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⁷ As in the case of: the Zaïrian version of the state as family—Schatzberg, Michael G., The Dialectics of Oppression in Zaïre (Bloomington, 1988), p. 79;Google Scholar the Zimbabwean representation of the state as a single spirit province under the protection of Anbuya Nehanda, ‘the mhondoro whose mediums had participated both in the first liberation struggle, the rebellion of 1896, and the second’—Lan, David, Guru and Rain: guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe (London, Berkeley, and Los Angeles, 1985), p. 218;Google Scholar and the Kenyan notion of ‘Nyayoism’, which we are told ‘is a philosophy and practice of sharing both the fortunes and calamities of the extended family, clan or tribe, while being guided by nothing else but love’ — Moi, Daniel T. arap, Kenya African Nationalism: Nyayo philosophy and principles (New York, 1986), p. 6.Google Scholar

⁸ Consider, for example, the curiously Burkean language used by Fernandez, James W., ‘The Affirmation of Things Past: Alar Ayong and Bwiti as movements of protest in Central and Northern Gabon’, in Rotberg, Robert I. and Mazrui, Ali A. (eds.), Protest and Power in Black Africa (Oxford and New York, 1970), p. 448, to depict the Bwiti secret society in Gabon: ‘The affirmation of that spirituality among the members of the Bwiti is first and foremost the reaffirmation of bonds of one-heartedness among the living and between them and the dead’.Google Scholar For further illustrations, see Geffray, Christian, La Cause des armes au Mozambique (Paris, 1990);Google ScholarAllen, Tim, ‘Understanding Alice: Uganda Holy Spirit Movement in context’, in Africa (London), 61, 3, 1991, pp. 370–99;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Behrend, Heike, ‘Is Alice Lakwena a Witch? The Holy Spirit Movement and its Fight Against Evil in the North’, in Hansen, Holger Bernt and Twaddle, Michael (eds.), Changing Uganda: the dilemmas of structural adjustment and revolutionary change (London, Kampala, Athens/Ohio, and Nairobi, 1991), pp. 162–77.Google Scholar

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¹⁰ One example, among others, of the structuralist illusíon is the characterisation of the state as encompassing ‘the structures and mechanisms of decision-making and the structures and mechanisms of decision-compliance’, in Ruth, and Collier, David, Shaping the Political Arena (Princeton, 1991), p. 9.Google ScholarCf. Sandbrook, Richard, with Barker, Judith, The Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation (Cambridge, 1985), p. 42: the ‘political forms [of African states] at independence had not evolved organically out of local traditions. Instead colonial powers transferred Western models of state organizations to Africa.’ For a compelling counter-argument, see Bayart, op. cit.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁴ Geertz, op. cit. p. 64.

¹⁵ Thus, for example, speaking of the insecurity produced by the death of ‘ancient tradition’, Jan Vansina reports that ‘so violent was this insecurity among the Kuba [Zaïre] that, within a few months in 1959 they administered the poison ordeal to 500 suspected witches, in the hope of cleansing the social system of its colonial past and entering a happy millennium’; Paths in the Rainforest (Madison, 1990), p. 248. For a further elaboration of the theme of violence in colonial and post-colonial societies, see Mbembe, Achille, ‘Pouvoir, violence et accumulation’, in Politique africaine (Paris), 39, 09 1990, pp. 7–25.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Hunt, Nancy R., ‘Domesticity and Colonialism in Belgian Africa: Usumbura foyer social, 1949–60’, in Signs (Chicago), 15, 3, Spring, 1990, pp. 447–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁸ Mbembe, Achille, Afriques indociles: Christianisme, pouvoir et état en société post coloniale (Paris, 1988), p. 29.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Mitchell, loc. cit. p. 93.

²⁰ According to Weber, Eugen, Peasants into Frenchmen: the modernization of rural France, 1870–1914 (Stanford, 1976), p. 110, as recently as 1864 a school inspector in rural France ‘was incensed to find that at one school he visited not a single child could answer questions like: “Are you English or Russian?” or “What country is the department of Lozère in?”. Among most of these children, the school inspector added bitterly, “thought doesn't go beyond the radius of the poor parish in which they live”’.Google Scholar

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²³ Collier, op. cit. p. 29.

