Volcanoes are classed as active,
intermittent, dormant or extinct. Active volcanoes erupt constantly while intermittent
ones erupt at fairly regular intervals. On the other hand dormant or sleeping
volcanoes have become inactive while extinct ones have been inactive since the
beginning of recorded history.
Human societies have, by and large,
been divided into two major categories – the active or intermittent and the
dormant or extinct. The elites and other urban dwellers are regarded as
politically, economically and socially active or intermittent. To contain this
group, rulers have devised mechanisms to appease them.
Peasants, on the other hand, are
treated as extinct or dormant at best. To keep them in their place, priests have
preached to them in Europe and in the colonies that the afterlife would be
better for them than the earthly life. Against this background, they have been
mercilessly exploited to satisfy the needs of the urban dwellers and the
rulers.
In Africa today there are some leaders
who boast that they are politically safe because they have solid peasant
support. They warn disgruntled urban populations to toe the line because they
are too few to tilt the political balance in their favor.
Tectonically there are occasions
when two plates have collided causing volcanoes to erupt generally quietly but
occasionally violently. There are also occasions when peasants and their rulers
have collided with quiet or violent results. To help avoid political eruptions
in undemocratic or pseudo-democratic societies as in Africa, this article will provide
examples of unexpected political eruptions that produced very nasty consequences.
Historically, peasants have
demonstrated that when they are hungry and believe they are being squeezed in
many ways including heavy taxation, they have collided with the political
order.
During the Middle Ages (5000-1500) peasants in Europe lived and worked
under very difficult conditions. Under
feudalism, the burden of taxation fell on peasants. However, they kept laboring
because they were promised that the afterlife would be better than life on
earth. Consequently they remained politically dormant or extinct in the eyes of
landlords. However, when they felt overtaxed, hungry or oppressed in other ways
they became cranky but had no way of organizing themselves for a full-scale
collision with the political order. In
situations where an opportunity for a revolt occurred, results were very nasty.
In 1381 peasants in England revolted
because of the strain due to the one hundred years’ war with France. Peasants
from Essex reacted violently to a tax collector who attempted to enforce a poll
tax to raise money to finance the war. Defiance spread to all parts of
southeast England. Led by Wat Taylor and John Ball they presented their demands
to the King including the abolition of the poll tax. From then on no medieval
English government attempted to impose a poll tax again. When Margaret Thatcher
attempted to do so, she was driven from power.
Peasant revolts occurred in other
parts of Europe. In France peasants revolted in 1358 because of food shortages
and excessive taxation and in Germany from 1524 to 1526 because of economic
hardship. They demanded social equality and justice.
The political upheavals that ended
the Bourbon monarchy in the French Revolution in 1789 were triggered by social
and economic unrest and the peasants played a significant role. Rising food
prices, heavy taxation and other injustices forced peasants to participate
actively in the overthrow of the ancient
regime. Lessons from the American Revolution of 1776 helped in this regard.
The history of Haiti from 1492 to
1804 was marked by extraordinary wealth and deep social and racial divisions. Peasants
were at the bottom of the economic pyramid, laboring for the comfort of the
rich. The French Revolution provided a spark for a violent peasant revolt lasting
from 1789 to 1804. The country was ravaged to the core but Haiti became an
independent state while France lost its crown jewel in her overseas empire.
In Africa, we have witnessed
revolts in areas where they were least expected as in Ethiopia, Southern Africa
and more recently in Kenya.
In Ethiopia, the late Haille
Selassie implemented a deliberate policy of reducing the power of peasants
especially those who had been conquered in the southern region by Menelik II
during the colonization period. The goal was to ensure that the peasants would
not pose a threat to his centralized urban administration. Accordingly, the emperor
took it for granted that the peasants constituted a permanent reservoir of
support for his monarchy. He could therefore exploit them and deny them their
human rights without fear of a reprisal.
Between 1941 and 1974, a series of fiscal
and agricultural reforms were launched that sparked resistance from the
landlords and peasants. The landlords evaded the taxes by shifting them to the
peasants who ended up paying land, tithe, education and health taxes. They felt
that while they the most productive sector, peasants had been victimized for
the benefit of idle and parasitic urban population.
Land privatization aggravated the
suffering of peasants especially those who were rendered landless and forced
into towns where they could not find work. There they joined the army of the
unemployed and destitute. The emphasis on large-scale farming for export resulted
in food shortages for domestic consumption. The decision heightened the
potential for a revolt. The emperor tried to make changes but they were too little
and came too late. The landlords and paramilitary troops the emperor had
depended on were no longer a match for the storm that was gathering around him.
A combination of peasant eviction,
high taxation, food shortage, natural disasters and unemployment together with
agitation in urban areas by unemployed youth and students who sympathized with
the peasants created an enabling environment for a mutiny launched by lower
rank officers in the army from a distant garrison in the southern region where peasant
exploitation was greatest and frustration deepest. On September 12, 1974 Emperor
Haille Selassie was overthrown and died in mysterious circumstances.
The struggle for independence in
southern Africa was not expected to succeed during ‘our lifetime’ according to
policy makers in the 1970s because peasants did not have the means to wage a
successful revolt. The determination of illiterate and poor peasants was
grossly under-estimated. Encouraged by success of their brothers and sisters in
other parts of Africa peasants in southern African region were not prepared to
be an exception. Under the leadership of a few educated compatriots, peasants
waged a fierce guerrilla war that led to independence in Angola and Mozambique
in 1975, in Zimbabwe in 1980, in Namibia in 1990 and in South Africa in 1994 –
all in our lifetime.
The peasant revolt in Kenya in
December 2007 took everyone by surprise. Kenya had been considered the most
stable country in eastern and central Africa where peasants were regarded as
extinct politically. For that reason, Kenya’s leaders did not even bother to
devise any mechanism to gauge the political temperature in the Rift Valley and
Coast provinces. And when the revolt occurred in December 2007 the damage in
life and property was extensive. Many displaced persons have not returned to
their homes for fear of renewed violence.
The lesson from these paragraphs is
very clear. Peasants should not be taken for granted under any circumstances. Three
issues stand out. When peasants are hungry, overtaxed and dispossessed, they
revolt when a window of opportunity to do so presents itself. It could come in
the form of natural disasters or rising food prices or loss of land.
To avoid future revolts, peasants
should be provided with an opportunity to enjoy fundamental freedoms and rights
and to live in peace, security and prosperity with dignity. Short of that they
will revolt no matter how long the waiting takes in order to live and raise
their families like everyone else.