Tekeste negash biography of christopher

THEMES IN MODERN AFRICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE Festschrift for Tekeste Negash edited by Lars Berge and Irma Taddia Proprietà letteraria riservata © edizioni Webster srl, Padova, Italy I diritti di traduzione, di memorizzazione elettronica, di riproduzione e di adattamento totale o parziale con qualsiasi mezzo (compresi i microilm e le copie fotostatiche) sono riservati per tutti i Paesi. Nessuna parte di questa pubblicazione può essere riprodotta, distribuita o trasmessa in qualsivoglia forma senza l’autorizzazione scritta dell’Editore, a eccezione di brevi citazioni incorporate in recensioni o per altri usi non commerciali permessi dalla legge sul copyright. Per richieste di permessi contattare in forma scritta l’Editore al seguente indirizzo: redazione@ ISBN: Prima edizione: aprile Il nostro indirizzo internet è: Per segnalazioni di errori o suggerimenti relativi a questo volume potete contattare: Webster srl Via Stefano Breda, 26 Tel.: +39 Fax: +39 - Limena PD redazione@ Composizione tipograica Minion (Robert Slimbach, ), interni Myriad (Robert Slimbach, Carol Twombly, ), titoli Gill Sans (Eric Gill, ), copertina Table of contents Tekeste Negash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Prof. Marita Hilliges Vice-Chancellor, Dalarna University, Sweden UNESCO and the idea of schooling and modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lars Petterson Dalarna University Establishing African studies at Dalarna University: programme based on partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Catharina Enhörning Dalarna University, International Relations Oice Homage to Tekeste Negash from Addis Ababa University in the occasion of his festschrift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prof. Shiferaw Bekele Addis Ababa University Tabula Gratulatoria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tekeste Negash: positions held and selected list of publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I RELIGION AND CAPITALISM New modes of production, urbanization and the development of Islam in nineteenth-century Tanzania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karin Pallaver University of Bologna Islam and capitalism: some considerations on the construction of the idea of a Western “modernity” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elena Vezzadini University of Bergen, Norway Themes in Modern African History and Culture Saints’ bodies, Islamic and colonial medicine in Eritrea () . . . . . . . . . . . Silvia Bruzzi University of Bologna Health, Islam and capitalism: three possible key-factors in developing Somaliland . . Daria Zizzola University of Pisa II HISTORY AND SOCIETY Divided loyalties: an African Christian community during the uprising in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lars Berge Dalarna University Memories and identities from the Horn of Africa states: discussing Eritrea . . . . . . Irma Taddia University of Bologna Somaliland in the scramble for the Horn of Africa () . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bianca Maria Carcangiu University of Cagliari The Battle of Adwa and the forging of Ethiopian nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ayele Bekerie Mekelle University, Ethiopia Colonial internment camps in Africa Orientale Italiana. The case of Dhanaane (Somalia) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mariana De Carlo University of Bologna An Ethiopian paradox: Adwa and land-locked Ethiopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bahru Zewde Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia Writing letters from the Libyan front . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Massimo Zaccaria University of Pavia 6 Table of contents III METHODOLOGY, LAW AND EDUCATION Trespassing boundaries. The challenges for Eritrean historiography . . . . . . . . . . Uoldelul Chelati Dirar University of Macerata “Science for science” or “science for social relevance”? Some observations and relections on African environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kjell Havnevik Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala and University of Agder, Norway Medium of instruction and classroom interaction. The case of Karagwe . . . . . . . Åsa Wedin Dalarna University Intercultural teacher education in the globalized world. The case of Finland . . . . Maria-Liisa Järvelä, Rauni Räsänen University of Oulu, Finland The role of Islam in the Federal Somali Constitution of some preliminary remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Massimo Papa University of Roma “Tor Vergata” The UN resolution against female genital mutilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deborah Scolart University of Roma “Tor Vergata” Building a new colonial subject? Comparing fascist education systems in Albania and Ethiopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alessandro Pes University of Cagliari IV LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE Water of life and death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gudmar Aneer Dalarna University Modern african women-writers and their role in political process. Creative writing from Ethiopia and Nigeria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Galina Balashova Institute for African studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 7 Themes in Modern African History and Culture Ascari tales: preliminary remarks on Gebreyesus Hailu's The Conscript . . . . . . . Christine Matzke University