Correction

For once, there are few corrections to make, apart from obviousmisprints, like the word Nelhi for Delhi on p. 219, 1. 7, andothers less obvious: a comma after moran, who do not like work(p. 208,1. 9 from the end). I have, however, been asked by thewidow of Arthur ffoulkes, who was mentioned in the history ofthe Society as one of the most vivid of early contributors tothe Journal, to make one or two small amendments. Her husbandwas not a Captain, and the reference to funeral customs camein a longer study of The Company System of Cape Coast Castle.His death at the time was given out as due to blackwater fever,but it is believed that he was poisoned by order of the priestsof the fetish Borgya and Abirva, which he had been ordered toroot out.      

Errata Volume 47

p. 4 I. 10. For Iro read Ivo p. 5 I. 35. Delete Dr p. 12 I. 10. For Carnavon read Carnarvon I. 16. For Bloemfoentein read Bloemfontoin p. 21 I. 26. Read, He was only emerging from a stage where hegrew enough for himself I. 35. Insert only after not I. 36. For or read but more I. 39. Insert merely after moment I. 40. For District Council read Legislative Council I. 42. For every read many p. 54. I. 53. For Ibo-Efi read Ibo-Efik p. 62. Under Junco read Coloniales p. 69. I. 14. For Obadeyando read Obadeyanedo p. 75. I. 19. For Colonel read Sir Stewart p. 79. I. 23. For Masubas read Mabubas p. 93. I. 32. For Salukive read Selukive (and p. 94, I. 29) p. 134. I. 26. For Riyon read Riyom p. 139. I. 17. Delete the reference to King Farouk p. 146. I. 31. For island read islands p. 184. For H. D. HOOPER read H. M. GRACE p. 190. I. 34. For lobolo read lobola (and I. 36)      

Correction

A number of errors from the last number have come to light.On p. 280, 1. Io, the site of the new Uganda land project cannotbe North-west of Lake Albert if it is to be in Bunyoro. theSources on p. 329 require a certain modification. For AfricanMorning Post, one should read Gold Coast Observer. For Bulletinde l'nstitud Centrafricain, Bulletin de l'Institut des ÉtudesAfricaines, for Congo Ocersee, Kongo Oversee. One should alsoadd the useful Books for Africa to the list for Britain andl'Egypte Contemporain for Egypt. It is also necessary to pointout thatmanysources found useful in the past have for one reasonor another, ceased to flow and cannot always be recalled evenby an act of memory. On p. 341, on the last line of the reviewby J. A. Barnes, external should read eternal. The principalcovey of errors comes however in a paragraph on the top of p.347. The title of the German book is Mythe, Mensch und Umwelt,it is published in Bamberg, one writer is Harald von Sicard,the Nyama beliefs are West African, nor can they be strictlycalled a cult. On p. 384, the reference to the Belgian guiderather misses the point when spelt with two l's. It should readTracelers, as it does in American English.      

Correction

Readers may have noted a number of misprints in the last number,caused for the most part by special circumstances at the timeof proof-reading. From the January number (p. 21, L 31), theNorthern Rhodesia and Nyasaland Joint Publications Bureau pointout that the 100 titles quoted are not all new, and that theyare producing an average of 12 new books a year, mostly of generalinterest for Africans. On the next page, 1. 22, MacMunn shouldread MacMinn. On p. 90, the figures at American Universitiesarenew arrivals only. On p. 108, R. A. Hudson was Secretaryfor Native Affairs in Northern Rhodesia, not Chief Secretary.On p. 113, the American offer to the Union was for $2m. of driedeggs and millr, the figure quoted being the cost of distribution.On p. 117, Lennox Kew Suwisa should read Lennox Ken Sivrisa.On p. 122, the figure quoted for Egyptian tobacco is the totalrevenue from indirect and direct taxes in 1949. No tobacco isgrown commercially. F. Crawford, in the introduction to theNorthern Rhodesian development tables, should have been describedas Director of Development. In the reviews, the initials ofMr. Puplampu are D. A., not A. D. (as will be seen from hisarticle in this number). On p. 172, the author of the AfricanAngelus was the Rev. Merfyn Temple, and the cost of the bookshould be changed to 3/6 (3/10 post free).      

What harm? Kenyan and Ugandan perspectives on khat

What harm does khat actually do to users and the communitiesin which they live? In this article, the health-related, social,economic, and religious arguments of Kenyans and Ugandans forand against khat consumption are reported. The medical evidencefor harm from khat is far from compelling, and the East Africandebate on khat is informed by local political discourses thatoften are closely connected to issues of ethnicity and the controlof resources. As a result, the harm attributed to khat consumptionis contested. The objective of most local efforts to curb theuse of khat in East African towns is the reduction of socialand economic ills. Yet, eliminating khat consumption would notreverse the problems that it is identified as causing. ^1. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. ^2. See, for example, Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, Drugs and Narcoticsin History (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995); JohnGoodman, Paul E. Lovejoy, and Andrew Sheratt, Consuming Habits:Drugs in history and anthropology (Routledge, London and NewYork, 1995). ^3. Daniel M. Varisco, ‘The elixir of life or the devil’scud? The debate over qat (Catha edulis) in Yemeni culture’,in Ross Coomber and Nigel South (eds), Drug Use and CulturalContexts: ‘Beyond the west’ (Free Association Books,London, 2004), pp. 101–118. ^4. Ezekiel Gebissa, Leaf of Allah: Khat and agricultural transformationin Harerge, Ethiopia 1875–1991 (James Currey, Oxford,2004). ^5. UNODCCP, The Drug Nexus in Africa (UN Office for Drug Control& Crime Prevention Monographs, Vienna, 1999); H.M. Adamand R. Ford (eds), Mending the Rips in the Sky: Options forSomali communities in the 21^st century (Red Sea Press, Lawrencevilleand Asmara, 1997). ^6. Neil Carrier, ‘Miraa is cool: the cultural importanceof miraa (khat) for Tigania and Igembe youth in Kenya’,Journal of African Cultural Studies, forthcoming. ^7. ESRC Award (RES-143-25-0046): ‘The Khat Nexus: trans-nationalconsumption in a global economy’. ^8. The British colonial authorities attempted to ban khat in Kenyabetween 1945 and 1956 but found regulation unworkable. ^9. Paul Goldsmith, Symbiosis and Transformation in Kenya’sMeru District (University of Florida, unpublished PhD thesis,1994). ^10. Neil Carrier, The Social Life of Miraa: Farming, trade and consumptionof a plant stimulant in Kenya (University of St Andrews, unpublishedPhD thesis, 2003). ^11. M. Ahmed and M. Garret, Proceedings of a Seminar on Khat andHealth (Tower Hamlets Health Strategy Group, London, 1994);H.A. Utteh, ‘The plight of Somali refugees in Europe,with particular reference to Germany (1993)’, in Adamand Ford, Mending Rips, pp. 449–59. ^12. Mark Horton and John Middleton, The Swahili: The social landscapeof a mercantile society (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2000). ^13. Interview with Imam Mahmoud Abdulkadr of Lamu. ^14. Goldsmith, Symbiosis and Transformation. ^15. Interview with Imam Mahmoud Abdulkadr. ^16. Thanks to Imam Mahmoud Abdulkadr and committee members for providingcopies of campaign correspondence. Photocopies of correspondencein the possession of the author. ^17. Undated leaflet, issued by Nairobi office of UNODC, is entitledKHAT: (Catha edulis). ^18. UNODC, KHAT: (Catha edulis). ^19. See, for example, John Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise: Theinstitutionalized use of the drug qat in North Yemen (ReidelPublishing Company, Dordrecht, 1987). ^20. M. Dhadphale and O.E. Omolo, ‘Psychiatric morbidity amongkhat chewers’, East African Medical Journal 65, 6 (1988),pp. 355–9. ^21. M. Kithure, ‘Price of miraa. Your brain or the twig’.The Daily Nation, Nairobi, 17 May 2001. ^22. Goldsmith, Symbiosis and Transformation; Carrier, The SocialLife of Miraa. ^23. W.J. Eggling, The Indigenous Trees of the Uganda Protectorate(The Government of the Uganda Protectorate, London, 1951), p.79. ^24. Carrier, ‘Miraa is cool’. ^25. New Vision published articles on khat on 20 January 1994, 25May 1994, 26 May 1994, and 19 December 1994. Reviewed by SaidiFamau. ^26. 30 May 1998, New Vision. ^27. A.O. Ihunwo, F.I.B. Kayanja, and U.B. Amadi-Ihunwo, ‘Useand perception of the psychostimulant, khat (Catha edulis) amongthree occupational groups in south western Uganda’, EastAfrican Medical Journal 81, 9 (2004), pp. 468–73. ^28. The interviewers, Musa Almass and Mzee Hasan, were trained bySusan Beckerleg. The results were analysed using SPSS12. ^29. There is little research on the effects of khat on libido, potency,and fertility. However, Hakim found a weak association betweenkhat use and abnormal seminal fluid analysis profiles. See.L.Y. Hakim, ‘Influence of khat on seminal fluid amongpresumed infertile couples’, East African Medical Journal79, 1 (2002), pp. 22–28. ^30. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise. ^31. See Gebissa for an account of the spread of Ethiopia khat linkedto the introduction of modern transportation in the Horn ofAfrica. See also Carrier, ‘The need for speed’,Africa, forthcoming. ^32. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 237. ^33. Varisco, ‘The elixir of life’, p. 108. ^34. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 194. ^35. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise. ^36. See Goldsmith, Symbiosis and Transformation; Carrier, The SocialLife of Miraa. ^37. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 193. ^38. Gebissa, Leaf of Allah, p. 18. ^39. Varisco, ‘The elixir of life’, p. 104. ^40. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 232. ^41. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise. ^42. Varisco, ‘The elixir of life’, pp. 111–12. ^43. Kennedy, The Flower of Paradise, p. 108. ^44. Gebissa, Leaf of Allah, p. 3. ^45. A. Almeddom and S. Abraham, ‘Women, moral virtue and Tchat-chewing’,in M. MacDonald (ed.), Gender, Drink and Drugs. (Berg, Oxford,1994), pp. 249–58. ^46. Gebissa, Leaf of Allah, p. 11. ^47. Almeddom and Abraham. ‘Women, moral virtue and Tchat-chewing’,pp. 249–50. ^48. Ihunwo, et al., ‘Use and perception of the psychostimulant,khat’, p. 472.     

