Urbanization in the African Horn was the outcome of autochthonous social processes, or was it?

Though a minority clique, there are a few who attribute the Aksumite complex and urbanization in the African Horn to migrants from the Arabian peninsula, rather than a long history of social processes leading to development of distinctive urban centers at different time frames, influenced by both local processes and prevailing environmental and/or external socio-political pressures or influences. Is this so? Researcher Fattovich is quite clear enough by himself, in his layout of urbanization development in the African Horn, in what would eventually become part of the territorial sphere of the modern state of Ethiopia, and so, the present author simply allow the man speak for himself, and then draw the conclusion from the chronological layout:

A relatively elaborate layout from Pre-Aksumite to the Aksumite phases - starting with the Pre-Aksumite phase:

c. 1000–800/700 BC

The Early pre-Aksumite Phase (c. 1000–800/700 BC). In this phase, the pre-Aksumite cultural area was apparently divided into two regions: (a) central Eritrea and northern Tigray and (b) western Tigray. They probably reflected a cultural division of the plateau going back to late prehistoric times (see Fattovich 1988). It is possible that chiefdoms already existe (Schneider 1976), but no safe archaeological evidence of them is yet available. The people of western Tigray who were definitely in contact with the southern Arabians worked iron, as we can infer from slag found at Gobedra rock shelter near Aksum (see Phillipson 1977; Fattovich 1980; Fattovich 1990c). The late ‘Jebel Mokram Group’ people in the lowlands were in contact with those of western Tigray (Fig. 5).

c. 700/600–300 BC

The Middle pre-Aksumite Phase (c. 700/600–300 BC). The kingdom of Da’amat appeared in this phase. Its territory stretched from western Tigray to central Eritrea. Most likely, the capital was located at Yeha (western Tigray) and monumental and epigraphical evidence stresses a direct link with the kingdom of Saba in southern Arabia. Some rock inscriptions recorded in Eritrea point to contacts with other south Arabian peoples and there were also contacts with the Nubian kingdom of Kush, the Achemenian Empire, and the Greek world. The nomads living in the Atbara and Gash alluvial plains were included in the area of Ethiopian influence (Fig. 6; Drewes 1962; de Contenson 1981; Anfray 1990; Fattovich1990c).

c. 300 BC–100 BC/AD 100

The Late pre-Aksumite Phase (c. 300 BC–100 BC/AD 100). In this phase, the kingdom of Da’amat collapsed, but petty kingdoms probably survived on the plateau. The pre-Aksumite cultural area was again divided into two main regions as in the early phase, and the northern plateau (Rore region) was included in the eastern cultural area. The southern Arabian influence practically disappeared and local traditions emerged again in this phase (Fig. 7;Conti Rossini 1928; Anfray 1968; Fattovich 1979; Anfray 1990; Fattovich 1990c).

c. AD 400–700

The Middle Aksumite Phase (c. AD 400–700). This phase corresponds to the period of major expansion of the kingdom. The western and eastern plateau shared the same material culture, except for some slight differences in the pottery. Coinage was widely used. Churches were widely scattered over the territory of the kingdom. Syrian influences can be recognized in the architecture of this period (Anfray 1972; Anfray 1974; Anfray 1981; Anfray 1990).

c. 700–900 AD

The Late Aksumite Phase (c. 700–900 AD). This phase corresponds to the decline of the kingdom. Coinage was probably no more in use and some important towns, such as Matara and Adulis, were apparently abandoned. Aksum was quite reduced in size (Anfray 1974;Anfray 1990; Michels 1990; Munro-Hay 1991).


The development of urbanism up to medieval times in the northern Horn of Africa can be divided into three main stages. They correspond to different phases of state formation in the region: 

Fattovich continues...

• The proto-Urban Stage (third–second millennia BC), represented by the ‘Gash Group’ in the lowlands and perhaps the ‘Ona Group A’ on the eastern plateau. It corresponds to the rise of chiefdoms in the region.
  

• The Early Urban Stage (first millennium BC), represented by the pre-Aksumite culture in Eritrea and Tigray. It corresponds to the development of the Sabean-like kingdom of Da’amat on the plateau.
  

• The Mature Urban Stage (first millennium AD), represented by the Aksumite culture on the plateau. It corresponds to the development of the kingdom of Aksum.
  

-----

Any interpretation of the development of urbanism in the northern Horn of Africa is still speculative. In my opinion, however, some factors affecting this process can be identified. The main factor was probably the progressive inclusion of the region in the interchange circuit between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean countries. This gave rise to chiefdoms and states since the mid-third millennium BC. In particular, the south Arabian expansion in the late second to early first millennia BC, stimulated the emergence of a state on the plateau. In turn, large residential settlements arose in strategic positions to control the local resources and traderoutes. Eventually, they were the major markets in the local exchange network, as well. On the contrary, the Arab political and commercial activity in northeast Africa at the end of the first millennium AD, caused the progressive isolation of the plateau. This probably affected the collapse of urbanism in late Aksumite times.

The development of complex societies and states improved the agricultural production to sustain more nucleated populations and specialized activities. This possibly caused the selection of more fertile areas as a location for the larger settlements within the range of areas suitable to control the local resources.

The improvement of agricultural production probably caused an increase in the ‘Gash Group’ population in the lowlands, and in the pre-Aksumite and Aksumite ones on the plateau. This increase could have generated a dispersal of the single populations to exploit other areas suitable for cultivation and grazing. In such a way new large settlements arose as markets and administrative centres in the peripheral regions. Political factors surely affected this process. The need to control the local resources and trade routes most likely stimulated the territorial expansion of the pre-Aksumite and Aksumite states. This might have caused the disappearance of some residential settlements with political functions and the establishment of new administrative centres. Moreover, ideological factors connected with the legitimation of the elite might have affected the ceremonial function of the main settlements (e.g. Mahal Teglinos, Yeha, Aksum).

Environmental factors were less significant than the economic and cultural ones. The moister climate of the region in the mid first millennium BC to the mid first millennium AD probably facilitated the establishment of the ‘plough and cereal complex’ on the plateau. It is possible that the generally reduced rainfall in the seventh to tenth centuries AD, together with the progressive exhaustion of the soils and deforestation by human activity in Aksumite times, caused droughts and famines with consequent epidemics. They might have affected the progressive depopulation of the plateau, pushing the population to move southwards. Moreover, the sudden abandonment of Adulis and Matara in the eighth century AD might point to a catastrophic event.On the basis of the above, the following tentative explanation of the development of urbanism in the northern Horn can be suggested:

c.4000 BC

The inclusion of the ‘Butana Group’ people in an interchange circuit with predynastic Egyptian the fourth millennium BC, gave rise to a hierarchical society at the confluence of the Gash and the Atbara river. In turn, this stimulated the transition to cattle-breeding and cultivation of cereals, and the founding of large sedentary settlements.

c. late 4000 BC to early 3000 BC

In the late fourth to early third millennia BC, the Gash progressively shifted from the original confluence with the Atbara river into the present bed (see Sadr 1991). This opened a more direct route from the Nile valley to the Horn of Africa than the Atbara valley. The descendants of the ‘Butana Group’ people followed the shift of the river and settled in the present southern delta. In such a way they occupied a strategic position to control the land route to Nubia and Egypt. At the same time, they were able to exploit better the resources ofthe western lowlands during the seasonal movements from the Gash to the plateau (seeFattovich 1990d).

In the mid-third millennium BC, the ‘Gash Group’ people played a crucial role as intermediaries between Nubia and the regions of the Horn of Africa and southern Arabia. They were directly in contact with the kingdom of Kerma. This stressed the transition from a hierarchical society to a chiefdom and increased agricultural production. Mahal Teglinos was the residential centre of the elite and a crucial node in the trade network from Egypt and Nubia to the Horn and southern Arabia, becoming a proto-urban settlement.

In the early second millennium BC, the ‘Gash Group’ people spread through the western lowlands, as far as the Red Sea coast. Residential villages appeared in the middle Barka valley, along the way from Kassala to the plateau.

In the second half of the second millennium BC, the Red Sea become the main trade route from Egypt to the Horn and southern Arabia. This isolated the lowlands from the circuit, with a regression in social complexity and proto-urban settlements. An Afro-Arabian coastal interchange circuit arose. A port, possibly frequented by the Egyptians, appeared at Adulis. At the same time, the southern Arabians started their commercial activity northwards, along the land routes of western Arabia.

In the same period, the ‘Ona Group A’ people living on the plateau along the route from Kassala to Adulis become the intermediaries between the hinterland and the coast. It is possible that they also were in direct contact with Egypt. A complex society perhaps arose in the eastern plateau and a quite large settlement appeared at Sembel Cuscet.

