Book contents
- African Activists in a Decolonising World
- Global and International History
- African Activists in a Decolonising World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Regional Learning
- 2 Information Sources
- 3 Before Accra
- 4 Publicity and Violence in the Shadow of Algeria
- 5 Conspiracy in the Congo
- 6 Radio Waves
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Information Sources
Socialist Internationalism and the Limits of London and Delhi
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 March 2023
- African Activists in a Decolonising World
- Global and International History
- African Activists in a Decolonising World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Regional Learning
- 2 Information Sources
- 3 Before Accra
- 4 Publicity and Violence in the Shadow of Algeria
- 5 Conspiracy in the Congo
- 6 Radio Waves
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In mid-1953, Abu Mayanja and Munu Sipalo left to study in Britain and India respectively. Chapter 2 follows them to explain the growing importance of information circulation in this cohort’s anticolonial culture. The opportunities they found for pursuing anticolonial activism in the urban hubs of London and Delhi need to be understood within the framework of the early 1950s (anti-communist) socialist internationalism in Western Europe and newly independent Asian countries, specifically through the Socialist International and Asian Socialist Conference. Young, mobile East and Central Africans were critical to the visions of these organisations and the networks that linked them. But Sipalo’s attempts to run an Africa Bureau and organise a pan-African conference, and Mayanja’s attempts to find a platform in the British press were constrained by experiences of racism, and by the ignorance and skewed priorities of anticolonial sympathisers and patrons. Mayanja’s trip to a Moral Re-Armament ‘multiracial’ spiritual centre in the Swiss Alps epitomised some of the paradoxes of this cohort’s information campaign. Much of this is lost when reading this as a history of students abroad.
Keywords
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- Information
- African Activists in a Decolonising WorldThe Making of an Anticolonial Culture, 1952–1966, pp. 59 - 96Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023