Modernities, Class, and the Contradictions of Globalization: The Anthropology of Global Systems

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The Anthropology of Global Systems

Kajsa Ekholm Friedman and lonathan Friedman

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A division

of

ROWMAN & LlTTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham

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New York. Toronto . Plymouth. UK

ALTAMIRA PRESS A division of Rowman

& Littlefield Publishers,

A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman

Inc.

& Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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© 2008 by AltaMira Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form

or

by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Friedman, Kajsa Ekholm, 1939�

"

--

,..

Modernities, class, and the contradictions of globalization: the anthropology of global systems / Kajsa Ekholm Friedman and lonathan Friedman. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and inl1ex.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7591-1112-7 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-tO: 0-7591-1112-X (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Social change.

2. Globalization-S0cial aspects.

4. Postmodernism-Social aspects.

11. Title.

5. Group identity.

3. Culture and globalization. I. Friedman, lonathan.

GN358.F754 2008

303.4--dc22

Printed in the United States of America

2007039877

@TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American

National Standard for Infonnation Sciences-Pennanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

,

Contents

1

Introduction Part I Other Modernities? Resistance, Continuities, and Transformations

25

1 From Religion to Magic Kajsa Ekholm Friedman

29

2 Myth, History, and Political Identity lonathan Friedman

89

3 Will the Real Hawaiian Please Stand? Anthropologists and Natives in the Global Struggle for Identity lonathan Friedman 4 Global Complexity and the Simplicity of Everyday Life Kajsa Ekholm Friedman and lonathan Friedman Part 11

Other Modernities? Globalization, the State, and Violence

5 State Classes, the Logic of Rentier Power, and Social Disintegration: Global Parameters and Local Structures of the Decline of the Congo Kajsa Ekholm Friedman

v

139

175

179

Contents

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VI

6 Social Movements and the Struggle against Evil Kajsa Ekholm Friedman

213

7 The Implosion of Modernity: A New Tribalism lonathan Friedman

239

Part III

263

Globalization as Representation and Reality

8 The Hybridization of Roots and the Abhorrence of the Bush lonathan Friedman

265

9 Indigenous Struggles and the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie lonathan Friedman

295

Index

315

About the Authors

323

•

Introduction

This is a book about the emergence and dynamics of the contemporary world,

one that seeks to understand the latter in terms of global processes of social reproduction. It is not about globalization as such, although globalization is

certainly part of the story. We ha ve argued previously that globalization is not an evolutionary stage but a historically delimited process that occurs primarily in periods ofhegemonic decline within the global arena, and it is in this sense

that we use the term here. Globalization as a discourse is a ma jor focus of this volume, and it is linked to the transformation of the world order itself, one in which globalizing elites and those who identify with them are the locus of the

production of globalization as a set of representations. Colonial empires are

surely global in their extent, and they include processes of social and cul�ural

reorganization in large parts of the world, but we have not characterizedsu.�Q .

I\i1 .

.

'

phenomena under the rubric of globalization, primarily to distinguish the Hitl ...

historicalterms.!

Our approach to globalization (Ekholm and Friedman 1980) is not one in

which the local is a product of the global, as is fashionable in much

of the

globalization literature. In the latter there is a tendency to deny and even to fear the local as an expression of xenophobic nationalism and to attempt to dissolve it into a mere second-order construction of the global itself.2 In our own approach, the global is itself the set of processes that connects localities

and to the extent that the processes contain specific logics of reproduction we

can speak of global systems, systems that are always historical systems, even in the minimal sense that it takes

time

for them to reproduce themselves. W ithin

such systems there is an articulation at any particular moment between local and global in which the local is reproduced, not created, within larger global

1

,

2

Introduction

processes. The articulation is constituted by two principal mechanisms. In cultural terms there is a tendency for local social orders to assimilate externally imported objects, texts, and schemes. This is the spaghetti principle, the process

by which an imported element becomes integrated into the local in such a way that its origins play no role in its usage or even in its identity. It occurs

ubiquitously in practically all cases of what has been referred to as cultural transfer. At the same time, there is a material integration of the local into the global, primarily in cases of imperial expansion or other forms of systemic incorporation of local populations within larger systems. In imperial orders this relation most often corresponds to relations of dependency, but these are, in fact,

a subset of a larger array of global relations. Our approach then is founded on a

notion of social reproduction, and it is also implicitly a method of investigation.

For example, there are populations that may well be isolated and that must be

studied in terms of local resources and local processes of reproduction. But such populations have histories, and it must be determined whether or not they have always been isolated. Most often this is not the case, so that modem

small-scale "egalitarian" societies studied in previous decades have turned out

to be integrated either in the present or in previous larger systems. On the other hand the fact of integration does not imply that such societies are products of some larger system, only that they are connected and reproduced within

the latter. The articulation also occurs within a continuum of penetration and replacement. There are long histories of social and cultural transformation,

such as the Congo in which the integration of the area has led to quite drastic

transformations generated by the slave trade and the later development of colonial trade and even colonial rule, but which were orchestrated internally since local structures were not utterly dismantled by external powers. There

are, at the other end of this continuum, places like Hawaii, where a powerful process of penetration totally destroyed the political order from the outside and

replaced local institutions with imported institutions, not merely at the political summit ofthe society but all the way down into the local communities. Practices

of socialization remained intact if transformed, but in conditions in which they were not adaptive to the new social order. There was at least as much catastrophe and death in the Congo case, but institutional replacement was much less

complete and never succeeded in penetrating all levels of social organization.

One of the mistaken tendencies within cultural globalization approaches is

that they can only deal with openness in terms of cultural diffusion and that

this is most often in the form of objectified culture. It is true that, as discussed below, one might envisage this articulation in terms of mixture or hybridity, but for those who actually live within a particular social world, this is rarely

the case. That is, they do not usually show any interest for the genealogy of the cultural elements that they appropriate and they, in any case, have integrated

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3

Introduction

these external elements into their own domestic schemes of existence. The

anthropology of globalization maintains a diffusionism that tends to be based

on the exclusive perspective of the observer and reinforces a museological

objectification of culture (as meaning for the observer rather than the subject

of a particular lived life world), thus negating that once-major principle of anthropological research, to understand the "native's point of view."

Now for many of the members of the globalization school the assertion

that the local is still really out there comes as a serious problem. "There has been a tendency to batten down the hatches in fervid defense of the particular,

the local, and the parochial against the onslaught of 'the global,' the latter in anthropology-talk, having become a generalized, under-motivated sign of the

changing universe in which we live and work"

(1.

and 1. Comaroff

2003).

Here is the assumption, never once analyzed, that we are living in a new

world in which the global has somehow replaced the local. In all of its misplaced

concreteness (just where is the global?) there is a certain fantasy Idesire of the

new,

of having a prophetic role in announcing our arrival in this newfangled

globalized world. Like a priesthood, those who have been there and seen

the truth of the global claim to represent that latter to the rest of us. Instead

of argument we have a statement of authority based on a position in a new world from which the truth can be broadcast to the plebeians, the "terrestrials"

(terriens) as they are referred to by French aristocratic cosmopolitans (Wagner 1998:204; see also Pin�on and Pin�on-Charlot 1996).

MOD E R N I T I ES? Modernity is an increasingly popular and confusedterm of reference, one that

re.;.lspcl1 . for this is in itself worth discussion. Sociology, of course, has had lots t6;[sA� has not been an object of anthropology as such until quite recently. The

.

. on the issue, and many of the major debates in an earlier period wereveiy much focused on the issue of the transition itself and its possible meaniilgs.

Fromgemeinschajt to gesellschajt, status to contract, tradition to modernity'­ evolution and development were all part of a general understanding of the transformation of European societies and of the world as a whole. The modem

in this perspective was envisaged as a series of states-of-the-world: individ­

ualism, market, liberty, and democratic government; briefly, the model of a

society, a civil society made up of free individuals whose activities were orga­

nized within the framework of a state ruled by an elected government, whose

goals were individual self-fulfiHment and whose alterity implied a secular ex­

istence where religiosity and all cultural identity was relegated to a private

predilection bereft of public influence. This notion was not the product of

Introduction

4

empirical investigation but of a quite general act of self-reflection, one that sought to delimit the specificity of an emergent condition. So we are squarely

in the realm of identity talk, of categories that might immediately be desig­ nated as ideological or even mythical. Modernity, like one of its metonyms,

the French Revolution, is a mythical component of contemporary Europe, a charter of a social order rather than an aid to its understanding. This is only

partially true, of course, and it has become a major problem in much of the literature on the subject. On the other hand we have taken it upon ourselves in the West to claim analytical distance to ourselves, to be able to come to a self-understanding via rational critique and empirically grounded research.

This may also be a particularly self-congratulatory myth, but we shall accept its value for the time being, as nothing yet has come along to replace it.

The recent plethora of writings on the subject of modernity, clearly depicted

in Knauft

(2002) poses serious questions as to what it is we are supposed to

be talking about. His critique of Harvey's neglect of "economic and political histories of non-Western peoples, including their engagements with and resis­

tances against capitalism" (Knauft 2002), is where anthropology can be said to

have confronted this primarily sociological discussion. It might be countered

in good relativist terms that modernity is a product of European capitalist soci­

ety, a cultural specificity, a "tradition" that is inapplicable to the understanding

of non-Western societies. This implies further questions that have never been

posed in a clear fashion. Are the different Western polities similar with re­

spect to their "cultures"? If so, is this a product of a common or convergent history, a capitalist history for example, producing similar social and cultural

transformations? If what is called modernity is the product of these transfor­ mations, then are all social formations subject to the same kind of trajecto1ily?

Or, might we assume another more structuralist position in which modernity comes in varieties, the latter the products of particular historical articulations

of capitalist development in differing initial conditions. This would produce French, English, and American modernities, as well as Indonesian, Japanese,

and Chinese modernities. These are big questions that are not easily assumed

away

in

discussing alternative modernities or alternative relations to a single

modernity. They cry out for more precision, for an elucidating of perspectives rather than yet another plunge into the murky waters of this discourse.

We shall in the following briefly indicate what appear to be the problems

that have yet to be solved in such discussions as well as suggest what one might be doing in constructing a viable discursive arena.

In the introduction to a book on modernities, Knauft noted that there is

a virtual grab bag of terms listed,

if not united, under

the term "modernity."

Individualism, nation-state, imperialism, and capitalism

or just the plain variety

whether millennial

are all points of reference for numerous discussions.

,

Introduction

5

We shall return to this laundry list since it is not only a reflection of the indeterminacy of the term but has been a glaring symptom of more "theoretical"

sociological works as well (Giddens

1990; Friedman 1994:214-27).3

The uses of the term in recent anthropological texts seem to arrange them­

selves along a set of varying contours.

1. Modernity is very often a mere gloss on the contemporary. For example,

the existence of witchcraft today is an expression of the modernity of witchcraft. The latter is modern because it is part of a process organized within the global capitalist world of today, not of yesterday. This notion

has no particular content, no specificity. It is a mere temporal category

of presupposed disjunction, and it is often conflated and confused with more substantive understandings of the term. 4

2. Modernity can refer to the leading sector or region of the world, under­ stood in hierarchical terms, as a center/periphery structure or as empire.

It includes the center of the "system," the West and the others, the pe­ ripheries and sub-peripheries that are defined and then define themselves in relation to the modern. The modernities described in this version are

primarily relations to a postulated modem, something that exists in an­

other part of the world, the subject of either emulation or rejection. Here there is a conflation of geographical space and developmental time.

3. Modernity is simply the set of modem products, or the products of cap i­

talism, the products of the center. The latter is present metonymically, in the form of technologies, commodities, and images, from haute couture to CNN, to (our) visions of "modem life." Many write of modernities

in

other parts of the world as a relation to, representation of, or discourse on these metonymies.

4. Our own approach is to understand modernity as a cultural space, aregci�e . - , '- - '.:

"

of social experience. It is not defined as a specific historical phenomei'lt)U.

associated with Europe, but it certainly possesses a specific structure, one that has emerged to varying degrees in recent European history but also

in previous times and places.

WHOSE MODERN ITI ES? Alternative modernities are invariably about a certain representation and prac­

tice of a dependency relation, a social construction of perpherality, but how is

modernity understood in the centers themselves? This must ultimately return us to the earlier sociological discussion, which was more focused on the con­

tent of the term than on its connotative function with respect to those defined as

6

Introduction

peripheral to its existence. This does not mean that the sociological literature offers a solution to our problem, since it partakes of much of the list-like nature of other discussions. We might begin by dropping the necessary assumption that modernity is a concept and maintain it simply as a word that refers to a cluster of phenomena that may or may not be systematically related to one another. We shall suggest in this book that they do hang together and that it is in uncovering the nature of their configuration that we can contribute to an understanding of the apparent resonance of the term. We can begin with the list itself (Friedman 1994): individualism public/private division democracy nation-state enlightenment philosophy/critical rationality capitalism global economy/imperialism modernism/developmentalism/evolutionism Now, these terms are not of the same logical type. "Individualism" and "global economy," for example, relate to different orders of reality, but this does not exclude the possibility that they might be systemically related in material terms. Any item might be chosen as a subject for discussion, or for appropriation as part of a particular "modern" identity, but the logic that links the terms is then absent. The alternative modernities concept is compatible with the laundry list of terms because they are integrated as signs into other fomns of life, other strategies. Because no logic, no structured field, is stipulated, it becomes all to easy to conflate contemporaneity and modernity.

T H E lOG IC OF MOD E R N ITY ,

Do the terms in the above list have anything to do with one another? We have argued that, in fact, they are aspects of a unitary process that inflects them all in a particular way (Friedman 1994). The advance of commercial capital­ ism generated a dissolution of larger sodalities over several centuries. This advance itself was predicated on the formation of a European-centered world market from the fifteenth century. It enabled a new form of differentiation by wealth in which the individual accumulation of capital/abstract wealth was paramount. This reconfigured class structure in such a way that a bourgeoisie emerged as the most powerful group in society. With the gradual demise of

•

•

Introduction

7

the aristocratic model of fixed status, consumption became a primary means of social self-definition. The eighteenth century marks the first consumption revolution in Western European history. Lord Chesterfield's famed correspon­ dence with his son deals with the problem of confronting increasing numbers of people whose status is undecipherable, because it is socially unmarked, and the necessity of creating a personal space secure from public encroachment. The private sphere emerged in the same period, a domestic or private sphere of the "neglige" where the self was free from the imposed and increasingly un­ clear roles of the public sphere. But more important, the core principle of this change is the fracture of the person into a private subject and a public identity. From this fracture springs the well-known experience of alterity. Alterity, the founding dynamic of modernism, is an understanding of the world in which identity is reduced increasingly to social role, achieved rather than ascribed, and temporary and even alienated from the subject. The nation-state is a political formation that depends upon the dissolution of older sodalities and communi­ ties and the individualization of a territorial population enabling the state with some effort to re-socialize it into a new kind of identity based on "citizenship" rather than subject status. Democratic forms of politics make increasing in­ roads in the state as the nation/people become the only source of sovereignty with the demise of the aristocracy. This entire development is dependent in its turn on capitalist economic growth, which in its turn is dependent on the formation of a larger economic and therefore political arena than the territory of the state itself. The formation of imperial systems is the foundation of the entire development as it is in the center of empire that the social transformation leading to modernity occurs.5 The success of this process produces a new so­ cial identity, one in which the national society itself is placed within the center of the larger the imperial process. This creates a center/periphery organization of the world, but in the center it is paralleled by individualization and the q�sin tegration of theologically based cosmologies such as the Great Chain ofB&it!g.· If mobility depends on individual success, the latter can readily be underst�od as a process of development. And if this modality of experience is transferred to the larger society and even to nature, the result is evolutionism, the ordering of the world in terms of degrees of developmental success. This is, then, a future-oriented cosmology that becomes generalized to all domains natural history, social history, individual development and is the core of modernism. The modernity described here is no mere expression of a relativity, of a con­ temporaneity that requires its complementary opposite, tradition, the primitive, or whatever. This would be to conflate the term "modernity" with its specific cultural content. We shall suggest here that there is a structural content to the notion of modernity, one that can only be understood in terms of a set of com­ plementary parameters. The latter generate tendencies to the structuring of an ..

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Introduction

8

MODERNISM

- culture

- nature

,

+

culture

TRADITIONALISM

+

nature

-----t- PRIMITIVISM

+

culture

+

nature

POSTMODERNISM

Figure 1.1.

identity space, one i n which traditionalism is just as modern as modernism, primitivism, and postmodernism. All of these can be understood as expressions of the parameters of the space. The graphic that we have made use of for a couple of decades (figure 1.1; see also chapter 7 for a discussion) consists of a number of simple dichotonfies that define four endpoints or polarities. The latter are also ideal types that never exist as empirical totalities but only in the imagination and as tendencies in social reality. We leave this discussion to chapter 7, where the graphic is dealt with in more detail. If these poles define the limits of the space, they do not determine its dynamic, which depends on the larger social and political over time is a function of global economic context. The way people identify . . systemic processes. The contemporary period of hegemonic decline is a period of increasing polarization within this space in which traditionalism is clearly on the rise and massively so, while modernism is increasingly weakened. Where the future fades people tend to invest in the past rather than the future. The result is ethnification and cultural fragmentation, at least in the lower half of the social order. At the top a congery of modernist and postmodernist elites identify as the new cosmopolitans. This represents a certain folding in upon itself of the identity space so that modernist and postmodernist identifications become increasingly fused in spite of their contradictory natures. 6 This is New

:,� �:

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. Introduction

9

Age modernism, revolutionary fleo-liberalism, and other "double thinks" so common in Third Way ideologies that have brought political elites from right and left into the Neue Mitte. If the above schema can be understood as a set of interwoven processes, all of which are dependent upon the degree of intensity of capital accumulation and commodification of the social field, then modernity can be understood as a structure in the structuralist sense; it is not a fixed form, but a set of proper­ ties of a series of interconnected dynamic processes. This, further, raises the issue of historical conditions and here we would suggest that modernity is a trans-historical structure that has appeared in several times and places, always a product of a similar set of processes of commercial capitalist accumulation and commodification. It can be said to have appeared in classical Greece, continuing into the Hellenistic period before disappearing following the end of the Roman Empire, but there are also tendencies in certain periods of Chinese and Indian regional histories, and in the medieval Arab world. The degree of individualization and "alterity" has, of course, varied, just as other tendencies, such as democracy, the nation -state, rationalist philosophy, and science. This is related to differing political-historical contexts . But the similarities are clearly worth investigation. Thus, in one sense, we have certainly never been modern, insofar as these tendencies have never worked themselves out to their logical conclusions in any historical period. On the other hand the tendencies them­ selves are of the same order, and it is here that we may speak of a family of phenomena that harbor similar structural dynamics. Modernity is, in this argu­ ment, the cultural field of commercial capitalism, its emergent identity space. This implies that the question of so-caned alternative modernities would have to be reframed. The alternatives within modernity are aligned within the same space of features. And it is because of these invariant features that we can speak, if we so desire, of alternative modernities. But this is not the c �!\e,if · the cultural field is organized in terms of other basic features. Thus the &�ct that one desires Western goods does not have anything to do with moderiffty as such. This is emphatically so if the desire itself is structured in terms of the logic of a very different kind of social world. Cargo cults, for example, are totally focused on what appears to us to be the modem, but this ignoresthe internal order of this relation, the intentionalities involved, what these objects mean in the lives of those who desire them. Ethnographic analysis is too often glossed into or replaced by a ready-made interpretation based on the expe­ rience of the observer. The structural approach suggested earlier might help make sense of the otherwise quite confused issue of alternative modernities that is current in anthropological discussions. Instead of immediately utilizing the term alternative modernities, it might make more sense to first ascertain the relevant parameters involved in the particular ethnographic material. In all •

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10

Introduction

cases that we have encountered it is an issue of confrontation, articulation, and sUbsumption of other parts of the world by expanding capitalism; modernity seems to be taken along for the ride, as if it were part of the baggage itself without the actual articulations involved,being considered.

TH E I D EO LOG I CAL BAS I S OF "ALTERNATIVE" MOD ERN ITIES

There is an interesting ideology that links the use of the term modernity to a notion of historical discontinuity. It is based on the very acceptance of the evolutionary character of the term so that to even insinuate that modernity is a rather restricted phenomenon can be construed as racism. This fear of as­ sociation with such discrimination has led to an even stronger bond between modernity and contemporaneity, one that is clearly illustrated by recent dis­ cussions of the "modernity" of witchcraft. But it is also a reinforcement of the developmentalist paradigm itself. Geschiere's work on sorcery in Cameroon is an excellent example of the problem that arises when applying notions like alternative modernities. Here there is an agenda: Geschiere would like to insist that contemporary sorcery is modem. This implies that all of the properties of contemporary sorcery that display some historical continuity are subsumed within this new category and are thus assimilated to the modern. He thus creates precisely that discontinu­ ity that has been the hallmark of Western notions of the modem. What is the same, and what is different? For Geschiere, the objects and actors are differ­ ent, but the mode of going about identifying others and the central issu t¥ of wealth accumulation and inequality is part of the "old" logic. Now this implies that potlatching with sewing machines is not potlatching but modern potlatch­ ing, something entirely new. It also makes a serious category mistake by not qualifying the older strategies with respect to the foreign. Now if, as in the Congo region, prestige goods need to be exotic, and if their value is a sign of a political status relation to the outside world, then there ought always to be a tendency to import new things into the internal cycles of exchange and dominance. The direct application of a term such as mOdernity flattens out a more complex articulation of different kinds of relations that coexist but are nevertheless of different orders. This kind of critique was made of moderniza­ tion theory by Marxists decades ago. Geschiere writes clearly that there are "traditional" elements in modern sorcery after castigating others for entertain­ ing such dangerous ideas (2000: 23). His modern tale is as follows: X arrives in town without money to eat . . . he joins a tontine (jamla) and contracts a debt that has to be paid by selling one of his kin.

,

Introduction

11

Or si la notion de dette en sorcellerie n'est pas neuve, elle acquiert de nouvelles dimensions en etant en rapport direct avec le Jamla" (24). This is the linkage to the labor of others, to the capitalist process. But what is changed in all of this? As he himself says: "le discours de la sorcellerie s'articule si facilement aux changements modemes" (24). What is new are the new commodities introduced by the world market: "biens hautement convoites parceque devenus les symboles memes de la vie 'modeme': maisons 'en dur' equipees de frigidaire, de television et de tout ce qui rend la vie modeme agreable; voitures de luxe (Mercedes, ou maintenant Pajero), etc." (24)

Now what is the real problem here? It might be the forced introduction of the notion of the modem, as in "symbols of modem life." Yes but is this modem in itself or modem in the sense of foreign prestigious items that demonstrate wealth? Geschiere answers this by warning us that to use the word "retradi­ tionalization" as do Chabal and Daloz is dangerous because what is happening is that this new imaginary is the product of "un effort concerte pour participer aux changements modernes, voire pour les mai'triser" (25). So what makes sorcery new is the situation to which it is applied. But even Geschiere admits that the way in which it is applied is continuous with the past. He goes on to suggest that it is the closect/open nature of sorcery that is what makes it so adaptable to modernity. Now, a1l of this is framed in singu lar terms. We are today in the modem world, so everyone who is part of this in the material sense, that is, part of world capitalism, is part of modernity as well. All the rest is variation. This is a contorted version of Fabian's call to accept the contemporaneity of the contemporary rather than classifying it as radically other in the sense of tem­ porally past. But in Geschiere's version modernity becomes contemporaaeity; a misleading conflation if we assume that modernity has its own specific lq)gie� a cultural logic. There is a world of difference between material contiguityil �i.Fni interaction that is organized by the world system and the cultural articulatiltils involved in the former. There is no contradiction between material unificatli)i:l and the continued existence of very separate social worlds, even where they are very much transformed. The denial of continuity coupled with the asser­ tion of the radical difference of the modem expresses a kind of politically correct approach to difference. They can certainly be very different, but they are differently modem. This is the problem in the work of the Comaroffs, as well, where "occult economies" are associated with globalization, or as it is now termed, "millennial capitalism." The enemy here is a straw man notion of tradition, interpreted as the fixed, essentialized culturalist imprisonment of the "other" in a local unchangeable world, the world of traditional anthropology, which at last is being revolutionized by this new "afterology" (Sahlins 1999).

.

12

Introduction

While admitting that there are clear continuities, the fact that it is happening here and now and in a new context ordered by the contemporary changes of the capitalist system makes it entirely different. This is our problem, perhaps, our millenarism, our desperate need to project ourselves into the future and take "them" with us, with the feeling that we are indeed entering a new world of cyber-capitalism and virtual accumulation. But this is, in fact, more of a gut feeling than a social revolution, one made by capitalism itself. Capitalism has not changed in its general tendencies to the deepening of commodification, the increase in the rate of accumulation of fictitious capital relative to real accumulation, the increasing lumpenization of large portions of the world's population. All these processes are abetted by the new technology, but they are certainly not its cause, and if anything they are the symptoms of a capital­ ism in dire straights, a situation quite predictable from the logic of the system (Friedman 1 999, 2000; Hirst and Thompson 1 996; Harvey 1 990; Wallerstein 1 976). But there i s more here than meets the eye. What is it that seems to embarrass anthropologists in admitting that the world might consist of mere variations on modernity? It would seem to be the claim that somehow modernity is about rationality and that magic is therefore something that belongs to our past and to traditional society. When arguing for the global prevalence of "modern" magic, the African "occult economy" is merely a local variant of a global millennial phenomenon. Thus the driving force in this change is globalization itself, the speedup of circulation of goods, images, information, t-shirts, and cults: "it is a feature of the millennial moment everywhere, from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of America" (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000: 291). And they do stress the local forms of this phenomenon. "Once more, however, a planefary phenomenon takes on strikingly particular local form . . . " ( 291). In one sense these authors are expressing an awareness that is very much already present in the media. On the other hand, their account jumps directly from the fact of globalization itself to magical reactions: too much to buy, consumer insanity, understood as the liberation of desire, and not enough money to get it all, not for the masses of poor. This is what produces the occult economy, the magic of money, the imagination of zombies and of sorcery. This is not a new connec­ tion, of course. It is a replication of the old structural functionalist account but now in a more intensified situation and with a new, millennial vocabulary. The old account also linked the epidemic of sorcery to the inroads of the market into "traditional" African societies. Sorcery, as Geschiere puts it, is an attempt to stop the flow of globalization. In the old days it was an attempt to do some­ thing more particular, for example, to counter the commercialization of social relations or simple individualization. So what's new, we might ask? A closer account would have to clarify the fact that it was elders who were accusing

,

Introduction

13

their youth of sorcery as the latter became increasingly independent economi­ cally when they became employed in the capitalist sectors that encroached on these worlds, a process that was explosively evident in the early colonial pe­ riod. So even the "modernity" of witchcraft has a historical continuity. Ekholm Friedman has argued that the kind of witchcraft/sorcery found in contemporary Congo is, in fact, a phenomenon that dates to the latter half of the past century, that is, to colonialism itself, and that previous to that, it was primarily organized as a mechanism of political control over potential revolts by vassals (Ekholm Friedman 1 991). Even while admitting the historical continuity of the forms of these phenomena, it seems preferable even i f contradictory to stress their dis­ continuity with the past. The self-contradictory nature of this discourse leads to an apparently satisfactory new version of theme and variation. The theme now is capitalism, as a cultural phenomenon. A critique of those who would stress cultural continuity in all of this 7 is revealing with respect to precisely the contradiction discussed here. We are warned not retreat into some form of old-fashioned localism in order to avoid "the "methodological challenge posed by the global moment" (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000:294). This move is typically rationalized by affirming, sometimes in an unreconstructed spirit of romantic neoprimitivism, the capacity of "native" cultures to remain assertively intact, determinedly different, in the face of a triumphal, homog­ enizing world capitalism. Apart from being empirically questionable, this de­ pends upon an anachronistic ahistorical idea of culture transfixed in opposition to capitalism-as if capitalism were not itself cultural to the core, everywhere indigenised as if culture has not been long commodified under the impact of the market. In any case, to reduce the history of the here and now to a contest between the parochial and the universal, between sameness and distinction, is to reinscribe the very dualism on which the colonizing discourse of early modernist social science was erected. It is also to represent the hybrid, dialectical hist r1 ically evanescent character of all contemporary social designs." (Com aroff Comaroff 2000:294) .

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Who is the CUlprit? We seem to have been counted among the category by Meyer and Geschiere whos e position is practically identical to that of the Comaroffs and who participate in their quota of mutual admiration. In the introduction to their Globalization and Identity, one of us is taken to task for precisely this awful crime of continuity. He emphasizes that globalization goes together with "cultural continuity." This makes him distrust notions like "invention of tradition" or "hybridization"; in­ stead, one of the aims of his collection of articles seems to be to understand the relation between the "global reordering of social realities" and "cultural

14

Introduction continuity" . . . this makes him fall back, in practice,. on the highly problem­ atic concept of "tradition," which---especially in his contributions on Africa­ seems to figure as some sort of baseline, just as in the olden days of anthropol­ ogy. . . . Similarly he relates the emergence of les sapeurs, to "certain fundamental relations" in Congo history which "were never dissolved"; as an example of such "fundamental relations" Friedman mentions: "Life strategies consist in ensuring the flow of life-force. Traditionally this was assured by the social system itself". This is the kind of convenient anthropological shorthand which one had hoped to be rid of, certainly in discussions on globalization . . . . Friedman's reversion to such a simplistic use of the notion of tradition as some sort of base line--quite surprising in view of the sophisticated things he has to say about globalization­ illustrates how treacherous the triangle of globalization, culture and identity is. Relating postcolonial identities to such a notion of "tradition" makes anthropol­ ogy indeed a tricky enterprise. (1 999:8)

This seems the work of nervous intellectuals. I use the word "traditionally" to refer to both a colonial and precolonial past. If this makes anthropology a "tricky enterprise" it would be interesting to know just how. I refer in the article discussed here to the way in which, in spite of the destruction of Congolese polities at the end of the last century under the onslaught of Leopold 's Congo Free state, there were important continuities maintained in transformation. This analysis was taken from Ekholm Friedman 's work on the subject ( 1 9 91), which analyzes the way in which transformation actually works, the way in which certain basic logics of being and of life strategies remain intact even in transformation as the political and much of the social order collapses. This is not in order to oppose culture to capitalism. It i s to ascertain the way in which different logics articulate with one another over time. Now if allll'of these authors admit that some things don't change while others do, then we would all seem to agree, and yet not so. The reason is related to the way reality is classified. To see an articulation over time is to stress a transformational approach to historical change. To see in every new combination of elements something completely new is to stress discontinuity. Some years ago, we suggested that global/local relations can be understood in terms of a double process: cultural assimilation and the material integration of populations into the larger system. We spoke of two kinds of transfor­ mation, one in which local change is endogenously organized but initiated and channeled by global relations, and another in which local structures are simply replaced by those of the dominant power. These two kinds of trans­ formation occur, of course, together, but it is important not to confuse them. In Hawaii, the native population was re-integrated into the imported orga­ nizations of American colonial society, from church, to school, to the en­ tire political structure. Their whole society was replaced. In Africa colonial

•

15

Introduction

institutions did not replace local political structures in this way, and postcolo­ nial African polities can be said to have strongly assimilated the imported formal structures of government. The same can be said to have happened in Papua New Guinea, where the state, while employing the formal categories of Western governance, enmeshed them within local forms of sociality. Thus, a district governor could describe his activities in terms of distribution of goods and advantages to relatives and the accumulation of prestige typical of big-man activities. Now, of course, "big-man" strategies are themselves an endogenous transformation that might be of quite recent date. From our point of view this is not a question of modernity but a particular articulation of different logics in a particular place. Contemporary, of course! But this does not mean that people can't live in radically different worlds of experience, desire, or ways of going about the world. This issue was discussed in a small publication with 1. Carrier on the subject of Melanesian Modernities (Friedman and Carrier 1996). The title was simply a way of marking the fact of participation in a postcoloniaI set of institutions, but it implies nothing about the way in which this participation occurs. From this vantage point it would have been more adequate to speak of Melanesian contemporaneities, a clumsy term indeed, but more to the point. There are many different ways of appropriating Westem products, ways that are not contained within Western cultural logics. The potlatching with sewing machines at the turn of the century referredto earlier was not a different way of being modern but a different way of connecting to a largerworld. The ultimate and very difficult issue here relates to the limits and nature of such differences, and this cannot be solved by simply stating that people play different roles in different situations or that the way to understanding is via hybridity. The latter concept entirely forsakes the issue of articulation, that is, how, exactly, . .. .. . . differences are integrated with one another. .; : .

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A CONF U S ION OF TERMS

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Letme return now to these arguments. Both stress the modem as hybrid, evanes­ cent, unbounded in space, and impossible to characterize in terms of what the Comaroffs refer to as the dualism of colonial discourse. Here is the heart of their conception of the modern and of its necessary discontinuity. The world is one, because capitalism is now globalized. And capitalism is thoroughly cultural, apparently equivalent to modernity, although this is never clearly ad­ dressed. This means that the world is a collection of specific capitalisms and therefore of specific modernities . In other words, to identify continUity is to deny the absolute contemporaneity and coevality of the entirety of the world's populations.

16

Introduction

I am not in favor of reforming language, but it is important to be able to distinguish among vastly different usages. In order to clarify this for myself and perhaps the reader as well, let me suggest the following categorization: 1 . Modernity as the contemporaneous refers to a situation of integration within the capitalist world economy and to varying degrees within the capital­ ist world as such. To wit, the relations to the capitalist world can vary according to the way in which different populations participate in that world, the articu­ lation of different structures of experience, different socialities to one another. Being integrated into global capitalist reproductive process is not equivalent to being dominated by the capitalist logic. It is one thing to plant cash crops in order to gain money incomes, but where these incomes are used to buy pigs in order to give feasts in the context of a big-man strategy, then the local form of accumulation of prestige, while dependent on the larger market, is not organized by it. Where a big man begins to use his monetary wealth to employ workers instead of gaining people's labor via debt and exchange rela­ tions then we can speak of a tendency to capitalization. However, in order to move toward category 2, below, capitalist accumulation would have to become dominant within the population so that the big-man strategy became a form of prestige only, an expression of real accumulated wealth. There is an enor­ mous economy of prestige in capitalist modernity, of course. Otherwise there would be no private universities, no Rockefeller Center, but these entities are direct products of capital accumulation. The generosity of the millionaire does not automatically create pressure to reciprocity, indebtedness, garbage men, and social dependency. There are other mechanisms for that. Where there is a sphere of social reproduction that is not organized in capitalist terms, external to the capitalist sector, there is a sphere for the production of other formf of identification, sociality, and cultural representation. 2. Modernity in the structural sense, as outlined above, refers to the cultural parameters of capitalist experience space, a product of the commodification of social relations to various degrees. To wit, modernities can vary in terms of the recombination of their basic parameters and i n the degree of their realiza­ tion. This is very much a question of historical change. European modernities represent a set of variants with respect to individualization, the private/public division, modernist ideology, and so forth. These variants can profitably be compared to modernities that emerge in certain elite sectors of the Third World, in certain classes, in China, Japan, and India, and to earlier historical moder­ nities, in classical Greece, certain periods of ancient Mesopotamia, and so forth. These variations, we would argue, belong to the same family of forms because of certain basic tendencies that they harbor. In all of these cases we would argue for the existence of a structural dominance of capital accumula­ tion in the social reproductive processes. This suggestion cannot be dealt with

, •

Introduction

17

i n fu U here, but i t has been more fuUy discussed i n other writings (Ekholm and Friedman 1979; Friedman 2000; Adams 1974; Larsen 1 976). We refer here to capitalist accumulation, which is a process and should not be conftated with any notion of social type. A social formation can be more or less transformed as a result of capitalist processes, but the latter remains a specific kind of logic of wealth accumulation; in the most general sense, the conversion of money capital or what Weber called abstract wealth into more s"uch wealth. 8 The rela­ tion between this logic and the social reproduction of a particular population generates tendencies toward what we have described as modernity, but these tendencies are worked out to varying degrees and in variable ways since the logic works itself out in different social and cultural contexts. Since there are no examples of societies that have become totally capitalized, and since capitalist reproduction does not dissolve everything, there are plenty of domains that are transformed without being dissolved and reconfigured in capitalist terms. Thus there are clearly differences in local and national cultures within formations dominated by capitalist accumulation. There are large areas of social existence that are not the products of capitalism and i n this sense, we have never been modem. It may be useful to refer to alternative modernities or whatever term might seem appropriate to characterize a particular form of articulation between peripheral societies in the world system and centrally initiated capitalist pro­ cesses. These vary along two axes; one, the degree oftransformative integration into the global system, the other, the representations ·of the center as future, wealth, well-being and so forth, and strategies related to such representations. But the other sense of the term as the identity and cultural spaces of capi� talism refers to the fundamental aspects of a particular phenomenon wQQ,se parameters have been the source of the various fragments, whether ind(vidu� . alism, democracy, or capitalism that have functioned as symbolic refere�tt9f the alternative modernities described for the world's peripheries. This l�t�r sense renders modernity a "tradition," a particular cultural configuration� a.@'d its variants with a long history and full of its own magic and fetishism, as M;�I'x demonstrated long ago. The opposition between modernity and tradition i� it" self a product of this logic of modernity. The evolutionist logic of those who today fear the word and who would see modernity everywhere is inadvertently replicating this very logic. This book is an exploration of the articulations between global and local processes in the f01mation of the contemporary world. It deals with the h istori­ cal formation of what anthropologists once assume d to be a fixed "traditional" culture in Central Africa, one that dates in fact to the last half of the nine­ teenth century. This does not imply that something appeared as entirely new. The formation of the "modem" culture of the Congo was a transformation .

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18

Introduction

in which crucial logics of practice were not eliminated but elaborated upon · or truncated. It deals also with the contemporary politics of identity in the Pacific, both among indigenous peoples and anthropologists. It argues for the importance of understanding the continuities of internal logics of social life against the onslaught of anthropologists adhering to both "inventionist" and globalizing assumptions. It addresses the issues of violence in relation to global and state transfoIlIlations in Central Africa and more generally in the current period of Western hegemonic decline. Finally the issues of hybridity and glob­ alization and of the process of double polarization, ethnic (horizontal) and class (vertical), are discussed in order to gain some purchase on the current positional production of dominant discourses.

PARTS AND CH APTERS

These chapters, then, explore the structural aspects 0 f what i s often referred to as modernity. Here they are understood as a particular kind of identity space linking individualization to a series of transformations of both experience and representation. Thus while traditionalism and primitivism may often be thought of as existing in opposition to modernity, we argue that they are an integral part of the latter, defining its total frame of reference. In this way evolutionary and developmental thinking, primitivism, postmodernism, and religious or ethnic traditionalism can be understood as structurally related to one another, and the movements surrounding one or another of these polar terms can be understood as products of the decline or rise of strong modernist identities in capit�ist worlds, identities which are, of course, never pure. No, "we have never been modern," but the tendencies are what define the nature of a system not the particular products.

Part I: Other Modernities? Resistan<;e, Continuities, and Transformations

This section explores ethnographically various aspects o f changing conditions of existence in the contemporary world system. Some chapters address the histori�al formation and reproduction of particular social forms of contempo­ rary eXIstence, and several deal with the real decline of ethnographic authority understood as a global process in its local manifestations. Chapter I shows how what are conceived of as magical representations and practices in the Congo region are the product of the disintegration of the po­ litical orders of this area in the last years of the nineteenth century. Chapter 2 '. ,

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19

Introduction

explores the way in which history is produced in relation t o political identity by comparing modes of constructing the past in nineteenth-century Greece and in contemporary Hawaii, and contrasting them in terms of historical position­ ing within the global system. Chapter 3 explores the confrontation between modernist and postmodernist anthropologists and the rise of indigenous move­ ments, as well as the inevitable struggle between an anthropology that defines itself as monopolist of the other's reality and a rising movement that seeks to define its own reality. It focuses on the case of Hawaii. Chapter 4 deals with the way in which local Hawaiians relate to the global conditions of their existence and how their own life strategies assimilate and integrate the larger world. It is suggested that the current urge among certain anthropologists to see increasing complexity is based both on a reification of the notion of culture so that the modem situation is no longer the simple homogenous life of the past and on a simple lack of ethnographic understanding of people's lives on the ground. Part 11 : Other Modernities? Globalization, the State, and Violence

This section continues the exploration of the forms of contemporary social worlds, but these chapters focus on the question of the political order. Chapter 5 is an analysis of the nature and crisis of the autocratic state in Africa, arguing both the historical continuity of forms of power in very new kinds of contexts and on the internal contradictions generated in the contemporary situation. It demonstrates the way in which the global system has articulated with the modem African state, producing a state-class that reproduces itself entirely via international circuits via aid or the taxation of natural resources exploited by multinationals. This in itself leads to a polarization between a wealthy political . class and an increasingly impoverished local population. Chapter 6 deals w�tp, the effects of economic disintegration on Congolese society in which the r���r . takes the form in increasing fragmentation of social fields and of the subjeGtex- . pressed in epidemic expansion of witchcraft accusations, both in quantity anain new forms and in the multiplication of cults for the defense against encroaching evil. Chapter 7 explores the end results of the disintegration process in Central Africa, one in which the state has collapsed into contending ethnic groups, each with its heavily armed militia and where the multinational actors such as oil companies, military firms, NGOs, and governments have become instrumental in structuring and maintaining the state of fragmentation and violence. Chapter 7 returns to the global field as such in an attempt to provide a perspective on the contemporary situation in w hich there is a combination of ethnic and cultural fragmentation in the West and its direct dependencies, as well as the former Soviet Bloc. We argue that the simultaneous formation of new cosmopolitan ,

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Introduction

elites that express a not-so-new version of global unity is an expression of the decline of Western hegemony, a phenomenon systematically accompanied by fragmentation as well as globalization in economic, political, and cultural terms.

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Part I l l : Globalization as Representation and Reality

This final section is both a critique of current discourses of globalization and an alternative account of the phenomena of globalization in global systemic terms. These chapters deal with the relation between the rise of globalization discourse and the global transformation of class and identity structures, an is­ sue that we ha ve touched upon previously. The discourses of transnationalism, border-crossing, hybridity, and creolization are linked to the emergence of a new cosmopolitan discourse, one that is stripped of modernism and steeped in culturalism, where elites identify themselves as representatives of the world's diversity, in which they embody the latter in their hybrid existences. Hybridity thus becomes an encompassing perspective on the world of differences, one that stands opposed to the real fragmentation and conflict that is developing in the lower reaches of the world system. The final chapter charts the different positioned representations of global reality as a fluid dynamic in which posi­ tions change and identities can combine in strange ways. Thus the Washitaw Indians, "black" Indians allied with the Republic of Texas and openly right wing, or the New Right in France whose position on difference is very close to both extreme forms of multiculturalism and indigenous ideologies. These phenomena can be understood in terms of very broad global processes of iden­ tity formation, of indigenization on the one hand and cosmopolitanizatio\t on the other, simultaneous aspects of globalization that confront one another in increasingly conflictual ways, from neo-liberal globalizers to anti-globalists, from cosmopolitans to nationalists and indigenous movements. The current representations of the world, from CNN (Semprini 2000) to postcolonial stud­ ies are part of our object of study. We have remarked previously that global perspectives on the world are not the, product of some scientific evolutionary process. On the contrary, they appear in situations in which such a perspective makes sense in experiential terms to its practitioners. Now, this is not, in itself, a critique of such discourses, but it may appear so to those who assume that their positioned perspective is self-evident or simply superior. This is why we have characterized such discourses as ideological. The scientific value of such discourses is always another kind of issue, one that has to be worked out in the arena of intellectual argument, assuming that such an arena does indeed exist. It is when discourses claim immunity from both sociological analysis and scientific confrontation that we are in trouble. And we are in trouble now.

•

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Introduction

21

NOTES l . Colonial empires are characteristic for periods of economic expansion, although it may occur near the end of such periods in the form of attempts to consolidate and maintain centrality within a larger system. These periods are usually characterized

by extraction of raw materials and the reinforcement of a center/periphery structure. Periods of globalization are characterized by the disintegration of center/periphery structures and the massive export of productive capital that competes or even replaces production in the center. This is not the whole story, of course, but the difference is indicative of a very different strategy. 2. See, for example, Hannerz 2006, in which he states in answer to the purely intellectual critique of globalization as diffusion, opposing it with the importance of local reconfiguration and assimilation, "Now obviously, for some purposes, the local frameworks are important, if perhaps no longer to everybody to quite the same extent. Yet if we are now unhappy with more fundamentalist and exclusivist forms of culturespeak, it may not be a bad idea to insert other understandings of culture into the public conversation, making even local frameworks less parochial" (9). Here we see the fear of the local leading to the necessity of including other perspectives for strictly moral reasons. 3. Friedman 1 994:214-27 contains adetailedcritique ofGiddens's atomistic laundry list definition of modernity. 4. The question asked here is to what extent modernity and contemporaneity are being confiated. Englund and Leach (2000), who go to great lengths in criticizing the notion of modernity in anthropology, demand just this, a stronger ethnographic analysis, claiming that much of the current discourse on modernity in anthropology simply supplants other people's categories of experience with our own, or in their terms, with a metanarrative of modernity. It is noteworthy that none of the replies to this article entertain a sustained critique of just this point. Whether or not the localis constituted or practiced, stable or unstable, it is the locus of cultural production via the. emergence of habitus. , 5. It has of course been argued that other regions, notably the Caribbean, providi:'tge . earliest examples of modernity, not least as the result of intensive commercializatiOll. I have argued that these are interesting tendencies, but remain tendencies at most. . 6. The identity space itself is best understood as a topological surface that is also variable in form, capable as indicated here of folding in on itself in certain conditions. 7 . No names are mentioned, interestingly enough, but the straw man would seem to be Sahlins, who is one of the few anthropologists to have explicitly attacked the globalizers. 8. This notion is opposed to the generally accepted Marxist notion in which the wage relationship is central. We have argued that the wage relationship is only one of the possible ways in which capital can reproduce itself on an expanded scale, one that becomes increasingly generalized in industrial capitalism but that is not the core of its logic. Following Weber we define capital simply as abstract wealth that thus provides for a structural continuity between the various forms of historical capital

Introduction

22

accumulation. Marx himself is quite aware of this, and it plays a crucial role in his analysis of capitalist reproduction in its most sophisticated versions, in volume III of Capital and in the Theories of Surplus Value, where the fundamental contradiction of capitalist reproduction is that between fictitious accumulation and real accumulation, that is, the fact that capitalism is driven by a need to convert money into more money and the way this simple logic gets bogged down in the necessity of passing through production and its realization on the market. It would be simpler, of course, to simply speculate. The logic of mercantilism is the logic of accumulation before it penetrates and reorganizes the labor process, a penetration that is reversing itself in the current period.

REFERENCES

Adams, R . McC. 1 974. Anthropological perspectives on ancient trade. Current An­

thropology 1 5 . 3 : 14 1-60. Chabal, P., and J.-P. Daloz. 1 999. Africa works: Disorder as political instrument. [London] International African Institute in association with James Currey. Bloom­ ington: Indiana University Press. Comaroff, 1., and 1. Comaroff. 2000. Millennial capitalism: First thoughts on a second coming. Public Culture 1 2(2): 291-343. . 2003. Ethnography on an awkward scale: Postcolonial anthropology and the violence of abstraction. Ethnography 4.2: 147-79. Ekholm Friedman, K . 1 99 1 . Catastrophe and creation: The transformation of an African culture. Philadelphia: Harwood Academic Publishers. Ekholm Friedman, K., and J. Friedman. 1 979. Capital, imperialism and exploitation in ancient world systems. In M. T. Larsen, ed., Power and propaganda: A sympo um on ancient empires. Copenhagen. . 1 980. Towards a global anthropology. In Blusse, Wesseling, and Winius, eds., History and Underdevelopment. Leiden. Englund, H., and Leach, 1. 2000. Ethnography and the metanarratives of modernity. ---

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---

Current Anthropology 4 1 .2: 225--48. Friedman, 1. 1 994. Cultural identity and global process. London: Sage. --- . 1 999. T he hybridization of roots' and the abhorrence of the bush. In M . Feath­ er stone and S. Lash, eds., Spaces of culture: City, nation, world. London: Sage. . 2000. Concretizing the continuity argument in global systems analysis. In R. Denemark, 1. Friedman, B. Gills and G. Modelski, eds., introduction to World System History: The science of long term change. London: Routledge. --- . 2002. Globalization, dis-integration, re-organization: The transformations of violence. In Globalization, the state and violence. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press ---

(Rowman and Littlefie ld). Friedman, 1. , and J. CalTier. Melanesian modernities. Lund: Lund University Press. Geschiere, P. 2000. Sorcellerie et modernite: retour sur une etrange complicite. Poli­

tique Africaine 79: 17-32.

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Introduction

23

Geschiere, P., and C. F. Fisiy. 1995. Sorcellerie et politique en Afrique: la viande des autres. Paris: Karthala. Giddens, A. 1 990. The consequences of modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, in association with Basil Blackwell, Oxford, UK. Hannerz, U. 2006. Flows boundaries and hybrids: Keywords in transnational anthro­ pology, Manuscript. Harvey D. 1 990. The condition ofpostmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Hirst, P. Q., and G. Thompson. 1 996. Globalization in question: The international economy and the possibilities of governance. Cambridge, UK; Oxford, UK; Cam­ bridge, MA: Polity Press, Blackwell Publishers. Knauft, B. M. 2002. Critically modern: Alternatives, alterities, anthropologies. Bloom­ ington: Indiana University Press. Larsen, M. T. 1 976. The old Assyrian city-state and its colonies. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, eksp. DBK. Marx, K., and F. Engels. 1 967. Capital; A critique of political economy. New York: International Publishers. . 1 969. Theories of surplus value. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Meyer, B., and P. Geschiere. 1 999. Globalization and identity: Dialectics offlow and closure. Oxford, UK; Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Pin�on, M., and M. Pin�on-Charlot. 1 996. Grandes fortunes: Dynastiesfamiliales et ---

formes de richesse en France. Paris: Editions Payot & Rivages. Sahlins, M. 1999. Two or three things I know about culture. Journal of the Royal A nthropological Institute 5 . 3 : 399-421. Semprini, A . 2000. CNN et la mondialisation de l 'imaginaire. Paris: CNRS editions. Wagner, A.-c. 1 998. Les nouvelles elites de la mondialisation. Paris: Presses univer­ sitaires de France.

Wallerstein, I. M. 1976. The modern world-system: Capitalist agriculture and the ori­ gins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. New York: Academic Press. '

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OTH E R M O D ER N IT IES? RESISTANCE, CO NTI N U IT IES, A N D TRAN SFO RMAT IO N S

Modernity has returned in a most forceful way to the social sciences in recent years. This term has fined the void left by the collapse of evolutionism. The latter was a semantic transform or homologue of the relation between power­ ful centers of civilization or "development" and their peripheries. The space separating the two was and is still a hierarchy within which individuals and so­ cieties were assumed to develop themselves from periphery to center, or via the transformation of space into time, from primitive, traditional, and undeveloped to civilized, modem, and developed. Modernity was usually identified in this discourse as the social and political organization of the contemporary centers. In the powerfully developmentalist frame of reference modernity too was as­ sumed to have emerged historically in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, linked to the English and French Revolutions, to the enlightenment, and the industrial revolution. But, ifthe proliferation of modernities in contem­ porary anthropology may indeed replace a former modernist understanding pf the modem, current usage of the term is not a product of the decline o£l.�h� former framework. It is, rather, related to the relativization of modernity:�'fio a modernization of culture. This is very much a product of the dialectic uhat we have explored in an earlier volume (Friedman 1 994) . We have suggested that the decline of modernism, itself part of the decline of Western hegemony, implies the rise of culturaHsm and a more extreme form of relativism, the conversion of linear time into relativist space. Now one of the intellectualist forms taken by this culturalism is textualism, an objectification of culture and its transformation into mere difference, with no obvious roots i n social ex­ perience. In the emergent postcolonial and globalization-oriented framework, culture is identified with tradition, a dangerous and even racist term insofar as it takes difference too seriously (Meyer and Geschiere 1 999). As we live in the contemporary, we are all modem. All culture, if one wishes to use the word, is contemporary culture. Cognizant that we are indeed part of a world -"

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Part !

26

in which populations that were once referred to in terms of tradition are in­ tegrated into the global system, in which their lives are articulated with the "advanced" sectors, where they consume Western goods, may work in the cap­ italist sectors of the world economy, and construct their lives using objects that are part of this larger world, we are urged to interpret contemporary witchcraft as modern witchcraft, contemporary kinship relations as modern kinship, and so forth. Indeed these authors are very often keen to deny any historical con­ tinuity (Comaroff and Comaroff 1 999; Geschiere 1 995). In many works the concept of alternative modernity is used to designate two facts: real cultural difference and contemporaneity, which usually implies something from the West like telephones or computers. Thus alternative modernity is simply an­ other term for contemporary culture and since all culture is contemporary, the term culture can be dropped. The approach adopted here is somewhat differ­ ent. Instead of conflating modernity with contemporaneity, turning the former into an empty signifier, we stress the specificity of modernity as a particular cultural form. We have suggested earlier (Friedman 1 994) that modernity is a structural phenomenon that emerges in highly commercialized societies where a strong tendency to individualization, the differentiation of self from identity, is a core element of a series of other transformations. In chapter 7 in the next section we return to this issue, but in the four chapters of this section we focus on the formation of contemporary structures and social worlds in peripheral zones. This has nothing to do with modernity as such but with social and cultural transformations that are crucial aspects of the articulation of historical continuities and the formation of local social fields within the contemporary global system. Chapter 1 analyzes a curious mirage in early anthropology that has !teen inherited in a great number of classic works, the supposed evolution from magic to religion made famous in the work of Frazer and in which late­ nineteenth-century Africa plays an instrumental role. Here the argument is reversed. Nineteenth-century Africa was precisely an example of the rise of magic in societies in the grips of violent disintegration. Phenomena such as powerless sacred kingship, witchcraft, and the proliferation of magic are shown to be products of the transformation of colonial society rather than a remnant of an earlier period. Chapter 2 examines the way in which history is integrated into identity practices, whether in the form of nationalist and indigenous myths, often assumed to be inauthentic by self-appointed anthropological masters of authenticity and true history, or even in the form of just plain standard history. The emergence of Greek national identity in the nineteenth century is part of a massive historical construction process, one that integrates Greece as ancestor of the West at the same time as it was becoming integrated as a periphery within the expanding Western world system, opposing itself to its own former ,

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27

Resistance, Continuities, and Transformations

integration within the Ottoman empire. Hawaiian history is, on the contrary, one, developing within the Hawaiian movement, that separates Hawaii from the West. Chapter 3 further develops the issue of the politics of authenticity showing how rising indigenous movements enter into a necessary structural conflict with anthropologists who previously maintained a monopoly on the truth of their realities. Chapter 4, finally, demonstrates the way in which 10cal life projects structure and simplifies what appears for distant observers as global complexity. Real lives in global reality are small worlds, whether the worlds of indigenous populations or cosmopolitan intellectuals. If there is a relation to the modem in these chapters it concerns the articula­ tions between expanding Western hegemony and the populations that are inte­ grated within this hegemony. The articulations are many and diverse, and the strategies produced are at once culturally specific while framed within larger global contexts. The catastrophic situation within which Congolese culture is transformed is one in which its internal properties determine the nature of the final product. The various ways in which Hawaiian life forms confront and avoid an encompassing American world demonstrate the way in which forms of resistance produce localization. In both examples historical continuity plays an important role even if in different ways. Thus, "alternative modernities" are better understood as alternative historical articulations.

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From Religion to Magic

Kajsa Ekholm Friedman B oth fetishism and the nganga's practices have hi storically been subjected t o a

massive mud-slinging campaign on the part of whites. As concerns the nganga l it has been stressed that he was medically incompetent, that his minkisi were hocus-pocus, that he was the leading figure in the witchcraft hysteria, and that he generally played a reactionary role in the development of society. Fetishism has been seen as idolatry in its most evil form. To keep as sacred wooden figures and small bags of "medicines" instead of worshipping God, the Father in heaven, appeared outrageously heathenish. MacGaffey says in an article on fetishism that the actual word had such negative connotations for us that we willingly avoided it. "It implied that African peoples were too immature to perceive the world correctly; intellectual error led them to the moral error, in Christian opinion of Idolatry" (MacGaffey 1 977 : 1 72). But the Congolese themselves use the word today without any negative connotations, except; i ' .' perhaps, in a Christian context. In the following passage from the Swedish missionary, P. A. Westlind,')Vlle fetishes are called "gods": "With the help of these gods they could find Qut secrets, rule over rain and sunshine, over success and adversity, over health and illness. They are therefore held in esteem by all" (Westlind 1 9 1 1 : 97). However, the majority of the missionaries sa w no true religious content in fetishism. On the contrary, they emphasized that it was only a selfish magic, and it was difficult for them to reconcile themselves to such practices. They had come to the Lower Congo, self-sacrificing and with no desire for personal gain, to spread the Gospel. They therefore reacted with great indignation when confronted with fetishism which at that time was primarily directed toward people' s immediate practical problems: health, fertility, and material survival. Even Laman, who in many other situations showed great understanding for the . .

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29

30

Chapter 1

culture in which he worked, writes in a text of 1 9 1 1 : "The la w and desire, which this people follow and by which it is dominated, is selfishness" ( 1 9 1 1 :20). A common view among whites was that the Kongo totally lacked religion. "The people of the Congo, as we found them, were practically without reli­ gion," the-English missionary, Bentley, declared unpropitiously and continued: "There is no worship, no idolatry in fetishism, only a dark agnosticism, full of fear, helpless and hopeless" ( 1 900 1 :247). In the turn-of-the-century society (late 1 800s and early 1 900s), fetishism was clearly a question of magic. I will argue here that this focusing on magic at the expense of more religious aspects was an effect of colonization, not a traditional feature. The survival problem came to overshadow all other questions about their worldly existence, and the techniques of communicating with the gods were used increasingly in a desperate struggle for survival. Fetishism was thought of so negatively because it was, explicitly or im­ plicitly, perceived in terms of evolutionist assumptions of the relationship be­ tween fetishism/magic and religion. Frazer thought he could discern a general evolution from magic to religion (compare Comte's sequence fetishism­ polytheism-monotheism). But this is merely an intellectual construction, based on the erroneous assumption that the victims of Western expansion showed "primitive" characteristics because they represented earlier stages in social evo­ lution. The magically inclined fetishism of the Lower Congo is not a primitive phenomenon in a primitive society but, on the contrary, a crisis phenomenon in a society that had been crushed and that lived under the acute threat of ex­ tinction. There is no general historic process leading from magic to religion, but there may well have been a process, shared by a large part of the Third 6f World, leading in the opposite direction: from religion to magic. Religion must of course have been affected by what happened to society in general. When the political system was destroyed, the traditional religion lost its social character. It was simply too intimately implicated in the political hier­ archy to survive. Disease and illness, the high mortality, the extreme insecurity, and the violence and oppression led to a situation in which fetishism became more of a traditional medicine than a religion "a magic wall" (Mahaniah 1980: 1 1 ), or an imaginary bulletproof vest. After colonization the banganga became the actual power factor in indige­ nous society: "It is the nganga nkisi, the charm doctor, who sways the minds and lives of men, and possesses a power superior to that of the chiefs" (Ward 1 890:38). "The real potentate in Mayombe is 'le f€ticheur'" (Van Overbergh 1 907 :423). There were many different types of banganga, and when specialization developed to its greatestextent, one can say there was a special nganga for every illness or complaint (see Laman 1962: 1 73-83). The nkisi cured illness and,

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From Religion to Magic

31

though i t may seem bewildering, could also cause illness. "When nkisi wants to show its power, it attacks a person until a nganga, priest, averts the nkisi, as he has the power to do so" (Laman 1923:57); "the nkisi-spirit attacks . . . a person through illness, and is, at the same time, that nkisi through which the same illness is to be cured (60). Every nkisi had its own affliction which it also cured (Laman 1962:69). There were minkisi with quite a broad range of activities, but in the turn-of-the-century society we can discern a tendency to a greater degree of specialization, so that every special illness had its own nkisi. For instance, Syadada was the name for diarrhea containing blood and also the nkisi which was supposed to be able to cure it. Smallpox was called Bimwengi or Sala nsamba, chickenpox Cubu-Cubu, mumps Mayititi, and so were called the minkisi that cured these different diseases (Laman 1962:70). It is evident that the fetishism we meet in the turn-of-the-century society is a product of dissolution and crisis. There are several statements by missionaries which support this view. E. Andersson claims that the word "nkisi" originally meant "spirit" and only later did it come to mean "charm" or "fetish"; it does not look as though the development has gone "from power-magic to ancestral cult but rather the other way around" (195 8:21, 23). Even Laman describes fetishism as a "degeneration" of something else. He claims that nkisi originally referred to "the fi rst great heroes," the great clan or tribal founders, Kongo, Nsundi, and Mbenza, who were subject to the cult during the earlier period. It is only during "recent generations," he states, that many lesser minkisi have come into existence. Fetishism should, then, have evolved from a more original nkisi-cult: "What on the west coast is referred to as 'fetishism' is actually a degenerated form of nkisi cult" (Laman 1962:67). "In the old days, nkisi Nakongo and several others were undoubtedly more ardently worshipped, but this cult has gradually been replaced by worship of ancestral images (bankuyu), basimbi, and a variety of other minkisi as new diseases spread in the countw" . ·.. (78).

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Here Laman explicitly associates the change in fetishism with the appear­ ance of all the new diseases. Van Wing is also aware of this relationship: "[The problems] gave first rise to a flare-up of fetishism among the natives; they fabricated new fetishes in order to combat the new evil" (1938:128). There was an increase in, and specialization of, fetishes in order to counter­ act and combat the new problems. Van Wing knew of more than 150 different minkisi; new ones were created all the time. In the major centers, and partic­ ularly in Leopoldville, there emerged minkisi of foreign, exotic origin, from Senegal, Azande, and B angala (128), according to the Kongo principle that things from the outside are always better and stronger than things from inside. It is important to look at fetishism from a historical perspective. As long as it is perceived as "traditional culture" it remains strange and abstruse. In

·

32

Chapter 1

order to understand the specific form it had at the turn of the century we must take into account the very special conditions that prevailed. It is not, of course, possible to combat epidemics, sterility, poverty, and social chaos with the help of minkisi, however sophisticatedly one goes about it. But the fantasy and creativity is impressive. There were already significant changes in the traditional religion during the centuries following the first contact. Even if the general design of the system of thought remained the same, minkisi constantly changed their character. Old minkisi disappeared, and new ones appeared. Certain fields of religious practice lost their meaning while others suddenly became central. From the beginning there were minkisi and amulets for individual use, just as there were minkisi that could be hung in individuals' houses. There were, further, minkisi linked to public life, providing life and fertility and protecting the kingdom and the political order. This type of change has not gone unnoticed. Janzen (1 982) has compared Dapper's descriptions from the seventeenth century with those of the German expedition of the 1 870s. In both cases we are dealing with the area north of the Congo river. The minkisi of the earlier period were, as Janzen shows, primarily connected with the well-being of the king, large harvests, successful fishing expeditions, and the accumulation of wealth in the form of trade goods 1 982:53). In the 1 870s the well-being of the king no longer played any role, and the same minkisi occupied a dominant place in relation to trade, law and order, witchcraft, protection, and the fertility of women. Janzen accounts for the change in terms of the decline of kingship and the entire court system in Loango. There were, in . the new situation, a great number of minkisi whose function was to judge and mete out punishment, "to bring clarity and justile to the increasingly tangled social relations present in the port city" (55). Several reservations are in order here. The loss of interest in the king is most certainly the direct result of the fact that the kingdom no longer functioned as a centralized political structure. But the causal relation between general lawlessness and political insecurity and the minkisi's j uridical and supervising functions does not seem convincing. Minkisi already had such functions in. the beginning of the seventeenth century (see Battell). Nor is it the case that the Lower Congo can be described as in a state of political dissolution in the 1 870s. It was still a well-functioning society, even if rapid commercialization and economic expansion had led to a transformation of the power structure. Bastian talks, for instance, about the emergence of a new class of "upstarts" (1 874: 1 95) which led to increasing tensions and conflicts. Janzen's lawlessness and insecurity better characterizes the next period. There is an enormous difference between the society of the 1 870s where there

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From Religion to Magic

33

still existed a traditional religious practice with its public cult and its fetishes reinforcing the juridical order, and the turn of the century with its individualized fetishism and magical struggle against disease. The shift in focus from general fertility to the problem of female infertility is accounted for by Janzen in terms of the slave trade and general political insecurity (1982:55). It might be more profitable to consider that declining fertility was already widespread on the coast following the path of venereal disease. The local population here was severely affected by the presence of white traders and the imported African workforce. Janzen does not treat the religious system in its entirety, however, and there­ fore the changes may seem less profound than they really are. The major change occurring toward the end of the nineteenth century, in connection with colonization, was the disappearance of the entire public aspect of the religious cult. Religion lost its larger social dimension and was reduced to a system of magic to deal with disease. During the acute survival crisis of this period all interest and energy was summoned in the struggle against epidemics and sterility. Bittremieux has, in his work of 1 936, taken up a number of different aspects of the precolonial cult. He begins by stating that the Nkisi tsi cult was central in the traditional religion ( 1936: 1 36) and he continues: In a sense i t controls the entire life of society and the family. I t is from the nkisi tsi that the chiefs get their power. Among the Bawoyo, the entire community attempts to gain its favor by means of public ceremonies. And it is in its name that the bandunga, masked men, also referred to as 'wives of Nkisi tsi' or even its soldiers, engaged in their so-called policing of Kabinda villages. It is apparently for this nkisi that, among the Bawoyo, as in most of Mayombe, nubile girls are made to enter the nzo kumbi in preparation for marriage . . . It is to this nkisi tha� . . .. adult men consecrate themselves in the grand rite of semuka. (136) .

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Here Bittremieux refers to the royal coronation, the Bawoyo's public cere­ monies, masked men in Kabinda, puberty rites for girls, and the great conse­ cration of adult men. Later in the same text he refers to nkimba, the initiation school for young boys, and the relation between minkisi and the juridical system. There existed, in other words, a true religious system, pervading the entire society, before the advent of the modem era. Bentley is right when he says that "the people of the Congo . . . were practically without religion" (Ben t­ ley 1 900 1 :247). He is wrong, however, in assuming that this state of affairs was aboriginal. One of the first more detailed descriptions of minkisi is found in Battell's work from early-seventeenth-century Loango and Mayombe (Raven stein

34

Chapter 1

1 901 :48ff., 56ff., 6 l ff.). It is a fragmentary picture, but it reveals certain prin­

cipal traits of the religion that can be discovered for the period preceding colonization. In the capital of Mayombe there was a nkisi, he says, called "Maramba." It was placed in a tall basket in a house or under a roof without walls. "This is their religion." One consecrated oneself to Maramba, two marks were cut into each shoulder, and a number of food taboos were imposed. The ordained wore Maramba's relics on a necklace. All unsolved deaths and thefts were brought before him. When someone died, his neighbors were called before Maramba, and if the deceased was an important person, the whole population had to come and vow innocence. The guilty party fell dead to the ground. There was another nkisi called "Checocke." He was small and black and stood in a little house in a village called Kinga. Offerings were made to him for success in hunting and fi shing. He was placed in the middle of the village, and when people passed by they clapped their hands. Among his qualifications was the ability to make his best beloved possessed. A third nkisi was "Gomberi." His nganga was a woman who at its annual celebration gave a speech in his honor "from under the ground." A fourth nkisi was called "Imbonda." This word was later written as mbundu and was used as one of the poisons administered to persons suspected of kindoki. It is important, in this connection, to recall that the Kongo themselves did not suppose that mbundu was a poison. It was a nkisi that had the power to determine the guilt or innocence of the suspect, and it was assumed to be perfectly harmless for the innocent. That it was deadly for the guilty was due to the fact that it could search the suspect's body until it found the material substance, or organ, responsible for witchcraft (kundu) which led to �ath. "The master of the Imbonda" was placed in the center of the village (in "the high street"), or in the market square, with his "water" and administered it to all witchcraft suspects. Up to 500 people, both men and women, could come to drink mbundu. Afterwards they could urinate to demonstrate their innocence. Those who could not fell dead to the ground after a moment, and the assembly cast themselves upon the guilty party and cut him or her to bits. This is done at the town of Longo almost every week, according to Battell. There are many of the ingredients of the nkisi cult to be found here. There was a public cult for the great minkisi. Participants were consecrated to Maramba, their bodies were ceremoniously carved, and they observed special food taboos. The nkisi cult was central to the whole society. Its temple was located in the center of the capital and there was a well-defined congregation with definite rules. "This is their house of religion," comments B attell. Minkisi were, further, implicated in the political and juridical organization of the kingdom. Maramba punished those guilty of theft and murder and Imbonda sought after witches.

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From Religion to Magic

35

To those who were honest and made offerings to the gods, there was success in hunting and fi shing. These were typical traits of traditional Kongo religion and indeed very different from the medical magic that we find at the turn of the twentieth century. Traditional Kongo religion is not easily understood. The material is frag­ mentary, often contradictory, and sometimes even incomprehensible. There are several reasons for that. One is that the religious sphere was the most inacces­ sible for the European s . Certain places of religious importance were so holy that the common man dared not look upon them, let alone set foot upon them (see Bastian 1 874:22 1 ) and subsequently they were also overlooked by the Europeans (cf. Verly 1955 :477ff.). Another reason is that the European visitor often did not fully understand what he observed or was told. A third reason, more interesting than the others, is the lack of a clear and consistent belief system. And how could there be one without a group of theologians ruling over the truth? Here we have a general worldview, or mode of thought, in a number of different shapings and a set of problems that are handled in various ways and provided with different interpretations or solutions. There is a great deal of ambivalence in the attitude toward the gods and for anthropological analysis it is important to identify the contradictory statements as ambivalence and refrain from trying to separate the true one from the false. The time per­ spective makes it even more complicated, as every piece of information must, as far as is possible, be understood within the specific social context.

POWER AND COSMIC H I ERARCHY

The spiritual world of African peoples is very densely populated with spir�tual beings, spirits, and the living dead. African religions contain, as a rule, a wll.'i>ll:! · set of different deities and spirits. R. Horton attempted to show, in his al1li'c�� of 1 962, that the different spirit categories among the Kalabari stood iuo a certain relationship to each other and, as a whole, to the social structure. His approach was Durkheimian and structuralist and meant, more specifically, that every spirit category represented a specific level of the segmented social unit, culture heroes for the larger political unit and ancestors for the descent groups. MacGaffey has applied ( 1 983) a similar approach to the Lower Congo. There was, during the precolonial period, a hierarchy of spirits corresponding to the hierarchy of political titles. At the top was Nzambi Mpungu, "the most remote and most powerful of spirits . . . the highest 'nzambi,' the paradigm of the series." Below him were a number of hierarchically ranked spirits: "Below him, partially localized, ranked great regional spirits (nkisi nsi) such as Bunzi and Funza, sometimes confounded with Nzambi, and lesser bi simbi, some at

t , 5-, ,

36

Chapter 1

least of which were thought of as very old ancestors. Any of these spirits, and also in certain contexts a human being, could be called nzambi" (MacGaffey 1 983 : 1 29). The hierarchy of spirits was seen in terms of different generations, as father, son, grandson "on the model of the ideal hierarchy of all local groups, in which each titleholder stood in a paternal relationship to his subordinates." In this context he quotes Doutreloux who very explicitly expresses this correspondence between the tata-muana-relationship in the spirit hierarchy and the political hierarchy. In another context, MacGaffey links "local spirits" to "local groups" and "ancestors" to "descent groups" (MacGaffey 1 977: 1 82). This is an important aspect of the traditional religion, but it must not ob­ scure the fact that behind this pyramidal spirit world there existed a specific conception of God. The presence of various categories of spirits, we could say, is a secondary phenomenon, a consequence of a special idea of God, found in clan societies. It was basically a monistic worldview where everything hung together and all could be traced back to a primary cause, a kind of Big Bang. This ex­ plains to some extent why it was so easy for the Kongo, and many other African peoples, to convert to Christianity. The similarities between Chris­ tianity and African religions are obvious. The only thing the Kongo had to do was to bypass all channels and mediums of the Force and let themselves be persuaded that a direct contact with God was possible. The new message was not the Christian God; He was already there, in a very similar form. In­ stead it was, the idea of direct communication that was new. The transition to Christianity was, of course, facilitated by the fact that the political hienttchy collapsed at the end of the n ineteenth century. With it disappeared one cate­ gory that stood between God and the individual. Left was only fetishism. But soon movements appeared that had the destruction of minkisi as their main purpose. Their worldview was also hierarchical. The hierarchical representation of the social world was, as we have seen, crucial for their strategies in the encounter with the European factories during the precolonialperiod. The actual situation was interpreted very differently by Europeans and by Africans. The Europeans' dualistic view, separating "us" from "them," that is, where the relationship to the Africans was interpreted in terms of a binary opposition, conceived the factory as an enclave in a foreign environment. The Africans, however, placed, according to their hierarchical model, the two groups higher and lower in the flow of life-force emanating from God. The white factory was incorporated into the political hierarchy of the area and given the position of apex since it actually functioned as the source of power.

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From Religion to Magic

37

Political hierarchies in the Lower Congo were based upon the control and distribution · of prestige goods (Ekholm 1972). In the precolonial period indigenous prestige goods had been replaced by European trade goods, such as cloth and beads. According to the Kongo mode of thought these objects, containing political power, entered their world from above. Europe became "higher," closer to God, not just another part of the world. What to the Europeans seemed to be a spatial relationship was interpreted by the Kongo as a "genealogical" relationship. In Laman's material, as well as in other material from the tum of the century, we still find fragments of a more elaborate traditional worldview. But at the same time there are clear evidences of dissolution. In an article from 1975, M-C. Dupre presents an analysis of "the Nkisi system" based upon Laman' s material in "The Kongo Ill" (1962). The main purpose ofher study, concerning 119 minkisi, has been to reveal the system of thought behind Kongo fetishism. As the point of departure she cites Laman's words about minkisi belonging to three different categories, land, water, and sky, "according as their nkisi­ forming medicines derive from these respective spheres." Her picture of the cosmological field is very simple, in the sense that it contains few components. There are forces of land, water, and sky, and the various minkisi are composed of ingredients from these different forces (see figure 1.1). Even if Dupre's purpose was flot to present a complete picture of the cos­ mological field as it appears i n Laman's material, her analysis still reveals a certain tendency in the transformation of the traditional religion. The elaborate

land.

UINICISI

SUWBCr Figure 1.1. Congo

The Cosmological Field, based on Dupre's interpretation (1975) of the

38

Chapter 1

cosmological field that we find during earlier periods (sixteenth through nine­ teenth centuries) is dissolved, and what is left after colonization are the forces of nature and the minkisi. If she had taken up the various spirit categories and what is said about "the ancestor cult" in Laman's third volume, her picture would perhaps have been different. But on the other hand she found no reason to do so in order to explain the fetishism of early colonial society. In traditional Kongo religion there were two fundamental components. One was life-force itself, which in its purest and most concentrated form is found at everything'S beginning, beyond reach, at a maximum distance from the living. From this point it becomes increasingly diluted and diversifi ed the nearer it comes to the present time and the human/cultural world. The other was the power relations through which this life-force was channeled and controlled, and the mediums or materializations in which it was incorporated and made accessible to man. The Kongo feel no dependence on Nzambi, says Laman ( 1 923:23); he lives in heaven and does not concern himself with the living and their problems: "He has created the world and lives in heaven. He does nothing really evil, is not feared and is not prayed to. He does not usually concern himself with the people, as he has given medicine-bags and nkisi-gods for assistance" (20). Between him and the living there were minkisi and various spirits or lesser gods, from which man could obtain help and protection. The deceased forefa­ thers (bakulu) were to be found in the village of the dead, living an ordinary life like that on earth (Laman 1 962: 14). Basimbi is a spirit category that is sometimes depicted as nature spirits and sometimes as ancestors who have died twice, fi rst in this world and then in the land of the dead. They "safeguard the country (and) man could not exist anywhere without them" (33). They are connected with mountains, ravines, stones, and water pools inside dark cliff caves. Bankita ("ancestors of the beginning") resemble basimbi in that they are very old ancestors and also in that they exist in both a land and a water category (Laman 1 962:33, 36; Van Wing 1 93 8 : 1 8ff.) . The Kongo used the model for the clan in many different situations. They described the kingdom as if all started with a little group of people in the area around the capital in a country otherwise devoid of people. The country was thereafter, according to the myth, successively populated through de­ mographic growth and internal segmentation of this original group (Cuvelier 1 930). The political relationship between king, province governor, district chief, and village chief that is, between the different titleholders of the po­ litical hierarchy was, as we have seen, expressed in terms of different gener­ ations: father, son, grandson. The kingdom was in other words represented as a clan, either in matrilineal or in patrilineal terms , emanating from the capital.

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From Religion to Magic

39

This picture has, of course, nothin$ to do with the more objective construction and development of the kingdom. The cosmos was also conceived as a clan. Nzambi, who was the highest, was also the oldest, at the cosmological starting point. The higher ranked was always older. He lived in heaven, and man originated from there. Even nature was structured as a clan; certain phenomena in nature were supposed to be nearer the origin than others and were thought to have been created-by Nzambi at the beginning of the world. This is especially true of "large upright stones and rocks" (Laman 1 962:36), those places that were connected with basimbi; Laman also mentions waters, caves, and stones as their abodes (4 1 ) . Among the Yombe it was, above all, sources of rivers and small brooks which bore this primeval impression (Doutreloux 1 967 : 2 1 5). Natural phenomena like the whirlwind, thunder, lightning, and the rainbow were also seen as more primeval and in that sense closer to Nzambi. Life-force saturated nature in its entirety, however, representing "hidden powers that can be of use or harm for Man" (Laman 1 923 :23). "His power is also evident in the rain, in the growing plants, flowers, trees and frui ts, in the birth of man, his growth, his getting a beard and grey hairs" (Laman 1 962:55). It exists in every­ thing that lives and grows, but also, and perhaps particularly, in that which for the Westerner appears as "dead" mountains, stones, collections of stagnant water inside dark cli-ff caves. The primeval in nature, and consequently higher ranked, seems to be represented by phenomena which appear as unchangeable and eternal, which unlike human beings and plants do not die. Characteristic of "the people of the sky" is that they too, unlike people on earth, do not die; they are white, tall, and very strong (Laman 1 962:56). Nzambi is sometimes depicted as a creator god of about the same type as in Iudaism and Christianity. He has created heaven, the sun, the moon, die stars, and he has created all that which is on earth people, animals, - _��4 ' ' ; plants (Laman 1 962:53; Van Wing 1938:24-25). Thus far it is the same; '�ut he i:s a deus otiosus and must be, because he is so far away from the Jivi4Jg: Contact was indirectly established through materializations and mediums thilt ' were closer to man. The Kongo's God was, in fact, much more a father than the Christian God. He was not the engineer God (cf. Jahn 1 960: 1 0 1 ff.) who created (that i s, constructed) man in his own likeness and who thereafter supervises his progress. Instead he was the Ancestor, the Begetter. There existed between him and man a bond of kinship. Direct communication with an ancestor cannot be had. The appeal must be made to the generation/s closest to oneself. This idea of a descent relationship between Nzambi and man explains why they could call other human beings "nzambi;" both the king and their parents (even the white missionary) (Laman 1 923 : 1 5). God, the Creator, is Nzambi Mpungu, "the very great Nzambi" (Laman 1 962:56). , ,

40

Chapter 1

"Nzambi lives in the sky and hence he cannot visit the earth"; yet he is not totally inactive, "he observes and watches everything, that nothing may go wrong" (Laman 1 962:55). Here Laman lets Nzambi stand for that which actually is represented b y the minkisi of the lower levels . When oaths were sworn, Nzambi was taken as a witness with the implication that he would take revenge on the one who committed perjury (Laman 1 923 :20ff.). This is, however, a function that was usually assigned to nkisi Nkondi (Laman 1 962:88). It does not fit the concept of a deus otiosus. This lack of consistency may perhaps be ascribed to the introduction of Christianity, which supplied them with such a picture of God. The same description is found in Van Wing: "Nzambi est legislateur, il punit les transgresseurs de ses lois" (Van Wing 1 93 8 : 30). One of his informants explained to him that all laws that the elders had left as their heritage came from Nzambi. To break the laws was "un peche contre Nzambi" and led to punishment b y him (3 1 ). If we consider that the concept "Nzambi" actually included the whole clan pyramid (Nzambi Mpungu is called "the very great N zambi" [Laman 1 962:56]), there was perhaps nothing contradictory in this. Nzambi is a deus otiosus if we define him narrowly as the beginning of everything, in the remote past and at a maximum distance. On the other hand he is present everywhere with his laws and punishments through his presence in parents, political chiefs and minkisi. ,

,

N ZAMBI, EARTH GODS, A N D N K I S I

Nzambi w a s t o be found i n heaven and was thereby separated fro m man on earth. His body was white and clean, and it was strong and unchanging Is "an immovable rock" (Lam an 1 9 62:55ff.). On the level below, on earth, we find "the first man," the Ancestor (Mukulu) or Nzambi a nsi, "Nzambi on earth," and those primeval phenomena that represented the origin of society. The first man was believed to have come down to earth on a rope or a spider's thread and had a nkisi with him : "Nzambi a nsi, the first human being, who descended from heaven and paved the way on earth, brought with him a nkisi, Mukongo or Nakongo" (Laman 1 962:68). Here a distinction is made between the Ancestor and the nkisi. They are depicted as two different phenomena. But they can also be one (figure 1 .2). There are m yths in which the Ancestor is described as a nkisi. Nakongo, who is depicted as the first nkisi, is also described as "the great ancestor of the tribe." He is the Ancestor of the kingdom of the Kongo, and after him it was named nsi a Kongo and its capital mbanza Kongo (Laman 1 9 5 3 : 10). Thus Nakongo is both the Ancestor and nkisi. In this case the Kongo differentiated between Nzambi, the creator in heaven, and the Ancestorlnkisi at the origin of life on earth. In a third version the Creator merged with the nkisi. Both

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HEAVEN

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Figure 1.2.

41

NKISI

NKISI

Three different versions of the relationship between the Creator, man, and

Nkisi

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Bunzi and Funza were described as creator gods who, at the same time, were minkisi (Laman 1 962:78). When Funza came down from heaven he first made his dwelling place in water. Mter a while he went ashore and started to create "animals, birds, fish and all, and after that he created man" (Laman 1 920: 1 0) . He was described as the "master of the nkisi-gods," the most superior of all minkisi. About the same was said of Bunzi. He was, as mentioned above, both the creator, "a tribal nkisi" and "the chief of the basimbi." These three versions ofthe relationship between the Creator, man, and nkisi are only variations of one and the same conception of God where the three components, in the same way as the Trinity of Christianity, can be conceived as separate at the same time as they are one. This reveals another interesting difference between the Kongo's religion and Christianity. There was a more i ntimate relationship between ��' and mankind i n the former. God was present through the elders, the cht�fs, minkisi, and nature. The novelty that Christianity introduced was not pe)jh�ps ­ merely the possibility ofdirect contact with God but, instead, the general notiQn that God is distant and separate from man. - The Ancestor could also be depicted as a whole gwup of people, "the first - immigrants." In this shape he resembles the spirit category basimbi (or banklta, Kinda). The Ancestor's or "the first man 's" house here on earth was on a mountain or in a cliff cave: "In Bwende it is thought that Nzambi a Nsi's house still exists; it i s a big rock in the middle of a valley which is called Bweno. Others call such a rock grotto Mukongo's cave" (Laman 1 962:68). These special localities were also associated with "the first immigrants." They came, according to the myth, from the east; they walked toward the sea, and then they turned and walked back toward the east, along the south shore of the River Congo. At Noki they crossed the river and then continued up _

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Chapter 1

to Mpalabala. There they stopped at Tadi dya ngo (the Leopard Cave), from where they migrated to Kimpese, Lukungu, and Inkisi. There were several such caves in the Lower Congo, which have been seen as abodes for "the spirits of the deceased ancestors ofthe tribe" and which played an important role at the installation of kings and other political chiefs (Laman 1953: 1 Off.) . These mountains and rock caves were also generally associated with basimbi: "The accounts of waters, caves, stones and rocks inhabited by basimbi are innumerable. In addition to these places, they may also dwell in mountains, woods and plains" (Laman 1962:41). Basimbi were mainly associated with water and stone, but they could also be connected with other aspects of nature, as in the quotation above, with forests and plains. Basimbi and "the first immigrants" seem to be identical most of the time. Laman makes a distinction when he says that the caves in question were originally inhabited by "the first immigrants" and later were taken over by basimbi (196). "The first immigrants" (The Ancestor/s) were transformed into basimbi by the relationship that existed between the king and certain rock caves. Even if they are conceived as different originally, they become identical. The nature of basimbi is unclear. Sometimes they appear as ancestors and sometimes as nature spirits, as "a special class of being created by Nzambi" (Laman 1962:33). They are categorized in the same way as bankita, in a land category and a water category (1962:33, 36; Van Wing 1938:19). Those as­ sociated with land are red or dark skinned, and those associated with water are white. The actual word basimbi comes, according to Laman, from simba which means "hold, keep, preserve" (Van Wing says "to attack" [ 1 938: 19]). Their task was to protect land and people and to promote fertility: "man could not exist anywhere without them" (Laman 1962:33). Basimbi were clo�r to the people than Nzambi was and protected/punished them. As long as the in­ dividual behaved as he should, followed all rules and kept all taboos, basimbi brought him prosperity: "They never harm him, unless he has done wrong" (33). The gods occupying the level between Nzambi and society are described in many different ways. But in spite of all the variations they all seem to have the same significance for man. They are older and higher ranked, own the land, supply fertility, protect the good, and punish the bad. Besides, they constitute, at lower levels, a force that can be used by man. ' In Doutreloux's description of the Yombe, Kinda play the same role as basimbi. For each domain (tsi) there was a Kinda who protected and gave fertility to land and people. This deity, who cannot be described, owns on earth certain material symbols : "He possesses . . . on the earth of which he is the proprietor and protector, material symbols, generally boulders, Tadi" (Doutreloux 1967:215). A Kinda owns and protects the land in the same way as basimbi. Stones and cliffs are seen as his material symbols ; such natural manifestations are,

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according to Doutreloux, called Nkisi Tsi (pI. Bakisi ba Tsi). They are not dwellings for deities , he says, but rather sacred places where only the initiated were allowed to go (215). That they can be seen as dwellings or as material symbols is perhaps not so important. In Laman 's material it seems that they are usu ally perceived as dwelli ngs. But Laman also says: "The power of basimbi is concentrated on Tadi" (Laman 1 962:42 ; my italics ). Kinda are depicted as pure nature spirits. They are not ancestors. They were associated with the cliff caves (Tadi) but also with other natural manifestations, such as the sources o f rivers and small brooks. When occupying new land one must try to find the original or primeval places in nature in order to bury a nkisi there, which, then, has the form of tribute to the deity. This would be an expression of the pact the group entered into with the deity (Doutreloux 1 967:21 5). Doutreloux refers to God or life-force a s nkisi. The different spirit cate­ gories of the Yombe can, he says, be seen as a manifestation of one and the same "Esprit" which saturates the whole of nature: "cette force universelle et immateriel1e porte du reste un nom, Nkisi" (226). Doutreloux has, in many respects, the same view of the structure of traditional religion as the I present in this book. However, nkisi is not the Force itself but a materialization of it which mediates the channel between God and man and designates the point of control. The Force is, or comes from, Nzambi or more directly from those deities who are located on earth, at a shorter distance from man, and which I here have chosen to call "earth gods" or "gods of the land." Laman claim s that the incorporated spirit in nkisi is a nkuyu, which is de­ fined as " an evil spirit" or "the spirit of an evil, deceased person." Its evil nature makes the connection with minkisi very confusing. If nkisi occupied a central position in traditional religion, it would logically be connected to bakululbasimbi bankita, not to souls of bad people. This view of the nt}t,llire of nkisi is most certainly a result of change, when higher levels of both;,�o... litical and religious powers had disappeared and lower spirits had taken tl:i.�i,r place, and when the whole "nkisi complex" was in disrepute. It must be keptin mind that Laman's material on this point, to a large extent, derives from newly converted men who certainly were anxio us to delineate the nkisi cult in an unfavorable light. Buak asa, himself a Kongo, makes a very strong connection between basimbi and nkisi:

.

