The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism
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The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism In the summer of 1968, audiences around the globe were shocked when newspapers and TV stations confronted them with photographs of starving children in the secessionist Republic of Biafra. This global con- cern fundamentally changed how the Nigerian Civil War was perceived: an African civil war that had been fought for one year without fostering any substantial interest from international publics became “Biafra” – the epitome of a humanitarian crisis. Based on archival research from North America, Western Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa, this book is the first comprehensive study of the global history of the conflict. A major addition to the flourishing history of human rights and human- itarianism, it argues that the global moment “Biafra” is closely linked to the ascendance of human rights, humanitarianism, and Holocaust memory in a postcolonial world. The conflict was a key episode for the restructuring of the relations between “the West” and the “Third World.” lasse heerten is currently head of the “Imperial Gateway: Ham- burg, the German Empire, and the Making of a Global Port” project, funded by the DFG (German Research Council) at the Freie Uni- versität Berlin. He has previously served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Human Rights at the University of California at Berkeley. Human Rights in History Edited by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, University of California, Berkeley Samuel Moyn, Harvard University, Massachusetts This series showcases new scholarship exploring the backgrounds of human rights today. With an open-ended chronology and international perspective, the series seeks works attentive to the surprises and contingencies in the historical origins and legacies of human rights ideals and interventions. Books in the series will focus not only on the intellectual antecedents and foundations of human rights, but also on the incorporation of the concept by movements, nation-states, international governance, and transnational law. Also in the Series: Michal Givoni, The Care of the Witness: A Contemporary History of Testimony in Crises Steven Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights: The 1960s, Decolonization, and the Reconstruction of Global Values Eleanor Davey, Idealism beyond Borders: The French Revolutionary Left and the Rise of Humanitarianism, 1954–1988 Jörg Fisch, translated by Anita Mage, The Right of Self-Determination of Peoples: The Domestication of an Illusion Fabian Klose, editor, The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Young-sun Hong, Cold War Germany, the Third World, and the Global Humanitarian Regime Heide Fehrenbach and Davide Rodogno, editors, Humanitarian Photography: A History Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, René Cassin and Human Rights: From the Great War to the Universal Declaration Sarah B. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, editor, Human Rights in the Twentieth Century Linde Lindkvist, Religious Freedom and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism Spectacles of Suffering Lasse Heerten Freie Universität Berlin University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 4843/24, 2nd Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, Delhi - 110002, India 79 Anson Road, #06-04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107111806 DOI: 10.1017/9781316282243 C Lasse Heerten 2017 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2017 Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books, Inc. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Names: Heerten, Lasse, author. Title: The Biafran War and postcolonial humanitarianism : spectacles of suffering / Lasse Heerten, Freie Universitat Berlin. Description: Cambridge, N.Y., NY : Cambridge University Press, [2018] | Series: Human rights in history | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017021913 | ISBN 9781107111806 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Nigeria – History – Civil War, 1967–1970 – Civilian relief. | Food relief – Nigeria, Eastern – History. | Humanitarian assistance – Nigeria, Eastern – History. | Postcolonialism – Nigeria – History. | Nigeria – History – Civil War, 1967–1970 – Influence. | Nigeria, Eastern – History – 20th century. Classification: LCC DT515.836.H44 2018 | DDC 966.905/2 – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017021913 ISBN 978-1-107-11180-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. spectacle, n. [...] I. 1. a. A specially prepared or arranged display of a more or less public nature (esp. one on a large scale), forming an impressive or interesting show or enter- tainment for those viewing it. [ ...] 2. A person or thing exhibited to, or set before, the public gaze as an object either (a)ofcuriosityorcontempt,or(b)ofmarveloradmiration.[...] 3. a. A thing seen or capable of being seen; something presented to the view, esp. of a striking or unusual character; a sight. Also fig.[...] II. [...] 6. c. fig. A means or medium through which anything is viewed or regarded; a point of view, prepossession, prejudice, etc. [ . ] (Oxford English Dictionary Online, www.oed.com/view/ Entry/186057?isAdvanced=false&result=1&rskey=P2qDKs& (accessed July 24, 2013) The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images. (Débord, Society of the Spectacle, 12) . And the person or thing photographed is the target, the referent, a kind of little simulacrum, any eidolon emitted by the object, which I should like to call the Spectrum of the Photograph, because this word retains, through its root, a relation to “spectacle” and adds to it that rather terrible thing which is there in every photograph: the return of the dead. (Barthes, Camera Lucida,9) [ . ] l’opinion publique alertée par une vaste campagne de presse découvrit cet été, avec effarement, des spectacles oubliés depuis les camps de concentra- tionnazis[...].1 (Debré, Biafra: An II, 17–18) 1 “[ . ] alerted by a vast press campaign this summer, public opinion discovered, with alarm, images forgotten since the Nazi concentration camps.” Contents Acknowledgments page ix List of Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 Part I The Emergences of Biafra 1 The End of Empire and the Coming of Postcolonial Conflict 25 2 The Biafran Campaign for Self-Determination in a Postcolonial World of States 51 3 The Transnational Internationalization of the Biafran Campaign 83 Part II Biafra on a Global Stage 4 Creating “Biafra”: The Discovery of Civil War as a Humanitarian Crisis 107 5 “Biafran Babies”: Humanitarian Visions of Postcolonial Disaster 140 6 Auschwitz in Africa? Biafra, Holocaust Memory, and the Language of Rights 175 7 Distant Suffering and Close Concerns: Biafra and the Third World in the Global Sixties 205 Part III The Ends and Afterlives of Biafra 8 Biafra, the Internationalism of States, and the Question of Genocide 265 vii viii Contents 9 The End of Biafra, the End of the Lobby 293 10 The Afterlives of Biafra 312 Conclusion 333 Bibliography 343 Index 393 Acknowledgments Based on the research for my doctoral thesis, this book has been in the making for quite some time. Along the way, I have incurred more debts than I can list here. My sincere thanks are first and foremost due to my supervisor Paul Nolte, who has supported the project from its inception. His friendliness, professional reliability, and intellectual curiosity, as well as his critical assessment of some of my more lofty claims were crucial for this project. I thank Andreas Eckert, whose supervision and colle- giality have proven as vital as his perspective as an Africanist. During the final stages of the project, Sebastian Conrad has become an addi- tional supervisor, and warmly welcomed me to his team. Special thanks are due to Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, who has acted as my intellectual mentor for more than a decade now. The initial ideas for this project were a result of this exchange. Without our discussions, I would never have embarked on this project. Samuel Moyn, who edits the series in which this book is published together with Stefan, also deserves special thanks for his tireless support and ever-perceptive advice. I am particu- larly grateful that he took the time to meet me – on a Sunday! – to dis- cuss a conference paper of mine when I was traveling through New York years ago. Over the years, a number of academic institutions provided me with the intellectual homes needed to conclude such a project. In Oxford, I have profited enormously from the place’s intellectually stimulating and socially enjoyable