Africa and the Global Cold War III

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Africa and the Global Cold War III

Organizer
Aychegrew Hadera (Bahir Dar University); Christian Methfessel (Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History); Ned Richardson-Little (Erfurt University); Teferi Mekonnen (Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University); Jan Záhořík (University of West Bohemia in Pilsen)
Venue
Gedenk- und Bildungsstätte Andreasstraße
Funded by
Funded by the Ernst-Abbe-Stiftung, the VolkswagenStiftung, the Faculty of Arts of the University of West Bohemia as well as the Research Department, the International Office, the Chair of Political Theory, and the Chair of Global History of Erfurt University.
ZIP
99084
Location
Erfurt
Country
Germany
Takes place
In Attendance
From - Until
22.09.2022 - 24.09.2022
Website
https://www.uni-erfurt.de/philosophische-fakultaet/seminare-professuren/historisches-seminar/professuren/globalgeschichte
By
Christian Methfessel, Berliner Kolleg Kalter Krieg, Institut für Zeitgeschichte München – Berlin (IfZ)

This conference seeks to expand the scope of the global history of the Cold War and Africa’s role in the competition of various actors to make and remake the post-war international order. To explore the struggle around the continuously contested international order, on the one hand we focus on conflicts about the international boundaries of the postcolonial nation states in Africa. On the other hand, we deal with the attempts to regulate the flows that went beyond those borders.

Africa and the Global Cold War III

This conference seeks to expand the scope of the global history of the Cold War and Africa’s role in the competition of various actors to make and remake the post-war international order. With the advent of decolonization in the late 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union both strived to convince the emerging states of the superiority of their respective political-economic models and to increase their influence on the African continent. A particular focus of our discussions will be the various ways in which the Soviet Union and their Eastern European allies, as well as the more independent Yugoslavia, worked to promote socialism in Africa. The new political elites in Africa, however, often pursued their own interests and had alternative visions of how the international order should be established on their continent.

To explore the struggle around the continuously contested international order, on the one hand we focus on conflicts about the international boundaries of the postcolonial nation states in Africa. On the other hand, we deal with the attempts to regulate and channel the flows and movements that went beyond those borders, be it the movements of mercenaries, the trafficking of arms, academic mobilities, or knowledge transfers in education and media, as well as in clandestine networks.

The international conference “Africa and the Global Cold War III” builds on two previous events on the same topic that we organized together with our cooperation partner Mekelle University.1 For this conference, we will be expanding upon this collaboration to also work together with the Memorial and Education Centre Andreasstraße, the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen and the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University in order to more effective situate our efforts in a larger context of ongoing Ethiopian-European academic cooperation.

Contact and registration: Christian Methfessel, christian.methfessel@uni-erfurt.de

1 Philipp Metzler, Tagungsbericht: Africa and the Global Cold War, 05.07.2018 – 06.07.2018 Erfurt, in: H-Soz-Kult, 22.01.2019, <www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-8061> (16.08.2022); Paul Sprute / Maximilian Vogel, Conference Review: Africa and the Global Cold War, University of Mekelle, March 2019, in: Global Histories 5/1 (2019), pp. 168-175, <https://www.globalhistories.com/index.php/GHSJ/article/view/314/163> (16.08.2022); on the cooperation in general see https://www.uni-erfurt.de/en/philosophische-fakultaet/seminare-professuren/historisches-seminar/professuren/globalgeschichte/ethiopia (16.08.2022).

Programm

Thursday, 22 September 2022

11 a.m.
Guided Tour

Memorial and Education Centre Andreasstraße

12:30-1 p.m.
Arrival

1-1:30 p.m.
Welcome

Christian Werkmeister (Erfurt/ Weimar)
Iris Schröder (Erfurt/ Gotha)

1:30-2 p.m.
Introduction

Organizers

2:15-3:45 p.m.
Academic Mobilities, Decolonization and the Cold War

Chair: Ned Richardson-Little (Erfurt)
Eric Burton (Innsbruck): The Pen and the Gun: African Liberation Movements and Educational Trajectories
Marcia Schenck (Potsdam): Cold War Policies, Scholarship Programs and Decolonization Struggles: African Refugee Students of the late 1960s
Comment: Florian Wagner (Erfurt)