The force invested in the nkisi object, is the force of a simbi. Thus whenever we come to face a nkisi we also have to face a simbi. It is possible that not all simbi had a corresponding nkisi. In every nkisi, however, there is always a simbi of which the former is the vehicle, its materialization. The name of a nkisi is the name of the simbi represented by the former. (Buakasa 1 980:242)

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Chapter J

Here nkisi and "the simbi beings" are one. The connection between nkisi and basimbi exists even in Laman's material. He says, for example, that the oldest and greatest minkisi came from "mysterious lakes" (Laman 1 923 : 65), that is, from localities which were thought to house basimbi. The connection is also made evident by the belief that there were land-minkisi and water-minkisi (also sky-minkisi) in the same way as there were land-basimbi and water-basimbi (Laman 1 962:64, 7 1 ). Nzambi cannot be controlled and is, therefore, never incorporated into a nkisi (Lam an 1 920: 1 0 ; Van Wing 1 938:35). The lesser gods, however, are possible to control and dominate, at least to some extent. Laman makes an exception for Bunzi, who is alternately described as "the creator," "a tribal nkisi," and "the chief of the basimbi" (Laman 1 962:36, 78, 1 05). But the rest of them, even the "nkisi-gods of the sky," such as thunder, can be controlled (Laman 1 920: 2 1 ). Buakasa, who writes in a much later period, stresses this dominance relationship between man and his minkisi in which "simbi-spirits" are assimilated to the former. The spirit is like a slave, he says; it represents a power that is captivated and dominated ( 1 980: 242ff.) . B ut people in the colonial period seem to have had their doubts about the nature of this relationship. There are several statements in the literature about the opposite attitude, that is, the need for respect and obedience toward the nkisi (see Laman 1 923 :58).

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EARTH GODS AND T H E K I N G

The person who entered into the aforementioned pact with the earth gods was the king (the crowned chief). Among the Yombe he obtained his powel and authority from Kinda or Nkisi tsi (De Cleene 1 93 5 : 67). Among the Sundi­ Bwende, Nkisi nsi does not seem to be so closely associated with natural manifestations (as in the case of the Yombe). Nkisi nsi was rather an ordinary nkisi. It consisted of sacred objects, including the ingredients that were u sed at the installation of the king, which were needed to strengthen his authority. But hi s pact is still with the earth gOds. The king himself occupied the juncture between the world of the gods and the world of the living (figure 1 .3 ) . He was Nzambi's representative on earth (Laman 1 923 : 1 5) . He was also called nzambi ku nsi, "god on earth" ( 1 6), and he opened up the channel between the two worlds. The individual, as the fragile creature he is, m ust establish contact wi th the divine, with the strong eternal being, that which never dies. One way this could be done was through the installation of a king. The king was placed at the point where Force flowed from the divine to the human world. In that way he was as important to society's existence as basimbi and minkisi. The cosmos met

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. the human world in the king's person and position and was then transferred into the latter without there being any clear demarcation between them. The king was next in line after Nzambi and the earth gods of the cosmological clan. After him came the whole h ierarchy of political chiefs. In the elaborate political hierarchy there were several territorial levels of elected and crowned chiefs, all of whom where charged with this paternal power (Laman 1916:20J; 1 923 :45). Farthest down was the father (sometimes Laman gives "the parents!:' . as representatives for Nzambi) (Laman 1 962:58). When the father is aFi�� . .. . . . with his son and utters his curse, he says: "Am I not your father na nzaiitbi .· mpungu (na expresses reverence and the other words are the name of the goo). Contained in this is a high degree of reverence and it could be translated as God" (Laman 1 916:202). There was an identification between God and father inthe traditional society, and this was imported into Christianity. Today's Tata Nzambi denotes the Christian God. The epithet "father" is usually conceived as a loan from Europe and the new religion; "Nzambi est absolument bon; il est Tata, mon Pere, notre Pere" (Bittremieux 1 93 6 : 1 32). It is, however, completely in line with the domestic concept of God. Laman even stresses this connection. They honor and love God, he says, in the same way as they do the father and the chief. "In their new religious life adoration and worship of God is understood in the '

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same way. God is seen as their creator and their loving father who cares for them" (Laman 1 923 : 83). Religion was, in this sense, inseparable from the political structure. It did not make up a sphere detached from the social order that generated it and had therefore no possibility of surviving its destruction. Force flowed from God, the beginning of everything, toward the world of the living through a hierarchy of clan ancestors, first to the earth gods in their cliff caves and thereafter to the king and further down the political hierarchy. However, the Force did not only flow in one direction. It had a cyclical course. There was a way from man upward, first to the land of the dead and from there to the earth gods. In this way the circle was closed and the Force was restored to its source. There is a myth about a chief entering into an alliance with a simbi-spirit, which resided in a dark pool of water inside a cliff cave:

; .

Kidi-kidi (sound of splashing water) is the name of a water filled cave in a rock. The water is so dark that no stones are visible on the bottom. A powerful simbi made it his dwelling and became very influential. A mighty chief Nangoma Neuka, allied himself to the simbi in order to hide his life in the cave . . . When Nangoma Neuka had lived for twelve years in the sickness of old age, he was compelled to ask his nephew to fetch six drops of water from the cave and besprinkle him in order that he might meet his dead ancestors. The nephew did so and the chief died. The old people said that he returned to the simbi chief, as the two had remained friends through the years. That is why Nangoma Neuka dwells in Kidi-kidi instead of in the land of the dead. (Laman 1 962:38)

The chief makes an alliance with the simbi spirit in order to have aslong life. After death he himself becomes a simbi spirit. He does not, as ordinary mortals, go to the land of the dead but goes to "the simbi chief" as they had been close friends through all the years. Here the two categories mesh with one another. Basimbi becomes equivalent to dead chiefs, even if they originally had the character of nature spirits, that is, deities separate from man. This text is also interesting for what it says about the chief's death. He is helped to die (ritually killed?), and the reason given seems to be that he could not otherwise die. Van Wing says something puzzling about bankita (which in principle are the same as basimbi [Van Wing 1 93 8 :20, 283 ; cf. Laman 1 962:43]), which further seems to connect this category of spirits with dead kings or chiefs. Bankita are white and very strong, he says, and they are associated with primeval forests and rivers. They are also people who died "a violent death." They are, more precisely, "ancestors of the beginning" who either have fallen in war, been murdered, or committed suicide (Van Wing 1 9 3 8 : 1 8).

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From Religion to Magic

Who are those ancestors who have been murdered or who have committed suicide ? The history of the Lower Congo is full of them. To be ritually killed is, during certain periods, in large parts of Africa south of the Sahara, the fate of kings. The murder of the king could therefore be an attempt to send the dying to the right place. According to Doutreloux ordinary people (or their mwela) went to Vata dya Nsitu (the village in the forest) while the crowned chiefs went to "un lieu reserve" (Doutreloux 1 967: 234). He should not go to the land of the dead but to Nkisi tsi or the dark water pools inside the cliff caves where basimbi lived. It is said that the paramount chief of Nanga was not allowed to die a natural death. He was strangled "ju st before his decease," and his body was thrown into a ravine (Laman 1 957 : 1 43). Ravines were also usual haunts of basimbi and bankita. It is unclear if the sacred kings were not allowed to, or if they could not, die a natural death. In any case, they did not go to the land of the dead after death but to the higher level of ancestors, to the earth gods. Here we can distinguish two hierarchical levels of ancestors, ordinary people in the land of the dead and extraordinary people in the dark water pools inside the cliff caves. Those who die a Nzambi-death "cannot die again," says Laman; but those who are killed become nkita nsi or simbi-spirits (Laman 1 923 :22). There is also actually one type of suicide among high dignitaries which could be explained in this way. There is information in the early literature of chiefs, who often ranked just below the king, committing suicide and giving themselves as cannibalistic offerings to the king. We shall return to this subject later and, in this context, only point out a possible interpretation of Van Wing' s data. Those who committed suicide in honor of the king and in order to be eaten by him did so for the assumptions that they thereby were assured of a high position in their next existence. This act extended their reach on their . upward way back to God. ..

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T H E ACC UM ULATION OF POWER AFTER D EAT H : BACK TO GOD

Ordinary people seem to have been able to reach basimbi after their death, but not as easily as the kings. At death the inner person goes to the land of the dead. "Death is not an annihilating process but a transition from one body phase to another, to a continued existence as when the snake sloughs its skin" (Laman 1 920:23). It is as if we, at the end of our lives, fall away and grow weaker until we finally disappear. But that is not the case according to Kongo religion. After death they become stronger and more vital. The dead are "the living 'par excellence' ; they have a durable life and superhuman powers" (Mahaniah

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Chapter J ,

1 980:9). There is a myth which explains this apparent contradiction. It is as follows : I n the beginning a man and his wife had a child, but i t died. The man told his wife to lay it in the interior of the house and cover it up, but she was, under no circumstances, to look at the child until he had returned home from a projected journey. Then one day she heard something beginning to rustle and move from the inner room, and she got the notion that she should look at the child. When she opened the door she saw that it was beginning to come to life and was in the act of shedding its skin. She was glad and immediately shut the door. When her husband came home he saw that the door to the inner room had been opened. He looked at the child, but it was unable to come to life as it had started to do. It died forever. The father became indignant and said: "You, my wife, are a disobedient being. See, the child had begun to change its skin, but because you looked at it the changing of skin has failed. Now we shall die and go to another land to be transformed. Here on earth we cannot do so." (Laman 1962: 14)

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The impossible thus becomes possible. We die, but only in this world. The myth asserts that life continues after death and explains why this continuous growth process cannot occur here on earth but must take place in another land. Due to a disobedient wife opening the door where the dead child lay, the possibility of sloughing one's skin in this life was lost. Now, instead, it has to occur in the land of the dead: When the life atnseke mpanga, the prepared land, the world, has ended, the inner person goes to the grave which also is called "where we shall remain" or to the land of the dead. The body, the thrown off shell, the skin, like the snake's j is buried. In the land of the dead they get new bodies, cleansed of illness, wounds and defects . . . .They throw off their old skin, which is left in the grave, and get a new, white body: To die is like changing one's body or sloughing one's skin. Death is a transition and development process, a throwing off of the body, the outer envelope. (Lam an 1 923 :47-48)

This shedding of skin makes them stronger. "The deceased excels the living in strength and power" (Laman 1 962:24). By doing as the snake they can continue to live, become stronger and stronger; "it is a kind of rejuvenation which they call old rejuvenation" (Laman 1 923 :49). There occurs, as Mahaniah states, "an accumulation of active force" (Mahaniah 1 980:9) in which they become strong and white. If the woman had refrained from looking at her dead child, this process could have taken place here on earth. "It was not Nzambi's intention that man would die but that he should live eternally as the heavenly beings" (Laman 1 920:9). The "beings" in question are "the people of the sky" who are white,

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tall, and very strong, and who, unlike humans, never die. They "die" during the dry season, but it is more of a sleep, as they reawaken when the rainy season begins and thunder starts (Laman 1 962:56). That is how people live longer in the land of the dead, and when they be­ come weak from age they shed their skin, rejuvenate themselves, and become stronger. When they have changed their skins five to six times they are trans­ formed into basimbi or bankita ( 1 7). "These have left the world of the dead to take up their abode here and there on the earth, e.g., under stones, in wa­ tercourses and forests or on the plains etc." (68). Basimbi are described as "human beings who have died twice," first on earth and then in the land of the dead (33). By dying once more they have gone further in their accumulation of power and on their way back to Nzambi, the origin of all things. Thus man becomes one with the Force, and the circle is closed.

T H E TWO SPH ERES OF T H E RELIGIOUS SYSTEM

There are two separate spheres of traditional religion in Laman 's "The Kongo Ill," however vaguely outlined. They are referred to as the Nkisi Cult and the Ancestor Cult, respectively. This distinction is also made by Van Wing ( 1 938). The turn-of-the-century material is not enough, however, for an understanding of this phenomenon. This is demonstrated clearly by MacGaffey (1 977) w ho suspects Van Wing of Christian prej udice against fetishism. He, himself, sees no ancestors separated from minkisi. From a historical perspective on Kongo religion, the two spheres are, however, easily distinguishable. "The ancestor worship among the Kongo within the Belgian area seems to be nearly extinct since some time ago." This Laman wrote a bit into the twentieth century ( 1 923:56). In other words it disappeared very shortlY lllltel' the colonization. The ancestor cult was closely associated with the structure, and it is therefore intelligible that it lost much of its significrt,!?ge as soon as the political hierarchies collapsed. The first sphere contained �he tribal ancestors, represented by a set of great minkisi who were subject to cuIt. Laman gives the following description:

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The first great heroes, the founders of the powerful tribes of Kongo, Nsundi and Mbenza etc., are still the objects of worship and cult practices through minkisi with these names. The first great nkisi was N akongo. Others have in the course of time arisen for different purposes, but it is only during recent generations that a whole series of minkisi of minor importance have existed. (Laman 1 962:67)

Here the religious symbols are minkisi, in the form of a wooden statuette or a container of some kind, filled with various ingredients. These minkisi are said

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Chapter 1

50

NZAMBI

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The two spheres of the religious system

to have "a highly personal character" and to carry "the tribal or ancestral name." Some of them had the singular prefix mu-, plural ba-, which indicates that they were seen as persons. The plural prefix mi-, on the other hand, expresses fhat it belonged to the semi-person class (Laman 1 923 :60) which is typical for all the fetishes of the later period. Of these great fetishes we therefore ought to use the word bankisi instead of minkisi. "The word nkisi or mukisi is often placed in the ba-class, hence bankisi, in analogy with bankuyu, basimbi" (78). Below Nzambi in heaven, there were, within this sphere of the traditional religion, a number of great tribal (Or clan bankisi whose character could be compared with the saints in Catholicism or perhaps with the Greek and Roman pantheons as their members were gods and not j ust extraordinary people. The great bankisi each had a name, a special look, a special area of activity, and they were composed in a special way. They had mwela, that is, life and soul, and they had ngolo, strength and power (67). A similar picture can be found in the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Cavazzi-Labat's description is from the mid-seventeenth century and concerns the southern part of the Kongo kingdom. There is first of all, he says, an all-powerful God up in heaven whom they call "Nzambiampungu." Below him are "a number

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From Religion to Magic

of other gods" i n the form 0 f roughly carved wooden statuettes, each one with its own name. Some of them have the shape of men or women and some of wild animals, monsters, and demons" (Cavazzi-Labat 1732 1:240-4 1 ) . Proyart, from the eighteenth century, also makes this distinction between Nzambi in heaven and God's ambassadors, the wooden statuettes, on earth. These great minkisi are here situated on the level below Nzambi, as lesser gods, but they are more precisely culturally made beings that incorporate earth gods (Proyart 1 780: 1 29). The other sphere has to do with the same gods but usually in connection with certain places in nature, such as Tadi dya Ngo, cliff caves, dark water pools, and stones. In principle there are no minkisi in thi s sphere. Nkisi nsi (or tsi), which belongs to this second sphere, is of a different nature than ordinary minkisi. Laman expresses the difference between the two aspects of religion in the following way: "Earlier the great tribal ancestors were made into nkisi and were used for various purposes. Besides, there was a so-called nkisi nsi; it is the nkisi of the land and it represents the royal or chiefly office" (Laman 1 923:63). What Laman identifies as "ancestor cult" are the last manifestations of this second sphere. He talks about the graves and how the living obtain the blessing of the father by "bathing in grave earth." Power can, he says, be transferred to the living from the dead, through the grave cult, and especially through grave­ earth (kitoto). This is conceived as "the medium between the living and the dead. The grave-earth is one with the person who is buried there . . . Earth from the grave, therefore, bestows life, health and prosperity" (Laman 1 962:52). The dead were said to inhabit two different places, the grave and the land of the dead. There are a number of different names for this latter place, kutwa zingUa ("where we shall live"), nsi a bafwa and ku mpemba ("land · of the dead"), and ku mfinda ("in the forest") (Laman 1 962: 1 4). Van Wing says,; �u masa, in the water. He also talks of an ancestor village (gata di bakulu) loc � · somewhere on clan land, near forest and water in the same way as ordinary villages are. There the dead live in the same way as during their life on earth, only much better. They had their huts and their fields, and they had both game and palm wine and all other things that belong to the essentials of life (Van Wing 1 938:37; cf. Laman 1 962: 14). The burial ground was often an old head village (capital) where the Kitomi resided during earlier periods. It was a replica of the main village of the living. This is one of the examples of Kongo dualism where the world is divided in two halves, the world of the living and the world of the dead. According to Laman the land of the dead, or the ancestor village, was located somewhere near the actual burial place. There they came after having spent six to eight months, sometimes up to 10 months, in the grave where they changed their skin and

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Chapter 1 ,

went through a process of power accumulation. "Here they change their skins and acquire a fair appearance like albinos. Here they get strength, so that they are soon able to go their way" (Laman 1 962: 1 5). Only the good, those who did not devote themselves to witchcraft during their lives, were accepted in the land of the dead. The evil ones became bankuyu (evil spirits) and continued to torment the living (Laman 1 9 1 6 : 207; 1 923 :49-50). The dead stayed in their own village and did in no way trouble the living. The communication between the living and the dead was, however, very active. The living solicited the help of the dead, and it was the dead chief they turned to, not just to anyone. "The father's power when deceased is not pronounced and outstanding in all," says Laman; it was only "certain Ancestors and chiefs" who became the objects of cults, depending on the degree of power they possessed during life (Laman 1 923:5 1 ). The dead were actually the owners of the land and all game that lived on it (Van Wing 1 93 8 : 37). They gave the hunter his kiana (hunter's luck) and, in return, he was to give them the "heart of his kill" (he could also, as already mentioned, give this to his living father). "If they get meat, then they will also give meat in return" (Laman 1 9 1 6 :209). The graves were cared for. They were to be hoed at the end of the dry season, so that the fires could not sweep over them. After that, palm wine was poured as a gift accompanied by a prayer for blessing (Laman 1 962:46). This was a duty toward the dead, and if it was omitted, there could be serious consequences. Then one had "offended and polluted them" (Laman 1 9 1 6:209). The living could also make contact with the dead and the power they possess, when the former had some serious problem. Then they also went to the graves in order to "bathe in the grave-earth." Ancestor worship is called ngiolJolo atobe, in the Kongo language, bathing in "grave-earth" (Laman 1 923 :5 1 ). Here Laman seems to identify the ancestor cult with the bathing in grave­ earth. Mahaniah who writes in the later period, provides the same picture. The grave-earth is, he says, "le pointe de contact le plus intime" between the dead and the living. The grave is the "door" between the two worlds, through which one can communicate (Mahaniah 1 980:40). The living go to the grave to rub themselves with grave-earth, a medium for paternal power, in order to get health and success via the father's blessing. If we examine the very oldest material to ascertain the structure of the cosmological field at that time, we find striking similarities with the more elaborate picture of the turn of the century, indicating a significant continuity. The terms nkisi and nganga are there from the very beginning. In Histoire du Congo, written at the end of the sixteenth century, it is made clear that the population had "une grande veneration" for their banganga, priests, and fetishes (Cuvelier and Jadin 1954: 1 22). The fetishes seem to have the same

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fOlln as in later periods: plain carved wooden figures or receptacles filled with various types of ingredients. The Europeans also observed a cult at the graves in the old Kongo kingdom. In Histoire du Congo, from the end of the sixteenth century, there is a description of how "les enfants" and "Ies proches parents" went to the burial ground, infinda, at every new moon, to mourn and to give food and drink to the dead ( 1 23). I will here give a brief presentation of the pattern that can be derived from early material. We have quite detailed information about the religious practice in the early sixteenth century as the Kongo king, with the help of Europeans, launched a violent attack on the traditional religion. After contact with the Portuguese, the king converted to Christianity. The old king, Nzinga Nkuwu, who died in the beginning of the sixteenth century, managed to revert to his former religion, but his son Affonso, who became the king of the Kongo in 1 506, remained Christian throughout his long reign ( 1 506-1543). He dedicated an of his energies to the elimination of the traditional religion. Nzinga Nkuwu had earlier ordered, as it is reported, that all supernatural objects ("objets superstitieux") and fetish houses ("huttes a fetiches") be burned (Cuvelier 1 946:69, 79, 1 20) , and the project was carried out earnestly by Affonso. The latter's name had been Mpemba Nzinga before he took on Christianity and his Portuguese name. " Now, when you have seen God's Cross," he is to have said to a gathering of chiefs, "you shaH never more pray to your fetishes nor trust in amulets. He who transgresses against these prohibitions shall be condemned to death" ( 1 20). Fetish houses were destroyed, minkisi were burned, and Christian churches were built in their stead. In 1 5 14, Affonso turned to the governor of San Tome with a plea for military assistance. He intended to bum a large fetish house ("a casa gramde dos ydolos") and as he expected resistance from the "traditionalists," he hoped to get external reinforcements (Paiva Ma,nso ':" 1 877: 1 6 ; Brasio 1 952:296). Affonso also directed his attacks in another direction. In a letter from , 1{).26, to the king of Portugal he tells how he had a certain grove, north of the ca pital; cut down, a grove where the former kings were buried (Brasio 1 952 :479}. lle later had a church built in this very place. Affonso did not succeed, in spite of his heroic attempts, in eradicating the traditional religion. His campaign was continued through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries underthe aegis of fanatical missionaries and sanctioned by the local ruling elite. There are numerous descriptions of the way i n which the European missionaries assaulted the fetish h ouses, burning and destroying what could be found of minkisi and musical instruments (see Montesarchio, Georges de Gheel, Luca da Caltanisetta). These houses were often called kimpasi-huts. Kimpasi is the term that later is associated with initiation schools for youth. It is believed that during the seventeenth century they were used as general places of -·,0' ,

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Chapter 1

religious congregation and thus represent the principal equivalent of the church and main target for the "modernists" (Balandier 1 965:2 19). Montesarchio, who worked in the northern and eastern parts of the Kongo kingdom in the mid-seventeenth century, tells how he fought against an association called "Chinpassi Chianchita" (Kimpasi kia nkita). During a visit to the capital of the province of Mbata, he succeeded in burning six "chinpassi" in the environs of the town followed by three along the road to San Salvador and, finally, another three on returning to Mbata (de Bouveignes and Cuvelier 1 95 1 : 1 5 660). When, on one occasion, he tried to explain to members how wrong they were, how they were slaves of the devil who would be excluded from the joys of heaven and would instead burn i n hell, they answered him by saying that they believed in neither heaven nor hell and that "leur chinpassi etait leur dieu" ( 1 62). Thus both rulers and European missionaries attacked minkisi and houses (or temples) where these minkisi were kept and which seem to have been centers of the public cult. The other strategic target was a certain wood north of the capital where former kings were buried. At the highest ranks of the kingdom the grave cult was directed toward the dead kings, and the burial ground was a sacred grove north of mbanza Kongo. From later material, especially from the seventeenth century, we k now that this grave cult was controlled by a titleholder who, in some parts of the country, was called Kitomi. Kitomi ensured fertility, and in exchange he received the first fruits (Cavazzi-Labat 1732 1:254). In that he mediated for the father' s , or the dead king's, blessing, he was, in other words, the representative of the dead father. This fits well with the model of two religious spheres that can be deduced from the material about the much later precolonial society. The public cliflt at the turn of the century was focused on the earth deities. Each political unit had its own earth gods connected with the founding of the kingdom. There could either be a single godhead, primal father, founder, the first king, or a set of earth deities: the royal ancestors or basimbifbankita. At the lower level, closest to the living and more accessible, were the minkisi, in the form of wooden statues and receptacles filled with various ingredients. Such gods were more individually specific in character; possessing both body and soul and integrated in a specific way. They were usually placed in the villages, in the cultural sphere. They had their special taboos, and those dedi­ cated to them might not transgress them for fear that their power be "closed" off from them. In order to reactivate them, they had to be "raised" via rituals and offerings. At a higher level and less attainable for mere mortals we again find the earth gods in a more primordial state. Among the Yombe the word Kinda referred to a god or to life-force in itself, and Nkisi tsi referred to the location in nature

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where such force was materi alized. The equivalent among the ViIi is Bunsi and Nkisi nsi. Bunsi existed in the earth, according to Pechiiel-Loesche, and rose to the crust at certain places where the sacred fire burned and places of offering were established (Pechiiel-Loesche 1907:276-77). Fetishes are not honored, he writes; but Nkisi nsi is referred to as follows: "Ein Fetisch is greifbar und kann vernicht werden. Kissi nssi is unantastbar und ist den Blicken der Menschen ebensoentzogen wie Nsambi selbst" (276). Nkisi nsi also functioned as a symbol of the primordial ancestor: The Nkisi tsi is the sacralized spirit of the primordial ancestor that occupied and determined the territorial boundaries of the clan. It is honored in a sanctuary (tschibila) designated by the same name as the temple in which it is located, constituted of a sacred grove with variable dimensions and to which access is forbidden for the Fumu ("princes"). (Hagenbucher-Sacripanti 1 97 3 : 3 1 )

The primordial ancestor, o r the first king, i s referred to here a s Nkisi tsi. His temple consisted of a sacred grove to which the princes were forbidden access. The earth gods, too, were associated with specific natural symbols. They could be mountain caves, water pools, springs, and so forth . Such places were also described as ancient capitals or royal graveyards. Thu s, when Affonso cut down the sacred grove where previous kings lay buried, he truly assaulted the core of traditional religious practice.

C H R ISTIAN ITY AND TH E TRADITIONAL REL I G I ON

One may sympathize i n part with Horton' s interpretation 0 f African conversion (197 1 ). Horton starts with the general model of the spirit hierarchy ofthe �F�­ Christian period. There was, he says, a supreme being concerned with" tf}e world as a whole and lesser spirits concerned with the local community and its environment. People directed more interest and concern toward the lesser spirits, as most events both fortunate and unfortunate were attributed to their agency. Ideas about the supreme being were usually vaguer few events were attributed to him, and their techniques for approaching him were poorly developed. The reason for that, according to Horton, is that people under traditional conditions live their lives in rather isolated communities and do not feel affected by the wider world. From this model he tries to explain the conversion to "world" religions by simply introducing the modern situation. There was, he claims, a fundamen­ tal change of the African society an economic and political development, improvements in communications, and so forth which opened up the local

56

Chapter 1

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community and thus made it possible for people to enter the wider world. This would be the primary process in ''African conversion." People involved in this transformation of society were led to believe that the lesser spirits were in re­ treat and that the supreme being was now more active. "Hence . . . they develop a far more elaborate theory of the supreme being and his ways of working in the world, and a battery of new ritual techniques for approaching him and directing his influence." In this way Christianity and Islam are reduced to the role of catalysts (Horton 1 97 1 : 1 0 1-3). The problem is that there was no modernization of African society under­ pinning the conversion to Christianity and Islam. People were not drawn into the wider world through a process of development. Rather the political hierar­ chy, and the traditional authority structure in general, broke down and thereby the channel of communication between man and God was cleared. The Catholic missionaries of earlier centuries reported mass baptisms (see Montesarchio), and it would seem as if there was a real and large-scale conver­ sion among the common people. It is unlikely, however, that Christianity, as long as the political organization remained intact, would have been capable of successfully competing with the traditional religion. R. Gray has pointed out ( 1 983), for seventeenth-century Soyo, that Christianity had, in fact, a much stronger influence upon political and social life than has generally been as­ sumed (cf. B alandier 1 968). But that does not necessarily imply that people became Christians in our sense of the word. The interest of the king and aristoc­ racy in the whites' source of power was primarily of a politico-ideological na­ ture. Chiefs converted for political reasons and, with them, their whole groups (cf. Ekholm 1 972). And, which is very important in this context, Christianity was interpreted in indigenous terms, not conceived as a totally foreign idea. The penetration and colonization of the area altered, however, the very pre­ conditions for the Christian mission. The first missionaries in this period were not unconditionally accepted; the literature from the end of the nineteenth cen­ tury contains descriptions of strong resistance. They were accused of "eating" the population, and parents did not want to send their children to missionary schools for fear that the missionaries! would make witches out of them (see, for example, Vildmarkens Var 1 928 : 1 93). Many political chiefs were, however, explicitly positive to the new missionaries for the same reasons as during the earlier period, and for such reasons they were also eager to establish contacts with Stanley and white traders. Colonization thus started with very much the same kind of interrelationship as in earlier centuries. What changed the situa­ tion was the breakdown of the Kongo political system and the establishment of a new social order. Religious movements have been reported as early as 1 886 (Granstig 1 957:67), and people seemed to be susceptible to Christian preaching in a way, or to an extent, that astonished many missionaries. Those

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early movements were directed against the old order. Their excited adherents used to burn fetishes and other paraphernalia of the traditional religion. But it was not Christian conversion in the true sense of the word (see Andersson 1 94 1 :66). The missi onaries came, in many respects, to replace the former chiefs. The conquest created a political vacuum in the traditional sector of the colonial society which was filled by the white missionary, in competition and conflict wilh the nganga. The white missionary was a person filled with Force and Power in the same way as the old kings. The Swedish missionary, Hammar, at Madzia, was regarded as a good tata who took good care of his people; he was a father who protected and blessed his c hildren and who gave them good health and success as fathers should do. Many missionaries were aware of the relationship between their own position and the old, traditional power. P. A. Westlind comprehended it as a replacement of the chief with Christ: "In congregation work we have always tried to get the members under the authority of Christ. The chief was their head in heathen society; in the congregation Christ should be their head. The chief's word was their law in the village; in the congregation Christ's word should be their law . . . instead of the chief's sovereignty there will b e the sovereignty of Christ" (Westlind 1 9 1 1 : 266). I n fact it was the white missionary, not Christ, who came to replace this "chief's sovereignty." This explains the very strong position of the missionaries in the Lower Congo, a phenomenon which they never really understood. In Swedish culture the priest/missionary was an ordinary human being, a servant of God but clearly separated from Him. To the Kongo the difference between God and his intellmediary was not marked in any way. In some cases there was no difference at all. The word "Nzambi," meaning "God," could also be used for human beings, and was sometimes u sed for the first missionaries (Andersson 1 936:22). The Kongo notion of external sources of power d id not change very muW'p• . God and Christ were conceived as a source of power of the same kindiYIlS ancestors and nkisi-spirits. The Swedish missionaries had difficulties in ac­ cepting that the Kongo primarily were interested in receiving strength and health from God. The Kongo wanting "to try a stronger force than ancestors and nkisi" (Granstig 1 957:99) is a common complaint. The Kongo prayed for good health and success instead of being affected by guilt feelings and the need of the grace of God. Their morals, says Laman, are not of a religious character. They do not experience sin and guilt in their relationship to God; instead their guilt feelings concern "man himself, his family and his clan" (Laman 1 923:75). "Sin" is masumu in Kikongo and is derived from the verb sumuna which means "break a law, a prohibition." For the Swedes, sin was most of all a feeling of insufficiency. Andersson tries to explain the difference

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Chapter 1

by placing "sin," according to the Swedish conception, in "an evil heart, in a wicked character, in enmity towards God." In the Lower Congo, on the other hand, it had to do with "certain prescribed actions that they have omitted to carry out or . . . in certain prohibited actions that they have carried out" (Ander­ ss on 1 95 1 :66). Such a notion of sin was incompatible with the Swedish view. "In order for that to happen, the Christian must realize the truth in Paul's word about sin inherent i n Man," he says (66). Jesus the magician, he who heals the sick and resurrects the dead, has always been an important aspect of Christianity in the Lower Congo. It was emphasized in Simon Kimbangu's prophetic movement in 1 92 1 - 1 922. So was also the possession trance (I use here a term suggested by Bourguignon 1 97 9). It was reported that both Kimbangu himself and his disciples trembled, threw their heads from one side to the other, and rolled their eyes. People told the missionaries that it was exactly what their ancestors used to do (Nyren 1 922:224). In the 1 930s a prophetic movement broke out at Kingoyi, in which the members met during the night out in the forest. One of them reported that "we shake when the Lord seizes us." The nightly meetings also included confessions and exoticism of evil spirits (AIden 1 936:73-76). Religious revival has been a central element in the SMF (Mission Covenant Church) in Sweden and it has, therefore, also been difficult for the Swedes to react fully negatively to outbreaks of ecstatic movements within the Protestant Church in the Lower Congo. Possession trance is, however, a phenomenon that is very foreign to Scandinavian Christianity. It is typically African and has existed throughout the history of the Lower Congo, as far back as it can be traced . In today's Congo it is the most pronounced among the Zephirins while there is less of it in Eglise Evangelique du Congo (EEC). It is rrtOstly women who are affected. Back in the 1 920s it seemed to be the opposite. We surmise this difference is an effect of possession trance being used as a means of social protest and change. During earlier decades it was u sed by men in the political struggle while today women employ it in opposition, explicit or implicit, to the men. I was present during a church meeting in Madzia in 1 985, the aim o f which was to deal with ", the spiritual gift," where the male priests in incisive words condemned what they regarded as an unacceptable form of ecstasy among the women. Their message was that the women spent too much time on it, that they went to church instead of taking care of their husbands, and that they even neglected their conjugal obligations. And who could, after all, be sure that it was God and not some other power that came down to them? The possessed person raises himself above his ordinary self. God sees him and chooses him as his medium. He yearns to be filled with God's power and when God hears him and comes to him, he grows in his own eyes as well as

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From Religion to Magic

in those of others. During the colonial struggle possession trance made men strong in relationship to the colonial oppressors. Today women use it as a form of resistance and their men realize it immediately. A woman with such an intimate relationship to God, and who receives power from Him, can be more difficult to dominate. The above concerns the kind of ecstasy that can be found in the twentieth century in a more political context. The ecstasy of the traditional society seems, in principle, to be connected with the nkisi-cult and especially with the discov­ ery of new minkisi. The nkisi-spirit lets "a strong mayembo, ecstasy, [seize] the person in a certain place at the sight of a certain object or in the way that the person runs down to the water or to some other place in order to take certain objects which he carries back with him to the village. This, then, constitutes the [principal] ingredient in nkisi" (Laman 1 923:59). The ecstasy primarily strikes the nganga (or the one who wants to become nganga). It provides him with a sixth sense. The forces in nature reveal themselves to him. The nkisi-spirit shows itself to him or, rather, unveils to him its ingredients or components. The herbs used then, and still in use within the tradi tional medicine, were unveiled by ecstasy. They were earlier "subordinated nkisi" and "carried out the orders of nkisi" (63); today they are unveiled through the ecstasy that comes from God. So far we have stressed the similarities between traditional Kongo religion and Christianity and the continuity withi,n the religious sphere. But all has not remained the same. The year 1 947 is an important one in the history of Eglise Evangelique du Congo. A religious awakening erupted that year, first appearing at the seminar in Ngouedi and then spreading throughout the southern part of the Congo, to Brazzaville, Musana, Madzia, lndo, and farther. Buana Kibongi received Jesus Christ during ecstasy. This awakening was much closer to the Swedish experience than anything that had ever happened before inthe Lo�#r. Congo. Besides the traditional ecstasy, it harbored confessions of sin mar��p' by crying and the longing for mercy (see Granstig 1 957:82). Buana's oWn description ( 1 977) gives a clear picture of how this new movement really bn�ke with the old. He had been sick for a long time and had been praying to God to be healed. That was the old kind of relationship to God to pray for power, good health, and success. "They worship their gods for the sake of outward advantages . . . the sick pray to be healed," as one of the Swedes expressed it (Nyren 1 922:69). And then, suddenly, during the meeting in Ngouedi in January 1 947 , there was a change. The Swedish pastor was preaching from John 3 : 16 and Buana Kibongi experienced a change in his attitude toward God: "The power in the preaching was such that it, in a special way, touched the heart ofthe sick pupil, who for months had been praying to God for healing by miracle. Suddenly this pupil realized that his deeper need concerned the only "

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Chapter 1

begotten Son, not a healing, and that he had to receive Christ in faith" (Buana 1 97 7:67). What was important was no longer his health and his success but Jesus, who loved him and whose love he needed. The awakening was first spread to other pupils of the seminar and to teachers and members of the Ngouedi congregation. Later it embraced all the other congregations in the Congo. What happened, then, to Buana and his colleagues? "At the meetings most participants shout '0 Jesus! 0 Jesus ! ' ; they are shivering, crying, shaking. Something strange happens deep in our hearts. After God's words, the singing and preaching there is a devouring fire revealing and condemning our sins, forcing u s to confess these sins" (68). This was the kind o f Christianity that the Swedish missionaries were more familiar with, and subsequently they also expressed their sympathy and ap­ proval (at a church meeting at Ngouedi June 22-25, 1 947). The need of "power (re)charge" (Andersson) still exists in the Congo but besides that, there is today another kind of religious experience, the one that first reached Buana Kibongi in Ngouedi in 1 947. This experience of God does not really belong to clan society but to modem society and the modern individualized subject.

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TRA N SFORMATIONS OF TRADITIONAL REL I G I O N : FROM C U LT T O M E D ICAL MAG I C

I n the following I shall take u p various aspects o f the public cult and attempt to show the way in which the traditional religious system was transfoJlned into that which we meet at the turn of the century. I have chosen to limit the perspective to three aspects, encompassing the sacred king, cult groups and consecration, and the relationship between minkisi and social control.

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The Sacred King: The General Involution of Sacred Kingshi p ,

The powerles s royal marionettes that w e find a t the end o f the 1 800s, young boys taken as prisoners, sometimes even castrated, and whose lives are severely curtailed by ritual regicide, are in fact recent phenomena. In an earlier work (Ekholm 1 985) I tried to demonstrate how political power was transformed throughout the history of the Lower Congo. Generally it can be said that the early king possessing a real control over his sociopolitical environment is ulti­ mately transformed into a helpless figurehead, an instrument of his own peo­ ple, a fetish in their struggle against social disintegration and against the real threats to survival posed by their crisis-ridden world. In the colonial society,

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chiefs are crowned in times of accentuated crises, such as epidemics and death. In previous centuries royal power was indeed sought after, and there were often violent struggles for the throne following the death of the king. By the turn of the century there were very few indeed who would be king. This change occurred, in fact, before direct colonization. There is the story of the wealthy and powerful chief in the 1 870s who always carried arms for fear ofbeing made king (Bastian 1 874: 1 1 ). Laman's tale of the sufferings of Namenta documents the life of a king as a frightening experience. Namenta, who was apparently the last ntinu (crowned king), was taken prisoner when he was a young boy. He was held prisoner for a long time, was maltreated, and was finally castrated (Laman 1 957: 1 4 1 ) . His life did not improve after the coronation, since his functions were reduced to obeying a massive quantity of taboos in order to keep the country alive and well. There is a report from Soyo of a king who was isolated in the forest, and who was absolutely forbidden to turn over on his side in his sleep. In order to ensure that he slept on his back and thus averted catastrophe, a special guard was appointed to watch over his movements during his nightly slumber (Troesch 1 962:95). There are also reports about the king being killed immediately after the coronation. A man named Neamlau told Dennett some time around the turn of the twentieth century that he, in fact, had the right to the throne of Ngoy but that he was not interested in the post, "as this chief was always killed on the night after his coronation he did not care to do so" (Dennett 1 906: 1 20). Power and Symbolism

Royal power constituted a complex set of rituals and representations, and it is necessary to grasp the election and coronation in terms of a symbf5�,�e framework consisting of two basic relationship sets: one between the kingc�i1� his followers and one between this political unit and the earth gods ofthe land (figure 1 .5). The king's men designated or elected him as their leader and, as such, his political power was based upon their strength. I shall refer to this relationship simply as the "king-and-his-men." It is a mobile human unit that migrates over the landscape, continually adding new territories to its possessions. This practice must, however, be legitimized from within the occupied area (tsi, nsi) by obtaining the gods' blessing. The kingdom's origin myth lays bare the fundamental symbolic structure referred to earlier. There are several versions. One version is as follows (Ekholm 1 972) : Wene was the youngest son of the king of Bungu, a small kingdom north of the river. He was young and ambitious and grew tired of his subordination to his elders. He was, further, dissatisfied with the limited extent of his father's domain. He decided,

Chapter 1

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therefore, to leave together with his men. He crossed the Congo River and founded the Kingdom of Kongo. The immediate reason he left his home was because of a dispute between his mother and a stranger. Being pregnant, she behaved impatiently while waiting to be taken across the river. The stranger said, "Who do you think you are, the King's mother?" She told this to her son Wene, who, infuriated, vowed to see her honor retrieved by really making her the King's mother. According to another version, the emigration occurred in more dramatic conditions. The hero is referred to as Nimi a Lukeni, and it is said that he is son to Lukeni, herself daughter of Mani Mbata and Nima a Nzinga, a local chief from the area east of the Congo. One day this Nimi a Lukeni attempted to procure payment from his pregnant aunt for assisting her in crossing the river. She refused on grounds of her high status and, with this, he killed her. The reaction to the deed was divided. His father was furious upon hearing of the murder, but the deed was also worthy

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of esteem. Through this exceptional act, Nimi was proclaimed ntinu by his men, and under his command they proceeded westward, crossing the river and founding the Kongo kingdom. According to both versions there was an aboriginal population in and around the capital which was defeated. Wene's men then married the women of the defeated people, noble marrying noble and commoner marrying commoner. Wene himself married a daughter of N saku ne Vunda, or a woman from Mbata. This is the first part of the myth which deals with the actual conquest and founding of the new kingdom. Wene (or Nimi a Lukeni) is a young man, filled with ambitions and creative power. He breaks with the established rule of succession of the matrilineal order (killing his father's sister who bore the legitimate heir) in which power is based on social age and position in the lineage hierarchy. He transgresses the bounds of the traditional order and founds, by means of his creative political capacity, a new and higher social order. The murder of the father' s sister is a crucial performance in this scenario. It is an exceptional act that elevates him above ordinary mortals, and he is thereafter designated as ntinu by his followers. This establishes the first relationship set in the political structure; there is now a group, the-king-and-his-men, that sweeps across the land conquering new territories. This fi rst type of power is expressed in the person of the king himself, via his virile capacity for action, but it also emanates from his men. Without them he is nothing. In practical terms they are the core of his military and political might. They supply him with tribute and the loyalty of vassals and soldiers. It is a relationship of father to sons, or tata t o muana. Let us continue, then, with Wene's (or Nimi a Lukeni 's) adventures which constitute the second element in the basic structure of the political sphere. The area surrounding the capital i s overrun, and the new kingdom is established. The male conquerors marry the conquered women. Soon, however, the en:lifr,� adventure is jeopardized as Wene has taken ill. His men understand that ��ilo/ Mani Kabunga, the chief of the original inhabitants, can cure him. They g6i£,O him and say, "We know that you are the oldest and fi rst occupant of this place. Wene is ill and you must help him." After due consideration, Mani Kabunga agrees. He goes to Wene, who exclaims "You are the eldest of us two, the first to occupy this place. I need your help." In this way Wene recognizes Mani Kabunga's seniority and religious stature. The latter touches him with the buffalo tail (nsesa) upon which he recovers and is able to rule the land. Conquest, the creative political act, is completed, and the group, represented by the king-and-his-men, must acquire their legitimacy within the domain of the earth gods, mediated by "the religious chief." In myth he is represented as the chief of the original inhabitants of the land. In the historical situation he is the mirror image of the king but without the latter's cultural attributes, that is without his specific political and economic power. He represents the deceased

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former ruler, functions as interregnum regent, or better, as religious head of the interregnum. Kings come and go, but he is eternal. Throughout the early history of the Kongo people, Kitomi (or M ani Vunda) represents the stable form of power, the eternal that cannot die, "un dieu sur terre" (Cavazzi-Labat 1 732 1:254) bringing rain and fertility. He is "the earth priest" who, with his buffalo tail and chalk, is charged with the royal coronation and without whose acknowledgment the king's legitimacy would never be accepted by the people (Cuvelier 1 946 : 15). Without Kitomi, the king would surely die (de Anguiano 1 950:437) Kitomi represents the dead or former king, and he is associated with the earth deities of the domain as well as their dwelling places in nature, that is, a former capital or royal cemetery. After being installed as governor by the king in San Salvador, Mani Nsundi (seventeenth century) went together with his wife to the Kitomi of the province who lived in a previous capital. A contrived battle was staged there between the two parties consisting on one side of the governor and his wife and, on the other side, of Kitomi and his first wife. The former employed weapons of iron; the latter had only weapons made of plants. The symbolic battle was thus a contest between culture and nature. Kitomi won and only then, after the "conqueror" yielded to the power of the gods of nature, could he cross the body of water that separated the two worlds (Montesarchio, in de Bouveignes and Cuvelier 1 95 1 :97). This is not a question of two sociocultural orders existing side by side, one elder, the other younger, as has sometimes been suggested (Balandier 1965 :24-26; Vansina 1 973:38; Randles 1 968:42), but one and the same order. The origin myth embodies a dualism where foreign conquerors, the king and his men, are opposed to the original population, Mani Vunda and women. there are supposedly two paramount clans, one which supplies the king, the other which is wife-giver to the former and which crowns its kings. In another myth the king calls his sons and says: Go out and occupy new territory; dance two by two, one with the sword, the other with the buffalo tail (Cuvelier 1 9 30:482). The land is said to be divided in two, often by a river. This form of dualism is in evidence throughout the history of the Lower Congo (cf. MacGaffey 1 9 86). I n Loango the equivalent of Kitomi is Maboma. The latter took care of the land, according to Bastian (Bastian 1 874: 1 9 l ff.), while the king represented his human followers, hi s men. This is also a clear example of dualism; the gods of the land on one side, and the human and political qualities on the other.

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In the precolonial period there was a hierarchy of political chiefs, elected and crowned, headed by ntinu, the king. Even before colonization there developed

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a certain amount of uncertainty with respect to the king himself. There are reports of very long interregnums from Loango. Several of those who were elected could not be crowned, and deceased kings, consequently, were not buried since that was the duty of the new king. Elections and coronations continued, however, well into the twentieth cen­ tury. In the 1 890s, the French took the initiative to elect a new king in Loango, "and appeared anxious to administer the country through native channels (Den­ nett 1 906:6). In 1 898 the high chiefs of Loango were called to "the Adminis­ trator," who informed them of the administration's wish that a new Maloango be crowned and that the native regime be reconstituted under the protection of the government (6ff.). A certain Maniluemba was elected, but he was never crowned because he could not afford the costs of coronation. He turned to the French government with an appeal for funds. He would have to invite hundreds of guests to live on his provisions for several days. The colonial administration did not feel it could meet such demands and so Maniluemba remained uncrowned ( 1 5). But other lesser kings were indeed crowned. In Laman's material there are several descriptions of both elections and corona­ tions. Unfortunately it cannot be ascertained in which years the observations were made. There were "crowned chiefs" in the eastern part of the Lower Congo as late as the 1 930s, even if coronations only occurred in periods of acute crisis (Mertens 1 942:47). The ethnographic material is, of course, incomplete, but it suffices for us to gain an insight into the practice and symbolic content of both elections and coronations. It is even possible to discern a transition from a more tradi­ tional situation to the colonial situation and the acute survival problems that it engendered. We know that in earlier centuries the election was a phase of both electionaljld succession disputes. The King of Kongo was elected by a council . twelve high dignitaries, including the provincial governors. These we "men," his "children." But the election was not always clear cut. There different factions, and the competition for the throne was often sol warfare which conclusively demonstrated the identity of the real king. In a letter to Affonso the king of Portugal emphasized the advantages and stability of the practice of inheritable royal office. But Affonso had no sympathy wi�h the argument. Election was a central principle, he answered. The king should be everyone's king, elected and crowned by the people. The king had to be an exceptional being. He was often physically imposing, and he demonstrated his superiority by conquering his political position and by committing exceptional acts, such as the murder of a close parent. In Laman 's material such themes are still to be found: election, struggles for succession, and murder, but now in a strictly ritualized form. In all rituals connected with

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the coronation there is a complementary relation between the members of the ruling group who support the king, and the muana and ntekolo, who represent the other half of society and who have important ceremonial functions. They control the sacred places in nature that are associated with the earth gods and the deceased king. They are also in charge of the basket containing the white chalk and the red and yellow ochre (nkisi nsi) that are used to paint the king at the coronation (Laman 1953 : 1 6; 1957: 1 4 1 , 1 5 3 ; 1 962:42). It would appear that muana and ntekolo had, by the end of the nineteenth century, taken over the functions of the Kitomi. But the difference between them was, in any case, insignificant since Kitomi represented "the people" in the same way as muana and ntekolo. In Laman's data some tests play the important role of proving whether or not the elect has the blessing of the basimbi, or the royal ancestors. This is, in all probability, a late phenomenon linked to the decline of royal power. The kingly candidate cannot make a show of his own strength. In Mukimbungu he went to Tadi dya ngo, "the leopard cave" or "leopard mountain," in order to meet and communicate with the spirits who once "exercised their sway over the country." He solicited their support and protection. "He must say: 'I shall receive the chieftainship and sit on the nkuwu mat, leopard-skin and ironchest. Give me therefore happiness in my days, that I may become strong, great and powerful'" (Laman 1957 : 1 43). If he were to become ill that day, everyone would understand that his coro­ nation was out of the question. Illness was a sign that he was not acceptable to the royal ancestors. As an example of a possible inadequacy or fault in the candidate, Laman refers to equivocal descent (the lack of pure royal blood), or incest committed in preceding generations. The candidate was somlt:imes punished for his "crime" by being lost in the cave. The ancestors might also test the royal contestants by confronting them with problems to be solved: "Some of the candidates had to enter great caves and try to find an exit by another way than they had come in, and the ancestors recognized only the one who was successful in this" (Laman 1 957 : 1 40). Laman also describes a ritualized battle for the throne which determines whether or not the elected contestant is the right man. Thus the unfortunate castrated Namenta must violently conquer the capital before he can be ,

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crowned. All came together to proceed to the capital. On the day when the coronation was to take place, Namenta's enemies also assembled to wage war on him. If Namenta had been elected by the ancestors, his enemies were powerless against him, and lost the battle. If, on the other hand, he had not been so elected, Namenta was unable to penetrate the capital and would inevitably die in the fighting. This lasted the whole day. A village on the way was reached

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From Religion to Magic

and the fighters rested here, to shake their weapons the following morning and resume the struggle, which went on until Namenta had penetrated the city and set himself on the coronation mat. When Namenta had obtained the victory those who had resisted him wept, for they feared his vengeance. His friends, on the other hand, uttered shouts of joy, beat drums and gongs, fired salvoes, and rejoiced mightily. Young men and women danced and all ate and drank much , for now Namenta had by force of arms won the right to be crowned (Laman 1957: 1 4 1 ) . I n earlier centuries the struggle for the throne was a test o f real political and military strength. Such is not the case with Namenta. He does have the gods on his side, and they define his right to rule. In the battle for the throne in 1506 between Affonso and his opponent, Mpanzu a Kitama, his half-brother, the former clearly also had the gods on his side (Cuvelier 1 946: 1 20ff.), but this was not the sole source of his strength since he was also politically and militarily powerful. Namenta, on the other hand, has nothing but the gods. In myth the murder o f th e pregnant FZ is a crucial event that motivates the election ofLukeni a Nimi as ntinu by his men. This kind of slaying also appears in the historical and ethnographic records. It is commonly said that the king has slain his "mother" or a close matrilineal relative. This claim is made for both Affonso, in the sixteenth century, and for Pedro, the last king in San Salvador (Cuvelier 1 946: 1 20; Weeks 1 9 1 4:36). This was a rule according to Laman: "The ntinu office seems always to have been connected with the murder of a member of the kanda, so that the aspirant to the throne could thereby prove his authority" (Laman 1 957: 1 38). I n the myth i t is not, in fact, a matrilineal relative of the king but, on the contrary, two important members of the father's kanda, his legitimate .heir (ZS) and the latter's mother, that is, his sister and the murderer's paten:r..l s.. aunt The assassination is represented here as a violation of the prindR� � . . of matrilineality. The founder of the Kongo kingdom is a son and neitFlc{�
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sword and the other with the buffalo tail" The sword symbolizes the political power that the king possesses from the start, which is bestowed upon him by his men, and on his military prowess which he shall be called upon to demonstrate. Murder is thought to be part of the complex as an expression of his unwillingness to let personal matters interfere with his function or to take a "soft" position in legal and admini strative matters. Political power was to be frightening. In the traditional society the political chief had the right of life and death over his subjects. The Kongo are, as MacGaffey points out, well aware of this striking difference between traditional and modern chiefs. The former could totally change the conditions of existence of their subjects and even the boundaries of political units: "They killed and burned and enslaved" (MacGaffey 1 970:230). But this was true only of the precolonial period, that is, before the region was invaded and occupied by the Europeans. The powerless chiefs of the new era must have been a serious problem in purely intellectual terms. How, after all, was one to account for the power that, according to tradition, was the essential characteristic of the chief, and which was revealed so strikingly in the phase preceding the coronation? The problem is manifestly evident in Doutreloux's portrayal of the scenario leading to the coronation. The elect is first isolated in a special hut where he is guarded by mwana and ntekolo. De Cleene also refers to this event and adds further that the elect's guards are the "consecrated," those who have been consecrated to the nkisi tsi (earth gods) of the domain (De Cleene 1 935 :67). From this time on, according to Doutreloux, he is referred to as Kintumba. On the evening before the coronation he required to leave the hut and go to his own village where he undergoes the ceremony in which he receives the Sword of Power and a leopard skin (Doutreloux 1 967: 1 6 8ff.). , The second moment in the ceremony is the blessing, the painting of the candidate with white chalk and red and yellow ochre. This is apparently the moment that marked the actual making of the king, its religious dimension. In Laman's description of Namenta's coronation there are two days of dancing, "and on the third day Namenta was to be marked with the chalk, i.e. crowned" (Laman 1 957: 1 4 1 ) . In the myth, Mani Kabunga touches him with the buffalo tail, which ap­ pears in the oldest descriptions of the coronation ceremonies. There are also descriptions of how Kitomi paints the king with chalk. In a text from 1 70 1 it is claimed that the king is painted whenever he goes out in order to protect him against evil influences (Bontinck 1970:21 7). Painting with chalk is not, then, exclusive to coronations, even if it constitutes a maj or event in the latter. Nor is it connected exclusively to the king. In the later ethnographic material it is visible in many different contexts. In general it can be said to express blessing and protection, and is performed by the earth gods (royal ancestors).

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. During Laman's time the chalk and ochre was kept by muana and ntekolo until the actual coronation. In the description of Namenta's coronation, the painting of the chief-elect is carried out by Mpanzu: "Mpanzu took the chalk from the kiyaazi and marked Namenta about the ears with it and then let him tramp on the leopard-skin" (Laman 1 957 : 1 4 1 ) . Cooperation in this ritual was either between the ruling group and its muana and ntekolo, or between two different clans as in this case, between Nsundi and Mpanzu (Laman 1 953 : 1 6 ; 1 957 : 1 4 1 , 1 42). The chalk was stored in the kiyaazi, a term which usually refers to the basket in which the paraphernalia of the coronation are to be found. Laman also uses the term nkisi nsi for this basket: "The investiture of a paramount chief was accomplished through a nkisi nsi (government nkisi)" (Laman 1 957: 1 44). "Nkisi and nkisi nsi do not correspond to what is now connoted by nkisi, but to what higher up-country is called kiyaazi (from yaala, to rule), thus a power of religious character that is needed to strengthen the authority of the regent" ( 1 50). The coronation resembles an initiation into a cult at the turn of the cen­ tury. The chosen spent, as we have indicated, a period of isolation similar to initiations. Among the Yombe he remained in a special hut for nine Con­ golese weeks (36 days), and during this time he was instructed in which taboos he was required submit to as a crowned chief (De Cleene 1 935 :66). There are also reports that he had to assemble different minkisi (Laman 1 957: 143). With respect to the actual coronation the picture is not altogether clear. Ac­ cording to myth, the conqueror must submit to Mani Kabunga and acknowl­ edge him as his "elder." Political and military power were thus subordinate to the order of nature and its deities. Mani Kabunga imparts his blessing, but he is merely a mediator, the real source of the blessing being the earth gods. This relation is clearly in evidence in the reports of the coronations from,',��� . sixteenth century and in their descriptions of the relationship between the;� '" litical chief and Kitomi . According to Cavazzi-Labat, Kitomi was to tra�p on the governor to emphasize the latter's submission (Cavazzi-Labat 1732 . 1:258) and in Montesarchio's description of the meeting between Mani N sUNtil anti the local Kitomi, the superiority of nature over culture was unequivocally confirmed.

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The Transformation of Divine Kingship

The imprecision in the material from the turn of the century concerning the coronation is connected precisely to the relation between nature and culture (see Dupre 1 975 about the same ambiguity in the field of fetishism). There is one version, the more original, in which culture is subordinate to nature, and

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where the latter is pictured as life-giving and good. But there is simultaneously another version in which nature, is, instead, threatening and evil and wl)ere the "king" is used to hold it at bay. According to Laman 's material, the coronation was often held at Tadi dya ngo. People assembled outside the grotto, playing drums, dancing, and singing while the king entered. When he reappeared, the "deceased of the grotto" (the earth gods) had covered his body with white chalk and with red and yellow ochre. "The leopard has licked his arms and legs." The gathering was ebullient and fired a round. This was repeated three times after which the coronation was terminated, "for the deceased have confirmed his election and anointed him with chalk and with red and yellow ochre" (Laman 1 957 : 1 43). Here it appears as ifi tis the leopard, alias basimbi, orthe royal ancestors, that crowns the king. The special grottos where the royal ancestors are supposed to reside are called "leopard grottos." But the King, too, is a leopard. "The leopard with its skin, its teeth and claws and if possible also a lion's claw, these are the symbols of the regent's full power. 'The regent i s a leopard. Where the regent speaks, there speak the leopard, the lion. The leopard is king and the paramount chief his fellow-king'" ( 1 52). They are both kings, the leopard rules over nature, the king over culture. It is said that Mansundi was prohibited from eating leopard because he was the leopard's brother (Laman 1 953 : 1 6). The identification of the king with the leopard recurs in Doutreloux's description of the Yombe coronation. The words Tsona Ngo ! which mean "mark the leopard," are cried and Matsona, he who marks or paints, takes the chalk and then the red paint from the spe­ cial basket. When he has painted the king, the latter is full chief (Laman �. 1 967: 1 69ff.). The king is granted the blessing of nature. In the earlier version nature ap­ pears not only as higher ranked but also as life-giving and protective . It is primordial, elder, and eternal while culture, as a human product, is conspicu­ ously impermanent. The king, but also man in general, must humbly yield to that which is greater than himself. In this we can achieve harmony and balance, and life and health flow from the gCDds. By painting the human body with red and white the two worlds are joined, the godly and the human, the two ele­ ments of the symbolic structure. The king-and-his-men are incorporated into the cosmological order. In the other version nature is dangerous and must, if possible, be controlled. And the king himself is the means of this control. At the coronation of Na­ menta he is first covered with chalk and ochre after which he walks over the leopard skin. He repeats this twice "in order to show respect for the leopard," but the third time he tramps on the latter's head "in order to reign over the leopards so that they should not kill the domestic animals in the villages"

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(Lam an 1 957: 1 4 1 ). Here the relation between nature and culture i s reversed. The king does not yield before Kitomi but, instead, ritually dominates nature. The environment is here experienced as threatening. Leopards emerge from the forest to attack the tame animals, and Namenta is their shield. He must not yield to nature but, on the contrary, behave as the prince who slays the dragon. It is crucial that he himself appear as intimidating as possible. "Have you seen the leopard, the spotty one, the dangerous one?" is a refrain that appears several times i n Laman' s material on the coronations, and it is the new king that is the menacing leopard, and it is he who is used in the struggle against both gods and wild leopards. The coronation ceremony could also take place at the royal cemetery ("at the burial place of the deceased regents"). The elected one was carried there in a great procession and upon arrival, wine was poured over the graves, "and the mud is stirred up to the accompaniment of singing and clapping of hands." The following was sung: "Eh, as regent I have come to be appointed. Eh, ye fathers. As regent I have come to be appointed. Eh, ye brothers, that which comes first is the chalk. Eh ye mothers" (Laman 1957 : 1 47). And while they chanted they painted the body of the king, first with chalk followed by yellow ochre. The ceremony was ended with the words, "Eh, we fall down as the goat falls, we faH down as the kid falls. We baana ba mbuta have come to receive mwela, we desire chalk and not extinguished embers. Ye lower the sword of power, we do not lift up" ( 148). When the coronation was over the participants rolled in the earth of the graves "and then receive(d) the blessing." Then they returned home, danc­ ing and singing the refrain, "have you seen the leopard, the spotty one, t,he dangerous one?" ( 1 48). What is sought here is the blessing of the ancestors, all of which is obtain' . ed , via chalk and the earth of the grave. "We desire chalk and not extinguisl\l�ct embers." Chalk, "white," seems to symbolize life and vitality, that which F&�Y · hope to receive from their ancestors. "Lower the sword of power"; do punish us, do not use your power against us, we fall down. There are important changes compared with the first version; the king is represented as a dangerous leopard, and the gods can no longer be trusted. There are also situations in which the dead king is experienced as a threat­ ening figure who must be controlled. The elect was brought to the house of the dead king and was placed at his knee. He was painted with chalk and yellow ochre while the assembly chanted, "have you seen the leopard, the spotty one, a dangerous animal?" ; this "in order to show that the latter(the dead) no longer has any power" (Laman 1957: 1 45). The dead was no longer supposed to give his blessi ng, thereby transmitting life and health to the living. Instead he was a destructive power who had to be counteracted by the new king.

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The king's main task was to maintain the threatening powers of nature at a safe distance, to defend life in the village against menacing forces . This was accomplished essentially by suffering various taboos. Thus, for example, he was not allowed to tear meat with his nails or to tear off a piece, as this was an invitation to the leopard. He had to eat meat with a knife and to bite it with his teeth. But he was absolutely forbidden to eat meat that was not carved ("meat in its blood," [Laman 1 957: 1 49]). Nor could he scrape the ground with his nails, as this was also a welcoming sign to the leopard. And if he were to growl the leopard would come and eat all the domestic animals in the village ( 1 49). This change in the conception of kingship and the relation between nature and culture can be understood in terms of the larger social changes. In the massive crisis following the devastating effects of colonization, nature was no longer envisaged as a source of life. The entire environment, including both cosmos and gods, was imagined to be a threat to society. It was a source of sickness and death rather than of health, life, and well-being. It became therefore necessary to defend oneself against the surroundings. What was a conflict between Kongo society and expanding Western imperialism was here experienced as a conflict between nature and culture. The fear of colonial destruction became fear of the forest's leopards. And their Saint Jorgen directed his lance toward the forest and his ancestors instead of toward the foreign invaders. Other changes in their attitude toward the gods can be discerned; it looks as if the gods' very existence was questioned. There are several statements about kings being killed shortly after coronation. In Soyo a strange story is told about a king by the name of Ne Nzinga who invited a great number of chiefs to witness his own execution. On the specific day he took his pla� on a podium with all his insignia. A man with a great sword danced around him to the sound of drums. The music increased in intensity until when it reached a climax, the dancer suddenly lopped off the king's head. All present cheered with joy, "c' 6tait vraiment une grande fete." A brother or son of the dead king took his place and reigned in the name of this glorious ancestor (Troesch 1 96 2:96). What is supposed to be happening here? The king was killed and thereby he became an ancestor; and ancestors were needed in a period when the protective and life-giving deities seemed to have left them. If the gods no longer give what they are supposed to give, an interpretation near at hand is that they, for some reason, are no longer there. The colonial problem was again interpreted as a problem with the gods. When death, sterility, and social disintegration struck the area, they felt abandoned by their gods and they attempted to re-create their gods by killing their crowned kings. As gods were ancestors in this part of the world, it was possible to replace them with human vitality, with "kings" at the

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From Religion to Magic

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apex o f the social pyramid being hastened out from the world o f the living to the world of the ancestors. Consecration and Cults

In the medicine that developed at the turn of the twentieth century, the "cults of affliction" played a central role. One became initiated into a cult in order to be cured, and the cult was focused on a nkisi tha t had the peculiar property of being the cause as well as the cure of a specific illness. This kind of phenomenon is typical of the turn of this century, entirely pre-occupied with illness and sterility, but it was based on the precolonial religious cults. In the ethnographic material from the beginning of the twentieth century there are references to several different kinds of consecration. There was an important such event among the Yombe after the birth of a first child when the final consecration to the Kinda occurred. The father went to the cliff where the earth gods resided ("au rocher de l' esprit chtonien"), Nkisi Tsi, and was painted with white (pezo) and red (ngunzi), which were the marks of the sacred (Doutreloux 1 967:220). This was, in fact, a consecration to the earth gods, and it had to do with the man's new and higher status as father, that he entered a higher category, not that he had become sick and required a cure. De Cleene reports that all the men of the region were consecrated to the Nkisi Tsi. They were called basemuka which meant "men who are consecrated to the fetish of the region." The cult of Nkisi Tsi was the center of social and political life (De Cleene 1935 :67). Bittremieux adds further details. "Have you seen Bakist'?" was an expression, and it was a query as to whether the man in question had been consecrated to the region's Kinda. The consecration could take place only after the maniti question had found a special stone during his visit in divuala. He then catifi�d · the stone to the place where the great Phungi- or Mbenza -stone was fot( lfd surrounded by smaller stones. (Phungi and Mbenza were names of a speCli&c . clan's or domain's Kinda). There he lay the new stone and was consecrated; Before the birth of his first child he was not even allowed to see the stone (Bittremieux 1 93 6 : 1 40-42). Here the Kinda is represented by a stone that is placed somewhere in the forest. There is evidence of the existence of such a stone from earlier cen­ turies. It is, for example, mentioned by Luca da Caltanisetta at the turn of the eighteenth century. In his unflagging struggle against the traditional religion he succeeded in stealing such a stone. He thereafter did his very best to smash it to pieces since he understood its importance. It was "round and spherical and big as a bomb" (Bontinck 1 970:2 1 7 ). The Kitomi of the area complained to the king, underscoring that the white man's theft could lead to a catastrophe .

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for the country. There would, then, seem to be a continuity here, at least as far back as the end of the seventeenth century. One phenomenon that has attracted much attention from the Europeans is the initiation schools for youth which were called "secret societies." Their character changed at the turn of the century, and it was often difficult for Europeans to understand what they were all about. "The raison d'etre for the Congo secret societies is lost in the dim and distant past," as Weeks ex­ pressed it (Weeks 1 9 1 4 : 1 58). The two largest and best-documented cases in the historical material are nkimba, north of the river, and kimpasi, south of the river. They appeared, in a certain sense, as initiation schools where the young (either boys only, as in nkimba, or both sexes as in kimpasi) spent a period of time in the forest where they underwent education and preparation for adult life. It was characteristic of the rituals that the participants died and were reborn and that their bodies were painted white. The earliest European visitors reported seeing bankimba in the forest, painted white and clothed in crinoline-formed grass skirts. But it is also said that the goal of the rituals was to combat witches and to generate fertility and good health. Kimpasi is a complex phenomenon according to Van Wing: It is primarily "une ecole d'immoralite." In this he refers to the authority of an old chief who appar­ ently agrees with him. The young in kimpasi know only one thing, "fornica­ tion," writes Van Wing and explains that it meant "masturbation" (Van Wing 1 93 8 : 225). Nkimba and kimpasi both existed in earlier centuries. The latter is thought, as noted previously, not to have been merely an initiation school but the general form of the congregation. The kimpasi is often referred to as the opposite of Christianity and as the missionaries' major enemy. Cavazzi-Labat writiItg in the mid-seventeenth century calls their members "les nquiti" (bankita; compare with Montesarchio's kimpasi kia nkita). These nquiti were "a sect of the most nefarious" who gathered in the forest, in dark, hidden, low-lying places in great secrecy. There they underwent consecration which entailed that they fell down as if they were dead and were then carried by the already consecrated to kimpasi, which was the name of the place in the forest where the ritual transpired (Cavazzi-Labat 1732 1:294). Hilton ( 1 985) who perhaps has made the most painstaking study of the historical-ethnographic material of earlier centuries, has also concluded that kimpasi in the seventeenth century were cult groups that met regularly in the forest, "continuous and sometimes very ancient associations which met regularly outside the villages and towns in 'deep places where the rays of the sun never penetrated'" (26). Kimpasi (and nkimba) were, one might say, one of the most striking aspects of the traditional religion, and it is not essential, in this context, to ascertain exactly what role it played, whether it was limited

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From Religion to Magic

to in itiations o f the type that we find a t the turn o f the century o r included the totali ty of traditional religious praxi s. . Let us consider two narratives from the period immediately precedmg colonization. The first is Burton's description of nkimbao from the beginning of the 1 860s: At any time between the ages of five and fifteen (eight to ten being generally preferred) boys are taken from their parents (which must be an exceeding co fort to the latter), and for a native year, which is half of ours, they must dwell III the Vivala ya Ankimba or Casa de Feitic;:o . . . They are now instructed by the Ngang a in the practices of their intricate creed; they are taughtthe mysteries under solemn oaths, and, in fine, they are prepared for marriage. (Burton 1 876 II:223)

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Burton also reports that during their stay in the forest, the young initiates were not fed prepared food but were required to live on wild plants. They were painted white and were clothed in the usual crinoline-formed grass skirts. They sometimes appeared, in this attire, in the villages, armed with machetes and wooden swords (224). It was obvi ously taking place in the field of nature , where the ancestors rested. Twenty years later M611er encountered them while working for the Congo Association. "If, when travelling through the country, one's trail leads through a dark wood, one may take by surprise a white painted ghost-like figure who usually draws away from the foreigner's gaze." These are "bakimba." Ac­ cording to M6ller the boys were consecrated when they were fi fteen years of age. "Bakimba 's society" was made up of "the young men of the society," but sometimes there were also elder men. The cult group was led by a nganga. The members were bound by an oath of silence, and they lived in the forest "from one dry season to the next" or even longer. The place was located. t\j'll a solitary forest ravine," and the initiates were not allowed any contact �.l'�li' women or non-members. They were allowed to consume oaly vegetable fQQd' which was carried out to them from the village. They had their own langu�ge. When their period of initiation was over they returned to their villages andto their normal lives. "This re-entrance into society is characterized by festivity; all the villagers are involved, and the entire event is one of official celebration." This institution is held in the highest esteem by the people, concludes M611er. He asked one of his assistants who had undergone initiation what it was good for and received the following answer: "A white man who cannot read a book is a bad man, and in the same way, a black man who has not been n 'kimba is a bad man" (M611er et al. 1 887:285-87). Here the length of the initiatory period is stated to be a year. M611er writes "from one dry season to the next." Other sources indicate anything from a half °

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Chaptel: 1

year to 2-3 years (Johnston 1 884:406; Weeks 1 9 1 4: 1 59 ; Bentley 1 1 900 :283) Westlind says 1 -2 years ( 1 9 1 1 : 9 1 ). The early Europeans i n the area provide a consensus for the existence of nkimba as a school of initiation for ,boys, including circumcision and preparation for adulthood, all of which is associ ated with a clearly religious content related to consecration to the gods of the land. In a work based on the writings of former "fetish priests" who had converted to Christianity, P. A . Westlind di vides the nkimba into different "fetisch families." Parents sent their children to nkimba schools where they were consecrated to nkimba, "in order to grow quickly and be fortunate" (Westlind 1 9 1 1 : 86-87). The consecration to the fetish nkimba is so different from the normal conse­ cration of a priest that it must be described separately. Nkimba's disciples must take an oath of silence. If they were to reveal any of the secrets associated with the fetish, they would be punished by death. The day they depart for nkimba there is a great feast. The priests paint the signs of the fetish on the disciples' temples, breasts, hands, and feet with sacred chalk and red color (90). Following this is a description of how the disciples "die" and how they are carried by the priests to a mountain that is sacred to nkimba. There they are "re­ awakened" and are given new names. Following this ceremony they are taken to a forest where they are to stay for one to two years. Only the priests may visit them, but their kin bring food to them during the entire period. "In the forest they are visited by their teachers who educate them in priestly duties and teach them to consecrate nkimba images etc." ( 9 1 ) . When this time of learning is completed the entire ordeal is crowned by a great celebration at which they receive gifts and are "well received by their kin who regard them as very holy" (9 1 ) . The above description is clearly one o f initiation and consecrationfin a religious cult, similar, superficially, to our confirmation camps, but much more encompassing and with a far greater social significance. While nkisi nkimba are referred to, other sources indicate consecration to the earth gods. Divuala (or vela) is far out in the forest, "in a solitary forest ravine." The initiates must subsist on vegetable products alone, and their bodies are painted white. Hilton believes that kimpasi was already primarily concerned with sickness at the beginning of the eighteenth century (Hilton 1 985 :28). B utthis is appar­ ently not the case. She bases her argument on a passage in Bernardo da Gallo, from 1 7 10, where he depicts kimpasi as "a place of superstition destined to the care of the ill and other pagan ceremonies." This is certainly no evidence that the cult's main function was to cure illness. Medicine and religion are intimately connected throughout the entire history of the Lower Congo, and the Kongo have always turned to their gods, whether traditional or Christian, for life, health, and fertility. But medicine was integrated into religion and was only one of its several aspects. Montesarchio also refers to the cure of the sick

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From Religion to Magic

77

within kimpasi in the 1 660s, but it is apparent in hi s text that kimpasi was a center for the entire religion (de Bouveignes and Cuvelier 1 95 1 : 1 56ff., 1 62) . The single-minded concentration on combating sickness and on magic does not appear until the colonial period when the cults and initiation schools follow the general pattern from religion to magic. When the first whites found their way into the interior, the chalk-painted youth in nkimba launched an attack. Bentley tells about how they positioned themselves along the main roads and assaulted passersby, "beating them with their sticks." This was a serious problem for mission transports at first (Bentley 1 900 1:283). The whites met clear resistance to further penetration here. They were clearly afraid. On the southern shore of the river, where Stanley's influence was not yet established, it was dangerous "to offend these fanatics" (Johnston 1 884:69). In one instance, a young member of the Livingstone Mission was seriously assaulted. The struggle against sickness was not, then, the only interest of nkimba after the colonization. As only boys and young men took part, the group rep­ resented a potential political power that was clearly in evidence in the initial years of colonial occupation. As Janzen has pointed out, the "secret societies" disseminated much fear among the whites at the turn of the century (Janzen 1 982: 1 1-1 2). It should be added, however, that they also attacked their own people. If there was any justification for the rumors o fleopardmen and obscure stories of cannibalism during this period, the bankimba were certainly, with good reason, among the suspects (see Dupont 1 889:90). Around the turn of the century, nkimba lost its social content and the schools of initiation developed into cults of affliction. "Its professed object is the sup­ pression of witchcraft, and the catching of witches" (Bentley 1900 1: 282). Bittremieux says that it was difficult to obtain a satisfactory answer to the question, "Why Bankimba?" They don't know, he maintained (BittremieJJ;t · · 1936:3 1ff.). He did, however, get one answer. Greatly increasing numbet�-tdr nkimba schools were being established because the number of witches w:a�d�� creasing (3 1ff.). Nkimba was also set up in an attempt to reverse sterility (Ward1 9 10:244; Weeks 1 9 14: 1 59). Van Wing describes the desire for children as a motive for kimpasi. In the latter, attempts were made to activate the fetishes to grant children (Van Wing 1 938:226). It was a weapon against declining fertil­ ity and infant mortality. "It is a social-magical remedy for declining fertility and child mortality. Di gamamina galeke, gakotisa kimpasi, say the Bambata: 'we must enter Kimpasi because the children perish'" (226). From the start, nkimba was a school of initiation for boys only. This de­ veloped toward a situation where both sexes were eligible, as well as children and elders. Bittremieux reports in his work on bankimba that only boys aged 1 0-18 were eligible, not girls, except for occasional cases where two to three .

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were taken (Bittremieux 1 936:29 ). His work was based on conditions during the first decades of the twentieth century. Doutreloux ( 1 967) on the other hand, whose work is based on oral tradition covering an indeterminate time span, states that both sexes were accepted (see also Ward 1 890:244). The same was true of both kimpasi and ndembo (Van Wing 1 93 8 : 1 74; Bentley 1 900 1:284). Ndembo took on children and middle-aged people as well. The central rituals still contained the "death" and "rebirth" of the novices as well as the use of chalk paint. According to Van Wing, the significance of these rituals was as follows: They sought their roots, the source of life, the place where everything began on earth. They turned to bankita, "the primordial ancestors," or expres sed differently, to the powerful primal father or genitor of the Kongo, for he (or bankita) could give of his fertility to his descendants. Kimpasi was for them the same as Kongo, the holy place that the primal ancestor and his brother conquered from their enemies. They lie buried there, and it is from that place that their descendants spread out over the land. When they feel weak, they turn to Kongo, he says, by means of the rites in kimpasi. They change themselves into bankita and are able then to participate in the generative force of the ancestors (Van Wing 1 93 8 : 226ff.). Kimpasi, thus, represented the gods of the land and the place where every­ thing began. When they felt weak they sought this energy source, the fountain of their vitality. Via "the white" and via "death" and "rebirth" they achieved contact with the ancestors. In this they became strong. To die implied an ac­ cumulation of force, or power. The dead cast off or shed their old skin and took on a new body in the land of the dead. The serpent, M bumba, is the major symbol (Bittremieux 1 936 :25 , 37ff. , 52ff.). "To die is like changing bodie� or shedding skin. Death is a transition or development process" (Laman 1 923 :48). In general this shedding and accumulation of power cannot occur in this world. But there is one exception, and that is, in this context, when they die and are reborn with white bodies. Just as the initiation school for young men became a cult of affliction in the colonial period, the curing of sickness! also became integrated into this general form. One joined a specific nkisi-cult in order to cure or avert a given disease, and the initiation closely resembles the precolonial cult. The nkisi-spirit called on the person in question by making him ill with a specific sickness. The latter was perceived as a summons to become a member of the nkisi's cult group. "Nkisi seeks out . . . his own devotees, those among whom he wishes to dwell, those who shall fashion and maintain him" (Laman 1 923:59). A nganga, one already initiated, was called to instruct the patient on the seriousness of his illness, in the manner he was to construct the nkisi and on the taboos he was to obey:

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From Religion to Magic

79

Many are cured of sickness, during pregnancy, etc. and they are, consequently, made to observe certain tabus during a specified time period after which they are freed of all such duties. Should the illness return, as is usual, they are persuaded to complete the construction of the nkisi that has made them ill, permit it to reside with them and receive offerings and prayers prescribed by the chief nganga. The former becomes, thus, a "nganga-child", that is a little, new nganga. (Laman 1 923:69)

Minkisi are here treated as gods who demand offerings and prayer rather than as medicine. The obvious similarity between this phenomenon and the traditional cult is that initiation occurred in the forest, in divuala, where a group of novices was under the leadership of a chief nganga (ngudi a nganga). A n enclosure was first built in which the medicines were to be prepared, and this was carried out to the accompaniment of song. Following this, medicines and other ingredients were collected, which made up the nkisi. The medicines included seeds and other vegetable matter, snake heads, pieces of animal skin, and scrapings from secret medicines (Laman 1 962:73). Many ingredients were coHected in a state of ecstasy from the forest, the water, and the plain. A smooth flat stone was used to grind the medicine, and it was usual that this work was also accompanied by drumming, dancing, and singing, unless, as in certain circumstances, it had to be carried out in absolute silence. Nkisi had, furthermore, to be provided with a spirit that was to be sought at the burial place of a powerful chief (74). It was of the utmost importance that the nkisi was assembled in exactly the same way as it was originally put together. The chief nganga provided clear instructions followed by the actual consecration during which the novice was informed of the taboos and rules to which he must submit himself. This phase was often associated with various trials, and the novices might be to death" and "reawakened" just as in nkimba and kimpasi (75). It was also important that the initiated nganga maintained the ritual pumty of his nkisi; "if the nkisi is to re fit for worship and effective" (78). This was accomplished by obeying the prohibitions. If the nkisi were to be polluted as the result of the breaking of a taboo, it would have to be purified by means of specific rituals. Offerings were made in order that it be as attentive and effective as possible. The main offering was chicken blood. Nkisi, in this sense, is something between a god and medicine, or in more general terms, technology. It is something that people try to use for their own purposes. But the Kongo were in no sense liberated from it, as the Westerners have succeeded in doing with respect to the forces of nature. "As a rule they (minkisi) are used to cure maladies," (69) but in another text by Laman it is presented more as a god than as medicine: "What we call nkisi is used to cure

Chapter 1

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someone who is sick. Nkisi defends man's soul and protects from sickness. Nkisi even stalks sickness and takes it out of the body. That is why many want to get a nkisi and consecrating [my italics] themselves to it and observe its taboos in order that the latter provide protection" (Lam an 1923:57). Nkisi is, in one respect, medicine. It is a means that can be used to cure sickness. Nor is it anything else, according to Van Wing. It is "an artificial object that is supposed to be inhabited or influenced by a spirit . . . and . . . under a person's dominance" (Van Wing 1938:120). Here it looks as if the spirit, or the power of the spirit, unambiguously can be u sed for the person's own ends. If such were the case, nkisi could be compared to our notion of electricity, our machines, or our fertilizers, that is, forms of energy exploited and dominated by man. But the Kongo do not take this step outside the realm of nature and religion. Instead they remain within the authority of the gods. The Force appears as gods that must be worshipped. They have their rules and prohibitions, and the person must submit to them if he is to receive their assistance.

