasion of Budapest in 1956 and consequently lost their «tutorial» position vis-à-vis the European left, they still felt confident enough to give lessons to their potential and desirable allies, by the Arab and other non-Europeans.
There is no doubt that in the eyes of Soviet theorists and policy makers their own
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90
country’s history provided the most adequate model to be carried over to the newly
independent nations of Asia and Africa.
The formative years of war communism, during which the Bolsheviks had
nationalized the heavy industries and the financial sector, were the first edifying
example to be evoked. The experience of the NEP (New Economic Policy) also tacitly provided a source of inspiration, in so far as Soviet specialists in the developing
countries recommended, if only for a limited time, «the existence [ . . . ] of a mixed
economy parallel to the growing [ . . . ] role of the anti-capitalist state-controlled sector». Similarly to the USSR ’s passage from the NEP to Stalin’s planned economy,
the extension of the public sector in all spheres of economic life was initially
the fundamental objective, while the «final goal» was «the creation of a planned
economy».12
These milestones of the Soviet experience provided the framework within
which socialist-oriented developing countries were supposed to continue their
anti-imperialist course through history. The Soviet theorists in fact focused on a
specific part of the Soviet experience, which they considered valuable to the AfroAsian countries. That specific part had to do with the transformation of the «backward» Central Asian Republics into modern socialist societies under Bolshevik
rule. According to the Soviets, the historical example of Central Asia had the potential to serve as a model for post-colonial Arab countries and to inspire the Arab
modernizers without offending their religious sensibilities. A «modernized»
Soviet Central Asia was supposed to offer «empirical evidence» that proved the
Soviet assumptions about socialist development and modernization right. Based
on this reasoning and taking into account the priorities of Soviet foreign policy,
Soviet theorists devised the theoretical scheme of the «non-capitalist path of development» (nekapitalistitseskii pyt’ razvitiia), which could be implemented in those
countries in which capitalism was still at a very early stage. The theory suggested
that, with the economic, scientific and technological support of the Soviet bloc, the
less developed countries could by-pass the painful capitalist stage of development
and proceed immediately to the construction of socialism.13 The shock therapy of
socialist modernization could help those countries accelerate their history and
achieve their ultimate goals of national development, sovereignty and social justice. Both the theory and the empirical evidence were supposed to offer a timetested alternative path to realize the visions of Arab leaders, intellectuals and activ-
12 V. G. Solodovnikov, The Present Stage of Non-Ca-
pitalist Development in Asia and Africa (Budapest,
1973), 26–29. It needs to be mentioned that, drawing from Lenin, the author also acknowledged
the need for tactical «concessions to foreign capitalists».
13 J. Hough, The Struggle for the Third World. Soviet
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%4&
Debates and American Options (Washington DC,
1986), 156–159; A. Balesin, «Razrabotka teorii
nekapitalistitseskogo puti razvitiia dlia stran
Afriki v SSSR: Istoki i pervye shagi», in Stanovlenie otetsestvennoi afrikanistiki 1920–1960, ed.
A. B. Davidson (Moscow, 2003), 368–379.
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91
ists who wanted to modernize their countries but rejected the Western capitalist
model. Nikita Khrushchev was very clear on what he considered an alternative and
progressive path to the desired final destination: «He who wants to know what kind
of fruit this alternative path yields may take a look at the prospering republics of
Soviet Central Asia and at the other regions of our country, which, after October,
have by-passed the painful capitalist path.»14
Yet, apart from the recurrent theme of Central Asia in Soviet propaganda aimed
at the Arabs, the theory of the non-capitalist path of development implied an
unavoidable postulate: that the passage to socialism could be achieved only with
the economic, technological and scientific aid of the socialist countries. The Soviet
Union thus had to assume a large share of the responsibility in transforming postcolonial countries into socialist and sovereign ones. Even though the risky Soviet
involvement in the Suez crisis, which had a great impact on Arab opinion, had not
cost hardly anything, the forging of a solid Soviet-Arab partnership required large
investments and carried significant costs. The new Soviet leadership, however,
seemed to be ready to take these on. At the first Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in
Cairo, in December 1957, the Soviet representative was Anoushavan Arzumanian,
the director of the prestigious Institute of World Economy and International
Relations. In his speech, he stressed the generosity of Soviet intentions regarding
the Afro-Asian countries: «We can set up for you an industrial or transporting
enterprise, a scientific or a training institution, a hospital, a cultural institute. We
can send you our specialists or you can send us your specialists to become familiar
with our enterprises and scientific institutes. We can send our professors to your
educational institutions and you can send your students to ours. Do that, as it is
better for you. Tell us what you need and we are going to help you, as far as our
economic potential reaches, by according you the means either in the form of
credit, or in the form of subsidy. [ . . . ] We are ready to help you not out of self-interest, but as a brother helps his brother, because we know from our own experience
how to overcome privations.»15
Egypt was the first Arab country to receive Soviet aid in support of her program
of national development. The Aswan High Dam, constructed with Soviet loans and
technical assistance, was not only a project of vital importance for the irrigation
and electrification of the region, but also a display of Soviet technological skills, a
veritable tour-de-force of Soviet engineering. Among the most important projects
implemented by Soviet engineers in the Arab countries were dams and railroads in
Iraq and Syria, the deep-water seaport of Hudayda in North Yemen and the steel
plants of Annaba and Helwan in Algeria and Egypt, respectively. A significant part
of those projects also consisted of the training of qualified Arab workers to be
14 SSSR i Strany Afriki, 1946–1962 gg. Dokumenty i
materialy, t. 1 (Moscow, 1963), 50.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%4'
15 Arzumanian’s speech was published in the re-
view V zaschitu mira, 1958, v. 81.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
92
employed in the industries and enterprises or to replace Soviet technicians once
the projects were completed.16
However, training workers «then and there» alone was not enough to meet the
demand for specialists who, as it was hoped, would contribute to the development
and «progressive transformation» of the Arab countries. If support for the creation
of national industries and enterprises was one facet of Soviet development aid, the
training of local specialists was the other. Without specialists educated by the Soviets, the non-capitalist path of development and Soviet-inspired modernization
would definitely have been vain hopes. From the Arab point of view, without their
own specialists, modernization, development and national sovereignty were empty
dreams. Despite the often conflicting projects and aspirations of Soviets and Arabs,
education was considered by both a cornerstone in the process of modernization.
3. Soviet Educational Aid and Cooperation with the Arab Countries
From the very beginning of the Soviet-Arab partnership, the issue of educational
cooperation figured prominently in the plans for modernization. In 1957, Egypt
became the first Arab country to sign an agreement of cultural cooperation with the
USSR , and it subsequently started sending students – mostly post-graduates – to
Soviet universities for further studies and research. A year later, a group of Soviet
specialists was invited to work at the Suez Oil Institute in what was the first academic exchange of its kind between Soviet and Arab institutes.17 As mentioned
above, Iraq also embarked on a large-scale program of educational cooperation
with the Soviet Union in accordance with Qasim’s plans for the modernization of
the country and the nationalization of the IPC .
Soviet-Algerian cooperation took its course in a very similar way to Soviet-Iraqi
educational cooperation. Before independence (1962), only a few Algerian students – 9 in 1959, 22 in 1960 and 34 in 1961 – with the recommendation of the
Front de Libération Nationale of Algeria (FLN ), were admitted to Soviet universities
and given Soviet scholarships.18 After liberation, the country was in urgent need of
locally educated cadres – a need intensified through the exodus of the French
colons. Under these circumstances, during the period of Ahmed Ben Bella (1962–
1965), Algeria became one of the major receivers of Soviet educational aid. The
Soviet Union offered Algeria circa 100 scholarships to its universities each academic year.19 At the same time, in accordance with the decision of Nikita Khrush16 Valkenier, The Soviet; M. Goldman, Soviet Foreign
Aid (New York, 1967).
17 A report on the work of the Soviet specialists at
the Suez Oil Institute during the second semester of the academic year 1958–1959: GARF,
f. R-9606, op. 1, d. 219, p. 7–12.
18 A discussion on the subject between Mohamed
Harbi of the FLN and a diplomat of the Soviet
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%4)
Embassy in Cairo: GARF, f. R-9518, op. 1, d. 540,
p. 192–193. For the numbers see: Archives of
Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVR
RF), «Referantura po Alzhiru», op. 3, p. 1, d. 5 p.
24. GARF, R-9606, op.1, d. 521, p. 42–43 and
d. 1948, p. 1–4.
19 Yet Algeria did not make use of all the scholarships, officially because the graduates of the se-
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
93
chev, the Soviets founded one of their most important educational institutions
abroad in Algeria.
During a 1964 visit to Algeria, Khrushchev announced that Moscow was ready
to finance the founding of an oil institute, so that the Algerian nation would be able
to exploit its own resources and keep financing its other social and developmental
programs. Towards the end of the same year, the Algerian Oil and Gas Institute was
founded in Boumerdès, a suburb of Algiers. It became part of the African Centre
for Oil and Textile, an educational complex sponsored by the USSR , which comprised a technical school for textile and another one for secondary, oil-related specializations. The Centre was equipped with Soviet material and employed about
200 professors from several Soviet universities and research institutes. Within five
years, the Centre was admitting more than 1000 students in different fields. Many
of its graduates continued their training at the Boubkine Institute for Oil and Gas
in Moscow or other research institutes in the USSR .20
The Centre became a paradigm of Soviet «disinterested aid» to young socialist
countries, as well as an important basis for advertising the Soviet model to Algerian
students. The films shown and the expositions organized at the institute propagated the achievements of Soviet science and highlighted the modernization of the
Central Asian Republics. The Soviet teaching community founded an association
for Soviet-Algerian friendship and organized open lectures about the Soviet Union,
as well as commemorations of the October Revolution. The Algerians running the
Centre tolerated the Soviet propaganda and even the teaching of Marxism-Leninism that was integrated into economics and other courses. After all, Soviet professors and Algerian students were working on projects of great interest to the state,
such as the detection and exploitation of the national oil and gas resources or the
liquidization of natural gas.21 Furthermore, many of the institute’s graduates, especially those who continued training in the USSR , made a career working for the
national oil and gas enterprise, the well-known Sonatrach, which had direct access
to, and was training its cadres at, Soviet institutes. During the 1960s, with the support of the Soviet bloc, the company took over all oil fields and assets that had
belonged to French and American oil companies. In 1971, the government of
Houari Boumedienne nationalized all the natural gas fields in Algeria, and
Sonatrach became the state energy monopoly.22
condary education had to stay in Algeria and render their service to the country. The Soviets
however suspected the Minister of National
Orientation, Cherif Belcassem, for his European
preferences: GARF, f. R-9518, op. 1, d. 489,
p. 235–237.
20 GARF, f. R-9606, op. 1, d. 3008, l. 76–81, d.
6829, p. 36–38, d. 9120, p. 25–29.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%4+
21 GARF, f. R-9518, op. 1, d. 490, p. 109–130. And
f. R-9606, op. 1, d. 6829, p. 35–37.
22 Today Sonatrach is a kind of Algerian Gaz-
porm. The company produces about 90 percent
of all Algerian export income. Algeria is the
fourth largest exporter and producer of gas in the
world.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
94
As in the case of Iraq and the IPC , the nationalization of the Algerian energy
sector was a cornerstone in the process of national development and modernization. In that process, diversification of foreign partnerships and educational cooperation with the Soviet Union played decisive roles. Both Algeria and Iraq managed
to obtain the technology and develop the capacities to nationalize, exploit and commercialize their own natural resources. Their success was greeted as a triumph of
Arab socialism and Soviet-Arab friendship, and was celebrated at the Baghdad
International Seminars on «Oil and Raw Materials», organized by the Cairo-based
Afro-Asian Solidarity Organization.23
That being said, Soviet-Arab cooperation in the domain of higher education was
not limited to the so-called radical or socialist Arab states. Western-oriented Arab
countries, such as Tunisia or Morocco, also needed native cadres for their modernization, and they welcomed the idea of cooperation with the Soviet Union. In 1961,
Tunisia signed an agreement of economic and technical cooperation with the
USSR , according to which the Soviets were to construct and equip the National
Technical Institute of Tunis. Moroccan politicians, most of them members of the
ruling conservative party (Istiqlal), requested Soviet scholarships for the party
youth. Moscow granted the Istiqlal youth a small number of scholarships. Soviet
scholarships were also offered to the ministries of education in Tunisia and
Morocco; these could then choose their preferred candidates. Although most of
these scholarships remained «unexploited» during the years 1960–1965, Morocco,
Tunisia and the other Western-oriented Arab countries gradually put aside their
reservations vis-à-vis the communist superpower and accepted Soviet educational
aid.24 By the 1970s, even small Kuwait, a privileged Western ally, had instituted an
educational cooperation with the USSR and sent around 40 students to the Soviet
Union.25
In many cases, political changes in the Arab world were reflected in the evolution of Soviet-Arab educational cooperation. Thus, while the Iraqis were the most
numerous group among Arab students in the USSR during the 1960s, in the 1970s
their number significantly declined. Students from Syria, a country that during the
same decade became the most important ally of the USSR in the Middle East, now
occupied the first place on the list, followed by Jordanian and Lebanese students,
among whom were many Palestinians. At the same time, despite a strong SovietEgyptian partnership, the Soviet Union was never the first destination for Egyptian
23 «Oil and Raw Materials». For Economic Develop-
ment, Social Progress and Equitable Economic Relations. Proceedings of the Baghdad Seminar, published by the Permanent Secretariat of the
Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization,
Cairo, Afro-Asian Publication (70), 1975.
24 For the Soviet-Tunisian cooperation see: GARF,
f. R-9518, op. 1, d. 531, p. 205, and d. 532, p. 21 and
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%47
65. For the Soviet-Moroccan cooperation see:
GARF, f. R-9518, op. 1, d. 512, p. 134–135.
25 GARF, f. R-9606, op 1, d. 8660, p. 18.
26 GARF, f. R-9606, Soviet Ministry of Higher and
Secondary Special Education (MVSSO), op. 1. d.
521, 869, 1638, 1948, 2369, 2381, 2699, 3090,
3533, 3957, 4387, 5938, 6485, 6841, 7244, 7663,
8151, 8661 and 9122.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
1959–1960
1960–1961
1961–1962
1962–1963
1963–1964
1964–1965
1965–1966
1966–1967
1967–1968
1968–1969
1969–1970
1970–1971
1971–1972
1972–1973
1973–1974
1974–1975
1975–1976
1976–1977
1977–1978
1978–1979
1979–1980
22
34
53
73
101
73
161
220
348
363
708
739
712
908
820
797
851
1005
18
33
71
95
81
107
107
91
110
99
115
134
149
186
205
262
333
409
2
10
18
22
32
49
61
63
81
75
49
69
83
120
225
303
429
571
Algeria Morocco Tunisia
73
83
124
187
231
330
364
404
456
431
463
483
391
429
466
468
458
558
Sudan
400
233
259
409
433
450
544
415
516
618
505
469
499
460
456
377
Syria
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%46
54
207
296
473
723
823
898
671
1065
1222
1211
1442
1376
1585
1685
1926
342**
354**
Egypt
31
52
95
98
135
214
269
322
374
324
498
560
584
709
798
1005
1233
1585
Lebanon
Table 1: Arab students in the Soviet Union, 1960–1980.26
784
604*
1306
1163
1249
910
611
823
289
215
372
432
496
585
616
704
761
892
Iraq
2
6
26
36
39
78
155
23
46
44
73
215
892
22
33
38
39
46
98
149
219
323
304
513
627
684
918
1121
1295
1562
1916
Palestine Jordan
Yemen
Both
37
66
109
113
179
284
324
357
442
389
593
679
825
1084
1303
1530
1710
1832
3
5
14
14
49
65
86
93
99
158
163
181
203
244
236
219
228
Others
1331
1272*
2273
2398
2244
2623
2998
3273
3884
3994
3424
5128
5881
5844
7099
7717
8718
9912
12191
TOTAL
95
Legende Sternchen???
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
96
Table 2: Arab, African, Asian and Latin American students
in the USSR, 1960–1980.27
Academic
Year
Legende Sternchen???
1959 –1960
1960–1961
1961–1962
1962–1963
1963–1964
1964–1965
1965–1966
1966–1967
1967–1968
1968–1969
1969–1970
1970–1971
1971–1972
1972–1973
1973–1974
1974–1975
1975–1976
1976–1977
1977–1978
1978–1979
1979–1980
Arab
countries
Sub-Saharan
Africa
1331
1272
2273
2398
2244
2623
2998
3273
3884
3994
3424
5128
5881
5844
7099
7717
8718
9912
12191
154
411
1027
1235
2327
2794
4101
4309
4458
4459
3725
4661
5027
5120
6331
8102
9799
11110
12627
South-East
Asia*
Latin
America*
287*
62426*
6730
7093
179627*
7917
7698
7632
8671
7634
9215
10235
10305
10169
10210
10121
11601
14017
16574
25
319
745
1658
2111
2348
2086
2068
1931
1928
2861
3248
3933
4708
6121
7534
9781
11390
students going abroad. Most of the Egyptians who studied in the USSR were
enrolled in a PhD program (aspirantura), which was rarely the case for the rest of
the Arab students. It is also worth mentioning that among all the Arab countries
and, eventually, among all the Afro-Asian and Latin American ones, Egypt, Syria
and Iraq (in the years of Qasim) were the only ones to contribute financially to the
scholarships of the majority of their students in the Soviet Union.28
Despite some ups and downs due to political changes in the Arab world, educational cooperation between Arab countries, whether socialist or not, and the Soviet
Union continued undisturbed, and the number of Arab students in the USSR
increased steadily. The following tables represent that evolution.
27 Russian State Archive of Social and Political
28 Ibid.
History [Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial’no-Polititseskoi Istorii, hereafter RGASPI], f.
M-3, op. 3, d. 36, p. 175–185.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%48
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
97
4. Education, Indoctrination and «Progressiveness»
of the Students
Almost all of the Arab countries had a tremendous need for manpower, so the
Soviet scholarships represented an important opportunity. Yet, it should be no surprise that for most of the Arabs the Soviet Union was not only the country of rapid
industrialization and technological achievements but also the country of communism and atheism. Consequently, many feared that the Arab students sent to the
Soviet Union would return with communist ideas and in a subversive mood.