By the late second millennium BC, the Egyptian trade with the southern regions was interrupted. This facilitated the south Arabian commercial expansion, with the rise of kingdoms in the region. The eastern Tigrean plateau was probably included in the Arab area of commercial activity. A residential settlement appeared at Matara.

In the early first millennium BC, the southern Arabians penetrated in the western Tigrean plateau, most likely to get a direct access to the resources of the western lowlands, particularly ivory. Quite soon the region was included in the area of political and commercial influence of the kingdom of Saba. The contacts with the Sabeans gave rise to the local kingdom of Da’amat. An urban society, reflecting the south Arabian pattern, appeared on the plateau. Yeha become a very important ceremonial centre and the possible residence of the kings. The agricultural production to sustain the new state was improved by the use of plough. The need to control the routes to the Red Sea caused the eastwards territorial expansion of the kingdom. Kaskasè become another important ceremonial centre. An urban settlement arose at Matara.

In the late first millennium BC, after the decline of the kingdom of Saba in southern Arabia, the kingdom of Da’amat collapsed. The plateau was probably divided into petty kingdoms, including Aksum. Towns seem to disappear in the western plateau. Yeha remained an important ceremonial centre, but much reduced in size. The eastern plateau was progressively included in the Greek-Roman trade circuit along the Red Sea. This probably enabled the local populations to maintain a form of urban society.

By the first century BC, the western Tigray was included, as well, in the Roman trade circuit. **Aksum** probably become a gateway in the trade with the hinterland. An urban settlement arose at this site since the first century AD. Initially, it was a ceremonial centre connected with the funerary cult of the elite ancestors.

In the second to third centuries AD, with the progressive conquest of the other petty kingdoms, Aksum become the dominant state on the plateau. The kingdom was at this time the main African commercial partner of the Roman empire along the Red Sea route. An urban society, reflecting a local pattern, arose again on the plateau and agricultural production was surely improved.

In the mid-first millennium AD, after the introduction of Christianity, the kingdom reached its maxim expansion. It was an important political and commercial partner of the Byzantine empire. The population increased remarkably and urbanism reached its peak.

By late first millennium AD

The increase in population and agricultural production probably caused the exhaustion of the soils and the deforestation. Rainfall also reduced, which might have caused droughts and famines, and the depopulation of the plateau in the late first millennium AD. At the same time, the Arab political and commercial expansion through northeast Africa and along the Red Sea isolated the kingdom from the main interchange circuits. The Christian kingdom survived, but its centre shifted southwards.

In the first half of the second millennium AD, towns apparently no longer existed on the Tigrean plateau, but a few Islamic ports, connected with the Arab commercial activity along the Red Sea, occurred along the coast. - ends - by Fattovich

In relation to the above,...

"researchers have been confronted with archeological indicators which suggest that its [D'mt's] relationship with the Sabean complex across the red sea, which was experiencing its golden age then, allowed the Sabean complex's good fortunes to spill over to D'mt. It has to be kept in mind that "having influenced" is not the same thing as "being responsible for the origins" of an entire cultural complex. Both regions on either side of the Red sea have influenced the other side at some point or another over the course of history." - by Mystery Solver

Conclusion - Present author's input: Urbanization processes, as relayed in the layout above, are largely the product of in situ social processes at different time frames, each impacted by the prevailing environmental and external socio-political influences or pressures specific to the times in question. Thus, social complexes like Da'amat, for example, should be viewed within the context of ongoing in situ urbanization in the area, impacted by the then existing trade-network environments of each development phase.

On different note, interesting, is the Aksumite architecture of the Stelae:

Between ~ 3rd & 4th century:

The stelae were carved mainly from solid blocks of nepheline syenite, a weather-resistant rock similar in appearance to granite, and are believed to have come from the quarries of Wuchate Golo several miles to the west of Aksum. After being cut from the rock walls there, they would have been dragged by organized manpower to the site of their installation, where finer carving awaited a few of the stelae. The impetus for this organizational effort appears to have been commemorative: there are many burials in this area and elaborate tombs are situated near the foremost group of the largest stelae. The wide variation in size and carving sophistication is most likely due to the varying degrees of social status and wealth of the deceased. Although the identities of the persons who sponsored them are not known, the tallest stelae probably commemorated royalty while smaller works were most likely commissioned by local elite. - Courtesy Metmuseum.org

An ancient African tradition; and possible ties to ancient "Sudanese" architectural traditions; from Stuart Munro-Hay:

Aksumite Domestic Architecture

...It is possible that the original inspiration for the design of the decorated stelae came from the South Arabian mud-brick multi-storey palaces familiar to the Aksumites from their involvements in that country, rather than from Ethiopian examples. On some of the Aksumite podia there could conceivably have been erected high tower-like structures of mud-brick around a wooden frame, such as that found at Mashgha in the Hadhramawt (Breton et al. 1980: pls. VIII, X) looking rather like the great stelae. But no evidence for such Yemeni-style buildings actually survives in Ethiopia, nor is there any archaeological indication there for mud-brick architecture. Alternatively, and more probably, the stelae could have been exaggerated designs based on the Aksumite palaces; and here there is archaeological support, since the structure called the `IW Building' partly cleared by the excavations of Neville Chittick (Munro-Hay 1989), included just such wood-reinforced walls.

…The origins of the stelae are very difficult to disentangle. Attributions of stelae in Ethiopia to the pre-Aksumite period, though customarily accepted (Munro-Hay 1989: 150), are not necessarily correct (Fattovich 1987: 47-8). A stele tradition appears nevertheless to have existed in the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderlands, and in parts of northern Ethiopia and Eritrea in pre-Aksumite times. Fattovich suggests, plausibly enough, that stelae belong to an ancient African tradition. In the case of the stelae at Kassala and at Aksum — despite the difference in time and the difference in the societies which erected them — he sees a similarity in several features. These include the suggestion that `the monoliths are not directly connected with specific burials' (Fattovich 1987: 63). However, this is questionable as far as the Aksum stelae are concerned, now that it has been possible to analyse the results of Chittick's work. Though it is not yet easy to identify tombs for all the stelae, it does seem that, at the Aksum cemeteries, wherever archaeological investigations have been possible there is a case for suggesting that stelae and tombs are directly associated. - S. Munro-Hay

Setting the record straight? With regards to Munro-Hay's reference to Fattovich, pertaining to the association of Aksumite Stelae with burials, the said attribution of the former to the latter had been contested elsewhere, and this is how it was followed up:

"The Aksumite culture emerged from local traditions, including partly the pre-Aksumite one. A typical feature of this culture was the large funerary stelae, up to 33 m high, probably deriving from the stelae marking the ‘Gash Group’ burial grounds, suggesting a cultural link with the late prehistorical chiefdoms of the lowlands (Fattovich 1987b; Fattovich 1988)." - R. Fattovich, 2002.

The present author's reaction to the above was: It is interesting that Fattovich should mention the above, in his publication of The development of urbanism in the northern Horn of Africa in ancient and medieval times, 2002, when Mr. Munro Hay has this to say about his work from 1987:

"Fattovich suggests, plausibly enough, that stelae belong to an ancient African tradition. In the case of the stelae at Kassala and at Aksum — despite the difference in time and the difference in the societies which erected them — he sees a similarity in several features. These include the suggestion that `the monoliths are not directly connected with specific burials' (Fattovich 1987: 63)..." - S. Munro-Hay, 1991.

Mr. Munro Hay does mention the date and page of the particular source he is supposedly referencing from, though unfortunately, the title of the particular Fattovich work had not been provided to the extent to which the present author is able to access the work [of Mr. Munro Hay]...which, seems to be a reasonable portion of the work in question (Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity), i.e., as far one's understanding of the message being communicated goes. This aforementioned Munro Hay publication came out back in 1991. The 1987 Fattovich publications that Munro Hay's reference could possibly be taken from, are the following:

R. Fattovich: Remarks on the peopling of the northern Ethiopian-Sudanese borderland in ancient historical times, 1987a

R. Fattovich: Some Remarks on the Origins of the Aksumite Stelae’, 1987b

So Munro Hay's reference, if they were taken from either of the above mentioned publications, then those are the only two 1987 publications the present author was able to come across. So, the p63 of either work, might contain R. Fattovichs claim on "monoliths".

In any case, R. Fattovich has made his viewpoint clear in the aforementioned publication of the title, The development of urbanism in the northern Horn of Africa in ancient and medieval times, as of 2002! — Follow up ends.

