Aids and Religious Practice in Africa 9004164006, 9789004164000

Table of contents :
plugin-pdf_handler-1......Page 2
INTRODUCTION: SEARCHING FOR PATHWAYS IN A LANDSCAPE OF DEATH: RELIGION AND AIDS IN AFRICA......Page 8
NEW DEPARTURES IN CHRISTIAN CONGREGATIONS OF LONG STANDING......Page 34
CHRISTIAN SALVATION AND LUO TRADITION: ARGUMENTS OF FAITH IN A TIME OF DEATH IN WESTERN KENYA......Page 56
THE NEW WIVES OF CHRIST: PARADOXES AND POTENTIALS IN THE REMAKING OF WIDOW LIVES IN UGANDA......Page 92
CONVERGENCES AND CONTRASTS IN MUSLIMS’ RESPONSES......Page 124
COMPETING EXPLANATIONS AND TREATMENT CHOICES: MUSLIMS, AIDS AND ARVs IN TANZANIA*......Page 162
‘MUSLIMS HAVE INSTRUCTIONS’ HIV/AIDS, MODERNITY AND ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN KISUMU, KENYA......Page 196
PENTECOSTAL CONGREGRATIONS BETWEEN FAITH HEALING AND CONDEMNATION......Page 228
HEALING THE WOUNDS OF MODERNITY: SALVATION, COMMUNITY AND CARE IN A NEO-PENTECOSTAL CHURCH IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA1......Page 262
GLOVES IN TIMES OF AIDS: PENTECOSTALISM, HAIR AND SOCIAL DISTANCING IN BOTSWANA......Page 290
ANTI-RETROVIRAL TREATMENT: FAILURES AND RESPONSES......Page 314
SUBJECTS OF COUNSELLING: RELIGION, HIV/AIDS AND THE MANAGEMENT OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA......Page 340
THERAPEUTIC EVANGELISM—CONFESSIONAL TECHNOLOGIES, ANTIRETROVIRALS AND BIOSPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS IN WEST AFRIC......Page 366
CONCLUSION......Page 386
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS......Page 392
INDEX......Page 396
18......Page 412

Citation preview

Aids and Religious Practice in Africa

Studies of Religion in Africa Supplements to the Journal of Religion in Africa

Edited by

Paul Gifford School of Oriental and African Studies, London

VOLUME 36

Aids and Religious Practice in Africa Edited by

Felicitas Becker and P. Wenzel Geissler

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009

Cover illustration: Young woman praying during a Legio Maria healing ritual, western Kenya. Photograph by Wenzel Geissler, 2001. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data AIDS and religious practice in Africa / edited by Felicitas Becker and Wenzel Geissler. p. ; cm. — (Studies of religion in Africa, ISSN 0169-9814 ; 36) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-16400-0 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. AIDS (Disease)—Africa— Religious aspects. I. Becker, Felicitas, 1971- II. Geissler, Wenzel. III. Title. IV. Series: Studies on religion in Africa ; 36. [DNLM: 1. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome—Africa. 2. Religion and Medicine—Africa. WC 503.7 A2868 2009] RA643.86.A35A343 2009 362.196’97920096—dc22

2008049236

ISSN 0169-9814 ISBN 978 90 04 16400 0 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Koninklijke Brill NV has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS Introduction: Searching for Pathways in a Landscape of Death: Religion and AIDS in Africa .................................................. Felicitas Becker & P. Wenzel Geissler

1

NEW DEPARTURES IN CHRISTIAN CONGREGATIONS OF LONG STANDING The Rise of Occult Powers, AIDS and the Roman Catholic Church in Western Uganda ................................................... Heike Behrend

29

Christian Salvation and Luo Tradition: Arguments of Faith in a Time of Death in Western Kenya ................................. Ruth Prince

49

The New Wives of Christ: Paradoxes and Potentials in the Remaking of Widow Lives in Uganda .................................. Catrine Christiansen

85

CONVERGENCES AND CONTRASTS IN MUSLIMS’ RESPONSES AIDS and the Power of God: Narratives of Decline and Coping Strategies in Zanzibar ............................................... Nadine Beckmann

119

Competing Explanations and Treatment Choices: Muslims, AIDS and ARVs in Tanzania ................................................ Felicitas Becker

155

‘Muslims Have Instructions’: HIV/AIDS, Modernity and Islamic Religious Education in Kisumu, Kenya .................... Jonas Svensson

189

vi

contents PENTECOSTAL CONGREGATIONS BETWEEN FAITH HEALING AND CONDEMNATION

‘Keeping Up Appearances’: Sex and Religion amongst University Students in Uganda .............................................. Jo Sadgrove Healing the Wounds of Modernity: Salvation, Community and Care in a Neo-Pentecostal Church in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania ................................................................................. Hansjörg Dilger Gloves in Times of AIDS: Pentecostalism, Hair and Social Distancing in Botswana .......................................................... Rijk van Dijk

223

255

283

ANTI-RETROVIRAL TREATMENT: FAILURES AND RESPONSES Leprosy of a Deadlier Kind: Christian Conceptions of AIDS in the South African Lowveld ................................................ Isak Niehaus

309

Subjects of Counselling: Religion, HIV/AIDS and the Management of Everyday Life in South Africa .................... Marian Burchardt

333

Therapeutic Evangelism—Confessional Technologies, Antiretrovirals and Biospiritual Transformation in the Fight against AIDS in West Africa .................................................. Vinh-Kim Nguyen

359

Conclusion .................................................................................. John Lonsdale

379

Notes on Contributors ................................................................

385

Index ...........................................................................................

389

INTRODUCTION: SEARCHING FOR PATHWAYS IN A LANDSCAPE OF DEATH: RELIGION AND AIDS IN AFRICA Felicitas Becker & P. Wenzel Geissler AIDS, Africa and ‘religion’ Nobody would deny that religious practice is important in confronting AIDS in Africa, but the attention given to religion in the context of the AIDS crisis has maintained a fairly narrow focus. The role of religious organisations in providing care and support for sufferers is well known (e.g., Islamic Medical Association of Uganda 1998; Benn 2000). It has recently been boosted by the channelling of much of the USA’s government’s substantial funding for HIV/AIDS treatment and care through ‘Faith-Based Organizations’ (FBOs), and these organisations, in turn, have multiplied and expanded their work. Religious groupings are thus instrumental in, instrumentalised by, and arguably instrumentalising the organisation of HIV-related interventions. It is also well known that on other occasions, religious dogma has proved antithetical to the struggle against the epidemic, for example in the cases of some forms of evangelical fundamentalism and the official line of the Catholic Church regarding condoms to prevent HIV infection. Both these aspects—the role of religious institutions in care, and of religious ideas in negotiating appropriate preventative measures—will also be addressed in this volume. The focus of this book, though, lies elsewhere: on the way people rely on shared religious practice and notions and on personal religious commitments in order to conceptualise, understand and thereby to act upon the epidemic, and on the suffering and loss that it brings about, so as to pursue life and creativity in spite of it. The aim is not to supplant, but to add to the alreadyexplored perspectives. In particular, tracing the involvement of religious practices and commitments in dealing with AIDS helps understand (and hopefully constructively address) those religious reactions that at first appear unhelpful to experts focusing on treatment and prevention. The studies presented here encompass East and Southern Africa as well as one West African case, with a bias towards East Africa. To some extent, this bias reflects the research orientation, and hence networks,

2

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

of the editors (rather than any preference on their part). But it also reflects the fact that research on the ramifications of the AIDS crisis has been going on for longer where this crisis is older and most acute. Given Africa’s diversity, even continental coverage would never have been achievable, and it is to be hoped that West Africa does not have to suffer an AIDS crisis of the same proportions as the South or the East of the continent to encourage interest in the issue. In the following pages, we discuss some of the issues that connect the otherwise diverse contributions. We aim to highlight some reasons why the interaction between AIDS and religious practice is important, and to point out directions for further research. Firstly, though, we have to clear the ground a bit by explaining our use of the notion of religion and its aspects, religious practice, thought and commitment. That done, we examine an apparent turn towards restrictive application of religious dogma that connects religious debates about AIDS with broader trends of religious change. Next, we discuss the interaction of religion and AIDS in the context of Africa’s ever-deferred hopes for progress and modernity. This leads on to questioning the part of politics in this interaction. Lastly, we give space to the implications of the ongoing ‘roll-out’ of anti-retroviral drugs: not only because it changes many of the equations discussed here, inasmuch as they were observed before wider access to antiretroviral medication, but also because it suggests new directions for research. Refractions of the notion ‘religion’ Given the increasing salience of religion as a motive, or pretext, for action (as well as the refusal to act) in global public discourse, and the closeness of HIV/AIDS to suffering and death (phenomena which are readily defined as a preserve of religious specialists even in the most secularised societies) the importance of religion appears obvious. But what sort of religion? The authors assembled in this volume are not interested primarily in the role of professional religious experts, and do not limit themselves to organised religious practice. Thus although the contributions focus on groups that either explicitly or indirectly draw on the teachings of either Islam or Christianity, they set out from a notion of religious commitment and practice as part of everyday life. As such faith is inevitably informed by the intellectual-cum-social-cumpolitical currents mixing in Africa today: local religious heritages, world

religion and aids in africa

3

religions, notions of science and progress, the biomedical discourse of AIDS campaigns and the authority of the state that endorses them, and, not least, the experience of material deprivation which the destructuring and criminalisation of African nations and economies have brought about (see, e.g., Gifford 1994; Maxwell 1998; Meyer 1999; Sanders 2001). The interaction between religion and AIDS, in other words, is bound up with the wider experience of suffering within which the epidemic is set, and with other non-religious narratives and practices through which people address the experience of HIV/AIDS. On such ‘popular epidemiologies’ there is by now an important body of literature (see Setel 1999: 183). It tells us that people and communities affected by the virus range far and wide in their search for explanations, calling upon their knowledge of politics, commerce and international relations as well as diverse views of health and healing. In these public searches for meaning, AIDS can as well become a divine punishment, as it can turn into witchcraft (e.g., Yamba 1997), or into biological warfare or a plot hatched by authoritarian governments, single super powers and international donors (e.g., Schoepf 1995; Hooper 1999; Pickle et al. 2002; for an overview, see Iliffe 2006: 80). These insights have provided many leads for the contributions to this volume. Nevertheless, the studies presented below indicate that it would be misleading to subsume the diversity of such non-scientific explanatory narratives as now abound in Africa under a vastly broadened concept of ‘religion’. For instance, Ellis & Ter Haar have recently categorised discourses about anything invisible as ‘religious’, and ascribed to African cultures a propensity to focus explanations for calamities as well as for power and success on such invisible forces (2004). Their account refocuses attention on the salience of notions of the occult in Africa’s politics and on the relevance of religious practice to addressing social anomie. Still, subsuming the doubts and speculations that haunt African public debates and politics under an extended notion of ‘religion’ risks reiterating old debates about the ‘rationality’ of African actors and evoking dated cultural stereotypes. With regard to the subject in this collection, the result would be to lump together all narratives outside the narrowly defined scientific truth about AIDS as ‘religion’. This, in turn, would provoke the question why faith in science—which after all is equally invisible to all but few people—should not be classified as religion, too. In effect, it would give simultaneously too little importance

4

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

and too much meaning to economic anxiety and political rumours, and misrepresent the religious. The present collection suggests that religious commitments and practices, in contrast to urban myths, political rumours and trust in scientific authority, are not primarily about ‘the invisible’. Rather, they are about the everyday, tangible, material world and its inherent forces, about the humans and things that make up one’s world and constitute life, and about the relationship between this realm and that of divinity. It is to these forces and this relationship, within, rather than outside, everyday life, that many of the contributors to this volume attend: to the ways in which people in Africa navigate a way through landscapes which some of them describe as ‘dying’, but which nevertheless are the only ones available to them, and the ones that sustain their lives and hopes. The variety of phenomena discussed here highlights not only the absence of a comprehensive definition of ‘religion’, but also the problematic nature of this concept in African contexts. Paul Landau (1999) has argued that the notion of ‘African Traditional Religion’ in itself is intricately connected to missionaries’ efforts to identify and manipulate what they had made out to be their indigenous ‘competition’, and that the appropriation of Christian concepts in Africa has long born traces of the initial relationship between Christian masters and ‘pagan’ servants. In the present context, it is typically Africans who evoke notions of religion, its deficiencies or absence, to make points about health and society. Still, it is well to keep in mind that the religions people argue about or appeal to are something negotiated and constructed among unequal relationships, rather than found in place. It helps understand the implicitly political nature of the Muslim reformists discussed by Becker, Beckmann and Svensson, as well as the South African Zionists and Pentecostals observed by Niehaus and Burchardt. Prince’s argument about the co-construction of born again Protestantism and neoTraditionalism in Kenya has a similar thrust. Religious arguments, in this context, make reference not only to the spiritual, but, as anthropologists have shown many times over, to history and the political-economic process (e.g. Comaroff & Comaroff 1991). In fact, AIDS prevention efforts suggest other long-term continuities than those traced by Landau, between the activities of missionaries and those of AIDS experts. Much as missionaries defined (African) ‘religion’ as either aligned with or opposed to their ultimate aim of saving souls, contemporary AIDS institutions engage with (and thereby

religion and aids in africa

5

define) ‘religion’ as an order of meaning and of social relations, which can either facilitate or obstruct their efforts to change ideas and practices and save lives. This continuity is evident also in the way AIDS education focuses on and problematises women. Similar to the missionaries’ concerns (later taken up by colonial government) with ‘liberating’ African women by improving their hygiene and childcare skills and recreating them as modern, Christian wives (see e.g. Vaughan 1992; Hunt 1999; Ferguson 1999, Mutongi 2007), today, again, women’s behaviour is seen as crucial to stemming the tide of AIDS. This time, women are expected to learn a version of late-European-modern female assertiveness in gender relations (if often in a Christian guise), rather than the housewifeliness of mission modernity. The papers presented here give some insights into why such ‘life skills’ in gender relations and sexual practice are often hard to apply. Besides the well-known facts of economic and personal dependency, there are things at stake in which women may be particularly invested or which affect them more: for example, broader Luo understandings of growth (Prince) or Muslim notions of female virtue (Beckmann, Svensson). At the same time, as Christiansen’s chapter shows, some women actively embrace religious forms to remodel their womanhood in the days of AIDS. Despite these doubts about the value of ‘religion’ as analytical category, and especially so in the African context, we have retained the term, if used sparingly, due to its organising capacity. Irrespective of our difficulties in coining a lasting and transferable definition of religion, many people in Africa (as elsewhere) attribute great importance to that which it is used to describe and may apply it to core concerns in their lives. It is ultimately due to the evocative quality of the term as well as its sheer convenience, rather than the analytical usefulness of the concept, that we can use religion as a useful way to approach understandings of and ways of confronting AIDS. AIDS and the prescriptive turn in religious life In medical and policy debates about HIV/AIDS, the place of religion is sometimes deceptively clear: the preserve of religious experts is to preach and oversee behavioural change, if not only for biomedical reasons. Religious commitments, in this view, are above all a source of restrictions, and ideally a force to restore order in the face of (primarily

6

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

sexual and gendered) confusion. Yet, whether religious restrictions of personal freedom will actually reduce the risk of acquiring AIDS is an open question. With many other studies, several contributions to this volume underline that the famous ABC (‘Abstinence, Be faithful, use a Condom) formula for HIV prevention, with its emphasis on ‘choices’, barely scrapes the surface of the way people experience, practise and think about sex. Risky behaviour can arise from lack of choice and imbalanced power relations, but also from the fact that the concept of viral infection may be alien, or less important than ritual obligations to engage in bodily intercourse. People may give religiously sanctioned relations precedence over concerns with the individual body and lifeexpectancy, and prioritise the wish to have children and be part of a larger process of life. Religiously motivated self-restraint is one factor among many social commitments operative here. Religious rules can even be a risk factor in the context of AIDS. The official line of Catholic Church is to condemn the use of condoms, still the only effective way of avoiding infection outside exclusive relationships with an HIV-negative partner. Likewise, the evangelical Protestant lobby that has recently shaped much American AIDS policy rejects condoms as well as extra-marital sexual intercourse. It has succeeded in tying the recent ‘Presidential’ funds for antiretroviral drugs, a substantial contribution, in material terms, to global health intervention and the fight against AIDS, to the condition that abstinence and faithfulness, rather than condoms, are advocated for HIV prevention, and to a preferential use of FBOs for HIV-prevention efforts. At the inter-personal level, different studies of gender, HIV and religion have shown that born-again Christianity can ‘empower’ women to protect themselves against unwanted sex and HIV infection (Cattell 1992; Ogden 1996; see also the chapters by Christiansen and Prince), although it has also been suggested that Pentecostalism might subdue women under renewed patriarchal control and thereby expose them to unwanted and unprotected sex (Mate 2002). It is no coincidence that many of the chapters examine new, radical religious movements. Pentecostalism, Revivalism, neo-Traditionalism and Muslim reformism are all characterised by their demand for exclusive commitment and for a fundamentally restructured everyday life, often focusing on mundane practices. They present different instances of the growing importance of religious prescriptions in contemporary Africa as much as many other parts of the world. The intensification of the restrictiveness, even aggressiveness, of religious injunctions that

religion and aids in africa

7

the present contributions suggest (Becker, Behrend, van Dijk, Prince, Svensson) presents an explanatory problem. In spite of initial appearances, the causal relationship between it and the experience of AIDS is not obvious. Has the trauma of AIDS-related suffering triggered a tightening of religious restrictions, as part of avoidance strategies that can border on panic, or have religious groups already committed to the tightening of dogmatic stances been able to seize the metaphor of AIDS to promote their interpretation of religious morality and practice, as well as the influence of their organisations? The stress, fear and misery associated with AIDS provide an obvious reason for the further enforcement of restrictive ‘avoidance strategies’. It is fair to assume that the AIDS-induced sense of crisis and rupture in both individual lives and the fabric of sociality encourages exclusionary actions, as among the Catholic witch-hunters observed by Behrend, stark personal choices, as among Christiansen’s young Saved widows, and restrictive interpretations of religious practice, as among Becker’s reformist Muslims and Prince’s traditionalists. Yet, such processes of exclusion are likely to be ambiguous as the passage from rhetorical commitment to everyday practice is more complex than explicit statements of it generally allow. The tensions between Pentecostal commitment, personal practices and social commitments are well illustrated by Sadgrove’s chapter on Ugandan university students, and van Dijk’s on Ghanaian Pentecostal hairdressers; while the former, despite strong religious commitment, do not always follow their prescriptions, the latter emphasise religiously motivated separations overlapping with class difference, and draw selectively upon the religious obligation to care for others. The overall increasing rigidity of religious notions, or assertiveness of their proponents, invites speculation on the ‘revenge of God’ (see Kepel 1993), not on Africa, but on the relativist anthropologist. The global rise of religious fundamentalisms in all three monotheist religions—and, partly in response, in ‘traditional’ religion—has baffled western observers who took the restriction of religious commitment to a personal and private sphere as part and parcel of the inevitable diffusion of modernity, in Africa as elsewhere. Instead, the evidence increasingly supports the assertion that rigid distinctions between believers and unbelievers, the saved and the rest, are a characteristic aspect of what Latour described as the ‘modern constitution’ (1993). In Africa, these radical dichotomous patterns were promoted, in particular, by Christianity. While the early expansion of Islam in Africa

8

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

initially produced relatively open forms of Islamic practice, Christian influences introduced with colonial mission have since their inception considered their project as one of opposition and struggle—against pagan tradition, immorality and the past—and they have introduced Manichaean morality and according behavioural prescriptions, enforced by racial and economic segregation, into the African religious imagination. It is thus clear that exclusivity and restrictiveness, prescriptions and prohibitions, have been observable well before AIDS, and arguably even before the recent rise of rigid, prescriptive religious discourses. While restrictiveness clearly is an important characteristic of faithbased responses to AIDS, it need not be overemphasised to the expense of other dimensions of religious experience. Some earlier anthropological studies of AIDS in Africa drew heavily upon academic concepts like ‘taboo’ to argue that indigenous religious explanations attributed AIDS-related death to rule-infringements (see for an overview Iliffe 2006: 91–92). But besides prohibitions and separations operate the unifying and merging dimensions of religious commitment and practice; the double bond that religious experience and practice has with both order and disorder. As Victor Turner, among others, has shown, religious commitment and engagement with divinity involves both rules of restraint and separation, e.g. abstinence in customary ritual or Christian and Muslim conduct, and commitment to the opposite, communitas and transgression of boundaries. This may be reflected in rituals of communion such as the emphasis on prayer among reformist Muslims that feature in Becker and Svensson’s accounts or the liturgical practices of charismatic churches like Sadgrove’s and Dilger’s Pentecostals. It also occurs in the liminal states that are involved in possession by the Holy Ghost (Dilger, Sadgrove, Behrend) or ancestral spirits (Prince), or in prescribed ritual (or marital) sexual intercourse, as the rituals of widow inheritance, discussed by Christiansen and Prince, illustrate. Rather than providing prescriptions and distinctions, religious practices—initiation rites as much as the Christian Eucharist or Muslim Salat—also potentially imply the creative dissolution of boundaries and the transformative merging of ordered separations, from which life-force is released. Thus understood, religion allows the possibility of uncertainty and surprising event, rather than erasing doubts; it opens up pathways rather than setting closed frames, ‘starting points and not finalities’, in the terms of Susan Whyte’s pragmatist anthropology (1997: 20). Most of the papers below show that religious debates in

religion and aids in africa

9

contemporary African everyday life do not succeed in imposing a closed dogmatic order or fixed explanatory frames, despite concerted efforts by some to deploy religion to such effect. Instead, religious knowledge and practices open up fora to negotiate the relations between creative order and amorphousness, between collective rules and particular desires, and between life and death. While the struggles of East African widows between Christian and ‘traditional’ religious and other commitments show this tension most clearly, similar tensions are at play between traditional and reformist Muslims in Becker’s chapter. AIDS, religious change, and the long-term slide towards Africa’s ‘abjection’ The focus on AIDS as central event and narrative which is characteristic of much literature on the epidemic does not necessarily reflect Africans’ experience. What biomedically appears to be AIDS is usually discussed in relation to wider social ills rather than to an immunological imaginary, and these critical discussions insert themselves into narratives about destruction, confusion and loss, which have been told in eastern Africa since the early years of the last century (see, e.g., Cohen & Odhiambo 1989). This longer historical trajectory is what lends force and credibility to the South African president Thabo Mbeki’s seemingly irrational argument concerning the origins of HIV beyond the narrow confines of virology (see Fassin 2007). Epidemics, of rinderpest and sleeping sickness, measles and influenza, have featured in these narratives, as have ‘outbreaks’ of religious fervour—sometimes one related to the other (e.g., Ogot 1963: 255–7; Ranger 1992a). What Prince’s Kenyans call ‘the death of today’—the AIDS-related sickness and death of the past decade—is widely regarded as but the most recent consequence of longer processes of change that have affected the constitution of sociality itself. The nostalgia and laments about loss and anomie that dominate in the views of Niehaus’s rural South African informants, as well as in contemporary Zanzibar and western Kenyan public oratory, are a recurrent theme in twentiethcentury Africa (see, e.g., Prince 2006; Ferguson 1999). The words of Achebe/Yeats, ‘things fall apart’, which generations of East Africans have read in school, make as much sense (though possibly referring to different ‘things’) to young people today as they did to their grandfathers. This contrasts with the presentism of research funders, public health experts, policymakers and the mass media, who may ignore the fact

10

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

that AIDS is but one of the scourges that have befallen Africa over the past century. Nevertheless, AIDS is a scourge that could be said to strike at the very core of religious practice. Anthropologists have observed the ‘sacred’ status of bodily intercourse and gendered relations of humans as well as non-human entities (e.g. Heald 1999; Sanders 2002) in Africa. Others have noted religious concern with generation (e.g. Lienhard 1961; Turner 1967) in many African societies. While it would be reductionist to associate African religious practice with ‘fertility’, narrowly focusing on biological understandings of reproduction, most scholars would agree that acts of gendered complementation, and of creative unions have a particular place in non-Christian (and, arguably, also Christian and Muslim) forms of religious imagination and practice in Africa. Already the destructive dimensions of colonial occupation and of economic exploitation and neglect, which produced profound changes in kinship and livelihood and challenged older notions of ‘growth’, therefore went to the heart of religious commitment. Bans on polygamy and widow inheritance, restrictions on sexuality and fertility, as well as loss of land and livelihood and shrinking cattle and pasture, malnutrition and new infections, all challenged prevailing ways of engendering human growth through ritual practices. After all this, it is little surprising if AIDS, conceived of as final cessation of growth after the bodily union turned into a source of death rather than renewal, appears to complete secular processes that have eroded both African modes of living and engendering life, and the attendant religious or ritual forms. While AIDS is not perceived as a radically new experience, neither are the religious engagements with AIDS. The experience of this illness is embedded both with much older debates among Africans on the ways their lives have been changing, and with the experience of these changes themselves. These changes have often been forceful and destructive, and ambiguous even during the short period of the colonial and post-colonial ‘the developmental state’ between the 1940s and 80s; during the past two decades of neoliberalisation and economic and political crisis—that is in most living people’s memory—they have been overwhelmingly negative. The encounter between religious practice and AIDS, then, is part of Africans’ long-standing struggle with adversity, assault and domination. Thus, both the turn towards faith healing, with its processual, euphoric and trance-like qualities, and the re-examination of behavioural rules and scriptural teachings in the context of AIDS draw on long-standing

religion and aids in africa

11

notions and practices. Prophecy and possession have been involved in confronting colonial rule and in living with it, inspiring movements such as Tanganyika’s Maji Maji, Kenyan Mumbo or Central Africa’s Watchtower (Iliffe 1979; Wipper 1978; Fields 1985). Spirit possession has provided spaces of action for Muslim women in Africa probably for centuries (Boddy 1989; Makris 1996). Clashes between religiously founded rules of differing derivations pre-date colonialism in the case of Islam; they have been a salient feature of mission Christianity for the whole of its existence (Pels 1999). AIDS, science, and deferred modernity Coping with AIDS, then, is but the most recent in a long line of struggles that people in Africa have lived through in the second half of the twentieth century. The foreclosure of ways for individuals and communities to grow—in terms of kinship and personal advancement—already motivated resistance to colonial rule, and it has recurred in a multitude of guises since (Lonsdale). Economic turnarounds beyond the control of Africans, and equally uncontrollable, if more locally produced, political uncertainty, have translated into accumulating strictures and hardship. Africa has experienced a long, slow decline from the optimism of the mid-twentieth century age of ‘development’, and its people are struggling to make sense of this predicament—Africa’s current ‘abjection’ (Ferguson 1999)—which seems to affect everything, from individual bodies and lives to the wider social, economic and political world. The papers in this volume again and again show that to the minds of many people living through it, the AIDS epidemic is not a clearly delineated specific event, but a part or a stage in a long procession of misfortunes. Thus they also suggest that it is part of the attraction of faith-based explanations of HIV/AIDS that they resemble the problems Africans face in being wide-ranging and comprehensive. They do not promise only to help people deal with AIDS, but offer explanations also of other social ills, and suggest entire ways of life. Religious debates in the times of AIDS therefore also contain a critical evaluation of the past century of change, and they are always discussions about the ‘problem of modernity’ and its instantiations, such as the state and its laws, capitalism and economic differentiation, and science and medicine.

12

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

Regarding the relevance of the notion of modernity for people in Africa, the papers highlight the extent to which it has become an ‘emic’ term; part of the way people in Africa think about their predicament. For example, Pentecostals in Dar es Salaam (Dilger) as well as Muslims in Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar (Becker, Beckmann) all grapple with the notion in different ways. Clearly, the meanings of modernity are slippery and its evaluation is ambiguous; it may be an unfulfilled promise (Becker) or an accomplished process of alienation (Beckmann). One way of acknowledging this diversity is by including everything contemporaneous with the present into the purview of ‘modernity’. This makes witch burnings and criminal states into ‘African modernities’ (e.g. Comaroff & Comaroff 1993). James Ferguson, however, has warned that this inflationary use of modernity may be politically counterproductive, contribute to the dissolution of the modern project, and that it is likely to be incomprehensible, indeed offensive, to African citizens for whom ‘modernity’ has quite clear meanings such as effective health care, democratic representation and employment (2006; see also Deutsch et al. 2002). The contributors to this volume on the whole treat ‘the modern’ as possessing a more specific meaning than that captured by ‘multiple modernities’, yet slightly broader than these material hopes and aspirations. Here, modernity refers to a historically situated project, which alongside the progress implied by ‘modernisation’ also refers to a particular governmental order and particular forms of discipline and morality (see Ferguson 1999, Becker 2008, Prince & Geissler 2009). It is the crisis of this ambiguous project that interacts in several of the chapters below with religion and AIDS. Understood in this way, ‘modernity’ is something that the African religious actors discussed here situate themselves towards in different ways. Ghanaian Pentecostals in Gaborone (van Dijk) and Ugandan ones in Kampala (Sadgrove) appear to view modernity as something they still have to bring about by their actions, while the Pentecostal community in Dar es Salaam observed by Dilger is seeking, in his words, to heal the wounds modernity has caused. Meanwhile the members of rural African-led churches in South Africa observed by Niehaus might agree with Zanzibari Muslims encountered by Beckmann that modernity has washed over them and left them to pick up the pieces. Muslim teachers in Western Kenya (Svensson) and Muslim radicals in Tanzania (Becker), meanwhile, look upon the means to be modern as something to be wrested from Christian ideology and state control.

religion and aids in africa

13

Prince, by contrast, describes ‘neo-traditionalists’ using an idiom of wholesome tradition and contemporary (modern) corruption, which reflects older idioms of distinction and rupture, such as missionaries’ invective against pagan ‘backsliding’. On the whole, the present contributions reinforce a point that has recently passed from being controversial to forming a new consensus: the fundamental(ist) elements in the religious discourses examined here should be understood, not as pre-modern atavisms or anti-modern reaction—naïve attempts to reconstruct past epistemologies and social orders—but as characteristically modern forms of argument, situated in modern experiences and even if not necessarily about modernity, still firmly rooted within it (see e.g. Eickelman and Piscatori 1996; Englund & Leach 2000). At the same time, these arguments can be said to reflect a broader modern tendency to classify and separate (Latour, 1993). But recognition of their falling into this widespread pattern is no substitute for tracing the more specific motives that animate, for instance, the antiwitchcraft ‘carpet bombers’ Behrend describes, or the Muslim reformists and Luo traditionalists that Svensson and Prince, respectively, observe in the same area of western Kenya. Medical science is a particularly important refraction of the modern experience in the current context. In biomedical recommendations and education programmes focused on them, African AIDS victims encounter the entire complex of the practice of science and of ‘scientism’ (the evocation and reification of science for specific goals). People in Africa have long been told that ‘scientific’ attitudes are a precondition for ‘development’. Now, medical experts’ insistence that they have no cure for AIDS, intended as a warning against risky behaviour and bogus cures, is easily taken as a declaration of the defeat of science. African listeners may take scientists’ insistence on their own limits as their giving up on addressing the continent’s problems, all the more as in Africa’s post-colonial experience, the blessings of development and science have been permanently unequally distributed and often elusive. Such interpretation is expressed in the rumours, widespread in Africa, that ‘the Americans’ or ‘the Whites’ have a cure for AIDS which they refuse to share with African sufferers. These rumours, in turn, hark back both to Biblical idioms of ‘stolen blessings’, and to political calls for access to free antiretroviral treatment and care. The widespread occurrence of faith healing, especially among Pentecostals, is clearly an attempt to provide possibilities where scientists and medical doctors appear to fail. The conflict between Christian

14

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

healing and biomedicine, moreover, reveals to Africans a split within the ‘Western tradition’, as both the lines of thought, both Christianity and modernist scientism, have European ancestry and were closely intertwined in their colonial origins (see e.g. Ranger 1992b). One might surmise that the present shift, across Africa, from the old mission Churches to new forms of Charismatic and healing ministry, is related to this loss of credibility of the older alliance between biomedicine and ‘mainstream’ denominations. But, as Dilger’s paper describes, believers in faith healing are also finding compromises that allow them to combine the solace of faith healing with an acceptance of biomedical interpretations. A similar point can be made about Muslim reformists. However rigid the prescriptions for their co-religionists’ behaviour that they propose, their insistence on the centrality of the scriptures for Muslims and on formalised ways of interpreting them is also an assertion of a different kind of rationality. They often insist that the Qurxan does not clash with science, but rather endorses and prefigures it. At the same time, they proudly assert the moral as well as technical relevance of the Qurxan, which, to their minds, is a particular strength of Qurxanic as opposed to scientific rationality. The restrictive rhetoric of Muslim reformists notwithstanding, more mainstream Muslims, too, struggle to reconcile the findings of science with the scriptures. Much like Christians, they find ways to live with the disaster unfolding around them by placing it within God’s plans. Thinking and acting about AIDS, then, people in Africa also reassess the elusive promises of modernity and its harbinger, science. At times, it appears that, having found themselves excluded from the once so promising ‘modern world’, they are finding entirely new categories to define their place in the world. Pentecostal Christians are defining this transient world ever more starkly in contrast to the next, eternal one, hoping for a leap forward in time. Muslims, on the other hand, insist on the necessity for their home regions to become fully integrated into the Dar-ul-Islam, the realm of Islam, which they oppose in spatial, rather than temporal, terms to ‘the West’. Traditionalists advocating ‘African custom’, meanwhile, are developing an account of their home regions as culturally separate from other regions of the world and threatened in their authenticity; where Pentecostal Christians propose a rupture forward and away from the world, traditionalism could be said to call for the opposite move, back to the origins, and to the earth.

religion and aids in africa

15

AIDS, religious congregations, and politics A political strand runs through the narratives in this collection, of secular decline and attempts to situate oneself towards modernity. It is most obvious where the actions of the state are at stake, but typically it does not stop there, and often it is more submerged. It has been said that in societies where descent networks are crucial for organising social interaction, cooperation and control, ‘public’ and ‘private’ domains become intermingled (Marks and Rathbone 1983; see also Giblin 1992). The presence of the state notwithstanding, the web of relationships constituted by families, kin, and religious congregations still shapes a person’s options for autonomy and dependency, and personal well-being remains intertwined not only with that of religious congregations but also of the body politic. The failures and limitations of official capacities to counter the AIDS epidemic leave a space for religious action to occupy: the relative dearth of counselling services in Cape Town (Burchard) and of medical and social services at large in Dar es Salaam (Dilger) frame religious responses to AIDS. Religious congregations and FBOs thereby end up paralleling state institutions. The relationship is not only one of marginalisation and mutual avoidance, though: Muslim secondary school teachers in Western Kenya, for instance, use their curricula on AIDS with a sense of official entitlement, as Svensson shows. At the same time, the relationship between FBOs and the congregations in which they are based has its own political problematic. Nguyen’s study of counselling organisations in Burkina Faso, which in effect serve as a gateway between HIV-positive patients and ARV providers, indicates this. The conjuncture of concern about AIDS, societal—particularly moral—decline and the failures of the state is clearest in two otherwise very different settings: among rural Zionist Christians in South Africa (Niehaus) and urban Muslims in Zanzibar (Beckmann). The former experience post-apartheid South Africa as a site of continuing, even increasing social anomie, where the state continues to be part of the problem rather than the solution. The latter translate concern about Zanzibar’s marginality within the Tanzanian state into a discourse of Islamic morality under threat. However, in spite of the much more proactive response to HIV/AIDS of the Ugandan government, Behrend here found Catholic witch hunters who act on a perceived need to tackle the rise of occult forces: in this case, the aggressive and bitter response cannot easily be explained with official neglect or

16

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

meddling. The perceived failures always take place at the local as well as the national level. The people observed by Niehaus and Beckmann in fact recognise this, as their debates oscillate between political and communal failures. Still, even in countries with ‘weak’ states, the health of citizens remains intertwined with that of the political system. Becker suggests that the relations of religious experts to the state shape both their response to state-endorsed AIDS education, and their listeners’ response to the advice they give. Prince’s discussion of customary practices and inheritance law points at the fraught relationship between different legal frames and the absence of democratic public negotiations of these; moreover, the adjudication of a ‘Luo council of elders’ draws attention to the lack of democratically constituted legal bodies and a civil society engaging with these. Behrend’s ‘carpet bombing’ Catholic vigilantes are likely to be informed by Uganda’s warlike recent history. Thus, even with an issue as personal as how to live with the danger and suffering of AIDS, religious commitment does not escape the realm of politics. It is clear that, for Muslims, AIDS is implicated in an uneasy negotiation of their position within the East African states. Yet for Christian denominations, too, the way they place themselves vis-à-vis the state needs constant watching and re-thinking (Gifford 1994). At a more intimate level of power relations, Prince and Christiansen present strikingly different trajectories and interpretations in neighbouring regions on the northern shores of Lake Victoria: Prince among Kenyan Luo, Christiansen among Luhya people in across the border in Uganda. In both cases, villagers are concerned about the continuance of widow ‘inheritance’ in the presence of AIDS; about negotiating ‘Saved’ Christian condemnation of the practice, and about alternative means of ensuring the continuity of life. Yet while Prince focuses on collective efforts to maintain ’growth’ through relations with the past, and personal compromises inspired by these efforts, Christiansen emphasises widows’ readiness to break away from preconceived social roles by evoking ‘saved’ status. The contrast is only partly a matter of diverging research interests. It also shows how similar religious injunctions can impinge very differently on individual lives. The differences are the outcome of contingent societal factors among which legal and economic factors are prominent: the politics of the family are not ultimately isolated from formal politics. The authors gathered here, then, present both contrasts and continuities with other recent publications on AIDS that have examined the

religion and aids in africa

17

politics, or apparent lack of it, of the African AIDS epidemic. Alex de Waal, for example, has deplored what he perceives as the political quiescence surrounding AIDS in Africa, and attributed it above all to denial, both among politicians and populations (de Waal 2007). The accounts presented here suggest something quite different from political quiescence and denial: widespread, diverse efforts to respond, both practical and intellectual, but predominantly directed towards realms of social action which escape de Waal’s narrow, state-centred definition of politics. By contrast, Epstein’s focus on the importance of behavioural change in slowing down Uganda’s epidemic, and the role of internal politics in international AIDS organisations in obscuring this factor, resonates with the emphasis on intimate negotiations and problematic relationships with officialdom in the present collection (Epstein 2007). Iliffe, too, (2006: 126–131) interpreted the evidence on behaviour change in Uganda to mean that people reduce risky behaviour once the theses of AIDS educators have been borne out by people’s own experience. Once enough people have died for conclusions to be drawn about the patterns in these deaths, the desire to live, he suggested, would lead to the appropriate pragmatic responses. The present collection of case studies similarly shows that people are learning quickly; that they are looking for the causes of the epidemic and for ways to control it, and that, despite the mistrust towards officialdom, biomedically based explanations and recommendations are seriously discussed along with others. These learning processes can in turn impact on ritual practice, as the discussions, in Kenya and Uganda, about less risky alternatives to the neo-traditional prescriptions of ‘widow inheritance’ show (Prince and Christiansen). Yet, to arrive at such reforms of knowledge and practice, politics and policy must work towards certain basic conditions. In particular, people must be able to access, negotiate and weigh information from different sources so as to try out different interpretations. They must, for example, develop a workable notion of sexual transmission and they must be in a situation in life that allows them weigh the avoidance of risk against other considerations, whether ritual, romantic, pragmatic or mercenary that may encourage risk-taking. They also need access to the material tools of preventing and countering HIV infections: condoms and possibly other innovative devices, and medicines. That these conditions are elusive even in the presence of AIDS prevention programmes has been argued (Campbell 2003) and is also

18

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

evident from the case studies. A host of factors encourage dangerous choices: the appearance-consciousness and relative lack of means of Sadgrove’s Ugandan university students; the strictures that Ghanaian ‘guest workers’ in Gaborone operate under (van Dijk) or the assertion of masculinity in the context of instable gender relations left behind by labour migration under apartheid (Niehaus). Political strictures are acquiring a new acuteness as Africa moves from the era of AIDS education and palliative treatment into that of antiretroviral treatment (ART). The provision of these drugs presents a challenge for weakened national health systems and their transnational donors, but also an opportunity to pursue religio-political agendas. In south-eastern Tanzania, according to medical workers in the region, the implementation of a US-funded ART programme was put off several times to accommodate the donors’ demands for control over the supply of the drug. Similarly, at the time of writing this introduction, the widows in the village described by Prince are still struggling to obtain the ART, although antiretroviral drugs ought to be available for free since 2006 (thanks to government policy and US American funding through GAP and PEPFAR, which in turn are shaped by a particular version of Christian ideology). These experiences with ART underline the institutional obstacles that obstruct change in official responses to the epidemic; obstacles that ultimately are based in political decisions and economic resources. This situation points to a new set of questions concerning HIV/AIDS and religion: the ways in which HIV treatment campaigns and ART drugs engage with religious ideologies and religious subjectivities, on a personal and social level, as well as on the level of HIV policy and politics, both national and global. ART, subjects, and subjection The possibility of HIV testing so as to take action to obtain drugs and access health care in order to live with HIV has created new opportunities for religious exhortation as well as self-reflection. The suggestion that the experience of a positive diagnosis and subsequent reorientation towards living with HIV (and, hopefully, ARVs) could ‘call forth new selves’ (in Nguyen’s phrase), in particular in connection with the Pentecostal experience of being ‘born again’, caused some discussion among the editors. It is rooted in Foucault’s insistence that power

religion and aids in africa

19

regimes work on people not only by limiting and controlling, but also by cultivating and shaping them. Moreover, there can be little doubt that the adaptation to living with HIV has to be, and being born again can be, a profound reorientation, and one relevant to what Foucault called the ‘care of the self ’. But, as Sadgrove and van Dijk remind us in their chapters on Pentecostals in Kampala, Uganda, and Gaborone, Botswana, being born again may sometimes be predominantly about scaling existing social hierarchies, formulaic, pragmatic and not particularly personal. More generally, it is problematic to speak of new selves without demonstrating how they are different from those selves that Africans surely have long cultivated, unless we want to treat ‘the self ’ as a cultural category simply absent in certain contexts. Much recent African ethnography (e.g. Lambeck and Strathern 1998; Piot 1999; Helle-Valle 2004; Niehaus 2002; Geissler & Prince 2007, 2009, in press) draws upon older anthropological work on African personhood and Melanesian sociality, to explore differences between the notion of ‘self ’ and ‘individual’ as cultivated in the West since the enlightenment, and more relational (for some accounts ‘dividual’) modes of socially producing persons. Implicit to this differentiation between western and non-western personhood can be a problematic assumption of general historical change from more relational to more individual personhood, from ‘pre-modern’ to modern; ‘non-western’ to ‘western’. To avoid this a-historical dichotomisation, one needs to keep in mind that images of difference, like ‘individual’ and ‘dividual’ personhood, or social ‘flows’ vs. bounded ‘selves’, are not entities that can be had by themselves. They serve as pairs, as ‘convenient fictions’, as Strathern had it, to prize open the complex social and cultural negotiations that occur when concepts, terminology and practices originating in vastly different social, cultural and political-economic settings are articulated upon one another. It would be obvious nonsense to claim that HIV education brought selves to previously selfless peoples—this would reproduce century old stereotypes of Africa, misrepresent the complexity of personhood anywhere, and grossly overestimate the capacity of external intervention, be it capitalism, mission, or HIV programmes. At the same time, there can be no doubt that religious programmes that encourage adherents to cut generative and genealogical ties (such as described by van Dijk), economic projects that enforce accumulation and private property, or an HIV training to exercise self-control and choice (Burchard), pose new questions in social settings in which

20

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

procreative relations of gender and generation are fundamental to identity, or in which sharing is considered not only morally superior, but vital and generative (Prince). To understand the resulting negotiations and connect them back to questions of power and dependency, a focus on the making of subjectivities can be useful. The aim is not to reify imagined ‘cultural’ differences between Africa and the West, or to exaggerate the impact of pharmaceuticals and their providers into totalising new regimes of sovereignty and citizenship. Rather it is to study the new formations that emerge between new medical problems and solutions, old and new forms of government, and the bodies of citizens and sufferers. The extent to which these formations involve an examination and reshaping of selves or subjectivities unsurprisingly varies greatly between places and among persons. Discussing the effects of ‘western’ and especially missionary healthcare regimes in colonial Africa, Megan Vaughan once warned against overly quick assertions of subject-formation through medical rationalities (1991). These medical systems, she argued, were so limited, and their categories for imagining Africans as persons so coarse, distant, approximate, that very little can be said on the basis of the systems’ pronouncements about if and how they interacted with the medical subjects’ personhood. Present levels of medical and especially pharmaceutical intervention in Africa are of course much more intense than at the (colonial) time studied by Vaughan and, maybe more importantly, they are much more focused (namely on HIV) and centralised (notably in the US government’s initiatives). Nevertheless, Vaughan’s qualification of a straight ‘Foucauldian’ approach is well kept in mind when discussing current changes of subjectivity and personhood in Africa. We have to establish more clearly in which ways medical intervention in Africa has actually changed since the colonial period—especially given that health services remain so woefully limited—how, in different settings, discourses are articulated upon lives, and how new medical and governmental technologies are deployed. Among the present authors, Isak Niehaus’s account of parallels between attitudes to leprosy and AIDS in the South African lowveld suggests continuities between colonial medical interventions and imaginaries, and the present. Likewise, colonial sleeping sickness epidemics, their effect on people’s imagination, and the control measures against them could be said to prefigure certain traits of HIV pandemic and policy. Such historical continuities should lead us to ask about the

religion and aids in africa

21

more subtle differences between past and present, rather than propose wholesale new social formations. The apparent continuities evoked by Niehaus form a striking contrast with Burchard’s observations from urban South Africa, and Nguyen’s from Burkina Faso, that deal with the experience of ‘living positively’. These two papers most clearly suggest that such new subjectivities (to use a term suggesting something less fundamental and more easily malleable than ‘self ’) are emerging. Among Pentecostals in Uganda, Sadgrove observes a more gingerly and intermittent move towards practicing new forms of care of the self, while Christiansen observes the emergence of a new kind of social persona among widows. In Zanzibar, though, Beckmann shows that Zanzibari Muslims often cope with being HIV+ by shifting from speaking of infection as divine punishment for individual transgression to speaking of a trial which HIV-sufferers undergo on behalf of the entire community that has fallen short of God’s ideals. This allows the victims to envision a place for themselves within a Muslim milieu that continues to display very judgmental attitudes towards them; it enables them to keep their selves, as it were, within normal range. Counselling, Rhetoric and extraversion: ‘performing’ survival for Western audiences? Another way of looking at the new forms of subjectivity that emerge at the interstices between religion and AIDS would be in terms of performance, emphasising not so much processes of self-making, but the representation of new selves to specific audiences, aiming for specific effects. Now that AIDS has become a treatable condition, it shares in the fundamental problem of all medical conditions in Africa: how to make treatment available. The debates about ART in South Africa, claimed by some with reference to universal rights, and questioned by others, including the president, as a political risk and a possible deflection of attention from the political-economic causes of the epidemic (see Fassin 2007), have made it abundantly clear that even in Africa’s wealthiest nation, AIDS sufferers cannot rely on their government to provide ART and, more importantly, that governments and citizens rely upon multiple other agencies—non-governmental as a well as bilateral and international, public as well as charitable and private—to access treatment. ART thus implies new dependencies and threats, which are reflected in

22

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

discussions and rumours about standards of treatment, and which can be interpreted as Nguyen does, as generating ‘therapeutic citizenships’ that might replace older attachments and responsibilities. People (patients and governments) in Africa are dependent upon ‘donors’ beyond their control to survive. It would thus not seem an excessive simplification if we assumed that they try, through their behaviour, to harness these powers. Nguyen, for example, observes the interaction between HIV positive people and faith-based counsellors in Burkina Faso. He argues that people are living up to drug providers’ ideals of ‘living positively’ so as to encourage ARV provision; performing survival to the donors to keep them donating. They use standardised confessional forms with religious connotations to create an appealing performance. Such an orientation towards an overseas audience is not new: the performance of ‘western’ values and styles has been part of colonial and post-colonial sociality throughout the past century, conflating changing subjectivities, creative mimesis and utilitarian manipulation (see e.g. Mutongi 2007). What is new is the fact that the success of these performances directly determines survival. The stakes are high, and so is pressure to perform well. The tendency towards externalising display is not limited to AIDS. Recently, Kenyan youths have been performing violence for the cameras, and the dependence of African AIDS victims on overseas providers brings to mind Bayart’s exploration of the ‘extraversion’ of African polities: the long-standing ability of elites not just to depend on, but to manipulate inflows from abroad (Bayart 1993). This reminds us that the manipulation of the provision of ARVs, including their exploitation for extraneous ends, is always a possibility. For example one might argue that faith-based counsellors, the newest and fastest morphing new African healthcare care profession (if this is the right word) have taken shape precisely at the intersection of HIV, NGOs and religious commitments, as well as between new Christian selves, new styles of ‘positive living’ and the performative demands of a new labour market funded by broadly faith based overseas HIV aid (Prince 2008). The contributions to this volume, then, are forays into an exciting new field of enquiry: into the shifting outlines of Africans’ lives during an age of HIV and FBOs, non-governmental politics and politicised aid. They draw attention to the creative powers released by the struggle to live with HIV, but they also remind us that HIV is but one factor in the processes that reshape African socialities and polities. In their diversity, they make clear that no one academic narrative can do justice

religion and aids in africa

23

to these processes of change. Nevertheless, for the present authors the multi-stranded narratives of religion, with their ambiguities and their combination of explicit discourses and implicit, embedded everyday forms, have proven a valuable starting point for the understanding of Africa in the times of AIDS.1 References Bayart, J. F. 1993. The state in Africa: the politics of the belly. London and New York: Longman. Becker, Felicitas. 2008. Becoming Muslim in Mainland Tanzania. Oxford and London: Oxford University Press and the British Academy. Benn, Christoph. 2000. ‘Dogmatische Predigt, pragmatische Hilfe? Die Kirchen und die Bekämpfung von AIDS in Afrika’. Der Überblick 36.3, 58–63. Boddy, Janice. 1988. ‘Spirits and Selves in Northern Sudan: The Cultural Therapeutics of Possession and Trance’. American Ethnologist 15.1, 4–27. Campbell, Caroline. 2003. ‘Letting them die’: why HIV/AIDS prevention programmes fail. Oxford: James Currey. Cattell, Maria G. 1992. ‘Praise the Lord and Say No to Men: Older Women Empowering Themselves in Samia, Kenya’. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 7, 307–30. Cohen, D. W. and E. S. A. Odhiambo. 1989. Siaya.The Historical Anthropology of an African Landscape. Nairobi, Heineman Kenya. Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff. 1991. Of Revelation and Revolution volume 1: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa. Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press. ——. (eds.). 1993. Modernity and Its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Deutsch, Jan-Georg, Peter Probst and Heike Schmidt (eds.). 2002. African Modernities: Entangled Meanings in Current Debate. Oxford: James Currey. De Waal, Alex. 2006. AIDS and power: why there is no political crisis—yet. London: Zed Books. Eickelman, Dale and James Piscatori. 1996. Muslim politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ellis, S. and G. Ter Haar. 2004. Worlds of Power. Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa. London, Hurst & Co. Englund, H. and J. Leach. 2000. ‘Ethnography and the meta-narratives of modernity.’ Current Anthropology 41(2): 225–248. Epstein, Helen. 2007. The invisible cure: Africa, the West, and the fight against AIDS. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fassin, D. 2007. When Bodies Remember: experiences and politics of AIDS in South Africa. Berkley, University of California Press. Ferguson, James. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press.

In order to further the study of these issues, an interdisciplinary network dedicated to ‘Religion and AIDS in Africa’ has been established in a collaboration between the African Studies Centres in Leiden, Cambridge and Copenhagen; to join the network, please contact the chairman, Dr Rijk van Dijk on [email protected]. 1

24

felicitas becker & p. wenzel geissler

Ferguson, James. 2006. Global Shadows. Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham, Duke University Press. Fields, Karen. 1985. Revival and Rebellion in Colonial Central Africa. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Geissler P. W. & Prince R. J. 2007. Life Seen: Touch and Vision in the Making of Sex in Western Kenya. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 1(1), 123–149. Giblin, James. 1992. The politics of environmental control in Northeastern Tanzania, 1840 –1940. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gifford, Paul. 1994. ‘Some Recent Developments in African Christianity’. African Affairs 93.373, 513–34. Heald, S. 1999. The power of sex: reflections on the Caldwell’s ‘African sexuality’ thesis. Manhood and Morality. Sex, Violence, and Ritual in Gisu Society. S. Heald. London & New York, Routledge: 128–145. Helle-Valle, Jo. 2004. ‘Understanding Sexuality in Africa: Diversity and contextualised dividuality. Re-thinking Sexualities in Africa. S.Arnfred. Uppsala: Nordisk Afrika Institute. Hooper, E. 1999. The River. A Journey back to the source of HIV and AIDS. Harmondsworth, Penguin. Hunt, N. R. 1999. A Colonial Lexicon. Of Birth Ritual, Medicalisation, and Mobility in the Congo. Durham & London, Duke UP. Iliffe, John. 1979. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——. 2006. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History. Oxford: James Currey. Kepel, Gilles. 1993. The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lambeck, M. and A. Strathern. 1998. Bodies and Persons. Comparative Perspectives from Africa and Melanesia. Cambridge, CUP. Landau, Paul. 1999. ‘Religion and Christian conversion in African history: a new model’. Journal of Religious History 23, 8–30. Latour, B. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. New York, London, Toronto, Sidney, Tokyo, Singapore, Harvester and Wheatsheaf. Lienhardt, G. 1961. Divinity and Experience. The Religion of the Dinka. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Islamic Medical Association of Uganda. 1998. ‘AIDS Education through Imams: A Spiritually Motivated Community Effort in Uganda’. Geneva: UNAIDS. Mate, R. 2002. ‘Wombs as God’s Laboratories: Pentecostal Discourses of Femininity in Zimbabwe’. Africa 72.4, 549–68. Makris, G. P. 1996. ‘Slavery, Possession and History: The Construction of the Self among Slave Descendants in the Sudan’. Africa 66.2, 159–182. Marks, Shula and Richard Rathbone. ‘Introduction: the history of the family in Africa’, in Journal of African History 24 (1983), 145–61. Maxwell, D. 1998. ‘ “Delivered from the Spirit of Poverty?” Pentecostalism, Prosperity and Modernity in Zimbabwe’. Journal of Religion in Africa 28.3, 350–73. Meyer, B. 1999. ‘Commodities and the Power of Prayer: Pentecostalist Attitudes towards Consumption in Contemporary Ghana’. In B. Meyer and P. Geschiere (eds.), Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Oxford: Blackwell, 151–176. Mutongi, K. 2007. Worries of the Heart. Widows, Family and Community in Kenya. Chicago, Chicago University Press. Niehaus, Isaak. 2002. Bodies, heat, and taboos: Conceptualizing modern personhood in the South African lowveld. Ethnology, 41(3): 189–207. Ogden, J. A. 1996. ‘ “Producing” Respect: The “Proper Woman” in Postcolonial Kampala’. In: R. Werbner and T. Ranger (eds.), Postcolonial Identities in Africa. London: Zed Books, 165–92. Ogot, B. A. 1963. ‘British Administration in Central Nyanza District, 1900–1960’. Journal of African History 4, 249–73.

religion and aids in africa

25

Pels, P. 1999. A Politics of Presence: Contacts between Missionaries and Waluguru in Late ColonialTanganyika. Amsterdam: Harwood/Gordon & Breach. Pickle, K., S. C. Quinn, et al. 2002. ‘HIV/AIDS coverage in Black newspapers, 1991–1996: implications for health communication and health education.’ J Health Commun 7(5): 427–44. Piot, C. 1999. Remotely Global. Village Modernity in West Africa. Chicago and London, U of Chicago P. Prince, R. J. 2006. ‘Popular Music and Luo Youth in Western Kenya: Ambiguities of Mobility, Morality and Gender in the Era of AIDS’. In C. Christiansen, M. Utas and H. Vigh (eds.), Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood: Social Becoming in an African Context Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Prince, Ruth J. 2008. ‘HIV counsellors in Kenya—the fragmentation of professional knowledge and the continuity of everyday life’. Paper presented at the conference ‘Regimes of care—relations of care’, Cambridge, African Studies Centre, June 6th 2008. Prince R. J. & Geissler, P. W. 2009, in press. The Land is Dying. Contingency, creativity and conflict in western Kenya. Oxford and New York: Berghahn. Ranger, T. 1992a. ‘Plagues of beasts and men: prophetic responses to epidemic in eastern and southern Africa’. Epidemics and Ideas. Essays on the Perception of Pestilence. T. Ranger and P. Slack. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 241–268. Ranger, T. O. 1992b. Godly medicine: the ambiguities of medical mission in southeastern Tanzania. The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa. S. Feierman and J. M. Janzen. Berkeley, U California P: 256–283. Sanders, Todd. 2001. ‘Save our Skins: Structural Adjustment, Morality and the Occult in Tanzania’. In H. L. Moore and T. Sanders, Magical Interpretations, Material Realities. London and New York: Routledge, 160–183. ——. 2002. ‘Reflections on two sticks: Gender, sexuality and rainmaking.’ Cahiers d’Études africaines 166(XLII–2): 285–313. Schoepf, B. G. 1995. ‘Culture, Sex Research and AIDS Prevention in Africa’, in H. ten Brummelhuis and G. Herdt (eds.), Culture and Sexual Risk: Anthropological Perspectives on AIDS. Luxembourg: Gordon and Breach, 1995, 29–52. Setel, P. 1999. A Plague of Paradoxes: AIDS, Culture and Demography in Northern Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Turner, V. 1967. The Forest of Symbols. Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca, London, Cornell UP. Vaughan, Megan. 1991. Curing their ills: colonial power and African illness. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Whyte, S. R. 1997. Questioning Misfortune: The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern Uganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wipper, Audrey. 1978. Rural Rebels: A Study of Two Protest Movements in Kenya. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yamba, C. Bawa. 1997. ‘Cosmologies in Turmoil: Witchcraft and Aids in Chiawa, Zambia’. Africa 67.2, 200–23.

NEW DEPARTURES IN CHRISTIAN CONGREGATIONS OF LONG STANDING

THE RISE OF OCCULT POWERS, AIDS AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN WESTERN UGANDA Heike Behrend Introduction When I came to Tooro in western Uganda in 1998, I was more than surprised to find people talking about abali wawantu, man-eaters or cannibals. Women and men from all social classes, in towns as well as in rural areas, complained that cannibals were killing and eating their relatives, friends and neighbours. These cannibals likewise were said to be witches, because they first bewitched their victims so that they died. Then, after the burial, cannibals resurrected the dead not so much to work for them as zombies (cf. Ardener 1970, Fisiy and Geschiere 2001: 241) but to eat them at a sinister banquet with other cannibals. Thus, these cannibals were part of a radicalised witchcraft discourse: whereas witches kill only once, cannibals kill twice, doubling and prolonging the horror of death. While, in the 1970s, man-eaters were still assumed to be confined to Kijura in Mwenge district, it was said that since the 1980s they had greatly multiplied and spread into other regions. In 1998, I was told that cannibals were everywhere; in some regions where they had become epidemic a sort of ‘internal terror’ (Lonsdale 1992: 355) reigned, a secret war, in which anyone you encountered could be an enemy, prepared to kill and eat you.1

1 I am grateful to Paul Gifford and the participants in the Seminar on Faith and Aids in Africa, organised by SOAS and the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in London for their helpful comments. In addition, I would like to thank Brad Weiss for his review and kind critical remarks. Furthermore, my thanks go to the VW-Foundation and the Special Research Program 427 for having generously financed my research.

30

heike behrend Occult forces on the rise

In recent years, religion and even the ‘religious’ have resurfaced in various parts of the world with unprecedented force. Various religious groups, Islamic as well as Christian, entered the political arena, challenging the notion that secular society and the modern nation state can provide the moral fibre that unites national communities ( Juergensmeyer 2000: 225). Responding to the forces of globalisation, the liberalisation of the market, the decline of states and the emergence of new media in the last two decades, political theologies have emerged that forcefully counter the western concept of religion as a private individual matter. The ‘return of the religious’ has also become the object of a complex debate among philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, historians of religion and anthropologists (for example de Vries and Weber 2001), reinforcing the view that the more or less uncontested narrative of a secular modernity had obscured the fact that in most historical formations the political in various ways had been contingent upon the authority or explicit sanctions of a dominant religion. Indeed, the clear-cut separation between the domains of the religious and the state became problematic and instead the interconnectedness and complementarity of both domains have been placed in the foreground (Derrida 2001). Among anthropologists working in Africa, the idea of ‘a return of the religious’, however, was shifted more to themes like ‘the actuality of evil’ and ‘the rise of occult forces’. Yet, like their colleagues in other disciplines, most anthropologists took as the main causes for the dramatic rise in occult powers the global capitalism unleashed by neoliberalism and the breakdown of the public sphere in postcolonial states producing new exclusions, increasing poverty, illicit accumulations, and thereby radical inequalities2 (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1993, 1999). While some authors stress the consequences of the Structural Adjustment Program of the IMF and the World Bank in ‘freeing the market’ and thereby freeing also the possibilities for marketing the occult (Sanders 2001: 162), for others it is, above all, illicit accumulation and the exploitative extraction of labour and life-force that leads to the rise of witchcraft Although the question of whether witchcraft and the resort to occult forces is increasing in contemporary Africa is difficult to answer because the data base is rather insecure, there is no doubt that many people in Africa are experiencing what they believe to be an upsurge in occult powers (Moore and Sanders 2001: 10). 2

the rise of occult powers

31

and cannibal accusations (Colson 2000, Shaw 2001). Against the integration of global factors, Maia Green, for example, emphasised that witchcraft panics must be understood, above all, in the context of the actual relationships between different local political institutions (Green 2003: 122), while Birgit Meyer stressed the impact of modern media, radio, TV, video and print media in spreading and increasing the reality (and truth) of occult powers (Meyer 2003: 28). Yet, while emphasising different aspects, most authors agree more or less that the emergence of satanic spirits, witches, cannibals, ritual killings and human sacrifices have to be seen as the contradictory effects of global capitalism and the culture of neoliberalism. It is interesting to note that religion in this African context has made its comeback not only as an empirical given, as the vehicle of various identities, values and cultural expressions, but also as an ‘interpretandum’ whose semantic, figurative and rhetorical potentials serve as a powerful analytical tool (de Vries 2001: 6 f.). Religious discourse came to be seen as diagnostic and as a more or less critical commentary on the unfolding of a (post)modernity in Africa in which witches, satanic spirits and cannibals expressed the dark side of kinship (Geschiere 1997) and the asocial greed necessary for accumulation in a capitalist market economy. Yet, to see witchcraft discourses as a local critique of globalisation and modernity resonates strongly with western anti-capitalist criticism (Moore and Sanders 2001: 13). Although I share this criticism, I am afraid that it may be that anthropologists are telling a popular liberal tale through ‘others’ (ibid.). To voice one’s own criticism through ‘the other’ has a long western tradition, starting with Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes, and we have to be careful not to fall back on this tradition by making use of ‘others’ to articulate our own faultfinding. Thus, I agree with Moore and Sanders that we need to pay close attention to witchcraft in specific social and historical settings rather than assume monolithic meanings. In contrast to most of the authors who have participated in the debate, I think it possible to be more specific about the main causes of the recent rise of occult forces in Africa. Against the tendency to find the origin of their rise in the invisible hand of capital, I would like to introduce two arguments that have not been recognised sufficiently by other scholars. First, I would relate the dramatic activation and rise of occult forces in Africa to the increase in death rates through the AIDS epidemic (and to a lesser extent the local wars). The AIDS epidemic is

32

heike behrend

also an epidemic of poverty and so my argument cannot be separated from economic and political conditions. Surely, to understand the rise of occult forces in the last decades in Africa we have to deal with a complex interplay of processes and forces. Yet, with Victor Turner I would like to claim that it is not sufficiently recognised how closely the rise of witch3 beliefs and accusations is associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality (Turner 1967: 113). In addition, although various scholars (Meyer 1999, Meyer and Pels 2003, Gifford 2004) have shown in detail that in Africa modern Christianity has not put an end to witchcraft and the occult but instead provided a new context in which they make perfect sense, they missed the point that precisely the fight against the occult reproduces and strengthens the ‘enemy’.4 Christian (and non-Christian) anti-witchcraft movements strongly reinstate the occult powers they fight against. Sometimes these movements—in Europe as well as in Africa—actually create the crisis or moral panic they react against and make use of it by identifying a new group of outsiders to gain power and legitimacy in the political arena (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994: 18). Thus, the recent rise of occult forces in Africa is also—to a certain extent—owed to the many Christian fundamentalist movements and churches who with the help of the Christian God and, above all, the Holy Spirit are fighting the occult (satanic) powers, thereby contributing to their reality and proliferation. In the following, I will unfold these two arguments and give as an example the situation in the kingdom of Tooro in western Uganda where the AIDS pandemic is rampant and a lay organisation of the Catholic Church started witch-hunting. Epidemics and the dynamics of witchcraft In an article published in 1964 on witchcraft and sorcery, Victor Turner, against the structural-functionalist approach of classic social anthropology, promoted process-theory, long-term studies and—most

3 In the following, I shall use the term ‘witchcraft’ to include also sorcery, as do English-speaking people in Tooro. 4 While much ink has been spilt on legal and political institutions, such as courts in Cameroon that invigorate the occult, only rarely have scholars dealt with Christian churches and movements doing the same. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer who made me aware of this fact (and others).

the rise of occult powers

33

important—he made the point that ‘it is not sufficiently recognised how closely witch beliefs are associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality . . .’ (Turner 1964: 113). And he proposed seeing witchcraft accusations as the product of a complex interplay of processes and forces, such as epidemics, the rise and fall of death rates, labour migration, wars and feuds (ibid.: 115). Even before Turner’s text, Elenore Smith Bowen (alias Laura Bohannon), in her autobiographical novel Return to Laughter (1954), described a witch-craze following the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic in Northern Nigeria. One of her protagonists, an elder, himself accused of being a witch, says: ‘Who does not know the terror and the death and the hate that it (smallpox) brings? I fear nothing else, but I fear the “water” (smallpox)’ (Bowen 1954: 266). In Northern Nigeria smallpox was seen as a manifestation of witchcraft. As the epidemic was spreading, so also were witches, creating a situation of internal terror. C. Bawa Yamba (1997), in a study on witchcraft accusations and witchfinding in Zambia, connected the rise of occult forces with the rising death toll from AIDS. And Susan Reynolds Whyte (1997) in her book on Bunyole in northeast Uganda suggested that the AIDS epidemic reinforced the usual suspicions that danger comes from other people (Whyte 1997: 222). Most people in Bunyole who probably had AIDS looked for agents like sorcerers and cursers not only to explain their suffering but also to involve meaningful action through anti-sorcery medicine and rituals, thereby explaining the suffering of people with AIDS in terms of cursing and sorcery (ibid.: 215f ). Likewise, outside Africa, in their studies on witchcraft and sorcery in Papua New Guinea, Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern suggest that occult forces can also be precipitated by disease and epidemics (Stewart and Strathern 1999: 645). Besides other factors, they stress the epidemic spread of the disease and the epidemic of representations in terms of images of violence such as witches and cannibals. When death through an epidemic becomes omnipresent, witchcraft accusations rise. Yet, as the German historian Wolfgang Behringer in his study on the persecution of witches in Bavaria (1987) has shown, the connection between the rise of witchcraft accusations and epidemics is not static but dynamic and changing. He points to various mechanisms of self-limitation, when, for example, close members of the dominant group of the accusers become accused, as well as to the possibility of a paradigm shift that leads, for example, to the interpretation of the epidemic as divine punishment, thereby reducing or even stopping witchcraft accusations.

34

heike behrend Internal terror in Tooro

In western Uganda, the region I focus on, AIDS has reached its climax in the last years: 7.4% of the population are HIV-positive according to the latest survey of 2004/05. As my research assistant Jacinta Kabageny, aged about 50, explained to me, while she was young, once a year somebody would die, nowadays, she said, she has to go to funerals every week. Nearly every family, rich as well as poor, has lost one or more members. ‘Death is eating everybody’, many people in Tooro said. They also said that they do not have enough tears to mourn the dead. The high death rates contributed substantially to the creation of a situation of internal terror that (in some regions of Tooro) found expression in an epidemic of witches and cannibals.5 Following the classical witchcraft paradigm described by Evans-Pritchard, if a person becomes sick or dies, often somebody close to this person, a relative or a neighbour with whom the deceased was in conflict, is accused of being responsible for the death by having bewitched and ‘eaten’ the victim. When the death rate is rising, this shifting of responsibility and guilt to the inside of communities increases discord, hatred and fear, sometimes to an unbearable extent. The more people die, the more witches or cannibals seem to be active and responsible. Thus, the epidemic of AIDS, at least in two regions of Tooro—Kyarusozi and Kijura—was given cultural expression as an epidemic of witches and cannibals eating up bodies of people and leading to a self-exacerbating situation. The government and numerous NGOs have launched various information campaigns to medicalise AIDS. And it is true, in a way, they have been successful. Few people in western Uganda would deny that one contracts AIDS through sexual contact with an HIV-positive partner. Yet, unfortunately, this explanation is perfectly compatible with witchcraft accusations because the witchcraft discourse functions as a secondary rationalisation by addressing the question ‘Why me

5 The emergence of a situation of internal terror has as its main mechanism the witchcraft discourse, yet it has also to be seen within the background of economic depression, a guerrilla war by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), the decline of the local government, widespread corruption and struggles about land. I have dealt in detail with the discussion of internal terror in Tooro already in two articles: one article in German (Behrend 2004), the second on the same subject in English (Behrend 2008) while a further text deals more with the various practices of evidence production by the Catholic lay organisation of the Uganda Martyrs and the local government (Behrend 2006).

the rise of occult powers

35

and not another?’. While Europeans are not really able to answer this question, referring to ‘chance’ or ‘bad luck’, or taking the responsibility on themselves, in western Uganda it is, at least up to now, the witchcraft discourse that most often gives the answer. Thus, although most people nowadays would agree that AIDS is a ‘natural’ disease, the campaigns have hardly diminished the suspicions and charges of witchcraft and cannibalism. Although many people know that AIDS is not caused directly by witchcraft, a witch can influence a man or a woman, for example, to drink too much beer so that he or she leaves all caution aside and has sex with a HIV-positive person and so may contract the virus. In addition, those who are HIV-positive and their kin usually deny a diagnosis of AIDS and try to identify a witch or cannibal whose evil acts can be counteracted. AIDS therefore, like other epidemics, contributes substantially to the fear of witches (cf. Colson 2000: 353). In conversations with people from NGOs dealing with AIDS in Tooro, it became obvious that in their campaigns witchcraft as a subject of discussion was completely excluded. ‘We do not want to create unrest and conflict’, a woman told me. Likewise she insisted that ‘witches and cannibals are there’. Most people to whom I talked in Tooro—with one exception—shared her view.6 Thus, the medicalisation of AIDS has taken place only partially and does not bring to an end the agency of occult forces. Although officially promoting a medicalised concept of AIDS, many of the Christian churches in practice use concepts of sickness and healing that are based on supernatural powers, the powers of the Christian God and his adversary Satan. A Catholic explained to me that ‘the wage of a sin is disease!’ ‘Committing sins’, he said, ‘opens the body for an invasion of satanic spirits’. Yet, he also said, ‘With God’s grace everything is possible.’ And he told me that he went for an AIDS test some years ago; it was positive; he prayed and prayed and prayed and when he went for the next test some time later, the result was negative! Thus, obviously the ‘medicalisation’ of AIDS never really challenged local meanings.

6 The exception was a high-ranking police officer coming from another area of Uganda who told me that he could not afford to believe in witchcraft; if he did, he would not be able to do his job.

36

heike behrend AIDS, punishment and anti-westernism

As already mentioned, besides the witchcraft and cannibal discourse, alternative explanations of AIDS were spread by various institutions. Indeed, some of the Christian churches and movements in western Uganda tended to explain AIDS as a punishment by God for immoral and sinful behaviour. For example, the leaders7 of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Kanungu8 of the Rukungiri District, neighbouring Tooro, identified the AIDS epidemic—‘a disaster that has befallen the world’—as ‘a punishment that has been released to the world due to its disobedience’ and as a threat ‘unless you people, repent, you will all be wiped out by AIDS’ (Behrend 2001: 83). In the same way, some ‘traditionalists’ saw AIDS as a punishment of the ancestral spirits for having neglected ‘traditions’, the way of the ancestors. By doing so, both shifted the responsibility for suffering to an otherworldly power—the Christian God or the ancestors—as well as to the suffering individual, thereby preventing the identification of witches or cannibals. It was the restoration of the moral order that both Christians and ‘traditionalists’ promoted as a way out of the predicament. Besides this explanation of the AIDS epidemic as divine punishment, there is an increasingly anti-western discourse to be found in Tooro as well as in other parts of Africa. Some people with whom I talked interpreted the AIDS epidemic as a western conspiracy to reduce or even destroy the African population.9 Within the background of the dominant western discourse about family planning and the necessary

7 The leaders of the movement were all Catholics; some of them, however, were excommunicated. 8 On 17 March 2000, about 500 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (MRTCG), most of them women and children, perished in Noah’s Ark, their main church, in Kanungu of the Rukungiri District in western Uganda. When in the following weeks more and more graves were found in Kanungu and other areas of Uganda, what had at first seemed to be a mass suicide turned out to be a mass killing as well (Behrend 2001). 9 This vision is not confined to Uganda but is also shared in Kenya and some parts of western Africa. In Mali, for example, the image of a ‘perverse European’ was constructed in a sort of ‘myth of origin’ of the AIDS epidemic. People told of a European development agent or expert who paid an African prostitute to have sex with a dog while he watched. Out of this perverse intercourse AIDS was born (Machein 1999: 43). This story also circulates on the Kenyan coast, in Ghana and Nigeria and is, for instance, taken up in the Nigerian video production, ‘Glamour Girls II: The Italian Connection’, by Christian Onu (1996).

the rise of occult powers

37

reduction of population growth in Africa by development agencies, this impression is not completely irrational. As no cure has so far been found for AIDS, western medicine and aid organisations are accused of being producers of death more than of life. In local popular counterdiscourses to the western prevention activities10 in Tooro, for example, condoms were suspected of not protecting people from infection by HIV, but, instead, of being infected themselves and spreading the deadly disease. In addition, the presence of numerous western ‘experts’ was taken as a proof that after the deaths of all Africans the Wazungu (Europeans) would take over the country. To prepare for this takeover in near future, the Wazungu, as I was told, already built all the beautiful houses and planted exotic trees to enjoy life when all Africans would be dead. Thus, a sort of re-colonisation was imagined, this time, however, on the basis of genocide. Furthermore, the practices of western AIDS researchers and their local counterparts have increased the mistrust in western medicine, which was practised with sometimes doubtful measures, some of which had been established during colonial times. For example, under the regime of colonial medicine people were forced to donate blood, a provision that, as Luise White has shown, substantially contributed to create or activate fears of vampirism (White 2000). As Bob Mwesiye, a health worker of the German GTZ health project in Tooro, told me, even today people especially in the more rural areas are reluctant to give their blood for HIV testing because they fear it is being sold and drunk by Wazungu vampires. Thus, it seems that in spite of all westerninspired NGO campaigns of ‘enlightenment’ about the ‘natural’ AIDS epidemic, recent bio-medical practices have not succeeded in building up some trust, but instead they often reaffirmed the view of the west’s conspiracy to extinguish all Africans. So far, a self-limiting mechanism of the witchcraft epidemic through a radical paradigm change has not taken effect. Indeed, in spite of alternative discourses, the witchcraft and cannibal discourse in Tooro has served as the dominant explanation for the suffering and death of so many people.

10 This is even more remarkable because Kabarole District was chosen for a long-term AIDS project already launched in 1986. This project financed by the German GTZ in some aspects was exemplary, for example, by integrating local ‘traditional’ healers and by giving out free condoms. Yet even these attempts did not prevent anti-western discourse from proliferating, and they may even have furthered it.

38

heike behrend

Indeed, witchcraft not only reflects social tensions and conflicts but actually is an aggravator of all hostilities and fears in a community. With the rise of death rates through the AIDS epidemic, witches and cannibals multiplied as internal enemies and created a situation of internal terror. While neither the king of Tooro, who in precolonial times had the duty to cleanse the country from evil, nor the local government took measures to fight against witches and cannibals, desperate villagers started killing those people they thought to be responsible for disease and death. I was told by a police officer that, for example, in Kijura, from January to August 2002 about five people had been lynched by enraged villagers. The local government could not deal with witches and cannibals, nor could it protect either villagers who felt threatened or their adversaries, suspected witches and cannibals, who fled into police custody to be guarded from mob justice. When I visited Fort Portal in August 2005, I saw an elderly woman of about 65 years of age sitting beside the main road in front of a Stanbic Bank. Like clochards in Paris, she had made this place her home, using plastic bags from famine relief to cover herself against rain and cold. When I asked my friends who she was I was told that she was a cannibal. She had been chased from her village and brought to the police. Because there was no evidence against her, the police had sent her back to her village but she refused to go home, fearing that the villagers would kill her. She moved to different places but was always rejected. People would scream and run away. She decided, therefore, to stay in town in front of Stanbic Bank under the protection of two policemen who were guarding the bank and whose presence prevented other people from stealing from her, raping or killing her. She had stayed at this place for more than six months as some sort of public visual reminder of her social exclusion.11 The Catholic Church in western Uganda In Tooro, the gradual erosion of the state and the perceived failure of public institutions combined with the radicalisation and indigenisation

When we visited her, she told us that she was protected by Jesus and Holy Mary, showing us a little silver cross she was wearing around her neck; she said she was Catholic and had lost all her children and even her grandchildren. They all had died from ‘slim’ (the local English term for AIDS). She said that she had not eaten them. 11

the rise of occult powers

39

of the churches has contributed to a situation in which especially the Catholic Church at the beginning of the 1990s entered the public arena. Not so much the clergy, but above all lay organisations responded to the situation of internal terror by challenging the notion that secular society and the modern nation state can provide the moral fibre that unites national communities ( Juergensmeyer 2000: 225). Like believers in fundamentalist Islam, charismatic Catholics reclaimed the centre of public attention and authority. They made their appearance as a discourse of social order in a dramatic fashion: violently (ibid.: 243). In the Catholic Church in western Uganda, the last two decades have produced a wide range of popular expressions with strong lay and sometimes clerical participation (Kassimir 1999: 249 ff.). Although the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) favoured a theology of ‘inculturation’ to encourage the Africanisation of the Church, the implementation of this new religious policy from top-down in Tooro up to the 1980s largely failed. Also, up to this time, the most pressing spiritual interests of many Catholics—healing and protection from witchcraft—were not realised (ibid.). While, up to 1986, the Anglican as well as the Catholic Church more or less had a monopoly in Uganda, since the coming to power of Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement (NRM) this monopoly was shaken by various movements inside as well as outside the established churches, sometimes inspired and financed by American fundamentalist Christian groups. Since 1986 there has been a surge in Christian healing cults led, above all, by women and in apparitions of the Virgin Mary connected with miracle cures of AIDS and other diseases (Behrend 1997, 1999). During this time, the Catholic church started to lose more and more of its members to independent churches which specialised in healing and the fight against witchcraft. To counter this, the Catholic Charismatic revival movement took on a new thrust in 1981 when a Holy Cross sister and brother from the USA came to Fort Portal and founded the first charismatic prayer group. In it believers started to experience the pouring of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, deliverance from evil spirits and inner as well as physical healing. While the charismatic movement in Tooro attracted, above all, better-educated people and younger clergymen, various lay organisations of the Catholic Church, the Legio Maria or the Uganda Martyrs Guild, absorbed poor people, mainly women, who in the situation of internal terror were the ones who suffered most.

40

heike behrend The Uganda Martyrs Guild

In 1885 and 1886, king Mwanga of Buganda beheaded, speared, hacked into pieces and burned a number of young Catholics, Protestants und Muslims,12 most of whom were working as pages at the king’s court. The reasons for the persecutions of Christians and Muslims in Buganda have been heavily debated (Kassimir 1991). Since this time, the Catholic Church, in particular, attempted to make the Catholic victims the centre of a cult of martyrs,13 interpreting them as the followers or sons of older African martyrs such as Perpetua, Felicity, and Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage. In 1897 the Uganda Martyrs Guild (UMG) was founded by Archbishop Henry Streicher who trained people to help in the evangelisation process. In 1920, the Uganda Martyrs were beatified and in October 1964 canonised. The UMG evolved into an organisation for Catholic action which continued to have chapters in most districts and dioceses. Some of these chapters became highly politicised and had varying degrees of influence on local branches of the Democratic Party that was formed (as the party of the Catholics) in the 1950s (Kassimir 1991: 378). An impressive shrine was built in Namugongo to commemorate the martyrs and to establish a cult centre, but not until the emergence of a new form of popular Catholicism in the 1980s did this shrine, as well as those in Nakivubu and Katoosa, start to gain importance and large-scale and regular pilgrimages begin. Around 1995, the UMG started ‘to go and free people from evil in abandoned places’, that is, they took up the practice of witch-hunts, now called ‘crusades’. Whereas the colonial state as well as the early Christian missionaries in their reluctance to fight witchcraft and witches were suspected by local people of protecting the evil forces and of being themselves witches and cannibals, the Catholic Church in Tooro now made use of the political potential of anti-witchcraft practices (cf. Green 2003: 140, Douglas 1999). Following the Inquisition and witch-hunts in the fifteenth to the seventeenth century in Europe, the enlightened 12 Under King Mutesa, Mwanga’s father, some ‘pagans’ also became martyrs, as I was told, because they refused to convert to Islam, the religion the king favoured for some time. 13 Ron Kassimir (1991) has shown in detail how the executions of Christian Baganda came to be represented and substantially known as the martyrdom of Catholic Ugandans.

the rise of occult powers

41

Catholic Church, after resisting for a long time resorting to such practices in Africa, did not object when in the 1990s the UMG entered the political arena and started to fight evil. By doing so, the church appropriated an important aspect of precolonial and early colonial kingship (cf. Gifford 2004: 175): the king’s duty to cleanse the country from evil. In addition, through the fight against evil in the public arena, the Catholic Church succeeded in regaining power and ‘souls’ she had lost in the struggle with other established and independent churches. Crusades The first crusades the UMG organised were extremely violent. I was told that in Kabende an elderly Protestant woman was identified as a notorious cannibal. When she was caught by some members of the UMG, she turned into a black cat. The cat was beaten, but, as soon as they started to burn it, the animal changed again into the woman, who was seriously injured and had to be taken to hospital. She sued three members of the UMG—among them the president—and they were punished and imprisoned. Because more people complained, after this incident the Catholic Church forbade further crusades. For two years, members of the UMG were taught in workshops not only the Bible but also, and above all, how to carry out non-violent witch- and cannibal-hunts. After these instructions, Guild members were allowed to continue crusades which now followed a rather fixed pattern. Under the guidance of an American priest and the president of the UMG the witch-hunts or crusades were directed against ‘pagans’ as well as women and men from other Christian denominations,14 some of whom were identified as witches and cannibals. Thus, the UMG appropriated a discourse that connected religion and violence and turned war into a ‘holy war’. Like everywhere else in the world where these concepts are used, in Tooro they idealised violence, declared a just war and legitimised the stigmatisation and exclusion of certain people.

14 One crusade in which I was allowed to participate in August 2002 was taking place in Kyamiaga in Buhesi subcounty and obviously was an attempt of the UMG to regain ‘lost souls’ from the Seven-Day-Adventists.

42

heike behrend

Before the UMG went on an ‘operation’ or ‘crusade’, they announced their plans in monthly papers and on the radio. They sent letters to the local council and to the police, and sometimes, when they feared fierce resistance they asked for police protection. The day before the operation they fasted; the night was spent in church singing and praying until their bodies were filled with the Holy Spirit. In addition, the ‘weapons’ to fight the enemy—Bible, plastic bottles filled with holy water, rosaries and crucifixes—were ‘loaded’ with the Holy Spirit to empower them and transform them into efficient instruments to fight evil. In the early morning they took off in lorries. As the president of the UMG explained to me, they had to be very careful because witches and cannibals would set traps to fight the UMG. After arrival in the villages, they walked from house to house, an ‘operation’ known as ‘carpet bombing’. Thus, they used the vocabulary of modern warfare. They moved in groups of twelve to twenty people, each group having a secretary who recorded what was said and done. When they reached a house in which something evil was thought to be present, the Holy Spirit used their bodies as an indicator for the presence of satanic powers. Then some especially gifted members of the UMG, often children, fell to the ground, trembling and shaking violently until the evil person or thing had been detected. When all the satanic items had been collected—such as pots, a dried human hand, pieces of cloth belonging to people who had died and been ‘eaten’, horns (mahembe) and all sorts of medicine—they were displayed in front of the church to be seen by everybody. They gave material evidence of their repudiation and likewise were made the relics of a great transformation providing a powerful mechanism—also used by western missionaries—to express materially the fact of conversion and the triumph over satanic forces (Thomas 1991: 155 f.). The satanic items were also photographed, the photographs supplying proof of what had taken place. The pictures were circulated and put into albums that were shown to visitors as a sort of trophy and memory of the UMG’s power and success. In addition, politicians were called to witness the event. After being displayed and photographed, the satanic objects were destroyed and burned. To end a crusade, members of the UMG offered night sessions of preaching and praying, answered questions from the local population, and the Catholic parish priest led a service of holy communion.

the rise of occult powers

43

Healing cannibals and witches Cannibals and witches were seen as only indirectly responsible for their evil deeds because the forces of Satan made them do what they did. They were therefore given the chance to be cleansed and healed.15 Besides being prayed for and having hands laid on their heads, they were also made to vomit, to reverse the process of incorporation which had produced their greediness for human flesh. Part of the healing process was the witch’s or cannibal’s confession in which the accused had to narrate in detail whom he/she had eaten, and when and how it had happened. Furthermore, if a cannibal was identified s/he had to give the names of other cannibals s/he had been working with. As during the times of the Inquisition in Europe, in Tooro whole networks of people were established and then put under pressure to confess their satanic deeds. The confessions produced more detailed knowledge about witches and cannibals, leading to a further proliferation and differentiation of the cannibal discourse and gave additional proof to the reality of occult forces. There were very few people who insisted on their innocence and refused to confess that they were cannibals. When, during my last stay in 2005, I asked the UMG’s president why the woman accused of cannibalism who had taken refuge in front of the Stanbic Bank had not been cleansed by Guild members, he told me that she had refused to be treated by the UMG. The cleansing required confession, but she had maintained her innocence and therefore not accepted the offer. Her refusal, however, led the UMG’s president not to doubt that she was a cannibal but to declare her as mad, thus pathologising her. By insisting on her innocence, the woman had to pay the price of radical social exclusion. Thus, there was a strong pressure to confess and thereby reinstate the reality of occult forces. When I visited the areas that had been the targets of the UMG’s first crusades, people told me that they had not realised how many cannibals were living in their villages before the UMG came and brought evidence of the presence of evil. They also said that it was only the UMG that succeeded in providing material evidence of cannibalism

akihikirire is a concept in Lutooro that connotates ‘to be without blemish’, ‘spotless’, ‘pure’ and ‘holy’; thus cleansing, healing and making holy are merged. 15

44

heike behrend

such as the ‘dried human hand’, or pieces of cloth from people who had been eaten. Thus, the revelation of and fight against occult forces led to their being reinstated and growing even more powerful. Indeed, the crusades reinforced the belief that local witches and cannibals were the root of suffering, thereby continuing to target those close at hand and vulnerable to local pressures rather than accuse those in power (cf. Colson 2000: 344). And most local people in Tooro with whom I had the chance to talk were grateful for the discovery and cleansing of evil powers. It is important to note that, although the UMG stigmatised and excluded certain people by identifying them as agents of evil, they nonetheless through practices of healing made possible their reintegration. While asserting the presence of occult powers and contributing to their proliferation, the more or less violent witch-hunts nevertheless provided a sense of security and empowerment to desperate communities and marginalised people, while at the same time stigmatising and excluding a few women and men as scapegoats. Although the UMG, by trying to deal with, explain and terminate the situation of internal terror, itself ended up participating in the very process of production of the crisis, it nevertheless succeeded in containing violence. As already mentioned, the healing or cleansing of the identified witches and cannibals reversed their exclusion and gave them the chance to be reintegrated into village life. Ex-cannibals after confessing and being cleansed went back to their villages. People would accept their being healed, yet, I was told, a certain suspicion remained. Whenever misfortune befell a person or somebody became sick or died, it was, first of all, the (ex-)cannibal who was accused. In this ambiguous position, many people who felt (potentially) hunted decided to join the hunters, the UMG. I was told by the UMG’s president that the Guild at the end of the 1980s had about 30 members; in 2002 it had about 10,000. He also told me that up to now no active member of the Guild had been accused of being a cannibal or a witch by Guild members. Thus, it is not by chance that the UMG became the fastest growing lay organisation of the Catholic Church in Tooro. Finally, let me come back to the rise and proliferation of occult powers. As already mentioned, various scholars have shown in detail that in Africa modern Christianity has not put an end to witchcraft and the occult but instead provided a new context in which they make perfect sense. In addition, as I have tried to show, it is precisely the fight

the rise of occult powers

45

against the occult forces that reproduces and strengthens the ‘enemy’. The UMG, in its struggle against satanic agents, witches and cannibals, strongly reinstated the occult powers they fought against. Indeed, the logic of mutual outbidding that characterised the Guild’s fight against evil made it inevitable that their members, and in particular, their leaders, constantly gave proof of dangerous evil forces to show their own superior power. When the satanic forces intensified and proliferated, then also the powers of the Catholic God had to do so and vice versa. In a way, the UMG was trapped in this dynamic of the mutual constitution of good and evil, of a boundary and its transgression. Because of this dynamic, evil spread and obtained even a cosmic dimension. It was to be exposed not only in human beings, but also in trees, flowers and other plants, as well as in black cats, dogs, monkeys, snakes, lizards, frogs and cockroaches. The Guild’s members contributed extensively to this proliferation of evil powers and reacted to it by producing what I would call ‘Christian Magic’, an endless series of miracles and wonders that made their practices more powerful. While, on the one hand, connecting with the Christian tradition of wonders, they, on the other hand, also took recourse to the local tradition of miracle production and calculated show effects of ‘pagan’ spirit mediums and ‘witch doctors’, thereby increasingly approaching what they were refusing and fighting against. As a former witch-doctor explained to me, many people converted when they saw the power of the UMG. Although sometimes interpreting AIDS and other diseases as ‘natural’ or as divine punishment, Guild members did not really attempt to abandon the witchcraft discourse. They did not try to establish a self-reliant Christian person. Although members of the Guild took sin as a precondition for the invasion of the sinner’s body by satanic forces and so introduced an element of responsibility into their discourse, they had to insist not only on the existence but also on the permanent threat of outside satanic forces, because only through fighting these forces could they give proof of their own powers. Thus, not only the increasing number of deaths from AIDS and the interpretation of disease and death in terms of witchcraft, but also the anti-witchcraft activities of the UMG, trapped in the dynamics of the mutual constitution of good and evil, contributed to and intensified the rise of occult forces, while likewise containing violence.

46

heike behrend References

Ardener, Edwin. 1970. ‘Witchcraft, Economics, and the Continuity of Belief ’, in Mary Douglas (ed.), Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations. London: Tavistock Publications, 141–160. Behrend, Heike. 1997. ‘Das Wunder von Sembabule: Die kurze Geschichte eines AntiAIDS-Kultes in Uganda’. Anthropos, 92, 175–183. ——. 1999. Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits: War in Northern Uganda. Oxford: James Currey. ——. 2001. ‘Salvation and Terror in Western Uganda. The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God’, in Jan Lodewijk Grootaers (ed.), Millenarian Movements in Africa and the Diaspora (Bulletin des séances supplement). Brussels: Belgian Association of Africanists, 77–96. ——. 2004. ‘ “Satan gekreuzigt”: Interner Terror und Katharsis in Tooro, Westuganda’. Historische Anthropologie 12, 2, 211–227. ——. 2006. ‘Witchcraft, Evidence and the Localization of the Roman Catholic Church in Western Uganda’, in Richard Rottenburg, Burkhard Schnepel, Shingo Shimada (eds.), The Making and Unmaking of Differences. Bielefeld: Transcript, 43–59. ——. 2008. ‘Catholics and Cannibals: Terror and Healing in Tooro, Western Uganda’, in Michael Bollig, Aparna Rao and Monika Boeck (eds.), The Practice of War, Oxford and New York: Berghahn. Behringer, Wolfgang. 1987. Hexenverfolgung in Bayern. Munich: Oldenbourg. Bowen, Elenore Smith. 1954. Return to Laughter. New York: Natural History Library Edition. Colson, Elizabeth. 2000. ‘The Father as Witch’. Africa 70, 3, 333–358. Comaroff, Jean, and John Comaroff (eds.). 1993. Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa. Chicago: Chicago University Press. ——. 1999. ‘Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony’. American Ethnologist 26, 2, 279–303. Derrida, Jacques. 2001. ‘Glaube und Wissen. Die beiden Quellen der “Religion” an den Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft’, in Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattima (eds.), Die Religion. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. de Vries, Hent. 2001. ‘In Media Res: Global Religion, Public Spheres, and the Task of Contemporary Comparative Religious Studies’, in Hent de Vries and Samuel Weber (eds), Religion and Media. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 3–42. Douglas, Mary. 1999. ‘Sorcery Accusations Unleashed: The Lele Revisted, 1987’. Africa 69, 2, 177–193. Fisiy, Cyprian F., and Peter Geschiere. 2001. ‘Witchcraft, Development and Paranoia in Cameroon’, in Henrietta Moore and Todd Sanders (eds.), Magical Interpretations, Material Realities. London and New York: Routledge, 226–246. Geschiere, Peter. 1997. The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Gifford, Paul. 2004. Ghana’s New Christianity. London: Hurst & Co. Goode, Erich, and Nachman Ben-Yehuda. 1994. Moral Panics:. The Social Construction of Deviance. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Green, Maia. 2003. Priests, Witches and Power: Popular Christianity after Mission in Southern Tanzania. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2000. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kassimir, Ron. 1991. ‘Complex Martyrs: Symbols of Catholic Church Formation and Political Differentiation in Uganda’. African Affairs 90, 357–382.

the rise of occult powers

47

——. 1999. ‘The Politics of Popular Catholicism in Uganda’, in Thomas Spear and Isaria Kimambo (eds.), East African Expressions of Christianity. Oxford: James Currey, 248–274. Lonsdale, John. 1992. ‘The Moral Economy of Mau Mau’, in Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale (eds.), Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa. London: James Currey. Machein, Henning. 2000. ‘AIDS, Wissen und Macht in Afrika: Zur Produktion von Wissen in der Aidsprävention in Mali’. MA thesis, Institute of African Studies, University of Cologne. Meyer, Birgit. 1999. Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ——. 2003. ‘Visions of Blood, Sex and Money: Fantasy Spaces in Popular Ghanaian Cinema’. Visual Anthropology 16, 15–41. Meyer, Birgit, and Peter Pels (eds.). 2003. Magic and Modernity: Interfaces of Revelation and Concealment. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Moore, Henrietta, and Todd Sanders (eds.). 2001. Magical Interpretations, Material Realities: Modernity, Witchcraft and the Occult in Africa. London and New York: Routledge. Sanders, Todd. 2001. ‘Save our Skins: Structural Adjustment, Morality and the Occult in Tanzania’, in Henrietta Moore and Todd Sanders (eds.), Magical Interpretations, Material Realities. London and New York: Routledge, 160–183. Shaw, Rosalind. 2001. ‘Cannibal Transformations: Colonialism and Commodification in the Sierra Leone Hinterland’, in Henrietta Moore and Todd Sanders (eds.), Magical Interpretations, Material Realities. London and New York: Routledge, 50–70. Stewart, Pamela J., and Andrew Strathern. 1999. ‘Feasting on my Enemy: Images of Violence and Change in the New Guinea Highlands’. Ethnohistory 46, 4. Thomas, Nicholas. 1991. Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Turner, Victor. 1967. ‘Witchcraft and Sorcery: Taxonomy versus Dynamics’, in The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. White, Luise. 2000. Speaking with Vampires: Rumour and History in Colonial Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yamba, C. Bawa. 1997. ‘Cosmologies in Turmoil: Witchcraft and Aids in Chiawa, Zambia’. Africa 67, 2, 200–23.

CHRISTIAN SALVATION AND LUO TRADITION: ARGUMENTS OF FAITH IN A TIME OF DEATH IN WESTERN KENYA1 Ruth Prince Introduction Nyanza Luos could face extinction in six years due to AIDS, two leaders said yesterday . . . A one-day seminar opened by Provincial Commissioner Joseph Kaguthi was told that wife inheritance and certain traditional norms were critical factors contributing to the high AIDS toll among the Luo population. ‘Aids: Luos Facing Extinction’. Daily Nation, (Kenya), 14th October 1994. The crisis is not Terruok (fornication) or Chode (adultery) but Golo chola (ritual cleansing) and Rit (family guardianship). Here there is no salvation, no wealth, no education, no foreign or non-Luo origin, no westernisation. Marriage had been sealed by bridewealth and ritually consummated on the nuptial night; and now, a husband is lost, wife and children are left behind, ritual cleansing is the answer. Any unorthodox alternative ok kony (will not do).2 Ker JaRamogi is dead: Who shall lead my people? Reflections on past, present and future Luo thought and practice. Gem Ogutu 1995: 25. Widow cleansing has turned out to be the most abused and scoffed at ritual and yet it was the most elaborate and solemn ritual among the Luo (ibid.: 12).

The challenge of AIDS is shaping arguments about faith and between faiths among Luo people in western Kenya, as it has engendered an acute search for meaning and scrutiny of beliefs and practices. At the same time, faith is central to people’s engagements with and responses to 1 Research for the article was supported by a scholarship from the Danish Council for Research in Developing Countries, under Danida, and by a Wenner-Gren predoctoral grant. I am grateful to the people of Uhero for welcoming me into their lives and to the Danish Bilharziasis Laboratory and the Institute of Anthropology, Copenhagen, for making the fieldwork possible. For their helpful suggestions and support in producing this article, I particularly wish to thank Felicitas Becker, Harri Englund, John Lonsdale, Susan Whyte, Todd Sanders, Jens Aagaard-Hansen and the late Sue Benson, as well as the JRA reviewers and editors. Wenzel Geissler has shared this work in many ways and it is the product of our numerous discussions. 2 This pamphlet was written by a Luo intellectual in response to the death of the Luo politician and leader Oginga Odinga. The text is written in English and interspersed with Dholuo terms, which the author translates himself.

50

ruth prince

the AIDS epidemic. Many of the tensions about AIDS in public debates and in everyday lives are shaped by people’s commitment to different faiths. A core area of concern is the practice of widow guardianship or ‘inheritance’, in which a widow must sleep with another man in order to ‘cleanse’ the death of her husband and ‘open the way’ for future familial well-being and growth. Widow inheritance is a focal practice of ritual regeneration within what has become known as ‘Luo tradition’, and, in the age of AIDS, traditionalists regard it as being central to family as well as community survival. Yet for others, in particular ‘Saved’ or ‘born-again’ Christians, widow inheritance is a ‘backward’ or ‘heathen’ practice and the pernicious root of the AIDS epidemic among Luo people. This paper begins from the heated debates between Saved Christians and traditionalists about widow inheritance in order to examine the complex relationships between tradition, Salvation and AIDS in western Kenya. ‘The land is dying’: arguments about AIDS and about faith Western Kenya, the homeland of the Luo, is currently suffering an epidemic of AIDS that developed in the late 1980s and took hold in the 1990s. My fieldwork, which centred on a village I call Uhero in central Nyanza province, was deeply shaped by people’s experience of AIDS, as here almost every extended family had lost loved ones or was nursing sick relatives, and people spent their weekends attending funerals.3 This experience of suffering, on both a personal and community level, is often referred to as ‘the death of today’. Many Luo regard it as the outcome of a longer history of ‘confusion’ in social relations, gender roles and morality. There is a strong nostalgia both for the loss of Luo traditional morality, engendered by labour migration and conversion to Christianity during the early decades of the twentieth century, and for the heyday of modernisation and upward mobility, the 1950s through to the 1970s. The latter period is remembered as an era of new opportunities, of free education and urban employment. Labour migration also sustained rural households struggling to survive on the produce of

At the time of my fieldwork, which took place from 2000 to 2002, UNAIDS and Kenyan government figures suggest that 22% of adults in western Kenya were HIVpositive, probably a conservative figure; by the end of 2001, 1.5 million people had died of AIDS in Kenya (KNACP 1998; UNAIDS 2003). 3

christian salvation and luo tradition

51

their land (Fearn 1961; Hay 1976; Potash 1978; Stichter 1982; Cohen & Odhiambo 1989). Since the 1980s, however, falling real wages and growing urban unemployment have led to reverse migration by men (Francis 1995). This has placed great strain on rural households and marital relations, as the gender roles of male breadwinner and dependent wife, established during the heyday of labour migration, are being undermined (ibid.; Whyte & Kariuki 1997). Meanwhile unemployment and AIDS prevent young people from ‘moving ahead’, becoming full adults and establishing families. For many, the AIDS crisis thus expresses a more profound loss that has taken place in the Luo community over a longer historical period. This sense of loss is summed up in a saying, common among old and young, ‘the land is dying’ (meaning people and community as well as the land itself ). It is engendering intense scrutiny of both ‘traditional’ and Christian beliefs and practices, as well as heated arguments about the roots of the epidemic and the right way to ‘move forward’. These arguments continually return to the issue of ‘growth’, understood as the generation or regeneration of moral and social practices that underlie personal, familial and community well-being and continuity. Such arguments dominate everyday conversations in the village, as well as public discussions on the radio, in newspaper articles, at internet sites and in popular music (Prince 2006). The subject of widow inheritance (called tero or ‘to take’ in Dholuo)4 is at the centre of many of these arguments, both among Luo people and in the Kenyan media more widely.5 ‘Saved’ or ‘born-again’ Christians (those who follow the pathway of Salvation introduced into the Anglican church in East Africa in the 1930s) regard the AIDS epidemic as partly a consequence of people ‘backsliding’ into traditional, hence ‘heathen’ and ‘sinful’ ways. The practice of widow inheritance is particularly suspect, as the idea of sexual intercourse being a pathway to ritual cleansing

4 The term ‘widow inheritance’ is by no means a correct translation of tero, which simply means ‘taking’. However, in this paper I refer to the practice as widow inheritance for the ease of the reader and because this is the English term that Kenyans themselves use. The term ‘inheritance’ is misleading, because it suggests ideas of property that did not exist in past practice of tero. Today, the practice of tero is deeply entwined with concerns about property and wealth. I have explored the modern transformations of tero elsewhere (Prince 2004) and, for the purposes of this paper, do not go into these historical complexities. 5 For example, ‘Tale of the Naked Luo Widow’, Daily Nation (Kenya), 22 January 2004; ‘Tradition or Not, I’ll Have None of it’, Daily Nation (Kenya), 18 June 2004.

