Mamdani - Introduction From Citizen and Subject-Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late...

________ CHAP T E R ON E ________

Introduction Thinking through Africas Impasse

DISCLTSSIO--JS on Africas present predicament revolve around two clear tendencies modernist and communitarian Modernists take inspiration from the East European uprisings of the late eighties communitarians decry liberal or left Eurocentrism and call for a return to the source for modernists the problem is that civil society is an embryonic and marshyginal construct in Africa tor communitarians it is that real flesh-andshyblood communitites that comprise Africa are marginalized from public life as so many tribes The liberal solution is to locate politics in civil society and the Afficanist solution is to put Africas age-old communishyties at the center ofAfrican politics One side calls for a regime that will champion rights and the other stands in defense of culture The impasse in Africa is not only at the level of practical politics It is also a paralysis of perspective

The solution to this theoretical impasse-between modernists and communitarians Eurocentrists and Africanists-does not lie in choosing a side and defending an entrenched position Because both sides to the debate highlight different aspects of the same African dilemma I will suggest that the way forward lies in sublating both through a double move that simultaneously critiques and aHirms To arrive at a creative synthesis transcending both positions one needs to problematize each

To do so I will analyze in this book two related phenomena how power is organized and how it tends to fragment resistance in conshytemporary Africa By locating both the language of rights and that of culture in their historical and institutional context I hope to underline that part of our institutional legacy that continues to be reproduced through the dialectic of state reform and popular resistance The core legacy I will suggest was forged through the colonial experience

In colonial discourse the problem of stabilizing alien rule was politely referred to as the native question It was a dilemma that confronted every colonial power and a riddle that preoccupied the best of its minds Therefore it should not be surprising that when a person of the stature of General Jan Smuts with an international renown rare for a South African prime minister was invited to deliver the prestigious Rhodes

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Memorial Lectures at Oxford in 1929 the natie question t()rmed the core of his deliberation

The African Smuts reminded his British audience is a special human type with some wonderful characteristics which he went on to celshyebrate It has largely renlJined a child type jth a child psychology and outlook A child-like human can not be a bad human for are we not in spiritual matters bidden to be like unto little children Perhaps as a dishyrect rcsult of this temperament the African is the only happy human I haye come across Een if the rlCism in tbe language is bliuding e should be wary of dismissing Smuts as some South African oddity

Smuts spokc from within an honorable Vestern tradition Had not Hegels Philosophy of History mythologized Africa proper as the land of childhood Did not settlers in British colonies call eyery Mrican male regardless of age a boy-houseboy shamba-boy office-boy ton-boy mine-boy-no different from their counterparts in Francoshyphone Africa who used the child-familiar tu when addressing Mricans of any age The negro opined the venerable Albert Schweitzer of Gabon fame is a child and with children nothing can be done without authority In the colonial mind however Africans were no ordinary children They were destined to be so perpetually-in the words of Christopher Fyfe Peter Pan children who can neYer grow up a child race 1

Yet this book is not about the racial legacy of colonialism If I tend to deemphasize the legacy of colonial racism it is not only because it has been the subject of perceptie analyses by militant intellectuals like Frantz Fanon but because I seek to highlight that part of the colonial legacy-the institutional-which remains more or less intact Preeisely because deracialization has marked the limits of postcolonial reform the nonracial legacy ofcolonialism needs to be brought out into the open so that it may be the focus of a public discussion

The point about General Smuts is not the racism that he shared with many of his class and race for Smuts was not simply the unconscious bearer of a tradition More than just a sentry standing guard at the cutshyting edge of that tradition he was if anything its standard-bearer A member of the British war cabinet a confidant of Churchill and Rooseshyvelt a one-time chancellor of Cambridge University Smuts rose to be one of the framers of the League of Nations Charter in the post-Vorld War I era 2 The very image of an enlightened leader Smuts opposed slavery and celebrated the principles of the French Revolution which had emancipated Europe but he opposed their application to Africa for the Mrican he argued was of a race so unique that nothing could be worse for Africa than the application of a policy that would

IKTRODCCTIOK 5

-~de-Africanize the Aftican and turn him either into a beast of the field or into a pseudo-European And yet in the past he lamented we hae rried both alternatives in our dealings with the Africans

FIrst wt looked upon the African as essentIally inferior or ~llb-htlman as having no soul and 1S bting onl~ fit to be a ~Ia e Then we changed [0

the opposite extreme The Afric1n now became a man and J brOl her Relishygion and politics combined ro shape [his new African polity The principles of the French Revolution whith had emancipatcd Europe ere 1pplicd to

Africa liberty equality and frattrnity could turn bad Atrieam into good Etlropean~

Smuts was at pains to underline the negatiyc consequence of a policy formulated in ignorance een if coated in good faith

The political system of the natives V1~ ruthlessly destroyed in order to inshycorporate them as equals into the white system The African was good as a potential European his social and political culture was bad barbarous and only desening to be stamped out root and branch In some of the British pmsessions in Africa the native just emerged from barbarism was accepted as an eqnal citizen with full political rights along with the whites But his native institutions were ruthlessly proscribed and destroyed The principle of equal rights was applied in its crudest t(xm and hile it ga e the native a semblance of equality with whites vhich was little good to him ir deshystroyed the basis of his African system which was his highest good These are the two extreme native policies which have prevailed in the past and [he second has been only less harmful than the first

If Africa has to be redeemed so as to make her own contribution to the world then we shall have to ptoceed on different lines and evolve a policy which will not force her institutions into an alien European mould but will preserve her unity with her on past and build her future progress and ciilization on specifically African foundations Smuts went on to champion the new policy in bold The British Emshypire does not stand for thc assimilation of its peoples into a common type it does not stand for standardization but f()r the fullest freest deshyvelopment of its peoples along theit own specific lines

The tullest freest development of [its1peoples as opposed to their assimilation into a common type required Smuts argued institushytional segregation Smuts contrasted in~~~t_illional segE~gation with territorial segregation then in practice -in South Mrica Theproblem with territorial segregation in a nutshell was that it was based on a policy of institntionaI homogenization Natives may be territorially sepshyarated from whites but native institutions were slowly but surely giving

6 CHAIT1R i

WdY to an aJien institutional mold As the ttonomy be(ame il1dnstrid~ izd it gave rise to th colour problem at the root of which were urbanized or detribalized natives~ Smllts~s point was not that racial segregation (territorial segregation))) should be done away wah Ratha it was rhll it should be made part of a broader ~institUliollaJ scg regation) and thereby set on a Secure footing Institutional segregation carries with it territorial segregatbn The way to preserve native instj~ tutions while rneeting the labor demands of a growing economy was through the institution of migrant labor tor so long as the nath-e famshyily home is not with the white man but in his own area) so long the n~tive organization will not be materially affined

It is only when segregation breaks dogtn hen the vhole family migrares from the tribd home and out of the tribal jurisdiction to the white mans farm or the white mans town that rhe tribal bond is snapped) and rhe rraditional system flIs into decay And it is this migration of thl native fam lIy of the females and children to the farms and the towns vhich should be prevented As soon as fhb migration is permitted the process commences which ends in the urbaniud detribalized native and the disshyappeardncc of the native organization It is not white employment ofnative males that works the mischjef~ but the abandonmtnt of I he native tribal home bv the women and dJildren 4

lut simpJy the problem with territorial segregation was that it rendered raciaJ domination unstable the more the economr developed) the more it came to depend on the urbanized or detribalized natives gt1 As that happened the beneficiaries of ruk appear~d an alien minority and its victims evidently an indigenous majority The way to stabHtz~ raciaJ domination (territorial segregation) was to ground it in a politically enforced system of ethnic pluralism (institutional segregation) so that everyone victims no less than beneficiaries may appear as minorities However with migrant Jabor providing the day-tn-day institutional link bctveen narive and white society native institutionsmiddot -middotfashjoned as so many rural trihaJ composites-my be consered as separate but would function as subordinate

At this point) however Smuts faJtered tor he believed it was too late in the day to implement a policy of institutional segregation in South Afrka urbanjzation had already proceeded too far But it was not too late tor Jess developed colonies to the north to learn from the South Airican experience The situation jn South Africa is therefore a Jesson to all the younger British communities farther north to prevent as much as possible the detachment of the native from hIS triluj (onnexion and to cnfone from the very start the system of segregation with its consershyvation of scparate native institutions

fNTKODlCTIOS 7

The Broedrbond howenr disagreed To this brotherhood of Boer iupremacists to stabilize the system of racial domination was a question of life and death a matter in which it could never be too lat~ What Smuts termed institutional segregation the Broederbond caBed apartshyheid The context in whkh apartheid came to be implemented made for its particularly harsh feature~ fix to rule natives through their own instishytutions one first had to push natives back into the conlinc~ of native institutions In the context of a semi-industriafized and highly urbanshyized South Africa this meant on the one hand the forced removal of those marked unproductive so they may be pushed out of white areas back into nathC horneIands and~ on the other the forced straddling of those deemed productive between workpJace and homeland through an ongoing cycle of annual migrations To eftcct these changes required a degree of force and brutaHtv that seemed to place the South African (0shy

lonial experience in a class of its own But neither institutional segregation nor apartheid Vas a South Alrishy

can invention Ifanything both idealized a form of rule that the British Colonial Office dubbed jndirect rule and the French association~ Three decades before Smuts Lord Lugard had pioneered indirect rule in Uganda and -Jigeri And three decades after Smuts Lord Hailev would sum up the contrast between forms of colonia) rule as turning on a distinction between identity and differentiation in organizing the relationship between Europeans and Africans middotThe doctrine of identity conceives the future sodal and political institutions of lfiicans as des tined to be basicaHy similar to those of Europeans the doctrine of ditfer~ entiarion aims at the evolution of separare institutions apprupriate to African conditions and differing both in spirit and in form from those of Europeans 5 The emphasis on differentiation meant the figtrging ofspeshycifically native~ institutions through which to rule subjects but the inshystitutions so defined and enforced wae not raciaJ as much as ethnic not native~ as rnuch as tribal Racial dualism was the-reby anhored in a politically enforced ethnic pluralism

To emphasize their offensive and pejorative nature~ I put the word~ native and tribal in qllotation marks Rut after first usc 1 have dropped the quotation marks La avoid a cumbersome read instead relying on the readers continued vigilance and good sense

