________ eH A PTE R N E _

Introduction:Thinking through Africa's Impasse

DISCUSSIONS 011 Africa's present predicamcnt revolve around two eleartcndencics: modernisr and communitaral1. Modernists rakc inspirationf"i"um the East Europcan uprisings of the late eighrics; communicariansdeery liberal or [dI: Euroccntrisll1 and call t(lr a n:tUrll to th

4 CHAPTER I

Memorial Lectures at Oxford in 1929, lhe lutive qllestion frmed thecore of his dcliberaton.

The African, Smuts reminded his British alldience, is a special human"type" with "some wonderful characteristics," which he went onro cel-ebrate: "It has largelI' remained a child type, wirh a child psI'ehology amlolltlook. A child-like human can nol be a bati hllnun, fr are wc not inspirilual matters bidden to be like unto little children? Perhaps as a di-recr resulr of this temperament the Arriem is the only happy human Ihave come across." Even if the racism in the langllage is blinding, wcshould be wary of dismissing Smurs as some South African oddiry.

Smms spoke from within an honorable Wcstern rradition. Had norHcgel's Philosophy 01 History mythologized "Africa propu" as "the landof childhood"? Did not scttlcrs in British co!onics c111 cvery Atricanmale, regardlcss of agc, a "boy"-houscboy, shamba-boI', oftice-boI',ton-boy, mine-boI'-no diflerent trom their counterparts in Franco-phone Africa, who u5ed rhe child-tmiliar tu when addressing Africansof any age? "The negro," opined lhe venerabJe Albert Sch\veitzer ofGab(m f;lffiC, "is a child, and with children nothing can be done withoLHallthoritI'." ln the colonial mind, howcvcr, Afrcans were no ordinarvchildn:n. They werc destincd to bc 50 perpcrually-in the words o'fChristopher FI'fc, "Peter Pan children who can never grow up, a childracc."\

Yet this book is not abollt the raciallegacy of colonialismo IfI tend todeemphasize the legacI' of colonial racism, ir is not only because it hasbcen the subject of perceptive analyses bI' militant intellccmals IikeFrantz FamJn, but bccausc I scek to highlight that part of thc coloniallcgacI'-the institLltional-which n.:mains more or less intacto Preciselybecause deracialization has markcd the lmits Df postcolonial reform, thenonraciallegacy of colanialism nccds to be brought out into the open sothat ir mal' be rhe focus of a public discussion.

The point abollt General SIl111tS is not the racism that he shared withmany of his c1ass and race, for Smuts was not simply the unconsciousbearcr of a tradition. More than jl1st a sentry standing gl1ard at the Cllt-ting edge of that tradition, he was, if anI'thing, its standard-bearer. Amember of the British war cabinet, a contidant of Churchill and Roose-velt, a one-rime chancellor of Cambridge Universiry, Smuts rose to beonc ofthe framers ofthe League ofNarions Charter in the post-WorldWar I era. 2 The very imagc of an enlightened leader, Smuts apposedslaverI' and celebrated rhe "principies of the Frcllch Revolurion whichhad cmanciparcd Europc," bllt he opposed their applicarion to Africa,for the African, he argued, was af "a racc 50 unique" that "nothingcould be \\'orSI:: for Africa than the application of a polieI''' that would

INTRODUCTION 5

"de-Atrieanize the Atrican and tum him eithcr into a bcast or the ficld orinro a pscudo-ElIropcan." "And yet in the past," hc Iamcntcd, "wc !lavetried both alternatives in our dealings wirh the Africans."

hrst wc lookr.:d llpon thc African .1S cssemi.1l1y interior or sub-l1ulll.lI1, .1Shaving no soul, and as bcing only fil to bc;\ sL1vc "j"hl.:lI \VI.: ch.ll1ged tothc opposirt: LXtrCIll

6 CHAPTER I

way to an alicn inslitlltionai mold. As the cconomy beeame industrial-ized, it gave rise to "the colour problem," at the root of which were"urbanized 01' detribalized natives." Smms's point \vas not that racialsegregation ("territorial segregation") should be done awav with.Rather it was that it should bc made part of a broadcr "institlltio~1a1seg-rcgation" and tht:rcby ser on a sccure t()()ting: "Tnstitutional scgregationcarrit.:s with it tt:rritorial segrt:gation." The way to preserve native insri-tutions while mceting the labor dcmands of a growing eCOl1omy wasthrough the institution of migrant labor, tor "50 long as the native fam-ily homc is not with the white man bur in his OWI1 arca, so long thenative organizarion wil! not be materially affected."

II is onl)' whell segregatioll bre,lks dOINIl, whcn th", whok I:1llliJy migr.ltesti-

8 CJ-IAI'TER 1

in cOl1tcmporary Ati-ica shaped in rhe colonial pcriod rathcr than born ofthe anticolonial rcvolt? Was the notioll thar they introduced the rult: oflaw to African colonies no more than a eherished illusion of colonialpowers? Second, rather than just uniting divcrse ethnic grollps in a com-mon prcdicamcnr, \V,lS nor racial domination actllally mediated rhrougha variay of erhnically organized local powers? If so, is ir not too simpiccven ifrcmpting to think ofthc anticoloniJ.1 (narionalist) srfugglc as jllsta olH.'-sided rcplldiarioll of cthnicity rather than also a scries of erhnicrcvolts againsr so many ethnically organized and eentraJly reinforcedlocal powers-in other \Vords, a string of ethnic civil wars? ln brief, wasnor ethnieity a dimension of both powcr and resistance, of both theproblcm and the sollltion? Fin,dly, if power reproduced ir",df by exag-gerJring diffe!1n: and dcnying rhe existence of an oppr