52

ruth prince

and renewal is antithetical to Saved Christian sensibilities (Geissler & Prince 2005). Widow inheritance is also part of a body of ‘traditional’ practice that is seen to compromise modern and Christian identities. In the Saved view, ‘growth’ or development is contingent upon a rupture with the past. This requires the individual to be ‘born-again’, to live a Christian life by disengaging with practices and social relations that compromise this identity. In the context of the AIDS epidemic, widow inheritance is regarded as not only sinful but dangerous, as it spreads disease and death.6 Today, Saved concerns about sinful practices and bodily boundaries resonate with the AIDS discourse of infection and protection. Saved widows often justify their refusal of tero by saying ‘we don’t want this disease in our home’. While those who follow what people in English call ‘Luo tradition’ (known in Dholuo by various terms such as ‘Luo ways’, ‘ways of the past’, or ‘ways of the ancestors’) are also Christian, they see no conflict between Luo and Christian ways. Traditionalists acknowledge AIDS but they argue that the sickness and death have another meaning, which extends well beyond the biomedical facts of HIV/AIDS. ‘This is chira’, they say, a sickness that embodies a blockage in ‘growth’ and that arises from ‘confusion’ in social relations, when people forget to follow, or explicitly reject, the ritual practices or rules (chike) that structure kinship and social life and engender growth. From their perspective, the ‘death of today’ expresses a confusion of relations, a lack of continuity with the past, and a loss of moral direction, which necessitates a ‘return to Luo ways’. For traditionalists, tero brings about renewal and regeneration after death, and is a sacred practice at the heart of Luo culture. Widows who embrace tero generate new growth and life, while widows who refuse tero bring chira, stagnation and death to their home and family, as they remain bound to their dead husbands. Traditionalists argue that by refusing tero Saved widows create ‘confusion’ in the home and ‘mess up’ the proper direction of growth, as this can only be ‘opened’ through the complementary fusion of man and woman. In their view, Saved people are largely responsible for the loss of connection with the past that has resulted in a loss of direction in the present. It is this confusion that has resulted in the illness chira—the death of young people and the

6 An epidemiological study of widows in Nyanza suggests that widow inheritance does indeed contribute to the spread of HIV infection (Okeyo & Allen 1993).

christian salvation and luo tradition

53

stagnation in the growth of families. Traditional discourse thus appears to reject the biomedical explanation of ‘the death of today’. However, among people in Uhero, there is little consensus about the relationship between chira and AIDS. Luo tradition, Christian Salvation, and the increasingly prominent AIDS discourse offer incompatible moral regimes, which heighten the deep sense of moral ambiguity and confusion that people experience. For those concerned with following tradition, the problem of widowhood has become particularly acute because AIDS has created many young widows. Such young women should be at the centre of family growth, but the death of a husband abruptly curtails this. In the past and according to Luo tradition, one of the dead husband’s brothers or kinsmen would become the widow’s guardian, take care of her children and give her more children in her husband’s name (Mboya 1938; EvansPritchard 1965; Potash 1986). However, people say that with the high death rate from AIDS in recent years, brothers and kinsmen are either deceased themselves or they are reluctant to undertake the responsibility of another household. It is becoming common for an unrelated man to be given money or goats to ‘cleanse’ the widow of her husband’s death. People also complain that ‘these days’, widows ‘go to a bar and find a man there’. Meanwhile, land pressure is creating conflicts within families, and there are reports that widows are being forced off their husband’s land (see www.kaippg.com).7 Traditionalists today are thus concerned with two issues: how to re-centre widow inheritance in the home and the family, rather than the ‘bar’ and the market, and how to counter the increasing tendency of widows to refuse to have anything to do with tero in the name of Christian Salvation. The following conversation, which took place in a home in Uhero, expresses the controversy about tero, salvation and tradition in the context of the death of today. Old Mary commented to her grandson’s wife, MinGrace, that in the old days, people did not die as they do today. As often happened, this prompted a debate about death, sickness, chira and AIDS, the Luo rules and Salvation, which centred on the issue of widows. Mary: Nowadays people just die in any way. It is the young who die and the old who remain. You just keep quiet, but your tears are flowing. Nowadays people just

7

The Kenyan AIDS Intervention Prevention Project Group.

54

ruth prince shit death. We only hear that so-and-so has been attacked by this venereal disease, I don’t know what it is called, this one that makes people thin. MinGrace (teasing): Is it really a venereal disease that is killing people? Mary: Is it not chira if your husband dies and you go to be shaved in a bar? [meaning to have sexual intercourse with a man in a bar as a way of cleansing oneself of the husband’s death]. Won’t chira then affect your child? MinGrace: So is it chira or is it venereal disease that is killing people? Mary: It is chira. MinGrace: But you just said it was venereal disease. Mary: Nowadays it is called that venereal disease . . .

Both agree that, with the death of today, following chike has become urgent. Although these days people are either opportunistic about following the rules, or they are Saved and refuse to follow them at all, they should return to the rules ‘if they value what they make in their houses’. MinGrace playfully challenges Mary: It is you older people who are responsible; you do not teach us what to do when our husbands die, so we go to be shaved in a bar and there we bring back death. Our mothers are Saved, they have cleansed themselves of the rules of the earth, so they can’t teach us about the rules, and we don’t know how to finish the rules of death. A Saved mother may refuse tero, but she will have to follow the rules to make a way for us! Mary: Yes, it is Saved people who don’t follow those things any more who are responsible for this confusion. MinGrace accuses Mary, playfully, as a member of the older generation, who should be teaching the younger: It is you who are killing your children. You are the venereal disease that is killing people! You block this side and open this side! You are the AIDS that is killing us! Mary: Yes, we are the ones making you sink. We are Saved up in heaven, but we are going to bring destruction to the home.

Because of their relationship, Mary and MinGrace can tease each other (Geissler & Prince 2004). Neither is Saved, but since Mary is the oldest member of the home MinGrace playfully accuses her of responsibility for the moral confusion of today. However, their real target is Rebekka, MinGrace’s mother-in-law and Mary’s son’s wife. Rebekka is Saved and refuses to follow the Luo rules. She claims that if her husband dies before her, she will refuse tero. In joking about Saved people bringing destruction to the home, MinGrace is indirectly voicing a concern about her mother-in-law’s responsibility for ordering the growth of the home. As we can see in this dialogue, Salvation and tradition propose opposite pathways of ‘growth’ and regeneration in the face of ‘the death of today’. Tradition calls for a ‘return’ to what are construed as ‘past’ ways, while Salvation necessitates a break with a past that has

christian salvation and luo tradition

55

dragged the Luo ‘backward’ and now obstructs the future. Tradition calls for ritual action to be re-centred in the home, the land and the Luo people, while Saved people look to heaven and strive to forge a personal pathway to God. The polarities between these two pathways are captured in their Dholuo terms: Saved practices are referred to as ‘things of heaven’, ‘things of God’ and ‘Christian ways’, while traditional practices are called ‘ways of the earth’, ‘Luo ways’ and ‘things of the ancestors’. As with all polarities, each needs the other. While Salvation needs tradition as its antithesis in the struggle against sin, tradition sets itself up against those Christian ways that have led to a neglect of customary practices. Yet the increasing objectification of tradition as a body of custom is itself heavily influenced by Christian thinking. Christian and traditional practices here produce each other, as has been observed elsewhere in Africa (Comaroff 1985: 142–5; Bloch 1986; Green 1993; Peel 2000). In order to understand the heated arguments between Saved Christians and traditionalists about ‘the death of today’ in general, and about widow inheritance in particular, I will explore how these different pathways propose radically different ways of life. Below, I tell the stories of three widows in Uhero. I then examine in more detail the polarity between Salvation and tradition. I explore their respective beliefs and practices, their histories and their social dynamics. Finally I examine the negotiations and compromises between Saved and traditional pathways in the context of the ‘death of today’, as people strive for growth and life. Some widows and their choices in Uhero Mercy’s refusal to follow tradition Mercy Ogumba (b. 1955) was one of the wealthiest persons in the village. When her husband died in 2000, Mercy was adamant that she would not follow any of ‘these Luo traditions’ and she would certainly not let herself be inherited: ‘We are a Saved family’, she said, ‘and I don’t want this illness in my home’. As her husband had been Saved, Mercy’s refusal to be inherited was expected by her church members. However, some members of her husband’s family, in particular his oldest nephew Solomon, the headmaster of a secondary school, strongly disapproved. After his uncle’s death, Solomon considered himself to be the head of the family, and he wanted things to be done in the

56

ruth prince

‘traditional’ way. Solomon and several of his cousins at first refused to attend their uncle’s funeral. In the end they appeared briefly, but complained bitterly that the traditional rules were not being followed. Meanwhile Mercy adamantly refused to follow any of the traditions associated with burial, as, she explained, ‘If I follow one rule, then I will have to follow them all, and I will end up being inherited’. Her position was quite secure; her name was on the title deeds of her property, she had a bank account and she earned a decent salary. She was therefore quite independent of her in-laws and was in no danger of being forced into taking a new husband. However, she was upset at the dispute with her in-laws, and for many weeks and months continued to proclaim her Salvation and assert that ‘Jesus is my husband’. Anyango’s refusal of tero In late 2000, Anyango’s husband Otieno died in hospital in Nairobi. The family had been living in Nairobi for some years, but, as is conventional, Otieno’s body was transported to his rural home for burial. During the long funeral preparations and during the days after the burial, Otieno’s mother and his brothers placed intense pressure on Anyango (b. 1968) to enter a leviratic union. One night shortly after the burial, they sent their chosen man, a kinsman, to the house Otieno had built for Anyango in his parent’s home. Anyango sent him away. In response, her husband’s mother and sisters refused to provide her with water and food, arguing that, by refusing to be ‘taken’, Anyango carried the chola or ‘dirt’ of her husband’s death, and that she posed a threat to those around her, particularly through shared commensality. According to Anyango, another reason for her in-laws’ actions was their concern that if she later married another man outside her husband’s lineage, their son’s modest wealth would be appropriated. Afraid of accusations that she would bring sickness to the home, Anyango quickly left for Nairobi. Being well educated and having a permanent job, Anyango was not dependent upon access to her in-laws’ land. She therefore continued to live in Nairobi and avoided their home, although she allowed her youngest daughter, who was Otieno’s child, to visit them. On trips to western Kenya, Anyango stayed with her own mother, who, as a Saved Christian, did not fear the consequences of the widow’s chola. Shortly thereafter, Anyango herself became ‘Saved’. She has not married again.

christian salvation and luo tradition

57

Doreen’s concern for her sons’ growth Doreen’s (b. 1963) position was very different. Her husband, one of the four adult sons of a large home in Uhero, died in 2000 while living in town. Until his death, Doreen had been living in the town with him and their children. After she brought her husband’s body back to his father’s home in Uhero for burial, Doreen stayed on there with her children. Doreen herself gradually sickened after her return to Uhero, and she became increasingly concerned that her husband had not established his own home before he died. According to Luo tradition, this prevented their three sons from building their own houses and establishing their own homes. Since their father was dead, they would not be able to build until Doreen had been ‘taken’ by another man, who would then build a house for her on her husband’s land and thus establish a home for her there. Through this union between their mother and the jater (a man who ‘takes’ a woman in a leviratic union; often translated by Luo into English as an ‘inheritor’), the sons would be able to ‘go forward’ and build their own houses, and thus engender further ‘growth’ of the home and the family. Since two of Doreen’s brothers-in-law were also recently deceased and the other was reluctant to inherit her, Doreen looked for a jater herself and found Abel, a sixty-year-old married man of an unrelated lineage. She paid Abel with her two remaining goats, and together they built a house for Doreen in the new home. By this time ( January 2002), Doreen was herself very sick and did not expect to live long. Perhaps for this reason, the house that was built for her was temporary. Soon after she moved into the house, and her sons built their own bachelors’ houses in the new home, Doreen died. She was buried beside her new house, which, six months later, was already disintegraing. However, before she died she told people she was satisfied that at least she had ‘opened’ the way for her sons’ future growth. We cannot conclude from these stories that religious commitment was the dominant factor motivating the widows’ behaviour. Economic factors, in particular the degree of a widow’s dependence upon her in-laws’ land and her position in her husband’s home, certainly shape a woman’s options. Perhaps Doreen had little choice but to accept a jater since her mother-in-law had the final say in allocating her dead sons’ land. Yet there are other cases where rural, poorly educated widows refuse a jater because of their Salvation and other cases where well-off women choose tero. Economic factors may also work against tero: in a situation where men are increasingly jobless, some women

58

ruth prince

complain that tero just means ‘another mouth to feed’. The stories do show however that the pathways available to a widow in response to her husband’s death are fundamentally shaped by Salvation and tradition. Even in Anyango’s case, where her turn toward Salvation happened after her decision to refuse a jater, becoming Saved helped her to resist further pressure from her in-laws. Six years on, she continues to be strongly committed to her church and to Salvation. The stories also suggest that disagreements between Saved people and traditionalists about the death of today and how to deal with it are causing ruptures in kinship relations. Christianity and Salvation In Uhero today, everyone is Christian. While there are over twenty Christian denominations in Uhero village, in this discussion I focus on Anglican Christianity and particularly the movement of Salvation within the Anglican Church.8 This is because, historically, politically and socially, the Anglican Church has been a dominant force in shaping Christianity in western Kenya. Anglicanism was brought by the Church Mission Society (henceforth CMS) in 1904. CMS missionaries made the first translations of the Bible into Dholuo and laid the foundations of the opposition between ‘Christian ways’, which they equated with progress, and ‘traditional ways’, which they equated with the pagan past (Ogot 1963). These oppositions continue to be drawn upon by JoUhero (‘people of Uhero’) today, whatever their denomination. However, while members of other churches have been engaged in various syntheses of Christianity and Luo ways (Barrett 1968; Perrin-Jassy 1973; HoehlerFatton 1996), Anglicans and particularly Saved Anglicans continue to polarise them and to actively oppose any contact with ‘Luo ways’ in their everyday lives. This forces much of social practice and identity into binary patterns, which shapes everyday life in Uhero.9 This polarity also dominates arguments about AIDS and the proper ways of dealing with the death of today. According to CMS missionaries and their converts, to convert to Christianity entailed a complete transformation in one’s way of life. The CMS demonised Luo ancestral spirits, ritual and medicine as 8 9

Since 1999, called the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK). See Keane 1995 for a similar case in Indonesia.

christian salvation and luo tradition

59

well as social practices like polygamy and beer drinking (Ogot 1963: 256; Strayer 1978; Kirwen 1993). Such practices, it was believed, prevented Africans from becoming true believers and embracing ‘modern’ values and institutions such as schooling, biomedicine, monogamy and the nuclear family (Odhiambo 1973). As elsewhere in Africa (e.g. Beidelman 1982; Ranger 1992; Comaroff & Comaroff 1997; Meyer 1999; Pels 1999), missionaries, and many of their African converts, saw their mission as converting Africans not only to Christianity but to ‘civilisation’, and they strove to transform not only religious beliefs and rituals but many of the practices of daily life (Hay 1992).10 From its beginnings, then, Christianity involved a polarisation of ways of life between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, and a rupture with habits and practices defined as heathen. Given the hostility of the Anglican church to Luo ways, why did people convert to Christianity? As elsewhere, conversion provided access not only to a seemingly powerful God, but also to resources and skills that were becoming important in colonial society, such as literacy and numeracy, and new agricultural crops and techniques (Richards 1956; Odhiambo 1973; Hay 1992, 1996). Christian converts were favoured in colonial employment and CMS converts formed a large part of the labour elite (Hay 1992, 1996). Through its focus on monogamy and the nuclear family, education and achievement in secular society, Anglicanism has continued to be a pathway of upward mobility and has contributed to social differentiation (Ogot 1963; Lonsdale 1969). However, Anglican Christianity was not embraced by everyone. Already by 1910, dissatisfaction with the hostility of mission churches to African culture had led to the emergence of an independent church in Luoland, which practised a more syncretistic Christianity, and by the 1930s several independent African churches existed (Ogot 1963; Anderson 1977; Wipper 1977). This pattern of schism from mission churches continued during the twentieth century (Barrett 1968; Hoehler-Fatton 1996). It underlines that many Luo did not in fact accept the mission church’s rejection of ‘tradition’, and that the relationship between Christian

10 The first Christian converts, some of whom set up Christian villages to enable them to live separately from others, became known by various names that indicate the close association between conversion and the transformation of everyday habits, such as jonanga (‘the people of the cloth’), jooduma (‘the people of maize’) and jolony (‘the people of modernity’) (Odhiambo 1973; Cohen & Odhiambo 1989).

60

ruth prince

ways and Luo ways have been part of a ‘long conversation’ among Luo Christians themselves (see Kirwen 1993). In the 1930s, this tension was inflamed by a movement that emerged within the Anglican church in Uganda, calling itself the East African Christian Revival. Influenced by the Christian revival in England, the movement began in the Rwanda mission and spread into Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. It involved ‘speaking-out’, declaring one’s personal ‘Salvation’ through Jesus Christ and public confession of sins (Robins 1975, 1979; Church 1981; Cattel 1992; Peterson 2001). Revivalists decried what they regarded as the tendency of African Christians to ‘backslide’, to pay nominal respect to Christianity while continuing to live in ‘unchristian’ ways, and they called for ‘true’ Christians to shed practices such as polygamy, widow inheritance, the use of African medicines and ‘witchdoctors’, drinking alcohol and smoking (ibid.). The Revival thus took up missionary rejection of all vestiges of indigenous belief and customs, ‘often exceeding the demands of mission teaching in these areas’ (Robins 1975:8). Salvation in Uhero past and present In December 2002, out of a population of 399 adults living in Uhero (all but seven of whom were Christian), 98 said they were ‘Saved’, 64 women and 34 men. The largest group of Saved people in Uhero are members of the Anglican church.11 Some became Saved in the 1940s and 50s (when the original East African Revival reached western Kenya), others found Salvation during the time of the ‘Reawakening’, a re-emergence of the Revival in the 1970s (Cattell 1992). Salvation remains a strong movement in Uhero today. During the 1990s and up to the present day there have been many converts. While the majority of Saved men belong to generations who became Saved in the 1940s to the 1970s, most of the more recent converts are women. The first generation of Revivalists or ‘Saved people’ in Uhero converted during the late 1930s and 1940s, when the Revivalist movement reached Kenya. Their accounts of becoming Saved emphasised an overwhelming religious revelation, experienced during a time of

11 Salvation remains a largely non-schismatic movement (Robins 1979). Although the Revival began within the CMS, Revival fellowships today exist within several Protestant denominations in East Africa.

christian salvation and luo tradition

61

personal crisis, which led them to ‘leave’ lifestyles they described as ‘sinful’. Men talked of how they used to ‘roam about’, spending precious wages on alcohol and women, arguing with their spouses and neglecting their children, until illness or a marital crisis led them to Salvation. Women too said that becoming Saved helped them to become better wives and mothers. Saved people also constantly talked of the ‘sin’ of traditional practices such as polygamy, which, they said, lead to the devil; it is only through the continual cleansing of sin through Salvation that one can find redemption. A common poster on the walls of Saved living-rooms depicts the Saved worldview well; it shows two pathways of life, one towards hell and the other to the Eternal City.12 It is clear from these accounts that a strong sense of moral and social crisis led people to become Saved. Salvation offered a moral order and spiritual authority in a context of marital and family strife associated with labour migration and urban life. However, the Saved language of the redeemed and the lost, together with the tendency of Saved people to cut off ties with non-Saved kin, created tensions within kin groups and in communities (see Robins 1975; Cattell 1992 for similar tensions elsewhere in Uganda and Kenya). Who became Saved in the 1940s? As there is as yet no historiography of Salvation among the Luo, this question is difficult to answer. From my own census data of Uhero and interviews of Saved people in the area, it appears that those who became Saved in the 1940s were well-off Anglicans, labour migrants who were well-educated and had good jobs, but whether this economic success is partly a result of being Anglican and being Saved is difficult to assess. Today, Saved people continue to make up the local Anglican elite. However, many Saved women live in polygamous homes among non-Saved kin, while others are widows who live alone with their children or grandchildren. Like the first generation of Revivalists, those who converted to Salvation during the last decade talk of an overwhelming spiritual experience, in which they saw with great clarity the ‘sin’ of their previous lifestyles. Unlike earlier converts’ experiences, however, stories of recent conversion are

12 These accounts resonate with Peterson’s (2001) analysis of conversion to Salvation in 1940s and 50s Gikuyuland. He argues that the Revivalists’ language of the redeemed and the lost was useful in addressing marital difficulties and troubled gender relations at a time when the development of rural capitalism, landlessness and poverty was creating heated debates about the moral and social order. Revivalism recreated order in the home and in marriage, the backbone of Gikuyu society.

62

ruth prince

framed by the AIDS crisis. An acute sense of moral disorientation, together with intimate experiences of suffering in the family, seems to propel people towards embracing radical change. With its strict sexual morality, clear notions of good and evil, and confession of sins, Salvation allows people to cleanse themselves of ‘sin’ and begin a new life. Saved people commonly blame Luo traditions such as widow inheritance for ‘bringing disease to the home’, and they argue that the death will continue as long as people follow tradition. ‘Luo traditions are not only dragging us backward’, as one Saved women told me, ‘they are killing us’. Both Saved and non-Saved emphasise that Salvation is popular among widows in Uhero—in 2001, 35% of widows in Uhero were Saved—because it allows them to refuse tero. Salvation is a continuous struggle against sin In Dholuo, Salvation is known as waruok, ‘to speak out (or declare) openly’, and Saved people are known as jowaro or jolendo, ‘those who declare’, jopolo, ‘people of heaven’ and jolony ‘people of modernity/ civilisation’. Such terms underline how much Saved identity is based on outward signs and on the polarity between heaven/earth and tradition/modernity. Saved people regard sin as a constant danger and the way to heaven as a continuous struggle to live a Christian life. This struggle requires constant declaration of one’s Salvation, ‘giving witness’ to one’s faith, which is confirmed through the Saved greeting ‘Praise the Lord!’. Together with the Saved habit of greeting with a stiff hug instead of a handshake, this declaration marks out the members of the group. Becoming Saved involves entry into a fellowship group (in Dholuo, lalruok, from lalore, ‘to discuss openly’). The term lalruok points to the emphasis on sharing one’s sins openly; to ‘walk in the sun’ as opposed to the darkness of the past. Affirmation of ‘Salvation’ is also achieved through a dramatic change in lifestyle. Becoming Saved means giving up polygamy, brewing or drinking alcohol, and smoking tobacco, and, in particular, a refusal to follow Luo traditions. Saved Anglicans in Uhero actively oppose any contact with ritual practices as well as with material objects that refer to the power of ancestors in their daily lives, such as spirit possession, dance and drumming, ritual healing, sacrificial offerings, objects, like clay pots, and certain medicinal plants, that are associated with spirits. These acts, objects and practices are described as ‘things of the earth’.

christian salvation and luo tradition

63

Saved people regard them as threats to the following of a ‘clean’ (ler) Christian life, and describe them as ‘witchcraft’ ( juok) (see Kirwen 1993).13 The salience of ‘witchcraft’ in Saved notions of ‘the things of the earth’ deserves our attention. In addition to the whole body of Luo traditions, ‘witchcraft’ includes all practices that are imbued with ancestral power: ritual sacrifice, libations, spirit possession and ritual healing, as well as the use of plant medicines for the treatment of illness. These acts and objects are not regarded as ineffective practices in which Saved people have no interest, but are real threats against which true Christians must struggle. Thus it is not that Saved people do not believe in the power of ancestral spirits; rather they do not accept this power and seek to transcend it. This ambiguity is expressed in the Dholuo verb yie, ‘to accept’, which is translated in the Christian context as ‘to believe’, but is closer in meaning to the original English meaning of belief as having faith in, or being committed to, something (see Good 1994). In opposing the practices of chike Luo, Saved Christians do not negate the continuity of the past with the present (which chike Luo assumes), nor do they negate its potential influence upon their own lives, but they actively struggle against this influence. Since all these practices are seen as connected with one another, none must be allowed contact with the Saved life lest the Saved self is jeopardised. Thus while many other Christians admit to (or even proudly embrace) following ‘the things of the earth’ and being ‘people of the earth’, Saved Christians adamantly refuse such connections. For them, all ‘backsliders’ are heathens and ‘follow the path of the devil’. Salvation rejects not only continuity with the past, embodied in ancestral power, but also the continuity between one person and others and between persons and things that chike assume. Rather than engendering familial growth and well-being through practices that open up the flows of life between living and dead and amongst kin, Salvation centres growth on a bounded self, which can enter into a personal relationship with Jesus. Yet these efforts to disentangle the person from compromising ties and relations, to define and defend one’s boundaries, are not wholly successful. Saved people are different

13 For a similar rejection among Saved people in East Africa of indigenous customs and beliefs as ‘things of the devil’, see Robins (1975) for Uganda and Cattell (1992) for Samia, Kenya.

64

ruth prince

in the degree to which they can follow Saved lifestyles. While those who live in Saved homes prefer not to socialise with non-Saved people and remain uncompromising in their daily lives, others must struggle to follow Salvation in homes where the people they rely upon and love are not Saved. Moreover, some of the practices through which Saved people create their fellowships on the one hand and define their boundaries on the other, such as drinking tea together and refusing to eat with non-Saved people, have much in common with ‘Luo ways’ of creating and marking social relations. In its emphasis on creating oneself anew through a radical break with past ways of being and doing, Salvation expresses the modern project of self-making and self-betterment through rupture with and separation from the past (see van der Veer 1996). One creates oneself anew through disentangling oneself from relations, practices and habits that link one to the past. In doing so, the past is produced and perpetuated as other: an imagined ‘heathen’ past of ‘tradition’ and ancestral ties (see Green 1993; Keane 1996). To declare oneself to be Saved requires constant reiteration of difference, and being Saved makes sense only if ‘the other’ is real in one’s daily life. Thus, like the Ghanaian Pietists Meyer describes (1999), Saved practice does not create a disenchanted life-world or modernity in Weber’s sense of Protestant rationalisation, but an enchanted polarity in which good and evil, one’s own and others’ practices are engaged in a constant struggle. Salvation, AIDS and chira In the past century, struggles between ‘good’ Christian and ‘bad’ heathen practices have been about personhood, morality, marriage, gender relations, kinship and the proper pathway to ‘progress’ or ‘modernity’. Today AIDS is making these struggles particularly acute, as the choice is now seen to be a matter of life and death. While Saved people argue that ‘Luo ways are not only dragging us backward, they are killing us’, others, like Mary and MinGrace, accuse people of being ‘Saved in heaven’ but bringing ‘destruction to the home’. The Saved struggle against tradition helps us to understand Saved people’s often ambiguous stance towards chira as well as the biomedical discourse of AIDS. Saved people often argue that traditional practices such as tero ‘bring illness to the home’ and they also constantly and explicitly reject chira: ‘This is just a traditional disease’, they say. At

christian salvation and luo tradition

65

first I interpreted such statements to mean that traditional practices such as tero spread HIV, and that chira is a disease of the past and not of the present, thus of irrelevance today. Further discussions suggested, however, that chira was regarded as a disease which could not affect Saved people, as they have ‘left’ the rules. When Saved people assert that traditional practices bring illness, it is thus not always clear whether they refer to a biomedical understanding of HIV/AIDS (which many are very knowledgeable about) or to a view that chira affects only those who follow the traditions. It seems that these different views coexist and may be drawn upon by the same people in different situations. This suggests that rather than resolving competing understandings of the death of today, Salvation provides a moral regime with which to face it. In the next section, I explain why widow inheritance is for some so necessary to life and growth by exploring the pathway of Chike Luo or Luo tradition. Tradition In Luo society today, there is, except for funeral ceremonies, little formal, explicit ‘traditional’ ritual.14 Instead, Luo tradition is prominent, in both everyday life and public discourse, in the form of Chike Luo, ‘Luo rules’ or ‘Luo ways’. Chike Luo are the ensemble of practices that should order everyday life and kinship relations, practices that include ways of cooking, eating, sitting, sleeping, sexual intercourse, building a home and dealing with death. Chike shape the relations between kin and link generative practices such as cooking, eating and sexual intercourse to broader transformative processes in the land and between living and dead. The striking characteristic of Chike Luo is the extent to which they have been codified as ‘rules’ during the course of the past century. In this section, I summarise the development of ‘tradition’ as an explicit body of discourse during the twentieth century, which has been tied to various concerns (ethnicity and politics as well as identity and kinship). I then examine how tradition has become increasingly prominent as a discourse about morality and responsibility in the age of AIDS, as it is being elaborated as a body of rules regarding conduct. First,

14 This is unlike other East African groups (e.g. Green 1993; Kratz 1993; Sanders 2002).

66

ruth prince

however, I will explain why I regard tradition, like Salvation, as a matter of faith. The transformative potency of ‘earthly ways’ While tradition in its reified form is as modern a phenomenon as Salvation, it is based upon and refers to a pervasive set of older ritual practices, which connect people to other living things, to material objects and to the ancestors. These practices are embedded in kinship relations and the sociality of everyday life, as well as guiding important events such as dealing with death. The codification of these practices as ‘rules’ is transforming their nature and effects (Prince 2004). For the purposes of this paper, the important point is that the rules and the more implicit practices that they refer to are considered to have vital potential to create life or to harbour death. For many Luo, ‘following the rules’ is necessary in order to engender or regenerate life and growth—that is, the well-being and continuity of people, animals and the land. Of particular significance here are practices referred to in Dholuo as riwo (literally ‘merging’, ‘joining together’, ‘mixing’ or ‘sharing’). Riwo designate moments of material contact, in which persons (or their attributes) join together by sharing substance. Practices of riwo relate the creation of substantial bonds between persons to transformative processes such as cooking, eating, conception, fermentation, plant growth, rainfall, fertility and healing (Prince & Geissler 2001; Geissler & Prince 2006), and refer to what Jacobson-Widding describes as the practice of ‘creative communion’ (1990: 19) in East African societies. Whilst riwo refers to many different daily acts in which people come together, the most significant are practices of sharing food and sexual intercourse. While practices involving riwo concern seemingly mundane acts of daily life, they harbour a transformative potential that is central for the creation of social life. However, the creative capacity of contact in riwo is ambiguous. Transformations can be towards growth and life, but also towards death and decay. Thus there are many prescriptions and proscriptions regarding where, when and with whom riwo should take place. Together, these prescriptions are known as chike (singular chik), often translated as ‘rules’ or ‘traditions’. Following chike produces the ‘order of life’ that structures social relations in Luo society and guides life transitions. Riwo and chike are thus central to Luo concerns about how things should be done in order to produce and sustain growth.

christian salvation and luo tradition

67

Widow inheritance or tero is so central to current debates about growth and regeneration because to do tero is to follow chike. Practices of riwo lie at the heart of the transformation of the death of a husband into new growth and life. Thus, a widow and her new husband ( jater, ‘the person who takes’) should share a meal together and have sexual intercourse—both acts of sharing and merging referred to as riwo—and these acts should take place in a new house built for the widow by the new man (a house that, in its material make-up, embodies the gender complementarity and fertile potency of husband and wife). Sexual intercourse is here conceived of as a powerful and potent albeit ambiguous life-force, part of much broader generative processes than biological reproduction and fertility. Its positive potential depends, however, upon its enactment in the right place, at the right time (or in the correct sequence of practices) and with the right person; if done incorrectly, it can harbour illness and death. While riwo and chike may be about everyday practical matters such as sex, marriage, the home, childbearing and agricultural fertility, the productivity of this everyday life is dependent upon maintaining the proper relations between people, with the land and between the living and the dead. There is a reverence here for the potential in the social relation for creating and ordering life. This reverence resonates with the often described lack of division between secular and sacred in African cultures; divinity or its potential resides in the everyday and the social relation (Evans-Pritchard 1956; Lienhardt 1961; Turner 1967; Devisch 1993; Moore, Sanders & Kaare 1999). While chike are hedged around by ritual prescriptions, there is little that is explicitly ritualised about them (the only explicit rituals are those conducted by Christian churches). Acts that I later realised are ritual acts (in the sense that they harbour transformative potential and have to be done in a specific way), such as slaughtering an animal for a funeral feast, are done in an everyday, even offhand manner, and rarely does anyone comment on their ritual significance. Among the dozens of funerals I attended, only very rarely did someone spontaneously explain that the animal’s blood ran into the soil ‘so that the old people can drink’. However, many people consider it essential during funerals to slaughter a cow and let the blood run into the soil, and to share together in the funeral meal. Similarly, it is essential that a husband and wife engage in sexual intercourse and share a meal in particular situations, for example, during harvesting of crops, after the birth of a child, during the building of a new house or establishment

68

ruth prince

of a new home, and after the burial of a family member. A widow cannot break the bonds of death and engender new life and growth in her home and among her children until she has been ‘taken’ by a new husband, that is, shared food and sexual intercourse with him. Even everyday interaction among kinspeople and with visitors is shaped by implicit principles regarding when and where and with whom cooking, eating, sitting, and sexual intercourse can take place. Such practices are normally not remarked upon by people in Uhero, or they are casually referred to as ‘this is just what we do’, but if later anything goes wrong (for example, if someone becomes seriously sick or dies), people begin to scrutinise the way in which things have been done. Whilst it may be that ritual acts were always done in an everyday and offhand manner (see, for example, Stam 1910), and indeed this may be a feature of ritual in Nilotic societies (see Evans-Pritchard 1956: 212), it is clear that in the past, ritual ceremonies were much more common, and involved more explicit acts of riwo, including sharing beer, sharing food, sacrifice and libations to the ancestors, and dancing (Mboya 1938; Hauge 1974).15 Ethnographic evidence indicates that some rituals persisted up until the 1970s, but that they were increasingly done in secret (Hauge 1974). That these rituals have disappeared is probably because of missionary opposition to sacrifice, drinking local brew, and dancing (ibid.). However, the continued significance of practices of riwo and chike suggests that whilst explicit ritual relating to divinity and the ancestors gradually disappeared with the introduction and spread of Christianity, its underlying principles persist in more everyday, implicit ways of being and doing. This may be because, as elsewhere in Africa, European missionaries targeted what they saw as heathen practices such as sacrifices, libations, dancing and beer drinking, while ignoring other, less obviously ‘religious’ practices, as they did not realise these too were integrated into a wider but inexplicit ritual system (see Green 1993: 227 for a similar situation in Tanzania and Bloch 1986: 26 for Madagascar). Thus it may be that the implicit nature of what was meaningful about Luo ritual allowed it to evade missionary and Christian attacks.

15 Evans-Pritchard observed among the closely related Nuer ‘a certain air of casualness and lack of ceremony’ about the performance of rituals such as sacrifice in the early 1930s (1956: 212).

christian salvation and luo tradition

69

The reification of the ‘Luo rules’: Luo tradition While practices of riwo and chike may have avoided direct missionary attack, they have, over the course of the twentieth century, become increasingly objectified by Luo themselves and turned into a discourse of ‘Luo rules’ or ‘Luo traditions’. This discourse is rooted in mission and Christian opposition to certain Luo cultural and social practices, which introduced a polarity between ‘Luo ways’ and ‘Christian ways’ and provoked nostalgia among some Luo for what have come to be imagined as the ways of the past (see Cohen & Odhiambo 1989), as well as in colonial codification, which created the ‘traditional’ African society, rooted in supposedly unchanging traditions (Colson 1971; Lonsdale 1977; Peel 2000). Reifications of culture and ethnicity also became strategic concerns for Luo negotiating their status in the colonial and postcolonial state (Cohen & Odhiambo 1989, 1992). Luo politicians such as Oginga drew upon arguments of culture and tradition to underwrite their authority to speak for the people. This codification of culture began with Paul Mboya’s 1938 handbook entitled Luo Kitgi gi Timbegi (Luo Characters and Customs)—written ‘to prevent our customs from being forgotten’ and to ensure that ‘our children know what is proper behaviour’ (1983: 7)—which stands as a ‘canonization of the asserted culture and behaviour of th[e] new nation’ (Cohen & Odhiambo 1989: 34). The book was used for cultural education in primary schools in the 1950s. Recently republished, it continues to be used by Luo people as a resource about how to do things in the ‘traditional’ way. Later ethnographic accounts, such as the scholarly works of Ocholla-Ayayo (1976) are likewise used by Luo for practical purposes, for example in resolving issues of customary law and in settling court cases (see Cohen & Odhiambo 1992). Luo stories and proverbs have been collected (Mayor n.d. [1938]; Onyango-Ogutu and Roscoe 1974; Miruka 1994) and supposed Luo traditions described (K’Aoko 1986). Luo academics have also written books on ‘traditional’ Luo material culture (Ocholla-Ayayo 1980) and Luo historians have produced authoritative histories of the Luo tribe (Anyany 1952; Malo 1953; Ogot 1967; Ochieng’ 1974). A recently recorded series of audiotapes, in which an elderly man lists the genealogies of all Luo clans from their origins to the present day (Bonde Kadongo 1999), continues this attempt to produce an unequivocal and stable record of the Luo past and contrasts with the production of genealogies through dialogue and negotiation among Luo elders (Blount 1975). Tradition is hereby fixed

70

ruth prince

and constituted as an object, a text and code of conduct, an equivalent to the Christian Bible and Commandments. Although, within this framework, custom and tradition are constituted as unchanging, the content and form of Luo tradition has been shifting, as is the case with other inventions of tradition in African societies (e.g., Kratz 1993; Gable 1995, 2002; Holtzman 2003; Sanders 2003). Thus, over the course of the last century, there has been an increasing concern with ‘Luo rules’ and with chira, the sickness that strikes as a consequence of not following the rules. If one compares Mboya’s 1938 text (and early ethnographies) to the recent traditionalist texts from the 1970s onwards (and particularly those produced in the 1990s, during the era of AIDS), one can discern a shift from a ‘thick description’ of customs to codified authoritative rules, numbered and listed like laws. Whereas Mboya does not mention chike Luo or the particular prescriptions and prohibitions (kweche) that form them, and he mentions chira only in his chapter on the treatment of mothers and newborn children (see also Hauge 1974: 70), traditionalist discourse as well as ethnographies from the 1960s and 70s portray kweche and chira as central institutions or ‘laws’ of Luo society, the defining characteristics of Luo culture (Ocholla-Ayayo 1976: 146; Abe 1981: 138). During his fieldwork in 1968–9 among Luo migrants in Nairobi, Parkin found that chira had become a dominant idiom of misfortune among Luo (it was known as ‘the Luo disease’), and that the focus on chira was producing a corresponding elaboration and hardening of the ‘rules’ of conduct ordering kinship relations and customary order (1978: 163). He relates this to the strains placed on marital and generational relations by labour migration and urban life, and to a concern with the lineage at a time when its cohesion was being threatened by the migration of men away from the rural home. He further argues that chira and the Luo rules were becoming important markers of Luo ethnicity in the urban and national context.16 During the course of the twentieth century then, chira and the ‘Luo rules’ have been undergoing a process of elaboration, tied to processes of urbanisation and labour

Parkin suggests that in the late 1960s, chira was not as prominent in rural Nyanza as in the city (1978). The prominence of chira in rural Nyanza today may thus express the urbanisation of rural spaces and of the rural imagination, and not at all an original rural adherence to custom. 16

christian salvation and luo tradition

71

migration, which has resulted in their dominant position today in the definition of Luo identity, ethnicity and culture.17 Tradition today: a matter of life and death Today, prescriptions and proscriptions of Luo rules, along with concerns about chira, dominate contemporary traditionalist discourse and are prominent in the everyday life of people in the village. In the context of today’s death, these debates about tradition centre on matters of life and death. For traditionalists, chira and the rules express not so much a concern with ethnic identity as with personal and ethnic survival. They argue that ‘the death of today’ is a consequence of people leaving the traditions, which brings ‘confusion’ to social relations and results in sickness and death, and that the only way to avoid personal, social and cultural crisis is by ‘following the rules’. Tradition is something one must return to in order ‘to identify and water your roots’, as one exponent writes (Ogutu 1995: xi). The Luo community is in crisis: the crisis of identity, of purpose, of legitimacy or trust, of direction and of survival. The challenge is to take a retrospective look at our roots in order to propel the community into tomorrow: an inevitable cultural renaissance (ibid.: 1995: 19).

The understanding of chira itself has shifted from a wasting of children’s bodies that points to a rupture in the child’s relations to being a wasting disease of adults, interpreted as an individual punishment for infringing the rules. Thus chira is not always easily distinguished from AIDS in either cause or effects. Although AIDS is understood to come from sleeping with an infected person whereas chira is understood as the consequence of spoiling chike, the examples people give of spoiling chike are usually improper sexual relations: ‘people move around too much these days and sleep with their relatives’ or ‘widows sleep with men at the bar and bring chira home’. And although chira is said to be a ‘traditional’ and ‘Luo’ illness, rooted in the home, the land and the past, whereas AIDS is a ‘new’ disease, which has come ‘from America’, ‘from outside’, ‘from town’, and from ‘moving about’ (a term that implies

However, as the discussion of Salvation above underlines, not all labour migrants embraced this elaboration of tradition. Debates about the position of tradition in modern Luo identity and the modern nation also dominated Luo politics in the 1950s and 60s (Parkin 1978: Cohen & Odhiambo 1989). 17

72

ruth prince

sexual promiscuity), these are not hard and fast distinctions, as today chira is also said to come from ‘moving about’. While I cannot say whether the concern about chira and the rules was as prevalent in Uhero before the era of AIDS, certainly the pandemic has shaped and is shaping these contemporary debates about tradition, as the frequent sickness and death engender a search for meaning, a scrutiny of practice and a strong sense of loss and disorder, together with nostalgia for the imagined customary order of the past. Tradition as a moral discourse in the age of AIDS During the 1990s there has been a proliferation of literature on ‘Luo rules’. Handbooks of custom with instructions on how to do things in the proper ‘Luo’ way, such as ‘JaLuo’ (‘The Luo’) (Malo 1999) and ‘Chike Jaduong e Dalane’ (‘The rules of the old man in his home’) (Raringo 2001), which lists 330 rules and promises a second volume, are available from bookshops and newsagents and warn readers of the deadly consequences of ‘leaving’ the rules. There is also a website, entitled ‘The Luo person’ (www.Jaluo.com), which includes a section on ‘Luo customs and traditions’, lists of ‘Luo rules’, and a chat room on how to engender ‘growth’ and avoid chira. Concerns with chira and the Luo rules also dominate the Dholuo radio programme ‘Chike Luo’, which was broadcast weekly during 2001 and featured Luo ‘elders’ who answered listeners’ queries about the practices that could bring about chira and how to avoid or remedy them. Here, the elders applied rigid and absolute rules and, like the print publications, claimed their universal, permanent and predictive validity to all Luo, urging their listeners to ‘let us leave breaking the rules so that we can live!’ and to write down the specific rules that they had themselves followed, so that their descendents could follow them. Interestingly, the discussants implied that young people striving for ‘growth’ were being ‘blocked’ by older people’s violations of rules: in their view, Saved widows who refuse the levirate and fathers in town who have not built a rural home obstruct the growth of their sons. Instead of the stereotype of elderly, rural traditionalists blocking the progress of young modernists, here it is elderly modernists who obstruct young people’s return to the sources of growth of the past. Traditionalist discourse argues for a reconnection to traditions that the previous generation neglected, and orientates itself against Luo who believe that the rules are heathen or ‘backward’, thus engaging in an

christian salvation and luo tradition

73

ongoing argument with Saved Christianity. A recent booklet written by a Yimbo scholar addresses the question of how one can ‘be a Christian, educated, wealthy, et cetera, and still remain a Luo, in thought and practice’ (Ogutu 1995: 13). In a chapter on ‘Traditional beliefs in contemporary society’, the author deplores how Luo have left, the norms of identity . . ., violated rules that are intended to govern individual behaviour. The consequence is that Luo cannot escape being attacked and killed by chira . . . The worst hit are jonanga (the affluent families or urban salariat) who deny that the rural base could be endowed with a sense of morality, law and order, and who quip that they are too civilised and modern to be guided by archaic Luo norms (ibid.: 13–14).

The following extract from the radio programme ‘Chike Luo’ (September 2001) suggests the heated debates about tradition in relation to Christianity, AIDS, ‘development’ and ‘civilisation’. At the same time, the answer give by the elder reveals the intimacy between the language of tradition and that of the Bible and the intricacies of their relation. Question: ‘What is the value of this program on Luo tradition? We are taking our people backward, we stop their development and keep them from knowing God and the civilisation of today!’. Answer: ‘God created the world . . . and the Bible we read, which is shared by all tribes. God, not Satan, gave us Dholuo [Luo language/culture]. Our culture says that one must make a home, the core of the rules. It tells us the rules of ours that we teach here in the traditional round hut. The person who breaks them becomes thin and like plastic, but if he goes for a test, it is not found to be AIDS. Dholuo says that leaving the rules brings thinness and diarrhoea [i.e. the illness chira]. Even if you went to Europe and studied, if you don’t follow them, every small child can tell that you will be growing thin. With the word of God, you may say the truth or lie, no one can know—you remain fat and only God knows. But if you spoil the rules you will see the consequences while you are still alive. Thus the rules bring growth to our families . . . and to the body. Some people neglect their body and only want the soul to grow . . . but God who gave it to you is wise and wants you to desire life. Rules are close to the Gospel, which says ‘Respect your mother and father and love your neighbour’ . . . God is with us, and those breaking the rules are people whom Satan has given bad thoughts’.

Although Salvation constitutes tradition as its opposite, and traditionalist discourse likewise positions itself in opposition to ‘Saved’ ways, in practice most Luo, including self-proclaimed traditionalists, are Christians and those who ‘follow the rules’ see no contradiction between their Christianity and their desire to follow a supposedly older

74

ruth prince

customary order. In fact, traditionalist discourse often draws upon and appropriates the language of Christianity and of Salvation itself. The elders on the radio programme Chike Luo describe following the rules as ‘following a clean [maler] path’ (ler, meaning ‘bright’ or ‘clean’, is often used in Christian language to mean ‘holy’) and argue that the rules are not opposed to Christianity but are a way of life endorsed by God, ‘who created the world and gave us Luo culture’. The notion of a rupture with a past figures in the discourse of tradition as much as that of salvation, although this breach is seen to be negative rather than positive: the Luo can only ‘save’ themselves by returning to the Luo rules. There are also similarities in Saved and traditionalist talk about sin and redemption. Some JoUhero suggested that, given the confusion and social disruption that comes from following the rules half-heartedly, people should either leave the rules completely (that is, become Saved) or follow them absolutely. This advice appears to draw upon a Christian rhetoric of conversion, entailing one or the other complete transformation in identity and way of life. As one young man said about his father (who returned home after 20 years in Nairobi with a copy of Mboya’s Luo Characters and Customs as a guide to building his home): ‘When he returned to the village he became a born-again Luo’. To embrace tradition has today become a form of Salvation. The dynamics of tradition Parkin’s argument, that the increasing focus on chira in the late 1960s was partly a response to concerns about seniority and gender relations in the context of labour migration and changing patterns of authority within the rural home (Parkin 1978), seems still apt today. The shift towards an increasingly law-like application of chike and the focus on chira, with its emphasis on sexual conduct and women’s mobility, transforms chike to some extent into men’s rules regulating women’s conduct (although women can and do use these rules strategically too). Today however, the reconstitution of tradition and its location in the ‘rules of the home’ takes shape in the context of urban unemployment and a movement back to the rural home. Luo men find themselves reduced from breadwinners to economically peripheral household members and recourse to Luo tradition allows them to assert their authority. Although the rules often support the authority of senior kin over junior and men over women, the elaboration of rules cannot be interpreted as a straightforward weapon of domination wielded by these groups,

christian salvation and luo tradition

75

as it is often senior kin and men who are blamed for their neglect of rules that then ‘block’ the path of junior kin and women. Moreover, young people and women also invoke the rules, not only because it provides moral direction, but also for strategic reasons. Asserting ‘this is chira’ sidesteps the individualistic discourse of AIDS and addresses the responsibility of kin for one’s situation. Invoking tradition makes sense because AIDS strikes at the core of family life and is experienced as a threat to growth. The elaboration of the Luo rules is not only the domain of traditionalist discourse propagated in print and on the radio. Luo tradition exists as dynamic system also through its continual production in the everyday life of ordinary Luo. Many Christian JoUhero were very concerned about following the rules and following them in the right way. Whereas much of the discourse of tradition embodied in the written word presents the rules as fixed sequences of actions that must be followed with no room for innovation, in everyday life in Uhero, people did different things and advocated different versions of rules. Indeed, the elaboration of Luo rules has reached such a scale (aptly expressed in Raringo’s (2001) collection of 330 ‘rules of the home’) that it is impossible not to violate some rule or other in the practices of daily life. This is particularly the case today, as many die while still young, which messes up proper sequences between the generations and between senior and junior in the home. The rules criss-cross each other and invade every aspect of social life and kinship relations. The lack of a solid consensus about the rules produced much uncertainty, confusion and anxiety among people in Uhero, as their more contextual and fluid knowledge of rules jarred with the much narrower interpretation of rules propagated by traditionalist discourse, and with their own search for a fixed and unambiguous customary order in an unstable and fragmented world. Negotiations between Saved and traditional pathways of growth The picture I have presented so far is fairly black-and-white. The moral discourses of Salvation and tradition seem to allow little room for negotiation between them. Yet there are many Saved women who live with husbands and families who are not Saved, and who must try to negotiate between their own Salvation and the desire of their families for growth through traditional ways. This is possible partly because

76

ruth prince

the boundary between traditional rules and everyday practice is often unclear, as the rules refer to particular ways of sharing food, cooking, and having sexual intercourse which are part of everyday life. Thus, while Saved people loudly proclaim their distance from traditions, an observation of their everyday practices suggests that they occupy shifting ground, as in many situations they too seem to appreciate the potency of these practices for growth and life. The negotiations and compromises that Saved people often have to enter into are well illustrated by the following story of Rebekka, old Mary’s daughter-in-law. Rebekka is the first of Okoth’s four wives and the only Saved person in his large homestead. In 2001, Tom, the eldest son of Rebekka and Okoth, decided to move out from his father’s home and build his own home for his wife and children. Since building a home is at the core of the Luo rules, Tom had to do this in the right way in order to ensure the future growth and well-being of his family. However, this meant that his mother, a Saved Christian, would have to engage in the rules too. While Rebekka would normally have refused to follow any of the Luo rules, in this case, she actively encouraged Tom to build his home according to the rules. As she explained, she encouraged the project both because she wanted her son and his family ‘to grow’, but also because it would enable her to avoid being taken in the levirate in the event of her husband’s death. According to the Luo rules, if Tom’s father should die before Tom had established his own home, Rebekka would have to be ‘taken’ by another man and united with him in sexual intercourse in order to ‘open the way’ for Tom to build his home. The relation between Rebekka and the jater would be necessary to allow Tom’s relations to grow and bear fruit; if she refused to be taken, Tom would not be able to build. However, if Tom established his own home whilst his father was still alive, then, on his father’s death, his mother would not need another husband, as her son’s growth would have already been released. As Rebekka was beyond childbearing age, she would instead be allowed to live in her son’s home, where he would build her a new house. Rebekka did not want her personal choice of Salvation to prevent Tom and her other sons from ‘growing’; therefore she encouraged Tom to build his own home. While Rebekka often proclaimed that she had ‘left’ the rules and become Saved, in this case, it appears that she accepted the potency of following the rules for growth and well-being. This implicit acceptance of the positive potency of following the rules is also evident in

christian salvation and luo tradition

77

the attempts to negotiate between Salvation and tradition evident on the weekly radio programme, Chike Luo. This programme was like a newspaper advice column; listeners wrote to the producer with their problems, which were addressed by a panel of Luo ‘elders’. Many of these problems concerned widows and tero. In one case a woman asked whether she could bend the rules of tero for her widowed daughter-inlaw. She did not want her daughter-in-law to be ‘taken’ by a jater, but she did want to follow the rules. Thus she asked if she herself could build a house for the daughter-in-law and thus ensure that she did not continue to live in the house she had shared with her dead husband. This act, she argued, would allow her daughter-in-law to avoid a new husband and thus the risk of HIV infection. ‘I don’t want tero in my home as the world is bad with disease’, she said. However, the elder told her that this would be ‘breaking the Luo rules’: ‘AIDS does not enter into this’, he asserted, ‘Even if she has rings of (herpes zoster) around her waist, a jater must take her and she must complete the rules of her husband’s death. This is clear Dholuo.’ While, in this case, the elder refused to contemplate any negotiation of the rules, in another broadcast a different elder seemed to reluctantly accommodate a new traditional rule. This allowed a Saved widow to ‘follow tradition’ by sleeping in her church instead of with a new husband. Her daughter-in-law wrote into the programme asking if she too could do this when her own husband died. In this way, she argued, she would be following the rules (part of following the rules means keeping to generational sequence and order; thus if a mother-in-law is inherited in a certain way, this is ‘her rule’ and her daughter-in-law should do likewise). The elder answered: ‘This is difficult. It means that if your husband dies, you will have to follow what your mother-in-law did and go to sleep in the church. In that way, your follow her wisdom. But is that good? Really?’ (Chike Luo, KBC, September 2001). Meanwhile Saved widows commonly place Jesus in the position of the jater: ‘Jesus is our husband’, they say. These examples are only a few of many which indicate that, in the context of AIDS, people are negotiating the form and content of both Luo tradition and Salvation; trying to regenerate growth after the death of a family member while avoiding the risk of HIV/AIDS. Ogutu’s influential booklet on Luo tradition, quoted at the beginning of this paper, also tackles this thorny issue. Like many others, the author’s position is unclear. At one point he asserts that ‘any unorthodox alternative [to tero] will not do’ (Ogutu 1995: 25). Yet on another page, he argues

78

ruth prince

that ‘culture is never static’ and ‘given that the majority of our people have converted to Christianity, our church elders should liaise with the traditional elders to determine how to inculturate widow cleansing practices by, for example, formulating special widow/widower cleansing prayer/masses’ (ibid.: 24). In the following passage, he appears to endorse the replacement of sexual with symbolic intercourse: To be noted are cases where widow cleansing did not involve sexual intercourse like Mond liete (levirate wives who had already gone through cleansing), pim (a woman who had gone past menopause), et cetera. Such cases only required chodo okola (breaking banana fibre which widows tied around their waists until they were cleansed), tero kom (staying vigil on a stool in the widow’s house overnight) or ganda ndawa (a grandson passing a roll of tobacco to the widow). Such exceptional cases, and those where symbolic sex was performed like those of jambiko (lepers), janeko (mad spouse), and so forth, should be given the emphasis they deserve (ibid.).

Traditionalist discourse about tero is not, therefore, monolithic, and Saved people too may be more pragmatic than dogmatic about following tradition. While discourses of Salvation and tradition may offer radically different approaches to growth, in practice, many people seem to be searching for some form of creative compromise between them. Improvisations of this kind underline that growth retains its vibrant potential, and they ensure the continued relevance of tradition and of Salvation in the age of AIDS. Conclusion In this paper, I have shown that the divisiveness of debates between traditional and Saved pathways has a long history among Luo people. The emergence and popularity of Salvation and tradition as bodies of beliefs and practices were linked to processes of labour migration and urbanisation and to corresponding concerns about gender roles, marriage, family and morality. Salvation and tradition offered different responses to people’s experiences of moral and social disorder, which were tied to broader projects of constructing subjectivities and identities in modern Kenya, as well as to more intimate concerns with marriage, the family and growth. It has become clear that tradition and Salvation as antagonistic bodies of rules and customs are tied to one another, and that they are equally modern phenomena. Salvation constitutes itself through a

christian salvation and luo tradition

79

struggle against ‘pagan’ African customs, while tradition has become increasingly defined by its ascribed ability to heal this rupture with the past. Thus one is defined by its ability to overcome the other. The elaboration of tradition within Luo modernity has parallels in the literature on other African societies (e.g. McCaskie 1990; Green 1993; Gable 1995, 2000; Piot 1999; Peel 2000). However, unlike the overt, political performance of tradition in, for example, West African celebrations of cultural ‘heritage’, Luo tradition is concerned with intimate matters of everyday life: the body, sexuality and gender, which underlie marriage, family, growth and the social and moral order. Salvation too is concerned with matters of body and immediate, mundane, social relations: Saved concerns with sin and the devil focus on boundaries and separations from persons and practices that threaten bodily and thus moral integrity. Just as the public performance of sacrifice is less significant for the Luo traditionalist than the act of eating together, the Saved Christian is ultimately more concerned about whom she shares food with, than with theology. The ‘death of today’, which is so obviously about intimate relations between bodies and persons, is making struggles between Saved and traditional ideas about personhood and growth particularly acute, as the choice is now seen as one between life and death. However, the crisis of AIDS and the need to regenerate life and growth after death is also leading to negotiations between Saved and traditional pathways, some of which involve the creation of new traditional rules that accommodate Salvation. This suggests that, while the continued salience of Saved and traditional discourses demands their strict polarisation, in practice their separation makes possible a creative process of combining, borrowing and reformulating between the two (see Kratz 1993; Holtzman 2003; Sanders 2003). Because the death of today is creating many young widows whose future pathway, whether toward ‘heavenly’ or ‘earthly’ ways, is central to their children’s future and to family growth, the issue of widow inheritance is an area where these tensions and negotiations have become particularly explicit. Clearly, the moral and religious imaginaries within which AIDS is understood and experienced are shaped by local cultural concepts, historical experiences and political-economic situations. However, this does not imply the exploration of yet another ‘cultural model’ of disease (as in AIDS is believed to be chira) but an ethnography of an African modernity. AIDS and its social context in Africa should not be

80

ruth prince

understood as a clash between ‘modern’ and biomedical versus local and ‘traditional’ concepts of illness and health. Rather, people’s disagreements about the death of today are part of a ‘long conversation’ between Luo people themselves—about morality, personhood, social relations and the source of growth. By exploring the complex relations between Salvation, tradition and AIDS, we better understand not only AIDS in this East African society but the fundamental tensions that shape people’s experience of this modernity. References Abe, Toshiharu. 1981. ‘The Concepts of Chira and Dhoch among the Luo of Kenya: Transition, Deviation and Misfortune’, in N. Nagashima (ed.), Themes in Socio-Cultural Ideas and Behaviour among the Six Ethnic Groups of Kenya. Kinutachi/Tokyo: Hitotsubashi University, 127–39. Anderson, W. B. 1977. The Church in East Africa 1840–1974. Dodoma: Central Tanganyika Press. Anyany, S. 1989 [1951]. Kar Chakruok Mar Luo (‘About the Beginnings of the Luo’). Kisumu: Equatorial Publishers. Barrett, David B. 1968. Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary Religious Movements. Nairobi: Oxford University Press. Beidelman, Thomas O. 1982. Colonial Evangelism: A Socio-Historical Study of an East African Mission at the Grassroots. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bloch, Maurice. 1986. From Blessing to Violence: History and Ideology in the Circumcision Ritual of the Merina of Madagascar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blount, Ben G. 1975. ‘Agreeing to Disagree on Genealogy: A Luo Sociology of Knowledge’, in M. Sanchez and Ben G. Blount (eds.), Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use. New York: Academic Press, 117–135. Cattell, Maria G. 1992. ‘Praise the Lord and Say No to Men: Older Women Empowering Themselves in Samia, Kenya’. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 7, 307–30. Church, J. E. 1981. Quest for the Highest: An Autobiographical Account of the East African Revival. Exeter: Paternoster Press. Cohen, David W., and E. S. Atieno Odhiambo. 1989. Siaya: The Historical Anthropology of an African Landscape. Nairobi: Heineman Kenya. ——. 1992. Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Africa. London: James Currey. Colson, Elizabeth. 1971. ‘The Impact of the Colonial Period on the Definition of Land Rights’, in Victor Turner (ed.), Colonialism in Africa 1870–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 193–215. Comaroff, Jean. 1985. Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Comaroff, John L., and Jean Comaroff 1997. Of Revelation and Revolution. Vol. 2: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Devisch, Rene. 1993. Weaving the Threads of Life: The Khita Gyn-Eco-Logical Healing Cult Among the Yaka. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1956. Nuer Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ——. 1965 [1950]. ‘Marriage Customs of the Luo of Kenya’, in E. E. Evans-Pritchard (ed.), The Position of Women in Primitive Societies and Other Essays in Social Anthropology. London: Faber and Faber, 228–244.

christian salvation and luo tradition

81

Fearn, Hugh. 1961. An African Economy: A Study of the Economic Development of Nyanza Province 1903–1953. London: Oxford University Press. Francis, Elizabeth. 1995. ‘Migration and Changing Divisions of Labour: Gender Relations and Economic Change in Koguta, Western Kenya’. Africa 65, 197–215. Gable, Eric. 1995. ‘The Decolonisation of Consciousness: Local Sceptics and the “Will to be Modern” in a West African Village’. American Ethnologist 22, 242–57. ——. 2000. ‘The Culture Development Club: Youth, Neo-tradition, and the Construction of Society in Guinea-Bissau’. Anthropological Quarterly 73, 195–203. Geissler, P. Wenzel, and Ruth Prince. 2004. ‘Shared Lives: Exploring Practices of Amity between Grandmothers and Grandchildren in Western Kenya’. Africa 74.1: 95–120. ——. 2005. ‘Mission, Ueberlieferung, AIDS und Pornographie: Die Entdeckung des Sex im westlichen Kenya’. Sociologus 54.2: 101–143. ——. 2006. ‘Persons, Plants and Relations: Treating Childhood Illness in a Western Kenyan Village’, in E. Hsu and S. Harris (eds.), Ethnobotany and Anthropology. Oxford: Berghahn. Good, Byron J. 1994. Medicine, Rationality and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Green, Maia. 1993. ‘The Construction of “Religion” and the Perpetuation of “Tradition” among Pogoro Catholics, Southern Tanzania’. Ph.D. thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science. Hauge, Hans-Eigil. 1974. The Luo Religion and Folklore. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Hay, Margaret J. 1976. ‘Luo Women and Economic Change during the Colonial Period’, in N. Hafkin and E. G. Bay (eds.), Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 87–109. ——. 1992. ‘Who Wears the Pants? Christian Missions, Migrant Labour and Clothing in Colonial Western Kenya’ (Discussion Papers in the African Humanities No. 23). Boston: African Studies Centre, Boston University. ——. 1996. ‘Hoes and Clothes in a Luo Household: Changing Consumption in a Colonial Economy 1906–1936’, in C. M. Georg and K. L. Hardin (eds.), African Material Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 243–261. Hoehler-Fatton, Cynthia. 1996. Women of Fire and Spirit: History, Faith and Gender in Roho Religion in Western Kenya. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Holtzman, Jon D. 2003. ‘In a Cup of Tea: Commodities and History among Samburu Pastoralists in Northern Kenya’. American Ethnologist 30, 136–155. Jacobson-Widding, A., and W. van Beek (eds). 1990. The Creative Communion: African Folk Models of Fertility and the Regeneration of Life. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. K’Aoko, Dan O. 1986. The Re-Introduction of the Luo Circumcision-Rite. Nairobi: Frejos Printers. Keane, Webb. 1996. ‘Materialism, Missionaries, and Modern Subjects in Colonial Indonesia’, in Peter van der Veer (ed.), Conversion to Modernity: The Globalisation of Christianity. London: Routledge, 135–170. Kenya National Aids Control Programme (KNACP). 1998. National Sentinel Surveillance: AIDS Cases by Province and District. Nairobi: KNACP. Kirwen, Michael C. 1993. The Missionary and the Diviner. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Kratz, Corrine. 1993. ‘ “We’ve Always Done It Like This . . . Except for a Few Details”: “Tradition” and “Innovation” in Okiek Ceremonies’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 35, 30–65. Lienhardt, Godfrey. 1961. Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lonsdale, John. 1969. ‘European Attitudes and African Pressures: Missions and Governments in Kenya between the Wars’. Race 10, 141–151. ——. 1977. ‘Review Essay: When did the Gusii (or Any Other Group) Become a “Tribe”?’ Kenya Historical Review 5, 123–133.

82

ruth prince

Malo, Shadrock. 1999. Jaluo (‘The Luo’). Nairobi: Joseph Otieno Malo. Mayor, A. W. n.d. [1938]. Thuond Luo (‘Luo heroes’). Kisumu: Anyange Press. Mboya, Paul. 1983 [1938]. Luo Kitigi gi Timbegi. (‘Luo Characters and Customs’). Kisumu: Anyange Press. McCaskie, T. C. 1990. ‘Inventing Asante’, in P. F. de Moraes Farias and K. Barber (eds.), Self Assertion and Brokerage: Early Cultural Nationalism in West Africa. Birmingham: Centre of West African Studies, 55–67. Meyer, Birgit. 1999. Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Miruka, Okumba. 1994. Oral Literature of the Luo. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Moore, Henrietta L., Todd Sanders and Bwire Kaare (eds.). 1999. Those who Play with Fire: Gender, Fertility, and Transformation in East and Southern Africa. London: Athlone Press. Ochieng’, William R. 1974. An Outline History of Nyanza up to 1914. Kampala: East African Literature Bureau. Ocholla-Ayayo, A. B. C. 1976. Traditional Ideology and Ethics among the Southern Luo. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies. ——. 1980. The Luo Culture. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Odhiambo, E. S. Atieno. 1973. ‘A Portrait of the Missionaries in Kenya before 1939’. Kenya Historical Review 1, 5–15. Ogot, Bethwell A. 1963. ‘British Administration in Central Nyanza District, 1900–1960’. Journal of African History 4, 249–73. ——. 1967. History of the Southern Luo, Vol. 1: Migrations and Settlement 1500–1900. Nairobi: East African Publishing House. Ogutu, G. E. M. 1995. Ker Ramogi is Dead: Who Shall Lead my People? Reflections on Past, Present and Future Luo Thought and Practice. Kisumu: Palwa Research Publications. Okeyo, T. M., and A. K. Allen. 1993. ‘Influence of Widow Inheritance on the Epidemiology of AIDS in Africa’. African Journal of Medical Practice 1, 20–25. Onyango-Ogutu, B., and A. Roscoe. 1974. Keep My Words: Luo Oral Literature. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Parkin, David. 1978. The Cultural Definition of Political Response: Lineal Destiny among the Luo. London: Academic Press. Peel, J. D. Y. 2000. Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pels, Peter. 1999. A Politics of Presence: Contacts Between Missionaries and Waluguru in Late Colonial Tanganyika. Amsterdam: Harwood/Gordon & Breach. Perrin-Jassey, M. F. 1973. Basic Communion in the African Churches. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Peterson, Derek. 2001. ‘Wordy Women: Gender Trouble and the Oral Politics of the East African Revival in Northern Gikuyuland’. Journal of African History 42, 469–489. Potash, Betty. 1978. ‘Some Aspects of Marital Stability in a Rural Luo Community’. Africa 48, 380–397. ——. 1986. ‘Wives of the Graves: Widows in a Rural Luo Community’, in Betty Potash (ed.), Widows in African Societies: Choices and Constraints. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 44–65. Prince, Ruth, and P. Wenzel Geissler. 2001. ‘Becoming “One Who Treats”: A Case Study of a Luo Healer and her Grandson in Western Kenya’. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 32.4: 447–471. Prince, Ruth. 2004. Struggling for Growth in a Time of Loss: Challenges of Relatedness in Western Kenya. Ph.D. thesis, University of Copenhagen. ——. 2006. ‘Popular Music and Luo Youth in Western Kenya: Ambiguities of Mobility, Morality and Gender in the Era of AIDS’, in Catrine Christiansen, Henrik

christian salvation and luo tradition

83

Vigh and Mats Utas (eds.), Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthoods: Social Becoming in an African Context. Uppsala, Nordic Africa Institute. Ranger, Terence O. 1992. ‘Godly Medicine: The Ambiguities of Medical Mission in Southeastern Tanzania’, in Steven Feierman and John M. Janzen (eds.), The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 256–283 Raringo. 2001. Chike Jaduong e Dalane (‘The Rules of the Old Man in his Home’). Nairobi: Three Printers and Stationers. Richards, Elizabeth. 1956. Fifty Years of Nyanza. 1906–1956: The History of the CMS and the Anglican Church in Nyanza Province, Kenya. Maseno: Acme Press. Robins, C. E. 1975. Tukutendereza: A Study of Social Change and Sectarian Withdrawal in the Balokole Revival in Uganda. Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University. ——. 1979. ‘Conversion, Life Crises and Stability among Women in the East African Revival’, in Bennetta Jules-Rosette (ed.), The New Religions of Africa. Norwood: Ablex, 185–240. Sanders, T. 2002. ‘Reflections on Two Sticks: Gender, Sexuality and Rainmaking’. Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines 166, 285–313. ——. 2003. ‘Reconsidering Witchcraft: Postcolonial Africa and Analytic (Un)Certainties’. American Anthropologist 105, 326–340. Stam, N. 1910. ‘The Religious Conceptions of the Kavirondo’. Anthropos 5, 359–62. Stichter, Sharon. 1982. Migrant Labour in Kenya: Capitalism and African Response, 1895–1975. Harlow: Longman. Strayer, Robert. 1978. The Making of Mission Communities in East Africa: Anglicans and Africans in Colonial Kenya, 1875–35. London: Heinemann. Turner, Victor. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. UNAIDS. 2003. Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic. Geneva: UNAIDS. Veer, Peter van der. 1996. ‘Introduction’, in Peter van der Veer (ed.), Conversion to Modernity: The Globalisation of Christianity. London: Routledge, 1–21. Werbner, Richard (ed.). 1998. Memory and the Postcolony. London: Zed Books. Whyte, Susan R., and Priscilla Kariuki. 1997. ‘Malnutrition and Gender Relations in Western Kenya’, in Thomas S. Weisner, Candice Bradley and Philip L. Kilbride (eds.), African Families and the Crisis of Social Change. Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 135–153. Wipper, Audrey. 1977. Rural Rebels: A Study of Two Protest Movements in Kenya. Nairobi: Oxford University Press. Newspaper Articles Kiaye, G. 1994. ‘Aids ‘Luos Facing Extinction’. Daily Nation (Kenya), 14 October 1994. Onyango-Obbo, C. 2004. ‘Tale of the Naked Luo Widow’. Daily Nation (Kenya), 22 January 2004. Oriang’, L. 2004. ‘Tradition or Not, I’ll Have None of it’. Daily Nation (Kenya), 18 June 2004. Audiotapes Kadongo, B. 1999. Dhoudi mag Central Nyanza (4 Volumes). Kisumu.

THE NEW WIVES OF CHRIST: PARADOXES AND POTENTIALS IN THE REMAKING OF WIDOW LIVES IN UGANDA Catrine Christiansen Widowhood in East Africa is commonly depicted as a time of loss—the loss of a husband and the father of one’s children, the loss of a provider and head of the home, and the loss of the man who, through bridewealth, had become the owner of the woman’s sexuality and with whom she had had a sexual life. Yet widowhood may also mean a break from marital life where the man dominated the distribution of domestic resources, although he turned out to be a consumer rather than a contributor, and where the woman had to comply with male sexual desires. For most African women living in patrilineal societies where a marriage constitutes an alliance between two persons as well as two lineages, experiencing one’s husband passing away does not end the marriage or the alliance. As a substitute, another male in the clan of the deceased may enter a relationship with the widow and be responsible for her, the children and the material property. Such practices of another relative replacing the deceased husband are commonly termed widow inheritance (Kirwen 1979, Cattell 2003).1 Since the early missions to East Africa, Christian clergy have regarded widow inheritance as one of the local cultural practices that are incompatible with Christian teachings on marriage (Prince 2007: 86). Within the Christian landscape of Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Pentecostal theologies, church responses vary between a total rejection of widow inheritance and the creation of a non-sexual relationship between the widow and the heir. The Catholic Church is open to the latter option, whereas ‘making a complete break’ with ‘cultural’ or ‘traditional’ practices has been a trademark of the

Among the Luo, these practices are also termed leviratic. A main difference is that the offspring of a levir are regarded as the children of the deceased man, whereas it is the heir who is regarded as the father of any children he may have with the widow. 1

86

catrine christiansen

Pentecostal-Charismatic wave (Meyer 1998). It is within this general antagonism between Christianity and tradition (Prince 2007) that widow inheritance is being debated. The advent of AIDS has added new dimensions to the debate and equipped the churches with a powerful argument against the continuation of this cultural practice. In the Ugandan context, among the committed Christians as well as less religious men and women, there is growing scepticism towards widow inheritance. Men often refer to the fear of HIV infection, immediate economic constraints, and the uncertainty as to whether a greater number of women and children in the long term will increase a man’s prosperity or his poverty. Female hesitations also refer to the fear of becoming infected with the virus and concerns that remarriage could involve additional expenses rather than extra resources. Some women not only voice concerns about widow inheritance, they also refer to Christian discourses of salvation to argue for widows either to remarry in a Christian manner or to remain ‘single’, with Jesus Christ as their ‘husband’. The idea that mature women can be economically and sexually independent persons differs radically from the local gendered social positioning where women are by birth under the authority of their fathers until, by marriage, they come under the authority of their husbands—and, possibly later on, the latter’s heirs. The widespread notion that women are unable to control their sexuality was, for instance, the basis for a public outrage in early 2007 when parliamentarians initiated discussions to decriminalise infidelity for women (in order to reduce the gender bias in the current law on extra-marital sex). This chapter explores a new opening for some Ugandan widows to remake their lives for the better. Most changes associated with AIDS have disempowered widows, in particular the care provided within the family sphere. Limited care for widows is often a sign of utter poverty, however, it is not uncommon for in-laws to accuse a widow of ‘bringing the disease into the family’ and then chasing her and her children off the land of the deceased husband (Christiansen forthcoming 2009b). The new opening is to some extent related to the economic scarcity and alterations in patterns of familial caring, and, moreover, to HIV prevention discourses and the gospel of Salvation. The present analysis focuses on the connections between the discourse of sexual abstinence and ‘trust in the power of faith’, and the ways in which some widows negotiate new social positionings for themselves, in particular the economic and moral authority of widows to ‘stay single’.

the new wives of christ

87

Based particularly on one case, the chapter explores the making of a new self that is not merely opposed to ‘tradition’ and male dominance, but appears to create an altogether new sense of womanhood in which the widow is ‘single’ though ‘married’ to Jesus, independent yet deeply engaged in social relations of dependence, and where only abstinence demonstrates that she is in control of her own sexuality. Faith, or spirituality, plays a key role in the motivations of these widows to take the initial actions to shift the trajectories of their lives. They draw on a certain discourse of faith, namely the Protestant theology of Salvation, and its sexual code of only permitting sex within marriage. It is significant that the HIV prevention campaigns have made the claim to abstain from sex an accepted position beyond the sphere of religion, and it is a blend of Christian doctrines, public health messages, and cultural practices that informs the emergence of this new social position for widows. The present chapter draws upon ethnographic fieldwork among the Samia, who live in the south-eastern corner of Uganda.2 With an emphasis on the social embeddedness of a widow’s choices and actions, one case will be presented in considerable detail, that of a widow I call Proscovia. The case shows a woman’s efforts to fulfil her social positions and at times radical, spiritual ambitions without causing great conflicts with the people on whom she depends. The chapter will attend to her marital life, the burial of her husband, and the remaking of her life as a widow. The narration and the analysis both seek to strike a balance between the emotional aspects of faith and the more instrumental dimensions of the discourse of salvation. First, however, I discuss the local setting, Samia widow inheritance, HIV prevention, and Christian discourses.

2 The author has carried out research among the Samia since 1998 and is deeply grateful to her local assistants and various officials who made the research possible. The author also thanks the Nordic Africa Institute, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Institute of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen for research funding. Her sincere thanks also go to the many people who have shared their lives and experiences with the author. The names of all the individuals mentioned have been changed.

88

catrine christiansen Setting the Scene

Since the onset of the epidemic in 1983, about one million Ugandans have died of AIDS (UNAIDS 2004). In 2005 approximately another million Ugandans were living with HIV—a high number related to the large-scale roll-out of antiretroviral drugs, as well as to an increase in the incidence of HIV (UNAIDS 2006). The improved access to antiretroviral treatment may have contributed to life expectancy at birth having increased to nearly forty-nine years for males and fifty-two years for females (DHS 2006). Women on average live slightly longer than men, yet the increasing numbers of women who are experiencing the transition from wife to widowhood are also due to a slightly higher mortality rate among adult males (9%) than their female peers (8%), spousal age differences, and the fact that one in every three married women is in a polygynous union (ibid.). According to the Demographic Health Survey 2006, among women aged 30–34, 4% are widows, nearly 12% aged 40–44 are widows and in the older category of 45–49 years more than 17% experience widowhood (ibid.). Although this latter age group only makes up 2.6% of female Ugandans, it is notable that only 58.6% are married, whilst 84.7% of their male peers are married and merely 1.8% widowed (ibid.). Women marry at lower ages than their male peers,3 and, as indicated above, more than one in ten is widowed by the age of 40; in other words, women enter both marriage and widowhood at early ages. The above figure of hardly any widowers (due to remarriage) also indicates that debates about social positioning ‘after married life’ refer primarily to the female part of the population. In other words, widowhood is a gendered issue. The above-mentioned figures are based on national surveys, and although there is no local comparative documentation, it is estimated that in the Samia area the frequency of relatively young widows exceeds the national level due to widespread polygyny and a HIV-prevalence of about 10%, or slightly higher than the national level of 6–7% (Director of Health Services, personal communication August 2005).4

3 Amongst Ugandan females, 47% of the 20–24 years old are married (compared to 30% of the peer males) and 63% are married when they reach 29 years (compared to 60% of the peer males) (DHS 2006). 4 The relatively high HIV prevalence is linked to the constant flow of money and people in the border town and the fishing villages, with increased opportunities for transactional sex (Obbo 1993, Talle 1995).

the new wives of christ

89

The Samia location is a rural agricultural area bordering the shores of Lake Victoria in the south with a semi-urban centre along the Mombasa-Kampala highway in the north. Since 1997 the area has been known as Busia District and is located in the borderlands of south-eastern Uganda and western Kenya. The Samia are part of the larger Bantu category known as Abaluya; they speak Lusamia and make up 70% of the 230,000 inhabitants of the district (Rwabwoogo 2002, Katahoire 1998). The Roman Catholic Church takes up much space in the local Christian landscape, with well-educated and well-connected priests who preach to about half the population. The other mission-based church, the Anglican Church of Uganda, is locally rather poor in terms of personnel, buildings, and certainly in terms of collaboration within the church. Since the East African Revival of the 1930s, the Church of Uganda has experienced three internal movements of Balokole, in Luganda literally meaning ‘the saved ones’ (see also Robins 1979, Taylor 1958, Gifford 1998). The first and second group call themselves Tukutendereza (the second also call themselves Abazukufu), these being tight pietistic fellowships of Christians who have proclaimed salvation and testify their sins in public (see also Peterson 2001, Prince 2007 for the Revival in the Anglican Church in Kenya). During the 1990s, the most recent movement, Abamwoyo (literally meaning ‘people of spirit’), emerged. The Abamwoyo differ radically from the Tukutendereza, as the theology and liturgy share qualities with Pentecostal-Charismatic practice.5 A charismatic movement began in the Catholic Church during the late 1970s and took firm hold of the Catholics in Busia District during the 1990s, yet its strength stagnated around 2001, and its influence in the local church is limited. Catholics who belong to the Charismatic revival call themselves ohwekaluhania buyaha, or ‘the revived people’.6 Since the early 1980s, the area has hosted increasing numbers of Pentecostal-Charismatic churches, which, in uncoordinated ways, pursue similar theological lines as the Balokole and Charismatic 5 Emani Kali, meaning ‘strong faith’ or ‘hot faith’ in Kiswahili, could become a fourth revival movement within the Anglican Church of Uganda. It is very similar to the Abamwoyo in its theology and liturgical practice, the main difference apparently being that it has been started by an archbishop, i.e. at top level of the clerical hierarchy in the church, whereas Abamwoyo started at the lay, grassroots level. 6 The main difference between the local Protestant and Catholic versions of Charismatic Christianity is the question of whether a living human being can be certain of salvation in the afterlife.

90

catrine christiansen

fellowships in the mission-based churches, such as the personal commitment to God, and adhere to a rather strict form of behaviour, including fidelity and refusal to take part in local ‘pagan’ practices such as widow inheritance. Roughly every fourth Christian belongs to a Pentecostal-Charismatic church. The clear and often radical message of a change in behaviour in terms of rituals, family life, and sexual behaviour provokes debates and changes beyond the circles of converts (see also Meyer 1998, Maxwell 1998, van Dijk 2000). Widow Inheritance, HIV Prevention, and Christian Discourses When a married Samia man passes away, it is customary for his patrilineage to take care of the wives and children; abalekwa and abafirwe are the traditional terms used when referring to ‘people who are left behind’ or ‘people who have lost’. The ritual process for inheriting the widow is called emisiro and begins with the slaughter of a white cock in the evening after the burial ceremony and ends with the ritual of esimini, where the widow brings a goat from her natal home to the in-laws and destroys her kitchen hut at the home of her husband (or another small hut that symbolises a kitchen hut). These funeral rites are comprehensive, and many widows never perform the final stage due to poverty or the unwillingness of natal relatives to take part in the ritual performances. The initial ritual acts are regarded as signs of the widows’ respect for the deceased, the lineage as well as transitory acts preparing a widow to enter a surrogate marital relationship. As long as a widow has performed the ritual called omanjo, where on a starlit night she ‘sperms in the bush’, and this is witnessed by a fellow woman, she can be provided with an heir, or omukerami (cf. Whyte 1990). The term ‘provided’ seems appropriate, since, at least traditionally, the widows themselves were not always involved in selecting the heir (cf. Cattell 1992). The heir (omukerami ) is traditionally a brother of the deceased, as is common among the patrilineal Bantu-speaking people of East Africa (Kirwen 1979, Cattell 1992), and he becomes responsible for the wellbeing of the widow, the offspring, and the material property.7 A married woman’s welfare depends to some extent on her having produced

7

See also a local Christian ‘collection of Samia culture’ (Nadongo 1993).

the new wives of christ

91

children, since they are the ‘products of the bridewealth’ linking her with her deceased husband’s lineage, and her children will be her main carers in old age (Kirwen 1979; Cattell 1992, 2003). If the widow is no longer of reproductive age and has a mature son, the son often becomes the heir. Otherwise, when the widow is young and is still able to produce children, the heir is expected to fulfil the widow’s reproductive needs. This was a task he traditionally performed with joy, since as the heir he would acquire respect for having several wives and an abundance of children (see also Silberschmidt 2004).8 Today people are well acquainted with burials for adult males where the pastor explicitly preaches against the traditional funeral rites consistent with widow inheritance. Pentecostal-Charismatic pastors tend to emphasise that it is demonic worship to sacrifice animals in order to say farewell to the deceased’s spirit and to commune with ancestral spirits. ‘Since the Lord Jesus Christ gave his blood to revitalise the connection between God and human kind’, these pastors say, ‘any sacrificial blood must be for the Devil’. The evilness of these rites, such as shaving off the hair, is manifested in the danger of becoming HIV-infected through sharing razor blades. The Catholic priests tend to focus on the indissolubility of the marriage between a husband and wife (especially if the man lived monogamously and the couple received the sacramental blessing), the heathenness of polygyny,9 and the integrity (or rights) of every woman. The spread of HIV through ‘sharing a husband’ (polygyny and fornication) and ‘sharing wives’ (widow inheritance and fornication) is often used as evidence for its non-Christian nature. Most Anglican pastors are Balokole, yet they share historical linkages with their mission-based Catholic brethren and at funerals often strike a balance between positions against ‘shaving’ and ‘sharing’. The clergy, representing different theologies and local churches engaged with various aspects of the faith, thus integrate messages from HIV prevention campaigns into the Christian disapproval of widow inheritance practices. The striking ease with which priests and pastors establish this continuity between Christian and HIV discourses, such as that concerning the razor blade suggests that ‘paganism’ and HIV are

8 For barren widows, the relationship with the heir could be an opportunity to produce children and enter the social status of motherhood. 9 According to the Catholic missionary, Michael Kirwen (1979), Catholic and Anglican missionaries in East Africa wrongly assumed widow inheritance to be a marriage.

92

catrine christiansen

conflated. While this integration does not change the content of the Christian preaching, as Geissler and Prince (2007) note from western Kenya, the HIV discourse lends ‘the Christian message new transformational power’ (2007: 137). *

*

*

In the late 1980s, when the national HIV prevention campaigns began, the churches joined hands with the slogan ‘love carefully’. Although the Christian churches promulgated a ‘love faithfully’ slogan, the two campaigns promoted similar changes in behaviour encouraging each individual to abstain (from sex before marriage) or be faithful (to your partner) (Seidel 1990, Allen 2006). This message has reached all corners of Uganda, so when asking young or old, men or women, Catholics or Protestants, Moslems or traditional healers about preventing the spread of the epidemic, the frequent response is ‘We should all live with one partner only. If we just stay with that one, get married, and do not take on extras [ lovers] then AIDS will disappear’. The immense focus on HIV/AIDS and on having one partner only has influenced sexual practices, such as the age at which sexual activity starts (Uganda Demographic and Health Survey 2001) and debates over cultural practices, such as widow inheritance. Moreover, these campaigns have significantly contributed to making talk about sex part of the public sphere (Parikh 2005). A particular perspective on sexual risks, as the anthropologist Shanti Parikh writes, has led to a situation in which ‘Uganda’s successful HIV/AIDS campaigns have inadvertently sharpened the bifurcation between discussions of sexual risks and sexual pleasures’ (ibid.: 126). The emphasis on sexual risk-taking was situated within a moral framework which admonished the individual to avoid infection by being ‘self-disciplined’ (Geissler and Prince 2007: 135) and having sex only within marriage. The campaigns ran at a time when Uganda was beginning rehabilitation after two decades of instability and when Pentecostal-Charismatic churches had begun evangelising. Although it would be incorrect to assume that the gospel of Salvation merely attracted people who wanted protection from HIV infection (or only to heal wounds of the years of instability), there is an important correspondence between the prescription to live as a Saved person and the moral responsibility placed on the individual to avoid HIV infection. It is through faith that a person can avoid risk-taking behaviour. In other words, the parallel spread of the HIV prevention

the new wives of christ

93

messages (especially when reduced to ‘Abstinence’ and ‘Be faithful’) and the gospel of Salvation reinforced the relevance of each other: HIV infection became a danger to be avoided through ‘individual behavioural change’, and such change could best be achieved through faith and the proclamation of Salvation. *

*

*

In addition to the creation of an explicit public discourse linking Christian morals and sexuality, the epidemic has influenced the socioeconomic structures within which caring for widows takes place. First of all, the rising mortality rate among adult males has increased the percentage of widows, particularly of young widows. Secondly, by taking its heavy toll on people of productive age, families experience a loss of income at the same time as expenses for medical services and later for the funeral increase. Since these changes are taking place in a society in which living expenses have increased far beyond income from small-scale agricultural production, where social mobility is narrowly focussed on formal education (Meinert 2003) and where unemployment rates remain at extremely high levels, formerly stable relations of assistance have become uncertain (Christiansen 2005; see also Cattell 2003, Weisner, Bradley, and Kilbride 1997). Widows seem vulnerable in relations of assistance because of their positions within the social structure and the quite frequent accusations from in-laws that the ‘widow was the one who went astray, so she killed the husband’. Tense relations between in-laws and widows seem to be a frequent explanation underlying an absence of care, a reason widows may express confidentially in private, since they would never challenge in-laws directly concerning such cultural values as family solidarity. In addition to blends of Christian morals, poverty, and subordinate positions, widows may lack support because men are losing interest in becoming an heir; a tendency that churches do not seem to recognize. The former tradition of strengthening one’s masculinity by adding women and children to one’s sphere of domestic responsibility is weakening (see also Silberschmidt 2004). Adult men and women alike refer to the burden, not the blessing, of being responsible for additional women and children. Given the difficulties for young people in obtaining salaried jobs or large plots of land, a ‘young home’ has rarely had time to accumulate wealth. Young widows with young children are especially considered burdens because of the economic costs of raising children

94

catrine christiansen

nowadays, with education, medicine, clothes, food etc. A great many children may thus imply poverty rather than prosperity for a man. Moreover, since widows may well be HIV-infected, men often fear having sex with them, at least during the period immediately after the deaths of their husbands. Younger and older widows may thus suffer from the notion that ‘if you cannot even enjoy the woman’, as adults continuously reminded me, ‘why would a poor man take on that extra burden?’ The men known to move quickly to inherit widows who are suspected of being infected are locally perceived to be drunkards, foolish and unaware of the sexual dangers. Maria Cattell also notes in her research among the Samia of western Kenya, widows likewise make distinctions as to whether a potential heir will turn out to be a consumer rather than a contributor to the household (Cattell 2003). In the Samia setting, the Catholic Church has for decades sought to replace the traditional heir (omukerami ) with a ‘non-sexual advisor’ (omulindi ).10 The omukerami is regarded as ‘the owner’ of the women, the children and the property, whereas an omulindi is expected to advise the widow on using the resources available to her. The omulindi and the widow must agree before he can sell land or withdraw school fees, for example, and he and the widow are not supposed to be sexually intimate. The advisor relationship is also winning interest among the local Balokole, who reason along the same lines as the Catholics, namely that this could be an attempt to avoid a sexual relationship between a widow and the heir without jeopardising the widow’s social security within the lineage of her deceased husband. However, Balokole agree mainly with the social security aspect of this altered practice, expressing widespread scepticism regarding the Catholic argument that these changes can lead to the abandonment of the contested funeral rites, e.g. shaving off hair and animal sacrifices. The Catholic argument, put simply, is that these rites are no longer required, since the relationship between the widow and the omulindi does not involve sexual intimacy. Instead, acts that symbolise intercourse are invented, for example, the heir sits on a chair while the widow ‘passes over the lap of the heir’ (cf. Whyte 1990). She may touch his lap, but she is not supposed to stay there. In accordance with their Protestant traditions, Balokole churches The Maryknoll missionary to East Africa, Michael Kirwen, suggests that in the 1950–60s the Catholic Church introduced ecclesiastically acceptable alternatives to the custom of the heir, one of them apparently being the current practice of nominating an omulindi (Kirwen 1979). 10

the new wives of christ

95

generally encourage the widow to refuse an omulindi and instead look toward a recognised Christian re-marriage. From a spiritual point of view, expressed by committed as well as more nominal Christian women, widowhood can represent a dangerous ‘in between’ position if ‘one does nothing’. Especially when the husband was not a Saved person, the spirit of the deceased may return to the living wife with complaints that she has not performed all the rituals or that ‘he’ is annoyed with her way of living. One middle-aged Catholic widow explained that she had not performed ‘the rituals’ because she only accepted an omulindi. She had been used to staying without a husband, as the deceased had lived in Kenya for four years, only to return in a coffin. She tried to protect herself from her husband’s spirit by ‘not playing sex with any other man’. Her in-law, also a middle-aged woman married to a brother who had also passed away, had performed the rituals to accept an omukerami. She produced a child with him and he moved into her place, but he then turned out to be a drunkard and she chased him away. Now she feared exposure to ‘bad things’ because she had started but not completed the traditional ritual process, and she was ‘only’ a nominal Catholic. In this situation, she doubted that either the ancestral spirits or the Christian God would protect her from harm. The local catechist had visited the widows’ homes several times to encourage them to receive Holy Communion and commit themselves further to the Church. According to the widows, the catechist encouraged them to ‘finish the rituals’, i.e. each to bring a goat from their natal homes to the mother-in-law (esimini ), pay ndobolo (annual membership contribution to the Catholic Church), and a small fine (also to the Church). In other words, the catechist encouraged them to complete the traditional rituals and then to seek ‘full membership’, i.e. to receive Holy Communion. The first-mentioned widow was eager to receive the sacrament of communion and she was able to make the payments, but her natal relatives were Balokole and unwilling to contribute a goat to a traditional rite. There are precedents in the local Catholic Church to be more accommodating towards cultural practices than their Anglican counterparts, so that, for example, polygynous men sit on parish committees, and Friday is set aside for the parish priest to hold a Mass at second funeral rites. The interesting point is not only the long-established practice within the local Church to accommodate some ‘culture’, but also the recommendation to the widows to carry out both ‘traditional’ and Christian rituals. According to the catechist, this procedure satisfies the ancestral spirits, including the spirit of the

96

catrine christiansen

deceased, and then afterwards the widows could leave these spirits behind and pray to God alone. The Anglican lay readers rarely ask widows to continue traditional rituals. Instead they encourage widows to leave behind ‘the ways of tradition’ and proclaim Salvation to protect themselves from harm that might arise from a failure to perform the traditional rites. Among the neighbouring Luo people in western Kenya, there has been a reification of Tradition, and some agitators argue that the well-being and prosperity of the person, family and community might be ‘blocked’ if particular traditional rites are not performed, including in relation to widow inheritance (Prince 2007: 86). Most Samia regard some traditional rituals to be essential on a certain existential level. For example, the spirit of a deceased husband must be told to leave the living behind, but unlike the Kenyan Luo, many Samia seem to believe that Christian faith and rituals can secure them against bad consequences. This difference probably relates to the status of the pre-Christian religion in the context of evangelisation, urbanisation, cultural politics and political influence within the nation state. Whereas Luo culture has been promoted by Luo scholars and important politicians, and is connected with a history of Luo as urbanised labour migrants (Prince 2007), the Samia are comparatively marginalised outside the limited area of Busia District. Most Samia are proud of and interested in Samia culture, and many appreciate the fact, for example, that the Bible translation into Lusamia will soon be completed, though this seems to be guided by a pragmatic attitude towards ideas and practice (see Whyte 1997 on pragmatism among the Nyole, their northern neighbours). The fact that tradition among the Samia is not promoted through politicians, radio programmes or public culture or codified in books seems to stimulate less explicit opposition towards the Christian HIV prevention discourse. As we shall see in the following, this is also the case with rites related to widow inheritance. *

*

*

Most Balokole widows ‘stay single’, meaning that the woman lives in a house without a man with whom she is sexually intimate. It is common for these ‘Saved’ and ‘single’ widows to speak about Jesus as their husband in the sense that he is the carer, the provider, the one who guides towards well-being and alleviates suffering (see also Prince 2007). To be ‘a wife of Jesus’ is to be a widow who has proclaimed

the new wives of christ

97

salvation and is active in the church. Based on a detailed case of one Samia woman’s experience of marriage and of remaking her life as a widow, the following sections will show how some widows draw on the discourse of sexual abstinence and ‘trust in the power of faith’ to negotiate new social positioning for themselves in a context marked by death, poverty, and mistrust. Inspired by one of the few studies on Samia widowhood in Western Kenya (Cattell 1992, 2003), the case study will present the social embeddedness of the woman as a wife, co-wife, mother, sister, and widow. In brief, Proscovia (b. 1956) is a daughter and sister within a wealthy family with strong bonds of solidarity, the mother of nine children, and the second wife of Emmanuel Opondo. During her marital union she becomes a co-wife of Sarah (the first wife of Emmanuel), of a woman for whom Emmanuel becomes an omukerami, and informally of a much younger woman with whom Emmanuel later cohabits. The case takes its point of departure in the death of Emmanuel and will discuss in turn Proscovia’s entry into and experiences of marital life as a wife, then to the events surrounding the funeral, her proclamation of salvation and refusal of an omukerami, and finally her life as a widow and a wife of Jesus Christ. Proscovia Akello: Her Life with Emmanuel Opondo When Proscovia’s husband was on his deathbed, his first wife failed to come to the hospital. The younger wife did not turn up either, but she had only produced one child with the husband, so Proscovia was not concerned much about her. Three years earlier Emmanuel’s brother died, leaving behind three wives; Emmanuel became the omukerami or heir of one. Proscovia feared that this widow might spread AIDS to her family, since they were certain that her late brother-in-law had died of the disease, a notion confirmed when another brother-in-law died a year after inheriting the younger wife of the late one. Proscovia had prayed hard for her life to be spared so that she could raise her four school-age children. In fact she was praying when Emmanuel stopped breathing. She closed his eyes, asked God to welcome him into His Kingdom, and called for the nurse. Then she went to the telephone booth to inform her brother, who was in a position to organise a vehicle to bring the body home. Emmanuel died on 6 January 2000.

98

catrine christiansen

At the hospital the nurses were stunned by her calmness. Conversing with me about her conjugal life, emotions at times spilled over, as when, on Valentines Day 2004, she narrated the beginnings of their relationship. She was attending secondary school, and he was a teacher at the primary school across the road from her parents’ home. He was a handsome young man with a scooter, and he always made her laugh. They met in secret to talk, and she studied his behaviour. She knew she was in love with him. A year later she was pregnant with their first child. Her father, a respected administrator, was furious, since he wanted his daughter to obtain further education. Emmanuel agreed with her father that he would provide her with an education instead of a high bridewealth, though in order to come to a settlement with his prospective father-in-law he also gave him several cows. After Proscovia delivered their first child in 1979, she moved to the homestead of Emmanuel’s family in the village neighbouring her natal home. During the eight years that Proscovia stayed in the home, she gave birth to four children, who all died around six months old, a repeated misfortune that she and her natal family suspected was a curse from her co-wife, due to jealousy that the husband was educating Proscovia. After the death of the fourth child, Proscovia requested Emmanuel’s permission to move away from the homestead into a small house on the premises of the nearby hospital where she was working. Emmanuel did not agree with her analysis of the situation or with her request to leave the homestead.11 Proscovia then alarmed her locally prominent brothers, who came to settle the dispute. Soon afterwards Proscovia moved from what she termed ‘the evilness of that home’. In ten years living in the nurse’s home, Proscovia produced five children; the oldest is now twenty-eight and his three younger siblings are 20, 18 and 16 years old respectively. The last born, Cecilia, only lived for some months. While the children grew in numbers and age, the place became congested and she wanted to move. Emmanuel had by that time given up his teaching and begun drinking the local brew, and he impregnated a young girl, who then became the third wife. The

11 Proscovia’s request coincided with severe disputes between her two mothers-inlaw, which led the second mother-in-law to return to her home of origin The first wife accused the second one of performing witchcraft that led her teenage sons to die—four died within five years, while three daughters were ‘untouched’. The first wife convinced the husband to sell the deceased sons’ land because it was cursed.

the new wives of christ

99

husband’s continual production of children and taking on an additional wife made Proscovia worry that her two sons would have to struggle to inherit suitable plots of their father’s land. Furthermore, Emmanuel had started spending long periods without seeing her, and as she was losing patience with him, she straightforwardly asked him to allocate a piece of land where she could supplement her income with subsistence farming and build a house for herself and her children.12 The request raised the longstanding disagreement with the first wife and the unease between Proscovia, her in-laws, and her natal family. Through committed assistance from her influential brothers, she was allocated a reasonable piece of land where she could settle and cultivate. Proscovia and her four children settled on the land in 1997. That same year Emmanuel became the omukerami or heir of a deceased brother’s wife. Since the brother ‘grew slim’, the family is certain that he died of AIDS.13 Until this time Proscovia felt neglected when Emmanuel was only ‘playing sex’ with ‘outside women’, including the young woman he impregnated, yet his sexual relations with the widow affected her mind: she started praising God for sparing her life by not letting her have sex with her husband. When he visited, she would cook nice food, wash his clothes, and make him feel comfortable, yet she always tried to avoid him at night. She never raised her voice or accused him of anything. However, she explained to him that, if he died before her, then she did not want to be inherited, since she had chosen him from the clan and did not want anyone else. Besides, she had sons and daughters, her natal family nearby, and through her hard work (employment and farming) she was able to live alone. He did not agree and argued that death is always an unexpected visitor. When he became sick he stayed two months in her house, and when the sickness developed he was admitted to hospital. During the period of his sickness, he never brought up the issue of her fate after his death. She never raised the issue, as she had nothing to add. When Emmanuel died, he left behind two formal widows (for whom he had

12 A Samia husband is supposed to settle each wife and her children on a piece of his land. 13 Even though the complexity of AIDS symptoms bewilder people, when someone ‘with a sexuality’ grows very thin and no medicine works, the general idea is that he or she died from AIDS.

100

catrine christiansen

paid bridewealth), one woman with whom he had cohabited (no formal exchange with her family), one widow inherited from his brother thirteen children (aged 2–28), all produced with these four women. Love and Marital Life in a (Christian) Time of Aids Proscovia told a story about a teenage schoolgirl who falls in love with a married man in employment, and when their affections lead to her pregnancy, the next step is marriage. It seems like a rather common story of young women who are attracted to a married man, their relationship being kept secret until she becomes pregnant. In fact pregnancy often appears to be the turning point in deciding whether the relationship will be a temporary affair or develop into a formalised conjugal union. Her narration of their conjugal life is also a story about the participation of their respective family members in their everyday married life, including their conjugal differences, their union clearly being an alliance between two individuals as well as between two lineages. In this patrilineal and virilocal context, her family members have given her extraordinary assistance in settling disputes with her husband and in-laws because the woman often moves a fair distance from her natal home and they may hesitate to interfere. This is the case, for example, with Proscovia’s sister, Immaculate, who married a Gikuyu and has been living ‘deep in Kenya’, where only she herself can resolve the recurring tensions with her co-wives and husband. However, a sister who marries ‘within’ a neighbouring village is often able to draw more on her brothers’ assistance, especially when bridewealth has been paid. In the private statement to Emmanuel about her refusal to be inherited, Proscovia emphasises her affective choice of him, not the clan, as her marital partner. According to the ethnographic work produced among the Samia on the Kenyan side of the border in the late 1980s, widows state that, since they did not have a choice of husband, they claim the choice of refusing any heir (Cattell 1992). Proscovia, on the other hand, declares that, because she made the choice to marry him, she should also have the choice to refuse a replacement. These widows thus challenge patriarchal practices by claiming their authority in the age hierarchy and using a Christian discourse, either that they belong to Balokole fellowships (ibid.), or by emphasising crucial aspects of a

the new wives of christ

101

Christian marriage, such as love and a voluntary union between two individuals.14 When the husband hesitates to accept her justification, Proscovia states that her reproductive needs are satisfied (she has a good number of children), her old age is assured (she has sons and land), she is employed and hard working (implying responsibility), and her natal family will be supportive (give her social security). In this manner, she selectively draws on Christian values of marriage and on traditional forms of legitimation for accepting that a widow passed her reproductive age need not enter into a sexual relationship with an heir. She probably hoped that Emmanuel would suggest that the oldest son should become responsible for the home, but Emmanuel shows no interest in the dialogue and instead pushes it aside by saying that they do not know who will die first. The story of Proscovia also illustrates a woman’s efforts to secure her sons’ proper inheritance of land in a marriage in which she is on bad terms with her in-laws. Behind the local stories of widows who are chased away from the homestead and the land are usually enduring disagreements between the widow and resentful in-laws (Cattell 2003). While the husband is still alive and the woman is fulfilling the role of a wife, she has better negotiating power than when she alone must deal with her in-laws: past struggles may easily become present-day obstructions. Moreover, the case exposes an interesting connection between faith and AIDS in respect of marital life in a society which accepts men having several sexual partners, as shown in the changes in Proscovia’s feelings from being sexually neglected by her husband to praising the Lord for protecting her from sex with that very same husband. HIV infection is a danger which she, as a culturally well-behaved wife, can only avoid through prayers.

14 It should be noted that in 1999 Proscovia told me that she wanted to declare salvation, yet ‘her mister’ was taking alcohol, implying that he would not allow it. In this sense, her prospective line of argument seems congruent with those of the other Samia widows.