Popular Reactions to State Repression: Operation Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe

In May 2005, the government of Zimbabwe launched Operation Murambatsvina(OM), a state-sponsored campaign to stifle independent economicand political activity in the country’s urban areas. Thisarticle employs a national probability sample survey to analysethe popular reactions of ordinary Zimbabweans to this landmarkevent. It shows that the application of state repression succeedsat some goals, fails at others, and has powerful unintendedeffects. We report that the scope of OM was wide and that themain victims of OM were younger, unemployed families whom statesecurity agents saw as potential recruits for social unrest.Whereas OM undoubtedly disrupted the informal economy, we showthat it did not succeed in banishing urban dwellers to ruralareas or permanently shutting down illicit trade. Moreover,the crackdown thoroughly discredited the police and other stateinstitutions. We also demonstrate that state repression emboldenedits victims, deepening polarisation between political partiesand fortifying the ranks of Zimbabwe’s opposition movement. ^1. Disturbing accounts of the human toll are given by the CatholicCommission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, Breaking the Silence,Building True Peace: A report on the disturbances in Matabelelandand the Midlands, 1980 to 1988 (Legal Resources Foundation,Harare, 1997) and Richard Werbner, Tears of the Dead (EdinburghUniversity Press, Edinburgh, 1991). On systematic electoralviolence, see Norma Kriger, ‘ZANU-PF strategies in generalelections, 1980–2000: discourse and coercion’, AfricanAffairs 104 (2005), pp. 1–34. On the violence associatedwith land invasions and crackdowns on journalists, see StephenChan, Robert Mugabe: A life of power and violence (I.B. Taurus,London, 2003) and Andrew Meldrum, Where We Have Hope: A memoirof Zimbabwe (Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2004). ^2. For an insightful collection of current analyses by a varietyof Zimbabwean commentators, see David Harold-Berry (ed.), Zimbabwe:The past is the future (Weaver Press, Harare, 2004). ^3. ‘Zimbabwe police target minibuses’, BBC News, 24May 2005. ^4. The Joint Operations Command - comprised of army, police, prisons,and intelligence heads - coordinates military and security affairsand, on these matters, now carries greater policy weight thanthe civilian cabinet. A senior state intelligence officer wasquoted as saying that ‘the operation is meant to reducethe number of people in the central business district so that,if violence erupts, it would be easy to contain.’ ZimOnline (South Africa) www.zimonline.co.za, 24 May 2005. JournalistBaffour Ankomah, usually sympathetic to Mugabe, also reportedthat ‘the operation was the brainchild of Zimbabwe’sintelligence community’ designed to forestall ‘aUkrainian-style revolution’ New African (London), October2005, reprinted in The Herald (Harare), 4–5 October 2005. ^5. Government of Zimbabwe, ‘Response of the Government ofZimbabwe to the Report by the UN Special Envoy on OperationMurambatsvina/Restore Order’ (Harare, 2005). ^6. ‘Rallying cry belies Mugabe’s fear of voter revolt’,The Times (UK), 31 March 2005. ^7. Compared to the 2000 parliamentary election, ZANU-PF’sshare of elected seats rose from 62 to 78, and the MDC’sshare fell from 57 to 41. With the support of an additional30 appointed MPs in the 150-seat House, ZANU-PF therefore enjoyeda two-thirds majority, enough to change the constitution. ^8. Zimbabwe Election Support Network, ‘Statement on the 2005parliamentary elections’, Harare, 3 April 2005. See alsoCarole Andrews and Bryn Morgan, ‘Zimbabwe after the 2005parliamentary elections’, Research Paper No. 05/58 (UKHouse of Commons Library, London, August 2005). ^9. ‘Police in Zimbabwe arrest 9000 traders’, Guardian(UK), 24 May 2005. ^10. ‘Zimbabwe government continues blitz’, AssociatedPress, 5 June 2005. ^11. ‘U.N. condemns Zimbabwe for bulldozing urban slums,’New York Times, 23 July 2005. ^12. United Nations, Report of the Fact-Finding Mission to Zimbabweto Assess the Scope and Impact of Operation Murambatsvina bythe UN Special Envoy on Human Settlements Issues in Zimbabwe,Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka (United Nations, New York, 18 July 2005),p. 7. ^13. ‘UN chief Annan’s statement on Zimbabwe demolitions’,Reuters, 22 July 2005. ^14. ‘Zimbabwe steams ahead with demolitions’, Mail andGuardian (SA), 26 July 2005. ^15. See ‘UN envoy says Zimbabwe’s crisis is deepening’,Business Day (SA), 7 December 2005 and ‘New threat ofurban demolition’, IRIN - Integrated Regional InformationNetworks (UN), 7 April 2006. ^16. For information on country coverage and research methods, seewww.afrobarometer.org. ^17. The sampling frame was the Government of Zimbabwe, Central StatisticalOffice, Census 2000 Zimbabwe: Preliminary results summary (GovernmentPrinter, Harare, 2003). In drawing the national probabilitysample, we followed the standard Afrobarometer sampling protocol,which can be found at http://www.afrobarometer.org/sampling.html.For ease of access to the present article, we did not burdenthe text with extensive methodological apparatus. If readershave queries about data collection or analysis, they are invitedto visit the website or contact the authors directly. ^18. ‘Zimbabwe takes harsh steps in major cities to counterunrest’, New York Times, 2 June 2005. ^19. Action Aid International/Combined Harare Residents Association,A Study on the Impact of ‘Operation/Murambatsvina/RestoreOrder’ in 26 Wards of Harare High Density Housing Areas(AA/CHRA, Harare, July 2005). ^20. Report of the Fact-Finding Mission (2005), p. 8. ^21. Ibid., p. 34. ^22. ‘Annan may take up Mugabe invite’, The Scotsman(UK), 26 July 2005. ^23. ‘Mugabe hoping to sidestep Mbeki and Annan’, SundayIndependent (SA), 24 July 2005. Zimbabwe’s Ambassadorto the UN also branded the report ‘exaggerated’,BBC News, 27 July 2005. ^24. The margin of sampling error for a survey with 1048 respondentsis plus or minus 3 percentage points at a 95 percent level ofconfidence. The confidence interval around the point estimateof 54 percent for OM victimization is therefore between 51 and57 percent. This result almost exactly replicates the findingof an earlier survey conducted by the Mass Public Opinion Institute.Based on a national probability sample of similar size (n =1041) and using the same question, MPOI found in July-August2005 that 55 percent of respondents reported that they or theirimmediate families were affected. See Eldred Masunungure andAnyway Ndapadzwa, Zimbabwe Elections, 2005: Post-Parliamentarysurvey report (MPOI, Harare, August 2005). ^25. Census 2002, p.1. ^26. This guesstimate is conservative compared to the Reserve Bankof Zimbabwe’s claim of 3.4 million Zimbabweans livingabroad in 2004 (www.homelinkzimbabwe.com) and various journalisticaccounts of 3 million or more, for example by Geoff Hill, WhatHappens After Mugabe? (Zebra Press, Cape Town, 2005), p. 2. ^27. The World Bank’s African Development Indicators says 43percent are under age 14 (World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004),p. 309. ^28. Or, taking sampling error into account, between 2.55 and 2.85million. ^29. Survey respondents may have used an especially broad subjectivedefinition when defining an OM victim as a member of their ‘immediatefamily’. There is also a small risk that some victimswere double-counted as members of more than one respondent’sextended family. Either way, we doubt that we have undercounted. ^30. Squatter settlements were unapproved, but many of them had existingcourt judgments that prevented the government from removingthem without providing alternative accommodation. Some shacksin urban areas even had planning permission. ^31. ‘Msika officially launches operation Garikai’, TheHerald (Harare), 30 June 2005. Also ‘Zimbabwe: operationlive well struggles to take off’, IRIN - Integrated RegionalInformation Networks (UN), 19 August 2005. ^32. In Zimbabwe, as in other African countries, young and unemployedpeople are least likely to vote. ^33. Mass Public Opinion Institute, Zimbabwe Elections, 2005 (MPOI,Harare, 2005) p. iii. ^34. Note: the percentage figures should be treated with cautionas the number of cases is small (n = 56). ^35. Sixty percent of these respondents were urban versus 34 percentrural. ^36. 35 percent among the former versus 37 percent among the latter. ^37. 41 percent among the random sample of adults, 45 percent amongdisplaced persons. ^38. For 2004 estimates of institutional trust, see Michael Bratton,Annie Chikwana, and Tulani Sithole, ‘Propaganda and publicopinion in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Contemporary AfricanStudies 23, 1 (2005), pp. 77–108. ^39. According to an official report, ‘Police had been approachedby local authorities to help in enforcing Council by-laws, whichwere being ignored . . . (and) to relocate street kids, vagrants,touts and vendors who were causing chaos in town.’ ZimbabweRepublic Police, ‘Zimbabwe Republic Police response toallegations of deaths suffered during Operation Murambatsvina/RestoreOrder’, (Harare, August 2005). ^40. This slight adjustment lies within the margin of sampling errorfor a single survey. ^41. Pearson’s r = 0.271, p < 0.001. ^42. By 9 percentage points: 71 percent for OM victims versus 80percent for non-victims. ^43. ‘Price of basics soars beyond reach of poor Zimbabweans’,Mail and Guardian (South Africa), 20 March 2006. ^44. Pearson’s r = 0.962, p < 0.001. Indeed, these indicatorsare so closely correlated that either could act as a proxy forthe other. ^45. The proportion of MDC supporters who said they did not trustthe ruling party ‘at all’ rose from 49 percent inApril 2004 to 62 percent in October 2005. ^46. Although the results of the bye-election of May 2006 in Budirirosuggest the mainstream MDC headed by Morgan Tsvangirai has littleto fear from the breakaway MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara. ^47. See International Crisis Group, ‘Post-election Zimbabwe:What next?’ Africa Report No. 93 http://www.crisisgroup.org(7 June, 2005). ^48. Eldred, Masunungure, Anyway Ndapwadza, and Noma Sibanda, ‘Supportfor democracy and democratic institutions in Zimbabwe’,Afrobarometer Briefing Paper No. 27 http://www.afrobarometer.org(March 2006). ^49. International Crisis Group, ‘Zimbabwe’s operationMurambatsvina: the tipping point?’ Africa Report No. 97,p. 4 http://www.crisisgroup.org (17 August, 2005). ^50. ‘African leaders break silence over Mugabe’s humanrights abuses’, The Guardian (UK), 4 January 2006.     