Among others, a major concern of the Arabs was the fact that a number of
Soviet «social» or «non-governmental» organizations – such as the Soviet AfroAsian Solidarity Committee and the Committee of Youth Organizations – were distributing scholarships and recruiting candidates with the blessing of the Soviet
government but without the permission of Arab authorities. This type of recruitment characterized the administration of the People’s Friendship University
«Patrice Lumumba» (UDN ). Founded in 1960 by Khrushchev, the university had
as its mission to train students from less developed countries and to assist «the
efforts of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples aiming at building a
developed national economy».29 The institution was administered by social organizations and was theoretically independent from the Education Ministry, which
made it even more suspect in the eyes of a foreigner. The British Prime Minister,
Harold Macmillan, had warned all the members of the Commonwealth that «the
pro-Rector of the Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow is a KGB general».30
In the European and conservative Arab press the UDN was depicted as a ghetto for
colored students, as a centre of communist propaganda and, notably, as a low-level
educational institution.
One after the other, Arab countries protested against the recruitment of Arab
students to the university. Tunisian officials considered the enrolment of Tunisian
students at the UDN as a «kind of discrimination» against them, because their educational level was equivalent to that of «European students», while «the University
was catering to ill-prepared African students».31 Such arguments are particularly
disputable seeing that the Ghanaians, Nigerians, Senegalese and other Africans
were among the best students. These statements reflect stereotypical cultural hierarchies, which were quite often evoked by Arab officials. The Moroccan Ministry of
Foreign Affairs made it clear to the Soviets that Moroccan students «should not mix
with Afro-Asian or Latin-American students, who make up the ‹People’s Friend29 From the speech of Nikita Khrushchev at the in-
30 British National Archives, Prime Minister Cabi-
auguration of the university, on November 17,
1960, in SSSR i Strany Afriki, 1946–1962 gg.
Dokumenty i materialy, t. 2, Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe Izdatelstvo Polititseskoi Literatury, 1963,
p. 83.
net Office, PREM, 11, 4609, p. 13. The Pro-Rector
in question was P. D. Erzin.
31 GARF, f. R-9518, op. 1. d. 531, p. 80–81 and d.
532, p. 112.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%49
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
98
ship› University», and that the practice of distributing scholarships without the
approval of Moroccan authorities was «inadmissible».32 Even socialist-oriented
countries like Algeria required that almost all the Soviet scholarships should be
accorded to state authorities or to state-controlled social organizations, not to individual candidates. They were categorically opposed to the idea of sending their students to the UDN .33 Most of the Arab countries never officially recognized the
diploma of the UDN , which, as a result, became more and more marginalized. In
1967, 11.7 percent of the Arab students studying in the USSR attended the university that bore the name of the Congolese nationalist hero. By 1981, that percentage
dropped to 5.8.34
The problem of indoctrination persisted nonetheless, and it concerned most of
the Arab students of the UDN , who studied at more than 150 universities and technical schools all around the Soviet Union. In the early stages of educational cooperation between the Soviet Union and less developed countries, the Soviet government had agreed not to compel students to enrol in social and political science
courses. And indeed, until October 1968, all courses of the social and political sciences were officially facultative. Yet, the USSR ’s intention to influence the Weltanschauung (mirovozzrenie) of the students was not at all abandoned. Facultative
courses, ostensibly imparting «the basics of a materialist vision of the world» to the
students, were offered in many languages from the preparatory year on.35 Russian
language teachers were also instructed to use texts with political and ideological
contents.36 In an extreme case, «the professors of physics were advised [ . . . ] to pay
more attention to the philosophical explanation of the natural phenomena on the
basis of dialectical materialism».37 Circumventing the principle of voluntariness
(printsip dobrovol’nosti) in a more overt way of, the Soviet Ministry of Education in
March 1961 introduced an obligatory course entitled «USSR today», which contained sections on the CPSU and the establishment of communism in the USSR .38
The Arab embassies in Moscow protested against such practices and prevented
their students from attending those courses. In a characteristic reaction, the Egyptian government withdrew some 250 students from Soviet universities and, with a
special airlift from Russia, sent them to the United States.39 Much more disappointing to the Soviets was the fact that their efforts to attract students to the facul32 AVP RF, f. «Posol’stvo SSSR v Morokko» [Embas-
33
34
35
36
sy of the USSR in Morocco], op. 3, p. 3, d. 3 p. 48–
50.
GARF, f. R-9518, op. 1. d. 540, p. 320–322.
GARF, f. R-9606, op. 1, d. 2699, d. 3115, d. 3116,
and d. 9524, p. 2–4.
RGASPI, f. M-1, op. 46, d. 338, p. 80.
L. N. Kononenko, Deiatel’nost’ partiinykh organizatsii vuzov Moskvy po internatsional’nomu vospitaniiu inostrannykh studentov, [The activity of the
party organizations of the institutes of higher
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%4,
education of Moscow for the internationalist
education of the foreign students], dlia sluzhebnogo pol’zovanie, [for in-house use], PhD thesis, Moscow Energy Institute, 1967, 117–119.
37 Ibid., 54. Although it is not at all certain that professors of hard sciences implemented that kind
of recommendations.
38 Ibid., 147–148.
39 M. Heikal, Sphinx and Commissar. The Rise and
Fall of Soviet Influence in the Arab World (London,
1978), 109.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
99
tative courses did not elicit the desired results. While the percentage of foreign students who were taking the facultative courses in the social and political sciences
fluctuated from 50 to 80 percent at the UDN, the same percentage was significantly
lower at other universities. The Komsomol attributed this failure not to a lack of
interest but to the rigid schedule foreign students had to follow, as well as to the difficulties they faced given their insufficient academic preparation.40 In any case, this
failure was indirectly recognized in a decree issued by the Ministry of Education in
October 1968, according to which «all foreign students studying in the USSR [were]
obliged to study social sciences, the history of the CPSU, political economy and the
fundamental principles of scientific communism».41 If the facultative courses had
been a success, there would have been no reason to make them obligatory.
At the same time, the efforts of Soviet authorities to conquer «the hearts and the
minds» of the Arab and foreign students were not restricted to universities. A
broad program of extracurricular activities was offered to the students, which
included films on communism and the USSR , visits to pioneering industries and
kolkhozes, meetings with senior Bolshevik revolutionaries, participation in Soviet
and Arab commemorations, etc. In 1965, the Soviet society for friendship and cultural relations with the Arab peoples fostered the creation of a permanent extracurricular seminar entitled «USSR and the Arab countries», which was led by a group
of Soviet and Arab students.42 All of those initiatives were in accordance with the
directives of the CPSU «to take care of the students’ everyday life so that they
[would] become not just highly qualified specialists but people with progressive
opinions, as well as sincere friends of the Soviet Union».43 They were also
responses to the exhortation of the deputy minister of education, M. Prokopev, to
fight «a battle» for the education of the students «from the moment when they
begin their scholarships at the railway station until the end of their studies».44
Despite those high expectations on the Soviet side, the Arab students’ studies in
the Soviet Union were not to be reduced to mere indoctrination. The overwhelming
majority of these students studied at «first class» educational institutions together
with their Soviet colleagues, took the same courses and passed the same exams.
The academic bar was set very high, especially at the technological and medical
faculties, which attracted 50 and 22 percent of foreign students, respectively.45
Many students were confronted with severe academic difficulties. During the academic year of 1962–1963, the failing rate of the Iraqi students that Qasim had sent
40 Kononenko, Deiatel’nost’, p. 165. And a report of
43 The «top secret» resolution of the Central
the Komsomol: RGASPI , f. M-1, op. 46, d. 336,
p. 5.
41 I quote not from the decree, but from a discussion that took place among officials at the Ministry of education concerning the decree. GARF,
f. R-9606, op. 1, d. 3538, p. 84–85.
42 GARF, f. R-9576, op. 13, d. 141, p. 95–96.
Committee of the CPSU in A. B. Davidson and
S. V. Mazov, Rossia i Afrika. Dokumenty i materialy XVIII v. – 1960 g. (Moscow, IVI RAN, 1999),
v. 2, 326.
44 The speech of M. Prokopev, VLKSM op. 46, d.
339, p. 8.
45 Ibid., p. 7.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%44
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
100
to the Moscow Energy Institute reached 64 percent. If they failed, students were
obliged to repeat the exams and eventually the academic year or, in extreme cases,
leave the Soviet Union. In order to prevent the expulsion of students, which could
have damaged the Soviet-Arab educational partnership, the universities introduced
auxiliary courses for small groups. Those courses existed at almost all of the universities that received foreign students from less developed countries, from Moscow
State University to the UDN . At the latter, however, the course of studies was one
academic year shorter than at other university. But even UDN courses were similar
to those of the other Soviet universities, while the students there were also required
to gain practical experience through working at a factory, a laboratory or an enterprise, as well as to write a graduation thesis (real’nii diplomnii proekt), very often on
a subject that was considered to be conducive to the development of their countries
of origin.46
In every respect, education was much more prominent than indoctrination.
Soviet officials firmly believed that the Soviet-educated Arab graduates, as individuals, would in and by themselves demonstrate the superiority of Soviet science and
the Soviet system. Consequently, they would bring the perspective of progress back
home, which would in turn encourage their countries to opt for a non-capitalist
path of development and modernization. Apart from embodying the superiority of
socialism, the Arab graduates would also assume a significant role in its realization
in their home countries: Educated as they were, they could quickly occupy leading
administrative and political positions, which would allow them to influence the
course of reforms by applying their expertise to the implementation of socialist policies. Thereby, Soviet officials believed, the graduates would dedicate their knowledge and political understanding to the political and economic liberation of their
peoples. They would thus function as veritable agents of socialist development and
modernization, and help transform Arab countries into modern socialist states. Yet
in fact, although most of the Soviet-educated Arab doctors and engineers had successful careers and enjoyed recognition in their countries, their access to key political and administrative positions was relatively limited. This can be attributed to the
stiff competition with candidates educated in the Western or Arab world, who were
often closer to the old élite. Another factor was the suspiciousness of most Arab
states vis-à-vis Soviet-educated jurists, economists and political scientists. As a consequence, the Arab countries tried to intensify rather the educational cooperation
with the USSR in the medical, engineering and agricultural fields.47
While in the USSR , some of the Arab students adopted «progressive» positions
and became outspoken in their sympathies for the Soviet Union. Communist or
pro-Soviet students dominated most of the Arab national students’ associations
46 Kononenko, Deiatel’nost’, 102–114.
47 This was an important conclusion of a report
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%'&&
produced by researchers of the Soviet Institute of
Africa. RGASPI, f. M-1, op. 39, d. 136, p. 82.
)'0&'0'&%%%&4567
101
and had a strong influence on their non-communist colleagues. Many Arab student associations supported Soviet views on international affairs, wrote resolutions
in favour of Soviet-Arab economic and cultural cooperation, and protested against
the persecution of communist activists by the regime of Nasser, the hero of PanArabism.48 The anti-imperialist and anti-Western mood of the Arab students and
their adherence to socialist ideas generally dominated the scene, although there
existed strong disagreements among Marxist-Leninists, Nasserists, Baathists,
Algerian «Benbelists» and Palestinian Maoists.
At the same time, for most of the Arab students, «loyalty» towards the Soviet
Union was clearly predicated on Moscow’s stance regarding the Middle East conflict and its support of the Palestinians. Consequently, when Soviet involvement
and support for the Arab partners fell short of eliciting the desired results, as was
the case during the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars, this led to strong anti-Soviet
protests on the part of the students. The Arab students faulted «insufficient» Soviet
military support and criticized aspects of Soviet-Arab relations, especially the emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, which they considered a betrayal of the Arab cause.49
In addition to the Palestinian question, Arab students in the Soviet Union
endorsed progressive domestic policies of nationalist Arab regimes on many occasions. In that sense, they fulfilled the political expectations of their Soviet hosts and
demonstrated their «progressiveness». The overwhelming majority of the Iraqi
students supported Qasim’s reforms, not only when he was at the helm of the
country but also after his fall. The pro-Qasim General Union of Iraqi Students in
the USSR set up a «Committee of Solidarity with the fighters against the terrorist
regime» of Aref (who succeeded Qasim) and organized the students in kolkhozes
in order to finance a committee for the protection of the Iraqi people’s rights; the
group ended up joining the underground resistance.50
Algerian students also approved the efforts of the FLN for a political and economic liberation of their country. Most of those who arrived in the USSR during
the war were members of the pro-FLN youth and the General Union of Algerian
Muslim Students. They saved money from their scholarships and helped purchase
Soviet equipment for the Algerian trade unions in exile.51 A few years later, the
Union of Algerian Students in the USSR , which was by now controlled by the youth
of the Party of Socialist Avant-garde, made a similar symbolic gesture. In support of
the progressive socialist reforms of Houari Boumedienne – for instance the nationalization of the gas fields and the agrarian reform of 1971 – the union collected
money and offered it to the Algerian embassy.52
48 GARF, f. R-9576, op. 13, d. 20, p. 171.
49 RGASPI, f. M-3, op. 3., d. 588, p. 157 and op 8,
d. 857, p. 69.
50 Reports of the Komsomol on the Iraqi students
f. M-1, op. 46, d. 353, p. 47; d. 340, p. 146–147;
and d. 354, p. 25.
51 GARF, f. R-5451, op. 45, d. 1560, p. 65.
52 RGASPI, f. M-3, op. 8, d. 604, p. 89.
in the USSR before and after Qasim: RGASPI,
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%'&'
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102
Supporting nationalizations and socialist reforms provided a common «progressive» ground for most of the Arab students in the USSR , from communists to
FLN supporters, from Baathists to Nasserites. In that sense, a consensus existed
among the majority of youth political forces on what should constitute a progressive policy of economic and social modernization for Arab societies. However, a
similar consensus did not exist in terms of ideology, political representation and
foreign policy. A large gap separated (notably) the communists from the Egyptian
Nasserites, with the latter striving to put an end to the «progressive» appetite of the
former in order to attain ideological hegemony over the Arab students’ mind. But
while the Nasserite students still felt somewhat attracted to the Soviet socialist system and its achievements, found common ground with the other socialists and
communists and after 1966 joined the progressive front of the «Union of Organizations of Students from the Arab Countries» in the USSR , that was not the case
with every Arab youth organization and group in the Soviet Union.53
Most of the Muslim Brothers challenged the predominant nationalist, socialist
and communist ideologies, which sometimes left Soviet authorities perplexed. The
Umma party and the Muslim Brothers strongly opposed the domination of the
communist union of Sudanese students, which was recruiting among the Arabs
and the Sudanese students.54 A group of Muslim Brothers also existed in the Syrian
community, which was, however, dominated by the communists.55 But the strongest challenge to the diverse progressive forces came from the Egyptian Muslim
Brothers, who seized control of the associations of Egyptian students in Moscow
and Leningrad in the 1970s and contested Marxist ideology and secular socialist
orientation, as well as the Soviet-Arab partnership as a whole.56 The Egyptian Muslim Brothers’ organization’s rise to power in the Soviet Union exposed the limits of
Soviet influence on the political beliefs of the students through education or indoctrination. It also revealed the students’ disenchantment with the socialist path of
development and with Soviet influence in Egypt and the Arab world in general.
Significant as it may be because of the anti-secular and anti-progressive direction it took, the Egyptian case was nevertheless not the rule. During the 1970s, the
majority of Arab students’ associations remained committed to secular and socialist principles. Communist students continued to have the upper hand in the Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, Sudanese and Iraqi associations. «Progressive democrats»
constituted the overwhelming majority in the Algerian, Moroccan and Palestinian
53 Concerning the «Union of Organizations of
Students from the Arab Countries» in the USSR
[Sojuz Organizatsii Studentov arabskikh stran v
SSSR] see RGASPI, f. M-3, op. 8, d. 604, p. 82–
83.
54 From reports of the Komsomol: RGASPI, f. M-1,
op. 46, d. 354, p. 19–20 and p. 30. See also at the
same collection the file d. 371, p. 9.
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55 RGASPI, f. M-1, op. 46, d. 354, p. 36.
56 RGASPI, f. M-3, op. 8, d. 604, p. 83. Among
others the Egyptian Muslim brothers’ youth was
particularly active in «attributing to the Soviet
Union the responsibility for the continuous occupation of the Palestinian land by Israel».
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groups. At the same time, Arab graduates of Soviet universities set up alumni organizations in Lebanon (1970), Syria (1970), Jordan (1971), Iraq (1972) and South
Yemen (1972), or else seized control of existing associations of friendship with the
Soviet Union. Through meetings, conferences and cultural events, as well as
through their auxiliary role in the educational cooperation, they became a bridge
between the Soviet Union and their own countries. They constituted a tiny but
active faction of the millions of «friends» the USSR had in the Arab world during
the Cold War.57
5. Conclusion
In 1989, some months before the ultimate economic and political collapse of the
socialist bloc, leading political economist André Gunder Fran, wrote that «much
Third Worldist socialist rhetoric is just that, and no more», and that «the East has
supported superstructural change in the South with words and sometimes arms,
but without being able to offer the really necessary infrastructural support of an
economic alternative».58 Bitter conclusions from a radical thinker, whose disillusionment with the East-South relations and with the Soviet model of development
surely did not arise from groundless assumptions. Seen in the context of the global
Cold War, the history of Soviet efforts to transfer the socialist model of development
to the Arab world and to support the transformation of postcolonial Arab countries
into socialist and developed ones was evidently a failure. Soviet claims that the noncapitalist path of development would lead Arab countries to independence and
prosperity turned out to be overly optimistic. The rapid deterioration of social and
economic conditions in the Soviet Union during the 1980s, and the final collapse
and abandonment of the socialist model in its own motherland put an abrupt end
to every debate about transferability, influence and Soviet lessons for Arab modernization.
Yet, despite failure and disillusionment, the history of East-South cooperation
can hardly be summarized as «only words and sometimes arms». The Soviet-Arab
partnership has a wider significance in contemporary international history, due to
both its cultural and its political and economic dimensions. In terms of cultural
history, it marked a period of convergence and exchange between states and peoples with different historical backgrounds and cultural horizons. Cultural differences, which surely existed, were usually far from insurmountable. Neither Soviet
orientalism nor Arab perceptions of the communist superpower prevented people
from sharing their beliefs. Rational ideas about modernization found common
ground, secular beliefs prevailed, while hopes for progressive social change tran57 RGASPI, f. M-3, op. 8, d. 604, p. 83–92. For
the alumni organizations see GARF, f. 9606,
d. 8665, p. 33–42.