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Nkisi and Social Control: Taboo as Remedy

The Kongo society, at the turn of the century, was literally crammed with taboos. All societies have prohibitions and/or superstitions, about walking under ladders, laying one's keys on a table, and so forth. But in the Lower Congo this kind of phenomena appears to assume absurd proportions following the colonization. In Laman's material (1962) there is a list of more general prohibitions that were usually associated with the various minkisi:

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A pregnant woman, and often even her husband, shall refrain from eating e g to prevent the child from having the properties of a shell and unable to grow properly. Children may not eat roasted potatoes, nor even be in the vicinity when they are being roasted because they can get weeping sores and rashes. It is forbidden to carry pregnant goats and to kill hyenas. Fire may not be removed from the hut by anyone who has just given birth. Otherwise the child will begin to cry. The yard may not be swept clean on nkenge or nsona days. One may not stand while drinking. Wood may not be carried in bundles. If a woman does so she must trample it when she lays it down. Otherwise one of her own domestic animals will be attacked by a wild animal or python. One may not hit the ground with one's hand when one is angry. One may not cry when going to bed. Otherwise the body will swell up. (Laman

1 962: 1 99-200)

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From Religion to Magic

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Many impractical food taboos are still to be found in today's southern Congo. One should still not eat eggs, bananas are said to cause intestinal worms, papaya causes one to talk in one's sleep, and so forth. Many of these taboos are directly negative insofar as they preclude the consumption of foodstuffs that are crucial to children's nutrition. The proliferation of taboos in the colonial society was positively paralyzing for the individual. If he belonged to several nkisi cults, he had a large set of food taboos as well as restrictions on his movements. Laman states explicitly that this proved to be a problem for people. The owner of a nkisi would only remain healthy as long as he kept the laws, "and because the laws are so numerous, many natives do not want to become banganga and compose a nkisi" (Laman 1 962: 7 1 ). Food taboos certainly appear even in the period preceding the coloniza­ tion, as indicated by the German expedition north of the river (see B astian 1 8741 1 875 ; Pechuel-Loesche 1 907 ; Giissfeldt 1 888). Bastian points out that even such basic foods as bananas and manioc might be forbidden. It would appear not to be the case, however, that bananas were absolutely forbidden. The taboo was limited to a certain type, or certain form, of preparation, such as raw, grilled, or boiled. It might also be forbidden to eat bananas on a certain day of the week or together with certain other foods (Bastian 1 874/ 1 875: 1 84). In any case the taboos were not nearly as extensive as they became in the following years. We may understand the establishment of these kinds of prohibitions as at­ tempts to gain control of reality. Where the social order is so constituted as to take care of disturbances that affect the individual, such "meaningless" taboos on food and movement ought not to take on significant proportions. The more security provided for the individual, the weaker the taboos. Conversely, in­ creasing insecurity in this relation implies a proportional increase in tab�Q�S The initial conditions, then, were such that anything might happen. Da!1ig�}; .. lurked everywhere, and there was no security to be sought. The prohibitrC)t1$ · appeared as an individual solution in the absence of control over the envir()n� ment. Everything will be alright if he does not eat bananas on nsona, does not speak before he has gotten up, does not step out of his hut right foot first, does not drink water standing up. The remedies and preventive measures are easily carried out, but the individual is totally immobilized if he practices them to the fullest extent. And the latter is the tendency as problems became aggravated. The more difficulties accumulated, the more taboos had to be multiplied. Every nkisi was usually associated with a number of different taboos. "The nkisi's will is apparent in the prescriptions. To foHow these is to feel well, live long, and in due time, to be received with honor by the deceased" (Laman 1 962:67). And since there was a clear increase in the number of minkisi, it " "- �- . .

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Chapter J

follows that there must have been a related increase in the number of prohi­ bitions. Further, there were a number of new, more general prohibitions. In some cases one can discern practical motives as when syphilitics were forbid­ den to share household goods with others (Van Overbergh 1 907 : 302). There were also social taboos that would seem to have had positive practical conse­ quences. An initiate of nkisi Bunzi had to obey certain food taboos; he might not eat byala fruits, the head of the pig, nor its inner organs, nor the kidneys of the pig, chicken, nzobi, mfuki, nsinzi, musimba, neither fowl nor the heads of any of the family of cervidae. But theft, infidelity, and fighting were also forbidden (Laman 1 962 : 1 06). The majority of food taboos and those that re­ stricted movement and they are by far the most recurrent seems to have been gratuitous and of an essentially symbolic nature. The word nlongo (pI mi-), taboo, means "holy, separate, something su­ pernatural that may not be touched, eaten or used" (Laman 1 923:26). "The nkisi god's will expresses itself via the taboos" (27). Such rules appear similar to the Ten Commandments. Breach of a taboo was perceived as a sin, as a pollution of nkisi or at least ofits sacredness. In both the Jewish and Chris­ tian faiths, God becomes angry and punishes those who transgress against his commandments. Among the Kongo the nkisi 's power was weakened or "closed." The latter had to be sanctifi ed, "raised up again," which occurred when he who had polluted the nkisi was pUlified and reconsecrated to the nkisi, fully submitted himself to the taboos and rites, and paid the propi­ tiation fee or offering. On one occasion Laman attempted to explain the notion of "sin" in Christianity for an African audience by translating it as "polluting God's taboo" (27), which apparently was a successful interpre­ tation. The various taboos were rules that had to be obeyed, like the i'en Commandments, but what makes them strange and puzzling is that they seem so meaningless from a practical and social point of view. It can, of course, be argued that such an elaborate complex of prohibitions must have a symbolic logic of its own. An analysis of this kind has also been made by Dupre ( 1 975). But still there is a flagrant lack of correspondence between the various health problems that minkisi were supposed to cure and the overt ' meaning of the prohibitions. I will here concentrate on this aspect of the phenomenon. Prohibitions pIayed an important role in the treatment of the illness, but there was also a practical side to the cure, based on medicines, massage, techniques for stopping the flow of blood, and so forth. According to Laman's material, the nganga often said to his nkisi during the treatment, "Treat him inwardly. I treat him here outwardly" (Laman 1 962: 1 07). There i s a n abundance o f detailed information about the various minkisi, their composition, appearance, functions, and prohibitions. I will here take some

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From Religion to Magic

examples from P. A. Westlind and Laman to display the arbitrary character of the prohibitions in relationship to the specific medical problems that they were supposed to counteract. Westlind mentions, among others, Mbuzi and Nkondi belonging to the "Zulu family" and Maninga and Mabunduka belonging to the "Mamba family." Nkisi Mbuzi "can make people angry, stupid, anxious, blabber mouthed, melancholic and insane as well as making them go astray in the forest. It can cause palm­ wine tappers to fall from the palms and kill themselves or be severely wounded." It was stored in a basket of palm leaves. It contained "ground leaves, sweet smelling grass roots, fungi, the fruit of vines, bits of leopard, buffalo and hippo skin, antelope horn, bird's nests and many other things." A person consecrated to Mbuzi "has a hard time since there are many laws to obey"; it was forbidden "to eat meat of newly slaughtered animals, to shine a light in palm oil porridge while it is boiling, to stand while stirring in a pot, to drink palm wine when the head is bare, to eat fried corn, pork, pork rind. It is even forbidden to steal and lie" (Westlind 1 9 1 1 :75). The nkisi Nkondi causes scabs, mouth sores, and other sores, and its prohi­ bitions are the following: "to roast cassava, nsafu . . . , palm nuts, dry corn and peanuts, or to eat plums, which have blown down in storms" (75). Here it might be possible to surmise an idea behind the specific prohibitions in the analogy between sores and food, the skin of which has been damaged by roasting or storming. Nkisi Maninga is "hard and unscrupulous"; it punishes with pain in the joints, toothaches, and general pains in the body. Maninga is a woman, and Mabun­ duka is her husband. He punishes his victims with pneumonia or epilepsy, and he can also throw people out of their beds or away into the buming fire (76ff.). This fate can be averted by not mixing different types of food and bynotcrus�. ing shells of palm nuts, grasshoppers, and crabs. It is forbidden "to mixt��n . food) fi sh, beans, newly harvested cassava, meat of newly slaughtered ani ��!s · . · and cassava bread. It is even forbidden to drink waterwhiJe standing, to crush palm nuts, or to eat grasshoppers and crabs" (77). Laman's material contains a great number of minkisi and their prohibitions, and I will limit myselftb a few: .

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Nkisi Mwe Nsundi causes stomach ache and afflicts people with madunga and kibinda ruptures. The patient must not eat fresh manioc with other people, nor fresh peanuts. He may not pour out palm wine that has been out after night. Nor may he eat nsafu together with the unini tiated. (Laman 1 962:148)

Mpanzu causes sores and rough skin, ring worm, headache, and among women, pains in the back. The patient may not eat roasted maize, pepper, salt nor nsombi­ grubs before he has got permission from the nganga. (1 50)

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84

Chapter 1 Kimpanzu causes pains in the breast. The initiate may not break off a palm rib which applies to the house. He may not play the diti (an instrument) with shoots of a palm branch, nor scrape the walls of the house with a knife. He may not drink palm wine which has been out overnight nor break a roasted banana or scrape it. On leaving his house in the morning he must first consecrate himself by painting his brow and ears with ashes and by strewing them outside of the house. He shall bathe in the dew on either side of the road and then set off on a ramble. ( 1 5 1 )

Before the colonial period there were taboos of a more social character con­ nected to various minkisi. Pechiiel-Loesche calls them "grand" or "political" Tschina and claims they were important for "the entire social life and public order" (Pechiiel-Loesche 1 907:459). These were prohibitions related to gen­ eral morality and respect for hierarchy. Such a definition of the functions of minkisi can also be found in Laman's material. "The minki si have a variety of functions. They intervene in every aspect of life, be it the social, politi­ cal, legal or religious sphere" (Laman 1 962:75). The fear surrounding taboos was, in precolonial society, exploited for the maintenance of law and order but also for the utilization of power by the political rulers. Besides there were other elements in the society whose interest lay in using taboos to limit the power of the king. In this sense minkisi were an instrument in the struggle for, and maintenance of, power. The earlier political minkisilprohibitions were, as Pechiiel-Loesche expresses it, "ein wesentliches Mittel des Staatskunst" (Pechiiel-Loesche 1 907 :459) . Many of the minkisi that Laman and Van Wing refer to are associated with a somewhat exaggerated or even military version of order. They are said to have protected the village and the general public order; they ensured that people obeyed the law and were punished in cases of theft, adultery, and other crimes. Nkondi watches over "the swearing of oaths and concluding of alliances" and "is revenged on the culprit" (Laman 1 962:86, 88). Lulendo is used "to regulate the markets and ensure safety on the trade routes" ( 1 1 8). Nkusu "can tell when a theft has been committed and who is the culprit" ( 1 1 8). Nakongo provides "good luck and happiness," but its main function is "to afflict people with illness by way of revenge for crime" ( 1 44). Van Wing mentions Nkosi whose function was to kill thieves and witches. He grabs them and squeezes them so tightly that blood runs from their noses. Problems of this type were cured by a nganga Nkosi (Van Wing 1 93 8 : 1 3 3). Van Wing also speaks of a class of minkisi called Mpungu which fills an important political function in being the protector of the village. As such, it is also called the Nkinda gata, "he who makes the village prosperous" ( 1 4 1). The word nkinda does not appear to have been used generally for the earth gods in the eastern part of the area, as among the Yombe, but the connection is in any case

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quite obvious i n Van Wing's text Nkinda gata represents the ancestor and is established in the village to protect it and give it life. I n many villages, Mpungu becomes the center for festive invocations before the great hunt and before the grass is burned ( 1 4Sff.). Minkisi were, in the precolonial society, a force that ordered fertility, wealth, and health, but that also punished those who did not live according to the law. To annoy the gods was the same as annoying the king and other political chiefs. He who obeyed the rules was also in good health. This rather common view of the relationship between the individual's health and general well­ being and his obedience to political authorities is the more original mode of thought behind the puzzling pattern of the turn of the century. In precolonial society there was an intimate relation between sickness and minkisi, as well as between medicine and politics, and medicine and religion. Sickness was perceived as a consequence of displeasing the gods, as a punishment for sin. Thecureimplied, therefore, rituals and secondarily practical activiti es. He who performed accurately regained health. There is nothing here that is unique to the Lower Congo, and it is certainly a very common trait in traditional medicine generally. Pray to God, be righteous and pious, and you will remain healthy. Sickness as punishment is a thought that has profound consequences in a situation where the gods mete out mucn more in the way of sickness and accidents than of life and health. When health and well-being declined catas­ trophically in the Lower Congo at the turn of the century, the entire modelof traditional medicine was upset. The solution that emerged among the Kongo was to correct the increasing disease and illness by a corresponding prolifer­ ation of prohibitions. Sickness and fai lure were interpreted as disobedience, a consequence of breaking taboos. It cannot have been very obvious, though, what the gods really wanted in the way of obedient behavior. The sudden t'levelopment of thousands of "meaningless" taboos can be seen as an attemp! 16 .. h create conditions whic made a high degree of obedience possible. FoodtabG§� and taboos concerning the restrictions of body movements are easy to folio"" as they do not involve anything but the individual and his conscious behavipr. They do not represent somebody else's wishes as is the case with taboos of a political and legal nature. Taboos of the kind that are reported in the material from the early colonial period emanate from the individual, which may seem like a paradox, as laws and prohibitions regulating individual behavior usually develop within a socio-political framework. The individual is, according to the more common pattern, compelled to adapt to rules that are external to him in the sense that they concern his behavior in relationship to others. In the Lower Congo taboos rather represent the individual's attempts to come to grip with his own health problems trying to be a good boy in a situation where he is not clear about what is wanted from him and on which point he has failed. .

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NOTE

1 . This word is translated in French asfeticheur, and in English as witchdoctor, magician, and similar terms.

REFERENCES

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ica Upsaliensia 1 4. Balandier, G. 1963. Sociologie actuelle de l 'Afrique noire. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. --- . 1 965. La vie quotidienne au royaume du Congo du XV1e au XV1I1e siecle. Paris: Librairie Hachette. B astian, A. 1 8741 1 875. Die Deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Kilste, nebst alteren Nachrichten ilber die zu eiforschenden Liindel: Jena: Costenoble. Bentley, W. H. 1 900. Pioneering on the Congo, vo!. 1-11. London: Religious Tract Society. Bittremieux, L. 1 923 . Mayombsch idioticon. Ghent: Erasmus. . 1 936. La societe secrete des Bakhimba au Mayombe. 1nstitut royal colonial beige, Section des sciences morales et politiques, Mem. 5 : 3 . Bontinck, F. 1 970. Diaire congolais (1690-1 701) de Fra Luca da Caltanisetta. tLou­ vain: Editions Nauwelaerts. Bourguignon, E. 1 979. Psychological anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and ---

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Cuvelier, J., and L. Jadin. 1 954. L'ancien Congo d' apres les Archives Romaines ( 1 5 1 81640). Academie Royale des Sciences Coloniales, Section des Sciences Morales et Politiques, Mem 36:2. de Anguiano, J. G. M. 1 950. Misiones Capuchinas en Africa. I. La Mision del Congo. Instituto Santo Toribio de Mongrovejo, Madrid. de Bouveignes, 0., and J. Cuvelier. 1 95 1 . Ier8me de Montesarchio, ap8tre de vieux Congo. Collection Lavigerie, Namur. Louvain: Imprimerie St-Alphonse. De Cleene, N. 1935. Les chefs indigenes au Mayombe. Africa 8. Dennett, R. E. 1 906. At the back of the black man 's mind. London: Macmillan & Co. Doutreloux, A. 1 967. L'ombre desfetiches: Societe et culture Yombe. Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts. Du pont, E. 1 889. Lettres sur le Congo. Paris: C. Reinwald. Dupre, M-C. 1 975. Le systeme des forces nkisi chez les Kongo d' apres le troisieme volume de K. Laman. Africa 45. Ekholm, K. 1 972. Powerandprestige: The rise andfall ofthe Kongo kingdom. Uppsala: Skrivservice. . 1 985. " . . . Sad stories ofthe death ofkings": The involution of divine kingship. Ethnos 3-4. Granstig, A. 1 957. Forsamlingen I Kongo. Manuscript. Stockholm: Svenska MissionsfOrbundet. Gray, R. 1983. Como vero Prencipe Catolico: The Capuchins and the rulers of Soyo in the late seventeenth century. Africa 5 3 : 3 . Giissfeldt, G . 1 88 8 . Die Loango-Expedition 1 873-1876. vo!. 1 . Liepzig: Eduard Baldamus. Hagenbucher-Sacripanti, F. 197 3 . Les fondements spirituals du pouvoir au royaume de Loango. Paris: ORSTOM, Memoires 67. Hilton, A. 1985. The kingdom of Kongo. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horton, R. 1 962. The Kalabari world view: An outline and interpretation. Africa 32:3. . 1 97 1 . African conversion. Africa 4 1 :2. Jahn, J. 1 960. Muntu: Neoafrikansk kultur I vardande. Stockholm: Raben & Sjogr�l1. Janzen, J. 1 982. Lemba, 1650-1930: A drum ofaffliction in Africa and the N ew .'i< New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. Johnston, H . H . 1 884. The River Congo. London: Sampson Low & Co. Laman, K. E. 1 9 1 1 . Karaktiirsdrag seder och tiinkesiitt hos Kongofolket. 'In Dagbriickning i Kongo, ed. Sjoholm, E. and J. Lundah!. Stockholm: Svenska Mis­ sionsfOrbundets Foriag. . 1 9 1 6 . Forfiidems kult hos Bakongo. Svensk Missionstidskrift 4. . 1 9 1 7. Gudstron hos Bakongo. Svensk Missionstidskrift 5 . --- . 1 920. Anknytningspunkter mellan primitive religion och kristendom. Foredrag yid studentmotet I Riittvik sommaren 1 9 1 9 . Fria K ristliga Studentforeningens Skrift­ serie, Uppsala. --- . 1 923 . Sanningsstralar: Animism och missionsmetodik bland primitive folk. Stockholm: Svenska Missionsforbundets Forlag. --- . 1 95 3 . The Kongo I. Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia 4. Uppsala. --

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. 1 957 . The Kongo 11. Studia Ethnographica Ups alien si a 8. Uppsala. . 1 962. The Kongo Ill. Stuiia Ethnographica Upsaliensia 1 2. Uppsala. MacGaffey, W. 1 970. Custom and government in the Lower Congo. Berkeley: University of California Press. . 1 977. Fetishism revisited: Kongo nkisi in sociological perspective. Africa 47. . 1983. Modern Kongo prophets: Religion in a plur.l society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. --- . 1 986. Religion and society in Central Africa. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Mahaniah, Kimpianga. 1 980. La mort dans la pensee Kongo. Kisantu: Centre de Vul­ garisation Agricole. Mbiti, 1. 1980 [1 969] . African religions and philosophy. London: Heinemann. Mertens, J. 1 942. Les chefs couronnes des B akongo. Brussels: Institut royal colonial beige, section des sciences morales et politiques, M em. 1 1 : 1 . Moller, P. , G . Pagels, and E . Gleerup. 1 8871 1 888. Tre a r I Kongo. Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt & Soners Foriag. Nyren, J. 1922. Bland skordemiin I Kongo. Stockholm: Svenska MissionsfOrbundets Foriag. Paiva Manso, L. 1 877. Historia do Congo (documentos). Lisbon: Typ. Da Academia. PechUel-Loesche, E. 1 907 . Volkskunde von Loango. Stuttgart: Strecker und Schroeder. Proyart Abbe. 1780 [ 1776]. Resebeskrifvning . . . om Loango, Kakongo och jlere afrikanske riken. Stockholm: Holmberg & Wennberg. Randles, W. G. L. 1968. L'ancien royaume du Congo des origins a la fin du XIXe siecie. Paris: Mouton & Co. Ravenstein, E. G., ed. 1 90 1 . The strange adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh in Essex. London: Hakluyt Society. Troesch, 1. 1962. Le royaume de Soyo. Aequatoria 25 : 3 . Van Overbergh, C . , ed. 1 907a. Les Bangala. Collection des monographies �hno­ graphiques 1 . Brussels: A de Wit. --- . 1907b. Les Mayombe. Collection de monographies ethnographiques 2. Brus­

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sels: A de Wit. Van Wing, J. 1938. Etudes Bakongo: Religion et magie. Institut royal colonial beige, Section des sciences morales et politiques, Mem. 9: 1 , Louvain. Vansina, 1. 1 973. The Tio kingdom of the Middle Congo 1880-1892. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Veriy, R. 1955. La statuaire de pierre du Bas-Congo (Bambome-Musserongo). Zaire. Vildmarkens var: Skildringarfran Kongo av infOcUa liirare. 1 928. Stockholm: Svenska MissionsfOrbunders Foriag. Ward, H. 1 890. Five years with the Congo cannibals. London: Chatto & Windus. --- . 1 9 10. A Voice from the Congo. London: William Heinemann. Weeks, J. 1 9 14. Among the primitive Bakongo. London: Seeley, Service & Co, Ltd. Westlind, P. A. 19 1 1 . Religiosa begrepp och fOrestiillningar bland Kongofolket. In Dagbriickning I Kongo. Stockholm: Svenska MissionsfOrbunders Foriag.

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Myth, H istory, and Political Identity

Jonathan Friedman History and discourse about the making of history is positional, that is, it is dependent upon where one is located in social reality, within society, and within global process. This is even applicable to the present discourse, which in no way represents an attempt to stand in some objective truth-sphere above or outside of the goings-on of the world. Objective history, just as any other history, is produced in a definitive context and is a particular kind of project. The discourse of history as well as of myth is simultaneously a discourse of identity; it consists of attributing a meaningful past to a structured present. An objectivist history is produced in the context of a certain kind of selfhood, one that is based on a radical separation of the subject from any particular identity, and which objectifies and textualizes reality. One logical expression of this is the neutralization of historical discourse in historiography. This i n turn leads fo . ' a truth-value representation of the past that is implicitly intolerant of anyth�rig that appea�s to distort the historical record "as it really happened." In peri�4� of general identity crisis, this may generate a vast literature debunking ', ti,n� . past. The logarithmic increase of work on the "invention of tradition" in the last few years is evidence of a supposed discovery of the inauthenticity of �ll people's histories. Although much of thi s work contains important insights into the way in which histories are socially constituted, it is striking that the academic representation of the truth becomes the criterion for evaluating other people's constructions of reality. Truth-value is a mode of academic being harboring its specific strategies, and these strategies are, thus, historically and geographically situated in the world system. In the following discussion, I examine the construction of histories as products of particular social positions. These social positions constitute the conditions of existence and fonnants of identity spaces or habitus, which in .' ' , . L , .' " , "

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Chapter 2

their turn select and organize specific discourses and organization of selfhood, including histories of the self. It is not my intention to pass judgment on the truth of such histories but, rather, to understand the interplay of factors involved in their production. Anthropologists have recently been forced to realize the political import of their own "objectivism." I have argued elsewhere that this is an aspect of the fragmentation of the world system in which peoples who were formerly "spoken for" are intensely engaged in defining themselves in their struggles for autonomy. I By bracketing out "truth-value," we can be­ gin to see more clearly the relation between making history and constructing identity.

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While in the beginning of the eighteenth century there are to be found only 10 grammars, by the end of the century the number reached 1 04; in the newly ap­ pearing habit of collecting antiques; and most important of all, it is manifested in the practice of "name-giving" that is giving Hellenic names to newborn babies or changing one's name into a Hellenic one: Thus it is reported that in 1 800 in a school at Kidonia the students agree to change their names into Hellenic ones and speak from now on only classical Greek; in 1 8 1 3 in Athens during a school celebration the schoolmaster was calling the students one by one, handing them a branch of olive tree, and addressing them as follows: "From now o n your name is not any longer John or Paul, but Pericles or Themistocles or Xenophon" (Michas 1 977:64, citing Dimaras 1 969:59). "A strange mania seems to have overtaken the Greeks: That of giving to th�m­ selves and their offspring hellenic names . . . our priests instead of baptizing our children and giving them the names of saints give them hellenic names. One hears even the coolies calling themselves Sokrates" (Michas 1 977 :65 , citing Dimaras 1 969: 60). Greek identity as a cultural phenomenon disappeared in the successive on­ slaughts of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires. The continuity be­ tween the population of Greece and its history was broken until the eighteenth century. Until then, Greeks were identified, and self-identified, as "Romans" (Romoioi) in the larger empires. The temporal continuity was established, fi­ nally, or reestablished by means o f a spatial discontinuity. Expatriate Greek merchants of the Ottoman Empire were led to rediscover ancient Greece via the Western European self-identity in which, from the Renaissance, Greece played a pivotal role as the place of origin of everything specifically Western, from science to democracy. Thus the discovery that "what is called the learning of Europe is the learning of our ancestors . . . this wisdom is a fruit of the Greek

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Myth, History, and Political Identity

91

earth which bad fortune uprooted and planted i n Europe" (Michas 1 977 : 67, citing Korais 1 962 3 :724).

The emergence of Greek national identity is linked to a curious yet systemic

combination of the emergence of an expatriate Greek merchant class linked to

the expanding plantation economy of Greece, and the emergence of a general European identity that rooted itself in the ancient Mediterranean. The growing cotton economy of Greece was the instrument of peripheralization within the

Western world system at the same time it led to a potentially national enclave within the Ottoman Empire. This process linked Greece to the European centers

as an economic periphery at the same time that it enabled the import, via

the new Greek elite, of a national identity from Western Europe. As such,

Greek national identity consisted in the importation and establishment of the

European identification of Greece, just as Greek history became the European history of the ancients.

History, then, is very much a mythical construction, in the sense that it is

a representation of the past linked to the establishment of a n identity in the present. The case of Greece is, perhaps, extreme for Europe, a real case of

regard de I ' autre,"

"le

of the definition of self by means of the other.

T H E PRESENT I N TH E PAST A N D T H E PAST IN TH E PRESENT In his attempt to establish a structuralist-informed historical anthropology, Marshall Sahlins has emphasized the ways in which cultural models organize

and are influenced by the larger social arenas in which they are implemented. In his critique of approaches that deny, on strictly logical grounds, the possi�

bility of the past existing in the present except by an act (necessarily political) in the present, he has made his case as follows: "Yet culture is precis�1Y the organization of the current situation in the terms of a past"

(Sahlllis

1 985: 155).

B u t if, as w e have seen, history is precisely the organization o f the past m. terms of the present situation (that is, the construction of identity ), then culture is the organization of the present

by the present.

in

terms of a past that is already organized

Sahlins ( 1 9 8 1 ) has used the word

mythopraxis

to refer to the enacting of

myth in reality thus creating historical metaphors of "mythical realities." I shall

offer an alternative use of the word, one in which history or rather stories of the past are constructed according to categorical schemes that are transferred from other domains. This is the practice of mythologization, rather than the

realization of myth in practice. The latter may occur in specific circumstances

where an emergent social identity manifests itself via the display of mythical

92

Chapter 2

models. Such circumstances occur at certain moments in the course of social movements, but they are always dependent upon a prior mythologization of the present. Thus, the formation of Greek national identity consists in the inter­ nalization of the way in which Western European intellectuals, in constructing their own "civilized" origins, identified Greece. Greek "history," in this way, became the basis of Greek self-definition. Throughout the Pacific, the Protestant missionaries of the nineteenth century implemented the myth of the lost tribes of Israel to account for the special attributes of the island peoples. This has been very much elaborated on by certain members of local populations who delight in telling of the migrations of their peoples, beginning in Israel, moving to Egypt, over the Indian Ocean, and so on. "Modem archeologists and historians of Hawaii have got it all wrong," I was told by one old leader of the Hawaiian community: The Hawaiians came from the Middle East, very likely from ancient Israel. The history of the migrations demonstrates that, and so much of our culture; our taboos, our cities of refuge. It's all there in Fornander2 if you don't believe the Hawaiians. There is nothing astounding in all of this when we consider that the Mormon­ affiliated Brigham Young University has undertaken many an archeological expedition in search of the lost tribes that are supposedly to be found among the Indians of South America. There is, of course, the officializing process that often turns such stories into history, as in the case of Fiji, where precisely such a migration story won a prize and became standardized history. Fantasies take on a durable reality when they are successfully communicated. And that communication is a constitutive act of cultural identity. The anthropologist may often be led into the usual superciliousness ofli'the supposed expert confronted by the (supposed) childish imagination of his sub­ jects. This has become somewhat of an institution in anthropology and also in history,3 that is, debunking the others ' representations of themselves on the basis of a presumed monopoly of the truth. B ut the truth is quite beside the point here and merely accentuates the ethnocentricity of even the most rel­ ativist of anthropologists. Instead, one must ask where the attraction lies in making such histories. In colonial situations there is a tendency among certain forms of hierarchical, kinship-organized societies to identify with the source of "life-force" that appears to come from the dominant power, and which el­ evates the status of those closest to such sources. Internalizing a myth that links Polynesians to the ancient Hebrews must be understood in such terms (that is, in terms of identity). What is important here is the content and not the comparative truth-value of histories. Although we may suppose that we go about things in a more objective manner, it can easily be argued that our own academic discourse is just as mythical as theirs.4 ,

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Myth, History, and Political Identity

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. The recounting, or perhaps accounting, of and for the past is an activity that must always be placed in its social context. When an anthropologist explains that the Hawaiians received Captain Cook as their god of fertility, he may well be reproducing a representation that emerged among the missionary-trained historians of the Hawaiian "constitutional" and "congregationalist" monarchy, a representation that attempted to establish a legitimate connection between the royalty and the British as well as to categorically negate the pre-Christian "superstitions" of Hawaii. The events of the early contact overflow with in­ terpretive possibilities. Europeans need to explain the death of Cook, man of the Enlightenment, at the hands of Hawaiian chiefs. Cultural anthropologists need to account for the scenario in terms of cultural categories and their im­ plied motivations Cook was in the right place at the right time to become a Hawaiian sacrifice of the god. But if he had not enacted his own practical myth of "kidnap the chief when the going gets rough," the outcome might have been very different. Whose story and for whom? Such are the questions that need to be asked of hi(s)-story.

A MYTH OF SOVE R E I G N TY A N D ITS POLITICAL H I STORY

Throughout Africa, Island Southeast Asia, Polynesia, and the highlands of South America there are strikingly similar myths of sovereignty. In skeleton form they state that in the beginning there were the indigenous people; they . were a religious community at one with nature, and if they had chiefs, they were religious priest-chiefs, true representatives of the people, generous patres familiarum to their societies. Then, at some designated point in time, came tne foreigners, the warrior chiefs, the sea people, the political chiefs, the huI'Il�.n sacrificers. The human sacrificers brought with them a new political ol',��r . . . . based on real dominance and expansion. Now in one way or another th��� new chiefs were socialized into the community, by wife-taking, ritual defe�t; and sacrifice. They were tamed, in part at least, but not without legitimately . . monopolizing political power. Such myths have traditionally inspired the most incredible of speculations as to the origin of the world 's primitive ruling classes. More recently, historians such as J. Vansina have made concerted efforts to locate the origins of the chiefly lineages of central Africa by carefully analyzing the "texts" of oral tradition. If it is said that the dominant clan crossed the river X in the East, it is necessary to find, i n methodologically meticulous ways, corroborating evidence as well as to eliminate stories about their coming across river Y in the West. This has led to some curious results, such as that one of the founders of the Kuba kingdom in central Africa was apparently a slave returned from the >"",<•

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Chapter 2

Americas with an ear of corn that became a focus of wonder and an instrument of symbolic, and ultimately real, power. 5

T H E STRUCTURAL BAS IS OF POLITICAL MYTH

As opposed to the formerly quite common "historical" interpretations of myths of political sovereignty, a number of structural and structuralist models have appeared in the past decade. For some anthropologists, like Luc de Heusch ( 1 972, 1 982) and, following him, Marshall Sahlins ( 1 958, 1 98 1 , 1 985), and in a different sense, Pierre Clastres ( 1 974), the origin myths of kingship are discourses on power, or rather variations of a single discourse. Royal power is the great world historical crime against the people; it is associated with incest; with fratri-, patri-, and matricide; with usurpation; and with mass murder of indigenous males by the foreigners. At the same time, the myth describes how the "stranger kings" are incorporated into the indigenous people, by their ritual death and sacrifice and by marriage. Thus, there was no invasion, in reality, and the story of conquest is, on the contrary, a statement of the nature of political power told in dynastic and heroic terms.

T H E HAWA I IAN VERSION

We have, thus far, seen how myths of the origin of "sacred" chiefship and kingship were once interpreted as the history of migration of ruling cla�ses, but are now increasingly seen i n more structural terms (that is, as true myths of the origin and thus the nature of political power). There is a particular Hawaiian variant of this myth that, in spite of interpretive problems, is adequate for our discussion: Paao was forced to quit his original hQmeland because of a quarrel with his older brother, Lonopele, a famous farmer. When Lonopele accused Paao's son of stealing some fruit, Paao opened the boy's stomach only to find he had been innocent. Enraged, Paao determined to leave his brother and had a canoe constructed for this purpose. By a ruse, Lonopele's own son was entrapped into a transgression of the canoe-building tabus, allowing Paao to offer him as the human sacrifice that would complete the work . . . Paao then sailed off with a number of men and (in certain versions) the feather god, Kuka'ilimoku (Ku-the-snatcher-of-the-island). Lonopele raised a series of storms ofthe "Kona" type (a winter storm) to destroy the canoe, but Paao successfully invoked schools of bonito (aku) and mackerel ,

Myth, History, and Political Identity

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(opelu) fish to calm the sea. Weathering other dangers sent by Lonopele, Paao fi­ nally reached Hawaii Island, where he constl'ucted certain famous temples. These were the first temples of human sacrifice, the rites presided over by the god Ku (of which Paao's feather god is an important form). In one version . . . Paao also slaughtered all the pre-existing priests. The political changes he simultaneously introduced are variously recounted. Either Hawaii was at that time without a chief, or it was being governed badly by the existing chief (sometimes identified as Kapawa). In the latter case, Paao deposed the chief, and by all accounts he installed a new ruler brought from Kahiki, Pilikaaiea. The Hawaii Island rulers trace to this chief (about 20 generations before Kamehameha). Apart from the temple form, human sacrificial rites and the feather god Kuka'ilimoku, Paao is also said to have brought image worship to Hawaii, as well as certain sacred insignia of the chieftainship and the prostration tabu accorded divine chiefs. (Sahlins 1 98 1 : 10- 1 1 ) 6

.

This story recapitulates the major themes discussed above: the foreign in­ vasion of godly chiefs, the violent establishment of a new kind of political regime, and marriage to local aristocratic women. In some versions it is said that the original or aboriginal regime was more egalitarian (in our terms) and the chiefs closer to their people? Polynesian history is a strange phenomenon for the Westerner. Anthropolo­ gists, in their modernist endeavorto neutralize the other's history and to incor­ porate it into our history of the other, have made their stories into myth. Myth for us, of course, is a symbol of the static, unchanging structure of otherness in its essence. Thus, we aretold thatthe origin of the god-chiefs in Kahiki is not a reference to Tahiti but to a more general other world or heaven where the sea meets the sky. For Hawaiians throughout the historical record this has not been a problem of the same order. Kahiki is in a very important sense Tahiti the consonant s�tft "t" to "k," also present in the Hawaiian kapu, as opposed to the more comm�h Polynesian tapu (on the "oldest" island of Kauai, the "t" is preserved). Bufif the chiefly ancestors of the Hawaiians are supposed to have come from Tahiti, the ancestors of the Maori are apparently from Savai'i. Now this may be the island in S amoa, but, via another sound shift, it is equivalent to Hawaii. And the great migratory legend of West Polynesia is called Hawaiiki. There is, of course, no disputing the voyaging capabilities of the ancient Polynesians, and on that basis it can be assumed that the mythology of Polynesian chiefly foundations might capture the deep historicity of Polynesian social reality rather than pinpoint actual origins. The reality of the myth of sovereignty is present enough in Hawaiian history. The last prophet of the pre-Christian era, Kapihe, spoke the following words, <.

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during the reign of Kamehameha I, in a period of great political upheaval that was destined to end the old regime of theocratic power. 8 "E hui ana na moku e

hiolo ana na kapu akua e iho mai ana ko ka lani a e pi'i aku ana ko ka honua" (The islands will be united, the taboo of the gods overthrown, those of the heavens [chiefs] will be brought low and those of the earth [commoners] will be raised up.) (Kamakau 1 964:7). In some reports it i s stated that the Hawaiian commoners, the maka 'ainana, did not participate in temple rituals, which for them were the foreign activities of the ruling elite. The original rulers of Hawaii, as opposed to the Tahitian aristocracy, were said to have governed through kinship with the people, and by means of aloha rather than by human sacrifice. There is a series of oppositions here between aloha and violence: reciprocity or, rather, sharing (which is not at all the same thing) instead of appropriation; fertility versus destruction and warfare; the god of the "people" and of peace and fertility, Lono, versus the god of warfare and human sacrifice, Ku. Hawaiian traditions recount the real conflicts between the commoners and their chiefs and the cases in which overbearing chiefs were simply done away with by their subjects: Many kings have been put to death by the people because of their oppression of the maka 'ainana (commoners). The following kings lost their lives on account of their cruel exactions on the commoners: Kaihala was put to death of Kau, for which reason the district of Kau was called Weir (Makaha). Kuka-i-ka-lani was an alii (chief) who was violently put to death in Kau . . . . It was this reason that some of the ancient kings had a wholesome fear of the people. (Malo 1 97 1 : 1 95) F

Certain districts, such as Ka'u, Hawaii, which were among the poorer areas, were famous for their intolerance of aristocrats. This intolerance is still very much in evidence. What was formerly a source of commoner insubordination is also one of the present strongholds of the Hawaiian movement, which has u sed road blocks and other forms of opposition to prevent implementation of the development insanity that has destroyed much of the other islands. Currently it is the source of the Pele Defence Fuhd, a group fighting the establishment of geothermal power stations in the area on the grounds they would desecrate the body of Pele, the volcano goddess. There is , then, a tradition of conceiving an antagonism between commoners and aristocrats that is not merely a symbolic statement of the origin of chiefly power but a politically active discourse. In the current myth of the origin of classical autocratic Hawaiian society, the entire political organization is seen as an import from Kahiki, a word that is, in phonemic terms, identical with the island of Tahiti, but that means or, perhaps, has come to mean "land beyond the horizon."

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Myth, History, and Political Identity

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Paao changed it. Paao came from Kahiki. . . . Kahiki is beyond the horizon . . . it could be anywhere. The word does not have to mean Tahiti. . . . The Hawaiian opens his eyes and as far as the eye can see anybody come from there come from Kahiki. He brought the ali 'i, he brought the class system. He brought idol worship, he brought the class system. He brought idol worship, he brought tikis [idols), he brought sacrifice. He brought priesthood-separation of man and woman, he brought war and heiaus [stone temples]. He also brought gods who were against Hawaiian gods. (Hawaiian leader in Ka 'u, interview, 1985)

The core of the story concerns the contrast between an original Hawaiian society based on "equality," solidarity, and a holistic relation between man and nature and the advent of chiefly power, or of power in general. The use of the notion of "equality" is important to understand here. In one very impor­ tant sense it refers to a political contrast employed by Hawaiians themselves, which has its primary meaning in the fie ld of modern Western discourse. But the word does not refer to the absence of hierarchy as in the usual Western sense. On the contrary, hierarchical order plays a central role in both the struc­ ture of the ohana and in representations of pre-Kahiki society. This hierarchy, andits accompanying authority, is based on aloha, o n love for the people, on a generosity that flows from love and not from a principle of exchange, and on a possession of spiritual force, or mana, that belongs to the group as a whole. It contrasts with an exploitative power based on the absolute separation of chiefs from the people, on an absolute rupture whereby the chiefly projects become disconnected from those of the larger society. Political power is imported, as in the myths we have discussed, from a foreign land. But for Hawaiians, ap­ parently for at least 1 50 years, the myth has imprinted itself upon real political : ., discourse. The rebellious district of Ka'u which, quite remarkably, has maintait1.�p: an anti-aristocratic culture to the present is also well known for the locah� :�'l;" of Pele, goddess of the volcano, associated with the land and with the comm6n people, maka ' ainana, or kama ' aina, children of the land. 9 A local leader (interview, 1 985) expresses, in his own terms, the contribution of his district to Hawaiian political ideology today.

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We 've killed three kings in Ka'u . . . in our history, and I don't !.low anybody else that killed any of their ali'is, but we've killed three for fuckin' up ! And in all of Hawaii you going to find that only in Ka' u that they have killed three of their ali 'is because they had attitudes. That's why Kamehameha no can come over here. Kamehameha never conquered Ka' u. . . . Never win this place . . . kill him if he come here. Didn't like him . . . he was a turkey. You no can say you are king without aloha.

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T H E O R I G I N S OF PARA D I S E

I f the foreign chiefs of Kahiki brought a reign o f terror, human sacrifice, and warfare to Hawaii, how was it before the deluge? Here there is no absolutely clear model of an indigenous society, but there is certainly a list of key terms. Aloha, the generalized fusion of love and generosity that characterizes close family relations, is the founding principle. Ghana, extended family, is the basic form of social organization, an "egalitarian" reciprocal sodality. There are no tiki, or idols, to be worshipped, nor any flock of heroic deities. There are only two beings : Ku and Hina (or, for some, Kanaloa and Hina), the male and female principles. They are represented respectively by an upright (phallic) stone and a flat stone. They embody a male-female unity expressing the fertility of land and sea. The people were at one with nature, it is said; there was no need for tiki or for any kind of representation of the gods, because they were in direct contact with divine force. There were chiefs, but they ruled by means of aloha; they were the fathers of their people and did not form a social class with a separate project. The origins of these posited origins are a problem in themselves, insofar as they cannot be based on any direct experience of a society that preceded the aristocratic polity of the contact epoch. The image of a pre-Kahiki-based polity is very much more in accordance with the social and cultural nexus that emerged in the nineteenth century following the disintegration of the Hawai­ ian kingdom as it was successively integrated into the world system. The nineteenth century witnessed a population collapse in Hawaii, from perhaps 600,000 according to recent estimates (Stannard 1 989) to 50,000; an encroach­ ing plantation economy and society; and a monarchy that fell entirely int()llthe hands of an American colonial elite. The rapidly dwindling Hawaiian common­ ers grouped themselves in rural areas in increasingly closed corporate groups, a process documented for other parts of the globe in this period (Wolf 1 957). The internal structure of such corporations stressed the values of community, of a "generalized reciprocity," of ohana, and of aloha, in opposition to the outside world, the world of exploitation and negative reciprocity. This culture of internal generosity, an economy of sharing, and the ideology and practice of aloha aina, "love of the land," is a culture that emerged most clearly in the last century but is today posited as the indigenous Hawaiian value system. That these values, however, are today represented as those of indigenous Hawaii cannot simply be dismissed as the "invention of culture" at some late date, as we shall see. These Hawaiian stories of their past are divided into two generic periods. One is characterized by a kind of clan solidarity and unity with nature, a localized but not anarchic political setting in which sacred chiefs were at one

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with their people and not overlords, and a religion that was totally embedded

in the direct communication with a sacred natural world. Following this is the

migratory period, when the new chiefs arrived from Tahiti or Kahiki with their

gods of war and human sacrifice. The coming of the Europeans and then the Americans are all simple reiterations of the same theme of foreign conquest.

Just as the Polynesian conquerors did, the Euro-Americans brought new gods with them, too. The most recent conquerors would appear to be the Japanese.

Each foreign wave is a mere reenactment of the original migration.

AUTH ENTICITY A N D T H E CONSTRUCTION OF H ISTORY The construction of history is generated by, and is constitutive of, social iden­

tity. The history of historians is the identity of historians as well. It is the definition of a practice that typifies its practitioners. Although our history may

appear to us to be very much more than that, as its function is to delineate the reality of

other populations and their cultural bodies, there is no

adequate

way of circumventing this social constraint without retreating into a false in­

tellectualist objectivism. The historical space of the West includes, of course,

the events that are grouped under the heading of Hawaiian history. On the basis of texts from the voyages of Captains Cook, Vancouver, and others, the

Hawaiians' own history can be and has been challenged. ID So when the West­

ern anthropologist or historian attacks the Hawaiian view of their own past,

this must be understood as a struggle for the monopoly of identity. Who is to

be able to render an adequate version of history? The anthropologist defines

his or her professional identity in relation to a specific ethnographic or his­

torical anthropological corpus of which he or she has the right to speak :by .

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virtue of professional canons of mastery. When the "ob ject" begins to defi: � '.' itself, anthropologists are likely to find themselves in an identity crunch

a,�d"

so ensues a struggle, or else a quick escape to another island group, anotlil�r ' library, another "object." I have argued elsewhere that the emergence of lo�al

cultural movements that accompanied the decline

in a hegemonic modernist

identity has brought this problem to the fore. Academics have begun their as­

sault on "native" self-representations as quickly as they have now begun to be reconstituted in the upsurge of local cultural identities.

Hawaiians, who all but vanished from the cultural face o f the earth, were

the sub ject of pessimistic acculturation studies during most of the twentieth century. And where there has been an academic longing for something more

exotic,

really cultural,

there was always the distant past. Thus, in the recent

turn to roots and historical cultural reconstructionism, the history of ancient

Hawaii has become a focus of attention. Embedded in the ethnographic, as in

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the historiographic, act is the textual bias that somehow there is a Hawaiian essence that can be located before Westernization made a mess of things. As the mess is highly unethnographic, one must return to the pristine precontact material, or at least to intimations of that material. This implies that the recon­ struction of essential Hawaiian culture must necessarily adhere to the truths defined by the early contact literature, or in this case, to those later mission­ ized Hawaiian historians whose image of their culture contains the models for organizing that literature. The gospel of Cook becomes the sourcebook for aboriginal Hawaii, something that might, furthermore, be monopolized by the anthropologist in his or her research library. This strategy entails, further, that any local Hawaiian reconstruction could only be interpreted as mythical and thus inauthentic. For the Hawaiians themselves, the situation, as we shall see, was and is very different. The confrontation is striking. "The resulting ver­ sion of Hawaiian culture does not correspond to a specific time period. In the cultural revival, isolated facts have been transformed into symbols of Hawai­ ianness and accorded a significance without precedent in aboriginal Hawaiian society" (Linnekin 1 983:243). Here the anthropologist struggles gallantly to defend the true essence of the Hawaiian past against the onslaught of the modem de-cultured Hawaiian who may "wax sentimental" or "wax poetic" about one or another aspect of his or her supposed cultural heritage. What is the position expressed i n such statements? It might be suggested that it is one that defines culture as an external text, code, or paradigm external to a universal methodological individual who plays at distinct "games" or forms of life that are presupposed to be different from our own. Hawaiian culture is a "game" once played by authentic Hawaiians but that as a result of Western expansion no longer exists. Modern Hawaiians call1hot play such games any longer, not unless they go and learn the rules. And only the anthropologist knows the rules. In any case, there are no real Hawaiians anymore, since they have lost not only their culture, but even the "purity" of their genetic base, being all mixed up with many different immigrant groups that have come to their shores. As there are no longer any real Hawaiians , culture specialists are the only possible custodians o f their fonner way o f life.

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I D E NTITY AND THE PRACTICE OF MYTH

What are the elements that enter into the Hawaiian construction of Hawaiian history? The first that we have documented is that there is apparently early contact tradition concerning the relation between the aristocracy and the com­ monersthatassertsthatthe former are real usurpers who shall one day be ousted so that the people can return to their old ways. The metaphorical extension of

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this representation to cover Euro-American colonialism needs n o further dis,

CUSSlOn. The structural basis of this particular variant of the more general myth of sovereignty is not easy to discover, but it might be suggested that Hawaiian society was transformed in such a way as to promote the Gramscian inversion to which we have referred. In western Polynesia, for example, as in Central Africa and Eastern Indonesia, similar definitions of power are associated with exogamous aristocracies; a lesser degree of exploitation, especially between different lineage groupings; and an open exchange, including marriage, be­ tween ranks. However, the Hawaiian aristocracy of the late period was highly endogamous, violently exploitative, constantly at war, and the adamant enemy of regular exchange between ranks. It is reasonable to suppose in such a situa­ tion that the myth of the "stranger king" would take on a more convincing aura of reality for commoners. The prophet, Kapihe, might certainly have sensed this , after a decade of sandalwood trade that virtually decimated the Hawaiian commoner population while their a/i 'i moved to town, to Honolulu, where they engaged in all sorts of conspicuous consumption based on the commoners' efforts. The second element, or condition, is the formation, following the demo­ graphic collapse of the Hawaiian population, of a plantation society that be­ came increasingly multi-ethnic, where dwindling numbers of Hawaiians lived in communities that isolated themselves and took on the characteristics of closed corporate units within which the values of sharing, "equality," extended family, and love for the land, aloha 'aina, became the salient parameters of a cultural identity. The third condition emerged inthe current Hawaiian movement itself, after a century and a half of virtual ethnocide in which Hawaiians lost their populat. l9h · . . and their land, and in which even their wa y of life (in the sense of their was forbidden. Those who began to re-identify as Hawaiians had to " . a number of sources. There was the objectified knowledge to be . ' the libraries and the museums. There was also the enormous fund of Dral knowledge that could be gotten from the kupuna, the old people, whose roots lay not in the eighteenth century but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The above conditions have no organizational force i n themselves. Here it is necessary to look at contemporary conditions of existence to grasp the moti­ vations and desires that have molded Hawaiian selfhood. There are common experiences of the world uniting rural and urban Hawaiians, if not middle-class intellectuals, and based on the similarity of community forms, socialization, language, and sociality. These are the specific conditions of habitus formation that are, in their turn, generative of certain ways of relating to the world. These "

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ways of relating to the world, expressed as strategies, order the way in which the disparate elements of Hawaiian culture are appropriated and interrelated in the constitution of a cultural identity. And in such terms, what appear as disparate elements of Hawaiian tradition imported kava ceremonies, luaus, including "foreign introductions" (Handler and Linnekin 1984:284) such as lomi lomi salmon, ukulele, and slack key guitars which are assembled into a hodgepodge that is clearly "selective" and "may be consciously shaped to promote solidarity in the present" (Handler and Linnekin 1984:283), are in reality systemically interrelated by the same habitus that performs the above selection. And insofar as the social conditions of nineteenth- and twentieth­ century Hawaiians contain the transformation of precolonial social forms , it is not really correct to argue that "the origin of cultural practices is largely irrel­ evant to the experience of tradition," or that tradition consists in "an arbitrary symbolic designation" (Handler and Linnekin 1984:286).11 I t has been argued similarly, contrary to the culturalist notion that cultural identity is no more than "conscious models of past lifeways," that they are firmly "grounded in unconscious experience of ongoing social networks and in the parts one has to play and ideals one has to hold to succeed within these networks" (D ' Amato 1987: 189). This is crucial to understanding the differ­ ence between the anthropologist and the Hawaiians. The former, inhabiting an individualist universe in which all culture is ultimately disenchanted because it is "arbitrary," expresses conditions of social existence based upon the sepa­ ration of the subject from the universe of meaning that he or she produces or engages. This takes the anthropological form of culture as text-program-rules, the unauthentic, as opposed to the romantic vision of gemeinschaft, or genuine culture. However fashionable it has now become, finally, to obliterate the rt­ mantic vision by claiming that all culture, all history, all tradition is similarly constructed and therefore unauthentic, there is a serious gap in the argument. Sapir and even Tonnies would never have disputed the constructed nature of cultu·re. The truth-value of tradition was never at issue. Rather the authenticity to which they refer is of an existential nature, in the relation between cultural producers and their products. This in turn is related to differences in the way the subject is constituted. In a context where the subject' s identity is embedded in , or dependent upon, a larger encompassing set of relations, the objects, which to us may appear as mere symbols, are in fact constitutive of the participant 's identity. Thus, although it is certainly the case that the history constructed by Hawaiians in the process of forging an identity consists in the attribution of meaning to the world, this attributive practice is driven by a structure of desire and motivation that is embedded in a specifically Hawaiian reality, one that is in its turn conditioned by local, regional, and global social and economic processes.

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The conditions of Hawaiian existence appear in the form of constraints that guide the strategy of history making. And this history making consists, in Western terms , in transferring the model of nineteenth-century Hawaiian culture to the dawn of history and treating what Europeans think of as classical Hawaiian society as just the first of several imports. Hawaiian-Hawaiian history is thus the inversion of European-Hawaiian history. It takes the modem for the ancient and the "ancient" for the beginning of the modem. Ku was just used. . . . And they even created an image . . . . Call him on differ­ ent names, Kuka'ilimoku. 12 . . . And they trying to say that was part of Ku'skino laus,13 a tiki to fight, to stand certain times of the year. . . . Or maybe Ku was dominant at that time all over the world. Was they Ku'in all over at that time? Early seventeen, sixteen hundreds . . . everyone was out looking for property. All Europe had boats out . . . Spanish was out there. Fifteen hundreds everybody started lookin' for that gold. Who was dominant, real heavy, seventeen hundreds with Kamehameha? . . . It was Ku all over the world! Who was he. What we got to call him ali'i, king. Bullshit! The Napoleon of the Pacific, the Julius Caesar of Hawaii. (interview in Ka'u, 1 985)

This politicization of the myth of Hawaiian sovereignty was powerful enough to impres s itself upon the standard version of Hawaiian history as written by the white colonialists. The renowned volumes by Abraham Foman­ der, An Accoun t o/ the Polynesian Race: Its Origins and Migrations (1 969), first published in the 1 800s, which have been used as a standard reference up to the present, recount a similar version of the original Hawaiians followed by a period of migration and the establishment of the Hawaiian chiefly dynasties from Tahiti. 14 Needless to say, Fomander is one of the authors most appreciated by modern Hawaiians who are consci ously engaged in studying their past. El:� is very often cited as the foremost authority on Hawaiian history in cont���� to more recent archeologists who have based their models of Hawaiian soci'�l evolution on modern anthropological theory. 15 MYTHOLOGY AS TH E POLITICS OF HISTORY

The common understanding of history, peculiar to modem Western society, is one that consists of a stream of events, a temporal continuum whose empirical existence is unquestionable. One might well argue that the temporal continuum punctuated by great events is our own mythology, but I shall not attempt to do that here. 16 It is only necessary to point out that exercises in the deconstruction of events that turn out, on closer examination, to be heavily interpreted (for example, the French Revolution and otherrevolutions) demonstrate the degree

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to which they are integral parts ofthe way in which we forge and reinforce our own identity. Greek national identity was created out of a European cosmology that placed ancient Greece at the summit of the ancestry of Western civilization. The establishment of a particular history was the work of identity construction , both for Europe and for Greece as an emergent periphery in the European world system. Greek nationalists found their past in the institutional memory of expanding Europe. The Greek past was not opposed to the expansionism of the present but was seen as its democratic, individualist, and commercial foundation. Ancient Greece was the essence of the modern, of everything that was positive in the present and hoped for in the future, its philosophy and science as well as its politics. These concerns of the cultural elites of Europe as well as those of their Mediterranean vassals formed the selective environment for the particular version of Greek history that was destined to become official. Hawaiian history is constructed out of entirely different circumstances. It is, contrary to Greek history, based on an identity entirely opposed to Western modernity. If the former finds its source in the European imagination of its own past, the latter finds its sources in the real experience of the context of Euro-American domination. Greek history internalizes the external gaze of its European other, making Greece, in this fashion, the ancestor of Europe instead of a mere political and economic periphery. And it was, o f course, forged by a peripheral elite. Hawaiian history extricates itself from Western dominance by projecting a value system produced in the modern context onto an aboriginal past. This kind of history would seem to have some kind of systemic basis among the colonized peoples of the world. African socialism and American Indian egalitarian and "ecological" values are projected onto the past as Ifhe essence of cultural traditions that can be brought back to life by breaking with the present. The Western historical reality may, however, be very much the inverse of these representations, however irrelevant this must prove to be. If history is largely mythical, it is because the politics of identity consist in anchoring the present in a viable past. The past is, thus, constructed according to the conditions and desires of those who produce historical texts in the present. This is as true of our own history as of anyone else' s.

N OTES

1 . Roger Keesing, who has been a major force in developing an analysis of cultural movements in terms of the politics of identity and especially the way in which colonial classifications may be turned against colonial powers by those so classified, has himself been the target ofrecent criticism by native activists (Keesing 1 989, 1 991). This is partly

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due to a Gramscian cognitivism that tends to view all culture as misrepresentation. Thus, in spite of his important contributions to an understanding of the politics of representation, he does not consider that this extremely "disenchanted" view oftradition is largely irrelevant to the practice of identity, which has nothing whatsoever to do with questions of truth-value. If all cultural representations are false, then so is this one. For Hawaiians, anthropologists in general (and Keesing in particular) are part ofthe colonizing horde because they seek to take away from us the power to define who and what we are, and how we should behave politically and culturally (Trask 199 1 : 1 62). 2. Abraham Fornander, a Swede by origin, who was a judge in Hawaii during the second half of the nineteenth century, is well known for his massive historical scholarship concerning Polynesia, which includes, among other works, The Polynesian Race ( 1969) and the enormous edited work, Hawaiian Antiquities ( 19 1 6). 3 . Whose subjects are, thankfully, dead and cannot protest the historian's vision of reality. 4. See Bernal's BlackAthena (1987) for a powerful example ofthe relation between European identity and academic discourse. 5. This version was presented by Vansina in a seminar given at University Col­ lege London in the spring of 1974. I have not found any published reference to this interpretation, so it is possible that it did not survive subsequent discussions. 6. This passage from Sahlins's Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities (198 1 ) should not be mistaken for a single myth even though it appears in small print offset from the surrounding text as if it were a quotation. In fact, it is Sahlins's own collation and paraphrase of a number of sources and a selective condensation of themes that are relevant to his discussion. The variants of the Paao legend do, however, differ substantially on a number of points. The opposition between Paao and Lonopele is quite ambivalent in one version in which Paao implores Lonokaheo to become rul­ ing chief in Hawaii (Beckwith 1 974:372-73). In versions collected by Fornander, both Paao and his ruling chief Pilikaieia come from western Polynesia-from Upolu and/or Vavau in Samoa, and Tonga, respectively (Fornander 1969 2:33-34). 7. The aboriginal state, however, may also be referred to negatively in terms qf political anarchy (egalitarian) and a general lack of order. , . 8. The kapu system, as it is called, which was the basis of sacred power in Hawaii. was formally ended by an event that has even been referred to as a cultural revolution in which the second king of all the islands, Kamehameha 11 (Liholiho), conceding to the demands of his very authoritarian mother Kahamanu, and after consuming a large quantity of rum, partook of a meal together with her, thus breaking a principal kapu and signaling the royal rejection of the former basis of power. This unleashed a short civil war that was won by the Kahamanu faction with Euro-American military aid, driving many priests underground and paving the way for the soon-to-arrive missionaries as well as for a core of Hawaiian cultural opposition. It should be noted that the abolition of the kapu law occurred in a situation in which the basis of aristocratic power was already embedded in world trade, Western credit, and Western military presence. 9. Pele is the famous goddess ofthe volcano. The Island of Hawaii is known even today for its active volcanoes, especially Mauna Loa and Kilauea, the latter of which

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is the dwelling place of the goddess. Pele today represents the land and the people of the land even if she, too, comes·from Kahiki. She is associated with the sacredness of the land and the defense of the people. 10. It would be more correct to say that the Hawaiians' version oftheir own history remains as a subaltern challenge to the dominant institutionalized discourse of museums and universities. 1 1 . In later publications the continuity-in-transformation is developed in more detail (Friedman 1998). 12. Kuka'ilimoku, "Ku-the-island-snatcher," is the most aggressive form that can be taken by the generic phallic god of war and the sea, Ku. 1 3 . Kino lau means "image" and refers to the different forms that can be taken by a more general phenomenon, or to the representation of one form in another. The meaning of the word Kane, one ofthe major gods, is simply "man," and man is the kino lau of Kane, just as Kane is a kind of generic man. The different forms of the major gods, of which there are very many indeed, represent different concrete manifestations or aspects of the more general forms. 14. The original was published in the years 1 87 8 , 1 880, and 1 8 8 5, in three separate volumes. Fornander, who served as circuit judge in the islands, was a good friend of the royal family. The work itself took many years to complete and was based on extensive oral historical research into the traditions of the various Hawaiian islands, Although steeped in the oral traditions of Hawaii, Fornander does not reproduce the opposition between a pre- and a post-Tahitian political era, maintaining a more thor­ oughgoing migratory vision in which earlier dynasties are replaced by later ones. This has come down to us in notions of an earlier Marquesan migration and a later Tahitian migration. 15. The Hawaiians' own histories are decidedly nonevolutionary, as opposed to the current academic versions thattreat Hawaii as a test case of internal evolution from a more egalitarian to a quasi-state society without outside contact of any significaIlce (Cordy 198 1 ; Kirch 1984; Sahlins 1 958). 16. For a discussion see Friedman (1985).

REFERENCES

Beckwith, M. W. 1940. Hawaiian mythology. New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press. Bernal, M. 1987. Black Athena. The Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization, vol. 1 : The fabrication of ancient Greece 1 785-1985. London: Free Association Books. Clastres, P. 1974. La societe contre I 'etat. Paris: Minuit. Cordy, R . H. 198 1 . A study ofprehistoric social change. New York: Academic Press. D ' Amato, R. 1987. "We Cool Tha's Why": A study of personhood and place in a class of Hawaiian second graders. Ph.D. diss., University of Hawaii at Manoa. de Heusch, L. 1972. Le roi ivre ou I 'origine de l 'etat. Paris: Gallimard. . 1982. Rois nes d' un coeur de vache. Paris: Gallimard. ---

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Myth, History, and Political Identity

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Dimaras, K. T. 1969. L'apport de l' Aufkllirung au developpement de la conscience neo-hellenique. In La Grece au temps des lumieres. Geneva: Droz. Fomander, A . 1 9 1 6-1919. Memoirs, vols. 4-6. Fomander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folklore. Honolulu: Bemice P. Bishop Museum Press. . 1969 [ 1 878]. An account of the Polynesian race: Its origins and migrations, vols. 1-3. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle. Friedman, J. 1985. Civilizational cycles and the history of primitivism. Social Analysis 14 (December): 3 1-52. Handler, R., and 1. Linnekin. 1984. Tradition, genuine or spurious. Journal ofAmerican Folklore 97: 273-290. Kamakau, S. 1964. Ka po'e kahiko: The people of old. Honolulu: Bemice P. Bishop Museum Press. Keesing, R. 1 989. Creating the past: Custom and identity in the contemporary Pacific. Contemporary Pacific 1 ( 1-2): 1 9-42. . 1 99 1 . Reply to Trask. Contemporary Pacific 3(1): 168-17 1 . Kirch, Patrick V. 1984. The evolution ofPolynesian chiefdoms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korais, A. 1964. Collected works [A7t�'V'T�'nx7tpo'Tw'TV7t�£py�]. Athens: Valetas. Linnekin, J. 1983. Defining tradition: Variations on the Hawaiian identity. American Ethnologist 10: 241-52. Malo , D. 1971 [ 1 95 1]. Hawaiian antiquities. 2nd edition. Special Publication, 2. Hon­ olulu: Bemice P. Bishop Museum Press . Michas, P. M. 1977. From "Romios " to "Hellene " (or "Greek"): A study in social discontinuity. Phil. Cand. thesis. Institute of Ethnography and Social Anthropology, Arhus University, Arhus, Denmark. Sahlins, M . 1958. Social stratification in Polynesia. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ---,. 198 1 . Historical metaphors and mythical realities: Structure in the early history of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press . 1985 . Islands of history. Chicago: Chicago University Press . Stannard, B. 1 989. Before the horror: The population of Hawaii on the eve of Weste'rn " '" contact. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Trask, H. K. 1 99 1 . Natives and anthropologists: The colonial struggle. Contemporary Pacific 3(1): 1 59-167. Wolf, E. 1957 . Closed corporate communities i n Mesoamerica and central Java. Southe western Journal ofAnthropology 1 3 : 1-1 8 . ---

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Wil l the Real H awaiian Please Stand? Anth ropologi sts and N at i ves i n the G l obal Stru gg l e fo r Identity

Jonathan Friedman There is a certain discourse that seems prevalent among Pacific anthropologists

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of late. It is concerned not so much with what people do, with their motives and with the conditions of their action, but rather with how what they do and say ought to be classified, more specifically in terms of degrees of authenticity. This turn toward the conscious identification of others, and often of anguish about one's own identity, is not just one of those things. But, it might be countered, we are studying it because "they" are doing it. And of course this is also true. TIle Pacific, like other parts of the world, is very much engaged in a vast process of self-identification. TIle focus on identity is not simply an anthropological issue but an issue for those that we study as welL A coincidence? Not at all . Rather it is a sign thatwe . � are an involved in this situation. TIle Balkanization of Eastern Europe and l�� former Soviet Union, the subnational revivals of Western Europe, the etli�tc battles raging in large parts of the world, and the new and old fundamentalisrns, or rather politicizations, of religious identity are all occurring in parallel w!th the rise of Fourth World movements: movements for indigenous rights, either to protect those that exist or to establish those that h ave never existed, either to maintain an existence or to re-establish one. The new identity movements and their aftermath are, I have argued, part ofthe decline of the hierarchical structure of modem identity space, part of the decline of the hegemony of modernist identity. And the latter is a reflex of the decline of Western hegemony in the world arena, a real decentralization of linkages and the emergence, however temporary it may prove to be, of a multicentric accumulation of capital. 1 Anthropologists' reactions to this state of affairs have been of several dif­ ferent types. In a previous article (Friedman 1 992), I attempted to characterize "".... ' -,

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The identity space of modernity as expressed in the polarities of anthropological discourse

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these reactions in terms of a fourfold set of polarities that were homologous with the fourfold poles of modernity (figure 3 . 1). I have argued that the position of the anthropologist, especially i n relation to his empirical data, was one of an interlocutor, a representative of the "other" here at home. This is a relation of authority in its very nature, one in which the anthropologist is supposed to have in his possession the ethnographic and/or historical truth . This is not a question of theory and interpretation, but of fact about what really happened. The post-modem account of events is more . interesting, perhaps, insofar as it may include a number of voices, but the authority of the anthropologists is still present insofar as a specific image of multivocality organizes the representation. Thus, Clifford's in many ways excellent description of the Mashpee Indian trial (Clifford 1988), for all of its various voices, does not necessarily convey the relation of the legal system to the Mashpee claims, and it would be entirely overturned if it were discovered, in some other voice, that there was an undisputable truth about the Mashpee relation to the lands that they claim. Genre and authority are quite separate in the reality of social interaction. An "egalitarian" text is perfectly compatible with the authoritarian and hierarchical context of its display, and may thus have the same social effects. Postmodernism could never have become a source of academic mobility otherwise. This implies that the anthropologist is always in a position of potential competition with those that he studies, with regard to ethnographic truth. This potential is a structural reality, whether or not a conflict actually results. The discourse of authenticity, of "the politics of tradition," is very much an outcome of this relation. And in the Pacific it is especially strong, because inthe Pacific there are today a great many native (if I may use the term) movements that are occupied with self-identification and, by extension, what anthropologists call the "creation" or "invention" of culture. But the politics of traditiol1'is a tricky business, and it may say more about the politics of anthropologytJ.r� about the politics of those that anthropologists are increasingly confronti�g in a new arena of self-definition. The anthropologist, and anthropology as a whole, is implicated in this larger arena, and no proper understanding of the current situation is possible without including anthropology as an object of analysis.

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G LOBAL PROCESS A N D THE STRUGGLE FOR I D ENTITY

I have argued that the situation described above is a product of a crisis of fragmentation in the world system, one that is expressed in the decline of modernism and the polarization of identities in the center of the system,

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as well as a combination of cultural renaissance and a cultural politics of dependency in the peripheries.2 But the fragmentation and the subsequent en­ gagement in such new movements is based on a strong continuity as well. It is the latter that has become the bone of contention for anthropologists whose own identity would appear to be at stake. I shall throw light on this problem by mapping out the emergence of different positions in this field of identifications.

HAWA I I AN I D ENTITY A N D TH E CONTI N U ITY OF RESISTANCE

Cultural identity only emerges under conditions of contrast, most often condi­ tions of opposition. Hawaiian resistance has a history very much longer than its current press coverage, and in that resistance, under the greatly transformed conditions of Hawaiians in the nineteenth century, we can discover a great many continuities in what might be called Hawaiian culture. The global pro­ cess of integration of the islands into American hegemony led to entirely new institutional structures, but fundamental aspects of Hawaiian sociality main­ tained themselves, albeit in novel forms. And a number of new "traditions," if the term must be used, emerged in this period, not as mere novelties , but as transformations and adaptations to new conditions of existence. While it is difficult to ascertain at what point Hawaiian collective identity emerged, there is evidence that its contours became increasingly clear throughout the mid-nineteenth century. Beginning in the 1 820s, there was an open opposition to missionary morality on the part of a faction of the ruling aristocracy. It must be understood that fhis was in a situation of opposition between two factions of the ruling elite itself. The marriage alliance between king Kamehameha I and Ka'ahumanu was one between Hawaiian and Maui chiefly lines (S ahlins 1 98 1 :60-64; Valeri 1 982; Ralston 1 985). The latter were increasingly charged with foreign relations under the reign of Kamehameha, leading ultimately to a power imbalance in the new royal house. The split between the Maui faction and the Hawaii faction seems to have played a pivotal political role in the 1 820s and 1 830s. The coming of the missionaries and their alliance with the Maui group, the placing of Queen Ka' ahumanu 's close relatives in the most important positions, that is, as governors, in Hawaii and then i n Oahu, after Boki, a more distant relative and opponent of the Christians, disappeared in the South Seas. It is surely no coincidence that the missionaries had their center in Lahaina and that the latter became the second capital of Hawaii. The relation between Ka' ahumanu and Liholiho (her son Kamehameha II) extended into the next reign as K a'ahumanu's sister's daughter (with ,

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Kamehameha I) Kina' u remained regent when Kamehameha III was invested at his young age. Here, the opposition is expres sed in the life of the Kamehameha III ma, a gang of young men in the entourage of the young king. Their drink­ ing and orgiastic partying were shocking to the Calvinist missionaries. This group of men called themselves the hulumanu, "bird feathers," which refers to the famous feathered cloaks worn by the royalty. They were renowned for their open and direct resistance to missionary morality, and for several drives to revive ancient pastimes, such as hula, medicine, and rituals. Much of the opposition to the converted and pious members of the royalty was expressed in symbolic terms, in extravagance, public drinking, or in offensive acts. One such example is Kamehameha III burying his pet baboon in a coffin with a proper Christian ceremony (Daws 1 968 :92). In July 1 834, the king publicly slept with his sister N ahi' ena' ena as part of an attempt to claim the right to rule and to achieve a union as sacred as that of the high chiefs of old. The missionary faction denounced the union. A year later, Nahi'ena'ena returned to the missionary fold in Lahaina and married a lesser chief. Her remorse was great. A son was born in 1 8 3 6 but died within hours, and Nahi'ena'ena herself died shortly thereafter. The hulumanu seem to have disappeared by the 1 850s. There were a number of prophetic-based movements of resistance throughout the nineteenth century, most of which are quite poorly documented. The Hapu cult arose in the 1 840s; it was based on the worship of the adorned bones of the prophetess Kahapu'u, known for her abilities to cure the sick, and punished by the Protestant mis­ sionaries . It was millenarian in character and predicted the end of the current world when sky and earth were to come together on a specified day. The cult, a failure in practice, was based on a central motif of Hawaiian cosmology. The joining of heaven and earth would simply reverse the process of creation. Throughout the nineteenth century there were numerous cults based on4!1� ' d worship of Pele, the volcano goddess of Hawaii; most of these cults celebra�g the "people of the land" as against all foreigners and even ali 'i, represented as foreigners from Kahiki (home of the gods, Tahiti). It should be emphasized that these were very oppressive times for ordinary Hawaiians, who had to pay high levels of tribute and were often pressed into abject poverty by the emergent Hawaiian/Haole elite. Sahlins details how, in the 1 840s, the cattle business encroached on the subsistence of the common Hawaiian. "In the 1 840s, there were cattle i n their gardens: mainly foreigners ' cattle, destroying the subsistence of the Hawaiians. The people reacted by building walls of all kinds. Enclosures of gardens and houses construct the present archaeological landscape" (Sahlins 1 992: 148). Walled enclosures became so much a part of the Hawaiian landscape and the Hawaiian mode of ordering space that it is often taken as traditional by

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Hawaiians themselves. "Oh before, we use have much higher walls around the hou ses. And then one big gate of ohia (iron wood). Today the walls much lower, and most people don't have any" (interview in Miloli 'i, 1 985). These structures, born of opposition, are, I shall argue, just as deeply ingrained in Hawaiian culture as anything that may have existed prior to Captain Cook. And the fact that they built such walls in the first place is not a pure act of creation. Hawaiian resistance to the foreign takeover of their lands, and their critical insight into the nature of chiefly power, is clear throughout the nineteenth century as well. A petition to Your Gracious Majesty, Kamehameha III, and to All Your Chiefs in Council Assembled: Is it proper for foreigners to take the oath of allegiance? [ . . . ] among us, the common people, there is not difference of opinion. If it is proper for foreigners to become Chiefs, and the greater part of the wealth of the nation is to become theirs; it is proper to take the oath of allegiance un­ der them and let the nation become a nation of foreigners. But if the nation is ours, what good can result from filling the land with foreigners? What is to be the result of so many foreigners taking the oath of allegiance? [ . . . ] This is it, in our opinion; this kingdom will pass into their hands and that too very soon [ . . . ] Foreigners come on shore with cash, ready to purchase land; but we have not the means to purchase lands; the native is disabled like one who has long been afflicted with a disease upon his back. We have lived under the chiefs, thinking to do whatever they desired, but not according as we thought; hence we are not prepared to compete with foreigners. If you, the chiefs, de­ cide immediately to sell land to foreigners, we shall immediately be overcome [ . . . ] If we had not been loitering around after the chiefs, thinking to accustoIl)f ourselves to that mode of life, then perhaps we should be prepared to compete with foreigners [ . . . ] If the introduction of foreigners into this kingdom could be deferred for ten years perhaps, and we could have places given us suitable for cultivation and pasturing cattle, by that time some of our embarrassments might be removed, and it might be proper to introduce foreigners into the kingdom. (Petition 1 845)

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Such protest was to no avail. The lands were divided into private titles and distributed to royalty and chiefs, and sold off to white planters. The love of the land need not be anything old or new. It is clearly deducible from a way of life of the common farmers in confrontation with its loss to large-scale foreign exploitation. Our land has been sold to others. Our gardens have been lost. All the walls we have built for our animals have been lost. We only have our taro patches left, and some of us do not even have taro patches . . . . We are dead. We are the parents, the

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children, the old men and women among us. The only thing left for us to do is to leave the land and travel wherever we can go. (Petition from people ofLa'ie tothe Legislative Nobles and Representatives, October 16, 1 846, Legislative petition file, Hawaii State Archives, in McOregor 1989:98)

In all of this, Hawaiian identity must have become clear for Hawaiians themselves certainly by the years and decades following the overthrow of the monarchy. Besides resisting the overthrow itself, the Homa Rula party of the Hawaiians actually won territorial elections in 1 900 on the slogan "Hawaii for Hawaiians." Agitation for a Hawaiian national state continued for several decades but was effectively countered by an aggressively expanding American elite in a period of rapid integration of the islands into the U .S. economy, and by the role designated for the islands in the Pacific arena. The Hawaiians had already become a minority in their own land as a result of the catastrophic mortality rate and the massive i mport of Asians to work the growing plan­ tation economy. This factor, plus the increasing militarization of the islands, successfully marginalized Hawaiians. Yet, there were enclaves in the I'Ural areas where Hawaiians struggled to maintain themselves, most often by build­ ing walls this time social walls by turning their backs to the larger world. "The economic status of the Hawaiian families, their passive resistance to the ideals of the West, and the conception of responsibility of older for younger children sponsored by the solidarity of the kin group are important causes for the frequent absences of the child from school" (Yamamura 1 94 1 : 1 5 1 ). Harry Mitchell, famed Hawaiian herbalist and activist from the village of Keanae on Maui described this resistance as foHows: You go school, learn. You come home, you try apply. They [grandparents] scold

you. You gotta live their lifestyle. Not the one they teach you from the school. The school, junk eh. We only play inthe damn school. No study. Play hookey, eh: 00 fishing. Forget it. 00 hunting. They punish you. You pull weeds they catCh > you speaking Hawaiians. They make you stand in the corner on one leg till you ' fall asleep . . . . No way, eh. (interview, McOregor 1989)

Hawaiian resistance is not a new phenomenon, but it was carried out and developed during a long period of increasing American hegemony in the is­ lands. It was a struggle doomed to political failure. And it increasingly took the form of subaltern or passive resistance rather than open confrontation. It is the decline of that hegemony that has made the movement that began in the 1970s a more successful venture. The examination of the history of Hawaiian resistance reveals an elaborate and continuous set of frames for the interpre­ tation of the experience of colonization. I have argued elsewhere (Friedman 1 992a:204; 1 992b:854) that this continuity might be related to late pre-contact

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social configurations in which a consolidated chiefly elite, endogamous and warlike, is opposed to a class of commoners.

T H E MASTERS OF AUTHENTICITY A N D T H E PRO B LEM O F C U LT U RAL CONTI N U ITY

The intense interest in the question of authenticity of the museological va­ riety is worth a study in its own right. As I am primarily interested in its consequences in Hawaii, I can only make some cursory suggestions. Firstly, as stated in the introduction, there is an apparent correlation between the de­ cline of Western hegemony, the rise of cultural movements throughout the world system, and the shift of anthropology toward culture, identity, and au­ thenticity. The "invention of tradition" school of thinking bears, in this re­ spect, striking resemblance to writings on cultural globalization, hybridiza­ tion, and creolization. There is, in this work, a common focus on a contrast between what might have been in some mosaic-like world of the past and the current world of invention, cultural confusion, and cross-breeding. The adherents of this approach qualify their practitioners as bearers of truth in the global arena i n those cases where their identification of contemporary groups clashes with those groups ' own self-identification. In the following, I have chosen my example from Hawaii in an attempt to "deconstruct" the implicit deconstruction of other people's constructions. I suggest that the en­ tire approach is an expression of a retrenchment of modernism, a historical and/or ethnographic authoritarianism. The latter is not a mere question of at­ titudes but a necessary expression of a positioning within the global field ItIf identification. There are several variants of the "invention of tradition" version of cultural critique now in vogue in anthropology. The first version appeared with the publication of The Invention a/Tradition by Hobsbawm and Ranger ( 1 983). In the introduction to this work, the editors make an absolute distinction between lived tradition, or custom, and invented tradition: "The strength and adaptability of genuine traditions is not to be confused with the "invention of tradition." Where the old ways are alive, traditions need be neither revived nor invented" (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1 983 :8). The approach represented in this work is one that aims to set the record straight concerning what has been assumed to be age-old tradition and what is in fact recent fabrication. The contrast between the ever-changing institutions of modernity and the stability of tradition is argued to be entirely a product of modernity itself. Tradition becomes a kind of nostalgia, a longing for that which has been lost, a longing that can only exist in a society whose principle of existence is change itself. And since this

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is the true nature of modern society, all tradition can only be understood as false construal whose object is political in nature. Invented traditions designated the construction of pasts for political purposes i n the present, the most obvious examples coming from nationalist movements. Its banner, for many, was the demonstration that the Scottish kilt was a late in­ vention foisted upon the Scots by the English. Trevor-Roper's argument ( 1 983) was based on juxtaposition rather than historical process . While acknowledg­ ing the existence of an earlier plain garment of a slightly different form, he went on to show that Scottish nationalism coupled to the textile industry produced something altogether new. But in all of this, it is difficult to ascertain what it meant for the participants at the time, and how the Scots perceived the relation between their identity and the kilt. And Trevor-Roper's own description of the process of "invention" turns out, on closer inspection, to be a transformation of the prior "belted plaid," which could be worn in a way that resembled the "modern" kilt, the primary difference being that the former was a single cloth wrapped around the body in such a way as to include both a top and a bottom, whereas the latter was a new and industry-produced version of the bottom or skirt alone. The differentiation of colors and patterns by clans rather than by rank is also a crucial change, and the elaboration of the latter is clearly re­ lated to the vagaries of Scottish national identity. But the weaving of identities with h istories is not so much a question of invention pure and simple. It is, rather, a question of transformation and recontextualization. This important essay epitomizes the central problem involved in the invention paradigm. The integration of the Scottish Highlands into the expanding British indus­ trial empire transformed that region and created new contexts of identification that gave rise to the kilt as we know it today. But the historical process involved demonstrates a fundamental continuity as well, which enables us to translate . invention as cultural transformation. This historical process is curiously absent . � ; from the general theoretical discussion. The latter is not simply an oversig t . but a product of the terminology or, perhaps, the conceptual frame itself, whiQh is based on discontinuity and a contrast between the artificial traditional and the real traditional. No amount of recanting and modification can escape the logic of that framework, which is that of "tradition" as opposed to the lived existence of traditional society, that is, tradition objectified. After all, not only kilts but the entire structure of "Western culture" is very much a product of the invention of the classical world in the Renaissance. It established a historical continu­ ity and even a genealogy going back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The invention of tradition is an old and perhaps quintessential European tradition (Sahlins 1 993). This approach was also recently applied by an anthropologist to Hawaiians in the throes of a developing cultural movement. The transformations of this .

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approach are worth analyzing, as they are the product of a direct confrontation with a political reality that cannot simply be reduced to the "politics of culture." In the following, the confrontation between cultural rebirth and anthropological identity crisis are portrayed as aspects of the global fragmentation referred to in the introduction. This is, I shall argue, a question of structure and not of personality. In 1 983, anthropologist 1. Linnekin published an article on Hawaiian tra­ dition titled "Defining Tradition : Variations on the Hawaiian Identity," which appeared in the very respectable journal American Ethnologist ( 1 983). The ostensible purpose of this article was to demonstrate in a straightforward de­ scriptive manner the ways in which the recent cultural movement in Hawaii has created tradition in creating its own identity. The argument presented in the introduction is plausible enough. Tradition is the use of past "lifeways in the construction of present identity." This argument already had a tradition of its own among anthropologists, sociologists, and even historians (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1 98 3 ; Shils 1 97 1 ) . Culture, in this view, is a product continu­ ally undergoing transformation (Geertz 1 966; Wagner 1 975). In relation to the specifics of nationalist and nativist movements , Linnekin draws on Linton and Eisenstadt, who explain that such movements build their identities out of certain chosen elements from the present and past that are combined in a spe­ cific, consciously manipulated way. This, of course, implies that the cultural creations of such movements are not "authentic" and that they can often be contrasted to the supposedly real traditional culture of remote, rural areas. But even here, as Linnekin shows, the local societies have been so transformed as to be ineligible for the title of authenticity ( 1 983 :243-44). It is true that Linnekin has claimed that authenticity itself is a misnomer here, and I slIDll return to this question shortly. All of this is a perfectly reasonable argument. Such a summary statement, however, says little about the mechanisms of creation or transformation in­ volved in the process of building traditions. One might have hoped that the concrete analysis that follows the programmatic introduction would have shed some light on such mechanisms. But we are instead treated to a list of exam­ ples that merely indicate the difference between so-called modern Hawaiian traditions and what is from this point forward referred to as aboriginal culture, defined as Hawaii before the arrival of Captain Cook. The main focus of Linnekin 's article is the emergent Hawaiian movement, but there are a number of well-known examples of ethnographic a that appear to require demystification. The slack-key guitar and ukulele, both of which are imported, the mixed Portuguese-Hawaiian music that is played on them, lomilomi salmon as a modernized party version of an original ritual dish all are modern creations of tradition that differ considerably from the originals .

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Tb e egalitarian ideology associated with the word ohana, which is used often in

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the movement to characterize traditional Hawaii, is in many ways the opposite of the aboriginal hierarchical model of social relations. In sum: "The histor­ ical correspondences are generations removed from contemporary models of Hawaiian tradition held by nationalists or rural villagers" (Linnekin 1 983 :242). Following this, two principal examples are taken as targets for Linnekin 's exercise in analyzing the fabrication of tradition, both associated with the Hawaiian cultural movement, a movement that harbors, in fact, a broad spec­ trum of ideologies, but that is here reduced to a monolith. The first of these is the much publicized voyage of the Hawaiian canoe, the Hokulea, to Tahiti in 1 976. This voyage was one of the activities that symbolically marked the start of the Hawaiian revival. A number of disputes concerning the purpose of the voyage, the navigation techniques to be employed, and so forth gave rise to differing interpretations of the importance of the Hokulea. The boat itself, a double canoe, was designed by a Hawaiian-born mainland resident, Herb Kane, who returned to Hawaii and has been active in the Hawaiian movement for some years. The expedition is characterized as follows: "A series of ironies marked the canoe's construction and launching. The Hokulea's designer, Herb Kane, is half-Hawaiian, but was reared and educated in the Midwest . . . a successful commercial artist [who] . . . only returned to Hawaii in 1972 . . . . Yet again, ethnicity has little to do with the ' facts' of 'parentage'" (Linnekin 1 983:245). Blunders are cited that are apparently meant to disqualify the entire ex­ pedition. Since there was no Hawaiian capable of long-distance navigation, a Micronesian had to be recruited. Mistakes were made in everything, from the drinking of kava, the intoxicating ritual drink of western Polynesia bor. rowed for the occasion by Hawaiians, to incorrect preservation of food. 'l'1le apparently inauthentic concept of ohana was invoked by rebellious "urb�1' Hawaiian crew members, who intended to take the canoe to the politicaHy riJ)t island of Kaho'olawe against the wishes of their own "pure" rural Hawaiian captain. The second "nationalist symbol" (Linnekin 1 983 :244), and clearly the m0st important, is the island of Kaho' olawe. This island, off the coast of Maui, has been a bombing zone for the D.S. military since World War 11, where allied members of the Pacific Rim (RIMPAC) have periodically been invited to test their equipment. Hawaiians havefoughtformany years to regain the island and the "Protect Kaho' olawe Ohana" (PKO), which has been the core of Hawaiian "nationalism," has, through its "accesses" to the island, found it to be a source of religious and political identity. The island has been a symbol of the rape of Hawaiian lands, its desolate landscape riddled with shells and devoured by the thousands of goats that are its only i nhabitants. While the island does host a •

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number of ancient temples and sacred places, Linnekin is quick to point out that it has never been much of anything: infertile without water, and a penal colony in the nineteenth century. In other words, its present symbolic importance is incongruous with its insignificant past, yet another example of the creation of tradition, apparently out of the blue in this case. What are we to make of this? The anthropologist would seem to have at­ tempted to demonstrate that the contemporary constructions of Hawaiian tra­ dition are indeed modern creations suited to the political goals and cultural needs of contemporary elites. In accordance with Eisenstadt, the urban nationalist version of tradition is viewed as the product of political manipulation. But even the rural version of tradition is regarded as a modern fabrication. All that Hawaiians today think of as traditionally Hawaiian is in reality no more "authentic" than any other aspect of modem existence: "The resulting version of Hawaiian culture does not correspond to a specific time period. In the cultural revival, isolated facts have been transformed into symbols of Hawaiianness and accorded a signifi cance without precedent in aboriginal Hawaiian society" (Linnekin 1 983 :243). The entire argument here consists in the exemplification of the original thesis. It might be said that I have misunderstood these arguments, but it seems quite clear that the demonstration of the lack of fit between the symbolism and practices of today's Hawaiians and their own "aboriginal" culture is both inconsistent with the original argument and indicative of a competitive relation between the anthropologist and the people that serve as her object.