102

catrine christiansen Proscovia Akello: Burying Her Husband

Hundreds of people gathered inside and outside the shelter constructed for Emmanuel’s Christian burial ceremony. Family members, neighbours, fellow church members, friends, and colleagues of Emmanuel (and Proscovia) had been informed of his death within two days via the local grapevine, the cell-phone networks, and a national radio station. They had come to give him a proper burial. Since Emmanuel and his lineage belong to the Church of Uganda, the Anglican pastor led the ceremony, while several Catholic catechists represented the church of the first wife as ordinary members of the congregation. The ceremony took the form of a mass, with readings, preaching, hymns, and prayers. When the pastor had finished his obligations, a close family (male) member invited relatives and friends to make funeral speeches (obulori ). These speeches constitute a central element of Samia burial ceremonies and are, as Cattell writes, a public platform where people make overt political speeches on a variety of matters, including the circumstances of the death and what rituals—including those of widow inheritance—will be carried out (Cattell 1992). A brother of Emmanuel narrated his life story, beginning with the marriage of his parents and concluding with his increasing bad health, which finally led to his death. After an uncle praised Emmanuel for his deeds for the family and the community at large, it was time for the official widows to speak. Sarah, the first wife, said that she was the first wife of Opondo,15 with whom she produced nine children, that she grieved for his death and praised him as a good man, who always took care of her. Now the time had come for someone else to provide her with such care. Proscovia also started her speech by saying that she was a wife of Opondo and that she had produced nine children with him, five of whom had died while another four are still alive. She then continued by saying that, when Opondo was still alive, she told him that she had accepted marriage with him because of the love God benevolently revealed to them, and that she still thanked the Lord for showing them such merciful grace. Her rather prolonged speech led up to a punch line: ‘I have declared Jesus as my personal Saviour. Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!’ While the

15 In a local public setting, a woman usually refers to her husband by the name he inherited from his father.

the new wives of christ

103

few Balokole present started praising the Lord for the wonderful news that sister Proscovia had just spoken, the majority started muttering. The third wife was not going to speak, as her relationship with Opondo was not seen as a formal marriage (no exchange of bridewealth and just one child), and a widow inherited from another brother is not given a place to speak. Hence Proscovia’s proclamation of salvation was the last word from the widows. The speeches thus ended with amble space for the first person to speak after the widows, a Balokole brother of Emmanuel, on the topic of traditional funeral rites and widow inheritance as evil worship. He condemned the family for performing the funeral rites. This spurred a conflict between the Balokole and others, and since Emmanuel’s lineage and clan members (the hosts of the burial) belong to both sides the gulf, the discussions went on for quite some time. Finally an older, ‘not-saved’ brother of Emmanuel’s father claimed the authority to state that the funeral rites would be carried out. The Anglican pastor, who was Saved and disagreed with this decision, then led all the people in procession to Emmanuel’s burial site, lowering the coffin, praying, and then covering the grave. Proscovia and her natal relatives stayed to take part in the meal, but left before the funeral rites began and before the men were invited to taste the amalwa (millet beer). When Proscovia and her four children reached the homestead of Proscovia’s mother, where they were going to spend the night, the old woman told the children to return to the burial site and participate in the funeral rites: ‘This you must do, for he is your father’. Without their mother noticing, the three younger children sneaked out of the house, while the fourth, the oldest son, remained in the young men’s house. According to the two youngest children, during the funeral rites they had their hair shaved, were requested to wear banana strings around their waists, had sacrificial blood smeared in their faces, and for several nights slept at the grave. To Christine, the youngest daughter, the strangest part of the rituals was the prohibition on passing through any homestead, but instead having to walk round. A Civil Speech on Salvation and Social Support When Proscovia uses the platform of the burial speeches to make her salvation public, she is following a tradition of merging personal narratives (concerning the deceased) with the speaker’s political interests

104

catrine christiansen

on issues regarding land, clans, religion, local development, and governance. Conventionally the speakers are men. When women speak, they are often greeted with ridicule and defiance, especially when they explicitly refuse to follow traditional marital practices, since such female opposition is considered provocative (Cattell 1992: 325). Female use of religious legitimation to articulate dissent regarding practices such as widow inheritance is nothing new in East Africa. During the 1930s, women began to speak in public about marital discord, gender inequality, and resistance in order to follow various traditions, including widow inheritance (on Uganda, see Taylor 1958; on Kenya, see Cattell 1992, Peterson 2001; on Tanzania, see Larsson 1989). The East African Revival movement provided the event and the language for women to engage publicly with the politics of family strife—particularly between spouses—and to express broad discontent with gender relations.16 Taking their point of departure in disclosures of private sin and cleansing themselves of family strife associated with witchcraft, female converts condemned practices related to marital life such as bridewealth, polygyny, widow inheritance, women’s inability to inherit land from their husbands or fathers, and unequal gender divisions of work and accountability in daily life (Peterson 2001, Larsson 1989, Robbins 1979). Based on a dichotomous world-view along the lines of Good versus Evil, the Devil allowed converts to put a name to the personal play of ‘immorality’ at home; conversion provided a morally feasible way of rebuilding domestic harmony (Peterson 2001: 482). Social life was likewise divided into the path of God in opposition to the path of the Devil, and generally being Saved (Balokole) meant breaking with both traditional and nominal Christian practices. Consequently the Balokole discourse of breaking with traditions and gender inequality introduced behaviour that, since the 1970s, has become more common with the rise of Pentecostal-Charismatic churches all over Africa (see e.g. Meyer 1998, Marshall-Fratani 1998, van Dijk 2000). By the time of the funeral, Proscovia had just become part of a Saved fellowship within Church of Uganda or Abazukufu, which she knew well because her mother was one of the first members in the 1970s. A central criterion for membership is to live monogamously or

16 According to Peterson’s work among the Gikuyu in Kenya, inter-generational relations seemed as much at issue as gender relations, yet this does not seem to be the situation among the Bahaya in Tanzania, where old women also converted in large numbers (Peterson 2001, Larsson 1989).

the new wives of christ

105

‘stay single’ as a widow or widower, and for this reason Proscovia could not become a member while her polygynous husband was still alive. The Abazukufu is a fellowship that—contrary to recent PentecostalCharismatic churches—is not actively engaged in fighting the spiritual battle between God and the Devil. Instead of delivering evil spirits from affected people, Abazukufu are locally known as strict believers in Christian marriage patterns and argue powerfully against practices such as polygyny, bridewealth, and widow inheritance. The orientation within Abazukufu may in part explain what made Proscovia focus her speech on marriage as a voluntary affective union between two people, rather than on marital relations as part of an intense battle between good and evil (see Peterson 2001). Yet, why did Proscovia not criticise widow inheritance or Emmanuel as a polygynous man who, in his later years, neglected his wives and children in favour of his daily alcohol consumption? Indeed, the scene was set for Proscovia to condemn his behaviour in the name of the Lord! The answer could be in Proscovia’s later admission that she also became Saved as a means of protection from her in-laws’ witchcraft, a powerful witchcraft (‘work of the Devil’) that had worked on her as a young woman and she feared that ‘someone’ would ‘make on her’ again. By not applying the terminology of a God-Devil battle on her marriage and indirectly on the long-term strained relations with what she suspected were malevolent in-laws, Proscovia avoided openly provoking the latter, an act related to respect and the fear of inviting witchcraft. Her actions should be understood as part of cultural values where interactions with individuals whom you consider to have used witchcraft against yourself or someone close to you is ‘made smooth by courtesy and civility, often warmed by friendliness and hospitality’ (Whyte 1997). In addition to her fear of inviting witchcraft, by acting according to the cultural values of civility rather than Balokole norms of confrontation, Proscovia also conformed to the views of her prospective social security network: her nominal Anglican natal relatives. The Balokole fellowships in eastern Uganda are firm social networks with internal assistance through prayers and compassion, but they do not encompass material resources of assistance such as land or money (Christiansen forthcoming, 2009a).17 During her married life Proscovia

17 In some cases Balokole convictions bring about changes in inheritance patterns in certain families that favour widows (on Tanzania, see, e.g., Larsson 1991), yet the influence of these fellowships is restricted to members.

106

catrine christiansen

had relied on her natal relatives, and she was aware that becoming a widow would only make her even more dependent. Her brothers are nominal Christians who follow the cultural language of civility and their late father’s refusal that any daughter (or daughter-in-law) should be inherited. Her in-laws therefore knew that the family would refuse to accept the practice of omukerami in their case, and Proscovia did not need to make her position explicit. The brothers encouraged her to accept an omulindi, and some days later she did. This is not to imply that Proscovia’s co-wife, Sarah, did not become Saved because she did not have access to any socio-economic networks other than her in-laws. The first wife has lived in close proximity to her in-laws throughout her own married life and, according to Proscovia, their mutual relations are generally fine. Moreover, as children of the first wife, Sarah’s oldest sons have been allocated land near the homestead of their grandfather, where they have built homes and are farming the surrounding fields. If Sarah were to break off her relations with her in-laws, she would be more vulnerable than Proscovia, whose sons have been allocated land at a distance and who for years have lived apart from her in-laws. Religiously Sarah is a Catholic who, according to Proscovia, attends Sunday mass but in times of problems consults abalesi or local medicine men. Thus the two co-wives have rather different histories of relations with their in-laws, different positions within the in-law family (including allocations of land to their respective sons), and connections to natal relatives. Their respective backgrounds also seem different in terms of social status, education, and religious commitments. And as individuals they have diverse interests and ways of life (Cattell 2003). Summing up, in her speech at the funeral of her husband, Proscovia managed to strike a balance between Balokole notions of Christian marital life (which diverge from in-laws’ practice) and cultural values of civility (pleasing in-laws) while making her salvation public. An understanding of such courtesy must integrate a widow’s intentions to secure her and her children social support, which in this context is more certain within her affluent natal family network than within the poor Balokole fellowships. For Proscovia, her husband’s death and brothers’ support provided a space where she could pursue her long-awaited decision to become Saved and socially and sexually safe. Whereas women across East Africa in the early days of the Revival used the discourse of salvation to express critique of domestic life, Samia widows today attempt to find a third position between fulfilling social roles (e.g. com-

the new wives of christ

107

plying with decisions of one’s in-laws) and at the same time breaking away from these expectations (e.g. following their own faith) without provoking a conflict. The combination of civility and creativity without causing conflict seems central in the creation of new positions for Saved widows. It is significant that at no point does anyone make any reference to, or even hint at, HIV/AIDS. The burial event becomes a testimony to the fact that there are social situations where the choice of sexual abstinence, as well as general refusal to follow ‘tradition’, can be justified by the discourse on Salvation. In other words, at times most people may think that AIDS caused the death, and fear of HIV infection is one of the considerations people now make about widow inheritance, yet this can be kept implicit and silent, because faith and the gospel of Salvation can ‘do the talking’. Proscovia Akello: Her Life as a Widow The routines of Proscovia’s everyday life did not change much. She continued to work at the clinic, farm her small piece of land, perform most domestic work while the children were away at boarding schools, and spend considerable time with her natal relatives. The omulindi did not come to her home with demands for food or sexual intimacy. This was initially what Proscovia emphasised as a major change in the transition from wife to widow: she was now in control of her own resources. Beyond the domestic sphere, Proscovia devoted her faith and time to the Saved fellowship and to church work in general. When she attended the first Abazukufu gathering and gave her testimony, tears filled her eyes and she had just let them pass. It had been so overwhelming for her to narrate her long time of coming to God: she had been born into a Christian family, and although her father had been a polygamist, he had also been an active Christian brought up ‘in a Christian way’, his wives being among the first local Christians to become Saved. Proscovia was baptised as an infant, brought up with Bible studies, prayers, and Christian songs, and confirmed as a teenager. But then she had started distancing her life from God. She had become attracted to a married man and refused to listen to the advice of her parents. With time she became a second wife and therefore could not get married in church. Together her husband and herself enjoyed money, alcohol, late nights in the local bars, good food and clothes, and a great deal of happiness. But these worldly pleasures did not last long, and the marriage became

108

catrine christiansen

marked by jealousy, the deaths of many of their children, lies, fights, and with time also lack of money, too much alcohol, illness, and then the death of the husband. Before his death, but after she had accepted salvation, she had pleaded his forgiveness for all her wrongdoings and he had forgiven her. It was now, as a widow and a mature woman, that she could finally say that she had given her life to Christ. It was after a long journey, beginning with God but then drifting away from Him, and after so many wrong thoughts, feelings, and decisions, that she had returned to the path of Jesus Christ. Her fellow Christians had embraced her and prayed for God to forgive her sins and enable her to stay on the ‘right path’. Being a widow in good health and only around forty years of age, other Abazukufu encouraged Proscovia to enter a Christian marriage with a ‘Saved’ man. She was certainly motivated to experience a Christian marriage—which is locally idealised as harmonious monogamy, love, trust, and ‘walking together’—yet she was concerned about what might happen to her children with her first husband. Although the new man might be willing to share resources, his relatives might not be willing to share with children who are not of their own clan. To her it was clear that the risks involved for her, for the futures of her children, and for her relations with the in-laws of her deceased husband were so considerable that remarriage was not actually an option. Having decided that she was not going to marry a Christian, Proscovia started to discuss with the pastor the process for her to ‘wed in church’ and to receive Holy Communion. But whom was she going to wed? The Lord Jesus Christ! The pastor followed the normal procedures for a wedding announcement by announcing Proscovia’s intention to marry in church on three successive Sundays. Since no one objected to the ritual going ahead, during the service on the fourth Sunday the pastor gave her a golden ring to wear on her ring finger. ‘It was a wonderful Sunday when I became a wife of Christ’, Proscovia said; ‘it is somehow like the (Catholic) sisters, only I have a home and children of my own’. In addition to being given permission to receive Holy Communion, Proscovia became a member of the Mother’s Union, the influential women’s group in the Anglican Church (Tinkasimire 2002), and was allowed to assume positions in the church. She soon became a key Christian in the parish church, with responsibility for various groups and activities, and she regularly made announcements during Sunday services. Through her devoted church work, she was given a chance

the new wives of christ

109

to preach the gospel, and she has become a cherished lay preacher in the parish. Proscovia was grateful for the chance to ‘come back to God’, and although she had reservations about church leaders and corrupt bureaucratic procedures, she rarely complained about the load of church work she was continuously being assigned. Nor does church work seem to have taken her away from family obligations. As a good daughter-in-law, she often passes by her mother-in-law to see how she is and invites her and her co-wife (her husband’s first wife) to her natal home whenever an occasion arises. As a good wife she asked her brothers to cement over the grave of her husband. As a good mother she has cemented over the grave of the first child who died in her home on the land of the husband. However, the graves of the children who died in her father-in-law’s homestead are not cemented, and they are now difficult to find, as the area has now been incorporated into the fields. Besides being a tradition in her natal family to cement graves, it shows that the land belongs to her and her offspring. During the first year the Abazukufu fellowship was very important in strengthening her faith, sharing experiences in resisting the accusations of ‘other people’, and encouraging her to take on church positions, yet over time she has become an irregular participant at the fellowship meetings. Her faith is now strong and she knows God is with her; as she said, ‘God has made many miracles in my life . . . when the district deleted me from the payroll I got back on the list and all my children are being educated’. She gave many examples of how her life is marked by grace, yet for her, faith is as much about cooling negative influences and thoughts: Salvation is helping me to stay on the right path. When I feel jealous, I pray to reduce it and control myself from not doing something. I fight feelings of jealousy, I don’t want to be a part of those rumour-mongers, I don’t want to beat my children or anyone else, I don’t want to take alcohol, and I want to keep that home of mine stable and away from problems. As a widow I must be very careful . . . nowadays I only confide in Jesus.

A Protestant Blend of Salvation and Sexual Abstinence Within the sisterhoods of the Ugandan Roman Catholic Church, nuns are perceived as women married to Jesus Christ, and each one wears a ring symbolising the status of a Christian married woman. In order to understand how this Catholic tradition has become part of an emerging

110

catrine christiansen

local practice in which Protestant widows can become ‘wives of Christ’, it is necessary to link notions of marriage with gendered social positioning and control over female bodies. Although the practice of performing a symbolic wedding is uncommon in the local Protestant churches and could be viewed as an extreme element in the remaking of widows’ lives, the blend of widowhood and Catholic sisterhood brings clarity to understanding the creation of new social positions for Samia widows. In a similar way to other Bantu people, a Samia female is born into a family in which her father is the ‘owner’ of her body until she marries a man who then becomes the ‘owner’ of her fertility and sexuality. In cases of pregnancy before marriage, payment to the girl’s father (not the girl) shows whom it is appropriate to compensate, and the exchange of bridewealth is a clear symbol of moving a woman from one man to another. Boys are also born into a gendered social position, yet the boy will grow up within the same lineage and become head of his own household. Whereas a female body ‘belongs’ to her father at birth and then changes to ‘belong’ to her husband at marriage, the trajectory of the male body with age is to become autonomous. In a society where gender is such an important aspect of authority over one’s own and others’ bodies, or in other words, of interpersonal relations and social organisation, it is an apparent cause of concern for dominant men that they should be allowing some women to ‘escape’ male control of female activities (Parkin 1972: 71–72). Like the discussions David Parkin described amongst Giriama male elders in early post-colonial Kenya, where a few women had secured an independent status through conversion to Islam and repaid their own bridewealth by working in urban Mombasa, the Samia discuss the ‘wisdom of giving women more “freedom” ’ (ibid.: 71). The crucial topics are about the ability of women to manage economic scarcity and surplus and with whom to satisfy their sexual needs. In fact, the two issues are often talked about as one because widows are frequently accused of being prostitutes—earning money from sex—or of being ‘sugar-mummies’, i.e. spending money on sex. Widows who are particularly prone to accusations of spending an economic surplus on sexual affairs with younger men have often had longterm disputes with their in-laws. When, for instance, one Catholic woman, who for years had been selling fish in a local market, became a widow, it did not take long for rumours to spread that she was ‘enjoying life too much’ and ‘taking advantage’ of a younger man. Her deceased husband was from

the new wives of christ

111

an affluent Catholic family who practiced the newer model of giving the widow an adviser, omulindi, and the widow had inherited much of the property. The accusations were thus directed at her suspected use of her husband’s resources on a man ‘outside the clan’ for her own pleasure (she had ‘enough’ offspring) and the fact that the young man was ‘too poor to say no’ to these gifts. In other words, the widow’s behaviour was such that it could jeopardise the family’s resources and moral reputation.18 As one of her female in-laws stated bluntly: ‘she started to behave like a man . . . that could be the ruin of the family. We are just like men; when someone gets the chance, she becomes reckless’. It is exactly the threatening power of women’s sexuality that makes the uncontrolled sexual behaviour of wives ‘pose the greatest threat to men, the family and to the social order’ (Silberschmidt 1999: 165). The question then is how does a woman create trust that she will wisely manage control of her body and domestic resources, and maintain moral respectability? Proclamation of Salvation is an obvious first step. According to local notions, such conversion involves a transformation of the person to become trustworthy, more like God Himself (Christiansen forthcoming 2009a). Salvation is thus perceived to enable people to be ‘self-disciplined’, i.e. to leave behind their ‘funny ways’ and become more consistent in their faith and way of life. In addition to the restrictions on behaviour in terms of staying away from places with alcohol, cigarettes, dances, and traditional rituals, it is through one’s personal relationship with God that a Saved person can seek to control emotions, such as desires and jealousy, which could lead to sex and other ‘misbehaviour’. It is through the key communication tool with God, i.e. prayers, that Proscovia can control emotions that could otherwise bring about problems. Personal firmness in shying away from temptation is regarded as essential for mature, but not yet old, widows to stay in a Christian ‘no man’s land’ (Cattell 1992). Since Salvation only allows sex within marriage, for a widow to proclaim salvation implies sexual abstinence. This may reduce the risk of advances from an omulindi, as he can expect a fierce struggle against satisfying his desires. Among the Samia for an adult ‘who has tasted sex to live without eating’ is a well-known struggle. The public discussions about the difficulties of

18 Such disputes are typically revived by the death of the husband and the distribution of his property to his natal relatives and to his wives and offspring, especially if the husband has left a will allocating a wife a higher share than in customary practice.

112

catrine christiansen

abstaining sexually are only indirectly related to widows, as this is part of the HIV prevention discourse directed towards young people, i.e. those who have not yet entered marriage and who are not supposed to have ‘tasted sex’. However, recognition of the personal struggle to abstain has strengthened both the cultural position that it is wise to restrict the sexual ‘freedom’ of widows and the more recent Protestant view that only Saved widows can sexually abstain. The two perspectives lead to the paradox that the most legitimate way currently for a woman to control her sexuality is by not having an active sexual life. The decision by Proscovia to perform the symbolic act of becoming a wife of Jesus should, I think, be understood as a fulfilment of her faith to move as close to God as possible for a woman who, as a mature Protestant with a range of social obligations, cannot become a nun. The association with sisterhood signals that she is confident to have the strength to abstain and thus ensure her in-laws and her own family that she will maintain her moral respectability. From her perspective, this commitment has led her to become a devoted and trustworthy church worker, at the same time as she has improved her role as an attentive daughter-in-law and continued being present in her natal home. Furthermore, it signals to the omulindi that he should remain at a sexually safe distance. Given the high HIV prevalence, the omulindi would most likely hesitate to approach her until she had stayed healthy for three to four years after the death of the husband.19 Whether or not Proscovia has undergone the appropriate HIV tests and thus knows her ‘status’ is information that she only shares with her closest friend. Her children do not know if she has performed the tests, nor do her mother or brothers. And the omulindi certainly does not know. The discourse of salvation allows Proscovia to prevent discussion about her HIV status and instead she argues that it is at God’s command that she ‘stays single’. The ring on her finger adds a powerful symbol to her identity as a truly Christian woman.

19 There is a widespread local notion that widows who have stayed healthy for 3–4 years after the death of their husbands are not HIV-infected.

the new wives of christ

113

Conclusion In a time of social change led by such negative factors as AIDS, poverty, and social mistrust, there is seldom focus on the options, the new openings, that may emerge for some people to realise goals that could change their life trajectories to the extent of impacting on their experience of self and more general notions such as womanhood. This chapter has addressed exactly this topic by looking at the intersection of faith, HIV, sexual abstinence, and the ways in which widowhood nowadays can provide a space in which women can move closer to God. A focus on widowhood in Uganda is a gendered discussion because women enter marriage and widowhood at early ages—nearly twenty per cent of women above 40 years of age are widows—whereas men prefer to remarry and thus maintain the status of husband. The new social position for Samia widows shares characteristics of a ‘grammar of dissent’, as Derek Peterson (2001) interpreted the conversion of Gikuyu women to salvation in the early days of the East African Revival. There are certainly elements of opposition to traditional rituals and to male sexual domination of an heir, and the language is informed by a discourse of Salvation, yet whereas the Gikuyu women turned domestic problems into social criticism, Samia widows mix the critical stand of Salvation with cultural values of civility. Such a blend of ‘teasing and pleasing’ could be interpreted as if Samia widows were pragmatists who promote commitment to God and church fellowship and, at the same time, maintain social support located in the cultural values of kinship. However, I have argued for an understanding that the new social positioning is not merely opposed to ‘tradition’ or to male behaviour, but instead represents an altogether new sense of womanhood. This is characterised by altered notions of self: the widow is ‘single’, though ‘married’ (to Jesus Christ), and economically independent, yet deeply engaged in social relations of dependence. These dimensions seem to enhance female authority and at the same time to maintain social inclusion. The key paradox is that the potential for the woman to achieve control over her own sexuality is conditioned by the most striking restriction, namely that the only legitimate way for a woman to control her sexuality is by not having an active sexual life. This particular intertwining of cultural values, the discourse of salvation and the discourse of abstinence, can thus support the cultural notion that it is wise to continue to restrict female sexuality, as well as the Protestant view that only salvation can enable women to sexually abstain.

114

catrine christiansen

This chapter has argued that the gospel of Salvation and HIV prevention discourse of sexual abstinence are congenial to one another, which is why Churches and Christians can combine the two to argue forcefully against practices such as widow inheritance. What happens, then, when mistrust in one (or both) discourse becomes predominant? According to several Saved women (with husbands still alive), young widows should not ‘let themselves be fooled by fellow widows who say they can abstain for years. Instead they should know how to use a condom’. In their view sexual pleasure will in the long-term grow into desire that even the most devoted Saved woman cannot control. The crux of the matter is the shift from the focus on sexual risks (HIV prevention discourse) to sexual pleasure and from questions of what one person ‘can’ control to what one ‘would want’ to control. The latter aspect raises a fundamental question of whether sexual abstinence is seen as a matter of faith or, turned upside down, is faith about sexual abstinence? Saved widows do become pregnant, thus providing the ultimate evidence that the rumours were true, and some defend them with precisely the view that to have sex on rare occasions with another man when one’s husband has passed away does not compromise one’s faith. Others, of course, argue that this proves that women are sexually immoral beings who must be controlled by a man. At this point, however, this does not amount to questioning the ‘power of faith’. Turning to the discourse of sexual abstinence from the perspective of HIV prevention, some Pentecostal pastors now express scepticism towards the ‘truth of abstinence’ and ‘immorality of condoms’. They watch young members become infected and they consider changing to encouraging use of condoms in order to keep the members alive. These pastors have started to critically question the abstinence discourse, and, instead of turning to issues of ‘self-discipline’ and thus to the sin of the individual who cannot abstain ‘full time’, they invoke the doctrine of ‘individual responsibility’ in using condoms when one is having sex outside marriage. If preachers and followers of Salvation shift from abstinence towards condom use, i.e. if abstinence and Salvation are no longer intertwined in HIV prevention, then what could be the implications for the social positions of Saved widows? The creation of a new space for Saved widows who are (supposed to be) sexually abstinent with Jesus as their ‘husband’ might, after all, prove to be a temporary phenomenon.

the new wives of christ

115

References Allen, Tim. 2006. ‘Aids and Evidence: Interrogating some Ugandan Myths’. Journal of Biomedical Science, 38(1), 7–28. Cattell, Maria. 1992. ‘Praise the Lord and say no to men’: Older women empowering themselves in Samia, Kenya’. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 7, 307–330. ——. 2003. ‘African Widows: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives’. Journal of Women & Aging, Volume 15, Numbers 2/3, 49–66. Christiansen, Catrine. 2005. ‘Positioning Children and Childcare Institutions in Uganda’. African Journal of AIDS Research, 4 (3), 173–182. ——. forthcoming, 2009a ‘Ugandan Charismatic Christians Striving for Health and Harmony’ Uncertainty in African Lives, Liv Haram & Bawa Yamba (eds.), Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. ——. forthcoming 2009b. ‘When AIDS Becomes Part of the (Christian) Family: Dynamics Between Kinship and Religious Networks in Uganda’ in Carolin LeutloffGrandits, Anja Peleikis, Tatjana Thelen, Social Security in Religious Networks. Anthropological Perspectives on New Risks and Ambivalences, Berghahn. Geissler, P. W. & Ruth Prince. 2007. ‘Life Seen: Touch and Vision in the Making of Sex in Western Kenya’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, 123–149. Gifford, Paul. 1998. African Christianity. Its Public Role, London: Hurst & Company. Katahoire, Anne Ruhweza. 1998. Education for Life—Mothers’ Schooling and Children’s Survival in East Uganda. PhD-Thesis no. 10, Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen. Kirwen, Michael C. 1979. African Widows. An empirical study of the problems of adapting Western Christian teachings on marriage to the leviratic custom for the care of widows in four rural African societies, New York: Orbis. Larsson, Birgitta. 1991. Conversion to Greater Freedom? Women, Church and Social Change in North-Western Tanzanis under Colonial Rule, PhD-Thesis, Uppsala University. Marshall-Fratani, Ruth. 1998. ‘Mediating the Global and the Local in Nigerian Pentecostalism’. Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 28, nr. 3, 278–315. Maxwell, David. 1998. ‘ ‘Delivered from the spirit of poverty?’ Pentecostalism, prosperity and modernity in Zimbabwe’. Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 28, no. 3, 351–371. Meinert, Lotte. 2003. ‘Sweet and bitter places: the politicis of schoolchildren’s orientation in rural Uganda’ Children’s places. Cross-cultural perspectives, London: Routledge, 179–196. Meyer, Birgit. 1998. ‘ If you are a Devil, you are a Witch, and if you are a Witch, you are a Devil: the integration of ‘Pagan’ Ideas into the Conceptual Universe of Ewe Christians in Southeastern Ghana’. Journal of religion in Africa, vol. 28, nr. 3: 316–349. Nadongo, Joseph Ayieko. 1993. Traditional Life of the Abasamia, unpublished. Obbo, Christine. 1993. ‘HIV Transmission through Social and Geographical Networks in Uganda’. Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 36, No. 7, pp. 949–955. Parikh, Shanti A. 2005. ‘From Auntie to Disco: The Bifurcation of Risk and Pleasure in Sex Education in Uganda’ in Vincanne Adams and Stacy Leigh Pigg (eds.), Sex in Development. Science, Sexuality, and Morality in Global Perspective, Durham: Duke University Press, 125–158. Parkin, David. 1972. Palms, Wines, and Witnesses. Public Spirit and Private Gain in An African Farming Community, London: Intertext Books. Peterson, Derek. 2001. ‘Wordy Women: Gender Trouble and the Oral Politics of t East African revival in Northern Gikuyuland’. Journal of African History, 42, 469–89. Prince, Ruth. 2007. ‘Salvation and Tradition: Configurations of Faith in a Time of Death’. Journal of Religion in Africa 37: 84–115.

116

catrine christiansen

Robins, Catherine. 1979. ‘Conversion, Life Crises, and Stability among Women in the East African Revival’ in B. Jules-Rosette (ed.), The New Religions of Africa, New Jersey: Norwood. Rwabwoogo, Mugisha Odrek. 2002. Uganda Districts. Information Handbook, Kampala: Fountain Publishers. Seidel, Gill. 1990. ‘Thank God I Said No to AIDS’: on the changing discourse of AIDS in Uganda’. Discourse and Society, vol. 1(1): 61–84. Silberschmidt, Margrethe. 1999. ‘Women forget that men are the masters’, Gender antagonism and socio-economic change in Kissi District, Kenya, Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. ——. 2004. ‘Masculinities, Sexuality and Socio-Economic Change in Rural and Urban East Africa’ in Signe Arnfred (ed.), Re-thinking Sexualities in Africa, Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 233–251. Talle, Aud. 1995. ‘Bar Workers at the Border’ in K.-I. Klepp, P. M. Biswalo, and A. Talle (eds.), Young People at Risk. Fighting AIDS in Northern Tanzania, Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 18–30. Taylor, John. 1958. The Growth of the Church in Buganda: an Attempt of Understanding, London: SCM. Tinkasimire, Sister Therese. 2002. ‘Women’s Contributions to Religious Institutions in Uganda (1962–2001)’ in A. M. Tripp and J. C. Kwesiga (eds.), The Women’s Movement in Uganda. History, Challenges, and Prospects, Kampala: Fountain: 138–145. van Dijk, Rijk. 2000. Christian Fundamentalism in Sub-Sahara Africa: The case of Pentecostalism. Occasional Paper, Centre for African Studies, University of Copenhagen. Weisner, Thomas S. C. Bradley and P. L. Kilbride. 1995. African Families and the Crisis of Social Change, T. S. Weisner, C. Bradley and P. L. Kilbride (eds.), Westpot: Bergin & Garvey. Whyte, Susan Reynolds. 1997. Questioning misfortune. The pragmatics of uncertainty in eastern Uganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——. 1990. ‘The Widow’s Dream: Sex and Death in Western Kenya’ in M. Jackson and I. Karp (eds.), Personhood and Agency. The Experience of Self and Other in African Cultures, Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology 14. Uppsala: Uppsala University, 95–114. Other References Uganda Demographic and Health Survey. 2004. Uganda Bureau of Statistics, Uganda. ——. 2006. Uganda Bureau of Statistics, Uganda. UNAIDS. 2004. AIDS Epidemic update. ——. 2006. AIDS Epidemic update: Sub-Saharan Africa.

CONVERGENCES AND CONTRASTS IN MUSLIMS’ RESPONSES

AIDS AND THE POWER OF GOD: NARRATIVES OF DECLINE AND COPING STRATEGIES IN ZANZIBAR1 Nadine Beckmann Discourses on AIDS in Zanzibar are embedded in a cultural logic associated with Islam and shaped by the island’s long problematic relationship with the mainland. Muslim values and norms are the dominant framework for discussing the spread and the impact of the epidemic in Zanzibar. I shall analyse how people struggle to translate such discourses into local practice in an effort to make sense of and contain the epidemic, and how AIDS has been used by religious groups in a political discourse opposing government policies that are perceived as having tolerated moral decay and compromised Muslim values and practices in Zanzibar over the past decades. AIDS is not just a biomedical problem; in Zanzibar, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, the biomedical aspects are often outweighed in importance by the epidemic’s social and moral implications. Discussion of the disease here takes place with reference to the profound changes— political, economic, and social—that have occurred in Zanzibar over the past decades.2

1 I would like to thank David Parkin, Paul Dresch, and Felicitas Becker for their comments on earlier versions of this text. 2 The data presented in this paper is derived from my doctoral research, carried out in Zanzibar over a period of fifteen months in 2004/5. My PhD thesis provides an in-depth study of the way AIDS is made sense of and managed in Zanzibar, with a particular focus on the lives of HIV-positive people before and after antiretroviral treatment. During fieldwork I was interacting with a wide range of different people, participating in a network of trading families mostly of Hadhrami and Omani origin who in economic terms form part of Zanzibar’s small middle-class. At the same time, I worked closely with HIV-positive people, many of whom were members of the Zanzibar Association for People Living with HIV/AIDS (ZAPHA+), the only organisation on the islands exclusively run by, and for, HIV-positive people. The majority of ZAPHA+ members belonged to the poorest sectors of society, were lacking secondary education, and many were young women, often divorced, separated, or widowed.

120

nadine beckmann The world going down? Narratives of decline

Zanzibar is an archipelago just off the Tanzanian mainland with a population of almost one million people. Officially, is has one of the lowest rates of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa; according to the only published survey, carried out in 2002, HIV prevalence is 0.6%.3 The islanders often explain this as a result of their Islamic way of life. Values such as gender segregation, modesty in dress and behaviour, virginity at the time of first marriage, shame and respect, and a ‘good character’ (tabia nzuri ) are frequently mentioned when asked about the comparatively small impact AIDS has so far had on the islands. Nevertheless, fear of the spread of HIV/AIDS in Zanzibar is running high. This is partly due to the epidemic’s close association with sexual transgression, but also to experience from other parts of sub-Saharan Africa where HIV rates skyrocketed within a short period of time.4 The re-evaluation of gender relations, in general, and sexual behaviour in particular, has a paramount position in Zanzibari’s attempts to make sense of and deal with the threat posed by the new epidemic. AIDS is viewed as the most visible symptom of changing social relations and moral decline, a topic widely discussed in all social strata. The issue of moral behaviour predominates in public debates about AIDS; however, moral and cultural anxieties are intimately related to anxieties over social control, economic decline, and political dependency. They respond to a fundamental sense of uncertainty about the continuity of Zanzibari culture and society, which is most vividly expressed in cross-generational and gender struggles: ‘These days the children don’t listen to their parents any more, and all people want is

3 Results from voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) units, and the experiences of health care personnel and people working in the HIV sector, suggest a considerably higher number of unreported cases. 4 Such fears are partly substantiated by HIV experts who anticipate a growing epidemic. It is difficult to put numbers to these claims, but according to a ZACP (Zanzibar AIDS Control Programme) survey in 2005, 2.3% of pregnant women attending governmental antenatal clinics were HIV-positive. Taking this as one among several indicators of increasing HIV incidence, combined with the fact that the majority of the population is unaware of their HIV status and thus unable or unwilling to take protective measures, an exponentially escalating epidemic is predicted (UNAIDS/ZACP 2006: 5). This is further fuelled by the expansion of substance abuse over the last few years (WHO 2005). According to newspaper reports, the latest survey (2006) has shown an increase of HIV prevalence from 0.6% to 0.9%, a development termed ‘shocking’ by Chief Minister Shamsi Vuai Nahodha (PlusNews 19.2.2007; Guardian 12.2.2007).

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

121

starehe (enjoyment) and uhuru (freedom), especially in the sexual sense,’ an older man laments. ‘Men have always tried to seduce women’, a young, unmarried woman says, ‘but these days men are wahuni kweli, really immoral.’5 ‘African women just want money’, a young man in return complains, ‘it’s their tabia kupewa sikukuu, their habit to accept presents from men. There’s no virginity these days, you can just buy it from Saleh Madawa (the local traditional medicine dealer), boys and girls mix freely, and women can leave the house on their own, wanaranda (‘they cruise around’).’ While the genders and generations are clearly at odds, they unite in blaming outsiders for the moral decline: it is perceived to be caused to a great extent by external influences, including the political hegemony of mainland Tanzania, the wave of migrants who bring in different values and practices,6 and the introduction of mass media, which enables an unlimited exposure to knowledge regarded as corrupting to the basic values of society. Zanzibaris find sexually provocative music clips screened on TV and free access to pornographic material on the internet particularly problematic. A new style of music, bongo flava,7 has emerged, which is often blamed for the HIV problem, as are bars and guesthouses. The new comforts and life-styles certainly appeal to many Zanzibaris, who strive for a share in the benefits of what they perceive of as ‘modern’ life. At the same time, the importation of new life-styles and new desires presents a challenge to long-standing values and practices, and a pronounced sense of destruction of culture and of a threat to the islanders’ practice of Islam prevails.8 Discussed 5 Mhuni is translated as ‘vagabond’, ‘wastrel’, or ‘tramp’, but is often used to refer to a person who is badly behaved, and who changes lovers quickly and casually. The word is derived from uhuni, ‘moral decline’, ‘decadence’, ‘immorality’. 6 For an example of the intense moralising, blaming discourse surrounding AIDS targeting external agents, cf. the TOMRIC news article ‘Tourists [sic] Influx Sparks HIV/AIDS in Zanzibar’ (2000). 7 Bongo is a slang expression for the Tanzanian mainland, and for Dar es Salaam specifically, while flava is a Swahilicised version of ‘flavour’. Bongo flava is often mentioned as endorsing the spread of AIDS through encouraging immoral behaviour, because many songs are about young people’s love affairs and the videos feature scantily clad girls dancing in a sexually provocative way. 8 Such views about the erosion of society are partly supported by facts: drug abuse, crime rates, and publicly visible prostitution have been increasing over the past decade. Prostitution in particular has been of some concern to the authorities, and in 2004 a law has been passed that renders any kind of prostitution illegal. Although Zanzibaris conceive of their decline as a very specific local experience (and partly caused by the mainland), this experience is in fact shared very widely in mainland Tanzania, and in the wider East African region. Cf. Becker & Geissler 2007, Prince 2007, Becker 2007.

122

nadine beckmann

with reference to these changes, AIDS becomes a metaphor of the negative consequences of modernity; as a result, the past becomes an important point of reference for the negotiation of moral values and social relations.9 Yet such narratives of decline are by no means new, and the current situation does not constitute a departure from a more stable past; rather, the past has become idealised, as the golden times when Zanzibar was an important trading entrepôt and a centre for religious learning. In fact, moral norms must always have been hard to enforce in a port town which had been subject to external influences for centuries. Zanzibar is characterised by a high degree of social and religious diversity, with Shirazi, Ibadhi, Shafixi, and Sufi influences all playing a part in the Muslim community’s composition—indeed, precisely this cosmopolitanism is central to the concept of ustaarabu, ‘civilisation’,10 which is pivotal to Zanzibaris’ view of their society and culture. Moral anxieties about immigrants’ influence are long-standing and ambiguous: slaves’ moral inferiority, for example, had to be asserted (cf. Glassman 1991: 289; Cooper 1980: 21–2) to control the potential threat arising from this economically crucial but socially disenfranchised population. Indeed, the question of who exactly is Zanzibari, and who is an immigrant has been, and still is an issue of constant debate, both among the local population and among researchers working in the area;11 both categories have never been absolute. Several authors (cf. Nurse and Spear 1985; Prins 1961; Parkin 1994, 1989) point out the fluidity of concepts of identity such as ‘Swahili’, ‘Shirazi’, ‘Arab’, or 9 People often talk about the ‘old times’ (zamani) when people were morally upright and trusted each other. Today, materialism is perceived to have corrupted people’s minds, and stories and warnings about theft and violence abound. 10 The term ustaarabu is derived from the Arabic sta, ‘to remain’, but is mistaken by both researchers as well as local Swahili-speaking people to mean ‘Arabness’. Individuals who personify the attributes of civilisation—good character, a respectable family background, social and economic wealth, and a deep knowledge of Islam—were called mstaarabu. Under Omani rule Fair discerns an increasing need to become like an Arab to be regarded as a civilised urban citizen (Fair 2001: 43). 11 The major part of the population of Zanzibar is regarded as belonging to a cultural complex known as the Swahili-speaking people of the East African coast and adjacent islands, a society whose identity has been the focus of a lively debate in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. Arens 1975, Eastman 1971, Salim 1985, Shariff 1973, Swartz 1979). Parkin points to the ‘paradox by which the Swahili-speaking peoples of East Africa see themselves as members of autonomous communities which emphasise their mutual distinctiveness yet draw on and also inform a chain of differential communal consciousness and custom spanning eastern Africa into the Indian Ocean and the Arabic-speaking Middle East’ (1994: 1).

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

123

‘African’ and describe the processes of ‘becoming’ Swahili or Zanzibari (cf. Fair 2001; Glassman 1991; Parkin 1989). Birth and descent, though important, were not the only criteria for asserting one’s status among the ‘civilised’. The accumulation of wealth, the adoption of Arab dress, manners and education, marriage, the integration into urban networks, or the gradual establishment as a patron constituted routes away from ushenzi and ujinga, the ‘unculturedness’ and ‘ignorance’ of the peoples of the hinterland, towards achieving ‘civilisation’ and ‘Arabness’ (Fair 2001; Glassman 1991). The controversial perceptions of identity among the residents of Zanzibar became part of a broader debate on ethnic diversity and socio-economic inequality along racial lines in the 1950s, the decade of intensifying nationalist politics. Competing definitions of Zanzibari citizenship constituted an important element in the intellectual controversy between the two mainstreams of Zanzibar nationalism: the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), which perceived the Indian Ocean seascape as an integrating factor, and the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), which considered Zanzibar as part of an East African landscape (Bromber 2002: 75–76, 87). The recent anxieties about immigrants can thus be viewed as the last permutation of a persistently tense relationship between Zanzibar and the mainland. Moral and cultural anxieties feed off on and serve as metaphors for these tensions. As a result, the notions of uzanzibari (‘Zanzibariness’) and uislamu (‘being Muslim’) are essentialised, and AIDS becomes a metaphor for a longer-standing, broader threat to these basic values of Zanzibari society. While narratives of decline had already featured during the late nineteenth and twentieth century when people’s lives changed profoundly under the influence of colonial rule, in Zanzibar one event has fuelled the sense of cultural erosion significantly: the violent revolution that took place in Zanzibar in 1964, which led to the massacre and expulsion of an alleged ‘Arab’ and ‘South Asian’ minority of landlords.12 As a

12 Elections for the first independent government took place in 1963. The Afro-Shirazi Party, which emphasised notions of a Pan-African identity, won the majority of votes. But a coalition of the Zanzibar Nationalist Party, loyal to the British-backed Sultan and to the official Islamic notables endorsed by him, with the right-wing Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party formed the new government. On 12 January 1964, an insurgence led by the police overthrew this new government. Interestingly, John Okello, the military leader of the revolution, originated from the mainland himself. For a more detailed discussion of the Zanzibar Revolution cf. Lofchie 1965, Clayton 1981, Babu 1991. For issues of identity and party politics cf. Bromber 2002, Glassman 2000.

124

nadine beckmann

consequence, the chain of Islamic learning, well-established in colonial Zanzibar, was disrupted. Most of the ulema, the Islamic religious scholars, were Arabs, or had connections to the Middle East and an allegiance to Arabophone culture (Bang 2003), and were forced to leave the islands in order to escape growing persecution. While Islamic learning was tolerated under the socialist regime, since the majority of the population practiced it, it was not encouraged (Parkin 1995: 205). Moreover, although he enforced rigid decrees on ‘public morality’ (including strict dress codes, a ban on alcohol, etc., cf. Askew 2006), many perceived Abeid Amani Karume, the new president of the Zanzibar Revolutionary Government, as a hypocrite and a threat to Zanzibar’s Islamic identity. Until today, narratives about his rule are characterised by bitterness about his sexual excesses and atrocities committed in his name, and the stories about his sexual misdeeds are a prime example of the use of sexual licence as a metaphor for moral, personal, and political corruption.13 His enforcement of marriages between ASP (Afro-Shirazi Party) leaders and Arabic and Indian women and his alleged insatiable hunger for and rape of young girls caused particular indignation.14 Moreover, by banning locally important, identity-conferring Islamic practices, such as collective zikiri recitations and ziara pilgrimages to a saint’s or sheikh’s tomb performed predominantly by the tarika (sufi brotherhoods), by ordering the destruction of books on religion and traditional healing,15 and drying up Arabic and Islamic teaching (Purpura 1997: 138–40), Karume was seen to undermine basic features of Zanzibari cultural and religious life. Only in the early 1970s with Aboud Jumbe’s presidency, Islamic learning again gained some official recognition as an important part of Zanzibari culture and identity (Purpura 1997: 141). Economically, the policies of successive governments since the revolution contributed to the decline of Zanzibar’s economic backbone, the

13 There are numerous accounts of arbitrary beatings and detentions, and other atrocities committed under Karume’s rule, including accounts of killings and of torture in a Zanzibar prison (cf. Barwani et al. 2003: 109, 115, 181–7, 193ff, 217–25 etc.). 14 An older male informant recounted that he and other men of his age had signed numerous marriage contracts in order to protect young unmarried girls from this fate. 15 Attempting to eradicate the activities of wachawi and wapungaji (witchcraft and spirit practitioners) and other local healers (waganga) he ordered the burning of all books belonging to healers and scholars (walimu) accused of practising witchcraft (uchawi) (Purpura 1997: 138).

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

125

clove industry, and its replacement with the morally suspect business of tourism. Shortly after the revolution, Zanzibar entered a union with Tanganyika to form Tanzania. Interest in the (then very lucrative) clove industry encouraged the Tanzanian union government to intensify political control of the islands, while depressing producer prices to redirect the profits into its coffers. From the mid-1970s, inept price speculation by the Zanzibari government combined with market changes to make clove production barely viable. Meanwhile, the Karume government’s emphasis on self-sufficiency translated into a refusal to supplement Zanzibar’s food production with imports. The resulting food shortages were prolonged by failed economic experiments on the Tanzanian mainland. The same failures also led to shortages of fuel, hence of transportation between Zanzibar and the mainland (which was compounded by strict border controls). Over-control of the health sector, formerly in much better shape in Zanzibar than on the mainland, led to the closure of all private practices by the mid-1970s. The overall result was a severe decline in living standards and an unprecedented degree of isolation, which has been partly relieved by IMF-led economic ‘liberalization’ from ca. 1992.16 Since then, tourism has expanded rapidly. The sector offers numerous job opportunities at various levels, and now accounts for about 23% of the Zanzibar gross national product.17 Simultaneously, a large influx of immigrants from the Tanzanian mainland began, in the quest for work and a ‘better life’ (kutafuta maisha, lit. ‘to search for a living’), and Zanzibaris were slow in getting into the business.18

16 At the same time, the decentralisation and the downsizing of government bureaucracy that formed part of the imposed reforms exacerbated the economic crisis in Tanzania; corruption escalated during the neo-liberal reforms, with stagnating salaries for civil servants and the amendment of the leadership code to allow for private capitalist activities. An upsurge of illegal imports, unpaid import duties and taxes, corporate tax evasion, and the informal privatisation of parastatals contributed to this development (Askew 2006: 29–30). 17 According to statistics from the Finance Ministry, tourism revenues increased from US$ 259.44 million to US$ 746.02 million in Tanzania between 1995 and 2004, as the number of overseas visitors increased from 295312 people to 582807 per year. The tourist sector has created almost 200000 job opportunities countrywide in this period (Angola Press 8.3.2006). Zanzibar earned more than US$ 55 million from tourism in the fiscal year 2004/5 (Xinhua 2.1.2006). 18 I was frequently told that travelling between the islands and the mainland had been difficult even for Tanzanians, as the traveller was required to hold a passport. This restriction has been lifted recently, resulting in a much larger influx of mainland, non-Muslim immigrants (cf. Parkin 2006: 100).

126

nadine beckmann

Most young men and women cite moral concerns as reason why work in the tourist sector is undesirable for the stricter Muslims: the selling of alcohol, the inevitable mixing of men and women in the workplace, and, for women particularly, the requirement to work without being able to wear Islamic dress (headscarf and baibui, a long black coat worn on top of the normal clothes). Additionally, tourists’ demeanour and dress are perceived to have a detrimental influence on those who are in close contact with them.19 For many tourists, especially the many young, single travellers (both male and female), the ‘Zanzibar experience’ frequently includes a sexual adventure with one of the locals, and a whole group of young men, so-called beach boys or papasi (lit. ‘ticks’), meanwhile has formed that caters to the market of female sex tourism. These moral objections, though, conceal an array of additional reasons for Zanzibaris’ slow response to the economic opportunities offered by tourism compared to migrant workers from the mainland. Waiting tables and cleaning up after tourists (who are regarded morally inferior) conflicts with the strong views of status and status-appropriate work still held by many Zanzibaris.20 Moreover, ignorance of English poses a significant barrier to Zanzibaris’ entry into the tourism job market when customer contact is required.21 Finally, mainlanders working as tourist touts or ‘beach boys’ had already cut loose from their families when they moved to Zanzibar, while young Zanzibaris find it harder to escape the close supervision by their families and wider social networks and are thus subject to much stronger social control.22 The image of tourism as morally corrupt business persists, but many of the younger 19 Interestingly, this was different among Zanzibaris in Oman; here, Al-Rasheed maintains, Zanzibaris (both men and women) have been the first to respond to the economic opportunities from increasing tourism since the early 1990s. They are held to be more open, less strict in a religious sense, and Zanzibari women have a longer history of employment than most Omani women (Al-Rasheed 2005: 103). 20 Although today often impoverished, memories of the ‘golden past’ when Zanzibar was the centre of Indian Ocean trade are still vivid, and an attitude of superiority over the ‘uncivilised’ mainlanders is sustained by many Zanzibaris. 21 English had been removed from the school curriculum after the socialist revolution, and although it is now part of the course syllabus again, knowledge of English is low in Zanzibar, with even secondary school teachers often not being able to keep up a basic English conversation. 22 Consequently, those Zanzibari who do work in disrespected positions in the tourist industry, e.g. as beach boys, or as masseurs on the beach, often move away from their home to a different part of the islands in the attempt to conceal their occupation from their family members and merely state that they ‘work in the tourist sector’. This is often accepted without much questioning, as they frequently contribute a significant amount of money to the family’s income.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

127

Zanzibari generation have realised now that they have missed out on an opportunity to make a living and bitterly complain about the mainlanders ‘stealing their jobs’. As a result, the already existing tensions between the Zanzibari and the Zanzibara (‘the people from the mainland’; literally, bara means ‘mainland’) are reinforced. Sexuality in a changing world These recent developments have caused Zanzibaris to critically reflect upon their society’s place versus the rest of the world. Tourists walking through town drunk and half-naked parallel immigrant workers frequenting the bars and brothels that have developed next to the large holiday resorts,23 and international aid workers coming to the islands to implement HIV awareness campaigns: in all cases, sexuality comes into question. The tourists and immigrants are seen to practice and endorse promiscuity by their appearance and behaviour,24 and the aid workers do the same by their public discussion of sex and condom use. Their message to ‘have as much sex as you like, but use a condom when you do’ is seen as highly alarming to Muslim Zanzibaris of all denominations, and not surprisingly, the spread of HIV/AIDS is largely attributed to these changes. Sexuality is perceived as an omnipresent and highly ambivalent force, as both necessary and enjoyable, but at the same time dangerous and These bars usually consist of a cluster of very simple grass-thatched huts right behind the large hotel complexes, where food, drinks, entertainment, and sexual services are sold. They are established to cater directly to the hotel workers, most of whom (but not all) originate from the mainland. This is not to say that Zanzibaris do not frequent such establishments, or behave in a way that is considered to be promiscuous and disrespectful. In fact, many Zanzibaris, particularly of the older generation, complain about their youth ‘copying’ (kuiga) such behaviour, and from conversations with commercial sex workers I learned that both those offering sexual services and their customers are from the mainland and from Zanzibar alike. What is interesting is that much of what is viewed as promiscuous behaviour—particularly the public display of sexual desires and actions (as in young men jeering at women in the streets, sexually stimulating dance involving hip movements or close bodily contact, and the casual and open involvement with individuals other than the marriage partners)—is interpreted as coming from outside and directly associated with influence from the mainland and the western world. In a society, where the notion of sitara (secrecy or privacy) constitutes a central value governing close social relationships (cf. Swartz 1991), this public display of sexuality is perceived particularly threatening. 24 Attitudes towards tourists seem to be similar in many parts of the East African Swahili coast. Cf. Peake (1989) for a discussion of reactions to tourism in Malindi Old Town in Kenya. 23

128

nadine beckmann

corrupting. Sexuality thus requires structure which makes it predictable, achieved by rules on sexual behaviour and on the relations between the sexes more generally. A process of ‘structuration’ (Giddens 1984) takes place so as to subordinate sexuality to marriage.25 Any sexual relation outside of marriage is deemed reprehensible and premarital relations are socially as well as legally condemned; zinaa (adultery, illicit sexual intercourse) constitutes a capital sin according to accepted Muslim rules and a punishable offence in Zanzibari civil law. Virginity at first marriage is highly valued and proof of female virginity is produced after the consummation of the wedding. At the same time, pleasure in sex is legitimate and desired for both men and women. There are elaborate rules and techniques that are vividly discussed and passed on to the next generation, and a man who cannot satisfy his wife risks being ridiculed. Sexual education takes place during the weeks before a woman’s first marriage through the somo, an older, married woman who serves as a girl’s confidant and mentor and advises her on the performance of sexual techniques and ritual ablutions. Immediately before and during the wedding groups of older women—mostly neighbours and members of the extended family—additionally hold instruction sessions for the bride. Married women often talk about sex to each other, laughingly demonstrating positions and alluring dances, suggesting techniques, and reprimanding wives who are perceived to physically neglect themselves or their husbands. As a result, Zanzibar forms a sexually charged environment, where people are sensitised to the possible negative aspects of sex and have developed a heightened sense of potential violation: every movement, look, touch, or word can be interpreted as a sexual statement, and the need for vigilance is considered immense. At the same time, non-marital sex does take place under highly secretive circumstances, thereby contributing to the sense of uncertainty about sexual relations. Since there is a strict Islamic code on pre-marital sexual relationships for both men and women, according to Parkin, ‘the sexual relations that do occur are often perfunctory, restricted affairs desperately hedged around with fears of pregnancy and discovery, and carried out in the

25 These ideas, of course, owe as much to African as to Islamic notions, and are found all over mainland East Africa as well. Cf. the discussion about a postulated specifically ‘African sexuality’ triggered by Caldwell et al. (1989), which was justly criticised heavily by a number of authors (cf. Ahlberg 1994, Heald 1995, Le Blanc, Meintel and Piché 1991, Bibeau & Pedersen 2002).

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

129

worst clandestine conditions compared with mainland non-Muslims’ (1995: 203–204).26 Zanzibaris construe gender segregation as an important measure to counter the perceived uncontrollability of the sex drive. Once tried out, sex is said to dominate a person’s thoughts with ever-increasing desire and to make it difficult to refrain from behaviour that is classified as immoral. Such behaviour not only encompasses indulgence in illicit sexual activity, but also other areas of concern, such as drug and alcohol abuse and disrespect of the elders. Thinking about sex, it is argued, becomes obsessive: unakuwa mchizi, huwezikukoncentrate tena, ‘you go mad, you cannot concentrate [on anything] anymore’, a twenty-four year old unmarried man said, expressing a view widely shared across genders and generations.27 To maintain gender segregation and limit sexual activity to married couples, unmarried women in particular should have as little contact with men outside their family as possible. This segregation is not enforced as strictly as in many Arab countries—girls and boys study together at school, young women increasingly enter the labour market, thus being forced to leave the house and work outside the, in a moral sense, ‘secure’ family arena, and in recent years young people get the chance to meet in public places. Nevertheless, older men and women in particular value the traditional image of women ideally not leaving the house unaccompanied by a male family member. Many young

It is thus virtually impossible to quantify the extent of sexual activity not sanctioned by marriage. During my research I was surprised time and again about the sexual relations of individual people I knew very well and spent extensive amounts of time with. From numerous conversations I learned that extramarital sex does not seem to be as exceptional as is claimed. A twenty-five year old male informant, for example, could name thirty-four girls he had had intercourse with since his sexual initiation at the age of 15 (with at least one affair resulting in the birth of a child), and he did not seem to be an exception within his peer group. Many of my closer informants—even those who had judged harshly on others’ immoral behaviour—sooner or later admitted, or were exposed, to have an affair themselves, and I witnessed several marital break-ups due to the unfaithfulness of one or both of the partners. 27 I have heard similar statements from young men and women, and from members of the parents’ generation. Parents were most concerned to protect their teenage children from exposure to sexual matters, as failure in school, laziness, or rebellious behaviour and lack of respect is often associated with young people’s growing interest in sexual relationships. For example, when one of my informants, a nineteeen year old secondary school student, was found to have a girlfriend, his lack of scholarly zeal and disobedience for his parents was immediately blamed on his initiation into sexual life, and more specifically on her: amemharibu, ‘she has spoilt him’, his mother frequently complained. 26

130

nadine beckmann

men, too, insist on their wives staying at home during the first years of marriage, even though they might have had (or still have) sexual relationships with other women themselves.28 Acting in a way that is considered to be without haya (modesty, restraint) or heshima (honour, respect) not only severely damages the actor’s own reputation but also brings aibu (shame) on his or her family. The potential of bringing shame to the family is highest for girls and young women. Their behaviour is therefore closely monitored and there is a range of activities that are deemed inappropriate, bila heshima (without respect), for women. While young men should also display a good tabia (character, behaviour) by obeying the elders, working hard, and living according to the Muslim rules, a playful, airy, even womanising style is conventionally condoned, though sometimes frowned upon by the elders. In young women, on the other hand, lax behaviour especially with men is not tolerated; they have constantly to watch their conduct in order to safeguard their and their family’s reputation. A girl’s observed activities and attitudes together make up her tabia which becomes crucial in the process of finding a suitable marriage partner for her. At the same time, popularity with the members of the peer group is also deemed important, and an overly pious moralising conduct results in jokingly being called an ustadh,29 mostly to the irritation of the woman involved. Thus, young unmarried women in particular have to carefully consider the outcome of their actions and negotiate their reputations at all times. 28 The extent to which this idealised female life is actually lived in reality is difficult to measure. Considering that the biggest part of the population continues to live from agriculture and fishing it is unlikely that many of the women are able to stay inside the house or even in the homestead, as their labour is vital to the survival of the family. With economic decline petty trade has become an important means to secure one’s livelihood, and women play a central role in this business. Only the wealthy traders could afford to seclude their wives and daughters entirely, and a lot of women today prefer carrying out a profession in addition to running the household and raising the children. Up to now, however, many women are reluctant to walk around town by themselves, as this behaviour is associated with ‘loose morals’. They circumvent the problem by going out in the company of other women or close male family members, or by wearing a face veil (ninja) in order not to be recognised. A more restrictive Islamic dress, in this context, actually allows women greater mobility and the pursuit of a wider range of opportunities, without challenging the dominant ideology. 29 People are called ustadh if they are recognised for their religious knowledge and the willingness to share it and give advice to others. Ustadhs are held to be particularly pious persons, and the term is often used to express respect for someone who devotes much time to Muslim learning.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

131

Nevertheless there is a strong sense of decline of women’s heshima, especially in the urban areas. Complaints about a massive increase in immorality are widespread, and women’s outer appearance and vanity in particular are cited as evidence in public as well as private discussions. Members of the older generation lament the fact that girls are allowed to roam too freely these days. In the villages, they claim, young women are still much more housebound, guarded by and obedient to the family. They recall the old days, before women started to work outside the house, and before teenage girls went to Forodhani, a popular garden on the seafront, to meet boys in the evenings. This view is taken up by younger men, who often prefer to marry a girl from a rural area, assuming that she was raised strictly according to traditional norms. Younger women, though, press for a share in the job market, and due to increasing economic pressure they often have to work. They counter the accusations of declining heshima by emphasising their role as carers for their families and their contribution to the family income, and by adopting Islamic dress. But when HIV/AIDS is discussed women often bear the full blame, and if a woman is diagnosed HIV-positive, accusations of prostitution frequently follow suit. An image is conjured of woman as a dangerous temptress, luring men into transgression and evil, covering her body only to hide her immorality.30 Women thus bear the brunt of the effects of the epidemic, as they are more vulnerable to HIV infection, carry the heaviest load of caring for the sick, and are more severely stigmatised. Besides women, young people in general, including young men, are accused of disregarding the norms and values of Zanzibari society, thus allowing the epidemic to take hold. In this context, the AIDS pandemic is embedded in a local Muslim discourse on the erosion of Zanzibar’s culture and explained as God’s punishment (adhabu ya Mungu) for increasing immorality in the world in general, and on the islands in particular: God’s wrath about the decline in morals has been shown in the form of this new deadly disease, an

30 This pattern of blaming women for tempting men into immorality—and the consequent requirement to act as invisibly as possible—becomes obvious in the following passages from a booklet setting out rules for Muslim women. Like many of the current religious readings in Zanzibar, the pamphlet originates in Saudi Arabia. According to the author, young or beautiful women who tempt desires should not attend prayer in the mosque as their presence causes fitna (flirtation), and a woman is warned against going out even if she feels safe, as the people might not be safe from her (Al-Fauzan 200: 67, 70).

132

nadine beckmann

argument which is grounded in hadiths (sayings of the Prophet)31 that predict the advent of a new, sexually transmitted, incurable disease that will strike humankind if fornication becomes excessive. AIDS is zinaa and zinaa is AIDS Unlike parts of the mainland where people have started dying in large numbers, AIDS is not yet very visible in Zanzibar. Nevertheless, awareness and fear of AIDS is enormous, and there is much talk about the epidemic in the streets. Whenever somebody has a cough some young people would jokingly say: umeshapimwa (‘have you been tested?’), or sing unao unao (‘you’ve got it, you’ve got it,’ referring to the Swahili musician Fairuz’s popular song Kwa Herini).32 If somebody—especially a person from the mainland—is sick regularly or over a long period of time, AIDS is secretly suspected. Thus, despite low prevalence rates, the perceived threat of AIDS in the population is overwhelming: UKIMWI utatumaliza, ‘AIDS will finish us off’,33 is an often recited comment in discussions about the epidemic. Suggested solutions are often quite drastic, ranging from isolation to imprisonment, and even the killing of those with HIV/AIDS.34 A study in a mainland Tanzanian region found similar responses (Killewo et al. 1997), where respondents from low prevalence rural communities tended to suggest ‘hard’ solutions, such as isolation, castration, or killing of the

31 My informants often referred to the following hadith, transmitted by Ibn Majah: ‘If fornication and all kinds of sinful sexual intercourse become rampant and openly practiced without inhibition in any group or nation, God will punish them with new epidemics and new diseases which were not known to their forefathers and earlier generations’ (cited in Badri 1997: 210). 32 Literally ‘Good Bye’. The song tells the story of a young man who had many different lovers and placed much value on material goods and enjoyment of life (starehe). As a result, he is infected with HIV and dies of AIDS. In the song he says goodbye to his lovers and his loved ones. 33 UKIMWI is the Kiswahili acronym for AIDS: Ukosefu wa Kinga Mwilini (lit. ‘deficiency of the body’s defence’). 34 Actually, to my knowledge there have been few epidemics that have not triggered some measure of quarantine in the effort to control the spread, and colonial and postcolonial health interventions have frequently resorted to the use of force; one may only think of the containment of lepers in leper settlements (cf. Vaughan 1991), or the forced vaccination of whole populations in the course of the smallpox eradication campaigns. Calls for isolation in this context are therefore perhaps not as drastic a response as one might feel as a Western observer sensitive to the contemporary human rights discourse surrounding the treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

133

HIV infected, while those from high prevalence urban environments proposed ‘soft’ solutions to prevent the spread of the epidemic, such as the sympathetic handling of the sick and educating people about the modes of transmission and prevention (Killewo et al. 1997: 326).35 The only real parallel with this latter stance in the Zanzibari situation is the emergence of a community of sufferers, a small community-based organisation called the Zanzibar Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS (ZAPHA+). I will come back to that later. On the mainland, explanations of AIDS often encompass the notion of ritual pollution, likening AIDS to an old condition that had been known for generations.36 In Zanzibar, the most widespread perception is that AIDS is a divine retribution for recently increasing immorality: UKIMWI ni zinaa, na zinaa ni UKIMWI (‘AIDS is adultery and adultery is AIDS’). This view is held by both Muslim and Christian groups on the islands and has resulted in a discourse of blame surrounding the epidemic, which has led to severe stigmatisation of those infected and affected by AIDS. Associating AIDS with behaviour that constitutes sin (dhambi) grants the epidemic a strongly individual moral quality, whereas associations with ritual pollution offer the possibility of deflecting some responsibility from the individual onto the community.37 Individuals in Zanzibar are singled out, rumours are spread about women going out with many men, or about men drinking and using drugs. Morally innocent ‘victims’—such as children infected through their mothers—are thereby differentiated from those blamed for bringing the disease upon themselves. People living with HIV/AIDS often report suffering most from the stigma that comes with the diagnosis,

See also Iliffe (2006) on the changing responses from above and below. Cf. the concepts of meila and boswagadi in Botswana (Heald 2003), or chira among the Luo in northwestern Tanzania (Dilger 2005). See also Ingstad 1990; Haram 1991; Hammer 1999; Wolf 2001. Parkin points to the antiquity of AIDS-like illness caused by improper sexuality stating that he first encountered chira in 1963. Chira—a wasting disease arising from improper sex and improper conduct of seniority relations—has always been of central importance to Luo, who see it as continuing and not just modern. Morally it fits the later emergence of AIDS explanations in various ways (Parkin 1978). It must be noted, however, that AIDS is also spoken of as a ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ illness on the mainland, especially since cases have risen so dramatically. Some view AIDS as an entirely new illness category, while others regard it as chira which today accumulates in large numbers, because of the negative consequences of modernity that result in the violation of rules of proper conduct. 37 Such neat distinctions, however, are not fully valid anymore. The situation on the mainland is much more complex than portrayed here, and pollution discourses have become entangled with Christian and Muslim notions of sin (cf. Dilger 2005). 35 36

134

nadine beckmann

from being called malaya (prostitute) in the streets and losing all respect and sympathy from their relatives, neighbours, and friends. ‘We fear AIDS more than any other affliction because when you get it you are left alone, you have no friends’, a young man says. Many of my HIV-positive informants have experienced isolation and discrimination in their daily lives. ‘You are so ill, and they don’t even feel the slightest bit of sympathy for you’,38 recounts a young woman whose family had abandoned her because she had contracted HIV. The lack of social and emotional support is felt as a massive burden, on top of the economic hardships faced through loss of employment and hugely increased expenses for medical treatment. For fear of discrimination only a small minority of my informants had disclosed their HIV status to partners and family members, thereby enormously increasing the risk of spreading the virus. Over the past two decades, Zanzibaris have been targeted by various—and often conflicting—messages about HIV/AIDS and suggestions for ways of dealing with the epidemic, originating from different institutions and inspired by different agendas. Resulting from the high level of dependency on international donors, official HIV prevention programmes reflect Western concepts of sexuality, illness, and prevention, and follow USAID’s ABC approach: ‘Abstain, Be Faithful, Use Condoms’. The biomedical model of the virus as an infectious agent entering the body via bodily fluids is emphasised, moral associations with HIV/AIDS are avoided, and the individual’s freedom and responsibility to ensure ‘safety’ in sexual encounters is stressed. But the directive to openly talk about sexuality and the focus on condom use as preventative measure are highly controversial throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and even today, after more than twenty years of condom social marketing, acceptance is low in most southern African countries (cf. Iliffe 2006: 70–1, 129–35).39

38 Unaumwa, lakini hawaoni huruma kabisa, hata kidogo. Interview with 24 year old informant. 39 Even in Uganda—which is referred to as the role model of HIV prevention in Africa in the international development discourse—condom distribution, though originally included in the country’s AIDS control programme, was deferred as President Museveni doubted its acceptability, and was only cautiously reintroduced later (Iliffe 2006: 71). However, Heald and Allen argue that exactly this fact is likely to have contributed to the relative success of Ugandan AIDS control programmes, contributing to the social acceptance of sexual behavioural change messages (Allen & Heald 2004).

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

135

In Zanzibar religious leaders and government-run campaigns have stressed the importance of moral behaviour, and thus a return to Muslim values. ‘Our ethics are our weapon against AIDS’ reads a large sign at one of the central crossroads in town, and the imams in the mosques preach abstinence, a tightening of Muslim rules of behaviour, and more vigilance especially in the case of young men and women.40 Condom promotion and sex education in schools is largely resisted, in line with the local perception of sexuality as a dangerous, powerful force that must be contained by legitimisation through marriage. Where knowing about sex means desiring it, the only culturally reasonable way to discourage ‘risky’ (because illicit) sexual intercourse is to leave young people ignorant about bodily functions and sexual techniques for as long as possible. Early sex education and aggressive promotion of condom use in this context are regarded as endorsing, if not causing, the spread of AIDS. Furthermore, slow progress with implementing health programmes has caused mistrust against international donors and all levels of government, as well as the suspicion that health campaigns are not pursued seriously. Most ministries still give AIDS low priority—as in other African countries—and commitment to tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been growing only slowly. People are aware of the discrepancy between politicians’ words and deeds, and of the double standards that apply. The need for voluntary HIV testing, for example, is emphasised in awareness campaigns. When the antiretroviral treatment programme in Zanzibar was launched in 2005 the politicians present announced that they would be the first to have a test on this very day. Yet, none of them was seen again in the HIV clinic. Such discrepancies, Dilger has pointed out, have led people to feel deserted by the government and to realise that they themselves have to face the need to find strategies for coping with the threat of HIV/AIDS and the increasing suffering they experience (Dilger 2005: 23–4). In this context, voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) did not have much appeal until very recently; there was nothing to gain from obtaining certainty about one’s HIV status as no treatment was available and

40 According to a document on mainstreaming HIV/AIDS into Muslim teaching published by the representatives of faith-based organisations in Zanzibar, a majority of religious leaders argue for a stricter practice of Islam, marked for example by gender segregation in schools and an emphasis on premarital abstinence and marital faithfulness.

136

nadine beckmann

infection was equated with imminent death. Most diagnoses, therefore, were referrals from the tuberculosis, STI, and dermatological wards, when patients were often at an advanced stage of disease progression. This situation changed dramatically since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) free of charge for all eligible patients: VCT and HIV clinic attendance increased rapidly and more diagnoses are now made during the early stages of infection.41 Whyte has pointed out that before HAART, people in Uganda did not go for HIV testing in order to maintain uncertainty about their HIV status. As the diagnosis—unlike afflictions caused by witchcraft or spirit possession—precluded every course of action, people preferred not to know (1997: 214–6). The situation in Zanzibar used to be similar, but now, with treatment available, the test actually opens up routes for action: today, people argue, it is better to know your health status and make sure to get on the treatment register before the hospital runs out of the life-saving drugs, than to sit at home and wait to die. Moreover, antiretroviral treatment offers the potential of an almost ‘normal’ life and life-span, reducing the disease’s visible and tangible signs, as well as the risk of transmitting it. Within months after the introduction of treatment, therefore, ZAPHA+ members started to forge plans for getting married and having children once their bodies would recover, thus resuming their normal, socially expected reproductive roles. While biomedically driven HIV awareness and prevention campaigns focus on the biology of viral transmission and disease progression, I have outlined above how AIDS is locally made sense of and endowed with meaning through moral discourses. These discourses also provide a social history of the epidemic: all over East Africa AIDS is couched in narratives of change and decline (cf. Becker 2007; Dilger 2005). AIDS here acquires the quality of a social critique, a critical commentary on the benefits and detriments of modern life, which is characterised by increasing individualism and economisation, sexual liberalness and lack of moral control, and a sense of discontinuity between the past and the present. 41 The antiretroviral treatment programme was initiated by the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) and was marked by a visit by Bill Clinton in July 2005. The fact that Clinton came to ZAPHA+ meant to the ZAPHA+ members recognition of their suffering which was long overdue. Their own government, they felt, had largely ignored them. Although the First Lady was their patron tangible help had not been abundant, and the organisation had never been visited by the minister of health before, despite his promises to come.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

137

AIDS discourse in the rhetoric of political and religious opposition The narrative of change and decline has been adopted by Muslim reformists who integrate the concerns about AIDS into a political discourse lamenting Muslims’ marginalisation in contemporary Tanzania.42 Mostly called the watu wa bidaxa, ‘innovation people’, locally, there are various Muslim groups and organisations in Zanzibar whose proponents demand the renunciation of what they call innovations to religious practice (such as the ritual performances of maulidi, zikiri, hitima, which are widespread in Zanzibar). They emphasise the importance of the scriptures in guiding ‘correct’ Muslim practice and call for the recovery of an original, ‘essential’ Islam. The essentialists argue that a Muslim’s innermost intention and conscience define the quality of his or her piety and knowledge, rather than pedigree or descent (Purpura 2000: 128). Portraying Zanzibar ‘as an imperfect product of human innovation, a bricolage of paradoxical beliefs and choices which ‘unenlightened’ Muslims continue to make in the reproduction of their social worlds’, Purpura (2000: 129) argues that the essentialist sheikhs’ authority indeed is based largely on construing Zanzibari Islam as deteriorating, hence in need of their reforms. While essentialism is not a new development in coastal Islam— Purpura reports essentialist forces arising in response to liberal positions43 as early as the 1940s—the government became concerned about the emergence of ‘fanatics’ influenced by conservative Saudi Islam in the 1990s (Purpura 1997: 356). In December 1992 and January 1993 a burgeoning radical Islamic movement found strong expression in meetings and demonstrations by young men, pressing for Zanzibar to join the Organisation of Islamic Conferences (OIC), and for a ban on tourism on the islands (Parkin 1995).44 By the summer of 1993, however, the Islamic rallies died down, quietened by Zanzibar’s Muslim government through a mixture of persuasion and a minimal show of force. While in Mombasa on the Kenyan coast militant Muslim radicalism 42 Cf. Becker 2007 for a discussion of the Tanzanian-wide Ansar al Sunna movement. 43 Such as the promotion of education for women and the translation of the Qurxan into Kiswahili. 44 Consequently, in January 1993 Zanzibar joined the OIC without consulting the union government, but had to withdraw again in August 1993 after harsh criticism from mainland Tanzania in particular. For an excellent analysis of the complexities of Islamic fundamentalism in Zanzibar cf. Parkin 1995.

138

nadine beckmann

was continuing to intensify, in Zanzibar the radicals came to the fore only intermittently (Parkin 1995: 200).45 From my observations, even today only a minority endorses such militant radicalism, but reformist, essentialist thought is becoming more pervasive, not only within young male parts of society. These discourses have become more complex, however, and most Zanzibari today are situated in an intermediate position on the continuum of ‘reformist’, ‘essentialist’ versus ‘local traditionalist’ Islam. Few people now, for example, would deny that tourism, one of the heatedly debated issues in the reformist discourse, has a role to play in providing livelihoods. Its importance as a basic life resource for many is usually stressed alongside expressions of moral concern over its detrimental influence on Zanzibari culture. Moreover, views on the permissibility of so-called ‘innovations’ (bidaxa) are most diverse, with individuals picking and choosing which of the traditional practices they consider haramu (prohibited) or halali (permitted).46 AIDS is employed in such essentialising religious discussions as a powerful example of the consequences of immoral behaviour and indulgence in starehe (recreation), and as a sign for the impending apocalypse.47 Essentialist sheikhs were at the forefront of the condemning discourse on AIDS that took place in Zanzibar’s mosques. They use the epidemic to illustrate what happens if people succumb to the pleasures of this life, if they follow their own desires only, and draw on AIDS in making demands to the government: for a ban on miniskirts, prostitution, the sale of alcohol, the spread of public bars and nightclubs, homosexuality, drug trafficking, and tourism. Essentialist critique of the government’s policies on tourism and the introduction

45 The Zanzibar government is trying to curb political Islamism, prohibiting religious organisations from involvement in politics. In February 2007, for example, a Wahabi-inspired youth group was stopped from building a mosque near another mosque which they had unsuccessfully tried to take over in 2005 (cf. US Department of State 2007). 46 Especially the acceptability of traditional healing practices (uganga) is under question, and there is much uncertainty about permissible diagnostic and curative techniques, e.g. kupiga ramli (divination by using a divination board), the use of spirits (majinni, masheitani), or the drinking of kombe (a method of treatment in which Qurxanic verses are written on a plate after which the ink is washed with water which is then drunk by the ailing person). 47 Other phenomena indicating that the world is coming to an end are an alleged increase in homosexuality, wars, high divorce rates, and people’s declining average life expectancy.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

139

of family planning programs into schools took place as early as 1992, when tourism was still fledgling; Sheikh Kondo, a popular essentialist preacher, led a demonstration in 1992, demanding to abandon tourism and instead re-install Islam (Ondosha Utalii! Weka Uislamu!) (Purpura 1997: 379). More recently, there were protests against the government licensing bars in residential areas, as these are seen to increase moral decay and fuel the spread of HIV.48 Moreover, in Nungwi, once a small fishing village, and now Zanzibar’s largest tourist centre outside Stone Town, villagers’ concern about what they perceive as moral decadence in their midst, led them to pressure the Nungwi ‘ethics and development committee’, a branch of the local government, into issuing a new code of conduct that bans people from dressing indecently, carrying out prostitution, and drinking alcohol in public.49 The AIDS pandemic here is appropriated to reach wider political goals. In the political context of Zanzibar’s loss of sovereignty to the mainland, some of the essentialist groups are more politically focused, criticising the government for negligence in defending Islam against the impiety of foreign capital and tourism.50 Certain essentialist sheikhs have been accused of evoking Islam to comment on political issues in Zanzibar, such as the relationship with the Gulf States, the liberalisation of the economy with the increase in tourism and foreign investment, and some domestic policies, e.g. family planning in school curricula51 (Purpura 1997: 350). The AIDS epidemic and official AIDS policies also feed into these political discourses. Traditionalist Muslims, on the other hand, though deploring the perceived increase in illicit sexual activities, were often rather pragmatic about it; admitting that it was wrong and should be resisted,

48 The argument here is that drinking alcohol makes a person loose control and act in indecent ways, such as seeking sex outside of wedlock, which thus puts him/her at risk of contracting HIV. In the 1980s, there were less than ten licensed bars in Zanzibar, while today the islands have more than 200 licensed bars and many more unlicensed ones (Guardian 13.2.2007). 49 Cf. http://kibunango.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html. 50 The sheikhs also criticised the Mufti’s Office for their silence in the Danish cartoon case, where cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammed that were published in a Danish newspaper were perceived as highly offensive (US Department of State 2006). The Sudanese missionaries from the Islamic Call Organization even hope to institute Islamic sheria in Zanzibar, but their faction is comparatively small (Purpura 1997: 352). 51 Parkin, however, argues that while politico-economic rhetoric and moral decadence both are invoked during the incidents of Islamic insurgence, during the following periods of quiet the discourse focuses on the problem of moral loss (1995: 208).

140

nadine beckmann

they conceded that such things happen—after all, we are human. The reformists’ demand for more restrictiveness certainly appeals to many mainstream Muslims in times of AIDS, but at the same time they voiced the need for a realistic approach. Some suggest weighing sins against each other: ‘you get dhambi (divine retribution, penalty) for fornicating, but the dhambi for infecting somebody with HIV would be much bigger. Thus, if you cannot resist, it is better to use a condom.’ In HIV training sessions for madrassa teachers, therefore, the ABC message was interpreted to mean: Abstain, Be Faithful, or use a Condom ‘in emergency cases’ (kondom kwa dharura). What exactly comprises an emergency is open to discussion. Debates ranged from allowing condom use for discordant couples (where one partner is HIV+) in order to avoid divorce to tolerating condoms for situations in which one succumbs to one’s desire. This pragmatic approach is characteristic of mainstream, traditionalist Muslims. The essentialists’ solution so far has been to pretend that for Muslims AIDS largely is not a problem, and to ostracise those who are infected. Managing life in times of AIDS: coping strategies In response to AIDS, Zanzibaris have started to develop a range of practical and discursive strategies to make sense of and contain the growing epidemic. A focus on marriage is viewed as one important route of action to counter the threat of AIDS. People are very aware of the difficulties for men in contemporary Zanzibar to marry. Due to the problematic economic situation and high unemployment rates, men’s first marriages are often delayed until well into their thirties. At the same time, for women there is a shift back towards early marriage in an effort to protect the girl and her family from the shame (aibu) of premarital sex.52 First marriages in Zanzibar are often arranged and many marriage partners only meet on the day of their wedding. Ideally, the process of getting to know each other starts after the wedding and love is supposed to grow slowly over the following years. During the betrothal period,

While in the parental generation girls were often married off at the age of fourteen, age at first marriage has been delayed in the last decades, largely due to formalised education. However, today many parents voice a preference to marry off their daughters early, particularly if the girl shows flirtatious behaviour. 52

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

141

the two families and their wider social networks of relatives, friends, and neighbours closely scrutinise the future marriage partner and his or her family in order to minimise the risks that may result from marrying a stranger and to ensure that the spouses come from respectable families and have a ‘good tabia’ (character). An HIV test has become part of this process of premarital observation in recent years. Mashehe are said to request documentation of the HIV test before they agree to sign the wedding contract (although their consent can often be ‘bought’), and families are increasingly aware of the dangers of arranging a wedding in the current ‘times of disease’.53 By embedding the test in the traditional practice of evaluating the spouses’ character, it acquires the quality of a moral assessment, and demonstrates the families’ care for their daughters and sons. As such, it could be interpreted as an extension of the traditional proof of the bride’s virginity. Moreover, the HIV test for the first time also opens up the opportunity to assess the male partner’s moral behaviour: if he turns out to be HIV-positive, his failure to resist premarital sex is confirmed. The tests are often conducted in the presence of the spouses’ family members, reflecting distrust born of experience with corruption among the hospital staff, but also of experience with AIDS—a disease that forces people to reconsider intimate relations that should ideally be characterised by trust. There have always been accusations of adultery and jealousy, but the ramifications have never been so deadly, in both a biological and a social sense. Premarital tests are certainly challenging for the individual, and usually anticipated with a lot of fear, reluctance, and embarrassment, as through the test sexual behaviour is publicly scrutinised and called to mind. Salma, a young housemaid in her late teens, for example, was mortified, as the test confronted her with her imminent wedding night that she feared greatly because of the pain and embarrassment associated with first sexual intercourse. In the following pages I will give examples of such pre-marital test experience, and relate it to the experience of a person who is diagnosed with HIV.

53 In phone conversations my informants said that the advice to be tested has become pervasive recently. I was told that whenever somebody is ill and goes to the hospital, the doctor advises an HIV test, and even in Pemba the tests are now widely available.

142

nadine beckmann

Khamis is a young man from Pemba who is about to get married. His parents have chosen for him a young girl from a small village in Pemba, assuming that girls in a rural setting would still be socialised into the traditional role of obedient wife and mother, and raised in a strictly surveyed, gender segregated environment. I accompany Khamis to the hospital to do his HIV test. He is very scared and wary, although outwardly that is barely noticeable. He sits quietly most of the time, but interrupts the silence with questions to me and the others waiting for their tests. He starts contemplating his disease history: when did he ever feel sick, how often, what kinds of diseases was he suffering from? He starts to talk about his sexual encounters; faced with the imminent test the picture changes from an initial ‘I never had a woman in my life’ towards admitting that he has had thirteen sex partners, and claiming that he used a condom with eleven of them.54 With one girl he had a long-term relationship in which he felt safe, so they did not use condoms, and with another one the condom they used broke. Again and again he seeks my reassurance that surely he must be safe, wasn’t he? Although not very pious in day-to-day life—he usually does not pray or visit the mosque—he says a short prayer and vows never to have sex with a woman other than his wife again before he enters the consultation room to give his blood. On the next day he goes to collect his results. He could not sleep at all, he says, he had spent the night looking at all his things ready for the wedding, knowing that he would have to call it off if the test turned out HIV-positive. He is shaking on his way to the hospital, his legs are weak as if they do not want to carry him up the stairs to the HIV clinic. When he receives the HIVnegative diagnosis he is tremendously relieved, and he renews his vow never to have sex outside marriage again. I observed a similar reaction in a young woman at the HIV clinic. She is divorced and now has a boyfriend, and comes to get tested. As in Khamis’ case the test for her represents a critical phase that makes her re-evaluate her behaviour and changes her view on sex and possibly even her practice: now that she has gone through all the fear and self-reflection that the test experience brings she decides to break up 54 This is an unusually high number of condom use in the Zanzibari context. I am not sure, however, whether he had used a condom every time he had sex with these women, or whether they only used one during the first two or three encounters, when the relationship was still held to be casual—a practice that is widespread in Zanzibar. As soon as a trust relationship has developed, condom use is generally viewed as offensive and a sign for mistrust.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

143

with her boyfriend if he refuses to take a test. Tonight she wants to give sadaka, the Muslim religious offering, to celebrate the result and to show her gratitude to God for having spared her. Both she and Khamis gain self-confidence, a feeling of superiority towards the ones who have not been tested yet; they have shown the courage to go and now have the right to lecture others. The test experience thus has a transformative character, converting those who endured it into a new kind of moral subjects. In both cases, and in many others I witnessed, the test situation forms a crisis event that makes the person critically reflect on his or her life and sometimes even results in—at least a short-term—behaviour change. The person’s thoughts and feelings in this situation are strongly framed within the Zanzibari Muslim framework of moral values and behaviours: past sexual conduct is contemplated and judged in the light of Muslim norms, and, in case of an HIV-positive diagnosis, the desire for self-indulgence and, frequently, suicide is weighed against Muslim duties to guard life and to accept one’s fate. Premarital testing, as a strategy of preventing the spread of HIV and protecting one’s family from intrusion by the virus, has also been extended to others who are newly introduced into the inner family circle. Thus, increasingly future employees are required to have an HIV test at the beginning of their service, particularly if they will live in the family’s house, prepare food, and have close contact with children. If HIV-positive, most likely the person will not be allowed to carry out that occupation, although often the employer feels responsible to find some other workplace for him or her, usually in a job that does not involve child care and where separate housing is possible. In the case of the members of ZAPHA+ (Zanzibar Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS), whose results turned out HIV-positive, the test is very clearly remembered as the marker of transition, a critical, life-changing event that designates a new era in their lives. Most of them remember the place on their arm where the blood was drawn, the exact date, and what they were doing on that day. One of my informants says: ‘First you are startled, it would not be normal if you weren’t. My first thought was: I am going to die.’55 Suicide is a recurrent topic when people contemplate what they would do if their diagnosis

55 It is widely believed that an HIV-positive person is going to die within weeks, or months. This notion is a result of the early AIDS awareness campaigns, featuring graveyards, wasted people, and the message ‘AIDS kills!’.

144

nadine beckmann

was HIV-positive. These thoughts, however, are usually countered immediately with reference to the Qurxan. Suicidal thoughts invariably spark heated discussion about the responsibility every individual has towards God, the duty to look after one’s body, not to harm oneself, and not to become self-centred, but instead to stay modest and accept one’s fate.56 Only God can set the date for each individual’s death, it is argued, and to commit suicide is considered a hubris that He might punish by making the offender suffer even more. In fact, despite the overwhelming despair the HIV diagnosis causes in everyone I talked to, I only encountered one single case of suicide during my stay in Zanzibar; it was an HIV-positive injecting drug user who had overdosed after a long period of physical and emotional suffering. Concern for their children became many of my informants’ main motivation to live. Economic strain on the families is harsh at the best of times, but being forced to take care of orphaned children in addition to one’s own places an extra burden on the family income. Although in Zanzibar the support network provided by the extended family and the neighbours (majirani ) is still largely intact, everybody realises the increasing financial difficulties families are facing as a result of the progressively deteriorating economic situation. Moreover, there is widespread consensus that mother’s love cannot be replaced easily, and that foster children would not be treated with the same kind of love (upendo). Additionally, many AIDS orphans experience severe stigmatisation and abuse by their foster families, who frequently take their anger and disgust about their parents’ AIDS infection out on the children. Uncertainty about their offspring’s upbringing is thus one of the biggest concerns of people living with HIV/AIDS, and often turns into the most important incentive to overcome suicidal thoughts and to face their ‘new’ life with AIDS. ‘So you go on’, one female informant who had been living with HIV for several years says, ‘you might start talking to somebody, often someone at ZAPHA+, or to your partner or a family member. Then slowly, after a year or so, you start accepting your disease, you start living with hope.’ ‘AIDS is two diseases’, another ZAPHA+ member maintains, ‘UKIMWI na wasiwasi—AIDS and anxiety. If you have wasiwasi your CD4 will drop and you die quickly. But if you calm down (ukitulia) you

56 References were also made to punishment in the afterlife, as suicides are believed to be condemmed.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

145

will live longer.’ The word kutulia, to calm down, describes a mental state, but also refers to a person’s general and especially sexual behaviour. Ametulia means ‘he or she has calmed down’, has stopped sleeping around, and started to live within the norms prescribed for an adult person in Zanzibar: in a faithful marriage relation, without alcohol, with regular work, in short, according to Muslim prescriptions.57 Coming to terms with the initial diagnosis is described as a drawnout process, starting with a condition of mshtuo, ‘shock’ and wasiwasi, ‘anxiety, or confusion’. ‘When I arrived at home I went to my room and cried, cried, cried’, Fatuma, an older woman, says, ‘I didn’t eat anything for three days. I didn’t think of anyone but my children—my mother was going to be devastated, but at least she is grown up and able to take care of herself. But my children–who will look after them?’ In this stage it is deemed important to talk to others who are in the same situation and learn that indeed people have been living with the disease for years. Ideally, the person should join ZAPHA+ now, and receive education on techniques to prolong his or her healthy life.58 By learning about the biology of the virus, about nutrition, and about adequate behaviour (including sexual behaviour), a transition towards accepting an attitude of ‘living with hope’ (kuishi na matumaini)59 begins. In the course of this transition, ZAPHA+ members learn to reject personal blame, to bond with each other, and, most importantly, to normalise their status. The goal is to accept and reformulate their diagnosis as a challenge that gives them the opportunity to grow with it and to educate others about HIV/AIDS in order to reduce the rate of new infections and the stigmatisation of waathirika, ‘those who are affected’. This process takes months at least, and sometimes years, during which the fear of an imminent death slowly subsides and an acceptance is reached. Intermittent spells of mawazo (‘thoughts’) and wasiwasi (‘anxiety’), however, are experienced by even the most positive

57 This use of the term kutulia is also observable on the mainland, with its different sexual rules. 58 Examples are the conscious effort to reduce fear and anxiety (hofu and wasiwasi), to eat well, do moderate exercise, and assume a ‘moral’ lifestyle, i.e. stop drinking or smoking, live abstinently, or reduce sex to a minimum. In this process, moral requirements of abstinence and moderation are reframed as biomedical necessities. 59 The idea of ‘living positively’ originated in the 1970s in the USA, where it served as a slogan in black and in homosexual communities. Both groups tried to dismantle stereotypes that directed popular attitudes towards Afro-Americans and homosexuals (cf. Abrahams 1970 cited in, Dilger 2005: 180).

146

nadine beckmann

in outlook and are considered normal. Often these occur in situations of crisis, such as the severe illness of an HIV-positive friend or family member, when a close friend or family member is about to be tested, or when the person him- or herself is subjected to new tests assessing the disease progression, as in the case of CD4 testing.60 Scientific knowledge about the transmission of HIV and its effects on the human body is often combined with local concepts and personal experiences of the way substances work in the body. When having sex, it is understood, the blood becomes hot and circulates, thus ‘waking up’ the virus and spreading it throughout the body, which consequently will lead to an early outbreak of AIDS. Sex is also believed to increase the amount of viral load (kusexi inaongeza virusi, ‘to have sex increases the virus’) and—translating the notion of re-infection into local language—when both partners are HIV-positive their viruses are believed to mix and develop into a more aggressive form (inaongeza ukali wa virusi, ‘it increases the aggressiveness of the virus’), thus accelerating disease progression.61 One potential solution, therefore, is to live abstinently for a long period–several years at least—to weaken the virus. At the same time, women are widely believed to live longer with HIV, because every month they rid themselves of some of the ‘dirty blood’ through menstruation. In combination with turning to Islam, reading the Qurxan and praying intensely, hope is that God might take the virus away and cure the person. While only few of my informants chose to follow this route, there are many stories about HIV-positive people who did so and then tested HIV-negative again. I witnessed one such case during my fieldwork; an older woman who was respected as a wise and pious person had tested HIV-positive in 1990, was abandoned by her husband after the diagnosis, and raised her children as a single mother. In 2005, when CD4 counts were first carried out as part of the new antiretroviral treatment programme, she tested HIV-negative. For years she had been living sexually abstinent, caring for her large family, and daily working within ZAPHA+. Her case sparked intense debate among the ZAPHA+ members. Some thought

60 The CD4 test determines the stage of disease progression in an individual and helps to decide whether the person is eligible for free antiretroviral treatment. 61 Antiretrovirals are held to make the virus go to ‘sleep’. At the same time, having sex with somebody who takes ARVs is dangerous: the drugs turn into poison, some of my informants claimed, if a condom is not used to keep the body fluids from mixing.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

147

her initial test must have been faulty, while others believed she had been cured. By locating the source of the infection in the divine sphere, the discussants acknowledged the ultimate power of God as the sole ruler over life and death. At the same time, they created scope for a potential cure, and thus hope and a route for agency, however small. While it has led to severe stigmatisation and condemnation of people living with HIV/AIDS, even the widespread notion of AIDS as divine punishment can thus be bent by HIV-positive people to constructive purposes, by allowing the opposite possibility of cure as a divine reward. Only few people, though, seriously changed their lives towards the kind of zealous religiosity that is believed to be necessary for a divine cure. Most of my informants felt they were too young, and their characters too weak to completely renounce worldly pleasures, including sexual activity. Moreover, life was too difficult; ensuring the family’s survival, particularly as a single mother, often meant being self-interested—making a profit where the possibility arose, or getting involved in sexual relationships even though they were illegitimate. Nevertheless, the possibility of a divine cure, this tiny spark of hope, was always there, and most of my informants stated that their faith grew stronger after receiving the test results, because, one older HIV-positive woman stressed, ‘only God can help you now, and He has reminded you of His existence.’62 In the case of a ‘positive’ diagnosis, thus, Islam forms an important point of reference for people infected with HIV in coming to terms with their disease and in finding a definition of self that allows them to cope with their situation. The ‘AIDS-as-punishment’ message, though stigmatising, is one way of making sense of their suffering; another approach is the adoption of the ‘AIDS-as-God’s-trial’ message, which has recently added another layer to the Zanzibari discourse about HIV/AIDS. When I accompany Fatma, a member of ZAPHA+ who was diagnosed HIV-positive when pregnant with her fifth child, to take her five year old daughter for an HIV test, she is very worried. It took her almost a year to make this step. When she comes out of the consultation room I see the bad news reflected in her face. She has tears in her eyes and obviously struggles to contain herself. I try to comfort her—deeply

62 This notion of God granting removal of the virus seems to be a Zanzibari particularity—so far, it has only been observed among Pentecostal Christians.

148

nadine beckmann

moved myself—but she takes a deep breath and says: ‘I’m not crying. What can I do, it’s all been written anyway, so I just have to deal with it—it’s just another mtihani (‘trial’, or ‘challenge’).’ Mtihani (trial) and ‘fate’ were widely used concepts for explaining misfortune and death in other areas of life too, even before AIDS first arrived on the islands. Mungu amenipa mtihani, hii imeshaandikwa, ‘God has presented me with a trial, this has all been written [i.e. it is part of the person’s fate]’—this idea is often invoked in circumstances that are difficult to grasp, such as the sudden death of a child, or the serious illness of a loved one. Interpreting AIDS as God’s trial allows HIVpositive people to redefine their identity as sufferers and gives their suffering a positive twist: they have been chosen to bear this burden. The allocation of blame looses importance in this kind of discourse, where the emphasis is placed on looking ahead, on managing future life with the disease, instead of constantly re-evaluating past behaviour that may be the cause of the person’s suffering. While premarital tests are accepted by the majority of Muslims, mainstream and reformists alike, as a constructive way to counter the spread of the epidemic in Zanzibar, the notion of AIDS as God’s trial remains a minority view. The concept of AIDS as divine retribution is certainly the dominant explanation in Zanzibar so far, while the more sympathetic message predominates among those already infected with HIV, who in the face of the judgemental nature of mainstream discourse creatively redeploy the idea of mtihani in their struggle to reinvent Muslim discourse for themselves. Supported by the Mufti’s office which, due to its association with the government, does not possess much accepted religious authority, it is possible that the ‘trial’ message will be ignored by the majority.63 However, with AIDS education being mainstreamed in madrassa teachers’ training since 2005, it might be spread into the classrooms and thus slowly disperse to the people in the streets. Indeed, during a visit to Zanzibar in 2007, several of my informants claimed that discourses about AIDS in several of the mosques had become slightly more sympathetic, placing more emphasis on the need to care for the sufferers, rather than blaming them for their infection.

63 It was often stated by followers of the opposition party that the Mufti, as a public servant appointed by the President of Zanzibar, is more of a political than a religious figure, and his behaviour is often criticised as un-Islamic.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

149

For those who receive a ‘positive’ diagnosis, the AIDS-as-trial message helps to regain a sense of self, of a valuable place in the world, and it has been adopted by most ZAPHA+ members. At the same time, interpreting AIDS as a trial potentially opens up some scope for agency. Being faced with a challenge means being granted the opportunity to live up to this challenge and thus implies a turn away from the passive victim’s role, towards that of a self-determined actor. Within ZAPHA+, the value of gaining certainty, of knowing one’s health status, is highlighted as a prerequisite for taking actions that will ensure a long and healthy life with the virus—even more so since treatment is now available. ZAPHA+ members have embraced the concepts of ‘living positively’ and pima ufaidhike (‘test so that you may benefit’) that originate from international policy pronouncements on AIDS, in a slow and painful process of coming to terms with the infection. Conclusion Overall, the judgemental nature of mainstream discourse in Zanzibar is better suited to express concerns about moral, cultural, political, and socio-economic decline than to help victims of HIV/AIDS face their fate. At the same time, however, the account above shows that the moralising discourse surrounding HIV/AIDS in Zanzibar also provides a space for hope and for agency on the part of the afflicted. AIDS poses questions about the meaning of life, the self, and the society’s central values, in short about the relationship between individuals and the community. In Zanzibar these questions are intricately linked to questions about what it means to be a Muslim and a Zanzibari, concepts that have long been debated and are quite politicized. Attempts to essentialise these notions are countered by traditionalist arguments, placing concerns about the continuity of Zanzibari culture at the centre of attention. Evoking anxieties about moral decline in the struggle to make sense of the new epidemic is certainly not a novel strategy; I have demonstrated how such fears are part of long-standing narratives of social, economic, and political decline. What is perhaps new is the pervasive pessimism and the intensification of anxieties that characterise the discourses about AIDS in Zanzibar today. At the same time, Zanzibaris have come up with creative strategies to cope with the threat that AIDS poses to their society, some of which are almost completely

150

nadine beckmann

divorced from the mainland’s approaches. Torn between the maritime Indian Ocean world and the continental African nation of Tanzania, Zanzibar’s particular mixture of separatism, moral anxiety, and sense of victimhood is crucially linked to the fact that Zanzibar is an island archipelago, part of both worlds but not quite at home in either. In that sense, responses to AIDS may be viewed as part of a long history of ‘islandness’.64 Moreover, the discourses about HIV/AIDS in Zanzibar take place against a background of enormous uncertainty and ambiguity that characterises day to day life in Zanzibar. People had already been living under conditions of political and economic insecurity before the epidemic started to spread, and the impact of AIDS is even more devastating in these circumstances. The changes that have been taking place with political and economic liberalisation have raised hopes, but at the same time provoked fears of ruining oneself in the quest for opportunity. The evaluation of change is thus not unequivocal, and the negative sides of modern life are often emphasised. Economic gains might go hand in hand with moral loss, and the ‘golden old times’ are frequently referred to as morally pure compared to today’s decadence. But while in narratives the past is often reified, at the same time it is dismissed as backward and ignorant, and people’s daily lives are characterised by striving for a ‘modern life’, including many of the features that are criticised as morally corrupting. Moreover, sexual relations have always entailed an enormous amount of ambiguity, ranging between the appreciation of sex as a creative and pleasurable part of life and fear of its uncontrollable force and potential for causing shame. Young people in particular are faced with a long period of prescribed sexual abstinence in order to be regarded as moral persons. At the same time, the messages they receive about sexuality are ambiguous and contribute to an even increased sense of uncertainty about how to juggle their feelings, responsibilities, and the society’s expectations. Sexual abstinence until marriage is mandatory and its importance is emphasised by older family members, but peer pressure is high, and a man’s masculinity may be questioned if he does not show (and potentially prove by deeds) his interest in women. Tourists introduce a far more liberal attitude to sexual relations, which

64 For more information on Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism cf. Simpson and Kresse 2007, Bang 2003, Hirji 2002.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

151

is also transmitted through music and national and international TV shows. The AIDS education messages, with their aggressive promotion of sex education and condom use, exacerbate the existing feelings of ambiguity about sexual values. At the same time, the assertive yet contradictory messages that are being transmitted about the HIV/AIDS epidemic by various global and local actors have raised a high level of uncertainty about its causes and the best ways to deal with it. Many of my informants expressed a sense of powerlessness when talking about HIV/AIDS, and their way of facing the threat was by falling back on concepts of fate and trust in divine power. Discourses here range between condemnation and total rejection of HIV-positive people and the shared acceptance of a moral challenge. During recent phone conversations some of my informants said that the tone in the mosques has changed and is becoming less stigmatising. While the ‘AIDS as adultery’ message had featured in sermons during the time of my fieldwork, now more emphasis seems to be placed on showing sympathy with and caring for the sick. An increase in the involvement of Muslim organisations in the management of HIV/AIDS in Zanzibar, providing information about the sources of the epidemic and culturally appropriate ways to contain its spread, as well as counselling and HIV testing, is certainly a step in the right direction. A subtle shift is taking place from direct accusation of people with HIV/AIDS towards a more complex approach which takes into account the realities of sexual desire, and of the suffering of those who are infected. This process is still in its early stages, though, and the future course of the epidemic as well as the way people deal with it are uncertain yet. Time will tell whether increasing prevalence rates will lead to more or less stigmatisation and restrictive approaches to handling those already affected, and, vice versa, whether the society’s approach to curbing the epidemic will actually have an effect on prevalence rates. References Abrahams, R. D. 1970. Positively Black. Eaglewood: Prentice Hall Inc. Al-Fauzan, Saleh Fauzan. 2000. Rulings Pertaining to Muslim Women. Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Saudi Arabia. Allen, Tim & Suzette Heald. 2004. ‘HIV/AIDS Policy in Africa: What Has Worked in Uganda and What Has Failed in Botswana?’ Journal of International Development 16.8, 1141–1154.

