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Edmund Burke and Reflections on the Revolution in the Congo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Ali Al'Amin Mazrui
Ali Al'Amin Mazrui
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

There are at least five ways of treating a political theory. One is to consider it a form of intellectual exercise, pure and simple—an adventure in abstraction to sharpen the mind. Another is to go through it, and through other theories, seeking a personal practical philosophy for oneself. A third is to distil the history out of a political theory—examine what light the theory can throw on the age from which it emerged. A fourth is also to treat the theory as a source of historical data, but not in the sense in which a river may conceivably be a source of some dissolved substance from the silt it carries, but in the sense in which a river may be a source of water. In this latter sense a political theory is not distilled to yield history. It is itself part of the flow of history—part of what Americans sometimes call intellectual history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , January 1963 , pp. 121 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1963

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References

1 “Communists Pin Their Hopes on Tribal Insecurity”, Sunday Times, February 5, 1961. As it stands Stacey's theory is nearer to Fromm than to Hobbes. With Hobbes the “mental comfort” would be derived from knowing that others are dominated along with you rather than from direct satisfaction with being dominated yourself.

2 Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Works (World's Classics edition, London, 1907), Vol. IV, p. 38.Google Scholar

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4 The definition was put forward as a basis of discussion in a class at Columbia University of which the author was a member.

5 Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), Vol. V, Works (World's Classics edition, London, 1907), p. 96.Google Scholar

6 Reported in “News of the Week in Review”, New York Times, 02 12, 1961. p. E. 9.Google Scholar

7 Address delivered on February 16, 1961. Annex XV, Report of United Nations Conciliation Commission for the Congo. UN Document No. A/4711, 20 March, 1961, p. 91.

8 Belgian policy was not consistent on this, but in general it bore out the observations made by Biebuyck, Daniel and Douglas, Mary that “the administration was based on tribal units, local notables were used as assessors in disputes tried by the district tribunals, and affairs were conducted in the appropriate native commercial language. The Belgians tried to rule through the traditional native chiefs, and where this did not make for efficient government, the latter were given honorific positions, and the administrative framework was built on ‘administrative’ chiefs, chosen from the most intelligent and co-operative people that could be found.” Congo Tribes and Parties (London: Royal Anthropological Institute, 1961), p. 15.Google Scholar

9 Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Works (World's Classics edition, London, 1907), Vol. IV, p. 67.Google Scholar

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11 Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Works (World's Classics edition, London, 1907), Vol. IV, p. 147.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 54.

13 Ibid., p. 55.

14 Ibid., p. 65.

15 Ibid., p. 65.

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23 See Legum, Colin, Congo Disaster, A Penguin Special, 1961, pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

24 Address delivered on January 25, 1961. Quoted in Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for the Conga. UN Document No. A/4711, 20 March, 1961, p. 27.

25 A Letter to Sir H. Langrishe (3rd January, 1792), Works (World's Classics edition, London, 1907), Vol. V. The quotation is from the Appeal in the same edition, Vol. IV, p. 44.Google Scholar

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27 Ibid., p. 66.

28 Ibid., p. 36.

29 Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E., ”Introduction”, African Political Systems, London, 1955. The passage is from page 20. The book was published for the International African Institute by the Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 16.

31 Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Works (World's Classics edition, London, 1907), Vol. IV, p. 107.Google Scholar