10 CHAI'TER I

]2 CHAPT'ER I

What happcns if you takc a historieai process unfolding 11l1der con-crete conditions-in this case, of sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Eu-rape-as a vantage point from which to make sense ofsubsequent socialdcvelopment? The outcorne is a history by analogy rather than history asprocesso Analogy seeking turns into a substitute for theory frmation.The Ab-icanist is akin 10 those lcarning J. fareigo language who mLlsttrans(atc evcry I1CW word back into their mother tonglle, in the processmissing preciscly what is new in a new expcrience. From sllch a stand-point, the most intcnse controversies dweII on what is indeed the mostappropriate translation, the most adequa te fit, the O10st appropriateanalogy that will capture thc meaning of the phenomenon under obser-vatiem. Africanist debates tcnd to focus on whether cOl1temporary Afri-can n.:ality most doseIy rcscmbtcs the transition to capitalism undcr sev-cnteenth-eclltury Europcan absolutism or that under other Third WorJdexpcrieoecs, IS or whethcr the postcolonial state in Afriea should be la-beled Bonapartist or absolutist. 19 Whatever their differences, both sidesagree that African reality has meaniog anil' insofar as it can be secnto reflect a panicular stage in the development of an earlier history.Inasmuch as it privilcgcs the ElIropean historical experienee as its tOllch-stone, as the hi~torical expression of the universal, comemporary llnilin-car evollltionism should more concretely and appropriately be character-ized as a Eurocentrism. The central tendcncy of such a methodologicalorientation is to lift a phenomenon out of context and processo The re-sult is a history by analogy.

The Uncaptured Peasantry

Whcreas the literature 011 corruption is mainly about the state in Mrica,that 00 exit is abolit the peasantry. Two diametrically opposed perspec-tives can be discerned here. One looks at the Mrican countryside asnothing but an ensemblc oftransactions in a marketplace; the other seesit as a collection of houscholds cnmeshed in a l10nmarket milieu of kin-based rclations. for the former, the market is the defining featme ofrural !ife; for the latter, the intrinsic rcalities of village Mrica have littleto do with the market. The sarne tendency can appear clothed in sharplycontrasting ideological garbo Thus, for example, the argument that ruralAfrica is really precapitalist, with the rnarkct ao external and artificial im-position, was first put fanh by the proponel1ts ofAfrican socialism, mostl10tably Julius Nyercrc. Largdy discrcdited in the mid-sevcnties, whendependency thcory reigned suprernc, this thesis was resurrected in theeighties by Goran H yden,2 who cchoed Nyercre--once again relyingon empirical material from Tanzania-that the "intrinsic realities" of"Mrica" have liule to do with market relationships. lnstead, he arglled,

INTRonucTloN 13

thcy are a lIniquc cxpression 01' a premarkct "economy of afkction."Market theories were championed by lMF thcorists who claimed thatthe rationality of groul1d-level markets was bcing siml1ltaneously sup-pressed and distorted by clientele-riddcn but all-pov.erful states. Thcargumenr was given academic respcctability by Robert Bates's \viddycirculated srudy Markets and S/ate)' in Africa. \Vhercas the !atter ren-dency continues to enjoy the status of an official truth in policy-makingcircles, the frmer survives as a marginal but fshiol1able preoccupationin academia.

My interest is in the method that guides these contending perspec-tives. "Vith market theorists, the method is transparcnr. Thcy presumethe markct to exist, as an ahistorical and universal construet: markets arenot crcated, bllt frecd; Afric.ln counrrics are Illarkcr socicties, likc thoscin Europc, period. Goran lIydcn, howevcr, ciaillls lo be laying bare theintrinsic realitics of Africa. Yct he procceds not by a historical examina-tion af thesc realities but by formal analogies. Searching for the rightanalogy to fit Africa, he proceeds by dismissing, one after another, thasethat do not fito ln the process, he establishes his main conc!usion: Africais not likc Europe, where the peasantry W.1S "captured" throllgh \vagelabor; 11m is it likc Asi;l or Latil1 Amnica, \vhne it was "captllfcd"through tenancy arrangemems. But this search stops at showing whatdoes not exist. "It is the argument of this book," writes Hyden, "thatAfrica is the anIl' contioent where the peasams have not beco capturedby other social classes. 21 ln hot pllrsllit of the right historical analogy~the point will become clear later-Hydcn misses precisely the rdationsthrough which thc frec" peasantry is "captured" and rcprodllccd.

ln this book, I seek neither to set the African experience apan as cx-ceptional and exotic nor to absorb it in a broad corpus oftheory a~ rOl\-tine aod banal. For both, it seems to me, are differcnt \vays of dismissiogit. ln contrast, 1 try to llnderline the specificity ofthe Mrican experience,ar at lcast of a slice of it. This is an argument not against comparativestudy bm against those who would dchistoricize phenomena by liftingthem from context, whcther in thc name of an abstract llniversalislll orof an intimate particlllarism, unly to make sense of them by ana!ogy. lncontrast, mI' endeavor is to establish the historicallegitimacy of Africa asa unit of analysis.

Civil Society

The eurrent Mricanist discourse ao civil society resembles an eadier dis-course 00 socialismo Ir is more programmatic than analytical, more ideo-logical than historical. Central to it are two claims: civil society exists asa flllly formed construct in Affica as in Europe, and the driving force af

14 CHAPTER I

demouatizatiol1 everY'v',-hcre is the comentiun bet\vccn civil society anulhe state. 22 To c0111e to grips with thesc c!aims requires a historieal anal-ysis, for lhese condllsiolls are arrived at through analogy seeking.