152

nadine beckmann

Al-Rasheed, Madawi. 2005. ‚Transational Connections and National Identity: Zanzibari Omanis in Muscat’, in Paul Dresch and James Piscatori (eds.), Monarchies and Nations. Globalisation and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf. London: I.B. Tauris. Ahlberg, B. M. 1994. ‘Is There a Distinct African Sexuality? A Critical Response to Caldwell’. Africa 64.2, 220–242. Angola Press 8.3.2006. Accessible online on: http://english.people.com.cn/200511/03/ eng20051103_218551.html. Arens, W. 1975. ‘The Waswahili: The Social History of an Ethnic Group’. Africa 45.4, 426–438. Askew, Kelly M. 2006. ‘Sung and Unsung: Musical Reflections on Tanzanian Postsocialism’. Africa 76.1, 15–43. Babu, A. M. 1991. ‘The 1964 Revolution: Lumpen or Vanguard?’, in A. Sheriff and E. Ferguson (eds.), Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule. London: James Currey, 220–248. Badri, M. B. 1997. The AIDS Crisis: An Islamic Socio-Cultural Perspective. Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC). Bang, Anne. 2003. Sufis and Scholars of the Sea. Family Networks in East Africa, 1860–1925. London: Routledge Curzon. Barwani, S. A., R. Feindt, L. Gerhardt, L. Harding, and L. Wimmelbücker (eds.). 2003. Unser Leben vor der Revolution und danach—Maisha Yetu kabla ya Mapinduzi na baadaye. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Becker, Felicitas. 2007. ‘The Virus and the Scriptures: Muslims and AIDS in Tanzania’. Journal of Religion in Africa 37.1, 15–39. Becker, Felicitas and P. Wenzel Geissler. 2007. ‘Searching for Pathways in a Landscape of Death: Religion and AIDS in East Africa’. Journal of Religion in Africa 37.1, 1–15. Bibeau, G. and D. Pedersen. 2002. ‘A Return to Scientific Racism in Medical Social Sciences. The Case of Sexuality and the AIDS Epidemic in Africa’, in M. Nichter and M. Lock (eds.), New Horizons in Medical Anthropology. Essays in Honour of Charles Leslie. New York/London: Routledge, 141–171. Bromber, K. 2002. ‘Who are the Zanzibari? Newspaper Debates on Difference, 1948–1958’, in J.-G. Deutsch and B. Reinwald (eds.), Space on the Move. Transformations of the Indian Ocean Seascape in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag. Caldwell, J., P. Caldwell and P. Quiggin. 1989. ‘The Social Context of AIDS in SubSaharan Africa’. Population and Development Review 15.2, 185–234. Clayton, A. 1981. The Zanzibar Revolution and Its Aftermath. London: C. Hurst and Co. Cooper, F. 1980. From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890–1925. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dilger, H. J. 2005. Leben mit AIDS. Krankheit, Tod und Soziale Beziehungen in Afrika. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Eastman, C. 1971. ‘Who are the Waswahili?’ Africa 41.3, 228–236. Fair, L. 2001. Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890–1945. Athens: Ohio University Press. Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press. Glassman, Jonathon. 1991. ‘The Bondsman’s New Clothes: The Contradictory Consciousness of Slave Resistance on the Swahili Coast’. The Journal of African History 32.2, 277–312. ——. 2000. ‘Sorting Out the Tribes: The Creation of Racial Identities in Colonial Zanzibar’s Newspaper Wars’. The Journal of African History 41.3, 395–428. Guardian. 12.2.2007. ‘Chief Minister says HIV/Aids infection rates alarming’. Available online on: http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2007/02/12/84226 .html, accessed 1.10.2007.

aids and the power of god: narratives of decline

153

——. 13.2.2007. ‘Zanzibar to review laws governing bar operations’. Available online on: http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2007/02/13/84289.html, accessed 1.10.2007. Hammer, A. 1999. Aids und Tabu: Zur Soziokulturellen Konstruktion von Aids bei den Luo in Westkenia. Hamburg: LIT Verlag. Haram, L. 1991. ‘Tswana Medicine in Interaction with Biomedicine’. Social Science and Medicine 33.2, 167–175. Heald, S. 1995. ‘The Power of Sex: Some Reflections on the Caldwells’ ‘African Sexuality’ Thesis’. Africa 65.4, 489–505. ——. 2003. ‘An Absence of Anthropology: Critical Reflections on Anthropology and AIDS Policy and Practice in Africa’, in G. Ellison, M. Parker and C. Campbell (eds.), Learning from HIV/AIDS: A Biosocial Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 210–237. Hirji, Z. 2002. The Co-construction of Space and Relatedness amongst Swahili-speaking Muslims of the Indian Ocean: Zanzibar, Mombasa and Muscat. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Oxford. Horwitz, S. 2006. ‘Leprosy in South Africa: A Case Study of Westfort Leper Institution, 1898–1948’. African Studies 65.2, 271–295. Iliffe, John. 2006. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History. Oxford: James Currey. Ingstad, B. 1990. ‘The Cultural Construction of AIDS and Its Consequences for Prevention in Botswana’. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 4.1, 28–40. Killewo, J., A. Sandström, L. Dahlgren, and S. Wall. 1997. ‘Communicating with the People about HIV Infection Risk as a Basis for Planning Interventions: Lessons from the Kagera Region of Tanzania’. Social Science and Medicine 45.2, 319–329. Knappert, J. 1970. ‘Social and Moral Concepts in Swahili Islamic Literature. Africa 40.2, 125–136. Le Blanc, M.-N., D. Meintel, and V. Piché. 1991. ‘The African Sexual System: Comment on Caldwell et al.’. Population and Development Review 17.3, 497–505. Lofchie, M. 1965. Zanzibar: Background to Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nurse, D. and T. Spear. 1985. The Swahili: Reconstructing the History and Language of an African Society, 800–1500. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Parkin, D. 1978. The Cultural Definition of Political Response: Lineal Destiny among the Luo of Kenya. New York: Academic Press. ——. 1989. ‘Swahili Mijikenda: Facing Both Ways in Kenya’. Africa 59.2, 161–175. ——. 1994. ‘Introduction’, in D. Parkin (ed.), Continuity and Autonomy in Swahili Communities: Inland Differences and Strategies of Self-Determination. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1–12. ——. 1995. ‘Blank Banners and Islamic Consciousness in Zanzibar’, in A. P. Cohen and N. Rapport (eds.), Questions of Consciousness. London: Routledge, 198–216. ——. 2006. ‘Art that Dances and Art that Patrols: Two Groups in Zanzibar’, in R. Loimeier and R. Sesemann (eds.), The Global Worlds of the Swahili. Interfaces of Islam, Identity and Space in 19th and 20th Century East Africa. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 83–110. Peake, Robert. 1989. ‘Swahili Stratification and Tourism in Malindi Old Town, Kenya’. Africa 59.2, 209–220. PlusNews. 19.2.2007. ‘Zanzibar Officials Call for Targeted Response to Combat Spread of HIV’. Available online on: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=21986, accessed 1.10.2007. Prince, Ruth. 2007. ‘Salvation and Tradition: Configurations of Faith in a Time of Death’. Journal of Religion in Africa 37.1, 84–115. Prins, A. H. J. 1961. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. London: International African Institute. Purpura, Alyson. 1997. Knowledge and Agency: The Social Relations of Islamic Expertise in Zanzibar Town. Ph.D. Dissertation submitted to the City University of New York.

154

nadine beckmann

——. 2000. ‘Portrait of Seyyid Silima from Zanzibar: Piety and Subversion in Islamic Prayer’, in D. Parkin and S. C. Headley (eds.), Islamic Prayer Across the Indian Ocean. Inside and Outside the Mosque. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 117–136. Salim, A. I. 1985. ‘The Elusive “Mswahili”: Some Reflections on His Identity and Culture’, in J. Maw and D. Parkin (eds.), Swahili Language and Society. Vienna: AfroPub. Setel, P. W. 1999. A Plague of Paradoxes: AIDS, Culture, and Demography in Northern Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shariff, I. N. 1973. ‘Waswahili and Their Language: Some Misconceptions’. Kiswahili 43, 67–75. Simpson, E. and K. Kresse. 2007. ‘Introduction: Cosmopolitanism Contested: Anthropology and History in the Western Indian Ocean’, in E. Simpson and K. Kresse (eds), Struggling with History: Islam and Cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean. New York: Columbia University Press. Swartz, M. 1979. ‘Religious Courts, Community and Ethnicity among the Swahili of Mombasa’. Africa 49, 29–41. ——. 1991. The Way the World Is: Cultural Processes and Social Relations among the Mombasa Swahili. Berkeley: University of California Press. TOMRIC. 5.4.2000. ‘Tourists [sic] Influx Sparks HI/AIDS in Zanzibar’ (http://www .hartford-hwp.com/archives/36/546.html). UNAIDS/ZACP. 2006. Country: Tanzania-Zanzibar. Follow-Up to the Declaration of Committment on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS). Available online on: http://data.unaids .org/pub/Report/2006/2006_country_progress_report_zanzibar_en.pdf, accessed 19.9.2007. US Department of State. 2006. International Religious Freedom Report 2006: Tanzania. Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Accessible online on: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71328.htm. Accessed 1.10.2007. ——. 2007. International Religious Freedom Report 2007: Tanzania. Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Accessible online on: http://www.state .gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90124.htm. Accessed 1.10.2007. Vaughan, M. 1991. Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness. Stanford: Stanford University Press. WHO. 2005. United Republic of Tanzania: Profile on HIV/AIDS Treatment Scale-Up. Available online on: http://www.who.int/hiv/HIVCP_TZA.pdf, accessed 19.9.2007. Whyte, S. R. 1997. Questioning Misfortune: The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern Uganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wolf, Angelika. 2001. ‘AIDS, Morality and Indigenous Concepts of Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Southern Africa’. Afrika Spektrum 36.1, 97–108. Xinhua 2.1.2006. ‘Zanzibar Attracts Expected Number of Tourists in 2005’. Accessible online on: http://english.people.com.cn/200511/03/eng20051103_218551.html.

COMPETING EXPLANATIONS AND TREATMENT CHOICES: MUSLIMS, AIDS AND ARVs IN TANZANIA* Felicitas Becker Introduction The AIDS problematic has accompanied my research in Tanzania since 1999. By 2000, AIDS education campaigns had already reached the rural southeast, with which this paper is particularly concerned. After a marked increase in illness and deaths among young people, the pervasiveness of the threat of AIDS was openly acknowledged from 2003. Knowledge of treatment with anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) also became available in 2003, when a private doctor’s practice in the provincial town of Lindi began to offer it, using versions of the drugs produced in India. Then, the cost of treatment amounted to about four fifth of the monthly minimum wage (TShs 40,000; the minimum wage was TShs 48,000). In mid-2005, a free treatment programme, financed by the US government, began to operate out of the provincial hospital. Unlike the secrecy surrounding individual cases, or the reluctance to broach the topic in public noted by observers in other regions, conversations about or references to AIDS occurred frequently in everyday interaction, even with relative strangers, such as myself. Some of the most interesting exchanges about AIDS that I witnessed, though, did not involve me at all. As a white person, I was automatically identified with certain views on HIV/AIDS, namely with the ‘scientific’, medicalising approach prevalent in prevention campaigns. People expressed views that clashed with this approach more openly in conversation with interlocutors free of these associations. This paper is thus partly based on informal conversations recorded from memory or reported by others. While the availability of treatment has modified official rhetoric on HIV/AIDS and mitigated the terror of an HIV+ diagnosis, it has not, to anyone’s mind, resolved the crisis, and the uptake of ARVs has been * I would like to thank Ingrid Laurien and Bence Nanay and two anonymous reviewers from the Journal of Religion in Africa for comments on earlier versions of this paper, and the British Academy as well as Simon Fraser University for their support of my research.

156

felicitas becker

slower than hoped for. The present discussion focuses on the untidy negotiations, the discontinuities and dilemmas involved in Muslims’ living with the presence of HIV, AIDS and now ARVs. As Philip Setel observed over a decade ago, the experience of living with the threat of AIDS is shaped by a constant tension between the expectations of the course of the epidemic fostered by official pronouncements, locally forged consensuses, and individual experience.1 The personal experiences of AIDS victims and those who fear to join their numbers conform neither to standardised medical accounts nor to vernacular morality tales. Still, people make sense of these intensely personal experiences with reference to shared notions informed by these discourses, and those in turn shape their choices. Tanzania’s Muslims face particular questions and constraints in relation to the AIDS epidemic, due both to the way Islamic teachings have become intertwined with pre-existing African notions and practices pertaining to gender, sex and procreation, and the way Islamic religious affiliation has become entangled in Tanzanian politics. The present discussion seeks to contextualise the way Muslims confront AIDS within their perceptions of their place in the Tanzanian polity and intensifying debate over their religious heritage. It finds that Muslim attitudes are less predetermined by restrictive religious notions than non-Muslim observers often tend to assume. Instead, they are deeply influenced by experiences whose relevance to questions of sex and health is not immediately apparent, particularly the political process and the status of different kinds of knowledge in Tanzania.2 This wide array of factors that come into play in confronting AIDS, combined with the intensely personal nature of the threat it poses, mean that there is no unified pattern in the responses of persons of Muslim allegiance. More fundamentally, their being Muslim is neither the only nor necessarily the strongest factor shaping their response; not because they are incompletely Muslim, but because Islam like any other religion is lived in socially, politically and culturally specific contexts.3 While almost any aspect of religious practice and loyalties may come into play in response to the threat of HIV, none must. It is up to the imponderables of disposition, background and personal situPhilip Setel, A plague of paradoxes, passim. On these issues more generally, see Felicitas Becker, Becoming Muslim, especially chapters 4 and 8. 3 For a general critique of the ‘Orientalist’ tendency to generalize about the behavior of Muslims on the basis of Islamic religious and legal texts, see Zachary Lockman, Orientalism. 1 2

competing explanations and treatment choices

157

ation which ones do. The present discussion, then, does not preclude, for instance, the emergence of new forms of subject formation, but it does not posit them.4 The following observations encompass metropolitan, Dar es Salaambased views, but focus on the provincial regions of Lindi and Mtwara. Situated in the southeast of Tanzania, on the Indian Ocean coast near the border with Mozambique, these locations are following a fairly usual pattern regarding the spread of the virus in rural areas. Despite poor communications with Tanzania’s urban centres, foci of HIV infection are provided by a large army base, the migration of young men who go to work as wamachinga hawkers on the streets of Dar es Salaam but return to the provinces intermittently, and mines for semi-precious stones that attracted young men from all over the country.5 This is a part of Tanzania where Muslims are clearly in the majority in both town and countryside (although, as will be seen, Catholic agencies in the region make an important contribution to thinking about AIDS), and, as my research was concerned with the history of Islam, I had conversations touching upon the topic of AIDS with many representatives of Muslim congregations.6 The pandemic has come at Muslims from two sides. On one hand, there are the pronouncements about it by the government and by experts, but also by faith-based organisations, by unofficial notables, by neighbours, friends and rumour-mongers. Of these different speakers, medical experts and the administrators who endorse them treat HIV control as a practical rather than moral problem and propagate sexual abstinence, faithfulness to a faithful partner or condoms as the means of protection. The others, though, produce a multi-voiced chorus of moral and metaphysical views around it. On the other hand, there is the experience of illness: dying friends and relatives, and the risks, or possibly illness, in one’s own life. ‘Development’, AIDS and the state Debates on HIV/AIDS occur in the context of general uneasiness, fostered by economic stagnation, about the possibilities for making a life

Conf. Burchardt and Nguyen, this volume. On the patterns of the spread of AIDS, see John Iliffe, The African AIDS Epidemic, chapter 4. 6 Between 2000 and 2005, I spent a total of 15 months in Lindi and Mtwara regions, conducting about 350 formal interviews, and another 4 months in Dar es Salaam. 4 5

158

felicitas becker

for oneself. More specifically, there is growing disillusionment with the state’s role in achieving the ever-elusive aim of maendeleo, ‘development’. In the case of Lindi and Mtwara regions, official warnings against the virus reached the public before its effects were so evident that people would have readily agreed that they were facing a specific new threat. Arguably, this sequence favoured a response that was bound to make itself felt because of rural peoples’ earlier experience of state interventions: namely, to listen to official pronouncements, to applaud them, and then to ignore them.7 Over the years, there have been more officially endorsed campaigns and recommendations in pursuit of development than anybody cares to remember. Even where they were heeded, the results were rarely as promised; the ‘villagization’ campaign of the early 1970s being the most spectacular failure.8 Like many development campaigns, pronouncements about HIV/AIDS have acquired a discursive facade: certain people would always say certain things in public. Their public would agree, yet it was understood that this agreement did not predict their behaviour. Therefore, the official recommendation of ‘abstinence, faithfulness or condoms’ often went the same way as exhortations to plant maize in rows or adopt new hoes.9 Everybody knew about it, and everybody was on their own when it came to deciding whether it was worth following. This habitual skepticism about official instructions, however, is rarely stated. Rather than mere hypocrisy, such duplicity is a long-standing part of the rhetoric and pragmatics of local politics. In the meantime, the reality of the illness has become undeniable. In 2002, after HIV tests became more easily available, a doctor practising in Lindi town found that among patients whom she tested for HIV because of telltale symptoms, over seventy per cent were in fact HIV-positive.10 She guessed that up to fifty per cent of today’s young adults might die of AIDS in the course of the next two decades if the spread of the virus was not contained. But rising mortality did not immediately lead people to conclude that the officials talking about 7 A good analysis of this sort of ritual in a Tanzanian context is found in Schneider, ‘Developmentalism and its Failings’. See also Becker, Becoming Muslim, chapter 7–8. 8 The most spectacular such campaign was that for ‘villagisation’ in the 1970s. On its promises and failures, McHenry Jr., Tanzania’s Ujamaa Villages; Raikes, ‘Rural Differentiation and Class Formation’. Scott, Seeing like a state, chapter 7. 9 For instance, on a tug-of-war about ‘modern’ hoes, see Hassett, ‘Economic Organisation’, 64–93. 10 Letter from Dr Hildegard Vogt, Lindi, June 2002.

competing explanations and treatment choices

159

viruses and ‘abstinence, faithfulness or condoms’ must have been right. Rather, they considered every possible explanation. This included ones derived from indigenous knowledge and religion, ones derived from the Qurxan—not necessarily clearly distinguished, let alone contrasted—and ones derived from colloquial re-interpretations of so-called scientific information. The variability of the course of AIDS makes it possible to apply a range of explanations and definitions to different cases. In everyday conversation, this variety served to explain AIDS away. Although people talked a lot about how many people died of it nowadays, nobody was rude enough to name anyone who had died of it. While young people in the southeast, like those in Kilimanjaro region observed by Setel, spoke of HIV infection as ajali kazini, ‘a workplace accident’, neither AIDS sufferers nor their relatives were normally ready to name the illness when it struck. This was not only because the admission is shameful, but also because it took away any hope for a cure. From 2003, the gradually increasing availability of an AIDS treatment regime with ARVs drugs produced in South Asia complicated the understanding of official pronouncements on the nature of AIDS. It clashed with the by-then universally known assertion that AIDS was incurable and inevitably fatal. In 2004, before there had been any ‘rollout’ of ARVs in Tanzania, the government issued warnings against adulterated madawa ya kurefusha maisha, ‘drugs to prolong life’ (as ARVs were called) reportedly traded in Tanzania, and against their improper, intermittent use. Thus before they had even been tried, ARVs came to reflect the widely-perceived ambiguity of ‘Western’ medicine: they were a biomedical product warned against by biomedically trained officials; an apparently treacherous drug over which the state had yet to assert control. In appearances, it achieved this latter aim by basing its free ARV treatment programme at the state provincial hospital. In keeping with the ambiguous record of the state-run development efforts, though, this did not in itself make the drugs less suspect. The problem with science The limited credibility of biomedical explanations is related to educational and political history. For people in southeast Tanzania, the search for medical help against AIDS-related illnesses and the education campaigns about it constituted yet another encounter with sayansi na

160

felicitas becker

teknolojia, science and technology. Villagers and townspeople alike used this term to refer to something that they imagined as immensely powerful not only in a technical sense, but also because, for the last fifty years at least, they have typically experienced it as allied to political power.11 Both the late colonial and the postcolonial Tanzanian state have invoked science to justify their policies and especially development initiatives. Yet Sayansi na teknolojia has been a very fickle ally in the quest for progress, deeply implicated for instance in the ‘villagization’ programme. However polite many people were about it to outsiders, they mistrusted sayansi na teknolojia deeply.12 The AIDS crisis adds to the insecurity and mistrust surrounding science, as claims regarding the ‘scientific’ explanation and control of the pandemic have proliferated wildly. Problems already start with the concept of ‘virus’. The concept of microorganisms as the organic cause of illness was alien to most people I interacted with. Many people had not heard that viruses existed even before HIV and took ‘virus’ as the proper name of the infectious agent of AIDS. I learned not to say that I had ‘caught a virus’ when I had a cold, to avoid giving the impression I was telling the world I was HIVpositive. Moreover, that such a creature should have appeared apparently out of nothing was bewildering. Hence if one accepted the role of the virus in causing AIDS, there was still scope for religious explanations of its origins. The insecurity surrounding the usefulness, or otherwise, of condoms exemplified the difficulty of arriving at ‘scientific’ security. That this piece of latex should protect against an invisible but evidently powerful creature was not immediately convincing. Meanwhile, the Catholic management of the largest hospital in Lindi region, the Mission Benedictine Hospital at Ndanda, justified its strict adherence to the Vatican’s official line on condoms by claiming to possess ‘scientific’ proof that their effectiveness against the virus did not exceed twenty per cent. Representatives of AIDS education programmes argued against this.13 Who, then, were their listeners to believe?

11 My own status as bona fide researcher was based on a certificate from the ‘Commission for Science and Technology’ in Dar es Salaam, which was universally accepted as proof of my entitlement to administrative support. 12 For appeals to science to justify villagisation, see Raikes, ‘Rural Differentiation’; Scott, Seeing Like a State. The uneasiness surrounding it can, for example, take the form of rumours concerning the ingredients of products imported from the West: pig serum in vaccines, placenta in cosmetics. 13 Interview with Mihayo Mageni Bupamba, African Medical Research Foundation, Dar es Salaam, 8 June 2005.

competing explanations and treatment choices

161

Both the pro- and the anti-condom stance had ‘expert’ advocates; both invoked science. That people were hard pressed to make up their minds is evident from a story that Zuhura Mohamed, my research assistant, picked up from a roadside shoemaker. Determined to find out whether condoms worked, he claimed, he had put one on—and then spread chilli sauce on it. He reasoned that if a condom could not protect him against the biting sensation that might result, he would not trust one against the virus. His verdict went against condoms. Conversations on whether condoms worked, especially among young men, could often be heard at markets and bus stands. They more often involved speculation than experimentation, but the outcome tended to be the same: the pro-condom stance lost. Whatever the reasons for this particular dislike, conversations on condoms shared the tendency of conversations about AIDS: to branch out into speculation on the state of society.14 At this level, religious discourses easily trumped sayansi na teknolojia. Although villagers encountered it as a source of prescriptions much like religion, its prescriptions had neither the weight of the past nor that of the scriptures behind them, neither God nor wazee, elders. They lacked both the apparently timeless moral charter of the book religions, and the concrete richness and flexibility of indigenous ideas such as witchcraft. They simply were not as evocative or persuasive. Indigenous ritual and Qurxanic (as well as biblical) language have a force that biomedical explanations and recommendations cannot match. Islam and popular views on gender relations and sex Unlike most parts of Africa discussed in the present volume, most people in Lindi and Mtwara region engaged with colonial and post-colonial modernity (however construed) neither by adopting Christianity, nor from the vantage point of an entrenched Muslim culture. Rather, they adopted Islam from its long-standing urban nuclei during the first half of the twentieth century. Largely ignored by the government of the day, the crucial mediators in this process were village Quran teachers

The reasons against condoms discernible here were similar to the objections posed in many other places: reduced enjoyment, reduced intimacy, embarrassment, fear of betraying mistrust against the partner, concerns about effectiveness and the health effect of using condoms. See e.g. Rugalema, ‘Understanding the African HIV Pandemic’. 14

162

felicitas becker

whose authority rested solely on the respect of their peers. There was thus no enforcement of Islamic rules and fewer struggles over cultural norms than missionaries tended to engender.15 Concomitantly, gender relations and sexual mores have been influenced, but not determined, by Muslim teachings. On the whole, it is not clear whether sexual mores have become more restrictive as more people became Muslim in the course of the twentieth century, or less so, because of other developments in gender relations based in societal changes. Early in the twentieth century, women’s freedom of movement increased in the countryside as the threat of enslavement receded. In the last few decades, women’s scope for self-assertion has probably contracted compared to the mid-twentieth century, as gender inequality has been entrenched with regard to access to land and control of agricultural produce. But the control of lineage elders over young peoples’ sexual contacts has probably receded, especially with the increased mobility and earning opportunities (even if petty) provided by political and trade liberalization since the early 1990s.16 Domestic power relations have been renegotiated in every generation, and hence gave constant cause for concern. These concerns are reflected in the readiness with which the AIDS epidemic is evoked as a symptom and consequence of declining sexual mores. How these gender negotiations really shaped individuals’ and particularly women’s, options depended very much on economic and family circumstances. In the coastal towns, for instance, the lives of upper-class women have become less secluded since independence (1961), and their control over their lives has probably increased. On the other hand, poor urban women face a constant struggle, more so if they try to live up to urban Muslim notions of respectability, which prescribe dress styles and circumscribe their movements.17 Though attention to these issues has waned, unconventional behaviour still invites comment, especially from men. The supposedly licentious ways of young urban women, moreover, are a recurring theme in the conversation of members of the older generation. While men tend to be more damning than women, older people of both sexes complain of them. The reality behind these complaints lies with the increasing participation of women in the urban See Becker, Becoming Muslim, chapters 3 and 5. Bryceson, ‘Scramble in Africa’; Helgesson, ‘Getting ready for life’. 17 On the problems of poor urban Muslim women, see also Strobel, Muslim women. 15 16

competing explanations and treatment choices

163

economy as the service sector—typing and printing; photocopying and bookkeeping services; sale of doughnuts or fish—develops. They reflect concern about the maintenance of social control in untested social situations. The same can be said of complaints about the ease with which young men initiate and abandon sexual relationships, but given that both the mobility of young men and their dependence on (precarious, but private) income from petty trade have increased in recent years, there may well be some factual truth in them. Outside the towns, our understanding of changing gender relations and sexual mores is hampered by limited and tendentious information.18 Still, it is clear that at the beginning of the twentieth century people here used to practise an un-ceremonial and easily dissolved form of matrilocal marriage (‘a husband is only a visiting cock’).19 There used to be a heavy emphasis on the correct ‘spacing’ of births, demanding at the very least two years between them. In the absence of contraception, wives would let husbands stray if they were not yet willing to risk another pregnancy.20 Conversely, infidelity was tolerated in women if their husbands failed to make them pregnant. A succession of initiation rituals served to instruct girls about sex, among other things. These rites still continue, and their indigenous roots do not make them objectionable to rural Muslims. Marriage, though, has become a source of worry for women everywhere, who complain of the fickleness of men and their lack of interest in their offspring. This concern reflects far-reaching yet uneven societal change. Over the twentieth century, uxorilocal marriage has declined as men asserted control over valuable permanent tree crops. This has made women more dependent on husbands (and hence more liable to complain about the way they treat them). At the same time, matrilineal bonds, between a man and his sisters and sisters’ children, have weakened. Fathers, in turn, have more influence in the household than they used to, but women’s complaints indicate that at present they cannot rely on either maternal

18 Early information on gender relations was produced by missionaries, who were appalled at the sexual content of initiation rites, especially for girls, and occasionally wildly exaggerated the focus on sexual matters in these rites. Even now, Christian government officials occasionally claim that the rites for girls involve sexual intercourse; initiated women consistently deny this. For a less confrontational missionary approach to the rites, see Ranger, ‘Missionary adaptation’. 19 Amman, ‘Sitten und Gebräuche’. 20 Interviews with Ismail Mtenywa and Mohamed Athuman Mwindi, Mnero-Kitandi 15th September 2000.

164

felicitas becker

uncles or fathers to provide support for the raising of their children. Both practical necessity, as women prefer to be able to call on male support, and the long-standing tenuousness of marital bonds make it likely that sexual relationships are initiated relatively easily.21 In this fluid situation, women and men alike feel that the other sex is falling short of its obligations. While men are quicker than women to evoke Muslim teachings in their criticism of women, women too consider the failure to live by Muslim norms a factor in the unsatisfactory state of gender relations. Moreover, different generations differ sharply in their assessment of the social causes of AIDS. Old people connect the epidemic to disobedience by the young, but also to their own failure to transmit their knowledge and values. Especially in the villages, old people frequently complained that procreation has escaped their control. They said that young people ‘have children any which way’ (wanazaa ovyo), i.e., too early and in too quick succession, and that they have sex with no social sanction, ‘like chickens’.22 Young people, in turn, feel that old people are sanctimonious and ignorant of the strictures the young face. While these complaints reflected a general dissatisfaction of older people with their perceived lack of control over the young, they do have some basis in fact. The influence of Muslim teachings on the understanding of marriage is very clearly discernible, but many sexual encounters occur outside wedlock. Both anecdotal information and organised study suggest that young people start having sex early and that casual and transactional sex are common, even if publicly frowned upon. Compared to the time when today’s elders were young, the present generation of young people is more mobile. Moreover, in the face of increasing land scarcity and poor prices for export commodities, they both want and have to try different livelihood strategies.23 In recent years, petty trade, fuelled by an influx of cheap, mostly Chinese-made

21 In Lindi, the practice of teenage girls exchanging sex for presents such as shoes or clothing is known as kulala kona ‘lying down in a corner’. For a biased account, see Tumbo-Masabo, ‘Matrilineal Mwera’. For similar developments in Malawi, compare White, Magomero, and Vaughan, African famine. For the potential consequences of women’s dependency on men’s favours in connection with AIDS, Bryceson, ‘Risking death for survival’. 22 Interviews with Hawa Omari Mandale and Zaituni Mohamed Mgombe, Rwangwa 29 October 2003. 23 For an account of changing livelihood strategies, see Bryceson, ‘Scramble in Africa’, and Helgesson, ‘Getting Ready for Life’.

competing explanations and treatment choices

165

consumer goods, has been prominent among them. It is fair to think that sexual favours are among the many goods exchanged in this process. It is quite appropriate, then, that both popular and Islamic explanations of AIDS tended to put societal change, broadly conceived, centre stage. The following comment was made by a villager with very little education, Zainabu Sefu Abdalla of Mnacho, Lindi rural district: Women used to be kept at home after their initiation, and men had their initiation in the wilderness. But now, people change. You will see, they come to perform the children’s initiation at their homes. That used to be mwiko, taboo. That is why you see AIDS and all that. Because they are breaking the taboos, they are breaking the customs (mila) of the country of their elders.24

Zainabu was Muslim, but the ritual she spoke about pre-dates widespread conversion to Islam. In this regard, she exemplifies the coexistence and crossovers of religious practices of different derivation prevalent especially (but not only) among rural Muslims. Above all, her remark is characteristic in that it linked the emergence of this illness to her fellow villagers’ way of life, and to changes in this way of life that she interpreted as decline. Listening to conversations about AIDS, it was apparent that the epidemic was always seen as a social ill. Yet while biomedical explanations of the pandemic clearly did not suffice, there was no clear way to work out what really was wrong. Zainabu, for instance, leaves us wondering whether the problem was one of insufficient control over the sexuality of the younger generation, or of ritual pollution. It is clear, then, that concern about sex runs high and is informed by much wider changes. Islamic rules are readily evoked in the resulting debates. Inasmuch as they are concerned with ritual purity, they resonate with older ritual concerns. Inasmuch as they problematise women’s morality and limit their entitlements (for instance in inheritance), they readily become an object in domestic gender struggles. Yet while this focus on women’s virtue also serves to attribute blame for AIDS, there are so many factors—so diverse views, and such shifting material constraints—at play that this attempt does not go uncontested.

24 Interview with Zainabu Sefu Abdallah, Mnacho-Nandagala, 1st September 2000.

166

felicitas becker Factions and debates among Tanzanian Muslims

Muslim leaders and teachings were clearly called upon to provide answers. Despite the lack of enforcement of Islamic doctrines and widespread toleration of ritual and healing practices of African derivation, Muslim allegiance has come to be seen as part of the ‘social contract’ of villages as well as towns. Shehe (religious experts) and Imamu (prayer leaders) are present in many villages; in the towns, they are grouped around several mosques and connected by associations including Sufi orders and the Central Muslim Council of Tanzania (Bakwata). Like their Christian counterparts, Muslim leaders were not immune from being drawn into the ritual of deceptively clear public pronouncements that misrepresent tentative everyday efforts to make sense of the epidemic. Organisational structures among Muslims, however, are much looser than among Christians, and in the past they had avoided taking strong stances on questions of contraception and protection. Confronted with medical recommendations on HIV/AIDS, they had no unified starting point. Notwithstanding stringent Muslim rules on illicit sex, the Muslim legal traditions do not condemn sex as such, and no Muslim authority has taken as inflexible a view of contraception as the Catholic Church. Debates among Muslims, though, were shaped by the fact that when AIDS became a subject of discussion at the end of the 1990s, they were facing increasing internal divisions. Uncertainty surrounds the percentage of the population of Tanzania who are Muslim, as statistics on religious adherence have not been kept since 1967. Different observers place their share between just under forty and over sixty per cent. In southeastern Tanzania and the southern districts of Dar es Salaam, Muslims form a large majority, in the region of eighty to ninety per cent.25 Notwithstanding the venerable age of coastal Islam, a majority of these Muslims had non-Muslim grandparents or great-grandparents. These are young Muslim communities, founded by villagers for villagers during the first half of the twentieth century.26 On the whole, then, Tanzanian Muslims are a diverse group. It comprises women who wear the buibui veil drawn across their faces and others who do not even wear a headscarf; people who pray five

25 This is according to the figures kept by the Catholic Church in the region. ‘Takwimu za jimbo ya Lindi na Mtwara’, Bishop’s office, Lindi/Mtwara. 26 Becker, Becoming Muslim, chapter 3.

competing explanations and treatment choices

167

times a day and others who besides occasional attendance at the mosque leave donations at sacrificial sites in the wilderness. In spite of occasional conflicts over ritual practice, fuelled by social divisions, Tanzania’s Muslims have by and large tolerated their differences. At Independence (1961), most Muslim organisations easily subscribed to the claim that serikali haina dini, ‘the government has no religion’, and supported the secular Tanzanian state after Independence.27 This cooperation has, however, not prevented a growing sense of alienation in recent decades, caused by the protracted economic difficulties of the largely Muslim areas on the coast and Muslims’ perceived marginality to the new political elites.28 Muslim reformists have made themselves heard since the early 1980s.29 Drawing on precedents in Kenya in the mid-twentieth century, they were often young scholars trained in Saudi Arabia.30 Their bestknown organisation is called Ansuari Sunna, ‘the companions of the way’ [of the prophet], which to the mind of many ‘ordinary’ Muslims has become synonymous with the Islamist challenge. Its stances combine a religious and a political agenda, with very varying emphases.31 One of their main concerns is purifying religious practice from anything they consider ‘innovation’ (bid{a), that is, additions made after the Prophet’s lifetime. In keeping with Saudi wahhabi ideology, they count Sufi rituals among the innovations.32 They specifically oppose the annual celebrations of the birthday of the Prophet and of the memory of the founders of the different Sufi orders, and the use of Sufi chants at funerals. There is therefore plenty of cause for debate among Muslims without even introducing radical Islamist positions, and without touching on AIDS.

Westerlund, Ujamaa na dini, 81–108. Becker, Becoming Muslim, chapter 8. 29 On the connection with wider political change, see Kaiser, ‘The Demise of Social Unity’. 30 Kresse, ‘“Swahili Enlightenment”?’; Pouwels, ‘Islamic Modernism’; Becker, ‘Rural Islamism’. 31 My Ansuari interlocutors were associated with Imamu Shafii College, Tanga; Ilala Mosque, Dar es Salaam, Kwa Mtoro Mosque, Dar es Salaam, Madrasa ya Stendi, Lindi, Stendi Mosque, Lindi, Bomolea Mosque, Lindi, Madrasa an-Nuur, Masasi, Godoni Mosque, Rwangwa. Each one of them presented a somewhat different account of the origins and meanings of Ansuari. 32 On this problematic in other African contexts, see Rosander and Westerlund, African Islam and Islam in Africa. 27 28

168

felicitas becker

Political discontent is fuelled not only by the international Islamist precedents, but also by the alienation felt by an increasing number of Tanzanian Muslims, especially from the government-endorsed Bakwata or the Central Muslim Council of Tanzania (Baraza kuu la Waislamu Tanzania). Ever since the formation of Bakwata in 1967, there had been concern that the organisation served to curtail the independence of Muslim leaders vis-à-vis the state.33 Fostered by the niggling grievances of Tanzanian Muslims (under-representation in universities and higher administration, the economic weakness of the old Muslim regions, the status of the Muslim island of Zanzibar), it has been growing.34 Ansuari spearheaded the challenge against Bakwata, but many mainstream Muslims share their criticism of it.35 The last twenty years have led to a good deal of differentiation in both camps, so that different groups of both Bakwata and Ansuari Muslims take different stances in both political and ritual debates. The Ansuari, most of them young people, have found it difficult to dislodge older, traditionalist notables from control of the larger inner-city mosques. They have therefore turned their attentions to the countryside during the last few years. In the countryside, Bakwata supporters refer to themselves more often as Lailah Muslims, a name derived from chants used at funerals by the Sufi orders and rejected by Ansuari. Conversely, a local variant of Ansuari in Lindi is known as Chimumuna or ‘quietly, quietly’, because of the silence they keep at funerals. The names thus reflect the fact that the most hotly debated issue among Muslims in this region is how to bury people. Still, the ritual issues are implicitly associated with political stances. This slippage between religion and politics haunts the attempts of Muslim groups to position themselves in response to the AIDS pandemic. There can be no doubt that the HIV/AIDS pandemic provides grist for the mills of some Islamist groups. Muslim radicals who seize upon the topic of AIDS emphasise several points. Firstly, they point to the low infection rates of Arab/Muslim countries and attribute them to their adherence to Islamic sexual mores. Recently, word has also 33 Said, Maisha na nyakati ya Abdulwaheed Sykes, 325–354; Interview with Shehe Hassani Mbwana, Lindi 5 November 2003. Shehe is my rendering of the Swahili form of shaykh. 34 There is no comprehensive account of these issues in present-day Tanzania. Paul Kaiser, ‘The Demise of Social Unity in Tanzania’, addresses some of them. 35 The dividing line, then, does not necessarily run between Sufis and ‘anti-Sufis’. See Desplat, Islamische Gelehrte.

competing explanations and treatment choices

169

got round that circumcision lowers transmission rates of the virus (a medical insight provided by western scientists).36 This fact underlines the ‘salutary’ nature of Muslim custom, especially compared with Christian ones, where missionaries occasionally actively opposed circumcision rites because they were bound up with so much ‘pagan’ ritual. In keeping with widespread mistrust of the claim that AIDS started in Africa, Islamists instead associate the spread of the virus with increased contact with the west. This is made easier by the fact that the spread of the pandemic in Zanzibar occurred on the heels of the expansion of tourism to the island. These observations are combined with the assertion that adherence to the prescriptions of the Qurxan regarding sex would have prevented the whole pandemic. Together, they allow for the depiction of the AIDS pandemic as a symptom of decadence, caused by the failure of Muslims to adhere to the Qurxan and the ways of the Prophet, and by pernicious western influence. This is an evocative description, especially for the most discontented, verbally aggressive current within Muslim reformism that combines the call for religious reform and that for political power. Because of their assertiveness, their stances are relatively widely known also among non-Muslims. At the other extreme of the spectrum are those shehe who endorse government-sponsored HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns, above all representatives of Bakwata. They take a line much like representatives of those Christian denominations that do not summarily condemn condoms; supporting the ‘abstinence, faithfulness or condoms’ line with an emphasis on the first two terms. Many other Muslim notables vacillate between these extremes. But uneasiness about the extent of illicit sexual relations that the AIDS epidemic seems to reveal runs deep among them. This uneasiness, along with the on-going competition between Ansuari/Chimumuna and Bakwata/Lailah supporters, and the concerns among both about the place of Muslims in the Tanzanian state, works against the adoption of the Bakwata line. AIDS educators take issue with Muslim leaders because they refer to HIV/AIDS as ugonjwa wa zinaa rather than ugonjwa wa ngono, an illness transmitted by fornication, rather than by intercourse.37 But even many mainstream Muslims Hwaa Irfan, ‘AIDS and Circumcision’. http://www.islamonline.net/english/Science/2001/08/article8.shtml, 2001. 37 Interview with Mihayo Bupamba, African Medical Research Foundation, Dar es Salaam 8 June 2005. 36

170

felicitas becker

mistrust activities run by the government, and share the sentiment that more restrictive sexual mores ought to be promoted, if not enforced. The active commitment of the Tanzanian government to AIDS control by the ‘ABC’ formula is therefore no recommendation for it. Moreover, some Muslim leaders complain that while they are willing to get involved in HIV control the government ignores them and prefers to deal only with Bakwata-representatives.38 A further constraint for shehe’s participation in official HIV-control campaigns arises from the fact that the demonstrative virtuousness of the Islamists prompts Lailah Muslims to try to compete by tightening their own stances. As a result, it would be difficult for any Muslim leader to endorse attempts at AIDS education based on the ‘let’s talk openly about sex’ paradigm that is central to the approach of many prevention programmes. They are liable to adopt more conservative stances in public than they might think strictly necessary, to avoid being denounced as lax. The public face of the AIDS debate among Muslims, then, consists of Bakwata Muslims gingerly endorsing official policy while preaching the advantages of a virtuous life, and indignant Islamists accusing them of kutangaza zinaa, ‘advertising fornication’, while making maximalist demands for behaviour changes among their fellow believers.39 AIDS, healing and witchcraft While AIDS favours the spread of restrictive attitudes and Islamist claims in public fora, colloquial discussions and everyday practice allow for more ambiguity. The restrictive stances expressed by young Islamists form part of their challenge to the authority of elders and the state. They are as rhetorical as officials’ pronouncements on development, technology or AIDS prevention. When it comes to confronting HIV/AIDS on a daily basis, there is more room for nuance. The Ansuari, after all, share the cultural roots of other Tanzanian Muslims,

38 I encountered this complaint among the leadership of the Shadhiliyya brotherhood in Kariakoo, the heart of Muslim Dar es Salaam; in other words in a milieu with no sympathies for the theological claims of the Ansuari. 39 This complaint was widespread, also among Christians, aft er a 2004 campaign for openness by the National Aids Control Commission (TACAIDS). Its motto was ‘Don’t be shy—talk [to your partner about HIV prevention], but the ‘don’t be shy’ was interpreted rather more generally.

competing explanations and treatment choices

171

and their ideology does not come with a blueprint for dealing with HIV/AIDS any more than mainstream Muslim practice. The moral and practical issues around HIV/AIDS have multiplied since it first became a subject of debate, affecting everything from condoms to testing and treatment. The question of Qurxanic or ‘book’ healing, uganga wa kitabu, which many Tanzanian Muslims turn to, brings into focus the ambiguities Muslim reformists ran into. On the advice of Qurxanic healers, Qurxan surahs are worn as amulets or ‘drunk’ by ingesting the ink used to write them. While many of these practices resemble ones pursued by Sufis in other parts of the Muslim world, they can also be seen as a continuation of indigenous medicine. Muslims, including many reformists, refer to them as kuganga, healing, just like the healing of traditional waganga healers (while people trained in ‘western’ medicine are more oft en known as madaktari).40 Despite their initial condemnation of every religious practice not explicitly sanctioned by the Qurxan, the stance of the Ansuari on therapeutic uses of the Qurxan is muted. On one hand, the use of the scripture as a means for protection is not in principle considered innovation. The notion of the Qurxan as a panacea even had a certain resonance with Islamist insistence on the relevance of the Qurxan to all areas of life. On the other hand, the mixture of objects and substances with religious elements in uganga wa kitabu smacks of shirk, the sin of idolatry, and the focus on the materiality of the scriptures runs counter to the reformist emphasis on intellectual engagement with them. Nevertheless, in contrast to their often stark dogmatic statements, the Ansuari tended to avoid asserting such prescriptions on healing. The importance of uganga wa kitabu is increased by the fact that it is also used against uchawi, witchcraft, which is prominent in everyday understanding of AIDS. Witchcraft presents, in effect, a more bearable alternative to the notion of an incurable infectious agent as the source of AIDS. That some form of contamination is behind the spread of the illness was widely acknowledged by my informants, but the implications of this admission were stark: they left little hope of avoiding the virus by any way other than sexual abstinence. Moreover, the notion of contamination was closely related to the stigma attendant on AIDS. In Lindi and the small country towns of the

40

On uganga, see Langwick, ‘Devils and Development’.

172

felicitas becker

region, where people knew a lot about each other, it was widely noted that the first people to die were ones particularly liable to engage in transactional sex: wealthy middle-aged men on the one hand, mabaamedi (‘barmaids’) on the other. The story of one Lindi businessman who ran a flourishing business selling alcoholic beverages, had a lavish funeral, and whose girlfriends were said to be dying off one by one, served both as a morality tale and as a paradigm for the spread of the disease. While many people acknowledged that nobody was safe, the association of AIDS with loose morals has persisted. Meanwhile, witches were said to give you an illness that ‘looks like AIDS’ but did not have these shameful connotations, and might be responsive to treatment by waganga. By way of the identification of AIDS and bewitchment, the epidemic in effect increased the interest in all forms of uganga, including Muslim ‘book healing’. Despite the obvious affinities to indigenous notions of uchawi, Ansuari did not deny the existence of witchcraft any more than other Muslims: the Qurxan repeatedly condemns ‘sorcerers’. Still, they tried to distance themselves from current practice. Some Muslim reformists said that believers should restrict themselves to imploring God for help against witches. Others, especially outside the capital, did not condemn the use of uganga wa kitabu against witchcraft in principle. They did, however, hold that certain methods widely used also by book healers to identify who had bewitched a patient were haramu, prohibited. Ultimately, it was left to the individual believer to work out how to make use of the healing powers of the Qurxan without indulging in haramu activity. Some said that while good Muslims should avoid the use of uganga, it was a lesser sin than uchawi, and that the use of witchcraft by bad neighbours (and bad Muslims) forced even ‘good’ Muslims to take recourse to dubious means. There are indications that the pervasiveness of death in the age of AIDS has revived witchcraft fears and accusations. Sometime between 2000 and 2003, an inscription appeared above a roadside shop in Lindi region reading wachawi acheni ukimwi unatosha, ‘stop it, witches, there is enough AIDS already’. Moreover, the last few years have seen a recrudescence of witchcraft cleansing. Witchcraft cleansers have been known in this region since at least the 1920s, but two things are remarkable about the last wave.41 First, Kingwandu, the best-known of the current

41

On a celebrated example from the 1950s, see bin Ismail, Swifa ya Nguvumali.

competing explanations and treatment choices

173

witchcraft eradicators, is very young for this profession, and his entire entourage consists of youth. When I encountered them, they were effectively invading the home of an elderly village notable and shehe (sheikh), searching it for witchcraft utensils. Given the demographics of the AIDS epidemic, which forces the old to bury the young, Kingwandu spearheads the mistrust of the younger generation against elders they perceive as complacent, and possibly well versed in witchcraft.42 Secondly, although witchcraft eradication in this region has a history of borrowing from both Christianity and Islam, Kingwandu, in keeping with his non-Muslim name, did not emphasise these affinities. While mainstream shehe avoided passing judgement on witchcraft cleansing and many mainstream Muslims supported it, Kingwandu was anathema for young Islamists.43 His appearance in a rural stronghold of Ansuari in Mtwara region, the village of Tandahimba, resulted in two deaths when witchcraft cleansers and Ansuari started burning each other’s houses.44 While religious arguments against Kingwandu’s methods could easily be found (his antelope’s tail, whistle, mirror, drums and dancing certainly have no Qurxanic precedent), this hostility also reflects the fact that the two parties compete for the same constituency of young, poorly educated rural people. Religious tropes and personal interpretation in speaking about AIDS The coexistence of Kingwandu with Muslim reformists in southeastern Tanzania highlights the variety that characterises religious life at large, and in particular attempts to make sense of AIDS. Particular factions develop their particular explanations and recommendations, and it is left to Muslims ‘on the street’ to rework them for their own lives. They do so amid accumulating personal experiences, shifts in the emphasis of official education campaigns, and changes in the medical services available, and the results are inevitably fluid. Nevertheless, we can identify recurring themes. They are tropes that can be deployed very differently by different speakers, but nevertheless indicate shared lines of enquiry in the everyday discourse on AIDS. They show how the experience of

This would be a reversal of the pattern observed in DR Congo. See Schoepf, ‘AIDS, History, and Struggles’. 43 Interview with Hamisi Kidume, Mikindani, 28 June 2004. 44 News broadcast, Radio Tanzania, 28 September 2004. 42

174

felicitas becker

AIDS, singular in its awfulness, nevertheless becomes part of thinking about broader issues, including the differences among Muslims, their place in the Tanzanian polity, and the failures of progress. The uncertain evaluation of ‘changing times’: the bus conductor The bus conductors, konda, on the route between Lindi on the coast and the rural town of Rwangwa were loud-mouthed, apparently carefree young men who spent their working lives in dangerous vehicles on poor roads. The regular gathering place of Rwangwa’s vocal Ansuari faced on the bus stand and the konda were friendly with them. Yet one morning, trading jokes with an elderly passenger, one of them declared laughingly that today’s people were wabichi, ‘unripe’, compared to earlier generations. ‘Or why do you think we’re dying like we do?’ The young man was offering a variation of a view more often stated by older people, who tended to speak about a wide range of developments as a function of changing times.45 This invocation of changing times reflects an uneasy sense of discontinuity between the present and the past. Although efforts at late-colonial development were short-lived in this region, ‘expectations of modernity’ have entered vernacular discourse.46 In Swahili, the operative term is maendeleo, development, which is cited as a rationale for most actions by government and as an absolute necessity by people on the street. Yet as the expected benefits of development initiatives have proved elusive, the evaluation of change has become ambiguous. A tendency to reify the past, especially regarding its higher moral standards, coexists with its dismissal as backward, poor and ignorant. On one hand, present-day interlocutors asserted that indigenous ‘techniques’ such as rain dances and protective medicines once used to work, expressing an attitude towards their forebears that was not simply deferential, but almost protective. On the other hand, they acknowledged that they had broken with this past, not least by becoming Muslim, and vividly remembered the hardships especially of rural life in earlier days. They thus had no choice but to put their hopes into change.

Interview with Muhammad Mperemende, Rwangwa, 3 September 2003. For the term ‘expectations of modernity’ and the vernacularisation of modernisation theory in Zambia, see Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity; for the form the process took in this region, Becker, Becoming Muslim, chapter 7. 45 46

competing explanations and treatment choices

175

Both Muslim ideas and the indigenous religious notions that coexist with them contribute to the inconclusive process of the evaluation of changing times. The konda quoted above did not specify whether it was decline in the standards of Muslim practice—loudly decried by the Ansuari in Rwangwa—or the loss of the ritual knowledge of earlier generations that had left today’s youth ‘unripe’. It is clear, though, that Muslim thinkers, too, were pondering the apparently inexorable change of times for the worse. Summing up the many difficulties encountered by Sufis in Tanzania during the last two decades, a notable of the Shadhiliyya Sufi order and expert on the history of Kilwa town remarked sadly that he did not know why they occurred now, but it seemed that ‘we are running out of blessings in this world’.47 The words suggested that God was withholding what he had earlier provided, but Mzee Mwichande did not say that he was punishing local people. God’s choice to end his blessings, if this was what had occurred, was as enigmatic as the changing times. Locating AIDS in the scriptures: Bi Safiya The following comments were made by Safiya binti Abderehmani, a woman of about seventy. She was the daughter of a shehe in Lindi, well versed in the Qurxan, respected but impoverished. Like a fair number of members of the provincial Muslim intelligentsia who have witnessed their gradual marginalisation since Independence, she sympathised with the Chimumuna despite her roots in the Sufi orders.48 AIDS is written in the Qurxan. God has said ‘if people forget my aya (Qurxan verses), I will send them a creature that will make them talk’. This is a Qurxan verse; if it wasn’t so late and dark, I would look it up for you. Now you might think this creature would be a large animal that comes to tell people, listen, don’t act like this, but no, it is an invisible bug. If you think about it carefully, you will understand. I myself, I have buried five children since 1993.49 Only the grandchildren remain. It is not easy for young people to refrain from doing that deed [having sex]. And they are careless. Some of the time, they protect themselves, at other times they say, but this person [the envisaged partner] 47 Baraka inakwisha duniani. Interview with Mzee bin Said Muhammad Mwichande, Kilwa-Masoko, 17 June 2004. 48 Bi Safiya made these observations during an informal conversation when I visited her in June 2005. I wrote them down from memory as soon as I came home. 49 ‘Children’ in this case could also mean her sisters’ children rather than her own.

176

felicitas becker is quite healthy, she/he has no virus. I am better off being old, I want nothing do to with men any more and my husband is dead. But for men the desire never ends. And then old men like to go after young girls and lo and behold, the young ones are precisely the ones who are infected. And then those people who go about saying condoms are haramu, what nonsense! Of course, people shouldn’t fornicate, but even if two people are married, one of them will ‘cast their gaze about’; men especially find it hard to stick to one woman. Now, isn’t it better they protect themselves! And why do they start to condemn condoms now, condoms have been around for a long time. We have long known about them. I used to buy them for 2½ Shillings [decades ago], to avoid pregnancy. People know about the tests and they don’t say they don’t work. But nobody talks about their results, and some people are mean-spirited; they say ‘why should I go on my own?’ Others simply don’t believe what they are told.

Bi Safiya represents the roots of East African reformism among mainstream scholars in provincial Tanzania: the concern about local Muslims’ perceived lack of knowledge of their religion and the improvement of Muslim practice. An emphasis on the centrality of the Qurxan has been part of this discourse at least since the 1960s, when Shehe Abdallah Farsy translated the Qurxan into Swahili and began to criticise ‘innovation’ (bid{a) among East African Muslims.50 Her locating the AIDS virus in the Qurxan reinforced the fundamental claim that the Qurxan is relevant to everything that happens on earth. Muslims of all persuasions would agree with this notion in principle, but it was the Ansuari who had made insistence on it part of their rhetoric. Echoing their concerns, Bi Safiya acknowledged that local Muslims had ‘forgotten’ the Qurxan. In an act of faith, she accepted the AIDS virus as a reminder of the centrality of God’s word. Yet while Bi Safiya shared the Ansuari ’s concern with reorienting Muslim practice towards the scriptures, she did not share their damning rhetoric on AIDS prevention. Her comments on condoms refer to the views of the Chimumuna in Lindi (in contrast to Bakwata, who endorsed official recommendations on condoms). In conversation with me, their representatives declared not that condoms were haramu, but that they did not work. Of this, they said, there was ‘scientific evidence’; probably a reference to the claims put about by the Mission Benedictines. More importantly, though, Muslims should have no need for them if 50

On Farsy, see Kresse, ‘ “Swahili Enlightenment”?’.

competing explanations and treatment choices

177

they only followed the rules of their religion. This means that although condoms are not haramu, their use is evidence of haramu behaviour, i.e. zinaa, fornication. This fine distinction was lost on many Muslims in the town, who held that Ansuari considered condoms haramu. Bi Safiya, a partisan of the Chimumuna shehe, took the liberty to disagree with this view in the privacy of her own home. Her statement that she was safe, because old and widowed, displays a realistic appreciation of the way the epidemic spreads, while the suggestion that some people consciously spread the virus because they did not want to ‘go on their own’ transmits the fear and mistrust surrounding AIDS. In the face of these human failings, the notion that the Holy Scriptures foretold the current epidemic was very important to her. As a reminder of God’s word, the illness acquired meaning, and the living could act upon it by ‘remembering’ God’s word. In contrast to the rhetoric of many young Ansuari, she would certainly think of this remembering as a process; a conversation among believers so as to work out the import of the Scriptures on their present situation, rather than the bandying-about of ready-made truths. Rhetoric and pragmatism: Ngazija Mosque, Dar es Salaam In 2004, Ngazija (‘the Comorian’) Mosque in central Dar es Salaam was used by Muslims of all persuasions (Sufi traditionalists, Ansuari, Pakistani-influenced Tabligh). Memories of attempts by rival parties to monopolise it, though, were still fresh. A friendly elderly man sold religious books out of a box in front of the building. When I bought a treatise from him, entitled kila ugonjwa na dawa yake, ‘every illness has its [Qurxanic] medicine’, I asked whether HIV/AIDS was mentioned in it. He was very startled. ‘No, AIDS could never be mentioned in a book like that. The medicine for AIDS is written in the Qurxan.’ Namely? ‘Do not fornicate. There is no other cure.’ This was not an uncommon attitude. But the old man’s tone was striking; not so much embarrassed as horrified. He was not an indignant young Ansuari. He was invoking the notion of the religious sanctioning of sexual relations for protection against illness. The same bookseller, though, directed me towards an educational centre of Ansuari Sunna in the suburbs: he scribbled the address for me on a paper bag made from the pages of an American Sunday school

178

felicitas becker

manual. Facilities at this centre were basic and the people in attendance young, poor and not well educated. They conceived of themselves as radicals and were initially bewildered at seeing me. Nevertheless, they made me welcome once I had explained my purpose, and avowed that they had recently held a seminar on HIV/AIDS, inviting a speaker who had attended a biomedical information programme run by the government. Even though no clear recommendations had apparently emerged from this seminar, by organising it they already showed more pragmatism than the old man at Ngazija Mosque. This attempt to connect to biomedical discourse was in keeping with the self-proclaimed scientism of the Ansuari. They looked upon their own approach to the scriptures as more ‘scientific’ than that of mainstream Muslims and were keen to claim scientific achievements for the Muslim world.51 Again, these claims formed part of a rhetorical challenge to officials who assert state control over technology, and to the association of science with the west. Nevertheless, these Ansuari were willing to tolerate the linkages of biomedical information on AIDS to officialdom and the west in their quest for information and worked with input from official programmes. Age is probably part of the reason why they differed from the elderly bookseller. Young and sexually active, they could not afford his maximalism. But they also took a more medicalised view of the illness; they did not assume that religious sanction could protect them from infection. Their religious radicalism notwithstanding, they were more open to biomedical explanations than many mainstream Muslims. The problematic of ARV therapy By 2004, the possibility that someone was living on ARVs had become part of everyday conversations about AIDS. If a person had been ailing for a long time and then recovered, ‘lost weight and then grew fat again’, their survival might be attributed to ARVs—especially (before the start of the free treatment programme) if that person was wealthy. ARVs thereby entered a broad stream of conversation on the unfair advantages and self-seeking behaviour of the rich; it formed a new chapter in the morality tale of which the rich drinks merchant who

51

Becker, ‘Rural Islamism’.

competing explanations and treatment choices

179

died of AIDS and left behind infected girlfriends had been an earlier protagonist. The exact nature of the drugs that brought people back to life, though, remained subject to suspicion and rumour, fuelled by the official warnings already mentioned. At the Lindi hospital, the number of people registering for treatment has so far fallen short of expectations. The account given so far provides some reasons why the response to ARVs gradually becoming available has been muted and skeptical among the people discussed here. Uneasiness about ‘Western’ science, mistrust against the state and its role as purveyor of progress, ambiguity about the nature of illness (as a social or merely bodily ill), and concern about the complex of social relations in which sex, and hence AIDS, is embedded, all come into play. The forms they can take are, again, best illustrated by way of examples. Mama Rajabu’s brother: ‘not really your life’ Mama Rajabu worked in the household of one of the very few Europeans resident in Lindi. She liked her employers and was close to their children, and through them was familiar with more European medicines than most people in the town. When it transpired that her brother was suffering from an illness that appeared to be AIDS (although it could not be called thus in public), her employers offered to provide anti-retroviral treatment for him. The offer was transmitted to the family, but rather than bringing the affected man for treatment, they sent him to their home village in Liwale region, an isolated spot many hours from any hospital (though in an area particularly well served with indigenous healers). He died there some time later. I never discussed her brother’s death with Mama Rajabu, but we did, in the course of a general conversation about the progress of the AIDS epidemic, touch upon the subject of ARV therapy. She listened quietly to me expressing my hopes that the drugs would become more widely available. Then, with eyes lowered, she remarked that ‘they also say that you won’t be like you used to be if you use these drugs. Your life is not really your life any more.’ She spoke so conclusively that I preferred not to argue. The term we used to refer to the drugs was madawa ya kurefusha maisha, ‘drugs to prolong life’; which at the time was the official way of referring to ARVs. It had a defeatist ring; as if the patient was living out a limited number of borrowed days.

180

felicitas becker

Comments like hers could be heard occasionally in town: what sort of life could it be that was dependent on drugs? They had many different overtones. The provenance and availability of the drugs was at issue: did you really know what you were taking, and whether you would have a steady supply? There was also the issue of financial dependency. Who would pay for the drugs, and what would they want in return? Mama Rajabu did not suggest that ARVs interfered with God’s prerogative to set a person’s time to die; Islamic notions did not explicitly enter her reasoning at all. But she expressed skepticism about whether chemical containment of the deadly virus in one’s body really amounted to a full restoration to life, or rather to a long wait for death. The implicit contrast with the place where her brother had been taken to die was characteristic. Rural healers’ idiom of healing encompasses spirits, social relationships and divinity, and they aim at a full restoration of health. Mwanahamisi: social vulnerability, denial, and the fear of ‘fierce medicine’ Mwanahamisi died of AIDS in a respectable, scrupulously religious middle-class Lindi household, in spite of the fact that I had for weeks offered to provide ARVs for her. To some extent, her family’s failure to make sure she was provided with the drugs reflected her marginal status within the household. She was a niece of the male household head and came from a different town, but she was largely left under the tutelage of his wife, who at the time was livid that her husband had recently taken a new wife in Mwanahamisi’s home town. Although Mwanahamisi was accompanied by her sister, they depended largely on her uncle’s wife to provide for them day by day. Moreover, it might be said that had she been treated successfully, it would have set a dangerous precedent from the point of view of a respectable household with nevertheless limited resources and many poor, potentially ailing relatives. Further information about events in the household, though, qualified the role of these ‘political’ factors. Mwanahamisi had already tested positive for HIV at her home town’s hospital, but when consulted on treatment for AIDS, she burst into tears and flatly refused to countenance the possibility that she was HIV positive (and hence needed ART). At the end of her funeral, her uncle and his wife pulled me aside and furtively returned to me, unopened, the package of ARVs which I had finally pressed on them shortly before Mwanahamisi’s death. They said they had not dared try such ‘fierce medicine’ (dawa kali) on someone already so ailing.

competing explanations and treatment choices

181

At the time, this claim sounded hollow. Yet several weeks after Mwanahamisi’s death the household head’s mother in law, Chausiku, suffered a stroke and was laid up half paralysed and mentally confused. Her daughter looked after her with great devotion and spared no expense, but she never considered taking Chausiku to any of the biomedically trained doctors in the town. Instead, she treated her by gathering leaves off trees on the outskirts of town and burning them in her room, along with incense (which is much used also in Islamic healing). Chausiku was devout; notables from a nearby mosque with which the household had cultivated good relations came to visit, and she reminisced much about a famous Shehe from her home town, Kilwa. She died some months later. Clearly, in this case the failure to consult medical doctors was not due to a lack of concern about the patient. Against this background, the couple’s claim that they acted out of concern for their already-ailing patient in failing to give her the antiretroviral drugs became more credible. This string of events in this household, like the skepticism expressed by Mama Rajabu, show that ARV treatment remains subject to the same variety of considerations that influence views on AIDS more generally. The availability of ARVs does not supplant all other treatment decisions any more than dogmatically Islamic or Islamist views can monopolise popular understandings of AIDS. It is likely that learning to live with AIDS is an intense experience for people on ARVs, but there is as yet no indication that it becomes a starting-point for the re-casting of selves according to new medical or religious discourses. Rather, the new medical notions that accompany the presence of ARVs are recuperated; assimilated to older categories of speaking about AIDS: ‘strong medicine’ is a term that might as well be used to assess the risks of indigenous medicines. The failures to use ARVs discussed above must be contrasted with a growing number of patients who live with these medicines for months and years, since the beginning of the free treatment programme in 2005 (in some cases, thanks to the earlier commercial availability of drugs from South Asia, even longer). In official pronouncements on this programme, the drugs have been renamed madawa ya kupunguza makali, ‘drugs to reduce the aggression of the virus’; a description that avoids the association of tampering with a person’s life span that the earlier ‘drugs to prolong life’ held evoked. Efforts to de-stigmatise participation in ARV programmes have shown some effect. While there are still patients who join treatment programmes in locations other than their

182

felicitas becker

home town, to avoid becoming known as a user of ARVs, others are treating ARV therapy more like other ‘normal’ hospital visits. It is clear, though, that the availability of ARV treatment cannot be expected to normalise AIDS. This is not only because of the many connections between thinking about AIDS and the larger religious and social debates that inspire Muslim reformism. ARV treatment does not clarify all the implications of living with HIV: what, for instance, about condom use and having children? Moreover, the effectiveness of the drugs is occasionally compromised by resistances and by the late onset of treatment. Entitlement is decided on the basis of the patients’ CD4 count, which is not always a reliable guide to the state of their health. These uncertainties notwithstanding, Bakwata has thrown its weight, such as it is, behind the treatment programme, while other Muslim groups have avoided taking strong stances on ARVs.52 Spokesmen for both mainstream and reformist Muslim were broadly supportive of the attendant call for testing. Although here, too, counseling is an integral part of the testing process, there is no specifically Islamic approach to this practice. Rumours about the provenance of the medicines and the possible involvement of substances derived from pigs in their making have remained marginal. Nevertheless, the treatment programme is not entirely extraneous to the on-going negotiation between government and Muslim groups. On one hand, providing the option of ARV treatment gives representatives of ‘scientific’, biomedical solutions a chance to claw back some of the legitimacy which the perceived defeatism of previous AIDS campaigns (with their insistence on the fatal course of the illness) had undermined. On the other, we have seen that the problematic status of biomedicine, of science and of government initiatives more generally also impinges on the response to ARV treatment. Somewhat ironically, Muslim reformists, with their strong emphasis on reorienting their followers’ lives, appear the best placed to inculcate new, healthy ways of life for HIV-positive patients. So far, though, they remain distant from the medical institutions that run ARV programmes.

52 See ‘Viongozi wa Kiislam wanatakiwa kuwaelimisha waumini wao kuhusu ukimwi’, IPP Media/Radio one Habari, 28 September 2007, http://www.ippmedia .com/ipp/radio1/2007/09/28/99342.html.

competing explanations and treatment choices

183

Conclusion Whether in the capital or in the rural hinterland, AIDS confronts the Tanzanian Muslims discussed here with an inconclusive, always problematic set of choices. Their deliberations revolve around concerns about ignorance, moral failings and political marginality; about how to be a good Muslim, and how to be a Muslim in Tanzania. Even after the introduction of ARVs, the ‘pragmatics of uncertainty’ have as yet remained more important in their response than quasi-conversion to a ‘positive life’.53 The contingent elements in this situation become even clearer if we consider the divergences between the case at hand and Muslims in Zanzibar and Kisumu, discussed by Beckmann and Svensson in this volume. Despite the persistence of stigma, attitudes in Tanzania are less unforgiving than those Beckmann describes in Zanzibar; sexual morals appear less central to narratives of decline. At the same time, mainland Tanzanian Muslims display less doctrinal security than Kisumu’s Muslim secondary teachers, and are less assured of the superiority of their ways of life over those of Christian neighbours. These differences highlight the fact that Westerners, including AIDS educators, need to look further than Islamic scriptures and law in order to understand Muslims’ responses to AIDS: divergent social and political histories have shaped East Africa’s widely dispersed Muslim congregations differently. There are also characteristic differences from Christian responses. Approaches to causes and cures of AIDS among southeast Tanzanian Muslims clash less with biomedical ones than the Pentecostal view that makes itself heard so much among Christians. Muslims do not equate the virus with the works of the devil and do not cast the attempt to cure or prevent AIDS as a battle between good and evil, God and Satan. They are quite ready to accept the virus as God’s creature, spread by the works of humans. Moreover, in keeping with the recognition of spirits as creatures of God in the Qurxan, Muslims tend to recognise the spirit world as part of the universe under God rather than demonising it. From a different angle, the scripturalist, rationalist character of Muslim reform, with its active affirmation of science as complementary to the Qurxan, also encourages the accommodation of a notion of the virus fairly close to the biomedical one into Muslim discourses.

53

See Whyte, Questioning misfortune; confer Burchard and Nguyen, this volume.

184

felicitas becker

Still, like so many Christians, Muslims tend to take issue with the recommendations derived from biomedical explanations of AIDS. In spite of their differences, mainstream Muslims and reformists all integrate AIDS into narratives of decline: of increasing distance from God, of running out of blessings, of rising ignorance or ‘Westernisation’, epitomised by the incidence of zinaa that the spread of AIDS suggests. The perception of decline in religious practice, in this view, fits seamlessly with disillusionment with development at large, and particularly with the state’s role in achieving it. In effect, the AIDS epidemic confronts Muslims with the question not only how to maintain or reconstruct Muslim norms among themselves, but also how to live as Muslims in the secular states and multi-religious societies of the region. The sexual restrictiveness of reformist stances, in this context, adds to their political attraction. We have seen that official biomedical explanations, too, are perceived as political rhetoric in the public arena, rather than as disinterested statements of medical fact. Muslims’ perception of themselves as marginal to the Tanzanian polity leads them to receive such instruction with distrust, and shapes responses to AIDS control in many ways. Some Muslim leaders may adopt conservative, e.g., anti-condom, stances in public because they feel that such matters should not be discussed in public (lest morals decline further), or in order to avoid too close identification with Bakwata. In effect, AIDS education has become a political issue for Muslims, a fact rarely acknowledged by either international or national agencies. Nevertheless, no Muslim leader would describe sex, and only some would describe condoms, as inherently sinful and, as Bi Safiya’s example shows, they may be much more pragmatic in private. Even if views on gender roles are overly clear and conservative among Muslims, many of them acknowledge that, when it comes to controlling AIDS, they are on new territory and may have to try new approaches. Nevertheless, it is likely that women will feel increases in the restrictiveness of religious norms more than men, as already among mainstream Muslims women’s behaviour is considered to pose more problems than men’s and the spokesmen (rarely women) of Muslim reformism tend to particularly problematise women’s actions. Here lies a crucial field for negotiation between Muslims and AIDS educators. Arguably, European observers of Muslims in Tanzania could learn from the study of Christianity in Africa. It has long been accepted that African Christianity owes as much to the indigenous cultural heritage of African Christians as it does to the message of missionaries, yet is fully

competing explanations and treatment choices

185

Christian. By the same token, many, especially rural, Muslims, engage in practices rooted in indigenous religion, without therefore being any less Muslim. Knowledge of the indigenous religious heritage is important in understanding how today’s Muslims conceptualise and live with the threat of AIDS. Even (or all the more) if reformist Muslims readily joined European observers in describing these practices as ‘unorthodox’, representatives of biomedical explanations of AIDS need to accept them as simply Muslim, rather than (as non-Muslim observers of rural Islam often do) as a watered-down, ‘syncretic’ form of Islam. In particular, ambiguous attitudes to ARV therapy, even if not put in explicitly Islamic terms, cannot be dismissed as merely irrational (and hopefully passing). The views I encountered in Tanzania do not amount to as consistent an abhorrence of ‘living death’ as Niehaus traces mistrust of ARVs in South Africa’s Mpumalanga region to. But they highlight deep-seated notions of healing, of Islamic and indigenous derivation, which the drug treatment will have to coexist with. Active attempts to compete with and sideline these forms of healing are likely only to raise mistrust; competent, hence successful administration of ARVs is their best recommendation.54 AIDS educators, then, face particular, but not insurmountable, challenges among Muslims. Recognising that bluntly pragmatic recommendations as to how to protect yourself when having sex are seen as an endorsement of illicit sex, is just a beginning. Anther one would be to identify, or construct, the appropriate fora for addressing HIV/AIDS. Much discussion among Muslim notables takes place on stone benches outside mosques or in the living rooms of shehe. For girls, by and large, the family is seen as the only appropriate context for sex education. One may deplore this patriarchal family model, but there have to be ways to work with these attitudes. In 2005, six per cent of the voluntary HIV testing centres in Tanzania were supported by ‘faith-based partners’, but not a single one by a Muslim institution.55 Nevertheless, Muslim groups remain open towards the use of biomedical methods and treatments, and bridges could be built to official AIDS organisations.

See Vaughan, Curing their ills, on the pragmatic readiness of African patients to combine treatment systems. 55 Information supplied by Angaza, based at the African Medical Research Foundation, Dar es Salaam. 54

186

felicitas becker

In spite of all misgivings, the availability of treatment should provide an incentive.56 References Amman, Joachim. n.d. ‘Sitten und Gebräuche der Wamwera’. Typescript, Ndanda Mission Library. Anonymous. 2007.‘Viongozi wa Kiislam wanatakiwa kuwaelimisha waumini wao kuhusu ukimwi’, IPP Media/Radio one Habari, 28 September 2007. http://www .ippmedia.com/ipp/radio1/2007/09/28/99342.html. Becker, Felicitas. 2002. ‘A Social History of Southeast Tanzania, ca. 1890–1950’. Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge. ——. 2004. ‘Traders, “Big Men” and Prophets: Political Continuity and Crisis in the Maji Maji Rebellion’. Journal of African History 45, 1–22. ——. 2006. ‘Rural Islamism During the “War on Terror”: A Tanzanian Case Study’. African Affairs 105, 583–603. ——. 2008. Becoming Muslim in Mainland Tanzania. Oxford and London: Oxford University Press and the British Academy. bin Ismail, Hassan. 1968. Swifa ya Nguvumali: The Medicine Man. Edited by Peter Lienhardt. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bryceson, Deborah Fahy. 2002. ‘The Scramble in Africa: Reorienting Rural livelihoods’. World Development 30, 725–39. ——. and Jodie Fonseca, 2006. ‘Risking Death for Survival: Peasant Responses to Hunger and HIV/AIDS in Malawi’. World Development 42, 1654–66. Desplat, Patrick Alain. 2003. Islamische Gelehrte zwischen Text und Praxis. Wandlungsprozesse im Islam am Beispiel von Kenia/Ostafrika. Mainz: Arbeitspapiere des Instituts für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien. Ferguson, James. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hassett, Donald Vaughn. 1985. ‘Economic Organisation and Political Change in a Village of South East Tanzania’. Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge. Helgesson, Linda. 2006. ‘Getting Ready for Life: Life Strategies of Town Youth in Mozambique and Tanzania’. Ph.D. thesis, Umea University, Sweden. Iliffe, John, 2006. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History. Oxford: James Currey. Irfan, Hwaa. 2001. ‘AIDS and Circumcision’. http://www.islamonline.net/english/ Science/2001/08/article8.shtml. Kaiser, Paul J. 1996. ‘Structural Adjustment and the Fragile Nation: The Demise of Social Unity in Tanzania’. Journal of Modern African Studies 34, 227–237. Kresse, Kai. 2003. ‘ “Swahili Enlightenment”? East African Reformist Discourse at the Turning Point: The Example of Sheikh Muhammad Kasim Mazrui’. Journal of Religion in Africa 33.3, 279–309. Langwick, Stacey. 2001. ‘Devils and Development’. Ph.D. thesis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Lockman, Zachary. 2004. Contending visions of the Middle East: the history and politics of Orientalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

56 Since this book went into production (in the second half of 2008), efforts to set up mechanisms for regular cooperation between Muslim groups and TACAIDS have begun.

competing explanations and treatment choices

187

McHenry Jr., Dean. 1979. Tanzania’s Ujamaa Villages: The Implementation of a Rural Development Strategy. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pouwels, Randall L. 1981. ‘Sheikh Al-Amin b. Ali Mazrui and Islamic Modernism in EastAfrica’. International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 13, 329–345. Raikes, Philip. 1978. ‘Rural Differentiation and Class Formation in Tanzania’. Journal of Peasant Studies 5, 285–325. Ranger, Terence. 1971. ‘Missionary Adaptation of African Religious Institutions: The Masasi Case’, in Terence Ranger and Isaria N. Kimambo (eds.), The Historical Study of African Religion. London and Nairobi: Heinemann, 221–51. Rosander, Eva Evers, and David Westerlund (eds.), 1997. African Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters between Sufis and Islamists. London: Hurst and Co. Rugalema, Gabriel. 2004. ‘Understanding the African HIV Pandemic: An Appraisal of the Contexts and Lay Explanation of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic with Examples from Tanzania and Kenya’. In Ezekiel Kalipeni et al. (eds.), HIV and AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology. Oxford: Blackwell, 191–203. Said, Mohamed. 2002. Maisha na nyakati za Abdulwaheed Sykes, 1924–1968. Historia iliyofichwa kuhusu harakati za Waislam dhidi ya ukoloni wa Waingereza katika Tanganyika. Nairobi: Phoenix Publishers. Setel, Philip. 1999. A Plague of Paradoxes: AIDS, Culture and Demography in Northern Tanzania. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press. Schneider, Leander. 2003. ‘Developmentalism and its Failings: Why Rural Development Went Wrong in 1960s and 1970s Tanzania’. Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University. Schoepf, Brooke Grundfest. 2004. ‘AIDS, History, and Struggles over Meaning’. In Ezekiel Kalipeni et al. (eds.), HIV and AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology. Oxford: Blackwell, 15–28. Scott, James. 1998. Seeing Like a State: Why Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Shuma, Mary. 1994. ‘The Case of the Matrilineal Mwera of Lindi’, in Zubeida Tumbo-Masabo and Rita Liljeström (eds.), Chelewa Chelewa: The Dilemma of Teenage Girls. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 120–133. Strobel, Margaret. 1979. Muslim women in Mombasa. London and New Haven: Yale University Press. Vaughan, Megan. 1991. Curing their ills. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Westerlund, David. 1981. Ujamaa na dini: A Study of Some Aspects of Society and Religion in Tanzania, 1961–1977. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International. White, Landeg. 1987. Magomero: Portrait of an African Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whyte, Susan Reynolds. 1998. Questioning Misfortune: the Pragmatics of Uncertainty in East Uganda. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

‘MUSLIMS HAVE INSTRUCTIONS’ HIV/AIDS, MODERNITY AND ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN KISUMU, KENYA Jonas Svensson Background In 1987, at the age of 17, I spent one year as an exchange student in Kenya’s third largest city, Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria. Before I left Sweden, one of my high school teachers called on my parents, begging them to stop me. The reason? AIDS. In Kenya, at that time, there was little talk about the disease. Condoms were available, but not easily so. The situation has definitely changed. Nowadays HIV/AIDS is on everyone’s lips and many different brands of condoms are being sold at the local supermarkets in Kisumu, just beside the counter, alongside with those sweets that you pick up just because they are there. HIV/AIDS today, unlike 20 years ago, forms part of the system of reference in everyday conversation in Kisumu, also among the city’s local Muslim minority. According to several studies, the Nyanza province, in which Kisumu is the main urban centre, is one of the most heavily affected by HIV/ AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, and hence in the world. A significant gender gap is noted: prevalence is higher among women than among men. Although the situation appears to have improved in the recent ten-year period, the figures of HIV-prevalence are still high (Hargreaves et al. 2002; Glynn et al. 2004; CBS 2004: 223; Prince, this volume). This is well known locally. The fieldwork on which the following is based was conducted in five periods between the years 2003 and 2006, within the framework of the project Islamic education and social development financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).1 I here outline 1 I did participant observations of activities within the context of IRE in six public and private primary- and secondary schools, conducted interviews with all the teachers of IRE in Kisumu town (in total 12) and with 15 secondary school students, and finally

190

jonas svensson

the discourse on HIV/AIDS within the context of the school subject of Islamic Religious Education (IRE). In this, the focus is not primarily on Muslim views on the virus in any general sense, but on how Islam is construed, and what relevance the discourse on HIV/AIDS has for the continuous construction of a Muslim identity in the local context, and in relation to modernity. Islam and modernity. A few remarks Muslim reformulations of Islam in relation to modernity have been ongoing since roughly the mid-19th century and have had a strong focus on how to accommodate social, technological, economic and political change with religious ‘authenticity’ (see e.g. Merad 1978; Hourani 1983; Shahin 1995; Rippin 2005: 175–199). Ijtihad, ‘effort’, i.e. (in the modern understanding) the search for answers to emerging issues in the primary sources of the religious tradition, the Qur’an and the Sunna, has been, and still is, an important catch word.2 The call for a return to the Islam of the ‘the pious forefathers’, as-salaf as-salih, i.e. the first generations of Muslims, has also contained a call for ‘purification’ of tradition, a rejection of religious innovations, bida{, and of perceived irrational superstitions. The questioning of traditional religious authority has been inherent in the sidestepping, in parts or in totality, of the interpretational legacy of the {ulama in history, in favour of an ad fontes approach. New actors have emerged as interpreters of the religious tradition, questioning the monopoly of the {ulama, which has resulted in a ‘fragmentation of sacred authority’ (Eickelman & Piscatori 2004: 70). Reformist though, in this sense, characterised by reflexivity in relation to the notion of tradition and ‘authenticity’, is but one response to modernity. It takes on diverse forms, such as Islamist collected data through a small questionnaire that was distributed to Muslim students in six secondary schools in March 2006. 137 students answered the questionnaire. Apart from these three sources of data, information was gained also from informal conversations with teachers and students in and outside the school context, as well as through my continuous and close interaction with members the Muslim community in Kisumu. 2 This modern, mostly positive use of the term (among Muslims as well as nonMuslim scholars supportive of religious reform) should be clearly separated from its traditional use in an Islamic legal context. Knut Vikør deems ijtihad “probably the most misused concept in the discussion on Islamic law” (Vikør 2005: 53).

‘muslims

have instructions’

191

striving for the establishment of an ‘Islamic state’ and Muslim feminist search for gender equality in the sources as well as other forms of ‘progressive Islam’ (Esposito & Donohue 2006; Safi 2003). Despite differences, diverse forms of reformist activism share two basic goals: to religiously justify social change by reference to an authenticity based on the scriptures, and to safeguard continuing relevance for at least parts of the religious tradition. Reformist search for authenticity is part of what anthropologists Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori have termed as the ‘objectification’ of the religion, facilitated by such social changes as macro level secularisation, educational reform and increased literacy, and the global spread of easily accessible, and inexpensive, information on ‘Islamic issues’ (Eickelman & Piscatori 2004: 37–45). In this process, Islam becomes, for its adherents, an ‘object’ to be reflected upon, defined and justified as important and relevant in relation to the modern world. The result of this process is an invention of tradition. Objectification, which also entails a reification of Islam, is a constructive endeavour (Roy 2004: 21–26). ‘Islamic tradition’, thus constructed, rests upon a selective use of elements contained within the Islamic ‘pool of resources’ (Eickelman & Piscatori 2004: 29), e.g. scriptures, rituals, interpretational traditions, terminology and narratives. Conscious reformulation of ‘objectified’ Islam in terms of religious reform is but one aspect of Islam and modernity. Large scale social changes, particularly during the last century, has also affected the ways in which Islam is construed and lived by adherents, and understandings of what it means to be Muslim, around the Muslim world. Following sociologist Anthony Giddens, one consequence of modernity is increased self-reflection concerning identity on the level of the individual (Giddens 1991). In the field of religion, Peter Berger has termed this the ‘heretical imperative’ (Berger 1979) that believers face in the modern era in light of ever increasing awareness of diverse ways in which to understand and live the religious tradition, and the absence of any undisputed yardstick with which to measure which understanding is the correct one (Berger 2001). Due to the ‘fragmentation of sacred authority’ identity to the individual appears as a personal project in which he or she has responsibility to partake actively. Furthermore, given the increasing interconnectedness of the world, and cultural globalisation, identity construction, both individual and group identity, is not related only to the local context, but also to the global whole (Robertson 1992). In the

192

jonas svensson

Muslim context, this means that the construction of Muslim identity is not only a matter of relating oneself to the local community, but also relating oneself to the umma as an deterritorialised, transnational ‘imagined community’ (Anderson 2006; Mandaville 2002). The East African context Reformulation of Islam in face of modernity was in East Africa spearheaded by famous individuals such as Sheikh al-Amin al-Mazrui (d. 1947) and Sheikh Abdallah Saleh al-Farsy (d. 1981) who where influenced by reformist trends in other parts of the Muslim world (Pouwels 1981; Chande 2000: 350–351; Hashim 2003; Kresse 2003). The purification of Islam in line with the content of the scriptures, the need for Muslim participation in the education and the enlightening and reform of Muslims also on the individual level formed part of the strategy to counter marginalisation of Muslims due to colonialism, Christian missionary activities and post-colonial modernisation (Kresse 2003). Answering of the basic (objectifying) question ‘What is (correct) Islam?’ is an ongoing process, and has since the latter half of the 20th century gained momentum due not least to the increased contacts on the individual and organisational level with the core areas of the ‘Islamic revival’-movement, al-sahwa al-islamiya. In this, the call for a more radical and comprehensive ‘purification’ of local Islam, in relation to earlier forms of reformism, has played an important role for some individuals and groups. (Bakari 1995; Beckerleg 1995; Chande 2000: 351; Oded 2000: 47–58; Kresse 2003: 302–304; Seesemann 2006: 234–238; Becker, this volume) The search for religious authenticity in a ‘deculturalised’ version of Islam, detached from local understandings of what constitutes tradition, is in no way unique to East Africa or Kenya, but visible in other parts of Africa (Rosander & Westerlund [eds] 1997; Loimeier 2003; Otayek & Soares 2007), and also worldwide. The term wahhabism has been used by detractors, salafism by proponents, but there are other designation for the same tendency locally, around the Muslim world. Olivier Roy speaks of ‘neo-fundamentalism’, and views the tendency as closely connected with processes of modernity and globalisation, not least because of the elements of a constructed authenticity, a detachment in terms of deculturalisation and deterritorialisation of Islam and a stress on the individual as the prime locus for religious reform. Roy views this form of ‘globalized Islam’ as well

‘muslims

have instructions’

193

adapted to a global, neo-liberal political and economic world order (Roy 2004: 232–289).3 Some notes on Muslims in Kisumu In Kisumu, Muslims constitute a religious minority, which is furthermore internally divided. The overwhelming majority are Sunni Muslims of African ethnicities, but there are also Muslims of Arab and South Asian ethnicities. While the dominant ethnic groups in the Kisumu area in general are the Luo, this dominance is not so conspicuous within the Muslim community.4 Ithna-Ashari Shia Muslims are present, but not particularly visible. The Nizari Ismailiyya Shia (Khoja) community, of South Asian ethnicity, is relatively large and visible. There are also Ahmadiyya Muslims, with a centrally located mosque. Generally, according to my informants and to my own experience, there is little in terms of conflict between Muslims and non-Muslim or between the Sunni, Shia and Ahmadiyya groups. The majority of informants testify to a general ‘live and let live’ attitude. The apparent conflicts are rather between groups within the Sunni majority, between supporters and opponents of a ‘neo-fundamentalist’ trend and between ethnic groups. In the school setting, however, there was according to my observations, a general downplaying and glossing over of all forms of local internal Muslim diversity and conflict. This was particularly noticeable regarding ethnic diversity. The stress was on Muslim commonality, and the construction of a Muslim identity across such boundaries. While some informants would claim that Muslims are ‘the poorest of the poor’ in Kisumu, there are large differences between groups in this

3 Although the term ‘reformism’ is at times used to generic term for this tendency in the African context, I agree with Otayek and Soares that there is need for distinctions between different forms of reformist thought and practice (Otayek & Soares 2007: 4–5). Not all those calling for reform of Islam subscribe to the radical ‘neo-fundamentalist’ agenda, as was evident from my fieldwork where most informants would present themselves as ‘modern’ and ‘liberal’ Muslims and calling for religious reform, but at the same time rejecting the ‘harshness’ of the ‘wahhabis’, and their uncompromising criticism of certain local religious practices. 4 According to the result from the questionnaire, 22 per cent of students identified themselves as ‘Luo’, 17 per cent as ‘Swahili’, 13 percent as ‘Somali’, 19 percent as ‘Arab’, 5 per cent as ‘Asian’, and the remaining as ‘Other’. The category of other included self-designations such as ‘mixed’, ‘half-caste’, ‘Nubian’ and ‘Luhya’.

194

jonas svensson

respect. Nationally, Kisumu is an economically neglected area. According to the UN Habitat (www.unhabitat.org), who has declared Kisumu as the world’s first millennium city, 60 per cent of the inhabitants live below the poverty line. In the case of Muslims in Kisumu, economic and social status often intersects with ethnicity. For example, Muslims of South Asian ethnicity tend to be better off than other groups. The same holds true for sections of the Somali community. The previous mayor of Kisumu was a Muslim, and during the time of my fieldwork, there were for example Muslims of Somali ethnicity holding the positions of both provincial and district officers of education. Nizari Ismailites are generally well off economically. Nevertheless, the majority of the Muslim community live in the city’s less affluent areas, and suffer from unemployment and lack of funds. There is a widespread notion among Kenyan Muslims, also in Kisumu, that the non-Muslim majority in the country, often referred to as ‘Christians’, discriminates, and in general holds a hostile attitude towards them, visible in areas such as job opportunities, education, and political influence (Cruise O’Brien 1995; Oded 2000: 101–111; Seesemann 2007). On the other hand, there is pervasive day-to-day local interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims, not least in the school environment. Many of the students with whom I discussed the issue, claimed that their best friends were Christians. HIV and Islamic Religious Education IRE: Aim, content and scope The subject of IRE is offered in some, but not all, primary and secondary public and private schools in Kenya. Its history dates back to the 1970s, when it was accepted by the post-independence authorities into the official curriculum as a Muslim counterpart to the already existing Christian Religious Education (CRE). This came about after complaints from Muslim pressure groups to the government, demanding recognition within the general educational system (Oded 2000: 97). National syllabi for the subject have been produced by specific IRE panels within the framework of the Kenya Institute of Education, a body that describes itself as a ‘semi-autonomous governmental agency’ (www.kie.go.ke). The panels have included individual scholars and educationists as well as representatives from Muslim interest groups, Sunni as well as

‘muslims

have instructions’

195

Shia.5 The syllabi were last revised in 2002. In Kisumu, IRE is offered at four secondary schools, and at five primary schools. In all four of the secondary, and three of the primary schools, Muslim students constituted a definitive minority during my fieldwork. My estimation is that in the three secondary schools where the following information was mainly collected, the Muslim students did not exceed five per cent of the total student population. Only one primary school, offering ‘integrated Islamic education’, and in this displaying a ‘neo-fundamentalist’ tendency, had a majority of Muslim students. According to the headmaster, the initial intent had been to make the school exclusively Muslim, but economic realities had forced the administration to admit non-Muslims as well, and their number was increasing every year. Other schools that had Muslim students attending, did not offer IRE. In these cases, students in primary school, and in the first two years of secondary school, have to take CRE instead, since religious education is compulsory. IRE has the explicit double objective of providing basic formal knowledge of Islam as a religious tradition (e.g. its sources, rituals and history) and of moulding students into ‘good’ Muslims. It coexists with the traditional madrasa or chuo education but differs from it in focus. The latter focuses on reciting of the Qur’an in the Arabic language and basic knowledge of other sources, i.e. hadith, sira (the biography

5 The syllabi, being a part of a national educational policy, of course stress ‘peace, love and unity’ between all citizens, regardless of religious affiliation. Nevertheless, there is an evident and strong Sunni bias in these texts. Shia islam is given some marginal attention in the secondary school syllabus where the Shia collections of hadith, and the Shia concept of imama are the only Shia-specific topics to be covered. Ismailiyya Islam is given some consideration through the inclusion of the Fatimid empire alongside with the Umayyad and Abbasid empires as important landmarks in the history of Islam. There is no mention at all of the Ahmadiyya, and the finality of Prophethood of Muhammad is strongly stressed. A modernist and reformist tendency is noticeable in the lack of elaboration concerning the different schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and in the stress, instead, on the basic scriptures, the Qur’an and the hadith. Furthermore, the ‘famous scholars’ of the 20th century to be covered in secondary school are, apart from the two East African reformers mentioned above, Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) and Hassan al-Banna (d. 1949), which indicates a leaning towards transnational Islamist revivalist thought, present in much of the inexpensive pamphlet literature available locally. On the other hand, mawlid, i.e. the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday, which is the target of much neo-fundamentalist criticism, is included as one of the ‘Muslim festivals’ in the primary school syllabus. Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), the single most important source of inspiration for radical puritanist thought, is not among the famous scholars of old to be covered. Thus, although the tendency is reformist, the more radical forms of neo-fundamentalist reformism are not clearly visible in the syllabi.

196

jonas svensson

of the Prophet) and fiqh ( jurisprudence) (Maina 1995). IRE has a wider scope, including topics such as Islamic history (worldwide and locally), famous religious scholars and morals, akhlaq. The secondary school syllabus of 2002 states: ‘Islam is not merely a set of beliefs and rituals but a way of life. This syllabus is therefore designed to nurture the spiritual, moral, social, emotional and physical well being of the learner’ (MoEST 2002b: 78). Recurring in the syllabi is a general perspective that Islam can be, and should be, related and applied to contemporary issues in society. The secondary school syllabus states that ‘special attention has been given to relating the teachings of Islam to issues such as HIV/AIDS, gender, child abuse, child labour and neglect, drugs and substance abuse, integrity ad [sic] environmental concerns’ (MoEST 2002b: 78). The statement that Islam is not (or rather should not be) merely a religion, but a ‘way of life’ is commonplace in contemporary modernist discourses on Islam. The posing of a ‘maximalist’ understanding of religion against a ‘minimalist’ understanding that identifies religion as primarily a matter of personal belief and rituals (Lincoln 2003), in itself constitutes a reflexive conceptualisation of religion that is specifically modern (Beyer 2006: 155–185). In outlining the ‘teachings of Islam’, the focus in the syllabus is on the scriptures, the Qur’an and the Sunna, and not on any particular school of thought or jurisprudence, madhdhab. The stress is on a globally shared Muslim heritage (with focus on the Qur’an and the Sunna), and a shared Muslim identity. Ethnic diversity is not a topic touched upon in the syllabi, and differences between Sunni and Shia constitute a small part, and then only in the secondary school syllabus. While addressing Islam in Africa, East Africa, and Kenya as sub-topics, the syllabi in general nurtures a transnational umma-consciousness (Eickelman & Piscatori 2004: 141) by stressing an Islam that is deterritorialised. The scriptures form the basis for this Islam, and it is in these scriptures that the answer to the question ‘What is Islam?’ is to be sought. HIV/AIDS in the syllabi The HIV/AIDS topic is explicitly mentioned in the introduction to both syllabi (MoEST 2002a: iii; MoEST 2002b: v).6 In the primary school

6 For the general national HIV/AIDS curriculum and a critical evaluation of its implementation and effects in Bungoma and Mumias in Western Kenya, see Duflo

‘muslims

have instructions’

197

syllabus, HIV/AIDS is presented together with ‘corruption, drug abuse and environmental degradation’ as ‘emerging issues’ that the teachings of Islam should be related to (MoEST 2002a: 181). There is a similar statement, using ‘challenges of life’ instead of ‘emerging issues’ in the secondary school syllabus. In primary schools, the topic of HIV/AIDS should be introduced in the last two years (years seven and eight), within the context of akhlaq, i.e. moral teachings. Here, the syllabus states that the teacher should address the ways in which the virus is transmitted, but also ‘Islamic measures in controlling HIV/AIDS pandemic’ (MoEST 2002a: 202). Furthermore, the students are supposed, after covering the syllabus, to be able to relate to those affected by AIDS; a subtopic placed under the general topic of ‘Tolerance’ (MoEST 2002a: 205). In the syllabus for secondary school it is less obvious in which contexts HIV/AIDS should be addressed. There is a mention of STDs, including HIV/AIDS, and their ‘causes and effects’ in the last year (year four), again alongside with ‘drug abuse’, but there is no further elaboration (MoEST 2002b: 92). In year two, the students are expected to cover ‘Immoral trends’ in society, their effects and why Islam forbids them. Examples of ‘Sexual perversions’ are given, and those include zina (pre-marital and extra-marital sex), prostitution, homosexuality, incest, ‘bestiality’ and rape (MoEST 2002b: 85). In Islam, the syllabus suggest, there is a ‘preventive precautionary morality’ in relation to these social ills (MoEST 2002b: 88). Hence, in the syllabi, HIV/AIDS is made into an Islamically relevant issue through the suggestion that the moral aspects of the religious tradition contain elements and guidelines that can be useful in preventing the spread of the virus. These basic suggestions, found in the syllabi, were those most clearly elaborated and reflected upon by teachers and students in the context of IRE in Kisumu. The ways in which teachers and students addressed the topic varied, and the following is an attempt to systematise observations in this respect. Not all teachers chose to address the issue of HIV/AIDS in class. Some, particularly in primary schools, viewed it as too sensitive a topic due to the connection with sexuality. The secondary school teachers, however, viewed addressing it as an inevitable part of their role as et al. 2006. The curriculum was introduced in the late 1990s and was, and is still to some extent, opposed by religious leaders, based on the fear that education on sex would promote promiscuity, particularly if condoms were to be mentioned ( Jaoko 2004).

198

jonas svensson

teachers, not least since the topic may occur in the final exams. Much of the actual content in the teaching, according to the teachers themselves, was conditioned by expectations of what would be included in these exams. But I also encountered views among teachers that the reference to HIV/AIDS in the new syllabi of 2002, in itself was an important improvement in relation to previous syllabi. The issues of prevalence and morals. Muslims and the others The high figures for HIV prevalence in Kisumu were well known among informants. However, there was a consensus among them that HIV/AIDS is less of a problem for the Muslim community compared to other religious communities, and not only locally. Recent research has addressed the issue of how HIV-prevalence rates may be related to religious affiliation (Lagarde et al. 2000; Gray 2005; Trinitapoli & Regnerus 2006), suggesting both adherence to certain moral precepts, external social control and performance of specific rituals to be of importance in explaining this fact. Specific mentioning is merited concerning male circumcision. After reviewing resent research, including research conducted in Kisumu, The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2007 issued a recommendation, based on ‘compelling’ evidence, of male circumcision as a method to prevent the spread of HIV to men (WHO/UNAIDS 2007). Male circumcision is generally practised among Muslims. In relation to the following, considerations as for factors influencing prevalence rates are interesting only to the extent that they appear in the discourse. As it was, explanations for lower prevalence rates were limited to sexual mores, mainly with reference to the scriptures. One secondary school teacher distributed the following assignment to his students over the Christmas holidays in 2004: ‘Demographic studies indicate that the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in the Islamic states is lower than in countries which are non-Islamic. Give reasons for this statistic with reference to the holy Qur-an [sic] and Hadith.’ There was a general tendency among the informants to stress this kind of direct connection between the scriptures and perceived lower prevalence rates. In the interviews, verse 17:32 of the Qur’an was often cited: ‘Nor come nigh to adultery [zina]: For it is an indecent (deed) and an evil way’. One teacher stated that while punishments for sexual intercourse outside marriage, zina, in accordance with traditional Islamic law (i.e. lashing or stoning depending on the marital status of the offender) are not carried

‘muslims

have instructions’

199

out in Kenya, the severity of ‘crime against God’, stressed in the Qur’an and in the hadith-literature, directly influenced the sexual mores and manners of Muslims in Kisumu, and in effect also prevalence rates. Other informants, teachers as well as students, gave similar comments. One male secondary school student, for example, remarked: Student: [Allah] says: ‘do not go near it’. He did not say, ‘do it, but do it in this way’. No, He said: ‘do not go near it’. So the Muslims have instructions. If you follow those instructions, not even one will be infected. Contrary to our brothers, the Christians. They are given that room // [they] go to the pubs and such things. The Christian leaders they just talk // For example, a Christian leader, a priest or something, will talk about it [i.e. to avoid zina]. But on Christmas Eve he will be joining some of his friends in such things, which is very wrong. Jonas: Do you believe that Christians are more immoral than Muslims? Student: Yes, that is known worldwide. Not more immoral, but more than immoral. Jonas: Why? Student: They have not been shown. They have been left blind. They have not been shown the direction // In the Bible there are no measures to protect various . . . various things. We have everything in the Qur’an and in the hadith.

These examples all echo a notion of an Islamic ‘preventive precautionary morality’ referred to in the secondary school syllabus as an element inherent in the religious tradition, i.e. the scriptures. In the last quotation these scriptures are presented as providing guidance, hence introducing an element of morals being the result of an active, individual and conscious choice. The last quotation, and the assignment, both moreover point to another element of the discourse on HIV/AIDS in IRE, related to distinguishing ‘Muslims’ (as a unitary group) from ‘the others’, locally as well as globally. ‘Christians’ as a generic designation of non-Muslims was an important category in discourse relating mainly to the Kisumu or Kenyan context. In relation to a wider context the category of ‘Christians’ at times merged with ‘the West’ in the discourse. The latter signified the anti-thesis of Islam, in particular concerning sexual mores. Students and teachers alike cited ‘Westernisation’ as a major threat to the Islamic identity, a cultural deterioration, influencing particularly of the youth through contemporary popular culture (which the students nevertheless happily conceded that they consumed in vast quantities). There are other instances in my material, similar to what Becker and Beckman (this volume) note, where connections are made between the origin and spread of HIV/AIDS in Kenya and ‘Western

200

jonas svensson

influence’ in the form of tourism. Students in one of the secondary schools, during an extra-curricular Islamic club meeting, discussed the spread of HIV/AIDS in East Africa as a result of sex-tourism in Mombasa. European women brought the disease to the coast and infected the local ‘beach-boys’. Outside of the school context, I also encountered sporadic contrasting of ‘Muslims’ against the locally dominant ethnic group, the Luo, concerning sexual mores. Even Muslims identifying themselves as Luo, could speak of ‘the Luo’ as promiscuous, implicitly excluding Muslim Luo in this context.7 Particularly the practice of ‘widow inheritance’, tero, by anthropologist Ruth Prince defined as a practice where ‘a widow must sleep with another man in order to “cleanse” the death of her husband and “open the way” for future familial well-being and growth’ (Prince, this volume), was presented by informants as reprehensible, from an ‘Islamic’ moral point of view, and as an explanation to the high HIV prevalence in the area. Here, criticism of ‘the Luo’, and the practice of tero could be seen as part of a distancing of Islam from local (heathen) ‘superstitions’, much in the same way as reformed ‘Christianity’ is posed against ‘Luo tradition’ by Luo ‘born again’ Christians in Princes material. Noteworthy however, is that while references to ‘Christians’ and ‘the West’ as ‘the other’ was common among teachers and students of IRE, a distinction between ‘the Luo’ and Muslims concerning sexual mores did not occur in observations in class or in interviews with students or teachers. The discourse on Islam and prevention The basic view that teachers and students alike expressed was thus that a sexual morality construed as inherent in the scriptures provides an explanation for perceived lower prevalence rates within the local Muslim community. The observations in the classrooms and the interviews with teachers and students alike provided further substance to what was perceived as, to speak with the syllabus, ‘Islamic measures in controlling HIV/AIDS pandemic’.

7 For an presentation on contemporary discourses on sexuality among the Lou, see Geissler & Prince 2007.

‘muslims

have instructions’

201

Abstinence, abstinence, abstinence . . . From what I can judge from my data, there was no lack of knowledge among the teachers, nor among the secondary school students, concerning how HIV is transmitted. Ways of transmission other than heterosexual intercourse were rarely mentioned in interviews or in the classroom discussions. The discussion on protection from HIV-infection was also focused on (heterosexual) sexuality, and the three main areas of ABC (i.e. ‘Abstinence, Be faithful, Condomise’). Among these, condoms were rarely mentioned in class or spontaneously in the interviews. Faithfulness was mentioned in passing. It is noteworthy that I did not encounter any mentioning of male circumcision in this context. In town, there were billboards where NGOs offered free male circumcision as part of HIV-prevention. Circumcision is traditionally not practised by the Luo, but the general impression I have from my interaction with the Muslim community, including Luo converts, is that circumcision accompanies conversion to Islam, and is necessary for ritual purity. The prime focus in class was definitely on sexual abstinence before marriage. Discussions on sex were not avoided in the secondary schools. On the contrary, they were frequent. When instructing the students on ‘Islamic’ sexual mores, all teachers urged them to avoid sex before marriage. As one male secondary school teacher stated, with reference to his female students: ‘Abstinence. That is what I really emphasise on. Abstinence, abstinence, abstinence. That is what I always tell them. I give them the example of Mary. Mary retained her chastity. So they should be chaste women’. Mary here is Maryam, the mother of the Prophet {Isa ( Jesus). The implicit reference is to the well known, and loved, Qur’anic chapter 19, and verses 27–28 in particular, where the unmarried Maryam is accused of zina but defended by her infant son, speaking from the cradle. Another, female, secondary school teacher interviewed in 2004 had been active in organising an AIDS-club for the students in 2003. The club (which was no longer active in 2006) was initially directed at the Muslim students, but soon become open for both Muslims and nonMuslims. The initial objective, according to the teacher/patron had been to create a forum in which the students could air their views and discuss issues such as what they as Muslims could do to combat the spread of HIV. The AIDS club at this particular (mixed) school had a distinct religious touch to it, again stressing abstinence. In an interview with the chairman and the vice-chairman of the club, both pointed to abstinence as the main method of protection stressed in the club

202

jonas svensson

meetings, although condoms were mentioned as well, occasionally. The teacher/patron of the club informed me: Actually the motto in our club is ‘to abstain’. That is our motto. The girls tell me ‘madam you know, we are flowers. We are very beautiful. We want to maintain ourselves. Say no’. So that is their motto. I am really enjoying being with them. They tell me ‘madam, we want to abstain, we want to show that we are very important people in the society, we women. Because when you can stop it I think that the men will not have people to mess with.’ So it is very positive.

The underlying suggestion from the teacher was that particularly the girls by active choice opted for abstinence, as a matter of asserting themselves as modern Muslim women. When I asked yet another secondary school teacher to outline the problems his particular school was facing, in connection with HIV/AIDS, he also emphasised girls and their sexuality: It is also a challenge because when a girl comes to school [she is] very innocent. You find some of her peers. They start pressuring her. That peer pressure. And this girl feels as if she is so much behind. So she wants to have a relationship and so on, and so forth. So this is also a challenge.

Peer pressure for boys was not mentioned in this context, although also this school was mixed. The voices are representative of a general tendency when the issue of sexual abstinence before marriage was discussed in relation to HIV/ AIDS. As in Beckman’s (this volume) observations on the Zanzibari discourse on HIV it was mainly an issue of Muslim girls and their ‘chastity’. To abstain was construed as a choice that the individual (girl) had to make. The role of religion, or rather the scriptures, in this context is to inform and support that choice, which is most evident in the first quotation, where a model of femininity deemed relevant is extracted from the Qur’an. The gender aspect of the discourse on sexuality is also noticeable in the comments on sex-tourism above. Dress code and segregation as a protective measures Chastity, particularly from the side of the girls, in turn, was closely associated with dress code and an ideal of segregation of the sexes expressed both in class and in interviews. The issue of dress code was clearly gendered throughout interviews and observations, and concerned women’s dress. I could observe how one of the secondary school teachers, in class, repeatedly rebuked female students for not dressing correctly,

‘muslims

have instructions’

203

i.e. not wearing long sleeves and long trousers underneath their school uniform skirts. One primary school teacher provided the following reasons for a perceived lower rate of HIV infections among Muslims compared to members of other religious communities in Kisumu: You know, in Islam // because of the strictness when it comes to sex and such. Just from the mode of dressing . . . there is no way that a Muslim should end up being HIV-positive // There are so many precautions that make a Muslim not to contract HIV.

