Research seminar information
When: Friday, 3th of May, 1:00pm-2:00pm (UTC+3).
Where: Room 247, Unioninkatu 33, you can also join in by Zoom
https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/63611319760?pwd=N2RJQ09zcDA4aHJJZ1NXQTRWZTlOUT09
Meeting ID: 636 1131 9760
Passcode: 078480
Forward March: Time and Ideology in Africa’s Military Regimes, 1970-2000
Abstract: Across Africa, independence was followed by a wave of military coups and martial revolutions. The men who staged them had utopian visions. In Nigeria and other former British colonies, military officers believed they could remake their countries in the image of an army. Soldiers tried to condition civilians to think like they did—and when that failed they tried to beat the bad habits out of them by force. Militarism became the animating force of African politics. Like its better-known counterparts – communism, capitalism – militarism had a culture, an aesthetic, and a philosophy. It also had a theory of time, and military ideas about temporality permeated military dictatorships. Africa’s military regimes had revolutionary ambitions. Nearly all soldiers were committed to transforming their societies – though they didn’t always spell out what they wanted them to become. Coups were power grabs, but they also came with ideas. After they mopped up the blood in the barracks, soldiers set about governing. The ideology they created – militarism – is one of the twentieth century’s most neglected ideologies.
This seminar is part of the EuroStorie Research Seminar Series "Time and Identity". In our spring series, we want to concentrate on different notions of time and identity and illuminate the fundamental narratives and principles of contemporary societies that guide public discourse and decision making. Time is an essential dimension of our foundational stories and shared understandings of who we are, but the intertwinements between time and identity are characterized by diverse and sometimes inconsistent representations. How and by whom are the representations constructed, and what is required for a particular representation of time and identity to become hegemonic? In what ways does the focus on time and identity help us to analyze narratives on Europe?