This book then is about the regime of differentiation (institutional segregation) as fashioned in colonial Africa-and reformed after indeshypendence-and the nature of the resistaIKe it bred Anchored historishycally it is about how Europeans ruJed Africa and how Africans re~

sponded to Jr Drawn to the present~ it is about the structure of power and the shape of resistance in cont~mporary Africa Three sets of quesshytions have guided my labors To what extent was the structure ofpower

8 CHAIfrRl

Hl contempordr~ Atdca shaped in the colonial period farher thall born of the anticolonial rnolr Vas the notion that the~ inrroduced the ruk of law to African colonies no more than a chenshed illusion of coonil powers Second rarher than just uniting dinrse ethnic groups in a comshymon prcdl-amenl WdS not radal domination actnal1y mediated through a variety of ethnically organized local powers If so is it not too simple even if tempting [() think of the anticolonial (uationahst) Struggle as juSt a ()lie-sided repudiarion of ethnieity rather than also a series of ethnic revolts agaimn so nuny cthnically organized and cel1traHy rcinfored loca powers-in other words a string of ethnic dvil wars In brief was not ethnicity a dimension of both power and resistance of both the problem dnd the solution finaliy if power reproduced itself by eXJg~ gerating difference Jnd dcnying the existence of an oppressed majority is not the btl rden ofprotesr to transcend these differences without denyshying them

I have written this book with four objectives in mind 11y first objec~ tive is to queamption the writing ofhistory by analogy) a method pcrvJsie in contemporarv Atricanist studies Thereoy I seek to estJblish the his toricallcgitimacy ofAfrica as a unit of anal~sis My second objective is to establish that apartheid usuaUy considcred unique to South Africa is a-tllally the gencril~ form of the colonjal state jn Afrka As a form ofrule apartheid is what Smuts called institutional segregation the British termed indirect rule and the French association It is this common state form that r (all decllltralized despotism A coronary is to bring some of the lessons finm the stud~ of Africa to South Mrican studies and vice vcrsa and thereby to question the notion of South African exceptionalshyism A third objectivc is to underline the contradictory character of ethshynicity In disentangHng Wi two possib11ities the emancipalory from the authoritarian l my purpose is not to identifr emandpatory movements and avail them for an uncritical embrace Rather it is to problematize them through a critkal analysis J1y f(lurth and final objective is to show that although the bifi] rcated stale created with co10niaHsm was deracialshyizcd after independence it was nor democratized Postindependcncc re t()rm led to diverse Outcomes No nationalist government was content to reproduce the colonial1egacy unlTitically Each sought to reform the hifurcated state that lnstitutionally crystallized a state-enforced separa tion~ of the rural from rhe urban and of one ethnicitr from another But in doing so each reproduced a part of that legacy thereby crelting its own variety of despotism

These questions and objectyes are very much ar the root of the dis~ cussion 1n the chapters fhat foBow Before sketching in fttlJ lhe outlines of my arglunCnt) howcer I find it necessary to claril1 my theoretical point of departure

l~TRODtCTIO~ 9

BliYOND A H1STORY BY ANALOGY

In rh~ dtkrmath of the Cuhan Renlurion dependency theory emerged Jlt d poerfiJl critique Ofylriolls formamp of unilincar evolutionism It reo jeered both the claim that the ks dCeJoped countries were traditional ~odeties in need of modernization and the conjctlon that they were backward precapitatist societies on the threshhold of a mlLch~n(eded bourgeois revolution CndcrdeveJopmcnt argued proponents of demiddotmiddot pcnden(y~ was hilttof1c3Uy produced as 1 creation of modern imperial ism it was as modern as industrial capitalism Both were outn)mcs of-l process of laquolClumulation on a world scale6

Its emphasis on historical specificity notwithstanding dependency loon Japsed into yet another form ofahistoricaJ structuralism iJongside modernization theory and orthodox Marxism) it came to vlew social rCJlitr through a series of binary oppositcs If modernization theorists thought of society as modern or premodern industrial or preindustrial and orthodox Marxists conceptualized modes of production as capitalist or precapitalist~ dependency theorists juxtaposed development with underdevelopment Of the bipolarirYl the lead term- --ltmodern in dustrial)~ capitalist or dereIopment-was accorded hoth analytical value and universal status The other was residual Making little sense without Its lead twin it had no independent conceptual existence The tendency was to understand these experiences as a series of approxima tions

j as replays not quite etncient understudies that fell short of the

real perfomancc Experiences summed up by analogy were not just conshysidered historica1latecomers on the scene but were aiso ascribed a pre~ destiny Vhereas the lead term had analytical content the residual term lacked both an original history and an aUlhentic future

In the event that a real-life performance did not correspond to the prescribed rrajectory) it was understood as a deviation The bipolarity thus turned on a douhle distinction betveen experiences considered universal and norma) and those seen as residual or pathological The reshysidual or deviant case was understood nor in terms of what jt was but with rekrence to what it was not ~Premodernraquo thus became ltnot yet modern) and precapitalism~ (ltnot yet capitalism But can a student for example be understood as not yet a teacher Put differently is beingy

a profeSSional teacher the true and necessary destiny of every sLUdent~ The residual term in the evolutionary enterprise-cpremodern laquopreinshydustrial precapita1ist~ or underdeveloped-really summed up the etc of unilinear social science) that which it tended to explain away

A unilinear social science however involves a double maneuver If if tends to caricature the expaience summed up as the residual term it

10 CHAPTER

also mythologizcs tht experience that is the Jead term If the fiJrmer is rendered ahistoricJl tht latter i~ acrihed a suprahitorical trajectOry of dcniopmcllt a neceltdry path whose main line of dC(lopment i~ un affected by strllggles th1t happened JIang the wav There i~ l sense in vhich both 1r( robbed of history

The enden()f to restore historicity agency to the suhject has been the cutting edge of a variety of critiques of structuraHsm But if strucshyturalism tended to straitjacket agency within iron laws of history a srrong tendency in poststrllcturaHsm is ro diminish the significance of historical constraint jn the name of sahaging agency The dependent entry ofAfrican societies into the world system is not especially unique argues the French Africanist Jeanmiddot Francois Bayan jmd should be fcienshyttjical~y de-dramatised~7 On one hand ineqnality has existed throughshyout time~ and-it should be stressed ad fltlztJcztm-----does nor negate hisshytoridty on the other hand~ deliberate recourse to the strategies of extrayersion has been a ~re(urring phenomenon in the history of the cOHtinentraquo Dependency theory is thereby stood on its head as modshyern imperialism ismiddot-shaH I say celebrltcd ~as the outcome ofan African jnitiative Similarly In another recent historical rewrite slavery too is explained away as the result of a local initiative The African role in the development of the Atlantic + promis(~s John Thornton~ would not simply be a secondary one~ 011 either side of the Atlantic for we must ancptl) both that African participation In the slave trade was voluntary and under the control of African decision makers on this side of the Atlantic and that the condition of slavery by itselt~ did not necessarily prevent the development of an Afrkan-oricnted culture on the fur side of the AtlanticR It is one thing ro argue that nothing short of death can extinguish human initJative and creativity) but quite another to see in every such gesture evidence of a historical initiativc Even the inmates of a concentration camp are ahle in this sense~ to live by their own cuI ~ tural logic1 remarks TalaJ Asad But one may be torgiyen for doubting that they are therefore ~makil1g their own historyp9

To have crhiqued structuralist-mspired binary oppositions for giving rise to waHed -off sciences of the nonnal and the abnormal) the civilized and the saage is the chief merit of poststructuralism To appreciate this critique however is not quite the sune as to accept the claim that in seeking to transccnd these epistemological oppositions embedded 1n notions of the modern and the traditional poastructtudUsm has indeed created the basis of a health humanism That daim is put forth by its Africanist adherents scholarship~ they say must deexotidze Africa and banalize it

The sing from the exotic to the banal ( Yes banal Africa--cxoticism be damned)lO is from one extreme to another from seeing the flow of events in Atrica as exceptional to the g(neral flow of world history to

1~JRonLC[IO 11

~eeing it as routine) as simply dissolving in that general flow contirmlng its trend Jnd in the process presumabiy confirnllng the hllmanit~ of the African people In the process AI1middotican history and reality IOle any specishyncity) and with it we also lose Jny but H1 invented notion of Atricl Bur it is only when abstracted from structural constraint that agency JppeJrs as lacking in historical specificity At this polnr abstract unJvcrsdisIll and intiI11ate particularism turn Ollt to be tvo sides of the same coin both see in the specificity of experience nothing but its idiosyncrasy

The Patrimonial State

Vhereas poststructuralists fixus on the intimate and the day~to-daYl shunning metatheory and metaexperience the mainstream Africanists are shy ofneither The presumption that developments in Africa -an best be understood as mirroring an earlier history is widely shared among ~orth American Africanists Before the current preoccupation with civil society as the guarantor of democracy-a notion I will comment on 1atcr -Africanist political sdcnce vas concerned mainly with two issueS a tendency toward corruption among those ithin the system and to~ ward exit among those marginal to it

The literature on corruption makes sense of its spread as a reoccur~ rence of an early European practice patrimoniaHsm or prebenshydaHsmll Two broad tendencies can be discerncd 12 For the stateshycentrists the state has failed to penetrate- society sufficiently and is therefore hostage to it fi)r the society~cel1trists society has tJiled to hold the state accountable and is therefore prey to it [ will argue that the former fail to sec the form of power of how the state does penetrate society and the latter the form of revolt of how society docs hold the state accountable because both work through analogies and are unable to come to grips with a historically specific reality

Although I will return to the society-centrIsts the present day cham~ pions of civil society as the guarantor of democracy it is worth tracing the contours of the state-centrIst argument Oferwhelmed by societal pressures its institutional integrity compromised by individual ot secshytional interest the stare has turned into a weak Leviathan)13 sus~ pended above society14 Whether plain soft15 or in decline and decay16 this creature may be omnipresent but is hardly omnipomiddot tent 17 Then fol1ov1gt the theoretical condusion variously rermed as the early modern authoritarian state the early modern absolutist state or the patrimonial autocratic state this form of state power is likened to its ancestors in seventeenth-century Europe or early postcolonial Latin America often underlined as a political feature of the transition to capitalism