Cranio-morphological Variation

Cranio-facial variation is perhaps the most overrated phenotypic aspect of human body in societies, aside from skin tone. Not surprising, considering that it is the most regularly exposed part of the body that noticeably sports considerable variation, and goes without saying, forms a biological basis around which an individual's unique identity is established. Socio-ethnic identification is secondary to individual identity in society. Such is the obviousness of cranio-facial variation that images of certain archetypes or "idealized" types have been implanted or socially conditioned in the minds of folks, as socio-ethnic identifiers; this took a particularly notorious turn from ca. 19th century within European bio-anthropological circles, wherein human populations were grouped into narrow rigid "idealized" types, which were usually also identified with major geographical locations. These were presented as non-overlapping types, as though the so-grouped human populations didn't sport intra-group and intra-population variation, and by extension, variation manifestation that is shared with groups outside a reference point group. Howells types rely on such typological groups, and which Forensic science has embraced via Fordisc 2.0. Recent studies have shown that such approach is considerably limited in its ability to account for intra-group variation, and hence, fails the test of classifying individuals of a given population to the correct population of origin, because an 'unknown' or a 'known' specimen may well cluster with individuals in not one but multiple populations. A study on Spanish cranial series ended up having the said specimens cluster all over the map, with individuals in the series clustering with a multitude of groups spanning continents.

"Variation in racial classification represents the lack of a Spanish sample within the FORDISC 2.0 database as well as the human variation inherent within them. Individual crania were classified according to the best fit with the existing samples of the database, but the samples clearly were inadequate to elucidate the specific geographical origin of the overall Spanish sample…some crania were classified into groups with no clear geographic or ancestral relationship with the Spanish sample…

The authors also agree that additional and more complete samples from different geographical regions and groups are needed to augment the existing databases."

"race classification of all individuals in this sample using the Forensic Data Bank option. Of the 95 individuals, 42 (44 percent) were classified as white, 35 percent as black, 9 percent as Hispanic, 4 percent as Japanese, 4 percent as American Indian, and the remaining three individuals as Chinese and Vietnamese" - Ubelaker et al., Application of Forensic Discriminant Functions to a Spanish Cranial Sample, 2002.

Williams et al. 2005 provided another example of this, when their examination of Meroitic cranial series showed that the series couldn't be classified into a single homogeneous entity, but rather, produced clusters with multiple series from distinct geographical regions. They say:

The Howells series. Fordisc 2.0 could not effectively classify ten of the crania, and of the remainder, eight were identified as Late Period Dynastic Egyptian, six as Zalavar, four as Easter Islander, three as Lake Alexandrina Tribes, and three as Norse (Medieval Norway). Eight were not significantly different from eight separate populations: Teita, Andaman Islands, Zulu, Arikara, Santa Cruz Island, Ainu, Hokkaido, and Atayal.

"The Howells series. Fordisc 2.0 could not effectively classify ten of the crania, and of the remainder, eight were identified as Late Period Dynastic Egyptian, six as Zalavar, four as Easter Islander, three as Lake Alexandrina Tribes, and three as Norse (Medieval Norway). Eight were not significantly different from eight separate populations: Teita, Andaman Islands, Zulu, Arikara, Santa Cruz Island, Ainu, Hokkaido, and Atayal."

“Fordisc 2.0 classified the Nubian crania with populations over an enormous geopraphic range, including North and Central Europe, Easter Island, the Andaman Islands, Japan, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia, and North America. “

“If Fordisc 2.0 is revealing genetic admixture of Late Period Dynastic Egypt and Meroitic Nubia, then one must also consider these ancient Meroitic Nubians to be part of Hungarian, part Easter Islander, part Norse, and part Australian Aborigine, with smaller contributions from the Ainu, Teita, Zulu, Santa Cruz, Andaman Islands, Arikara, Ayatal, and Hokkaido populations. In fact, all human groups are essentially heterogeneous, including samples within Fordisc 2.0. Using Fst heritability tests, Relethford (1994) demonstrated that Howells’s cranial samples exhibit far more variation within than between skeletal series. There is no reason to assume that the heterogeneity of the Late Period Dynastic Egyptian population exceeds that characterizing our Nubian sample. This heterogeneity may also characterize the populations in the Forensic Data Bank; Fordisc 2.0 classified the Meroitic Nubians not as either all black or all white but as black, white, Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, and Native American.”

“We suggest that skeletal specimens or samples cannot be accurately classified by geography or by racial affinity because of (1) the wide variation in crania of the known series that crosscuts geographic populations (polymorphism), (2) the clinal pattern of human variation, and (3) cultural and environmental factors. Even a presumably homogeneous population such as the Meroitic Nubians shows extensive variation that preclude its classification as a geographic group.”

Apparently multiple variables go into shaping variations in human crano-facial development. Williams et al. put this simply, when they say:

“Finally, the assumption that cranial form is an immutable “racial” character is very likely to be false, given the diversity of studies of immigrants and the known effects of food preparation and masticatory stress upon cranial form. Cranial form, like other aspects of the body, is a phenotype partly determined by heredity but also strongly influenced by the conditions of life.”

As far as the "conditions of life" is concerned, "acclimatization" is one notable factor. Michael A. Little and Jere D. Haas summarize it, when they say:

“there is a recognition of the importance of the process of acclimatization. Acclimatization is defined as a biological response to repeated exposure to a climatic stressor (Prosser 1964). It is an expression of the genetic plasticity of the population, and with acclimatization, it is assumed that an adaptive response can occur without genetic change. Three forms of physiological acclimatization have been recognized: (1) simple, reversible acclimatization-a physiological response to a stressful environment that gradually disappears at the cessation of the stress; (2)irreversible acclimatization—acquired as a result of climatic stress but remaining after the stress is removed; and (3) developmental acclimatization— much like irreversible acclimatization except that the exposure must occur at a particular time during the growth process. Until the process of acclimatization was appreciated and its varieties identified much inter-operation variation was attributed to genetic difference. Attempting to define the limits of acclimatization has become as important as defining the underlying genetic basis of adaptation. Indeed it is only after acclimatization is accounted for that genetic adaptations can be identified.

A third manner by which contemporary studies of climatic adaptation differ from earlier efforts is through an appreciation of the role of culture (Baker 1960). Anthropologists since the time of Darwin have played lip service to cultural factors using such generalities as “sexual selection” and “cultural selection.” But it is only with recent empirical studies that cultural mechanisms are being identified and quantified. These have shown that culture is a buffer that modifies rather than eliminates climatic exposure (Wulson 1949, Planalp 1971, Little and Hanna 1978).” - Courtesy of Michael A. Little and Jere D. Haas—Human Population Biology: A Transdisciplinary Science, 1989.

From the genetic standpoint, it is generally known that when only a small segment of a larger population diverges and then locates elsewhere to assume the role as a founder group, the likelihood of loss of diversity is a strong possibility that goes along with it. Hence, pronounced reduction of diversity characterizing the newly-divergent offshoot group allows the distribution of certain traits to figure more prominently than the case would be in the parent population, and alternatively, other traits die out more dramatically. The result of such development, has been invoked in marked departure of offshoot founder groups from their ancestral population. As Little & Haas note, cultural behavior patterns chime in to "modify" these variations. Hence, putting acclimatization effects aside [not to leave out natural selection in the complex mix of factors], on one hand, certain variations brought upon by genetic mutation can be quite dramatic secondary to random genetic drift, wherein certain variations are magnified while others not so much; on another hand, cultural behavior patterns, which can be exemplified in "sexual selection" tendencies, factor in and contribute further to the sustenance and prevalence of certain elements of the overall variation over other elements, and hence, lending hand in certain intra-population morphological tendencies.

*Subject to modification upon new information without notice.
________________________________________________________
*References

—Ubelaker et al., Application of Forensic Discriminant Functions to a Spanish Cranial Sample, 2002

—Williams et al. 2005, Forensic Misclassification of Ancient Nubian Crania: Implications for Assumptions about Human Variation.

—Michael A. Little and Jere D. Haas—Human Population Biology: A Transdisciplinary Science, 1989.

—Discussion link: Nile Valley discussion board.

U6: A standalone clade?

It is a lineage that spans west and east Africa, and spilling over to portions of southern Europe and "southwest Asia".

In looking at the following diagram...


For those with inadequate screen size, view the above image in full with: here

...it is apparent that at the least, U5 and U6 diverge into respective branches independent from that of the rest of U macro-haplogroup. Similar observation has been made about U1, which too, seems to have an independent branch from the rest of the U haplogroup. In other words, these three—either U1, U5 or U6—don't appear to have an ancestral clade within the main haplogroup U branch which is defined by the nucleotide transition at 1811 or vice versa. This is how it goes, courtesy of Maca-Meyer et al. 2003:

U6 is defined by two motifs represented by positions in the coding and HVR respectively: 3348 and 16172.

U5 is defined by the transitions at: 3197, 9477, 13617 and 16270.

And the rest of the U haplgroup [sans U1], defined by the mutation designated by position: 1811.