Thc norion of civil society came to prominence with the Eastern Eu-ropean uprisillgs of the Luc 1980s. Thesc events \-vere taken as signalinga paradigmatic shit1:, frum a sr.1rc-cemercd to a sociely-centcred perspec-{ive, fiolll .\ strareg)' uI" armni strugglc tllar seeks lO G1ptun.' state powcrto onc of .1n unarmcl civil 5rrugglc that secks to create a self-limitingpowcr. ln the late 19805, the theme of a society-state struggle reverber-ateei through Afriemisr eireles in North America and beeame the newprismatic kns throllgh \vhieh to gauge the significancc af cvems in Af-rica. Even thollgh the shit1: from armed struggle to popular civil protesrhad o(currni in SOllth Afi-ica .1 deCIde carlicr, in thc (omsc of the Dur-han strikes uf 197:-; and the Soweto IIprising (lf 1976, the same obscrvcrsw!lo tended to exceptionalize the significanee of these evcnts eagerlygencralized thc import oflater events in Eastern Europe!

For the corc of post- Renaissance theory,2"' civil society \vas a historicaJcnnstruct, rhc rcsult 01" .111 all-cmbr::Icing proccss of diftentiation: ofpo\\'er in the state and division oflabor in rhe economy, giving rise to anauton0!l1011S legal spherc to govern civil life. Ir is no exaggeration to saythat the Hegclian notioll 01' civil society is bth the summation and thespringboard of main Cllrrents of Wesrern thought on the subjecr. 24Sandwiched between thc patriarchal tmily and the univcrsa1 statc, civilsociety was for Hegel the historical prodllct of a two-dimensional pro-cesso On one lund, thc spread 01' commodiry rclations diminished rheweight of extra-economic cocrcion, and in doing SO, it tieed the ecnn-ol11y-alld broadly society-fioll1 the sphere of poltics. On thc orherhand, the centralizatiun of means of vioicncc \vithin the modem statc\Vem alongside the settlemem of ditlerences within society without di-rect recourse to violence. With an end to extra-economic coercion forceceased to bc a direct arbiter in day-to-d'1Y Iitc. Contractual rcl~tionsamong free and at!tonO!TIOllS individuais wcre hencctorth regulated bycivil Iaw. BOllnded by !aw, the modem state recognizeJ the rights ofcitizens. Thc rllle of 1J.w meant that law-governed behavior was the rulc.Ir is in this sense that civil society was understood as eivilized society.

As a !l1eeting ground of comradictory interests, civil society in Hegelcomprises two rclated 1110ments, the first explosive, the second integra-ti.ve; the first in the arena of the market, the second of public opinion.1 hese two moments resurface in Marx and Gramsci as two difterent con-ceptions 01' civil society_ For Marx civil society is the ensemble of rela-tions cmbedded in the market; thc agency that defines its character is thebourgeoisie. ror Gramsci (as for Polanyi, Talcott Parsons, and late rHaberm.ls) the differcmiation that underlies civil society is triple and

rINTROJ)l/CTION IS

not dOllble: between the state, the economy, and society. The re;lll11 ofcivil society is not the market but public opiniol1 and culture. Its ~gentsare intclkctui;lls, who figltre predominamly in the establishment ot hege-mon)'. Its hallmarks are volllntary association an.d tr.e,e publicity, thebasis of an autonomOLtS orgallization.11 and cxpresslve bfc. Althollgh .lU-ton0!l101lS ofthe state, this lik eJllnot be independenl ofit, tr the gll'lr-antar of the 'llltonomy of civil society C1I1 Lx nonc other than the st.lte;01', to put matters differently, althollgh its gllaranror may be ~ specificconstellation of social forces organizcd in and thwlIgh civil sOCIety, theycan do so only by cnsuring a form of the state and a corresponding legalregime to undcrgird the autonomy of civil society.

The Gramscian noriol1 of civil society as pllblic opinion and clllturehas bccn t()nnulated sit1lldtancollsly as analytical constrllet alld pro-grammatic agenda in Jrgel1 Habcrmas's work on t11

16 CHAI'TER

contemporary civil society institutions can by itself unravd this deccn"tralized despotismo To do 50 will require nothing less than dismantlingthat form of power.

THE BIFURCATED STATE

The colonial state was in every instance a historical formatiol1. Yet itsstructure everywhere came to sharc certain fundamental features. I \ViIIargue that this \-vas so because everywhere the organization and reorga-nization of the colonial state was a response to a central and overridingdilcmma: the native questiono Briefly put, how Gn a tiny and f{)reignminority rulc over an indigellous majority? To this qucstion, there weretwo broad an5wers: direct aml indircct rule.

Direct rule was Europe's initial response to the problem of adminis-tering colonies. There wOllld be a single legal order, dcfined by the "civ-ilized" laws of Europe. No "native" institlltions vvould be recognized.Althol1gh "natives" would have to conform to European Iaws, onlvthose "civilized" wOl1ld have aecess to Europcan rights. Civil society, i;lthis sense, was presl1l11ed to be civilized society, from whose ranks theuncivilized were cxcluded. The ideologues of a civilized native polieyrationalized segregation as less a racial than a cultural af1ir. LordMilner, rhe colonial secretary, arglled that segregation was "desirable noJess in the interests of social comfort and convenience than in those ofhealth and sanitation." Citing Milner, Lugard concurred:

On the one lund the policy does nm imposc any restriction on one racewhich is not applicabk to the orher. A European is as strictly prohibiredfrom tiving in rhe native reservarion, as a narive is from living in the Euro-pean quarter. On rhe other hand, since this feeling exisrs, ir should in myopinion be made abundantly clear that whar is aimed ar is a scgregation ofsocial standards, and 110t a segregaron of races. The Indian or rhe Africangenrleman who adopts the higher standard of civilization and desires toparrake in sueh immunity from intcct!on as segregation may convcy, shouldbe as free and welcomc ro live in the civilized reservation as the European,provided, of course, that he does nor bring with him a concourse of fol-lowers. The native peasanr often shares his hur wirh his goat, or sheep, ortOwls. He lovcs to drum and dance at night, which deprives rhe Europeanof sleep. He is skeptieal of mosquito theories. "God made the mosquitolarvae," said a Moslcm delcgation to me, "t(lr God's sake let [he Iarvaelive." for these people, sanitary mies are necessary but hareful. They haveno desire to abolish segrcgarion.1S

I NTRODUCTION 17

Citizcnship ',.vollld bc a privikgc of the civi!ized; the llllcivilized '.vollldbe subjeet to an all-rollnd tutelagc. They may have a modiclll11 af civilrights, but not polirical rights, for a propertied franchise separated thecivilized from the uncivilized. The resulting vision was sUJ11l11ed up inCecil Rhodes's molls phrase, "Eqllal righrs t{)r aI! civilized men."

Colonies \Vere territorie's of Europcan serrkmel1l. ln cOlltrast, lhe tcr-ritorics of European domination-bllt l10t of settlement-wcre knowI1as protectorates. ln the eontext of a settkr capitalism, tlle social prc-requisite of direct rllle was a rather drastic afir. Ir involved a compre-hcnsivc sway of market institutions: the appropriation of land, the de-struetion of communal autonomy, and the deteat and dispersai of rribalpopulations. 111 practicc, direet r\.1lc mC,lIlt the rcintegrarioI1 and doml-natiol1 ofnarivcs in lhe institutional conlcxt ofscl1liservik alld semiclpi-talist agrarian reL.1tiollS. For the V,lSt l1lajority of n,ltives, that is, fr thoscuncivilized who were exclllded from the rights of citizenship, d.ireet miesignified an unmediated-centralized-despotism.

ln conTrast, indirect mie came to be lhe mode of domination over a"tree" pC

IR CHAI'TER 1

cxpericncc of the ninetcenth-ccntury coastal enclaves (colonies) ofLagos, Freetown, and Dakar and the t\vemieth-century inland protec-torates acquircd in the course of the Scramble. The Cape-Natal divideover hO\v to handle the native question was resolved in favor ofthe Natalmodel. Key to that resolution was the emergence of the Cape as theIargcst single n:serve fr migranr labor III SOLlth Ati-ica, for the dall1i-nallce of mining oveI' agrarian e:tpital in latc-ninercenrh-century SmithAfrica-and clscwherc-posed ati-esh the question af the reproductionof alltonomous peasant commllnities that wOllld regnlarly supply male,adult, and single migrant labor to the mines.

Debated as alterna tive modes of controlling natives in the early colo-nial period, direct allll indirect rule actllally cvolvcd imo complemen-tary ways of narive conrrol. Direet rulc W3S the f

20 Cl-lAPTER I

Lreatioll 01' an indigenous civil society. A proccss sct into motion withthe postwar colonial rdnn, this deveiopl11cnt was of limited signifi-cance. It could nm be otherwise, for any significam progress in the crea-tion of an indigcnou5 civil society required a change in the form ofthe 5t3te. It required a dcracializcd state.

IndepcndcnC

22 ClIAPTER I

the Atiica adminislcred throllgh Native Authorities, lhe general rule \vasthat land cOllld n01 be a private possession, of either landlords ar peas-ants. It \"las defined as a clIstomary commllnal holding, to which everypeasant hOllsehold had a customary access, defined by statc-appointedcllstom.lry allthorities. As wc wiU see, the creation of an all-embracing\vorld of the nistomary had rhree notable cOllsequences.

rirst, more than any other colonial subject, the African was conrainer-ized, n01 as a native, bllt as a tribesperson. Evcry colony had two legalsystems: one modern, the other cl\stomary. Cllstomary la.v \vas ddinedin the plural, as the Iaw of lhe trihe, and not in the singular, as a law torali natives. ThllS, therc \vas not one customary law for ali natives, butrOllghly as many sets of cllstomary Iaws as there were said to be tribes.The genius of British rlllc in Africa-'we '.vill hear one of its semiofhcialhistorians daim-was in seeking to civilize Africans as communities, notas individuais. More than anywhcre else, tbere was in the Ati-ican colo-nial experience a onc-sided opposition between the individual and thegrollp, civil society and community, rights and. tradition.

Second, in the Iatt>nineteenth-century African context, there weresever.ll tr'lditions, not just one. The tradirion rhat colonial powers privi-Icged as the customary \vas the une with the Icast historiell dq){h, thatof nincreenrh-cenrury conqllest states. Rut this monarchical, allthorirar-ian, and patriarchal notion ofthe customary, we will see, most accuratelymirrored colonial practices. ln this sense, it \vas an ideological construet.

Unlike civil law, custal1lary la\v was an administratively driven afb.ir,fr those who enfrced clIstam were in a position to define ir in the firstplace. ClIslOm, in orher words, was state onbined and statc enfrced. Iwish to be lIlldcrstood c1early. I am not arguing for a conspiracy thenrywhereby cus tom was always detined "from above," always "inventcd" ar"constructed" by those in power. The customary was more often thannot the site of struggle. Custam was often the outcome of a contest be-tween various torces, not just those in power or its on-the-scene agents.My point, though, is about the institutional contnt in which this (on-test took pbcc: the terms of the contest, its institutional hamcwork,were heavily skewed in [lVor ofstate-appointed cllswmary authorities. Itwas, as we wiU sec, a game in \vhich the dice were loaded.