OBJ ECTIVE C U LT U R E AN D MOD ERN FAB R I CATION

I suggested earlier that there is plenty of evidence for a continuity of cultural forms in transformation, as well as a fundamentally authentic relation between the producers of cultural forms and their conditions of existence. Building walls, reviving the hula, and the current Hawaiian movement are not, in this view, inventions, but transformations of culture. Invention implies discontinu­ ity and pays little regard to the cultural conditions of cultural creativity. What is invention to the outsider may be necessity for the insider. And if such is the case, the outsider is lacking in insight. Let us consider the examples chosen to demonstrate the inventiveness of modern Hawaiian tradition. Kaho 'olawe: It might be argued that the little target island of Kaho 'olawe owes its importance to nationalist politics, so that claims of sacredness for the island are politically motivated. While not denying this obvious point, it does not warrant belittling any significance that the island might have. The origin myths, characterized by the usurpation of power by a commoner or

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parts of the Pacific, demonstrating that such movements, were within the range of control of the ancient Polynesians. My argument here is that while current circumstances may indeed have a great influence on those sectors of a body of tradition that become the fo­ cus of contemporary identity, there is a great deal more complexity in the continuity through transformation that generates that body than Linnekin is willing to recognize. Kaho'olawe is not just an old island that people have concocted a lot of fantasies about because the navy has dropped bombs on it for 30 years. Nor is the "pathway to Tahiti" just a good story with lots of political potential. The stress on the "ironies" of the Hokulea, the contrast between ethnic­ ity and the "facts of parentage," and the zealousness of part-Hawaiians as opposed to pure Hawaiians are difficult to interpret as mere objective descrip­ tion, since such language implies that these mongrel modems have somehow got it wrong. This in its turn implies that there is something right, defined here as "aboriginal." Cultural Values: Three related concepts are central to the Hawaiian move­ ment: ohana (extended family) with its implication of equality and reciprocity; a generally anti-hierarchical attitude, at least with respect to post-contact aris­ tocracy; and aloha 'aina (love of the land). It might seem reasonable to suppose that these values are not those of "aboriginal" Hawaii, certainly not in the form they have today, but there is good reason to believe that there is a significant continuity here with the last century and a half. That Linnekin does not think this worth consideration would seem to belie her preoccupation with prov­ ing the nonauthenticity or nonaboriginality of these values. It is, of course, quite probable that very many of the modem "traditional" Hawaiian values !Ire products of the violent transformation of the sociocultural order that occurred throughout the past century. Thus, it is quite possible that the ohana principle, as well as an entire community structure, emerged in the wake of an absentee aristocracy, an encroaching plantation economy and a colonial market sys­ tem that left a dwindling commoner population with a minute portion of their former productive lands. While it is true that some politically motivated Hawai­ ians have publicly described ancient Hawaii as an egalitarian utopia, very few actually subscribe, or find it neces sary to subscribe, to such a belief. Attitudes toward the alii (aristocrats), both ancient and modern, vary considerably among those engaged in the movement. There are those who maintain quite simply that the aristocrats sold them out, and they understand aristocratic principles to be directly opposed to those of ohana. There are also those who maintain that ancient aristocracy was based on a kind of noble generosity that became corrupted in the contact period when the great King Kamehameha acted as unknowing midwife to the birth of a class society. In all cases, a distinction is

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apparently made between a notion approaching that of tribal aristocracy and the more modem definition of a political upper class. Thus, while the concept of ohana might in some sense be compatible with a "primitive" aristocracy, it is absolutely antipathetic to modem forms of class dominance. Aloha 'aina might conceivably be a nineteenth-century product of an oppressed population in the process of losing its land to an encroaching plantation economy and a new social structure, destructive not just of an ancient chiefly system but of the commoner remains of that society. Linnekin 's informants ' equation of in­ side cool, wet, taro, Hawaiian versus outside hot, dry, cane, haole (white) ( 1 983:243) appears to express a cultural closure indicative of local resistance. In fact, very many of the above cultural "patterns" bear a striking resemblance to Wolf's closed corporate community ( 1 957), or at least a form of sociality emergent from cultural opposition to the establishment of a dominant colonial sector, not just of production, but of life in general. B ut it is one thing to assert the strategy of closedness that I suggest, and to conflate this with some notion of invention, implying, again, historical discontinuity. On the contrary, it might be argued that much of the strategic practice involved in the ohana is part of an older, or at least an available, strategy of closure in relation to a chiefly elite that had become dependent upon Europe and had become increasingly oppressl ve. We have here the basis of an argument that current Hawaiian cultural mod­ els are, in the first instance, derived from nineteenth- rather than eighteenth­ century structures, which in their turn did not simply fall from the sky. If such is the case, then there is indeed a cultural continuity represented in the modem reconstruction of Hawaiian identity. The kupuna (elders) do have, objectively speaking, the important role assigned to them by younger members of the ohana movement and even by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. ,

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ANTH ROPOLOGY VERSUS THE CREATION OF C U LTURE

Let us try, at this point, to sort out the problem. On the one hand, we are prec sented with a general assumption that all culture is the product of continuous transformation. On the other hand, we are treated to an attempted demonstra­ tion of the inauthenticity of the "tradition s" of the Hawaiian movement on the grounds that they do not correspond to an aboriginal baseline. No other argument is made use of. No attempt is made to discover the roots of modem tradition in some other period than that of first European contact. The logic of the argument would seem to be as follows. If tradition is indeed the product of contemporary circumstances, and not a relatively fixed fund of cultural reperto­ ries of knowledge, values, and symbolism, then the only way in which a proper

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evaluation of authenticity can be determined is by the establishment of another constant, in this case, aboriginal culture, Hawaiian culture as represented in the interpretations of anthropologists and historians. This is accompanied by an attitude that does not appear to be a misinterpretation on my part, expressed in Linnekin's list of ironies, and in her several references to the way in which Hawaiians "wax poetic" or "wax sentimental" over one or another aspect of their tradition, all of which we anthropologists know amounts to no more than contemporary artifice. If tradition is a "conscious model of past lifeways that people use in the construction of their identity" and if "the inheritance of an authentic tradition and the naIvete of the folk are illusory" (Linnekin 1 983:24 1 ), then strictly speaking, no comparison between the folk model and real aboriginal culture is possible. Aboriginal Hawaiian society of the late eighteenth century is itself a transformation of earlier Hawaiian sociocultural organization. There is no reason to assume that paramounts always had the same kind of power, that human sacrifice and warrior chiefs were part of a constant cultural scheme, that the kumu (red) fish was always the "conventional offering" in short, that there was no historical transformation before the arrival of Captain Cook. What is irritating here, for Hawaiians at least (Trask 1 993 : 1 6 1 -78), is the clash between a theoretical approach that would understand tradition as by definition inauthentic and a description that at the same time harbors an im­ plicit critique of a social movement on the basis of this apparently universal in authenticity. If the Hawaiian social movement creates tradition in a way that is logically equivalent to the way that an anthropologically defined aboriginal society invented tradition, then there is no cause for a language stressing the ironies and incongruence of just this particular tradition, unless one assumes that all tradition is somehow false and mystifying. If, after all, the subject of the discussion is supposed to be the invention of tradition, why are we not offered either a description or an analysis of such invention instead of a rather simple exercise in its demystification? My own position here is that while it is indeed the case that tradition is con­ stantly undergoing transformation as long as it participates in a dynamic social process, there is also a significant contiiluity necessarily embedded in the trans­ formation itself. And where absolute discontinuity exists, it can be overcome by the act of creating a social identity based not so much on history books as on the transformed cultural strands that link generations. As such, the word "authenticity" is totally inapplicable, quite simply because it implies, contrary to anthropological assumptions, that the aboriginal culture is somehow a fixed entity nearer to something essentially Hawaiian, which in turn implies that such a Hawaiian "essence" once existed. While we cannot ascertain exactly what Linnekin 's intentions are here, the use of such language has clear connotations. •

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At issue are not the pronouncements of one anthropologist, but the structure of the entire ethnographic enterprise and the definition of the anthropologist's identity. Anthropological knowledge, defined as the privileged understanding of otherness by means of fieldwork, is the basis of our self-definition. The ideological or cosmological space within which anthropology developed is by very definition the space of our civilization; modernity as opposed to tradition and the primitive state, the developmental paradigm, whether in the form of evolutionism, primitivism or relativism. It is founded on the translation of space into time, the conversion of the peoples of the margins of civilizational expansion into stages that preceded our present state of development (Friedman 1 983). It is in this sense that ethnography has for years been a kind of imaginary time travel. Even in the guise of extreme cultural relativism, the fantasy of discovering another world entirely different and separate from our own is the hallmark of the anthropological imagination. Authenticity for the anthropologist consists essentially in his/her relation to "his/her" people. It is the authenticity cherished by the art collector and the antique dealer. If professional identity depends on such notions as aboriginal, pristine, original culture, or primitive enclave, connoting an isolation from the pollution of industrial c apitalist civiLization, and if anthropological discourse consists of the analysis or interpretation of cultures, then a Hawaiian movemen t whose membership drinks Coke, watches videos, and at the same time is engaged in the reconstruction of its own cultural identity is a potential threat. It is not oversimplifying to recall that the traditional reactions to such a "polluted" object are either to bury oneself in the archival past, to ferret out "authentic" cultural patterns from today's inauthentic natives, or to give up the traditional anthropological identity and go over to a more sociological anthropology of industrial, colonial, or postcolonial life forms. In all but the last solution, where the anthropologist maintains his identity as the master of othemess, ther�ciis a built-in assumption that whatever is out there now, there is some illus'iye past inhabited by the pure forms that we can only glimpse in the presen,t. If one is ready to criticize the search for the authentic in the patchwork of the present on the grounds that tradition is always a contemporary illusion of the past, then there is always the possibility of reconstructing a model ofthe pristine that once existed, the aboriginal purity that can be contrasted with mere "tradition." Thus, aboriginal culture is fixed in time in the same way it used to be (and still is) fixed in geographical space. My people "out there" become my people "back then": tradition is freed for political manipulation by would-be natives, while aboriginal culture remains safely in the monopolistic hands of the anthropologist. Much of the exoticism of the primitive enclave has evaporated in an un­ derstanding that such cultures were themselves the products of transformative ,

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integration into the expanding European world system and even of previous global systems. In fact, the critique of tradition that inspired Linnekin is very much a reflex of an increasing historical understanding of our own civilization (Ekholm and Friedman 1 980; Wolf 1 982). But this new insight has incited many an anthropologist to rescue the object by traveling back in time to a securely ethnographic past. In this way, true culture becomes a thing of the past, the native a contemporary of Captain Cook. When anthropologists interpret the cultures themselves, they risk losing control over their ethnographic reality. It is only by attempting to understand how traditions are created and transformed that we can transcend an authority that is entirely dependent on a power situation in which we speak for the other. After the onslaught of the "natives," some anthropologists have seen fit to retreat somewhat. Linnekin has begun to flirt with a post-modernist posi­ tion, claiming that there is no true or "real past" or "tradition." She adopts, in principle, a "constructionist" view of all tradition: "all traditions are invented in the sense that they are symbolically constituted. Authenticity the gen­ uine/spurious distinction is therefore a red herring" (Linnekin 1 992:255). In this way, Linnekin is able to differentiate herself from those whom she calls ob­ jectivists (Keesing 1 989; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1 98 3 ; Babadzan 1 988). And yet, she notes that Keesing is ambivalent insofar as he assumes that there is no substantial difference between kastom and "genuine" culture. I have argued elsewhere ( 1 992b) that Keesing maintains a thoroughly consistent position that is based on a modernist engagement, and while one may disagree with the strategy of total demystification that this implies, it benefits from a consistency that is not evident among other, more insecure anthropologists. Linnekin man­ ages, for example, to state a case that might appear to be directly opposed ttJ the kind of "cultural critique" of Ha waiianess reported earlier when she claims the following:

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The objectivist criticism suggests that many anthropologists find it difficult to relinquish their authority to define culture and "genuine" tradition. Defending scholarly narrative authority in the postcolonial Pacific seems a contentious and , ultimately self-defeating enterprise, however, because foreign academics clearly , no longer monopolize the business of representing indigenous culture. (Linnekin 1 992:257-58)

Is this a welcome change or a structural adjustment to a changing balance of the power to represent? Some, of course, might question the assumption that Hawaii is "post" colonial. And the ethnographic authority that is criticized in the above quotation repeatedly surfaces as more concrete issues of the "truth" of Hawaiian values, objects , and representations return to center stage. There are "significant ambiguities and conflicts in public perceptions of pre-European

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Hawai ' i ' . . . statements about ancient Hawai' i are rife in local media . . . and these apparently untrustworthy representations are taught to schoolchildren (God help them) by none other than kupuna (elders) hired by the Department of Education." Furthermore, "there is little public recognition or discussion of the contradictions between these portrayals and their different implications" (Linnekin 1 992:258). The very language of this description of "the situation" contains the same kind of critique as in the earlier work. They, "the locals," the Hawaiians, are confused by their various representations and by the media. To continue into the mire, we are informed that "the nature of hierarchy in Hawaiian society is particularly an area of ambiguity." Some say tyranny, others community and generosity. The author maintains a "just right" position. "The vision I present in my own class on pre-European Hawai ' i is somewhere in­ between but leans toward the Edenic" (Linnekin 1 992:258). Hawaiians, in my experience, have been perfectly capable of debating the issue of chiefly power without the intervention of anthropology, not least because this is not a truly anthropological issue. Linnekin does point out that different views of chiefly power are entertained by different segments of the Hawaiian population, but she says nothing about the tradition of representation involved in these different views. The ambivalence is not a mere question of modem political debate, but is in evidence in most of the oral traditions and myths of chieftaincy that can be found in the historical materials. And Linnekin 's own position in all of this struggle for the "true" Hawaii is that of the self-identified "professor such as myself" who, aware of the true situation while possessing "ultimate narrative authority," understands, wisely, that it is "folly to claim definitive standing for a particular representation." And yet this folly that is so vociferously denied in the name of responsible scholarship seems to peacefully coexist with statements such as the following: ;

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If a student asks me to confirm that this (Hawaiian gourd helmet) was part of · the ancient Hawaiian warrior's garb, I cannot comply, just as I cannot honestly > concur with a vision of the ancient society as a counter cultural egalitarian Eden along the lines of a ca. 1968 commune. Similarly, I cannot attest (contrary to t-shirt representations) that helmeted Hawaiian warriors used sword-and-sorcery bows and arrows, had muscles like body builders taking steroids, or kept packs of pit-bull dogs (despite the caption on one shirt representing such activity as TRADITION). But I can and do use these t-shirt motifs to discuss symbols, meanings, messages, and the contemporary construction of culture. I relate this selection of symbols from the past and the present (a combination that sells) to history and politics: to the Hawaiian cultural and political renaissance, to the struggle for sovereignty, which has gained increasing credibility among members of all ethnic groups in Hawai'i, to assertions of personal and political strength by young Hawaiian men particularly. (Linnekin 1992:259)

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In the same textual breath we are told that there is no longer any such thing as authenticity, that all traditions are constructed, and yet that it is possible to compare modem Hawaiian constructions with those of the past in order to ascertain their "truth" value as truly traditional, that is, ancient or not. The staying power of this particular form of academic identity is extraordinary. It is perhaps even reinforced by the objective decline in ethnographic authority, a modernist overreaction.

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TH E CONTI N U ITY OF AN ACADEMIC TRA DITION

Let m e suggest that there is an underlying consistency and continuity in the approach adopted by Linnekin, in spite of the fact that she has several times claimed that no claims can be made for scholarly authenticity in the under­ standing of traditions. It has been continuously and vociferously stressed that all tradition is invented and constantly undergoing change. This is not new, of course, and was pointed out in the earliest articles (Linnekin 1 983; Han­ dler and Linnekin 1 984). The problem here is the logic of the categories. If all tradition is constantly changing, then why use the word tradition at all? If not everything changes, where is the continuity? Bodies of explicit knowledge are one thing, but implicit understandings, the organization of experience, and other, les s tangible phenomena have traditionally been the stuff of the analysis of tradition and culture. They are not merely handed down, nor invented, since they constitute the context of explicit knowledge. Thus, the distinctions be­ tween pristine and genuine collapse, but the notion of tradition also becomes irrelevant. This has rarely been a problem for anthropologists because the' have not been concerned with authenticating or disauthenticating the activity and representations of the people they study. Handler and Linnekin also claim to have said something similar in insisting that all tradition is symbolically constituted. "The origin of cultural practices is largely irrelevant to the experience oftradition; authenticity is always defined in the present. It is not pastness or givenness that defines something as traditional. Rather, the latter is an arbitrary symbolic designation; an assigned meaning rather than an objective quality" (Handler and Linnekin 1 984:286). They go to some lengths to criticize what they call the "naturalistic paradigm" of tradition, even where that paradigm assumes that tradition may embody continuous changes. This is because it assumes that there is something out there irrespective of the way it is symbolically constructed. They do sense that there is continuity in tradition, but they discuss it in terms of reference, that is, tradition builders or attributors refer to the past from the present in constructing their models, but even this continuity is constructed. This is so, I

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presume, because in a definition of tradition as a posited model, the very act of positing is by definition discontinuous with all previous acts of positing. But, I have argued, the continuity is not at the level of posited models, but of the experiential substrate that it draws upon. "Ongoing cultural representations refer to or take account of prior representations, and in this sense the present has continuity with the past. B ut this continuity of reference is constructed in the present" (Handler and Linnekin 1 984:286). Identity is not about the constructs themselves, but about the way in which they are embedded in social reality. It is embeddedness that accounts for the success of what might appear to be newly invented models. It is this that would appear to inform the descriptions offered of other people's identification. "In Quebec, patrimonial traditions, self-consciously constructed by both indige­ nous and foreign observers , have become an integral component of the sense of national identity that Quebecois entertain about themselves" (Handler and Linnekin 1 984:287, emphasis added). Is this a mere slip of the pen or is it meant that Quebecois entertain a sense of identity about themselves that exists in contrast to a more grounded real­ ity? The insinuation is clear, whatever the cause of the expression. Similarly, Hawaiian country-dwellers are said to have taken on "new traditional signifi­ cation to previously unmarked practices" (Handler and Linnekin 1 984:287). In all of this, one cannot deny that the language used to describe what others are doing consists of a contrast between something more and something less real, accurate, or authentic, in spite of all disclaimers . The continuity is evident in the repetitive practice of describing other traditions as inventions in opposition to a truer version of the past. The examples here ought to suffice to demonstrate this point. The discontinuity lies in the self-representation of an approach in which all versions are inauthentic. In a recent discussion of Hanson's ( 1 989) more blatant "deconstructionl' ;�f " Maori tradition, Linnekin, while praising the content of this very controversi�l; ," article, admits, as she has several times recently, that there are problems of communication with "natives": •

The tender point appears to be the analytic deconstruction of authenticity when applied to cultural representations asserted by indigenous peoples. This potential political vulnerability is, I suggest, an unintended consequence of the cultural invention argument, but one that anthropologists must confront nonetheless." (Linnekin 1991 b: 446)

Hanson, apparently more receptive to the implicit contradictions of the no­ tion of tradition, was perfectly open to admitting that invention "when applied to culture and tradition is a systematically misleading expression that should

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not be perpetuated" (Hanson 1 9 9 1 :45 1 ). But Linnekin, following through on the logic of the invention paradigm, uses the terms "tender point" and "polit­ ical vulnerability." If one believes that all tradition, in the sense of models of past lifeways, is a mere symbolic construction, then one can either struggle for a demystification of all tradition in the name of objective reality, or go entirely anti-modernist by insisting that since all symbolic constructions of re­ ality are equivalent, no comparisons or contrasts can be made. Keesing ( 1 989; 1 9 9 1 ), as I have mentioned earlier, adopted in a fairly consistent way the first position, whereas Linnekin would appear to assert the first in theory and the second in practice. Others , such as Jolly ( 1 992) and Thomas ( 1 992a), have also found themselves in ambivalent positions, but have not clearly identified the problem. Of course, study of the "inversion" of tradition, where and if such occurs, might transcend the invention problem by analyzing concretely moti­ vated practices in their social contexts, but then this would not be reducible to the problem of discontinuity, not any more than the structuralist analysis of mythology. But in his analysis of Fijian culture, Thomas also appears to have engaged in precisely such a d iscourse of discontinuity (Thomas 1 992b; Sahlins 1 993:5). The invention of tradition approach has all the continuity of a tradition, not as a corpus of knowledge, but as an anthropological habitus, a set of predispositions to describe the world i n terms of a constant system of categories.

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The problem here resides i n the notion of culture and tradition itself, or at le�t in the particular way that it has been utilized: as models of past lifeways, as representations , images, that is, as products, most often conscious products. In such terms, tradition is an externalized object that can, of course, be manipu­ lated by people just like ourselves with, perhaps, other goals, such as national autonomy, but goals nonetheless that are entirely within our realm of expe­ rience and understanding. But this way of representing culture or "selected" aspects of culture (or tradition) is the expression of a strategic formulation of reality, one in which there are people whose experiences are just like ours, organized as individual subjects, and whose culture consists in objects or ob­ jectifiedtexts, recipes , and rituals. In this sense, anything different that appears is necessarily an invention. The hula is reinvented, the oh ana, aloha 'aina, the Hawaiian language, all are either inventions or reinventions produced in the present for the purpose of gaining political power. The objects of culture are, as such, instruments in a purely instrumental strategy; means to a political end. This is surely consistent if applied to the whole of world history, but as I

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have tried to show, this i s not the case in Hawaii. And even i f it were applied consistently, it would miss some essential questions. Most important, it eliminates the possibility of what has been referred to as cultural continuity. And I maintain that with an artifact-based notion of what culture is all about, the question of continuity cannot even be properly addressed as a social phenomenon. This is because continuity, and therefore transformation of cultural form, is not comprehensible in terms of the forms themselves, but must be rooted in the motivations and strategies, the intention­ alities of social subjects in time and space. No comparison of the traditional religion of the Congo kingdom with present-day Christian healing cults can be undertaken at the level of the particular symbols, names of spirits, and or­ ganization of rituals involved. The similarity is located in the commonality of experience, in the constitution of selfhood in relation to cosmic forces, and in the strategies generated by this constitution. In such terms, one can grasp the assimilation of Christian paraphernalia, texts, interpretations, and symbols into the Congolese world. Without this, Congolese Christianity is a creolized import, an invention, discontinuous with the past except for a number of ele­ ments imported or maintained (depending on the interpretation) from the old religion. Hawaiian activists might agree completely with the invention view of tradi­ tion if it were seen as transformation. In a critique of Linnekin, H. Trask attacks precisely the contradiction in Linnekin between, on the one hand, a definition of tradition as fluid, and, on the other hand, as, "pre-contact era" (Linnekin 1 983:242) which "insists on hard-edged bifurcations of reality : pre-Western culture vs. post-Western culture" (Trask 1 993 : 1 67). But what constitutes "tradition" to a people is ever-changing. Culture is not static, nor is it frozen in objectified moments in time. Without doubt, Hawaiians were transformed drastically and irreparably after contact, but remnants of earlie{i,'y{ lifeways, including values and symbols, have persisted. . . . Thus, Hawaiians assert. ... a "traditional" relationship to the land, not for political ends, as Linnekin argues, . . but because they continue to believe in the cultural value of caring for the land. That land use is now contested makes such a belief political. This distinction . is crucial because the Hawaiian cultural motivation reveals the persistence of traditional values, the very thing Linnekin claims Hawaiians have "invented." (Trask 1 993 : 1 68)

The argument is not overdrawn. While Linnekin attempts to eliminate the question of authenticity, her discussion is very much embedded in just such a frame of reference. Otherwise, the origin of Hawaiian cultural items would not be an issue. Hawaiians have seen their political and social structures trashed over a relatively short period of time, and their modes of representation debased

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and forbidden. Today, in new, yet I would argue systemically predictable cir­ cumstances, they have begun to reassert themselves with astounding success. This assertion is a social action andnot a rearrangement ofthe bits and pieces of a museum collection. Anthropologists, as actors on the global stage struggling for their monopoly over other people's self-definition, are pitting the museum against historical process . •

ACAD EMIC VERSUS EXISTENTIAL AUTH ENTICITY

Our much-referred-to notion of authenticity means different things to the an­ thropologist and to the individual engaged in the forging of a cultural identity. For the former, it is a question of originality or even of aboriginality. For the latter, it is a question of identity itself, a relation between the individual sub­ ject and the culture. Authenticity in this case refers to the state of integrity of the members of an identifying group. Inauthenticity would thus consist in the relative alienation from the cultural model, a lack of engagement, a social distance with respect to the values and categories embodied in a tradition or program of action. In our multi-ethnic capitalist civilization, the question of authenticity is epitomized in Sartre 's discussion of Jewish identity, in which both assimilationism and liberal humanism are rebuked after the catastrophe of the Second World War. "The authentic Jew abandons the myth of the universal man; he knows himself and wills himself into history as a historic and damned creature; he ceases to run away from himself and to be ashamed of his own kind. He understands that society is bad" (Sartre 1 948 :42). This notion of authenticity is not a new issue in anthropology. Many yeaFs ago, Sapir ( 1 924) distinguished between what he then referred to as spurious and genuine culture. He used the expression, "inherently harmonious, bal­ anced, self-satisfactory" ( 1 924:410), which is certainly vague enough, but a number of other qualifications enable us to ultimately arrive at a clearer un­ derstanding of Sapir's essential goals. While we are told that genuineness is achievable in any society, whether primitive or civilized, it is emphasized that there is, in fact, an inverse relation between civilization and the possibility of establishing a genuine culture. A genuine culture is one whose categories form a coherent cosmological structure for the subject, so that individual acts and objects retain meaning within a larger scheme of things. Genuineness also assumes a specifiable relation between the individual and culture in such a way that the subject is not external but internal to the former. Sapir employs the example of the artist to illustrate the authenticity of the genuine cultural act, one in which the realization of a culturally informed project and the content of the project are one, so that the subject is not . separated from either his cultural

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Will the Real Hawaiian Please Stand?

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scheme or its implementation, as is the case in spurious culture, where the re­ lation between the individual subject and the objects of culture are reified and externalized with respect to the life of the s ubject. Genuine culture is internal because the subject experiences it as himself. This is related to S apir's insis­ tence on "the sense of mastery instinctively sought by each individual soul" , ( 1 924:425), which in the case of spurious culture appears as the los s of control over reality that in other representations appears as alienation. This sense of mastery, needless to say, is quite different from that of the culture expert. With respect to the question of tradition, Sapir has this to say: No greater test of the genuineness of both individual and communal culture can be applied than the attitude adopted toward the past, its institutions, its treasures of art and thought. The genuinely cultured individual or society does not con­ temptuously reject the past. They honor the works of the past, but not because they are gems of historical chance, not because, being out of our reach, they must need be looked at through the enshrining glass of museum cases. These works of the past still excite our heartfelt interest and sympathy because, and only in so far as, they may be recognized as the expression of a human spirit warmly akin, despite all differences of outward garb, to our own. This is very nearly equivalent to saying that the past is ofcultural interest only when it is still the present or may

yet become thefuture. Paradoxical as it may seem, the historical spirit has always been something of an anticulturalforce, has always acted in some measure as an unwitting deterrent of the cultural utilization of the past (Sapir 1924:422).

Sapir goes further, however, in arguing that the conditions of emergence of genuine culture are much enhanced in small-scale or primitive societies. "An oft-noted peculiarity of the development of culture is the fact that it reaches its greatest heights in comparatively small, autonomous groups. In fact, it . . is doubtful if a genuine culture ever properly belongs to more than such,'ia ·· restricted group, a group between the members of which there can be sai cf �: o . . be something like direct intensive spiritual contact" (Sapir 1924:426). There is no need to romanticize the small-group aspect of the diSCUSSIon of genuine culture. Sapir made a point that can be understood in quite neutral terms, that cultural production in interpersonal relations has less of a tendency to become objectified. The small-group aspect, easily dismissed as bearing "romantic overtones" (Handler and Linnekin 1 984:287), might better be un­ derstood in terms of Sartre 's notion of existential authenticity or perhaps more importantly in terms of Alberoni's work on the "nascent state" phase of social movements in which individual and group projects become identical (Alberoni 1 984). Sapir's comments on "genuine" tradition should shed some light on our discussion of Linnekin 's treatment of the Hawaiian movement. As Linnekin clearly sides with the "historical spirit" against culture, she must judge the . ...

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content of Hawaiian identity in terms of its supposed historical accuracy and not in terms of those positive (in the sense of active) features that are respon­ sible for its creation and force of attraction. Existential authenticity is the core of cultural continuity. Hopelessly roman­ tic for some, but I would stress that this has nothing whatsoever to do with gemeinschaft. Rather, it refers to that area of social life wherein we find the shared experiences that enable models of reality to achieve an effective degree of resonance among their practitioners. The Hawaiian movement draws upon such sources in the reconstruction of its tradition s. It does so in the present, of course. The latter point is obvious enough. The past does not impose itself upon the present (Friedman 1 992) but is rather invoked and is, as such, cre­ atively refigured in the present. If there are discontinuities, as measured from the outside, as with the introduction of Christian icons and beliefs, of modern interpretations of ancient myths, these must be understood in the terms of their integration and not in terms of simple contrast to "our" vision of "their" past. Otherwise, spaghetti is a hopelessly creolized and confused invention-import from China to Italy. Even in Boasian terms, the origin of inventions and imports is trivial in comparison with the way in which they are integrated into cultural schemes. It might well be that the construction of tradition is an anthropolog­ ical construction of other people s' activities that might better be construed in different terms. Perhaps it is our fantasy, for all our ridiculing of the "good old days," and not theirs.

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The substrate of cultural creativity is the "experience space," as Mannheim called it, which is the source of desire and the specificity of intentionality in the process of elaboration of meaning in the world. The Hawaiian movement and the formation of Ka Lahui Hawaii (The Nation or Gathering of Hawaii) are not products of intellectual machinations. They are rooted in a very long-term and culturally specifi c struggle of Hawaiians against colonial subjugation, a struggle that has taken a number of different form s, most of which have been unsuccessful, during 1 50 years of American expansion in the Pacific. The Hawaiian movement is part of a large-scale shift of hegemony in the global system, one that has led to a decline in a self-evident modernism and a search for roots in the Western centers, including today's crisis-ridden Japan. I have argued elsewhere (Friedman 1 988) that roots, ethnicity, the Fourth World movement, and the postmodern fracture of Western identity are all aspects of the same global process. For some, this would apparently imply a discontinuity

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Will the Real Hawaiian Please Stand?

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in modem cultural creativity, one that accompanies much of the invention school 's pronouncements. It is true that culture is being evoked in acts of political liberation, as it always has been. But this fact, superficial as it is, has been used to categorize willy-nilly the errors ofthe natives who ought to know better than to dabble in an area dominated by experts. Marshall Sahlins has made the point in no uncertain terms: Western intellectuals have been too often disposed to write off the meanings as trivial, on grounds that the claims to cultural continuity are spurious. In the going academic view the so-called revival is a typical "invention of tradition"-though no slight is intended to Maorior Hawaiian folks, since all traditions are "invented" in and for the purposes ofthe present. (Sahlins 1 993 :4)

Sahlins goes on to argue forcefully for an understanding of the continuity of culture in the modem world. In the terms set out here, the problem resides in a confusion between the world system and culture. The world system is not a system of culture. Globalization is, of course, one of the processes that occurs in such systems, but localization, Balkanization, and world war are all equally aspects of global process, not by cultural diffusion but by global interaction. Cultural revivals in Hawaii and elsewhere are possible because of a resonance between local existences and the cultural forms proposed by such movements. While certain kinds of cultural continuities are comprehensible in purely struc­ tural terms, as when politically powerful kings are historically transformed into Frazerian, castrated divine kings in African history, other continuities cannot be understood in terms of the logic of the structures themselves and their transformational potential. Instead, it is necessary to grasp such continuities in terms of a certain stability of socially organized experience, the constitution of specific subjects or selves that tend to react to the world in similar terms, pr . . with the same terms of reference. I cannot but agree here with Sahlins when he emphasizes that people l1l:iY devise "their own categories, logics, understandings" which "may be tot;:LUy improvised, something never seen or imagined before, not just a knee-jerk repetition of ancient custom" (Sahlins 1 993 : 1 8), so that "cultural continu­ ity . . . appears . . . as the mode of cultural change," the innovations following "logically . . . from the people's own principles of existence" (Sahlins 1 993 : 1 9). And i f cultural change is not to be equated with "changing clothes," we must consider that while cultural invention is motivated, the motivations themselves are not invented (Strauss and Quinn 1 992:295). Hawaiian cultural identity is a product of active construction today. And it may even be based on elements from disparate sources, for example, kava ceremonies from western Polynesia. But the import of elements is nothing new , ., /.

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in the history of the world. 3 Boas and his students, as I suggested earlier, were less concerned with what they saw as the universal fact that cultural forms were largely imported than with the more fundamentalfact oftheirconfiguration and integration. The latter was the essence of cultural specificity, not the former. The engagement of Hawaiians in the forging of a viable future, a meaningful world, is precisely the kind of practice that Sapir would have designated "genuine." The disauthentification of such praxis by certain anthropologists is an attempt to maintain a modernist identity in a world going ethnic and cultural. This is a choice made within an increasingly polarized modem identity space. It is not an act executed in a rarefied space of authoritative truth and objectivity.

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NOTES

1. There is, in all of this, a strong tendency to a shift in accumulation to eastern Asia, especially to China and Southeast Asia. Multicentricity might be a phase in such a shift, but given the general speed-up of rates of accumulation and the ease with which capital can move from place to place, it is likely that hegemonies in the world system are to be increasingly short lived, i f they manage to form at all. 2. I have referred to this in terms of Fourth World and Third World strategies, respectively. The latter seeks its identity i n the center, the former in its own past or cultural specificity (Friedman 1988, 1992). 3. Here too, the invention school would say, "but we have always claimed that imports, as all discontinuities, are a general phenomenon." But then there ought to be no need to contrast the authentic and the invented. As I have said, there is a glaring contradiction here between theoretical claims and practice.

REFERENCES

Alberoni, F. 1984. Movement and institution. New York: Columbia University Press. Babadzan, A. 1988. Kastom and nation building in the South Pacific. In R. Guideri, F. Pelizzi, and S. Tambia, eds., Ethnicities and nations: Processes of interethnic relations in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Pac((ic, 199-228. Houston: Rothko Chapel. Beckwith, M. 1 970. Hawaiian mythology. Honolulu: University of Hawaiian Press. Clifford, J. 1988. Identity in Mashpee. In J. Clifford, The predicament of culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Daws, G. 1 968. Shoal of time. New York: Macmillan. Ekholm, K., and 1. Friedman. 1985. Toward a global anthropology. Critique ofAnthro­ pology 5. 1 : 97-1 19.

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Finney, Ben. 1 99 1 . Myth, experiment, and the reinvention of Polynesian voyaging. American Anthropologist 93.2: 383-404. Friedman, J. 1 9 8 3 . Civilizational cycles and history of primitivism. Social Analysis 14: 3 1 -52. . 1988. Cultural logics of the global system: A sketch. Theory of Culture and Society 5 . 2-3 : 447-59. . 1992a. Myth, history, and political identity. Cultural Anthropology 7.2: 1 94210. . 1 992b. The past in the future: History and the politics of identity. American Anthropologist 94.4: 837-59. Geertz, C. 1966. Religion as a cultural system. In M. Banton, ed., Anthropological approaches to the study of religion 1-46. London: Tavistock. Handler, R., and J. Linnekin. 1 984. Tradition, genuine or spurious. Journal ofAmerican Folklore 97: 273-90. Hanson, F. 1 989. The making of the Maori: Culture invention and its logic. American Anthropologist 9 1 : 890-902. . 199 1 . Reply to Langdon, Levine and Linnekin. American Anthropologist 93: 449-50. Hayes, Homer. 1 977. Testimony in Oia' i' 0 0 Kaho ' olawe ("The Truth of Kaho' olawe"). Manuscript. Hobsbawm, E., and T. Ranger, eds. 1 98 3 . The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press. Jolly, M. 1992. Spectres of inauthenticity. The Contemporary Pacific 4: 49-72. Keesing, R. 1989. Creating the past: Custom and identity in the contemporary Pacific. The Contemporary Pacific 1 : 19-42. . 199 1 . Reply to Trask. The Contemporary Pacific 2: 168-69. Linnekin, J. 1983. Defining tradition: Variations on the Hawaiian identity. American Ethnologist 10: 241-52. --- . 199 1a. Text bites and the R-word: The politics of representing scholarship. Contemporary Pacific 2: 172-77. 1 99 1 b. Cultural invention and the dilemma of authenticity. American Ant1tf,fJ� pologist 93: 446-48. --- . 1992. On the theory and politics of cultural construction in the Pacific. Oceania 62.4: 249-63 . [Special issue on "The Politics of Tradition in the Pacific," edited by M. Jolly and N. Thomas.] McGregor, D. 1989 . Kupa'a I Ka 'Aina: Persistence on the land. Doctoral thesis, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. Petition, 1 845. A petition to your gracious majesty, Kamehameha Ill, and to an your chiefs in council assembled, signed by Kenui, Tiona, Nawaakoa et al. The Friend, August 1 845 , 3 . 1 5 : 1 1 9 . Ralston, C. 1985. Early nineteenth century Polynesian millennial cults and the case of Hawai'i. Journal of the Polynesian Society 94: 307-3 1 . Sahlins, M . 198 1 . Historical metaphors and mythical realities: Structure in the early history of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom. Association of Social Anthropologists ---

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of Oceania, Special Publications No. 1 . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. . 1992. Anahulu; The Anthropology of history in the Kingdom of Hawaii, voL I Historical Ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. . 1993. Goodbye to Tristes Tropes : Ethnography in the context of modern world history. Journal of Modern History 65. 1 : 1-25. Sapir, E. 1924. Culture, genuine and spurious. American Journal of Sociology 29:

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401-429. Sartre, J. P. 1948. Anti-Semite and Jew. New York: Schocken. Shils, Edward, 1 97 1 . Tradition. Comparative Studies in Society and History 1 3.2: 1 22-59. Strauss, C . , and N. Quinn. 1 992. A cognitive/cultural anthropology. In R . Borofsky, ed., Assessing cultural anthropology, 284-96. New York: McGraw-HilL Thomas, N. 1992a. The inversion of tradition. American Ethnologist 19: 2 1 3-32. . 1992b. Substantivization and anthropological discourse. In J ames Carrier, ed. , History and tradition in Melanesian anthropology, 64-85 . Berkeley: University of California Press. Trask, H. 199 1 . Natives and anthropologists: The colonial struggle. The Contemporary Pac(fic 2: 159-67. . 1993 . From a native daughter: Colonialism and sovereignty in Hawaii. Mon­ roe, Maine: Common Courage Press. Trevor-Roper, H. 1983. The invention of tradition: The Highland tradition of Scotland. In E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, eds., The invention of tradition, 15-4 1 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Valeri, V. 1 982. The transformation of a transformation: A structural essay on an aspect of Hawaiian history ( 1802- 1 8 19). Social Analysis 10: 3-4 1 . Wagner, Roy. 1 97 5 . The invention of culture. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-HalL Wolf, E. 1957. Closed corporate peasant communities in Meso-America and Cenlltal Java. Southwestern Journal ofAnthropology 1 3 : 1 - 1 8 . --- . 1982. Europe and the people without history. Berkeley: University of Cali­ fornia Press. Yamamura, D. 1 94 1 . A study of the factors in the education of the child of Hawaiian ancestry in Hana, Maui. Master's thesis, University of Hawaii, Honolulu.

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l' (I

G lobal Com plexity and the Simplicity of Everyday Life

Kajsa Ekholm Friedman and Jonathan Friedman

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In the literature on modem society, on world systems, and on contemporary

culture, the term complexity often appears. We confess that we think this term lacking in significant content, especially for the understanding of the contemporary world, as it is founded on a superficial and quite ideological dichotomization between the assumed face-to-face simplicity of traditional society versus the extensive division of labor, the market, and social differen­ tiation of modem societies. We have no intention of entering into a discussion of a word that is best left to common usage. Instead we shall relate it to the context that we find relevant for this analysis. In cultural terms, global systems are obviously complex. In such systems the local is produced in an articulation with broader processes. The local is encompassed and constituted within the global, which is not to say that it is a mere product of external forces. On rqe contrary, we have insisted on the articulation between the local and glob;;l�;iftS central to the generation of specific social realities. The question of complexity, on the other hand, is more closely related to perspective itself. A position based on social distance, the bird's-eye view of the cosmopolitan, especially the cosmopolitan self-identified as culture expert. This complexity is part of the experience of the traveler encountering a myriad of cultural differences jumbled together with ketchup, McDonald's, and MTV. The natives in this very naive view are not what they used to be, and there is a tendency to think of them as B audrillardian simulacra, hybrids, modems toying with the ideas of their identities. But this is indeed the self-identity of the cosmopolitan culture critic, and not of those whom he observes. We argue that while all social systems are complex, everyday life tends to reduce this complexity to schemes of meaning and action that are significantly simplified. ,

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Chapter 4

The complexity is not a cultural complexity except for the external observer. The global perspective embraced here is simply an awareness of that larger set of reproductive processes within which local social fields are encompassed and maintained. Global systems are, in their very nature, historical, in the minimal sense that they are processes of social reproduction, that is, temporally defined. The analysis of such systems consists of the study of the degree to which and the way in which local structures are constituted in and by global relations. Global processes encompass much more than what is referred to as cul­ tural process. They are directly involved in the production of the social frames within which culture is constituted. Thus, the appearance of the nation-state, individualist ideology and experience, the novel, evolutionary thought are all linked to the processes that transformed Western Europe into a hegemonic cen­ ter in an emergent world system. Such processes do not preclude the existence of local strategies but merely define the framework, the context, in which they develop. Until quite recently, African cloth was made primarily in Holland and Germany. The production was targeted to specific regions and "tribes," that is, based on specific patterns, and the cloth was not for sale in Europe. The production of local difference on a global scale is proof of a global relation in production and consumption. Now, for the cosmopolitan culture expert, this may become a matter of some amusement the innocent tourist who buys genuine African cloth in the local market and returns home to find "made in Holland" printed into the edge and one might go on to surmise that the local African culture had become hybrid or Europeanized, on this basis. This is not, of course, the globalization of culture, but global control over local consump­ tion via product differentiation. However, the appropriation of the cloth at\d its uses is not deducible from this fact. In other words the global circulation of products is not equivalent to the globalization of meaning, except, perhaps, for the global observer who ascribes meaning in global terms. In several previous publications we have discussed a phenomenon called la sape, whereby young men from the Congo and Zaire, usually from more im­ poverished urban areas, systematically 'accumulate designer clothing, moving up the ranks of finery until moving to Paris, I ' aventure, in order to engage in becoming un grand. The emergence of a kind of cult group surrounding this process is well documented, with clearly defined age classes and competitive cat-walking, organized by returning to Brazzaville, center in the periphery, sewing the accumulated labels into a single jacket and performing la danse des griffes at the local sape club. Now in one sense this process is about glob­ alization, the globalization of people, or garments, a veritable traffic in people and goods, sometimes including drugs and often resulting in the re-import of low-end jeans and t-shirts to be sold in the African markets. What is not occurring, however, is a mixture of culture, not unless the notion is confined

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Global Complexity and the Simplicity of Everyday Life

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to the museological definition of ethnographic objects. A lumpenproletarian Congolese who flaunts his Versace suit and Westin crocodile shoes is not, in our view, a Westernized African, nor is he something "betwixt and between." This is because he is engaged in a specific practice of accumulation of "life-force" that assimilates the Western goods to an expression of a process that is entirely African. The Western is encompassed by the practice of la sape. The clothes are contained within a different project, and the properties of the clothes do not alter those of the project. The content does not shape the container. On the other hand, his entire project, as a social practice, is in its turn encompassed by the larger global processes upon which it is, in its global specificity, entirely dependent. Thus, instead of falling back on a model of complex cultural flows or other similar metaphors, we think it better to conceive of such global cultural pro­ cesses in terms of positioned practices such as assimilation, encompassment, and integration in the context of social interaction. This is a relation between container and contained in the sense of the variable forms of incorporation of the products of a global field of interaction into the practice of local strate­ gies, and the relation of these processes to the practice of identification, that is, of meaning attribution. The global processes of commercial world systems contain three very broad levels of integration:

1 . The assimilation of the global to local systems of practice (social repro­ duction) 2. The integration of the local into the reproductive cycles of the global 3. The interaction of identification processes (a) global identifications of the local as part of the self-identity of the center (b) local self-identity " (i) via the mirror of power, that is, the assimilation of the gaze �f " , ' the other, the localization of global categories (ii) via the elaboration of local and historicized representations (c) the practice of authority, that is, the institutionalization of identity ,

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In the Congolese case the strategy of appropriation of the world is strongly other-directed and consists in the identification of the foreign as life-force to be appropriated, as the definition of well-being, power, wealth, and health. This is a practice of dependency that defines social selfhood as part of a larger whole whose source of power is external to the local society. The Hawaiians discussed below practice precisely the opposite form of selfhood, one that builds a blockade to the outside world and that transforms all those people and things that enter into the local. In both cases, we have an assimilation of the global to local systems of practice, but the forms of identification are

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exo-social and en do-social, respectively. In either case, · what may appear as complex from the outside is integrated into a life strategy that is considerably simpler. In the following discussion, we attempt to concretize the way in which the Hawaiian village of Miloli'i is at once engaged, or perhaps entangled, in the larger world system in terms of material transactions that are, of course, social, while at the same time it is driven by a strategy of self-preservation, self-isolation, what we refer to as endo-sociality. As this is a rather descriptive discussion we might detail the course of the argument in advance. The first section describes the historical processes in­ volved in the formation of the modern village. It concerns the way in which the village has become increasingly isolated as an economic unit from a former regional economy and reintegrated into the larger economy of the islands, and the simultaneously increasing force of attraction of the village as a refuge for Hawaiians. This is followed by three aspects of contemporary village life: first, a concentric presentation of social relations from the village itself to the rela­ tion to tourism; second, the representation of the village in the media and the Hawaiian movement, detailing the symbolic signifi cance of the village, and the way the former affects village self-identity; finally, the physical context of the village as a central place on the sparsely populated coastal plain. This is fol­ lowed by a discussion of the relation between the complexity of the place when seen from the outside and the simplicity of everyday life seen from the inside. The case studies exemplify the argument that the relations between the village and external forces are changing due to changing global relations and their expressions in a declining modernism and an expansive cultural identity among Hawaiians. Miloli 'i has gained from this change, but it may be changirt'g from this gain.

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Miloli'i is a small village of fewer than 200 inhabitants in the South Kona district of the island of Hawaii (figures 4. 1 and 4.2). It is one of perhaps two well-known villages in the state, known for its continuity with the Hawaiian past, a continuity of settlement that is rare in the islands, where the Hawaiian population was more or less ousted from its lands from the middle of the nineteenth century until the struggles of the 1 970s. The Kona coast of Hawaii is well known for its beauty and perfect weather. Even the Hawaiian nobility gathered there for sport and leisure in the late pre­ European period. Miloli ' i is located today in an area that is far to the south of the more lucrative tourist areas. Traveling down the coast from Kailua,

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Global Complexity and the Simplicity of Everyday L(fe

1 45

once the capital of the islands, now a wealthy tourist center, one passes a string of small towns overlooking the Pacific until coming to Captain Cook, and then Honaunau, after which it is said one enters Hawaiian territory. Until recently, there was a sudden decline in housing density after this point, as well as a decline in basic infrastructure, electricity, and water. The 1 980s expansion led to the beginnings of real-estate speculation in this area as well, but the 1 990s put a stop to that. From Honaunau to the southern tip of the island, the percentage of Hawai­ ians increases significantly, mostly because the percentage of other peoples declines. Here is the famous Kona coffee district on the slopes, fruit trees, and, as one moves south, the great macadamia-nut plantations and some of the most advanced marijuana growing in the world. The further one goes up the slopes, the more booby traps, pit bulls, and automatic weapons one is likely to run into (literally). The marijuana industry is unofficially the largest industry in the state, producing an income of upwards of $ 1 0 billion compared to the $9 billion in the tourist industry. Large syndicates are involved, but the orig­ inal growing base consists of hardened middle-aged hippies who were often on their way to India in the 1 960s and settled down in Hawaii where almost everything was free. Here, over the border from Kona in the southern district of Ka'u, is the community of Ocean View, a vast lava slope where lots can be bought relatively cheaply, where infrastructure is minimal by white Hawai­ ian standards, and where a large part of the population consists of ordinary pensioners who can 't afford the more lucrative localities in paradise. Driving along the highway, one can peer outoverthe Pacific. Along the coast there were once a great many fishing villages. Today only Miloli' i remains, although there is a tendency for certain viHages to become repopulated. Miloli' i i s located five miles and 1 ,300 feet down fro m the highway. From a distance it appears as an oasis settled at the end of a desert of lava flows. Until very. recently it possessed neither electricity nor running water. Next to the village is a famous development scam from the 1 970s, a n umber of lots totally withdili,t infrastructure set out on a lava plain where rain is practically unknown. Some wealthy restaurateurs, builders, and mainlanders have built large houses on these sites, but there are others who camp out on their own lava lawns. The total lack of vegetation here is quite awesome, compared to the relatively luxuriant fishing village next door. :

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Miloli'i, as other fi shing villages, was part of a larger political unit called an ahupua 'a stretching from the upper slopes to the sea. As an economic unit

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the ahupua 'a was essentially self-sufficient in terms of subsistence. The entire island was divided vertically into smaller or larger pie-shaped slices organized into political units of the chiefdom structure. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, after the introduction of private property, the vertical structures tended to become divided into horizontal strips . An ecology based on self-sufficient access to the products of a wide range of zones, from mountain to sea, was transformed into a privately owned horizontal specialist economy of ranches and plantations. This all occurred in a period of severe depopulation and a massive importation of foreign plantation labor. Miloli'i as a fishing village was once known as a producer of olona, a strong water-resistant twine used for making fish nets and rope. Later on in the twentieth century it became famous for its dried sea mackerel, opelu. Once a month a sampan or even larger boat would come to Miloli'i and exchange rice, flour, salt, and other necessities for dried opelu. There was a pier in Miloli'i B ay where the ship landed that is still used today. Contact with the outside world in this period was via shipping and, to a lesser extent, overland. There was trade between the fishermen and dry- and even wetland taro growers from the upper slopes and from the north, as far as the illustriously fertile Waipio valley. Many of the inhabitants of the village, however, had other residences in the uplands and moved between the upland and seaside zones on a seasonal basis, thus practicing the essentials of the former ahupua ' a economy. The neighboring ahupua 'a of Ho' opuloa was intact until 1 926. In that year the fishing village with that name neighbor, that is, to Miloli'i was destroyed by a lava flow. Most of the families from there became squatters on land just above Milol i ' i itself, part of the Ho'opuloa ahupua 'a but without its own port and physically an extension ofMiloli'i. The territorial government "set aside" this land as refugee land but never provid�d the residents legal access. They were, in legal terms, squatters until 1 982. Much of the upland above the former village was taken over by the major land companies and ranches, either by trickery, or by adverse possession. l Until World War 11 there were still quite a few coastal fishing villages between Miloli' i and Kealakekua Bay,2 some of them quite large. In the war this was all changed radically. Many of the villages were totally depopulated as a result of military evacuation and induction into the armed forces. After the war the villages were sil:nply not repopulated by returning veterans. The veterans had been introduced into new ways of life, new jobs, and new education, often within the military. Many of them left Hawaii altogether in the 1 950s as the plantation economy drew to a close and began to be re­ placed by tourism, the "new kind of sugar." The economy of the Kona coast was essentially coffee, and, in spite of its luxury quality, it was not lucrative. The introduction of Hawaiians into the larger American economy as wage workers was for many an escape from poverty and stigmatized status. Many

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Hawaiians in the interviews conducted in the village told of how they identified out, a possibility since they were all part something or other (e.g., Chinese, Filipino, Japanese). Miloli'i was not new to foreign contact, of course. During the war, a large number of Filipinos moved down to the village in order to fish

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commercially. They worked for a couple of Hawaiians,. .a Filipino, and a "part­ Chinese" who ran commercial fishing businesses based in the village. Quite a few of them married into village families. Other Hawaiians also gravitated toward Miloli'i. Small settlements south of the village were emptied by the war and moved to the larger agglomeration and still others from villages to the north, such as Ho 'okena moved south. Often this was a question of marriage since, formerly, there were alliance relations along the entire coast. There is continuity in social relations here but increasingly geographically compressed. In the 1 950s, Miloli ' i had a reputation for being an isolated village that held to the old traditions, while the rest of the coast was being rapidly modernized. Whereas most Hawaiians had lost their land, Mi101i 'i still maintained control over its land and sea base. While the refugees lived on state land, land con­ fiscated by the territory after the lava flow of 1 926, Miloli' i proper was the property of the villagers themselves. In the 1 950s people still spoke Hawaiian, and there was a school in the village that assured in part that Hawaiian was not totally repressed, that is, while Hawaiian was officially forbidden in school, the location of the school in the village and close friendship between teacher and villagers made it possible to maintain the language. Secondary education and the goals of modernization led to the exodus of a large percentage of the following generation to Kona and to Honolulu. During the 1 950s Hawaiians in general had a tendency to leave the islands entirely, often via the military, and they often identified as part Chinese, part Filipino, part Portuguese, rather than part Hawaiian . Miloli' i experienced various waves of exodus as Hawaii became increasingly integrated into the United States. Many worked in Hon­ olulu Harbor, in shipping, in the merchant marines, and in a number of trades related to the development of the tourist sector, construction, painting, h�tel services, and so forth. But Miloli 'i-born usually returned home after several years, or sometimes decades in the outside "fast" world. Miloli'i had until very recently become a kind of city of refuge, a place of security and freedom, where one can always go down andget food from the sea. It is far enough from the mainstream life of island and the islands to be able to maintain its own separate existence. It has become in some ways a closed cor­ porate community, although this is more a question of identity to be presented to the outside world than a material reality. The distinction "inside/outside" has been used to refer to the nature of closed corporateness in world systemic terms (Ekholm and Friedman 1 980; Linnekin 1 99 1 ) . Applied to the village of Keanae on Maui it has been used as a kind of model, a representation of the relation between Hawaiian villagers in a non-monetary world and the larger capitalist society (Linnekin 1 9 9 1 ) . For Miloli ' i residents, being inside is not so much a way of interpreting experience butthe experience itself, one that many non-Hawaiians may have also felt in descending the South Kona slopes to the

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tiny fi shing village. Being insid e, as we shall argue , is practiced and practical. The village is a place of refuge where Hawaiians can survive doing things that are by and large unacceptable in the larger society. In this sense , the metaphor is constructed on much less than a general understanding of the larger world, and more immediately on the experience of literally being inside a community that is a shelter from the outside world.

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has the effect of packing experience into a small geographical space. Demographically, Miloli'i is quite complete, unlike many Third World villages, which often contain only the very old and the very young. Miloli'i maintains a rather high rate of endogamy. Almost all of the twenty or so households are closely related to one another, forming half a dozen extended families th at are and continue to be intermarried. This is a thick core. "We are all family down here! " 3 There are many children, many first-year birthdays , many marriages, many occasions for luaus. The villagers practice a kind of generalized reciprocity, a group fu s ion, rather than exchange. That is, they continually practice the non-existence of households as political units. Relatives, near and far, even friends, o ften move in for periods of several months or even longer without arousing the least opposition or surprise. Such phenomena are unmarked for the Hawaiian household. In this respect the latter is entirely open to the larger network of relatives and close friends. Expectations of generosity are high. One is to give oneself to the group and not exchange things with others. ConfHhs and broken relations arise on the basis of the difficulty of maintaining this kind of giving/taking. At the same time the household is a fortress of privacy, "kuleana rule," no butting into family business. The generosity is an expected behavior, an overlay, upon the separateness of the household that fuses the larger community into a family despite clear internal boundaries . Nobody demands, nobody asks. One can go to a luau and take home all that one can carry without offence and one is expected to give what one has, in the sense of making one's wares available for others. It is not so much giving as balanced taking, that is, "to each according to his need," in this case from others in the community. Balance in transactions is only visible in the negative, that is, in the visibility of non-generosity. This may be a correlate of closed corporatenes s. I t clearly marks off the village from the outside world. Nongenerosity is a heavily marked feature of village discourse. It defines the essence of evil and causes immense psychic pain among those affected. It causes fear of interaction and self-isolation. This experience of personal relations clearly Self-isolation

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resonates with the notion 0 f aloha a s it i s u sed, politically, to distinguish the Hawaiian lifestyle. Village relations combine what might seem paradoxical; proximity and distance, openness and closedness, or perhaps, more accurately, distance in proximity and closedness in openness. It is the fragile and unstable encompassment of the centrifugal by the centripetal. This is fundamental to the social structure of the village, characterized by hierarchical households in which women are dominant and where separate projects are formulated and executed, and an egalitarian de-politicized (historically) public arena where men meet to practice equality, consensus, and generosity. The internal relations of the village are not accessible from the outside and are not part of the explicit model of village life. Various views of "what . goes on down there" are entertained by various categories of people. Resident whites, lower-middle and middle-class working people, would never dream of going down; for them Miloli ' i is a frightening, mean, place. "Don't go down there . . . it's a mean place . . . people, haoles, have got killed down there." One person, a Canadian, was in fact murdered along the coast after hav­ ing spent some time in the village. And his accused murderer, an in-married Hawaiian, was sent to prison for his offence following a long series of false accusations, insinuations, and painful investigations. The village is also asso­ ciated with various criminal and dangerous activities by those who have never been there. For such people the fact that the village is on the tourist map, and that there is a camping ground located in its center, is a total mystery. In contrast to this view, Miloli 'i is a kind and generous place for the campers looking for a non-tol:lfist Hawaii, "the other Hawaii." There is a state park in the middle of the village and parking space for ten cars or more quite an institution in a village of 200. In the mid- 1 980s, the state park department built running-water bathrooms for the use of visitors, while most of the villagers had only outhouses and no running water of any kind. The system was ba's'�if . on brackish water that was pumped into the toilets and sinks while the sew�ge went down into the coral formation that at high tide could conceivably wash . out in the front of the village. This has never been tested but there have been rumors , and rumors are central to the life of the village. Quite a few cars descend to the village and into the park area, which used to be the Miloli' i elementary school until it was destroyed by high surf. A Miloli' i summer program used the building skills of the inhabitants , most of them teenagers, to build several halaus arid an extended lava-stone sea wall. Many visitors get out of their cars for only a minute or two, to take photographs and then disappear, apparently rather afraid of the place, especially if there are no other visitors present at the time. Others come to camp, some families, some pairs, some singles. They wander around the village or at least around the park area. Some hike down the coastline, after asking villagers or the visiting anthropologist how to get -

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to a: well-known black-sand beach, Honomalino, which is inaccessible except by foot. A more interesting category is those who return year after year to the camping place. Some of these are older people who have established tourist­ friendships with the local people, often via the Protestant church that is located just above the parking place. For many of these people, Miloli 'i is truly a "haven in a heartless world," a congenial place where folks are generous and the pace is human. There are also quite a few Alaskans, often from the salmon-fishing industry, who come to Hawaii in the off-season and often have boats that they launch from the village.4 Many Alaskans have also bought second houses in the development known as Ocean View, 1 ,500 feet above the village and several miles south. Relatives of the Hawaiian families may come, on occasion, from Honolulu or the mainland to visit the village of their childhood. In recent years this has sometimes been a step toward resettlement in the village. Finally, there are local residents who descend either to swim, fi sh, or just camp out. They are known to the villagers and are part of the village support network. There are in this category quite a large number of Hawaiian s, who have a tradition of coming to Miloli'i from Hilo, on the other side of the island, or from Ka'u in the south. Many are related to Miloli ' i residents. The range of visitors spans the most superficial visual relation of cautious distance to the well-integrated Hawaiian from across the island or across the state. Every year Miloli'i puts on two game-fish tournaments in which sportsmen from the entire coast, Honolulu, and even the mainland can participate. Miloli' i fishermen and women almost always win as they are so familiar with the waters, and there is plenty of money to be made both by the fi shermen and by those who bet on the winners. It is true that the sportsmen and women are by and large people who return from year to year, and thus fall into the category �f the perennial tourists or campers. The event combines a tournament with the usual all-night party and the visitors, if they stay, are easily assimilated into the occasion without in any way affecting its character. Just as Miloli'i takes on innumerable visitors of different types, the villagers themselves are very often on the move themselves . To go holoholo as they say, to go traveling to visit others, is a generally known phenomenon that has sometimes been reduced to cultural instinct, as in "Hawaiians have a penchant for travel" (Linnekin 1 985:35). But Hawaiians travel in groups, in their own pickups, and stay in the homes of relatives in other localities, or at least in specially designated hotels, often Hawaiian owned. They manage, brilliantly, to avoid all contact with the larger society, that is, traveling with their backs to the world they traverse, as if in conduits of their own making. Home is thus extended to the larger region via a complex of insulated networks. On the road they practice the obverse of that which is practiced at home. But the larger strategy is identical.

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Miloli' i entertains , literally, a great many different categories of people. On the surface there is no closure to the outside world. This is, in one powerful respect, the result of the politics and economics of the state of Hawaii. The existence of a public park and camping site in the middle of the village, the public access to its boat ramp, the neighboring communities , all impinge upon the day-to-day existence of the village in physical term s. At the same time, as we argue at the end of this chapter, villagers assimilate outsiders into their lives in ways that they choose, from complete obliviousness to incorporation into the activities of village life, festivities, fishing, coffee production, and so forth. Those who are so integrated have to make sacrifices, to submit themselves to the needs of the villagers. This is the demonstration of their aloha, their eligibility for membership.

TH E REPRESENTATIONAL CONTEXT

Milo!i' i is thoroughly represented in the larger world, by films from Hollywood to educational and public broadcasting and in the news media, where their struggles for their land and against developers have usually been accorded a great deal of sympathy. Miloli ' i is also represented in the Hawaiian image of its own lifestyle, as an ideal type. This context is part of a century­ or-more-old representational scheme for Hawaiians, who have representedthe remote and romantic paradise of many an American dream, made ambivalent by the ambiguous relations entertained by white women and their menfolk to the potentially dangerous sexuality of the colonized brown people. 5 The major s hift in Western identity concomitant upon the decline of hegemony has been a globally orchestrated shift to respect for the native past and a longing for:a . past of one's own. The ambivalent primitive has become the symbol of ��:�t which we others have lost. This is the predominant neo-traditionalism oftthe period. Modernists, certain anthropologists for example, struggle againsftne Hawaiian self-image as a romantic falsification of its real past to whicl'l 'only anthropologists have unobstructed access due to their ideological neutrality. All of these public representations partake of the larger struggle for control over Hawaiian identification. This identity contest is clearly globaL Two very different kinds of film have been made in part or in whole in 'the village. In the early 1 960s Paramount Studios made the Elvis film, Girls! Girls! Girls! partly in Miloli'i. They paved the five-mile road down to the viHage, which previously took a day to travel and which now takes less than 30 minutes. The film team was there for several months, and a small shack overlooking the bay, belonging to one of the villagers, is called "Elvis's House." It is where he lived during the shooting.

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In the 1 980s Chevron Oil corporation made a film of Miloli 'i that was part of its educational series on Native American lifestyles. Here Hawaiian lifeways are celebrated as part of the American heritage. Villagers don 't remember so much about this particular fi lm except for the fact that they had to get some real Hawaiian canoes, that is, koa wood canoes, in order to fish in the traditional style. A number of TV films have also been made about the village. Public Televi­ sion made a film, also celebrating the traditional lifestyle of the village, in the 1 980s , very much inspired by the explosive increase of interest in Hawaiians, itself a partial result of the Hawaiian movement. Another film was made by the movement's own film team, Maka 'ainana fi lms, as a celebration of Hawaiian life on the land. Miloli'i is a very important place for the Hawaiian movement. It represents something that has been lost to most Hawaiians. For ordinary Hawaiians it is not so much a question of tradition, but a place to live as Hawaiians. In Waianae, the largest Hawaiian non-urban settlement along the coast outside of Honolulu, there are a number of homestead lands as well as shopping-center­ based communities where a large portion of the population works in the city and commutes or is quite simply unemployed. In interviews conducted here, Miloli'i was often referred to as a kind of paradise not so much in cultural terms, but as a true place of sanctuary from the fast life that had destroyed many Hawaiians, relegated them to poverty and a marginalized existence. Miloli' i was known t o both young and old: "Oh they got that ono opelu [delicious mackerel] . . . can live off the ocean . . . no more worries." All this in opposition to the Waianae coast, riddled with social problems, broken families, feuding, murder, drugs, and organized crime, from local politicians down, and of coufse in a position of practiced marginalization from the state, racist schools, and Japanese golf course invaders (there are upwards of 40 golf courses on Oahu today most of them Japanese, built in the 1 980s some on agricultural land and all taking huge amounts of the scarce island water for their greens). The Hawaiian movement began its take-off in the mid- to late 1 970s. This was not an entirely new phenomenon. Hawaiians have in varying degrees resisted the takeover of their islands and the establishment of an American republic, territory, and then state. But this was all resistance in a period of vast economic expansion in the Pacific, the development of a large-scale plantation economy, followed by the tourist industry, the era of D.S. global hegemony in which it was difficult to resist not only force but economic and political success. Hawaiians were not only oppressed, they were also in signifi cant ways shamed out of existence, very much by the parallel sequences of their own decline and the rise of a dominant white society. Poverty and stigma led to identifi cation with other ethnic groups in a part-X society that enabled a

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Global Complexity and the Simplicity of Everyday Life

number of choices of ethnic identity. The great change occurred in the mid1 970s, a change that cannot, as far as we can determine, be understood as the cumulative result of a long Hawaiian struggle, but as part of the breakdown of U.S. hegemony and the quite sudden dissolution of modernist identity. Hawaiian identity re-emerged in the scramble for roots in a more general way, a scramble that was legitimized by the hegemonic groups themselves. The Hawaiian movement was not an urban-elite-led nationalist type of movement as some have described it (Linnekin 1 983). Elites have, of course, played a role, especially in later developments, but its roots lie in the rural areas where Hawaiian resistance is quite old and where it is difficult to speak of a single organized movement. Rather, there was a series of local groups, often calling themselves ohana, that became increasingly interconnected over time. There is, of course, a strong link to the renaissance of Hawaiian tradition, seen in terms of extended family, ohana, and a specific love for the land, aloha 'aina, set off against the creative destruction of modernity, more specifically modem capitalist civilization, but this was not an invention of academic elites. The Hawaiian movement very early on became anti-civilizational in its content, a Fourth World movement, as much against socialism as against capitalism, that is, against modernist notions of development. Hawaiian life had to be salvaged, not so much ancient Hawaiian society and culture as those values still thought to exist among the population. For the members of this movement, Miloli 'i was and is an idyllic representation of what life could be. For the leadership it is, surely, a question of culture, not so much of symbolic systems and ritual, but of values and lifesty le, the latter still part of Hawaiian existence. But, for many, the Hawaiian today still bears and can develop his culture. In fact the temples , heiaus, are now being restored and used o n an increasing scale. Hawaiian language schools have emerged. The ahupua 'a economy is being reinstated, or at least serious attempts exist. The Hawaiian movement has demanded\t}le . . return of a land base equivalent to half of the lands of the islands, and there �S a move in the direction of the establishment of Hawaiian self -sufficiency It should be noted here that the Hawaiian movement has had a powerful effect on the self-identity of the islands in general, including the other ethni� groups. In the election of 1 986, a Hawaiian became governor for the firsttime in the history of the state, which had been dominated for more than two decades by Japanese-Americans and haoles. His vice-governor was and is Filipino. The inauguration was an event very unlike the usual gubernatorial happening. Heads of state from the entire Pacific were invited guests. The inauguration, held on the grounds of the Hawaiian royalty's palace, was attended by a large number of Hawaiians, also unusual for such an occasion. And several thousand people held hands and sang the Hawaiian national anthem. From Hickam, the Honolulu-based airforce flew its jets over the palace grounds, creating a din . •

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that might have been the order of the day in another state, but was here understood as mere military noise staged to annoy and perhaps scare the new state government. There was a general atmosphere of jubilation and premonitions of change. Hawaii was, perhaps, to become more Hawaiian. While the ensuing years showed that this democratic government was very similar to the preced­ ing Japanese-American dominated regimes, the context of identification was radically changed. Hawaiians now existed and the general goal of Hawaiian independence was introduced into the realm of real possibilities. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, OHA, a state organ in charge of Hawaiian issues (chal­ lenged at one point as unconstitutional since it was based on special group interests) began to jostle for power. The current result is that there are two models of Hawaiian sovereignty, one non-government based, best represented by Kalahui Hawaii, the "Nation of Hawaii," and OHA, the official road to a top-steered Hawaiian entity within the state. 6 The difference between the two models of sovereignty is less significant here than the structure of the power relations. Miloli'i has been able to use the Hawaiian movement, OHA, and the state itself to make significant improvements in its conditions of existence. This was not possible in the period from the 1 950s to the 1 970s. When the renowned double canoe, the Hokulea, returned to Hawaii from a voyage to the South Pacific, it stopped in Miloli'i for a number of days. This was, of course, a media event. But even as it placed Miloli'i on the cultural map of the islands, it was a veritable carnival of cultural identity for the villagers, whose status was greatly enhanced by the occasion. For culture experts, for anthropologists interested in "things Hawaiian," and for Hawaiian modernists, Hawaiian is about a no-longer-existing reality, de­ stroyed by the modern capitalist system or perhaps succumbing to a superfor civilization. One modernist view of Hawaiians is that they ought to join the lower classes in a more general struggle against the evils of capitalist domi­ nation. For others Hawaiians can indeed attempt to recall their heritage and even be proud of it (although one anthropologist expressed his disbelief that such a "mixed" population could maintain a Hawaiian identity at all), but the idea of reliving or practicing this heritage is absurd. This is very much because Hawaiians no longer have any cultural project that they can really call their own. That project is the property of the anthropologists. They have been re­ duced to a mere ethnic group among others and must leave their nostalgia for traditions behind. For others, including many ethnic Hawaiians, the American ethnic strategy is the most adaptive. The latter is one in which ethnicity is car­ ried in the body and in a certain number of practices that are clearly external to social life processes, economic survival, and so forth. Hawaiians should strive for success in American society while keeping their separate identity in the form of values and knowledge of history the basis for ethnic pride. ,

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The representational context we have described is part of the institutional­ ized field of representation and discourse available for all those engaged in the highly politicized process of identification, either of self or of others. The positioned voices detailed here are not produced in the same way as the rep­ resentations of those who are positioned in the immediate vicinity of Miloli' i, and we have kept them separate. Of course, local retirees who think of villagers as dangerous and engaged in illegitimate activities may make use of the more general representations, as may ecological activists who support the village on the grounds that it is closer to nature. The distinctions are not categorical, but there are clearly two spheres of discourse and cultural production, the one establishing the framework for the other.

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TH E PHYS ICAL CONTEXT

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The representational context of Miloli' i encompasses the island, the state, and the nation. The physical context concerns the immediate environment of the village, but that environment is itself deeply enmeshed in global economic and political processes and to the extent that the region is a marketable com­ modity, its image; the romantic, the tropical, the sea, but not the lava, are instrumental representations in the organization of that region. Just to the north of the village in the ahupua 'a of Ho'opuloa covered by lava from the 1 926 flow was a developer's paradise. Here, more than 1 ,000 feet below the main road, began in the 1960s one of the land scams that are so well known in Hawaii. A developer bought a lava field from a ranch, 423 acres, and subdivided it into 1 ,000 house lots, advertised as MiloWibeachlots, right on the ocean. General Robert Lee Scott, of God is My Co-Pilot fanle, became head of a community association for the potential military retil!�� S expected to buy the lots. The owners paid $ 1 37,000 for the area and sold ;��e unimproved properties for a sum of $3.5 million. If houses had been put I:lp;�n all the lots it would conceivably have destroyed the integrity of Miloli'i, butas there is no beach and there was no infrastructure, no water, and no electricity, the lots did not begin to be developed until very recently, and then only a few of them. Instead the lots have become a kind of suburb of Miloli'i, or what we call downtown Miloli'i. The owners of the houses there number some restaurant owners, builders, and mainlanders who have retired to the island. Some relatives and even residents of Miloli'i have lots in this area, and others rent houses there. Miloli'i is surrounded by ranches, a macadamia-nut plantation, and, further to the south, a number of housing developments, an in the uplands (more than 1 ,000 feet above the vinage). The scam subdivision to the north is the only - .' -

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settlement in close proximity. To the south there is nothing, but there have been several attempts to "develop" some of the ahupua 'a that are owned by large corporate interests. The enclave nature of the village is partly geographical and very much social. But the (en)closure of the village in the midst of a constant flow of transients, as well as the movement of local goods and people back and forth between the village and the larger society, is a crucial property of the way in which the village reproduces itself, a foundational strategy of local existence in the global arena.

COMPLEXITY: AN EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVE

What is complex about the village of Miloli'i? From the anthropologist's per­ spective, arriving with the view of a world dichotomized into the modern and the traditional, Hawaiian villages, both of them, are very much within the modern sector. One anthropologist was much taken with the fact that the other village of Keanae in Maui, "the taro place," was not a subsistence settlement but produced taro for the poi market in Hawaii, that it was locked into the larger economy and could not really be understood as a local organic whole (Linnekin 1 985 :34-36). Even the population was seen as hopelessly mixed up, an ethnic hodgepodge. Several families are left out of her study on the grounds that they are not Hawaiians but hippies. One has, perhaps, to draw the line somewhere in the search for the real thing. The search for real things has been a hallmark of classical anthropology's attempt to simplify the complex­ ity of the world. Nowadays, complexity itself, in all its cultural confusion, has become a new real thing. However, it might be suggested that the transition from the ethnographically pure-and-simple to the messy-but-real is about the transgression of preconceived categories that define both sides of the supposed transition. Miloli' i is involved in several economies. There is a strong subsistence component, based on the use that can be made of the resources of the sea and the uplands, affording fish, vegetables and fruits, and game. There is a cash economy on top of this based on the sale of fish and of coffee and fruit. Today, coffee is milled and dried in the village on a significant scale and then sold after being sent for roasting. Villagers also work part time in the macadamia-nut plantation and in hotels along the coast. Welfare payments are a very large part of the local cash flow. The village might, in one sense, be a place of residence like any other poor modern rural settlement, but at the same time it has a very special local organization, an identity, and symbolic activities. The practice of the economic reproduction of the village penetrates into the island's modern sector, but the social practice of villagehood sets a

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clear boundary between the viHage unit and the outside world. Miloli' i is a political unit, a practiced and reproduced place defined against the rest of the world. This is so in spite of the apparent paradox that there is a constant flow of various categories of outsiders in and out of the village and a plethora of contacts political, economic, and otherwise with county and state agencies, upland communities, coffee companies, and fish markets. This identification i s practiced both ways and in several overlapping sit­ uations. The village is ascribed certain characteristics by the outside world: dangerous, primitive, pristine, traditional. It is native Hawaii as against haole Hawaii. The village was formed by a regional depopulation and geographical im­ plosion from the north and the south that transformed the coastline, replete with fishing villages at the shore lines of their respective ahupua 'a into a single village surrounded by a horizontal organization of ecological exploita­ tion in which fishing became an increasingly specialized activity, ending with commercial tuna fishing. After the war the village became relatively poor in relation to its surroundings, and Hawaiians lost increasingly in the status hi­ erarchy with the emergence of the tourist economy, the decline of island food production, and increasing dependence on tourist income and imported prod­ ucts. Hawaiians identified out and moved out. Today it is estimated that over 100,000 Hawaiians live on the mainland almost a third of all Hawaiians. In the period between 1 960 and 1 970 it even appears as if the Hawaiian popula­ tion decreased. Self-identified Hawaiians declined by 1 6 percent in the national census. Miloli'i children, sent to high school, especially the Hawaiian Kame­ hameha School in Honolulu, did not return home, not at first. Many found jobs in the city, or in the military. Manyended up in Germany or in Vietnam. Many, that is, entered the lower echelons of the national society, and many were con­ fronted with a kind of racism that they had not encountered in Hawaii. Milolii;'i contracted during this period, which lasted until the mid-to-Iate 1 970s. In t6e latter period of declining American hegemony and rising ethnic movements; the Hawaiian movement also began its long trajectory, from being part of a larger radical student-based movement to an increasingly national or at least culture-based movement. By the 1 980s it was good to be Hawaiian. The chief state demographer, in an interview, suggested that Hawaiians were beginning to re-identify, often changing their names. Both this decline and the subsequent renaissance of cultural identity are vaster phenomena than can be understood from the village alone. Miloli' i had been known throughout the century as a community that re­ sisted the encroachment of the landowners. The former "mayor" of the village struggled for years against attempts to buy out his land above the village. Large landowners were and are known to have taken advantage of the complex

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ownership patterns of former ahupua 'a lands, where titles are often divided among large numbers of heirs without clear boundaries having been established. Often one of the owners who found him- or herself in debt would sell off property that belonged to a dozen other cousins and siblings, by simply hav­ ing access to the deed papers. Conflict, often ending in court, over the division of land title is still one of the great Hawaiian pastimes, one that goes well back into the 1 800s, at least as far as the establishment of freehold title. Miloli'i is interesting insofar as the three main landowning families and their heirs have maintained large tracts of land intact throughout this century, although most of it is below the precipitation line. The complexity of Miloli'i might appear bewildering from an external point of view, replete with ambiguities, a myriad of relations with outsiders, from intermarriage to beer parties, from land struggles to Hollywood films. Miloli'i is extensively entangled with the larger world, up to its neck in the modern sector. But, from the inside things are simpler. The following three cases il­ lustrate the nature and complexity of the entanglement itself, and the way it is quite consistently integrated into the village life-projects. .

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H AWAHAN R I V I E RA: C H i lDREN OF T H E lAND VERSUS TH E STRA NGER K I N G

The southwest coast of Hawaii, as we have indicated, lacks modem infrastruc­ ture, running water, and, in parts, electricity. It is a dry area in which lava flows have left their indelible mark on the landscape. Here, as we also pointed out, a number of lava-flow housing developments have been spawned by specula1!brs. Most of them have not succeeded. The southernmost district of Hawaii, Ka'u, famous for its historical opposition to chiefly power, became the target for a development project at the start of the 1 990s. The land some 2,000 acres on the lower slopes of a lava plain rift zone had been bought in a very complex set of transfers by an international partnership? The construction project in­ cluded two large hotels and condomilil.ium complexes, at a cost upwards of $ 1 billion, the largest in the state's history. In order to start such a project, the site first needed to be rezoned by the Land Use Commission after public hearings. By rezoning what had been conservation land as urban land, the value of the property could be significantly increased and in this way it would be possible to acquire loans to finance the project. The Riviera was intended to be truly global, with a Royal Hawaiian flavor (see figure 4.5). The developers paid a public relations specialist to present the project to the local people, and an Environmental Impact Statement was prepared by Hawaiian consultants. The aim was to demonstrate that the local

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A MEDITERRANEAN RIVIERA SEASIDE RESORT DESIGNED AROUND AN HISTORICAL THEME Figure 4.5.

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Advertisement for Hawaiian Riviera Resort

area would benefit greatly from the development. A debate grew up in the neighboring village of Miloli'i (about 15 miles to the north of the proposed resort) between those who felt that the Riviera would offer employment and economic recovery, and those who felt that the development would undermine their Hawaiian identity and lifestyle. This was also a conflict between accepting the patronage of international corporate developers and maintaining village solidarity. The Land Use Commission arranged a series of hearings. Representing the village against the project was a man who had had a career in Hilo politics and had been involved in helping villagers gain rights to their lands and funds to rebuild their houses. He had also successfully opposed developers in the past. The other representative, in opposition to the project, was a young haole of "green" persuasion, who taking the lifestyle/ecology line argued for the rights of Miloli'i to continue the traditional way of life. The village summoned its old-timers, who describedthe sacred sites, the love ofthe land and nature,the lifestyle, and the subsistence base that was so essential for village survival. ' the survival, after all, of the last fishing village. Those in favor of the proj\il'\t ' argued for jobs and economic security. ' The commission itself was in principle skeptical toward the project, and the representative of the governor was entirely against it. The media soon became ' --' invol ved. Miloli' i became a real power to be reckoned with at the state levelon radio and television, in the Honolulu newspapers, and in the major financial magazine in the state and the region. It was the tiny traditional village that fought the giant corporate foreign developer, the children of the land versus the "stranger king." An Ocean View resident said, "We need the Riviera down here ! They'll widen the highway, put in some restaurants and entertainment. That's what we need. It's so boring." A questioner asked, "But why don't you move to Kailua or Honolulu?" The resident responded, "I would if 1 could afford it. And the development'll raise the property values down here so much that 1 can probably afford to get out !" -

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As anthropologists we were directly involved in this conflict, writing let­ ters, making phone calls, negotiating, and writing newspaper articles. The anthropologists offered moral support as well, which placed them in a dif­ ficult position when the village was split, but the question of the politics of fieldwork is not at issue at this conjuncture, since it applies to a more general problem in relation to fieldwork in a politicized situation, and the village has been politicized in the same way throughout the six years of our association. The situation was more complex for the anthropologists than the villagers. The female leader came home from two days of hearings: "Wow, that was too much! You think we got a chance? . . . Common sisters 8 let's play cards." It was 1 5 :30 and the game of Hawaiian Rummy kicked off. The money changed hands faster than normal eye movement could track, all in the calmness of an afternoon ocean breeze. The beers came out of the freezer. They had done well, it was party now . . . all night. Next day go pick coffee, after three hours of sleep. Then, finally, home at noon and sleep. (field notes)

Miloli'i became a village of heroes throughout the state, at least for Hawai­ ians, forthe media and for much of the population. The village became a strong single unit during the latter phases of the hearings. The number and size of parties increased, and the village became more carnival-esque than usual. The Land Use Commission did eventually grant permission to get the project under way, but only after meeting a number of stringent conditions, including up­ front money. But by that time the venture was in financial trouble; Miloli'i's demands and objections had at least ensured that the development was finan­ cially hampered before work could begin. The village became a bastioIltof the Hawaiian struggle, a tiny village but a force to be reckoned with, or as a Hawaiian from the "other" intact village of Keanae has said, "We are few in number, but our love of the land is great" (Harry Kuhini Mitchell n.d.).

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OPERATION BAD ASS

Miloli'i, as we have suggested, practices closure against the outside world. The view from the village enables anyone to know who is coming down, and there is plenty of time to set things in order before the police arrive. The Kona uplands host some of the most lucrative marijuana plantations in the world. The product, Kona Gold (also the name of a coffee), sells today for upwards of $600 an ounce in the islands, making it more than comparable to heavier drugs such as cocaine. The police are always on the prowl but also deeply involved themselves. One story relates how some Hawaiians were

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taken to the local police station to be charged for possession and saw out of the unfortunately open back door that there was a considerable plantation on precinct premises. The story is a sign, clearly substantiated, of the general banana republic lifestyle of official Hawaii. The upland plantations, run by ex-hippies, heavily booby-trapped and defended with automatic weapons and pit-bull terriers, have driven the police to the more or less innocent. Helicopters often circle the village, often at night with spotlights. Miloli'i is also a center for cockfights, sometimes with high rollers, politicians, union bosses, and the like making their appearance, because in the village it is safe. The world does impinge on village life. Miloli'i people like to gamble, to play craps and cards. This is an old custom. Some anthropologists might say that they had "a propensity" to gamble. Others might cite Queen Ka' ahumanu 's (the wife of King Kamehameha) inveterate card playing and her insistence that she would only set foot in church if she could take her game with her. If this is mythopractice, so be it. If there is no myth, there is certainly a precedent, whatever that might imply for culture theory. Sometime during the Riviera troubles an incident occurred. One morning at about 5 o'clock three police vans came down the Miloli' i road. They were the riot police, in their Broncos and one ordinary police car. They were six or seven. They drove down to one particular house. The village was still asleep. They got out quietly with their loaded and cocked riot guns (sawed-off shotguns) and handguns. Three surrounded the house and three others charged up the stairs, breaking down a door. They stuck their guns in the brutally woken victims' faces, for example, a machine operator for the macadamia plantation and a fisherman, his wife, and a granddaughter sleeping in the same bed. Downstairs the two sons were taken outside and held at gunpoint as well as a more distant relative visitor with a bad heart. "Hey, you Harry Ho! " they screamed. "Don't move! Don't move !" "Harry doesn't live here , I no see him! " .