12 CHAPTER 1

Vhat happens if yon takc a historical process unt)lding 11 nder COil

crete conditions ~-in this case of sixt~enth~ to ejghteenth~century Eushyrope-as a vlntage point trom which to make ~el1se of subampequcnt ampociat deyelopmentt The outcome is a hiHory by analogy rather than history as process Analogy seeking turns into a substitute f()r theory fC)fmJtion The Africanlst lS akin to those learning a t(Jrcign language who must translate en~ry new word back lnto their mother tongue in the process missing precisely what is new in a new experience From sllch 1 standshypoint the most intense cOl1troYersies dwell on what is inrterd the most appropriate translation the most adequate the most appropriate analogy that will capture the meaning of the phenomenon under obsershyvation Mricanist debates tend to tocus on whether contemporary Afri~ can reality moSt closely resembles the transition to capitaliampm under sey~ enteeuth-century European ahsolutism or that under other Third Vorld experiences18 or whether the postcolonial state in Africa should be lashybeled Bonapanist or absolutist t9 WhatcTtr their djfferences both sides agree that African reality has meaning only insofar as it call be seen to reflect a particular stage in the development of an earlier history Inasmuch as it privileges the European historical experience as its tollchmiddot stone as the historical expressl0n of the universal~ contenlporary unilinshyear evolutiollism should more concretely and appropriately be charactershyized as a Eurocentrism The central tendency of such a method01ogical orientation is to lift a phenomenon out of context and process The reshysult is a history by analogy

The Uncaptured Peasanr-y

Whereas the literature on corruption is mainly about the state in that on exit is ahout the peasantry Two diametritally opposed perspecshytives can be discerned here One looks at the African countryside as nothing but an ensemble oftransactjons in a fnarketplacc~ the other sees it as a collection of households cOIneshed in a nonmarket miJieu of kin ba~d relations For rhe t(]rmer~ the market is the defining feature of rural life for the latter the intrinsic realities of village Africa have little to do with the market The same tendency can appear clothed in sharply contrasting ideoJogical garb Thus) t()r exampJe r the argumenr that rural Africa is reaJly precapitalist With the market an external and artificial im ~ position~ was first put forth by the proponents ofMrican socialism most notab)y Julius Nyererc Largely discredited in the mid~seventies) when dependency theory reigned supreme this thesis was resurrected in the eighties by Goran IIyden20 who echoed Nyerere-once again relying on empirical material from Tanzania--that the intrinsic reaiities~~ of Mrica have little to do with market re1ationshlps Initead~ he argued

INTRODlC ION 13

the 1fe J unique expresioll of J premarkct c(ononw of aftcction la~kd theorks wcre championed by L1F theorists wl~o daimcd that the rationJlit~middot of grollnd-levcJ Illarkets was being simultaneously sup pnssed and distorted b clientele~rjddtn but all-powerful states The lrgument was ltlcademie respectability by Robert Batess circulated study Afarketf and States in Africa Vhcreas the latter tenshydency cOlltillues to enjoy the status of an offiliai truth in polky-nlilking cirdcs the tormer snrlns as a marginal but fashionable preoccupation in ltKademia

~1y intcnst is ill the method that guides these contending pcrspecshyti(~s Vith market thcorists the method is transparent They presume the market to exist as all ahistorical and unitrsal construct markets are not created~ but tIeed African countries arc market societies like those in Europe pexiod Goran lIyden hoycyer claims to be laying bare tht intrinsic realities of Africa Yet he proceeds not by a historical txamwashytion of these realities but by formal analogies Searching for the right ltlnaJogy to fit Africa he proceeds by dismissing one after another those that do not fit In the process he establishes his main conclusion Africa js not like Europe where the peasantry was capturedyengt through wage

nor is it like Asia or Latin America where it was captured through tenarlCY arran gements But this search stops at showing what dots not exlst It is the argument of this book)~t writes Hyden ~that Africa is the only continent where the peasants have not been captured by other social classes 11 In hot pursuit of the riglll historical analogyshythe point will become clear latcr--- Hyden ll1isses prcciseJy [he relations through which the ~freeraquo peasantry is captured and reprodlhcd

In this book I seek neither to set [he African experience apart as exshyceptiona and exotic nor to absorb it in a hroad corpus of theory as roushytine and banal For both it seems to me are different ways ofdismissing it In contrast) I try to underline the specificity of the African experience or at icast of J slice of it This is an argument not against comparativc study but against those who would dchistoricizc phenomena by titling them from context whether in thc name of an abstract lllliversalism or of an intimate particularism only to make sense of them by analogy In contrast~ my cndcavor is to establish the historical legitimacy ofAfrica as a unit

Civil Society

The current Afrkanist discourse on civil society resembles an earlier dismiddot course on socialism It is more programmatic than analytical more ideoshylogical than historital Central to it are two claims ciyii society exists as a fully formed construct in Afnca as in Europe and the driv1ng force of

14 CHAPTER 1

denlOCratizaLion cerywherc is toe contention between civil iociety ltll1d the state 12 To come to grips wilh thcse claims rtquires a historical allalshyysjs~ tor these cnncJusions arc arrived aL through analog~ seeking

The notion of civil socieTy came to promincnce ~ith the Eastern Eu roptan uprisings of the late 1980s These events were taken as signaling a paradigmatic shill) from J SLatc-cenlertd to a soder~centercd perspee tive from a strategy of armed struggle that seeks to capture state power to one of an unarmed civil struggle that seeks to create a self-limiting power In the Jatc 1980s) the theme of a society-state struggle reerbershy~ued through Africanjt circles in North America and became lhe new prismatlc lens through gthich to gauge the SIgnificance of events in Af rica EYen though the shiH irom armed struggle to popular civil protest had occurred in Somh Africa a decade earlier in the Course of the Dur ban strikes of 1973 and the Sowcto uprising of 1976 the same obseners who tended to exceprionalize the signifi(ance of these cents eagerly generalized the import of later events in Eastern Europe

For the core ofpost~Renaissance thcory~23 civil society was a historical construct) the result of an all-embradng process of diftercntiation of power ill the state and division of Jabor in the economy giving rise to an autonomous legal sphere to govern civil life It is no exaggeration to say that the HegeJian notion of civil society is both the summation and the springboard of main currents of Western thought on the subject24 Sandwiched between the patriarchal family and the universal state) civil society was fc)r Hegel the historical product of a two~djmensional pro cess On one hJud the spread of (ommoditr relations diminished the weight of extra-economic coercion and in doing so it freed the econshyomy-and broadlY society--ftom the sphere of politics On the other hand the centralization of means of vjolcnce within the modern state Vcnt alongside the settlement of differences within sociel) without dishyrect recourse to vlOience Vjth an end to extra~economic coerclon~ force ceased to he a direct arbiter in day-to day life COIuractual rclarions among free and autononl0US inujviduaJs were hencd(xth regnlated by civil law Bounded hy law the modern state recognized the rights of citizens The ruk offaw meant that lawmiddotgoerned behavior was the rule It is in this sense that civil society was understood as civllized society

As a meeting ground of contradictory interests ci-n society in Hegel comprises two related moments the first explosive the second integrJshytive the first in the arena of the market the second of publk opinion These two moments resurface in Marx and Gramsci as two different con ceptions of dvH society for Marx civil society is the ensemble of relashytions embedded in the market the agency that defines its character is the bourgeoisie For Gramsci (as for Polanyi TakotL Parsons and later Habermas) the differentiation that underlies civiJ socieT) is triple and

lITROD(CTIO 15

not double between the statt the conol11Y and -OClCtY- The 11middot11111 of clil sodety js not the market oot puhlic opinion and cl1lture It agent re intellecTuals) Yho figure predominantly in the cstablihmem ofhegemiddot mony Its hallmarks arc ount1fY assOtiation and fne plJh1icit~ the bJsis of an autonomous orgdlliz1tion1J Jnd expre~sie life Althou~h aumiddot tonomous of the state) this lite CJnnot be independent ()fit) f()r the gUlre

antor of the mtonomy of civil ~ocicty (In he none other than the srJt(~ or to put matters difterentiy although its guamntor may he 1 specific constellation of sodal fimes organized in Jnd through eiil sockty they can do so onl~ by ensuring a t)flll ofthc ~tate and a corresponding kgal rcgimt to undergird the autonomy of (inl ltociety

The Grlmscian notion of civil society as puhlic opinion and culture Ius been formulated simultaneously as anal~~tical construct md proshygrammatic agcnda in Jurgen Habcrmass work on the puhHc sphere2i

Habermas accents hoth structural processes and strategic initiatives in explaining the historical fOrmation of civil society In the context of a structural changc embedded In the transformation of state and econshyomy~n the strategic initiaties ofln embryonic bourgeois class shaped m asso(iationai lite along yoluntar~ and democratic principlesyl At first) thi public sphere was largely apolitical revojinp around litermiddot uy anJ art criticism The Frcndl RTOlutioll howcrcr triggered a movement leading to its politicizltion thereby underlining its dem~ oeratic significance

Critics of Habermas have tried to discntangJe the analytkal from the programmatic strands in his argument by relocating this movement in its historical context Thus argues Geoff EJey the upublic sphere was from the vcry outset an arena of contested meanings both in that different and opposing publics manellc[(~d tor spate within it and in the sense that ltertain ~publics (women subordinate nationaHties popshyular classes like the urban poor~ the working class and the peasantry) may hae been excluded altogether trorn it This pro(css of exclusion was simultancousl~ one of harnessing _ public lite to the interests of one particular groupZ7

The exclusion thilt defined the specificity of civil society under coloshynial rtile vas that of race Yet it is not possihJe to understand the nature of colonial power simply by focusing on the partial and exclusionary character of civil society It reijuires rather coming to grips with the specific nature of power through hich the population of subjects CXshy

cluded from civil sodetr was actuaHy ruled This is why the flt)(us In thj$ book is on how the suhject population was in(orporated into-middotmiddot and not excluded from~the arena of colonial power Th Jccent is on incorporatIon not marginalization By emphasizing this not as an exclu~ sion but as 1nothcr J01m of pOv(r I intend to argue thlt no reform of

16 CHAPTER 1

contemporary chjl society institutions C1I1 by itltdf unravel this decenshyrralited despothnL 10 do so ill require nothing less than disrnmtlillg that form of power

TilE BIllJRCATED STATE

Tht (olonial st~1tc WlS in every insLlnce J historical fom13tion Yet irs structure ectywhere came to share eettain fundamental features I ilI

argue that this was so because cnrywhere the orgamLltion and reorga~ nization of the colonial Slate Was a response to a central and overriding (jilcmma rhe native question Btiefly put how fan a tiny and toreign minority rule over an indigenous majority To this qll~stion~ there wcre two broad answers direct and indirect rule