3:45-4:15 p.m.
Coffee Break

4:15-5:45 p.m.
Academic Mobilities between Africa and Eastern Europe

Chair: Kelemework Tafere (Mekelle)
Lorena Anton (Bucharest)/ Laura Bisaillon (Toronto): The Politics of RED-Education. Ethiopian-Romanian Academic Exchanges during Ceaușescu’s Regime
Jan Záhořík (Pilsen): Education as a Socialist Modernity: Closer Look at Czechoslovak-Ethiopian Relations in the Cold War
Comment: Nikolaus Graf Vitzthum (New Haven)

6-6:30 p.m.
Wrap-Up Discussion Day 1

Chair: Alexander Thumfart (Erfurt)
Introductory Note: Ned Richardson-Little (Erfurt)

8 p.m.
Dinner

Friday, 23 September 2022
8:30-10 a.m.
East-South Information and Media Entanglements

Chair: Florian Wagner (Erfurt)
Robert Heinze (Paris): Solidarity on the Air: Southern African “Liberation Radios” in the Context of East-South and South-South Relations
Mikuláš Pešta (Prague): Africans and the Media of the “Communist Geneva”. The Role of Africans in the Communication of the International Organizations Based in Socialist Czechoslovakia
Comment: Alexander Thumfart (Erfurt)

10-10:30 a.m.
Coffee Break

10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Intelligence Cooperation and Clandestine Knowledge Networks

Chair: Sue Onslow (London)
Robin Möser (Leipzig): Apartheid South Africa’s Transnational Nuclear Network: Cooperation with France and Germany, 1968-1978
Jan Koura (Prague): Imbalanced Partnership: Czechoslovakia, Morocco and the Global Cold War in Africa in 1960s
Comment: Ned Richardson-Little (Erfurt)

12-1:30 p.m.
Lunch

1:45-3:45 p.m.
Arms Trade and Mercenaries in Cold War Africa

Chair: Christian Methfessel (Berlin)
Sue Onslow (London): Histories of ‘Foreign Mercenaries’ or ‘Ideological Foot Soldiers’ in the Rhodesian War
Ned Richardson-Little (Erfurt): The Two German States and the Evolution of Arms Trafficking to Africa in the Cold War
Milorad Lazić (Washington, D.C.): Yugoslavia’s Military Aid to Ethiopia and the Ogaden War
Comment: Jan Záhořík (Pilsen)

3:45-4:15 p.m.
Coffee Break

4:15-6:15 p.m.
The Ethiopian-Somali Conflict in a Cold War Perspective

Chair: Teferi Mekonnen (Addis Ababa)
Alemayehu Kumsa (Mladá Boleslav): The Role of Cold War Politics in the Conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia
Natalia Telepneva (Glasgow): The Soviet Embassy in Addis Ababa in the Run-Up to the Ethiopian-Somali War, 1974-1977
Yonas Seifu (Jimma): The Role of Superpowers in the Ethio-Somalia War of 1977
Comment: Christian Methfessel (Berlin)

6:30-7 p.m.
Wrap-Up Discussion Day 2

Chair: Jan Záhořík (Pilsen)
Introductory Note: Aychegrew Hadera (Bahir Dar)

8 p.m.
Conference Dinner

Saturday, 24 September 2022

8:30-10 a.m.
Conflict in the Horn of Africa: Contested Territory and Resources

Chair: Christian Methfessel (Berlin)
Haile Muluken (Addis Ababa): The Nourishing and Sacking Effects of the Cold War on Ethiopia’s Regional Interests, ca. 1941 to the Present
Teferi Mekonnen (Addis Ababa): The Cold War and the Hydropolitics of the Eastern Nile River
Comment: Ketebo Abdiyo (Jimma)

10-10:30 a.m.
Coffee Break

10:30-11:45 a.m.

New Ethiopian Sources on Cold War History
Chair: Iris Schröder (Erfurt/ Gotha)
Aychegrew Hadera (Bahir Dar): Ethiopia’s Foreign Policy in the Time of the Dergue: New Evidence from Political Memoirs
Haile Muluken (Addis Ababa)/ Teferi Mekonnen (Addis Ababa)/ Christian Methfessel (Berlin): Round Table: Conducting Research in Ethiopian Archives

12-1 p.m.
Final Discussion

Chair: Christian Methfessel (Berlin)
Introductory Note: Ketebo Abdiyo (Jimma)

Contact (announcement)

Christian Methfessel
christian.methfessel@uni-erfurt.de

https://www.uni-erfurt.de/philosophische-fakultaet/seminare-professuren/historisches-seminar/professuren/globalgeschichte