Maca-Meyer et al. add that:

U presents the following mutations with respect to rCRS: 73, 263, 311i, 750, 1438, 2706, 4769, 7028, 8860, 11467, 11719, 12308, 12372, 14766 and 15326. - Maca-Meyer et al. 2003

N macrohaplogroup is removed from the root of L3 by about 5 mutations, we are told. This is relevant, in that U haplogroup is often posited as having split from R, which derives from Haplogroup N. Speaking of haplogroup U splitting from R, we are told that this is the case via three mutations represented by: 11467, 12308 and 12372

Hence, the family association has been made between U6 [as is for U1 & U5] and the rest of the U haplogroup, primarily thanks to sharing of the above mentioned transition trio; if it weren't for these basic transitions, U6 would have likely just been considered as just another separate sub-branch of haplogroup R. Perhaps, if a clade was located—sharing the same transition trio but devoid of any known downstream coding or HVR mutations in either U6, U1 or U5 and the rest of haplogroup U, it could provide us with a possible candidate as the proto-U ancestor that gave rise to the divergent U branches in question. However, to date, no such lineage has come to light.

In their publication "The mtDNA Legacy of the Levantine Early Upper Palaeolithic in Africa" - 2006, Anna Olivieri et al.'s argument, like that of Gonzalez et al., depends on the idea that U6 entered Africa in a parallel dispersal with M1, which the present author has demonstrated elsewhere to be a weak hypothesis [see: Mitochondrial DNA M1 haplogroup: A Response To Ana M. Gonzalez et al. 2007]. M1 basal coding markers emerge from that of an African background, and the "missing-link" lineage of the M Macrohaplogroup was found in a sub-Saharan sample [specifically in a Senegalese sample].

Furthermore, Olivieri et al. 2006 themselves acknowledge:

An ancient arrival of M1 in Africa (or in its close proximity) is supported by the fact that none of the numerous M haplogroups in Asia (20, 21) harbors any of the distinguishing M1 root mutations, and by the lack of Asian-specific clades within M1 (and U6), as might be expected in the case of a more recent arrival. The arrival of M1 and U6 in Africa 40 to 45 ka would temporally overlap with the event(s) that led to the peopling of Europe by modern humans.

Not to mention...

Indeed, M1 and U6 in Africa are mostly restricted to Afro-Asiatic–speaking areas.

Why is that? Where did the Afrisan super language phylum emerge? Answer: East Africa.

And they say...

The hypothesis of a back-migration from Asia to Africa is also strongly supported by the current phylogeography of the Y chromosome variation, because haplogroup K2 and paragroup R1b*, both belonging to the otherwise Asiatic macrohaplogroup K, have been observed at high frequencies only in Africa (15, 16). However, because of the relatively low molecular resolution of the Y chromosome phylogeny as compared to that of the mtDNA, it was impossible to come to a firm conclusion about the precise timing of this dispersal (15, 16).

To which, elsewhere [see: R1*-M173 bearing chromosomes in Cameroon], I commented:

By the way, previous genetic research work made very enthusiastic attempts to correlate the likes of U6 and possible "Eurasian"-tagged mtDNA with R1*-M173, supposedly as an attempt to buttress a possible back-migration into Africa; all but failed, with results showing considerable African mtDNA gene pool instead, for populations bearing these chromosomes.

Not only is there lack of apparent parallelism between R1* paragroup distribution and those markers, as the authors seem to be so desperately yearning for, but also the paragroup is essentially absent in all Afrasan speaking groups but those in the Northeast African corner. The marker is even rarer in so-called Southwest Asia than it is in Africa.

Thus, the re-examination point:

— U6 with respect to U5 , or U6 with respect to U1, and U6 with respect to the rest of haplogroup U, doesn't share defining motifs, outside of the basic transitions, particularly at the aforementioned position trio.

— In relation to the above, U6 doesn't have a common recent ancestor that is a U5 sub-lineage or vice versa, U6 doesn't have a common recent ancestor that is a U1 sub-lineage or vice versa, nor does U6 have a common recent ancestor that is a U*(xU1, U5) sub-lineage or vice versa.

...brings us to the question of:

Could U6 then be a standalone clade, in that, short of the aforementioned basic mutations by which the U-designated lineages diverge from macro-haplogroup R — particularly at 11467, 12308 and 12372, it is essentially mutually-independent of the other U-designated lineages?

Simply put...

The relationship of U6 with other U haplogroups is only inferred from non-U subclade-specific basal markers.

U6 is a branch on its own, independent from other U groups, and proto-U6 has not been located to date.

Time will tell, as to whether much more improved resolution of mtDNA will bear out the possible candidate of the elusive proto-U6 ancestor, but until then, it would appear that the proto-U6 bearing population was quite small in size, such that proto-U6 itself would eventually be overwhelmed and essentially be erased by expansion of descendant U6 carriers and possibly, incursions from other populations. It is uncertain whether a proto-U6 ancestor would have been the very same ancestor that begot U1, U5 and U*(xU6,U1,U5) respectively elsewhere, or whether it would have been a single step or a few steps genetic-neighbor to those which begot the latter U groups, but it appears that the latter respective ancestors too were modestly represented 'population-wise', such that they too would have been overwhelmed by subsequent demographic expansions that gave rise to descendant populations and incoming groups from elsewhere. Whatever may be said about a proto-U6 ancestor's origin, one thing is clear: U6 itself is an autochthonous African marker, which would eventually spill over to parts of Europe, particularly those hugging the Mediterranean sea, and parts of "southwest Asia". It too, like M1 (clickable), has been implicated in the expansion of proto-Afrasan (aka proto-Afro-Asiatic) and/or Afrasan speakers outside of mainland Africa.
__________________________________________________________
*References:

— Maca-Meyer et al. 2003, Mitochondrial DNA transit between West Asia and North Africa inferred from U6 phylogeography.

Social Democracy for Africa? Part 4

Carried on from Part 3; also see: Part 1 and Part 2

Today, “Cold War-like” proxy battlegrounds are being prepared in Africa against emerging opportunistic bourgeois rivals from the East, notably China, to the big business interests of the major capitalist colonial economies. Earlier elsewhere (clickable), the present author said:

“With the growth of local industry through "protectionism" [and fueled by the Slave Trade, in the case of capitalist colonial economic powers], as was the case in the capitalist colonial economic powers, nations were able to develop sufficiently large home markets for their local industry, and only when they became large enough to compete globally, did governments relax "protectionism", but all the while doing everything possible to deter fledgling industries of the economically less advantaged nations from flourishing, by telling the governments of those nations to not resort to "protectionism" for the sake of "fair trade". The capitalist jargon for that concept is, “free-market trade”, wherein capitalist economic powers proceed to sell manufactured goods at competitive prices—facing virtually no trade barriers with the lifting of tariffs in the destination economies—and thereby crushing fledgling local industries therein, which are overwhelmed by unfettered stiff competition from bigger foreign corporations, while at the same time, buying cheap or free colonial-allocated land and exploiting abundant pool of “cheap” labor at what ultimately amounts to slave-labor wages. Variably, governments of those "less advantaged nations" of course cooperated accordingly, to the peril of their own economies—this seems to be the case for many economies in Africa.

Part of the reason [of the spineless compromise by ruling bourgeois African layers] had to do with military pressure from the capitalist colonial economic powers, and part of it had to do with debt-regime leveraging by those same colonial economic powers. When many of the formerly colonized regions of Africa got their so-called "independence", many of them also inherited debts incurred by their local colonial regimes. Moreover, as many sections of their societies were devastated by lack of social spending under colonial occupation, many of the "newly independent" African regimes had to borrow money, in many cases from the very same colonial regimes that they sought to free themselves from, for social reconstruction programs. As a result, many ended up incurring hefty debts, which former colonial regimes sought to exploit and use as economic leverage to place dictates on the "newly independent" and usually weak economies. The vehicles used to utilize debt-regimes as leverage, are the likes of IMF and World Bank. Political leverage was continued through the setting up of institutions like the United Nations, and the undemocratic and "permanent" membership of certain "wealthy" nations therein.”

Additionally, with respect to those debts, it is necessary to revisit how capitalist colonial economic powers begrudgingly gave out loans, and so-called financial assistance; In light of the Cold War, Ann Talbot spells it out:

“In this situation [Cold War environment] they realised that they must rely on the Pan-African movement to control the growing protests. The [British] Foreign Office pointed out that “Pan-Africanism, in itself, is not necessarily a force that we need regard with suspicion and fear. On the contrary, if we can avoid alienating it and guide it on lines generally sympathetic to the free world, it may well prove in the longer term a strong, *indigenous barrier to the penetration of Africa by the Soviet Union.*”

A necessary part of this perspective was to provide the independent African regimes with aid. “If Africa is to remain loyal to the Western cause, its economic interests must coincide with, and reinforce, its political sympathies; and one of the major problems of the relationship between the West and Africa will be to ensure an adequate flow of economic assistance, and particularly capital, through various channels to the newly emerging States. On any reckoning the amounts required will be considerable; and, if the Western Powers are unreasonably insensitive to the economic aspirations of independent Africa, the Governments of the new states may be compelled to turn to the Soviet Union for the assistance that they will certainly need...”