of Bayreuth, Germany Women’s voices: exploring “development” in an Ethiopian town . . . . . . . . . . . . Judith Narrowe Dalarna University Place and belonging in Alexander McCall Smith’ s Mma Ramotswe . . . . . . . . . . . Irene Gilsenan Nordin Dalarna University The imagery of cursing in four Ethiopian languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Baye Yimam Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia V INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND POLITICS Economic reforms, productivism and social development in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . Paschal B. Mihyo Ossrea, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Chinese policies in developing Rwanda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Isabella Soi University of Cagliari Djibouti: between aid, foreign military assistance, and prospects of development . . Federica Guazzini University for Foreigners, Perugia Revisiting ethnicity and democracy in Ethiopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eva Poluha Dalarna and Stockholm Universities Governance and collective sanctions: relections on the taming of corruption . . . Amr G.E. Sabet Dalarna University Ethiopia’ s accession to the League of Nations and its relection in the European press in the s and s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan Záhořík University of West Bohemia, Pilsen 8 Tekeste Negash Prof. Marita Hilliges Vice-Chancellor, Dalarna University, Sweden Professor Tekeste Negash has been a genuine pioneer at Dalarna University. He is a man of many talents, an academic that commands great respect and a good colleague with an infectious wit and sense of humour. hanks to his involvement in internationalization in general and in African issues in particular, in Dalarna University was able to set up the Dalarna University Centre of African Studies. Tekeste was the living link between a wide range of outstanding scholars and institutions both in Europe and in Africa. hanks to his close contacts, not least with colleagues at Bologna University, and their warm recommendations, Tekeste was able to gather together an impressive team of academics within the broad area of African Studies. Tekeste is truly an academic entrepreneur, in the best sense of that word. Tekeste was of course the driving force behind the development of our own Master’s programme in African Studies. With his wide and deep knowledge of African history, politics and education issues, his own teaching contribution was considerable. He also brought in a long list of scholars from this and other countries that are still working and teaching at Dalarna and that together represent a solid basis of academic quality. he institutions that Tekeste helped to forge close links with make a long and impressive list: the Bahar Dar, Jimma and Mekelle Universities in Ethiopia; a wide range of Italian universities apart from Bologna itself, including Cagliari, Macerata, Napoli, Pavia, Rome III, Rome “Tor Vergata”, Perugia and Siena. From other countries we work together with the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, the two universities of Tromsø and Hedmark in Norway, the University of Tallinn in Estonia, the University of Oulu/Uleåborg in Finland, INALCO in Paris and the University of West Bohemia, Pilsen. Improving the quality of teaching and research was the main aim of these scholars engaged in the Master’s programme, and the yearly gatherings Tekeste instigated brought together many leading scholars in Africa to present and discuss their latest works. hese Africa Days and their social programmes have also deeply involved people from other parts of the University and not least cohorts Themes in Modern African History and Culture Marita Hilliges of international students, who with their enthusiasm and curiosity have made important contributions to the life of our university campus in Dalarna. Although the character of the African Studies programme is changing, as it must ater the departure from Dalarna of its nestor Tekeste Negash, much of the spirit lives on, not least in a broad interest in African development which can now be seen throughout this University. Our growing collaboration with African universities is giving us a new sense of direction – on a irm scholarly foundation of which Tekeste Negash was one of the main architects. 10 UNESCO and the idea of schooling and modernity Lars Petterson Dalarna University One of Tekeste Negash’ contributions to the discussion on education relates to his criticism of the UNESCO general assumption that societies in Africa and Asia should follow the Western path to Industrialization, Modernization and Democratization through alphabetization and popular education. Behind this assumption lies the idea that it was national legislation on primary schooling that paved the way for the combined processes of Industrialization, Urbanization and Democratization. It is, however, only ater substantial manipulation with chronology and historical processes that such a reasoning may be used to explain the emergence of National Legislation on popular schooling in Prussia (), Denmark (), Ireland (), Sweden () and England () by relating to the level of industrialization and urbanization. In Sweden, as in most other countries in Europe, mass schooling started in the nineteenth century. But schooling for the masses in no way began with the school ordinance of at that time, close to half of the parishes in Sweden already had some form or other of common school. Nor did lead to a dramatic increase in the