60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

contextualising violence in colonial africa 65
while colonies could serve as support in this connection (Gini 1921:
1-50). For British liberals war between industrial states was counter-productive
since it undermined welfare. Colonial wars, however,
could sometimes also be a side-eff ect of development, reordering
peripheral economies in line with global welfare and humanitarian
objectives. In the tradition of J. S. Mill, benevolent despotism more
generally was justifi ed by moral diff erences between the West and
non-West due to historical stages of civilisation (Sullivan 1983: 606,
609). For ‘constructive’ imperialists large-scale war between developed
states was a diversion from imperial organisation, whereas colonial
war was not least the consequence of the coexistence of diff erent
stages of evolution. Benjamin Kidd’s ideas of providential evolution
infl uenced Amery, and some liberal imperialists too (Green 1995:
160-162).
Investigating the contextual and contingent nature of violence thus
imposes another set of conceptual and factual questions on the analysis,
namely how the assumed necessities in development doctrines
themselves became constructed.
The state, empire and the ‘ordinary’
As recently emphasised in the debate on Italian colonial rule, it is diffi
cult to separate instances of violence in colonialism from the implementation
of colonial policies as an ‘ordinary’ state of aff airs (Labanca
2004). One can, however, go further and argue that developmental
requirements became constructed and ‘activated’ in very specifi c ways
as ‘ordinary’ projects and strategies of state and imperial management
engaged with a structural environment, such as the conditions of the
1930s. As indicated, one can identify discrete lineages of confl ict in
national development doctrines. But these took shape in relation to
the technicalities and diffi culties in managing national economies and
general socio-political dynamics. This contextual dynamics, rather
than purpose-oriented agency alone, or a consistent rationale of violent
intent, related various forms of confl ict in colonial Africa to European
nation state development. The case can be illustrated with
regard to the claimed purpose of realms of colonial control, their historical
specifi city, and the clustering of lineages of confl ict.
In considerations about state agency, boundaries of extra-economic
control correlated with the normal processes of formulating economic
management and hegemonic strategies. Generally speaking, the
depression of the 1930s heightened concerns about settling trade and
payments, and reactivated debates about population optima, inter-