As already noted above, the capitalist colonial economic powers knew very well that governments of the “newly independent” states “certainly needed” financial assistance, given that they [the colonial regimes] were the ones responsible for total economic devastation in those states. So, it was up to them to jump in quickly to fill up the role that would have otherwise been open to the Soviet Union, given the colonial legacy of capitalist colonial economic powers. Today, China and others from the East seek to fill up the vacancy created by the demise of the Soviet Union in exploiting gaps in the capitalist colonial economic powers’ ever diminishing financial assistance to bourgeois regimes in Africa. The “free world” mentioned in the British Foreign Office’s statement is capitalist jargon for “free-market”, which entails privatization and deregulation of big business spanning the entire industrial sector and the agricultural sector, and even to social sectors, thereby “making the government as small as possible”— capitalist jargon for effectively reducing, if not eliminating, the role of government in consolidation of the aforementioned sectors via nationalization and spending on social welfare. As one might recall, the Soviets were relatively late in building up military bases in Africa, and started out largely with exploiting calls for assistance in the then emerging so-called “newly independent” African states. So, there is talk of the need for resurgent effort by the capitalist colonial economic powers to consolidate their role and presence in Africa. In the US for instance, presidential-hopeful Barack Obama says this:

“The Chinese are everywhere throughout Africa. They are building roads...bridges...government buildings...hospitals...We’re not doing that because we don’t think it is important and, over time, that’s going to have an enormous impact on us”

But in all this, one aspect should not allowed to be lost; the opportunistic embracing of Pan-African nationalism by the capitalist colonial economic powers.

With regards to military pressure on bourgeois regimes in less economically advantaged economies, this has particularly increased since the demise of the Soviet Union; the US has particularly become more ruthlessly reckless in its foreign policy, upon assuming the role of “sole superpower”. With respect to uncooperative bourgeois regimes of minor economies, the approach usually goes like this:

*First economic isolation and [double-standard] propaganda against the regime, to energize local dissident political elements [usually by propping up "western"-friendly bourgeoisie elements] and instill popular uprising which would collapse the regime; if that doesn’t work, then:

* paramilitary action via covert coup or assassination attempts; and if that doesn’t work, then:

*full blown military action to toss out the regime.

These steps can be seen in the example of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, a former “Western stooge”, when he was compelled to make the “wrong decision” in attaining more capital. One or the other of these steps now seem to be under play or is under way in Zimbabwe, in attempts to root out another former unwavering “Western stooge” turned “anti-western“ tyrant: Robert Mugabe, who also made the wrong “decisions” in an attempt to attain capital for his crumbling economy, brought about by his resolute subservience to IMF and World Bank instructions.

On this point, again Talbot chimes in:

“While relations were often tense between the new Pan-Africanist leaders and the West, there was a general recognition that their apparently socialist policies, particularly the provision of welfare measures, were the price to be paid for preventing a further upsurge of popular protest and strikes.

Pan-Africanist leaders were able to maintain a certain ability to maneuver because of the Cold War, which allowed them to extract more concessions from the West than would otherwise have been possible. But if they overstepped a fine line they could find themselves victim of a Western backed coup, as did Nkrumah, or even of assassination. The Belgian, British and US governments all concluded that Patrice Lumumba had to be murdered when he called on the Soviet Union to send troops to support his government in the Congo. Others such as Nyerere survived because they proved their usefulness to the West in the Cold War. Whatever befell them later does not alter the fact that these “African Socialists” were put in power by the colonial regimes because of their ability to prevent a genuine socialist movement developing in Africa.

The power-aspiring bourgeois figures who joined popular anti-colonial uprisings by self-appointing themselves as the articulators of popular dissent, were able “to prevent a genuine socialist movement”, precisely because they sought to draw phenomenal personal wealth within the framework of the socio-economic order set up by local colonial regimes by way of shallow populist rhetoric of Pan-African tinged “nationalism”; they didn't seek doing away with the said socio-economic order. It is no wonder then, colonial drawn political boundaries have virtually been left untouched by bourgeois regimes in “newly independent” African states; this even as they speak of “Pan-Africanism” and “African Union”. So, in this day and age, when one sees ruling African bourgeois give unfettered access to big business interests of capitalist colonial economic powers, it must be understood that they do so, with the understanding that a thin layer of the African bourgeois also benefits from this, at the expense of the African proletariat. This brings us to the importance of mass popular anti-colonial uprising in compelling local colonial regimes to issue symbolic “independence”:

“With the end of the Cold War the West has been emboldened to pull the plug on the policies that its aid has financed in Africa. Yet there remains a certain anxiety in Lancaster's mind. She implicitly recognizes that it was the growth of strikes and social movements that obliged the colonial powers to grant independence. The “African socialists” [Lancaster’s jargon for the African bourgeois] she condemns played a vital role in containing this development within the framework of nationalism. She expresses the concern that in dispensing with Pan-Africanism, the West may have replaced “an economically unsustainable development model with one that could eventually prove to be politically unsustainable if the pace of economic progress failed to accelerate.” With an instinct for the interests of the ruling class, she is aware that the real threat to corporate profits came not from the Pan-Africanists, but from the African working class and impoverished masses—and can do so again.” - Ann Talbot

A swell summarization; Pan-African “nationalism”, as has other forms of nationalism, has ended up disarming the African masses while leaving the socio-economic order set up by local colonial regimes intact. With its promises of a revolutionary development for the African proletariat, it actually ended up being counterrevolutionary. Notwithstanding its all-inclusive catchphrase, “Pan-Africanism” in Africa has largely taken the shape of nationalism at state level as opposed to continental-wide level; that is to say, ‘nationalism in one country’. This can be readily seen from the fact that colonial-drawn political boundaries have virtually been left untouched, since the so-called “independence” of African states. This was also a sure sign, that Pan-Africanist led regimes could be counted on in maintaining colonial hold on the territories without overt colonial military presence. What colonialism did, was that it ‘proletarianised’ African masses into the modern working class within the capitalist framework. This unintended outcome of capitalist colonialism was to also become its major threat; the African working classes expanded in the aftermath of the World War, as opposed to the vice versa, and the rural areas were bridged with the urban centers even more so. The result was that, with evermore repressive exploitation by local capitalist colonial regimes, the African proletariat grew more and more radicalized, leading to growing mass anti-colonial uprisings, not unlike other mass uprisings seen across Europe and elsewhere at beginning of the 20th century, in the aftermath of the first World War.

Today, some fervent capitalist apologists claim that the problem with Africa, is that Europeans didn’t colonize it long enough, and interestingly enough, the capitalist colonial regimes actually intended to remain there much longer, if not indefinitely, but it was the tenacity of the African working class to be free that earned them “independence”, which turned out to be “token independence” thanks to the high-jacking of popular anti-colonial movements by bourgeois “Pan-Africanists”. So, the main problem with Africa, is precisely that it was colonized and raped by European capitalist colonial economies and that bourgeois “Pan-Africanists” derailed mass African movements, by high-jacking them and subordinating them to colonial socio-economic order, and in doing so, helping Europeans to continue raping and exploiting Africa; the problem is not, as colonial apologists like Lancaster say, i.e. due to “African socialism” —a capitalist jargon for bourgeois “Pan-Africanism”—or innate inability of Africans to govern by themselves. The problem was and remains that the bourgeois “Pan-Africanists” rescued European colonialism from genuine social revolution of the African proletariat. So, capitalism has definitely been a disaster for Africans. We’ve also gone through in great length, how the revolutionary social democracy plan put in place in the October Russian revolution aftermath had digressed into a counterrevolutionary form—that is, Stalin’s ‘socialism in one country’ [the anti-thesis of Marxist thought] bureaucratic apparatus, ultimately brought about by the defeat of the European working classes, who were just weakened by the Great War and deteriorating economic situation. The Stalin bureaucratic apparatus’ relative isolation compelled it to turn to more opportunistic and counterrevolutionary antics both in Russia and abroad, thereby discrediting the communist apparatus to broad masses, including those in Africa. So, obviously Stalin’s brand of socialism proved to be a disaster as well, and this brings us right back to the question posed: what about “social democracy” based on Marxist thought, which means ultimately doing away with statehood/nation-state, and political dictatorship of the working proletariat?

When asked for a viable alternative solution for the cause of the working proletariat, opponents of social democracy are hard pressed to come up with one that precludes well, either capitalism or social democracy. Human social evolution culminated into consolidation of hierarchical society under centralized ruling system, and interestingly enough, the earliest attested hierarchical-structured complex—spanning a large territory—brought under central-governing to be deemed a true nation state, took place on the northeast corner of the continent. But human social evolution is ongoing, and has not stunted or reached its final course upon attaining the modern industrial social structure, as capitalist apologists like to rationalize. The industrial revolution which was fueled by the Slave Trade and led to colonialism, created the modern industrial working class out of the working masses of both feudal or semi-feudal social structures and other pre-existing forms of socio-economic order.

