Naulila 1914: World War I in Angola and International Law; A Study in (Post-)Colonial Border Regimes and Interstate Arbitration

Die völkerrechtshistorische Studie beschäftigt sich mit den Auswirkungen des Ersten Weltkriegs in Deutsch-Südwestafrika (Namibia) und Angola

African International Legal Histories - International Law in Africa: Perspectives and Possibilities

Hitherto, the ‘African part’ of the history of international law has often been limited to the (critical engagement with) ‘the acquisition of Africa’ since the 1880s and questions of ‘state succession’ and international borders following independence starting in the 1950s. In this historical narrative, the dominance of colonialism is evident. It seems that ‘Africa’ as a narrative concept in international legal history remains tied to abstract contrasts such as ‘foreign domination’ versus ‘independence’, or ‘exploitation’ versus ‘development’. However, if twenty-first century writings about ‘international law in Africa’ and its histories remain shaped by this perspective, historians may lose sight of issues, questions, or ideas formed in historical Africa that do not fit into this preconceived dichotomous matrix. After discussing methodological challenges, this article asks for other ‘contacts’, other arenas of ‘internationality’ and international law in Africa’s pre-colonial past. These contacts reach back very far in history. Three arenas are mentioned: the Red Sea area and Ethiopian-Arab relations; the Indian Ocean rim; and finally, the case of nineteenth-century Ethiopia

Austrägalgerichtsbarkeit: interstate dispute settlement in a confederate arrangement, 1815 to 1866

This article analyses the interstate dispute settlement mechanisms between member states of the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund). The question as to how disputes between German sovereigns should be decided already had a long (pre-)history dating back to the Middle Ages. Article 11 IV of the German Federal Act (1815) (Bundesakte) was the basic norm of the so-called Austrägal jurisdiction enacted to resolve disputes between states of the German Confederation and stipulated the manner in which the dispute was to be brought to "court" (Austrägalinstanz). During the period of the German Confederation, 10 out of 25 German courts of third instance handled altogether 54 Austrägal cases. Whereas Austrägal jurisdiction was no longer present in the German Kaiserreich, Emperor William II and the professor of public law Paul Laband attempted to resurrect the idea, but failed due to the resistance of the other German princes

Negotiated Partition of South Africa - An Idea and its History (1920s-1980s)

This article analyses a number of academic and journalistic proposals on the negotiated partition of South Africa coming from different schools of thought, from within South Africa and abroad, from the 1920s up to the late 1980s. These proposals of dividing South Africa into a 'predominantly black' and a 'predominantly white' state were presented by their authors as an alternative to apartheid and seen as a way out of the impasse created by the unwillingness of the National Party to accept the one man, one vote principle for a unitary state. The article examines how the proposals gradually foresaw giving the economically most relevant parts of the country to the 'predominantly black state'. The article argues that this debate also has to be seen in the context of the Cold War where the partition of countries had been a means to pacify divided societies, at least temporarily

Communicating Colonial Order: The Police of German South-West-Africa (c. 1894-1915)

La police du Sud-ouest africain allemand (Namibie), composée d’environ 500 anciens sous-officiers allemands et 370 policiers africains, ne fut formellement créée qu’en 1905. Ses fonctions étaient analogues à celles de la police en Allemagne: maintenir l’ordre et la tranquillité publique et réprimer la délinquance. Les policiers coloniaux devaient également appliquer les « règlements indigènes » (Eingeborenen Verordnungen) de 1907, qui régissaient le port des cartes d’identité pour les Africains, ainsi que leurs obligations de travail et d’enregistrement auprès des autorités locales. L’effectivité de ce contrôle était cependant limitée, comme le montrèrent les vaines tentatives policières pour mettre un terme aux vols de bétail et autres formes de brigandage. En outre, ces policiers avaient du mal à communiquer avec la population et devaient recourir à des interprètes locaux dont la fiabilité leur était suspecte. Afin d’obvier cette difficulté, les policiers allemands furent requis d’apprendre une langue locale, mais cette obligation souleva de nombreuses difficultés et leurs efforts ne rencontrèrent qu’un succès très limité.Being only formally founded in 1905, the police force of GSWA (consisting of roughly 500 former German NCOs and 370 African policemen) had duties similar to those of the police within Germany: to secure public order and the public’s welfare, as well as to penalise perpetrators. In addition to these duties, colonial police officers also had to execute the so-called «native regulations» of 1907 (Eingeborenen-Verordnungen), which regulated the carrying of official passes by Africans, as well as their obligation to work and to be registered with the local administration. The actual ability of the colonial police force to exert control over the colonial territory was limited however, as futile attempts to bring an end to cattle theft and other forms of banditry were to demonstrate. Communication with the local population also proved to be a problem for these officers, with officials forced to refer to African interpreters whose reliability they questioned. In an attempt to circumvent this issue, German policemen were requested to learn an African language. In this the colonial police force would encounter many problems however, with their attempts producing only meagre results

Introduction

This book aims to suggest an analysis of the conflict that focuses on three crucial points. The first is related to space. It is now evident that the framework of the nation-state is too circumscribed and does not capture the complexity of the relations that came into being at local, national and international levels. In this regard, we find particularly penalising the conventional approach that tends to investigate WWI in Africa and the Middle East as two separate settings, a view that unfortunately is still prevalent. Also, WWI studies have tended to examine the conflict within the geographical contours created by the area studies paradigm. Adopted in the 1950s, the area studies model has been under scrutiny since the mid-1990s.73 The artificial disjuncture between Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East reveals all its inadequacies when we deal with the Horn of Africa, an area strongly connected to the neighboring regions. Our choice to focus on a territory which stretches from Libya to Ethiopia and encompasses the Yemen and Middle East is an attempt to overcome this hiatus. Erasing the artificial lines that divide the Horn of Africa from the wider Red Sea region allows approaches that offer a greater understanding of the dynamics at work during WWI. Ours is only a partial attempt to address this methodological limit. But we are aware that Shar\u12bf Husayn\u2019s break with the Ottomans and the volatile situation in Yemen and along the Red Sea deserves more attention from scholars of African history

Engolo and Capoeira. From Ethnic to Diasporic Combat Games in the Southern Atlantic

This article provides a re-examination of the main Afrocentric narrative of capoeira origins, the engolo or ‘Zebra Dance’, in light of historical primary sources and new ethnographic evidence gathered during fieldwork in south-west Angola. By examining engolo’s bodily techniques, its socio-historical context and cultural meanings, the piece emphasises its insertion into a pastoral lifestyle and highlights the relatively narrow ethnic character of the practice in Angola. This analysis and the comparison with capoeira helps us to develop certain hypotheses about the formation, migration, and re-invention of diasporic combat games between southern Angola and coastal Brazil, and more broadly, to increase our understanding of how African cultures spread across the southern Atlantic