Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

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The Uzvlded Afrlcnn St vltl ITefnson despotism. Rather they attempt to accommodate the chiefs, encouraging the111 in idea that the chiefs-who are regarded as 'being the spokespersons generally of belief they are somehow part of democracy in South Africa and, indeed, that their 1 should be reinforced and privileges extended. lem of development is relegated to the minor question of the The revival of political life in the run-up to the 1999 election ies and municipalities. There is paralysis on exarnples of the Realpolitik of South Africa which are also those of Africa, illustra whether traditional leaders should have voting that national political leadership depends on traditional authority for power. clusion at all. The blurring of these issues support of the rural people is solicited not directly by campaignin th the anti-democratic traditional authorities. chiefs. This is illustrated by the tendency for Robert Mugabe ill Zimb is is the Realpolitik which Mamdani is sharply alive to and which confinns the mail1 the cultural and religious significance of the African chiefs, to promise ust of his argument. These examples of the articulation of lnodernising elites with strengthening of their position, and affirm their role in communicating ate a general tendency in African politics and society: that of ancestors before elections. Similarly there are displays of President Mandela mo to reach its limits and to seek accommodation and joint rule fa~niliarly among the chiefs of the Transkei, and our Minister of Constitution th the chiefs. Customary law unreformed by the embrace of Developlnent promising an expanded role for chiefs in local government and the rms of despotic rule remain the afterbirth of continued control over the allocation of land (SATV 5 March 19 leaders are alive to this courtship and play the game. The leader of Phathekile Holomisa, has expressed the fear that politicians want the chiefs who, he claims, represent the people in the rural areas. He at modernising local government have been made before in Africa a ntellectuals is Mamdani's analysis of the inner they will fail in South Africa because elected councillors don't delive ns between this colonial tradition, the scalpel of iinperialisln in the dextrous not properly represented in local councils in rural areas (SAfm 1 May 1998). Spe alevolent flowering of apartheid. The argument on behalf of CONTRALESA, he objects to the Ministers deciding on the ra the end product of colonialism in Africa, however, which appears so traditional leaders, who is a king or paramount chief, etc. and demand ple, unfortunately also reveals the limits ofhis hypothesis. While there pensions and salaries for traditional and elected leaders (SAfm 2 May 1998 mate connections, colonial practice did not prescribe the outcome of apartheid. central to the debate about traditional culture. In rural areas to draw on the insights provided by the cheap labour theorists to explain its development projects, case studies have revealed that decisions about such ~rojects ory. Theoretically Malndani appears to lose the essential link between the often taken autocratically by the chief and his councillors. Youth and women are den~e cal economy of South Africa and the nature of internal divisions; the lines of participation. The first priority often seems to be to build a road to the ch vision among the population were most brutally enforced, but they were also When food relief is provided it has been reported that the first person to benefit is wed. The solution to these manifest divisions, both in South Africa and chief, who requires food for himself before the children can be fed. Communi in the political or administrative, though both are vital in the complain to the Hearings on Poverty that the chiefs are the main notion of African unity and progress, but in the economic and the development. These are impressions of the actual power relationships i e modem sector and the eventual smoothing over of the rasping lines of and policy statements aim at accommodating these realities. ciety. This is a function of rural as well as urban The recently released White Paper on Local Government (Ma tradition of the Ujamma villages of Tanzania, which were originally 1988:4.4,4.3) avoids confronting the issue of power and authori 1 Africa's imagination before becoming the bureaucratic nightmare arguing that there is no conflict between Afiican customs and traditions mi-modernised and authoritarian state, shows the latent possibilities of African and promising 'additional functions' to be added to those of traditional leaders. ve and African solutions. distortion of tradition under apartheid is not mentioned and neither are the obvio Mamdani expresses severe reservations about the emergence of a vital civil enormous problems such as the representation and rights of women, e outlines of the landscape of African realities are presented in one crucial question. This policy statement from a democratic government promot okes but the colours are sharply monochroinal, purely black and slow evolution of society from the customary various challenges posed by the individual and ' For some reasoll these displays of courtship are only registered in the electronic media a aled in civil society, the bending of custom and tradition to the not in the press. Speeches are not lodged on the ANC's website of speeches, making a recordi s of urban and industrial life (most evident in South African anthropology, but of the actual promises and entreaties dependent on note-taking at transmission times! the work of the Zambian school of social change), the initiatives of individuals