ERRATA

The name of the reviewer of Bantustans: A Trek Towards The Future(P.296), in the October, 1964 issue was omitted. The reviewwas by Marjorie Juta. Claude A. Collard's review of Britainand Nyasaland (P.291), in the same issue had a sentence whichwas misprinted to read: "However, he points out that those,including himself, who saved Nyasaland after the second greatwar can only marvel that so much was done with so little." Itshould have read: "Who served Nyasaland."      

Telecentres and transformations: Modernizing Tanzania through the internet

This article argues that a discourse which constructs the Internetas an inclusive development tool that can be deployed in strategiesfor modernizing Africa has become hegemonic among developmentdonors and telecommunications organizations. Based on researchcarried out in and around three Internet cafes in Dar es Salaam,and one Multipurpose Community Telecentre (MCT) in Sengerema,this article takes issue with this discourse and suggests thatthe geographies of inclusion and exclusion created by the Internetare more complex. For Tanzania’s information and communicationtechnologies (ICT) elites, the Internet will shape the populationinto knowledge- and market-seeking, productive citizens, stimulatingnational growth. For Internet cafe users and non-users, theInternet has become a marker of modernity, a way for peopleand places to indicate their relative level of development,and Internet use is currently dominated by leisure, communicationand information relating to global popular culture. However,the article demonstrates that development interventions whichturn the symptoms of poverty into technical problems to be solvedwith technological responses are inherently flawed, since thefailure to deal with the causes of poverty means that the majorityof Tanzanians continue to be excluded from the ‘informationsociety’. An earlier version of this article was presented at the AfricanStudies Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, 11–14November 2004, and to the Postcolonial Seminar at the Universityof Leicester, 8 December 2004. ^1. World Bank, Knowledge for Development: World development report1998/99 (Oxford University Press, NY, 1998). ^2. UNDP, Human Development Report 2001: Making new technologieswork for development (Oxford University Press, New York, NY,2001). ^3. Donors include Department for International Development (DFID),Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Swedish Agencyfor International Development (SIDA) and United States Agencyfor International Development (USAID) (the Leland Initiative);NGOs include the International Institute for Communication andDevelopment; multilateral initiatives include the InternationalTelecommunications Union (ITU), the G8 (Dot Force), United NationsEconomic Commission for Africa (UNECA) (the African InformationSociety Initiative) and United Nations Educational, Scientificand Cultural Organization (UNESCO). ^4. D. Ott and M. Rosser, ‘The electronic republic? The roleof the Internet in promoting democracy in Africa’, Democratization7, 1 (2000), pp. 137–55. ^5. M. Jensen, The African Internet – A Status Report, 2002,<http://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afstat.htm> Accessed on27 October 2002. ^6. M. Castells, End of Millennium. The Information Age: Economy,society and culture, Vol 3 (Blackwell, Oxford, 1998), p. 161. ^7. UNDP, Human Development Report 2001, p. iv. ^8. Accenture, Markle Foundation, and UNDP, Creating a DevelopmentDynamic: Final report of the digital opportunity initiative,2001, <http://www.opt-init.org/framework.html> Accessedon 30 October 2002, p. 68. ^9. UNDP, Human Development Report 2001; World Bank, Knowledge forDevelopment; World Bank, Can Africa Claim the 21^st Century?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2000). ^10. R. Cline-Cole and M. Powell, ‘ICTs, "virtual colonisation"and political economy’, Review of African Political Economy31, 99 (2004), pp.5–9; K. Gyekye, ‘Philosophy, cultureand technology in the postcolonial’, in E. Eze (ed.),Postcolonial African Philosophy: A critical reader (Blackwell,Oxford, 1997), pp. 25–44; F. Nyamnjoh, ‘Global andlocal trends in media ownership and control: implications forcultural creativity in Africa’, in W. van Binsbergen andR. van Dijk (eds), Situating Globality: African agency in theappropriation of global culture (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands,2004), pp. 107–46; Y. Z. Ya’u, ‘The new imperialismand Africa in the global electronic village’, Review ofAfrican Political Economy 31, 99 (2004), pp. 11–29. ^11. R. Meier, ‘Late-blooming societies can be stimulated byinformation technology’, Futures 32 (2000), pp. 163–81;D. Polikanov and I. Abramova, ‘Africa and ICT: a chancefor breakthrough?’, Information, Communication and Society6, 1 (2003), pp. 42–56; M. B. Robins and R. L. Hilliard(eds), Beyond Boundaries: Cyberspace in Africa (Heinemann, NH,2002). ^12. M. Green, ‘The birth of the "salon": poverty, "modernisation"and dealing with witchcraft in southern Tanzania’, paperpresented at the American Anthropological Association AnnualMeeting, Chicago, 18 November 2003; S. F. Moore, ‘Post-socialistmicro-politics: Kilimanjaro, 1993’, Africa 66, 4 (1996),pp. 587–606. ^13. United Republic of Tanzania, National Information and CommunicationsTechnologies Policy (Ministry of Communications and Transport,Dar es Salaam, 2003). ^14. The three urban cafes were located in Dar es Salaam, where atotal of 279 customers completed open-ended questionnaires overthree days in August 2001. One city-centre cafe attracted mostlybusiness, government and office workers, while the other twocafes were located on main roads in the residential suburbsof Mwenge and Magomeni. The fourth location was the Internetcafe at the Sengerema Multipurpose Community Telecentre, wherethe same open-ended questionnaire was put to 265 customers inAugust 2003. Semi-structured interviews with customers and focusgroup discussions with non-customers were held, and 299 townresidents were interviewed to contextualize the questionnaireresponses. ^15. ‘Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank: A regime changes’,The Economist, 2 June 2005; T. Kelsall, ‘Shop windowsand smoke-filled rooms: governance and the re-politicizationof Tanzania’, Journal of Modern African Studies 40, 4(2002), pp. 597–620; C. Mercer, ‘Performing partnership:civil society and the illusions of good governance in Tanzania’,Political Geography 22 (2003), pp. 741–63. ^16. United Republic of Tanzania, National Information and CommunicationsTechnologies Policy, p. 1. ^17. Ibid. ^18. Ibid. ^19. Accenture et al., Creating a Development Dynamic. ^20. SIDA, A Country ICT Survey for Tanzania (SIDA, Dar es Salaam,2001). ^21. Ibid. ^22. National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania Household Budget Survey2000/01 (National Bureau of Statistics, Dar es Salaam, 2002). ^23. World Bank, Tanzania Country Brief, 2004, <http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/TANZANIAEXTN/0,,menuPK:287345~pagePK:141132~piPK:141107~theSitePK:258799,00.html>Accessed on 20 June 2004. ^24. The main donors have been IDRC, ITU, UNESCO and Danida, in collaborationwith other international partners including the British Council,Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNDP, World HealthOrganization (WHO) and national governments. ^25. COSTECH, Progress Report to International Development ResearchCentre (IDRC) as from January 2001 to February 2003 (COSTECH,Dar es Salaam, 2003). ^26. NBS, Tanzania Household Budget Survey. ^27. Planning Commission and Regional Commissioner’s OfficeMwanza, Mwanza Region Socio-Economic Profile (Dar es Salaam,1997). ^28. NBS, Tanzania Household Budget Survey. ^29. Tanzania Cotton Board, Prices Paid to Farmers for the Last 12Years, n.d., <http://www.tancotton.co.tz/Producer%20price%202001-02%20season.htm>Accessed 15 May 2004. ^30. Sengerema MCT, Annual Report 2002 (Sengerema, 2002). ^31. COSTECH, Progress Report to IDRC, p. 1. ^32. NBS, Tanzania Household Budget Survey. ^33. COSTECH, Progress Report to IDRC. ^34. In 1999, a major ISP in Dar es Salaam analyzed the materialbeing accessed by its customers and found that 55% of it wascategorized as pornography (personal communication). ^35. See, e.g. <www.clickz.com, http://www.pewinternet.org/> ^36. B. Wellman and C. Haythornthwaite (eds), The Internet in EverydayLife (Blackwell, Oxford, 2002), p. 18. ^37. Ibid. ^38. A. Bahi, ‘Internet use and logics of social adaptationof youth in Abidjan cybercafes’, CODESRIA Bulletin 1–2(2004), pp. 67–71. ^39. W. van Binsbergen, ‘Can ICT belong in Africa, or is ICTowned by the North Atlantic region?’, in W. van Binsbergenand R. van Dijk (eds), Situating Globality: African agency inthe appropriation of global culture (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands,2004), pp. 107–146. ^40. International Development Research Centre, ‘African Telecentres:A pioneering experience’ (unpublished document), n.d. ^41. D. Miller and D. Slater, The Internet: An ethnographic approach(Berg, Oxford, 2000). ^42. L. Mehta, ‘From darkness to light? Critical reflectionson the World Development Report 1998/99’, Journal of DevelopmentStudies 36, 1 (1999), pp. 151–61. ^43. Van Binsbergen, ‘Can ICT belong in Africa’, pp.111–115. ^44. World Bank, Can Africa Claim the 21^st century?, p. 2. ^45. J. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development’,depoliticization and bureaucratic power in Lesotho (Universityof Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1994). ^46. B. Weiss, ‘Thug realism: inhabiting fantasy in urban Tanzania’,Cultural Anthropology 17, 1 (2002), p. 100. ^47. C. Piot, Remotely Global: Village modernity in West Africa (Universityof Chicago Press, London, 1999). ^48. A. Perullo, ‘The life that I live: popular music, agency,and urban society in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’ (unpublishedPhD dissertation, Indiana University, Indiana, 2003); Weiss,‘Thug realism’. ^49. N. Ng’wanakilala, Mass Communication and Development ofSocialism in Tanzania (Tanzania Publishing House, Dar es Salaam,1981), p. 63. ^50. Perullo, ‘The life that I live’. ^51. A. Appadurai, ‘Disjuncture and difference in the globalcultural economy’, Public Culture 2, 2 (1990), pp. 1–23;D. Miller, ‘Could the Internet defetishise the commodity?’,Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21, 3 (2003),pp. 359–72. ^52. J. Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and meanings ofurban life on the Zambian copperbelt (University of CaliforniaPress, London, 1999), p. 212. ^53. All unattributed quotations refer to interviews conducted duringfieldwork. ^54. From fieldnotes. ^55. From fieldnotes. ^56. K. Askew, Performing the Nation: Swahili music and culturalpolitics in Tanzania (University of Chicago Press, London, 2002). ^57. Sengerema MCT, Annual Report, p. 6. ^58. Guardian, 6 August 2001. ^59. Ibid., 24 July 2001. ^60. Daily News, 27 June 2001. ^61. Askew, Performing the Nation. ^62. Miller and Slater, The Internet. ^63. See, e.g., A. Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural dimensionsof modernity (University of Minnesota Press, London, 1996);Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity; U. Hannerz, ‘Epilogue:on some reports from a free space’, in B. Meyer and P.Geschiere (eds), Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of flowand closure (Blackwell, Oxford, 1999), pp. 325–30; B.Meyer, ‘Visions of blood, sex and money: fantasy spacesin popular Ghanaian cinema’, Visual Anthropology 16 (2003),pp. 15–41; Weiss, ‘Thug realism’. ^64. W. Arens and I. Karp (eds), Creativity of Power: Cosmology andaction in African societies (Smithsonian Institution Press,London, 1989); I. Kopytoff, ‘Ancestors as elders in Africa’,Africa 41, 2 (1971), pp. 129–42. ^65. My thanks go to Clare Madge for this insight. ^66. Weiss, ‘Thug realism’.     

Correction

Professor Kenneth Robinson has written to African Affairs apologizingfora slip of the pen in his review of A. H. M Kirk-Greene'sBiographical Dictionary of British Colonial Governors, Vol.I (Africa) (p. 588 of the October 1982 issue): ‘I wrotethat ‘Sir Gerald Creasy did not accompany the Secretaryof State to West Africa in 1928 but the Parliamentary UnderSecretary, Mr Ormsby-Gore’. The visit was, of course,as the Dictionary correctly records, to Ceylon and Malaya. Ican only grovel.’     