Direct rule was Europe~s initial response to the problem of admlnfs Icrtng colonies There would be a single legal order deHned by the civshyilized laws of Europe No ~natje insthutions would be recognized Although ~naties would have to -confonn to European laws~ only lhose 4dvilized~~ would have alCCSS to European rights Chil society jn this sense vas presumed to be civitized society from whose tanks the UIKJjJlzed wcre excluded The ideologues of a civilized natie poHc) rationalized segregation as less a racial than a cultural 3ffair Lord Milner the colonial secretary argued that segregation was desitable no less in the interests of soda comfort and convenience than in those of health and sanitatjon Citingmiddot lVlilner~ Lugard concurred

On the one hand 1Ilt policy docs nut impose any restriction on 011( race which is not appJicable to thi other A European is as strictly prohibited from imiddoting in the natin rescnalioll JS a native is from living in the EmO~

pelll quarttr On the other hand since this feeling exists it should in my opinion be made abundantly dtar that what is aimed at i1 segregation of social standards and nOI ~ segregarion of rlees The InJj1n or the lfrican gentleman ho ldopts the higher standard of diliZiItlOJl and desirt~ to partake in such immunity from infection as stgngatJ()l1 may COI1yq should he 13 free and werome lO liye in dle civjlized reservation as the European) provided of course that he does not bring with him ~ toncoutse of t()l Jowers The natiw peasant often shares hls hut with his gOAt) Or sheep or fi)wls He loves 10 dmm and dance at night which deprives fhl Enropean of sleep He is skeptical of mosquito theories God made the mosquito lan-at said a Moslem delegation to me for Gods sake let the lanae Iive)l For these people sanitary mles ate nccc5sJry bur hatdill Th have no desire to abolish scgregation18

1gtiI ROl1Llt 101 17

ltLlCnSI1Jp would be 1 priikge of the ciilized the lllKivillled would to all all middotrotlfld tutelage The~ may hlc 1 modicum of CliJ

hUL not political rights~ t(W J propertied frlnchise sepJrateu the civilized from the UlHiYililcd The resulting is ion was sl1l11Il1cd up in Cecil Rhodes~s tlI110US phrase FqUlt11 rights t)r 11l ehilized men

CoJonin were territorie of EuropeJ11 sntiem(l1l In contrlt~ the tCfshyritorie~ of European domination-but not of scttlcment~cre known J~ protectorates In the context of J settler cJpiuUsm the social preshyrequisite of direct rule dS J rather drastic anair It inndnd J compre~

hensivc sway of market intitlltlons the 1pprOpri1tlol1 of Lmu the de strLlction of comlllunal autonollly~ and the defeat and dispersJl of tribal popuLations In practice direct rule meanr the reintegration and domimiddot Ildtion ofnHires in the illstitlltionJl (Ontext ofsemisCfvile and sel11icapi~ talist agrarian relations For the vast majority of nathes tlut is for tho~e uncivilized who were cxduded from the rights ofcitizellship dircct rule signified an unrnediatcd~~(entralized~despotism

In contrast jndirect ruk came to be the mode of domination oyer a free peasantry Here~ land rernlined a communal~laquocustomaryshypossession The markct was restricted to the products of Jabor) only Hl3rgjnaHy incorporating land or hlbor itself Peasant communIties were reproduced within the context of a spatial and institutional autonomy The tribal leadership was either selectively reconstituted as the hierarchy of the k()i SLate or freshly imposed where none had existed a5 in state~ less societies Here political inequality went alongsidc civil inequality Both werc grounded In a legal dualism Alongside reccled Jaw was im~ plemented J customary Jaw that regulated ll(Hlmarket rdatioJl~ in in personal (famiJy and in community affaIr For the subject popushylation of naties indir~ct rule signified a medjatcd-decentralizedshydespotIsm

Even historically the division bctween direct and indirect rule neycr coinCIded neatly with the one between settler Jnd nonsettkr colonies True grarian settkr capital did prefer direct rule premised on freeing land while bonding lahor but indirect rule could not be linked to any specific fraction or capital It came to rnark the jndination of seyeral fracshydons of the bourgeoisie mining finance dnd comrncrce The main fea~ tllres ofdirect and indirect rule and the contrast between them are best illustratcd hy the South African experIence Direct ruk was the main mode ofcontrol attempted over naties in the eighteenth and early nineshyteenth cenwries It is a form of control best exemplified by the Cape experience The bask features of indirect rule howeer1 emerged through the experience of ~atal in the second half of the nineteenth (entnr The distinction is also captured in the contrast between the

18 CHAPTER I

()perilllCe of the nineteen th-ccntury coastal enclats (colonies) of Lagos Freetol1 and D 1kar and the [WClltleth~century illland prOtelgt torat(s acquired in the course of the Scramble The Cape ~atal dIvide Over how to handle the native qnestion was resolved in fwor of the ~ata model Key to thdt resolution vas the emcrgence of the Cape as the largest single nservc fl) migrant labor in South Africa f()[ the domishynance of mining over agrarian capital in late-nineteenth-century SOLlth Afrlca- and elsLvhere-poscd afresh the question of the reproduction of ltlutonomous peasant communities that would regularly suppJ~ male

and single migrant labor to the mines Debated as alternativc modes of controHing natin~s in the early coloshy

nja1 period direct and indirect rule actuaHy eolved into compiemen~ tary way~ of native control Direct rule was the form of urban civil power It was about the exclusion of naties from civil freedoms guaran teed to citizens in civil society Indirect rule however s1gnified a rllfal tribal authority It was about incorporating natives into a stale-eni(rced cllstomary order Reformulated djrect and indirect rule are better understood as variants of despotism the tormer centralized the Jatter decentralized As they learned from experience-of both the ongoing resistance of the colonized and of earHer and paralleJ colonial encoun ters-colonial powers generaUzed decentralized despotism as their prinshycipal answer to the native question

The African colonial experience came to be crystaHized in the nature of the state tbrged through that encounter Organized difterwdy in rural areas from urban ones that state was Janus-jaced~ hifurcated lr contained a duality two forms of power under a singJe hegemonic au~ thority Urban power ~poke the language ofciviJ society and civH rights rural power of community and culture Civil power claimed to protect rights customary power pledged to eniorce tradition The fiJrmer was organized on the principle of differentiation to check the concentration of power the latter around the prindpJe of fusion to ensure a unitary authority To grasp the relationship betvveen the two) civii power and customary power and between the language each empJoyed --rights and custom freedom and tradition~-we need to consider them sepa rately while keeping in mind that each signified one face of the same bHitrcated state

Actually Existi1Jg Civil Society

The rationale of civil power was that it Vas the source of civil Jaw that framed c1vij rights in civil society I have already suggested that this ideaJizatiol1-- aJso shared by contemporary AlTicanist discourse on civil

[t-TRODUC flOX 19

sodety--rcminds one of an earDer dIscourse on gtoctalism lInre promiddot grl111mltic than analytical) more ideological than historical hs clJims (111 tX a historical analysis Thus the need~-as I have alnad~) sugshygested~tor an analysis of actually existing chll society so as to underw 0tU1d it in its actual formation ramer than as a promised agenda tor

chlngeTo grJsp major shifts in the history of the relationship between civil

soticty and the state one needs to move away lrom the assumption of a generalizable moment and identify different and eyen contradicshy

tory mOlnents in that historical flow Only through J historically anshychored query is it possible to problematize the notion of civil society thereby to approach it analytically rather than programatically

The history of civil sodetv in colonial Africa is laced with racism [hat is as it were its original sin for dvil society was first and f()[emost the sociery of the coJons Also it was primarily a creation of the colonial state The rights of free association and free publicity and eventually of political representation were the rights ofcitizens under direct rnIe not of subjects indirectly ruled or a customarily organized tribal authority Thus whereas civil society was radJ]jzed~ Native Authority was tribal~ izcd Between the rightsmiddotmiddotbearing colons and the subject peasantry was a third group urban-based nanves mainly middle- and working-class pershysons who were exempt from the lash of customary law bu t not from modern racially discriminatory civil1cgislation Neither subject to cusshyLOrn nor exalted as rights middotbearing citizens they languished in a juridical

limbo In the main however t11C coJonial state was a double-sided aftair Its

one side) the state that governed a racially defined citizenry was bounded by the mk of law and an associated regime of rights Its other side) the state that ruled over subjects was a regime of extra-economic coercion and adminisrratively driven justice No wonder that the strug~ gic of subjects was both against customary authorities in the local state and against racial barriers in civil society The latter was particularly acute in the settler colonies where it often took the fbrm of an armed struggle but it was not confined to settler colonies Its hest~knovn theoretician was Frantz [anon This then was the first historical moment in the development of c111 society the colonial state as the protector of the society of the colons

The second moment in that deveJopmcnr saw a marked shift in the relation between civil society and the state This Was the moment of the anticolonial struggle~ for the anticolonial struggle was at the same time a struggle of embryonic middle and working classes the native strata in

for entry into civil society That entry that expansion of ciyil soshyciety was the result of an antis tate struggle Its consequence was the

20 CHAPTER 1

creation of an indigenous ciyil society A proces~ set into motion with the postwar colonial reform this deyelopment yas of limited signifishycance It could not be othenyisc for any significant progres~ in the creashytion of an indigenous civil society required a change in the feJrm of the state It required a deracialized state

Independence the birth of a deracialized state middota~ the context of the third moment in this history Independence tended to deracialize the state but not civil society Instead historically accumulated privilege usually racial yas embedded and defended in civil society Vhereyer the struggle to deracialize civil society reached meaningful proportions the independent state played a central role In this context the state-civil society antagonism diminished as the arena of tensions shifted to within civil societv

The key policy instrument in that struggle yas yhat is today called afllrmative action and what was then called Africanization The politics of Africanization was simultaneously uni~ing and fragmenting Its first moment involyed the dismantling of racially inherited privilege The efshyfect was to unif1 the victims of colonial racism iot so the second moshyment which turned around the question of redistribution and divided that same majority along lines that reflected the actual process of redisshytribution regional religious ethnic and at times just familial The tenshydency of the literature on corruption in postindependence Africa has been to detach the two moments and thereby to isolate and decontextushyalize the moment of redistribution (corruption) from that of expropriashytion (redress) through ahistorical analogies that describe it as the politics of patrimonialism prebendalism and so on The eHect has been to carishycature the practices under immiddotestigation and to make them unintelligible Put back in the context of an urban civil societv encircled by a countryshyside under the sway of so many customary powers-thus subject to the twin pressures of deracialization and retribalization-patrimonialism as we will see was in fact a form of politics that restored an urban-rural link in the context of a bifurcated state albeit in a top-down fashion that facilitated the quest of bourgeois fractions to strengthen and reproduce their leadership

