Samuel Fury Childs Daly, University of Chicago, will present "Forward March: Time and Ideology in Africa’s Military Regimes, 1970-2000," in the EuroStorie research seminar series "Time and Identity" in Room 247, Unioninkatu 33, University of Helsinki, on Friday, May 3, 1:00pm-2:00pm (UTC+2). You may also join via Zoom.
Across Africa, independence was followed by a wave of military coups and martial revolutions. The men who staged them had utopian visions. In Nigeria and other former British colonies, military officers believed they could remake their countries in the image of an army. Soldiers tried to condition civilians to think like they did—and when that failed they tried to beat the bad habits out of them by force. Militarism became the animating force of African politics. Like its better-known counterparts – communism, capitalism – militarism had a culture, an aesthetic, and a philosophy. It also had a theory of time, and military ideas about temporality permeated military dictatorships. Africa’s military regimes had revolutionary ambitions. Nearly all soldiers were committed to transforming their societies – though they didn’t always spell out what they wanted them to become. Coups were power grabs, but they also came with ideas. After they mopped up the blood in the barracks, soldiers set about governing. The ideology they created – militarism – is one of the twentieth century’s most neglected ideologies.--Dan Ernst