It should not be surprising that Cllstom carne to be the language afforce, masking the uncustomary power of Native Authorities. The thirdnotable conseqllence of an all-embracing customary powcr was thar theAfrican coioniJI experiellce WJS marked by force to an unusual degree.Where land was defi.ned as .1 customary POSSl'SSiOll, thl' market couid bl'only a partial constrllct. Beyolld the markct, there was only one: way ofdriving land and labor out of the world of the customary: force. Theday-to-day vio!ence of the colonial systcm was embedded in cllstomary

INTROllUCT10N 23

Native AlItlwrities in thl' 1001 state, not in civil power at the cenrer. Ye:twe must not trget that cllstomary local authority was reinfrced amlbacked up by central civil power. Colonial despotislll was highly de-centralized.

The Sl'

24 CHAPTER I

maintaining politicai order. This is why to undcrstand the form of thestate 'orged under colonialism onc had to place at the center uf analysisthe riddle that was the native questiono

The form of rule shaped the form of revolt against ir. Indirect ru!e atonce rein'orccd cthnically bound institmions of control and ted to lheircxplosioll from wilhin. Ethnicily (tribalism) thus came to he simultane-ously the /(Jrlll of colonial control ovcr natives and the trm of n.:voltagainst it. Ir defined lhe parameters of bolh lhe Native Authority incharge of the local state apparatus and of resistance to ir.

Everyv,rhere, the loca! apparatus of the colonial state was organizedeither on an ethnic 01' on a religious basis. At the Same time, one finds itdiHiculr to recall a singlc m".ljor peasant uprising oveI' the colonial periodlhat lus nol bccn eithcr ethnic or rcligious in illspiration. Peasant illSur-rectionists organized arolll1d whar they c1aimed was an Lllltainted, un-compromised, and genuine cllstom, against a state-entorced and cor-rupted version af the cllstomary. This is so for a simp1e but basic reason:the anticolonial strllggle was first and foremost a struggle against thehierarchy of lhe local state, the tribally organized Native Authority,which enforced lhe colonial order as customary. This is why every-where-although the cadres of the nationalist movemcnt were recruitedmainly from urban areas-the movement gained depth the more it wasanchored in the peasant struggle against Native Authorities.

Yet tribalism as revolt became the source of a profound dilemma be-cause local populations \vere usually multiethnic and at times multireli-giOllS. Ethnicity, and at times religion, was reproduced as a problem in-sidc every peasanr movement. This is why it is not enough simply toseparate tribJI power organized from above from tribal revolt wagedfrom below so that \ve mal' denounce the formeI' and embraee the latter.The revolt from below needs to he problemized, for it carries the seedsof its own fragmentation and possible sdf-destruction.

I have already suggested that the fragmentation is not just ethnic.Rather, the interethnic divide is an effeet of a larger split, a(so politicallyenforced, between 1O\vn and country. Neither was this dOllblc divide,urban-rural and il1terethnic, fonuitous. My c1aim is that every movc-ment against decentralized despotism bore the institutional imprint Dfthat mode ofrule. Every movement ofresistance was shaped bl' the verystructure ofpower against which it rebelled. How it carne to understandthis historical fact, and the capacity it marshaled to transcend it, set thetone and course of the movemcnt. I will make this point through ananalysis oftwo types ofreslstance: the rural in Uganda and the urban inSOllth Atrica.

Wc are now in a position to answer the qllestion, What wOllld democ-ratization have entailed in the Mrican context? It wauld have entailed

J

lNTRODUCTION 25

the (kracialization ui" civil power aml the dctribalization of cusrom.lrypower, as starting points of an overall democratization thar would tran-scend the legacy of a bifllrcated p()\ver. A consistem democratizationwould have required dismantling and reorganizing the local state, thearray of Native Authorities organized around the principie of fusiol1 ofpower, ti)ftified by an administrativdy driven cllstomary jUSliCl: 'Hldnnurished through extra-ecollomic coerciol1.

ln addirion to setting the pace in tapping aUlhoritarian possibilities inculture and in giving cuiture an authoritarian bent, Britain led the wayin fashioning a theory that claimed its particular fonn ofcolonial domination to be rnarkcd by an enlightened and perrnissive recogniliol1 ornative culrure. Alrhough ItS Clpacity to dominate grew through a disper-s.ll of ilS OWll pO\ver, lhe colonial srale claimed this pro(ess to be nomore than a defcrel1ce to IOClI tradition and Cll.'itom. To gr~lsp the Cll-tradiction in this c1airn, I have sllggested, needs the analysis ar the insti-tutians \\'ithin which official custam was torged and reproduced. Themost importam institutional Icgacy of colonial ruk, I argue, may Jie inthe inherited inlpediments lo dcmocratization.

VARIETIES OF DESPOTISMAS POSTINDEPENDENCE REFORM

Clearly, the form of the state that emerged throllgh postindependencereforrn was oot the sarne in every instance. There was a v'lriation. Ifwestart wirh the language that powcr employed 10 describe itsclt~ wc C

26 CHAPTER I

a deccl1tralizcd and cemraJlzed despotism, each regime daimcd to berdrmlng the negative featmes of irs predecessor. This, we wil! see, isbest illustrated by the seesaw mvement betweeo civilian and militaryregimes io Nlgeria.