number of schools: as late as , fewer than half the children in Sweden were registered pupils of a permanent school which ofered full-time teaching. A strong focus on nineteenth-century reforms can be misleading if it leads to the assumption that there was no teaching for the mass of the people before that time. hroughout the Swedish realm (including at that time also Finland) every individual had since the seventeenth century experienced a Christian upbringing which involved reading the psalm book and Luther’s little catechism. he tradition of reading maintained within the church laid the foundation for a certain degree of universal education. he clergy kept a strict watch on the level of knowledge among the laity by frequently visiting households and questioning their members about the faith, and through constant meetings for communal reading and religious songs. he skills and knowledge required were, of course, directly related to Protestant orthodoxy. What was demanded was not literacy in the general sense of the word. he ability to read was remarkably widespread (from the seventeenth century onwards) Themes in Modern African History and Culture Lars Petterson in Sweden in comparison with other parts of Europe, but the ability to write was no more common than in, for example, England during the early modern period. It was the task of the clergy to disseminate an ability to read among the laity and to check that it was maintained. here was seldom any question of increasing the number of people who could write. We are dealing here with a vertical channel of communication which functioned in one direction only. Ordinary people needed to be able to read so that the instructions of those in authority could be transmitted to them. Learning occurred through the study of a limited range of texts approved by the church: the psalm book, the little catechism of Martin Luther. However, the church was never the most important link between the state and the individual. In this respect, the primary role was played by the household, and this meant that pockets of non-conformism survived. he persistent eforts of the state to integrate individual as obedient subjects may be been far-reaching, but they could never be totalitarian. he individual was brought up in a household, and the mistress of the household was generally the person who inculcated the dominant rules and values. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, most inhabitants of the Swedish realm were still semi-literate in the sense that they could read but not write. he ability to read was probably more widespread in Sweden than in any other part of the Nordic region (or probably in the world), but it seems as if the ability to write was more common in Denmark. In the case of Sweden-Finland, a law had been introduced as early as the late seventeenth century – to be exact – stipulating that every household should be visited by a clergyman once a year and its members questioned on the faith. It is not easy to determine precisely when schooling within the household was replaced by a school-based system of popular education. There is no obvious turning point. The two forms of education co-existed for long periods of time, producing a mixed system of education in which it is difficult to disentangle its different elements. At all events, it is clear that no rapid change occurred in Sweden and that there were great regional variations. In general terms, it can be said that schooling within the household remained dominant throughout most of the nineteenth century, and the only older piece of legislation force was the decision taken in concerning children’ s schools in the towns. Throughout the country, schooling within the home was the dominant form of education both in the countryside and in the towns, until schools for the poor and other children began to become common in the towns from the late eighteenth century onwards. But the urbanisation of the country occurred at a relatively late stage. Only one-tenth of the population lived in towns in Sweden till the middle of the nineteenth century. Even if the schoolmaster usually was someone who had been ordained, there is nothing to suggest that the teaching 12 UNESCO and the idea of schooling and modernity in reading provided within the household was qualitatively inferior to that given by common schools. he period is the age when writing literacy became the norm in the Nordic region – a development which naturally involved a signiicant enhancement in the communicative competence of ordinary people. he parish schools established at the beginning of the century and the monitorial schools set up in the s made the possibility of acquiring writing literacy more generally accessible in the countryside. his development was associated with a more farreaching change: the transition from teaching within the household to teaching at school. he growth of writing literacy naturally made it easier to regard communication as a two-pay process, which in its turn made it easier to treat schooling as a matter of civic concern. here were also those who argued that the education of the masses was a democratic right. However, the authorities generally still saw education primarily as a means of sustaining the existing social order: the masses could more easily be kept under control if certain harmless pieces of knowledge were imparted to them, and if they were made conscious of their own, subordinate, place in the larger scheme of things. he motives for replacing teaching within the household with a school education were mixed