Politics and violence in Burundi : the language of truth in an emerging state /

Politics and violence in Burundi : the language of truth in an emerging state /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Russell, Aidan, 1985- author.
Imprint:	Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2019. ©2019
Description:	xii, 311 pages ; 24 cm.
Language:	English
Series:	African studies series ; 145 African studies series ; 145.
Subject:	Decolonization -- Burundi. Political violence -- Burundi -- History. Decolonization. Ethnic relations. Political violence. Politics and government. Burundi -- Politics and government -- 20th century. Burundi -- Ethnic relations. Burundi. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11989515

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9781108499347 1108499341 9781108713412 1108713416
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"The postcolonial state in Burundi emerged through talk of truth and acts of violence. Beginning with the first democratic contest in late 1959, this book examines decolonisation as a search for certainty over the nature of postcolonial community and authority, seen from the vantage point of two communes on the border with Rwanda. While ethnicity was largely absent from early political struggles, by 1972 the postcolony was realised in a genocidal repression. Yet from democracy to genocide people and state spoke about politics in the language of truth: declarations of official truths, discussions of rumour, and riddles of political persuasion. Through these idioms of truth-speaking, the book examines differing conceptions over the nature of authority and its relationship to its subjects, the possibilities and closures of postcolonial citizenship, the deep hostility and suspicion of successive regimes towards a borderland population, and their performances of loyalty, petition and vigilance in response. It shows how politics was made between peasants and state elites, the nature of violence in the processes of decolonisation, and how the language of truth continues to matter today"--Provided by publisher.

Description
Summary:	Telling the neglected history of decolonisation and violence in Burundi, Aidan Russell examines the political language of truth that drove extraordinary change, from democracy to genocide. By focusing on the dangerous border between Burundi and Rwanda, this study uncovers the complexity from which ethnic ideologies, side-lined before independence in 1962, became gradually all-consuming by 1972. Framed by the rhetoric and uncertainty of 'truth', Russell draws on both African and European language source material to demonstrate how values of authority and citizenship were tested and transformed across the first decade of Burundi's independence, and a post-colony created in the interactions between African peasants and politicians across the margins of their states. Culminating with a rare examination of the first postcolonial genocide on the African continent, a so-called 'forgotten genocide' on the world stage, Russell reveals how the postcolonial order of central Africa came into being.
Physical Description:	xii, 311 pages ; 24 cm.
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9781108499347 1108499341 9781108713412 1108713416