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The police saw, across the roadway, the neigh bars' son on his way to the outhouse. Guns up and cocked, they said, "Hey you! Don't move !" "That not Harry !" "Shaddup you !"

Harry H o was accused of stealing a watch and a shirt by a Japanese store owner in Ho 'okena, 20 miles up the coast. Harry Ho was, in fact, sitting on his

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surfboard in the water out in front of the village ! The police spotted someone and ran out to the shoreline and pointed their weapons. Harry, armed with only his board and bathing suit, tried to paddle away, but the police scared him into shore a little south of the village. They handcuffed him and drove him off in a truck. By that time the whole village was awake and out, milling about and gravitating toward the house where the incident occurred. The police were still walking around looking in the various cars that were parked by the house, interrogating with their guns out and sometimes cocked. They had come to the wrong house, broken in without a warrant, caused heart trouble, held a gun at a two-year-old's head, and generally produced fear and anxiety. The chief of operations was a Japanese9 captain with a poor reputation among local Hawaiians. The incident was reported. It appeared in both local and Honolulu news­ papers. Hawaiian legal help was enlisted. The police department attempted to cover its tracks, first denying that anything was out of order, then running an internal investigation. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs representative came down and put a great deal of pressure on the local government. There was never a trial, but the policemen involved were all demoted to highway patrol or less. The police had swept down upon the village on numerous occasions, but this time the tide was against them. And the tide constituted the connection between the village and state organizations that had gained power as the result of the decline of the formerly hegemonic identity in the islands, a truly global shift. "

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CHAN G I N G PLACES

The situation of Miloli 'i has changed radically since the start of the Hawaiian movement. The upper village, once officially a squatter settlement, now has standard village status on "state land" reserved only for Hawaiians. A Miloli'i village plan has begun to be realized, including low-interest loans for the reconstruction of local houses on a self-help basis; the opening of two new sets of lots, 60 in all, to accommodate the rapid expansion of the village; the installation of a solar-powered desalination plant for the village, fed by brackish water pumped up from beneath the shoreline lava; and solar panels for all the new and even the old houses. Today there are well over 20 new houses, designed by a "green" architect, all to get running water and solar power. Some of the youth of the village have gotten jobs including training in the construction industry. Some have no time to fish anymore, except on weekends. The interiors of these houses are unlike the ramshackle structures of the past.

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One such house has wall-to-wall high-pile carpeting, an enormous stereo, a giant-screen TV, and a super-modem kitchen with all devices, including microwave and other appliances. It looks very much like a high-end condo­ minium, the latter having served as the model. A neighboring house has a 60-inch TV screen and advanced video equipment. New plush sofas and enor­ mous verandas characterize many of the houses. One man was forced to take down his house frame after building beyond the limit of breadth stipulated in the settlement plan. He had boasted that his house would be the biggest. He had planned a veranda almost as large as the rest of the house. When it was dis­ covered that he had apparently stored extra lumber under his house the gossip exploded that he had a connection in the Housing Department. Another man was accused of building a house that was far too large, and the state agency was called in to measure his house site, which turned out to be well within the limits. Most villagers are quite simply satisfied with the gains they have made. The new conditions have, at least during the time of our stay, changed patterns of sociality in the village. The new housing areas had no public areas to compare with the village store. There were a couple of houses where people met regularly but no real center. The area is, thus, more fragmented than the old village, especially during the daytime and especially for women with children who have become increasingly isolated. This is a change that is just beginning and it is, for the time being at least, counteracted by the continuing pattern of sociality delineated earlier in this discussion. In a more important sense it is encompassed by the more general strategy of villagers, their endo-sociality. In the neigh boring subdivision, the upper-middle-class owners of lots have been rather upset at the fact that the impoverished village of Miloli'i looks more like a real subdivision than their own subdivided infrastructure-less lava. But they cannot summon the strength to fight for their rights. Hawaiians, after . an, are the aboriginals who were oppressed for so many generations. Wli�l1 one house owner found a brackish water well by a cliff in neighboring P a Bay and put in a pump and piping, he managed clumsily to damage part ()r
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help with the construction came to the well site, they saw two elderly women dressed in old-fashioned clothes. They were walking on top of the flow. The men ran home, thoroughly frightened. There had been problems with the well for some time. Each time they struck water it sank down, as if into a crevice, and disappeared. Several times they had even struck fresh water, but the same thing had happened. They knew that something was wrong, and when they saw the two old women they understood that this was no place to build anything. They were disturbing the dead of Ho' 0puloa. lO There was something about this hole that was unholy. They moved the drill back somewhat and within a single day there was running water. We have indicated that Miloli'i's expansion is an effect of a more general change in the conditions of Hawaiian identity, itself a reflex of a very broad global process. The v illagers have fought sporadically for 30 years to gain control over their lands, just as rural Hawaiians fought for similar goals in other parts of the islands. But the process of expulsion and loss of land con­ tinued, and Hawaiians were increasingly marginalized. The current change in Hawaiian status is part of a decline in Western hegemonic identity that has made Hawaiianness more viable, not only for Hawaiians but for other inhabi­ tants of the islands as well. Miloli'i villagers have been able to exploit the new situation in order to regain control of their lands and gain numerous material advantages that were entirely beyond their grasp previously.

EN DO-SOCIAlITY, THE R E D U CTION OF COMPLEXITY, A N D SOCIAL S U RV I VA L

,; These cases are examples chosen from a very large sample of similar sce­ narios. From a certain perspective village activities are hopelessly entangled with upland, coastal, state, national, and international relationships. From the perspective of the v illagers themselves, life is really quite simple. It is simple as long as the village is home and is practiced as home. We indicated that impingement on the way the life course is organized, the way situations are immediately defined, is not tolerated. Miloli' i practices a strong form of as­ similation of external circumstances. Villagers maintain their genealogies cog­ natically. If outsiders marry in, their properties may be included, but the main lines of genealogy related to the village lands themselves are maintained with a vengeance. This includes court cases concerning inheritance, land bound­ aries, and so forth, which are a major local activity. Foreigners must adapt to the village in order to survive there. One wealthy resident of the neighboring subdivision, who really loves Hawaiians because they are so different from people he has met during his own lifetime, has bought an old coffee mill and

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gone "into business" with a local coffee landowner. He works hard for his association with the village. Another resident has fallen in love with a Miloli'i man who is married in Honolulu and is getting a socialization that cannot be discussed here. In-marrying men, as we said, get a clearly violent initiation into their village identity. Miloli 'i is dangerous for those who would turn it into part of their own projects. Miloli' i has maintained its integrity in some very difficult times. It is today expanding, building new houses for its growing local population and an influx of other, more distant, relatives. All houses are now solar-powered, and there is a desalination plant that produces running water for the village, while the wealthy neighboring subdivision is beginning to com­ plain that Hawaiians get special treatment while they have to truck down water and pay for their own generators or solar panels. If we were to summarize the nature of village practices delineated here it might appear as follows: 1 . The village economy i s integrated in important ways into the larger re­ gion. Incomes are gained by both wage work and by the sale of fish. This implies movement of Hawaiians in and out of the village on a daily basis. 2. The social relations of the village span the island, other islands, and Honolulu. When villagers go holoholo (traveling), they do so in clearly established conduits within which they meet only their own kind, either family or perhaps other local Hawaiians. They travel often in groups, in their pickups. They live in related people's houses or in one of several Hawaiian hotels. There is a concerted practice of endo-sociality in all of this that makes traveling with Hawaiians quite special. It is possible to move through the dense tourist areas of the islands without meeting any tourists or other non-Hawaiians. 3 . Villagers may move to other islands orto other places in the world part of their lifetimes. This is often the result of working in the milit�� or in various construction trades. Many villagers return to the in their later years. This is the case among the young today, who f;1nd it increasingly difficult to survive in a declining tourist economy. In this sense, the village acts as a kind of centripetal force against the centrifugal forces of the larger regional and global contexts. 4. The practice of endo-sociality provides a high level of satisfaction for the villagers, even as it leads to high levels of conflict, due not least to the contradiction between external resources and forces and the structure of everyday existence in the village itself. 5 . The above is clearly evidenced in cases of in-marriage. The latter is of two types. The first and most common consists of downwardly mobile whites who marry or live with local girls. If they are white they usually go through a period of aggressive socialization including beating, where

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they learn how to get along with the local boys. This is followed by partial acceptance. The next generation fares better. In-marrying Hawai­ ian men are accepted but do not in general play a significant role in the village. In-marrying women are usually Hawaiians. They too are very much marginalized and need to wait for the next generation, which can then establish itself. The village, thus, does not practice exclusion but an aggressive form of assimilation that works through the second generation. 6. Endo-sociality entails a high level of intensity in social life. At any one time there are a number of activities concentrated in several different cen­ tral places and in several different networks. The cores of these networks are kinship-based, often part of an extended family and a network of less closely related relatives and friends. Such activities include disputes over inheritance, marriage infidelity, conflicts over external intrusions, luaus for children or for numerous special occasions, and night-time drinking at the store or on someone's porch. The level of commerce with the outside world is very high, and the assimilation of the outside into the practice of village life creates an activity level that is closer to an urban rather than a rural situation. The relative success of Miloli 'i, which harbors its own problems, is a product of the play of global forces as they have materializedin Hawaii. But the practice of villagehood still remains a constant through all of this, creating Miloli'i people as opposed to other islanders. "Work hard, play hard . . . go fish, get your welfare check, pick coffee, go to court, come home and play cards and then party or even luau." Conflicts abound but Miloli'i encompasses them. The woman-outsider-modernist referred to in our discussion of the Rivi�a suffered great misfortune subsequent to the Riviera case. In the last Miloli'i fishing tournament she was asked to register the weighing-in of the fish. No conflicts were resolved by this act, but a potential exclusion was reversed. All of this occurred without reference to the heated past.

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E N D O-SOCIAlITY VERS U S EXO-SOCIAlITY

The contrast between the situation in Miloli'i and among Hawaiians in general and the Congolese case is revealing. Hawaiians practice the forceful assimi­ lation of the world to their own categories of existence. On the surface, the Congolese do something quite similar, if not by force. Yet there is a clear difference between the Hawaiian steeped in his/her own world of practice and the Congolese attraction to the outside world. If the Hawaiian world closes itself off from its surroundings, the Congolese world feeds explicitly on its surroundings. For it is here that the source of life-force is to be found.

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Hawaiians assimilate the world by eradicating its original qualities or chang­ ing its signs. White status is negated in the Hawaiian enclave. The visiting anthropologist may indeed be useful in relation to state authorities and is read­ ily used to achieve desired ends. But it is in the capacity of agent that this is carried out, not as a representative of a higher power. The haole is useful as a tool, but is not a source of well-being as such. And to be accepted in the community the haole must demonstrate his or her usefulness. In the Congolese situation, the white visitor is a resource in essence, in his or her very being. The transmission of power is achieved by way of clientship. There is no reversal of hierarchical roles, but their reinforcement. The definition of the situation is quite the opposite of the Hawaiian model. The Hawaiians invert the external relation of power, while the Congolese make it into a religious truth. In both cases there is assimilation of external elements to the local situation, but the assimilation process is founded on opposing strategies. The principal strategy that we have investigated in the Congolese situation consists in the appropriation of Western goods. This is an active and quite conscious strategy that is exemplified in a number of different social fi elds. 1 . The president and the upper class are identical to the state, that is, as a state-class. Their relation to the resources of the country (in the form of oil and aid funds) is one of direct appropriation. This wealth defines their status and their strength (the same thing), the immediate expression of the possession of life-force. But this is not merely an upper-class activity. It is a common strategy. It includes not only the appropriation of foreign luxuries into local identities, but the bleaching of the skin, se jaunir, "to become yellow," which also means to become wealthy and/or powerful. 2. The practice of medicine. Western medicines are especially powerful and included in the general practice of curing, connected to trad:itiol!!�r .', methods of protecting the individual and ridding the subject of magl��F " i ' ,' and witchcraft-based evil, an evil that eats the soul and diminishes ts life-force. 3 . The sapeur phenomenon referred to earlier, whereby links to Paris are part of a construction of the transfer of life-force that enables the subject to reproduce himself in a particular status or perhaps to raise that status. The practice of la sape is an active accumulation of such force, one that is highly socially organized and results in the production of "great men" (les grands) and a rank system of age classes. -

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In all of these cases, the external world is part of the self-identification of the Congolese. Bakongo speakers of the southern Congo were the most transformed and/or modernized in the colonial period. Relative to the north of the country, these people identify more with aspects of white culture, with Paris

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and with all that is deemed "civilized" and developed. The orientation is entirely dependent upon the appropriation of the superior other, a kind of self-induced clientalization, which transfers life-force (makindongolo) and therefore status to the client. The elaboration of self in relation to external force is expressed in bars, churches, and other public spaces where prestige is marked for others. The formation of diasporas in Europe is part of the strategy of Congolese identity. Immigration to Paris, to Paname, as it is called is not migration in the ordinary sense but .a pilgrimage to the center where sacred force can be accumulated for utilization at home. Migration is thus temporary, a stage in the achievement of greatness. One need only compare this to the relation to the external world that is evident in Hawaii from the early years of this century, when all foreign food and other goods were considered dangerous and even life threatening, thus encouraging self-sufficiency in the extreme. Hawaiians throughout the period from the latter part of the nineteenth century established enclaves and built walls around themselves, especially in rural areas. The Con­ golese were, instead, increasingly attracted to the capital (more than half of the population lives i n the two major cities) and ultimately to Paris, which became a source of identity for the entire country.u One was centripetal, the other centrifugal in principle. This contrast is, furthermore, a question of his­ torical variation, since the earlier material from Hawaii reveals an aristocracy that is quite engaged in the accumulation of foreign goods as a means of self­ identification and social competition (Friedman 1 988; KuykendaIl 1 967:89), where goods circulated downward in the same strategy of prestige accumu­ lation (Morgan 1 948:68). The prestige economy has been systematically dis­ cussed in Sahlins 's major historical work on the period ( 1 992:57-8 1 ). The transition to the situation at the end of the century might be described Is a shift from exo-sociality to endo-sociality. Without attempting a more elabo­ rate explanation of this process, we would limit ourselves to the difference between the Hawaiian situation in which the indigenous population became a low-ranked minority in its own land and the Congolese situation in which the colonial elite was a small minority in the larger African society. And of course the general transformation of Hawaii from the early years of the century to the latter half is precisely the formation of a minority enclave in an increasingly foreign and increasingly dominant population.

CONCL U D I N G T H O UG H TS

The notion or non-notion of cultural complexity is a way of identifying the meeting, combination, or fusion of practices and objects whose sources can be identified as disparate. But the way in which differences are combined in

Global Complexity and the Simplicity of Everyday Life

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the life projects of a population can only be understood in terms of the prac­ tice of the relevant actors. We have argued here that the people of Miloli 'i, in practicing endo-sociality, reduce complexity in a radical way, by assimilation, often violent, of outsiders and by the active elimination or avoidance of ambi­ guity and complexity that might appear as extremely intricate to the observer. Cultural anthropological definitions of "complex" situations often consist in a concerted effort to establish genealogies of "cultural" elements, in order to cor­ rectly "identify" the observed reality. This practice of historical continuity is just as specific, culturally, as the practices of those we observe. But the practice of cultural observation is not the practice of ordinary existence. The apprehen­ sion of complexity depends very much on perspective, on the position of the observer. It might appear strange to some dichotomizers that a so-called global anthropologist can make a plea for "the native's point of view," but this is, of course, the only way to resolve an apparently incommensurable opposition between observed complexity and practiced simplicity. The fact that Miloli ' i has been involved i n the world system, both as a historical product of the for­ mation of modem Hawaii and in its everyday relations with hotels, plantations, the police, welfare agencies, film productions, and the Hawaiian movement, implies, of course, that all kinds of objects, images, and expressions from the larger world circulate in the village. But this circulation is not what the village is all about, although Hawaiian life is replete with America. Hawaiians, after all, are American citizens, and they are perfectly aware of this. Hawaiians, the great majority of them, do practice a specific kind of existence that is distinctive with respect and in opposition to the larger society in which they participate, whether or not they drink Coke and ride American-style surfboards (the latter, apparently a creolized product), go to Hawaiian-language schools, and engage in rituals on Hawaiian heiaus. The genealogies of the elements that particip�te in the structures that they generate are only of secondary museological imp(')r: tance. Otherwise the English are a motley blend of Celtic, Saxon, Scandinaviari, ' . and Norman "cultures," each of which in its turn is a motley blend. We have not denied that the village of Miloli'i is intricately involved in th,e larger world, via images and practices. On the contrary, the global perspective insists upon precisely such an involvement. Miloli' i is economically dependent and politically integrated into a state and national political sphere and, as such, into the global system. But that integration is not determinant of local strate­ gies of social survival even if it sets the limits of their viability. Secondly, the integration is not merely a question of economic dependency, since conditions of identity and the politics of identity are directly involved in establishing the village's conditions of existence. The decline of Western hegemony, the result of a decentralization of world accumulation, has led to conditions in which a hegemonic modernist identity (in its American variant) has declined. This in ,"

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its turn has led to a broad change in identification including the renaissance of indigenous culture. In this offshore state it has empowered Hawaiians and enabled them to make gains on a number of fronts that would have been un­ thinkable a decade ago. Miloli' i has had a tradition of self-isolation in the midst of outside contacts, and this has combined with the recent upsurge of Hawaiian power in the islands to afford them advantages that were previously inacces­ sible. Endo-sociality is a general strategy in Miloli'i, and it would appear to be rather widespread among the Hawaiians. It is not to be understood as what some anthropologists mean by "culture." A colleague of ours has commented: What are the people in the village maintaining in the face of their integration with a global system? It appears to me that you are saying that villagers are maintaining only a separation from the larger world of which they are part. That is, they are preserving a distinctiveness, rather than any particular set of cultural or social elements. Hawaiianness, then is a chimera. (J. Canier, personal communication)

We include this comment because of what it reveals about the nature of perspective in the identification of phenomena. The question of cultural dis­ tinctiveness, that is, of culture pure and simple, is not a relevant issue here. The "maintaining a separation" is a structure that is quite elaborated upon in Hawai­ ian society. It is central to maintaining Hawaiian existence in the larger social field. It is productive of metaphors and entire discourses of distinction, and of a very significant silence about encounters with the "others." That Hawaiians in Miloli ' i practice numerous activities and discourses concerning Hawaiian lifestyles, morals, and cosmologies that are continuous with, if transformed versions of, the past apparently indicates that they are somehow preservihg a culture as well as keeping themselves apart. Village endogamy, or at least a high rate of endogamy within the ahupua 'a, is certainly evident from the earli­ est documents. Notions of ohana, aloha 'aina, malama 'aina, while politicized today, for good Gramscian reasons, are clearly not mere inventions in spite of some anthropologists ' assertions (Linnekin 1 983). But there are also the fish­ ing shrines, the luaus, and their spec1al foods , even Hawaiian Christianity and beliefs in aumakua, mana, magic, that permeate the life of Hawaiians, whether they live in Miloli'i or the outskirts of Honolulu. These specific ways of going about things and of interpreting and experiencing the world are present even where Hawaiians do not have their own lands to maintain in the face of outside forces. The Hawaiian struggle is not a struggle to preserve a culture, not even for the official Hawaiian movement. The struggle to preserve culture can only make sense for anthropologists, perhaps because it is the preservation of their own identities, at least as masters of culture, masters of otherness, or masters­ in-fantasy of the others. The struggle of the Hawaiian village is about life

Global Complexity and the Simplicity of Everyday Life

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space, lebensraum; about the capacity to maintain a particular social existence no matter how we might classify the diversity of the elements it might contain. NOTES

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1. Adverse possession is a legal means of obtaining clear title to another person's land by using or occupying it openly for a certain time period, usually several years. Ranchers were able to snatch Hawaiian land by systematically grazing their cattle on it and then making claim. 2. Kealakekua Bay is the landing place of Captain Cook. It is approximately 1 25 miles north of Miloli 'i. 3 . The number of children per nuclear family ranges from fourto 1 0 and sometimes more. 4. Miloli'i's boat ramp is the only one for miles around, the closest being at South Point, which is the southern tip of the island more than 20 miles away. 5. This is best expressed in the famous Massie rape trial and its bloody aftermath, all recaptured in a well-known Hollywood film. 6. It is to be noted that this chapter is based on the situation in the later 1 980s. 7. The central figure here was a Lebanese investor, whose history of less than clearly legal financial debts has been questioned. 8. They were primarily her "sisters" even if by different fathers. There were four of them there. A brother, an old card shark, also played, as well as a daughter and a mece. 9. The term Japanese was used for Japanese Americans. Ethnic terms are common even where there is clearly a more generalized "local" lifestyle, dialect, food habits, and so forth. Japanese Americans are more marked due to a rather strong tendency toward endogamy and stress on higher social status. 10. Only one person died in the lava flow of 1 926, so the interpretation was of a more general nature-it was not good to build on top uf formerly living viUagys, especially not above former graveyards, as soon became apparent in the interpreta n' -" ,c' > of the event. 1 1 . The centralism of this phenomenon is exaggerated by the French colonial m(!.ila and its postcolonial forms of canalization of dependency to Paris: via language (with re­ •

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spect to Anglophone areas), the educational system, including the university hierarchy that trains the academic core of most ex-colonies, and the financial control exercised via (until very recently) the franc zone and direct financial support for ruling elites.

REFERENCES

Ekholm, K., and Friedman, 1 . 1980. Towards a global anthropology. In L Biusse, H . Wesseling, and C. D. Winius, eds., History and underdevelopment. Leiden and Paris: Center for the History of European Expansion. , , ,

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Friedman, J. 1 988. Cuitural logics of the global system. Theory Culture and Society 3 . 2-3 : 447-60. Kuykendall, R. S. 1967. The Hawaiian Kingdom 1874-1893. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Linnekin, J. 1983. Defining tradition: Variations on the Hawaiian identity. American Ethnologist 10: 241-52. . 1985. Children of the land. Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. --- . 199 1 . Cultural invention and the dilemma of authenticity. American Anthro---

pologist 93: 446-48. Morgan, T. 1948. Hawaii: A century of economic change 1 778-1876. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press. Sahlins, M ., and P. Kirch. 1 992. Anahulu: The anthropology of history in the Kingdom ofHawaii, vo!. I, Historical ethnography (Sahlins). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

OTH E R MO D E R N IT IES? G LO B A L IZAT IO N , ,

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TH E STATE, AN D VIOLENCE

These chapters detail aspects 0 f the contemporary situation in the world arena,

one that operates under the sign of declining hegemony. This is a complex process that means liberation for some people and disaster for others. In the aftermath of the formerly hierarchic Western imperial and Soviet orders there has been a process of social and cultural fragmentation. Among the areas in which decline of local hegemonic power has been most obvious is the African continent where states propped up by Western and Soviet support have disinte­ grated following the end of the Cold War and the withdrawal of support, when many states have been cut off from the usual flow of aid that went primarily to corrupt state classes along with the essentially privatized revenues from multinational exploitation of minerals, especially oil. Africa was the continent most closely associated with the notion of "flight capital." ! This support was essential, however, for the maintenance of order even, as it most often was, a clearly oppressive order. The weakening of such states, the increasing pFes� sure for reform from international agencies led to the starvation of whateyer public services existed, the collapse of infrastructure, and a rapid spiral i<�,to' extremes of poverty for the great majority of the population. Chapters 5 a,nd 6 deal in detail with the contemporary Congolese state, arguing that there are profound continuities in the exercise of political power but transposed into a postcolonial state in the process of disintegration. Chapter 5 explores the affinity between Marxist-Leninism and the Congolese state, the formation of the state-class, organized on a kinship model, and its vampire-like destruc­ tion of the resources of the country. The chapter depicts the situation on the street in the modern Congolese state, one in which impoverishment and social marginalization are directly related to the explosive increase in witchcraft and magical practices. These developments are not new in their foundations. They cannot be described as modern, except in the sense of contemporary. They are transformations of existent cultural schemes in the current situation of social

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desperation. Also dealt with here is the disintegration of the polity in which global actors, from oil companies to arms dealers, intervene directly in the fragmentation of the polity into various criminalized networks and political gangs vying for control over the territory's resources. The fragmentation of family organization the "liberation" of individual men and women from one another, a liberation destined to place them on the street occurs as part of a process that links state-class families to enormous rentier fortunes connected to a political relation to the oil industry. The reorganization of politics, some­ times referred to innocently as the "democratization" process, is essentially a process of feudalization of the state, in which local ethnic and/or regional leaders form clientelist organizations with their own militias recruited from the proliferating population of poor youth, street kids who are armed to the teeth by new leaders who are themselves funded by international networks of arms dealers, oil companies, and sometimes even states (whose funding is also in­ ternational). The result is the violent disintegration of social and political life. Here we see the effects of real globalization, not the enrichment of cultural flows, but the networking of fragments into former polities vying for power. The globalization process within global systems is related to the decline of centralized power, the consequent fragmentation of smaller "units" and their integration into the decentralized circulation of capital that results from the same process of hegemonic decline. In these three chapters global anthropol­ ogy demonstrates the importance of detailed ethnography in order to grasp the way in which people's lives are transformed by global processes. They also highlight the need to grasp the existential or phenomenological character of ethnographic realities in order to comprehend the crucial role that local in­ tentionalities play in global process. It is here that the importance of cul1firal or structural continuities is revealed, where "cultural difference" differing life strategies are engaged in the larger world. Chapter 6 deals with the reaction to this process which takes the form of a proliferation of religious cults and anti­ witchcraft movements. The logic of these movements is explored here since they demonstrate the continuity inherent in violent transformation represented by Congolese society. This chapter provides an insight into the cultural logic of magical practice that has been continuously reproduced up until the emer­ gence of today' s new evangelicalisms, which express a more radical anti-clan, anti-family, and anti-traditional set of movements that nonetheless is steeped in the same basic logic. Chapter 7 attempts to frame the processes of frag­ mentation of modernity, that is, the identity space of the centers of the global system and their dependencies. It discusses the way in which the modem is constituted as a structural phenomenon rather than simply reducing it to Euro­ pean culture, to the contemporary or even to that period referred to as historical modernity. It focuses on the trans-historical nature of modernity as well as its

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Globalization, the State, and Violence

1 77

trajectory in specific historical epochs. It stresses the ambivalent nature of the fragmentation process, euphoric for many individuals who are "reborn" but conflict-filled to the extent that the number of expansive identities increases, implying a proliferation of new and insecure social boundaries. The rise of in­ digenous and other cultural identity movements detailed here is shown to have dovetailed with increasing conflict and often with violence. If the formation of the social order of modernity is part of the process of global hegemonization, the in verse process is related to the decline of the dominance of modernism, the emergence of alternative identifications, but also the real fragmentation of the social and political world. The most common forms of new identification are indigenization, ethnicization, and new religious identities. The rehabilitation effect of new belonging and cultural renaissance implies the formation of new boundaries and new potential conflict.

NOTE ,

1. Flight capital refers to capital that exits the country in which it arrived within a

matter of days or even hours, usually to Swiss bank accounts and the like.

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State Classes, the Logic of Rentier Power, and Social Disintegration G l obal Parameters and Local Structu res of the Dec l i ne of the Con go

Kajsa Ekholm Friedman It is becoming commonplace today to locate the social sciences of development

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within a larger perspective in which development is more clearly understood in terms of the ideological discourses of the global system. There has been cause to ponder the many disasters of development agencies, but there is also cause to ponder the theoretical failure of critical approaches such as Dependency Theory, which predicted that development i n the form of capital export to the underdeveloped world was merely a means to the intensification of the process of peripherialization. Some complained that the problem with Africa was, in fact, the lack of capital rather than its abundance. The Asian NIC countries and China today are more powerful counterarguments to the Dependency The�ry since their economic success is very much a product of such capital transfersZlIt ' is crucial to examine more closely the mechanisms involved in the articulati?n between specific polities in the global arena. Congo-Brazzaville is the target of this analysis of active underdevelopment. It traces the forms of state-class power in this process and argues that the current violent crises are the end results of the dynamics of a particular political economy. ., > '+ " " "

ECO NOMIC C R I S I S I N SPITE OF 011

During the 1 980s it became clear that most countries in sub-Saharan Africa were in deep economic crisis. The optimistic visions of the 1 960s were never 179

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realized, nor was foreign aid able to alter the downward trend. Many African countries were much worse off than they were at independence. The Congo is no exception. Situated in west-central Africa, north of the Congo River, the Congo had about two million inhabitants, at least before the civil wars of the 1 990s, in an area of 342,000 square kilometers. The industrial sector is more or less limited to oiL A great deal of money has been spent on state enterprises, both industries and state farms, but their performance was poor in the 1 970s and even worse in the 1 980s. Production of food for the domestic market as well as crops for export were decreasing. Agriculture was limited to two very different domains modem farms, most of them state owned, and peasant agriculture. Congo had one of the highest rates of urbanization in Africa, roughly 60 percent, which was absurd given the lack of available jobs. Large parts of the country were depopulated. Whole villages had disappeared and many of those that still survived harbored only social categories that could not survive in town old people and abandoned women with small children who had been forced back to the village in search of food. Congo's external debt per capita was one of the highest in Africa. But it also had among the highest number of Mercedes per capita in the world. The Congo referred to itself as a Marxist-Leninist state under the PCT, the Congolese Labor Party (Parti Congolais du Travail). But in a country where there was no real working class and where the domestic basis of political power was the military, the name of the party was misleading to say the least. I Political meetings, covered by TV, often ended with the singing of the "International" by representatives of the state class and the army. The president raised his right fist and shouted "Tout pour le peuple," and the others responded "Rien que pour le peuple." In 1 989, people in Brazzaville joked about the new vedion being "Rien pour le peuple." Brazzaville was heavily militarized. When the president left his palace, large parts of the town were closed and guarded by armed soldiers; the cortege was protected by soldiers sitting back-to-back in jeeps with their machine guns directed toward both sides of the street, ready to fire. Oil was found offshore in 1 968, and extraction started in 1 972. The country has had huge oil revenues since then. And yet it is no exaggeration to say that people were much worse offin the 1 980s than 20 years before. Congo's growth in GDP at the beginning of the 1 9 80s did not affect the majority of the popu­ lation to any significant extent. It gave rise to impressive buildings and a class of rich politicians with money in Swiss banks and conspicuous consumption in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire. B ut it did not lead to economic develop­ ment, and it did not improve the living conditions for the people. Production was carried out by foreign companies in joint ventures with the Congolese state ELF Congo (French-Congolese), Agip Congo (Italian-Congolese), and ,

State Classes, the Logic ofRentier Pown; and Social Disintegration

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AMCO (American-Congolese). I n 1 973 production amounted to two million tons and in the middle of the 1 980s to more than five million. What happened after that was controversial. If it is true that production was seven to eight million tons, the country 's oil revenues could not possibly be as low as was offi cially claimed. For some years the state advertised the idea that it no longer had any money to spend, which was accounted for by the shrinking dollar and lower oil prices. Schools, the university, the healthcare system, and low- and middle-income salaries were deteriorating due to the lack of money. In 1 990 there were open accusations about a substantial part of the oil revenues going directly to the president. In this first section, I will take up three interrelated elements. The first is a brief overview of the economic history of the area in order to demonstrate that the situation had truly deteriorated since 1 970. There was a period of economic development after World War 11 up to independence, which was maintained and even accelerated during most of the 1 960s. The second is an analysis of the political system as the structural ground for Congo's underdevelopment. It is evident that African countries with a socialist and Marxist-Leninist ori­ entation have failed miserably in economic terms. I will argue that this is due to a structural problem, most clearly developed in one-party systems, whether Marxist or not, but that may exist in other countries in sub-Saharan Africa as well. This structural problem has to do with the survival in transformation of the traditional African political organization. Africa was certainly influenced and transformed by European colonization but not as thoroughly as one might imagine. After independence it successively rid itself of foreign influences, and there was a gradual Africanization of European institutions. The third element captures the effects of the political system on various aspects of the econ" omy; primarily rural production. I will here take up material from my study Qf cooperatives and individual peasants in the southern part of the country awtct . illustrate the problems from the peasants' point of view. Finally, I will to\JlC.fl. upon the ongoing democratization process as a response to the economic crisis. .

ECONOMIC BACKGROUND

Historical material indicates that the Congo was relatively wealthy and already quite developed at independence. Its wealth emanated partly from its position as a transit country for trade toward Chad, the Central African Republic, and Gabon, and from its position as center for the colonial administration of AEF (Afrique Equatoriale Frangaise). But part of it came from the relatively high level of industrialization. Congo exported industrial products, such as sugar, soap, cigarettes, shoes, and so forth, to neighboring countries. The development

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of light industry continued until the end of the 1 960s when it was suddenly interrupted. It seems plausible to connect this deindustrialization with the mili­ tary takeover in 1 968 and the proclamation of Marxism-Leninism as the official ideology. But it is, of course, possible that the tendencies were there earlier and that it took a while for them to fully manifest themselves. For centuries, this part of Africa experienced a devastating trade in slaves that drew attention away from productive activities. However, from about 1 860 to colonization, a rapid expansion of agricultural production for export took place (Ekholm Friedman 1 9 9 1 ) . This development came to an end with the colonization in 1 885. Large tracts of land were given as concessions to Euro­ pean companies with rights of tenure and exploitation in exchange for a fixed annual payment and 1 5 percent of the profits (Cornevin 1 986:23). This first phase of the colonial period, up to 1 920, was characterized by the collection of rubber and ivory. The concessionary company only took what nature offered spontaneously, and no transformation of the indigenous economy took place. The weak performance of the concessiomuies has been attributed to low pop­ ulation density, the lack of adequate infrastructure, the generally low level of development, and their own deficiency of capital (Bertrand 1 975 :80; Cornevin 1 986:23). The second phase of the colonial period, from 1 920 to 1 945, is characterized by the elimination of the big concessionary companies and the development of forest exploitation and commercial agriculture. Forestry developed in the Kouilou region and early became the most important export category. The more substantial investments in agriculture did not appear until after World War 11. Les colons settled primarily in the Niari Valley where they found an area with relatively high fertility, large tracts of ftatland, and transportatlfon facilities (Vennetier 1963, 1 965). Here they started monoculture in peanuts and later developed a more diversified agriculture in combination with cattle. Cattle was introduced after 1 947, and a number of ranches appeared, both pri­ vate and government owned. The biggest industrial enterprise, SIAN (Societe Industrielle et Agricole du Niari), started with mechanized monoculture in peanuts, supplying the whole country !With peanut oil. Later, it turned to sugar and supplied not only the entire Congolese market but also exported its product to Congo's neighbors within the subregion. Amin (Amin and Coquery-Vidrovitch 1 969: 1 28, 56) emphasizes Congo's relatively high degree of industrialization at independence, and he even characterizes the third phase of the colonial period, from 1 946 to 1 960, as the development of light industry. Even Bertrand ( 1 97 5 :2 1 8) remarks that Congo, at independence, had a relatively large number of agricultural industries, but he adds the word "paradoxically," as if it were an anomaly. Both Amin and B ertrand, faithful to their Marxist orientation, distrust, in general, an

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"export-dependent" economy. Their view of the economy of a developed coun­ try is like a biological organism with its own internal dynamics, the different parts of which are interrelated and integrated. To Bertrand, Congo's economy, in spite of all the industries, "lacks internal dynamics," it lacks "a national mo­ tor" ( 1 98-99): An economy must be "self-centered" and "auto-dynamic" ac­ cording to them both, meaning that it should produce for its own needs, be gov­ erned by local demands, and that the driving force should be found within the country. It is, however, very clear from their material that the Congolese econ­ omy, at independence, displayed a very promising pattern. The industrializa­ tion process was then accentuated during most of the 1 960s. The value of total exports increased from six billion CFAF2 in 1 960 t6 12 billion in 1968, of which 50 percent came from forestry. Agricultural products, mineral products (lead, zinc, copper)" and oil accoun ted for only a minor part, while industrial products toward the UDEAC (for which figures are known), such as sugar, tobacco, beer, oil, soap, and so forth, constituted 28 percent of the exports. Sugar did very well in the 1 960s. The export value was 700 million CFAF in 1 960 and 1 .5 billion in 1 965 . After 1 966 Congo even exported refined sugar to Zaire, France, and Iraq, as well as molasses to France and the Netherlands (Amin 1 969: 1 10). This is an important aspect of the Congo's postcolonial history, as it seems to indicate that an early process of industrialization was interrupted around 1 970. The investment rate was also very high during the 1 960s. The state ac­ counted for almost 50 percent of industrial investments after 1 965 (Amin and Coquery-Vidrovitch 1 96 9:75). Private investments were made in oil prospect­ ing, sugar, forestry, and industries (Guichaoua 1 989:28). It is even possible to discern a positive change in the investment pattern from the period 1 960-1 963 to the period 1 963-1 968. During Youlou's regime the investment distribution followed the general pattern for African countries, that is two-thirds to j.f).� frastructure, transportation, social services, and administration, and one�th�l!c:t to directly productive activities. During the following period, 1 963-1 968, tllhe former kind of investments was reduced to 50 percent to the benefit of directly productive investments. Investment in industry increased from 1 5 percent to 29 percent. On this point the Congo was doing very well, not only compared to the average for the continent but also compared to countries such as Ivory Coast and Senegal (Amin 1 969:75). A great number of state enterprises were · established during Massamba-D€bat's regime at the same time as he explicitly opposed the idea of nationalization as a way of improving economic conditions of the country. The wave of nationalizations in the Congo did not happen until Ngouabi 's regime. Around 1 970 Congo lost many of its regional functions at the same time competing industries were established in the neighboring countries. Bertrand ( 1 975 : 1 98-99) writes about "a serious recession" in 1 970- 1971 due to the .

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appearance of competing industries for beer, cigarettes, soap, and sugar in surrounding areas. Figures for the production of sugar show an abrupt fall after 1 969. The sugar industry is an example of capital flight from the Congo at the end of the 1 960s. SIAN was owned by Grands Moulins de Paris. After 1 967-1 968 it started to close down its activities in the Congo while moving its production to other countries within the UDEAC. Competing activities, for instance, sugar plantations, were established in neighboring countries that formerly depended upon the Congo. The various companies in the Congo did not renew material or even maintain the plantations, and in 1 970 the Congolese state felt prompted to nationalize (Bertrand 1 975 : 2 1 8). After that production fell abruptly. Foreign capital thus abandoned the Congo around 1 970, apparently as a reaction to the political situation. The military coup happened in 1 968, but the situation had been aggravated somewhat earlier by the conflict between the government and the army and the killing of opponents to the regime. Massamba-Debat had no control over the army and when he tried to get rid of Captain MarienNgouabi, the army took over. Marxism-Leninism was adopted as state ideology by the military regime at the beginning of 1 970, and the USSR and Eastern Europe became models for the political system. Bertrand says in his work of 1 975, which was apparently written in 1 972 judging from the statistical material, that the most important part of Congolese industry was then dying at a fast rate (21 8). Private capital did not want to stay or invest, and state enterprises functioned miserably. It is worth noting that the unwillingness of foreign capital to invest in the Congo (outside the oil sector) is shared by today ' s politicians with big money, honestly or dishonestly earned. "Where is the oil money?" is a question that has never been answered in a satisfacttJry way. When preventing oil money from entering the sphere of production in the Congo, the Congolese state class is, one could say, as rational as was foreign capital that fled the country at the end of the 1 960s.

T H E PO LITICAL SYSTEM: THE STATE'S D I SEN GAGEMENT FROM T H E PEOPLE

The African state has been discussed by a number of political scientists (Hyden 1 9 8 3 ; lackson and Rosberg 1 982; Markowitz 1 977, 1 987 ; Sandbrook 1 985). The best portrayal is the one of privatization. Politicians and civil servants do not occupy functions of a state apparatus as in the West where they have to separate their private interests and economy from those of the state. The Con­ golese state was and is, instead, a social group, a network of personal alliances, much more like the mafia than a Western state. In the Marxist-Leninist period

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it was not expedient of the IMF to suggest privatization. Hydro Congo, one of the largest state enterprises, was transferred to one of the president's clan brothers as private property, apparently in order to please the IMF. A strong state was, according to official ideology, an absolute prerequisite, not only for economic development but also for the development of social­ ism and the liberation of the masses. Around 1 985, when the state was pro­ nouncedly more Marxist-Leninist than today, it was claimed that the Congo was in transition from neocolonialism to socialism (see Goma-Foutou 1 985; Mouamba 1 985). Workers and peasants cannot play their historical role without a strong state, it was claimed, as they are opposed by a number of "reactionary classes"·-French imperialism of course, but also indigenous "classes," such as the national bourgeoisie and the "feudal lords." Feudal lords are, in this con­ text, clan chiefs administering land that b elongs to their kin groups. There has never been any real feudalism in Central Africa since land always belonged to the larger clan unit. The offi cial view of the crisis of the 1 980s was very much in accord with the Dependency School. It was blamed on external factors that were beyond the control of the political elite. Congo's development problems and the suffering of the poor was, according to this political ideology, caused by imperialism and the malfunctioning of the capitalist system. The political leaders were powerless against such vicious forces, but they were doing their best and in due time they would u ndoubtedly solve all the problems. The reality was very unlike the political ideology. The state had not been able to promote any economic development, and worse, it constituted the principal obstacle to development. Nor had the Congolese state contributed to the liberation of the "masses." According to the official model the political leaders were true servants of the people, constantly listening to the people's voice in order to learn about their needs and wishes. I cannot judge if this extreme falsification of the relationship between rulers and people appeat�� more convincing in the early 1 980s; it was, in any case, laughed at in 19$� , and not even commented upon in 1989. The political elite was (and is) a ruling " class that represented no one but itself. The Congo can be seen as composed of two more or less separate spheres (not including the oil company Elf): the state, dominated by a ruling class controlling all the resources of the country; and the popular sector, where people are left to survive on their own. The ruling group had simply disengaged itself from the people, in spite of rhetorical assurances to the contrary, and it formed an enclave in the country with its own economy, culture, political party (the only party), and the military (Ekhohn Friedman 1 990a, 1 990b). The inflow of money derived from three main sources: export revenues (mainly oil), aid, and foreign loans, all controlled by the state. It was not dependent upon ordinary citizens in any significant way, and it could therefore turn its back on them. _ .-

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The Marxist model of the relationship between classes, in which they mutually condition each other's existence, was based on realities of nineteenth-century Western Europe. Here the relationship was quite different. The upper class was not so extraordinarily wealthy because it exploited the working class but because it controlled all the valuable resources of the country and all the money that was channeled through the state from the outside world. In Hyden 's ( 1 983) view the African state is weak because the people, protected by its "economy of affection," are strong and self-sufficient. My view is rather the opposite. The Congolese state is strong, much too strong and self-sufficient, and that forces people to survive on their own, in other words to develop and maintain an "economy of affection" (Hyden 1 983). The Congolese state was based on two main pillars, the military and alliances with foreign interests. The coup d' etat in 1 96 8 brought the military into the po­ litical arena. Both presidents Yombhi ( 1 977-1979) and Sas sou ( 1 992, 1 997) were from the ranks of the military. It was often emphasized by hi s critics in Brazzaville that S assou started as a schoolteacher and was enrolled in the reserve during a period when there was a high demand for military person­ nel. He had, in other words, no military merit. The unofficial figure for the number of soldiers in the country was 20,000 to 25,000. Most of them were stationed in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, an indication of their principal pur­ pose (to maintainCorder). Congo also had a dreaded secret police, whose agents were, according to rumor, trained by Securitate, Stasi, the Libyans, the Abu Nidal group, and so on. The ruling class was intimately connected to various metropoles of the world system, and a great deal of the money that was gener­ ated in the Congo, or obtained from the outside, was exported to these areas, in the form of consumption and above all in investments, the purchase ofireal estate, and savings in foreign banks. The popular sector was more or less cut off from the self-sufficient state. There were, of course, a certain number of salaried jobs and some money trickled down from the ruling group. But most people did not have an income. The fact that in 1 987-1988 there was still no widespread starvation was an effect of the clan system and of the subsidy on bread (made of imported wheat). Every income created a group of dependents tied to its earner. The decline of the Congolese countryside is an illustration of the impossibility of development in a situation of isolation. Money was concentrated in very few hands. It entered the central sector of the country, and there it remained. The political elite had virtually all the money and so few people could only eat so much. Moreover, the Congolese upper class was not satisfied with Congolese food but preferred to buy canned peas from France and apples from Spain in air-conditioned supermarkets where they could also find a variety of French cheeses, different kinds of ham and

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p ate, vintage red wines, and champagne. Food was imported, not because of agricultural problems, but rather because imported food was what people with money most desired. Thus the buying power of the country was only to a limited extent directed toward its own producers. The domestic market, in turn, was very limited due to the fact that ordinary people had very little money. The buying power in the popular sector was not adequate to enable the peasants to sell their agricultural products. Congo's decreasing production of food was not primarily a consequence of lacking a capacity to produce but rather of the structure of the market. While people were undernourished, searched for food in garbage heaps, and stole their neighbors' hens and manioc from others' fields, there was an overproduction of food. A great deal of food rotted because revenues were so limited. Congolese prod­ ucts were, furthermore, undercut by cheaper food smuggled from Zaire (in Brazzaville) and Cabinda (in Pointe-Noire), where national currencies were valued lower.

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TRADITION A L AFRICAN K I N G DOM U N DER MARXI ST-lEN IN I ST flAG

Why did African states declare themselves Marxist-Leninist around 1 970? Why this interest in Marxism-Leninism? One way of answering this question is that it suited the state class perfectly, as it did in Eastern Europe. It legit­ imized state-class power. The state was to control the whole economy, there could not be more than one party, no competitors were allowed, and all attempts at organizing from the bottom became illegal and counterrevolutionary. Marxe ist ideology was perfectly adapted to the political elite when it came to ttle identification of the main enemy of the people and the revolution. It has p�@n . . . used against entrepreneurs of various types, what Amin ( 1969: 1 4 7) ca11ed '��g� embryonic local bourgeoisie." This initial class of "capitalists" was jealously . fought in the name of Marxism-Leninism and downgraded to petty traders: But Marxism-Leninism was extraordinarily compatible with the Congo at a deeper level by masking the fact that the Congo still, to a large extent, was politically structured as a traditional central African kingdom. The precolonial kingdoms were composed of a number of structurally isomorphic local units, ' hierarchically related to one other through exchange. ''Tribute'' was transferred from lower-ranked groups to higher-ranked ones, and in the other direction there was a distribution of foreign goods obtained through external trade. All the different units were more or less complete societies, so to speak, with their own economic and political structures. The central, or highest ranked, unit was larger than the others. It had more people, more slaves, more of everything, ,

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but it was not structurally different. Its position was based upon the monopoly over external trade, that is, over the inflow of resources from the outside world. Under traditional conditions it still depended upon the other groups for its social reproduc tion; it needed their resources and production for its participation in the international system. Those kingdoms were composed of long chains of such hierarchically related groups. The principal strategy of a central African king was to use hi s resources in expanding the size of his own group and in establishing and maintaining alliances with other groups. President Sassou's ruling group resembled the central unit of the kingdom in various respects. It still constituted a world of its own, with no national consciousness or concern for the country as a whole. The president had a monopoly over external exchange. There was no distinction between the private and public economy. The ancient kings controlled domestic resources and external trade in a way that we would define as clearly private. European trade goods went first to the king, who then distributed them among his vassals. This is how the Congo's resources were dealt with in the postcolonial era. Part of the oil revenues were first transferred to president S assou and from him to hi s vassals. There were still hierarchies in which wealth was distributed from higher to lower ranks in exchange for loyalty. Another characteristic trait of a traditional African kingdom is that political power ideally should be conquered by the "king-and-his-men." In myths about the origin of the Kongo Kingdom, the founder was first made king by his men andthen, together, they crossed the river to conquer the new land. The political system was ideally established by military means and the king was, above all, a conqueror. The Congo's military regime can, thu s, be said to be rooted in the traditional system. Kings were alway s, by definition, both wealthy and militarily powerful. This same paftern can be found following colonization when the "king" was, in reality, deprived of political power but where battles for the throne and the king's exceptional power were articulated in ritualized form. The main difference between the ancient kingdom and the contemporary Congo is the self-sufficiency of the central group. The ruler might now be said to directly control the principalresources of the country, in the name of Marxist -Leninism, and he does not need the rest of the country for either tribute or alliances. Marxism-Leninism thus suited the African structure very well. It fit into traditional Congolese politicalthought and practice. This is strikingly apparent if we look at the notion of "collective ownership." In both cases it implies that the ruling group or the management of a state enterprise could control and absorb all generated wealth. This constituted a critical problem, as we shall see later, not only at the level of the state and state enterprises but also in peasant cooperatives.

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T H E H I ERARCH ICAL CLAN STRUCT U R E OF THE CONGO LESE STATE/SOCI ETY

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The Congo's political system was, in spite of the segregation between the state and popular sectors, a pyramidal structure. The country was, according to its constitution, a Marxist-Leninist one-party system. The political organization and the party were two parallel structures that extended fr.m top to bottom, em­ bracing the country as a whole. Before the summer of 1 990 when the national union adamantly contested the regime and finally declared itself independent of the party, the political structure was untrammeled by conflicting interests and was, on the contrary, hierarchically encompassing: the party (with its Bu­ reau Politique and Comite Central) government at the top, all the various "mass organizations" and the army were subsumed under their dominance. The National Union and the National Youth Organization had more auton­ omy during the 1 960s but were subsumed under the hegemony of the party at the beginning of the 1 970s and were controlled by the ruling group through loyal clan brothers in leading positions. The population at large was controlled through the variou s mass organizations. All women, for example, were in­ cluded in the URFC, the women's organization. There were four different categories: workers, peasants, tradeswomen, and housewives/members of as­ sociations. The party, or rather, male members of the ruling group, appointed female leaders of the URFC and its four sections. Ordinary women were or­ dered to meetings, receptions for visitors, and political spectacles under the threat of punishment. The URFC is thus part of the power structure and not a "social movement" in the Western sense where people organize themselves around specific common goals. At the end o f the 1 980s, ordinary people looked upon the state as another world. It was inconceivable to think of the state as their instrument, that po1i�i� cians could be their representatives. The call for multipartisme (a system) and democracy did not come from the people. When the hier��l1I,y finally came apart, the fracture occurred very high in the pyramid, within the ruling organizations themselves the party, the Bureau Politique, the Comite Central, the army, the National Union, and the National Youth Organization. In all the ruling organizations there were members of the Sassou clan in top positions, but there were also others, from other ethnic groups, in what seemed to be a fairly stable structure of alliance. But suddenly the others revolted. In some cases it is evident that the S assou clan abused its dominant position, for example in the army where high military officers climbed the career ladder not by possessing real military merit, but by being clan brothers or conspicuously loyal. Such was also the case at the university where a number of "researchers" and "teachers" had no formal qualifications.

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The breach in the pyramid between the state and the popular sector was clearly experienced (and clearly observed by anthropologists) in the agricul­ tural sector. The "cooperative movement" was officially represented as a hier­ archical organization, starting at the top with the Ministere du Developpement Rural and then following the political-administrative structure, the Direction Regionale du Developpement Rural at the regional level, and the secteur agri­ cole at the district level. Cooperatives were located, of course, at the bottom of the hierarchy. Correspondingly there was a Union des Paysans (UNPC) rep­ resented at the various territorial levels. In reality the hierarchy was divided in two, an upper segment composed of wealthy politicians and civil servants without any experience of peasant life, living in Brazzaville or Pointe-Noire, and a lower segment composed of poor peasants. The top was very distanced from, but also quite unconcerned with, the life of the ordinary peasant. In the middle there was a level of poorly paid agricultural advisors in charge of immediate contact with the cooperatives. The breach in the hierarchy was suf­ fered by these men and women as they were supposed to help the cooperatives by identifying problems and seeking to implement solutions. When car and gas could be obtained they might visit the cooperatives; they wrote reports in which the situation of the area was described and analyzed, reports that were sent up through the hierarchy. And after that nothing happened because no one was interested. When the peasants became angry after sitting with their bags of paddy waiting for the agents of the marketing board, they had no one else to attack but the agricultural advisors. When a representative of this category arrived in a village in the Kindamba district, she feared that she would be beaten by angry peasants. "You come here to talk to us; you better talk first to the rice that has been standing here since last year." They forced Ker to enter the hut where the unsold rice was kept. She understood their anger, and also the insuperable difficulties of her own work: "The peasant usually does what you tell him to do, but afterwards, when his products are not bought, he gets angry and when he gets angry, it is not the president who is on the spot but me. I am the one who has made him to work. The president, he just gives his mats d 'ordre. We carry them out. But then, the producer will ask us why their products are not bought." The peasant union revealed the same pattern of hierarchy, with high-ranked party members at the top with no experience of rural life whatsoever and a lower level of true representatives of the peasants, frustrated in the same way as the agricultural advisors because their work seemed quite meaningless. Cars belonging to projects, donated by international organizations, were frequently used privately by the chefs. In Kinkala, the Union Regional des Paysans had, on paper, three cars at its disposal, two Mercedes-Benz trucks and one Toyota pick up, all of them donated by the UNOP (Rapport annueI 1987 : 1 O) . None of

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these cars were, however, available at the time o fm y stay in 1 988. The president of the union, a man in his late fifties, was expected to visit cooperatives within a large area but no car was made available. He deemed that he was too old to walk, and he later left his position in anger.

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The political order had a major impact on state enterprises, entrepreneurial activities, and foreign companies. State enterpri ses were established, modem equipment bought, but very little production took place. "While our ancient kings built palaces and pyramids, our modern presidents erect steel mills and hydroelectric dams," said Mazrui in an article about Africa in general and Uganda in particular ( 1 988:339). He calls the new structures "temples," "be­ cause like temples they are built in faith rather than through rational calcu­ lation." In the Congo's case it is clear, however, that these "temples" were not only for the gods; they were first and foremost a constant source of private wealth for the political elite. And why should they bother to produce when they could get what they wanted more easily? AB state enterprises were failures. Private farms, owned by whites, were nationalized at the end of the 1 960s and . gradually deteriorated. A number of state farms and ranches were also estab­ lished in the later period, with the same negative results. Modem agricultural equipment, imported from various countries in the West and in the East could be observed abandoned throughout the country. Some of it had never been in use. Instead of generating income for the state, these enterprises constantly needed funding from the state (see Atipo 1 985). The very high wages and other exorbitant payments to the management would be enough to explai'�!!lJ� . , failure. But to make it worse, the directors of these state enterprises appaF�riply , embezzled funds continuously. Private capital fled the Congo in the r 9�&s and has not come back, except in the oil sector. It was unclear what kinlf of deal was struck between the oil companies and president Sassou although h has now become increasingly apparent since the major scandals involving Elf , have come to light (Verschave 2000). There was at the end of the 1 980s very . little private foreign investment in other sectors of the economy. The entrepreneurial class that emerged in the 1 960s was overcome by the political elite. Free "capitalists" were few and usually involved in a number of different activities sim ultaneously, as an attempt to escape the long arm of the cleptocracy.3 At the same time the members of the state class them­ selves entered all sorts of entrepreneurial activities. Everything that generated money was absorbed: gas stations, bakeries, pharmacies, transports, import

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businesses, hotels, and restaurants. It is important to notice, however, that the political class did not become entrepreneurial merely by conquering en­ trepreneurial activities. Its members were quite incompetent in these activities in the same way as they were incompetent at running state enterprises. They identified sources of wealth, appropriated them, pillaged them, and when prob­ lems arose they looked elsewhere for other game. One of the few joint enterprises that existed, established in the late 1 980s and not yet gone bankrupt, was the cement factory SOCICO in Loutete. It was owned by Scandcem, a Norwegian-Swedish company in a joint venture with the Congolese state. This enterprise provides an excellent example of how difficult it was for companies to operate in the Congo. When they became a target for the state class, there was no national legal system to protect their interests. The management did not know from one day to the next which rules were operative. New laws and taxes were often introduced, and the companies were often forced to pay fines for "crimes" whose significance could not be understood. All this made the situation unbearably insecure, while the political elite continuously attempted to plunder their revenues. Scandcem entered the Congo in 1987 after the old factory in Loutete had been rebuilt following a fire. At that time cement was imported from Spain by SIASIC, a company of uncertain composition. According to the manage­ ment the company would probably not have gone in at all if initial information about the market had been correct. The Congolese state provided an absurdly optimistic view of how much cement the factory would be able to sell. This created serious problems from the very beginning. It also turned out that SI A­ SIC was maintained in spite of the fact that cement was now produced in the country. There was even an agreement that entitled SIASIC to buy cement from SOCICO at the cost of production. In 1 98 8 the factory could not sell its cement. SIASIC "bought" (on credit) about 30 percent of the cement while it continued to import cement from Spain. The Loutete factory found itself in the position of supplier to SIASIC. SIASIC even had a monopoly on the Braz­ zaville and Pointe-Noire markets. SOCICO was only allowed to sell cement freely in the rest of the country, whiGh was quite meaningless since there were no buyers. Collapse was near at hand. Scandcem issued an ultimatum, and it was decided that all imports of cement should stop and that SIASIC should pay for the cement that was bought from SOCICO. In 1 990 the problems still persisted. Several boats arrived in Pointe-Noire with cement, and the Loutete factory still had to sell between 20 percent and 30 percent of its output to SIASIC. SOCICO was, of course, an important production unit in the Congo that ought to have been supported and encouraged. Of its five to six billion CFAF in turnover, three billion went back to the state. In addition to the jobs that

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were created in Loutete, SOCICO was the country 's largest consumer of oil, electricity, and transportation. All three were remarkably expensive in the Congo, which made it impossible for SOCICO to sell its product to neighboring countries. Instead of being supported it was constantly balancing at the edge of catastrophe. And why did it continue to exist? Why had it not yet been forced to close down? The management's guess was that it would look bad for the IMF and the World B ank and that the Congolese state w as in such a situation that it had to take their opinions into account. In the pure model of a capitalist country, the state has no economy of its own, no (or relatively few) resources of its own but is, instead, dependent on the taxation of capital and labor. Politics and economy are two separate spheres, even if the state may play an active role in supporting and regulating both production and markets. In countries such as the Congo there is no economic bourgeoisie separate from the political elite. Instead the political rulers control the resources and use them for their own purposes as if they were part of their private economy. A person who obtains control over a state enterprise by political means, through kinship or friendship, has a very different interest in the enterprise than a private entrepreneur. The latter has no other security but his enterprise, and he must therefore ensure its survival. His own position is intimately linked to the well-being of his company. The Congolese executive in charge of a state enterprise is not dependent in this way. He acts from a predatory position and for him the enterprise is only a means of personal enrichment. He does not need to concern himself about its well-being, When he has emptied it of its capital, it has served its function. He is ready for his next prey. To him it is only a question of using the opportunity while in power to despoil, in his own name or in the name of cousins and other decoys. His life at the top may be uncertain. He does not know how long he will remain in power and therefore ' it is wise of him to exploit an available opportunities to plunder the state wh�l� , there is time. In the present situation, however, the political elite seem�7,;t ,o be fairly stable and those in power revealing themselves as embezzlers ar� , only moved from one position to another, sometimes following a short period of quarantine. There is even a Congolese expression for this phenomenon: to be "in the garage for repair."

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While the rural sector was the focus of development interest for decades with project after project directed toward technological improvement, export crops, and the like, it has proven to be precisely that area where catastrophic results are most common.

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Agriculture has historically been organized around matrilineal relations in southern Congo, and, previously, field labor was primarily a female task. While in the 1 980s men increased their share of production, it was primarily in the sphere of newer cash crops while staples such as manioc remained female domains. The matrilineal structure requires that a woman must provide for herself and her children since male income, above a certain minimum, belongs to his relatives and not to hers. In this period the agricultural sector including products such as coffee, cacao, and domestic staples declined successively. Lack of technology, low and declining productivity in dense slash-and-burn areas, and the failure of market mechanisms ignited a massive exodus from the rural areas to the two main cities where more than 50 percent of the popu­ lation resided in conditions of increasing poverty. All this occurred in spite of government propaganda for a return to the land. The state had produced extraordinarily fine statements aimed at the solution of the problem: the need for "concrete actions," the plan for "self-sufficiency" by 2000 in a communique from 1 987, the formation of village-based centers for the marketing of products, social welfare for peasants, and a slew of other reforms . Practice was very much the opposite of this. The financing of state farms was marked by excessive stratification. In 1 97 1 the costs for 1 ,700 civil servants were higher than the income of 600,000 peasants. There were numer­ ous attempts to encourage cooperatives. Cooperative production was not new to the Congo, and older forms of cooperation such as dibundu, kintuari, eke­ limba, kitemo, and nsalasani bear similarities to contemporary cooperatives. Cooperation of this kind was never especially popular, however, as i t consisted of submitting oneself to a common goal, one that benefited the upper echelons of the cooperative organization. Traditional cooperation, on the contrarYFwas based on a rather informal reciprocal exchange of labor that included payment in food and even money (dibundu). The cooperative movement failed for a number of related reasons. First, the general rural exodus led to the disintegration of rural social life. Second, the very organization of cooperative agriculture led to accelerated accusations of embezzlement and corruption. Third, there was a more fundamental misun­ derstanding of the message conveyed by the state in establishing a system of credits. The peasants formed cooperatives on the understanding thatthey would become points of entry of state investment in the form of credits. This is an expression of a more general practice of clientelization that is often discussed with respect to the Kongo Kingdom as well as other hierarchical polities. The cooperatives expected to attain a position like that of lower-ranked groups in a traditional central African kingdom. But when the state referred to "organiz­ ing the peasants according to their own interests," it rather intended quite the opposite of integration. It saw perhaps a possibility of exploiting the peasants

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through the system of credits, but the cooperatives in both Pool and Kouilou could never pay back more than about 40 percent of the credits (which is, in any case, better than the 10 percent to 20 percent by state enterprises). The peasants were intuitively aware of the segregation of the state from the pop­ ular sector, and they sought a solution to their own problems by striving to link the two. Credits made no sense to them, and they did not envision their existence and future as "free" capitalist farmers, "organized according to their own interests," but instead as clients in a hierarchical society. Thus, the initial establishment of cooperatives hoping for expansion and security within the larger hierarchy melted into the discovery that the initial distributions of what in fact turned out to be UN gifts were not part of the establishment of anything at all.

I N F RASTRUCT U R E A N D REG IONAL MARKETS

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One of the maj or contradictions of the agricultural sector was related to the incompatibility of trying to establish a larger regional or even export market with a deterioration and/or lack of infrastructure. Without electricity, running water, equipment for preserving food, and proper transport it is almost im pos­ sible to maintain a larger system of marketing. In the colonial period much of this infrastructure was controlled by the French who had organized a very pro­ ductive agricultural sector, but aB of that disappeared in the following years. Another impasse lay in the internal markets. Ordinary people could not afford the chicken and vegetables produced in the country even if they actually found their way to the market. Major state institutional customers such as the mHi� tary did not often pay for their goods. Those with money bought imported . at the supermarkets, while the great majority of those without money cheaper imports from surrounding countries, often smuggled in in large · . .. •..... lities, from outside the CFA zone, which had been artificially cnlP years. Even local manioc had difficulty competing with state-subsidized bread produced with imported French flour. On top of this the middlemen who COn" trolled the relations to the market often exploited the situation, which in any case was entirely ensnared in very risky credit relations. Finally, and following the general logic of the state-class system, state agencies in charge of export . crops specialized in not paying peasants for their undervalued crops that then arrived on the world market at uncompetitive prices while they succeeded in skimming otf a sizeable proportion of whatever income was earned. These problems are intimately tied in with the withdrawal of the state class from the country as s-uch, leaving the people to fend for themselves and occa­ sionally taxing whatever wealth is eventually produced. The agricultural sector

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is uninteresting for such a class, however, which is far more dependent on the huge wealth that flows from oil and aid. This is a clear expression of a process of liberation, not of the people from an oppressive regime. On the contrary it is a liberation of the state from the people.

RESPONSES TO T H E CRISIS A N D DEGENERATION

The year 1 9 9 1 witnessed increasing pressure for democratization in the Congo. This was triggered by the ruling elite's attempt in June 1 990 to can·y out a reduction of public sector spending by lowering the age of retirement from fifty-five to fifty. The union, which was composed of a number of different branches, reacted vehemently, and it did not take long until it declared its determination to leave the party. Retirement often led to personal tragedy even at fifty-five. The pension was one-third of one's salary. As there were so few jobs available, the young and unemployed in Brazzaville tended to flock around the middle-aged men with salaries. Such a man often had to feed his grown-up children, both sons and daughters, his unmarried daughters' children, and, in addition, several nephews and nieces. The pressure was intense, but he was rewarded in terms of power and authority and by being the very epicenter of a social group. At fifty-five, this group simply dissolved. When he had no money they all tended to abandon him, and this accounted for the anguished fear of retirement in the Congo. When the union was informed aboutthe plans to further worsen the situation, it reacted, of course, with fury to what was regarded as a deadly threat; An impressive counterproposal demonstrated how much the country would save if the cut were instead made in the various benefits accorded to the political elite. Figures were compared, and the result was shocking. The union sported a long history of political struggle and resistance. It was the driving force in the opposition against President Youlou, which culminated in the Three Glorious Days of August 1 3- 1 5 in .1963 and the new socialist government under Massamba-Debat. The union was also active around 1 970, much too active for the Marxist-Leninist regime, and at the beginning of the 1 970s, it was brought under the party 's dominance. After this crucial event a conflict suddenly appeared in all the ruling organi­ zations . Brazzaville was flooded with pamphlets in the fall of 1 990. Sassou 's assets abroad were discussed and compared with Congo' s foreign debt, the S assou clan's penetration into various sectors of the state, the Boeing accident, the murder of president Marien Ngouabi in 1 977, and so on. The Sassou clique suddenly seemed quite isolated. The one-party system was accused of bringing

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the country to the edge of complete disaster, and a transition to a multiparty sy stem was demanded. Democratization was, in the imaginary millenarianism of the moment, thought of as the solution to all economic problems. Parliamentary democracy, or a multiparty system, would free the economy from the state's paralyzing grip and prevent rulers from jealously combating all initiatives beyond the confines of political power. The most important aspect of this process was to be the transformation of the central African clan system to a "modem" society. The clan structure, its hierarchies of rulers and dependents, and its ideology of "collective ownership" prevailed, as we have seen, at both the national and the local level. It was entrenched in state enterprises as well as in cooperatives. This clan structure made possible the appropriation, or embezzlement, of funds by the rulers, not least because there were no mechanisms to prevent it. This was devastating for the country since it totally thwarted economic development, creating a class of super-rich politicians whose assets were reallocated to other parts of the world, bringing on, in its wake, a general apathy among ordinary people. The NIC countries proved to the world that it was possible for Third World countries to undertake large-scale economic development. This was devastating for the Dependency School's postulate of a structural impediment to development as the nature of the relationship between North and South. Hyden's contribution ( 1 983) to the general discussion of the African crisis had been very important since it focused on internal factors. The main mistake of the social sciences, in the 1 960s and 1 970s, was the underestimation of internal structural and cultural factors. The African ruling elites were supposed to act in the same way as capitalist entrepreneurs during the industrialization of the West. But the Congo's rulers were interested in their own private economies and if they could obtain money by just snatching it, so much the better. En­ terprises were primarily seen as a source of cash, not as a structure that1:is . able to generate wealth and further economic development. This type ()L'ij�;. havior seems, however, quite understandable from their own perspective, l;t);id the common mistake made by development experts and researchers is perhaps not so much that cultural factors have been neglected but that they have had no clear understanding of the structural position of the African ruling elite within the world system. If the Dependency School underestimated the impor­ tance of understanding local elite strategies, it is important to note that these strategies show remarkable similarities, indicating that there is something quite systematic in the transformation described above. There is clear evidence that a phenomenon that might best be understood in global terms is at work in the emergence of cleptocratic regimes in the same period throughout large parts of the African continent. Global does not mean a global mechanism but a similar articulation of globally structured opportunities and local structures.

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From the mid- 1 970s there were important changes in the configuration of power in many African states. The usurping of power by military regimes and the elaboration of state-class structures occurred in a period of increasing competition between the West and the Soviet Union. The actors involved were states, expanding multinationals, and potential heads of state in Africa. The alliances established and the huge monetary transfers incurred were crucial to the changes in state structure. This amounted to the institution of mili­ tary dictatorships of various official colors but similar in organization. It is in this situation that celtain states became Marxist-Leninist while others allied themselves with Western powers. France, in maintaining the continuation of its "empire," was able to hold a position in between the superpowers, often cooperating with both sides. The new state classes were directly linked to massive flows of income from oil companies and from governmental aid orga­ nizations. In the above, the elevation of the Congolese state elite to a position of financial autonomy can be understood as an aspect of this global connec­ tion. It is in this way that the transformation of the Congolese state can be comprehended as more than a mere expression of the strategies of its elites. The former can only realize themselves within a historically specific global context.

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Following the introduction of "democracy," Congo-Brazzaville has experi­ enced two devastating civil wars in the 1 990s. Brazzaville, the capital, has been the main arena for both wars the first one between November 19(j:3 and February 1 994, and the second from June 5 to October 1 5 , 1 997. This war is now over; Sassou is back in power and the idea of "free and fair elections" postponed. A simple return to the kind of system that existed before is, how­ ever, hardly possible. In a field trip to Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, the oil center, in February-March 1 998, it could be surmised that Pointe-Noire was much less affected by the war for the time being, but there was a growing fear among its population that militias and bandits would continue their looting there when they ran out of money and vehicles. What are 1he mechanisms of these two civil wars? Why did "democracy" open the door to violent conflict and destruction? A second issue has to do with effects and consequences and with the prospects for the immediate future. The two wars differ somewhat from each other even if the general problem is the same. The latest war was more blatantly political. It was a real war between two warlords, president Pascal Lissouba and ex-president Denis Sassou Nguesso, even if ethnic militias were involved on both sides with tanks, grenade throwers,

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and bombers. The first war appeared as more ethnic partly because civilians took a more active part in the atrocities and partly because the political leaders did not play a very visible role. They were even criticized for withdrawing from the scene of popular action. The introduction of "democracy" was, it would seem, caused, or at least facilitated, by a weakening of the Congolese state at the very end of the 1980s, after the fall of the B erlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly for many, the pyramidal political system displayed tendencies to disintegration. There was a call for freedom and democracy from within at the same time as global institutional forces pressured for this kind of change. An increasingly salient disintegration and feudalization of the Congolese "nation" has been set in motion tendencies that can be found in other parts of the subregion as well. Today this process has led to the complete demolition of the central parts of Brazzaville, to a paralysis of all social life, to starvation and misery, to the production of hundreds of thousands of refugees, and to widespread banditry.

T H E POINT OF DEPARTURE: T H E FORMER O N E-PARTY SYSTEM

The state class discussed above, in many ways a clan state, a clientelistic hierarchy, was the core of the Congolese political system (Pigasse 1 997: 1 36 ; La semaine africaine 1 8/9, 2110-97 o n "la classe politique"). The liberation of the state from the people (Ekholm Friedman 1 994) consisted of an alliance between the political class and the actors controlling external sources of wealth. multinationals, aid, and the control of the military. The political hierarchywas all inclusive and relatively stable until the maj or global shift entailed by ��e collapse of the Soviet regime. The decline in external government fund�a:g and capital investment, in part the product of the "vampire state" (Frimpo�g­ Ansah 1 99 1 ), itself led to increasing misery. Structural adjustment programs were taken out everywhere on ordinary people while state eIites continued to live in absolute luxury. In the Congo the only vital sector was oil, 60 percent dominated by the French former state company, ELF. It is clear that in this kind of structure, ELF played a crucial structural role, the maj or source of the wealth of the ruling elite. It is also clear that any threat to this inflow of wealth, the very life-force of the clientelistic hierarchy, was likely to lead to fragmentation and political chaos. The political structure exploded in the form of demands for democratiza­ tion, demands that came from competing factions within the former hierarchy. Leveling was the beginning of conflict.

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Chapter 5 ETH N I C I TY, CLASS, AND POWER SHAR I N G

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Both class and ethnicity are relevant aspects o f Congolese society. Class and elite alliances seemed dominant in the 1 9 80s while ethnicity was strongly activated in the 1 990s. It was evident that the class segregation of the 1 980s im plied cooperation among "culturally diverse" members of the political class regardless of ethnic identity, and there were few visible links between the political class and the poor. As an expression of clientelism, ethnicity has, however, always played a crucial role in political organization. A successful politician bases his power primarily on an entourage ofloyal ethnic "brothers." But he also needs alliances with other powerful politicians, his homologues. When Sassou was president at the end of the 1 980s, his political network included his own ethnic group, the mbochi, and a great number of immediate relatives, as well as power holders from other ethnic groups and provinces. He practiced power sharing, appointed his clients ministers and directors of state enterprises, and provided them, in this manner, with access to the "common good." They were loyal, and he could count on them because they owed their own power and wealth to his position. Outside the political realm people have paid little attention to ethnicity under normal circumstances. Congo's population is divided into a number of ethnic groups, and people are well aware of their own ethnic identity as well as that of others. As intermarriage has been extensively practiced for decades, there are, however, a great number of ethnically mixed households, and thereby, ethnically mixed individuals as well. This blurring of identities was conceived as a problem during the war of 1 993-1 994 but it did not prevent ethnic killing.4 There are, in other words, two kinds of ethnicity, one as a strategy at the p�i tical level for gaining access to power and wealth and the other as a collective phenomenon, a way of categorizing and identifying the "we" and the "them" in situations of conflict. In the literature it is u su ally claimed that the Congo inherited from the French a multiparty system that was not altered until 1 963 when the so-called socialist revolution took place. But, in fact, power sharing appeared immediately at in­ dependence. As an aspect of clientelism, it represents a fundamental principle of political organization and has accordingly been practiced ever since. After winning the election, the first president, Fulbert Youlou, invited his main polit­ ical opponent to join his government. Youlou 's decision was wise and certainly prevented more serious ethnic confrontations around 1 960. There was an out­ burst of ethnic violence as early as 1 959, in the wake of independence, between the north and the south. Southerners were attacked and assaulted by northerners in Poto-Poto, the northern district of Brazzaville, and people fled in hundreds to the southern parts of the town. A group of angered southerners from Bacongo retaliated in Poto-Poto and with that the open hostilities came to an end.

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The ethnopolitical landscape looks very much the same today as it did in the 1 960s. The opposition between the north and the south has been preserved, and recently reactivated. Within these two "super tribes," certain ethnic groups are stronger and more influential than others. Youlou was a Lari from the south, from Kinkala in the central Pool province. Massamba-Debat, who replaced Youlou in 1 963, was also from the Pool, but he was a BaKongo from Boko. In 1 968 a coup d' etat brought the northerners under Captain Marien Ngouabi (a kouyou) to the center stage of power. N gouabi was murdered in 1 977, replaced at first by Yhombi from the same ethnic group (kouyou), and then by northerner, Sassou N guesso (a mbochi). These groups, as well as the Bembe (from Bouenza in the south), have provided the main actors in the ethnopolitical arena during the entire postcolonial period while other groups have played more peripheral roles. Even the men in power are to a large extent the same today as in the 1 960s. Lissouba, for example, was prime minister from 1 963 to 1 966 in the Massamba-Debat government. When I first visited Congo in 1 968, these men were young and enthusiastic. Now they are old, and certainly less enthusiastic, but they are still there. The explanation is, again, the mechanism of clientelism that implies that an old man per definition has a wider political network than a young man.

T H E TRANSFORMATION OF T H E POLITICAL SPHERE

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The one-party system was dissolved in 1 990, leading to a transitional govern­ ment in 1 9 9 1 and then to elections in 1 992, which brought the south, more populous, back to power. Sassou, from the sparsely populated north, lost the presidential election by a very large percentage. The elected president, Pascal Lissouba, was from Niari province in the south, and his victory was guar� :- . teed by an alliance between the three southern provinces of Niari, Boueti��, and Lekoumou (Nibolek). Lissouba was, however, not the strong man hiJIlS�1'"t\ He was brought in by the Bembe, especially the group that was later caUed "la bande des quatre" (the gang of four), because he was useful. He was a "professor," a "scientist," and a man of the glorious 1 960s . The new multiparty system changed the political landscape. While the for­ mer one-party system was inclusive in the sense that regional power holders were included in a unified hierarchy encompassing the entire country, "democ­ racy" spawned fragmentation and conflict among its political leaders. The po­ litical realm was, instead, populated by an increasing number of ambitious men, each with his own political party. In 1 99 1 there were nearly a hundred parties or political associations After the first elections of 1 992, their number was, for strategic reasons, considerably reduced. But, still, a typical political party is composed of a man and his entourage. It is identified with its leader and

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presented as such for example Clemant Mierassa's PSDC, William Otta's PAPE, Andre Milongo's URD-Mwinda, General Mokoko's MRC, General Ngollo's RDR, and so on. Political leaders tried, in the same way as before, to form alliances. But when the old strategy was adapted to new circumstances, it did not end in national unity but, instead, in deadly conflict. During the five years of "democracy" there were two political blocs, La mouvance presidentielle (the presidential movement) and the Opposition. The Opposition was composed of the two allied sub-blocs, URD and FDU. URD was, in its turn, a coalition of a number of political parties, MCDDI, RDPS, UP, UPDP, PSDC, UNAPAC, and PAPE. In the same manner FDU was a coalition of PCT and a number of related parties. The M ouvance presidentielle was constructed in the same way. A characteristic feature of the new political situation was that new parties were easily created, coalitions and alliances easily rerouted, and the num­ ber of politicians considerably increased. Thus, the political sphere was not only highly fragmented and unstable due to intensified competition but also substantially inflated in numbers. Another novelty was that very little political organizing took place below, or outside, the political class itself. Even if the po­ litical leaders during the one-party era lived their separate lives in comfortable exclusiveness, a single party (PCT) still penetrated both country and popula­ tion through its party cells and "mass organizations." With the introduction of "democracy," politics became, paradoxically, much more of an exclusive business for politicians. Ethnic voting is a reflex of clientelism. The only way up the hierarchy is through ethnic channels. Even if the poor in the Niari province did not exactly expect Lissouba to reward them immediately for their votes, there were no alternatives. They could not vote for another group's politician because that would be completely illogical. The increasing number of parties and politicians may explain why there was, paradoxically, even less money, if possible, available for the Congolese people after the introduction of "democracy." The nibolek government was, in fact, criticize. for un blushing nepotism, The Lari, who lost the elections of 1 992 and felt excluded and deprived of resources , complained about the Nibolek being even more corrupt and greedy than the PCT. They have "eaten " in all

the previous governments, but they have never before been the dominant group in a government. Now it is their turn to "eat," and they do it in grandiose manna People in general, not only politicians, felt excluded in a way that

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they were not used to. The money remained in the political realm while the everyday life of ordinary citizens became increasingly precarious. Why did the Nibolek govemment content itself with the same old distribution of wealth within its own circles while investing almost nothing on improve­ ments for the Congolese people? When I posed this question at the beginning

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of 1 997, a middle-aged Lari working for a Swedish-Norwegian aid project answered, It is not easy. Those who have voted for the government bloc must be rewarded. And politicians need a lot of money. It is expensive to live well, to send one's children to schools an d universities in the West, to have the best kind of health care, to travel. They need all the money for themselves. That is why there are ministries for youth, sport, education and family, with politicians, offices, salaries and other benefits-but no activities within these sectors aimed at benefiting Congo's population.

Lissouba used to defend himself in international media by refening to the Congo's enormous external debt, which was generated by the former pres­ ident, and also by claiming that Sassou had used up the oil money in ad­ vances of credit. This sounded quite reasonable in 1 993, not least because people strove to adopt a positive attitude, but less and less so by 1 996-1 997. A growing popular discontent made the earlier S assou period look increasingly appealing.

I NC R EASED POLITICAL COMPETITION, MI LITIA REC R U ITMENT, A N D THE RES U LTI NG. C I V I L WARS

The introduction of democracy dramatically altered the situation of poor young men. The intensified struggle for power among politicians suddenly created a demand for young men as militia men. They were needed in a way that was not previously the case. A new form of ethnicity emerged, groups of power holders and their young soldiers. The main opponents in 1 992, Lissouba (Nibol�Ip), Kolelas (Lari), and S assou (Mbochi), recruited their own miIitias--Lissotifiia; theAubevillois, after the village Aubeville where they were trained (apparentl¥ , by Israelis); Kolelas, the Ninjas; and Sassou, the Cobras. In addition, a number of private bodyguards appeared. Every man of any political importance found it necessary to have his own bodyguard. All the various militias were, of course, recruited from the power holder's own ethnic group. None of these militias were later disarmed. Instead new groups have con­ stantly accrued. The Zoulous (Bembe) appeared on the scene in 1 993-1 994 fighting their own war against Lari and the Ninjas. Lissouba later recruited the Cocoyes before the second war and the Mambas (from Niari) during the war. The "sharks" appeared in Pointe-Noire and a certain minister, Binkinkita, created his Condors. In the war of 1 993-1 994 ethnic cleansing took place in various parts of the country. The southern parts of Brazzaville, Bacongo and Makelekele, were

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ethnically cleansed of their Nibolek inhabitants. Lari were attacked and driv en from the Nibolek provinces as well as from certain parts of the north. Nibolek took over the centre-ville of Brazzaville and seized control of the area north of the railway, Mutabala, which was cleansed of its Lari inhabitants. The three militia groups confronted each other as well as civilians, and civilians joined forces with militias in attacks on enemies. As the army was itself divided along ethnic lines, it was incapable of preventing this spiral of violence. The minister of foreign affairs declared in an interview at the end of 1 992 (Jeune Afrique 1 992) that there was no tribalism in the Congo, "il n 'y a pas de tribalisme au Congo." A year later, ethnic war broke out. We are, as noted by Horowitz in his work on ethnic conflict, often surprised by the emergence of ethnic conflict due to its episodic character. It appears suddenly, as from nowhere, "it comes and goes, suddenly shattering periods of apparent tran­ quility," a fact that also accounts for our defective understanding of the phe­ nomenon ( 1 995 : 1 3) . Under normal circumstances the Congolese desire to live peacefully with one another, as we all do. Why, then, in the 1 990s have they occasionally been so intent on killing each other for ethnic reasons? There are several explanations, as I see it. Clientelism in itself leads to a situation in which people easily feel excluded for ethnic reasons because they really are excluded for ethnic reasons. They react ethnically because they are ethnically affected. The first war had to do with the struggle for power and wealth, and ultimately for survival, a struggle between the Nibolek and the Lari. When the Nibolek won the elections, they gained access to the state and its wealth, and, in true democratic fashion, they kept it for themselves. . Another aspect of the phenomenon is that fantasies and rumors play an important role in the production of ethnic hatred. Rumors may be false
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A Lari had no reason to hate a Bembe before the war. But when his fellow Laris, even his close relatives, were killed by Bembe, he was quickly filled by hatred and feelings of revenge toward the entire category. The enemy consti­ tuted a lethal threat and had to be eliminated in order to ensure survival. And in this context the enemy is defined ethnically, by immediate association; war transforms the whole category, not just particular Bembe individuals, into an enemy. The conflict took on a categorical dynamic of its own reproduced by the deadly reciprocity of symmetrical schismogenesis. After the war o f 1 9 93-1 994, life never returned t o normal. Armed young men have been a serious problem ever since. In 1 996 there were constant attacks by bandits on civilians who were robbed and sometimes killed. These attacks included west African traders (see La semaine africaine 1 996) who have been selling their merchandise in Brazzaville for decades. They have money and are easy targets, as they are unprotected. The Lebanese, much more openly criticized (e.g., La rue meurt 1 996, on the "Lebanization" of the Congolese economy) for their profi table collaboration with the political class, have been much less affected due to their more effective ability to protect themselves. An atmosphere of insecurity prevailed at the beginning of 1 997. People tried to solve the problem of banditry by immediately executing captured bandits. And so did the police. They took to their cars, killed a couple of "bandits," and presented the corpses proudly on TV the following day. Popular opinion was divided. Some found it reassuring that bandits were eliminated while others were concerned about the obvious arbitrariness of such actions. A human rights organization (OCDH) created a stir in this period by revealing compromising information about the conditions in the BrazzaviHe prison and the situation for those unfortunate foreigners who ended up in the Congo as refugees. They also criticized the police for killing presumed bandits on the spot and for torturing those who were taken in spite of the fact that torture is forbidden by laW ;�i1 Congo. The police answered angrily that they, after all, protected law-abidill,g . . e citizens against criminals, and as fort orture, how would it otherwise be posst�l to make people confess? When Sas sou returned to Brazzaville after 18 months in Paris he was re­ ceived with enthusiasm by his followers at Maya-Maya airport. It was obvious that he came back in order to join the political arena again. But did he really have a chance? No, said the Nibolek. He belonged to the past and could never win an election since the north was simply too sparsely populated to carry his election. There are two very different versions of the civil war in 1 997, which com­ plicates the understanding of what really happened and why it happened. We know that Lissouba (or his side) attacked Sassou's headquarters in Mpila in northern Brazzaville on June 5 . According to the Lissouba version the attack " . , .,

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just aimed at disarming Sassou. His militia and military equipment were con­ ceived of as a general threat, especially so, a month and a half before the upcoming presidential election, which was scheduled for July 27. The Sassou version claims that Lissouba wanted to kill S assou because he knew that Sas­ sou would win the election. In this version a poll was carried out by a French institute, not only one but three different polls, all of them designating Sassou as the victor, by two-thirds of the vote. So, did Lissou ba attack Sassou because he feared him militarily or because he knew that Sassou had enough popular support to win the presidential election? The Sassou version is not a very likely one. Sassou had his old supporters and he had certainly gotten some new ones, but people tend to vote ethnically in the Congo, a fact that was definitely to his disadvantage. The north was, furthermore, divided between himself and Yhombi. He probably knew that he would lose when it came to an election (cf. Jeune Afrique). The story of the poll, or the three polls, is probably devoid of any real substance. Stories of this type have always been very common in the Congo. It is claimed that the poll was found hidden in a drawer in the bedroom of Lissouba's mistress, Munari, a,fter she fled the country. There they also found counterfeit bank notes and, incredibly, gas masks. In 1 996, a similar story was told about General Mokoko. When the military entered his house after he had fled the country, they found (according to rumor) counterfeit bank notes, drugs, pornographic videos, weapons, and compromising documents, all underlining the message that he was up to no good. But what was Lissouba doing? He evidently misjudged the situation. Why did he underestimate Sassou's military strength? There were rumors in Braz­ zaville during the spring suggesting that Sassou was planning a military Qt)up. And yet the fierce resistance and counterattacks from the Sassou side evidently came as a surprise for Lissouba. The most plausible explanation, provided by a number of my informants, including a member of his last government, is that Lissouba was out of touch with Congolese reality. He had lived abroad for years. He had no extensive political network like Sassou 's, and he was not really accustomed to the rules of the. political game. Sassou was too cunning a political actor for old Lissouba who prepared for an election when, in re­ ality, a very different battle was on its way. After the final defeat a number of politicians left the country. What we do know is that Lissouba attacked the enemy, including civilians in the northern parts of the capital, from the air, using combat helicopters imported from the Ukraine. Sassou claims not to have attacked from the air, but there are quantities of statements alluding to MiGs over the southern parts of Brazzaville. Tanks and grenade throwers, the so-called Stalin organs, were utilized with alacrity by both sides. Wrecked tanks could still be observed in

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various parts of Brazzaville in February. The material effects of the war were massive. Official buildings, stores, and hotels in centre-ville and Mpila were looted to the last rag, deserted, burned, with shell holes and smashed windows, open to the sky and the heavy rains, some of them randomly destroyed by grenades and others blown up on purpose, in acts of revenge. What we know for sure, then, is that Brazzaville was left in ruins.