58 A. G. Frank, «The Socialist Countries in the
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World Economy: The East-South Dimension», in
The Political Economy of East-South Relations, ed.
B. H. Schulz and W. W. Hansen (Boulder-San
Francisco-London, 1989), 20.
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104
scended cultures. At the same time, in terms of political and economic history,
Soviet aid for the nationalization of Arab natural resources on the demand of Arab
governments and peoples was a tangible contribution to the construction of their
national economies, not a simple «superstructural change». The education given
to thousands of Arab students in the Soviet Union, and the training of workers and
students in Algeria, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere had a great impact on Arab societies and economies during the difficult years of struggle for consolidating national
liberation and constructing a sovereign state.
I argued above that Arab students in the Soviet Union received a high-quality
education and that for this reason Arab governments were more and more willing
to accept Soviet educational assistance and became interested in Soviet-Arab cooperation. That tendency was reflected not only in the exchange of students but also
in the reception of Soviet professors in Arab countries. In 1975, their number
reached 61 in Tunisia, 66 in Egypt and 829 in Algeria, where the Soviet Union had
also founded and equipped the National Institute of Light Industry, as well as the
Institute of Mining and Smelting at the University of Annaba.59 In 1980, together
with the Algerian Oil and Gas Institute of Boumerdès, those three institutes were
training a total of 8500 Algerian students, while the Algerian minister of higher
education and scientific research, A. Brerkhi, was making plans for further cooperation, stating that «Algeria was ready to consign its future to the USSR ».60 Yet,
this did not come to pass.
The Soviet-Algerian cooperation in the field of education not only trained Algerian students but also provoked the West to a response. Following the Soviet «educational intrusion», many Western countries established or reinforced their educational ties with Algeria. Boumerdès welcomed the creation of the French-sponsored
National Institute of Mechanics, of the American-sponsored National Institute of
Electricity (a project of the Education Developing Council), of the West Germansponsored Algerian Oil Institute (a project of the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit), and of the Canadian-sponsored National Institute of Productivity and
Industrial Development.61 The sun-clad Boumerdès became the battlefield of a
bloodless strife between Cold Warriors over the implementation of their modernization projects and the attainment of the Algerian alliance. The Algerians had every
reason to be satisfied not only with the battle’s outcome but also with the opportunities the East-West confrontation and the global Cold War had opened for them to
diversify their foreign partnerships and pursue their own development projects.
A retrospective reading of the history of Soviet-Arab relations and East-South
cooperation, which takes the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the abandonment of
59 GARF, f. R-9606, op. 1, d. 6829, p. 2.
60 GARF, f. R-9606, op. 1, d. 9120, p. 30.
61 H. Khelfaoui, «La coopération technique inter-
merdès (Algérie)», in Coopérations scientifiques
internationales, ed. J. Gaillard (Paris, 1996), 188–
201.
nationale: Le cas du pôle technologique de Bou-
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the socialist model as a point of departure, is more likely to give vent to disillusionment and acknowledge total failure. Instances of failure undoubtedly occurred,
and long before 1989 the Soviets and the Arabs themselves admitted to them –
overtly or discretely – and revised their positions. Yet such a retrospective interpretation conceals some important «successful» aspects of the East-South cooperation
and tends to give all credit to post-Cold War triumphalism.
In any case, the verdict of «success» or «failure», if reached by historians, must
be historicized. What meant success from the socialist point of view – nationalizations and the creation of a state-led economy, for instance – would be a failure from
the liberal one. The socialist model of modernization furthered the quest for sovereignty and advocated state control over production and foreign exchanges, while
the liberal one promoted free enterprise, individual agency and the integration of
the national economy into the world market.
Yet the use of the term «successful» with regard to some aspects of the SovietArab cooperation is not a post mortem abuse. During the period analyzed here,
Soviet-Arab cooperation in the field of education did not look like a failure. Neither
its role in the national development of Arab countries, nor its agency in the consolidation of their independence vis-à-vis the West. Neither to the Soviets nor to the
Arabs. The Soviet-Arab partnership branded the developments that unfolded during a crucial historical period in the Arab world and had a great impact on Arab
youth. The contribution of the Soviet Union to the development of Arab countries
was significant and needs to be thoroughly revisited and reconsidered.
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ABSTRACTS
Soviet Lessons for Arab Modernization:
This paper examines the Soviet-Arab cooperation in the domain of higher education, and particularly the education of Arab students in the USSR. It argues that educational cooperation took shape on the ground of shared beliefs about the role of
the state in the process of economic development and modernization. Soviet educational aid constituted a major vehicle for the transfer and implementation of Soviet
ideas about modernization. It played a significant role in the development of Arab
countries and marked the Soviet-Arab partnership.
Sowjetische Lehrstunden für die Modernisierung
der arabischen Welt.
Die Ausbildungshilfe der UdSSR in den arabischen Ländern nach
1956
Dieser Artikel untersucht die sowjetisch-arabische Kooperation im Bereich des
Hochschulwesens und ganz besonders die Ausbildung arabischer Studenten in der
UdSSR. Die Ausbildungs-Kooperation entwickelte sich auf der Grundlage gemeinsamer Vorstellungen über die Rolle des Staates in der wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Modernisierung. Die Ausbildungshilfe der UdSSR wirkte für den Transfer und die Anwendung sowjetischer Modernisierungsideen wie ein Sprungbrett.
Für die Entwicklung der arabischen Länder spielte sie nicht nur eine bedeutende
Rolle, sondern prägte auch die sowjetisch-arabische Partnerschaft.
Leçons soviétiques pour la modernisation du monde arabe.
L’aide éducative de l’URSS à destination des pays arabes après 1956
Cet article examine la coopération arabo-soviétique dans le domaine de l’enseignement supérieur et plus particulièrement la formation des étudiants arabes en URSS.
Il part de l’hypothèse que la coopération éducative prit forme sur la base des idées
partagées quant au rôle de l’Etat dans le processus de développement économique
et de modernisation. L’aide éducative de l’URSS constitua un tremplin pour le transfert et l’application des idées soviétiques sur la modernisation. Elle joua un rôle
significatif pour le développement des pays arabes et marqua le partenariat arabosoviétique.
Möckernstrasse 71
10965 Berlin
[email protected]
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Moritz Feichtinger und Stephan Malinowski
«Eine Million Algerier lernen im
20. Jahrhundert zu leben»1
Umsiedlungslager und Zwangsmodernisierung
im Algerienkrieg 1954–1962
Die Begriffe Modernisierung und development haben ihren guten und friedlichen
Klang gegen jede historische Evidenz erstaunlich sicher verteidigen können.2
Dabei waren Modernisierungsprogramme in kolonialen Räumen stets offene
Kampfansagen an Traditionen und ihre «retardierenden» Einflüsse.3 Im Versuch
europäischer Kolonialmächte, während der Dekolonisierung bleibende Strukturen
nachkolonialer Hegemonie zu schaffen, wurde die Trennung zwischen drivers and
spoilers of change – also «Beförderer» und «Verhinderer» von «Entwicklung» –
wichtiger als je zuvor.4
Der folgende Beitrag fragt nach dem Verhältnis von Modernisierung und
Gewalt in spätkolonialen Kontexten des 20. Jahrhunderts. Neben den offensichtlichen Aspekten von Gewalt, Zerstörung und Repression, lassen sich die nach 1945
geführten Kriege des europäischen Spätkolonialismus als gewaltige Katalysatoren
von change interpretieren. Die angestrebte Totalverwandlung spätkolonialer Gesellschaften, die mit zivilen und militärischen Mitteln «voran» getrieben wurde, entsprach in vielem den Parametern, die Sozialwissenschaftler zeitgleich als «Modernisierung» beschrieben haben. In Kolonialkriegen, die um die «hearts and minds»5
1 Titel eines Zeitungsberichts über Umsiedlungs-
4 Diese Begriffe sind bis heute im Fachjargon
lager in Algerien: J.-L. Guillaud, «Un million
d’Algériens apprennent à vivre au XXè siècle»,
in: Paris-Journal, 11.5.1959.
2 H. Joas, «The Modernity of War: Modernization
Theory and the Problem of Violence», in: International Sociology 14 (1999), 457–472.
3 Zur Tradition s. J. Osterhammel, «‹The Great
Work of Uplifting Mankind›. Zivilisierungsmission und Moderne», in: Zivilisierungsmissionen.
Imperiale Weltverbesserung seit dem 18. Jahrhundert. Hg. B. Barth/J. Osterhammel, Konstanz
2005, 363–425; J. Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts,
München 2009, 465–673, 1173–1238.
gängig; s. M. Radseck, Leitfaden zur Erstellung
einer Politökonomischen Kurzanalyse (PÖK), interne Arbeitsanweisung aus dem Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und
Entwicklung (Oktober 2006); D. Warrener, The
Drivers of Change Approach, London 2004.
5 Die bald viel zitierte Formel wurde von britischen Offizieren Anfang der 1950er Jahre im
Kolonialkrieg in Malaya geprägt. Vgl. R. Stubbs,
Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare. The
Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960, Oxford 1989;
K. Ramakrishna, Emergency Propaganda: the Winning of Malayan Hearts and Minds, 1948–1958,
Richmond 2002.
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der Zivilbevölkerung geführt wurden, wurde die Fähigkeit, «Modernisierung» als
reale, innerhalb kurzer Zeit erreichbare und nur von der Kolonialmacht realisierbare Möglichkeit darzustellen, zur kriegsentscheidenden Waffe. Im Spätkolonialismus standen kriegerische Zerstörung und holistische Entwicklungsprogramme
deshalb eher komplementär als antagonistisch zueinander.
Der folgende Aufsatz fokussiert mit Algerien während des Unabhängigkeitskrieges von 1954 bis 1962 ein Land, das für die Entfaltung modernisierender Energien nicht gerade prädestiniert erscheint. Innerhalb dieses Szenarios konzentriert
sich die Analyse auf den unwahrscheinlichsten Ort, an dem sich soziale Modernisierungsversuche vermuten ließen: auf das französische Lagersystem in Algerien
– genauer: auf das Zwangssystem der französischen Umsiedlungslager (camps de
regroupement), in denen das französische Militär im Rahmen des Anti-GuerillaKrieges große Teile der zuvor aus ihren zerstörten Dörfern vertriebenen algerischen Landbevölkerung konzentrierte und überwachte. Addiert man alle Formen
der kriegsbedingten Vertreibungen, inklusive der Binnenmigration in die großstädtischen Elendsviertel, vor allem Algiers, so beläuft sich die Anzahl der Vertriebenen auf über drei Millionen, was etwa fünfzig Prozent der algerischen Landbevölkerung entsprach – ein Anteil, der selbst aus den düsteren Standards des 20.
Jahrhunderts deutlich herausragt.6
Innerhalb der blühenden Algerien-Historiographie führt die Erforschung der
Lager ein nur schwer erklärliches Schattendasein. Zu den weiterhin besten Studien gehören die frühen Arbeiten Pierre Bourdieus, der 1955 als junger agrégé der
Philosophie und Armeeangehöriger nach Algerien gekommen und dort zur Ethnologie konvertiert war.7 Zeitlich weiter entfernt, politisch jedoch noch immer à
chaud entstand die empirisch dichte Analyse des Soziologen Michel Cornaton aus
dem Jahre 1967. Diese frühen Studien und die überschaubare Gruppe neuerer
Arbeiten haben sich aus guten Gründen auf die fast vollständige Zerbrechung der
«traditionellen» algerischen Gesellschaft konzentriert, die von der Umsiedlungspolitik beschleunigt und vollendet wurde.8 Früh hat vor allem Bourdieu die Vertreibungspolitik als «fait social total» der Zerstörung interpretiert9 – als einen Vernichtungsvorgang, der alle sozialen Einheiten der Gesellschaft nachhaltig erfasst. Mit
6 P. Bourdieu / A. Sayad, Le Déracinement. La crise
de l’agriculture traditionelle en Algérie, Paris 1964,
13.
7 T. Yacine, «Pierre Bourdieu in Algeria at War. Notes on the Birth of an Engaged Ethnosociology»,
in: Ethnography 5 (2004), 487–509.
8 C.-R. Ageron, «Une dimension de la guerre
d’Algérie: les ‹regroupements› de populations»,
in: Militaires et guérilla dans la guerre d’Algérie.
Hg. J.-C. Jauffret / M. Vaïsse, Brüssel 2001, 327–
362; K. Sutton, «Army Administration Tensions
over Algeria’s Centres de Regroupement, 1954–
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%'&,
1962», in: British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 26 (1999), 243–270; ders., «The Centres de
Regroupement: The French Army’s Final Legacy
to Algeria’s Settlement Geography», in: French
and Algerian Identities from Colonial Times to the
Present. A Century of Interaction. Hg. A. G. Hargreaves / M. J. Heffernan, New York 1993, 163–
188; M. Cornaton, Les camps de regroupment de la
guerre d’Algérie, Paris 1998.
9 In Anlehnung an Marcel Mauss und Claude Levi-Strauss.
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Umsiedlungslager und Zwangsmodernisierung im Algerienkrieg 1954–1962
109
dem Diktum vom «Völkermord» hat Cornaton als wohl bester Kenner der Lager
Bourdieus scharfe Urteile noch übertroffen.10 Eine Einordnung in die komparative
Geschichte der kolonialen und kontinentalen Lagersysteme des 20. Jahrhunderts
scheint beim Forschungsstand noch nicht sicher möglich.11
In Frankreich und Algerien bleibt die Deutung des Krieges ein politisch hoch
aufgeladenes Sujet, um das verschiedene Erinnerungskollektive ringen.12 Der
Algerienkrieg, last stand des französischen Empires, steht in den Standarddeutungen für den Verrat einer westlichen Demokratie an ihren eigenen Prinzipien, für
brutale Unterdrückung, immense Opferzahlen (selbst nach kolonialen Standards)
und die Etablierung systematischer Folter.13 Die eklatanten Menschenrechtsverletzungen unter sozialistischer, liberaler und konservativer Verantwortung wogen in
einem Land, das mit Geschichte und Mythos der droits de l’homme wie kaum ein
zweites verbunden war, besonders schwer.14 Ordnet man den Krieg allerdings in
neuere Arbeiten der komparativen Militär-, Kolonial- und Gewaltgeschichte ein,
so erscheint es weniger zwingend, Gestalt und Ausmaß der in diesem Krieg eingesetzten Gewalt als Sonderfall hervorzuheben.15 Nicht die Gewaltgeschichte selbst,
sondern vielmehr die hier geschaffene Hybride aus einer Gewalt- und Modernisierungsmaschinerie bilden die erstaunlichste Struktur des Algerienkrieges. Jenseits der offensichtlichen Gestalt und Funktion des Krieges – Gewalt und Repression – erscheint es uns deshalb möglich und sinnvoll, den Algerienkrieg mit der
Planungs- und Modernisierungseuphorie der 1950er Jahre in Verbindung zu setzen und den etablierten Interpretationsrahmen zu erweitern.16 Statt der gängigen
und unbestrittenen Sicht auf eine Kolonialmacht, die in ihrem letzten Rückzucksgefecht eine unterworfene Bevölkerung kujoniert, schlagen wir vor, den Krieg
durch jene vier Linsen anzusehen, die Ian Kershaw unlängst als die prägenden
Faktoren des 20. Jahrhunderts beschrieben hat: Utopien, Wohlstand, Technologie,
10 M. Cornaton, Les camps de regroupement de la
11
12
13
14
guerre d’Algérie, Vortrag auf dem Colloquium
Pour une histoire critique et citoyenne. Le cas de
l’histoire franco-algérienne, 20–22 juin 2006,
Lyon, ENS LSH, 2007, http://ens-web3.ens-lsh.
fr/colloques/france-algerie/communication.
php3?id_article=259
J. Kotek / P. Rigoulot, Le siècle des camps. Détention, concentration, extermination. Cent ans de mal
radical, Paris 2000, hier v. a. 11–44.
B. Stora, La gangrène et l’oubli: la mémoire de la
guerre d’Algérie, Paris 1991; ders. / T. Leclere, La
guerre des mémoires: La France face à son passé colonial, Paris 2007.
R. Branche, La torture et l’armée pendant la guerre
d’Algérie, 1954–1962, Paris 2001; M. Lazreg, Torture and the Twilight of Empire. From Algiers to
Bagdad, Princeton 2007.
F. Klose, Menschenrechte im Schatten kolonialer
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Gewalt. Die Dekolonisierungskriege in Kenia und
Algerien 1945–1962, München 2009.
15 T. Klein / F. Schumacher (Hg.), Kolonialkriege:
militärische Gewalt im Zeichen des Imperialismus,
Hamburg 2006; S. Neitzel / D. Hohrath (Hg.),
Kriegsgreuel. Die Entgrenzung der Gewalt in kriegerischen Konflikten vom Mittelalter bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, Paderborn 2008; A. D. Moses, «Empire,
Colony, Genocide: Keywords and the Philosophy», in: Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest,
Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World
History. Hg. ders., New York 2008, 3–54; J. P.
Reemtsma, Vertrauen und Gewalt. Versuch über
eine besondere Konstellation der Moderne, Hamburg 2008; M. Ferro (Hg.), Le livre noir du colonialisme XVIe –XXIe siècle, Paris 2003.
16 D. van Laak, «Planung. Geschichte und Gegenwart des Vorgriffs auf die Zukunft», in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 34 (2008), 305–326.
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110
Gewalt.17 Versucht wird hier, die Analyse des Algerienkrieges systematisch um die
Dimension kolonialer Planung, Modernisierung und «Entwicklungshilfe» zu
erweitern18 – Bereiche, die in Arbeiten über den Algerienkrieg in der Regel entweder nicht vorkommen, oder als separate Aspekte behandelt werden.19 Deutlicher
als andernorts lässt sich hier untersuchen, wie koloniale Planungseuphorie nicht
nur zivile, sondern in Gestalt der Zwangsmodernisierung eine überaus gewalttätige Dimension annehmen konnte, in der zivil-militärische Institutionen wie
Zahnräder ineinander griffen.20
Im Zentrum des Textes stehen die eng miteinander verbundenen zivilen und
militärischen Apparate und Diskurse, die Zerstörung, Auf- und Umbau einer
Gesellschaft als Gemeinschaftswerk vorantrieben, das sie selbst mit dem Begriffen
Fortschritt, Entwicklung und Modernisierung beschrieben.