Islam in Mali in the neoliberal era

If before 11 September 2001, many praised Mali as a model ofdemocracy, secularism and toleration, many have now begun toexpress concern about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism inMali. I consider a number of recent public debates in Mali overmorality, so-called women’s issues, and the proposed changesin the Family Code and show how the perspectives of many Malianson these issues are not new but rather relate to longstandingand ongoing debates about Islam, secularism, politics, moralityand law. What is new is the way in which some Muslim religiousleaders have been articulating their complaints and criticisms.Since the guarantee of the freedom of expression and associationin the early 1990s, there has been a proliferation of independentnewspapers and private radio stations and new Islamic associationswith a coterie of increasingly media-savvy activists. I explorehow some Muslim activists have used such outlets to articulatethe concerns of some ordinary Malians, who face the contradictionsof living as modern Muslim citizens in a modernizing and secularizingstate where, in this age of neoliberal governmentality, theallegedly un-Islamic seems to be always just around the corner. Portions of the paper have been presented at the workshop, ‘Islam,Society and State in West Africa’, Rutgers University,New Brunswick, 29 March 2003; at the symposium, ‘Constructionand Dissemination of Islamic Knowledge in Africa’, IndianaUniversity, Bloomington, 19 April 2003; and at the conference,‘Governance and Insecurity in West Africa’, NorthwesternUniversity, 13–15 November 2003; and at UniversitätBayreuth. ^1. United States Agency for International Development, ‘Assistanceenvironment’, in USAID MALI: Country Strategic Plan 2003–2012(USAID, Bamako, Mali, 2002), p. 11. ^2. Economist Intelligence Unit, ‘The political scene’,in EIU Country Report: Mali (EIU, London, March 2002), p. 47. ^3. See Joshua Muravchik, ‘Freedom and the Arab world’,The Weekly Standard, 31 December 2001. ^4. ‘Overview’. USAID MALI: Country Strategic Plan 2003–2012(USAID, Bamako, Mali, 2002), p. 18. Such sentiments were alsoexpressed in journalistic accounts published shortly after 11September 2001. See, for example, Douglas Farah, ‘Mali’sMuslim clerics send troubling message: fragile democracy seenas vulnerable to extremism’, Washington Post, 30 September2001, p. A24; Kader Konaté, ‘Mali. Le danger islamiste’,Le Continent, 14 September 2001, p. 1. ^5. See Joan Baxter, ‘Challenging tradition’, BBC Focuson Africa Magazine, January-March 2002, pp. 48–50. Otherexamples include Nicolas Colombant, ‘Mali’s Muslimssteer back to spiritual roots’, Christian Science Monitor,26 February 2002, p. 8. ^6. These included various Western media outlets and several Maliannewspapers. ^7. James Ferguson and Akhil Gupta, ‘Spatializing states:toward an ethnography of neoliberal governmentality’,American Ethnologist 29, 4 (2002), pp. 981–1002. ^8. For critical perspectives on the fashionable civil society approachto ‘good governance’ in Africa, see John L. Comaroffand Jean Comaroff (eds), Civil Society and the Political Imaginationin Africa (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1999);Béatrice Hibou and Richard Banégas, ‘Civilsociety and the public space in Africa’, CODESRIA Bulletin1 (2000), pp. 39–47. ^9. For example, Sunjata, the mythical founder of the medieval Malianempire, Mansa Musa, the Muslim rulers of Macina (r. nineteenthcentury), al-Hajj Umar Tall (d. nineteenth century), the Kuntashaykhs of the Timbuktu region, and Shaykh Hamallah (d. twentiethcentury), to name only some of the most prominent. ^10. For an example of how such ‘orthodoxy’ changes overtime and space in Mali, see Benjamin F. Soares, ‘Muslimproselytization as purification: religious pluralism and conflictin contemporary Mali’ in Abdallah A. An-Na’im (ed.),Proselytization and Communal Self-Determination in Africa (Orbis,Maryknoll, NY, 1999), pp. 228–45. ^11. Two studies that have received quite a bit of attention areAnna L. Tsing, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginalityin an out-of-the-way place (Princeton University Press, Princeton,NJ, 1993); Charles Piot, Remotely Global: Village modernityin West Africa (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1999). ^12. See Gregory Starrett, ‘The political economy of religiouscommodities in Cairo’, American Anthropologist 97, 1 (1995),pp. 51–68. ^13. On these developments, see Robert Launay and Benjamin F. Soares,‘The formation of an "Islamic sphere" in French colonialWest Africa’, Economy and Society, 28, 4 (1999), pp. 497–519;Benjamin F. Soares, ‘Islam and public piety in Mali’,in Armando Salvatore and Dale F. Eickelman (eds), Public Islamand the Common Good (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2004);Benjamin F. Soares, Islam and the Prayer Economy: History andauthority in a Malian town (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburghand the University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2005). ^14. Malians with access to satellite television have a wider arrayof choices, which are hard to quantify. ^15. Some of the themes in this section are treated at greater lengthin my book, Islam and the Prayer Economy. ^16. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments (Princeton UniversityPress, Princeton, NJ, 1993). ^17. See Seydina Oumar Diarra, ‘Haut Conseil Islamique du Mali’,Info-Matin, 18 January 2002, p. 5. ^18. Benjamin F. Soares, Islam and the Prayer Economy, p. 212. Seealso David Robinson, Paths of Accommodation: Muslim societiesand French colonial authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880–1920(Ohio University Press, Athens, OA, 2000); David Robinson andJean-Louis Triaud (eds), Le temps des marabouts: Itinéraireset stratégies islamiques en Afrique occidentale françaisev.1880–1960 (Karthala, Paris, 1997). ^19. Many Malians also regularly apply diverse principles from ‘custom’,which is often referred to as laada (from the Arabic) in theregion’s vernaculars. ^20. For one example, see Benjamin F. Soares, ‘Notes on theanthropological study of Islam and Muslim societies in Africa’,Culture and Religion, 1, 2 (2000), pp. 277–85. ^21. Ahmad Uthman