With the rise of the modern working proletariat, and with the ever acute social contradictions of bourgeois socio-economic apparatus—dominated by capitalism in the global network, a new workers’ mass movement had emerged by the turn of 19th century, and especially in the aftermaths of the first and second World Wars. On and off stabilization of capitalism and Stalin's betrayal of socialism have in some ways delayed successful workers’ revolution towards a social democracy path, but as globalization progresses—which at the moment serves to do away with national political boundaries only for big business—working classes across the globe get more and more alert to their common socio-economic hardships. The communications revolution only speeds up this process. This coupled with globalization, as the system develops, will facilitate faster-paced and wider ranging spread of organization-effort campaigns for the working class, for thus far—as history has shown time and again—working class organization in a single country often leads to unionism, which doesn’t have enough clout, is susceptible to bourgeois infiltration and is quickly brought under bourgeois handle...because of both the proletariat's insufficient understanding of the precise nature of the complex socio-economic apparatus of which the waged worker is a small part, and lack of genuine workers’ political party. Be as it may, from the African working proletariat [as with any other] standpoint, the only way to find out the benefits of a social democracy governed from a purely materialistic standpoint [as opposed to idealism which breeds reaction through sectarianism; government should be separated from religion, just as science has], is to give it a shot, allow it to blossom and ultimately do away with the concept of statehood, which almost always guarantees counterrevolution!
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*References:

—Quotes, courtesy of wsws.org

Social Democracy for Africa? Part 3

Continued from Part 2

Recalling on the Monbiot reform ideas that were recommended here, vis-à-vis proper and fair African integration into the global economy, via democratization of international institutions like UN and WTO, while doing away with debt creating & collecting regimes like the World Bank and IMF; well, these would obviously be short term measures, which would have been done in the sort of “transitory period” mentioned above, since social democracy was and is expected to be protracted, and attained at a yet undetermined time. It is dependent on the readiness of the proletariat in not only minor economies, but also in major capitalist economies. In the long term, these measures cannot be viable substitutions for social democracy, in alleviating not only the internal contradictions of a capitalist economy, but also on the global scale. Simply put, the changes recommended by Monbiot, though certainly doable in the short run, have not yet been undertaken, precisely because they are incompatible with the capitalist apparatus. Consider for instance this piece,

June 24, 2008

The City of London is to cancel its free-parking concession for electric vehicles because... the scheme has become too successful.

Battery-car maker NICE has branded the move "barmy" and pointed out that it has come in the week the British government is expected to publish its renewable energy strategy - which will point to the benefits of boosting the market for electric vehicles.

"The reasons for scrapping this incentive are plain daft," said NICE co-founder Julian Wilford. "The city’s Department of Environmental Services has said free parking encourages people to use electric cars; surely that’s the point?

"Electric cars emit no air pollutants or carbon dioxide and are far cleaner than conventional cars, buses and taxis. We think the city’s decision has nothing to do with improving the environment but everything to do with short-term financial gain."

The company has welcomed moves by forward-thinking authorities such as Westminster Council. Working with EDF, the Energy Saving Trust and Transport for London, Westminster has installed 10 new "juice points" across - on-street charging sockets for battery cars. More local authorities are now following Westminster’s lead by offering incentives such as residents’ parking concessions and free charging facilities.

"Automakers are moving mountains to bring electric models to market but we have cars on sale now," Wilford said.

"Removing the parking incentive creates uncertainty at a time when people need clear, long-term signals on the benefits of clean electric motoring."

Courtesy of motoring.co.za

An example of a good thing being incompatible with capitalist objectives. If nothing else, it shows that capitalism isn’t necessarily a progressive vehicle for technology; rather, in certain cases, it actually purposefully impedes important technological progression. In fact, the electric vehicle technology had all along been with us since the early 20th century, and yet even now—in the 21st century, society isn’t being allowed to take full advantage of it. The heavy-polluting internal combustion engine was thus outmoded a long time ago. Another example, say in the US, is the crumbling infrastructure; most notably exemplified by the recent Minneapolis bridge collapse, and the breaking levees across parts of the nation. In light of the recent flooding events in Louisiana and the US Midwest for example, it was repeatedly brought to government attention over the years, that the preexisting levees were outmoded and were in need of replacement by better designed and more robust types, yet virtually nothing has since been done to correct the problem. Funding for moving forward space programs in areas where the search for extraterrestrial natural resources would actually be beneficial to humanity as whole, have seen diminishing funding efforts in countries at the more advanced stages of the space program apparatus, while militarization of space has received more enthusiastic spending by the powers that be. Active efforts have been made in the US by the religious zealots of the financial oligarchy—for example, mainly through bribery [in the form of grants], to lure scientists [*] into making science compatible with religion. Progress in technology has foremost been allowed in areas where it has been resolutely subordinated to the advancement of the profit objectives of capitalism. “Economic viability” has become the capitalist catchphrase for this condition. Technology is usually misconstrued as coming out of capitalism; in actuality, technology occurs side by side the apparatus of capitalism, as processes of modern social development. Therefore, technology and industrialization need not be the monopoly of capitalism. These are certainly compatible with social democracy, and their importance isn’t obviously lost on major protagonists of this movement; recalling Lenin‘s claim for instance, we have:

“Modern socialist consciousness can arise only on the basis of profound scientific knowledge. Indeed, modern economic science is as much a condition for socialist production as, say, modern technology, and the proletariat can create neither the one nor the other no matter how much it may desire to do so; both arise out of the modern social process.”

..or this from Trotsky,

“A definite renunciation of the theory of an isolated socialist economy will mean, in the course of a few years, an incomparably more rational use of our resources, a swifter industrialization, and better planned and more powerful growth of our own machine construction. It will mean a swifter increase in the number of employed workers and a real lowering of prices — in a word, a genuine strengthening of the Soviet Union in the capitalist environment."

So, the importance of modern science and industrialization is not in question, but how they are subordinated to serve the needs of society as a whole, as opposed to the profit drive of a few.

Getting back to Stalin’s mindset of “socialism in one nation”, one has to only also look at his actions on the international stage. While Lenin and Trotsky continued to build solid ties with social democracy and workers’ political parties in major capitalist European economies, forming a relationship on the international stage which would not subordinate its cause to bourgeois politics in respective countries of the socialist network under any circumstance, Stalin actually consulted and encouraged workers’ political parties in the aforementioned capitalist economies to subordinate themselves to counterrevolutionary bourgeois parties and rulers, presumably as something that would assure their long term survival. This in itself was undoubtedly a fundamental breach of social democracy revolution. Take for instance, the Chinese Communist Party; in 1927, the then dedicated-workers’ party had been engaged in a bitter struggle against the bourgeois-appeasing [including foreign imperialist parties] Kuomintang elements, led by Chiang Kai-shek, who felt that the Communist elements of the United Front [created to tackle the warlords and unify China in post-Qing Dynasty China] were looking to dominate the said Front, when it was advised by Stalin to subordinate its cause and continue to maintain unity with Chiang and his supporters within the United Front. Chiang and his clique had sent their gangster proxies to provoke workers’ militia in Shanghai into armed combat, as a pretext to implement an emergency state and thereof disarm the latter. The Communist Party heeded these Stalin advises, and called on workers’ militias—then under the Communist guidance—to disarm themselves before Kuomintang troops under Chiang’s instruction entered Shanghai. As it turned out, this disarming was a futile undertaking; Kuomintang troops upon arrival, proceeded to ruthlessly crush the Shanghai workers’ militia anyway. The result would be, Communist party members who survived Kuomintang brute dispersed and sought refuge in the countryside areas; the Chinese Communist party never recovered from that onslaught. Whatever remained of it, eventually turned to counterrevolutionary forces in China, and Mao would eventually head it. And who could forget the betrayal of the Spanish Revolution, as a product of Stalinist Soviet influence?!