1. Die Umsiedlungspolitik als revolutionäre Neuordnung
Der Algerienkrieg gilt mit seiner fast achtjährigen Dauer und über 300 000 Toten
als einer der brutalsten Dekolonisierungskriege des 20. Jahrhunderts.21 Anders als
der gesamte restliche Kolonialbesitz war Algerien seit 1848 staatsrechtlich integraler, vom Innenministerium verwalteter Teil des französischen Kernlandes. Zu den
Besonderheiten gehörte weiter Algeriens Charakter als Siedlerkolonie mit einem
außerordentlich hohen Anteil von Siedlern europäischen Ursprungs (den so
genannten pieds-noirs), eine Gruppe von etwa einer Million Personen, die ca. zehn
Prozent der Bevölkerung ausmachte, dabei aber als einflussreiche Lobbygruppe
erheblichen Druck auf die metropolitane Politik auszuüben vermochten.22
Der Algerienkrieg begann am 1. November 1954 mit einer Anschlagswelle, die
vom Front de Libération Nationale (FLN ), einer Sammlungsbewegung radikaler
17 I. Kershaw, «Vier Begriffe für ein Jahrhundert.
20 Vgl. C. Naneix, Modernisierung als Waffe. Franzö-
Was nützt uns eine ‹Neue Politikgeschichte›»,
in: Was heißt und zu welchem Ende studiert man
Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts? Hg. N. Frei, Göttingen 2006, 148–155.
18 A. Eckert, «‹We are all Planners Now›. Planung
und Dekolonisation in Afrika», in: Geschichte
und Gesellschaft 34 (2008), 375–397. Zur Einordnung s. D. van Laak, «Planung. Geschichte und
Gegenwart des Vorgriffs auf die Zukunft», in:
ebd., 305–326.
19 So ist der Krieg im wichtigsten Arbeit zur kolonialen Modernisierung in Algerien so abwesend
wie die Entwicklungsprogramme in den wichtigsten Sammelbänden zum Algerienkrieg:
D. Lefeuvre, Chère Algérie. Comptes et Mécomptes
de la tutelle coloniale, 1930–1962, Paris 1997. Eine uch analytisch herausragende Ausnahme ist
H. Elsenhans, Frankreichs Algerienkrieg 1954–
1962. Entkolonisierungsversuch einer kapitalistischen Metropole, München 1974.
sische Modernisierungsversuche im spätkolonialen
Algerien im Kontext des Unabhängigkeitskrieges
(1945–1962), Magisterarbeit TU Berlin 2008;
M. Feichtinger, Internierung und Modernisierung.
Die «Camps de Regroupement» im Algerienkrieg 1954–1962, Magisterarbeit TU Berlin 2008;
S. Malinowski, «Modernisierungskriege. Militärische Gewalt und koloniale Modernisierung im
Algerienkrieg (1954–1962)», in: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 48 (2008), 213–248.
21 G. Pervillé, «La guerre d’Algérie: combien de
morts?», in: La Guerre d’Algérie 1954–2004. La fin
de l’amnésie. Hg. M. Harbi / B. Stora, Paris 2004,
477–493; D. Mollenhauer, «Die vielen Gesichter
der ‹pacification›. Frankreichs Krieg in Algerien
(1954–1962)», in: Klein / Schumacher (Hg.), Kolonialkriege, 329–366.
22 J. Verdès-Leroux, Les Français d’Algérie de 1830 à
aujourd’hui, Paris 2001.
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algerischer Nationalisten, lanciert wurde.23 Die französische Antwort bestand
zunächst in einer ausgedehnten Polizeiaktion, weitete sich aber bald zu einer
gigantischen Militäroperation mit mehr als 450 000 Soldaten und einer flächendeckenden Besetzung Algeriens aus.24 Unter dem Eindruck des Kalten Krieges, des
verlorenen Indochinakonflikts und nicht zuletzt ab 1956 des Suez-Debakels, wurden die «événements», wie der Krieg in der offiziellen Sprache Frankreichs bis vor
kurzem bezeichnet wurde, teils als Aufstand «rückständiger» Rebellen interpretiert, teils als kommunistisch gesteuerte Subversion präsentiert. Die französische
Kriegsführung griff in diesem asymmetrischen Konflikt auf das 1954 bereits vorhandene Repertoire der Anti-Guerilla-Kriegsführung zurück und entwickelte dieses erheblich weiter.25 So versuchte man, «Rebellen» und Zivilbevölkerung zu
trennen, die psychologische Kriegsführung zu intensivieren, um die «Herzen und
Seelen» der Bevölkerung zu gewinnen. Das zentrale Element der Werbung für ein
erneuertes an Frankreich «assoziiertes» Algerien war das Versprechen einer
umfassenden Modernisierung sämtlicher Lebensbereiche, das dem islamischsozialistischen Modernisierungsmodell der FLN entgegengestellt wurde.
Die französische Umsiedlungspolitik basierte ebenfalls auf der Interpretation,
der Aufstand sei ein revolutionärer Krieg. Mao Zedongs Diktum parierend, der
Revolutionär müsse sich in der Bevölkerung bewegen können wie ein Fisch im
Wasser, wurde es in den französischen Kolonialtruppen in Nordafrika zur Doktrin
und vielfach variierten Metapher, wer den Fisch nicht fangen könne, müsse ihm
das Wasser abgraben. In einem Land mit der mehr als dreifachen Fläche Frankreichs zielte die erzwungene Umsiedlung und Konzentration von etwa 2,5 Mio.
Zivilisten darauf ab, den militärischen Teilen der Unabhängigkeitsbewegung alle
Versorgungs- und Rückzugsmöglichkeiten durch die Zivilbevölkerung ebenso zu
nehmen, wie die Möglichkeiten politischer Agitation. Die Doktrin des guerre-révolutionnaire,26 die französische Militärtheoretiker als Lektion aus der Niederlage in
Indochina entwickelt hatten, sah aber nicht nur defensive und abschirmende Maßnahmen gegen den Aufstand vor. Nach dieser, den Aufgabenbereich des Militärs
massiv erweiternden Doktrin, lag der Sieg nicht in einer Wiederherstellung des
23 Diesem Angriff war eine Vielzahl gewalttätiger
Auseinandersetzungen vorausgegangen, zum
Beispiel der Aufstand von Sétif am 8. Mai 1945,
der mindestens 10 000 Tote forderte, siehe
G. Pervillé, Pour une histoire de la guerre d’Algérie,
Paris 2002, 110–116. Zur FLN G. Meynier /
M. Harbi, Le FLN. Documents et histoire, 1954–
1962, Paris 2004.
24 S. B. B. Droz / E. E. Lever, Histoire de la guerre
d’Algérie, Paris 1982; Pervillé, Pour une histoire,
122–230.
25 M. S. Alexander / J. F. Keiger, «France and the
Algerian War: Strategy, Operations and Diplo-
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%'''
macy», in: Journal of Strategic Studies 25 (2002) 2,
1–32; I. F. W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and
Counterinsurgencies. Guerrillas and their opponents
since 1750, New York 2001.
26 Siehe P. Paret, French Revolutionary Warfare from
Indochina to Algeria. The Analysis of a Political and
Military Doctrine, New York 1964; M.-C. Villatoux, «Hogard et Nemo. Deux théoriciens de la
‹guerre révolutionnaire›», in: Revue historique des
armées 232 (2003), online unter: http://www.servicehistorique.sga.defense.gouv.fr/04histoire/
articles/articles_rha/nemo.htm.
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Status quo ante, sondern in einer veritablen Gegenrevolution, die eine umfassende
Neuordnung der kolonisierten Gesellschaft verlangte. Militärische und zivile Komponenten eines social engineering 27 größten Stils griffen ineinander, französische
Counterinsurgency-Theoretiker fanden ihre zivilen Pendants auf höchster politischer Ebene, zum Beispiel in Robert Lacoste, seit 1956 «ministre-résident» für Algerien der sozialistischen Regierung Guy Mollet. Dieser hatte 1956 als Agenda ausgegeben, die Wirtschafts und Sozialstruktur des Landes müsse «revolutionär
umgestaltet werden.»28
Die geplante revolutionäre Neuordnung setzte eine vollständige Kontrolle des
Raumes voraus. Unter dem Stichwort «Quadrillage» wurde ganz Algerien in Militärquadranten unterteilt. Nach einem festgelegten Schlüssel, in den die Einwohnerdichte, Militärpräsenz und geschätzte Stärke der ALN (Armée de Libération Nationale, der militärische Arm der FLN ) einfloss, wurde das Gefährdungspotential der
einzelnen Quadranten berechnet.29 Auf diese Weise wurde das unüberschaubare
und zerklüftete algerische Hinterland unter ein streng geometrisches Netz gelegt,
das Kontrolle und Durchherrschung eines riesigen Gebietes ermöglichen sollte.
Die gefährdeten Regionen wurden sodann zu Sperrzonen (zones interdites) erklärt
und die Bevölkerung vertrieben. Um eine bessere Kontrolle der Flüchtlingsströme
zu erreichen, ging die französische Armee bald dazu über, sie direkt in sogenannte
Centres de Regroupement, mit Stacheldraht umzäunte und militärisch überwachte
Umsiedlungslager, zu deportieren. Die Rebellion sollte so von jeglicher Unterstützung aus der Bevölkerung abgeschnitten werden und Teile der Zivilbevölkerung in
militärisch trainierten Selbstschutzeinheiten (Groupes d’autodéfense – GAD ) aktiv
an der Sicherung der neu entstandenen Siedlungen teilnehmen.30
In einem Militärbefehl vom September 1957 betonte der damalige Oberbefehlshaber und Generalgouverneur in Personalunion, General Raoul Salan, dass die oft
27 Zum Konzept und Begriff siehe: Scott, Seeing
30 Darin liegt einer der entscheidenden Unter-
Like a State; J. Alexander, J. K. H. W. Schmidt,
Social Engineering: Genealogy of a Concept, in:
A. Podgórecki / J. Alexander / R. Shields (Hg.),
Social Engineering, Montreal 1996, S. 1–20
T. Etzemüller (Hg.), Die Ordnung der Moderne.
Social Engineering im 20. Jahrhundert, Bielefeld
2009.
28 Generaldirektive Nr. 1 an alle Kommandanten
der französischen Armee in Algerien vom
19. Mai 1956, in: Service Historique de l’Armée
de Terre (SHAT) sous-série 1H 2576. Alle Orginalquellen aus Service historique de la Défense
(SHD) in Vincennes werden im Folgenden
SHAT gekennzeichnet.
29 Instruction pour la pacification en Algérie, Nr.
4.250/E.M.L./3.O.P.E. vom 10. Dezember 1959,
SHAT 1H 1268.
schieden zu den zeitgleich von der Armee eingerichteten Camps de Triage et Transit, bzw. zu den
Camps d’Internement, in denen Verdächtige verhört und interniert wurden; siehe dazu:
M.-C. Villatoux, «Traitement psychologique, endoctrinement, contre-endoctrinement en guerre
d’Algérie: le cas des camps de détention», in:
Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 208
(2002) 4, 45–54, online: http://www.cairn.info/
revue-guerres-mondiales-et-conflits-contemporains-2002–4–page-45.htm; sowie: S. Thénault,
«D’Indochine en Algérie: la rééducation des prisonniers dans les camps de détention», in: La
guerre d’Algérie au miroir des décolonisations françaises. En l’honneur de C.-R. Agéron: Actes du colloque international, Paris, 2000, 235–250.
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improvisierten, provisorischen Centres «gravierende psychologische und politische
Konsequenzen haben und bei unzureichender Planung der Propaganda den Rebellen nutzen können. Ein Centre de Regroupement, das wohl organisiert ist, über die
notwendigen Einrichtungen verfügt und aus einem behutsamen Vorgehen entstanden ist, kann dagegen zu einer Vorstufe der ländlichen Siedlungen von morgen in einem befriedeten Algerien werden.»31 Langfristig sollten deshalb sämtliche provisorische Lager verschwinden und durch gut ausgestattete, definitive
Lager ersetzt werden. Im Gegensatz zu den provisorischen Lagern – die meist eher
umzäunten Flüchtlingslagern glichen, in denen die Insassen unter freiem Himmel oder in improvisierten Zelten und Hütten lebten – sollten die definitiven Lager
aus Steinhäusern bestehen und über Wasser- und Elektrizitätsversorgung, Krankenstationen und Schulen verfügen. Die Planer fragten nach der idealen Größe
und Sozialdynamik der neuen «Siedlungsgemeinschaften».
In einem Text aus dem Jahr 1960 pries die Generalinspektion die ausgebauten
Lager als Lehrstätten der Demokratie: «Ein Dorf mit 900 Einwohnern, ist nicht
nur ein mit mediterranen Raum äußerst verbreiteter Typus, sondern auch das
ideal Format zum Erlernen der kommunalen Demokratie.»32 Tatsächlich wurden
viele der festen «Dörfer» nicht nach taktischen Erwägungen errichtet, sondern
sollten über den Krieg hinaus als moderne Siedlungen bestehen bleiben. Diese
erweiterte Zielsetzung wurde in einem Generalerlass zu den Umsiedlungen vom
September 1958 prägnant formuliert: «Ist es nicht das Ziel, die Bevölkerung für
einen gewissen Zeitraum zu kontrollieren und dem Einfluss der FLN zu entziehen? [ . . . ] Es geht darum, diese Menschen aus dem Schmutz und der Armut
herauszuführen, in der wir sie bis jetzt gelassen haben, sie der Zivilisation zu öffnen. [ . . . ] Das unmittelbare Ziel ist es, ein Umsiedlungslager der Hoffnung
(Regroupement de l’espérance) zu schaffen, das nächste Ziel ein Hort der Glückseligkeit (Cité Heureuse).»33
Die Zwangsumsiedlungen entsprachen in ihrem Ursprung einer Counterinsurgency-Strategie, die zuvor von britischen Kolonialoffizieren im Burenkrieg, fast
zeitgleich in Malaya und Kenia, wenig später von den Amerikanern in Vietnam
angewandt wurde. Im Gegensatz zu den englischen concentration camps und new
villages34 und den amerikanischen fortified hamlets,35 trat bei den Centres de Regrou-
31 Directive Nr. 654/SC/RM-IO/5 vom 20.9.1957,
SHAT 1H 2576.
32 Inspection générale des regroupements, Algier
13.8.1960 «Contribution de l’inspection générale
des regroupement au raport d information generale», S. 15, in: Centre des archives d’outre-mer
(CAOM) 81 F 950.
33 Considérations générales sur les regroupements,
9.9.1958, SHAT 1H 2032.
34 Siehe dazu: J. A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup With a
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%''+
Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and
Vietnam, Chicago 2002; Stubbs, Hearts and
Minds; C. Elkins, Imperial Reckoning. The Untold
Story of the End of Empire in Kenya, New York
2005.
35 The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2,
Chapter 2, «The Strategic Hamlet Program,
1961–1963», Boston 1971, 128–159, online:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/ acad/intrel/pentagon2/
pent4.htm.
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pement des Algerienkrieges aber spätestens seit den Jahren 1956/1957 ihre Funktion als Wehrdörfer zurück hinter den Versuch, die Siedlungen zu Kristallisationspunkte einer westlich geprägten Modernisierung und zu Produktionsorten des
dafür nötigen Menschentypus zu machen. Dies hebt sie deutlich von den genannten Parallelentwicklungen und auch von kolonialen Vorläufern ab.
Die Geschwindigkeit dieser Funktionserweiterung der Lager von Kontrollinstrumenten zu Modernisierungszentren hatte verschieden Ursachen, von denen
einer der wichtigsten in der Notwenigkeit bestand, der negativen Berichterstattung
in der nationalen und internationalen Presse seit 1959 zu begegnen. Die in vielen
Artikeln aufgenommene Bezeichnung «französische Konzentrationslager» spielte
von diesem Zeitpunkt an auch in der Propaganda der Algerischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung eine große Rolle, die damit die Stimmung in der Uno-Vollversammlung zu beeinflussen wusste.36 Angesichts des Drucks der öffentlichen Meinung lancierten die französische Verwaltung in Algerien und die Armee ihrerseits
eine Propagandakampagne, in der die Lager als praktizierte Entwicklungshilfe dargestellt wurden. So wurden etwa an Armeeangehörige kostenlos Postkarten verteilt, die Bilder der aus dem Boden gestampften neuen Dörfer mit ihren schneeweißen und in Reih und Glied aneinander stehenden Häusern zeigten. Nicht
selten wurden ihnen Aufnahmen von chaotischen und schmutzigen Hütten traditioneller Dörfer gegenübergestellt, um den modernisierenden Quantensprung zu
illustrieren.37 Dem Reizwort von den «französischen Konzentrationslagern» stellten die französischen Modernisierer den geradezu verwegenen Euphemismus
nouveaux villages entgegen. Der Generalplan, der die (ungefähr tausend) besser
ausgestatteten Lager zu modernen Dörfern umformen sollte, trug nun den Titel
Mille villages.38
Der zugleich disziplinierende und «modernisierende» Auftrag der tausend
Dörfer manifestierte sich in Anlage und Ausstattung: Seit 1958 stellte eine eigens
für die Modernisierung der Wohnformen auf dem Land eingerichtete Behörde, das
Commissariat à la Reconstruction et à l’Habitat rural (CRHR ), in den Lagern standardisierte Maisonette-Häuschen auf.39 Diese Häuser entsprangen aber eher den
Ansprüchen einer französischen Vorstadtsiedlung als den Bedürfnissen einer traditionellen algerischen Bauernfamilie. Sie waren für eine Kleinfamilie konzipiert
und ignorierten die Lebensformen einer algerischen Großfamilie oder eines Stam36 Siehe dazu: M. Connelly, A Diplomatic Revoluti-
on. Algerias Fight for Independence and the Origins
of the Post-Cold War Era, New York 2002; ders.,
«Rethinking the Cold War and Decolonization:
The Grand Strategy of the Algerian War for Independence», in: International Journal of Middle
East Studies, 33 (2001) 2, 221–245.
37 SHAT 1H 2457/D1; vgl. Cornaton, Les camps de
Regroupement, 72.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%''7
38 Schon 1957 war die ältere Bezeichnung Camps
durch Centres de Regroupement ersetzt worden.
39 Im SHAT befinden sich mehrere detaillierte
Anweisungen zur technischen Ausstattung der
Regroupements und zur Beschaffenheit der
Wohneinheiten, SHAT 1H 2030; Cornaton, Les
Camps de Regroupement, 83f.; G. Mathias, Les sections administrativs spécialisées en Algérie, Paris
1998, 88.