The continuity betwecn the form ()f tht: colonial state and the pownt3shioned rhrough raciicll rdrm was undnlined by the eksporic naturear power. For inasl1lnch as radical regimes shared with colonial powersthe convlctlon to dfcct a revolutioo from above, rhey ended up inrensi-fyiog the administrativcly driven nature of justice, cusromary 01' modem.Ir anything, the radical experience built 00 the legacy ar fused powercnforcing administrarive imperatives rhrough extrkcconomic coer-

cion~cxccpt rhar, [his timc, it was donc in rht: namc not of enforcingcustOlll hUI uI' lllaking devt:lopmenr ;:llld \vaging n.:voILltioll. Even ifthere was a change in the ritle 01' fut1ction;:uies, fllll chicfs to cadres,then: was littlc change in the nature of power. If anything, the tist ofcolool;;11 powcr that was the local state was tightened and strengthened.Evcn ifit did nor clllploy the langllage of cllstom and cnforce ir thWllgha tribal amhority, the more ir ct:ntralized coercive amhoriry in the nameof devdopmetH or revolution, the more it entrced and deepened theglllfbct\veetl t()Wll aml C()utltry. Ifthe dcccl1rralized conservative variantof despotislll tcnded to bridge the urban-rural divide throllgh a clien-telism whose effect was to exacerbate ethnic divisions, its centralizedradical variant rended to do the opposire: de-emphasizing the customaryand ethnic difference berween rural areas whilc deepening the chasm be-tween town and cOllntry in the pllrsllit of an administrarively driven de-vclopment. The bifurcated state that was created wirh colonialism wasderacialized, but it \vas not dClllocratized, If the two-pronged divisionthat the colonial starc entorced on the colonized-between town andcountry, and between ethnicities-was its dual legacy at independence,each of the two versions of the posrcolonial state tended to soften onepan of tbe legacy while exacerbating the other. The lirnits of the con-servative states were obviollS: they removed rhe sting of racism tfom acolonially t;lshioncd srronghold but kept in placc the Native Allthori-ties, which cntorccd the division berween ethniciries. The radical stateswent a stcp funher, joining deracialization to detribalization. Eut thederacialized and detribalized power they organized put a premillm onadministra tive decision-making. ln the llame of detribalization, theytightened central control oveI' local allthorities. Claiming to herald de-velopmcnt and wage revolution, they imensified extra-economic pres-sure on the peasantry. ln thc process, they inflamed rhe division berweentown and counrry. If the protorype subject in the conservativc sratesbore an ethnic mark, the prototype subject in the radical states was sim-

j

INTRODUCT(ON 27

ply the rural peasallt. ln the process, borh experiences reproduced onepart of the duallegacy of the bifurcated state and created their own dis-tinctive version of despotismo

SOUTH AFRICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

The bittersweet fruir 01' African indcpendcnce also defines one possiblefuture fr postapartheid South Mrica. Part of 111Y argument is that apart-heid, lIsual1y considered the cxceptional feature in the SmIth Africanexpcrience, is actually its one aspect that is uniquely African. As a formof the state, apartheid is neither sclf-eviekntly objectiollabk nor self-evidently idcntif1able. Usually undersrood as instltLltionalized raci::ddomill(ltion, apanheid was acltla[[y an attempt to softcn raIl anrago-nism by mediating aod thcreby rcfraeting the imp,tct of racial domina-riem through a range of Native Authoritics. Not surprisingly, the dis-course of apanheid-in both General Smllts, who anticipated it, and rheBroederbond, which engineen.:d it-idealized the practicc of indirecrrulc in British colonies to the north. As a trm of mie, apanheid-likcthe indirecr rLlle colonial state-fr,tctured the ranks of the ruled along adouble divide: ethnic on the one hand, rural-urban on rhe other.

The notion of South Atrican exceptionallsm is a currem so strong inSOllth Mrican studies that it can be said to have taken on the characterof a prejudice. I am painfully aware of the arduous labor of gcneratiansaf researchers that has gone into the making of South African stlldies:somcone new to that ficld musr tread gingerly and l1lodcstly. Yet wc aliknow of the proverbial child who combines audacity with the privilegeof seeing things aoew; perhaps this child's only strength is to take noticewhen the emperor has no cIothes on. My cIaim, simply put, is thar SomhAfrica has beco an Mrican country with specific difTerences.

The South Atrican literature thar has a bearing on the question of thestate comprises thrre related currenrs. The firsr is a body of writingslargely cconomistic. It focuses on the rural-urban intertce and the di-minishing significance ofthe cOllntryside as a source oflivelihood tor ir:;inhabitants. Its accent is on the mode of exploitation, not of rule. Withits eye on an irreversible process of proletarianization, it sees rural areasas rapidly shrinking in the face of a unilinear trend. Becallsc it treats ruralareas as largcly residual, it is unable fully to explain apartheid as a formfthe state. Ir is only from an economistic perspective-one that high-lights leveis f industrialization anel prolctarianlzation one-sidcdly-thatSouth Atrican exceptionalism makes sense. Conversely, the sarne excep-tionalism masks the colonial nature of the SOllth Mrican experience.

28 CI-IAPTER I

The point is worth daborating. It is only fnJlll a perspective {hat to-cuses single-mindedly on the labor question thar the Smllh Ati-ican ex-perience appears exceptional. For the labor question does iHumioatethar which sets SOllth Afi-ica apart more or Iess io a category aI' itsOWIl: semi -inc1ustrialization, semi "pro!crcrianizatic)[l, semi-urbanization,cappcd hy ,1 5tmng civil society_ This is \vhy it takes a shift: 01' tC1l5from the bbor question to the native questioll to undcrline that whichis African and ullcxn:ptional in the South African expcricnce. That C0111-monality, I argue, lics not in the politicai economy but in the frm ofthe5tate: the bifurcated state. Forged in responst to the ever present di-lemma 01' how to secure politicaI arder, the bifmcatcd state was like aspidery be,lst that sought to pin its prey to the ground, llsing a minimulll01' frcc-judiciollS, some wmdc1 say-to kecp in check its lllost dynamietcndencies. The lllore dynamie and assertivc these tendellcies, as theyinevitably "vere in a sem-industrial setting like SOllth Afi-ica, the greaterthe force it llnleashed to keep them in check. Thus the bifurcated staretried to kecp apan toreibly lhat which socioeconomic processes tendedto bring toget-her freely: the urban and the rural, one ethnicity anelanother.