Even with respect to Germany, the German Communist Party [KPD] decided not to form a united front against the Nazi party with the Social Democracy Party [SPD], which was then dubbed as “social fascists”, in line with Stalin’s theory of the “Third Period” — part of a three stage temporal-theory of social conditions for workers' movement. During Stalin's reign and under his influence, several communist parties branded other socialist parties as "social fascists", usually those which professed to be "social democracy" advocates, presumably for being subservient to counterrevolutionary bourgeois regimes at a time when decisive workers revolution was to take the stage. Stalinist communist parties even went as far as to misbrand "Trotskyite" socialist organizations, since the latter's politics was deemed to be distinct from the former. Communist parties that succumbed to Stalin’s influence to some degree or another, as the German Communist party would become years after its botched attempt to overthrow the bourgeois government, refused to be allied to entities branded as such. Now of course, the Social Democracy party itself was then no longer what its name implies; it in fact, did give into bourgeois politics, and hence, no longer a social democracy-implementing entity. Still, a united front between the Social Democracy Party and the Communist Party, despite difference in politics and if only temporarily, would have seen much stronger workers’ offensive against the Nazi political surge, and might have well prevented the coming to power of the Nazi party[1 - clickable; learn about the driver behind Stalin‘s Third Period theory]. In all these political maneuvers of Stalin, he was vehemently opposed by the Left Opposition of the Bolshevik party, headed by Trotsky. Yet, critiques of the latter almost never mention these fundamental differences in the political course undertaken by Stalin on the one hand, and Lenin and Trotsky on the other; rather, they have a vested interest in homogenizing their agenda, and obfuscating their stark differences. Thus, the “Third Period” policy of Stalin itself, amongst his other reckless actions — like signing the non-aggression pact with Hitler and easing the Soviet Nation’s defenses [2 (clickable)] — played no small part in coming to bite Stalin in the behind, when the Nazis were handed power. Nazi Germany would come into conflict with Russia, as Trotsky rightfully predicted.

Stalin himself would purge Trotsky and other Left Opposition members, his harshest opponents, from the party. Today, opponents of Lenin & Trotsky attribute this anti-democratic move to earlier Bolshevik decision to *temporarily* ban quasi-factionalism within the party; they argue that Stalin merely brought back that practice and hence, unfairly singled out by Leninists and Trotskyites alike. What they don’t bother to bring to attention, is the fact that the earlier decision to ban factions was to be an extraordinary *temporary* wartime measure at a time when total party unity was vital for its survival, and was actually voted on by the party constituents; it was not to be made into something of a policy—as was the case with Stalin. In fact, Stalin went further as to even execute and imprison Bolshevik Left Opposition members, some of whom sought refuge outside Russia. During this period, some exiles further examined the economic apparatus of Capitalist societies in which they sought refuge, and as mentioned briefly earlier, noted aspects of it which are reasonable enough to continue using under a social democracy apparatus, and aspects of it which undoubtedly warrant abolishing. These do not amount to reforms; in fact, to recap on SEP’s David North notes:

“It is helpful to keep in mind that Trotsky belonged to a generation of Russian Marxists who had utilized the opportunity provided by revolutionary exile to carefully observe and study the workings of the capitalist system in the advanced countries. They were familiar not only with the oft-described "horrors" of capitalism, but also with its positive achievements. The countless hours they had spent studying Das Kapital were enriched by many years of observing capital in action. Upon their return to Russia — and this applies especially to those who were among Trotsky’s closest associates during the years of exile — they brought with them a keen understanding of the complexities of modern economic organization. If political struggles had not invested the issue with such profoundly tragic implications, they would have dismissed as simply laughable the idea that Russia could somehow leap into socialism merely by nationalizing its own paltry means of production. Far from overtaking and surpassing capitalism on the basis of national autarchy, Trotsky argued that a vital precondition for the development of the Soviet economy along socialist lines was its assimilation of the basic techniques of capitalist management, organization, accounting and production.”

That is to say, don’t fix that which is not broken; adopting “basic techniques of capitalist management, organization, accounting and production” itself is not an ineffectual or flawed concept; rather, these "basic techniques" comprise various social processes that the capitalist apparatus itself inherited and perfected, and whose effectiveness lies with how they are applied: that is, whether they are privatized to benefit the wealthy few, or 'nationalized' to benefit the bulk of society, the majority of which happens to be the modern working class.

Trotsky and the Left Opposition of the Bolshevik party vehemently voiced criticism against Stalin’s turning the party into a bureaucratic one:

"It is in contradictions and differences of opinion that the working out of the party’s public opinion inevitably takes place. To localize this process only within the apparatus, which is then charged to furnish the party with the fruits of its labors in the forms of slogans, orders, etc., is to sterilize the party ideologically and politically … the leading party bodies must heed the voices of the broad party masses and must not consider every criticism a manifestation of factionalism and thereby cause conscientious and disciplined party members to withdraw into closed circles and fall into factionalism" [1] - Ibid., pp. 79-80

Essentially, this is to say that removal of inner-party democracy was actually a recipe for breeding strong factionalism within the party. Trotsky goes on further:

"It frequently happens that the party is able to resolve one and the same problem by different means, and differences arise as to which of these means is the better, the more expeditious, the more economical. These differences may, depending on the question, embrace considerable sections of the party, but that does not necessarily mean that you have there two class tendencies…

There is no doubt that we shall have not one but dozens of disagreements in the future, for our path is difficult and the political tasks as well as the economic questions of socialist organization will unfailingly engender differences of opinion and temporary groupings of opinion. The political verification of all the nuances of opinion by Marxist analysis will always be one of the most efficacious preventive measures for our party. But it is this concrete Marxist verification that must be resorted to, and not the stereotyped phrases which are the defense mechanism of bureaucratism." [2]

Now of course, differences of opinions doesn’t mean that counterrevolutionary anti-Marxist elements should be allowed to blossom within a Marxist political party; that would defeat the whole purpose of the party, which is that, it was created precisely to follow through with Marxist philosophical objectives of social democracy. As long as party members were unequivocally dedicated to Marxist social democracy, i.e. the reason the party was created, inner-party democracy embracing its broad members and differences of opinion thereof, towards a singular goal was to be promoted as the strength of the party; this is what Trotsky was essentially conveying in the pieces above. He feels that taking that democratic element away, actually encourages rather than inhibit the development of “closed circles and factionalism” within the party, which undermines the party. Opponents of Trotsky and Lenin overlook these fundamental differences for reasons already mentioned. Stalin’s nationalistic [in contrast to his predecessors’ internationalized] approach of ‘socialism in one country’— which itself was a reaction to the defeats of workers’ revolution in Europe — was to spread onto other formerly resolutely-dedicated genuine workers’ political parties and communist parties alike oversees [many of which came together as members of the Comintern] through Soviet influence under Stalin, upon defeats of workers’ revolutions. David North put it best:

Trotsky always stressed that the political reaction within the USSR against the program and traditions of October was greatly strengthened by the *defeats* suffered by the *international* working class. The initial setback suffered by the Left Opposition in the late autumn of 1923 was definitely bound up with the defeat of the German Revolution, which dimmed hopes that European workers would in the near future come to the aid of the USSR. This was the climate that created a *broader audience* for the nationalist perspective of socialism in one country. The political disorientation produced by the nationalist line of the Soviet leaders inside the Communist International led, in turn, to *more defeats* for the working class outside the USSR.

Stalinist brand of ‘socialism in one country’ has undoubtedly derailed from the social democracy objective of eventually abolishing statehood, of which the Comintern was setup as the starting point. It was thus a fundamental breach of Marxist social democracy, which opponents of Lenin and Trotsky cease to acknowledge. As a result, socialism has been discredited in the eyes of sections of modern working classes in major capitalist economies and even minor ones, who strive for change but are not effectively organized, nor able to come up with a more viable solution than Marxist schematic for social democracy, other than relying on the confines of “unionism” and pressing for mere social reforms or “concessions“ without actually shaking up the overall apparatus of the repressive bourgeois socio-economic order in which they make their living. Now, comes the question: what has Stalin’s influence done in Africa?

Well, for one, in light of the Cold War, bourgeois African figures of independence struggles against colonialism saw the Soviet Union as a counterweight to the major capitalist colonial powers of the so-called “West”. So, those who came into conflict or fell out of favor with the capitalist colonial economies, found a willing ally in the Soviet Union. So, Africa as elsewhere, became battlegrounds for Western/US-Soviet rivalry. During the Cold War, certain bourgeois African leaders like Gaddafi were able to lean on the Soviets to thumb their noses at the capitalist colonial economies of the “West”, even as the latter actively sought to eliminate them. In the Congo, Patrice Lumumba’s fatal mistake was to turn to the Soviets for help. The colonial capitalist powers in the Congo at the time found an African ally in Mobutu, whose betrayal of Lumumba paved way for the latter’s demise. In Southern Africa, we had the "Western"/Israeli-backed savage apartheid regime fight local resistance by the ANC which had members influenced by the Soviets, while at the same time, fighting Soviet-backed groups in Angola. In the African Horn, similar battles were being waged; with the Ethiopians coming under Soviet influence under the Mengistu regime and the Somalis coming under US/"Western" sphere, the Ethio-Somali conflict had the double feature of being a proxy war between the “Western” interests and Soviet interests. Even today, the Ethio-Somali war is a proxy war, but in a reversal of role—with Ethiopia now backed by the US, while Somali warlords being backed by foreign Islamic fundamentalist groups and Eritrea. These are mere examples, but it goes to show that while Soviet objectives were opportunistic and did not really coincide with the interests of the African masses, capitalist global influence was and still hasn’t worked for Africans. In fact, capitalist colonial powers are to blame for much of the socio-economic chaos that Africans had seen from the 19th century onwards. Today, we have people in the capitalist colonial economies placing blame solely and squarely at the post-independence African bourgeois regimes. One such example that comes to mind, is Carol Lancaster, former deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development and a former deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs. She says:

“By the mid 1990s—nearly half a century since the beginning of African independence—theories attributing African development failures to colonialism retained little credibility among scholars.” [3]

It wouldn’t be fair, if I didn’t mention WSWS.org’s Ann Talbot credit for her superb diagnosis of this mindset:

“Lancaster is expressing what has become the consensus view not so much of academics, but of Western governments, the IMF and the World Bank, which are attempting to impose free market economic policies in Africa. Like them she insists that African governments must become “transparent” and “accountable”. She does not mean that their activities must be open to the scrutiny of the mass of their populations or democratically accountable to them, but that they should be answerable to international institutions that represent the interests of global finance capital and responsive to their demands for profit.