and they were, of course, connected with what were regarded as the most important tasks of the education system. Many supporters of school education thought the separation of the child from its parents for teaching purposes was a fundamental precondition for efective education. However, they did not apply this view to all children: they regarded the aluent members of society as capable of taking responsibility for the upbringing of their children in the future as they had in the past. In contrast, they believed that the children of the lower classes were misled by their parents and therefore needed to be placed in a school environment. In other words, two kinds of separation were envisaged: one between the diferent social classes and the other between the children of the poor and their parents. he element of social segregation presents a sharp contrast with the idea of citizenship which was now being advanced with increasing emphasis throughout the Nordic region. he middle class believed that civic virtues would be most efectively promoted if its own children did not come into direct contact with the children of the underclass. hat is why two parallel school systems were created, one for each class, and survived until far into the twentieth century; until to be precise. However, the most important form of segregation in the middle of the nineteenth century was the separation of children from their parents. It is probable that the most important motive for those who supported the creation of a system 13 Themes in Modern African History and Culture Lars Petterson of common school was the separation of the children of the underclass from the adult world. he goal was to institutionalize teaching, to separate the child from home and household, and to place the children of the underclass in a special moral quarantine. he reason for this attitude towards the children of the underclass was that the system of norms embraced by their parents was regarded as incompatible the ideal of citizenship. hat ideal included the concept of individualism, but the poor were still trapped within patriarchal structures which upheld unchanging corporatist traditions, paternalistic care, stable power hierarchies and the guild system. Among the underclass, the individual was still irmly embedded in the collective unit of the household or the corporation. his meant that he was both in principle and practice subordinate and subject to the collective unit, but also that it looked ater and protected him. A diferent, but closely related, reason was the need, which was mentioned with increasing frequency, for a labour force which could write but which was also mobile and preferable also obedient. A growing number of parents among the underclass now had work outside as well as within the old units of production, the household, and this added to the necessity of introducing common schools. he common schools which emerged during the irst decades of the nineteenth century and which were sanctioned by the state, mostly adopted the so-called monitorial method of teaching. his was based on the principle that the schoolmaster delegated the great bulk of the teaching to “monitors”, and only played a supervisory role himself. his method of teaching was characterized by the maintenance of a strict hierarchy of rank, an impersonal system for conveying orders and a minutely regulated set of rewards and punishments. It originated in Britain, and was sufused with the spirit of the utilitarian philosophy. It was believed that a single teacher could supervise hundreds of pupils. he growth in the number of monitorial schools was quite rapid, and the use of the monitorial method was recommended at all the schools in the country. In , the method was made obligatory at the teacher training colleges (seminaries). he monitorial method was adopted in virtually all urban schools and in most rural schools. he remaining schools were usually too small to be suited for the use of monitorial teaching. he monitorial school represented a solution to the problem of educating the masses whose very structure clearly demonstrates that it was a product of the ideals and practice of British industry. he use of compulsion was to be avoided to the greatest extent possible, and schooling therefore had to be institutionalized and conducted within the framework of a network of schools in which teaching was reduced to learning by rote, and subordinated to a sort of intellectual 14 UNESCO and the idea of schooling and modernity mechanization derived in all its essentials from the techniques which had been developed in Britain to control the labour process within the new factories created by the industrial revolution. he members of the societies which ofered mass education to the underclass at the cheapest price wanted the forms assumed by discipline and learning within the school to resemble as closely as possible the conditions which governed factory production. Schools were therefore organized like factories, even though factories were still rare in the Nordic region, and the product manufactured by these school-factories was a labour force. he common assumption that there was a causal relationship between industrialization and the institutionalization of popular education does not apply in the case of the Nordic region. he monitorial method clearly relected the ideals of industrial mass production with its strict division of labour, but it is still the case that in the Nordic region the introduction of monitorial teaching anticipated the process of industrialization by several