Bah, Diya’ al-ghasaq manzuma nasihat al-shabab(Matba’at al-najah al-jadida, Casablanca, Morocco, 1992). ^22. See, for example, Amadou Tall, Dimensions de l’Islam (DarEl Fikr, Beirut, Lebanon, 1995–1996). ^23. On Haïdara and his career, see Soares, ‘Islam andpublic piety’ and Soares, Islam and the Prayer Economy.Cf. Dorothea Schulz, ‘"Charisma and Brotherhood" revisited’,Journal of Religion in Africa, 33 (2003), pp. 146–71. ^24. See Louis Brenner, Controlling Knowledge: Religion, power andschooling in a West African Muslim society (Indiana UniversityPress, Bloomington, IL, 2001). ^25. Cf. Olivier Roy (trans. C. Volk), The Failure of Political Islam(Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1994); Olivier Roy, GlobalizedIslam (Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2004). ^26. Cf. Armando Salvatore, ‘Social differentiation, moralauthority and public Islam in Egypt: the case of Mustafa Mahmud’,Anthropology Today, 6, 2 (2000), pp. 12–15. ^27. For a discussion of Haïdara and his association’srelation to Sufism and Sufi orders, see Soares, Islam and thePrayer Economy. ^28. This was also a topic of discussion in some print media. See,for example, Cheick Sidya Diombana, ‘La jeunesse et lafoi en l’Islam’, La Roue, 25 October–3 November1993, p. 5. ^29. I am grateful to Roman Loimeier for making his copy of thissign available to me. ^30. See, for example, ‘Déclaration finale des associationsislamiques du Mali concernant les valeurs islamiques et àpropos du programme d’action de Beijing rélatifaux droits des femmes’, La Roue, 22–31 January 1996,pp. 3–5. ^31. For a discussion of some of the controversy around excision,see Bettina Shell-Duncan and Ylva Hernlund (eds), Female ‘Circumcision’in Africa: Culture, controversy, and change (Lynne Rienner,Boulder, Colorado, 2000). For campaigns against excision inMali, see Claudie Gosselin, ‘Handing over the knife: Numuwomen and the campaign against excision in Mali’, in BettinaShell-Duncan and Ylva Hernlund (eds), Female ‘Circumcision’in Africa, pp. 193–214; Jean Sanou, ‘Lutte contreles mutilations génitales feminines’, Le Soudanais,22 November 2000, p. 3; Yousouf Camara, ‘Réligionet excision’, Le Tambour, 22 June 2001, p. 3; MamadouBlodin Sissok, ‘Religion et excision. Quand les chrétienss’engagent contre les mutilations génitales féminines’,Info-Matin, 29 June 2001, p. 8. ^32. See, for example, Mady M. Dembélé, ‘L’excisionest un poids des traditions, elle n’a rien de religieux’,Les Echos, 18 July 2001, p. 5. ^33. See C.H. Sylla, ‘Interview exclusive. Le Présidentdu Collectif des islamistes parle’, Le Républicain,16 May 2001, pp. 1, 4–5; Mohamed Kimbiri, ‘L’excisionau Mali. La position des musulmans’, Nouvel Horizon, 30January 2001, p. 5; Mohamed Kimbiri, ‘Interdire l’excisionest une atteinte grave’, Le Républicain, 31 January2001, p. 5. ^34. ‘Brèves’, Le Politicien Musulman, 18 March–18April 2002, p. 8. ^35. Leaflets produced and distributed by AISLAM (Association islamiquedu salut) in the author’s possession. ^36. See Mamadou Keïta, ‘Les imams à l’affûtdes jouisseurs’, Nouvel Horizon, 23 November 1998, p.4. ^37. Mohamed Kimbiri, ‘Boycottons "Miss Cedeao" ’, NouvelHorizon, 16 October 1998. See also Mamadou Keïta, ‘MissCedeao’, Nouvel Horizon, 2 November 1998, p. 5. ^38. Yoro Sow, ‘Incertitudes pour la tenue du Congrèsdes homosexuels’, Sud Info, 8 December 1999, p. 4. ^39. However, some prominent Muslim religious leaders, most notablyChérif Haïdara, would eventually take positionsin support of condom use. See Benjamin Soares, ‘Mali:Im Visier der Islamismus-Fahnder’, INAMO 41 (2005), pp.16–18. ^40. Talal Asad, ‘Religion, nation-state, secularism’,in Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (eds), Nation andReligion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia (Princeton UniversityPress, Princeton, NJ, 1999), p. 191. ^41. Djibril Traoré, ‘El Hadji Mahmoud Dicko,’Le National, 2 October 2000, p. 5. ^42. El Hadj Mahmoud Dicko, ‘Declaration du Collectif des associationsislamiques du Mali’, Info-Matin, 7 May 2001, p. 7. Seealso El Hadj Mahmoud Dicko, ‘Déclaration’,Le Républicain, 4 May 2001, p. 7; Amara Diapy Diawara,‘Meeting du Collectif des associations musulmanes du Mali’,Info-Matin, 13 February 2001, pp. 4–5. ^43. See, for example, Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity (Routledge,New York, NY, 1993); Homi Bhabha, ‘Of mimicry and man’,in The Location of Culture (Routledge, New York, NY, 1994),pp. 85–92. ^44. On this heightened sense, see Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori,Muslim Politics (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,1996). For Malian press coverage of the OCI meeting, see, forexample, ‘Organisation de la Conférence islamique.Le monde musulman’, Liberté, 3 July 2001, p. 4. ^45. See the extensive coverage of the meeting in a special editionof Le Continent, 2 February 2001. ^46. For a discussion of some of the proposed reforms and specificcontroversies, cf. Benjamin F. Soares, ‘The attempt toreform family law in Mali’, in Margot Badran (ed.), Genderand Islam in Africa (Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, forthcoming);Dorothea E. Schulz, ‘Political factions, ideological fictions:the controversy over family law reform in democratic Mali’,Islamic Law and Society, 10, 1 (2003), pp. 132–64. ^47. Birama Fall, ‘Islam et politique. La colère desislamistes contre le pouvoir’, Le Républicain,23 April 2001, p. 1; Belco Tamboura, ‘Le front religieux,un front de plus pour Konaré’, L’Observateur,14 June 2001, p. 6. ^48. C. H. Sylla, ‘Code de la famille et excision. La dernièrevictoire des islamistes sur Alpha’, Le Républicain,10 June 2002, p. 5. ^49. See Christian Coulon, Le marabout et le prince: Islam et pouvoirau Sénégal (Pédone, Paris, France, 1981). ^50. Boukary Daou, ‘Code de la famille et excision. Les musulmansdisent non à Alpha’, Le Républicain, 5 June2002, p. 1. ^51. Cf. Michael Bratton, Massa Coulibaly, and Fabiana Machado, ‘Popularviews of the legitimacy of the state in Mali’, CanadianJournal of African Studies 36, 2 (2002), pp. 197–238;Michael Bratton, Robert Mattes and E. Gyimah-Boadi, Public Opinion,Democracy and Market Reform in Africa (Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, 2005).     