There is also a second contextualized lesson one needs to draw from that period The other side of the politics of affirmative action was the struggle of the beneficiaries of the colonial order-mainly colons in the settler colonies and immigrant minorities (from India and Lebanon) in nonsettler colonies-to defend racial priYilege This defense too took a historically specific form for yith the deracialization of the state the language of that defense could no longer be racial Racial privilege not only receded into civil society but defended itself in the language of civil rights of individual rights and institutional autonomy To victims

I-JlRODUCTIO 21

of racism the yocabulary of rights rang hollO J lullaby for perpetuating raciJI privilege Their demands were formulated in the language of nk tiOluJism and social justice The result was a breach between the disshycourse on fights and the one on justice yith the language of rights apshypeJring JS a fig leaf over privilege and power JPpearing as the guarJntor of social justice and redress

This is the context of the fourth moment in the history of lctually existing ciil society This is the moment of the collapse of an embryonic indigenous civil society of trade unions and Jutonomous civil orgJnizashytions Jnd its absorption into political society It is the moment of the marriage between technicism and nationalism of the proliferation of stare nationalism in a context where the claims of the state-both develshyopmentalist and equalizing-had a powerful resonance particularly for the tlst-expanding educated strata It is the time when civil societyshybased social movements became demobilized and political movements statized1

lt1

To understand the limits of deracialization of civil society one needs to grasp the specificity of the local state which was organized not as a racial power denying rights to urbanized subjects but as an ethnic power enforcing custom on tribespeople The point of reform of such a power could not be deracialization it could be only detribalization But so long as the reform perspective was limited to deraciJlization it looked as though nothing much had changed in the rural sphere yhereas emiddoterything seemed to have changed in the urban areas Vle will see that wherever there was a failure to democratize the local state postindependence generations had to pay a heJvy price the untefcrmed ~ative Authority came to contaminate civil society so that the more civil society was deracialized the more it took on a tribalized form

True the deracialization of the central state was a necessary step toshyward its democratization but the two could not be equated To apprecishyate what democratization would have entailed in the African context we need to grasp the specificity of tribal power in the countryside

Customary Authority

Late colonialism brought a wealth of experience to its African pursuit By the time the Scramble for Africa took place the turn trom a civilizing mission to a law-and-order administration trom progress to power was complete In the quest to hold the line Britain was the first to marshal authoritarian possibilities in native culture In the process it defined a orld of the customary from which there was no escape Key to this was the definition of land as a customary possession for in nonsettler Africa

22 C H A PT E R 1

the Africa administered through X1tiyc Authorities the general rule as that iand could not be J private possesion of either landlords or pe1sshyants It was defined IS a customary communal holding to which every peasant household had a Cllstomary acccss ddincd by state-1ppointed CllSlOJ1llry ltlllthoritks_ As we will see the creation of 111 all-emhracing vodd of the customary had three notable consequences

First more than any other colonial subiect) the African was cOlltainershyLzed not as a native but as a tribespcrsOiL Every colony had two systems one modern the other customary Customary law was defined in the plural as the law of the tribe~ and not in the singular a~ a law for all nniycs Thus there was not one customary IH for all natives but roughly a~ many sets of cnstomar~r laws as there were said to be tribes The genius of British rule in Afria-we will hear one of its semiofficial historians daim-middot-was in seeking to civilize Africans as communities not as individuals More than anywhere else there was in the African coloshynial experience a ontgtsided opposition between [he individual and the group ciyil society and communit rights and tradition

Second in the latemiddot nineteenth-century Afflcan context~ there were severa traditions not just one The tradition that colonial powers privi~ leged as [he customary was the one with [he least historical depth that of nlneteenth~century conquest states But this monarchical~ authoritar jan Jnd patriarchal notion of the customary~ we will see most accurately mirrored colonia1 practices In this sense~ it was an ideological construct

Unlike civil Jaw customary taw was an administratively driven atIlir for those who enfoned custom were in a position to define it in the first place Custom 1n other words was state ordained and state enforced I wish to be understood dearly I am not arguing for a conspiracy theory whereby custom was always defined from above always invented or middotconstructed by those in power The customary was more otten than not the site of struggle Custom was often t he outcome of a contest beshytween various forces l not jnst those in power or its on-themiddotmiddotscenc agents My point though~ is about the institutional conteyt jn which this con test took place the terms of the conteslgt its institutional framework were heavny skewed in favor of state-appointed customary authorities It was as we will see a game in which the dice were loaded

It should not be surprising that custom came to be the lltlIlguage of force masking the uncustomary power of Native Al1thoritJes The third notable conseqUiIlCe of an all-cmbradng customary power was that the Afikan colonial experience was marked by torce to an unusual degree vVherc Jand was defined as a CllStOmary possession the market could be onJy a partial construct Beyond the market there was onJy one way of driving land and labor out of the world of the customary t(ncc The day-to-day yiolencc or the colonial system was embeddcd in customary

r-middotTRODtCTION 23

~HjC Anttloritie in the locd )otatc not in e1il powcr at the C(ntef f(t we mu~t not forget that customary Imal Juthority )5 reinfo]ed md hJcked up by central L-]yil PO cr Colonill despotism a~ highly dcshy

ccntralizeJ The scat of cu~tonlltlry pmir in the rnral areas wa~ thc local state the

district in British colonies the ccrelf til French colonies_ The fllmtionary of the locdl stJn~ apparatus was cverywhere called the chief One shonlo not be misled by the nomenciature into thinking of this lttS a holdonr fronl the precolonLll era sot onJ) did the chief hac the fight to pass ruks (bylaws) governing p(~rsons nndcr his domain he also cxcLuted all IJWS and was the administrator in his areL In which he settled all disshypntes The authority of the chief thus fused in 1 singh person aU momiddot mcnts of pon~r jlldidal legisJatie executiye Jnd adminisnatin This 1llthority Ya) lik~ a clenched fist necessary because the chief stood at the intersection of the market economy and the nonmarket 011C The administratiye jnstice and the ildministratiyc (OCrCiOll that were the sum and substdnce of his authority lay behind a regime of extra~econ()mic (oerciOJ1~ a regime that breathed life jnto a whole range of compulsions iorcd tabor torced crops) ilt)Iccd sales forced contributions and forced r(~moYlls

ETHNICITY AND THE ANTICOLONIAL REVOLT

To onderstand the nature of struggle and of agency one needs to unshyderstand the n3(ure of power The latter has something to do with the nature of exploitation but 15 not reducihle to it I started writing this book with a fOCll~ on difterentiated agrarian systems on the continent from the perspectiyc that has come to be known as poIitjclttl economy) r learned that the nature of poJiticaJ power hLcomes intelligible when put in th(~ context of concrete accumulation processcs and the struggles shaped by these 30 From this point of view the starting point of analysis had to be the labor question

I began to question the completeness of this propositIOn when I came to realize that the form of the state that had evolved over the colonial period vas not specific to any plrticular agrarian system Its specificity was~ rather~ poJitical more than anything else the form of the state was shaped by the African (olonia) experience llorc rhan the labor quesshytion j it was the natiYe question that illuminltcd [his experiencc My point is not to set up a false opposition between the rwo~ but I do mainshytain that political analysis Clllnot (~xtrapolate the nature of power from ltIn analysis of political economy ilore than the labor qnestion the orshyganizltltjon Jnd reorganization of power tllrned on the imperltive of

14 CHAfTE R I

tJJI1IJH politiJl order This is why to understand the 101111 of [he llndt~r cojoniahsm one had to at the center of analysis

that was the natic 1 he form of ruk Sh~1pcd thl f(xm of revolt against it Indirect rille at

once reintorced cthnicJll~- bound institutions or control and led to their explosion from within Ethnicity (tribalism) thus tame to be silllllltane~ ously the form of colonial control over natinmiddot~ and the tiJrm of reyolt agaiost it It defined the parami~ters of both the Natiyl Authority in charge of the locl state appardtlls and of resistance to it

Everywhere the local apparatlls of the colonial state was organized either on an ethnic or on a rdigious basis At the same time one finds it dltlicult to rccall a single major peasant uprisil1g over the colonia I period that has not been either ethnic or religious in inspiration Peasant insurshyrectionists organized around what they claimed a5 an nntaintt~d Lln~ compromised and genullll custom againgtt 11 state-cnforced 1mi cor rupted version of the customary This is so for a simpk but basic reason the anticolonial struggle was first and forcrno~t a struggle against the hierarchy of the local state the tribally organized Natiye Amhoritv which entltJrced the colonial order as customary This is vhy eery~ where-although the cadres of the nationali~t mOement werc recruited mainly from urban areal-thc movement gained depth the more it was anchored in the peasant srruggle against Xative Authorities

Yet tribalism as revolt hecame the source of a profound dilemma be~ cause local populations were usually multiethnic and at times multirelishygious Bthnldty and at times religion~ was reproduced as a problem inshyside every peasant movement This is hy it is not enough separate tribal power organized from above from tribal reyolt from belov so that we may denounce the former and embrace the latter The revolt trom below needs to be problemized j tor it carries the seeds of its ovn fragmentation and possible self destruction

1 have already suggested that the fragmentation is not jllst ethnic Rather the interethnic divide is an etreet of a larger split also politically

betcen town and country ~either was this double divide nrban~rural and interethnic t()rtuitous ~ly claim is that cyery moveshyment against decentralized dfspotlsm bore the institutIonal imprint of that mode of rule Eyer) movement of resistance was shaped by the very structure of power against vhkh it rebelled 110 it came to understand lhis historIcal taer and the capacity it marshaled to trans(end it set the tone and course of the movement I will make this point through an analysis of two types of resistance the rural In Uganda and the urban in South Atrica

We arc nOv in a positlon to answer the (luestion Vhat would democshyratization hae entailed in the African conlext It would havc CI1tailed

] 1ODlfT10l 25

the deradllization of ci il power Jud the detribalizatiol1 of CU~lon1Jt power JS ~tJrting p)ims ~)f an OCr111 dcmo(rati~atjon thJt wOHI~1 trll1 shy

s(tnd tile legacy ot a hliurcJtcd poycr A conSIstent kmocratLlallon ollld han required disn1antling Jnd reorgJnizing the 10c11 stJtc the Inl of ~atin- uthorities organized around the principle of fusioll of

t()rtilied bv ltHI administratiydy driycn ulStomJr justite lt1nd ~nllrishtd through cxtr~H~conomic coe~d()n

settin~ the pace in tapping lt1uthorituian possibilities in culture Jnd in culture an authoritJfian bent Britain led the y~t in fashioning 1 theor~ that cl1imcd its particular f()rlI1 of colonial dOlIH nltion to be muked hy an enlightencd dnd pcnnisslye recognition of nati~ culture Although its capacit-y to dominat grew through J