decades. he assumption that the common school system emerged purely as a result of demands for broadly-based civic education are also without validity. he question of what was taught at the new common schools was entirely subordinate to two diferent questions: how the students were taught and where they were taught. he actual content of what was taught was remarkably similar to what it had been since the seventeenth century: the only additions were writing literacy and, in some cases, mathematics. he essential function of the common school was to assign roles to individuals which extracted them from all collective communities. Its purpose was to separate and to segregate. It completed the process of individualization which had begun with the separation of work from the household. It is clear that the common school system that emerged in Sweden during the nineteenth century was regarded as a solution to what was seen as the greatest problem facing society – the growth of an underclass which owned no property of its own, and which was perceived as a threat to the survival of the existing social system. he common school, not least when it was accompanied by the use of the monitorial method, seems to have appealed to many because the reformers succeeded in presenting it not only as a universal cure for ignorance, disobedience and discontent, but also as a solution to the whole social crisis of the age, as an integral element in a strategy designed to re-establish order on new foundations. hose who sought to promote common schools had two motives: on the one hand they naturally wanted to give individuals an opportunity to create a more tolerable life for themselves, but – just as naturally – they wanted to safeguard the great social project which had just been initiated, and to accommodate those social groups within it which did not own property. 15 Themes in Modern African History and Culture Lars Petterson he trend of the age was towards a clear segregation of the social classes for educational purposes, accompanied by integration of children of the same class. he circular of and the statute of concerning secondary schools united the whole school system, except for the common schools, into so-called elementary secondary schools. his was an important step towards producing an integrated and homogeneous social élite, whose children had hitherto been separated in schools for men of “the economy” and men of “learning”. Ater some attempts to implement the statute of , a new statute was issued in which efectively integrated the secondary school system. It stipulated that the division between the so-called Latin and practical lines of study would begin in the third grade, but the latter was abolished in and ater that the division began in the new second grade. Other educational reforms in the latter half of the nineteenth century included the transfer in , of responsibility for the matriculation examination from the universities to the secondary schools, the introduction of a period of probationary service for teachers in , and the addition of a “semi-classical” line of study (i.e. Latin without Greek) in Boys and girls studied under quite diferent conditions. Until they passed into the highest grades of grammar school, boys attended state-inanced secondary schools at which fees were not paid. As for girls, at mid-century there were still only ive private, fee-charging girls’ schools in the whole of Sweden, all located in large towns. However, in a state-inanced girls’ secondary school was founded. It was linked to the royal Women’ s Teacher Training College established in the same year. 16 Establishing African studies at Dalarna University: programme based on partnerships Catharina Enhörning Dalarna University, International Relations Oice Tekeste Negash, one of the founders of African Studies Education at Dalarna University, has shown us that, it is possible indeed, to create such a master programme as the African Studies Programme by working together with other professors and colleagues around the world. Tekeste Negash motto is “he sky is the limit”. It has deinitely been proved here at Dalarna University Centre for African Studies. Introduction Dalarna University ofers a Master programme of African Studies since he main purpose of my paper is to introduce the African Studies Programme at Dalarna University and the role of European and African partnerships in the development and implementation of this programme. A distinct feature of the Programme of African Studies is that there are virtually no Swedish Students. Another feature is that the Programme of African Studies at Dalarna University is the only postgraduate education in Sweden. he question why Swedish students have not yet found their way to African Studies Programme is out of the scope for this paper. he African Studies programme has had suicient number of students, between students each year, during the last couple of years, although we have noticed a decline during the last two years due to the tuition fees that were introduced in Sweden in However, since this master programme has been developed and implemented through close cooperation with partner institutions we are optimistic about the future. he most eicient instruments used are double degree agreements and lifelong learning agreements in order to facilitate and increase student, teaching and administrative staf mobility within the programme. his paper will discuss the process for the development of double degree agreements and the vital role of networks through the lifelong learning mechanisms.