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²⁶ As one Zaïrian commentator claimed in Le Phare (Kinshasa), 22 November 1991, p. 3: ‘le jeu politique zaïrois est ainsi fait que rien n'est jamais acquis. Derrière les gestes les plus banals, les mots les plus courants, se cache une réalité souvent plus complexe, tirant ses racines dans un clientélisme à nul autre pareil, fait de réflexes tribaux, de corruption à large échelle, de flagomerie ou tout simplement d'absence de culture.’

²⁷ Bayart, op. cit. pp. 193ff.

²⁸ Foltz, William J., ‘From Habré to Deby: the search for political order in Chad’, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1991, p. 34.Google Scholar

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³¹ Nowhere are these dimensions more tragically evident than in the recent histories of two land-locked countries in Central Africa. In Rwanda, the abortive invasion of the Tutsi-led, Uganda-based Front patriotique rwandais, in October 1990, led to ethnic bloodshed on a nearly genocidal scale. In Burundi, infiltrations of refugees, supposedly affiliated to the all-Hutu Parti de l'émancipation du peuple Hutu, are said to have been the decisive factor behind the armed attacks mounted against government facilities in the capital city in late November 1991, which led to hundreds of arrests and scores of casualities in Bujumbura and the countryside. In both countries the refugee issue is the Achilles' heel of current attempts at democratisation, and the single most important obstacle in the way of normalising diplomatic relations between Rwanda and Burundi, and Rwanda and Uganda.Google Scholar See Watson, Catherine, Exile from Rwanda: background to an invasion (Washington, DC, 1991), U.S. Committee for Refugees, Issue Paper.Google Scholar

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³⁸ It is not the least of the merits of Geffray's work on Mozambique, op. cit., to show how the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Renamo) rebels were able to capitalise upon the legacy of hatred left by the forcible destruction of religious and political structures by the Frente de Libertaçço de Moçambique (Frelimo), and how, in the Renamo-controlled areas, these were once again restored, along with the drums (ekhavete) and the ritual presentation of sorghum flour (epepa) to the ancestors. Recent journalistic accounts also note the important rôle played by traditional healers and spirit-mediums in government-controlled areas in ensuring the return of kidnapped families from Renamo rebels. Jane Perlez reports in The New York Times, 24 August 1990, p. 4, that in the village that takes its name from the local female healer, Mongoi, ‘two women praised her, saying that three weeks ago a group of villagers who had been marched off by Renamo had returned. Shops along the road to the village had been able to open, they said, because the rebels respected the power of the spirit.’ This tends to confirm the observation in Willis, op. cit. pp. 47–8, that ‘the power of a magico-medical practitioner derives not merely or primarily from his manipulation of symbols, but from social recognition of his ability…He is not a great practitioner because he effects cures; he effects cures because he is a great practitioner.’ For an outstanding discussion of the political aspects of witchcraft in contemporary Southeast Cameroon, see Fisiy, Cyprian F. and Geshiere, Peter, ‘Judges and Witches, or How is the State to Deal with Witchcraft?’, in Cahiers d'études africaines (Paris), 118, xxx (2), 1990, pp. 135–56.Google Scholar

³⁹ Behrend, loc. cit. p. 175.

⁴⁰ Ibid. 176.

⁴¹ La Reference (Kinshasa), 12 December 1991.

⁴² For some striking illustrations, see ‘Zaïre: l'accomplissement des prophéties; Msgr. Monsengwo, le Serviteur de l'éternel; Mr. Mobutu: Le Jugement des méchants; MrTshisekedi, : La Mission de Cyrus', in La Conscience (Kinshasa), 13–20 12 1992, p. 8.Google Scholar

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⁴⁴ Hyden, Goran, ‘Governance and the Study of Politics’, in Hyden, and Bratton, Michael (eds.), Governance and Politics in Africa (Boulder, 1991), p. 1.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Brett, E. A., ‘Rebuilding Survival Structures for the Poor: organizational options for development in the 1990s’, in Hansen and Twaddle (ed.), op. cit. p. 297.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Hyden, loc. cit. p. 3.