Research student panels (97A, 97B, 98, 99A, 99B) have been organised for Aegis and non-Aegis post-graduate students through the Interlink Programme coordinated by Prof. Alessandro Triulzi (Università L’Orientale, Naples) . The students involved are undertaking archival or field research, or are in the process of writing up dissertations, or have just completed their dissertations. Aegis is encouraging student exchanges through European Union mobility programmes (such as Erasmus/Socrates), joint training in Summer Schools where research students discuss their work with senior researchers (the last one was held in Cortona, Italy, in September 2004), and student-geared seminars and conferences. Papers have been grouped under broad themes and discussion will be chaired by research students themselves in the hope of encouraging broad student participation in the European Conference of African Studies.
This is one of the student panels (see also 97A, 98, 99A, 99B) organised for post-graduate students through the Interlink Programme supported by Aegis African Studies Centres. Panel 97B explores the complex interactions between politics and society in present-day Nigeria, Congo Democratic Republic and Tanzania.
Political parties are central to democracy and are the nerve centre of democracy in old and new, large and small democracies alike. Nigeria, like some states in Africa, Asia and Latin America, has recently returned to democratic system of government after several decades of military maladministration and dictatorship. Sustaining and consolidating this hard earn democracy must be the goal of all relevant democratic stakeholders, if the country must remain an active member of the international community and achieve sustainable economic growth and development. However, this is a huge task that requires the efficient and effective discharge of basic responsibility by the political institutions upon which the structures of the state depends. Political parties as part of these institutions, and as catalysts of democratisation, thus have the onerous task of networking, and integrating all other political institutions of the state. To do this, their role must be clearly and constitutionally defined. This paper examines the theoretical and pragmatic role expected of the new political parties in Nigeria for sustainable democracy with a view to identifying the challenges that may stand in their way, given the contextual nature (historical antecedents and socio-political and economic travails) of the country. The paper concludes with relevant recommendations that should be considered if political parties are to make the desired positive impact for sustainable democracy in Nigeria.
This paper addresses the history and the ethnography of Mayi-Mayi, a rebel movement in the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Between October 1996 and May 1997, Mayi-Mayi appeared on the stage of the AFDL war, which put an end to Mobutu's regime. The movement is still very active in the rural zones of Northern and Southern Kivu. Actually the term Mayi-Mayi refers to a cluster of groups scarcely co-ordinated among themselves, ones that are often striven by internal conflicts. At the same time some common characteristics allow constructing a general view of the entire phenomena. First of all the rebels make a constant resort to war rituals, centred on the belief in the power of mayi (that means water in Congolese Swahili), a special treated water supposed to save rebels themselves from the bullets of their opponents. Second, the movement articulates a set of common grievances based on nationalist ideals in order to oppose Mayi-Mayi to Uganda and Rwanda military intervention in Kivu. As I will show, meaningful links can be sorted out between the present Mayi-Mayi rebellion and the resistance movements, which characterised the whole area in colonial and postcolonial times. Mayi-Mayi speaks to a symbolic continuity with the beliefs and rites related to the invulnerability of warriors widely documented also in other African context. I believe that these symbols and practices supply to the scarcity of modern weapon. At the mean time Mayi-Mayi ritual discourse constitutes a efficacious strategy of mobilisation, which favour the enrolment of new recruits, in a context where the youth easily joins local militias to escape their social marginality in the local and national political arena. Mayi-Mayi references to the ancient rebellions and to the fight for independence validate the political discourse of the rebels, and reinforce their war rites.
The deployment of visual media, as part of their articulation of a visual culture, in the contemporary imagination of Nigerian Pentecostals and Charismatics is an integral aspect of their avid negotiation of the public space. Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in Nigeria gradually progressed from usage of private homes, open school halls, public squares and civic centres; to smaller hall-like and warehouse structures; and finally to the constructions of gigantic chapels with all trappings of modern architectural complexities. The interesting thing is that it has managed to retain all these aspects and all these come together to make for the present day salience of Pentecostalism in Nigeria. In this paper we intend to argue that the particularly newer structures are contrived as eloquent statements as well as bold steps in the struggles of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity to dominate the public sphere, especially the religious public. We shall do this by presenting the instance of the Gethsemane chapel of a Catholic Pentecostal-Charismatic assembly in Azumini in Eastern Nigeria – the Family of Jesus Crucified Ministry. By demonstrating that Gethsemane was an argument in the political ecclesiology of the ministry, we hope to arrive at the meaning of these christian structures for the people and for the charismatic architects; and also show how strong an argument, albeit argument from material culture, these structure can constitute among mostly oral peoples.
Popular perceptions of Africa in the West often oscillate between portrayals of political violence and evocations of a dangerous and exotic nature. In contrast to deserts and disease, and conflict that is rarely contextualised in the media African wildlife has been appropriated as a global heritage we can all both protect and enjoy. From the National Geographic to wildlife documentaries and tourist brochures, unpeopled Africa has become a timeless and universally owned Garden of Eden.
In a collapsing of temporal and geographical distance the discovery of early hominid remains in the Twentieth Century has completed this Garden of Eden metaphor that denies the existence of contemporary East Africa. I explore how Tanzania in particular—as host to the fossil site Olduvai Gorge in the much visited Ngorongoro Crater Area, and bordering the Serengeti—has managed its status as both one of the poorest nations in the world and as “world custodian”. Zinjanthropus boisei, discovered by the Leakeys in 1959, was the 1.7 million year old fossil to catapult the search for origins to world headlines. At the same time the Tanganyikan African National Union was challenging the British colonial government for immediate independence through elections and eloquent petitions to the UN.
Exploring the complex relationships between colonial science, new African nationhood, and a western construction of 'global heritage' can help us to restructure popular understandings of African politics and environments as complex systems in constant interaction with the rest of the world.