TH E I N TERNATIONAL AN D S U B REGIONAl PERSPECTIVE

What has happened in the Congo must of course be seen within a wider frame­ work. First, this war could not have taken place without outside intervention. Military equipment was bought through various channels and from various countries. ELF helped Lissouba finance his part of the war material, and it is claimed that it did the same for Sassou. For ELF it must have been important to be on good terms with the president, no matter who he might be or become. Mercenaries were brought/bought in on both sides. In hi s biased, pro-Sassou description of the course of events, Pigasse enu­ merates a number of factors in Sassou 's favor, among them the support he obtained from other African heads of state. Here he mentions Mandela (South Africa), dos Santos (Angola), and Bongo (of Gabon, Sassou 's father-in-law) and adds that Sassou, of course, also could count on his old friend Jacques Chirac ( 1 99 7 : 1 37-3 8). From adopting a neutral attitude at the beginning of the war, France under Chirac clearly took sides with Sas sou in early September when he refused to receive Lissouba on the latter's visit to Paris. This decision was criticized inthe French press (Le Canard Enchafne, September 1 997) with the ironic argument that it could damage ELF ifLissouba survived politically. But Chirac obvio�§J)' understood, at this time, that Sassou would win the war. France is to a large extent responsible for the present catastrophe, and this responsibility is not of recent date. It is part of its general relationship to its former African colonies subsequent to independence. The fact that France has remained a "postcoIonial" colonial power has, for some reason , been accepted by the rest of the world. The strategies of the Congolese political class with respect to the country 's oil resources, which left the "civil sector" completely destitute, could not have been developed without intimate, and even secret, cooperation with France and ELF. The French are also directly blamed for the war in Congo, and a number of Frenchmen have been kiHed. What definitively decided the war in Sassou's favor was the support he received from MPLA and dos S antos in Angola. On October 1 1 , Angolan troops intervened in Pointe-Noire from the Cabinda enclave people in Pointe-Noire ,

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find this quite strange and suspect ELF of assistance in the transportation of Angolan soldiers and tanks. Lissouba had only the Angolan opposition, UNITA, on his side, and this was evidently not suffi cient. REGIONAL D ESTA B l lIZATION A N D TH E G LOBAL ARENA

What has happened in Congo-Brazzaville is part of a general destabilization process in central Africa. A great deal of attention has recently been paid to the increasing ethnic conflicts in the Great Lakes area and how these conflicts tend to spread to other parts of the subregion as the result of the formation of alliances on both sides. Uganda under Museveni evidently played a crucial role both in the return of the Tutsis in Rwanda and in the victory by Laurent Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo (see New African 1 997; Africa international 1 998). This new political bloc, or whatever we may call it, is, however, also marked by ethnic conflicts and tendencies to disintegration. The situation in the eastern parts of former Zaire is chaotic, and Uganda itself has, in spite of its relative economic success, problems with rebel movements in the north, northwest, and southwest (see the Economist 1 998). Congo-Brazzaville was in various ways affected by these tendencies to destabilization as early as the early 1 990s. More recently there have been in­ ternal tendencies to disintegration in the form of ethnic conflict in various provinces. In Sangha (north) there is a "liberation front" aiming at the protec­ tion of indigenous rights and the expulsion of "foreigners." There have been intrusions in the north by people from the Central African Republic, some of them fleeing from chaos and marauding soldiers/bandits (La rue meurt 1 996) and some searching for diamonds or hunting elephants for ivory (La senfaine africaine 1 996). Refugees have also entered the Congo from Cabinda where the liberation front, FLEC, opposes Angolan domination. At the beginning of January 1 997, Angolan troops encroached on Congolese territory in their search forrebels (La semaine africaine 1 997). T H E PRESENT SITUATION A N D PROSPECTS FOR T H E FUTURE

Brazzaville is today (2002) more divided than ever, and the main conflict i s again between the north and the south. In the war of 1 993-1 994, the quarters Moungali, Ouenze, and the Plateau de 1 5 ans, in the northern palt of the capital, were not affected in same way as B acongo and Makelekele where ethnic cleansing was rampant. The former areas maintained their mixed population and were even positively described by their residents as more "cosmopolitan"

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since no particular group could claim the land as its patrimony. In the latest war the roles were reversed. B acongo and Makelekele were less involved in the mutual destruction while the areas in the north were severely affected by both material destruction and violent ethnic conflict. The cobras have killed and driven away Nibolek residents from these parts of the town and, today, it is impossible for a Bembe to enter this territory. Brazzaville in 1998 was a city in total paralysis. No normal activities could be carried out. When people went to work they did so in order not to risk losing their salaries, not because there was any "real" work. There were few people circulating in the central parts of the capital. After two p.m. the center was almost empty. What was left, and in great numbers, were soldiers, young Congolese soldiers on every corner and groups of Angolan soldiers driving by in military vehicles. There were still substantial numbers of Angolan troops in various parts of the south in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, and in a couple of other areas where resistance was expected to flare up. The military situation was clearly not under control. Opposing militias were not easily found or disarmed. The only actors left in the Congo were politicians, their women, and armed young men. For the rest of the Congo's population life had turned into a nightmare. They were refugees in their own country, starving, diseased, and dying in great numbers. Disintegration was in evidence in all domains of society in the political arena between rival networks of politicians (who were perfectly capable of employing heavy weapons against their own civilians), in the ethnic domain, and in the most local relations, between neighbors and relatives. What was at stake here was a general destruction of the social fabric, one that seemed to be self-amplifying at that moment. The political conflicts may have been stabilized with Sassou's return to power, but this is not certain by any means. The fact that Sas sou is again the president of the Congo has to do with his ability to build and maintain politi��l networks. In this respect he is certainly, for the time being, the only man who has the potential to halt the present catastrophe. In this endeavor he needs help and support from the "international community." He is surrounded by men who eagerly await rewards for their loyalty, and this locks him into the same logic that has led to the current situation. And among those actors are powerful international conglomerates such as ELF that have provided the fuel, if not the oil, for both the vampire state and its contemporary fragments. The ethnic conflicts are intense at the moment, especially between the north and the south. There is also a serious conflict in the north between M bochi and Kouyou, following Sassou 's massacre of his rival Yhombi's village and immediate relatives just before embarking on his war of "unification." He even had Yhombi 's house blown up. This structure that groups ethnic conflicts

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into north and south and then into increasingly smaller subgroups embodies a potential dynamic of fragmentation, one that has been ignited by the demise of a state-cl ass-clan system but that has also led to its partial resurrection. The massive self-destruction is a product of a crisis in the linkage of the Congo state to the world system, one that is common to the entire region. It is a crisis that expresses the articulation of transformations of the global system, which have led to the fragmentation of a specific hierarchical order in which external wealth reproduced a state class and a vast clientelistic structure, and to an explosive process of disintegration and internal war, the latter also fueled by external sources. And at the very bottom of this state of war are the young men who have been drugged but also armed by this vicious process, producing yet a new wave of disorder. Every Congolese, except the very well-protected, is threatened in life and property by the young men with guns, be they ordinary bandits, militiamen, police, or members of the army. This phenomenon is, in itself, a result of a process of di sintegration affecting all forms of social networks at the local level. There is very little left of authority structures as well as of trust and social solidarity. The political leaders armed their militias for their own particular political interests. But they have not considered whether they can retrieve the weapons after the tasks are carried out. If the leaders were unified, perhaps they could put an end to this new epidemic, but given their total conflictual situation, it may be quite difficult for them to regain effective control. Today 's relationship between super-wealthy oil rentiers and destitute young males without a future has become a fragile new (dis)order. The latter are armed and disrespectful, and they have experienced the power that grows out of the barrel of a gun.iI'And they, just as the elites, are also well aware of their alternatives. NOTE

1. Marxism-Leninism was suddenly proclaimed by the military regime in the beI ginning of 1970 and it was, just as suddenly, abolished on July 4, 1990, by the Comite Central. 2. CFA (Communaute Financiere Africaine). African francs were set at one-fiftieth of a French franc. Recently, they have been devalued to one-hundredth. 3. Term used to describe a state class that indiscriminately steals the wealth of the ,

country. 4. Note here that this ethnic miscegenation is not the product of globalization as in Appadurai ( 1988). Intermarriage among groups that enter into conflict reflects issues of loyalty/treachery more than issues of purity. The latter occurs in central Africa as a by-product of the former and is not a primary issue.

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21 1

REFERENCES

Africa international. 1998. DecemberIJanuary, 3 10. Amin, S., and C. Coquery-Vidrovitch. 1969. Histoire economique du Congo 18801968. Paris: Editions Antropos. Appadurai, A. 1988. Deal certainty: Ethnic violence within the era of globalisation." Public Culture 1 0.2: 225-47. Atipo, D. 1985. La Politique du developpement de I'elevage au Congo. In Frelin

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Haubert and Nguyen Trong Nam Tran, eds., Politiques alimentaires et structures sociales en Afrique Noire. Paris: Harmattan. Bertrand, H. 1975. Le Congo: Formation sociale et mode de developpement economique. Paris: Maspero. Cornevin, R. 1986. History of French equatorial Africa until independence." In Africa south of the Sahara. 1 6th ed. London: Europe Publications. Desjeux, D. 1987. Strategies paysannes en Afrique Noire: Le Congo, essai sur la gestion de ['incertitude. Paris: Harmattan. Economist. 1998. January 24-30. Ekholm Friedman, K. 1 990a. Den politiska eliten struntar I folket. SIDA-rapport 3 : 28-29. . 1990b. Obstacles to rural development in Africa: The Congolese case. Re­ search Report 1 8 . Programme for Social Movements and Strategies in Third World Development, Department of Sociology, University of Lund, Sweden. --- . 1 99 1 . Catastrophe and creation: The transformation of an African culture. London: Harwood Academic. --- . 1994. Den magiska varldsbilden: om statens frigarelse fran folket I folkre­ publiken Kongo. Stockholm: Carlssons. Frimpong-Ansah, 1. H. 199 1 . The vampire state in Africa: The political economy of decline in Ghana. London: James Currey. Goma-Foutou, C. 1985. La Formation socio-economique de la Republique Populaire . du Congo. La Revue des Sciences Sociales 3: 3 20. Guichaoua, A. 1989. Destins pay sans et politiques agraires en Afrique Centrale: .'1ii.l . Liquidation du "monde paysan " congolais. Paris: Harmattan. Horowitz, D. 1995. Ethnic groups in conJlict. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Hyden, G. 1983. No shortcuts to progress: African development management in per­ spective. London: Heinemann. Jackson, R. H . , and C. P. Rosberg. 1982. Personal rule in black Africa: Prince, autocrat, prophet, tyrant. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jeune Afrique. 1992. August 4. La Semaine Africaine. 1996. April 1 1 ; 1 997. September 1 8, October 2. La rue meurt. 1996. December 1 2- 1 8 . L e Canard Enchaine. 1997. September 10. Markowitz, I. L. 1977. Power and class in Africa. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall. ---

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, ed. 1987 . Studies in power and class in Africa. New York: Oxford University Press. Mazrui, A. A. 1 988. Is Africa decaying? The view from Uganda. In H. B. Hansen and

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M. Twaddle, eds. , Uganda Now: Between Decay and Development. London: lame s Currey. Mouamba, C. 1985. La Strategie de developpement auto-centre et auto-dynamique et la transition au socialisme. La Revue des Sciences Sociales l : 1 3-29. New African. 1997. September. Pigasse, 1. P. 1997 . Congo chronique d'une guerre annoncee. Paris: Edition-diffusion i

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Rapport annuel d' activites du PDR. 1 987. Ministere du developpement rural, direction

de I' action cooperative, Kinkala. Sandbrook, R. 1985. The politics of Africa's economic stagnation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vennetier, P. 1 963 . La Societe industrielle et agricole du Niari: SIAN (Congo­ Brazzaville). Les Cahiers d'Outre-Mer 1 6. . 1965. Au Congo-Brazzaville: La S.I.A.N. en 1964. Les Cahiers d'Outre-M er

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Verschave, Francois-Xavier. 2000. Noir silence. Paris: Les Arenes.

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Social Movements and the Struggle against Evil

Kajsa Ekholm Friedman In the context of the privatizing state and the disintegrating resource base for

ordinary citizens, there has been a massive proliferation of cults, which have a longer history, dealing with what is experienced as an unbearable increase in "Evil." The latter is dealt with in numerous creative ways that can be said to eliminate or replace the kind of more directly political movements that one might expect in such situations. This chapter, originally from 1 994, delineates the re-ignition of a process that continues today. At first glance, it may seem that there are no social movements in Congo, if we define such movements as collective undertakings organized on the basis of their members ' common i nterests and directed toward improving their living . conditions through social change. In the Congo of today, the poor and the vulnerable are not engaged in any sort of political struggle, and there seemto be no movements built up from below. On the other hand, the word "movement" has been much used, not tO $ �Y overused, in Congo during recent decades. As we have seen, the various co�ps d'etat that have characterized the country's history since independence naYe been dignified with the name of "movements" for example, the Mouvemimt de Reajustement de la Revolution in July 1968, when Captain Marien Ngouabi overthrew M assamba-Debat's socialist government, or the Mouvement du. 5 Fevrier, when Sassou seized power in 1 979. The word has also been used to describe various state-directed or "top-down" activities like "the cooperative movement" (Mouvement Cooperat{f), which was initiated from above and in no way was a farmers ' movement, and "the movement for a return to the land" (Mouvement de Retour a la Terre), which was merely an unrealistic slogan, un mat d' ordre, uttered by the former president in a variety of official connections. There has also been a "woman 's movement," the URFC, in Congo, which was •

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closely linked to the ruling elite and which had no base whatsoever among the impoverished women of the country. However, social movements do exist in Congo. They merely do so in a form that differs from what is the norm in the contemporary Western world. We are faced with the problem of how to compare like with like, and it is not always straightforward to compare phenomena specific to different cultures . Compar­ ison is only possible if general and more abstract content can be separated from the forms that are specific to a particular culture. Social movements are always essentially concerned with the struggle against evil and, as such, the phenomenon surely exists in all cultures, but evil can be defined in different ways in different societies, and the struggle therefore assumes very different manifestations. In Congo, the struggle against evil is not directed at the ruling political elite and its irresponsible and cleptocratic behavior; nor is it directly concerned with matters like unemployment, poverty, the country 's wretched schools, or the death of the countryside. Evil is not defined in such terms, and the solution envisaged is not a question of social planning. The Congolese do, of course, perceive illness and unemployment as manifestations of evil, but what they struggle against is witches and evil spirits. They hunt for the source of evil within the family or the local community, and their solution is to purge society of these sources. This is the form that the struggle against evil assumes in a Central African clan system. I was surprised at first that the urban and rural poor so rarely turned their aggression against the ruling elite. Western Europe has been a class society for a long time, and our model of the struggle for a better life has been the class struggle: serfs, sometimes with some kind of Robin Hood at their �de, against feudal lords; peasants against aristocrats; workers against capitalists. In the early stage of my fieldwork, I was unable to refrain from proposing my own interpretation of the situation with remarks like "How can you accept this? You need to carry out your own French Revolution," but the recurring response to my comments was that the state and the class that ruled it belonged to a world of their own (un monde a part) to which people in Bacongo or out in the countryside were not really connected. They conceded that it would naturally be a good thing if the state and the ruling elite took better care of the people, but it did not seem to have occurred to ordinary Congolese that they could put forward demands of their own. They did not see politicians as their representatives. In Congo, an individual who is under pressure turns to God and other external sources of strength and blames his misfortunes on those closest to him, above all his elders. A partial explanation for the absence of movements built up from below may be that they have been banned. The one-party system did not permit

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the manifestation o f diverse interests and insisted that everything should be accommodated under one roof. Movements built up from below were regarded by definition as counter-revolutionary. As we have seen, the fall of the one-party system in the years 1 990-1991 led to the emergence of many different parties that gradually coalesced into two blocs, but ordinary people have been little affected by the political changes of recent years, which seem so far only to have concerned les grands messieurs and how to distribute power between them. Events suggest that there was no latent mobilization from below when the ban on separate political organizations was lifted. In my view, the primary explanation for the absence of grass-roots social · movements lies in the structure of the political system. The complete separa­ tion of the top from the bottom of society makes political struggle from below impossible and leads the impoverished to turn the struggle inward instead. Pro­ duction, especially industrial production, is virtually absent in Congo, except for the oil industry, which only employs a few people, so there is no organic relationship between the people and the state class. There was a strike at a state-owned company in Pointe-Noire in the late 1 980s, because its employees were discontented with their working conditions primarily with their wages, of course, but also with plans to reduce the size of the labor force. The out­ come demonstrates clearly that strikes are only a practical form of struggle when there is a potential negotiating partner, when there is an owner or a man­ agement team that must, to survive, keep production going and the factory alive. In the case of the strike at Pointe-Noire, nothing happened; management simply shrugged its shoulders and quickly lost interest in the whole affair. The workers waited for the state to react for a while, but were eventually obliged to accept that the factory had been closed. The Congolese clan system is today in general decay, and traditionaL"cul· ture," which rested on the authority of the old over the young, can no longer;be sustained. It may therefore be that this process will ultimately lead to the emef� •. gence of the type of social movements that are normal in the West, but for tne time being the only ones that exist are those produced by the clan system. AU true movements in Congo today are religious in nature. Even an initially politi­ cal movement like matswanism was gradually transformed into a religious sect. I first met a matswanist at the very beginning of my fieldwork in B acongo. He lives on Rue B and the first time I approached him, he explained that he could not talk to me, though he did pass on the following message through Elisabeth. ,

We have undertaken not to speak to other people. I don't know exactly when he will come back, but when he does, he will save us-we who are holy-from evil. We pray in Mpisa Park and wait there for his return. He has promised us that he

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will come back. He is not dead. He still lives. You have to believe, to believe in Matswa Andre Grenard, to be spared death and to gain etemal life. We have lived in poverty ever since he left us. They want us to pay tax like other people, but we cannot do that before he comes back. And when he comes back, he will separate the good from the evil, and the good will be with him for etemity. He is the Son of God, Mats wa Andre Grenard.

Matswa was a political leader during the colonial period who spent some time in France where he met other African opponents of colonialism. All the evidence suggests that he was killed by the French in 1 942, but his supporters refused to accept this. In their eyes, he was still alive. No body had ever been produced, and they waited eagerly for his return. He has today become entwined with Christ, he is regarded as God's son, and his political exhortation to refrain from paying a three-franc tax has become a meaningless commandment. The old man in Bacongo has no income and has probably never had one, so no one tries to make him pay tax. The movement attracts no new supporters, and only a few old men and women are left, but they continue to meet in Mpisa Park and await his return there. I have chosen to focus in particular on the Zephirin church les Zephirins, les Lassists, les bougistes ("those who light candles"), as its members are called. I have not selected them because they play an especially important role in Congolese society today. On the contrary, they are in decline and experience great economic problems because of the poverty that characterizes Congo and the absence of external financing. They are also marked by internal struggles and schismatic tendencies. The reason I have chosen them is because they so faithfully represent the way Congolese culture deals with evil, despite ,their adoption of the Bible and various symbols of Christianity. Their primary goal or driving force has always been the struggle against witchcraft. As someone remarked, "ViIi would have gone under without the Zephirins; they have been the people's only protection against witchcraft."

T H E PERPETUAL EMERGENCE OF SECTS A N D WITCH-H U NT I N G C U LTS I N THE TWENTI ETH CENTURY

There were seven officially recognized churches in Congo under the one­ party state: the Catholic Church, which was introduced by the French; the Protestant Church (the EEC), which originated in the activities of Swedish missionaries (the SMF); the two Mm-Christian churches, the Kimbangists and the Zephirins; the Salvation Army; and a small Japanese church called Terenkyo. In addition to these churches recognized by the state, there were a

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great many sects in the late 1 9808, and 1 3 4 of them applied for recognition in 1 989. Many of my informants argued that the reason why the state wanted to recognize as few churches and sects as possible was that it regarded them as competitors. When Sassou seized power in 1 979, the sects were even de­ clared illegal organizations and some of their leaders were imprisoned. When 1 raised this question with Elisabeth and asked her to confirm that the peT's aversion to competing bodies was the reason for the prohibition of the sects, she pointed out that there were, and indeed still are, sects that are destructive and that can reasonably be banned. One example was Nzambi kaki, a witch­ hunting cult that went from village to village in the southern part of the country "identifying" witches, who were left dead or injured as the sect's members moved on. Elisabeth described a case where she was able to follow at close quarters. The sect had been called to a village near Kindamba because a lot of people had died there and a woman, the fourth wife of one of the most powerful men in the village, had been accused of being responsible. The sect forced her to drink water and also beat her. The woman fell ill after this treatment and never recovered. Elisabeth could not remember how she died, only that she had been in a very bad state after what had happened to her. 1 asked if she had only been given water, and Elisabeth said that this was so, but that the quantity had been enormous about five liters. Elisabeth also regarded lehovah 's Witnesses as both frightening and dan­ gerous. Once when she was living with her maternal uncle in Brazzaville in the 1 960s, a man had come into the courtyard with a Bible in his hand. She was alone at home and, as courtesy requires, put a chair for him to sit on in the courtyard. Once he was seated, he said, "Majille, 1 come with good news which may frighten you. We are all going to die the day after tomorrow. The world will end and if you are not prepared, you will burn in the fire forever:" Elisabeth was terrified, and asked the man fearfully if this meant that she wot,l�ij .· never see her parents again, since there was only one day left and they were · at home in the village. He replied that that was correct, unless she made sure her soul was prepared: "Tomorrow God will separate the good from the evH and those on the left, the evil ones, will burn in hen." Elisabeth was quite paralyzed with fear. Her uncle had given her money before he left so that she could shop at the market and prepare food, but she was unable to do anything and just sat there. "Bon," said the man, "I have now given my message and you must prepare yourself." When her uncle returned, he wondered why she had not gone shopping and cooked some food. She told him about her visitor and his message, and the uncle told her that he must have been a lehovah 's Witness and that they always tried to frighten people in this way. Elisabeth 's conclusion today is that, "There certainly was good reason for the ban."

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There was a great increase in the number of sects during the second half of the 1 980s, at the same time as living conditions deteriorated markedly. Many Congolese also make this connection between the interest in sects, and indeed in religion generally, and social decay. A university lecturer commented on this link in the following way: The churches have been full since 1 984-85, when everything became much worse. There's a big difference compared with the period before then. People were even quitting the church in the sixties. Now you see hordes of people standing outside the churches on Sundays. There are also all these sects. When people have enough money, they don't seem to care very much about religion, but when they don't have what they need, it seems as if insecurity makes them seek protection and a solution to their problems in the churches.

This coincides with the impression I have got when looking at the behavior of individuals: "When he had a good job and everything went well for him, he couldn 't be bothered to pray. He was only interested in dressing well, going out and having a good time, driving around in his car [and so on] . . . but now when he is unwell and has lost his job, he is ready to go to any sect which makes him imagine that it can do something for him." Many of the sects are only prayer groups whose members simply pray for a solution to their own and each other's problems, and they sometimes belong to a church at the same time. However, a significant process of fragmentation is also taking place: the established churches are losing members to the sects and/or expelling members who form sects. People within the Protestant Church often have revelations that make them believe they have the power of heahng. Their subsequent activities can in principle be kept within the framework of traditional medicine, but the individuals concerned sometimes begin to act as prophets and toreceive patients in return for payment, and this can ultimately lead to their expulsion from the church. People go to church largely in order to be healed. Religiosity is about obtain­ ing strength, escaping misfortune, and achieving success. The head of SMF, K. Andersson, who worked as pastor for several years in Congo, writes in an article about kindoki that the most common prayer in church is one asking for strength, "give us strength," utuvana ngolo in Kilari, and relates how a Swedish psalm became extremely popular in the area around Musana mis­ sionary station. What the psalm says is, "Sen d the glorious strength now, this strength that makes the weak victorious, send the glorious strength now." It was only much later, after he had come to understand the importance of strength to the Congolese, that he also came to understand the great interest in this psalm.

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The traditional way in which Congolese relate to the divine is that they are first initiated into a cult so as to be cured and healed and that they then go on to fi ght against evil in the form of witches and evil spirits within the framework of this cult, this "social movement." That is how things have been since the late nineteenth century and how they still are today. It is also possible to be cured or healed in a more private environment, by a nganga, who treats the individual afflicted by illness or misfortune like a patient and who will provide part of the treatment in the form of a clan meeting. I will return to this phenomenon later. In Congo, there is an intimate link between an individual's physical health and his success in life. If he is unwell, this involves a weakening of his life­ force and means that he is unsuccessful, "deserted," reduced, marginalized. Happiness is achieved by being healed and cured. Those Congolese who go to church in Congo are often looking for a type of salvation that is quite different from that to which Westerners are accustomed (though our Western type of salvation is also present there see, for example, Buana 1 9 6 1 ) . For the Congolese, salvation is the healing of illness and misfortune, and what they are looking for is partly a transfusion of strength from the divine sphere and partly the expulsion of evil. Scholars from both Congo and Zaire have noted the difference between African and western ways of thinking about the human being and his body. Describing conditions in Lower Zaire, K. Mahaniah writes ( 1 982:27) that, in contrast to the West, the patient is not simply regarded as an organism that has ceased to function properly in his culture. Instead, the patient is seen as an integral part of a larger social and religious system, and healing is something ' that must occur within the framework of that system. J. Tonda, a sociologist from Brazzaville, also emphasizes that in Congolese thinking the body is never just a biological organism: a sick body is a manifestation of a more general, social failure. Illness is a symptom of a failure to succeed, and when peopl� talk about economic and social difficulties, they sometimes say "I have m:q body" or "I have a sick body" (Tonda 1 988). The notion that the individual ci:trJ. either expand or contract lies behind this blurring of the distinction between the physical and the social (cf. Tempels 1 964). This model ultimately rests on the assumption that power and success are the result of absorbing life-force from the people around one, that is to say the result of real or imaginary cannibalism. You must eat or be eaten by others. This is why witchcraft in its cannibalistic form is still so important in present-day Congo. In the late nineteenth century, when the Congo region was afflicted by European penetration and colonization, religious practice came increasingly to assume the form of magic designed to combat illness (see Ekholm Friedman 1 99 1 ) . Colonization destroyed the foundations of political power within Congolese society, but the Congolese continued to elect and crown "kings" '

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who were wretched figures, ill-treated and totally without power or influence. Laman ( 1 957 : 1 40-4 1 ) tells a story of how a young boy was captured, cas­ trated, kept in isolation, and mistreated until he was finally crowned king. These "kings" were u sed as fetishes, as a weapon in the struggle against the evil that descended on Congolese society on such a sweeping scale. Intruders had seized the country, the old world order had been destroyed, and the people were well on the way to succumbing completely to sickness, impoverishment, and military encroachment. The Congolese did not identify the evil that had befallen them in terms of this alien intrusion into their society, as I have done with the benefit of hindsight. Instead, they sought to protect themselves from nature, which had previously given life but that had now become an extremely threatening force, and from their ancestors, who no longer brought fertility but only suffering and death. The crowned "kings" were used as weapons against this menacing environment inhabited by the forces of evil, as a St. George figure pointing his lance at the forest and ancestral spirits, while at the same time the alien intruders took over Congolese society. The population declined by 80 percent around the turn of the century, a phenomenon well known in other parts of the world that were exposed to Western penetration. New diseases were introduced, the infection spread more easily under pristine conditions, and the population as a whole was weakened by the general crisis of survival that struck the region. These were busy times for the fiticheurs. New fetishes with supposedly new effects were constantly being created and great masses of sick people sought out the various nkisi cults in order to be initiated and subsequently cured. Every fetish contains strength from God and one's ancestors and is put together in a particular way s�that it has a specialized function. Around the turn of the century, Congolese had initiated themselves into particular nkisi cults in order to protect themselves against or to be cured of particular diseases. Nkisi summoned the individual by making him unwell, and he thenheeded the summons and was initiated. This meant that he learned how to make the special fetish required for his illness and was told of the taboos that were asspciated with it. Once this had happened, he was supposed to recover, if everything went as it should. Congolese society around the turn of the century was also characterized by witch-hunts and the extermination of witches. Illness and death were in­ terpreted as problems within the family and the village, and one witch after another was tracked down and killed in the struggle against this evil. There was a special fiticheur, the nganga ngombo, who was supposed to be better able than others to identify the guilty party among those under suspicion. Once he had done his work, it was the turn of the nganga who administered the poison that made the innocent merely vomit but that caused an agonizing death to

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a true witch. This intensification of the execution of witches after coloniza­ tion meant that the Congolese themselves added considerably to the decline in population. Colonization first wiped out large parts of the population, and the survivors then turned on each other and continued the mayhem. Two main strategies can be discerned in Congolese society at this time for dealing with the enormous problems that had descended upon the region. One was to fight against evil, which was identified as witches and evil spirits. At the same time, both nature and ancestors suddenly came to seem ambiguous forces, and methods were developed for protecting oneself from them. The second strategy was to have oneself initiated in a cult and to strictly observe its rules and prohibitions. It is clear from my reconstruction of pre-colonial religion just before the coming of the Europeans that one important function of fetishes (which were . then fewer than after colonization) was to protect law and order. It seems to be a common idea among hl:lman beings that all will be well so long as we live an upright life: "If you obey the law and do what we [i.e., older people] say, no harm will come to you. But if you break the law, if you do not obey, illn ess and misfortune will afflict you." This very simple form of social control surely works quite well in normal situations. People behave properly on the whole and are healthy, for the most part, and even though these two things are not connected, it stilI seems as if the gods are benevolently rewarding human obedience. But what happens when the social order is overturned and the people are afflicted by massive suffering? In such circumstances, it is easy to explain the catastrophe with the assertion that human beings were failing in their obedience. In the case of Congo, the various nkisi cults reacted with elaborate systems of obedience, though it was no longer a matter of obeying the law. Instead they were concentrated on a series of prohibitions, mostly relating to food or bodily movements, which were entirely meaningless from society is point of view. Laman points out that people ultimately became reluctant';to join the cults, because they had become completely paralyzed by all their prohibitions . The taboos introduced around the turn of the century were not connected to the individual's relationship with others. They must instead be seen as an attempt by the individual to deal with his own health problems. He tried to be obedient, but it was not easy for him to know what was really expected of him or in what way he had failed. Many Congolese people were con verted to Christianity during the twentieth century, but this is not to be understood as meaning that they became Christian in the European sense of the word. Christianity was sufficiently similar to their traditional, precolonial religion to be assimilated into their culture. It is quite clear that Congolese Christians relate most easily to the Old Testament, which presents a society and culture similar to their own and a God whom they can

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understand, since He is authoritarian and punitive. In the case of the New Testament, they appreciate Jesus as a magician and healer and what is written about the Holy Ghost, the force that enters into them when they are in a trance and that enables them to "see" and "hear" the "truth." As a Swede lacking any tradition of spiritual baptism and possession trance, it was first in Congo that I came to understand what the Holy Ghost actually represents. At regular intervals throughout the twentieth century, the Catholic and Protestant churches were supplemented by movements that cropped up and were dedicated to curing illness by fighting witches and evil spirits. In the 1 930s, Audrey Richards ( 1935) described a witch-hunting cult among the Be­ mba called Bamucapi, which went from village to village in order to purge society of witches. Suspected witches were given "bamucapi medicine," a drink that was supposed to make all further activity as a witch impossible. Similar movements appeared in other parts of Africa. In the early 1 950s, a movement called Munkukusa or Mukunguna emerged in Lower Congo on both the Zairian and Congolese sides. It originated in the Luozi area (Andersson 1 958:21-22) and spread from there like to quote the SMF's annual report (SMF 1 952:75-76) "wild fire" or a "prairie fire" to other parts of the region, but it came to an end after 1 953. As with the Bamucapi movement, its aim was to cleanse society of witchcraft. The Salvation Army had come to be linked to the struggle against witchcraft at an even earlier stage, since they swept their red flags backward and forward over the congr�gation and this was interpreted as cleansing the air of evil. In 1964, the Croix-Koma, under its prophet Victor Malanda, emerged among the Lari. There was often an element of political resistance in these movements during the colonial period. This is very clear in the cases of Matswanism, �hich, for example, caused great problems for the Protestant community in Madzia in 1 952, and early Kimbangism. Simon Kimbangu emerged as a prophet in 1 92 1 and was only active for a very short time before the Belgians deported him to Elisabethville, but the movement lived on, usually under the name of ngunzism with new prophets and often with clearly anti-white tendencies (children were not allowed to attend,school, Western hospitals were boycotted, etc.) (Andersson 1958:68-79). Christianity was close to Congolese traditional religion and easily won a foothold in Congolese society, not least thanks to the financial support it ob­ tained from abroad, but it does suffer from certain handicaps in a Congolese environment. Both the Catholic and the Protestant churches are marked by a Eu­ ropean way of thinking, and this has meant that the whites in the first instance, and the black leadership of these Churches in the second, have adopted an entirely negative attitude to the Congolese way of defining evil. The Churches have asserted that witchcraft does not exist and that it is a manifestation of

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superstition, indeed that this is the very dividing line between heathendom and true Christianity. As a result, there has been a great demand throughout the twentieth century for measures against witchcraft, which the Churches have been unable to meet. This demand has been expressed through the recurring emergence of movements whose goal is to extirpate witchcraft. They usually come and go and are replaced by new movements. The Zephirinian Church­ unlike the Kimbangists, who have their main support in Zaire is a purely Congolese phenomenon, and it has succeeded in consolidating its position to a far greater extent than other sects. Its prophet, Simon Zephirin Lassy, who experienced his founding vision in 1 948 in Dolisie, was himself a member of the ViIi ethnic group, and the Church has always held a strong position among the ViIi, especially in Pointe-Noire. However, it also spread to other parts of Congo gaining adherents from both the Catholic Church and Protes­ tant Church in the 1 950s and 1960s because of its clear focus on healing and the struggle against evil. In recent decades, the Congolese have tended to deal with the problems of long-term illness at large clan meetings (jougoula ma­ soumou). The problems are investigated, which means that everyone present has to speak and wash their hands in a large bowl of water. The feticheur is naturally present, as are the ngunza and the Zephirinian pastor, but there are no Protestants nor Catholics. It is interesting to note that a so-called "revival" took place within the Protes­ tant Church in 1 947 about the same time as the Zephirinian movement began. Its great prophet was Ndoundou, who did not leave the Church, but who did make it much more Congolese in character. He introduced "revealed" medicine, cured the sick, fell into trances, and generally behaved like an authentic Con­ golese pastor. There is a stone monument to him beside the church at Ngouedi. Its size and grandiose style make it clear that he was not just an ordinary pastor. Today, the Zephirinians, too, may be described as outmoded. Other sects afe more fashionable. In the early stages of my fieldwork, there was a lot oft�}k about Louzolo, which only use prayer against witches, but by 1 992 interestill them had also faded.

TH E ZEPH IRINIAN C H U RC H : AN I NTROD UCTION

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The Zephirinian Church was founded in 1 948 by its prophet, Simon Zephirin Lassy, after he had experienced a vision. He was in Do1isie with his family, when he suddenly saw the ceiling open and a strong light stream in. He stayed in his room for three months (such a period of seclusion always occurs when an individual becomes another person, when he undergoes a profound change), and his wife heard music coming from his room throughout that time, even

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though other people passing the house could hear nothing. Zephirin Lassy had served as a seaman with the French navy in Europe, so he was not entirely ignorant of the wider world, buthe was illiterate. Nonetheless, as my informants told me, "he could preach the gospel spirituellement and he could read the Bible, perhaps better than you can." In principle, the Church ought to have a pyramidal structure like all other organizations in Congo, including the PCT and the EEC. I write "in principle," because this church has now collapsed. The pyramid is surmounted by a college (sacre-college) of 24 members that meets to consider weighty matters "like a politbureau," as it was pointed out to me. Like the Protestant Church, it is divided into parishes (paroisses), and there is a hierarchy of pastors: a pasteur superieur at the national level, a pasteur titulaire at the regional level, and a pasteur auxiliaire at the district level. There are also different grades of evangelist the evangeliste simple and the evangeliste convertisseur-milongi (catechists), deacons, and deaconesses. The Church is in difficulty today. It receives no external funding and relies totally on what it can raise from its members. Little can be extracted from the people at a time of general destitution. As in every other Congolese organiza­ tion, the individuals who occupy leading positions embezzle the money raised for the church, and there are constant conflicts between different regional fac­ tions. The leaders in Pointe-Noire wish to dominate the Church (justifiably in their own eyes, since they are ViIi like the prophet), while those in Brazzaville refuse to envisage any such arrangement. At the time of my last contact with the Zephirinians in 1 992, they had split into regional and even local units. The leading group in 15 ans (the group with which I have had most contact) sometimes describes itself as completely isolated: "Our church is not allbwed to belong to the Ecumenical Council, which only contains Catholics, Protes­ tants, the Salvation Army and the Kimbangists, and we don 't get any external funding. Our political rulers never pray in our churches, only in the white churches, and that is why we are poor." However, they occasionally strike a different note and say that they have relations with similar churches all over Africa in Gabon, Cameroun, Zaire, Angola, Nigeria, Benin, and Tanzania. When I asked what form these relations took, I got the reply that they had not yet been "codified." I was, however, given certain documents to read, including one from the Eglise d'Evangilisation de la Parole du Christ au Monde of Benin, which contained a long story about, or rather confession by, a young girl who had formerly practiced both simple witchcraft and super-witchcraft, but who had now mended her ways. All Congolese groups, whether ethnic or religious, usually have afood taboo , and in the case of the Zephirinians, the taboo mainly relates to pork. It is also said that the most "serious" members of the Church and those who occupy ,

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senior positions in it eat "mainly fish and vegetables." In other words, they ought not to eat meat at all . Nor should they drink wine and smoke cigarettes.

D ESCRIPTION OF A D I V I N E SERVICE

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The service began at nine on a Sunday morning. The temple in 1 5 ans is built of cement and in 1 989 it gave me the impression of not being quite completed. It was still under construction, but was in use nevertheless. Half of the roof was open to the sky, and the lower of the temple's two shorter walls was only partly built. As a result, one could look out at the sky or at nature throughout the service. The middle of the hall was empty, but benches, each taking no more than about 10 people, were placed in rows from both of the temple's longer walls. The empty section in the middle was separated from the benches by seven pillars on each side of the temple. Pennants and ribbons, some flame-colored and others red, white, and blue with a white heart, hung from cords running across the ceiling of the hall, and there were also flame­ colored pennants over the door and along the short wall where the door was located. The pennants and ribbons are not permanent fixtures; they are only put up some months in connection with particularly important services. The inner section of the temple in the upper part of the building was separated from the hall by a cement wall and contained a wooden cross and a three-headed candlestick with lighted candles that were replaced as soon as they had burned out. There was a cross, surmounted by a half-moon with a seven-pointed star above it, on the floor of the hall just by the cement wall. An old man was sitting on a bench to the right of the inner section of the temple with a straw mat in front of him, and the altar was at the far end covered by a white clo.th with blue insets, each containing a representation of a red candle. There Wl!:s another cloth, of white and pink, in the middle of the inner section, and oitt<j,t stood a candle that remained alight throughout the service. This is where the . sermon was delivered, and there was yet another white cloth with a red cross as well as a photo of the church 's founder behind the preacher. The initiated sat in this upper secti0n of the temple the choir on the left and the pastors, evangelists, and deacons of both sexes on the right. Those on the right were dressed either in white and red or white and green, while the leader of the choir wore a pretty, ankle-length white coat with a blue band around his neck. Both the male and female members of the choir wore white jackets with blue decorations, and the women also had yellow head cloths. Attendants, known as "soldiers," stood by each of the pillars. They also wore white jackets with blue armbands and one of them had a red sash right across his chest. He stretched as if sleepy, yawned mightily, and emitted stifled - ' ,

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groans. He tossed his head gently backward and forward, fell on his knees, . raised his clasped hands, and groaned again, all the while beating the floor with his toes. His eyes remained closed throughout. People entering the church made the sign of the cross, and all the women wore head cloths, as they were obliged to do. Removing one's shoes and, in the case of women, wearing head cloths are signs of respect. Moreover, bare feet are considered a sign of submission. Three men now stood on the floor with their backs to the altar, reading from the Bible in French, Kikongo, and Lingala. They read first from Exodus ( 1 6: 114) about the flight of the Jews from Egypt and their years in the wilderness, about their hunger and thirst, and about how God promised to satisfy their needs. They then read from Genesis (4: 1-8) about Cain and Abel and finally from Isaiah (65 : 17-25) about the new age to come. After this, the choir began to sing, at first in Kivili, to the accompaniment of rattles and tom-toms. Some of the uninitiated, that is, those who sat in the lower half of the temple, also had metal rattles with holes in them. Even by this early stage in the proceedings, some people were in a state of trance and they remained so throughout the service. The preacher began his sermon, ringing a bell and shouting "Hallelujah ! " at regular intervals. The congregation replied with shouts of "Hallelujah ! " Everything seemed designed to produce a state of trance the tom-toms, the singing, and the sermon. People were falling into a trance even when the choir sang calm songs accompanied by accordion and electric guitar. The preacher was very handsome and charismatic in his white coat with pink embroidery. For some of the time he and the choir took turns singing, and there were constant shouts of "Hallelujah ! " tI The preacher then read verse 35 from chapter six of the Gospel according to St. John: "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." He spoke about confessing one's sins and obtaining Jesus's forgiveness. By now half the choir was in a state of trance. Three men in the front row of the choir were speaking continuously in low .voices with their eyes closed, and their bodies twitched. A man behind them was shaking violently. One of the women stood up and flung her arms around. The old man in the inner section of the temple had by now fallen on his knees on the bast-mat and stretched his hands up toward heaven as his lips moved constantly. A woman dressed in white and green rushed out into the middle section of the temple, followed by others, and they fluttered backward and forward, one hopping with both feet together first to one side and then to the other, their eyes crossed, their body movements clumsy and spasmodic but still under a measure of control. One was hopping on one leg with astonishing speed. Six or seven people were out on the floor by

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now, while some children of about five to eight years old were dancing in front of their bench in an attempt to imitate a state of trance. A tall, wiry woman paced backward and forward over the floor with her forefinger pointing upward as she spoke in a loud voice of the need to fight evil and to pray, to pray for victory over evil. Others were running in circles with fluttering hands. The woman in white and green now rushed forward to one of the uninitiated and dragged her out onto the floor. She held her hands and tugged her violently downward over and over again. The other woman was like a rag in her hands, stumbled, and was drawn into the rhythm of violent movement. It seemed at times as if both would fall over onto the floor. The woman in white and green had her eyes crossed the whole time and seemed barely conscious, but still exuded strength and determination. She dragged the other woman to the right, up along the wall in the right corner, and then reeled out onto the floor again. Her movements seemed aimless at first, but she eventual.ly passed through the door (no one tried to stop her) and then reappeared with a new person. The same cycle repeated itself: 10 to 20 downward tugs, all performed at violent speed and with enormous power, followed by pulling the second person as well into the right corner. The pastor sitting beside me explained that these people would now be initiated, since they had been selected by God using the woman in white and green as His medium. What was really happening was that the woman in white and green was trying to enroll new church officials, a task that is not always easy, since people are reluctant to take on unpaid work of this kind. The preacher alternated between preaching and singing with the choir, which was by now in a state of complete rapture. One of the women reeled forward to the three-headed candlestick and lit a candle. She stood in front of it on the seven-pointed star and bounced up and down. She was wearing a pagne, a white T-shirt over some kind of striped garment and a long white head cl(l.�� . . She was shaking her finger convulsively in the air. The pastor went over and led her down toward the temple's lower right corner where another pasf&.t took charge of her. When he returned, he explained to me that the woman needed to confess. At this stage, a large, yellow plastic drum and a liter-capacity metal container, both full of water, were brought forward. The female members of the choir, who were all by now in a state of trance, were helped out onto the floor, which was quickly full of people. The attendants ensured that they did not stagger backward onto those who were still sitting down. A group of people, some dressed in white and red, others in ordinary clothes, suddenly appeared from the right. They were holding onto each other as if they were drunk, and they pushed their way to the center while still keeping hold of each other. A man dressed in white stood behind another man in ordinary clothes and massaged

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his head first the crown, then the face and finally his body. Someone poured water over the man, and it ran down over his face and clothes. The man then fell into a violent state of trance and raised himself up. His body was trembling violently as he threw himself forward, and only the whites of his eyes were visible. The others held him as the water flowed over them all. The preacher was also now in a trance and was hopping backward and forward with great leaps behind his altar. The pastor remarked to me that the preacher was a secondary-school teacher. Those dressed in white and red sat with uninitiated members of the congregation on their knees at their feet, holding them closely. The pastor told me that they were confessing some evil (mal) in their families or within their own bodies. The atmosphere gradually became calmer. Through the door, I saw a whole flock of brown and black goats run past. The choir was singing and everyone looked happy and blessed. The preacher spoke of how they were dominated by the devil and of how they also had to cope with witches and fetishes. He shouted "Hallelujah !" and tinkled the bell placed to his right, adding, "our sins will be forgiven on Golgotha." A woman behind me was experiencing visions from God and cried out that evil was trying to take over. She was working herself up into an agitated state and shouted, "We must pray, we must keep it at bay," but the mood of exaltation in the temple was abating. After a time, the atmosphere became calm again, and the pastor went forward to announce the program for the following week.

T H E ZEP H I R I N IAN M ETHOD OF H EA L I N G COMPARED WITH THOSE OF THE NGANGA A N D THE HC

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In a certain sense, the jiticheur can, of course, be described as representing the most traditional form of healing in present-day Congo, even if he has taken over certain innovations from the churches and modern medicine. The central point in a nganga's strategy is to bring about a reconciliation when relationships within a clan have been disrupted. He uses his fetishes and heals by employing herbal medicine. His identification of the guilty party sometimes leads to the lynching of the supposed witch, but that is not his goal. If all goes well, there is instead a reconciliation between the victim and his presumed attacker. , However, the Zephirinian Church can be said to represent traditional healing l in that the latter is usually consulted heur jetic y orar emp cont the as h just as muc privately in much the same way as a physician in private practice in the Western world. Thejeticheur sometimes has people around him acting as his assistants, butt heya rethemselves sick people who have come to be treated and who return

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home once they are cured. The feticheur does not function within the context of a church, and this is a difference that the Zephirinians emphasize when talking to me. They also think the fact that the feticheur summons the devil, Satan, while they pray to God, constitutes an important difference. When I try to protest that jeticheurs are concerned with ancestral spirits, not the devil, the Zephirinians snort dismissively, and it is clear that we are not in agreement. The Zephirinians treat illness with prayer, water, and candles, never with herbal medicine. Westerners quite mistakenly believe that traditional herbal medicine is very close to modem Western medicine, but in Congo herbal medicine belongs to the category of "fetishes." Like all other fetishes, "the medicine" contains strength from God and the patient's ancestors, and it is this transmitted strength, not any chemical substance, which carries the power to cure. When I asked the pastor why the Zephirinians did not use herbal medicine, he looked shocked and made it clear that he regarded herbal medicine as a manifestation of paganism. On this point, the Zephirinians are at odds not only with the feticheur but also with the Protestant congregations and their "traditional medicine." This in its turn is in many respects an extension of the way the nganga works. The Protestant congregations cure the sick by prayer and by the use of herbal medicine. In the Bacongo congregation I was told, "God has given us three roads to healing: prayer, herbal medicine, and the hospital." However, the Protestants were unable simply to adopt traditional herbal medicine as their own, because of its intimate associations with the jeticheur, their main enemy. The brilliant solution that they hit upon was to call their herbal medicine (which is, of course, based on traditional knowledge) "revealed." It is not, in other words, traditional at all It has nothing to do with the nganga. On the contrary, . it is entirely new and revealed by God. Protestant congregations that employ"l:l. particularly elaborate and sophisticated form of "traditional medicine" lik� " . for example, Mayangi have specialists who devote their time to discovering , in a state of trance which herbs can be used against particular illnesses. In some other congregations, the sick assemble together in the church, fall into a trance, and then run into the forest in order to collect berbs, which they then prepare for use in the vicinity of the church. The Zephirinian pastor was reluctant to hurt my feelings, but he pointed out cautiously that "revealed" medicine was not a particularly old phenomenon within the Protestant Church. He could himself remember the time when Ndoundou experienced his various revelations about different kinds of tisane (herbal medicine made up as a drink). "One wonders," he observed, "if it was really God who revealed these medicines or whether they aren 't in fact medicines which people already knew from before." In his view, it was all ".

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connected with competition over the sick: "For example, the Catholics have taken the idea of using water from us. They seldom used water before and simply prayed for those who came to them seeking help, but today they ask the sick to take water blessed by the priest home with them to drink and to sprinkle around the house, just like we do. The Catholics have also begun to use tisane like the Protestants." His conclusion was that the churches are competing over the sick and that the Protestants hit upon the notion of revelation in order to be able to use herbal medicine and that the Catholics latched on for fear of losing followers (fidetes) to the EEC. The best and most Christian way, naturally, was his way of healing and destroying witchcraft. Some Zephirinians regard all illness, all problems, as the result of bewitch­ ment. When I first asked which illnesses they could cure, I received the fol­ lowing answer: We cure envoutement within the family, nightmares, when you feel unwell, when you feel envoute at work, witchcraft (sorcellerie), all supernatural prob­ lems . . . . We also treat paralysis, sterility, mental illness, and moandza, which are all matters of envoutement. It can take many different forms-sterility, misfor­ tune, nightmares, stomach pains, or cirrhosis. If you go to the hospital, they will find no evidence of cirrhosis, because it is a case of envoutement."

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This narrow focus on bewitchment is typical of the Zephirinian Church, but the Church is not obsessive and unsophisticated. On the contrary, its practices are often carefully considered and characterized by a strong sense of social . �. responsibility. When the Zephirinians are contacted about a case of illness, their first step is to investigate what lies behind it. This is done through un discernement, which means that the pastor prays and prays and prays (as he puts it). While doing so, it becomes clear to him whether this is an "illness from God" or a case of bewitchment. Certain people have this gift, the don de discernement. When I asked whether this process took place in a state of trance, the pastor insisted that it did not: it was a matter of "strong concentration," not trance. This answer puzzled me at first, because I had seen Zephirinian pastors behaving as if they were in a trance during this phase of the curing process, but the explanation is, of course, that the Zephirinians have the same type of problems on this point as the Protestants do with respect to herbal medicine. Trance is a phenomenon belonging to traditional Congolese culture and they naturally engage in it, but it has to be reinterpreted so to emphasize the difference between what they and the feticheur are doing. The Zephirinians have found it important to reinterpret the whole question of trance a matter to which I shall return.

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If the process of discernement reveals that bewitchment is involved, the

pastor summons the older members of both the cote maternel and the cote 2 to a clan meeting. At this meeting, the Zephirinians give water to paternel everyone present and emphasize that they must confess if they have been engaged in wickedness. The idea is that everyone who drinks the water will come to grief if they have secretly been practicing witchcraft. The water used on this occasion is only employed in cases of bewitchmentand is of a particular kind called "the cross commands" (croix commande). By placing such emphasis on water, the Zephirinians are building on tradi­ tional Congolese notions that some ingested substance, be it "medicine" or a drink, can seek out evil in the human body and thus purify the community as a whole. A poison (nkasa or mbundu) was used for this purpose around the turn of the century and in much earlier periods as well. An account of the Congo region from the early seventeenth century (Battell in Ravenstein 1 901 :6 1-62) tells of how hundreds of people had to drink poison when a mighty person died so as to discover who had caused his death. The dead person 's own group summoned those under suspicion, and they were taken to a central place in the town where "the master of the Imbonda" was waiting for them with his water. Each of them was given a cup of this water to drink and the dead person's group then waited to see if they could urinate. Anyone who was unable to do so was attacked by an enraged crowd and hacked to pieces. The administration of poison was present throughout the history of the Congo region, but it assumed a more destructive form after colonization and works from the turn of the century describe the frequent occasions when poison was given and the death struggles of those identified as witches by this means:� young and old, men and women, even mothers before the very eyes of their terrified children. It is less clear what exactly was administered to those unqef suspicion. Europeans thought it was poison, but the Congolese regarded "�ll:e water" as being fatal only for the witch and as quite harmless for the innoceti�; .. They did not see it as a chemical substance that had a certain effect on tJ;Ie . human organism. We know that nkasa comes frcm the bark of a particul�t tree (Erythrephleum guineense) and that it is fatal in large doses, but it is less clear what European writers meant by mbun«u. In an earlier work ( 1 991:1 9899), I wrote that the word itself means poison in general, but that it also referred to a special poison of the strychnine variety which, among other things, affects the bladder's sphincter. However, my experiences during my most recent fieldwork have obliged me to modify this explanation. The word does not mean "poison" as such since there is no such thing in Congolese thought, merely a "drink" given in a cup. When I discussed the question with Elisabeth, she said at first that the word was also applied to the particular palm used in preparing the drink, but she . later corrected herself and claimed

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that the palm is called mbuni. We were unable to ,get any farther with this question. If mbundu means drink in general and if it was previously applied to the special drink given to those suspected of witchcraft, then it is conceivable that the Zephirinians used it to describe the water that they administer, but they denied this emphatically when I put the question to them: "No, certainly not. The water is something quite different." To my Western way of thinking, the water used by the Zephirinians naturally belongs, despite such assertions, to the Congolese tradition of administering a drink to suspected witches, though it must be conceded that it undoubtedly seems a less aggressive variant if water is really all that is given. In Western eyes, water in contrast to poison-----{;an do no harm. The Zephirinians, however, believe that the water, just like poison, searches through a person's body and kills the power to bewitch if it finds the place where it is located. The water does this even if the person later attempts to practice witchcraft again, because once he has drunk it, he will be incapable of ever engaging in evil in the future. There are stories of village chiefs who in the 1 960s forced the inhabitants to drink water so as to keep witchcraft in check. Anyone who refused to drink was not allowed to live in the village any longer. One point that remains uncertain is whether mbundu was always in the past some form of poison or whether this is merely a European interpretation of what was happening. It is quite possible that mbundu was often water as well. What distinguishes the Zephirinians from both thefeticheurs and the Protes­ tants is that their activities are so explicitly and single-mindedly focused on purging society of evil. My informants among the Zephirinian pastors told me about a water spirit (a siren) in Kibouende who was dragging peopleJ\'down into the water. The Zephirinians were called in and succeeded in driving away or neutralizing the siren by giving water to the person who was in collusion with her. My informants also had a story about a village where people were being repeatedly attacked by crocodiles and boa constrictors.

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The inhabitants of the village asked'him [the pastor] to come because a crocodile was eating people. When he came, the first thing he did was to tell the village chief to call everyone in the village together and to tell them to bring all their fetishes. All the fetishes were to be collected together, because the Zephirinians had now come to cleanse the village. The pastor gave them water and then warned them, 'This is a dangerous water; anyone who tries to transform himself into a crocodile or boa will die after he has drunk this water.'

By ridding the population of its fetishes, the pastor cleansed the village of witchcraft. A feticheur would instead have identified the guilty party and tried

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in that way to solve the problem. When the Zephirinians identify someone,

they then try to purge him cif his power to bewitch and to "convert" him. The different approaches are very clearly illustrated by the ways in which the Zephirinians and thefeticheurs deal with the matter of '�the nocturnal pot" (la marmite nocturne). It is believed that the pot is buried somewhere, belongs to a particular person, and marches around the area at night eating people. I asked Elisabeth what such a pot looked like, and she replied that "It is a perfectly normal pot and when you dig it up, you find horrible things in it a finger from some child or other, a few pieces of flesh, other parts of the body and perhaps also bits of fabric from someone's clothes." The pastor compared his own methods with those of the feticheur in the following terms: In the past, this pot was dug up by afeticheur, butnow it is us, the Lassists [another

word for the Zephirinians] , who do it. Thefeticheur did it in his way-he would come to the village, locate the pot and all he did was to dig it up and destroy it. But this isn't a real solution, because the person responsible can get a new pot tomorrow. We, on the other hand, do a proper job. We pray all night, we sing, the villagers come to us with their fetishes, we sprinkle water on the fetishes and we give water to all of them. It is important that the owner of the pot should drink the water, because he has no power to use it after he has done so. The pot loses its power through the water and you can dig it up after that since it will now be completely harmless. That's how we neutralize la sorcellerie. A feticheur doesn t '

even want people to stop using their nocturnal pots because that's how he earns his money.

Ibe conflict between thejeticheurs and the Zephirinians is often apparent in the stories one hears about old cases of bewitchment. In one case, the Zephirinians claimed that a series of deaths had occurred because the fetiS)i Nkondi was wreaking havoc in the village: "He is behind all the deaths thathaV� occurred recently." The villagers responded by directly accusing thefetich��r of being to blame for everything: "How can you act like this? Why havenit you told Nkondi to stop all this killing?" Nkondi was associated with law and order in traditional fetishism he watched over "the swearing of oaths and concluding of alliances" and avenged himself against those who transgressed in their undertakings (Laman 1 962:8 6, 88). Nkondi sometimes features as an openly destructive force in the material I have collected. This is because when someone dies and witchcraft is suspected, it is possible to go to a feticheur who concocts a Nkondi, which is made from small things like the teeth from two venomous snakes (the vipere and the nduna, a greenish-yellow snake), a dog's tooth and grains of maize. He then either buries the Nkondi or scatters its ingredients in order to disperse the attack against possible witches, which it -

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contains in different directions. So far, so good, and if thefeticheur is lucky, an old man in the village may soon die and this will be interpreted as an effect of the Nkondi. However, if people start to die one after the other, including several children, and if even perhaps the goats die, then the villagers will realize that the feticheur has lost control of the situation. Instead of creating order, he had brought disorder to the village. In these circumstances, the feticheur will be contacted by the Zephirinians, who will reproach him for the deaths that have occurred and then dig up the Nkondi that he had put together. The Zephirinians often associate evil with fetishes, and their ranks include specialists who are only concerned with finding concealed fetishes. A specialist of this type can suddenly disappear into the waters of a river and emerge clutching a fetish he has found under a stone at the bottom. They are constantly searching for evil fetishes. I will conclude this section by looking at how the Zephirinians regard the roles of water, trance, and candles. At the outset, the water they use is quite ordinary water that can be obtained from any source whatsoever. It is then transformed by various rites into different types of water, and there are in prin­ ciple three distinct categories of such holy water: ( 1 ) water that heals; (2) water against bewitchment (called CroixlChrist commande); and "consecration wa­ ter" (l 'eau de consecration), which is taken to promote spiritual development. The sick are given water to drink in a small mug or cup in less serious cases, or in great quantities when it is a question of bewitchment. Elisabeth claims that the water the Zephirinians drink in church (in small quantities) also produces a general state of well-being. When large quantities are administered, this is done to influence the evil in the victim 's body, and it is usually combined with massage. This type of water can also be used to "convert" the witch, silnce it is believed that the water cures the witch by destroying the organ (kundu) where the power to bewitch is assumed to be located. The kundu, just like the fetish, can be said to be a material manifestation of strength. Much has been written about this phenomenon, which has existed and still exists not only in the Congo area but also, in varying degrees, in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa (see Ekholm Friedman 199 1 : 2 1 7). Water also plays a significant role within both the Catholic and Protestant Churches during baptism and as holy water. Moreover, Congolese Catholics maintain that holy water can be used to chase out evil spirits and sometimes speak of how they sprinkle water in their homes in order to protect themselves. Water also has a part in traditional symbolism and generally stands for purifi­ cation and protection. During the National Conference of 1991 the participants washed their hands or rinsed them in water as a sign of good will and reconcili­ ation. Water features in very early descriptions of the Congolese kingdom, but

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. this does not, of course, mean that its ritualistic use was necessarily a native tradition, because the first Catholic missionaries appeared on the scene as early as 1 500. The Zephirinians distinguish between three different types of trance: ( 1 ) trance a s a gift from God (le don spirituel); (2) trance that reveals (la transe detective) this is the trance that makes it possible to unmask the guilty party and to discover where missing things and persons are (jeticheurs can also do this) and where evil fetishes are hidden and (3) possession by evil spirits (in this case, the pastor tries to "convert" the spirit). However, the Zephirinians are not in complete agreement with me on this point, and they argue that trance does not occur among them at all. One of the pastors in Brazzaville expressed their interpretation in the foHowingterms:

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Trance is traditional and diabolical. The feticheur faHs into a trance (tomber en transe), but we enter into the Holy Ghost (rentrer en Esprit). The two things are not the same at all. When we heal the sick, we are completely inspired by the Holy Ghost, we turn toward God and we vibrate with the Holy Ghost (c'est

l 'esprit qui vibre, c 'est I 'esprit de Dieu qui vibre en I 'esprit de l 'homme).

It is necessary for the Zephirinians to make this distinction, but there is naturally no reason to do so from an anthropological point of view. Trance is in the first instance a psychological, not a religious, phenomenon. It is the natural Congolese way of coming into contact with the divine regardless of whether the latter is understood as ancestral spirits or the Christian God. It is in fact very important to view the phenomenon in this way, not least with regard to contact and cooperation between whites and blacks in Congo. When young Congolese girls fall into a trance at Protestant services, Swedish missionary workers, besides members of the EEC, find it natural not only to adopt a generally negative attitude but also even to intervene directly and put a stop to it. In such cases, the Swedish missionary worker uses the argument that no; one can know whether the trance comes from God or the devil. They are, 0f course, grappling with the same problem as the Zephirinians, but they lack a means of interpreting the phenomenon that turns it into something that is clearly Christian and benevolent. Candles, like water, have to be blessed before they can be used, because as someone pointed out to me they may have been made by a heathen. Both candles and water must be blessed, and when this happens, the officiating pastor "enters into the Holy Ghost" and his spirit vibrates while he performs the act of blessing. I asked why the Zephirinians used candles, without expecting much of an answer, but I got a far more detailed response than I anticipated. My informant began by talking about Abraham and the animals he sacrificed to

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God in order to secure forgiveness for his sins. I thought he had misunderstood my question, so I repeated it, but he only said, "Yes, yes" and continued to talk about Abraham: "As you know, Abraham and others in the Old Testament made sacrifices to God and when they did, they usually only sacrificed the fat, la graisse, not the whole animal." I did not, at first, understand the link between the candles and animal fat, and he said, "But surely you know that candles are made from the fat of sheep and goats. When we light candles, we say 'Let us burn the fat' (on va bruler la graisse)." In other words, the Zephirinians regard lighting candles as sacrificing an animal to God, as in the Old Testament. However, as is always the case, symbols are subject to differing interpretations: on another occasion, a different Zephirinian said to me, "The light is the body of Christ and the flame is the Holy Ghost."

CONCLU D I N G OBSERVATIONS

The Zephirinians represent the struggle of the traditional Congolese clan sys­ tem against evil. They have had a certain advantage over the Protestants in the circumstances that have prevailed in recent decades in that they have been able, without white interference, to speak about the problems of witchcraft and to develop methods for combating it. The "traditional medicine" employed by the Protestants allows healers to try and help those with serious problems caused by witchcraft and sorcery, but they are ideologically inhibited from discussing these problems directly. It goes without saying that this is a serious weakness, and it is identified as such by many Congolese, who argue that the problem of witchcraft exists and must be taken seriously. ,� However, this weakness only applies within the framework of the clan sys­ tem. The relation between the Congolese kinship order and the prevalence of witchcraft as a complex of accusations in which individual responsibility is eliminated in the search for evil produces a situation in which political! economic crises are translated into a kind of social self-cannibalization. So­ cial movements that are organized around a representation of larger social realities cannot emerge in such situations. Ultimately it is only via a major restructuring of the social order itself, a transformation of interpersonal re­ lations (individualization) and forms of sociality that self-conscious political movements can develop. The paradox Of this situation is that individuals can be quite aware of the real problems facing society, but the forces channeling social contradictions into the complex of witchcraft accusations render ex­ tremely problematic any attempt to organize a direct confrontation with such contradiction s.

Social Movements and the Struggle against Evil

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NOTES

1. I use the French word for nganga since it is commonly used by Congolese them­

selves. Given the actual reference of the word it cannot be easily translated into any standard English word, such as sorcerer, although given the actual magical use of spe­ cific objects, thefeticheur can practice sorcery, but this is only one practice among many others. 2. Cote maternel and paternel refer literally to the maternal and paternal sides of a bilateral set of relations in the Congolese social order. See Ekholm Friedman 199 1 : 91-

97.

REFERENCES

Andersson, E. 1 958. M essianic popular movements in the Lower Congo. Studia Ethno­ graphica Upsaliensia 14. Buana, K. 196 1 . La notion de dieu chez les ancetres Bakongo. Montpellier: Faculte Libre de Theologie Proestante. Ekholm Friedman, K. 1 99 1 . Catastrophe and creation: The transformation of an African culture. London: Harwood. Laman, K. 1 957. The Kongo H. Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia 8. Uppsala. . 1 962. The Kongo 1II. Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia 1 2. Uppsala. Mahaniah, K. 1 982. La maladie et la guerison en milieu Kongo. Kinshasa: Centre de vulgarisation agricole. Ravenstein, E. G. 1 90 1 . The strange adventures ofAndrew Battell of Leigh in Essex. London: HakIuyt Society. Richards, A. 1935. A modern movement of witchfinders. Africa 8. Svenska Missionsforbundets arsberattelser 1 95 1-1 952. 1952. Stockholm. Tempels, P. 1 964 [ 1 949]. La philosopie bantoue. Paris: Editions Africaines. Tonda, 1. 1 988. Pouvoir de guerison et pouvoir dans les eglises hors-la loi (sects): ess.�t sur la production ideologique du "besoin de guerison," manuscript. ---

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The Implosion of Modernity A New Tri ba l i s m

Jonathan Friedman This is an era of identity politics whose pop vocabulary includes words such

as tribe, ethnicity, cultural identity, multiculturalism, and hybridity. These are words that express a particular state of experience, but that state itself has been generated by much larger global processes whose dynamics we seek to unravel here. This is not an attempt to grapple with the notions of tribe or ethnicity. On the contrary our aim is to understand the use of such terms from the point of view of the actors themselves, as ethnographic phenomena rather than analytical tools.

T H E TREACHEROUS PRESENT

. The SOO-year celebration of Columbus's 1492 discovery of the New Wol'lti became very much a celebration of the non-Western, local, and ethnic frag- . mentation of the system whose emergence is symbolized by the voyages of discovery. The 1 990s became the decade of the North, Central, and South American In­ dian, the Hawaiian, the Australian Aborigine, the Micronesian, and so forth. In Hawaii, where I have done fieldwork, there is a strong and growing movement for the recestablishment of the Hawaiian Nation as a politically autonomous entity in a tourist-saturated state where Hawaiians had virtually disappeared under the weight of economic, political, and "cultural" Americanization. In the mainland United States, there was a powerful movement on university campuses for the elimination of standard courses in Western civilization. Such courses were being forced out of university curricula in many states while being 239

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supplemented or quite simply supplanted by courses in non-Western cul­ ture and society. Multiculturalist ideology and indigenous movements both emerged in the 1 970s and have grown throughout the 1 980s and 1 990s. In Canada, enormous land tracts however barren, on the surface are be­ ing returned to Indian tribal councils. Discussions are presently under way regarding whether the Maori of New Zealand are to regain a large portion of that island state for their own. In 1 992, Dances with Wolves star and director Kevin Costner thanked all his Indian brothers publicly at the Academy Awards ceremony, to the cheers of the audience. The Lakota-speaking Indians, some of whom were involved with making the film, are today trying to build up their buffalo herds so as to become economically self-sufficient and thereby independent of the United States. The same year, there was a Swedish parallel. The indigenous people of the country burst onto the television screen with a powerful narrative of the situation of the Sami, a potential "nation" within the larger nation-state. The narrative recounted the original, mythical massacre of Sami chiefs and the spir­ itual force of these chiefly ancestors in the contradictory lives of contemporary Sami. This was a most unlikely occurrence in a nation identified as "homoge­ neous" and was accompanied by a slew of new regionalisms and a state policy of multiculturalism. It has led to an intensification of processes of political au­ tonomization, as well as conflict concerning the aboriginal status of the Sami, and to the establishment of a local Sami government, however symbolic. When the issue of minority rights on American campuses first was taken up in Sweden in 1 992, it was assumed by many that this could never happen in Europe, certainly not in Sweden. It ought to be evident now that ethnic conflict has attained violent proportions in Sweden as well and not mere� on campuses. Multicultural Sweden has become a country of contested rights, of ethnic gang fOImation, of increasing ethnic marginalization, all in a place where such developments were thought to be exotically American. This world-wide emergence of indigenous movements received official global recognition in the UN declaration that 1 993 was to be the year of the indigenous peoples. Throughout the same period, as indicated above, and in parallel with the above process, there has been an enormous increase in the number of fundamentalist religious movements, ethnic nationalisms, and local warfare in the seams of a weakening world order. This process has also been instrumental in the ethnification of large immigrant populations throughout the major centers of the global system. In order to understand what is occurring here it is necessary gain a perspec­ tive on the situation as a global phenomenon . Sub-nationalisms, ethnicities, and the emergence 0 f indigenous movements are all parts of a process that has included the fragmentation of the Soviet Union as well as Western hegemony

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into more locally based sodalities with strong cultural identities seeking au­ tonomy from the larger realms of which they were previously parts. It is im­ portant to note that while old imperial structures are breaking up, others, in Asia, are in the process of formation and expansion. The shift in accumula­ tion to East Asia has led to the emergence of new modemisms, in forms such as neo-Confucianism. This major transformation of the global order includes the emergence of global financial and political classes as well as widespread displacement and impoverishment of large populations. Cultural identity is the most general term that can be used to refer to the proliferation of phenomena that confront us. The term refers to a social identity that is based on a specific cultural configuration of a conscious nature. History, language, and race are all possible bases for cultural identity, and they are all socially constructed realities. This does not make them false or ideological, if we recognize the degree to which all identity is constructed. Identity is only false for those that have none or feel alienated enough from any particular identity that they could never dream of participating in such quasi-religious mystification. But very many have, from being extremely modern and cynical with respect to ethnicity, returned to ethnic roots with a vengeance. It is as absurd as it is dangerous to deny the authenticity of cultural identity as a powerful existential phenomenon. There are three linked processes of cultural . identification at work in the current situation:

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Immigrants in the West are gaining in strength of identity at the same time as their hosts are becoming more ethnic themselves, leading to direct confrontations described as racism. . 2. Indigenous peoples living on the margins of natioH-states, for example, Sami, American Indians, Maori, and South and Southeast Asian tribal . minorities, are finding their rights to land and both political and cuItur�l: .' i · autonomy on the agenda of the UN. It is estimated that there are clos� . to 400 minion indigenous peoples in the world today, and many of these are the result of recent re-identification. 3 . Older ethnic subdivisions in Europe, both West and East, are coming to life once more. A process that has been going on in Western Europe­ Bretagne, Occitania, Lombardia, Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Catalonia, Basque country, and Corsica for almost three decades has been overshadowed in the media by the ethnic explosion occurring with the dismemberment of the empire to the east. .

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have been instrumental in the reification and sometimes the very creation of eth­ nicities among immigrants. It is far broader and more powerful, for it informs and even forms the multicultural ideologies that have grown so powerful in the West, just as it works from the bottom up in the igniting and politicization of cultural identities among minorities of immigrants, sub-national regions, and indigenous peoples. It is about the decline of hegemony, about the disintegra­ tion of the center's model of identity, modernism, and the global proliferation of identities locally rooted and apparently impervious to conditions of mobility in the larger social arena. I say "apparently" because ethnic consolidation also entails the formation of new elites leaders and representatives of the new groups who may easily be integrated into the cocktail-party syndrome of the new international political and economic classes via the enormous amounts of liquid capital in circulation in the midst of oceans of abject poverty. These are the elites who identify themselves with multicultural and hybrid ideals, ideals based on their own consumption, their objectified appropriation of the world, objects that literally fill their living rooms with the exotica that they claim to represent. Since the mid-1 980s, there has been a great deal of discussion of what is called globalization. Some have equated it with cultural homogenization via some form of Western technological imperialism. The whole world watches Dallas (except the United States); drinks Coke and Pepsi; wears t-shirts with the same designs and produced in the same sweatshops representing Aca­ puleo, Rio, Waikiki, or Mauritius; wears Gucci clones; and uses IBM and even Mac clones. This, of course, has not produced homogeneity but has supplied raw materials for new local variations. There are also conscious mixtures as in "World Music," but these forms are never experienced in terms of thtir global significance, except by "experts." The discussion of globalization itself is sometimes overdrawn by intellectual elites in the West who have finally realized that such global phenomena exist. It is true that the decentralization of capital accumulation and the multinationalization process have fostered a glob­ alization of products, services, and even classes that is probably unprecedented in quantitative terms. But what is not often realized is that global processes, including cultural transfers such as spaghetti, medical systems, science, math­ ematics, clothing, and so forth have been around for a very longtime and are essential elements of world history since the first commercial civilizations of the Old World. Similarly and more importantly, the phenomena with which we are so involved today have occurred innumerable times in the past, brought on by similar processes. Both the integration of large portions of the world's populations into imperial systems and their hegemonic cultures and the subse­ quent disintegration of the former and cultural fragmentation, experienced as local renaissance in declining empires, are age-old, often violent phenomena.

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Globalization is not so much about changes in the movement of people and things as about the way such relatively constant phenomena are identified by participants in the world system in particular periods. This is a situation that many experience as deadly dangerous, as a threat to ongoing existence, but that others experience as a breath of fresh air, as an opportunity for cultural expression that had previously been suppressed. The thin line between balkanization and cultural renaissance is the principle characteristic of the contemporary situation, but a situation embedded in a world in economic and political crisis. It might be argued that the image offered here of the decline of Western hegemony is overdrawn in some respects, since there is certainly no loss of its military power in the world today. In fact, some would claim that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States or perhaps the West as a whole had achieved total hegemony. This is clearly expressed in the Gulf War, the enormous and increasing power of certain American and European multinational corporations, and the apparently successful manipulation of the local by the globally reaching corporations with regard to consumption of both goods and images. It is true that the United States has been more active in certain international military operations over the past several years, being unopposed by the crumbling Eastern Bloc. But this must be seen in the perspective of a disintegrating hegemonic situation. New or expanding international hierarchies have not been established. On the contrary, and in spite of the exercise of combined U.S.-UN military might, the fragmentation is continuing, in the Middle East, in southern Europe, in East Africa. The decentralization of the arms trade is an excellent indicator of this process. In the model that we have proposed, the decline of hegemony takes the form of increased m ultinationalism, especially economic. Thus the power of the multinational media and other economic concerns is not a counter . argument but an expression of the phenomena that we are discussing. This, power, however, is not of the classical political type, and it may only be as· . . . long-lived as this particular phase of the cycle. • "

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The structure of modernity as an identity space is the foundation for any un­ derstanding of the present state of affairs. The dominant structure of this space is modernism, predicated on the disintegration of former holistic structures of , identity in which the subject was integrated in a larger field of structured forces that were constitutive of selfhood. It is in modernity that the self is separated from these larger cosmological structures. This is a modernity that has surely

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emerged in previous commercial civilizations but which in our own era appears in the eighteenth century, with the breakdown of the older ascriptive hierarchies of aristocratic Europe. It is expressed in a number of parallel processes: t.r

1 . The first commercial revolution was very much based on the freeing of appearance from fixed status, so that anyone theoretically could appear as a baroness, a king, or a butcher. And the complaints of this century are rife with just such an anarchy of identification. Lord Chesterfield writes to his son warning him not to present his whole self in public, but to keep a private sphere, a growing necessity when no one knows really where one is coming from. 2. The coffee house becomes the arena where people whose background and social position is not clearly marked can interact. It is a place where alternate identities can be practiced and where ascription is replaced by achievement. It creates the stage where there is no longer a univocal relation between self and social identity. 3 . The theater becomes freed of its previous function as circus and becomes a true scene for the representation of play s, dominated by an increasingly professionalized corps of actors. The theateris where the new socially un­ defined crowds could go and experience other lives than their own. They

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Modernity is fundamentally the emergence of "alterity" as a permanent sit­ uation. Where the self is never defined, there are always other possibilities of identity and existence. This is a world in which private becomes the real and public the artificial or constructed, in which the notion of civilization is equiva­ lent to artifice. The word negligee, in the sense of natural, non-constructed, was first used to refer to all apparel worn in the privacy of the home. The opposition between the private and the public took on its specific form in this period. Alterity, in its turn, implies that the social self is neither natural, necessary, nor ascribed. Rather, it is achieved, developed, constructed. Alterity thus har­ bors a tendency to change, to "develop," it might be said. Combined with the principle of trial and error, alterity yields progress, or evolution going on, learning more, becoming better, more efficient, wiser, or whatever. Here we have the key to what might be called modernism. Goethe's Faust Part 11 con­ tains the essence of the strategy of modernism, the principle of movement in and for itself. Faust combines the anguish of being alone with the driving desire to move on to greater heights. The cosmology of modernism is evolutionism. The cosmology of the previous holism is best expressed in the notion of the "great chain of being," a universal hierarchy stretching from God through the angels, to man, to animals and, in some versions , to the devil, a hierarchy in which every separate form of existence has its established place. Now if one '. were to take such a hierarchy and turn it on its end, making it into a horizontal ,. ' chain called time's arrow, one wouldhave transformed the great chain of being into an evolutionary scheme. Evolution is essentially the result of the tempo­ ralization of the "great chain of being." It occurs when biological and social positions in the world are no longer definable in terms of relative nearness to God. This transformation is also a temporalization of space. That which is "out there," from reptiles to apes (Rousseau was convinced that apes recently discovered were in fact humans that had been disqualified by an act of racism), from the Bushmen to the Inca, were forerunners of the modern and civilized state of the world. This notion of modernism may seem strange to the art historian or the self­ conscious artist. But the notion of modem that I have intimated here is not so foreign to modernism in art as might be assumed. The separation of the ,

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subject from his or her social expression, the emergence of a private sphere, the "real me," are fundamental, as I have suggested, to the modernist position. The latter is associated with the bohemian, the revolution of style, the self­ sufficiency and inner directedness, that negates the existent order, in order to move beyond. Now while modernism in art, as a specific form, cannot be understood in such terms, the impulse to forge a modernist art form is clearly related to the more general modernist approach to life. The constant breaking with convention, such as the abstraction of form from content in art, music, and poetry, is part of a single movement. And it is strikingly parallel to the separation of person from role in the formation of Durkheim 's sociology, that is, the "social fact"; the abstraction of the arbitrary linguistic sign in the work of Saussure and the foundation of modern linguistics; and the abstraction of the psyche from the biological-physiological substrate of the human being in psychoanalysis. This across-the-board transformation in European identity cannot be taken as mere coincidence. It corresponds to other major changes: the gemeinschaft/gesellschaft debate, Proustian nostalgia, Mann's Buddenbrooks tale of the decline of a successful family, and Kafka's frightening images of the future of power. This tumultuous explosion of modernism is a powerful expression of the separation of subject from socially determinate meaning that began more than a century earlier. The outcome is the empty subject, capable of anything yet satisfied with nothing, the "long distance runner" of modernity. Modernism is the dominant form of the modem, but it is dependent on an external context. There must be a belief in the future. There must be some place to go, just as there is a past from which we have come. Now all of this development was very much an outcome of the expansion of the West from /#' the end of the fourteenth century. The expansion consisted in: 1 . The exploration and domination oflarge parts of the globe and the integra­ tion of the latter into the emergent European center, that is, the formation of peripheries. Most often this transformation entailed the disintegration of previous political and social structure of the new peripheries and/or their adaptation to peripheral status. 2. The commercialization and industrial transformation of the center itself, the emergence of the "workshop" of the world complex, in which the center becomes the major supplier of consumption goods for the larger world. 3 . The disintegration of previous "traditional" life forms in the center, in­ creasing individualization and urbanization, experienced as both libera­ tion and alienation. ,

This is the formation of hegemonic center/periphery structures that charac­ terize the social and economic world of the modem era. The global system is not new. It is the continuation of a former Middle Eastern system via a shift in

The Implosion of Modernity

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247

hegemony and not something that grew out of the soil of Europe. Modernism is dependent upon real expansion in order to maintain itself as a strategy. It needs a future. It needs mobility, both individual and social. Where the economic and political conditions for modernism are weakened, modernism itself enters a crisis. The future disappears along with mobility. Development appears more like disaster and a search for alternative identities begins. The current crisis of the modern world system is a crisis of accumulation in the center, which is the product of the decentralization of wealth in the system as a whole. Multi­ nationalization, capital export, the consequent generation of new industrial zones all are the result of the increasing wealth of the center that has made it too expensive as a producer relative to its own underdeveloped periphery. Decentralization is the way in which capital solves the problem of competi­ tion, that is, by relocating production in the most efficient way possible, that is, to areas of cheap labor, lower taxes, and more lucrative financial conditions. Meanwhile capital i n the center is increasingly relocated to various forms of fictitious accumulation, speculation in land, in other people and countries' debts, and i n stocks and bonds. Included i n this speculation are the so-called culture industries, the enormous speculation in works of art and non-art. All this continues until the advent of financial crunch and contraction, bankrupt­ cies, and the collapse of all such fictitious markets, the "crash of 1 990," which may take a variety of forms, more or less violent. It is in such crises that modernism comes under assault. If we consider figure 7.1 as an ideal typical model of modem identity space, then we can begin to consider the kinds of reactions that are occuring in the contemporary situation. The modernism just described can be reduced to an identification that is opposed to both nature (libidinous, infantile, and disgusting) and cul­ ture (superstition and traditional autocracy). Traditionalism, the most common reaction to modernism, is pro-culture in the sense of traditional authority and order, established codes of meaning, and values, and is anti-nature, understo .. as the lack of control, as a world of anarchic self-indulgence, as a "pornotopia;" Primitivism is pro-nature, understood as creativity, innocence, and honest in- . timacy and opposed to culture, understood as power and authority in the name of tradition, the imprisonment of creativity. Postmodernism, fin ally, is both pro-culture and pro-nature, seen respectively in terms of traditional wisdom and human creativity. It is opposed only to the opposite of these, scientific knowledge (or pretensions to knowledge) and the dominance of rationality. In periods of crisis, there is a four-way polarization in this space, with a sta­ tistical tendency toward a predominance of traditionalism . Traditionalis m is expressed in the desire for roots, the ethnification of the world, the rise of the Fourth World, the return to religion, and stable values. Primitivism is primarily expressed in a more aggressive rejection of ci vilization; often among those who are increasingly marginalized, but also in the media and the arts, popular as

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Chapter 7

well as the more rarefied and sophisticated. The "urban Indians" who occupied uninhabited tenements in the cities of Europe in the 1 980s, music celebrating the primitive, even black magic, devil, and witch cults all explore the repressed zones of Western identity. Postmodernism is primarily an intellectual identity that defines itself in opposition to the rational-scientific core of modernity and seeks new meaning in both the libido and in traditional cultures. Now while the three reactions to modernism do not appear on the surface to have anything in common with the latter, I would argue that they are all part of the same space of potential identification. They are, in fact, contained within modernist identity, as that which is specifically repressed. It is this logic that produces the equation of the wild man within and the primitive in the periphery. The margins of the person, that which is overcome by socialization, are identical to the margins of the civilized world "out there" that has been superceded by social development. The crisis of Western hegemony is the crisis of modernism, the implosion of modem identity space. The primitive has begun to close in upon us, both from within and without. It can be expressed as simply as the need for cultural roots: I would like to be a member of a group that is living a culture, like on an American Indian reservation, or a gypsy encampment . . . or an Italian neighborhood. Where there is some meat to the culture. Mine was very wishy-washy. There was not much to make it strong and appealing. It was just supposed to be this thin little rod in the back of my spine. Scotch Irish. It was thin. It was diluted. I would like to be in a rich cultural society. I don't know which one it would be. Whichever one is the richest . . . Where they have a tight familial structure of aunts and uncles and cousins. And they all know their second cousins intimately and they are all involved in each other's lives. Which didn't happen to me. Although cousins live nearby, we weren't tight. We didn't know if they were in town. We were just not as aware of them as I think other ethnic groups are, the ones that are rich and the ones that are tight. It could be Alaskan Eskimo. I mean, I am on my own here. I don't have that many friends. I do my work. I play my instrument. I travel a lot. But I don't have a big cultural . . . People who have stayed where they grew up have a larger cultural . . . Well, I don" t even have it at home, where my mother lives. It has just not been there for me, ever. (Waters 1 990: 1 5 2)

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The decline in modernism in the center is accompanied by the fragmenta­ tion of identities. The population of North American Indians increased from 700,000 in 1 970 to 1 ,500,000 in 1 980. This is not a fact of biology but of identity. There are five new tribes as well. Thus the longing for roots is rapidly fulfilled by their proliferation in the wake of the decline of modernism. There has recently been a remarkable renaissance of cultural identities. The dehege­ monization of the world has led, at least temporarily, to its de-homogenization.

