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A chief by the people: nation versus state in Lesotho

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

David B. Coplan  and
Tim Quinlan
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Extract

The article explores the conflictual relationship among the Basotho chieftaincy, state, and nation in historical perspective. That history includes consideration of the recent and still unresolved political crisis in Lesotho. The current meaning of Sesotho, the ‘whole life process’ of the Basotho people, is examined in the context of the divergence between state and nation, between chiefs and people, between region and locality, and between modern and customary institutions and forms of organisation. Lesotho is unusual in Africa as a state attempting to emerge from an existing, monocultural nation rather than to build a not yet existing nation out of cultural plurality. It is this very peculiarity, and the state of seemingly endless political turmoil despite the absence of any ‘ethnic factor’ which provides the most telling commentary on more general relations between cultural and historical forms of political organisation in Africa.

Résumé

Cet article explore les relations discordantes parmi les chefs du Basotho, l'Etat, et la nation, d'une perspective historique. Cet histoire comprend la considération de la crise politique récente et toujours irrésolue au Lésotho. Le sens actuel de Sesotho, le ‘processus entire de vie’ du peuple Basotho, est examiné dans le contexte de la divergence entre l'Etat et la nation, entre les chefs et le peuple, entre la région et la localité, et entre les institutions et les formes d'organisation modernes et coutumières. Le Lésotho est inhabituel en Afrique en tant qu'Etat essayant d'émerger d'une nation jusqu'à présent monoculturelle au lieu de construire une nation, jusqu'à présent inexistante, à partir d'une pluralité culturelle. C'est cette particularité même et l'apparence d'être dans un conflit politique perpétuel malgré l'absence de ‘facteurs ethniques’, qui fournit le commentaire le plus révélateur sur les relations plus générales entre les formes culturelles et historiques d'organisation politique en Afrique.

Type
The local and the state
Information
Africa , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , January 1997 , pp. 27 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1997

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