'Symbolic Decolonization and Postal Politics: Sovereignty, Secession and the Stamps of Pseudo-States in Sub-Saharan Africa, c.1960-1979' by Gary Baines in (2024) 2(26) Monde(s) 113-134 comments
Since its inception, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) has designated its members as “countries” and “territories”. Historically, stamp-issuing members have included non-self-governing entities such as colonies, protectorates, and mandates that were controlled by an imperial or metropolitan power [1]. Following decolonization, the UPU’s membership swelled with the admission of a slew of newly independent nation states. Yet, contrary to the conventions of international relations in the post-colonial world, the UPU has avoided describing its members as “states”. This is arguably a manoeuvre designed to allow the agency to sidestep politically sensitive disputes regarding sovereignty. Taking its cue from United Nations (UN), the UPU has seldom admitted secessionist or self-proclaimed independent states as members. But such states have issued stamps in order to assert their sovereignty so as to further their claims to international recognition in the comity of nations. However, stamps are only fully invested with sovereign power if they are accepted as valid receipts for prepayment for postage on a reciprocal basis with other states [2]. In the case of secessionist or unilaterally independent states in 1960s Sub-Saharan Africa, the UPU refused to recognize their stamps and subjected their mail to sanctions. These measures challenged their sovereign claims.
Sovereignty is a discursive claim rather than a factual description of realities on the ground [3]. As such, it is contested and contingent [4]. The struggle for sovereignty occurs not only in the political sphere but also in the realm of symbolism. The creation and adoption of new national symbols such as flags and anthems were a critical part of the decolonizing process in former sub-Saharan African colonies which had previously been denied sovereignty. Kenrick refers to efforts to establish the trappings of new sovereign states as symbolic decolonization [5]. His study of the repertoire of symbols created by Rhodesia after its Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) is instructive but makes no reference to stamps. However, Brownell has authored an excellent essay on how the visual rhetoric of Rhodesian stamps projected the white settler state’s claims to sovereignty [6]. Hammet explains how South Africa’s “Bantustans” with their “constrained sovereignty” used stamps to express their nationhood via the tropes of territoriality, identity, and political authority [7]. And Inyang shows that Biafra employed similar signifiers on its stamps to invoke the promise of sovereignty [8]. This paper will suggest that stamps issued by Katanga, Biafra, and Rhodesia to commemorate independence signalled to the world that they had achieved statehood. However, the sovereign claims of the three would-be states were rejected on the grounds that they were not entitled to exercise authority within their territories nor act independently of outside authorities.
While diplomatic recognition is the prerogative of individual states, collective non-recognition went a long way in determining whether states were accepted in the family of nations. Katanga, Biafra, and Rhodesia were never accorded recognition by the international community. They were not admitted as members of the UN and consequently enjoyed no standing in the UPU. Exclusion of these pseudo-states from the UPU meant disputes over matters such as the franking of stamps and the delivery of mail, and the disruption of international postal services. Much against its better judgment, the UPU’s Directorate became party to the politicization of these services. This much was apparent from the imposition of postal sanctions designed to prevent the reciprocal exchange of mail with these pseudo-states. This paper demonstrates that the contestation over the validity of the pseudo-states’ stamps and the distribution of their mail was part and parcel of their struggle for sovereignty.