Corrections

There were some large errors in the 1950 volume concerning theUnited Africa Company on p. 274, line 12, where the figure quotedfor purchases should have been total trade, and the figuresfor crops raised, the output for all the areas, concerned. Threepages later, on line 16, the Congress of Arabists at Lagos concernedonly Southern Nigeria. In the new volume the footnote on p.6 is misleading, since the Afrika Instituut at Leyden, a scientificbody, did not have any direct hand in organising the conferenceof Arab students, while the industrial mission to Africa wasunder the auspices of the Afrika Instituut at Rotterdam. Forp. 17, I am told that the ‘eruption" at Tsavo is now believedto have been caused by grass-fires. There were one or two misprintsin the review article on The British Presence, the most noticeableperhaps Doornkloop for Doornkof (page 56, line 15). These areall the corrections that have so far come to hand, althoughthere must inevitably be more.      

Informal moves, informal markets: International migrants and traders from Mzimba District, Malawi

International migration from Malawi has changed profoundly sincecentrally organized mine migration to South Africa ended inthe 1980s. Contemporary movements are more diverse and lesstied to labour, as informal trade has developed alongside. Thisarticle replaces a common ‘productivist’ perspectiveon migration with a decentralized approach, using ethnographicobservation and anthropological case studies to understand interrelatedflows of people and goods. It shows how in an emergent informalmarket for South African goods in Mzimba, Malawi, price informationdoes not structure trade practices. Historical continuitiesin the socio-cultural organization of illegal migration, ratherthan liberalized market forces, shape this economic configuration,including price formation. The research for this article was financed by the NetherlandsFoundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO).Data were collected in Mzimba district, Lilongwe, Blantyre (Malawi),and Johannesburg (South Africa) in the period from April 2004to March 2005. ^1. Samir Amin, ‘Underdevelopment and dependence in BlackAfrica: historical origin’, Journal of Peace Research9, 2 (1972), pp. 106, 115. ^2. David A. McDonald, Lephophotho Mashike, and Celia Golden, ‘Thelives and times of African migrants and immigrants in post-apartheidSouth Africa’, in David A. McDonald (ed.), On Borders:Perspectives on international migration in southern Africa (St.Martin’s Press, New York, 2000), pp. 168–95. ^3. In the 1990s, migration to South Africa has expanded enormously,and alongside it, regional trade. See Jonathan Crush and DavidA. McDonald, ‘Transnationalism, African immigration, andnew migrant spaces in South Africa: an introduction’,Canadian Journal of African Studies 34, 1 (2000), p. 2. Theincrease in regional trade is difficult to quantify as muchof this trade is informal in nature and does not appear in officialfigures. ^4. See, among others, Jonathan Crush, Alan Jeeves, and David Yudelman,South Africa’s Labor Empire: A history of black migrancyto the gold mines (Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1991). ^5. Dunbar Moodie, Going for Gold: Men, mines, and migration (Universityof California Press, Berkeley, 1994). ^6. Harold Wolpe, ‘Capitalism and cheap labour-power in SouthAfrica: from segregation to apartheid’, Economy and Society1, 4 (1972), p. 433. ^7. For an example of this phenomenon in another context, see JensA. Andersson, ‘Administrators’ knowledge and statecontrol in colonial Zimbabwe: the invention of the rural–urbandivide in Buhera district, 1912–80’, Journal ofAfrican History 43, 1 (2002), pp. 119–43. ^8. See the numerous interesting studies published by the SouthernAfrican Migration Project (URL: http://www.queensu.ca/samp). ^9. Hopes for a re-opening of TEBA remained alive, though, and werefed by election promises in Malawi’s first multipartyelections in 1994. See among others ‘More light on TEBA;not in UDF manifesto’, Malawi News, 5–11 November1994, p. 4. See also Wiseman C. Chirwa, ‘The Malawi governmentand South African labour recruiters, 1974–92’, Journalof Modern African Studies 34, 4 (1996) pp. 623–42; WisemanC. Chirwa, ‘ "No TEBA. . . forget TEBA": the plight ofMalawian ex-migrant workers to South Africa, 1988–1994’,International Migration Review 31, 3 (1997), pp. 628–54. ^10. Chirwa, ‘The Malawi government’, p. 627; JonathanCrush, ‘Migrations past: an historical overview of cross-bordermovement in southern Africa’, in David A. McDonald (ed.),On Borders, p. 15. Labour recruiting agencies competing forlabour in (colonial) Malawi were the Witwatersrand Native LabourAssociation (WNLA), and the (Southern) Rhodesian Native LabourBureau (RNLB). The agencies were later renamed as The EmploymentBureau of Africa (TEBA) and the Rhodesian Native Labour SupplyCommission, respectively. ^11. F.E. Sanderson, ‘The development of labour migration fromNyasaland, 1891–1914’, Journal of African History2, 2 (1961), pp. 259–71; G. Coleman, ‘Internationallabour migration from Malawi, 1875–1966’, Journalof Social Science (University of Malawi) 2 (1972), pp. 31–46;Robert B. Boeder, Malawians abroad: The history of labor emigrationfrom Malawi to its neighbors 1890 to the present (PhD thesis,Michigan State University, Ann Arbor, 1974). ^12. Robert E. Christiansen and Jonathan G. Kydd, ‘The returnof Malawian labour from South Africa and Zimbabwe’, Journalof Modern African Studies 21, 2 (1983), p. 311. ^13. Ibid, p. 324. ^14. J.K. van Donge, ‘Disordering the market: the liberalisationof burley tobacco in Malawi in the 1990s’, Journal ofSouthern African Studies 28, 1 (2002), p. 105. This is not tosay that tobacco production solely relies on migrant labour. ^15. In the period 1977–1998, average annual intercensal growthrates in rural areas were highest in tobacco-producing areassuch as Kasungu District (4.4 percent) in the Central Region,and Traditional Authority (TA) Mpherembe (5.3 percent) in MzimbaDistrict in the Northern Region. Lowest growth rates were concentratedin the poor and densely populated southern districts, such asChiradzulu (1.4), Mulanje (1.6), Phalombe (1.5), and Thyolo(1.7). See Figure 2. ^16. In western Mzimba, and possibly elsewhere in the Northern regionwhere average education levels are higher than in the rest ofMalawi, people look down upon labouring in the low-paid tobaccosector. For figures on education levels, see T. Benson, J. Kaphuka,S. Kanyanda, and R. Chinula, Malawi: An atlas of social statistics(National Statistical Office of Malawi/IFPRI, Zomba/Washington,2002), p. 51. ^17. Bridget O’Laughlin, ‘Missing men? The debate overrural poverty and woman-headed households in Southern Africa’,Journal of Peasant Studies 25, 2 (1998), p. 10. ^18. ‘91 Malawians deported’, The Daily Times, 9 December1994, p. 1. This is not to suggest that the South African governmentdid not deport Malawians before 1994. See Boeder, Malawiansabroad, p. 155, for an example from the 1930s. ^19. Information obtained by the author from the Malawian consulatein Johannesburg, South Africa, March 2005. ^20. Before 1994, transport in Malawi was highly problematic as government-controlledbus services were limited. With liberalization, matola (pick-upsand lorries) greatly improved rural transport, while minibusservices and foreign bus companies facilitated respectivelyrural–urban and international mobility. Exchanging foreigncurrency was equally problematic before liberalization; withouta passport and proof of recent travel, banks could refuse toexchange. ^21. Deanna Swaney, Mary Fitzpatrick, Paul Greenway, Andrew Stone,and Justin Vaisutis, Lonely Planet Southern Africa (Lonely Planetpublications, London, 2003), p. 222. ^22. Zimbabwe’s decreased popularity is also evidenced by thenumerous Zimbabwe-born youths of Malawian descent waiting forthe processing of a Malawian passport at the Department of Immigrationin Blantyre. ^23. The persistence of unequal sex distributions in the extremenorth of the country is a further indication of the popularityof Tanzania as a destination for, especially, male migrants(see Figure 2). ^24. Mzimba’s transport sector thus emerged before economicliberalization. In the 1980s, some South Africans started thebusiness by investing in vehicles and using Mzimba drivers.By the early 1990s, the South Africans had left the businessaltogether and Malawians took their place. ^25. R.R. Kuczynski, Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire,Vol. II: East-Africa (Oxford University Press, London, 1949),pp. 564–68; Leroy Vail and Landeg White, ‘Tribalismin the political history of Malawi’, in Leroy Vail (ed.),The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (James Currey,London, 1989), pp. 151–92; Leroy Vail, ‘The makingof the "Dead North": a study of the Ngoni rule in northern Malawi,c. 1855–1907’, in J. B. Peires (ed.) Before andafter Shaka: Papers in Nguni history (Institute of Social andEconomic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 1978), pp.230–67. ^26. John McCracken, Politics and Christianity in Malawi, 1875–1940(CLAIM, Blantyre, 2000), p. 152. See also Sanderson, ‘Thedevelopment of labour migration’, p. 260. ^27. For instance, figures for the 1930s suggest that fewer Malawianswere working in mining related jobs (recruited through WNLA)than in other sectors of the South African economy, notablydomestic services and industry. See Boeder, Malawians abroad,p. 168. ^28. Interview with Charles Makamo, Mzimba district, 16 July 2004.For an earlier account of Malawian migrants’ travel problems,see E.P. Makambe, ‘The Nyasaland African labour "Ulendo"to Southern Rhodesia and the problem of the "highwaymen," 1903–1923’,African Affairs 79, 317 (1980), pp. 548–66. ^29. Interview with Charles Makamo, Mzimba district, 16 July 2004. ^30. Records of the Employment Service Division of the MGLR suggestthat entering into official labour contracts when already inSouth Africa was common in the early 1970s. The numerous ‘typical’Ngoni, Tumbuka, and Tonga names (such as Jere, Makamo, Kumwenda,Chirwa) appearing on these lists further suggest that, in particular,migrants from northern Malawi were familiar with this procedure.Malawi National Archives, file: 14 ESD/SU/34, Lists of Malawiansentering into contracts of employment, 1969–1975. ^31. The aim of anthropological case studies — also referredto as the ‘case-study method’ — is not topresent representative cases, but to illuminate wider socialpatterns and processes through the study of the particular.Here, the cases are used to illustrate the social processesat work in new social phenomena. See Max Gluckman, ‘Ethnographicdata in British social anthropology’, The SociologicalReview 9 (1961), pp. 5–17. ^32. Malawians advertise their services in daily newspapers or neighbourhoodweeklies, under categories such as ‘domestic workers’or ‘gardeners’. Often they explicitly state theirMalawian origin. ^33. This development seems to be confirmed by population figures(see Figure 2): TA M’Mbelwa in western Mzimba was Malawi’sonly TA where male absenteeism increased in the period 1987–98. ^34. In 2004, all booking-offices in Mzimba district have been closed.Stories of cheating transporters who suddenly disappear withthe money paid in advance have made people more cautious. ^35. The term is seen locally as a reference to the brand name —Caterpillar — of big ground-work machinery used for roadconstruction. ^36. Alongside the market for South African goods thus developedan informal money-transfer market, as illegal immigrants haveno access to South Africa’s banking system. Transporterscarry cash remittances of migrants, while migrant businessmenhave set up more sophisticated money transfer systems, operatingsimilarly to official agencies such as Western Union (whichdoes not operate in South Africa). ^37. Lindela is a repatriation centre near Johannesburg for illegalimmigrants awaiting deportation. See SAHRC, Lindela at the Crossroadsfor Detention and Repatriation: An assessment of the conditionsof detention (South African Human Rights Commission, Johannesburg,2000). ^38. For example, an ongoing survey among international bus passengersleaving Lilongwe for Johannesburg indicates that 61 percentof the travellers originating from Mzimba district (n = 294),expects to be accommodated by a relative upon arrival. ^39. Due to lack of uniformity in the products traded, reliable pricecomparisons between the Johannesburg and Mzimba markets aredifficult to make. Common model mobile phones, such as the Nokia3310, are an exception. In 2005, a used Nokia 3310 fetched some300–400 rands in Johannesburg, which amounts to 5,700–7,600Malawian kwacha. In Mzimba, these phones are usually sold for5,000–6,000 kwacha.     