Other teachers expressed similar views, as did the students. In the integrated Islamic school mentioned above, teachers in a joint interview explicitly stressed the use of the hijab, here referring to the headscarf, as part of the school uniform, as an important strategy to combat the spread of HIV. If girls did not learn to dress properly at an early age, they might later on in life tempt men to seduce them, resulting in general immoral behaviour and eventually the spread of HIV. The posing of ‘proper’ dress code for women as an outward sign of Islamic authenticity is common to many strands of modern understandings of Islam (Roald 2001: 254–294). Traditional formulations of Islamic law on dress and segregation of the sexes, combined in the generic use of the word hijab as a system, not merely as an attire, stress the need to cover a woman’s awra, i.e. nakedness in order to safeguard a general order in society, and prevent fitna (disorder, chaos). This perspective echoes in the last example above, but at the same time it became quite obvious in interviews, particularly with female students, that they construed the head scarf mainly as something chosen by the individual to assert her Muslim identity, and to display the ‘modesty’ that this identity implied. At times teachers and students voiced the view that according to the ideal, women and men who are not closely related or married are not to meet, not to shake hands and not even to glance at one another. The students and teachers that I interviewed and observed in my fieldwork did definitely not heed this perceived, and verbalised, divine norm, neither in the classroom, nor outside of it. Nevertheless, they all voiced it as a religious ideal. When confronted with the discrepancy between verbalised norms and actual behaviour, students tended to refer to the importance of the individual’s intention, niyya, in determining whether he or she acted in accordance with the religious norms. While heeding to the hijab as an outward symbol of female chastity does not necessarily

204

jonas svensson

limit social interaction, the same does not apply to segregation. Reference to niyya, i.e. the internalisation of a social code externalised in tradition by way of segregation, appeared to be a common, modern way to handle the cognitive dissonance that resulted from a conflict between the ideals put forward in the context of IRE and the reality of everyday life. A few girls and boys, however, in interviews and discussions among themselves, also referred to niyya in the context of at least partly questioning dominant views on dress code, particularly relating to the negative attitude in the community towards girls wearing jeans. This focus on individual intention in moral evaluation was evident also in connection with other issues concerning gender relations (e.g. male-female friendship), particularly in my interviews and discussions with students. Some students would, in interviews, accept the possibility of love relationships, if sex was not involved and if intentions were pure. In the context of HIV/AIDS and sexuality, the contrast between religious norms verbalised in class and reality outside the classroom came to the fore. But they might not be able . . . The few occasions when teachers addressed forced or transactional sex, important aspects in the discussion on HIV-transmission in subSaharan Africa (UNAIDS/WHO 2004: 10–13, 23; Sadgrove, this volume), it was also in the context of ‘correct’ Islamic manners and modes of dressing as protective measures. Rape was presented as a result of girls not acting in accordance with the ideal: dressing improperly or putting themselves in situations where they found themselves alone with a boy. Usually, however, when sexual intercourse was discussed it was construed as a voluntary act between two consenting parties, instigated by the boys, and accepted by the girls, often in a framework of romance or seduction. This also touches upon an issue of some importance in relation to HIV. Underlying the view that the ‘chastity’ of Muslim girls, modest dress and segregation would make Muslim boys abstain from sex, and hence counter the spread of HIV, was the assumption that there were no other possible objects for the boys’ sexuality. In interviews with teachers as well as with students I suggested that maybe it was more socially (albeit not religiously) acceptable for Muslim boys, compared to Muslim girls, to have sexual relationships before marriage, as Beckman (this volume) has noted in the Zanzibari case. When realising

‘muslims

have instructions’

205

that I was referring to actual practices, and not to any Islamic ideal, all informants agreed that this was actually the case. Boys did, according to the informants, to a larger extent than girls have pre-marital relationships with non-Muslims of the opposite sex, including sexual relationships. I did not attempt to verify this information, but I noted how in interviews and discussions with girls in high school, voices were raised against what they claimed to be a hypocritical attitude among Kisumu Muslims in this respect. In one interview, a teacher touched upon this possible discrepancy between religious ideal and actual practice in the context of sexuality. On the one hand she, as a teacher of IRE, had to advocate abstinence before marriage as an Islamic ideal, in line with the edifying role of IRE. On the other hand she noted that abstinence before marriage is not necessarily what the students (particularly the boys) would opt for: There was one student who actually had a very funny question: ‘Madam, you know, we eat a lot of carbohydrates. How do you expect us to utilise that energy [ laughter]? We can’t afford fruits we can’t afford a lot of proteins. We basically eat ugali [the staple food in many Kenyan homes, a heavy maize porridge], and ugali is full of carbohydrates. With the ugali, we will have bread. How do you expect us to abstain [laughter]? You get such questions and you have to tackle them. My answer to the student would be: ‘Ok according to the Holy Prophet, you should try and fast a lot in order to use that energy. You can also engage in extra curriculum activities like netball, volleyball, football, you know, you become busy. By the end of the day you will have used up that energy’ [laughter] // I expect the students to abstain. But you see, you never know. They might not be able.

The teacher points to a problem here, at least from a viewpoint stressing an idealistic direct connection between the morals construed from the scriptures, and actual behaviour. Even though you are able to point directly to specific hadiths, for example, in order to substantiate a moral demand, there is no guarantee that this demand will be heeded to by the students, who in a modern context may have other points of reference beside those provided by established tradition to justify or at least explain their actions. IRE as an edifying school subject, on the other hand, rests on a commonplace, idealistic notion in modernist Islam that if Muslims are only made to realise the correct path on the level of individual conscience, they will follow it. The quotation indicates a situation where sexuality is discussed quite openly and in a positive manner. That was also the impression I got from my participant

206

jonas svensson

observations, although I did not encounter any student challenging the dominant ideal within IRE of sexual abstinence before marriage in the manner related by the teacher in the quotation above. The thorny issue of condoms But if the students do not generally practise abstinence, how then is the issue of the transmission of HIV through unprotected sexual intercourse to be tackled? Here, the problematic issue of condoms emerges. A few teachers stated that condoms, and contraceptives in general, are not allowed in Islam. Most of them, however, viewed contraceptives as religiously legitimate (halal) within marriage, albeit not recommendable. A few provided the standard scriptural references to well known hadiths on {azl, or coitus interruptus, as accepted by the Prophet Muhammad (Atighetchi 2007: 65–89). In their view, this justified, by analogy, modern ways of contraception. But addressing condoms in class, and especially as a way of protection against STDs (and not primarily as a contraceptive device), was another matter. As one teacher remarked: You know, what people fear most is that [when speaking about condoms] we are encouraging people to use them and actually encouraging people to commit zina. I agree, and I don’t want to do that. I will say to my students that OK, use condoms, but use condoms when you are married or something like that // in a legitimate setting. [To use them in illicit sex], even if you are protecting yourselves from getting AIDS, you will [ by having illicit sex] be committing a transgression against God and that will not be good for you.

In 2006 the same teacher was reluctant to admitting an American Peace Corps volunteer to address his IRE students in class on the issue of HIV. His motive? ‘She will only start talking about condoms, and I don’t want that’. This echoes a commonplace religious attitude to HIV-prevention strategies focussing condoms, as Beckman (this volume) notes in relation to Zanzibar. As is the case in her observations, there are also in my material examples of a somewhat different views. The teacher reflecting on the contrast between ideal and reality in the quotation above, had an attitude that was a bit more pragmatic. On a direct question as to whether topic of contraceptives was addressed in class, the answer was: No, usually I don’t. Maybe condom. But some students will say: ‘Madam, condoms are not allowed in Islam’. It usually ends up in a very interesting debate. The students will say, ‘condoms are not allowed in Islam’. Then I will tell them. ‘Then abstain!’ They will tell me ‘We can’t’, and so it

‘muslims

have instructions’

207

goes . . . It is usually very tricky [laughter]. You know. Religion will tell you ‘no contraceptives’ unless it is very very necessary. Like if you are going for hajj [pilgrimage]. But you see now, you’ve got to tell them that if you cannot abstain, which is the Islamic ideal, then use condoms. But I would not advice you to do that. And then there is the AIDS epidemic, so what do you do? You just tell them that this is what the religion is saying. But I know that you are in adolescence stage, you are developing, you want to explore . . . then you just have to be extra careful, and use condoms.

This pragmatism has a certain foundation in traditional Muslim ethics, and the rule that in a choice between two evils, one should choose the lesser evil, and also the notion of darura, ‘necessity’, that legitimises breaking of the divine law when no other alternatives are at hand, in order to safeguard life, health or the common good. The argument of human weakness in relation to condom use has been used also in contexts where Muslim organisations have been active in combating the spread of HIV, for example in Uganda (IMAU 1998: 30). In my classroom observations, however, condoms were only mentioned as tokens of a general immorality in society, and of ‘Westernisation’. Teachers as well as students voiced opposition to what they viewed as an open promotion of zina in TV- and billboard advertisements for condoms. Condoms became an element in the discourse on Muslim identity as contrasted with the imaginary ‘West’, as ‘the other’. Again, a note can be made relating to the discrepancy between ideals voiced in class, and the social realities. In one interview a male student conceded that among ‘those Muslim boys who involve themselves in such acts’, there was a general agreement to use condoms. Except for one interview with a teacher in primary school, I did not encounter views that condoms were not safe enough as a means of protection against HIV such as Becker (this volume) noted in Tanzania. Pre-marital testing Several informants pointed out how religious leaders nowadays, as is discussed in detail in Beckman’s article in this volume, advise those who are planning to get married to first go for an HIV-test, in order to prevent the spread of the virus. In one of the primary school classrooms that I visited, there was a poster on the wall featuring the well known, if generally described as radical and controversial, preacher and Muslim leader Sheikh Ali Shee (See Chande 2000: 351; Oded 2000: 49–54; Seeseman 2007: 158). On this poster, he was quoted saying ‘Of course, you should know your HIV status and that of your partner before you

208

jonas svensson

get married and start a family’. One secondary school teacher justified this advice paraphrasing a well-known utterance of the Prophet, present in the two major Sunni canonical collections of hadith, al-Bukhari’s and Muslim’s (with some variance): The Prophet knew, he was the messenger of Allah, he knew it, and he told us that, if there is a plague in a city, nobody should go into that city or come out of that city, until that plague is cured. Ok, so this is a city that you are going into. A person with whom you are going to share your life. So don’t involve yourself physically with that person unless you go for a test.

This piece of ijtihad in class, uses the current situation as the interpretative framework when approaching the scriptures, and searching for relevant principles underlying the letter. The advice of the religious leaders does not suffice in itself, a token of an erosion of their authority in the modern context. The notion of the Prophet’s precognition of the contemporary HIV/AIDS situation serves as a proof of the message’s divine origin, as will be further discussed below. In interviews with the students, it became clear that this advice had taken root. They all stated that they would follow it when getting married in the future. In one interview, a male student viewed it not merely as a piece of advice, but as an actual prerequisite for the legal validity of the marriage. However, some doubts were raised as well. In a group interview, three girls in a discussion agreed that the advice might not be that easy to adhere to in practice. Suggesting a pre-marital test may be appear as if you are questioning the morals of your future spouse. Theodicy, HIV/AIDS and the issue of stigmatisation HIV/AIDS as a divine punishment The notion of HIV/AIDS as a curse and/or a divine punishment is widespread in the local setting, regardless of religious affiliation. In his book The impact of HIV/Aids on primary education (2000), the international education scholar Wycliffe Odiwuor points out that among the dominant ethnic group in Kisumu, the Luo, there is a traditional concept of chira. This is a ‘curse’ having similar symptoms to those associated with AIDS (Odiwuor 2000: 43). Prince (this volume) discusses the notion of chira as a ‘sickness [. . .] that arises from “confusion” in social relations, when people forget to follow, or explicitly reject, the ritual practices or

‘muslims

have instructions’

209

rules (chike) that structure kinship and social life and engender growth.’ She notes how the concept of chira is important in the contemporary local discourses on AIDS, and points to the fact that the relationship between chira and AIDS is a matter for debate locally, and like tero forms part of the distancing of ‘Christianity’ from ‘Luo tradition’ (see also Geissler & Prince 2007). Chira was mentioned by several of the teachers and students interviewed. But the concept was generally rejected, and construed as local ‘superstition’, hence adding to the distancing, at least in the discourse, of ‘Islam’ from local traditions, and possibly also of distinguishing Muslim identity (including Luo Muslim identity) from what is conceived as ‘traditional’ Luo identity. This is not to say that the notion of chira was not present among teachers and students, only that I did not encounter anyone openly subscribing to it, neither in interviews nor in more informal discussions. Nevertheless, in the questionnaire that I distributed in 2006 (note 1) three quarters of the participants strongly agreed or agreed to some extent with the statement ‘AIDS is a punishment from God’. When asked in the context of interviews, the majority, teachers as well as students, stated that HIV/AIDS was a punishment from God, as a result of widespread immorality. At times, they made distinct references to the scriptures. On being asked whether he viewed AIDS as a punishment from God, one student remarked: Yes, there is a hadith of the Prophet that says that when a society becomes rotten Allah might bring down maybe an epidemic that cannot be controlled. It is very possible, and these days we have seen the world is corrupt, we, the human beings are corrupt. We have all the immoralities of the generations that have passed. Homosexuality, everything is being entertained. Like in the Western world, people live like animals, totally like animals. They don’t have that respect of a human being to a human being, a human being to his Lord, and a human being to other people, it is animalistic, and they have really contributed to this.

Thus, not only ‘Islamic morals’ relevant to HIV/AIDS are present the scriptures. The scriptures also contain predictions and explanations that provide meaning to the contemporary situation. In suggesting a connection between ‘Western’ immorality (and homosexuality in particular), HIV/AIDS and divine punishment, this particular student sides with similar views in the wider contemporary Muslim discourse on HIV/AIDS (Atighetchi 2007: 200; Badri 1997: 209–210; Esack

210

jonas svensson

2007), noted also in Beckman’s article in this volume.8 The hadith cited is from the collection of Ibn Maja (d. 887), most often listed among the six ‘canonical’ Sunni hadith collections, where the Prophet makes a prediction of a forthcoming plague as a punishment for sexual misconduct, a commonplace reference in the contemporary discourse on HIV/AIDS and Islam. One secondary school teacher had decided to actively tackle the problem of HIV/AIDS being associated with divine punishment, and in this context displayed a modernist criticism of established religious authorities: Personally I think it is not a curse [but] I know the thinking of my community. // There is a general feeling that AIDS is actually a curse, and it is propagated by the imams themselves. They are saying that AIDS is a curse because it was brought here to punish those people who commit zina. This has always been said in the mosques. They are misleading people. AIDS is not a curse because you can get AIDS from other ways. You know, like you can get it from blood transfusion. Children can get it from their mother, and what crime did they commit, what sin did they commit? // God will be so unfair to punish a child for the mistakes that were made by his parents.9

What this teacher presents as a backward view among certain members of the local community, could rather be seen as a fairly mainstream position. Nevertheless, he uses this view to distance himself, as an authority in his capacity of teacher of IRE, from other local sources of authority. I could observe how he, in class, continued to stress the importance of keeping the issue of the supernatural outside the discourse on HIV/AIDS, and instead promoting a ‘modern’, rational version of Islam. He actively tried to convince his students that HIV/ AIDS should not be seen as a divine punishment, but as a disease like 8 For the purpose of fairness, however, it should be noted that although such view on HIV/AIDS as a divine punishment for zina is widespread in the contemporary Muslim discourse, it is not general. For example, the South African organisation Positive Muslims actively work against such an attitude, which they deem stigmatizing (Positive Muslims 2004). See also the criticism of the dominant perspective on HIV/AIDS in Wadud 2006. 9 There is a possible implicit reference to the Qur’anic verse 81:8–9 here. Towards the end of the world, when resurrection takes place, the ‘girl-child that was buried alive is asked for what sin she was slain’. This passage is usually connected to a perceived practice during al-jahiliya (the pre-Islamic period on the Arabian Peninsula) of burying infant girls alive. This is of course different from the situation addressed by this particular teacher. It is nevertheless possible that he here uses a well-known imagery from the Qur’an, carrying notions of the gravest of injustices, to argue for his case.

‘muslims

have instructions’

211

any other, one for which a cure will eventually be found, in line with the hadith stating that God has not created any disease for which he has not created a cure. On one occasion, one of his students remarked that the ‘cure’ for HIV/AIDS is ‘the Qur’an and the Sunna’. As Becker (this volume) rightly points out, such an assertion may refer both to a notion of restrictive sexual morals as a protection, and to a notion that word of God has healing powers in itself. In line with the latter, the student furthermore asked the teacher whether it was true that reciting the 99 names of God a thousand times will cure any disease, including HIV/AIDS. The teacher made clear that he viewed such a suggestion as both naïve and dangerous. How to relate to those affected Some of the teachers pointed to the problem of stigmatisation. They suggested that there was a widespread reluctance among Muslims to go for testing and a tendency to hide the fact that one was infected. One secondary school teacher provided the following image: You see somebody suffering from HIV/AIDS. You see all the signs. But they will tell you ‘ahah, huyu, ana jini’ [this person has a jinn, i.e. is possessed by a spirit]. They will tell you ‘huyu ametumiwa na jini’ [this person is being used by a jinn]. They don’t accept. // And you know they don’t go to the doctor’s, because they say ‘amerogwa’, [he/she has been bewitched], and so on. // Maybe they feel it is shameful because Islam as a religion does not encourage immorality.

Hence this teacher conceives of references to ‘supernatural’ explanations, in terms of jinns or witchcraft, for the condition of AIDS as part of the problem in combating the spread of HIV. In the interview, the teacher identified a similarity between the ‘Muslim’ concept of jinns and the Luo concept of chira in popular Kisumu discourse, however construing both as outmoded superstitions. According to her, both diverted the focus from the real problem, and constituted obstacles in the struggle against HIV/AIDS. Implicitly, there is a rejection of such explanations as merely a means of escaping negative social consequences. I did not come across any direct references to HIV/AIDS as a result of witchcraft, (Kiswahili uchawi), which both Becker and Behrend (this volume) have noted as fairly common in the East African context. This may very well be a result of informants’ expectations as for what I as a ‘westerner’ and a ‘scientist’ could accept or not. However, I may also be attributed to how witchcraft was generally construed in the context of IRE, i.e. as a form of ignorance opposed to a correct understanding of Islam as a

212

jonas svensson

modern, rational religion. A few informants, outside the school context, did suggest a connection between HIV/AIDS and ‘impurity’. One elderly lady, with whom I had daily contacts throughout my fieldwork, for example, would not use the term ukimwi (AIDS), but would instead speak of ule ugonjwa uchafu, i.e. ‘that dirty disease’. In one interview, a prominent local religious scholar, {alim, traced the origin of the virus to a single incident, involving a dog, a woman and some honey, indicating a connection between a dog’s saliva as najis (substance invalidating tahara, ritual purity) and HIV. However, these views were not expressed in the context of IRE, although the issue of ritual purity and impurity was a recurring topic in class. The notion that being infected with HIV/AIDS is shameful appeared in other interviews as well as in informal conversations. As in Becker’s study on Tanzania (Becker, this volume), several informants claimed that many had died of AIDS, but the victims were not identified. One exception to this was when a student in an interview related how his uncle had died as a result of AIDS, and the stigmatisation this involved. In the context of relating to those affected by HIV/AIDS, the teachers interviewed all stressed caring for the sick as a religious obligation, in line with what the syllabi demand. This, however, they conceded may be problematic in relation to the stigmatisation of AIDS sufferers that stems from the connection with zina. The question of what happens if one of the two future spouses is found to be HIV-positive at the above mentioned pre-marital testing, led to a discussion in class. When the teacher stated that in a case like this the man and the woman should go separate ways, several of the students objected. Male student 1: No sir, you can’t do that. That is not love. How can you say that? One has to decide that for oneself. Teacher: Yes, you can choose. But if you want to follow the Sunna of the Prophet, you have to leave one another then and there. Male student 1: No, I can’t agree with that. Love is more important. Male student 2: You are stupid! Is love more important than life? You will be infected yourself if you marry her.

A lively discussion followed: Female student 1: I think you ought to marry her anyway, but without having sex with her. Male student 2: You can’t be married without having sex. That is against Islam. Sex is a must in marriage. // I would never marry someone who is positive.

‘muslims

have instructions’

213

Male student 1: But you would not have sex with her. There is love and there is lust, and these are two different things. You should not abandon her. You should stay with her and take care of her, maybe even without marrying her. Look at Khadija, for example. The Prophet did not marry any other woman while she was alive. He stayed with her and only her. That is love.

The marriage between Khadija and the Prophet is often cited in contemporary discourse on romantic love in Islam, and not least as an argument in support of monogamy, as is implicit also in the above reference. Here, a modern concept of romantic love as the basis for marriage collides with notions concerning the purpose of marriage based on established Islamic legal tradition. Nevertheless, proponents of both positions may constructively use the Sunna to substantiate their claims to the religious authenticity of their propositions, contradictory as they may be. The quotations exemplifies a constructive and reflexive use of the Islamic ‘pool of resources’ in many of the classroom discussions that I attended, but also an overall tendency to present adhering to Islamic teachings as a matter of individual choice. HIV/AIDS, IRE and the construction of Islam in face of modernity In the introductory remarks on Islam and modernity I chose to focus on three aspects; the search for religious authenticity, the ‘objectification of Islam’ and the construction of Muslim religious identity. All of these aspects are noticeable in the context of IRE, which in itself constitutes an example of a reflexivity of modernity, integrating the formulation and transmission of Islam into a modern educational system. Authenticity The main points of reference for religious authenticity are the scriptures, the Qur’an and the Sunna, in the syllabi as well as in the teaching. Interpretation of these scriptures takes place in class, and limited reference is made to Islamic tradition in the sense of the interpretational contributions by {ulama in history. The latters’ authority appears secondary to the authority of the scriptures interpreted anew. In the context of HIV/AIDS the questioning of traditional authority is exemplified by the criticism of backwardness and ignorance of local religious leaders. In general, the topic of HIV/AIDS becomes yet another possibility for teachers and students to assert Islam, in a reified, ‘deculturalised’ and purified form, from local superstitions and ignorance.

214

jonas svensson

In IRE in Kisumu, Islam is construed as a ‘modern’ religion (among others), rational, socially relevant to the issues of the day, and a ‘way of life’, perfectly in line with what the syllabi demand. The discourse on HIV/AIDS contributes to this. In this discourse, the scriptures provide both an explanation for the disease and above all a means for prevention, the efficacy of the latter ‘proven’ by the perceived lower rate of HIVinfections among Muslims in Kisumu. The notion that HIV/AIDS is predicted in the sources also boosts the notion that empirical observation can ‘prove’ the truth of Islam, a commonplace tendency in modernist interpretations of Islam relating to for example the natural sciences and medicine (Stenberg 1996; Atighetchi 2007: 327–349). In this context, one could expect references to male circumcision as a proof of divine wisdom in countering the spread of the disease, as Becker (this volume) has noted in the Tanzanian discourse. The fact that I did not encounter such references may be coincidental, but it may also indicate that the participants in the discourse in class had other pressing issues to attend to, related to the context of edifying young Muslims, of which the boys probably were already circumcised. IRE, objectification and the heretical imperative Quite contrary to the stated purpose of the subject, the very context of IRE may further a process of detachment of a religious system of norms from everyday life. IRE is a school subject among others in a formal bureaucratic national educational system. This has bearing on the way the subject is taught, what it contains and in the end maybe also on the way in which the students actually perceive Islam. Islam is given a precise amount of time in which is should be pondered upon and discussed each week. What the teaching should cover is determined by anonymous official documents that identify the core of the religious tradition, neatly arranged in sub-topics. It clearly becomes a delimited ‘object’ to be reflected upon, and eventually tested on, hopefully, according to students and teachers, with a result that will ‘boost’ the overall grade in the final exams. This very context contributes to an ‘objectification of Islam’ in the context of IRE. Indications of such a process are there in the discourse on HIV/AIDS. Most clearly it appears in the reflexive discourse on norms concerning segregation and sexuality, both in words and actions. The norms are well known, but the way in which heeding or not heeding to these norms are discussed implies that they are not conceived as self-evident. The discourse on Islam in the context of IRE enhances the ‘heretical imperative’ among

‘muslims

have instructions’

215

students and teachers. Islamic identity is not given, but is the result of an active, conscious and individual choice, a choice that should but not necessarily does inform behaviour. This modern conception of religion as an individual choice is inherent in the very structure of IRE, but clashes somewhat with the impression gained in most interviews with students. Here Islamic religious affiliation was presented rather as a socially given matter of fact. In this context, the discourse on HIV/AIDS provides support of ‘tradition’ in areas where certain norms are under question due to modernity: gender relations, sexuality and dress code. The discourse constructs female, and by implication male gender in a way that corresponds with a commonplace symbolic role for Muslim women and girls in relation to modernity, as protectors and guardians of the umma (Eickelman & Piscatori 2004: 89–99; Rippin 2005: 298–300), in this case against HIV/AIDS. A good Muslim woman should opt for abstinence, not just because the scriptures demand it, but also because of HIV. To abstain and dress properly is not only Islamically correct, it is also rational.10 As Giddens (1991: 38) has pointed out as a consequence of modernity: ‘To sanction a practice because it is traditional will not do; tradition can be justified, but only in the light of knowledge which is not itself authenticated by tradition.’ HIV/AIDS and local/global Muslim identity In his classic introductory essay to the anthology Ethnic groups and boundaries (1969), anthropologist Fredrik Barth discusses the role of boundary-construction and boundary maintenance in relation to group identity, and in this context in particular points out the importance of ‘overt signals and signs’ as well as ‘basic value orientations’ used by those participating in the process to mark difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Barth 1969: 14). Sociologist of religion Meredith Macguire notes that in such in-group/out-group distinctions, the in-group is constructed not only as different, but also as morally superior to the out-group (McGuire 2002: 215). The discourse on HIV/AIDS in the context or IRE in Kisumu exemplifies these aspects of the construction

10 This is not to say that the girls themselves do not accept and even value such a position as guardians of the community morals in the area of sexuality. Several responses from the female students, in interviews and discussions indicate that they deem the role as protectors of morality, particularly through the way in which they dress, as a meaningful part of their identity.

216

jonas svensson

of a Muslim group identity. Given the connection made with morals, gender relations and the hijab, it appears as if the issue of HIV/AIDS serves to further justifying both ‘overt signals and signs’ and ‘basic value orientations’, that mark boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims, locally as well as globally. Both ‘Christians’ and ‘the West’, not always distinguished in the discourse, have a role in identity construction, mainly as morally inferior, which is thus not only related to the local, but also to the global whole.11 IRE is to foster a unified Muslim identity, and a general umma-conciousness. In the construction of group identity, following Barth, while boundaries against the ‘other’ are erected, internal differences are generally downplayed, or glossed over. At least in the school context, the notion of internal Muslim diversity was not touched upon, and it was even denied. This may also help to explain why Luo promiscuity did not appear as a topic in class in the discourse on HIV, as a feature distinguishing Muslims from ‘the others’. Such references would not contribute to the notion of Muslim unity. Conclusion Others have noted that the discussion on HIV/AIDS within a framework of Islam and dominant versions of Islamic sexual ethics has its problems and limitations (De Waal 2003: 250–251). There are several such indications in the material presented above. The close connection between ‘immorality’ and HIV/AIDS may foster a judgemental attitude towards those affected, regardless of the stress on the Islamic ruling concerning ‘caring for the sick’. The addressing of preventive strategies apart from abstinence and faithfulness is problematic. From an outsider’s perspective, given the gender difference in social control of sexuality, it would furthermore seem more conducive, if the goal was to counter the spread of HIV/AIDS, to focus the discourse on abstinence on the Muslim boys. Given the gender gap in HIV prevalence among teenagers in Kisumu, boys would appear to run a higher risk than girls of encountering a heterosexual partner of the same age who is infected. Even if individual teachers, aware of possible discrepancies

11 Here can be pointed out that the discourse on sex, morality, dress code, female chastity etc. that I could observe in the context of IRE has striking parallels in the discourse among “born-again” Luo Christians discussed in Giessler & Prince 2007.

‘muslims

have instructions’

217

between Islamic ideals and the reality that is indicated in words and in behaviour among the students, indicate in interviews that they would like to address the issue from a practical and pragmatic, rather than Islamic idealistic point of view, IRE does not appear to be the forum in which to do that. On the other hand, although IRE may not be a forum in which the discourse on HIV/AIDS contributes to countering the spread of the disease, the discourse is very much relevant to the subject itself, and its aims and goals, such as these are spelled out in the syllabi. The way in which the issue is addressed serve to strengthen the overall religious worldview, and central aspects of the construction of a Muslim identity. It serves to position Islam as a modern, relevant religion and to strengthen a self-image among students as Muslim, important in a minority situation, distinguishing or rather constructing Muslims as a separate and unified group, despite internal economic, social, ethnic and religious sub-divisional diversity. References Ali, Abdallah Y. 1983. The Holy Qur’an. Text, translation and commentary, Brentwood: Amana. Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Atighetchi, Dariusch. 2007. Islamic Bioethics: Problems and Perspectives. Dordrecht: Springer. Badri, Malik. 1997. The Aids Crisis: An Islamic Socio-Cultural Perspective. Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization. Bakari, Mohamed. 1995. ‘The New {Ulama in Kenya’, in Muhamed Bakari and Saad S. Yahya (eds.), Islam in Kenya: Proceedings of the National Seminar on Contemporary Islam in Kenya. Nairobi: MEWA Publications, 168–193. Barth, Fredrik. 1969. ‘Introduction’, in Fredrik Barth (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Oslo: Univ.forl. Beckerleg, Susan. 1995. ‘ “Brown Sugar” Or Friday Prayers: Youth Choices and Community Building in Coastal Kenya’. African Affairs 94, 23–38. Berger, Peter L. 1979. The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press. ——. 2001. ‘Reflections on the Sociology of Religion Today’. Sociology of Religion 62, 443–454. Beyer, Peter. 2006. Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge. CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics). 2003. Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2003. Calverton: MOH, and ORC Macro. Chande, Abdin. 2000. ‘Radicalism and Reform in East Africa’, in Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (eds.), The History of Islam in Africa. Athens: Ohio Univ. Press, 349–369. Cruise O’Brien, Donald B. 1995. ‘Coping With the Christians: The Muslim Predicament in Kenya.’, in Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle (eds.), Religion and Politics in East Africa. London: James Currey, 200–219.

218

jonas svensson

Duflo, Esther, et al. 2006. Education and HIV/AIDS Prevention: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Western Kenya. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4024. Eickelman, Dale F., and James P. Piscatori. 2004. Muslim Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Esack, Farid. 2007. Muslims Responding to Aids. Mapping Muslim Organizational and Religious Responses. Observatory: Positive Muslims. Esposito, John L., and John J. Donohue. 2006. Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. Geissler, P. Wenzel and Ruth J. Prince. 2007. ‘Life Seen: Touch and Vision in the Making of Sex in Western Kenya’. Journal of Eastern African Studies 1, 123–149. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. The Consequences of Modernity. Polity Press. Glynn, Judith, R. et al. 2004. ‘Does Increased General Schooling Protect Against Hiv Infection? A Study in Four African Cities’. Tropical Medicine & International Health 9, 4–14. Gray, Peter, B. 2004. ‘Hiv and Islam: Is Hiv Prevalence Lower Among Muslims?’. Social Science & Medicine 58, 1751–1756. Hargreaves, James R. et al. 2002. ‘Socioeconomic Status and Risk of Hiv Infection in an Urban Population in Kenya’. Tropical Medicine & International Health 7, 793–802. Hashim, Abdulkadir. 2003. ‘Kadhis’ intellectual legacy in the East African Coast: The contributions of Al-Amin bin Ali Al-Mazrui, Muhammad Kassim Al-Mazrui and Abdulla Saleh Fasry’. International Symposium on Islamic Civilisation in Eastern Africa Kampala, 15–17th December. Hourani, Albert Habib. 1983. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939. New York: Cambridge University Press. IMAU. 1998. Aids Education Through Imams: A Spiritually Motivated Community Effort in Uganda. Kampala: Islamic Medical Association of Uganda. Jaoko, Walter. 2004. ‘Hiv/Aids in Kenya. An Update’, in Aldar S. Bourinbaiar (ed.), Aids Vaccines and Related Topics. Trivandrum: Research signpost. Kresse, Kai. 2003. ‘ “Swahili Enlightenment”? East African Reformist Discourse At the Turning Point: The Example of Sheikh Muhammad Kasim Mazrui’. Journal of Religion in Africa 33, 279–309. Lagarde, Emmanuel et al. 2000. ‘Religion and Protective Behaviours Towards Aids in Rural Senegal’. AIDS 14, 2027–2033. Lincoln, Bruce. 2003. Holy Terrors: Thinking About Religion After September 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Loimeier, Roman. 2003. ‘Patterns and Peculiarities of Islamic Reform in Africa’. Journal of Religion in Africa 33, 237–262. Maina, Kahumbi N. 1995. ‘The Role of the Madrasa System in Muslim Education in Kenya’, in S. S. Yahya and M. Bakari (eds.), Islam in Kenya. Proceedings of the National Seminar on Contemporary Islam in Kenya. Nairobi: MEWA Publications, 323–339. Mandaville, Peter G. 2002. Transnational Muslim Politics Reimagining the Umma. London: Routledge. McGuire, Meredith B. 2002. Religion: The Social Context. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth. Merad, Ali. 1978. ‘Islah’, in B. Lewis, V. L. Ménage and Ch. Pellat (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam II. Leiden: E. J. Brill. MoEST (Ministry of education, science and technology). 2002a. Primary Education Syllabus. Nairobi: Kenya Institute of Education. ——. 2002b. Secondary Education Syllabus. Nairobi: Kenya institute of education. Oded, Arye. 2000. Islam and Politics in Kenya. Boulder: L. Rienner Publishers. Odiwuor, Wycliffe H. 2000. The Impact of Hiv/Aids on Primary Education: A Case Study on Selected Districts of Kenya. Stockholm: Institutionen för internationell pedagogik. Otayek, René and Benjamin F. Soares. 2007. ‘Introduction: Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa’, in Benjamin F. Soares and René Otayek (eds.), Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. New York: Macmillan, 1–26.

‘muslims

have instructions’

219

Positive Muslims. 2004. Hiv, Aids and Islam. Observatory: Positive Muslims. Pouwels, Randall L. 1981. ‘Sh. Al-Amin B. Ali Mazrui and Islamic Modernism in East Africa, 1875–1947’. International Journal of Middle East Studies. 13, 329–345. Rippin, Andrew. 2005. Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. New York: Routledge. Roald, Anne Sofie. 2001. Women in Islam: The Western Experience. London; New York: Routledge. Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage. Rosander, Eva E. and David Westerlund. (eds.) 1997. African Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters Between Sufis and Islamists. Athens: Ohio University Press. Roy, Olivier. 2004. Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. New York: Columbia University Press. Safi, Omid. (ed.) 2003. Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism. Oxford: Oneworld. Seesemann, Rüdiger. 2006. ‘African Islam Or Islam in Africa? Evidence From Kenya’, in Roman Loimeier and Rüdiger Seesemann (eds.), The Global Worlds of the Swahili: Interfaces of Islam, Identity and Space in 19th and 20th-Century. Berlin: Lit. 229–250. ——. 2007. ‘Kenyan Muslims, the Aftermath of 9/11 and the “War on Terror”’, in Benjamin F. Soares and Ren Otayek (eds.), Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 157–176. Shahin, Elmad Eldin. 1995. ‘Salafiyah’, in John L. Esposito (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 463–469. Stenberg, Leif. 1996. The Islamization of Science: Four Muslim Positions Developing an Islamic Modernity. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Trinitapoli, Jenny and Mark D. Regnerus. 2006. ‘Religion and Hiv Risk Behaviors Among Married Men: Initial Results From a Study in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa’. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45, 505–528. UNAIDS/WHO. 2004. Aids Epidemic Update. December 2004. Geneva: UNAIDS/WHO. Vikør, Knut S. 2005. Between God and the Sultan: A History of Islamic Law. London: Hurst. de Waal, Alexander. 2003. Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa. London: C. Hurst. Wadud, Amina. 2006. Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld. WHO/UNAIDS. 2007. New Data on Male Circumcision and HIV Prevention: Policy and Programme Implications. Geneva: WHO/UNAIDS [http://www.who.int/hiv/mediacentre/ MCrecommendations_en.pdf ].

PENTECOSTAL CONGREGRATIONS BETWEEN FAITH HEALING AND CONDEMNATION

‘KEEPING UP APPEARANCES’: SEX AND RELIGION AMONGST UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN UGANDA1 Jo Sadgrove Introduction The recent media coverage of the condom shortage in Uganda, which was caused in no small part by the actions of fundamentalist Christians in the US government, brings to the fore the often unseen but hugely influential power-potential of religious belief in the public sphere and the extent of its impact on people’s lives. Currently however, western scholarship fails to offer a satisfactory means of approaching and understanding the interrelationship between religious belief as principle and religious belief as a motivator of human behaviour. In this paper I attempt to do two things. First, I hope to speak to the emerging debate about the impact that Pentecostalism is suggested as having on the sexual behaviour of young Christian converts in Africa and other parts of the world. Secondly, I want to draw attention to the specific case of Uganda, which is often held up as an HIV success story. Specifically, I seek to demonstrate how studying the impact of becoming ‘born-again’ on the lives and values of university students opens up a set of questions that reach beyond the methodological complexities of evaluating the impact of religious belief on an individual. I hope to show that it is only when a particular church is examined in light of the socio-cultural backgrounds and histories of its members that thorough analysis is possible. Likewise I suggest that an examination of religious belief can offer a new way of furthering ethnographic understanding, particularly in identifying salient social dynamics which are resistant to change and which, rather than being challenged by religious movements, are merely replicated within them. It is my view that knowledge of such dynamics might facilitate a better understanding of how AIDS

1 This research was funded and supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Many thanks to Felicitas Becker for comments on and discussions based around earlier drafts of this paper.

224

jo sadgrove

prevention methods can respond to the cultural and religious trends of Ugandans. Only then can prevention organisations properly understand the nature and impact of their work. Pentecostalism and HIV: the limitations of the literature Assessing and evaluating the variable cultural impact of the often diverse expressions of Pentecostalism is one of the central concerns of much of the recent literature on Christianity in Africa (and in Latin America). Particular attention is paid to its role in transforming culture.2 Increasing attention is also being paid to the impact of the strict moral codes of Pentecostalism on prevailing sexual behavioural patterns. A number of comparative studies that seek to observe correlations between HIV prevalence and particular religious identities suggest that rates are, or are likely to be, lower amongst Pentecostals.3 Of these studies, Kiwanuka et al. provide the only data on actual rates of HIV by religious affiliation. Amongst a sample of 6,366 females and 5,148 males in rural Uganda (Rakai), HIV infection rates were highest amongst the Catholics (19.9%) and Protestants (19.2%) and significantly lower amongst Muslims (14.5%) and Pentecostals (14.6%). Other variables that were assessed and thought to be associated with the decreased rate of infection amongst Pentecostals were lower alcohol consumption, sexual abstinence and fewer sexual partners.4 The studies conducted by Isiugo-Abanihe and Hill et al. are far less detailed in their analyses and fail to pursue the question as to why Pentecostals might have lower rates of extra- and pre-marital sex (EPMS) than affiliates of other churches. Isiugo-Abanihe presents the data and merely states that, out of a sample containing Muslims, Catholics, Protestants and adherents of ‘Indigenous Religion’, Pentecostals are the least likely to have an extra-marital relationship.5 Hill et al. in considering the lower

2 See Marshall, ‘Name of Jesus’, 242. See also Gifford, African Christianity, and Ghana’s New Christianity, Marshall-Fratani, ‘Mediating the Local and Global’. 3 On Africa see Garner, ‘Safe Sects?’, Kiwanuka et al., ‘Religion, Behaviours and Circumcision’, Isiugo-Abanihe ‘Extra-marital Relations’. On Latin America see Hill et al., ‘Religious Affiliation’. Another study which considers the impact of ‘Spirit-type’ churches with ‘strict moral codes’ on HIV prevalence is Gregson et al., ‘Apostles and Zionists’. 4 See Kiwanuka et al., ‘Religion, Behaviours and Circumcision’. 5 Isiugo-Abanihe, ‘Extra-marital Relations’, 118.

‘keeping

up appearances’

225

rates of extra-marital partnership amongst evangelical Christians suggest that: The majority of evangelical groups in Brazil are Pentecostal and although Pentecostals are a diverse group, they share a belief that life should be centred around religion. Adherents tend to be devout, reject ‘sinful’ behaviour and are encouraged to have strict moral codes that challenge the conduct of the larger society.6

Garner’s comparative study of a 79-person sample of ‘No church’, Mainline (‘established or mission’), Pentecostal, Zionist and Apostolic in Edendale, KwaZulu Natal, offers the fullest consideration of how the Pentecostal church, members of which present the lowest reported rates of extra- and pre-marital sex in his sample, actually impacts on the sexual behaviour of its members. He argues, ‘Four aspects of any ideological group will determine its power to affect the behaviour of members, especially when the ideology promotes behaviour which runs counter to perceived self-interest or cultural norms.’ These categories are indoctrination (‘the methods and depth of the group’s educational programme . . . usually dominated by its approach to Bible teaching’), religious/subjective experience (‘the strength of subjective experience of the group member’), exclusion (‘the discontinuity or boundary the group perceives between its members and society at large’) and socialisation (‘how does the group create and maintain these boundaries?’).7 The Pentecostal church is found to possess high levels of each of these aspects and it is this that explains the more powerful capacity of this church to effect a behaviour change among its members. Garner’s study is by far the most thorough attempt to explore and recognise the different capacities of religious organisations to affect behaviour. Particularly important is his attempt to locate and understand exactly how the capacity of the church to affect behaviour is configured. This represents a move beyond the rather one-dimensional approach of the studies of Isiugo-Abanihe and Hill et al., which unquestioningly accept reported correlations between religious affiliation and lower rates of sexual activity, solely on the evidence of strict moral teachings concerning such matters. However, existing studies rely on reported sexual behaviour without paying significant attention to the fact that 6 7

Hill et al., ‘Religious Affiliation’, 20. Garner, ‘Safe Sects’, 48–49.

226

jo sadgrove

people are highly likely to underreport behaviour that runs counter to the ideological teachings of the particular churches of which they are members. Underreporting is particularly likely in discussions at which other church members are present and where the threat of exclusion exists for those who fail to maintain the required standards of behaviour. Closer examination of the nature of the social groups fostered by bornagain, Pentecostal groups reveals a likely disjuncture between statements referring to behaviour and actual behaviour, because of the social roles that such statements play amongst born-again peer groups. My own study examines in detail the lifestyles, attitudes and beliefs of a group of 25 students at Makerere University, Kampala, who belong to a born-again, cell-based church, the expressions of which are Pentecostal. I spent ten months living in a student hostel just outside campus, which provided an excellent opportunity to live and talk with the group of Christians, and also to observe the sexual and social behaviours of those who are born-again and those who are not. My findings support existing data that suggests that it is the distinct social environments and socialising styles of born-again Christian members that are most likely to impact on their sexual behaviour. I argue that whilst, like Garner, I accept that such groups foster a type of social control that can impact upon the sexual behaviour of members, the effects of such control may not always work in ways that are conducive to HIV prevention. Little of the limited but emerging literature on Pentecostals in the HIV-prevention debate acknowledges the importance of fully contextualising the churches and church members under study. Attention is rarely paid to the specific messages that churches preach, or to existing world-views and values that determine the interpretation and application of such messages on the part of congregation members. Studies instead prefer to focus on directing questions towards sexual behaviour without considering how attitudes to sex are framed within the tradition or society. The category ‘Pentecostal’ represents a heterogeneous collection of churches with often very distinct theological messages. Within Kampala alone, there is huge diversity in terms of theological emphasis, liturgical style, values preached and social opportunities on offer to members. To better understand the ways in which people interpret and appropriate the messages they hear in their own churches, it is necessary to provide detailed information not only about the ethos of the church itself, but also about the demographic and socio-economic backgrounds and concerns of the people who are attending such churches and why they

‘keeping

up appearances’

227

have chosen to attend a particular church. Aside from the diversity in beliefs, the particular and powerful attractions that churches hold for members beyond the theological content should be considered in any study to allow for a more thorough analysis of the data.8 Further complicating the matter are the variable motivations on the part of members to join and attend. To become ‘born-again’ means very different things to different people.9 One’s motivation for joining a church will strongly influence what one takes away from the experience. A person who is after protection from evil spirits may be committed to prayer and deliverance services but may see little importance in curbing his or her sexual behaviour. It may even be the case that, despite media campaigns about HIV, the need for careful sexual behaviour is deemed of little consequence once one is afforded the ‘protection of Christ’.10 It would not be difficult to see how the variables in theology and individual interpretation could be dangerously combined. In any study that considers the impact of belief on the behaviour of one who holds such belief, it is the task of the researcher to evaluate and weigh up the likely impact of a set of often contradictory variables. In a study about belief and behaviour, the complicated interpretation process on the part of individuals as a means of moving from one to the other cannot be assumed or overlooked. The ‘interpretation from below’ of religious messages must also be made the subject of enquiry. This requires an awareness of religio-philosophical world-views and prevailing social and economic dynamics that influence congregation members. Literature on religious conversion in Africa over the past 100 years demonstrates the fact that cultural world-views have often been seen to dictate what it is that resonates most strongly with adherents 8 For example, entry into ‘the right’ social network, youth groups and sports teams has proved an important motivator for becoming born-again amongst Ugandan students. 9 Amongst the born-again Christians I have spoken to in my own research, motivations are variable. Some mentioned include becoming part of a peer group and a social scene, liking the liveliness and energy of the worship and music, to ensure the avoidance of hell, to be protected from bullies at school, to be protected from evil spirits, wanting to ‘transform one’s life’ away from drinking, the use of pornography or a ‘sexually loose’ lifestyle. 10 Two studies have demonstrated that ‘women from the Christian churches were more likely to report a lower level of AIDS risk than those among the non-Christian groups’, Takyi, ‘Religion and Women’s Health’, 1226. See also Lagarde et al., ‘Religion and Protective Behaviours’, which suggests that both men and women ‘who considered religion to be very important were less likely to report intentions to change to protect themselves from AIDS’, 2030.

228

jo sadgrove

from what is preached, and so what is taken and applied in their daily lives.11 Even if an emphasis is placed on the value of sexual morality, there is no guarantee that this is what will be noted as significant by members of the congregation and so applied.12 HIV Prevention in Uganda Uganda, which in the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic was one of the worst affected countries in Africa, if not the world, is now often hailed by the global community as an HIV success story.13 Since the first AIDS cases were identified in Uganda in 1982, prevalence rates peaked at 30% in some urban areas in 1992, but by 1999 average national prevalence rates had declined to 8.3%.14 While there is some dispute over the interpretation of the Uganda figures, it is generally held that the success of the national response to HIV in Uganda is the result of the government policy of political openness about the disease and high levels of co-operation between government, health organisations and NGOs (including religious organisations). The Ugandan government’s behavioural change campaign focused on three main tenets, now known as the famous ABC approach: Abstinence (which includes delaying sexual debut amongst the youth), Being faithful to one partner once sexually active (‘zero grazing outside your own field’ was the government’s catchphrase), and Condoms if indulging in sexual activity with multiple partners.

11 See Horton, ‘African Conversion’, Meyer, Translating the Devil and ‘If You Are a Devil’. 12 I have been to many Pentecostal churches in Uganda where I never heard mention of ethical values or their implications for the behaviour of members; instead emphasis is commonly placed on healing ministries, the deliverance of members from spirit or demonic possession or, where the hugely popular Faith Gospel is preached, the encouragement of members to break out of poverty. ‘According to the Faith Gospel, God has met all the needs of human beings in the suffering and death of Christ, and every Christian should now share the victory of Christ over sin, sickness and poverty. A believer has the right to the blessings of health and wealth won by Christ, and he or she can obtain these blessings merely by a positive confession of faith.’ Gifford, African Christianity, 39. 13 USAID, ‘What Happened in Uganda’, 2. 14 UAC, ‘Twenty Years of HIV/AIDS’, 1. The UNAIDS study of sero-prevalence among 15–19 year old pregnant women, believed to be reflective of general HIV influence, put these figures as peaking at around 15% in 1991 and falling to 5% by 2001. See USAID, ‘What Happened in Uganda’, 2.

‘keeping

up appearances’

229

Five years on, policy has changed and the emphasis of the national HIV campaign has shifted to abstinence and fidelity, seemingly at the expense of condoms. ABC has come to be re-interpreted as ‘Abstinence the Best Choice’. This shift is influenced in no small part by the $15 billion US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which is based around the ideology of the religious right’s ‘abstinence until marriage’ programmes of the 1980s. The apparent change in policy has been particularly topical in the international press during the last year, because of the condom crisis in Uganda for which the US-funded emphasis on abstinence is deemed responsible.15 Although the Ugandan government is denying the shift, the billboards around Kampala that once advertised condoms are now full of abstinence messages and one HIV organisation that I visited complained of the ‘wrangles’ they were involved in with the government over the promotion of condoms.16 Human Rights Watch recently produced a paper heavily criticising the implementation of abstinence-only programmes stating that ‘numerous U.S.-funded studies have shown these programs to be ineffective at changing young people’s sexual behaviour and to cause potential harm by discouraging the use of contraception’.17 This ongoing policy crisis not only demonstrates the often contentious influence of donor policy, but also brings to public attention some of the problems with and complexities entailed by the promotion of abstinence at the expense of condom use, whether by the government or by the rapidly growing Pentecostal churches in Uganda. Although the churches may have a different and more influential capacity to affect the sexual behaviour of members through the promotion of abstinence, many of the issues cited above in respect to the ‘secular’ campaign may 15 For recent media coverage see ‘US “Harming” Uganda’s AIDS Battle’, BBC News, 30 August 2005, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/4195968/ stm, ‘UN Official Blames US for Condom Shortage in Uganda’, USA Today, 29 August 2005, available at http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005–08–29–usuganda-aids_x.htm, ‘Uganda says “No Condom Crisis” but Abstinence is Best’, Reuters, 30 August 2005, available at http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ nm/20050830/wl_nm/uganda_condoms_dc_1, ‘Politics: Condoms Lose Ground in HIV Prevention’, Inter Press Service, 31 August 2005, available at http://allafrica .com/stories/200509010002.html. 16 See ‘Government Weighs Forced HIV Tests before Marriage’, The Monitor, 3 April 2005, ‘Ugandan Officials say Nation does not Face Condom Crisis’, Advocate.com, 2 September 2005, http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid20275.asp. 17 Human Rights Watch, ‘The Less They Know the Better’, 1. See also the letter from a young Ugandan, ‘Abstinence Policy is Misleading’, The Sunday Monitor, 10 July 2005.

230

jo sadgrove

well be applicable to the religiously based abstinence campaign. In any case, at present in Uganda it is difficult to tell the ‘secular’ and religious campaigns apart. There are intimate links between the government of Uganda and born-again Christians in Uganda. Many of the most influential Ugandans at government level are born-again Christians; not least the woman who is doing much to rally the abstinence-only campaigns amongst the youth, Janet Museveni, wife of the president. Makerere University The abstinence campaign is highly evident around the campus of Makerere. In November 2002 Mrs Museveni spoke to students on campus about the importance of living ‘morally upright lives’. This was allegedly in the wake of a press report that 75% of the blood donated by students of Makerere University was HIV-positive. Mrs Museveni pointed to the ‘sugar daddies who are every campus girl’s dream’. She suggested that ‘many campus girls aim at men who can give them the 3Cs—cars, cash and cell phones’. Mrs Museveni failed to acknowledge that the young students she was addressing were sexually active, insisting that ‘there should be no sexual relations at Makerere because Makerere is an institution for education and not for sex’, and advising the youth to turn to God for spiritual help. However, she did draw attention to the aggressive campus dynamic of transactional sex and its implications for the spread of HIV.18 ‘No Romance without finance’ The majority of sexual relationships between student members of Makerere University are characterised to some degree by the giving of commodities such as clothing, luxury goods, money and food. The easiest and most common way for a man to approach and express his interest in and feelings for a woman is with a gift. Although a normal part of relationships based on mutual attraction and affection, the giving of commodities has become closely implicated in motivating and driving sexual behaviour in other ways because of tacit understandings

18 Reported in ‘Woes of the Young and Restless: Youth—the Season Made for Love’, New Vision, 21 November 2002.

‘keeping

up appearances’

231

of reciprocity between women and men, and environmental factors of poverty, ‘the materialism that results from poverty’19 and financial need. The lines between sexual relationships that are not primarily motivated by exchange, and so would exist if the element of giving were removed, and those that are primarily based on exchange are blurry, because of the general significance of gifting and exchange in romantic relationships. This can make it extremely difficult for the outside observer to quantify the proportion of sexual relationships that exist only as a series of ‘something for something’20 transactions, and those in which sexual intimacy is motivated by a broader set of emotional, physical, social and relational concerns. Transactional sexual relationships amongst young people, whereby sexual intercourse is dependent on or positively associated with the woman’s reception of gifts, reflect broader relationship trends in Uganda. The exchange of sex for commodities, money and opportunities such as ‘sexually transmitted marks’21 whereby school and university students sleep with teachers and lecturers to obtain good class marks, is discussed in a growing body of literature which considers and describes the motivations behind sexual behaviour amongst school-aged youth in Uganda.22 The transactional nature of sexual behaviour is formed when students are at school but takes on more aggressive forms at university when lifestyle costs are higher, there is total freedom of movement and the peer group influence, which heavily promotes the attitude that ‘you

19 Jimmy Mutalya, 21, 3rd-year economics student, KPC born-again Christian, 14 July 2005. 20 John Ahabwe, 30, 3rd-year history student, 3 July 2005. According to John, the expression ‘something for something’ has been widely used to refer to and describe practices of corruption and bribery in political processes in Uganda. A recent HIVprevention NGO campaign recognising the prevalence of transactional sexual relationships and devised to target youth who are implicated in such exchanges has begun to use the expression to refer to transactional relationships. This expression was chosen as ‘de-toothing’ was deemed to have negative connotations and to be stigmatising. Deus Mukalazi, Project Officer, Young Empowered and Healthy (YEAH), 13 January 2006. 21 Matthias Tezikuba, Regional Co-ordinator, Youth Alive, Kampala 18 January 2006. 22 See Bohmer and Kirumira, ‘Socio-Economic Context’, Kinsman et al., ‘Socialising Influences’ and ‘Negotiation of Sexual Relationships’. On other areas of Africa where similar sexual behavioural patterns are found amongst both school and university aged youth, see Okonkwo et al., ‘Perception of Peers’, Oindo, ‘Contraception and Sexuality’ and FHI, ‘Iringa Youth Behaviour’.

232

jo sadgrove

can’t be in campus without a girl/boyfriend’,23 assumes a more central role in the absence of parental influence. De-toothing, whereby a woman will analogously extract a man’s teeth one by one, until he is left with nothing, describes the behaviour of women who use their sexuality and the promise of sexual contact in the future as a bargaining tool to extract money and materials from men. It is one of the most evident dynamics on campus where transactional sexual behaviour is particularly aggressive as: poor girls coming to campus for the first time from the village see the campus girls walking around with good hair, nice clothes, mobile phones and even cars. They want to get those things too and the easiest way is to get a rich older man and de-tooth him.24

There is a very strong element of peer group pressure, which exacerbates the concern with materialism and more importantly maintaining the visibility of success through being seen to own luxury items. Discussions with students around the hostel (who were not born-again) suggested that a man will ‘bench’ a few women at any one time because ‘you can’t put all of your eggs in one basket’. Benching is ‘when someone comes up to you and is nice to you and their agenda isn’t known to you’.25 Having approached a woman, a man will start to bring her gifts. The most common gift at the outset is mobile phone credit which, according to the men and women I spoke to, will be indirectly requested in a girl’s explanation that the reason she did not call or text was that she had no airtime. Other gifts might include grocery shopping, CDs and clothes as well as paying for dinner and drinks when the couple go out. As one female de-toother suggested: If you learn the art of de-toothing you can de-tooth anything—drinks, airtime, money. The first two tests are airtime and drinks. Then if he passes, you tell him ‘my phone has a problem’ and he wants to stay in touch so he buys you a phone.26

These are the basic rules for dating on campus and reflect the dominant ways in which young people understand and express feelings of value

23 James Lwanga, youth worker, Campus Alliance to Wipe out AIDS (CAWA), 20 July 2005. 24 Freddie Mwenda, 21, 2nd-year economics student, 12 April 2005. 25 Jenny Namutebi, 22, 3rd-year mass communication student, 20 April 2005. 26 Bena Nansubuga, 23, 2nd-year computer programming student, 11 November 2005.

‘keeping

up appearances’

233

and affection for another by tangible and visible means: ‘If you don’t give a Ugandan chick anything, she thinks you don’t like her’.27 In an open informal discussion about de-toothing amongst 20 male students, all of them complained that campus women were too expensive for them to manage and cited money as the biggest impediment to having a girlfriend. The security guard at the hostel, himself a student, considered the length and cost he would go to in pursuit of a girl: The thing is, a girl can say ‘before I do that (sex) I want a home cinema system’ and you give it to her and she just runs. It happens all the time and the guy can’t do anything. But mostly you just keep going until you’re tired or the reserves are exhausted.28

Given the financial limitations of young campus men, women have turned their attention to older, financially stable, successful and, frequently, married men. These men are often referred to as ‘twelve-month contracts’ as they are required only for the duration of the school year when lifestyle costs and demands are high. From these older men, some women have managed to extract university residence fees, living costs and cars. Although this shows great resourcefulness on the part of Ugandan women, it is also the case that their ability to negotiate the terms of their sexual interactions with these men is compromised on account of what two male students referred to as the ‘unspoken rule’ that if a man pursues a woman with gifts and she allows him to by spending time with him, it is ‘assumed’ that sex will follow. Although some girls are able to take what they can get and then run off when reserves are exhausted, others do not manage to get out of the reciprocal sexual ‘obligation’, even though they may not want to have sex with the person who is funding their lifestyle.29 As one de-toother suggested, ‘most of us women who de-tooth don’t want to have sex, but Jimmy Mutalya, 20 July 2005. John Ahabwe, 30, history student, 3 July 2005. 29 Other research supports the fact that the negotiation of sexual activity on the part of women is heavily compromised when the dominant sexual culture is transactional. However, the studies I have seen fail to acknowledge how huge an influence the transactional element is on the sexual behaviour of young people. At Makerere Campus it is easy to see that de-toothing is the biggest determinant of sexual behaviour, as suggested by Sarah Mayanja, an education policy worker at USAID, Kampala, Humphrey Asiimwe, Youth Pastor at KPC, John Ekudu-Adoku, Dean of Students at Makerere University as well as many students. Studies which do recognise the importance of transaction for sexual behaviour and so HIV-prevention include Nyanzi et al., ‘The Negotiation of Sexual Relationships’, Luke et al., ‘Cross-generational and Transactional Sexual Relations’, especially 20–27. One study which considers the financial aspects of 27 28

234

jo sadgrove

if a government minister buys you a car, how can you run away from him? You have no choice but to have sex’.30 Having told me that she didn’t use condoms, I asked her whether she was afraid of contracting HIV and she told me that she never really thought about it, but in any case she’d rather die rich at 30 than poor at 70. Encouraging female de-toothers to talk to me about their experiences with sugar daddies was extremely difficult because, although people acknowledge the predominance of transactional sexual relationships, few want to publicly admit to de-toothing, not least because doing so will compromise their future relationship opportunities. The three women who did speak to me talked about the discomfort and fear that the situation put them in: The most I ever got from a guy is a phone and 6 months rent (of 100,000 Ush per week). The guy was 10 years older and a banker. I never had sex with him but I was careful to choose the ‘company type’; those who want company. It makes you feel bad. You’re never sure; the person could attack you at any time. When he calls you, you have to run to him. You feel very uncomfortable.31

When I asked Assumpta why she engaged in behaviour that obviously made her feel uncomfortable, she said that she did it because the man in question was persistent and because she didn’t like him and so saw no problem in using him financially. I spoke with one student, Albert, who was de-toothed (by a bornagain girl) to the tune of one million shillings (roughly £300) over a one-month period. According to Albert, the girl would call him constantly, complaining that she had no money to service her car or to buy fuel amongst other things. After the month was over, she appeared with a much older man and told Albert that he (the older man) was her boyfriend. There are a number of interesting facts about this case. During the month-long courtship, Albert and his ‘girlfriend’ did not have sex.32 This is important for two reasons; first because the girl in both boys in ‘affording’ sex and girls in negotiating safer sex is Amuyunzu-Nyamongo et al., ‘Qualitative Evidence’. 30 Brigitte Kwera, 21, 1st-year computer science student, 15 January 2006. 31 Assumpta Nabossa, 22, 2nd-year law student, 10 November 2005. 100,000 Ush is about $55. 32 According to many of the men I spoke to, the absence of sexual relations when expenditure is high is a sure sign that you are being de-toothed, although many men will hold out and keep spending, waiting for girls to ‘break’.

‘keeping

up appearances’

235

question used her born-again status as a means of avoiding the sexual pressure entailed by ‘de-toothing’. This points to one of the ways in which the identity of being born-again can be manipulated and in many cases may offer a genuine platform from which girls and women feel empowered to reject the unwanted sexual advances of men.33 However as my own data suggests, it would be wrong to assume that born-again women are not having sex at all; rather it is feasible that the public declaration of a born-again identity offers the possibility of its manipulation and use in a situation where a woman wants to avoid sex. Secondly it draws attention to the fact that de-toothing is primarily about withholding sex. Although mutual sexual relationships carry a heavy financial component, de-toothing is about extracting money on the promise of sex in the future. However, it is very difficult for women to maintain their position because of the implicit understandings of reciprocity which gift-giving invokes, and the expectations of men. Such expectations are enforced by inherited, gendered authority structures which, from childhood, encourage women to ‘fear, respect and obey’ the demands of older men.34 Whilst women are engaging in sexual activity with older men for material goods, they often have ‘campus boyfriends’ to whom they are emotionally attached. One ‘campus boyfriend’ told me that he knew all about his girlfriend sleeping with an older man to fund her university lifestyle. This was acceptable to him as he could not afford to fund the relationship and the money that his girlfriend acquired paid for them to go out together. This is not an unusual attitude or scenario. The real danger of such sexual dynamics is the multiple partner networks that facilitate the spread of STDs and HIV. First, many of the men who are engaging in sexual activity with campus girls are older, are more sexually experienced and so are more likely to have been exposed to HIV. The triangle of girl/campus boyfriend/sugar daddy ensures that if HIV is present it moves very quickly through the networks into the student community and/or to the family of the older man. Whether the sex in these relationships is safe is difficult to gauge. Literature suggests that

33 Marshall also considers the positive implications of a born-again identity for women’s control over their sexual encounters. Marshall, ‘Name of Jesus’, 232. Two of my female respondents also suggested the same, as did some of the men who believed it to be an ‘excuse’ on the part of the women to keep them at bay. 34 Christopher Sempa, 24, 2nd-year philosophy student, 20 July 2005.

236

jo sadgrove

it is often not, even when knowledge of safe sex is high.35 My research suggests that amongst students, knowledge about and use of condoms is inconsistent and, particularly since the national shortage began ten months ago, condoms are hard to acquire on campus.36 Born-agains and abstinence on campus Amidst this risky sexual dynamic, Makerere, like the rest of Uganda, is undergoing a born-again revolution. Many students identify themselves as ‘born-again’ or ‘saved’, and increasing numbers are joining the trend. This is in part the result of the promotional activities of churches via networks in their congregations around Makerere’s campus. People are very public about their born-again status and, with increasing numbers around Makerere, they are often found discussing their theologies in classrooms, in canteens and in public fellowships around the university. Generally, they proselytise whenever they can. My detailed fieldwork focuses on a group of 25 Makerere University students from Kampala Pentecostal Church (KPC). KPC is an Englishspeaking church, run by a Canadian pastor, in the centre of Kampala.37 The theology of the preaching is very much centred on ‘values’ and is concerned with transforming individuals one by one, enabling them to bring healing to the city and the country, leading by example. As a result there is a strong behavioural emphasis.38 The core idea is of a Christian revolution based around Christian understandings of love, knowledge of which is discerned through the nature of a loving, personal 35 ‘Knowledge of safe-sex behaviour and reported behaviour have little in common and the fundamental barriers to behavioural change lie within the economic and sociocultural context that molds the sexual politics of youth’, Hulton et al., ‘Perceptions of the Risks’, 35–46. See also Sekirime et al., ‘Knowledge, Attitude and Practice’, Okonkwo et al., ‘Perception of Peers’ and Rassjo and Darj ‘Safe Sex Advice’. 36 On condom use at Makerere the only detailed study is now rather dated: Lule & Gruer, ‘Sexual Behaviour’. On condom availability on campus see ‘Abolish Tax on Condoms’, New Vision, 7 September 2005. In early 2005, the Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students of Makerere University led students to demonstrate against, amongst other things, the use of condoms, showing top level suspicion and lack of support for condoms on campus. See ‘Makerere University in another Misguided March’, The Monitor, 17 March 2005. 37 For more information on the mission, funding, outreach, activities of KPC see www.kpc.co.ug and Gifford, African Christianity, 102–104. 38 This is reflected in KPC’s mission statement: ‘An English Speaking Cell Base community Church celebrating Christ as each one reaches one, touching those around us with the love of Jesus bringing healing to the city and to the nation’.

‘keeping

up appearances’

237

relationship with God. There is a heavy stress on the aspect of social responsibility espoused by the gospel and the responsibility of Christians to live out their faith in society. During my time there, as part of an annual cycle considering ‘Contemporary Influences on Society’, the preaching was structured around the subject of ‘Reflecting the Character of God in our Communities’, and focused on the role and duty of Christians to challenge ‘animistic’ and secular world-views. This was done by examining in considerable theological detail the aspects of the character of God and urging people to emulate and replicate them in their jobs, families and communities.39 Pastors at KPC are critical of churches that preach prosperity40 on the grounds that they encourage gift-giving on the part of members without being financially accountable.41 Pastors are also sceptical about deliverance ministries, which explain all misfortune in terms of spirits and the devil and represent a ‘quick fix’ rather than the transformative experience of an individual through a relationship with Christ.42 Preaching on sexual behaviour was minimal. I recorded only three explicit references to the desirable model for the sexual behaviour of the youth; one during the Sunday service celebrating campus graduation, in which the pastor prayed that:

39 Characteristics considered included God’s holiness, generosity and mercy, righteous justice, goodness, unconditional love, grace and faithfulness. The aim was to enable congregation members to understand the implications of these characteristics for both their individual and unique relationships with God and their daily lives. As Christ is truth ‘we must be a people of truth both personally and collectively . . . the standard is the character of God and the word of God and we must line ourselves up with these standards to ensure that private integrity makes us worthy of public office’. Pastor Gary Skinner, Sunday 24 April 2005. 40 Prosperity propounds the idea that ‘God has met all the needs of human beings in the suffering and death of Christ, and every Christian should now share the victory of Christ over sin, sickness and poverty. A believer has a right to the blessings of health and wealth won by Christ, and he or she can obtain these blessings merely by a positive confession of faith’, Gifford, African Christianity, 39. 41 KPC publishes its accounts every month. One member of KPC stated that she had chosen to go to KPC because of the fact that they are accountable and their accounts are audited professionally and published. 42 The implications of such preaching may also discourage some from equating sickness and suffering with external evil forces. I believe that discouraging the idea of personalised evil agents will encourage people to take greater responsibility for their situations. One young American pastor preached ‘sometimes we give Satan too much credit. He only has as much power as we give him . . . We want to deliver people from sickness which may not be a spiritual demon inside you; it may just be a physical sickness’, Deliverance Praise Rally, 18 June 2005.

238

jo sadgrove University students choose abstinence instead of condoms and will lobby the government for laws against pornography. Let every university student be able to stand against condoms in favour of abstinence. Let every university student stand for righteousness.43

Another came during a Youth Bible Study: Sin is a big problem to God and Christians. The condomised culture is becoming normal but we stick to ABC—Abstinence, Be faithful, Christ!— as the answer. People pump it ‘it’s ok as long as you use condoms’. No! the condom culture is not the kingdom culture.44

The promotion of abstinence as the ideal model for sexual behaviour amongst the unmarried is more commonly referred to during the big campus-based youth fellowship meetings run by KPC and, occasionally, in cell groups when questions of sexuality arise. It was KPC’s more circumscribed perspective on the devil, rejection of prosperity and, instead, emphasis on personal and social values and the responsibility of Christians to represent and live out their faith in the community that led me to focus my research around its members. Out of all the preaching I had heard in Kampala, it was this message that spoke most directly to concerns about encouraging personal, social and sexual responsibility amongst members, if not in the constant messages preached that emphasised responsibility, then in challenging the predominance of materialism, the motivator of much sexual behaviour, by decrying prosperity. The 25 students considered in this study are all residents of the most expensive student residence around campus. A basic level of familial financial stability can therefore be assumed for most of those who live there. The born-again students who are the focus of my research are comfortably off and well educated. They are between 20 and 25 years old and undergraduate students at Makerere. Thirteen are male and twelve are female. I met the students by joining two of KPC’s cell groups as a participant-observer.45 Having spent four months getting to know

Pastor Gary Skinner, Campus Graduation Sunday, 13 March 2005. Pastor Chris Komagum, Youth Bible Study, 1 December 2005. 45 A cell is a group of 5–10 church members who meet every Wednesday night to talk and pray together. Every member of KPC is assigned a cell group on joining the church. Cell groups are open to people who are not born-again and in any meeting there are usually 1 or 2 members present who use the group as a ‘counselling service’ to discuss their current concerns. Each cell group is led by one of its members and the format follows a printed agenda with ‘ice-breaker’ questions to get people talking, a Bible 43 44

‘keeping

up appearances’

239

members through their cell groups, I then carried out in-depth informal interviews to try to ascertain what it meant to them to say that they were born-again, how they understood salvation and the implications of this for the ways in which they lived their lives. I also attended the youth Bible study service and Sunday service at KPC every week and during the university holidays I occasionally joined in with other youth groups at KPC.46 I did try talking to members of other KPC groups as and when I met them around the church, but it was clear that the fact that they did not know me made them reluctant to discuss their faith and behaviour with me. Sexual behaviour, de-toothing and being born-again With regards to sexual behaviour, eleven out of twenty-five respondents (four female, seven male) told me that they were, or had been, involved in sexual relationships since becoming born-again. Of the fourteen who said that they had managed to abstain since becoming saved, half had become born-again when at primary school so, during their teenage years, had been under the influence of a religiously based abstinence message, and more importantly socialised amongst born-again peer groups who reinforced this message. I suspect that the age at which people became born-again affects their capacity and desire to abstain. Two of my born-again students and many of those who were not bornagain suggested that it is easy to abstain from sex if you have never had it, but almost impossible if you have, born-again or not. None of the born-again students who admitted to being sexually active were virgins when they became born-again. All the sexually active born-again women and six of the men were in long term, committed relationships. One of the men had ‘backslid’ and left the church during his sexual relationship but was now fully committed again and abstaining. Only one of the men reported casual sex once born-again and that had been a ‘one off’. Another of the men, at the time of interview,

text and then questions based loosely around the text to guide discussion. Generally the themes of these agenda are linked to those of the week’s preaching. 46 Aside from the cell groups, each year group at Makerere has its own fellowship group and there are groups for graduates and mature members of the congregation, which meet every week. There is also a fellowship led by a pastor for all campus students and another for all secondary and university level youth. Both groups meet once a month.

240

jo sadgrove

had stopped worshipping at KPC as a result of his behaviour and the implied hypocrisy. One of the male respondents who admitted to having a sexual partner ‘for sexual satisfaction’ also had a born-again girlfriend with whom he was abstaining. All reported feelings of guilt at the times during which they had been both born-again and sexually active, although guilt alone was rarely enough to stop somebody having sex. All pointed to the theology of sin and repentance as a means of ‘getting back to God’. Four quoted the first half of Proverbs 24:16 ‘for a righteous man falls seven times, and rises up again’, saying that ‘it’s not about the falling down but rather the getting up again’. This suggests that, amongst other things, theological messages about sin and repentance should be considered by anyone examining the impact of moral proscriptions of sexual activity amongst born-again Christians. Two people pointed to the fact that repentance has to be done ‘with a sincere heart’ for one to be forgiven, but the others did not qualify the notion at all, implying that, for some, the option of repentance after sexual acts undermines the strength of the abstinence message put forward by the church.47 Among those who admitted to sexual activity whilst being born-again, use of condoms was variable. Six members (four male, two female) said they used condoms ‘sometimes’, two suggested that they always used condoms (one female, one male), and three did not use condoms because ‘they are incompatible with the gospel culture’,48 a direct citing from KPC’s preaching on condoms. One female respondent said that she had used condoms during the first few months of her three-year relationship, but no longer used them because to insist on them would be to express her mistrust of her partner.49 Regarding de-toothing, it was difficult to gauge the extent to which born-again women and men were involved in this economy and if so,

Irrespective of punishment, there is a clear emphasis in preaching and amongst the attitudes of respondents on the consequences of sinful behaviour: pregnancy, STDs and HIV were cited as the consequences of sexual sin, alongside guilt. However, these are all known consequences of sex and knowledge of them seems to have had very little impact on sexual behaviour in wider society as already mentioned, suggesting that knowledge of consequence is not enough seriously to affect behaviour. 48 Alex Musoke, 24, 3rd-year mass communications, KPC Youth Leader, 10 December 2005. 49 The link between condoms and mistrust between partners is reflected in a number of studies considering condom use and meaning amongst young people in different parts of Africa. See FHI ‘Iringa Youth’, 28, Serikime et al., ‘Knowledge, Attitude’, 21 and Smith, ‘Youth, Sin’, 431. 47

‘keeping

up appearances’

241

whether it was a factor in their sexual behaviour. It was much more difficult to get the women to talk openly than the men, and only three admitted to actually de-toothing whilst being born-again, although they denied having sex with the (older) men in question.50 Over half of the respondents suggested that born-again women de-tooth and often get men from outside the church to fulfil their financial needs: Born-agains can and do detooth. They’re showered with gifts. Something is inhibited in you so guys start giving things. When they give the girl gets used and defines it as the way things should be and then gets caught into having sex with them. Sometimes born-again guys over-assume that girls shouldn’t expect as they’re holy, but they still have to. I’ve done it and so have my friends.51

The perception is that being born-again does not exempt women and men from being implicated in the broader social dynamics of transaction. Rather, given that within the environment of KPC such an explicit material focus in a relationship would be considered as wrong and exploitative, such relating has to be kept secret. Four of the girls suggested that the self-esteem arising from their growing relationship with Christ meant that they no longer needed a man or money to be satisfied. Two of them followed this statement with ‘but if my boyfriend has money, then why shouldn’t I have it?’ Irrespective of a shift in moral framework, there is still a feeling that money is an important part of a relationship and that there is some kind of expectation of financial benefit on the part of the girl. Men also supported this idea. One respondent suggested that ‘Women who are saved don’t ask outright, but if you fail to provide for her (financially) she’ll point out all the things you should do as a boyfriend but aren’t, then that puts pressure on you as you have to maintain it’.52 Another said ‘Even my born-again girlfriend only wanted to see me when I had money. If you don’t have money, maybe a few born-again girls will be content with you, but few’.53

50 Of women who were not born-again, and with the exception of three people, it has so far proved extremely difficult to encourage known de-toothers, identified by their friends and boyfriends as such, to talk openly about their behaviour. 51 Christina Nambi, 25, 3rd-year community psychology, KPC born-again Christian, 21 July 2005. 52 Zak Kimuli, 20, 2nd-year social sciences, KPC cell group leader, 27 July 2005. 53 Jimmy Mutalya, 15 July 2005.

242

jo sadgrove

The nature of relationships on campus and in wider society that relies heavily on gift exchange, in an environment where many are struggling to compete with peers both financially and materially, is pervasive and powerful. Although perhaps over time the influence of certain bornagain environments in encouraging discussion and negotiation between often conflicting and influential messages may impact on the way that members evaluate the choices that they make, I believe that wider cultural attitudes of materialism will frequently outweigh any alternative discourse. As one born-again Christian suggested: Most of the origin of sexual promiscuity is in materialism—girls who want to maintain their status and relationship get involved in sex. When Christians discuss sex they just say ‘It’s bad. Don’t do it’, not emphasising how it comes about. I think sexual promiscuity will reduce if we spoke about that area of materialism.54

Public and private: accountability as a motivator of behaviour One of the most interesting sets of responses was to the question ‘Why does it matter how you behave once you are born-again?’ All but two of the respondents pointed to the issue of what they commonly termed as ‘accountability’. It matters how one behaves because ‘people are watching you—if you’re saved you set a standard’, ‘you’re a role model’, ‘you’re a light in the world’, ‘the way you live out your lifestyle convinces others of what you believe more than your words’, ‘society judges you’, ‘it matters so you give a better example to others’, ‘society knows you’re born-again so there’s high expectations of your life and what you do’. The relationship between one’s ‘saved’ status and the need to appear accountable to society was one of the most dominant themes of the research. Throughout the interviews, many talked of not wanting to be seen as hypocrites. The notion of hypocrisy is, as I understand it, closely linked to the question of social authority. No-one is going to listen to a born-again Christian’s proclamations about how they should behave and the need to give their lives to Christ if that person is known to be saying one thing and doing another. But rather than this authority resting in an individual’s ‘integrity’, either living a life in line with being born-again or being honest about their shortcomings when their behaviour falls short of that lifestyle, it resides in the continuous 54

Zak Kimuli, 27 July 2005.

‘keeping

up appearances’

243

public demonstration of the born-again life. Born-again authority is intimately tied to maintaining the image of being born-again. Although being born-again is very fashionable amongst young people and commands a certain amount of social authority, many people who are not born-again are viewing the trend with scepticism, and people are only too willing to voice their cynicism publicly. One of the KPC members talked of people who are not born-again as being more critical of the behaviour of born-agains than those who are. At least amongst the cell groups of born-again Christians there is a strong element of empathy and mutual support, a recognition of the fallibility of human nature and a framework of Christian understandings of forgiveness and repentance within which ‘sinful’ activity is situated. Within born-again environments, however, there are other difficulties. The pressure to be accountable comes most immediately from members within the cell group. One of the cell group leaders complained of the fact that in the discussions there was too much emphasis on ‘what a Christian should be’ at the expense of talking openly about what is going on in people’s lives and identifying problems ‘in a real way’.55 This is primarily because group members are reluctant to lose face in front of their peers by admitting to behaviour that runs counter to the ideology of the church. It is far safer to focus on conceptualising the ideal Christian than to admit that individually one is falling short of that ideal. Another youth leader at KPC suggested that it is only once one person has come out and admitted having difficulty with, for example, sex, that other members of the group will also admit to having the same problems. Accountability, whilst being a potentially important motivator of behaviour, can also serve to shut down open discussions about how people are behaving. This would prove counter-productive to HIV prevention, implicitly based on openness and honesty not only about sexual modes of transmission but also one’s HIV status and previous sexual partners. Peter, a youth leader at KPC, summed up the complexities of the accountability issue: ‘People fear to be branded a hypocrite. You fear society knowing that you’re indulging. This can make your behaviour

55 Matthew Mulumba, 20, 2nd-year statistics student, KPC cell group leader, 14 July 2005.

244

jo sadgrove

secret. If I drink I’ll drink in my own room. But if you have a basically positive life, the accountability factor encourages you.’56 The idea that in the face of a need to maintain public accountability, behaviour that fails to meet the required standards is pushed underground has obvious dire consequences for those who are considering HIV prevention. Jimmy, a born-again Christian who smokes, drinks and is sexually active, stated that for many a large part of becoming involved in born-again circles relates to the implications for social status and identity. He suggested that for people ‘who don’t want to be associated with anything bad—smoking, drinking—they may as well become born-again’. For Jimmy this is not least because being born-again gets people entry into an increasingly significant social network, improves one’s job prospects (an increasing number of jobs are advertised for born-again Christians, under the assumption that born-again Christians are more honest and trustworthy), and generally provides a social status, identity and ‘place to belong’. Jimmy himself sees no contradiction between his own born-again status and his self-proclaimed addiction to alcohol and cigarettes: Most born-agains don’t drink and smoke. If I have to be seen to be a born-again, I have to be seen not to drink and smoke. When I’m with born-again friends I don’t want them to know I drink and smoke so I act like I don’t.57

One respondent talked of the ‘mask of salvation’: ‘we all put up the mask of “I’m saved and holy” which is a lie. That (salvation) is one thing and your life is another’. The mask of salvation is maintained in a large part through the constant projection of the image of being born-again: ‘walking the walk and talking the talk of salvation’ and so, as a born-again Christian, fulfilling the expectations of both those who are born-again and those who are not in words and, ideally, actions.58 The recognition of the social role that ‘talking the talk of salvation’ plays in maintaining the ‘mask’ of salvation makes it extremely difficult to assess the relationship between what is said and what is done by those who use such talk

Peter Musisi, 21, 2nd-year civil engineering, KPC youth leader, 19 July 2005. Jimmy Mutalya, 29 July, 2005. 58 Paul Kiwanuka, 24, 3rd-year social sciences, KPC born-again Christian, 15 December 2005. 56 57

‘keeping

up appearances’

245

to communicate and consolidate their identity as born-agains. This is particularly likely to be the case in group discussions at which other born-again peers are present and accountability structures are in place. In attempting to examine the relationship between religious identity and sexual behaviour, it is crucial to recognise this difficulty. Linking the two worlds Ugandans wear masks. You can’t know what they’re thinking. When they get Born-again they just get better at hiding the sinning part.59 Ugandans wear a mask—they’re not open—we’re too much concerned with appearances.60

The significance of image, appearance and peer-group influence are recurrent themes that link the dynamic of de-toothing with that of being born-again by acting as influences that motivate behaviour. Both groups referred frequently to the idea of peer-group influence. For those who were not born-again, this was described as peer-group pressure; the pressure to ‘keep up appearances’ by staying ahead of the commodities race; having the most up-to-date mobile phone or the most fashionable clothes. This is exemplified in the aggressive avariciousness of de-toothers; many of whom are not badly off, as the fact that they lived in the most exclusive hostel on campus suggested, but who seem to have a ceaseless desire for bigger and better things, seemingly at the expense of their own health.61 For those who were born-again, peer group came up more frequently as a check on the behaviour of members through ‘peer-group accountability’. This accountability is fostered and maintained by the presence of cell groups, a busy social schedule for those who wanted to join in at the church and an encouragement for members to fellowship together and check up on each other’s welfare outside formal church meetings. Both groups are heavily motivated by appearances; amongst de-toothers, the promise of sexual transaction enables the individual to sustain an appearance that is configured and

Christopher Sempa, 20 July 2005. Sr Cothilda Nalugwa, 27 June 2005. 61 One student told me that he knew girls who changed all the furniture in their room every term. He went on to suggest that ‘First you want what others have, then you want what they don’t have’, Michael Mudimba, 22, 3rd-year mass communications student. 59 60

246

jo sadgrove

communicated through the possession of luxury goods. For the bornagains, the ‘content’ of appearance is based around the received moral teachings of Pentecostalism: don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t have sex outside marriage, don’t judge others and turn the other cheek. In general discussions with Ugandans about the importance of image, I was told ‘Ugandans care about the way they look. If you want to be successful you have to look and act successful’.62 When trying to understand notions of hypocrisy and why there seemed to be, outside born-again circles, little public condemnation of what I understood as dishonesty, I was told that ‘it’s not bad to lie as we’re lying to maintain the image.’63 This goes some way to explaining the unflinching way in which born-again Christians who had told me that they were sexually active would conceal the truth from their peer group without appearing to be too concerned about the implicit dishonesty and hypocrisy of their position. As long as they were not discovered to be lying or hypocritical, it was acceptable. The prime focus was on maintaining public image, so continually cementing and inventing oneself as a bornagain Christian and thereby ensuring peer-group acceptance. A consideration of the sexual dynamics on campus, recognising the importance of peer groups and public image, enables one to examine the impact and influence of broader social dynamics on the interpretation, appropriation and application of religious messages. More than this, it demonstrates that religion can provide an interesting and illuminating way into an examination of cultural change by pointing to recurrent themes that endure and condition a response to outside ideas, in this case Pentecostalism. Implications for HIV prevention The concern with outward appearances, the strength of peer groups who determine what type of outward appearance is acceptable, the importance of material goods and an emphasis on the display of success carry significant implications for an understanding of the dynamics between Pentecostal religious identity and HIV prevention in a way that may not be evident at first glance. As well as pointing to the 62 63

Christopher Sempa, 8 November 2005. Sr Cothilda Nalugwa, 6 November 2005.

‘keeping

up appearances’

247

importance of contextualising any behavioural study, it also points to the need to evaluate closely a complex and interrelated set of dynamics, all of which affect the impact of behavioural messages on the part of religious organisations. It is not as simple as the existing literature on Pentecostalism and sexual behaviour suggests it to be. At the outset of this study, I had hoped to be able to draw attention to the distinct ideological component of different churches and to explore how different theological emphases and messages might have different behavioural impacts. This is important because of the heterogeneity of Pentecostalism and because different ideas and philosophies do correlate with different behavioural effects, as a quick comparative glance at different cultures demonstrates. However, the difficulties are numerous. First there is the problem of the born-again discursive style: the evidence that we have regarding how people respond to particular theological messages is provided in the way that people talk about how they apply those messages in their lives. However, given the nature of the ways in which people talk about their faith and the social roles that such talk plays in ensuring peer group acceptance, it is difficult to tell whether theological messages are determinants of behaviour or post-factum explanations or legitimisations for behaviour. Does the theology of repentance actually encourage the born-again Christian to ignore teachings about abstinence and to have sex? Or is it the case that, having admitted to having sex, to cite a theology of repentance is a way of explaining/legitimising behaviour, or a way of situating sex fully within the born-again Christian context by talking about it in the born-again language? Even if we could somehow get beyond that, there remain a multitude of variables at an individual level that affect behavioural impact, for example: whether a person is in church to listen to what is said and so hears the message; whether there is any kind of uniformity in how groups of people might understand and interpret such messages; whether the message is internalised and made a point of reference in behavioural decisions; and what other influences it is countered against. This makes attempting to analyse the distinction between different types of church and how such distinctions may distinguish the behaviour of members extremely difficult, but it is still important to think about how this might happen and how we might provide evidence for it. If we recognise the importance of peer influence and the content of that influence drastically changes in terms of discourse, social environments and the messages one is receiving,

248

jo sadgrove

then it seems at least possible that there will be a behavioural effect, although it may take a long time for it to happen and such an effect may take unexpected directions. There is a limited amount of evidence from a minority of members of KPC that demonstrates that it is possible for people to make counter-cultural moves in which image as a born-again is sacrificed in the interests of a different concept of honesty where what is said reflects what is done; where ‘truth’ is not conditioned by the need to maintain image and ensure peer acceptance. On different occasions, three of my respondents had admitted to their cell groups that they had been recently sexually active. I was not present at the time of these confessions, but they were attested to by other members of the group. Although this may not seem like a huge move, the sin of sex is one of the sins that ‘can’t be talked about’, because ‘culturally it is too taboo to talk openly of those things’.64 However, the cultural and Pentecostal proscriptions on openly talking about sex were less powerful than the desire to be open; even the risk of damaging one’s image and isolating oneself from one’s peers did not act as a deterrent, as has seemed so often the case amongst the born-again Christians with whom I have spoken. Although perhaps with scant evidence, I can see little social advantage in openly admitting to such behaviour and this in itself represents a shift in attitude and behavioural motivation, however slight. When I asked why these people had been open about their struggle, they reported that initially they had done so in a bid for the support of the group through prayer and advice, invoking the ‘counselling’ aspect of the cell group that many of my KPC respondents had referred to. One of them, Andrew, a youth and cell group leader at KPC, told me that, a year after the end of his sexual relationship, he continued to refer to this period in his ‘salvation’ to encourage his peers to open up. He suggested that ‘no kid will open up until I tell this story, then all the other kids open up about their struggles with sex’, echoing some of the evidence discussed in reference to the role of accountability. Andrew talked about the need ‘to create a place where someone who feels they’ve messed up can come back and feel “that’s where I belong”’. He wished to demonstrate to his peers that if he could ‘fall’ and get up

64

Alex Musoke, 10 December 2005.

‘keeping

up appearances’

249

again and keep going in salvation, then so could other group members.65 By being open about his behaviour he was fulfilling his obligations as a leader to act as a strong example to others. Through these confessions of sexual behaviour we can see once again the importance of ‘being an example’ for others to follow, if not by managing to continually maintain the standards of a saved lifestyle then in demonstrating that one can struggle with the temptation of sex and still come back to that lifestyle. Given the fact that a person’s admission of struggling with sex is reported as encouraging others to open up about their own sexual behaviour, leadership that facilitates this kind of discussion is obviously important. If this type of leadership can continue to be fostered at KPC, a leadership that at some level challenges the importance of keeping up the born-again appearance, then this would allow for a more open discussion of sexual behaviour—a discussion not confined by the public-image aspect of born-again discursive style. This would enable a greater understanding about the levels of sexual activity amongst born-agains and about how motivations to sexual behaviour are situated in relation to born-again Christian beliefs and identities. I see this as a positive step for HIV prevention both in its challenge to prevailing mentalities that privilege the level of appearance and in demonstrating greater openness about sexual activity. There are other aspects of the born-again lifestyle that have negative implications for HIV prevention, closely linked to the question of leadership that encourages ‘open discussion’. Aside from what is, in my opinion, the most dangerous aspect—making sexual behaviour secret in the interests of maintaining image—another example includes the esteem lost by adherents who fail to maintain the high standards of behaviour required. One cell member reflected that being a born-again ‘makes people aware of their weaknesses and where they fall short of God’s hopes for them’.66 Undermining of esteem can lead people to

65 Andrew Kiggundu, 3rd-year social sciences, KPC youth leader, 3 February 2006. Admittedly Andrew has a strong, secure position amongst KPC’s youth ministry so his image and status as a born-again Christians is well established and speaking openly about sexual ‘indiscretions’ that happened over a year ago will do little to damage his reputation now that such behaviour is in the past. At the time of his indiscretions he had been doing fieldwork for his degree, away from KPC, a fact to which he attributes his fall from grace; it was the absence of the accountability structures and the lures of a different peer influence that led him to his troubles. 66 Erica Namutebi, 22, final year economics student, KPC born-again Christian, cell group discussion, 29 June 2005.

250

jo sadgrove

behave more recklessly; to ‘backslide’ into a life of ‘sin’, particularly sexual sin, because they do not believe they are worthy of God’s love. Perhaps more significant for the purposes of this study, backsliders have spoken about estrangement from their born-again peer group as both catalyst and effect of their backsliding. The loss of the peer group reportedly acts as a catalyst because it signifies a removal of accountability structures. One cell group leader at KPC described a period of backsliding that lasted for a year before he returned to KPC: I was living in a hostel with loose, cool people. I didn’t care much. Noone knew me. Often when I’m tempted I can’t do things cause of the position I’m in. That guards me a lot cause of the accountability factors. There no-one knew that I was saved so I let my salvation lay low and talked the talk and walked the walk of a normal campus guy.67

Peer group loss is compounded by backsliding because backsliders seemingly come to idealise the peer group as succeeding at living a saved life where they themselves could not. One student who described himself as a KPC backslider talked of his experience of attending his cell group during a time period in which he was sexually active: I felt so bad. I openly confessed about the sex but then I felt like I shouldn’t be here; that I’m too ugly for this society. A friend told me ‘you’re not alone, others are doing the same thing and just keeping quiet’. People don’t want to talk about sex, in church or out of it. You’re just made to think that it (sex) is not a possibility for anyone in the group.68

Once the element of social support and accountability are lost over a period of time, it is difficult for backsliders to come back to born-again circles. Another of my respondents, in talking about the consequences of sexual activity suggested ‘those who have sex have guilt—you can’t go to fellowship or church as you’re wrong’.69 This is why the testimonies of people who can openly admit to having struggled but managed to 67 James Mukasa, 23, 3rd-year economics student, 10 December 2005. His reference to ‘talking the talk and walking the walk’ of a campus student speaks again to the suggestion that ‘identity’, either as a born-again or a campus student, is communicated and conferred by assuming certain types of social behaviour which are dictated by the group with whom one is choosing to identify. This is why the peer group is so important; because it is the group collectively who define what is publicly acceptable and so set behavioural codes and standards for other group members to aspire to. 68 Robert Mutebi, 9 March 2005. 69 Katherine Nakazzi, 21, 3rd-year social sciences, KPC born-again Christian, 26 July 2005.

‘keeping

up appearances’

251

come back to a life of salvation are crucial, as is an environment in which people are encouraged to admit to the difficulties that they are having. The social impact that such open testimonies can have on the esteem of members who are struggling with similar problems in terms of solidarity is significant. But because appearance and image are also significant, such public admissions about sex remain rare. A more common experience is that reported by seven born-again Christians who had ‘fallen’ back into a ‘worldly life’ (described as more reckless than the one that they had lived before their being born-again) as a result of the disappointment that they felt at their inability to live up to the standards set. Here we see again that the peer group remains central to the question of esteem surrounding the issue of backsliding by representing a standard of born-again life to which the backslider feels unable to attain. Finally, in a country whose HIV policy is increasingly focused around abstinence, it is necessary to say something about the role of the born-again movement within what is effectively a secular campaign telling people to abstain. I am sceptical of the government abstinence campaign because, in my experience, it fails to recognise the motivations behind sexual behaviour and closes down open discussions on sex, as the earlier comments of Mrs Museveni demonstrate. Although this accusation can also be levelled at born-again Christian groups that campaign for abstinence, the Christian campaign is strengthened by other aspects. A born-again church like KPC offers a social environment and value structure within which abstinence messages are situated, supported and make sense as part of a broader ideological and social context. Dropping the abstinence message into the campus context of transactional sex, without the provision of alternative social options or without challenging the importance of materialism, will do little to affect behaviour when it is heavily conditioned by other more powerful dynamics. Another of the strengths of the born-again campaign is that the social environments in which members spend most of their time are full of people who are aspiring to the same end, who have similar values and can be supportive of one another. Again this comes back to the importance of peer influence. Another of the common answers from my respondents, when I asked them how they managed to maintain their commitment to born-again life in the face of such a strong and contradictory university environment, was that it is all in the company one keeps; ‘bad company corrupts good morals’. The

252

jo sadgrove

importance of being surrounded by like-minded, supportive peers has been emphasised in numerous press reports on abstinence.70 It can be seen that a complex interplay of theological message, cultural and social dynamics must be mediated by an individual in his or her interpretation and negotiation of the meaning of being born-again and its implications for behaviour and lifestyle. It is the combination of all of these dynamics—social environments, theological messages, prevailing socio-cultural influences, the motivations of the individual for attending—which affect a church’s capacity to influence the behaviour of its members in both sexual and other ways. Furthermore, as the matter of behaviour-change influence is more complicated than a church member simply being exposed to a strict moral code, it should also be recognised that even in churches that do place great emphasis on moral teachings, it is highly probable that other theological and social aspects of a church’s programme may undermine the morality element. In the current literature, little attention is paid to distinct theological messages and how, analysed in a wider context, they may impact differently on people’s understandings and internalisations of the behavioural component of religious faith. I hope that this paper may go some way to demonstrating the very real need for a more critical analysis of the link between religious belief and behaviour. If it is true that Pentecostals generally have lower rates of sexual activity, then it is crucial to try to understand more clearly how and why this might be the case. My own study demonstrates the powerful and pervasive influence of the peer group in driving sexual behaviour on the part of de-toothers, affecting how people talk about their sexual behaviour and in dictating how religious messages are received and mediated to define what is acceptable public behaviour for a bornagain Christian. It also proves important in creating environments in which people are less pressurised to get involved in sexual relationships by changing the ways in which people socialise and offering alternative environments with a high accountability factor and the deterrent of ‘loss of face’ for those who wish to take advantage of them to curb their sexual behaviour. This suggests that it is the social rather than ideological aspect of the religious organisation that make it effective at mobilising its members to behaviour change; at least it is at the social

70 See for example ‘Happy to Have Abstained’ and ‘Abstinence is Real’, The Monitor, August 4–10 2005. Available on 10 September 2005 at www.monitor.co.ug.

‘keeping

up appearances’

253

level that we can best provide evidence for and examples of change. Again it is important to remember that the type of change that results may have negative rather than positive implications, as is the case with the problem of ‘accountability’ and image in making sexual behaviour secret and so jeopardising HIV-prevention interventions. But understanding how social environments are deter minants of behaviour increases the possibility of identifying and extrapolating information which could be used to improve the success of secular HIV-prevention programmes. Even if this is not the case, an examination of the interpretation of religious messages by church members can prove a useful way of identifying and analysing the salience of certain social dynamics and values, recognition of which may enhance the effectiveness of HIV-prevention programmes. Bibliography Amuyunzu-Nyamongo, M., Biddlecom, A. E., Ouedraogo, C., and Woog, V. 2005. ‘Qualitative Evidence on Adolescents’ Views of Sexual and Reproductive Health in Sub-Saharan Africa’. Occasional Report No. 16, available on 10 September 2005 at http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2005/03/01/or16.pdf. Bohmer, L., and Kirumira, E. 2000. ‘Socio-economic Context and the Sexual Behaviour of Ugandan Out of School Youth’. Culture, Health and Sexuality 2.3, 269–285. Family Health International. 2005. ‘Iringa Youth Behaviour Survey: Findings and Report’. Youth Research Working Paper 1. Garner, R. 2000. ‘Safe Sects? Dynamic Religion and AIDS in South Africa’. Journal of Modern African Studies 38.1, 41–69. Gifford, P. 1999. African Christianity: Its Public Role. Kampala: Fountain Press. ——. 2004. Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gregson, S., Zhuwau, T., Anderson, R. M., and Chandiwana, S. 1999. ‘Apostles and Zionists: The Influence of Religion on Demographic Change in Rural Zimbabwe’. Population Studies 53, 179–193. Hill, Z., Cleland, J., and Ali, M. M. 2004. ‘Religious Affiliation and Extramarital Sex among Men in Brazil’. International Family Planning Perspectives 30.1, 20–26. Horton, R. 1971. ‘African Conversion’. Africa 41.2, 85–108. Hulton, L., Cullen, R., and Khalokho, S. 2000. ‘Perceptions of the Risks of Sexual Activity and their Consequences among Ugandan Adolescents’. Studies in Family Planning 31.1, 35–46. Human Rights Watch. 2005. ‘The Less They Know the Better: Abstinence-only HIV/ AIDS Programs in Uganda’. HRW 17, 4. Isiugo-Abanihe, U. C. 1994. ‘Extra-marital Relations and Perceptions of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria’. Health Transition Review, 111–125. Kinsman, J., Nyanzi, S., and Pool, R. 2000. ‘Socialising Influences and the Value of Sex: The Experience of Adolescent School Girls in Rural Masaka, Uganda’. Culture, Health and Sexuality 2.2, 151–166. Kiwanuka, N., Gray, R., Sewankambo, N. K., Serwadda, D., Wawer, M., and Li, C. 1996. ‘Religion, Behaviours and Circumcision as Determinants of HIV Dynamics in Rural Uganda’. International Conference on AIDS 11, 483.

254

jo sadgrove

Luke, N., and Kurz, K., 2002. ‘Cross-generational and Transactional Sexual Relations in Sub-Saharan Africa’. International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) report. Available at http://www.icrw.organisation/docs/CrossGenSex_Report_90.pdf. Lule, G., and Gruer, L. 1991. ‘Sexual Behaviour and Use of the Condom among Ugandan Students’, AIDS Care 3.1, 11–19. Marshall, R. 1993. ‘ “Power in the Name of Jesus”: Social Transformation and Pentecostalism in Western Nigeria “Revisited” ’, in T. Ranger and O. Vaughan, (eds.), Legitimacy and the State in 20th Century Africa. London: Macmillan. Marshall-Fratani, R. 1998. ‘Mediating the Local and the Global in Nigerian Pentecostalism’. Journal of Religion in Africa 38.3, 278–313. Meyer, B. 1992. ‘ “If You Are a Devil, You Are a Witch and, if You Are a Witch, You Are a Devil”: The Integration of “Pagan” Ideas into the Conceptual Universe of Ewe Christians in Southeastern Ghana’. Journal of Religion in Africa 22.2, 98–132. ——. 1999. Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity amongst the Ewe in Ghana. London: IAI. Nyanzi, S., Pool, R., and Kinsman, J. 2000. ‘The Negotiation of Sexual Relationships among School Pupils in South-Western Uganda’, AIDS Care 13.1, 83–98. Oindo, M. 2002. ‘Contraception and Sexuality among the Youth in Kisumu, Kenya’. African Health Sciences 2.1, 33–39. Okonkwo, P., Fatsui, A., and Ilika, A. 2005. ‘Perception of Peers’ Behaviour Regarding Sexual Health Decision Making among Female Undergraduates in Anambra State, Nigeria’. African Health Sciences 5.2, 107–113. Rassjo, E., and Darj, E. 2002. ‘ “Safe Sex Advice is Good—But So Difficult to Follow”: Views and Experiences of the Youth in a Health Centre in Kampala’. African Health Sciences 2.3, 107–113. Sekirime, W., Tamale, J., Lule, J., and Wawire-Mangen, F. 2001. ‘Knowledge, Attitude and Practice about Sexually Transmitted Diseases among University Students in Kampala’. African Health Sciences 1.1, 16–22. Smith, D. J. 2004. ‘Youth, Sin and Sex in Nigeria: Christianity and HIV/AIDS-related Beliefs and Behaviour among Rural-Urban Migrants’. Culture, Health and Sexuality 6.5, 425–437. Takyi, B. K. 2003. ‘Religion and Women’s Health in Ghana: Insights into HIV/AIDS Preventive and Protective Behavior’. Social Science and Medicine 56.6, 1221–1234. Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC). 2001. ‘Twenty Years of HIV/AIDS in the World: Evolution of the Epidemic and Response in Uganda’. USAID, 2002. ‘What Happened in Uganda: Declining HIV Prevalence, Behaviour Change, and the National Response’.

HEALING THE WOUNDS OF MODERNITY: SALVATION, COMMUNITY AND CARE IN A NEO-PENTECOSTAL CHURCH IN DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA1 Hansjörg Dilger Introduction I met Anonymous2 for the first time in December 1999, for an interview on the premises of the Full Gospel Bible Fellowship Church (FGBFC), one of the biggest Neo-Pentecostal churches in Tanzania. Anonymous was then 41 years old. Born in one of the southern regions, he had completed his advanced education and found employment with the national government in Dar es Salaam. He declined to tell me his name, obviously fearing to reveal too much personal information that might be used against him later, especially with regard to his possible HIV-positive status. That Anonymous was very likely infected with the virus had been suggested by one of the church pastors, who was informed about my research on HIV/AIDS and social relationships and who actively supported my endeavours to carry out interviews with several members of the FGBFC.3

1 Earlier versions of this text were presented at the Annual Conference of the African Studies Association in Washington (2005) and at the Colloquium (Baraza) of the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida in March 2005. I want to thank the participants of these events for their constructive critique and inspiring remarks. Research in Tanzania was funded generously by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. I am grateful to the Commission for Science and Technology and the National Institute for Medical Research in Tanzania for their grant of a research permit. 2 The names of FGBFC members have been changed throughout the text. 3 For more information about the ethical and methodological challenges that shaped my ethnographic fieldwork on HIV/AIDS in different settings of Tanzania during repeated stays between 1995 and 2006, see Dilger 2005, forthcoming. Apart from the FGBFC, fieldwork was carried out in non-governmental organisations in Dar es Salaam and among kinship networks in the rural Mara Region on Lake Victoria that also extended into urban centres. Research among the Luo in Mara focused on the question of how the numerous illnesses and deaths resulting from HIV/AIDS have affected ritual and social practice, e.g. with regard to widow cleansing and burial, as

256

hansjörg dilger

Anonymous joined the church in 1997, following a period of prolonged illness and shortly before his wife succumbed to tuberculosis and related infections. After the death of his wife—who came from the same region as he did and whom he had married in 1989—he did not remarry, but lived with his only daughter and some of his younger siblings who depended largely on their elder brother’s income. During this period he also became more actively involved in the activities of the FGBFC, and in 1999 was selected to become a section leader. In this function, Anonymous acted as a mediator between ordinary church members and the leadership, and was responsible for advising church followers about all kinds of problems they faced with regard to salvation. He also became an assistant to one of the church pastors and helped him in the performance of his weekly healing prayers, especially when the pastor cast out evil spirits from the bodies of believers, who then started to shake and cry, and sometimes collapsed. Throughout our interview Anonymous emphasised that it was only through his membership in the FGBFC that he had found peace in his life and felt prepared for the possibility that he might be infected with HIV.4 Recalling the circumstances of his wife’s death, he claimed that by entering the state of salvation he had surrendered all decisions about his life into Jesus’ hands, and that his future life-course depended exclusively on God’s power and benevolence. When I asked him what he would do if he tested positive for HIV, he quoted the parable of Lazarus ( John 11: 1–44) and said: It wouldn’t be a problem for me because I am saved (Sw: nimeokoka). Through my salvation I have obtained one thing: there will be a day on which I die, and this day lies in the hands of God. I read in the Bible that Lazarus resurrected from death. Thus, even if somebody tells me that I am HIV-infected, I will accept that (nitakubali). . . . Over the last year I made use of [ biomedical] medications only once. I am living solely because of my prayers and through my belief. If I feel sick, I start praying and then I get well again.