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mesverbands. Für die Lebens- und Wirtschaftsweise der algerischen Landbevölkerung elementare Funktionsräume wie Stallungen und Erntespeicher fehlten in
den engen, zwischen zwanzig und dreißig Quadratmetern großen Reihenhäusern
völlig.40 Auch in ihrem Aufbau deuteten die meisten Lager eher prospektiv auf eine
bestimmte Vorstellung der Zukunft hin, als dass sie die akuten Bedürfnisse ihrer
Insassen berücksichtigten. So wurde in vielen Lagern das klassische Zentrum
französischer Dörfer mit Schule, Rathaus (mairie) und Monument für die Gefallenen imitiert. An den zentralen Straßen wurden Geschäfte und Cafés errichtet, welche das gesellschaftliche Leben nach westlichen Vorbildern verändern sollten.
Gleichzeitig blieben die militärisch disziplinierenden Funktionen der Lager in
Form von Stacheldrahtzäunen, Wachtürmen, Ausgangskontrollen, bewaffneten
Posten und einer Anordnung von Wegen und Gebäuden in Reißbrett-Symmetrien
erhalten.
Das Ziel lag in der Effizienzsteigerung der Kontrolle durch eine rationale/ökonomische Anordnung von sozialen Funktionseinheiten im Raum sowie in einer
Architektur, die bestimmte «moderne» Verhaltensweisen befördern und andere,
«rückständige» ausschließen sollte. Das Einwirken auf die kleinsten sozialen Einheiten der Gesellschaft war für koloniale Herrschaft, wollte sie nicht punktuell und
symbolisch bleiben, ebenso schwer erreichbar wie elementar.41 Wohnformen und
daran anschließende Konsum- und Verhaltensmuster sowie Generationen- und
Geschlechterverhältnisse bildeten dabei die bevorzugten Angriffspunkte. Die
Ge-samtdimension dieser Versuche wird erst deutlich, wenn man die gewaltigen
zivilen Bauvorhaben hinzuaddiert, die am Rande der algerischen Großstädte zeitgleich als grands ensembles und in ländlichen Regionen als Habitat-Typus entstanden und praktisch identische Steuerungsfunktionen haben sollten, wie die aus den
Lagern hervorgehenden nouveaux villages.
Während die zivilen und militärischen Komponenten funktional immer weiter
verschmolzen, konkurrierten Militärs und Zivilisten weiter um Kontrollmacht
über die entstehende social engineering-Maschine. Einzelne Offiziere forderten gar
explizit eine «Organisation Todt», die militärisch geführte Großkoordination von
Technikeinsatz, Arbeitsorganisation und Infrastrukturbauten, nachdem die Zivilgewalten daran gescheitert seien.42 Umgekehrt sprachen Zivilplaner immer häufiger in militärischen Metaphern über die Modernisierungsschlacht. Jacques Chevalier, Bürgermeister von Algier, der den Umbau der Hauptstadt und damit die
möglichst schnelle Anpassung an europäische Lebensgewohnheiten mit freneti40 Notice technique pour la construction des nou-
42 Inspection Générale des Regroupements de Po-
veaux villages (1960), SHAT 1H 2030; Cornaton,
Les Camps de Regroupement, 225ff.
41 Z. Çelik, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algier under French Rule, Berkeley-Los Angeles 1997, 88.
pulation (IGRP), J. Florentin, Les Regroupement
de population en Algérie, 11.12.1960, in: SHAT
2032, Fol. 38.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%''6
aus Umbruchgründen Absatz
gemacht
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schem Eifer vorantrieb, reaktivierte eine Parole Maréchal Lyautays, der einen
legendären Ruf als Militär, Kolonialherrscher und Begründer des modernen Casablancas genoss: «Jede Baustelle ist ein Schlachtfeld.»43 Den erzieherischen Effekt,
der den nouveaux villages zugeschrieben wurde, sollten auch die neuen Wohnblocks besitzen. In beiden Fällen sollten die Vorgaben der Architektur dazu führen, "retardierende Traditionen" aufzubrechen, die engen Beziehungen zur Großfamilie zu lockern und die Institution der Kernfamilie (cellule familiale) einzuüben.
«Die islamischen Regeln der Solidarität führen zu einer maßlosen Ausweitung der
Familienbande. Warum müssen die neuen Wohnungen so oft durch eine Unzahl
von entfernten Verwandten bevölkert werden, die den Gastgeber zu erzwungener
Gastfreundschaft nötigen? Diese Vorstellung von Gemeinschaft ist ein ernstes
Hindernis für die Erweckung und Entwicklung der Kernfamilie. Die [neuen] Wohnungen sind allein gebaut für einen Familienchef, der, frei von extrafamiliären
Bindungen, allein für seine Partnerin und seine Kinder, eventuell auch für seine
Eltern arbeitet.»44
Die Transformation der algerischen Landbevölkerung sollte dabei aber nicht
allein bei der Neueinteilung des Raumes stehen bleiben. In der Doktrin des guerrerévolutionnaire wurde darüber hinaus gefordert, den traditionellen sozialen Strukturen und der klandestinen Organisation der Unabhängigkeitsbewegung «parallele Hierarchien» entgegenzustellen. So hieß es in einem Rundschreiben an
sämtliche Sektorenkommandanten zur Einrichtung von Regroupements von 1957:
«Um dieses Ziel des ‹Parallelismus› auf natürlichem Wege zu erreichen, empfiehlt
es sich, in einem Regroupement mehrere Familien, Clans oder Gruppen zu vermischen, die in antagonistischem Verhältnis zueinanderstehen.»45 General Maurice
Challe hatte Ende 1959 die «Organisation und Erziehung der muslimischen Bevölkerung» als «vollwertige Kriegshandlungen» bezeichnet und gleichwertig neben
militärische Aktionen im engeren Sinne gestellt. Die Schaffung einer «neuen
Elite» sei das wichtigste Werkzeug, um eine brauchbare Kollaboration der Bevölkerung zu erzeugen.46 Die Etablierung von cultural brokers, die vermittelnd zwischen
der kolonisierten Gesellschaft und dem Kolonialstaat stehen, bzw. diesen repräsentieren, ist ein Spezifikum kolonialer Herrschaft.47 Nicht nur im Algerienkrieg versprach die Privilegierung «kollaborierender» Gruppen, die kolonisierte Gesellschaft zu destrukturieren und neue Eliten aufzubauen.
43 Celik, Urban Forms, 85.
44 Institut d’histoire du temps présent (IHTP),
46 Direktive von General Challe, 9.12.1959, in:
ARC 2006–2, «Aide à la construction en Algérie, Logement Million»; Fondation nationale
des sciences politiques (FNSP), 1DV34, Service
de l’habitat (Hg.) «Logement semi-urbain» 20.5.
1959.
45 Rundschreiben zu Regroupements vom 8.8.1957,
SHAT 1H 2030.
47 A. Eckert, «Vom Segen der (Staats-)Gewalt? Staat,
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%''8
CAOM, 3 SAS/38.
Verwaltung und koloniale Herrschaftspraxis in
Afrika», in: Staats-Gewalt. Ausnahmezustand und
Sicherheitsregime. Historische Perspektiven. Hg.
A. Lüdtke / M. Wildt, Göttingen 2008, 145–165.
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Augenscheinlichstes Beispiel für diesen Mechanismus ist die Bewaffnung und
Verwendung einheimischer Hilfstruppen, für die meistens auf Veteranen zurückgegriffen wurde.48 Natürlich folgte sie dem militärischen Motiv einer Entlastung
der Armee, die durch die territoriale Besetzung enorme Personalreserven mobilisieren musste. Im algerischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg, der von beiden Parteien
auch als psychologischer Krieg wahrgenommen wurde, bedeutete die Bewaffnung
von Einheimischen deren reziproke Bindung an die Kolonialmacht. In die eine
Richtung ließ sich die Teilnahme von Algeriern an Operationen der französischen
Armee als Ausdruck der Verbundenheit zu Frankreich interpretieren und auch
propagandistisch darstellen49, in die andere Richtung bedeutete die hochsymbolische Bewaffnung von Einheimischenformationen einen Vertrauensbeweis seitens
der Kolonialmacht.50 Die Hilfstruppen sollten nach einer Armeedirektive von 1959
«die ersten Kollektive der Gesellschaft sein, die von unseren Modernisierungsbemühungen profitieren».51 In den Centres de Regroupement waren bewaffnete Einheimischenformationen nicht nur deshalb privilegiert, weil sie durch Übernahme
von Wachaufgaben Macht über die anderen Lagerbewohner ausüben konnten,
sondern auch, weil sie einen Sold erhielten, mit dem sich Familien unterhalten
ließen.52 Die landesweit circa 210 000 Harkis galten über ihre militärische Funktion hinaus als eine Art Avantgarde der «entwickelten» Algerier. Gemeinsam mit
ihren Familien umfasste diese Gruppe etwa 750 000 Personen.53 Zusammen mit
der hauchdünnen Schicht von Algeriern in den Funktionseliten, den Menschen,
die in den nouveaux villages geformt werden sollten und dem eigentlichen Industrieproletariat Algeriens – den bei Kriegsende circa 450 000 algerischen Arbeitern
in Frankreich54 – bildete diese Gruppe zumindest in der Vorstellung der französischen Planer die Vorhut im Modernisierungskrieg, die auf den Rest der «rückstän-
48 Siehe C.-R. Ageron, «Les supplétifs algériens dans
l’armée française pendant la guerre d’Algérie»,
in: Vingtième siècle, Revue d’Histoire 48 (1995) 1,
3–20; ders., «Les militaires algériens dans
l’armée française de 1954 à 1962», in: Des
hommes et des femmes en guerre d’Algérie. Hg. J.-C.
Jauffret, Paris 2003, 542–359; F.-X. Hautreux,
«L’engagement des harkis (1954–1962). Essai
de périodisation», in: Vingtième Siècle. Revue
d’Histoire 90 (2006) 2, 33–45.
49 So verkündete de Gaulle im November 1959:
«180 000 muslimische Franzosen kämpfen auf
unserer Seite!», zit. n.: Ageron, «Les supplétifs
algériens», 10.
50 Nicht selten wurde die Bewaffnung festlich inszeniert, wobei unter der wehenden Trikolore
ein Treueid abgenommen wurde, dem sich aber
ein traditioneller Ritus anschloss, siehe: Mathias, Les sections, 124; Heggoy, Insurgency, 205.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%''9
51 Direktive zur Pacification vom 3.9.1959, SHAT
1H 2032.
52 Die pauschal als Harkis bezeichneten Hilfstrup-
pe litten nach der Unabhängigkeit Algeriens unter massiven Vergeltungsaktionen der FLN, denen bis zu 10 000 Menschen zum Opfer fielen.
Der Begriff Harki wird noch heute synonym mit
Kollaborateur verwendet; siehe: C.-R. Ageron,
«Le drame des Harkis en 1962», in: Vingtième
siècle. Revue d’histoire 42 (1994), 15–27.
53 IGRP, J. Florentin, Les Regroupement de population en Algérie, 11.12.1960 SHAT 2032.
54 Die Anzahl algerischer Immigranten in Frankreich hatte sich seit Kriegsende ungefähr verdoppelt; vgl. R. Gallissot, «La guerre et l’immigration
algérienne en France», in: La guerre d’Algérie et les
Français. Hg. J.-P. Rioux, Paris 1990, 337–347,
hier: 338.
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118
digen Bevölkerung» nicht zuletzt durch ihre ökonomische Besserstellung eine stetig wachsende Sogwirkung ausstrahlen würde.
Durch die Umsiedlung verloren die betroffenen Familien meistens ihre Herden, und nicht selten wurde die Bewirtschaftung ihrer Weideflächen durch Ausgangssperren oder zu große Entfernung von den Lagern unmöglich. Dadurch
geriet ein Großteil der umgesiedelten Bevölkerung in wirtschaftliche Abhängigkeit
der Armee. Die Errichtung von Großbaustellen mit «Arbeitsplätzen» in der Nähe
der Centres kombinierte Disziplinierungsversuche mit Infrastrukturmaßnahmen
und der Implementierung westlicher Vorstellungen von regelmäßiger Lohnarbeit 55 – ein Versuch, der in Algerien so zentral war wie in den meisten anderen
Kolonien des Spätkolonialismus.56 Ein Großteil der anfallenden Arbeit entstand in
Form von befristeten Beschäftigungen bei Bauarbeiten in den Centres selbst und in
saisonalen Anstellungen auf großen Farmen (die sich meistens im Besitz europäischer Algerier befanden). Allerdings kam nur ein Bruchteil der umgesiedelten
Bevölkerung in den zweifelhaften Genuss prekärer Lohnarbeit, die Mehrheit war,
abgeschnitten von ihren Ressourcen, von den Zahlungen der französischen Armee
abhängig und zur Passivität gezwungen. Die radikale, gewalttätige und äußerst
schnelle Veränderung der Wirtschafts- und Lebensweise, die Zerschlagung von
Hierarchien, die Familien, Clans, kulturelle Regeln geboten hatten, sind von Bourdieu und Sayad eindringlich als irreversible dépaysannement (Entbäuerlichung)
und déracinement (Entwurzelung) beschrieben worden.
Die erwünschte Zerstörung präkapitalistischer Wirtschaftsweisen und Tauschmuster gelang ungleich einfacher als die Hinführung zur Lohnarbeit. In den
Lagern wurden eher Almosenempfänger als Lohnarbeiter gezüchtet. An der –
statistisch schwer messbaren – «Arbeitslosigkeit» im westeuropäischen Sinn, die
bei den jüngern Männern über fünfzig Prozent lag, konnten die vom Militär improvisierten Arbeitslager, Arbeitsdienste, Baubrigaden (Jeunes Bâtisseurs), Jugendund Sportzentren nicht mehr als kosmetische Korrekturen anbringen.57 Die vom
Militär oder von bitterster Armut erzwungenen Arbeiten behielten eine merkwürdige Zwitterstellung zwischen der noch sehr präsenten Tradition kolonialer
Zwangsarbeit58 und staatlichen Konjunkturprogrammen keynesianischer Inspiration.
55 Bourdieu hat die davon stark abweichenden Vor-
stellungen von «Arbeit» und «Arbeitslosigkeit»
in der ländlichen Welt Algeriens immer wieder betont: P. Bourdieu, «La hantise du chômage
chez l’ouvrier algérien: prolétariat et système colonial», in: ders., Esquisses Algériennes, Paris
2008 213–236.
56 Cooper, Decolonization.
57 Recensement de la jeunesse urbaine inoccupée,
4.8.1958; Etude sur le problème de la jeunesse
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%'',
algérienne, 11.7.1960; projet d’utilisation de la
jeunesse musulmane d’Alger (1960), in: CAOM
2 SAS/8.
58 B. Fall, Le travail forcé en Afrique occidentale
française (1900–1945), Paris 1993. Zum internationalen Kontext s. D. Maul, Menschenrechte, Sozialpolitik und Dekolonisation. Die Internationale
Arbeitsorganisation (IAO) 1940–1970, Essen 2007,
hier 281–293.
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119
Die gleichzeitige Zerstörung alter Gesellschaftsstrukturen und die Erschaffung
«moderner Menschen» prägte als Ziel auch die Bildungsoffensive der französischen Armee in den Lagern.59 Das Ziel, Kinder und Jugendliche zu Franzosen zu
erziehen, spiegelte sich sowohl in der Unterrichtssprache Französisch, als auch in
den vermittelten Inhalten wider. Armeeeinheiten erhielten Leselisten mit französischen Kriminal-, Entdecker- und Abenteuergeschichten, denen man besondere
Strahlkraft zutraute. Bei den Jungen Technikbegeisterung zu wecken, wurde zum
Kern der militärischen Curricula in den Camps.60 Auch Kinovorführungen des für
psychologische Kriegsführung zuständigen Cinquième Bureaux und Sportveranstaltungen gehören in diesen Kontext. Sie versprachen durch ihren «lockenden»
Charakter einen weitaus höheren Grad an Akzeptanz und damit Wirksamkeit, als
die rein disziplinierend-repressiven Maßnahmen wie alltägliche Appelle zur Zählung der volljährigen Männer, rigide Kontrollen der Passierscheine oder unangekündigte Hausdurchsuchungen.
Wie ein Großteil der Modernisierungspolitik des europäischen Spätkolonialismus stellten auch die Planungsstrategen im französischen Militär die algerischen
Frauen ins Zentrum ihrer Bemühungen. Über diese versprachen sich die militärischen und zivilen Modernisierer direkten Zugang zur Familie als Basiseinheit der
algerischen Gesellschaft: «Die soziale Förderung der muslimischen Frau muss zu
einem essentiellen Faktor unserer Aktivitäten im erneuerten französischen Algerien werden», schrieb etwa General Challe 1958 in einem Militärbefehl.61 Während
inszenierte Entschleierungskampagnen in den Städten leicht ersichtlich symbolische Propagandaaktionen blieben – wenn auch von einiger Außenwirkung –,
herrschten in der Abgeschlossenheit der Lager wesentlich bessere Bedingungen,
um die Frauen zu beeinflussen.62 Immer wieder wurden Vertreibung, Lager und
die gewaltsame Zerstörung als Chance thematisiert, um die Emanzipation algerischer Frauen gewaltsam voranzubringen.63 Auffällig sind die häufigen Verweise
auf die Türkei Kemal Atatürks, die frappierende Übereinstimmung mit den Analysen zur Dynamisierung der Geschlechterverhältnisse, die zeitgleich von amerikanischen Modernisierungstheoretikern produziert wurden,64 und die erstaunlichen
59 A. A. Heggoy, «Kepi and Chalkboards: French
Soldiers and Education in Revolutionary Algeria», in: Military Affairs 37, (1973) 4, 141–145.
60 Instruction et Éducation – Note de Service
16.6.1958, SHAT 1H 2576.
61 Synthese relative à la participation de l’Armée
aux tâches extra militaires de pacification,
1.8.1958, SHAT 1H 2026.
62 Allgemein zur zur französischen Frauenpolitik
während des Krieges siehe: D. Amrane, Les femmes algériennes dans la guerre, Paris 1991; D. Sambron, Femmes musulmanes. Guerre d’Algérie
1954–1962, Paris 2007; dies., «La politique
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%''4
d’émancipation du gouvernement français à
l’égard des femmes algériennes pendant la
guerre d’Algérie», in: Jauffret, Des hommes, 226–
242.