Thcre is a second budy uf scholarship, which is on the quesrion 01'chidship and rural administrarion. It is a specialized and ghettoized lit-erature on a particular instutional form or on local governrnent, whosefindings and insight are seidom integrated into a comprehensive analysisof the srate. And thtn, finally, thcre is a corpus of general politicai writ-ings that is \vholistic but lacks in depth and explanatory power. This isthe literature on "internal co]onialism," "colonialism of a special type"and "scnlcr colonialism." No longer in vogue in academia, this kind of\vriting lus tended to become increasing!y moralistic: it is preoccupiedwith the scarch for a coloniza, not the mode of colonial contraI. Witha growing emphasis on non-racialism in the mainstream of popularstruggle in SOlIth Africa, it appears embarrassing at best and divisiveat worst. As a bilurc to anJ.lyze apartheid as a form of the statc, thistriplc legacy is simultaneously ;,l falurc to realize that thl.: bifurcated statedoes not have to be ringed with a racial ideulogy. Should that analy-cal filure bl.: translated into a politicai one, it willleave open the possi-bility for such a frm of control and containment to survive the currenttransition.

The speciticity of the South Afi-ican experience lies in the strengrh ofirs civil society, borh white al1l1 black. This is in spite uf the artificialdeurbanization atremptcd by the aparthcid regime. The sheer numcricalwcight 01' white settlcr presence in Sollth Africa sets it apart from settlcrminarities elsewhere in colonial Ati-ica. Black urbanization, however, has

J

INTRonucTION 29

Geen a direct by-produCl uI' industri,llizatiol1, tirst flll10wing the discov-cry of gold and diamonds at the end of the ninetecnth century, tl1enduring the decades ofrapid secondary industrialization under Boer "na-tionalist" rule. One testimony to the strength 01' black civil society wasthe urban uprising thar built wave upon wavc rllowing SO\veto 1976,llld rhat \vas at rhe basis of the shili in tlle panldigm of f(.'sist;lI1ce ti-omarmed to popular strugg!c. Thc strength of urban f{)rccs and civil soci-cty-based movel11ents in SOllth Africa meallt that unlike in most Atricll1countries, the ccnter of gravity of popular struggle was in the towl1shipsand not against Native Authorities in the countryside. The depth of re-sistancc in Sonth Afi-ica was rooted in urban-based \Vorker and studentresi5tancc, not in the peasam revolt in the cOLl1Hrysidc. Whercas in mostAti-ican cOllntries the !clrmation 01' an illdigellous civil society was mainlya postindependence athir, fllowing the deracialization of the state, inSouth Africa it is both cause and consel)uence af that deracializatioll.Yet civil society-based movements in apartheid SOLlth Ati-ica mirror thekey weakm:ss of similar prodemocracy movcments to the north: shapedby the bifurcated nature ofthe srare, they lJck

30 CHAPTER I

created a dimatc or grcat iIlvcstor confideIlce. As rates or capital aCCll-mlllarion leaped ahead of previoLls leve1s, so did rates ofAfriean proJetar-ianization and urbanization.

Third, the deeade of peace ended \vith the Durban strikes ar 1973anJ thc Soweto uprising of 1976. For the next decade, Smith Ahiea wasin thc throcs or a protracted alld popular urball uprising. The paradigmof n::sistallce shiftcd from an nilebased armcd strugglc to an internalpopular struggle.

Fourth, the original and main social base of indcpendem unionismthat followed the Durban strikes of 1973 was migrant labor. The trajec-tory ofmigrant-Iabor policies illllminares the broad eolltours ofthc poli-ties or resistanec in apartheid Smith Africa. from being rhe spcarhead ofrural srrllgglcs againsr ncwly upgraded N3tive Allthoriries in r!te 1950s,migrant labor providcd the main energy rhat propclled torward the in-dependem trade union movement in the deeade followiog the Durbanstrikes. But by the dose of the next deeadc, hoste1-based migrants hadbeeomc marginal to the township-based 1'evo1t. As tensions betweeothcse rwo sectors of the LLrbao Atrican population cxploded into antago-nism in rlle Rccfvioknce of 1990-91, hostcls \\,(Te exposed as rhe softunderbclly of both unions and township civics. Seen in rhe 1950s asurban-bascd militants spearheading a rural struggle~an explosioo arthe urban in the rural~by 1990 migrants appeared to many an urbarrmilitant as tradition-bound country bumpkins berrt on damming thewaters of urban township resistance: the rural in the urban.

If my objective in looking at the Smith Afriean experience were simplyto hring to ir some of the Icssons tr()lll African studies, the resulr wouldbc a one-sided endeavor. If it is not to tum imo a sdf-servillg excrcise,the objective must be~and indced is~also to brillg some of thestre:ngths of South African studics to the study of Africa. For if the prob-lem of SOllth African studies is that it has been exeeptionalized, [har ofAfrican studies is that it was originally exotieized and is now banalized.Bur unlike Afriean studies, which cominues to be mainly a rurnkey im-pore, South Afriean srudics has been more of a homegrown impore sub-stitutc. ln sharp eontrast to the fustic and close-to-the-ground charactcrof South AtI-iean studies, African studies have tended to take on thecharacter of a speeulative vocation indulged in by many a stargazing aea-demic perched in distant ivory towers.