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The Implosion of Modernity

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In one sense this can be appreciated as an exhilarating liberation of cultural difference, a veritable symphony of human variation. This has been the reac­ tion of certain anthropologists and of the museologically oriented public. But there are deeper issues involved here, not least of which is the fact that cultural identity is not a mere game for those engaged in it, but a deadly serious strategy of psychic and social survival. Cultural identity in its ethnic form is not a mere question of lifestyle, here today, gone tomorrow. The latter is expressive of the view of the typical modernist who can and must maintain a distance to all potential identities that can, in the end, never be satisfactory. On the contrary, ethnic identity is a matter of sacrificing the self to a greater social project. Recreating identity is an exploration of the very foundations of human ex­ perience, and it can easily become entangled in the powerful emotions of the primary narcissistic world in which the selfleads a precarious existence indeed. The notion of rebirth is not at all out of place in describing such processes. It is not, then, a mere question of culture, but of the engagement of the self in projects of social selfhood that cannot easily be controlled. The position of the Western intellectual in all of this is that of the cosmopoli­ tan observer of the active creation of cultural identifications. Moving between continents and ways oflife, often in exile, often among others, in a world of di­ asporas, an identity may form that may strive to encompass all this variation and , apparent mixture. This is an identity predicated on changing forms of access , to the world more than in changes in the world itself; an insecure modernism without roots. Diasporas, cultural mixture, movements of peoples , and so forth, are not new, but they have not always been cognized in the same way. Today the media have joined in accentuating the consciousness ofthe fragmentary state of the world as well as the intensity of the interconnections among its parts. Music, television, and literature with the prefix "world" are becoming everyday fare for global consumers. There has been an 'accentuation of global representation�, most often the work of the new cosmopolitan elites and intermediaries, an�� ,', , , needless to say, a central element in their identity as well as a claim to power. ' '

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DISORDER AND POSTMO D E R N I SM

Modernism as the dominant figure of hegemonic power in the global system orders the world in a hierarchy of developmental stages. It orders the public sphere according to the dictates of civilizational authority. While it does not really homogenize the world, its pretensions in that direction generate a kind , of hierarchy that is the essence of evolutionary thought. The decline of hege­ monic centrality is simultaneously the rebirth of cultural autonomies, a general liberation of formerly contained and encompassed identities. The breakup of

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Chapter 7

modernity is the dissolution of its principles of organization. The individual­ ist component of modernity, the separation of the subject from any particular identity, is also the autonomization of the activity of understanding as a pub­ lic discourse and consequent capacity to replace one complex of propositions about the world with another. This paradigm is purified in Popperian and re­ lated models of scientific praxis and the evolution of theory. It relies ultimately on the separation of the individual theory maker from the product of his activ­ ity, even if this is rarely attained other than in certain of the natural sciences. What becomes clear in the crisis of modernity is the degree to which scientific activity is a social project and not a natural faculty or self-evident procedure for the production of truth. The dissolution of the rational-scientific paradigm is the breakdown of the public sphere of scientific activity, the arena of theory and falsification, of the evolution of knowledge. In its place is substituted wisdom, edifying conversation, and a pluralism of cultural worlds, a complete relativiza­ tion of possible world-proposing discourses. If there is disorder here, it is the lack of any principle of order connecting propositions and discourses, that is, the absence of criteria of discrimination. The criteria of discrimination inherent in the public sphere of modernism rank propositions in terms of truth value. B ut these criteria also ensure the replacement of highest ranked propositions by more adequate propositions. Where such criteria are eliminated, the formerly ranked space is flattened out, and its voices take on equal value with respect to one another. This proliferation of potential voices is thus parallel to the prolif­ eration of identities referred to above. Other medicines, holistic wisdoms, other understandings of nature, gemeinschaft all invade the former self-cleansing field of rational thought and modernist developmentalist identity. The global connection here relates the crisis of hegemony to the crisi�of modernism, its dominant ideology, to the emergence of postmodernism, the fragmentation of modernism itself, and its multiculturalization. In terms of rep­ resentations of science, postmodernism is a relativization of scientific knowl­ edge, internally and externally: internally a neutralization of the procedure of falsification, and externally a relativization of scientific knowledge with re­ spect to other forms of knowledge. All knowledge is thus translated into one or another corpus of culturally specific propositions about the world, corpuses that are ultimately incommensurable and for which there are, thus, no criteria of comparison or evaluation. The disordering of the world can be seen as a systematic fragmentation among a number of parallel processes: scientific knowledge

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T H E F RAGMENTATI O N OF T H E PERSON AND T H E DECLINE O F MOD E R NSM , !,

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As we have described the emergence of modernity, the establishment of a spe­ cific form of individualized experience plays a central role. It is one in which the body becomes the container of a self-organizing person whose project is disconnected from any larger project in principle, that is, a state in the body. The project of this individualized person is crystallized in modernism itself, the essence of continuous movement and self-development. It is a fragile identity, constructed on the principle of alienation from an that has been previously at­ tained, on the always-felt possibility of being other that what one is at present. It is thus predicated on the absolute separation of self from social identity. This can only be overcome, as DUmont has suggested, by the practice of cultural ascription, which in modernity can only take the form of an essentializing categorical practice, one that links individuals to ethnic, racial, and other cul­ tural classification. I shall argue here that the essentializing of personhood need not take the form of explicit racism or biological reductionism. In fact, both the latter as well as other forms of ascriptive identification are generated when the ego structure is threatened with dissolution, that is, where the support mechanisms of modem existence fail. The logic outlined above is one that leads from de-hegemonization at the global level to economic decline in the center. This is followed by a dissolution of the modernist project and a crisis of personhood in general, as well as the advent of depression, as the world no longer conforms to the subject's struc­ ture of desire. Ultimately there ensues an unbearable "depressive overload" (Alberoni 1 984:52-83) that threatens psychic survival. It is in this state that clinical narcissism looms large, a situation in which the person becomes in- . . creasingly dependent upon the "gaze of the other" to ensure his very existence. .. . . .. In such states, a number of solutions appear: .

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. 1 . The narcissistic state can become relatively stable, however conflictfilled. 2. Depression can turn into despair and mental collapse. This is also a tendency in the above situation. 3 . The nascent state: psychic salvation by means of submitting oneself to a larger project, "greater than oneself." This is the core of Alberoni's "falling in love" and of his view of social movements in general (Alberoni 1 984 ) .

Alberoni's notion of the nascent state describes an equivalent of the "non­ modem" person, a subject whose project is a mere aspect of a larger social project whose experience is narcissism inverted in the sense that dependency

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Chapter 7

is replaced by a total identification with the gaze of the other. A central aspect of emergent new social identities is their movement-like qualities or their reli­ gious nature, the existential engagement of the individual subject in the larger social project. This is clearly crucial for an understanding of the aggressively balkanized identities that have recently developed in the decline of the Soviet empire, fortheir intensive elaboration of histories and sacrifices made for "the people." It is equally important for any understanding of the explosive growth of fundamentalisms, and even for the strongly religious core of many Fourth World movements and for the centrality of holism in their self-construction. It also helps to account for the simultaneous intensification of ethnicity among immigrants and nationalism among host populations. The fragmentation of the subject has been a pervasive theme in discussions of postmodernity. Frederick Jameson has made use of Lacan's discussion of schizophrenia to characterize the postmodern condition of the subject, de­ scribed as a breakdown in the signifying chain. Signifiers become concrete entities of experience rather than bearers of meaning. In this situation, the subject loses his bearings, the symbolic underpinnings of identity. While Jameson makes use of Lacan's discussion of signification to gain an entry into developments in literature and the arts, it might be noted that another interpretation can illuminate the entire question of the experience of fragmentation that is central in the current discussion. In this interpretation, narcissistic degeneration refers to a situation in which the subject loses his "ego" so to speak, that is, his personal life-project, and becomes increasingly dependent upon significant others in order to survive existentially. This can be studied the other way around as in the work of Ortigues and Ortigues, Oedipe Africain, in which the authors detail the degree to which their West Afrfcan subjects never gain a self-directing project, that is, never transcend the pre­ Oedipal. Here authority, the Lacanian "nom du pere," always resides in the external field. This does not mean that in such societies no fragmentation can occur, but simply that it occurs in the external field of identification rather than within the subject himself. Let me oversimplify this into two ideal situations: First, where the self is invested in a broader set of social relations and a matching cosmology, the subject is continuously defined by external gazes elaborated upon by a cosmological discourse. The project of the self is defined externally to the body. It resides in the larger social network and its representations. There is a crucial difference between this and modern clinical narcissism, one that is the result of the fact that in the former, person hood is stabilized by the social network and its cosmology, while the clinical narcissist is totally alone in the quest for identity and recognition. In the former structure, the weak link in the chain lies not in the person but in the external conditions. Perturbations and crises in the

The Implosion of Modernity

25 3

te dia me im e Th ll. we as al du ivi ind the r fo sis cri al tot ply im rld social wo so as os sm co the in ks lin ed en ak we the of nt me ce or nf rei the is ion solut to ensure personal survival. d ate loc is e on ct, oje pr l na rso pe n ow its in ed est inv is f sel the Second where pect res th wi s ou om ton au is t jec sub the , dy bo the of s ne nfi co the withi l na rso pe the m fro l cia so the of n tio ara sep is Th ld. fie l to the larger socia t no ed ne ses cri l cia So . on ati rel r ge lar the in cy ina rm ete ind introduces an is ty nti ide st rni de mo re he W f. sel the of ion tat en gm fra c ati imply an autom by ted ac ter un co are ies nc de ten c sti ssi rci na , ses cri h suc in ble via r no longe t en em orc nf rei the in n tha r he rat s tie nti ide w ne of n tio means of the fOlma and inten sification of the old cosmology.

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In the first situation, crisis may lead to an exacerbation of cult activity, the emergence of cargo cults, witchcraft accusations, or "fetishism." These rela­ tions concern the maintenance of a self dependent upon a flow oflife-force from the outside, on the stable gaze of the authoritative other. From the perspective of the modern, this amounts to a reinforcement of a fundamentally narcissistic relation. In the second case, crisis can either lead to narcissistic degeneration or to a re-identification of the subject in a larger project, that is, via Alberoni's "nascent state." Here the dependency of the individual is maintained by his willing su bordination to a collective project. The re-identification ofthe subject with the larger project, while eliminating the ego-project and submerging the subject within the dictates of the group, simultaneously provides a newfound meaning in life and an ontological security. This relation is the core of move­ ment organization. It consists in the formation of new sodalities where there . was previously social disintegration and consequent individual regression. In both of these cases, disorder in the larger social field provokes an attemptto re-establish or create interpersonal unities. These new unities express, and a.re instruments of, a reorganization of the social field in conditions of modemit$'; . that is, where individualism prevails. In kinship-organized and so-called tra� ditional forms, or, in Dumont's terminology, holistic societies, the social fie,Id is not so much reorganized as re-activated, via intensification of rituals, the elaboration of magic, the emergence of new cults all of which is motivated by a desire to retain that which is disintegrating. .

T HE PROCESS OF D I SORDER I N G AND REORD ERI N G T H E SOCIAL FI ELD

The process 0 f disordering i n global systems is not a question of randomiza� ion or of increasing entropy. It is, as we have suggested, a process of decentrahza­ . tion that is quite intensive, even explosive at times, and that harbors a tendency

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to reorganization or at least the strengthening of social forms at more local levels. 1 The individual subject, his emergent strategies and practices, plays a crucial role in understanding this process. It is the subject that sustains the con­ ditions of social disintegration and it is the subject's desirefor self-maintenance and integration that drives the process of re-ordering. Work in France, by authors such as Touraine ( 1 992), Dubet ( 1 987), and Bourdieu ( 1 993), has repeatedly stressed the importance of considering the subjective conditions of action. Dubet ( 1 987), in particular, has in a study of the very large relatively new class of marginalized youth in France demonstrated the ways in which social and personal disintegration are linked to one another and how the latter in its turn produces a specific set of possible courses of action. His work concentrates on the formation of what might be called a culture of violence, a "violence without object" and the way in which it has stabilized by means of the reproduction of identical conditions of existence over a couple of decades. While this study concentrates essentially on structurally unemployed youth in the de-industrializing north of France, other studies have concentrated on ethnic strategies, such as the explosive increase in Islamic identity among formerly secularized North Africans. Dubet insists on the non-ethnic character of the youth groupings he has studied, not their trans-ethnic character but their non-ethnic character.. The latter criteria appear to be irrelevant in their self­ identification. But at the same time and in the same period, the number of mosques in Paris has increased from approximately 10 to over 1 ,000 (Kepel 1 987) and there has been a great deal of alarm concerning a new religious militancy in the country. The recruitment to this emergent re-identification is primarily from the structurally marginalized youth described by Dubet. The two descriptions do not contradict one another, but report different phaseS$or perhaps aspects of the same process of disordering/reordering. A systemic aspect of this process, as we have suggested, is that disorder in a social field may produce increasing order within the components of that field. This is what fragmentation is all about. And from the point of view of the subject, it is quite reasonable that re-identification and existential engagement is more satisfactory than continuous desperati(m and anguish. This process reinforces the fragmentation by generating a set of viable boundaries and projects that become increasingly independent of the projects of the larger system. In formal terms this kind of situation can be likened to a "catastrophe," a field in which several solutions may reinstate equilibrium, described in theoretical language as points of bifurcation, trifurcation, and so forth. The outlines of the processes discussed here can be represented as in figure 7 . 3 . This diagram refers only to the center of the modern global system in conditions of decentralization and decline. Processes in the peripheral sectors necessarily have a different character to the extent that identity is constructed

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differently there, thus producing a different set of motives and strategies. If there is a rough similarity in the parallel processes of disorganization, ethnic conflict, religious developments, and balkanization, this has to do with the more general properties of social disorder and even personal disorder. Thus, it has been forcefully argued that what appears as ethnic warfare in Sri Lanka is not founded on the same kinds of strategies as Western ethnic conflict (Kapferer 1 988). Kapferer argues that ethnicity is not constructed in the same kinds of terms but is closely related, to a self whose identity is bound up with the Buddhist state. SinghaJese attack Tamils because of the way they disrupt the hierarchical order of the state, and thus of the individual, whose entire exis­ tence is predicated upon the maintenance of the state as a cosmological entity,: For Singhalese, cultural identity is not born within the body any more tila[)" the individual is the bearer of his own personal life project. Both are defined\ . as external to the subject, so that the latter practices a form of selfhood that · is an expression of the larger totality. But the fact of identity, that is, of iden. . tifiable people, no matter what the criteria of identification, the experience of fragmentation and of loss of power, desperation, and anguish, and so forth, are common to both this situation and to Western modernity. In the West, ethnicity is sustained within the body, defined as a substance that is passed on from one generation to the next, reducible ultimately to the biological · concept of race. In such terms it might be argued that ethnicity does not exist in the same way in South and Southeast Asia, where it is located primarily in a set of practices external to the self, something that in no way limits its potency nor its potential for violence. Cultural identity becomes salient and intensifies, no matter what its modal form, in conditions that emerge in the larger and even global arena.

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Chapter 7

256

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Migration in and to Europe, which has become a mass phenomenon in the past few years is, of course, not a new phenomenon. But in periods of expansion, or at least in periods when modernist identity functions adequately, immigrants are integrated via a process of assimilation or of ranking that places them in one way or another in an unambiguous position. It is only in periods where the hegemony of central identity declines that multi-culturalism emerges, and where, as a consequence, ethnicity, not only of immigrants but of indigen�us populations, regional populations, and national populations becomes salient.

CONC L U S I O N : T H E TWIN PEAKS OF C U LTU RAL FRAGMENTATION

Salvation and the euphoria of cultural identity versus death metal and ethnic cleansing: these are not two alternatives that have emerged in the contemporary situation, but two intimately related aspects of the process of re-identification in this age of fragmentation. For those who see in all of this a gigantic process of hybridization, I would caution that such a view combines a certain wishful thinking with an entirely external perspective that charts the origins of things rather than the actual structures of practice in the world. It is, furthermore, a view of those who can afford such an external perspective; the various, of­ ten short-lived, global elites or professionals whose calling it is to represent

The Implosion of Modernity

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the state of the world to others. The literature of the diaspora is a literature of conflict, often insurmountable, often bloody. And here, too, the transna­ tional, transcethnic, and transcultural are products of intellectual distancing rather than lived experiences. The invasion of those forces that are usually held at a distance by modernist identity appears to pervade every aspect of the contemporary condition. This invasion combines a certain exhilaration, the ex­ hilaration of newfound meaning, and fear, the fear of the outsider, of treachery and violence. The invasion is not merely geographic, the implosion of "the others," but internal as well, the explosion of formerly repressed psychic de­ sires, the surfacing of the other within. It is this process that would appear to underlie, not only the explosive nature of contemporary conflict as well as its intensity, but the massive increase of literary, cinematic, and other representa­ tions of the combined loss of control over self and others. The exhilaration of violent engagement is, furthermore, a subjective solution to the fear, and the two terms form a system or unity that is difficult to break without changing the circumstances in which it develops. When marginalized youth without any hope in the future are offered drugs and arms to engage in mass murder, we find ourselves in a world in which interlocking processes spin off viciously positive feedback cycles of violence that take on their own momentum and may even become lifestyles and cultures. Today 's ethnic wars may well be the sporadic expressions of more generally seething forces in the global arena. I have sought here to connect processes that occur at the highest levels of global systems to those that occur within individual subjects. I have implied throughout that these different levels are best understood not as separate entities but as properties or aspects of life processes and that the latter are indeed observable. I have also suggested, implicitly perhaps, that any understanding of cultural production and identity formation in the world today is dependent upon insights into the way in which global processes ultimately affect socifl,1. experience, since it is out of the latter that cultural forms are generated. 'l'his " kind of perspective is not a mere theoretical issue but one that may, hopefully, throw light on some of our major contemporary problems. .

,

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APPENDIX : CONSUMPTI O N A N D T H E . D IAlECTIC OF MODERNITY

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One of the areas where the emergence modern identity space has been best documented is in the numerous works on the transformation of the public . sphere and the development of consumption in Europe. Among the most im­ portant works are those by Sennett, The Fall ofPublic M an, and Campbell, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit ofModern Consumerism. The latter provides an

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Chapter 7

important theoretical and empirical analysis of the emergence ofthe capitali st culture often associated with the concept of modernity (Campbell 1 987). He challenges the former understanding associated falsely with WeberZ that the development of capitalism is predicated on a culture of ascetic rationalism. He argues, on the contrary, that there is a crucial "romantic" component in the development of capitalism, one that links consumerist desire to the necessary "demand" whose Weberian model only provides the "supply." I have argued that this is not entirely true, and is based on a closed model of the national econ­ omy, faithfully extending Say's law of the necessary link between production and consumption in a closed population. The fact, as discussed in chapter 2, that industrialization was largely based on export, a fact that was central for Adam Smith as well, is overlooked by Campbel1. On the other hand it is also true that there was a revolution in consumption in the eighteenth century (McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb 1 982), where such phenomena as "fashion, romantic love, taste and the reading of fiction" (Campbell 1 987:7), all simultaneities of the eighteenth century begin to emerge as a significant sociological unity. Campbell details the hedonist reaction to Calvinist puritanism, a growing sentimentalism found clearly in Pietism, the Presbyterians, the Cambridge Pla­ tonists, and the Anglicans, all related to the rapid transformation of Europe's, and especially English society's, increasing wealth and secularization. "I fear wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion" (Wesley in Weber et a1. 1 930: 175). The new cult of benevolence, an "optimistic Calvinism" (Draper 1 967:237) emerges, borne by the rising middle classes. Campbell goes to some lengths to criticize Veblen and indirectly, Bourdieu, for whom consumption is primarily a question of social distinction. While this is true for a former aristocratic soci�ty, it is increasingly replaced by a romantic ethic of self-realization. Aristocratic society, like many of the societies described in the ethnographic literature that served as a basis for Veblen's thesis of conspicuous consumption, is based on "other directedness" on the equivalence of consumption and status and of appearance and status. The progress of capitalist penetration of society leads to a disintegration of fixed status and a gradual separation of social position from appearance. In the new public sphere, increasingly open, one could never be sure of the actual status of those encountered. This is the basis, of course, for the strengthening of the private sphere as witnessed in Lord Chesterfield's famous letter. "Of all things, banish the egotism out of your conversation, and never think of entertaining people with your own personal concerns or private affairs . . . one cannot keep one 's own private affairs too secret" (Chesterfield et al. 1 969 [1 774]:34). The emergent pattern is one in whi ch a waning other-directed strategy of self is replaced by an inner-directed self whose self-construction is a project

The Implosion of Mod.ernity

259

of its own. This is understood as a development parallel to the emergence of the self-directed guilt syndrome from an other-directed shame syndrome. If the public presentation of self is still crucial, it is now redefined as a question of social roles, separate from the private life of desire. The person is thus split in a way that is a hallmark of modernity, the very model of the Freudian self, opposed between libido and ego, desire and rationality, private and public. The dissociation of self from social position dynamized the process of consumption in a way that might be said to approach the modernist pole of modem identity space. While consumption provides the form of self-realization, it is a realiza­ tion in a vacuum in which there are no fixed ideals. "Although aestheticism helps to promote the phenomenon of fashion by making individuals aware of themselves as objects of beauty, and did have an impact upon taste and patterns of consumption at the turn of the century, it does not create the restless long­ ing, that dissatisfaction with experience and yearning for the dream, which underpins the spirit of consumerism" (Campbell 1987:200). Here there is an analogy between the self-propulsion of modernism and its expression as fashion, the continuous need to change, and the equally con­ tinuous need to establish an identity. The bohemian movements of the last two centuries are likewise products of the same dynamic, as is the notion of revolution as a totally willed social transformation. Thurber's figure of WaIter . Mitty, living in this world as a salesman but simultaneously fantasizing about other worlds other identities that may become hopelessly conftated with the drudgery of every day existence is the archetype of this new kind of life. Campbell argues cogently that the new relation to consumption, the new iden­ tity space, in the terms developed here, is a class phenomenon, one linked to a specific form of middle-class socialization that produced a strong individual, divided between his rational relation to the real and his unlimited desire. Other .. directedness remain s, if marginal in this new development, expressed in tM phenomenon of dandyism, but here one might argue that it is encompassed s6� cially within the space of the modern insofar as it is necessarily understood;lS false, as trickery, as trying to be what one is not andin morerecenttimes, assim7 ply "narcissism." On the other hand, as suggested above, it is perfectly logical in our approach that it should reappear when modern identity enters into crisis. In order to consume for the purpose of creating a life space that becomes one's identity, one must be an individual subject with no necessary socially es­ tablished essence. In order to be a romantic, one must endure the experience of alterity, of otherness. One must, thus, be formally alienated from any specific social reality in order to seek new realities. One must be an individual whose . essence is independent of all specific social and cultural attributes. That essence becomes nature, that which is universally common to all humans, defining in its turn the typical universality of occidental discourse and its world historical

260

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outlook. The culturally defined human nature of nineteenth-century capitalism is the source of the bohemian, the revolutionary, providing as it does the con­ ditions of romantic desire expressed in the yearning for the perfect existence. And the existence is constituted by an image of the self that can theoretically be attained via the market, money permitting. This is the true self produced by the capitalist withering away of the superordinate spheres of individual inte­ gration into a larger social whole so that, in Marx's terms, commodities might become an "appearance of things which expresses the buyer's personality." In discussing the advent of large-scale retail trade in the nineteenth century, Sennett links the economic changes to the cultural changes. But what the new economics will not explain about 19th Century urban culture is why and how the people of the great cities came to take their mystifying, unresolvable appearances so seriously; why in the store they believed that wearing a ten-franc dress worn by the Duchesse de X made one a little more 'aristocratic,' or believed that a new cast-iron pot had a personal meaning to the buyer in terms of his fantasies of Moorish pleasure. If one great theme of the time is the growth of homogeneous, machine-made objects, the other is the increasing importance the denizens of Carlyle's London and of Balzac's Paris accorded to these exterior appearances as signs of personal character, of private feeling, and of individuality." (Sennett 1 977: 146) The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner

The dialectic of conventionalization and romanticization is the personally con­ crete expression of the dialectic of class and capitalist reproduction in general, a dynamic contradiction between distinction and revolution, between othel­ directed and self-directed images, between dandy and bohemian. There is, to be sure, a dynamic of cultural distinctiveness, a competition for symbolic cap­ ital that occurs in the realm of convention itself. But this dynamic, detailed by Bourdieu, is limited by the static dictates of taste and can only conceive of cultural creativity in terms of the politics of cultural establishment. Lurk­ ing behind the scenes is the methodological individual that haunts Bourdieu's work, a rational manipulator of cultural schemes. But the major dynamic that transforms the universe of convention within which the struggle for distinction occurs is rooted precisely in the conditions of individual existence peculiar to capitalist culture. The fundamental problem of consumption, as Campbell maintains, consists in the need to create a personal identity space in a world where no such spaces arepre-ordained. The experience of the modem self is the division between a nature common to all and a specific identity constructed by acts of consumption and acts of religious or otherwise cultural engagement. The universal individual as an experience is the "empty

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subject" surrounded by a world of potential being. The "romantic ethic" in all its forms is the existential translation of this state of affairs, better expressed by the notion of modernism. Modern consumerism is a direct and practical expression of this same notion. If there can be said to be a formal structure of the modern condition, one produced by the capitalization in and of society, it is one that dynamically links the constitution of the indi vidual with the gamut of cultural constructions that go under the name modernity: consumerism, romanticism, modernism, nationalism. All of these phenomena have as their prerequisite the formation of a certain kind of individualized experience: the mind in the body, nature encapsulated within culture as id is to ego, any fixed "cosmological" structures dissolved, providing the appearance of the lack of culture, insofar as the latter is an external "object, that has always to be created and superceded. Everything beyond the bounds of the individual subject is reduced to a formally empty space within which the various constructions of culture are to be inscribed and reinscribed. Thus consumption produces a life space, just as nationalism or other forms of cultural identification produce an engagement of the individual subject in a greater unity. Modernism as a practice of supersession just as traditionalism as a practice of return, are both, just the same, practices that need to "create" or "fashion" that for which they long. One may rightly oppose consumption and its spirit to the more violent social movements of modernity since it represents no more than the sphere of legitimate personal variation within the realm of social convention. These movements, after all bohemian, nationalist, subnationalist, ethnic, socialist, and so forth express revolt, at­ tempts to go beyond or back in time with respect to the conventional present. All, however, function to "clothe" the person with a specific social identity that is always and everywhere opposed to nature, the "real self" libido, and so forth. ' The "romantic ethic and the spirit of consumerism" would thus appear to be • . inscribed in the history of the "faU of public man," and the latter expresses tlile" , ' more general principle of our civilization that "everything solid melts into ait:" ., "

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sectors of the global system and is not applicable in the same way to sectors organized on more "holistic" lines. 2. The Weberian thesis is not as simple as it is often made out to be. The Protestant ethic is "generally assumed to be identical to the spirit of capitalism and as opposed diametrically to romanticism, In Weber, however, both elements are present. The two major strands of protestantism are Calvinism, which develops into rationalism and

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Chapter 7

utilitarianism, and pietism which develops into sentimentalism and romanticism" (CampbeIl 1987 : 2 1 9). But the opposition is present in the core of Protestant thought. "In Puritan religious thought there was originally a dynamic equipoise between two op­ posite thrusts, and tension between an inward, mystical, personal experience or God's grace and the demands for an outward, sober, socially responsible ethic, the tension between faith and works, between the essence of religion and its outward show" (Ward 1 979:61n, in op.cit 219).

R EFERENC ES

Alberoni, F. 1 984. Movement and institution. New York: Columbia University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1 993. La misere du monde. Paris: Seuil. Campbell, C. 1987. The romantic ethic and the spirit ofmodern consumerism. Oxford: Blackwell. Chesterfield, P. D. S., Stanhope, P., and E. Stanhope. 1969/1774. Letters written by

the late Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to his son, Philip Stanhope, Esq. . . . Together with several other pieces on various subjects. 4th ed. London: 1. Dodsley. Draper, J. D. 1 967 . Thefuneral elegy and the rise ofEnglish romanticism. New York: Octagon Books. Dubet, R . 1 987. La galere. Jeunes en survie. Paris: Seuil. Dumont, L. 1 983. Essais sur I 'individualisme. Paris: Seuil. Kafka, F. 1968 . The trial. Definitive edition. New York: Schocken Books. Kapferer, B. 1 988. Legends ofpeople, myths of state. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. Kepel, G. 1 987. Les banlieux d'islam. Paris: Gallimard. Mann, T. , and H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1 938. Buddenbrooks. New York: A. A. Knopf. It McKendrick, N., J. Brewer, and J. H. Plumb. 1 982. The birth ofa consumer society: The commercialization ofeighteenth-century England. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ortigues, M. C., and E. Ortigues. 1 966. Oedipe africain. Paris: Librairie Pion. Sennett, R. 1 977. The fall ofpublic man. New York: Cambridge University Press. Touraine, A. 1 992. Critique .e la modern(ti. Paris: Fayard. Ward, J. W. 1 979. Benjamin Franklin: The Making of an American character. In Benjamin Franklin: A collection of critical essays, ed. B. M. B arbour. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Waters. 1 990. Ethnic options. Berkeley: Uni.versity of California Press. Weber, Max, Talcott Parsons, and R. H. Tawney. 1 930. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. London: G. Alien & Unwin. •

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The final section reflects from a global systemic perspective on the nature of

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globalization discourse, attempting to situate it in class or positional tenllS. This returns to the introduction to the book in which the case for a global systemic anthropology is developed in contrast to the newer fascination with globalization as a new reality. Chapter 8 contrasts the globalization to the global systemic approach, arguing for the historicity of globalization but also arguing that the discourse of globalization is produced spontaneously by elites occupying similar kinds of positions in the transforming world system. In this chapter, the internal structure of this discourse is analyzed in some detail j.n order to demonstrate its internal inconsistency as well as its ideological func­ tion. Chapter 9 is an attempt to sketch a model combining two crucial global processes in the contemporary world system. The first connects declining hege­ mony to cultural fragmentation and increasing identity politics. The second. which occurs simultaneously, connects globalization to the fOImation of new elites and an increasing class polarization in which local and cosmopolita'J:n . become salient and opposed representations. Thus indigenous movements ocJ " cur at the same time as the production of Davos culture. We try to understand this not in terms of fixed categories. Instead the reference is to incligenizati01l; for the downwardly mobile or the formerly marginalized, and to cosmopoli­ tanization for the upwardly mobile, "symbolic analysts," consultants, media professionals, certain academics, and an array of global organizations and in­ stitutions, from the World Economic Forum to UNESCO; This is what has been referred to as a double polarization horizontal and vertical indigenization, localization, nationalism, and lower-class identity converge in opposition to the convergence of elite, cosmopolitan, and globalized identity. The chapters . taken together contain both an intellectual critique of the discourses of cos­ mopolitanism and hybridity and an attempt to situate their production within the changing configuration of the world system. This is not a denial of the "

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Part III

existence of globalization. On the contrary, globalization is assumed to be a real but particular process within an already established global system, but one that is historical, usually followed by a process of de-globalization, a process that has occurred in previous historical epochs. The illusion of globalization as an evolutionary stage is related to the way it is experienced by certain elites. Its ideological character is in its turn related to the way this is generalized into a truth assumed to exist for the entire world.

The H ybridization of Roots and the Abhorrence of the Bush

Jonathan Friedman Major changes are sweeping the class organization of the world system. They became evident to me when I discovered that a certain way of representing reality, as hybridity, was not a mere intellectual interpretation of the state of contemporary reality, but a politicized position. In the following I shall sug­ gest that this identity and interpretation is an aspect of the emergence of a new global cultural elite or class faction that takes its form as particular state-class structures that pit a cosmopolitan elite against a nationalist "redneck" and, by definition, backward-looking working class, or remnants thereof. The repre­ sentational logic of this development is one that is vertical and encompassing. Its vision of global reality is one in which the global itself is a place, located above and including the different local places of the world and which has emerged out of a more fragmented or localized world. This evolutionary logi� applies to many statements concerning economic globalization as well as cu�� tural globalization. The world i s one place, structured by multinational capital whose project is to surpass the nation-state and create a world society, or at least a world working class. For this reason the following discussion contains two arguments, one concerning economic globalization and the other focused on the culture-class linkage.

G LOBALIZATI O N I N ECONOMIC TERMS

. Much has been made of the notion of globalization, understood as the increas­ ing integration of the world under the aegis of increasingly centralized forms of capital accumulation, of power over fi nance and production, and following 265

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this of markets, media, and forms of dominance. I seek here simply to relate this appearance to what is another, perhaps more dynamic, reality of the global system. The obvious aspect of the globalization process is the multinationalization of production via the development and dominance of transnational corporations (TNCs). There is a steady increase in the importance of TNCs in interna­ tional trade. Such firms account for 80 percent of international trade in the United States, and one-third of this trade is intra-firm. This indicates an in­ creasing verticalization, or integration, of various sectors under the aegis of single firms. Foreign direct investment (FDI) by the developed countries has increased cyclically but decidedly in the 1 970s and 1 980s. In the mid -1980s FDI increased three times faster than export trade. To understand this as a structural phenomenon, we might say that we are moving from a structure of national production coupled with international trade to an internationalization of production itself. Two phenomena must be recognized here. First, there is an important tech­ nological change, an increase in the ability to move production processes via transporta- t increasing modularization and greatly increasing productivity of · -t , . tion. This enables a general speed-up m the mo�ement of productIOn proce sses \ as well as new ways of dividing them up in space, a space that becomes increas- "; ingly cheaper and therefore less significant as a constraint and therefore more heterogeneo us. It is clear that the spectacular development of information tech­ nologies is crucial in this "time-space compressio n" and increasing sensitivity of capital movements. The capacity to globalize has thus increased signifi­ cantly. But, the actual strategy of global capital movements has not changed in its basic structure. In other words, globalization does not occur because it is possible. Its engine lies in the differential gnidient of profitability in the global arena, a gradient that can change rapidly and channel movements of capital. The latter are movements of investment in sources of wealth in general and not merely production. Now a main reason for the existence of foreign direct investment (FDI) is to offset declining advantages of national production and export. Such a shift implies a relative decentralization of production from the home country to new hosts. It is not a modem invention although it has taken other forms in the past. Portfolio investment has been more important in the export of productive capital in the more recent past, and this can be understood in terms of differences in the technology of transport, that is, the capacity to export production. In such terms, there is nothing new in principle about the current globalized world. Forty percent of the investment in the English Industrial Revolution came from Holland and Italy. The spread of railroads around the -

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The Hybridization o/Roots and the Abhorrence o/the Bush

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world, a major capital export, was the result of British and French investments in overseas production. The massive export of capital from Britain, which had much to do with the industrialization of the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century, had everything to do with a logic that has been a constant in the global system. Much of this shifting flow of capital has been related to changing cycles of hegemony in the center of the Western world system: from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe, from Holland and Northern France to England, from England to Germany and the United States, from the United States to Western Europe and Japan after World War II, and from the entire West to Eastern Asia, India, and parts of Latin America. This last shift has been of a monumental character, a regional shift from West to East, Southeast, and selected portions of the South. In our understand�ng, multi nationalization of investment of wealth is related to, and productive of, declining hegemony. The form that it has taken is the globalization of production, and the multinationals seem to have gained considerably in power, as if a new level of global reality had emerged. But the fact is that as nation-states exist, and the level of welfare is still a national phenomenon, that is, the degree to which capital investment tends to concentrate in one place or another. It is this clustering that makes it possible for Porter to argue for a comparative advantage of nations in an era of globalization. Thus the appearance of an increasing degree of multinationalization should not detract from our understanding of the differential regional flows of capital in the world system. In 1 956, the United States had 42 of the top 50 corporations, a clear sign of hegemony over world production. In 1989 that number had dropped to 1 7 . Europe as a whole has a larger number (21 ) of the 50 top firms today than the United States. This would imply that the globalization of capital is a temporally delimited phenomenon or phase within a larger system rather than a general pv, phenomenon. It would in this case be related to the break-up of process of fragmentation and decentralization of the accumulation of the larger system. Now in the contemporary situation there are clear m, of this process. While production and export have increased unabated 1 960s, the developed market economies decreased their share of total production from 72 to 64 percent while developing countries more than their share. Between 1 963 and 1 987 the United States has decreased its share of world manufacturing from 40.3 to 24 percent. Japan increased its portion from 5 .5 to 19 percent in the same period. West Germany is stable around 9 to 10 percent, but the U.K. declined from 6 to 5 percent to 3.3 percent. France, Italy, and Canada have also declined somewhat in this period. "It is especially notable that in the East and Southeast Asian NICs (new industrializing countries) manufacturing growth rates remained at a high level

Chapter 8

268

throughout the 1970s and 1980s whereas those of the leading developed mar­ ket economies fell to half or less of their 1 960s levels" (Dicken 1 992:27). Significant increases in Spain, Brazil, India, and the NICs have been part of a larger process of decentralization of capital accumulation. "Whereas in the first quarter of the twentieth century 95 percent of world manufacturing pro­ duction was concentrated into only 10 countries, by 1 986 25 countries were responsible for the same proportion of world output" (27). In other words, there is a trend toward decentralization of production in geographical terms. Manufacturing counted for only 19.8 percent of total exports in 1960 but for as much as 47 percent in 1988. In fact, by the end of the 1 970s, for the very first time, the value of manufactured products exported from the developing market economies exceeded that of food and raw materials. After 1 973 exports of manufactured goods from the Third World grew at twice the rate of exports of raw materials. Without doubt the old international division of labor had been reconfigured. (27) ,

At the same time, the world leaders lost shares in the total world exportj of manufacturing (see table 8 . 1 ). And it is the genter that is the target market 'I*,�� for this new production. Between 1 978 and 1 998 manufactured exports to the �· United States increased from 17.4 to 3 1 . 8 percent. The process here is one in which exported capital produces products that are re-imported to the center. The trend here is increasing competition, decentralization, and a clear shift of capital accumulation to the East. The model for my argument is that the transnationalization of capital is a general process in periods of hegemonic decline. This is true of all commer­ cial civilizations as well. For classical Athens and Rome the decentralization of production took the form of migration of artisans and merchants from the center to specifically designated peripheral zones. In nineteenth-century cap­ italism it consisted in an increasing export of portfolio capital, and today it takes the form of transnational production. Thus, I would argue, this is not a question of evolution so much as a question of cyclical decline and ascen­ dancy, in the present case a general movement of productive capacity from Table 8.1 .

Percentage of World Export of Manufacturing

1 963 Japan West Germany UK U n ited States

6 15 11 17

1 989 9 11 5 . 12

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the United States and Europe to the Far East, and a shift that has given rise to the concept of the "Pacific Century." Bergesen and Femandez sum up this changing configuration: The network analysis of the national and industrial distribution of the world's 50 largest firms supports the idea that American dominance in world production is declining, and that competition between regions is increasing. The tripolar world economy is becoming a reality. Europe appears to increase the number of firms that compete with the United States, but the number of industries in which they compete stays constant. Japan and the NICs increase both the number of firms and industries, which are in competition with the United States. (Bergesen and Femandez 1 995:24)

Thus the view that we are heading toward an increasingly integrated world, a globalized economy, is certainly a tendency in economic terms, but it does not necessarily mean that we are entering a new kind of world. The space of transnational capital and accompanying transnational institutions, clubs, classes, and elites is certainly a part of the globalization process, but this does not account for the changes in regional distribution of accumulation and power in the world. Globalization, in other words, does not mean unification or even integration in any other way than increased coordination of world markets. Transnational corporations are, in important respects, the agents of the decen­ tralization of wealth rather than its geographical concentration. And wealth, measured in consumption power, standard of living, or whatever, is always ge­ ographically localized not global, not unless we all live in a third place called the global village. And where, one might ask, is that located? This argument is relatively simple. The world is still a geographically delimited place, and however virtual capital and communication has become, it still occurs places, at least until virtual reality replaces the other one. What has in terms of trends is that the entire system operates at a faster rate, so all the economic cycles have accelerated, including cycles of hegemony. . speed-up, primarily a result of the increasing productivity of information .. nology, is the major operator in the space-time compressian that Harvey (1989) . so clearly outlines. This in itself might have serious structural consequences, insofar as hegemonic stability with all of its political and cultural concomitants may prove to be an impossibility in the long run, but the underlying properties . of the system remain the same, and this is at bottom a system of accumulation of abstract wealth that has been around for several thousand years. Thus two contradictory tendencies emerge. One is the historical shift in hegemony out­ lined above. The other is a potential product of speed-up, which would lead to the kind of implosive world city structure implied in the work of Sassen ( 1994, 1996).

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Chapter 8 H Y B R I D ITY A N D TH E I D EOLOG ICAL MATRIX OF RACISM

Cultural globalization is correlative to the argument for economic globaliza­ tion. The latter has taken on numerous forms during the past decade. A per­ vasive feeling and fear of many intellectuals has been the expected homoge­ nization of the cultural organization of the world, by means of Western state intervention. This has been countered by arguments for local resistance, assim­ ilation to the local, and finally hybridization. As a form of self-identification, hybridity harbors two inconsistencies: one growing out of the way the category is constructed; the other related to the social group that so identifies the world. First, it should be recognized that hybridity is an old concept and one very central to writers on race in the nineteenth century and even earlier. Young's excellent discussion in Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race, demonstrates the degree to which anti-"orientalist" discourse has vastly oversimplified the writings of this period and how modem self-declared hybrids are ensconced within the older framework of race: "The question is whether the old essentializing categories of cultural identity, or of race, were really so essentialized, or have been retrospectively constructed as more fixed than l they were" (Young, 1 995:27). Young argues th
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The Hybridization of Roots and the Abhorrence of the Bush

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reducible to physical or biological traits. The second notion is racism proper. But any notion of the type "all X are bearers of a distinctive set of traits that are inherited over time and thus ascriptive" belongs to a general family of essentialist discourse. Essentialism, however, need not be biological. But neither need i t be wrong. Otherwise there are no such things as group-specific life forms that have temporal continuity, no such thing as habitus. The problem, then, is not the attribution of a fixed set of properties to a given population, but the assumption that this set of properties is somehow not the result of practice but an inherent property of the individual members of that population. It is the substantivization of culture and the channeling of this substance into individuals as if it were a packet of recipes, codes, or even forms of knowledge that can be passed on like genetic material or blood to coming generations of individuals. If culture is carried in this way by individual subjects, it implies that a population's culture is only the individual bearer writ large. It is this notion of culture that gives rise to the notion of hybridity and cre­ olization. Cultures flow into one another and mix. And the more movement of culture in the world, by means of migration, media transmission, and so forth, the more mixture until finally we have a hybridized world equivalent in cultural terms to the economic globalization process. This can occur be­ cause cultures are substances that flow into one another from disparate origins producing mixtures that maintain the properties of those origins. This is, as Young suggests, a metaphorical extension of the discourse of race whose focus on hybridity foreshadows the current use of the term. In the struggle against the racism of purity, hybridity invokes the dependent, not converse, notion of the mongrel. Instead of combating essentialism, it merely hybridizes it.

G LO BALIZATI ON AS H Y B R ID ITY

The "birds-eye" view of the goings-on of the world may indeed convey . < image of mixture and even of confusion, even if this is not the case for who are observed (Ekholm and Friedman 1 995). "How do we come to terms with phenomena such as Thai boxing by Mo­ roccan girls in Amsterdam, Asian rap in London, Irish bagels, Chinese tacos and Mardi Gras Indians in the United States, or 'Mexican schoolgirls dressed in Greek togas dancing in the style of Isadora Duncan' " (Pietersee 1 995 :53). What is it that we must come to terms with here? The problem would seem to be reducible to "how do we identify" such phenomena, and as the phenomena are described as specific products, that is as cultural products, the question becomes "How do we classify such phenomena?" This was a question asked by "theoreticians" on race in the nineteenth century and by cultural diffusionists

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(also linked to the question of race, via migrations), that is, how to map the world, put labels on things. But is it not striking that this intense preoccupation should appear today? What about blues,j azz, pasta, and other potential hybrids of the past? (Pietersee makes it clear that he understands hybridity to be a very general historical condition.) Is there more of this kind of thing nowadays, or has something else happened? Could it be that the consciousness of mixture is simply a product of a genealogical turn in individual identity in a situation where the global has become a commonplace image in the media, a widely noted experience among Western middle classes? Could it be the product of the speed-up factor itself, Harvey's time-space compression coupled to a discourse of rootedness, that is, the entanglement of the world's roots? Might one then want to draw this into a coherent account of the formation of a new "elite" gaze produced in the experience of consumption of globally identified objects and images? And should we not then ask who it is who maintains such a gaze and produces the global images? I would suggest that hybridity is very closely related to a major transforma­ tion of dominant ideology and that it is itself linked to the emergence of a new cosmopolitan elite. The intellectuals who so identify often have a powerful attraction to the media, both as subject of discussion and as willing participants. But this is not necessarily unauthentic. The relation of the intellectual to the world is one of contemplation, of objectification, of the external gaze. The experience of mixture, hybridity, and even cultural confusion is the im­ mediate experience of the postmodern tourist. This experience is based on the background of authenticity, the notion that in some past, locality/territory and culture hung together in separate units that are sometimes expressed in what is called the world mosaic. This leads to the quasi-evolutionistic model of world history as one of successive stages of global integration. The current stage is one in which culture has begun to overflow its boundaries and mingle with other cultures, producing numerous new breeds or hybrids. The hybrid image is, I would suggest, a positioned representation of reality, and aside from its internal structure, it is a strangely spontaneous and unelab­ orated concept. It is, rather, a labeling device, an attempt to define the cultural state of the world. It is typical for hegemonic models that they generalize from one position to speak for the rest, and hybridism as a representation clearly harbors hegemonic intentions insofar as it translates a particular perception into a general interpretation.

T H E COSMOPOLITAN CONN ECTI ON

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Cosmopolitans are a product of modernity, or, perhaps, modernities, since the latter is a recurring historical phenomenon, individuals whose shared

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experience is based on a certain loss of rootedness. It is for some a celebration of rootlessness and for others a powerfully ambivalent state of liberation ver­ sus alienation. Cosmopolitans identify with the urban, with the "modem," with high culture that belongs to the world rather than the nation. They are the sworn enemies of national and ethnic identities since the latter are an absolute threat to their existence, even as they are part of the definition of the cosmopolitan, since the word has no meaning unless opposed to the local. Cosmopolitans have been around for a long time, of course, as long as commercial civiliza­ tions (Friedman 1 997). Cosmopolitanism is part of the very logic of modem individual subjective experience, based on aherity and distance to any par­ ticular world of meanings. It constructs a "higher," more abstract knowledge of the world that acknowledges the local, by definition, while transcending it, also by definition. But while alterity is constitutive of modem experience, cosmopolitans actively engage alterity by translating it into geographical dis­ placement. There is a difference, however, between modernist and the current, postmodernist, cosmopolitan. Modernist identity as an ideal type is anti-ethnic, anti-cultural, and anti -religious. It works to maintain a self-experience in which alterity itself is transformed into skeptical rationalism, where nothing is taken for granted. The cosmopolitans of the turn of the century, and up to quite recently, were modernists. This modernist cosmopolitanism was based on a striving for universal values and context freedom. The modernist nation-state was one that valued citizenship as formal membership and participation in the modem project, defined in terms of increasing standards of living, better knowledge in general, science in particular, and high culture. As this system depended upon a hegemonic world order, which has now begun to dissolve, its modernist identity has also begun to dissolve. Ernest Gellner (1 994), in a very interesting discussion ofthe lives "f'� stein and Malinowski both immigrants to England from the Hapsburg and its allies described the modernist cosmopolitan in no uncertain · Wittgenstein, especially, represents the urban intellectual, totally .. upon the imperial center of Vienna, surrounded by rising nationalisms in . .. , empire, movements of the locals, the rednecks, the unsophisticated. His oWn . ambivalence and seeking after gemeinschaft drove him to become a provincial schoolteacher, a total disaster for this master of the abstract, especially in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein was unable to resolve his problem in concrete terms, but this drove him to find a solution in philosophy, that is, the philosophy of ordinary language, which became the substitute and symbol for the concrete lived experience that he could not attain via his modernist identity. The decline of modernism has led to a situation in which cosmopolitan ide­ ology can no longer represent itself as higher, rational, and abstract. What has been referred to as postmodernism is but one aspect of a more general shift of identity toward roots, identity that is somehow culturally fixed and a value .

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in itself. In the first phase of intellectual reaction there was an onslaught on scientific knowledge, rationality, and high culture. It was part of an upsurge of the indigenous, the local, the cultural in general, as a form of tradition and traditional wisdom, all of which has taken the form of the re-emergence of that which had been repressed by modernism. The political form of this transfor­ mation is best expressed in multiculturalist politics and in its stronger form as indigeneity, a return to origins. It was part of a massive fragmentation of larger national and regional identities having both liberating and violently oppres­ sive outcomes. But there is an absolute contradiction between cosmopolitan identity and this upsurge of strong local/territorial identities. The solution for the cosmopolitan, surely unconscious, was to invoke a more general yet not abstract identity. The intellectuals who struggled against modernism were not about to give up their cosmopolitan positions and become local generals. Cos­ mopolitanism minus modernism was the local solution, and it took the form of hybridism: the position "we are all mixed," and we intellectuals are the representatives of the hybrid world, the opposition aI, liminal, betwixt and be­ tween category busters that shall lead the new "revolution." This "we are the world" hybridity is part of the evolutionary identity of the cosmopolitan, on� that moves from lower to higher levels of "cultural" integration. The strength of the evolutionary bias is suggested by Hannerz ( 1 996) when making the general claim that cosmopolitan formerly referred to national elites located in national capitals as opposed to those sequestered in the hinterland. Is this the case with Paris and Vienna of the end of the nineteenth century? Gellner's discussion, at least, would seem to contradict such a history. There were, of course, national centers of high culture, descendants of the royal courts and their cultural dependent activities, but these courts were themselves extraordinarily worldly and well traveled, great collectors of the things of the world and, of course, intermarried over all of Europe. On the contrary, the opposition between nationalists, who often developed their own elites, and cosmopolitans was clearly marked. The new cosmopolitan ism envisaged, perhaps normatively by Hannerz, is defined as a kind of cultural connoisseur. As Lash and Urry put it,

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There is a search for and delight in contrasts between societies rather than a longing for uniformity. Hannerz also talks of the need for the cosmopolitan to be in a "state of readiness, a personal ability to make one's way into other cul­ tures, through listening, looking intuiting and reflecting" (Hannerz 1 990:239).

( 1 994:308)

They also criticize what appears to be a self-identification converted into objectivity:

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he draws a strong distinction between cosmopolitans and tourists, citing the main character in the film The Accidental Tourist who wrote travel books for anti­ cosmopolitan tourists, people for whom visiting another country was largely a spectator sport. However, this contrast is overdrawn and rests upon the middle­ class belief that their orientation to travel is far more sophisticated than to that of mere "tourists." (ibid)

This cosmopolitanism has no content other than its encompassment of cul­ tural difference. It is about "being there" and knowing them in a way that can define a certain sophistication. It is a formal kind of cosmopolitanism without a project other than collection itself. The older project was that of high civ­ ilization, high culture, and high science. In the decline of this, which is also a decline of intellectual level, what is left is simply difference itself and its accumulation, a definition of a higher englobing level of identification. This is truly a poverty-stricken culture. It is more global than previously, but this may be due to the fact that there is no internal activity to occupy its members. They are not, as I said, going anywhere. They have no project. Thus the focal notion of creativity that characterized modernist science and art is replaced by hybridization. The former creativity was about the discovery process, the production of hypotheses; the result was the unearthing of new connections in the real world, the founding of new gestalts. This was as true of the driving . principles of art as well as science (Levi-Strauss 1 962). Nowadays creativ­ . ity consists merely in new blends, new creoles, and new hybrids. This is the creativity of advertising, of MTV and world music, not that associated with artistic or scientific originality.

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The subaltern school of Ranajit Guha has made innumerable and reinterpretations of the history of the marginalized and oppressed in history. The general, Gramscian inspired, frame of their analysis is subaltern is usually repressed by the power of the colonial and :tcolon state, and that which i3 repressed is an alternative gemeinschaft, a culturalily defined community. Its resurgence is the return of "the suppressed" as "a persistent human urge to form communities, which in effect emerges as a constant immanent critique of modernity and capitalism" (Hansen 1 995:8). In Chatterjee's work this community is distinguished from its Western counterpart, which, according to the latter, is an impoverished version due to the demolishing of community by capitalism. "If the day comes when the vast storehouse of Indian social history will become comprehensible to the scientific consciousness, we will have achieved

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along the way a fundamental restructuring of the edifice of European social phi­ losophy as it exists today" (Chatterjee 1 993: 1 69). This is because colonialism was "always dominant but never hegemonic" (Hansen 1 995 :9). The imperialist enemy stands as opposed to the indigenous and authentic communities of the East. 1 . Western categories

1 . Subaltern categories, hybridity

2. rationalism

2. holism

4. universalism (exclusive)

4. encompassment (inclu sive)

3. colonialism

3. The "third space"

This authentic hybridity is the precolonial, pre-national cultural state of the world where there are no rigid boundaries of identification. The discourse of hybridity is, as I have suggested here and elsewhere, positioned. It is cos­ mopolitan in its self-identification while being anti- or postmodern insofar as it rejects the abstract rationality of modernism. But the culturalist hybridity of postcolonial identity refers to a resurgence of something past, a pre-colonial hybridity, while the hybridity of most Western intellectuals is future-oriented and entirely postcolonial and post modern (in the sense of locating itself aq the end of the modernist world of the nation-state and its clear categories of \. " A identity). The homologies, however, are striking: ';, ' 1 . The precolonial becomes the postcolonial. 2. The premodern becomes the postmodern. 3 . The hybrid is tbus both pre- and postmodem. The language is unabashedly Western and highly sophisticated, if not en­ tirely devoid of sophisticsm. Its Third World practitioners are most often resi­ dents of the West. One Third World critical intellectual resident in the United States has characterized this as follows: "The current global condition appears in the discourse only as a projection of the subjectivities and epistemologies of First World intellectuals of Third World origin: the discourse constitu tes the world in the self-image of these intellectuals, which makes it an expression not of powerlessness but of newfound power" (Dirlik 1 992:344). Dirlik goes on to say: To insiston hybridity against one's own language, it seemsto me, is to disguise not only ideological location but also the differences of power that go with different locations. Post colonial intellectuals in their First World institutional location are ensconced in positions of power not only vis-a -vis the "native" intellectuals back at home, but also vis-a-vis their First World neighbors. My neighbors in Farm ville, Virginia, are no match in powerforthe highly paid, highly prestigious postcolonial intellectuals at Columbia, Prince ton, or Duke; some of them might even be willing

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to swap positions and take the anguish that comes with hybridity so long as it brings with it the power and the prestige it seems to command. (343; note that Dirlik is himself employed at Duke University)

Hybridity is, in this view, an abstraction from the intellectual's cosmopolitan experience in an era devoid of modernist aspirations. "Melange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and bit of that is how newness enters the world" (Rushdie 199 1 :394). Now this is quite true of the world of Rushdie, with its bemused and musing distance from the migratory realities that make up his own life and that of his characters. But, unfortunately, Khomeini denies this, l and the newness that entered the world after the Shah was of an entirely different order from the lighthearted cosmopolitanism described and advertised by Rushdie. In a world of mUltiplying diasporas, boundaries are not disappearing. Rather, they seem to be erected on every new street corner of every declining neighborhood of our world. It is true that a little bit of this and that are flowing across all sorts of boundaries, but they are not being used to celebrate hybridity. Quite the contrary, they are incorporated and naturalized by group formation that strives to homogenize and maintain social order within its own boundaries. Now hybridization may indeed characterize this phenomenon when seen from afar, or above; the roaring crowd below in the street, its fruit stands, halal butcher shops, falafel stores, small groceries, world music, and gangsta rap­ and it's all here outside the door. Why is this postmodern bazaar so bizarre, so strikingly intriguing? Does it evoke the laughter of "matter out of place"? What would we have done in a medieval market in any of the larger cities of the world? These phenomena are only surprising and confusing if we expect to find a neatly classified world. There need not be less order and fewer boundaries "down there." It is only up here that it appears that way, and I can the view with my friends who share the same altitude. Pietersee, who by large celebrates the equation of globalization and hybridity, is also in denying the intellectual power of the concept. Criticizing Hannerz he "Can we identify any culture that is not creole in the sense of drawing or more different historical sources?" (Pietersee 1 995:63). He too suggests that, if "we accept that cultures have been hybrid all along, hybridization is in effect a tautology," (64) and concludes that, "the hybridization perspective · remains meaningful only as a critique of essentialism" (64).1 In other words, hybridization is a political and normative discourse, emphatically stated here by one of its best practitioners. POSTCOlO N I A lITY A N D C U LTU RA L ELITISM

The clearest indicator of the decline of hegemony in cultural terms is the rise of the postcolonial intellectual framework: a complex of key words of phrases

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that reorder the cultural reality of world systemic relations. The politicization of intellectual argument is central to this project, as is evident in Stuart Hall's reply to the critique made by Dirlik and cited above. His reply is part of an attempt to situate the concept of the "postcolonial," which he does by claiming that it is both temporal and critical. It refers to a historicai moment, a process of decolonization, but also to the internal decolonization that goes on incessantly both in colonial situations and long after them since the latter leave their "traces" in the decolonized world. Thus the postcolonial refers to a kind of final yet continuous critique of the colonial in all of its forms, from the economic to the cultural. It involves a rethinking of the colonial as well: It follows that the term "post-colonial" is not merely descriptive of "this" society rather than "that" of "then" and "now". It re-reads "colonization" as part of an essentially transnational and transcultural "global" process-and it produces a decentered, diasporic or "global" rewriting of earlier, nation-centered imperial grand narratives. (Hall 1 996:247)

This leads to an argument against what I understand to be the units of the colonial vision, based on nation-states and discrete territorial domains 1pf empire. The postcolonial is about the diasp�ric consciousness.

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Understood in its global and transcultural context, colonization has made ethnic absolutism an increasingly untenable cultural strategy. 3 It made the "colonies" themselves and even more, large tracts of the "post-colonial" world, always al­ ready "diasporic" in relation to what might be thought of as their cultures of origin. (250)

What we arrive at, if I follow the argument literally, is an acceptance of the displacements of colonial expansion, a world of dispersal, of the transnational that harbors its own intellectual critique of the past: Hybridity, syncretism, multidimensional temporalities, the double inscriptions of colonial and metropolitan times, the two-way cultural traffic characteristic of the contact zones of the cities of the "colonized" long before they have become the characteristic tropes of the cities of the "colonizing", the forms of translation and transculturation which have characterized the "colonial relation" from its earliest stages, the disavowals and in-betweeness, the here-and-theres, mark the aporias and re-doublings whose interstices colonial discourses have always negotiated and about which Homi Bhabha has written with such profound insight. (Hall

1 996:25 1 )

Two things: first the language, while possible to grasp, is increasingly vague and evocative, and therefore open to numerous interpretations. Second, there is

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also an implicit agenda in the text. It runs like this: the voice from the periphery­ now-in-the-center, that is, the diaspora intellectual, says: "First you colonized me and I was dispersed and became transnational, and now I take on the identity that was bestowed upon me and use it as a weapon against essentializing discourses that were the core of the colonial era." This is interesting to read but hardly convincing in its logic. After all, for decades the argument has been: "First you colonized me and I was dispersed and became transnational , and now I want to reestablish my former connection to my source, that is, to turn my formerpre-national space into a nation." Now this argument makes just as much sense, and, in any case, it has been a real agenda in much of the decolonization process. That ethnic absolutism has been made "untenable" by all of this flies in the horrible face of the ethnic wars that are raging in substantial parts of the decolonized world. One might ask whether or not he colonial ought to be understood in the same terms as the postcolonial. Is the latter a state of being? Is it the colonized of Fanon's writing? Are there not a lot of assumptions here and an inordinate amount of just that essentializing that postcolonials ought to avoid? Was there anything before the colonial world other than border-crossing, holistic, and egalitarian society? The terms colonial and postcolonial are more like terms of self-identification. They have more sign value than empirical referential con­ tent. Could it be thatpostcolonial discourse, replete with its special vocabulary, is more a form of sociality or code for its adherents than an attempt to under­ stand some aspect of the world? Hall's description belies such a possibility: "What, in their different ways, these theoretical descriptions are attempting to construct is a notion of a shift or a transition conceptualized as the reconfig­ uration of a field, rather than as a movement of linear transcendence between two mutually exclusive states" (HaIl 1 996:254). " What is described is a change in terms of reference; not the of a new paradigm as such, but of a new language, a new field of disc€I ��� reconfigured from the old. In order to account for this, the language i·tself becomes increasingly contorted:

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To put this another way, all the key concepts in the "post-colonial", as in the general discourse of the "posts", are operating, as Derrida would put it, "un­ der erasure". They have been subjected to a deep and thoroughgoing critique, exposing their assumptions as a set of foundational effects. But his decon­ struction does not abolish them, in the classic movement of supersession, an Aufghebung. It leaves them as the only conceptual instruments and tools with which to think about the present-but only if they are deployed in their decon­ structed form. They are, to use another, more Heideggerean, formulation, which lain Chambers, for example, prefers, "a presence that exists in abeyance." (Hall

1996:255)

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Alas ! Dirlik, who attacks what he sees as a hegemonic project of adaptation to world capitalism, is complimented by Hall as a "distinguished scholar of modem China" and then criticized for his polemical ferocity. But this is again turned into a compliment by Hall via an almost total agreement with Dirlik's description of the world today in political economic terms, including the na­ tional "de-centering" of capital, the rebirth of native cultures, the weakening of boundaries, the Confucian revival in East Asia, the combination of homogeniz­ ing and heterogenizing. All of this, according to Hall, is what the postcolonial is about. Even Dirlik's assertion that the postcolonial critics seem totally blind to their own economic conditions is accepted, but it is simultaneously and quite nonchalantly explained away as a mere reaction to the old-fashioned vulgar materialism of a former reductionist Marxism. Where, precisely, is the problem with this angry scholar? After all, "Dirlik has therefore put his finger squarely, and convincingly, on a serious lacuna in the post-colonial episteme" (Hall 1 996:258). Hall seems disappointed. Damn it, we could have used this guy in developing our "episteme" ! But then Dirlik goes and blows it by making the class connection. Postcolonial discourse serves the "cultural requirements" of global capitalism. The postcolonial critics are "unwitting spokespersons for I the new global capitalist order" (259). And suddenly the author is accused of '\ 1� "stunning (and one is obliged to say, banal) reductionism, a functionalism of 'Vi, a kind which one thought had disappeared from scholarly debate as a serious explanation of anything, that it reads like a echo from a distant, primeval era" (259). Dirlik is arguing by association only, by the fit of a certain discourse to a certain state of affairs. Young ( 1 995), to whom I have referred above, is similarly criticized for linking racism and postcolonialist discourse via the concept of hybridity. This is strange language, strange argument. Hall agrees with the analysis but not with its implications concerning the relation between postcolonial dis­ course and the larger system. No argument, however, is summoned only opinion and what might be interpreted as moral judgment. Hall's way of dis­ cussing the issue is extraordinarily paternalistic in this respect. If only Dirlik was on our side, on the side of the good, the postcolonial episteme, then all could be forgiven, but, "[ w]e always knew that the dismantling of the colonial paradigm would release strange demons from the deep, and that these monsters might come trailing all sorts of subterranean material" (Hall 1 99 6:259). Who is the "we" in this and to what does the "always knew" refer? It is true that Dirlik falls back on functionalism, or rather a correlation, but his argument is aimed at identifying a real political issue, one that is dismissed, in principle, by Hall. I have argued that the global order is not new, but that its social composition is changing. I have argued that the postcolonial ,..

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discourse of hybridity is not a function of global capitalism, since the latter has been around all the time. Rather, I have argued that this discourse is one that has identified with the cosmopolitan space of the global system and has vied for a hegemonic position within that space. This is not functionalism but, on the contrary, a hypothesis about competition within the highest echelons of the system. It is about factions of the elite and about the formation of intellectual hegemony. Hall's style of presentation does much to verify such a hypothesis. The ease with which Dirlik is dismissed is indicative of another aspect of the current global transformation. It is based on a morally hierarchical classifi­ cation in which certain words, arguments, and propositions can be eliminated because they are quite simply morally or rather politically incorrect. Identi­ fying acceptable codes of j argon, key words, and attitudes replaces rational argument. This is part of the postmodernization referred to earlier. This is the kind of transformation that can make the epitome of political correctness, Stanley Fish, appear as a radical (against even his own remonstrations) and sacralize the equation of power and knowledge, by subsuming the latter within the former. In this new elitism Fish is a true paragon of the relations described above: "I am against blind submission because the fact that my name is at­ tached to an article greatly increases its chance of being accepted" (Fish, 1 988, cited in Jacoby 1 994: 1 83).

TRANSETHNlC I D E N TITY A ND THE MYTH OF C U LT U RAL CREATIVITY •

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The followers of hybridity theory have searched for a liberating "complex, dynamic patterns of syncretism" (Gilroy 1 987 : 1 3), and as best they can the "inventive, border-transcending cultural creativity immigrants and the way it embodies, resistance to segregating (Alund 1 992:73). The argument harbors a series of rather simpleminded presuppositions: 1 . Ethnic cultures are mixed/syncretic.

2. Such cultures challenge the mainstream and are better and gaining in force (the proof is in pop music, which is becoming "blacker"). . 3 . The implicit goal of these cultures now understood as a kind of challenge and dynamism in the transformation of society "culture as a composite and challenging force." (79)

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Much of this ideology, class conflict displaced to ethnicity, becomes the subaltern culture of today 's cultural studies. Hebdige is aware of the general structural inversion involved here: Ironically, those values conventionally associated with white working-class cul­ ture . . . which had been eroded by time by relative affluence and by the disruption of the physical environment in which they had been rooted were rediscovered, embedded in black West Indian culture. Here was a culture armored against con­ taminating influences, protected against the more frontal assaults of the dominant ideology, denied access to the "good life" by the color of its skin. Its rituals, lan­ guage and style provided models for those white youths alienated from the parent culture by the imagined compromises of the post-war years. ( 1983: 57)

But is this the same culture? The superficiality ofthe statement sacrifices cul­ tural content to the researcher's definition of working-class resistance. Hebdige understands youth culture as a synthesis of "those forms of adaptation, negotia­ tion and resistance elaborated by the parent culture and others, more immediate, conjunctural, specific to youth and its situation and activities" (56). In applying the notion ofbricolage to her material on Yugoslav women in Sweden, Alund i argues for a combination or intersection of elements, some from the past and � others from the present. There is a cultivation of the past by mothers, "tradi- '\ ' tional female subculture of the Yugoslav village," stories of "rebellions and communities from the past" (Alund 1 992:82), all of which is said to "live on in immigrant communities through forms of resistance" (82). Girls travel to their "real" homelands and have a desire to discover their origins, but they realize that they are not really at home there. Her circle of friends has similar problems. ,

To retain their identities in the multiethnic suburban tenements, they actively had to create a cultural consciousness that was more comprehensive than that of their parents. Through its ethnic mix, this circle of friends not only represented most of what could be found in the local community, but also constituted a new ltind of community, one that questioned and reworked both the traditional values of the new (Swedish) world and the established attitudes about masculinity/femininity, friendship/enmity, and so forth, of the "old" world. (83)

Here we have retained identities and a kind of discussion of values from different ethnic groups. In her discussion she describes how the ethnically rooted frame of references becomes central for her subject's identity, even if it is "reworked i n the Swedish context" (83). The question is, how? Where is the trans ethnic in all of this? She talks around the issue constantly, but do we ever get hold of any substantial transcultural social fonn? She stresses that such composites are not merely constructed from the cultural supermarket, but "ex­ press a creative and constructive connection with the past" (84). Her interesting

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example of the appearance of vampires among WaIlachian immigrants is de­ scribed as a form of social control, and a desire to return to traditional authority as a means of maintaining solidarity in the group. The strengthening of roots becomes a central asset in negotiating immigrant existence. There is no cultural mixture in these descriptions. On the contrary, we see competing social strategies and their resultant interpretations of social real­ ity. But there is no description of new forms of community. Could it be that mixture expresses the outsider's view of a multicultural field? The metaphor of mixture is flat. It juxtaposes rather than exploring the articulation among different elements. This author,just as all other hybrid ideologues, takes refuge in literature to find her best examples, but even these are open to alternative interpretations. Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior explores a Chi­ nese American 's voyage back to her roots, driven by magical forces of the ancestors and even leads to linkages to the "barbarians" via a story of a kid­ napping and subsequent discovery that impenetrable barriers can be broken and used as a resource. These tales of transcendence relate to the way in which the intellectual emboiies the cultures of "others " in a superior combination. But what do they say about the social world of multiculturalism? The analysis becomes increasingly chaotic after this failure to establish a transcultural object. Modernity is alienation, and the reaction is to search for something fi xed, rooted, communal: youth are part of this reaction according to Alund. On the one hand, the latter is characterized as healthy, but it also leads to authoritarian results: "The ever present competition for social and cultural control of space frequently leads to a focus on youth violence, ethnic conflicts and their connection with each other" (Aluud 1 992:89). But there is more, for

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..• ••• . this longing can also be expressed injourneys across the boundaries of time, and culture, in the search for new forms of grounded presence, both personaH*;�;�i::. . . ; - -�y{ ; t _ " and collectively. It is on these journeys that the modem world shows its potentitlli, '!, ,; . . . . for transcendence and renewal. This is especially true of the young generation of •. .• .. immigrants, whose rediscovered ethnic consciousness constitutes an ever more comprehensive form of model11 existence. (89) " - ,'," i, : -::

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The return to tradition among immigrants is redefined as a kind of cultural . expansion. This is difficult to understand, and it is not unpacked to make it comprehensible. The preoccupation with identity and difference is said to be creative in itself: "In a climate of cultural tumult and social fragmentation, the interaction between ethnicity and modernity offers new pathways towards this kind of transcendence" (Alund 1 992:89). In this way a contradiction in terms is turned by a wave of the wand into its opposite. The formation

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of boundaries is identified with their transcendence. The vocabulary of this discourse belongs to the same family as that described above. The key words on the side of good are: transcending, alternative, amalga­ mation, merging, composite, historical, anti-colonial, collective presence; and on the side of evil: authority, dominant cultural norms, racism. 4 But what is the content of this amalgamation and boundary transcending and what is the dominant cultural norm on the other side that is so readily associated with racism? There is quite simply no ethnographic evidence to support these broad classificatory statements. One senior researcher involved for many years in a similar framework comes to the opposite conclusion: I think that it will be difficult to find empirical evidence of this kind of "creolized culture" (Hannerz, 1 988) in the activities, experiences, and values of young peo­ ple. This is particularly true if one searches for a pattern containing discernible and integrated "cultural elements." What would a mixture of Arabic Muslim, Latin American Catholic, and Swedish secular traditions look like in a group of teenage boys and girls? (Ehn 1 992: 1 42) >"1

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Kotsinas, in her work on immigrant dialects in. Stockholm, asserts that while ' various pidgin dialects form, they become rapidly homogenized within specific �(; youth groups, as they would have to do in order to serve as vehicles of communication. She refers to the language of mixed zones as an indicator of "local united identity" (1 992:57). Another interesting aspect of these new dialects is that the foreign words for boys and girls introduced are often transformed obscene words, which might indicate the status relations involved in the for­ mation of marginalized cultures. Work on Turks in Berlin also demonstrates the degree to which the internal dynamics of identification and world definition aim at coherence. Schwartz in the same volume writes that "[t]he revitalization of traditions from their land of origin is readily recognizable in the recreational conduct of Turkish youths in Berlin" (1 992: 1 99). On the other hand, there is an identification with or at least use of "symbols from lower-class Black America" which are "dominant in the informal groups" ( 1 99). At the same time "they show a clear desire to adapt to the life-style of their German peer groups" ( 1 99). Now this combination of cultural elements might be called hybridization, but it would tell us nothing about the processes involved. The use of symbols of Black America is part of a political identification mediated in pop culture. The reason for the popularity of such symbols must be analyzed in its context and not simply interpreted as cultural creativity. Todd, in a comparative work on immigrants in Europe, discusses the way in which the Turkish family has become increasingly patrilineal in Germany due to the exclusion of Turks in German society ( 1 994: 179). The turn to fundamentalism from an essentially

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secularized background is also a specific cultural development among German Turks. Now such changes, which are accountable in terms of the immigrant context, cannot be understood in terms of cultural flows coming together in a given place. They are generated by the dynamics of identification in a context of social conflict. Caglar ( 1 997) argues against the usefulness of concepts such as hybridization and hyphenation for understanding the real social processes involved in immigrant situations in which boundaries are paramount. The phenomena described here are primarily about bounding. While the cultural products may seem mixed to the outsider, as social realities, the ques­ tion of cultural hybridization is not part of the discourse. The latter is always and everywhere an observation of the researcher, an attribution of meaning to a world that bears no witness to that meaning. This is a normative discourse, an ideological discourse in the most elementary sense. Now one might retort that the mixture need not be recognized by those involved in the process, that it is an "objective" process. But an objective hybrid culture is a self�contradiction, since no objective criteria for how to reckon the nature of hybridity are ever stated. In one sense, all culture is hybrid, and was probably always hybrid. If this is so, then the term has no operational significance, since it cannot differentiate between any two "cultures." If the term refers to a recent hy­ bridization, well then it is a question of genealogies. How many generations do we reckon when determining whether or not to apply the term? And if Ser­ bians claim purity in opposition to Bosnians, what does the objective reality of hybridity contribute to the situation? I would offer the following argument in discussing such problems. 1 . All populations, no matter how bounded, are culturaHy mixed in terms ·of the genealogies of the meanings that they use. This fact has no significal}:li� in itself, except for those engaged in the exercise of cultural geneal&g��g; This fundamental fact is what I refer to as the spaghetti principle. 2. It follows from this that hybridity only exists as a social phenome·�U when it is identified as such by those involved in social interaction. 'Ilhi� implies that where people do not so identify, the fact of cultural mixture . is without social significance. 3. It foIJows that the problem of hybridity, as of purity, is a question of practices of identification. Who so identifies, when, and how? These are the fundamental issues. 4. The rise of a discourse of hybridity, creolization, and so forth, is a social phenomenon and not the reflection of a neutral fact that has fi nally been discovered. The discourse appears to be located among certain groups, usually cultural elites and harbors hegemonic pretensions, as suggested above. .

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Chapter 8 R EAL E X I STI N G H Y B R I D ITY

What are the social conditions for the existence of hybridity as a social reality, and not merely as a discursive construct? It should be apparent from the above discussion that conditions exist in which hybridity, diverse and mixed origins, is practiced as a form of social identification . My general argument here is that hybridity is indeed a form of identity that is increasing today, but that this is a highly differential process, strongest in particular sectors of the global system. N. G. Canclini is a spokesman for the emergence of hybrid cultures, especially in Latin America. In a study from Tijuana which has become a vast city of more than one million inhabitants, with migrants from all over Mexico and with a constant border-crossing to California for day-wages or longer-term employment his research team worked on local self-identifications among journalists, artists and other cultural "workers." Here hybridity as an identity was self-evident. In a (apparently recorded) radio interview with the editor of a bilingual journal published in Tijuana and San Diego, we have the following excerpt: Reporter: If you love our country so much as you say you do, why do you live in California? Gomez-Pefia: I am de-Mexicanizing myself in order to Mexicomprehend myself. Reporter: What do you consider yourself then? Gomez-Pefia: Post-Mexican, pre-Chicano, pan-Latino, land-crossed, Art American . . . it depends on the day ofthe week or the project in question. (Canclini

1 995:238)

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Canclini also found reactions to this among Tijuana intellectuals who stress their local identity in opposition to those "who have arrived recently and want to discover us and tell us who we are" ( 1 995:239). Canclini's own perspective, based on his observation of the city, is decidedly hybrid, one of those "labora­ tories of postmodernity" like New York or presumably Los Angeles. Several nods are made to the class relations involved and even, ever so slightly, to the larger global organization that might, as we should like to argue, generate this laboratory of multiculturalism. Canclini is primarily after the cultural prod­ uct. It might have been interesting to have looked at some other perspectives, which are those of the immigrants themselves, to see the degree to which such hybrid identification actually occurs in this highly differentiated population. What is important here, however, is the obvious fact ofhybridity as a real social phenomenon, and not merely as Canclini's own perspective. The argument is simple, if it were only Canclini doing the identification, as is the case with

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which most of the literature in this area, then we would be dealing with his identification of others, a political act, of course, made from a particular posi­ tion. B ut in this case we may be dealing with a conversation between analogous social positions, that of the cultural elites, both the researcher and his subjects. Now this is surely the reality of those who experience it, but it is not clear that it is the reality of others, and since the researcher comes from the same kind of social position as his subjects, one might suspect that the assumption that cultural elites and migrant seasonal or day workers have the same kinds of identities is a gross conflation of standpoints. But this is precisely the as­ sumption made by Canclini, as by others, and it is this that may make it so popular in a certain American cultural anthropology. French culture, Brazilian culture all are mixed cultures. Of course this is the case if it is the author of the text is doing the genealogical identification. Rosaldo, in his introduction to Canclini's book, makes the case as follows: "On the other hand, hybridity can be understood as the ongoing condition of an human cultures, which contain no zones of purity because they undergo continuous processes of transculturation (two-way borrowing and lending between cultures)" (Rosaldo 1 995:xv). In one sense this is trivial. Not only have cultural forms and elements been circulating around the world in recent times, they have been doing it for thou­ sands of years ! The fact that the process has sped up may not be as significant as another issue that of cultural identity. The universal fact of the diffusion of cultural "elements" is not the central issue. The issue is what people do with those elements. The usual fact that they make something of their own with the elements raises a new question, that of the social construction and identification of the final products. Now, whether or not we identify the global genealogies of the elements, the reality of the products and their construction belongs to those who do the cultural work. This means that hybridity is ·· the eyes of the beholder, or more precisely in the practice of the Experienced hybridity is one thing. To impose it on others as an phenomenon is another. My argument is not new. The same kinds of sions went on in linguistics some years ago when it was discovered that languages were creole insofar as they continuously adapted new exogenous elements. Tell it to the English! Of course, in technical terms, creole can be seen as a transitional phase in which a new generation assimilates a second, reduced language (pidgin) as a first language. The process of transition is one of structuring, of elaborating a linguistic order. Carried over into culture this is a far more precise process than that currently promoted by anthropologists and cultural studies practitioners in which creolization and hybridization refer simply to the fact of mixture, to the blending of elements of mixed origins. The "hamburger" is surely a hybrid, but what does this imply for American society and its cultures?

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Hybridity as an objectified concept eliminates the tension and the real con­ tradictions that might be said to exist at the borders, in the diasporas, in situa­ tions of social transformation. While metaphors such as liminality do stress the in-betweenness of the immigrant situation, they tend, paradoxically, to homog­ enize this in their celebration ofjust this state of affairs. In my own research ma­ terial, as in that of others, the in-betweenness that is celebrated for its creativity by those who can afford to make use of it, is, for the larger majority of those in­ volved, a field of contradictory forces, of misconstruals and anxieties. People's lives may indeed span different worlds, and individuals may learn to cope with several worlds, but they still move from world to world and are not simply lo­ cated at some ideal meeting point. This situation is compounded by the fact that the boundaries between worlds are not products of differential geographical origins. They are socially constructed and practiced and can show up where we least expect them. Yugoslavia is surely a case in point. Ithas been said that social scientists refused to discuss ethnic differentiation there before it was already too late, on the grounds that it was assumed to be mere mythology. Hybridity is only significant where it is practiced as a form of self-identification. >

HYB R I D I TY AS ABSENT AND H OPED-FOR REALITY

There are older sources for the notion of hybridity that come, in fact, from American sociology. The first generation of Chicago School sociologists came to Hawaii and were very much taken by the multi-ethnic nature of the islands. They were studied extensively and intensively for several decades, everything from intermarriage rates to dating behavior, crime, and spatial behavior, in an informed attempt to understand the directions that the plantation-based society would take with increasing democratization as a result of incorporation in to the American fold. One very respected sociologist, Andrew Lind, stated, following World War 11, that: [t]he mounting number of persons of mixed racial ancestry in the population makes the continued use of the ordinary racial designation untenable, and those charged with the keeping of Hawaii's vital statistics are disposed to set up a sin­ gle, new category-the Cosmopolitans-for the innumerable varieties of mixed bloods which are emerging at the expense of the racial groups ordinarily listed. The 1 950 census reveals that in addition to 73,885 persons of mixed Hawaiian ancestry-formerly classified as part-Hawaiians-there were 20,337 other racial hybrids in the population. The combined population of mixed racial ancestry constituted slightly less than one-fifth of the entire population of the Territory. (Lind 1953: 6)

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A hybrid category .never took "root," and the sociologists might be accused

of conflating cultural heritage at best, and race or blood at worst, with ethnic identity. The sociologists gave up sometime in the 1960s, but the official state ideology of the multi-ethnic paradise continued and continues today in spite of increasing consciousness of the clear ethnic oppositions that characterize Hawaiian society. The interpretation of this wishful thinking cum ideological policy is, I would argue, rooted in the same question of social position. The sociologists were outsiders, striking/oots in a place that had, since the turn of the century, denied that Hawaiians had any particular right to the land. There developed a saying that anyone who lived in Hawaii and had aloha was a true Hawaiian. There are several variants of this discourse, but its core is constant. They stretch from the remarks of colonialist Judd to the attitude expressed by anthropologist Kelly ( 1995) to the effect that the Japanese immigrants were at least the equals of the Hawaiians with respect to land claims, an easy proclamation for those who have a privileged position above the immigrant mixture. In a recent television talk show in which the popular issue of children of mixed marriages was taken up, a number of people discussed their mixed heritages, which were, in all cases, clearly demarcated. One youth claimed to the dismay of some of the others to be black: "Oh yes my mother is white and I do love her, but I am black." But why, he was asked. Because, he said: "If I am mixed, then I have no history and no identity, no roots. I am nobody !" Barth (1 995) stresses the necessity of distinguishing between culture and ethnicity, a distinction that he has made famous. Culture can move anywhere and be transmitted to anyone, but ethnicity is about social boundaries, not about the content of what is on either side of them, not about what can be transferred from one person, or region to another, but to the way it is in relation to a group. Hybridity is in large part a result of this simple of categories.

CON CLUS I O N

There is a common evolutionism in the discourses of globalization. It has been assumed that we are now in the global stage of political-economic develop­ ment. The world has become one place, and there is a world society. We have evolved from tribal to national to regional and now to a global ecumene. Glob­ alization is not something that happens in particular conjunctures, but it is a stage of world integration. There is some truth to the notion that the world is more globally connected than ever, but the fact of g lobality is not new.

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More importantly, the world is not now in the hands of multinational capital any more than it was a hundred years ago. What appears as a new stage, is, in my argument, the product of declining hegemony, the increasing export of capital and the decentralization of capital accumulation on a world scale. This decentralization is not an even process but has, I argue, demonstrated a clear gradient of movement of accumulation toward East and Southeast Asia. This has meant stronger polities in the East and a weakening of polities in the West, where fragmentation of nation-states and multiculturalism are expres­ sions of this process. Globalization occurs and is an expression of declining hegemony. It implies the globalization of capital movements, commodities, and populations, the latter largely as a result of increasing facility of migra­ tion and increasing local instability and dislocation. In this process, cultural identity proliferates at all levels of the system. Indigenous movements have increased logarithmically, regionalism has grown rapidly, national identities have become .increasingly ethnified, and immigrants have become diaspora societies. Above it all, in the global circuits of high cuI ture, intellectual arenas, media elites, and diplomatic spheres, there is a global identity, a cosmopolitan iden- ,I. tity constructed on the basis of a multiculturalized world. It is a self-identified "\ hybrid identity encompassing the cultural plurality of the world on which it is totally dependent for its self-definition. But as this is an all-encompassing identity it must define other people's realities for them. Hybridity becomes truth, and national, local, ethnic and other restricted identities become back­ ward, red-necked, and nationalist. Global becomes equivalent to cosmopolitan and then to urban and hybrid. World cities become world cultures and the latter are not merely multicultural as a result of globalization, but truly hy­ bridized as a result of fusion, as in fusion cuisine. This is a new world, a new world of class, a new world of cosmopolitan consumption. s As a normative stance, hybridity requires interesting moral imperatives, not least a systematic solidarity with that which is unknown, on the grounds of a universal cultural tolerance or even engagement (see, for example, Levinas 1 97 1 ). Much of this discourse expresses a combined repudiation of that which is most at home in exchange for that which is most distant. It is a language of distinction and of distantiation from the local, which is why it often celebrates the city or even the airport. And while intellectuals may celebrate border crossing, the lumpenproletariat real border-crossers live in constant fear of the border and express a very different view of the matter. Without real borders, no border­ crossing, without differentiation, no hybridization, and the fact of difference is not an autonomous cultural fact but the product of the practice of building walls, fences, and boundaries.