To blame “African socialism” for Africa's failure to develop is a convenient fiction. Any serious examination of the continent's history shows that the reasons for Africa's backwardness lie in the centuries of foreign domination it suffered, dating back to the time of the **slave trade**. This **helped to fuel the development of capitalism in Europe, but deprived Africa of millions of able-bodied people** and fomented predatory wars that disrupted its economy.

Over half a century of direct colonial rule followed. While most of the African colonies gained formal independence in the 1960s, they could not break free from the political domination of the former colonial powers, nor from the economic exploitation of the giant corporations that controlled the trade in African commodities and control finance.

This system of exploitation has continued to the present day. Indebted African countries are net exporters of capital although they are among the poorest in the world. Debt relief has had very little effect, despite the fanfare with which it was proclaimed.

To understand why the imperialist powers were able to continue to exploit Africa, it is necessary to look more closely at the relationship between the West and leaders like Nyerere and Nkrumah. The regimes Lancaster blames for all Africa's problems came to power with Western backing. Western governments also encouraged them to provide limited welfare measures, particularly health care and education. The World Bank underwrote their schemes for industrialisation and agricultural development. The colonial authorities had, in many cases, drawn up plans for these projects before independence was granted. Tanzania under Nyerere became one of the largest recipients of World Bank loans. Without this support the Pan-Africanist regimes could not have survived.”

Then there was the issue of the Cold War, which I had just briefly mentioned above; Ann Talbot adds:

“Western governments and the international institutions they financed were prepared to support the so-called African socialist leaders because they feared that social unrest could lead to popular uprisings, and that the Soviet Union would take advantage of this to gain control of the continent's strategic resources. This had been the guiding principle of British policy in Africa since the end of the World War II, when Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin warned Prime Minister Clement Atlee, “sooner or later the Russians will make a major drive against our positions in Africa.””[4]

Furthermore, Stalin‘s role…

“In the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the Stalinists rejected a perspective based on the independent political mobilisation of the working class and revived the two-stage theory of revolution, according to which the working class could only struggle for socialism after the bourgeois democratic revolution had been achieved. Over time, the bureaucracy's growing scepticism in the possibility of socialist revolution was to be transformed into a conscious opposition to what they correctly viewed as a threat to their own privileged existence in the Soviet Union.

It was Stalinism's political disarming of the workers' movement, combined with its opportunist shifts in policy before the Second World War, that did the most to encourage the growth of Pan-Africanism. In an attempt to make an alliance with the fascist powers, Stalin had sold oil to Mussolini when he invaded Ethiopia and had signed a pact with Hitler. When Stalin later tried to make an alliance with Britain against Hitler, he ordered Communist Party members to drop their support for anti-colonial movements. This discredited socialism in the eyes of broad masses, having its greatest impact in India where the Communist Party supported the war effort while the Indian Congress Movement maintained its opposition to British rule.

The betrayal of the Indian anti-colonial struggle had an indirect effect on the Pan-African movement, then still largely an American based organisation. George Padmore, a leading West Indian Communist Party member, quit and then joined the Pan-African movement. He successfully turned it into an African-based movement by presenting it as the only consistent opponent of imperialism.

In Africa, the Stalinists repeatedly showed their willingness to coexist with capitalism. One of the most outstanding examples of their counterrevolutionary role was in Sudan, which had the largest Communist Party, with 10,000 members, in Africa outside of South Africa. It helped the nationalist Numeiry to power in 1969. The Soviet Union made no protest the following year, when, having used them to defeat his Islamist opponents, Numeiry expelled all the Communist Party ministers from his government and imprisoned and executed Communist Party members.” - Ann Talbot

Continued colonial presence and the growing exploitation that accompanied it, ignited mass unrest across the African continent, which prompted local colonial regimes to adopt the policy of appeasing those power-aspiring bourgeois “activists” who sought to gain political leverage by joining the anti-colonial mass movements and appointing themselves as front line spokesmen of those movements, but were willing to bargain with colonial administrations. This move by local colonial regimes was obviously meant to placate mass unrest, and avert the eruption of overwhelming mass social revolutions in their colonial “empires”. In a brief synopsis on African class struggles, Talbot points out:

“Faced with revolutionary movements in Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia, and insurrection in Malaya and Indo-China, the British and French governments feared that the poverty to which they had condemned millions of Africans would prove to be even more fertile ground for revolutionary ideas. This was borne out when their attempts to increase the level of exploitation in Africa evoked widespread opposition amongst a population radicalised by their experiences of the war.

Rural layers had been swiftly proletarianised during the Second World War. Many were recruited to the armed forces, or conscripted to labour on sisal and rubber plantations…Manufacturing output [in South Africa] increased by 116 percent and the industrial labour force grew by 53 percent, the majority made up of black workers.

The African working class emerged from the war numerically stronger and increasingly militant. There were major strikes by tens of thousands of workers in Nigeria, French West Africa, Guinea, Zambia and South Africa in the next 2-3 years. Rural areas were not exempt from these movements. Post-war evictions in Zimbabwe to make room for more white settlers led major strikes in 1945 and 1948. European plantation owners' demands for more forced labour in the Ivory Coast led to mass protests. In Kenya, the Mau Mau movement attacked both native chiefs and the white settlers who had dispossessed peasant farmers.

Thousands of ex-servicemen returned to Africa with new ideas and expectations. It was an ex-servicemen's demonstration in 1948 that precipitated moves to independence in Ghana….A committee of 40 African notables was appointed [by the British colonial admin.] to look into the causes of the disturbances, and recommended that African ministers should be selected from a legislative assembly partly elected by adult male suffrage. Although the real power remained with the governor, this was an unprecedented move in an African colony.

The British had cultivated a layer of government appointed chiefs and their educated supporters in Ghana. It was to this wealthy layer that the Colonial Office envisaged gradually handing power over local matters, but the continued development of popular opposition both to British rule and to this entrenched privileged layer forced a change of plan. In 1951, the Convention Peoples Party under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah put itself at the head of popular protests and won a majority of the seats in the Legislative Assembly. Governor Sir Charles Arden-Clarke summoned Nkrumah from prison and invited him to be Leader of Government Business.

Nkrumah was the first of the Pan-African leaders to come to power. His *journey from prison cell to government was a pattern that was to be followed in an increasing number of colonies*, as the British sought to maintain their power in Africa through a system of indirect rule.

Their suspicion of the Pan-Africanists, whose socialist rhetoric had led the British government to fear that they would ally themselves with the Soviet Union, diminished as a result of Nkrumah's *cooperative attitude*.

Discussions between Britain and the US

Recently released documents from the time show how Britain and the United States discussed the situation in Africa in the context of the Cold War and concluded that independence under Pan-African leadership was the only way to protect their interests. The British Foreign Office feared that too rapid a move to independence might “expose volatile and unsophisticated peoples to the insidious dangers of Communist penetration”. Alternatively they recognised that intransigence would run the risk of “provoking the African states...to turn more readily towards the Soviet Union”…”

Source: Link; makes very interesting reading!

That last few paragraphs are especially worth noting. Thus, far from shaking up the bourgeois socio-economic framework of their local colonial capitalist regimes, bourgeois “Pan-African“-advocating figures who subordinated genuine popular anti-colonial resistance movements to bourgeois cause by taking up leading roles of those movements, actually maintained that framework and sought to benefit from it after achieving political power or leverage.

To be continued...see: Part 1, and Part 4
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*References:

[1] - Ibid., pp. 79-80
[2] - Ibid., pp. 84-85
[3] - Lancaster p. 21; Aid to Africa: So Much to Do, So Little Done
[4] - quoted in John D. Hargreaves, Decolonization in Africa, Longman, 1996, p. 147
* - quotes of Ann Talbot, and/or wsws.org