In this article, I show that Anonymous’s story and experiences do not present an isolated case in the histories of Neo-Pentecostalism and HIV/ AIDS in Tanzania. Rather, they are part of the wider texture of social well as with reference to relationships of care and support for those getting sick and dying from AIDS (see Dilger 2004, 2005, 2006). 4 At the time of our interview Anonymous was awaiting the result of an HIV test he had taken at the Muhimbili Medical Centre, Tanzania’s largest government hospital.

healing the wounds of modernity

257

and religious practices and ideas through which Neo-Pentecostalism gives meaning and orientation to the views and actions of its followers in the time of AIDS. By drawing on my fieldwork in the FGBFC in Dar es Salaam, I describe how this church has established a ‘nodal point’ of spiritual, social and moral guidance through which its saved members, who are often working and trading migrants from the rural areas, are integrated into a community of believers that is inextricably linked to processes of rural-urban migration, the increasing disintegration of kinship bonds and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Tanzania. I argue that in this latter regard the history of the FGBFC—and the attraction that it exerts on its fast-increasing number of followers—has become part of the rapid expansion of the Neo-Pentecostal movement in Africa in the context of modernity, globalisation and HIV/AIDS. In the following I first give an overview of the literature on NeoPentecostalism and HIV/AIDS in Africa and show how the growing attraction of the FGBFC is linked to the way in which Neo-Pentecostalism is encountering the ruptures—as well as the opportunities and challenges—its members associate with globalisation, modernity and AIDS. Building on studies from other African countries (Marshall 1993; Meyer 1998a, 1998b; Maxwell 1998; Corten and Marshall-Fratani 2001; Gifford 2004), I demonstrate that the church is becoming highly attractive because of the social, spiritual and economic perspectives that it offers to its followers, and particularly because of the networks of healing and care that it has established under the circumstances of urbanisation, unequal gender relations and the AIDS epidemic. After describing how the church’s ideology of salvation has tied concepts of suffering and healing to a universalistic paradigm of the devil as well as to images of spirits and evil forces rooted in possession cults of Tanzania, I show how, in the case of AIDS, such perceptions are further mixed with disease concepts that are adopted from biomedicine and public health campaigns. This mixing of different epistemologies of suffering and healing, I argue, is not coincidental, but rather consciously employed by church leaders and church followers who allow room not only for speculation and uncertainty, but also for the hope of being healed from lethal diseases such as cancer or AIDS (cf. Whyte 1997). In the final section I demonstrate that the FGBFC has established a tightly knit community of social and spiritual solidarity that is providing support for church members in times of need and crisis. While the church can thus be seen to function as a community of solidarity particularly for younger and middle-aged women who are most vulnerable

258

hansjörg dilger

to the erosion of kinship networks and the growing hardships of urban life, it will also become evident that the ‘exclusive’ community of the FGBFC gives rise to even more social conflict and, at times, to the disruption of social and familial relationships in the context of modernity and HIV/AIDS in Tanzania. Healing the wounds of modernity: globalisation, HIV/AIDS and the rise of Neo-Pentecostalism in Tanzania In recent years the rise of Neo-Pentecostalism in Africa5 has been linked to the role that the movement plays in its followers’ attempts to deal with the social, economic, and spiritual drawbacks of globalisation and modernity (e.g., Meyer 1998, Marshall-Fratani 1998, Maxwell 1998, Gifford 2004). Neo-Pentecostal churches not only offer moral and spiritual explanations on how modernity and globalisation, which are filtered through the growing integration of African communities into the global market economy, and the introduction of structural adjustment programmes that have often increased social inequalities, have affected the lives of individuals and groups. The movement also provides a pathway along which its followers act upon situations that are increasingly shaped by feelings of powerlessness and frustration: with its gospel of wealth and health, and the promise that one must ‘only’ follow the teachings of God and the Bible, Neo-Pentecostalism opens an—often only imaginary—escape from socio-economic hardships and exerts an immense attraction particularly in those parts of the world where the inequalities associated with globalisation are felt most strongly. While several authors have hinted about the way in which NeoPentecostalism helps its followers to ‘inscribe [themselves] anew in the context of a global modernity’ (Corten and Marshall-Fratani 2001: 3), they have paid less attention to the healing prayers performed by these churches. In an article on Ghana, Birgit Meyer has argued that experiences of illness and suffering are indeed the primary incentive for individuals to convert to a Pentecostal church. However, she warns that continuing membership in a Pentecostal congregation could not

5 By the end of 2004 the global community of Pentecostals had increased to 570,806,000 members (Barrett and Johnson 2004: 25). In sub-Saharan Africa alone there were 41,100,000 Pentecostals in the year 2000 ( Johnstone and Mandryk 2001).

healing the wounds of modernity

259

be explained through the healing prayers of these churches, which are normally carried out through the individual and/or collective laying on of hands. According to Meyer, the main attraction of Neo-Pentecostalism is that people find a perspective in this movement ‘from which they can grasp the changing world and act both upon the negative consequences and the attractive forces of modernity’ (Meyer 1998a: 51f., translation and emphasis: HD). In the following, I argue that the distinction that has been made between the attraction of healing prayers on the one hand and other activities of Neo-Pentecostal churches on the other (cf., Gifford 2004: 81; Corten and Marshall-Fratani 2001: 3f., 10) has to be modified for the case of the FGBFC. In Tanzania, illness and bodily suffering are often part and parcel of the ‘dis-ease’ (German: Unbehagen) brought upon by the effects of modernity and globalisation on the regional, as well as on the individual level. How strongly perceptions of illness and suffering are indeed rooted in the effects that globalisation and modernity are understood to have on local life-worlds becomes most explicit with regard to the way HIV/AIDS—‘the modern disease’ (ugonjwa huu wa kisasa)—is being discussed among communities in urban and rural Tanzania.6 In Tanzania, where at the end of 2003 8.8% of the adult population was infected with HIV (UNAIDS 2004: 191), the presence of the disease is debated essentially with regard to the advantages as well as the disadvantages that ‘modern lifestyles’ are understood to have brought over the last two to three decades. While the structural reforms, introduced

6 The following account is based on ‘emic’ reflections on the causal connection between HIV/AIDS, modernity and globalisation in Tanzania. According to my informants, the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country is linked to a perceived clash between ‘traditional’ kinship-based systems of production and reproduction, and their ‘modern’ counter-institutions that are symbolised by the valuing of money, the widespread acceptance of western-based science, and the ubiquity of an uncontrolled and excessive sexuality. It should be noted that this discourse on the negative consequences of modernity and globalisation—which is often contrasted with idealised notions of the precolonial past—is not an exclusively patriarchal rhetoric, but was shared widely by young and old women in my fieldwork sites. Equally, this discourse is to be understood as a form of social memory which has become a forceful instrument in the moral critique of the present (cf. Connerton 1989; Dilger 1999: 47–63, 2003: 32–34): historical accounts of eastern Africa have shown that moral struggles over the perceived decline of kinship networks—as well as the blaming of women for spreading sexually transmitted diseases—have been a part of community life in the region for decades, if not centuries (for the example of syphilis in colonial Buganda see Vaughan 1991: 129–54).

260

hansjörg dilger

in the mid-1980s under President Ali Hassan Mwinyi and continued under the rule of Benjamin Mkapa between 1995 and 2005, had evoked strong hopes among the population of improvements of their social and economic living conditions, it soon turned out that the ‘blessings of neo-liberalism’ were distributed very unevenly. It is impossible to delve here into the effects that structural adjustment policies (SAP) have had on urban and rural populations. However, it can be stated that, while the SAPs were conceived originally as instruments for poverty alleviation, they have led to a rise of living costs in Tanzania and an increasing impoverishment of rural areas, thus reinforcing migration to urban centres. They also triggered a decrease of formal employment opportunities in the urban centres—mostly occupied by men—and a stagnation of salaries, and thereby increased the pressure on women to engage in income-generating activities (cf. Tripp 1997: 30–59). In the light of HIV/AIDS, the growing involvement of women in business and trade activities has led, according to my informants, to a growing emphasis on economic transactions in sexual relationships, as well as an increased blurring of gender and generational hierarchies, and a concurring ‘loss of respect’ between the sexes and generations. A morally conservative discourse on sexuality and gender relations has evolved that encourages submissiveness and decency in the sexuality of women and emphasises the importance of trust and moral integrity for the selection of sexual partners. On a more general level, the spread of HIV/AIDS has been linked to the growing mobility of both men and women, as well as to their individualised aspirations for material success and social progress that are said to oppose kinship-based practices of reproduction and reciprocity and thus lead to a growing estrangement of migrating men and women from their families (cf. Dilger 1999, 2003).7 For want of anthropological or social science studies that explicitly analyse the interrelationship between the rise of Neo-Pentecostalism and the spread of HIV/AIDS in Eastern Africa, it is difficult to tell if the increase of HIV infection rates from the 1980s onwards—and the concurring conservative rhetoric on the ‘social and moral malcontents of modernity’—is causally related to the rise of Neo-Pentecostalism

7 For similar discourse on the perceived connection between mobility, modernity and AIDS, and the concurring blaming of (young) women for spreading HIV, see Weiss 1993; Haram 1995; Setel 1999.

healing the wounds of modernity

261

during the same period.8 However, against the background of studies that focus either on the expansion of Pentecostalism or HIV/AIDS it can be stated that the two phenomena are quite likely to be linked for essentially two reasons. First, anthropologists and social scientists have given very similar explanations for both the spread of HIV/AIDS and the rise of the Neo-Pentecostal movement in Africa: as in the studies on Pentecostalism quoted above, AIDS researchers have ascribed the high infection rates in sub-Saharan Africa to growing socio-economic insecurities in the context of globalisation, as well as to the structural adjustment policies introduced from the 1980s onwards, and the subsequent increase in poverty and the growing sexual and economic vulnerability of women (cf., Barnett and Whiteside 2001, Schoepf 2001). Secondly, the rapid growth of the Neo-Pentecostal movement in urban Tanzania strikingly reflects, and at the same time reinforces, the ambiguities expressed, from an emic perspective, by the ‘lures’ as well as the ‘malcontents’ of modernity. In the setting of Dar es Salaam, the FGBFC works in two contradictory yet complementary directions that give room to the ‘discomfort’ as well as the ‘attractions’ associated with these various aspects of modernity (Meyer 1998a: 51f.). On the one hand, the FGBFC’s gospel of prosperity and health matches the church followers’ desire to lead an increasingly individualised life defined by aspirations for material wealth and the detachment from traditions and kinship networks, which are (ideally) replaced by the integration of the saved members into a global community of believers. On the other hand, the spiritual and social activities of the FGBFC are aimed at integrating those (who may also be part of the first group) who ascribe an increase in suffering and afflictions in contemporary Tanzania to the immorality and anti-sociality of individualised lifestyles that have come

While there are some very interesting studies that establish a link between Pentecostalism and HIV/AIDS, they analyse the role of Pentecostal churches in the context of the epidemic mainly with regard to their preventative functions. Wimberley (1995) has shown that in Uganda, ‘salvation’ in a Pentecostal church has become a strategy for young girls to reject sexual offers by men and boys and to protect themselves from HIV infection. Garner (2000) described that in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, it is the Pentecostal churches in particular that could, through their approach of social control and their threats to exclude those members who act against the morals of their church, influence the pre- and extra-marital sexual behaviour of their adherents. Other religious denominations, on the other hand, were not able to bring about a change in the sexuality of their members—even if they represent, in their principles, no other moral values than the Pentecostal churches flourishing on the whole continent. 8

262

hansjörg dilger

about through urbanisation and modernity. In this regard the FGBFC plays an important role in providing morally acceptable responses to the manifold tensions and ruptures that are understood—from its followers’ point of view—as the shady sides of globalisation and modernity and that, according to them, have become the driving force behind the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In the following I will show that the FGBFC counters and mediates the various ruptures, desires and needs triggered by modernity particularly through its ideology of salvation, as well as through its networks of healing and support. At the same time, I argue that while the FGBFC followers may feel that some of the ruptures of modernity are being ‘healed’ by the community of the church, they are very much aware that the reconfiguration of their lives in the state of salvation may lead to growing ruptures in kinship networks and social relationships outside the protected community of the saved—and hence to even more social conflict and confusion in the context of modernity, globalisation and HIV/AIDS. Becoming ‘saved’ in the FGBFC The FGBFC was founded by Zachary Kakobe, now in his early 50s, who, after finishing college in Southern Tanzania, played as a musician in a local orchestra and, in addition to his work as a meteorologist, recorded dance music in his own studio. Kakobe, who is currently the Bishop of the church, received his calling in 1980 when Jesus appeared to him in person and told him to abandon his worldly profession and become a servant of God ‘who will bring multitudes to the Lord worldwide’. It took eight more years, however, before Kakobe undertook his first crusade to Northern Tanzania and it was only in 1989 that he officially established the FGBFC in Dar es Salaam. In the first years after the church’s founding, Kakobe wrote several letters to different international Christian organisations, including the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in the USA, asking for financial support for his enterprise. However, there were very few replies and—as he never tires of recalling—he ‘never received a single cent’ for his newly established congregation. Nevertheless, despite a lack of financial resources and without the support of powerful international donors, the FGBFC grew rapidly over the following years and in 2000 the church claimed more than 120,000 members nationwide and had

healing the wounds of modernity

263

established more than 500 regional and local sub-branches throughout the country.9 For the members of the FGBFC the church becomes particularly attractive because of its Gospel of Prosperity (neno la uzima) and, intimately related to it, the concepts of ‘awakening’ (uamsho) and ‘salvation’ (uokovu), all based on the FGBFC’s apocalyptic world-view and the understanding that the contemporary world is tightly in the grip of Satan who is spreading immorality, corruption and suffering. The FGBFC’s main concern is consequently to take up the fight against Satan and his diabolic henchmen and to save humanity not only on a local, but also on a global scale (cf. Meyer 1998b: 52). On the other hand, the Gospel of Prosperity and the ideology of salvation are based on the claim that while, everyone is born into a state of sin and is exposed to the immoralities of the world from early childhood, a person can be ‘saved’ from perdition by becoming aware of the ways Satan exerts control over a person’s life. This moment of ‘becoming aware’ is called the awakening (uamsho) and it is not only the prerequisite for forgiveness for sins committed in a person’s former life, but also the condition for becoming a member of the church and being baptised. Finally, the awakening is the prerequisite for entering the state of salvation and escaping the control of Satan by dedicating one’s life to God by accepting and spreading the teachings of the Bible. Once a church member has entered the state of salvation, there is no guarantee that he or she will be forever free from all kinds of affliction. Salvation is, as Corten and Marshall-Fratani have argued, ‘an ongoing existential project’ (2001: 7), which requires engagement in church activities and healing prayers in order to ward off attacks by diabolic forces as well as a break with many of the obligations church members have towards their families and the abandonment of former (sinful) lifestyles such as consumption of alcohol or engagement in extramarital sexual relationships. It is only if these difficult conditions are fulfilled that the manifold promises of salvation begin to work in multiple directions. Thus, the gospel of health and wealth promises not only material success and progress for those living in poverty. Salvation

9 The overwhelming growth of the FGBFC over a comparatively short time is also reflected in the multitude of international linkages that the church has established with Pentecostal congregations worldwide, e.g., in Nigeria, South Africa, India, the USA and Denmark (see http://www.fgbfchurch.org/).

264

hansjörg dilger

also means the relief from all kinds of distress such as trouble at work or with the Tanzanian bureaucratic systems, as well as from diseases such as infertility, cancer, high blood pressure or AIDS. Considering that the FGBFC promises relief from all kinds of affliction, it does not come as a surprise that the church attracts those groups of people who are most strongly affected by urbanisation and globalisation processes, and by the adverse impact of structural adjustment policies on social and economic life in urban Tanzania. It is striking to observe that most FBGFC members are young to middle-aged women who have migrated to Dar es Salaam in search of employment; others are small business entrepreneurs. To these women as well as to the male members of the church, most of whom have a similar social background, the FGBFC is appealing essentially because it offers hope and confidence in the context of urban life, which is experienced as anonymous and increasingly ambivalent. As Asonzeh Ukah has argued with regard to Lagos in Nigeria, Dar es Salaam has become in the eyes of its population ‘host to an amazing array of opportunities for the generation of wealth and pleasure’ as well as ‘a theatre of unimaginable pain’ characterised by ‘aggressive and distrustful, often faceless crowds, rabid violence, crushing poverty, disease and unemployment.’ (Ukah 2004: 417). That there is legitimate hope of escape from urban chaos and poverty, and consequently a hope of healing from all kinds of afflictions and bodily suffering, is reflected, on the one hand, in the public testimonies of church followers who report on a regular basis that they have unexpectedly found a job or received a sum of money, that a woman who was diagnosed as infertile had suddenly become pregnant, or that a church member who was diagnosed with a fatal disease had been miraculously healed. On the other hand, the promises made by the prosperity gospel have become embodied in the person of Bishop Kakobe himself, who went from being a member of the lower middle class to being the successful leader of an economically prospering mega-church which, according to its website, has become ‘one of the fastest growing churches in Eastern Africa’. ‘Evil can come in many shapes’: cosmologies of healing in the FGBFC The first contact most church members have with the FGBFC are the healing prayers performed by the church individually as well as col-

healing the wounds of modernity

265

lectively, which generally involve exorcising evil forces through prayers and the laying on of hands. The individual healing sessions take place on weekdays, under the guidance of one of the church pastors, either in a section leader’s house or in a room at the church’s headquarters. Collective healing prayers take place at the headquarters during the Sunday service as well as on special healing days and are always guided by Bishop Kakobe himself. While the success of the healing process is inevitably controlled by the mediation of the (mostly male) church leaders, the collective healing prayers carried out during the Sunday services provide evidence of how church members themselves are actively involved in warding off the attacks of diabolic forces. Under the guidance of Bishop Kakobe and accompanied by the music of the church band, thousands of men and women jump up from their wooden benches, shouting away the influences of Satan and clenching their fists against their enemies. Some church members start to cry or speak in tongues; others are overwhelmed by the powers of their enemies and break down screaming. They are then lifted up by two or three of the church security personnel and brought to the Bishop, who exorcises the evil powers by praying and the laying on of hands. When I asked church leaders and members about the nature of the evil forces they are exposed to, it became evident that images of Satan and his demonic henchmen are in part rooted in the biblical scriptures and are similar to the idea of the devil as represented by the JudaeoChristian tradition (cf. Gifford 1994: 255f.). At the same time, however, the diabolic forces against which the saved FGBFC members are struggling in their everyday lives are associated with images of malevolent forces which Gifford (ibid.) defines as ‘typically African’ and which have their origin in Islam and the ‘indigenous’ religions of Tanzania. Thus, the saved church members can be plagued by curses (laana) that have been sent by mischievous relatives or by their respective ethnic groups. Other malevolent beings include witches (mchawi, pl. wachawi) and spirits who can cause all kinds of misfortune including marital problems, trouble at work, infertility and even AIDS. In particular the images of spirits echo elaborate concepts of the pepo, jini or shetani as found on the Islamic Swahili coast and as described, for instance, in the works of Linda Giles (Giles 1999). Some pepo are represented by specific animals, cats, for example, and manifest themselves through a possessed person with hissing sounds and cat-like cries. Others are the spirits of ethnic groups or of malevolent ancestors struggling

266

hansjörg dilger

to gain control over their saved descendants and plague them with illness and affliction. Some are the pepo of strangers—often men—who enter the dreams of women at night and want to have sex with them. Another important category consists of those pepo embodying a type of behaviour considered immoral, such as the spirit of adultery and fornication. Finally, there are the pepo who embody different types of disease, such as the spirit of epilepsy or of cancer. What is common to all these pepo and jini is that they are all malevolent forces that have to be removed from the bodies of believers. Thus, while the spirit world of the FGBFC displays striking similarities with the spirit worlds of possession cults along the coast or in Southern Tanzania, the FGBFC differs from these cults in that it defines the pepo not as potentially life-enhancing beings that have to be integrated into the life-world of the afflicted individuals (cf., Erdtsieck 1997), but as generally destructive forces that have to be removed from the believers’ bodies. Similarly, the spirits in the FGBFC are stripped of the complex ritual and social symbolism that characterises the appropriations of spirits on the Swahili coast and that is reflected in the elaborate ceremonies of possession cults which require careful attention with regard to the use of specific music, colour and offerings.10 The pain and suffering caused by evil forces are usually felt at that part of the body through which the pepo or jini have entered the person: if through the legs, this can lead to paralysis; if they have settled in the womb, a woman usually suffers from infertility. The main goal of the healing prayers is consequently to remove the pepo from those parts of the body they have ‘closed’ (kufunga) and to ‘open’ them again for their normal functions (kufungua). These descriptions of the healing process again echo understandings of illness and healing in other parts of eastern and central Africa: by establishing a relationship between the application of external remedies (the laying on of hands) and the obstruction of passages inside the body, the metaphors of ‘opening’ and ‘closing’ are mediating the healing process and the removal of the pol10 It is very likely that most FGBFC followers and leaders have a more differentiated knowledge about the spirit world than I am able to present here. Equally, it can be assumed that some church members deal with the effects of witchcraft and spirit possession in ways that the FGBFC (and they themselves) would publicly condemn. However, in the premises of the church these understandings and hidden ways of dealing with invisible forces gave way to more ‘standardised’ perceptions of evil forces which enabled the church members to adopt a rather pragmatic approach towards healing in the context of the FGBFC.

healing the wounds of modernity

267

luting force which has caused the obstruction of a bodily passage and bodily functions ( Janzen 1978: 189). In the FGBFC it is consequently very common that at the Sunday services Bishop Kakobe calls on the church members to lay their hands on those parts of the body where they feel their pain and thus to initiate the healing process. ‘God can do the impossible’: the healing of AIDS In comparison with other types of affliction, AIDS is exceptional in that it is perceived as a biblical disease sent by God himself as punishment for humankind’s sinful and immoral behaviour. The logical consequence is that AIDS can also only be healed through God, i.e., control over the success of the healing prayers is explicitly removed from the hands of the church leaders and from human beings in general. How strongly this latter aspect characterises the conceptualisation of HIV in the FGBFC was explained to me by Bishop Kakobe. By using the metaphor of an ant, which is, he said, ‘still today a creation of God’, he referred to the powerlessness that characterises human existence despite (western) societies’ technical and scientific progress. By emphasising the fact that biomedicine still has not found an effective treatment for AIDS, Kakobe made clear that the only hope for the healing of the disease lies with God. He said: We [as a church] tell the people: it is true, the HIV-positive diagnosis is the doctor’s report, but men are not manufacturers of men, and man has even failed to manufacture those small ants you see. There is no ant made in Japan [laughs]. . . .11 We say: ‘Okay, if men have manufactured cars, computers, radios, TVs, and so on— . . . definitely man should have been manufactured by someone who is more intelligent than men themselves, and that’s the one we call God. And if God has manufactured man, then . . . God can do the impossible. . . . We tell the people: There is still hope—if man has failed, then you can come to God and have something from him, which man cannot provide. And through that, people with AIDS have new hope.

11 The use of the image of the ant is not a reference to the HI-virus as might be supposed. Bishop Kakobe referred in this context to the assumed technical and material superiority of the west—and of car-producing nations like Japan in particular—that are comparatively powerless when it comes to questions of life, suffering and death. The image of the ‘ant’ can hence be seen as a critique of western modernity, which is said to have broken with the spiritual and religious roots of human existence.

268

hansjörg dilger

healing the wounds of modernity

269

That the hope for healing from AIDS does not necessarily conflict with the ‘knowledge’ that church members have with regard to the biomedical ‘facts’ about HIV is exemplified by the case of Consolata (28). Consolata migrated to Dar es Salaam with her family when she was seven years old. At the time of our interview she lived with her six-year-old daughter and some of her brothers and sisters in the house that her father had built shortly before his death. Consolata had been plagued by a broad range of illnesses from the early 1990s onwards and, after repeated treatment efforts at different hospitals and with various traditional healers, had been saved in the FGBFC. Consolata was tested for HIV after she was chosen to become a pastor to be sent to the rural areas of Tanzania to proselytise the ‘heathens’ of the villages. The FGBFC wants only married pastors to be sent out, so urges prospective single pastors to have an HIV test at a local health institution and subsequently marry another pastor. When Consolata was found to be HIV-positive, she did not lose confidence in the healing prayers, as she knew that ‘everything becomes possible through God’. Her hope that she will be healed of AIDS is based partly on the observations she makes with regard to her own body: If you are sick, there will be many bodily symptoms. This disease destroys the immune system, you have diarrhoea and you vomit all the time. Since I’ve been prayed for I haven’t become sick again. I am also eating more today: I can eat twice as much as I did previously. . . . I don’t have fevers, and these bouts of heat and paralysis haven’t returned. I don’t have colds anymore. I believe that Jesus has already opened me. I only have to go for the test and have it confirmed.

Her hope is also based on the observation of other church members known to have been infected with HIV and who have—allegedly—been healed through prayers. She said: When I came to Kakobe’s church I heard the testimony (ushuhuda) of a church choir member who was infected with HIV. He had already become bedridden and was plagued by diarrhoea. The hospital tested him and found the virus. But then the church prayed for him and . . . when he went for another test, he was found to be negative! When I first met this man I was so sad that tears were streaming down my face. We all knew it was AIDS, even if we were not explicitly told this. But the miracle is that he is wearing his church uniform today and singing in the choir again. When I saw this my faith grew: there will be a day on which God performs miracles such as this one (Mungu anatenda miujiza kama alivyotenda kwa yule).

270

hansjörg dilger

In these two quotations it becomes obvious that church followers’ perceptions about HIV may be shaped by biomedical as well as by spiritual-religious concepts of disease and affliction. At the beginning of our interview Consolata spoke about the pepo affecting her. Once she decided to talk to me about her HIV diagnosis, however, her descriptions became more medicalised and she referred to the typical symptoms associated with HIV/AIDS. Through large parts of our interview she spoke about HIV (virusi vya ukimwi) and AIDS (ukimwi ), which destroy the immune system of the body. She mentioned typical symptoms of AIDS such as diarrhoea, vomiting, bouts of fever and loss of appetite, and finally she said that she wanted to go for a medical test in order to confirm that she had been healed from HIV. As many members of the FGBFC seemed to switch easily between biomedical and religious interpretations of HIV, I asked them to describe what it is that actually happens during the prayers: whether a spirit is exorcised or if it is the virus itself that is removed from the body. There were two distinct answers to these questions. For some of my interviewees, the relationship between the terms ‘virus’ and ‘pepo’ was a purely metaphorical one. Anna Mwita (38), who was herself infected with HIV, told me that these were simply two different terms referring to the same entity and that the term employed depended mainly on the situation in which a conversation took place. She said: ‘I don’t see any difference between the two terms. It is just how you explain them. If you speak to a scientist about pepo he won’t understand you. If you speak about pepo on the premises of the church, people will know what you mean.’ Others, however, saw the relationship between pepo and virus as more complex and made it clear that Anna Mwita’s explanation was probably more an explanation addressed to me (the anthropologist, ‘the scientist’) than a widely shared explanation for the relationship between pepo and virus in the premises of the FGBFC. Some of my other interviewees argued that it was difficult—and ultimately irrelevant—to ‘know exactly’ what happened at the healing prayers. Particularly revealing in this regard was a conversation with Bishop Kakobe who explained to me that, even according to the teachings of the church, HIV is a virus that exists as a biological reality. However, he continued, in some cases the virus may also be a transformed pepo that enters the body of a person and just ‘appears’ under the microscope as a virus. Thus, in those cases where the bishop or pastors were successful in casting out the demons of an HIV-infected person, not only would the opportunistic infections

healing the wounds of modernity

271

associated with HIV/AIDS start to diminish but after some time even the virus itself—or, as others might prefer to put it, the pepo disguised as a virus—would disappear and become invisible to the microscopes at biomedical health institutions. When I asked Kakobe if he would then agree that every person who was found to be HIV-infected was actually possessed by a spirit, the bishop was, however, hesitant again and said that it was not as simple as I had expressed it. While he emphasised that he was still ‘doing research’ on this topic he explained that thus far he could say that one had to differentiate between the ‘normal’ viruses and the ‘more complicated’ viruses. The complicated ones, he said, are the transformed pepo; the normal ones, on the other hand, do not have a deeper spiritual background: Sometimes the pepo will come on its own, it will inflict the body and remain in the body as the spirit. But sometimes it will not come like that—it will come in some shape. . . . I mean, they look like normal viruses, but once you cast out the demons, the viruses will go. If you look at the viruses, they are actually spirits—you cast the evil spirits out, the viruses will go. . . . HD: So every time someone has the virus it is actually a jini or a pepo? Kakobe: Yes, most of the times that we have seen— HD: What you saw— Kakobe: You know, the other time when we were laying hands—do you remember? Most of the times, if you lay hands, the people will shake, they will fall, and most of the people, when the evil spirits come out of their bodies . . . they feel much better. It is as if they were carrying some burden and that weight was tormenting them and giving them so much pain in the body and now it has gone. There have been such testimonies and it has been that way most of the time. So, we really associate the viruses with the pepo.

As Bishop Kakobe remained hesitant about giving a definite answer about the nature of the AIDS healings, I concluded for myself that the question of finding out the ‘real’ cause of an illness—and particularly of HIV/AIDS—was probably the result of my own preoccupation with knowing what ‘really’ happened at the healing prayers, rather than a concern of the FGBFC members themselves. For them the healing process was less a matter of theoretical reflection on the abstract relationship between two allegedly distinct entities—the virus and the pepo, or the field of medicine and religion (cf. Good 1994)—but rather a pragmatic challenge that had to be acted upon and resolved in the daily practice of the FGBFC followers. What indeed mattered to the people of the FGBFC was, however, the outcome of the healing prayers. These outcomes became the subject

272

hansjörg dilger

of multiple discussions and interpretations—interpretations that established a close analogy between bodily and spiritual health and were primarily based on observations made by church leaders and church followers before, during and after the prayers. If symptoms typical of an HIV-infection disappeared, or if the virus could not be detected during a biomedical test after the healing prayers, it was assumed that the prayers had been successful and the miracle had been performed. If, however, symptoms persisted, the disease was thought to be caused either by a ‘normal’ virus or, if the church followers had not been firm enough in their belief and with regard to church teachings, a pepo that had to be fought with ever more spiritual fervour and expressions of religious dedication. ‘Your relatives don’t give a single cent’: kinship, care and the making of ‘good deaths’ in the FGBFC It has thus far become clear that the healing prayers performed by the FGBFC constitute an essential attraction of the church. In this section, I will consider that the church also plays an important role in integrating its members into a tightly-knit spiritual community thereby countering—and at the same time reinforcing—processes of social and familial disruption that characterise their members’ experiences in the context of urban hardships and the AIDS epidemic. According to Ruth Marshall (1993: 218), Pentecostal churches in Nigeria propagate the ideology of a spiritual community which must be unified in order to survive in a ‘world of sinners’. Interestingly, this strong sense of community is not just a hollow doctrine maintained by the community of the saved against the outside world, but has become an essential building block for the social and spiritual praxis of Nigerian Pentecostals. Among the smaller neighbourhood groups in Nigeria in particular, a network of mutual care and support has developed, which helps church members in situations of need, initiates cooking services for the sick, looks after the children of bedridden church members and even collects money for members in economic need. Beyond that, several Pentecostal churches in Nigeria have institutionalised these services and have established their own nursing schools, healing centres and even vocational training and marriage counselling centres, thereby gradually building an alternative to the poor social services of the Nigerian state (ibid.: 224f.).

healing the wounds of modernity

273

In the FGBFC in Tanzania, the network of social security has not been institutionalised to the extent it has been in Nigeria. However, an analogous system of mutual solidarity has been established on the level of the small neighbourhood churches, comprising 20–30 members each, that provides help and support for members in times of need and plays an important role in the context of AIDS. Underlying these acts of informal solidarity is the idea of a ‘spiritual family’ that is promoted by the FGBFC and that was formulated by Bishop Kakobe on the occasion of the ‘First National Conference of Pentecostal Churches in Tanzania’ in August 2003. At this event Kakobe emphasised that the main aim of the meeting was to allay former tensions that had characterised the relationships between individual Pentecostal congregations in Tanzania, and especially the position of his own church within the national Pentecostal community, for more than a decade.12 On the other hand, Kakobe defined the spiritual community of the FGBFC in opposition to the ‘worldly family’ and said that the latter often took a critical stance towards their saved relatives, and sometimes even actively tried to make them depart from the path of salvation. In order to ward off these attacks, the community of Pentecostals had to distance themselves from their families of origin and enter into conflict with those who most aggressively distracted them from leading a moral life. Consequently, the community of the church had to build a new, spiritual family to which their saved members belong and which was to disperse any doubts they might have about the righteousness of their path. The members of the FGBFC themselves described this moment of community-building in a very similar way, yet emphasising also the ambiguity of this process. Many were aware that membership in a Pentecostal church implies a high potential for intra-familial conflict, stemming both from unsaved relatives and from the church followers who persistently urge their families to give up their ‘dark’ and ‘sinful’ ways. This latter aspect is reflected in the experience of Anonymous who, before his salvation, had been the family breadwinner and had contributed considerably to the fulfilment of ritual obligations in his home village. While, after his salvation, he rejected involvement in any While no detailed account of these tensions—which are rooted in the history of the wider Pentecostal movement in Tanzania as well as in the specific history of the FGBFC—can be given here, it should be mentioned that rumours circulating persistently in Dar es Salaam have explained the success of the FGBGFC through the alleged alliance of Bishop Kakobe with witchcraft and other satanic forces. 12

274

hansjörg dilger

ritual requirements, which he designated as ‘superstitions’, he has not fully broken with his family and still provides them with some material support. At the same time, however, he exerts strong pressure on his family, which is economically dependent on him, to become ‘saved’ in the FGBFC and to give up some of their immoral and sinful lifestyles. When I asked Anonymous about the relationships with his relatives, he said: Before I was saved they received me well. Whenever I arrived in the village, they ordered alcohol and food. But after I had been saved they were not very happy. [My relatives] saw that the things I had done previously no longer existed: the drinking of alcohol and all. . . . After I was saved I started to teach them [about salvation] and it took about three years until my mother was saved. But in the beginning they saw that I was lost for them (nimepotea). . . . For instance, the ritual requirements (matambiko) and the traditional feasts (sherehe za mila): these are things I rejected. . . . However, when it comes to food and clothes, I help them. HD: Do your relatives depend on you? Anonymous: Yes, they depend strongly on me (wananitegemea sana) because back home I am their leader (kiongozi). They don’t [have paid] work. I am the only one who helps and supports them.13

How strongly family relationships may be additionally strained in the context of AIDS was explained by Ernesta (48), who was infected with HIV and whose account reflected the negative experiences of other HIV-infected women who experience conflict with their rural families once their illness becomes known (cf. Dilger 2005: 94–177). Ernesta had almost no contact with her home village in western Tanzania after she was saved in the FGBFC in 1996. Although she would like to visit her mother more often—and said that she would prefer to return to her mother’s home if she were to get seriously ill—she recalls her father’s behaviour and how he chased her and her grandchild from his house during her last visit. One reason for her father’s behaviour was, Ernesta mused, that he consumed considerable amounts of alcohol and that his actions had become increasingly unpredictable. On the other hand, 13 The case study of Anonymous shows that the membership in a Pentecostal congregation does not contribute inevitably to the complete severing of kinship ties between non-saved and saved family members. While media reports and popular discourse in Tanzania are explicitly concerned with the social, cultural and political ruptures that are attributed to the rise of Pentecostalism in the country, the actual practice may be more complex. For an intriguing analysis of how Pentecostal churches have been woven into the ‘traditional’ political and social structures of village life in rural Uganda, see Jones 2005.

healing the wounds of modernity

275

she ascribed her father’s violent behaviour to the fact that two of her younger sisters—who had already died—had also been infected with HIV and that he chased them from his house, too. She said: I am living here in Dar es Salaam because of my father. He is very violent (kali). He drinks a lot of alcohol and if he gets drunk he shouts at you: ‘Go away from my house, sleep outside!’ . . . He did the same thing with my sisters. Even if you can hardly stand on your feet, you will sleep outside in the banana fields . . . HD: He chased your sisters away? Ernesta: Yes, they died of this same illness and he chased them away: ‘Go away! Why are you sick? Have I sent you to get this illness? You yourselves wanted to get this disease.’ . . . One day I visited the village together with my grandchild. We slept in the banana fields, although there are many wild animals out there. The child says that she doesn’t want to go back anymore . . .

Against the background of experiences like Ernesta’s, other FGBFC members described how, parallel to the loss of ties with their worldly families, they were building new relationships in the FGBFC, which often seemed more reliable than the ones with their worldly relatives.14 The small home churches in particular were described to me as networks of support that flexibly and quickly reacted to the needs of their individual members. Especially in cases of serious illness the charitable acts of other church followers, described as ‘duties’ or ‘shifts’ (zamu) imposed by the FGBFC members, went far beyond immediate acts of caring or nursing. Consolata recalled how a female church member had been dying from AIDS and how her home church had collected money for a small house and even arranged for her burial: There was a sister in our home church who was infected with HIV. In the final phase of her illness she couldn’t even walk. . . . We took care of

14 I am aware that the following statements may be somewhat biased in that they reflect a predominantly positive perspectives on the caring and supporting functions of the FGBFC home churches. While there may be certainly very different experience with the reliability of the FGBFC network—and members who had travelled to Dar es Salaam from other regions of the country indeed emphasised that the network of solidarity established in the Dar headquarters was an exception rather than the rule—the approach of my multi-sited fieldwork did not allow for a more detailed insight into the failures and ruptures of care and support structures in the FGBFC. For a more elaborate discussion of the dilemmas and ruptures associated with care in context of AIDS NGOs or within family and kinship networks in rural and urban Tanzania, see Dilger 2004, 2005, 2006.

276

hansjörg dilger her and prayed for her. I even did the cooking and fed her meals. . . . We collected money for her and built a small house for her. HD: Didn’t her relatives help her? Consolata: No, but after her death they took the house and now they live in it. . . . If you are a member of this church and you die, we, the people in the church, collect money for the coffin and the shroud—everything until you are properly buried. Your relatives don’t give a single cent . . .

Consolata’s statement illustrates that the FGBFC often does more for members dying from AIDS than provide for their basic material, social and emotional needs. The church followers also make sure that the death of their members is transformed, in the eyes of the dying as well as in the eyes of the church community, into a ‘good death’. Beyond the proper burial, a good death implies that the dying members who succumb to a supposedly sinful and stigmatised disease are close to God before they die. As Frederick Klaits (1998: 111) has argued with regard to an apostolic church in Gaborone, this closeness to God is symbolised by the advance knowledge of one’s own death—or the death of others—which is perceived by the church community as a ‘blessing’ and as ‘a sign of a particularly good death’. This aspect was also expressed by Anonymous who recalled the way his wife died. While in our interview he never explicitly mentioned that his wife might have died from HIV, he remembered how he had received a sign for her approaching death in a dreamlike vision, thus dispersing any doubts others might have had about his wife’s (and consequently his own) moral integrity at the time of her death. The members and the leadership of the FGBFC were involved in his capacity for accepting the transitory nature of human existence and his wife’s death as a consequence of the ‘love of God’: My wife was treated at different hospitals in Dar es Salaam, but nothing helped her in the way the prayers of the FGBFC did. . . . When her death approached I had already learned how to pray and I cried to God. During my prayers I obtained something—I don’t know how to name it, but word was given to me that I should read in Jacob, 4: 14. There I found the following verse: ‘You don’t know what tomorrow will be. What is your existence? Your existence is like the flood which is visible at one time and disappears at the other.’15 These words terrified me, but I thanked God because he teaches us to thank him for everything. I had slept, but suddenly I saw this date—the thirtieth. I asked God: ‘What does this date mean?’ He did not reply and my wife died at this same date—the thirtieth I had dreamt of. Thus, even 15

Thus quoted by Anonymous.

healing the wounds of modernity

277

if she died because of tuberculosis, or I don’t know what else, I know in my heart that she died through the love of God. She died through her own strength.

Conclusion In this article, I have shown how the Full Gospel Bible Fellowship Church has responded, as well as contributed, to the pressures that globalisation and modernity exert on urban life in Tanzania, first with regard to the healing of various diseases and afflictions, and second with regard to the challenges that rural-urban migration and socio-economic hardships present for the continuity of social relationships and the reliability of kinship and community networks. In the conclusion I redirect my focus on the centrality of healing for the current practice of Neo-Pentecostal churches in eastern Africa and describe why the paradigm of healing that is promoted by the FGBFC has become so appealing to the followers of the church, despite most members’ obvious ‘knowledge’ of the ‘biomedical facts’ about HIV/AIDS and particularly about the biomedical incurability of the disease.16 The first reason for the appeal of the FGBFC’s healing prayers is that they establish a striking continuity with the regional context of Tanzania and are partially rooted in the local life-worlds of the eastern African region. On the one hand, this becomes visible in the fact that affliction in the FGBFC is defined as an all-encompassing category that puts physical suffering on a par with other instances of distress that are likely to trouble every Tanzanian at some stage of his or her life. This understanding of affliction and misfortune is, as social and medical anthropologists have argued extensively (cf. Evans-Pritchard 1976 [1937]; Whyte 1990), a polysemous concept which makes no distinction between physical and non-physical forms of suffering and causally relates affliction and healing to the wider social and cultural processes in the affected individual’s environment as well as in society at large. On the other hand, the concept of satanic forces promoted by the FGBFC links the church followers not only to the global community of Pentecostals and its universalised image of the devil as it originated in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The FGBFC’s concept of the devil is

16 At the time of my fieldwork, antiretroviral medication was not available in Tanzania.

278

hansjörg dilger

also based on—and composed of—abstract ideas of malevolent forces as they are represented by witchcraft as well as by diabolic understandings of the pepo and jini on the Swahili coast. As Meyer has argued with regard to Ghana, the fact that Pentecostal churches in Africa refer to the same forces as ‘traditional’ cosmologies of illness and healing—albeit in an exclusively negative way—establishes a continuity between the worlds of the Pentecostals and the wider society which are in many ways thought to be irreconcilable. Drawing on the way in which the ‘Africanisation of Western Christianity’ came about in a Pentecostal church in Ghana, she illustrates how, despite the ‘diabolisation’ of Ewe religion through Presbyterian missionaries, ‘old gods and spirits, and also witchcraft, continued to exist as Christian demons under the auspices of the devil’. Meyer argues ‘for the need for scholars to consider also the negative incorporation of the spiritual entities in African religious traditions into the image of the Christian devil as part and parcel of local appropriations.’ In this way, ‘the “old” and forbidden, from which Christians [are] required to distance themselves, [remain] available, albeit in a new form’ (Meyer 2004: 455). The second reason for the attractiveness of the prayers is the fact that the church is establishing an open and variable relationship between ‘localised’ and ‘globalised’ concepts of illness, affliction and healing which become condensed in the experience of the affected individuals and whose respective validity and power is in the more critical cases subject to an ongoing negotiation among the church leaders as well as the church followers. Particularly with regard to AIDS, the ideology of the FGBFC allows its followers to move freely between the church and biomedical health institutions, and even encourages its HIV-infected members to make use of the latter in order to confirm their health status. In this regard, the church responds to the fact that many people in eastern Africa flexibly switch between different models of disease and affliction and make use of different types of treatment and healing, often varying considerably depending on social context, and over time and space (cf. Janzen 1978, Feierman 1981).17

17 Even among the FGBFC members most of whom explicitly condemn the practice of ‘traditional healing’ there are some who had made use of traditional healing before their salvation—and it cannot be excluded that they do not make use of it either secretly or will not at a later stage of their life should they decide to convert to a different religious organisation.

healing the wounds of modernity

279

However, while the church is comparatively open to the biomedical system of disease and treatment (something not universally shared by Pentecostals), Bishop Kakobe is still not uncritical about the selfproclaimed superiority of western medicine and western modernity and makes clear that it is ultimately the church leaders—and, above all, God—who remain in control of the healing process and of the various actors involved. Thus, although Kakobe sends HIV-infected church members to a health institution to verify whether they have been cured, and while he also accepts the results of these tests as ‘medical facts’, he and the other church members subject the medical results to their own interpretation. In response to a positive HIV test, the church leaves open the possibility that the HIV-infected person has a ‘normal virus’ or has not yet managed to engage in a moral life as prescribed by the church teachings. If, however, the virus disappears, the reason for this success is more or less self-evident: has not biomedicine repeatedly emphasised that it has still not found a cure for AIDS? In this way, the church leaders—in close correspondence with the church followers, who often pursue their individual hopes and interests—are flexibly negotiating the uncertainties and questions that arise from the confrontation with lethal diseases such as AIDS, while at the same time warding off potential critics who would accuse the church of raising false hopes. The last aspect of the attraction of the healing prayers is that they are connected closely to processes of community-building and an informal practice of care and support that has been established at the level of the home churches and that is rooted in the church’s ideology of a ‘saved community’. While this practice of community-building is a gendered process that conspicuously reflects the fact that it is mostly HIV-infected women that may be excluded from the support of male-centred kinship networks in rural and urban Tanzania (Dilger 2005), community support in the FGBFC entails more than a simple replacement of the worldly family in the context of globalisation, rural-urban migration and HIV/AIDS. The way church followers are being integrated into the world of the FGBFC is as much about the economic and social perspectives that Neo-Pentecostal churches offer to their saved followers as it is about their struggles for moral integrity in a sinful and morally corrupted world; the creation of hope in the context of an epidemic that evokes feelings of despair and grief rather than a perspective directed towards the future; and finally about proper ways of dying from a stigmatised disease that, without adequate arrangements, would easily resist the church’s classification of a ‘good death’. In this sense,

280

hansjörg dilger

healing prayers in the FGBFC represent more than the naïve belief in the promise of being able to cure a lethal disease, or the simple resistance to ‘name a disease’ surrounded by stigma and denial. They imply a powerful reorganisation of the moral and social identities of saved believers against the background of an insecure and morally corrupted world that is increasingly tied into transnational networks and the forces of the global market economy. To conclude, religion in the context of AIDS is more than just a source of ambiguity in the ways in which societies in eastern Africa deal with the disease. Christianity’s role has often been described by policy-makers and social scientists either with regard to the stigmatising attitudes of churches or with reference to the charitable acts that are associated with Christian organisations in the context of the epidemic (cf., Dilger 2001: 87ff.; 2005: 227–33). This article has argued that the ‘negative’ and the ‘positive’ or ‘constructive’ dimensions of religion with regard to HIV/AIDS cannot be understood as separate or decontextualised aspects of the ways in which Neo-Pentecostalism has established itself in eastern Africa. While the FGBFC seems to meet many of the conflicting needs and desires of its members with regard to healing and care, the processes set in motion by the church imply—by definition—a high potential for social conflict and often lead to further ruptures in the context of modernity and AIDS. As has become clear from the example of the FGBFC, Neo-Pentecostal churches in Tanzania are manoeuvring their followers through the various threats and imponderability of urban life. In doing so, they create as much uncertainty, ambiguity and ruptures with regard to the nature of modernity and globalisation as they provide hope, fixity and moral guidance in a world that to their followers has become unstable and insecure, and in the context of AIDS, dangerous and deadly. While church members claim to make a break with their individual and collective pasts—and indeed may become the trigger of social, cultural and family conflicts—the practices around healing and care established in the FGBFC are echoing a vision of modernity that is obliged to western ideals of material success and individualisation as much as it is rooted in the histories of religion, healing and the valuing of social relationships in Tanzania.

healing the wounds of modernity

281

References Barnett, Tony, and Alan Whiteside. 2002. AIDS in the 21st Century: Disease and Globalization. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Barrett, David B., and Todd M. Johnson. 2004. ‘Annual Statistical Table on Global Mission: 2004’. International Bulletin of Missionary Research 28.1, 24–25. Connerton, Paul. 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Corten, André, and Ruth Marshall-Fratani. 2001. ‘Introduction’, in André Corten and Ruth Marshall-Fratani (eds.), Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1–21. Dilger, Hansjörg. 1999. Besser der Vorhang im Haus als die Fahne im Wind: Geld, AIDS und Moral im ländlichen Tanzania. Münster: Lit Verlag. ——. 2001. ‘ “Living PositHIVely in Tanzania”. The Global Dynamics of AIDS and the Meaning of Religion for International and Local AIDS Work’. afrika spectrum 36.1, 73–90. ——. 2003. ‘Sexuality, AIDS and the Lures of Modernity: Reflexivity and Morality among Young People in Rural Tanzania’. Medical Anthropology 22.1, 23–52. ——. 2004. ‘Verwandtschaft und rituelle Praxis in der Moderne: die Aushandlung von “Zugehörigkeit” im Spannungsfeld von Land-Stadt-Migration und HIV/AIDS in Tansania’, in Hansjörg Dilger, Angelika Wolf, Urte Undine Frömming and Kerstin Volker-Saad (eds.), Moderne und postkoloniale Transformation: Ethnologische Schrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Ute Luig. Berlin: Weißensee Verlag, 193–208. ——. 2005. Leben mit Aids: Krankheit, Tod und soziale Beziehungen in Afrika. Eine Ethnographie. Frankfurt and New York: Campus. ——. 2006. ‘The Power of AIDS: Kinship, Mobility and the Valuing of Social and Ritual Relationships in Tanzania’. African Journal of AIDS Research 5.2, 109–121. ——. Forthcoming. ‘Contextualizing Ethics in AIDS Research: Or, the Morality of Knowledge Production in Ethnographic Fieldwork on “the Unspeakable”’, in Wenzel Geissler and Sassy Molyneux (eds.), The Ethnography of Medical Research in Africa. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books. Erdtsieck, Jessica. 1997. Pepo as an Inner Healing Force: Practices of a Female Spiritual Healer. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute. Evans-Pritchard, Edward E. 1976 [1937]. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. London: Clarendon Press. Feierman, Steven. ‘Therapy as a System-in-Action in Northeastern Tanzania’. Social Science and Medicine 15B, 353–360. Garner, Robert C. 2000. ‘Safe Sects? Dynamic Religion and AIDS in South Africa’. Journal of Modern African Studies 38.1, 41–69. Gifford, Paul. 1994. ‘Ghana’s Charismatic Churches’. Journal of Religion in Africa 24.3, 241–265. ——. 2004. Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalizing African Economy. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Giles, Linda. 1999. ‘Spirit Possession and the Symbolic Construction of Swahili Society’, in Heike Behrend and Ute Luig (eds.), Spirit Possession, Modernity and Power in Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 142–164. Good, Byron J. (1994): Medicine, Rationality and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haram, Liv. 1995. ‘Negotiating Sexuality in Times of Economic Want: The Young and Modern Meru Women’, in Knut-Inge Klepp, Paul M. Biswalo and Aud Talle (eds.), Young People at Risk: Fighting AIDS in Northern Tanzania. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 31–48.

282

hansjörg dilger

Janzen, John M. 1978. The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire. Berkeley: University of California Press. Johnstone, Patrick, and Jason Mandryk. 2001. Operation World. Carlisle: Paternoster Publishers. Jones, Ben. 2005. ‘The Church in the Village, the Village in the Church: Pentecostalism in Teso, Uganda’. Cahiers d’études africaines 45.178, 497–517. Klaits, Frederick. 1998. ‘Making a Good Death: AIDS and Social Belonging in an Independent Church in Gaborone’. Botswana Notes and Records 30, 101–119. Marshall, Ruth. 1993. ‘ “Power in the Name of Jesus”: Social Transformation and Pentecostalism in Western Nigeria “Revisited” ’, in Terence Ranger and Olufemi Vaughan (eds.), Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 213–246. Maxwell, David. 1998. ‘ “Delivered from the Spirit of Poverty?” Pentecostalism, Prosperity and Modernity in Zimbabwe’. Journal of Religion in Africa 28.3, 350–373. Meyer, Birgit. 1998a. ‘ “Make a Complete Break with the Past”: Memory and Postcolonial Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostal Discourse’, in Richard Werbner (ed.), Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of Power. London: Zed Books, 182–208. ——. 1998b. ‘Waren und die Macht des Gebets: Zur Problematik des Konsums in ghanaischen Pfingstkirchen’. Sociologus 48.1, 42–72. ——. 2004. ‘Christianity in Africa: From African Independent to Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches’. Annual Review of Anthropology 33, 447–74. Schoepf, Brooke. 2001. ‘International AIDS Research in Anthropology: Taking a Critical Perspective on the Crisis’. Annual Review of Anthropology 30, 335–361. Setel, Philip W. 1999. A Plague of Paradoxes: AIDS, Culture, and Demography in Northern Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tripp, Aili Mari. 1997. Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ukah, Asonzeh F. K. 2004. ‘Pentecostalism, Religious Expansion and the City: Lessons from the Nigerian Bible-Belt’, in Peter Probst and Gerd Spittler (eds.), Between Resistance and Expansion: Explorations of Local Vitality in Africa. Münster: Lit Verlag, 415–441. UNAIDS. 2004. Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic. Geneva: UNAIDS. Vaughan, Megan. 1991. Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness. Cambridge: Polity Press. Weiss, Brad. 1993. ‘“Buying Her Grave”: Money, Movement and AIDS in North-West Tanzania’. Africa 63.1, 19–35. Whyte, Susan Reynolds. 1989. ‘Anthropological Approaches to African Misfortune: From Religion to Medicine’, in Anita Jacobson-Widding and David Westerlund (eds.), Culture, Experience and Pluralism: Essays on African Ideas of Illness and Healing. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis, 289–301. ——. 1997. Questioning Misfortune: The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern Uganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wimberley, Kristina. 1995. ‘Becoming “Saved” as a Strategy of Control: The Role of Religion in Combating HIV/AIDS in a Ugandan Community. (From Backsliding to Manoeuvring: Adolescent Girls, Salvation and AIDS in Ankole, Uganda)’. Paper Presented at the Thirty-eighth Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Orlando, November 3–6, 1995.

GLOVES IN TIMES OF AIDS: PENTECOSTALISM, HAIR AND SOCIAL DISTANCING IN BOTSWANA Rijk van Dijk Introduction Pentecostalism, an increasingly popular form of Christianity in parts of Africa, is marked by the sense of spiritual superiority it fosters among its adherents through an ideological emphasis on ‘breaking’ (Meyer 1998, 2004, Van Dijk 1997, Robbins 2004, 2007, Engelke 2004). As this literature demonstrates, the creation of a rupture with the past, traditions, social relations and nation-state projects is at the heart of much of the Pentecostal ideology. It appears to inform Pentecostal religious practices as leaders and groups have quickly become popular through their proclaimed access to superior powers to heal and to provide deliverance from ancestral curses and demons. This inspires the pursuit of a ‘breakthrough’ in personal or social circumstances to gain progress and prosperity (Maxwell 1998, Meyer 2002, Akoko 2004, Gifford 2004, Hasu 2006). The healing practices of traditional healers, the worship of the mainstream and former missionary churches, or the cultural policies of African nation-states are declared as spiritually inferior, superstitious and backward in many Pentecostal public messages. With the arrival of HIV/AIDS, the Pentecostal project of demonstrating spiritual superiority in creating a rupture was in many cases continued by leaders claiming to be able to deal with, or even cure, the disease. Adherence to a born-again style of life is often promoted as the only effective protection (Garner 2000, Mate 2002, Pfeiffer 2004, Dilger 2007, Prince 2007). The notion of Pentecostal spiritual superiority is linked to the moral project of ‘maturing in the faith’ as some Pentecostal leaders in Ghana would call it, or kukhwima, ‘ripening’, as the born again Pentecostals in Malawi say (see Van Dijk 1998). This is the process of attaining a different and superior moral status that conversion or being born again entails. The superiority achieved by conversion is one reason why in many Pentecostal circles young people can wield moral authority over

284

rijk van dijk

people even if the latter are more senior in age than the Pentecostal preacher or leader (see Van Dijk 1992). As Joel Robbins (2007) has been arguing, the Pentecostal ideological emphasis on rupture, on a complete break with the person’s former life, is experienced by members as an important aspect of their identity. In his view, anthropology has a tendency to explain away this existential importance of rupture and break as it commonly stresses cultural continuities instead. While he argues for an anthropology that is engaged with understanding ruptures and break, the question remains unanswered as to how the Pentecostal pursuit of discontinuity is translated into actual praxis. To what extent can this spiritual and moral project embedded in Pentecostal thinking—‘being above the ordinary things’ as Ghanaian Pentecostals explained—be realised by Pentecostals in everyday situations? This contribution aims to demonstrate that while rupturing and ‘breaking’ are part of the overall ideology, they are in practice translated in day-to-day situations in patterns of social distancing. Pentecostalism can be regarded as a ‘this-worldly’ religion (see Martin 1990), focused on the immanent aspects of life and concerned with progress and prosperity, while it simultaneously maintains a practical emphasis on keeping a certain distance from everyday life. This dialectic can be noticed in the way Pentecostals in Ghana deal with the issue of the gift. They commonly distrust and reject reciprocal relations outside Pentecostal circles as they find it hard to control the spiritual powers that gift-exchange may entail. At the same time, they encourage gift relations within their circles as signs of trustworthiness and spiritual control (Van Dijk 2002, 2005, Coleman 2004, Akoko 2004). There are many situations in which this dialectic of distancing, keeping relations at bay, controlling, supervising and rearranging exchanges take place. These include important moments in individual lives where births, marriages, funerals, sickness and misfortune are concerned. In all such situations there is the deliberate creation of a distance that allows for a critical reflection of how things should be done, as distinct from custom or social expectations and obligations. There is a sense of a higher spiritual and moral ground from which customary social arrangements can be perceived, evaluated, accepted or rejected. This notion of social distancing is relevant in understanding the way Pentecostalism has become connected to class and is particularly significant for the way Pentecostalism relates to the creation of status, prestige, style and authority for the emerging urban, entrepreneurial

gloves in times of aids

285

middle classes (Maxwell 1998, Meyer 2002, De Witte 2008, MarshallFratani 2000, Van Dijk 2003, Gifford 2004) and has helped these to move beyond the obligations and limitations of local relations. This chapter explores this dimension of Pentecostalism in the Ghanaian immigrant community in Botswana. Issues of social distancing as a particular translation and negotiation of the ideological imperative of ‘breaking’ are relevant here through the ways in which these churches became connected to a business class of Ghanaian female entrepreneurs who operate hair salons in the country’s major towns. This practice of social distancing gained pertinence because of the AIDS pandemic, which has special significance for that type of small business activity. Both in relation to class formation and the AIDS scare, Pentecostal notions of spiritual and moral superiority shape identities and social relations. More specifically, these issues can be seen to surface in the use of certain objects and resources. In the context of Ghanaian-owned hair salons and the position of the Ghanaian owners/business women, the use and non-use, presence or absence of rubber gloves has become a specific marker of the different class positions and their ideological framing and legitimacy. In the context of the Ghanaian hair salons, the glove became an index of work and power relations related to the Pentecostal faith and the AIDS crisis. Studying this object (the glove) allows us to see how ideas of social distancing and superiority translate into actual behaviour. This focus turns the process of how notions of rupture and ‘breaking’ inform specific distancing practices open to anthropological scrutiny. The presence or absence of gloves In studying the implications of the Pentecostal ideology on spiritual and moral superiority, some literature has focused on how the ideology ‘re-tunes’ people’s sensory modes (Meyer 2006: 20). It makes adherents perceive things differently, makes them aware of the (spiritual) powers that may be imbued in matters relating to the past, to custom and tradition. It makes people turn a blind eye to a range of aspects of cultural and social life, creating what could be called ‘social anaesthesia’.1 This

1 The seminal article by Feldman (1994) that introduced the concept of cultural anaesthesia has been informative of the anthropology of the senses (see Seremetakis 1994, Stoller 1989) but seems to have had little impact beyond that particular field of

286

rijk van dijk

indicates an aspect of an ideology that urges people to keep out of touch with the reality of others and no longer to see their plight. As Herzfeld (1992) argued, such social construction of indifference may lead to practices whereby people become far removed from everyday human face-to-face contact and thus lose a direct engagement with other people’s predicament. Social anaesthesia can inform or reaffirm class positions by ideological sensitivities and insensitivities, by specific notions of what it is preferable to see, hear and touch and what not (Asad 1993, Chidester 1992, 2005, Verrips 2006). On the one hand, religious forms such as Pentecostalism may foster ideas regarding the social classes that have become involved in its circles of activity; on the other, these social classes translate these ideas of social distancing into everyday social practices (see for an example in Nigeria, Smith 2001). In this contribution, I explore a kind of Verdichtung, a kind of condensation of such ideas and practices in situations revolving around just one single subject: the use of gloves. Consider the case of Kofi (a fictive name), a hairdresser from Ghana who in 2003 worked in one of the many Ghanaian-owned hair salons in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. As I described in an earlier article (Van Dijk 2007), when I met him he was complaining bitterly about conditions at his place of work. Being in contact with Batswana (native inhabitants of Botswana, plural of Motswana) on a daily basis and working in one of the poorer parts of this otherwise prosperous city, he was increasingly unsettled about the fact that his shop did not have a sterilising machine. In view of the country’s current HIV rate, the use of scissors, blades, needles and other sharp objects and utensils is problematic to every hairdresser. Sterilising machines have been introduced into the hairdressing sector in Botswana and most salons that attract middle-class customers have one, offering protection to customers and staff alike. Some salons even advertise the fact that they own such machines on their road-side banners and posters. The costs of such appliances are not large, but in the poorer areas they are often absent. study. The problematic of the perspective opened up by Feldman is an assumption of culture in an almost essentialised understanding of the term. Cultural difference in his view is also lodged in the ways culture makes people unable to feel, to be nonempathetic towards the pain and suffering of the other. In his study of the Rodney King case, this means that, in his view, the white middle-class is marked by a primordial and culturally based insensitivity towards the plight and predicaments of their fellow Afro-American citizens.

gloves in times of aids

287

His complaint was stronger, and perhaps more desperate, when it came to the absence of gloves. In the view of many in the hair business, it is obviously vital to use gloves when flesh-to-flesh contact is unavoidable and when the use of sharp objects warrant the use of protective devices. In addition to the sharp utensils, the use of toxic chemicals, which as many hairdressers say ‘make the skin of the fingers run thin’, makes wearing gloves even more important. Rubber, or so-called surgical, gloves, have been introduced in various sectors in society, even comprising the practices of traditional healers (dingaka) where one can now expect to find boxes of gloves. These are to be used when incisions are made on the skin of the client with razor-blades. When these incisions bleed, medicines are rubbed into them. Yet, despite the importance and popularity of the glove, and even more so despite his pleading to be given gloves to use, the Ghanaian owner of the shop did not provide them, Kofi explained. Their absence was indeed remarkable and indicated an important level of inequality between the worker, unable to afford relatively inexpensive gloves, and the female owner. A year later he died, and although the autopsy report was not circulated within the Ghanaian community, many of his co-workers suspected it had been an AIDS-related death (leaving open whether the absence of protective devices was to be considered as the main cause of death). This situation of gloves becoming central in the protection against HIV/AIDS as well as in the case of the hairdressers and the marking of class differences between owners and their workers is replicated in many situations. Another male hairdresser, Joseph (also a fictive name), who worked in one of the Ghanaian-owned hair salons in the Mogoditshane suburb, explained how his use of gloves was again and again curtailed by the ‘madam’. Using a number of sets of gloves during the different stages of doing hair (rinsing, ‘relaxing’ i.e. the application of chemicals, cutting and shaving), he was told not to ‘empty a box’ (meaning a box containing 100 rubber gloves) unless he was going to pay for them himself. While complaining that the ‘owner never touches a scalp herself ’ (i.e. excluding herself from being exposed to dangers), he said that he had no other option than to ‘use the powder’, which is the washing powder he applies to be able to use the same set of gloves over and over again. ‘After using the powder, I simply hang them to dry a bit in the wind, I will not buy them myself !!’ Confirming that he knew about the risks involved (not only the gloves still being infected even after the use of ‘powder’, but also the glove

288

rijk van dijk

becoming worn out and therefore likely to tear or develop holes), he blamed the owner for not ‘taking care of the staff properly’ irrespective of the fact that the owner had attended one of the Hairdressers-ofthe-World-against-AIDS (a L’Oreal-sponsored information campaign) workshops that was held in this area some time ago. Some of the hair salons in Mogoditshane were still displaying the advertisements and posters that had been handed out during the awareness-raising campaign, the poster signalling the message ‘Your Hairdresser Cares’ and spelling out all the preventative steps that should be taken to make sure hygienic measures are in place.2 Yet the owners do generally not work their customers’ scalps directly; they employ a person as a shop overseer and deliberately keep their distance from their workers. While these awareness-raising campaigns may indeed be able to convey prevention messages, from the perspective of these workers—excluded from participation in such workshops as Joseph indicated—they did not reach the persons for whom the information was relevant. The limitation on gloves was compounded by the lack of sterilisation: although a sterilisation machine was present, it had broken down some time ago. The absence of gloves and other measures of protection such as sterilising machines are expressions of how the workers’ concerns and risks can become neglected by shop owners. The presence or absence of gloves also reflects underlying notions of the importance of touch, tactility, bodily contact and risk in the context of HIV/AIDS as much as they mark class positions. Tactile regimes in their relation to class positions may be influenced by, and changed through, economic interests and pressures, and may be reframed by religious ideologies (Geurts 2002, Taylor 1990, Geissler & Prince 2007, De Witte 2008). In the case of these workers, why were gloves absent? Why did the owner of the shop want to control this part of the contact

Another organisation, PSI (Population Services International), is targeting hair salons in Zimbabwe for the purpose of introducing and distributing female condoms to women. The organisation’s website reads: A novel approach used by PSI/Zimbabwe to increase awareness and distribution of the Care female condom capitalised on the relationships between Zimbabwean women and their hairdressers. PSI/Zimbabwe trained hairdressers in over 500 hair salons, which also served as retail outlets for the product. Many women in Zimbabwe visit hair salons on a regular basis and the predominately female environment of salons offer a unique setting for women to touch and feel the product and discuss issues surrounding condom use and negotiation. Over 52% of the 1.4 million condoms were sold through the hair salon network. http://www.psi .org/our_programs/products/female_condom.html. 2

gloves in times of aids

289

290

rijk van dijk

between the hairdresser and his customers? Inexpensive as they are, why wouldn’t the owners want to provide them? Why would the owner be insensitive to the needs for protection of her workers and customers? Or do owners entertain specific views concerning the wearing of gloves and what this means in terms of their doing business in a highly competitive market? What kinds of sensitivities are imbued in the use of gloves in this context? Is the glove in itself a sign of insensitivity that the owner wants to avoid as it may jeopardise relations with customers? And importantly, what is the influence of the specific form of Christianity this owner adhered to (as so many other Ghanaian owners do), namely Ghanaian Pentecostalism, in the creation and maintenance of a regime in which insensitivities are possible, morally justified, perhaps even pursued as part of its ideological project? Owners and workers in the context of Pentecostalism There are two things to consider regarding the issue of the gloves in our cases: one, the workers are in most cases not member of a Pentecostal church, and second Ghana was (and still is) not as HIV/AIDS-ridden as Botswana. The presence of the Ghanaian migrant community in Botswana dates from the early 1970s when the first independent Botswana government was recruiting skilled personnel from other parts of Africa to serve in its emerging civil service (Van Dijk 2003). Ghanaian men were recruited as teachers, university professors, lawyers and doctors often bringing their wives and family. As the population of Botswana is small (around 2 million), the migration of Ghanaians was relatively small scale, yet their influence on civil society has been substantial due to their specific place in the society’s social hierarchy. The wives of the Ghanaian men began to open hair and beauty salons as well as clothes shops and boutiques in the mid 1970s, recruiting personnel from Ghana who were skilled in producing complicated West-African hairstyles and in West-African fashion (for unskilled labour as cleaners or ‘shampoo girls’, the Ghanaian owners usually recruited ‘locals’) (see Van Dijk 2003). Introducing cosmopolitan yet African beauty styles to economically expanding Botswana, their enterprises proved popular and their owners joined a rapidly expanding and increasingly affluent middle-class in Botswana’s larger towns (for the significance of African hairdressing in relation to globalisation and transcultural exchange, see Nyamnjoh,

gloves in times of aids

291

Durham & Fokwang 2002; Weiss 2005; Erasmus 2000; Ossman 2002). Ghanaian businesswomen form a dominant and powerful group within the Ghanaian migrant community and some developed relations with Botswana elites. The Ghanaian Women’s Association (Mma Kuo), formed in the early 1980s, was the precursor to the later Botswana Association of Ghanaian Nationals. In addition, this group of affluent businesswomen was crucial in the establishment of four Ghanaian transnational Pentecostal churches that found their way to Botswana in the early 1990s. Economic and spiritual interests were intertwined by the salon owners; Pentecostal pastors visited these businesses and offered prayers for their progress, prosperity and protection against witchcraft, jealousy and malign spirits (nteho or ‘consecration’) involving the ritual spiritual spilling of the ‘blood of Jesus’. An important issue in this relationship between the salon owners and Pentecostalism is that Ghanaian personnel hardly ever join these churches. Practical reasons might contribute to their distance from Ghanaian Pentecostalism, remarkable as it is because so many within the Ghanaian migrant community are members of one of the Ghanaian Pentecostal churches. These practical reasons revolve first of all around their pay. Hairdressers work long hours, seven days a week, as they do not get a fixed salary (apart from a ‘basic’ salary of around BP 250–300 (approx. €50)). They work ‘on a percentage’ of what their customers pay, leaving the lion’s share to the owner of the salon or the business. Hairdressers thus have to sacrifice real income if they want to attend church meetings. A second practical obstacle between Pentecostal churches and hairdressers such as Kofi or Joseph relates to the financial commitments these churches demand from their Ghanaian members (including ‘tithes’ of one tenth of one’s net income). Moreover, members are expected to dress in expensive clothes when attending church. Hairdressers may earn too little to meet all these expectations and therefore be recorded as not being committed or not being ready to accept the authority of the pastors. In addition, there is the acceptance of the authority of the pastor in inspecting one’s moral standing in life. While the pattern of church membership between salon owners and their workers reaffirms class positions, an additional factor is that increasingly restrictive labour (socalled ‘localisation’) policies are allowing fewer foreigners to come and work in this relatively affluent society. Work in hair salons is ‘localised’, meaning that only special conditions allow foreigners to work in the

292

rijk van dijk

sector. The implication of this is that workers or salon owners must make special arrangements to recruit labour from Ghana. The recruited Ghanaian hair workers will always remain ‘strangers’ as their permits are only renewed on a temporarily basis and easily run the risk of not being renewed at all. In cases where they lack work permits, their position will remain ambiguous, if not illegal. Pastors are therefore usually unsure of these workers’ status. Do they have ‘papers’? Is their status and identity known? Is their life history known? To which social and spiritual powers have they been exposed in past experiences while still in Ghana? These are all reasons why pastors or prominent members of the Ghanaian migrant community are never eager to really associate with lower-class workers. The pastor’s authority may conflict with the authority the female salon owners wield over them. Interestingly, the owners’ power can be viewed as inclusion in a kind of extended family. When recruiting workers from Ghana, the owners usually make an explicit effort to travel from Botswana to Ghana to look for suitable personnel in cities such as Accra and Kumasi. In the process of recruiting, they will talk to the families of prospective staff and negotiations often involve an exchange of gifts. This represents the idea that families entrust these young men and women into the hands of the owners and in Botswana these owners will refer to their workers from Ghana as ‘my boys and girls’. When Kofi died, the owner of his hair salon was not only obliged to arrange a funeral ceremony in Gaborone that would ensure a proper ‘future remembrance’ as required in diasporan Ghanaian funeral practices (De Witte 2003); she was also obliged to travel to Ghana to visit the family, present gifts and, above all, present the video showing how well she had created a respectable imagery of her ‘boy’ for future remembrance. Being constructed as part of an extended family, hairdressers are subjected to the way in which extended family should be treated from a Pentecostal perspective; i.e. supervision and a critical control of responsibilities on the part of the Pentecostal owner. Whereas on the one hand the social and cultural obligation exists to be responsible, Pentecostalism at the same time allows for the moral and spiritual legitimacy to be both in control (‘on top of things’ as the owners say) and distant at the same time. One important element in this distancing rhetoric of Pentecostalism is the extensive emphasis on the nuclear family, while the extended family is proclaimed a liability (Mate 2002, Van Dijk 2004). Believers are usually bombarded with messages that inform them about being careful with their relations with the extended

gloves in times of aids

293

family, cutting obligations and relations of reciprocity as much as they can, or at least bringing reciprocal relations under extensive moral and spiritual control and scrutiny (Meyer 2002, Van Dijk 2002, Prince 2007). Accepting gifts from relatives beyond the confines of the nuclear family and giving gifts to distant family members is considered to be playing with fire (Van Dijk 2005). Emphasising the peril in such reciprocal relatedness, the widespread notion that what the Devil gives ‘can never be trusted’ makes people aware that the giving or receiving of gifts is never neutral as it may harbour spiritual entities that are demonic. The effect of cutting ties with the extended family has profound ramifications at many different levels. Pentecostals cannot readily commit themselves to the performance of all sorts of family-related customary rituals, such as those that take place in the context of birth and death, name-giving and marriages. Careful supervision should take place and the pouring of libations to the family ancestors, for example, are prohibited. While one might think this is mere ideology, in practice even Pentecostals cannot be seen to be insensitive to the demands, obligations or needs of the extended family. The fact of the matter is that at home and in the diaspora, explicit ‘teaching’ takes place for Pentecostals on how to cut these ties. This severing of ties is expected in the context of marriage, funerals or name-giving ceremonies. Pentecostal teachings deal with how to withstand pressure from elder relatives, as well as to arrange one’s affairs to ensure that gifts are directed towards the church and God’s cause instead of meeting the needs of the family. In addition to the Bible classes and counselling sessions where all of this is discussed between pastors and members, there is also an extensive literature to inform Pentecostal members of the same. Here the nuclear family of the leading pastor is often portrayed as a shining role model of how social life should be organised, maintained and supervised. The imagery of the modern believer being in control of his/her situation, planning for the future and struggling against uncontrollable demands on family resources is a finely tuned but highly effective message. Obligations are translated as risks that ‘may destroy your family’ as one of the Gaborone-based pastors preached. There is upfront training in distancing at almost every level of involvement in the church, Pentecostal ideology and everyday life. This Pentecostal ideology strengthens the owners’ responsibility for employees from Ghana, the obligation to incorporate them in a widely defined kinship pattern as ‘sons and daughters’, while making sure that

294

rijk van dijk

their needs are controlled in a way that may not affect the owner’s resources. In spite of the kinship idiom, there is not usually a friendly or convivial relationship between personnel recruited in Ghana and the owners, and sometimes distrust prevails. Beyond owners’ claims that their workers are ‘lazy’ or ‘cheating’ them, owners sometimes go as far as checking out the houses where workers live to see whether or not the workers are taking customers away from the shop by cutting their hair in their own homes. ‘Family’ is a liability and is not to be trusted, and complaints by workers usually go ignored. Although Kofi complained repeatedly and bitterly about the dangerous working conditions in his hair salon and the poor living conditions in the place where he was staying (and which had been arranged by the owner), the owner turned a deaf ear to his complaints. They were received much in the same way as Pentecostals are ‘trained’ to receive calls for help and attention from the extended family. This is informed by an awareness of the dangers and perils of reciprocity and of extending obligations beyond the confines of the nuclear family (Van Dijk 2002, 2005). The owner did not do much about his complaints; gloves were not provided. ‘We have to teach them’ An additional factor in understanding the social distancing on the part of owners is the relatively late arrival of HIV/AIDS in Ghanaian society. Most owners had left Ghana for Botswana before AIDS became a serious issue. Overall, the HIV/AIDS infection rate in Ghana is much lower than in Botswana, meaning that it is the hairdressers more than the owners who find themselves in a position where they are confronted with the seriousness of the issue. Ghanaian hairdressers tend to use the local shampoo girls as a kind of shield or go-between between themselves and the customer (Van Dijk 2003). If shampoo girls find wounds, sores or scars on a customer’s head, they are the first to deal with this situation of potential danger as well as the embarrassment of asking the customers ‘to come back another time’. This is tricky in the sense that every customer is a source of income in a highly competitive market and they may decide never to come back. Embarrassment must be avoided at all costs. Owners look sharply and critically into this because of the percentage system: a substantial part of their income is dependent on maintaining a happy clientele. Hairdressers may have no other option than to deal with the head and hair of a person who

gloves in times of aids

295

could be infected, often dealing with hair styles that require lengthy, intense and repeated contact with the head and skin. In a context of marked competition, gloves are a tricky issue. They may signal, embarrassingly for all to see, that something is wrong with the head and the skin of a particular customer, that there is something that the hairdresser does not trust. Customers can be explicit about not wanting to be treated with gloves, with ‘rubber’ as some would say, to avoid any public embarrassment. What Erasmus (2000) has called ‘hair politics’ becomes in fact a politics of touching in the face of a liberal, competitive market where the fight for the customer is based on hard economics. Kofi never touched his customers with gloves because he suspected the reason for the owner not providing him with the items was that the limited market in one of the poorer areas in town where his salon was located required ‘real touching’. The use of gloves would have meant even fewer customers and hence less income. Similar negotiations of the use of ‘rubber’ in the context of a competitive market have been noted in the use of condoms by sex workers, for instance in the large cities of Malawi (see van den Borne 2005). Yet, unlike the condom, the glove does not seem to produce the kind of moral antagonisms that the large-scale introduction of the condom has brought about in Christian circles in the past, condemning it as providing a license for ‘sexual promiscuity’ (Taylor 1990, Amanze 2000, Pfeiffer 2004, Geissler and Prince 2007). Discussing this issue with salon owners revealed that notions of superiority surfaced again in how they perceived HIV/AIDS as requiring them to maintain social distance. Often the answer given was ‘we have to teach them’, by which they meant that they have to sit down with the customer and explain the use of the glove if he/she has a problem with their use. ‘You see,’ one owner explained, ‘we can teach them how to take care of their skull if we discover wounds and soars. We tell them they should apply Mercy Cream (a disinfectant cosmetic product that is imported from Ghana, RvD) and then we send them home and tell them to come back a week later!’ In actual fact, some of the hairdressers told me, this hardly ever happens as the owners are not that much involved on a daily basis with what goes on in the direct contact between the worker and the customer. As these hairdressers would say; ‘we are told to use gloves at all times. Customers cannot say “no” and the owners tell us we should educate them!’ Hence the use of gloves, irrespective of the actual reality of their usage, is enveloped

296

rijk van dijk

in a discourse that places the owners in the superior position of being able to teach their workers and customers what is right, what is proper bodily care and how to negotiate the dangers of infection. At the same time, they ambiguously neither provide gloves nor enforce their use. This discourse on teaching ties in with the ideas the shop owners have of the moral status of their host society. There is a strong sense of the moral inferiority of Botswana society vis-à-vis their own Ghanaian ‘character’, of which the current AIDS crisis, in their view, is both a symptom and proof. The promiscuity—the ‘jolling that men in this society’ do—is strange to their Ghanaian ‘nature’ and their Christian morality, and a threat to the status and behaviour of their own men and husbands. Their disregard for the moral status of Botswana society goes as far as discouraging their own children from developing friendships with local age mates and attempting to ensure that relationships only develop with partners from Ghana. Control over the salon is rarely relinquished to ‘locals’, as the owners instead prefer to recruit such personnel and caretakers from Ghana. There is little confidence in local employees, who are often perceived as stealing and cheating, as slow learners and unreliable when it comes to keeping time. These anti-Botswana sentiments are not only encouraged by the government’s policies of localisation that jeopardise the position of foreigners and their businesses but are also strengthened by the AIDS crisis. The fact that Ghana and the Ghanaian community are less affected by AIDS is perceived as a consequence of their higher moral status and ‘superior character’. Knowing all too well that the most important way by which HIV/AIDS is spread is through heterosexual and unsafe sexual relations, the businesses they run have a moral flipside that does not confirm and even contradicts the higher ground the female owners wish to occupy. On the one hand, owners want to make it clear that in the businesses they run they are dealing with what they perceive as the ignorance of the local population in terms of the skills in doing hair, the treatment of body hygiene and care, and the handling of money and business affairs. In addition, this superiority also needs to transpire in dealing with the spiritual aspects of being placed in a competitive market. There is an easy slippage in the manner in which teaching hair, beautification and body care relates to notions of how to teach proper prayers and spiritual protection. The salon owners receive spiritual protection through Pentecostal prayers and deliverance because they

gloves in times of aids

297

stick, in their view, to a higher morality of conduct and a superior faith. Many stories circulate among owners of how their businesses came under attack spiritually, through the actions of envious competitors. Hair can be taken from the salon to do magic tricks on the owners, something they would refer to by using the Setswana vernacular muti. In some cases, owners explained how they had to fire some of their local workers because of the magic tricks they had been playing on the business, out of spite and jealousy. Hence reading the Bible while in the shop and ‘teaching our customers about the Bible while they sit in our chairs’ is part of an overall idea of how the superiority of the ‘blood of Jesus’ can be brought to bear in how AIDS and evil spirits can be held at a safe distance from the salon and its owner. The paradox is that the salon and the business of doing hair is about enhancing a woman’s attractiveness, about sexuality, and indeed about competitiveness that is likely to cause envy and jealousy. As a Motswana journalist B. Seleke described in a recent newspaper article ‘The Forbidden Pleasure’ (The Echo, 7 June 2007): The last shampooing was followed by a very gentle, very relaxing, highly sensual head massage that we only wish for but cannot really afford. The problem: I was in a public hair salon (one of the Ghanaian owned hair salons in the African Mall in Gaborone, RvD) and the massage came from a stranger. . . . The thing is she had been washing my hair while I was dead quiet because you cannot really compete with all the activity on your head, then suddenly it went quiet and all that was left were gentle hands swirling around on my head. That was really nice, but it was also quite embarrassing. It felt like I was enjoying the forbidden fruit of something, it felt obscene especially since it was from a strange girl.

The salon owners make a profit from something they claim to distrust or to be concerned about as being part of a morally inferior society or way of conduct. This is precisely why Pentecostalism and its moral and ideological messages are so important to these owners. They help to resolve this paradox whereby the ambition of taking the higher moral ground is potentially undermined by the nature of the business they are in. Pentecostal leaders educate their people too about style, consumption, beautification and the like but much as they emphasise success and prosperity in these matters, they also impart to their members that all of this should not run wild. Their message is one of control so that the demons of consumption, money, beauty and sexuality do not take possession of the person but that the person remains in control of

298

rijk van dijk

these matters. It is on the basis of these teachings that owners talk of the ‘character’ they show by dealing with the body and its beautification while controlling, customising and tailoring its public appearance. Many discussions are devoted to ‘what is being over the top’, or where a certain style ‘went too far’ as a true middle-class positioning is about knowing and understanding such limits of decency, appropriate style and dressing. Pentecostal churches further support the salon owners’ notion that their middle-class position entails the control of social relations—to the extent of rupturing them—through training, teaching and education. Pentecostal practices involve a range of fasting rituals in which so-called ‘dry fasting’ (no food or water) is perceived as the most important and the most effective form of ‘pleasing God’ by controlling one’s body and one’s metabolism. By controlling bodily needs, total concentration on heavenly powers is aimed for. The belly is considered the seat of ancestral powers that can be controlled by fasting. Fasting can change one’s circumstances and provoke a breakthrough in situations that bind a person and keep him or her under the control of the ancestral powers. It is for this reason that owners regularly fast in the hope that fortune will be maintained and heavenly powers will provide success and prosperity. HIV/AIDS has not become much the focus of Pentecostal fellowship activities, although most of the churches subscribe to abstinence campaigns (however unrealistic this may be in the highly urbanised environment of Gaborone). These abstinence campaigns feed into and support the desensitising paradigm crucial to Pentecostal practice. Abstinence confirms the overall idea that a true and genuine Pentecostal believer is indeed capable of controlling his/her social relations; s/he is a modern individual to whom sexual lust represents just another demon that must be controlled instead of letting it control oneself.3 In the Ghanaian context it is the image of Mami Wata that is iconic of what Pentecostals have in mind: the marine spirit, half-woman halffish, which seduces men into relationships and takes its victims to her marvellous treasures under the sea in exchange for one’s soul.

3 This is particularly the case with masturbation, which is perceived as another forceful demon the Pentecostal believer should be able to cast out. Pastors are approached by men who seek help in this regard as this demon appears hard to deal with.

gloves in times of aids

299

In this context, the controversy about gloves demonstrates how a notion of middle-class superiority in teaching a society how to behave, how to control life and to be aware of certain dangers, spiritually and morally, removes itself from everyday practices. While providing education often enveloped in Pentecostal style and moral rhetoric, some owners do not supply gloves irrespective of maintaining and presenting a Pentecostal image of themselves. The question is how the contradiction between owners underscoring how the person from a Pentecostal perspective should be in control of bodily style and spiritual powers while ignoring or denying these controls to their workers can be interpreted. How can they reconcile being interested in educating their workers and customers, while they keep a social distance and turn a deaf ear to the complaints of their workers at the same time? Matters of choice It would be erroneous to see Pentecostal ideology as being prescriptive. In the emerging literature on the relationship between Pentecostalism and AIDS, there is a tendency to view Pentecostal messages as prescribing social behaviour (abstinence, being faithful to one partner) leading to an actual performance of that behaviour (see Dilger 2007, Mate 2002, Garner 2000). This leads to some conclusions about how Pentecostals display more AIDS-awareness behaviour and therefore less risky behaviour patterns compared to non-believers or other faiths. Garner (2000) tellingly entitled his article on the subject matter ‘Safe sects’. Yet in many cases, such a direct and causal relationship between a prescriptive ideology and observable behaviour remains to be proven, as the prescriptive factor cannot be teased out of all that made people change their conduct (Prince 2007). While the prescriptive nature of Pentecostal ideology is problematic, I was struck by the extent to which a notion of having to ‘educate’ people did not seem to imply expectations of any automatic change in behaviour at all. Interestingly, the notion of being in control of one’s life was more about being aware and being made to be aware of options and choices that lay ahead than of really implementing other behavioural styles. Certainly, in the Ghanaian understanding of becoming a born-again Pentecostal, there is the notion that this is about choice; is the person interested in becoming a convert prepared to ‘take Jesus’, in local parlance fa Jesu. This expression me fa Jesu (I have taken Jesus)

300

rijk van dijk

means that the convert has made a conscious decision to join the Pentecostal faith. Pentecostalism raises awareness of the conscious choices that have to be made; about which customary or traditional cultural rituals to follow, which places to visit, which relationships to engage in. And even choices are implied about whether one should be delivered and have a breakthrough in a certain matter or whether demonic forces need to be suspected and any wealth is genuine and uncontaminated by ancestral curses. Pentecostalism is a realm of choices and choicemaking in which guidance, advice, competence, skills and training become critical, but where choice-making instead of superimposition is strongly maintained. There is no sense that one can become a Pentecostal Christian by birth as the moment of becoming born-again is considered the ultimate moment of ‘giving one’s life to Christ’. The Pentecostal ideology and practice suggests a notion of the victory of choice over cultural conditions and prescriptions. A great deal of emphasis is placed in sermons, prayers and deliverance on participation in the domain of entrepreneurial activity on the market as a domain where choice can be played out proactively. This amounts to a spirit of entrepreneurialism. Migrants are not expected to sit and wait for things to come their way, they are told not to adopt a begging attitude and are made aware of the fact that they can take control of their success and prosperity. Moreover, there is little support for those that do not seem to take initiatives. The dictum here is that ‘there is help for those who help themselves’. Much of this market ideology transpires in the role-modelling performed by the church leaders themselves. The leaders can be interpreted as being experts in type-branding their charisma in such a way that it almost becomes a distinct commodity on a religious market (see Smith 2001, Hasu 2006, De Witte 2008). These leaders do not perceive of risk and challenge as anything negative per se, but regard it as the ultimate litmus test for divine and benevolent grace. After all, those who harbour the Godly sent powers will survive; those who are not under such benevolent inspiration are likely to perish. For the workers in hair salons, the glove indicates a more negative notion of choice. The owners can exercise the choice not to care about gloves or consider their use from a strategic perspective when it comes to how to attract or keep customers. While the owners are encouraged by Pentecostal ideology to become proactive by taking on the challenges that the local market has to offer, some of the real challenges and risks are left for their workers, allowing them little room to act. In

gloves in times of aids

301

the context of AIDS, the presence or absence of gloves thus indicates different class positions in the challenges and risks that owners and workers are either engaging in or facing. The issue of gloves and the way in which they signal antagonistic economic power relations are usually not the manner in which their presence or absence in the context of AIDS is being discussed in the literature. Studies from the Southern African region suggest that the glove has become contested in connection with the politics of care (e.g. Henderson 2004; Lindsey et al. 2003). Gloves represent a de-humanisation of the AIDS sufferer as the glove comes to stand between the caregiver and the person suffering from AIDS and may even represent a withdrawal of care altogether in the pursuit of creating sanitised conditions in which chances of infection are minimised. Western-trained nurses would advise caregivers ‘to wear three pairs of gloves in handling patients’ (Henderson 2004: 48), an option which caregivers (usually a patient’s relatives) find disheartening and difficult to follow. Lindsey et al. (2003: 495) write: Although the caregivers were advised on the use of universal precautions, very few caregivers heeded this advice. As one caregiver explained, ‘It is my daughter, I love her. I can’t wear gloves or other things. If I am holding or nursing my child I love, putting a barrier would be like I don’t love her.

Henderson (2004: 48) expands this by showing how special apologies and legitimacy have to be created to avoid flesh-to-flesh contact in a way that would usually have been normal and signal sensitivity: She (the caregiver, RvD) told Nkosinathi (the patient, RvD) that he should not be unhappy in her request to now use gloves to wash him. It was not that she did not love him or that she found him offensive; wearing gloves was to protect herself from the virus. The word she used in Zulu to refer to the fact that she did not find him offensive is a powerful one, ukunyanya. Ukunyanya connotes disgust or loathing and suggest uncontrollable and visceral responses to areas of life.

AIDS brings into relief a politics of care in which the object of the glove becomes an index for the complexities around contact and status positions. In the case of salon owners and hairdressers, gloves may be absent because of the economies of the market and competition, while in the case of the caregivers the gloves may be absent because of the economy of affect in a context of affliction. Hence, the use or non-use of the glove indicates different positions and constraints for withdrawing

302

rijk van dijk

contact and creating social distance. The absence of gloves in the case of caregivers can be regarded as meeting social and cultural approval because it signals a stance against such distancing, the wilful and deliberate abrogation of affectionate human contact. The absence of gloves in the case of the hairdressers indicates an apparent distance on the part of owners to the fate of their workers as economic interests are more important and they do not want to hurt the feelings of their clientele. There is a clear and conscious reflection of the significance of objects regarding the mapping and marking of where social distancing occurs, can be permitted or should be abhorred. In the context of AIDS, the use or non-use of gloves has become an important consideration and a clear matter of making choices and being aware of the implications and consequences of such choices in terms of human affection or of economic interests. Interestingly, on the part of the owners, Pentecostalism does not ‘automatically’ relate to care, to the provisioning of care or of a social prescription towards taking care of the interests of their personnel. Instead, the issue of the glove indicates the limits of the faith’s capacity to prescribe certain styles of behaviour, also indicating how careful social science must be in linking religion to the provisioning of social security (see De Bruijn & Van Dijk (forthc.) for a critical discussion). While the Ghanaian Pentecostal churches in Gaborone organise Bible classes, counselling sessions and AIDS-awareness services for its membership and is involved in certain faith-based organisations (FBOs) that organise education, the glove makes it painfully clear how far an idea of social care actually stretches. In fact, the opposite, namely that of social distancing, appears to be emphasised in the way Pentecostal ideology makes its influence felt. Conclusion and interpretation In a recent critique of the anthropology of Christianity, Robbins (2007) argued that a major obstacle preventing this field from developing has been that anthropology has persistently emphasised continuity over discontinuity and change (see also Engelke 2004, Hann 2007). Believers’ own understandings of the meaning and significance of rupture is thereby often reasoned away and re-interpreted as part of a broader stream of cultural change. In studying Pentecostal interaction with everyday living and working practices of hair salon owners, their involvement with the faith and an AIDS-infected society, the present article

gloves in times of aids

303

has indicated one domain in which discontinuities can be explored. The glove allows us to explore how a Christian faith informs or legitimises fractures in the social by what I have called ‘social distancing’. There is a host of literature on Pentecostalism, also in the context of the study of AIDS, that emphasises the notions of ‘care’ and ‘security’. Ultimately, these studies argue, despite the Pentecostal emphasis on breaking with the past, Pentecostalism proves ‘good’ to society, for instance by prescribing behavioural change (see Garner 2000, Dilger 2007, Amanze 2000, Hofer 2003, Swart 2006) or delivering counselling, healing or other forms of care. This line of interpretation places faith in the service of reproducing society and thus socio-cultural continuity. At the same time, by exploring the particular case of Pentecostalism in the Ghanaian community in Botswana, we need to acknowledge that in addition to the care and prescriptions of behavioural change it provides, the faith does carry notions of discontinuity, disruption and social distancing too. At an ideological level, the faith’s practices are not inspired by a desire to reproduce anything from a cultural past, from what is considered traditional, primordial or cherished historical forms of religious belief and practice. It also provides legitimacy to the breaking of social relations in the present, and allows for a limitation or abrogation of a sense of community outside Pentecostal circles. As this translates into practices of social distancing, we notice how it may involve class interests, produce indifference, negate loss and suffering and cause engagements with risk and danger (and therefore does not produce security at all times!) as is evident in the wilful absence of protective gloves. Similar to conversion and claims of radical personal change, these elements of Pentecostalism cannot and should not be explained away by anthropology by pointing at other and supposedly more relevant motivations, such as personal economic gain. While the absence of gloves may indeed be motivated by economic rationalities, as the workers in the hair salons indicate, this chapter has argued that ideological motivation and inspiration must be given a place too in why and how such risks and insecurities are deliberately engaged in by wealthy middle-class salon owners. Social distancing produces not merely stability but risk and vulnerability too. While AIDS is destroying the social life in countries such as Botswana, anthropology must allow for the reality of a Pentecostal model of engagement in which an ideology of discontinuity is translated into practices of rupture and social distancing. Faith inspires, in the context explored in this chapter, a culture of discontinuity not only at an ideological level but in its

304

rijk van dijk

praxis as well, particularly in the way it is incorporated in the marking of class positions. References Akoko, R. M. 2004. ‘From Asceticism to a Gospel of Prosperity. The case of the Full Gospel Mission in Cameroon.’ Journal for the Study of Religion, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 47–66. Amanze, J. N. 2000. ‘Covenant with Death. The attitude of churches in Botswana towards the use of condoms by Christians, and its social implications.’ Botswana Notes and Records, vol. 32, pp. 201–208. Asad, T. 1993. Genealogies of Religion. Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore and London, John Hopkins University Press. Chidester, D. 1992. Word and Light. Seeing, Hearing and Religious Discourse. Urbana, University of Illinois Press. ——. 2005. ‘The American Touch. Tactile Imagery in American Religion and Politics.’ In: C. Classen (ed.) The Book of Touch. Oxford, Berg Publishers. Coleman, S. 2004. ‘The Charismatic Gift.’ Journal of the royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 421–442. De Bruijn, M. & Van Dijk, R. Forthc. ‘Questioning Social Security in the Study of Religion in Africa: The Ambiguous Meaning of the Gift in African Pentecostalism and Islam.’ In: C. Leutloff-Grandits, A. Peleikis and T. Thelen (eds.) Social Security in Religious Networks. Anthropological Perspectives on New Risks and Ambivalences. Oxford, Berghahn. De Witte, M. 2003. ‘Money and Death. Funeral Business in Asante, Ghana’, Africa, vol. 73, no. 4, pp. 531–59. ——. 2008. Spirit Media. Charismatics, Traditionalists and Mediation Practices in Ghana. Ph.D.-diss. Univ of Amsterdam. Dilger, H. 2007. ‘Healing the Wounds of Modernity. Salvation, Community and Care in a Neo-Pentecostal Church in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.’ Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 59–83. Engelke, M. 2004. ‘Discontinuity and the discourse of conversion.’ Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 34, no. 1/2, pp. 82–109. Erasmus, Z. 2000. ‘Hair Politics.’ In: S. Nutall & C. A. Michael (eds.) Senses of Culture. South African Culture Studies. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Feldman, A. 1994. ‘On Cultural Anaesthesia. From Desert Storm to Rodney King.’ American Ethnologist, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 404–418. Garner, R. C. 2000. ‘Safe Sects? Dynamic Religion and Aids in South Africa.’ Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 41–69. Geissler, P. W. & Prince, R. J. ‘Life Seen: touch and vision in the making of sex in Western Kenya.’ Journal of Eastern African Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 123–149. Geurts, K. L. Culture and the Senses. Bodily ways of knowing in an African community. Berkeley, Univ. of California Press. Gifford, P. 2004. Ghana’s New Christianity. Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy. London, Hurst. Hann, Ch. 2007. ‘The Anthropology of Christianity per se.’ European Journal of Sociology, vol. XLVIII, no. 3, pp. 383–410. Hasu, P. 2006. ‘World Bank & Heavenly Bank in poverty and prosperity. The case of the Tanzanian Faith Gospel.’ Review of African Political Economy, vol. 33, no. 110, pp. 679–692.

gloves in times of aids

305

Henderson, P. C. 2004. ‘The Vertiginous Body and Social Metamorphosis in a Context of HIV/AIDS.’ Anthropology Southern Africa, vol. 27, no. 1&2, pp. 43–53. Herzfeld, M. 1992. The Social Production of Indifference. Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Bureaucracy. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Hofer, K. 2003. ‘The Role of Evangelical NGOs in International Development. A comparative case study of Kenya and Uganda.’ Afrika Spectrum, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 375–398. Lindsey, E., Hirschfeld, M., Tlou, S. & Ncube, E. 2003. ‘Home-based Care in Botswana: Experiences of Older Women and Young Girls.’ Health Care for Women International, vol. 24, pp. 486–501. Marshall-Fratani, R. 2000. ‘Mediating the global and local in Nigerian Pentecostalism.’ In: A. Corten & R. Marshall-Fratani (eds.), Between Babel and Pentecost. Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. London / Bloomington (IN), Hurst Publishers / Indiana University Press Martin, D. 1990. Tongues of Fire. The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America. Oxford, Basil Blackwell. Mate, R. 2002. ‘Wombs as God’s Laboratories. Pentecostal Discourse of Femininity in Zimbabwe.’ Africa, vol. 72, no. 4, pp. 549–568. Maxwell, D. 1998. ‘ “Delivered from the spirit of poverty?”: Pentecostalism, prosperity and modernity in Zimbabwe.’ Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 350–373. Meyer, B. 1998. ‘ “Make a Complete Break with the Past”. Time and Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse.’ In: R. P. Werbner (Ed.), Memory and the Postcolony. Postcolonial Identities Series. London: Zed Books. ——. 2002. ‘Pentecostalism, prosperity and popular cinema in Ghana.’ Culture and Religion, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 67–87. ——. 2004. ‘Christianity in Africa: from African Independent to Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches.’ Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 33, pp. 447–474. ——. 2006. Religious Sensations. Why Media, Aesthetics and Power Matter in the Study of Contemporary Religion. Inaugural Lecture, Free University, Amsterdam, 6 October, 2006. Nyamnjoh, F. B., Durham, D., and Fokwang, J. D. 2002. ‘The domestication of hair and modernised consciousness in Cameroon: a critique in the context of globalisation.’ Identity, Culture and Politics, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 98–124. Ossman, S. 2002. Three Faces of Beauty. Casablanca, Paris, Cairo. Durham, Duke University Press. Pfeiffer, J. 2004. ‘Condom Social Marketing, Pentecostalism, and Structural Adjustment in Mozambique. A clash of AIDS prevention messages.’ Medical Anthropology Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 77–103. Prince, R. J. 2007. ‘Salvation and Tradition: Configurations of Faith in a Time of Death.’ Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 84–115. Robbins, J. 2004. ‘The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.’ Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 33, pp. 117–143. ——. 2007. ‘Continuity Thinking and the Problem of Christian Culture. Belief, Time, and the Anthropology of Christianity.’ Current Anthropology, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 5–38. Seremetakis, N. (ed.) 1994. The Senses Still. Perception and Memory as Material Culture in Modernity. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Smith, D. J. 2001. ‘ “The Arrow of God”. Pentecostalism, Inequality, and the Supernatural in South-Eastern Nigeria.’ Africa, vol. 71, no. 4, pp. 587–613. Stoller, P. The Taste of Ethnographic Things. The Senses in Anthropology. Philadelphia, University of Philadelphia Press. Swart, I. 2006. ‘Churches as a stock of social capital for promoting social development in Western Cape communities.’ Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 36, no. 3/4, pp. 346–378.

306

rijk van dijk

Taylor, C. C. 1990. ‘Condoms and Cosmology. The ‘fractal’ person and sexual risk in Rwanda.’ Social Science and Medicine, vol. 31, no. 9, pp. 1023–1028. Van Dijk, R. 1992. ‘Young Puritan Preachers in Post-independence Malawi.’ Africa, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 159–181. ——. 1997. ‘From Camp to Encompassment: Discourses of Transsubjectivity in the Ghanaian Pentecostal Diaspora’. Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 135–169. ——. 1998. ‘Pentecostalism, Cultural Memory and the State. Contested Representations of Time in Postcolonial Malawi.’ In: R. Werbner (ed.) Memory and the Postcolony. African Anthropology and the Critique of Power. London, Zed Books. ——. 2002. ‘Religion, Reciprocity and Restructuring Family Responsibility in the Ghanaian Pentecostal Diaspora.’ In: D. Bryceson & U. Vuorela, (Eds.) The Transnational Family. New European Frontiers and Global Networks. Oxford, Berg. ——. 2003. ‘Localisation, Ghanaian Pentecostalism and the Stranger’s Beauty in Botswana.’ Africa vol. 73, no. 4, pp. 560–583. ——. 2004. ‘Negotiating Marriage: Questions of Morality and Legitimacy in the Ghanaian Pentecostal Diaspora.’ In: R. van Dijk & G. Sabar (Eds.) Uncivic Religion: African Religious Communities and their Quest for Public Legitimacy in the Diaspora, Journal of Religion in Africa, Thematic Issue, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 438–467. ——. 2005. ‘The Moral Life of the Gift in Ghanaian Pentecostal Churches in the Diaspora. Questions of (in-)dividuality and (in-)alienability in Transcultural Reciprocal Relations’, in Commodification, Things, Agency, and Identities. The Social Life of Things Revisited, eds W. M. J. van Binsbergen and P. L. Geschiere, Munster: Lit-Verlag. ——. 2007. ‘The Safe and Suffering Body in Transnational Ghanaian Pentecostalism: Towards an Anthropology of Vulnerable Agency.’ In: M. De Bruijn, R. van Dijk and J. B. Gewald (Eds.), Strength Beyond Structure. African Dynamics Series. Leiden: Brill. Verrips, J. 2006. ‘Aisthesis and An-aesthesia.’ Ethnologia Europaea, vol. 35, no. 1/2, pp. 27–33. Weiss, B. 2005. ‘Consciousness, affliction & alterity in urban East Africa.’ In: A. Honwana & F. de Boeck (eds.) Makers & Breakers: children & youth in postcolonial Africa. Oxford, James Currey.