This leSS()ll was driven home to me wirh rhe forceful impacr of a dra-mattc anel pcrsonal realization in the carly 1990s, whcn it became possi-blc fr an Atrican acadcmic to visit SoLLth Africa. At dose quareers,apartheid no longer seemcd a sdf-cvidcnt exception to the Afriean colo-nial experience. As rhe seaIes came oft~ I realizcd rhat the notion ofSouth African cxceptionalism could nor be an exclusively South Afriean

INTROllUCTION 31

creation. The argumem was also reintorced~reglllarly-trom thenorthern side of the bordel', both by thase who hold the glln and bythose who v"ield the pen. This is why the creation of a rruly Atrieanstlldies, a stLldy of Atrica \vhose starting poior is the c01l1monality of theAtI-ican expcrience, secms impera tive at this historical 11l0ment. To doso, howevcr, n:quires thal wc proeced from ;1 recognilion 01' ou1' shan:dlcgacy which is honest enollgh not to dcny oU!" diffcrcllees.

If the reader should wonder \Vhv I have devoted so mllch spacc toSouth African material, 1 need to ~;oint om thar the Sonth African ex-perience plays a key analytical and explanatory role in the argumentI wiIl put forth. lt is preciscly becJuse the SOllth AfricJLl historieal expe-rienee is so differcllt rhar it dralllatically llnderlilles what is commOllin lhe Ahicall cololllal experiellcc. IlS hnnality in a sellli-inuustrializedsctting notwithstanuing, aparrheid needs to be llndcrstood as a form 01'the stare, lhe result of a retorlll in the mode of role \vhich attcmptedto eontain a growing urban-based revolt, first by repackaging the nativepopulation under the immediate grip or J. eonsrellation of amonomousNative Authorities so as to fragment it, and lhen by polieing irs move-ment betweell coumry and tOWIl so as to freczc the division bctwcenthe two. Convcrscly, il is precisely bccausc black civil society in SmithAhiea is that much stronger and more tenaciotls thJn any lO the Llorththat it iIl11srrates dramarically the limitations of an exclllsively civil soci-ety-based perspective as an anchor for a democratic movement: theurbao llprising that llnfolded in the wake of Durban 1973 and Soweto1976 laekcd a perspective from which to llLldersrand and transeendthe imerethnic ~llld the urban-rural tensioLls thar wOlllJ mark its wayahead.

Finally, the seesa\\' srruggle bct\Vcen state repression aLld the urbanllprisiog had reached a stalematc by the mid-1980s. Ir was as if thewaters ofthc protraeted uprisiog had been checked and frllstrated by thewalls of iodireet ruie Native AlIthorities. The uprising remained a pre-dominantly urban aftir. At the same time, the international situationwas changing fast with glasnosr eoming to the Soviet Union allll thecold war thawing. ln this context the South Atrtcan government tried torecoup a lost initiative through several dramatic reforms. The first wasthe 1986 removal of influx controi and the abolition of pass laws,thereby reversing the legacy of foreed removais. It was as if the gov-ernmenr, by throwing open the floodgares of urban entry to rural mi-grants, hoped they would floek to rownships amI put out the fires ofurban revo/r. Aml so they flocked: by 1993, according to most esti-mates, the shanty popularion encircling many rownships was at aroundseven million, nearly a fifth ofthe total poplllation. Many were migrantsfrom rural areas.

32 CHAPTER J

The sn:ond initiative (ame in 1990 with the release ofpolitieal pris-onns and the unbanning of exile-based organizations. Thc governmcnrhad identified a force highly eredible in the urban uprising but notbom of it and sought to work out the tcrms af an allianee with it. Thattorce was rhe Afric.lIl National Congress (ANC) in cxile. Thase terms\vere worked OU! in the course of a f()ur-year llegotiJtion prou.:ss, calledthe Convenlioll {l.ll" J 1)el1locratic South Atiicl (CODESA). Thc rcsult-ing eonstiruriollal consensus ensurcd the National Party substantialpowers in the state for at least five years afi::er the Hon-racial e1ectionsof 1994. Many critiques ar the transition have fcuscd on this blemish,bm the rc.ll import ofthis transition [O nonracial mie may tum out to bcthe fct tlnr ir will kavc intacr the structures of indirecr mie. Sooncrrather tlnll brcr, iI will liquidare racism in the SUtc. With free move-meIH between town and coulItry, but with Native Authorities in chargcof an cthnica!ly governcd rural population, ir will reproducc one legaeyof apanheid~in a nonracial fonn. If that happens, this deraeializatian\vithout democratization will have been a ulliquely African omcome!

SCOPE AND ORGANIZATION

This book is divided into two parts. The first facuses 00 the structure ofthe state. Following this inrroduction is a ehapter that reeoostruets themoment or the late-ninereenth-eentllry scramble as a conflllenee of twoimerrdated devclopmellls. The nrst \vas the end of slavery, borh in theWestcrn hemisphere 'U1

34 CI-IAPTER I

intervl:v."s, maioly io SOlnc uf the "vioknt" hostels in Johdnnesbllrg,Soweto, and Durban, 1 cxplore the diakcrics af migrant politics (therural in the urban) through the tllrning points ofthe 1970s and the early1990s in the overall COntcxt or the politics of SmIth Africa.

The conclusion (charter 8) is a reflcetion 011 how oppmitionalmovc-ment.'; and postindepcndl.:nce stales have tried to come to tcnns \vith lhetcnsiollS Ihat lhe strllctllrc 01' power tcnds 10 rl.:prOdllCc in the socialanaromy. My point is that kcy to a rdixm r thc bifurcated statc and toany thcoretical analysis that wOllld /cad to sllch a refonn l11ust bc ancndeavor to Jink the urban and the ruraI-and thereby a scries orrcbtedbinary opposites such as rights and custom, reprcselltation and panici-pation, cl.:ntraliz.ltion anel decentralizatioll, civil society and COllllllU-nity-in wa)'s rll