63 N. MacMaster, «The Colonial ‹Emancipation› of
Algerian Women: the Marriage Law of 1959 and
the Failure of Legislation on Women’s Rights in
the Post-Independence Era», in: Stichproben.
Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien 7
(2007), 91–116, hier 94.
64 D. Lerner/R. D. Robinson, «Swords and Ploughshares. The Turkish Army as a Modernizing
Force», in: World Politics 13 (1960), 19–44.
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Parallelen zu bolschewistischen Entschleierungs- und «Befreiungs»-Kampagnen
auf dem Kaukasus und in Zentralasien.65 Analog zum Versuch, die Grundlagen
für einen modernen Lebensstil durch die Wohnformen zu implantieren, lassen
sich auch Nähkurse und Kosmetikberatungen für algerische Frauen, die von den
cercles féminins angeboten wurden, als Versuch einer Imitation des zeitgemäßen
Lebensstils französischer Frauen deuten. Die Manipulationsversuche, die in den
«Frauenzirkeln» von französischen Offiziersfrauen organisiert wurden und die
militärisch organisierte Großversorgung algerischer Frauen mit Nähmaschinen in
der sogenannten «Operation Nähmaschine», trugen zwar groteske Züge, beeinflussten jedoch vielfach Teile der algerischen Gesellschaft, die bis dato kaum oder
keine Berührung mit der französischen Kolonialmacht hatten.
2. Bewaffnete Entwicklungshelfer: Die SAS
«On the Spot» benötigte die französische Armee geeignetes Personal, um die
umgesiedelte Bevölkerung zu verwalten und ihre ehrgeizigen Reformvorhaben
umzusetzen. Die dafür im Mai 1955 gegründete Spezialeinheit der Sections Administratives Spécialisées (SAS) war ein erstaunliches Hybrid aus militärischen und
zivilen Elementen. In ihr verschmolzen militärische und polizeiliche Kleinsteinheit, kommunales Verwaltungsbüro und Entwicklungshilfeagentur zu einem Apparat, der wie wohl keine andere Institution des Algerienkrieges die Doppelgestalt von
Zerstörung und Entwicklung widerspiegelt. Als direkte Mittler zwischen Kolonisatoren und Kolonisierten standen die SAS in der Tradition der Bureaux Arabes, einer
kleinen Einheit Arabisch sprechender Offiziere, die während der französischen
Eroberung Nordafrikas als Kenner der lokalen Kulturen Brücken und stabile Kontakte insbesondere zu den einheimischen Eliten aufbauen sollten.66
Die Mission der SAS ging allerdings weit über diese Aufgabe hinaus: Als personelle Entsprechung der räumlichen Durchdringung durch die quadrillage bildeten
sie die kleinste Einheit der militärischen Besetzung, und als ethnologisch geschulte
Kenner und Berater der Bevölkerung sollten sie die ehrgeizigen Reformversprechen der Kolonialmacht bis in das entlegenste Bergdorf tragen. Jedem Quadranten
sollte eine SAS -Sektion, bestehend aus einem Offizier der Affaires Algériennes (dem
auf Algerien spezialisierten Teil der Bureaux Arabes), einem Unteroffizier, vor Ort
angeworbenen Dolmetschern und Chauffeuren sowie einer Schutztruppe aus
dreißig bis fünfzig einheimischen Soldaten (maghzen), rekrutiert nach Kriterien
der Kompetenz und Loyalität durch die lokalen SAS -Kommandeure, zugeordnet
werden.
65 A. Edgar, «Bolshevism, Patriarchy, and the Nation.
The Soviet ‹Emancipation› of Muslim Women in
Pan-Islamic Perspective», in: Slavic Review 65
(2006), 252–272; D. Northrop, Veiled Empire.
Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia, Ithaca
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%')&
2004; J. Baberowski, Der Feind ist überall. Stalinismus im Kaukasus, München 2003, 633–662.
66 J. Frémeaux, Les bureaux arabes dans l’Algérie de la
conquête, Paris 1993
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121
Sämtliche Aspekte der pacification sollten von den SAS auf lokaler Ebene umgesetzt werden: von zivilen Aufgaben wie dem Aufbau einer Verwaltungsstruktur
und der Erstellung von Einwohnerlisten, dem Betrieb von Krankenstationen,
Gründung, Aufbau und Betrieb von Schulen, Organisation des Unterrichts, des
Lehrpersonals und der Lehrmaterialien, dem Auf- und Ausbau von Kommunikationssystemen und Strassen, bis hin zu militärischen Aufgaben wie der Sicherung
des Quadranten, Polizeiarbeit und Informationsgewinnung. Die SAS -Einheiten
waren durch ihre stetige Kontaktnahme mit Teilen der Landbevölkerung, den
Dorfältesten und religiösen Autoritäten, ebenfalls eine Art zivil-millitärischer Spionagedienst. Die Trennung von drivers and spoilers of change zu gewährleisten,
gehörte dabei zu den wichtigsten Aufgaben der SAS . Als bewaffnete Entwicklungshelfer personifizierten sie geradezu die Selbstwahrnehmung des französischen
Kolonialismus als mission civilisatrice. Bilder von Brunnen bohrenden, Straßen
bauenden und algerische Kinder unterrichtenden SAS -Männern dominierten
lange Zeit die französische Berichterstattung über den militärischen Beitrag zum
Aufbau des «erneuerten Algerien».67
Die Mission der SAS erhielt durch die Prägung ihrer Gründer eine stark ethnologische Färbung.68 Geschaffen wurde die Einheit von Jacques Soustelle, einem
international renommierten Ethnologen, Résistance-Mitglied der ersten Stunde
und im Krieg unter anderem de Gaulles Kontaktmann nach Südamerika.69 Der
Universitätsprofessor verkörperte die Verbindung von militärischer Gewalt, sozialwissenschaftlicher Analyse und äußerst ambitionierten social engineering Programmen wie nur wenige andere. Er war damit ein typischer Vertreter des «militärischintellektuellen Komplexes»70 und als solcher typisch für den in Algerien vielfach
versuchten praktischen Einbau der Sozialwissenschaften in spätkoloniale Herrschaftstechniken.
Das Modernisierungsprojekt ließ sich für Soustelle nur auf eine Weise erfolgreich zu Ende bringen: «nicht gegen die muslimische Bevölkerung, sondern für
sie und mit ihr».71 In einer flammenden Replik auf die Kolonialismuskritik Ray-
67 Auch die Geschichtsschreibung zu dieser Spezi-
aleinheit, oft von ehemaligen SAS-Angehörigen
betrieben, blieb diesem Bild lange verhaftet.
Vgl. neben der detailreichen Darstellung von
G. Mathias, Les Sections Administratives Spécialisées. Entre idéal et réalité (1955–1962), Paris 1998:
A. Lamodière, «L’action sociale et éducative
des officiers SAS en Oranie», in: Jauffret, Des
hommes, 539–551; S. Bartet, «Aspect de la pacification en Grande Kabylie (1955–1962). Les relations entre les sections administratives spécialisées (SAS) et les populations», in: Revue française
d’histoire d’outre-mer 319 (1998), 3–32.
68 Siehe N. Omouri, «Les Sections Administratives
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%')'
Specialisées et les sciences sociales. Études et
actions de terrain des officiers de SAS et des
personnels des Affaires algériennes», in: Jauffret
/ Vaïsse, Militaires et guérilla, 383–397.
69 Zu Soustelle siehe: D. Rolland, «Jacques Soustelle, de l’ethnologie à la politique», in: Revue
d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 43 (1996),
137–150.
70 R. Robin, The Making of the Cold War Enemy. Culture and Politics in the Military-Intellectual Complex, Princeton 2001.
71 «Guide de l’officier des Affaires Algériennes»
vom 1.10.1957, zitiert nach: Mathias, Sections,
22.
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122
mond Arons formulierte er 1956: «Ob man nun will oder nicht, wir haben die Algerier bis an den Rand der modernen Welt gebracht. Sie hatten uns nicht darum
gebeten. Doch nun ist es, wie es ist und der schlimmste Verrat wäre, heute alles
stehen und liegen zu lassen.»72
Die SAS standen in mehrfacher Hinsicht zwischen den Fronten: buchstäblich,
weil sie als oft einzige Repräsentanten der Kolonialmacht im algerischen Hinterland ein bevorzugtes Ziel für Anschläge der FLN darstellten;73 in übertragenem
Sinne, weil sie zwar dem Militär angehörten, gleichzeitig aber zivile Projekte vorantrieben. Hinzu kam der massive Widerstand aus den Reihen der pieds noirs, der
Algerienfranzosen, insbesondere der Großgrundbesitzer. Eine Mehrheit stand der
SAS -Politik offen feindselig gegenüber. Die Verweigerung von Erntemaschinen,
die SAS -Offiziere für die Ernteflächen unter ihrer Aufsicht anforderten,74 gehörte
noch zu den milderen Formen des Widerstandes. SAS -Offiziere hatten vielfach
eminente Probleme mit dem «Milieu» der angeblich in den Großstädten «Cocktails» trinkenden, die gefährlichen SAS -Siedlungen feige meidenden Techniker
und Ingenieure.75 Die funktional wichtigste Konfliktlinie verlief allerdings zwischen «Reformern» und dem massiven Widerstand in der Armee selbst. Bei den
Kampftruppen standen die SAS als «Bonbon-Soldaten» im Ruf, eine Form des
«ruralen Sozialismus» schaffen zu wollen.76 Die zornig-hilflose Forderung eines
SAS -Offiziers, ihn doch zumindest zu informieren , bevor in seinem Abschnitt
ganze Dörfer niedergebrannt und Landstriche verwüstet würden, bringt die Grenzen der SAS -Linie plastisch auf einen Punkt.77
Sowohl die militärischen Oberbefehlshaber als auch die Präfekten der algerischen Départements betonten zwar wiederholt die Wichtigkeit dieser Einheit, aber
keine der beiden Seiten fand sich bereit, den SAS für ihren Auftrag ausreichende
Mittel aus ihrem Budget zur Verfügung zu stellen. Auch personell waren die SAS
ihren Aufgaben nicht gewachsen: Ihre größte Stärke erreichten sie 1959 mit 709
Einheiten und etwa 4000 Offizieren, was weder zur Überwachung der überfüllten
Lager noch zur Bewältigung der anderen Aufgaben annähernd ausreichen konnte.78
Dementsprechend changieren die zahlreichen Erinnerungsberichte ehemaliger SAS -Offiziere zwischen Stolz auf die geleistete Aufbauarbeit und Frustration
über die Schwierigkeit, inmitten eines von beiden Seiten mit äußerster Härte
geführten Krieges funktionierende Kontakte zur unterworfenen Bevölkerung auf72 J. Soustelle, Le drame algérien et la décadence fran-
çaise. Réponse à Raymond Aron, Paris 1957, 36.
Vgl. ders., Lettre d’un intellectuel à quelques
autres, in: CAOM 81/F.
73 Mathias, Sections, 125.
74 Bericht des SAS-Leutnants J. P. Charbonnel,
30.11.1958, in: CAOM 8 SAS / 118.
75 SAS-Praktikantenberich, Arrondissement de
Blida, Juli-August 1958, in: CAOM, 2 SAS / 7.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%'))
76 Beckett, Modern Insurgencies, 159; Mathias, Sec-
tions, 148.
77 Monatsbericht des SAS-Kommandeurs Capitai-
ne Carabin, 1958, in: CAOM 3 SAS / 38, Fol. 3f.
78 Zum Vergleich: die Höchststärke der französi-
schen Armee betrug 460 000 Mann, siehe:
A. Mahieu, «Les effectifs de l’armée française en
Algérie», in: Jauffret / Vaïsse, Militaires et guerillas, 39–48.
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123
zubauen. Gleichzeitig lassen diese Zeugnisse auch den missionarischen Esprit der
meist aus Freiwilligen und Reserveoffizieren gebildeten Einheit erkennen. Bezeugt
sind SAS -Offiziere, die längere Abhandlungen über die Art der Musik verfassten,
die am Rand von Fußballspielen zum «Anlocken» der Jugend zu spielen sei, oder
Betrachtungen zu nicht ordnungsgemäß verwendeten WC s und verstopften Abflussrohren in den Umsiedlungsdörfern zu Protokoll gaben.79 Frappierend ist die
Übereinstimmung militärischer und ziviler Sprecher. Was für die Insassen der
Umsiedlungslager formuliert wurde, findet sich ähnlich für die Algerier in den
Neubauanlagen ziviler Stadtplaner. Die Texte in Inhalten, Sprache, und Zielen so
stimmen überein, dass sich in vielen Fällen ohne Quellenangabe nicht bestimmen
ließe, ob ein Pariser Architekt über die grands ensembles, die Neubausiedlungen in
den Großstädten, oder ein SAS -Offizier über sein nouveau village spricht.
In ihrem humanistischen Eifer, aber auch in der stellenweise anzutreffende
Mischung aus missionarischem Selbstvertrauen und Naivität, mit der sich Studenten als zivile SAS -Praktikanten meldeten, um inmitten eines blutigen Krieges
ihren Teil zum «Aufbau» des erneuerten Algerien zu leisten, erinnert diese Gruppe
weit mehr an Dritte-Welt-Aktivisten und Entwicklungshelfer, denn an Repräsentanten einer kriegführenden Kolonialmacht. Das Selbstverständnis, in einer Ödnis
zu wirken, in der zuvor «nichts» gewesen sei und in der die SAS -Einheiten «alles»
selbst erschaffen hätten, erinnert etwa stark an die Selbstüberhöhung und die Orientierung am Cowboy-Mythos, die fast zeitgleich für die jungen Freiwilligen in
Kennedys Peace Corps typisch waren.80 In den präpotenten Großanalysen 20-jähriger Studenten wird immer wieder bezweifelt, ob etwa die Sozialgesetzgebung
«eines der zivilisiertesten Völker der Welt» auf eine Bevölkerung übertragen werden könne, die noch «mehrheitlich im Mittelalter» lebe.81 Die Berichte der Freiwilligen sind Quellen, die nicht für die Außenpropaganda, sondern für die interne
militärische Kommunikation hergestellt wurden – sie gleichen auf erstaunliche
Weise eher Bilanzen aus der Welt der Entwicklungshilfe denn militärischen
Kriegstagebüchern.82
3. Moderne im Zeitraffer: Der Plan de Constantine
Noch vor seiner Vereidigung als Präsident im Januar 1959 verkündete Charles de
Gaulle die Intensivierung aller Anstrengungen in Algerien. Er war vor dem Hintergrund eines drohenden Bürgerkriegs als «le plus illustre des français» und Überwin79 IGRP, Fiche au sujet de la construction dans les
81 Bericht von Renée de Miollis, 30.8.1958, sowie
Nouveaux Villages, 2.3.1960, SHAT 2030.
80 F. Fischer, Making Them Like Us. Peace Corps
Volunteers in the 1960s, Washington 1998;
M. Chrambach, Cowboy trifft Campesino. PionierMythos und Männerkult und United States Peace
Corps der frühen 1960er Jahre, Bachelorarbeit,
HU Berlin 2008.
weitere Berichte in: COAM, 2 SAS/7 und 2
SAS/8.
82 Vgl. die zahlreichen Berichte in: CAOM 3
SAS/38.
!"#$%&'()&'&%&&'*%'+,%-./-.#01233%%%')+
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124
der der «Krise» als Regierungschef berufen worden. Inmitten dieses intensivierten
Krieges wurde ein Modernisierungsprogramm verkündet, das in der Geschichte
des Spätkolonialismus nicht viele Pendants hat. Die bemerkenswerte Lakonie, mit
der Staatspräsident de Gaulle 1959/60 auf Pressekonferenzen Zahlen von über
100 000 getöteten Algeriern zu Protokoll gab, zeugt von einer neuartigen Unerbittlichkeit, mit der die gewaltsame «Durchkämmung» des Landes durchgeführt
wurde.83
Beschleunigte Zerstörung und beschleunigte Modernisierung waren in Form
von zwei aufeinander bezogenen Großplänen für den militärischen und zivilen
Bereich miteinander verzahnt. General Challe, als Oberbefehlshaber gewissermaßen als des Generaldelegierten Paul Delouvriers militärisches Alter Ego, wurde
seinem Ruf als harter Pragmatiker vom ersten Tag an gerecht. Anders als Delouvriers eher zögerlicher Vorgänger Salan, der vor allem auf den Ausbau der «psychologischen Kriegsführung» gesetzt hatte, intensivierte Challe offensive Aktionen gegen die FLN . Unter dem Namen Plan Challe organisierte er in den Jahren
1959/60 mehrere große Operationen.84 In Kombination mit der Abriegelung der
Grenzen nach Tunesien und Marokko gelang es, Organisationsstrukturen und
Handlungsfähigkeit der FLN erheblich zu schwächen. Der Plan führte vor allem
auch zu einer Ausweitung der Regroupements. In den genannten Jahren wurden
mehr Menschen umgesiedelt als zuvor im gesamten Kriegsverlauf, die Zahl provisorischer Lager wuchs trotz der Bemühungen Delouvriers, sie zu reduzieren, bis
1961 kontinuierlich an.
Doch auch der zivil geführte «Kampf um die Bevölkerung» erfuhr zeitgleich
eine erhebliche Vertiefung: in einer Aufsehen erregenden Rede am 3. Oktober
1958 in Constantine kündigte de Gaulle eine tiefgreifende Umgestaltung des Landes an, die innerhalb von fünf Jahren wirken und Algerien in ein «wohlhabendes
und modernes Land» transformieren sollte. Der Plan de Constantine 85 war ein
umfangreiches Programm zur Industrialisierung und zum beschleunigten Aufbau moderner Infrastrukturen. Der Plan und die Planer beherrschten die Sprache
der Effizienz und der Tonnenideologie, im Mittelpunkt des politischen Kalküls
jedoch stand die schnelle und spürbare Hebung des Lebensstandards der algerischen Bevölkerung. Der Plan sah unter anderem die Investition von einer Milliarde Francs (circa zehn Prozent des französischen Inlandsproduktes), die Rekrutierung von Muslimen in die Verwaltung, eine Angleichung der Löhne, die
Neuverteilung von 250 000 Hektar Land, die Schaffung großer industrieller Zent83 Vgl. etwa de Gaulles Angaben auf den Presse-
85 Zu Konzeption und Scheitern des plan vgl. die
konferenzen vom 23.10.1958 und 10.11.1959, in:
C. de Gaulle, Discours et Messages. Tome III: Avec
le Renouveau. Mai 1958–Juillet 1962, Paris 1970,
54 und 136–138.