ANTI-RETROVIRAL TREATMENT: FAILURES AND RESPONSES

LEPROSY OF A DEADLIER KIND: CHRISTIAN CONCEPTIONS OF AIDS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN LOWVELD1 Isak Niehaus Over the past three decades South Africa has experienced the world’s largest epidemic of HIV and AIDS. By January 2007 an estimated 5.5 million South Africans were HIV positive, and another two million had died of AIDS-related diseases (Plusnews HIV/AIDS Barometer 2007). There are several reasons for the rapid spread of the epidemic. Illife (2006: 44) observes that diffusion occurred ‘across a long, muchpermeated northern frontier and through individual contacts in many sectors of a mobile, commercialised environment’. Moreover, he suggests that the ‘structures of apartheid made the country and almost perfect environment for HIV’ (ibid.: 2006: 43). These include the density of rural black populations; extensive labour migration between the rural and urban areas (Lurie et al. 2003); extremely diffuse sexual networks (Thornton 2008), pervasive social inequality (Gilbert and Walker 2002), high levels of sexual violence ( Jewkes and Abrahams 2002), and the prevalence of transactional sex (Hunter 2002, Wojcicki 2002). State interventions have not stemmed the rising rate of infections. The anti-apartheid revolts of the 1980s and transition to majority rule in the 1990s distracted the outgoing white government and its African nationalist successor from making HIV their chief priority (Schneider 2002). Moreover, President Mbeki has repeatedly challenged conventional biomedical views. In an interview with Time magazine, he questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS, and claimed that a virus cannot cause a syndrome (Karon 2000). He and South Africa’s Health Minister have argued that AIDS is primarily a problem of nutrition and have repeatedly rejected data suggesting that AIDS is a major cause of mortality (Sunday Times 9/7/2000). Government 1 I thank my informants, as well as my research assistants, Eliazaar Mohlala and Eric Thobela, for their help. I also acknowledge valuable comments by Felicitas Becker, Wenzel Geissler, Adam Kuper, Conny Mathebula, Fraser McNiel and Jonathan Stadler. To protect the identity of my informants, I use pseudonyms for my field site and all personal names. All non-English terms are in Northern Sotho.

310

isak niehaus

spokespeople initially described anti-retroviral drugs as lethally toxic, and only acceded to make them available through public health care facilities in 2004, after a humiliating series of confrontations with the Constitutional Court (Fassin 2007, Leclerc-Madlala 2005). These geographic, social, economic and political factors have received far more analytical attention than religious ones. Indeed, Garner (2000: 41) observes that despite the centrality of Christianity in the lives of most South Africans, religion is a ‘virtual foreigner’ to academic literature on AIDS in the country. He is one of the few scholars to argue that people’s religious orientations might explain their proclivity or failure to engage in safe sex. But he shows that in KwaZulu-Natal only Pentecostal churches have realised this potential. A change in sexual praxis follows on the heels of the ‘born-again’ experience, and Pentecostals are least likely to engage in pre- and extra marital sex. The members of Pentecostal youth groups are not allowed to have boyfriends and girlfriends, and may only marry only other ‘born-again’ members. Pentecostal networks monitor romantic behaviour, and impose a threat of discipline in case of sin. By contrast, sexuality is of marginal concern in the more numerous Mission, Zionist and Apostolic churches. These churches do not ask questions about the private lives of their members, and incidence of pre- and extra- marital sex are as high as among people with no church affiliation. Moreover, Zionist and Apostolic Churches, which often broke away from Mission churches due to resentment against missionaries’ attempts to change their African believers’ way of life (Sundkler 1961), have retained many religious and cultural practices that pre-date conversion to Christianity, such as polygamous marriage (Garner 2000). A more recent concern has been to record how churches attempt to alleviate the suffering of those afflicted with AIDS by sponsoring community based care, establishing networks of healing and support, and by rebuilding communities (Iliffe 2006: 105–8 and Dilger 2007). Fassin (2007: 257) suggests that Christian churches play an important role in the ‘local management of trauma’. Those who are ‘born-again’ experience inner peace, and many persons living with AIDS find strength in the Zion Christian Church (ZCC), South Africa’s largest church. Whilst I recognise that Christianity can potentially promote the reevaluation of ‘unsafe’ sexual practices and provide resources of healing and support, this chapter focuses more directly upon the manner in which Christian—specifically Zionist—discourses contribute to the

leprosy of a deadlier kind

311

conception and labelling of AIDS as a social phenomenon in itself. The information that I present draws on the results of intermittent fieldwork in Impalahoek (a village in the Bushbuckridge municipality of the South African lowveld) since 1990; and upon open-ended interviews that I conducted specifically on these topics with twenty-five informants with whom I am particularly well acquainted, during the course of 2006.2 At the time of fieldwork there were twenty-seven churches in Impalahoek with a combined total of nearly 6,000 adult baptised members. But the distribution of church membership was very uneven. 75% of the Christians in the village belonged to ‘Zionist-type’ churches, 16% to Pentecostal-type churches, and only 9% to Mission churches (Niehaus with Mohlala and Shokane 2001: 31–36). Local Christians regularly attend church and often consult home-based Zionist Christian healers in times of sickness. In addition, these churches undertake responsibility for funerals, and play an important role in framing people’s understandings of death. I have argued elsewhere that the intense stigma surrounding AIDS is due less to the condemnation of sexual misdemeanours than to the close association of AIDS with death (Niehaus 2007). In this chapter I seek to explain why Christian churches at large, and Zionist churches in particular, do so little to dispel this association. Central to the survival of the stigma of death among Zionist Christians is the identification of AIDS with Biblical leprosy. While the observer might expect Christian teachings to make closeness to death more palatable, in fact Christians tend to conceptualise AIDS as a new, deadlier kind of leprosy with all its overtones of divine punishment and horror. AIDS and leprosy relate in three areas. (i) Both conditions are seen as forms of divine retribution for sin in a world that has gone astray morally. (ii) Villagers see the bodies of persons with AIDS, like those of lepers, as tainted with death. In this conception the sick person occupies an anomalous position betwixt-and-between the categories opposed categories of ‘life’ and ‘death’. (iii) Like lepers, persons with AIDS are seen to be highly contaminating and are excluded from contact with

I am confident that my interviews captured a fairly broad range of opinions in Impalahoek. Six of my informants were prominent church leaders. Their ages varied from 18 to 76 years, and they included unemployed persons, as well as builders and traders n the informal sector, teachers and civil servants. 2

312

isak niehaus

other villagers. Hence, the trope of leprosy crystallises and integrates many of the diverse and multi-layered local meanings of AIDS. Following Sontag’s (1990) path-breaking analysis of the role of metaphor in biomedical practice,3 I suggest that this symbolic definition of AIDS as leprosy of a deadlier kind actually enhances stigmatisation and suffering.4 It also promotes fatalism that might well impede the use of anti-retroviral therapy. AIDS and Discourse about AIDS in Impalahoek Impalahoek currently has a population of about 20,000 Northern Sotho and Tsonga speakers. During the era of apartheid the village formed part of the Northern Sotho Bantustan, Lebowa, and households depended upon wages earned by male migrants in South Africa’s industrial and mining centres. After the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, Bushbuckridge became a municipality and was incorporated into the newly constituted province of Mpumalanga. But although more than a decade of democratic rule had passed, the area still displays many features of a ‘Native Reserve’, such as very high levels of unemployment, morbidity and mortality; and welfare dependency (Niehaus 2006). An epidemiological survey, conducted by health workers on common signs and symptoms of death, shows that AIDS was responsible for a dramatic reversal in mortality rates in Bushbuckridge during the early 1990s. Until 1995 infectious diseases and malnutrition were the predominant causes of death in children, accidents and violence in young adults, and cardiovascular diseases in elders. But since then AIDS has become the major cause of death in all age groups.5 Kahn

Few analysts have recognised the analogical relationship between leprosy and AIDS. For example, Sontag (1990) describes cancer rather than AIDS, as ‘the leprosy of modern times’. Volinn (1989) compares the objective biomedical aspects of these conditions, but her analysis does not encompass any consideration of symbolic meanings. 4 There is a growing body of literature on the stigmatisation of persons living with AIDS in South Africa, and analysts identify various possible sources of stigma. These include the association of AIDS with sexual promiscuity (Mbali 2004, Posel 2005), witchcraft (Ashforth 2002), pollution (Delius and Glaser 2005), and with death (Niehaus 2007); as well as its concealable nature (Stadler 2003), and unaesthetic skin lesions (Deacon 2005). 5 From 1992 to 1995 to 1999 to 2002 deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis and diarrhoea in the village of Agincourt increased from 71 to 546 (see Saloojee and Kahn 2005). 3

leprosy of a deadlier kind

313

et al. (2007) calculate that from 1992 to 2005 life expectancy in the Agincourt area of Bushbuckridge declined by twelve years in females and fourteen years in males. HIV is rapidly spread in the context of a migrant labour system that obliges spouses to remain apart for extended periods of time and contributes to the frailty of conjugal bonds. The local economy of sex is marked by multiple sexual partners in diverse relationships, ranging from romantic love affairs in school to monogamous and polygamous marriages, long-term extra-marital liaisons, male-to-male sex in prisons, and brief sexual encounters arranged in drinking taverns.6 As elsewhere in South Africa, residents of Impalahoek see AIDS as a highly stigmatised condition. Out of a total of twenty-five interviewees twenty-four refrained from taking tests for HIV antibodies, saying that knowledge of a positive result might cause them to die sooner from stress, make nurses to gossip about their status, and provoke other villagers to discriminate against them. Close kin usually shield terminally ill persons from public view and vehemently deny that they have AIDS. They often deflect blame by claiming that the sick persons are victims of witchcraft. Villagers almost exclusively speak about AIDS in backstage domains (Stadler 2003). But even here, they also use euphemisms to avoid mentioning the words ‘HIV’ and ‘AIDS’ directly. They would say that a person suffers from ‘germs’ (twatši ), the ‘virus of pain’ (kukoana hloko), the ‘three letters’ (maina a mararo), or from ‘the fashionable disease’ (ke ko lwetši bja gona bjalo). Other expressions are that a person had purchased a ‘single ticket’ (in English)—meaning to the graveyard, ‘was on diet’ (o ya dayeta), or that ‘the dog had excreted on its chain’ (mpsya a nyele ketane, and cannot be untied). Health workers frequently portray such opinions and responses as due to a lack of awareness about AIDS. But it is more appropriate to see them as an outcome of how different, and in particular official, discourses have constructed AIDS as a terminal disease: an inescapable death sentence.

6 In a context of structured gender inequality transfers of bride wealth, gifts and money to affines, wives and lovers distributed resources to the desperately poor. This is borne out by details on 42 deaths that my informants in Impalahoek attributed to AIDS in the early 2000s. Whereas the fifteen deceased men were amongst the wealthier of the poor, the twenty-seven deceased women were mainly unemployed.

314

isak niehaus

In the early days of the epidemic, during the 1990s, Non Government Organisations launched various sexual health programmes. Staff members gave talks on sexual hygiene to different constituencies, trained teachers as sex educations and provided information and support to AIDS sufferers. Exhortations to use condoms were typically accompanied by the insistence that if you had contracted HIV, that was it, you would die of AIDS. In 2000, a Love Life Youth Centre, funded by the American Kellogs Foundation, was built near Impalahoek. The Centre aimed to promote a lifestyle of positive sexuality based on romantic love, being faithful, abstinence or using condoms, involving trappings of what is perceived as global youth culture in the process. It hosts motivational workshops, dancing, studio broadcasting, computer training, drama, basketball and volleyball. AIDS has become an important part in the curriculum of ‘life orientation’ classes in school. Each quarter, teachers at Impalahoek Primary School divide the learners into three groups for AIDS awareness classes: children between eight and twelve, older girls and older boys. Teachers do not mention sex to the younger learners, but warn them not to play with scissors, razors and pins; not to touch bleeding friends; and also not to inflate any balloons (condoms) they find lying around the village. Teachers teach the older learners the ABC (to abstain, be faithful and to condomise) and demonstrate safe sex with stage props such as artificial penises. AIDS activists target high school learners for even more intensive propaganda and address them as often as twice a week. The instructions are mainly about condoms, but the activists also mention the benefits of voluntary counselling and testing, of medication and a healthy diet. Well-meant as these efforts are, their initial insistence on the fatality of AIDS and their dependence on oft-mistrusted outside agencies heightened uneasiness about AIDS. Various conspiracy theories, blaming powerful outsiders for creating and spreading HIV, circulate in Impalahoek.7 These outsiders include Dr. Wouter Basson, head of the former apartheid government’s chemical weapons programme, and Americans

7 The allocation of blame to outsiders by means of conspiracy theories is a central motif in the politics of AIDS. For example, citizens of the United States blamed Haitian immigrants, and residents of Haiti blamed North American tourists for spreading AIDS (Farmer 1992). In Africa too the initial response of epidemic was to blame outsiders, such as American and European homosexuals, the laboratories of imperialist countries, immigrants, and refugees (Illife 2006: 80).

leprosy of a deadlier kind

315

whom allegedly manufactured the virus; white farmers who distribute HIV-infected sweet potatoes and oranges; and funeral undertakers and corrupt government officials who block cured for AIDS. There are also occasional rumours that nurses inject patients with HIV, and that men purposefully infect others with the virus (Niehaus with Jonsson 2005). Together, these health information campaigns and conspiracy theories single out AIDS for excessive propaganda, and create the impression that the condition is somehow deadlier than other diseases. In their scale and urgency, AIDS awareness vastly exceeds public health care campaigns on malaria, tuberculosis, and family planning. Moreover, these campaigns have emphasised prevention, creating the impression that because the disease is incurable it is also untreatable and that little can be done to assist any person who is HIV positive. In fact, medical treatment for people with AIDS remains woefully inadequate. Initially a network of three hospitals and six clinics in the Bushbuckridge district screened pregnant women for sero-prevalence, provided voluntary counselling and testing on request, and treated the symptoms of AIDS-related diseases. Only in 2003 did the Masana hospital (thirty kilometres away) begin to make the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine available to AIDS sufferers. Two years later, HIV and TB clinics providing antiretroviral therapies and comprehensive outpatient nursing services were established at the Tintswalo hospital, within walking distance of Impalahoek. Here a support group called Rixile (‘the rising sun’) also assists patients in applying for disability pensions of 780 rand per month. Yet my observations during fieldwork suggest that the availability of effective medication and social grants have not greatly diminished the stigma of AIDS. Sick people generally shy away from the clinics and Rixile group, and only use drugs as a last resort. Medical statistics show that in August 2006, only 600 patients at the Tintswalo hospital received antiretroviral therapy (Moshabela 2006).8 Those using anti-retroviral therapies remain extremely secretive about their status.

8 Thomb (2006) estimates that by 2006 80 per cent of South Africans needing antiretroviral drugs were not getting them.

316

isak niehaus Biblical Leprosy and AIDS

In addition to these public health messages and conspiracy theories, Christian discourse makes an important contribution towards reinforcing the perception that HIV is an incurable and untreatable condition. Health is a very prominent focus in the Zionist churches. Mission and Pentecostal churches, too, are deeply concerned with the material needs of the poor. For example, the Roman Catholic Church assists Mozambican refugees with donations of candles, food and clothes. The greater attraction of the Zionist churches derives from their ‘this worldly’ religious emphasis on pragmatically harnessing the divine power of the Holy Spirit (Moya), and on the human body and its immediate life worlds (Sundkler 1961: 13, Comaroff 1985: 159–194). Zionist churches aim to restore the original church and to serve as moral communities in the wake of social dislocation. Baptism, the wearing of uniforms, and divine healing are central practices in reconstituting the body. Sunday church meetings are marked by personal testimony, the summoning of the Holy Spirit, and by healing rather than formal preaching. The practices of Zionist and Apostolic healers, who treat their clients at home, resonate with those of the diviners in indigenous religious practice, but they see themselves as mediums of the Holy Spirit rather than the ancestors. These healers pray for their clients, provide them with counselling, and administer remedies prescribed by the Holy Spirit. The most common remedies were cooling with ash, permanganate of potash and holy water; cleansing with enemas and emetics; and strengthening by means of steaming or tying brightly coloured yarn around the body. Unlike the Pentecostal and Mission churches, the Zionist churches incorporate established beliefs in the ancestors, pollution and witchcraft. Ministers frequently acknowledge the power of cognatic ancestors to assist church members, and point to God’s commandment that one should respect and obey one’s parents. Yet they always regard the ancestors as subordinate to God. The churches also emphasise the pollution of birth, sex and of mourning. Mothers and their newly born babies are secluded for a period of up to two months. Zionists who are polluted by sexual intercourse are not permitted to attend church as this could weaken the power of ministers and prophets to heal. Churches also supervise funerals; requiring widows to wear mourning attire of the church; and conducting rituals to cleanse widows at the end of the mourning period.

leprosy of a deadlier kind

317

Again echoing notions that pre-date the arrival of Christianity in Impalahoek, Zionist ministers and prophets perceive witches as a more immediate source of evil than Satan (Kiernan 1984). They do not imagine that witches enter into a pact with Satan, but see them still as persons motivated to harm by envy and resentment, who represent an independent source of malevolence. The predominant Zionist response to witchcraft is a defensive one, and prophets use prescriptions from the Holy Spirit to protect church members against witches, and to heal the victims of witchcraft. Biblical notions of disease and these older vernacular concepts of pollution, death and of witchcraft all form part of the interpretive framework through which Zionists and other Christians interpret AIDS. Ministers and healers often identify AIDS itself, or at least the skin lesions of persons living with AIDS, as leprosy. I first became aware of this association in conversation with a local minister. ‘This disease was there in the days of our forefathers’, he argued. ‘When you suffered from it they took you to Pretoria and kept you in isolation. Then we called it leprosy.’ A school-principal told me that after her neighbour had developed full-blown AIDS, ‘leprosy appeared all over his body.’ Other informants posited a metaphorical relationship between these conditions, by saying that AIDS was like leprosy. This association is informed by Biblical notions of leprosy rather than by an accurate assessment of clinical evidence. The Old Testament often portrays leprosy or ‘unclean skin lesions’ (zara’at in Hebrew) as a plague, sent by God as punishment for sin. Lepers, who were ritually impure and bore a mixture of living and dead flesh, stood opposed to priests and Nazarites who were dedicated to God and avoided any contact with the dead. Lewis (1987: 607) writes that the Biblical leper ‘carried in his person a defiling taint which excluded him absolutely with any contact with holy things, even contact with clean people, even contact with the community’. This contrasts with clinical leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease. Although clinical leprosy can be severely disfiguring (Illife 1987: 214– 229), it is more curable and less infectious than popular images thereof suggest. Barrett (2005) describes leprosy as a chronic disease of the skin, eyes, internal organs, peripheral nerves and mucous membranes. It does not always produce disfigurement, and multi-layered drug therapy can render a patient non-infected in six months. He also points out that leprosy is ‘amongst the least contagious of human pathogens’ (ibid. 2005: 217). Though its mode of transmission is still poorly understood,

318

isak niehaus

prolonged skin-to-skin contact with an active case is necessary for infection. Indeed, Biblical leprosy might not actually be Hansen’s disease. In colonial Africa, Christian missionaries took responsibility for the treatment of lepers. In some parts of Africa, leprosy became central to the way missionaries projected powerful disease symbols onto the continent (Vaughan 1991: 77–79, and Silla 1998). In this mission discourse, the misery of the leper epitomised the need of Africans for salvation from themselves and their culture. Evoking biblical images of leprosy, missionaries thereby helped establish it as a maximal and very contagious illness in the minds of their African converts, and this representation of leprosy still resonates today. Elderly informants recalled that isolated cases of leprosy occurred in Impalahoek until the 1970s, and they described lepers as horribly deformed and badly ravaged persons, whose flesh literally rotted away whilst they were still alive. I saw a man with leprosy at the home of a diviner about forty years ago. This person’s whole face and arms were affected. His body looked like that of a frog and waters oozed out of his skin. It was a terrible sight. I could not eat in his presence. It was too sensitive for me. I might have vomited. A woman at Andover had leprosy. It was as if something had eaten her underneath the armpit. In the rainy weather she had a large, reddish, rash. She could not move around the village.

My informants also portray leprosy as highly contagious. For example, a retired school principal and leader of an Apostolic church, told me of his encounter with of lepers on a train. In July 1971 I was travelling by train to my teacher’s college in Polokwane [then Pietersburg]. The train went via Pretoria. Late at night, at Belfast, they told us to change coaches. I desperately wanted to sleep and I forced open the door of a compartment where it said, ‘No Entry’. I found about twelve people standing in front of me. Some of them were without ears or noses. Some were without joints. Some of their fingers were just bones. All the flesh had fallen [off ]. They told me that they had been separated from the other passengers because they were suffering from leprosy. Then a guard—who was a white man—came and chased me [away]. I went back to my own coach and just kept quiet. Only near Warmbad could I tell my friends. They said to me, ‘You’ll be lucky to survive two months’. I immediately went to see a doctor in Polokwane, but he said that I was not yet affected by the disease.

Several symbolic links between leprosy and AIDS became apparent during fieldwork. Residents of Impalahoek present both conditions as

leprosy of a deadlier kind

319

signs as God’s wrath; describe lepers and persons living with AIDS as exhibiting an anomalous mixture of living and dead flesh, and as being highly contagious. But they recognise AIDS to be deadlier than leprosy. Christians cite many Biblical passages, showing that leprosy is amenable to cure. A slave girl from Israel informed the Egyptian king, Namaan, that he could cure himself from leprosy by immersing himself seven times in the river, Jordan. Jesus, himself, healed ten lepers. By contrast, they always see AIDS as being terminal. Christians nonetheless hope that if people all over the world could repent, God might help doctors discover an AIDS vaccine. Another difference is that initially the symptoms of AIDS are invisible: It can take up to eighteen years before HIV dismantles the soldiers in your body. At first HIV is only in your blood and only doctors can see it. But leprosy is located outside, on your whole body, and everyone can see it. In the case of leprosy small pocks spoil your face and your skin.

The possibility of concealing AIDS only provides comfort to the afflicted. In villages where the secret powers of witchcraft are a standardised nightmare, the concealed generally inspires greater fear than the transparent. A more in-depth description of the conjunctions between leprosy, AIDS and social ills recognised among Zionists (such as, but not limited to witchcraft and pollution) helps us to explain the persistence of the stigma that surrounds AIDS. Sex, Social Ills and Sin Biblical leprosy is widely seen as a form of punishment for sin. A Zionist minister mentioned that God warned the Israelites that He would afflict those who did not follow His commandments with pestilence and disease. The minister cited the Biblical example of God who made Miriam leprous after she spoke against her brother, Moses, for marrying a Cushite woman. Likewise many Christians argue that the AIDS epidemic might actually be a form of divine punishment. The notion of sin applied here is far wider than sexual immorality. As in the case of KwaZulu-Natal (Garner 2000), sexual morality is of marginal concern in Zionist and Apostolic churches in Impalahoek. Church members are fairly open about heterosexuality: condoning teenage sexual exploration, accepting illegitimate children, and not allowing adultery to cause too much disruption (Delius and Glaser 2005). Heterosexual intercourse has largely positive meanings as a means of

320

isak niehaus

procreation, pleasure, and of maintaining good health by ensuring a balanced supply of blood (Collins and Stadler 2000). Getting married and bearing children are also ideal attributes of adult personhood. Whilst villagers condemn sexual promiscuous women, they see celibacy and singleness amongst men as dishonourable, and are more suspicious of adult bachelors than they are of men with multiple lovers.9 People here recognise several sexually transmitted diseases that, unlike AIDS, are considered amenable to cure. These include inauspicious sex that brings about an excessive mixture of substances. For example, if a woman had made love to several men, her lovers would absorb substances from each other’s bodies, via her. Should any man who had been polluted in this manner come into contact with children, they could contract makgoma, and experience convulsions and shortness of breath. They also include gonorrhoea (toropo), syphilis (leshofela), and a condition known as ‘shudder’ (lešiši ). The latter is said to be generated by sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who is in a dangerous state of heat ( fiša) because she had recently aborted or been widowed. Whereas men are extremely reluctant to speak about AIDS, they freely speak of their personal experiences of gonorrhoea, syphilis, and ‘shudder’. When contracting ordinary sexually transmitted diseases a husband is expected to tell his wife, so that together they could consult diviners to seek a cure. But in the case of ‘shudder’, which is potentially fatal, a man should also inform his uncles and aunts. Women tend to perceive sexually transmitted diseases as more shameful than men do, although according to a local teacher, women too have begun to now speak about them. One key difference that accounts for the silence surrounding AIDS is its terminal nature. Villagers are confident that Christian healers, diviners and medical doctors can easily cure other sexually transmitted afflictions; not so with AIDS. This absence of a cure for AIDS reinforces the perception of the epidemic as a divine punishment, not for sexual infringements specifically, but for a whole range of social ills. For example, a male Pentecostal preacher told me: In my opinion it [AIDS] is punishment from God that nobody can cure. I read in the Bible how God punished Pharoah and the Israelites when

9 In other African countries, where the experience of structural adjustment has taken its toll, AIDS is also symbolic of moral and political decay. See Ingstad (1990) and Dilger (2003) for informative discussions of the situation in Botswana and in Tanzania.

leprosy of a deadlier kind

321

they did not follow Him. God does not like the things we do. He does not like how this world is governed—this democracy and this president. God created heaven and earth and gave us rules to live by. A man must marry [a woman], have kids, and rule the family. But these days a man can marry another man. Now women and children have rights. God does not allow a woman to control her husband. The government permits everyone to do abortions. Then one last thing, people campaign to be elected, but after they are in power they become corrupt. They eat alone and they don’t do the things they promised. We do things that are shameful. That is why God is punishing us now.

A woman nurse expressed similar opinions, while focusing on a less patriarchal notion of order and disorder: AIDS is punishment from God. It is like Sodom and Gomorrah. We do evil and commit crime. God does not want us to kill another person. Exodus 20 says ‘Don’t Kill’. But we kill each other. There are too many rapes—some men rape young kids. There is abortion. A girl can go to the clinic for abortion and pay 35 rand. This is an evil thing. God will punish us like in the days of Noah. He will drown us all. We must come together and fast and pray to stop AIDS—like when we pray for rain. All nations must give thanks to God.

Religious discourses about sin shift the focus of concern from the transmission of HIV in particular cases, to the ultimate and more general origin of the virus, which is placed with divine wrath at social disorder. In this respect, discussions of AIDS have become vehicles for expressing concern about moral and political decay in contemporary South Africa, and about the failure of promises of prosperity to materialise in the post-apartheid era. The concerns expressed by these discussions are more diffuse than a mere focus on heterosexual promiscuity, and include reference to lawlessness, corruption in government, the erosion of patriarchy, high rates of murder, rape, and also the legalisation of gay marriages and of abortions.10 These concerns are underpinned by the fact that few households in Impalahoek have realised expectations of prosperity signalled by the end of apartheid. In 1990/1991 Eliazaar Mohlala and I conducted a social survey of 87 households, and thirteen years later we re-interviewed all previously surveyed households. A clear majority of informants

10 See Hunter’s (2005) discussion of Zulu men, called isoka, who engage in multiple-partnerships with women. The Northern Sotho term is monna nna (lit. ‘a man of men’).

322

isak niehaus

complained about worsening conditions of life. Despite drastic improvements in the provision of social welfare, unemployment amongst women had remained constant, and unemployment amongst men had increased from sixteen to forty-three per cent (Niehaus 2006). These changes undermined previous expectations of gender relations. Many men could no longer become husbands, fathers and effective providers. There was also a drastic increase in conjugal tensions, separations, and in acts of gendered violence (Niehaus 2005a). Moreover, criminal networks of young men now preyed upon vulnerable members of their own communities. My informants clearly recognise the prominent role of sexual intercourse in the transmission of HIV, but do not see sex as the only source of stigma and shame surrounding AIDS. They emphasise that husbands might infect faithful wives and that mothers might transmit HIV to their babies. Whilst they perceive masturbation and homosexuality as immoral, they do not regard these kinds of sexual activity as routes of HIV infection (Niehaus 2002a). Contrary to biomedical knowledge a mineworker told me that some of his peers engaged in male-to-male sex on the compounds, precisely because they wished to avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Moreover, in the cosmologies prevailing in Impalahoek, the person afflicted with misfortune, is not necessarily the one who transgressed a taboo. For example, when a woman bears crippled children it is often believed that another member of her immediate family had transgressed a funeral taboo (Niehaus 2000b). Yet the fact that the person afflicted may not have caused the affliction does not take away from the abhorrence felt towards the signs of divine retribution. The Stigma of the Living Dead The identification of AIDS with leprosy reinforces the perception that like lepers, persons with AIDS are tainted with death. They exhibit an anomalous mixture of living and dead tissue (Lewis 1987, Douglas 1991). Residents of Impalahoek refer to persons with AIDS as ‘living corpses’ (setopo sa gopela) whose bodies are literally decomposing whilst they are still alive.11 11 This formulation is not unique to Bushbuckridge. Residents of Hammanskraal and Soweto reportedly describe AIDS as a ‘waiting room for death’ and HIV positive people as ‘dead before dying’ (Viljoen 2005: 70, Ashforth 2002: 166).

leprosy of a deadlier kind

323

In the final stages AIDS is so dangerous. It is as if your flesh dies, whilst your body is still alive. Your flesh will just fall off and the bones remain. It is also as if there is no blood in your body.

The skin lesions or ‘black spotted marks’ of persons in the latter stages of AIDS are the clearest indices of death. But there are also other indices of decomposition such as persistent diarrhoea, constant vomiting, coughing from tuberculosis, which indicate the loss of breath, aura, and life. Persons with AIDS are also said to develop swollen glands, mouth sores and fluffy hair, and to become darker in colour (considered a sign of blood loss or of rotting blood). Drastic slimming and boniness too are reminiscent of a corpse. My informants also spoke of the progressive loss of body functions and of reason. I visited my former field assistant, Jimmy Mohale, only two weeks before his death. Jimmy suffered badly from tuberculosis, but explained to me that his paternal relatives had bewitched him. He developed this idea as a result of prolonged conflict with his own father. Jimmy, nonetheless, described his symptoms in the same way that outsiders spoke about AIDS. He complained of feeling cold, powerless and paralysed; and also of the inability to breathe, walk, or to see properly. The Jimmy that you did research with had only half a life. This life came from my maternal family. I only have ancestors on my maternal side. I am dead on my paternal side . . . People around here know me as being dead. That is why I don’t have to be seen. You are speaking to a dead person.

Some of Jimmy’s friends suspected that he had died from AIDS-related sicknesses. They observed that he had become extremely thin: that the texture of his skin changed; the right side of Jimmy’s face became swollen; and that his hair became patchy, greyish and straight. ‘One can say that he died before the actual death’. In local discourses AIDS is marked by a compression of time. Villagers do not elaborate upon the gradual progression from infection to illness to death, but portray even newly infected persons as tainted with death. The location of persons with AIDS in the anomalous domain betwixt-and-between the categories life and death evidently contradicts normal schemes of classification and provokes abhorrence (Douglas 1970). Nearly all my informants said that they felt more disturbed by a terminally ill person than by a corpse. Adults are sometimes called upon to identify the corpses of relatives at the mortuary, and regularly view corpses at night vigils to pay their last respects. By contrast, having to

324

isak niehaus

view dying people provokes great pity among observers. As one of my informants explained: I can tolerate a corpse, but not a person who is dying. When I look at such a person his agony will be transferred to me and I will feel his pain. I will be traumatised. I will also think about those who have to care for me when I’m in such a situation.

Villagers sometimes note that persons with AIDS resemble zombies (ditlotlwane). These are beings that are no longer alive, but not yet fully dead, and are owned by witches. In local cosmology witches first take hold of the victim’s aura and then of different parts of his or her body, until they possess the entire person. However, witches deceive the victim’s kin by leaving an image of him or her behind. The kin, believing that the victim is dead, will bury what they assume to be his or her body, but which is instead the stem of a fern tree, that had merely been given the victim’s image. Meanwhile, at home, witches transform their victims into zombies. They allegedly cut the tongues of their victims, reduce them to a metre in size, hide them during the daytime, but employ them at night to perform the mindless tasks of domestic servants and unskilled labourers (Niehaus 2005b). The very same symptoms that biomedical practitioners interpret as evidence of AIDS, Christian healers interpret as evidence that that witches are trying to transform the sick person into a zombie. The healers try to retrieve his or her aura (seriti ) from the witches by beating drums, blowing a horn and by loudly calling out his or her name. This analogy with death, or at least with a living death, is an extremely potent source of stigma. In interviews, my informants explicitly stated that they feared undertaking HIV tests because they found the prospect of discovering that they had been afflicted with a fatal, incurable, disease too overwhelming. Most men said knowledge of being HIV positive would hasten, rather than delay, their deaths. I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want to be rude. If you test HIV positive you will lose your memory, thinking all the time about death and dying. People will not gossip about you because you screw, but because you are dead. They will take you as dead. They will take you as a living corpse. We blacks are brought up to believe that death is a terrible tragedy. If they tell me that I am HIV positive I’ll think of dying. I’ll automatically think that I’m dead. I will see death in my mind and I will dream of a grave. Because people fear death so much they would not want to talk to me or even come close to me.

leprosy of a deadlier kind

325

Contamination and Exclusion Throughout colonial Africa leprosy was seen as highly contaminating, and leper settlements were places of isolation where the Christian message was presented as the only sign of hope (Vaughan 1991: 77–99 and Silla 1998). At one stage South Africa’s famous prison, Robben Island, was used as a leprosarium (Deacon 2003): it was seen as necessary to isolate lepers on a rock in the sea. A comparable degree of isolation, albeit not in camps, is now perceived as necessary in the treatment of persons with AIDS. My informants tended to over-estimate the contagiousness of HIV and AIDS. In addition to sexual intercourse, they believe, HIV could be spread by touching others; sharing eating utensils, cutlery and toilets; breathing the same air; nursing a sick person without using latex gloves; or by merely coming into contact with his or her germs, saliva and blood, especially if one has a wound. An archetypical story is of an elderly woman who had nursed her sick daughter and seven years later, died from similar symptoms. Residents of Impalahoek also dread the possibility that HIV positive persons might intentionally set out to infect others. They feel that in a similar manner as lepers were placed under quarantine; persons with AIDS should be excluded from social contact with the community and confined in-doors.12 These associations, again, illuminate people’s refusal to acknowledge the presence of AIDS, or even to speak its name. In Impalahoek, corpses are believed to release contaminating heat. Upon death, the breath (moya) and aura (seriti ) of a deceased person, separates from his or her corporeal body. These forces assume a dark, sorrowful form (called thefifi ) that pollutes any object, item or person coming into contact with it. Evidently, the identification of AIDS as a slow, living death implies that their carers or visitors may be exposed to such dangerous processes. Followers of the different religious orientations in Impalahoek agree that pollution has to be avoided at all times when caring for terminally ill persons and also when burying a corpse. All terminally ill persons are secluded from other villagers. This practice is observed with such regularity that one middle-aged informant told me that he had never seen a dying person. ‘They always hide them away’. Only a select few people—usually a mother or a younger relative—are allowed to nurse, 12 In Cuba and in Guantanamo Bay, quarantine was, indeed, adopted as a solution for AIDS (Hansen and Groce 2001, Farmer 2005).

326

isak niehaus

wash and feed a terminally ill person. These carers are expected to comfort and strengthen ( phorola) him or her verbally. Even if the situation is gravely serious, they should never name the person’s disease; say that he or she is about to die, or speak about topics that might upset him or her. A constantly burning fire usually indicates sickness in a household and nobody is allowed to enter the sick person’s room without the carer’s permission: especially not those polluted by birth, sex and death. Villagers signify death by means of symbolic reversals, such as turning the logs in the fire and placing their thick ends in the centre. They always use euphemisms to announce death in the family. These included saying that the deceased has been ‘taken by hyenas’ (tšerwe ke phiri ); ‘gone to the place of the ancestors’ (o ile badimong); that the widow’s ‘house has fallen’ (o wetše ke ntlo), the ‘water had dried up’ (meetse a pshele), or sun had set’ (dikeletswe ke letšatsi ). Such talk resonates with the manner in which villagers avoided direct reference to AIDS. Concomitantly, at the Zionist funerals that I attended great care was taken to avoid pollution. Kin immediately take the corpse to the mortuary, where it is thoroughly washed and cleansed. The bereaved family then observe a weeklong period of mourning. They pitch a large tent in the yard, and the entire household sleeps outside their home to show grief and sorrow. Members of the bereaved family observe various prohibitions. They abstain from sexual intercourse, stop working in the fields, and refrain from touching children. If a member of the family was not at home during the time of death, he should enter through the main gate facing backwards. Each evening before sunset neighbours and church members visit and console them. At sunset on the Friday of the week of mourning, people fetch the corpse from the mortuary and place it inside the home. Here widows— who had previously been exposed to the dangers of death—prepare the corpse for a final time, and sprinkle ash on all windows to minimise its heat.13 At sunrise ministers conduct a funeral service at their home and a hearse then transports the coffin to the graveyard. Young men usually place items such as blankets, walking sticks, cups and plates, which had been polluted by the aura of the deceased, in the grave. Throughout the proceedings the widow’s head is covered with a blanket. Finally, the attendants return to the home of the bereaved family. At

13 As residue left when the flames of a fire had departed, ash is seen as the opposite of heat, and is used as a cooling agent (Hammond-Tooke 1981: 145).

leprosy of a deadlier kind

327

the gate, men sprinkle everyone who entered the yard with water—both on their front and back—to cool them, and a burial society serves all attendants with food. After the meal, Zionist healers sprinkle all members of the bereaved family with holy water, and cleansed the yard and all rooms of the house with a mixture of water, milk, ash, and salt. This is done to ‘tie the spirit’ (hlema moya) of the deceased. However, widows are still perceived as polluting and have to observe a yearlong mourning period. In the case of persons dying of AIDS, relatives take extreme care to seclude them. I gained the impression that this is done not so much to protect the sick and vulnerable person from others, as to protect others from the danger of contamination that he or she presents. A teacher frequently tried to visit the terminally ill sister of a colleague, but was always told that she had been taken to relatives, elsewhere. ‘Meanwhile’, he said, ‘she was right there in the house.’ Isolation is also self-imposed. Whilst visiting Lewis Ngoni, who operates a small store, I heard Christian songs faintly being sung in the house next door. Lewis told me that his neighbour, whom had AIDS, hardly ventures outdoors. She would not open the door, even if one of her neighbours knocked. Only her mother visited her. Carers greatly fear contaminative exposure, and avoid using any of the same items as a person with AIDS. A cup, I was told, could be infected with AIDS germs from the sick person’s mouth sores. Givens Thobela took almost two years from school to assist his frail grandmother in caring for his maternal uncle. Givens fed and cleansed him, and because his uncle was lame, Givens had to push him in a wheelbarrow to the nearest clinic, a kilometre away. Because neighbours gossiped that Givens had contracted AIDS, and he asked a nurse to explain to them that she had issued him with latex gloves. Patients with AIDS are seldom hospitalised for more than a few weeks, and are obliged to use clinical services on an outpatient basis. But even in these situations, therapeutic consultations are often very secretive. Lakios Rampiri, a telephone exchange operator at the nearest hospital, recalled that his neighbours woke him very late one evening, and asked him to take their sister to the outpatients department by car. They had covered her head with a blanket, as if she was a widow at a funeral. To Lakios this secretive behaviour indicated that she was actually afflicted with AIDS. Funeral parlours sometimes wrap the corpses of AIDS victims in plastic bags, and warn family members not to open these, nor to prepare the

328

isak niehaus

corpse. At the funeral of those who had died of AIDS, ministers and kin seldom announce the cause of death. They often conduct the funeral service early in the morning, even before sunrise, making it impossible for many mourners to attend. Conclusions The post-apartheid South African state has built its legitimacy partly on providing social services long denied to its black population. At the same time though, government is under pressure, in the face of persistent economic difficulties, to follow the prescriptions of ‘structural adjustment’ and neo-liberal reform. As Comaroff (2006) argues, this implies that states divest themselves of many responsibilities they had previously assumed. Religious organisations then often play an increasingly important role in the provision of social welfare. However, as this chapter has pointed out, these religious interventions are not without their limitations. All churches, Mission, Zionist and Apostolic hold views on sex that are rarely conducive to creative attempts to make sex safe in the presence of AIDS and also contribute more directly to the stigmatisation of the victims of HIV and of AIDS. Though these churches are not alone in portraying AIDS as a terminal condition without hope, the Zionist churches discussed here tend to conceptualise AIDS as a new kind of leprosy, and associate it with sin, death and with contaminating pollution. The analogy with leprosy provides several insights into the negative cultural baggage of AIDS. One of the most important of these is that it forces us to shift the focus of our analytical attention from sexual modes of transmission to the intrinsic meaning of AIDS-related diseases and their symptoms in specific social settings. (See Ingstad 1990 and Morgensen 1997). Mbali (2004: 115–6) and Posel (2005: 139) convincingly show that President Thabo Mbeki’s denials of AIDS are a reaction to racist renditions of Africans as ‘promiscuous carriers of germs’ who display ‘an uncontrollable devotion to the lust of sin’. These international representations often perpetuate colonial constructions in which European nations were differentiated from ‘sexualised others’ in the colonies (Stoler 1995: 134–5). Certainly, non-elites also find such racist renditions offensive. However, African nationalist concerns do not weigh quite as heavily in their consciousness. In South African village settings the constellations of religious

leprosy of a deadlier kind

329

meanings discussed above are a far more likely source of stigma than sexual promiscuity per se. The conception of AIDS as a polluting and dangerous condition in betwixt-and-between the categories of life and death, is a more likely reason for the prohibition against direct forms of speech and the seclusion from other villagers. These meanings have important consequences for efforts to stem the spread of the epidemic. In their classical study of patients in a leprosarium in Louisiana, Gussow and Tracy (1977) show that in addition to therapy, de-stigmatisation was an essential strategy to healing leprosy. Patients did not merely respond by ‘impression management’ (Goffman 1971), but actively struggled to overcome the onerous burden of stigma through cultural redefinition. Patients formulated an alternative theory to remove leprosy from it’s hitherto status as a maximal horrible sickness, constructed it as ‘mildly contagious’, and changed its name to ‘Hansen’s disease’. Testing for HIV antibodies and using antiretroviral drugs makes little sense when patients consider themselves to be ‘dead before dying’. The struggle for hope against fatalism, hinges not only upon political struggles for accessible medication, but also upon the symbolic redefinition of AIDS as a serious, but manageable chronic illness. References Ashforth, Adam. 2002. A Epidemic of Witchcraft? Implications of AIDS for the postApartheid State. African Studies 61.1, 1–21. ——. 2005. Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Barrett, Ronald. 2005. Self-Mortification and the Stigma of Leprosy in Northern India. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 19.2, 216–230. Collins, Teresa and Jonathan Stadler. 2000. ‘Love Passion and Play: Sexual Meanings among Youth in the Northern Province of South Africa’, Journal des Anthropologues 82.82, 325–338. Comaroff, Jean. 1985. Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ——. 2006. The Force that is Faith. In Achille Mbembe and Deborah Posel (eds.) Reasons of Faith. The Wiser Review 2. December. Deacon, Harriet. 2003. Patterns of Exclusion on Robben Island, 1654–1992. In Carolyn Strange and Alison Bashforth (eds.) Isolation: Places and Practices of Exclusion. London: Routledge, 153–172. Deacon, Harriet with Inez Stephney and Sandra Prosalendis. 2005. Understanding HIV/ AIDS Stigma: A Theoretical and Methodological Analysis. HSRC Research Monograph. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Press. Delius, Peter and Clive Glaser. 2005. Sex, Disease and Stigma in South Africa: Historical Perspectives. African Journal of AIDS Research 4.1, 29–36.

330

isak niehaus

Dilger, Hansjörg. 2003. Sexuality, AIDS and the Lures of Modernity: Reflexivity and Morality among Young People in Rural Tanzania. Medical Althropology 22.1, 23–52. ——. 2007. ‘Healing the Wounds of Modernity: Salvation, Community and Care in a Neo-Pentecostal Church in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania’. Journal of Religion in Africa 37.1, 59–83. Douglas, Mary. 1970. Purity and Danger. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ——. 1991. Witchcraft and Leprosy: Two Strategies of Exclusion. Man (n.s.) 26 (4), 23–736. Farmer, Paul. 1992. AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. Berkeley: University of California Press. ——. 2005. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press. Fassin, Didier. 2007. When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa (translated by Amy Jacobs and Gabrielle Varro). Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Garner, Robert C. 2000. ‘Safe Sects? Dynamic Religion and AIDS in South Africa.’ The Journal of Modern African Studies 38.1, 41–69. Gilbert, Leah and Liz Walker. 2002. ‘Treading the path of least resistance: HIV/AIDS and social inequalities—a South African case study’. Social Science and Medicine 54, 1104–1105. Goffman, Erving. 1971. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoilt Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Gussow, Zachary and George S. Tracy. 1977. Status, Ideology and Adaptation to Stigmatised Illness: A Study of Leprosy. In David Landy (ed.) Culture, Disease and Healing: Studies in Medical Anthropology. New York: Macmillan, 152–169. Hammond-Tooke, William David. 1981. Boundaries and Belief: The Structure of a Sotho Worldview. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Hansen, Helen and Norma E. Groce. 2001. From Quarantine to Condoms: Shifting Policies and Problems of HIV Control in Cuba. Medical Anthropology 119.2, 259–292. Hunter, Mark. 2002. ‘The Materiality of Everyday Sex: Thinking Beyond Prostitution’. African Studies 61 (1), 99–120. ——. 2005. Cultural politics and masculinities: Multiple partners in historical perspective in Kwazulu-Natal. In Graeme Reid and Liz Walker (eds.) Men Behaving Differently: South African Men Since 1994. Cape Town: Double Storey Books, 139–160. Iliffe, John. 1987. The African Poor: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——. 2006. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History. Athens: Ohio University Press, Oxford: James Currey and Cape Town: Double Storey. Ingstad, Benedicte. 1990. The Cultural Construction of AIDS and Its Consequences for Prevention in Botswana. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 4.l, 28–40. Jewkes, Rachel and Naeema Abrahams. 2002. ‘The Epidemiology of Rape and Sexual Coercion in South Africa: An Overview’. Social Science and Medicine 55, 1231–1244. Karon, Tony. 2000. You cannot attribute immune deficiency exclusively to a virus. Time. September 11. Kahn, Kathleen, Michel L. Garenne, Mark Collinson and Stephen M. Tollman. 2007. Mortality trends in a new South Africa: Hard to Make a Fresh Start. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 35, 69, 26–34. Kiernan, James. 1984. A Cesspool of Sorcery: How Zionists Visualise and Respond to the City. Urban Anthropology 13.2–3, 219–236. Leclerc-Madlala, Suzanne. 2005. ‘Popular Responses to HIV/AIDS and Policy’. Journal of Southern African Studies 31 (4), 845–856. Lewis, Gilbert. 1987. A Lesson from Leviticus: Leprosy. Man (n.s.), 593–612.

leprosy of a deadlier kind

331

Lurie, Mark, Brian Williams, Khangelani Zuma, David Mkaya-Mwamburi, Geoff Garnett, Michael Sweat, Joel Gittelsohn, Salim Abdool Karim. 2003. ‘Who infects Whom? HIV–1 concordance and discordance among migrant and non-migrant couples in South Africa’. AIDS 17, 15, 2245–2252. Mbali, Mandisa. 2004. AIDS Discourses and the South African State: Government denialism and post- Apartheid AIDS policy-making. Transformation 54, 104–122. Mogensen, Hanne Overgaard. 1997. The Narrative of AIDS among the Tonga of Zambia. Social Science and Medicine 44.4, 431–439. Niehaus, Isak. 2002a. Perversions of Power: Witchcraft and the Sexuality of Evil in the South African Lowveld. Journal of Religion in Africa 32 (3), 1–31. ——. 2002b. Bodies, Heat and Taboos: Conceptualising ‘Modern Personhood’ in the South African Lowveld. Ethnology 41 (3), 189–207. ——. 2005a. Masculine domination in sexual violence: interpreting accounts of three cases of rape in the South African lowveld. In Graeme Reid and Liz Walker (eds.) Men Behaving Differently? South African Men Since 1994. Cape Town: Double Storey, 65–88. ——. 2005b. Witches and Zombies in the South African Lowveld: Discourse, Accusations and Subjective Reality. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11 (2), 191–210. ——. 2006. Doing Politics in Bushbuckridge: Work, Welfare and the South African Elections of 2004. Africa 76 (4), 521–548. ——. 2007. Death Before Dying: Understanding of AIDS Stigma in the South African Lowveld. Journal of Southern African Studies 33 (4), 845–860. Niehaus, Isak with Eliazaar Mohlala and Kally Shokane. 2001. Witchcraft, Power and Politics: Exploring the Occult in the South African Lowveld. London: Pluto. Niehaus, Isak with Gunvor Jonnson. 2005. Dr. Wouter Basson, Americans and Wild Beasts: Men’s Conspiracy Theories of HIV/AIDS in the South African Lowveld. Medical Anthropology 24 (2), 179–208. Plusnews HIV/AIDS Barometer. 2007. Mail and Guardian Online available at http://www .mg.co.za/ articlePage.aspx?articleid=306829&area+/insight/hiv-aids-barometer (27May 2007) Posel, Deborah. 2005. Sex, Death and the Fate of the Nation: Reflections on the Politicization of Sexuality in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Africa 75.2, 125–153. Saloojee, Haroon and Kathleen, Kahn. 2005. ‘INDEPTH Verbal Autopsy Causes of Death MONOGRAPH: Data Template for Agincourt’ available at hhttp://www. samclark.net/Files/Chapters/Samuel-Clark_INDEPTH-Agincourt-COD.pdf, retrieved on 20 June 2007. Schneider, Helen. 2002. ‘On the fault-line: the politics of AIDS policy in contemporary South Africa’. African Studies 61, 1, 145–168. Silla, Edward. 1998. People are not the Same: Leprosy and Insanity in Twentieth-Century Mali. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann. Sontag, Susan. 1990. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. Picador: New York. Stadler, Jonathan. 2003. The Young, the Rich and the Beautiful: Secrecy, Suspicion and Discourses of AIDS in the South African Lowveld. African Journal of AIDS Research 2.2, 127–139. Stoler, Anne L. 1995. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Sunday Times. 2000. Mbeki vs Leon: Dear Tony. 9 July. Sundkler, Bengt G. M. 1961. Bantu Prophets in South Africa. London: Oxford University Press. Thomb, Arthur. 2006. ARVs vital in the Battle against AIDS. The Star, 4 September. Thornton, Robert. 2008. Unimagined Community: Sex, Networks and AIDS in Uganda and South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. Vaughan, Megan. 1991. Curing their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.

332

isak niehaus

Viljoen, Frans. 2005. Disclosing in an Age of AIDS: Confidentiality and Community in Conflict. In Frans Viljoen (ed.) Righting Stigma: Exploring a rights-based aproach to addressing Stigma. Pretoria: Human Rights Research Unit, University of Pretoria, 68–87. Volinn, Ilse J. 1989. Issues of definitions and their implications: AIDS and leprosy. Social Science and Medicine 29 (10), 1157–1162. Wojcicki, Janet. M. 2002. ‘ “She Drank His Money”: Survival Sex and the Problem of Violence in Taverns in Gauteng Province, South Africa’. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 16, 3, 267–293.

SUBJECTS OF COUNSELLING: RELIGION, HIV/AIDS AND THE MANAGEMENT OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA Marian Burchardt* HIV/AIDS, Religion and Counselling in South Africa Is religion relevant for dealing with disease? In spite of his well-known refusal to give a definition of ‘religion’, Weber’s sociology of religion begins with the sweeping suggestion that religious or magically motivated action is a rational social practice, guided by the rules of experience, directed at this-wordly affairs and aiming to enhance wellbeing and long life (Weber 1972: 318). Moreover, Weber argues that the power of religious experts in interfering with people’s everyday life conduct is most directly realised through pastoral care and guidance. This form of religious power to shape people’s care for wellbeing is currently reinforced through the emergence of faith-based health counselling in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. While for a prolonged period the religious response to AIDS was either limited to stigmatising discourses, blaming AIDS victims as sinners or characterised by institutional inertia, during the past decade or so religious activities have gained unprecedented dynamic. Religious organisations are now at the forefront in prevention campaigning and organising care and social support for the diseased; they are running countless support groups and provide medical, psychological, practical and spiritual counselling for people living with HIV/AIDS, their partners and families. Explaining the difficulties and failures of the South African struggle against AIDS, scholars have pointed to the specificities of South Africa’s historical trajectory (Fassin 2007), lack of political attention to AIDS, delayed comprehensive policies, and lack of funding for education and

* This article is based on a paper given at the AEGIS European Conference on African Studies in Leiden/The Netherlands in July 2007. For critical and stimulating discussions of the text I would like to thank Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Daniela Vicherat Mattar, Felicitas Becker and Wenzel Geissler. Moreover, I am grateful to the religious activists of Khayelitsha and Gugulethu for sharing their experiences with me.

334

marian burchardt

communication, public health institutions and public sector treatment (Nattrass 2004; Schneider 2002). However, even where institutions were in place, information available and levels of knowledge on transmission and prevention rising, rates of infection did not appear to decrease. Moreover, despite the slow but increasing enrolment of AIDS patients on antiretroviral treatment regimes (ARVs), mortality rates continued to rise because of lacking patient competence and treatment adherence. Information about medical facts and their behavioural implications alone seemed insufficient to change HIV-related patterns of practice, which are more deeply embedded in culture, socioeconomic conditions and mute routines of everyday life than health experts believed. While counselling could have been a solution to these problems, its introduction was characterised by similar institutional inertias. Although AIDS counselling comprises a variety of forms and subjects, its understanding in public health discourse is still largely limited to pre- and post-HIV-test counselling. In 1994, the National AIDS Co-ordinating Committee of South Africa drafted a National AIDS Plan in which counselling was acknowledged as an important strategic component (Richter 2001: 149). Even though the Plan advised that counselling be implemented ‘across the continuum of care’, i.e. prior to infection, before and after testing, through the various stages of disease and after death, governmental efforts mainly crystallised around Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT). While by 2000 VCT was widely offered, remarkably little governmental attention was paid during the nineties to developing more comprehensive counselling services. Nineteen unevenly funded ‘AIDS Training, Information and Counselling Centres’ (ATICCs) were established to cater for the counselling needs of the whole country, while the Lay Counsellor Project, founded in 1996, set the unassuming goal of recruiting, training, and employing thirty lay counsellors in each province. Only in 2000 the policy process concluded with a comprehensive plan for regulating training and standards (ibid.: 150, 153).1

1 According to the 2005 South African National HIV Survey report (Shisana et al. 2005), 30.5% of the members of the adult population have done an HIV-test at least once in their life. Females were generally more likely to have been tested than males, as were married respondents compared to unmarried individuals. About 80% of all respondents were aware of a place where they could go for a test and a large majority of those who did test were satisfied with the services they encountered. However, the report does not allow for final conclusions about how successful VCT campaigning eventually is. Many South Africans are being tested for HIV in the context of other

subjects of counselling

335

Compared to the standard repertoire of health education such as radio and TV broadcasting and public billboards—forms that represent some kind of ‘distance counselling’—counselling sensu strictu is based on the face-to-face interaction between the counsellor and the counselled subjects. It allows for a more profound inculcation of health messages and is often organised in a follow-up process, which deepens the educational effects and social control. Counselling thus ushers in two major changes: it intensifies education, and it amplifies the range of problems perceived to require external therapeutic intervention. Because of their standardised format, it is almost impossible to address individual specificities through generic campaigns. Counselling, on the contrary, allows for the taking of these specificities into account and for defining individualised problems and solutions. By negotiating and objectifying this set of problems, the counselling process acts as a means of producing ‘HIV-positivity’ through a regulated ensemble of discursive practices. The need for counselling was reinforced by the increasing enrolment of HIV-positive people on ARVs. Before enrolment patients enter yet another round of four counselling sessions carried out by professional or lay medical personnel at the clinics. The purpose of these sessions is to give patients the skills necessary for successfully living on treatment, and to educate them about AIDS: about symptoms, their meaning and how to react to them, bodily processes, the properties of their medicine, acceptable and non-acceptable side-effects and their treatment, opportunistic diseases, proper nutrition etc. These sessions are the production sites of ‘medicalised identities’ in which the medical meaning and practical requirements of living on HIV-treatment are systematically organised into the daily routines of chronically ill persons. However, it seems that rather than through governmental efforts it is in the religious field that the concept of counselling ‘across the continuum of care’ is increasingly being put into practice. One major reason for this is that with regard to the self-relationships that individuals are incited to establish in counselling settings, that is, to what Foucault termed ‘truth regimes’, and to the discursive techniques and vocational

medical examinations, specifically in the course of ante-natal exams for pregnant women (34.1%), and the 42.7% (ibid.: 83) who stated as a reason for getting tested that ‘they wanted to know their status’ might attach meanings to this statement that significantly diverge from simple conformity with the preventive and educative rationales that the campaign promotes.

336

marian burchardt

identities of counsellors, there are a number of elective affinities between the traditional religious practices of pastoral care and spiritual guidance and the more mundane concerns of medical advice. Against this backdrop, the aim of this article is to tease out these affinities and to thereby capture how religious organisations contribute to the re-shaping of concepts of responsible selfhood and counselled subjectivity. I argue that AIDS counselling is fundamentally concerned with producing, inculcating and disseminating new notions of moral responsibility and that its promotion by religious organisations is a response to the shortcomings of governmental programmes. The analysis is based on guided interviews with HIV counsellors and participant observations, carried out in Xhosa-speaking townships of Cape Town in 2006. Conceptually, my research is situated within the broader confines of a cultural sociology of public interventions and social technologies that seeks to identify the mechanisms whereby human subjectivities and conduct are moulded and managed in relation to governmental techniques of power.2 The Rise of the Counselling Society: Therapeutisation and the Professionalisation of Help Sociologically, the idea of counselling, i.e. the voluntary search for advice that turns people into clients and help into control, is certainly far from new. What is new about counselling in modern society is that the circumstances under which people feel or are made to feel incompetent have multiplied. The enhanced need for professional advice is a direct corollary of the growing complexity of modern social life. According to many theorists of modernity (see for example Luhmann 1997), much of this complexity is an outcome of the process of functional differentiation, popularly depicted in the phrase that ‘modern individuals know almost everything about almost nothing’. Hence the need for seeking expertise in the vast field of experience where we know too little for making the ‘right choices’. Following Meyer, the modern concept of actor-hood is characterised by the cultural expectation enjoined upon

2 Notwithstanding the significant differences between the various denominations and theologies, I am trying to advance a general argument, putting more emphasis on the common characteristics of the ‘subjects of counselling’ than on differences between practical and theological approaches.

subjects of counselling

337

all kinds of actors to situate themselves within far-reaching networks of counselling and expertise (Meyer 2005).3 The emergence of modern counselling therefore rests on the organisation of certain types of practices through professionalism, the corresponding construction of ‘experthood’, and thus on the differentiation of cultural knowledge. This knowledge is incorporated in ‘tool kits’ of habits and skills people employ as symbolic vehicles for persistently ordering action through time (for this concept of culture, see Swidler 1986: 275). Schütz and Luckmann (1979: 363) distinguish between common knowledge —knowledge that everyone has at hand for coping with the problems of life—and special knowledge that relates to specific problems. The latter is only passed on to those who are professionally concerned with such problems through processes of secondary socialisation. It would be futile to make a comprehensive list of all the areas of modern social life which counselling has re-shaped in one way or another.4 Theorists of reflexive modernisation even suggest that this transformation through which social processes are increasingly mediated by widely distributed networks of technical expertise presents the most distinguishing feature of modernity in its current phase (Beck/Giddens/Lash 1994). In relation to technologies of care for the wellbeing of bodies and souls, this transformation is expressed in the overall tendency towards ‘therapeutisation’. In the broader context of their theoretical elaborations on the social construction of reality, Berger and Luckmann developed a concept of therapy, which is stripped of its more narrowly defined medical connotations to refer to a specific mode whereby the adherence of human subjects to institutionalised meanings and definitions of reality is secured (Berger/Luckmann 1969: 121). As an institutionalised method of social control, therapy ranges from exorcism and pastoral care to psychoanalysis and myriad other types of pedagogical and problem-solving counselling. The critical dictum of ‘therapeutisation’ translates this concept into a sociological

3 The term modernity as an interpretive category is broadly taken to refer to diverse cultural configurations in which the quest for autonomy has been transformed into the generalised (expectation and) obligation to autonomy. The close associations of modernity with functional differentiation and the reflexivity of social practice reveal that modernity and counselling (broadly conceived) are to some degree coextensive. 4 This list would comprise issues such as family and marriage counselling, dietetics, career counselling and household-level family planning. The differences between counselling and education are often rather gradual than qualitative. The increasing tendency within modern society to subsume people under diverse regimes of help and control has been famously captured by Ivan Illich (1996) in the notion of ‘expertocracy’.

338

marian burchardt

diagnosis according to which we are witnessing a rising extent to which people subject themselves to the regulatory and helping regimes of control by experts. Importantly, within the domain of everyday life there is a particularly closely-knit and elaborated network of counselling relationships that focuses on health, psychic and spiritual wellbeing. Through these relationships the human body and soul are turned into objects of intensified efforts of knowledgeability, management, control and supervision. These efforts are triggered by a shifting focus of medical practice from ‘illness’ towards a concern with ‘health’ and thus to preventive therapeutic strategies, health maintenance, health promotion programmes and chronic illness management (Moreira 2007). The expansion of counselling practices around HIV/AIDS in South Africa articulates these shifts. In the following section, I describe the involvement of religious organisations in the current social landscape of HIV/AIDS counselling. Fighting HIV/AIDS through Religious Counselling in South Africa: A Phenomenological Sketch The above arguments have mainly been taken to reflect recent Western developments. The fight against HIV/AIDS, however, has inadvertently drawn some developing countries into the same dynamic, with the interrelated processes of globalisation, development and modernisation and the ways people engage with them, being the principal forces of change. People in Cape Town make routine use of the expert systems surrounding HIV/AIDS, and the more the self-reinforcing spirals of supply and demand expand the stronger the cultural expectation to seek advice from experts. The very meaning that popular discourse affords the idea and practice of HIV counselling, however, greatly varies and clearly exceeds the definitions of public health discourse. Grasping this variety forces us to move away from the medical world of clinics, to ‘follow the people’ (Marcus) and tracing the diverse social encounters in which HIV-related issues are rendered subjects of intervention. In everyday life, people get in touch with HIV/AIDS counselling in various ways: On the one hand, it can take place in the context of prevention campaigns; for example many of Cape Town’s churches run youth groups meeting regularly under the auspices of a pastor or a church-affiliated youth worker and discussing AIDS in the broader context of intimate relationships, (unwanted) teenage pregnancy, abstinence

subjects of counselling

339

and fidelity, sexually transmitted diseases, and reproductive health. The charity wings of churches or other faith-based organisations (FBOs) use similar organisational forms within church or neighbourhood communities. Furthermore, family members of HIV-positive people often seek technical, practical and spiritual advice about how to deal with them from their pastors or other church-based lay counsellors. On the other hand, religious actors are also involved in pre- and post-test counselling. Within the South African slogan ‘Know your status!’ the exclamation mark signifies an ethical demand, turning the practice of testing into a dispositive of truth (Hondrich 1988). The act of handing over a small quantity of blood to be checked for HIV-antibodies in scientific labs as a practice revealing the truth about oneself is thus invested with moral significance that has far-reaching implications for the interpretation of life history. Encouraging people to get tested is part of the standard repertoire of FBO counselling in Cape Town. Rhetorically, these efforts are framed exactly through such claims to ‘knowing yourself ’, and theologically underpinned by the declaration that while one might hide the truth from oneself, God knows it anyway. Counselling therefore translates the medical truth into a sexual truth, which much in the same way cannot be hidden from God. Prince and Geissler (2007: 144) argued that for the Luo of Western Kenya the Christian engagement with AIDS contributed to drawing sex from the darkness of the night into the daylight of discourse. The same holds true for Cape Town’s Xhosas. Pre-test counselling may take place in the FBO premises or at a person’s home. Many FBOs and churches also collaborate with local clinics by sending counsellors to test-sites. The overriding purposes of these sessions are to prepare people for the test and to strengthen their conviction that they are doing the right thing, whatever the result. The test is followed by post-test counselling, which aims at advising people on how to cope with the results. This includes very strong psychological but also spiritual and practical components. If the result is negative, people are encouraged ‘to stay negative’, i.e. to take the result as an opportunity and to henceforth live a virtuous sexual life in religious as well as medical terms. For married people, virtuousness naturally equals marital fidelity while unmarried youth are invited to follow the path of salvation through opting for ‘secondary virginity’.5 If the result is 5 Most of the unmarried people who use religious test-related counselling services have already had sexual intercourse. The practical, albeit theologically problematic,

340

marian burchardt

positive, the need for assistance is usually overwhelming and not to be satisfied within a single session. The first session is primarily dedicated to the psychological and spiritual dimensions of coping, to exploring together with the individual the psychological benefits of selective disclosure, and to preparing her or him to be counselled by others within their social networks. Post-test counselling sessions are therefore the first sites where the social life of HIV-positivity is being arranged. While for medical professionals the job of counselling is usually finished once the client has left, religious counsellors are intervening in the practical organisation of the daily lives of HIV-positive people in very different ways, as the following examples will demonstrate. Throughout my field research I have been closely following the activities of Melisizwe,6 a forty-one year old self-inspired religious AIDS activist from the township of Khayelitsha. Melisizwe, a former member of the ANC’s military wing, converted to Pentecostal Christianity in the small neighbourhood church ‘El Shaddai’ in the mid 1990s where after a while he was ‘ordained’ as a lay pastor. The religious vocation to giving love and compassion and the need to connect his social and political activism with new objectives have later become the foundation for his choice of engaging in the struggle against HIV/AIDS. For a number of years he regularly organised HIV/AIDS information workshops with the help of some HIV-positive women from the neighbourhood. The women, just as he himself, have received expertise on AIDS through training workshops in the local office of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC);7 with these women he is also undertaking workshop tours through cities and villages in his native Eastern Cape Province at least twice a year. In January 2006 he founded an AIDS support group whose members meet once a week in a tiny community hall and transformed themselves into some of the most proactive contributors to the already vibrant scene of local civil society activism. In construct of ‘secondary virginity’ is employed by many Christian counsellors as a specifically religious underpinning for their clients’ motivation to future abstinence. It is often connected to missionary efforts and placed within the evangelical framework of conversion where it makes sense as a corollary of the second birth that Evangelicals capture in the notion of ‘twice born Christians’. 6 All personal names in this article have been changed. 7 The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is one of the biggest AIDS social movement organisations worldwide. It is primarily dedicated to empowerment, fighting stigma and spearheading the struggle for the universal provision of antiretroviral treatment (ARVs) through the public health sector.

subjects of counselling

341

one of our meetings he passed me a copy of a newly produced flyer of his church community; not accidentally, the only non-sacramental service the flyer mentions is HIV counselling. In response to my question of what he is actually doing when offering counselling, he recounted the following story: One day, Spiwo, a friend from his church congregation, had been called to the house of his forty-eight year old mother because she had become seriously ill. His mother told him that in the course of the medical exams she had been tested HIV-positive. Suspecting her husband, a long distance truck driver, of entertaining sexual relationships with other women during his long periods of absence, it seemed clear to her that it was him who had infected her. Spiwo decided to inform his older brother and his younger sister. His siblings are getting so furious about the alleged behaviour of their father and its consequences that they decided to ask him to leave the house once and forever as soon as he returns from his current tour. When their father is in fact being confronted with the situation on his return, he rejects their version of the story and instead accuses his wife of sexual infidelity during his absence, a stance fully supported by his own siblings. While Spiwo tried to mediate between his own and the father’s family, his own siblings were not ready to compromise and the situation escalated. When Melisizwe eventually emerged at the scene the conflict had advanced to the point that both parties were unwilling to talk to each other. He was thus left with no alternative to talking to them individually. He recalls, (. . .) I said to the husband, man, you have to be honest to yourself and Jesus will forgive you. And then the daughter and the son, I said to them, who are you to judge your father, and also to the mother I said, yes, you are in pain but are you free from sin? We all have sinned. Nobody is free from sin. What you must do is you must feel the pain of the other. You must love the other. I said you have to talk and to listen to your husband, and the children, you have to be there for your parents. And so I prayed with them, I prayed with every single one of them. Then I organised a big party, with lots of food. They all came together and everybody was crying. The father is back in the house now and he promised to me that he will do an HIV-test and support his wife.

The story is remarkable both for its highly typical unfolding (it could have been taken from a textbook on the social context of AIDS in South Africa) and outstanding resolution. For those involved it began when Spiwo’s mother fell ill, having had a serological test and an ensuing suspicion of having been infected by her husband. Since AIDS is

342

marian burchardt

a communicable disease, the event of the mother’s illness opened a space for speculations about the past. The mushrooming of speculations invariably transforms the biological entity of the virus into a social agent, producing patterns of blame and suggesting scripts for collective illness narratives such as the one above. While the fear of being abandoned and left with no means for survival often prevents women from being openly confrontational with their husbands or even from disclosing their own test-results (Burchardt 2007), Spiwo’s mother confided in her children. The fact that eventually her children are pushing the conflict to the extreme appears to confirm that they were prepared to care for their mother’s livelihood. This support and the relative negotiating power it affords her seem pivotal in ‘persuading’ her husband to subject himself to Melisizwe’s counselling efforts. What was conspicuous about his way of narrating this event was his difficulty to verbalise of what his intervention eventually consisted. For him just as for other lay counsellors who are not academically trained, counselling consists of a flow of speaking and listening. It is a mode of engaging with the other that remains within a pre-theoretical, practical consciousness in which a shared cultural knowledge and collective norms of sociality rather than psychological counselling models come to bear. In the above example, his assignment is to moderate the re-creation of trust and mutual support among family members in a situation of overt conflict. Central to these conflicts is not merely the fact of suffering itself but competing claims to truth: the truth about the responsibility for the ailment, about intimate bonds, love and sex. Although Melisizwe might think that it was most likely the husband who infected his wife, his main objective is not to reveal this truth. Instead of staging a collective confession ritual, he persuades everybody to critically reflect upon himself. The primary objective is foregrounding mutual obligations and duties that allow the family to stay together; here, HIV counselling is tantamount to family counselling.8 Through the individual conversations, and—in his view—the transformative power of prayers, he prepared the family to accept that the best way of dealing with the illness is restoring supportive family relationships. These agreements are then ritually ratified through the gathering as the practical enactment of the renewed family contract and their mutual forgiveness. In conversations

8

On family conflicts in the context of AIDS in Tanzania see Dilger 2005: 94f.

subjects of counselling

343

with other residents of Town II, many repeatedly referred to Melisizwe as ‘a man of faith’. It seems that the power to effectively influence the conflict rested not least with the authority that being ‘a man of faith’ affords him. It is evident that the object of HIV-counselling is not limited to affecting the psychological coping, knowledge, attitudes and practices of individuals. Often counselling attempts to interfere with social relationships, i.e. family networks, or typically also intimate relationships between women and men. This latter case is manifest in the narrative of Nokubonga who works as an HIV-project coordinator and counsellor for the small health-service-oriented FBO ‘Phakama’. When Phakama was founded in 2001, Nokubonga began as a volunteer. Being a professional but unemployed nurse, she already had extensive experience and expertise in providing medical care. Later she improved her capabilities by participating in a training course for home-based caregivers, through the so-called DOTS9 training for tuberculosis treatment, and eventually by becoming an AIDS lay counsellor through ATICC training in 2004. The project started by sending a handful of caregivers to the local clinic where they would be referred to infected individuals or already bed-ridden AIDS patients to assist them with their daily struggle for survival. Later, they founded an HIV/AIDS support group and a more generic women’s support group. Nokubonga has since become the director of the organisation. The role of personal faith for her work surfaces when she asks herself how she manages to deal with all the hardship that her work imposes upon her: ‘I am looking after the project, I am looking after those children who don’t get paid, all these things come back to me, and then I am busy with proposals. But God helps me because sometimes I ask myself, how did I go through here? But then I am a Christ believer’. Out of this religious inspiration she also decided to volunteer for ‘AIDS Response’, an organisation that aims to mobilise churches to engage with AIDS. Soon she notes the lack of activism within the Pentecostal field, and being a member of the Pentecostal ‘United Apostolic Faith Church’ herself she perceives it as her natural mandate ‘to start at home’. ‘There’, she explains, ‘I also have to use the tactics from counselling and things like that, but

9 The WHO-endorsed DOTS (Direct Observing Treatment Surveillance) Strategy is a labour-intensive part of the fight against TB, based on the control and counselling of patients by regularly visiting primary healthcare workers.

344

marian burchardt

in these churches it is easy for me because I use the bible. If they say “no, we don’t want to deal with that”, I go to the bible and ask, “what did God say about love?” Then it is easy to capture them.’ Within Phakama, the quest for counselling emerges as the caregivers are increasingly struggling with patients who deny their disease and refuse to adopt the necessary ‘healthy lifestyle choices’. As a result, their health status rapidly deteriorates. In such cases, the caregivers inform Nokubonga and she visits them for face-to-face counselling at home. Being asked to describe the circumstances of HIV-counselling in greater detail she recounted the following incident: One day she was called by the support group coordinator to help her with a case, which apparently the coordinator felt incapable to handle. Pumzile, a man in his forties, seemed unable to come to terms with his anger at his infection. Convinced that he had been infected by his girlfriend, he had stated in various group discussions that ‘there is nothing wrong with sleeping without condoms because I am already infected’ while, as he notes, he ‘hasn’t been born with HIV’. His anger turns into a desire for random revenge by infecting others, which would at least give him the satisfaction of ‘not dying alone’. Subsequently, Nokubonga decides to visit him at home. She listens to him as he repeats his arguments to her and responds as follows: Then I said, listen, yes, it is alright. But tell me, when you think you give it to somebody, what do you think about your body? Your immune system is already low. So the more you give it to somebody the more you reduce your CD4-count. How can your immune system then fight the virus? Then he says, ‘it doesn’t matter because I am already dying.’ Then I said, when did your doctor tell you that you are HIV-positive? And he said, ‘in 2003.’ I asked, how much time were you alive afterwards? And he says, ‘many years.’ And I said, so why do you want to kill yourself ? ‘But Sisi, this girl gave this to me, and she is very healthy.’ (. . .) Then I said, maybe you didn’t get it from her! (. . .) And he just said ‘ya ya ya, Sisi.’ Then later he came to my office and said, ‘Thank you Sisi, thank you very much. I love my partner and I won’t spread this thing. From now on I tell my partner we must use this thing.’

Similar to the case of Spiwo’s mother, the issue of blame looms large within the horizon of Pumzile’s thinking. Even four years after discovering his status and despite having received information and emotional support as a regular member of a support group, he is still haunted by questions of guilt. Although the relationship to his girlfriend has survived the difficulties related to HIV-disclosure within the couple, it appears to be continually stressed by the shadow that his restricted future life

subjects of counselling

345

perspective throws into the present. Previous to counselling, Pumzile saw himself as a ‘victim of AIDS’ whose past life circumstances were essentially defined by others and therefore beyond his own control. Through the comment that he has not been born with HIV he faithfully suggested that the harm has been done to him through events he was unable to affect. The structure of the relationship between social reality and individual agency of the past is being projected into the present and a radically shrinking future. Nothing of what he is doing with his life—save the wish to alleviate his despair by ‘sharing’ it with others—has any real significance since he is ‘already dying’ anyway. Death has completely invaded life and logically forecloses the possibility of constructing a subjective life project—until the experience of counselling. Through the counselling conversation, Nokubonga provides Pumzile with medical information about the consequences of his sexual behaviour, thereby directing his attention not to what he is doing to others, but to his own body. More importantly however, the mere fact that he is still alive is vested with a morality of hope, reconstructing a perspective for positive life projects that his fatalism had shattered. The counselling discourse articulates an ethical imperative to assume the responsibility for the possibilities which ‘the fight of his body’ offers him. At the end, Pumzile accepts Nokubonga’s advice; given the force of his prior rejection to do so, this choice exhibits the radicalism of a personal conversion. In this section I have tried to show how faith-based HIV-counselling, far from being limited to test-related interventions, emerges as a highly flexible and versatile arrangement powerfully interfering with the experience of HIV/AIDS and the ensemble of interpretive and ethical categories on which this experience is based. This flexibility manifests itself in relations to the social relationships it attempts to affect, the practical purposes and techniques, and significantly, the types of knowledge it incorporates. Faith-based counselling creatively intermingles religious knowledge with medical expertise and communication skills. All these skills and knowledge are acquired in trajectories of secondary socialisation to constitute a variously defined status of ‘AIDS experts’. The symbolic economy of the therapeutic enterprise thoroughly rests with the recognition of this status by the counselled subjects. Moreover, in terms of the mechanisms that make counselling effective, in other words: that ensure that people do what the counsellor wants them to do, counselling interventions consist of complex mixtures of education, information, and persuasive talk. Melisizwe appeals to his client family

346

marian burchardt

through the truth of the Christian ethics of love and compassion. Here, the fact that the family’s adherence to this truth is a precondition to the success of the intervention reveals the sublime but nevertheless forceful proselytising nature of Melisizwe’s approach. What Nokubonga places at the centre of the counselling interaction, on the contrary, is the knowledgeability of the client’s physical and sexual body and the objective possibilities for a positive life project through ethical sexual practice. In both cases, counselling works to enlarge the range of objects that are being enlisted in the therapeutic regime through the healing force of conversation. For Melisizwe, it is the whole matrix of familial relationships that needs cure, while Nokubonga’s intervention effectively serves to intensify the medicalisation of Pumzile’s sexuality. Regardless of the different empirical settings and practical aims, however, the informative, educational and persuasive aspects of counselling interactions invariably reflect a process of the inculcation and dissemination of concepts of moral responsibility for which faith acts as a symbolic lever. Melisizwe reinstates Spiwo’s family as a community of care, whereas Pumzile subjects himself to the ethical imperative of hope inherent in both, the knowledge he receives and the means Nokubonga employs to instil a sense of ethical selfhood. Very often, counselling is not a one-off encounter but rather organised as a follow-up process, while the practical issues largely remain the same or expand: adhering to the treatment regime and a healthy diet, abstaining from smoking, drinking alcohol and unprotected sex, building a supportive social network, overcoming lethargy by promoting self-activation, acquiring skills for economic security through employment, and above all, shaping a new identity. This is the moment when long-term counselling relationships are established. The case of Pumzile has already given important hints as to how counselling may function to initiate transformations of the self. On the basis of this broader ethnographic picture it is now possible to gain a better theoretical understanding of the intrinsic relationships between religion and counselling, and of the ways religion and psychology are infused within the process of transforming ethical selfhood. Reformulating and specifying some of the comments I made in the context of my discussion on ‘therapeutisation’, I argue that religion and health counselling converge in turning an enlarged notion of health into an objective of salvation. Faith-based counselling transforms the ‘therapeutic gaze’ into heterogeneous modes for people to scrutinise and act upon themselves, and thus into creative forms of ethical subject-formation.

subjects of counselling

347

Between Religion and Health: Post-religious and Post-secular Forms of Ethical Subject-Formation People’s practices are guided by collectively negotiated meanings of the situations within which they are placed. While under normal circumstances meanings are relatively stable, crisis of meaning and ontological security may arise from critical experiences such as HIV infection. The counselling process may therefore be construed as the social space within which the meanings of disease, and of living with it, are established (Berger/Luckmann 1969: 166). In that aspect it bears remarkable resemblances to religion in providing the symbolic resources for making sense of subjective experiences. If the meanings of experiences are to persist in time they typically require the support of what Berger had called ‘plausibility structures’: social relationships with others who confirm and legitimate the ways we perceive, evaluate and act in social life and with whom we intersubjectively (re-)construct certainty by linking experience and expectation (Berger 1967). As a means to this end, the counselling relationship imitates and partially replaces the religious community (Berger/Luckmann 1969: 169), while the specific case of religious counselling appears to combine the ‘benefits’ of both types of plausibility structures. However, since HIV infection is a chronic disease its ‘social treatment’ cannot be modelled according to Berger and Luckmann’s general sociological model of therapy as re-socialisation and re-integration into society (ibid.: 121f.). It rather presents the special case of what the same authors have called ‘metamorphosis’: the construction of new identities and personal transformations that, compared to the rather soft shifts in the definition of subjective reality in everyday life, appear as all-encompassing (ibid.: 168). Counselling relationships, just as psychotherapies, can be seen as the cultural ‘laboratories’ for enacting such transformations. Counsellors are the ‘significant others’ who lead clients into their new reality by virtue of identification of the latter with the former. Counselling constructs the new subjective reality of the client through the objectifying force of language and conversation, especially since it draws on one of the most powerful reality-constructing techniques of conversation, the confessional practice (ibid.: 165). The historical archetype of metamorphosis, however, which all other secular forms of re-socialisation and identity formation qua therapy have imitated, is religious conversion (ibid.: 169). Conversion draws the individual into a process of personal transformation in which life is reorganised

348

marian burchardt

by breaking with the past and projecting a radically changed present into the future. It thus creates new temporalities of life, i.e. new linkages of past, present and future that closely resemble how social and temporal structures work to constitute new models of subjectivity in secular counselling settings. In this volume, Nguyen shows how conversion is mediated by confessional technologies, refashioning the self as discourse in HIV treatment programmes. For understanding the relationships between religion and counselling in South Africa, however, it is important to note that the ‘experience of conversion’ as articulating personal transformation and ratifying it in time (Martin 1990) is at the heart of the most significant aspect of religious change within African Christianity over the past three decades: the rise of Neo-Pentecostalism (Robbins 2004: 127).10 Personal transformation, the key notion around which Neo-Pentecostalism is organised (Martin 1990: 163), implies a step ‘that separates people both from their past and the surrounding social world’ (Robbins 2004: 127). Neo-Pentecostal discourse celebrates discontinuity and organises the importance of disjunctive experiences in and through rituals of rupture (ibid.: 128). Building on his findings in Ghana, van Dijk (2001: 226) even argues that completely breaking with the past and deliverance are seen as key elements in Pentecostalism’s ritual structure. In a more general and fundamentally conceptual sense, it is also this ‘step’ and its temporal implications that I would argue exhibits most strongly how religion has paved the way for the emergence of modern psychological forms of self-transformation. Within the sociology of religion, Thomas Luckmann (1967) was one of the first to emphasise the increasing importance of psychological counselling in providing individuals with a stabilising moral framework in their search for meaning under the fragmented circumstances of

Many authors have stressed that the emergence of Neo-Pentecostalism in Africa can be explained by its capacities to offer to its followers the symbolic resources for understanding and acting upon the consequences of modernity (Gifford 1994; Dilger in this volume). Gifford emphasises that ‘here members find shelter, psychological security, solidarity. (. . .) In this new world they can forge a new notion of self, for here they can begin to make personal decisions. (. . .) In this narrow sphere an individual can bring control, order and dignity’ (Gifford 1994: 531). Moreover, the Pentecostal gospel of wealth and health (ibid: 516) strongly resonates with subjective experiences of suffering and illness (for the case of Ghana, see Meyer 1998), whose objectified expressions it helps to shape. Neo-Pentecostalism can thus be construed as a mode of articulating the contingencies and uncertainties that ensue from African modernity in its various guises, and among which HIV-infection figures prominently. 10

subjects of counselling

349

modern social life. Following Luckmann, the rise of these kinds of regimes of advising people on existential issues reflects a shift of functions away from ecclesiastical institutions; but instead of viewing these cultural changes as simple reflections of the secularisation process, he underscored the religious function these new psychological practices fulfil, and accorded them the sociological status of a transformed manifestation of the religious, a concept driven home in the famous notion of the ‘invisible religion’ (Luckmann 1967). A similar concern with the relationship between Christian religion and the changing forms of subjectivity is expressed within Foucault’s writings on the production of subjectivity, power, and the technologies of the self (Foucault 1982; 1988; 1993); that is, technologies ‘(. . .) that concerned the ways in which one should undertake the practical organization of one’s daily business of living’ (Rose 1997: 297). These processes are taking place within historical power relations, i.e. at the intersection of practices of government and practices of ethical selfformation (Dean 1994: 147). The encounter of the two Foucault later defined as ‘governmentality’, as ‘the contact between technologies of domination of others and those of the self ’ (Foucault 1988: 19). With regard to the institutional arenas in which these processes unfold, Dean observes that ‘practices of the self ’ are manifest in activities of the ‘psy’ disciplines, social work, medicine, education, and established religion, as well as those associated with cults of self-liberation and self-improvement (Dean 1994: 153). In the context of his discussion of ‘pastoral power’, that is, a form of power whose ultimate aim is to assure individual salvation in the next world (Foucault 1982: 783), Foucault too draws our attention to the changing interrelations between religion and health. The increasing concern with health and wellbeing, he notes, should be understood as a shift in the objective of pastoral power, away from a salvation in the next world and towards the salvation in this world. Similar to Luckmann, he interprets this change in functional terms as a decline of ecclesiastical institutions and the concomitant evolution of new structures that work out the same problem with different instruments (Foucault 1982: 783). Accordingly, Valverde defined the governmentality-inspired study of moral regulation as ‘characterized by the common interest in analyzing post-religious forms of ethical and moral regulatory practices’ (Valverde 1994: viii). The emergence of HIV/AIDS-counselling appears to reverse this situation, and therefore calls for reconsidering these theoretical

350

marian burchardt

assumptions. I suggest that we conceptualise the relationship between religion and modern psychological counselling as an exchange in terms of two distinct discursive arrangements cross-fertilising one another. In line with the propositions of Luckmann and Foucault, this involves the analysis of how the historical functions of religion have been appropriated and re-articulated by other, newly emerging institutional arrangements, and how they have been changed in the course of this. With regard to counselling, three of these changes are quite obvious: firstly, the shift in the objective of expert interventions from other-wordly salvation to a concern with wordly ethics; secondly, the transformation of the instruments of self-scrutiny through the deployment of techniques originating in psychology; and thirdly, the changing character of the relationship between counsellor and the counselled individual. Within the South African struggle against AIDS, however, the situation has changed. Religion—instead of being replaced by a concern with health—increasingly concerns itself with health by adopting psychological techniques. It thereby re-claims and re-appropriates the ‘subjects of counselling’ and refigures the ‘objects of salvation’.11 The rhetoric, the instruments, and even partially the objective of religious health counselling itself are now informed by psychological discourses of mental wellbeing. In addition to that, FBOs see these practices as parts of broader efforts to build a sustainable community life; even smaller township-based faith initiatives now make routine use of modern social work concepts and speak the language of ‘capacity-building’, ‘social capital building’, ‘community outreach’ etc. In fact, most counsellors and other church-based AIDS activists participate in training workshops where they are educated in how to counsel, run support groups, handle public relations and manage an HIV/AIDS programme according to the insights of management theory and organisational sciences. While tendencies towards institutional isomorphism are certainly at work, I do not suggest that religious AIDS work looks like that of NGOs or governmental agencies.12 With regard to counselling, I would rather argue that the specificities of faith-based approaches lie in a peculiar 11 It has often been noted that within the broader historical context of African colonialism and post-colonialism religious institutions played a pivotal role in the delivery of welfare and health services to the general population, a fact that certainly holds for South Africa as well. I suggest that the societal significance of this type of religious engagement has been massively expanded with the arrival of the AIDS pandemic. 12 The term ‘institutional isomorphism’ refers to the processes whereby different organisations are in their practices becoming increasingly similar, either through imitat-

subjects of counselling

351

mode of incorporating educative, medical, and psychological practices into the overall pastoral concern with shaping ethical selves. It is in this context that we can trace the emergence of post-secular forms of ethical subject-formation through an analysis of how spiritual and psychological aspects are intermingled through such practices.13 In the remaining section, I take the analysis further by exploring how by progressively problematising everyday life practices and incorporating them into regimes of self-knowledge faith-based counselling acts as a process of subject-formation. To this end, I draw on the example of the FBO Izandla Zethemba14 and the narratives of two of their counsellors and delineate the aspects of faith that undergird this practice.15 From Despair to Eternal Life: Faith and the Responsibilisation of the Diseased Self At the initiation of counselling processes, counsellors know about the typical problems of HIV-positive people but not about the specificities of an individual case. Since this is seen as a prerequisite for success, counselling unfolds as a series of self-revelations qua truth discourses by the diseased individual vis-à-vis whom the counsellor acts as the exterior memory of the confessional analysis. Counselling thus consists of successively eliciting personal information, mapping out general choices and measuring them against the particularities of individual life situations. Through these conversations individuals understand themselves through a regime of self-inquiry. Ideally they are followed by the subject embarking on the pursuit of self-mastery and of the successful management of everyday life. The role of the counsellor is to instigate this self-interrogation, mediating how people consider their choices. In this sense, she ing and copying or through external pressures, such as cultural expectations, standards set by donors etc. (Powell/diMaggio 1986). 13 I want to stress that the term does not imply assumptions about any kind of overriding secularisation processes of Christianity within the South African context. It solely refers to a certain type of reconfiguring the relations between religion and ethics through the professionalisation of religious care of bodies and souls via the incorporation of practical techniques that have been developed outside of the religious domain proper. 14 Xhosa for ‘hands of hope’. 15 The empirical cases should be seen as reflecting two types of trajectories and corresponding social constructions of the ‘subjects of counselling’ among others; nonetheless they clearly depict quite typical ways of working out the typical social problematic of making moral subjects in the times of AIDS.

352

marian burchardt

acts as temporary proxy of the patient’s conscience. She impersonates this conscience whose interactive construction is the condition sine qua non of ethical subjectivity. These structural patterns are clearly reflected in the cases of Sarah and Martha who are working as HIV/AIDS counsellors for Izandla Zethemba, an FBO dedicated to AIDS work with close organisational ties to a Pentecostal church called Jubilee. The organisation has its base in the township of Gugulethu and is one in a series of FBO-type organisational offshoots the church has created over the years with the aim of optimising the management of its charitable activities. Since Izandla Zethemba engages in ‘outreach crusades’ on a regular basis, the organisation’s activities are well-known throughout the neighbourhood. As a part of the analysis of faith-based counselling processes, I identified two patterns of how faith and biography interact in shaping the professional practice of counselling. Sarah is a thirty-four year-old single. Having started her activities for Izandla Zethemba as a volunteering receptionist, she has gradually moved up within the organisation and is now employed as a project officer. She is coordinating many of the activities, runs two supports groups and offers individual counselling. The fact that she is still a childless single at the age of thirty-four she sees as a major personal accomplishment in a cultural environment dominated by the patriarchal expectation to engage in heterosexual relationships and bear children. She closely associates patriarchal norms of gender and sexuality—polygamy and multiple partnering, in her view the modernised version thereof—with ‘backward tradition’. Against this backdrop, the church is rendered a modern social space neutralising the negative forces of tradition and supporting her struggle for female autonomy. The idea of achieving autonomy through disassociation from backward ‘community values’ by joining the church strongly influences her way of counselling young women on how to organise intimate relationships: as a form of self-inquiry about what they—as autonomous individuals—want to ‘achieve in life’. Unlike many others who are volunteering for Izandla Zethemba, Sarah has a high level of formal education. She graduated from university with a degree in communication and subsequently started working, first as a lay counsellor for domestic violence at the National Integration of Crime and Rehabilitation Centre, later as a telesales person and DJ for a local radio station. Not being restrained by family

subjects of counselling

353

obligations or the limiting implications of couple life, she finds fulfilment in pursuing a professional career. In telesales marketing, she is granted the award for the best saleslady of the Western Cape and earns good money; she enjoys the ‘fame of some sort’ and to ‘get into places with press card and all of those things’ that working as a radio DJ affords her. Until this point her life history might be neatly summed up in the notion of ‘success’. In 2000, however, her life changes when her sister falls ill and reveals to her that she is HIV-positive. This critical experience might have triggered the idea that her individualised striving for personal autonomy through pursuing a professional career ‘was not really me because I really felt empty on the other side’. In her narrative she connects the experience of her sister’s HIV-infection with the decision to join the Jubilee church. Her motivation to enrol in an HIV/AIDS counselling training upon a request from her church she describes as follows: And I had this passion (. . .). And I just, if I was counselling people, it was something that I was feeling, it was something I was doing out of my passion. And you know, I think it was what God laid for me, the passion for other people. I didn’t know it was coming from God then. And then this is how I got involved (. . .). It is just I joined the church you know and I had the skills with me and I knew I wanted to be something, and cause I’ve got passion for people and listening to people as well, people’s stories, which is so interesting, I knew that I had to do something.

Within her new working environment she draws on resources she had acquired beforehand and commits them to a purpose that she construes through the rhetoric of religious calling. When speaking of the counselling process and her clients she continually stresses the need to explain ‘what is happening in their bodies’ and that one has to ‘keep options that people can decide for themselves’. Her clients are thus first of all subjects in need of education and knowledgeability as preconditions to rationality and autonomy. Similar to Sarah, Martha’s wish to become engaged with AIDS activism has been shaped by family experiences with HIV, in her case involving her cousin-sister and her brother. At that time she was working as a caregiver for HIV-positive children, an activity she perceived as psychologically stressful and exceeding her capabilities. While in this sense her professional experiences are rather seen through the frame of ‘failure’, in giving emotional support to her diseased relatives she feels a moment of empowerment. She remembers that initially because she

354

marian burchardt

was ‘shy’ and ‘couldn’t speak’ she had been scared of being a counsellor until eventually ‘God said, go! I’m gonna put words into your mouth!’ Martha too interprets her inadvertent mental strength in the idiom of a calling. Starting from this incident, she enrolled for generic AIDS training and became a social worker. Later she participated in counselling training upon which she changed her metier. Her approach strikingly conjoins professionalised expertise with religious concepts and the knowledge of everyday life. While she notes in retrospect that she ‘counselled’ her cousin-sister, at the time she was actually using a type of skills she had never been trained in. The following passage reveals more in detail how she frames the counselling relationship: I told her: ‘You still look beautiful and it’s not the end of the world.’ I don’t know from where did I get those words. And I said life goes on. But you must believe and trust in Jesus, you know. You’ll see you’ll have eternal life. And then she came with me to the church here. I introduced her to everybody, to every of my sisters, my colleagues. And she was one of our members then. That’s when I started, working on my cousin-sister. (. . .) I live with these people, my brother is also positive. So I’m working at home too. (. . .) I give people hope. I give them strength. And I when I visit them, I am doing the home visit mostly, I comfort them and I sometimes do this what they call self-disclosure. And see how are they coping at home. And they eat, how do they eat. I make sure that they eat healthy. I always told them how to cook their food, you know (. . .). So I am doing quite a lot of talk. But (. . .) when I go to the home visit I am always excited. I don’t know, I am always excited. And I’m like friends with them. They are like my friends. I don’t say they are my clients, you know like I am doing a job and they must be so respectful to me (ironic voice). We’re friends, we speak openly! We speak everything with me, you see, I’m free! I’m free so that they can speak everything. And I give them advice when they want to be advised. So I’m there for them. I am helping them, everywhere.

What does the passage reveal about the relationship between faith, counselling and ethical subject-formation? Firstly, in relation to the Other, the invocation of faith serves to delineate a space in which maintaining health through the rational management of everyday life, i.e. the systematic and persistent orientation of practice towards a valued purpose, is rendered meaningful in the first place. Its primary purpose is to overcome the typical fatalism, despair and lethargy of people after a positive HIV-test, now facing a subjective world of fear. It is in this aspect of ‘overcoming’, where religion—turning to faith—and psychotherapy—accepting the meaningfulness of life—converge to produce an experience of conversion. Through faith and faith-based counselling

subjects of counselling

355

HIV-positive people may thus move from despair to eternal life. This invocation flows from the counsellor’s prior experience of personal vocation. Secondly, while other types of counselling often draw on the inherent advantages of an impersonal consideration of the problems at stake ‘from a distance’, faith-based counselling establishes the improbable combination of skilled expertise with personal friendship. And lastly, the relationship involves the promotion and inculcation of a defined set of rational practices. Nonetheless the authority of the counsellor rests less in shaping actions than in shaping subjective wants, and is therefore bound up with the inevitably paradoxical assignment of fortifying the counselled subject’s autonomy by helping control. In Sarah’s account, the objective of achieving autonomy through faith-based counselling sets relatively clear limits to indoctrination. In Martha’s counselling model, on the contrary, the re-building of the counselled subject’s autonomy is premised on authority. She persistently stresses the importance of ‘not being too soft with them’ when ‘they don’t want to listen to you’, and of directing them to assuming responsibility for the ‘gift of life’ because ‘God didn’t create us to be wasted’. The ideal outcome of this pastoral intervention is that clients replace despair with faith; this is underscored by her satisfaction that several clients have experienced conversion in her church during the counselling process. Her clients are therefore first and foremost construed as subjects of pastoral supervision and monitoring. With regard to the meanings of cure and salvation, her account reveals a non-reconcilable tension between the biomedical facts of chronic illness and the healing powers of faith. On the one hand, she contends that the primary goal of her work is ‘to see them completely cured’, ‘to go from positive to negative’, and closely associates this with the healing forces of prayer. On the other hand, she is at pains to reject any type of ‘herbalist treatment’ promising a cure for AIDS as unscientific and corrupt. This tension is also implicit in Sarah’s narrative when she recounts how one client asserted she had been cured from AIDS. She responds: ‘I believe that Jesus can make miracles and heal you, but we should go and see your doctor’. This statement spells out the problem of theodicy (why doesn’t he if he can?), uncovering the divergent, and sometimes conflicting, truth claims of religion and science, which Weber (1963) had famously addressed in his intermediate reflections. Since bio-medically AIDS is—still—an inescapable reality, however, it also demonstrates that the power of faith for coping with AIDS lies in acting upon multiple uncertainties but also in its opposite:

356

marian burchardt

in introducing contingency, and thus a possibility of salvation that biomedical discourse forecloses. The specific problem of faith-based counselling therefore revolves around constructing models of intervention that incorporate the productive aspects of both, uncertainty reduction and contingency. By critically oscillating between these polar conditions, the therapeutic enterprise carves out a terrain of meaning and moral imperatives in which epistemology and ethics are collapsed in the process of subject-formation. In the absence of biomedical cure, the discursive arrangement of faith-based counselling guides diseased people in making themselves new kinds of subjects through subjecting themselves to a regime of knowledge and ethical injunctions; it thereby opens possibilities of salvation, which serve as recurrent motivators for engaging in rational modes of ‘conduct of life’. Life with HIV/AIDS in South Africa takes place in an environment of biosocial risks. Managing these risks requires the sustained exercise of individual authority over changing challenges. To the extent that the practices of counselling result in the successful translation of notions of responsible self-hood into regimes of the rational management of everyday life; to the extent that people therefore reinvent themselves as masters of circumstance, these practices should be regarded as primary sites of cultural change. Within this process, religion is relevant not only because it is accorded an increased social relevance as an institution that assists, advises, helps, and counsels, but also in that it provides a transcendent rationale and a motivational underpinning for ‘living positively’. This reminds us of the numerous ways in which religion acts as a force for structuring the conduct of the wordly and daily business of living, and thus of religion as a force of life (Lebensmacht) that was at the heart Weber’s sociology. References Berger, Peter L. 1967. The Sacred Canopy. Garden City: Doubleday. —— and Thomas Luckmann. 1969. Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit. Eine Theorie der Wissenssoziologie. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer. Beck, Ulrich, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash (eds.). 1995. Reflexive Modernization. Politics, Tradition, and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Cambridge: Polity Press. Burchardt, Marian. 2007. ‘Speaking to the Converted? Religion and the Politics of Gender in South African AIDS Discourse’. Comparativ. Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und Vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung 17.5/6, 95–114. Dean, Mitchell. 1994. ‘ “A Social Structure of Many Souls”: Moral Regulation, Government, and Self-Formation’. Canadian Journal for Sociology 19.2. Special Issue on Moral Regulation, 145–168.

subjects of counselling

357

Dilger, Hansjörg. 2005. Leben mit AIDS. Krankheit, Tod und soziale Beziehungen in Afrika. Frankfurt/M./New York: Campus. DiMaggio, Paul J. and Walter W. Powell. 1983. ‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review 48.2, 147–160. Fassin, Didier. 2007. When Bodies Remember. Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press. Foucault, Michel. 1982. ‘The Subject and Power’. Critical Inquiry 8.4, 777–795. ——. 1988. ‘The Political Technology of Individuals’. in Luther, Martin H., Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton (eds.), Technologies of the Self. A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 145–162. ——. 1993. ‘About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self. Two Lectures at Dartmouth’. Political Theory 21.2, 198–227. Geissler, P. Wenzel & Ruth Prince. 2007. ‘Life Seen: Touch and Vision in the Making of Sex in Western Kenya’. Journal of Eastern African Studies 1.1, 123–149. Gifford, Paul. 1994. ‘Some Recent Developments in African Christianity’. African Affairs 93. 373, 513–534. Hondrich, Karl-Otto. 1988. ‘Risikosteuerung durch Nichtwissen. Paradoxien und Alternativen der AIDS-Politik’. in Burkel, Ernst (ed.), Der AIDS-Komplex. Dimensionen einer Bedrohung. Frankfurt/M. and Berlin: Ullstein, 121–143. Illich, Ivan. 1996. Deschooling Society. New York: Marion Boyars. Luckmann, Thomas. 1967. The Invisible Religion. The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. New York: Macmillan. Luhmann, Niklas. 1997. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Martin, David. 1990. Tongues of Fire. The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Meyer, John. 2005. Weltkultur. Wie die westlichen Prinzipien die Welt durchdringen. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Meyer, Birgit. 1998. ‘Make a Complete Break with the Past’: Memory and Postcolonial Modernity in Ghanian Pentecostal Discourse’. Werbner, R. (ed.), Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of Power. London: Zed Books, 182–208. Moreira, Tiago. 2007. ‘How to Investigate the Temporalities of Health’. Forum Qualitative Social Research 8.1, Art. 13. Nattrass, Nicoli. 2004. The Moral Economy of AIDS in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richter, Linda M. et al. 2001. ‘Putting HIV/AIDS counselling in South Africa in its place’. Society in Transition 32.1, 148–154. Robbins, Joel. 2004. ‘The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity’. Annual Review of Anthropology 33, 117–143. Rose, Nikolas. 1996. ‘Authority and the Genealogy of Subjectivity’ in Heelas, Paul, Scott Lash and Paul Morris (eds.), Detraditionalization: Critical Reflections on Authority and Identitiy at a Time of Uncertainty. Cambridge/Mass. and Oxford: Blackwell, 294–327. Schneider, Helen. 2002. ‘On the Fault-Line: The Politics of AIDS Policy in Contemporary South Africa’. African Studies 61.1, 145–167. Schütz, Alfred and Thomas Luckmann. 1979. Strukturen der Lebenswelt. Band 1. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Shisana, O. et al. 2005. South African National HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence, Behaviour and Communication Survey. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Swidler, Ann. 1986. ‘Culture in Action. Symbols and Strategies’. American Sociological Review 51.2, 273–286. Van Dijk, Rijk. 2001. Time and Transcultural Technologies of the Self in the Ghanian Pentecostal Diaspora. In Corten, André and Ruth Marshall-Fratini (eds.), Between Babel and Pentecost. Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indianapolis University Press, 216–234.

358

marian burchardt

Valverde, Mariana. 1994. ‘Editor’s Introduction’. Canadian Journal of Sociology 19. 2, Special Issue on Moral Regulation, vi–xii. Weber, Max. 1972. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie. Tübingen: Mohr. ——. 1963. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie 1. Siebeck: Mohr.

