Jonathon L. Earle Profile picture
Oct 13, 2021 10 tweets 6 min read Read on X
On Friday, I will lead a discussion on histories of land tenure & political violence in Kenya & Ethiopia. To frame the conversation, we will think alongside @NgugiWaThiongo_'s Weep Not, Child & @HaileGerima's Harvest, 3000 Years. Both of these powerful pieces raise 1/ Image
penetrating questions—some similar, others not—re: labour, class & racial exploitation, gender, family debates, resistance, & historical imagination. As @ElleniZeleke reminds us, Gerima's later films, Imperfect Journey & Teza, question revolutionary violence surrounding 1974. 2/ Image
Harvest, by contrast, was produced much earlier: in 1976. It critiques land tenure & labour in Ethiopia while showing how one emerging regime of exploitative power was now replacing one whose genealogy was birthed on the bed of Solomon. 3/ Image
One is instantly reminded of the opening sentences of the Manifesto of the Communist Party: 'The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. 4/ Image
It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.' One regime of exploitation has replaced another. In between the 2 are ordinary lives and communities struggling for justice and reform. 5/ Image
Here we have the closing scenes of Harvest, following the murder of a prominent landowner: 6/ ImageImageImageImage
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More from @JonathonLEarle

Mar 8
On this #InternationalWomensDay , a short reflection on women's activism and the return of Ssekabaka Muteesa II from exile in 1955. In this letter, Pumla Kisosonkole (President of Uganda African Women's League), Rebecca Mulira, & C.N. Kasule fight for the end of colonialism, the respect of the Nabagereka, the return of the Kabaka & political opportunities for women. It was one of dozens of letters penned by UAWL. 1/9Image
Following Muteesa's deportation, women exhibited distress throughout Buganda as they lamented the metaphorical loss of a husband. As early as January 1954, Rebecca Mulira initiated various campaigns throughout Buganda to guarantee the end of the Kabaka's exile. 2/9
With 4 women, she warned Bishop Leslie Brown that Muteesa’s deportation ‘might result in bloodshed, as God’s just reprisal against the British Nation for destroying our God-given nation of Uganda’. Drawing from her theology & the history of Israel’s monarchy, Rebecca Mulira argued that Muteesa had been forcibly ‘divorced [. . .] from his people’. 3/9
Read 9 tweets
Sep 23, 2023
As we remember the commemoration of the murder of UG’s first prime minister, Benedicto Kiwanuka, it is important to remember what exactly happened & how it all went down: “Matiya bantutte, naye abaana ba Maria tebafa.” (from Contesting Catholics, by @jamesjaycarney & me). 🧵 Image
At various points throughout the 1960s, Benedicto Kiwanuka revealed a vivid sense of his own vulnerability. The death threats and anti-DP violence that marked the 1961 and 1962 elections left their wounds, Image
building on a personality keenly attuned of any perceived slight. Kicked out of his government housing in late '62, he built a new home on Masaka Road marked by seven-foot-high walls and barbed wire. Asked to explain these security features, Kiwanuka bluntly responded,
Read 37 tweets
Mar 17, 2023
Kabaka Muteesa's return from exile in 1955—seen here—set the constitutional terms that outlined Uganda's timeline toward independence. But how did Baganda diplomats work abroad to return the king? cutt.ly/a4ar3cd 1/13
As I have written, "The deportation was the central event around which anti-colonial struggle in Buganda was largely organised. It fundamentally altered the emotional & political topography of the region. The Lukiiko convened an emergency session immediately after 2/13
Muteesa was deported. Outside of the building, the meeting attracted approximately 10,000 spectators, seen here: 3/13
Read 13 tweets
Feb 5, 2023
Each of Uganda's political parties supported a Federal constitution in 1962, including UPC. I find this photograph from the Lancaster negotiations insightful. The postures and non-verbals of Uganda's monarchs say much. 1/4
L to R: Omukama Rukidi III of Tooro, Omukama Winyi IV of Bunyoro, Governor of Uganda (F. Crawfoerd), Colonial Secretary (I. Macleod), Kabaka Muteesa II of Buganda, Omugabe Gasiyonga II of Ankole, and Kyabazinga H. Muloki of Busoga. 2/4
The result of their diplomacy was enshrined in the constitution, where the kingdoms' federal status was articulated in the opening pages. 3/4
Read 4 tweets
Feb 3, 2023
Omugabe E. Suleiman Kahaya II, who ruled Ankole throughout the first half of the 20th C., was an able archer. Here we see him demonstrating his skills. In the 2nd image, he had just concluded political negotiations w/ Henry H. Bell. Below is the Ankole Agreement of 1962, 1/9
which outlined the Kingdom's postcolonial constitution. 2/9
3/9
Read 9 tweets
Feb 1, 2023
On Tesoland's wealth. Communities in colonial Tesoland rightly saw their economic, cultural, and political contributions as central to the development of modern Uganda. Cuthbert Obwangor remains one of many Teso biographies grossly understudied. 1/4 Image
The region maintained a high standard of living throughout the colonial period. By 1953, Teso District was the largest cigarette-consuming area in eastern Africa, a reflection of its wealth, among other things. 2/4
And as Teso organisers have often noted, it was not without historical reason that a Teso activist, John Kanuti Akorimo, lowered the Union Jack and hoisted the national flag on 9 October 1962. 3/4
Read 4 tweets

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