Correction

A thorough-going protest has been made to the Uganda referencesin April (pp. 101–2) but on inquiry they boil down toan inadequate summary of the Kingdon report, which is acknowledgedwith regret. In the July number, the same correspondent pointsout that it is not the Police that has been expanded but thePolice Service Unit; while the special restriction on assemblyis limited to certain gazetted areas, at present 4 gombololasin Kyadondo County. Another mistake, pointed out by H. B. Thomas,is a reference on p. 283 to 5000 square miles being alienated,instead of 500. I have also been asked to say that the Rev.Michael Scott's passport has not been cancelled; the referencehere (p. 200) was based on a report of Dr. DQnges statementon the 27th April: "The question arose as to how the Governmentcould prevent the abuse of a cancelled passport as in the caseof the Rev. Michael Scott, who, when asked to hand in his passport,slipped over the border and took a plane from Rhodesia". Forhis part, Mr. E. B. Kirkman has complained of a reference toa transit welfare centre for miners in the Northern Gold Coast(p. 189). Although this was based on a statement by the Chairmanof a Mining Company, the opportunity is gladly taken of imputingno Macchiavellian intentions to the men who planned and builtthe centre.      

Mauritania, August 2005: Justice and democracy, or just another coup?

A military coup abruptly ended Ould Taya’s authoritarianregime in Mauritania, one of the longest-running regimes inWest Africa. The bloodless coup broke a dangerous politicalimpasse and stopped what seemed to be a slide towards breakdownand violence. Using the democratization literature, this articleexplains its root causes and evaluates the prospects for theestablishment of a genuine democracy after two decades of arepressive military and then quasi-military regime. It arguesthat several variables combined to seal the regime’s fate.These are essentially the deeply flawed, tribally based, make-believedemocracy, Ould Taya’s own troubled personality, and finally,the security apparatus’s withdrawal of its backing. Thearticle also argues that the new military junta’s firstdecisions appear encouraging enough but that its determinationto keep a tight control over the transition process and avoidthe fundamental aspects of Mauritania’s malaise may jeopardizegenuine long-term democratization. ^1. Julius O. Ihonvbere, ‘A balance sheet of Africa’stransition to democratic governance’, in John Mbaku andJulius O. Ihonvbere (eds), The Transition to Democratic Governancein Africa (Praeger, Westport, CT, 2003), p. 51. ^2. On Mali, see Zeric K. Smith, ‘Mali’s decade of democracy’,Journal of Democracy 12, 3 (2001), pp. 73–9; for the Ivorianexperiment under General Guéï, see Boubacar N’Diaye,‘Not a miracle after all ... Côte d’Ivoire’sdownfall: flawed civil-military relations and missed opportunities’,Scientia Militaria 33, 1 (2005), pp. 89–118. ^3. Alfred Stepan, ‘Paths toward redemocratisation: theoreticaland comparative considerations’, in Guillermo O’Donnell,Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (eds), Transitionsfrom Authoritarian Rule (The Johns Hopkins University Press,Baltimore, MD, 1988), pp. 64–84. ^4. One of the very few Anglophone specialists on Mauritania, AnthonyPazzanita, thought that the prospects for democracy for Mauritaniaafter 1992 were ‘bright’, but apparently never revisitedthe issue. See Anthony Pazzanita, ‘The origin and evolutionof Mauritania’s second republic’, Journal of ModernAfrican Studies 34, 4 (1996), pp. 575–96. ^5. For an authoritative discussion of the subject, see PhilippeMarchesin, Tribus, ethnies et pouvoir en Mauritanie (Khartala,Paris, 1992). ^6. See Abdel Wedoud Ould Cheikh, ‘Des voix dans le désert:sur les élections de l’ère pluraliste’,Politique Africaine 55 (1994), pp. 31–9. ^7. There are no official statistics on the ethno-cultural make-upof the country. At independence, it was assumed that the Beydane(including the Haratines) made up 75 percent of the population.However, in the late 1970s, the government kept under seal theresults of the national census, prompting allegations that thiswas done to conceal the demographic shift in favour of blacks,who have a higher birth rate. Unspoken quotas seem to stilluse 75:25 percent of Beydane and Negro-Mauritanians, respectively.However, there is a growing consensus that the general breakdowngiven here, although a rough estimate, is closest to the demographicreality of Mauritania today. ^8. ‘El Hor’ means freeman. It is a semi-recognizedpolitical movement set up by the Haratine elites to fight themanifestations and legacy of slavery. SOS-Esclaves is (untilrecently non-recognized) a human rights organization set upto monitor the issue of slavery and assist slaves to attainfreedom. ^9. See Human Rights Watch/Africa, Mauritania’s Campaign ofTerror: State sponsored repression of black Africans (HumanRights Watch, New York, 1994); Janet Fleishman, ‘Ethniccleansing’, Africa Report 39 (1994), p. 45. ^10. The chairman of the junta has publicly stated that the fearof a complete breakdown of the state is what prompted the militaryto act. As I argue, other less lofty considerations, such aspersonal survival, cannot be discounted. ^11. The International Crisis Group, in particular, issued a reportthat exposed Ould Taya’s attempts to delegitimize thelegal opposition, including moderate Islamists, by assimilatingthem to fundamentalist terrorists, warning that the whole schemecould very well backfire. See International Crisis Group, L’Islamismeen Afrique du nord IV: Contestation islamiste en Mauritanie:Menace ou bouc émissaire? (Rapport Moyen-Orient/Afriquedu Nord No. 41, Brussels, 2005). ^12. After his November 2003 electoral victory, which the US governmentmust have known to be fraudulent, he received a glowing messageof congratulations from President Bush. This support to oneof the most repressive regimes in West Africa was bitterly resentedby many democratic activists. Initially, the Bush administrationwas the only government to demand the return of Ould Taya topower, who was called, in the early hours of the coup, by theUS ambassador in Nouakchott, as the US State Department dailybriefings of 4 August 2005 indicate. ^13. The chairman of the military council made this statement threedays after the coup when he addressed the assembled leadersof political parties. For the text of the statement, see http://ufpweb.org/transition/ce385/interv/alloc_eli.htm,4 December 2006. ^14. Author’s interviews with Mohamed Vall Ould Oumere, editorialdirector of La Tribune, Nouackchott, May 2004. ^15. Mahamadou Sy, L’enfer d’inal (L’Harmattan,Paris, 2000). ^16. The best-known members of this financial and political network:Ahmed Ould Taya (Ould Taya’s brother), Abdallahi OuldNoueguet, Sejad Ould Abeidna (both Smasside), Mohamed Ould Bouamattou(an Oulad Bousbaa), and Abdou Ould Maham (an Idewaali). ^17. See Africa Research Bulletin (15 November 1987), p. 8674. ^18. See Philippe Marchesin, ‘Origine et évolution despartis et groupes politiques’, Politique Africaine 55(1994), p. 27. ^19. Stepan, ‘Paths’, p. 76. ^20. See ‘Petit coup d’Etat entre amis’, La Lettredu Continent (Paris), 25 August 2005. ^21. Boubacar N’Diaye, ‘Mauritania’s stalled democratisation’,Journal of Democracy 12, 3 (2001), p. 93. ^22. Peter Da Costa, ‘Democracy in doubt’, Africa Report37, 3 (1992), p. 60. ^23. Boubacar N’Diaye, Abdoulaye Saine, and Matturin Houngnikpo,‘Not Yet Democracy’: West Africa’s slow farewellto authoritarianism (Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC, 2005),pp. 107–37. ^24. Cedric Jourde, ‘"The President is coming to visit!" Dramasand the hijack of democratisation in the Islamic Republic ofMauritania’, Comparative Politics 38 (2005), pp. 421–40. ^25. Boubacar N’Diaye, ‘The effect of Mauritania’s"human rights deficit": the case against "to forgive and forget"’,African Journal of Policy Studies 8, 1 (2002), pp. 17–35. ^26. N’Diaye et al., ‘Not Yet’, p. 193. ^27. The coup leaders made a point to signal the transitory natureof military regime and their willingness to usher in a politicalsystem that was completely different from the one they overthrew.See ‘Nouakchott calm, but new "colonels’ regime"faces outside political pressure’ (http://journals.aol.com/mfg917/Lilithharp17/entries/2378,5 April 2006). ^28. Marina Ottaway, Democracy Challenged: The rise of semi-authoritarianism(Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC,2003), pp. 3–27. Up to August 2005, Mauritania seemedto fit approximately Ottaway’s ’semi-authoritarianismof decay’ category, pp. 21–3. ^29. William Case, ‘New uncertainties for an old pseudo-democracy’,Comparative Politics 37, 1 (2004), pp. 83–104. ^30. N’Diaye et al., ‘Not Yet’, pp. 122–6. ^31. Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa:Prince, autocrat, prophet, tyrant (University of CaliforniaPress, Berkeley, 1982). ^32. Jennifer Widner, ‘Two leadership styles and patterns ofpolitical liberalisation’, African Studies Review 37,1 (1994), pp. 151–74; Larry Diamond, ‘Beyond authoritarianism:strategies for democratisation’, in Brad Roberts (ed.),The New Democracies, Global Change and U.S. Policy (MIT Press,Cambridge, MA, 1995); also Juan J. Linz, ‘Crisis, breakdownand re-equilibration’, in Juan Linz and A. Stepan (eds),The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes (Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, Baltimore, MD, 1978), pp. 4–5. ^33. Mohamed Nassirou Athie, ‘Il y a onze ans, le 16 mars’,Al Beyane 14 (1996), p. 8. ^34. Since the 1978 coup, there has been a proliferation of Arabnationalist groups in the Mauritanian army. See Anthony Pazzanita,‘Mauritania’s foreign policy: in search of protection’,Journal of Modern African Studies 30, 3 (1992), pp. 288–300.For example, the military council’s No. 2, Mohamed OuldAbdel Aziz, is said to be one of the leaders of the Nasseristmovement, a pan-Arab nationalist group. ^35. See for example, Mohamed Fall Ould Oumère, ‘Ilévite le face à face’, Al Beyane 5 (1992),p. 1. ^36. Habib Ould Mahfoudh, ‘La tension’, Al Beyane 6 (1992)(Supplement), p. 2. ^37. Ibid, p. 1; see also François Soudan, ‘MaaouiyaOuld Taya: "Le Sénégal nous veut du mal"’,Jeune Afrique 1513 (1990), pp. 34–7. ^38. Pierre-Robert Baudel, ‘La Mauritanie dans l’ordreinternational’, Politique Africaine 55 (1994), pp. 11–19. ^39. Peace and Security Council of the African Union, 37th meeting,‘Report of the Chairperson of the commission on the situationin the Islamic Republic of Mauritania’ (African Union,Addis Ababa, 8 September 2005), p. 7. ^40. Ibid, p. 10. ^41. N‘Diaye, ‘Not a miracle’, p. 105. ^42. Stepan, ‘Paths’, pp. 77–8. ^43. See Amnesty International, ‘Mauritania: a future freeof slavery?’, 17 November 2002 (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAFR380032002!Open,17 August 2005). ^44. World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2005 (The World Bank,Washington, DC, 2005), p. 23. ^45. According to the same World Bank report (Ibid, p. 73), in 2000,the top 10 percent of Mauritanians enjoyed nearly 30 percentof national ‘income or consumption’, whereas thelowest 30 percent share less than 9 percent. ^46. Moussa Diop, ‘Quand Ely se fâche, les fauteuilstremblent!’, L’éveil-hebdo 613 (2005), pp.1, 3. ^47. The IMF statement is available at http://www.imf.org/external/country/mrt/index.htm,10 January 2005. ^48. See Nicole Ball and Kayode Fayemi (eds), Security Sector Governancein Africa: A handbook (Centre for Democracy and Development,Lagos, 2004). ^49. For a population of less than three million, Mauritania hasnearly twice the number of men in the security forces as eitherMali or Senegal. The population of each of these states is atleast three times that of Mauritania. See International Institutefor Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2002–2003(International Strategic Studies, London, 2002), pp. 207–11. ^50. Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitionsfrom Authoritarian Rule: Tentative conclusions about uncertaindemocracies (The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,MD, 1989), p. 66. ^51. The UN Office for West Africa has finally identified this situationas a major cause of coups and instability in the sub-region.The author has collaborated in the drafting of a report to callattention to this issue and how to address it. ^52. Peace and Security Council of the African Union, 37th meeting,‘Report of the Chairperson’, pp. 10–11.     

DISARMING SOMALIA: THE CONTRASTING FORTUNES OF UNITED STATES AND AUSTRALIAN PEACEKEEPERS DURING UNITED NATIONS INTERVENTION, 1992-1993

This article examines the impact of ‘micro disarmament’during the United States/United Nations humanitarian interventionin Somalia, 1992–93. To this end, it considers the controversialnature of the UNITAF mandate, the disarmament experiences ofAmerican and Australian peacekeepers in Mogadishu and Baidoaand the lessons yielded from a comparative analysis. The argumentthat emerges is that the absence of a consistent strategy linkingdisarmament and political reconciliation, not peace enforcementper se, largely condemned the UN operation to failure. If theUS had positioned itself, like the Australians in Baidoa, abovethe warlords instead of between them, the picture for UN interventionin Somalia may have looked quite different. The integrated Australianapproach revealed that the international community, confrontedwith other Somalias, may yet have a wider choice than impotenceor muscular peace-enforcement.