THERAPEUTIC EVANGELISM—CONFESSIONAL TECHNOLOGIES, ANTIRETROVIRALS AND BIOSPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE FIGHT AGAINST AIDS IN WEST AFRICA Vinh-Kim Nguyen Introduction One of the central messages of this volume is that religion constitutes a powerful idiom through which social relations are managed, and that religion is not only central to how people understand an epidemic, such as HIV, but also how they respond to it. As the papers by Prince and others show, the core of this idiom is a compelling notion of the transformation of a flawed and suffering self into one that has been ‘saved’ by Jesus, or has returned to the cradle of tradition. This is a powerful implement in the context of widespread suffering engendered by poverty and illness, and is all the more acute in the time of AIDS. This chapter will explore the striking similarities between religious forms and mainstream AIDS prevention and treatment campaigns. Despite being carried out by a trans-national assemblage of AIDS activists scientists, philanthropists, therapeutic entrepreneurs, as well as humanitarian and development agencies (what has been called an AIDS industry), these campaigns are strikingly similar. Their standardisation is derived from three broad factors. Firstly, they share a common genealogy, as they are descended from a handful of programs that were set up in the mid 1980s under the aegis of the WHO’s Global Program on AIDS. Secondly, agencies (such as UNAIDS), international conferences, global science, and harmonising mechanisms such as ‘best practices’ help keep this potentially unruly and at times unlikely coalition coherent and ‘on message’—a trend that has intensified with the consolidation of funding flows through the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the US President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Finally, the actual tactics used are limited to a handful of technologies. Some, like HIV testing, condoms, and antiretrovirals are clearly uniform commodities; others, I will argue in this chapter, such as training workshops, counselling techniques, and self-help strategies are

360

vinh-kim nguyen

equally standardised, stable across different environments, and produce predictable outputs; in this sense I speak of them as technologies. A stalwart of HIV prevention is voluntary counselling and testing, or VCT. VCT harnesses a prevention technology, ‘voluntary counselling’, to a biomedical diagnostic technology (the HIV test). In this volume, Marian Burchardt points out how the forms of ‘counselling’ deployed by VCT programs introduce ‘culturally new models of moral responsibility’, mirroring those described by Ruth Prince in her discussion of both Luo neo-traditionalists and ‘saved’ Christians in Kenya. As Burchardt and Prince show, these models of moral responsibility, which echo the individualising tenets of neoliberalism, are linked to a powerful experience of conversion, one that in fact calls forth the self in a way that is deemed transformative. In this chapter I will focus more specifically on the technologies that bring about this experience of conversion in the context of HIV prevention and treatment programs. These confessional technologies, ostensibly used to help people ‘come out’ with their HIV positivity, in effect trained them to talk about their innermost selves in public. This was far from easy or natural for most but, over time, allowed some to gain fluency with disclosing innermost feelings, helping to change the way others related to them and over time their social networks. My argument is that these techniques, conjugated with access to antiretroviral drugs, targeted the self as substrate, and helped to fashion new social relations around an HIV-positive identity and the ethical dilemmas—of care towards other and care of the self—that this posed. The dissemination of these biomedical technologies (self-help techniques and pharmaceuticals) must be considered in the context of globalisation: the acceleration and intensification of flows of people and things, ideas and practices that in the famous formulation of David Harvey (1989) compress space and time. In this case, a global assemblage of international institutions, activists, corporations, NGOs, and so on, have come together in response to the global AIDS epidemic and have channelled the dissemination of ideas, practices and drugs through a conflicted and evolving terrain of global and national AIDS policies. These have reformed international trade laws, defined new markets, opened up zones of dispute that concern access to treatment, the role of the State and international organisations in providing health care, the ‘pharmaceuticalization’ (Biehl 2008) of public health, and so on. The local phenomena described in this chapter are thus global ones as well.

therapeutic evangelism

361

In this paper I will draw on the notion of ‘moral economy’, as first developed by the English historian E. P. Thompson (1971) to describe price revolts subsequent to the introduction of capitalist land tenure, and subsequently used by James Scott (1992) in his ethnography of peasants in South East Asia. Both chronicled how the rise of a market economy was paralleled by a moral economy that constituted a form of resistance to capitalist relations. The term has since widely used in economics and anthropology to point to the cultural dimensions of political economy. In relation to Africa, John Lonsdale (1985) used the term in his account of the Mau-Mau Rebellion in colonial Kenya to correct a decontexualised view of ethnicity as a driving force in political conflict (a trope all too common today in accounts of ‘tribal wars’ in Africa). Rather, Lonsdale argues, ethnicity is a tool used to combat the encroachment of capitalist-driven inequalities, to fashion a ‘moral economy’. Revisiting this term to show its continued relevance, Berman writes ‘in arguing out conflicts to redefine an accepted moral economy, Africans became members of self-conscious ethnic communities both larger in social scale and more sharply demarcated than what had existed before. This internal discursive political arena, through which ethnic identities have emerged out of multiple, selective imaginings of “tradition”, culture, and identity from European as well as African sources, is what Lonsdale and I have termed “moral ethnicity” ’ (Berman 2006: 9). In this chapter I use the term to highlight how differing economic and cultural circumstances result in value being differently attributed. More specifically, the attempt to negotiate a ‘moral’ economy based on social relations can be seen as a tactical response to the introduction of a veritable ‘market’ for testimonials of HIV-positive people. For many citizens of developing countries, where the State provides little in the way of social security, social relations—particularly kin relations—constitute the only form of social security. It is kin that help pay for a prescription or look after an ailing family member. This has been obvious for medical anthropologists ever since studies of sufferers’ patterns of resort revealed the network of social relations that fanned out from the ‘therapy managing group’ that shaped the sufferer’s therapeutic journey based on economic, social, and cultural considerations. Being ill and poor, one must rely on one’s relationships—one’s family position and value—as well as on one’s ability to convince—often by any means necessary—to obtain the money for a medical visit or treatment. These forms of negotiation and exchange, while focussed on therapy, constitute a moral economy of sorts against which the market

362

vinh-kim nguyen

for testimonials offered an alienating vision of impersonal exchanges of confessions for money and drugs. Confessional technologies are a lens through which these moral economies may more clearly be viewed. As I will explore later, the incitement to disclose, operationalised through the dissemination of these technologies, created a market for testimonials that confronted people living with HIV. As I will show, this market was from the outset entangled in overlapping moral economies that posited differing standards of valuing life, talk and social relations. Survival required skilful negotiation of these entangled moral economies and overlapping regimes of value. Nonetheless, by introducing a new language and set of practices for talking about the self, they exercised a kind of ‘therapeutic evangelisation’ that, ultimately, results in a biospiritual transformation as access to treatment turns testimonials into flesh on the body of the ill who with antiretroviral treatment regain health. I will begin with an ethnographic account of a workshop conducted in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1997. The workshop was designed to develop counselling skills for people living with HIV (in order that they would become peer counsellors) and others who were already working with them; it was one of the first workshops (that has since been replicated many times) aimed at involving community-based groups in caring for people living with HIV. In this account I want to focus attention on the way in which these workshops deploy techniques designed either to get people to talk about themselves to others, with the goal of helping them to disclose their HIV infection, or to develop listening skills in order to better counsel those living with HIV. In so doing, my aim is to show how these techniques can be seen as confessional technologies, portable and machine-like in their ability to elicit both testimonials and self-awareness. Like all technologies, however, confessional technologies can encounter technical difficulties, have unpredictable effects and even be used to purposes for which they were not intended, as I will show in a discussion of how the workshop affected the lives of some its participants. In this case, the transplantation of confessional technologies developed in an American culture of self-expression and relative financial ease to a context blighted by poverty led to specific difficulties.

therapeutic evangelism

363

Warming-up I want you to close your eyes, and to think of someone that you love very much—think of him, think of all the good times you’ve had together. Think of him, and tell yourself now ‘I’ve got AIDS. I’ve got AIDS. I’ve got AIDS!’. Think of him, and think of how you’ve got AIDS. Now, open your eyes. Take a piece of paper, and draw a heart. In that heart, write what is in your heart now, when you think of this person you love very much, and then give the paper to your neighbour on the right.

It’s early in the morning, 1996, the second day of a meeting of African AIDS NGOs, and Theresa has been asked to do a ‘warm-up’ exercise for the group. Her delivery is dramatic, almost frightening. Theresa is a project officer from the head office of a large funding organisation in Washington; she told me later she made up the exercise on the spot ‘to get people into the feel of things’. My neighbour, on my left, gave me a crumpled piece of paper which I never opened. I was so uncomfortable with the exercise that I didn’t fill out my heart. Theresa never did tell us what to do with the tiny hearts we all received; after about a year I mailed it back to the shy woman who had given me hers. I’m going to hand out six of these yellow post it notes. Now. Think about your work doing community support for people with HIV. Take three of the post-its, and write a word which expresses what your fears are about this work. And take the other three, and write your motivations. Now, one by one, everyone should go up, share your words with the group and stick them either on the appropriate flip-chart: this one is for ‘fears’ and this one is for ‘motivations’.

One by one, the workshop attendants place their words on the flipcharts, reading them out as they do so. Fears Enough. Tired. Suffering. Suffering. Fragility. Exhaustion. Powerlessness. Suffering. Death. Inability to save from death. Patient confidentiality. Getting overwhelmed. Spiritual and physical suffering. Rejection by society. Lack of psychosocial support. My limitations. Support. Patient resources. Dying. Interruption. Telling the truth. Contaminated. Lack of resources. Suffering. Difficulty to approach. Fear. Economy. Suffering. Pain. Limits. Rejection by others. Fatality. Money. Availability. Disease without a cure. Propagation. Public’s ignorance. Pain. Not being up to it. Pain. Discouragement.

Motivations Compassion. Will to help. Vocation. Personal. Worrisome reality. Support. Pursuing an option. To serve. Helping others. Overcome. Compassion.

364

vinh-kim nguyen Useful. Knowledge. Solidarity. Compassion. Fears. Anguish. Help. Love. Help save. Helping others. Overcoming sickness. I could be sick. Comfort. Help. Comfort. Support. Help. Despair. Abandoned. Suffering. Suffering. Love. Be useful. Suffering. Abandon. Spiritual need. Compassion. To serve. Ignorance. Fear. Solidarity. Concerned. Difficult situations. Contribution. Regrets. Love. Hope. Discover myself. Friends who are affected. To learn.

One of the participants was a friend of mine, a young woman struggling with her own diagnosis of HIV, her concern about her children, and an increasingly distant husband. Her post-its (‘Lack of psychosocial support’, ‘Spiritual and physical suffering’, ‘I could be sick’) appeared to express her experience of her condition in a way that she would never have put into spoken words. She remained silent throughout the workshop, except during the warm-up exercises which, as one facilitator noted, weren’t as ‘solemn’ as the post-it exercise. These were games where a ball was thrown, or a form of musical chairs called ‘fruit salad’ was played, or songs sung. Nothing personal was involved. Asking, telling, listening Being able to communicate about HIV was the principal goal of the workshop. Participants concentrated on learning ‘active listening’ techniques: how to ask open ended questions (such as ‘How does that make you feel?’), or reformulating a statement (‘when I fall ill no one will look after me’), or suggesting a response (‘you’re afraid of being abandoned?’), all while mirroring their interlocutor’s posture. All this was to build up confidence, in order to ‘reassure your interlocutor and prove to him that you are really there’. Ask the person you are helping how she is feeling. Of course, asking just ‘are you OK’ is not enough. The person you are asking can answer with just ‘yes’ or ‘no’. You can ask her ‘how are you feeling?’. She can then answer that she is feeling well or unwell, and then continue to express herself. But it is better to ask ‘what are you feeling?’ ‘what are your feelings?’ ‘how are you emotionally?’ etc. And it’s even better if you can link each emotion or feeling she expresses to something precise: ‘how did that make you feel?’ ‘what are your feelings about that decision?’, ‘that’s a difficult situation to be in—how do you feel about that?’ etc. It is preferable that the person you are helping responds by truly describing her emotions:

therapeutic evangelism

Figure 9.1

365

Asking questions: AIDS self help group.

—she should be encouraged to speak in her name, in the first person. For example: ‘they are telling me that I am depressed’ What counts is not what others say, but what this person truly feels: —avoid thoughts which interfere with the expression of feelings, for example: ‘I think I am exhausted’ ‘I feel like I am getting discouraged’ —it is preferable that the person be able to say ‘I feel very depressed’ ‘I feel full of hope today’

The workshop used a number of techniques which are widely used in training in international development programs as well as in private industry. In addition to the warm-up exercises there were ‘trust-building’ exercises, such as having one person stand in the middle of a circle with their eyes closed. She would let herself go limp, and allow herself to be tossed around and caught by other members of the group. Pairs or groups of participants practised their ‘Communication skills’ (the active listening techniques) using drills: ask nothing but open ended questions for three minutes, then switch. When the time is up, have each member debrief on what the experience felt like.

366

vinh-kim nguyen

Participants did role plays in front of the group in order to practice their interviewing skills. After each role play, the actors would be debriefed: ‘how did you feel during the exercise?’ And members of the audience were asked to observe the body language and the techniques used. Care was taken to avoid overt criticism of actors’ techniques; conveying an attitude of ‘non-judgementality’ was important. The techniques employed in the workshop had themselves travelled from America, where they had initially been developed by social psychologists working for the US military in the wake of Second World War. Initially developed with the aim of building cohesion within military units, they were subsequently refined in a quest to facilitate racial integration after Second World War, before being taken up by business schools to train future managers. Ultimately, they would migrate to the counter culture movement (Lee 2002). When the American gay community began to respond to the AIDS epidemic in the mid eighties, these technologies were readily available and used in workshops for training outreach workers and peer counsellors to work with those suffering from, or at risk for, the infection. In the early years of the epidemic, AIDS organisations trained volunteers to work with people with AIDS: keeping them company, assisting them to negotiate doctor’s appointments and hospital tests, even helping in everyday chores. These volunteers were called ‘buddies’. The buddy system exists to this day in North America and Europe, though the demand for it decreased first in the early nineties as social services adapted to the problems faced by people with HIV and even more after 1996 when the introduction of new effective combination therapies dramatically reduced illness and mortality of people with HIV. As the effectiveness of antiretrovirals became manifest, and the need for HIV companions in San Francisco and Brussels or New York and Paris declined, from 1996 the buddy model swept into Africa on a tide of rhetoric about ‘sharing experiences’. Asking questions that cannot be answered by a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ is a simple but powerful technique, but in the workshop it was difficult to get it to work. As became increasingly clear during the workshop, getting people to elaborate after being asked open-ended questions was difficult. Laconic answers proliferated. It was difficult to get participants to further develop their answers, even to the open-ended questions. This frustrated Theresa—in this case, because it meant there was little ‘material to work with’ in her training sessions. The monotony of the answers were treated as ‘technical difficulties’. The nature of these technical

therapeutic evangelism

367

difficulties was twofold. First, the gaps, evasions, and circumlocutions resulted from participants’ reluctance to talk about personal difficulties. For them, talking would not solve problems that lay elsewhere, in the difficulties of their material circumstances and the social relations around them. Second, the techniques made certain assumptions about the relationship between asker and teller that did not hold in this local setting. The solution to this technical difficulty, as we shall see, emerged as a repertoire of strategies that sought to translate asking, listening and telling into a legible form of social relations. Translating empathy The workshop stressed ‘attitudes that favour communication in the helping relationship’; one of which was empathy, which the workshop manual defined as follows: Empathy is neither antipathy nor is it the sympathy we may feel for someone who is dear to us It is trying to feel and think what the person we are listening to feels and thinks; it is trying to see the world from his point of view, AS IF we were in his place. But we must never forget this AS IF: because we are never in the other’s position Empathy is the attempt to totally understand the other, without referring to one’s own values

I had an argument with Theresa about the meaning of the word ‘empathy’. It seemed to me that the definition offered was not correct, that empathy was precisely not about the AS IF. Theresa’s response was not semantic, but practical. She had joined the Brussels AIDS organisation after her brother was diagnosed with HIV. She had encountered the term at a workshop in Brussels when she was training to become a counsellor on the Brussels AIDS help-line. She had learned the term in translation. The term, she told me, came from Roger’s psychology. The organisers of the Brussels workshop had themselves trained in America, at one of the original AIDS organisations in San Francisco. The point, she forcefully reminded me, was that something was needed to ‘maintain boundaries’ so that counsellors would neither get overwhelmed with the emotional distress they would face, day and night, on the help-line nor respond defensively with damagingly judgemental statements like ‘why did you do that?’ Mobilising her own experience, Theresa translated empathy—a term she herself learned in translation—

368

vinh-kim nguyen

into a set of practices for making sure the workshop participants would take home the AS IF. The initial challenges in getting the workshop to ‘work’ were taken up subsequently by the participants as they returned to their communities and tried to apply the lessons of the workshop. Ultimately, the workshop did ‘work’ as the drills and exercised had smoothed over the hard edges, allowing a more seamless practice of translation. Cicely, a robust church leader and health care activist in a northern town, organised her own workshop after she left Theresa’s. She used the workshop to train volunteers in her neighbourhood association, the Friends of Life Association. The workshop was translated into the national language, Mooré. The Mooré word they used for empathy, Cicely told me, translates back as ‘making other’s problems your own business’. The Friends also found the techniques useful, and had the added advantage that Cicely’s unflagging determination had netted them a substantial stock of medications from Europe. Cicely’s translation of empathy did not reflect the sense that Theresa had given it, it was well adapted to the practical work of her volunteers. They did, in fact, make other peoples’ problems their business, by going around and doing home visits. But after all, Cicely pointed out to me, ‘in Africa, everybody sticks their nose into your business—what’s wrong if one takes advantage of it to do good?’ The problem Cicely and her volunteers faced was that good deeds were measured in terms of relief from symptoms, and not in stories told. She too was able to use contacts that came out of the workshop to obtain medicines. But it was never enough, she told me. Cicely was able to translate both the vocabulary of the workshop, but more importantly, she was able to translate the social relations she constructed at the workshop into tangible benefit for her association’s clients. A confessional parish For some participants, learning the techniques and applying them changed them and, through them, the social relations around them. This was the case of Jean and his group, the ‘Parish Companions’. At the workshop, Jean had had difficulty with the role plays, finding it difficult to act in front of the group. Jean was a catechist from a remote rural area, who had been identified by the Washington organisation that funded the workshop several months earlier. Washington had sent

therapeutic evangelism

369

consultants who had been charged with finding community groups that would be able to do ‘care and support’ work. Jean was the leader of a small group of catechists that performed home visits to people who were ill, presumably with AIDS. The ‘parish companions’, like others in their village, assumed that those who were persistently ill or bedridden, most often those who had come back from the city, were suffering from ‘the evil of the century’ (the local euphemism for AIDS). They had been inspired to do this by the head of their parish, a young Italian priest who had become notorious in the region, and in the Catholic Church as far as France, as somewhat of an AIDS crusader. Father Giuseppe, as everyone called him, had developed educational tools—in the form of pamphlets and a game—which stressed that the only way to be safe from AIDS was to be either celibate, faithful, or to use condoms. He was later repatriated to Italy. It was said that this was because he had not shied from promoting condoms. He told me he left Africa because his mother was ill. His departure left the ‘parish companions’ groups leaderless. The arrival of consultants from Washington, charged with ‘strengthening the response to the epidemic’ though training was seen by Jean as an opportunity to ‘re-energise’ his group’s efforts. The Diocese however seemed uninterested by the ‘parish companions’, who nonetheless continued to visit their charges without being completely sure what they should be doing. The offer of support from the Washington consultants, who were impressed by the Companions works with the ill, was quickly taken up, and Paul, a ‘companion of the ill’ from another parish who was also a clerk at the Diocese, travelled with Jean to the workshop. The presence of doctors, nurses, and other ‘people of the profession’ as they called professional health care workers intimidated both Jean and Paul at the workshop. Although both were literate, they had never pursued their studies beyond middle school and hence did not consider themselves to be ‘intellectuals’ like the others. On the first day of the workshop, Jean confided to me that he did not know how someone like him, who was not ‘of the profession’ and did not have any scientific knowledge, would be able to understand anything having to do with such a medical topic. In the first few days, Jean and Paul were clearly uncomfortable, and their performance in the various role plays was wooden. But the workshop’s emphasis on drills and practical skills appeared to pay off. By the fifth and last day of the workshop, both Jean and Paul would confidently ask open-ended questions.

370

vinh-kim nguyen

Their enthusiasm for the workshop increased with time. Washington was eager to nurture their investment in the Parish Companions, and provided more consultants to ensure that Jean and Paul maintained their skills and would pass them on to their fellow Parish Companions. As they attended successive workshops, Jean and Paul changed. They had left the first workshop with a mechanical ability to ask open-ended questions; by the third workshop, they summarised mock interviews with ease and had shed their previously stiff habitus to fluidly mirror the postures of their mock interviewees. The village where Jean lives lies in an arid region in the interior of Burkina Faso; the paved road ends 100 km before reaching Doumla. On the edge of the road which passes Doumla is a small wooden stand with a dozen recycled glass bottles of various sizes, which glow amber from beneath the parasol which shields them from the bright sun. As a petrol trader, Jean travels weekly to the nearest big town, which is also home to the Diocese, to purchase a barrel with which he replenishes these bottles. These trips enable him to maintain a direct line with the Diocese, a link that also enhances his position as a catechist in the village. Doumla, because of its position on the road, is an important village in the area. It even has a small primary care centre, staffed by a nurse from the Ministry of Public Health. The dispensary is rudimentary, equipped with a few instruments for bandages and a tiny pharmacy that is most often empty. ‘With AIDS’, says Jean, ‘people lie ill in the family courtyard until the family can no longer afford to care for them’. Families will pitch in to buy medicines for ill family members; when family members continue to be ill despite the use of the medicines and family resources are exhausted, it is blamed on the ‘evil of the century’. Jean told me that he has seen cases of families who ‘abandon’ their ill—not by casting them out, but by leaving them without food or even clothing—a clear case of rationing scarce resources, and devoting them to those who are likely to live. This is when the Companions step in, to visit and bathe the sufferer and ‘restore his dignity’. Jean was worried about the Companions becoming identified as an AIDS group—if that happened, their visits would carry the burden of stigma to their charges. In addition, in a village where everyone knows everyone, as well as the degree of relatedness between everyone, it might appear odd for Companions, who are not kin, to visit a sick person. This initial hurdle was sometimes a problem, Jean admitted to me, although it was not such a big problem most of the time because ‘everyone is used to Church

therapeutic evangelism

371

people going around and visiting ill people’. The Catholic Church has been active in the region since the 1920s, when the first parish was established. The Diocese still has dusty notebooks that provide a glimpse into life at the mission in its early years: details of visits to neighbouring villages totalling conversions by name and religion of origin, minutes of Parish meetings, report cards evaluating native catechists in training with comments such as ‘a good boy—hardworking, honest’, ‘serious’, ‘not bright but earnest’. As their home visits continued, Jean’s initial worries about stigmatising those he visited abated somewhat. When I recalled his concerns, he noted that ‘in a way it doesn’t really make a difference’, as everyone ‘knows already’. I had asked the question after the Companions had already had a year to use the open-ended questions they had learned. The public health nurse in the village, Ishmaël, who had not attended the workshop but had learned of the new techniques from Jean, could barely contain his excitement when we discussed the results of the workshop. ‘It has transformed the dispensary’ he told me. Now that he had begun to ask open-ended-questions, ‘the patients are more at ease’. Formerly ‘laconic’, now, ‘they are talking’. I asked what they were talking about, what this meant. ‘They talk about their problems: money, family problems’. What difference has this made? ‘They have to confide, in a way they never confided to me before…it forces them to have confidence’. When I asked what this meant for their health, Ishmaël pointed out that health is a ‘vast thing’, that even though there are still no medicines in the dispensary and the patients do not have the money to pay for medicines, they are ‘relieved’ that they have been able to share their problems: and that ‘counts for something’ too. This trust might translate into patients coming for care earlier when they are sick, which means that their illnesses might be more treatable—assuming they could afford the medicines. Jean noted that the techniques had given the Companions ‘access’ to the ill that they previously did not have. ‘The families resisted’ home visits: now they are ‘brought around to gain confidence’. He told me of previously distant fathers who have become attached to him, and of a woman who confided intimate problems to him ‘which in our culture a woman would normally never confide to a man’. One hundred kilometres back down the dirt road, at the Diocese, Paul reported the same phenomenon. He even began using the techniques outside of his work with the Companions, in his regular job as the Parish Secretary. ‘Parishioners come to see me about all sorts of problems, like establishing

372

vinh-kim nguyen

birth and death certificates, including deaths that have happened in Côte-d’Ivoire’. These deaths in Côte-d’Ivoire trigger Paul’s suspicions, as ‘that is where the sickness comes from’, and this furnishes one of many opportunities to ask more. Invited to confide in the parish secretary, the parishioners appear to do so willingly. ‘It helps them’, he said, and allows him to feel that he is doing a better job. Ultimately then, the deployment of these confessional technologies ‘in the field’ embedded them in pre-existing moral economies of asking and telling. For Cicely, this was an economy of minding other people’s business in order that help be sought out; for Jean and other trainees, it involved transforming themselves into ‘askers’ within a moral economy that had been shaped by pre-existing pastoral institutions. As we shall now see, the deployment of these technologies, with their incitement to disclose, ultimately made the ‘self ’ the centre of a series of ethical predicaments. The moral economy of disclosure When they returned to their community associations, many workshop participants set up discussion groups to encourage other people with HIV to talk about their affliction. I attended these groups regularly from when they first started, in 1998. In Côte-d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso however, in the first few years, the groups did not seem particularly successful. Very few men attended. Attempts to get participants talking were at first met by silence and, eventually, halting attempts at self-expression that more often than not were a litany of complaints that seemed devoid of affective content. But over time, the dynamic in the groups began to change. After awkward, embarrassed beginnings a more convivial atmosphere began to prevail. Previously laconic participants became voluble and animated. Gradually, the charismatic side of some of the participants emerged. Their narratives were frequently couched in an evangelical idiom, describing the process of being diagnosed with HIV as the beginning of a conversion-like process, the first step on a road that led to greater enlightenment and the adoption of a more responsible, moral life. These declarations were inevitably followed by exhortations to the audience to get tested. These evangelical idioms disturbed many of the Western aid workers employed by the agencies that funded these efforts. Thee workers had come to international AIDS work through AIDS activism

therapeutic evangelism

373

in the North, and many from the gay community. Needless to say, the moralising tone of message conflicted with aid workers’ personal values that stressed empowerment, sexual openness and tolerance. Initially, I suspected that that these evangelical idioms were either historical residues of the colonial period or a reflection of the growing popularity of Pentecostal Churches. I spent considerable time interviewing volunteers and adepts in religious organisations. Some of these organisations were responding directly to the epidemic in various ways: volunteering at the hospital, holding prayer services, providing emotional and material support; others were not so directly involved with the epidemic but concerned with affliction more broadly understood. Some spoke of volunteering to work with the ill and dying as a religious experience, while others expressed the desire to offer solace to those afflicted. Common to all was a powerful sense that what was at stake was the way in which HIV reframed moral dilemmas and made experience available as a strategy for self-fashioning, and for transforming others. It is still not clear to me whether the parallels between the emerging ethic of care that emerged in these groups of people living with HIV and Christian models of pastoral care were historical or just a coincidence of form. After all, Christian models link the care of the soul to the care of others in a very similar way to how we understand control of a chronic, infectious disease. Increasingly, it seemed to me, this question was irresolvable and probably of lesser interest than that of what was at stake for my informants. Faced with the prognosis of certain disease and death—and little in the way of resources to alter that prognosis—what was at stake was how the good life was to be defined and how it might be attained. In this way, the moral dilemmas surrounding the HIV diagnosis (framed by popular understandings of HIV as a disease of sexual immorality) were transformed into ethical predicaments. Sufferers had little to work with—in fact, they had only themselves. Ethics was about attaining the goal the good life (no matter how damaged the prospects might seem) through self-transformation; ethics was about the care of the self and the relationship to others. These circulating, global discourses about AIDS were taken up in local ethical projects that aimed at a good life through practices that took the self as a substrate for action. What these ethical predicaments share, perhaps, with evangelical movements is the way in which they make available instruments and strategies which individuals may take up to equip themselves to better navigate the moral economies—the differing regimes of value—in which they are enmeshed. In

374

vinh-kim nguyen

the era of globalisation and NGO discourses about AIDS, these moral economies are starkly juxtaposed making this task particularly acute for people living with HIV and AIDS in settings where the only source of solidarity is family. The market for testimonials, anchored in Western notions of self-help through confession, offered the best opportunity to gain resources that could help feed family and maintain one’s position in the kinship networks that, in the absence of a viable State, are the only available forms of social solidarity. Confessional technologies did much more than produce testimonials, however; they also were instrumental in turning people living with HIV into activists. More significantly, perhaps, they created a tissue of social relations organised around shared disclosure, in effect colonising the pastoral economy of asking and telling laid down by the Church and re-working it, in the space of AIDS organisations, to one where what was increasingly at stake was the self, and how to transform it to confront an increasingly precarious future. The chosen The incitement to talk about the self that emerged in donor-funded workshops from the mid 1990s in Africa was a pragmatic one, informed by Western notions of how the epidemic was best confronted. It drew on a range of policies that sought ‘greater involvement of people living with AIDS’ and notably their empowerment. These goals could not be realised if people were not being tested or, if they were but were not comfortable ‘coming out’ as HIV-positive. Disclosing one’s status, being able to read and handle one’s feelings in dealing with a patient or counselling a stranger—all required a particular set of skills. The confessional technologies used to build these skills had to be translated so that they could achieve effects on the ground—technical difficulties that required some tinkering in order to be taken up in local moral economies characterised by poverty and uncertainty. Talking about one’s self—disclosing one’s status—worked to weave together a moral economy of disclosure where what was at stake was not so much uncovering the truth of the self as finding how to orient one’s self in order to live the best life possible under these dramatic circumstances. Until very recently, in the absence of any real political or economic engagement to address the structural issues driving the epidemic, many local observers viewed these testimonials as only so much ‘theatre’—

therapeutic evangelism

375

performances devoid of authentic meaning, used only instrumentally. But this proved not to be the case, as these confessional technologies did not only produce testimonials. The use of these techniques helped some of those in the first cohort of people living with HIV to gain a range of interpersonal skills that were not only self-transformative, but also transformative of their relationships. In short, these techniques also transformed social relations around those who grew fluent in their use, as the case of Jean illustrates. In addition, they produced a vanguard of AIDS treatment activists—in effect, a therapeutic evangelisation. As the supply of donated antiretroviral drugs increased from 1998, groups were increasingly faced with the gut-wrenching prospect of deciding who should get the medications. No matter how many donations they received, demand always outstripped supply. In a setting where poverty is endemic, and where the State provides little—if any—services, any organisation offering even the most minimal services was quickly overrun. This was certainly the case of the HIV/AIDS groups where fear of stigma did not appear to be much of a barrier to a steadily increasing stream of would-be beneficiaries. Many of these individuals were already ill, or suspected themselves to be HIV positive because they had lost a spouse. The concept of triage was developed on the battlefield, as a way to most rationally use scarce treatment resources: those most likely to live are prioritised to receive care, while those whose prognosis is poor are left to die. HIV/AIDS groups were faced with a similar situation. They made the difficult decision of who should benefit from the limited source of drugs by adopting a form of social triage. Those whose continued health was most likely to translate into increased resources for the group were the first beneficiaries. But how did the groups chose? They reasoned that those who were most charismatic, most able to deliver effective testimonials would be the best advocates for getting more drug donations. These individuals were being identified mainly on the basis of their performance in the discussion and self-help groups, which were ideally suited to cultivating their testimonial skills. It was a subtle, implicit process, but it highlighted how the discussion groups, conjugated with the confessional technologies, were veritable social laboratories, safe zones where new forms of disclosure could be experimented with and made effective. Sometimes the decision as to who should get the drugs was more directly pragmatic. Prioritising access to drugs for beneficiaries who could be counted on to facilitate the group’s work in virtue of their

376

vinh-kim nguyen

professional position was an example of how groups used drugs to increase access. In one group I worked with, for instance, a conscious decision was made to offer a rare treatment to a customs officer because he would be able to facilitate further entry of medications—his wife, who was also positive, was initially not offered the treatment. These strategic forms of social triage contrasted with the rhetoric that framed international donors’ aid, which was meant to target the most vulnerable members of society—not the most valuable. It also differs from patient selection mechanisms made through NGO protocols and medical practitioners. Over time, those who were gifted communicators also became those with the most direct experience with the drugs as they benefited first from the trickle of antiretrovirals. Echoing the experience of AIDS activism in the North, these patients were often the most knowledgeable about antiretrovirals. Now, as drug programs expand, they are ideal candidates for assuming leadership roles in treatment literacy and expanded access program. South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign (several media profiles of its founder, Zackie Achmat, have made him the best known African AIDS activist in the North) is an example of an organisation that explicitly harnessed this process to identify and train future activists from the ranks of patients. Throughout Africa the inchoate strategies of other groups and activists amounted to a kind of implicit process of producing activists through access to treatment. While some individuals, particularly well versed in the social arts or endowed with charisma, were naturally well suited to draw on the repertoire of confessional techniques to mobilise others, even those less-skilled were able to benefit from the drills, exercises, and training that proliferating workshops disseminated throughout the continent. It is in this sense that I speak of a ‘therapeutic evangelisation’ resulting from the dissemination of confessional technologies. Conclusion: words into flesh As use of antiretrovirals began to expand in the early years of this century, therapeutic activists were necessarily the first in line. The confessional technologies drawn upon on in this therapeutic quest were conjugated with the growing availability of antiretrovirals to fashion, biologically and socially, therapeutic evangelists. The painful context of social triage in which access to antiretrovirals—or indeed treatment

therapeutic evangelism

377

for any disease, let alone social support—is powerfully linked to the emergence of a sense of obligation to others, what I have termed ‘therapeutic citizenship’ (Nguyen 2004). In the era of scaled-up antiretroviral treatment programs and their incitement to adhere to medication, it is possible to see how this therapeutic citizenship is increasingly concerned with the ‘care of the self ’ (Foucault 1988). Indeed, this is most visible as the cycle of workshops has begun anew, still aiming to train people with HIV to counsel peers, but this time about the importance of adhering to treatment. With the goal of achieving ‘community preparedness’ and ‘treatment literacy’, confessional technologies are redeployed, this time to incite to adherence and responsible sexual behaviour. ‘Adherence clubs’ and ‘community involvement’ workshops proliferate. Yet once again, these standardised technologies take little account of the differing regime of value which must be negotiated, nor the politics of triage that determine who lives and who dies. Nonetheless, they will produce new moral economies, such as some of those explored in this volume, that with HIV have increasingly link a pastoral relationship to the provision of antiretrovirals. In my examination of the workshop and its derivatives, the care of the self is more than just a survival strategy, a strategy for complying with antiretroviral treatment regimens or the imperatives of safe sex. It represents an attempt to deal with a threatening reality—a diagnosis of AIDS—in a way that nurtures existing social relations and forms of solidarity while leaving open the possibility of accessing desperately needed medicines. What is at stake, I have argued, is an ethical predicament: how to preserve the good life when it is under threat by a diagnosis that has the potential both to dissolve social ties (through the combined forces of stigmatisation and an individualised notion of misfortune) and the physical body. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that Christianity, with its twinned concern for the care of the soul and the shepherding of others towards salvation, should dovetail so elegantly with AIDS control efforts that, in the current era of mass diagnosis and treatment, have made a quantum leap from the efforts described in this chapter. The flotsam of conflicting moral messages (abstinence or fidelity on one hand, condoms on the other) nonetheless share a similar deep structure. Indeed, as this chapter and others in this volume suggest, even though the intersection of HIV and religion in Africa has been the site of dispute and even outright conflict in the response to the HIV epidemic in Africa, religion and science are not estranged bedfellows. This is perhaps clearest with the

378

vinh-kim nguyen

US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a multibillion dollar program that is the largest-ever effort targeting a single disease, which has re-shaped the global AIDS industry and pushed an ever-expanding quantitative standardisation of AIDS control efforts. PEPFAR has mixed religion and science in myriad ways. American and African activists have criticised PEPFAR for pushing an unproven prevention strategy at the behest of the American Religious Right. PEPFAR is now funding a massively expanded roster of ‘faith based organisations’ to work in AIDS prevention and treatment in Africa. Working in Mozambique, Kalofonos recently chronicled the emergence of ‘therapeutic congregations’ (2007) that explicitly link salvation to CD4 counts and antiretrovirals. Therapeutic evangelism blends salvation and drugs, confessional technologies and confessions. Discourses of empowerment and the testimonials elicited by confessional technologies have led to therapeutic activism and ultimately access to life-saving drugs. ‘Drugs into bodies’, the rallying cry of 1980s US AIDS activism that militated against a complacent government and an uninterested biomedical industrial complex, has become the slogan of a new breed of evangelists. Confessional technologies begat antiretrovirals, and have transformed words into flesh. Bibliography Biehl, J. 2008. Drugs for all: the future of global aids treatment. Medical Anthropology 27(2):99–105. Berman, 2006. The ordeal of modernity in an age of Terror. African Studies Review 49(1):1–14. Foucault, M. 1988. The Care of the Self: History of Sexuality, Volume III. New York: Vintage. Harvey, D. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity. London: Blackwell. Kalofonos, I. 2007. A Vida Positiva: Activism, Evangelism, and Antiretrovirals in Central Mozambique. African Studies Association Annual Meeting, New York. Lee, Laura Kim. 2002. Changing Selves, Changing Society: Human Relations Experts and the Invention of T Groups, Sensitivity Training and Encounter in the United States, 1938–1980. Ph.D. diss., University of California Los Angeles. Lonsdale, John and Bruce Berman, 1992. Unhappy Valley: conflict in Kenya and Africa. Oxford: James Currey. Nguyen, V.-K. 2004. ‘Antiretroviral Globalism, Biopolitics and Therapeutic Citizenship.’ In A. Ong and S. Collier, eds, Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics. London: Blackwell. Robins, S. L. 2006. From rights to ritual: AIDS activism and treatment testimonies in South Africa. American Anthropologist 108:312–323. Scott, James. 1985. Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press. Thompson, E. P. 1971. ‘The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century’. Past and Present. 50: 76–134.

CONCLUSION John Lonsdale As a consequence of mere chance, an unjust fate, personal failings or a malevolent spirit, the workshop on Faith and AIDS convened by Paul Gifford, Felicitas Becker and Wenzel Geissler met for discussion a couple of months before the appearance of John Iliffe’s sombrely magnificent The African Aids Epidemic: A History.1 But as good luck, benevolent ancestors, a well-ordered academic society, prayer or a just God may perhaps—who knows?—have ordained, Iliffe’s book did not retrospectively demand of the contributors to the workshop, or its commentators, any radical revision of their approaches or conclusions. Workshop and book are complementary, not contradictory. Iliffe has set the broad historical context for the local insights that are offered in this collection. And he is concerned less with faith than with medical science, the causation and sequence of viral spread, the changing character of epidemic, global and national high policy, the politicisation of HIV activists, and the relationship between caring agencies and the human rights of patients. Nonetheless, one of his main organising themes is the antithesis between biomedical and moralising, pre-scientific, explanations of disease in general as well as of AIDS in particular. The moralising side of this opposition was the main focus of enquiry at the Faith and AIDS workshop. It is with the deeply, and deeply contradictory, moralist views of Africans that this collection is chiefly concerned, as people have wrestled, as Iliffe also so movingly recounts, with issues of communal obligation, individual responsibility, and social stigma, under the eye of God, or gods, or of taboos, or imagined local traditions, at a time of death, pain, loss and impoverishment, full of questions about family duty that are infinitely deeper than the coincidental or causal connections between our workshop and the publication of Iliffe’s book. The workshop organisers had kindly asked me to act as one of the day’s commentators. My own research on religion and politics in 1 Athens OH, Oxford and Cape Town: Ohio University Press, James Currey and Double Storey, 2006.

380

john lonsdale

contemporary Kenya had taken me into the mosques and churches of Nairobi a few months earlier, but the relations between faith and AIDS had not been one of my chief concerns. I was more directly interested in the conflicts and collusions between two sources of authority, secular and sacred, in the making of Kenya’s political cultures. It was this personal interest and experience that influenced me when I came to try to generalise from and contextualise the research papers that were presented at the workshop and some of which are now collected in this volume. What had struck me most when talking with politicians and religious leaders in Nairobi, and still more with taxi-drivers and matatu minibus passengers, was their sense of the loss of leadership authority in general or, at the least, of its exposure to an increasingly crowded and volatile market in authority. Kenyans were disillusioned with their new government, elected in 2002; their Anglican bishops had recently been lampooned for the offer of prayers for hire by one of their number; there was a general cynicism about many aspects of contemporary Pentecostalism; and there was a new edginess to the oppositions between Sunni and Shia Islam. These perspectives I took to the workshop on Faith and AIDS. There are two very different historical processes in which African authority has, typically, come under critical scrutiny. Heike Behrend’s paper on AIDS and the Catholic Church in western Uganda, which took up Victor Turner’s insistence that one must historicise ‘crisis’, provides me with my entry point to the first such process. This is a crisis of subsistence, typically of famine, such as has occurred, with different periodicities, throughout the many regional histories of Africa; the second was of much longer gestation and more narrowly modern if also more universally spread over the whole continent, as the consequence of colonial rule, world capitalism, population growth and urbanisation. Contemporary Africans are most conscious of the latter when they seek the causes of HIV/AIDS. But it may be worth a short digression to consider the former, in order to think comparatively about the specificity of the moral and political dimensions of the AIDS epidemic. There are striking contrasts between the past moral crises of famine and the present crisis of AIDS. Famine crises occurred fairly regularly, almost predictably within each local context, in many parts of precolonial Africa, not least in eastern Africa. AIDS is a newcomer, and a silent one at that, giving neither Africans nor international health professionals any warning of its long incubation before, in Africa at

conclusion

381

least, it was too late. Famine victims were typically the socially weak, the very old and very young, and often women rather than men. AIDS victims were initially the socially strong and mobile; and, only as the epidemic has matured and knowledge of how to protect oneself has grown, have its victims begun to approximate to the poor and weak typical of famine. In the past, African societies have stigmatised those who died in famine, blaming the dying for being too poor to fend for themselves, or too idle to attach themselves to a patron; but Africans have also tended to forget famine as a moral disaster in which it is as well not to remember failures in either kin obligation or contractual reciprocity. The AIDS epidemic has produced much the same stigmatisation, in face of the same terrible questions about responsibility for relatives and neighbours, although it appears that the inescapable duty of families to care for their dying members has been altogether more courageous in the time of AIDS than in previous times of death. But it is perhaps in the strategies of attempted recovery from crisis that famine and AIDS are most to be distinguished. In the past the destitute saved themselves from famine, if at all, by various forms of submission: by clientage to a wealthy neighbour; or by pawning a daughter to a patron; or by pleading with affinal kin, often of a different ethnic group; or, especially if one’s penury came from the loss of livestock, by accepting a less estimable form of subsistence elsewhere, hunting or fishing, so that the poor survived by becoming ‘other’. These were, generally, individual or household strategies. In the time of AIDS it is possible to argue that now, at this mature stage of the epidemic, if not earlier in its history, strategies if not of survival, at least of prolonging life, may become more assertive, more collective. Now that generic antiretroviral drugs have begun to be made available, subject often to various testing and counselling regimes, dependent on the distributive efficiency and justice of African states, John Iliffe has found it possible to detect the beginning of what he calls the ‘repoliticisation of Africa’—after the depoliticisation of the continent’s formerly assertive, nationalist, peoples by one-party governments—as vulnerable groups press their claims to be noticed and to receive care by means of organised forms of self-representation, often in the press, sometimes on the streets. How far such repoliticisation might prompt the reform of African states can only be guessed at, but the old Ethiopian kingdom periodically re-established its legitimacy by royal hospitality at times of famine; and

382

john lonsdale

colonial governments too were at times forced by famine to revise their policies on internal trade and crop pricing.2 Will the increasing willingness of AIDS victims to overcome social stigma by asserting their rights to universal human esteem have a similar effect? That would indeed be a silver lining to the present dark cloud. The local studies in this volume do not as yet give very great grounds for that sort of hope. Indeed, the second, slow-moving, crisis of authority in the wake of the failure of Africa’s expectations of modernity suggests that popular repoliticisation, with a reciprocal rebirth of facilitating rather than predatory states, will not be easy. I have two difficulties in mind. The first relates to the polemical arenas in which people have tested arguments, opened their minds, and reached conclusions. The second concerns the hindrances that prevent individuals from seeing themselves, and being seen by others, as responsible adults, worthy to participate in such arguments. First then, authority, whether secular or religious or, in the precolonial past, some amalgam of both, used to provide explanatory narratives that either satisfied individuals as justifications of their fate or else gave them a worldview within which to frame counter-explanations. Today, however, there are no widely held views, no large polemical arenas. The cleansing kings of Tooro are no more (Behrend), but no more so are legitimately authoritative modern governments—as is clear from all the papers in this collection. These local studies appear to show that a combination of great human suffering and the lack of any explanatory authority from above, whether biomedical or moral, has led to a localisation, and radicalisation—‘hardening’—of arguments about the causes of the epidemic, with a distressing potential for inhumane attitudes to AIDS victims (Prince). Islam is in any case inherently decentralised, and in East Africa is increasingly divided in its social attitudes (Becker). But East African Christianities also appear to be increasingly multiple, and with sharply differing theologies of social evil (Behrend, Prince).

My comparative thoughts in this and previous paragraphs have been stimulated principally by John Iliffe, The African Poor: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 12–13, 36–37, 156–163, 250–259; idem, The African AIDS Epidemic, chapters 9 to 13; Megan Vaughan, The Story of an African Famine: Gender and Famine in TwentiethCentury Malawi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Richard Waller, ‘Emutai: Crisis and Response in Maasailand 1883–1902’, chapter 3 in Douglas Johnson & David Anderson (eds.), The Ecology of Survival: Case Studies from Northeast African History (London & Boulder CO: Lester Crook & Westview, 1988), 73–112; David M. Anderson & Vigdis Broch-Due (eds.), The Poor Are Not Us: Poverty & Pastoralism in Eastern Africa (Oxford, Nairobi & Athens OH: Currey, EAEP & Ohio University Press, 1999). 2

conclusion

383

It may well be, however, that East African religious thought has always been rather eclectic, as is common in oral cultures. Plural Islams and Christianities could be said to have conformed, therefore, to local religious traditions. Today’s religious debates, however, seem to look for certainties that may not have been so urgently necessary in earlier times. East African moral thought, by contrast to religious thought, looks to have been always harshly unforgiving of behaviour that damaged one’s chances of an independent adulthood, typically achieved by marriage and the legitimate opportunity therefore to create a posterity. It is in the loss of access to productive land or of wage-earning jobs, the old and new social pathways towards adult growth and social maturity—and, in consequence, loss of the right to be heard—that many younger East Africans have suffered most in the past half-century. The studies here collected, with one exception, do not deal directly with the class relations between wealth and poverty that differentiate African men and women as much as they do in other societies around the world. It can be argued, however, that all the papers address various ways in which concerns about social justice are expressed through the discourses that have developed around HIV/AIDS. Sadgrove’s paper comes nearest to a direct discussion of class, if in a very elite context. Her study shows that some ambitious, even potentially privileged, young women feel that they can ‘grow’ only by engaging in transactional sex with older, richer, men. It is with this reflection in mind that some Kenyan churches have come to see AIDS deaths not, as before, shameful, sinful, deaths but, rather, as unjust deaths, and HIV as a disease of poverty rather than immorality. Perhaps future enquiries may enlighten us further on such perceptions of social justice and its connection with disease. Another way of looking at the evidence might, however, suggest that, while we Africanists tend not to concern ourselves directly with questions of social differentiation and distributive justice, this is precisely what East Africans are indeed arguing about in their own particular, moralising, gendered, languages of class. If, as it seems, earlier social conventions of honourable behaviour were framed around expectations of an orderly growth in respectability by men and women, culminating in fruitful marriage between them,3 then the moral stigmatisation that seems so prevalent can be seen as condemnation of an AIDS victim’s 3 For this, see John Iliffe, Honour in African History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), chapters 14 and 15 especially.

384

john lonsdale

failure, all too often, to ‘grow’, to reproduce, to generate a social order, and to deny such opportunity to their children. Social differentiation has, through epidemic, become all too literally anti-social. It is at this point that it becomes too easy for men to blame women for their predicament and for women to blame men. If women are to have greater power in negotiating their sexual relations, if men are to learn new ways to ‘grow’, there is a large agenda pending in the reordering of gender relations. Is this, one cannot help but wonder, still more of a challenge than the repoliticisation of Africa?

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Heike Behrend is Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of African Studies of the University of Cologne, Germany. She has conducted intensive research in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria; currently she is studying media in Africa, photography and video, and continuing investigating the relationship between religious change, violence and war in Uganda. She has been teaching as a visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris, in the African Studies programme of North Western University, Evanstone, and at the University of Florida, Gainesville. In 2007, she was Senior Research Fellow at the IFK in Vienna. She is the author of numerous books and articles, her last publication on violence and the Catholic Church is “Witchcraft, Evidence and the Localization of the Roman Catholic Church in Western Uganda, in: The Making and Unmaking of Differences, Richard Rottenburg, Burkhard Schnepel, Shingo Shimada (eds), Bielefeld: Transcript, 2006. Nadine Beckmann is completing her PhD in anthropology at the University of Oxford and is currently a research fellow at the Department of Peace Studies in Bradford. Her work focuses on the ways life with HIV/AIDS is managed in East Africa, and particularly in the islands of Zanzibar. Her doctoral research shows how the epidemic is embedded in local discourses on immorality and decline, and how HIV positive people negotiate everyday life in the face of a fundamental sense of uncertainty, caused by contesting messages, lacking resources, severe stigmatisation, and the newly available antiretroviral treatment. She is also working on a research project on concepts of biopolitical citizenship and social movements in response to HIV/AIDS, with a particular focus on Tanzanian organisations for HIV positive people. Felicitas Becker received her PhD in African History from the University of Cambridge, UK, and is now Assistant Professor of African History at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. Her articles on the history of Tanzania and of Muslims in East Africa have appeared in ‘Journal of African History’, ‘Journal of Global History’, ‘African Affairs’ and ‘Journal of Religion in Africa’. Her monograph, ‘Becoming

386

notes on contributors

Muslim in mainland Tanzania, 1890–2000’, was published by Oxford University Press in 2008. Marian Burchardt is a researcher and doctoral student in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Leipzig/Germany. He graduated as a magister artium in sociology, political science, and media studies at the same university. His main academic interests include cultural sociology, social theory, religious pluralism and globalization. His most recent publication is entitled ‘Speaking to the Converted? Religion and the Politics of Gender in South African AIDS Discourse’, Comparativ 5/6 (2007). Catrine Christiansen is a research fellow in anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. She has carried out several periods of research in Uganda, and her interests include Christianity, social development, kinship, youth, and health. She has published articles on faith, AIDS, and social support practices, and co-edited Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthoods (2006). Her current research explores the roles of Christian churches (Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Pentecostal churches) in local social development in Uganda, particularly in relation to other social institutions and notions of trust. Hansjörg Dilger is a Junior Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Freie Universität Berlin. Between 1995 and 2006 he has carried out extensive fieldwork on HIV/AIDS and social relationships in Tanzania, focusing on the dynamics of kinship and Neo-Pentecostalism in the context of rural-urban migration, as well as on the responses of national and non-governmental actors to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Dilger is current chair of the work group “Medical Anthropology” within the German Anthropological Association. He is also author of the monograph Living with Aids. Illness, Death and Social Relationships in Africa. An Ethnography (Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 2005; in German). Rijk van Dijk (1959) is an anthropologist working at the African Studies Centre, Leiden. He has done extensive research and published on the rise of Pentecostal movements in urban areas of Malawi, Ghana and Botswana. He is the author of Young Malawian Puritans (Utrecht, ISOR Press, 1993) and has co-edited with Ria Reis and Marja Spierenburg The Quest for Fruition through Ngoma (Oxford,

notes on contributors

387

James Currey 2000) and with Wim van Binsbergen Situating Globality. African Agency in the Appropriation of Global Culture (Leiden, Brill 2004). His current research focuses on the transnational dimensions of Ghanaian Pentecostalism and particularly on its relation with the migration of Ghanaians to the Netherlands (The Hague) and to Botswana (Gaborone). A recently published article ‘Localisation, Ghanaian Pente-costalism and the Stranger’s Beauty in Bostwana’ (Africa, 73 (4), 2003) deals with insights gained from this research. In addition, he is the editor-in-chief of the newly established journal ‘African Diaspora. A Journal of Transnational Africa in a Global World’ which will be published by Brill, Leiden, commencing in 2008. After studying history and biology, Wenzel Geissler turned to parasitology and started working in Africa, conducting research on intestinal worm infections. After some public health research, he then returned to study social anthropology and went back to the same East African field site for a second, ethnographic, field research, this time to study shifting understandings of relations and touch, memory and time, among the people from a western Kenyan village. Since 2003, he teaches social anthropology at the London School of Hygiene. His present research draws upon his double training in science and anthropology by studying medical science in Africa. Ongoing research projects include historical and anthropological studies of the practice of medical research in Kenya between independence and the present, and studies of collaborative clinical trials and their political economy and ethics. John Lonsdale is professor emeritus of modern African history at the University of Cambridge, UK. He has published on the social and political history of Kenya, East Africa, and Africa. His current interests include Jomo Kenyatta’s life and thought, Kenya’s white settlers and decolonisation, and African nationalism more generally. Vinh-Kim Nguyen is a doctor and anthropologist. As an HIV physician and medical anthropologist, his research concerns the biosocial dynamics of HIV epidemics and their broader political consequences. In addition to its critical engagement with public health, his research speaks to broader debates in anthropology concerning globalization, the state, and the politics of humanitarian intervention.

388

notes on contributors

Isak Niehaus is a lecturer in Social Anthropology at Brunel University. He has done extensive fieldwork in South African rural areas on the topics of witchcraft, politics, sexuality and religion, and on the impact of HIV and AIDS. He is the author of Witchcraft, Power and Politics: Exploring the Occult in the South African Lowveld (Pluto, 2001). After a first degree in Human Sciences, Ruth Prince studied social anthropology at UCL, London, and in Copenhagen. While her earlier work was broadly medical in orientation, studying medicinal knowledge and healing practices in western Kenya, her doctoral research explored, base don long fieldwork around one village, the making and unmaking of social relations in western Kenya in the context of historical change and the HIV epidemic. Presently she is Smuts Fellow at the Centre of African Studies, Cambridge University; her ongoing project combines her interests in HIV medicines, and in evangelical Christianity, in a study of antiretroviral medicines, health care provision and faith in the lives of young people in Kenya. Her publications include the monograph ‘The Land is Dying’ (with Wenzel Geissler, berghahn publishers, in press). Joanna Sadgrove I am interested in the relationship between religion and society with particular reference to questions of sexuality and sexual morality. A regional interest in East Africa has drawn my attention to the distinct ways in which the religious variable and its impact on people’s attitudes and behaviour is shaped by different social and cultural dynamics and settings. I am interested in how conceptualisations of what is deemed ‘religious’ behaviour can better respond to incorporate the diversity of expression which occurs when values are carried trans-nationally by religious communities. I am currently working on a project which considers attitudes towards homosexuality across three contrasting provinces within the Anglican Communion. Jonas Svensson has a PhD in Islamology at Lund University and is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Department for the Humanities at Halmstad University. His fields of research are modern Islamic thought, in particular concerning gender issues and human rights. He has also done research on the contemporary Muslim discourse on bioethics. His contribution to this volume is based on fieldwork conducted in connection with a project entitled Islamic religious education and social development in Kisumu, Kenya, financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

INDEX abali wawantu (cannibals) 29 Abamwoyo (people of spirit, Uganda) 89 Abazukufu (saved fellowship) 104–105, 107, 109 ABC formula (Abstinence Be faithful, use a Condom) in AIDS prevention campaigns 6 in Kenya 201 in South Africa 314 in Uganda 92–93, 228–229 in Zanzibar 134, 140 Achmat, Zackie 376 activists, of AIDS treatment 375–376, 378 adultery Islam on 128, 198, 201 see also extramarital sex Africa AIDS epidemic in 36 n. 9, 379, 380–382 authority crisis in 380, 382 European perceptions of sexual promiscuity in 328 famines in 380, 381, 382 health care in 20 leprosy in 318, 325 politics in 3, 17 religion in 3–4 Christianity 4, 7–8, 32, 185 Pentecostalism 258–259, 278, 348 n. 10 Islam 4, 7–8, 185 traditional 4, 10, 14 religious conversion in 227–228 repoliticisation of 381, 382 sexuality in 128 n. 25 see also East Africa The African Aids Epidemic: A History (Iliffe) 379 Africanisation, of Christianity 278 age of marriage in Uganda 88 in Zanzibar 140 Ahmadiyya Islam, in Kenya 195 n. 5 Al-Rasheed, Madawi 126 n. 19 alcohol, Islamic teachings on use of 139 n. 48

Allen, Tim 134 n. 39 ancestors, beliefs in 316 Anglican Church in Kenya 58–59 in Uganda 89 revivalist 60, 89, 94–95, 103 saved fellowships (‘born again’) in 104–105, 107, 109 on widow inheritance 91, 96 Ansuari Sunna (Tanzania) 167, 168, 171, 176, 178 anthropology continuity emphasized by 302 on rise of the occult 30–31 of the senses 285–286 n. 1 on witchcraft 32–33 anti-retroviral treatments (ARTs) availability of 18, 21–22, 381 in Burkina Faso 375–377, 378 in South Africa 21, 310, 315, 335 in Tanzania 155, 159, 178–183 in Uganda 88 in Zanzibar 136 distrust of 179–180, 181, 185 anti-westernism in explanations of AIDS epidemic 36–37, 199–200, 209–210 in Islamic teachings 199 see also western medicine, distrust of anti-witchcraft movements 32, 40–41 apartheid, and AIDS epidemic 309 ‘Arabness’, in Zanzibar 122 n. 10, 123 ART/ARV see anti-retroviral treatments authenticity, Islamic search for 213–214 authority African, crisis of 380, 382 of AIDS counsellors 355 of ‘born again’ Christians 242–243 of Islamic scriptures 213 autonomy, objective of 352, 355 awakening concept see ‘born again’ backsliding, by Pentecostalists 249–251 Balokole (Ugandan Anglican revivalist) churches 89, 104–105 on widow inheritance 94–95, 103

390

index

Bankwata (Central Muslim Council, Tanzania) 168 al-Banna, Hassan 195 n. 5 Barrett, Ronald 317 Barth, Fredrik 215 Basson, Wouter 314 Bavaria, persecution of witches in 33 Bayart, J. F. 22 Becker, Felicitas 16, 199, 207, 211, 212, 214 Beckmann, Nadine 16, 21, 183, 199, 202, 204, 206, 207 behaviour accountability of, in ‘born again’ Christianity 242–245, 246 changes in and AIDS prevention 5–6, 17, 93, 240 n. 47, 253 and social aspects of religion 252–253 and religious beliefs 227, 247, 252, 299, 310 sexual and peer-group pressure 252 safe 236 n. 35, 310 Behrend, Heike 15, 16, 211, 380 Behringer, Wolfgang 33 Berger, Peter 191, 337, 347 Berman, Bruce J. 361 Biblical leprosy, AIDS as 311–312, 317, 318–319 Bohannon, Laura see Smith Bowen, Elenore bongo flava music (Zanzibar) 121 ‘born again’ (saved) Christians on AIDS epidemic 64–65 in Kenya, among Luos 60–65 in Tanzania 256 in Uganda 226, 230, 236 accountability of behaviour of 242–245, 246 and AIDS prevention 107, 246–253 and ‘de-toothing’ practices 234–235, 240–242 among Samia 91, 104–105, 107–108, 111, 113 on widow ‘inheritance’ 50, 51–52, 54–56, 58, 62, 77 see also Pentecostalism experiences and motivations of 18–19, 227, 300 Luos 74

Botswana Ghanaian Pentecostal hairdressers in 290–294, 300–301 feelings of moral superiority by 296–297 and protection against AIDS 285–290, 294–296 boundaries dissolution of, through religious practices 8–9 and group identities 215 boys, premarital sexual relations accepted of 204–205 buddy systems, in caring for AIDS patients 366 Buganda (Uganda), persecutions of Christians and Muslims in 40 Bunyole (people, Uganda), and AIDS epidemic 33 Burchardt, Marian 21, 360 Burkina Faso AIDS care in 370–371, 375–376 AIDS counselling in 369, 371–375 training workshops 363–374 anti-retroviral treatments (ARTs) in 375–377, 378 Catholicism in 371 businesswomen, Ghanaian, in Botswana 291 Caldwell, J. 128 n. 25 cancer, as form of leprosy 312 n. 4 cannibals, in Uganda 29 capitalism, resistance to 361 care for AIDS victims 1, 361–362 buddy systems 366 in Burkina Faso 370–371, 375–376 by Pentecostalist communities 274–276, 279 politics of 301 in South Africa 310, 315 and use of gloves 301–302 Christian models of 373 for orphans 144 of self 377 technologies of 337 for widows 86, 93 Catholic Church in Burkina Faso 371 ‘marriage to Jesus’ in 109 in Uganda 38–39, 89 and fight against witchcraft 40–41

index on use of condoms 6, 160 on widow inheritance 91, 94, 95–96 Cattell, Maria 94, 102 CD4 testing 146 n. 60 cell groups, in Pentecostalism 238–239 n. 45, 243, 248–249 change behavioural and AIDS prevention 17, 93, 240 n. 47, 253 and social aspects of religion 252–253 uncertain evaluations of 174–175 Charismatic Christianity, in Uganda 39, 89 chike (Luo traditions) 66–67, 71, 74 Chike Luo (radio programme) 73, 74, 77 chira (sickness as consequence of not following the rules) 70, 71–72, 74, 133 n. 36, 208–209, 211 choice and Pentecostalism 299–302 risky 18 sexual abstinence as by HIV positive persons 146–147 by widows 86, 87, 97, 107, 111–112, 113–114 Christianity in Africa 4, 7–8, 185, 278 fight against occult forces 32 healing in and modern science 13–14 by supernatural powers 35 see also divine cures for HIV/AIDS in Kenya 58–60 and Luo traditions 73–74 responses to AIDS 183, 373 in South Africa 310 theology of, on sin and repentance 240 in Uganda 36, 89 views of widow inheritance 85–86, 91, 94–96 see also ‘born again’, Christians; Catholic Church; Pentecostalism; Protestantism Christiansen, Catrine 16, 21 Church Mission Society (CMS) 58 circumcision male lowering transmission rates of AIDS 169, 198, 214 among Muslims in Kenya 201 citizenship, therapeutic 22, 377

391

class relations 383 between hair salon owners and workers 291–292 cleansing of widows see widows, ‘inheritance’ of of witchcraft 43, 44 Clinton Foundation, HIV/AIDS Initiative 136 n. 41 clove industry, in Zanzibar 125 CMS see Church Mission Society (CMS) Comaroff, Jean 328 communities, in Pentecostalism 257–258, 272–277, 279 condoms availability of, in Kenya 189 crisis in Uganda 229 female, distribution of 288 n. 2 suspected of spreading AIDS 37 use of 295 Catholic Church on 6, 160 Islam on 140, 177, 184, 206–207 Pentecostal church on 114, 240 stressed in AIDS prevention campaigns 206 in sub-Saharan Africa 134 in Tanzania 160–161, 176–177 in Uganda 236, 240 in Zanzibar 142 confessional technologies, used in AIDS counselling 360, 362, 371–372, 374–375, 377, 378 confessions of sexual behaviour 248–249 of witchcraft 43 conspiracy theories, on causes of AIDS epidemic 314–315 contagiousness of AIDS 325, 327 contraception, acceptability of, in Islam 206 conversion in Africa 227–228 experience of 348, 355, 360 after HIV diagnosis 18–19, 372 to Christianity in Kenya 59 ‘born again’ 60–62 coping strategies of HIV/AIDS sufferers 18–19, 155–156 in Burkina Faso 377 in Zanzibar 21, 140–150, 151 Corten, André 263 cosmopolitanism, of Zanzibar 122

392

index

counselling AIDS related 347, 349, 351–352, 360 in Burkina Faso 369, 371–375 training workshops 363–374 confessional technologies in 360, 362, 371–372, 374–375, 377, 378 in South Africa 334–335, 338 faith-based 333, 335–336, 339–346, 350–351, 352–356 and modernity 336–338 and religion 346, 347, 348–350 criticism, through ‘others’ 31 ‘crusades’ see witch hunters cultural anaesthesia 285–286 n. 1 cures for AIDS divine 146–147 and healing powers of faith 355–356 medical science’s inability to produce 13 perceived absence of 320 see also healing Danish cartoon affair 139 n. 50 Dar es Salaam, Ngazija Mosque in 177 De Waal, Alex 17 de-stigmatisation, as healing strategy 329 ‘de-toothing’ 232–235, 245–246 by ‘born again’ Christians 240–242 Dean, Mitchell 349 death AIDS associated with 311, 315, 322–324, 325, 329, 345 within Pentecostal communities 275–277, 279 death rates, and witchcraft accusations 33 decline narratives and AIDS epidemic 9–10, 11 in Tanzania 162–163, 164–165, 183, 184 in Zanzibar 133–134, 136, 138–139, 149, 150, 321 in Zanzibar 120–122, 123, 131 descent networks 15 devil, in Pentecostalism 277–278 diagnosis of HIV/AIDS conversion experience after 372 coping with 18–19, 155–156 in Burkina Faso 377 in Zanzibar 21, 140–150, 151 Dilger, Hansjörg 12, 14, 135

disclosure of HIV status 374–375 discontinuities, Pentecostal emphasis on 283, 284, 293, 298, 302–303, 348 disorder and order, in religion 8 divine cures for HIV/AIDS 146–147 divine punishment, AIDS epidemic as 36, 131–132, 208–211, 311, 317, 319, 320–321 dress codes Islamic for girls/women 202–204, 215 see also veiling East Africa bias towards 1–2 reformist Islam in 192–193 religion in 383 Revivalist Christianity in 60, 89, 103, 104–105, 107, 109 Swahili-speaking people in 122 n. 11 widows in 85 East African Christian Revival movement 60, 104 economic development, in Zanzibar 124–125 economy moral 361 and AIDS counselling 362, 372, 373–374 education about AIDS 5 and counselling 335 Islamic religious 194–208 and AIDS prevention 200–208, 216–217 on AIDS as punishment from God 208–211 and Islamic identities 215–216 and modernity 213–215 and objectification of Islam 214–215 on stigmatisation of AIDS victims 211–213 about sex, for girls 128, 185 effectiveness of faith-based AIDS counselling 345–346 Eikelman, Dale 191 Ellis, S. 3 Emani Kali (strong faith, Uganda) 89 n. 5 emisiro (widow inheritance ritual) 90 empathy, translations of 367–368 empowerment of women 6, 86–87

index English language, in Zanzibar 126 n. 21 entrepreneurialism, in Pentecostalism 300 epidemics of AIDS in Africa 379, 380–382 anti-western explanations of 36–37, 199–200, 209–210 associated with death 311, 315, 322–324, 325, 329, 345 conspiracy theories on 314–315 controlling of 132–133 as divine punishment 36, 131–132, 208–211, 311, 317, 319, 320–321 and ethics 373 and gender relations 384 and globalisation 360 and migration 260, 313 and narratives of moral decline 9–10, 11, 133–134, 136, 138–139, 149, 150, 162–163, 164–165, 183, 184, 321 and Pentecostalism 256–257, 278–279, 285–290, 300–301 rise of 260–262, 283 social and moral implications of 119 and transactional sex 235–236 views of Christian 383 ‘born again’ 64–65 as divine punishment 36, 131–132, 208–211, 311, 319, 320–321 Islamic 131–132, 138–140, 148, 165–166, 168–171, 178, 183–184, 185–186, 189–190, 196–200 reformist 137–139 by Luo traditionalist 71–72 and widow ‘inheritance’ practices 16, 50, 52 women blamed for 131 see also individual countries and rise in witchcraft accusations and occult forces 31–32, 33, 34–35, 38, 211 of smallpox 33 Epstein, Helen 17 Erasmus, Z. 295 ethics and AIDS epidemic 373 and religion 351 n. 13

393

Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Barth) 215 ethnicity 361 ethnographies African 19 on Luo traditions 69, 70 on Samia traditions 100 evangelical idioms, in AIDS counselling 372–373 evangelical Protestantism, lobby in United States 6 evangelism, therapeutic 362, 375, 376, 378 Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 34, 68 n. 15 evil forces 265–266, 277–278 exclusion 7 of AIDS victims 7, 325–326, 327–328 see also stigmatisation explanations of AIDS 11, 133 anti-westernism in 36–37, 199–200, 209–210 of suffering caused by AIDS 3 extended families, in Pentecostalism 292–293, 294 extramarital sex and religious affiliation 224–225 in Tanzania 164 in Zanzibar 128–129 see also adultery Fair, L. 122 n. 10 Faith Gospel 228 n. 12 faith-based AIDS counselling 1, 15, 22 in Burkina Faso 369, 371–375 in South Africa 333, 335–336, 339–346, 350–351, 352–356 faith-based explanations of HIV/ AIDS 11 faith-based healing 10, 13–14, 355 in Christianity 35 Pentecostalism 258–259, 264–267, 267–272, 277–280 Zionist Churches 316 in Islam 146–147, 211 Qur’anic 171, 172 family ties, in Pentecostalism 273–275, 284, 292–294 famines, in Africa 380, 381, 382 Farsy, Abdallah 176 Fassin, Didier 310 fasting, in Pentecostalism 298 Feldman, A. 285–286 n. 1 Ferguson, James 12

394

index

Foucault, M. 18–19, 335, 349 fundamentalism, religious, and modernity 7, 11, 13 funeral rituals and practices in Ghana 292 Islamic, in Tanzania 168 in Luo society 67 in Samia society 90, 94–95, 102–104 Zionist Christian 326–327 Garner, Robert 225, 261 n. 8, 299, 310 Geissler, P. W. 92, 339 gender relations and AIDS epidemic 384 commented on by women 104 rules about 74 in Samia society 110–111, 113 in Tanzania 162–165, 184–185, 260 in traditional religious practices 10 gender segregation in Kenya 202–204 in Zanzibar 129–130 Ghana AIDS epidemic in 294 Pentecostalism in 7, 12, 261 n. 8, 278, 284 hairdressers from 7, 290–294, 300–301 and feelings of moral superiority 296–297 and protection against AIDS 285–290, 294–296 Giddens, Anthony 191, 215 Gifford, Paul 228 n. 12, 265, 348 n. 10 gift-relations in Ghana 284 in Pentecostalism 293 Giles, Linda 265 girls chastity promoted for 202–203, 215, 216 engaging in transactional sex 164 n. 21 initiation rites for 163 Islamic dress codes promoted for 202–204, 215 sex education for 128, 185 Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria 359 globalisation, and AIDS epidemic 360 gloves, significance of use of 285–290, 295–296, 299, 300–302, 303

God AIDS as punishment of 36, 131–132, 175, 208–211, 267, 311, 317, 319, 320–321 AIDS as trial of 147–149 closeness to 276 healing powers of 211 ‘revenge of ’ 7 ‘good deaths’ 276–277, 279 Gospel of Prosperity 263, 264 Green, Maia 31 group identities, and boundaries 215 Gussow, Zachary 329 HAART see anti-retroviral treatments hadiths, on sexual misconduct 132 n. 31, 209–210 hairdressing, and risks of AIDS infections 286–288 Harvey, David 360 Heald, Suzette 134 n. 39 healing 185 by de-stigmatisation 329 faith-based 10, 13–14, 355 in Christianity 35 Pentecostalism 258–259, 264–267, 267–272, 277–280 Zionist Churches 316 in Islam 146–147, 211 Qur’anic 171, 172 traditional gloves used in 287 in South Africa 316, 324 in Tanzania 171, 278 in Zanzibar 138 n. 46 of witches 43, 44, 324 health, and religion 349 health care in colonial Africa 20 in Tooro 37 in weak states 16, 375 Henderson, P. C. 301 Herzfeld, M. 286 hijab see veiling Hill, Z. 224–225 HIV testing 18 in Kenya 207–208 in South Africa 313, 324, 334–335 n. 1, 339 in Tanzania 158, 186, 256, 269, 279 in Uganda 136 in Zanzibar 135–136, 141–144, 147–148 Hulton, L. 236 n. 35

index Human Rights Watch 229 Hunter, Mark 321 hypocrisy notions, in Uganda 242–243, 246 Ibn Majah 132 n. 31, 210 Ibn Taymiyya 195 n. 5 identities construction of 191–192, 216, 347 ethnic 361 of groups, and boundaries 215 Islamic 192, 215–216, 217 Pentecostal 235, 244–245, 284 in Zanzibar 122–123 Ijtihad (effort) 190 Iliffe, John 17, 309, 379, 381 Illich, Ivan 337 n. 4 immigrants in Botswana, from Ghana 290–294, 300–301 in Zanzibar 122, 125 The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Primary Education (Odiwuor) 208 indifference, social construction of 286 indigenous religious practices, in African Islam 185 individual, and self 19 infertility, of widows 91 n. 8 initiation rites, in Tanzania 163, 165 institutional isomorphism 350–351 n. 12 internal terror, in Tooro 34 n. 5 ‘invisible religion’ 349 Isiugo-Abanihe, U. C. 224, 225 Islam 14 in Africa 4, 7–8, 185 and AIDS 16, 156, 165, 183–184, 196–200 as coping strategy for HIV/AIDS infected persons 146–148 in Kenya 189–190, 194–215 prevention of 135, 185, 200–208 in Tanzania 165–166, 168–170, 183–184 in Zanzibar 131–132, 137–139, 138–140, 148 on condoms 140, 177, 184, 206–207 dress codes for girls/women 202–204, 215 see also veiling identities in 192, 215–216, 217 and modernity 190, 191, 213 and search for authenticity 213–214 reformist 190–191

395

in East Africa 192–193 in Kenya 195 n. 5 and science 14, 184 in Tanzania 167, 168–169, 176, 182–183 and AIDS epidemic 170–171, 178, 185 in Zanzibar 137–139 on sexual misconduct 128, 132, 198, 209–210 on suicide 144 and witchcraft 211–212 see also Muslims Islamic Call Organization 139 n. 50 Ismailiyya Islam, in Kenya 195 n. 5 isolation, of AIDS sufferers 132 n. 34, 325–326, 327–328 isomorphism, institutional 350–351 n. 12 Izandla Zethemba (‘Hands of Hope’, South Africa) 352 Jacobson-Widding, A. 66 Jesus, ‘marriage’ to 87, 96–97, 108, 109–110, 112, 113 Jumbe, Aboud 124 Kabageny, Jacinta 34 Kahn, Kathleen 312–313 Kakobe, Zachary 262, 264, 265, 267–268, 270–271, 273, 279 Kalofonos, I. 378 Karume, Abeid Amani 124 Kassimir, Ron 40 n. 13 Kenya AIDS epidemic in Christian churches on 383 Islamic religious education on 189–190, 194–215 in Kisumu 189, 198 among Luo 49–51, 53–54, 64–65 and ‘widow inheritance’ 51–58, 77–78 AIDS prevention in, Islamic religious education on 200–208, 216–218 Christianity in 58–60 ‘born again’ 60–65 disillusionment in 380 Islam in 193–194 Khadija (wife of Prophet Mohammed) 213 Kingwandu 172–173 kinship relations, and illness 361–362

396

index

Kirkwen, Michael 91 n. 9, 94 n. 10 Kisumu (Kenya) AIDS epidemic in 189, 198 Islam in 193–194 religious education 194–196 on AIDS epidemic 189–190, 196–200 on AIDS prevention 200–208, 216–217 on AIDS as punishment from God 208–211 on Islamic identities 215–216 and objectification of Islam 214–215 and search for authenticity 213–214 on stigmatisation of AIDS victims 211–213 Kiwanuka, N. 224 Klaits, Frederick 276 knowledge, types of 337 Kondo, Sheikh 139 Kwa Herini (Good Bye, song) 132 n. 32 KwaZulu-Natal, sexual morality in 319–320 Lagarde, E. 227 n. 10 land, inheritance of 101 Landau, Paul 4 Latour, B. 7 Lay Counsellor Project (South Africa) 334 lay organisations, in Catholic Church 39 leadership, in Pentecostal Church 249, 300 leprosy 317–318 in Africa 318, 325 AIDS as form of 311–312, 317, 318–319, 322, 328 de-stigmatisation as healing strategy of 329 Lettres Persanes (Montesquieu) 31 Lewis, Gilbert 317 life expectancy in South Africa 313 in Uganda 88 Lindi region (Tanzania) AIDS epidemic in 157, 158, 171–172, 179 Islam in 161–162, 174–175 sexual mores and gender relations in 162–165 Lindsey, E. 301

Lonsdale, John 361 loss, laments about see narratives of decline Luckmann, Thomas 337, 347, 348–349 Luo Kitgi gi Timbegi (Luo Characters and Customs, Mboya) 69 Luo (people, Kenya) AIDS epidemic among 49–51, 53–54, 64–65 Christianity among 58–60 ‘born again’ 60–65 Islamic views of 200 traditions 65–75, 79, 96, 133 n. 36, 208–209 views of AIDS and widow inheritance by 208–209 ‘born again’ Christian 51–52, 54–56, 58, 62, 77 traditionalist 52–53, 54–55, 57–58, 77–78 Macguire, Meredith 215 madrasas, Islamic religious education at 195–196 Makerere University (Uganda) ‘born again’ Christians at 236 sexual abstinence campaign at 230 transactional sex at 230–236, 240–242, 245–246 malevolent forces 265–266, 277–278 Mami Wata 298 Manichaean morality, in African Christianity 8 market ideology, of Pentecostalism 300 marriage age of in Uganda 88 in Zanzibar 140 Christian 105, 108 in Tanzania, South-Eastern 163 ‘to Jesus’ 87, 96–97, 108, 109–110, 112, 113 in Zanzibar 140–141 Marshall-Fratani, Ruth 235 n. 33, 263, 272 martyrs, cults of 40 masturbation, Pentecostalism on 298 n. 3 Mbali, Mandisa 328 Mbeki, Thabo 9 on AIDS 309–310, 328 Mboya, Paul 69, 70 medical science, and Christian healing 13–14

index medical systems 20 medicalisation of AIDS 34, 35, 160 Islamic responses to 184 in prevention campaigns 155 medicine western distrust of 37, 159, 160 n. 12, 179, 279 anti-retroviral treatments (ARTs) 179–180, 181, 185 metamorphosis 347 Meyer, Birgit 31, 64, 258–259, 278, 336–337 migration, and AIDS epidemic 260, 313 miracles 45 missionaries defining religion in Africa 4 in Kenya 58, 59 on leprosy 318 opposition to traditional rituals by 68–69, 163 n. 18 modernity 12–13 AIDS seen as resulting from 122, 133 n. 36, 136, 259–260 and counselling needs 336–338 expectations of 174 and Islam 190, 191, 213 and search for authenticity 213–214 politics and religion in 30 and religious fundamentalism 7, 11, 13 and rise of Pentecostalism 258–259, 261–262, 348 n. 10 and tradition 59, 215 and views of AIDS 79–80 Mohamed, Zuhura 161 Montesquieu, Baron Charles-Louis de 31 Moore, Henrietta 31 moral codes of Africans 379 of East Africans 383 of Pentecostalism 224–225, 237–238, 246, 297–298 moral decline narratives and AIDS epidemic 9–10, 11 in Tanzania 162–163, 164–165, 183, 184 in Zanzibar 133–134, 138–139, 149, 150 in Zanzibar 120–122, 123, 131 moral economies 361

397

and AIDS counselling 362, 372, 373–374 moral responsibility, models of 346, 360 moral significance, of HIV testing 339 moral superiority, feelings of, among Pentecostalists 283–284, 296–297 morality Manichaean, in African Christianity 8 sexual, in KwaZulu-Natal 319–320 Mother’s Union 108 Movement for the Restoration of the Ten commandments of God (MRTCG, Uganda) 36 Mtwara region (Tanzania) AIDS epidemic in 157, 158 Islam in 161–162 sexual mores and gender relations in 162–165 Museveni, Janet 230 Muslim Reformists see Islam, Reformist Muslims and AIDS epidemic in Tanzania 156, 157, 166–168, 183, 185–186 in Zanzibar 21, 140–150, 151 in Kenya 193–194 in Tanzania 161–162, 166–168, 169, 174–175, 184–185 in Zanzibar 15, 124 reluctance to work in tourism 126–127 see also Islam Mwanga (king of Buganda, Uganda) 40 Mwesiye, Bob 37 Namugongo (Uganda), Catholic shrine in 40 narratives of decline AIDS epidemic fitting into 9–10, 11 in Tanzania 162–163, 164–165, 183, 184 in Zanzibar 133–134, 138–139, 149, 150 in Zanzibar 120–122, 123, 131, 138–139 National AIDS Plan (South Africa) 334 nationalism, in Zanzibar 123 neo-liberal reforms, in Tanzania 125 n. 16, 260 neo-Pentecostalism see Pentecostalism Ngazija Mosque (Dar es Salaam) 177

398

index

NGOs dealing with AIDS, in Uganda 35 Nguyen, Vinh-Kim 15, 21, 22, 348 Niehaus, Isak 16, 20, 185 Nigeria Pentecostalism in 272 smallpox epidemics in 33 nuclear family, in Pentecostalism 292–293 Nuer (people) 68 n. 15 Nungwi (Zanzibar) 139 Nyanza province (Kenya), AIDS epidemic in 189 objectification of Islam 191, 214–215 occult 3 rise of 30–32, 33, 44–45 Ocholla-Ayayo, A. B. C. 69 Odiwuor, Wycliffe 208 Oginga, Odinga 49 n. 2, 69 Ogutu, G. E. M. 71, 73, 77–78 OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conferences), Zanzibar’s membership of 137 n. 44 Okello, John 123 n. 12 Oman, Zanzibaris in 126 n. 19 omulindi (non-sexual advisors) 94, 112 order and disorder, in religion 8–9 Orientalism 156 n. 3 origins of AIDS 160 orphans, care for, in Zanzibar 144 Otayek, René 193 n. 3 Papua New Guinea, studies of occult forces in 33 Parikh, Shanti 92 Parkin, David 70, 74, 110, 122 n. 11, 128, 133 n. 36, 139 n. 51 pastoral power 349 peer-group pressure 251–252 Pentecostalism 6, 14, 19 and AIDS epidemic 256–257, 278–279 healing prayers 267–272, 277–280 views on AIDS 183, 298, 299 and AIDS prevention 114, 223–224, 227, 243, 244, 246–253, 261 n. 8, 300–301 in Botswana, among Ghanaian immigrants 290–294, 300–301 and choice 299–302 communities in 257–258, 272–277, 279

cell groups 238–239 n. 45, 243, 248–249 on condoms 114, 240 in Ghana 7, 12, 261 n. 8, 278, 284 healing prayers in 258–259, 264–267 moral codes of 224–225, 237–238, 246, 297–298 in Nigeria 272 rise of 258–259, 264, 277, 348 n. 10 and AIDS epidemic 260–262, 283 social distancing practices of 284–285, 292–294, 299, 303 in South Africa 261 n. 8, 310, 340, 348 spiritual superiority claims of 283–284, 296–297 in Tanzania 12, 255–256, 260–263, 280 in Uganda 12, 21, 89–90, 91, 92, 226–227, 228 n. 12, 230, 236–240 accountability of behaviour in 242–245, 246 and ‘de-toothing’ practices 234–235, 240–242 see also ‘born again’, Christians PEPFAR (US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ) 229, 359, 378 performances, and donor dependency 22 personhood, western and non-western 19 Peterson, Derek 61 n. 12, 104 n. 16, 113 Piscatori, James 191 plausibility structures 347 political power, and science and technology 160 politics in Africa 3, 17 of care 301 and religion 4, 16 in modernity 30 in Tanzania 160–161 in Zanzibar, Islamic reformists on 139 pollution avoidance of, by Zionist Christians 326 ritual 316 and AIDS 133, 212 Posel, Deborah 328 Positive Muslims (South Africa) 210 n. 8 poverty, in South Africa 321–322

index power healing 35, 211, 355–356 pastoral 349 political 160 prayers groups, charismatic, in Western Uganda 39 healing 258–259, 264–267 for AIDS victims 267–272, 277–280 prevention of AIDS 1, 4 and behavioural change 5–6, 17, 93, 240 n. 47, 253 campaigns 359–360 ABC formula (Abstinence Be faithful, use a Condom) 6, 92–93, 134, 140, 201, 228–229, 314 condom used stressed in 206 medicalisation of 155 Muslim participation in 170 United States funding for 1, 229, 378 Christianity on 6 ‘born again’ 107, 114, 243 Pentecostalism 114, 223–224, 226–227, 244, 246–253, 261 n. 8, 300–301 and hairdressing practices 288–289, 294–296 Islam on 135, 185, 200–208, 216–217 in South Africa 314, 315, 338–339 in Tanzania 158–159, 160–161, 170, 184, 185–186 in Uganda 92–93, 134 n. 39, 228–230, 231 n. 20, 246–253 in Zanzibar 134–135 Prince, Ruth 13, 16, 92, 200, 208–209, 339, 360 prosperity Pentecostalism on 237, 238, 300 gospel of 263, 264 post-apartheid expectations of 321–322 prostitution in Zanzibar 121 n. 8 see also transactional sex Protestantism evangelical 6 ‘marriage to Jesus’ in 110, 112 theology of salvation 87 PSI (Population Services International) 288 n. 2

399

public and private domains, intermingling of 15 Purpura, Alyson 137 quarantine see isolation Qur’an on adultery (zina) 198, 201 in Islamic Reformism 14, 176 on pre-Islamic practice of burying girl-children alive 210 n. 9 Qur’anic healing 171, 172 Qutb, Sayyid 195 n. 5 radical religious movements 6–7 Islamic see reformist Islam rape, Islamic religious education on 204 Raringo 75 recruitment, of hairdressers in Ghana 292 reformist Islam 190–191 in East Africa 192–193 in Kenya 195 n. 5 and science 14, 178, 184 in Tanzania 167, 168–169, 176, 182–183 and AIDS epidemic 170–171, 178, 185 in Zanzibar 137–139 religion 2–5 and counselling 346, 347, 348–350 and discontinuities 303 in East Africa 383 and ethics 351 n. 13 and health 349 order and disorder in 8–9 and politics 4, 16 in modernity 30 and science 377–378 social aspects of 257–258 and behavioural change 252–253 social security provided by 302, 328, 350 n. 11 traditional African 4, 10, 14 and transformations of self 348–349, 351, 359 Weber’s sociology of 333, 356 religious affiliation and HIV/AIDS infection rates 224 and sexual relations 224–226 religious beliefs, and behaviour 227, 247, 252, 299, 310 religious congregations, and Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) 15

400

index

religious fundamentalism, and modernity 7, 11, 13 remarriage of widows 108 repentance, in Christian theology 240 repoliticisation, of Africa 381, 382 Return to Laughter (Smith Bowen) 33 Revivalist Christianity in East Africa 60, 89, 103, 104–105, 107, 109 rejection of tradition by 60, 352 Uganda 60, 89, 94–95, 103 see also ‘born again’ Christians revolutions, in Zanzibar (1964) 123–124 ritual pollution/impurity 316 and AIDS 133, 212 rituals on initiation for girls 163 Islamic, in Tanzania 168 riskiness of 17, 78 traditional in Luo society 66–68 missionary opposition to 68–69, 163 n. 18 in Samia society 90, 94–95, 102–104 Zionist Christian 326–327 riwo practices (Luo tradition) 66–67 Robbins, Joel 284, 302 romantic love in Islam 213 among university students in Uganda 231 Roy, Olivier 192–193 rumours, about cures for AIDS 13 ruptures, Pentecostal emphasis on 283, 284, 293, 298, 302–303, 348 Sadgrove, Jo 7, 19, 21, 383 safe-sex behaviour 236 n. 35, 310 salvation Foucault on 349 mask of 244 possibilities of 356 and prevention of AIDS infection 92–93, 107, 114 Protestant theology of 87 Pentecostal 263–264 and tradition 55, 58–59, 62–63, 73–74, 75–79 Samia (Uganda) 87, 89, 97–109 ‘born again’ (saved) Christians 91, 104–105, 107–108, 111, 113

Catholicism in, on widow inheritance 94 gender relations in 110–111, 113 marriage by widows to Jesus 109–110 traditions 90, 96 widow inheritance 97, 99, 106 Sanders, Todd 31 ‘saved’ Christians see ‘born again’, Christians Schütz, Alfred 337 science and faith healing 13–14 faith in 3, 160 and reformist Islam 14, 178, 184 and religion 377–378 Scott, James 361 scriptures, Islamic 213, 214 secondary virginity 339 secular modernity 30 Seleke, B. 297 self care of 377 transformations of 18, 19, 346, 347–348, 360, 373 and AIDS counselling 356 and religion 348–349, 351, 359 self-restraint, religiously motivated 6 seniority rules 74–75 senses, anthropology of 285–286 n. 1 Setel, Philip 155–156, 159 sex education, for girls 128, 185 sex tourism, in Zanzibar 126 sexual abstinence as choice by HIV-positive persons 146–147 by widows 86, 87, 97, 107, 111–112, 113–114 premarital 150 by ‘born again’ Christians 339–340 n. 5 Islamic religious education on 128, 201–202, 205–206, 215, 216–217 by Pentecostalists 229–230, 238, 239, 298, 339–340 n. 5 in secular AIDS prevention campaigns 251 sexual intercourse, in Luo tradition 67 sexual misconduct, Islam on 128, 132, 198, 209–210 sexual promiscuity, European perceptions of 328

index sexual relations of ‘born again’ Christians 235, 239–240 extramarital and religious affiliation 224–225 in Tanzania 164 in Zanzibar 128–129 in KwaZulu-Natal 319–320 open discussions about 92, 248–249, 250–251, 339 in Pentecostalism 225 premarital, of boys 204–205 and religious affiliation 224–226 risks of 6, 101 in South Africa 313, 319–320 in Tanzania 162–165, 260 in Zanzibar 127–129, 150–151 sexuality, female control over 113 sexually transmitted diseases 320 Shee, Sheikh Ali 207–208 Shia Islam, in Kenya 195 n. 5 sin AIDS as punishment for 319 confessions of 248 and repentance, Christian theology of 240 smallpox epidemics, in Northern Nigeria 33 Smith Bowen, Elenore (Laura Bohannon) 33 Soares, Benjamin F. 193 n. 3 social anaesthesia 285–286 social distancing 286, 302 Pentecostalist practices of 284–285, 292–294, 299, 303 social justice, and AIDS epidemic 383 social relations, transformations of 375 social security, of religion 302, 328, 350 n. 11 social triage 375–377 sociology of religion (Weber) 333, 356 Sontag, Susan 312 South Africa AIDS counselling in 334–335, 338 faith-based 333, 335–336, 339–346, 350–351, 352–356 AIDS epidemic in 309–310, 312–313, 333–334 associations with death 311, 315, 322–324, 325, 329, 345 conspiracy theories on 314–315 exclusion and isolation of AIDS sufferers 325–326, 327–328

401

perceived contagiousness of 325, 327 and religion 310 seen as divine punishment 320–321 AIDS prevention campaigns in 314, 315, 338–339 anti-retroviral treatments in availability of 21, 310, 315, 335 distrust of 185 Christianity in 310 Apostolic Churches in 310 Pentecostalism 261 n. 8, 310, 340, 348 Zionist Churches 15, 310 on AIDS 310–312, 316–319, 328 funeral rituals and practices 326–327 poverty in 321–322 spirit possession 11, 265–266 and AIDS 270–272 ‘spiritual family’, idea of 273 spiritual superiority claims, of Pentecostalism 283–284, 296–297 states failures of 15 weak, health care in 16, 375 sterilisation machines, in hairdressing salons 286, 288 Stewart, Pamela J. 33 stigmatisation of AIDS orphans 144 of AIDS victims 133–134, 151, 183, 211–213, 311, 312 n. 5, 381, 383–384 in South Africa 312, 313, 315, 324, 328, 328–329 of famine victims 381 of leprosy victims 317 Strathern, Andrew 19, 33 Streicher, Henry 40 subject-formation, ethical 351 suffering AIDS-related 7 experiences of 3 traditional understandings of 277 Sufi Islam 167, 170 n. 38 suicide, Islam on 144 survival strategies 381 Svensson, Jonas 15, 183 Swahili-speaking people, in East Africa 122 n. 11 taboo concept 8 Takyi, B. K. 227 n. 10

402

index

Tanzania AIDS epidemic in 155, 157, 158, 159, 259–260 and narratives of moral decline 162–163, 164–165, 183, 184 rural areas 157, 158 AIDS prevention campaigns in 158–159, 160–161 Muslim participation in 170, 184, 185–186 anti-retroviral treatments 155, 159, 178–183 Islam in and AIDS 165–166, 168–171, 175–176, 178, 183–184 Qur’anic healing 171, 172 medicalisation of AIDS in 160 migration to Zanzibar 125 Muslims in 161–162, 166–168, 169, 174–175, 184–185 coping with AIDS 156, 157 sexual mores and gender relations 162–165, 184–185, 260 Pentecostalism in 12, 255–256, 260–264, 280 and AIDS 256–257, 277, 278–279 healing prayers 264–267 political control of Zanzibar by 125 politics in, science used in 160–161 Ter Haar, G. 3 tero see widows, ‘inheritance’ of therapeutic citizenship 22, 377 therapeutic evangelism 362, 375, 376, 378 therapeutisation 337–338 Thomb, Arthur 315 n. 9 Thompson, E. P. 361 Tooro (Western Uganda) AIDS epidemic in 34, 36 and witchcraft accusations 35, 37–38 Catholic Church in 38–39, 40 and witch hunts 41–44 health care projects in 37 tourism in Kenya 200 in Zanzibar 125–127, 138, 151 Tracy, George S. 329 tradition Islamic 191 Luo 65–75, 79, 96, 133 n. 36, 208–209

and modernity 59, 215 and views of AIDS 79–80 Revivalist Christian rejection of 60, 352 and salvation 55, 58–59, 62–63, 73–74, 75–79 Samia 90, 96, 97, 99, 106 traditional African religions 4, 10, 14 traditional healing gloves used in 287 in South Africa 316, 324 in Tanzania 171, 278 in Zanzibar 138 n. 46 traditionalism 4, 14 transactional sex Islamic religious education on 204 and sexual abstinence campaigns 251 in Tanzania 164–165, 172 in Uganda 230–236, 240–242, 245–246, 383 see also prostitution transformations personal 18, 19, 346, 347–348, 360, 373 and AIDS counselling 356 and religion 348–349, 351, 359 of social relations 375 transmission of AIDS knowledge about 201 lowered by male circumcision 169, 198, 214 Treatment Action Campaign (TAC, South Africa) 340, 376 treatment of AIDS see anti-retroviral treatments (ARTs) Turner, Victor 8, 32–33, 380 Uganda AIDS epidemic in 33, 34, 88, 93 and religious affiliation 224–225 and transactional sex 235–236 and witchcraft accusations 34, 35, 37–38 AIDS prevention campaigns in 92–93, 134 n. 39, 228–230, 231 n. 20, 251 and Pentecostalism 92, 246–253 Christianity in 36, 89, 91 ‘born again’ 89–90 among Samia 91, 104–105, 107–108, 111, 113 Catholic Church 38–39, 89 Pentecostalism 12, 21, 92, 226–227, 228 n. 12, 230, 236–240

index accountability of behaviour of 242–245, 246 and ‘de-toothing’ practices 234–235, 240–242 on widow ‘inheritance’ 91–92, 94–96 witch hunting by 15, 40–44 condom use in 229, 236, 240 university students in 7 and transactional sex 230–236, 240–242, 245–246, 383 widows in 88, 93, 110–111, 113 inheritance of 86, 90–92, 93–95, 97, 99, 106 ‘marriage to Jesus’ 87, 96–97 witchcraft in 29, 34 Uganda Martyrs Guild see UMG Ukah, Asonzeh 264 ulema 124, 213 UMG (Uganda Martyrs Guild) 40–41, 45 witch hunts by 41–44 United States counselling techniques from 366 funding for AIDS prevention and treatment campaigns 1, 6, 18, 229, 378 urban centres, Pentecostalism in 264 ustaarabu concept (civilisation) 122 ustadhs (Muslim pious persons) 130 n. 29 Valverde, Mariana 349 Van Dijk, Rijk 7, 19, 348 Vaughan, Megan 20 VCT programs (Voluntary Counselling and Testing) 135, 334, 360 veiling in Kenya 203 in Zanzibar 130 n. 28 see also dress codes Vikør, Knut 190 n. 2 virginity secondary 339 value of, in Zanzibar 128 viruses, ignorance about 160 Volinn, Ilse J. 312 n. 4 weak states, health care in 16, 375 Weber, Max 333, 355 western medicine distrust of 37, 159, 160 n. 12, 179, 279 anti-retroviral treatments (ARTs) 179–180, 181, 185 see also anti-westernism

403

White, Luise 37 Whyte, Susan R. 8, 33, 136 widowers, in Uganda 88 widows care for 86, 93 in East Africa 85 empowerment of 86–87 ‘inheritance’ of 16, 49, 50, 67, 85 Christian views of 85–86, 91–92, 94–96 ‘born again’ (saved) 50, 51–52, 54–56, 58, 62, 77 Islamic views of 200 male reluctance towards 93–94 traditionalist views of 52–53, 54–55, 57–58, 77–78 in Uganda 86, 90–92, 93–95, 97, 99, 106 women’s refusal of 100–101 new social positions/roles of 21, 86–87, 105–106, 110, 111–114 ‘marriage to Jesus’ 87, 96–97, 109–110, 112, 113 remarriage of 108 in Uganda 88, 93, 110–111, 113 Wimberley, Kristina 261 n. 8 witchcraft anthropological studies of 32–33 beliefs in, in Zionist Church 317 fight against by Christians 15, 32, 40–44, 63 by Qur’anic healing 171, 172 in Tanzania 172–173 in Uganda 15, 38, 40–44 in Zanzibar 124 n. 15 and Islam 211–212 rise of 31 and epidemics 31–32, 33, 34–35, 38, 211, 324 in Tanzania 172 in Uganda 29, 34 women autonomy of 352 blamed for immorality of men 131 dependence of 86, 110 empowerment of 6, 86–87 Islamic dress codes for 202–204, 215 life expectancy of, in Uganda 88 and Pentecostalism 264 public speeches at funerals by 103–104 in Tanzania 162, 260 targeting of in AIDS education 5

404

index

in hair salons 288 n. 2 see also gender relations Yamba, C. Bawa

33

Zanzibar AIDS epidemic in 119–120, 132–133 coping strategies 21, 140–150, 151 government commitment in tackling of 135, 136 n. 41 Islam on 131–132, 151 reformists 137–139 traditional 139–140, 148 AIDS prevention campaigns in 134–135 cosmopolitanism of 122 economic development in 124–125 gender segregation in 129–130 identities in 122–123 immigrants in 122, 125 Islam in 124 Muslims in 15, 124 reluctance to work in tourism 126–127

narrative of decline in 120–122, 123, 131, 138–139 AIDS epidemic fitting into 133–134, 149, 150 nationalism in 123 politics in, Islamic reformists on 139 revolution in (1964) 123–124 sexual relations in 127–129, 150–151 tourism in 125–127, 138, 151 ZAPHA+ (Zanzibar Association for People Living with HIV/AIDS) 119 n. 2, 133, 136, 143–144, 145, 146–147, 149 Zimbabwe, distribution of female condoms in 288 n. 2 zina (adultery, illicit sexual intercourse) 128, 132 n. 31, 198 Zionist Christians in South Africa 15, 310 on AIDS 310–312, 316–319, 328 funeral rituals and practices of 326–327 zombies, terminally ill AIDS victims as 324

STUDIES OF RELIGION IN AFRICA SUPPLEMENTS TO THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION IN AFRICA

1. MOBLEY, H.W. The Ghanaian’s Image of the Missionary. An Analysis of the Published Critiques of Christian Missionaries by Ghanaians, 1897-1965. 1970. ISBN 90 04 01185 4 2. POBEE, J.S. (ed.). Religion in a Pluralistic Society. Essays Presented to Professor C.G. Baëta in Celebration of his Retirement from the Service of the University of Ghana, September 1971, by Friends and Colleagues Scattered over the Globe. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04556 2 3. TASIE, G.O.M. Christian Missionary Enterprise in the Niger Delta, 1864-1918. 1978. ISBN 90 04 05243 7 4. REECK,D. Deep Mende. Religious Interactions in a Changing African Rural Society. 1978. ISBN 90 04 04769 7 5. BUTSELAAR, J. VAN. Africains, missionnaires et colonialistes. Les origines de l’Église Presbytérienne de Mozambique (Mission Suisse), 1880-1896. 1984. ISBN 90 04 07481 3 6. OMENKA, N.I. The School in the Service of Evangelization. The Catholic Educational Impact in Eastern Nigeria 1886-1950. 1989. ISBN 90 04 08932 3 7. JE¸ DREJ, M.C. & SHAW, R. (eds.). Dreaming, Religion and Society in Africa. 1992. ISBN 90 04 08936 5 8. GARVEY, B. Bembaland Church. Religious and Social Change in South Central Africa, 1891-1964. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09957 3 9. OOSTHUIZEN, G.C., KITSHOFF, M.C. & DUBE, S.W.D. (eds.). Afro-Christianity at the Grassroots. Its Dynamics and Strategies. Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10035 0 10. SHANK, D.A. Prophet Harris, the ‘Black Elijah’ of West Africa. Abridged by Jocelyn Murray. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09980 8 11. HINFELAAR, H.F. Bemba-speaking Women of Zambia in a Century of Religious Change (1892-1992). 1994. ISBN 90 04 10149 7 12. GIFFORD, P. (ed.). The Christian Churches and the Democratisation of Africa. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10324 4 13. JE¸ DREJ, M.C. Ingessana. The Religious Institutions of a People of the Sudan-Ethiopia Borderland. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10361 9 14. FIEDLER, K. Christianity and African Culture. Conservative German Protestant Missionaries in Tanzania, 1900-1940. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10497 6

15. OBENG, P. Asante Catholicims. Religious and Cultural Reproduction Among the Akan of Ghana. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10631 6 16. FARGHER, B.L. The Origins of the New Churches Movement in Southern Ethiopia, 1927-1944. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10661 8 17. TAYLOR, W.H. Mission te Educate. A History of the Educational Work of the Scottish Presbyterian Mission in East Nigeria, 1846-1960. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10713 4 18. RUEL, M. Belief, Ritual and the Securing of Life. Reflexive Essays on a Bantu Religion. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10640 5 19. McKENZIE, P. Hail Orisha! A Phenomenology of a West African Religion in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10942 0 20. MIDDLETON, K. Ancestors, Power and History in Madagascar. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11289 8 21. LUDWIG, F. Church and State in Tanzania. Aspects of a Changing Relationship, 1961-1994. 1999. 90 04 11506 4 22. BURKE, J.F. These Catholic Sisters are all Mamas! Towards the Inculturation of the Sisterhood in Africa, an Ethnographic Study. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11930 2 23. MAXWELL, D., with I. LAWRIE (eds.) Christianity and the African Imagination. Essays in Honour of Adrian Hastings. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11668 0 24. GUNNER, E. The Man of Heaven and the Beautiful Ones of God. 2003. In preparation. ISBN 90 04 12542 6 25. PEMBERTON, C. Circle Thinking. African Women Theologians in Dialogue with the West. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12441 1 26. WEISS, B. (ed.). Producing African Futures. Ritual and Reproduction in a Neoliberal Age. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13860 9 27. ASAMOAH-GYADU, J.K. African Charismatics. Current Developments within Independent Indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana. 2004. ISBN 90 04 14089 1 28. WESTERLUND, D. African Indigenous Religions and Disease Causation. From Spriritual Beings to Living Humans. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14433 1 29. FAULKNER, M.R.J. Overtly Muslim, Covertly Boni. Competing Calls of Religious Allegiance on the Kenyan Coast. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14753 5 30. SOOTHILL, J.E. Gender, Social Change and Spiritual Power. Charismatic Christianity in Ghana. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15789 7 31. CLAFFEY, P. Christian Churches in Dahomey-Benin. A study of their sociopolitical role. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15572 5 32. WIT, H. DE and WEST, G.O. (eds.). African and European Readers of the Bible in Dialogue. In Quest Of a Shared Meaning. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16656 1 33. PALMIÉ, S. (ed.). Africas of the Americas. Beyond the Search for Origins in the Study of Afro-Atlantic Religions. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16472 7

34. WELCH, P. Church and Settler in Colonial Zimbabwe. A Study in the History of the Anglican Diocese of Mashonaland/Southern Rhodesia, 18901925. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16746 9 35. WILD-WOOD, E. Migration and Christian Identity in Congo (DRC). 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16464 2 36. BECKER, F. & GEISSLER, P.W. (eds.). Aids and Religious Practice in Africa. 2009. ISBN 978 90 04 16400 0 37. LADO, L. Catholic Pentecostalism and the Paradoxes of Africanization. Processes of Localization in a Catholic Charismatic Movement in Cameroon. 2009. ISBN 978 90 04 16898 5