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29 1

N OTES

1. ''Two Crows Denies This" is a famous phrase from an article by Edward Sapir dealing with the issue of outsider versus insider representations of reality (Sapir 193 8). 2. I have argued that hybridity harbors no critique of essentialism because it is a

derivative of essentialism. Arguing that cultures are creole merely pushes the essences back in some mytho-historical time frame when things were pure. This is inherent in the concept itself. 3. It should be noted that diasporas are not usually associated with hybridity, but, on the contrary, with extreme forms of precisely that essentialism, transnational ethnic identity that ought to be at odds with hybridity. 4. The actual terms are used as follows: "boundary transcending potential which emerges out of spiritual visits into historical, past cultures or contemporary, alterna­ tive cultures"; "reservoir of alternative knowledge"; "alternative cultural frames of reference"; "new composite language s"; "complex forms of transcultural communi­ cation"; "struggle for control over one's own existence against authority, dominant cultural norms, racism and discriminating control"; "shared cultural experiences in local communities . . . unite black and white youth"; "amalgamation of cultural ex­ pressions (language, music and other forms of interaction)" which "symbolizes mu­ tuality in a common struggle to reconstitute a 'collective historical presence' beyond the divisive, fragmented forms of existence in the inner cities"; "ethno-cultural amal­ gamation, which includes a dynamic merging of the legacy of anti-colonial resistance with new forms of struggle rooted in modem urban contexts." 5. A well-known intellectual colleague explained to me that while he is negative about Germany, he bought a Volkswagen instead of a Saab, because the latter was constructed out of a high percentage of German parts while the former was entirely Mexican. The identity of objects is tricky business. .

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REFERENCES

Alund, A. 1 992. Immigrant youth-transcultural identities. In C. Palmgren, K. Loy and G. Bolin, eds., Ethnicity in Youth Culture, 73 94. Stockholm: Unit of and Cultural Theory, Stockholm University. Barth, F. 1 995. Ethnicity and the concept of culture. In D. Imig and P. Siavsky, eds., Nonviolent Sanctions and Cultural Survival. Boston: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Bergesen, A., and R. Fernandez. 1995. Who has the most Fortune 500 finns? A network analysis of global economic competition, 1 956-1989. Journal of World-Systems Research 1 . 12. Online at csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/jwsr.html. Caglar, A. 1 997. Hyphenated identities and the limits of "culture." In T. Madood and P. Werbner, eds., The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe, 1 69-85. London: Zed. -

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Canciini, N. 1 995. Hybrid cultures. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Chatterjee, P. 1 993. The nation and itsfragments . Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press. Dicken, P. 1992. Global shift: The internationalization of economic activity. London: Chapman. Dirlik, A. 1992. The postcolonial aura: Third World criticism in the age of global capitalism. Critical Inquiry (Winter): 328-56. Elm, B. 1 992. Youth and multiculturalism. In C. Palmgren, K. Lovgren, and G. Bolin, eds., Ethnicity in youth culture. Stockholm: Stockholm University. Ekholm, K. , and J. Friedman. 1995. Global complexity and simplicity of everyday life. In D. Miller, ed. , Worlds apart. London: Routledge. Fish, S. 1 988. No bias, no merit: The case against blind submission. PMLA 1 03 : 739-

48. Friedman, J. 1 997. Global crises, the struggle for cultural identity and intellectual pork barreling: Cosmopolitans, nationals and locals in an era of de-hegemonization. In P. Werbner, ed., Debating cultural hybridity. London: Zed. Gellner, E. 1 994. Malinowski and Wittgenstein: Impact of the Habsburg world on England. Lecture given at Research School for Historical Anthropology/Sociology, University of Lund, Sweden, October 3 . Gilroy, P. 1 987. There ain 't n o black i n the Union lack. London: Hutchinson. Hall, S. 1 996. When was the post-colonial: Thinkiqg at the limit. In I. Chambers and " ,¥", L. Curtis, eds., The post-colonial question, 242-60. London: Routledge. Hannerz, U . 1 988. American culture: Creolized, creolizing. In American culture: Cre­ olized, creolizing and other lectures. NAAS Biennial Conference, Swedish Institute for North American Studies. --- . 1 996. Cosmopolitans and locals in world culture. In Transnational connections. London: Routledge. Hansen, T. 1 995. Inside the Romanticist episteme. Unpublished manuscript. Harvey, D. 1 989. Thepostmodern condition. Oxford: Blackwell. Hebdige, D. 1983. Subculture: The meaning of style. London: Methuen. Hooks, R 1 995. Killing rage: Ending racism. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Jacoby, R. 1994. Dogmatic wisdom: How the culture wars divert education and distract America. New York: Doubleday. Kelly, John. 1 995. Diaspora and world war: Blood and nation in Fiji and Hawaii. Public

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Culture 7 . 3 : 475-97. Kotsinas, Ulla-Britt. 1 992. Immigrant adolescents' Swedish in multicultural areas. In C . Palmgren, K. Lovgren, and G . Bolin, eds., Ethnicity in youth culture. Stockholm: Unit of Media and Cultural Theory, Stockholm University. Lash, S., and 1. Urry. 1 994. Economies of signs and space. London: Sage. Levi-Strauss, C. 1962. La pensee sauvage. Paris: Pion. Levinas, E. 1 97 1 . Totalite et infinite. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Lind, Andrew. 1 953. Changing race relations in Hawaii. Social Process in Hawaii 1 7 :

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Pietersee, J . N. 1995. Globalization as hybridization. In M. Featherstone, S . Lash, and R. Robertson, eds., Global modernities, 45-68. London: Sage. Rosaldo, Rene. 1995. Introduction. In N. Canciini, Hybrid Cultures. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Rushdie, Salman. 1 99 1 . Imaginary homelands. London: Granta. Sapir, E. 1 938. Why cultural anthropology needs the psychiatrist. Psychiatry 1 : 7-1 2. Sassen, S. 1 994. Cities in a world economy. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge. . 1 996. Losing control: Sovereignty in an age of globalization. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Schwartz, J. 1 992. The Turkish community in Berlin: Youth cultures in the system ofthe German welfare state. In C. Palmgren, K. Lovgren, and G. Bolin, eds., Ethnicity in youth culture. Stockholm: Unit of Media and Cultural Theory, Stockholm University. Todd, E. 1 994. Le des tin des immigres: assimilation et segregation dans les democrati$s occidentales. Paris: Seuil. Wallace, M . 1 995. For whom the bell tolls: Why Americacan't deal with black feminist intellectuals. Village Voice Literllry Supplement, November. Young, R. C. 1 995. Colonial desire: Hybridity in theory, culture, and race. London: Routledge.

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Indigenous Struggles and the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

jonathan Friedman S ince the mid-1 970s there has been a massive increase in the activities of indigenous minorities in the world. Their struggles have become global news, and they have entered numerous global organizations so that they have become an international presence. This, I shall argue, does not mean that they have been globalized and that they are just like everyone else in today's globalizing world. They have been part of many a national scene for many decades. They have been marginalized in their own territories, boxed and packaged, and sometimes oppressed even unto death. But this has changed in many parts of the world, because the indigenous is now part of a larger inversion of Western cosmology in which the traditional other, a modem category, is no longer the starting point of a long and positive evolution of civilization, but a voice of wisdom, a way life in tune with nature, a culture in harmony, a gemeinschaJt, that we but lost. Evolution has become devolution, the fall ofcivilized man. But . is a social reality to this change as well, since the voices of the other voices of real people struggling for control over their conditions of conditions that have been denied to them at the very least. This struggle is oQt about culture as such, but about social identity of a particular kind, indigenous identity, which is constituted around cultural and experiential continuities that are only poorly mirrored in Western categories, not least, in anthropological categories. Fourth World struggles have been partially, and in some cases very, successful, but they do not operate in a simple structure where the only larger context is the nation-state or some other kind of state. They are also part of a dynamic global system, one that is multiplex and contains a number of related processes. There has been a more general inflation of cultural politics and ethnic conflict in the world, but there are also substantial increases in class 295

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stratification, economic polarization, and major shifts in capital accumulation. All of these changes constitute a field of analysis that must, I believe, be our central focus of understanding. We need always to struggle to gain and maintain a perspective on reality, especially in periods, like this one, when it seems to be escaping at such great speed. This is a period of rapid change. It is heralded as the age of information, the age of globalization. Anthropologists have been much taken by the current transformations but have not done much in the way of research on them. This is unfortunate because the changes or experienced changes have certainly impacted the discipline. What is going on? Is culture dead? Is consumption where it's all at? Are we entering a new urban civilization in which hybridity is the rule and the indigenous interesting primarily because it can be incorporated into a larger global celebratory machine, like world music incorporates its various themes? It is necessary to step back, take it easy, look at the contours of the world we inhabit and investigate seriously the mechanisms that seem to be steering our history. What may appear as chaos, or as "disjuncture," is truly an appearance, the starting point and not the end point of our attempt to grasp the nature of social reality.

ON G LOBALIZATION

The first appearance that strikes many of us today is captured by the slogan "globalization," which is bandied about in business economics (where it really developed), to cultural studies and even anthropology. Some work on globaliza­ tion is analytically and theoretically significant, but much more of it consists in simple opinions and reflections on the immediate. Cultural globalization think­ ing is based on a myopic vision rooted in intellectual experience of the media, Internet, and travel. It correctly understands that the wor Id has become smaller. (But this is always relative: Braudel made speed of transport a key to his notion of world "systems," a theme also well developed among geographers, not least Harvey, whose concept of "time-space compression" does enough to account for much of what globalization consciousness is all about.) Robertson, who was one of the first out in these discussions, places globalization at the turn of the twentieth century, although he has now pushed this back to the ancient world. He is primarily interested in consciousness of a larger world and the way in which people increasingly identify with a larger global unity as well as the way the local expresses the global. The establishment of the League of Nations and many of aur new global cults is an example of globalization, but so is the Meiji Restoration 's importing of European concepts of governance. 1 Cultural form moves and is adopted into increasingly larger spaces. Now of

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course this has been going on for quite a long time. Even the conceptual ap­ paratus of globalism is present in the universalism of the Enlightenment or the Ecumenism of the late medieval Church, to say nothing of Alexander the Great. So, the historical demarcation of the origins of globalization does not hold water since there is no historical disjuncture involved, or on the con­ trary, there may be innumerable such ruptures. Robertson, at least, explores the ideological structures of globalization, although without any concrete re­ search material to support his interpretations. In anthropology, globalization discourse is even more limited in historical and intellectual scope. It usually refers to a very recent period, the 1 970s, perhaps and is closer to CNN in its intellectual content, the latter having been first with much of the jargon. Here it is used, very much following cultural studies arguments, to dislocate and deconstruct common notions of culture. The latter is no longer anchored in territory. Nor is anything else, according to Appadurai. Instead we are all in movement, not just our migratory selves, but our meanings, our money, and our products. And all of these various "scapes" seem to have gotten lives of their own, leading to a chaotic disjuncture. More pedestrian approaches, such as that of Hannerz, make no clear statements, except that the world has suddenly become culturally hybridized because of the various movements of cultural things, inclUding here, subjects. This is indeed a global vision of matter out of place. Mary Douglas might h ave seen it coming. But it is also an enjoyable chaos of variable mixtures that has become an identity among certain intellec­ tuals and non-intellectuals that is part of the reason that a larger perspective is needed. Globalizing intellectuals, and significant actors in the world today, do not seem to like indigenous movements. Kelly ( 1 995) after citing Appadurai to the effect that, "we need to think ourselves beyond the nation" (Appadurai . 1 993:4 1 1 ) , goes on to make his case against the indigenes: > :, . .

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. Across the globe a romance is building for the defense of indigenes, first people� natives trammeled by civilization, producing a sentimental politics as mixed with motifs of nature and ecology as with historical narratives . . . . In "·: - . '. Hawaii, the high water mark of this romance is a new indigenous nationalist .... movement, still mainly sound and fury, but gaining momentum in the 1 990's . . . This essay is not about these kinds of blood politics. My primary focus here is not the sentimental island breezes of a Pacific romance, however much or little they shake up the local politics of blood, also crucial to rights for diaspora people, and to conditions of political po ibility for global transnationalism. (KeUy 1 995) .,,),.� ;.,," ! I,".:, "

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. This is an issue of class or elite position to which I shall return . As an intro­ duction to the issue it should merely be noted that globalizing cosmopolitan identity appears to be very much intertwined with the discourse of globaliza­ tion, and it is not, thus, a scientific way to go about understanding the global.

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Let us take a step backward here and ask a few questions. Has the world become globalized so recently? Is everything really different today? Are there not territorial practices or (God help us) "cultures" anymore? In much of the discourse the answer is normative. There are plenty of nationalists and ethnics and indigenous radicals around, but they have got it all wrong! They haven't caught up with progress ! And progress is globalization, the formation of a global village, and the village is really a world city. Oh what fun ! But for whom? There is another side to this and another approach to the global as well. That approach is not, I would argue, so caught up in the immediacy of the categories that it posits, but maintains a self-reflective distance to them. First, as argued in this volume, globalization is not new at all, not, at least, according to those who have actually researched the question. While there is much debate, there is also an emergent argument that the world is no more globalized today than it was at the turn of the century. Harvey, who has done much to analyze the material bases of globalization, puts the information revolution in a continuum that includes a whole series of other technological time-space compressions. Hirst and Thompson ( 1 996) go much further in trying to de-spectacularize the phenomenon. Submarine telegraphy cables from the 1 860's onwards connected inter­ continental markets. They made possible day-to-day trading and price-making across thousands of miles, a far greater innovation than the advent of electronic trading today. Chicago and London, Melbourne and Manchester were linked in close to real time. Bond markets also became closely interconnected and large­ scale international lending-both portfolio and direct investment-grew rapidly during this period. ( 1 996:3)

Foreign direct investment, which was a minor phenomenon relevant to port­ folio investment, reached 9 percent of world output in 1 9 1 3 , a proportion that was not surpassed until the early 1 990s (Bairoch and Kozul-Wright 1 996: 10). Openness to foreign trade was not markedly different in 1 993 than i n 1 9 1 3 . In the 1 890s the British were very taken with all the New World products that were inundating their markets (Briggs and Snowman 1 996), cars, films, radio and x"rays and lightbulbs. "As in the late 20th Century trade was booming, driven upwards by falling transport costs and by a flood of overseas invest­ ment. There was also migration on a vast scale from the Old World to the New" (Briggs and Snowman 1 996). Indeed, in some respects the world economy was more integrated in the late nineteenth century than it is today. The most important force in the convergence of the nineteenth-century economies was mass migration mainly to America. In the 1 890s, which, in fact, was not the busiest decade, emigration rates from

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Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Scandinavia were all above 40 per 1 ,000. The flow of people out of Europe, 300,000 people a year in mid-century, reached one million a year after 1 900. True, there are large migrations today, but not on this scale." (Economist 1 997/1998:73) This was a period of instability, to be sure, of enormous capital flows, as today. It was also a period of declining British hegemony and increasing British cultural expansion. Britain had no enemies as such, except those that it was helping to create by its own export of capital. Arrighi argues on the basis of historical research that massive financial expansions have accompanied all the major hegemonic declines in the history of the European world system: To borrow an expression from Femand Braudel ( 1 984: 246}-the inspirer of the idea of systemic cycles of accumulation-these periods of intensifying competi­ tion, finanCial expansion and structural instability are nothing but the "autumn" of a major capitalist development. It is the time when the leader of the preceding expansion of world trade reaps the fruits of its leadership by virtue of its com­ manding position over world-scale processes of capital accumulation. But it is also the time when that same leader is gradually displaced at the commanding heights of world capitalism by an emerging new leadership. (Arrighi 1 997 :2)

This kind of argument has been central for the kind of historical global systemic analysis that we have engaged since the mid- 1 970s. If our argument dovetails with Arrighi here, it is due to a certain equifinality of research results and not a mere theoretical similarity. In this model East Asia should be the next center of the world system, but, many are arguing today that what historicalily appears as a periodical globalization may be becoming a permanent state of affairs (Sassen 1997; Friedman 1 998a, 1 998b). As a result of speed-up the cycles of accumulation may have so decreased in periodicity as to make graphical shifts a mere short-lived tendency rather than a process that realized in new hegemonic eras. This should not detract from the degree to which East Asia has grown to a dominant economic might even be argued that the current crisis is a result of precisely this rapid growth in a period of shrinking real world markets. The purpose of starting with all of this is to set the stage for a perspective. Globalization has occurred previously. It does not necessarily indicate that we are entering a new era in evolutionary tenlls, and it is certainly structurally comprehensible in terms of what is known about the world system. Glob­ alization is a structural phenomenon in the terms set out here. In economic terms, it refers primarily to the decentralization of capital accumulation. The unification of the world in technological terms is a process that is financed by decentralizing capital investment, not by some autonomous cultural or even technological process. And while it certainly generates a global perspective

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for those who travel along the upper edges of the system, there are other pro­ cesses that are equally global in terms of their systematicity, but exceedingly local/national/ethnic/indigenous in terms of their constitution. This is the crux of the problem: the current situation is one that is producing both globalized and localized identities. In sociological terms both of these phenomena are local. Globalization is in fact a process of local transformation, the packing in of global events, products, and frameworks into the local. It is not about de­ localizing the local but about changing its content, not least in identity terms. A cosmopolitan is not primarily one who constantly trave ls the world but one who identifies with it in opposition to his own locality. That is why so many working class border crossers in the world are so blatantly innocent of such an identity. They are less interested in celebrating their border crossing than in avoiding precisely the borders that are so deadly dangerous in their lives. The true cosmopolitans are, as always, members of a privileged elite, and they are not so in objectively cultural terms, if such terms make any sense, but in terms of their practices of identity.

FRAGMENTATION A N D I N DI G E N EITY

In global perspective, there is not that much disagreement today concerning the fact that the world is pervaded by a plethora of indigenous, immigrant, sexual, and other cultural political strategies aimed at a kind of cultural liberation from the perceived homogenizing force of the state. In a certain perverted sense this is as true of the new elites as of the regional minorities, but in very different ways. The rise of indigenous movements is part of this larger systemic process, which is not to say that it is a mere product in a mechanical deterministic sense. There are two very different but related aspects to this process. The social process consists of the disintegration of homogenizing processes that were the mainstays of the nation-state. This has led to increasing conflicts about particular rights and of the rights of "particular" people, a real conflict between individual vs. collective rights and of the national vs. the ethnic. Cultural pobtics in general is a politics of difference, a transformation of difference into claims on the public sphere, for recognition, for funds, for land. But the differences are themselves differentiated in important and interesting ways, not least in relation to extant structures of identification. Both regional and indigenous identities in nation-states make claims based on aboriginality. These are claims on territory as such, and they are based on a reversal of a situation that follows from conquest. Roots here are localized in a particular landscape. There are important ambivalences here. All nationals can also be regionals, and many nationals can identify as indigenes. All of this is a question

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of the practice of a particular kind of identity, an identity of rootedness, of genealogy as it relates to territory. It is in the very structure of the nation­ state that such identities are prior identities. No nation can logically precede the populations that it unified in its very constitution. This, of course, is a logical and not an empirical structure. There is no guarantee that the nation­ state did not itself generate regional identities. In fact much of the "Invention of Tradition," tradition consists in arguing precisely in such terms. Just as colonial governments created regional and state-to-be identities in Africa, so did nation-states create regional minorities at home. What is overlooked in this intellectualist tradition is the way in which identities are actually constituted. The latter consist of linking a matrix of local identifications and experiences to a higher order category that then comes to function as a unifying symbol. The logic of territorial identity is segmentary. It moves in terms of increasing encompassment, and it depends on a practice of creating fields of security. It expresses a certain life-orientation, an intentionality, that cannot be waved away by intellectual flourishes. The differential aspect of indigeneity is not a mere social struggle for recog­ nition of difference. It is about the way difference must be construed and incarnated in real lives. There are extreme examples of this process that are expressive of the deep structures of the nation-state. It has led the Afrikaners of South Africa to apply for participation in the Permanent Forum on Indige­ nous Issues. One of the most spectacular examples, to my knowledge, is the formation referred to as the Washitaw nation. The Washitaw according to Dahl ( 1 997) are a self-identified tribe, inhabiting the Louisiana, Mississippi, Okla­ homa area. They are black and are affiliated with the extreme right "RepUlblic of Texas." Theyclaim to be descended from West Africans who moved to Amer� ica when the continents were still joined, that is, before the "red" "We are the aborigines the dark-skinned, bushy-haired original of ' so-called' north and south America (Muu, Afrumuurican)" (Bey They have an empress who claims not only land but also an descent for her tribe. Dahl shows that there are early references to · from the early nineteenth century thatindeed describe the Choctaw as somehow different than their neighbors, but it is not clear that they were black. Onthe other hand, there are black Indian tribes in Surinam who are descendants of runaway slaves, and it is not unlikely that blacks may have been adopted into the Indian tribes of the area. What is more important is the fact that there is a local identity that may well be one that resulted from historical relations between blacks and Indians, but that it has been transformed into tribal identity in which the African is paramount and more indigenous than the Indian. The structure of the identity is what is important here, and its association with the Repu blic of Texas is significant. For such groups, the major enemy is the state,

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representative of the cosmopolitan and anti-popular, oppressor of real people, imperial, and positively against the kind of aboriginal difference represented by the Washitaw and similar organizations. Their political aim is control over territory and governmental autonomy. They make their own license plates (as do certain Hawaiian groups) and refuse the entire tax system of the United States. The polity that is constructed here is one whose logic is organized by the very structure of nationhood, a relation between cultural identity and territory opposed to the territorial nation-state, which is perceived as usurper and con­ queror. This kind of a structure emerges in conditions in which the state is clearly not representative of the people involved. Such conditions are variable, not only in space, but in time as well. The logic linking peoplehood and in­ digeneity to the constitution of the nation-state is the same logic as well as a structure of opposition. Kapferer, in his discussion of Singhalese and Aus­ tralian forms of nationalism suggests that Australia, as a variant of the modem nation-state, is one based on an absolute distinction between nation and state. The people identify as separate and subordinate to the state, which is perceived as a foreign body. Australia is exemplary in that the history of a country that was not just a colony, but a penal colony, peopled by the powerless and clearly not associated in an organic way with statehood; not any more than prisoners can be said to own the prison that they inhabit. Australia is pervaded by an ambivalence that is quite complex. The core of the country, the nation, is alien­ ated from the state that it has strived to capture. Its relation to both territory and empire places it in a fragile position. If its primary identity is established in relation to its main country of origin, as a penal colony, it is also, by defi­ nition, an immigrant country. Not only alienated from the state, but even from nature associated with the savage and uncontrollable Outback that can only be conquered but neither adapted to nor understood (Lattas 1 987). Caught be­ tween and opposed to the state, the Aborigines and new immigrants, this is a potentially volatile structure of identification that produces both primitivist and anti-primitivist ideologies. It may help account for a state-organized mul­ ticulturalism whose policy expressed in Creative Nation is aimed at recreating a new national identity based on a notion of combined differences that are not weighted in any clear way, thus alienating both a significant core of white Aus­ tralians and the Aborigines as well. It might also help account for the particular racism directed against Aborigines, which places immigrants and Aborigines in the same category of threat-to-the-nation (Blainey 1 995). The other extreme is represented by "homogeneous" countries like Germany and even more so the Scandinavian countries, where peoplehood, nature, and the state are fused, and in which the modern state can be said to have been captured by the "people," at least until quite recently. Now of course this is a historical process as well. In Sweden, the patriarchal structure was not imbued with a strong notion of

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representativity until the working-class movements transformed its patriarchal organization into an anti-state of sorts. (It should be noted, however, that the patriarchal state was strongly oriented to the "people" and to the formation of a national unity of an organic type based very much on the responsibility of the national elites toward the people.) Where the early patriarchal structure was one in which the ruling class "owned" the people, its capture inverted this relation. This is of course more complex, since the state itself is essentially a representative governmental body and not a class. The real conflict relates to the control of the state as a political instrument. The social democratic state, the "people's home" became a power in itself, just as Clastre 's anti-chief. The latter is the transparent instrument of peoplehood, but also an instrument of violent control and levelling. The Swedish state reorganized much of social and economic life in striving to create the "good society" in the name of the people. This representativity was maintained until recently at the same time as state functions were defined actively as extensions of the will of the peo­ ple. As Clastres and others also have pointed out, such a structure accords an enormous potential for the transformation of the state into an autonomous and self-directed organism. The practice of homogeneity in Sweden was success­ ful largely because it resonated with local identities. The ruling class was in important respects, and excepting here the nobility, an outgrowth of the "peo­ ple." Indigeneity is only fragmenting when it is a separate identity within the state (as with the Sami). The indigenous as a general form of intentionality is about rooting. In certain conditions it produces alternative identities against the state; in other conditions it can produce extreme nationalism within the state. This accounts for the strange fact that the ideology of the New European . Right is so similar to that of some indigenous movements. As a strategy it is more general than indigenous movements as such. Self-directedness is makes such movements distinct. There is no logical way that ua and indigenous movements can co-exist without a change within the . ... structure of the state itself, or by concluding compromises that simply tuate the ambivalence in the situation. The articulation of indigeneity world system produces a whole set of new contradictions that are becoming salient in the contemporary situation. This simplified continuum is a continuum of positions in the global system as well as a continuum of logical variation. It is not a static or general typology but refers to an organization of identification that can itself change over time. The globalized identities of today are those that have stressed the superiority of hybridity and then ofmulticulturalism which, from their point of view, is an encompassment of difference, that depends on "being above it all." But such positions are only possible with reference to the nation-state itself. They are those who define themselves as going beyond the nation-state and who declare that the latter is a dying or dead institution and even blame it for the major .

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ills of the world, usually summed upin the word, "essentialism." But this is merely one position in a spectrum of possibilities that I cannot explore here. At the other end of the spectrum is indigeneity itself. The relation between national elites and the nationalist position is highly ambivalent insofar as it is ideologically egalitarian at the same time that it is hierarchical in practice. I have suggested that the major operator in this continuum is the dynamics of class formation in the global system. Globalizers are those who identify with the top of the system while localizers tend to identify with the bottom. There is more to this, however, than mere identity politics.

G LOBAL PROCESS A N D T H E U N I FICAT I O N OF FRAGMENTS U N D E R CAPITALISM: T H E N EW CLASSES

In a very important doctoral thesis (published in 2000), Elizabeth Mary Rata has described what she refers to as the emergence of tribal capitalism. Her ,

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hypothesis is that a new class has emerged, a post-industrial class, whose wealth and power are based in the new sectors of economic development, the media, Internet and other software sectors, and the professions surrounding these sec­ tors. This class is the bearer of a new ideology, one that must at first oppose itself to old capitalist elites. It occupies an ambivalent position, a combination of particular elite status and a universalistic ideology of equality used in the strug­ gle against the old dominant class. This situation leads to the emergence out of a guilt complex typical for this class position of a bi-cultural ideology for New Zealand the idea that we are all both white and Maori; we are special. This is very interesting insofar as it captures the notion of hybridity that is common in other elite ideologies, for example, Australia, Canada, and now increasingly among a certain similar cultural elite in the United States (not least academics). This is the global-orientation that I described above in relation to the estab­ lishment of globalization as an ideology. She traces the way in which this class ideology articulated with the strengthening of Maori idemtity via the establish­ ment of a separate cultural project, language schools, a national cultural revival, and then land rights and access to capital on established tribal lands. This is a movement from cultural identity to tribal property. The Waitangi Amendment Act established the tribes as corporate, political, and economic entities, and the later Maori Fisheries Commission became the means of transfer of property rights and funds for the establishment of fishing enterprises. The effects of ju­ ridification were increasing potential conflicts within the tribes as people strug­ gled to define their genealogical rights to means of production. The issue of exclusion vs. inclusion with respect to such rights is an expression of the tendency to class division among the Maori. This is a theme that appears throughout the rest of the thesis and is imteresting to compare to peoples such as the Sami in which access to reindeer and herding territories is a basis . . privilege that severely divides the population, even though the tory is somewhat different. The combination of tribal organization amd accumulation and transfers is important in understanding the way a local . ' ment can become reorganized into the global system. The class structure . •... •. seems to be emergent is one in which those who control capital within the tribes introduce wage labor among lower-ranked kin tending to turn them into a subordinate class if these relations are reproduced. The second-class division emerges between those with and without access to tribal property, more than half of the Maori who still inhabit urban ghettos. Ratamakes use of Marxism and especially Regulation Theory to develop her thesis that there is a new form of accumulation emerging here, the "tribal capitalist mode." There is a third process Rata touches on as well, the formation of a Maori middle class based on the control over specialized knowledge in the matrix link­ ing the new national cultural class, referred to above, the cultural apparatuses '

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of the state and the reconstruction of Maori society. These are intellectuals who played and continue to play key roles in the Maori movement, but also function as consultants to both tribes and government as mediators and teach­ ers. It is, of course, to be expected that intelligentsia should emerge within such movements and that they should become increasingly established as the movements become institutionalized. They are, after all, the focal points for political unity and often for political action as well, pivots in the competition for funding and rights. It would be a sign of incomprehension, not untypical of anthropologists, to critique such developments on the grounds that they devi­ ate from the anthropologist's conception of traditional culture. Even the class aspect of this development is quite logical in terms of the process of integration itself. On the other hand, such divisions are bound to be sources of potential conflict within the emerging larger political community. But there is more to this development than everything to do with the state of global capitalism today. This is related to the extreme decentralization of capital accumulation and the spectacular shift from real investment to fictitious accumulation. Sassen estimates that there are at least 75 trillion dollars in the circuit of financial capital. Since the 1 980s financial assets have grown 2.5 times faster than the gross domestic product of t�e richest nations, and it is continuing to grow logarithmically in this period. of real overproduction, as evidenced by the Asian crisis. Much of this money is transferred in the form of pork barrels to firms dealing with all kinds of non-productive activity, not least among them are the so-called consultancies and NGOs that have developed explosively in the past decade. There are of course many NGOs that are engaged in productive activities or in genuinely effective activities related to the survival of indigenous peoples, but there is no hindrance to the massive development of carpetbaggers and treasure hunters. One of these is the recent history of an organization calling itself Uhaele, which came to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) with an offer to help them organize the approaching Hawaiian sovereignty for a sizeable fee. A contract was almost consummated but came to light suddenly, and the whole affair was called off in a throttle of scandalous accusations concerning who had signed the agreement with the finn. The same organization had some earlier dealings in Vanuatu where, after signing a lease for an offshore island, it proceeded to advertise the place as a tax haven for people of superior intelligence and sold shares in the island that was soon to be declared the independent country of Aurora. Nevels and his family were to be the royalty of this constitutional monarchy. It is intended to create an independent country called AURORA, with minimal government, maximum personal freedom and a laissez-faire economy . It is intended that the population of Aurora will be very cosmopolitan; admission as .

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first citizens will be based upon needed skills, professions and talents and belief in the political and economic principles upon which the country is founded. Men and women of numerous races, of varied religions, will be invited to apply. (N evels n.d. : l )

Needless to say, the independence never materialized. Vanuatu stopped it with military threats. Nevels disappeared and his investors lost their money. Nevels is a lawyer and when Uhaele surfaced, its home base was Reno, Nevada of course. The group entered into elaborate negotiations with OHA, which was scheduled to receive several hundred million dollars as reparations from the federal government and other funds from the state government. These entailed ultimately that Uhaele would by and large control the administration of OHA's economy in exchange for 20 percent of the net proceeds. Now as Uhaele had no capital, no employees, no equipment, to say the least, this was clearly a goldmine for them, their talent for a piece of the action: "Uhaele was a letterhead and a telephone" (Ke Kia'i 1991 :8). The world is full of firms like this, on the hunt after the masses of financial wealth that is circulating into "good causes," whether at the national or international level. In all of this there is always a tendency to class formation, however little this may be manifested. It has certainly led to the formation of global elite representatives of various groups who are immediately impli­ cated in a field of tension, between their very rooted places of origin and the inordinate power of global funds to incorporate them into the global cocktail circuit. The United Nations and a host of other mega-organizations have been gathering places for the formation of global identities, places, as well, for the destruction of local accountability. The vitality of certain indigenous move­ ments is measurable by the degree to which indigenous peoples manage tp , capture or replace their representatives in such situations. But this is truly" ��, , ., : . , field of contradictory forces. The process of fragmentation via indigenizati �1f\�< Y " is subject to processes of social verticalization that is related to the institutio §j!Y;f ' , F ' and funds that circulate in this period of globalization of capital. '

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Verticalization, or class polarization, is a vector of the global system and it causes all of the forms of fragmentation that represent the other major vector in the system. Ethnification and class formation are the paired processes that characterize this simultaneous development. The transformation of the nation­ state into a modern form of the absolutist state is an expression of the same

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process. The increase in clientelism in European states, and between the states and regions and the Union, is part of the disintegration of the homogeneous nation-state. The notion of a Europe based on regions rather than states is part of this and would transfer power to Brussels while undermining the relation between states and their subregions. Thus, the notion entertained by some ofthe cultural globalists, that we have somehow moved beyond the obsolete nation­ state and are entering a new world of the post-national, is a misconstrual of a more complex situation. While it is true that global capital exercises increasing power over national conditions of reproduction, this does not spell the end of the nation-state as such, but its transformation, from a homogeneous entity in which common goals link the "people" and their state, to a separation of the state from the nation. The state itself, according to ongoing research is becoming increasingly oriented to international capital flows, to the regulation of such flows as they relate to conditions of maintenance of territorial economic units. The recent Asian crisis has made this resoundingly evident. George Soros apparently lost over 100 million dollars in Asia, and he has, more generally, clamored for increasing international controls over financial flow s:

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Although I have made a fortune i n the financial markets, I now fear that untram­ meled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values to all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat. . . . Too much competition and too little cooperation can cause intolerable inequities and instability. . . . The doctrine oflaissez faire capitalism holds that the common good is best served by the uninhibited pursuit of self-interest. Unless it is tempered by the recognition of a common interest that ought to take precedence over particular interests, our present system . . . is liable to break down. (Soros

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This expresses a desire, at present being implemented by many states, for a stronger regulation of the conditions of equilibrium in the world market. Work by Sassen indicates that nation-state functions are increasingly shifting from national to international issues. This is what might be called a lift-off of the state. In Europe it is related in its turn to the emerging relation between nation-states and the European Union. European governmental organs are not tied to constituencies as are national organs. They have experienced problems of corruption, in uncontrolled use of power, in inordinately high remunerations for their members, but this is also reflected in the many credit card crises at the national level: there is a general accountability crisis in the nation-state that is expressed in declining respect for politicians who are considered increasingly to be a class with their own interests. Politicians, on the other hand, have in various ways expressed their distaste for ordinary people whom they often

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accuse for being red-necked and nationalist. That this can occur in a country like Sweden is ample evidence of the forces involved. Carl Bildt, European Bosnia negotiator and leader of the Conservative Party, has written that a European government is the ultimate solution for the continent and that its form could well take a form reminiscent of the Hapsburg Empire. Similar statements have come from social democrats and others. Sweden, which is officially multicultural, has, in a government bill, stated categorically that the country no longer has a common history since there are so many different immigrant groups present on Swedish soil (where does that put the United States or Canada?). The bill goes on to formulate a new structure for the state that moves clearly in the direction of a plural society, based on the association of different cultural groups. There are tendencies in the media elite and in the state to classify any opposition to this planned transformation as racism. The overall impact of the transformation of the global system is one that places the state in a new kind of vortex of global forces, one where it becomes a focal point for an association of different groups rather than the representative of what one comedian has called "that special interest group, the people." This structural tendency is one in which the political class and the other cultural elite class factions identify increasingly with the global, in which, as has been said of the American situation: "They have more in common with their counterparts in Brussels or Hong Kong than with the masses of Americans not yet plugged into the network of global communications" (Lasch 1 995 :35). Now the state, transformed in this way, becomes the focal point of certain distributions of favors, funds, and positions to an increasingly fragmented nation-state. The clientelism. to which I referred above is very much the product of this transformation. Regional, immigrant, and indigenous minorities an . become subject to this changing field of forces. The field tends to create elites that move within the global sphere, ranked lower than the real big since they are clients to the real sources of power and money. They may global spheres of their own, like the W.C.I.P. (World Council of Peoples) and they sometimes mingle with higher-ranked elites, but they primarily local clients in the global mesh of neo-feudal dependencies. The rise of indigenous movements was part of a general process of trans- . formation in the world system, one in which the weakening of the Western nation-state took the form of the rise of cultural politics. This was, as suggested, at the start, part of a common decline in hegemony that was also expressed in a rapid increase in economic globalization. Whether this is a temporary or permanent change cannot be determined here because the general periodicity of accumulation has increased, because globalization has become more rapid, cheaper, and increasingly institutionalized. It has, in any case, produced major transformations of class relations; the emergence of a new cosmopolitan elite

310

Chapter 9

or congeries of elites that have been sucked into the globalization process and who are the producers of globalizing representations of the world, understand­ ings that challenge the very existence of the nation-state and proclaim a new post-national era at the same time as fragmentation and cultural conflict are more pervasive than ever at lower levels of the system. The articulation of verticalizing and fragmenting process produces the paradox of class division at all levels, including movements that begin in urban ghettos. It is important to take these contradictions into account when trying to understand the trajectory of indigeneity in today's world.

MAK I N G T H E WORLD SAFE FOR CAPITA L I SM

The processes of vertical and horizontal polarization that I have discussed here dovetail with the work of many other authors who have written about the cultural state of the world. Appadurai, as I have indicated, has noted a certain aspect of this transformation that he understands as an increasing confrontation between new diasporic and old national structures. His position, however, is more ideological than scientific. He does concede that the future may indeed entail a bloody conflict, but he assumes that the result of the conflict will necessarily be a new world of "cultural freedom." Others have stressed the marvels of cultural mixture and multiculturalism and have transformed former progressive ideology into a struggle for cultural plurality and cultural mixture. The new transnational ideology is certainly a force in the world, but it comes not from the grass roots but from the world's various political and cultural elites. The forces involved in the processes of polarization involved the conversion of status from local to global for many for rising middle classes and even indigenous representatives. For the latter, of course, such a shift implies a contradiction in identity, a contradiction between the rootedness of indigeneity and the cosmopolitan life of the higher circulating elites of the world arena. But even the economic forces involved here can easily lead to a stratification of indigenous groups within more restricted arenas where pork barrels and state funding can be used to cement hierarchical control over the resources won over by indigenous movements. This is an important issue for indigenous movements themselves, and many of the participants in such movements are acutely aware of these issues. Much new research is needed, and this is not merely a statistical question. The understanding of new social connections, of new circles of friends and, increasingly, ofrelatives is in order. The role of the intellectuals is also crucial in understanding these developments. When Tony Giddens becomes an important advisor for Tony Blair in the name of the return of a socialist agenda, we might

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Indigenous Struggles and the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

311

take a closer look at the agenda itself, the fact that Clinton, Blair, and Prodi have joined forces leaving more "traditional" socialists such as Jospin out in the cold. When George Soros calls for a new global regulation of capitalism, he is not calling for socialism but for a stability program to make the world safe for his investments. The new alliance of the left might well be an examplar of the structural adjustment of the elites.

CON CLUSION: ROUTES V ERS U S ROOTS

I have suggested that there is a certain systematicity in the world arena that can account for phenomena that have often been left within the discourses that produced them. Some years ago it was suggested by Arif Dirlik that the new postcolonial discourse was engendered within a particular class position, that of the new postcolonial elites themselves, and that it was extraordinarily ade­ quate to the current phase of globalized capitalism. I have suggested elsewhere that the ideologies of hybridity are integral parts of an emergent cosmopolitan perspective that combines an anti-modernist culturalism with an experienced globalization of identity producing an ideology of global cultural encompass­ ment. If former internationalists and cosmopolitans were primarily modernists and not terribly concerned with their cultural identities, the new variety is just as concerned as all others to discover its roots. For the cosmopolitan the roots become necessarily multiple and entwined in their worldly journeys; roots with routes. Clifford's recent collection of essays, Routes, expresses but also explores the interaction of roots and routes, even if he is primarily concerned with the identities of objects. Diasporas, for example can certainly be understood as the cul,ul of migration, but as identities they usually imply some form of point of origin. This is the rather trivial paradox in the notion that can move from the national to the transnational in the sense of superseding former, when it is, of course, impossible to even conceive of the , without the national. The only non-rooted cosmopolitans are the older of internationalists who identified entirely with social projects, such as social� ism, or with some other form of future orientation, but never with any form of culturally framed identity. The unease in the identity of today's cultural cos­ mopolitans may account for their obvious disliking for the indigenous identities that, numerically at least, are clearly on the rise and in the great majority. My argument is that all of these emergent identities are existentially authen­ tic, true to themselves. They have an experiential force that accounts for their ability to attract new members. From cosmopolitan hybrids to Chiapas, all are true to themselves, even taking account of the complexities and variations of

312

Chapter 9

such identities. And in order to understand these real identities, which are not mere products of inventions and manipulations, we must try and understand the social conditions in which they arise. These are conditions that shape experi­ ence and, thus, channel cultural production. On the other hand we must also be cognizant of the nature of ideological struggle in the present conjuncture. This is one that is being waged in different ways and from different positions. While indigenous struggles are primarily locally focused, they have been globalized in the channels of international political organizations that have amplified their voice. While this produces a formidable contradiction in opening up a field of social identity for global representatives of the local, the latter has continuously produced forms of resistance to the formation of a new global power structure within the indigenous political sphere. Indigenizing identities and ideologies make no pretensions to re-organizing the world. The cosmopolitan struggle is quite different insofar as it is based in a rising elite faction, a globalized elite that self-identifies as encompassing the cultural variety of the world. This struggle concerns ideological hegemony, an attempt to re-envision the world as a multi culturally based yet hybridized unity-in-diversity. Elites are well placed to assert such a vision, but this placement is one that is increasingly questioned by those who do not occupy nor wish to occupy such positions. Lest we be taken in by the curious logical fallacy that would encourage us to move "be­ yond place" to shift our thinking from roots to routes, it might be noted that routes connect places, that they have origins (roots) as well as end points, and that to move beyond place entails the question, "Where do we end up then?"

NOTES

Revised version of an article published in Places . and Politics, Dirlik (ed.), Rowman & Littiefield, based on earlier mticle in Australian Journal of Anthropol­

ogy 1 0, 1 999. 1. The fact that they chose the Prussian model, which seemed appropriate for their own project, is not taken into consideration in his discussion.

REFER ENCES

Appadurai, A. 1993. Patriotism and its futures. Public Culture 5.3: 4 1 1-29. AO'ighi, G. 1 997. Globalization, state sovereignty, and the "endless" accumulation of capital. Manuscript. Bairoch, Paul, and R. Kozul-Wright. 1 996. Globalization myths: Some historical reflec­ tions on integration, industrialization and growth in the world economy. UNCTAD Discussion Paper #1 1 3 .

Indigenous Struggles and the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

313

Bey, Umaralli Shabazz. 1 996. We are the Washitaw. Columbia via USA: The Washitaw Nation. Manuscript. Blainey, G. 1 995. The new racism. The Australian 8 (April). Braudel, Fernand. 1 984. The perspective of the world. New York: Harper and Row. Briggs, A., and D. Snowman. 1 996. Fins de siecle: How centuries end, 1400-2000. Dahl, G. 1997. God save our county! Radical localism in the American Heartland. Manuscript. Economist. 1 997/1998. The century the earth stood still. 346: 7 1-73. Friedman, 1. 1 998a. The hybridization of roots and the abhorrence of the bush. In M. Featherstone and S. Lash, eds., Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World. London: Sage. . 1 998b. Class formation, hybridity and ethnification in declining global hege­ monies. In K. Olds, P. Dickin, P. Kelly, L. Kong, and H. Yimng, eds., Globalisation and the Asia Pacific. London: Routledge. Hannerz, U. 1 987. The world in creolization. Africa 57: 546-59. Harvey, D. 1989. The postmodern condition. Oxford: Blackwell. Hirst, P. 1 996. Global market and the possibilities of governance. Paper presented at the Conference on Globalization and the New Inequality, University of Utrecht, November 20-22. Hirst, P , and G. Thompson. 1996. Globalization in question. Cambridge: Polity. Ke Kia'i. 1 99 1 . The odd couple: Uhaele and OHA. Guardian 2.9. Kelly, J. 1 995. Diaspora and world war: Blood and nation in Fiji and Hawaii. Public Culture 7.3: 475-97. Lasch, C. 1995. The revolt of the elites. New York: Norton. Lattas, A. 1987. Aborigines and contemporary Australian nationalism: Primordiality and the cultural politics of otherness. In G. Cowlishaw and B. Morris, eds . , Race Matters. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Nevels, L. N. n.d. The Aurora corporation. Rata, E. M. 1 997. Global capitalism and the revival of ethnic traditionalism in New · . ' Zealand: The emergence of Tribal Capitalism. Ph.D. thesis, University of Auckian,q.;; . 2000. The Political Economy of Neo-Tribal Capitalism. Lanham, Md. : Le��{H;i! ' : 1 � } ; ington Books. ,: � f -' <_�J�L: : : . Robertson, R. 1992. Glocalization. In Featherstone, Lasch, and Robertson, eds., Globe# . . . Modernities. London: Sage. Sassen, S. 1 997. Territory and territoriality in the global economy. Manuscript. Soros, George. 1 997. The capitalist threat. The Atlantic Monthly 279.2: 45-58. ---

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22, 32, 47-49, 52, 78, 1 09, 1 36, 1 4 1 , 1 69-1 7 1 , 24 1 , 242, 247, 25 1 , 265, 267-269, 275, 290, 296, 299, 305, 306, 309, 3 1 2 Africa, 12, 1 4, 17-19, 22, 26, 47, 86, 87, 93, 1 0 1 , 175, 1 79- 1 82, 185, 1 9 1 , 198, 207, 208, 2 1 0-21 2, 222, 234, 237, 243, 301 , 3 1 3 African Idngdom, 1 87 , 1 88 , 1 94 African state, 19, 1 84, 1 86 Alberoni, F., 133, 1 36, 25 1 , 262 alliances, 1 84, 1 86, 1 8 8, 198, 200, 202, 208 alterity, 3, 7, 245, 259, 273 Amin, S . , 1 82, 1 83, 1 87, 2 1 1 ancestor, 26, 38-42, 49, 5 1 , 52, 55, 72, 78, 85, 1 04 ancestor cult, 49, 52 Angola, 207, 224 Appadurai, A " 210, 211 , 297, 3 10, 3 12 Arrighi, G., 299, 3 12 assimilation, 14, 2 1 , 1 3 1 , 1 4 1 , 1 66, 168, 1 69, 1 7 1 , 256, 270, 293 authentic, 100, 1 20, 1 24, 1 25, 1 29, 1 32, 1 36, 223, 276, 3 1 1

1 1 6, 1 1 8 , 1 24, 1 25, 1 28, 1 29, 1 3 1-1 34, 137, 1 74, 24 1 , 272 Bacongo, 200, 203, 208, 209, 214-2 16,

229 Balandier, G., 54, 56, 64, 86 balkanization, 1 09, 135, 243,

255 banganga, 30, 52, 8 1 basimbi, 3 1 , 3 8 , 39, 41-44, 46, 47, 49, 54, 66, 70 Bible, 2 1 6, 217, 224, 226 hi>� +' : ' " , .,*�¥ Bourdieu, P., 254, 258, 260, 262 t!�t��t;;; :2 ' BrazzaviHe, 59, 1 40, 179 , 1 80, 1 86 '1.: 817/1: · , c, . ,. . . •. 1 90, 1 92, 196, 198-200, 203-209; 2 1 2, 2 17, 2 1 9, 224, 235 '

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40, 5 1 , 53, 54, 1 36, 145, 1 70, 1 84, 1 9 1 , 1 93, 209, 242, 247, 290, 296, 299,

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capitalism, 5, 6, 9-1 5 , 17, 2 1 , 22, 1 5 5 ,

contradiction, 1 1 , 1 3 , 2 1 , 48, 1 3 1 , 136,

258, 260-262, 268 , 275 , 280, 28 1 , 292, 299, 304, 306, 308, 3 10, 3 1 1 , 313 Cargo, 9 , 253 Central Africa, 17, 1 8 , 87, 93, 1 80, 1 85 , 208, 2 1 0 Christian, 29, 36, 39, 45, 49, 53, 55-58, 76, 82, 93, 95, 1 1 3, 1 3 1 , 1 34, 2 1 6, 221 , 230, 235 Cluistianity, 36, 39-4 1 , 45 , 53, 55, 56, 58-60, 74, 76, 82, 1 3 1 , 172, 2 16, 221-223 churches, 1 4, 53, 54, 58, 60, 1 47, 1 52, 163, 170, 216-2 1 8 , 219, 222-224, 228 , 226-230, 234, 236, 297 clan, 3 1 , 36, 3 8-40, 45, 46, 50, 5 1 , 55, 60, 93, 98, 176, 1 85 , 1 86, 1 89, 1 97 , 1 99, 2 10, 214, 2 1 5 , 2 1 9, 223 , 228, 23 1 , 236 class, 254, 259, 260, 263, 265, 280, 282, 284, 286, 290, 295 , 297, 300, 303-3 1 1 , 3 1 3 class polarization, 263, 305 class structure, 6, 303 Clastres, P., 94, 1 06, 303 Clifford, J., 1 1 1 , 136 Comaroff, J. and J., 3, 13, 22, 26 commercialization, 1 2, 32, 246, 262 complexity, 1 9, 27 , 1 22, 1 39-142, 145, 147, 1 5 1 , 153, 155, 1 57-1 6 1 , 1 63 , 1 65-1 67, 1 69-1 7 1 , 173, 292 Congo, 2, 1 0, 1 3 , 14, 17, 1 8 , 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 37, 4 1 , 42, 47, 52, 53, 57-60, 62, 64, 65 , 74-76, 80, 8 1 , 85-88, 1 3 1 , 140, 1 69, 179-188, 1 9 1 - 1 94, 1 96, 198-201 , 204-2 1 6, 2 1 8 , 2 19, 221-224, 228, 229, 23 1 , 234, 235 , 237 continuity, 1 0, 1 1 , 1 3 , 1 5 , 1 9, 2 1 , 22, 26, 27 , 52, 59, 74, 90, 1 06, 1 1 2, 1 1 5-1 17, 1 20, 1 22-124, 1 28-1 3 1 , 1 34, 1 3 5 , 1 42, 1 48 , 1 7 1 , 176, 27 1

1 67 , 260, 274, 282, 283, 308, 309 cooperation, 69, 1 94, 200, 207 , 235, 308 cooperative , 1 94, 213 cosmopolitan, 19, 20, 27 , 139, 140, 249, 263 , 265, 272-274, 276, 277, 28 1 , 290, 297, 300, 302, 306, 309-3 1 2 creation, 22, 1 1 3, 1 14, 1 1 8, 1 20, 1 23, 1 34, 21 1 , 237, 242, 249 creole, 277, 287 , 29 1 cultural, 1-5, 7-9, 1 1 , 1 3-17, 1 9-22, 26, 38, 54, 63, 90-93, 98-102, 104, 1 05, 1 12, 1 1 6-120, 1 22-1 25 , 1 27-129, 1 3 1 -142, 1 52, 1 54, 1 56-1 59, 1 70-177, 197, 239, 241-243, 248-25 1 , 255-257, 259-26 1 , 263, 265 , 269-278, 28 1-287, 289-293, 295-297 , 299, 300, 302, 305 , 308-3 1 3 cultural elite, 265, 302, 306 cultural iJlentity, 3, 22, 92, 1 0 1 , 1 02, 1 1 2, 1 25 , 1 32, 135, 142, 1 56, 1 59, 177, 239, 24 1 , 249, 255, 256, 270, 286, 290, 300, 302 cultural logics, 1 5 , 1 37, 173 cultural movement, 1 17-1 1 9 cultural politics, 1 1 2, 293, 298, 307, 3 1 1 culture, 2, 3, 8, 1 3 , 14, 17, 1 9, 21-23, 25-27, 30, 35, 57, 64, 69-72, 87, 9 1 , 92, 97, 98, 1 00-1 03 , 1 05 , I l l , 1 1 2, 1 1 4, 1 1 6, 1 1 8, 1 20, 1 23-1 33, 1 35-140, 155, 156, 1 59, 1 63, 1 69, 1 72, 173, 176, 1 85 , 2 1 1 , 214-21 6, 2 1 9, 22 1 , 230, 237 , 240, 244, 245, 247-249, 254, 258, 260, 26 1 , 263, 265, 270-275, 277, 282-285, 287, 289-293, 295-297, 306, 3 1 2, 3 1 3 cycles, 1 0, 1 07 , 1 37 , 1 4 1 , 257 , 267, 269, 299 ,

dead, 34, 35, 38, 46-49, 5 1-54, 58, 64,

7 1 , 72, 74, 78, 1 05, 1 14, 1 65, 1 66, 2 1 6, 2 1 7 , 23 1 , 296, 303

Index decline, 1 , 8, 1 8 , 20, 25, 32, 66, 99, 1 09,

empire, 5, 7 , 9 , 26, 90, 9 1 , 1 1 7, 1 99, 24 1 ,

1 1 1 , 1 1 5 , 1 1 6, 1 28 , 1 34, 1 45 , 1 53 , 1 54, 1 59, 1 64, 1 66, 1 7 1 , 1 75-177, 1 79, 1 86, 1 99, 2 1 1 , 22 1 , 242, 243, 246, 248, 249, 25 1 , 252, 254, 268, 27 3, 275, 277, 309 democracy, 6, 9, 17, 90, 1 89, 1 97-199, 203 Dirlik, A., 276-278, 280, 28 1 , 292, 3 1 1 , 312 discontinuity, 10, 1 3-15, 90, 107, 1 17, 1 20, 1 23, 1 24, 1 29, 130, 1 34 disintegration, 7, 1 8 , 19, 2 1 , 26, 60, 72, 98, 175, 176, 1 79, 1 8 1 , 1 83 , 1 85 , 1 87, 1 89, 1 9 1 , 1 93-1 95, 1 97, 1 99, 201 , 203 , 205, 207-21 1 , 242, 243, 246, 253, 254, 258, 300, 308 disorder, 22, 2 1 0, 234, 249, 250, 253-255 Dubet, F., 254, 262 Dumont, L., 25 1 , 262 Dupre, M.-C., 37

252, 273 , 278, 302, 309 encompassment, 1 4 1 , 1 5 1 , 275, 276, 3 0 1 , 303 , 3 1 1 ethnic, 1 8 , 19, 1 0 1 , 1 09, 1 27, 1 32, 1 36, 1 54-1 56, 158, 159, 173, 176, 1 89, 1 98-204, 208-2 1 1 , 223 , 224, 239-242, 248, 249, 25 1 , 254-257, 261 , 262, 273, 278, 279, 28 1-283, 288-29 1 , 295, 300, 3 1 3 ethnicization, 177 evil, 1 9, 29, 38, 43, 52, 5 8, 68, 70, 1 50, 1 69, 2 1 3-2 1 7 , 219-223 , 225, 227-229, 23 1-237 , 284 evolution, 3, 26, 30, 1 03 , 1 06, 107, 245 , 250, 268, 295 evolutionism, 6, 7, 25, 1 25, 245, 289

economic, 239, 242, 243, 246, 247, 250, ,y ,

317

25 1 , 260, 263 , 265, 268-27 1 , 278, 280, 289, 29 1 , 292, 296, 299, 303, 305, 307-3 1 0 economy, 6, 1 2, 16, 23, 26, 9 1 , 98, 1 15 , 1 22, 1 23, 1 42, 1 46, 1 54, 1 5 5 , 1 58 , 1 59, 1 67 , 1 70, 1 79, 1 8 1-1 85, 1 87, 1 88, 1 9 1 , 193, 1 97, 205, 2 1 1 , 258, 269, 293, 298, 306, 304, 3 12, 3 1 3 EEC (Eglise evangelique du Congo), 58, 2 1 6, 224, 228, 230, 235 Ekholm Friedman, K., 1, 13, 14, 1 7 , 22, 29, 37, 56, 60, 6 1 , 87, 1 26, 1 36, 1 39, 148, 173, 179, 1 82, 185, 199, 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 , 219, 234, 237, 27 1 , 292 ELF, 1 85 , 1 9 1 , 199, 207-209 elites, 1 , 8, 9, 20, 104, 120, 1 55, 173, 1 97-199, 2 10, 242, 249, 256, 263, 264, 268, 274, 285, 287, 290, 300, 303-305 , 309-3 1 3 ,

fetish, 53, 60, 73, 76, 220, 233, 234 fetishism, 17, 29-3 1 , 33, 36-38, 49, 69,

87, 233 feudal, 1 85 , 2 14, 309 Fourth World, 109, 1 36, 1 55, 252 fragmentation, 8, 19, 20, 90, I l l , 1 12, 1 1 8, 1 75-177, 1 99, 201 , 210, 2 1 8, 239, 240, 242, 243, 248, 250-256, 263 , 267 , 274, 283, 290, 300, 307, 3 10 France, 20, 23, 86, 1 83, 186, 1 98, 207, , . 216, 254, 267 Friedman, J., 1 , 5 , 6, 1 2-1 4, 17, 2 1, �:g�: ,i h'l ::J ' ';; ' L')I;'!;�? '- ",, : 25 , 26, 29 , 5 1 , 70, 80, 82 , 89 , 1O�!;(:il.�",> 107, 109, 1 1 5, 125, 1 26, 1 34, 136�';' 1 37, 139, 148, 1 70, 173, 1 79, 182, 1 85, 1 99, 2 1 1 , 2 1 3, 219, 226, 23 1, 234, 237, 239, 265, 27 1 , 273, 290, 293 , 297, 3 10 .

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318

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Index

Geschiere, P. , 1 0- 1 3 , 22, 23 , 25, 26 gesellschaft, 3, 246 global arena, 1, 1 1 6, 1 5 8 , 1 79, 208, 255, 257 global system, 17, 1 9 , 26, 1 34, 1 37, 1 7 1 - 1 7 3 , 176, 1 79, 2 1 0, 240, 246, 249, 254, 26 1 , 264, 267 , 28 1 , 286, 295, 303-305 , 307, 309 globalization, 1 -3 , 1 1-14, 1 8-23 , 25, 1 1 6, 1 35 , 1 40, 1 75-1 77 , 2 1 0, 242, 243, 263-27 1 , 277, 289, 290, 293, 296-300, 305, 307, 309-3 1 3 gold, 103, 1 62 great chain of being, 7, 245 Greece, 9, 16, 1 9 , 26, 90-92, 1 04, 1 06 Greek, 26, 50, 90-92, 1 04, 27 1 Hall, S., 1 38, 2 1 1 , 225 , 262, 278-280, 292 Hannerz, U . , 2 1 , 22, 274, 277, 284, 292, 297, 3 1 3 Harvey, D . , 1 2 , 23, 269, 292, 296, 298, 3 13 Hawaii, 2, 14, 19, 27, 92, 93, 95-100, 1 03 , 1 05-107 , 1 1 2, 1 13 , 1 1 5 , 1 1 6, 1 1 8, 1 19, 1 2 1 , 1 22, 1 26, 1 27 , 1 3 1 , 1 34, 1 35, 137, 1 38, 1 42, 1 43 , 145, 1 46, 1 48, 1 5 1- 1 5 3 , 1 56-160, 1 63 , 1 68, 1 70, 17 1 , 1 74, 239, 288, 289, 292, 297, 3 1 3 Hawaiians, 26, 27, 92- 1 07 , 109, 1 1 1-1 1 5 , 1 17-1 3 1 , 1 33-1 38, 142, 145, 148, 1 5 0- 1 56, 1 58-162, 1 64-174, 239, 288, 289, 292, 297, 313 Hawaiian Riviera, 161 hegemony, 20, 2 5 , 27, 1 09, 1 12, 1 1 5, 1 1 6, 1 34, 1 5 3- 1 55 , 1 59, 1 7 1 , 175, 1 89, 240, 242, 243 , 247, 248, 250, 256, 263, 267, 269, 277 , 28 1 , 290, 299, 309, 3 1 2 hierarchy, 25 , 30, 3 5 , 36, 45, 46, 5 5 , 56, 63, 64, 84, 97, 1 27 , 1 59, 1 7 3 , 1 89,

1 90, 1 95 , 199, 20 1 , 202, 224, 245, 249 historical continuity, 1 0, 1 3 , 1 9 , 26, 27 , 1 17 , 1 7 1 history, 4, 5 , 7, 1 3 , 1 4, 1 7 , 19, 22, 26, 47, 5 8-60, 64, 76, 89-95, 97, 99, 1 00, 1 02-104, 1 06, 1 07 , 1 1 2, 1 1 5, 1 2 1 , 1 24, 1 27 , 1 30, 1 32, 1 35-1 3 8 , 1 5 5 , 1 60, 1 7 3 , 1 7 4 , 1 8 1 , 1 83 , 196, 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 , 23 1 , 24 1 , 242, 26 1 , 272, 274, 288, 294, 297, 300, 303, 304, 306 Hokulea, 1 19, 1 2 1 , 1 22, 1 5 6 holistic, 97, 243, 250, 2 5 3 , 279 holoholo, 1 52, 1 67 Homa Rula, 1 1 5 homogeneity, 242, 303 Horton, R., 35, 55, 56, 87 hybrid, 1 3 , 1 5 , 20, 140, 242, 272, 274-277, 283 , 285-287 , 289, 290, 292, 293 I hybr,dity, 2, 1 5 , 1 8 , 20, 239, 263, 265, 270-272, 274, 276-278, 280, 28 1 , 285-293, 296, 303 , 305 , 3 1 1 , 3 1 3 "

identity, 2-4, 6-9, 1 3 , 14, 1 7-23, 26, 65, 89-92, 99-102, 1 04, 1 05, 1 07 , 1 09-1 12, 1 1 5-1 1 9 , 1 2 1 -125, 1 28 , 129, 132, 1 34-1 37 , 1 39, 1 4 1 , 1 42, 1 48, 1 53 , 1 55 , 1 56, 1 58 , 1 59, 1 6 1 , 1 64, 1 66, 1 67, 1 70, 1 7 1 , 1 74, 1 76, 177, 200, 239, 241-257, 259-26 1 , 263, 265, 270, 272-274, 276, 279, 28 1-283 , 286, 287 , 289-292, 295 , 297, 300-305, 3 10-3 1 2 identity politics, 239, 263, 302 ideology, 10, 1 6 , 97, 98, 1 19, 140, 1 82, 1 84, 185, 197, 240, 250, 272, 273 , 282, 289, 303, 305, 3 10, 3 1 1 imaginary, 30, 125, 1 97 , 2 19, 293 immigrants, 4 1 , 24 1 , 242, 252, 256, 273, 28 1 , 283, 284, 286, 289, 290, 302 immigration, 1 70 imperialism, 4, 6, 22, 72, 1 85 , 242 indigenization, 20, 177, 263, 307

•

Index indigenous, 1 8-20, 26, 27, 30, 37, 56,

93, 94, 98, 1 09, 1 26, 1 29, 170, 172, 177, 1 82, 1 85 , 208, 240-242, 256, 263 , 274, 276, 290, 295-298, 300, 301, 303, 306, 307, 309-3 13 individual, 3, 6, 7, 32, 36, 42, 44, 8 1 , 85, 100, 1 30, 1 32, 1 33, 1 69, 1 76, 1 8 1 , 214, 2 1 9-221 , 223, 236, 247 , 250, 252-255, 257, 259-26 1 , 27 1 -273 , 300 individualization, 7, 9, 1 2, 16, 1 8, 26, 246 integration, 2, 14, 16, 1 7 , 22, 26, 1 12, 1 1 5 , 1 17 , 1 26, 1 34, 1 36, 1 4 1 , 1 7 1 , 172, 1 76, 1 94, 242, 246, 254, 260, 265, 266, 269, 272, 274, 289, 306, 312 invention 0 f tradition, 1 1 6, 1 17, 1 24, 1 30, 137, 1 38 Janzen, J., 32, 33, 77, 87 Kafka, K., 262

kahiki, 95-99, 106, 1 1 3, 1 2 1 Kapferer, B., 255, 262, 302 Keesing, R, 1 04, 105 , 107, 1 26, 1 30, 137 Kelly, J., 270, 289, 292, 297, 3 1 3 kiruloki, 34, 2 1 8 kingdom, 32, 34, 38-40, 50, 53, 54, 61-63, 67, 87, 88, 93, 98, 1 07, 114, 1 3 1 , 1 37 , 1 38 , 1 74, 1 87 , 1 88 , 1 94, 235 Kingship, 26, 32, 60, 69, 72, 87, 94 Knauft, B. M., 4, 23 Kona, 142, 145, 1 46, 148, 1 62 Kongo, 30, 3 1 , 34-38, 40, 43, 45, 47, 49-54, 56, 57, 59, 62-65 , 67, 68, 72, 76, 78-80, 82, 85-88, 1 8 8 , 1 94, 21 1 , 237 Laman, K., 29-3 1 , 38-52, 57, 59, 6 1 ,

66-7 1 , 78-84, 87, 220, 221 , 23 3, 237

319

Lari, 201-205, 222 Lasch, C . , 309, 3 13 Lattas, A . , 302, 3 1 3 Linnekin, J., 100, 1 02, 1 07, 1 1 8-122, 124, 1 26-1 3 1 , 1 3 3 , 1 3 7 , 1 48, 152, 155, 158, 172, 174 logic, 6, 9-1 2, 1 6, 1 7 , 2 1 , 22, 82, 1 17 , 1 23 , 128, 1 30, 1 3 5 , 1 37 , 1 76, 179, 1 8 1 , 1 83, 185, 187, 1 89, 1 9 1 , 193, 195, 1 97 , 1 99, 201 , 203 , 205, 207, 209, 2 1 1 , 248, 25 1 , 265, 267, 270, 273, 279, 30 1 , 302 logics, 1, 14, 1 5 , 1 8 , 1 35 , 1 37 , 173 MacGaffey, w. , 29, 35, 36, 49, 64, 68,

87

magic, 12, 17, 26, 29-3 1 , 33, 35, 46, 48,

50, 60, 70, 77, 80, 82, 1 72, 2 1 9, 248, 253 Malo, 96, 1 07 Mann, T., 262 Maori, 95, 1 29, 1 35 , 1 37 , 240, 241 , 305, 306 Marx, K, 17, 2 1 , 23 . Marxism, 1 82, 1 84, 1 87 , 1 88, 2 1 0, 278, 303 Marxist, 2 1 , 175, 1 80-182, 1 84-189, 1 96, 198 Massamba-Debat, A . , 1 83 , 184, 19�;j . , ::; 201 , 2 1 3 .. . Mbochi, 200, 201 , 203, 209 Michas, P. M., 90, 9 1 , 107 minkisi, 29, 3 1-34, 36-38, 40, 4 1 , 43; . 44, 49-5 1 , 53, 54, 59, 60, 69, 79---85 modernism, 6-9, 20, 25, I l l , 1 1 6, 1 34, 142, 177, 242-25 1 , 259, 26 1 , 273 , 274, 276 modernist, 8, 13, 16, 1 8 , 19, 25, 95, 99, 109, 1 26, 128, 1 30, 136, 1 55 , 1 56, 168, 1 7 1 , 246, 248-25 1 , 253, 256, 257, 259, 273, 275-277 , 3 1 1 modernities, 3-6, 9, 1 0, 1 5-19, 25, 175, 272, 293, 3 1 3 •

;;

',

,.

. ,",.. ,

-

Index

320

modernity, 3-7, 9-1 2, 1 5- 1 8 , 2 1 , 22, 25,

26, 1 04, 1 1 0, 1 1 1 , 1 1 6, 125, 155, 176, 177, 239, 243, 245, 246, 248, 250, 25 1 , 253, 255, 257-259, 26 1 , 272, 275 , 283 mouvement, 2 1 3 movement, 19, 27, 58, 8 1 , 96, 1 0 1 , 1 1 5 ,

1 1 7-1 20, 1 22- 1 25 , 1 3 3 , 1 34, 136, 142, 1 54-1 56, 1 58, 1 59, 1 62, 1 64, 1 67 , 1 7 1 , 172, 194, 202, 2 1 3 , 2 1 5 , 2 1 6, 2 19, 222, 223, 227 , 237 , 239, 243 , 245 , 246, 25 1-25 3 , 262, 266, 268 , 27 1 , 279, 290, 297, 305, 306 multicultural, 240-242, 250, 283, 290, 292, 309 multiculturalism, 20, 239, 240, 283 , 286, 290-292, 302, 303, 3 1 0 myth, 4, 38, 4 1 , 46, 48, 6 1 , 63, 64, 67-69, 89, 9 1 -97 , 1 00, 1 0 1 , 103 , 105, 1 07 , 1 2 1 , 1 32, 1 37 , 163, 281 •

nature, 6-8, 1 1 , 1 3 , 1 5 , 1 8 , 19, 27, 38,

39, 4 1-44, 46, 5 1 , 54, 56, 59, 64, 66, 69-72, 75, 79, 80, 82, 85, 93 , 94, 97, 98, 1 02, 1 1 1 , 1 14, 1 1 7 , 1 27 , 140, 148, 1 57 , 1 5 8 , 1 60, 1 6 1 , 1 67 , 1 72, 176, 177, 1 82, 1 97, 2 1 5 , 220, 221 , 225, 241 , 244, 247 , 250, 252, 257 , 259-26 1 , 263, 285, 288, 295-297, 302, 3 1 2 Neue Mitte, 9 nganga, 29-3 1 , 34, 52, 57, 59, 75, 78, 79, 82-84, 2 19, 220, 228 , 229, 237 NOO, 42, 5 1 , 66, 70 N gouabi, M., 1 84, 196, 20 1 , 213 Nibolek, 201-205, 209 Ninjas, 203 nkisi, 30, 3 1 , 33-35, 37, 38, 40, 4 1 , 43, 44, 47 , 49-52, 54, 55, 57, 59, 66, 68, 69, 73, 76, 78-83 , 87, 220, 221 Nkondi, 40, 83, 84, 233, 234 occult, 1 2 OHA, 1 56, 306, 307, 3 1 3

oil, 1 9, 83, 1 54, 1 69, 175, 176, 179-185,

1 8 8 , 1 9 1 , 193, 196, 198, 199, 203, 207, 209, 210, 2 1 5 opelu, 9 5 , 146, 1 54 Pacific, 1 8, 92, 1 03 , 107, 1 09, 1 1 1 , 1 1 5,

1 1 9, 1 22, 1 26, 1 34, 1 36-1 38 , 145, 1 54-1 57, 297, 3 130 peoples, 240-242, 249, 297, 305-307, 309 pidgin, 284, 287 Pietersee, 1. N . , 27 1 , 272, 277, 293 Pin90n, M., and M. Pin90n-Charlot, 3 political, 2, 4, 7-10, 1 3- 1 5 , 1 8-20, 22, 23, 25, 30, 32-38, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 49, 54-6 1 , 63-65, 67-69, 73, 77, 84, 85, 89-9 1 , 93-98, 1 04-1 07 , 1 1 2, 1 1 5, 1 1 7-1 23, 1 25, 1 27 , 1 29-1 3 1 , 1 35 , 1 37 , 1 45, 146, 1 50, 1 54, 157, 1 59, 1 7 1 , 1 75-177 , 1 79-1 8 1 , 184-193, 1 96-2 1 1 , 2 1 3-2 16, 2 19, 222, 224, 239-243 , 246, 247 , 250, 269, 274, 277, 280, 28 1 , 284, 287 , 289, 297, 300, 302, 303, 305-307 , 309, 3 1 0, 3 1 2, 3 1 3 political class, 1 92, 1 99, 200, 202, 205, 207 , 306 politics, 7 , 1 8, 27 , 8 5 , 1 03-105, I l l , 1 1 2, 1 20, 1 27 , 137, 1 53 , 1 6 1 , 1 62, 1 7 1 , 1 76, 193, 202, 2 1 2, 239, 250, 260, 263, 274, 29 1 , 295, 297, 300, 304, 309, 3 1 2, 3 1 3 politics of authenticity, 27 politics of identity, 1 8, 1 04, 1 37, 1 7 1 politique, 22, 1 89, 2 1 1 postcolonial, 14, 1 5 , 20, 22, 25, 1 25 , 1 26, 173, 1 8 3 , 1 88, 201 , 275-280, 292, 3 1 1 postmodernism, 8, 1 8, 1 1 1 , 244, 247-250, 273 power, 14, 1 9 , 22, 30-39, 43-45, 47, 49-52, 54, 56-61 , 63, 64, 66-7 1 , 77, 78, 80, 82, 84, 87, 92-94, 96, 97, 1 0 1 , 105 , 1 1 2, 1 14, 1 20, 1 24 , 1 26- 1 28, 1 30, 1 4 1 , 1 56, 160, 161, 1 64, 1 69,

32 1

Index 172, 1 7 5 , 1 76, 1 7 9- 1 8 1 , 1 83 , 1 85 , 1 87-1 89, 1 9 1 , 1 9 3 , 1 95-201 , 203-205 , 207, 209-2 1 3 , 2 1 5 , 2 1 7-220, 227, 229, 232-234, 236, 243 , 246, 247, 249, 255, 265, 267, 269, 275-277, 28 1 , 303, 305 , 307-309, 3 1 2 practice, 5, 14, 1 8 , 32, 33, 53, 55, 6 1 , 65, 90, 9 1 , 98-1 00, 1 02, 1 05 , 1 1 3, 1 23, 1 29, 1 30, 1 34, 1 36, 1 4 1 , 1 50-1 52, 1 58, 1 67-1 69, 1 7 1 , 1 72, 176, 1 88, 1 94, 2 1 9 , 228, 232, 237, 25 1 , 256, 26 1 , 27 1 , 287 , 290, 301 , 303, 304 primitivism, 8, 1 8 , 1 07, 1 25 , 1 37 , 244, 247 private, 3, 6, 7 , 16, 1 1 4, 1 46, 1 82-1 8 5 , 1 8 8 , 1 9 1 , 1 93 , 1 97, 203, 2 1 9 , 228, 244-246, 258-260 problem, 3 , 4, 6, 7 , 1 0-12, 1 5 , 30, 3 3 , 52, 56, 68, 72, 77, 8 1 , 95, 98, 99, 1 1 2, 1 1 6, 1 1 7, 1 23 , 1 28, 1 30, 1 35 , 1 62, 179, 1 8 1, 1 88 , 193, 194, 198, 200, 205 , 2 1 4, 233 , 235, 236, 247, 260, 27 1 , 273 , 280, 285, 300 public, 3 , 6, 7 , 1 6, 2 1 , 32-34, 54, 60, 84, 1 1 3 , 1 26, 1 27 , 1 5 1 , 1 5 3 , 1 54, 1 60, 165, 1 70, 1 7 5 , 1 88, 1 96, 2 1 1 , 244, 245 , 249, 250, 257-259, 261 , 262, 292, 300, 3 1 2, 3 1 3 racism, 1 0 , 1 59, 241 , 245, 25 1 , 270, 27 1 , 280, 284, 29 1 , 292, 302, 309, 3 1 3 Rata, E., 304, 305, 3 1 3 reality, 6 , 8 , 1 4, 1 9 , 20, 27 , 8 1 , 89, 9 1 , 92, 94, 95, 99, 1 01 , 102, 1 04, 105, 1 1 1 , 1 1 8, 1 20, 1 2 1 , 1 26, 1 29-1 3 1 , 1 33 , 1 34, 1 4 8 , 1 56, 1 7 1 , 1 8 5 , 1 88 , 1 90, 204, 206, 259, 263, 265-269, 272, 278, 283, 285-288, 29 1 , 295 , 296 region, 5, 10, 1 8 , 68, 7 3 , 1 1 7 , 1 52, 1 57, 1 6 1 , 1 67, 1 82, 2 1 0, 2 1 9-222, 23 1 , 289 regional, 9, 35, 1 02, 1 42, 1 59, 1 67 , 1 76, 1 83 , 1 90, 1 95 , 20 1 , 208 , 224, 256, 267, 269, 274, 289, 300, 3 0 1 , 309

religion, 26, 29, 30, 32-38, 4 1 , 43, 45-5 1 , 53, 5 5-57 , 5 9, 60, 70, 7 3 , 74, 76, 77, 80, 82, 85-87, 99, 1 3 1 , 1 3 7 , 2 1 8 , 22 1 , 222, 247 , 258, 262 representation, 5, 16, 1 8 , 20, 36, 89, 9 1 , 93, 98, 1 0 1 , 1 05, 1 06, 1 1 1 , 1 27 , 1 3 1 , 1 42, 1 48 , 1 57, 225, 244, 263 , 272 resistance, 1 8, 25, 27, 53, 56, 77, 1 1 2- 1 1 5 , 1 23 , 1 54, 1 55 , 1 96, 206, 222, 236, 270, 28 1 , 282, 291 , 3 1 2 RIMPAC, 1 1 9 Riviera, 1 60, 1 6 1 , 1 63, 1 6 8 roots, 22, 25, 7 8 , 8 3 , 99, 1 0 1 , 1 06, 123, 1 34, 1 5 5 , 24 1 , 247-249, 265, 272, 273 , 283, 289, 300, 3 10-3 1 3 Rousseau, I.-I., 245 routes, 3 1 1 , 3 1 2 ruling, 3 5 , 5 3 , 66, 69, 93, 94, 96, 1 05 , 1 1 2, 1 73, 1 8 5 , 1 86, 1 88, 1 89, 196, 1 97 , 1 99, 2 1 4 , 303 rural, 98, 1 0 1 , 1 1 5 , 1 1 8-1 20, 1 55 , 1 5 8 , 1 66, 1 68 , 1 70, 1 8 1 , 1 90, 1 9 3 , 1 94, 2 1 1 , 2 1 2, 2 1 4 Sahlins, M . , 1 1 , 2 1 , 23, 9 1 , 94, 95, 1 06, 107, 1 1 2 , 1 1 3 , 1 1 7 , 1 30, 1 35 , 1 37 , 1 74 sape (la), 1 40, 1 4 1 , 1 69 sapeur, 1 69 Sapir, E . , 102, 1 32, 1 33 , 1 36, 138, 2��;� . . , ��·;�"i"":( < - �;'�:; :�j-. ( . � . 293 . ' . - �-::tk ' ::,-- ' : -"!;� Sal1re, I. P, 1 32, 1 3 8 �f '1i '''� , - ; . . . Sassen, S., 269, 293, 299, 306, 308,3fJ . Sassou, D., 1 86, 1 88 , 1 89, 1 9 1 , 1 96, 198, 200, 201 , 203, 205-207 , 209, 2 13, 2 17 Sassou Nguesso, D., 1 9 8 , 201 sects, 2 1 6-2 1 8, 223, 237 Sempnm, A., 20, 23 sharing, 96, 98, 1 0 1 , 200 simplicity, 1 39, 1 4 1 , 1 42, 145, 147, 1 5 1 , 1 53 , 1 55 , 1 5 7 , 1 5 9 , 1 6 1 , 1 63 , 1 65 , 1 67 , 1 69, 1 7 1 , 1 7 3 , 292 sorcery, 1 0-1 3, 1 27 , 236, 237 Soros, G., 305, 308, 3 1 1 , 3 1 3 .

•

•

•

•

•

•

_ . c . _.__. .:' •• ••

__ -

_

�

322

Index

sovereignty, 7 , 57 , 93-95, 1 0 1 , 1 03 , 1 27 , 1 3 8 , 156, 293, 306, 3 1 2 spaghetti principle, 2 , 1 34, 242, 285 state, 3, 4, 6, 7 , 9, 14, 15, 1 8 , 19, 22, 23 , 32, 3 3 , 54, 79, 9 3 , 105, 106, 109, 1 1 5 , 1 25 , 1 26, 1 3 2, 140, 142, 1 45 , 148, 1 5 1 - 1 57 , 159, 1 6 1 , 1 62, 1 64-166, 1 69, 1 7 1 , 1 72, 175-177, 179-1 8 1 , 183-20 1 , 203-205, 207 , 209-2 1 1 , 2 1 3-21 7 , 226-230, 234, 239-24 1 , 243 , 245, 249, 25 1 , 253 , 255, 257 , 261 , 262, 265 , 270, 272, 273, 275 , 276, 279 , 280, 288, 289, 293 , 295 , 299-303 , 306-3 10, 3 1 2 state class, 1 80, 1 84, 1 87 , 1 9 1 , 192, 195, 199, 210, 2 1 5 structural, 9, 1 2, 1 6 , 1 8 , 2 1 , 26, 27 , 94, 10 1 , I l l , 1 26, 1 3 5 , 1 3 8 , 176, 1 8 1 , 1 97 , 199, 266, 269, 280, 297, 306, 308 structuralist, 4, 9 , 3 5 , 9 1 , 94, 1 30 structure, 5, 6, 9, 14, 2 1 , 27, 32, 35, 43, 46, 49, 52, 56, 6 1 , 63, 70, 95, 97 , 98, 102, 1 07 , 109, 1 17, 1 1 8 , 1 22, 1 23 , 125, 132, 137, 146, 1 5 1 , 156, 1 67 , 172, 1 87-190, 194, 197-199, 209, 2 10, 2 1 5 , 224, 236, 243, 246, 248, 25 1 , 253, 260, 263 , 266, 269, 272, 293, 299-30 1 , 303, 306, 309 system, 2, 1 1 , 1 2 , 14, 1 7-23, 26, 30, 32, 3 3 , 3 5 , 37, 49, 50, 5 6, 60, 89-9 1 , 97, 98, 104, 1 05 , 1 1 1 , 1 1 6, 1 22, 1 23 , 1 26, 130, 1 34-1 37, 140, 142, 1 5 1 , 156, 1 69 , 1 7 1-173, 176, 179, 1 8 1 , 1 84-1 86, 1 8 8 , 189, 1 9 1 , 1 92, 194, 1 9 5 , 197-20 1 , 2 10, 214, 2 1 5 , 219, 236, 239, 240, 243, 246, 247, 249, 254, 257, 26 1 , 263-267 , 269, 27 3 , 280, 28 1 , 286, 290, 293, 295, 299, 300, 302-305, 307-3 10

Wallerstein, I. Mo, 23 West Africans, 252, 301 witchcraft, 5, 10, 13, 1 9 , 26, 29, 32, 34, 52, 77, 1 69, 1 7 5 , 176, 2 1 6, 219, 222-224, 230-23 3 , 236, 253 world, 239-243, 245-253, 256, 257 , 259, 2 6 1 , 263-280, 282, 283, 285, 287-293, 295-300, 303, 304, 307-3 1 3 World Economic Forum, 263, 301

Third Way, 9 tradition, 3 , 7 , 1 1 , 14, 17, 25, 26, 68, 7 8 , 9 3 , 96, 1 00, 1 02, 105, 107, 1 1 1 ,

Zaire, 86, 8 8 , 140, 1 8 3 , 1 87 , 208, 219, 224 Zephirinian, 223, 228-230, 232, 236

1 1 6-134, 1 3 7 , 1 3 8 , 152, 154, 1 5 5 , 172, 174, 222, 232, 235, 247, 274, 283 , 301 traditionalism, 8 , 1 8 , 1 5 3 , 244, 247, 26 1 , 313 trance, 58, 59, 222, 226-230, 234, 235 transethnic, 281 transformation, 1 -3 , 7 , 14, 1 5 , 1 7 , 20, 22, 25, 26, 32, 37 , 56, 69, 102, 1 06, 1 17 , 1 1 8 , 1 20, 1 22-124, 1 3 1 , 1 3 8 , 170, 176, 182, 1 97 , 1 9 8 , 201 , 2 1 1 , 237 , 24 1 , 245, 246, 257-259, 272, 274, 28 1 , 288, 300, 303, 307-3 1 0 transnational, 22, 257, 266, 268, 269, 278 , 279, 29 1 , 292, 3 1 1 Trask, Ho, 105, 1 07 , 124, 1 3 1 , 1 3 7 , 1 3 8 UNESCO, 263 URFC, 1 89, 2 1 3 vampire .state, 209, 2 1 1 Van Wing, J., 38-40, 42, 44, 46, 49, 5 1 , 52, 74, 7 7 , 7 8 , 80, 84, 88 variation, 1 1 , 1 3 , 170, 249, 261 , 301 vassals, 1 3 , 63, 104, 1 8 8 Verschave, F. -Xo , 1 9 1 , 2 1 2 violence, 1 8, 1 9 , 22, 30, 96, 1 7 5 , 177, 200, 204, 2 1 1 , 254, 256, 257, 283

i

i

I !

About the Authors

Kajsa Ekholm Friedman is professor in the Department of Social Anthro­ pology at Lund University. Jonathan Friedman is directeur d'etudes at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and professor of social anthropology at Lund University. I

323 ,