and comn~unities organising theinselves along democratic lines', are elusive in t work. He gives priority to the political and administrative, brilliantly portr ciistortion ol'custorn under colonialisvn and explaining its self-perpetuation, r looking towards the contrary tendencies of evolutionary social change and t o~le have been forced to endure more than 30 wars since 1970. All this adds up to the *rayal of a continental society in dreadful stagnation because of the lack of an onomic dynamic, a society in which pride ofplace is taken by the military, and where inar~ people have to turn to the rural areas and traditiolial authority for some shelter of tradition to thc demands of the city. The argument of Citizen ~rnd Subjiect con,pelling at olle level but inadequate at another because Mamdani fails to grap the ravages ofmodern society. But beyond this negative picture it is also important gister the effective challenges of civil society, the increasing participation of with the esserltial sociological fact that the process of the dissolution of traditio en in economic activities, the battle for survival and for property under these authority is inexorable and continues apace. Cornpared to the ebb and flux of politics-the ability to manoeuvre a ditiolls, the growth of a landless proletariat with weaker sentimental attachinent to land. Quantity can change fairly rapidly into quality as has been witnessed in perfor111 policy gy:ymnastics-tl~is trend seelns slow and unuseful. But without perspective we call be insensitive to the contrary trends to traditionalisln laten Lo-banisation, a growing youthful population, and the ~ainl'ul but progress1 babwe where recently there has been the most extraordinary flowering of civil clety around the fulcru~n of the trade unions. These initiatives by Africans in Africa Mamdani's eclectic purview. e~nancipatio~i of women from rural patriarchy. There are also the contradict0 Finally, it is worth stressing that structures, states, and civil society have to rest tendcncies in pblic consciousness signalled by the crossing over to more 'mod certain econo~nic base, and this truth is not the exclusive property of a Marxist attitudes towards sexual identity, sexual abuse, land ownership by women, relig erspective. The relation between state and economy is central to the question of the freedom, and inter-racial marriage, etc. These trends indicate the tendencies SaPpl away the raw power of~nilitant traditionalism such as that of Inkatha. On its war mobilisation subsides-as eventually it has to since it is COmlnitte stabilisation of social relations on a capitalist basis-then the rational core of In e, and cannot be demoted as a regional obsession". Lines of analysis which pursue relationship between state and economy as the basis for an understanding of the racter of the state are suggestive of its future developtnent. The African state has to located within the processes of continental disintegration and reconstruction, and defo~~nation of tradition will be found to be absent and in its place a savage wtipat world markets. The most recent beginnings of an upturn in growth may presage leader against leader could result. The main proble~n Inkatha faces is the gro prospects for civil society. If Africa had the economic basis, then the real divorce between itself and its business supporters now that the ANC leadership aries ~narking off civil society from rural despotism, the opportunities for the wholeheartedly embraced the task of financial stability and lnonetary restraint, prioritised the building of a black capitalist class rather than redressillg of social nee Yet is the extent of the acco~nrnodation to the forccs of tradition that even a radi commentator withill the ANC defends a merger of the party of ~nodernising national with that of its most destructive traditionalist opponent (Crollin 1998). While i~~dicates the abiding power of decentralised despotism, it can also be read as indica the possibility that decentralised despotism is not an im~novable monolith but is rat in process, fluctuating violently between dissolution and a willed consolidation. S are the contradictions of conteniporary South Africa. In terms of the broader perspective required by a rejuvenated African Stu citizen L-indSl~D/ect is limited by a weak conception of the political economy of Afri e revival of civil society in war-tom regions, could shift apace. We need to mber that at the beginning of the various developinent decades in the 1950s, the pita income of ~riany African countries was similar to those of South East Asia, ofwho~n have doubled per capita incomes in a decade. What has been the critical r in Africa's political and econo~nic stagnation? The bifurcated state is a key ent in the mode of domination, but is it the essential factor in explaining the sse, or do we have to seek out the data of Africa's marginalisation in world ets, and combinations of state explanations and the economy? a lack of recognitioil that Africa is the Third World's Third World, a stagnant bat ofthe internatiol~al economy, a continent marginalised and brutally exploited in uld suggest that, despite Mamdani's powerful methodological synthesis, we need eturn to the eie~nents of political economy for a comprehensive analytic apparatus. In n2y ,\-ark on growth of social moven~cnts in lnanda (Hemson 1996) 1 argue that Peter Evans has used concepts such as 'embedded autonomy' to analyse thc burca~~cratic ,,(>tcntial for democratic civic structures depends on tile quality and commitment to clia ation, combined with intense connection to the surrounding social str~~cture (particularly lcadcl-sllip. sucj1 a leadersllip callnot be guaranteed. but neither slio~~ld tile possibil' st rial capital), as a formative element of the state's ability to develop a modern economy. ijcmocracy tjlrl,Llsll co17-imunjty participation be cntil.cly excluded. l'll~ role of conciousnc redatory' states are located along with 'developniental' states within a continuum of tl~e o,.galiisation 1ll tlie contest ofpo\\ier, locally and nationally. is avital factor. l'lie vigor(>~ls c hievement of developnient. Sorne African states are specil?cally cliaracterisable as being till- ,x,LL.cr ill illis aplxnrs to have left an irilporlalll legacy of civic ciclllocracy w rolled by those who 'plunder without any more regard for the welfal-e oftlie citizenry than a tilt 11ationa1 ~novcmeilt appears in disarl-ay. ator has for the welfare of its prey' (Evans 1905:44).
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Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

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