Kiswahili and Decolonization

© COPYRIGHT by Andrew Marshall 2015 KISWAHILI AND DECOLONIZATION: THE INTER-TERRITORIAL LANGUAGE COMMITTEE AND SUCCESSOR ORGANIZATIONS, 1930-1970 By Andrew Marshall ABSTRACT Governments have long used language policy as a means of social control. As Frantz Fanon and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o have argued, language played a key role in supporting colonial rule across Africa and remains part of the colonial legacy. From the late 1920s through World War II, the British colonial governments of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar promoted the Kiswahili language as a regional lingua franca, a policy facilitated by the Inter-Territorial Language Committee for the East African Dependencies (ILC). I use published sources, archival records, and qualitative textual analysis of the ILC’s published journal to trace the Committee’s development from 1930 to 1970. Building on Ireri Mbaabu’s work, I argue that the British initially chose to promote and standardize Kiswahili as a way to make their subject societies more legible or, in other words, more efficiently governable but reversed course in the 1940s after realizing Kiswahili’s potential as a tool for anti-colonial organizing. The Committee adapted to the British language policy reversal by encouraging East African participation and switching its focus from social control to research. The Tanganyikan nationalists’ commitment to Kiswahili as a building block for a detribalized national identity allowed the Committee to survive the transition to independence and, as a research institute, continue to contribute to the study and promotion of Kiswahili in postcolonial Tanzania and beyond. My case study of the ILC’s transformation affirms the importance of language control for the colonial project and the value of African languages in addressing the ongoing colonial legacy of cultural destruction. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for all the people, both in the United States and Tanzania, who have supported and assisted me through my thesis-writing process. I would like to thank my thesis faculty readers, Dr. James Mittelman of the School of International Service (SIS) and Dr. Elke Stockreiter of the College of the Arts of Sciences, for their encouragement, guidance, and flexibility. I am grateful for the support and encouragement of many other SIS faculty and staff, particularly Drs. Randolph Persaud, Carl LeVan, Michelle Egan, Gregory Fuller, and Neil Shenai and my academic adviser Marisa Rivero. I would have never chosen this topic had I not worked as an English teacher with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Moshi, Tanzania, in 2011 and 2012, and I remain deeply indebted to all those who came alongside me during those two years, especially my students and colleagues at Majengo Secondary School, for their hospitality, friendship, and the many lessons they taught me. I owe special thanks to my Kiswahili instructors, Aldrini Kombe of Moshi’s Warmup Tuition Center and Lydiah Kiramba and Anne Lutomia of the 2013 Summer Institute for the Languages of the Muslim World at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne. SIS generously awarded me a Graduate Research Grant toward my June 2014 archival research in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I am grateful to everyone who assisted me before and during that trip, including Dr. Pamphil Mwaimu and Zaina Ramadhani Mshana of the University of Dar es Salaam Library’s East Africana Collection; Director Dr. Ernesta Mosha, former director Dr. David P.E. Massamba, Administrative Officer Moses Mbinda, librarian Evelyn Mshighwa, and research assistant Magreth Massawe of the Institute of Kiswahili Studies (IKS/TATAKI); and Elizabeth P. Kayanda, Modestus J. Sikada, and Cassian Hango of the Tanzania National Archives. I remain ever grateful to my family for their love and support. All errors and shortcomings in this thesis are mine alone. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ......................................................................................................... vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 Language and the Colonial Project ............................................................................................ 3 Language and the Decolonization Process ............................................................................... 10 THE CREATION OF THE INTER-TERRITORIAL LANGUAGE COMMITTEE .................. 15 Historical Context of Kiswahili in East Africa ......................................................................... 15 Pre-Standardization Colonial Language Policies .................................................................... 19 The 1925 Dar es Salaam Conference ........................................................................................ 28 Language Policy Developments between the Dar es Salaam and Mombasa Conferences ...... 38 1928 Mombasa conference........................................................................................................ 42 THE COMMITTEE FROM 1930 THROUGH WORLD WAR II .............................................. 48 Post-Mombasa Preparations for the Committee ....................................................................... 48 Opposition to Regional Integration and Kiswahili as Regional Lingua Franca ...................... 49 The Committee’s Early Work (1930-39) ................................................................................... 52 The Dependencies’ Implementation of the Kiswahili Promotion Regime................................. 58 ILC and World War II ............................................................................................................... 61 Analysis and Criticism of the ILC’s Work ................................................................................. 65 MARGINALIZATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE COMMITTEE (1945-1964)..... 69 Dependencies Turn Against Kiswahili ...................................................................................... 71 Post-World War II Reorganization ........................................................................................... 74 Binns Commission and the 1952 Cambridge Conference ......................................................... 77 Kiswahili and East African Nationalism ................................................................................... 83 Committee’s Increased Engagement with East Africans and Shift toward research ................ 86 ANALYSIS OF THE COMMITTEE’s PERIODICAL (1933-1970) .......................................... 92 Basic Methodology .................................................................................................................... 94 Key Moments of Growing East African Influence in the Committee’s Publications ................ 98 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 104 Analysis of the Committee’s Survival ...................................................................................... 106 Significance of the Institute’s Africanization and Kiswahilization ......................................... 109 Future research and final thoughts ......................................................................................... 112 ENDNOTES ............................................................................................................................... 115 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 130 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Publications of the ILC and Successor Organizations .................................................... 94 Table 2. First Instances, 1939-1970 ............................................................................................ 100 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. Proportion of Journal Items by Language, 1933-1970 .................................................. 97 Figure 2. Proportion of Journal Items by Author's Geographic Origin, 1933-1970 ..................... 98 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ASP Afro-Shirazi Party BAKITA Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa (National Kiswahili Council, Tanzania) CMS Church Missionary Society EAC East African Community; East Africa Command EAAEC East Africa Army Education Corps EAHC East African High Commission EAISR East African Institute of Social Research EAKC East African Kiswahili Commission EALA East African Legislative Assembly EALB East African Literature Bureau EASC East African Swahili Committee IKR Institute of Kiswahili Research (TUKI in Kiswahili) IKS Institute of Kiswahili Studies (TATAKI in Kiswahili) ILC Inter-Territorial Language (Swahili) Committee to the East African Dependencies KAR King’s African Rifles TANU Tanganyika African National Union TATAKI Taasisi ya Taaluma

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