511 of Its own power1 the colonial statt claimed this process to he no lJlongt than a deterence to local tradition Jnd custom To grasp the conshytrJdktlon in this claim~ I haYe Sl1ggcstcd~ needs the analysis of thi~ insti tutions within which onidal custom was t()rged and reproduced The most important institutional legacy of coloniJl ruk I argue) may lie in the inherited jmoedimcnts to demoaltizfltlon

VARIETIES OF DESPOTISM AS POSTINDFPENDENCE REFORM

Clearly the t()rm of the state that emerged through post independence rd()lm was not the same in every instance Then was a Yari3tion lfwc ~tart vith the lanSuage that powcr enlploycd lO describe itselC we can

to distinct constellations the conservative and the rltHiicaL In the case of the consenltttie African states~ the hierarchy of the locaJ state

from chiefs to headmen continued after independence In the radical African states though there seemed to be a marked change In some lnstames a constellation of tribally ddincd customary LlVS was discarded as a single customary Jaw transcending tribal boundaries was n)(lified The result however~ was to dcn~1op a lH1it()rJ11) countrvwide cLlstomJry law applicable to aU peasants n~gardlcss of ethnic functioning alongside a modern law for urban dwellers A version of the hifurcated state~ ()rged through the Iolonial encounter~ remained Vhereas the consenatie regimes reproduceJ the decentralized desposhytism that was the torm of the colonial state in Atrica the radical regimes

to relorm it The outcome howen~r waS not to Jisll1alltle des~ potism through a democratic retorm~ rather it was to reorganize dcccnmiddot tralized power so as to unity the middotjndtion~ through a rdorm thJt tended to centra)ization The antidote to a decentralized despotism turned out to be a centralized despotism In the back and -f(Jfth movement between

26 CHAPTER j

a decentralized ltH1U centralized despotism each ngimc claimed to be reforming the negative ie)tures of its predecessor This we will sec is best illustrated by thc seesaw 1lOemcnt between chiJjn1 and military regjme~ in igcria

The cOlltinnjry between tht form of tht colonial state ~lnd the 1Oer fashloned through radlCJ1 rci)[nl was ul1dediwd by the despotic nature of power For lnaltmuch as radical regimes shared with colonJaJ powers the conviction to effect a revolution from alJoc they cnded lip intensi t)ing the adrninistratiyely drinn nature ofjustice 1 cust()fllary or modem If anythhlg the radicaJ eAperience built on the legacy of itlSed power enforcing admillistratlc imperatines through extra economic cncrshyciou-except thJt this time it was done in the name not of enforciug custom hut of maklng development and waging revolutiou Ecn if there was a change in the title of timctlonaries from chiefs to cadres there was linle change in the nalUre of power If middotanything the fist of colonial power that was the iocaJ state was tightened and strengthened Even jf it did not employ the JanguJge ofcustOm and enforce it through a tribal uthority the more it centralized coerciYe authority in the nlme of deveJopmcnt or rcvoiution the more it enforced and deepened the gulf between tOWI1 and country If the decentralized conservative variant of despotism tended to bridge the ufhan-rufal divide through a cHenshyte1jsm whosc effect was to exacerbate ethnk divisions its centralized radical variant tended to do the opposite dewcmphasizing the customary and ethnic difference between rural ar(a~ while deepening the chasm beshytween town and country in the pursuit of an adminislratively driYen deshyvelopment The bifurcated state that was created with colonialism was deracialized but it was not democratized If the two-pronged division that rhe colonial state enforced on the colonized~between town and counrry~ and between erhnkitles--was its dual legacy at jndependence each of the [co versions of the post(olonial stare tended to soften one pan of the legacy while eXJcerbating the other The limits of the (onshyservatic stJtes were obvious they rcmoyed the sting of racjsm from a colonially lashioned stronghold but kept in place the Native Authorishyties which entorced the division between ethnkittes The rJdical states went a step further joining deracialization to delribalization But the deradahzed and detribalized power they organized pm a premium on administrat)ve decision-making In the name of dctJibalizltltloll they tightened central control over Jocal authorities Claiming to herald deshyvelopment and gtage revolution~ they intensified extra-economic presshysure on the peasantry In the process they inflamed the division between town and country If the prototype subject in the conservatiyc states bore an ethnic mark~ the prototype subject in the radical states Walt sim

ISTRODUltTION 27

the rUfJl peasant In the pr(KCSS both expfricl1ces reprodwcd 0111 pHr of the dtrallegacy of the bifurcated stale and (rened their OU disshy

rjn~tirc rersion of despotism

SOUTH AFRICAN EXCEPTIONALlSM

Thr bittersweet fruit of AJrican lndependence also defines one posibh fnWff for postJpartheid South AJfica Part of my argument is that lpartshyIHid usuaUy considered the exceptional feature in the Somh African

1

experience is actually its one aspect that is uuiqudy African As 1 form of the state apartheid is neither self-evidently objectionable nor selfmiddot tyidentJr identifiable Usually understood as institutionalized racial domination apartheid was aetuaily an attempt to soften racial antagoshynism by mediating and thcreby retheting the impact of racial domina~ tion through a range of ~ative Authorities Not surprisingly the dis course of aparthdd~jn both General Smuts who anticipated it and the Broroerbond which engineered it-ideaJizeJ the practice of indire(l role in British colonies to the north As a form of fule apartheid-like the indirect rule colonia1 state-fractured the ranks of the ruled along a dOLlble dhide ethnic on the one hand rural-urban on the other

The notion of South Atrican cxceptionalism is a current so strong in South African studies that it can be said to have taken on the character of a prejudice 1 am painfully aware of the arduous labor of generations of researchers that has gone into the making of South African studies someone new to that field must trcad gingerly aud modestly Yet we all know of the proerbiaJ child who combines audacity with the prid1ege of seeing things anew perhaps this childs oniy strength is to take notke when the emperor has no dothes on vir claim simpty put is that South Africa has been an African country with spedt1c differenes

The South African literature that has a bearing on the question of the state comprises three related currents The first is a body of writings largely economistic It focuses on the rural-urban interface Jnd the dishyminishing significance of the countryside as a source of livelihood for its inhabitants Its accent is on the mode of exploinulon not of rule Vith its eye on an irreversihle process of proietJrianization it sees rural areas as rapidly shrinking in the face ofa uniHnear trend Becausc it treats rllral areas as largely residual it is unable fully to explaIn apartheid as a form of the state It is only from an economistic perspective-one lhat high~ lights levels ofindl1strialization and proletarianization onc-sidedly-that South African exceplionliisn1 makes sense Convcrsely the same excep~ tJollalism masks the colonial nature of the South African experience

28 CHAPTER 1

The point is worrh elaborating It is only from a pcr~pcctie thdt foshycuses single mindcdly on the labor question that the South African exshyperience appears exceptiOlUL For the labor question docs 1lllminatc that hich sets South Africa apart more or less in a catcgory of its own SCllli industrialization semi-pfoletcri~mization1 semi-nrbJnizJtion capped by lt1 strong civil sOc1e~r This is why it takes 1 shift of focus from the labor question to the natino question to underline that which is Afrkan and unexclptionai in the South Alliean experience That comshymonality I argue lies not in the political economy but ill the tt)[m of the state the bifl1nated stare forged in response to the ever present dishyiermn1 of how to secure political order the bifurcated state was like a spidery beast that )onght to pin its pr~y to the ground using a minimum of forcL~ -judicions some wOllJd say-to keep In check its most dynamic tendencies The more dynamic ltlnd assertive these rendencies as they ineyitahly were in a semi-industrial setting like South Africa~ the greater the f()rce it nnleashcd to keep them in check Thus rhe bifurcated srate tried to keep apart fordbly that which socioeconomic processes tended to bring together freely rhe urban and the rurll one erhnkity and another

There is a second body of scholanhipl yhich is on the ljuestion of chicfship and rural administration It is a specialized and ghetroized Jit~ erature on a particular InstitUtional tt)fI11 or on local government whose findings and insight are seldom integrated into a comprehensive analysis of the state And thcn~ finali) there is a corpus of glneral political writ~ ings that is holistic but lacks 1n depth aud explanatory power This is the literature on internal coioniliisUl~middot ~colonialism of a speciaJ and setder (u10nia11$I11 No longer in vogue in academia this kind of writing has tended to hecome increasingly mor11istit it is preoccupied with the search tor a colonizer~ not the mode of colonial control Vlith a growing emphasjs on non-racialism in the mainstream of popu lar srruggle in South Africa it appears embarrassing at besr and diisivc at worse As a failure to analyze apartheid as a form or the state this triple legacy is simultaneously a failure to relt1Hzc that the bifurcated state does not have to be tinged with a radal ideology Should that anaJytishycal faUure be translated into a political one it wilJ leave open the possi~ bHity tor such a t()rm of control and containmlnt to sunive the current transition

The specificity of the South African experience lies in the strength of its civil society both wbite and black This 1S in spite of the artificial deurbanizatioIl attempted by the apartheid regime The sheer numerical weight of white settler presence iu SOllth Atnc1 sets It apart trom settler minorities elsewhere in colonial Africa Black IIrbanizatiol1~ however has

~TRODtlCTION 29

bc(n J direct by-protinG of iJ1dllsrriltl1izar~on first following th~ lisco cry of gold Jnd diamonds at the end of the lltntteenth (tntllr~ then Juring the dCC1des ofr1pid secondary indtl~tri1hz)tion under Boer n1shyrionallsr~ ruk One testimony to the strength of black cidl society was the urban nprising that built WlV( upon wase following Soweto 1976 and that middotwas at the basis of the shift in the paradigm of resistance from armed to popular struggle The strength of urban t)rces md ci-ii socishy(ty-blSed movements in South AfriCJ meant thdt unlike in most African countries the center of grnxity of popular struggJe as in the townships md not against ~athe Authotities in the countryside The depth of reshysistance in South Africa WIS tooted in urban-based worker and student resistancc~ not in the peasant t(volt in the countryside middotVhereas in most frican countries the formation of an indigenous civil societ~ was mainl~ a postindependence affair following the deracialization of the state in South Africa it is both cause and consequence of that deradalization Yet civil sociery-based movements in apartheid South Africa mirror the key weakness of similar prodemocracy moel1)ents to the north shaped by the bifurcated nature of the state they lack an agenda for democratiz~ ing customaty power gelled in indirect rHie authorities and thereby a perspective for consistent democratization