84 G. Pervillé, Pour une histoire, 165ff.
Analyse von D. Lefeuvre, Chère Algérie. Comptes
et Mécomptes de la tutelle coloniale, 1930–1962, Paris 1997, hier: 366–42; Elsenhans, Frankreichs
Algerienkrieg, 543.
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ren im Norden und in der Sahara, die Einschulung von zwei Dritteln der Kinder,
besonders der Mädchen, die Schaffung von 500 000 neuen Arbeitsplätzen und die
industrielle Förderung der Gas- und Erdölreserven in der algerischen Sahara vor.
Über den algerischen Kontext hinaus sollten der Plan und seine Entwicklungsleistungen als Muster für den Umgang Frankreichs mit anderen «unterentwickelten»
Ländern wirken.86
Für den Versuch, die Umsiedlungslager in Laboratorien für ein modernes
Algerien umzubauen, bildete der Plan das ökonomische Rückgrat. Die Gesamtleitung des Plans oblag dem Finanzbeamten Delouvrier, mit dem ein Zivilist General
Salan als Generaldelegierten abgelöst hatte. Delouvrier genoss einen vorzüglichen
Ruf als effizienter Manager planerische Großprojekte, der ihn nach seiner Zeit in
Algerien zum Vater der villes nouvelles werden ließ – an den Stadträndern französischer Großstädte gelegene und vorzugsweise von Immigranten aus den ehemaligen Kolonien bewohnte Großsiedlungen, deren Bezeichnung wohl nicht zufällig
an die algerischen nouveaux villages erinnert. Im Januar 1959 gingen Delouvriers
Planungsstäbe sofort daran, die Lager in ausbaufähige (viables) und unhaltbare
Lager zu trennen. Eine Analyse vom Oktober 1960 kam zu dem Ergebnis, das von
den insgesamt 1926 Lagern 750 nur viables, also überlebens- und ausbaufähig
waren und weitergeführt werden sollten. Anderen Angaben zu Folge wurde etwa
die Hälfte der Lager als viable eingestuft.87 Einer der wichtigsten institutionellen
Schritte, den unkoordinierten Neugründungen schlecht ausgestatteter Umsiedlungslager mit katastrophalen Lebensbedingungen endgültig ein Ende zu bereiten, war die Gründung einer zentralen Inspektionsbehörde, der Inspection Générale des Regroupements de Population (IGRP) im November 1959. Zu deren Leiter
ernannte Delouvrier General Georges Parlange, der drei Jahre zuvor die ersten
Lager eingerichtet, die SAS aufgebaut hatte und als einer der besten Kenner der
militärischen Umsiedlungspolitik gelten konnte.
Delouvrier und sein Planungsstab hatten die Umerziehung, die Wohnformen,
Lebensweisen und Arbeitsdisziplin entfalten würden, immer wieder als Programm beschrieben, in dem die erste Generation entwickelter Algerier schnell
modernisierend auf die noch rückständigen einwirken würden.88 Durch die «beschleunigte Entwicklung» (évolution accélérée) werde «die Frau» schon bald Gefallen an Wärmedämmung und Fenstern mit Blick zur Straße finden, bald dafür sorgen, die traditionellen Bauformen abzuschaffen und die gesamte Familie einer
neuen Zeit entgegenzuführen.89
86 Note sur le plan de Constantine et l’information,
88 Vgl. Délégation Générale du Gouvernement en
12.8.1960, in: FNSP, 1DV 32. Vgl. R. Gendarme,
L’économie de l’Algérie. Sous-développement et politique de croissance, Paris 1959.
87 IGRP, Compte-rendu sur l’évolution des Regroupements, au cours de 3ième trimestre 1960,
SHAT 1H 2030.
Algérie (Hg.), Rapport sur l’activité en Algérie au
cours du premier semestre 1960, Alger 1960. Vgl.
hierzu Naneix, Modernisierung als Waffe, 56–66.
89 Broschüre: Logement semi-urbain, Service de
l’habitat, 20.5.1959, in: FNSP, 1DV 34.
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Im Vergleich zu Modernisierungsvorhaben der Vichy- und Nachkriegszeit,90
war die Fallhöhe der Versprechen mit der Zeitmarge von «fünf Jahren», die de
Gaulle in der Rede in Constantine genannt hatte, noch einmal erheblich vergrößert
worden. Die Vorstellungen einer beschleunigten, extrem komprimierten Zeit, in
der sich Entwicklungen mehrerer Jahrhunderte im Zeitraffer nachholen ließen
wie ein reenactment der europäischen Moderne, lässt sich im development-Denken
der 1950er Jahre überall finden, erscheint hier aber an ein Extrem getrieben. Insgesamt sind in Ton und Weltsicht vielfach jakobinische Traditionen unübersehbar,
daneben fallen aber vor allem verwirrende Parallelen zu bolschewistischen und
stalinistischen Vorstellungen von Zeitkompression ins Auge.91
Die Metapher vom «Mittelalter», aus dem heraus eine ganze Gesellschaft durch
den Einsatz von Gewalt und Sozialtechnologie geführt werden sollte, um der
Moderne im Zeitraffer entgegenzuschreiten, wurde von militärischen und zivilen
Verantwortlichen verwendet. Auch Chefplaner Delouvrier nannte immer wieder
das Hochmittelalter als Orientierungspunkt: Wer mit algerischen Bauern verhandeln wolle, müsse in der Lage sein, sich in die Zeit der normannischen Eroberung
zurückzuversetzen.92 Schon Soustelle hatte die Formel häufig variiert.93 Im Raport
Florentin, einem weit verbreiteten Lagebericht eines SAS -Kommandeurs von 1960,
war von wenigen Hubschrauberminuten die Rede, die eine Schattenwelt des «Neolithikums», bevölkert von verhüllten Gestalten in finsteren Hütten, vom Glanz des
21. Jahrhunderts trennten, in dem sich schöne Frauen an vollen Schaufenstern
erfreuten, in denen Fernsehapparate «und alles, was das Universum an Schönem
und Gutem werden lässt» auslagen.94 Innerhalb einer Lebensspanne sollte die Einlösung solcher Versprechen in Greifweite geraten. «Fabelhaft» wirke das Ziel, so
wird 1959 im Vorfeld des Plans formuliert, denn «in nur wenigen Jahren sollten
Jahrhunderte auf eine Welt aufgeholt werden, die selbst im stetigen Voranschreiten
ist». An unzähligen Stellen insistierten die Planer, dass Infrastruktur nur Mittel,
der Zweck aber der Mensch selbst sei. Ziel sei es nicht, Algerien mit Straßen und
Fabriken zu überziehen, «sondern die Männer und Frauen des 20. Jahrhunderts zu
schaffen», die in der Lage sein würden, ihr Schicksal in eigene Hände zu nehmen.95
Die Metapher der Reise durch Jahrhunderte wurde auch in der Kommunikation mit der algerischen Bevölkerung verwendet. In der Ansprache einer französischen Offiziersfrau, die einem der Beeinflussung und «Erziehung» algerischer
Frauen dienenden Cercles feminins vorstand, fand sich das Bild in pseudo-empiri90 Die Modernisierungsprojekte der Vichy-Zeit be-
93 Soustelle, Aimée, 61, sprach von einer Landbevöl-
tont Marseille, Empire colonial.
91 S. Plaggenborg, Experiment Moderne. Der sowjetische Weg, Frankfurt am Main 2006, hier zur «beschleunigten Zeit» 81–120.
92 Interview von Jacques Coup de Fréjac / Paul Delouvrier (1980), in: FNSP, Fonds Odile Rudelle
(OR), 1–2.
kerung die «s’attarde dans un moyen age technique qui est souvent un moyen âge mental».
94 IGRP, J. Florentin, Les Regroupement de population en Algérie, 11.12.1960, in: SHAT 2032.
95 Algérie, Développement (1959), Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent (IHTP), Paris, Fonds
Charles-André Julien, ARC 2010–2.
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scher Unterfütterung wieder. Japan habe aus eigener Kraft in nur 75 Jahren eine
Entwicklung von 700 Jahren zur Moderne bewerkstelligt und eine mit Frankreich
vergleichbare Zivilisation erreicht. Algerische Frauen der Gegenwart seien jedoch
bereits jetzt «entwickelter» als Japanerinnen zur Jahrhundertwende und hätten
zudem die Hilfe Frankreichs auf ihrer Seite, um bald schon als moderne, «vollständige» Frauen in der Lage zu sein, einen Haushalt zu führen.96 Die hier versprochene Zeitreise, die 700 Jahre auf den Erfahrungszeitraum von zwei bis drei Generationen zusammenschnurren lassen, war eben jene Zeitmarge, die auch von den
akademischen Granden der amerikanischen Modernisierungstheorie sowie den
Chefplanern vor und während des Plan de Constantine ventiliert wurde. Die 1960
gemachten Versprechen der Planungschefs, nach der «alle Orientierungen und
ökonomischen Berechnungen auf der Annahme beruhen, die muslimischen Massen innerhalb von zehn Jahren entwickeln zu können», hatte die Wartezeit aus
leicht nachvollziehbaren Gründen noch einmal drastisch verkürzt.97 Prominente
Ethnologen der Zeit, die einflussreichste darunter dürfte die Boas-Schülerin Margaret Mead gewesen sein, hatten ähnliche Zeitreisen – von der «Steinzeit» ins
Atomzeitalter in einer Generation – für möglich und wünschenswert dargestellt.98
4. Fazit: «Scheitern» und «Erfolg»
Für die Weisheit, nach der es nichts nützt, im Februar an den Blumenzwiebeln zu
reißen, damit es schneller Frühling werde, hatte die development-Ideologie der
1950er Jahre wenig Raum. Unter den französischen Zwangsmodernisierern im
Algerien-Krieg, die Modernisierung als Waffe zu verwenden suchten, und auf
schnelle, sichtbare Erfolge angewiesen waren, blieb sie gänzlich unbeachtet. Paul
Delouvrier, eine Zeitlang mächtigster Zivilist unter den Modernisieren in Algerien, antwortete auf die Frage de Gaulles, wie lange er für die Umsetzung des Plan
de Constantine brauche «wenn das Militär mich nicht stört, circa drei Jahre. Wenn
das Militär mich stört, ein wenig mehr.»99
Die Hybris der Planer – der Versuch, die Moderne in vitro zu zeugen, die imaginierte Komprimierbarkeit der Zeit und das Ausmaß des «Scheiterns» – beeinflusste bei vielen der Entwickler steigende Aggression, die gegen die spoilers of
change eingesetzt wurde. Das zunehmend realitätsferne und maßlose Planen und
Agieren der Entwickler war weniger von einer Position imperialer Stärke als einer
96 Ansprache von M. Husson, Präsidentin Solidari-
tätskomitees am 9.10.1958 vor einem Kreis von
150 algerischen Frauen in Palissy, in: Journal de
Marche du Comité d’action sociale et de solidarité
féminine, in: COAM, 18F/74.
97 Note sur le Plan de Constantine (Direction générale), 12.8.1960, in: FNSP, 1 DV 32.
98 M. Mead, New Lives for Old. Cultural Transformation – Manus, 1928–1953, London 1956. Vgl. zum
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modernisierungstheoretisch inspirierten Frühwerk von Clifford Geertz: N. Gilman, «Development Anthropology and the Modernization Imperative: The Case of Clifford Geertz», in:
Economic Development: An Anthropological Approach. Hg. J. H. Cohen, Lanham 2002, 50–76.
99 Interview von J. Coup de Fréjac / P. Delouvrier
(1980), in: FNSP, Fonds Odile Rudelle (OR), 1–1.
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Position stetig wachsender Bedrängung, Schwäche, Hilflosigkeit und – was das
Scheitern der gewaltsam forcierten Großprojekte begrifft – der Frustration – der
Typus des «hilflosen Imperialisten – ist eine im Algerienkrieg weit verbreitete
Figur. Zeitgleichen und späteren Projekten des colonial development ähnlich,
erzeugten die Umsiedlungen das Gegenteil des Intendierten, also mehr statt weniger Armut, weniger statt mehr «Ordnung». Die Zerstörung der verlassenen Dörfer
und die soziokulturelle Entwurzelung der Vertriebenen machten den Prozess weitgehend irreversibel. In zehn Jahren werde es als Rache der französischen Armee
gelten, das ländliche Algerien dauerhaft neu geformt zu haben, hatte Raoul Girardet früh geahnt.100 Als Georges Parlange 1960 von seiner Funktion als Chef der
Inspektionsbehörde für die regroupements frustriert zurücktrat, bemerkte der
General, der so vehement für den progrès social in den von ihm verantworteten
Lagern geworben hatte: «Im wirtschaftlichen Sektor hat die Entwurzelung oft zu
einer Steigerung der Armut geführt. Es ist leicht gesagt, die Landbevölkerung habe
auch vorher praktisch von nichts gelebt, denn zumindest ermöglichte ihnen ihre
Armut zuvor ihr Überleben, weil ihre Isolation eine instabile Ökonomie auf der
Ebene der Familien (économie familiale) ermöglichte.»101
Das «Scheitern» der mit militärischer Gewalt vorangetriebenen Modernisierungsprogramme dürfte nach eben jenen Mustern verlaufen sein, die auch für das
«Scheitern» von Entwicklungshilfeprojekten typisch sind. Hier wie dort ist das
Scheitern an den eigenen, durch Hybris und «weit hergeholte Fakten»102 determinierte Planungen stärker bestimmt als durch Faktoren vor Ort. James Ferguson hat
in einer viel beachteten Studie zur Entwicklungshilfe gezeigt, dass «Scheitern»,
anders als der Begriff nahe legt, niemals Stillstand und Rückkehr zum status quo
ante bedeutet, sondern stets eine Reihe von nachhaltigen Handlungen und Veränderungen auslöst, die mit dem von Robert K. Merton systematisierten Begriff der
unintended consequences sehr präzise beschrieben sind.103
Doch auch innerhalb der intendierten Konsequenzen ist die Gründlichkeit festzuhalten, mit der die militärische Zerstörungsgewalt sozio-ökonomischen und
kulturellen Grundlagen der spoilers of change zerstört hatte. De Gaulles berühmte,
auf kolonialreaktionäre Positionen gemünzte Aussage, ein zurück zur «Algérie de
papa» werde es nicht geben, ließe sich auch auf die Resultate beziehen, die Zerstörung und development-Programm Algerien gebracht hatten. Was das «Scheitern»
der Aufbauarbeit angeht, so müsste geklärt werden, was die Vergleichsgröße sein
soll. Die Anzahl der «Kollaborateure» und ihrer Familien, die Geschwindigkeit,
mit der die SAS -Einheiten begonnen hatten, entlegene Dörfer zu erfassen und zu
100 Ageron, «Une dimension», 351.
101 Schreiben Parlanges an Paul Delouvrier vom 15.
Februar 1960, in: SHAT 1H 2032.
102 R. Rottenburg, Weit hergeholte Fakten. Eine Parabel der Entwicklungshilfe, Stuttgart 2002.
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103 Ferguson, Anti-Politics Machine; R. K. Merton,
«The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive
Social Action», in: American Sociological Review 1
(1936), 894–904.
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beeinflussen, die tatsächlich fließenden Investitionen im Plan de Constantine, die
Schul- und Gesundheitsprogramme, der Umbau der Städte, insgesamt: die Durchdringung des Landes in nur wenigen Jahren und auf eine Weise, die der französischen Kolonialismus in den 120 Jahren weder versucht noch bewerkstelligt hatte,
werfen die Frage auf, an welchen historischen Standards das Urteil vom «Scheitern» gemessen werden soll. Ein Großteil der Modernisierungsplanungen verendete als weiße Elefanten,104 oder kam über den Status bloßer Propaganda nicht
hinaus. Dennoch dirigierten die zivil-militärischen Planer weit mehr als nur Geisterarmeen der Modernisierung. Die nachhaltigen Auswirkungen auf die sozialen
Realitäten sind empirisch beschreibbar.
Die meisten Kritiker der französischen Strategie scheinen den Begriff Modernisierung bewusst abzulehnen, weil sie die positive und affirmative Konnotation
des Begriffes verteidigen – eine Position, die entfernt an die Debatten um die
Moderne des Nationalsozialismus erinnert.105 Verwendet man Moderne und
Modernisierung als wertneutrale Begriffe, lässt sich leichter akzeptieren, dass die
mit dem Begriff bezeichneten Prozesse auch gewaltsam vorangetrieben werden
können. Der «Erfolg» der kreativen Zerstörung ist im algerischen Beispiel unabweisbar. Das Erstaunen, wie so nachhaltig formende Eingriffe in die algerische
Gesellschaft inmitten eines brutalen Kolonialkriegs gelingen konnten, erscheint
historisch weniger angemessen als die nüchterne Einsicht, dass Radikalität und
Geschwindigkeit dieser Umformungen wohl ausschließlich in einem solchen, um
die Bevölkerung und um Zukunfts-Entwürfe geführten Krieg möglich war.
Zum ceterum censeo kulturgeschichtlicher Arbeiten zum Kolonialismus gehört das Insistieren auf die agency der kolonial Unterworfenen. Und aus diversen
Gründen ist es auch in der hier behandelten algerischen Mischung aus Zwang und
«Angebot» sinnvoll, die Anregungen ernst zu nehmen, die in den letzten Jahren
unter Leitbegriffen wie subaltern studies, hybridity, multiple modernities diskutiert
worden sind.106 Während des Algerien-Krieges traten die Asymmetrien der situation coloniale 107 besonders deutlich hervor, und auf den ersten Blick spricht viel
dafür, die Steuerungsmacht des Kolonialstaates zu betonen, der aus verschiedenen
Perspektiven als «intelligenter Bulldozer», «Zermalmer der Steine»,108 oder, bei
104 Zum Begriff: D. van Laak, Weiße Elefanten: An-
spruch und Scheitern technischer Großprojekte im
20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1999.
105 H. Mommsen, «Nationalsozialismus als vorgetäuschte Modernisierung», in: Der historische Ort
des Nationalsozialismus. Hg. W. H. Pehle, Frankfurt am Main 1990, 31–46; Z. Bauman, Modernity and The Holocaust, Ithaca/N.Y. 1989.
