Aidan Russell is Assistant Professor of International History at the Graduate Institute. His current research focuses on the emergence of the Great Lakes region of Africa through the tumult of the 1960s and 1970s. Interview.

You will soon publish a book, Speaking Truth: Politics and Violence in Burundi, 1959–1972. Can you briefly present its rationale and main findings?

The book looks back to the neglected history of decolonisation and violence in Burundi. It examines a political language of truth that drove extraordinary change, from democracy to genocide. Through the rhetoric and debate around words of truth, the book sees how values of authority and citizenship were tested and transformed across a decade of decolonisation both in words and in acts, shaping the postcolony to come.

The greatest hopes and greatest disasters of decolonisation in Burundi were expressed and driven by a politics of truth, dominating almost all political speech. Slogans that “the truth is one”, or political debate framed as the search for a single certain truth amid deceptive uncertainties, shaped how people engaged with politics at all levels of society. Words of “truth” structured the solidarity and determination of true believers, the strategic ambiguity of public speech that engaged with autocratic power, or the private gossip that seemed to doubt official facts. But truth also underlay acts of violence, to the point of genocide, conducted by those who were so certain of truth that it became dogma, or by those who were determined to make a truth out of the most terrible lies.

In Burundi today, the failure of democracy at independence seems to be echoed in aspects of the contemporary crisis, and political rivals compete to define their “own truth” on the public stage. At the same time, many in the West fear that we have entered a “post-truth” era of our own. The political language of truth in decolonising Burundi was an idiom particular to the time and place, attuned to local linguistic, social and philosophical conditions, but it touches on a universal human problem. Examining Burundi’s most critical decade of modern transformation, the book considers what it looks like when politics is conducted almost entirely in words of truth, whether or not anyone believes them.

What will your next research project be?

I am building out from Burundi in the 1960s to explore a far wider region of central Africa. I am exploring how the mobility of people, ideas and words turned the Great Lakes region from a linear colonial borderland between Belgian and British Africa back into a Gordian knot of cultural and political entanglements across the second half of the 20th century. 

What have you read lately that has marked your research field or academic discipline?

It’s no longer hot off the presses, but Derek Peterson’s Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent (Cambridge University Press, 2012) is one of the most exciting books on East African history I’ve read in the last few years. With a real dedication to the ways that Africans across Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania (and further) spoke about ideas and change in the mid-20th century, it escapes a lot of the established frameworks of “nationalism” that have often constrained the field.

What are the “classic” academic articles or books that you would like everybody to read?

For students and others interested in African history and politics, I often find myself recommending Jean-François Bayart’s “Africa in the World: A History of Extraversion” (in African Affairs, vol. 99, no. 395, 2000, pp. 217–67), which is both informative and challenging for how to think about political relationships within and without the continent. For pure historical inspiration, I still pull down Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s Montaillou (1975) from time to time. There are many exciting things going on in transnational and global history today, but this classic history of thirty years in a single French village provides a valuable counterpoint to keep us all on our toes. It’s also the ideal “bringing history to life” book for a wider audience, to show what history can do and what it can be.

What books are currently on your nightstand?

I just started Red Sorghum by Mo Yan (1986) – when you spend all day reading academic writing, something rich and absorbing is just what you need to keep reading for fun as well!

Do you have any special memory related to your thesis supervisor that you could share?

You only survive a PhD with a balance of idealism and pragmatism. You need the enthusiasm of discovery, and a willingness to go wherever the research takes you, to get you through the whole thing. But it takes some brutal pragmatism to make sure it all ends up on paper – and even more so to survive job-seeking afterwards. Having said that, my thesis supervisor is also a lifelong Leicester City supporter, so maybe idealistic excitement wins out over pragmatism once it a while…