The contemporary outcome in South Africa reflects both tcatures~ those generically African and those specifically South African The situ a tion leading to the nonracial elections of 1994 js a confluence of fie historical developments Tht~ first is the shift to apartheid rule in the late 19408 Most analysts have seen this as an exception to th wind of change~ then blowing across the cOIltinent a wind that in its wake bronght state inJependente to nonsettler coJonies In rdrOSpe(t~ though apartheid-the upgrading of indirect rule authoritv in rural areas to an autonomous status combined with police control ocr nashytive movement henvcen the rural and the urban1an attempt to convert a raciai into an ethnic contradktion-was the National Partys attempt to borrow a leaf from rhe history of colonial ruk to the north of the Limpopo tVhat gave apartheid its particularly crud twist was its attempt artificially to deurbanize a growing urban Mrican population This reshyquired rhe introduction of administrarively driven justice and fused power in African to~inships the experience can be summarized in two words forced YCmOlHJls which must chill a black South African spine

even today_ Second fi)fced removals notwithstanding) the processes of urbaniza~

tion and proletarianization continued The repression that administramiddot tively driven justice and fused power made possible-particularly in the (decade of peace that followed the Sharpci1k massacre of 1960-middot

30 CHAlTbR l

created 1 climate of gren il1estor confidenle As rates of capital dCCUshy111111ationlcaped JhcaJ ofpreYious levels so did rates ofAtric an proletarshyianization and urbanization

the decade of peace ended with the Durbu) strikes of 1973 and the SOcto uprising of 1976 For the next decade South Africa Vas in the throes of a protracted and popular urbdn uprising The paradigm of resistance shifted from an (~xiJe -based armed struggle to an internal popular struggle

the original and main social base of independent unionism that followed the Durban strikes of 1973 was migrant labor The trajecshytory of migrant labor politics illuminates the broad contours of the tics of resistance in aparthdd South Africa From being the spearhead of rural struggles against newly upgraded NJthe Authorities in the 1950s migrant labor provided the main energv that propelled fiJrward the inshydependent trade union movement in the decade figtll()ving the Durban strikes But by the close of the next decade hostel-hased migrants had become marginal to the township~bascd revolt As tensions between these two sfcrors of the urban African population exploded into antagoshynism in the Reef violence of 1990-91 hostels were exposed as the soft underbelly of both unions and township civics Seen in the 1950s as urban -based militants spearheading a rural struggle-an explosion of the urban in the rural-by 1990 migrants appeared to many an urban militant as traditlon~bound country bumpkins hent on damming the waters of urban township resistance the rural in the urban

If mv objective in looking at the South African experience were simply to bring to it some of the lessons from African studies the result would be a one-sided endeavor If it is not to turn into a Self-serving exerclse~ the objectjve must be-and indeed is-also to bring some of the strengtThs of South African studies to the study of friea For if the lem of South African studies is thar it has been exccptionalized African studies is that it was originally exoticized and is now banalized But unlike African studies which continues to be mainJy a turnkey im port South African studIes has been more of a homegrown import subshystitute In sharp contrast to the rustic and closeto-the-ground character of South African studies African studies have tended to take on the character of a speculadve vocation indulged in by many a stargazing aca~ demk perched in distant ivory towers

This lesson was driven home to me vith the forceful impact of a drashymatic and personal realization in the early] 990s when it became possishyble for an Afrkan academic to visit South Africa At close quarters apartheid no longer seemed a selfevident exception to the African coloshynial experience As the scales came oft~ I realized that the notion of South African exceptionalism could not he an exclusively South Alrican

INTRODtCTJON 31

cre~tlon The argument was also rcintorccd-regulldy -from the northern side of the border~ hoth by those who hotd the gun and by those who wield the pen This is why the creHion of truly African ~rudies a study of Africa whose starting point is the cOI11monality of the AfrklIl experience seems imperative at this historical moment To do so h()veTr~ requires that we proceed from a recognition of our legacy which is honest enough not to deny our difference~

1 f the reader should wonder why 1 have devoted so much space to

African material~ 1 need to point out that the South Atiican exmiddot 1erie11ce plays a key analytical and explanatory rok in the argument I will put torrh It is precisely hecause the South lrican historical expeshyrience is so difterent that it dramatically underlines what is common in the Atrican colonial experience Its brutality in a semi-industrialized setting notwithstanding apartheid needs to be understood as a form of the state) the result of a rerorm in the mode of rule which attempted to contain a growing l1rban~based revoh first by repackaging the native population under the immedlate grip of a constellation of autonomous Native Authorities so as to fragment it and then by policing its moeshyment between country and town so a~ to treeze the division betwecn the two Conversely it is precisely because black civil society in South Africa is that much stronger and more tenacious than any to the north that it illustrates dramatically the limitations of an exclusively civil socishyety-based perspective as an anchor for a dernocratic movement the urban uprising that unfolded in the wake of Durban 1973 and Soweto 1976 lacked a perspective from which ro understand and transcend the interethnic and the urban -rural tensions that would mark ~ts way ahead

Finally) the seesaw struggle between state repression and the urban uprising had teached a stalemate by the mid- 1980s It was as if the waters of the protracted uprising had been checked and frustrated by the walls of indjrect rule Native Authorities The uprising remained a pre~ dominantly urhan affair At the same time the international situation was changing fast with glasnost coming to the Soviet Union and rhe cold war thawing In this context the South African goernment tried to recoup a lost initiative through several dramatic refigtrms The first was the 1986 removal of influx control and the aholition of pass laws thereby reYCTsing the legacy of forced removJls It was as if the govshyernment by throwing open the floodgates of urban entry to rural mishygrants hoped they would flock to townships and PUt out the fires of urban revolt And so thev flocked bv 1993 according to most estishymates the shanty population encircling many townships was at around seven rniUion~ ncarly a fifth of the total popuJation Jvlany were migrants from rural areas

31 CHAPl ER I

Thc second initiuic cam( in 1990 with the reicasc of political pri middot Oners and the unhanning of cxik-hased organizations The government had jdentHied a (lt)[(c highly credible in the urhan uprising but not born of it and sought to work out the terms of an aJliance with it That fixec was the friean Nltional Congress (ANC) in exile Those terms were worked out in the course of a tCHlrmiddot year negotiation process caJled the C01lOltioll for a Democratic South Africa ICODESA) The resultmiddot ing constitutional consenSllS ensured the National Party suhstantial povcrs in the state f()r at least fiye years after the nonmiddotracial ciections of 1994 lvlany critiques of the transition have tOcmcd on this blemish but the real import of this transition to nonracial rule may turn out to be the tact that it vf111cave intact the tructures of indirect rule Sooner rather than later~ it will liquidate radsrn in the state With free moye~ ment between town and country but with Native Authorities in charge of an ethnically gmcrncd rural population) it will reproduce one legacy of apartheidmiddotmiddot -in a nonracial f()[m If that happens this deracialization without democratization ill haye been a uniquely African outcome

SCOPE AND ORGANIZATION

This book is divided into two parts The first focuses on the strunure of the state FoHowing this introduction is a chaprer that reconstructs the moment of the late-nineteenth -century scramble as a conHuence of two interrelated developments The first was the end of slavery hoth in the estern hemisphere and on the African continent This Shlft of his torishycal proportions both underlined the practical need t()f a new regime of compulsions and deartd the ground for it The seeond contributory facshytor was the set oflessons that late colonialism drew from its Asian expeshyrknce Tht hisLorical context illnminates what was distinctive ahout the nature of colonial power in Africa

The political history of indirect rule) from its genesis in equatorial Afshyrica to its completion in South [[rica is traced in chapter 3 J should perhaps clarilV at this point that I do not claim to have wtitten a book that is cncydopedic and panoramic in its empirical reach The point of the examples I narrate is illustrative As a mode of ruie decentralized despotism was perfected in equatorial Afdca thc real focus of the lateshynineteenth-century s~ramble Only later did ltS scope extend north and south~ parts of the continent colonized earlier The examples 1 nse from the colonial period are clustered around the period of incubation of in~ direct rule in equatorial Africa with an extended discussion of South

which is usually presumed to be an c)(cption to the Mrican cxpe-

I fROOUC f101 33

ritr1CC 1nd which I c011t(no was the last to implement a nrsion of dcccnshytrlizcd despotism

As its pioneers the British theorized the colonjal state as k~ a territoshyri11 onstrIlCI than l cultm11 one The dullity netween ciyil Jl1d cllstomshyIn power 15 best described in legal ideology the subject ofchJpter 4 L~g11 dll1Jism juxtflposcd received (modcrn) law with (ustomar law But (llstomJry law was formulated not 15 a single s(~t of rutin- laws but JS so many cts of tribal laws Com ersdy~ colonial authorities defined a tribe or an ethnic group as 1 group with its own dist1ctlC Jaw RdcrreJ to as custom this law was usuaHy unwritten Its source however was the ~ltive Authority those in charge of managing the local state apparashytns Oftcn installed by the colonizing power and always sanctioned by this NHire Authority was presented as the traditional tribal Authority vVhelc the soune ofthc law yas the er~T authority that administered the lamiddot there (ould be no ruk bound authority In such In arrangement) there could be no rule of law

Thi first part of the book doses with a chdpter (5) on the relation oaic to decentralized despotism that between the free peasant and the Iatie Authority Through an illustrative exploration of extramiddoteconomk coercion) chaptcr 5 sums up the distinctive feature of the economy of indirect rule Together chapters 3) 4 and 5 sum up thc institutional triad through which this decentralized mode of rule operated a fusion of power an administratively driven notion of cusLomary bw and a range of extra econoIllIc compulsions Each chapter also doses with a discllssion of the variety and the overall limit of postindependence reform

The second part of the book explores the changing shape of opposimiddot tional moytments as they grow out of the womb of the bifutcatcd state I tonls on twa paradigm cases to iHuminate the rural and urban contexts ofresistancc Uganda and South AfricJ Within the context of exploring different ways of bridging the urbanmiddotrural divide my objectiye is twoshyfold first) to connterpose the earlier discussion of authoritarian possibil ities in culture (customary law) ta a discllsslon of emancipatory possishybilities in ethnicity~ second to problematize ethnicity as resistance precisdr because it onurs III mulriethule contexts