106 P. Chatterjee, «A Brief History of Subaltern Studies», in: Transnationale Geschichte. Themen,
Tendenzen, Theorien. Hg. G. Budde / S. Conrad /
O. Janz, Göttingen 2006, 94–104; R. J. C. Young,
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Postcolonialism. An Historical Introduction, Oxford 2001.
107 Vgl. dazu die klassische Darstellung von G. Blandier, «La situation coloniale: approche théorique», in: Cahiers internationaux de Sociologie 11
(1951), 44–79.
108 C. Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective, New Haven-London 1994;
A. Eckert, «Vom Segen der (Staats-)Gewalt?
Staat, Verwaltung und koloniale Herrschaftspraxis in Afrika», in: Lüdtke / Wildt (Hg.), StaatsGewalt, 145–165.
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Pierre Bourdieu, als «Höllenmaschine» beschrieben wurde. Die algerische Sondersituation, in der ein unvergleichlich aufgeblähter Militärapparat mit einem landesweit gefürchteten Foltersystem, flächendeckenden Umsiedlungs- und Raumordnungsplänen, gewaltigen Investitionsprogrammen und Propagandaoffensiven
kombiniert wird, scheint die Räume für agency klein zu machen.
Die «Modernisierungsprogramme» entstanden aber auch in Algerien nicht
durch Oktroy der Kolonialmacht. Sie müssen erstens als Antworten einer von
Unabhängigkeitsbewegung, Verbündeten, nationaler und internationaler Kolonialismuskritik stetig stärker bedrängten Kolonialmacht gelesen werden. Zweitens
wurden beide Aspekte – Zerstörung und Aufbau – durch Hunderttausende algerischer Kollaborateure mit gestaltet, die auch die ersten Profiteure der «neuen Zeit»
zu werden hofften – eine Hoffnung, die sich im algerischen Fall vielfach grausam
in ihr Gegenteil verkehren sollte. Drittens gab es bei der Nutzung der nouveaux villages, bei der Verwendung von Nähmaschinen, Zeitungen, demokratischen Idealen und Radiogeräten durchaus eine eigene Agenda, die der vorgesehenen oft
zuwiderlief und den Steuerungswahn an Grenzen stoßen ließ.
Jenseits der reinen Zerstörung waren die Erwartungshorizonte und das für
möglich Gehaltene massiv verändert worden. Cornaton, einer der frühesten, bestinformierten und schärfsten Kritiker der Lager referierte ein Gespräch mit einem
alten algerischen Bauern, der sich weigerte, aus seinem nouveau village an der
Küste auf seinen Hof zurückzukehren. Auf den Hinweis, vor dem Krieg habe es
ihm doch aber in den Bergen gefallen, entgegnet der Mann: «Vorher, vorher wussten wir gar nichts, wir waren Esel. Wir kannten die Straße nicht. Jetzt aber weiß
man, was das Leben ist. Niemals ginge ich mehr an einen Ort ohne Straße.»109 Der
«Erfolg» der Entwurzelungspolitik bestand zum einen in schierer Zerstörung,
zum anderen in einer zumindest partiell erfolgreichen Schaffung und Steuerung
von Bedürfnissen. Dieser Prozess, der etwa in den Debatten der Amerikanisierungsforschung sehr nuancenreich diskutiert wurde,110 verlief in Algerien nicht
unilateraler als andernorts. Mit seltener Präzision hat Tim Burke in seiner Studie
zur Bedürfnisschaffung in Rhodesien gezeigt, wie stark auch hier Prozesse der
Aneignung zu unintended consequences führen.111 Für Algerien gilt, was für die
meisten europäischen Kolonien gilt: ob sich eigenständige Gegengewichte zur
gewaltsam eingeführten Annäherung an die westliche Lebensweise herausbildeten, oder ob eher Nuancen innerhalb der mit mehr oder weniger Gewalt durchgesetzten westlichen Modelle zu konstatieren sind, lässt sich als eine offene Frage
betrachten.
109 Cornaton, Les camps de Regroupement, 182.
110 V. De Grazia, Irresistible Empire. America’s Ad-
vance through Twenthieth-Century Europe, Cambridge 2005; R. Kroes, If You’ve Seen One, You’ve
seen the Mall, Urbana 1996; J. S. Nye, Soft Power.
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The Means to Success in World Politics, New York
2004.
111 T. Burke, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women. Commodification, Consumption, and Cleanliness in Modern
Zimbabwe, Durham 1996.
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Zur Debatte um die Schaffung bzw. Lenkung von Bedürfnissen gehört auch die
schwere, anhand der verfügbaren Quellen fast nicht zu beantwortende Frage nach
der «Freiwilligkeit», mit der ein Teil der Umgesiedelten die Versprechen der nouveaux villages angenommen zu haben scheint. Ageron, Doyen der französischen
Historiographie über den Algerienkrieg, schätzte den Anteil der «freiwillig»
Umgesiedelten auf über fünfzig Prozent ein.112 Es ist fraglich, ob die in den offiziellen französischen Quellen betonten Angaben über die Anzahl von Personen, die
sich freiwillig in der Nähe von Militärposten ansiedelten, als frei erfunden abgetan
werden können. Fraglos flohen viele vor den Kampfhandlungen und aus ihren
vom Militär zerstörten Dörfern, aber oft auch vor den Erpressungen der FLN . Zwar
sollten die Versprechen der Modernisierung Algeriens unerfüllt bleiben, zentral
erscheint aber, dass dieses Versprechen in einem Teil der nouveaux villages nicht
nur rhetorisch, sondern an strategischen Orten erkennbar auch materiell vorgeführt werden konnte. Die soziale Operation der Umsiedlung und in den durch sie
hervorgebrachten Modernisierungslaboratorien, verbanden «schöpferische Zerstörung» mit dem teleologischen Modernisierungs- und Fortschrittsbegriff der
1950er Jahre. Sie stehen zwar in der Tradition vorausgegangener kolonialer Lagersysteme, deuten aber in ihrer Zielsetzung, innerhalb kürzester Zeit eine ganze
Gesellschaft zu transformieren, weit über diese hinaus.
Die Centres de Regroupement stehen damit am Schnittpunkt älterer Konzepte
der kolonialen Inwertsetzung und den die 1950er Jahre insgesamt prägenden
Modernisierungskonzepten mit ihrem «Traum vom guten Leben».113
Zu den Konsequenzen der Strategie dürfte weiterhin eine Veränderung der rassistischen Weltsicht geführt haben. Nicht zuletzt bewirkte die Gesamtheit der
Ankündigungen und Maßnahmen eine massive Veränderung im kolonialen Rassismus. Langfristig wirkte die development-Ideologie dort, wo sie mit konkreten
Maßnahmen kombiniert war, als Weichspüler, wenn nicht als Säurebad auf den
biologisch gefassten Rassismus älterer Prägung, der eine essentielle Andersartigkeit «des Arabers» bzw. «des Muslims» behauptet hatte. Zweifellos: auch das development-Denken bot in Gestalt von Paternalismus und usurpierten Leitungsfunktionen Mittel und Wege, um ökonomische und kulturelle Hegemonie herzustellen
– und angesichts des globalen Vorgangs der Dekolonisation scheint es plausibel,
diesen Weg als den zeitgemäßeren, den moderneren zu sehen. Le racisme de papa
existierte fort, verlor jedoch bei den französischen und europäischen Entwicklern
spät- und nachkolonialer Räume schnell an Bedeutung. Selbst dort, wo es sich um
Propagandaformeln handelte, zeigte ihre jahrelange Wiederholung früher oder
später Wirkung, weil sie kontinuierlich Versprechen machte und kontinuierlich
Möglichkeiten anpries, die der europäische Kolonialismus zuvor weder gewollt
112 Ageron, «Une dimension», 349.
113 A. Andersen, Der Traum vom guten Leben. Alltags-
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und Konsumgeschichte vom Wirtschaftswunder bis
heute, Frankfurt am Main-New York 1997.
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132
noch befördert hatte: die Möglichkeit der «Entwicklung», nicht für einen handverlesenen Kreis von évolués, sondern für die gesamte muslimische Bevölkerung. Die
Perspektive, sich im Rechtsstatus, im Wirtschaftssystem und in der Lebensweise
der Bevölkerung Frankreichs anzunähern, war die Kernaussage, die nicht nur von
den Zivilplanern, sondern auch vom Militär fortlaufend wiederholt wurde. Oberst
Charles Lacheroy, wichtigster Theoretiker der «psychologischen Kriegsführung»,
brachte das Versprechen 1958 wie folgt auf eine Formel: «Wir überreichen den
Muslimen das schönste Geschenk, das wir ihnen machen können. Wir sagen
ihnen: Du wirst sein wie wir.»114
Die Faszination der vom Konzept «Modernisierung» gemachten Versprechen
erfasste nicht nur europäische Kolonialplaner sondern auch asiatisch und afrikanische Nationalisten, Gewerkschaftsführer und déracinés.115
Der unabhängige algerische Staat übernahm nach 1962 fast die Hälfte der ehemaligen Lager bzw. villages und ließ sie weiter ausbauen.116 Das zeugt davon, dass
hier ein Prozess ausgelöst worden war, der sich auch über radikale politische Brüche hinweg fortsetzen konnte. Eine Rückkehr zum Status quo ante war weder
möglich noch intendiert, und auch die Anleihen, die etwa beim sowjetischen
Modell gemacht wurden, wiesen, was die Parameter der Modernisierung angeht,
in keine grundsätzlich andere Richtung.
Eine Einordnung der hier versuchten Zwangsmodernisierung fällt nicht leicht.
Einerseits scheinen Planungseuphorie und Nonchalance, komplexe Gesellschaften in kürzester Zeit radikal verändern zu können, auf eine spezifische Konzeption
der modernizing mission zu verweisen, die nur im Klima der trente glorieuses und des
Kalten Krieges denkbar erscheint. Die Tatsache, dass französische Theoretiker und
Praktiker des «revolutionären Krieges», wie der Algerienkrieg insgesamt, von Strategen der US-Armee während des Vietnamkrieges so intensiv rezipiert wurden wie
jüngst in den Kriegen im Irak und in Afghanistan, zeugt von der ungebrochenen
Aktualität der auf Zerstörung und Umbau setzenden Modernisierungskriege.117
Die im Prozess der Dekolonisation neu geordneten Verhältnisse zwischen der
westlichen und der nicht-westlichen Welt sind bis in die Gegenwart von großer
Bedeutung, was für beide Aspekte gilt: militärische Gewalt und «Modernisierung»
der nicht-westlichen Gesellschaften im Sinne einer Hinführung zu westlichen
114 Zitiert nach P. Villatoux, «Le colonel Lacheroy,
116 K. Sutton, The Influence of Military Policy on Al-
théoricien de l’action psychologique », in: Jauffret, Des hommes, 494–508, hier: 505.
115 F. Cooper, «Modernity», in: Colonialism in Question. Theory, Knowledge, History. Hg. ders., London 2005, 113–152, hier 131. J. Ferguson, «Decomposing Modernity: History and Hierarchy
after Development», in: Postcolonial Studies and
Beyond. Hg. A. Loomba u.a., Durham 2005,
166–181.
gerian Rural Settlement, in: Geographical Review, Vol. 71, No. 4, (1981), S. 379–394.
117 G. Peterson, French Experience in Algeria 1954–
1962. Blueprint for U. S. Operations in Iraq, Fort
Leavenworth 2003. Auf den Algerienkrieg
nimmt auch das aktuelle CounterinsurgencyHandbuch der US-Armee im Irak Bezug: The
U.S. Army Marine Corps Counterinsurgency
Field Manual FM 3–24, Chicago 2007.
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Lebensweisen. Die Modernisierung Algeriens war ursprünglich kein Kriegsziel.
Im Kriegsverlauf jedoch wurde sie als Waffe, als Legitimation und als nach Kräften
betriebenes Großprojekt zur Absicherung einer «Assoziation» Algeriens an Frankreich immer wichtiger.
Teile der französischen Deutungsdebatten scheinen entlang von dreyfusardischen Dichotomien zu verlaufen, in denen die Verantwortlichen als Gruppe von
undemokratischen, soldatischen Reaktionären und Rassisten erscheinen. Und
zweifellos bildeten rassistische Grundhaltungen, kapitalistische Verwertungsinteressen und spätimperialistisches Interessenkalkül die Grundlagen, auf denen dieser Krieg geführt wurde. Darin gleicht der Krieg mehr oder minder allen anderen
Kolonialkriegen. Doch jenseits des dreyfusardischen Katechismus lässt sich eine
andere, stärker verstörende Beobachtung machen. Die algerische Situation ist
weniger aus dem brutalen Treiben einer reaktionären, zivilgesellschaftlich nicht
mehr kontrollierten Soldateska im Bund mit rassistischen Siedlern zu erklären,
denn aus einer Mischung, in der ein von der Kette gelassener Militärapparat mit
den hochentwickelten Instrumenten ziviler social engineers zu einem Konglomerat
verschmilzt. Die in Algerien wirkenden Zivilplaner folgten der Logik des colonial
development wie einer säkularen Erlösungslehre. Für die Militärs war diese nicht
zuletzt deshalb attraktiv, weil sie die Bedeutung der hochmodernen Militärmaschine als «Türöffner» zu einer besseren Welt immens steigerte und das Militär
weit über seine angestammte Rolle als Zerstörer hinaustrug. Beide Teile profitierten von der attraktiven Illusion, einen Krieg zur Beendigung des Krieges zu
führen, Gewalt im Dienste einer kommenden, friedlichen und wohlhabenden
Gesellschaft anzuwenden. Hinzu kam ein verstetigter Ausnahmezustand, die erstaunliche Selbstüberschätzung der Akteure, die in Positionen wachsender Schwäche eher zur Radikalisierung als zur Mäßigung neigten.
Um die hochkomplexe, fast «postmodern» zu nennende algerische Mischung
zu deuten, müssen die üblichen Verdächtigen, die der catéchisme dreyfusard verzeichnet, weiter im Blick bleiben. Doch erscheint es sinnvoll, über diese hinauszugehen. Neben den Demokratiedefiziten und versagender ziviler Kontrolle waren
es demokratisch legitimierte Utopien, neben reaktionären Offizieren und Putschisten standen linksliberale und sozialistische Akteure und statt Rassismus verbrannten viele Modernisierer einen ganz anderen Treibstoff: guten Willen, gute
Intentionen.
Man hört, der Weg zur Hölle sei mit diesem Material gepflastert.
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ABSTRACTS
«One million Algerians learn to live in the 20th century»
Resettlement camps and forced modernization in the Algerian War
1954–1962
One of the most astonishing characteristics of the Algerian War of Independence
against France is the combination between military struggle against insurrection
and civil reform projects. One special aspect of this war allows us to identify the
fusion of these two elements: French resettlement policy. The French army violently
forced up to three million people to leave their villages. Afterwards, they were reassembled in especially built camps, called «camps de regroupement». At the beginning, these measures were purely military. But they were quickly developed and
became a massive rural development program. The promise of a fast global modernization of all areas of life should transform the inmates of the camp into loyal supporters of the project of a French Algeria. The «camps de regroupement» can be
described as laboratories of modernization in which apparently contradictory elements were combined in a singular and unique way. Among these elements: development aid, an extremely rigid population control and different apparently totalitarian measures of social engineering.
«Eine Million Algerier lernen im 20. Jahrhundert zu leben»
Umsiedlungslager und Zwangsmodernisierung im Algerienkrieg
1954–1962
Als eines der erstaunlichsten Merkmale des algerisch-französischen Unabhängigkeitskriegs 1954–1962 darf die Kombination von militärischer Aufstandsbekämpfung und zivilen Reformprojekten gelten. Diese Verschränkung lässt sich an keinem
Aspekt dieses Krieges so deutlich beobachten wie an der französischen Umsiedlungspolitik. Bis zu drei Millionen Menschen wurden während des Krieges von
der französischen Armee gewaltsam aus ihren Dörfern vertreiben und in eigens
angelegte Sammellager, die «camps de regroupement», umgesiedelt. Was als rein
militärische Maßnahme begann, entwickelte sich schnell zu einem gewaltigen ländlichen Entwicklungsprogramm. Durch das Versprechen einer umfassenden Modernisierung aller Lebensbereiche im Schnellverfahren sollten die Insassen der Lager
zu loyalen Anhängern des Projekts eines französischen Algeriens gemacht werden.
Die «camps de regroupement» lassen sich als Modernisierungslaboratorien
beschreiben, in denen sich scheinbar widersprüchliche Elemente wie Entwicklungshilfe mit äußerst rigider Bevölkerungskontrolle und totalitär anmutenden Maßnahmen des social engineering zu einem einzigartigen Ensemble verbanden.
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«Un million d’Algériens apprennent à vivre au XXe siècle»
Camps de regroupement et modernisation forcée pendant la guerre
d’Algérie de 1954 à 1962
135
ABSTRACTS
La combinaison entre la lutte contre les insurrections militaires et les projets de
réformes civiles semble être l’une des plus étonnantes caractéristiques de la guerre
d’indépendance algérienne qui a été menée contre la France de 1954 à 1962. Nous
pouvons observer au mieux ce croisement à l’exemple d’un seul aspect de la guerre:
la politique française de déplacement. Au cours de cette guerre, jusqu’à trois millions de personnes ont été violemment chassées de leurs villages par l’armée française qui les a ensuite rassemblées dans des camps de regroupements. Ce qui
devait être une mesure purement militaire se transforma rapidement en un extraordinaire plan de développement rural. Grâce à la promesse d’une vaste modernisation de tous les domaines de la vie, on voulut faire des détenus des camps des partisans loyaux du projet d’une Algérie française et ce le plus rapidement possible.
Les camps de regroupements peuvent être décrits comme des laboratoires de
modernisation dans lesquels des éléments apparemment contradictoires ont été
combinés d’une manière singulière. Parmi eux: l’aide au développement, un contrôle extrêmement rigide de la population et des mesures, en apparence totalitaires, du social engineering.
Moritz Feichtinger
Universität Bern
Historisches Institut
Unitobler
Länggassstrasse 49
CH-3000 Bern 9
Stephan Malinowski
University College Dublin
School of History & Archives
Belfield
Dublin 4
Ireland
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Vornamen Nachnamen
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Lebender Kolumnentitel
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Vornamen Nachnamen
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JMEH 01-2010, incl. Hodge, Bamba and Cooper

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