Paper short abstract:

Rooted in African archival sources and oral histories, this paper explores the hitherto neglected role of the Vietnam War in both progressive and conservative politics in Kenya and Rhodesia during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Paper long abstract:

This paper compares the various ways in which the Vietnam war was used in Kenya and Rhodesia. In both of these states, young people - particularly students - gave their own local struggles international significance by discursively situating them in global frames of reference. No event was greater in this regard than the Vietnam War. Tracing how and why young Africans used the Vietnam War in local politics opens up our understanding of how international struggles were imagined and their salience in Africa. Yet the Vietnam War was not only invoked as an emancipatory symbol of struggle, but also as a counter-revolutionary emblem of international communism by both the Kenyan and Rhodesian government. This ideological positioning as Anti-Communist was critical to the development of the state in both these contexts. Hence, Vietnam played an important if under appreciate role in African politics during these years.