Swahili and its historical role in wars across Africa

In many cultures all over the world, language has been used for war mobilisation, troop motivation during the war, and celebration and memorialisation of victors and fallen heroes after the war. Leaders have used language to justify and rally their citizens’ support for the war.

In between, pacifists from different parts of the world have used language as a tool to denounce wars and call for an end to all wars. Current generations learnt about past wars because they have been preserved through oral and written records in military ledgers and memoirs of military officers.

Biographers have written about renowned military figures, historians have chronicled historical wars while artists have brought war events to their audience in various platforms.

In spite of the fact that wars have created conducive environments for language contact and linguistic innovations especially in military and war terminology, focus of language and war in Africa has received little or no attention among scholars.

A new monograph, Swahili in Spaces of War: A Sociolinguistic Odyssey by Professors Alamin Mazrui and Kimani Njogu, seeks to address this gap by examining how Swahili has been appropriated to serve the causes of wars and the impact of these wars on the language.

Language wars are often conceptualised in terms of competition between languages and debates that chiefly focus on policy.

The authors take a different approach by examining how Swahili has been appropriated in different war situations and the impact these wars have had on Swahili language. The Majimaji resistance, the two World Wars, the wars in the Great Lakes region, the Cold War and the ongoing ‘war on terror’ are discussed in depth in six chapters.

These discussions revolve around the use of Swahili for war mobilization, its communicative and propaganda functions during the war, the aftermath of war especially its linguistics and artistic products, galvanization of Pan-African sentiments and more recently, its appropriation in framing and negotiating the counter terrorism discourse at both local and global level.

The authors point out that the use of Swahili in war for organisation, inspiration and propaganda purposes has been documented historically. City states like Mombasa and Lamu for instance, had poets like Muyaka wa Haji and Zahidi Mgumi who deployed their artistic talents to motivate soldiers around patriotic causes.

Colonialism and their precursor trading companies’ saw Swahili serving a function of bringing people from different ethnic backgrounds and unifying them around a common cause of resisting foreign oppressions as witnessed by movements like Abushiri and the Majimaji resistance.

In spite of the defeat of these movements, they inspired the nationalists and trade unionists who recognised Swahili’s unifying power. As a result, they effectively deployed it during the struggle for independence.

The authors argue that not only did Swahili ease communication between the military leaders and the African soldiers during the First and Second World Wars, but it also facilitated communication between soldiers from different ethnicities and nationalities.

They add that the inter-territorial command in East Africa amongst the King African Rifles (KAR) could only be feasible through Swahili. Swahili was also instrumental in motivating soldiers as manifested in KAR’s Swahili marching songs and the proliferation of Swahili publications in war propaganda.

Crucially, the very need for the formation of the Inter-territorial Language Committee (ILC) mandated with standardizing and promoting Swahili is an outcome of the First World War. Its activities continued during the Second World War and beyond.

The main highlight in the discussion of the wars in the Great lakes is the intertwining of Swahili, the military coups in Uganda and the wars in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Swahili became the language of Uganda’s military through Idi Amin’s decree.

Ironically, the forces that overthrew him had also gained Swahili in Tanzania which entrenched it in Uganda’s military. The Rwandese refugees in the ranks of Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA) who later formed the bulk of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) that took over power after the 1994 genocide took Swahili with them to Rwanda.

Though a unique variety was already being used in Congo, it is worth noting that the sides that led the resistance against Mobutu’s dictatorship were mostly from the Swahili speaking regions. While some fighters had lived in Swahili speaking Tanzania it is worth noting that they had the support of Swahili speaking Rwandese army.

It is also noted that some of the players who took power in Burundi already had an experience in Rwanda and Tanzania. This interconnectedness made Swahili the language of the army in the entire Great Lakes region. Moreover, the wars in the Great Lakes ushered in Swahili-friendly policies in all the countries concerned.

The authors acknowledge that although not all wars witnessed direct involvement of the Swahili language, the spillover effects have had wider implications on the language.

Refugees in camps and those who have integrated into their respective host countries in the region have been forced to learn Swahili either because it is one of the subjects taught in schools or simply their recognition that it is an important tool for interacting with citizens of their host countries.

When these refugees return home, they take Swahili with them thus expanding the demographic of Swahili speakers.

The cold war is discussed in three main angles. First, there is ideological war between the United States and its allies on one hand and the Soviet Union and its allies on the other hand. Secondly, the racial Cold wars in the US and assertion of Black Power.

Third, the war between the United States and China mostly framed in economic competition. During the height of the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union promoted Swahili-friendly policies in order to endear their ideologies to East Africans.

Also discussed is the way Swahili was embraced by Pan-Africanists as a language that espoused their identity and the centrality of Tanzania in the African liberation that made it and Swahili to be regarded as a symbol of African consciousness.

In discussing the Cold War between United stated and China, the authors show the likely competition between Swahili and Chinese.

Importantly, besides the establishment of Confucius institutes in leading East African universities, China has expanded Swahili spaces as exemplified by Shanghai International University offering a Bachelor of Arts degree in Swahili.

Although the global demand for English might create the perception that the Chinese can conduct their economic activities in East Africa in English, the authors argue that Chinese entrepreneurs who engage in small and informal enterprises in East have no option but to know Swahili.

Finally, the authors have looked at the place of Swahili in the global war on terror by focusing on the aftermath of September 11, 2001 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York by al Qaida. They outline the United States linguistic ill-preparedness in gathering intelligence and how faulty translations have frustrated the prosecution of non-English speaking suspects.

To address this, the US government has increased funding for the teaching of critical languages like Swahili in its educational system as a security measure. The launching of Swahili magazines and bulletins by American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam is viewed as a further escalation of the war on terror designed to win the hearts and minds of East African Muslims.

On their part, al-Shabaab has used Swahili for propaganda and recruitment within East Africa. In discussing the use of Swahili in a propaganda war between al Shabaab and the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), the authors contemplate the fate of Swahili in Somalia.

They leave open the question of whether the Swahili-speaking members of the KDF will create another variety of Swahili to replace the declining Chimiini.

Swahili in Spaces of War: A Sociolinguistic Odyssey is a convergence of linguistics, literature, history and politics by renowned scholars seeking to expand intellectual conversation and areas of research.

It shows that Swahili has not only played a huge role in the trajectory of various wars in the region, but it has also proven to be highly adaptive in crafting its place in the war discourse. Those reading for pleasure will also find the book very interesting and highly informative.

The Online version of this book is available on; https://link.springer.com /book/10.1007/978-3-031-27338-4.

- Prof. Peter Githinji teaches at the Kiswahili Department at Kenyatta University