Maji Maji: Lifting the Fog of War. African Social Studies Series. Leiden and Bonson: Brill, 2010.pp xii, 325.
Maji Maji: Lifting the Fog of War is a detailed historical account of the culmination of a new scholarship on the Maji Maji Rebellion written by James Giblin and Jamie Monson. The professor of African history at the University of Lowa, James Leonard Giblin, and Jamie Monson have carefully presented the fullest account of the 1905-1907 Maji Maji uprising in Tanzania. He is a famous Tanzanian author of two books: The Politics of Environmental Control in Northeastern Tanzania (1992) and A History of the Excluded (2005). His co-author, Jamie Monson, is also a Professor of African History in Saint Paul at Macalester College, Minnesota. Monson has been a prolific contributor to Tanzanian history and Chinese historical development in Africa. Besides, Monson authored Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania (2009). The duo presents a detailed deconstruction of earlier scholars’ versions of colonial reportage and the works of missionaries in Tanzania as the root cause of the rebellion. They emphasize on the confusion that dominated various parts of the Eastern and Southern German East Africa and how the “fog of war” contributed to that predominant discombobulation. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
The central theme of this paper is the function and effectiveness of communication networks and miscommunications between colonial adversaries and African communities. Giblin and Monson believe that it was this “fog of war” that determined the result of the warfare and shaped events on the ground during the war. Moreover, the duo provides space for a wider variety of methodological approaches than the pre-existing extant texts.
The deconstruction school of thought has influenced the authors’ work. The authors base their critics on the deliberate deconstruction of earlier renditions of nationalist histories that existed during the 1960s and 1970s. This deconstruction ideology is embedded on the premises in the source materials of other scholars that fail to explain how the works of the missionaries, African oral history, or colonial reportage allowed for egression of new divergent perspectives. [1] For example, the authors conclude that the earlier scholars constructed “another kind of legend, ” which could only meet the demands of the time, such as nation-building, but omitted the complexness associated with the Maji Maji war and molding of its memory. [2]
By employing limited documentary pieces of evidence and oral accounts, the authors present an in-depth history of African soldiers serving in the German Army and how they relate to the broader society. Besides, the authors offer a detailed analysis of the neglected roles of women, elephant hunters, neighborhoods, and accounts of districts in warfare. [3] By dissecting and deconstructing these roles, the authors examine various channels of communication during the war as well as the flow of rumors between aggressive German leaders and Africans.[4]
Moreover, the differences between the narratives of the 1960s and other Maji Maji sources show the influence of Giblin and Monson on the historical context of their construction of historical narratives. [5] For example, the first section of the paper emphasizes the context of communication. Monson examines the historical narratives of medicine and its efficiency in rendering Africans invulnerable. Monson goes on to connect the term “fog” to anxiousness and ignorance that is facilitated by hearsays and rumors. [6] Shaped rumors colonized the war atmosphere as presented by Ngindo in an area where the people knew very little.
The construction of historical narratives told by the authors targets mainly modern war correspondents and historians. By compiling articles from nine different scholars, Giblin and Monson wanted to explore the effectiveness of histography in modern research. They carefully examine the texts to demonstrate how they irreconcilably expressed contradictory meanings and that modern scholar should not make a similar mistake. For example, Giblin catches his audience by surprise when he interpreted the events surrounding the Yakobi Mission. He concludes that the events were characterized by localized movements and indirectly linked to the Maji Maji Rebellion.[7]
The primary strength of the paper lies in its unparalleled focus on micro-studies that enhance the in-depth comprehension of the agency and the motives of local scholars. Furthermore, the analysis of the duo incorporates the element of a female leader called Nkomanile, which is an accurate representation of the gender aspect during the colonial periods.[8] Such remarkable African facets of war were often overlooked by many scholars who studied colonial warfare.
The other strength of this source is the elevation of the idea of “fog of war,” which typically is an interlingual rendition used to describe the role of communication networks and miscommunication during the war. With their fluent and straightforward language, the contributors dispersed the haze of the Maji Maji War when they emphasized certain areas that add substantially to the knowledge of the readers.
However, though Giblin presents a new understanding, in certain instances, he uses a very imbalanced language. For instance, Giblin refers to German soldiers as “a pacification campaign” who are determined to ‘confiscate’ and give rise to ‘casualties.’ [9] He also refers to Maji Maji belligerents as “massacre” and “plunder.” [10] The idea of divergent viewpoints that is presented tends to slur the vision of the readers. [11] This can be attributed to some of the eminent weaknesses of the paper. The scholars also criticize some previous works related to war as being too simplistic and misleading. Though this can also stand out as another strength of the paper, the authors do not offer alternative approaches to overcome such blurriness. Instead, they state that the whole matter was too complex to understand. For that reason, this document tends to compliment the earlier studies instead of offering a novel paradigm.
The paper presents the entire organization of the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1905 to 1907 in the, by then, German East Africa. The entire organization was facilitated by the ideological movement spearheaded by some prophetic religious leaders. These leaders used Maji, which meant to make its followers invulnerable to bullets, as a symbol of unity among the Africans who committed themselves to war. Thus, the rebellion presented in this paper helps to understand the tension between contemporary cultural and political realism and the traditional ideology. The two facets of tension, combined with the deconstruction school of thought, as demonstrated by the authors, helps the reader to understand the real characteristics of modern mass movements and nationalist movements. However, the theme of the construction of the divide that existed between the traditional ‘nationalist” and the ‘modern’ approach is weak.
[1] John Iliffe. 1967. “The Organization of The Maji Maji Rebellion.” The Journal Of African History 8 (3): 495-512. doi:10.1017/s0021853700007982.
[2]Monson, Jamie, and James Giblin. 2010. Maji Maji: Lifting The Fog Of War (African Social Studies Series; V. 20). Berlin: Brill Academic Publishers. Pp 34.
[3] Jamie Monson and James Giblin. 2010. Maji Maji: Lifting The Fog Of War (African Social Studies Series; V. 20). Berlin: Brill Academic Publishers.pp. 38
[4] Ibid, p.58
[5] Stephen Rockel, J. The International Journal of African Historical Studies 45, no. 3 (2012): 460-62. Accessed March 23, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/24393065.
[6] Jamie Monson and James Giblin. 2010. Maji Maji: Lifting The Fog Of War (African Social Studies Series; V. 20). Berlin: Brill Academic Publishers.pp. 58
[7] Ibid,p. 263-264
[8] Ibid, p.198
[9] Jamie Monson and James Giblin. 2010. Maji Maji: Lifting the Fog of War (African Social Studies Series; V. 20). Berlin: Brill Academic Publishers.pp. 264
[10] Ibid
[11]Ibid, p.234