A brief summary of an early portion of chapter two from Mahmood Mamdani’s book Define and Rule.
In the early twentieth century, the British Empire divided the population of African colonies into two main groups. The two categories were namely ‘race’ and ‘tribe.’ This division would take place during the census-taking process.
Instead of defining colonizers and the colonized population, the categorization would be based on whether they were native or non-native. While the natives were considered a member of a tribe, the non-natives were labelled as part of a race. Non-natives included foreigners (Europeans, Asians) and officially designated foreigners (Arab, Tutsi). The tribes, on the other hand, consisted of indigenous people.
The only criterion for the categorization of population as indigenous or non-indigenous was their background origin. Ancestral migration was not taken into consideration and individual identities were reduced to their geographic location.
The classification of people into race or tribes would determine which law they would have to abide by. A universal civil law applied to all races while individual tribes were governed by unique laws. Each set of laws supposedly accounted for the cultural differences between the tribes. In reality, races were more dissimilar than the many tribes.
Each race had its own language, religion, culture, and history depending on their geographic origin. Tribes, in comparison, lived together, conversed in mutually intelligible languages, and had developed a shared history over the years. Despite these differences, races followed the civil law while tribes had distinct customary laws. In the case of tribes, the differences were overstated and mandated by different authorities while races were not defined by their unique characteristics. Consequently, the races were geared towards a shared future while tribes were segregated.
The colonial project consisted of a carefully devised legal aspect which functioned differently for tribes and races. The English common law was versatile and flexible, meaning it would be open to alteration as needed. Meanwhile, the customary laws designed for tribes were rigid, and any attempt to revise the legal system would be regarded as corruption.
Unlike European models of government, African colonies previously employed authorities from all walks of life and involved them in the rule-making process. With the arrival of the colonizers, select individuals were appointed as “traditional” enforcing authorities or chiefs. These new authorities would function in a patriarchal system which was indirectly dictated by colonizers. Through the installation of these new chiefs, the colonial powers could advance political fundamentalism.
The colonizers established that the population of each colony had tradition, rooted in religion or ethnicity. And the powers ensured to put laws in place which would revert each group back to their original tradition. Additionally, the differences in legal jurisdiction over races and tribes not only divided the groups but also institutionalized discrimination.
The civil law (designed for races) created a hierarchal order of races in the colonies. At the top of the chain was the master race, consisting solely of European colonizers. The system followed by every other colonized race present at the time. The victims of colonization were eventually assigned the status of native (tribe) and non-natives (races).
The customary law defined the differences within the tribe, with origin as the basis of discrimination. The native tribes were governed by native administration which involved both natives and non-natives. Years of residence was overlooked, and any history of migration led an individual to be classified as a non-native.
Within the colonies, natives were housed in tribal homelands ruled by supposedly native tribal administration. Any immigrants wanting to travel through these homelands were labeled as ‘strangers’ and were forced to pay to the enforcing authorities. Although they were referred to as homelands, the colonial powers did not allow ownership of the land but rather provided access to the natives.
Besides the right of use to the land, the natives had two other privileges. They could enlist in the local authority and were allowed to join higher levels of administration while non-natives in a homeland were limited to the lowest level. Lastly, natives benefitted from customary laws in the case of dispute settlements. The result was a multi-ethnic society controlled by mono-ethnic authority.
By unevenly distributing privileges between residents of a homeland, the colonial powers pitted the natives against the rest who were presumed to be immigrants. In effect, an administration comprising entirely of one tribe could be in charge of homelands with populations belonging to multiple tribes. The possibilities of a local conflict were endless.
In conclusion, the colonial legal system used discrimination as a means to create divide within and to indirectly rule local populations. The civil and customary laws were two major systems generated with different populations on the receiving end. Within those populations, the colonial powers found ways to aggravate the residents and exacerbate the divide between them. The little illusion of power that the natives enjoyed in the local administration was only in name and not actual authority.