The Ugandan material forms the hulk of case studies ill chapter 6 OIl

rural-based movements in equaturial Africa My primary accent is on movements that scek to reform customary power in rural areas so as lO

out both melr crcarie moments and their limitations The South African material in chapter 7 focllses on urban-based mOcments) orga~ nizcd the first time as rrade unions and the second time as political parshyties Through a combination of secondary sonrce material and primary

34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1

111 some of the violent hostels in Johumesbllrg) Durban j explore the dialectics of migrant politics (the

rurJf in the urban) through the turning points of the 1970s and the carly 1990 In rhe overall context of the polItics of South Africa

The conclusion (chapter 8) is a reflection on how oppositional mocshymCnt5 and postindcpll1dence states hayc tried to come to terms wirh the tensions lhal the structure of power tends to reproduce in the social anatomy 11middot point is that key to a reform of the bifurcated state and to any theoretical anaJ~sis that would kad to such a rd()[111 must he an cndc1or to link the urban and the rural~and thereby a series ofrelared binary oppositlts stich as rights and custom rcpres-entation and particishypation cenLraUzJtion and dccentralization) ch-il society and commu nity-in ways that havc yet to be done

rr

Part One ________

TH E Sl RcefCR Or POWER

4 CHAPTER 1

Memorial Lectures at Oxford in 1929 the natie question t()rmed the core of his deliberation

The African Smuts reminded his British audience is a special human type with some wonderful characteristics which he went on to celshyebrate It has largely renlJined a child type jth a child psychology and outlook A child-like human can not be a bad human for are we not in spiritual matters bidden to be like unto little children Perhaps as a dishyrect rcsult of this temperament the African is the only happy human I haye come across Een if the rlCism in tbe language is bliuding e should be wary of dismissing Smuts as some South African oddity

Smuts spokc from within an honorable Vestern tradition Had not Hegels Philosophy of History mythologized Africa proper as the land of childhood Did not settlers in British colonies call eyery Mrican male regardless of age a boy-houseboy shamba-boy office-boy ton-boy mine-boy-no different from their counterparts in Francoshyphone Africa who used the child-familiar tu when addressing Mricans of any age The negro opined the venerable Albert Schweitzer of Gabon fame is a child and with children nothing can be done without authority In the colonial mind however Africans were no ordinary children They were destined to be so perpetually-in the words of Christopher Fyfe Peter Pan children who can neYer grow up a child race 1

Yet this book is not about the racial legacy of colonialism If I tend to deemphasize the legacy of colonial racism it is not only because it has been the subject of perceptie analyses by militant intellectuals like Frantz Fanon but because I seek to highlight that part of the colonial legacy-the institutional-which remains more or less intact Preeisely because deracialization has marked the limits of postcolonial reform the nonracial legacy ofcolonialism needs to be brought out into the open so that it may be the focus of a public discussion

The point about General Smuts is not the racism that he shared with many of his class and race for Smuts was not simply the unconscious bearer of a tradition More than just a sentry standing guard at the cutshyting edge of that tradition he was if anything its standard-bearer A member of the British war cabinet a confidant of Churchill and Rooseshyvelt a one-time chancellor of Cambridge University Smuts rose to be one of the framers of the League of Nations Charter in the post-Vorld War I era 2 The very image of an enlightened leader Smuts opposed slavery and celebrated the principles of the French Revolution which had emancipated Europe but he opposed their application to Africa for the Mrican he argued was of a race so unique that nothing could be worse for Africa than the application of a policy that would

IKTRODCCTIOK 5

-~de-Africanize the Aftican and turn him either into a beast of the field or into a pseudo-European And yet in the past he lamented we hae rried both alternatives in our dealings with the Africans

FIrst wt looked upon the African as essentIally inferior or ~llb-htlman as having no soul and 1S bting onl~ fit to be a ~Ia e Then we changed [0

the opposite extreme The Afric1n now became a man and J brOl her Relishygion and politics combined ro shape [his new African polity The principles of the French Revolution whith had emancipatcd Europe ere 1pplicd to

Africa liberty equality and frattrnity could turn bad Atrieam into good Etlropean~

Smuts was at pains to underline the negatiyc consequence of a policy formulated in ignorance een if coated in good faith

The political system of the natives V1~ ruthlessly destroyed in order to inshycorporate them as equals into the white system The African was good as a potential European his social and political culture was bad barbarous and only desening to be stamped out root and branch In some of the British pmsessions in Africa the native just emerged from barbarism was accepted as an eqnal citizen with full political rights along with the whites But his native institutions were ruthlessly proscribed and destroyed The principle of equal rights was applied in its crudest t(xm and hile it ga e the native a semblance of equality with whites vhich was little good to him ir deshystroyed the basis of his African system which was his highest good These are the two extreme native policies which have prevailed in the past and [he second has been only less harmful than the first

If Africa has to be redeemed so as to make her own contribution to the world then we shall have to ptoceed on different lines and evolve a policy which will not force her institutions into an alien European mould but will preserve her unity with her on past and build her future progress and ciilization on specifically African foundations Smuts went on to champion the new policy in bold The British Emshypire does not stand for thc assimilation of its peoples into a common type it does not stand for standardization but f()r the fullest freest deshyvelopment of its peoples along theit own specific lines

The tullest freest development of [its1peoples as opposed to their assimilation into a common type required Smuts argued institushytional segregation Smuts contrasted in~~~t_illional segE~gation with territorial segregation then in practice -in South Mrica Theproblem with territorial segregation in a nutshell was that it was based on a policy of institntionaI homogenization Natives may be territorially sepshyarated from whites but native institutions were slowly but surely giving

6 CHAIT1R i





fNTKODlCTIOS 7







8 CHAIfrRl




l~TRODtCTIO~ 9









10 CHAPTER





1~JRonLC[IO 11






12 CHAPTER 1





INTRODlC ION 13





Civil Society


14 CHAPTER 1





lITROD(CTIO 15








16 CHAPTER 1















18 CHAPTER I







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20 CHAPTER 1





I-JlRODUCTIO 21



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22 C H A PT E R 1













14 CHAfTE R I









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ISTRODUltTION 27





1




28 CHAPTER 1




~TRODtlCTION 29





30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




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Part One ________


6 CHAIT1R i





fNTKODlCTIOS 7







8 CHAIfrRl




l~TRODtCTIO~ 9









10 CHAPTER





1~JRonLC[IO 11






12 CHAPTER 1





INTRODlC ION 13





Civil Society


14 CHAPTER 1





lITROD(CTIO 15








16 CHAPTER 1















18 CHAPTER I







[t-TRODUC flOX 19










20 CHAPTER 1





I-JlRODUCTIO 21



lt1



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22 C H A PT E R 1













14 CHAfTE R I









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ISTRODUltTION 27





1




28 CHAPTER 1




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30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




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Part One ________


8 CHAIfrRl




l~TRODtCTIO~ 9









10 CHAPTER





1~JRonLC[IO 11






12 CHAPTER 1





INTRODlC ION 13





Civil Society


14 CHAPTER 1





lITROD(CTIO 15








16 CHAPTER 1















18 CHAPTER I







[t-TRODUC flOX 19










20 CHAPTER 1





I-JlRODUCTIO 21



lt1



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22 C H A PT E R 1













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] 1ODlfT10l 25











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1




28 CHAPTER 1




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INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




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Part One ________


10 CHAPTER





1~JRonLC[IO 11






12 CHAPTER 1





INTRODlC ION 13





Civil Society


14 CHAPTER 1





lITROD(CTIO 15








16 CHAPTER 1















18 CHAPTER I







[t-TRODUC flOX 19










20 CHAPTER 1





I-JlRODUCTIO 21



lt1



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22 C H A PT E R 1













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31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




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Part One ________


12 CHAPTER 1





INTRODlC ION 13





Civil Society


14 CHAPTER 1





lITROD(CTIO 15








16 CHAPTER 1















18 CHAPTER I







[t-TRODUC flOX 19










20 CHAPTER 1





I-JlRODUCTIO 21



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1




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30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




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Part One ________


14 CHAPTER 1





lITROD(CTIO 15








16 CHAPTER 1















18 CHAPTER I







[t-TRODUC flOX 19










20 CHAPTER 1





I-JlRODUCTIO 21



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Customary Authority


22 C H A PT E R 1













14 CHAfTE R I









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26 CHAPTER j



ISTRODUltTION 27





1




28 CHAPTER 1




~TRODtlCTION 29





30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




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Part One ________


16 CHAPTER 1















18 CHAPTER I







[t-TRODUC flOX 19










20 CHAPTER 1





I-JlRODUCTIO 21



lt1



Customary Authority


22 C H A PT E R 1













14 CHAfTE R I









] 1ODlfT10l 25











26 CHAPTER j



ISTRODUltTION 27





1




28 CHAPTER 1




~TRODtlCTION 29





30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




rr

Part One ________


18 CHAPTER I







[t-TRODUC flOX 19










20 CHAPTER 1





I-JlRODUCTIO 21



lt1



Customary Authority


22 C H A PT E R 1













14 CHAfTE R I









] 1ODlfT10l 25











26 CHAPTER j



ISTRODUltTION 27





1




28 CHAPTER 1




~TRODtlCTION 29





30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




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Part One ________


20 CHAPTER 1





I-JlRODUCTIO 21



lt1



Customary Authority


22 C H A PT E R 1













14 CHAfTE R I









] 1ODlfT10l 25











26 CHAPTER j



ISTRODUltTION 27





1




28 CHAPTER 1




~TRODtlCTION 29





30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




rr

Part One ________


22 C H A PT E R 1













14 CHAfTE R I









] 1ODlfT10l 25











26 CHAPTER j



ISTRODUltTION 27





1




28 CHAPTER 1




~TRODtlCTION 29





30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




rr

Part One ________


14 CHAfTE R I









] 1ODlfT10l 25











26 CHAPTER j



ISTRODUltTION 27





1




28 CHAPTER 1




~TRODtlCTION 29





30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




rr

Part One ________


26 CHAPTER j



ISTRODUltTION 27





1




28 CHAPTER 1




~TRODtlCTION 29





30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




rr

Part One ________


28 CHAPTER 1




~TRODtlCTION 29





30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




rr

Part One ________


30 CHAlTbR l






INTRODtCTJON 31





31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




rr

Part One ________


31 CHAPl ER I






I fROOUC f101 33








34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




rr

Part One ________


34 ~ HAP 1 r~ R 1




rr

Part One ________


Mamdani - Introduction From Citizen and Subject-Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late...

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Transcript of Mamdani - Introduction From Citizen and Subject-Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late...